Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/139

 *potamia front, and began formulating the Anglo-Persian Agreement at once. Persia had then been swallowed whole by the British. The North Persia Force was paying 350,000 tomans a month (roughly $800,000) to keep the Persian Government in being and 100,000 tomans a month to keep the old Cossack Division quiet. Under these conditions, Sir Percy Cox began negotiations in January, 1919, with three Persian grandees and by June the Agreement was ready to be signed. It provided for a British loan of £2,000,000 to the Persian Government and for British advisers in the Persian Ministries. Briefly, it had the effect of reducing Persia to another of the British Indian frontier States. It was finally approved by the British Foreign Office and was signed by the three Persians on August 9. It had been drawn up secretly and no public announcement of its signature was made until August 15, when it was announced simultaneously that the Shah had left for a prolonged tour in Europe. It was to take effect as soon as the Persian Parliament ratified it. At the moment the Parliament was not in session, the deputies having left Teheran in 1915, intending to re-assemble at Kum to follow the Ottoman Empire into war against the Anglo-Russian entente.

Meanwhile the East Persia Cordon regularized the position of its garrisons in Meshed and Merv by styling them "Afghan Consulates-General under armed guard." It will be recalled that the Amir Habibullah Khan of Afghanistan, a wild country which tilts up to the roof of the world above the north-west frontier of India, had stuck loyally to the British despite a fiery nationalist party which