Georgia and part of Azerbaijan—and he had threatened Bagdad with assault. As regent, he had failed twice in taking the city of the caliphs, but on the second occasion he had defeated and killed its gallant defender, Topal ʽOthman, and he had succeeded in regaining Tiflis, Kars and Erivan.[1]
Russia and Turkey, naturally hostile to one another, had taken occasion of the weakness of Persia to forget their mutual quarrels and unite to plunder the tottering kingdom of the Safawid kings. A partition treaty had been signed between these two powers in 1723, by which the czar was to take Astarabad, Mazandaran, Gilan, part of Shirvan and Daghistan, while the acquisitions of the Porte were to be traced out by a line drawn from the junction of the Aras and Kur rivers, and passing along by Ardebil, Tabriz and Hamadan, and thence to Kermānshāh. Ṭahmasp was to retain the rest of his paternal kingdom on condition of his recognizing the treaty. The ingenious diplomacy of Russia in this transaction was manifested in the fact that she had already acquired the greater part of the territory allotted to her, while Turkey had to obtain her share by further conquest. But the combination to despoil a feeble neighbour was outwitted by the energy of a military commander of a remarkable type.
D.—From the Accession of Nadir Shah, in 1736, to 1884.
Nadir, it has been said, was proclaimed shah in the plains of Moghan in 1736. Mirza Mahdi relates how this event was brought about by his address to the assembled nobles and officers on the morning of the “Nau-ruz,” or Persian New-Year’s Day, the response to that appeal being the offer of the crown. The conditions were that Nadir’s Coronation. the crown should be hereditary in his family, that the claim of the Safawids was to be held for ever extinct, and that measures should be taken to bring the Shiʽites to accept uniformity of worship with the Sunnites. The mulla bashi (or high priest) objecting to the last, Nadir ordered him to be strangled, a command which was carried out on the spot. On the day following, the agreement having been ratified between sovereign and people, he was proclaimed emperor of Persia. At Kazvin the ceremony of inauguration took place. The edict expressing the royal will on the religious question is dated in June, but the date of coronation is uncertain. From Kazvin Nadir moved to Isfahan, where he organized an expedition against Kandahar, then in the possession of a brother of Mahmud, the conqueror of Shah Ḥosain. But before setting out for Afghanistan he took measures to secure the internal quiet of Persia, attacking and seizing in his stronghold the chief of the marauding Bakhtiaris, whom he put to death, retaining many of his men for service as soldiers. With an army of 80,000 men he marched through Khorasan and Seistan to Kandahar, which city he blockaded ineffectually for a year; but it finally capitulated on the loss of the citadel. Balkh fell to Riẓa Kuli, the king’s son, who, moreover, crossed the Oxus and defeated the Uzbegs in battle. Besides tracing out the lines of Nadirabad, a town since merged in modern Kandahar, Nadir had taken advantage of the time available and of opportunities presented to enlist a large number of men from the Abdali and Ghilzai tribes. It is said that as many as 16,000 were at his disposal. His rejection of the Shiʽite tenets as a state religion seems to have propitiated the Sunnite Afghans.
Nadir had sent an ambassador into Hindustan requesting the Mogul emperor to order the surrender of certain unruly Afghans who had taken refuge within Indian territory, but no satisfactory reply was given, and obstacles were thrown in the way of the return of the embassy. The Persian monarch, not sorry perhaps to find a Invasion of India. plausible pretext for encroachment in a quarter so full of promise to booty-seeking soldiers, pursued some of the fugitives through Ghazni to Kabul, which city was then under the immediate control of Naṣr Khan, governor of eastern Afghanistan, for Mahommed Shah of Delhi. This functionary, alarmed at the near approach of the Persians, fled to Peshawar. Kabul had long been considered not only an integral part but also one of the main gates of the Indian Empire, notwithstanding a stout resistance on the part of its commandant, Shir or Shirzah Khan, the place was stormed and carried (1738) by Nadir, who moved on eastward. Mirza Mahdi relates that from the Kabul plain he addressed a new remonstrance to the Delhi court, but that his envoy was arrested and killed, and his escort compelled to return by the governor of Jalalabad. The same authority notes the occupation of the latter place by Persian troops and the march thither from Gandamak. It was probably through the Khaibar (Khyber) Pass that he passed into the Peshawar plain, for it was there that he first defeated the Imperial forces.
The invasion of India had now fairly commenced, and its successful progress and consummation were mere questions of time. The prestige of this Eastern Napoleon was immense. It had not only reached but had been very keenly felt at Delhi before the conquering army had arrived. There was no actual religious war; all sectarian distinction had been disavowed; the contest was between vigorous Mahommedans and effete Mahommedans. Nadir’s way had been prepared by circumstances, and as he progressed from day to day his army increased. There must have been larger accessions by voluntary recruits than losses by death or desertion. The victory on the plain of Karnal, whether accomplished by sheer fighting or the intervention of treachery, was the natural outcome of the previous situation, and the submission of the emperor followed as a matter of course.
Delhi must have experienced a sense of relief at the departure of its conqueror, whose residence there had been rendered painfully memorable by carnage and riot. The marriage of his son to the granddaughter of Aurangzeb and the formal restoration of the crown to the dethroned emperor were doubtless politic, but the descendant of Babar could not easily forget how humiliating a chapter in history would remain to be written against him. The return march of Nadir to Persia is not recorded with precision. On the 5th of May 1739 he left the gardens of Shalamar, and proceeded by way of Lahore and Peshawar through the passes to Kabul. Thence he seems to have returned to Kandahar, and in May 1740—just one year after his departure from Delhi—he was in Herat displaying the imperial throne and other costly trophies to the gaze of the admiring inhabitants. Sind was certainly included in the cession to him by Mahommed Shah of “all the territories westward of the river Attok,” but only that portion of it, such as Thattah (Tatta), situated on the right bank of the Indus.
From Herat he moved upon Balkh and Bokhara, and received the submission of Abu’l-Faiz Khan, the Uzbeg ruler, whom he restored to his throne on condition that the Oxus should be the acknowledged boundary between the two empires. The khan of Khwarizm, who had made repeated depredations in Persian territory, was taken prisoner Northern Conquests. and executed. Nadir then visited the strong fortress of Kelat, to which he was greatly attached as the scene of his boyish exploits, and Meshed, which he constituted the capital of his empire. He had extended his boundary on the east to the Indus, and to the Oxus on the north.
On the south he was restricted by the Arabian Ocean and Persian Gulf; but the west remained open to his further progress. He had in the first place to revenge the death of his brother Ibrahim Khan, slain by the Lesghians; and a campaign against the Turks might follow in due course. The first movement was unsuccessful, Wars in the West. and indirectly attended with disastrous consequences. Nadir, when hastening to the support of some Afghan levies who were doing good service, was fired at and wounded by a stray assailant; suspecting his son, Riẓa Kuli, of complicity, he commanded the unfortunate prince to be seized and deprived of sight. From that time the heroism of the monarch appeared to die out. He became morose, tyrannical and suspicious. An easy victory over the Turks gave him but little additional glory; and he readily concluded a peace with the sultan which brought but
- ↑ Malcolm.
