Battle of Chaldiran
| Battle of Chaldiran | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Ottoman Empire | The Safavid dynasty of Iran | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Sultan Selim I | Shah Ismail I | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 60,000[1] to 200,000[2][3] | 80,000[2][3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown but heavy | ||||||
The Battle of Chaldiran (also Chaldoran or Çaldıran) occurred on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavids. As a result the Ottomans gained control over the eastern half of Anatolia. The Ottomans had a larger, better equipped army numbering 60,000[1] to 200,000, while the Iranians numbered some 50,000-80,000. The Iranian Shah Ismail I was wounded and almost captured in the conflict. Following the victory Ottomans captured Tabriz, and Safavids did not threaten them again for nearly a century. It also brought an end to the Alevi uprisings in Anatolia.
The Battle of Chaldiran demonstrated that firearms were a decisive factor in warfare. Prior to Chaldiran, the Safavid army (Qizilbash) refused to use firearms for they regarded this kind of warfare cowardly and honorless.
The outcome at Chaldiran had many consequences. Perhaps most significantly, it established the border between the two empires, which remains the border between Turkey and Iran today. With the establishment of that border, Tabriz became a frontier city, uncomfortably close to the Ottoman enemy. That consideration would be a major factor in the decision to move the Safavid capital to Qazvin, in the mid-16th century, and finally to Isfahan, in central Persia, in 1598.
The Safavids made drastic domestic changes after the defeat at Chaldiran. The Safavids spoke a Turkic language[4][5][6] but, following the loss of their Anatolian territories which formed the heartland of their Turkic support switched to Persian. The Safavid royal family also moved away from extreme, eschatological, Alevi sect and adopted Shia sect as the official religion of the empire - the position of the Shah as Mahdi being incompatible with the recent defeat . The Sunni majority of Iran was also forcibly converted to Shia while those, mostly Qizilbash, who refused to abandon the previous worship of the Shah were executed.
References
- ^ a b 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 H.A.R. Gibb & H. Bowen, "Islamic society and the West", i/2, Oxford, 1957, p. 189
- ^ a b Roger M. Savory, Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Safawids", Online Edition 2005 [page needed]
- ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Safavid.
- ^ Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, 2000 Years of History, Phoenix, 2000 p114
- ^ David Morgan, Medieval Persia 1040-1797, Longman, 1988 p. 111
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