It had been Outram’s intention to proceed against Mohamrah directly after his return from Borasjoon and Khoosh-aub; but the unexpected and vexing delays above adverted to prevented him from setting forth until the 18th of March. He was aware that the Persians had for three months been strengthening the fortifications of that place; he knew that the opposite bank of the river was on Turkish ground (Mesopotamia), on which he would not be permitted to erect batteries; and he therefore anticipated a tough struggle before he could master Mohamrah. His plan was, to attack the enemy’s batteries with armed steamers and sloops-of-war; and then, when the fire had slackened, to tow up the troops in boats by small steamers, land them at a selected point, and at once proceed to attack the enemy’s camp. The Persian army, 13,000 strong, was commanded by the Shahzada, Prince Mirza. Outram’s force was rather under 5000, including only 400 cavalry: the rest having been left to guard Bushire and the encampment. Outram and Havelock arrived near Mohamrah on the 24th, and immediately began to place the war-ships in array, and to plant mortars on rafts in the river. On the 26th, the ships and mortars opened a furious fire; under cover of which the troops were towed up the river, and landed at a spot northward of the town and its batteries. The Persians, who had felt the utmost confidence that the landing of a British force, in the face of thirteen thousand men and a formidable array of batteries, would be an impossibility, were panic-stricken at this audacity. When, at about two o’clock, Outram advanced from the landing-place through date-groves and across a plain to the enemy’s camp, the Persians fled precipitately, after exploding their largest magazine—leaving behind them all their tents, several magazines of ammunition, seventeen guns, baggage, and a vast amount of public and private stores. As Outram had, at that hour, been able to land not even one hundred cavalry, he could effect little in the way of pursuit; the Persians made off, strewing the ground with arms and accoutrements which they abandoned in their hurry. Commodore Young commanded the naval portion of this expedition, having succeeded the unfortunate Ethersey.
This action of Mohamrah scarcely deserved the name of a battle; for as soon as the ships and mortars had, by their firing, enabled the troops to land, the enemy ran away. Outram had scarcely any cavalry, and his infantry had no fighting—rather to their disappointment. The Persians having retreated up the river Karoon towards Ahwaz, Outram resolved to send three small armed steamers after them, each carrying a hundred infantry. Captain Rennie started on the 29th, in command of this flotilla: his instructions being, ‘to steam up to Ahwaz, and act with discretion according to circumstances.’ He proceeded thirty miles that day, anchored at night, landed, and found the remains of a bivouac. On the 30th he reached Ismailiyeh, and on the 31st Oomarra. Arriving near Ahwaz on the 1st of April, Rennie came up with the Persian army which had retreated from Mohamrah. Nothing daunted, he landed his little force of 300 men, advanced to the town, entered it, and allayed the fears of the inhabitants; while the Persians, thirty or forty times his number, retreated further northward towards Shuster, with scarcely any attempt to disturb him—such was the panic into which the affair at Mohamrah had thrown them. Captain Rennie, having had the satisfaction of putting to flight a large Persian army with a handful of 300 British, and having given to the inhabitants of Ahwaz such stores of government grain and flour as he could seize, embarked a quantity of arms, sheep, and mules, which he had captured, and steamed back to Mohamrah—earning and receiving the thanks of the general for his management of the expedition.
Just at this period a most sudden and unexpected event put an end to the operations. Captain Rennie’s expedition returned to Mohamrah on the 4th of April; and on the 5th arrived news that peace had been signed between England and Persia. Outram’s army, European and native, was rapidly approaching 14,000 men; such a force, under such a leader, might have marched from one end of Persia to the other; and both officers and soldiers had begun to have bright anticipations of honour, and perhaps of prize-money. It was with something like disappointment, therefore, that the news of the treaty was listened to; there had not been fighting enough to whet the appetites of the heroic; while soldiers generally would fain make a treaty at the sword’s point, rather than see it done in the bureaux of diplomatists. Captain Hunt of the 78th Highlanders, who was concerned in the operations at Mohamrah and Ahwaz, and who wrote a volume descriptive of the whole campaign, told very frankly of the dissatisfaction in the camp: ‘The news of peace with Persia having been signed at Paris on the 4th of March damped the elation of all, and considerable disgust was felt at this abrupt termination to what had promised to prove a brilliant campaign.’
