Iran and the Rise of the Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power

459 Pages·2001·11.714 MB·English

by  Cyrus Ghani

For Caroline, Ali, Vida, Tourqj and Laila

List of Illustrations
1 Ahmad Shah
2 Reza Khan 1917
3 Reza Khan as Minister of War
4 Reza Shah
5 Abdol Hosein Mirza Farmanfarmaian (Farmanfarma)
in)
6 Hassan Mostofi (Mostofi al Mamalek
7 Hassan Vosouq (Vosouq al Dowleh)
8 Firouz Mirza Firouz (Nosrat al Dowleh III)
9 Akbar Mirza Mas’oud (Sarem al Dowleh)
10 Lord Curzon
11 Sir Percy Cox
12 Hassan Pimia (Moshir al Dowleh VI)
13 Mehdi Qoli Khan Hedayat (Mokhber al Saltaneh)
14 Fathollah Akbar (Sepahdar)
15 Seyyed Zia al Din Tabataba’i
16 General Edmund Ironside
17 Ahmad Qavam (Qavam al Saltaneh)
18 Hosein Pimia (Mo’tamen al Molk)
19 Seyyed Hassan Moddares
20 Abdol Hosein Teimurtash (Sardar Mo’azam)
21 Sir Percy Loraine
Style and Usage
The spelling of names of persons and places has been transliterated
as they are pronounced in the Persian language.
The name Iran is used for the most part throughout the book
except where direct quotes and paraphrases refer to the country as
Persia. The word ‘Persian’ has been used consistently as the lan­
guage of the country.
Titles and family names have been used in the following manner.
Iranians who lived before the passage of the 1925 Law of Identity
and Status are simply referred to by titles. Those who were bom
before passage of the law and who lived thereafter have been
referred to by their titles as well as adopted family names. When this
work deals with the years after 1925 only family names have been
used. All names have been cross-referenced with titles in the index.
Mirza, when it comes after the first name, denotes a Qajar prince.
Iranian military officers are identified by the highest rank which
they attained.
Iranian books and other writings in Persian mentioned in either
text or end-notes have been transliterated followed by the translation
in parenthesis. Their dates are given in the Iranian solar calendar
and corresponding Christian era calendar.
References and source notes appear at the end of each chapter.
Biographical sketches of individuals who played a role in the period
under study, for reasons of significance and ease, are incorporated
at the bottom of the corresponding pages of text.
Abbreviations used in the text are:
APOC Anglo-Persian Oil Company
Foreign Office Refers to British Foreign Office
Noiperforce North Persian Expeditionary Force
PRS Persian Railway Syndicate
Abbreviations used in the end notes are:
CAB Cabinet documents
DBFP Documents on British Foreign Office Policy,
1919-1930, edited by Rohan Butler and J.P.T.
Bury, London, 1963.
DoS United States Department of State, Papers on
Foreign Relations. Papers Relating to the For­
eign Relations of the United States; United
States Government Printing Office. Confidential
US Diplomatie Post Records, Middle East 1925-
1941; University Publications of America.
F Curzon Papers
FO Foreign Office documents
WO War Office documents
L India Office Library
Preface
The years 1921 to 1926 encompass one of the most important and
engrossing chapters in twentieth-century Iranian history. The period
begins with a bizarre coup d’etat engineered in great haste by a British
general who knew virtually nothing of the country or her people.
Seldom has the British military acted so freely to formulate policy,
let alone promote a coup, without the express direction of the civi­
lian government. Equally bizarre is the role played in the coup by
the British Minister to Iran who from the moment he reached
Tehran initiated and carried out polices at complete variance with
the dictates of the Foreign Office and ultimately totally lost the con­
fidence of his Foreign Secretary. The coup d’etat of 1921 and the
emergence of Reza Khan were the direct result of the British
Government’s pursuance of an unrealistic and nineteenth-century
policy, epitomised by the 1919 Agreement, in a post World War I Iran
in which a new nationalism had taken root.
