IOR/L/PS/10/450

This volume contains papers relating to Russian policy, British policy, and Anglo-Russian relations, in Persia [Iran] in 1914.

The papers mostly consist of copies of correspondence between Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Sir Walter Beaupre Townley, British Minister to Persia, and copy correspondence between Grey and Sir George William Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia at St Petersburg. The volume also includes India Office minute papers, correspondence between the India Office and the Foreign Office, and correspondence between the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy [of India].

The file includes correspondence regarding the following issues:

• the opposition of the Russian Government to the employment of the Persian Gendarmerie under Swedish officers in the Russian sphere of Persia, and the Russian desire to increase the size of the Persian Cossack Brigade under Russian officers
• the growth of Russian influence in Ispahan [Isfahan] and further south in Persia
• the question of the future of Southern Persia from the point of view of the maintenance of British interests and British trade
• the collection of taxes in [Iranian] Azerbaijan and elsewhere in the Northern provinces of Persia by the Russian consulates, from Russian subjects, Russian protected persons, and others
• the question of the removal of Shuja-ed-Dowleh as Governor-General of [Iranian] Azerbaijan
• the Russian desire for the replacement of Samsam-es-Sultaneh as Governnor-General of Ispahan

The volume also includes: a copy of the Convention between Great Britain and Russia signed on 31 August 1907, ‘containing Arrangements on the subject of Persia, Afganistan, and Thibet [Tibet]’ (in English and French); and related correspondence between Sir Arthur Nicolson, British Ambassador to Russia, and Sir Edward Grey, and between Nicolson and Alexander Petrovich Iswolsky [Izvolsky], Russian Foreign Minister, dated 1907 (the latter correspondence is in English and French).

The file includes a few other folios in French, including a copy of an unsigned memorandum communicated to the Russian Minister at Téhéran [Tehran] by the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs, dated 25 June 1914 (folios 81 to 82).

The file includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.