The Silk Roads: Oil, War, and Revolution

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan. 

This will be my last post in review of Frankopan’s history. 

The location is the Middle East, the story begins during The Great War, and oil plays a part.  A part, but not the part – as this region was the target of many conquerors long before anyone knew of or cared about the black gold under the ground.

Before the turn of the last century, William Knox D’Arcy made a fortune in Australia in gold – the yellow kind, not the liquid kind.  Being, now, a man of extraordinary wealth and having moved to London, he had his share of callers – those presenting all manners of investment possibilities.

One of these callers was Antoine Kitabgi, a Catholic with a Georgian background who happened to be a well-connected official in the Persian administration.  Kitabgi could sell access to oil; Kitabgi could open doors to the Shah…for a price.  The Shah knew how to extract a price…and he knew the British would always pay.

In 1901, the Shah and D’Arcy had a deal for oil exploration.  The Russians were not pleased with the British taking the lead in exploiting this neighbor.  To shorten the story, D’Arcy and Kitabgi founded what is today known as British Petroleum.  They finally struck oil, after almost giving up, on 28 May 1908.

Churchill grasped immediately the value of oil for the Royal Navy – oil instead of coal.  In the summer of 1914, just a few days before Franz Ferdinand was shot, the British government bought a 51% stake in the Persian concession.

And with this, the long story of installing and buying puppets in the region and making promises that could never be kept truly took hold – a story, as we know, that continues today.

Meanwhile, the war.  Britain was concerned that the war would come to an end too soon – this would not do for Britain’s plans to have Russia expend itself in Europe such that Britain’s interests in the regions of the Silk Roads could be kept secure.  Talks were opened – even before Turkey entered the war – between Russia and Britain, regarding the future of Constantinople.  This, perhaps more than any other objective and because of the access to warm water, was of paramount importance to Russia.

Then, the Sykes–Picot Agreement: the French would receive Syria and Lebanon; the British would receive Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Suez.  This all decided well before the end of the war – at a time when the British were publicly proclaiming that local people should be “entitled to a recognition of their separate national conditions.”

The French were willing to agree to much, as long as Britain would support the return of Alsace-Lorraine.  Meanwhile, Mesopotamia promised oil to the British (via a deal brokered by “Mr. Five Per-cent,” Calouste Gulbenkian), and Palestine promised a buffer zone for the protection of the vital Suez Canal.  Palestine also offered an outlet – an alternative to the significant Jewish immigration into England from Russia. 

Meanwhile, Russia faced its own internal revolution; in some ways a distraction from the great game and in other ways opening new doors – an alternative to those in the region who grew tired of capitalist (i.e. British) exploitation.  Afghanistan was one such battlefield – ideologically and literally.

Not to be left out, the Americans moved into Northern Persia via Standard Oil.  And, eventually, the Americans became the main Anglo actors on the stage.

Conclusion

We know the rest of the story: after World War Two, the Cold War.  Keep the Soviets surrounded; keep access to Gulf oil; install puppets and remove democratically-elected leaders; continuous turmoil and tension in the entire periphery of the world island – the region of Eurasia anchored by the Soviet Union; the Iranian Revolution – embassy personnel held hostage; continuous war for at least 25 years.

Epilogue

We are living it. The region surrounding the world island must be controlled by the American Empire or placed in such turmoil that it cannot be controlled by anyone; cooperation between Russia and Germany must be denied; China must be distracted by turmoil along all its borders.

If the world island comes together, tied together by the new Silk Roads of rail, highway and pipelines, and given the substantial population, it has the chance to develop into the most prosperous region of the world.

The American Empire is attempting to fight this at all costs.  For the sake of humanity, let’s pray that they do not go quite that far.

Rivals Masquerading as Allies

Co-opt Russia or destabilize Russia and cause chaos along its entire frontier – this has been the foreign policy of first Britain, then the United States, for well over 100 years.  It continues even today.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

Previously, Frankopan offered an overview regarding Britain’s concern of the threat created by Russia against her empire.  In his view, this was perhaps the primary cause of the Great War.  Frankopan goes on to develop some of the specifics:

…Russia’s influence and involvement in the east continued to expand at accelerating speed as it developed its own Silk Roads.  The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the connection with the Chinese Eastern Railway, led to an immediate boom in trade, with volumes nearly trebling between 1895 and 1914.

