World War: MIDDLE EASTERN THEATER: Iranian Aftermath

Victors in the fortnight-old, 80-hour Iranian War, the British and the Russians had at week’s end not yet signed an armistice with Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran’s King of Kings. Mootest point in the haggle was the expulsion or surrender for internment of Iran’s large German colony. It was expected that the Shah would shortly come to terms.

Meantime, within the compound of the German Legation’s summer offices, eight miles outside the Iranian capital of Teheran, some 700 of the Führer’s subjects were packed sardine-tight, living in tents. Hundreds more had fled to the provinces and were in hiding. It was reported that the Allies would round them up, send them to India and Siberia. Also allegedly somewhere in Iran was explosion-whiskered Haj Amin El-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who engineered Arab riots in Palestine, helped Seyid Rashid Ali El-Gailani stage his revolt in Iraq. The British had him paged.

New York Herald Tribune’s Russell Hill, who at Kazvin with Russian officers drank bottoms-up vodka toasts to Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and “reunion in Berlin,” radioed home an interesting ethnological note. After Abadan had been taken, the British commander received an offer of surrender from 500 Iranian troops that had crossed the river there and escaped. A veteran of the Libyan campaign and recalling Italian military mores, the British commander sent back word that if the 500 would appear at the ferry landing at 8 the next morning he would consent to make them prisoners. Next morning they did not appear, instead sent word they were a few miles off and would like to have trucks come for them, as they were tired. With true British doggedness, the commander insisted that if they wanted to be made prisoners they would have to walk. Sulking, the 500 Iranians stood the commander up.