Battle of Chaldiran

Battle of Chaldiran
Part of the Ottoman–Persian Wars

Artwork of the Battle of Chaldiran at the Chehel Sotoun Pavilion in Isfahan
Date23 August 1514
Location39°05′20″N 44°19′37″E / 39.08889°N 44.32694°E / 39.08889; 44.32694
Result Ottoman victory[2][3]
Territorial
changes
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire Safavid Iran
Commanders and leaders
Selim I
Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha
Hasan Pasha [7]
Ismail I (WIA)
Abd al-Baqi Yazdi 
Husayn Beg Shamlu 
Saru Pira Ustajlu 
Durmish Khan Shamlu
Nur-Ali Khalifa
Mohammad Khan Ustajlu 
Sayyed Sharif al-Din Ali Shirazi 
Seyid Sadraddin
Strength
60,000[8]
Or 100,000[9][10]
100–150 cannon[11]
Or 200 cannon and 100 mortars[7]
40,000[12][10]
Or 55,000[13]
Or 80,000[9]
Casualties and losses
Heavy losses[14]
Or less than 2,000[15]
Heavy losses[14]
Or approximately 5,000[16]
Battle of Chaldiran is located in Caucasus mountains
Battle of Chaldiran
Location within Caucasus mountains
Battle of Chaldiran is located in Middle East
Battle of Chaldiran
Battle of Chaldiran (Middle East)
Battle of Chaldiran is located in Iran
Battle of Chaldiran
Battle of Chaldiran (Iran)
Battle of Chaldiran is located in Turkey
Battle of Chaldiran
Battle of Chaldiran (Turkey)

The Battle of Chaldiran (Persian: جنگ چالدران; Turkish: Çaldıran Savaşı) took place on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans annexed Eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq from Safavid Iran.[3][4] It marked the first Ottoman expansion into Eastern Anatolia, and the halt of the Safavid expansion to the west.[17] The Battle of Chaldiran was just the beginning of 41 years of destructive war, which only ended in 1555 with the Treaty of Amasya. Though Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia were eventually reconquered by the Safavids under the reign of Shah Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629), they would be permanently ceded to the Ottomans by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.

At Chaldiran, the Ottomans had a larger, better equipped army numbering 60,000 to 100,000 as well as many heavy artillery pieces, while the Safavid army numbered some 40,000 to 80,000 and did not have artillery at its disposal. Ismail I, the leader of the Safavids, was wounded and almost captured during the battle. His wives were captured by the Ottoman leader Selim I,[18] with at least one married off to one of Selim's statesmen.[19] Ismail retired to his palace and withdrew from government administration[20] after this defeat and never again participated in a military campaign.[17] After their victory, Ottoman forces marched deeper into Persia, briefly occupying the Safavid capital, Tabriz, and thoroughly looting the Persian imperial treasury.[5][6]

The battle is one of major historical importance because it not only negated the idea that the Murshid of the Shia-Qizilbash was infallible,[21] but also led Kurdish chiefs to assert their authority and switch their allegiance from the Safavids to the Ottomans.[22][23]

  1. ^ Mustafa Çetin Varlık (1988–2016). "Çaldiran Savasi Yavuz Sultan Selim ile Safevî Hükümdarı Şah İsmâil arasında Çaldıran ovasında 23 Ağustos 1514'te yapılan meydan savaşı". TDV Encyclopedia of Islam (44+2 vols.) (in Turkish). Istanbul: Turkiye Diyanet Foundation, Centre for Islamic Studies.
  2. ^ Tucker, Spencer C., ed. (2010). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO. p. 483. ISBN 978-1851096725.
  3. ^ a b David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, (Dover Publications, 1985), 85.
  4. ^ a b Ira M. Lapidus. "A History of Islamic Societies" Archived 2023-04-16 at the Wayback Machine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1139991507. p. 336.
  5. ^ a b Matthee, Rudi (2008). "Safavid Dynasty". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 6 January 2019. Following Čālderān, the Ottomans briefly occupied Tabriz.
  6. ^ a b Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
  7. ^ a b Savory 2007, p. 42.
  8. ^ Keegan & Wheatcroft, Who's Who in Military History, Routledge, 1996. p. 268 "In 1515 Selim marched east with some 60,000 men; a proportion of these were skilled Janissaries, certainly the best infantry in Asia, and the sipahis, equally well-trained and disciplined cavalry. [...] The Persian army, under Shah Ismail, was almost entirely composed of Turcoman tribal levies, a courageous but ill-disciplined cavalry army. Slightly inferior in numbers to the Turks, their charges broke against the Janissaries, who had taken up fixed positions behind rudimentary field works."
  9. ^ a b Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters, p. 286, 2009
  10. ^ a b McCaffrey 1990, pp. 656–658.
  11. ^ Ágoston, Gábor (2014). "Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800". Journal of World History. 25: 110. doi:10.1353/jwh.2014.0005. S2CID 143042353.
  12. ^ Roger M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge, 1980, p. 41
  13. ^ Keegan & Wheatcroft, Who's Who in Military History, Routledge, 1996. p. 268
  14. ^ a b Kenneth Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700, 120.
  15. ^ Serefname II
  16. ^ Serefname II s. 158
  17. ^ a b Mikaberidze 2015, p. 242.
  18. ^ The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, 224;"The magnitude of the disaster may be judged from the fact that the royal harem with two of Ismai'il's wives fell into the hands of the enemy."
  19. ^ Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, (Oxford University Press, 1993), 37.
  20. ^ Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shiʻi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʻism, (Yale University Press, 1985), 107.
  21. ^ The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, 359.
  22. ^ Martin Sicker, The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab conquests to the Siege of Vienna, (Praeger Publishers, 2000), 197.
  23. ^ Aktürk, Ahmet Serdar (2018). "Family, Empire, and Nation: Kurdish Bedirkhanis and the Politics of Origins in a Changing Era". Journal of Global South Studies. 35 (2): 393. doi:10.1353/gss.2018.0032. ISSN 2476-1419. S2CID 158487762. Archived from the original on 7 November 2021. Retrieved 6 November 2021.

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