Austro-Hungarian military mission in Persia

The Austro-Hungarian military mission in Persia was the development of a military organization in Qajar Persia in 1879 by Austria-Hungary, which is considered as part of efforts to reform the Persian army under Naser al-Din Shah and set up a standing army in Persia. The Association had the strength of a corps.

A corps is a large military organization, which consists of several branches of service. The creation of the built-up of the Austro-Hungarian Army Corps mission was part of modernizing process of the Persian forces that had been implemented with the help of Austrian military experts. Due to the good relations of the first interpreter of Naser al-Din Shah, the Armenian Mirza Davood (David) Khan, the Austrian court in Vienna, and the connections of his former personal physician, Jakob Eduard Polak, on his second trip to Europe Naser al-Din Shah recruited Austrian officers who were to undertake the reorganization of the Persian army. The arrival of Naser al-Din Shah in Vienna on 5 July 1878 was like a true festival. Johann Strauss (son) was commissioned by the Viennese court to compose a Persian national anthem to honor the royal guest. [1] First Naser al-Din Shah visited the Viennese Arsenal to witness a demonstration of the guns developed by Major General Uchatius,the ordnance expert and master artillerist,member of the Viennese Academy of Sciences,Knight Commander and recipient of the Royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. The Shah was apparently so impressed that he immediately ordered 12 guns. Furthermore, he bought 26,000 rifles and agreed with the Austrian government terms for the deployment of a military mission.

One Colonel Adalbert Schönowsky von Schönwies as Head of Mission departed with 30 other officers for Tehran on 29 October 1878. On 12 November 1878, the mission had arrived in Tarnopol, where retired military band Julius Gebauer with the instruments, which he had bought in Vienna for a Persian military band, joined the mission. The 14 participants of the mission then traveled with a luggage of 2.4 tons by train to Odessa, by ship to Poti, again by train to Tbilisi, from there to Baku and via the Caspian Sea to Rasht. [2] The Mission arrived in Tehran in January 1879. The mission was accompanied by Albert Joseph Gasteiger Freiherr von Ravenstein und Kobach, who had already served several years in Persia. The objective of the mission was to reorganize the Persian army on the model of the imperial Austrian army. The first thing to be established was a corps of 7,000 men, including a musical procession. The training of the soldiers would be completed by March 1881. The Austrians were able to achieve that the Persian soldiers of the Corps were better paid than the rest of the soldiers, and that the payment was paid regularly. Despite attacks by the clergy against the infidel, the corps was formed, and soon a corps spirit grew on the soldiers and seemed to make the training a success. On 22 May 1879, Naser al-Din Shah visited and took a look for the first time at the corps set up by the Austro-Hungarian military mission corps. He was greeted with a Radetzky March, took a parade and visited the barracks of Abd ol-Azim,which he had obviously never seen in such a clean condition. The good mood of the Austrian officers, however, was marred by the fact that in May 1879 Russian officers arrived to establish a Persian Cossack Brigade. In the end the Persian Cossack Brigade outstripped the Austrians Corps and later formed the nucleus of the Imperial Iranian Army. Even though it looked like a success of the Austro-Hungarian military mission. At the end of July 1879, the corps had 90 officers and 1,400 men and in January 1880, the Head of Mission and Schönowsky were dismissed by Colonel Schemel v. Kühnritt, a former commander of the regiment No. 2 of Hussars "Friedrich Leopold of Prussia". In May the corps was composed of 2000 men, who were equipped with Austrian uniforms and weapons. In April 1880, there were already 260 officers and 6,000 men who served in the Austrian Corps service.

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