Britain, Persia and Petroleum

By Roger Howard | Published in History Today Volume: 58 Issue: 5 2008

Roger Howard asks how the discovery of oil affected relations between Britain and Persia in the early twentieth century.

Within minutes, news of the great discovery was cabled to the British legation in the Persian capital, Tehran. Poetically, it was written in Biblical code and ran ‘See Psalm 104 verse 13 third sentence and Psalm 114 verse 8 second sentence”. Intrigued, the legation official reached for his Bible and was astonished by what he found. ‘That he may bring out of the earth oil to make him a cheerful countenance,’ went one of the Psalms, while the other referred to ‘the flint stone into a springing well.’

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