War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and ... - Oguzlar.az

Building a new army 53and, as far as the tribal forces were concerned, loyalty to their chiefs andespecially the hope of plunder. An ideological dimension was often given tomajor military campaigns by the declaration of a jihad.As campaigns were undertaken only during the summer, the troops mostlymarched at night, with torches and music. Early Qajar armies were capable,on occasion, of covering large distances quickly. In 1795 Agha MohammadKhan marched with his cavalry from Tehran to Tiblisi (Tiflis) in 15 days.But the passage of an army was a catastrophe for the local populations. Whenon the march, the troops lived almost entirely at the expense of the inhabitantsof the districts through which they travelled. The army intendants gavereceipts for the supplies which the troops took, and the value of the supplieswas supposed to be deducted from the revenues due from the local population,but the reduction was rarely made, and the districts suffered almost asif they had been occupied by an enemy force. The sudden demands of a largenumber of troops for food, forage and transport threatened a rural populationsurviving on subsistence agriculture with a scarcity which might reachfamine levels.In its struggle with the Russia in the late eighteenth–early nineteenth centuries,Iran was able to campaign with a considerable degree of effectiveness.14 The early Qajar shahs were able to assemble large armies. During thefirst Russo-Iranian war (1804–1813) the Iranian forces were several times largerthan their Russian enemy in the eastern Caucasus, and European observerscommented on the skills of marksmanship and horsemanship displayed bythe cavalry. Their approach to fighting was, to European eyes, undisciplinedand disorganized, resembling a tribal raid, and success was often dissipateddue to the troops abandoning the battle in order to loot. But, by using thetactics of tribal raiding, the Iranians avoided the formal battles which wouldhave favoured disciplined forces, relying primarily on guerrilla raids, pickingoff small, isolated detachments, harrying enemy communications and soon. With these methods the Iranian forces were able to deny victory to Russiafor nine years, despite the latter’s immense superiority in size and resources. 15Early Qajar military reform: French and British missionsThe first attempts to introduce European concepts of military organizationto Iran took place at the beginning of the seventeenth century when ShahAbbas, taking advice from the British adventurers, the Sherley brothers, raiseda large force of infantry on the European model armed with muskets. Yet,under Shah Abbas, battles continued to be little other than large-scalecavalry engagements. In the eighteenth century Nader Shah, having concludedthat the Europeans’ victories over the Ottomans were due to the discipline andorder with which they fought, studied foreign methods, began to organizean artillery and entrusted the direction and command of newly raised infantryto European, mostly French, officers. Nonetheless he too continued to depend