The coup brought to power an obscure military officer. Reza
Khan, who had no prior political experience but adapted and
learned so quickly that he could have given Machiavelli lessons in
statecraft. This novice politician within five years brought about the
downfall of a dynasty which had ruled Iran for over 130 years and
installed himself as the new Shah. The first ten years after the coup
was a period of innovation and bold measures, great hopes and
growing confidence, self-esteem and self-reliance. By the late 1920s
all signs indicated that Iran was becoming independent and free of
foreign domination. Despite the recognition by Reza Shah of the
British role in the coup and despite the pre-eminent position Britain
enjoyed in Iran, he could deal as an equal with Britain and the gov­
ernments of the other powers. This study ends in 1926 after the
coronation, although the epilogue briefly touches upon the major
events up to Reza Shah’s abdication in September 1941.
The promise held forth by the coup on the whole went unfulfilled
due to a variety of factors. Not the least of these were flaws in Reza
Shah’s character and the decision by Britain and Russia to invade
Iran in 1941, rendering the progress initiated by Reza Shah at best
incomplete and at worst all but lost. The ‘modernism’ introduced
during the Reza Shah era was more profound and consequential
than the measures implemented or even envisaged during the 1960s
and 1970s. The period witnessed the most concentrated effort to
limit the power of the clergy and it may have succeeded further had
it not been for the invasion of and occupation of the country in 1941.
The wartime policy of the Allies during their occupation not only
altered the secularist path the country had adopted but also negated
some key measures Reza Shah had sought to implement.
The rule of Reza Shah laid the foundation of the present day gov­
ernment structure. Despite a concerted effort for change by the
current rulers of Iran the main frame of that apparatus is still intact.
The body of laws and regulations enacted in that period, including
the comprehensive Civil Code, still define and govern relationships
between government and people and amongst individuals.
The period under review in this book. 1919t1926, has been dealt
with sparingly and unevenly by historians and social scientists.
Although there are excellent works in English on the separatist and
Communist movements of those years there is very little on the
coup, the prominent figures who helped Reza Shah to topple the
Qajars, and their later roles in formulating and implementing a new
agenda for the country. The writings in Persian are more detailed
and varied and also include some competent works, but what they
suffer from is a lack of reliance on primary sources. This has led
writers to perpetuate versions of events which are totally at variance
with existing archival documents both in Iran and abroad.
With the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979 there has been, per­
haps not surprisingly, a conscious effort by adherents of the new
regime in Iran to paint as dark a picture as possible of the founder
of the dynasty. This is not the first time history has been evoked and
slanted to justify the government of the day. This in itself may be
understandable in the light of Reza Shah’s secularist policies. What
is unconscionable is the denial of his contributions to the creation
of modern Iran. Too many spurious accounts have surfaced since
the abdication of Reza Shah and most particularly since the 1979
revolution. The present study is an attempt to present a balanced
picture of one of the foremost rulers of twentieth-century Iran. Any
writer of history inevitably interprets material according to his or her
own perceptions. Total objectivity is an illusion, but by rigorous
research one should attempt at least to establish some small truths
and differentiate between fact and fiction.
The responsibility of the writer of history is great: 'History is to
the nation rather as memory is to the individual. As an individual
deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where
he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied of a conception
of its past will be disabled in dealing with its present or future.’*
Arthur Schlesinger Jr, The Disuniting of America, USA, 1992, pp 45-46.
Acknowledgements
The idea for this study came to me in 1992. The years 1992-1994
were spent researching and copying dispatches at the London Public
Record Office and United States Archives in Washington DC and
Maryland. Almost all the books I have relied on were in my own
library. Later friends and acquaintances were kind enough to send
me their articles. I had a superb editor in my wife, Caroline, who
patiently read and reread every chapter and skillfully moved sen­
tences and paragraphs up or down or from page to page. She gave
invaluable suggestions and not least of all made the tedious spelling
and typing corrections. Her moral support was of inestimable value.
