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Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [598r] (1198/1237)
The record is made up of 1 file (615 folios). It was created in 16 Dec 1941-6 Mar 1946. It was written in English. 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. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
5W i
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
'ME 5S6/163/34]
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January 26, 1942. ^ ^ . 3 j
942
Section 4.
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Copy No. y ^ ^
Sir R. Bullard to Mr. Eden.—(Received January 26, 1942.) ^ tXai ^
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(No. 221.) TT . .
HIS Majesty’s representative presents his compliments to His Majesty s
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and has the honour to transmit ^
herewith copy of political despatch No. 53 of the 14th December, 1941, from His
Majesty’s Consul at Tabriz to His Majesty’s Minister at Tehran regarding the
internal situation at Tabriz and in Azerbaijan. al/a*
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Tehran, December 30, 1941.
lOAA
Enclosure.
Consul Cook to Sir R. Bullard.
(No. 53. Confidential.)
gi r Tabriz, December 14, 1941.
I HAVE the honour to report that public order at Tabriz remains good, but
that in Azerbaijan there continue to be incidents indicating unrest and a kind
of resentment of lawful authority, possibly due to the period when there was for
a time no gendarmerie or other sign of administration, and when junior Russian
officers were telling the villagers that a new day had dawned, free of greedy
landlords and oppressive Government taxation. At present the peasants in
many places refuse to pay, or demur at paying, the octroi tax when they bring
produce into any provincial town, refuse to give the landowners their share of the
last harvest, and object to the presence of the new gendarmerie. At Sarab the
latter sent a message to say that 2,000 peasants were gathering round the town
and threatening trouble, but by chance two lorries full of Russian troops passed
through on the way from Tabriz to Ardebil and this was enough to scatter them.
At another village towards Ardebil the inhabitants are reported to have forcibly
disarmed a party of five gendarmes.
2. As there are no Persian military forces in Azerbaijan, and as the Russian
army of occupation has been much reduced, the Persian authorities were planning
to increase their gendarmerie to about 4,000 men, but the Russians have now
informed them that not more than 1,500 will be allowed. Colonel Basti tells me
that the latter figure is barely enough for the province in normal times, allowing
ten men to each rural post, and in disturbed times like the present is not sufficient
to preserve order, let alone allow of a reserve to send quickly wherever needed.
From Maragha comes a report that the bandit Hussein Ghuli, far from surrender-
ing, is hovering round that town with a considerable following. If the Soviet
forces were making a definite arrangement to keep order in Azerbaijan in every
eventuality, one could understand their proposed limitation of the local
gendarmerie, but this is by no means obvious, and, in fact, there are many Persians
who think that, by their shadowy policy among the local peasantry generally, the
Russians may be fomenting unrest and potential trouble for reasons of their own.
3. Similarly, the Soviet authorities here have told the Persian Governor of
Tabriz that the city’s police force must be reduced from its present figure of
20 officers and 400 men to one of 12 officers and 205 men, at a moment when the
Police Chief, Sarahang Saif, was asking Tehran to increase the force to about
[26—30]
About this item
- Content
Reports and correspondence concerning the internal situation in Azerbaijan and Tabriz during the region’s occupation by Soviet military forces, part of the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Persia [Iran] in the Second World War. The file chiefly comprises reports, submitted on a monthly (and later fortnightly) basis by the British Consul-General at Tabriz, reporting on events in Azerbaijan and Tabriz. Reports up to July 1942 are printed, while subsequent reports are typewritten. The typewritten reports are organised under subheadings that vary from one report to the next, but generally cover: weather; agriculture, locust movements, food supply and reports of hoarding; consular tours; the activities of consular colleagues and counterparts; local government, local politics, and elections; Kurdish affairs, including events at Rezaieh [Orūmīyeh]; Armenian affairs; public order; the activities of the Persian, Russian and United States military; trade, commerce and labour; transport and communications, including convoys, and the activities of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation (UKCC); propaganda. From late 1944 onwards the reports increasingly focus on rising political and social unrest in Azerbaijan, which would eventually culminate in the Iran-Azerbaijan crisis of 1946. These later reports focus on the emergence and activities of new political parties (including the Tudeh Party and the Democratic Party), new political newspapers, and Soviet activities in Azerbaijan.
The file also includes: correspondence sent by the British Ambassador in Tehran, Reader William Bullard, forwarding the Tabriz Consul’s reports with comments to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; note sheets covering numerous reports, giving a précis of the report’s contents; the translation of a report by the Persian Minister for War, secretly obtained by British sources, describing military and political conditions at Rezaieh, dated 17 May 1942 (ff 560-564); a report of a visit to Rezaieh in February 1945, compiled by the British Consul-General at Tabriz (ff 147-154).
The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.
- Extent and format
- 1 file (615 folios)
- Arrangement
The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the rear to the front of the file.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 617; 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.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/12/3524
- Title
- Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’
- Pages
- front, front-i, 1ar, 2r:69v, 71r:136v, 138r:150v, 150ar:150av, 151r:194v, 196r:197v, 199r:300v, 302r:420v, 424r:560v, 565r:575v, 577r:581r, 583r:616v, back-i, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence