The composition and numbers fluctuated depending on the situation on the fronts and the territory of action (15-25 thousand bayonets and sabers). She experienced a constant and severe shortage of weapons and ammunition. Most of the time she was part of the troops under the (formal) command of A.V. Kolchak, at the end of the year - at the beginning she tried to coordinate actions with Denikin.

Army commanders

• Major General M.F. Martynov (April-September);
• Major General V.I. Akutin (end of September - November 14),
• Lieutenant General N. A. Savelyev (November 15, 1918 - April 7),
• Major General (later, from November 7, 1919, Lieutenant General) V. S. Tolstov (April 8 - beginning).

The Ural Army included: 1st Ural Cossack Corps (1st and 2nd Ural Cossack Divisions), 11th Iletsk Cossack Corps, 3rd Ural Cavalry Division.

The Ural Army was promptly subordinate to the command:

• Siberian Army (commander, Major General Grishin-Almazov A.N.), 06–08.1918;
• Volga Front of the People's Army (commander, General Chechek S.), 08–09. of the year;
• Western Front (commander, General Ya. Syrov), 09–11.1918;
• Eastern Front (supreme commander-in-chief, Admiral A.V. Kolchak), 12.1918–07.1919;
• Armed Forces of the South of Russia (Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant General A.N. Denikin), 07/21/1919 -03/1920.

It acted at the beginning against the Red Guard detachments, from June 1918 - against the 4th and 1st armies of the East, from August 15 - against the Turkestan Red Fronts. In April 1919, during the general offensive of Kolchak’s armies, she broke through the Red front, besieged Uralsk, abandoned in January 1919, and reached the approaches to Saratov and Samara. However, limited funds did not allow the Ural region to be captured. In July of the year, the Red troops (commanded by Frunze) launched a counter-offensive and forced the Ural Army to retreat. 07/05/1919 the Bolsheviks returned Pugachev, the well-equipped and armed 25th Infantry Division, transferred from near Ufa under the command of V.I. Chapaev, defeated the Ural Army on July 5-11 and broke the blockade of the city and 07/11/1919. entered the city of Uralsk, and 08/09/1919. entered the city of Lbischensk. It should be noted that it was during this period (07/21) that operational control of the Ural Army was transferred by Admiral A.V. Kolchak, under the command of the AFSR of General A.I. Denikin. After the transition of the Ural Army to the operational subordination of the command of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) of General Denikin, its composition was divided into 3 areas:

• Buzulukskoye, as part of the 1st Ural Cossack Corps; with its 1st, 2nd and 6th Cossack and 3rd Iletsk, 1st Ural Infantry Divisions and their 13th Orenburg, 13th, 15th and 18th Cossack, 5th Ural infantry, 12th Consolidated Cossack and several other separate regiments;
• Saratov, as part of the 2nd Iletsk Cossack Corps; and his 5th Cossack division with a number of separate regiments (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 16th, 17th Ural Cossacks, 33rd Nikolaevsky Infantry Regiment, Guryevsky Foot Regiment);
• Astrakhan-Gurievskoe, as part of the Ural-Astrakhan Cossack Corps, partisan detachments of Colonels Kartashev and Chizhinsky and the Separate 9th Ural Cossack Regiment.

Footnotes

Links

• "Military Literature" website. Valery Klaving "White armies of the Urals and Volga region"

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

The Cossacks were one of the most important levers of political and military influence of Tsarist Russia in Iran, whose official name until 1935 was Persia. The Persian Cossack brigade, led by Russian officers, appeared in the country in 1879 during the reign of Nasreddin Shah Qajar. Until the end of the military-political dominance of the Russian Empire in Iran, this unit was considered the most important organized fighting force of the Shah's army. Throughout the entire existence of the brigade, its top leadership was carried out by Russian officers.

