Richard Lemmens website
Copyright:
Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike
This text content and maps on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license license. This means that: adapting the content is allowed; using the content for commercial purposes is not allowed; sharing and redistributing the content with others is allowed. If you do any of the above, you must attribute your copy to its creator, Richard Lemmens, and make sure any alterations and distributions are licensed in the same way as the original. More info about Creative Commons licenses can be found at the Creative Commons website.

Warmatrix

War Matrix - Nader Shah

Age of Reason 1620 CE - 1750 CE, Generals and leaders

Nader Shah with cavalry troops
Nader Shah with cavalry troops
Nader Shah was shah of Persia and a great conqueror, called the Napoléon of Persia by some.
Nader Shah was born in 1688 CE into the Qereqlu clan of the Afshars, a tribe that lived in Khorasan. He had a difficult youth. When he was 13, his father died. Four years later a band of marauding Uzbeks enslaved him together with his mother, who died shortly after. He managed to escape and return to Khorasan a few years later, where he juggled to keep ends meet.
Tired of living a poor life, Nader apparently decided to try to work himself up. He managed to get a job as courier for a nobleman, but on the way to Isfahan he killed his fellow courier. Upon return he also killed his employer and carried the man's daughter off to the mountains. He then became a brigand in Mazanderan.
In that time the ruling Safavid dynasty was in decline. Afghans defeated the royal army and captured the capital Isfahan. In the chaos, Russia and the Ottoman empire moved in and snatched territory from Persia. In Khorasan, Nader fought with the Afghans against the Uzbeks until they stopped paying him. Tahmasp II, the deposed Safavid shah, then enlisted him and soon made him general of the army. Nader used the forces at his disposal to defeat the Afghans in several battles and in 1729 CE restored Tahmasp to the throne.
At first the shah was very pleased with Nader's skills. He rewarded him with the hand of his daughter and made him governor of several provinces. Later he became jealous and in 1732 CE, while Nader was occupied in the east, tried to win a battle of his own against the Ottomans. However he failed and lost Georgia and Armenia. An enraged Nader rushed back, forced him to abdicate in favor of his infant son and became regent himself, effectively holding the power. He managed to push the Russians and Ottomans back and make peace with them. In 1735 CE his position was so strong that he convinced a great council to crown him shah.
In 1738 CE, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last stronghold of the Afghan Hotaki dynasty. Then he turned his attention to the Mughal empire of India, which was also slowly falling apart. In a swift bypassing maneuver at the Khyber pass he created an opening and conquered the western Mughal provinces. Muhammad Shah, the Mughal emperor, assembled a massive army but was defeated again at the Battle of Karnal in 1739 CE. Nader Shah exacted a huge tribute from the Mughals and then marched back home, his treasury filled to the brink. He beat off an attack from Pashtun tribes, who were intend on taking the loot, and proceeded to sack the cities along the Silk Road.
The Indian campaign was Nader Shah's zenith; afterwards his successes dwindled. He waged campaigns against the Uzbeks and Dagestan, yet the latter fought such an effective guerrilla war that he was forced to withdraw after a few years. Finally, in 1743 CE, he once more took on the Ottoman empire, though again had little success and was forced to make peace once more. In his later years he became increasingly despotic and cruel. He squeezed his subjects for tax money to fund his campaigns an even resorted to building pyramids of skulls, in imitation of Tamerlane. His sons gave him as much trouble as his enemies. He suspected them of orchestrating several assassination attempts on him and in response grew increasingly paranoid, killing anyone who was deemed suspect. In the end it was a group of his officers, who feared he would execute them, who stabbed him to death in 1747 CE, though not after he had managed to kill two of them.
In his prime, Nader shah was a brilliant general and a cunning diplomat. The latter is shown by his enlistment of the services of the Afghans, only several years after he had chased them out of Persia. He seems not to have cared much about ethnic, cultural or religious differences, at one time even making a failed attempt to reconcile shia and sunni islam for political purposes. As a ruler, he was ineffective. His only aim was to fight and conquer, and Persia paid for it with money and many lives.
After Nader Shah's death his empire quickly fell apart. His sons fought among each other and various tribes declared independence. Persia stabilized again several decades later, under the Qajar dynasty.