In 1888, there were just four British consulates in the country; by 1921 there were twenty-three. H. Lyman Stebbins investigates the development and consequences of British imperialism in Iran in a time of international rivalry, revolution and world war. While previous narratives of Anglo-Iranian relations have focused on the highest diplomatic circles in Tehran, London, Calcutta and St. Petersburg, this book argues that British consuls and political agents made the vast southern borderlands of Iran the real centre of British power and influence during this period. Based on British consular archives from Bushihr, Shiraz, Sistan and Muhammarah, this book reveals that Britain, India and Iran were linked together by discourses of colonial knowledge and patterns of political, military and economic control. It also contextualizes the emergence of Iranian nationalism as well as the failure and collapse of the Qajar state during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the First World War.

Introduction 1Part I: Consuls and the Great Game, 1889-1907Chapter 1: Imperial Intelligence: Official British Images of Qajar Iran 11 Chapter 2: Imperial Inroads: Commerce, Conflict, and Cooperation 48Chapter 3: Imperial Partition: Forging the Anglo-Russian Convention 81Part II: Consuls and Revolution, 1905-1915Chapter 4: The Revolutionary Vortex: Ideology, Faction, and Empire 116Chapter 5: Divide et Impera: the Consolidation of British Control 151Part III: Consuls at War, 1915-1921Chapter 6: Proxy Wars: The Battle for Southern Iran 185Chapter 7: Centering Tehran: The End of British Imperialism in Southern Iran 220 Conclusion 256End Notes 266Bibliography 326Index [340]