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Coll 28/9 ‘Persia; Internal affairs; Shah’s tours in Persia: general situation reports’ [‎67r] (144/1038)

The record is made up of 1 volume (514 folios). It was created in 17 Feb 1931-27 Apr 1938. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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I
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY of wtc
-^-° F Hls BR ITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
November 2, 1936.
[E 6872/405/34
P
*» . .
n n "5
- u
Section
(No. 468.)
Sir.
Mj, Butler to Mr. Eden
■ L 9 56 I
{Received November 2.)
Copy No. 112
UNDER cover of my despatch No. 467 of to-dJ/fXt^f ifT }u ^ 936 '
to send you a copy of a particular!v t0 ' dd ; te 1 llad tde honour
general cxjnditions in Azerbaijan from His Majesty “sufaT ^ab^^ 1 and
despatch from ms Majesty’s^Legation 0 ^^rfjhe^lhthTb d “ ‘i 1 ® CirCuIar
venture to think that it is Lssibll to forST^TW^^^ last ’ and 1
as it is to-day, ten years af?er the coronT“on ^the p^Sl P1 1 1 ^.° f r
no similar report is available as ppp-dpHq ^ esent -l regret that
m Iran. The' prosperity^
tea ^anroraMesaTdThe' 0 ^ the develo P mel ‘t the culti’vatfonof
material advance there. As rei^ds Thehrmy^tm °!ltho 'T J ^ °! g r at
eonsnlar . army, too, although several of these
consular reports refer to a visible improvement in the discipline and efficiencv
rl th ff 1 a? a tr + 0 i° pS ’ ^ cannot be Maimed that they furnish much to amplify the
admittedly rather exiguous information that His Majesty ’s Legation Supplies
as regards the Persian army While several local commanders, notably General
Mmm m Khuzistan and Colonel Hakimi m Gurgan, are known to be capable
men, what Mr. Urquhart describes as the Imperial policy of eliminating alLwho
joy any appearance of personal power vis-a-vis the mass of the people applies
at least equally to the army. So much so that almost the only detailed propLcy
1 have been able to secure—from a landowner in Khorassan—as to the probable
immediate consequences should the Shah unfortunately pass from the scene in the
near future, is to the effect that it would not be a case of a local commander
seeking separatist authority in his particular province, but rather of the local
troops splitting up into squatting or marauding bands.
3 The reports in these series that have seemed of special interest are those
trom the two turbulent provinces, Khorassan and Azerbaijan, and from the two
which are virtually self-supporting, Azerbaijan again and Khuzistan. As
regards these three provinces there seems general agreement on three principal
points : First, and potentially the most dangerous, the extreme unpopularity of
the present^regime, which is recognised to be the Shah and the Shah only; and
this in spite of the security he has created, the strong and wise treatment of
minorities to which Mr. Urquhart refers, and in spite of, or because of, the not
unsuccessful introduction of many progressive measures, socially and in the
economic field. Secondly, the Shah’s success in breaking completely and perhaps
permanently the old local centres of authority and of resistance to the central
power. Mechanical transport has been and must remain a big factor in favour
of the Tehran Government in this connexion. And thirdly, the extreme paucity
°f officials who under this regime are willing to undertake even minor responsi
bility, or who possess even mediocre ability. This point wns discussed in the
annual report for last year. I do not wish to question either the harm that this
dearth is now doing, e.g., in the Khuzistan customs service, nor its possible effect
on the permanence of the Shah’s work, but there is reason to think that it is much
more marked in the provinces than in Tehran. In the course of not very long
conversations, both Mr. Fraser, of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, this spring,
and Dr. Schofield, head of the Loughborough Technical College, who is mwv
visiting Iran, volunteered to me that they had been pleasurably surprised by the
quality of the officials at the head of the various public and semi-public institu
tions in Tehran, compared with what they had found in the provinces. And—
though this is a different point—when the Persian Government engage officials
from abroad, they seem successful in getting good ones.
[865 b—4]

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Content

Correspondence and reports submitted by British officials in Persia [Iran], along with newspaper cuttings collected from the British and Persian press, relating to the Shah of Persia, Reza Shah Pahlavi. Subjects covered include:

  • The Shah’s tours and visits around Persia, including to the towns and cities of Sistan [Zabol], Bushire, Shiraz, Meshed [Mashhad], Kermanshah, Tabriz, Ahwaz [Ahvāz].
  • Reports of economic and political conditions in Persia.
  • The first Minister of the Persia Court, Teymourtache [Abdolhossein Teymūrtāsh], including his dismissal by the Shah in 1933, and his subsequent trial, imprisonment and death.
  • Speculation over the health of the Shah.
  • Treatment of the Bakhtiari tribes by the Shah and his Government.
  • The Shah’s programme of modernisation in Persia, including the enforcement of European hats for men and unveiling of women, military reforms, and schemes for urban development.
  • A rebellion and massacre at the Goharshad shrine in Meshed in July 1935, provoked by a backlash against the Shah’s modernising tendencies. Papers include a secret report written by the British Consul-General for Khorasan and Sistan, Major Clive Kirkpatrick Daly (ff 218-222).

Principal correspondents in the file include: the British Legation at Tehran (Reginald Hervey Hoare; Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen; Nevile Montagu Butler); the Chargé d’Affaires at Tehran (Victor Alexander Louis Mallet); the British Consul-General for Khorasan and Sistan (Daly).

Newspaper cuttings from the Persian press are written in French.

Extent and format
1 volume (514 folios)
Arrangement

The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the rear to the front of the volume.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence for this description commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 510; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The front and back covers, along with the two leading and two ending flyleaves have not been foliated. A previous foliation sequence, which is present in parallel between ff 222-510 and is also circled, has been superseded and therefore crossed out.

Written in
English and French in Latin script
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Coll 28/9 ‘Persia; Internal affairs; Shah’s tours in Persia: general situation reports’ [‎67r] (144/1038), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/3404, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100056316195.0x000091> [accessed 29 March 2024]

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