During the war, #Mahabad# was plundered eight times and Iran did not defend this city at all so Mahabad turned into the greatest victim of World War I. Unfortunately, this catastrophe, as was mentioned before, never was acknowledged in the formal historical texts however, recently some foreign council and missionary documents have leaked to prove this disaster really happened.
When the Russians dominated Sablagh (Mahabad) they chose a Qajari Prince, Momtaz al Molk, who was their advocate to rule in Mahabad. But this change only lasted for two months when the Ottomans invaded Mahabad once more with a new troop under “General Khalil Pasha’s” command. They succeeded to take control of the city in 1916 for the second time. The Russians again attacked Mahabad and took it from the Ottomans who were defeated by the Russians once more.
Mushir al-Dawlah

Although Iran declared to be neutral in WW I, they had not forgotten the Russians’ invasions during “Fath Ali Shah” and their violence against Iranians in the region so at that time “Mostoafi al-Mamalek” and “Mushir al-Dawlah” who were Iran’s prime minister supported the Ottomans. They did not want the Russians to succeed. In fact, Iran was neutral in both WW I and WW II but each time they supported the opposing side of the Russians. During that war, Mostofi al-Mamalek, Iran’s prime minister, declared to be neutral but they wished the Ottomans to succeed so in one of the Ottomans and Germany’s meeting, Iran’s ambassador, “Ehtesham al-Saltanah” also participated. In this meeting, these two countries told Ehtesham al-Saltanah that in order to defeat Russia they had to occupy Azerbaijan but they also promised to leave there after the war was over. Thus Iran’s impartiality in this war was on purpose. That is why Iran did not defend Mahabad after all the violence that happened in that city. This made the Mahabad people’s situation even worse.
Mostofi al-Mamalek
When the Russians took control of Mahabad for the second time, people’s properties and lives were taken by the Russian soldiers, and a large number of people were killed. Although “Sedghi Bag”, the commander of the Ottoman troops could drive the Russians out but they attacked Mahabad for a third time and this time Qazi Fattah who was the people’s leader against the Russians got killed. The Ottomans and the Russian’s difference was that the Ottomans did not plunder the people but the Russians acted very violently because people were supporting the Ottomans and one of their officials was killed in Mahabad. After Qazi Fattah got killed, Mahabad’s governor sent a letter to Azerbaijan province and told them that the Russians had killed more than a thousand people and they kicked out the American missionaries. The American missionaries were those who came from Western countries to help other people in other countries selflessly mostly they helped them in the medical and educational fields. A part of those who worked in Mahabad belonged to both of these groups. However, the Russians kicked them out too so that people would not have any system of medical aid and this made the city very helpless. The curious thing is that Prince Mo’tazed al-Salttanah who was on the Russian’s side and was Mahabad’s ruler, oppressed the people of this city even more than the Russians and this led to his removal from authority by the Russians themselves. That is, he, who as an Iranian was supposed to support the people of Mahabad, oppressed them so much that the Russians decided to cast him aside.
After a few months, the Ottomans attacked the Russians again in Mahabad. At the same time, Iran’s authorities were attempting to make up a temporary government in Kermashan (Kermanshah) with Germany and the Ottomans’ support. This was the reason for the Ottomans to invade Mahabad for the fourth time and take the city away from the Russian’s authority however, the Ottomans could not take control of the city for more than a few months for the Russians attacked them for the fourth time. In a letter by “Gordon Paddock”, the American Council in Tabriz, he mentioned that three thousand Kurdish refugees went to Azerbaijan. Seventy percent of these Kurdish refugees were widows and orphans.
These letters from the missionaries and councils who were in the area are some of our documents for what had happened in Mahabad at that time. Unfortunately, the official historians of Iran did not mention any of these cruelties and criminalities that had happened in Mahabad.
The Russians had Mahabad’s control until the revolution that happened in Russia in 1917 and ended their monarchy and the Communists took the authority of the country. In 1918 when WW I was about to end, Russia and Germany signed a peace treaty and they left the battlefield. An American priest named “A. T. Arlyne” who was one of the missionaries in Mahabad wrote in a letter that it is estimated that the poor and hungry people of Mahabad are almost forty thousand individuals. These people left Mahabad to go to the Ottomans’ territory in order to be safe from the Russians but most of them died in the cold and snowy mountains either due to the cold weather or being hungry. The refugees’ situation was so catastrophic that even Tehran newspapers wrote about them but Iran’s government did not take any responsibility to help them out. After the 1917 revolution and the Russians leaving Iran, and since they were occupied by the new revolution in their country, the defense of “The Caucasus” and “Azerbaijan” was granted to the British. This time the British did not stay back and they did not let the Ottomans take control of this region which was their battlefield.
This time the British and the Assyrians who were armed by the Russians before attacked those Kurds who had supported the Ottomans. Of course, the Ottomans did not stay back and they attack Mahabad once again and they even reached Tabriz. They took control of this region and began to massacre, expel, and plunder the Assyrians. However, after World War I as we know the Ottomans surrendered and accepted the opposing countries like Britain and the British took control of Mahabad this time. As we have mentioned so far, we can see that during WW I no other cities in Iran did face as much invasion and suffering as Mahabad which underwent eight times of attacks by the Russians and the Ottomans.
In a report written by the “Badkoubeh charity society,” it is said that when they visited Mahabad there were some villages that were abandoned totally and there was no one to tell them what the name of that village was. They also mentioned that when they saw us, the people would run away because they thought we were going to kill them. According to these narrations, a total number of ten thousand Mahabad people got killed during these eight invasions. They were not only got killed directly but they were also killed due to cold or starvation. Apart from that their agriculture and farms were totally ruined for a while and trading was broken in Mahabad. Although the report of this massacre and plundering reached the “Peace Conference in Versailles” which was carried out by the countries that were involved in WW I in France in the Versailles Palace in Paris and the Iranian government also took part in it and presented their complaints on the case of Mahabad and Hamedan, however, neither this court nor any other courts ever mentioned the Kurds and their rights as human beings.
During the war, Mahabad underwent invasion eight times and Iran never defended the city so Mahabad became the greatest victim of WW I. As it is mentioned what happened in Mahabad has never been acknowledged in the formal international history but via the foreign councils and missionaries’ documents, the truth has recently been leaked out.
Note: This article is the text of Mrs. Leila Salehi’s interview from “The Ladies of Word and Book in Bukan” about “the portrait of bloody rivers in the snow” which is downloaded by Kurdshop due to its significance.[1]