A Very British Coup

Abstract

Tehran, April 25, 1926. Persian capital is bathed in sun and carpets Kermans, Kashans, Kashmars cluster edge to edge, covering balconies and windows. Red, white, and green bunting stretches across the streets and hundreds of pictures of the new monarch, Reza Khan Pahlavi, a former Persian Cossack colonel, hang from scaffolding as he makes his way through a triumphal arch and lines of soldiers to his coronation in his glass carriage a la Cinderella drawn by six horses. Waiting for him in the Gulistan Palace is an Armenian priest smothered in purple velvet, a Turcoman wearing a tunic of rose-red silk, his head wrapped in a great lambswool busby, an assortment of Kurds in fringed silk turbans, Bakhtiari tribesmen sporting black felt hats, and bearded Shiite mullahs in long robes and gigantic turbans. Huddled in one corner, dimly lit by candles, are the relatives of Persia's recently deposed Qajar ruler. Standing on the right is the tall, black-bearded, Emir of Bokhara. Bolsheviks have recently driven him from his Central Asian home. Another attendee is the elderly but stately black clad Sheik of Mohammerah in Arab keffiyah, a friend of the British whose tribal independence had been usurped by Reza. He is now in exile in Tehran, remote from his imposing palace at Failiya surrounded by palm groves on the banks of the Karun River. Lacking experience with coronations the former ruling dynasty, the Qajars, had not followed any set tradition the Persians have appealed for advice to Lady Loraine, he wife of the head of the British Legation, Sir Percy Loraine, and Vita Sackville-West, wedded to Harold Nicolson, the newly appointed counselor. two ladies pored over the descriptions of the Coronation of George V, noting the symbols of power th ones, swords, stones, crowns, rings, orbs, scepters that they intend to emulate in the Persian ceremony. They have scoured the jumble shops that are the Qajar jewel vaults; servants scurried about laying the treasures on a table covered in green baize. As Vita Sackville-West recalled: The linen bags vomited emeralds and pearls; the green baize vanished, the table became a sea of precious stones. leather cases opened, displaying jeweled scimitars, daggers mounted with rubies, buckles carved from a single emerald, ropes of enormous pearls. Then from the inner room came the file of servants again, carrying uniforms sewn with diamonds; a cap with a tall aigrette, secured by a diamond larger than the Koh-i-Nur [Mountain of Light}; two crowns like great hieratic tiaras, barbaric diadems, composed of pearl of the finest orient.... We plunged our hands up to the wrist in the heaps of uncut emeralds, and let the pearls run through our fingers. We forgot the Persia of to-day; we were swept back to Akbar and the spoils of India. Soon orders went out to shops throughout Europe, but after the intercession of Lady Loraine, Vita was given authority to orer china, glass, cutlery, and stationery from London's royal purveyors. She commissioned red liveries for the palace, modeled on those