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The Historians Craft1 or the Subterfuge of Historical Scholarship: A Charge of Plagiarism Brought Against Savka Andic by Mansour

Bonakdarian

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The word plagiarism derives from Latin roots: plagiarius, an abductor, and plagiare, to steal. The expropriation of another author's work, and the presentation of it as one's own, constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of the ethics of scholarship. Plagiarism includes more subtle abuses than simply expropriating the exact wording of another author without attribution. Plagiarism can also include the limited borrowing, without sufficient attribution, of another person's distinctive and significant research findings or interpretations. Plagiarism, then, takes many forms. The clearest abuse is the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation. More subtle abuses include the appropriation of concepts, data, or notes all disguised in newly crafted sentences, or reference to a borrowed work in an early note and then extensive further use without subsequent attribution. Borrowing unexamined primary source references from a secondary work without citing that work is likewise inappropriate. All such tactics reflect an unworthy disregard for the contributions of others. Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct of the American Historical Association http://www.historians.org/pubs/free/ProfessionalStandards.cfm#Plagiarism

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In the September 2012 issue of the journal of Iranian Studies (vol.45, no.5) appears the first section of a two part article by Savka Andic, titled When Garibaldi went to Azerbaijan: A Study of British Perceptions of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, Part I, 190607. When I initially happened to come across this article online on October 1, by the sound of its clever title alone, beside its general subject matter which is of immense interest to me, the article immediately gripped my attention and promised to be a splendid work of scholarship by an upand-coming young talented historian (a recent graduate of the M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, St. Antonys College, University of Oxford as stated in the article). My expectation of the article was further heightened by the fact that it was given the privilege of appearing in the journal in two parts, making it an unusually long article and also suggestive of its exemplary scholarship and significant contribution to the field of Iranian Studies. The title of the essay by itself was extremely tantalizing and, based on my own earlier research, I assumed that Garibaldi was a reference to Sattar Khan, a celebrated hero of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911. In my 2006 book (Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911: Foreign Policy, Imperialism, and Dissent. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press) I had mentioned that some contemporary British sources had dubbed Sattar Khan the Iranian Garibaldi (pp.xxiv, 146, 217). Here was now a two part article that in its title promised to further explore and develop this intriguing topic (as it happens Garibaldi is not even mentioned in the first, thus-far published, section of the article). However, as soon as I began to read the article by Savka Andic, my initial fascination gave way to utter dismay and intense revulsion and anger. With practically every paragraph I read, I was observing someone ransacking the product of my own long years of scholarly labor and passing off the spoils as her own original production. Much of what I was reading came from

my 2006 book Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911 in a regurgitated and clumsily recycled and repackaged form, in what simply amounted to an outrageously comprehensive act of plagiarism without the slightest acknowledgment by the author of my work as her principal source. Andic was, however, generous enough to mention my book in her footnote 69 as the source of a short direct quotation she included in her article in reference to the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne: an Orientalist in the service of the Orient. She even managed to bungle that single citation of my work. Not only does the statement appear on page 94 of my book (and not page 93 as indicated by Andic), but orientalist should be in the lower case and the an in her sentence was actually part of my original statement and should therefore grammatically not have appeared outside the main double quotation. But these are merely minor errors that can routinely occur in anyones work and have no bearing on my charge of plagiarism against her. Neither am I concerned here with Andics misunderstanding and misrepresentation of some of the works cited in her article, as in the case of her reference (footnote 3) to Janet Afarys 1996 The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911. My sole concern here is Andics blatantly calculated and thorough misappropriation of my work. The short statement by me concerning Browne that appears in Andic s article is certainly not the extent of her familiarity with my 2006 book The various themes and categories discussed in her article (albeit occasionally given new, flimsily disguised, captions), all of her key concepts, the overwhelming majority of personalities, groupings, and range of examples covered, and most of the key sources consulted by her are indicative of the authors in-depth familiarity with my book as well as some of my other publications, a familiarity evidently so deeply profound and intimate that Andic at some point came to assume my many years of research and publication in fact belonged to her. Andics act of scholarly larceny is extensive, unmistakably premeditated, and carefully calculated and carried out. Lest there be any doubts as to the purported originality of her topic, Savka Andic immediately engages in outright and very craftily-worded denial of the existence of prior corresponding scholarship on the topic of her article, claiming in her introduction to be a pioneer in the field with an entirely novel conceptual approach to the subject matterwhat, in actuality, amounts to an act of historiographic vandalism and effacement and outright scholarly deceit:
This article will examine and analyze in two parts the multitude of observations left behind by British observers of Iran's Constitutional Revolution, firstly in the period 1906 to 1907, which will be treated here, and then from 1908 to 1909, which will appear in the next edition of this journal. Within each time period, material will be examined from the Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular services; contemporary British press; and published works, civil society materials and private correspondence. The existing literature on the subject falls mainly into two categories. The first category deals primarily with British policy in Iran during this time period. The second category deals with the domestic opposition to the British government's Iranian policy. However, there has been a tendency in the scholarship (with certain exceptions) to overlook nuances in the category which is not the focus of the study. For instance, a study focused on the opposition to Britain's Iranian policy might overlook the diversity of views within the Foreign Office. Furthermore, some studies which focus on the Iranian experience of the Constitutional Revolution have treated

3 Britain as a monolithic entity which was hostile to the constitutional order. In reality, there was no unanimity in British perceptions. This finding runs contrary to the tendency to present Britain as holding a single perception or agenda, on this issue in particular and in foreign affairs more generallyfor instance, that Britain was simply pro-constitutionalist in Iran in order to enhance its influence there or anti-constitutionalist because it had made a Faustian pact with Russia. British perceptions of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution were shaped by four broad perspectives. The first of these was the imperialist perspective, which saw Iran as key to Indian security and the Constitutional Revolution was measured in terms of impact on British imperial interests and subjects, especially Muslims. Second was the Europeanist perspective, which saw Iran as key to European security (via the Anglo-Russian Convention); and the Constitutional Revolution measured in terms of its impact on Anglo-Russian understanding and also on the respective interests of Britain and Russia. Third was the liberal idealist perspective, which saw Iran as key to fostering Asian/Muslim liberal nationalism; and the Constitutional Revolution was measured in terms of the flourishing of constitutional/representative government in both Iran and other Asian/Muslim nations. Fourth was the local pragmatist perspective, which saw Iran as a state in a particular geopolitical context; the Constitutional Revolution measured in terms of its perceived viability in an Iranian context, with less regard for idealism and grand strategy. [Savka Andic, When Garibaldi went to Azerbaijan: A Study of British Perceptions of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, Part I, 190607, Iranian Studies 45( 5), September 2012, pp.597-598.]

Unfortunately, this is not the first occasion I have been a victim of plagiarism. As soon as I had finished defending my dissertation many years ago, a so-called established academic, but also a notorious plagiarist, ripped off substantial chunks of my dissertation and published the material in her book, taking full credit for my laborious research just as I was beginning my professional academic career and publishing my very first article based on my dissertation; thereby stealing my thunder, so to speak. At the time I made a gross error of judgment by not publicly confronting that plagiarist and the pain and regret of that decision have not left me since; even though many colleagues know fully well who that individual is. Sadly, plagiarism has been on a steady rise across disciplines and is far too common than often realized, until we become victims of intellectual pilfering ourselves. In Savka Andics case, she also had the extraordinary temerity of hauling off her plundered goods onto the leading international journal in the field of Iranian Studies Below, I reproduce some passages from my 2006 Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911 and some of my other publications consulted by Savka Andic (these passages are identified as Me) followed by thematically and/or conceptually or other corresponding text from Andics article, that comprise nearly her entire article (identified as Andic), in order to demonstrate the broad scope of her plagiarism as well as her attempted subterfuge by occasionally quoting alternative relevant examples from the same sources appearing in my endnotes/footnotes and bibliographies or from other works by the leading personalities discussed in my works. For the sake of space, I have limited the selection of pertinent passages from my book (which after all is 400+ pages of text, excluding endnotes) and

have also omitted all citation references (endnotes/footnotes) from both my own and Andics reproduced texts (particularly since some of my endnotes are very long). The references can be looked up in the published versions of both works. Given that the overwhelming majority of Andics cited sources and the contexts in which those sources are cited are also purloined from my book and are based on the key bibliographic sources I had consulted, discussing her references and sources will require a separate lengthy essay. (F.H.Tyrrells 1908 article, briefly discussed by Andic, is among the very few sources that was not consulted by me, which Andic appears to have added to her work as a means of protective padding in the lumbering hope of evading detection as a plagiarist.) I also hereby demand an immediate and unequivocal public admission by Savka Andic of her flagrant and extensive misappropriation of my published works and a public apology from her to appear in the next issue of the journal of Iranian Studies that will be going to print. At the same time, I ask the journal of Iranian Studies to immediately proceed with necessary steps for conducting an investigation of this case, with the journals decision on the case posted in an (unambiguous and conspicuous) announcement in the journal as soon as possible. For the time being, I request that the journal of Iranian Studies and its publisher Taylor & Francis immediately withdraw Andics article from the journals electronic archive and all other online and electronic databases and to refrain from publishing the second part of her article, the publication of which the journal has willingly postponed pending the outcome of the case.

Mansour Bonakdarian
14 October 2012

_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ (All the page numbers appearing after selections from my work/s (identified as Me) refer to my 2006 Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911: Foreign Policy, Imperialism, and Dissent, unless otherwise stated.)

Me:
In the early years of the twentieth century there had been another revolution in Iran (Persia), directed against the native autocracy and European imperial incursions. This was the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911. That revolution too enjoyed expressions of support in other parts of the world, particularly in Britain and India. British authorities in London and India were involved in the course and outcome of that revolution. What follows is a study of British (and imperial) opposition to Londons official policy of collusion with St. Petersburg in stifling the Iranian revolution of 1906-1911. (Pp.xxxi-xxxii)

***** Various displays of so-called political and nationalist awakening among weaker nations also accorded greater credibility and urgency to British dissenters expressions of the legitimate rights of these nations to self-determination. Increased contacts and dialogue between British dissenters and reformers from colonized or semi-colonized regions of the worldas in the case of the voluminous correspondence between Iranian nationalists and British dissenters or the presence of Iranian constitutionalist exiles in Britain in 1908-1909were instrumental in the evolution of anti-imperialist and progressive foreign-policy ideologies in Britain. For both sides, such contacts were crucial in engendering greater awareness and appreciation of political and cultural complexities and heterogeneities of the Other. In the process, Iranian revolutionaries learned that Britons did not uniformly share the worldview of the FO in London, and that a segment of the British public was prepared to expend much time, energy, and personal resources, in opposing Whitehall and supporting the Iranian nationalist struggle. (P.xlv)

***** These points indicate not only the multifarious and multi-vocal range of ideological aspirations, commitments, and cultural purviews among Iranian revolutionaries and British dissenters, but also underline the complex and hybrid discursive matrices, and dialogical confluence, of the political purviews of some Iranian reformers and British advocates of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. They also reflect the recognition on the part of some Iranians of the existence of divergent and contested British attitudes towards imperialism and antiimperialism. The dialogical interaction between segments of Iranian revolutionaries and British foreign-policy dissenters, along with the many other campaigns and associations of British dissenters or Iranian reformers, contributed to the emergence of new political discursive practices, strategic reconfigurations of heterogeneous constructs of Self and Others, and the refinement of existing trajectories of imperial and extra-imperial internationalist expressions of solidarity in Britain. (P.xlvi)

***** The rapidly multiplying Iranian nationalist newspapers acknowledged and commended the sympathetic expressions of outrage in the pages of British and other foreign press, as well as other public and parliamentary criticisms of Grey by British foreign-policy dissenters. Habl alMatin of Tehran took the lead in applauding Irans friends overseas, particularly the British dissenters, while reviling the pro-FO press in Britain. It cited the denunciation of the AngloRussian accord appearing in the radical Daily News, while berating the Times, the Standard, and the Daily Chronicle for their support of the Agreement. In the coming years, the Iranian nationalist press would regularly publish accounts of British parliamentary proceedings on Iranian affairs, as well as other relevant reports appearing in the British and other foreign press . Iranian nationalists of varying secular or religious political and ideological orientations

would repeatedly express their gratitude to British foreign-policy dissenters over the coming years. Habl al-Matins eagerness to applaud the endeavors of Greys British critics on behalf of Irans independence and constitutional movement was encouraged by Mohammad Qazvini in Paris. In a February 1908 letter to Habl al-Matin, Qazvini advised the paper to remind Iranians of the existence of sympathetic British (and other European) press as well as the active campaign of British foreign-policy dissenters against their own governments course of action in Iran. He cautioned Iranians not to equate the entire British nation with Londons official policy. Qazvini also pointed out that conscious or inadvertent misrepresentation of all Britons as uniformly imperialist in the pages of the Iranian press might impede the cultivation of greater British public sympathy with the Iranian nation. (P.79) ***** The activities of the dissenters in London and sympathetic British consular staff in Iran, as well as the subsequent visit by some Iranian political refugees to Britain and their direct collaboration with British dissenters, would further erode homogeneous Iranian assumptions about Britain and Britons, a task already undertaken by Mohammad Qazvini and Habl alMatin of Tehran prior to the coup. Greater contacts between British dissenters and Iranian revolutionaries also facilitated greater appreciation by the dissenters of the broad range of ideological composition and aspirations of Iranian nationalists. (P.117) ***** Approaching orientalism as a sui generis mode of knowledge production and a particular representational style of alterity, which inevitably promoted or facilitated Western exercise of power over the Orient, insinuates a direct link between academic as well as popular representations and perceptions of the Orient (so far as one can speak of popular perceptions), on the one hand, and imperial policy formulation by imperialist states or other agents of the socalled Western civilizing mission, on the other hand. Even if imperialist organizations in the West (Britain, in the context of this study) could boast millions of membersnot forgetting that many, especially among the working classes, joined such organizations for a range of reasons, including as social and entertainment outletswe still cannot readily equate official imperialism with popular sentiments on all occasions. As this book illustrates, heterogeneous and incongruent official, academic, religious, and popular representations and perceptions of Oriental Others coexisted in pre-World War I Britain. Certain trends in British popular, academic, and other perceptions of the Orient and Oriental Others in this period were often out of sync with the official state-sponsored and other imperialist representations of Self and Oriental Others. Such an analytic is not a negation or extenuation of the brutality and destructiveness of imperialism. Neither is this book an attempt to over-generalize Western (British in this case) encounters with Iran under particular historical conditions as exemplary of the entire range of British encounters with Oriental or other non-Western cultures and societies during the period covered in this study. Rather, by focusing on a particular moment in Anglo-Iranian encounters, this book simply challenges the view that various incarnations and manifestations of British orientalism, taken in the broad Saidian definition of the term, corresponded to a generic, constant, and culturally predetermined desire to vilify the Other or a collective expression of the will to dominate the Other. (Pp.xviii-xix)

***** Londons and the Government of Indias handling of the Iranian question were shaped by a complex and dynamic set of considerations, preferences, and recommendations, often privileging different range of interests and purviews, some of which assumed a more pervasive role in the long run. In fact, Greys Iranian policy after 1906 was shaped more by the foreign secretarys preoccupation with Anglo-German rivalry than by reports of internal developments in Iran, private British economic considerations, or concerns with Indias security. (P.7) Etc., etc. See also the more specific examples given below. The multiplicity of divergent of views concerning Londons Iranian policy at the time, ranging from the British Foreign Office under Sir Edward Grey to the India Office and the Government of India, the Conservative/Unionist Opposition ranks, Greys critics on the Left of the political spectrum in Britain, a number of Irish nationalists, as well as many other groupings and individuals in the United Kingdom and the British press, and members of the British diplomatic service in Iran, along with various individuals and groups in other parts of the world sympathetic to the Iranian revolution (in India in particular), happens to be the central theme of my book, which covers thsee different range of perceptions in ample detail; even if the book is above all ... concerned with domestic British reactions to the impact of the Anglo-Russian Agreement on the constitutional and nationalist struggle underway in Iran and Irans independence. (P. xxxv)

Andic:
This article will examine and analyze in two parts the multitude of observations left behind by British observers of Irans Constitutional Revolution, firstly in the period 1906 to 1907, which will be treated here, and then from 1908 to 1909, which will appear in the next edition of this journal. Within each time period, material will be examined from the Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular services; contemporary British press; and published works, civil society materials and private correspondence. The existing literature on the subject falls mainly into two categories. The first category deals primarily with British policy in Iran during this time period. The second category deals with the domestic opposition to the British governments Iranian policy. However, there has been a tendency in the scholarship (with certain exceptions) to overlook nuances in the category which is not the focus of the study. For instance, a study focused on the opposition to Britains Iranian policy might overlook the diversity of views within the Foreign Office. Furthermore, some studies which focus on the Iranian experience of the Constitutional Revolution have treated Britain as a monolithic entity which was hostile to the constitutional order. In reality, there was no unanimity in British perceptions. This finding runs contrary to the

tendency to present Britain as holding a single perception or agenda, on this issue in particular and in foreign affairs more generallyfor instance, that Britain was simply pro-constitutionalist in Iran in order to enhance its influence there or anti-constitutionalist because it had made a Faustian pact with Russia. (Pp.597-598) _____________________

Me:
It was in the opening years of the nineteenth century that Iran assumed significance in British foreign policy. The initial British concern with Iran evolved out of the concurrent belief among policy makers in both London and British India that Irans regional stability was crucial for the maintenance of Indias security and British interests in the region as a whole. This belief stemmed from suspicion of hostile Russian designs on British India (hence the importance of Iran as a buffer zone). In addition, British authorities in India were concerned that continued Russian acts of territorial aggression against Iran and Afghanistan would politically and militarily destabilize the regions near or bordering the northwestern frontiers of Britishcontrolled or British-allied territories in the Indian subcontinent and divert attention and military resources away from continued expansion of British hegemony in the Indian subcontinent and efforts to contain native challenges to British rule. (P.1) ***** In 1892 George Nathaniel Curzon, Conservative MP and self-appointed diplomatic advisor to the FO, published his two-volume tome, Persia and the Persian Question. The book was replete with historical and political commentaries by Curzon, who later served as the viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 and undertook his own separate campaign against Greys Iranian policy after 1907. Curzon proposed an understanding between London and St. Petersburg along lines partially analogous to Wolffs earlier recommendation. Both Wolff and Curzon were of the opinion, shared by Lord Salisbury, that the creation of British and Russian spheres of influence in Iran was the best means of safeguarding Britains interests in Iran and the Persian Gulf while acknowledging Russias predominance in the north. Avoiding any move which might encourage Russia to annex further territories in northern Iran, the F.O. was determined to strengthen Britains position in the south (center and south in Curzons vocabulary) without vigorously challenging Russias influence in the north. Whereas the anticipated British sphere in southern Iran was vaguely defined in the communications of the FO staff, Curzon was more categorical in his geographic delineation of the zone in which Britain should attain its objectives: Above all we may make it certain that, whatever destiny befalls [Persia] in the north, in regions beyond the sphere of our possible interference, Persia shall retain inviolate the center and south, and be able to say to an invader, Thus far and no further. British ascendancy, commercial and political, in the southern zone ... is the only means by which this aim can be secured. A line can be drawn across Persia from Seistan on the east, via Kerman and Yezd, to Isfahan, and prolonged westward to Brujird, Hammadan, and Kernmanshah, south of which no hostile political influence should be tolerated.

