Military history of Iran
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With over 2500 years of history Iran, previously known as Persia until 1935, has had a long military history.
Sassanid Era
See Sassanid army for information on the actual army.
Safavid Era (1501 to 1736)
The then Safavid rulers of Persia, like the Mamluks of Egypt, viewed firearms with distaste, and at first made little attempt to adopt them into their armed forces. Like the Mamluks they were taught the error of their ways by the then powerful Ottoman armies. Unlike the Mamluks they lived to apply the lessons they had learnt on the battlefield. In the course of the sixteenth century, but still more in the seventeenth, the shahs of Iran took steps to acquire handguns and artillery pieces and to re-equip their forces with them. Initially, the principal sources of these weapons appears to have been Venice, Portugal, and England.
Despite their initial reluctance, the Persians very rapidly acquired the art of making and using handguns. A Venetian envoy, Vincenzo di Alessandri, in a report presented to the Council of Ten on 24 September 1572, observes:
"They used for arms, swords, lances, arquebuses, which all the soldiers carry and use; their arms are also superior and better tempered than those of any other nation. The barrels of the arquebuses are generally six spans long, and carry a ball little less than three ounces in weight. They use them with such facility that it does not hinder them drawing their bows nor handling their swords, keeping the latter hung at their saddle bows till occasion requires them. The arquebus is then put away behind the back so that one weapon does not impede the use of the other."
This picture of the Persian horseman, equipped for almost simultaneous use of the bow, sword, and firearm, aptly symbolized the dramatic and complexity of the scale of changes that the Persian Military was undergoing. While the use of personal firearms was becoming commonplace, the use of field artillery was limited and remained on the whole ineffective.
In bringing about a 'modern' gunpowder era Persian army it can not be argued that Shah Abbas (1587-1629) was not instrumental. Following the Ottoman Army model that had impressed him in combat the Shah set about to build his new army. He was much helped by two English brothers, Anthony and Robert Sherley, who went to Iran in 1598 with twenty-six followers and remained in the Persian service for a number of years. The brothers helped organise the army into an officer-paid and well-trained standing army similar to a European model. It was organised along three divisions: Ghulams ('crown servants or slaves' usually conscripted from Armenian, Georgian and Circassian lands), Tofongchis (musketeers), and Topchis (artillery-men)
Shah Abbas's new model army was massively successful and allowed him to re-unite parts of Greater Iran and expand his nations territories at a time of great external pressure and conflict.
Upon the fall of the Safavid dynasty Persia entered into a period of uncertainty. The previously highly organised military fragmented and the pieces were left for the following dynasties to collect.
Afsharid Dynasty (1750 to 1794)
Following the decline of the Safavid state a brilliant general by the name of Nadir Shah took the reins of the country. This period and the centuries following it were characterised by the rise in Russian power to Persia's north.
From the time of Peter The Great, the northern states of the Persian Empire were under threat of Russian annexation. In 1710, Tsar Peter formulated his foreign policy principles. The backbone of which was 'invasion and territorial expansion'. The first to suffer from the new Russian power was the Ottoman Empire. However, pressure was soon exerted on the Persian Empire as well. In May 1723, the first major Russo-Persian War occurred and the invasion came as far as the northern city of Rasht. At the Treaty of Bab-e Ali the Ottoman and Russian Empires divided up large portions of Persia between themselves. It was Nadir Shah who, with great force[citation needed], drove the Ottomans and Russians[citation needed] out of the occupied lands and eventually began expanding the borders of Greater Iran.
Following Nadir Shah, many of the other leaders of the Afsharid dynasty were weak and the state they had built quickly gave way to the Qajars. As the control of the country de-centralised with the collapse of Nadir Shah's rule, many of the peripheral territories of the Empire gained independence and only paid token homage to the Persian State.
Qajar Era (1781 to 1925)
The second half of the 18th Century saw a new dynasty take hold in Iran. The new Qajar dynasty made an attempt to form, and yet again modernise the Iranian military following the break up of Nadir Shah's army. The rise of the Qajars was very closely timed with Catherine the Great's order to invade Persia once again. During the Persian Expedition of 1796, Russian troops crossed the Aras River and invaded parts of Azarbaijan and Gilan, while they also moved to Lankaran with the aim of occupying Rasht again. The Qajars, under their dynasty founder, Agha Mohammad Khan was the saviour of Persia by defeating the Russian in several important battles[citation needed]. Agha Mohammad Khan, with 60,000 cavalry under his command, drove the Russians back[citation needed] beyond Tbilisi. Following the capture of Georgia, Agha Mohammad Khan was murdered by two of his servants hoping to steal the crown jewels. His son, Fath Ali Shah, after several successful campaigns of his own against the Afshars, with the help of Minister of War Mirza Assadolah Khan and Minister Amir Kabir created a new strong army, based on the latest European models, for the newly chosen Crown-Prince Abbas Mirza.
This period marked a decline in Persia's power and thus its military performance. From here onwards the Qajar dynasty would face great difficulty in its efforts due to the international policies mapped out by some western superpowers and not Persia herself. Persia's efforts would also be weakened due to continual economic, political, and military pressure from outside of the country (see The Great Game), and social and political pressures from within would make matters worse.
