HistoryMarche provides a lucid deconstruction of Nader Shah’s strategic brilliance, proving that psychological warfare is often more decisive than raw numbers. It is a high-quality synthesis of tactical animation and historical depth that effectively challenges Western-centric military narratives.
Deep Dive
Prerequisite Knowledge
- No data available.
Where to go next
- No data available.
Deep Dive
Hammer and Anvil: Battle of Kars, 1745 - Master of Iran
Added:Summer, 1745. In the shadow of Mount Ararat, the Persian Empire teetered on the brink of collapse. Nader Shah, the most feared military mind on earth, was dying.
Plagued by crippling illness and consumed by a violent, deranged paranoia, Nader was no longer the unstoppable force of nature that had forged a strong Persian Empire and conquered Mughal India. Sensing blood in the water, his bitter rivals, the Ottoman Empire, launched a massive, coordinated strike to finish him for good.
Two colossal armies advanced on the Persian frontiers.
The southern army marched towards Mosul, from where they would advance into Persia.
The northern army would tie down and destroy Nader Shah’s army, currently stationed just north of Yerevan. The giant pincer was designed to break the Persian Empire. The Ottomans knew Nader's empire was highly centralized around his sheer force of personality. By attacking the southern underbelly of his empire while he was distracted in the north, they intended to spark massive anti-Nader rebellions among the Persian populace and place their own puppet Safavid ruler on the throne.
Seemingly willing his broken body back from the edge of death, Nader made a desperate gamble.
He split his remaining forces, sending his gifted son Nasrollah south to intercept the Ottomans at Mosul, while Nader rode west to face the vast Ottoman host at Kars.
Rumors swirled from Delhi to Constantinople that the "Sword of Persia" had finally lost his edge.
The Ottoman juggernaut had turned the tide of the war.
But a dying lion is most dangerous when cornered… Following his miraculous conquest of Mughal India, Nader Shah’s aura of invincibility shattered in the freezing mountains of Dagestan. Seeking to avenge his brother’s death, Nader marched into the Caucasus but was sucked into a brutal, unwinnable guerrilla war. The harsh climate and relentless ambushes broke his army and ruined his already fragile health. Worse, an assassination attempt in Mazanderan drove the Shah into severe paranoia, culminating in the horrific decision to blind his own son and heir, Reza Qoli.
This physical and mental decline crippled his military judgment. In 1743, Nader declared war on the Ottoman Empire, but his massive invasion force failed to break the stubborn defenses of the strategic city of Mosul after a grueling siege. The following year, in August 1744, he laid siege to the northern fortress of Kars. Unlike his earlier legendary campaigns, where he stubbornly blockaded Kandahar for a year, Nader abandoned the Kars siege by October at the first sign of winter. For more than a decade, the Ottoman high command lived in dread of Nader Shah. He was the bogeyman of the East, an unstoppable force they simply dared not attack in the open field. But Nader’s humiliating twin failures at Mosul and Kars shattered that aura of invincibility. To the generals in Constantinople, this was a turning point. Economically, Nader’s empire was collapsing. The vast plunder from his Indian conquests had dried up, forcing him to squeeze his own populace with ruinous taxes that ignited widespread internal rebellions.
While Nader’s realm fractured and his own health declined, the Ottoman economy remained stable enough to fund a massive war effort. Ottoman commanders Mehmed Yegen Pasha and Abdullah Pasha would spearhead the campaign. Abdullah led the southern thrust that would drive through Ottoman Iraq and into Persia, while Mehmed took charge of the main army and moved against Nader to land the killing blow. The northern army numbered between 50 and 80,000 combat troops (and around 80,000 camp followers). It received the bulk of the elite Janissaries and Sipahi cavalry, the best artillery, and most funding.