Within those limits England asks for no exclusive privileges, exercises no dictation, and employs no threats. She will not require to move a soldier; she will not need to fire a gun ... and any future triumph that we may gain in Persia will be won, not by powder and shot ... but by amicable stress of common interests, working in the direction of industrial development and domestic reform. While claiming British influence could be secured through commercial as well as political means, Curzon contrary to Wolff, stated his preference for Irans economic development as a buffer state through the encouragement of domestic Iranian investments in the exploitation of Persian resources[;] for a monopoly of finance by foreigners excites jealousy, and suggests the idea of usurpation. This was certainly a new approach to expand British imperial influence around the globe. Embracing the parable of the Great Game, in an apocalyptic tone Curzon defined the stakes clearly: Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia, Persiato many these names breathe only a sense of utter remoteness ... to me, I confess, they are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world. Outlining the significance of Iran and Central Asia, and resorting to Indo-European/Aryan racial theories, Curzon maintained: The future of Great Britain, according to this view, will be decided not in Europe, not even upon the seas and oceans which are swept by her flag, or in the Greater Britain that has been called into existence by her offspring, but in the continent whence our emigrant stock first came, and to which as conquerors their descendants have returned. (Pp.17-18) ***** There were also those in Unionist ranks with deeply-ingrained opinion of Russia as a menace to the security of British India and British hegemony in the Persian Gulf. Writhing from a centuryold fever of Russophobia, which in different forms also afflicted many on the British Left, these Unionists feared Grey would sacrifice Indian interests in his eagerness to recruit Russias friendship in Europe. On October 6, Percy Cox, the conservative British consul general at the Persian Gulf residency of Bushihr in southwestern Iran, conveyed his anxiety to Lord Curzon, the former viceroy of India and by then an outspoken Unionist member in the House of Lords. (P.59) ***** Finally, on August 31, 1907, the Anglo-Russian convention became a reality. The AngloRussian Agreement was signed at the Russian foreign ministry. The long-anticipated Agreement unleashed a new phase of political agitations in both Iran and Britain. Grey had surmounted what he considered an obstacle in the European balance of power only to be confronted by new difficulties beyond his expectations at home and in Iran. (P.70) ***** Greys objective, in pursuing earlier attempts by Lord Lansdowne to bring the Russians to the negotiation table was at variance with his predecessors matching preoccupation

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with both the European balance of power and Indian calculations. For Grey, the European balance of power was by far the paramount concern in negotiations with Russia. Many cabinet members, who were not extensively consulted by Grey, expected the agreement both to inaugurate Anglo-Russian cooperation against Germany in Europe and to result in significant reductions in British commitment to Indias security. (P.71) ***** British critics of Greys handling of the Iranian question, ardently assisted by the eminent Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne, consisted mainly of Radicals in Greys own Liberal Party and a number of Labour MPs and socialists. Also in their ranks was Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch, a self-avowed Liberal Imperialist with commercial interests in southern Iran and the Persian Gulf, who emerged as a foremost critic of Grey. These foreign-policy dissenters were joined by other British anti-imperialists and critics of the tsarist autocracy on the Left (e.g., various socialist and radical intellectuals; the leading radical press, such as the Manchester Guardian; as well as the Labour Leader, the mouthpiece of the Independent Labour Party faction of the Labour Party; and Justice, the organ of the Social Democratic Party [Social Democratic Federation before 1906]). These groupings were additionally joined by a number of Irish Nationalist MPs representing the Irish Parliamentary Party . There was a host of other prominent individuals, notably the exceptional conservative anti-imperialist and advocate of Egypt for Egyptians, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who championed the cause of the Iranian constitutional/nationalist movement in the pages of the British press and at various gatherings. A number of prominent Unionists on the Right also participated in what emerged after late 1908 as a well-organized British campaign against Greys Iranian policy, thereby deviating from their own partys official endorsement of improved relations with Russia in opposition to Germany. The initial concern of these Unionists willing to ascend the pulpit of foreign-policy dissent on the Left centered around what they regarded as the inadequate British share in the final draft of the 1907 Agreement and the agreements potential detriment to Indias security. Whereas the majority of Unionists only questioned certain provisions in the AngloRussian settlement, which had been initiated by their own party, and did not object to the agreement in principle, a number of Unionists, such as Lord Lamington (Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie) and Lord Ronaldshay (the future second Marquess of Zetland), eventually joined the campaign against Greys Iranian policy spearheaded by critics on the Left. These Unionists, in defiance of their own partys official line, condemned the very notion of an accord with Russia, the policy of antagonism towards Germany, and explicit infractions of the sovereign rights of Iranian nation by London and St. Petersburg. There also were a few Unionists, notably the Conservative arch-imperialist Lord Curzon (George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston), who pursued their own spirited condemnation of the British foreign secretary out of purely imperialist motives and independently of the dissenters on the Left, though their paths occasionally crossed. (Pp.xxxv-xxxvi) ***** appeals by these British foreign-policy dissenters to Indian Muslim nationalists in support of the Iranian Revolution are indicative of the extent of their commitment to inciting as broad a

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range of world opinion in opposition to Greys Iranian policy as possible. Moreover, the India Office, the Government of India, and leading British imperialists such as Lord Curzon and Lord Lamington, wanted to propitiate Indian Muslim nationalists in counterbalancing various panIndian as well as Hindu-nationalist groups committed to self-rule or outright independence from Britain. Hence, the encouragement of Indian Muslim nationalist condemnations of Greys Iranian policy was yet another means of exerting official and imperialist pressures on the foreign secretary. Furthermore, repeated references by the dissenters to Indias internal and external security would also serve as a means for the Persia Committee to recruit additional prominent Unionists, such as Lamington and Lord Ronaldshay. (P.155) ***** Unlike his new superior, [the newly appointed British representative to Iran, Sir Cecil Spring Rice], who had previously served as the British representative in Iran from 1899 to 1901 and was currently stationed in St. Petersburg as the British charg daffaires, having been reassigned to Iran by Lansdowne before Grey took over at the FO, was highly sympathetic toward the reform movements in both Iran and Russia. He later would write to Grey from Tehran, The Constitution is a great event ... Here in Tehran the popular movement was first believed to be simply a creation of the British Legation. It was said that it would disappear as soon as English money failed. Since we have withdrawn our patronage the popular movement has grown in strength. It should be noted that by our patronage Spring Rice was alluding to the former British practice of financial assistance to members of the Iranian opposition prior to the revolutionsuch as gifts and money given to Behbahani as a member of the clerical oppositionas well as to Evelyn Grant Duffs unauthorized hospitality during the bast episode (see below). Spring Rice also was very much concerned with Irans continued independence. But, given his intense antipathy toward Germany, he regarded some form of arrangement between London and St. Petersburg as an unavoidable evil. Yet, contrary to Grey, Spring Rice also considered tsarist Russia a serious menace to European and regional peace. Before long, he would be warning Grey not to forsake the Iranian reform movement in attaining St. Petersburgs friendship. (P.50) Etc., etc.

Andic:
This study identifies four broad perspectives which shaped British perceptions: the imperialist, Europeanist, liberal idealist and local pragmatist. Within the context of these perspectives, British perceptions were further shaped by different understandings of Iraninfluenced by a specifically Iranian-flavored literary Orientalism, Aryanism and historyand by understandings of what constituted an authentic reform or revolutionary movement. (P.597) British perceptions of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution were shaped by four broad perspectives. The first of these was the imperialist perspective, which saw Iran as key to Indian

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security and the Constitutional Revolution was measured in terms of impact on British imperial interests and subjects, especially Muslims. Second was the Europeanist perspective, which saw Iran as key to European security (via the Anglo-Russian Convention); and the Constitutional Revolution measured in terms of its impact on Anglo-Russian understanding and also on the respective interests of Britain and Russia. Third was the liberal idealist perspective, which saw Iran as key to fostering Asian/Muslim liberal nationalism; and the Constitutional Revolution was measured in terms of the flourishing of constitutional/representative government in both Iran and other Asian/Muslim nations. Fourth was the local pragmatist perspective, which saw Iran as a state in a particular geopolitical context; the Constitutional Revolution measured in terms of its perceived viability in an Iranian context, with less regard for idealism and grand strategy. These perspectives alone do not explain all British perceptions but rather acted as guiding principles for the interpretation of events in Iran from 1906 to 1909. The first two, imperialist and Europeanist, were the traditional strategic perspectives which treated Iran as an instrument of European or Indian security. The policy clash in Iran between European and Indian strategy came to the fore with Anglo-Russian rapprochement in the early 1900s and culminated in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. At this time, British policy-makers were in effect divided into two camps. The first camp, roughly analogous to the Europeanists, believed in jettisoning the old Iranian buffer state policy and securing key British commercial and strategic interests in Southern Iran and the Persian Gulf. They also favored an understanding with Russia to delimit British and Russian spheres of influence in Iran, whose independence by this time was thought so nominal that it was a liability to British interests. This camp included Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. The other camp, roughly analogous to the imperialists, believed that Britain was still sufficiently powerful to stand firm against Russiaincluding in northern Iran and at the royal court where Russian influence was perceived to be preponderantand that to abandon these areas to Russia would imperil British commercial and strategic interests in Sistan and the Persian Gulf. This camp included Lord Curzon. The imperialist camp was also sensitive to the implications of events in Iran for other Asian and Muslim countries in the British imperial orbit, given that the British sovereign ruled over the worlds second largest Muslim population. On the one hand, it was thought that the appearance of constitutionalism and representative government in Iran could set a mischievous precedent for Egypt and India in particular. On the other hand, it was feared that if Britain was held partially responsible for Russian atrocities in Shii Iran in light of the Convention, it could incite Muslim unrest against British rule, particularly in India where there was a considerable Shii population. The Europeanist perspective sought more cordial relationsbut not a full-fledged alliancewith Russia as the surest way to counter German ascendancy in Europe and to preclude a Russo-German alliance. An understanding with Russia could also improve internal conditions in Iran by ending the increasingly bellicose Anglo-Russian rivalry which had stultified Irans internal development. Europeanists were generally sensitive about the protection of British and Russian commercial interests in Iran, such as trade and concessions. The liberal idealist perspective was ideological rather than strategic. Until 1906, Iran was thought to be one of the most backward of Oriental despotisms. When an apparently liberal nationalist movement erupted in 1906, many British Liberals, Labourites, Socialists and, in a few cases, Conservatives, felt duty-bound to support it. The revolution could make Iran a beacon for

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the spread of liberal nationalism throughout the Asian and Muslim world as well as rejuvenating Iran itself and preventing further foreign interference in the country. The AngloRussian Convention was seen as a death sentence for the Constitutional Revolution at the hands of the unscrupulous Russian autocracy, which was considered a greater threat than Germany to world peace. The local pragmatist perspective was often that of the man on the spot, a member of the Diplomatic or Consular service or a newspaper correspondent witnessing events in Iran. The perspective of the man on the spot sometimes clashed with the Europeanists who populated the upper echelons of the Foreign Office. Local pragmatists tended to be less over-determined by ideological or strategic considerations and more likely to appreciate both positive and negative aspects of the situation, but like any observer they had preconceptions and ide fixes. They were often eye-witnesses and participants in the events of the Constitutional Revolution. (Pp.598-600) _____________________

Me:
There was some confusion in progressive British circles on the nature of political developments in Iran. The Labour Leader, the mouthpiece of the Independent Labour Party that was soon to emerge as a foremost champion the Iranian constitutional camp in Britain, was perplexed by the Iranian oppositions demand for a constitutional government from the safety of the British legation and the presence of priests ... on the side of the reformers. It stated: Western Socialists may be forgiven if they feel but poor hope of the value to the Persian people of a political freedom so respectfully inaugurated. Ironically, a leading British critic of Iranian revolutionaries and no friend of socialism, Dr. mile Joseph Dillon (not to be confused with the Irish Nationalist John Dillon), would subsequently disparage Iranian constitutionalists and their British allies, including the Labour Leader, by similarly questioning the integrity of a revolution consummated from the safety of a foreign legation. (Pp.57-58) ***** Meanwhile, in sharp departure from its earlier skeptical attitude toward the Iranian constitutional movement, the Labour Leader in London was waxing ecstatically about the late-born, newborn, demi-semi-constitution that marked the Persian renaissance, the rise of the Persian people, and the dawn of better things to be. In keeping with its secular-socialist platform, the paper continued to express some unease about the presence of the religious faction in the Iranian constitutional camp, but in a much more sedate tone than before. (P.62) *****

Varying representations of the developments by participants in the Iranian debate, in both Iran and Britain, were part of the complex interplay of constantly changing circumstances and the polemical adjustments deemed necessary by different sides. Of course, neither side in these

14

debates constituted an ideologically or politically homogeneous camp. For British advocates of the Iranian revolution, the dynamics of ever-changing conditions in Iran and official AngloRussian reactions to these developments necessitated continual legitimization of Iranian nationalists. In the propaganda campaign of the dissenters in Britain, these dialogic and dialectic representational adjustments frequently assumed contrived and mimetic attributes, intended to validate the accomplishments of Iranian nationalists in the eyes of the British public. In these appeals to British public opinion, Iranian revolutionaries were portrayed as patrons of universal concepts of rights, justice, and progress, in ways that were culturally familiar and accessible to the British public. For example, the Iranian revolution was likened to the Italian Risorgimento, in reference to Italys national unification in the second half of the nineteenth century, and two prominent Iranian revolutionary fighters, Sattar Khan and Yeprim Khan, would be periodically referred to as Irans Garibaldis, in reference to the nineteenth-century Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. Similarly, the dissenters, along with Iranian nationalists themselves, often exaggerated or over-stressed specific objectives or accomplishments of the Iranian revolution, while circumventing its shortcomings. These representational dissimulations were considered necessary to reach a British public that was either largely uninformed about the intricacies of the Iranian question and Iranian history and/or was bombarded by hostile, and often even more concocted, accounts of developments disseminated by the FO and the pro-FO press. Realizing the nascent achievements of the beleaguered Iranian revolution may fall short of British public expectations, or may simply be buried under the bulk of faultfinding pro-FO propaganda, the Iranian exiles and their British friends chose to concentrate on the more positive aspects of the revolution, at times consciously embellishing them. Browne, who was well-versed in Iranian history and culture and considered the Iranian revolution a major transitional crossroads capable of initiating a break with that countrys past legacy of autocracy, social and economic underdevelopment, and outbursts of religious fanaticism, was convinced the revolution deserved support despite its flaws. Other dissenters shared this commitment in various degrees. Browne, while occasionally expressing his disappointment in private communications with his Iranian friends, refused to publicly condemn, or even acknowledge, many defects of the Iranian revolution, as in the case of the exclusion of certain religious minorities from political participation. The few shortcomings of Iranian nationalists that he was willing to publicly concede he generally attributed to Londons and St. Petersburgs antagonistic policies and the intrigues of the Iranian autocracy. Over the coming years, there would also be curious omission of certain Iranian developments in the dissenters commentaries that otherwise might actually have appealed to segments of the British public. One example is the participation of Iranian women in the revolution and efforts by various groups of Iranian men and women to improve womens social conditions. Browne and other entirely male members of the Persia Committee remained inexplicably silent on the gender dimension of the Iranian revolution, whereas the British press took notice of this development and British suffragists applauded Iranian womens awakening. This silence does not reflect an underlying indifference to the woman question in general by Browne and all other members of the Persia Committee. Besides the presence of a number of prominent supporters of the British suffragist movement in the ranks of the Persia Committee, some committee members (and not necessarily all of them advocates of womens suffrage) also devoted attention to Ottoman womens condition after the 1908 revolution of the Young Turks, or to the woman question elsewhere. In Brownes case, at least, this omission may be

15

attributed to his desire not to antagonize the more conservative and religious Iranian nationalists with whom he was in contact, such as the leading pro-constitutional ulema in Nejef, whose support of the Iranian revolution he considered indispensable. Otherwise, Browne was not personally oblivious to the woman question in Iran, which was by no means a popular cause in that country. Similarly, despite their commitment to liberal or socialist reforms, over the coming years Radical and Labour members of the Persia Committee remained largely silent on the impact of the Iranian revolution on socially and economically disenfranchised groups. Although it can be argued that even between the summer of 1909, when Mohammad Ali Shah was ousted from the throne, and December 1911, when the revolutionary movement was finally crushed, Iranian reformers did not have much of an opportunity to implement major reforms and were constrained by imperialist intervention in Iranian affairs, the relative insouciance of British dissenters on the Left in this regard still poses an ideological anomaly. Occasional reports of strike activities in Iran or socialist demands for the introduction of welfare schemes appeared in the British press, including the Times. But, these reports did not evoke commentary from Labour and Radical members of the Persia Committee. Even when urging their working-class constituency to support the Iranian revolution, Labour leaders do not appear to have alluded to the situation of Iranian workers and peasants, despite the fact that on at least one occasion the Labour Leader characterized the Iranian revolution as a modern revolution, which the paper defined unconvincingly as working-class in its origin and economic in its aim. Among the British dissenters on the Left in general, the S.D.P. appears to have been unique in its rare passing references to disenfranchised socioeconomic groups in Iran in the pages the Social Democrat and Justice. Yet, even these references were explicatory attempts aimed at vindicating the revolution despite its defects. For example, in an account of Iranian developments provided by two Iranian socialists visiting Britain (Dr. Abdullah Qara Bey and Rahimzadeh), Justice reported: [O]n October 8, 1905 [the correct date is 1906], the first Persian Parliament was opened. The Constitution was far from being a democratic one; there was nothing of the nature of universal suffrage; all the poorer classes, including the peasants, were excluded from the franchise which was based upon a property qualification. In spite of the narrowness of the franchise, however, the Parliament was a fairly representative one. All sections of the supporters of the Constitution were represented, as were also the anti-Constitutionalist supporters of absolutism. The Parliament also included a small number of Social-Democrats. This was one of the most remarkable features of the Persian Constitutional revolution, that it was chiefly the work of merchants, priests and clericals. So much was this the case, indeed, that the first Socialist manifesto issued in Persia expresses hearty thanks to the clericals and merchants for the efforts they made and the great services they had rendered in the Constitutional struggle. In sharp contrast to their commentaries on the Iranian question was the degree of attention foreign-policy dissenters paid to a range of social issues in the Ottoman Empire after the Young Turks Revolution, not to mention their frequently candid admission of the shortcomings or abuses of the Young Turks. (Pp.147-148)

