Solace of Lovers. Trost der Liebenden. Helena Perena
to be interfered with. And then there was another, more material reason. In the public Salaam (a large public reception with a kind of king’s speech), the ruler liked the elephant, the giraffe and also some Europeans in their traditional attire to embellish the event, and this was all the more essential as the death of the ostrich from indigestion had greatly diminished the pageantry. A few days later we were received by His Majesty in the small throne room. The Shah was sitting on the jewel-encrusted throne captured from Delhi, from which some gems were missing, probably due to the poor quality of the settings.Through an interpreter, the king bade us welcome and ordered a mixed commission to prepare a programme for us. That was duly done. The commissioners included Hussein Khan, literally one of the biggest men in Persia. As an aside, it is worth mentioning that in 1836, on his way to England, this Khan spent some time in Vienna because of the entanglements with Herat, and he was admitted several times to the Hotel Metternich. He revered the memory of this family with special devotion and had several good Viennese miniatures of them. When I returned to Europe nine years later, he instructed me to pay his respects especially to the Princess, believing that in Europe, as in Persia, it was not a problem for a simple doctor to call at the Chancellor’s residence.
When the commission assembled, the programme was forgotten; all the dignitaries merely wanted to ask questions designed to demonstrate their own expertise. The first conference was all about pontoons and bridge construction, although there was not a single navigable river nor any timbers suitable for warfare to be found in the whole of the empire. The only practical outcome was the conclusion that each of us would do what we thought best, and that was the wisest thing in the whole consultation. We were each assigned a number of students.
Before I discuss the field of activity of each of the teachers, I would like to describe the overall impression the stay made on us. As we had no knowledge of the language and were therefore restricted to our own company, life was very sad in the beginning. A letter from Europe took about two months to arrive, and telegraph services were no more available then than they are now, hence our existence was not very different from solitary confinement. Add to that some serious acclimatisation disorders, a circumstance which had a very depressing effect on the spirit. Think of our community as being cut in half, with no female creature ever to be seen – because the veiled mummies, which are more like stuffed woolsacks or corked champagne bottles, could not reasonably be counted as women – and you will understand that we newcomers were afflicted with an indescribable melancholy. It is like the rosebush without roses and the nightingale without its song; one is sure to tire of bush and bird. In such a condition the only remedy is either work and study or the bottle. Happy is he who chooses the former!
Moreover, there was another very depressing aspect for our officers. Mindful of their rank, they assumed no other titles than those which were rightly theirs at home; they did not load themselves with gold braid and gilded themselves even less with galvanoplastic trimmings. On the other hand, every Persian of good family enters the army as a Sarhang, i.e. colonel, and so beardless boys looked down disdainfully on lieutenants and captains. As chance would have it, shortly after our arrival some Italian refugees entered Persian service, and they were prudent enough to at least claim the title of colonel and the gold braid.
In this connection I remember well an amusing episode. One day the Grand Vizier sent for me to examine a new colonel in militaribus. The minister handed him a rifle for the drill. From the position with the upper body leaning forward with outstretched arms, I saw immediately that the colonel had at best been serving the fine people of his country with firearms from behind a counter. When the minister remarked with a smile that he was not very familiar with the rifle, the colonel offered the excuse that he had previously served in the cavalry, and he was soon put to good use in that service and later brought some horses to Vienna. In this difficult situation in which some of us found ourselves, our motherland also forgot to enquire about our activities; no questions were asked about us, and no awards were made, which would have elevated everyone in the public eye, especially since the other nationals were in a much more felicitous position. I am not complaining; I merely note the situation which was bound to arise as a result of the ambiguous position of the officers without status. In the case of subsequent appointees, our government seems to have avoided such vexations, and it has not stinted with favours for the returnees, but
“What one wishes in youth,
one has in full when old.”
First Lieutenant Krziz, now Major (Ret’d), resident in Chrudim, is a competent mathematician who, in the tradition of the Austro-Hungarian artillery, took his duties very seriously. At first he had 25 students, whose number later grew to 50. Most of them are now in military service and hold senior positions in the Persian army. Although, as mentioned above, the artillery was initially organised by the British, it was Krziz who taught theory as well as practice and wrote definitive Persian-language textbooks for all disciplines, thus providing a solid foundation for future teaching. Given the limited availability of books in the Orient compared to the Occident, every book is highly esteemed; indeed they even go so far as to recognise every religion whose statutes are written down in a book as Saheb-e Ketab, meaning owner of a book, and thus legitimate, while the others are considered idolatry.
For nine years Krziz taught arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, artillery theory and so on; he performed practical measurements of peaks and valleys, supervised the construction of artillery batteries and redoubts and improved the workings of the arsenal – in short, a wealth of specialist work, which it would take too long to enumerate. I must nevertheless mention a number of notable achievements: Krziz drew a precise map of Tehran, 100 paces to the inch, and although the city has since been greatly extended to the northeast, it remains a permanent asset because the presence of so many harems meant that accurate surveying was only possible under particularly favourable conditions. He also mapped the surroundings of the city, at 1,000 paces to the inch, from the Alborz range to the ancient city of Ray in the south. The demanding work on these maps could only be completed with the help of his students. He also measured the highest peak of the Alborz Mountains near Tehran, putting its height at 12,000 feet, and performed a trigonometric survey using barometers and thermometers of Mount Damavand, one of the highest and most majestic mountains in the world, calculating its height at almost 20,000 feet.
If we look at recent maps of Persia, we find telegraph lines serving all points of the compass, one connecting with Europe via Tbilisi, Baghdad and Egypt and another with the Indian telegraph system by cable and wire via Baluchestan. These lines were all constructed in the period after 1860, but Krziz was the first to construct a telegraph line, albeit only 800 metres in length, and the interesting thing about it is that he made all the equipment himself or had it made by craftsmen in Tehran; only the wire was drawn in Isfahan. The apparatus was of the electro-magnetic type, with a Daniell cell used to supply the current. After nine years, Krziz retired from Persian service and published “Die Beschreibung, wissenschaftliche Zergliederung und Gebrauchsweise des persisch-arabischen Astrolabiums” (Greifswalde) (Description, Scientific Structure and Use of the Persian-Arab Astrolabe). This was a mathematical achievement of great significance, as Asian astronomers used this instrument for their work. His activities have left their mark on the recent cultural history of Persia and are a credit to our country.
Far more limited in their impact were the activities of the other officers. This was due partly to the disciplines involved and partly to the circumstances. In most cases they had no option but to complain that they were not being provided with the necessary men and weapons for training and drill, to which the Grand Vizier would give his standard reply: “If the salary is paid, there can be no cause for complaint.” Indeed, every European who feels the urge to achieve something must be willing to procure the materials himself; all that is officially expected of him is his presence.
Captain Gumoens, a Swiss, looked to find the orderly conditions of the Austrian army everywhere, so he stumbled at every straw and every straw caused him to fall. Mirza Shafi has words for his case:
“No-one ever lends an ear / When you start: I’m wisest here!
So if you want the men to learn / Make adaptation your concern.”
He left the service in his second year.
Captain Zatti of the Military Engineers was a capable