Westward Campaigns and Relations of the Mongol Empire

Westward Campaigns and Relations of the Mongol Empire --- Ben Perlmutter

Korea and Crimea, two peninsulas approximately 5000 miles apart. The

former is current divided into two countries, North and South Korea. North Korea is

a desolate military dictatorship, South Korea a prosperous democracy. The Korean

peninsula juts out between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The Crimea is

currently part of Ukraine. It is an autonomous republic within that country, and one

of is most prosperous regions. It is bordered by the Black Sea on the west and south

and the sea of Azov to the east. The two peninsulas seemingly have nothing in

common. However, in 1259 CE they were united in leadership under the Mongol

Empire, the largest continuous land empire in world history.

The Mongol peoples, before dispersing themselves across Eurasia, were an

ethnic group indigenous to the Eastern region of the Pontic steppe in what is now

northeast Mongolia. They were nomadic, with their main domesticated animals

being oxen, goat, camel, sheep, and horses (which were vital to their conquests). The

Mongols organized themselves in tribes, which were based on shared interest,

rather than solely by kinship or ethnic affiliation. Their society had a high level of

military discipline because of the constant movement inherent to being a nomad

and the large hunts on which they would frequently embark. On occasion, the

Mongols would join with the other steppe peoples and form a super-tribal power

under one ruler, who was called the qaghan. 1

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The Mongols and the other steppe nomads were not completely self-

sufficient. They relied on outside civilization. In the case of the Mongols, that

civilization was China to the south: for certain manufactured goods such as grains

but, most importantly, weapons. However, conflict frequently erupted between the

two clashing cultures. When the nomads won, which was often, because their

civilization was more militaristic than that of their agricultural opposition, they

would typically take the necessary supplies and then extort more goods later

through tribute. The Mongols relationship with civilization was an uneasy peace at

best, but it continued for centuries. 2

This relationship all changed in 1206 AD, though, when a chieftain named

Temujin who had recently united all the Mongol tribes was declared the qaghan of

all steppe peoples. He was later given the title Genghis Khan, which means

“universal ruler”. He went on to establish the Mongol Empire, which lasted from

1206- 1368. It became the largest continuous land empire in world history. At its

zenith, the empire stretched from Poland to Persia to China. 3

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While Genghis was consolidating his power on the eastern steppe, great

civilizations were trying to strengthen themselves to the west. In Eastern Europe,

the Kievan Rus was the predominant power. It had been established by a Varangian

named Rurik around 860 AD. Rurik conquered Novgorod, and his successors

conquered Kiev. Rather than an empire governed by a single ruler, however, it was a

collection of states ruled by princes with similar economic interests. The Rus’ main

cash flow was from their role as intermediaries between Scandinavia to the North

and the Byzantines to the South, along the Dnieper River. It was the Kievan Rus that

established the Eastern Orthodox Church as a fusion of Slavic culture and Byzantine

religion. The state reached its cultural apex under the rule of Yaroslav the Wise (r.

1019-1054). During his reign, Kiev is said to have been as cultured as any Western

European city, but by the time the Mongols came along, roughly 200 years after

Yaroslav, the Kievan Rus’ power had waned because of internal problems, and all

the Mongols had to do to take over was deal the final blow. 4

From the fall of Rome to the 12th century, Western Europe had been on the

defensive. Vikings raided from the north, Muslims raided from Spain and Sicily to

the south, and Hungarians raided from the east. By the 12th century, however,

things were starting to change for Europe: the Normans had captured Sicily from

the Muslims, the Scandinavians and Slavs had converted to Catholicism so the Norse

raiding had stopped, and the Christian reconquista was underway in Spain.5 Some of

the Franks had even taken the offensive against the Muslims on their own turf: in

the First Crusade (1096- 1099), a group of Franks marched down to the Holy Land

and set up their own Latin kingdoms there. 6

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Also, in the 12th century, the Muslim world was no longer united under a

single ruler as it had been during the Umayyad Caliphate a few hundred years

earlier. The Abbasid Caliph centered at Baghdad was the official leader of the

Muslim world, but he was more of a figurehead, similar to the Holy Roman Emperor

in Europe. Instead, there were many localized kingdoms, the largest being the

Khwarazmian Empire, which occupied Persia and the surrounding areas. 7

Economically, the Muslim world was more prosperous than Latin Christdom, and

they saw the Latins’ attacks on the Holy Land as only a temporary problem. Their

real problem, rather, was the attacks of the Qara Khitan from Central Asia. In 1141,

the Seljuk sultan Sanjar lost Transoxiana to the Qara. This was Islam’s first loss of

land in the east in the religion’s entire history. 8 It would not be the last, though. The

Mongols would go on to take nearly the entire Middle East from Islamic rulers.