Context

Cossacks march on Berlin

Radio Liberty 05/28/2015

Russians and Cossacks are irreconcilable

Frankfurter Rundschau 05/08/2015

Where the Cossacks are in charge

Der Spiegel 12/17/2014 Members of the command of the Persian Cossack Brigade, who were appointed directly from St. Petersburg, were guided in their actions not so much by the orders of the Iranian government, but by the decrees of the Russian authorities. Despite this, all expenses for maintaining the unit were compensated by the Shah’s treasury, although the members of the Iranian government themselves could not establish its size and determine on what needs the allocated funds were spent.

Thus, as historian Rahim Namvar writes in his book “A Brief Sketch of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran,” “the Persian Cossack brigade was an armed force modeled on the Russian army, and was actually under its command, subject to the orders of the one in Russian Cossack command. The budget of this military unit was directly transferred to its command through the Russian Accounting and Loan Bank at the expense of the Iranian government, but it did not control the Cossacks itself.”
In his memoirs, the famous Iranian traveler and participant in the Constitutional Revolution, Mohammad Ali Sayah Mahalati, reports that back in 1905, the strength of the Cossack Corps in Persia was about one thousand people, and it was the most effective military unit in the country.

However, despite the fact that the Cossacks were provided for at the expense of the Shah's government, they were under the influence of the Russian embassy. Salary, maintenance and other expenses were paid from customs duties on the northern borders of Persia, which went to the Accounting and Loan Bank. Its leadership, according to the orders of the Russian ambassador in Tehran, made all the necessary payments without even informing the Persian authorities about it. As Soviet historian Mikhail Pavlovich writes in his monograph “Persia in the Struggle for Independence,” “the salaries and provisions of the officers and privates of the Persian Cossack Brigade depended on the Russian government. In political matters, its commander, who was appointed and sent from St. Petersburg, acted taking into account the position of the Russian ambassador in Tehran. The commander received his salary from the Accounting and Loan Bank, and all the necessary orders from the Russian diplomatic mission. In a word, he was a direct agent of the tsarist government."

During the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, it was the forces of the Persian Cossack Brigade that fired at the first national parliament in 1908. By the way, the Accounting and Loan Bank itself, which financially supported the Cossacks, mainly attracted them to ensure the safety of its funds and the safety of its personnel.

In addition to the fact that the branches of this bank in Tehran and other regions of the country were under the protection of the Persian Cossack Brigade, its duties included accompanying representatives of the bank’s management traveling around the country and monitoring the transportation of its cash and other cargo. The majority of researchers of that period are inclined to believe that this formation played a negative role in the political life of Iran in those years. In particular, information is provided that it was the Accounting and Loan Bank, which paid funds for the maintenance of the Persian Cossack Brigade, that determined its goals, while defending the military-political interests of the Russian Empire.

In his memoirs, the German Consul General in Tabriz, Wilhelm Liten, who worked in Iran before the outbreak of the First World War, described in detail the Persian Cossack Brigade, noting the role played by the Accounting and Loan Bank in strengthening this military formation. According to his information, the Persian Cossack Brigade was founded back in 1879, when it was led by Colonel Alexey Domontovich. In 1882, command passed to Colonel Pyotr Charkovsky, in 1885 he was replaced by Colonel Alexander Kuzmin-Karavaev, and in 1890 Colonel Konstantin Shneur was appointed to this position. Then in 1896, the leadership of the brigade was entrusted to Colonel Vladimir Kosogovsky, already in 1903 Colonel Vladimir Lyakhov took his place, and in 1907 Colonel Prince Nikolai Vadbolsky was appointed the new commander.

According to Liten, the Cossack Brigade was a Persian military unit commanded by Russian officers and subordinate to the high command of the Russian army. Every year 342 thousand tomans were spent on its maintenance (which amounted to almost 1.2 million marks at the exchange rate at that time), but in 1913 this amount was increased to 900 thousand tomans (3.5 million marks). These funds were paid directly by the Accounting and Loan Bank of Iran from revenues from customs duties in the north of the Shah.

