1 Mozaffar al-Din Shah and François Lesné
On May 2nd, 1896, Mozaffar al-Din Mirza was crowned Shah (Fig. 8.1).1 Less than two weeks later a pontifical letter dated May 15 notified François Lesné (Fig. 8.2) of his appointment as Archbishop of Philippopoli and Apostolic Delegate for Persia.2 This was later announced at Paris on June 23rd and published in the Consistory of the Propaganda on June 26th.3 Lesné’s consecration was scheduled for June 30th at the Lazarist church in the rue de Sèvres (Fig. 8.3).4 The Persian Minister to France, Nazar Aqa, attended Lesné’s consecration ceremony.5 Lesné must have travelled quickly from Urmia to France as soon as his elevation to the position of Apostolic Delegate and Montéty’s transfer had been unofficially announced in late April. He was presumably in France when Malaval wrote to him on June 20th, reporting on events dating to the 17th and the 24th of May,6 and, following his consecration, he was somewhere in the Pyrenees, possibly Pau, when a newspaper report dating to August 25th included his name in a list of distinguished ‘pilgrims’ to the area.7 A month later, Lesné was amongst a group of clergy received by the Pope on September 24th, 1896.8 It was presumably then, or at a private audience, that he was given a letter for Mozaffar al-Din Shah, dated September 19th, introducing him as the new papal envoy. By mid-October Lesné was back at Urmia.9
Mozaffar al-Din Shah in 1896. Colored lithographic imagerie sheet, 28.4 × 39.8 cm; 3/4-length portrait of shah, seated, in uniform, in enframement of flowers etc., showing Persian flag and arms. “Sa Majesté Mozaffer-ed-Dine, Shah de Perse” (1896). Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:231145/
Apostolic Delegate François Lesné
After Anonymous 1910: 131
Lazarist headquarters at 95 rue de Sèvres, Paris. Léon Leymonnerye, 1868. Pencil drawing on paper
Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris D.8021(964). Public Domain
Letter of introduction from Pope Leo XIII to Mozaffar od-Din
David M. Rubinstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University
On April 10th, 1897, Lesné wrote to an unnamed correspondent from Urmia, to say that, ‘I shall shortly set out to make my visit to the Shah. I was unable to go to him upon returning from Europe.’10 He did not arrive at Tehran to deliver the Pope’s letter, however, until July 2nd, 1897. On the 4th he visited the French chargé d’affaires, comte André-Marie-Jacques d’Arlot de Saint-Saud (1856–1938),11 to ask him to request an audience with Mozaffar al-Din Shah, letting him know at the same time that he came bearing a letter from Pope Pius XIII (Fig. 8.4).12 Three days later, d’Arlot informed Lesné that the audience had been arranged for 10 a.m. on July 8th. It being high summer, the Shah was at one of his country palaces. There, in company with d’Arlot, the dragoman Stanislas de Rettel13 and his Lazarist colleague Joseph Dillange (1864–1910), Lesné was ‘received in the garden, in grand style, with the customary ceremonial for audiences of this type.’ Although the audience lasted only 10–15 minutes, Mozaffar al-Din Shah appeared ‘very flattered by the letter of His Holiness,’ which read as follows:
To His Imperial Majesty
Mozaffer-ed-din
Shah of Persia
Imperial Majesty
Monsignor Francesco Lesné, titular archbishop of Philippopolis, to whom we recently entrusted the office of Apostolic Delegate in this Kingdom, for the protection of the interests of the Catholic Church, has the high honor of presenting to Your Majesty this letter14 of ours. He has lived in Persia for many years, and is a man of mature age and wisdom: so we do not doubt that he will follow the noble examples of his illustrious Predecessors in all religious and civil relations. However, knowing how much Our Representative needs the high protection and august benevolence of Your Majesty for the fruitful exercise of his spiritual ministry, We warmly recommend [to] you both the distinguished new Prelate and the Catholic Missions of your vast domains. The benevolent protection that the glorious Parent15 of Your Majesty constantly granted them, and of which we will maintain a lasting memory and gratitude, makes us certain that Your Majesty will follow the most noble example, thus offering Us a pleasant reason to be equally very obliged to You. For our part, we can assure Your Majesty that in the Catholics subject to your scepter, you will find unshakable and constant fidelity, as the holy Religion they profess obliges them to render.
In the meantime, we fervently pray to the Giver of all good to unite Your Majesty to Us in the bonds of perfect charity and grant You a long and happy life, make Your exploits glorious, and make the fortunes of the peoples who live in Your vast States prosperous and happy.
From the Vatican 19 September 1896
Mozaffar al-Din Shah was equally pleased when he was informed that a separate gift being sent by the Pope to the Shah would be brought by special envoy, although he did not see it for over a year (see below). Before the close of Lesné’s audience Mozaffar al-Din Shah asked after the Pope’s health and, after learning that, despite his great age, Leo XIII enjoyed perfect health, Mozaffar al-Din Shah asked Lesné to ‘Assure the Holy Father the Pope that the Catholics will always be seen favorably and well-treated in my kingdom.’ As one true believer wrote at the time,
May we not believe that the Lord is saying of Mozaffar-ed-Din, as he said of that other Persian monarch who did such large things for the ancient people of God: ‘I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways. He shall build my city and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward.’18
The following day Lesné learned from someone close to the Shah that he had been charmed by the visit. Lesné wrote,
His Majesty struck me as a man eager to see justice done to all his subjects. His features are those of someone in the grip of fear and suffering. Indeed, it is said that ever since the tragic death of his father, he has always feared assassination.19
This premonition proved all too true. As Dillange later wrote of Lesné’s first encounter with the Shah,
His majestic figure, his great air of goodwill, his white beard, attracted attention. The king himself did not escape a certain degree of fascination … His Majesty was so struck, in seeing Mgr Lesné for the first time, that He had his Prime Minister request a photograph of the Pope’s representative, the grandfather of the Catholics, as he was called by the Persians. All of the principal figures of the Court made it a point of honor to possess one of these photographs. This was undoubtedly the reason why Mgr Lesné was so quickly awarded the great decoration of the Lion and Son, which is so difficult to grant to foreigners.20
Whereas Mozaffar al-Din Shah, a shah on the cusp of modernity, sported only a moustache, albeit a long one, his great-grandfather, Fath ʿAli Shah, had been both proud of and famous for his large, long beard, and the luxuriance of Lesné’s own facial hair must have reminded him of his illustrious ancestor. On the other hand, to suggest that the Order of the Lion and Sun was only rarely bestowed upon foreigners is patently incorrect. During their European visits, both Naser al-Din Shah and his son liberally awarded the order to all manner of recipients from minor civil servants and factory executives to musicians who performed for them.21
In early April, 1897, Mirza Reza Khan (Fig. 8.5) appeared at Rome to officially inform Pope Leo XIII of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s accession. While there, he was given the gift about which Lesné had spoken at his audience with the Shah a year earlier. This took the form of a magnificent micromosaic image of the Pope conferring a blessing on those gathered before him in St. Peters’s Square at Rome from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.22 As noted in a bulletin of current art news published on May 20th, 1897,
The Papal Mosaic Factory has recently been occupied manufacturing large gifts for sovereigns. A large work by the mosaicist Biagio Bazzotti, depicting St. Peter’s Square, where the Pope distributes blessings from the loggia of the church, is going to the king of Serbia,23 and the Persian envoy Mirza Roza [Reza] Khan,24 currently here, should receive a similar one.25
Mirza Reza Khan, Atelier Nadar
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Album de reference de l’Atelier Nadar vol. 85, NA-240 (13)-FT 4
That all did not quite go the Catholics’ way, however, is clearly shown by a letter written by Lesné on February 12th, 1898, to Joseph Angeli, in Paris. There Lesné noted,
Yes, we suffer persecution, and systematic, perfectly organized persecution at that. During my visit to His Majesty the Shah, he assured me that he would give orders for his Christian subjects to be treated well throughout his kingdom, and I believe he was speaking sincerely; but, alas! we are at the extremity of the kingdom, and the King’s orders are not always carried out, especially when it comes to orders concerning Christians. This has been the case in our vicinity for more than a year, i.e. since the appointment of the current Governor General of Azerbaijan. He is an enemy of foreigners, a bitter enemy of Christians in general and Catholics in particular; he is plotting their ruin and working towards it with all his might.26
Lesné proceeded to detail the most recent, harrowing cases of persecution. In one case, a number of Christians had been thrown in jail. One of them had been severely bastinadoed, receiving 500 blows with the stick. Thereafter he was beheaded. A priest, wrongfully imprisoned, had fled to avoid persecution but died during a severe snowstorm in the mountains en route to Mosul. Tehran had been advised of these cases; governors had telegraphed and written; officials in Tabriz and Tehran had displayed supreme embarrassment, yet matters had only gotten worse. Not only were parishoners and priests attacked, but bishops as well, and even the Lazarists’ mission house, although theoretically under the protection of France, became a target.27
Nor had matters improved by the end of the year. In a letter dated December 18th, 1898, Lesné described the mandatory requisitioning of wheat from Christians by Muslims, whereas in some bazaars the merchants refused to sell any to Christians.28 The Muslims were no better off than the Christians, however, when the wealthy merchants of Tabriz bought up all the available wheat in the area, adulterated it with dirt and plaster, and sold it back at exorbitant prices to villagers and townsfolk who couldn’t even eat the inedible bread produced from it.29 Despite all of these troubles, the constructions of schools and churches proceeded apace in 1898 and were only curtailed by the famine, occasioned by drought,30 of 1899.31
2 A European Cure and an Assassination Attempt
Shortly after the Iranian New Year (Nowruz) of 1900 Lesné set out on a visit to Mozaffar al-Din Shah who was soon to depart on the first of three journeys to Europe. It was said that he was ‘the only Monarch who has accepted an invitation to visit the Paris World Exhibition in his official capacity.’32 Moreover, in view of his poor health, the Shah (Fig. 8.6) would combine his visit to the Exhibition with a cure at the baths of the French spa town of Contrexéville. As the Grand Vizir informed the Legations in Tehran, whether he ‘would be in a condition to accomplish his projected tour in the different Courts of Europe after having finished his cure at Contrexeville … will depend on His Majesty’s health.’33 The British Minister to Tehran at the time, Arthur H. Hardinge (1828–1892), later noted,
It was notorious that Mozaffer ed Din Shah was bent on foreign travel, that his ignorance and indifference to the interests of his country knew no limits, that the funds required for this purpose could only be obtained from St. Petersburg and that their price must be as complete a subservience to the counsels of Russia as that of the Ameer of Bokhara and of the Khans of Khiva and Khokand.34
Mozaffar al-Din Shah in 1900. Georges Scott, “Muzaffir-ed-Din, Shah of Persia” (1900). Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:231146/
On April 1st, 1900, Lesné arrived in Tehran,35 having ridden the entire distance from Tabriz on horseback in just eight days.36 It was his first visit to the capital since his official introduction to Mozaffar al-Din Shah three years earlier. The next day the French Minister Souhart, the Legation staff and all of Tehran’s European colony came to greet Lesné. Later that day he visited the Grand Vizir and the Foreign Minister. His audience with Mozaffar al-Din Shah was scheduled for April 3rd.
