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The Battle of Krtsanisi ((グルジア語:კრწანისის ბრძოლა)) was fought between the Qajars of Iran and the Georgian armies of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and Kingdom of Imereti at the place of Krtsanisi near Tbilisi, Georgia, from September 8 to September 11, 1795, as part of Qajar Emperor Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar's war in response to King Heraclius II of Georgia’s alliance with the Russian Empire.〔"Tiflis", in: Yust, Walter (ed., 1952), ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica - A new survey of universal knowledge''. Volume 14, p. 209.〕 The battle resulted in the decisive defeat of the Georgians, capture, and complete destruction of their capital Tbilisi,〔Lang, David Marshall (1962), ''A Modern History of Georgia'', p. 38. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.〕 as well as the effective reconquest of (eastern) Georgia into the Iranian Empire.〔 Although the Qajars were victorious and Agha Mohammad Khan kept his promise to Erekle that if he would not drop the alliance with Russia and voluntarily reaccept Iranian suzerainty they would invade his kingdom, it also showed that Russia's own ambitions and agenda were set as the most important reason for Russia not to intervene at Krtsanisi, even though the latter had officially declared in the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 that it would protect Erekle's kingdom against any new Iranian ambitions to re-subjugate Georgia. Subsequently, in order to restore Russian prestige, Catherine would launch a punitive campaign against Iran the next year, but it was shortly recalled after her death. The following years remained turbulent and were known as a time of muddle and confusion. Reestablishment of Iranian rule over Georgia did not last long, for the shah was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha, and the Georgian king had died the year after. With Georgia laying in ruins and the central rule in Iran being concerned with the next heir to the throne, it opened the way for Georgia's annexation by Russia several years later by Tsar Paul. As Iran could not permit or allow the cession of Transcaucasia and Dagestan, which had formed part of the very concept of Iran for centuries, the consequences of the Krtsanisi battle would also directly lead up to the bitter wars of several years later, namely the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) and Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), which would eventually prove for the irrevocable forced cession of aforementioned regions to Imperial Russia per the Gulistan and Turkmenchay of 1813 and 1828 respectively, as the ancient ties could be severed by a superior force from outside. == Background == Eastern Georgia, composed of the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti, had been in the early modern era under Iranian vassalship for the first time in 1503,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia )〕 and had been under intermittent Iranian suzerainty and rule since 1555. However, with the death of Nader Shah in 1747, both kingdoms broke free of Iranian control and were reunited in a personal union under the rule of the energetic king Heraclius II (Erekle) in 1762. Between 1747 and 1795, Erekle was therefore, by the turn of events in Iran, able to maintain Georgia's autonomy through the Zand period. In 1783, Heraclius placed his kingdom under the protection of the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Georgievsk. In the last few decades of the 18th century, Georgia had become a more important element in Russo-Iranian relations than some provinces in northern mainland Persia, such as Mazandaran or even Gilan. Unlike Peter I, Catherine, the then ruling monarch of Russia, viewed Georgia as a pivot for her Caucasian policy, as Russia's new aspirations were to use it as a base of operations against both Iran and the Ottoman Empire, both immediate bordering geo-political rivals of Russia. On top of that, having another port on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea would be ideal. A limited Russian contingent of two infantry battalions with four artillery pieces arrived in Tbilisi in 1784, but was withdrawn, despite the frantic protests of the Georgians, in 1787 as a new war against Ottoman Turkey had started on a different front. In the next several years, Russia would be too occupied with Turkey (due to the 1768-74 war), Poland, and the European consequences of the French Revolution to give Georgia much attention. Even the consolidation of the Qajar dynasty under Agha Mohammad Khan, who had become the new owners to the Iranian throne and therefore the new heirs to the geo-politically rivalling empire that had been bordering Russia for centuries, did not divert Catherine from preoccupations in the west. In 1791, when Agha Mohammad Khan was in Tabriz, Erekle asked General Gudovich, commander of the Russian Caucasian Line, for renewed military aid, but the government in St.Petersburg did not judge it expedient to sent troops again to Georgia. In 1792, Gudovich told Erekle that he would receive only diplomatic support in the advent of any Iranian onslaught.〔 Despite being left to his own devices, Heraclius still cherished a dream of establishing, with Russian protection, a strong and united monarchy, into which the western Georgian Kingdom of Imereti and the lost provinces under Ottoman rule would all eventually be drawn.〔 The consequences of these events came a few years later, when a new dynasty, the Qajars, emerged victorious in the protracted power struggle in Persia. Their head, Agha Mohammad Khan, as his first objective, resolved to bring the Caucasus again fully under the Persian orbit. For Agha Mohammah Khan, the resubjugation and reintegration of Georgia into the Iranian Empire was part of the same process that had brought Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tabriz under his rule. He viewed, like the Safavids and Nader Shah before him, the territories no different than the territories in mainland Iran. Georgia was a province of Iran the same way Khorasan was. As the ''Cambridge History of Iran'' states, its permanent secession was inconceivable and had to be resisted in the same way as one would resist an attempt at the separation of Fars or Gilan. It was therefore natural for Agha Mohammad Khan to perform whatever necessary means in the Caucasus in order to subdue and reincorporate the recently lost regions following Nader Shah's death and the demise of the Zands, including putting down what in Iranian eyes was seen as treason on the part of the ''wali'' of Georgia. Finding an interval of peace amid their own quarrels and with northern, western, and central Persia secure, the Persians demanded Heraclius II to renounce the treaty with Russia and to reaccept Persian suzerainty, in return for peace and the security of his kingdom. The Ottomans, Iran's neighboring rival, recognized the latters rights over Kartli and Kakheti for the first time in four centuries.〔 Heraclius appealed then to his theoretical protector, Empress Catherine II of Russia, pledging for at least 3,000 Russian troops,〔 but he was not listened, leaving Georgia to fend off the Persian threat alone.〔 Nevertheless, Heraclius II still rejected the Khan’s ultimatum.〔Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), ''The Making of the Georgian Nation'', p. 59. Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-20915-3〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Krtsanisi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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