Battle of Chaldiran

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Battle of Chaldiran
Date 23 August 1514
Location North west of Iran
Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire Safavid Persian Empire
Commanders
Sultan Selim I Shah Ismail I
Strength
60,000[1] to 200,000[2][3] 50,000 to 80,000[2][3]
Casualties and losses
less than 2000 approximately 5000[4]
v • d • e
Turko-Persian Wars

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 north western part of Iran. The Ottomans had a larger, better equipped army numbering 60,000[1] to 200,000, while the Iranians numbered some 50,000-80,000.Shah Ismail I was wounded and almost captured in the conflict.

Contents

[edit] Background

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[edit] Battle

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The Ottomans deployed heavy artillery and thousands of Janissaries equipped with gunpowder weapons behind a barrier of carts. Even though the Safavids had access to gunpowder technology, they chose not to use it because they believed it is inhumanity, and instead used qizilbash cavalry to engage the Ottoman forces. The advanced Ottoman weaponry was the deciding factor of the battle as the Safavid forces, who elected to use traditional weaponry, were decimated.

[edit] Aftermath

This monument to the Battle of Chaldiran was built on the edge of the battlefield site in 2003.
This monument to the Battle of Chaldiran was built on the edge of the battlefield site in 2003.

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 Ottoman Empire.

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 1598.

The Safavids made drastic domestic changes after the defeat at Chaldiran. The Safavids spoke a Turkic language[5][6][7]. The Safavid royal family 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.

[edit] The Battlefield Today

The site of the battle is near Jala Ashaqi village, around 6km west of the small town of Siyah Cheshmeh, south of Maku, north of Qareh Ziyaeddin. A large brick dome was built at the battlefield site in 2003 along with a statue of Seyid Sadraddin, one of the main Safavid commanders[8].

[edit] References

  1. ^ 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 Azerbaijanian 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."
  2. ^ a b H.A.R. Gibb & H. Bowen, "Islamic society and the West", i/2, Oxford, 1957, p. 189
  3. ^ a b Roger M. Savory, Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Safawids", Online Edition 2005[page # needed]
  4. ^ Serefname II s. 158
  5. ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Safavid.
  6. ^ Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, 2000 Years of History, Phoenix, 2000 p114
  7. ^ David Morgan, Medieval Persia 1040-1797, Longman, 1988 p. 111
  8. ^ Lonely Planet Iran, 4th edition, p125
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