My point: The fiascos that lead to the loss of large chunks of Iran in the Caucus were not instigated by the British and Qajars were not clients of anyone at that time. We don't really require documentation to understand this. When, however, the British and Russian embassies (post defeat) de-facto setup a shadow government in Tehran, yes, at that point, the Qajars were basically an animated corpse and had lost all prestige internally. Which is why opportunistic (elite) traitors in Iran began to pick one of the two powers as patrons. The really embarrassing part about it all for me is that apparently the Brits didn't feel Iran was worth actually colonizing! :)
The Russians were using the pretext of local unrest to come and "liberate" the caucus. But I think there was a possibly British military expert that very poorly "advised" the Qajar shah.
What is really interesting, specially since ^ above should sound very familiar with the latest Russian liberation effort, is the thought that occurred after posting my OP. Qajar Iran was (if you squint) kinda like the Austro-Hungarian empire. Iran is, technically due to multi-ethnicity, an empire, though it sounds funny :)
So the thought was that these empires actually did serve some positive purpose. There are places in the world were we have quilts of mini countries. For example, when the Caucus were part of Persian or Russian empire (or USSR) you didn't have Armenians and Azerbaijanis and Georgians having fights over borders. And whenever the empire goes bye bye (just w/ Austro-Hungarian empire) those constituent states go at it with each other.
(Btw, to be perfectly clear, by above (and OP "Oh well") I most certainly do not mean that I do not understand or support the independent and successful existence of Armenia, or Georgia! Just analyzing, that's all and no offense is meant. I wouldn't want my country to be part of an empire either.)
The Russians were using the pretext of local unrest to come and "liberate" the caucus. But I think there was a possibly British military expert that very poorly "advised" the Qajar shah.
What is really interesting, specially since ^ above should sound very familiar with the latest Russian liberation effort, is the thought that occurred after posting my OP. Qajar Iran was (if you squint) kinda like the Austro-Hungarian empire. Iran is, technically due to multi-ethnicity, an empire, though it sounds funny :)
So the thought was that these empires actually did serve some positive purpose. There are places in the world were we have quilts of mini countries. For example, when the Caucus were part of Persian or Russian empire (or USSR) you didn't have Armenians and Azerbaijanis and Georgians having fights over borders. And whenever the empire goes bye bye (just w/ Austro-Hungarian empire) those constituent states go at it with each other.
(Btw, to be perfectly clear, by above (and OP "Oh well") I most certainly do not mean that I do not understand or support the independent and successful existence of Armenia, or Georgia! Just analyzing, that's all and no offense is meant. I wouldn't want my country to be part of an empire either.)