Britain, the Iranian Military and the Rise of Riza Khan

Britain, the Iranian Military and the Rise of Riza Khan

This paper examines the relationship between Britain and the various elements of Iran’s military forces in the period 1910-1921 and examines the political circumstances which produced the coup of 1921 under a leader, Riza Khan, drawn from one of these forces, the cossack division. The paper focuses particularly on two aspects: Britain’s contribution to the founding of the Government Gendarmerie in 1910 and its subsequent stormy relationship with that corps, including episodes such as the arrest by gendarmes of the British colony in Shiraz in 1915 and the defection of the gendarmes to the forces of the muhajirat and the nationalist government; secondly, British attitudes to the Iranian Cossack Brigade/Division, its dismissal of the Russian cossack officers, and General Ironside’s nurturing of the force as an incubator of a new national leadership. The paper concludes with an account of British attitudes to the new army as it was constructed by Riza Khan in the first half of the nineteen twenties.

The Government Gendarmerie

The Government Gendarmerie was established in 1910 by the Second Majlis and from the start benefited from British financial support and political patronage. In the early years of the constitutional period the need for a centralized, efficient military force, an army organized along European lines, was widely recognized. As well as growing domestic awareness of the necessity for the formation of a force capable of maintaining internal security the Iranian government also came under intense pressure from Britain. As provincial disorder had increased the British government had demanded, ever more insistently, that some kind of force be set up which could provide protection for trade, particularly in the south of the country. Britain made this a condition of any further financial loans and threatened that, if order were not restored on the southern roads, they would themselves raise and officer a force

Finally, in 1910, as part of a general programme of reform, the government established the Government Gendarmerie, under the leadership of a Swedish military mission, Sweden being an acceptable source of help as it had a tradition of neutrality and was considered a minor power. Between 1911 and 1914 the Gendarmerie made steady progress, gradually consolidating its position and extending its influence over an ever widening radius from Tehran, its growing budget requirements being met largely out of loans from Britain and Russia.

In its early years the major provincial effort of the force was directed, under British pressure, towards the south, the towns and roads of Fars and Kirman. Here the intrusion of a new and independent authority inevitably alienated the established powers, especially tribal khans, even pro-British leaders such as Qavam al-Mulk, and both in Tehran and in the south the gendarmes were heavily dependent on official British patronage and protection, the British legation in Tehran being particularly useful in extracting cooperation from a sometimes reluctant central government. The construction of the Government Gendarmerie had originally been undertaken partly in response to British pressure and, in these early years, the force was always assured of British support. The outbreak of the First World War, however, with its radical political realignments and polarization, marked a watershed in the development of the Gendarmerie. It led to the growing politicization of the Iranian officer corps of the force and a new activism in cooperation with the Democrats and nationalists in the arena of national politics. Notwithstanding its patronage by Britain and the suspicion which this engendered in certain nationalist circles, the Gendarmerie had, from its birth, always been clearly identified with Iranian constitutionalism and the struggle for national unity and independence. During the early months of the war the Gendarmerie decisively shook off its association with Britain and, as a result of the new international situation, became drawn, with its Democrat partners, into an alliance with Germany, the reservations of nationalist elements regarding the force quickly evaporating.

The nationalist and pro-German tendencies of the Gendarmerie became more overt as the first year of the war had progressed. During 1915 the struggle between the Allies and the Central Powers for control of the Iranian government and the capital intensified. In early November, the Muhajirat began and large numbers of Majlis deputies, government officials, and nationalists left Tehran for Qum on their way to Isfahan.

The Gendarmerie in Tehran played an important role in organizing this emigration. Furthermore, even before the Muhajirin had left Tehran, the nationalists had seized control of Shiraz in a coup organized by the Gendarmerie against the pro- British Governor, Qavam al-Mulk. On 10 November 1915 the Gendarmerie, under the command of Major Ali Quli Khan Pasyan, and the Committee for the Protection of Iranian Independence, took control of Shiraz. Major Pasyan ordered his men to take over the British Consulate, the offices of Imperial Bank of Persia and the British telegraph office. As the British consul, O’Connor, left the Consulate under a strong escort of gendarmes he ironically observed up the road one of the two Armstrong guns which he had ordered for the Gendarmerie from England some months before and paid for with money provided by the British government. It was now trained on the Consulate gateway. The gendarmes confiscated all the available notes and silver coin in the local branch of the Imperial Bank of Persia. The British colony were taken south; the women were released but the men were handed over by the Gendarmerie to a Tangistani khan, in whose fort they were imprisoned until the following August. Gendarme officers in various towns in southern and western Iran took action similar to that taken in Shiraz. The gendarmes came out in open revolt and took possession of Hamadan, Kirmanshah, Sultanabad, Isfahan, Yazd and Kirman, forcing British nationals to evacuate these places and confiscating large sums of money from the Imperial Bank of Persia.

