By the time of the rise of the Safavid Empire, the Iranian Plateau's population had been decimated by the invasions of the Mongols in the 1200s and subsequently the invasion of the Uzbek conqueror, Timur, in the late 1300s. In the wake of Timur's destruction (and his descendants' subsequent inability to maintain a stable empire after his death), two tribal Turkomen confederations, known as the Qara Qoyunlu ("Black Sheep Turkomen") and subsequently the Aq Qoyunlu ("White Sheep Turkomen") established vast, decentralized empires in western Iran, eastern Anatolia, and Mesopotamia to support their grazing flocks. To their west lay the Ottoman Empire, which had recovered from their losses to the Timurids.
Before all this, at the height of the Mongol Empire, a man named Safi-ad-din Ardabili was born. An enigmatic man, he was nevertheless influential in the world of Islam, commandeering a local Kurdish Sufi mystic religious tariqa called the Zahediyeh, and renaming it the Safaviyya. Over time, Ardabili essentially transformed a local Kuridsh Sufi religious order into an entire religious movement that took modern-day northwest Iran (then known as Azerbaijan) and Shirvan (modern-day Azerbaijan) by storm. His descendants would gain the favor of Timur (who now allowed them to collect taxes), and, when the power of that man fell, the Qara and Aq Qoyunlu. Contrary to popular belief, he Safaviyya was once Sunni order, but when Khvajeh Ali Safavi, the grandson of Ardabili began amassing huge numbers of local Turkmen tribesmen into his tariqa, he sacrificed his religious beliefs for political power, converted to Shia, and thus gained a powerful new base of support: Later, these tribes would come to be known as the Qezelbas.
From this point on, things really began to accelerate for the Safaviyya. These Turkmen were recent converts to Islam (and also lived on the edge of the Islamic world), and, as such, wanted to be able to incorporate some of their old mystic pagan beliefs into their new religion. The Safaviyya proved to be the perfect vessel for this desire: They were Shia, they were permissive of many mystic beliefs as a Sufi Order, and were seeking political power. Under Shaykh Junayd, the Order became militant, a serious threat to the Aq Qoyunlu, who decided that enough was enough and exiled the Safaviyya from their territory. Junayd later returned and sought refuge with the Sunni Shirvanshahs. This resulted in his death. But before he died, Junayd allowed a very controversial belief into the Safaviyya, the concept of Ghulat, or ascribing divinity to certain figures in Islamic History--namely, himself. The starstruck Turkmen began to compare him to God.
It is worth noting that these Turkmen, and their fathers, were fierce survivors of Timur's invasions. They were traumatized. They wanted an explanation, a savior. They had just felt like they had gone through the apocalypse itself--twice, for any of them who remembered the stories of the original Mongol conquests. The Safaviyya provided them with their explanation. They were going to conquer in the name of divinity--their Allamah, the grandmaster of the Safavid Order. No longer would they be trampled underfoot, but would stand their ground and advance in the name of Shia.
Junayd's son, Shaykh Haydar, decided that being called God was alright. The movement he led became increasingly extremist, and became so permissive to the Turkmen (who now formed a majority of the Order) that he allowed ritual cannibalism. Paganism never truly left the Turkmen, as it turned out. The Qezelbas now began to come into direct conflict with the Aq Qoyunlu and the Shirvanshahs, and it was here that Haydar, like his father, was killed once again by the Shirvanshahs. This would weigh heavy on the mind of young Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Empire.
Ismail had a bone to pick with his neighbors. They had killed his father, his brother, and his grandfather. When he acceded to the head of the Safavid Order, he declared himself the final Imam of Shia, the Mahdi, and began an aggressive campaign of expansion. The pent-up energy of the paganistic Qezelbas (with Shia flavoring) unleashed itself upon their Turkmen brothers, the Aq Qoyunlu and the Shirvanshahs. In a series of stunning victories (all in one year) he defeated all of his enemies (even despite being outnumbered four-to-one), and established an independent kingdom in Northwestern Iran, Azerbaijan, and eastern Georgia. His expansion into Iran was nothing short of magnificent. The Aq Qoyunlu crumbled before him. The Timurid emirates surrendered. The Uzbeks cowed. To all his followers, it really seemed that he was both a Shahanshah and the Mahdi. Then, he made the ultimate mistake--fighting a pitched battle with the vastly technologically superior foe in the form of the Ottoman Empire, at a place called Chaldiran in modern-day eastern Turkey.
The Ottomans had direct contact with European technology, and in order to siege the walls of Constantinople in 1453 had to develop superior cannon and artillery technology. They had a superior, organized army. They lived in a different world than the Safavids, who still wielded swords (even though the knowledge of gunpowder was available). And, much to my personal surprise, most Qezelbas warriors didn't wear armor into battle (much like the armies of another self-proclaimed Mahdi over 300 years later). But Ismail was so convinced of his own divinity that he didn't bother to heed the advice of his governors, who knew Ottoman tactics and pleaded with him to strike before the Ottomans were ready to fight.
