Everything about Reza Shah Pahlavi totally explained
» For the Afghan serial killer, see Reza Khan (Taliban).
Reza Shah, also
Reza Pahlavi and
Reza Shah the Great (
Rez̤ā Pahlavī), (
March 15,
1878 –
July 26,
1944), was
Shah of
Iran from
December 15,
1925 until he was forced to
abdicate by the
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in
September 16,
1941.
Reza Shah overthrew
Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last
Shah of the
Qajar dynasty, and founded the
Pahlavi Dynasty. He was later designated by parliament as "
Reza Shah the Great". He established an
authoritarian government that valued
nationalism,
militarism,
secularism and
anti-communism combined with strict
censorship and
state propaganda.
He was known as being highly intelligent, without any formal education
Reza Shah introduced many socio-economic reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration, and finances. and "superficial".
Name
In the early stages of his life, Reza Shah was known as
Reza Savad-Koohi, because of his birth place (see below). Later on, when he gained territory with his own army, he entitled himself
Reza Khan, and later as
Reza Khan Mirpanj (Persian: رضا خان میرپنج), his full military title at the time. Upon becoming minister of war, he was known as
Reza Khan Sardar Sepah, which in Persian roughly means
Reza Khan, head of the armed forces. Upon securing his position as the Shah of Persia, he chose the surname
Pahlavi (surnames didn't exist in Persia before this date, and were introduced as one of the modernization measures during his reign ). From then on, he was referred to as
Reza Palani رضا پالانی and Reza Gholdor رضا قلدر.
Early life
Reza Pahlavi was born in the village of
Alasht in
Savad Kooh county,
Mazandaran in 1878. His father, Abbas Ali (
1815-
26 November 1878), and his mother Zehra were ethnic Mazanderani. Abbas Ali was a member of the regional army. When Reza was sixteen years old, he joined the
Persian Cossack Brigade, in which, years later, he'd rise to the rank of
Brigadier.
He also served in the
Iranian Army, where he gained the rank of gunnery sergeant under
Qajar Prince
Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma's command. He rose through the ranks, eventually holding a commission as a
Brigadier General in the
Persian Cossack Brigade. He was the last and only
Iranian commander of the
Persian Cossack Brigade. He was also one of the last individuals to become an officer of the
Neshan-e Aqdas prior to the collapse of the
Qajar dynasty in 1925.
Rise to power
The 1921 Coup
The coup d'etat of 1921 and the emergence of Reza Khan were masterminded by the British in order to halt the Bolsheviks penetration of Iran and the threat they posed on their colonial possession in India. In a situation report to the War Office dated 8 December 1920, General Edmond Ironside, the commander of the British Forces in Iran, noted that a capable Persian officer must command the Cossacks and "that would solve many difficulties and enable us to depart in peace and honour."
Lt. Colonel Henry Smyth, the British officer who worked with the Cossacks, advised Ironside that the Tabriz battalion had performed remarkably well in pushing back a Bolshevic attack north of Manjeel in the province of
Gilan. Subsequently Ironside was introduced to the commanding officer of the Tabriz Battalion, Reza Khan. Ironside was impressed and wrote in his diaries “I decided to make him Commander of the cossack Brigade at least temporarily and at once” . Smyth was appointed the administrator and the financial officer of the Cossacks while Reza Khan was given the task of reorganisation and training. Ironside wasn't impressed with the young Ahmad Shah “ What could Persia do with such a ruler? Was it a wonder that she'd sunk so low. She needed a strong man to bring her through…It had been a continued mystery to me how she'd been able to persevere her independence . Ironside diaries show that from January 1921 he was planning for the installation of strong ruler in Iran and he'd found such a ruler in the person of Reza Khan.
To implement the plan Herman Norman, a career Foreign Office diplomat in Tehran, pleaded with the British foreign minister Lord Curzon on behalf of General Ironside for financial help for Cossacks. He met with
Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee, who suggested the creation of a new military unit numbering 15,000 to repel any advance by Bolsheviks towards Tehran. The estimated costs of the plan was one million Pound Sterling. Norman advised Curzon that this sum can be accommodated from a two million Pound loan. General Ironside attempted to force Ahmad Shah to appoint Reza Khan as the commander of the armed forces but the Shah refused.