The budget of this formation was drawn up by its commander, who did not provide any accounts to either the Shah's government or the treasury. The brigade's strength was 1,600 people, but in 1913 its units were founded in other Iranian cities - Tabriz, Rasht and Hamadan, so the number of personnel was increased. Initially, efforts were made to use the Cossacks as gendarmes on the roads in northern Persia, but due to the disagreement of Colonel Vadbolsky, this plan could not be implemented.

In essence, the Persian Cossack Brigade was a court military formation that was used for parades and as a guard protecting the Shah personally and Russian envoys. However, from the very beginning of its existence in 1879, not a single Russian officer was killed in the line of duty or even injured. For comparison, we present this fact. The Swedish officers, who organized the gendarmerie service in Iran in 1911, lost six people killed in the line of duty in 1914 alone. The position of commander of the Persian Cossack brigade was very profitable for its owner, but subordinate officers treated him without much respect.

After the defeat of Tsarism in Russia, the Persian Cossack Brigade, along with other Russian units, swore allegiance to Great Britain.

Coming to the end, it should be said that the Cossacks played a vital role in the coup d'etat of 1921. Just as in 1908, when, under the command of Colonel Lyakhov, members of the Persian Cossack Brigade shot the Iranian parliament, 13 years later, by taking part in another political coup, they dealt an even more crushing blow to the gains of the Constitutional Revolution.

The beginning of the 20th century was a time when the world was collapsing and being reshaped before our eyes - sometimes in very bizarre ways.

For example, in July 1934, a Russian emigrant officer Boris Skosyrev came to the tiny European principality of Andorra and, following the example of Ostap Bender, so confused the members of the local General Council that they unanimously recognized him as king BorisI. The reign of this sovereign did not last long - just long enough to become an international incident. A week later, he quarreled with the spiritual shepherd of Andorra Bishop of Urgell and declared war on him. A detachment of Italian gendarmerie arrived in the capital of the newly-minted kingdom, which radically strangled the brilliant reign of the unlucky monarch.

However, history also knows more successful cases of people of non-royal origin ascending to the throne. The phrase “Persian Cossack Brigade” sounds ridiculous, but such a military unit really existed, and the brave Cossack Reza Khan fought in it.

Learn from the enemy

For more than a century, the Persians fought off and on with the Russian Cossacks in the Caucasus, suffering huge losses and without success. Finally, in 1878, the Shah of Persia Nasser al-Din Shah from the Qajar dynasty, impressed by the prowess of the Terek Cossacks, turned to the governor of the Caucasus, the Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich with a request to send officers to establish a similar military unit in his domain. In St. Petersburg they did not resist for long - this was a chance to seriously strengthen Russia’s position in Persia and begin to squeeze out the British, with whom the Russian Empire was engaged in a protracted undeclared war.

Officers and non-commissioned officers were sent to Tehran. Officially, the brigade was subordinate to the Persian Minister of War (and then to the Shah himself), but in reality it was led by the Russian envoy, especially since the payment for this military unit came from the Russian treasury. The immediate commander of the brigade was modestly listed as “the head of training for the Persian cavalry” (I recall Soviet “military experts” in Korea, Vietnam and African countries). The brigade was predominantly recruited from Caucasians, who at one time fled to Persia from Russian troops. Now they or their descendants themselves had to serve under the command of Russian officers. The Cossack brigade was given a responsible task - to protect the sovereign himself, members of his family, top officials of the state and members of the diplomatic corps. By the beginning of the 20th century, the brigade was rightly revered as the most organized and combat-ready part of the Persian army.

Capable boy

It was at this time that a fourteen-year-old “Cossack” joined the ranks of the brigade. Reza Khan Savadkuhi. The recruit's origin was quite ordinary for this military unit. He was born and raised in the small village of Alasht in northern Persia. He had undoubted talents, knew several languages, but had virtually no education and had difficulty writing. His warlike ancestors once lived in the Caucasus, his grandfather was already a major in the Persian army, his father a colonel. However, Reza Khan barely remembered him - he died when the future Cossack was still just a child. The son of a younger wife, he had diminishing chances of a small inheritance, but he was distinguished by excellent physical development and representative appearance. Service in a privileged unit gave him a relatively good position and the opportunity to advance to the rank of officer. Then this was the height of Reza’s dreams.

