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Bahram Aryana

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Timsar
Bahram Aryana
General Aryana in the 1960s
Chief of the Joint Staff
In office
21 December 1965 – 4 May 1969
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterHassan Ali Mansur
Amir-Abbas Hoveyda
Preceded byAbdol Hossein Hejazi
Succeeded byFereydoun Djam
Commander of the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces
In office
30 October 1955 – 11 February 1958
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterHossein Ala'
Manouchehr Eghbal
Preceded byMohammadreza Shahandeh [fa]
Succeeded byAbdol Hossein Hejazi
Chief of Staff of the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces
Acting
1955–1957
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterHossein Ala'
Manouchehr Eghbal
Preceded byMohammadreza Shahandeh [fa]
Succeeded by?
Military attaché of Iran to France and Benelux[1]
In office
1952–1953
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterMohammad Mosaddegh
Ahmad Qavam
Mohammad Mosaddegh
Deputy Head of the Officers' Academy
In office
1945–1948
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterEbrahim Hakimi
Ahmad Qavam
Ebrahim Hakimi
Abdolhossein Hazhir
Preceded by?
Succeeded by?
Director of the 1st bureau
In office
1943–1945
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterAli Soheili
Mohammad Sa'ed
Morteza-Qoli Bayat
Ebrahim Hakimi
Preceded by?
Succeeded by?
Chief of Staff for the Tehran Depot Training Center
In office
1943–1943
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterAli Soheili
Preceded by?
Succeeded by?
Personal details
BornHossein Manoochehri (حسین معتمدی منوچهری تنکابنی)
(1906-03-17)17 March 1906
Tehran, Qajar Iran
Died21 June 1985(1985-06-21) (aged 79)
Paris, France
Resting placeMontparnasse Cemetery
PartyAzadegan Organization (1979–1985)
Other political
affiliations
SUMKA (1952–1953)
Aria Party (1945–1953)
Azure Party (1941–1943)[2]
Awards
Legion of Honour
NicknameHossein Napoleon
Military service
Allegiance Pahlavi Iran
Branch/serviceGround Force
Years of service
1939–1969
Rank General
CommandsSouthern Forces (1962–1964)
1st Division of the Imperial Guard (1949–1952)[3]
Mahabad Brigade (1948–1949)
Battles/wars
Academic background
Fields
Alma mater
ThesisNapoleon et l'Orient (1955)
InstitutionsOfficers' School[2]
WorksPour une ethique iranienne (1981)

Bahram Aryana (Persian: بهرام آریانا); also spelled Bahram Ariana (born Hossein Manouchehri);[4] 17 March 1906 – 21 June 1985)[5] was the most senior military commander of the Imperial Iranian Army during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and an Iranian nationalist and humanist. Professor Monica M. Ringer described Aryana as probably the most famous "converted Zoroastrian" of the Pahlavi era.[6]

Biography

[edit]

He was born on 17 March 1906 in Tehran[7] from a noble Georgian mother,[8] who was the great-granddaughter of King Heraclius II, and from a judge father, Sadr-ed-din.[7] His name was Hossein Manouchehri, which he would change to Bahram Aryana in 1950 and he was a descendant of Sepahsalar Khalatbari Tonekaboni, the noble Iranian statesman who was the leader of the constitutional revolutionary forces and four time former prime minister of Iran.[7] Professor Monica M. Ringer has described Aryana as probably the most notorious "converted Zoroastrian” of the Pahlavi era.[6]

He was educated in France at the École supérieure de guerre and received his PhD in 1955 from the Faculty of Law of Paris with his thesis "Napoleon et l'Orient" (published in 1957). Aryana is known to have styled himself on Napoleon and dressed in the Imperial French style.[9]

After the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941 during World War II, he went on with armed struggle and resisted the occupation before being arrested by the British forces. He was instrumental in many of the nationalist policies in the 1950–1960s. During the military campaign of 1962–64 [fa] he successfully pacified rebellious tribes in the south of Iran (Fars, Isfahan and Khuzestan) stirred-up by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

State visit by De Gaulle to Iran. From left to right; Charles de Gaulle, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Bahram Aryana.

Following his military success in the south, General Aryana was named Chief of Staff of the Shah's entire Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, a position he maintained from 1965 to 1969.

