761.91/202: Telegram
The Chargé in Iran (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 4—11:54 a.m.]
2. (1) The Iranian Government has ordered all German and Soviet nationals to leave the province of Kuzistan where the Anglo-Iranian oil fields are situated. This includes the officers and crews of [Page 626] the German vessels referred to in my despatch No. 1712, October 26.10 They are now being repatriated via Russia.
(2) German propaganda whose principal object has been to create discord between Britain and Iran and between Britain and the Soviet Union has seized upon this measure to start a whispering campaign in the bazaars that England will now soon order Iran to decree a general mobilization and that the Soviets will have just cause to accuse Iran of playing the game of her “British masters”. Although the Iranians—as do the Afghans—feel instinctively that the Germans look upon them as inferior peoples and really unfit to enjoy full independence the close economic bonds with Germany have offered merchants opportunities of easy profit and other advantages. The bazaar is therefore in a sense pro-German and lends itself to the dissemination of false reports.
(3) An exceptionally reliable source not connected with paragraph 5 of my 112, October 3, states that three new Russian divisions have recently arrived in Turkestan. Iran is quietly speeding up defensive measures but the Government officially denies that it is concentrating large forces in the north. However, foreigners are at present not allowed to travel in Mazanderan because it is rumored small fortifications and field defenses are being constructed as there are no modern fortified lines properly speaking. Otherwise there is as yet little evidence of special military precautions.
(4) There is a certain amount of cautious Bolshevist propaganda directed chiefly by Russian trained refugees and Armenians who are attempting to spread subversive doctrines among the peasants for whom the present regime has done very little and who are being promised distribution of lands. The Iranian authorities have recently arrested several Soviet agents including some officers in civilian clothes near the Turko-Iranian frontier.
- Not printed.↩