Service came easily to him; a natural horseman and grunt, he quickly attracted the attention of commanders. In 1900, he finally received his first officer rank. After another three years, he was entrusted with a responsible mission - guarding the Dutch consul. General Fritz Knebel, whose bodyguard was the young, handsome Reza Khan, appreciated the smart and inquisitive officer. Thanks to the Dutchman, he mastered the basics of diplomacy with political literacy, and gained a thorough knowledge of European military science. By 1910, Reza had already become the captain of the Persian Cossack brigade - not only a dashing horseman, but also a very knowledgeable officer. It must be said that such a rise in this brigade was the exception rather than the norm; the command staff here was predominantly Russian. But here Captain Reza Khan was lucky: in 1916, at the height of the 1st World War, it was decided to expand the brigade into a division.

Between two fires

In contrast to the Persian Cossacks, Great Britain, as if it were an ally of Russia in the Entente, formed South Persian rifle units modeled on Indian sepoys to protect its interests in Persia. Russia could not put up with this and increased its presence in the strategically important region (nearby was Baku, which at that time provided the lion’s share of oil on the world market). Significantly more officers were needed than before, and Russian military experts were needed on the fronts of the war with Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. This is where Reza Khan becomes a colonel and commander of a separate Qazvin detachment. As a child, looking at the brave Cossacks in Circassian coats - with gazyrs, in shaggy hats, with decorated sabers and daggers on their belts - he could only dream of such a career. However, in reality his rise was just beginning.

The revolution in Russia set in motion hitherto unknown mechanisms of world politics. Most of the officers of the Cossack division sided with the whites, but the Bolsheviks also looked at the Persian lands with considerable interest: the revolution must be world-wide! In 1920, a detachment of sailors under the command of a former midshipman of the Imperial Navy Fedora Ilyina (Raskolnikova), commander of the Astrakhan-Caspian flotilla, landed in the Persian port of Anzeli, allegedly to return ships hijacked by the White Guards. But soon the landing force was surrounded by Cossacks patrolling the Caspian coast and thrown into the sea. The heroes of this battle were the Russian Cossack officers who remained in the service of the Shah. They were led by Reza Khan. However, such a vivid display of fighting efficiency and loyalty did not so much please the weak Ahmad Shah, how much frightened the British military mission, which planned to seize the Baku oil fields. The British began to actively put pressure on the Shah and his prime minister, demanding the dissolution of the Cossack division. Since after the collapse of the Russian Empire the financing of the “allied” military unit now lay on their shoulders, it was not difficult to “cut off the oxygen.”

Sardar Sepah

This is where the lessons learned from the Dutch Consul came in handy for Colonel Reza Khan. On the night of February 20-21, 1921, his Cossacks supported the coup in the capital. The new prime minister confirmed the military leader of the uprising as the commander of the revived Cossack division and granted him the rank of general (with the high title “Sardar Sepah”). Soon Reza Khan became the military governor of the capital, commander-in-chief and minister of war of Persia. One of the first actions of the new government on February 26, 1921 was the signing of a friendship treaty with the Soviet government. The British could bite their elbows, but their access to Baku oil was blocked.

A couple of years later, Reza Khan himself became the Prime Minister of Persia, and two years later the incredible happened: on October 31, 1925, the Majlis (parliament) announced the overthrow of Ahmad Shah and the entire Qajar dynasty, and on December 12, the dashing Cossack Reza was declared Shah of Persia -khan, who became known as Reza Pahlavi. The new Shahinshah had nothing to do with the ancient Parthian dynasty of the Karen-Pahlavids, but his name sounded much more magnificent than before.

