Colonel Pessian

Colonel Mohammad Taqi-Khan Pessian (1892 – 3 October 1921) (also spelled as Pesyan and Pesseyan) was a popular military leader of Iran. He is also famously known as being the first Iranian to successfully pilot an aircraft.

Pessian was born into an aristocratic Azerbaijani family in Tabriz originating in the Caucasus. Pessian's family possessed strong military traditions, his uncle General Hamzeh Khan Pessian was a commander in the Persian Cossack Brigade, his cousins Heydar Qoli Khan Pessian – father of Iranian author and journalist, Mahtalad Pessian, and grandfather of Anglo-Iranian journalist and author, Cherry Mosteshar – Ali Qoli Khan Pessian, Gholam Reza Khan Pessian and he himself served in Gendarmerie.

In Tabriz Mohammad Taqi was educated in sciences, Persian, Arabic and foreign languages. In 1907 he left for Tehran to continue his education and entered military college in Germany where he became one of the first Iranians to learn to fly. After 5 years he took up the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Gendarmerie, within two years he was promoted to Captain. After that he held a variety of posts such as Second Commander in a battalion in Qazvin, served in Hamedan and Yazd and also was an instructor and interpreter at Gendarmerie school in Yusef Abad, Tehran. He was promoted to Major when World War I broke out.

In November 1915 as commander of the Gendarmerie in Hamedan he launched an attack on the pro-Russian Persian Cossack Brigade at the Battle of Musalla. His gendarmes managed to disarm the Persian Cossacks and Mohammad Taqi managed to convince some of the cossacks to join his forces in a patriotic speech he made to them after their defeat. Mohammad Taqi and Major Azizollah Khan Zarghami as Gendarmerie commanders could not defend Hamedan against an advancing Russian Caucasus Army which was superior in numbers and weapons. The gendarmes retreated to Kermanshah where they were defeated by the Russians, with many fleeing to the Ottoman Empire. August 1916 saw the return of gendarmes to Kermanshah but again were defeated and this time many went to live in exile in Istanbul while Mohammad Taqi returned to live in exile in Berlin.

Colonel Pessian in Germany

During his time in Berlin, he was trained as a pilot in the German Airforce and was rewarded with the Eisernes Kreuz Medal for shooting down more than 25 enemy aircraft during World War I. He also translated many works from Persian to/from French, German and English, some of these included Alphone de Lamartine and Rabindranath Tagore. He also wrote two books in Persian, Sargozasht-e yek javan-e vatandoust and Jang-e Moqaddas az Baghdad ta Iran.

In 1920 Mohammad Taqi returned to Iran and joined the Gendarmerie. In June 1920 he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and in September 1920 he became commander of Gendarmerie of Khorasan. On 3 April 1921 in a military coup with his small force of only 200 Gendarms, he had Ahmad Qavam, the Governor-general of Khorasan, arrested and sent him to Tehran where he was imprisoned. He then became head of the provincial Autonomous Government of Khorasan. In June, when Ahmad Qavam was released from prison and became Premier of Iran, he tried to take revenge on Pessian and ordered that Pessian should be beheaded, this in fact happened on 3 October 1921 when Pessian and his small force of 150 gendarmes were circled by a force of strong 1,000 plus mounted Kurdish tribesmen in a battle fought near Quchan, his head was brought to Tehran to prove that he had been killed. For five continuous years after his death, on 3 October people of Khorasan mourned his death.

He is buried in Mashhad, Khorasan in the same garden that contains Nader Shah's tomb.