| Siege of Mosul | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Ottoman–Persian War (1743–46) and the Campaigns of Nader Shah | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Afsharid Empire |  Mamluk Iraq | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Nader Shah | Ahmad Pasha [3] Hussain Pasha al-Jalili [4] | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
40,000+ [5] | 40,000+ [6] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 5,000 [1] | Heavy [1] (including civilians) | ||||||
The siege of Mosul was the siege of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq by Nader Shah's army during the Persian invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1743.
The Persian siege train had been much improved and augmented since Nader's earlier campaigns as a Safavid general and included hundreds of heavy cannon and mortars. Bridges were built above and below the city. Once they were in position, the Persian gunners bombarded Mosul for eight days, the mortars starting fires and doing terrible damage in the interior of the city. Inhabitants of the city composed of natives and refugees, Muslims, Christians and Yazidis all of them joined enthusiastically in defending the city. Artillery fire eventually succeeded in damaging a tower and making a breach. But the defenders, inspired by their commander, worked frantically and succeeded in repairing the damage. Persians also started digging mines under the walls of the city but those operations led to little success. A further major assault was carried out, by thousands of soldiers, carrying 1,700 scaling-ladders. The assault failed and Nader lost over 5,000 men. Persians tried at this stage to open negotiations, but the Ottoman commander was defiant and the defenders did their best to make the interior of the city look as normal as possible to Nader’s messengers, so that when he asked them for their impressions of the state of the city and the will of its people to resist, the answers were disappointing. Nader asked the Ottoman side to present peace proposals, and they agreed. The Persians later complimented the defenders of Mosul on their bravery. [1]
Maslawi force raised, organized and led by Hussein Pasha al-Jalili defeated the invasion of the Persian army of Nadir Shah. The event has been labeled as one of the most important events in 18th Century Middle Eastern history, [7] not only due to its status as the only retreat suffered by the great Persian conqueror at the hands of his Ottoman adversaries, but as a defeat inflicted not by an Ottoman imperial army commanded by an Ottoman general, but by provincial forces. The Persian army lifted the siege of Mosul, although the siege of Basra in the south continued nonetheless. Hussein Pasha al-Jalili's success in repelling Nadir Shah’s forces in 1743 helped lead to the end of the Shah's initiative to conquer Iraq. [8] The peace treaty was negotiated and signed by both parties. However, Mahmud I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, later reneged on the terms of agreement and resumed hostilities. Consequently, Nader besieged Kars and shortly thereafter destroyed the Ottoman army at the Battle of Kars in 1745. [1]
Sadeq Khan Zand, also known as Mohammad Sadeq, was the fourth Shah of the Zand dynasty of Iran from August 22, 1779 until March 14, 1781.
The Ottoman–Safavid War of 1623–1639 was a conflict fought between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, then the two major powers of Western Asia, over control of Mesopotamia. After initial Persian success in recapturing Baghdad and most of modern Iraq, having lost it for 90 years, the war became a stalemate as the Persians were unable to press further into the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottomans themselves were distracted by wars in Europe and weakened by internal turmoil. Eventually, the Ottomans were able to recover Baghdad, taking heavy losses in the final siege, and the signing of the Treaty of Zuhab ended the war in an Ottoman victory. Roughly speaking, the treaty restored the borders of 1555, with the Safavids keeping Daghestan, Shirvan, eastern Georgia, and Eastern Armenia, while western Georgia and Western Armenia decisively came under Ottoman rule. The eastern part of Samtskhe (Meskheti) was irrevocably lost to the Ottomans as well as Mesopotamia. Although parts of Mesopotamia were briefly retaken by the Iranians later on in history, notably during the reigns of Nader Shah (1736–1747) and Karim Khan Zand (1751–1779), it remained thenceforth in Ottoman hands until the aftermath of World War I.
The al-Jalili family, are an Iraqi family who served as effective rulers of the city of Mosul, Iraq, between 1726 until 1834, during its integration as a district of the Ottoman Empire. They are credited with investing considerable capital in religious institutions and charitable activities, as well as benefiting systems of patronage and considerable growth in cultural activities within the capital during this period.
