Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Pe ...

These instructions reflected the bitterness that the Assyrian followers of Mar Shimun were feeling. Besides having been killed in large numbers and having seen their country destroyed, they were suffering further from being deprived of their spiritual and civil leader, who remained captive in Mosul. Palmerston’s instructions marked a turning point in the policy of Great Britain towards the Assyrian crisis. The decision was motivated, however, by many factors, among which was the active labour of the Catholic missionaries among the Nestorians. There was concern lest the French would take advantage of the plight of the patriarch to convert his followers, who now had no one to guide them, to Catholicism, which would represent a victory for French influence at the expense of the British.²⁰

The official attitude was conveyed to the sultan’s government, which assured the ambassador that it intended to eliminate Bedr Khan and had drawn up a comprehensive plan for doing so, which it would carry out as soon as the winter was over.²¹ However, the foreign secretary responded in strong terms, instructing the ambassador to impress upon the Turkish officials the dangerous effects that a policy of persecuting the sultan’s Christian subjects for their religious beliefs would have on public opinion all over Europe. The British minister warned the Turks that if they were not moved by their own interest, they should be moved by humane principles and ought to take proper measures to prevent such barbarous crimes in the future. He told them that it was the duty of any civilised government to punish the criminals and to secure protection for the Nestorians, and that the Ottomans would be held responsible for any mistreatment of the Christians. The Turkish officials, however, seem to have correctly assessed the threat and known quite well that neither Britain nor any other western European nation was willing or indeed able to send an army into the country of the tribes for the sake of saving them, while they would all unite to prevent Russia from doing so, from fear that, once its forces had occupied that territory, they would proceed to conquer all Mesopotamia and probably all Persia as well.²²