16

***** As subsequent chapters illustrate, Indians in India, Britain, and other parts of the world (pan-Indian nationalists, Hindu nationalists, Muslim nationalists, and Zoroastrian Parsis, whether affiliated with pan-Indian nationalist organizations or acting independently), as well as various European individuals and groups in addition to British dissenters, advocated the cause of Irans independence. Volunteers and mercenaries, mainly Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis from the Russian Caucasus, as well as Russian socialists, Eastern Europeans ranging from nationalist opponents of tsarist rule to anarchists and socialists, such as the Bulgarian Vladikoff Panoff who also reported for the Russian paper Reych, Armenian nationalists affiliated with Hnchak and Dashnaksutiun parties, and the American Presbyterian missionary teacher Howard Baskerville, participated in the armed resistance of Iranian nationalists against the Russian-backed Iranian autocracy. It was for this reason, as discussed later in the book, that Dr. E.J. Dillon, the foreign affairs commentator for the Fortnightly Review, disparagingly branded the Iranian revolutionary struggle a revolution by proxy. In their 1910 book, Joseph Maunsel Hone and Page L. Dickinson remarked, with much exaggeration, on the role of those they uniformly branded as soldiers of fortune of various nationalities in fomenting the spirit of revolt in northern Iran. (P.121) ***** A report appearing in the Times in late March 1909 concentrated on foreign elements in Iranian nationalist ranks in the north of the country, particularly in the Caspian littoral. The correspondent, most certainly David Fraser, had accompanied the oriental secretary of the British legation in Tehran, George Churchill, on a fact-finding mission to the Gilan province. He admitted the orderly and respectful conduct of nationalist forces toward him, but went on to question the extent of popular support for the revolution by focusing on the presence of Greeks, Kurds, Russians, Armenians, Tatars, and other groups from the Russian Caucasus in nationalist ranks. He added, their mercenaries are mostly Christians. The correspondent then questioned the source of funding for nationalist forces and their military operations. Discussing the expense involved in crossing the border from the Caucasus and the cost of adequate provisions and weapons for the nationalist forces, he wrote, it must be remembered that till lately no money had been collected in [Rasht, the city he was reporting from]. Although the correspondent did not indicate whether this suggested the money for nationalist operations had been promptly extorted from the local populace and wealthy individuals or was coming from foreign sources, his insinuation that something was amiss was unmistakable. It was in reaction to such allegations of foreign assistance to Iranian nationalists that, a few days before the appearance of this latest report, Lynch quoted in parliament from one of Moores press dispatches, In reference to the exaggerated reports of Caucasian assistance to the Constitutionalists, I can authoritatively state that the total number of Caucasians under arms here [in Tabriz] is 25 and Armenians 12, in addition to which there are a few Georgians. Most of them are Mussulmans, and were originally Persian subjects. The Times correspondent hinted at other supposed anomalies in Iranian revolutionary ranks. Obviously aware of religious tensions between the predominantly Shii population and the persecuted Babi heterodoxy in Iran, and grossly estimating the present proportion of Babis in

17

the population of Persia at from 10 to 30 per cent, he sought to exploit the religious rivalries in Iran to the detriment of the constitutional movement. Having already alluded to the foreign Christian presence in nationalist ranks, he maintained: Should the present revolutionary movement be successful, and there is little doubt that it will be if Sattar Khan succeeds at Tabriz, and should it really have Babism at its back, its results may be more far-reaching than is at present realised. Should it be found to aim not only at a change in the whole system and machinery of government but at the renunciation of Shiah Mahomedanism in favour of the mystical doctrines of the Babis[,] the struggle may become embittered by an outburst of orthodox fanaticism. It is true that many of the ulema [i.e., leading Shii clerics] are said to be secretly inclined to Babism; but the majority, even among those who now support the nationalist movement, would be driven into the arms of the Shah if its ulterior aim should turn out to be heretical and, what is worse, anti-clerical. This was by no means the first occasion some British sources had raised the topic of outside military assistance to Iranian nationalist forces, particularly the presence of volunteers and mercenaries from the Russian Caucasus in the north, in the hope of undermining the integrity of the Iranian constitutional camp and rationalizing Russian intervention in that country as assistance to the Iranian ruler against armed Russian subjects. In his regular column on foreign affairs in the Contemporary Review, Dr. E.J. Dillon repeatedly maintained the Iranian revolution was being fought by foreign elements, without whom revolutionaries could not have endured. What was unique about the above report in the Times, however, was its discussion of Babi participation in the revolution and the clandestine adherence of some leading Iranian proconstitutional Shii clerics to the Babi faith. (Pp.181-183) ***** The dissenters aspersions against the Times were aimed also at other inimical accounts of Iranian revolutionaries appearing in the pro-FO British press. Dr. E.J. Dillon, the regular foreign affairs commentator for the bimonthly Contemporary Review, had earned himself the disdain of the Persia Committee and its friends with his constant scathing remarks about Iranian revolutionaries, even though he was often equally contemptuous of the shah. In March 1909, for example, after a lengthy commentary on Iranian developments, he summed up the Iranian civil war in the following fashion: In truth, there is no Persian revolution, but only what the Persians themselves term Shoolook, or topsy-turvydom, chaos. Other nations have won their liberties heroically, with swords or rifles in their hands, at the risk of their lives ... In Persia they do it at less cost; they get their pipes, enter a foreign legation or a holy mosque, and sit down in [bast], or [take] sanctuary. Dillon, too, sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Iranian nationalist struggle by disproportionately focusing on foreign fighters in nationalist ranks and claiming the Iranian revolution was fought by proxy. (Pp.184-185) ***** Taqizadeh and Muazid al-Saltanah prepared a manifesto, outlining constitutionalist objectives in Iran. On October 22, Taqizadeh complained to Browne that the Times in its

18

publication of the manifesto, which was translated by Browne, had omitted the segment repudiating that Iranian nationalists were revolutionary. Taqizadehs sensitivity to the impression created by Iranian refugees in Britain at times bordered on paranoia. The version of the manifesto appearing in the Times of October 15 in fact included the statement that different anjumans (defined in the manifesto as both provincial assemblies as well as unofficial political organizations or majma) were [i]n Europe ... generally regarded as essentially revolutionary bodies, but this assumption is not correct, even in the case of the unofficial anjumans. Moreover, in its introductory commentary on the manifesto, the Times referred to the Iranian refugees as nationalists or constitutionalists and not revolutionaries. (Pp.130-131) ***** Although Browne, as well as most commentators since, have characterized the Iranian Constitutional Revolution primarily as a nationalist, rather than a democratic struggle, in their appeals to British public opinion the Iranian refugees and their British advocates often placed greater accent on reform-oriented and social-restructuring objectives of the revolution. The manifesto by the Iranian refugees which had appeared in the Times the previous month, as well as another speech by Taqizadeh the day after the gathering at Unwins residence, are examples of this particular emphasis on the democratic and modernizing dimensions of the Iranian revolution. Generally, the references to social progress and democratic reforms in these statements were vague enough to imply Iranian revolutionaries desire to adopt social values and political institutions resembling British liberal principles and parliamentary system. Also, it should be remembered these refugees represented the secular and, at the time, more radical Iranian revolutionary tendencies. Among other objectives of Iranian revolutionaries listed in the manifesto appearing in the Times was financial reforms. Another listed objective was the equality of all Persian subjects, irrespective of race or creed before the law. In this case, Taqizadeh and British dissenters refrained from alluding to the criterion in the Iranian constitution of 1906 requiring the laws of the country and the policies of the government be in accordance with Islam. Nor did they dwell on the fact that Babis and Bahais had been excluded from political participation, or that Jews and Christians had been discouraged from sending their own representatives to the nowdefunct majlis, even though Jewish and Christian communities were granted parliamentary representation and would later send their own deputies to the second majlis (1909-11), while the Zoroastrian community sent its own representatives to both the first and the second majlis. (Pp.144-145) Etc., etc.

Andic:
Reform was implicitly understood in a teleological sense as a progressive movement towards a more liberal and prosperous society, while a revolution could be either authentic or phony. An authentic revolution was understood according to an idealized European revolutionary model: conflict between clearly defined, principle-driven adversaries (reactionaries/the religious establishment vs. progress/liberalism); mass participation of the domestic population;

19

nationalist zeal; limited foreign involvement; and heroic violence. A phony revolution was the opposite: participants switching sides and driven by personal gain rather than abstract principles or the social good; lack of mass participation; extensive foreign involvement; and lack of martial zeal. In short, a superficial struggle to redistribute privileges between established power brokers rather than an overthrow of the status quo. For some British observers, Irans revolution was simply phony. The heterogeneous nature of the revolutionary bloc, in the form of the religious-radical alliance and the participation of Russian Caucasians, was a major feature of the Constitutional Revolution and was often perplexing to British observers. The religious-radical alliance, where clerical, liberal and radical factions joined forces, has been described by Nikki Keddie as unusual in world history, so perhaps their confusion was understandable. The heterogeneity of the revolutionary factions led observers to different conclusions. First was selfish impetus, which saw the revolution as phony and unprincipled because clerics and would-be reformers posed as radicals, liberals or constitutionalists in order to further personal (usually pecuniary) interests. Only the non-Iranian Russian Caucasians had martial spirit and revolutionary mettle, which undermined the nationalist pretenses of the ethnic Iranians. Second was clerical transformation, which saw the revolution as a great leap forward for liberalism, as clerics transformed into altruistic figures willing to forgo their own privileges in favor of the advance of constitutionalism or liberalism, possibly under the influence of Babism. This view was current only in the initial stages of the movement. Third was nationalist impetus, which saw the revolution (including the clerics) as primarily driven by nationalism, which in turn gave rise to constitutionalism as a means of restricting the Shahs dealings with Russia and checking Russian influence at court. The Russo-Caucasian element was a natural corollary of the fact that Russian Caucasian and Iranian reformers/revolutionaries both opposed royal absolutism. Liberal and progressive elements were emphasized more by liberal idealists and less by Europeanists. Fourth was radical usurpation, which saw the nationalist and liberal constitutionalist element of the movement as initially viable, but gradually hijacked by unruly local councils, terrorist secret societies and Russian Caucasian revolutionaries. This view became prominent from late 1907 through the 190809 civil war. (Pp.601-602) _____________________

Me:
Although it is unclear what exactly D.C.M. Platt meant by orientalized British agents in the region, he has directed our attention to the role of psychological factors in the production of British consular reports. At times, the psychological effects of residing in an alien cultural setting influenced the impressions and reports of British consular agents, which were consultedthough not necessarily adoptedby the FO. Especially in places like Iran (where overland travel remained difficult well into the twentieth century) in the period before the advent of the telegraph in mid-nineteenth century (which expedited rapid transmission of diplomatic reports), British representatives on the spot had substantial leeway in shaping British foreign policy. Even after improved communications, there would be recalcitrant diplomatic agents. The following

20

chapters recount how after the outbreak of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1906 several British consular staff in Iran occasionally pursued their own independent course of action, in contravention of policies prescribed by the FO. Moreover, there were periodic disagreements between London and Calcutta (Delhi after 1911) on policy formulations concerning Iran. Londons and the Government of Indias handling of the Iranian question were shaped by a complex and dynamic set of considerations, preferences, and recommendations, often privileging different range of interests and purviews, some of which assumed a more pervasive role in the long run. In fact, Greys Iranian policy after 1906 was shaped more by the foreign secretarys preoccupation with Anglo-German rivalry than by reports of internal developments in Iran, private British economic considerations, or concerns with Indias security. Nevertheless, maintaining a leverage in Iran, particularly in the south, served as the crux of Londons Iranian policy. (Pp.6-7) ***** Harboring a mistaken assumption that, as in the past, London would do its utmost to undermine St. Petersburgs leverage in Iran, some groups in the Iranian opposition were turning to British assistance. Reportedly, Behbahani wrote to Evelyn Grant Duff, the British charg daffaires in Tehran, that people are ready to rise against [the] Government and request[ed] that British Government may now assist him with money. Although Grant Duff declined this request, he recommended to the FO in London [if] possible to come to an agreement with Russian Government to cause the fall of the Grand Vizier [Ain al-Dowleh] who is the chief obstacle to any improvement in the situation. This overture was promptly discarded by Grey and his undersecretary, Charles Hardinge, as an invitation for overt British involvement in the Iranian political conflict, bound to arouse Russian suspicions. This was not the only occasion Grey would consider Grant Duffs advice and analyses of the situation highly inappropriate. Shortly after this communication, Grant Duff forwarded a copy of yet another letter from Behbahani, soliciting British intervention to put an end to the oppression and transgression of the government in Tehran. A couple of days later, two representatives of Iranian merchants in the ranks of the opposition paid a visit to the summer grounds of the British legation in Gulhak, in the outskirts of Tehran. Meeting with Grant Duff, they inquired whether the opposition protesters would be granted permission to take bast (sanctuary) at the British legation in Tehran. The merchants interpreted Grant Duffs equivocal response to imply that no force would be employed to bar their access to legation grounds, even though no firm offer of sanctuary was given. Mr. Grant Duff expressed the hope that they would not have recourse to such an expedient, but he said it was not in his power, in view of the acknowledged custom in Persia and the immemorial right of bast, to use or cause to be used, force to expel them if they came. The following morning (July 19), approximately fifty merchants and theological students arrived at the British legation grounds in Tehran. As no attempt was made to turn them out, their numbers swelled to 858 people within four days and 5,000 by July 26. By August 1, the number of the bastis (sanctuary seekers) would reach 13,000. Grey was extremely annoyed by the presence of the bastis at the British legation, which had infuriated St. Petersburg and surpassed Greys desire simply to not appear inimical toward the Iranian opposition. He instructed that Grant Duff should be told very plainly not to interfere between the Persian Government and the refugees and to confine his action to trying to persuade the latter to leave the Legation. The FO considered absurd Grant Duffs latest

21

recommendation that to mollify the bastis, as well as the opposition clergy who had left Tehran for Qum, London should seek the removal of the shahs chief minister. Yet, only two days after Grant Duffs communiqu, Grey approved of advising the shah that lack of confidence in the Grand Vizier may be the real complaint. ... As it happened, this was not Grant Duffs last gesture of unauthorized hospitality toward the Iranian opposition, nor was he the only British diplomatic staff in Iran whose assessment of the situation and course of action at times radically diverged from that of the FO in London. The next chapters provide accounts of British consular staff in Iran whose sympathies with Iranian reformers led them to question, and even openly defy, the FOs Iranian policy. Grey was outraged by Grant Duffs continued hospitality toward the bastis. On August 12, after the majority of the bastis had finally left the legation grounds, Grey wrote to Spring Rice, who was on leave in Britain before assuming his new post as the British representative in Tehran, The number of Bastards [sic] at the Legation has suddenly dropped from 14,000 to 200; and Grant Duff is a proud man, but he seems reluctant to let the 200 go; they consist, he says, of Persians who have official grievances. I expect every day to hear that Grant Duff has been proclaimed Shah. (Pp.53-55) ***** The shahs reluctance to approve the electoral law resulted in fresh outbreak of disturbances, during which a number of popular leaders again took refuge at the British legation. Grey was dismayed by Grant Duffs renewed hospitality, despite the FOs unequivocal disapproval of the previous bast episode which had threatened to directly embroil London in the Iranian political contest and interfere with Anglo-Russian talks. Grey immediately instructed Grant Duff to Do all you can to dissuade refugees. It is very desirable that a repetition of the recent incursion into the Legation grounds should be prevented. (P.58) ***** [As already quoted above in another context:] Unlike his new superior, Spring Rice, who had previously served as the British representative in Iran from 1899 to 1901 and was currently stationed in St. Petersburg as the British charg daffaires, having been reassigned to Iran by Lansdowne before Grey took over at the FO, was highly sympathetic toward the reform movements in both Iran and Russia. He later would write to Grey from Tehran, The Constitution is a great event ... Here in Tehran the popular movement was first believed to be simply a creation of the British Legation. It was said that it would disappear as soon as English money failed. Since we have withdrawn our patronage the popular movement has grown in strength. Spring Rice also was very much concerned with Irans continued independence. But, given his intense antipathy toward Germany, he regarded some form of arrangement between London and St. Petersburg as an unavoidable evil. Yet, contrary to Grey, Spring Rice also considered tsarist Russia a serious menace to European and regional peace. Before long, he would be warning Grey not to forsake the Iranian reform movement in attaining St. Petersburgs friendship. (P.50) *****

22

Spring Rice, arriving at his post as the British minister in Tehran in late September 1906, was concerned Grey might wreck British interests in Iran and Central Asia in attaining Russias friendship. He also was troubled by Greys faith in St. Petersburg to keep its end of any bargain. He confided to Valentine Chirol, a former FO clerk who had traveled to Iran and was the director of the foreign department of the Times and in close communication with the FO, and would shortly emerge as a staunch advocate of Greys Anglo-Russian understanding, We take it for granted that Russia means what she says when she says she does not intend to take up a position in Persia which would facilitate the invasion of India ... We persist in this policy in spite of certain indications, which if generally known would not increase the ardour of the British action in persisting. Percy Cox and Spring Rice were illustrative of British diplomatic staff in Iran who, for diverse reasons, did not have much confidence in the foreign secretarys grasp of Anglo-Russian relations and privately deprecated Greys assessments of the Iranian situation. In addition, according to Spring Rice, the staff here, and specially all the Indian Consuls, are dead against a reconciliation which is contrary to all their traditions and also takes away their occupation. Among the British diplomatic staff in Iran, Grey had a broad array of skeptics. Whereas some of the staff sympathized with the young Iranian constitutional movement, the future of which appeared to hinge on Greys rapprochement with Russia, Cox and the Indian Consuls exemplified the traditional line of thinking concerned not with Irans welfare but with the future of British hegemony in the region. Spring Rice was torn between these two inclinations. The visit to Germany in late October by the Russian foreign minister, Isvolsky, reinforced Greys suspicion of Berlins hostile intent. Nicolson, the British ambassador to Russia, expressed misgivings, again urging an acceleration of the negotiations to forestall Germany. Grey agreed with Nicolsons tactics. Given Greys cynicism toward Russian objectives in undertaking the foreign ministers visit to Berlin, it is somewhat perplexing that he believed the conclusion of an agreement between London and St. Petersburg would decidedly win Russia over to the British camp in Europe. Meanwhile, Spring Rice was warning the FO that any Anglo-Russian arrangement demarcating the two powers spheres of influence in Iran would have serious repercussions in that country. In November 1906, Spring Rice informed Grey that the Iranian constitutionalist faction, which had looked to London as a protector during the previous summer, was now relinquishing its trust in Britain. By the end of his first year in office, Grey was still was striving to reach an understanding with St. Petersburg, while developments in Iran threatened to upset the status quo in one of the regions included in Anglo-Russian talks. News received from Iran, following Muzaffar al-Din Shahs death in January 1907, suggested a rapid polarization between the constitutional factions and the reactionary royalist camp of the new Russophile monarch, Mohammad Ali. Spring Rice warned Grey the standoff could instantaneously erupt into open conflict. Meanwhile, Spring Rice had taken the liberty of communicating to Iranian constitutionalist leaders segments of an earlier letter he had received from Grey. Spring Rices intent was to assure Iranian reformers that London entertained no ill-will toward them. In March Spring Rice summed up the Iranian situation as likely to undermine British prestige in one form or another if Anglo-Russian talks succeeded. He urged the FO to avoid any appearance of joint British and Russian action directed against Iranian reformers, whom he characterized as the nationalist popular party and,

