| Battle of Damghan | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Afsharid forces | Hotaki forces | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Nadir Shah Afsharid Letf Ali Khan Tahmasp Khan Jalayer Fath Ali Khan Kayani Latif Khan |
Ashraf Hotaki Mohammad Seidal Nasrullah Khan Zebardust Khan | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 25,000 [1] | 50,000 [1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 3,000 [2] | 12,000 [1] | ||||||
The Battle of Damghan or Battle of Mehmandoost was fought from September 29 to October 5, 1729, near the city of Damghan. On one side of the battle were the Afsharid Persians commanded by Nader Shah Afsharid. On the other side were the Hotaki forces led by Ashraf Hotaki. The Persian army consisted of Qizilbash[3][4][5][6] tribesmen of the northern Afshar tribe[3][4][5][6] while the Hotaki forces consisted of Afghans, Tartars, Kurds, and Ghebers.[2] The battle was followed by another one in Murcheh-Khort, a village near Isfahan. Nadir Shah's forces were victorious in both battles, which led him to remove the Ghilzai Afghan dynasty from the Persian throne. The Hotakis were forced back to their territory in what is now southern Afghanistan.
Meanwhile Ashraf, having taken Yazd and Kirmán, marched into Khurásán with an army of thirty thousand men to give battle to Ṭahmásp, but he was completely defeated by Nádir on October 2 at Dámghán. Another decisive battle was fought in the following year at Múrchakhúr near Iṣfahán. The Afgháns were again defeated and evacuated Iṣfahán to the number of twelve thousand men, but, before quitting the city he had ruined, Ashraf murdered the unfortunate ex-Shah Husayn, and carried off most of the ladies of the royal family and the King's treasure. When Ṭahmásp II entered Iṣfahán on December 9 he found only his old mother, who had escaped deportation by disguising herself as a servant, and was moved to tears at the desolation and desecration which met his eyes at every turn. Nádir, having finally induced Ṭahmásp to empower him to levy taxes on his own authority, marched southwards in pursuit of the retiring Afgháns, whom he overtook and again defeated near Persepolis. Ashraf fled from Shíráz towards his own country, but cold, hunger and the unrelenting hostility of the inhabitants of the regions which he had to traverse dissipated his forces and compelled him to abandon his captives and his treasure, and he was finally killed by a party of Balúch tribesmen. Thus ended the disastrous period of Afghán dominion in Persia in A.D. 1730, having lasted eight years.[1]
—Edward G. Browne, 1924
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "AN OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF PERSIA DURING THE LAST TWO CENTURIES (A.D. 1722-1922)". Edward Granville Browne. London: Packard Humanities Institute. p. 31. http://persian.packhum.org/persian/pf?file=90001014&ct=31. Retrieved 2010-09-24.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ferrier, J. P. (1858). History of the Afghans. Murray. p. 61. http://books.google.com/books?id=POZAAAAAcAAJ&dq=J.P.Ferrier&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Halm, Hienz. Shi'ism. http://books.google.com/books?id=4R4ohU2tNVoC&pg=PA94&dq=afshar+Qizilbash&hl=en&ei=KBimTI_YLYH98AaCveH8AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=afshar%20Qizilbash&f=false.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Axworthy, Michael (2006). Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from tribal warrior to conquering tyrant. I.B.Tauris. pp. 17–19. ISBN 978-1-85043-706-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=O4FFQjh-gr8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-09-30. "His father was of lowly but respectable status, a herdsman of the Afshar tribe ... The Qereqlu Afshars to whom Nader's father belonged were a semi-nomadic Turcoman tribe settled in Khorasan in north-eastern Iran ... The tribes of Khorasan were for the most part linguistically distinct from the Persian-speaking population, speaking Turkic or Kurdish languages. Nader's mother tongue was a dialect of the language group spoken by the Turkic tribes of Iran and Central Asia, and he would have quickly learned Persian, the language of high culture and the cities as he grew older; But the Turkic language was always his preferred everyday speech, unless he was dealing with someone who knew only Persian."
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Garthwaite, Gene. The Persians. http://books.google.com/books?id=RpiywbMvG5gC&pg=PA167&dq=afshar+Qizilbash&hl=en&ei=1BmmTLCBNsP38AaH_YGRDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=afshar%20Qizilbash&f=false.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Elton, Daniel. The History of Iran. http://books.google.com/books?id=AzqbYf9Q_2UC&pg=PA94&dq=afshar+Qizilbash&hl=en&ei=-xqmTM7nEMO88gam9uDjCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=afshar%20Qizilbash&f=false.
Further reading[]
- Michael Axworthy, The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant Hardcover 348 pages (26 July 2006) Publisher: I.B. Tauris Language: English ISBN 1-85043-706-8
The original article can be found at Battle of Damghan (1729) and the edit history here.