Russo-Persian War of 1804-13
Years: 1804 - 1813
The Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813, one of the many wars between the Persian Empire and Imperial Russia, begins like many wars as a territorial dispute.
The Persian king, Fath Ali Shah Qajar, wants to consolidate the northernmost reaches of his Qajar dynasty by securing land near the Caspian Sea's southwestern coast (modern Azerbaijan) and the Transcaucasus (modern Georgia and Armenia).
Like his Persian counterpart, the Russian czar Alexander I is also new to the throne and equally determined to control the disputed territories.
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The origins of the first full scale Russo-Persian War can be traced back to the decision of Tsar Paul to annex Georgia (December 1800) after Erekle II, who had been appointed as ruler of Kartli several years earlier by his ruler Nader Shah, made a plea to Christian Russia in the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 to be incorporated into the empire.
After Paul’s assassination (March 11, 1801), the activist policy had been continued by his successor, Tsar Alexander, aimed at establishing Russian control over the khanates of the eastern Caucasus.
In 1803, the newly appointed commander of Russian forces in the Caucasus, Paul Tsitsianov, had attacked Ganja and captures its citadel on January 15, 1804.
Ganja's governor, Javad Khan Qajar, is killed, and a large number of the inhabitants slaughtered.
Abbas Mirza’s army arrives too late and retires to the south.
The Qajar ruler, Fat′h-Ali Shah, sees the Russian threat to Armenia, Karabagh, and Azerbaijan not only as a source of instability on his northwestern frontier but as a direct challenge to Qajar authority.
They had then moved east and besieged Yerevan from July to September.
The local khan holds the citadel, the Russians hold the town, and the Persians hold the surrounding countryside.
Weakened by disease and fighting on half-rations, the Russians withdraw to Georgia, losing more men along the way.
In response to the loss of Karabakh, Abbas Mirza occupies the Askeran Fortress at the mouth of a valley that leads from the plain southwest to Shusha, the capital of Karabakh.
The Russians respond by sending Koryagin to take the Persian fort of Shakh-Bulakh.
Abbas Mirza marches north and besieges the place.
On hearing of the approach of another army under Fath Ali, Koryagin slips out at night and heads for Shusha.
He is caught at the Askeran gorge but not defeated, and additional Russian troops relieve the blockade of Koryagin and Shusha.
Six hundred Russian infantry route his camp at Shamkir on July 27.
The Russians begin their conquest of Azerbaijan in 1806.
Tsitsianov had gone east with sixteen hundred men and ten guns, crossing the Shirvan Khanate, which he had annexed on the way, and arriving at Baku before February 8. 1806.
The town elders had delivered him the keys to the city, but he returns the keys asking to receive them from the khan in person.
The khan rides out with an escort, Tsitsianov advances with two other men and is shot dead.
The guns of Baku open up on the Russian army and Zavalivshin again chooses to withdraw.
The disaster of Tsitsianov's death and Zavalivshin's apparent cowardice is retrieved by General Glazenap, who commands the Line.
He crosses the Aktash country to Tarki where the Shamkhal joins him.
Knowing that the khan of Derbent is unpopular, the Shamkhal sends agents to stir up trouble.
When the Russians cross the border, the khan is expelled by his own subjects and Derbent is occupied for the fourth and final time on June 22, 1806).
Glazenap is placed under General Bulgakov and it is Bulgakov who received the surrender of Quba and ...
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