The valiant Iranian crown prince, Abbas Mirza

Compiled by: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On August 26 in 1789 AD, the valiant Iranian crown prince, Abbas Mirza, was born to King Fath Ali Shah, the second ruler of the Qajarid dynasty. He developed a reputation as a military commander during wars with expansionist Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
He was intelligent, possessed literary taste, and modernized the Iranian army. At the same time he was noteworthy for the comparative simplicity of his life. As commander of the Iranian forces, his aid was solicited by both England and Napoleon, anxious to checkmate one another in the East.
Abbas Mirza defended Iran against Russian attacks, but the French failed to provide him assistance, and the court in Tehran was also slow in realizing the situation on the borders, as a result of which he was defeated in the Battle of Aslanduz in 1813. Iran was forced to sign he Treaty of Golestan, ceding large parts of its territories in the Caucasus including present-day Georgia, Daghestan, and most of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In 1821 when the Ottomans attacked Iran, Abbas Mirza defeated them in the Battle of Erzurum, and through the Treaty of 1823, ensured Iran’s sovereignty. His second war with Russia, which began in 1826 with initial success, ended in 1828 with a string of costly defeats after which Iran was forced to cede nearly all of its Armenian territories as well as Nakhchivan, as per the Treaty of Turkmanchay.
In 1833, while restoring order in the province of Khorasan in the east, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza died at the age of 44 years in holy Mashhad. A year later in1834 when Fath Ali Shah Qajar died, Abbas Mirza’s eldest son, Mohammed Mirza, succeed him as the king of Iran.