Sepahsalar becomes prime minister of Persia

The British chronology of the war records under 6 March 1916 that “Sipahsalar A’zam” had become the new prime minister of Persia. He replaced Prince Farmanfarma, whose government had fallen at the turn of February and March. Persian lists of governments date the start of the new prime minister’s term to 13 or 14 Esfand 1294 in the Iranian calendar, that is, to 3 or 4 March. Reuters’ correspondent reported the change in a telegram from Tehran dated 7 March. The new prime minister also took over the Ministry of the Interior. The Persian legation in London explained to the agency at the time that this was the well-known politician hitherto called Sepahdar. The Shah had just conferred on him the higher title of Sepahsalar-e Azam, meaning “great commander-in-chief”.

The richest of the revolutionaries

Mohammad Vali Khan Khalatbari Tonekaboni was born in the second half of the 1840s (sources give 1846 or 1848) into a family that had ruled the area around Tonekabon in Mazandaran, on the Caspian Sea, for generations. He entered the army young. For years he farmed the customs of Gilan, the most lucrative in the country thanks to trade with Russia, and in 1896 he became Minister of Customs. He was reputed to be one of the richest men in Persia.

In 1909 Shah Mohammad Ali, who had dispersed parliament, sent him with troops against the constitutionalists in Tabriz. Sepahdar, however, went over to the revolution and placed himself at the head of the volunteers who marched on Tehran from Rasht. In July 1909 his forces and the Bakhtiaris of Sardar Asad took the capital, and the Shah was deposed. The British officer and historian Percy Sykes judged Sepahdar harshly: in his view he joined the revolution chiefly to save his vast estates and was little more than a figurehead in it. After the victory Sepahdar became Minister of War and then twice prime minister, in 1909–1910 and in 1911.

Advocate of accord with Russia

Reuters’ correspondent called the new prime minister a Russophile, and the London weekly “The Near East” wrote that he was an ardent supporter of friendly relations with Russia. His estates lay in the north, in the Russian sphere of influence, and the Russian troops of General Nikolai Baratov stood in Hamadan and Kermanshah. The direction of policy did not change. Sykes later wrote that Sepahdar’s cabinet maintained a “benevolent neutrality” towards the Entente. Immediately after the change of government the Belgian Heynssens was restored to the post of Treasurer-General; in March 1915, as “The Near East” wrote, he had been deprived of control over the state’s finances under German influence.

Sepahdar’s government lasted until August 1916. During that time Persia became even more closely tied to the Entente. On 16 March Sykes landed at Bandar Abbas, with the task of raising in the south of the country the force later known as the South Persia Rifles. In August 1916 Sepahdar’s government exchanged notes with the British and Russian ministers on the expansion of the Cossack Brigade in the north and the creation of a British-commanded force in the south. The Majlis, which had not sat since November 1915, never ratified these arrangements. Sepahdar himself was briefly imprisoned after the coup of 1921, and in 1926, crushed by financial troubles, he committed suicide. He should not be confused with Fathollah Khan Akbar, who received the title Sepahdar-e Azam after him and was prime minister in 1920–1921.