How and where the treaty of peace was concluded, we must now shew, in connection with the proceedings of ministers, legislators, and ambassadors.
When the Persian expedition was determined on, parliament was not sitting, and no legislative sanction for the war could be obtained; but when the session opened in February 1857, the policy of the government was severely canvassed. Ministers were charged with involving the country in a war, without the nation itself being acquainted with the causes, or even consulted at all in the matter. The Earl of Clarendon explained the course of events at considerable length. He went into the case of Mr Murray, and the quarrel with the Persian government on matters of diplomatic etiquette—justifying that envoy in all that he had done. But the earl was particular in his assertions that the Murray dispute was not the cause of the war. The siege and capture of Herat furnished the casus belli. He dwelt on the immense value of that city as a military station. ‘Herat is altogether a most important place for military operations; and an enemy once in possession of it is completely master of the position. Every government of this country has desired that Afghanistan should be protected; and it clearly cannot be protected if Herat remains in the power of Persia.’ He expressed a conviction that ‘the Russian government and the whole of the Russian people are under a belief that their destiny is to go forward, to conquer, and to hold new territory;’ and that this disposition would be greatly tempted if Persia, backed up by Russia, were permitted to seize Herat. He stated finally that the Persian ambassador at Paris had recently expressed a wish to renew negotiations for peace, and that the British government would willingly listen to any overtures for that purpose. Lord Palmerston gave similar explanations in the House of Commons. The Earls of Derby and Malmesbury, Earl Grey, Lord John Russell, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Disraeli, all spoke disparagingly of the Persian expedition—either because it was not necessary; or because, if necessary, parliamentary permission for it ought to have been obtained. The latter was the strong point of opposition; many members asserted, not only that the nation was involved in a new war without its own consent, but that no one could understand whether war had been declared by the Crown or by the East India Company. Earl Grey moved an amendment condemnatory of the ministerial policy; but this was negatived. The ministers declined to produce the diplomatic correspondence at that time, because there was a hope of renewed negotiations with Furukh Khan at Paris.
At the close of February it became known to the public that the East India Company had, not unnaturally, demurred to the incidence of the expenses of the Persian war on their revenues. It appeared that, so early as the 22d of October the Court of Directors had written to the president of the Board of Control—adverting to ‘the expedition for foreign service preparing at Bombay, under the orders (it is presumed) of her Majesty’s government, communicated through the Secret Committee;’ and suggesting for his consideration ‘how far it may be just and proper to subject India to the whole of the charges consequent on those orders.’ The directors, as a governing body, had no voice whatever in determining on the Persian war; and yet their soldiers and sailors were to take part in it, and the Indian revenues to bear all or part of the burden. It was ultimately decided that England should pay one-half of the expenses, the other half being borne by the Company out of the revenues of India.
Before the British public could learn one single fact connected with the landing of Sir James Outram or of the second division in Persia, they were surprised by the announcement that Lord Cowley and Furukh Khan had succeeded in coming to terms of pacification at Paris—the Persian ambassador having received from his sovereign large powers for this purpose. A provisional treaty was signed on the 4th of March, of which the following is a condensed summary: Peace to be restored between England and Persia—British troops to evacuate Persia as soon as certain conditions should be complied with—All prisoners of war to be released on both sides—The Shah to give an amnesty to any of his subjects who might have been compromised by and during the war—The Shah to withdraw all his troops from Herat and Afghanistan within three months after the ratification of the treaty—The Shah to renounce all claim upon Herat or any other Afghan state, whether for sovereignty or for tribute—In any future quarrel between Persia and the Afghan khans, England to be appealed to as a friendly mediator—England to display equal justice to Persia and Afghanistan, in the event of any such appeal—Persia to have the power of declaring and maintaining war against any Afghan state in the event of positive insult or injury; but not to make such war a pretext for annexation or permanent occupation—Persia to liberate all Afghan prisoners, on condition of Persian prisoners being released by Afghans—All trading arrangements between England and Persia, in relation to consuls, ports, customs, &c., to be on an equal and friendly footing—The British mission, on its return to Teheran, to be received with due honours and ceremonials—Two commissioners to be named by the two courts, to adjudicate on British pecuniary claims against Persia—The British government to renounce all claim to any ‘protection’ over the Shah’s subjects against the Shah’s consent, provided no such power be given to [Russia or] any other court—England and Persia to aid each other in suppressing the slave-trade in the Persian Gulf—A portion of the English troops to remain on Persian soil until Herat should be evacuated by the Persians, but without any expense, and with as little annoyance as possible, to the Persian government—Ratifications to be exchanged at Bagdad within three months.
