‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎275r] (556/722)

and from 20,000 to 30,000 arms of other descriptions. But many of these
have been rendered useless by being placed in the hands of undrilled soldiers ;
and there is no reserve supply of ammunition or cartridges. Of 15 regiments
recently at Tihran, one had chassepots, 14 had tabatieres. In the provinces,
except at Khoi and Karmanlik, to which places tabatieres have been sent,
there are flint or percussion guns, rifled and unrifled, of native make. Both
infantry and cavalry wear swords. The shimbal ?* is a long, heavy rifle.
The kirle ? a lighter piece, carrying a very small ball of 30 to 1 lb.; shoots
200 yards with great accuracy. Some of the chiefs and their well-to-do
retainers possess rifles and guns of European makes; but the state of the
small arms of Persia for the most part may be summed up by saying that,
with abundance of them in the country, the modern arms are thoroughly
inefficient, and the old incapable of competing wuth the modern weapons.
Artillery material is said to consist of about 500 smoothbore and
60 rifled guns, all of brass, rifled in Persia on the Belgian system.
It is not known whether the 20 smoothbore and 2 rifled guns in the camp at
Khoi, 20 smoothbore and some rifled in the camp at Karmanshah, 4| prs.(?),
20 light fieldamns at Mashhad, 6 light fieldguns at Sarakhs, 6 fieldguns at
Astarabad, 3 light guns at Shahrud, 2 at Naidin, 1 at Bujnurd, 1 at Kalat,
are included in, or are in excess of, the 500. The guns are 2, 44, and 6 prs.
The rifling is bad; the balls do not fit, and the arm is consequently defective.
The artillery is pronounced to be fit to compete only with nomad irregulars.
The powder made in the mills is inferior and of different qualities. ' There
is no division into departments or supervision in the arsenals. A great
deal of work is done by hand, and what machinery exists is insufficient, out
of repair, or not up to the requirements of modern science. The gun-
carriages, ammunition-boxes, limbers, &c., have been very carelessly made,
and are of perishable material.
The clothing of the men is of bad and unsuitable material. It contains
much that is superfluous and useless; while necessaries
0 are deficient. The accoutrements are very old and
incomplete ; and there are no great-coats, proper knapsacks, cartouches, or
drinking and cooking pots. The soldier is, in fact, dressed at random; and
carries his ammunition in his baggy trousers as often as not. (It has been
mentioned elsewhere that new uniforms are sent for the day's drill.) When
a regiment is ordered on service, either the government provides the
soldier with a uniform, value 12s., or a money allowance is paid to the
colonel, when he supplies the clothes. The only good portion of the
equipment is the Persian boot,—a sort of soft leather buskin, which laces
half-way up the leg, and is admirably adapted for marching in dry
weather.
Extract from General Upton’s Notes on Army of Persia {1876).
sent a commission of 70 officers and non-commis-
Shah. This commission was shortly afterwards
rivals, who carried on military instruction till
Since that period the work has been successively undertaken by Austrian,
Italian, and French commissions, and is still carried on by a corps of 5 or 6
instructors from Italy, Prance, and Denmark.
Napoleon in 1804
sioned officers to the
replaced by English
i ft/in
Probably ‘ sbamkal.’