In 1895, Russia established the Russo-Chinese bank, via its embassy in Paris and capitalized by Russia and France.  The bank opened an office in Shanghai shortly thereafter.  This bank helped finance the Chinese Eastern Railway.

In 1894, before the railways had opened up new possibilities, more than 80 per cent of all customs revenue collected in China was paid by Britain and British companies – whose ships also carried more than four-fifths of China’s total trade. 

Better developed trade routes by land throughout this “world island” would reduce the value (and leverage) of the trade routes via the British-controlled seas and ports. 

It was obvious that Russia’s rise, and that of the new land routes that would bring produce to Europe, would come at Britain’s expense.

Further, there was tremendous untapped wealth in this world island – wealth that could drastically shift the global balance of power.  As Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin told the Duma in 1908:

“Our distant and inhospitable frontier territory is rich in gold, woods, furs, and immense spaces suitable for agriculture.”

It was during this time, in the late 1890s, that Russia began to take steps to woo Persia.  At a time when the mountains effectively blocked Russia from Afghanistan (and, hence, India), Persia offered a clear pathway to Britain’s crown jewel of the sub-continent.

By this time, Russia had already built the Trans-Caspian Railway, skirting the northern borders of both Persia and Afghanistan.  By 1900, there were those in Russia advocating the development of connecting lines into each of these neighboring countries – and the British knew this. 

At the same time that Britain faced these concerns, Russia was undergoing internal turmoil.  Strikes in St. Petersburg in 1905 were only a foreshadowing – with the Tsar considering to flee Russia.  After the disastrous outcome of the Russo-Japanese War, there were concerns in Russia about the effect on the population if further wars were pursued – a revolution, perhaps.  Then, as now, the threats posed by Russia may have been exaggerated in order to secure other agendas.

Nevertheless, if Russia was to develop its “distant and inhospitable frontier territory,” and connect it via rail to trading locations east, west, and south, this would be a damaging blow to Britain.

Britain’s position in the east was limited and dangerously exposed.  What was needed was the reorientation of Russia’s focus away from this region altogether.

And with this, perhaps, one will find the root cause for the Great War in Europe – a root cause just waiting for an exploitable event.  Onto the stage steps the soon-to-be appointed Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Gray:

In a bold statement given to The Times just a month before his appointment at the end of 1905, he made it clear that there would be much to gain if an understanding could be reached about “our Asiatic possessions.”  No British government, he said, would “make it its business to thwart or obstruct Russia’s policy in Europe.”  It was “urgently desirable,” therefore, “that Russia’s position and influence” should be expanded in Europe – and diverted, in other words, from Asia.

Britain desired alliance with Russia in order to get Russia focused in Europe, which meant, ultimately, a war in Europe that would consume Russia.  When looked through this lens, many subsequent events make sense.

The Silk Roads to the Twentieth Century

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

As Frankopan does, I will move quickly from the 13^th to the beginning of the 20^th century.  Basically, this is a period when the importance of the Silk Roads is overshadowed by the sea….

As we begin this period, the Mongols hold an empire stretching across much of Eurasia.  In the west, the Italian city-states find this to be good business, trading in all sorts of goods, to include slaves; this is dwarfed by the volume of trade in the east – particularly in China.

For every ship that set sail for Alexandria with supplies of pepper for Christian lands, reported Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, more than a hundred put in to the Chinese port….

Silver was the common currency for trade across Eurasia.  The use of silver was furthered by the development of Bills of Exchange and paper money – introduced in China before the time of Genghis Khan.

However, perhaps the most significant Mongol export was the plague, the Black Death:

From field to farm to city to village, the Black Death created hell on earth: putrid, rotting bodies, oozing with pus, set against a background of fear, anxiety and disbelief at the scale of the suffering.

From curse to blessing: the Black Plague greatly shrunk the supply of labor, increasing its price.  Wealth was more evenly spread; better wealth resulted in better diets and better health.  Especially in northern Europe with relatively open competition, the economy boomed; the south not as much, controlled to a larger extent by guilds.

Meanwhile, the Ottomans had Constantinople surrounded – by this time, almost an island.  The city fell in 1453.  As the fifteenth century continued, the city – now controlled by Muslim Turks – became a home for Jews, especially those who were expelled from Spain at the end of the century.

