MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Iran
Index
Iran hoped to avoid entanglement in World War I by declaring
its neutrality, but ended up as a battleground for Russian,
Turkish, and British troops. When German agents tried to arouse the
southern tribes against the British, Britain created an armed
force, the South Persia Rifles, to protect its interests. Then a
group of Iranian notables led by Nezam os Saltaneh Mafi, hoping to
escape Anglo-Russian dominance and sympathetic to the German war
effort, left Tehran, first for Qom and then for Kermanshah (renamed
Bakhtaran after the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah in 1979), where they
established a provisional government. The provisional government
lasted for the duration of the war but failed to capture much
support.
At the end of the war, because of Russia's preoccupation with
its own revolution, Britain was the dominant influence in Tehran.
The foreign secretary, Lord Curzon, proposed an agreement under
which Britain would provide Iran with a loan and with advisers to
the army and virtually every government department. The Iranian
prime minister, Vosuq od-Dowleh, and two members of his cabinet who
had received a large financial inducement from the British,
supported the agreement. The Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 was
widely viewed as establishing a British protectorate over Iran.
However, it aroused considerable opposition, and the Majlis refused
to approve it. The agreement was already dead when, in February
1921, Persian Cossacks Brigade officer Reza Khan, in collaboration
with prominent journalist Sayyid Zia ad Din Tabatabai, marched into
Tehran and seized power, inaugurating a new phase in Iran's modern
history.
Data as of December 1987
|
|