As they had done for Cluzel, Minister Souhart and Nicolas, first dragoman at the French Legation, both in court dress, accompanied Lesné in the state carriage. At 10:30 a.m., escorted by Cossacks and soldiers, the party arrived at Court. Lesné wore his violet cassock and ceremonial cloak as well as the Order of the Lion and Sun that he had received three years earlier. Dillange transcribed the conversation:
All of this was spoken in French and translated simultaneously into Persian. Just as his father had done with Cluzel, Mozaffar al-Din Shah asked after the health of the Pope, Mgr Lesné and Minister Souhart. The audience was concluded after fifteen minutes.38 Lesné made the most of that brief space of time, however. It was reported that
The Persian monarch … knew and appreciated the good done by the French Catholic missionaries. Mgr. Lesné had come on behalf of an Armenian village left to the tender mercies of Mussulman officials. He obtained a reduction of taxes for Kosrova, where there are 4,000 Catholics, and permission to rebuild some ruined churches and erect new ones. The Apostolic Delegate hopes that the non-Catholic Armenians will return to the faith. The Vicar-General of the Gregorian Bishop of Tauris had become a Catholic. A village of 200 inhabitants at Urumiah asks for a priest and schools. In the plain of Salmas, five or six villages are desirous of being received into the Church. In the capital of the province of Azerbijan, fifty Armenian families are ready to become Catholics.39
Lesné remained at Tehran for the celebration of Easter. A choir composed of young Europeans living in the capital sang a mass by the Belgian-born Baroque composer Henri Dumont (1610–1684), accompanied by harmonium, violin and cello.40 The members of the French Legation, led by Souhart, were formally received at the door of the church by the Alsatian Lazarist Jacques-Émile Sontag (1869–1918), the Superior of the mission at Tehran, who had come to Iran in 1895. Lesné wore a magnificent chasuble made of gold cloth, a gift from Bedjan.41
Mozaffar al-Din Shah left for Europe on April 12th.42 Like the journeys of his father, Naser al-Din Shah, his movements were widely documented in the press.43 The first of his three journeys to Europe is mainly remembered for the unsuccessful attempt on his life made in Paris on August 2, 1900, by the twice-convicted (1898, 1899) anarchist François Salson.44 While the Shah was out driving in an open carriage through the Bois de Boulogne, Salson
rushed from the crowd on the sidewalk, knocking over a bicycle policeman who was one of the guard, and, jumping on the step of the carriage, presented a pistol within a few inches of Muzaffer’s face and pulled the trigger. The cartridge was defective, and did not explode, and before the would-be assassin could pull the trigger a second time, he was seized and disarmed.45
The effect of this on the public imagination was, moreover, hugely magnified by the fact that, just three days earlier, on July 29th, 1900, the Italian king Umberto I (r. 1878–1900) had been assassinated by the Italian anarchist Gaetano Bresci.46 Regicide seemed all the rage in fin-de-siècle Europe.47 Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s poor health was clear to the Hungarian Orientalist Ármin Vámbéry (1832–1913) who saw the Shah frequently when he passed through Budapest on his return home to Iran. Vambéry had met the nine-year-old Mozaffar al-Din Mirza at Tabriz in 1862.48 Upon seeing him again, he wrote,
I found him now sickly and quite broken down. Contrexéville49 and Marienbad50 were resorted to in vain to relieve his intense suffering,51 and the undeniable signs of disease impressed upon his features clearly revealed the desperate struggle that he fought within himself.52
3 A Qajar Tempest in a Vatican Teapot
In the year 1900 the absence of a Lazarist mission at Tabriz began to be acutely felt and Lesné had begun to agitate for the establishment of one.53 His effort was successful and on June 17th he presided at the opening of the new mission residence in ‘this vast city, peopled … by 180,000 inhabitants,’54 some 5000 of whom were Christians.55
On November 23rd, 1901, the heir to the throne, Mohammad ʿAli Mirza, who served as prince-governor of Azerbaijan from 1896 to 1907, visited the Lazarists at Urmia. As Lesné wrote at the time,
We received him with all of the honors possible and due to his dignity. He wanted to visit our schools, the children received him in a room prepared for the occasion; they had him listen to songs prepared in his honor and by which he appeared enchanted. Later, two [speeches of] congratulations, the one in Persian, the other in French, were read to him; a copy of these two congratulations, printed on parchment, were given to him. We then went to the press,56 which interested him greatly. Finally, we led him to the church, which also impressed him very much, because, even if it is not ornate, it is nonetheless a monument for the country. We then accompanied him to the great gate with the same ceremonial as on his arrival.
From us he went to visit the schools of the Daughters of Charity, with which he was said to be satisfied.
That very night he sent us one of his men to assure us of his satisfaction and, two days later, he sent 500 francs to divide between the children of the Sisters and ours.
This royal visit has had a great resonance in the country, both among the Christians, and among the Muslims, particularly because His Highness demonstrated, very visibly, that of all his visits it was that to our two houses that gave him the most pleasure. This cannot but leave a favorable impression that will be helpful for us and for the prosperity of our works.57
In 1902 Mozaffar al-Din Shah again travelled to Europe with an entourage of fifty-three (Fig. 8.7).58 Much of his itinerary is of no great importance here. However, this time he wished to visit Italy, albeit in an unostentatious, private manner. No doubt mindful of the attempt on his life in Paris on August 2nd, 1900, during his first trip abroad, he clearly wished to travel with less fanfare. From Austria he went by train from Pontebbe (Pontafel) via Venice,59 and arrived in Rome on May 21st.60 As the guest of Victor Emmanuel III (r. 1900–1946), the Shah could not help but be reminded of the assassination attempt on his life in Paris, particularly as he was taken to pay his respects to the tombs of both Victor Emmanuel II and Umberto I,61 a visit which must have conjured thoughts, not just of the slain Italian king and his own near brush with death, but of his own father’s assassination.
Mozaffar al-Din Shah and his Entourage, One of 274 Vintage Photographs, ca. 1902. Albumen silver photograph, 5 9/16 × 8 9/16 in. (14.1 × 21.7 cm)
Brooklyn Museum, Purchase gift of Leona Soudavar in memory of Ahmad Soudavar, 1997.3.102 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1997.3.102_IMLS_PS3.jpg). Public Domain
While in Rome Mozaffar al-Din Shah wished to visit Pope Leo XIII.62 In the absence of an Iranian envoy to the Holy See, the Shah’s request was made via Baron Maximilien d’Erp, the Belgian ambassador to the Vatican who had previously been his nation’s minister in Tehran.63 On Saturday, May 24th, Mozaffar al-Din Shah fully expected to become the first Qajar ruler to pay a visit to the much-honored Pope of Rome. Unfortunately, he ran afoul of Vatican etiquette and the visit was aborted, causing a minor diplomatic incident.
As noted in Chapter 7, Pope Pius IX’s 1870 explicit declaration of the protocol to be observed by non-Catholic rulers in visiting the Vatican, combined with the prospect of being lodged at the Quirinal, probably explain why Naser al-Din Shah never visited a Pope. In 1902, his son was, in fact, a guest at the Quirinal. As one writer noted, ‘The formalities are well-known and recognized, though they seem to have taken the Shah by surprise.’64 When Mozaffar al-Din Shah, whose ambassador Malkom Khan was accredited to Italy, but not the Holy See, ‘announced that he would not leave from the Quirinal, to go to the Vatican, but from his own embassy headquarters,’ in the Palazzo Roccagiovine,65 where the Belgian legation to Italy and the Bavarian legation to the Holy See were based as well,66 the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, ‘demanded far more: that is, that the sovereign depart from the legation of Belgium or the German legation, accredited to the Holy See.’67
When the Persian monarch heard that it would be necessary for him after leaving the Vatican to wait some time at the Belgian Minister’s residence to receive the visit of Cardinal Rampolla, he withdrew his request for an interview on the plea that he had not enough time at his disposal.68
This perceived snubbing of the Pope prompted profuse commentary in the press. As one report put it,
The Tribuna rejoices that the visit has fallen through, and looks upon the action of the Shah as an additional mark of respect to the Italian Crown, and a source of further obligation on the Italian people towards their Oriental guest. ‘Italy,’ it writes, ‘would have had no reason to grieve, and would not have grieved if the Shah, like other Sovereigns who have preceded him in Rome, had accepted the conditions which the Vatican diplomacy imposed upon him in the performance of an act of homage towards the person of the Pope which everybody can understand and admit, and sympathise with. … none of us has ever found matter for unfavourable comment in the visits made to the Pontiff by foreign princes who were the guests of the King of Italy in Rome, or has shown a desire to give undue weight to the formalities required by the Vatican for such visits. … It would be ungracious, however, on our part and quite unbecoming not to feel ourselves under obligations towards the Sovereign who, not having a legation of his own to the Vatican in Rome, has declined to submit to the greater exactions of the Pontifical Court on account of this condition of things, and has abandoned the visit rather than evince the least want of respect towards us.’… The visit of the Shah to the Vatican was of little consequence to the Holy See, and he can have no reason to complain in being asked to follow the same etiquette that is required in the case of other reigning princes.69
It did not take long for the people of Rome to show how delighted they were with the Shah’s behavior. As one writer noted, when Mozaffar al-Din Shah arrived at the train station in Rome, at the start of his visit, he attracted a polite but small crowd of curious bystanders. When he departed, however, he left to cheering and boisterous acclaim. A French source wrote,
A small diplomatic incident was a source of joy for caricaturists, reporters and the Roman people. It is known that the Vatican imposes a certain etiquette for foreign rulers — guests of the King — who wish to make a visit to the Holy Father. The etiquette is very simple: it suffices that they not leave directly from the Quirinal, but from their embassy to the Holy See. … Generally, the sovereign lunches at his embassy, and after lunch, in the ambassador’s carriage, goes to the Vatican, where he is received by the Pope. The return journey is done in the same manner, and in the drawing room of the embassy the Cardinal Secretary of State repays the visit in the name of the Prisoner. This was, in essence, a good comedy, because if the foreign sovereign feigned ignorance of the Italian government for that day, it was the Italian military escort that did the honors during the journey and escorted the state carriage from the gate of its embassy to the gates of the Vatican. … But Shah Mouzaffer-Ed-Dine has settled the question. He had chosen for his visit the day of his lunching with Prince Malcom [Malkom Khan] and everything was arranged, until Cardinal Rampolla observed to His Majesty that Prince Malcom was the minister to a power that the Vatican did not recognize. If he wished to be received, he must leave from an embassy to the Holy See. The Shah observed that he didn’t have such an embassy and the Secretary of State replied that he could go from any legation: whether that of Belgium, or that of any Catholic state. But Mouzaffer-Ed-Dine held firm. ‘My legation is the legation led by Prince Malcom: if they want me, they must accept my leaving from there.’ And nothing in the world could make him accept the friendly and logical observations of the Vatican. But this was enough to make him popular. The trasteverini70 didn’t care if he gave this reply out of sheer indifference: they viewed it as an act of independence and even as one of pride and they applauded. It was for this reason that, on the day of the Shah’s departure, there was a crowd the length of the Via Nationale and applause rang out as the melancholy barbarian who had taught a lesson to Cardinal Rampolla, Secretary of State of His Holiness Leo XIII, passed by.71
It was almost inevitable that differing accounts of the incident subsequently appeared in print. According to George von Lengerke Meyer (1858–1918), American ambassador to Italy at the time, after a dinner given in honor of the Shah on May 24th,
the King [Victor Emmanuel III] came forward and spoke to me before the other Ambassadors and talked very agreeably for some time; told me about the Shah declining at the last moment to go and pay his respects to the Pope, for the reason that Cardinal Rampolla would not return the visit until it could be done at a hotel, declining to enter the house of a Minister Plenipotentiary accredited to the Quirinal.72
Rewriting history somewhat, one Italian newspaper implied that, already at the time of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s arrival at Rome, the warm welcome given to him was due to the fact that it was already known that he rejected Vatican protocol:
In the last issue we illustrated with a photograph the arrival of the Shah of Persia in Rome, where he was shown great demonstrations of sympathy, perhaps also because he disdained to submit to all the puerilities and grotesque tricks imposed by the Vatican on a foreign Sovereign who, being a guest of our King, wishes to go and bow to the venerable head of the Catholics.73
Another newspaper put it this way:
The Shah departed from Rome delighted with the festive welcome he had received in the capital, although the weather did not prove too favorable: welcomes which were certainly no less warm due to the fact that the Shah, refusing to bow to the petty subterfuges that the Vatican Chancellery wanted to impose on him, renounced the visit he was planning to make to the Pontiff.
