Battle of Ain Jalut

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Battle of Ain Jalut
Part of the Mongol invasions
Date September 3, 1260 Location Ain Jalut, Palestine Result Egyptian Mamluk victory
Combatants
Egyptian Mamluks	Mongols Georgians Cilician Armenians
Commanders
Saif ad-Din Qutuz, Baibars C *	Kitbuqa +
Strength
About 20,000[1]	About 20,000[2]

v • d • e The Mongol Invasions
Central Asia – Georgia and Armenia – Volga Bulgaria (Samara Bend – Bilär) – Rus' – Köse Dag – Europe (Legnica – Mohi) – Persia – Baghdad – Ain Jalut – Korea – India – Japan (Bun'ei – Kōan) – Vietnam – Xiangyang – Ngasaunggyan – Yamen – Pagan – Bạch Đằng – Syria – Palestine

The Battle of Ain Jalut (or Ayn Jalut, in Arabic: عين جالوت, the "Eye of Goliath" or the "Spring of Goliath") took place on September 3, 1260 between the Egyptian Mamluks and the Mongols in Palestine, in the Jezreel Valley in Galilee, along the northern part of what today is known as the West Bank.

This battle is considered by many historians to be of great macro-historical importance, as it marked the highwater of Mongol conquests, and the first time they had ever been decisively defeated. After previous defeats, the Mongols had always returned and avenged the loss, and the Battle of Ain Jalut marked the first occasion on which they were unable to do so. Hulagu Khan never was able to advance into Egypt, and the Khanate he established in Persia was only able to defeat the Mamluks once in subsequent expeditions.

Contents 1 Preceding events 1.1 The Sack of Baghdad (1258) 1.2 Conquest of Syria (1259-1260) 2 Conflict between the Mongols and the Mamluks 3 The battle 4 Aftermath 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Preceding events

Once Mongke Khan became Great Khan in 1251, he immediately set out to implement his grandfather Genghis Khan's plan for world empire. To lead the task of subduing the nations of the West, he selected his brother, Hulagu Khan.

Hulagu summoned the largest army ever assembled by the Mongol Empire — one fighting-age male in every ten in the entire empire would serve in this attack.^{[citation needed]} Compiling the army took five years, and it was not until 1256 that Hulagu was prepared to begin the invasions. Operating from the Mongol base in Persia, Mongke Khan instructed his brother Hulagu to proceed south to destroy the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, and then move into Palestine towards Egypt to confront the Mamluk Sultanate. Mongke Khan ordered good treatment for those who yielded without resistance, and destruction for those who did not. The Hashshashin in Persia were so intimidated by Hulagu's reputation that they surrendered without any resistance. Despite this, Hulagu slaughtered them and then moved on to attack what was left of the Abbasid Caliphate.

[edit] The Sack of Baghdad (1258)

The Abbasid Caliph Al-Musta'sim reportedly was given a chance to yield, but chose the worst possible course of action. He defied the Mongols, saying God would punish them if they dared attack him, yet failed to even attempt to summon loyal Muslims to the defense of Baghdad, nor did he strengthen the City of Light's defenses. Under Hulagu, the Mongols captured and destroyed Baghdad in 1258. The slaughter and horrific atrocities committed by the Mongols at Baghdad have never been forgotten, nor did the country itself ever recover. The intricate system of dikes and canals that irrigated the country were destroyed, and after the slaughter at Baghdad there were not enough people left alive to repair and maintain this system. Some historians have posited that soil salination in conjunction with the damage to the canal system led to the decline of regional agriculture^{[citation needed]}. Soil salination was avoided in Egypt, with much effort; the Mongols did not leave enough of the Baghdad populace alive to make such an effort.

[edit] Conquest of Syria (1259-1260)

Hulagu's forces then went on to conquer Muslim Syria. The Mongols were allied with the Franks from the Principality of Antioch under Bohemond VI and his father-in-law the Armenian king Hetoum I, and fought with them in their conquests of Muslim Syria. They took together the city of Aleppo, and later Damascus, together with the Turkic^[3] general Kitbuqa:^[4]

"The king of Armenia and the Prince of Antioch went to the military camp of the Tatars, and they all went off to take Damascus".

