Nasser Al-Din Shah's son, Mozzafar Al-Din was an old child, as one of his companions once said. Waiting in his position og heir to the throne for 37 years, he never tried to learn how to really govern a country. He inherited Ali Asghar Khan, prime minister of his father, and the true ruler of the country. Although not nearly as strong as his father, "Abji Mozzafar" (sister Mozzafar, as he was called by the critics) made two trips to the "Farang", and spend a lot of money and bought a lot of useless things.
Coming with Mozzafar from Tabriz, where he held the position of governor of Azerbaijan, where a group of people known to the others as "Turks", although not many of them where actually Turk. These people who have been waiting for over 30 years for Mozzafar to become Shah, and now they could not control themselves, so they started emptying the treasury. This was not very pleasing to the people, especially the "Fars" group of courtians. So this started something that would burn the whole monarchy, at least it was suppose to!
God knows if it was a national thing or as some suggest, another conspiracy of "the English", but whatever it was, it was large. After the death of Nasser Al-Din Shah, intellectuals and oppositions both inside and outside the country found a situation in which they could voice their complains. Newspapers started to publish, books started to be written, parties came to existance, and for the first time, people started questioning the "divine" right of the king.
Who knows how, but some how, the courtians and nobles, mostly from the "Fars" group started to enter the scene. They began arranging meetings and leading people. It might be that they wanted to kick the "Turks" out, but lets be optimistic, maybe they were really thinking of the people! (sic.) Anyhow, some of these "nobles" became famous as the great "liberalists" and they started pressuring the old king to sign the guideline for limiting his own power, constitution. Finally, he did, and maybe because of it, he died almost immidiatly after, leaving the throne for his son, Mohammad Ali.
Meanwhile, the revolutionaries did not waste anytime taking advantage of the moment. They found a big building, and created the house of commons. Then they started the election for the first parliament. It went pretty good, and it was actually working, bringing almost democracy to the country, but Mohammad Ali was far too big (and fat...) of a trouble to get rid of.
The new Shah had a lot of things said behind his back. First that he is not the son of his father, which is a pretty big accusation, but considering his mothers behaviour, who knows!!! The other thing was that he was too much of and "absolutist" to be trusted with the throne of "constitutional monarchy". But the leaders of the revolution were pretty optimistic, so they brought the new king and put his hand on the Qoran and made him promise not to betray the "constitution". He did, but apparently his hand was from the wood, because after a while, he got the itch of getting rid of all these commoners.
Mohammad Ali Shah could not trust any of his Iranian courtians to do the job form him, so he look for the help from his northern allies, Russians. A small group of Kaczak soldiers, created by the Russians, were available in Iran. They were the result of Nasser Al-Din Shah's desire to have a "Russian" military, and also an advantage given to Ruissia to make them happy after all of the advantages given to the English. Leader of the Kaczaks, Colonel Liyakhov, was an absolutist, so that made the problem easy.
After escaping a murder conspiracy, Mohammad Ali Shah ordered Liyakhov to bombard the Parliament. Liyakhov killed many of the MPs, and Mohammad Ali Shah's guards captured the rest. Their leaders, people like Malek ol-Motekalemmin or Soor-e Esrafil, who were the major forces, were hanged, and the rest were sent to exile.
Mohammad Ali Shah started the short lived "absolutist" period this way. The leaders of the opposition who escaped the death, began planning for re-establishing the old way. Helped by the demonstrations inside the country and by the support given from the religious leaders, revolution started again.
Few incidents lead to the dethrownment of Mohammad Ali Shah. One was the strike of the "Bazaar" merchants against the taxes and punishments, and the other one was the great sit-in in the British Embassy in Tehran, where more than a 100 thousand people demonstrated against the governament. Also military like oppositions from all sides of the country started moving toward the capital. Sattar Khan and Bagher Khan from Azerbaijan, Sepahsallar From the North, and Sardar-Asad from the south. These forces met each other behind the gates of Tehran, and "conquered" the capital together.
Mohammad Ali Shah had to resign. He was sent to exile first to Odessa and then to Itally, where he died around 15 years later. He tried several more times to recapture his lost thrown, but he never succeeded.
Mohammad Ali Shah's 10 year old son, Ahmad Shah, was chosen to become the new king. Because he was a minor, the parliament found him a regent, Ali Reza Khan Qajar, an old man who was neither absolutist nor constitutionalist, he was just old!
This second constitutional period proved to be less pure than the first one. A lot of foreign influence enetered the thoughts of the people, mainly through the new leaders of the revolution who were mainly western educted and not always very patriotic. Many popular poets and intellectaulls started talking about the British hand in the whole second revolution and how they are getting closer to swallow the whole country. This thought was empowered by the election of openely "Anglophile" Vosoogh Al-Doleh to the prime ministership. Vosoogh made a treaty with the British, a treaty which was considered by many to be the official document of selling the country to the British. A series of oppoisitions started, and the ended by the rise of a new, obvious British trick.
Being disappointed in attracting now adult Ahmad Shah's attention toward working with them, and seeing no opposition from the Russians after the revolution of 1917, the British decided to act fast. Using the skills of their ambassador in Iran, general Ironside, they designed a Coup d'Etat. For acting the parts of the leaders of the Coup, they chose the Journalist Seyyed Zia and the former Kaczak troops liutenant, Reza Khan Maxim.
The Coup was successful, Seyyed Zia became the new Prime Minister and Reza Khan occupied the position of Ministery of War. Seyyed Zia ordered the arrest of a large group of countries rich and famous. He kept them in jail for ransom, asked in the form of unpaid taxes. But there was one problem, Seyyed Zia did not follow the guidelines correctly, so after 100 days in power, he and his "Black Cabinet" were fired from the job! This time, the British chose the better person, Reza Khan.
Reza Khan was an illiterate soldier from Savad Kuh area of Mazandaran province in the north of Iran. He joined the Kaczak troops when he was young in search of money and respect. Before participating in the Coup, he served many of the rich and famous that Seyyed Zia sent to jail. Reza Khan was perfect for the role, he was obediant and without any plans of his own.
Reza Khan occupied the position of Prime Minister after over powering 5 cabinets that came after Seyyed Zia from his position of Minister of War. Sradar Sepah, as he was now called, was a pretty brutal and not-very-pleasant man. He did not really understand the etiquettes of the court, and used insult as a very strong weapon against the people he did not agree with! Thus during his reign, words like "Pedar sookhte" or "J...sh" were very common!(sorry, untranslateble, but use your immagination). He was also unable to read, which lead to a lot of Jokes, still being told, after 70 years!
Anyway, Reza Khan's Premiership was the death blow to the old and corrupt Qajar Dynasty. In a Parliament whose memebers were chosen for the purpose, Reza Khan Maxim was declaired king as Reza Shah Pahlavi, and that was the end of Qajars, whose last king, Ahmad Shah, was living in Monte Carlo for the past two years, leaving the power to Sardar Sepah. Many say that Ahmad Shah was not a weak or indifferent king as evidence suggest, but that he was rather powerless infront of the Reza Khan and the English support. Whatever he was, he was for sure the last king of Qajars. Soon after overthrow, his heir to the throne and brother, Prince Mohammad Hassan and all his family were also sent exile. They moved to England, when Prince Mohammad Hassan's son grew up and joined the Royal British Navy!
Reza Khan was now the absolute ruler of a constitutional monarchy. With his rule, the great Constitutional Era did not end in a violant act as the first one did, it was just slowly put to rest, so slow that nobody felt its absence for a long time!