Join the TimeGhost Army: bit.ly/SPECIAL_093_PI This was a real challenge to write. Nearly 81 years since the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran and there is still so little we know for certain about the famine it might have caused. If you read the sources that were used to research this episode (you can find their names in the description) then you will see that they mostly rely on Western Allied diplomatic correspondence and reports. This naturally leads to a rather one sided view of events. How could we enhance our picture of this period of Iranian history? If out there, Soviet-produced sources are the most obvious research avenue, giving us insight into how they ran their own occupation and viewed the food situation themselves. Even then, the experience of the Iranian people is missing. Newspaper reportage might help here, both international and local, and so would official Iranian records. There might also be memoirs, oral cultures, local petitions, and more which could be pieced together to help historians better understand what happened. This video uses the English-language scholarship that is out there to try and give an understandable picture of the Iranian famine. Hopefully, as time goes on, new generations of scholars will make this picture more complete. Read our code of conduct before commenting : community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
One uses the resources available to 'interpret' and build on previous knowledge. Informing on past events is a 'process' of discovery and interpretation. Don't apologise for missing 'data', but (as you have done) highlight the difference between 'evidence', and 'interpretation'. Exploring new events is not a 'thing', but a journey.
Thanks for putting this up. I’m glad to be a TGA patron, especially in light of TH-cam’s weird and quite frankly hypocritical views on what should be “appropriate” content, which is funny considering some of the ads from complete goombahs they put on these channels. You know you’re business model is broken when a serious episode on a devastating historical famine is suddenly interrupted by a commercial for weight loss products.
As an Iranian I really appreciate the fact that this mostly forgotten event of ww2 history has been brought under spotlights,and by my favourite history channel nonetheless
Yeah. I live in the West and education here really only talks about Iran in ancient times or when the revolt happened in the later 1900s against the shah. Never really heard about the history between the two times except on youtube or if its used in some fictional novel. Its like they just accept that it was inevitable for the US and Iran to come into conflict. As a fan of alternate history, it seems to me that, at a time, it would have been possible for the US and Iran to have become allies at least at some level.
It has not been brought into the spotlight and an evangelical I worked for Syd never will be. That is because there is another group that controls the United States even though they only lost 6 million. You’ll never find the museum for the Iranians that died in both world wars that Europe people started. We lost millions because of their wars and every day I see nuke Iran comments on the Internet.
@@nocommentgaming5399 there’s a certain group that wants to hide what happened to Iran. Same group that wants to keep taking Irans oil. They don’t want you to know more. Iranians died. We Iranians don’t play victim. But please learn our history because the reason there is an Islamic republic in Iran is because of what the West dead in World War I and World War II. Simple cars, and effect.
This is brilliant stuff. Honestly I had never even heard of the Iranian famine before you guys mentioned it a few weeks ago and I would definitely consider myself a history buff. This is just the sort of content we're here for.
I fully agree and concur. I similarly never heard of it before, but this illustrates well how this project is opening perspectives into each aspects and unknown corners of the War.
As an Iranian I thank you for your eye opening programme about the terrible abuse of my country by allied ...during the war .Ironically The abuse has not stopped.
I remember putting up a comment on a War Against Humanity episode a couple of weeks ago on this forgotten famine in Iran, so good to see a special on this. Often we remember the famines in Bengal, India or Henan, China, but the famine in Iran is also important too nonetheless. Appreciate the TimeGhost community for bringing this forgotten famine to light here as the World War Two team and even me are hardly even aware of this.
Thank you for contributing in the effort to alert Indy & friends to the Iranian famine. Because of your and others efforts I, along with many others now know of this important and significant event in history
Incredible. It's a bit surreal that even with all our current knowledge there can still be things about the largest conflict in human history that we find out over 80 years later. I hope many people from around the world can see this and join in commemorating/remembering the ones who have lost their lives, we keep their memory alive and hopefully learning to be better. Thank you for the video Mr Spartacus, the team and the people from Iran that shared this. Let us never forget.
@@robertm.8653 HOLODOMOR also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine. was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.
Robert M. The intentional starving of the Ukraine in the mid 1930's by the government of the Soviet Union. There are several well done videos on youtube.
That’s because it makes the Allies criminally responsible…although, with Stalin’s atrocities on his own people (and the major influence he had in world politics, with his successors - certain truths were swept under the rug) it was not surprising, because these things would have been found out.
My grandmother was 5 years old living in a small village in the north. she remembered Russian soldiers marching through her village. I'm glad she survived or I wouldn't have been here now. Rest her soul she passed away some years back.
As an Iranian I’m so thankful finally someone is talking about this. There was a Instagram post about this but a special episode can be more informative. Thank you 🙏🏼
@@MrRugbylane The Irish famine was more complicated than that. The Irish were growing only one variety of potato, the one that was susceptible to disease.
@@MrRugbylane British rule over India was downright apocalyptic. So many large scale famines in the relatively short period of British rule. Yet not a single large scale famines hit India since independence.
@@WorldWarTwo As well it should. One of the primary ones I would use if I were an educator in the US is the one debunking the myth that FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance. This would take the air out of several other conspiracy theories.
Also, we can now understand why anti-British sentiment runs so strong across all segments of Iranian society, whether Iranians in Iran or those in the Iranian diaspora
There is also a strong religious element to it. Iran is largely Shiite, and Britain and North America were, at least then, largely Christian. But I doubt if there was even much knowledge of these famines in Iran, India and China amongst the Allied nations general population during WW2. If it doesn't get reported there is little anyone can do about it, especially when the Allied nations' general population was already restricted by rationing. Famines are a consequence of war and we'd be wise to remember that before starting or getting involved in one.
@@ToddSauve I think it was that too but the major issue was that the Iranians were considered less than help worthy because of the less than their blond blue eyed complexion
@@jeffersonwright9275 Blond hair and blue eyes was much more of a Nazi desired element than it has ever been in the Allied nations of WW2. We have to be careful about assigning racist ideas to people in general who had and have little direct control over what their governments do.
@@ToddSauve ah …. Yes. Up to a point. The British and the Americans were very quick to understand the Dutch were starving in the winter of 1944 and as a result, they airdropped food supplies into Holland during the winter and spring of 1945. Where was the same alacrity in understanding the dire straits of Iran? Can I put it to you had they been a white skinned blond haired people their “understanding” of the famine would have been considerable faster?
I have been an avid reader of WWII stories for 40 years or so. I have never heard of this forgotten famine. As always, World War Two is up to the task to educate all of us... Thank You
@@ShubhamMishrabro around 10% of the population although the number also takes to account people that lost their lives from epidemics and non nutrition related illnesses. Also there was a number of people getting executed for stealing food or things that could be sold in the black market like fuels and car tires
Now I crave a series talking about all the famines that occurred during the second World War Horrifying in its own way how a population can be ravaged without deliberate murder
On something relating to this channel I made a comment saying that Iran was a victim of WWII in general. And someone pointed out this very famine in Iran after I asked them what was worse. And I admitted at the time that was terrible. And now I have some idea how terrible it really was. Nice job Sparty. Loved your opening remarks.
