Battle of Chaldiran
Battle of Chaldiran | |
---|---|
Part of the Iranian Azerbaijan[1] 39°05′20″N 44°19′37″E / 39.08889°N 44.32694°E | |
Result |
Ottoman victory[2][3] |
Territorial changes |
Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha
Hasan Pasha †[7]
Or 100,000[9][10]
100–150 cannon[11]
Or 200 cannon and 100 mortars[7]
Or 55,000[13]
Or 80,000[9]
Or less than 2,000[15]
Or approximately 5,000[16]
The Battle of Chaldiran (
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
Background
After
... you have subjected the upright community of Muhammad... to your devious will [and] undermined the firm foundation of the faith; you have unfurled the banner of oppression in the cause of aggression [and] no longer uphold the commandments and prohibitions of the Divine Law; you have incited your abominable Shii faction to unsanctified sexual union and the shedding of innocent blood.
Before Selim started his campaign, he ordered for the execution of some 40,000 Qizilbash of Anatolia, "as punishment for their rebellious behavior".[10] He then also tried to block the import of Iranian silk into his realm, a measure which met "with some success".[10]
Selim sent the following letter to Ismail, which outlined both Selim's claim to the caliphate and Ismail's heresy:[25]
This missive which is stamped with the seal of victory and which is, like inspiration descending from the heavens, witness to the verse "We never chastise until We send forth a Messenger" [Quran XVII] has been graciously issued by our most glorious majesty-we who are the Caliph of God Most High in this world, far and wide; the proof of the verse "And what profits men abides in the earth" [Quran XIII] the Solomon of Splendor, the Alexander of eminence; haloed in victory, Faridun triumphant; slayer of the wicked and the infidel, guardian of the noble and the pious; the warrior in the Path, the defender of the Faith; the champion, the conqueror; the lion, son and grandson of the lion; standard-bearer of justice and righteousness, Sultan Selim Shah, son of Sultan Bayezid, son of Sultan Muhammad Khan–and is addressed to the ruler of the kingdom of the Persians, the possessor of the land of tyranny and perversion, the captain of the vicious, the chief of the malicious, the usurping Darius of the time, the malevolent Zahhak of the age, the peer of Cain, Prince Ismail.
When Selim started his march east, the Safavids were invaded in the east by the Uzbeks. The Uzbek state had been recently brought to prominence by Muhammad Shaybani, who had fallen in battle against Isma'il only a few years before. Attempting to avoid having to fight a war on two fronts, Isma'il employed a scorched earth policy against Selim in the west.[24]: 105
Selim's army was discontented by the difficulty in supplying the army in light of Isma'il's scorched earth campaign, the extremely rough terrain of the
Battle
The Ottomans deployed heavy artillery and thousands of Janissaries equipped with gunpowder weapons behind a barrier of carts. The Safavids, who did not have artillery at their disposal at Chaldiran,[26] used cavalry to engage the Ottoman forces. The Safavids attacked the Ottoman wings in an effort to avoid the Ottoman artillery positioned at the center. However, the Ottoman artillery was highly maneuverable and the Safavids suffered disastrous losses.[27] The advanced Ottoman weaponry (cannons and muskets wielded by janissaries) was the deciding factor of the battle as the Safavid forces, who only had traditional weaponry, were decimated. The Safavids also suffered from poor planning and ill-disciplined troops unlike the Ottomans.[28]
Aftermath
Following their victory the Ottomans captured the Safavid capital city of
After two of his wives and entire harem were captured by Selim[30][17] Ismail was heartbroken and resorted to drinking alcohol.[31] His aura of invincibility shattered,[32] Ismail ceased participating in government and military affairs,[33] due to what seems to have been the collapse of his confidence.[17]
Selim married one of Ismail's wives to an Ottoman judge. Ismail sent four envoys, gifts, and in contrast to their previous exchanges, words of praise to Selim in order to help retrieve her. Instead of giving his wife back, Selim cut the messengers' noses off and sent them back empty handed.[29]
After the defeat at Chaldiran, however, the Safavids made drastic domestic changes. From then on, firearms were made an integral part of the Persian armies and Ismail's son, Tahmasp I, deployed cannons in subsequent battles.[34][35]
During the retreat of the Ottoman troops, they were intensively harassed by Georgian light cavalry of the Safavid army, deep into the Ottoman realm.[36]
The
After the victorious battle of Chaldiran, Selim I next threw his forces southward to fight the
Battlefield
The site of the battle is near
Quotes
This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. (October 2023) |
After the battle, Selim believed Ismail I was:
Always drunk to the point of losing his mind and totally neglectful of the affairs of the state.[38]
Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat:[39]
At that period Sháh Ismail returned to Irák, where he was attacked by the Sultán of Rum, Sultán Salim, with an army of several hundred thousand men. Sháh Ismail met him with a force of 30,000, and a bloody battle was fought, from which he escaped with only six men, all the rest of his army having been annihilated by the Rumi. Sultán Salim made no further aggressions after this, but returned to Rum, while Sháh Ismail, broken and [with his forces] dispersed, remained in Irák. A short time after this event, he went to join his colleagues Nimrud and Pharaoh, and was succeeded by his son Sháh Tahmásp. This Sháh, likewise, was on several occasions exposed to the kicks of the Rumi army; moreover, from fear of the Rumi he was not able to maintain his accursed religion, nor uphold the evil practices of his father.
