A recently rediscovered document in the American Archives reveals that around 10 million Iranians died as a result of widespread famine between 1917-1919.
The Iranian famine is barely mentioned by Western media or in the history books, probably due to the fact that it was caused by the British presence in Iran after World War I.
Khamenei.ir reports:
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Britain became the main foreign power in Iran and this famine or–more accurately–‘genocide’ was committed by the British. The document in the American Archives, reporting the widespread famine and spread of epidemic disease in Iran, estimates the number of the deceased due to the famine to be about 8-10 million during 1917-19, making this the greatest genocide of the 20th century and Iran the biggest victim of World War I.
It should be noted that Iran had been one of the main suppliers of food grains to the British forces stationed in the empire’s South Asian colonies. Although bad harvest during these two years made the situation worse, it was by no means the main reason why the Great Famine occurred. Prof. Gholi Majd of Princeton University writes in his book, The Great Famine and Genocide in Persia, that American documents show that the British prevented imports of wheat and other food grains into Iran from Mesopotamia, Asia, and also the USA, and that ships loaded with wheat were not allowed to unload at the port of Bushehr in the Persian Gulf. Professor Majd argues that Great Britain intentionally created genocide conditions to destroy Iran, and to effectively control the country for its own purposes. Major Donohoe describes Iran of that time as a “land of desolation and death”. But this event soon became the subject of a British cover up.
Britain has a long record of its several attempts to conceal history and rewrite it in their own favor. The pages are filled with conspiracies that were covered up by the British government to hide its involvement in different episodes that would tarnish the country’s image. One of the clear examples is the “Jameson Raid”; a failed coup against Paul Kruger’s government in South Africa. This raid was planned and executed directly by the British government of Joseph Chamberlain under the orders of Queen Victoria. In 2002, Sir Graham Bower’s memoirs were published in South Africa, revealing these involvements that had been covered up for more than a century, focusing attention on Bower as a scapegoat for the incident.
The records that were destroyed to cover up British crimes around the globe, or were kept in secret Foreign Office archives, so as to, not only protect the United Kingdom’s reputation, but also to shield the government from litigation, are indicative of the attempts made by the British to evade the consequences of their crimes. The papers at Hanslope Park also include the reports on the “elimination” of the colonial authority’s enemies in 1950s Malaya; records that show ministers in London knew of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya and roasting them alive. These records may include those related to Iran’s Great Famine. Why were these records that cover the darkest secrets of the British Empire destroyed or kept secret? Simply because they might ‘embarrass’ Her Majesty’s government.
A famine occurred in Ireland from 1845 until 1852 which killed one fourth of the Irish population. This famine was caused by British policies and faced a large cover up attempt by the British government and crown to blame it on ‘potatoes’. The famine, even today, is famous in the world as the “potato famine” when, in reality, it was a result of a planned food shortage and thus a deliberate genocide by the British government.
The true face of this famine as a genocide has been proven by historian Tim Pat Coogan in his book The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy published by Palgrave MacMillan. A ceremony was planned to take place in the US to unveil Coogan’s book in America, but he was denied a visa by the American embassy in Dublin.
Therefore it becomes obvious that Britain’s role in Iran’s Great famine, which killed nearly half of Iran’s population, was not unprecedented. The documents published by the British government overlook the genocide, and consequently, the tragedy underwent an attempted cover-up by the British government. The Foreign Office “handbook on Iran” of 1919 mentioned nothing related to the Great Famine.
Julian Bharier, a scholar who studied Iran’s population, built his “backward projection” estimation of Iran’s population based on reports from this “handbook” and, as a result, ignored the effect of the Great Famine on Iran’s population in 1917. Bharier’s estimations were used by some authors to deny the occurrence of the Great Famine or to underestimate its impacts.
