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

54 Stephanie Croninprincipally on his cavalry, the new infantry regiments playing little part infighting his wars. Nader Shah’s army collapsed after his death and by the lateeighteenth century none of the several Iranian experiments with Europeanmethods had achieved any enduring effect.The first Qajar ruler, Agha Mohammad Khan, with the military forceshe was able to muster, successfully established Qajar power throughout Iranand temporarily drove the forces of the advancing Russian empire back beyondTiblisi, reasserting Iranian supremacy over the kingdom of Georgia. On hisaccession in 1797 Fath-Ali Shah was also able to command sufficient militarystrength to defeat his internal rivals and secure his position as shah.However in 1803 Russia invaded and annexed Georgia, considered by Iranas a vassal state, and continued to push southwards. Russia’s inexorable pressureforced Fath-Ali Shah (1797–1834) and especially his son, the crown princeand governor of Azerbaijan, Abbas Mirza, to embark on a major militaryreorganization in the hope of increasing Iran’s defensive capacity. 16 AbbasMirza’s initiative was the first in a long series of attempts by Qajar rulers toset up a standing army on the European model with the help of missions offoreign officers. 17Fath-Ali Shah and Abbas Mirza made the first systematic attempt in Iranat military reform along modern European lines, the political context beingprovided by the first Russo-Iranian war (1804–1813). 18 Both the shah andhis son were convinced that the introduction of regiments of European-styletroops would enable them to break the deadlock in the war with Russiaand win victory, regaining lost territory in the Caucasus and thus helping tolegitimize their dynasty. In the early nineteenth century the province ofAzerbaijan and its capital, Tabriz, constituted the front line against Russianexpansion, and was the focus of Iran’s military efforts. Its military conditionwas also important for another reason. Tabriz was, by tradition, theseat of the crown prince, and it was essential that the heir apparent possesssufficient armed strength to impose acceptance of his claim to the throne againstthe inevitable challenges on the death of the shah.Abbas Mirza, like his contemporaries in the Middle East and NorthAfrica, had come to the conclusion that the survival of both his dynasty andhis country depended on matching European military strength by imitatingEuropean military organization. 19 Abbas Mirza seems to have been fascinatedby European military science and James Morier quoted him as saying thathe believed it was in vain to fight the Russians without soldiers like theirs,and that their artillery could only be opposed by artillery. 20 Deeply impressedby the steps already taken on this path by the Ottoman Empire under SultanSelim III, Abbas Mirza began the construction in Azerbaijan of his ownversion of the disciplined infantry and artillery regiments known in the OttomanEmpire as the nezam-e jadid. Like Sultan Selim and his successors, Abbas Mirzaalso intended that a Europeanized army would reduce and finally eliminatehis dependence on tribal and provincial chiefs and notables for the raisingof military forces.