'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎585] (652/714)

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VRMY
585
by the insulting dismissal of all English civil and military officers
from the royal camp in the summer of 1836 ; and when, after two
vears of ineffective protest and diplomatic duelling, Sir J. McNeill
finally hauled down his flag and quitted Persia, all British officers
in the Persian service were ordered to do likewise. Thus abruptly
and futilely terminated the last appearance of British officers upon
the parade grounds or battle-fields of Persia, iailure though the
experiment may have been, viewed in the light either of immediate
consequences or of its bearing upon Anglo-Persian relations, it
yet remains true that, such as it is, the Persian army, even at this
day, exists only by virtue of what British officers did for it m the
past; and that though other nationalities may have stepped m to
claim, or more frequently to ruin, the harvest, yet whatever of
drill, or discipline, or efficiency, is still found among the soldiers of
the Shah, has sprung from the seeds which were so laboriously
sown for thirty years by the exertions, and were even watered by
the life-blood, of Englishmen. 1
Upon the retreat of the English detachment, the French, who
seem throughout the century to have occupied a position analogous
5 p r e nc h to that of a second string in a racing stable, again
offiecrs appeared upon the scene. Sir H. Layard encountered
them in the Shah's army at Hamadan in 1840 ; 2 and his companion,
Mr. Mitford, was in their company at Teheran a little later. 3 The
1 Sir H. Rawlinson, in a lecture delivered before the Royal United Service In
stitution in 1858, mentioned as an illustration of the resourcefulness developed m
the Persian artillery under Sir H. Bethune, the fact that, at the siege ol Herat in
1837-8, when the Persian army was lacking in heavy guns, the artillerymen co
lected all the copper trays belonging to the chiefs in the camp, and the be s o
the mules, improvised a foundry, made moulds, and cast three laige fit ixnnu eis
on the spot. It was true that two of these guns burst immediately, and t le t ir
before long. But still it was a great achievement in a desert. It was, indcec,
Persian artillery who responded to European tuition more quickly than any o er
branch of the service, and who longest retained the efficiency thus acquirer .
Fraser, who saw them in 1831 in Khorasan, described them as light earte ,
willing, active men, who cheerfully put up with privations and hardships. n
the performance of duty they were alert and ready; and no European troops
could have handled their heavy field-pieces better in difficult ground. In ac , e
passes over which they dragged them with little aid from pioneeis or tools
have made a European artillery officer stare' (A Winter's Journey, vol. ii. P-
De Bode bore exactly analogous testimony to the artillery in the aim} o ®
Motemed-ed-Dowleh, when operating in the difficult Bakhtiari mountains m
{Travels in Lurisian, vol. ii. pp. 18, 19).
2 Early Adventures, vol. i. pp. 255, 265.
3 Land March from England to Ceylon, vol. ii. p. <5.