An Embarrassing Diplomatic Dispute in Baghdad, 1847

Diplomatic Anecdotes

Occasionally missives in the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records contain stories that are less serious than the usual political and diplomatic matters. They can provide a rich and sometimes amusing insight into diplomatic life. One such anecdote is revealed in a letter by Colonel Justin Sheil, HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary A diplomatic representative who ranks below an ambassador. The term can be shortened to 'envoy'. at the Court of Tehran. Writing to Viscount Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary, on 23 April 1847, Sheil relays ‘that the Persian Consul nominated to Bagdad [sic] has at length commenced his journey to that City, which affords a prospect of Major Rawlinson and myself being spared from these embarrassing disputes’ (IOR/L/PS/5/450, f. 120v).

The dispute Sheil was referring to concerned the fate of a medal of the Order of the Lion and Sun. This had formerly belonged to the so-called ‘Persian Consul’, a recently deceased agent at the court of the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. of Baghdad named Mulla ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. Pending the appointment of a new Persian representative in Baghdad, British diplomats had been acting on Tehran’s behalf at the request of Mohammed Shah Qajar. As a result, both Sheil and Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Britain’s Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. in Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. based in Baghdad, had become embroiled in an unseemly quarrel between Mulla ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s executors and the French Consul-General, Baron de Weimar. This quarrel involved no less than the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. of Baghdad and the Persian Government.

The Imperial Order of the Lion and the Sun

First introduced by Fath ʿAli Shah Qajar, the Imperial Order of the Lion and the Sun was originally awarded to foreign officials for distinguished services to Persia, particularly military, diplomatic, and political services.

With its ancient astronomical and astrological origins, the lion and sun motif had been used by Persian rulers for centuries as a national emblem. From its creation in 1808, the award was considered prestigious, and in 1810 John Malcolm, formerly the East India Company’s Envoy to the Shah, became the first person to receive it. A number of other British subjects were later awarded the medal, taking the letters ‘KLS’ [Knight of the Lion and the Sun] after their name.

‘Desirous of possessing this Trinket’

According to a letter from Sheil, Mulla ʿAbd al-ʿAziz had purchased the medal during his lifetime, but the correspondence makes no mention of whom it was originally awarded to. Nor is it clear exactly why the French Consul-General had become ‘desirous of possessing this Trinket as a gift from the Persian Government’. The Baron might have been acting on behalf of another Persian subject with claims on the deceased agent’s estate, or he may simply have wanted the medal for himself.

Whatever the Baron’s motives, Sheil relays that he had obtained an order from the Persian Prime Minister, Hajji Mirza Aqasi, confirming the Baron could keep the decoration and the Persian Government would reimburse the heirs. However, this was based on the assumption that the Baron had the item in his possession when in fact the executor had already sold it to Alexander Hector and Company of Baghdad.

The Baron puts on the pressure

Baron de Weimar tried to prevent the executor from leaving Baghdad. At Sheil’s request, however, Aqasi wrote to Rawlinson asking him to ‘protect the executor from molestation and to send him to Persia’ (f. 120v). The Baron responded with an official protest, threatening to complain to the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople [Istanbul] that the Baghdad Government had allowed the medal to be ‘illegally abstracted’ and sold (f. 121r). The Baron insisted that he had a right to apply for the individual articles of Mulla ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s estate, and that the Baghdad Government should compensate him for his loss. He contrived, as Sheil writes, ‘in a very extraordinary way to frighten the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. into paying him 500 Tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. [5000 Qirans] on account of the above decoration, which was sold to the English merchant for 70 Tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. [700 Qirans]’ (f. 120v). Rawlinson too was astonished at the Baron’s audacity in claiming seven times the true value of the medal, and that he had ‘actually succeeded in wringing the said amount in hard coin from Nejib Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. [Muhammad Najib Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , Ottoman Governor of Baghdad], as a declared compromise for renunciation of his claim’ (f. 121r). He notes that the settlement had been kept secret from him by the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. and his officers ‘doubtless from their sense of humiliation’ (f. 121v).

A Secret Deal?

Rawlinson was incredulous that ‘His Excellency whose parsimony is notorious, can really propose to be thus mulcted for no reason on earth of the sum of 5,000 Korans [Qirans].’ This would be approximately £13,000 in today’s money. Rawlinson speculated that some sort of deal must have been made: either the Baron would have to return the money to the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , or obtain an order for the executor to recover the decoration and supply it to the Baron. Failure on the executor’s part would result in a penalty of 5000 Qirans, which would revert to the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .

Rawlinson and Sheil’s letters provide only a glimpse of the full story here. It is not clear whether the Baron got his medal, nor why he had set his sights on it in the first place. If he was acting on behalf of another Persian subject, we do not know who that was. Nor can we be sure why the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. let himself be ‘mulcted’ for such a substantial sum of money. Anecdotes like this are tantalising, leaving many questions unanswered.