Colonized Persia
- Thread starter xsampa
- Start date
The two most likely European powers to successfully colonise/conquer Persia is Britain and Russia. If one of them had comitted to a conquest of Persia, then it is feasible, but not guaranteed. More interesting would be if Persia was colonised by another power, be that France, Germany, Italy, etc.
Alternativly Persia could be conquered by the Ottomans.
Even if a power is successfull in a attempt to colonise/conquer Persia, it might have to content itself with limited gains.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Iran was similar to Thailand in that it was a colony in all but name, so there's no need for Britain or Russia to conquer territory.
Going a bit far back, Portugal exercised a high degree of influence over Persia, and if they were to be more decentralized or even not unified during that period I could see considerable influence by Portugal to the point where they’d be essentially colonies.
It was Abbas the Great who (re)conquered the Portuguese colonies, so get rid of him and his less than brilliant successors may not effectively challenge the Portuguese. Then again, if Nader Shah eventually comes to power he'd likely conquer the Portuguese territories.
Pretty much happened in 1907. Below is the map of the spheres of influence by Anglo-Russian convention.
In the early XIX Russia grabbed a big territory on the Caucasus owned by Persia (Azerbaijan, Eastern Armenia, part of Georgia). You may consider this a “colonization”. Russian-English agreement of the early XX reflected economic interests of two parties in Persia and did not require conquest and colonization. Why bother even if the military aspect would not be too much of a problem?
Ficboy
Banned
Well by colonization by actual colonization as in the conquest of Persia/Iran by Russia for instance.
This could make for a fascinating development of Persia and the Russian Empire in general.
First off, if the Wikipedia numbers are reliable, the 19th century population numbers of Russia put it at around 35 million, whilst Persia had a population of 6 million. Presuming no genocides or mass depopulation, that's a sudden influx of about 17% (then combined for 15%) that is predominantly Muslim. Combined with an already existing large muslim population (I don't have the numbers off the top of my head), that could be a very significant for Russian politics.
I could also see a lot of money being poured into a Russian Persia, both internally and externally (though to little benefit for the native population). On the Russian end, they have a closer port to many of their desired conquests, whilst for merchant vessels a Persian port provides a place to pick up Russian goods for trade elsewhere.
First off, if the Wikipedia numbers are reliable, the 19th century population numbers of Russia put it at around 35 million, whilst Persia had a population of 6 million. Presuming no genocides or mass depopulation, that's a sudden influx of about 17% (then combined for 15%) that is predominantly Muslim. Combined with an already existing large muslim population (I don't have the numbers off the top of my head), that could be a very significant for Russian politics.
I could also see a lot of money being poured into a Russian Persia, both internally and externally (though to little benefit for the native population). On the Russian end, they have a closer port to many of their desired conquests, whilst for merchant vessels a Persian port provides a place to pick up Russian goods for trade elsewhere.
I wouldnt say that Russia was the only country that could have colonised Iran given that British India was rigth next door
In 1828 Russia did conquer a big part of Persia and incorporated it into Russian Empire. It also guaranteed the Russian trade rights in Persia and provide Russia with the exclusive navigation rights on the Caspian Sea. The Armenians remaining in Persia got a right to emigrate into Russia.
A complete conquest would not make any practical sense because the motivations were lucking.
As for “colonization” in the terms of a massive settlement, the idea does not make any historic sense prior to 1860s because Russia did not have millions of free peasants ready to move into the area where Russian traditional agriculture was not possible and government did not have money to support such a program. After 1860s Russia had a long list of priorities and colonization of Persia was not one of them: there were problems with the effective “colonization” of the territories which Russia already had.
So, sorry but OP does not make too much of a historic sense.
Exactly. It was enough to define zones of interest, which did happen in 1907.