The Iranian and Russian Armies
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Appendix 3 The Iranian and Russian Armies Scholars point out that Iran was totally unprepared to face the Russian onslaught. After the fall of the Safavids, Iran had lived in relative isolation, with few or no diplomatic ties with the West and was largely removed from the currents of global events. The early Qajars, therefore, had little knowledge of the scientific, military and economic changes which had propelled Russia into a world power.1 The Iranian army of the height of the Safavid era had become extinct. Nader Shah had to create a permanent army by uniting the various Turkic and Kurdish tribes and by recruiting Arabs, Afghans and Indians. He had also instituted military ranks and a disciplined infantry, and, with the help of European officers, had created a light artil- lery. His military victories against the Ottomans and the Mughals had restored Iran to the condition it had attained during the first seven decades of the seventeenth century. After his death, however, the army had split into its former tribal groups, whose leaders fought each other for supremacy.2 Although Aqa Mohammad Shah did not have a permanent army, his personal sense of discipline and his attention for the welfare of his troops gained him their loyalty, and enabled him to defeat his rivals and to reestablish Iranian control over the South Caucasus. His infantry was disciplined, could march long distances without fatigue and could exist on meager provisions. Although he had no artillery save for the zanburaks, his cavalry was excellent and their horses could climb mountains easily and travel through snow.3 Aqa Mohammad, however, did not have to face a Russian army in battle and his as- sassination left his army in disarray. Unfortunately, his heir, Fath-ʿAli Shah, who did not have his uncle’s personality, had to face a modern Russian army with an inferior Asian force. Moreover, between 1797 and 1803, the new Shah had to contend as well with 1 See Rudi Matthee’s admirable analysis, “Historiographical Reflections on the Eighteenth Century in Iranian History: Decline and Insularity, Imperial Dreams, or Regional Specificity?” M. Axworthy, ed. Crisis, Collapse, Militarism and Civil War: The History and Historiography of 18th Century Iran (Oxford, 2018), 21–42. 2 Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 266–269. 3 Louis-Francois de Ferrières-Sauveboeuf, Mémoires historiques, politiques et géographiques des Voyages faits en Turquie, en Perse, et en Arabie depius 1782, jusqu’en 1789, II (Paris, 1790), 68– 70. For the conditions in Iran in the last year of Aqa Mohammad Shah’s reign, see Guillaume Antoine Olivier, Voyage dans l’empire Othoman, l’Egypte et la Perse, vols. V–VI (Paris, 1807). Malcolm states that Aqa Mohammad had 60,000 horsemen during his 1795 campaign across the Aras River, John Malcolm, History of Persia, II (London, 1819), 190. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004445161_013 George A. Bournoutian - 9789004445161 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 03:53:22PM via free access 266 Appendix 3 a number of challengers and rebels, a fact which helps to explain the ease by which Russia annexed Georgia. Figures for the number of Iranian troops in any battle are extremely unreliable. The Iranian chroniclers estimated the number by sight and assumed that the reader would subtract a certain amount. Iranian primary sources do not provide much infor- mation on the composition of their army and the type of weapons used during the First Russo-Iranian War. Such information as we have comes mainly from French and English sources, whose governments viewed Iran as a valuable ally during the Napoleonic pe- riod. Between 1800 and 1813, members of the French and English missions to Iran left various accounts on the state of the Iranian military. The French accounts start in 1806 and end in the beginning of 1809. Their accounts, therefore, portray the state of the Iranian army on the eve of the reforms initiated by ʿAbbas Mirza. The British accounts begin with Malcolm’s notes in 1800 and continue after the arrival of their envoys between 1809 and their departure following the Golestan agreement.4 The most de- tailed account is by Gaspard Drouville, a French officer in Russian service, who went to Iran at the end of the First Russo-Iranian War.5 Fath-ʿAli Shah’s army was composed of regular and irregular troops. The irregular troops formed the infantry. Because they were recruited from among the peasants they were greatly despised by the cavalrymen. Their pay was extremely low (hence their tendency to loot) and they returned to their villages at the end of a campaign. They were dressed in blue linen pantaloons and a jacket of sheepskin They were