Ottoman Invasion of western Iran in World War І and its consequences: A Research based on documents

Despite taking a neutral stance, Iran heavily suffered from the First World War. Russian and Ottoman forces violated this neutrality and occupied a vast part of the country along the western frontier. This critical situation caused many calamities with deep and viable effects on the social life of Western Iran which missed scholarly attention. Bearing this in mind, and drawing on a bunch of unpublished archival material, this paper aims to shed new light on some unexplored dimensions of the subject. The central focus of this article is on the social and economic problems that ensued from the lasting occupation of the western provinces of Iran. At the same time, it seeks to prepare a descriptive explanation of the behavior of the local elite in confrontation with this crisis and what we can term center-peripheral policies. The findings show that the Ottoman invasion to western Iran and its occupation had certain social and economic consequences. These problems not only affected the local economy and social life but raised serious challenges for the central authority