Page:The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910).djvu/330

 250 THE PERSIAN REVOLUTION

Sattar Khan, with a few of his most stalwart followers, regained the lost ground, reanimated the drooping courage of his ad- herents, and succeeded in completely turning the fortunes of the struggle.

The second period of the siege, during which Sattar Khan held Tabriz and some at least of the roads leading into it, as well as certain other places in the neighbourhood, is, unfor- tunately, that for which we have at present the scantiest accounts, for from the departure of Captain Anginieur about the end of October, 1908, until the arrival of Mr Moore in the latter part of January, 1900, little direct news from Tabriz reached England. The successful revolution in Turkey in July, 1908, greatly encouraged the leaders of the Constitutional party in Persia’, and henceforth the eyes of the Persians were turned not in fear but in hope towards their Western frontier, more especially when, in October, 1908, sinister rumours of a Russian advance “to restore order” in Azarbayjan began to gain cur- )rency. The ancient hostility between Persia and Turkey, ' Shi‘a and the Sunnis, and often utilized by European powers —especially Russia—for their own ends, had of late years been much mitigated, and, thanks to the teachings of Sayyid Jamalu’d-Din and his successors (amongst whom the Prince Hajji Shaykhu’r-Ra’is, author of the /ttzhddu'l-Islém, or “ Union of Islam,” and other similar works, deserves especial mention), the two principal independent States of Islam were beginning to realize how much they had in common, both of fears and hopes, Whatever lands had during the last century or so been torn from Islam, the core—Persia, Turkey, Arabia and Afghanistan— remained untouched, but should Russia succeed in penetrating into Azarbayjan, a wedge would be driven into this core which would render infinitely more precarious the continued inde- pendent existence of either Persia or Turkey. So, though the
 * chiefly arising from the secular feud existing between the

1 This news reached Tabriz on August 4 through the Ottoman Consul-General, and the town was at once placarded with a manifesto ‘‘to the effect that, unless they could obtain a satisfactory settlement before the arrival of a Governor-General with reinforcements, the Sultan would be as good a Sovereign as the Shah.” (Blue Book [Cd. 4581], No. 228, p. 177.)