Persian famine of 1917–1919
Persian famine of 1917–1919 | |
---|---|
Country | Iran |
Period | 1917–1919 |
Total deaths | ~2 million see below |
Preceded by | 1870–1872 famine |
Succeeded by | 1942–1943 famine |
The Persian famine of 1917–1919 was a period of widespread mass starvation and disease in Iran under the rule of the Qajar dynasty during World War I. The famine took place in the territory of Iran, which, despite declaring neutrality, was occupied by the forces of the British, Russian and Ottoman empires whose occupation contributed to the famine. So far, few historians have researched the famine, making it an understudied subject of modern history.
According to the estimates acknowledged by the mainstream view, about 2 million people died between 1917 and 1919 because of hunger and from diseases, which included cholera, plague and typhus, as well as influenza stemming from the 1918 flu pandemic. A variety of factors are believed to have caused and contributed to the famine, including successive seasonal droughts, requisitioning and confiscation of foodstuffs by occupying armies, speculation, hoarding, war profiteering, and poor harvests.
Background
Affiliation | City | Total beds | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Persian |
Tehran | 372 | +Pharmacy +Dispensary |
Enzeli |
15 | +Pharmacy +Dispensary | |
Tabriz | 30 | ||
Hamadan | 12 | Outpatient only
| |
Mashhad | 90 | ||
Qazvin | 25–30 | +Dispensary | |
Mohammerah |
20 | ||
Malayer | 10 | ||
Sabzevar | Unknown | ||
Church Missionary Society |
Isfahan | 180 | |
Kerman | 80 | ||
Yazd | 80 | ||
Shiraz | 50 | ||
Presbyterian Mission |
Tehran | 45 | +Apothecary |
Mashhad | 50 | +Apothecary | |
Rasht | 5 | +Apothecary | |
Hamadan | 25 | +Apothecary | |
Kermanshah | 25 | +Apothecary | |
Tabriz | 100 | +Apothecary | |
Urmieh
|
40 | +Apothecary | |
Filles de la charité | Khosrova | 8 | |
German (until 1915) | |||
Tehran | Unknown | Legation | |
Tabriz | — | Apothecary only | |
Barfrouch | |||
Rasht | |||
Hamadan | |||
Sanandaj | |||
Kermanshah | |||
Russian Red Cross (until 1918) |
Tehran | Unknown (Small hospitals) | |
Torbat-e Heydarieh | |||
Mashhad | |||
Tabriz | |||
Urmieh
| |||
British |
Tehran | Unknown (Small hospitals) |
+Dispensary |
Mashhad | |||
Torbat-e Heydarieh | |||
Naserabad | +Dispensary | ||
Bushehr | |||
Kermanshah | |||
Lengeh
|
+Dispensary | ||
Mohammerah
|
+Dispensary | ||
Ahvaz | |||
Anglo-Persian Oil Company |
Abadan
|
>200 | +Dispensary |
Masjed Soleiman
| |||
Ahvaz | |||
Mohammerah
|
In November 1915, the price of one kharvar (100 kilos) of wheat increased to twenty
Spread
A series of severe droughts from 1916 on further depleted agricultural supplies. By early February 1918, the famine spread throughout the country, and panicked crowds in major cities began to loot bakeries and food stores. In the western city of Kermanshah, confrontations between the hungry poor and the police ended in casualties. In Tehran, the situation was "aggravated by hoarding and short-selling to the customers by bakers".[2]
Cases of cannibalism were also reported.[2]
Outbreak of diseases
Beyond deaths from starvation,
The colossal food crisis, plus large numbers of soldiers, refugees and destitute people constantly on the move in search of work and survival, facilitated a deadly combination of pandemics and contagious diseases. Cholera, the plague and typhus spread with terrifying speed across the country.[2]
Influenza
City | Population Est. |
Morbidity | Mortality | Mortality/ Morbidity (%) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | % | ||||
Mashhad | 100,000 | 66,667 | 3,500 | 3.5 | 5.2 |
Birjand | Unknown | 12,000 | 100 | Unknown | 0.8 |
Nosratabad | 7,000 | 120 | 1.7 | ||
Anzali | 10,000 | Unknown | 2.0 | ||
Mashhadsar |
Unknown | 10.0 | |||
Tabriz | 200,000 | 100,000 | Unknown | ||
Hamedan |
30,000 | Unknown | 1,000 | 3.3 | 10.0 |
Tehran | 250,000 | 1,000 | 0.8 | Unknown | |
Isfahan | 80,000 | 300 | 0.4 | ||
Yazd | 40,000 | 250 | 0.6 | ||
Bushehr | 30,000 | 15,000 | 1,500 | 5.0 | 10.0 |
Mohammareh |
Unknown | 6,000 | 250 | Unknown | 4.2 |
Shiraz | 50,000 | Unknown | 2,000 | 4.0 | Unknown |
Kerman | 40,000 | 4,000 | 10.0 | 10.0 | |