Those who run the Vatican Chancellery are certainly people of genius; indeed, they are known for their refinement and subtlety. Therefore, it is all the more strange that they do not realize that the artifices and subterfuges to which they resort to ignore the presence of the King of Italy in Rome are real pettiness, which at most can make one laugh, and are in any case unworthy of them.74
In his memoirs, Augusto Bondi, who had been in charge of the police detail protecting the Shah during his visit to Rome, later wrote,
The steadfastness of the King of Persia met with as much obstinacy in the Papal Secretary, yet a commendable settlement might have been arrived at, if the Shah had not personally interrupted the negotiations abruptly.
He, for the protection of his royal dignity, could not allow further coyness around the symbolic significance of the acts he was to perform. And so it was that departing from Rome, the King of the Persians, passed through our country, almost as a vindicator of our rights.75
For some Italians, Mozaffar al-Din Shah proved to be far more than ‘a vindicator of our rights.’ It transpired that ‘certain sections of the Press … acclaimed him as a monarch of liberal ideas.’76 As the American theologian Lyman Abbott, who was in Rome at the same time as the Shah, later observed, ‘The papers say that he,’ i.e. the Shah, ‘was deluged with telegrams and letters from all over Italy thanking him for his course.’ In Abbott’s view the incident illustrated ‘a political condition which it would be impossible to maintain in the United States; it could not survive the satirists.’77 In any event, in discussing the modern history of the French embassy to the Vatican, Jean-Paulin Niboyet noted that, since Iran was not a Roman Catholic country, Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s actions did not signify.78
As for the Vatican view of the matter, the following summary of the incident appeared:
The Shah of Persia, who arrived in Rome on May 22 and was a guest of King Victor in the Quirinal Palace, left on the morning of the 25th. Regarding the papal audience requested by the Shah on his own initiative, and which could not take place, we read the following in the Osservatore Romano: ‘The Holy See took no initiative about the visit which the newspapers asserted the Shah of Persia would make to the Holy Father, and it was quite natural that it was not incumbent on it to take it. As for the conditions which, owing to the abnormal situation in which the august Head of the Church has been placed by the Italian revolution, are required for such visits by Sovereigns, they have been well-known to all for a long time, such that Princes, Kings and Emperors have automatically conformed to them, without thereby failing in their dignity, and to save that of the Holy See.’
From the missed visit to the Vatican originated the villanous insult that occurred on the streets of Rome and in Termini Square at the departure of the Shah, who was accompanied by King Victor. Not content with applauding the two Sovereigns, a shouting mob, assembled and egged on by the usual ringleaders of the so-called anticlerical demonstrations, following the royal procession closely, repeated the disparagements and [calls of] death to the Pope, the priests and the Vatican. The Shah had to convince himself of that very obvious statement of fact, that the Vatican erred in not accepting the conditions demanded for his visit to the Pope.79
As Pinchetti-Sanmarchi wrote in his study of ecclesiastical diplomacy and the juridical position of the Holy See from an international perspective,
The attention of the enemies of the Church, always aimed at profiting from the slightest eventuality that arises, did not fail to make use of the aborted visit to the Vatican by the Shah of Persia, to congratulate themselves on an event that, although isolated, could be interpreted in favor of the state of affairs established by the Italian government in Rome. When, in fact, His Majesty was leaving the eternal city following this incident, a mob of idlers was seen running behind the carriage in which Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy accompanied the sovereign to the station, clapping their hands to the very patriotic cry of death to the Pope, long live the Shah of Persia!80
4 The Last Years of Mozaffar al-Din Shah
In 1902 Lesné travelled to France. In late July he was in Paris81 and in early September at Saint-Brieuc in Brittany.82 Lesné was away for eight months and only returned to Urmia on January 11th, 1903.83 The Francophile attitude of decades past was still very much in evidence. As a government minister said to several of the Daughters of Charity, ‘My ladies, after the Persian language, the French language is the most beautiful; for us, Persians, it is the second language.’84 A story, possibly apocryphal, circulated to the effect that, when Mozaffar al-Din Shah was in Paris,
M. Loubet85 once asked the Shah: ‘Has it occurred to Your Majesty to wonder what your dutiful servants are now doing in your capital?’ ‘They are yawning. Everyone is now in the sanctuary of his home yawning. I like France better than any other country because I feel here so little inclined to yawn. The French are magicians. One agreeable surprise presses on another.’86
This partiality to all things French was clearly demonstrated in 1902 with the establishment of an Alliance Française, ‘for the propagation of French literature, science, and culture,’ at Tehran. It was reported that, ‘Both the Shah and his Grand Vizier are interesting themselves in this work which is carried on by means of lectures, opening schools, and the celebration of fêtes, such as, recently, the centenary of Victor Hugo.’ After Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s death, one writer noted,
The late Shah, by means of his vast Bon Marché purchases, brought Paris to Teheran …87 French music, with and without words, came with pianos, and with the music French novels. As George Sand began to grow antiquated in France, her star rose in the East. French governesses translated her works viva voce to ladies who could not read her native language. Young ladies were brought up to enthusiastic admiration, and their sense of the wrongs from which they suffered produced a spirit of revolt and a passionate desire to run away. I have met at different times runaway Turkish ladies who had escaped through many dangers and difficulties. … It is harder to escape from Teheran to Europe than from Cairo or Constantinople. The passionate sensibility of George Sand is the note that best vibrates in a Turkish or Persian harem to which French governesses have access.88
The Francophone Belgian lawyer and honorary legal counsel to the Shah, Joseph (José)-André-Ghislain Hennebicq (1870–1941), who spent seven years in Iran (1901–1908),89 sought to establish ‘a French library’ at the Alliance.90 It was even said that a theater was going to be established at Tabriz where the productions were to be performed in French. This was an initiative of the committee overseeing the Armenian schools there and was a response to a request from the prince-governor, Mohammad ʿAli Mirza, who was ‘a great lover of the theater.’91 He was said to have ‘employed twelve French artisans and mechanics at his palace at Tauris.’92
Some commentators contrasted France’s cultural policy in Iran with the more political ambitions of Great Britain, Russia and Germany, noting,
Just now she is said to be coquetting with Persia. Her purpose is all the more attainable because, unlike other European Powers, she can scarcely be suspected of cherishing hopes of political conquest. Her aspirations lie rather in the field of commerce and of civilization. … Through the efforts of the Persian Ambassador at Paris, no less than a dozen French professors have been dispatched of late to take part in the reorganization of public instruction in the Shah’s dominions, and a former tutor of one of M. Loubet’s children is now the preceptor of the Persian Crown Prince.93 Let Germany, Russia, and Great Britain contend for markets and spheres, the patriot might argue, if France can be the bearer of Latin culture to the Asiatics.94
On July 20th, 1903, Pope Leo XIII died and on August 4th Pope Pius X was elected. Describing the deceased Pope’s achievements vis-à-vis the wider world, one source noted
We find him in most friendly communication with the Sublime Porte, and the Sultan officially confirms the Pope’s appointment of Mgr. Abolionau [sic, Abolionan]95 to the Patriarchate of Babylon. By his tact he put an end to the Armenian schism, which was a Turkish reproduction of German ‘Old Catholicism’; he founded a national college in Rome for the Armenians; he created the Patriarch Mgr. Hassun a Cardinal,96 and summoned him to live in Rome. We find him again in personal and friendly correspondence with the Shah of Persia, with the Court of Pekin, with the Emperor of Japan, with the King of the Shoa Gallas,97 (in Abyssinia).98
Meanwhile, the Lazarists’ Protestant adversaries were thriving as well. As Father Georges Decroo, stationed at Urmia, lamented on November 15th, 1903,
Protestant works continue to prosper, thanks to the powerful resources available to American ministers. Their doctors, medical school and hospital are renowned throughout Persia. Our priests and Catholics, like others, are forced to resort to them.99
Moreover, as Decroo later noted, even if the Shahs had issued firmans calling for the protection of the Catholics and their Christian subjects more generally, these were often ignored in areas far removed from the capital:
Often, the Apostolic Delegates of Persia have obtained orders in favor of the Christians from H.M. the Shah. The Persians are generally tolerant in this regard: the Christians of Sina [Sanandaj], of Hamadan and of Isfahan live peacefully enough in their midst. But the province of Azerbaijan is very distant from Tehran; while some governors of Urmia show themselves to be just and impartial, others, contemptuous of the orders of the king, were the real executioners for them. What is more, this province is not inhabited by Persians, but for the most part by the Turkmen Afshars, a fierce and warlike tribe that a Persian shah brought to Adjerbedjan from the shores of the Caspian two hundred years ago,100 entrusting it to their care against the Ottomans and Kurds.101
Describing the obstacles they faced in 1906, among which were the local governors, François Miraziz (1878–1918), a priest born at Khosrova who had been ordained in Paris in 1902, wrote:
The fourth obstacle, and perhaps the most serious, lies in the vexations exercised against Christians by governors. To escape this oppression, Christians seek protection from the missions; it follows that the mission with the most influence with the governors is also the one to which they turn most often. Now, the influence of the French mission, once greater than that of other missions, has diminished somewhat as a result of what is being said about what is happening in France.102
Mozaffar al-Din Shah made his third and last trip to Europe in 1905. Once again he enjoyed the delights of Paris (Fig. 8.8) but made no attempt to visit Pope Pius X at the Vatican.
