dreams melted into air, 1919–29King ‘Aman Allah
Khan in European
military uniform,
just prior to his
controversial
European Tour,
from the Illustrated
London News,
1 October 1927.
After his visit to Germany he set sail for England, where ’Aman Allah
Khan was a state guest of King George v. During his time in Britain ’Aman
Allah Khan flew in an aeroplane, went underwater in a submarine and
visited munitions factories. The British authorities made sure the king had
frequent displays of Britain’s military might, just as a reminder of the risk
he ran of going to war with India a second time. ’Aman Allah Khan’s visit
was also popular with the general public, who lined the streets to catch a
glimpse of this exotic monarch and his entourage.
’Aman Allah Khan’s visit to the Soviet Union was a particularly
awkward leg of the journey in the wake of the confrontation over Urta
Tagai and Stalin’s creation of the Central Asian Republics. The situation was
made more uncomfortable by the fact that the Bolsheviks were Republicans
who a few years earlier had brutally executed the last Tsar and all his family.
The Soviet press never referred to ’Aman Allah Khan as Tsar, or its Persian
equivalent qaisar. Instead the reports used King’s recently assumed title of
padshah, or king, and emphasized his role as a supporter of Indian self-
rule and his war against British imperialism. ’Aman Allah Khan, though,
came away from Moscow disappointed, for despite the pledges made in