‘Persia – especially Seistan’ [‎159r] (316/949)

13
Mr. Spring-Rice to the Marquess of Lansdowni, No. 415, dated the 1st December
1903.
(Received on the 1st February 1904 with Political Secretary's letter No. 3, dated the 15th
January 1904.)
Reports the grants for new constructions contained in the Budget for 1904 of the Ministry
of Ways and Communications.
Telegram from Sir C. Scott to the Marquess of Lansdowne, No. 11, dated the
14th January 1904.
(Received on the 8 th February 1904 with Political Secretary's letter No 4, dated the 22nd
January 1904.)
“ My despatch No. 396. Russian Road Company authorised to borrow 5,000,000 roubles for
construction of port at Enzeli and road from Kasvin to Hamadan”.
1 . I consider this report of Captain Rittich and the engineers who worked under
him by far the best exposition of the best policy to be pursued (from the Russian point of
view) by the Russians in Persia that I have so far read.
2 . Russia wants to do three things in Persia—
(a) to absorb the trade and to control the politics of the country ;
(b) to get to the sea;
(c) to utilise the position which she would obtain by (a) and (b) to attack, or at least
to threaten, India.
3. Hitherto it has been generally assumed that she would adopt one of three lines of
geographical advance in order to effect these objects.
4 . The first is the western line, from Azerbaijan southwards towards Kermanshah, and
from there through the Luristan mountains towards the Karun River and the head of the
Gulf. I have never believed in this line of advance, at any rate within a distance of time that
it is at present either practicable or necessary to forecast. Russia has not yet quite completed
her railway to Julfa, she is not yet in Tabriz, we do not know how the Kurds would welcome
her embraces, she would collide with German ambitions were she to cut the Khanikin-
Tehran line, a tangle of mountains inhabited by the lawless Lur tribes then ensues, and,
finallv, when she got down to the plains, she would find us waiting for her on the Karun
and at Mohammerah. I think that we may for the present dismiss this line of possible
advance.
5. The second is the meridional line from Tehran to the Gulf at Bushire. This is
quite possible from the engineering point of view at least as far as Shiraz : from there onwards
it would be most difficult. The line has the political drawback that it would be a direct
challenge to Great Britain, compelling us to occupy the Gulf Ports or to take some counter
step : and it has the strategical drawback that it would terminate in a port (Bushire) which
is no port at all, that there is no good port in the neighbourhood, and that, even if there were,
it would be at the upper end of the Gulf, where, as long as we command the mouth, it would
not serve the full purpose that Russia desires.
6 . The third line is that either from Ashkabad via Meshed, or up the Tejend River
from the Trans-Caspiau Railway, and then along the eastern border of Khorasan to Seistan,
whence the further movement, either towards Bunder Abbas or down through Persian
Baluchistan towards the sea, or may be in an easterly direction towards India, would be
decided according to the conditions and demands of the time. We have set ourselves athwart
this route by the strong position that we have taken up in Seistan, by the construction of
our Q,uetta-Nushki Railway, enabling us to carry an extension into Seistan between two
and three years, if not more, before the Russians could possibly get there with a railway
themselves; and, in so far as a possible maritime outlet at Bunder Abbas is concerned, by the
steps which we have recently recommended to the Secretary of State as the sequel of my visit
to the Gulf.
7 . Russian ambitions appear, therefore, to be checked in each of the directions in which
she has undoubtedly either contemplated, or been thought to contemplate, an advance. Now
appears upon the scene Captain Rittich with his merry men : and they produce a scheme
which seems to me to be based upon profound political and strategical insight, and, if
realised, to secure for Russia all that she desires with the maximum of advantage to herself,
and the maximum of detriment to us.
8 . Let me point out the nature of the advantages to Russia, under the two heads,
political and strategical—
I. Political. —(t) Cutting across Persia diagonally from north-west to south-east
the projected line would place in Russian hands the whole of the principal cities of Persia
from Tabriz to Kerman, including Kazvin, Hamadan (by a branch line Kazvin-Hamadan),