Persian campaign (World War I)
Persian campaign | ||||||||
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Part of the Russo-Turkish Wars | ||||||||
The commander of the XIII Corps Ali İhsan Bey and his men in Hamadan | ||||||||
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Belligerents | ||||||||
Russia (1914–1917) British EmpireAssyrian volunteers Qajar Iran (from 1917) |
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Qajar Iran (until 1917)
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Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
Reza Khan | Captain Angman |
Harald Hjalmarson Ahmad Shah Qajar Mohammad Taqi Pessian Ibrahim Khan Qavam-ul-Mulk Heydar Latifiyan | ||||||
Units involved | ||||||||
Russian Caucasus Army Armenian Volunteers Assyrian volunteers Royal Persian Cossack Brigade British Indian Army South Persia Rifles Khamseh Tribesmen |
German Military Detachment |
Persian Gendarmerie Qashqai Militants Tangistani Forces Laristani Militants Dashti Volunteers | ||||||
Strength | ||||||||
Total: 51,000[2] June 1916: ~20,000[3] Peak: 80,000 - 90,000[4] |
Total: ~1,000 – 5,000[5] June 1916: 25,000[3] | |||||||
Casualties and losses | ||||||||
? 3,000[6] 2,474+ killed 471+ wounded |
2,529[7] 853 killed/missing 1,676 wounded unknown captured few thousand died of disease[8] | 2,000,000 civilian deaths (due to war related famine and disease)[9] |
The Persian campaign or invasion of Iran (Persian: اشغال ایران در جنگ جهانی اول) was a series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire, British Empire and Russian Empire in various areas of what was then neutral Qajar Iran, beginning in December 1914 and ending with the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, as part of the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I. The fighting also involved local Persian units, who fought against the Entente and Ottoman forces in Iran. The conflict proved to be a devastating experience for Persia. Over 2 million Persian civilians died in the conflict, mostly due to the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman regime and Persian famine of 1917–1919, influenced by British and Russian actions. The Qajar government's inability to maintain the country's sovereignty during and immediately after the First World War led to a coup d'état in 1921 and Reza Shah's establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Background
The German Empire established their
The Ottoman Empire's military strategic goal was to cut off Russian access to the
In 1914, before the war, the British government had contracted with the
Forces
The Persian forces were established around certain districts, and not one single force. Each district furnished its own battalion and
In 1914, Enver Pasha ordered Lt. Col. Kâzım Bey, commander of the 1st Expeditionary Force (11 December) and Lt. Col. Halil Bey, commander of the 5th Expeditionary Force (25 December): "Your duty is to move with your division towards Persia and proceed through Tabriz to Dagestan, where you will ignite a general rebellion and repulse the Russians from the shores of the Caspian Sea."
The German operations were carried out by Wilhelm Wassmuss and Count Kanitz. Wassmuss, known as the German Lawrence, was a German consular official in Persia who loved the desert, and wore the flowing robes of a desert tribesman. He persuaded his superiors in Constantinople that he could lead Persian tribes in a revolt against Britain.
In 1914, the
Russia had long since established forces in the region. The
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Russian Caucasus Army
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1914, Staff of Armenian volunteer units
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Dunsterville with the staff of Dunsterforce
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Assyrian General Agha Petros saluting his men after capturing turkish soldiers and their banner
Battle zone
The engagements were in northern
Operations
Prelude
The central Persian government had difficulties in establishing order before the war. In a single year; the Qashqai Tribesmen, the most powerful in southern Persia, defied the governor-general and raided in Fars as did the
Russia maintained forces in northern Persia. The Russians, based on security reasons of the situation of
On July 28, 1914, the First World War began. First the Ottoman Empire did not take any serious action. However, the security of the region began to decline even before the Russian-Ottoman conflicts. Disturbances began along the border. A notable attack was made on Urmia, ostensibly by Kurdish Tribesmen. About the same time the Russians closed the Ottoman consulates in Urmia, Tabriz and Khoi, and expelled the Kurds and other Sunni Muslims from the villages near Urmia. Arms were given at the same time to some of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians. Russian authorities distributed 24,000 rifles to the some Kurdish Tribesmen that sided with them in Persia and the Van Province.[14] Russian-Ottoman conflicts began with the Bergmann Offensive on November 2, 1914.
