Abbas Mirza

Abbas Mirza (; 26 August 1789 – 25 October 1833) was the Qajar crown prince of Iran during the reign of his father Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). As governor of the vulnerable Azerbaijan province, he played a crucial part in the two wars against the Russian Empire ( 1804–1813 and 1826–1828), as well as the war of 1821–1823 against the Ottoman Empire. He is also recognized for leading Iran's first reform and modernization attempts with the help of his ministers Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam and Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam.

The conflict in the Azerbaijan and Caucasus regions between Iran and the Russian Empire was prevalent throughout the time that Abbas Mirza was growing up. On March 20, 1799, he was made the crown prince and given the title of ''Nayeb-al-saltana'' (viceregent). Around the same time, he was appointed the governor of Azerbaijan, with Soleyman Khan Qajar and Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam as his adjutants. Following Russia's takeover of Ganja in 1804, Abbas Mirza was in command of the Iranian military counterattack during the first and second Russo-Iranian wars. Throughout the two wars, he fought against numerous Russian commanders in various engagements, scoring both victories and defeats. The Iranians ultimately lost both wars, agreeing to sign the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, in which they ceded all of their holdings in the Caucasus, corresponding to present-day Armenia, Republic of Azerbaijan, and Dagestan.

In 1821, during interlude between the first and second Russo-Iranian war, increased Iranian-Ottoman tensions led to a new war. Abbas Mirza and his elder brother and rival Mohammad-Ali Mirza Dowlatshah made a joint assault on the Ottoman Empire, the latter penetrating into Ottoman Iraq as far as the walls of Baghdad. Peace was made in 1823, in which both parties signed the Treaty of Erzurum that recognized the previous borders established by the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639.

In an effort to make up for his losses by winning over less powerful foes and bolster his claim to the throne, Abbas Mirza invaded the areas east and northeast of Mashhad in the summer and fall of 1832, taking control of Khabushan, Sarakhs, and Torbat-e Heydarieh. Under continuous medical care by both Western and Iranian physicians, Abbas Mirza ultimately died of illness on 25 October 1833 in Mashhad. Fath-Ali Shah died the following year, being succeeded by Abbas Mirza's son Mohammad Mirza, who assumed the regnal name of Mohammad Shah Qajar ().

Biography

Background and early life

Abbas Mirza was born on 26 August 1789 in the village of Nava in Mazandaran, northern Iran. He was the fourth son of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (), the second Qajar shah (king) of Iran and part of the Qovanlu branch of the Qajar tribe. His mother was Asiya Khanom Devellu, a daughter of Fath-Ali Khan Davalu and part of the Davalu branch of the Qajars. This union was arranged by Abbas Mirza's grand-uncle Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar () in an effort to unite the Qovanlu and Davalu.

Thus, the line of Abbas Mirza and his offspring served as the foundation for all of Agha Mohammad Khan's expectations for the continuation of his dynasty. During Fath-Ali Shah's rule in Iran, a European traveler heard a rumor that Agha Mohammad Khan would have chosen Abbas Mirza instead of Fath-Ali Shah as shah if he had lived longer. Fath-Ali Shah's eldest son, Mohammad-Ali Mirza Dowlatshah, whose mother was a Georgian concubine, was excluded from the succession due to this obsession with settling tribal disputes amongst the Qajars. A fierce hostility would grow between Abbas Mirza and Dowlatshah, something some people speculated that Fath-Ali Shah welcomed. Besides Dowlatshah, intense competition would emerge with other brothers; Mohammad Vali Mirza, a ferocious and uncontrollable person who would hold the governorship of Khorasan and then Yazd, and Hossein Ali Mirza, a persistent schemer would hold the governorship of Fars. Like Fath-Ali Shah had been given the royal title of ''Jahanbani'' by Agha Mohammad Khan, he also gave his own sons and daughters a royal title. The title of ''dorr-e darya-e khosravy'' ("The Pearl of the Sea of Royalty") was given to Abbas Mirza.