12:54 The grim report about disease was signed by Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf. That name was notable at the time -- as the first Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, he had been involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping case. But in our time, the name is famous because his son (same name, but a Junior) commanded coalition forces in the Gulf War.
Colonel Schwarzkopf, with the help of Israel's Mossad and the CIA, helped the Shah come back to power by creating the Iranian secret police force called SAVAK, the Iranian form of the Gestapo.
@@mrsmucha I didn't notice that part of his bio, but you are correct. He wasn't a colonel anymore -- the coup took place in 1953, by which time he was a major general. I guess he was chosen for the job because he'd had so much to do with Iran's internal security during World War Two -- he still knew the people involved. The so-called great powers always think they can install friendly governments in less powerful countries, and in this case the regime we imposed lasted till 1979, but when it fell, boy, howdy, it made a mess we're still struggling to deal with. We believe in self-determination for ourselves, but not other people. We might be better served by less hypocrisy.
Wait till you hear about the active genocide of iranians by the brits in ww1. Sure, it was famine but they purposefully withheld necessities and held the economy hostage. That is by definition genocide.
I'm glad this channel exists,from it I've learned many,many things,such as aforementioned Iranian famine,but also ally invasion and occupation of Iran. Also battles that raged in middle east and Madagascar of all places
I never knew about this horror, and I too believed I had a broad knowledge of the major events of WW2. Thank you Time Ghost team for this and all the other superb posts.
THIS is one of the reasons I love your episodes. You tell the forgotten stories nobody seems to care about. It is still frightening for me, how often in a ww2 related famine the British are partly responsible for it, next to the Nazis and Japanese. Truly, the four Riders of the Apocalypse (War, Tyranny, Hunger, Plague) had to gallope constantly during WW1 and WW2.
It's hard to believe that I never before heard of how approximately 1/4 of a country's population died during the second World War Extra shocking considering it was not an active war zone
Polish people still remember the fact, that Polish refugees released from the USSR found shelter in Iran during the WW2. We are grateful and we will never forget.
I have been a regular viewer of your awesome contents since the great war channel and passionately flowing them through between the wars and of course here and I always hoped you could make an episode to mention the sufferings of Iran and it's people. Thank you sparty and the team and the community that shed some light to the matter and for not forgetting. p.s. I hope it hasn't gone unnoticed that you are one of the few foreigners who has pronounced Iran correctly so far :)
You have accomplished something that seemed extremely unlikely to happen: you have outdone yourselves. This is truly the greatest documentary of WW2 ever.
As a veteran of one of my counties wars, It doesn't' surprise me that even the good guys can do evil when expediency outweighs humanity. If anyone doesn't understand why we all say "Never forget", it's that there are rarely combatants who are guilt free! Never Forget. Thank you Spartacus!
True! And all sides like to say they are the good guys. Sometimes they even believe that when they do evil things, it's in the pursuit of ultimate goodness.
FINALLY! Thank you! This hits so close to home. Finally it is being talked about! The pictures are heartbreaking, it truly was a genocide and Britain played a major hand in it. However, I noticed that although you mentioned the 3 famines in the timeline, the very important connection that was not made was that both famines of WW1 & WW2 occurred due to the invasion of Persia by Britain & Russia. It would have been appropriate to mention. Thank you so much, I really enjoyed watching this.
Good job shining a light on some forgotten corners of WWII history. It definitely adds context to modern day hostility towards the west from the Iranian people. Keep up the good work. Never forget.
Thank you for this video. Stories like this are tragic, but this is the lifeblood of history - adding to the narrative and reminding us that there are countless stories to tell, even of eras that are considered totally mined for history. The tally of neutral nations invaded, occupied or otherwise interfered with during war is a tragedy, and the balance sheet hits all sides. I'd love a special on the Caribbean and Central America during the war years - so dependent on trade in some critical raw materials (oil, sugar), a heavy target for u-boats and American interference.
Thanks for bringing this into the spotlight. This event has all but forgotten (I had no idea until you mentioned it), but now it's our duty to remember, especially to understand why Iran behaves the way it does in light of Western and Communist crimes commited in the country.
Iran is the enemy of Sunni nations because they are Shiite. This goes back centuries to the 700s AD when there was a split in Islam over who would be Mohammad's successor. They have been fighting over this issue ever since. You can't blame these ancient animosities on the Allies.
Well my father was born in Iran in 1939 and growing up he always hated Britain which always confused me as I was born and grew up in Canada, now I know.
With all my history reading, how did I not know this? This video really puts the 70s and 80s in a new light. It really puts future events into perspective. Children young adults become the leader of the 60s and 70s. The anger against the West by so many in the population who did not have a connection to the oil industry. Anger at the Shah and government.
@@MrRugbylane Honestly, it goes even deeper than that. As The Great War channel perfectly put in their Feb. 2021/1921 about the Persian coup of 1921, Iran had greatly suffered during WW1 as well, where guerilla fighting between British, German, Russian, Armenia and Turkish troops left the country in a very unstable position and led to a famine in 1917-18.
The wide net that the Time Ghost team casts in an effort to provide historical context and to acknowledge the impacts on wider humanity never ceases to impress. Your work is easily one of the most important projects in historiography and helps dispel narrow perspectives. Thank you all for your work! P.S: The team is one of the best-dressed on the internet, but whoever put together Spartacus' outfit for this episode really out-did themselves!
Thank you for covering this very little covered area. I knew that a lot of material was sent through Iran but was not aware of how important Iran was to supplying the Soviet Union's war effort. I had no idea that there was a famine caused by the effort and really appreciated all the time and research that went into creating and presenting this video. Great job!
While other content creators are content with talking about the landing at Omaha Beach for the thousandth time this channel gladly teaches us about the War's other details
I was vaguely aware of a food shortage in Iran only because of something I'd read years ago about Major General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr (father of General Schwarzkopf of Desert Storm fame and the lead investigator in the Lindbergh kidnapping case). I was not aware of the scale of it. Like the Bengal famine, it scarcely rates as even a footnote in the world history of the time. This was obviously a difficult topic to research, but I think you did as good a job as anyone can. Kudos for your balanced reporting and caveats. My main takeaway is don't trust the Brits as your food source in a crisis. If in doubt, just ask the Irish, Indians, and Iranians.
@@BountyFlamor The Bengal famine is well documented, but few people today have ever heard of it. Judging by what Spartacus said, the Iran famine is neither well documented nor well remembered today.