It was here that a number of details became clear that had not previously been emphasized. Listed as a Shiite Muslim, the new Shah turned out to be a Zoroastrian and introduced a number of innovations that turned old-fashioned Persia into an actively developing secular power. Laws unprecedented for these places were adopted, including a civil code, a law against the violent seizure of land, an autonomous customs tax was introduced... The Shah actively laid highways and railways, built factories, distributed land plots to four million poor peasants, practically eliminated illiteracy in the country, gave women the right to vote. It was under him, in 1935, that a decree was issued on removing the veil! In the same year, the ancient name of the country - Persia - was changed to Iran, i.e. country of the Aryans.

On the wrong horse

The Aryan theme was generally popular in the 30s of the last century, most of all in Germany, which had the same relationship to this ancient people as Shah Reza to the Parthians (translated by Pahlavi as “Parthian”). This led to the interest of “true Aryans” in true Iranians and probably determined the fate of the most progressive of the eastern rulers of that era. He saw in Hitler's Reich a counterbalance to the USSR and Great Britain, from which Iran had a lot of trouble, and maintained active diplomatic contacts with the Germans.

In 1941, the Soviet Union and Britain, fearing the deployment of German bases on the Caspian coast, demanded that the Shah allow allied troops onto their territory. Reza Pahlavi declared his neutrality and refused. Then on August 25, Soviet and British troops from the north and south began to move inland towards each other. Not wanting senseless bloodshed, Reza Pahlavi abdicated the throne in favor of his son and left the country. He died in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 1944. After the end of the war, his remains were returned to his homeland, and in 1949 the Majlis awarded the late sovereign the title “Great”. Thus ended the long and glorious epic of the Russian-Persian Cossack - the father of Iran.

In the second half of the 19th century, the two regional powers of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, sought to majorly modernize their armed forces. It was clear that the traditional system of organization and training of both the Sultan’s and Shah’s armies had outlived its usefulness. Instructors from various European countries were invited to train new units. However, one of the most interesting examples of the use of European experience in the East was the Persian Cossacks.

In 1848, seventeen-year-old Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar ascended the Shah's throne of Persia. He was a representative of the Qajar dynasty that ruled the country since 1795 - people from the Azerbaijani Qajar tribe, who settled in Transcaucasia after the Mongol conquest of the territory of modern Iran. In 1795, the son of one of the leaders of the Koyunlu clan of the Qajar tribe, Agha Mohammed Qajar, seized power in the country and established the power of his clan. By the time of the events described - the creation of the Persian Cossack Brigade - Nasser ad-Din Qajar had been in power for thirty years. In 1878, he undertook his next trip to European countries, visiting the territory of the Russian Empire. The Shah returned from Europe a convinced supporter of the reorganization of his army along European lines. He brought military instructors from France and decided to found a military school in Tehran. During a trip to the Russian Transcaucasus, the Shah was greatly impressed by the Cossacks guarding him. Nasser ad-Din Qajar was inspired by the idea of ​​​​creating a similar military unit in Persia, for which he turned to Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich Romanov, who was the governor in the Caucasus at that time, with a request to send Russian Cossack officers as instructors - to form the Persian Cossack army. Despite the fact that the Russian Empire had previously fought more than once with Persia, and in general the relations between the two neighboring states were far from ideal, the Russian leadership decided to meet the Shah halfway. Moreover, the appearance in Persia of military units led by Russian officers inevitably meant an increase in Russian influence on the politics of the Persian state. Therefore, the go-ahead to send military advisers to Persia was received. Thus began the history of the Persian Cossacks of the Qajar Shahs.

