This article discusses the British policies with reagrd to northern Iran during the First World War. Britain and Russia had been rivals in Central Asia and Western Asia since the nineteenth century. After the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, the two powers partitioned Iran into three zones: a Russian zone in the north, a British zone in the south-east, and a neutral zone in the centre. In addition, the two powers had no right to intervene in each other's sphere of influence. Nevertheless, there was no trust between the two powers. At the outbreak of World War I, military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and Russia occurred in the western area of Iran even though Iran declared neutrality. The British Foreign Ministry in London and the Legation in Tehran, who were suspicious of the Russian military expansion in northern Iran, on the one hand, made efforts to reach a common understanding with the Russians in order to end the war soon. On the other hand, they doubted that Iran intended to be on the German side. During this period, Iran, a neutral country, remained under pressures from the belligerent powers. The establishment of the Soviet government in the end of 1917, which led to the withdrawal of the Russian army, released northern Iran from Russian pressure. The new situation made Britain a hegemony in Iran, and soon expanded its influence into northern Iran, the former Russian sphere, by 1907 Convention.
