Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran

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World War II
Part of Middle East Campaign
Date August 25, 1941 - September 17, 1941 Location Iran Result Allied victory
Combatants
United Kingdom British India Soviet Union	Iran
Commanders
Edward Quinan Dmitri T. Kozlov	Reza Shah Pahlavi
Strength
3 armies 2 divisions, 3 brigades	9 divisions
Casualties
22 KIA, 42 WIA	Two warships sunk, four damaged, six fighters lost

The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran was the invasion of Iran by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Countenance, from August 25 to September 17 of 1941. The purpose of the invasion was to secure British oilfields and ensure supply lines (see Persian Corridor) for the Soviets fighting against Germany on the Eastern Front.

Contents 1 Background 2 Invasion 3 Aftermath 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Background

Following Germany's invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union became allies. Although a neutral nation, Reza Shah Pahlavi had brought Iran closer to Nazi Germany. This concerned the British who feared that the Abadan Oil Refinery, owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, might fall into Nazi hands — the refinery produced eight million tons of oil in 1940 and was thus a crucial part of the Allied war effort. For the Soviets, Iran was a country of extreme strategic importance. The German Wehrmacht was steadily advancing through the Soviet Union and there were few ways for the Allies to get desperately needed American Lend-Lease supplies to the Soviets.

With heavy ice floes and the coastal ice cap fast rendering convoys to Arkhangelsk impossible, the Trans-Iranian Railway seemed a very attractive route to transport supplies up from the Persian Gulf. The two Allied nations applied pressure on Iran and the Shah but this led only to increased tensions and pro-German rallies in the capital of Tehran. Reza Shah refused to expel the many German nationals residing in Iran, and denied the use of the railway to the Allies; this, along with the above strategic concerns, prompted Britain and the Soviet Union to launch an invasion of Iran on August 25, 1941.

[edit] Invasion

The invasion was rapid and conducted with ease. From the south the British Iraq Command (known as Iraqforce), renamed six days later to Iran and Iraq Command (Paiforce), under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Pellew Quinan, advanced. Paiforce was made up of the 8th and 10th Indian Infantry Divisions, 2nd Indian Armoured Brigade, 9th Armoured Brigade and the 21st Indian Infantry Brigade. The Soviets came from the north with their 44th, 47th and 53rd Armies of the Transcaucasian Front under General Kozlov. Air force and naval units also participated in the battle. The Persian Army mobilised nine infantry divisions. Reza Shah appealed to American President Franklin Roosevelt under the Atlantic Charter:

"…on the basis of the declarations which Your Excellency has made several times regarding the necessity of defending principles of international justice and the right of peoples to liberty. I beg Your Excellency to take efficacious and urgent humanitarian steps to put an end to these acts of aggression. This incident brings into war a neutral and pacific country which has had no other care than the safeguarding of tranquillity and the reform of the country." — a letter of August 25

However, this plea failed to prompt a response from the American President to save the Shah's nation, as Roosevelt's response shows:

"Viewing the question in its entirety involves not only the vital questions to which Your Imperial Majesty refers, but other basic considerations arising from Hitler's ambition of world conquest. It is certain that movements of conquest by Germany will continue and will extend beyond Europe to Asia, Africa, and even to the Americas, unless they are stopped by military force. It is equally certain that those countries which desire to maintain their independence must engage in a great common effort if they are not to be engulfed one by one as has already happened to a large number of countries in Europe. In recognition of these truths, the Government and people of the United States of America, as is well known, are not only building up the defenses of this country with all possible speed, but they have also entered upon a very extensive program of material assistance to those countries which are actively engaged in resisting German ambition for world domination."

Roosevelt also reassured the Shah by noting "the statements to the Iranian Government by the British and Soviet Governments that they have no designs on the independence or territorial integrity of Iran". However, the Soviets would later back separatist states in the north, while the U.S. and UK would later support the overthrow of the popular and democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh during the Abadan Crisis in 1953.