Thirty-two-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Alexey Ivanovich Domontovich was already an experienced officer at the time of the events described. He served at the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District - as a staff officer for special assignments. The lieutenant colonel, a Kuban Cossack by birth, had behind him studies at the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps, the Alexander Military School and the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, and fourteen years of military service. In 1864, Domontovich began serving as a cornet of the 11th horse artillery battery of the Kuban Cossack Army, in 1872-1875. studied at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, after which he was assigned to the senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 38th Infantry Division and promoted to captain. In 1876, Captain Domontovich took part in the occupation of Bayazet, Surp-Oganez, Bolshaya Karakilisa, Diadin and a number of other battles. For military exploits, the officer received the Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree with swords and a bow and was promoted to lieutenant colonel - for participating in the battles of Dayar. Therefore, it was not surprising that when discussing the candidacy of a military adviser sent to Persia, the choice fell on Lieutenant Colonel Domontovich. On February 7, 1879, Domontovich concluded a contract with the Persian leadership on the arrival of a Russian military mission in Persia and the formation of the Persian Cossack Brigade. Domontovich himself was appointed the first commander of the brigade, and in 1880 he received the rank of colonel. In 1879, the first regiment of the brigade was formed.

The organization of the brigade's service was very interesting. Formally, the Persian Cossack Brigade was subordinate to the Persian Minister of War, but in fact the brigade was controlled by the Russian envoy to Persia. The commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade was a Russian officer with the rank of colonel of the General Staff, who officially held the position of head of training for the Persian cavalry. Russian officers and civil servants, who were considered his assistants, were subordinate to him. Each regiment of the brigade was commanded by a Persian general, but the actual commander of each regiment was again a Russian officer-instructor. In each regiment of the brigade, subordinate to the instructor officer, there was a non-commissioned officer who assisted in the training of personnel. The cavalry regiments of the brigade each consisted of four squadrons, which in turn included four platoons.

It was initially decided to staff the Persian Cossack Brigade with muhajirs - descendants of settlers from the Caucasus who went to Persia after Russia's victory in the Caucasian War. The highlanders were considered warlike, brave people, familiar with military affairs from childhood, so they were best suited for the role of the Cossacks of the brigade. Over time, more than half of the Cossacks of the brigade came from the mountain Kurdish tribes of Iranian Kurdistan, and the rest was recruited from among representatives of the Turkic tribes of Iran, Turkmen and Afghans. The brigade's soldiers wore the uniform of the Terek Cossack Army and were armed with rifles of the Berdan system and cold swords and daggers.

In 1882, Colonel Domontovich was recalled to Russia and after some time was appointed chief of staff of the Caucasian Cavalry Division. He subsequently rose to the rank of cavalry general, commanded the 2nd Combined Cossack Division and retired in 1906. Colonel of the General Staff Pyotr Vladimirovich Charkovsky was appointed the new commander of the brigade. He formed within the brigade the third Cossack regiment and a squadron of “Kadama” veterans - from representatives of older ages. Also included in the Persian Cossack brigade were a horse artillery battery, a squadron of the Shah's guard and a musical detachment. In 1885, Colonel Charkovsky, who left for further service as chief of staff of the 21st Infantry Division of the 3rd Caucasian Army Corps, was replaced as brigade commander by Colonel Kuzmin-Karavaev. He led the brigade until 1891, when he was replaced by Colonel Alexander Konstantinovich Shneur (commanded the brigade in 1891-1894).

However, already in the second half of the 1880s. The Russian leadership lost interest in the brigade, which immediately affected its financial support. The brigade's personnel began to be reduced - to 200-300 people by the mid-1890s. Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar also lost interest in the brigade. The Persian Minister of War Naib os-Saltan, who was strongly influenced by British agents, generally insisted on the dissolution of the Persian Cossack Brigade. According to the minister, it was enough to retain only the Cossack convoy to accompany the Shah. However, Nasser ad-Din Qajar nevertheless abandoned the idea of ​​​​disbanding the brigade - largely because he did not want to quarrel with his powerful northern neighbor. But the possibility of replacing Russian officers with German instructors was already beginning to be discussed by the Persian command.

Clouds gathered over the brigade, and who knows, maybe during 1894-1896. it would have ceased to exist if a new brigade commander had not been appointed in 1894 - Colonel of the General Staff Vladimir Andreevich Kosogovsky. A graduate of the Nikolaev Cavalry School, Kosogovsky previously served in the 12th Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment, then as a senior adjutant at the headquarters of the 2nd Caucasian Cossack Division, commanded a squadron of the 22nd Astrakhan Dragoon Regiment, served as chief officer for assignments at the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District and the headquarters officer for special assignments under the commander of the troops of the Semirechensk region. In 1890, Lieutenant Colonel Kosogovsky became a staff officer for assignments at the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District, and in 1894 he was promoted to colonel and sent to Persia to command a Cossack brigade.