23

remarkably, identified with independence movements struggling against British imperial rule: The attitude of Russia towards the popular party here is as well grounded as our own towards similar movements in Egypt and India. They threaten our interests and we naturally object. If the popular party succeeds here it will be quite impossible for Russia to maintain her control, which she exercises through a certain number of priests and statesmen and especially the Shah ... If we take part with the popular party against Russia we shall be doing what Germans were accused of doing in Egypt and Morocco. We shall be also giving a very bad example to other nations who should be justified in playing the same game in our gardens. But if we take sides against the popular party we cannot hope that the Mussulmans all over the world who are watching affairs here with the greatest interest will fail to take note. An association of England and France in Morocco and England and Russia in Persia both directed a Mussulman popular movement ... It seems therefore that our cooperation with Russia should not include active cooperation against the patriotic movement. The same day Spring Rice sent the above cautionary note to Grey, he also wrote to a former colleague at the British embassy in St. Petersburg, expressing indignation at Greys conduct of Iranian policy. Spring Rice was convinced Greys policy inevitably would result in a British confrontation with Iranian constitutionalists. He complained to Lord Onslow, the private secretary at the embassy in St. Petersburg, of being kept in the dark respecting the projected Anglo-Russian understanding and stated his mistrust of Russia as well as his fears of domestic British consequences of Greys policy: We are expected to co-operate with Russia in suppressing the popular party, which is hardly a game which {His Majestys Government] can play with impunity. There would be a row at home ... An anti-popular policy here [in Iran], in alliance with Russia, will not be a popular policy in England, unless the English are gone quite mad over the Russian Entente. ... I have no information as to the basis of the agreement. You see that it is not considered advisable to consult me. Anxious that Grey may even abandon existing British interests in Iran in his eagerness to finalize a deal with Russia, in April Spring Rice reminded Grey of the importance of preserving British influence in southern Iran and protecting British enterprises: I assume that the amendments desired by you are carried into effect and that Russia is debarred from eventually exercising control over the coast-line outside the Gulf and the frontier adjacent to Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and also that British Concessions, as the DArcy Oil Concession, the Khanikin telegraph-line, and the Sultanabad-Dizful road, are not yet exploited, either wholly or in part. I presume that British interests in this respect will be fully safeguarded, and that it will be clearly laid down that not only are existing Concessions to be maintained, and to be held entitled to the fullest diplomatic support, but that they can be renewed if so desired.

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Spring Rice suspected his friend and superior, Grey, had gone quite mad in pursuit of a settlement with Russia, to the point of neglecting all other British concerns in the region and absolutely trusting Russian promises of goodwill. Grey sought to reassure Spring Rice that his fears were unfounded. The foreign secretary insisted he neither had the intention of cooperating [with Russia] against the patriotic movement in Iran, nor of relinquishing British interests in the region. However, as events unfolded, Grey not only proved inclined to sacrifice some existing British interests in the region for checking the perceived German menace by obtaining Russias friendship, but also adopted a compliant attitude towards repeated Russian acts of aggression against the Iranian constitutional/nationalist movement. At this stage in the developments, Grey continually reassured Spring Rice and others that he was not indifferent to the spread of the reform movement underway in Iran and would not join Russia in stifling that movement. Grey readily admitted to Spring Rice that in his opinion, too, Russia preferred military intervention in Iran. He even credited his own diplomacy for the absence of such an intervention thus far: We have been working against any open interference by force in the internal affairs of Persia at St. Petersburg, hitherto with success. These conciliatory words failed to satisfy Spring Rice who, no longer mincing words, complained to Grey in prophetic terms: You say that the Russian Government has shown no signs of wishing to depart from an attitude of neutrality. That may be true of St. Petersburg. It is not true of Tehran. You will see that there are abundant signs that the Russian agents here are anxious to help the Shah to put down the reform party by force. Our determination not to take part in such a policy has altered the situation. If the Persian people could count on the sympathy of any large section of European public opinion as well as of the whole Mahomedan world the task of the conqueror would be a hard one ... You must count however, as I suppose you have counted, on the effect on the popular opinion here and in other Mahomedan countries of your close agreement with Russia. You will be judged by your friends and associates; and if Russia, as is the case, is notoriously hostile to the patriotic movement in Persia, and if you make an agreement with Russia, the simple people here will take for granted that in your heart you think as Russia does. No doubt there are many things to be gained by the agreement and by common action. But you must be prepared to pay the cost and as far as I can judge part of the price is a great loss of popularity here which may react unfavourably on your position in other Mahomedan countries. It will also increase the power and prestige of Germany. The various exchanges between Grey and Spring Rice also indicate the foreign secretary himself regarded the Iranian constitutional struggle as a popular and patriotic movement. Therefore, Grey should have anticipated stiff resistance to continued acts of foreign intervention in Iran. Spring Rice continued to enumerate for Grey the possible risks of his intended diplomatic venture. In late May 1907, he urged Grey not to take Irans sovereignty too lightly and to discuss matters with Tehran prior to announcing the final terms of the projected Anglo-Russian Agreement: With the popular movement in Egypt and India and the unrest among Mussulmans I suppose that what you would desire is not to be identified in any way in a

25

struggle against a Mahomedan popular movement in Persia. It would be adding to your difficulties, Imperial and parliamentary in a gratuitous manner ... ... I hope if our understanding is arranged that we shall be able to make it plain that there is nothing in it detrimental to the honour or the interests of Persia and that if possible we may be able to get the consent of Persia before its publication and edit it in such a way that there might be no cause for reproaching us for aiming at a division or a joint protectorate. As it happened, the governments of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet were not informed of the terms of the Anglo-Russian understanding, which concerned the future of these countries, until well after the conclusion of the Agreement and its public disclosure. Spring Rice and the British Parliament also were kept in the dark by the FO regarding the actual tenor of the agreement until after it was finalized. Spring Rices concern with Muslim reaction throughout the empire to the outcome of Anglo-Russian understanding was not groundless, particularly in light of widespread condemnations of the June 1906 Dinshawai incident in Egypt or the formation of the All-India Muslim League in December 1906, which British authorities hoped to propitiate in countering the spread of pan-Indian and Hindu nationalist movements. Some of Spring Rices misgivings in this regard were shared by other FO staff. This concern also tended to spark distinctly farfetched fears in some British circles as to the existence of extensive anti-British pan-Islamic networks throughout the empire. On the other hand, there were also the likes of Valentine Chirol, who regarded worldwide Muslim concern with Irans sovereignty highly implausible. Chirol would write to Spring Rice: Iran is a [Shii] country, and though we have some [Shii] in India, our Indian Mahomedans are in the main Sunnis, and except for purposes of agitation, the Sunnis will scarcely, I imagine, get very much excited over the fate of such sons of burnt fathers as the Persians. (Pp.60-67) ***** Spring Rice presumably was kept in the dark about the precise particulars of Anglo-Russian talks because of his expansive Russophobia, as well as his concern with the fate of the constitutional movement in Iran and the conceivable Muslim backlash throughout the empire and elsewhere in the event Irans sovereignty was compromised. In fact, Spring Rice himself learned about the agreement only a few days after its conclusion. In a letter to Valentine Chirol, he lamented Greys lack of regard for his position in Tehran: They have thrown a stone into the windows here and left me to face the policeman. He added, Neither Nicolson [the British ambassador to Russia] nor the F.O. informed me that the agreement was signed till three days after it had been published here. (P.75) ***** On September 13, the embittered Spring Rice, left to fend for himself in Tehran, informed Grey of his predicament; once again warning his superior of feasible adverse repercussions of the agreement:

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I congratulate you on the signature and I hope you are enjoying a well-deserved rest. Your difficulties are over for the time. I venture, however, to warn you that difficulties here may be beginning an agitation which may be formidable; that is formidable to the English who are here or have interests here. There is the further consideration of the effect of the agreement on Mahommedan public feeling here and in Afghanistan. ... ... it is unfortunately true that, though the Russian Government has made most satisfactory promises and explanations, those who are supposed to be in the confidence of Russia and are known to frequent the Russian Legation are the open enemies of the new order of things which the Persians are so proud of, and to which they look to cure all the ills of the country. And we are supposed to be accomplices. With the escalation of Russian assistance to the intractable shah, the Iranian crisis became a quagmire for Grey. He would even resort to the threat of resignation over the Iranian question. Valentine Chirol, who considered the agreement the only viable means of preserving British interests in the region and who staunchly defended Grey, pondered the shape of things to come after the assassination of the Iranian chief minister. In a note to Spring Rice, he wrote, So this [Anglo-Russian] agreement is signed at last and the [Atabak] has been murdered. A dramatic circumstance. Things are looking pretty ugly. (Pp.76-77) ***** Zara Steiner, while maintaining [t]here were differences of opinion but few diplomats acted with complete independence or in direct contradiction to their instructions, writes: Distance and disturbed local conditions sometimes gave ministers more scope for initiative than ambassadors. This was true, for instance, at various moments, for men in Peking, Tokyo, Morocco and Persia. ... ... ... In the long run, in Persia as in Morocco, British policy was decided in London. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 placed a great strain on British ministers in Teheran and each in turn suffered under the necessity of working with the Russians to support a policy which they intensely disliked. Steiners conclusion accurately characterizes Spring Rices predicament at the time of the conclusion of the 1907 Agreement. As mentioned before, Greys Iranian policy was marred from the start with disapproval of both the more hawkish as well as the more reluctant British diplomatic representatives in Iran (e.g., Cox and Spring Rice respectively). However, Stokes and Smart, who held subordinate consular posts, were far less tractable than these individuals. There were a number of other British consular staff who also preferred the Iranian constitutionalists to the shah and disapproved of Russian policy in Iran, but whose endeavors on behalf of Iranian revolutionaries or overt disregard of Londons directives did not match that of Stokes and Smart. (P.118) *****

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After the royalist coup in Iran, Spring Rice, who was in London prior to taking up his new post in Stockholm, expressed his continued displeasure with Greys handling of Iranian affairs in a letter to Grant Duff: The Russians have really surprised themselves. Having used our influence to keep the popular party [in Iran] quiet[,] they have now taken our agreement with them as an engagement to assist them in destroying our former friends.... I wonder if our govt. is still well satisfied with this [poor?] result? I understand that nothing that has happened has modified their views. (P.119) ***** Grey, who threatened to resign over the Iranian question, later would recall his Iranian quandary as the most exasperating ordeal of his pre-war career. (P.xxxv) ***** The Iranian question proved to be one of Greys most onerous tasks prior to the outbreak of World War I. In his own words: Persia tried my patience more than any other subject. Expecting the 1907 Anglo-Russian Agreement to resolve the Iranian question, Grey was haunted by subsequent developments in Iran and the rising tide of criticisms at home and abroad. (P.1) ***** Etc., etc.

Andic:
A substantial number of British perceptions of Iran during the first constitutional period came from the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic and Consular services. The principal diplomatic figures in Iran at this time were Evelyn Grant Duff, charge daffaires from 1905 to 1906 and Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, Minister at Tehran from 1906 to 1907, while the principal Foreign Office figure was Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. Sir Edward Grey was an Europeanist and Evelyn Grant Duff was predominantly a local pragmatist, while Sir Cecil Spring-Rice evinced a profound liberal idealism which was unusual for a veteran diplomat. The nationalist impetus and clerical transformation views were dominant during this period. Evelyn Grant Duff (18631926) was the son of colonial administrator Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. Evelyn Grant Duff had previously served in Rome, Tehran (189294), St Petersburg, Berlin and London before being appointed Legation Secretary in Tehran in 1903. Grant Duff was to be remembered as the man who allowed the influx of refugees into the British Legation grounds (hereafter called by its Persian name, the Great Bast) in the summer of 1906, prompting some observers to identify him in particular and Britain in general as supporters of the Iranian constitutional cause. However, his broad perspective was dominantly local pragmatist, and the Great Bast was more a reflection of his personal desire to bolster British prestige than an expression of liberal idealism.

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His initial perceptions of Iran were largely unfavorable. In a letter to his father from 1904, he wrote, It is impossible to exaggerate the utter confusion and corruption existing hereNaples in Bourbons time was a New Jerusalem in comparison. This attitude also permeates his early dispatches to London in 1906. He acknowledged the decrepitude of the existing government and the need for change, but was not initially convinced that these changes could come from within, because of widespread corruption and apparent Iranian inability to manage their own affairs. He did not have a particularly high opinion of Russian drunkards either, but believed that Russia was too strong to be dislodged from Iran by force. He felt that foreign control in Iran would be an eventual necessity, and advised the British government to decide whether it wanted to settle the issue outright with Russia or wait for an international settlement. His attitude to Russia in Iran suggests a local pragmatist outlook. He neither defends Iranian integrity as an imperialist or a liberal idealist nor speaks of Irans role in securing the European balance of power as an Europeanist. His dislike of Russia does not prevent him from acknowledging the realities of Russian military strength and suggesting the possibility of a settlement with Russia in Iran. Local pragmatists often adjusted their perceptions with changing circumstances, and Grant Duff was a good example of this. In his dispatches to London, he recognized that change was afoot in Iran, though whether it would ultimately be beneficial and durable was unclear. In a dispatch in February 1906, he wrote that the victories of Japan [in the Russo-Japanese war] and the subsequent revolutionary troubles in Russia have not only put the entire Persian question on a totally different footing, but have raised new social, political and religious questions in the country itself. The Persians are showing a new restlessness, a new impatience of the bad Government which they formerly seemed to accept so philosophically, and a general resentment of the present state of things may be traced all over the country. The long-standing Persian Question, which was formerly an exclusively strategic question concerning Irans role in Indian and European securityreflecting the imperialist and Europeanist perspectivehas acquired a transformative socio-political dimensionhinting at the emergence of the new liberal idealist perspective. As a local pragmatist, Grant Duff alluded to these diverging perspectives without particularly favoring one over another. His emphasis on the psychological impact of the Russo-Japanese war in particular is corroborated by a number of his contemporaries. The tension between Grant Duffs local pragmatism and the Europeanism of Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey (18621933) became apparent during the Great Bast of 1906. During the Great Bast, 14,000 Tehranis took sanctuary in the garden of the British Legation in Tehran in protest against the Iranian governments failure to implement reforms as pledged. From there, the refugees first formulated the demand for a constitution, which convinced many Iranians and some scholars that the Constitutional Revolution was masterminded by Britain to undercut Russia. However, the sources suggest that the Great Bast was viewed differently by the local pragmatist Grant Duff, for whom it was a chance to consolidate British prestige and influence and his senior, the Europeanist Grey; it was incompatible with Greys perceptions of and

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corresponding policy towards Iran, pushing him to confess in his autobiography that Persia tried my patience more than any other subject. As refugees poured into the Legation grounds in July 1906, Sir Arthur Nicolson, British ambassador in St Petersburg and another staunch Europeanist, impressed upon Grey the alarming impact of the Great Bast upon the Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky. Grant Duff subsequently informed Grey that the refugees refused to negotiate with the Iranian government except through him, and he appears to have enjoyed some feeling of selfimportance as a powerful intermediary, but Grey was not impressed. On 12 August he complained mildly in a private letter to Sir Cecil Spring-Rice about the Bastards at the Legation and his instructions to Grant Duff were unambiguous: asylum seeking at the Legation was to be discouraged and there should be no further interference in the internal affairs of independent states such as Iran. This contradicts one of Greys own statements from 1903 that Irans independence and integrity was a vanishing quantity. However, Grey genuinely sought to limit the involvement of his own officials in Iranian political affairs, in order to avoid drawing Britain into a potential proxy conflict with Russia. There was to be no overt support for Iranian constitutionalists as this could provoke equivalent Russian support for the royalists, especially when negotiations were underway for a settlement with Russia over Iranian affairs. Grey believed that Iran had traditionally manipulated Anglo-Russian rivalry to its own benefit, and his Europeanist perspective shaped his fundamental policy aim of curtailing this rivalry, which had become acute and was causing a drift towards war. Grant Duff, on the other hand, by seeing the Great Bast as a chance to restore British prestige in Iran without considering the potential impact on Russia, clearly showed that he was not a Europeanist like Grey. He did not wax lyrical about the Great Bast giving birth to a constitutional movement, like a liberal idealist, nor did he believe that Britain could keep Russia out of Iran by force, like an imperialist. This confirms him as a local pragmatist who thought about British interests in a local context. Muzaffar al-Din Shah finally acceded to the demands of the refugees and on 5 August 1906, the Royal Edict granting a constitution and an elected parliament was read out in the Legation grounds amid much rejoicing. By this time, Grant Duff seems to have become more convinced of the seriousness of the movement. He had pressed upon the Iranian government the gravity of the situation, emphasizing that the mere dismissal of the unpopular Grand Vizier Ain al-Dawlah would not satisfy the people and that the Government was face to face with a revolution and not a mere strike. He also noted the emergence amongst the people of a new sense of their own power. Hence, Grant Duff notes that the protesters were driven not merely by personal but by principled opposition; they sought the implementation of the constitution and would not merely settle for the dismissal of Ain al-Dawlah. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice (18591918) arrived in Tehran as British Minister in September 1906. In many respects he was an atypical diplomat, distinguished by his ardent liberal idealism in a branch of government mainly populated by Europeanists (in the Foreign Office) and local pragmatists (on the spot). Spring-Rice was a complex personalityat once an urbane diplomat well-versed in realpolitik and a poet with a propensity for mysticism. His liberalism was a creed rooted in his Christian faith; a form of spirituality as much as a political ideology. He had previously served in Tehran as charge daffaires from 1899 to 1901, which had been a formative period in his life. During this time, he developed a passion for Iranian philosophy, literature and mythology under the instruction of a local teacher. From 1905 to 1906, he served as Counselor

