'Report on the Persian Army' [‎23v] (46/170)

3G
employment under the Governor of Kermanshah.* In 181G a
Colonel Gaspard Drouville, a Frenchman, and colonel of
Russian cavalry, formed a regiment of lancers in Azerbaijan,
which in 1819, when lie left, was passed on to Lieutenant
G. A\ illock. Of the officers who found employment under
Muhammad Ali Mirza, two Frenchmen, two Italians, and one
Spaniard were still at Kermanshah when Captain the lion.
George Keppel (“Personal Narrative,” London. 1827) visited
that city in 1824. “ They were all Khans, and Knights of the
Lion and Sun as well as of another order, the insignia of
which were a star with the curious device of two lions fighting
for the Persian crown, instituted by the late Prince, who,
heretofore ignorant of the value attached to ribands in Europe,
was surprised and gratified to find that his European auxiliaries
were content with so cheap a remuneration for their many and
important services.” They apparently occupied much of their
time by quarrelling amongst themselves, for “the pitch to
which duelling had at one time been carried by the European
officers in the service of the Prince of Kermanshah at once
excited his astonishment and alarm.” Senor Oms, the Spaniard,
was a “ ruffian,’ who was sent to prison for conduct which Keppel
describes as “ having motives as diabolical as they were
dastardly. Of the officers under Abbas Mirza, Lieutenant-
Colonel Johnson, a British officer travelling in Persia in 1817,
says:—
Seeing that our Government will not permit any of its officers or
soldiers to remain in the Persian service or take part in any act of hostility
against the^ Russians, the Persians are employing our ancient rivals the
French. When we travelled through Persia there were five officers of that
nation and four others of Italy and Sicily, whom the Prince had at once
raised to the highest ranks. These officials drilled for some time according
to English system, but abandoned that system a short time ago.”
And Moritz von Kotzebue, a brother of the German poet and
attached to YermolofTs fruitless mission to Persia in 1817,
adds:—
•i Italian officers had, it seems, not succeeded in finding the
philosophers stone in their own country they bore the rank of officers 0 - but
appeared to be men of low origin, and one of them said that he had come to
1 ersia because he had found the climate of Sicily too hot for him.”
On Abbas Mirza s troops we take the following from
Johnson:—
‘ There are now in Persian service 1,000 Russian deserters. The army
consists ot about twenty battalions, but the soldiers are on active service for
only three months during the year, passing the remainder of the time in
their villages. 1 he pay of a soldier is at the rate of ten tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. (then £<J 16.s-)
per annum, and on active service he receives daily two pounds of bread
lie also receives one toman 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. per annum for his uniform, and an overcoat every
three years. Ihe foot artillery receives the same pay, but the horse artillery
man has lo tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. (£14 14s.) yer annum. The pays of the officers vary
according to circumstances and individuals ; every man makes his own coii-
* R. C. Money,
officers, who were
“ beard and all.”
who visited Kermanshah in 1825, saw three of these
not much respected because they dressed like Persians,