Futteh Ali, the old Shah of Persia, died in 1834, and was succeeded by
his grandson Prince Mahomed Meerza, a young man who inherited much of the
ambition of his gallant father Abbas Meerza. His especial aspiration,
industriously stimulated by his Russian advisers, urged him to the
enterprise of conquering the independent principality of Herat, on the
western border of Afghanistan. Herat was the only remnant of Afghan
territory that still remained to a member of the legitimate royal house.
Its ruler was Shah Kamran, son of that Mahmoud Shah who, after ousting
his brother Shah Soojah from the throne of Cabul, had himself been driven
from that elevation, and had retired to the minor principality of Herat.
The young Shah of Persia was not destitute of justification for his
designs on Herat. That this was so was frankly admitted by Mr Ellis, the
British envoy to his Court, who wrote to his Government that the Shah had
fair claim to the sovereignty of Afghanistan as far as Ghuznee, and that
Kamran's conduct in occupying part of the Persian province of Seistan had
given the Shah 'a full justification for commencing hostilities against
Herat.'
The serious phase of the situation for England and India was that Russian
influence was behind Persia in this hostile action against Herat. Mr
Ellis pointed out that in the then existing state of relations between
Persia and Russia, the progress of the former in Afghanistan was
tantamount to the advancement of the latter.
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