Bam | 13,000 | 6,000 | 46.2 | Unknown |
The
Cholera
In 1916, cholera that hit
Typhoid and Typhus
Causes and contributing factors
According to Touraj Atabaki, "successive seasonal droughts caused widespread famine during 1917/1918. Requisition and confiscation of foodstuffs by occupying armies to feed their soldiers added to the famine".[2] In The Cambridge History of Iran, it is stated that speculation and hoarding made the situation worse.[9] Michael Axworthy believes that the famine was "partly as a result of the dislocation of trade and agricultural production caused by the war".[10] Tammy M. Proctor comments that the cause for food shortage was a combination of army requisitioning, war profiteering, hoarding and poor harvests.[11]
Nikki Keddie and Yann Richard related the famine to almost all of the factors mentioned above.[12]
Charles P. Melville maintains that the main reason of the famine were the conditions caused by the War.[13]
Pat Walsh in a review of Majd's book written in Irish Foreign Affairs, a quarterly publication by Irish Political Review blames the British occupation and comments on claims of hoarding as causes of famine, writing "British attitudes towards the starving Persians were uncannily similar to those expressed against the Irish in a similar position half a century before", i.e. the British blamed Persians while suggesting that building roads for their military was a ‘relief measure’ motivated by benevolence.[16]
Rob Johnson blames
Death toll
Scholars such as Ervand Abrahamian, Homa Katouzian and Barry Rubin maintain that the total death toll due to starvation and disease was around 2 million.[18][19][20] Central Intelligence Agency analysts Steven R. Ward and Kenneth M. Pollack state a similar number.[21][22] Nikki Keddie and Yann Richard state that about one-quarter of the population of northern Iran were killed.[12]
Mohammad Gholi Majd's book, The Great Famine and Genocide in Persia, 1917–1919, identifies a number of allied sources that detail the proportion and scale of the deaths,[23] and alleges that as many as 8–10 million died, across the whole nation, based on an alternate pre-famine Persian population estimate of 19 million.[15][24] Timothy C. Winegard and Pordeli et al. acknowledge the figures suggested by Majd.[25][26] Several scholars have disputed Majd's account.
Cormac Ó Gráda, discussing the difficulty of verifying the death toll of historical famines, describes the claim of genocide as "not possible to take literally": "Such claims are usually rhetorical, and sure signs of major disasters, but poor guides to actual mortality."[31] A similar view is expressed by Alidad Mafinezam and Aria Mehrabi, who state that Majd's work suffers from methodological defects, including lack of triangulation.[32]
Reaction
During the famine years, several politicians served as Prime Minister and all adopted interventionist policies.[33] In order to control the situation of food supply, the government in Persia appointed Abdollah Mostowfi as chief of the alimentation service (raʾīs-e arzāq) in October 1916, before his later boss
In 1918, the United States rejected the request of Persian government for a $2 million loan dedicated to famine relief.[34]
Members of the
Congregational prayers for rain were observed during the famine, including those of Mashhad in 1917, where babies and animals were also brought.[37]
In Tabriz, medical missionary
Contemporary perceptions
In recent years, the famine has been subject to
Depictions
- The Orphanage of Iran (2016)
References
Footnotes
- ^ Floor 2012, pp. 106–107, Table 15: Foreign Hospitals and Private Modern Physicians in Iran in 1920, Table 16: Modern Iranian Hospitals and their Capacity in 1920
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Atabaki 2016.
- ^ Afkhami 2003, Table 1.
- ^ Azizi, Raees Jalali & Azizi 2010.
- ^ Afkhami 2003; Afkhami 2012.
- ^ a b Matthee 2019, p. 183: "Floor concludes that the figure of 900,000 to 2.4 million casualties given by Afkhami is too high. And he appropriately relegates Mohammad Gholi Majd's overblown, conspiracy-filled book on the epidemic and the number of 8-10 million (or almost the country’s entire population) given by him, to a footnote".
