Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran (1941): The Persian Corridor

The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran was the joint occupation of the neutral kingdom by British and Soviet forces that began on 25 August 1941. Iranian resistance collapsed within days, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate, and Iran became a vital route for Allied supplies to the Soviet Union. The British part of the operation was codenamed Operation Countenance.

Background: oil, Germans and a supply route

Reza Shah Pahlavi had ruled Iran since the 1920s and modernised the country rapidly, building among other things the Trans-Iranian Railway, completed in 1938. Germany had become an important trading partner, and several hundred to a few thousand German technicians and other nationals lived in Iran.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, Iran became strategically vital. Britain wanted to protect the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s refinery at Abadan, then one of the largest in the world. Both Britain and the Soviet Union wanted a secure route to move war supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Caucasus. They demanded that Iran expel the Germans; Reza Shah, insisting on neutrality, did not comply fully.

The Allies’ fears were sharpened by events in neighbouring Iraq, where a pro-Axis government had seized power in April 1941 and been overthrown by British forces only in late May. British and Soviet diplomats delivered formal notes to Tehran in July and again in mid-August. The Iranian government offered to reduce the number of Germans but would not expel them all, and the Allies decided to act.

The invasion

Early on 25 August 1941 British and Indian forces, under the overall direction of General Sir Archibald Wavell, then Commander-in-Chief in India, attacked from the Persian Gulf and from Iraq. Naval forces surprised the small Iranian navy at Khorramshahr and Bandar Shahpur, sinking or capturing its ships; the Iranian naval commander, Admiral Gholamali Bayandor, was killed. Troops seized Abadan and its refinery, and other columns advanced into the oilfields of Khuzestan and through the Paytak Pass in the west.

At the same time Soviet armies crossed the northern border from the Transcaucasus and landed on the Caspian coast, taking Tabriz and other northern cities. Soviet aircraft bombed several northern towns, and leaflets were dropped explaining that the invaders had no designs on Iranian territory. The Iranian army, built up by Reza Shah, was not able to resist on two fronts. Some units fought bravely, but many soldiers deserted, and the shah’s government had no realistic hope of outside help. On 27 August the government resigned, and the new prime minister, Mohammad Ali Foroughi, ordered a ceasefire.

Casualties were limited compared with other campaigns of the war, but estimates vary. Iranian military and civilian deaths are usually put at several hundred, with some estimates around 800 or more; British and Soviet losses were in the dozens.

Abdication of Reza Shah

The Allies distrusted Reza Shah, and as Soviet troops approached Tehran in mid-September he abdicated on 16 September 1941 in favour of his 21-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. British and Soviet troops entered the capital on 17 September. The former shah went into exile, first to Mauritius and then to South Africa, and died in Johannesburg in 1944.

The country was divided into a Soviet zone in the north, a British zone in the south and a neutral area around Tehran. German nationals were rounded up and many were interned. In January 1942 Britain, the Soviet Union and Iran signed a Tripartite Treaty of Alliance. The Allies promised to respect Iran’s independence and to withdraw within six months of the end of the war.

The Persian Corridor

Iran now became the “Persian Corridor”. Supplies landed at Gulf ports were carried north by rail and truck to the Soviet Union. From late 1942 the US Army’s Persian Gulf Command, with around 30,000 American troops, expanded ports, roads and the railway. Roughly 4 to 5 million tons of Allied aid, much of it under the Lend-Lease Act, reached the Soviet Union through Iran, an important share of all Western aid.

Iran declared war on Germany in September 1943, and in November of that year Tehran hosted the first meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at the Tehran Conference.

Consequences

The occupation brought inflation, food shortages and a famine in 1942–1943, and many Iranians resented foreign troops. Soviet forces remained after the war and supported separatist governments in the north-west, leading to the Iran crisis of 1946 before they withdrew in May. Resentment of foreign interference fed into later Iranian politics, including the oil nationalisation dispute and the 1953 coup.

Timeline

• 1941, 22 June: Germany invades the Soviet Union.
• 1941, 25 August: British and Soviet forces invade Iran.
• 1941, 27 August: Iran’s government resigns; Foroughi becomes prime minister.
• 1941, 29 August: Fighting ends after an Iranian ceasefire order.
• 1941, 16 September: Reza Shah abdicates in favour of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
• 1941, 17 September: Allied troops enter Tehran.
• 1942, 29 January: Tripartite Treaty of Alliance signed.
• 1946, May: The last Soviet troops leave Iran.

Why it matters

The invasion turned Iran into one of the Allies’ main lifelines to the Soviet Union and placed a new shah on the throne who would rule until the 1979 revolution. It also left Iranians with a lasting memory of occupation by foreign powers, which shaped the country’s politics for decades.