page_title: Campaigns of Nader Shah
section_title: Mesopotamian Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Campaigns of Nader Shah / Mesopotamian Campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: This beautiful hand colored map is a lithographic engraving of Turkey in Asia, dating to 1849. Beautiful map depicts most of modern day nations of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait. There is a beautiful inset of the Environs of Constantinople or Istanbul. Produced by the legendary American map publisher S. A. Mitchell Sr. in conjunction with the Cowperthwait firm of Philadelphia, PA.
context_page_description: 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 as well as 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.
  In the aftermath of the Safavid restoration Nader campaigned in the western and northern reaches of the empire to regain territory lost to the Ottomans and Russians. After a bitter war lasting five years Nader had managed to restore the western frontier of Iran as well as reimposed Iranian suzerainty over most of the Caucasus.
context_section_description: 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 and Mesopotamia.
caption: A map of the Ottoman Near East before the war
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