The Christians of Europe feared it was the time of the Apocalypse – Armageddon was due at the end of the century.  Many signs, many prophesies, many timelines, many interpretations of Scripture.

Instead…Christopher Colōn discovered a New World.  Pearls, gold, silver and slaves were imported to Europe; death, war and plague were brought west in exchange.  Spain and Portugal were to divide the world, codified in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.  Basically, Portugal would have the east, Spain would have the west.  As other European powers were able, they would come to ignore the treaty – especially those powers that became Protestant after the Reformation.

Sea power took to the fore; the Eurasian continent was no longer the center of the world.  At first, Spain and Portugal were the dominant powers, later to be replaced by Britain and – after the declaring independence from Spain in 1581 – the Netherlands.  The Catholics and Protestants took their fight to the sea.

Britain crushed the Spanish Armada in 1588.  Four years later, Britain captured the Portuguese caravel, Madre de Deus; in this one haul, Britain gained goods equivalent to half-a-years’ worth of normal imports.

In the meantime, the Dutch – in addition to being expert shipbuilders – were remarkable traders and financiers.  They, like the British, developed colonies and trading posts throughout the world.

Britain would make friends with anyone opposed to the Catholic European countries – the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  This included the Ottomans, and this began Britain’s long (and ongoing) foray into the region of the Silk Roads – Egypt, the Near East, Persia, Afghanistan, and India.  The British Empire would span the globe – east to west.

And this would bring Britain into continuous contention with Russia – a country whose borders were otherwise 1300 miles from London.  It is a contention which continues today (see, for example, the intent of the latest US sanction bill).

And this is where we will pick up the story next.

The Silk Roads to Heaven and Hell

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

When we last visited this story, Pope Urban II had called for the First Crusade in order to free the Christian lands from the conquering Seljuk Turks.  His call met with great support.  In July, 1099, Jerusalem fell to the knights of Europe.  After a six-week siege, the city was taken.  The conquering knights were primed to shed blood.

…Jerusalem was soon filled with dead bodies, corpses piled up “on mounds as big as houses outside of the city gates.  No one has ever heard of such a slaughter.”  “If you had been there,” wrote another author a few years later, “your feet would have been stained to the ankles with the blood of the slain.  What shall I say?  None of them were left alive.  Neither women nor children were spared.”

Those who marched were promised absolution; the journey was long and difficult; promises made to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I were later broken – not all knights returned captured cities to the Emperor.

The Italian city-states knew a good opportunity had opened for them – trade with the conquered lands, now governed by Christians from Europe.  In exchange for assistance, major concessions were offered to the businessmen from Italy.  This would lead to battles between and among the rival city-states.

Trade was extended east; the Silk Roads.  Growth in the Middle East was in part due to the relatively good relations that developed between the Christians and Muslims.  For later-arriving Christians, such friendly relations were incomprehensible.

While Christians and Muslims could get along, the same could not be said regarding Christians and Christians.  Eventually, relations between the Christians of Byzantium and the Christians of the Italian city-states soured:

In 1182, the inhabitants of Constantinople attacked the citizens of the Italian city-states who were living in the imperial capital.  Many were killed, including the representative of the Latin church, whose head was dragged through the city’s streets behind a dog.

A few years later, a western force from southern Italy sacked Thessaloniki, one of the Byzantine Empire’s most important cities.

This offered an opening; Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyubī, better known as Saladin – a general with rising fame in Egypt – moved to conciliate the Byzantines.  His hospitality was in stark contrast to the behavior of the Christian knights from Europe.

Saladin began moving against the recalcitrant knights; in 1187, the Crusader knights were caught at the Horns of Hattin.  They were outmaneuvered and outfought; in the end, almost every western knight was dead or captured.  Within two months, Jerusalem surrendered peacefully to the Muslims.  The inhabitants were spared.

The news was not well received in Europe.  Further Crusades were called, ultimately with no effect.  In the meantime, Venice attacked other Christian cities in the east.  A new opportunity opened itself; a claimant to the Byzantine throne offered a generous reward the Crusading army if it would assist him in taking power.

