The fall of Mahabad and fate of the 14th Gendarmerie regiment (October 1921)

Withdrawal of foreign forces from Azerbaijan after the end of WWI and at the same time the weakness of the central government in the region, encouraged Simko, the Kurdish warlord, to extend his power further. Simko captured Urmia in January 1921 and extended his power toward south to capture the Kurdish city of Mahabad. Mokhber o-Saltaneh, the governor of Azerbaijan, sent a regiment of the gendarms from Tabriz, commanded by Major Malekzadeh to defend the city. Simko invaded the city captured it in October the same year.  This paper ecamines the developments that led to the fall of  Mahabad in the hands of Simko.

Archival documents and library resources were examined to collect data for this study.

While emphasizing the inevitability of the war in Mahabad, evidnce show that several factors contributed to the fall of the city including the failure of the governor of Azerbaijan and the brigad’s commander to take effective actions. As the result, hundreds of gendarmes were killed the central government's position in the area considerably weakened.