War, Revolution & British Imperialism in Central Asia

267 Pages·1983·3.207 MB·English

by  Frederick Stanwood

War, Revolution
&
British Imperialism
in
Central Asia
Frederick Stanwood
Ithaca Press London 1983
The Author and Publisher gratefully
acknowledge the support of the British
Academy in the production of this book.
© 1983 Frederick Stanwood
First published in 1983
by Ithaca Press 13 Southwark Street London SEI
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Stanwood, Frederick
War revolution and British imperialism in
Central Asia.
I.Near East— Politics and government---History —
Sources 2.Near East---Foreign relations
---Soviet Union---Sources 3.Near East
--Foreign relations—— Great Britain---Sources
4.Soviet Union---Foreign relations---Near East
Sources 5- Great Britain---Foreign relations--
Near East--ßOurces
I.Title
956'.03 DS62.8
ISBN 0-86372-002-1
Printed in England
by Anchor Press Ltd and bound
by Vfcn Brendon & Sons Ltd
both of Tiptree Essex
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One: Persia and the Collapse of Anglo
Russian Co-operation 12
Chapter Two: The Bolshevik Revolution and the
Problem of Self-Determination 41
Chapter Three: The Debate on Intervention:
Caucasia or Persia? 63
Chapter Four: The Formation of the Eastern
Committee 104
Chapter Five : The Failure of Military Intervention 146
Chapter Six: The Collapse of Turkey and the Problem
of Defining British Policy 182
Chapter Seven: The Resolution of the Eastern Committee
and the Hesitation of Lloyd George 218
Conclusion 247
Bibliography 254
Index 259

