Editing Great Game (section)

== Persia ==
[[File:Iran_und_Turan_-_Persien,_Afghanistan,_Biludschistan,_Turkestan_-_eine_geographische_Skizze_LOC_2006626074.jpg|thumb|[[Iran]] and [[Turkestan]] in 1835]]
Various authors connect British-Russian competition in Iran to the Great Game as well.<ref name=":92">{{Cite book |last=Andreeva |first=Elena |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5PmSAgAAQBAJ |title=Russia and Iran in the great game : travelogues and Orientalism |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-203-96220-6 |location=London |pages=20, 63–76 |oclc=166422396 |access-date=24 October 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202711/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Russia_and_Iran_in_the_Great_Game/5PmSAgAAQBAJ?hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":103"/><ref name=":122">{{Cite book |last=Mojtahed-Zadeh |first=Pirouz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B_F8vFhxsU0C |title=The Small Players of the Great Game: The Settlement of Iran's Eastern Borderlands and the Creation of Afghanistan |date=31 July 2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-38378-8 |language=en |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202710/https://books.google.com/books?id=B_F8vFhxsU0C |url-status=live }}</ref> This competition continued until the [[Anglo-Russian Convention|Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907]] after which the British and Russian Empires largely moved together in their overtures for imperial influence in the region until the Bolshevik Revolution.<ref name=":103"/>

The Great Game in Iran took the form of military conquests, diplomatic intrigues, and the competition of trade goods.<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|20, 74}} Russian colonists arrived in northern Iran, settling the region around [[Gorgan|Astarabad]].<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|pages=73–74}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Andreeva |first1=Elena |last2=Nouraei |first2=Morteza |date=2013 |title=Russian Settlements in Iran in the Early Twentieth Century: Initial Phase of Colonization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24482849 |journal=Iranian Studies |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=415–442 |doi=10.1080/00210862.2012.758499 |issn=0021-0862 |jstor=24482849 |s2cid=161242987 |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-date=19 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519033342/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24482849 |url-status=live }}</ref> Although Britain had a reputation for industrialization and international trade boosted by its colony of India, Russian authors saw the Russian Empire as competing directly with Britain for trade in Iran and other bordering markets. Russian travelogues written between the 1870s and the turn of the 1900s seem to imply that Russian commerce had become dominant in the northern and western portions of Iran that would be officially delineated to Russia by Britain in 1907.<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|pages=74–76}} Russia had also acquired concessions such as a monopoly on the lucrative [[caviar]] in the [[Caspian Sea|southern Caspian Sea]], which lasted until after the First World War.<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|page=20}}
[[File:Brooklyn Museum - Persian Cossacks One of 274 Vintage Photographs.jpg|thumb|Persian Cossacks, some time after 1876]]
After the 1828 [[Treaty of Turkmenchay|Treaty of Turkmanchay]], Russia received territorial domination in Iran. With the Romanovs shifting to a policy of 'informal support' for the weakened [[Qajar dynasty]]—continuing to place pressure with advances in the largely nomadic Turkestan, a crucial frontier territory of the Qajars – this Russian domination of Persia continued for nearly a century.<ref name=":132">{{Cite journal |last=Deutschmann |first=Moritz |date=2013 |title="All Rulers are Brothers": Russian Relations with the Iranian Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24482848 |journal=Iranian Studies |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=401–413 |doi=10.1080/00210862.2012.759334 |issn=0021-0862 |jstor=24482848 |s2cid=143785614 |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-date=19 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519022824/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24482848 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":122" /> The Persian monarchy became more of a symbolic concept in which Russian diplomats were themselves powerbrokers in Iran and the monarchy was dependent on British and Russian loans for funds.<ref name=":132" /> In 1879, the establishment of the [[Persian Cossack Brigade|Cossack Brigade]] by Russian officers gave the Russian Empire influence over the modernization of the Qajar army. This influence was especially pronounced because the Persian monarchy's legitimacy was predicated on an image of military prowess, first Turkic and then European-influenced.<ref name=":132" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rabi |first1=Uzi |last2=Ter-Oganov |first2=Nugzar |date=2009 |title=The Russian Military Mission and the Birth of the Persian Cossack Brigade: 1879–1894 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25597565 |journal=Iranian Studies |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=445–463 |doi=10.1080/00210860902907396 |issn=0021-0862 |jstor=25597565 |s2cid=143812599 |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522090455/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25597565 |url-status=live }}</ref> By the 1890s, Russian tutors, doctors and officers were prominent at the Shah's court, influencing policy personally.<ref name=":132" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Andreeva |first=Elena |title=Russia v. Russians at the Court of Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah |url=https://iranicaonline.org/ |access-date=2022-05-19 |website=Encyclopædia Iranica |language=en-US |archive-date=6 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506212443/https://iranicaonline.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Russia and Britain had competing investments in the industrialisation of Iran including roads and telegraph lines, as a way to profit and extend their influence. However, until 1907 the Great Game rivalry was so pronounced that mutual British and Russian demands to the Shah to exclude the other, blocked all railroad construction at the end of the 19th century.<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|page=20}} In 1907 the British and Russian Empires came to a mutual agreement, which provided a zone of influence in southeastern Iran to Britain and northern Iran to Russia.

[[Nicholas II of Russia|Tsar Nicholas II]] would be a staunch supporter of the [[Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar]] against the revolutionaries, in a large scale [[Russian Empire involvement in the Persian Constitutional Revolution|intervention]] that involved both regular Russian troops and the Persian Cossacks. Failing to fully suppress the [[Persian Constitutional Revolution]] or keep Muhammad Ali Shah in power, the constitutional reforms were put in place against Russia's wishes, though the Cossack Brigade remained a major factor.<ref name=":132" /> An Iranian former Cossack, [[Reza Shah]], would establish the [[Pahlavi dynasty]].