This treaty—which, if faithfully carried out, would certainly debar Persia from any undue interference with Afghan affairs—was signed at Paris on the very day (March 4th) when Sir James Outram announced to his troops at Bushire the intended attack on Mohamrah. Such was one of the anomalies springing from diplomacy at one place and war at another many thousand miles distant. Furukh Khan proceeded, on the 19th from Paris to London, where he was received by Queen Victoria as plenipotentiary extraordinary from the Shah of Persia, and where the arrangements for the fulfilment of the treaty were further carried out. The treaty having been forwarded to Teheran, was ratified by the Shah of Persia on the 14th of April, and the ratification arrived at Bagdad on the 17th. The English nation was still, as it had been from the beginning, without the means of judging whether the Persian war had been necessary or not; the government still withheld the state papers, on the ground that, as the ratification of the treaty would speedily be effected, it would be better to wait until then. When, later in the year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked the House of Commons for a vote of half a million sterling, ‘on account of the expenses of the Persian war,’ many members protested against the vote, on the ground that parliament had not been consulted in any way concerning the war. On the 16th of July Mr Roebuck moved a resolution—‘That the war with Persia was declared, prosecuted, and concluded without information of such transactions being communicated to parliament; while expensive armaments were equipped without the sanction of a vote of this House; and that such conduct tends to weaken its just authority, and to dispense with its constitutional control over the finances of the country, and renders it requisite for this House to express its strong reprobation of such a course of proceeding.’ The government policy was censured on many grounds by Mr Roebuck, Lord John Russell, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Disraeli; the first of these speakers even went so far as to attribute the mutiny in India to the withdrawal of troops for the Persian war. The House of Commons agreed, however, pretty generally in the opinion, that although the ministers might reasonably have been more communicative before they commenced hostilities with Persia, there was ground sufficient for the hostilities themselves; and the resolution was negatived by 352 to 38. The question was reopened on the 17th, when the House granted the half-million asked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer towards defraying the expenses of this war; renewed attacks were made on the Asiatic policy of the Palmerston government, but the vote was agreed to; and nothing further occurred, during the remainder of the session, to disturb the terms of the pacification.
It is unnecessary to trace the course of events in Persia after the ratification of the treaty. The British officers, and the troops under their charge, had no further glory or honour to acquire; they would be called upon simply, either to remain quietly in Persia until Herat was evacuated, or to go through the troublesome ordeal of re-shipment back to Bombay. The troops all assembled in and near Bushire, where they resumed their former camp-life. The officers, having little to do, took occasional trips to Bassorah, Bagdad, and other places on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris; while the soldiers were employed in destroying the fortifications of the encampment, now no longer needed. On the 9th of May Sir James Outram issued a ‘Field-force Order’—thanking the troops for their services during this brief and rather uneventful war, and announcing the break-up of the force. Some of the regiments and corps were to return to India, as rapidly as means of transport could be obtained for them; while the rest, under Brigadier-general Jacob, were to form a small compact army, to remain at Bushire until all the terms of the treaty were fulfilled. Outram, Havelock, and a large number of officers, embarked within a few days for India; and by the time they reached Bombay and Madras, according to the place to which they were bound, the startling news reached their ears that a military mutiny had broken out at Meerut and Delhi. What followed, the pages of this volume have shewn. As to Persia, much delay occurred in carrying out the terms of the treaty, much travelling to and fro of envoys, and many months’ detention of British troops at Bushire; but at length the Persians evacuated Herat, the British quitted the Gulf, and the singular ‘Persian war,’ marked by so few battles, came to an end.
