|
At the end of the war [World War I], because of Russia's preoccupation with its own
revolution, Britain was the dominant influence in Tehran. The foreign secretary,
Lord Curzon, proposed an agreement under which Britain would provide Iran with a
loan and with advisers to the army and virtually every government department.
The Iranian prime minister, Vosuq od-Dowleh, and two members of his cabinet who
had received a large financial inducement from the British, supported the
agreement. The Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 was widely viewed as establishing
a British protectorate over Iran. However, it aroused considerable opposition,
and the Majlis refused to approve it. The agreement was already dead when, in
February 1921, Persian Cossacks Brigade officer Reza Khan, in collaboration with
prominent journalist Sayyid Zia ad Din Tabatabai, marched into Tehran and seized
power, inaugurating a new phase in Iran's modern history.
|