Shah de Perse [le Shah Mozzafar séjourne à Paris, du 16 juillet au 3 août 1905, logeant à l’Élysée Palace]: [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]
ark:/12148/btv1b69048797. Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, BnF, Est. MFILM K132771 — Rol, 473. BnF, Est. EI-13 (4)
In early December, 1906, Soltan Masud Mirza Zell al-Soltan, who had been awarded the Order of Pius IX by Pope Leo XIII in 1886, visited the Daughters of Charity at Isfahan. According to their Superior, Sister Choblet,
Everything went off well. The visit was long and very kind; in the parlor, the prince told us he is glad that we are here, that he knows that we do good things; in the chapel, he bowed down and prayed respectfully, he said afterwards that he had asked God for his favors for us and for himself. All of the persons who accompanied him were equally very respectful. In the pharmacy and dispensary, the prince took the time to inspect everything, asking for explanations of everything and he was happy to say to us in French that everything was very good. In the classrooms, he told the children to pay great attention to everything that they were taught and that this would later serve them well, that we were God’s wives, that we had only come there to do good; after examining them, he stopped, facing the smallest ones, he took one of the poorest by the hands and kissed him like a good father. In the workshop is the catechism in pictures; he looked at it closely, asked for explanations which we were unable to give in his language; then, again in French, he said to us: ‘Very pretty, very pretty’. In the classroom of the small children, he took a piece of chalk and wrote his name in French on the blackboard with the date of his visit. Returning to the parlor, he drank a cup of coffee according to Oriental custom and did not cease to display his satisfaction.
It is said that this visit will be a boost for our work.103
The last years of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s reign were tumultuous. Particularly significant was the constitutional crisis of 1906 that resulted in the short-lived constitutional government. In short order a constitution was promulgated, elections were held and a parliament was created. Then, on January 3rd, 1907, Mozaffar al-Din Shah died. At the time, Italians were reminded that, less than five years earlier, ‘he made himself popular by not visiting the Pope so as not to submit to the Vatican’s demands in the formalities imposed on him on the manner of the visit, since he was a guest of the King of Italy.’104
5 Rebellion, Revolution and a Shah’s Exile
Mohammad ʿAli Shah (Fig. 8.9) was crowned on January 19th, 1907.105 There followed a period of extreme political turmoil, accompanied by anarchy, civil and tribal warfare during which Kurdish attacks and Turkish incursions in the area of the Lazarist missions intensified, as a long report by Augustin Châtelet106 and shorter reports by Lesné107 and Sister Laperrière108 clearly attest. On June 24th Pope Pius X received as extraordinary envoy Mahmud Khan Ala al-Molk who delivered a handwritten letter from Mohammad ʿAli Shah announcing his accession and pledging the protection and freedom of all Catholics in his realm.109 As reported several days later,
The embassy left its hotel in three state carriages and, in the courtyard of Saint-Damase, was received with honors by the Swiss Guards in dress uniform. Introduced into the throne-room, they presented their greetings to the Holy Father and gave him a handwritten letter from the Shah.110
Mohammad ʿAli Shah, December 19th, 1907. Bain News Service
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, LC-USZ62-133962 (P&P) LOT 11148
It was reported that, at Rome,
The Pope received in a solemn audience the extraordinary mission sent by the Shah of Persia to notify him and the King of Italy of his accession. The ambassador read an address affirming the new Sultan’s resolve to maintain good relations with the Holy See and to continue the protection enjoyed by Catholics living peacefully in Persia. The Pope responded by acknowledging the excellent relations existing between the Persian empire and the Holy See, and expressing thanks for the benevolent protection granted to the Catholics of Persia, who can thus freely practice their religion and live in peace.111
Further, it was reported that, ‘The recent Persian embassy to the Vatican assured the Holy Father that under the new Shah there will be no further persecution of the Catholics in that Empire.’112
After Mohammad ʿAli Shah revoked the constitution and dissolved the Majlis, civil war erupted. Urmia found itself in the firing line. Talks between Turkish and Iranian commissioners at Urmia in February, 1908, ended with no result, after which violence intensified. Numerous villages were attacked and pillaged. The Commissioners returned in June but the situation deteriorated.113 On June 22nd Tabriz awoke to the sound of cannonades and from that time onward was on a war footing.114 François Berthounesque wrote from Tabriz on August 3rd, 1908,
For forty-eight hours we have been in total civil war. Night and day, the cannon rumbles 200 m. from our door; famine makes itself felt; there is no more bread; the price of everything is rising; the poor suffer much and must content themselves with fruit, more or less ripe … blood runs, there is a great number of dead and wounded, especially in the last two weeks.115
On May 3rd, 1909, after a year of civil war, Mohammad ʿAli Shah ordered new elections and promised to convene the Majlis, but it was too little, too late. Fighting continued and at 5 a.m. on July 13th troops of the constitutional movement entered Tehran. Street fighting ensued and the Shah sought refuge in the Russian Legation. On July 16th, 1909, Mohammad ʿAli Shah was formally deposed in an extraordinary session of the Majlis and his eleven-year old son Ahmad Mirza (Fig. 8.10) was unanimously chosen to replace him, with Azad al-Molk as regent.116 As noted in the press, ‘The young Shah does not speak French. Currently he has as his tutor a Russian officer, Capt. Smirnov.’117
Ahmad Shah as a child. Bain News Service
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, LC-B2-780-6 (P&P) LOT 11148
On February 11th, 1910, Lesné died.118 He was succeeded by the Alsatian Lazarist Jacques-Émile Sontag (1869–1918) who had first arrived at Urmia in 1895 and had been stationed in Tehran since 1897.119 After having been named Apostolic Delegate on July 13th, Sontag returned to France and was ordained in Paris on August 28th, 1910.120 On September 20th, Sontag had an audience with Pope Pius X.121 On December 10th, at the blessing of a new chapel in Tabriz, the governor-general of Azerbaijan, Haji Mehdiqoli Hedayat Mokhber al-Saltana,122 spoke in these terms to Berthounesque:
I am very happy, Sir, to have had the great pleasure of seeing your work crowned by the will of God. I hope that God will hear you in your injunctions and that he will aid us in our efforts to re-establish the prosperity of a people who have no other protection but that of God. In thanking you for your friendly wishes, I assure you, Sir, of my high regard.’123
The year 1911, however, was one of extreme turmoil. On top of a famine and an uprising at Isfahan, it was announced in July that Mohammad ʿAli, who had been living at Odessa in exile, had launched what turned out to be a failed military expedition from Astarabad to regain power.124 Writing from Isfahan, Sister Galichet noted that the Lazarists and Daughters of Charity there heard only rumors and were ignorant of what was happening. As the telegraph was still able to send news to Europe, she wondered whether her European correspondent wasn’t better informed on recent developments in Iran than people inside the country itself.125
In early December Russian troops occupied Rasht and by December 21st they had launched an attack on Tabriz. The fighting between Persian and Russian forces on December 21st and 22nd was particularly intense and the Russian consul sent a bank employee to ask the Lazarists to accept sick and wounded from the Russian hospital. Two hours later their classrooms were transformed into hospital wards. On Christmas Day the Russians issued an ultimatum, threatening a heavy bombardment on the following day if the city did not capitulate. As a result, Hedayat resigned, 4000 Russian troops occupied the city and the Persians laid down their arms. The Russian patients were returned to the Russian hospital, and the Russian Consul Andrei Miller126 wrote Berthounesque ‘a charming letter thanking us for the hospitality extended to the injured soldiers.’127 At least the presence of Russian troops had extinguished the threat of Kurdish raiding.128
Meanwhile, at Khosrova, a batallion of sixty Cossacks arrived on January 8th, 1912, and tried to forcibly seize the bishop’s residence to use for their quarters. The missionaries feared that their church would be taken over for Russian Orthodox services. As it happened, one of the Russian captains and a number of the Russian soldiers were Catholics and, as France was an ally of Russia’s, the threat of seizure subsided.129
6 War and a Shocking Murder
On July 21st, 1914, Ahmad Mirza (Fig. 8.11) was crowned Shah at the Majlis in Tehran.130 Sontag returned to France to attend the General Assembly of the Lazarist Mission and stayed until September 30th. While he was there, on August 20th, 1914, Pope Pius X died and was succeeded by Benedict XV. On September 25th, scarcely a month after war broke out, the Russian Consul Miller offered to help the Lazarists of Urmia to seek safety in Russian territory, should a war break out between Russia and Turkey and massacres of Christians by Muslims become a possibility. The Lazarists, however, insisted they would never abandon their Catholic wards. The Turkish Consul at Tabriz, Mehmed Raghib Bey,131 who had been a pupil at the Saint-Benoît Lazarist school in Constantinople, promised his protection.132 Two months later, in a letter dated November 26th, 1914, Sontag expressed the fear that it was only too likely, depending on the course of the war in Europe, that Russia would annex Iranian Azerbaijan. If that happened, then the Lazarists would be obliged to abandon their missions at Tabriz, Khosrova and Urmia.133 On November 30th Sontag wrote again, announcing that, since September 31st, the Kurds had pillaged and burned five Christian villages. What’s more, the anticipated war between Russia and Turkey had broken out, but with winter coming on Sontag hoped that they might be spared further attack by Turco-Kurdish forces.134 On November 1st, 1914, a proclamation of neutrality was read at the opening of the Iranian Majlis.135 As one news report stated, Ahmad Shah ‘announced his intention to remain neutral, but the Persian tribesmen about Lake Urmia are said to be rising against the Russians, who have for more than a year been in virtual control of the Province of Azerbaijan.’136
Ahmad Shah as a young man, 1915–1920. Bain News Service
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, LC-B2-5081-13 (P&P) LOT 11148
The desired respite did not eventuate, however. The Christians of Tabriz had begun leaving for Tiflis on December 30th, 1914.137 On January 1, 1915, the wife of the Russian Consul at Tabriz, Madame Vedinski,138 warned the Daughters of Charity at Urmia that the Russian troops there were going to deploy elsewhere, raising fears that the French missionaries would be defenseless against the advancing Kurds.139 The Daughters of Charity resolutely chose to remain, awaiting guidance from Sontag.140 Father Abel Zayʿa, who had been at Urmia, wrote on February 2, 1915, from Tiflis, to which he had fled. En route he had passed through Khosrova, which had been abandoned by the Lazarists. Sontag and the Daughters of Charity had remained at Urmia, but as Decroo wrote, the massacres had begun:
On the plain of Urmia, four thousand Christian corpses lie unburied. Women and their daughters have been seized by the thousands. Many of our priests have been martyred in the mosques for not having converted to Islam. All of the Christian villages, apart from two, have been pillaged and burned. Twelve thousand Christians have taken refuge in the American mission, three thousand with us, seven hundred with the Daughters of Charity. The mission has been threatened with massacre and pillage by the Kurds. But Mgr Sontag was able to get a letter to the Turkish pasha, who sent soldiers to our aid; these killed three Kurds and the rest fled.