—Le Templier de Tyr^[5]

See also: Franco-Mongol alliance

[edit] Conflict between the Mongols and the Mamluks

The Mongols then prepared to conquer Egypt. Saif ad-Din Qutuz considered yielding, but decided in the end that he could not; conflict was imminent. In 1260, Hulagu sent envoys to Qutuz in Cairo demanding his surrender:

"From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain us, nor arms stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal the weakness of your God and then we will kill your children and your old men together. At present you are the only enemy against whom we have to march."

Qutuz responded by killing the envoys and displaying their heads on Bab Zuweila, one of the gates of Cairo.
As Qutuz prepared for a Mongol invasion, Hulagu returned home to attempt to seize power when Mongke died. A potential great Khan, he took the majority of his army with him. This had been the largest army ever assembled by the Mongols, but he was able to leave only a limited force behind — around one or two tumens (10,000-20,000 men) under his best general, the Nestorian Christian Kitbuqa Noyan:

"Kitbuqa, who had been left by Hulagu in Syria and Palestine with 10,000 Tartars, held the Land in peace and in state of rest. And he greatly loved and honoured the Christians (...) Kitbuqa worked at recovering the Holy Land"

—Monk Hayton, "Flor des Estoires de l'Orient", circa 1300.^[6]

Qutuz allied with a fellow Mamluk, Baibars, who wanted to defend Islam after the Mongols captured Damascus and most of Sham. The Mongols attempted to ally with the remnant of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centred on Acre, but Pope Alexander IV forbade this. And Julian of Sidon killed a grandson of Kitbuqa with his crusader knights. Angered, Kitbuqa sacked Sidon. While the Christians remained neutral, they believed it was only a matter of time until the Mongols destroyed them also, and so while technically neutral, they agreed that the Egyptian army could cross their territories without incident, or reporting such movement to the Mongols. Believing that waiting for Hulagu Khan to return with his full army would be foolhardy, Qutuz decided to march north and confront Kitbuqa's army. He believed destroying this force would not only protect the remaining Holy Places (Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina), but also strike a terrific blow against the heretofore invincible Mongols, and rally wavering support to his side. He accomplished all three aims, and more. The Mongols at that time were proceeding down the trade trails, and probably were unaware that the Egyptian forces had marched north to confront them.

[edit] The battle

Both Mamluk and Mongol armies encamped in the Holy Land in July 1260. They finally met at Ain Jalut on September 3, with both sides numbering about 20,000 men. According to the 13th century historian Kirakos, many Armenians and Georgians were also fighting in the ranks of Kitbuqa.^[7] The Armenian historian Smpad writes that about 500 troops from Armenia accompanied the Mongols.^[8] The Mamluks drew out the Mongol cavalry with a feigned retreat, but were almost overwhelmed by the savage Mongol attack. Qutuz rallied his troops for a successful counterattack, along with cavalry reserves hidden in the nearby valleys. The Mongols were forced to retreat, and Kitbuqa was captured and executed. This is among two incidents in which the commander of a Mongol Army was killed in a battle. Mamluk heavy cavalrymen were clearly able to beat the Mongols in close combat, something that no one had previously done.

It is important to note that these particular Mamluks had essentially been created to meet the Mongol crisis. The bulk of them were Turkic or Circassian tribesmen sold in Constantinople to the Sultan of Egypt and trained on Mameluke Island in the Nile. They were not only great horsemen themselves, but were familiar with steppe warfare and with Mongol tactics and weapons. After a time, Egypt basically became a country existing to support a military force. This was vital in defending the Holy Land, and doing what no one else had previously done, decisively defeating the Mongols, who never were able to avenge this defeat. Many historians argue that this battle, and the subsequent Japanese defeats of the invading Mongols, marked the beginning of the end of the Mongol Empire, though parts of it would last another 250 years. Ain Jalut and the defeats near Iki Island by the Japanese marked the end of the aura of Mongol invincibility.

The Battle of Ain Jalut is notable for being the earliest known battle where explosive cannons (midfa in Arabic) were used. These explosive cannons were employed by the Mamluk Egyptians in order to frighten the Mongol horses and cavalry and cause disorder in their ranks. The explosive gunpowder compositions of these cannons were later described in Arabic military manuals from the 14th century.^[9]

[edit] Aftermath

On the way back to Cairo after the victory at Ain Jalut, Baibars killed Qutuz to avenge the murder of his friend Aktai, and became sultan himself. His successors would go on to capture the last of the Crusader states in Palestine by 1291. The Mongols were again beaten at the First Battle of Homs less than a year later, and completely expelled from Syria.