1914
In December 1914, General Myshlaevsky ordered a withdrawal from Persia at the height of the Battle of Sarikamish.[15] Only one brigade of Russian troops under the command of the Armenian General Nazarbekoff and one battalion of Armenian volunteers scattered throughout Salmast and Urmia. Contact was limited to skirmishes on the border of northern Persia. The presence of Russian cavalry units kept them quiet.[15] Enver established [one division] troops from conscripted at Constantinople [December 25].[16] This unit was given under the command of Khalil Bey.[16] While Halil Bey's troops were preparing for the operation, a small group had already crossed the Persian frontier. After repulsing a Russian offensive toward Van, Van Gendarmerie Division [commanded by Major Ferid], a lightly equipped paramilitary formation, had chased the enemy into Persia.
On December 14, 1914,
1915
In 1915, Wilhelm Wassmuss conferred with local chiefs and distributed pamphlets urging revolt. He was arrested by a local chief, and turned over to the British, but managed to escape. He hoped to incite a revolt through pro-German members of the Persian government, in conjunction with an Ottoman advance towards Kermanshah and Hamadan.[15]
On January 4, 1915, a volunteer detachment led by Omer Naci Bey, who was sent to Persia on a special mission by Talat Pasha, captured the city of Urmia. One week later, the "Mosul Group" commanded by Omer Fevzi Bey entered Tabriz without facing much resistance, having apparently taken the Russian leadership completely by surprise. Though referred as Khalil Bey by Aram, Omer Fevzi with his (superior) forces captured the city of Urmia in a few hours and marched on Salmast.[16] At the end of 1914, Omer Fevzi who was identified as Khalil took nearly a thousand Russians prisoners.[16] On January 26–28, 1915, in Sufian area, General Chernozubov fought a short engagement. Russia sent a strong force which succeeded in recapturing the city. On January 30, Chernozubov entered Tabriz.
On February 3, 1915, General Nazarbekov launched a counter-offensive. This time, the Van Gendarmerie Division succeeded in holding its lines. In early March, Nazarbekov attacked with a stronger force, numbering seven battalions. On 7 March, Van Gendarmerie Division evacuated Dilman and began to withdraw, reaching Qotur three days later and entrenching there.
In April 1915, the 1st Expeditionary Force under the command of Halil Bey moved towards northern Persia. The objective was the city of Dilman, and to clean this region from Nazarbekov's forces, which would provide a significant tactical advantage in the Caucasian Campaign. Diliman was the place of one of the fiercest battles between the Armenians and the Turks.
On May 8, 1915, one of the twelve Armenian messengers from the Siege of Van had got through to Persia.[17] An Armenian volunteer unit with Andranik, along with 1200 men, and commander Chernoroyal's division dispatched toward the Bashkaleh. On May 7, they captured Bashkaleh. This group from Persia reach the City of Van on May 18.[17] They had expected to find Van still in a state of siege, and were amazed at finding it in the hands of the Armenians.[17] When word got to Yudenich, he sent a brigade of Trans-Baikal Cossacks under General Trukhin. With Van secure, the fighting shifted farther west for the rest of the summer.[15]
During July 1915, Russian forces in the
In August 1915, as
In November 1915, Colonel Pessian, the commander of the Gendarmerie in Hamedan, launched an attack on the pro-Russian Persian Cossack Brigade at the Battle of Musalla. Pessian's gendarmes managed to disarm the Persian Cossacks, and some were even persuaded, after a patriotic speech, to join his forces. After this victory, the Russians advanced on the Persian Gendermerie, in Robat-i-Karim forces under Mohammad-Hossein Jahanbani and popular forces under the command of Heydar Latifiyan and in Hamedan-Kermanshah road forces under Colonel Pessian and Azizollah Zarghami (fa) could not defend Hamedan against an advancing Russian Caucasus Army which was superior in numbers and weapons. In Soltanabad, gendarmerie force under Masoud Kayhan (de) were also defeated by the Russians. The gendarmes then retreated to Kermanshah. On November 10, 1915, pro-Central Powers Gendarmerie under Ali Quli Khan Pasyan defeated the pro-British Khamseh tribal forces of Ibrahim Khan Qavam-ul-Mulk (fa) and captured Shiraz. All British residents of Shiraz were arrested. The Gendarmes also captured Yazd and Kerman.
In the middle of November 1915, General Yudenitch, who was managing the Caucasian Campaign, dispatched two columns into the Iranian Azerbaijan; one, under General Nikolai Baratov, had orders to push southwest to Hamadan and Kermanshah, opening the way to Baghdad. The second column advanced to Isfahan, by way of Kum and Kashan. Another detachment of the Russian Caucasus Army marched on Tehran. On November 14, the Austro-Hungarian and German Ministers left the capital. Still, Ahmad Shah Qajar was determined to remain in the city, and the Prince of Reuss undertook to hold strategical points with a force of 6,000 Persian gendarmerie, about 3,000 Turkish irregulars, and some number of disaffected Persian tribesmen (a force of approximately 15,000 in all). Nevertheless, by the end of the month, Tehran had been taken by the Russian Caucasus Army and its allied Armenian volunteers.
