Russia found a better agent in the person of the ex-Shah’s brother, the notorious Sälär al-Dawlah. After the destruction of the Constitutional regime the new government dedded to appoint a governor at Kermanshah, ’Abdul Husayn Mirza. This was opposed by the ambitious, obstinate, and corrupt Salar al-Dawlah, who enjoyed Russia’s support. His armed rebellion, accompanied by plunder, threatened the central government, which found itself incapable of dispatching any effective troops to quell it.
The only significant military operation against him was undertaken by Ephraim Khan, who was killed in the course of battle after having made a brilliant record in the early stages of the Constitutional Movement. Salar al-Dawlah, who claimed the throne of Iran for himself, annoyed the British, who wished to have a stable government at Tehran. Perhaps because of British irritation Russia finally agreed that Salar al-Dawlah should leave Iran, but the Russian Minister made certain that he, like the ex-Shah, was handsomely rewarded from the Iranian Treasury: he received a pension of 8,000 tomans a year and the village of Moradabad as the price for his departure from Iran.
Russian depredation was not confined to the bombing of the holy shrine of Imam Riga and the looting of its treasury, the rewarding of Russian agents, and the incitement of Salar al-Dawlah. While the Majlis was being destroyed and shortly thereafter, Russian troops in Iran began unrestrained shootings, hangings, and tortures. Men were blown from cannons, and women and children were butchered in the streets. The Russians were determined to kill off the Constitutionalists, whom they called “the revolutionary dregs.”
The city of Tabriz bore the brunt of Russian atrocities. The Russians massacred the inhabitants of the city in late December 1911 after a fight between them and the Iranian police had developed. About 4,000 Russian troops and two batteries of artillery surrounded the city, which contained only 1,000 poorly armed Constitutionalists. After shattering the resistance of the Constitutionalists, the Russian military governor hoisted Russian dags over the government buildings at Tabriz. Here again Russia was assisted by “one of the most cruel and treacherous individuals that Iran has ever known.” Samad Khan, also known as Shuja al-Dawlah, acted as a Russian instrument in the period of terrorism that followed the bombing of the Constitutionalist headquarters in Tabriz by Russian troops. In the course of mass arrests and imprisonment some of the leading Constitutionalists were hanged. On ‘Ashara, the 10th of Muharram, a day of religious mourning among Shl'i Muslims, Saqat al-Islam was hanged. On the same day (January 1, 1912) seven other supporters of the Constitutional regime were put to death.
Poetic Dwelling of Jews in Persia
