British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

threat to the Indian
sub-continent. The British reminded Teheran of
the avenues of pressure to which they would make recourse for the
defence of their interests.10 Important as
it was Persia for Britain in the nineteenth century, ironically

in the twentieth century its
significance grew even further. It
became a strategic asset for the British Empire.

At the end of the
nineteenth century the principal use of petroleum
was still seen mainly in terms of lamp oil. During the first decade
of the twentieth century however, the actual and potential scope of
the uses of petroleum products had expanded in a revolutionary way.
There was the possibility of using fuel oil instead of coal for the
firing of ships’ boilers.

The cost of maintaining the
massive Royal Navy was relatively cheap
for many years. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century
costs of ships and fuelling them in particular began to escalate.
Security of the sea was vital to Britain, if her economy was to
survive.

The development from which
as a result ships could be fuelled by
oil, instead of coal, came at the right moment, and therefore
finally caught the attention of the British Government. Giving high
priority to the security of the sea, and the contribution that oil
could make to it, also taking other advantages of oil such as
bitumen (for road making) and lubricating oil into account, oil was
considered by the British Government a vital raw material socially,
industrially and strategically, for any modern state, and thus swift
policies were formulated in respect to access to oil.

On May 26th, 1908, a strong
flow of oil was tapped at a depth of
1,180 feet from the first well drilled at Masjid-e Sulaiman in
Persia, Ten days later 1,000 feet from a second well drilled in the
same locality.

Due to the fact that there
were no indigenous oil deposits in the
United Kingdom, nor, so far as was known, in any part of the British
Empire, the