By ignoring Iran’s Great Famine in his estimations, Bharier’s work faces four scientific deficiencies. Bharier does not consider the loss of population caused by the famine in his calculations; he needs to ‘adjust’ the figure of the official census in 1956 from 18.97 million to 20.37 million, and this is despite the fact that he uses 1956 census as his primary building block for his “backward projection” model. He also ignores the official growth rates and uses his personal assumptions in this regard, which is far lower than other estimates. Finally, although Bharier frequently cites Amani’s estimates, in the end Bharier’s findings contradict that of Amani’s; notably Bharier’s population estimate for 1911 is 12.19 million while Amani put this figure at 10.94 million.
Despite deficiencies in the population estimates offered by Bharier for the period of the Famine and its earlier period, his article offers useful data for the post-Famine period; this is because these figures are generated from 1956 backward. That is to say, numbers generated from 1956 to 1919 are thus credible because they do not include the period of famine. Moreover, this portion of Bharier’s data are also true to that of the American Legation. For example, Caldwell and Sykes estimate the 1919 population at 10 million, which is comparitive to Bharier’s figure of 11 million.
Gholi Majd was not the first author to refute Bharier’s figures for this period. Gad G. Gilbar, in his 1976 article on demographic developments during the second half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, also considers Bharier’s estimates inaccurate for the period.
In an apparently biased review of Majd’s work, Willem Floor confirms Bharier’s model, despite its apparent deficiencies, and takes a mocking tone toward the well- documented work of Gholi Majd to undermine the devastation caused by the British-instigated famine in Iran, to the point of total denial of the existence of such a genocide. Floor also offers inaccurate or untrue information to oppose the fact that the British deprived Iranians from honey and caviar in the north, as he argues caviar was haram (religiously prohibited), while no such fatwa has ever existed in Shia jurisprudence and all available decrees assert that caviar is halal or permissible under the Islamic law. There was a rumor made up by Russians at the time, saying that Caviar was haram and Britain made full use of this rumor.
Another criticism made by Floor was to question why Majd’s work does not use British archival sources. A more important question is why Majd should have used these sources when they totally ignore the occurrence of the famine in Iran. The fact that Majd used mainly US sources seems to be reasonable on the grounds that the US was neutral toward the state of affairs in Iran at the time, and made efforts to help by feeding them.
*Sadegh Abbasi is a Junior M.A. student at Tehran University. As a student in history he has also worked as a contributor to different Iranian news agencies.
- http://english.khamenei.ir/news/2197/8-10-million-Iranians-died-over-Great-Famine-caused-by-the-British
Aside from inflicting Iran’s Great Famine, the UK did the same thing to India at about the same time. It seems that those who are pretending to be righteous today have the most sordid records in the history of humanity.
Now, they are twisting the facts again against the peaceful Iranians, all because the latter is supplying the Houthis in Yemen with arms and ammunition to repel the UK invasion there using Saudi Arabian military.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnT8MSOJ-78
August 11, 2015 Retired generals and admirals back Iran nuclear deal in letter
WASHINGTON — Three dozen retired generals and admirals released an open letter Tuesday supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.
http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/retired-generals-and-admirals-back-iran-nuclear-deal-in-letter-1.362469
Just MORE “Evidence” about HOW “White Supremest” took over country after country in their quest for “Manifest Destiny” over the whole planet…To Bad They forgot to “Remember” is that this Planet belongs too…Divine Source (melanin) Beings.
I’ve e never seen such rubbish all in one place! We’re you all trained by Adolph Hitler?
The awakening has begun for you 🙂
I am always amazed at your ability along with globalresearch, southfront and saker to dig up and find out the truth behind the greatest lies told since 1900, and yet your failure to dig up the Armenian “genocide”.
