3,000 2,000 Per-Persian sources: The Battle of Krtsanisi (Georgian: კრწანისის ბრძოლა, romanized: k'rts'anisis brdzola, Persian: نبرد کرتسانیسی) was fought between the army of Qajar Iran (Persia) and the Georgian armies of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and Kingdom of Imereti at the place of Krtsanisi near Tbilisi, Georgia, from September 8 to September 11, 1795, as part of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar's war in response to King Heraclius II of Georgia’s alliance with the Russian Empire.

[12] The battle resulted in the decisive defeat of the Georgians, capture, and complete destruction of their capital Tbilisi,[10] as well as the temporary absorption of eastern Georgia into the Iranian empire.

[21] A limited Russian contingent of two infantry battalions with four artillery pieces arrived in Tbilisi in 1784,[19] but was withdrawn, despite the frantic protests of the Georgians, in 1787 as a new war against Ottoman Turkey had started on a different front.

Even the consolidation of the Qajar dynasty under Agha Mohammad Khan, who had become the new owners to the Iranian throne and therefore the new heirs to the geo-politically rivalling empire that had been bordering Russia for centuries, did not divert Catherine from preoccupations in the west.

[19] In 1791, when Agha Mohammad Khan was in Tabriz, Heraclius asked General Gudovich, commander of the Russian Caucasian Line, for renewed military aid, but the government in St. Petersburg did not judge it expedient to send troops again to Georgia.

[7] Despite being left to his own devices, Heraclius still cherished a dream of establishing, with Russian protection, a strong and united monarchy, into which the western Georgian Kingdom of Imereti and the lost provinces under Ottoman rule would all eventually be drawn.

For Agha Mohammad Khan, the resubjugation and reintegration of Georgia into the Iranian Empire was part of the same process that had brought Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tabriz under his rule.

[19] It was therefore natural for Agha Mohammad Khan to perform whatever necessary means in the Caucasus in order to subdue and reincorporate the recently lost regions following Nader Shah's death and the demise of the Zands, including putting down what in Iranian eyes was seen as treason on the part of the wali of Georgia.

[7] Heraclius appealed then to his theoretical protector, Empress Catherine II of Russia, pleading for at least 3,000 Russian troops,[7] but he was not listened to, leaving Georgia to fend off the Persian threat alone.

[25] At Ganja, Mohammad Khan sent Heraclius his last ultimatum, who received it in September 1795: Your Highness knows that for the past 100 generations you have been subject to Iran; now we deign to say with amazement that you have attached yourself to the Russians, who have no other business than to trade with Iran... Last year you forced me to destroy a number of Georgians, although we had no desire at all for our subjects to perish by our own hand...It is now our great will that you, an intelligent man, abandon such things... and break relations with the Russians.

[7] Agha Mohammad Khan at the same time marched directly on Tbilisi, with half of the army he crossed the Aras river with, though other estimations mention 40,000[9] instead of 35,000,[7][8][28][6] and attacked the heavily fortified Georgian positions of Heraclius and Solomon on the southwestern limits of the city.

Amid an artillery duel and a fierce cavalry charge, the Persians managed to cross the Kura River and outflanked the decimated Georgian army.

The last surviving Georgian artillery briefly held the advancing Persians to allow Heraclius II and his retinue of some 150 men to escape through the city to the mountains.

[32] The next two years were a time of muddle and confusion, and the weakened and devastated Georgian kingdom, with its capital half in ruins, was easily absorbed by Russia in 1801.