نشریه مطالعات تاریخی جنگ
سال پنجم شماره 1 (بهار 1400)

Historiography from ancient times to the present day has gone through different approaches and according to different paradigms, different types of historiography have been formed. Basically, until constitutional revolution, Iranian historiography is political-military and the familiarity with the method and the new insights of historiography from that era onward made different historical approaches emerge. One of the most important historians of the post-Pahlavi era is Mohammad Javad Mashkoor whose military historiography grew within this discourse. This study thus intends to determine his military historiography taking a descriptive-analytical approach. It attempts to address the question of the paradigm of Mashkoor's historiography. The findings of the study indicate that Mashkoor adopts a positivist approach in his military historiography because he seems to have ontologically believed in realism and merely attempted at realizing historical facts. Epistemologically, he considered the researcher and the subjects under study as separate entities that do not affect each other. He also assumed past as a fixed reality and this sort of realism does not allow any room for relativism. Finally, from the methodological point of view, he believed in the descriptive-analytical method.

The occupation of Iran in September 1941, and the escape of the military and the dissolution of the Iranian army, regardless of its military and political consequences, was a blow to the image of Reza Shahi's army formed in public opinion. The uniformed army, which had been able to extensively suppress all dissident domestic groups and local movements, now collapsed strangely in the face of a foreign enemy. Understanding this failure is one of the most important questions in contemporary Iranian history. It seems that this issue should be sought in the sultanism nature of the first Pahlavi government. Therefore, the main question of this research is "How did the sultanism nature of the government pave the way for its defeat in September 1941?" To investigate this issue, using the descriptive-analytical method and collecting data by means of library research, it was found that the influence of the monarchical nature of the government on the decision-making system, military functions, and a lack of understanding of the international system, led to the defeat of the army in September 1941 before any serious confrontation. In other words, by nature, an army that like other parts of the government managed all its general and particular affairs "under the command of the monarch" could not resist the foreign enemy.

The law of mandatory military service was one of the plans of the Pahlavi government, which received protests from the tribal community. One of the tribes that strongly resisted this law was the Boyer-Ahmad tribe. Two questions arise in this regard, which were dealt with in the present study, as to why the tribal community, led by the Khans, resisted this law, and what the Pahlavi government aimed in designing this law. The findings show that tribal society has always been one of the centers of local power that opposed any change in the political and social structure of the tribal pyramid. The Pahlavi government also saw tribal society as a manifestation of many of the obstacles to national solidarity and nation-state building that must be removed. Therefore, the conscription program would result in both the removal of the power of tribal society and an increase in the power of the central government. The alienation of the government by the masses of the tribal people and the bribery of the enforcers of this law caused more hatred towards the government.

From the mid-fourth century AH, with the rise of the Fatimids in Egypt and the expansion of their influence in the Levant, the interaction with the Byzantine Empire became a serious issue in the foreign relations of the Fatimid caliphs. The present descriptive and analytical study, therefore, addresses the conflicts and interactions of the Egyptian Fatimid caliphate with the Byzantine government in the Levant in the fourth and fifth centuries AH and analyzes the factors effective in them. The results show that the Fatimids, after settling in Egypt and in line with goals such as expanding their territory and countering Byzantine expansionism, dominated the Levant. Throughout the years of Fatimid rule in the region, they succeeded in combating Byzantine ambitions with a policy based on dialogue and war. This duality of interaction and confrontation put the Fatimids in a position to use their military and diplomatic capabilities to curb the expansionist policies of the Byzantine government, to gain political legitimacy, and to expand their territory. As a result, the Fatimids' basic strategy in this regard was based on the two axes of interaction or conflict and in compliance with the preservation of borders, defense of Islamic lands and the consolidation of their authority over the Levant.

The great famine that occurred in the years 1296-1298 A.H/1919-1917 A.D during World War I is a topic in Iranian contemporary history which suffers from poor historiography, and until recently its role and significance in determining the fate of the Iranian society has been neglected by historians. The publication of some articles and monographs that mentioned the disasters striking Iranians due to the violation of impartiality and the presence of foreign forces revealed parts of the calamities of those years. The present article thus aims to study the policies of the war-involved governments, their colonial records in the Qajar era, and the famine of the years of World War I in southern regions of Iran, and to answer this question that what factors were contributive to the outbreak of the famine and the death of people in these regions. The results show that among the various factors effective in the famine and war casualties during the First World War the extension of war to the south and the presence of foreigners including British troops can be pointed out as some main ones.

The first diplomatic relation between Iran and Rome came as a result of the confluence of Parthian interests with the Roman Republic in Anatolia. The alliance of Mehrdad VI (Pontic) with the Second Tigers (Armenian) and their involvement in the affairs of Cappadocia made Rome set foot in the Anatolian lands. In fact, the arrival of the Romans in this region created a challenge in the relations between Iran and Rome that continued until the end of the Parthian Empire. The present research thus aims to explicate and analyze the relation between Iran and Rome during the Mithridatic Wars. Historical description and analysis indicate that after the reign of Mehrdad II and the emergence of the claimants to the throne, the Parthian empire fell into decline. In such a situation, Rome, aware of the internal problems of the Parthians, attempted to infiltrate Asia Minor and the Caucasus, and on the other hand, the Second Tigers first used the opportunity to invade the Parthian territory to expand their influence westward and into Syria. He later fought with Rome through an alliance with Mehrdad VI. And the Parthians, by pursuing a policy of negative balance in the Mithridatic wars, could regain their former bases in Asia Minor and the Caucasus within a short time.