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in St Petersburg, which deepened his antipathy towards the autocratic Russian government and convinced him still further of the value of liberalism, whose flourishing should be supported by England whenever it appeared in an English sphere of influence. A major theme was his perception of the permanent and serious character of the constitutional movement, driven by nationalist impetus. He wrote to the author and diplomat Valentine Chirol in January1907, the popular movement may break down now but it will get up again. I dont think it can be permanently destroyed now. He touches on this theme again in his dispatches to London: the sentiment of independence of nationality, of the right to resist oppression and manage their own affairs is rapidly growing among the people it is difficult to believe that the newly acquired sentiment of liberty and patriotism can altogether disappear, although it appears that this sentiment varied by geography, since in the south of Iran the movement appeared more driven by personal or pecuniary issues whereas in the north it seemed to have more exclusively political aims and a stronger sense of patriotism. This patriotism reached its violent culmination in the assassination of Prime Minister Amin al-Sultan on 30 August 1907. All of these observations suggest a permanent and lasting change in the way Iranians interpret their national identity and relate to each other, in sharp contrast to the prevailing notion of Iran up to that point as immutable. They also reflect the importance of nationalist and patriotic sentiments, underlining his belief in nationalist impetus. Spring-Rice objected to the dismissive attitudes expressed by his compatriots and other Europeans about the movement. He wrote again to Chirol in January 1907: I cant tell you how refreshing it is to hear the Persians talking about their new liberties and the things they are ready to do for their country I dont see that we are justified in laughing at the Members of the Mejlis because they sit on the floor instead of on chairs. He continuously emphasized the seriousness and naturalness of the constitutional movement, such as in a letter to Sir Edward Grey where he points out that the movement was not merely a product of British money or a British plot and had in fact grown in strength since British patronage was withdrawn. A second theme was his identification of the nationalist and oppositional character of Shiism. He wrote to Chirol in April 1907: the Shiah religion is more national than religious *the popular movement+ is easily directed from race as well as religious motives against an alien dynasty [the Qajars] in the pay of an alien empire [Russia+ you will see the difference between this and Egypt. Here you have the elements of a real race-religious-reform movement. He suggests that the Iranian struggle is imbued with a greater sense of nationalism, thanks to its Shii character, than in Sunni Muslim countries such as Egypt. In a later dispatch to London, he touches again on this theme, the present Shah of Persia has in the view of the religious leaders, no fundamental right to the allegiance of the Persians the patriotism of the Shiite can be of a highly revolutionary character. Spring-Rice saw Shiism as both a nationalist and a revolutionary (anti-dynastic) force powering the constitutional movement, which reflects the

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nationalist impetus view. This contrasts with the perception of one of Professor E.G. Brownes unnamed correspondents from the British Legation in Tehran, who showed a clerical transformation view when he commented that in Iran, the priesthood have found themselves on the side of progress and freedom. If the reforms which the people, with their help, have fought for become a reality, nearly all their power will be gone. While Spring-Rice imputes nationalist motives to clerical participation, the anonymous observer implies that clerical participation is driven by a sudden and almost accidental liberalization. A third major theme was his dislike of liberal Britain cooperating with autocratic Russia. His identity as a liberal idealist and his understanding of Britain as the champion of global Liberalism did not sit well with the idea of an Anglo-Russian agreement. Spring-Rice wrote to Lord Cranley in April 1907, I cant find it in my bones to join our old friends the Russian bureaucracy in treading down a people trying to reform its own bureaucracy. Similarly he complained to Lady Helen Ferguson in the same month: the Russians are engaged in spoiling their own Duma at home and teaching the Shah how to spoil his Mejlis here, thus establishing a clear link between autocracy and resistance in Russia and Iran. Spring-Rices liberal idealism did not blind him to the realities of Britains imperial status and he sometimes drew Sir Edward Greys attention to the wider implications of the course of British policy in Iran. In March 1907 he wrote: if we take part with the popular party against Russia we shall be giving a very bad example to other nations who would be justified in playing the same game in our gardens. But if we take sides against the popular party we cannot hope that the Mussulmans all over the world who are watching affairs here with the greatest interest will fail to take note. Here he touches on two important issues. The first issue is the degree to which the Russian position in Iran was equivalent to the British position in India or Egypt. Spring-Rice seemed to imply their equivalence when he said, the attitude of Russia towards the popular party here is as well grounded as our own towards similar movements in Egypt and India. They threaten our interests and we naturally object. However, his contemporaries would certainly have argued that the major difference between the Russian position in Iran and the British position in India or Egypt was that Iran was still in theory an independent state rather than a Russian colony. The second issue is the impact of developments in Iran on Muslims worldwide, particularly on British colonial subjects in India and Egypt. In a letter to Chirol in April 1907, Spring-Rice expressed his fear that our abandonment of cause of liberty as soon as it is adopted by a Mussulman nationour alliance with the enemy of liberty, because it is a Christian powerall this leaves an impression. The danger of alienating Muslims is a recurring theme in British perceptions, particularly in the imperialist perspective. It was also deployed strategically by liberal idealists as a way to berate Sir Edward Grey over his Iranian policy and discredit him in the eyes of imperialists. Spring-Rices passionate liberal idealism and appreciation of Iranian culture go a long way towards explaining his perceptions. He is notable for his empathy and engagement with the perspective of an insiderfor example, his observations on the role of the Shii clergy and his refusal to mock the chair-less Iranian Parliament. He left Tehran in the autumn of 1907 due

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to health problems, but continued to comment enthusiastically on the revolution in his later correspondence. (Pp.602-608) _____________________

Me:
In addition to parliamentary denunciations of Grey, the foreign-policy dissenters sought to mobilize British public opinion in opposition to Londons Iranian policy. Both the critics and the FO relied extensively on the press in what emerged as one of the preeminent debates on British foreign policy prior to World War I. The Times was a leading champion of the FO, while the radical-liberal Manchester Guardian, the Daily News, and the Nation were among the chief organs of dissent. (Pp.xxxvi-xxxvii) ***** These foreign-policy dissenters were joined by other British anti-imperialists and critics of the tsarist autocracy on the left (e.g., various socialist and radical intellectuals; the leading radical press, such as the Manchester Guardian; as well as the Labour Leader, the mouthpiece of the Independent Labour Party faction of the Labour Party; and Justice, the organ of the Social Democratic Party [Social Democratic Federation before 1906]). (P.xxxv) ***** Contrary to Lynchs suggested course of action, the parliamentary dissenters, along with the radical press (largely owing to efforts by H.N. Brailsford, H.W. Nevinson, A.G. Gardiner, Lucien Wolf, and H.W. Massingham), were amplifying their battle cry of Grey must go. As expected, a fierce barrage of renewed condemnations of the foreign secretary also appeared in the socialist press, with the Labour Leader and Justice taking the lead. Meanwhile, Browne and the Indian Muslim nationalist leader Syed Ameer Ali made some of their harshest criticisms of Grey yet. (P.279) ***** The Labour Leader, lampooning Greys incendiary secret diplomacy exposed by British public opinion, still hoped some form of American support for Shuster would be forthcoming and, more especially, a united protest from the democracies of Europe. The Manchester Guardian published a number of letters, including a long denunciation of Greys collusion with St. Petersburg by John Dillon. In another letter to the paper, Dillon characterized the Russian pretext for its latest ultimatum as the most preposterous and outrageous ever made use of by a great Power for invading another nations territory. Justice provided an identical analysis of the situation: Anything more cynically contemptuous of popular rights or of international morality has surely never been done, even by Russia herself, than the enterprise upon which she is at

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present engaged in Persia. It added: What concerns us more nearly, however, is the humiliating part we, as a nation, are being compelled to play in the whole discreditable business. Grey was not deserted by his retinue of supporters. The Times dismissed the analyses of the latest Iranian crisis appearing in the radical and socialist press as mere desperate flights of fancy. Providing further alleged evidence of Shusters tactless conduct, it added, the impression that the American Government may be persuaded to take a hand in the Shuster incident seems to have gained more ground in England than in the United States. To underscore Shusters continued provocation of the two great powers, it reported another letter from Shuster, similar to the earlier letter he had sent to the Times, had recently appeared in the American World. The Spectator and other pro-FO papers followed suit in defense of the foreign secretary. (P.p.280-281) ***** To corroborate this far-reaching spectrum of critical opinion, the Labour Leader provided excerpts from speeches and commentaries by Lord Lansdowne (Unionist), Bonar Law (Unionist), Lord Courtney (Radical), D. Mason (Radical), Noel Buxton (Radical), John Dillon (Irish Nationalist), Philip Snowden (Labour), W. Evans Darby (of the National Peace Council), as well as the Executive of the Liberal Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Manchester Guardian, the Daily News, the Nation, and the Morning Leader. (P.290) ***** The Labour Leader concluded its article Is Persia doomed? with the now ubiquitous motto of the dissenters: Sir Edward Grey must go. Similar utterances were made by other Labour personalities, such as William C. Anderson, the chairman of the ILP. Even though the Labour Leader enjoyed larger circulation than the Social Democratic Justice, the size of its readership certainly did not even remotely approach those of the Manchester Guardian or the Times, which represented the two leading rival organs in the foreign-policy debate. Although the Manchester Guardian was considered a provincial paper, it was distributed nationally, and the views expressed in its pages were illustrative of both the increased antipathy among a growing cross-section of the British public to Greys policies and the proximity of Radical and Labour opposition to Grey. At the same time, the paper often echoed the perspective of Manchesters powerful commercial interests, which generally endorsed liberalism in domestic politics. The ideological premises and rhetoric of the Labour Leader and Justice in condemnation of Grey, on the other hand, were overtly partisan. For its part, Justice also rejected the prevalent Labour and Radical assumption of Germanys underlying commitment to peace in Europe. Yet, despite some differences in their foreign-policy purviews, dissenters on the Left collectively subscribed to a number of key foreign-policy convictions, such as the democratic control of foreign affairs and respect for the sovereign rights of weaker countries and peoples. (P.292) ***** The Labour Leader even suggested the FO was behind a leading article in The Times, which attempts to justify immediate occupation on the ground of Persias weakness, and of our own political and commercial interests. The Times was not alone in encouraging a more permanent

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British military presence in southern Iran. Citing the attack on Smart and the sowras as proof of the prevailing state of chaos in Iran, the British edition of Review of Reviews maintained that Iran lacked centralized and unified governmental and national structures (the absurdity of regarding the Persians as a homogeneous self-governing unit). This observation was not entirely an incorrect. However, what such commentaries ignored was the additional breakdown in central authority in Iran due to widespread Russian intervention in the north. The Review of Reviews echoed Dr. E.J. Dillons pronouncements in the Contemporary Review that Iran could only survive as a realm with the benefaction of the two great powers. The Iranian question was the overriding foreign-policy topic in Britain now, even if an article appearing in the Fortnightly Review insisted otherwise. (P.304) ***** British reactions to the Iranian coup were mixed. Angus Hamilton, the imperialist and Germanphobe war correspondent and foreign-policy commentator, greeted the event as having removed at a single stroke a formidable precedent for the independence movement in India. In his typically invidious style, Hamilton wrote: It is obvious, however, if the tumultuous scenes of the last few months are proof sufficient, that Persia is not ready for constitutional government, and the travesty of procedure which the Mejlis has offered to the world has carried its own condemnation. At the same time the experiment will not have been without value, if the lesson to be learned is of use to those who, failing to understand that the elective principle of government is not applicable to Asiatic countries, would welcome the establishment of Home Rule in India. Further, while the Shah is to be congratulated upon the collapse of a system of government that was never adapted to the conditions prevailing in his country, it is to be hoped that the unthinking and unnatural encouragement offered from certain quarters in London to the programme of the Indian Congress has been checked by the failure of the attempt to impose constitutional methods upon a people that, no less than those of India, are only fitted to survive under the aegis of autocracy. Nonchalantly affirming British rule in India as a form of autocracy, Hamilton was gravely underestimating the resilience of nationalist fervor in both Iran and India. He was also underrating the intensity of the commitment in certain quarters in London to nationalist causes in the colonies and in places such as Iran, as well as the firm conviction of many British foreignpolicy dissenters on the Left, and anti-imperialists in general, that non-Western cultures, too, were fit for democratic principles and institutions. Brownes reaction to both Hamilton and the regular foreign affairs analyst of the Fortnightly Review, Dr. E.J. Dillon, was a passionate condemnation of their cultural bigotry. Browne cited historical examples of Iranian aspirations for freedom and reforms and vindicated the programs of the now-disbanded majlis. (P.110) ***** The radical and socialist press in Britain was predictably virulent in its condemnations of the FO and St. Petersburg after the coup. For the Manchester Guardian, this event marked a definitive turning point in its stance on the Anglo-Russian Agreement. Its editor, C.P. Scott, was

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already emerging as an invaluable participant in the campaign against Greys Iranian policy. (P.111) ***** The banner of national independence was raised also by the British radical and socialist press, such as the Nation, the Daily News, the Manchester Guardian, the Labour Leader, and Justice, even if C.P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian occasionally wavered in his reproach of Grey. In 1909, the Manchester Guardian inquired, when will Europe understand that Nationalism is the mainspring of all the popular movements in the eastnot efficiency, not progress [sic], but the ineradicable passion for liberty, the inalienable right of every country to work out its own salvation? British foreign-policy dissenters on the Left were emphatic that London should refrain from further imperial adventures or violations of territorial sovereignty around the globe. There was also an overstated consensus among many dissenters that Persia was merely a symptom of the Anglo-German situation. ... The primary consideration of our diplomacy has been to win friendship from Russia and other states as against Germany. (P.378) ***** Urged on by the committee, the Manchester Guardian intensified its condemnation of the rumored Russian plan to dispatch troops to Tabriz. Fearful that Grey may take advantage of the parliamentary recess to stage yet another foreign-policy coup, sanctioning a Russian invasion of Tabriz, the Manchester Guardian also stepped up its reproach of the foreign secretary. Grey was warned the occupation of Tabriz by Russian forces would amount to a partition of Iran and almost certainly lead to the destruction of the liberties and the independence of the Persian people, ... which would grievously weaken faith in England throughout the [Muslim] world. (Pp.169-170) ***** The Manchester Guardian, too, was attaching greater weight to worldwide Muslim opinion, insisting Grey had driven not Persia alone wild with anger, but Islam. (Pp.229-230) ***** Other than the extensive general press coverage of the Iranian revolution in different parts of the world, sympathetic articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor in defense of the Iranian nationalist struggle would appear in the national and provincial press in various countries. Among others, these ranged from the British radical and socialist press (including the SDPs Social Democrat in addition to some of the papers already mentioned) to the German Die Neue Zeit; the French lhumanit, Le Siecle, laction; the Russian liberal press, such as Reych, or the Russian socialist press, such as Proletary; the left-leaning Indian nationalist Modern Review; and the American Outlook, the Independent, and the Nation. Numerous writers and journalists, such as the Russian revolutionary writer Maxim Gorky, the British author and poet John Galsworthy, the Indian world journalist Saint Nihal Singh, the French Marylie Markovitch, or

36

the French Jean Herbette lent their pen to the cause of Irans independence around the world. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution was an early example of an internationalized revolutionary event in the East par excellence. (Pp.122-123) ***** Nonetheless, the SDP continued its unwavering advocacy of the Iranian nationalist struggle in the pages of Justice and the Social Democrat, as well as within the framework of the ISB, and all foreign-policy dissenters on the Left were unanimous that Anglo-Russian friendship only bolstered the Russian autocracy at home and abroad without guaranteeing preservation of European peace. (P.357) ***** Examples of this kind of anomalous rhetoric can be found in two letters sent by Brailsford and Lynch to the Times in September 1907. Brailsford clearly was hoping to exploit imperialist sensibilities while simultaneously stressing the need to sympathize with Iranian nationalists. Brailsford wrote: If the Agreement were, in fact as it is in form, merely a local Asiatic engagement, which left our hands free, it might not be relevant to consider the character of the Russian Government. There would still, however, be room for criticism against this particular Agreement. It had its origins in a set of conditions which are now quite obsoletethe weakness of England in the Middle East during the Boer War, the apparent strength of Russia before the Japanese War, the apparently hopeless decadence of Persia before the Reform movement. An Agreement which might have been a good bargain three years ago seems curiously out of date now. Moreover, it involves a menace to the integrity and independence of Persia at the very moment when a hopeful nationalist revival ought to have taught us rather to win the confidence of the Persians, than to stereotype Russian supremacy. ... (P.87) ***** Lynch evidently was perturbed by the dilemma then confronting the Iranian constitutionalists and the Persia Committee in light of the shahs obdurate posture and the latest Russian statements. The committee had received a letter from the pro-constitutionalist Iranian Shii clerics in Kerbela and Nejef (Ottoman Iraq), renouncing their allegiance to the Shah as a robber and usurper. Although Lynch considered it more politic to downplay the constituionalist enmity towards the shahRussia will not brook his dispositionhe felt the committee had no choice but to publish the letter from the clerics. This move was intended to counter the telegram appearing in the Times, to the effect that the religious chiefs in Tehran [i.e., the anti-constitutionalist Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri and his associates] had affixed their signatureprobably under compulsion[!]to a petition for the abolition of the Constitution. Brailsford feared Russia might make use of this [telegram] to justify her in assuming that the

37

clergy were on the side of the Shah, and that the Constitutionalists were a turbulent minority. This might be used as a pretext for [Russian] intervention. (P.169) ***** [As already quoted above in another context:] The Times correspondent hinted at other supposed anomalies in Iranian revolutionary ranks. Obviously aware of religious tensions between the predominantly Shii population and the persecuted Babi heterodoxy in Iran he sought to exploit the religious rivalries in Iran to the detriment of the constitutional movement. Having already alluded to the foreign Christian presence in nationalist ranks, he maintained: Should the present revolutionary movement be successful, and there is little doubt that it will be if Sattar Khan succeeds at Tabriz, and should it really have Babism at its back, its results may be more far-reaching than is at present realised. Should it be found to aim not only at a change in the whole system and machinery of government but at the renunciation of Shiah Mahomedanism in favour of the mystical doctrines of the Babis[,] the struggle may become embittered by an outburst of orthodox fanaticism. It is true that many of the ulema [i.e., leading Shii clerics] are said to be secretly inclined to Babism; but the majority, even among those who now support the nationalist movement, would be driven into the arms of the Shah if its ulterior aim should turn out to be heretical and, what is worse, anti-clerical. . What was unique about the above report in the Times, however, was its discussion of Babi participation in the revolution and the clandestine adherence of some leading Iranian proconstitutional Shii clerics to the Babi faith. (Pp.182-183) ***** These fierce ideological rifts in Iran posed an acute dilemma for British dissenters, which would be compounded after the Bakhtiari-led usurpation of power in December 1911. Many of the dissenters had no desire to take sides publicly in political squabbles among Iranian nationalists not directly related to Russian and British acts of aggression in that country. To do so would countenance Greys position that dissenters sought to embroil London in Irans internal affairs. Moreover, if it came to choosing sides, dissenters could not have formed a united front and were bound to split over different Iranian factions they considered worthy of support. This was not an appealing prospect. The likes of Dr. E.J. Dillon had now found yet another pretext for taunting the dissenters: [C]an the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Can Persia to-day forsake anti-social ways? It seems doubtful. Anarchy in the land is chronic. Like the law of the Medes and Persians it altereth not, however much the friends of that ill-starred nation may bestir themselves to help it out of its difficulties. A year ago we were assured that the only obstacle in the way of Persias regeneration was absolutism. Banish the Shah and his poisonous environment, the friends of Persia said, and you have rejuvenated the [I]ranian nation. (Pp.215-216)

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***** The revived Persia Committees objectives reflected the new circumstances in Iran. While still intending to focus and stimulate public interest in the Persian people and in their efforts to regenerate Persia, there was no mention of the original goal of enlisting public opinion on the side of the declared policy of Great Britain and Russianamely, non-intervention in Persia. This omission was not simply because the pledge by the two powers to respect Irans sovereignty in the 1907 Agreement had been violated so thoroughly that it was not worth the paper on which it was drafted. Rather, dissenters were now convinced Russian intervention in Iranian affairs could be contained only through Londons diplomatic counterintervention on behalf of Tehran. This conviction was indicative of the profound desperation of the dissenters. They sneered at the likes of Dr. E.J. Dillon, who wondered whether a nation incapable of mustering successful resistance to imperialist incursions was worthy of independence. Greys critics on the Left and their Irish Nationalist associates, such as John Dillon, were emphatic Irans national sovereignty was just as sacrosanct as that of any other nation. Applying progressive tenets to foreign policy, dissenters on the Left embraced an internationalist purview and occasionally even resorted to proto-globalist or transnational platforms which called for respecting the rights of Muslims and other religious groups as well as the rights of weaker nations and oppressed races. They insisted the a priori dictum of common humanity and respect for the rights of nations and peoples obligated London and its allies to pursue policies corresponding to what was best for Morocco, Persia and Bosnia, as the case may be. In other words, Grey should aspire to nurture the nationalist and reformist aspirations of Iranians, rather than prolonging the life of the tsarist Minotaur. Of course, these dissenters were not unanimous on the question of which Iranians, Moroccans, or Bosnians they had in mind, and which brands of competing nationalisms or reformist aspirations among those peoples were more worthy of international support. Condemning imperialism and attempting to highlight the plight subject races, Henry W. Nevinson, a radical war correspondent and a member of the Persia Committee, composed a hypothetical account of life in Britain Under the Yoke of foreign occupation, that of Germany in this scenario, as India and Egypt are subject to us. This article relied on an empathic discursive technique frequently employed by anti-imperialists and anti-racists, urging the readers to imaginatively situate themselves as others. (Pp.256-257) ***** The Iranian campaign of British foreign-policy dissenters reflects the manifold contested constructs of inter- and intra-cultural and political alterity and difference with respect to British foreign policy, imperialism, and British assumptions about Iran. While in their public utterances the dissenters periodically exalted their own societys reforms and political institutions as models adopted by their Iranian friends, they also embraced an internationalist language of solidarity and camaraderie with social and political reformers in other regions of the world in opposition to worldwide forces of tyranny and imperialism (including their own government). These commentaries explicitly attested the ability of Iranians to attain social and political progress and endorsed their right to national independence, in contrast with repeated assertions in certain British circles that Orientals were inherently incapable of progress and unfit for selfgovernment.