- ^ Azizi & Azizi 2010.
- ^ Seyf 2002, p. 177: "In later years, for example, in 1917 cholera was brought to Iran from Russia, but only Mazanadran and Khorasan were affected and altogether only 402 deaths occurred."
- ^ The Cambridge History of Iran 1990, Vol. 7, p. 209.: "Adding to the disruption and discontent was a terrible famine in 1918–1919, which as usual was worsened by speculators and hoarders."
- ^ Axworthy 2008, p. 214.
- ^ Proctor 2010, p. 91: "In Persia, as army requisitioning, war profiteering, hoarding and poor harvests combined to decimate the food supply, famine conditions ravaged the area. Reports from foreign officials in Tehran in 1916 and 1917 note shortages of bread and other essential foods, long lines, and rioting by women."
- ^ a b Keddie & Richard 2006, p. 75: "Reform movements were specially strong in Tehran, and in northern provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran and Azerbaijan. Adding to discontent was a severe famine in 1918–19, which may have killed as much as one-quarter of the population in the north. The famine was related to wartime Western incursions, a reduced crop area and small harvest, food needs of foreign troops and worsened distribution. Famine was aggravated by hoarding and speculation by landlords, dealers and officials."
- ^ Melville 1984, p. 130: "It is no coincidence that despite several periods of low rainfall, drought and poor harvests during the first half of the twentieth century, the only serious country-wide food shortages and experience of famine conditions occurred during the periods of the First World War and later the Second World War. In both periods, insecurity, speculation, lack of confidence, breakdown of government authority and political corruption had more effect on food prices and scarcity than did the quality of the harvests."
- ^ Majd 2003, p. 40. In the matter of tough custom regulations, Majd mentions incidents of unsuccessful importation of foodstuff recorded by the American embassy. He also refers to a letter by an American official saying "for the last two years practically all the importations have ceased".
- ^ a b Floor 2005
- ^ Walsh 2010.
- ^ Johnson 2018: "A rather less successful volume is Mohammed Gholi Majd's attempt to claim that Persia was subjected to a genocide because of the war, confusing poor governance and catastrophic wartime shortages, which led to famine, with the fiction of an intent to wipe out the Persians".
- ^ a b Abrahamian 2013, pp. 26–27: "A contemporary Iranian historian recently made the wild accusation that British food exactions to feed its army of occupation during World War I resulted in 10 million dead—half the population. He accuses the British government of "covering up" this "genocide" by systematically destroying annual reports. In fact, no annual reports on Iran were written from 1913 until 1922; the British expeditionary force of some 15,000 would not have required that much grain; and although as many as 2 million may have lost their lives in these years, the vast majority died not because of food exactions but from cholera and typhus epidemics, from a series of bad harvests, and, most important of all, from the worldwide 1919–20 influenza pandemic."
- ^ Katouzian 2013, p. 1934: "Russian Revolution of 1917 brought much relief to Iran after a century of imperial interference and intimidation. But it was followed by severe famine and the Spanish flu pandemic which, combined, took a high toll of around two million, mostly of the Iranian poor."
- ^ Rubin 2015, p. 508: "Despite Iran's official neutrality, this pattern of interference continued during World War I as Ottoman-, Russian-, British-, and German-supported local forces fought across Iran, wreaking enormous havoc on the country. With farmland, crops, livestock, and infrastructure destroyed, as many as 2 million Iranians died of famine at the war's end. Although the Russian Revolution of 1917 led to the recall of Russian troops, and thus gave hope to Iranians that the foreign yoke might be relenting, the British quickly moved to fill the vacuum in the north, and by 1918, had turned the country into an unofficial protectorate."
- ^ Pollack 2004, p. 25.
- ^ Ward 2014, 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."
- ^ Majd 2003, p. 72: "According to the American Charge d'Affaires, Wallace Smith Murray, this famine had claimed one-third of Iran's population. A famine that even according to British sources as General Dunsterville, Major Donohoe, and General Sykes had claimed vast numbers of Iranians".
- ^ Messkoub 2006
- ^ Winegard 2016, p. 85: "Between 1917 and 1919, it is estimated that nearly half (nine to eleven million people) of the Persian population died of starvation or disease brought on by malnutrition."
- ^ Pordeli et al. 2017.
- ^ Abrahamian 2008, p. 196
- ^ Messkoub 2006, p. 228: "Maid claims that the famine of 1917–1919 killed half the population, an exaggeration surely that does not tally well with the evidence provided in his otherwise useful overview of famine in that period."
