170 Kilometers south of Kirovabad
February 5, 1936
Vacietis smirked. Communist sympathizers in the court of the Persian king, led by Dinshah Irani, a pretender to the throne, had made contact with him concerning a cessation of violence and an end to the invasion in return for the transition of considerable territories from Persian rule to Soviet sovereignty. He fiddled with the slip of paper with two fingers as he looked at the map of Persia, in his mind drawing the Persian-suggested demarcation lines. The Persians Communists insisted that they'd be perfectly willing to accept a greatly weakened Persia, one which held onto only Teheran, Babolsar and Abadan. All the rest, they suggested, would go to the Soviet Union, even its major port in the Persian Gulf, which was located at Bandar Abbas.
The Persian Communists' peace offer, which gave most of Persia to the Soviet Union.
Vacietis finished playing with the paper, having mentally drawn out the lines. In one sense, it was a very tempting offer; the amount of territory the Soviet Union gained dwarfed the possible territory it could gain in Europe when measured by sheer land mass. However, Vacietis did not judge anything simply by sheer amount of land. Vacietis was wily enough to know that the territory the Persians were willing to give up was worthless; mountain and desert. Its total worth was less than that of Kharkov, Kiev or Sevastopol. However, he could not alienate the Persian Communists for they would be the men running the country once it was a Moscow-directed client state. To alienate them would be to invite difficulties later.
Thus Vacietis wiped the smirk off his face, hoping that the man in front of him would take it as merely a smile of interest rather than of disdain. The man in front of him already styled himself as some sort of foreign minister, his name was Ja'fer Pishevari. However, Vacietis noted that his style was lacking. He preferred browbeating his opponent into submission, with liberal use of shouting, arm-waving, face reddening and table pounding, rather than using anything that might possibly resemble tact. He was quite a brute, and one iron fisted enough to keep his job no matter how incompetent he actually was. Vacietis suspected that he was
very incompetent.
Certainly, Vacietis was not impressed by the man's already red face. He had already gone on at length on the amount of land the Soviet Union would be gaining from accepting the peace offer. He hinted that with such a defeat, the Persian king would topple from his throne and the Communists might possibly gain control. Vacietis smiled at this; Ja'fer Pishevari only thought he was hinting. Rather, he was actually arguing this bluntly enough that even he might blush with shame should he actually hear himself speak. Vacietis knew that the Persians could not imagine that the Soviets had no use for land in this region of the world, especially not useless land. Nor could the Persians imagine that the entire purpose of Vacietis' campaign was to place the Persian Communists in power. Looking up from his seat at Ja'fer Pishevari, however, Vacietis knew he could not reveal this. Ja'fer Pishevari was far too tactless, and simply undeserving of knowing such information.
Vacietis looked down on the map again, ignoring the Persian in front of him, who was beginning to fidget as much in anger as awkwardness. This time, he studied the map to map out how far into Persia his Front had reached. In the west, Tabriz had still not fallen, which disappointed Vacietis and left him feeling slightly ashamed. In the east, however, not only had Rasht fallen, but Teheran as well. Petrushevskij's cavalry had already begun dashing southward toward Esfahan. Though the infantry was trailing his fast-moving corps and was still located between Rasht and Teheran. The Persian army had been pushed aside into the deserts to the east of their capital and had become nearly irrelevant. The Persians were in no position to propose peace offers when soon they might be left with nothing, if the men in the Kremlin changed their minds on the fate of Persia. Vacietis smiled at that. Persia was a powerless spectator in its own defeat.
He looked back up at Ja'fer Pishevari and sighed before bluntly firing a question at him. “How valuable is all this land you wish to give us?”
Pishevari was taken aback by the question and stood agape at Vacietis as he continued. “As far as I can tell, there are only three truly strategically valuable locations in Persia. The first is obviously Teheran, the capital. Which, incidentally, we currently hold. The second is Bandar Abbas with its major naval facilities, which are you willing to give us. The third is Abadan with its fuel refinery. We have no interest in expanding further into the Persian Gulf area at the moment; Bandar Abbas is worthless to us at the moment. Teheran's factories do not interest the Soviet Union either for they pale into insignificance. This leaves Abadan, which we do not have yet but which you do not yet wish to give us. Oil is always of vital import to an industrialized nation. We are an industrialized nation, you are not. If your generals had had any sense they would have realized this from the beginning and fought at Tabriz, not spend their soldiers at Teheran and Rasht. Now Persia will pay for the mistake of its blundering leadership.”
Ja'fer Pishevari could only open and close his mouth, split between fury, humiliation, shock and, admittely, some admiration. Vacietis pretended not to see as he continued even further. “With no Persian defenses between Tabriz and Abadan, the latter will fall soon. Bandar Abbas shall as well. Persia will have no choice but to succumb. Even the most powerful of Persians can do little but watch as history turns against them at last. Persia had survived the Greeks, the Mongols and the Turks unbowed. Persia will, however, finally bow down and receive its new and final master: the Soviet Union.”
With a gesture, he dismissed Ja'fer Pishevari, who was escorted out by a guard, still speechless. Vacietis chuckled to himsel. His time as the commander-in-chief of the Red Army had served him well; he was a damn good theater commander.