Reporting on his last recorded meeting with Reza Khan on February 17th, 1921 Ironside wrote: “ I've interviewed Reza Khan and have put him definitely in charge of the Cossacks. He is a man and straightest… I wonder whether I ought to have anything in writing but I decided in the end that writing would be no good. If Reza wants to play false he'll and he'll merely say that any promises he made were made under duress and that he wouldn’t fulfill them. I made two things clear to Reza when I agreed to let him go:1-that he mustn’t shoot me from behind as he goes or as I go. That would lead to his humiliation and good to nobody except the revolutionary party. 2. That the Shah on no account must be deposed. Reza promised glibly enough and I shook hands with him. I've told Smyth to let him go gradually.”
The request for a promise not to depose the Shah, has been used by some historians as an indication that Ironside was aware of the imminent coup d’etat by Reza Khan. In addition, in a memorandum prepared by Pierson Dixon of Foreign Office and sent to Curzon on 14 May 1921 it's clearly stated that “ Colonel Smyth had prior knowledge of the Coup and co-operated with the principals”. General E.R.Dickson, whose mission as the head of a seven-man military task force was to create a Persian army by integrating the Cossaks, Gendarmerie and other units; and was recalled to London after the coup, in a letter to a member of the US Legation in Tehran dated 6 June 1921 wrote: “I saw Colonel Smyth at Kazvin when I passed through and he admitted what we'd all suspected, that it was he who had organised the Cossack Coup in Tehran. He also told that he'd done it with the knowledge of the Legation in Tehran. He didn't say Mr Norman had a hand in it but admitted that W. A . Smart had. I'm rather inclined that Smart, Haig and company ran the business without letting Norman in on the secrete.”
On
February 21,
1921, Reza Khan staged a
coup d'état together with
Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee, to get control over a country which had practically no functioning central government at the time.
Commanding a
Russian-trained Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan marched his troops from
Qazvin, 150 kilometres to the west of
Tehran, and seized key parts of the capital city almost without opposition and forced the government to resign.
With the success of the coup, Tabatabaee became the
Prime Minister of Iran. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was as commander of the army, which, in April 1921, he combined with the post of
Minister of War. At the same time, he took the title
Reza Khan Sardar Sepah (رضا خان سردار سپه).
In 1921 there were a number of revolts against the coup In June 1920, a soviet socialist republic had established in
Gilan by
Mīrzā Kūchak Khān, as the prime minister.
Kurds of
Khorasan also revolted in the same year.
According to some sources, the involvement of the British Empire through the office of
General Edmund Ironside helped Reza Khan come to power in the 1920s. This was noted as early as March 1921 by the American embassy and relayed to the Iran desk at the Foreign Office A British Embassy report from 1932 even states that the British put Reza Shah "on the throne".
While Reza Khan and his Cossack brigade were securing Tehran, the Persian envoy was in Moscow negotiating a treaty with the Bolsheviks for the removal of Soviet troops from Persia. Known as the 1921 Treaty of Friendship, it would become one of the costliest errors of Persian diplomacy. For Article IV thereof, allowed the Soviets to invade and occupy Persia should they believe foreign troops are using Persia as a staging area for an invasion of Soviet territory. Additionally, as Soviets interpreted the Treaty, they could invade should events in Persia prove threatening to Soviet national security. The Soviets would hold this Treaty over the heads of Persia leaders for years to come.
Overthrow of the Qajar dynasty
On
October 26,
1923, Reza had seized control of Iran and forced the young
Ahmad Shah Qajar to exile in Europe. As the Prime Minister, Reza Khan wanted to secure his power in opposition to any potential restoration of Qajar house. He now machinated for a republic and his military junta started a massive propaganda campaign for establishment of a republic. However, the idea of a republic was fiercely opposed by the powerful clergymen, and the feudal landlords.. Some leaders of the
National Assembly of Iran, known as the
Majlis, particularly
Hassan Modarres and the young Dr.