In 1803, Russia invaded[citation needed] and annexed[citation needed] Georgia, and then moved south towards Armenia and Azarbaijan. In the Russo-Persian War (1806-1813) the Russians appeared victorious. From the beginning, Russian troops had a great advantage over the Persians as they possessed modern Artillery, the use of which had never sunk into the Persian army since the Safavid dynasty three centuries earlier. Nevertheless, the Persian army under the command of Abbas Mirza managed to win several victories from the Russians. Iran's inability to develop modern artillery over the preceding, and Qajar, dynasty resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Golestan in 1813. This marked a turning point in the Qajar attitude towards the military. Abbas Mirza sent a large number of Persians to England to study Western military technology and at the same time he invited British officers to Persia to train the Persian forces under his command. The army's transformation was phenomenal as can be seen from the Battle of Erzeroum (1821) where the new army routed an Ottoman army. This resulted in the Treaty of Erzeroum whereby the Ottoman Empire acknowledged the existing frontier between the two empires. These efforts to continue the modernisation of the army through the training of officers in Europe continued until the end of the Qajar dynasty. With the exceptions of Russia and Britain the Qajar army of the time was unquestionably the most powerful in the region.
With his new army, Abbas Mirza invaded Russia in 1826. The Persian army proved no match for the significantly larger and equally capable Russian army. The following Treaty of Turkomanchay in 1828 crippled Persia through the ceding of much of Persia's northern territories and the payment of a colossal war indemnity. The scale of the damage done to Persia through the treaty was so severe that The Persian Army and state would not regain its former strength till the rise and creation of the Soviet Union and the latter's cancellation of the economic elements of the treaty as 'tsarist imperialistic policies'.
The reigns of both Mohammad Shah and Nasser ed-Din Shah also saw attempts by Persia to bring the city of Herat, occupied by the Afghans, again under Persian rule. In this, though the Afghans were no match for the Persian Army, the Persians were not successful, this time because of British Intervention as part of The Great Game (See papers by Waibel and Esandari Qajar within the Qajar Studies source).
Ultimately, under the Qajars Persia was shaped into its modern form. Initially, under the reign of Agha Mohammad Khan Persia won back control of several independent regions and the northern territories, only to be lost again through a series of bitter wars with Russia. In the west the Qajars effectively stopped Ottoman encroachment and in the east the situation remained fluid. Ultimately, through Qajar rule the military institution was further developed and a capable and regionally superior military force was developed. This was quashed by the then superpowers of the day: Russia and Britain.
Pahlavi Era (1925 to 1979)
When the Pahlavi dynasty came through power the Qajar dynasty was already weak from years of war with Russia. The standing Persian army was almost non-existent. The new king Reza Shah Pahlavi, was quick to develop a new military. In part, this involved sending hundreds of officers to European and American military academies. It also involved having foreigners re-train the existing army within Iran. In this period the Iranian Air Force was established and the foundation for a new Navy was laid.
Following Germany's invasion of the USSR in June 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union became allies. Both saw the newly opened Trans-Iranian Railroad as a strategic route to transport supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet region. In August 1941, Britain and the USSR invaded Iran and deposed Reza Shah Pahlavi in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Following the end of the Second World War Iran's independence was respected and both countries withdrew.
Following a number of clashes in April 1969, international relations with Iraq fell into a steep decline, mainly due to a dispute over the Arvand waterway in the 1937 Algiers Accord. Iran abrogated the 1937 accord and demanded a renegotiation which ended completely in its favor. Furthermore, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi embarked on an unprecedented modernisation program for the armed forces. In many cases Iran was being supplied with advanced weaponry even before it was supplied to the armies of the countries that developed it. The Iranian military, while very well armed and trained at this point was totally reliant on external suppliers for its equipment. By 1978 Iran had the worlds 5th strongest and largest army and was the clear undisputed regional super-power with the exceptions of Iraq and Israel. During this period of strength Iran protected its interests militarily in the region: In Yemen, the Dofar Liberation Front was quashed. In November, 1971 Iranian forces seized control of three uninhabited but strategic islands at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Islamic Republic of Iran (1979 to Present)
In 1979, the year of the Shah's departure and the revolution, the Iranian military experienced a 60% desertion from its ranks. Following the ideological principles of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the new revolutionary government sought to strengthen its domestic situation by conducting a purge of all military personnel associated with the Pahlavi Dynasty.
It is still unclear how many were killed, but numbers go into the tens-of-thousands. The purge resulted in tempting the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein to view Iran as disorganised and weak causing the Iran-Iraq War. The indecisive eight year war wreaked havoc on the region and the Iranian military, only coming to an end in 1988 after it expanded into the Persian Gulf and led to clashes between the United States Navy and Iranian military forces between 1987-1988. Following the Iran-Iraq War an ambitious military rebuilding program was set into motion with the intention to create a fully fledged military industry.
Regionally, since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has sought to exert its influence by supporting various groups (militarily and politically). It openly supports Hizbullah in Lebanon in order to keep itself involved in the Israel/Palestine peace process and in order to influence Lebanon. Various Kurdish groups are also supported as needed in order to maintain control of its Kurdish regions. In neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran supported the Northern Alliance for over a decade against the Taliban, and nearly went to war against the Taliban in 1998.
See also
Sources
- The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From The Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, Bernard Lewis, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1995.
- Qajar Studies: War and Peace in the Qajar Era, Journal of the Qajar Studies Association, London: 2005.
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