shortcomings created a further problem—Iranian soldiers, who were
unfamiliar with heavy artillery, were easily frightened by Russian
artillery. Even the ferocious Aqa Mohammad was intimidated by it.
His determination to avoid pitched battles with the Russians was a
recognition of his army's weakness as well as its superior maneuver-
ability. He remarked to his grand vizier, Haji Ebrahim, on the subject
of how to oppose the Russian campaign of 1796: "Can a man of
your wisdom believe I will ever run my head against their walls of
steel, or expose my irregular army to be destroyed by their cannon,
and disciplined troops?"^23 When pitched battles did occur, Iranian
troops sometimes scattered in panic when faced with Russian artil-
lery, as did some Kurdish units during the fighting in Yerevan in
1800.
24
Many of Iran's problems in the war stemmed less from its tech-
nological inferiority to the Russians than from its fundamentally dif-
ferent concept about how armies should be run and wars fought. By
European standards, the Iranian army was disorganized and undiscip-
lined. Each Iranian cavalry regiment was composed of the members
of a single tribe, whose strongest loyalties were usually to their fel-
low tribesmen. As a result, the regiments did not coordinate their
efforts and were quick to mutiny when an affront to tribal honor
was perceived. Their movements resembled a tribal migration, with
random groups traveling toward a general objective at widely varying
rates and arriving as long as several weeks apart. Wherever they went,
they lived off the land, which meant that to many villagers on the
Iranian side of the border as well as the Russian that the cavalry was
just the latest band of marauders to plunder the sedentary popula-
tion. Battle was conceived of as the traditional tribal raid in which
large numbers of cavalry swept down on an outnumbered opponent.
Instead of taking part in a coordinated attack, each soldier used the
battle as an opportunity to display his individual prowess and take
booty. These achievements, not the total defeat of the enemy, were
the goals of a battle. As a result of the Iranian practice of stopping
to loot before the battle was over, troops repeatedly allowed the
Russians to escape or even regroup and counterattack. On some oc-
casions, the Iranians were so weighted down with plunder that their
slow departure from enemy territory made them vulnerable to
attack.
25
Although the traditional system produced some excellent com-
manders, it more often rewarded court favorites without regard to
their ability. Like many of the armies of early modern Europe, there
was no clear-cut distinction between military and civilian service by
The War, 1804-1813 111