They are dying of hunger and sickness at the American and French missions. Every day there are more than fifty deaths.141
On February 21st, at Urmia, it was said, ‘hatred of France is manifested by the Turks. Today the Mission was again invaded by a group of Kurds, accompanied by Turkish soldiers. … The furor of the Turks is unleashed visibly on the French mission.’142 On March 10th the head of the Catholic community was seized by the acting Turkish Consul Nuri Bey, and was only freed after the French paid a ransom of 2000 tomans (10,000 francs).143 Two days later Decroo wrote from Tiflis, whither two thousand refugees had followed him.144 In April Sontag received a letter from the French Consul at Tabriz that had taken a month to reach Urmia. The French Minister in Tehran had brought the plight of the Lazarists and Daughters of Charity to the attention of the Persian government, while the British and American consuls had also made representations.145 At about the same time, however, the Turks decided to send the French missionaries to Germany via Turkey. The deputy-governor and some of the leading citizens intervened to stop this, arguing that they valued them too highly and offered to go in their stead.146 On May 14th, as Russian troops approached Urmia, the Turks fled.147
Decroo estimated that 20,000 Chaldaean and Armenian Christians had abandoned the northwestern part of the Urmia plain, the valleys of Persian Kurdistan and the plain of Salmas in order to seek refuge in Russian Transcaucasia. Three to four thousand Chaldaean Catholics from the valley of Salmas, 1000 from the Urmia plain and neighboring mountains, had fled. The majority, however, had found it impossible to flee and Mgr Sontag and Father Mathurin L’Hotellier had refused to leave them.148 Meanwhile Sontag contracted typhoid fever. When Pope Benedict XV was informed of this by the French embassy at Petrograd (St. Petersburg), he immediately sent a subvention for the French mission.149
On September 12th, the Lazarists at Isfahan left the city for Tehran and returned to France via Russia, Scandinavia and England. In the capital, however, those remaining lived in fear of a ‘massacre of all of the Christians of Tehran.’150 By late October, 1915, the Russian Red Cross had taken possession of the Lazarists’ mission house at Khosrova.151 After the outbreak of war Sontag made a visit to France in order to publicize the Armenian genocide and the massacres of Christians in Azerbaijan and the region. After his return, on January 20th, 1916, Sontag was awarded the Order of the Lion and Sun, First Class with green ribbon, by Ahmad Shah.152 The following year, on November 15, 1917, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Col. Pierre Chardigny (1873–1951), French Military Attaché in the Caucasus, for his courageous efforts on behalf of the Catholic population of Urmia during the Turkish-Kurdish occupation.153 On July 31st, 1918, Urmia was occupied by the Turkish armed forces. Before they reached the town, however, according to Augustin Châtelet in Tehran, whose information came via a telegram from the Spanish Minister who had been in Tabriz, some Kurds entered Urmia.154 According to one version, two of the domestics of the mayor, Irshad Homayun, assassinated Sontag.155 As Mgr Pierre Aziz, the Chaldaean bishop of Salmas, recounted, Sontag, Mgr Thomas Audo, Chaldaean archbishop of Urmia, and he
were, the three bishops, all together in the office of Mgr the Delegate, in the ground floor of the house. The meal was going to be served any minute. Suddenly, a knock on the door was heard. Mgr the Delegate went out to find out what was going on. Immediately thereafter, we heard two gunshots, and two of the servants of Archad Humayoun came to announce that the Delegate Mgr Sontag had been shot.
It was they who had assassinated him on the orders of their master; this was confirmed by the women who escaped the massacre, who were in the courtyard of the Mission, where they saw everything.
At the same time, M. Dinkha, Lazariste, was massacred at the door of another house, where for the past six months, he was protecting, on the order of his superior, the Muslims who had sought refuge there from the molestations of the Armenians.156
According to the American missionary Rev. Frederick Nevins Jessup (1875–1919), however,
At the Catholic Mission, where some 600 refugees from Salmas and Urmia were, Persian Moslems entered from one side, while the Turkish guards were supposed to be guarding the property, shot down Mr. Sontag, the bishop, and another priest, and massacred all the Christians and refugees, not by shooting, but by clubbing and stabbing. Only two women escaped to tell the tale.157
Châtelet learned via a German consul who was travelling from Mosul to Tabriz via Urmia, that when the Turkish general staff arrived, they saw to the proper burial of Sontag.158
Finally, on October 1st, 1918, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934), wrote to Cardinal Raphaël Ricciardelli, Procurer General of the Congregation of the Mission from 1914 to 1928 in Rome:
Sir,
Already from Tehran itself, the very sad news had been communicated to His Holiness, of which you wrote to me in your letter of 13 September, the horrible massacre of the Christians of Urmia by the Kurds. Among the victims, aside from the missionaries of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and some members of their community, was equally Mgr Jacques-Émile Sontag, Archbishop of Isfahan and Apostolic Delegate of Persia.
It is unnecessary to tell you that this news has profoundly affected the heart of Our Holy Father the Pope. He shares a great part of your sorrow and that of the glorious and meritorious Congregation of the Mission of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.
I can assure you that His Holiness is determined to obtain the fullest and most precise information, and He has not delayed in pursuing all courses which offer the best hope for preserving the missions of Ourmiah and all of Persia from new trials and bloody persecution.
I shall communicate to you at an opportune time the result of these enquiries. I am with particular esteem,
Yours very devoted in the Lord,
Father Cardinal Gasparri159
The one-time dragoman and later French consul at Tabriz, Lucien Saugon, ‘was officially charged by the French government with conducting an enquiry into the murder of Mgr Sontag and M. Dinka.’160 Although not explicitly identified as a report commissioned by Pope Benedict XV, an account written by the American Presbyterian physician-missionary, Rev. Dr. Harry Phineas Packard (1874–1954)161 and sent to the Pope, dated October 29th, 1918, provided more local intelligence, the details of which are unnecessary to go into here. Packard wrote,
Having been at Ourmiah, in Persia, the 30th and 31st July, when the Armenian and Assyrian troops (assoris, djélos) evacuated the town and when it was occupied by Turkish troops, and having had occasion to interview eyewitnesses of the scenes of massacre and pillage that took place at the Lazarist mission, it seemed sensible to send to Your Holiness as complete a report as possible of events. …
I obtained my information from Mar Touma, the representative of the patriarch of Mosul (injured on 31 July, died on 29 August) and from several women present in the mission enclosure at the moment of the massacre. I made a complete account of the event but I was forced to leave Ourmiah so suddenly, on the orders of the Turks, that I was unable to take my notes with me. The American missions had also been completely destroyed on 31 July, 1, 2, 3, 4 August and then finally in a definitive fashion after our expulsion on 8 October.162
This appears to have been the final link between Iran and the Vatican of the Qajar era. Packard’s enquiries contained no mention whatsoever of Irshad Homayun, although his role was explicitly described by Châtelet, among others, who emphasized the hypocrisy and perfidy of Homayun, himself a recipient of medical care provided by Sontag who had previously saved his life.163 On November 18th, 1918, Turkish forces finally abandoned their positions in Azerbaijan, by which point all of the European consuls at Tabriz had sought refuge in Tehran and all communication with the outside world had been cut.164 Whereas neither the Vatican nor the Lazarist headquarters were able to do anything for the French missionaries, their age-old adversaries, the Americans, ‘distributed money in profusion, thanks to the committee of American assistance which has received millions of tomans from America and thanks to the regular subvention granted to all refugees, regardless of race or religion.’165 At Urmia, Father Antoine Clarys, who arrived at Tabriz from Tehran in late March, 1919, was ordered by Consul Saugon to raise the French flag above the ruins of the French mission. This was guarded day and night by four Persian soldiers.166
7 From Shemiran to the Riviera
The Qajar dynasty ended with a whimper, not with a bang. On August 21st, 1919, the 21-year-old Ahmad Shah arrived at Constantinople where he boarded a British vessel en route to Italy. A week later it was announced that he would visit the United States, but on September 2nd it was confirmed that he would not.167 Still, on September 13th, 1919, it was said that, in addition to visiting Italy, the Shah would go to Switzerland, France and England.168 Ahmad Shah visited Switzerland169 before arriving in Paris on October 5th, with the intention of travelling and sojourning incognito,170 but announced that he would soon depart for the seaside in the south of France.171 Before doing so, however, he attended the races at Longchamp on October 26th.172 On November 3rd the Shah arrived in London where he was a guest at Buckingham Palace.173
According to one article,
A very interesting visitor is the young Shah of Persia, who comes over [to Monte Carlo] from Nice. Clad in immaculate dinner-jacket (cut à la française!) one would never suspect his nationality or position, as he quite simply moves about, with two gentlemen in attendance. He has tried his hand at baccarat and roulette: his chief difficulty, apparently, is to understand the values of French money. I heard him inquire how many francs were forty louis! He always keeps on delicate grey suede gloves, and has a perfectly delightful smile — in fact, he is an engaging fellow.174
Meanwhile, the Lazarist-Qajar nexus was rapidly unravelling. On December 6th, the Consuls of France, Britain and the United States commanded the Lazarists to leave Tabriz out of fear of a Bolshevik assault.175 Equally crippling was the fact, outlined in a letter from Father Félix Puyaubreau dated to January 22nd, 1921, that the bank had closed, the Indo-European Telegraph staff had abandoned their station, along with the American, British and finally French Consul André-Miranda-Gérard Malzac (1878–1961), had all left the city.176 With a view towards salvaging the position of the Catholics in Iran, the Vatican decided to try a new tack by appointing Mgr Yohanan (Jean/Giovanni) Nisan, Chaldaean bishop of Sanandaj or ‘bishop of Elam,’ Apostolic Delegate Extraordinary. He later recounted,
The Holy See has decided to concern itself with the future of us Christians without communal distinction. By the intermediary of the Sacred Congregation Pro Ecclesia Orienti, I have been designated Apostolic Delegate Extraordinary of the Holy See in Persia to visit our Christians and tend to their needs.
