| Ottoman–Safavid War of 1723–1727 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Ottoman–Persian Wars | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Safavid Empire Kingdom of Kartli (1578-1588) Kingdom of Kakheti (1578) Principality of Samtskhe (1578, 1582-1587) Principality of Guria (1583–1587) |
 Ottoman Empire Crimean Khanate Kingdom of Imereti Principality of Guria (1578-1583, after 1587) Principality of Mingrelia Principality of Samtskhe (1578-1582)Shaybanids | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Mohammed Khodabanda Shah Abbas I Imam-Quli Khan Undiladze Mirza Salman Jabiri † Hamza Mirza † Shahnavaz Khan (Simon I of Kartli) |
Murad III Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha Sinan Pasha Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha Cığalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha Adil Giray Khan † | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 150,000+ Killed or captured | Unknown | ||||||||
1723-1727 Ottoman-Persian War, a military struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid State in Iran, which had entered a period of collapse, and then the Afghan Hotakis, who captured Isfahan and dominated Iran (after 1725), and resulted in the decisive victory of the Ottomans.
The Ottoman Empire, which entered the war as a result of Russia's rapid advance in Iran's lands on the shores of the Caspian Sea, signed an agreement with this country in 1724, sharing the western lands of Iran, and after successive victories, the Caucasus and the western lands of Iran up to 40 kilometers from Qazvin. He captured the land and accepted these territorial gains with the Treaty of Hamadan in 1727.
Prelude
editAfter the Ottoman Empire suffered extensive territorial losses in the West for the first time as a result of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, it attempted to take back the lost lands and although it partially achieved this goal with the victories against Russia (1711-1713) and Venice (1715-1718), it suffered losses against the Holy Roman Empire. He resigned to new territorial losses with the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), which he signed as a result of the defeat. Following the Treaty in question, the Ottomans entered a more peaceful period called the Tulip Era, which lasted until 1730, and a war-free period on the Western borders until 1736.
The Safavids, who had dominated Iran since 1502, had been in a period of decline for a while and their borders were being attacked from various regions. As a matter of fact, Baloch tribes had been raiding the Kirman region since 1698, Afghan Hotakis had been raiding Khorasan since 1717, and Lezgins had been raiding Shirvan/Azerbaijan and Dagestan since 1721. On the other hand, the measures that Safavid Shah Husayn (1694-1722) tried to take against the Hotakis since the early 1700s witnessed developments that shook the Safavid State to its foundations. He encountered a rebellion led by Shah Hussein Mir Uveys, who attempted to Shiite his Afghan subjects in Kandahar. Hotakis, who revolted in 1709 against Gurgin Khan (Georgian Prince Georgi After defeating the Safavid army, they besieged the capital Isfahan. Shah Hussein, who surrendered on October 23, 1722, abdicated by surrendering and the Hotakis took control of the Iranian capital. Shah Hussein's son II. Tahmasb fled to Qazvin and declared himself Shah there.[1]
Russia, which victoriously concluded the 21-year-long Great Northern War with Sweden with the Treaty of Nystad in 1721 and annexed today's Estonia and the south of Finland, this time turned south and focused on its plans on Iran. For this reason, he first sought to renew the treaty he signed with the Ottoman Empire in 1713. On October 5, 1721, the treaty establishing "eternal friendship" between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Tsardom was signed in Istanbul.[2] In this way, Russia secured its southern border with the Ottomans and wanted to benefit from this difficult situation in which the Safavids fell; He took action on July 27, 1722 and occupied Makhachkala, Tarki and Derbent on the shores of the Caspian Lake. As a result of a 3-month struggle, the Russians captured Resht on March 28, 1723, and entered Baku on July 7.
Osmanlı Devleti ise; (Rus işgalinin başlamasından önce) 1722 Mayıs'ında bir meşveret meclisi toplayarak İran'a askerî müdahale seçeneğini tartışmış, ardından (1578-1590 Savaşında ele geçirilip sonradan kaybedilen yerlerin yeniden işgaline yönelik) Erzurum, Van ve Bağdat eyaletlerine taarruz emri verilmişti. Bununla birlikte, Bağdat Valisi Hasan Paşa ve Erzurum Valisi Silahdar İbrahim Paşa Afgan Hotakîler'in İsfahan kuşatmalarının sonucunun beklenmesini tavsiye ettiler.[3] Ancak, 1722 yazında Rusların Kafkasya'nın Hazar Gölü kıyılarındaki süratli ilerleyişi Osmanlılarda endişe yarattı. Kasım ayında ise (Sünnî çoğunluklu) kuzey Şirvan'dan gelen elçi Hacı Davud Bey'in talebi kabul edilerek bölge Osmanlı himayesine alındı.[4] Bunun üzerine çıkan Osmanlı-Rus gerginliği Moskova'ya giden Türk elçisine Rusya'nın Kafkas Dağları'nın güneyine sarkmayacağı teminatının verilmesiyle yatıştı.[5] 1723 Ocak ayında ise bir başka Osmanlı elçisi Osman Ağa Bağdat'tan İsfahan'a giderek Afgan lider Mahmud Han'a sunduğu şartlar kabul görmeyince Osmanlılar İran'ı istila kararı aldılar.[6]
War
editThe Ottomans started the war, with the objective of conquering Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.[1] They invaded the Safavids' Caucasian territories through Ardahan, taking Akhaltsikhe in August 1576,[2] Tiflis in August 1578, and Kars and Tabriz in 1585, while pressing Kartli to become a tributary vassal of the Ottoman Empire.[3]
