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Battle of Chaldiran

The location of Chaldiran is marked by a red dot on the right-hand side of the map.

The Battle of Chaldiran (23 August 1514) was fought between the Ottoman Empire of Selim I and the Safavids in the area of Chaldiran in the eastern Anatolian plateau. The Ottomans won and sp the Ottomans took eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq from the Safavids. The loss of Anatolia was a turning point for Safavid history.[1] One feature of the battle was that the Ottomans used guns and cannons to defeat the cavalry corps. However, the Ottomans led more than twice as many troops as the Safavids, and it said that the difference in troop strength made the difference between victory and defeat.[2] The defeat of the Safavids in the battle destroyed the myth of Islam I's supremacy and had historical significance by switching of the Kurds from belonging the Safavids to belonging to the Ottomans. Kurdish sheikhs, who had initially accepted Safavid suzerainty, recognized that the power of the Safavid dynasty had begun to wane since Ismail's defeat at Chaldiran and began to assert their independence. Then, Selim I won the loyalty of the Ottomans by providing financial and military support to the Kurdish sheikhs.[3]

Background

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Muslim world was dominated by three major empires. The Ottoman Empire had conquered Constantinople and controlled the Balkans and Anatolia. The Safavid Empire had conquered a large territory under Ismail I and expanded its power in Iran by using Turkic cavalrymen known as the Qizilbash. The Mamluk Sultanate ruled the regions of Egypt, The Levant and Hejaz.[4]

A severe threat to the Ottoman Empire was the Safavid dynasty. After the Battle of Chaldiran, the Ottomans would turn their attention to conquering the holy Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina from the Mamluk Sultanate. The Safavids would recover from this defeat and become one of the three major empires of the Islamic world with the Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire, the latter of which controlled South Asia.

Safavid dynasty

The Safavid dynasty was founded in March 1501 by Ismail I, a 15-year-old descendant of the Safavid family from Azerbaijan, Iran.[2] The Safavids were hostile to the Ottoman Empire, which was Sunni, as their state religion was Shi'a. Furthermore, the Safavids became a threat to the Ottoman Empire because of the growing support among the Turkic nomads of eastern Anatolia.[5][6]

Ismail aimed to create a Shia society, and forced conversions took place. There was a massacre of Sunnis who rebelled against the policy in the Tabriz.[7] In addition, Ismail expanded his control by annexing Azerbaijan and large parts of Iran, Baghdad, Khorasan, and Diyarbakr.[8]

Ottoman Empire

Selim I was unable to capitalize on thw victory. Despite chasing the Iranians to Tabriz, he allowed Ismail to escape.[6] Furthermore, Selim's original plan was to spend the winter in Tabriz and to fight the Safavids again in the spring. However, the soldiers were so exhausted from the previous battles that he could not get their approval. Therefore, he had to retreat and return to Istanbul.[9]

However, the Ottomans' victories can be said to have extended their power. After annexing eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, they controlled the Central Asian trade route between Tabriz and Bursa. The following year, the empire annexed the Mamluk dynasty of Syria and Egypt and brought the Holy Land of the Hejaz under its control.[10]

 
Ottoman Tile Panel Iznik in 16th century

During the siege of Tabriz, the Ottoman army brought many merchants and ceramic artisans back to its own country.[11] The artisans belonged to a pottery factory in Istanbul and were responsible for decorating the tiles on most of the buildings thaï erre constructed by the Ottoman Empire by the 1550s. That is said to have contributed significantly to the development of Iznik pottery.[12]

Progress of the battle

 
Battle of Chaldiran.　The gun-carrying soldiers in the bottom right are the Janissaries from the Ottoman Empire, and the Safavid soldiers are on the left.

