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Persian Corridor

The Persian Corridor (Persian: دالان پارسی) was a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Of the 17.5 million long tons of US Lend-Lease aid provided to the Soviet Union, 7.9 million long tons (45%) were sent through Iran.

This supply route originated in the US and the UK with ships sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to the Persian Gulf. From there, the materiel transited Iran to the Soviet Union. Other supply routes included the Northern route across the Arctic, and the Pacific Route which handled US cargo at Vladivostok and then used the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Soviet Union.

This Persian Route became the only viable, all-weather route to be developed to supply Soviet needs.

English-language official documents from the Persian Corridor period continue to make the word "Persia" interchangeable with the name of Iran. In correspondence by the government of the United Kingdom, usage of "Persia" over "Iran" was chosen by Winston Churchill to avoid possible confusion with neighbouring Iraq.

Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union became allies. Britain and the Soviet Union saw the newly opened Trans-Iranian Railway as an attractive route to transport supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union. Both countries used concessions extracted in previous interventions to pressure neutral Iran (and, in Britain's case, Iraq) into allowing the use of their territory for military and logistical purposes. Increased tensions with Britain led to pro-German rallies in Tehran. In August 1941, because Reza Shah refused to expel all German nationals and come down clearly on the Allied side, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran, arrested the monarch, sent him into exile to South Africa and took control of Iran's communications and the coveted railway.

In 1942 the United States, now an ally of Britain and the Soviet Union in World War II, sent a military force to Iran to help maintain and operate sections of the railway. The British and Soviet authorities allowed Reza Shah's system of government to collapse and limited the constitutional government interfaces. They installed Reza Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, onto the Iranian/Persian throne.

The new Shah soon signed an agreement pledging full non-military logistical co-operation with the British and Soviets in exchange for full recognition of his country's independence, and also a promise to withdraw from Iran within six months of the war's conclusion (the assurances later proved essential in securing his country's independence after the war). In September 1943, the Shah went further by declaring war on Germany. He signed the Declaration by United Nations entitling his country to a seat in the original United Nations. Two months later, he hosted[citation needed] the Tehran Conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.

The presence of so many foreign troops in Iran accelerated social change and it roused nationalist sentiment in the country. In 1946, Hossein Gol-e-Golab published the nationalist song Ey Iran, which was reportedly inspired[citation needed] by an incident during the war in which Golab witnessed an American GI beating up a native Iranian greengrocer in a marketplace dispute.

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supply route in World War II
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