Operation Concord, which was carried out by Soviet and British troops 75 years ago, has not received much attention from historians. Nevertheless, there is no reason to call it "secret", as the Western mass media rushed in the Cold War era.
Quite clearly in their correspondence, first published only in 1957, both Stalin and Churchill mention the introduction of the Red Army troops into Iran. In the first official Soviet history of the Great Patriotic War, this is also said by no means casually. Otherwise, it would be rather difficult to explain why Tehran was chosen as the venue for the first conference of the Big Three.
Military specialists are not interested in this very dubious victory, and even diplomats, who with surprising promptness agreed on the very idea of a "double invasion", have nothing to be proud of. Moreover, the long-term consequences of Operation Consent turned out to be too ambiguous not only for Iran, but also for the USSR and Great Britain.
A month and a half after the start of the war, having suffered a series of heavy defeats, the Red Army achieved relative stabilization on the Soviet-German front. After the stubborn and bloody battle of Smolensk, the Germans were preparing for an offensive in Ukraine and near Leningrad, which gave the Soviet command the opportunity to strengthen the defenses in the Moscow direction. The Soviet Headquarters continued to draw up reserves from Siberia and the Far East, but there was no question of transferring combat-ready formations from Azerbaijan and Central Asia.
There remained a real threat of not only Turkey, but also Iran joining the German-Italian bloc. The Shah power, which was habitually considered almost a British colony, in just a couple of years suddenly turned into a potential ally of Hitler's Germany. At least, the pro-German sentiments surrounded by Reza Shah Pahlavi, who had reigned for a decade and a half, did not bother anyone at all. How the Nazi diplomats and intelligence officers managed to achieve this is still a mystery even for specialists. But in fact, the Soviet Union and Britain, which had just become allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, quite unexpectedly found themselves faced with the need to do something about Persia.
The allies in Persia, officially renamed Iran only in 1935, had something to defend. Thus, the British, just two years earlier, had completed the construction of the Trans-Iranian railway, which provided them not only with the possibility of free transportation of Iranian oil, but also with a direct connection between Mesopotamia and Indian possessions. Already in May 1941, a rebellion in Iraq was suppressed, which almost jeopardized transit and military supplies through the Persian Gulf. In turn, the USSR was interested in guaranteeing reliable protection of the Baku deposits from the south, and at the same time continuing to contain neutral Turkey.
But the main reason for the efficiency of the allies was still Lend-Lease. Right after the outbreak of hostilities in Russia, Washington made it clear that it was not opposed to supplying it, like Britain, with weapons, ammunition and military materials. At first, Persian was not even considered among the possible supply routes, but the allied specialists were able to assess its convenience and cheapness very quickly.
It is characteristic that in August 1941 no one declared any war to Shah Reza. To begin with, he was simply offered to "accept on his territory" the allied troops, having previously expelled German agents from the country. But the aging Shah proudly refused, although the offer was clearly one of those easier to accept.
The situation was aggravated, Moscow and London did not rule out the possibility of a pro-German coup in Tehran, although they had no idea that it was in August 1941 that the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, secretly arrived there. On August 25, Moscow sent a final note to Tehran with reference to clauses 5 and 6 of the current Treaty with Iran of 1921, which provided for the introduction of Soviet troops in the event of a threat to the southern borders of Soviet Russia.
And on the same day, the invasion began. The Soviet troops, both of the Transcaucasian Front under the command of General Kozlov, moving from the territory of Azerbaijan, and of the Separate Central Asian 53rd Army of General Trofimenko, which operated from Turkmenistan, received almost no resistance. And this despite the formidable Shah's memorandum and a whole series of conflicting orders to the troops. The matter was limited to several skirmishes with border guards and a landing on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, where they managed to capture the entire Iranian Caspian fleet: the shah's yacht, several boats and boats.
The air supremacy of the Red Army Air Force was complete, although it was actually not required. However, the chairman of the Iranian parliament said that the "red falcons" allegedly bombed Tabriz, Mashhad, Ardabil, Rasht, Bandar-Pahlavi and other cities. There were also eyewitnesses who told about the bombing of the summer camps of the military academy in the Tehran suburb of Larak. However, from the recently declassified Soviet sources, it became clear that all the "combat" work of aviation was reduced to conducting reconnaissance and scattering leaflets. At that moment, when almost every cartridge was on the account, no one would hide the necessary ammunition consumption.
The entry of British troops into Iranian territory was much more complicated. With the seizure of the port of Bender-Shahpur, already in our time in a revolutionary way renamed Bender-Khomeini, a real battle broke out. A German gunboat was sunk, and after the bombing, oil terminals were on fire for several days. The British had to bomb the Iranian units, airfields and even some settlements that resisted.
But it took literally a matter of days for both the Russians and the British to move towards Tehran. Despite the fact that the Iranian units opposing the allies surrendered on both fronts, the Shah tried to "defend" the capital. However, the "invaders" preferred to the bloody assault … the change of the shah. Lost support even from the closest circle of the Shah Reza on the throne was replaced by his son Mohammed Reza-Pahlavi, sociable, less arrogant and already popular among the people. His candidacy, it seems, immediately suited everyone. The abdication of the old and the accession of the young shah happened on September 12, and on September 16, in order to maintain order, part of the allies nevertheless entered Tehran.
After an almost "bloodless" invasion and the accession of a new sovereign, the situation in Persia very quickly stabilized, especially since food and goods from the USA and other countries began to flow into the country, as if in load of supplies under Lend-Lease. Of course, the almost 100% cleansing of the country's territory from Nazi agents had a positive effect, although public opinion in Iran, if it was possible to talk about it at all in those years, almost immediately turned towards the allies.
In the meantime, the state of affairs on the Soviet-German front became threatening again, which forced the Soviet command to withdraw all aviation units from Iran, and then a significant part of the 44th and 47th armies of the Transcaucasian Front. Only the 53rd separate Central Asian army was detained there for several years, allowing thousands of recruits from Central Asia, Altai and Transbaikalia to pass through it.
It is interesting that, despite the "peaceful" nature of the invasion, and as if forgetting about the warm relations between Stalin and the new shah, the Politburo during the war years repeatedly considered the issue of "developing success in the Iranian direction." So, according to some memoirists, with the light hand of Beria and Mikoyan, they even tried to create the Mehabad Kurdish Republic in the Soviet zone of occupation. Moreover, South Azerbaijan should also be “singled out” as autonomy. However, Stalin did not dare to tease Britain and Churchill personally so impudently. The leader of the peoples did not forget that the Iranian corridor for supplies under the Lend-Lease remained hardly the main supply artery for the entire southern face of the Red Army.
Another confirmation that there was no question of any occupation is the fact that the Soviet troops, that is, the same 53rd separate army, stood in Iran only until May 1946. And even then it was mainly out of fear of a possible strike from Turkey.