- ^ Milani 2011, pp. 26, 468: "The advent of World War I only exacerbated conditions in Iran. Russian, Turkish, German, and British forces occupied parts of the country. Tribal disorder made an already-enfeebled central government weaker and more vulnerable. Famine took many lives.... Some sources have gone so far as to claim that no country in the world suffered as much from the war as did Iran. See Mohammad Gholi, Majd... His tendency to pick and choose the sources that confirm what he, a priori, wants to prove, makes many of his assertions doubtful".
- ^ Ebrahimnejad 2013, Footnote 182: "Although mortality due to famine and diseases might have attained several millions, the figure of 9 million given by Majd seems overestimated."
- ^ Ó Gráda 2009, p. 92: "For most historical famines, however, establishing excess mortality is impossible. In absence of any hard evidence, it is not possible to take literally claims such as that... Persia lost two-fifths of its people to a genocidal famine in 1917–1919. Such claims are usually rhetorical, and sure signs of major disasters, but poor guides to actual mortality."
- ^ Mafinezam & Mehrabi 2008, pp. 16–17: "Majd concludes that... It is difficult, however, for rigorous academic research to corroborate these figures. In addition, the word "genocide" implies the willful killing of large numbers of noncombatants. The historical record in this area is murky. Majd's work brings much-needed attention to one of the most tragic calamities suffered by Iranians in their modern history. A more extensive scholarly treatment of this subject would have to utilize "triangulation" and provide evidence from others, including British, Russian, and Ottoman sources, to show the extent of the famine and the ways in which it was affected by the war and its aftermath. In our opinion, it is essential to see the calamities befell Iran as a product of disruptions of war in a broader sense. Despite some of its methodological deficiencies, Majd's work is important as it helps us understand the blows that infected Iranians' national psyche in the war years."
- ^ a b c Floor 1983
- ^ Ghaneabassiri 2002: "In fact, the United States, in spite of its statement that it was willing to "lend its good offices to assist" Persia, did almost nothing to provide relief for the famine or to help maintain the integrity of the nation. When the Persian government in 1918 asked the U.S. for a loan of $2,000,000 to be used solely for famine relief, Washington refused on the grounds that loans were only to be given to governments engaged in war with Germany. The refusal of the U.S., while not unreasonable, did affirm that official American sympathies were not with Persia. Wilson's declaration that "We are to play a leading part in the world drama....We shall lend, not borrow," did not apply to the Persian nation, and the incident exemplifies the United States' indifference to Persia and its suffering population".
- ^ Afary 1995: "The Jangal government sent several tons of rice to Tehran and aided many hungry men, women, and children who came to Gilan from Hamadan, Kurdistan, and Azarbaijan. A charity organization was also set up to help the survivors of the 1917 famine and an orphanage was opened for the children whose families were lost during the disaster".
- ^ Katouzian 1998: "They appropriated about one-half of the arms and ammunitions left by the Russians (leaving the rest for the government), and efficiently organized the famine relief by stamping out hoarding and speculation, and assisting the poor and hungry".
- ^ Başgöz 2007: "The populace went outside the lower gate of the city to an uncultivated field among the Musalla. They took with them their babies and any animals that had young. The babies were placed on the ground together and their mothers went away from them. The lambs, the kids, and the calves were also separated from their mothers and put together. All could see their mothers and sons set up a general wail, which was interpreted as a prayer to God from the innocent and the helpless".
- ProQuest 97747814.
- ^ Iran (Persia): Records of the U.S. Department of State Central File: Decimal File 891.48, Internal Affairs Of States, Iran, Calamities. Disasters., January 29, 1912 - June 7, 1921[verification needed]
- ^ a b Afkhami 2020, pp. 201–202
- ^ Afkhami 2020, p. 201. The article in question is:
- Abbasi, Sadegh (4 November 2015), 8–10 million Iranians died over Great Famine caused by the British in late 1910s, documents reveal, The Official Website of Ayatollah Khamenei, archived from the original on 16 November 2015, retrieved 1 May 2020
- ^ Afkhami 2020, p. 201. The author mentions the following op-ed in the footnotes:
- Ghaffari, Hanif (21 November 2018), Threat of war and famine on Iran: False imagination, Mehr News Agency, 139810, archived from the original on 26 January 2019, retrieved 1 May 2020
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