armed with out-of-date matchlock muskets, daggers and sabers.6 The cavalry was composed of some 40,000 cavalry units, led by tribal chiefs, who were summoned to Tehran at the start of a campaign in late spring and who would re- turn home in late fall. In addition, the Shah could call upon his sons to assemble their 4 The main French accounts are by P.A. Jaubert, Voyage en Arménie at en Perse (Paris, 1821); P.A. Gardane, Journal d’un voyage dans la Turquie d’Asie et la Perse (Paris, 1809); and J. Tancoigne, A Narrative of a Journey into Persia (London, 1820). The main British accounts are by J. Malcolm, A History of Persia and his Sketches of Persia (London, 1845); J. Morier, A Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople (London, 1812) and his A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople (London, 1818); H. Jones (Brydges), Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court of Persia in the Years 1807–1811, 2 vols. (London, 1834); and W. Ouseley, Travels in Various Countries of the East, 3 vols. (London, 1821). 5 G. Drouville, Voyage en Perse fait en 1812 et 1813, II (Paris, 1825). 6 For further details, see U. Rabi and N. Ter-Oganvov, “The Military of Qajar Iran: The Features of an Irregular Army from the Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century,” Iranian Studies, vol. 45, no. 3 (May 2012), 333–354. For a full color illustration, see ibid., 90–95. Drouville’s information on the Iranian army and his color illustrations have been translated and repro- duced in an article in the Russian military magazine Tseikhgauz (from the German term “Zeughaus” for arsenal) by Kibovskii, A. & Egorov, V. “Persidskaia reguliarnaia armiia pervoi polovine XIX v.,” Tseikhgauz (5, 1996), 20–25. George A. Bournoutian - 9789004445161 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 03:53:22PM via free access The Iranian and Russian Armies 267 troops in Soltaniyeh or Ujan in case of a major war. For example, the prince-governor of Khorasan could bring 20,000 horsemen, while Mohammad-ʿAli Mirza, the governor of Kermanshah and Kurdistan, had 15,000 horsemen at his disposal.7 The Shah’s personal army was composed of his cavalry of gholams, who were armed and maintained at his own expense. They were led by Esmaʿil Beg of Damghan, num- bered between 3,000 and 4,000 and were armed with outdated muskets.8 They escort- ed the Shah when he appeared in public or went on a hunt. In addition, the Shah had between 8,000–12,000 tofangchis, known as janbaz,9 composed of fusiliers from the Qajar stronghold of Mazandaran and Astarabad. They were better armed and clothed than the rest of the infantry and formed his royal bodyguards.10 With the exception of the Yerevan campaign of 1804, the Shah and his army did not take part in the war.11 Realizing the Russian threat to his northern border, he had given the revenues from the rich province of Azarbayjan to ʿAbbas Mirza, in order for him to arm and equip the necessary force to drive out the Russians from the South Caucasus. Both Iranian and European sources agree that the Shah and ʿAbbas Mirza hoped to use European military skills to modernize his army. After witnessing the disciplined advance and retreat of the Russian infantry and cavalry, as well as the superior fire power of the Russian artillery in his early encounters, ʿAbbas Mirza recruited to a num- ber of Russian deserters to help modernize his army. The best known among them was a staff sergeant, named Samson Makintsev.12 Initially the few Russian deserters were 7 Kotzebue, 245. 8 For a full color illustration, see Drouville, II, 102–103. 9 For a full-color illustration, see ibid., 108–109. 10 J. Tancoigne, A Narrative of a Journey into Persia and Residence at Teheran (London, 1820), 245–252. James Morier, Journey, 239–242. See also Steven Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces (Georgetown, 2009), 64–65; Kaveh Farrokh, Iran At War, 1500–1988 (Long Island City, 2011), 179. 11 See Chapter 4. Although the Shah crossed the Aras in 1805, the Russian threat to Gilan, forced him to retreat, see Chapter 5. 12 Russian sources mention Samson Makintsev (known as Samson Khan) a sergeant from the Nizhnii-Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, who in 1802 fled to Iran and was put in charge of a battalion composed of Russian deserters. Another document states that he was from the Borisoglebsk Dragoon Regiment, Akty, VI/1 doc. 630. Other Russians, like Solomon Yenikolopov and David and Zaal Saginov deserted in 1809, A. Berzhe, “Samson Yakovlevich Makintsev i russkie begletsy v Persii, 1806–1853 gg,” Russkaia Starina, 4 (1876), 773. The main source in English is Stephanie Cronin’s, “Deserters, Converts, Cossacks and Revolutionaries: Russian in Iranian Military Service, 1800–1920,” Middle East Studies, Vol.