Great video! This topic is rarely talked about outside of Iran and many people are chocked when people bring it up. It is still very important and just overlooked. The occupation and destruction of Iranian infrastructure had major consequences even after the war so it is sad that not many people know about it.
This is exactly the topic the episode ending is meant for, Never Forget. Major props to the timeghost team, and especially the army! I'd known about the Bengal famine but like many others I had never even heard about this in any way.
Even as an Iranian, the only information I have about the famine was about my great-grandparents who lived in the north of Iran, under the soviet occupation zone, and how they would beg the soviets stationed there for sweets (which was often granted, at least in the retelling of the events to me. I think the events were "sanitised" as they've been told down the generations in my family however)
@@Vitamins152I am Iranian and I don't like Britain, nothing to do with ordinary people but rather their manipulative and invasive history, while Indians are like a brother in east to us, always seen with curiosity and interest, i can't say much about India's government as they take a passive route and stay out of politics.
@@Mahdi-k4i Well, your Parsees that lived here backstabbed us to the British and fund anti-India activities even though we gave them food and shelter from Arab invaders. This is why I hold an extreme grudge against Persians today and wish your country the worst because of what your cousins did here.
There was an old guy in my neighborhood who ran an Army surplus store. I only saw him once or twice but I did see an old photo of him in his service days and, ironically, he was a supply officer in Iran. He's long gone now so he can't answer any questions that this documentary brings to my mind. But, like most soldiers, I'm sure he did whatever he was ordered to do.
Incredible. Thanks for sharing this history. New to me. I greatly appreciate you and your teams' approach to reporting on history and not acting simply as a text book.
Thanks for bringing up this much overlooked topic and giving so many details on it. It's interesting that when countries go to war, as for *food* for civilians they only care about citizens of their own at home or their immediate allies, while abroad only for their own soldiers - not about the rest of the world. Today we see the same with the food from the Black Sea area being blocked for reasons connected to a country's individual objectives in a war. It's sad.
Would you be able to talk about the Persian Famine of World War 1 as well? (Which is was also as result of British/Russian intervention and occupation and diversion of supplies and food).
My hometown is in the Jolfa County of the East Azerbaijan Province of Iran. There's an old train bridge over the Aras river in there which the Soviets used as a path to invade Iran's territory. There were only few Iranian soldiers defending at the other side of the bridge and eventually were killed by Soviets, but they still had managed to delay their invasion plan for hours.
You're Welcome. By the way, at the site I mentioned there are also the graves of these soldiers and a memorial. The Soviets had buried their bodies there after they saw all the resistance was just put up by them. There were also two other routes in North of Iran which the Soviets took for the invasion. At South of Iran also the Iranian chief of navy named 'Qolamali Bayandor' also attempted to put up resistance against the British.
I just finished reading Anthony Beevor's "Stalingrad" where Russian soldiers wondered at the extravagance of American "C" and "K" rations, oblivious to the human cost of their receiving these supplies when the Allies redirected the rail assets from regional Iran to the supply routes North. The food didn't get to rural Iran.
In 'The Unfree French,' Richard Vinan, 2006, the author connects German food rationing to a substantial rise in maternal and infant mortality. Long before the level of 'famine' is reached, interruptions in food supply and access have a cost in lives. Trying to parse out the death-toll from a 'real' famine is probably impossible since so many 'other cause' deaths would not have occurred without food shortage tipping the medical, social, and economic scales.
Wow. Excellent work! The coverage of so much of the war years, in a number of areas, has always been relatively nebulous... Iran being an excellent example. I was exposed to a lot of new, detailed information today. Thank you.
Thank you for this piece of forgotten history. The dead were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc. They are equally dead as those killed in battle and are equally mourned by their surviving family members. The “ends justify the means” reduces people to just statistics. Numbers, not breathing people. There are no victors in war, just victims.
A flat out instance of imperialist aggression against a neutral country. It's hard to find a good guy in WWII...you just pick the worst guy to demonize and hope no one notices the other guys' sins. Also, the too me mystery of Iranian hostility to the US, UK and Russia is suddenly made clear.
Yes, as Iranian I can tell you that we even hate the French because of Irano-Russian war during Napoleonic era of the nineteenth century. All colonial and imperialist powers are hated by Iranians.
@@shawnr771 Iran is the enemy of Sunni nations because they are Shiite. This goes back centuries to the 700s AD when there was a split in Islam over who would be Mohammad's successor. They have been fighting over this issue ever since. You can't blame these ancient animosities on the Allies.
@@ToddSauve No but I can blame some of their animosties towards the western powers for the shortsightedness of the United Kingdom. Who pretty much screwed over anybody they ever colonized. Like every other colonial master.
@@shawnr771 The British were pretty mild compared to Spain, France, Belgium and Germany. Bad decisions were made, nevertheless. Colonialism never seems to work out all that well for the colonized. It could have, but the entire human race desires to take more from their neighbour than they ever give. That is the problem. "Love your neighbour as yourself" is the solution. 🤷♂
Stuff like this is why I like TimeGhost and his topics such as War Against Humanity. We all know of the battles that took place, but the famines and other diseases that ravaged the globe both during and after the war have gone mostly unnoticed.
Certain aspects/events in history are sometimes omitted or even erased for the “common good”. That is why common people never find out the real events/causes for those incidences. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
The US Army ran Alco RS-1 diesel locomotives through this corridor on the USSR bound supply trains. In the postwar period they were transferred to the Alaska Railway, going from one of the hottest parts of the world to one of the coldest.
I had no idea about this. Thank you for bringing this important event to a broader attention in the world. Yet another reminder that, while the Nazis and Japan were pretty clearly "the bad guys", none of the major players were simply "the good guys". The USSR helped start the war, and France and Britain often treated the people in their colonial holdings, or in this case neutral Iran, not really any better than Nazi Germany treated the western and northern european countries they invaded. In the modern day, many people in the west see the Iran and some other middle eastern countries as enemies, or even generally Bad Guys. And while there is certainly a lot to be said about various human rights abuses in the country... given how we have treated Iran through the past 100-200 years of its history, there are unfortunately some very good reasons why Iran considers the west its enemy.
For two decades I have read about WWII in many many books and countless other productions and the most I could find was mention of Britain and Russia occupying zones of Iran to keep supply lines open (most of it as just British military officials fretting in letters about the safety of the road to India) but couldn't find much more. I always wondered why, especially with the Tehran conference. Now I know why. Thank you so much. I will definitely be picking up Persian Gulf Command.
The thing with silences in the record is that they only become more entrenched as more books fail to mention them. We're happy we've been able to correct that somewhat for you and others. Persian Gulf Command is a highly readable account from an Anglo-British perspective, Ashley Jackson is a great historian. Majd's "Iran Under Allied Occupation In World War II" is also informative if you can bring yourself to battle through 700+ pages of diplomatic correspondence.