In December 1915, the Shah was induced to appoint a new pro-Ally cabinet with
1916
In January 1916, Baratov's forces drove off the Turks and Persian tribesman and occupied Hamedan. They proceeded to capture Kermanshah on February 26, and Kharind on March 12. By the middle of May, Baratov had reached the Ottoman frontier, 150 miles from Baghdad. It was expected that this unit would eventually effect a juncture with the British forces stationed in Mesopotamia. In fact, a Cossack company of five officers and 110 men left Baratov's Russian division on May 8, rode southward for about 180 miles through the territory of disaffected tribesmen, crossed several mountain passes at altitudes of up to 8,000 feet, and reached the British front on the Tigris on May 18.
On February 26, 1916, the Russians advanced and defeated the gendarmes, who then retreated to Qasr-i-Shirin and managed to hold the region until May 1916, when it was captured by the Russians. This time, many gendarmes gave up the fight, leaving to live in exile in Istanbul, Mosul and Baghdad. In the spring of 1916, Ibrahim Khan Qavam-ul-Mulk and his Khamseh tribesmen defeated the gendarmes under Ali Quli Khan Pesyan and Ghulam Riza Khan Pesyan, who shot and killed each other. Other gendarmes, including the German Consul Roever and the Swedish Captain Angman, were arrested and tortured.[citation needed]
In early May 1916, at Enver Pasha's insistence, the Ottomans launched a second invasion of Persia. This was undertaken by the XIII Corps, roughly 25,000 troops; the Germans promised to contribute some artillery batteries, but this aid never came. On June 3, the Russians attacked the 6th Infantry Division at the town of Hankin, in an attempt to encircle them. However, they were too thinly spread; their infantry were held in check, while their encircling cavalry were crushed. The Ottoman forces took lighter casualties than the Russians: 85 killed, 276 wounded, and 68 missing. This gave the Turks valuable time to strengthen their defenses. On June 8, they crossed the border back into Persia.[18]
In late May, the XIII Corps, under the command of colonel Ali İhsan Bey, began to advance against Baratov. For his part, Baratov hoped to capture Khanaqin and advance to Baghdad, sensing an opportunity to take the city as the British and Ottomans exhausted one another. On June 3, he attacked Khanaqin once again, but, this time, the balance had changed. The Ottoman XIII Corps successful repulsed Baratov's forces, and launched a counterattack. Ali İhsan Bey captured Kermanshah on 2 July and Hamadan on 10 August. Having lost half of his men, Baratov was forced to retreat north, stopping at the Sultan Bulak range. In August 1916, the gendarmes returned to Kermanshah.
German Imperial Treasury notes
(5 and 10 Mark, 1904/06) with red Persian denomination overstamp for 12 qiran 10 shahi and 25 qiran respectively (1916–17). Part of the toman issue by World War I German forces in Iran. |
On June 12, 1916, the British advance in southern Persia (led by Percy Sykes) reached the Kerman. From here, he supported the Russians operations against the Ottoman Empire until June 1917, when he was withdrawn with the new Persian government.
In 1916, General Chernozubov sent a Russo-Assyrian military expedition into Hakkari. The squads within the expedition were led by the Church of the East Patriarch's brother Dawid; Ismail, Malka of the Upper Tyari; and Andreus, the Jilu Malik.
In December 1916, Baratov began to move on Qoms and Hamadan for clearing Persian forces and Ottoman troops. Both cities fell in the same month.[15]
In late December 1916, almost all Swedish officers in the Persian Gendarmerie had been called to Sweden. Although around five officers stayed serving as volunteers.
Count Kaunitz disappeared without a trace, having either killed himself or been assassinated by disenchanted coup members. The premature coup was crushed in Tehran as Ahmad Shah Qajar took refuge in the Russian legation, and a sizable Russian force arrived to Tehran under Baratov after they landed in
1917
In 1917, the Church of the East patriarch Mar Binyamin, accompanied by the military leader Agha Petros, and at the invitation of the Russian consul, Basil Nikitin, travelled to the Russian embassy in Urmia for negotiations. Nikitin assured the Assyrians that, after the war, they would be granted land in Russia. The presence of the armed squads of Assyrians in Urmia irritated the Persians, who feared that the Russians might return and, united with the Assyrians, take power in the city.