The southern force numbered between 20 and 30,000 combatants (with around 30,000 camp followers). It was made up of a smaller core of elite Ottoman regulars (Janissaries and Sipahis), and was heavily supplemented by regional provincial troops, local Kurdish cavalry, and Arab tribal levies. Logistically, the survival of Mosul and Kars was the linchpin of this grand strategy. Had Nader captured these cities, the Ottomans would have been forced to supply their armies from deep within Syria or Anatolia. Because they held firm, the Ottomans possessed impregnable forward-staging bases right on the Persian border.
The Sublime Porte’s war aim was to crush Nader and install a weak Safavid puppet on the Persian throne, the dynasty that Nader himself overthrew about a decade earlier.
If successful, the campaign would neutralize a most terrifying rival and with a docile regime in Isfahan, the volatile eastern frontier of the empire would finally stabilize.
In addition, a victory against Nader would free up staggering amounts of manpower and matériel for other theatres. Tens of thousands of battle-hardened janissaries, sipahi cavalry, and massive artillery trains deployed across Mesopotamia and the Caucasus could be redirected to Europe and Africa.
In Europe, the Ottomans were enjoying a fragile peace following their success in the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade. However, the Habsburg Monarchy and the expanding Russian Empire loomed as existential threats. Funneling massive resources from the Persian frontier into fortifying the Danubian frontier and the Crimean Peninsula could significantly strengthen the Ottoman position against their European rivals. Furthermore, this military surplus would have allowed the Sultan to reinforce North Africa, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, where local beys, Barbary corsairs, and Mamluk factions were growing increasingly autonomous.
Meanwhile, Nader Shah, recuperating at Yerevan, commanded an elite army of roughly 55 to 70,000 men. When intelligence arrived of the colossal, two-pronged Ottoman invasion, Nader made a desperate but calculated gamble. He dispatched his son Nasrollah south to intercept Abdullah at Mosul with around 15 to 20,000 veterans. Nader took charge of the remaining 40 to 50,000 troops and prepared to confront the main Ottoman army under Mehmed.
Though vastly outnumbered on both fronts, Nader’s men were the deadliest military machine on earth.
Hardened by campaigns in India and Dagestan, his mobile artillery, drilled Khorasani cavalry and elite jazayerchi musketeers possessed a tactical fluidity that the Ottomans could not match.
Logistically, Nader was operating on a knife-edge. His empire was financially strained. To feed his standing army he had overtaxed the Persian peasantry, relying on heavily guarded supply trains moving from centralized depots. He could not afford a long war of attrition; he needed a swift, decisive field victory. Stopping the Ottoman counter-offensive could force Constantinople to officially recognize his upstart Afsharid dynasty, neutralizing the Safavid pretenders. Economically, crushing the Ottomans would secure the western border provinces and perhaps expand Persia into wealthy Mesopotamia. Victory in 1745 wouldn't just win a war; it would legitimize his reign, fill the imperial treasury and secure Persia’s borders for a generation.
Nader and his army left Yerevan just after the first week of August, but he was informed that the Ottomans had already departed Kars some time before and they were already at an advanced stage marching in his direction. Before a single shot was fired, Nader dealt the first psychological strike. He brought his army to a halt at Baghavard, about 11 miles north of Yerevan, and set up a fortified camp. He deliberately chose these plains, for this was the exact location where he had utterly annihilated an Ottoman army ten years earlier in 1735. By forcing the Ottomans to deploy and fight on the bones of their predecessors, Nader ensured a creeping sense of dread permeated the enemy ranks. By the 8th of August, word reached him that the Ottomans under Mehmet Yegen Pasha were only 7 to 8 miles off. Nader's scouts watched as the Ottomans began constructing their own camp with well-dug-in defenses.
The Ottoman army that confronted Nader was in a process of transformation, much of it the result of its recruitment of European officers, notably Claude Alexandre, Count of Bonneval (known to the Ottomans as Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha), as well as its endless conflicts with the Russian and Austrian empires. Bonneval had specifically reformed the Ottoman artillery and bombardier corps.