Mohammed Mossadegh forcefully opposed Reza Khan’s plan to consolidate his autocracy. His supremacy was imposed by 1925 with the subjugation of all tribal insurrections and nationalists’ unrest. He maneuvered against Qajar dynasty and in October forced the parliament to depose the young King. He assured the landlords and the conservative clergy that he'd defend Islamic law and wouldn't undertake any radical reform. The Majlis, convening as a
constituent assembly on
December 12,
1925, declared him the Shah.
Reign and modernization
During Reza Shah's sixteen years of rule, major developments, such as large road construction projects and the
Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the
University of Tehran was established. The government sponsored European educations for many Iranian students. These industrial reforms in Iran were often also advantageous for British interest. For example, in spite of the fact that economically an east-west railway system was justifiable, Reza Shah constructed an uneconomical north-south system that was beneficial for the British who had a military presence in the south of Iran and wanted to transfer their troops to Russia and the Indian subcontinent as part of their strategic defence plan. He forbade photographing aspects of Iran he considered backwards, like
camels, he banned
Iranian dress and
chadors in favour of
Western dress. Women who resisted this compulsory unveiling had their veils forcibly removed. He dealt harshly with opposition: troops were sent to massacre protesters at mosques and
nomads who refused to settle; newspapers were closed and liberals imprisoned.
On
21 March 1935, the ruler of the country,
Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking foreign delegates to use the term
Iran in formal correspondence in accordance with the fact that "Persia" was a term used for a country called "Iran" in Persian. "Persia" (or "Fars" or "Parseh") is actually a province in Iran. It has however contributed more to the Iranian people than others, particularly its language, "Farsi" (Persian). Opponents claimed that this act brought cultural damage to the country and separated Iran from its past in the West (see
Iran naming dispute). The name “Iran” means “Land of the Aryans”.
By the late 1930s, Reza Shah had become increasingly despotic and disliked
. The parliament assented to his decrees the free press was suppressed, and swift incarceration of the political leaders like
Mossadegh and murder of some like
Teymourtash, and
Davar halted the formation of any democratic process. He treated the urban middle class, the managers and technocrats with iron-hand, as a result his state-owned industries remained unproductive and inefficient
. The bureaucracy fell apart before him since anyone could be whisked away to prison at any moment for disobeying his whims He confiscated land from the Qajars and from the rivals to usurp it into his own estates. The corruption continued under his rule and even became institutionalized. Progress toward modernization was spotty and isolated . He became totally dependent on his military force, and the army, which in return regularly received up to 50 percent of the public revenue to guarantee its loyalty.
Reza Shah was the first Iranian Monarch after 1400 years that paid respect to the Jews by praying to the Torah and bowing in front of it, when visiting the Jewish community of Isfahan. An act that boosted the self-esteem of the Iranian Jews and made Reza Shah their second most respected Iranian leader after Cyrus the Great. Reza Shah's reforms in opening new occupations to Jews and allowing them to leave the ghetto led them to hail him as their savior.
Foreign policy and World War II
His foreign policy, which had consisted essentially of playing the
Soviet Union off against
Great Britain, failed when those two powers joined in 1941 to fight the Germans. To supply the Soviet forces with war material through Iran, the two allies jointly occupied the country in August 1941.
Reza Shah initiated changes in foreign affairs as well. In 1928 he abolished the capitulations under which Europeans in Iran had, since the nineteenth century, enjoyed the privilege of being subject to their own consular courts rather than to the Iranian judiciary. Suspicious of both Britain and the Soviet Union, the shah circumscribed contacts with foreign embassies. Relations with the Soviet Union had already detiorated because of that country's commercial policies, which in the 1920s and 1930s adversely affected Iran. In 1932 the shah offended Britain by canceling the agreement under which the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company produced and exported Iran's oil. Although a new and improved agreement was eventually signed, it didn't satisfy Iran's demands and left bad feeling on both sides. To counterbalance British and Soviet influence, Reza Shah encouraged German commercial enterprise in Iran. On the eve of
World War II, Germany was Iran's largest trading partner.