The chaos caused by the
The new government removed the Grand Duke from his command and reassigned General Yudenich to a meaningless position in Central Asia, prompting his resignation. Around this time, the Russian army underwent a general disintegration, and there was no effective military force for the rest of 1917.
On December 16, The Armistice of Erzincan (Erzincan Cease-fire Agreement) was signed officially brought an end to the hostilities between Ottoman Empire and Russian Special Transcaucasian Committee. Berlin and the Porte began to dispute possession of the provinces along the Russian/Ottoman border. Enver Pasha believed that Germany had disregarded Turkish interests when the terms of the armistice were negotiated with Russia, and moved to disregard German interests in turn, sending armed forces to the region to oppose the British. A newly established Ninth Army, consisting of the I Caucasian Corps and IV Corps, was sent to Persia under the command of Yakub Shevki Pasha. This army's task was to "Stop the British advance in Persia, to prevent them from helping the Bolsheviks, to cover the area between the Lake of Urmia and the Caspian Sea, and, if necessary, to join the Sixth Army for the operation to capture Baghdad."
The Russian collapse left Van completely cut off from the Allies, and the British Army in Mesopotamia seemed unwilling to move very far beyond Baghdad.[19] The Armenian population of Van prepared to resist on their own.[19]
1918
During 1918, the British encouraged the Armenians to hold out, and picked officers and non-commissioned officers organized them under the command of Lionel Dunsterville at Baghdad.[19] The military goal of this "Dunsterforce" was to reach the Caucasus via Persia, and, once there, to recruit and organize an army from the Armenians and other pro-Ally elements in the Caucuses.[19]
In February 1918, the Caucasian Cavalry Corps consisted of Baratov, General Lastochkin, Colonel Bicherakov, Colonel Baron Meden, and about 1000 loyal Kuban and Terek Cossacks. Despite the Russian government's peace agreement, Baratov and his men assisted the British against the Ottomans, while the British remained in Persia until after the end of World War I.
On 3 March 1918, Grand Vizier
were to be transferred to the Ottoman Empire.In April 1918, the Armenians of Van province were eventually evacuated and withdrawn from the region and retreated eastward toward Iranian Azerbaijan.[20] Early in 1918, the Ottoman Third Army moved to the offense. Retreating Armenians from Van, joined by the Assyrians in defense, made a stand near Dilman but continued to retreat southward in the vicinity of Lake Urmiah.[20] The Third Army did not pursue them.
On 8 June 1918, the IV Corps entered Tabriz. Yakub Shevki faced an Armenian volunteer force of 4,000 men coming from Van. They aimed to break through the Şahtahtı-Tabriz line and join with Ozanian's forces. On 15 June, the 12th Division of the IV Corps defeated this Armenian unit at a battle to the north of Dilman. The city of Dilman was captured on 18 June. On 24 June, Ozanian's forces managed to defeat opposing units and besiege the city of Khoy. The 12th Division came to the rescue and repulsed Ozanian's forces. At the same time, the 5th Division of the IV Corps had to retreat in the face of a 1,500-strong Armenian force. In the south, Urmia fall to the IV Corps on 31 July. By the end of July, there was an increasing British presence in Persia and the Ninth Army's advance came to a halt.
During July 1918, the British Army captured the greater portion of Mesopotamia during the Mesopotamian Campaign, as well as a large parts of Iranian Azerbaijan. Preparations were made for the establishment of a large camp for Assyrian and Armenian refugees near
By September 1918, the Ottomans consolidated their control over northern Persia, between Tabriz and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. But they lost the rest of the region to the British. They would hold this territory until the Armistice on 30 October 1918 when the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros and the military operations ended.
In 1918, about half of the Assyrians of Persia died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.[23]
Aftermath
After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the
In late 1920, the Soviet Socialist Republic in Rasht was preparing to march on Tehran with "a guerrilla force of 1,500 Jangalis, Armenians, and this time Kurds, and Azerbaijanis were on their side", reinforced by the Soviet Red Army. But Soviet forces withdrew in 1921, which helped Britain in its goal of establishing a protectorate. In that year, a military coup established
See also
- Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran
- Armenian genocide
- Assyrian genocide
- Caucasus campaign
- Military history of Iran
- Persian famine of 1917-1918
- Russo-Persian Wars
- Turko-Persian War
- Swedish intervention in Persia
Notes
- OCLC 56455579.