Many friends encouraged me to pursue my work. Dr Alinaghi
Alikhani, a keen student of contemporary Iranian history, was espe­
cially helpful and encouraging. He read the first three chapters and
offered many useful suggestions. Dr Gholam Reza Moghadam, whose
own doctoral dissertation at Stanford University in 1956 was ‘Iran’s
Foreign Trade Policy and Economic Development in the Inter War
Period’, helped me greatly by a careful reading of the major part
of the manuscript and offering helpful suggestions. Dr Hassan
Kamshad, the author of several books on Persian literature as well
as superb translator of several important works of history and phi­
losophy from English to Persian, also read most of the manuscript.
Farrokh Ghaffari, a man of letters who had met many of the people
mentioned in my work, guided and introduced me to several refer­
ences to the period under study in the works of lesser-known
Iranian and French writers. My thanks are due to Ebrahim Golestan,
a widely cultured man who encouraged me along the way and
offered differing perspectives of certain events. My thanks also to
Dr Ali Touran, who is knowledgeable in Iranian history, for kindly
reading part of the manuscript. I owe a great debt to each of the
above-mentioned friends. I am grateful to Iradj Bagherzade, my able
and learned publisher (my Maxwell Perkins) for having read the
entire manuscript and offering valuable suggestions. My thanks to
Professor James Bill, who provided transcripts of his interviews with
prominent Iranians active in the Reza Shah era. I also am grateful
to Cyrus Samrad, a friend of long standing who gave me the idea
that a new study of the Reza Shah era was due and furnished me
with some of the photographs used in this work. Dr Mehran Tavakoli
and Kambiz Atabal also gave me encouragement in the initial stages.
I must thank Homayoun Katouzian, a knowledgeable writer on Iran
who was kind enough to help in identifying certain sources. My
conversations with Amir Khosrow Afshar and Said Hedayat, gentle­
men of long experience, provided me with further insight.
A book does not become a book by the efforts of the writer alone.
Many others helped. Majid Tafreshi, a PhD candidate on Iranian
history at London University, was extremely helpful in finding and
placing at my disposal many articles in various periodicals and sev­
eral unpublished doctoral theses. My thanks to Zahra Shadlou, who
typed the first draft of the manuscript on an antiquated computer. I
have referred to many books, including Sir Edmund Ironside’s High
Road to Command: The Diaries 1920-22. I wish to acknowledge the
courtesy extended to me by the people at Her Majesty’s Public
Record Office at Kew Gardens. Finally, I must express my apprecia­
tion to the staff of I.B.Tauris.
INTRODUCTION
Iran Under
Qajar Rule
The history of Iran spanning 25 centuries is a hying one. She suf­
fered all the adversities to which a nation may be exposed, including
numbers of invasions and the imposition of an alien religion. On the
positive side, however, Iran endured her despots, assimilated the
various invading cultures and altered the imposed religion. Most
importantly, the national frame endured and sustained all hard­
ships to remain a viable entity.
The Qajar dynasty ruled Iran from the end of the eighteenth cen­
tury to the early twentieth century. From a Turkic tribe in north-east
Iran, the great body of them had settled at Astarabad (present day
Gorgan) near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea. When
Nader Shah Afshar died in 1747 with no living heirs, the Qajar tribal
leaders were among the contenders for the throne. From the ensuing
50 year struggle one Aqa Mohammad Khan Qajar (c.1742-c.1797)
emerged the undisputed ruler in 1794. He was crowned in 1796 and
founded the dynasty. Aqa Mohammad Khan had been castrated in
childhood by the enemies of his father and was one of the crudest
kings even by eighteenth-centuiy Iranian standards. In his quest for
power he razed cities, massacred entire populations, and in an act
of singular cruelty blinded some 20,000 men in the city of Kerman
solely because the local populace had chosen to defend the city
against his siege.1 He was, however, an extraordinary leader and the
last of the great conquerors of Central Asia, basing his strength on
tribal manpower in the mould of Genghis Khan, Teimur (Tamurlane)