It was not only desirable but necessary that some such
Agreement should be made with Persia. The Anglo-Russian Agreement had inevitably lapsed as a result of the Russian Revolution. The Persians always disliked that Agreement, and we may all be well content that it has disappeared. At the same time the old working arrangement with the Russian Empire received much more condemnation than it deserved. Unsatisfactory though it was, it was the best compromise possible in the circumstances. It gave us a kind of hold upon Russian aggression in Persia, and without it we should have had none. It was no criticism to say that we recognized a Russian sphere of influence in Northern Persia which we had no right to recognize. Russian agents had freely established the power of Russia there, and when we recognized what were un- doubted facts and defined our relations with Russia we were merely giving ourselves an opportunity to exercise restraint upon her. The alternatives would have been to let Russia do as she pleased or to order her to withdraw—which would have meant war. The critics, we imagine, desired neither of these things. Either would have been worse than what actually happened.
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