Tehran, September 1941: A Throne Under the Allied Boot

Since 25 August 1941, the British columns coming up from the south and the Red Army descending from the north have broken the resistance of the imperial army in a matter of days. The Allies make no secret of their reasons: to secure the "Persian Corridor," that rail and road route through which Lend-Lease materiel must transit to a bled-white Soviet Union, and to lock down the Anglo-Iranian oil fields around Abadan. Officially neutral, Iran was paying the price for its supposed closeness to the Reich and the presence of German technicians; in reality, its geography made it a vital artery that London and Moscow could not leave beyond their control.

In Tehran, the sovereign who has built the modern state since 1925 watches his authority crumble hour by hour. Foreign troops are converging on the capital, the national army has collapsed almost without a fight, and Allied radio attacks the monarch by name, judged too authoritarian and too pro-German. The palace hums with rumors and contradictory counsel. Every outcome under consideration involves not only an aging man, but a young dynasty, an heir educated in Switzerland, and the future of an occupied nation.

The British let it be understood that they would accept a solution preserving the crown, on condition that the man of the hour step aside. The emissaries await an answer in the antechamber, and time is pressing.