The Mongols, in their conquests, wrought varying degrees of devastation

based on their relationship with the area they conquered. In Eastern Europe, where

they faced strong opposition from Hungary, they lay the area to waste, but in the

Rus states, where the opposition was scanty and not unified, the Mongols set up a

regime that benefitted the subjects. Western Europe, which the Mongols barely

made military contact with, faced no direct negative effects of the invasions, but

reaped all the benefits of the spread of information and culture that came along with

the invasion. In the Middle East, where the Mongols faced the greatest opposition,

they damaged civilization the most.

Russia and Eastern Europe:

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The Mongol invasion of Russia and Eastern Europe began in 1237, when the

Mongols attacked the Volga Bulgars and the Bashkirs, two ethnic groups located

east of the Russian states. Between 1237 and 1240, the Mongols, led by the famed

genereal Subodei, fought a series of campaigns against the Russian states. The states

never joined together, which made victory relatively easy for the Mongols.9 Then, in

1241, with Russia subdued, the Mongols lead a two-pronged attack on Poland and

Hungary. They were meticulous in their planning; in the preceding two years they

had sent out spies, messages demanding submission (which were not met), and

scouts to burn down villages and farmland so that the land would revert to pasture

for the army’s horses by the time that the principle Mongol force arrived.10

In the 1241-1242 two-pronged attack, Hungary was the main target. Poland,

on the other hand, was a diversion, an aggression that warned the rest of Europe not

to come to Hungary’s aid lest they be next.11 At the Battle of the Plain of Mohi in

April of 1241, the Mongols encircled the Hungarian Army, but left a spot open so

that the Hungarians could flee. The Hungarians thought that this was a mistake in

the Mongols plan, but it was fully intended. As the Hungarians fled on foot and broke

rank, the Mongol horse archers picked them off by bow, one at a time, decimating

the Hungarian army. 12 With the Hungarian army destroyed, the Mongol hordes

1 Jackson, The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410 34-382 Ibid. 3 Davis, "Mongol Empire, Biggest Land Empire in History"4 "History of Russia from Early Slavs History and Kievan Rus to Romanovs Dynasty"5 Jackson, 86 Ibid, 97 Ibid, 10-118 Ibid, 129 Morgan, The Mongols (The Peoples of Europe), 12110 Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern Worl, 145

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spent the spring and summer plundering Hungarian lands and enslaving the

populace. 13

The Hungarian Kingdom was never fully able to recover from the Mongol

attacks. The Mongols had mainly pillaged the countryside and towns, which led to a

famine because the land was no longer suitable for agriculture. Furthermore, many

peasants had died or been enslaved. They also took many skilled laborers back as

slaves, which robbed Hungary of the craftsmen that it needed to rebuild. 14

The invasions were also bad for the future of Hungary’s military. When the

deposed king Bela returned to his throne he recruited a large number of Cuman

warriors from the east as supplement for the massive casualties he had sustained.

While this was a temporary solution, it ended up being bad for later generations,

because the Cumans lacked the same loyalty as discipline as the Hungarian army

(similar to the effect of integrating barbarians into the Roman army in the early fifth

century). Bela also granted large tracts of land to the Knights Hospitalliers, so that

they could help defend the kingdom incase of a future attack. Many members of the

Hungarian nobility were also married into neighboring dynasties so that in the

event of future attack they would have allies, which they didn’t the first time. 15

The campaign featured some important battles. At the siege of Ryazan,

Russia, in 1238, the first major siege of the campaign, the Mongols built a wall

around the city. The wall stopped people from getting in or out and allowed the

11 Jackson, 63-6412 Weatherford, 154-15513 Jackson, 6414 ibid, 7015 ibid, 69

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Mongols to prepare for the battle in peace. The Mongols went on to take over the

city in one day and kill or enslave most of the inhabitants. The remaining refuges

spread word to the rest of Europe. 16 In 1240, the Mongols besieged Kiev, the most

important city in the Slavic world. Once they took it over, they burned it down and

killed most of the inhabitants. Kiev was never able to recover its status. 17 In April

1241, each prong of the Mongol attack into Hungary and Poland fought an important

battle. The northern prong in Poland fought the Battle of Liegnitz against a

European army of 30,000 troops led by Henry II of Silesia. The Mongol force

consisted of about 20,000. Using their tried tactics of feigned retreats, the Mongols

managed to kill or capture 25,000 members of the European army, asserting to the

Western European leaders the supremacy of the Mongol army. Then, shortly after,

the southern prong of the army defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of the Plains of

