Evaluate the causes and consequences of Safavid contest [competition] with the Ottomans.

Candidates are required to make an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the Safavid contest with the Ottomans. As causes, candidates may refer to territorial disputes, the Habsburg-Persian Alliance that menaced the Ottomans, and the pact between the Ottomans and Francis I of France. Other causes may include the assassination of an Ottoman governor, and the defection of the governor of Bitlis to the Safavids. For consequences, candidates may consider that the Ottomans recovered lands in Anatolia, lower Mesopotamia, western Armenia, western Georgia, the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, and part of the Persian Gulf coast; while Safavids retained their north-western territories in the Caucasus. Candidates may also refer to the scorched earth policy applied during the war that damaged many territories, and the impact of the war on the Franco–Ottoman alliance since the Ottomans could help with only limited naval support during the Franco–Ottoman invasion of Corsica (1553). Both causes and consequences must be clearly indicated but there does not need to be equal focus on each.

Candidates were required to make an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the Safavid contest with the Ottomans.