Nader Shah's Mesopotamian campaign
| Mesopotamian Campaign | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Ottoman–Persian War (1730–1735) and Nader's Campaigns | |||||||||
A Map of the Ottoman Near East | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Safavid Empire | Ottoman Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Nader |
Topal Osman Pasha † Memish Pasha † Ahmad Pasha | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 100,000+ | 100,000+ | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
Baghdad: Heavy Samarra: ~30,000 Kirkuk: Negligible |
Baghdad: ~60,000 civilians Samarra: 20,000 Kirkuk: 20,000 | ||||||||
The Mesopotamian Campaign of 1732–1733 was a military conflict during the eventful Ottoman–Persian War (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 Afsarid chronicler Mohammad Kazem Marvi records in his 'Alam-ara-ye Nadiri that Nader's forces captured spoils from “Kirkuk, Suleimaniyah, and others in the land of Arab Iraq”, seizing a sum of “one hundred and forty thousand horses, camels, and mules” from them.