@@WorldWarTwo I would actually love to read 700 pgs of diplomatic correspondence lol. It's the $100 price tag that makes that book a little unattainable.
Churchill wanted to relive the Bengalis with grain from Canada but the Japanese navy was in the way in 1943. There is too little that is known about these famines to make conclusive statements yet.
Something I had never heard of in any other WW2 history. And the usual short-sighted incompetence of the British political class rears its ugly head again. It's disasters of policy like this that leave me disgusted with my own country.
The more I watch this channel, the more this one truth shines the most : in war, both side will commit terrible things to win, whether by design, accident or indifference. WW2 was often portrayed as a "bad guys VS good guys", and it's finally becoming much less so. It's astonishing that we know almost nothing of a famine caused by the Allies that killed people on a level similar to the Holocaust. It's almost as if the people didn't matter to the powers fighting each other. Never forget indeed. A well made episode, as always. I have a question : have your videos been monetized by TH-cam? They are throwing a lot of ads in my views and I was hoping at least some made it to you guys in support of your endeavor.
@Thanks for your kind words. Monetisation on youtube is hit-and-miss, WAH videos in aprticular are often demonetised as 'not suitable for advertisers' and there is nothing we can do about it. That's why the TimeGhost Army is so important, as even the videos which are montised bring in nowhere near enough money to cover what it costs to produce our content
Join the TimeGhost Army: bit.ly/SPECIAL_093_PI
This was a real challenge to write. Nearly 81 years since the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran and there is still so little we know for certain about the famine it might have caused.
If you read the sources that were used to research this episode (you can find their names in the description) then you will see that they mostly rely on Western Allied diplomatic correspondence and reports. This naturally leads to a rather one sided view of events.
How could we enhance our picture of this period of Iranian history? If out there, Soviet-produced sources are the most obvious research avenue, giving us insight into how they ran their own occupation and viewed the food situation themselves. Even then, the experience of the Iranian people is missing. Newspaper reportage might help here, both international and local, and so would official Iranian records. There might also be memoirs, oral cultures, local petitions, and more which could be pieced together to help historians better understand what happened.
This video uses the English-language scholarship that is out there to try and give an understandable picture of the Iranian famine. Hopefully, as time goes on, new generations of scholars will make this picture more complete.
Read our code of conduct before commenting : community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
They pled the case to US and Brits, what about the Soviets? Why didn't they ask them?
One uses the resources available to 'interpret' and build on previous knowledge. Informing on past events is a 'process' of discovery and interpretation. Don't apologise for missing 'data', but (as you have done) highlight the difference between 'evidence', and 'interpretation'. Exploring new events is not a 'thing', but a journey.
THE Norman Schwarzkopf?
So, where were Churchill and Stalin being charged for war crimes over this invasion. 😡
Thanks for putting this up. I’m glad to be a TGA patron, especially in light of TH-cam’s weird and quite frankly hypocritical views on what should be “appropriate” content, which is funny considering some of the ads from complete goombahs they put on these channels. You know you’re business model is broken when a serious episode on a devastating historical famine is suddenly interrupted by a commercial for weight loss products.
As an Iranian I really appreciate the fact that this mostly forgotten event of ww2 history has been brought under spotlights,and by my favourite history channel nonetheless
Thank you for watching & helping us remember.
Yeah. I live in the West and education here really only talks about Iran in ancient times or when the revolt happened in the later 1900s against the shah. Never really heard about the history between the two times except on youtube or if its used in some fictional novel. Its like they just accept that it was inevitable for the US and Iran to come into conflict.
As a fan of alternate history, it seems to me that, at a time, it would have been possible for the US and Iran to have become allies at least at some level.
@@Nostripe361 I'm from western Europe, and I have never learned anything about Iran in school.
It has not been brought into the spotlight and an evangelical I worked for Syd never will be. That is because there is another group that controls the United States even though they only lost 6 million. You’ll never find the museum for the Iranians that died in both world wars that Europe people started. We lost millions because of their wars and every day I see nuke Iran comments on the Internet.
@@nocommentgaming5399 there’s a certain group that wants to hide what happened to Iran. Same group that wants to keep taking Irans oil. They don’t want you to know more. Iranians died. We Iranians don’t play victim. But please learn our history because the reason there is an Islamic republic in Iran is because of what the West dead in World War I and World War II. Simple cars, and effect.
This is brilliant stuff. Honestly I had never even heard of the Iranian famine before you guys mentioned it a few weeks ago and I would definitely consider myself a history buff. This is just the sort of content we're here for.
I fully agree and concur. I similarly never heard of it before, but this illustrates well how this project is opening perspectives into each aspects and unknown corners of the War.
@@aleksazunjic9672 I used to think it was the Mossadegh coup but apparently it ran deeper.
I'm also surprised no one else has talked about this event seriously 4 million people in a single country starved
What about Great Britain did in India the millions they killed by staving them.
As an Iranian I thank you for your eye opening programme about the terrible abuse of my country by allied ...during the war .Ironically The abuse has not stopped.
I remember putting up a comment on a War Against Humanity episode a couple of weeks ago on this forgotten famine in Iran, so good to see a special on this. Often we remember the famines in Bengal, India or Henan, China, but the famine in Iran is also important too nonetheless. Appreciate the TimeGhost community for bringing this forgotten famine to light here as the World War Two team and even me are hardly even aware of this.
Thank you for contributing in the effort to alert Indy & friends to the Iranian famine.
Because of your and others efforts I, along with many others now know of this important and significant event in history
thanksdickson👊👊
It's strange and horrible to think of the fact that more people died in allied or british caused famines than in concentration camps.
I think Vietnam and greece suffered famine too
@@ShubhamMishrabro 1941-42 for Greece although it took until 1947 for the food distribution to get back to normal
Incredible. It's a bit surreal that even with all our current knowledge there can still be things about the largest conflict in human history that we find out over 80 years later. I hope many people from around the world can see this and join in commemorating/remembering the ones who have lost their lives, we keep their memory alive and hopefully learning to be better.
Thank you for the video Mr Spartacus, the team and the people from Iran that shared this. Let us never forget.
Thanks for watching with us @Robert M.
Research the Holodomor
@@robertm.8653 HOLODOMOR also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine. was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.
Robert M. The intentional starving of the Ukraine in the mid 1930's by the government of the Soviet Union. There are several well done videos on youtube.
That’s because it makes the Allies criminally responsible…although, with Stalin’s atrocities on his own people (and the major influence he had in world politics, with his successors - certain truths were swept under the rug) it was not surprising, because these things would have been found out.
My grandfather was 5 years old during the occupation I'm glad he survived it
My grandpa also said that he witnessed the British army marching out of the city (Shiraz) when he was 5.