The Ottoman–Persian War of 1743–1746 was fought between the Ottoman Empire and Afsharid Iran.
The campaigns of Nader Shah, or the Naderian Wars, were a series of conflicts fought in the early to mid-eighteenth century throughout Central Eurasia primarily by the Iranian conqueror Nader Shah. His campaigns originated from the overthrow of the Iranian Safavid dynasty by the Hotaki Afghans. In the ensuing collapse and fragmentation of the empire after the capture of the Iranian capital of Isfahan by the Afghans, a claimant to the Safavid throne, Tahmasp II, accepted Nader into his service. After having subdued north-west Iran as well as neutralising the Abdali Afghans to the east and turning Tahmasp II into a vassal, Nader marched against the Hotaki Afghans in occupation of the rest of the country. In a series of incredible victories the Afghans were decimated and Tahmasp II returned to the throne as a restored Safavid monarch.
The Ottoman–Persian War of 1775–1776 was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Zand dynasty of Persia. The Persians, ruled by Karim Khan and led by his brother Sadeq Khan Zand, invaded southern Iraq and after besieging Basra for a year, took the city from the Ottomans in 1776. The Ottomans, unable to send troops, were dependent on the Mamluk governors to defend that region.
The Battle of Murche-Khort was the last decisive engagement of Nader's campaign to restore Tahmasp II to the Iranian throne. Ashraf Hotak had failed to arrest Nader's advance onto Isfahan at Khwar pass where his ambush was discovered, surrounded and ambushed itself. The battle was fought in an uncharacteristic manner by the Afghans who to some extent sought to replicate their foes tactical systems which had so badly devastated their armies up to this point. Victory opened a clear road south towards Isfahan and the return of Safavid rule for a few brief years before Nader himself would overthrow it.
The Battle of Yeghevārd, also known as the Battle of Baghavard or Morad Tapeh, was the final major engagement of the Perso-Ottoman War of 1730–1735 where the principal Ottoman army in the Caucasus theatre under Koprulu Pasha's command was utterly destroyed by only the advance guard of Nader's army before the main Persian army could enter into the fray. The complete rout of Koprulu Pasha's forces led to a number of besieged Ottoman strongholds in the theatre surrendering as any hope of relief proved ephemeral in light of the crushing defeat at Yeghevārd. One of Nader's most impressive battlefield victories, in which he decimated a force four or five times the size of his own, it helped establish his reputation as a military genius and stands alongside many of his other great triumphs such as at Karnal, Mihmandoost or Kirkuk.
The Mesopotamian Campaign of 1732-1733 was a military conflict during the eventful Perso-Ottoman war of 1730-1735. As a direct result of Tahmasp II's blunders in his ill fated invasion of the Ottoman Caucasus all of Nader's previous gains in the theatre were lost and a humiliating treaty had been signed giving away hegemony over the Caucasus to Istanbul. This settlement gave Nader the authority to force Tahmasp's abdication and resume the war against the Turks by launching an invasion of Ottoman Iraq.
The siege of Baghdad (1733) was a relatively short but intense siege of Baghdad by the Persian army under Nader Shah. The outcome was determined not at Baghdad but ultimately far to the north near Samara where a large relief force commanded by the Topal Pasha inflicted a decisive defeat on Nader's Persian army. The Persian besiegers were forced away with the loss of most of their equipment and saving a much exhausted garrison desperate for relief.
The Battle of Kirkuk, also known as the Battle of Agh-Darband, was the last battle in Nader Shah's Mesopotamian campaign where he avenged his earlier defeat at the hands of the Ottoman general Topal Osman Pasha, in which Nader achieved suitable revenge after defeating and killing him at the battle of Kirkuk. The battle was another in the chain of seemingly unpredictable triumphs and tragedies for both sides as the war swung wildly from the favour of one side to the other. Although the battle ended in a crushing victory for the Persians, they had to be withdrawn from the area due to a growing rebellion in the south of Persia led by Mohammad Khan Baluch. This rebellion in effect robbed Nader of the strategic benefits of his great victory which would have included the capture of Baghdad, if he had the chance to resume his campaign.