The conflict in the Azerbaijan and Caucasus regions between Iran and the Russian Empire was prevalent throughout the time that Abbas Mirza was growing up. In 1797, at the age of eight, he was taken by Agha Mohammad Khan on a campaign against the Karabakh Khanate. He and the other princes stayed at Adina Bazar near Ardabil, and after Agha Mohammad Khan's murder that June, he was taken back to the capital of Tehran. The death of Agha Mohammad Khan gave rise to a number of pretenders to the throne.

Appointment as crown prince and governor of Azerbaijan

After making sure that his competitors did not constitute a threat, Fath-Ali Shah ascended to the kingdom on Nowruz (Iranian new year) on 21 March 1798. On March 20, 1799, he chose Abbas Mirza as the crown prince and gave him the title of ''Nayeb-al-saltana'' (viceregent). Iranian sources report that the title was in line with Agha Mohammad Khan's wishes. Abbas Mirza was given Soleyman Khan Qajar and Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam as his adjutants. Mirza Bozorg, one of the most skilled statesmen of the early Qajar era, served as the tutor and minister of Abbas Mirza.

Around the same time, Abbas Mirza was appointed the governor of the vulnerable province Azerbaijan with Tabriz as his regional capital. As the most rich and populous city in the realm, it would rise to prominence as the hub of a thriving trade with Europe for the remainder of the 18th-century. In order to balance out Azerbaijan's regional autonomy, there were numerous less important seats in Kerman, Isfahan, and Kurdistan as well as at least three more strong princely seats in the south, west, and east. Hossein Ali Mirza was given the governorship of Fars and the Persian Gulf provinces, where he preserved autonomy. In an identical fashion, Dowlatshah was given a sizable domain in western Iran. The princes were pushed to demonstrate their value by expanding their territories along Iran's borders in addition to restoring the economy and establishing peace in their lands. Despite the fact that Abbas Mirza's brothers often settled down in the provincial capitals, he did not always reside in Tabriz.

After becoming governor, Abbas Mirza was sent to defeat the Kurdish chieftain Jafar Qoli Khan Donboli, who was making a claim to Azerbaijan's territory. But it was Soleyman Khan who was given actual leadership of the campaign. After winning a battle near Salmas, Abbas Mirza marched to Khoy before heading back to Tabriz.

First war with Russia

The reign of the Russian tsar (emperor) Alexander I () saw an increased desire on the part of the Russians to increase their presence and influence in the Caucasus, where they had already shown interest since the 1760s. Prince Pavel Tsitsianov, who Alexander I appointed to oversee Caucasian affairs in 1803, had nothing against about using violence, but any infringement of Iran's control over the Caucasus was not something that the Qajar administration could just ignore. Since 1502, Iran had controlled the Caucasus and the Iranians saw it as a natural extension of their country. In mid-January 1804, Tsitsianov invaded Ganja and conquered its fortress; its governor, Javad Khan, was killed, and between 1,500 and 3,000 residents were slaughtered. Russian law replaced Islamic law, and the congregational mosque was transformed into a church. This marked the beginning of the first Russo-Iranian War. On May 23, 1804, Fath-Ali Shah ordered Russian forces to depart from Iranian territories in the Caucasus. Iran interpreted their unwillingness to comply with this as an act of war.

Fath-Ali Shah designated Abbas Mirza as the leader of the Iranian army against the Russians, and gave the order to mobilize a sizable force of 20,000 soldiers towards Erivan. Since Abbas Mirza was only fifteen at the time, his leadership would have been more symbolic than actual, yet he nonetheless actively took part in the war and displayed bravery as a military commander. Fath-Ali Shah also assigned experienced tutors and commanders to assist Abbas Mirza, which included figures such as Mirza Bozorg, Soleyman Khan, Ali Qoli Khan Shahsevan, Ali Qoli Khan Sartip Qajar, Pir Qoli Khan Qajar, Sadeq Khan Qajar, and Mehdi Qoli Khan Qajar.