The rights that we have by virtue of ordination for Sinah [Sanandaj] have been extended to the dioceses of Ourmiah and of Salmas.177
Nisan, who came from the area of Bitlis near Lake Van in eastern Turkey, attended the Dominican Seminary in Mosul before continuing his studies in Rome. He then held positions at Basra and Sanandaj.178 Nisan was appointed to his post on February 21st, 1921,179 the very day that a combined force of 2200 members of the Cossack Brigade, bolstered by 100 gendarmes, under Reza Khan, effected a coup d’état and took control of Tehran.180 It took almost four more months before Nisan arrived in Tehran, on June 18th, 1921. As Georges Ducrocq (1874–1927), Military Attaché in the French Mission at the time, wrote in his journal entry for that day
A bishop of Seneh, Mgr Nissan, has just arrived having been charged by the Pope to make an enquiry into the situation of the Christians of Persia, of those who fled at the time of the massacres at Ourmiah in 1918. Until now they have been living in Mesopotamia from the subsidies of England but ‘tired of paying lazy people who refuse to work’ as Norman181 said, they have been asked to leave the territory. So, they have wanted to return to Persia, Urmia being their promised land, but the Shah who only thinks of possible assassination attempts,182 refuses to let them enter. Mgr Nissan who, with great regret left his mountains, came to see what he could do for them. He is a very handsome man, solid, former student of the seminary in Rome, who wears a magnificent satin robe; his beard is of a shoe polish black and his brilliant and somber eyes tear up as soon as he hears the sound of his own voice, warm and convincing. He doesn’t seem to have grasped the difficulty of the task he has undertaken.183
After several weeks, attended by long delays and difficulties, the French chargé d’affaires, Henri Hoppenot (1891–1977), was able to arrange an audience for Mgr Nisan with the Shah for July 19th, 1921. The audience took place at Ahmad Shah’s summer palace in Shemiran, and was attended by his ministers, the European legations ‘and all the notables of the capital.’184 Hoppenot’s wife Hélène wrote this in her diary entry for that date:
The Sovereign suspects the Chaldaeans of nourishing dark designs against his person. H[oppenot] told me: ‘He remained formal and unfriendly. He asked the Monseigneur for information on the clerical hierarchy, but burst out laughing when he was read the Chaldaeans’ declaration of wanting to live and die as faithful subjects of the shah!185 He didn’t want to make any promises to Nissan, who pressed him, regarding their fate …
After they left the imperial palace, H[oppenot] asked Mgr Nissan what he thought of His Majesty. ‘Peuh! A child from one of our schools would understand better than he does …’186
The following day Nisan visited the French Legation, where he pressed Hoppenot on the importance of allowing the Chaldaeans of Urmia to return, if not to Urmia itself, then to somewhere else in the vicinity.187 On July 25th, before leaving Tehran, Nisan and Hoppenot met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a former governor of Urmia, who knew the Chaldaeans well and professed his love and respect for Catholics. Two days later they saw the President of the Council. Repeated promises were made to look into the situation, with no result. Finally, in response to pressure from the French, Belgian, American and British missions, on September 4th a telegram informed them that the frontier had been opened and five days later Nisan left the capital for Hamadan.188
Nisan’s extraordinary appointment lasted only a few more months. On January 18th, 1922,189 just a few days before he died, Pope Benedict XV named Mgr Adrianus (Adriaan) Smets (1867–1947), former chancellor of the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem and Apostolic Visitor of Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Nineveh, the new Apostolic Delegate in Persia and Apostolic Visitor in the Caucasus, with his residence at Tiflis.190 Smets was a Dominican who had lived at Jerusalem for thirty years.191 Smets lived for two years at Tiflis but bloodshed there during the Bolshevik repression of an uprising in 1924 forced him to leave Georgia and move to Iran.192 French objections to the appointment centered on the fact that, when the bishopric of Babylon was established in the 17th century, it was agreed that its holder would always be French.193 The relevance of this for Persia is questionable and indeed the Vatican was unmoved by this argument. As Smets later wrote,
Being unable to proceed immediately to Persia, I intrusted the duties of my office in that country to Msgr. Martin whom the Sacred Congregation of Propagation of the Faith had recently appointed Administrator of the diocese of Ispahan. Early in 1923 I commenced my work in Georgia and in the course of the year visited also the territories of Kuban and Crimea. By the end of 1924, I had nearly completed my task of visiting all the parishes in Georgia when orders came from Moscow that I was no longer permitted to remain in any of the territory under Soviet control. It was then that I went to Persia.194
Mgr Louis Martin, a Discalced Carmelite rather than a Lazarist, administered the archdiocese of Isfahan and was ‘charged with the Catholic interests of Persia as Apostolic Administrator of the Archbishopric of Isfahan and Vicegerent of the Delegation of the Holy See in this country.’195 In Martin’s own words,
The ecclesiastical organization in Persia is made up as follows: The Holy See is represented directly by its Apostolic Delegate, the most Rev. A. Smets, D.D., who has jurisdiction over all rites and all Catholic activities. The Delegate resides in Teheran, the capital of Persia. There is also an Ordinary for all Catholics of the Latin rite in Persia, the Apostolic Administrator of the archdiocese of Ispahan.196
On October 12th and 13th, 1923, Ahmad Shah attended the autumn horse and camel races outside the Doshantepe Gate of Tehran. It was reported that
The Shah was present, wearing the khaki undress uniform of the new Army and the new service cap, and was attended by his Ministers of State, the Minister of War, under whose auspices the meeting was organized, having a marquee of his own next to the Shah’s. His Majesty, who appeared to take much interest in the racing, was much amused at the antics of a cinema operator from Petrograd, who kept on placing himself and his camera in front of the Shah and Sardar Sepah throughout the afternoon, and taking snapshots and cinema films from all angles! His Majesty himself had a pocket Kodak, with which he took snapshots of the camel race.197
Perhaps Ahmad Shah’s ‘day at the races’ created an irresistible urge to return to Europe where he could see races to his heart’s content. It had been announced that the Shah had planned on leaving ‘as soon as the new Prime Minister, Riza Khan, the Sardar Sepah, is ready with his new cabinet.’198 In any case, the very next day, on October 14th, a Royal Decree, offering medical rather than political excuses, announced that,
as signs of the indisposition which necessitated his journey to Europe two years ago had reappeared, he had found it essential to leave the country again, most reluctantly, to undergo further treatment abroad. He appoints the Valiahd (Crown Prince) Regent during his absence, and states that he will return as soon as the medical treatment is satisfactorily completed.199
With that, Ahmad Shah left his country on November 4th, 1923, never to return as matters turned out.200 Travelling incognito, he reached Baghdad on November 8th,201 and was met by the British High Commissioner Sir Percy Cox.202 That same day, he departed at noon with the Nairn trans-desert motor service,203 for Damascus where he arrived on November 10th. He was escorted by British armored vehicles as far as the Syrian border and from there by ‘French cars and an aeroplane.’204 From Beirut, which the Shah reached on November 20th, he left aboard the Messageries steamship Lotus, bound for Marseille.205 Eight days later, on November 28th, the Lotus arrived in Marseille and Ahmad Shah immediately boarded a train for Paris which he reached in the evening.206
With the rise of Reza Khan, security throughout the country changed dramatically. On September 10th, 1923, Father Pierre Franssen was able to return to Urmia where he found ‘the buildings of the missions razed to the ground.’207 On the other hand, he wrote two months later, ‘Never has Persia been so assured and tranquil as at this moment. The army, which has taken into its hands the direction of the country, is doing good work, I assure you.’208 What’s more, he wrote,
All of the Christians have turned their gaze towards the Catholic Mission. The influence of the Orthodox and Nestorians is practically paralyzed, and that of the Protestants is considerably diminished. The Persian authorities view with a favorable eye the French Catholic Mission, whereas the others are viewed rather badly.209
The American journalist John Gunther (1901–1970), who can hardly be considered objective, was generally scathing about Iran but apparently admired Reza Shah. Of Ahmad Shah he wrote,
The reigning sovereign, Sultan Ahmed Shah, last of the Kajar dynasty, a fat puppet, lived in Deauville and gave fortunes in rubies to chorus girls. He was called the Grocer-Boy Shah, when he wasn’t called something even less complimentary, because he bought the entire grain crop of the country during a famine and then sold it to the starving people at fantastic prices.210
In 1925, while their Lazarist colleagues in Paris celebrated the tercentenary of the foundation of the Congregation of the Mission, those at Tabriz, commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of that mission with, among other things, a varied musical program featuring the Marseillaise, the Kyrie and Credo of Paladilhe,211 the Gloria and Agnus Dei of Battmann,212 the Sanctus of Boyer213 and the Bone Pastor of La Tombelle.214
Ahmad Shah lived abroad until his death at the age of 32 in 1930 and ‘persistently preferred the Riviera to his own country. Now and again he has announced that it was his intention to return to Persia and govern it. But when a few weeks had passed he changed his mind.’215 Sheean noted that,
since the spring of 1921 — the role of the shah had grown increasingly insignificant. Ahmad Shah, the sovereign, was a fat and pleasure-loving young man who presented no very inspiring spectacle to his subjects. While Reza was conducting his campaigns in the north and restoring Azerbaijan to the empire, the Shah was at Deauville,216 walking on the beach with European ladies and getting his photograph into half the newspapers of the earth. When Reza was making his victorious progress into Khuzistan and restoring the richest country of Persia to the dominion of the crown, the wearer of that crown was adding luster to the gaieties of Nice and Cannes. Ahmad Shah was then, of course, and is yet, not unintelligent; his successes in the stock market in Paris have proved it. But he exhibited, through these crucial years of Persia’s rehabilitation, an indifference to his own country which alienated practically all sections of opinion.217
As an article in Time reported on April 7th, 1924,
Ahmad, ex-Shah of Persia, seventh of the Kajar dynasty, youthful and rotund, learned last week in Paris that the Persian Parliament had deposed him, that he no longer had the right to be termed Sultan. Despatches stated that the 26-year-old exile ‘has wept continuously since receiving the awful news; great tears roll down his royal cheeks; he has shut himself in his private suite in his house near the Bois de Boulogne; he walks around in circles, lamenting his fate … The Baroness d’Erlanger, former Mrs. Peter Cooper Hewitt, whom he had once asked to be his Sultana,218 sent a message. Ahmad only mourned the more.
Ahmad was ousted because he spent much of his time debauching along the Riviera.219
On March 23rd, 1925, Ahmad Shah was deposed and his infant son was named shah in his stead. As Time described the situation on November 9th, 1925,
At Teheran, the Persian Assembly, or ‘Majlis,’ adopted a resolution deposing the present Kajar dynasty ‘for the sake of the national welfare,’ by a vote of 80 to 5. The resolution ‘entrusted the Government to Reza Khan’ — to exactly what extent is not known …
Since it appears certain that former Shah Ahmad has been overthrown, much interest centered last week about that famed and dissolute young man. His many escapades were recalled with gusto …
Two years ago [1923] he quitted his sumptuous palace and well-stocked harem at Teheran, came to Paris, and, like many another, was reported ‘deeply shocked’ at what he saw and heard there. Six months later he had succeeded in shocking in return all but the most blasé inhabitants of Paris, Deauville, Cannes, Biarritz and Monte Carlo.
His gambling losses alone are estimated at well over $3,000,000. And the entertainments which he has staged upon his yacht off most of the fashionable watering places in Europe have become a byword, and are said to have accounted for another million.
In the past he has often declared, ‘Persia can wait,’ when requested to return by anxious Persian nobles. But when he left Persia two years ago, Reza Khan is reported to have told him that he had ‘neither the gift nor the acquired talent for government.’ And since his worst enemies cannot deny that he has both a gift and a talent for a soft, languorous, dreamy mood, he has apparently remained content without harem, palace or actual royal state.220
On November 16th, the decree deposing Ahmad Shah, issued by Reza Khan, was published in Time and the ex-Shah’s cries of protest from Paris fell on deaf ears. As the writer there observed, ‘The British Government has already given “provisional recognition” to the new “provisional government” of Persia. The Russian Government, which has been freely rumored to be behind Reza Khan, recognized the new régime by telegraph almost before it was announced.’221 On April 25th, 1926, Reza Khan was crowned Shah.222 The Catholic world was cautiously optimistic. One Catholic writer noted, ‘Reports coming from missionaries in Persia have not mentioned any drastic changes. The consensus of opinion, however, is that the course of a year will bring results that will be far from disappointing to the missionaries.’223 On February 27th, 1930, Ahmad Shah died at the Parisian suburb of Neuilly.224
It is said to have been filmed by Mehdi Rusi Khan Ivanov (1875–1968). See Issari 1989: 58. If true, the film no longer survives and Naficy 2011: 314 is sceptical of the veracity of this.
Anonymous 1896i: 472.
Anonymous 1896e: 316.
Anonymous 1896d.
Anonymous 1896d.
Malaval 1896: 472–473.
Anonymous 1896g.
Anonymous 1896h: 946.
Lesné 1896: 615, a letter dated at Urmia on November 15th, 1896, in which he referred to his return ‘one month ago.’
Lesné 1897b: 243.
d’Arlot de Saint-Saud 1934: unpaginated.
Lesné 1897a: 567.
Anonymous 1897c: 1134 gives the names of two dragomans at the French Legation in Tehran, G. Audibert and H. Ferté. There was, however, a student dragoman at Tehran named Stanislas de Rettel listed in 1898. See Anonymous 1898: 1054. A few years later he was drogman-chancellor in the French consulate at Tabriz. See Anonymous 1903: 32. Lesné misspelled his name ‘Retel.’
The Italian word foglio, lit. sheet or piece of paper, is used here.