The Battle of Samarra was the key engagement between the two great generals Nader Shah and Topal Osman Pasha, which led to the siege of Baghdad being lifted, keeping Ottoman Iraq under Istanbul's control. The armed contest between the two colossi was very hard fought with a total of roughly 50,000 men becoming casualties by the end of the fighting that left the Persians decimated and the Ottoman victors badly shaken. Other than its importance in deciding the fate of Baghdad, the battle is also significant as Nader's only battlefield defeat although he would avenge this defeat at the hands of Topal Pasha at the Battle of Agh-Darband where Topal was killed.
The Caucasus Campaign of 1734–1735 was the last great campaign of the Ottoman–Persian War (1730–35) which ended in a Persian victory allowing Nader to recast Persian hegemony over almost the entire Caucasus, region, reconquering it for the Safavid state.
The siege of Ganja during the last phase of the Perso-Ottoman war of 1730–1735 resulted in the surrender of the city by its Ottoman garrison after a brave defense was rendered futile by the destruction of the main Turkish army marching to its relief in the battle of Baghavard.
During the mid-eighteenth century the Afsharid empire of Nader Shah embarked upon the conquest and annexation of the Khanates of Bukhara and Khiva. The initial engagements were fought in the late 1730s by Nader Shah's son and viceroy Reza Qoli Mirza who gained a few notable victories in this theatre while Nader was still invading India to the south. Reza Qoli's invasions of Khiva angered Ilbars Khan, the leader of Khiva. When Ilbars threatened to make a counter-attack Nader ordered hostilities to cease despite his son's successes and later returned victoriously from Delhi to embark on a decisive campaign himself.
The Battle of Kars was the last major engagement of the Ottoman-Persian War. The battle resulted in the complete and utter destruction of the Ottoman army. It was also the last of the great military triumphs of Nader Shah. The battle was in fact fought over a period of ten days in which the first day saw the Ottomans routed from the field, followed by a series of subsequent blockades and pursuits until the final destruction of the Ottoman army. The severity of the defeat, in conjunction with another defeat near Mosul, ended any hopes of Ottoman victory and forced them to enter into negotiations with a significantly weaker position than they would otherwise have occupied.
Nader's Dagestan campaign, were the campaigns conducted by the Persian Empire under its Afsharid ruler Nader Shah between the years 1741 and 1743 in order to fully subjugate the Dagestan region in the North Caucasus Area. The conflict between the Persian Empire & the Lezgins and a myriad of other Caucasian tribes in the north was intermittently fought through the mid-1730s during Nader's first short expedition in the Caucasus until the last years of his reign and assassination in 1747 with minor skirmishes and raids. The incredibly difficult terrain of the northern Caucasus region made the task of subduing the Lezgins an extremely challenging one. Despite this Nader Shah gained numerous strongholds and fortresses from the Dagestanis and pushed them to the very verge of defeat. The Lezgins however held on in the northernmost reaches of Dagestan and continued to defy Persian domination.
Bash Tapia Castle, also known as Bashtabiya Castle or Pashtabia Castle, is a ruined 12th-century castle located on the western bank of the Tigris river, forming part of the city wall of Mosul, Iraq. It was partially destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in April 2015.
Morteza Mirza Afshar was an Afsharid prince and the son of Nader Shah of Iran, who was renamed Nasrollah Mirza in honour of his role in the victory at Karnal. He proved to be a talented military leader and demonstrated his worth during the battle of Karnal by commanding the centre of the Iranian army which defeated Sa'adat Ali Khan's forces and captured his person.
The siege of Kars, in 1744, took place during the Ottoman–Persian War (1743–1746). Nader Shah, ruler of Persia, laid siege to the city of Kars on 29 July 1744.