My grandmother was 5 years old living in a small village in the north. she remembered Russian soldiers marching through her village. I'm glad she survived or I wouldn't have been here now. Rest her soul she passed away some years back.
Me to
As an Iranian I’m so thankful finally someone is talking about this. There was a Instagram post about this but a special episode can be more informative. Thank you 🙏🏼
@Sia glad we could bring this story to light for the wider world!
not iranian, but i just want to say i love iranian films
highly recommended for anyone who is interested
Im Irish and we know all about famine caused by British indifference but id never heard of this until now. It explains a LOT
@@MrRugbylane The Irish famine was more complicated than that. The Irish were growing only one variety of potato, the one that was susceptible to disease.
@@MrRugbylane British rule over India was downright apocalyptic. So many large scale famines in the relatively short period of British rule. Yet not a single large scale famines hit India since independence.
Thanks for great content. This is probably not even 10 cents for each episode I have watched over the years
Thank you for your support, M K! We couldn't do it without you. Stay tuned for even more
👏🏿
Your historical videos should be shown in all high school history classes in the US as they are so good and informative.
Thanks @mrs mucha. We have heard from quite a few educators over the years who have used our videos as a resource and it makes us very proud
@@WorldWarTwo As well it should.
One of the primary ones I would use if I were an educator in the US is the one debunking the myth that FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance.
This would take the air out of several other conspiracy theories.
Why just the US?
@@har3036 I agree. It should be taught everywhere.
There was one teachers in the school I got my student teaching who'd share them when he could
Kinda sad that there were so many famines that some could be forgotten
@Avi A It is indeed. The scale of suffering during this war is truly too much to grasp all at once
kinda?
Also, we can now understand why anti-British sentiment runs so strong across all segments of Iranian society, whether Iranians in Iran or those in the Iranian diaspora
Even we Indians also hate the British because they looted and murder the innocent people of our country for long 200 years.
There is also a strong religious element to it. Iran is largely Shiite, and Britain and North America were, at least then, largely Christian. But I doubt if there was even much knowledge of these famines in Iran, India and China amongst the Allied nations general population during WW2. If it doesn't get reported there is little anyone can do about it, especially when the Allied nations' general population was already restricted by rationing. Famines are a consequence of war and we'd be wise to remember that before starting or getting involved in one.
@@ToddSauve I think it was that too but the major issue was that the Iranians were considered less than help worthy because of the less than their blond blue eyed complexion
@@jeffersonwright9275 Blond hair and blue eyes was much more of a Nazi desired element than it has ever been in the Allied nations of WW2. We have to be careful about assigning racist ideas to people in general who had and have little direct control over what their governments do.
@@ToddSauve ah …. Yes. Up to a point. The British and the Americans were very quick to understand the Dutch were starving in the winter of 1944 and as a result, they airdropped food supplies into Holland during the winter and spring of 1945. Where was the same alacrity in understanding the dire straits of Iran? Can I put it to you had they been a white skinned blond haired people their “understanding” of the famine would have been considerable faster?
It’s good that you shine a light on the forgotten dark corners of this conflict. Keep up the great work
Thank you for watching, and for your kind words. Stay tuned
I have been an avid reader of WWII stories for 40 years or so. I have never heard of this forgotten famine. As always, World War Two is up to the task to educate all of us... Thank You
You are are very welcome. As Spartacus says in the conclusion, there is still so much to uncover about WW2.
There was another famine in Indochina too.
Vietnam lost 1-2 million of people by 45.
I think greece too death toll was around 1 million
@@ShubhamMishrabro around 10% of the population although the number also takes to account people that lost their lives from epidemics and non nutrition related illnesses.
Also there was a number of people getting executed for stealing food or things that could be sold in the black market like fuels and car tires
I have read that the Japanese occupiers used grain to fire their power stations once the coal mines were bombed out.
Now I crave a series talking about all the famines that occurred during the second World War
Horrifying in its own way how a population can be ravaged without deliberate murder
On something relating to this channel I made a comment saying that Iran was a victim of WWII in general. And someone pointed out this very famine in Iran after I asked them what was worse. And I admitted at the time that was terrible. And now I have some idea how terrible it really was. Nice job Sparty. Loved your opening remarks.
Thank you for watching. We're honored we could bring this history to so many people for the first time.
@@WorldWarTwo---Your welcome
@@brokenbridge6316 ww1 and WW2. Such a tragedy. Iran didn't even participate in either wars.
@@AsiaMinor12---That is irrelevant. Iran suffered anyway.
12:54 The grim report about disease was signed by Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf. That name was notable at the time -- as the first Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, he had been involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping case. But in our time, the name is famous because his son (same name, but a Junior) commanded coalition forces in the Gulf War.
Colonel Schwarzkopf, with the help of Israel's Mossad and the CIA, helped the Shah come back to power by creating the Iranian secret police force called SAVAK, the Iranian form of the Gestapo.
@@mrsmucha I didn't notice that part of his bio, but you are correct. He wasn't a colonel anymore -- the coup took place in 1953, by which time he was a major general. I guess he was chosen for the job because he'd had so much to do with Iran's internal security during World War Two -- he still knew the people involved. The so-called great powers always think they can install friendly governments in less powerful countries, and in this case the regime we imposed lasted till 1979, but when it fell, boy, howdy, it made a mess we're still struggling to deal with. We believe in self-determination for ourselves, but not other people. We might be better served by less hypocrisy.
Thank you for a lesson that was never taught in school.
This explains a lot about the sentiments and hatreds of the late 20th century.
Thank you for helping us remember, Shawn
Wait till you hear about the active genocide of iranians by the brits in ww1. Sure, it was famine but they purposefully withheld necessities and held the economy hostage. That is by definition genocide.
The people who had been children during the famine would have been entering positions of power in the 1970s.
I'm glad this channel exists,from it I've learned many,many things,such as aforementioned Iranian famine,but also ally invasion and occupation of Iran. Also battles that raged in middle east and Madagascar of all places
I never knew about this horror, and I too believed I had a broad knowledge of the major events of WW2. Thank you Time Ghost team for this and all the other superb posts.
Thank you for watching & helping us remember this oft-forgotten tragedy.
THIS is one of the reasons I love your episodes. You tell the forgotten stories nobody seems to care about.
It is still frightening for me, how often in a ww2 related famine the British are partly responsible for it, next to the Nazis and Japanese. Truly, the four Riders of the Apocalypse (War, Tyranny, Hunger, Plague) had to gallope constantly during WW1 and WW2.
