the next century as the Georgian Military Highway, the major overland route through the mountains. The war between the Russians and Ottomans was concluded in 1774 with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. In 1783, Heraclius II signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with Catherine, according to which Kartli-Kakheti agreed to forswear allegiance to any state except Russia, in return for Russian protection. But when another Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1787, the Russians withdrew their troops from the region for use elsewhere, leaving Heraclius's kingdom unprotected. In 1795, the new Persian shah, Agha Mohammed Khan issued an ultimatum to Heraclius, ordering him to break off relations with Russia or face invasion. Heraclius ignored it, counting on Russian help, which did not arrive. Agha Mohammad Khan carried out his threat and captured and burned the capital, Tbilisi, to the ground, as he sought to re-establish Persia's traditional suzerainty over the region. The Russian annexations Eastern Georgia In spite of Russia's failure to honour the terms of the Treaty of Georgievsk, Georgian rulers felt they had nowhere else to turn. The Persians had sacked and burned Tbilisi, leaving 20,000 dead. Agha Mohammad Khan, however, was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha, after which the Iranian grip over Georgia softened. Heraclius died the following year, leaving the throne to his sickly and ineffectual son Giorgi XII. After Giorgi's death on 28 December 1800, the kingdom was torn between the claims of two rival heirs, Davit and Iulon. However, Tsar Paul I of Russia had already decided neither candidate would be crowned king. Instead, the monarchy would be abolished and the country administered by Russia. He signed a decree on the incorporation of Kartli-Kakheti into the Russian Empire which was confirmed by Tsar Alexander I on 12 September 1801. The Georgian envoy in Saint Petersburg, Garsevan Chavchavadze, reacted with a note of protest that was presented to the Russian vice-chancellor Alexander Kurakin. In May 1801, Russian General Carl Heinrich von Knorring removed the Georgian heir to the throne, David Batonishvili, from power and deployed a provisional government headed by General Ivan Petrovich Lazarev. Knorring had secret orders to remove all the male and some female members of the royal family to Russia. Some of the Georgian nobility did not accept the decree until April 1802, when General Knorring held the nobility in Tbilisi's Sioni Cathedral and forced them to take an oath on the imperial crown