See also
References
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam (44+2 vols.) (in Turkish). Istanbul: Turkiye Diyanet Foundation, Centre for Islamic Studies.
- ISBN 978-1851096725.
- ^ a b David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, (Dover Publications, 1985), 85.
- ^ ISBN 1139991507. p. 336.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
- ^ a b Savory 2007, p. 42.
- ^ 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."
- ^ a b Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters, p. 286, 2009
- ^ a b c d McCaffrey 1990, pp. 656–658.
- S2CID 143042353.
- ^ Roger M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge, 1980, p. 41
- ^ Keegan & Wheatcroft, Who's Who in Military History, Routledge, 1996. p. 268
- ^ a b Kenneth Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700, 120.
- ^ Serefname II
- ^ Serefname II s. 158
- ^ a b c d e f Mikaberidze 2015, p. 242.
- ^ 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."
- ^ Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, (Oxford University Press, 1993), 37.
- ^ Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shiʻi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʻism, (Yale University Press, 1985), 107.
- ^ The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, 359.
- ^ Martin Sicker, The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab conquests to the Siege of Vienna, (Praeger Publishers, 2000), 197.
- from the original on 7 November 2021. Retrieved 6 November 2021.
- ^ a b c d Osman's Dream Archived 4 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine. Caroline Finkel. Hachette UK
- ^ Karen M. Kern (2011). Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq. pp. 38–39.
- ^ Floor 2001, p. 189.
- ^ Andrew James McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, (Greenwood Publishing, 2006), 17.
- ^ Gene Ralph Garthwaite, The Persians, (Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 164.
- ^ ISBN 978-1631492396.
- ^ The Cambridge history of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, pg. 224.
- ^ The Cambridge history of Islam, Part 1, ed. Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, pg. 401
- ^ The Cambridge History of Islam, Part 1, By Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, p. 401.
- ^ Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran (ABC-CLIO, 2012) 86
- ^ Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Sultanate Reconsidered, Robert Irwin, The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian politics and society, ed. Michael Winter and Amalia Levanoni, (Brill, 2004) 127
- ^ Matthee, Rudolph (Rudi). "Safavid Persia:The History and Politics of an Islamic Empire". Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
- ^ Floor 2001, p. 131.
- ISBN 9781558764491. Archivedfrom the original on 16 April 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2016 – via Google Books.
- ^ Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian history, 1500–1900, (Princeton University Press, 2005), 77
- ^ N. Elias (ed.). The Tarikh-i-Rashidi. Translated by E. Denison Ross. p. 247.
Sources
- Yves Bomati and Houchang Nahavandi,Shah Abbas, Emperor of Persia,1587–1629, 2017, ed. Ketab Corporation, Los Angeles, ISBN 978-1595845672, English translation by Azizeh Azodi.
- Floor, Willem (2001). Safavid Government Institutions. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1568591353.
- McCaffrey, Michael J. (1990). "Čālderān". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 6. pp. 656–658.
- Mikaberidze, Alexander (2015). Historical Dictionary of Georgia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1442241466.
- ISBN 978-0521042512.
Further reading
- S2CID 226585270.
- Moreen, Vera B. (2019). "Echoes of the Battle of Čālderān: The Account of the Jewish Chronicler Elijah Capsali (c. 1490 – c. 1555)". Studia Iranica. 48 (2): 195–234. .
- Palazzo, Chiara (2016). "The Venetian News Network in the Early Sixteenth Century: The Battle of Chaldiran". In Raymond, Joad; Moxham, Noah (eds.). News Networks in Early Modern Europe. Brill. pp. 849–869. ISBN 9789004277175.
- Rahimlu, Yusof; Esots, Janis (2021). "Chāldirān (Çaldıran)". In ISSN 1875-9831.
- Walsh, J.R. (1965). "Čāldirān". In OCLC 495469475.
- Wood, Barry (2017). "The Battle of Chālderān: Official History and Popular Memory". Iranian Studies. 50 (1): 79–105. S2CID 163512376.
- Wood, Barry (2022). "Chāldirān, Battle of". In Fleet, Kate; ISSN 1873-9830.