style regiments. However, since the cost of training, equipping, and
paying these soldiers greatly increased the cost of the war it is not
certain that his financial problems were alleviated by the British
subsidy.^39
The sum of all the strengths and weaknesses was that each side
had some victories but neither side was able to translate its strengths
into decisive supremacy. It is not true that Iran was defeated in all
the battles, as a modern writer has recently claimed.^40 In fact, the
opening campaign of the war, the Yerevan campaign of 1804, and
several that followed it went very well for the Iranians.
Late in June 1804, Tsitsianov led fewer than 3,000 Russian, Geor-
gian, and Armenian soldiers across the Yerevani border. His first ob-
jective was the Armenian religious center at Echmiadzin, where he
encountered 'Abbas's army of 18,000. While the Russian artillery
inflicted heavy damage, the Iranians showed that they were effective
soldiers in their own way. The battle was an Iranian victory in that
the Russians failed to take the monastery and had to withdraw. This
initial success was nearly undone by serious blunders during the next
few days. In keeping with their traditional concept of warfare, the
Iranians allowed the enemy to escape instead of pressing home the
advantage. A few days later, the Russians returned to Echmiadzin
and collected the provisions they had sought there. Next, an Iranian
detachment was surprised by the Russian soldiers marching toward
Yerevan and was routed. Although the survivors were driven from
the field in disorder, they were able to regroup and participate in the
fighting at Yerevan. The Iranians displayed similarly impressive re-
cuperative powers many times during the war. Russians, used to the
European distinction between a retreat in good order (which meant
that the army was still capable of giving battle) and retreat in dis-
order, often mistook seemingly chaotic Iranian withdrawals for a
complete breakdown of the army only to find soon after that the
Iranians were ready to fight again.
The next major event of the campaign was the siege of Yerevan,
which lasted from July until September, and was a more clear-cut
victory for the Iranians. It was, in reality, a double siege. Mohammad
Khan, some of the city's inhabitants, and 6,000 to 7,000 troops (in-
cluding reinforcements from 'Abbas) held out in the citadel. Tsit-
sianov's men occupied the rest of the city and its immediate environs
but were, in turn, surrounded by 'Abbas's much larger force supple-
mented by some of the shah's troops. Once again the Russian artil-
lery was an effective weapon, but the Iranians were able nonetheless
to inflict heavy casualties and prevent a Russian advance. They
120 The War, 1804-1813