During his posting as Chief of Staff, he met with various head of states including Richard Nixon, who received him at the White House, Yitzhak Rabin (then the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces), who received him in Israel and Charles de Gaulle, during his visit to Iran.

His archaizing tendencies grew to the extent that he had replaced the Quran with the Shahnameh and in his office and proposed adopting the Latin alphabet for Persian as a means to sever cultural ties with the Arabs. Due to the controversial nature of his views, the SAVAK deemed his ideas "indecent" even for the Shah's modernizing and archaistic theories.[10] As a result, and under the indirect orders of the Shah, he, along with his wife Arianoush Ariana, left the country for Paris in 1969.[7] This was also due to the Shatt al-Arab crisis.

He died in exile in Paris in June 1985[11] and is buried at the Montparnasse cemetery. General Aryana was a Grand Officier of the French Legion of Honour.

His last published book, Pour une Éthique Iranienne was a call for unity against the obscurantist forces driving Khomeini and the mullahs' fundamentalist revolution.[12]

Party affiliation

[edit]

Aryana described himself as being an Iranian nationalist and moderate socialist, not a monarchist. Although he received a great deal of support from monarchists who considered him to be a supporter.[11] Aryana held dual membership of Aria Party and SUMKA.[13]

He founded the Azadegan Organization,[14] a nationalist opposition group which claimed to have had "developed a full command staff structure and support from all nationalist elements from the moderate left to the monarchists",[15] while in exile in Paris.

Aryana combined his forces with not just Gholam Ali Oveissi but also Shapour Bakhtiar, Ahmad Madani and Ali Amini.[16] Azadegan, meaning Born Free, was an anti-Khomeini movement which claimed as many as 12,000 followers in Iran, many of them in the armed forces.[11] The daring seizing by Azadegan's officers of Tabarzin, an Iranian Navy La Combattante II type fast attack craft just built by France and en route to Iran while in the Mediterranean in August 1981, attracted media attention to Azadegan and its members' armed resistance against the clerical regime of Iran.[17][18]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Naṣr Allāh Tavakkulī Nīshābūrī (2014). Memoirs of Nasrollah Tavakoli, The First Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army after the Islamic Revolution (in Persian). Ibex Pub. pp. 351–352. ISBN 978-1588140982.
  2. 1 2 "Who was Aryana" (in Persian). Political Studies and Research Institute. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  3. ↑ "A look at the life of General Bahram Aryana".
  4. ↑ Ali Akbar Dareini (1998). The Rise and Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty: Memoirs of Former General Hussein Fardust. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. pp. 15–16. ISBN 8120816420.
  5. ↑ "Biographie du Général Bahram ARYANA" (in French). Aryana2500.fr. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
  6. 1 2 Monica M. Ringer 2012, pp. 267–277.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Iranian Personalities. General Bahram Ariana". Iran Chamber Society. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  8. ↑ Babak Rezvani (Winter 2009). "The Fereydani Georgian Representation". Anthropology of the Middle East. 4 (2): 57. doi:10.3167/ame.2009.040205.
  9. ↑ Brian Murphy (4 August 2006). The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-6421-1.
  10. ↑ "Iranian Personalities: General Bahram Ariana". www.iranchamber.com. Retrieved 24 June 2025.
  11. 1 2 3 Bahram Aryana Dies; Ex-Iran Chief of Staff The New York Times.(Paris). 27 June 1985. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
  12. ↑ "Pour une Ethique Iranienne". Amazon. Retrieved 30 August 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  13. ↑ Ali Rahnema (24 November 2014). Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran: Thugs, Turncoats, Soldiers, and Spooks. Cambridge University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-1107076068.
  14. ↑ Anoushiravan Ehteshami (1995). After Khomeini: the Iranian Second Republic. Psychology Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-415-10879-9.
  15. ↑ Defense & Foreign Affairs, February 1981
  16. ↑ India Today. Thomson Living Media India Limited. 1982.
  17. ↑ Frank J. Prial (19 August 1981). "Iranian Hijackers Sail To Marseilles". The New York Times. Marseilles. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
  18. ↑ "Iran Exiles Plan New Military Acts". The New York Times. Reuters. 22 August 1981. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
  • Monica M. Ringer (2012). "Iranian Nationalism and Zoroastrian Identity". In Abbas Amanat; Farzin Vejdan (eds.). Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan US. doi:10.1057/9781137013408_13. ISBN 978-1-137-01340-8.
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