- ^ "Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire" (London: HMSO, 1920). Page 777. 2,050 British Army and 49,198 British Indian Army personnel sent to the "Persian Gulf Theatre" from India in total.
- ^ a b Erickson 2001, page 152.
- S2CID 246923610.
The Russian military force, occupying not only Azerbaijan but the entire north and north-east of Iran, eventually amounted to almost twenty thousand by the outbreak of the First World War. After the opening of the so-called Persidskii front [the Persian front], which became the south flank of the First World War theatre, this number gradually grew to eighty or ninety thousand.
- ^ Smith, B. (2009). "Land and Rebellion: Kurdish Separatism in Comparative Perspective" (PDF). Working Paper.
- ^ "Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire" (London: HMSO, 1920). Page 778. South Persian Rifles not included. Figures may be underestimated. Details for British Indian Army in Persia: 25 Indian officers, 1,779 Indian other ranks, and 670 Indian followers dead from all causes. 11 officers, 454 other ranks, and 6 followers wounded.
- ^ Erickson 2001, pp. 237–238, Appendix F. Battle casualties only. First invasion (1915): 200 killed, 400 wounded. Second invasion (1916): 85 killed, 276 wounded, 68 missing/captured. Defensive against British (1918): 500 killed, 1,000 wounded.
- ^ Erickson 2001, p. 152
- ISBN 9781626160651., p.123: "As the Great War came to its close in the fall of 1918, Iran's plight was woeful. The war had created an economic catastrophe, invading armies had ruined farmland and irrigation works, crops and livestock were stolen or destroyed, and peasants had been taken from their fields and forced to serve as laborers in the various armies. Famine killed as many as two million Iranians out of a population of little more than ten million while an influenza pandemic killed additional tens of thousands."
- ASIN B000YBGZ54.
- ISBN 0-7146-4580-X, archived from the originalon 26 March 2009, retrieved 22 November 2008
- ^ a b c The Encyclopedia Americana, 1920, v.28, p.403
- A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East(Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1989), 209.
- ^ (Pasdermadjian 1918, pp. 20)
- ^ ISBN 0-86307-181-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Aram, "Why Armenia Should be Free", page 22
- ^ a b c Ussher, An American Physician, 286.
- ^ Erickson 2001, p. 152-153
- ^ a b c d (Northcote 1922, pp. 788)
- ^ a b (Northcote 1922, pp. 789)
- ^ (Northcote 1922, pp. 790)
- ^ a b (Austin 1920, pp. 13)
- ^ Baumer, Church of the East, at 263. The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity, Christoph Baumer, I.B. Tauris, 2006.
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions, (1982), p.117
- ^ see also: Zirinsky, M.P. "Imperial Power and dictatorship: Britain and the rise of Reza Shah 1921–1926." International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24, 1992. p.646
- ^ see also FO 371 16077 E2844 dated 8 June 1932. A British Embassy report stated that the British put Reza Shah "on the throne".
- ISBN 9781780962214. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
References
- Majd, Mohammad Gholi (2003). Persia in World War I and Its Conquest by Great Britain. University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-2678-5.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-964-6.
- Bruinessen, Martin. "A Kurdish warlord on the Turkish-Persian frontier in the early Twentieth century: Isma'il Aqa Simko". In Atabaki (2006).
- Edward J. Erickson. "Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War". Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
- Pasdermadjian, Garegin; Aram Torossian (1918). Why Armenia Should be Free: Armenia's Role in the Present War. Hairenik Pub. Co. p. 45.
- Northcote, Dudley S. (1922). "Saving Forty Thousand Armenians". Current History. New York Times Co. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
- Austin, H. H. (1920). The Baqubah Refugee Camp. ISBN 978-1-59333-401-7.
- Moberly, F. J. (1987) [1929]. Operations in Persia 1914–1919. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence (Imperial War Museum facsimile of the confidential 1929 printing ed.). London: ISBN 0-11-290453-X.
- Atabaki, Touraj (ed.) (2006). Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the Great Powers. New York: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-964-6.
- Bati, Alum. 1918: Azerbaijan At War – a two-part article on Azerbaijan and Dunsterforce in 1918, for Part 1 see http://www.visions.az/en/news/661/cc10060a/; for Part 2 see http://www.visions.az/en/news/686/ecbd8399/
- A.J. Barker, The Neglected War: Mesopotamia, 1914–1918 (Faber and Faber, 1967)
- Paul Knight: The British Army in Mesopotamia, 1914–1918 (McFarland, 2013, ISBN 978-0786470495)
External links
- Atabaki, Touraj: Persia/Iran, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.