CENTRAL ASIA
TRANS -CA S PI A
Bokhanäb
AFGHANISTAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S
I would like to thank the following for permission to quote
from copyright materials in their possession:
The Public Record Office for Cabinet Papers and
Foreign Office Papers;
The British Library, India Office Library and
Records, for Crown-copyright material which appears
by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's
Stationery Office and for the Curzon Papers which
appear by permission of Lord Scarsdale;
The British Library, Department of Manuscripts, for
the Balfour Papers;
Mr. A. J. P. Taylor, on behalf of the Beverbrook
Foundation, for the Bonar Law and Lloyd George
Papers.
I would also like to thank the many people whose task it was to
fetch and carry the innumerable volumes of papers and documents
which have gone into the writing of this book. The skill and
patience of Ms. Marika St. George, who typed the final
manuscript, has been a great asset, removing from my shoulders
to her own a great burden. I am extremely grateful.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to the British Academy
for their assistance in making possible the publication of this
book.
INTRODUCTION
The years of World War from 1914 to 1918 witnessed the
beginnings of a nationalist war in Asia which continued until
virtually the present day. The European Empires, unable to
restrict nationalism to Europe, found themselves faced with a
nationalist challenge all over the globe. This study is
concerned with the consequences for British imperial policy of
the conjunction of Persian and Central Asian nationalisms and
social revolution in Russia, the product of which was the
tendency for British anti-nationalism to assume the guise of
anti-communism.
A study of the interaction of nationalism with anti­
communism in Central Asia^ must begin with an examination of
the diplomatic relationship between the British Empire and
Persia. I have attempted, however, to describe not only the
diplomatic events but to penetrate the motives and prejudices
which lay at the core of British policy and which, after their
failure in Persia, impelled the British northward in an attempt
to supplant the Russians and thus re-envelope Persia in the
imperial cocoon.
Britain's ostensible political and imperial interests were
strategic, growing out of European rivalries, and defensive,
the fear of disorder on the periphery of the Empire. The
defence of India, by 1914 a touchstone worn smooth by
1 I have chosen to regard Persia as part of Central Asia in
order to distinguish it from the largely separate problem of
Mesopotamia and the Arab Middle East. Central Asia was a
distinct problem for British imperial diplomacy related more
to the collapse of Russia and the ensuing revolutionary and
nationalist turmoil than to the more straightforward wartime
opportunism practiced by Britain in the Arab states.
2 WAR, REVOLUTION AND IMPERIALISM
generations of British imperialists, expressed both
considerations and had resulted in the expansion of British
power from the subcontinent into the Asian heartland where it
encountered the southward expansion of the Russian Empire*
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Anglo-
Russian imperial rivalry was a fact of life: the Germans had
been so convinced that the conflict was permanent that they
made it a primary element in the theory of Weltpolitik. This
proved to be a serious miscalculation as the expansion of
German power moved the British and Russians to conclude an
accord in Asia which, by formally postponing their outstanding
conflicts, enabled both to face the German problem in Europe.
The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 established a buffer zone
between the two Empires stretching from Persia in the west to
Tibet in the east. The Convention, though a stand-off in terms
of European diplomacy, marked the creation of an uneasy
condominium in Central Asia, particularly for Persia. In it,
each country recognised the concessions which the other had
extorted from the Persians over the years and agreed not poach
on one another's sphere of influence. The Convention divided
Persia into three spheres: Russia took the north, Britain the
south, while in the centre 'independent' Persia was left to
balance the imperial scales as best it could\ Though
technically the Tehran Government retained dominion throughout
the country, Anglo-Russian control of Persia's military forces
and finances completely compromised the country's sovereignty.
Despite persistent doubts in London about the wisdom and
effectiveness of the Convention, when war began in August 1914
the arrangement proved its value. British and Russian troops
were able to safeguard Persia's 'neutrality' without serious1
1 A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-
1918, (London, 1954), pp.441-6.
INTRODUCTION 3
complication or recrimination, though in cases only by actual
occupation, as in Tabriz. The real test of the partnership came
in the spring and summer of 1916 when German and Turkish agents
deployed throughout Persia in an attempt to fan national,
Islamic, and tribal resentments into flame. Their efforts very
nearly succeeded and only large-scale military action by the
Russians in northern Persia prevented Tehran from wriggling
free of the grasp of Anglo-Russian imperialism and allying
itself with Germano-Turkish imperialism. Thenceforth, Persia's
imperial protectors set out to enforce Persia's isolation from
the European conflict by enveloping her within a military
cordon and by wresting additional compromising concessions from
the hapless and incompetent Shah.
It had been Anglo-Russian practice at difficult moments in
the past to coerce the Persian Government into acknowledging
appropriate portions of the Convention in an attempt to attach
legitimacy to the condominium. Following the collapse of the
'offensive' of 1916, the allies sought to impose more stringent
control on Persian finances and to secure Persian recognition
for the creation of the British equivalent of the Russian's
Persian Cossack Brigade, the South Persian Rifles1. Though the
Rifles were formed, the Persian Government which had carried
out the negotiations in August 1916 collapsed under the weight
of public indignation leaving recognition of the de facto
position the paramount problem for Anglo-Persian diplomacy.
Characteristically, the British subsequently referred to these
abortive negotiations as the August Agreement.
British diplomatic efforts in Persia not infrequently
ended in fiasco: the Treaty of 1919 is merely the most
impressive example. The Persian state at the beginning of the
1 The S.P.R. was one of a number of anamolous military forces
operating in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf which were
technically private armies of the British Foreign Secretary.
4 WAR, REVOLUTION AND IMPERIALISM
twentieth century was the scene of multifarious pressures and
interests representing landlords, mullahs, tribal chiefdoms,the
bazaar, various nationalists and constitutionalists, regions
and so on. The net product was a state which had constantly to
struggle against its own centrifugal tendencies. The Persian
Revolution of 1906 had momentarily reversed the process, but by
1916, parliamentary reforms survived only as a legacy, though a
potent one. The Shah, having destroyed the constitution and
dispersed the Majlis, had neither the intelligence nor the
ability to make himself a despot and his primary concern
appears to have been to maintain himself in power and
financially solvent in the face of internecine warfare within
the Persian ruling class, the agitation of various
nationalists, religious devines, tribal and regional leaders,
and the perverse whim of the European powers. Persian
Governments thus operated within narrow limits and normally
contented themselves with attempting to find a path to
survival. Ministers were selected for their abilities as
mediators among the myriad conflicting interests. The task of
the Prime Minister was to square the circle: consequently,
though he might survive temporarily by favouring one faction or
another, in the long term the system was inoperable. Persia
thus passed from cabinet crisis to cabinet collapse without
making any genuine impact on her social and political problems.
At the same time that centrifugal forces eroded the
authority of central government, however, nationalist sentiment
in the guise of major public demonstrations served to forestall
the ultimate collapse of the state either into the arms of
tribal and regional leaders or those of the imperialists. This
was an aspect of Persian politics which the British found
incomprehensible^. For Britain, nationalism was the principal1
1 R.W. Cottam, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh, 1964),
especially Chapter 11.