KARL MARX
[ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR]
The declaration of war
against Persia, by  England or  rather by  the East India Com pany,123 is the reproduction of one  of those cunning  and reckless tricks of Anglo-Asiatic diplomacy, by  virtue of which
England has extended her possessions  on  that Continent. So
soon  as the Company  casts a greedy look on  any of the
independent sovereigns, or on  any region whose  political
and commercial resources or whose  gold and jewels are
valued, the victim is accused of having violated this or that
ideal or actual convention, transgressed an imaginary
promise  or  restriction, committed some  nebulous  outrage, and
then war is declared, and the eternity of wrong,  the perennial force of the fable of the wolf and the lamb, is again
incarnadined in national history.
For  many years England has coveted a position in the
Persian Gulf, and above all the possession  of the Island of
Kareg, situated in the northern  part of those waters. The
celebrated Sir John  Malcolm, several times Ambassador to
Persia, expatiated on  the value of that island to England,
and affirmed that it could be made one of her most
flourishing establishments in Asia, being in the neighbour hood of Bushire, Bandar Rig,  Basra, Grien Barberia and
Elkatif. Accordingly, the island and Bushire are already in
the possession  of England. Sir John  considered it a central
point  for the commerce of Turkey, Arabia and Persia. The

climate is excellent, and it contains all the facilities for
becoming  a flourishing spot. The Ambassador more  than
thirty-five years ago submitted his observations to Lord
Minto,  then Governor-General, and both  sought  to carry
out  the scheme. Sir John,  in fact, received the command of
an expedition to take the island, and had already set out,
when  he received orders to return to Calcutta, and Sir
Harford Jones  was sent on  a diplomatic mission  to Persia.
During  the first siege of Herat by  Persia, in 1837-38, Eng land, under the same ephemeral pretence as now — that is,
to defend the Afghans, with whom  she has constantly a
deadly feud— seized upon  Kareg, but  was forced by  circumstances, by  the interference of Russia, to surrender her
prey. The lately renewed and successful attempt of Persia
against Herat has afforded England an occasion to accuse
the Shah of violation of good  faith toward her, and to take
the island as a first step toward hostilities.
Thus, for half a century, England has striven continually,
but  rarely with success, to establish her preponderance in
the Cabinet of the Persian Shahs. The latter, however,  are
a match for their wheedling foes, and squirm  out  of such
treacherous embraces. Aside from having under their eyes
English dealings in India, the Persians very likely keep in
view  this advice, given to Feth Ali Shah, in 1805: “Distrust
the counsel of a nation of greedy merchants, which in India
traffics with the lives and crowns  of sovereigns.” Set a thief
to catch a thief. In Teheran, the capital of Persia, English
influence is very low; for, not  counting Russian intrigues
there, France occupies a prominent  standing, and of the
three filibusters, Persia may most  dread of the British. At
the present moment  an embassy from Persia is on  the way
to or has already reached Paris, and there very likely the
Persian complication will be the subject of diplomatic disputes. France, indeed, is not  indifferent to the occupation of
the island in the Persian Gulf. The question  is rendered yet
more  knotty  by  the fact that France disentombs some  buried
parchment by  which Kareg has already been twice ceded
to her by  the Persian Shahs— one so  far back as in 1708,
under Louis  XIV,  and then in 1808— on  both  occasions
conditionally, it is true, but  in terms sufficient to constitute

some  rights, or  justify pretensions from the present imitator of
those sovereigns, who  were sufficiently anti-English.
In a recent answer to the Journal des Debats, the
London  Times gives up  in the name of England to France
every pretension to the leadership in European affairs,
reserving for the English nation the indisputed direction
of the affairs of Asia and America, where no  other Euro pean power  must  interfere. It may, nevertheless, be doubted
if Louis  Bonaparte will accept this division of the world.
At  any rate, French diplomacy in Teheran during the late
misunderstandings did not  heartily support  England; and
the French press exhuming  and ventilating Gallic pretensions  to Kareg seems to foreshadow that England will not
find it an easy game to attack and dismember Persia.
Written by  K. Marx
on  October 30, 1856
Published as a leading
article in the New-York
Daily Tribune No.  4904,
January 7, 1857
Printed according
to the newspaper text