"Peut-être que oui, mon général, mais n'oubliez pas qu'au fond tout le monde eat égoïste!"

 

Translation: "Maybe yes, General, but do not forget that in the end everyone is selfish!"

 

Reading the published diaries of westerners who spent time in Iran, particularly the British servants of the crown, the one thing that strikes the reader is their total utter contempt for the Iranian officials' attitude towards corruption and the ingrained culture of corruption.   General Sir Edmund Ironside was the commander of Norperforce stationed in Iran which first became the eastern theatre of WW I as well as the southern theatre of the Russian Cicil War.  He became known - after the event - for engineering the 1299 coup.  There are no British documents to prove a British plan to install Reza Khan.  Whatever was agreed it was between two military men as dictated by circumstance.   Ironside's mission was to withdraw the British forces from Iran and the near east as WW I had taken its tolls on the empire's coffers.  To protect his rear during the evacuation,  much to the chagrin of the Foreign Office mandarins and (later) wrath of Curzon he armed the Persian Cossack Brigade with whom they were fighting the Bolsheviks.  

 

As regards to the audience with Ahmad Shah, after the general had assumed command, having won a skirmish with the Bolsheviks near Shahrud, he was invited to an audience with the Shah:

 

The Minister passed on the news of our little fight to the Shah, and His Majesty expressed a desire to see me if was able to come over to Teheran. The result was a formal invitation for me to present myself as soon as I could. I was ushered into what I took to he his private office, a simple room with walls hung with Persian carpets and one large table in the middle of the room all covered with papers. 'When I was introduced by the Court Chamberlain the Shah was busy signing papers with some minor official. He motioned me to a chair on the opposite side of the table. He at once altered me his warmest thanks for having defeated the Russians in such a signal way. He then told me how great his sorrow had been at parting with his Russian officers. They had served him well for many years. He hoped that they were being treated kindly as they so well deserved. I was able to asssure him that they were being given a passage to Vladivostok at the expense of the British Government. Now that they had gone he wished for an assurance that the British would not put British officers in the Cossacks in their stead. That would ruin all chance of Sir Percy Cox's Treaty being ratified. The Mejliss would never agree to such a thing. I told him that the Cossacks would in future have only Persian officers and that we were busy going through all available officers for the various posts which existed. His Majesty must understand that we could never again allow such flagrant embezzlement to take place as had existed under the Russian officers. As I saw the fat young man in a grey frock-coat wriggling with nervous jerks at my words I thought that it was painful to see such a wretched specimen of. a man in so great a position.

 

Rather abruptly the Shah then changed the subject. He told me that the lack of gendarmerie in the country had brought affairs to an almost desperate state. The only roads which were safe for travelers were those under the British authorities. This had placed him in a difficult position. He hoped that I would do my best to help him in his trouble. He found himself compelled to transfer a sum of money to his bank in Bombay, and the only safe way of doing so was to consign it by way four convoys to Baghdad. At first I hardly understood what he required me to do, but gradually I elicited the fact that he had some Persian tromans, large silver coins about the size of French five-franc pieces. The value of this enormous weight of silver amounted to about half million sterling. I was taken aback because I had no idea what the actual weight of the consignment was. I knew it must be a number of lorries and a number of men as guard to take such a valuable load down to Baghdad. And then the enormity of the crime he was proposing to commit suddenly dawned upon me.  We had been advertising all over the East for Persian counage with which to pay our men, and doubtless our demands had reached India. The Shah was exporting currency to a place where he knew he could get a good price, instead of selling to us and the Imperial Bank at" Persia. I asked him why he could not pay what he had into the Imperial Bank in Teheran, but hebrushed that question aside as if it did not need answering. I then said that I thought he would be doing something very wrong what we were forced to import at great expense. He looked at me with a wry smile while he said, 'Peut-être que oui, mon général, mais n'oubliez pas qu'au fond tout le monde eat égoïste!'

 

Source: High Road to Command, the Diaries of Major General  Sir Edmund Ironside 1920-22