You have no idea what you’re missing. Maybe you will realize that I have a point here when I say what you know as Anatolian Turks are very different from Central Asian immigrants and invaders (chased by the Mongols, and pushed further North Asia to Siberia by the Chinese empire’s expansion, please remember)
We are culturally Turks and in fact we Anatolian Turks (before that we were greeks and romans and armenians and before that we were hittites or hatti and luwians and phoneicians etc) are the ones who massacred Turks. The true alavis are these real Turks, who converted from Tengrism to Islam, hence the “samah”, the “wish tree”, the celebration of spring (hidrellez or nawrouz, shared trait with Iran)
So what’s the point? The point is: Turks were a warrior people, and they established states that were merely confederations of tribes, but they were nomads, and they were very much like native Americans: they had no sense of property. They won and lost many times because of this and they never betrayed a country that took them in unless that country interfered with their nomadic lifestyle, or tried to enslave them. They worked for Persian states, Chinese empire, and even Russia. They do not demand other countries to get them states: they try to fight to get their own, or merge and be part of an already existing one and actually serve that country rather than trying to own it unlike the Zionists. They fought one another, even, when they started losing lands they used for husbandry to civilizations very advanced in agriculture and husbandry. What I mean to say is the Turkic identity has never been used by Turks for the purposes of politics and property, until the Young Turks.
You should search about them and learn why they revolted. If they were the privileged class, would they revolt? Who were the privileged classes, then?
Who could attend private schools, and forego military service and who couldn’t, int he Ottoman Empire?
How did Yavuz the Sultan kill 500k Turkmens before he captured the Caliphate and why? Whose help did he use, and what powers thus became permanent in Eastern Anatolia?
How was the Ottoman Divan literature different than the folk literature (bardsmanship, shall I say), and what class was denigrated by these Divan poets, who often spoke of massacring this class as being a divine mission?
How did the Ottoman Empire find itself in ww1, who waged war on what fronts, what were the Ottoman territories then (as to diffentiate between the words relocation and deportation), which minorities turned on the empire during the war and sacked and pillaged how many eastern villages and killed how many people and what schools and red cross buildings they used as hideouts and HQ, which western countries and eurasian countries(empires, sorry) armed them, what roads to medicine and food they had blocked, how many Muslims mostly of Turkmen and Assyrian ethnicity died because of western backed Armenian pillaging ans armed assult, and how many because of diseases and famine because the roads were blocked, how many of their people they forced into conscription against the empire, and how these people could be separated from the armed ones and given a safe place if not by relocation, and how many of these people actually died along the routes to southern ottoman territory, and how many died outside of it, due to the same blockade by countries that you need to look up and see for yourself.
Who has this culture of genocide by ethnic cleansing via famine, infecting water supplies, catapulting corpses with diseases into enemy territory, or drowning them in smallpox or corona or sars or mers or tick and bird and swine and mosquito viruses, whose culture is this?
Whose heaps of dead people you see on the photographs displayed in museums, mainstream news sources… You didn’t have geopolitics or globalresearch or mintpress or saker or southfront etc for as long as +100 years, you know.
You haven’t checked to see if some of the photos of destruction you saw actually belonged in movies as famous as the Battle of Potyomkin, or some camp in poland, or a german raided soviet town, or eastern turkey. You haven’t compared their DNA with ours. You don’t know whose mass graves you’re looking at, or what religious artifacts those burned bones are holding in their hands? You haven’t checked if a photo you saw is actually a reproduction of a medieval painting of massacre? Or if it is in fact edited?
You don’t know who Hovhannes Katchaznouni was (because you should), why he was declared a traitor and his work was banned in Armenia, and then snatched from all European libraries, except Lenin library (which they didn’t know) then somehow published in English in 1956, although abridged by 70%, as indicated by the original copy in the Lenin library. Or am I mistaken? Do you actually know?
How is leaving your country to settle in new lands is same as looking for a home because you lost your own?
How is settling in an already populated land a discovery?
How is mixing with an already populated land and looking like the host the same as settling in a foreign country, while you had your own, and then actually everyone looking like you and not the indigenous population?
How is defending your territory in ww 1 while your land is the hot zone and having privileged minorities turn their backs on you because they were promised states and kickstart armed uprisings, assaults and plunders and then having to defend yourself against them and trying to relocate the unarmed ones to where there is no hot zone, only to have your roads blocked by two european countries, and having medicine and food denied… how is this all the same as stripping people off, stuffing them into trains, and then unloading them into wired slavery camps where you burn them in chambers, or smallpoxing 90 million indigenous people who had even welcomed you in their lands when you first landed and even actually spaying their females until 1970s or moonlighting them in godforsaken places or pushing them into reservations?