Colonel Kosogovsky was far from being an ordinary service man. He was fluent in Farsi and other Iranian dialects, and studied the life and traditions of the peoples of Persia. It was Kosogovsky who proposed to the Shah the idea of ​​​​creating a new Persian army of a modern type on the basis of the Persian Cossack brigade. He resumed recruiting personnel for the brigade and by September 1894 there were 500 Cossacks under the command of the colonel. However, there was a scandal. When Kosogovsky abolished the privileges of the Muhajirs, some of them rebelled. On May 5, 1895, the Muhajirs left the brigade, taking their inherited pensions. Minister of War Naib os-Saltan, known for his hostile attitude towards the brigade, invited the muhajirs who had left under his command and already on May 9, 1895 announced the creation of the Persian brigade. Its instructors were supposed to be British officers, but the Russian embassy intervened and on May 24, 1895, Shah Nasser ad-Din ordered the disbandment of the Os-Saltan brigade. At the same time, the Shah signed an agreement that only Russian military instructors would serve in the brigade. Interference in the internal affairs of the brigade was prohibited even for the leaders of the Persian War Ministry.

Over the nine years of commanding the brigade, Kosogovsky managed to turn it into the most combat-ready unit of the Persian army. Accordingly, the influence of Kosogovsky himself on the political life of Persia increased sharply. He turned into one of the Shah's main military advisers. In March 1899, Shah Mozafereddin Shah Qajar, who replaced Nasser ad-Din Qajar on the throne who was killed in 1896, ordered an increase in the size of the brigade by a thousand people. So the Persian Cossack Brigade turned into a powerful force of 1,600 trained and well-armed Cossacks. Colonel Kosogovsky himself in 1900, while serving as commander of the Persian Cossack brigade, received the rank of major general, and continued to command the brigade in this rank until 1903, when he was replaced by Colonel Fedor Grigorievich Chernozubov. In 1906, Colonel Vladimir Platonovich Lyakhov became the commander of the brigade. It was he who commanded the brigade in 1908, when on June 22, on the orders of the new Shah Muhammad Ali, who replaced Mozafereddin Shah Qajar, who died in 1907, the Persian Majlis was shot from artillery guns. For this, the Shah appointed Lyakhov as Governor-General of Tehran. Seeing the reliability of the brigade, the Shah thought about further increasing its number. In 1913, units of the brigade, previously stationed exclusively in Tehran, were deployed to Tabriz, Rasht and Hamadan.

In 1909, Colonel Lyakhov (pictured) was transferred to Russia - to the post of commander of the 50th Bialystok Infantry Regiment, and in 1912 he became the chief of military headquarters of the Kuban Cossack Army. He rose to the rank of lieutenant general and commanded the 1st Caucasian Army Corps, and after the revolution and the beginning of the Civil War - the troops of the Terek-Dagestan region of the Volunteer Army, he was killed in 1919. Colonel Prince Nikolai Petrovich Vadbolsky, a participant in the Russo-Japanese War who served as chief of staff of the Caucasian Cavalry Division, was appointed as the new brigade commander. Vadbolsky is credited with freeing the brigade from performing unusual functions of police service in the northern provinces of Persia.

