Siege of Mosul (1743)

The Persian siege train had been much improved and augmented since Nader's earlier campaigns as a Safavid general and included hundreds of heavy cannon and mortars. Bridges were built above and below the city. Once they were in position, the Persian gunners bombarded Mosul for eight days, the mortars starting fires and doing terrible damage in the interior of the city. Inhabitants of the city composed of natives and refugees, Muslims, Christians and Yazidis all of them joined enthusiastically in defending the city. Which resulted in numerous casualties from Yazidis^[10][11] and the capture of their leader by Nadir Shah.^[11] Artillery fire eventually succeeded in damaging a tower and making a breach. But the defenders, inspired by their commander, worked frantically and succeeded in repairing the damage. Persians also started digging mines under the walls of the city but those operations led to little success. A further major assault was carried out, by thousands of soldiers, carrying 1,700 scaling-ladders. The assault failed and Nader lost over 5,000 men. Persians tried at this stage to open negotiations, but the Ottoman commander was defiant and the defenders did their best to make the interior of the city look as normal as possible to Nader’s messengers, so that when he asked them for their impressions of the state of the city and the will of its people to resist, the answers were disappointing. Nader asked the Ottoman side to present peace proposals, and they agreed. The Persians later complimented the defenders of Mosul on their bravery.^[1]