The Safavids, who were left unable to conduct effective campaigns on both the eastern and western fronts, were met with repeated setbacks that forced them back into Iran's heartlands.[2] The seizure of much of the Caucasus had now given the Ottomans a direct land route from the east with their allied Crimean Khanate.[2]
Shirvan fell before the end of the summer of 1578, by which fact the Ottomans had now control of almost all territories west of the Caspian Sea coast, and it also opened the way for an attack on what is nowadays the core of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which were subsequently attacked in 1579 by a large contingent of Crimean Tatars, led by Adil Giray,[2] but he was captured in a remarkable counterattack led by Mirza Salman Jaberi and Hamza Mirza, and later executed in Qazvin, the Safavid capital at that time. In the meanwhile, on the far eastern Safavid front, the Uzbeks were forced to retreat due to problems with the Kirghiz-Kazakh tribes of Central Asia.[2] As a result of this, the Georgian princes which had fallen under Ottoman rule several years before, now changed their allegiance back to Safavid Iran, which they demonstrated by killing large numbers of Sunnis.[2]
Nevertheless, the war headed for an Ottoman victory, which was becoming clearer and clearer following the Battle of Torches. With that victory, the Ottomans had consolidated control as far as the Caspian, including the Safavid possessions of Dagestan and Azerbaijan until the end of the war.[2] The reverses that the Safavids suffered on the battlefield also intensified several internal factional power struggles, in which Mirza Salman and Hamza Mirza were assassinated by assassins of the other faction within the court, with Hamza Mirza, son of Mohammad Khodabanda, being assassinated on 10 December 1587.[4] With their deaths, the war efforts of the Safavids deteriorated even more.
In 1585, an Ottoman force under Osman Pasha had managed to take Tabriz, which would remain under Ottoman rule for the next two decades. In 1587, Ottoman forces under the Governor of Baghdad, Cığalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha, managed to take Luristan and Hamadan. That same year, the Uzbeks had concluded their own problems back in Central Asia, and had started to attack the Safavids' eastern provinces once again. It appeared that the very existence of the Safavid state was now in question. In 1588, the Ottoman commander Farhād Pasha advanced into Karabakh through Georgia. Many of the Turkic Qizilbash tribes, which formed the backbone of the Safavid military, submitted without any significant resistance in order to protect their own interests.[5]
In the face of all these difficulties -and even a staged coup in Qazvin by Murshi Quli Khan, of the Ustalju Qizilbash clan- Mohammad Khodabanda decided to abdicate,[2] favouring the throne to his son Shah Abbas I (who would be later be known as Abbas the Great). At the time he took over, all Iranian provinces in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and even in western Iran were occupied by the Ottomans, while the Uzbeks had seized swaths of its eastern territories.[2] Therefore, in order to settle matters at home first and to defeat the Uzbeks, he decided to sign a humiliating peace treaty on 21 March 1590, by which the war ended.
Summary of the main battles
editThe main battles and events of the war included:
- Lala Mustafa Pasha's Caucasian campaign
- Battle of Çıldır (9 August 1578)
- Battle of Torches (9–11 May 1583)
Aftermath
editA peace of Istanbul was concluded on 21 March 1590, in which Iran was forced to confirm these Ottoman conquests, as well as promising to end Shiite propaganda in Ottoman territories and persecution of Sunnis in its own lands.[6] By ceding many of its integral regions to the Ottomans, Abbas could settle matters in his crumbling state first, which had been neglected for so long by his father Mohammad Khodabanda.[2] After having the matters settled and the state and military significantly reorganised, Abbas would declare war again on the Ottomans in 1603, crushingly defeating them and reconquering all lost territories by the Treaty of Istanbul.
The advent of the Ottoman-Safavid war temporarily deflected Ottoman interest from European affairs, where the Ottoman Empire had been active with the Franco-Ottoman alliance and the support of the Dutch Revolt, in an interesting episode of mutually-supportive relations between Islam and Protestantism.
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ The Encyclopedia of World History Peter N. Stearns, p.352
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sicker 2001, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Islam by Gerhard Endress, p.194
- ^ The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric p 163
- ^ Maeda, Hirotake (2006). "The forced migrations and reorganisation of the regional order in the Caucasus by Safavid Iran: Preconditions and developments described by Fazli Khuzani". In Ieda, Osamu; Uyama, Tomohiko (eds.). Reconstruction and interaction of Slavic Eurasia and its neighbouring worlds (PDF). Slavic Eurasian Studies, No.10. Sapporo: Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University. p. 243. ISBN 4938637391.
- ^ The Encyclopedia of world history Peter N. Stearns, p.352
Sources
edit- Matthee, Rudi (2014). "The Ottoman-Safavid War of 986-998/1578-90: Motives and Causes". In Karpat, Kemal; Balgamış, Deniz (eds.). International Journal of Turkish Studies. Vol. 20, Nos 1& 2.
- Sicker, Martin (2001). The Islamic World in Decline: From the Treaty of Karlowitz to the Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 027596891X.