Persian famine of 1917–1919

The Persian famine of 1917–1919 (Persian: قحطی ۱۲۹۶-۱۲۹۸ ایران) was a period of widespread mass starvation and disease in Iran under the rule of the Qajar dynasty during World War I. The famine took place in the territory of Iran, which, despite declaring neutrality, was occupied by the forces of the British, Russian, and Ottoman empires whose occupation contributed to the famine. So far, few historians have researched the famine, making it an understudied subject of modern history.

According to mainstream scholarship, approximately 2 million people died between 1917 and 1919. By contrast, Mohammad Gholi Majd has cited much higher estimates of 8–10 million excess deaths, although Majd's figures have not gained widespread acceptance among academic historians or awareness among the general public. The death toll was caused by hunger and from diseases, which included cholera, plague and typhus, as well as influenza stemming from the 1918 flu pandemic. A variety of factors are believed to have caused and contributed to the famine, including successive seasonal droughts, requisitioning and confiscation of foodstuffs by occupying armies, speculation, hoarding, war profiteering, and poor harvests.