In the summer of 1916, the Persian Cossack Brigade was reorganized into the Persian Cossack Division. He commanded it in 1916-1917. Major General Baron Vladimir Nikolaevich von Maidel - participant in the First World War, and in 1917-1918. - Colonel Georgy Iosifovich Klerzhe, future chief of staff of Ataman Semenov’s troops. After the change of power in Russia, the division was taken over by the British, who gained enormous influence in Persia. In 1918-1920 The Persian Cossack division was commanded by the last Russian commander - Colonel Vsevolod Dmitrievich Staroselsky, the former commander of the Guards Cavalry Regiment, who left for Persia after the October Revolution. At the same time, units of the division patrolled the coast of the Caspian Sea in order to prevent the landing of Soviet troops. It was they who forced the detachment of Red Army soldiers, commanded by Fyodor Raskolnikov, to leave the borders of Persia. The famous adventure of “Sovietization” of Persia failed largely thanks to the Persian Cossack division. However, in 1920, under pressure from British military advisers, all Russian officers serving in the division were dismissed and command was transferred to Persian officers.

At the end of 1920, the division was disbanded, and five years later General Reza Khan (on the left in the 1910 photo) was proclaimed Shah of Persia, giving rise to the new Pahlavi Shah dynasty. Ironically, Reza Khan came from the Persian Cossack Brigade. It was there that a young man named Reza Savadkuhi, a Mazenderan on his father’s side and an Azerbaijani on his mother’s side, began serving as a private, and in 1898, at the age of twenty, he was promoted to officer and served in the Persian Cossack brigade (and then division) for more than twenty years, reaching the rank of 1919 to the rank of general. In 1921, at the height of the turmoil, General Reza Khan, with the help of friends - officers, former colleagues in the Persian Cossack Brigade, captured Tehran. Ahmed Shah Qajar was forced to appoint him military governor of the capital, then minister of war. In 1923, Reza Khan headed the Persian government, and in 1925 he announced the overthrow of Ahmed Shah Qajar and became the new ruler of the country.

The brigade, reorganized into a division in 1916, existed until 1920. During this time, the unit had more than 10 commanders, but invariably they were all Russian officers and each of them brought something new to the unit.

Thus, under Colonel Pyotr Charkovsky, who replaced Domontovich, an artillery half-battery was created as part of the formation. And on the initiative of the third commander, Colonel Alexander Kuzmin-Karavaev, a Russian paramedic appeared in the brigade, who became the first military doctor of the Persian army.

Later, the unit also added a training infantry team, a machine gun team, and even a cadet corps. However, before this, the brigade had to experience decline. After the change of Kuzmin-Karavaev in 1890, the quality of training of the Cossacks decreased; the unit was simply not given due attention and, most importantly, funding. As a result, with a nominal strength of a unit of a thousand people, there were actually only a few hundred fighters in the state. It even got to the point that the Shah was seriously considering transferring command of the brigade to the British - he was stopped only by his reluctance to spoil relations with the Russian Empire.

Only Colonel Vladimir Kosogovsky, who took command in 1894, was able to help the Persian Cossacks get out of the crisis. He managed to achieve an increase in the brigade budget, return the Shah's favor to Russian instructors and stop the practice of transferring officer ranks by inheritance. The commander also received permission to restore the third regiment and form a full battery.

But most importantly, it was Kosogovsky who put forward the idea of ​​forming a new Persian army based on the Cossack brigade. It will be brought to life by his followers.

“Very quickly the corps again turned into the best and most prestigious Persian unit. With his help, many military formations that were in the service of local authorities were disbanded,” writes Oleg Pauller.

To control order, from 1910 to 1914, a dozen territorial detachments appeared within the unit, responsible for certain areas of the country. The authorities were prompted to create them, including the events that unfolded in Persia in the second half of the first decade of the 20th century. For six years the country will be engulfed in revolutions and unrest, which the sheikh will have to fight, including by force. At the same time, there will be a use for the Cossack brigade - for example, it was the one that was marked by the shelling of the Majlis in 1908.

The history of the unit will come to an end exactly along with the history of the Russian Empire. After the revolutions of 1917, Middle Eastern affairs faded into the background for the new leadership and the presence of “their” unit in Persia would lose importance. Already in 1918, the British began to finance the division, and the Russian officers in it were replaced by local, Persian ones. The unit will be finally disbanded in 1920. However, even in its short 40-year history, the brigade left its indelible mark, marking the beginning of the formation of the modern Iranian army.