Who is a peasant Turk who would never be allowed to become a Zilciyan (Zildjian-Bellsmanson) although smithery is what he is good at, but is very much allowed to shed blood for an empire that cusses at him, pisses on his grave, boasts of massacring because he is an Alavi muslim, and who is an upper class Armanian who is allowed to work and produce for the masses, become a craftsman or a tradesman, get educated in private schools, or allowed to be a diplomat in the palace (unlike Turks who were banned from doing those things)?
Who would revolt? Who would want to change the status quo? Why were there the Young Turks at all?
What is genocide when I look like a Georgian more than a Turk and want to call myself a Turk, and what is genocide when a Native American looks a Native American but wants to call himself Mr Reginald Stevenson or something?
Did you leave anyone alive to tell the story in all its terror? Is it because you don’t have anyone left to defend their territories that you(as a culture, obviously not as the persons who made this site) don’t need to issue an apology to the 5 continents of the world, or make history out of euphemisms like “discovery”, “settling”, etc?
Ottomans were the only empire that got disintegrated in the 20th century due to ww1 and ww1 was pretty much waged for this purpose.
Which of you got disintegrated? Or did you even need to? We look 85% Anatolian and agree to call ourselves Turks and don’t want identity politics imposed on us any longer, and you get to be the ones to decide which peoples we should be? Call us Turks during the Ottoman empire and this now and that later, however not us but them, for you always need a them to break into pieces.
All these countries that your search about… Like Argentina, Iran etc. Turkey’s never been any different. We were blackmailed into a lot of things to avoid participation in ww2. But it all started even before that.
It started with Cecil Rhodes’, William Stead’s Woodrow Wilson. Before that it was only the UK and the French but mostly UK. After the 1896 congress where Wilson spoke of “the right to self-determination” however, the NWO designs started and neither the Truman doctrine nor Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations or even Noam Chomsky and similar “thinkers” and “tankers” are exempt from this.
They wrote all history and are in the habit of always revising it as to customize it for some use. The PIE theories, even.
They infiltrated our army and intelligence, bought of 3 guys or so, and that was all it took for the this to avalanche into a shit ball and hit the fan. You can find worthless, psychopathic, treacherous excuses of human beings in any country as long as you get rich from speculation and use that money to buy people.
In other words, dear site authors and creators, there is a war. And it’s not between us peoples. It is us versus those psychopaths, in every country, every political-economic entity, every entity that can hold and drag mass moment of inertia. We lived with minorities in peace for centuries, until “democracy” and “civilization” bringers came and told us we should not think we are who we are, what we are supposed to do and used our lower human qualities like opportunism against each other. So if there’s a lesson to draw from this all, it is to kill opportunist tendencies, wherever you see it and teach future generations that. To remind ourselves that we can all reduce our populations by planned parenthood, slowly, in time, and we could all live and work and produce equally and still have a surplus, and we could do this with less work hours and lesser distress inflicted on the environment: as long as we stop letting desire itself remain our only object of desire. Equal distribution = an hour of bodily work a plumber gives should be equal to that of a scientists because no one wants to be a plumber but few have access to education and because simply, the wear and tear to a human’s life span should worth the same as another.
We are forced to live in and surrounded by man made concepts: nations, identities, etc. Trading a better culture for the worse as long as it’s our identities that dominate. This is sick. We cannot change it now and we have to defend our habitations, but we can work to dissolve all these man made and imposed concepts. All our ancestors died in a lot of wars and keeping scores to justify future supremacism, exceptionalism and privileges will never let this begin. In any case, regardless of my rant here, I am happy that some site actually wrote about Iran’s suffering a century ago, because it sure did happen. Those roads… they were all blocked. Mine squatting speculators had started their game already by then and yes, that’s what they manipulated these countries to do to one another.