Page 25 - Gulf Precis (VI)_Neat

Chapter I. 3

Baghdad, Persian ceding Djessan and Badrayi to Turkey and admitting tho
division of the Jaf tribe. By the provisions of this treaty Baghdad and
Basrah also became Turkish Territory and tho Arabs of tho Kaab Tribe were
declared to ho independent. Baghdad and Basrali have remained in Turkish
possession sinco then.
7. Nearly a century passed aftor tho treaty of 1639, during which
Persia and Turkey continued generally to bo at peace; hut tho extreme
woaknoss to which Persia was reduced by internal commotions, misgovernment
and usurpation of Mahomed tho Afghan, opened the way to Russian and Turkish
intrigues to dismember the Persian Empire. Both Russia and Turkey
invaded Persia about tho year 1720, and in 1723 a partition treaty wus
signed by both these powers under which Russia was to take the territory ad­
joining the Caspian and Turkey tho territory below tho line drawn from tho
junction of the Kair and Araxes by way of Ardebil, Tabriz and Ilainadan, as
far as Kermanshah. Shah Tahmasp was to retain tho rest of his paternal
empire on condition that he recognized the Treaty.
8. The Porto was howevor very jealous of Russia, who had made
rapid advances into Persian Territory, aud was in 1729 on the point declaring
war against its rival. In order to avoid the outbreak of hostilities, Russia
agreed to the cession of certain Persian provinces to Turkey. In Persia the
Afghan usurper Mahmud having died in 1725, his relation Ashraf succeeded
• See appendix 1, Persia. him, aud after a short war purchased peace*
Volume X of Ailehinson’t Trtaliet (1S92). from Turkey in .1727 by ceding all tho
provinces she had conquered and acknowledging tho Ottoman Sultan as Chief
of the Mosloms, in consideration of which Ashraf was recognized as Shah by
the Porte.
9. But there arose soon a warrior in Persia, who was destined to raise the
Suffavi dynasty from its wretched condition, pur an end the Afghan usurpation
and check the Turkish and Russian career of conquest. This hero was the
famous Nadirsbah.f Put in command of the Shah Tamasp’s army in 1727, he
compelled the whole of Khorasan to acknowledge Tamasp as the Shah of
Persia, and by tho close of the year 1738 expelled the Afghans from Persia.

He then met and overthrew the united forces of two Turkish Pashas on
the plains of Hnmadan, and marching northward captured Tabriz, Ardebil and
other principal cities in that quarter. His further march was arrested by his
having to hasten to Khorasan to quell a rebellion there, aud the attempt
made by Shah Tamasp to take Erivan onded in complete disaster, with the
result that he agreed in 1732 to a peace with a Ahmed Shaw, the reiguing
Pasha of Baghdad, by which the Persians abandoned the whole of the country
beyond the Araxes to the Turks and ceded five districts of the province of
Kermanshah to the Pasha of Baghdad.
10. When Nadir Shah (now the practical ruler in Persia) heard of these
disgraceful terms, he repudiated the whole treaty, deposed Shah Tamasp and
placed his infant son on the throne, and marched with a large army to the attack
of Baghdad, ably held by Ahmed Pasha. Topal Osmah, the Grand Vizier of the
Sultan, marched to its rescue and defeated Nadir Shan in July 1733 in a fiercely
faught battle near the village of Samartli, about 50 miles from Baghdad. Tho
Turkish Arabia Prieis, 1646-1846, paragraph 42. Persians were reported by the ResidentJ
Selection!from state rapert, i6oo«i8oo, No. xxxv. at Basrah to have lost 50,000 men while
the troops Thomas Caun left to blockade Baghdad were almost all cut off by a
sally from the town by Ahmed Pasha, a small party excepted ; with their
general Mahomed Khan Bulloucli. The Persians were pursued towards Hamadan,
where, however, the intrepid Nadir Shah re-assembled his forces and marched
again against the Turks and defeated Topal Osman in a battle, in which the

tNoTR.—Original!/ callod Imaum Kuli or Nadir Kuli, he styled liim^elf Tamasp Khan (spelt also Thomas
Caun in our old records) on his being rainod to the dignity of Khan by Shah Tauiasp, and Nadir Shah, when
he was raised to (he throno. !
i