Naser al-Din Shah.
Understood variously as ‘Papa,’ i.e. Pope, or ‘Papa et Pontifex.’ See Noonan 1996: 403; Theriault 1998: 266–268.
This previously unpublished letter is in the Rubinstein Library at Duke University.
Anonymous 1896f: 112, quoting Isaiah 45: 13 which refers to Cyrus the Great.
Lesné 1897a: 568.
Dillange 1900: 288.
For example, in 1873, after Naser al-Din Shah visited the Krupp Steel Works in Essen, he bestowed the Order of the Lion and Sun on the Krupp executives who had given him a tour of their facilities. See Anonymous 1873ad. Mozaffar al-Din Shah awarded the Order of the Lion and Sun to the Polish pianist Natalia Janotha (1856–1932) who played for him on his third visit to Europe in 1905. See Anonymous 1905a: 508.
Anonymous 1897a.
Alexander I Obrenović (r. 1889–1903).
Presumably Mirza Reza Khan Arfa al-Dowleh, who had worked in the Persian consulate at Tiflis as an interpreter, accompanied Naser al-Din Shah on his second visit to Europe in 1889, served as Consul-General in Tiflis and was appointed Minister to the Court of St. Petersburg in 1895. He spoke both Russian and French. See Picot 1897: 40.
Anonymous 1897b: 396–397. Just such a mosaic, depicting Pope Leo XIII on the balcony of the basilica, blessing the faithful gathered below him (‘Piazza S. Pietro nel momento della Benedizione Papale’), made in the Vatican Mosaic Workshop by Biagio P. Barzotti, is today in the Corning Museum of Glass (95.3.16) and measures 30 × 48 cm. See https://glasscollection.cmog.org/objects/17525/piazza-s-pietro-nel-momento-della-benedizione-papale.
Lesné 1898: 554–555.
Lesné 1898: 555.
Lesné 1899a: 20.
Lesné 1899b: 78.
Lesné 1899c: 132–133.
Demuth 1899: 80–81; Lesné 1900b: 82.
Anonymous 1900a: 448.
Lorey and Sladen 1907: 186.
Hardinge 1928: 280–281. Cf. Anonymous 1900e: 26–27, ‘The recent loan of sixty million francs from Russia, with the control of the Northern Customs in case of default, although, perhaps, not altogether a wise move, as it places the Shah under the heel of Russia both politically and financially, enabled His Majesty to satisfy the long-felt wish to visit Europe.’ As Orientalist 1907: 228–229 wrote, Mozaffar al-Din Shah ‘offered Russia a political inducement to provide £2,400,000 at 5 per cent. interest. The terms were very favourable in appearance, because the loan was not a purely financial “deal.” It was a political job, connoting the sale of the nation’s birthright for a mere mess of pottage to be enjoyed by the nation’s master. But the Shah was enabled to start for Contrexeville and seek relief from the malady that affected him, at the cost of a national malady — general paralysis — from which there is no relief.’ For the Russian effort to gain control in Iran vis-à-vis Britain at this time see e.g. Beale 1900.
Lesné 1900a: 283–284.
Dillange 1900: 287. Dillange provides a detailed account of Lesné’s visit and audience.
Dillange 1900: 288–289.
Dillange 1900: 288–289.
Anonymous 1900o: 350.
Dillange 1900: 290. Dumont wrote five plain-chant masses, known as the Messes royales, which were sung frequently in 19th century France. See Anonymous 1869, unpaginated. Although Belgian by birth, Dumont was educated and worked in Paris. According to Hervey 1902: 52, ‘He was not a profound composer, and when compared with the great Italians and Germans, can only be considered very modestly indeed. But at least he composed in a pure style and with a sense of the importance of his work. King Louis XIV appointed him musical director of the Royal Chapel. … His compositions are simple, graceful, and free from profundities. They show the Italian influence in so far that the movement of the parts and the harmonies are in the monodic and not the polyphonic school.’ In spite of these critical remarks, Dumont’s importance should not be underestimated. In discussing the introduction of Catholic liturgical music to China by French missionaries, for example, Hong 2025: 363, wrote, ‘Dumont published Cinq messes en plain-chant, composés et dédiées aux Révérends Pères de la Mercy, du Couvent de Paris in 1669…. Dumont’s Mass settings enjoyed great popularity right after their publication, especially the Mass written according to the 1st Mode. It is quite natural that the missionaries from France would introduce to the Chinese people the Latin Messe they were most familiar with; as a result, Messe Royale became one of the first western sacred music pieces that the Catholic faithful in China would learn.’
Dillange 1900: 290.
For the exact date see Lorey and Sladen 1907: 186. Cf. Anonymous 1900e: 27.
Anonymous 1900b: 1057 (Warsaw), Anonymous 1900j: 294, Anonymous 1900l: 736 (Ostend), Anonymous 1900k: 298–299 (Paris), Anonymous 1900m: 532 (Vienna), Anonymous 1900n: 121 (Constantinople).
Anonymous 1900g: 20; Anonymous 1900h: 176; Anonymous 1900i: 186.
White 1908: 1063. Cf. Eskandari-Qajar 2022: 98–99.
Anonymous 1900f. For the episode in its broader context see e.g. Levy 2007: 208; Jensen 2014: 187–197.
In the wake of Umberto I’s assassination, Ruffoni 1900 devoted an entire study at the time to the topic of regicide.
Vámbéry 1867: 58.
Spa town in the Vosges district of France ‘little frequented by foreigners, but much beloved of members of the Paris Stock Exchange,’ where Mozaffar al-Din Shah spent three weeks. See Anonymous 1900c: 378; Anonymous 1900d: 511. He returned again on his European visits of 1902 and 1905. See Brunner and Guitter 1986: unpaginated.
Spa town at the time in Austro-Hungarian Bohemia, known today as Mariánské Lázně, in Czechoslovakia. While visiting in September, 1900, Mozaffar al-Din Shah ‘lived in the Hotel Klinger, visited the baths, the theater and showed himself frequently in public.’ See Sommer 2022: 175.
According to one report Mozaffar al-Din Shah was suffering from kidney stones. See Brunner and Guitter 1986: unpaginated.
Vambéry 1904: 401.
Lesné 1901a: 28; Lesné 1902: 407–408; Dillange 1900: 291. Tabriz was the residence of the prince-governor, Mohammad ʿAli Mirza which added importance to the Lazarist presence there. See Berthounesque 1903: 193. The difficulty of converting Armenians and Nestorians was put succinctly by Malaval 1903: 70 who wrote, ‘we shall not gather Armenians, Gregorians or dissidents [Nestorians] to the Catholic unity, so attached to their nationality, without demonstrating to them that Catholicism will not touch their traditions, or their nationality, or their liturgy.’ Berthounesque 1908: 68 later wrote, ‘Tabriz is a mission of the future, that is my conviction; this town is the best placed in Persia, in all respects; here, in my humble opinion, we shall arrive at realizing a considerable good.’
Lesné 1901b: 363.
Malaval 1902b: 89. Malaval put the population at over 250,000.
For the Lazarists’ press at this date, see Darbois 1902: 532–539.
Lesné 1902: 407–408; Lesné 1904: 14–16.
Artioli 1902: 530.
Artioli 1902: 529.
Anonymous 1902d; Anonymous 1902b: 727–728.
Artioli 1902: 531.
Initial news reports of Mozaffar al-Din’s arrival at Rome, in which his onward itinerary was discussed, made no mention of a projected visit to the Pope. See e.g. Anonymous 1902e: 8.
Anonymous 1902d: 854. For d’Erp see Massue 1914: 618.
Anonymous 1902d: 854.
Designed by the architect Italo Rossini, the palace overlooks Trajan’s Forum and was built between 1864 and 1867 above the ruins of part of the Basilica Ulpia (440–447 AD). See Scaroina and La Regina 2014: 168.
Anonymous 1902l: 917, 1066.
Artioli 1902: 534.
Anonymous 1902d: 854.
Anonymous 1902d: 854.
Lit. inhabitants of Trastevere, an area of Rome situated on the west bank of the Tiber river, with the colloquial meaning ‘true Romans.’
Anonymous 1902h: 483–484.
Howe 1920: 56–57.
Anonymous 1902g: 8.
Anonymous 1902f: 592.
Bondi 1910: 66–67.
Rodd 1925: 19.
Abbott 1907: 182.
Niboyet 1912: 78.
Anonymous 1902c: 610–611.
Pinchetti-Sanmarchi 1903: 360–361. In 1910 a somewhat similar situation occurred when the American Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks and former President Theodore Roosevelt were refused audiences with Pope Pius X. In the former case the reason was that Fairbanks had given an address to the American Methodist Church in Rome, while in the latter the Vatican suggested that Roosevelt was free to address whomsoever he wished, so long as it was not the Methodists, who were unceasing in their criticism and opposition to the Pope. Roosevelt, who had no plans to address the Methodist Church, nevertheless refused to have his movements curtailed by Vatican order. One writer compared this with Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s case, noting, ‘there is an old proverb that when you come to Rome you must do as Rome does. True, that eccentric potentate the late Shah of Persia declined to accept the conditions laid down for the audience with Pope Leo XIII but then everybody laughed at him, and when the Emperor of Germany or the King of England come to Rome and prepare to visit the Holy Father they are scrupulously careful to observe the conditions prescribed for them. True again, last year one hoodlum who managed to enter the Holy Father’s presence refused to comply with the etiquette of such occasion, but after all he was a hoodlum and not the ex-President of the United States. When Mr. Roosevelt returns to the land of liberty he will have to part once more with some of his cherished “liberty of conduct” or he will have trouble not only with the police but with decent society.’ See Anonymous 1910b: 143–144.
Anonymous 1902i: 362.
Anonymous 1902j: 548. Lesné was born at Maroué in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc. See Anonymous 1910a: 212.
Lesné 1903: 87.
Tardy 1903: 196–197. The inverse of this axiom was expressed by Marcel Dieulafoy who called Iran ‘that one out of all the Asian nations that is closest to France by virtue of its genius and its civilization.’ Cited in Lericolais 1909: 215.
Émile Loubet (1838–1929) was president of France (1899–1906) at the time of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s visits there.
Ivanovitch 1907: 217.
An anonymous poem in Punch entitled ‘The Silly Season’ included the lines: ‘The Shah has spent ten thousand pound/ In Paris at a draper’s.’ See Anonymous 1902k: 177.
Ivanovitch 1907: 221.
For his career see Jadot 1955.
Anonymous 1902b: 728.
Anonymous 1902a: 141.
Ivanovitch 1907: 218.
Bernay, the French Consul-General at Tabriz when Mozaffar al-Din Mirza was governor of Azerbaijan, ‘had been his counsellor and friend at Tauris.’ See Ivanovitch 1907: 215.
Anonymous 1907e: 2–3.
Peter Elias XIII Abolionan/Abolyonan (1840–1894) was appointed Patriarch of the Chaldaean Catholic Church in 1878. For his life see Anonymous 1895b: 172.
Paul Hassun, elected Patriarch of the Armenians in 1866. After a series of tribulations relating to his election, ‘In reward for his loyalty and fidelity, Leo XIII on 13 December, 1880, created Mgr. Hassun Cardinal, the first Oriental raised to the purple since Bessarion [1403–1472] in the time of Eugenius IV [r. 1431–1447]. Mgr. Hassun died in Rome on 28 February, 1884. See Spitz 1923: 158.