The campaign began on August 25 with a dawn attack by the British sloop HMS Shoreham on the harbour at Abadan. The Iranian sloop Palang was quickly sunk, and remaining ships were destroyed or captured. Resistance had not had time to prepare and the oil installations at Abadan were captured by two battalions making an amphibious crossing of the Shatt al-Arab from Basra. A small force was also landed at Bandar-e-Shahpur from the armed merchant cruiser HMAS Kanimbla to secure the port and oil terminal there. The Royal Air Force attacked airbases and communications. Further British and Indian troops from Basra advanced towards Qasr Shiekh (which was taken on August 25) and by August 28 had reached Ahwaz when the Shah ordered hostilities to cease. Further north, 8 battalions of British and Indian troops under Major-General William Slim advanced from Khanaqin (100 miles north east of Baghdad and 300 miles from Basra) into the Naft-i-Shah oilfield and on towards the Pai Tak Pass, leading towards Kermanshah and Hamadan. The Pai Tak position was taken on August 27 after the defenders had withdrawn in the night and the planned assault on Kermanshah on August 29 was aborted when the defenders called a truce to negotiate surrender terms^[1].

The Soviets invaded from the north and advanced toward Maku, which had been softened up by bombing raids. There were also Soviet landings at Bandar-i-Pahlavi, on the Caspian coast. In one incident, Soviet ships suffered from "friendly fire".

In naval actions, 2 Iranian warships were sunk and 4 crippled by the Royal Navy. Six Persian fighters were shot down. British and Indian casualties were 22 killed and 42 wounded.

Without anyone to step in and save Iran, Iranian resistance had been rapidly overwhelmed and neutralised by Soviet and British tanks and infantry. The British and Soviet forces met at Senna (100 miles west of Hamadan) and Kazvin (100 miles west of Tehran and 200 miles north east of Hamadan) on August 30 and 31 respectively. Iran was defeated, the oilfields safeguarded and the valuable Trans-Iranian Railway was in Allied hands. Because of lack of transport the British decided not to establish any forces beyond Hamadan and Ahwaz. In the meantime, the new Persian Prime Minister, Farouki, agreed that the German Minister and his staff should leave Tehran, the German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian legations be closed and all remaining German nationals be handed over to the British and Soviet authorities. The failure to meet the last of these conditions led to British and Soviet troops entering Tehran on September 17, the day after Reza Shah had been arrested and sent into exile in South Africa, leaving his son Mohammad Shah to replace him on the throne. The Soviet and British forces withdrew from Tehran on October 17, after the German agents had been dealt with^[2] although Iran was effectively divided between Britain and the Soviet Union for the duration of the war.

[edit] Aftermath

With this crucial supply route now open to the Soviet Union the Persian Corridor was opened and would provide a massive flow of supplies (over 5 million tons of war matériel) to the Soviets primarily, but also the British in the Middle East. The new Shah signed the Tri-Partite Treaty of Alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union in January of 1942, under which Iran provided nonmilitary assistance to the Allied war effort. Article Five of this treaty, although not entirely trusted by the Iranian leader, committed the Allies to leaving Iran "not more than six months after the cessation of hostilities". In September 1943, Iran declared war on Germany, thus qualifying for membership in the United Nations. At the Tehran Conference in November of that year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Josef Stalin reaffirmed their commitment to Iran's independence and territorial integrity and displayed a willingness to extend economic assistance to Iran.

At the war's end Britain withdrew but Soviet troops stationed in northwestern Iran not only refused to withdraw but backed revolts that established short-lived, pro-Soviet separatist regimes in the northern provinces of Iran Iranian Azerbaijan, the People's Republic of Azerbaijan and the Kurdish People's Republic in late 1945, both effective Soviet puppet states. Soviet troops did not withdraw from Iran proper until May, 1946 after receiving a promise of oil concessions. The Soviet republics in the north were soon overthrown and the oil concessions were revoked.

[edit] See also

• Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907
• Iran-Britain relations
• Iran-Russia relations
• History of Iran
• The Great Game

[edit] Bibliography

• Compton McKenzie (1951). Eastern Epic. Chatto & Windus, London. ISBN?. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• BBC WW2 People's War - Persia Invaded
• Persia and Iraq Command
• Strange Menagerie: the US in Iran 1941-1946
• Pink Elephants on the road to Baghdad - personal account of the invasion by a British soldier
• Despatch on the Persia and Iraq Command (Aug. 1942-Feb. 1943) by General Sir H. Maitland Wilson (PDF)
• Persia in World War 2
• History of the campaign (in Italian)

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