Kitabgi

Antoine Kitabgi Khan (October 2, 1843, ConstantinopleDecember 20, 1902, Livorno) was a Persian general who was director general of customs in Persia from 1881 to 1893 and initiated important concessions during the reigns of Nasseredin shah and his successor Mozaffareddin shah. He was in particular the initiator of the oil concession granted in 1901 to William Knox D'Arcy which gave birth to BP.

Constantinople A Catholic, He was the second child and first son of a sibling group of six. His father, Vincent Kitabgi, was a supplier of gem-embellished water pipes to the sultan. Around the age of 14, Kitabgi was sent to Livorno, Italy, to complete his studies. There he learned Italian and French, which he spoke fluently in addition to Armenian and Turkish. His father being sick and unable to work, he returned to Constantinople in 1861 and was hired at the age of 18 at the Maritime Messenger Agency. In 1866, he was employed and later became a partner in the Armenian Ruben Hocozian cloth and drapery business and three years later founded his own cloth, drapery and carpet business. In 1870, he married Philomene Altounian, an Armenian Catholic woman whose parents came from the New Julfa district of Esfahan in Persia. Three boys, Vincent, Paul and Edward, were born in Constantinople from this union. Kitabgi's business prospered rapidly. He became the official supplier to the Sultan's tailor and began to diversify his business. He began selling arms, obtaining representation from major European firms and the position of arms supplier to the War Ministry. In 1874, in association with the Armenian Serkissian, he created a mechanical sawmill company in Bulgaria, then an Ottoman province.

But in 1876, serious unrest broke out in the Ottoman Empire. For several years, the European provinces of the Balkans had been in rebellion against the Empire. After Herzegovina, it was Bulgaria's turn to revolt in April 1876. As a consequence of these troubles and the bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire in front of its creditors, Sultan Abdülaziz abdicated on May 30, 1876. His successor and nephew, Mourad V, was interned for insanity three months later. He was replaced by his brother Abdülhamid II, who, through the bloody repression of the Bulgarian insurrection of April 1876, led Russia to declare war on Turkey on 24 April 1877 (Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878).

As a result of these events, Kitabgi's business was threatened with bankruptcy: the mechanical sawmill company was burnt down and looted by Bulgarian rebels in 1876; the brutal changes of sultans and governments caused him to lose its position as a client of the sultan's tailor and as an arms supplier to the War Ministry. The war slowed down trade. In October 1877, he was forced to leave for Europe to negotiate his debts with his German, Belgian and French suppliers and creditors. With Alléon, he then undertook to form a syndicate of French bankers and financiers composed, among others, of Armand Donon, chairman of the Société des Dépôts et Comptes Courants, and Paul Eugène Bontoux, chairman of the Union générale. In July 1879, Kitabgi joined General Neriman Khan in Vienna, who had been appointed the previous year Minister Plenipotentiary of Persia in Austria. Assisted by the General, Kitabgi prepared his departure for Persia and in August 1879 he left Europe with his family and the Austrian engineer Scherzer and his two assistants. He arrived in Tehran two months later. The engineers began surveying the railway line, but the project met with opposition from the Russians and the British and, under pressure from both powers, the Shah cancelled the concession in March 1880.

Tehran and the directorship of Persian customs Kitabgi decided to stay in Tehran and, after difficult negotiations concerning his salary, he accepted in 1881 the post of Director General of Persian Customs. His chief at the time was Agha Mohammed Ibrahim who bore the title of Amin al-Soltan and who, although not officially a minister, played an important role at the court of the Shah and controlled, among other things, the finances of the state. On Agha Ibrahim's death in July 1883, it was his son Mirza Ali Asghar Khan, Emin ul-Mulk, who took over his father's title, Amin al-Soltan, and the latter's functions, thus becoming the new ruler of Kitabgi.

