'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎607] (676/714)

THE ARMY
607
it is only because of the organised peculation of his superiors that
it percolates in such attenuated driblets, after long periods of time,
to the miserable private. Small wonder if, when the occasion arises,
he wreaks a sweet revenge upon his own commanding officers by
showing the white feather. Though in the Russian campaigns in
the first quarter of the century the Persian infantry sometimes
fought well, cases of amazing cowardice were frequently forthcoming.
Upon one occasion a corps of the Hamadan regiment ran awav at
the sound of their own signal gun. It was from no mean experi
ence of similar incidents that a Russian officer once ventured on
the paradox: ' Persia can be conquered with a single company
without firing a shot; with a battalion it would be more difficult;
with a whole regiment it would be impossible, for the entire force
would perish of hunger." In the various fights that have taken
place since the second Russian war, the Persian army has covered
itself with singularly uniform disgrace. The siege of Herat by
Mohammed Shah, in 1837-38, owed its miserable failure at once to
the gallantry of Eldred Pottinger and to the astounding incapacity
of the beleaguering force. In the short Anglo-Persian campaign
of 1857, 10,000 Persian soldiers fled before 300 English red-coats
on the Karun. In 1860 the Persian army sustained an ignomini
ous defeat at the hands of the Merv Turkomans; and a well-disci
plined European force of about 15,000 to 20,000 men could
probably overrun and conquer the whole country, so far as actual
fighting was concerned, without difficulty.
At Teheran I witnessed, by the kind invitation of the Com
mander-in-Chief, a special parade of the city garrison, nominally
Parade of 7,000 men, but not at that time more than 4,000 strong,
the Tehe- • the Meidan-i-Mashk or Champ de Mars, on' the west
ran gam- r \
8011 side of the Meidan-i-Tupkhaneh. In addition to the
infantry two batteries of artillery, including a mule battery, 400
of the Persian Cossacks, and a corps of cadets from the Military
College, were on the ground. A riderless horse, furiously
galloping about, reminded me of a precisely similar incident at
the great review held before the Shah in Windsor Park in 1873,
when a Persian officer was deposited upon mother earth in sight of
the whole field. The infantry battalions marched past in four
companies of 120 each, or a total for the regiment of 480 men. Three
Azerbaijan regiments, two of Turkish nationality, which have always
supplied the best fighting substance to the Persian ranks, made by