Thus, the infantry Mehmed deployed in the center was divided into notably smaller and more manageable units than previous encounters, and the units were organized in two or three lines. Roughly 15,000 Janissaries (Kapikulu), the elite musket-armed shock troops formed the unbreakable center, accompanied by up to 8,000 provincial infantry in the front.
Interspersed in the front infantry line were roughly 80-120 heavy field guns.
Veterans of Nader's previous campaigns against the Ottomans would have noticed that the Ottoman artillery, was not placed in front of the infantry, but between its more compact units. This brilliant dispersal created deadly, interlocking fields of fire that made Nader's traditional frontal cavalry charges highly dangerous. This force was significant enough, but Nader's officers and men would have then watched as the Ottoman cavalry took up position on the wings, arriving in seemingly endless numbers. On both flanks, there were a total of up to 40,000 Sipahis and up to 17,000 Akinjis and Tatar auxiliaries. Meanwhile, Nader fielded up to 12,000 Jazayerchi infantry, the highly disciplined elite heavily armored musketeers.
Complementing these were line infantry: up to 13,000 standard musketeers and spearmen.
Cavalry was a mix of 6,000 elite Afsharid and Qizilbash guards (heavily armored and capable of devastating shock charges) and up to 13,000 light cavalry comprised of Afghan, Turkmen, and Kurdish horsemen more suited for flanking and skirmishing.
For artillery, Nader heavily relied on Zamburaks (camel-mounted swivel guns).
He likely had up to 2,000 of these highly mobile pieces, and up to 50 traditional field cannons.
Nader, still in poor health, commanded the battle from the Persian camp, making use of messengers to relay orders. The Persian infantry was to advance on the enemy. Cavalry stayed in place.
Knowing that the Ottomans had had time to perfect their drill, and knowing that Bonneval's repositioned artillery would shred a static formation, he could not afford to engage in a battle of attrition. This forced Nader into a bizarre but necessary tactical gamble.
Instead of standing to get shot by their more numerous foe, the Persian infantry came within range of the Ottoman line and fired a single volley. The Ottomans returned fire and began to carry out their well-practiced operation of reloading, but then they looked up in anxious surprise. After firing, the Persian musketeers had discarded their weapons, drawn sabers, and were sprinting toward the Ottomans in a mass attack. The two sides crashed together, and the Persians brought their swords down across the flailing Ottomans who were struggling to alter their strategy and put up a defense. A violent, hand-to-hand brawl ensued, with each side mounting a stolid and vicious defense and attack. The cavalry sections of both armies watched from the sides, unwilling to commit lest the other launch a flanking attack in turn.
When the Persian infantry withdrew slightly during a break, the Ottoman foot would attack in turn, and then the cycle would repeat with the Persians going forth once more.
The Persians were better trained at this kind of fighting than their Ottoman counterparts, but it was Mehmed who could feed more reinforcements into the fray. And so, with the cavalry of both armies remaining aloof, the fighting devolved into a bloody and savage stalemate.
Elements of each side would attack, fight for a few moments and then withdraw out of range.
The various commanders and officers would then extoll their men to charge, and they would launch themselves forward once more, back and forth, men falling each time, but the battle no closer to a resolution. Word reached Nader in his tent of this state of affairs, and he rose from his throne. Recognizing the monarch's intent, his captain, courtiers, and bodyguards rushed in all directions. Nader's mount was brought forward and he put on his helm, giving the order that the cavalry guard was to ride with him.
The camp sentries and attendants watched in awe as Nader rode out with the remaining 6,000 Afsharid and Qizilbash guards, his most elite cavalry that he kept in reserve and out of sight. Lances, swords, and flags raised aloft, a kaleidoscopic cavalcade of color and glinting, deadly weaponry galloped down the field with Nader at their head. He wheeled the cavalry in a wide arc on the left, the men in the infantry lines in the center seeing his arrival along with his intent and cheering him and the elite Riders of the Army of Khorasan forward.
