IMPERIAL IRANIAN ARMY - ارتش شاهنشاهی ایران

After Reza Khan's takeover, the Persian military apparatus underwent thorough reform. The only posts left open to foreigners were those of riding instructors or technicians of the imperial arsenal. The Persian Cossack division, the South Persian Rifles,the Gendarmerie (a militarized police contingent) and other military contingents became united in the armed forces. By 1924 Reza Shah commanded a well-ordered army of 80,000 men. A year earlier, Persian career officer students were for the first time sent to France for their training, and within a year 500 were being trained there.

In 1924 Germany was commissioned to install and modernize the Iranian war arsenal. Once Germans had been put in charge of the Iranian war arsenal, large numbers of rifles and machine guns, as well as equipment to build a munitions factory and an iron foundry, were bought in Germany.

At this time co-operation between the Persian army and the Reichswehr was at its peak, and the Persian general staff proceeded to structure its training system according to the German pattern and to recruit German instructors.

The Persian chief of staff asked von Schulenburg, the German ambassador, to provide copies of the programs of German military academies and information about various weapons systems. In the mid-1920s, Persian officers were sent to Germany for their training, but this was regarded as unsatisfactory, and with the help of the Council for the training of students of the Imperial Iranian Government, Iran turned to the artillery school in Juterborg and the infantry school in Dresden. Germany, however was not particularly interested in training Iranian cadets, and introduced strict requirements: no more than five or six cadets were to be admitted, and they had to speak fluent German.

By 1941 the army stood at 125,000 troops (five times its original size) and was considered well trained and well equipped. In this year, when the army faced its first challenge in WWII, the Iranian army fought with courage against the British and Soviet forces. Iran's location was so strategically important to the Allied war effort, however, that London and Moscow chose to overlook Tehran's claim of neutrality.

Against the Allied forces, the Iranian army was decimated in three days, the fledgling air force and navy were totally destroyed, and conscripts deserted by the thousands. After that, Reza Shah abdicated in favor of his young son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Organization of the Imperial Iranian Army:

The shah was constitutionally designated supreme commander of the armed forces, and important decisions regarding Iran's defense needs were made by him. He was exercise operational control through the supreme commander's staff, a joint organization that loosely was coordinate the activities of the three services. The chief of the supreme commander's staff, was second in command; the staff included a vice chief of staff and directors of personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, plans, communications, and fiscal matters. Though within the chain of command, the supreme commander's staff served more as coordinating than a command body, and the three service chiefs were encouraged to consult directly with the shah. The minister of war, as a cabinet minister, was not in the military chain of command. He had legislative and budgetary roll. The vice minister of war (General Toufanian) was in charge of implementing the shah's decisions regarding arms procurement and thus was a highly visible and important figure during the 1970s.

سازماندهی ارتش شاهنشاهی ایران:

پرسنل و نفرات نیروهای مسلح:

جمعیت عظیم ملت ایران شامل 34 میلیون شهروند در سال 1977 میلادی که اکثر آنرا نیز قشر جوان جامعه تشکیل میدادند بخوبی جوابگوی نیازهای پرسنلی ارتش شاهنشاهی ایران برای گسترش روزمره آن بود. طی سالهای  هفتاد میلادی تعداد نفرات نیروهای مسلح شاهنشاهی (شامل ارتش - ژاندارمری - شهربانی و ساواک) بسرعت رو به افزایش بود و از تعداد 200 هزار پرسنل در کل این نیروها در سال 1972 به چیزی قریب به 500 هزار نفر در سال 1977 رسید. این آمار شامل پرسنل و کارشناسان خارجی شاغل در ایران را شامل نمی گردید.  خدمت وظیفه جوانان 18 سال به بالا  بر اساس قانون نظام وظیفه و حتی با در نظر گرفتن تعداد زیادی افراد معافی پزشکی و اجتماعی و یا بازخرید خدمت به خاطر افزایش نفرات سالیانه بخوبی در ادارات نظام وظیفه در سراسر کشور انجام میگرفت و از این جهت تنها 2 سال خدمت زیر پرچم و اکثرا بدون آموزشهای ذخیره سالیانه (بغیر از تعداد محدودی از افسران رسته های خاص) برای تنظیم کادر پرسنلی این نیرو کافی بود.

همچین تعداد نفرات ذخیره ارتش شاهنشاهی در زمان جنگ در حدود 300 هزار نفر (شامل مردان دوره دیده تا سن 45 سال) تخمین زده میشد در حالی که سازماندهی مشخصی برای جذب و تشکیلات این نیرو در چهارچوب واحدهای معین وجود نداشت. افراد دارای پایان خدمت تا 6 سال بعد از آن هنوز بعنوان حاضر به خدمت و سپس بمدت 8 سال بعنوان ذخیره درجه 1 و در آخر 9 سال بعنوان ذخیره درجه 2 بحساب میامدند.  افرادی هم که اصلا خدمت زیر پرچم را انجام نداده بودند تا این سن در زمان جنگ و وضع اضطراری میتوانستند به خدمت خوانده شوند.

تا قبل از وقوع انقلاب شوم ملایان بزرگترین دشمنان ایران دو کشور اتحاد جماهیر شوروی و عراق بشمار میرفتند. حتی در آخرین روزهایی که شاهنشاه در ایران بود همچنان معتقد بودند که ارتش قدرتمند ایران توانایی مقابله و رودرویی با هرگونه تجاوز خارجی را دارد. در روز خروج شاه از ایران وی بزرگترین ارتش خاورمیانه و پنجمین قدرت نظامی جهان را برای ملت ما بجای گذاشت. آنچه که باعث زانوی این ارتش قدرتمند را شکست رودرویی آن با افراد ملت خود و در واقع هسته اصلی تشکیل دهنده این سازمان بود. نقطه ضعفی که در این قدرت بزرگ وجود داشت و خارجیان برای نابودی ایران و سرنگونی رژیم شاهنشاهی از آن بهره بردند.