South Persia Rifles
The South Persia Rifles (SPR), known as Polis-e jonub-e Iran (Police of the South of Iran) in Iran, was a militia commanded by British officers , consisting of Persian and Indian soldiers, and in the provinces from 1916 to 1921 Fars and Kerman operated in southern Iran. Brigadier General Percy Sykes was in command of the unit . Sykes received his orders from the British Foreign Office, sent from the British Ambassador in Tehran.
background
After the outbreak of World War I and Iran's declared neutrality, it was important for the British to militarily secure the south of Iran. On the one hand, it was necessary to prevent acts of sabotage against the oil plants of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in Abadan. On the other hand, the German and Austrian agents working in Iran and their Iranian liaison officers were to be arrested. The focus was particularly on Wilhelm Wassmuss , who had returned to southern Iran in 1915 and incited the tribes living there against the British. After the Treaty of Saint Petersburg concluded with the Russians in 1907 , southern Persia was in the British zone of influence. According to a secret agreement concluded with Tsarist Russia in 1915 , the British should also be able to carry out military operations in the “neutral zone” defined in the 1907 agreement. In return, the Russians should arm the Persian Cossack Brigade , commanded by Russian officers, to a strength of 8,000 men and control the north of Iran.
Development phase
On March 16, 1916, General Percy Sykes went ashore in Bandar Abbas . The negotiations with Prime Minister Sepahdar had progressed so far that the Cossack Brigade was to be increased to 11,000 men with financial help from Russia and that the British were to build up an equally strong force in the south. The units should be seen as Iranian troops receiving their orders from the Iranian Ministry of Defense. The Iranian government should receive 200,000 tomans for equipment and pay. The Prime Minister made it clear that the agreement would have to be ratified by the Iranian Parliament in order to become legally binding. The only problem was that the Iranian parliament had been dissolved in 1915 without setting a date for new elections. The fact that the agreement was ultimately never ratified by the Iranian parliament, as a new parliament was not elected until long after the First World War in 1921, caused the British in the following years considerable difficulties.
Without waiting for parliamentary approval, Sykes set about building the South Persian Rifles. The rumors that Sykes had 20,000 men under arms as early as 1916, however, were greatly exaggerated. Sykes marched with a few hundred SPR men to Shiraz , who had also been reinforced by several hundred Indian troops. In Shiraz, Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma ruled as governor, who worked closely with Sykes and provided 3,000 men for his gendarmerie . More men were recruited in Kerman and trained as SPR units.
Calls
The SPR units' first probation came when Naser Divan, the leader of the Kalantar in the Kazerun District of Fars Province, attacked a newly established SPR post in December 1916 and captured the district governor. It was clear to Sykes that this action could only have been planned by the German agent Wassmuss . Sykes sent a South Persian Rifles unit to Kazerun, which, however, came back considerably decimated to Shiraz. Most of the force had deserted and the few remaining soldiers had been wounded in the fighting. In 1917, the SPR units were involved in other smaller skirmishes, but were used more to secure the roads of Fars province than for regular skirmishes. The high points of 1917 were a mutiny in the Kana Zenyan garrison, the almost complete encirclement of the garrison in Shiraz by Kashgai fighters supported by Wassmuss, and a mutiny in the Abada garrison.
In the spring of 1918 there were disputes with the Iranian government. In Tehran, the South Persia Rifles were now viewed as an occupying force and no further collaboration with Sykes was rejected. The South Persian Rifles Brigade in Shiraz had been encircled again by Kashgai fighters and the morale of the SPR troops was close to zero. Shiraz suffered greatly from the constant attacks by the Kashgais. Food was scarce and cholera epidemics decimated the population of Shiraz.
The turning point for the South Persia Rifles brought the encirclement of the SPR garrison in Abada. The reinforcements hurried up from Shiraz broke through the pocket and liberated the garrison. Over 100 Kashgai fighters were killed in the fighting. The last fighting took place in Firuzabad district in which the South Persian Rifles were victorious against 500 Kashgai fighters. On January 27, 1919 Kazerun was occupied by SPR troops. The resistance of the Kashgais was broken.
After the First World War, the SPR troops were mainly used against bandits and muggers. As at the beginning of the war, their task was to secure the highways. On the spot, however, they were viewed as "gangs of thieves paid for by England".
resolution
On June 4, 1921, Ahmad Qavām became Prime Minister and Reza Khan was Minister of Defense. Reza Khan had set himself the task of forming a unified Iranian national army from the various military units operating in Iran, the Persian Cossacks , the South Persia Rifles and the gendarmes . The negotiations with the British went differently than planned. After Reza Khan refused to accept British military advisers for the new Iranian army, the British wanted to disband the South Persia Rifles rather than see them integrated into an Iranian army. The headquarters in Bushehr was closed, the military equipment shipped to India and the rest destroyed. The crew was paid off and fired. However, the British could not prevent many former South Persian Rifles from immediately applying to the new Iranian army and being accepted.
According to the plans of the British Foreign Office, the "safeguarding of British interests" should take over local militias financed directly from Great Britain. After the overthrow of Ahmad Shah and Reza Shah took over the reign , the British were unable to implement these plans. Reza Shah disempowered the local tribal leaders and dissolved the local militias through the rapid build-up of the Iranian army. Under Reza Shah, the central government in Tehran became the sole power factor with which the British had to come to an agreement.
See also
literature
- Cyrus Ghani: Iran and the rise of Reza Shah . IB Tauris, 2000. pp. 22f.
- Floreeda Safiri: South Persia Rifles . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , as of April 7, 2008, accessed on June 6, 2011 (English, including references)
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Kurt Faber: With the rucksack to India , Berlin approx. 1927, p. 108