In March 1204, men moved into position.  Weapons brought to attack Muslims were instead used against Christians – the largest Christian city in the world.  Bishops reassured the westerners that their cause was righteous:

The Byzantines, the Crusaders were told, were worse than the Jews; “they are the enemies of God.”

The Silk Roads Smörgåsbord

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

With this post, I am going to offer a variety of dishes from Frankopan’s book; you are free to select as many or as few items as you wish from the buffet table.  Like a true smörgåsbord, even if you sample a bit of each plate, you will not leave stuffed.

The Silk Roads of the Steppes

…the steppes were much more than a Wild North, a frontier zone filled with savage people with strange customs….the nomadic lifestyle was in fact both regulated and ordered.

The tribes of the steppes held large herds and flocks of livestock; the flocks needed proper pasture.  This could not happen in a world of chaos.  One example is the Pechenegs, living to the north of the Black Sea:

The Pechenegs were subdivided into eight tribes that were in turn split into a total of forty smaller units, each with clearly demarcated zones that were theirs to exploit.

Farming also became increasingly important: wheat, millet and rye; hazelnuts; wax and honey.  But one of the most important goods for trade was pelts.  The prices paid for pelts were incomprehensible to some observers:

“…in any other country, a thousand loads wouldn’t buy you a bean.”

The Silk Roads of Conversion

One very constant theme throughout the book is the ebb and flow of religion, following trade and conquest.  One of the more interesting conversions from the eighth or ninth centuries is described, albeit the history is much debated.  The story involves the Khazars, a Türkic tribe prominent north of the Black and Caspian Seas:

So important were the Khazars as allies that in the early eighth century two marriage alliances were arranged between the ruling houses of Khazaria and Byzantium….

Such Imperial marriages with foreigners were rare for Byzantium; with nomads from the steppes, this was almost unheard of.

Byzantium was not satisfied merely with intermarriage.  After a request by the Khazars, Byzantium sent envoys to explain the virtues of Christianity, for the purpose of conversion.  At the same time, the Khazars sent for envoys from the Muslims and from the Jews.  It was time, it seems, to choose a religion.

…the Khazar leader decided that Judaism was the right religion for his people.

The Silk Roads of Slavery

A new power began to grow, from the far north:

The Rus’ were ruthless when it came to enslaving local populations and transporting them south.

The majority of those taken captive – the Slavs – gave us the name we know: slaves.

Slaves also came from sub-Saharan Africa; one trader boasted of selling more than 12,000 black slaves in Persia.  But those taken from the lands of the Turks were considered the best slaves of all. 

The sale of slaves paid for imports flooding into Europe in the ninth century.  But not all were pleased with this activity: in 776, Pope Hadrian I decried the sale of men and women; the bishop of Bremen, Rimbert, would ransom any slave professing to be Christian.

But the slave trade brought wealth to the Rus’; by the end of the tenth century, they came to be the dominant force on the western Steppe.  They sacked, and destroyed, Atil – the capital of the Khazars.  The Rus’ were so feared that in Constantinople they were limited to a maximum of 50 at a time entering the city to trade.

Meanwhile, severe winters drastically impacted the crop in the south, in lands controlled by Muslims.  An opportunity was opened to Byzantium to retake lands lost to Muslims in the past, including Crete, Cyprus and Antioch.  Taxes and revenues shifted once again – away from Baghdad and toward Constantinople.

The fruits of this shift were visible even to Western Europe; interest in the Christian east – where Jesus Christ had lived – grew.  Men from Scandinavia and the British Isles were welcomed into the Varangian guard – an elite unit meant to serve as the Emperor’s guard; to serve in this unit was considered a rite of passage by the royal families of the west.

It was not Paris or London that mattered, but cities in the east; it was not just the Holy land, but the cities that connected west to east – cities that connected to the Silk Roads.  In this, Kiev became a lynchpin of the medieval world:

Daughters of Yaroslav the Wise, who reigned as Grand Prince of Kiev until 1054, married the King of Norway, the King of Hungary, the King of Sweden and the King of France.  One son married the daughter of the King of Poland, while another took as his wife a member of the imperial family of Constantinople.

The marriages in the next generation were even more impressive: Hungary and Poland were again represented, along with Henry IV, the German Emperor.

