By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

profitable for the Tatars who were constantly in search of new fields of plunder. The Persians appeared
sufficiently weakened at this time to allow the Tatars to acquire sufficient booty to make a campaign in this
direction lucrative. The Tatars may have also been inspired by a genuine religious zeal to partake in a
campaign against the heretic Shiite Persians who were considered a threat to the Sunni Islam of both
the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars.
These reasons aside, an analysis of their role in this campaign should provide an accurate picture of the typical
role played by the Tatars on this front as well as demonstrate the tactics used by the Khan's forces against the
Safavids.
The Ottomans chose to invade Persia's Caucasus provinces in 1578 expecting to take advantage of Persian
disunity. The Safavids were in the process of recovering from the effects of a bloody civil war and appeared
to be too divided to resist a strong Ottoman thrust into their northern territories.
The Ottoman government also had great faith in the ability of the Serdar (General) chosen to lead the
offensive. The man chosen for the task, Mehemed Pasha, was an experienced campaigner who had
fought in the Caucasus previously and knew the area and its people well. Mehemed was well aware of
the fierce nature of the Caucasian peoples and expected as much trouble from them as he did from the Safavids
who exerted varying degrees of control over many of the region's tribes and principalities. It is therefore not
surprising that he called on the Tatars to assist his forces at the beginning of the Ottoman offensive in April of
1578.
As was so often the case, the Tatars were involved in problems of their own and were initially unable to
assist the Ottoman forces. The Tatars were preoccupied with operations against Poland, which had been
unable to prevent Cossacks in her lands from raiding Crimean territory. It was not until September that
the Grand Vezir succeeded in arranging a truce between the Poles and the Crimean Tatars, thus permitting
the Tatars to come to the Ottomans' aid.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman army had commenced an assault on Persian-held Georgia, and in the battles of
Childir and Alazan Mehemed Pasha succeeded in defeating the numerically superior Persian forces arrayed
against him. By the end of the campaign season, the Ottomans had gained a tenuous control of much of
Georgia and Shirvan. As Mehemed Pasha prepared to withdraw his army, he once again called on the
Tatars for assistance. The Khan's forces were needed to bolster the relatively weak occupying force of
8,000 men, which had been left to hold the Empire's new possessions for the winter.
It was not until the middle of October that a Tatar detachment of 15,000 men, under the command of Adil
Giray, the Kalgay (heir to the throne), departed for the battlefront in Transcaucasia. There was a sense of
urgency surrounding the Tatars' journey south, for a Safavid army of roughly the same size had also
begun moving toward the Ottoman force, which was stationed in the city of Aresh.
The Safavid forces, under the leadership of one Aras Khan, arrived first and quickly commenced an
assault on the outnumbered Ottomans who resisted bravely for three days. On the third day, it appeared that
the Ottoman defenses were close to crumbling when a messenger arrived to inform the disheartened
troops that the Tatar contingent was only a station away.
Upon hearing this news, the Ottoman defenders rallied their strength and held out until the Tatars arrived
later that day. In describing the ensuing battle, Kortepeter relates that the hardy Tatars quickly engaged the
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