Set Khan Astvatsatourian

Set Khan translates for Sir Harford Jones (right) in the court of Fat’h Ali, the Shah of Persia, by Robert Smirke

In Tehran, Set Khan was asked to join the diplomatic service of the Qajar court, and in 1810 he travelled to London with the Persian ambassador to Great Britain to seek support from King George III against the growing ambitions of Russia and the influence of the French, as well as to ratify the Anglo-Persian Treaty.[4][5]

For the next decade, Set Khan worked in the Qajar government in Tabriz. After returning to Iran, Set Khan again travelled to London, but this time as a military advisor alongside ambassador Mirza Saleh Shirazi. Following these initial trips to London, Set Khan took several additional trips to England in an ambassadorial capacity.[6]

In 1828 Set Khan was selected to deliver a letter from Fath-Ali Shah to Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, who honored him with a Liakat Medal , a jewel-studded dagger, the title bey, and the title of Sedghi Beig, which means the honest one. His mission was successful, and as a result, he earned the favor of Fath-Ali Shah, who issued two farmans as his reward.[1]

Reviewing in battle

Using the first farman issued to him from the Shah, as well as having obtained the exclusive rights to mine for twenty-one years, Set Khan began mining in the Minaeh and Garadagh regions of Azerbaijan circa 1830, which was the center of Persian military reform at the time under Crown Prince Abbas Mirza.

Set Khan travelled to London to contract experts to work on the excavations, and returned with two English mining experts and twenty Greek miners. With his new team, Set Khan successfully located and mined sites that produced silver, copper, and coal. The methods used by his team had never before been employed in the region, and were as a result particularly profitable.[1] As copper was in high demand in Iran, Set Khan began to concentrate his efforts on cannon smelting, which was considered a breakthrough in Iranian military development. Dr. Hussein Mahbubi Ardakani, an Iranian historian, writer, and intellectual, in his book (The History of Civilizing New Establishments in Iran) has referred to Set Khan, "The honorable Set Khan the Christian last year has cast two 6 lb. cannons, tied them to wheels and has presented them to the Shah as an offering. The Shah in return has accorded him an income of 1500 Tumans. He has contracted to manufacture 84 guns to be delivered in six months to the royal court."[7]

The Great Game

It was thought that the imperial powers of the West—Russia in the North and the British to the South—could be held at bay by the adoption of European education and military technology. In these conditions, Set Khan's exploitation of the copper mines of Azerbaijan can be seen as a major advancement for the Persian military reform effort because previously all significant quantities of copper for canon smelting had been imported from the Ottoman Empire. Set Khan was able to effectively meet the Qajar government's need for domestic weapons production.[1]

The army's transformation was significant as can be seen from the Battle of Erzurum (1821) where the new army scored a crushing defeat against the Ottoman army. This resulted in the Treaty of Erzurum whereby the Ottoman Empire acknowledged the existing border between the two empires. With the exceptions of the Russian and British militaries, the Qajar army of the time was unquestionably the most powerful in the region. Set Khan's involvement with this foundational phase of the modernization of the Persian army would initiate a century of his own and his descendants’ leading role in the process.[1]