Mohi. 18

16 ibid, 147-14817 ibid, 15018 ibid, 153-5

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In 1242, with both prongs of the attack going successfully, the Mongols

withdrew. At the time, nobody understood why they turned around in the midst of

their many victories, but it was because Ogedei, the Great Khan, had died and the

nobles needed to go back to elect a new one. It is also possible that they left because

Hungary wasn’t very good grazing land, something they needed for their many

horses, up to 10 per warrior. (The Huns had faced the same problem in the 5th

century, but instead of returning to their home on the steppe, the Huns went

westward and devastated the Roman Empire.) It is also possible that during this

expedition the Mongols only wanted to weaken Hungary and get bearings on the

other European countries’ power. If this were to have been the case, the conquering

force would come in later and finish the job of the 1240-1242 attacks, which would

be easier with all the information gathered from them, and furthermore the country

would not be in good condition. 19 The scouts had pushed as far as Vienna before

they had to turn around.20

For the Mongols, the attacks of 1236- 1242 on Europe were not the success

that they had hoped they would be. The spoils from the attack were little relative to

those obtained from China and the Middle East. This was in part because Europe

was less wealthy, but also because the Mongols did not bring the resources

necessary to take many cities, which is where the European wealth was

concentrated. Also, at the same time as the attack on Europe, the Mongols were

attacking the Sung dynasty in China. Because so many of the Mongols resources

were in Europe, the army attacking China was not big enough, and they were not

19 Jackson, 7420 Weatherford, 123-124

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able to fully conquer the Sung dynasty until 1279. 21 The Mongols, like all the great

conquerors, were learning the difficulty of fighting wars on two fronts.

With all resistance crushed in Russia, Batu, the leading Mongol noble of the

campaign of 1239, set up a regime of his own, which is called the Golden Horde. The

Horde was ruled from the city of Old Sarai and then New Sarai. The rulers took a

fairly hands-off approach to government and stayed mainly in the south. Eventually,

they recognized the prince of Moscow as the Grand Prince of Russia, so he could

collect the taxes for them. By bestowing this special status, the Mongols helped set

in motion their own downfall. Moscow and its Grand Prince progressively became

more powerful as the Mongol rulers became lazier. There were many later raids by

the Golden Horde, the Mongol regime set up in Russia. The most significant of the

later raids was that of 1259. It was primarily against Poland, but they also raided

Lithuania and Prussia, devestating the Teutonic Order in the process. The attack had

to stop, though, because a civil war was rising between the Mongol rulers, and as

many troops as possible were needed on that front.22 The Golden Horde ended in

1502 when it fell to Mengli Girai of Crimea. Moscow, already with a head start on the

rest of the principalities that had just been released from the Horde, went on to

become the dominant Russian state, and the eventual capital of the Russian Empire.

All formal Mongol precence in Europe was finally ended in 1783 when the last

Mongol state in Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. 23

21 Weatherford, 14522 Jackson, 6823 Morgan, 126-128

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While the Mongol invasions of Eastern Europe stole thousands of lives and

devastated the landscape, they had some positive impacts as well. Before the

invasion, Russia was a collection of small bickering states; the Golden Horde united

them all into some form of centralization, even if it was relatively weak. The yam,

the Mongols’ system of roads and mail, helped unite these separated principalities

as well. 24 Also, the Horde inadvertently hurt the Mongol armies operating in the

Middle East. They traded many of the captives as slaves to the Italian states of

Venice and Genoa, who would then sell them to the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The

Mamluks would then train the slaves as elite servant-soldiers. These servant-

soldiers ended up defeating the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut (discussed in

detail later in paper), and ending Mongol expansion in the West. 25

The Mongol conquests, although sometimes inadvertently, had a largely

positive effect on the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1322, the Horde moved the seat

of the church from Kiev to Moscow, hastening the former’s fall from the center of

Slavic culuture, and the latter’s rise. Also, like many major crises, the Mongol

conquest turned people to religion, in this case the Eastern Orthodox Church. With

this increased religious fervor, monasticism became more popular, and these monks

went on to spread the religion to neighboring tribes, thus helping in civilizing them

for their integration into the future Russian states. 26

Western Europe

24 Hossieni, "The Mongol Empire's Impacts on Russia"25 Weatherford, 15926 Hossieni

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The Mongols never made military contact with Western Europe, but the two

groups had extensive diplomatic contact, and while the Europeans may have had

minor effect on the Mongols, the Mongols and the knowledge that came with them

helped usher Western Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Modern Era.

Eastern Europe first got word of the Mongols when the Mongols attacked the

kingdoms of Georgia and Syria in the 1220s. 27 The Europeans did not know the

specifics though and they were not immediately alarmed, because it was not that

uncommon for steppe nomads to attack. But then, at the Siege of Ryazan, in Russia,

as previously mentioned, Eastern Europe gained some real knowledge about these

invaders and learned that Europe was their next target.