Over the next two years the gendarme forces of the nationalist government in western Iran were defeated and dispersed. In the south, Qavam al-Mulk, Governor-General of Fars, had fled Shiraz after the gendarme seizure of power. He went to Bushire where, with the help of the British Resident in the Persian Gulf, Percy Cox, who supplied him with money and weapons, he had assembled an army with which to reestablish himself. Marching north he eventually recaptured Shiraz and restored the British position.

Throughout this turmoil, Iranian governments had remained committed to the principle of a Gendarmerie. In August 1918, when Vusuq al-Dawlah formed a government, one of his projects was to rearm the Gendarmerie. Vusuq's government was based on a very close relationship with the British, who seem to have agreed to the project and the Gendarmerie's growth during the next two years was rapid and extensive.

Since the collapse of Tsarism in 1917, the Gendarmerie’s nationalism had become focused in hostility to Britain. Nonetheless gendarme officers were centrally involved in the work of the Anglo-Persian Military Commission, which was set up under the terms of the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919, although their political outlook inevitably affected their contribution to that body. The Commission was to report on Iran's military needs and to make recommendations as to how best these needs might be met and four of the Commission’s nine Iranian members were gendarme officers.

The Commission assembled in January 1920 and at the beginning of April presented a report containing a comprehensive survey of the existing military forces and institutions and recommending the merging of these forces and the construction of a uniform national force under British officers.

The involvement of the gendarme officers was necessary both because of their individual military expertise and because of the prestige of their corps but they were unhappy with the work of the Commission and the nature of British proposals for building a new army, feeling that they damaged Iranian independence and national dignity. Furthermore there was also resentment within the Gendarmerie specifically towards the military arrangements the British wished to make, particularly the proposal that the new uniform force be placed under British officers. In fact when the Commission eventually produced its report only two of the four gendarme members, Colonels Zarghami and Riyazi, actually signed it. Another member, Colonel Farajallah Aqavli had, shortly before, committed suicide, an act which was widely interpreted in Iran as a protest against the Agreement and the military subjection of the country.

The Gendarmerie constituted a factor of considerable political importance in Iran and certain circles within the force were drawn into the coup preparations being made in late 1920 - early 1921 by Sayyid Ziya al-Din Tabataba@i and the cossack officer, Riza Khan.

The Iranian Cossack Brigade/Division

The Cossack Brigade was set up by a Russian military mission in 1879, during the reign of Nasr al-Din Shah. The Brigade was always regarded as a Russian instrument by which Russian influence might be maintained and extended over Iran. The British, as well as many Iranians, were always deeply suspicious of the Brigade’s activities and role.

After the suppression of the Majlis in 1911 the Brigade became ever more closely associated with Russian interests and after the outbreak of War in 1914 the Russian government assumed directly the cost of financing the Brigade. In 1916 it was increased to a Division. But, in late 1917, following the Russian October Revolution and the overthrow of Tsarism, Britain took over the political and financial sponsorship of the Cossack Division.

The Bolshevik government, immediately on coming to power, had ceased payments to the Division. On 3 December 1917 Marling, the British Minister, instructed the Imperial Bank of Persia to hold about £34,000 per month at the Commandant's disposal. In early 1918 a newly-arrived Russian officer, Colonel Starroselsky, apparently with British backing, or at least acquiescence, organized a coup against the existing cossack leadership, and established himself in command of the Division. With the British minister, Marling's, help Starroselsky warded off the various challenges to his position and consolidated his command. However Starroselsky’s relationship with the British was never easy and the signing of the Anglo-Persian Agreement, in August 1919, brought about a serious deterioration in their relationship. Many of the Russian officers with the Division clearly resented the extension of British influence. Starroselsky had specific fears regarding the implications of the military clauses of the Agreement. The Division was to be merged into a new uniform force, along with all the other military formations in Iran, and placed under British officers. The Division would, in effect, disappear and there was no apparent place in this scheme for himself and the other Russian officers and it appeared that that the Division was preparing to resist the proposed changes by force.