Internecine conflict prevented Hulagu Khan from being able to bring his full power against the Mamluks to avenge the pivotal defeat at Ain Jalut. Berke Khan, the Khan of the Kipchak Khanate in Russia, had converted to Islam, and watched with horror as his cousin destroyed the Abbasid Caliph, the spiritual head of Islam, in Berke's view. Muslim historian Rashid al-Din quoted Berke as sending the following message to Mongke Khan, protesting the attack on Baghdad, (not knowing Mongke had died in China) "he has sacked all the cities of the Muslims, and has brought about the death of the Caliph. With the help of God I will call him to account for so much innocent blood." ^[10]. The Mamluks, learning through spies that Berke was both a Muslim and not fond of his cousin, were careful to nourish their ties to him and his Khanate.

Most of the Mamluks were of Circassian or Turkic descent, and Berke's Khanate was almost totally Turkic also. (Jochi, Genghis Khan's oldest son, was of disputed parentage, and only received 4,000 Mongol warriors to start his Khanate. His army of nearly 300,000 were virtually all Turkic warriors who had submitted to the Mongols; thus, the Khanate was Turkic in culture, and had more in common with their fellow Muslim Turkic Mamluks than with the Mongol shamanist (and pro-Christian) Hulagu and his horde.) The main importance of the Mamluk alliance with the Golden Horde was the flow of young Turkic slaves to maintain the Mamluk institution, and during the era of Hulagu Khan, Berke's willingness to draw his cousin north and keep him from ever being able to bring his full power to bear on the Mamluks.

After the Mongol succession was finally settled, with Kublai as the last Great Khan, Hulagu returned to his lands by 1262, and massed his armies to attack the Mamluks and avenge Ain Jalut. However, Berke Khan initiated a series of raids in force which lured Hulagu north away from the Holy Land to meet him. Hulagu suffered severe defeat in an attempted invasion north of the Caucasus in 1263. This was the first open war between Mongols, and signaled the end of the unified empire.

Hulagu was only able to send a small army of two tumens in his only attempt to attack the Mamluks after Ain Jalut, and it was repulsed. Hulagu Khan died in 1265 and was buried on Kaboudi Island in Lake Urmia. His funeral was the only Ilkhanid funeral to feature human sacrifice. He was succeeded by his son Abaqa, thus establishing his line.

After Hulagu later Khans would attempt again to conquer the Muslim lands, and many battles were fought. In 1303 the Mamluks fought the Mongols for a final time and defeated them at the Battle of Shaqhab. The Mamluk Sultanate would rule the Middle East for 250 years until Selim the Grim and the Ottoman Empire put an end to their independence. Berke Khan and his descendants would rule Russia for another 220 years until the Grand Duke of Moscow finally broke their hold at the Great Standing on the Ugra River in 1480. The shortest-lived of the dynasties was that of Hulagu Khan; his line ruled parts of Southwest Asia for only 91 years. The Il-Khanate established by him was overthrown in 1353.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. (1998). The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52290-0
• Grousset, René (1991), Histoire des Croisades, III, Editions Perrin, ISBN 226202569X
• Morgan, David (1990) The Mongols. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17563-6
• Nicolle, David, (1998). The Mongol Warlords Brockhampton Press.
• Reagan, Geoffry, (1992). The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles . Canopy Books, NY.
• Saunders, J. J. (1971). The History of the Mongol Conquests, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. ISBN 0-8122-1766-7
• Sicker, Martin (2000). The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna, Praeger Publishers.
• Soucek, Svatopluk (2000). A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press.

[edit] External links

• The Lion of Ain Jaloot---Google Video
• History Decided At The 'Spring Of Goliath': The Battle Of Ain Jalut
• Leaders and Battles database: Ain Jalut, the Mongol Wars
• Tschanz, David W.. "History's Hinge: 'Ain Jalut", Saudi Aramco World, July/August 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-24. ar:معركة عين جالوت

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