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

Building a new army 69the Russian Cossack officers and their men who ensured the accession ofthe new shah, Mozzaffar-edin (1896–1907).The novel position of the Brigade and its commandant was reflected in anew degree of hostility from Iranian opinion and from the very beginningof its life the Russian military mission and the Brigade itself aroused greatresentment both within official circles and among a broader nationalist andconstitutionalist milieu, which felt the Russian mission had been imposedon Iran as a result of pressure on a weak and despotic ruler. 56 After theConstitutional Revolution, the Brigade was drawn ever deeper into domesticpolitical conflicts, not an arm of the state but rather a partisan of theshah in his struggle with the constitutionalists.PART TWO: THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTIONAND MILITARY REFORMConstitutional government and the Cossack BrigadeIn 1905–1906 the Constitutional Revolution transformed the political andideological contexts within which debates about military reform and foreignassistance took place. For constitutionalist opinion and the new NationalAssembly (Majles), the key issue was no longer how to strengthen themonarchy but, on the contrary, how to limit the absolutism of the shah. Howwere the new authorities to enforce their own power, defend themselves againsttheir internal and external enemies, assert state power over all the nationalterritory, and halt the disintegration that threatened Iran’s existence as anindependent state? The solution they found to this question was to reactivatethe efforts towards state-building and specifically the construction ofa modern army, which had dominated nineteenth century efforts at reform.But now these efforts had to take place against the backdrop of oppositionfrom the shah and the military forces on which he depended, the Russianofficers with the Cossack Brigade.The constitutional movement developed two strategies. Firstly, the newauthorities tried to establish their own effective control over the existing militaryforces, most significantly, the Russian-officered Cossack Brigade. In thisthey failed. Their second strategy succeeded when in 1910 they establishedthe first modern, national military force, the Government Gendarmerie.In 1905–1906 the Cossack Brigade was weak and demoralized. Popularhostility was intense and many of the Iranian officers and men sympatheticto the revolution. The Russian mission was in disarray, and the military authoritiesin Russia preoccupied with defeat at the hands of Japan and the suppressionof the 1905 revolution. Indeed, despite its royalist and pro-Russiantraditions, in 1905–1906 the commandant had been unable to provide theshah with a coercive instrument to use against the revolutionaries and itsparalysis and the absence of other effective army units meant that the