Ismail did not discipline his troops very well before the battle. The Qezelbas had a drunken orgy literally the night before the battle, so most of them probably had a hangover while they were fighting against the Ottomans. Out in the mountains of the Caucasus, Alborz, and Khorasan, sheer religious zeal could get you far. But it was not quite enough against the Ottomans, who had cannons and maneuverable artillery. When Persian forces tried to go around the range of the cannons, they were simply swiveled and fired into their lines. When Persian horses charged, the noise of the artillery (which likely the poor things had never heard in their life), scared the wits out of them, and paralyzed the armies of Ismail.
Not only this, but this was two very different styles of warfare coming into contact. Ismail was strategically the son of the Mongol strategy--light, mobile calvary, able to shift back and forth over the battlefield rapidly wielding impressive curved swords, were once able to route even heavily armed, yet relatively stationary infantry. But that was in Timur's day. This was a new age. Gunpowder, and gunpowder weapons, took the world by storm. When the horses of the Iranians briefly retreated in preparation for another wave of attack, the Ottomans simply shot farther and killed more horses and men.
For a hot minute, it seemed like it was all over. Since the start of Ismail's conquests, nothing had stopped him or even slowed him down. Then, crippling defeat. As the Ottoman Sultan, Selim, took Tabriz, the Safavid capital, the Qezelbas wavered. Nevertheless, most stayed by Ismail's side, and he was able to regain most of his losses (except in Eastern Anatolia). Contrary to popular belief (which is closely shaped by Ottoman propaganda), Ismail was not a drunken, depressed man after the defeat. If anything, the loss had made him sober. Yes, he was less ambitious, but anyone would be after losing so fully. He quietly began to improve his loyal Qezelbas army with gunpowder weapons, and, by the end of his life, set the stage for his son, Tahmasp, to resist the greatest Ottoman Sultan--Suleiman the Magificent.
As for the preparation of the Ottomans themselves, they were not well prepared to fight at all. After a bloody succession struggle for the throne, Selim I drove his Janissaries to the limit over steep Eastern Anatolian terrain killing Shi'a and Turkmen wherever they could find them. He was never a popular leader. Ismail, in a policy that would become ubiquitous with the Safavids in later years, had employed a scorched-earth policy to deter the Ottomans while he was fighting the Uzbeks in the east, and this had made the Janissaries rebellious (in fact, they once even fired their guns at the Sultan's tent). When he returned, they were still advancing towards Eastern Anatolia and he could have struck even before they reached Chaldiran. Perhaps he could have ambushed them in a mountain pass, where their artillery would have been of little use.
What do you think? Could Ismail, with his highly motivated troops (hopefully not drunk like in OTL), have defeated the beleaguered Ottoman forces? Or was the outcome of two different styles of warfare always inevitable?
Before all this, at the height of the Mongol Empire, a man named Safi-ad-din Ardabili was born. An enigmatic man, he was nevertheless influential in the world of Islam, commandeering a local Kurdish Sufi mystic religious tariqa called the Zahediyeh, and renaming it the Safaviyya. Over time, Ardabili essentially transformed a local Kuridsh Sufi religious order into an entire religious movement that took modern-day northwest Iran (then known as Azerbaijan) and Shirvan (modern-day Azerbaijan) by storm. His descendants would gain the favor of Timur (who now allowed them to collect taxes), and, when the power of that man fell, the Qara and Aq Qoyunlu. Contrary to popular belief, he Safaviyya was once Sunni order, but when Khvajeh Ali Safavi, the grandson of Ardabili began amassing huge numbers of local Turkmen tribesmen into his tariqa, he sacrificed his religious beliefs for political power, converted to Shia, and thus gained a powerful new base of support: Later, these tribes would come to be known as the Qezelbas.
From this point on, things really began to accelerate for the Safaviyya. These Turkmen were recent converts to Islam (and also lived on the edge of the Islamic world), and, as such, wanted to be able to incorporate some of their old mystic pagan beliefs into their new religion. The Safaviyya proved to be the perfect vessel for this desire: They were Shia, they were permissive of many mystic beliefs as a Sufi Order, and were seeking political power. Under Shaykh Junayd, the Order became militant, a serious threat to the Aq Qoyunlu, who decided that enough was enough and exiled the Safaviyya from their territory. Junayd later returned and sought refuge with the Sunni Shirvanshahs. This resulted in his death. But before he died, Junayd allowed a very controversial belief into the Safaviyya, the concept of Ghulat, or ascribing divinity to certain figures in Islamic History--namely, himself. The starstruck Turkmen began to compare him to God.
It is worth noting that these Turkmen, and their fathers, were fierce survivors of Timur's invasions. They were traumatized. They wanted an explanation, a savior. They had just felt like they had gone through the apocalypse itself--twice, for any of them who remembered the stories of the original Mongol conquests. The Safaviyya provided them with their explanation. They were going to conquer in the name of divinity--their Allamah, the grandmaster of the Safavid Order. No longer would they be trampled underfoot, but would stand their ground and advance in the name of Shia.