It's hard to believe that I never before heard of how approximately 1/4 of a country's population died during the second World War
Extra shocking considering it was not an active war zone
Thank you Ralph. We appreciate your support
The Iranian famine is why I constantly watch you guys. This video is nessesary and it must be shared. We will not forget this famine again
Anders Thank you for watching & helping us remember this dark history
It's amazing that history can by and large just forget an event of this magnitude. I'd never heard a peep about this until now!
Thank you for watching as always, rashkavar. Stay tuned
It's even sadder that it happened twice in a row by the same perpetrators.
Polish people still remember the fact, that Polish refugees released from the USSR found shelter in Iran during the WW2. We are grateful and we will never forget.
Thank you for remembering their kindness and humanity here, Greg.
You're welcome love from Iran may peace remain 🙏🙏
I have been a regular viewer of your awesome contents since the great war channel and passionately flowing them through between the wars and of course here and I always hoped you could make an episode to mention the sufferings of Iran and it's people. Thank you sparty and the team and the community that shed some light to the matter and for not forgetting.
p.s. I hope it hasn't gone unnoticed that you are one of the few foreigners who has pronounced Iran correctly so far :)
Thank you for your loyal support and kind words. We are glad to hear that we represented Iran well. Take care my friend
Wow. Never, ever heard of this. This series is a true treasure.
Glad we could bring it to your attention.
Spartacus, thank you and the whole team for your continued due diligence. Never Forget.
@Dat Carguy Thanks for watching with us!
Been looking forward to your episode on this topic. Thank for doing this. And an awesome tie to boot
Thank you!
You have accomplished something that seemed extremely unlikely to happen: you have outdone yourselves. This is truly the greatest documentary of WW2 ever.
Thank you! We are honored to hear that from you.
It is an excellent thing that shows like yours can incorporate the information of regular people into the stream of history.
As a veteran of one of my counties wars,
It doesn't' surprise me that even the good guys can do evil when expediency outweighs humanity.
If anyone doesn't understand why we all say "Never forget", it's that there are rarely combatants who are guilt free!
Never Forget.
Thank you Spartacus!
There is no need to believe them when they say they are the good guys. Self proclaimed good guys are often the worst.
@@omgamuslim to be fair, it's rare for the bad guys to call the other side the good guys
True! And all sides like to say they are the good guys. Sometimes they even believe that when they do evil things, it's in the pursuit of ultimate goodness.
The "good guys" should be in quotes! In WW2, there were only bad guys and worse guys!
Thank you for watching, David
FINALLY! Thank you! This hits so close to home. Finally it is being talked about! The pictures are heartbreaking, it truly was a genocide and Britain played a major hand in it.
However, I noticed that although you mentioned the 3 famines in the timeline, the very important connection that was not made was that both famines of WW1 & WW2 occurred due to the invasion of Persia by Britain & Russia.
It would have been appropriate to mention.
Thank you so much, I really enjoyed watching this.
Thank you for helping us remember
@@WorldWarTwo Thank YOU guys soo much! I ♥️ The information. I'm learning so much from your channel! Cheers!
Good job shining a light on some forgotten corners of WWII history. It definitely adds context to modern day hostility towards the west from the Iranian people.
Keep up the good work. Never forget.
Thank you for watching, CrimsonTemplar. We appreciate you helping us remember this lesser known history.
Thank you for this video. Stories like this are tragic, but this is the lifeblood of history - adding to the narrative and reminding us that there are countless stories to tell, even of eras that are considered totally mined for history. The tally of neutral nations invaded, occupied or otherwise interfered with during war is a tragedy, and the balance sheet hits all sides. I'd love a special on the Caribbean and Central America during the war years - so dependent on trade in some critical raw materials (oil, sugar), a heavy target for u-boats and American interference.
Thank you Haldon. Never forget.
Haldon Lindstrom Shut Up!!!!!!!!! Communist Pig!!!!!!!!!! Stop Spreading False Information!!!!!!!! Stop Spreading Malicious Anti-American Propaganda!!!!!!!
Awesome job in shedding some more light on this often forgotten tragedy. You're by far my most favorite history channel. Cheers!
Thanks for bringing this into the spotlight. This event has all but forgotten (I had no idea until you mentioned it), but now it's our duty to remember, especially to understand why Iran behaves the way it does in light of Western and Communist crimes commited in the country.
Iran is the enemy of Sunni nations because they are Shiite. This goes back centuries to the 700s AD when there was a split in Islam over who would be Mohammad's successor. They have been fighting over this issue ever since. You can't blame these ancient animosities on the Allies.
Thank you for helping us remember.
This is something I never heard about but I am glad you brought this forgotten nightmare to the foreground. Also, beautiful suit Spartacus!
Very glad to know you've learned something. And thank you for the compliments!
Thank you for your work in exposing this horrible atrocity against Iranian people.
Well my father was born in Iran in 1939 and growing up he always hated Britain which always confused me as I was born and grew up in Canada, now I know.
My grandfather's brother was 7 or so by the time of the famine. He doesn't talk about it much, but the things he has said are chilling
It's weird bc my grandfather was born in 1927 but never once mentioned it.
farid rahbari Thank you for sharing about him.
With all my history reading, how did I not know this?
This video really puts the 70s and 80s in a new light. It really puts future events into perspective. Children young adults become the leader of the 60s and 70s. The anger against the West by so many in the population who did not have a connection to the oil industry. Anger at the Shah and government.
Im pretty sure why none lf us knew about this is that it is a highly inconvenient truth.
@@MrRugbylane Honestly, it goes even deeper than that. As The Great War channel perfectly put in their Feb. 2021/1921 about the Persian coup of 1921, Iran had greatly suffered during WW1 as well, where guerilla fighting between British, German, Russian, Armenia and Turkish troops left the country in a very unstable position and led to a famine in 1917-18.
@@extrahistory8956 ....but but but..Iran is part of the Axis of Evil ... i think my heads going to explode 💣
Thank you for helping us remember the victims, Steven.
The wide net that the Time Ghost team casts in an effort to provide historical context and to acknowledge the impacts on wider humanity never ceases to impress. Your work is easily one of the most important projects in historiography and helps dispel narrow perspectives. Thank you all for your work!
P.S: The team is one of the best-dressed on the internet, but whoever put together Spartacus' outfit for this episode really out-did themselves!
Thank you for the encouraging words! Our egos are also firmly heightened by your comments on our dress sense.
Another well done episode, Sparty! Thank you for bringing this forgotten tragedy to our attention. That's one reason I love this channel.
Glad you enjoyed it, Hannah. Many people learned a lot from this video, including much of our team.
Thank you for covering this very little covered area. I knew that a lot of material was sent through Iran but was not aware of how important Iran was to supplying the Soviet Union's war effort.
I had no idea that there was a famine caused by the effort and really appreciated all the time and research that went into creating and presenting this video. Great job!
Thank you for watching, George
Thank you very much for bringing this famine to attention
I was waiting for this one.