During 1920 the cossacks were engaged in a major campaign against the Jangalis and their Bolshevik allies in Gilan. At the beginning of October General Sir Edmund Ironside arrived in Qazvin to take over command of the British North Persia Force then stationed in Qazvin. It was Ironside who was, apparently, the decisive figure in determining that the Russian officers should finally be removed. After a disastrous engagement in Rasht, the cossacks collapsed and retreated behind the British lines, and Ironside seized his opportunity. The cossacks were shepherded by Norperforce troops into a camp where Ironside separated the Russian officers from their men. Ironside and the British minister, Herman Norman then obtained the ratification of the Iranian government and the Shah for their fait accompli. The Prime Minister, Mushir al-Dawlah, resigned rather than acquiesce whereupon Norman forced the shah to appoint Sipahdar-i A’zam as prime minister, Sipahdar having already privately agreed to dismiss the Russian officers.

Starroselsky and the other Russian officers left Iran and the Shah appointed an ineffective figure, Sardar-i Humayun, as Commander of the cossacks. At the same time Ironside appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Smyth in control of the administration and finances of the cossacks. During November the reorganization of the Division began at Qazvin under the nominal command of Sardar-i Humayun but under the effective, though informal, control of Smyth, assisted by Colonels Huddleston and Lamont of the British Military Mission.

In this way the stage was set for the organization of the coup of February 1921. British intervention in Iran peaked with the coup of February 1921. Although the coup itself was executed by Iranians, it received vital assistance from, and was probably actually initiated by, certain British military officers and officials in Iran, most importantly Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside, Commander of Norperforce, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Smyth, who was unofficially and “almost secretly” attached to the cossacks at Qazvin and Walter A Smart, the Oriental Secretary. Herman Norman, the British Minister in Tehran, was apparently not an original party to the plan, but gave his full support to the coup as soon as he was informed of it, although this was probably not until the cossacks were actually marching on Tehran. Curzon at the Foreign Office knew nothing, and even after the coup’s success, the British personnel in Iran continued to deny responsibility, both publicly and in internal correspondence.

For the British involved in its planning, the coup was envisaged as an alternative route to the achievement of the main objectives of the 1919 Agreement. Their role, Ironside and Smyth at Qazvin and Smart in Tehran, was crucial in a number of ways. Firstly, the leadership of the coup was assembled at Qazvin by the British. Secondly, Ironside and Smart encouraged the planning and facilitated the execution of the coup. Thirdly, Smart neutralized any potential political and military opposition in the capital. Finally Norman, in the days immediately following the coup, threw Britain’s weight fully behind the stabilization of the new regime.

At the end of October 1920 Ironside had removed the Russian officers from the Cossack Division without the authority of either the Iranian government or the shah and Norman had installed Sipahdar-i A’zam as prime minister expressly in order to obtain ratification of this action. Ironside and Smyth then revived the Cossack Division, arranged the departure of the new Cossack commander appointed by the shah, Sardar Humayun, and personally placed Riza Khan in command. Smyth brought with him to Qazvin two gendarme officers, Captain Kazim Khan Sayyar and Major Mas’ud Khan Kayhan, who were close to Sayyid Ziya, thus facilitating contact and co-operation between the military and civilian wings of the coup movement, and between the Gendarmerie and the Cossack Division.

Ironside encouraged the preparations which Riza Khan and the other officers at Qazvin were making for a coup while Smyth engineered a pretext for Riza Khan's mobilization when he asked Sardar-i Humayun to order the Tehran and Qazvin cossacks to change places to assist with the force’s reorganization.

In the capital, Smart calmed the shah and dissuaded him from fleeing. He and Norman neutralized the Gendarmerie and the police and Smart then arranged with the prime minister, Sipahdar, that representatives of the Iranian government and the British legation should go out to meet the cossacks, ostensibly to try to persuade them to return to Qazvin. Norman appointed as representatives of the British legation Lieutenant-Colonel Wolseley Haig, acting Counsellor, and Lieutenant-Colonel H J Huddleston, acting Military Attaché, both of whom had in fact been, with Smart, deeply involved in the coup preparations. The deputation met the leaders of the coup near Mihrabad in the evening of 20 February and after some rather ambiguous discussions, returned to Tehran and “reported their failure.”