Junayd's son, Shaykh Haydar, decided that being called God was alright. The movement he led became increasingly extremist, and became so permissive to the Turkmen (who now formed a majority of the Order) that he allowed ritual cannibalism. Paganism never truly left the Turkmen, as it turned out. The Qezelbas now began to come into direct conflict with the Aq Qoyunlu and the Shirvanshahs, and it was here that Haydar, like his father, was killed once again by the Shirvanshahs. This would weigh heavy on the mind of young Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Empire.
Ismail had a bone to pick with his neighbors. They had killed his father, his brother, and his grandfather. When he acceded to the head of the Safavid Order, he declared himself the final Imam of Shia, the Mahdi, and began an aggressive campaign of expansion. The pent-up energy of the paganistic Qezelbas (with Shia flavoring) unleashed itself upon their Turkmen brothers, the Aq Qoyunlu and the Shirvanshahs. In a series of stunning victories (all in one year) he defeated all of his enemies (even despite being outnumbered four-to-one), and established an independent kingdom in Northwestern Iran, Azerbaijan, and eastern Georgia. His expansion into Iran was nothing short of magnificent. The Aq Qoyunlu crumbled before him. The Timurid emirates surrendered. The Uzbeks cowed. To all his followers, it really seemed that he was both a Shahanshah and the Mahdi. Then, he made the ultimate mistake--fighting a pitched battle with the vastly technologically superior foe in the form of the Ottoman Empire, at a place called Chaldiran in modern-day eastern Turkey.
The Ottomans had direct contact with European technology, and in order to siege the walls of Constantinople in 1453 had to develop superior cannon and artillery technology. They had a superior, organized army. They lived in a different world than the Safavids, who still wielded swords (even though the knowledge of gunpowder was available). And, much to my personal surprise, most Qezelbas warriors didn't wear armor into battle (much like the armies of another self-proclaimed Mahdi over 300 years later). But Ismail was so convinced of his own divinity that he didn't bother to heed the advice of his governors, who knew Ottoman tactics and pleaded with him to strike before the Ottomans were ready to fight.
Ismail did not discipline his troops very well before the battle. The Qezelbas had a drunken orgy literally the night before the battle, so most of them probably had a hangover while they were fighting against the Ottomans. Out in the mountains of the Caucasus, Alborz, and Khorasan, sheer religious zeal could get you far. But it was not quite enough against the Ottomans, who had cannons and maneuverable artillery. When Persian forces tried to go around the range of the cannons, they were simply swiveled and fired into their lines. When Persian horses charged, the noise of the artillery (which likely the poor things had never heard in their life), scared the wits out of them, and paralyzed the armies of Ismail.
Not only this, but this was two very different styles of warfare coming into contact. Ismail was strategically the son of the Mongol strategy--light, mobile calvary, able to shift back and forth over the battlefield rapidly wielding impressive curved swords, were once able to route even heavily armed, yet relatively stationary infantry. But that was in Timur's day. This was a new age. Gunpowder, and gunpowder weapons, took the world by storm. When the horses of the Iranians briefly retreated in preparation for another wave of attack, the Ottomans simply shot farther and killed more horses and men.
For a hot minute, it seemed like it was all over. Since the start of Ismail's conquests, nothing had stopped him or even slowed him down. Then, crippling defeat. As the Ottoman Sultan, Selim, took Tabriz, the Safavid capital, the Qezelbas wavered. Nevertheless, most stayed by Ismail's side, and he was able to regain most of his losses (except in Eastern Anatolia). Contrary to popular belief (which is closely shaped by Ottoman propaganda), Ismail was not a drunken, depressed man after the defeat. If anything, the loss had made him sober. Yes, he was less ambitious, but anyone would be after losing so fully. He quietly began to improve his loyal Qezelbas army with gunpowder weapons, and, by the end of his life, set the stage for his son, Tahmasp, to resist the greatest Ottoman Sultan--Suleiman the Magificent.
...
But, here I ask my pivotal question. Was there any way Ismail could have won against the Ottomans. Say he had followed the advice of his governor, Mohammad Khan Ustajlu, and attacked the Ottomans earlier. Could he have taken Selim by surprise and defeated him in Central Anatolia? Or, perhaps, going back farther, was there any chance he could have allied with the still-extant Mamluks of Egypt for a double-pronged attack? Most sources conclude that the result of the battle was inevitable. But I question this:
As for the preparation of the Ottomans themselves, they were not well prepared to fight at all. After a bloody succession struggle for the throne, Selim I drove his Janissaries to the limit over steep Eastern Anatolian terrain killing Shi'a and Turkmen wherever they could find them. He was never a popular leader. Ismail, in a policy that would become ubiquitous with the Safavids in later years, had employed a scorched-earth policy to deter the Ottomans while he was fighting the Uzbeks in the east, and this had made the Janissaries rebellious (in fact, they once even fired their guns at the Sultan's tent). When he returned, they were still advancing towards Eastern Anatolia and he could have struck even before they reached Chaldiran. Perhaps he could have ambushed them in a mountain pass, where their artillery would have been of little use.
What do you think? Could Ismail, with his highly motivated troops (hopefully not drunk like in OTL), have defeated the beleaguered Ottoman forces? Or was the outcome of two different styles of warfare always inevitable?
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