نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٤‎١‎٩] (١٨١٤/٨٤٠)

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THE ARMY
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parts of the existing army. In the present year it has been
decided to raise a fourth and similar regiment of Persian Cossacks
among the Kurds, Timuris, and other tribes of the north-eastern
frontier.
In addition to the Russian officers, relics of the successive
waves of foreign military importation which I have described still
Surviving survive in Persia in 1891 in the person of seven Austrian
foreign officers, six of whom are generals, and one a major, a
French bandmaster dignified with the rank of a general,
an Italian and a Bulgarian chief of instructors, an Italian head of
police, and two Prussian officers, acting as professors in the Royal
College. This is the flotsam and jetsam that the receding tide
of polyglot military influence has left stranded upon the dubious
shore-line of Teheran.
From this brief historical retrospect of the Persian army in the
past, and particularly during the nineteenth century—the information
Modern contained in which I have derived from a great number
army 0 f sources that have nowhere else been collated—I turn
to an account of the Persian forces as they now are. Roughly
speaking, the army in Persia may be said to consist of three con
stituent parts :—
1. A large number of irregular cavalry furnished by the frontier,
or nomad, or warlike tribes, and commanded by their chieftains or
khans. These must by no means be confused with the irregular
horse, as the term is employed in the military annals of England
or India. In Persia they are in no sense a drilled, organised, or
disciplined body of men, but consist of rude tribal levies, raised
without fixed method from such districts or clans as possess fighting
material, horses, and a frontier to guard; and while the staple of
which they are formed is masculine and robust, yet, in the absence
of discipline, and still more often of pay, they are apt to constitute
a greater danger than protection.
2. A semi-regular army of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
equipped, clothed, and drilled on more or less European lines, and
constituting the bulk of the defensive forces of the kingdom.
3. An irregular infantry militia (tufangchis, or matchlock men,
shamkhalchis, and jezailchis), raised and supported by local dis
tricts and cities for the protection of life and property within their
own borders. Nominally, this is a large force, only called out in
cases of dire emergency. In reality, it is an insignificant and