In a maneuver reminiscent of Alexander the Great, Nader struck into the gap between the Ottoman infantry and cavalry on the right. Ottoman infantrymen fell in their hundreds, run over by the rampaging Persian cavalry. Simultaneously Nader bulldozed his way through the static Ottoman horse companies. But despite the fury of the Persians, the Ottomans put up an equally tenacious defense, and Nader's horse was shot out from underneath him. Seeing his banner fall, his men held their breath, but as he rose on a second mount the attack roared on!
Twice more Nader was thrown from his horse in the fierce fighting. On his third mount, Nader pointed his saber forward now that they had punched clear through the Ottoman cavalry, many of whom were fleeing the field. Still turning inward, they began to threaten the rear of the Ottoman center. Mehmed’s infantry broke and fled, seeing they were about to be caught between the hammer of Nader’s cavalry and the anvil of his stalwart foot soldiers.
Men uniformly began to flee, and Nader launched a concerted sortie to chase as many of them down as possible. The rout was total, and the Ottomans that could escape did not stop until they were within the shaky and fragile confines of their camp.
The next morning, the 10th of August, more than 20,000 Ottomans lay dead on the battlefield.
Persian forces closed in on their camp. Nader sent an order of surrender to Mehmed.
When no surrender came, skirmishes broke out. Nader turned the Persian artillery and the abandoned Ottoman cannons and began bombarding the Ottoman camp. Mehmed deployed what little artillery he had left in a vain attempt to stave off Nader’s besieging forces.
But the ultimate psychological breaking point was yet to come. Nader received a momentous letter from his son, Nasrollah. The message detailed the absolute slaughter of the southern Ottoman army at the Battle of Mosul, including the death of their commander, Abdullah Pasha.
Knowing the devastating impact this news would carry, Nader forwarded Nasrollah's letter into Mehmed’s camp. The sheer shock that the Ottoman southern army had been completely erased shattered what little discipline remained among the Ottoman survivors.
Panic swept through the tents, triggering full-blown rioting and a desperate, chaotic night retreat westward toward the fortress of Kars. During the retreat, Mehmed was either killed by the mutinous troops or died by his own hand.
When dawn broke over the abandoned camp and the corpse-strewn plains of Baghavard, Nader Shah surveyed the devastation. Though history remembers his later years for extreme paranoia and unyielding brutality, the Shah permitted a rare display of chivalry to close out his final great victory. Rather than executing the remaining captives, he ordered that the surviving, wounded Ottoman prisoners be released and provided them an escort back to the fortress of Kars so they could be treated by their own doctors. Satisfied with his work, his final great victory, the son of the shepherd sent an ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople.
He demanded "Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Karbala, Ottoman Kurdistan and Van."
It seemed that he would have his wish, but before the peace terms were signed, Nader had returned to his own territory where he initiated a reign of terror on his own people, demanding yet more money in taxes. Such was the fear and unease in his circles then, he was assassinated before he could sign the peace terms with the Ottomans.
The blazing star of military genius was burned out and all that remained was the legend.
Related Videos
The 1950s changed everything.
thesongthestoryofficial
962 views•2026-06-16
The Roots of the Seven Years' War – The Silesian Question
STTStepsThroughime
478 views•2026-06-17
FDR's Historic First Flight (1943) ️
BygoneNarrative
14K views•2026-06-14
What Admiral Ugaki Wrote After Watching The Musashi Go Down
WW2Stories1234
2K views•2026-06-17
The Nigerian Leader Who Became the Face of Independence
DiscoverBeyondMedia
559 views•2026-06-16
The WW2 “Potato Battle” That Became U.S. Navy Legend
KilroyWasHereUSA
2K views•2026-06-15
Kaspar Hauser: The Boy Who Appeared From Nowhere | History's Greatest Mystery
ECHOESofMIDNIGHTstyle24
324 views•2026-06-15
The Final Hours of Hitler
Hidden_Archives101
316 views•2026-06-14











