Englishmen brought me, but I served!

28th Mordad coup and its formation fields

28 Mordad 1332 coup is one of the most important points in contemporary history of Iran, so that due to this English – American coup the process of sovereignty being in the hands of people was faced with a delay of neatly 50 years. At the end of Mordad, and according to approaching to the anniversary of the infamous coup, it seems to be a good idea to look at the context and factors that marked the formation of the Anglo-American coup. History Department of Raja News in the form of a four-part report examines the factors and areas of that, and the following is the first part of this report.
After Qajar period and due to the effect of Fath Ali Shah Qajar’s unreliability Iran failed of tsarist Russia in ten years and one year wars, the consequences of the failure were to capture binding and infamous contracts such as Golestan and Turkamanchay. Under these contracts, much of the territory of Iran was lost and accepting capitulation by Qajar was as an irreparable damage to Iranian independence. Following these circumstances autocratic and corrupt Qajar kings were inevitably intimidated from Europe and the great powers including Britain and Russia.
On the other hand, the so-called super powers of the time, including Britain and Russia took advantage of this opportunity and sought to steal the national wealth of Iran where the can. This event was occurring when for the Qajar king was important just to maintain their power and they were willing to give up any point in return for apparent power. Of course England as the colonial power was strictly following the contract in Iran's oil and mineral resources from the beginning in order to further benefit from the wealth of the land.

* Contracts of colonialism

Finally old colonization’s efforts resulted and one of the strangest and the so called Reuters contract, most exclusive worldwide agreements, was signed between Iran and the English man named Baron Julius Reuter. Whereby for 70 years, rated operation of all forests and rivers and coal mines, iron, copper, lead and petrol (oil) and so on was as assigned to him so that a sorrowful story of oil started.
This stupid work of Qajar kings (Reuter’s contract) does not require further explanation. For more information about this, it is sufficient that the provisions of this contract be studied and the depth of stupidity will be realized. For example, in the eleventh chapter of the contract only with the name of petrol (oil) along with other mineral resources rating the operation of the national wealth is assigned in England monopoly.

* Iranian nation, a symbol of resistance to colonialism

Of course people of this country never follow the corrupt men of the Imperial government and did not head bow down against the aliens. Iranian people throughout history have proved that their resistance against the greed of foreigners and slap the aliens. An obvious example of this resistance can be traced to the transfer of tobacco monopoly to the foreigners. As recorded in history, after that Mirza Shirazi, on of the greatest authorities of Shiite, issued tobacco prohibition orders, Muslim people of Iran have demonstrated so magnificently resistance so that the privilege was canceled. Also, a historical uprising was launched by proud people of Iran against the Reuter’s contract so that wide protests in Tehran and other cities had been established on objection to this rating just from the arrival of the King to the country. The Iranian people considered Reuter’s contract as the evidence of treason of the king those around him especially "Moshir-ol Doleh" (Mirza Hussain Sepahsalar Azam). The domain of the protests were increasingly wider and was King looking for a way to escape from this predicament and to control the conditions, inevitably deposed "Mirza Hussain Khan" from the position of prime minister and came to Tehran. Following the popular uprising in Iran the contract was null and void and suffered the fate of the Tobacco contract. (Details of these events can be found in the Sepahsalar book, written by Mahmood Farhad Motamed.)

* England attempts to dominate the God-given resources and national wealth

However, the old colonialism didn’t give up its efforts to dominate the oil-rich resources of Iran and finally, obtained the exploitation of Iran's oil for 60 years by Darcy contract (1901-1961). People have realized that these kinds of agreements along with corrupt Qajar kings are destroying national resources, so they set up Clergy-led Constitutional uprising to limit the power of kings, establish the rule of law and to prevent the sale of land to foreigners. For this reason, it was stipulated in the written constitution that rates must be approved by the National Assembly.
Then, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion, the Constitutional Movement of Iran by foreign influence and leadership have failed and England with the appointment of Reza Khan Myrpanj, Known as Sardar Sepah, was seeking full control over resources of Iran. (We will talk more about this in the next notes.)

* The appointment of Reza Khan, dictatorship to serve the Britain

Old colonialism at the time came to the conclusion that there is an important obstacle against its full-scale dominance of Iran and its national wealth, Islam and Muslim culture. And, Britanie, from the beginning of the appointment of Reza Khan was looking to decadent Islamic culture by him, so that the effect of Islam would be eliminated, and to end the resistance of the people against its greed. Darcy contract extension for longer than the previous time was among the important missions of Reza Khan, because at the same time, the British felt that there are new competitors for the exploitation of oil resources in Iran and it was this thought that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Qajar dynasty and to the rise of a man named Reza Khan colonized by the British.
In this field the memoir of "Mirza Yahya Dawlatabadi" (Reza Khan's special adviser and member of the board of eight consultants) is worth reading. He wrote in the fourth volume, page 343th of the Yahya life book:
"Sardar Sepah for his military morale talks openly and frankly. I remember in a private counseling session which was held in the house of Mohammed Khan Mossadegh Alsaltaneh , it was talk of patriotism. Reza Khan said: “For example, Englishmen brought me, but once I came I served my country…"

And also he wrote about Oil mission of Reza Khan, on page 328 of this book:

"The British men want several things from the Iranian government including extended term of the Validity of southern oil concession, known as Darcy contract…"
Reza Khan, in this particular case (oil contracts) played his role well so that first, abolished Darcy contract to win the confidence of the people and to create a national figure of him in public opinion and then, in 1933, with the assistance of Taghizadeh (One of the intellectual leaders of the Constitutional and a deviation factor of the Constitutional Movement) signed another oil contract with England known as 1933.This may was the biggest blow to Iran's national interests.
According to the Darcy contract, possession of Iran’s oil was dedicated to the British government until 1961. After the expiration of the contract’s validity In accordance with the contract’s fourteenth chapter "All the tools and existing buildings and equipment for the extraction and exploitation of mining will be owned by Iran’s state and the Britain oil company will not have any compensation right in this regard."
Reza Khan Myrpanj who his claims about patriotism was marked in his speeches, overtook the Qajar kings and aroused the admiration of foreigners by adding a 32-year to the period of colonial exploitation.
We will investigate the continued attempts of England with the aim of dominating national resources of Iran, and the role of domestic and foreign agents to stabilize the old colonization domination of these resources, which led to the awakening of Iranian nation in the years 1328-1330 and religious uprisings in those years.