This concession, which astonished the financial world and was not supported by the British government, raised strong protests from the Russians and from the Persian people who did not accept this foreign interference. This led the Shah to cancel the concession under false pretexts (as he later did for the Alléon concession). Reuter, who had paid large sums of money to obtain the concession and start work on a railway line from Rasht to Tehran, was not compensated and kept seeking redress from the Persian government. Faced with difficulties encountered during the negotiations, Cotte, who had known Kitabgi in Paris in 1878 (at that time Kitabgi was trying to associate Reuter with the Alléon railroad concession), turned to Kitabgi for help. The latter convinced Reuter and Cotte to limit their request to the bank and the mines, knowing that adding the railways would inevitably raise Russian opposition. Kitabgi rewrote the deed of concession and persuaded Amin al-Soltan to grant the bank and mines concession, arguing that the bank would be a great asset for the country and that it would compensate Baron Julius Reuter for the five million francs he had spent in 1872 at a loss, thereby protecting the Persian government from future claims.

Tobacco Régie of 1886 and Talbot Tobacco Régie Concession of 1890 Tobacco Régie of 1886 In July 1886, Kitabgi was part of the suite that accompanied the Shah on his trip to Mazanderan. During this trip, Amin al-Soltan informed him of his intention to establish a tobacco Régie in Persia. Kitabgi drafted a project, approved by Amin al-Soltan, and presented it on August 30 in private audience to Nasseredin shah who congratulated him and asked him to write the firman. In its broad outline, the firman stipulated that retail tobacco merchants, divided into two categories (urban and rural) and three classes (tambacou, pipe tobacco and cigarette tobacco), must henceforth have a special authorization from the administration, pay a patent and pay a tax proportional to their turnover. Controls would take place and in case of infringement - non-payment of the patent or tax - fines would be applied. The concession, granting Talbot a monopoly for fifty years on the production, sale and export of Persian tobacco, aroused the anger of tobacco growers and merchants. The arrival in Persia of dozens of British employees of the tobacco company provoked the discontent of the people. The protesters appealed to the clergy who supported their cause and organized from the spring of 1891, throughout the country, a veritable revolt against the government and the Régie, going so far as to issue a fatwa against the use of tobacco, a fatwa that was followed by almost all social classes in the country. On 4 January 1892, bloody riots killed seven demonstrators in Tehran.

Resignation and departure for Europe While the revolt was being organized in the spring of 1891, Kitabgi was in Europe. He left Tehran on May 21, 1890 for a seventeen-month journey motivated by three main reasons :

Firstly, he settled his family in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Second, Kitabgi spent a lot of time in London to settle with Talbot all the details, logistical and financial, of the setting up of the Tobacco Régie.

Finally, he was mandated by Amin al-Soltan to settle a dispute between Persia and Italy. A certain Consonno, an Italian merchant who traded with Persia and had gotten into the habit of defrauding Persian customs, had his goods confiscated in 1883. Consonno took the case to the Italian authorities, who threatened a diplomatic crisis with Persia if Consonno was not reimbursed two and a half million francs. Persia, on Kitabgi's advice, decided to resort to international arbitration and Sir William Arthur White, British Ambassador to Constantinople, was asked to settle the dispute. Kitabgi, documents in hand, spent three months in Constantinople to defend the Persian cause. Arbitration was finally rendered on 21 June 1891 in favor of Persia.

Kitabgi returned to Tehran on 10 October 1891. The Régie was threatened with bankruptcy. Sir Henry, recalled to London and appointed ambassador to Madrid, had just left Tehran. The British chargé d'affaires in Tehran, Robert John Kennedy, asked Kitabgi, through Amin al-Soltan, to take over the management of the agency. Judging the situation of the latter to be hopeless, Kitabgi refused. Treated by Dr. Tom Francis Odling of the British legation, Kitabgi recovered just after the Shah abolished the Régie.

Disappointed by this failure, having amassed a sufficient fortune to live easily in Europe and wishing to join his family in Switzerland, Kitabgi asked Amin al-Soltan to resign. The latter accepted and, by the time he finished his fiscal year (which ended in Norouz the following year, on March 21, 1893), Kitabgi left to join his family in Lausanne in the spring of 1893.

Paris and the 1900 World Fair Antoine Kitabgi Khan in 1894. Photo dedicated to his son Vincent. After several months in Lausanne, Kitabgi moved to Paris with his family at the end of 1893. In the meantime, he asked Amin al-Soltan for an appointment as a diplomat in Europe. He obtained the post of Counsellor of the Brussels Legation, whose minister was Mirza Djevad Khan, Saad ed-Dowleh. Kitabgi held this position until 1898.

