Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎260r] (519/644)

5
them as having a free hand in the matter. The Persian Government agreed to get
rid of the five missions, and stopped their cypher and bag facilities at once; but
they were so dilatory in their preparations for the departure of the missions
that the Allies decided to move troops to the capital as the only means of securing
this object without dangerous delay. The troops arrived in the suburbs of Tehran
(they never occupied the town itself) on the morning of the 16th September. The
British troops camped on the south, the Russians on the other three sides of the
town. In the course of the exchange of letters the Persian Government obtained
permission to station Persian troops at certain points in the British zone of
occupation (not in the Russian), but they tried in vain to secure the immediate
return of war material captured during the hostilities and a promise of compensa
tion for war damage. Although these letters were set aside by the occupation of
Tehran and the negotiations for the conclusion of a treaty, they set the tone for
the mutual relations of His Majesty’s Government and the Persian Government
for the rest of the year.
11. The British zone of occupation, as defined in the exchange of letters, was
to be bounded by a line running north and east of Kermanshah and Kurramabad
and of the oilfields of Masjid-i-Sulaiman, Haftkel and Gach Saran, and ending
at Bandar Dulaim, on the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ; but British troops were already in
occupation of Hamadan, the Aveh Pass and Sultanabad when the negotiations
began, and these points remained in our occupation after the troops which were
sent to occupy the suburbs of the capital had been withdrawn. The limits of the
Russian occupation (apart from the period when the Russian troops were at
Tehran) have been as defined in the letters : the line runs from Ushni through
Zenjan to Qazvin, then up to the Caspian, whose southern shore it follows, then
through Babul, Zirab, Semnan and Shahrud and north to Aliabad, on the frontier.
There is, however, one exception to this : at the last moment the Russians
added to their definition an oral statement that, while Meshed would not be
occupied, a certain number of aeroplanes, with ground troops to protect them,
would be stationed outside Meshed. This was an important rider, since the
presence of Russian troops so near naturally affected the administration of
Meshed, the centre of an important province.
12. Even before the Allied entry into Persia it had been debated whether it
paid us any longer to support Reza Shah to the extent we had done in the past,
viz., by discouraging the publication in the British press of any matter
disparaging him or his regime. His Majesty’s Government fully realised that the
popular belief, that we maintained him on the throne for our own ends, did us
great harm, but they considered that his remarkable hold over his people
warranted his retention on the throne so long as we could hope to secure his
co-operation, or at least his real neutrality. His obstinate refusal to get rid of
the Axis nationals with reasonable speed had already shaken our hopes when
the Allied occupation showed that he was quite incapable of dealing with the
problems of the moment. When his parade army collapsed he made no effort
to prevent disintegration. Moreover, he showed no consciousness of responsibility
for the collapse of his pretentious military fagade, or of recognition of the urgent
need for reform : even after the occupation he one day beat the Minister of Warjj X
and the Chief of Staff with his sword for putting up a scheme of which hej
disapproved, and threw them into prison, and he would probably have had them
executed if he had not had to abdicate. Meanwhile our position had grown worse,
since whereas the Persians expected that we should at least save them from the
Shah’s tyranny as compensation for invading their country, they found that they
now had to bear both the foreign occupation and the Shah. The new Prime
Minister, Mr. Fimmhi, though he realised that it would be impossible to find a
successor to Reza who would wield the same authority, eventually came to the
conclusion that the reforms which were essential could not be secured under Reza
Shah, since, even if he promised to accept a programme of reform, he would
soon return to his old arbitrary ways and penalise the authors of the programme.
His Majesty’s Government thereupon agreed that the B.B.C. might now begin
to give various broadcasts in Persian which had been prepared beforehand,
starting with talks on constitutional government and increasing in strength
and local colour until all Reza’s mismanagement, greed and cruelty were displayed
to the public gaze. It is probable that no broadcasts have ever been received with
more excitement and approval than these. If the Persian public approved them,
to the Shah they gave a violent shock, and he made an unsuccessful appeal to