'Report on the Persian Army compiled in the Intelligence Branch of the Quarter Master General's Department in India by Lieutenant J.A. Douglas 2nd Bengal Lancers' [‎115r] (19/22)

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This, however, he seldom receives. Mr. Curzon writes: " The ordinary uni
form for regiments of the line is a tunic of coarse blue serge, with a brown
leather belt, trousers of the same, and a shako of black lambskin with a brass
badge in front; but it is rare to find a soldier who possesses the entire equipment.”
The Cossack brigade, as already stated, wear exactly the same uniform as
Russian Caucasian Cossacks, viz., a long brown tcherkess or pelisse with a belt
round the waist and a Cossack cap.
state TI Of P t e h r e S 1 offic a erofM S r. LroTsaysT^^’ ^ ^ “ U ‘ terly dis0 ^nised Siaie o. ,he A rmy .
Of the Persian officers as a class no one has ever been found to speak
except in terms of contempt. Ignorant of military science, destitute of
esprit de corps, selected and promoted with no reference to aptitude they are
an incubus under which no military system could do otherwise than ’languish.
When it is known that the command of regiments is sometimes inherited some
times vested in the hands of infants, and commonly bought and sold ’ a high
stamp of officers is an impossible result. The theory would appear to’be that
an officer in Persia, like a poet elsewhere, nascitur, non fit. A child of eleven
years of age was at the time of my visit a field-marshal in the Persian army and
at the Royal levee, which I attended at Teheran, stood between the Commander-
in*Chief and an octogenarian veteran, no mean type of the system which prevails
through the entire hierarchy from general to ensign. Patronage and promo
tion in a regiment are in the hands of the colonel, who makes such a good
thing out of the distribution, that the good will, so to speak, of his post is a
marketable commodity, like that of a public-house in England, and has to be
puichased for a fixed sum upon appointment. He sells commissions to his
subordinate officers , he sells exemptions from service and discharges to the
private soldiers, he makes his mudukhil out of the rations and pay j and he
frequently only advances a portion of the latter, subject to a usurious discount.
Cases are well known of men being appointed generals or colonels whose whole
life has been spent in civilian avocations, and, when a regiment is raised, it not
infrequently happens that of the officers not one has ever worn a uniform or
attended a drill. To obtain the higher commands, large sums, varying from
^200 to £700, or even -£1,000, are paid by the would-be “ sartips ” or
“ sarhangs.” If the superior ranks are more commonly filled by men of o- 0 od
family, frequently, as I have pointed out, by hereditary descent, the lower grades
of commissioned officers, from the “yavar” or major downwards, are ^drawn
from the middle and lower classes, and occupy no social position whatever.
Finally, it may be said of the Persian officer that on the battle-field he suffers
from an ineradicable disposition to run.”
Another report says: “It is difficult to write seriously about the Shah's
army, for itds probably the most valueless uniformed force which exists. The
radical defect rs the complete absence of discipline. Any man may through
protection be suddenly promoted to be an officer, and any officer may by
similar influence be rapidly promoted Over his superior, while, on the other hand,
.all officers are liable to be capriciously degraded to the ranks. The general
result is complete absence of any real authority of the officers.”
fiank and File —Of the rank and file* Mr. Curzon says: “ The average stamp
'bf Persian officer being what I have described, it is not to be wondered at
that his quality re-acts with disastrous force upon, and is reproduced in exagger
ated proportion among, the men. During the half century since the Persian
“ sarbaz ” has ceased to be put through his exercises by British drill sergeants,
and in the absence of any equivalent tuition and the chronic stint of^equip-
ment, rations, and pay, he has sunk to a very low position in the scale of effi
ciency, courage, and fighting power. Military service is distasteful to him from
the start. He is rarely, if ever, a volunteer. Ill-fed, ill-clad, and unpaid in
the intervals of service, and often while actually with the colours, he ekes out a
scanty subsistence by plying the trade of a butcher, or porter, or money chano-er,
or common labourer in the bazars, from which employment he emerges on
parade days, struggles into a uniform supplied from the depot, and, his perfunc
tory duty fulfilled, returns to his civil avocation. Even the men in uniform and
-actually embodied are Usually to be seen slouching about the bazar anyhow and
doing nothing. It is perhaps in respect of his pay that he is most to be pitied ;
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