The Ottomans won at Chaldiran on 23 August 1514. The gunpowder infantry and artillery of Sultan Selim I broke the Safavid cavalry of Shah Ismail I, who was wounded and nearly captured. The victory opened the first Ottoman expansion into eastern Anatolia.
Guns against cavalry
The Safavid army relied on fast cavalry and had no artillery. The Ottomans fielded cannon and janissaries armed with firearms, behind a line of carts that the Safavid charges could not break.1
The size of the armies is uncertain. Sources give 60,000 to 100,000 Ottoman troops and 40,000 to 80,000 Safavid troops.
After the battle
Ottoman troops entered Tabriz, the Safavid capital, in early September 1514, plundered it and then withdrew. The Ottomans went on to take eastern Anatolia and, in 1515 to 1516, upper Mesopotamia.
1914: Battle of Kraśnik. Near Kraśnik, on the border between Austrian Galicia and Russian Poland, the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army under Viktor Dankl fought the Russian 4th Army early in World War I.
Frequently asked questions
When and where was the Battle of Chaldiran?
It was fought on 23 August 1514 at Chaldiran, in the Kurdish heartland of eastern Anatolia, in present-day eastern Turkey.
Who won the Battle of Chaldiran?
The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim I defeated the Safavid Empire under Shah Ismail I.
Why did it matter?
It gave the Ottomans eastern Anatolia and upper Mesopotamia and began a long Ottoman-Safavid conflict that ended with the Peace of Amasya in 1555.
Notes
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