Abbas Mirza's aid was eagerly solicited by both England and Napoleon, anxious to checkmate one another in the East, especially as Persia bordered a common rival, namely Imperial Russia. Preferring the friendship of France, Abbas Mirza continued the war against Russia's young General Kotlyarevsky, aged only twenty-nine but his new ally could give him very little assistance. The early stages of the war following Fath Ali Shah's orders to invade and regain Georgia and the northern parts of the contemporary Azerbaijani Republic ended up in years of relatively territorial stale warfare. However, as Prof. Alexander Mikaberidze notes, Abbas Mirza led the army in an overall disastrous campaign against the Russians, suffering defeats at Gyumri, Kalagiri, the Zagam River (1805), Karakapet (1806), Karababa (1808), Ganja (1809), Meghri, the Aras River, and Akhalkalaki (1810). The tide started to decisively turn as Russia was sending more and more advanced weaponry and increasing numbers of soldiers. Commanding the southernmost Russian divisions during the long war, Kotlyarevsky defeated the numerically superior Persian army in the Battle of Aslanduz (1812) and in early 1813 stormed and took Lankaran. The Russians were encamped on the opposite bank of River Aras when his two British advisers, Capt Christie and Lt Pottinger, told him to post sentry pickets in short order, but Mirza ignored the warnings. Christie and other British officers tried to rally an army retreating in panic; for days the Russians launched fierce assaults, but at last Christie fell, and Mirza ordered a full retreat. Complacency cost 10,000 Persian lives; Mirza believing wrongly in the weight of superior numbers. In spite of the absence of leadership, the Persians at Lenkoran held out for weeks until, breaking through, the Russians slaughtered the garrison of 4,000 officers and men.

In October 1813, with Abbas Mirza still commander-in-chief, Persia was compelled to make a severely disadvantageous peace known as the Treaty of Gulistan, irrevocably ceding swaths of its territory in the Caucasus, comprising present-day Georgia, Dagestan, and most of what most recently became the Republic of Azerbaijan. The only promise the Shah received in return was a lukewarm guarantee that Mirza would succeed to his throne, without let or hindrance. Persia's dire losses attracted the attention of the British Empire; following the reversal of initial successes, the Russians now posed a serious threat from the Caucasus.

War with the Ottoman Empire

The conflict between Iranian and Ottoman border authorities was a major factor in the decline of Iranian-Ottoman relations between 1818 and 1820. Political issues in the Kurdish principality Baban renewed the animosity between Dowlatshah and the Ottoman governors of Baghdad, Sulaymaniyah, and Shahrizur in the central and southern sections of the Iranian-Ottoman frontier. The relation between Abbas Mirza and the Ottoman '' serasker'' of Erzurum was also made worse due to a dispute over the control of the nomadic tribes that inhabited the northern frontier. Abbas Mirza first opted for a diplomatic solution to the problems, and the British supported him in this decision. They made every effort to keep the Iranians and Ottomans from fighting each other, as it could weaken both sides and thus make it easier for the Russians to advance further south to India.

The Iranians and Ottomans were unable to find a solution, and following the eruption of the Greek war of independence against the Ottomans in 1821, Abbas Mirza offered Russia that they make a joint assault on the Ottoman Empire. He may have believed that a joint assault on the Ottoman Empire would deter Russia from considering additional attacks against Iran or at the very least further weaken the Russian military. His offer was declined by Russia, who nevertheless encouraged Iran to attack the Ottomans, even offering them financial help. The Russians may have hoped that a conflict between Iran and the Ottoman Empire would weaken them both, thus making it easier for them to advance further south.

In the same year, Dowlatshah invaded Ottoman Iraq, reaching as far as the walls of Baghdad. Dowlatshah was forced to leave due to a cholera epidemic, which he later contracted himself in November. While a second Iranian force conquered Bitlis

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