Morteza Yazdanpanah

Morteza Yazdanpanah
Minister of War
In office 1951 – June 1952
Monarch	Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime Minister	Mohammad Mosaddegh
Succeeded by	Mahmoud Baharmast
In office 4 April 1950 – June 1950
Monarch	Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime Minister	Ali Mansur
Preceded by	Abdollah Hedayat
Personal details
Born	1888 Tehran, Qajar Iran
Died	1970 (aged 81–82)
Spouse	Leyla Yazdanpanah
Alma mater	Cossack's House
Military career
Allegiance	Iran
Service / branch	Commander Imperial Iranian army
Rank	Lieutenant general

Morteza Yazdanpanah (1888–1970) was an army officer who served as chief-of-staff in the Imperial Iranian army for two times, between 1941 and 1942 and in 1952. He also held other governmental and military positions during the reigns of Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Early life and education

Yazdanpanah was born in Tehran in 1888.^[1][2] His father was a colonel in the army.^[2]

From 1907 Morteza Yazdanpanah attended Cossack Cadet School which trained army officers for Cossack Brigade.^[1][3] He graduated from the school in 1912.^[3]

Career and activities

Yazdanpanah was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1919 and to the rank of colonel in 1920.^[3] He was one of the close allies of Reza Shah, but later their relations became tense.^[4] Yazdanpanah was the commander of the Iranian army's northern division during the coup organized by Reza Shah against Qajar dynasty in 1921.^[1] The same year he was promoted to brigadier general.^[2] During that period there were only six military officers who held this title in the army.^[5] He was also the governor general of Tehran and the commander of the first army.^[5]

In 1926 Yazdanpanah was next to Reza Shah during the latter's coronation ceremony.^[6] Yazdanpanah was one of the founders of Iran-e-No Party, a short-lived anticlerical political party, in 1927.^[7] The same year he was briefly arrested by Reza Shah.^[3] In 1928 he was made major general and chief inspector of the army, and next year he was appointed chief commander of the gendarme.^[2] However, he was removed from the post in 1930 and had no active office until 1932 when he was made inspector of infantry.^[3] He was appointed commander of the Tehran Cadet College in 1933.^[3]

Yazdanpanah was also assigned to significant posts by the next Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.^[4] He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in 1942 when Reza Shah went into exile.^[2] He headed the Iranian military contingent which represented the country at Victory Parade in London in June 1946.^[3]

On 4 April 1950 Yazdanpanah was named as the minister of war in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ali Mansur^[8] and remained in the office until June 1950 when a new cabinet was formed by Haj Ali Razmara.^[9] Yazdanpanah's successor as war minister was Abdollah Hedayat.^[9]

Yazdanpanah also served as the minister of war between December 1951 and June 1952 in the cabinet led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.^[10][11] Yazdanpanah was also chief of the army in 1952.^[12] Mosaddegh asked him to retire, but Yazdanpanah did not accept his request.^[13] Eventually, Yazdanpanah was dismissed from office and replaced by Mahmoud Baharmast in the post.^[13]

From June 1963 Yazdanpanah was one of the senior military advisors to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi being the head of the Imperial Inspectorate^[14] and was also made a senator in 1967.^[1][2] He was the head of the High Council for the Coronation (Persian: Shura-yi ʿAli-yi Tajguzari) which organized the coronation ceremony of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1967.^[2][6] He was one of ten people who had direct access to the Shah Mohammad Reza.^[4]

Personal life and death

Yazdanpanah's wife, Leyla, was born in Russia, and her father was the governor of Russian Azarbaijan.^[2] Their son, Kambiz, pursued his graduate studies in foreign service at George Washington University.^[15] He married Golnar Bakhtiar, the daughter of Teymur Bakhtiar, in Tehran in October 1960.^[15]

Morteza Yazdanpanah died in 1970.^[2]

References

1. Marvin Zonis (1971). Political Elite of Iran. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 65. doi:10.1515/9781400868803. ISBN 978-0691617015.
2. "Morteza Yazdan-Panah - Isabella's Great Grandfather". Isabella Goli Yazdan Panah. Archived from the original on 15 August 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2021. citing Cyrus Ghani's book, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, p. 166
3. "File 11/44 Leading Personalities in Iraq, Iran & Saudi Arabia". Qatar Digital Library. Retrieved 18 August 2023. Citing from the British India Office Records and Private Papers
4. "Centers of Power in Iran" (PDF). CIA. May 1972. p. 14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
5. Hooshmand Mirfakhraei (1984). The Imperial Iranian armed forces and the revolution of 1978-1979 (PhD thesis). University at Buffalo. p. 62. OCLC 12037858. ProQuest 303350420.
6. Robert Steele (2021). "Crowning the "Sun of the Aryans": Mohammad Reza Shah's Coronation and Monarchical Spectacle in Pahlavi Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 53 (2): 181. doi:10.1017/S002074382000121X. S2CID 233695653.
7. Murat Yümlü (December 2016). The Reformation of the political opposition in İran (1926–1946) (PhD thesis). Middle East Technical University. p. 43. hdl:11511/26383.
8. "Developments of the Quarter: Comment and Chronology". The Middle East Journal. 4 (3): 337. July 1950. JSTOR 4322192.
9. "Developments of the Quarter: Comment and Chronology". The Middle East Journal. 4 (4): 471. October 1950. JSTOR 4322222.
10. John P. Gilennon, ed. (1989). Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 1952-1954. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. p. XVIII.
11. Ervand Abrahamian (2013). The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations. New York: The New Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-59558-826-5.
12. "Quell-Iran Red Riot; Yank Officer Beaten". Daily News. Tehran. UP. 25 July 1952. p. 6. Retrieved 20 July 2023.
13. Darioush Bayandor (2010). Iran and the CIA. The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 63. doi:10.1057/9780230277304. ISBN 978-0-230-57927-9.
14. Shaul Bakhash (2021). "The 'Officers Plot': the German fifth column during the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran in the Second World War". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 50 (2): 19. doi:10.1080/13530194.2021.1962673. S2CID 238835744.
15. "Miss Bakhtiar married". Evening Star. 10 October 1960. p. 33. Retrieved 20 July 2023.

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