diplomacy, war and political sovereignty a re-evaluation of anglo-persian relations during the first decades of 19th century

in the early 19th century and as a result of war circumstances, iran and britain experienced the formation and development of limited political intercourses. emergence of napoleon, as a serious danger made britain to pay a special attention to iran. on the other side, iran welcomed the expansion of its ties with britain due to its military conflicts with russia. although britain was not interested to improve the contacts, iran’s simultaneous approach toward france made britain to revise its policy. so they tried, providing new-established qajar government with some parts of military needs, to improve their position and influence in iran during 1809-1812 ad (1224-1229 ah). so, british ambassadors were able to impact on the long and relatively discontinuous process of russo-persian negotiation to meet the interests of their own government. this article aimed to suggest a new attention to the nature of anglo-persian political relations during the first decades of 19/13th century. it deals with the last phases of anglo-persian political negotiations from 1809 to 1814 which finally resulted in the definitive treaty of 1814. based on some new-found documentary materials gleaned from pro unpublished documents as well as sssa so far unknown persian documents, it believes that the qajar government succeeded to develop a relatively productive relation with britain in this time. in other words, qajar politicians and governors while encountered the russian intrusion to caucuses as well as many un-settled internal problems, found the napoleonic wars an excellent opportunity to approach great britain. but the occasional nature of britain policy toward iran during this time prevented the contact to be more advantageous for qajar state.