During WW II, Iranian consular office in France was instrumental in saving Iranian and non-Iranian Jews from persecution by Nazi Germany. In the context of Iran's good diplomatic relations with Germany, Iran saved some lives of Iranian Jews and non-Iranians stating they were citizens, this shows that Iran, who had a strong relationship, didn't fully agree with the "Third Reich".
During World War One, when Reza was a colonel in the Cossack Brigade, he contacted Germany’s embassy in Tehran and solicited their help in fighting British and Russian encroachments upon Iran. The Germans agreed to sell him the steel factory he coveted and considered a sine quo non of progress and modernity. Nevertheless, according to the British embassy reports from Tehran in 1940, the total number of German citizens in Iran - from technicians to spies - was no more than a thousand.
Deposition and death
In August 1941, the
Allied powers
United Kingdom and the
Soviet Union,
occupied Iran by a massive air, land, and naval assault subsequently forcing Reza Shah to
abdicate in favour of his son (
see also Persian Corridor).
The Shah received with disbelief, as a personal humiliation and defeat, news that fifteen Iranian divisions had surrendered without much resistance. Some of his troops dispersed and went home, while others were locked up in their barracks by the
Allies.
The
British left the Shah a face-saving way out:
petroleum-rich country with Nazi Germany during the war: However, Reza Shah's earlier Declaration of Neutrality and refusal to allow Iranian territory to be used to train, supply, and act as a transport corridor to ship arms to Russia for its war effort against Germany, was the strongest motive for the allied invasion of Iran. Because of its importance in the allied victory, Iran was subsequently called
"The Bridge of Victory" by Winston Churchill.
The Shah's son,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, officially replaced his father on the throne on
September 16,
1941. Reza Shah was soon forced into
exile in British territories, first to
Mauritius, then to
Durban thence
Johannesburg,
South Africa, where he died on
July 26,
1944, of heart ailment from which he'd been complaining for many years. (His personal doctor had boosted the King's morale in exile by telling him that he was suffering from chronic indigestion and not heart ailment. He lived on a diet of plain rice and boiled chicken in the last years of his life) He was sixty-six years old at the time of his death.
After his passing, his body was carried to Egypt, where his body was embalmed and kept at the royal
Al Rifa'i Mosque in
Cairo (poignantly, the future burial place of his son, the exiled
Muhammad Reza Shah). Many years later, the remains were flown back to Iran, where the embalming were removed (Islamic laws don't allow for embalmment of the dead), and buried in a beautifully designed and decorated mausoleum built in his honor at the Shia shrine town of
Ray/
Shah-Abdol-Azim, in the southern suburbs of the capital,
Tehran. The Iranian parliament (Majlis) later designated the title "the Great" to be added to his name.
Following the
Iranian Revolution in 1979,
Reza Shah's mausoleum Satellite map
was destroyed under the direction of
Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, which was sanctioned by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.
Family
Reza Shah's first wife, whom he married in
1894, was
Maryam Khanum (died
1904). They had one daughter:
His second wife was
Tadj ol-Molouk (1896-1982), by whom he'd five children:
Princess Shams Pahlavi (1917-1996)
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980)
Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (b. 1919)
Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi (1922-1954)
In 1922 (divorced 1923), Reza Shah married Turan (Qamar al Molk) Amir Soleimani (1904 – 1995), by whom he'd one son:
Gholam Reza Pahlavi (b. 1923)
Reza Shah's fourth wife was Esmat Dowlatshahi (1904-1995), by whom he'd five children:
Abdul Reza Pahlavi (1924-2004)
Ahmad Reza Pahlavi (1925-1981)
Mahmud Reza Pahlavi (1926-2001)
Fatimeh Pahlavi (1928-1987)
Hamid Reza Pahlavi (1932-1992)Further Information
Get more info on 'Reza Shah Pahlavi'.
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