39

On occasion, the dissenters stressed that the Iranian revolution was a native-inspired and native-born movement, which did not require the abandonment of ostensibly authentic Iranian and (Shii) Islamic traditions and cultural values. Interestingly, many Iranian revolutionaries themselves, on the other hand, acknowledged that their nationalist and political objectives were inspired by European precepts and models. In this respect, some British dissenters were engaged in a premeditated and ideologically motivated invention of Iranian cultural and political traditions in their prodigious attempt to privilege and sustain the constitutional and nationalist struggle of their Iranian friends. In some references to the Iranian revolution, or the subsequent 1908 revolution of the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire, British dissenters and a host of other commentators posited ambiguous and ahistorical accounts of these societies, such as maintaining that the fundamental principles and traditions of Islam, or some other cultural underpinnings of these societies, were in no way antithetical or contrary to ideals of freedom of expression, individual rights, or democratic participation. (Pp.xlii-xliii) ***** Moreover, just as many Russophoebs and Germanphobes in Britain differentiated between the tsar and the Russian reformers, the Russian peasantry, or the Jewish victims of pogroms in Russia, or between the kaiser and the German reformers, many British detractors of Oriental despotism in the early years of the twentieth century also refrained from equating despotism with an unchanging, sine qua non Oriental identity. The presence of reformers in various Oriental societies no doubt was consequential in nurturing this elastic interpretation of the Other. (P.xxiii) ***** Though Lynch would significantly modify his characterization of Oriental countries and peoples in the coming years, Browne must have agonized over continued stereotypical references to the Orient appearing in the commentaries by some dissenters. Browne had been attempting to divorce references to Iran from negative, and often contradictory, assumptions about Oriental societies in British imperialist and culturally-chauvinistic circles, which simultaneously cast these societies as both historically static and unstable. In the process, Browne occasionally went to the other extreme, ascribing to Iranians an exceptional national quality of historical and cultural fecundity and resilience, which supposedly set them apart from, and even above, Arabs and Indians. At this stage, Lynchs characterization of Iranian society was more in keeping with standard disparaging accounts of Iran . (P.124) ***** On November 16, Browne and Trevelyan delivered speeches during a special debate on Iran and the Anglo-Russian Agreement at the New Reform Club. Trevelyan, blaming Greys policy on the pro-Russian maneuverings of Sir Arthur Nicolson and Sir Charles Hardinge, characterized the Iranian question as the most important question next to the upcoming general election. (P.238)

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Etc., etc., etc., etc.,

Andic:
The British press played a key role in portraying and defining the Iranian Constitutional Revolution for the British public, and portrayals and perceptions in the press were designed for the general rather than specialist reader. The press section will focus on the Times (of London) and the Manchester Guardian, the two main sources of news on the Iranian situation. Each paper represented different perspectives: the Guardian was primarily liberal idealist while the Times had a mixed Europeanist and local pragmatist perspective with occasional nods to the imperialist perspective. As a major national newspaper, the Times reported more extensively and in greater detail than the Guardian, then a provincial Manchester-based newspaper, but both contained insightful editorials which shed light on their different perceptions of the Constitutional Revolution and how it was affected by the Anglo-Russian Convention. Both newspapers were initially enthusiastic about the constitutional movement, although the Times was more skeptical about its prospects for success than the Guardian, and, in keeping with its Europeanist perspective, placed more emphasis on how it would affect British and Russian commercial and strategic interests in Iran. The Guardian, by contrast, prioritized respect for the nascent constitutional regime over British and Russian interests and saw Iran as a sovereign, independent state equal to both Britain and Russia, at least in diplomatic if not military or economic terms. For the Guardian, an outstanding feature of the revolution was the precedent which it could set for the Muslim and Asian world, challenging prejudices about the incapacity of Asian states to reform internally and self-govern, whereas the Times placed less emphasis on this aspect of the revolution. The Times adopted a nationalist impetus and later a radical usurpation view of the revolution, whereas the Guardian adopted the clerical transformation view. The editor of the Guardian during this period was C.P. Scott, an influential liberal radical whose political convictions were instrumental in shaping the newspaper's stance on Iran. The Times, on the other hand, was often denounced by liberal radicals as the mouthpiece of the Foreign Office, and although the views expressed in the Times often mirrored those of top-level Foreign Office officials, by no means did it reflect the diversity of opinion within the Foreign Office. The Europeanist perspective of the Times can be seen in an editorial from December 1906 on the subject of Anglo-Russian cooperation in Asia. The editorial commented on the traditional Iranian rough method of reform, whereby decrepit dynasties were continuously replaced with new ones by a succession of strong men. This method would still be viable, argued the writer, given the national spirit is by no means dead in Persia to-day, were it not for the influence of Britain and Russia, which had become the props to her feeble and incompetent rulers, which in turn threw a certain moral responsibility upon the two Powers, who prevent her *Iran+ from righting her wrongs in her own fashion. This commentary reveals a number of points. Firstly, it suggests a continuing undercurrent of national vitality in Iran and places the current situation in the context of a historical pattern of Darwinian dynastic replacement, in the manner of the Safavids, the Afsharids, the Zands and the Qajars. With its outsider strong man theory, it also foreshadows the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. Thus it historicizes what may otherwise seem

41

like a stagnant and changeless state of affairs. Secondly, it holds Russian and British influence responsible for artificially maintaining a regime in need of replacement, thereby implicating both powers in its current decay but also exhorting their joint responsibility for its regeneration. The author does not advocate what seems to be the most obvious solution; that the powers should retreat and let Iran tackle problems in her own fashion. This solution is presumably considered improbable because of the extensive network of established British and Russian interests in Iran, which shows the Europeanist perspective of the author and the Times in general. Furthermore, while it approves the old rough method of reform, it makes no mention of the new method of reform which was emerging, that of constitutional and representative government. A similar theme is taken up in an earlier editorial from August 1906, when the author effectively dismisses the feasibility of European-style representative government in Iran and commends Muzaffar al-Din Shah for his wisdom to disregard European models and to call together an assembly representing only the existing influences and interests in the country (the National Council), from which there might emerge a strong man to restore order and prosperity, in the manner of the great Nadir Shah or Aga Mahomed Khan. The author makes it clear that the maintenance of a stable, and if possible, a progressive government in Persia is the optimal outcome for British interests. The implicit theme in the commentary is the importance of established British and Russian interests in Iran, which mirrored the attitude of top-level Foreign Office officials Sir Edward Grey, and his permanent undersecretaries Sir Charles Hardinge (190510) and Sir Arthur Nicolson (191016). The main objective was to maintain a stable and orderly government in Iran; if this could be achieved in a constitutional or democratic manner, all the better, but if not, the constitutional cause would not necessarily be promoted for its own sake, especially if this seriously jeopardized good relations with Russia. This was the essence of the Europeanist perspective. The Guardian's portrayal of the revolution was shaped largely by liberal idealism. There is a barely concealed sense of enthusiasm and astonishment over the situation in Iran in early editorials from 1906 and 1907. An editorial from December 1906 reported triumphantly that much sawdust has been knocked of the generalities which served Europeans for knowledge of internal Persian politics, with specific reference to the observations in Lord Curzon's 1891 work, Persia and the Persian Question. The editorial went on to advocate a thorough revision of British policy and negotiations with Russia over the fate of Iran, as the internal situation had developed in such an unforeseen manner as to invalidate the basis of the old policy: England must not place herself in opposition to the wishes of any body that represents, however imperfectly, the popular wishes the provisional partition of an independent country is never defensible on the ground of either morality or of our national interests, and it is doubly indefensible now that Persia has shown signs of national life. The author exemplified the liberal idealist perspective by prioritizing respect for an imperfect elected body in a weak Asian state over the national interests of the world's foremost imperial power, a sentiment which was shared by other liberal idealists such as H.N. Brailsford (1873 1958). In a letter to the Times, Brailsford argued that the Anglo-Russian Convention had its origins in a set of conditions which are now quite obsolete, namely the apparent hopeless

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decadence of Persia before the Reform movement. The Convention had materialized at an inopportune moment, when a hopeful nationalist revival ought to have taught us to win the confidence of the Persians. For liberal idealists, the need for the Convention had been obviated; the decadent, backward Iran it was designed to deal with had been reincarnated in a progressive, liberal form, and as a liberal power Britain was bound to respect it. The Guardian could barely contain its enthusiasm about the revolution's potential for spreading liberalism in Asia and Africa. An editorial from January 1907 exclaimed, this political revolution, the most wonderful, perhaps, that has ever taken place in a Mahometan country has been accomplished practically without bloodshed and the author went on to state his hope that the new Shah (Muhammad Ali) would support the cause of reform and thereby allow Iran to once more take the lead among independent Mahometan countries. It is a crisis of absorbing political interest not only for Persia but for the whole Mahometan world. The author alluded to the liberal idealist hope that Iran had the opportunity to set a precedent for independent Muslim countries, of which there were not many in 1907 (the Ottoman Empire and Morocco, which was nominally independent) and indicated how the event was of interest for the entire Muslim worldwhich could be a provocative comment given the large number of British Muslim imperial subjects. For the most part, the constitutional movement was portrayed as something novel and unprecedented in Iran and Islam. This made the Times skeptical about its prospects for success, while the Guardian waxed lyrical about its pioneering nature. An exception was a Guardian article from September 1906 which portrayed responsible government as an ancient Iranian practice. The article stated that an elected National Assembly in Iran has come as a surprise to those who are accustomed to the idea of the absolute autocracy of the kings of Persia, yet in fact consultative assemblies were familiar in ancient Iran and deliberative popular assemblies were recurring features of Iranian life, even among the wildest Kurds; thus Muzaffar al-Din Shah was reverting, in the creation of a National Assembly, to an exceedingly primitive and equally praiseworthy constitutional custom of ancient Iran. The article invented a tradition of responsible government in Iran dating back to antiquity and thereby presented such a government as authentically Iranian rather than an alien import. This echoed the approach of E.G. Browne, who presented Iran as an inherently dynamic and intellectually rich society which could find within its own traditions the ballast to drive reform. The author also conflated responsible, constitutional and representative government in a rather casual way, but presumably the goal of the article was not to imply that regular elections were held in ancient Iran but rather to demonstrate an indigenous precedent for checks on the power of the sovereign. In addition to their broad perspectives outlined above, the two papers expressed specific perceptions of the revolution. The Times initially adopted the nationalist impetus view, particularly with regard to clerical participation, but later switched to the radical usurpation view in 1907. The Guardian tended towards the clerical transformation view and did not comment as extensively on the workings of the local councils (known in Persian as anjumans) and their links to secret revolutionary societies. In keeping with the nationalist impetus view, the Times acknowledged the strength of the reform movement during its early stages and the intensity of indigenous demand for the constitution, and did not dismiss it as one of those waves of restlessness that from time to time pass over an Oriental community. Even if the

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constitution itself was a document inspired by and perhaps copied from a Western model, the underlying nationalist sentiment which secured its grant was deemed genuine. A key difference between the two papers was their understanding of the role played by the clerics. The Times portrayed them as a traditional bulwark between the monarchy and the masses, who often championed the people and who had of recent years come to stand as the representatives of the national feeling in Persia against foreign influences. The Times argued that clerical participation need not be credited to a zeal for constitutional reform so much as to disgust at the way in which the Shah has mortgaged the country to Russia. Hence, the Times expressed the nationalist impetus view with regard to clerical participation. The Guardian portrayed the clerics as historically engaged in a protracted power struggle with the monarchy, and, in contrast to the Times, argued that they had chiefly distinguished themselves by ferocious persecution of all independent thought and even by opposition to popular rights. Clerical participation in the movement was attributed to either a desire to re-assert their power or to the influence of Babism, which could have liberalized them and inclined them to show greater sympathy with the masses than in the past. This was an example of the clerical transformation view. (Pp.608-612) _____________________

Me:
The extraordinary Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926), whom C.P. Trevelyan would hyperbolically characterize as the anarchist friend of Persia, proved a tremendous asset to both Iranian constitutionalists/nationalists and British foreign-policy dissenters. He was instrumental in promoting and publicizing the cause of Irans independence and constitutional reforms in the pages of the press in Britain and in other countries, as well as at various gatherings and lectures. He persistently solicited worldwide support for the Iranian nationalist struggle, attempted on a number of occasions to personally convince Grey and other FO staff through private communications and meetings to reconsider Londons Iranian policy, and served as an important emissary between British dissenters and various groups of Iranian nationalists. Browne also routinely translated and publicized information received from his Iranian constitutional friends, facilitated translated correspondence between Iranian nationalists and British critics of Grey, acted as an interpreter for Iranian nationalists visiting Britain, provided anonymous financial assistance to a number of Iranian nationalist refugees arriving in Britain during the time of the Iranian civil war of 1908-9, and was a cofounder of the Persia Committee (formed in October 1908). Many prominent British foreign-policy dissenters would take their cue from Browne in coordinating their Iranian campaign over the next few years, and Iranian nationalist circles repeatedly expressed their gratitude to Browne for his invaluable service in preserving their countrys independence. The sheer quantity of well-informed pamphlets, articles, and letters to the editor written by Browne on the Iranian question, his 1910 magnum opus, The Persian Revolution of 19051909, and his astonishingly voluminous correspondence with various individuals and groups around the world on Iranian developments from 1906 to 1912, are by themselves a remarkable

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feat for any individual devoted to a particular cause, even if we disregard the fact that during the Iranian campaign Browne continued his academic duties, worked on a number of other scholarly manuscripts, and assisted other foreign-policy and anti-imperialist campaigns. The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, which has since gone through a number of editions, continues to be consulted as one of the most detailed and authoritative accounts of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. Moreover, as his 1907 article in the Albany Review and his other statements and publications indicate, in his prodigious appeals to British public opinion on behalf of Iranian nationalists, Browne often made it possible for Iranian voices to be heard directly, by frequently quoting from Iranian sources and communiqus. This was part of his determined effort to convince the British public that, contrary to antagonistic statements appearing in the pro-FO press, Iranians and other Orientals not only were capable of aspiring to and attaining the cherished values of liberty and self-determination, but that such values were not culturally alien concepts imported from the West. It became a routine assertion of Brownes that the Iranian revolution reflected deep-seated and intrinsic native aspirations in keeping with time-honored Iranian traditions, and not some form of misplaced or forced imitation of the West inflicted upon the people by a small group of reformers. In the process, Browne constructed selective narratives of Iranian history and cultural and political traditions, eliding and distorting facets of Iranian cultural and intellectual practices and ethos which were bound to reflect poorly on Iranian constitutional and nationalist aspirations. Despite his initial chief concern with the welfare of Babi, Bahai, and Zoroastrian religious minorities in Iran and occasional earlier blanket deprecations of Islams intolerance toward religious and cultural dissent, by the time of the outbreak of the Iranian revolution it was his interest in the preservation of few remaining independent Muslim countries, as well as his extensive affection for Iran, that compelled Browne to devote so much of his life and personal resources to the Iranian question. Browne also harbored a general revulsion toward imperialism. He did not abandon his opposition to continued persecution of religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim societies, even though during the time of the Iranian revolution he tempered his former efforts to publicize the plight of Babi and Bahai religious minorities in Iran, for fear of alienating the leading pro-constitutional Iranian Shii clerics and reflecting poorly on the social accomplishments of Iranian revolutionaries. Browne was an orientalist in the service of the Orient, endeavoring to present a much more positive image of the Orient than what could be found in the pages of the Times and in other indiscriminately disparaging accounts by some Western scholars and commentators. The FO in London quickly recognized Brownes pivotal role in the Iranian campaign of British foreign-policy dissenters. (Pp.91-94) Etc. . ***** [From Bonakdarian, Edward G. Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle: From Academic Orientalism to Political Activism, Iranian Studies 26(1-2), Winter/Spring 1993, pp.731:] In the hope of a broader persuasive appeal, Browne was continuously engaged in alternating between different discursive reconstructions of particular moments in Iran's past vis-a-vis other

