The Battle of Chaldiran (1514)

At the start of the 16th century Shah Ismail's Safavid state was growing fast, and its influence spread among the Turkmen tribes of Anatolia, where Qizilbash revolts broke out. Sultan Selim I, newly on the throne, saw this as a threat to his state and in 1514 marched east with a large army. The difference in religious school between the two sides sharpened the conflict.

On 23 August 1514 the armies met on the plain of Chaldiran north-west of Tabriz. The Ottomans had greater numbers, artillery and Janissaries with firearms; the Safavid army was made up mainly of brave Qizilbash cavalry and had no guns. The fierce Qizilbash charges broke against the Ottoman guns and a barrier of chained carts. Shah Ismail was wounded but escaped the field.

Selim briefly entered Tabriz, then withdrew. Eastern Anatolia passed to the Ottomans, and war between the two states continued until the Peace of Amasya in 1555. Chaldiran set the paths of two Turkic states apart, and today both Azerbaijani and Turkish historians remember it with sorrow. Shah Ismail wrote poetry in Azerbaijani Turkish under the pen name Khatai, while Sultan Selim left a divan in Persian.