This was easy to accomplish after Iran’s alliance with France lapsed and Russia’s alliance with Napoleon began. As a result, Great Britain and Iran signed a new treaty in 1809. Between this year and 1814 the two countries concluded three treaties. Their major provisions were as follows:
1) Iran’s alliance with Napoleon was nullified, and the Shah’s government undertook to prevent the French army from proceeding to India through Iranian territory. 2) Great Britain would refrain from interfering in any war between Iran and Afghanistan, and Iran would send an army against the Afghans if they entered into war with Great Britain.
3) Great Britain would assist Iran financially and militarily if it was attacked by any European power. However, the financial aid would not be given "in case the war with such European nation shall have been produced by an aggression on the part of Persia.”
The last provision gave rise to differences between Iran and Great Britain in 1826 when war broke out between Iran and Russia after Russia occupied Gokchah, a disputed territory, in 1825. The Shah demanded British assistance, under the terms of his alliance with Great Britain. Great Britain refused to consider the demand and contended that “the occupation by Russian troops of a portion of uninhabited ground, which by right belonged to Persia, even if admitted to have been the proximate cause of hostilities, did not constitute the cause of aggression contemplated in the treaty of Tehran (1814).”
Ultimately the British did give the Shah financial assistance - 200,000 tomans - to pay the indemnity demanded by the Russians in the Treaty of Turkumanchai (1828) which ended the war (see below). But the Shah had to consent to British cancellation of the aid provisions of the alliance of 1814 in return for the money. For Great Britain this cancellation was a diplomatic triumph inasmuch as it wished “to disencumber" itself “of a falling ally." Great Britain “had awoke to a sense of the worthlessness of Persia." British efforts “to make her strong had but contributed to her weakness. We had been building on a quicksand. The country existed only by the sufferance of her northern neighbour; and it was useless therefore to undergo further expense, or to encounter further risk on her behalf."
Britain, France and Russia in Pre-WWI Years