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peoples and cultures. In 1910 he attempted yet another historical approach in stimulating support for the Iranian cause, by placing Iran on par with Greece (considered the cradle of Western civilization) []by virtue of the service it had rendered for 2,500 years to thought, art, and literature, deserved to rank with Greece as a nation which the human race could ill spare." Therefore, Iran was deserving of its independence if for no other reason than its former contribution to history. Though Browne does not specifically spell out the various implications of this comparison for the British public, it is possible that he was also hoping to evoke the same sort of support for Iranian nationalists as the British Romantics had mustered in support of the Greek war of independence against the Ottomans in the 1820s. Another theme which predominates in Browne's writings is that of Islam and its future, particularly in connection with the Iranian national identity. (Pp.22-23) ***** It appears that it was British critics of Londons involvement in the Iranian tobacco concession, granted to a British citizen in 1890, who first championed the rights of the Iranian nation to self-determination in British debates on foreign policy. The young E.G. Browne, meanwhile, came into closer contact with the ideological platforms of two prominent Iranian reformers residing in Britain at the time, Malkum Khan and Sayyid Jamal al-Din Assadabadi (a.k.a. Afghani), who significantly influenced Brownes subsequent interest in Iranian politics. (Pp.xliv-xlv) ***** In 1908 Browne would inform his British audience: The constitutional idea was vigorously preached and popularized in Persia at least twenty-two years ago by the remarkable man Seyyid Jamalud-Din al-Afghan [Assadabadi], and also by the late Prince [sic] Malkum Khan ... But the actual emergence into being and activity of a real popular party, determined to check the extravagance of the Court and resist undue foreign influences, dates from the obnoxious Tobacco Concession [of 1890-92]. (P.56) ***** Meanwhile, Brownes long-awaited magnum opus, The Persian Revolution of 19051909, had finally been published around late September. One of the earliest reviews of the book, which was highly favorable, appeared in the Scotsman. Subsequent British and international reviews proved more contentious. Whereas the radical, most socialist, and anti-colonial nationalist press almost uniformly greeted the book with uncritical acclamation, the reviews appearing in conservative and pro-FO press were unanimously hostile, albeit generally admitting Brownes authoritative knowledge of Iran. For British dissenters, Brownes book, which was the most detailed study of the Iranian revolution published anywhere at the time, came to serve as both an indispensable account of Iranian nationalist awakening and as an inventory of past British and Russian violations of Iranian sovereignty. (P.228) *****

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The overall-favorable review of Brownes The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 appearing in the New York Times was remarkably anachronistic in its commentary on attachment to sentiments of national identity, Mr. Browne believes that national diversity is a higher law and a more desirable state than uniformity. But such a conclusion is open to grave doubts in days when rapid communication, commercial enterprise and national ambitions seem to be welding the peoples of the world into a more homogeneous whole. This reviewer, however, was too quick to equate Brownes opposition to imperialism with an unqualified endorsement of the type of rabid nationalism that set peoples against one another. In the preface to The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, Browne outlined his fundamental presuppositions, or dogmas as he termed it, that consecrated sentiments of national and cultural attachment as virtues: (I) That in this world diversity, not uniformity, is the higher law and the more desirable state. (II) That everything in this world has its own generic perfection, or as the Bbs quaintly phrase it, its own Paradise, which is only attainable by the realization of its own highest potentialities, not by the adoption or attempted adoption of the attributes of something else. (III) That, whether it be a question of individuals or nations, the destruction of a distinctive type is a loss to the universe and therefore evil. As already noted, Browne believed one of the chief evils of imperialism was its destruction of national idiosyncrasies. But, in the process of espousing the preservation of his vaguelydefined national peculiarities of Iranians and others, Browne insisted the right of all nations to self-determination was a measure of their claim to a common humanity. (Pp.375-376)

***** 20. For a sampling of contemporary reviews of Brownes book in the British, Iranian, and American press, see Bonakdarian Selected Correspondence of E.G. Browne. For the review of the book by Brownes Iranian friend Hussein Danish in the Persian language Shams published in Istanbul, see Gurney, E.G. Browne and the Iranian Community in Istanbul, 169. For other British reviews of the book see Nation, Dec. 31, 1910, 582-84; and the British edition of Review of Reviews, Nov. 1910, 509. It is likely the author of the highly favorable review appearing in the Manchester Guardian (Nov. 4, 1910), signed H.S., was Harold Spender of the Daily Chronicle. For favorable reviews of the book in other parts of the British empire, see Frederick Ryan The Persian Struggle, Irish Review (Dublin), Aug.1911, 281-86; and Naginlal H. Setalvad, The Revolution in Persia, Modern Review (Calcutta), Feb. 1911, 132-38, which was an article based on the information provided in Brownes book. For Brownes trenchant review of David Frasers Persia and Turkey in Revolt, which was published around this time, see Manchester Guardain, Nov. 25, 1910, 7a. (P.458) *****

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David Fraserwho had traveled to Iran and would shortly return there as the Times correspondent and compose some of the most disparaging accounts of the Iranian revolution in his reports as well as in his 1910 book, Persia and Turkey in Revoltchallenged the claim of the enthusiasm of the Persian people for the Constitution. He referred to the failure of the majlis to establish an Iranian national bank with donations from the public, instead of accepting a joint Anglo-Russian loan that the majlis had deemed contrary to Irans national interest. (Pp.152153) ***** In contrast to Brownes assessment of the situation, Lynch expressed his preference for the opinion of David Fraser of the Times. He recounted, Fraser tells me that honestly he does not think that the Persians have it in them to accomplish their regeneration. (P.218) ***** In his 1910 book, Persia and Turkey in Revolt, David Fraser, Times correspondent and a caustic critic of the reform movement in Iran, underestimated Grant Duffs true sympathies with the bastis. Fraser wrote, Mr. Grant Duff acted as intermediary between the bastis and the Government; his only hope of getting rid of the people who had ruined his garden. (P.54) ***** [As already quoted above in another context:] A report appearing in the Times in late March 1909 concentrated on foreign elements in Iranian nationalist ranks in the north of the country, particularly in the Caspian littoral. The correspondent, most certainly David Fraser, had accompanied the oriental secretary of the British legation in Tehran, George Churchill, on a factfinding mission to the Gilan province. He admitted the orderly and respectful conduct of nationalist forces toward him, but went on to question the extent of popular support for the revolution by focusing on the presence of Greeks, Kurds, Russians, Armenians, Tatars, and other groups from the Russian Caucasus in nationalist ranks. He added, their mercenaries are mostly Christians. The correspondent then questioned the source of funding for nationalist forces and their military operations. Discussing the expense involved in crossing the border from the Caucasus and the cost of adequate provisions and weapons for the nationalist forces, he wrote, it must be remembered that till lately no money had been collected in [Rasht, the city he was reporting from]. Although the correspondent did not indicate whether this suggested the money for nationalist operations had been promptly extorted from the local populace and wealthy individuals or was coming from foreign sources, his insinuation that something was amiss was unmistakable. It was in reaction to such allegations of foreign assistance to Iranian nationalists that, a few days before the appearance of this latest report, Lynch quoted in parliament from one of Moores press dispatches, In reference to the exaggerated reports of Caucasian assistance to the Constitutionalists, I can authoritatively state that the total number of Caucasians under arms here [in Tabriz] is 25 and Armenians 12, in addition to which there are a few Georgians. Most of them are Mussulmans, and were originally Persian subjects. The Times correspondent hinted at other supposed anomalies in Iranian revolutionary ranks. Obviously aware of religious tensions between the predominantly Shii population and the

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persecuted Babi heterodoxy in Iran, and grossly estimating the present proportion of Babis in the population of Persia at from 10 to 30 per cent, he sought to exploit the religious rivalries in Iran to the detriment of the constitutional movement. Having already alluded to the foreign Christian presence in nationalist ranks, he maintained: Should the present revolutionary movement be successful, and there is little doubt that it will be if Sattar Khan succeeds at Tabriz, and should it really have Babism at its back, its results may be more far-reaching than is at present realised. Should it be found to aim not only at a change in the whole system and machinery of government but at the renunciation of Shiah Mahomedanism in favour of the mystical doctrines of the Babis[,] the struggle may become embittered by an outburst of orthodox fanaticism. It is true that many of the ulema [i.e., leading Shii clerics] are said to be secretly inclined to Babism; but the majority, even among those who now support the nationalist movement, would be driven into the arms of the Shah if its ulterior aim should turn out to be heretical and, what is worse, anti-clerical. This was by no means the first occasion some British sources had raised the topic of outside military assistance to Iranian nationalist forces, particularly the presence of volunteers and mercenaries from the Russian Caucasus in the north, in the hope of undermining the integrity of the Iranian constitutional camp and rationalizing Russian intervention in that country as assistance to the Iranian ruler against armed Russian subjects. In his regular column on foreign affairs in the Contemporary Review, Dr. E.J. Dillon repeatedly maintained the Iranian revolution was being fought by foreign elements, without whom revolutionaries could not have endured. What was unique about the above report in the Times, however, was its discussion of Babi participation in the revolution and the clandestine adherence of some leading Iranian proconstitutional Shii clerics to the Babi faith. (Pp.181-183) ***** Browne and a few other British critics of Greys Iranian policy privately remained watchful of the fate of various religious minorities in Iran. Even if Browne only made ambivalent public statements regarding Bahai and Babi reception of and/or participation in the Iranian revolution or downplayed the relevance of Babi reform programs to Iranian society after the revolution, he did not entirely conceal his continued interest in the history and philosophical underpinnings of the Babi faith, despite taking considerable care not to offend the less-tolerant (Shii) Muslim sensibilities in the Iranian revolutionary camp. (P.373) ***** 25. It should be noted that, at times, Brownes celebration of Iranian historical achievements and cultural and intellectual contributions assumed an unmistakably Perso-centric dimension. For example, after hailing Iran as a nation with a continuous history reaching back for 2500 years, which repeatedly in the political and continuously in the intellectual sphere, has played a great part in the world, he remarked, For the last century, ever since the present Kjr dynasty (a dynasty not of Persian but of Mongolian [i.e., Turkic] extraction) ascended the throne of Cyrus and Darius, her course has been downwards. Ibid., 173. Browne did not mention that

49

for much of the preceding five hundred years before the Qajar seizure of power, various other Turkic and Mongol dynasties had ruled Iran. However, this omission is not necessarily indicative of anti-Turkic racial prejudice on his part. In addition to his qualified support of the Young Turks reform movement in the Ottoman Empire and his close intellectual friendship with many Turks, Brownes Iranian friends included the likes of Azeri Turks, Shaykh Hassan of Tabriz, and Taqizadeh (the latter of whom Browne held in very high esteem). However, in terms of cultural achievements, Browne continued to regard the Ottoman Turks, a people far less original and talented than either the Persians or the Arabs. (P.492) ***** Brownes assertion that Iranians deserved sympathy on account of their imputed innate qualities and their historical contribution would become a regular feature of his private and public pronouncements. As already noted, he occasionally went so far as privileging Irans civilizational heritage and the Iranian national character over and above some other Asiatic civilizations and peoples. This was no mere tactical polemic; Brownes affection for Iran and Iranians at times bordered on the excessive. Yet, despite this rhetorical marginalization of other Asiatic cultures and peoples in the hope of evoking greater support for the Iranian nationalist struggle, Browne was by no means unsympathetic to the rights of other groups. He also knew fully well that Iranian national identity, which was actually a relatively recent construct in Iranian intellectual and political discourses, had not been uniform or static throughout history. While avoiding Brownes desperate formulations of Irans unique history and culture, which presumably rendered it more worthy of outside sympathy, Blunt and a number of other British commentators also observed that it was reckless for Grey to abet the destruction of an ancient but non-Christian nation. Such commentaries about Irans ancient history and various historical contributions to the world at large clearly appealed to certain other groups whose support the British dissenters hoped to cultivate. In addition to Indias Zoroastrian Parsi community, who traced their ancestry, religion, and language to pre-Islamic Iran, or the Ismaili Shii community in India, some of whom traced their descent to nineteenth-century Iran, many Indian Muslim intellectuals of varying denominations and ideological molds regarded Iranian (Persian) culture and language as part of their own adopted heritage. (Pp.157-158) ***** During the annual dinner of the Persia Society, which now had abandoned all pretense of being a non-political organization, the Unionist Lord Newton, the key speaker who recently had returned from a visit to Iran, condemned Grey for his role in the break-up of an ancient Empire. (P.346) ***** The Irish Nationalist John Dillon, certainly no advocate of English racial or civilizational ascendancy, had been the first M.P. to condemn the Boer War in parliament and was a long-time champion of Indian self-rule and Egypts independence. At the end of a Persia Society lecture by Browne in 1912, on The Literature of Persia, Dillon rose to thank Browne, acknowledging whatever little knowledge I have of Persia, or its history, or its literature is derived entirely from the lecturer. He then proceeded to state:

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My interest in that country was aroused some years ago by the writings and the speeches of Professor Browne, and my interest to it was attracted because I have all my life thought that one of the greatest outrages against humanity that can be perpetrated is to kill the soul or the civilisation of any nation. ... ... when I learned from Professor Browne that there was a nation with so great a historic past, so great and so well-founded a national pride, and a nation who had contributed so enormously to the spiritual wealth of mankind by its arts and by its literature, in the condition that Persia is to-day, all my deepest sympathies were aroused. ... I confess that my sympathies go out to all these races. My sympathies go out to Morocco and to Egypt, and to all these races ... who have a historic past, a national selfconsciousness, which in my opinion is the necessary seed-bed of great achievement; and though it may appear somewhat of a paradox, I say that my sympathy goes out especially to those countries which still have succeeded in resisting the introduction of railways. ... I venture to offer my advice ... if you allow railways to be laid down without paying for them yourselves, your country will pass into the hands of others. It should be stressed that Dillons distinction between so-called material and spiritual civilizational realms was by no means an exclusively Western paradigm and was also evident in contemporary dialogical Oriental reactions to Western imperialism as well as in Western theosophical and other critiques of imperialism. (Pp.362-363) ***** Howard Weinroth has argued correctly that the application of this narrowly-constructed version of national sovereignty to existing British colonies indicates the ideal projection of a Liberal British government acting as midwife to emerging nations. But in many cases there were also practical limitations to the extent of Radical and Labour commitment to immediate independence in the colonies. It was more than simply the fact that Radicals believed it possible for rising nationalist forces to co-exist with imperial rule. In most instances, their limited vision of self-government in the colonies was in keeping with contemporary platforms of leading mainstream nationalist groups in the colonies, such as the Indian National Congress, which in 1906 demanded swaraj (self rule within the confines of the British Empire), or the Irish Parliamentary Partys platform of Home Rule. These representatives of mainstream nationalist movements in different parts of the British Empire themselves tended to stop short of demanding full independence. This, of course, is not to deny the existence of various militant and unrelenting nationalist movements in the colonies demanding immediate and outright independence, such as various Irish republican groups or Indian nationalists affiliated with the likes of Madame Bhikhaji (also spelled Bhikaji) Rustom Cama, Shiyamji (also spelled Shyamaji) Krishnavarma, Vinoyak Damodar Savarkar, or Ajit Singh. Reared as they were in the tradition of British liberal thought, many in the ranks of Radicals and Labour would not (at least publicly) condone the more militant tactics of separatist nationalist groups in the colonies, such as Bipin Chandra Pal in India or the platforms of the likes of the populist Hindu-

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nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai, even if some members of the British pro-India lobby frequently applauded the nationalist enthusiasm of these individuals or participated in gatherings organized in Britain and elsewhere by militant nationalist groups, as in the case of meetings by Shiyamji Krishnavarma and the India House (founded in London in 1905). On the other hand, there were practical logistical and humanitarian concerns as well. (Pp.43-44) ***** Howard Weinroths assessment of British Radicals in the ranks of foreign-policy dissenters and anti-imperialists during this period is unduly severe: Radicals identified with popular movements striving for political independence not because of a reasoned theory of nationalism but from a deep-seated humanitarianism. Above all, they were convinced that in championing the unliberated they were vindicating their own noble view of Liberalism. ... Yet in adopting one or another of the different races for a favourite pet, their Liberalism periodically became the victim of their partiality. This, in turn, caused friction among the Radicals themselves whenever national movements came into conflict. Although Weinroth is correct in emphasizing the frequently competing nationalist projects of foreign-policy dissenters (Radicals, in this case), he tends to trivialize British foreign-policy dissent and anti-imperialism. Leaving aside Weinroths undefined demarcation between humanitarian considerations and advocacy of the rights of other nations to self-determination, it is inappropriate to reduce dissenters concern with the fate of unliberated nationalities to mere self-absorbed inclinations. Even if there were dissenters in the Iranian campaign who were more engrossed in their own sense of moral grandeur and humanitarian creed, many Radicals and other dissenters sacrificed much energy, time, and personal resources for the cause of Irans independence, without demanding anything in return and enduring repeated disparaging gibes from imperialist and pro-FO circles in Britain, who cast the dissenters as trouble makers, quixotic individuals, little Englanders, etc. Besides, to have felt personally more progressive or enlightened as a result of participating in the Iranian campaign in no way diminishes or demeans the contributions of these British dissenters. Furthermore, as A.J.P. Taylor noted, albeit in an exaggerated fashion, the Iranian campaign had the advantage of being less ambiguous in terms of its participants conflicting national, ethnic, religious, and cultural aspirations in comparison with some other campaigns of British foreign-policy dissenters, such as their simultaneous endorsement of the Young Turks and the separatist aspirations of certain predominantly Christian subjects in the Balkan territories of the Ottoman empire. Taylor wrote, For a few years Persia became the principal object of Radical sympathy, adding, the Persians had the inestimable advantage over the Turks of lacking Christian subjects whom they might massacre. Religious, ethnic, and tribal tensions were by no means entirely absent during the Iranian revolution. Yet . (Pp.372373) *****

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In March, Brailsfords Fruits of Our Russian Alliance was published by the AngloRussian Committee. Brailsford lambasted Grey for closely associating London with St. Petersburgs tyrannical government, which was undermining Finlands autonomy and conducting a bloody campaign of territorial aggression in Iran. Fearing a full-scale future alliance between London and St. Petersburg, a notice appearing at the end of the book called on readers to resort to electoral lobbying against Grey: If you wish to free yourself from responsibility for this policy write to the member for your Constituency and instruct him to insist that Sir Edward Grey must refrain from any entangling alliance with Russia, and observe in the spirit and in the letter his pledge to respect the independence and integrity of Persia. (P.329) ***** Many of the once-ambivalent dissenters on the Left came to share Brailsfords unequivocal and comprehensive condemnation of imperialist expansion into the weaker, independent regions of the world. In his 1914 War of Steel and Gold, Brailsford wrote, No Power has any right over another people. The Moors, the Persians and the Bosnians alone have rights in Morocco, Persia and Bosnia. From this standpoint, it was a monstrous theory that Britain and Russia, simply because they have considerable material interests, political, strategic, and mercantile, in Persia, should have the right to dispose of the destinies of its people. This stance did not necessarily imply adherence to Little Englandism on the part of all antiimperialists, as their critics repeatedly claimed. Brailsford, who joined the socialist ILP wing of the Labour Party in 1907, embraced progressive internationalism. (P.366) ***** The day after the reception at Unwins residence on November 11, 1908, the Iranian refugees attended an evening meeting of the Central Asian Society, chaired by the Unionist MP Lord Ronaldshay, who later joined the Persia Committee. (P.151) ***** Etc., etc.

