Due to its strategic significance, Armenia was constantly fought over and passed back and forth between the dominion of Iran and the Ottomans.

The Shah pursued a careful strategy, advancing and retreating as the occasion demanded, determined not to risk his enterprise in a direct confrontation with stronger enemy forces.

While laying siege to Kars, he learned of the approach of a large Ottoman army, commanded by Djghazadé Sinan Pasha.

Julfa was treated as a special case; he entrusted its evacuation to a renegade Georgian prince, Hanis Thahmaz-Ghuli Bek.

One eyewitness, Father de Guyan, describes the predicament of the refugees thus: Unable to maintain his army on the desolate plain, Sinan Pasha was forced to winter in Van.