Shoa is a geographical name referring to a part of Ethiopia whereas Gallas refers to a group of tribes which were predominantly Muslim. See e.g. Hotten 1868: 204.
Coupe 1907: 650.
Decroo 1904: 209.
In fact, the Afshar migration occurred c.1625, during the reign of Shah ʿAbbas I, and did not originate near the Caspian. As Kondo 1999: 539 explained, according to the Tarikh-e Afshar, written c.1868/9, ‘When Kalb ʿAli Sultan, the leader of the Afshars, rendered distinguished service in the defense of Baghdad against the Ottomans, the shah granted him the title of khan and the province of Urmiya as an iqțāʿ (assigned land). At that point eight thousand Afshar households migrated from ʿIraq-i ʿAjam (Central Iran), Fars, Kirman, and Khurasan to Urmiya.’
Decroo 1905: 524.
Miraziz 1907: 218–219.
Choblet 1907: 223–224.
Anonymous 1907b: 33.
Anonymous 1907a: 46.
Chatelet 1908: 619–628.
Lesné 1908: 617–619.
Laperrière 1907: 220–222.
Arens 1919: 51. Cf. Anonymous 1907f: 165.
Anonymous 1907d: 676.
Anonymous 1907c: 9.
Anonymous 1908b: 40.
Anonymous 1909a: 3–4.
Barberet 1909: 284.
Berthounesque 1909: 93.
Browne 1910a: 326.
Anonymous 1909b: 662.
Anonymous 1911: 297–298.
Maigret 2022: 7.
Anonymous 1910e: 565.
Anonymous 1910c: 423.
First appointed to this position in April, 1908, he resigned after Mohammad ʿAli Shah’s coup d’état, but returned at the request of the new government on August 19th, 1909. See Kasheff 2012.
Berthounesque 1911: 377.
Brant and Sherwood 1914: 809.
Galichet 1912: 216.
For whom see e.g. Clark 2006c; Shablovskaia 2019.
Berthounesque 1912: 219–220.
Louise 1912: 347. Cf. Greenfield 1917: 259, ‘There is no doubt that, exhausted by the upheavals of the years of revolution, the peaceful and prosperous part of the population saw the continued presence of Russian troops as a guarantee for the continuation of undisturbed existence.’
Anonymous 1912a: 2; Decroo 1913: 388.
Anonymous 1914a: 27.
Anonymous 1915: 1051.
Dinka 1915: 524; Anonymous 1916b: 255.
Sontag 1915: 526.
Sontag 1915: 528.
Anonymous 1917a: 65.
Anonymous 1914b: 309.
L’Hotellier 1915a: 536.
If correct, Mme Vedinska/Wedinska or Vidinska (?) must have been the wife of a lesser Russian official since the Russian Consul-General at Tabriz in 1915 was Orlow and the Vice-Consul at Urmia was Goloubinow. See Anonymous 1915: 1050. Perhaps this was the wife of a Russian officer at Tabriz?
Anonymous 1916b: 240.
Anonymous 1916b: 240.
Decroo apud Sontag 1915: 530.
Anonymous 1916b: 252.
Anonymous 1916b: 256; Sontag 1916: 490, ‘On the slightest pretext, they arrest our people, whether Muslims or Christians, and do not release them until a more or less sizable ransom has been paid. It was thus that our Mellatbachi, chief of the Catholic community, was seized, and we had to pay 10 000 francs to free him.’
Schmidlin 1915: 245, n. 1.
Anonymous 1916b: 259–260.
Griselle 1917: 47.
Anonymous 1916b: 261.
Decroo 1915: 532; L’Hotellier 1915b: 544.
Anonymous 1916b: 262–263.
Anonymous 1916b: 265.
Anonymous 1916a: 239.
Anonymous 1917c: 918.
Laperrière 1918: 571.
Chatelet 1919a: 239; Chatelet 1919b: 515.
Maigret 2022: 7. For obituaries see Anonymous 1917b: 300; Anonymous 1920b: 263–265.
Aziz 1918: 382. Many sources give the date of the massacre as July 27th, 1918. See e.g. Anonymous 1918: 676; Franssen 1918: 1092.
Gudhardt 1919: 6–7. See also Kashani-Sabet 2011: 622–623.
Chatelet 1919a: 239.
Gasparri 1919: 240–241.
Franssen 1919c: 835.
For his life, particularly in Iran, see Aro 2003.
Packard 1919: 509, 514.
Chatelet 1919c: 829–830.
Franssen 1919a: 521–522.
Franssen 1919b: 524.
Clarys 1919: 1073.
Anonymous 1919a: 238.
Anonymous 1919b: 370.
El-Ghaiaty 1919: 166.
Pézard 1919: 369.
Anonymous 1919c: 296.
Anonymous 1919d: 368.
Anonymous. 1919e: 121. Cf. Anonymous 1919f: 772–774.
Anonymous 1922: x.
Zayia 1921: 330. For the Bolshevik threat at this juncture, see Sabahi 1990: 103–108.
Puyaubreau 1921: 325–326, 334.
Chatelet 1922: 317.
Chatelet 1922: 323.
Nisan 1924: 210.
Shambayati 2015. Cf. Balfour 1922 and Zirinsky 1992 for overviews.
Herman Cameron Norman (1872–1955), British Minister Plenipotentiary in Tehran at the time.
On February 28th, 1908, two bombs were thrown at a car thought to contain the Shah in Tehran, destroying the vehicle and killing two servants. The Shah was in a different car at the time. See Anonymous 1908a: 231. As Terrasse 1908: 752 noted, the attempt was made by ‘nationalists exasperated by the resistance he was putting up against the Persian Parliament (Douma).’ Three days earlier, Kheirollah 1908: 130 had noted that, the recent assassination of the King and Crown Prince of Portugal on February 1st, 1908, ‘there were many in Persia who regretted that a similar end had not been the lot of Mahmad Ali. There is no need, however, to despair. If our information is correct it is only a question of time and opportunity: six secret societies have been charged with his execution … Meanwhile, our Shah remains barricaded in his palace, daring not to leave, even with a cavalry escort and batteries of artillery. He is permanently on his guard, has all of his dishes and beverages tasted before him. Only his primary wife and his cousin share his meals. Ten concubines have been fired so far; the others, those who have been retained in their posts … are under close surveillance. Twenty bedrooms are always ready for the night, a nap or rest; His Majesty chooses that which he will honor with his presence only at the last moment.’
Richard 2015: 527.
Nisan 1924: 213.
Cf. Georges Ducrocq’s journal entry for August 21st, 1921, ‘When the Bishop said to the Shah: the Chaldaeans wish to live and die as faithful subjects of the Shahanshah, the Shah could not help himself from laughing.’ See Richard 2015: 338.
Richard 2015: 532.
Chatelet 1922: 327–328.
Nisan 1924: 215; Chatelet 1922: 327.
Anonymous 1925e: 110.
Hermus 1922: 130.
Anonymous 1921: 154.
Lama 1925: 401; Bathmanschwili 1927: 154.
Thus, Pernot 1923: 227 wrote, ‘The nomination of Mgr Smets, a Dutch clergyman (13 January 1922) aroused entirely legitimate protests.’
Smets 1926: 4. Pernot 1923: 227 (repeated verbatim in Anonymous 1923a: 529) was thus wrong when he wrote, ‘Mgr Smets never took up his post.’ Making no mention of direct Soviet orders from Moscow, Lama 1925: 401 and Bathmanschwili 1927: 154 suggest that it was Bolshevik violence in Georgia that made it necessary for Smets to leave.
Martin 1923: 345; Martin 1924: 570; Lesourd 1926: 127.
Martin 1928: 62. This last sentence refers to himself.
Anonymous 1923f: 555.
Anonymous 1923b: 446.
Anonymous 1923f: 556.
Anonymous 1923c: 508.
Anonymous 1923e: 554.
Sheean 1927: 56; Cox 1923: 300.
Only recently established by the New Zealand brothers Norman and Gerald Nairn, both veterans of the Palestine campaign under Gen. Allenby. In 1919 they had begun motor service between Beirut and Haifa and a few years later were persuaded to establish a service to Baghdad. A first reconnaissance journey from Damascus to Baghdad took place in April, 1923, and the next month Norman Nairn made the trip himself. In the late summer of 1923 the ‘Nairns won a five years’ contract from the Iraqi Government for carrying its mails between Baghdad and Haifa.’ The service did not begin until October. See Nicholson 1969: 219–222. Ahmad Shah would thus have been one of their early passengers.
Anonymous 1923d: 541.
Anonymous 1923g: 562.
Anonymous 1923h: 583.
Anonymous 1923i: 285.
Franssen 1924: 361.
Franssen 1924: 364.
Gunther 1939: 550.
Émile Paladilhe (1844–1926) was a child prodigy whose first compositions were published when he was eleven years old. He later studied at the Paris Conservatory and composed two operas. See Cooper 2009: 152.
Although the source has ‘Bettman,’ this is surely a misprint for Battmann. Jacque-Louis Battmann (1818–1886) was an organist at Belfort and Vesoul as well as a prolific composer. See Ochse 2000: 254, n. 7. Battmann wrote at least two masses from which the Gloria or Agnus Dei might have come. These were ‘Messe brillante et très facile à 3 voix égales, avec accompaniment d’orgue,’ and ‘Messe, Deuxième, e nut, à deux voix égales d’une facile execution, avec accompaniment d’orgue, ou harmonium, Op. 282.’ See Anonymous 1910d: 86. Battmann published over four hundred works including a great deal of religious music such as motets, masses and choral pieces. Given that the Lazarists had a harmonium, this probably explains the choice of his music. See Anonymous 1886a: 267.
Abbé Louis Boyer (1880–1934), a French religious composer and conductor who became ‘maître de chapelle’ at the cathedral of Périgueux in 1920. See Anonymous 1920a: 130.
Berthounesque 1925: 883, 885. Fernand de La Tombelle (1854–1928), a composer and organist, published a volume of fifty pieces for the harmonium. See La Tombelle 1917.
Anonymous 1925a: 806.
The year 1922 at Deauville was known as the year of the kings (Année des Rois) because, in addition to Ahmad Shah, the guests there included King Alfonso XIII of Spain, ex-King Manuel of Portugal, the King of Sweden and the Dowager Queen Olga of Greece. See Rose 2013: 87. At Deauville Winston Churchill ‘observed the Shah of Persia at the gaming tables, dissolutely “parting with his subjects’ cash”. “Really,” he observed to Clementine, “we are well out of it with our own gracious monarch!” See Cannadine 2002: 60.
Sheean 1927: 56.
As Farley 2021: unpaginated wrote, ‘The Shah of Persia had invited her to become the highest-ranking woman in his harem. After Peter’s death, the shah had followed her around Paris in his limousine, attending all the same parties she did. Some claimed that Maryon declined his offer only because she was unwilling to brave the competition among the shah’s other lovers. Why else would she turn down a man who was ready to shower her with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires?’
Anonymous 1924: 11.
Anonymous 1925b: 15.
Anonymous 1925c: 15–16.
Anonymous 1926a: 557.
Anonymous 1926b: 173.
Anonymous 1930: 401.