“Sheer Madness” or “Railway Politics” Iranian Style? – The Controversy over Railway Development Priorities Within the Persian Government in 1919–1920 and British Railway Imperialism

Abstract

Using Iranian and British primary sources, this essay studies the heated dispute over Iran's immediate priorities in railway building that erupted within the Iranian government in the autumn of 1919, at which moment in time making a serious start with the development of Iran's so far virtually nonexistent rail infrastructure involving, first and foremost, though not necessarily exclusively, Britain, appeared to be imminent due to the related stipulations of the Anglo-Persian treaty that had been signed in August of that year. Seeking conceptual inspiration from Ronald E. Robinson's thought on Railway Imperialism and drawing on seminal work on the issue of railway building ambitions in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Iran by Paul Luft, this analysis seeks to contribute to two separate areas of inquiry. One the one hand, it represents an intriguing case study for a (yet to be written) history of how Iranians made foreign policy during the early constitutional period (as opposed to histories of Iran's place in the foreign policies of the Great Powers during that time). On the other hand, it aims at contributing to the study of the impact of European Imperialism on the Middle East in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. KEYWORDS Anglo-Iranian relations; Iranian foreign policy; railways; Mirza Hasan Khan Vosuq od-Dowleh; Firuz Mirza Firuz Nosrat od-Dowleh "The proposed Trans-Persian railway" is the title of a well-documented article published in the Scottish Geographical Review in early 1911. 1 In this piece Lieut.-Col. Arthur Campbell Yate, formerly of the Indian Army, who had travelled in the wider region extensively since his service with the Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1886, knew Iran well and also seemed to have had good Persian, 2 discusses the then ongoing negotiations about plans for constructing a railway across the length of Persia. This was conceived of as an extension of Russia's existing rail network in Transcaucasia but while being a Russian-led scheme, prominent investors from all major European financial marketplaces were to chip in too. Yate analyses various aspects of the project in relation to the regional interests of Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire at length and with a great deal of insight. However, it is only in a brief paragraph at the very end of his essay that he at last mentions Persia herself. At this point he admits that in the "carrying out of this scheme, Persia may be no more than the instrument of the ambitions of greater Powers", but he concludes very optimistically that "none the less the prospect is full of promise for her, and now, if ever, she has the opportunity of reviving the past glories of Naushirwan and Shah Abbas." 3 This opportunity, if it had ever existed at that particular juncture in early 1911, came and went without Persia having been able to seize it. On the contrary, the humiliation that Russia visited on the Persians at the end of that same year made them look anything but "glorious" while the Trans-Persian railway p...