[Thomas Edward Gordon and Thomas Hart-Davies are both mentioned in my book in passing only.]

Andic:
This category is of particular interest because it includes a variety of different channels, such as books, society lectures and private letters and showcases radically different British perceptions of Iran's revolution. Among these is Professor E.G. Browne's famous contribution, The Persian Revolution (1910), which was written to counter the uninspiring portrait of the revolution which appeared a few months earlier by Times war correspondent David Fraser in Persia and Turkey in Revolt (1910). The situation in Iran also attracted the attention of special interest groups such

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as the Central Asian Society and Royal Geographical Society as well as leftist periodicals such as the Labour Leader and the Social Democrat. This section addresses contrasting perceptions of the revolution as expressed in these channels. It looks first at those defined largely by liberal idealism, a nationalist impetus view of the revolution and a generally positive understanding of Iran, with references to Aryanism and a general belief in the dynamism and innate abilities of the Iranian people. Secondly it looks at those defined largely by Europeanism and imperialism, a selfish impetus understanding of the revolution and a more stereotypically Orientalist point of view. The liberal idealist themes of dislike for Russian autocracy, the championing of oppressed peoples striving for freedom, a conviction of Britain's duty to foster global liberalism and Iran's special potential role as a beacon for political experiment in the East were echoed in civil society. Weinroth argues that the Iranian cause in particular had a special appeal for liberal idealists because Iran was a cultured nation and was perceived as a prime candidate for constitutionalism in comparison with other Asian and African states, it was not a Turkey with a long tradition of cruelty towards its Christian subjects. It was not a Morocco, still politically backward, with little chance of avoiding the imposition of a foreign protectorate. Nor was it some remote African territory whose right of selfdetermination could safely be left to the distant future. This peculiar hierarchy of maturing nations explains why Iran fired the imagination of many liberal idealists in 1907and none was more devoted to the Iranian cause than Professor E.G. Browne. Edward Granville Browne (18621926), an Orientalist in the service of the Orient, was Professor at the University of Cambridge and one of the foremost authorities on Middle Eastern languages and literature of his time. Browne, with his profound and poetic understanding of Iran, was the lodestar of liberal idealism in his characterization of the Iranian struggle. In his view, Iran was not merely a third world nation fumbling into modernity, but the Asian counterpart of Greece, which had contributed so much to the spiritual, intellectual and artistic wealth of the human race that it merited an exceptional claim on our sympathies. He went on to decry the current belief that backward Asian nations such as Iran needed to be developed by Europeans into profitable yet bland corporate entities, protesting that no amount of railways, mines, gaols, gas or drainage, can compensate the world, spiritually or intellectually, for the loss of Persia. This underlying belief shaped his attitude towards both the Constitutional Revolution and the Anglo-Russian Convention, extolling the former because of its potential to fortify Iran against foreign incursions and execrating the latter because it seemed to spell Iran's demise as an independent nation. The overall impression gained from the tone and presentation of material in The Persian Revolution is twofold: firstly, that of a deep-rooted indigenous struggle for reform which originated decades before the official start of the revolution in late 1905; and secondly, the heroic and steadfast qualities of the Iranian reformers and their followers against overwhelming odds. This portrayal was not accidental, but was deliberately designed to counter David Fraser's selfish impetus portrayals of the revolution as lacking in substance and valor, with artificial pretenses to constitutionalism and cowardly, unprincipled protagonists. In

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this sense, Browne's text was as much a work of political advocacy as it was of history. He alluded to the various appellations of the reform movementnationalist, constitutionalist and popularand argued that it was essentially the patriotic party, which stands for progress, freedom, tolerance and above all, for national independence and Persia for the Persians. He thereby clearly adopted the nationalist impetus view. His account of the revolution begins with a discussion of the anti-dynastic philosophy of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and from there he builds a narrative of escalating popular resentment of royal profligacy, which comes to a head with the clerical bast at Shah Abd al-Azim shrine in late 1905. This approach, which gave historical depth to attempts at Iranian reform, was echoed in a paper given by General Sir Thomas Gordon at the Central Asian Society in March 1907. The paper, entitled The Reform Movement in Persia, begins its account in the 1850s with a detailed biography of the Amir alKabir, Nasir al-Din Shah's famous reformist Grand Vizier. It recounts the history of Iranian reform from the Amir al-Kabir's early thwarted attempts up to the present time (March 1907), thereby giving an unusually full background to a movement which was portrayed by Fraser as having fallen from the sky. Browne also despaired that his fellow Britons were dismissive of the Iranian reformists and chastised his compatriots for their facile criticisms of the Iranian struggle, I venture to think that there was more reality and more grim determination in this Persian struggle than in our English politics throughout the struggle the Persians have been fighting for their very existence as a nation. Browne devoted a few full pages in the preface of his work to vindicating the courage and principled tenacity of Iranians past and present, with especial reference to the persecution suffered by the Babis under Nasir al-Din Shah. Browne was not the only liberal idealist who took up his pen to champion the Iranian cause. In his 1912 polemic pamphlet for the Anglo-Russian society entitled The Fruits of our Russian Alliance, the journalist H.N. Brailsford wrote of a long-standing Liberal movement in Iran, and of the Iranians as a people with high intelligence, an ancient culture and a passion for abstruse speculation (which is almost certainly inspired by Browne) whose decay he attributed to having fallen beneath the dominion of a dynasty *the Turkic Qajar dynasty] which rested for support on the warlike but uncivilised Turco-Tatar tribes who were incomparably beneath them in intellectual development. Thus the non-Aryanism of the Turkic Qajar dynasty and its supporters was implied to explain Iran's decline, which could apparently be remedied if Aryan Iranians took control and reformed their government. Brailsford identified the movement as partly theological, partly political and mainly Nationalist, thus adopting the nationalist impetus view. He argued that the demand for both constitution and parliament had its origins in the Great Bast at the British Legation, but for him this did not undermine the legitimacy of these demands. If anything, it increased Britain's responsibility towards the Iranian constitutionalists. Other sources focused less on the nature of the revolution itself and more on the suitability of representative government for Iran, drawing largely on established British understandings of Iran and Iranians. One of these is The Reform Movement in Persia lecture given by General Gordon. The overall tone of the discussion following the lecture alternated between enthusiasm and skepticism, giving an insight into the high hopes which British observers initially had for the revolution. Gordon, an army general with diplomatic experience in Iran, gave a lengthy background to the reform movement before moving onto current events in 1906 and early 1907. One of the key themes of his lecture was the innate intelligence and

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ability of the Iranian people, which had unfortunately been stifled in Iran itself by centuries of arbitrary government but which was immediately manifest when Iranians moved into more legally secure territory, for instance in the Russian Caucasus. He went on to emphasize that the talents of Iranians would facilitate the challenge of establishing representative government, the Persian is the most shrewd of all Orientals, and they therefore may acquit themselves passably well in their representative character [of government+. Already *the Parliament+ seems to have obtained a strange influence over the Ministers and the Shah. Some members of the audience, such as the Liberal Radical MP Thomas Hart-Davies, were especially hopeful about the prospects for constitutional/representative government and felt it would be an appropriate form of government in Iran. The common theme uniting these comments is that the stereotypically despotic Iranian monarchy was in fact anathema to the true character and abilities of the Iranian people, who would thrive under constitutional and representative government. By contrast, many local pragmatists, imperialists and Europeanists tended to view the strong man formula as more conducive to stability and order and more inherently suitable than representative government. The Iranian example stood in stark contrast to that of other Muslim nations, where all national political movements are not liberal, but conservative; they never seek to modify the theocratic ideal or the autocratic practice of government, but rather, to confirm it. He argued that the fundamental challenge for Iran in establishing parliamentary government was not finding individuals of high ability, since the nation that can boast of Nadir Shah and Karim Khan Zand should not be at a loss for soldiers and statesmen, but rather developing a sense of public spiritedness and breaking away from the Oriental despotic form of private interest-driven government. Fraser's account, in diametric opposition to those expressed above, attempted to strip the movement of noble revolutionary pretenses. David Fraser (18691953) lived in Iran from 1908 to 1909 and covered the Azerbaijan Civil War for the Times. He was a one-time soldier and also a hardened war correspondent, judging by a review of his book on the Russo-Japanese War, which exclaimed Mr. Fraser is such an old war horse that the sight of men dying in their thousands is a subject for calm analysis. Such an attitude clearly impacted on his perceptions of the Constitutional Revolution. The thrust of Fraser's argument, which distinguished it from most other contemporary perceptions, was that the revolution was nothing new or extraordinarymerely the latest episode in an eternal and cynical struggle between court and clerics, which had accidentally acquired a liberal veneer. In this it reflected the selfish impetus view of the revolution. He defined a revolution as the climax of a period of misgovernment and tyranny when an outraged people revolt and obtain for themselves relief from an intolerable state of affairs, then went on to demonstrate how none of these criteria applied to the Iranian situation. He argued that misrule in Iran was chronic and that the situation, according to British Legation records, was no worse at the present time than in previous decades. He attributed the causes of the movement not to lofty principles but a contest between two equally rapacious sides, the Grand Vizier Ain al-Dawlah and the clerics, the principal bribe-takers in the country, who in demanding courts of justice independent of the government sought nothing more than the restoration of their immemorial privileges. The

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main demand, for the dismissal of the Grand Vizier, had not an inkling of revolutionary character. As a war correspondent who thrived on derring-do, Fraser was unimpressed with the pacific character of the movement. He reported that the agitators certainly never evinced the intention of shedding blood *for their ideas+ and preferred to formulate demands from the safety of sanctuary. This perception, which was recurrent not only throughout Fraser's work but also that of other observers during the 190809 Azerbaijan Civil War, showed how martial valor and heroic violence were considered key components of true revolutions, based on idealized understandings of European revolutions. It also foreshadowed the gendered interpretation of the 190809 civil war, where effete and timorous ethnic Iranians were unfavorably compared with virile and martial Caucasians and Azerbaijanis. The constitution itself was a controversial point in British perceptions. While most observers felt that national sentiment in Iran which led to the grant of a constitution was genuine, some perceived the actual constitution as an artifice bequeathed by British Legation officials to the ignorant masses during the Great Bast and manipulated by the clerics for their own benefit. There seemed to be very little acknowledgement of the native intelligentsia who sought to implement liberal political institutions. Fraser's account of the Great Bast is worth quoting at length: [Of the 14,000 refugees] it is safe to say that not one percent knew the meaning of the constitution, or indeed had ever even heard of it they were going *to the British Legation] because everybody else was going, and because a tamasha in the summertime in the leafy aisles of the finest garden in Teheran appealed irresistibly to the pleasureloving Persian mind. I asked [a mullah eyewitness] if the refugees were not interested in the political situation, and he replied they weren't at all until the word mashruteh was used thereafter mashruteh was in every mouth the grand panacea for all their ills. The democratic idea was conceived, born, weaned and grown to full manhood in less time than it takes to make a suit of clothes. This commentary illustrates why Fraser believed the constitutional movement was phony from its inception, given the Iranians' apparent lack of understanding or interest in serious political matters and facile espousal of new concepts. It raises the central question of whether participants in any mass movement are driven by conviction and intimately acquainted with political concepts or simply jumping on the band-wagon. One wonders how much of the mob storming the Bastille was able to expound on Montesquieubut presumably their violent methods would have redeemed them in Fraser's eyes. (Pp.612-618) _____________________

Me:

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Nor should it be assumed that orientalist commentaries in print or at exclusive lectures (be they stereotypically negative or balanced) necessarily had an impact on the public at large. Often, the average Briton did not share even the same geographically defined and/or culturally configured composite imagination of the Orient appearing in academic, artistic, journalistic, and diplomatic constructs of the Orient. While in the nineteenth century many in Britain may have held certain rigid assumptions about the Ottoman Empire and the Turks, Iran (Persia) does not appear to have captivated the average Britons imagination other than briefly and disconnectedly during certain periods of tension and crisis, such as the Anglo-Iranian wars of 1838 and 1856-57; the large-scale Iranian famine of 1869-72, during which various religious and philanthropic organizations in Britain set up relief funds for the victims; the Iranian tobacco protest of 1891-92; or the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the early twentieth century. It seems that, with the exception of such periods of tension and crisis, stereotypical representations of Iran that sporadically appeared in some of the British press, as well as Iranian poetry, literature, antiquity, and crafts, failed to make a long-lasting or extensive impression on the imagination of ordinary Britons. In fact, the first time Iran widely captured British public imagination for an extended period was during the time of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11, when conflicting British representations of Iran and Iranians collided, as different groups in Britain vied to rally public opinion in support of or in opposition to Londons official policy of collusion with Russia in undermining the Iranian constitutional movement. (Pp.xxvii-xxviii) ***** Etc., etc. ***** [As already quoted above in another context:] Outlining the significance of Iran and Central Asia, and resorting to Indo-European/Aryan racial theories, Curzon maintained: The future of Great Britain, according to this view, will be decided not in Europe, not even upon the seas and oceans which are swept by her flag, or in the Greater Britain that has been called into existence by her offspring, but in the continent whence our emigrant stock first came, and to which as conquerors their descendants have returned. (P.18) ***** [As already quoted above in another context:] 25. It should be noted that, at times, Brownes celebration of Iranian historical achievements and cultural and intellectual contributions assumed an unmistakably Perso-centric dimension. For example, after hailing Iran as a nation with a continuous history reaching back for 2500 years, which repeatedly in the political and continuously in the intellectual sphere, has played a great part in the world, he remarked, For the last century, ever since the present Kjr dynasty (a dynasty not of Persian but of Mongolian [i.e., Turkic] extraction) ascended the throne of Cyrus and Darius, her course has been downwards. Ibid., 173. Browne did not mention that for much of the preceding five hundred years before the Qajar seizure of power, various other Turkic and Mongol dynasties had ruled Iran. However, this omission is not necessarily indicative of anti-Turkic racial prejudice

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on his part. In addition to his qualified support of the Young Turks reform movement in the Ottoman Empire and his close intellectual friendship with many Turks, Brownes Iranian friends included the likes of Azeri Turks, Shaykh Hassan of Tabriz, and Taqizadeh (the latter of whom Browne held in very high esteem). However, in terms of cultural achievements, Browne continued to regard the Ottoman Turks, a people far less original and talented than either the Persians or the Arabs. (P.492) ***** Primarily, it was the dissenters on the Left and their Irish Nationalist associates, along with the likes of Browne and Blunt, who exhibited a strong moral concern with the rights of other nations to self-determination. Even if a number of dissenters still adhered to Eurocentric racial and civilizational paradigmsjust as Iranians, Indians, Ottoman Turks, Japanese, and others had their own racial and cultural hierarchical constructs of alteritymost were adamant that all nations deserved the right to determine their own destiny. It is for this reason that G.M. Trevelyan opposed Anglo-Russian policy in Iran, despite maintaining I know the Persians are not perfect, and by European standards are asses. (Pp.360-361) ***** It is undeniable that, consciously or unconsciously, many British anti-imperialists and foreign-policy dissenters were afflicted with degrees of racial and civilizational arrogance, as were many of their Iranian and other cohorts. Moreover, in contemporary dominant schemes of Western/European racial pecking-order Iran geographically corresponded to the ancient territorial cradle of Aryan civilization, with Persians regarded as distant racial kin of Europeans, ranked above Semitic and other ostensible racial groups, who were in turn ranked far above Africans, who were at the very bottom. But, we need to be careful not to over-generalize the actual implications of such racial theories and tendencies. Nor should we presume that selfcomplacent British racial and/or cultural sensibilities necessarily impeded genuine commitment to defending the rights of weaker nations. For example, E.D. Morel of the Congo Reform Association was by no means a full-fledged apostle of theories of racial equality, despite his persistent endeavors on behalf of Congolese natives. But, his humanitarian concern with the plight of African natives in the Belgian Congo was in no way dissimulated. Without extenuating or discarding such deplorable ideological putrescence and deformities on the part of many British progressives at the time, we have to make a fundamental qualitative distinction between their residual self-centric assumptions and those of British imperialists and unabashed racists. Similarly, there was a substantial difference between progressive affirmations of the rights and cultural achievements of weaker nations and the occasional, blatantly Machiavellian, feigned expression of such views by stalwart imperialists. In a single speech, the imperialist Lord Curzon could seek to legitimize British rule in India and exploit religious tensions in that country, while pretending to genuinely endorse a strong and Constitutional Government in Iran and declare, Mahomedan countries are as much entitled as Christian nations to the full benefits of international law and when they sought through years of agony and pain to work out their own salvation we should at least give them every help that laid in our power. (Pp.363-364)

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***** On the intersection of orientalism, racial theories, and Aryanism during this period, see also: Bonakdarian, Negotiating Universal Values and Cultural and National Parameters: Iran and Turkey at the First Universal Races Congress (London, 1911), Radical History Review #92, Spring 2005, pp.118-132. Bonakdarian, (Re)orienting Orientalism (a joint review essay of Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Historiography (Palgrave, 2001); & Tony Ballantyne, Orientalism And Race (Palgrave, 2002)), Radical History Review, #92, Spring 2005, pp.175-183.

Andic:
Stereotypically Orientalist perceptions of Iran were mitigated by Aryanism and Iranian history. By the mid-nineteenth century, Aryanism had become a widely known racial theory which posited a common linguistic and racial origin for Europeans, Iranians and Northern Indians and held the defining traits of Aryan nations to be intellectual ability and a capacity for regeneration. Aryanism is a recurrent feature of British perceptions of Iran, before and during the Constitutional Revolution. E.G. Browne alluded to it to explain the Iranian passion for metaphysical speculation and the religious heterodoxy of Iranian Islam (Shiism, Sufism, Ismailism) which arose to vindicate the claim of Aryan thought to be free, and to transform the religion forced on the nation by Arab steel *Islam+. Other observers used Aryanism to account for the alleged intellectual superiority of Iranians compared with non-Aryans, usually Turkic or Semitic peoples. The grandeur of ancient and mediaeval Iranian history and its subsequent decline was also a common theme. Admirers of ancient civilizations, such as Lord Curzon, often lamented the gulf between the qualities of the ancient and modern Iranians. This remarkable history, however, was a seen as a manifestation of the enduring principle of Iranian nationhood, if Persia had no other claim to respect, at least a continuous national history for 2,500 years is a distinction which few countries can exhibit. By contrast, many other Asian and African peoples were perceived as bereft of either history or nationhood. (Pp.600-601) _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________
1

This phrase is borrowed from the title of the 1954 English translation of Marc Blochs The Historians Craft.