The Silk Roads to Crusade

And then, from the east, came the Seljuk Turks.  With names that were certainly Christian, if not Jewish – Michael, Israel, Moses and Jonah – it is likely that these Turks from the Steppes were once evangelized by earlier missionaries to central Asia.  The moment celebrated as the birth of the Turkish state was at hand:

…the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes set out from Constantinople with a large army, meeting with disaster in 1071 at Manzikert where the Byzantine forces were caught by surprise and humiliated….The Seljuk ruler, Alp Arslan, made the Byzantine leader lie on the ground and placed his foot on his neck.

Appeals were sent throughout Europe, including to Pope Urban II – a last-ditch effort, given the less than pleasant history between the eastern and western church.  The Pope called for the faithful to march to the aid of their brethren, announcing this at a church council at Clermont, north of the Alps.

…many were convinced that the apocalypse was nigh.  Urban’s call to arms met with a massive response: in 1096, tens of thousands of men set off for Jerusalem.

Many were motivated by faith and the reports of horrors and atrocities committed by the invaders.  While the Crusades are remembered for the religious aspect, many of its most important implications were worldly – the powers of Europe were to compete for riches and prestige in the east.  The west was going to drag itself closer to the heart of the world.

But this is a story for the next chapter.

The Silk Roads of Revolution

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

When we last left Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads at the time of the middle of the seventh century, Christianity was on the eastward march.  There was soon to be a new sheriff (or is that Sharīf) in town.

But first, the bubonic plague.  The year is 541:

It moved like lightning, so fast that by the time panic set in, it was already too late.  No one was spared.  The scale of death was barely imaginable.

This is known today as the Plague of Justinian:

The Plague of Justinian (541–542) was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, especially its capital Constantinople, the Sassanid Empire, and port cities around the entire Mediterranean Sea. One of the deadliest plagues in history, this devastating pandemic resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25 million (at the time of the initial outbreak that was at least 13% of the world's population) to 50 million people (in two centuries of recurrence).

The plague is believed to have begun in China; it was brought west through trade – grain ships carrying rats, etc.  (And Americans complain about the devastation brought on by NAFTA!)  In addition to death, the plague brought chronic economic depression; returning to Frankopan:

…fields denuded of farmers, towns stripped of consumers and a generation scythed down in their youth naturally altered the demography of late antiquity, and caused a severe contraction of the economy.

A Byzantine treasury already depleted before the plague could not withstand the demands after the plague.  Justinian was left with the option of buying off his neighbors, as he did not have the means to fight them off.  His successors decided on a different approach. The new Emperor, Justin II, sent the Avars – who were looking for their customary payment of tribute – away with a message:

“Never again shall you be loaded at the expense of this empire, and go on your way without doing us any service; for from me you shall receive nothing.”

A powerful alliance of Türk nomads felt Constantinople could be a worthwhile partner in support of their ambition to destroy Persia.  The Roman attack failed, and the Türks felt that they chose an unreliable partner.  This episode, however, brought on a period of two decades of fighting between the Romans and Persians. 

The result would be devastating for both sides, especially for the Persians; further, the fighting would make the soil fertile for a new enemy, one to arise from the deserts of the south.

At one point, after the Persians successfully penetrated deep into Asia Minor, the Romans successfully ambushed the Persian army.  The queen was taken prisoner along with the royal golden carriage; the Persian sacred fire – considered greater than any other fire – was captured and thrown into a river; the Zoroastrian high priest and a “multitude of the most senior people” were drowned.

These were seen, as you might imagine, as aggressive and provocative acts, meant to belittle the Persians and their religion.  At the same time, the Roman army embraced an ever more religious tone.

The details of the battles, the ebbs and flows, the intrigue, the diplomacy…too much for this post.  By 626, the Persian army was camped within site of the walls of Constantinople.  Heraclius, the Roman Emperor of Armenian descent, felt this would be a fight to defend the Christian faith.

Just as all seemed lost, the walls held and the assaults were beaten away.  The Avars – allied in this battle alongside the Persians – gave up first; the Persians soon had to follow, given reports of attacks in the Caucasus by the Türks. 

Heraclius did not leave it at this; he organized a swift counter-attack, making an alliance with the Türks.  After crushing a large Persian army, the Persian leadership cracked under the pressure.  Heraclius led a ceremonial entry into Jerusalem.  Jews in the city were forcibly baptized; Eastern Christians, whose doctrinal positions did not match those of the Orthodox Church, were forced into conforming.