While other content creators are content with talking about the landing at Omaha Beach for the thousandth time this channel gladly teaches us about the War's other details
Thank you. We aim to cover the war in it's entirety, that means both Omaha Beach and the Iranian Famine.
had never heard of this before. Thank you for that education. As always, much appreciated. a broader perspective is de rigueur. Merci:)
Thanks for watching with us @Inspector29
The best part of this channel are the kitchen details … and it’s also the saddest 😖
God Bless you Spartacus !!!
Wow, I've never heard of it and it makes me feel kind of ashamed. Thank you for bringing this up!
Well, until earlier this year even I had never heard of it.
Yep. And there's a whole lot more you've yet to learn... and if you do, that shame will turn to anger.
I was vaguely aware of a food shortage in Iran only because of something I'd read years ago about Major General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr (father of General Schwarzkopf of Desert Storm fame and the lead investigator in the Lindbergh kidnapping case). I was not aware of the scale of it. Like the Bengal famine, it scarcely rates as even a footnote in the world history of the time. This was obviously a difficult topic to research, but I think you did as good a job as anyone can. Kudos for your balanced reporting and caveats. My main takeaway is don't trust the Brits as your food source in a crisis. If in doubt, just ask the Irish, Indians, and Iranians.
You answered my question- Schwarzkopf mentioned as a colonel was “Stormin’ Norman’s” father. Thanks.👍👍👍
@@bobbycrenshaw5167 You're welcome.
I disagree. The Bengal famine is well-known. This however, is not.
@@BountyFlamor The Bengal famine is well documented, but few people today have ever heard of it. Judging by what Spartacus said, the Iran famine is neither well documented nor well remembered today.
Incredible episode. I had never heard of this either. It makes me wonder what wake about this war I don't know. Thank you
Thank you Patrick. We appreciate your support
Great video! This topic is rarely talked about outside of Iran and many people are chocked when people bring it up. It is still very important and just overlooked. The occupation and destruction of Iranian infrastructure had major consequences even after the war so it is sad that not many people know about it.
All tragedies like this should not be forgotten. All those responsible may be dead but they deserve a blot on their historical record.
This is exactly the topic the episode ending is meant for, Never Forget. Major props to the timeghost team, and especially the army! I'd known about the Bengal famine but like many others I had never even heard about this in any way.
Glad you learned something here. A lot of us did.
Even as an Iranian, the only information I have about the famine was about my great-grandparents who lived in the north of Iran, under the soviet occupation zone, and how they would beg the soviets stationed there for sweets (which was often granted, at least in the retelling of the events to me. I think the events were "sanitised" as they've been told down the generations in my family however)
DO you support India or UK? I am an Indian and they did the same to us, but I heard many Iranians bootlick British.
@@Vitamins152I am Iranian and I don't like Britain, nothing to do with ordinary people but rather their manipulative and invasive history, while Indians are like a brother in east to us, always seen with curiosity and interest, i can't say much about India's government as they take a passive route and stay out of politics.
@@Mahdi-k4i Well, your Parsees that lived here backstabbed us to the British and fund anti-India activities even though we gave them food and shelter from Arab invaders. This is why I hold an extreme grudge against Persians today and wish your country the worst because of what your cousins did here.
Thanks for this, A great use of my Time ghost membership dollars, Bringing important forgotten history back to light.
Thanks for watching, Chris.
Thanks Sparty for this interest piece of forgotten history
Thank you Horacio
There was an old guy in my neighborhood who ran an Army surplus store. I only saw him once or twice but I did see an old photo of him in his service days and, ironically, he was a supply officer in Iran. He's long gone now so he can't answer any questions that this documentary brings to my mind. But, like most soldiers, I'm sure he did whatever he was ordered to do.
Very nicely done. There is nothing quite like coming to see your videos every week and learning something new.
Glad you keep coming back. We'll always continue shedding light on all aspects of WW2 history
Thank you for educating us with accurate history, as always 🤙
Thank you for watching, Ron
I had never heard of this. Thank you for covering this event!
Thank you for watching!
Damn 555% ? That's crazy!!
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up as a support of your channel
Thank you. This content is important.
Incredible. Thanks for sharing this history. New to me. I greatly appreciate you and your teams' approach to reporting on history and not acting simply as a text book.
Fantastic content. I had never hear of this until now. Thank you for bringing this information to light.
You're very welcome. Glad you learned something.
This is so well done! You slways learn something new
Thank you for remembering this dark history with us. I'm glad you enjoyed it & learned.
Thanks for bringing up this much overlooked topic and giving so many details on it.
It's interesting that when countries go to war, as for *food* for civilians they only care about citizens of their own at home or their immediate allies, while abroad only for their own soldiers - not about the rest of the world. Today we see the same with the food from the Black Sea area being blocked for reasons connected to a country's individual objectives in a war. It's sad.
Thank you for remembering with us, Lars
The sheer scope of the effects of WW2 is just astronomical. Never Forget...
Never forget
Would you be able to talk about the Persian Famine of World War 1 as well? (Which is was also as result of British/Russian intervention and occupation and diversion of supplies and food).
Yes, that one too!!
We cover WW2 on this channel, that would be a bit outside our timeline
@@WorldWarTwo My apologies. Thank you!
My hometown is in the Jolfa County of the East Azerbaijan Province of Iran. There's an old train bridge over the Aras river in there which the Soviets used as a path to invade Iran's territory. There were only few Iranian soldiers defending at the other side of the bridge and eventually were killed by Soviets, but they still had managed to delay their invasion plan for hours.
Thank you for sharing about your hometown's history.
You're Welcome. By the way, at the site I mentioned there are also the graves of these soldiers and a memorial. The Soviets had buried their bodies there after they saw all the resistance was just put up by them.
There were also two other routes in North of Iran which the Soviets took for the invasion.
At South of Iran also the Iranian chief of navy named 'Qolamali Bayandor' also attempted to put up resistance against the British.
Super interesting. The more you learn, the more you can understand attitudes of many communities.
That is a great insight. Thank you for watching.
I just finished reading Anthony Beevor's "Stalingrad" where Russian soldiers wondered at the extravagance of American "C" and "K" rations, oblivious to the human cost of their receiving these supplies when the Allies redirected the rail assets from regional Iran to the supply routes North. The food didn't get to rural Iran.
Beevor is a cold warrior pig extraordinaire, not a serious historian
In 'The Unfree French,' Richard Vinan, 2006, the author connects German food rationing to a substantial rise in maternal and infant mortality. Long before the level of 'famine' is reached, interruptions in food supply and access have a cost in lives. Trying to parse out the death-toll from a 'real' famine is probably impossible since so many 'other cause' deaths would not have occurred without food shortage tipping the medical, social, and economic scales.
