Battle of Chaldiran 1514

About the battle

The Battle of Chaldiran (Persian: جنگ چالدران; Turkish: Çaldıran Savaşı) took place on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans annexed Eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia from Safavid Iran. It marked the first Ottoman expansion into Eastern Anatolia, and the halt of the Safavid expansion to the west. The Battle of Chaldiran was just the beginning of 41 years of destructive war between the Safavids and Ottomans, which only ended in 1555 with the Peace of Amasya. Though the Safavids eventually reconquered Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia during the reign of Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629), they would be permanently ceded to the Ottomans by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.

At Chaldiran, the Ottomans had a larger, better-equipped army numbering 60,000 to 100,000 and many heavy artillery pieces. In contrast, the Safavid army numbered 40,000 to 80,000 and did not have artillery. 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, with at least one married off to one of Selim's statesmen.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Chaldiran (revision 1370108848), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.

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• Capture of Abbasabad 1827 · 91 km
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• Battle of Nakhchivan 1919 · 94 km

Browse more: battles in Iran · Asia · Early modern battles

Further reading

• Wikipedia: Battle of Chaldiran
• Wikidata Q745110