Shortly after midnight on the 21 February the cossacks took possession of Tehran and the Iranian government collapsed immediately. Next morning Norman reassured the shah regarding the intentions of the leaders of the coup towards him and advised him to get in touch with them, ascertain their wishes and grant whatever demands they might make, advice the shah readily accepted. Meanwhile the Imperial Bank of Persia made available to Sayyid Ziya, who still lacked any legal authority, a large amount of government funds which he distributed among the leading officers of the coup. The central role played by certain British elements is now beyond doubt. But the question remains. Why did they choose as their instrument so unlikely a figure as the cossack officer Riza Khan?

As a figure of historical significance Riza Khan only emerges as late as 1918, and then solely as an intriguer, assisting the White Russian Colonel Starroselsky to take command of the Cossack Division from the liberal Colonel Clerge. Then, in 1920, he is suddenly placed by the British General Ironside in effective command of the Iranian Cossack Division at Qazvin. Although already in his early forties, he has been hitherto invisible in Iranian political and even military life. Regarding his early life and career, all the extant biographical fragments make only some brief references to his participation in various tribal campaigns. Of his political views at this time we know nothing and there is no indication that he expressed any interest in or even possessed any knowledge of the constitutionalist and nationalist struggles which were taking place while he was a young man. By early middle age, Reza Khan had made no mark on national life. The blankness of Reza's early life contrasts strikingly with the biographies of other nationalist officers of the period, particularly that of Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan Pesyan. The charismatic Colonel Pesyan, though more than a decade younger, had by 1921 already acquired a reputation of considerable substance by his participation in the political and military conflicts of the preceding years. Reza Khan's apparent detachment from the formative political and ideological experiences of his generation and the singular environment, the Russian-officered Cossack Division, in which he grew to maturity, perhaps may go some way to explain the paradoxes which later beset his regime.

In 1920-1921 Riza Khan and his instrument, the reactionary and anti-constitutional Cossack Division, were unlikely candidates to carry out the task of national salvation. Although the circumstances of political collapse were ideal for the emergence of a “man on horseback”, yet there were other, much more obvious, potential candidates, both individual and collective, ready to assume this role. One of the many myths about the pre-history of the coup asserts that the cossacks were the only effective military force in the country. This view was first expressed by General Ironside, whose role in facilitating the coup and in selecting its leadership was absolutely central. Ironside totally disregarded, for reasons of pragmatic politics, the Government Gendarmerie, which was in purely military terms at least as effective, if not considerably more effective, than the Cossack Division. The Gendarmerie, however, was unpalatable to Ironside because of its nationalist inclinations, the British, one-time patrons of the Gendarmerie, had had their fingers badly burnt by the force’s defection to the nationalists during the war, and also because it was practically as well as politically much less amenable to British control, being stationed in relatively well-organized units throughout the country under the leadership of a much more professionally and politically mature officer corps. Riza Khan was allocated the role of coup-maker by Ironside and the main reason for his suitability in Ironside's eyes must have been precisely that he seemed to be a soldier and not a politician. The British minister in Tehran, Herman Norman, reiterated this view even after the coup, with the extraordinary description of him as an "honest and capable officer without political ambitions". Ironside could have found no protégé within the Gendarmerie so apparently yet deceptively ready for grooming as the cossack Reza. The Riza Shah period saw a profound transformation in both the character and the scope of British influence in Iran.

Although the British had been instrumental in bringing Riza Khan to power, their influence in Tehran after the coup diminished rapidly and visibly. Although Riza Khan’s rise was diminishing Britain’s ability to intervene in the capital, in southern Iran, where British strategic and economic interests were concentrated, British power and influence remained intact and Britain’s clients and allies, including especially Shaykh Khaz’al of Muhammarah and the Bakhtiyari khans, and also, though less importantly, the Qavamis of Shiraz and many of the minor khans of the Persian Gulf littoral, still retained all the protection of their imperial patron.

Curzon advocated the maintenance of these relationships. However Percy Loraine, who arrived in Tehran as British Minister in December 1921, began a fundamental reassessment of British policy which was to culminate, by 1923-4, in the abandonment of Britain’s friends in southern Iran in favor of good relations with the central government. From than on all Loraine’s efforts were directed towards achieving the peaceful submission of Britain’s clients to the new regime in Tehran and he lent his full support to Riza Khan’s military conquest of southern Iran.