In the meantime, a new threat to both Romans and Persians was rising up from the south…

It was in this region, as war raged to the north, that a trader named Muḥammad, a member of the Banū Hāshim clan of the Quraysh tribe, retreated to a cave not far from the city of Mecca to contemplate.

Muḥammad was not alone in this region with a new preaching about a single god; there were others who rose in this region during this time, a region experiencing acute economic contraction as a result of the Perso-Roman Wars.  Yet, it is Muḥammad who advanced.

Those who followed his teachings were promised fruitful land, economic rewards, paradise, and receipt of the lord’s forgiveness; those who did not would see their crops fail, face doom, disaster and damnation. 

Anyone who waged war on his followers would suffer terribly and receive no mercy.  They were to be executed or crucified, lose limbs or be exiled: the enemies of Muḥammad were the enemies of God; truly they would suffer an awful fate.

The Silk Roads of Faith

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

Frankopan begins his journey not with trade in goods but trade in faith.  Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity (of more than one flavor), and eventually Islam (of more than one flavor) all come into play in this journey, and not always in a peaceful way.

As early as the third century B.C, Buddhist principles could be found as far to the east as Syria, with a Jewish sect in Alexandria, Egypt known as Therapeutai bearing unmistakable similarities to Buddhism.  In central Asia, forty Buddhist monasteries ringed Kabul.  Noted a visitor:

“The pavement was made of onyx, the walls of pure marble; the door was made from moulded gold, while the floor was solid silver; stars were represented everywhere one looked…in the hallway, there was a golden idol as beautiful as the moon, seated on a magnificent bejeweled throne.”

The first four centuries of the first millennium saw the explosion of Christianity and “a maelstrom of faith wars.”  Persia, the leading power during the rise of the Sasanian dynasty, was Zoroastrian, persecuting other religions and sects. 

The story of the spread of Christianity from Palestine to the west is well known; the spread of Christianity to the east was far more remarkable and extensive.  Christianity was brought in through the trade routes, as well as through the deportations of Christians from Syria.  It was a Christianity with a communion different than that to be found in Rome.  This difference would prove to play a key role in the not too distant future.

Evangelists reached north into Georgia, reaching a large community of Jews who converted.  There were dozens of Christian communities along the Persian Gulf and as far to the east as today’s Afghanistan.  As the influence of Christianity increased, the persecution by the Zoroastrian Persians followed suit.  For the leaders of the non-Persian minorities, Christianity was seen as a way to break free of the empire.  It was seen this way by the Persians as well.

Precisely how and when rulers in the Caucasus adopted Christianity is not clear.  One example regarding this should suffice, regarding the conversion of the Armenian King Tiridates III at the start of the fourth century:

…according to tradition, Tiridates converted after turning into a pig and roaming naked in the fields before being healed by St. Gregory, who had been thrown into a snake infested pit for refusing to worship an Armenian goddess.  Gregory healed Tiridates by causing his snout, tusks and skin to fall off before baptizing the grateful monarch in the Euphrates.

Way better than the story of Constantine, who looked up in the sky and saw a cross-shaped light. 

Constantine’s conversion was a blessing to Christians of the west; it led to a disaster for Christians in the east.  While Christianity was not made a state religion, Constantine did declare himself protector of Christians wherever they lived – even outside of the Roman Empire.

To the Persians, he presented himself as speaking on behalf of these eastern Christians.  From here on, every conversion was seen as an act of war.  In order to protect these eastern Christians, Constantine planned his attack on Persia; he was going to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.  As noted Aphrahat, head of a key monastery near Mosul, “Goodness has come to the people of God…the beast will be killed at its preordained time.”

Apparently this wasn’t the preordained time.  Unfortunately for these Christians, Constantine fell ill and died; Shapur II proceeded to unleash hell on the local Christian populations as payback for Constantine’s aggressions.  The list of martyrs was long.  It truly was a disaster for Christianity in the east.

Eventually the conflicts between Rome and the Persians settled down; the Persians secured key points on the routes of trade and communication.  Half of Armenia was annexed.  Both powers were faced with a new enemy coming from the steppes of Asia.