In 1899, Kitabgi was appointed General Commissioner for Persia at the 1900 World Fair (Exposition Universelle (1900)) by Mozaffaredin shah (who succeeded his father Nasseredin, assassinated in 1896 ). The photograph at the head of this article is the one that appeared in the official guide of the Exhibition. Kitabgi wanted to erase the bad image left by the Persian pavilion erected on the occasion of the 1889 World Fair. He called upon the French architect Philippe Mériat to build a pavilion inspired by the madreseh madar-e chah (Koranic school of the shah's mother) in Esfahan. Numerous Persian objects and products were exhibited and oriental shows were given at the pavilion, which was a great success with the public and was praised by the press.

Kitabgi received, with great pomp, Mozaffaredin shah at the Persian pavilion on July 30, 1900. He read a speech in Persian to his sovereign. Three days later, as the Shah was on his way to Sèvres, his carriage was attacked by a terrorist who pointed a revolver at him. The madman was subdued before he could fire. The Shah was late in his visits and Kitabgi was charged with announcing to the organizers of the stands concerned that they would not be visited by the king of kings.

Before leaving Paris, the Shah himself conferred on Kitabgi the great cordon of the Lion and the Sun.

D'Arcy oil concession In 1898, Kitabgi came into possession of a report on potential oil deposits in Persia. This report was the work of the French civil engineer, geologist and archaeologist Jacques de Morgan who, during a scientific mission in 1891 in southwestern Persia, noted the presence of naphtha and studied the nature of the oilfields at Kend é-Shirin and Kasr é-Shirin. He had published his observations in the Annals of Mines. One of his colleagues of the mission, George Lampre, married to a niece of Édouard Cotte, knowing that the latter had negotiated several concessions in Persia, gave him the report. Cotte, knowing of Kitabgi's interest in oil, entrusted him with the report after completing it.

At the same time, Kitabgi having asked his friend Sir Henry Drummond Wolff to look for investors in Great Britain, the latter, through his nephew Lord Orford, made the acquaintance of William Knox D'Arcy, a Briton who had made a fortune in gold mines in Australia. D'Arcy was interested in Iranian oil and Wolff introduced him to Kitabgi in February 1901. The two men signed an agreement. D'Arcy would provide the capital necessary for the operation while Kitabgi would take over the negotiations with Persia. Kitabgi would have 7% of the shares of the concession plus 10% at the issue, Cotte 3% of the shares and Wolff 10% of the profits. and Kitabgi was appointed Imperial Commissioner by the Persian government to look after the interests of Persia. Kitabgi used his knowledge of the Persian court, government and religious authorities to ensure that the oil concession did not suffer the same fate as the tobacco concession ten years earlier. Before his return to Europe, he got D'Arcy to hire his three eldest sons: Paul in Tehran as a liaison with the Persian government, Vincent in London as a liaison with D'Arcy, and Édouard in Persia, in Kasr é-Shirin, as assistant to the engineer George Bernard Reynolds, who was in charge of oil prospecting for D'Arcy. D'Arcy wrote to Vincent Kitabgi: "I have lost a kind and sincere friend and a valuable and able colleague. ". Amin al-Soltan at the engagement of Edouard Kitabgi and Marie-Thérèse Bauche, Paris, 1905. Amin al-Soltan in Carlsbad during his world tour. Photo signed and given to the Kitabgi Family. The two men remained friends until Kitabgi's death, and this friendship was maintained by Kitabgi's sons until the assassination of Amin al-Soltan in 1907. Thus, during the trip around the world that the latter undertook when he resigned from his post in September 1903, he was received by the Kitabgis on several occasions in France and Switzerland, as can be seen in numerous photographs kept by the Kitabgi family.

Kitabgi's diaries and correspondence The books focusing on Kitabgi Khan written before 2000 mainly concern the D'Arcy concession and the key role played by Kitabgi in this venture and are based mainly on the archives of the Foreign Office and British Petroleum. and an article in Encyclopedia Iranica that includes this information. They shed a whole new light on these events and correct many erroneous details about Kitabgi in the literature.