Military history of Iran

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With thousands of years of recorded history, and due to an unchanging geographic (and subsequently geopolitical) condition , Iran (previously known as Persia in the West until 1935) has had a long, varied, and checkered military culture and history, ranging from triumphant and unchallenged ancient military supremacy affording effective superpower status in its day, to a series of near catastrophic defeats (beginning with the destruction of Elam) at the hand of previously subdued peripheral nations (including Greece, Arabia, and the Asiatic nomadic tribes at the Eastern boundary of the lands traditionally home to the Iranian people).

In its time, Iran has rapidly dispatched ancient powers such as Babylon; its kings have sat enthroned as Pharaoh in Egypt; repeatedly held off, sometimes defeated, the otherwise successful armies of Rome (most memorably recording the submissive demeanor of a captured Roman Caesar); and apparently affected even a presumably hostile Greek historian to dedicate an entire book considering in detail the pseudo-military culture of the ancient Persians of Shahanshah [Dariush the great].

Iranian military actions and martial culture have also left Iran with a rich legacy of contributions to military arts, weapons, tactics, strategy, and conduct of the mankind. The word navy is a term derived from Persian Naavs (ships) of Achaemenid military expeditions against ancient Greece. Those very same expeditions entailed crossings of entire armies from Asia to Europe over military bridges constructed by extending a floating platform of ships from the Asian land mass to Europe.

One of the earliest and most effective manifestations of light cavalry equipped with stand-off weapons were the bow and arrow equipped Parthian Cavalry.

The first Knights (in the sense of Warrior-Priests,) complete with shinning armor and plumed helmets were Sasaanid Iranian nobles, and European heraldry is directly traceable to the Iranian Knights and overall culture of (lone) heroes and mythic figures such as Rostam, Zaal, Bahram Chubin, etc.

And it was the sovereign head of the Iranian Army that marched un-opposed into Babylon that decreed the first codec of the rights of conquered people and nations.

And this is the same country that suffered completely unexpected and decisive defeats at the hands of Alexander, and later Muslim Arabs, seemingly at the height of its might. And later on felt the full force of the brutally violent and destructive West-ward Mongol tribes.

Thus this topic requires a consideration of the mythical, cultural, technological, operational, tactical, strategic, and ultimately socio-psychological dimensions of the military history of Iran.

Achaemenid Era

The Achaemenid Empire (559 BC–330 BC) was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran. The empire possessed a “national army” of roughly 120.000-150.000 troops, plus several tens of thousands of troops from their allies.

The Persian army was divided into regiments of a thousand each, called hazarabam. Ten hazarabams formed a haivarabam, or division. The best known haivarabam were the Immortals, the King's personal guard division. The smallest unit was the ten man dathaba. Ten dathabas formed the hundred man sataba.

The royal army used a system of color uniforms to identify different units. A large variety of colors were used, some of the most common being yellow, purple, and blue. But this system was probably limited to native Persian troops and was not used for their numerous allies.

The usual tactic employed by the Persians in the early period of the empire, was to form a shield wall that archers could fire over. These troops (called sparabara, or shield-bearers) were equipped with a large rectangular wicker shield called a spara, and armed with a short spear, measuring around six feet long.

The bow was the most widely used weapon of the Persians, but these were simple bows made of cane, not the famous composite bow. This weapon was very limited in it's effectiveness against heavy hoplite armor.

The role of the sparabara was to soften the enemy with volleys of arrows. The main shock action was done by the cavalry. The lightly equipped Persian foot soldiers were not ideal for shock attacks.

These tactics didn’t work well against the Greeks, which were equipped and armed very differently. The Persian infantry was seriously overmatched in terms of defensive and offensive equipment. Greek hoplites usually wore heavy bronze or durable linen armor and carried a heavy large shield in contrast to the Persian light leather scale or quilted linen armor and small wicker shield.

The Persian was usually armed with short fighting-spear and short sword. These Weapons were meant to be used more defensively. The Greek weaponry was geared towards offensive hand-to-hand combat. Two good examples are the Battle of Thermopylae and Battle of Marathon

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Seleucid Empire (330 to 150 BCE)

Parthian Empire (250 BCE– 226 CE)

Sassanid Era (226 CE to 637 CE)

Islamic conquest (637 to 651)

Tahirid dynasty (821 to 873)

Alavid dynasty (864 to 928)

Saffarid dynasty (861 to 1003)

Samanid dynasty (875 to 999)

Ziyarid dynasty (928 to 1043)

Buwayhid dynasty (934 to 1055)

Ghaznavid Empire (963 to 1187)

Seljukid Empire (1037 to 1187)

Khwarezmian Empire (1077 to 1231)

Ilkhanate (1256 to 1353)

Muzaffarid dynasty (1314 to 1393)

Chupanid dynasty (1337 to 1357)

Jalayerid dynasty (1339 to 1432)

Timurid Empire (1370 to 1506)

Qara Qoyunlu Turcomens (1407 to 1468)

Aq Qoyunlu Turcomans (1378 to 1508)

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, from which also came experts to advise on their use, such as Robert Shirley.

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 Nader 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 Nader Shah who, with great force, drove the Ottomans and Russians out of the occupied lands and eventually began expanding the borders of Greater Iran.

Following Nader 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 Nader 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 Nader 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. Agha Mohammad Khan, with 60,000 cavalry under his command, drove the Russians back 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 and annexed 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 Gulistan 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 Turkmenchay 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.

For World War I, see the Persian Campaign.

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 Shah 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 Shatt al-Arab 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 superpower. During this period of strength Iran protected its interests militarily in the region: In Oman, the Dhofar Rebellion 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 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.

References

Sources

The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From The Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, Bernard Lewis, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.
Qajar Studies: War and Peace in the Qajar Era, Journal of the Qajar Studies Association, London: 2005.

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Last updated on Wednesday February 20, 2008 at 15:51:41 PST (GMT -0800)
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