The Qajars also came to power just as Iran was becoming the focus of Russian ambitions, British concerns over the defense of India, and the schemes of Napoleon’s France. Lacking any significant standing armed forces, the Qajar shahs had no centralized administration and, in fact, were “despots without the instruments of despotism.”
The dynasty stayed in power primarily by building enormous networks of kinship and alliances that they reinforced with grandiose titles and honorifics to give military leaders a stake in Qajar society. The shahs sent princes out to rule the provinces to ensure loyalty to the state, and a contemporary complaint about the Qajars was that “everywhere in Iran there are camels, lice, and princes.” Despite this form of personal and patrimonial authority, the Qajars rarely ruled in areas beyond the major cities, where rural landlords or nomadic tribes dominated. Still an agrarian society, Iran’s isolated villages were left responsible for their own protection against nomadic tribes and bandits. For the most part, the Qajar shahs devoted their lives to enriching themselves. Muhammad Khan’s successor, his nephew Fath Ali Shah (r. 1797–1834), needed the wealth to support 158 wives, 57 sons, 47 daughters, and almost 600 grandchildren. He and his successors only halfh eartedly resisted the decay from within and the encroachments from without that marked most of the nineteenth century in Iran.
To their credit, the Qajars, unlike rulers in India and much of the Middle East, avoided coming directly under European control. The Qajar experience with European imperialism, however, had a tremendous impact on Iran and made the restoration of Iranian power, measured in territory, freedom of action, and influence, the central theme of Iranian foreign and defense policies ever since. As the Qajars came to power, Russia was trying to secure its southern borders, use Iran as a buff er against the Turks and British, and gain access to a warm water port in the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean. Concurrently, the British saw Iran as the front line of defense for their expanding empire in the subcontinent.
Russia was the primary concern of the British, but, following Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt in 1798, London’s apprehension increased over the potential for French military forces to approach India through Iran and Afghanistan by land, or by sea through the Persian Gulf. The Qajars tried to balance the political influence of Russia and Great Britain to protect Iranian territory, but foreign interference repeatedly contributed to confl ict in Iran. The Qajar shahs also were occasionally blinded by their ambitions and goaded by the clerical establishment to take actions that provoked wars with the Russians and the British. From the start, when Muhammad Khan led an expedition between 1795 and 1796 to recapture Georgia, a Russian ally, the Qajar shahs were sometimes heedless of the consequences of their aspirations. Similarly, Fath Ali’s att empts to introduce France as a third power to counterbalance the British and Russians only increased outside pressure on Iran and introduced a process of foreign loans and concessions that increasingly weakened Iranian sovereignty.
These foreign contacts increased the pace of modernization in Iran, especially for the military, although the process was sporadic and suff ered numerous reverses. Initially, the competition between the British and French appeared to work to the Qajars’ advantage. In 1801 a British mission led by John Malcolm and the Qajar prime minister signed a treaty of mutual aid that committ ed Iran to att ack Afghanistan if the Afghans prepared for war against India and obliged the British to ally with the shah should the Afghans attack him. Meanwhile, Napoleon had learned from his Egyptian expedition that actions in the Middle East could sway politics in Europe. He sought to neutralize Russia by allying with Turkey and Iran.
After years of negotiations, the French and Iranians in 1807 signed the Treaty of Finkenstein, in which France guaranteed the integrity of Iran, recognized Georgia as a part of Iran, and agreed to provide arms and military instructors. In return, Fath Ali was to break relations with Great Britain, provide support to French naval forces if they appeared in the Persian Gulf, and convince the Afghans to join them in an att ack on India. Instead, the shah pulled out of the alliance aft er the military mission arrived and began its training because the French, who were then bogged down in Spain, were unable to help the Iranians against the Russians. He was especially angry aft er word reached Tehran about the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit, in which France and Russia agreed to ally against Britain.
The British continued to offer the Qajars arms, instructors, and even naval support in the Persian Gulf. British officials facilitated the dispatch of the first group of Iranian students to Europe in 1810, an important step in Iran’s modernization efforts. As the French threat faded, the government in London focused more on Russian designs on the region, and, although friendly relations with Tehran would ebb and flow, the British were determined to maintain Iran’s independence. As the nineteenth century progressed, however, the British established virtual semiautonomous protectorates in southern Iran to off set Russia’s continued encroachment on Iranian territory in the north. Throughout the period, European business interests obtained concessions to operate Iran’s mines, banks, railroads, and public utilities, enabling them to dominate Iran’s economy. Over the course of the century, most of the economic benefits of increased foreign trade went to the Europeans while Iran’s wealth and independence were steadily reduced.
Ottoman Challenges, Royal Ambitions and Nader's Developing Military Skills
