late in the season to begin a campaign. At the start of the siege, he
predicted a speedy victory and was especially confident that his artil-
lery would breach the walls of the citadel. Only after he failed did he
try to put the blame on the lack of artillery and manpower. In fact,
the operation had just been poorly planned. (Even the ladders for
climbing the citadel walls were too short.) After a six-week siege, he at-
tempted to storm the citadel, having ordered the massacre of all enemy
combatants. Instead, the Iranians put up an effective defense and re-
pulsed the attack, killing nearly 300 Russians and wounding nearly
600 more. Gudovich indignantly remarked that the Iranians used de-
fensive measures they had not used before and blamed French inter-
ference. After two more weeks of waiting for the Iranians to surrender,
he lifted the siege and began an arduous journey back to Georgia
through snow-covered mountains, and many more soldiers died. Alex-
ander was appalled by the poor preparation for the campaign, and
Gudovich resigned.^12 No more major operations against Iran were un-
dertaken until 1812.
Desertion was a serious problem in the Russian army as a whole and
especially in the Caucasus. This is not surprising considering that the
rank and file was composed of peasant draftees forced to serve for a
twenty-five-year term and that morale in the Caucasus was particularly
low. By the latter years of the war, starvation had driven increasing
numbers to desert. It was fairly easy for a soldier to escape from his
unit since Russian authority was confined to a few garrisons in strategic
locations and villagers often helped soldiers make good their escape.
The exact number of deserters is not at all clear since Russian authori-
ties were usually reticent on the subject and many deserters who settled
in Iran were treated much the same as prisoners of war. A French visi-
tor to Iran during the 1830s claimed that at one point there had been
6,000 Russian deserters there, although most had subsequently re-
turned to Russia. There are a few Russian reports of desertion by groups
of from 20 to 90 men. There were a few officers among the deserters,
including a lieutenant who was with Kariagin when Kariagin was nearly
defeated by the Iranians in 1805 and a lieutenant-colonel who had
been commandant at ElizavetpoP (Ganjeh) for several years before
his defection in 1808. Deserters and prisoners of war received various
treatment in Iran. Some endured poverty and neglect or occasional
harassment. However, 'Abbas Mirza often provided better treatment
since he found the Russians useful as military advisers. His army in-
cluded a Russian unit of about 200 men who fought valiantly on the
Iranian side in the battle of Asianduz in 1812 and another of 400 men
who did a poor job in the fighting in Talesh in 1813. Other Russian
106 The War, 1804-1813