Dadiani, to favor the accession of younger brothers of future kings over their own sons. The resulting dynastic upheaval prompted King George to secretly invite Paul I to invade Kartli-Kakheti, to subdue the Bagratid princes, and to govern the kingdom from St. Petersburg, on the condition that George and his descendants be allowed to continue to reign nominally – in effect, offering to mediatize the Bagratid dynasty under the Romanov emperors. Continued pressure from Persia, also prompted George XII's request for Russian intervention. Paul tentatively accepted this offer, but before negotiations could be finalized changed his mind and issued a decree on December 18, 1800 annexing Kartli-Kakheti to Russia and deposing the Bagratids. Paul himself died shortly thereafter. It is said that his successor, Emperor Alexander I, considered retracting the annexation in favor of a Bagratid heir, but being unable to identify one likely to retain the crown, on September 12, 1801 Alexander proceeded to confirm annexation. Meanwhile, King George had died on December 28, 1800, before learning that he had lost his throne. By the following April, Russian troops took control of the country's administration and in February 1803 Tsarevich David Bagrationi was escorted by Russian troops from Tbilisi to St. Petersburg. He was pensioned, joined the Russian Senate, and retained his royal style until May 6, 1833 when he was demoted from tsarevich (the Russian equivalent of batonishvili) to "prince" (knyaz), along with other members of the deposed dynasty, following an abortive uprising in Georgia led by David's uncle, Prince Alexandre Bagrationi. The Russians then ended the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 with a victory. By the Treaty of Gulistan (1813), Qajar Persia was forced to officially cede eastern Georgia to the Russian Empire. Paul's annexation of east Georgia and exile of the Bagratids remain controversial: Soviet historians would later maintain that the treaty was an act of "brotherhood of the Russian and Georgian peoples" that justified annexation to protect Georgia both from its historical foreign persecutors and its "decadent" native dynasty. Nonetheless, no bilateral amendment had been ratified altering article VI sections 2 and 3 of the 1784 treaty, which obligated the Russian emperor "to preserve His Serene Highness Tsar Irakli Teimurazovich and the Heirs and descendants to his House, uninterrupted on the Throne of the Kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti...forbidding [Her Majesty’s] Military and Civil Authorities to intervene in any [domestic laws or commands]." Legacy Ironically, that