Coll 28/46 ‘Persia. Who’s Who, and Leading Personalities in:’ [‎24v] (48/352)

1. Reza Shah Pahlavi.
1926 .
Born about 1873. Comes of a small family from Sawad Kuh, in Mazanderan.
His father was a Persian and his mother of Caucasian stock, whose parents sought
refuge in Persia when certain Caucasian districts were ceded to Russia by
Treaty of Turkomanchai. He entered the Persian Cossack Brigade at the ag^r
15 and was employed as a stable boy. He rose from the ranks and gained the
approval of the Russian instructors of the brigade for his courage and fearlessness,
and whenever an expedition was sent to different parts of Persia to chase brigands
or quell disturbances, he seems to have taken part therein. By the beginning of the
war he had become a colonel, and in 1921, when the Cossock Brigade, previously
transformed into a division, was deprived of its Russian officers and was being
reformed after having been severely handled by the Bolshevik forces in North Persia,
was in need of a resolute leader, the choice fell on Reza Khan. In March 1921 he
marched at its head towards the capital, which he took with the greatest ease,
installing Seyid Zia-ed-Din as Premier, himself keeping the command of the army.
From that time on he had a rapid rise to power. Six weeks later he became Minister
for War, an office which he held until the 31st October, 1925, becoming, in addition
thereto, Prime Minister from October 1923 onwards. On the 31st October, 1925,
the Majlis deposed Sultan Ahmed Shah and entrusted the provisional direction of
the country to Reza Khan Pahlavi. On the 16th December, 1925, in consequence
of the decision of the Constituent Assembly, Reza Khan succeeded to the throne of
Persia with the title of Reza Shah Pahlavi. He was crowned in April 1926.
He is entirely self-educated, but has a natural dignity. He is of strong
character and has a great deal of ability and energy. Full of ambition, he has set
out to extricate Persia from disintegration and from the morass of inefficiency in
which she had fallen and raise her to a position of real independence. In spite of
tremendous difficulties, he has succeeded already to a large extent, but it is rather
in the nature of a one-man show. Given a sufficient lease of life, he may succeed
entirely and at the same time train others to carry on the work. He is not popular,
but feared, which perhaps in an oriental country is the greater advantage of the
two. The medal has a reverse side. He is insincere in the sense that he regards
prevarication and duplicity as fair weapons, thoroughly suspicious of anybody
whom he suspects to be cleverer than himself; he therefore prefers to surround
himself with mediocrities for the most part. He is avaricious, and all means by
which he can acquire this world’s goods are good to him. Since he has become Shah
he has lost some of his physical energy and indulges more in opium and arak, or it
may be that these have more effect on him in his sedentary life as a monarch than
they had when he was living a life in the open; he has certainly grown stouter and
has become more bloated, but his old energy sometimes returns, and then he goes
on a journey of some weeks to a far distant part of his country, returning the better
for his holiday. Whilst he is feared himself by reason of his rough tongue and
sometimes rougher methods of treatment which he personally metes out to his
subordinates and sometimes to others of his subjects, he himself is not without fear,
and it is said that he never goes to bed without having within reach several weapons
and that he frequently starts up from his sleep to grasp one of them. He is pitiless
towards all whom he suspects of having plotted against him, and even where little
or no proof of their culpability is forthcoming they are condemned to a lifelong
prison. &
Finally, it may be said that his great skill in dealing with his own compatriots
has its counterpart in a sublime ignorance of foreign mentality. Beyond once
returning from Khuzistan to Tehran via Bagdad, he has never been out of Persia.
2. Mirza Abdul Hussein Khan Teymoustache (Serdar Moazzam Khorassani).
1926.
i B J 0rn ^ ab0ut 1888 of a Khorassan family, he was educated in Russia Was
elected a Deputy to the third, fourth, fifth and sixth terms of the Majlis, although
he dl( inot take his seat in the sixth term, as he was appointed Minister of Court to
Reza Shah Pahlavi before the sixth Parliament was opened. W^as Persian member
of the mixed financial commission, 1916-17. Appointed Governor of Gilan in 1919
and remained there one year during the first Persian Cossack expedition against
the Jungahs. Minister of Justice, January to June 1922. Governor of Kerman.