Excellent history: newly revealed Iran famine during WW2 makes some current events more understandable - as true history always does.
Glad you liked it! We appreciate the kind words.
Wow. Excellent work!
The coverage of so much of the war years,
in a number of areas, has always been relatively nebulous...
Iran being an excellent example.
I was exposed to a lot of new, detailed information today.
Thank you.
Thank you for watching, Black Bear.
TG keeps reaching new heights, thanks guys! 👏🏼
Thanks for watching!
Allways gets those feels going thanks Spartacus.
Thank you for watching, Darrel
Thank you for this piece of forgotten history. The dead were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc. They are equally dead as those killed in battle and are equally mourned by their surviving family members. The “ends justify the means” reduces people to just statistics. Numbers, not breathing people. There are no victors in war, just victims.
Thank you for remembering them with us
Great content. I really enjoyed this.
Thanks @Habib Aghasafari!
A flat out instance of imperialist aggression against a neutral country. It's hard to find a good guy in WWII...you just pick the worst guy to demonize and hope no one notices the other guys' sins.
Also, the too me mystery of Iranian hostility to the US, UK and Russia is suddenly made clear.
Yep.
I would hate us too.
Yes, as Iranian I can tell you that we even hate the French because of Irano-Russian war during Napoleonic era of the nineteenth century.
All colonial and imperialist powers are hated by Iranians.
@@shawnr771 Iran is the enemy of Sunni nations because they are Shiite. This goes back centuries to the 700s AD when there was a split in Islam over who would be Mohammad's successor. They have been fighting over this issue ever since. You can't blame these ancient animosities on the Allies.
@@ToddSauve No but I can blame some of their animosties towards the western powers for the shortsightedness of the United Kingdom.
Who pretty much screwed over anybody they ever colonized.
Like every other colonial master.
@@shawnr771 The British were pretty mild compared to Spain, France, Belgium and Germany. Bad decisions were made, nevertheless. Colonialism never seems to work out all that well for the colonized. It could have, but the entire human race desires to take more from their neighbour than they ever give. That is the problem. "Love your neighbour as yourself" is the solution. 🤷♂
Stuff like this is why I like TimeGhost and his topics such as War Against Humanity. We all know of the battles that took place, but the famines and other diseases that ravaged the globe both during and after the war have gone mostly unnoticed.
As the saying goes "history doesn't happen in a vacuum". Those battles took place in the context of famine, disease, and genocide, and vice-versa.
Thanks!
Thank you for the donation!
Very good and informative account. Thank you.
Thank you! We do our best!
World War Two yet again teaches me something I had no idea about thank you and to the people who brought this to you’re attention 💙
icecoffee Thank you for helping us remember.
Certain aspects/events in history are sometimes omitted or even erased for the “common good”. That is why common people never find out the real events/causes for those incidences. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Thank you Marina!
There are a lot of famines that don't seem to be recognized. Thank you Timeghost.
Thank you for watching, Alex
This reminds me of the bengal famine
We also covered the Bengal famine th-cam.com/video/_jnxVyc4s1A/w-d-xo.html
The US Army ran Alco RS-1 diesel locomotives through this corridor on the USSR bound supply trains. In the postwar period they were transferred to the Alaska Railway, going from one of the hottest parts of the world to one of the coldest.
Thank you.
Thank you for watching, Richard
A great piece of little known history, well done.
Thank you for helping us remember it, Lemonhead.
I had no idea about this. Thank you for bringing this important event to a broader attention in the world.
Yet another reminder that, while the Nazis and Japan were pretty clearly "the bad guys", none of the major players were simply "the good guys". The USSR helped start the war, and France and Britain often treated the people in their colonial holdings, or in this case neutral Iran, not really any better than Nazi Germany treated the western and northern european countries they invaded.
In the modern day, many people in the west see the Iran and some other middle eastern countries as enemies, or even generally Bad Guys. And while there is certainly a lot to be said about various human rights abuses in the country... given how we have treated Iran through the past 100-200 years of its history, there are unfortunately some very good reasons why Iran considers the west its enemy.
For two decades I have read about WWII in many many books and countless other productions and the most I could find was mention of Britain and Russia occupying zones of Iran to keep supply lines open (most of it as just British military officials fretting in letters about the safety of the road to India) but couldn't find much more. I always wondered why, especially with the Tehran conference. Now I know why. Thank you so much. I will definitely be picking up Persian Gulf Command.
The thing with silences in the record is that they only become more entrenched as more books fail to mention them. We're happy we've been able to correct that somewhat for you and others.
Persian Gulf Command is a highly readable account from an Anglo-British perspective, Ashley Jackson is a great historian. Majd's "Iran Under Allied Occupation In World War II" is also informative if you can bring yourself to battle through 700+ pages of diplomatic correspondence.
@@WorldWarTwo I would actually love to read 700 pgs of diplomatic correspondence lol. It's the $100 price tag that makes that book a little unattainable.
@@jamescook2199 Is it available in PDF form? I will buy it and share it with you
@@mightiestalone9851 There are pdf e-books of it out there.
knew nothing about this well done
Much the same happened in Bengal in 1943 - estimates of almost 4 million deaths from starvation and disease whilst under British rule.
Churchill wanted to relive the Bengalis with grain from Canada but the Japanese navy was in the way in 1943. There is too little that is known about these famines to make conclusive statements yet.
@@ToddSauve people like you are sociopath, incapable of empathy just because you want to defend your racist imperialists.
@@ToddSauvecope
and it's amazing that they just say about jews genocide
Never forget.
Something I had never heard of in any other WW2 history. And the usual short-sighted incompetence of the British political class rears its ugly head again.
It's disasters of policy like this that leave me disgusted with my own country.
This comment is to show my support for the channel, and to help with its algorithm
@Salty Much appreciated!
History we don't know. Thank You
Thank you for watching, John
The more I watch this channel, the more this one truth shines the most : in war, both side will commit terrible things to win, whether by design, accident or indifference. WW2 was often portrayed as a "bad guys VS good guys", and it's finally becoming much less so.
It's astonishing that we know almost nothing of a famine caused by the Allies that killed people on a level similar to the Holocaust. It's almost as if the people didn't matter to the powers fighting each other.
Never forget indeed.
A well made episode, as always.
I have a question : have your videos been monetized by TH-cam? They are throwing a lot of ads in my views and I was hoping at least some made it to you guys in support of your endeavor.
@Thanks for your kind words. Monetisation on youtube is hit-and-miss, WAH videos in aprticular are often demonetised as 'not suitable for advertisers' and there is nothing we can do about it. That's why the TimeGhost Army is so important, as even the videos which are montised bring in nowhere near enough money to cover what it costs to produce our content
I had never heard of that. Actually, I didn't know anything about the fate of Iran during the war. So thank you.
Thank you for watching as always.