抄録
In this article, the author studies the arming of the Ottoman-Iranian Borderland after the Russo-Ottoman War (1877-78), as an attempt to clarify the significance of the “modern age” in the history of firearms. The Russo-Ottoman War gave rise to the diffusion of Martini-Peabody rifle in the Borderland, the impact of which can be discerned from Sheikh ‘Obeyd allāh’s revolt in 1880 and the destabilization of the regional security in the 1880s and 1890s. On the other hand, the Qajar irregular forces armed with those rifles displayed their own importance, and the Qajar dynasty attempted to utilize “modern” arms spread in the region by mobilizing these irregulars. This attitude seems to have been related to the general military policy of the Qajar dynasty in the age. Reacting to the arming of the Borderland, indigenous gunsmiths attempted to produce the imitations or to reuse metal cartridges locally, showing the indigenous technological level of arms production. Finally, the author suggests that these developments prepared the ground for the later historical developments including the Constitutional Revolution and the conflicts between various ethnic groups in the region in the WWI period.
