| Ottoman–Persian War of 1743–1746 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theOttoman–Persian Wars and theCampaigns of Nader Shah | |||||||||
 Gates of Tabriz | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
.svg) Afsharid Iran |  Ottoman Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Nader Shah Nassrollah Mirza Tahmasp Khan Jalayer Ahmad Khan Abdali[6] | Mahmud I
| ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 375,000+[7][8][9] | Unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
TheOttoman–Persian War of 1743–1746 orOttoman–Iranian War of 1743–1746 was fought between theOttoman Empire andAfsharid Iran.
Persia attempted to ratify theTreaty of Constantinople, by demanding that theJa'fari, also known as the Imamiyyah was to be accepted as a fifth legalsect of Islam.[10]
In 1743,Nader Shah declared war on theOttoman Empire. He demanded the surrender ofBaghdad. The Persians had captured Baghdad in 1623 andMosul in 1624, but the Ottomans had recaptured Mosul in 1625 and Baghdad in 1638. TheTreaty of Zuhab in 1639 between the Ottoman Empire and theSafavid Empire had resulted in peace for 85 years. During the fall of theSafavid dynasty,Russia and theOttoman Empire agreed to divide the northwest and the Caspian region of Persia, but with the advent of Nader Shah, the Russians and the Turks withdrew from the region. Nader Shah waged war against the Ottomans from 1730 to 1736, but it ended with a stalemate. Nader Shah afterwards turned east and declared war on theMughal Empire andinvaded India, in order to refund his wars against the Ottomans.
Nader Shah dreamt of an empire which would stretch from theIndus to theBosphorus. Therefore, he raised an army of 200,000, which consisted largely of rebellious Central Asian tribesmen, and he planned to march towardsConstantinople, but after he learnt that the Ottomanulema was preparing for aholy war against Persia, he turned eastwards. With a force of over 300,000,[11][12] he capturedKirkuk,Erbil andbesieged Mosul on 14 September 1743. During hissiege of Mosul he killed manyYazidis[13][14] and captured their leader.[14] Thesiege lasted for 40 days. ThePasha of Mosul,Hajji Hossein Al Jalili, successfully defendedMosul and Nader Shah was forced to retreat.[15] The offensive was halted due to revolts in Persia (1743–1744) over high taxes.[citation needed] Hostilities also spilled intoGeorgia, where PrinceGivi Amilakhvari employed an Ottoman force in a futile attempt to undermine the Persian influence and dislodge Nader's Georgian allies, PrincesTeimuraz andErekle.[16]
In July 1744, Nader Shah resumed his offensive and unsuccessfullybesieged Kars, but was forced to return toDagestan to suppress a revolt. He returned afterwards and routed an Ottoman army at thebattle of Kars in August 1745. The war disintegrated. Nader Shah grew insane and started to punish his own subjects, which led to a revolt from early 1745 to June 1746. In 1746, peace was made. The boundaries were unchanged and Baghdad remained in Ottoman hands. Nader Shah dropped his demand for Ja'fari recognition.The Porte was pleased and dispatched an ambassador but before he could arrive, Nader Shah was assassinated by his own officers.
The Iranian victory [at Baghavard], which cost Nadir up to 8,000 men, compelled the sultan to accept the peace treaty that was signed in September 1746 in Kordan, northwest of Tehran.
Both sides now saw that neither could win a decisive victory, and that continuation of the war would only drain their strength. Nadir Shah hoped to use his victory at Baghavard to secure a favourable settlement, finally abandoning his claims on behalf of the Ja'fari sect, and instead concentrating on the demand that all of Iraq, including Baghdad, Basra and the Shi'i holy places of Najaf and Karbala, be turned over to him along with the Kurdish area of Van. A series of letters and exchanges of ambassadors followed, and eventually an agreement was hammered out on 4 September 1746, by which the Qasr-i-Shirin treaty boundaries were restored without change, with provisions made for the exchange of prisoners, as well as the exchange of ambassadors once every three years. Nadir Shah thereby abandoned all his former demands and the Ottomans accepted peace in accordance with the earlier agreements.