The Ottoman army was dominated by elite janissaries and included an additional 200 cannons, 100 field guns and 8 000 camels. In contrast, the Safavid cavalry was less than half of the Ottoman army.[2] In that battle, the Safavid cavalry of Qizilbash attacked in a mass assault, and the Ottoman Army then responded with artillery fire.[6] Ismail I had been proposed to surprise the Ottomans before they had finished their positions, but he scoffed at that proposal and decided to wait for the enemy's positions and to attack in a straightforward manner.[1] The battle opened with a wave of attacks by Safavid cavalry, and in the first half of the cavalry battle, the Safavids held the upper hand. However, in the second half of the battle, the battle tilted in favor of the Ottomans, who had superior firepower by mobilizing not only rifles but also artillery. In the end, the Safavid army fell to the firepower of the Ottomans, fled westward and left Tabriz in their hands.[13]

Disparity in Troops
Ottoman empire Safavid iran
Leader
Sultan Selim I Shah Ismail I
Strength
160,000[2]

or 100,000[6]

or 120,000 ~ 212,000[14]

 20,000[2]

or 80,000[6]

or 12,000~20,000[14]

Aftermath

Safavids

The Safavids lost Eastern Anatolia to the Ottomans, which had been an important source of troops from the Ottoman army. Thousands of Qizilbash tribesmen were also killed. Although Ismail I himself was wounded and managed to escape after terrible hardships, he lost his prestige in Iran after he had been believed to be invincible.[6] He lost confidence in himself and never led his troops into battle again.[1] Tribal leaders were given authority, and the struggle for control over them became the central political issue of the Safavid dynasty and changed the balance of power within the coalition. A power struggle ensued, which lasted until the reign of his son and successor, Tahmasp I.[15]

Battle Of Chaldiran Media

  • Chaldiran Battlefield Site in 2004

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Wood, Barry (January 2017). "The Battle of Chālderān: Official History and Popular Memory". Iranian Studies. 50 (1): 79–105. doi:10.1080/00210862.2016.1159504. ISSN 0021-0862. S2CID 163512376.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Amanat, Abbas (2017). Iran : a modern history. New Haven. ISBN 978-0-300-23146-5. OCLC 1005583110.
  3. ↑ Sicker, Martin (2000). The Islamic world in ascendancy : from the Arab conquests to the siege of Vienna. Greenwood Press. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN 0-313-00111-1. OCLC 55103313.
  4. ↑ Dale, Stephen F. (2009), "The rise of Muslim empires", The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 48–76, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511818646.005, ISBN 9780511818646, retrieved 17 May 2022
  5. ↑ "Nomads in the Modern Middle East", Nomads in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, pp. 199–230, 2 December 2021, doi:10.1017/9781139028813.010, ISBN 9781139028813, S2CID 244092763, retrieved 17 May 2022
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters. New York, NY: Facts On File. 2009. ISBN 978-0-8160-6259-1. OCLC 227205977.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ↑ HerausgeberIn., Matthee, Rudolph P. 1953- (22 July 2021). The Safavid world. ISBN 978-1-138-94406-0. OCLC 1251760182.
  8. ↑ Atçıl, Abdurrahman (May 2017). "The Safavid Threat and Juristic Authority in the Ottoman Empire During the 16Th Century". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 49 (2): 295–314. doi:10.1017/S002074381700006X. ISSN 0020-7438. S2CID 159557002.
  9. ↑ Reza., Baraheni (1988). God's shadow : prison poems. UMI Out-of-Print Books on Demand. ISBN 0-253-13218-5. OCLC 557244525.
  10. ↑ Ruthven, Malise (2004), Historical atlas of Islam, Azim Nanji, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01385-9, OCLC 55527966, retrieved 18 May 2022
  11. ↑ E., Dumper, Michael. Stanley, Bruce (2007). Cities of the Middle East and North Africa : a historical encyclopedia. ABC CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-919-5. OCLC 912609090.
  12. ↑ Necipoglu, Gulru (1990). "From International Timurid to Ottoman: A Change of Taste in Sixteenth-Century Ceramic Tiles". Muqarnas. 7: 136–170. doi:10.2307/1523126. JSTOR 1523126.
  13. ↑ J., Shaw, Stanford (2010). History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-61497-2. OCLC 958552836.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Auteur., Sarwar, Hafiz Ghulam (1975). History of Shah Ismail Safawi. AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-56322-8. OCLC 949099372.
  15. ↑ E., STREUSAND, DOUGLAS (2019). ISLAMIC GUNPOWDER EMPIRES : ottomans, safavids, and mughals. ROUTLEDGE. ISBN 978-0-367-09592-5. OCLC 1110670098.


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