While the Mongol horde made its way across Russia more information

trickled in, primarily from refugees from the countless destroyed villages, towns

and cities, spreading information of the Mongol cruelty. Some thought that the

Mongols were the lost tribes of Israel coming back for revenge, so many Jews were

persecuted in the cities. 28

When Catholic Poland and Hunary were invaded in 1241-1242, as previously

discussed, panic ensued. Reports of the devastation reached as far as the

Netherlands and Spain. The Pope at the time, Gregory IX, took the Hungarian king

Bela under his protection and offered indulgences, like those of the crusades, to

those who would protect Hungary from the Mongols. The German states and other

Hungarian neighbors agreed to attack the Mongols but backed down because the

leaders got scared. There were rumors that German princes once defeated the

27 Jackson, 5928 Weatherford, 157

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Mongol army, but there is no historical backup on either side, so it probably never

happened.29 It was probably just a story spread to give hope to the peoples of

Europe in the face of this enormous threat. Matthew Paris, a chronicler of the time

who visited the Mongol court, thought that no western European power was capable

of withstanding the Mongols.30

After the Mongols retreated in 1242, Europe caught its breath. The

Europeans realized that these mysterious men from Asia were still a power, and

they needed to have diplomatic relations with them. Thus, Pope Innocent IV (r.

1243-1254), acting as the leader of Europe, sent a papal envoy named Caprini to the

Mongol court in Karakorum. Caprini encouraged the Mongols to convert to

Christianity and asked that they stop attacking Christians. In response, the Mongols,

per their usual fashion, sent back an ultimatum demanding Western Europe’s

capitulation to the Great Khan. Caprini reorted back that the Mongols were planning

attacks on Prussia and Estonia (which they did eventually raid), and hoped to one

day attack Italy (which might have just been a bluff to garner the pope’s

submission). Caprini furthermore said that the Mongols feared the Franks above all

else. There is a good chance that this was a lie, though, just to make the pope feel

good. The Mongols had very little, if any, fighting exposure to the Franks, and there

is no reason to think that the Mongols would fear them more than the warriors of

the rest of the world. 31 The European knight had proved to be dominant over the

armies of Islam during the crusades, but the Mongol warriors also proved to be

29 Jackson, 65-6830 ibid, 7131 ibid, 82-95

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superior to the Hungarian knights, which were very similar to the Frankish knight in

tactic and ability.

Exerpt from Mongol response to pope, 1247:”In the power of god, all lands, from the rising of the sun to its setting, have been made subjects to us… You in person, at the head of the kinglets, should in a body, with one accord, come and do obedience to us. This is what we make known to you. If you act contrary to it, what do we know? God Knows”32

Once the Mongols settled into their empire and the initial large-scale

invasions were over, peaceful and fruitful relations began between the Mongols and

the Western Europeans. Between 1286 and 1288, the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan

sent an envoy led by the Mongolian Christian priest Rabban Bar Sawma to many

European capitals and through the Middle East. He delivered letters and gifts to

many of the European monarchs and told the Europeans about how the Mongols

were now seeking peaceful relations. The Europeans let their guard down and

opened up trade with the Mongols. This led to a tidal wave of new knowledge for

Europe, known as the Pax Mongolia, 33

In the late 13th into the 14th century, the Pax Mongolica, Eurasian trade

flourished via the Mongols’ advanced roads and communication networks. Along

major routes, every 20-30 miles there was a restocking station to promote trade.

This was especially useful for regions that were difficult to travel though, like the

Gobi desert, which was never the less vital to the land trade between Europe and

32 ibid, 4733 Weathorford, 218-219

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China. The Mongols even had a primitive system of passport/credit card called the

paiza. Travelers would wear a paiza round their necks to indicate importance, and it

would allow them to get things at restocking stations.34

This Pax Mongolia was good for the whole world, but it was particularly

useful for Europe, which had fallen far behind China and the Muslim World, both

technologically and intellectually. While the rest of the Mongol-affected areas were

busy rebuilding, Europe was just soaking in all of the advanced ideas that it had

been deprived of since the fall of Rome. Europe received knowledge of many

important principles: state over church, diplomatic immunity, paper money, and the

concept of international law. There were also more basic acquisitions, including new

crops: carrots, turnips, cress, buckwheat, and parsnips. The most important

acquisition, however, was paper. It made the proliferation of information and ideas

easier and cheaper and was one of the most important factors leading to the

Renaissance. The Pax Mongolia also led to an increase in technology. For example,

the blast furnace was improved, which allowed the production of better metals.

Also, there was more mechanization, which made things faster and easier, the best

example being the windmill, which had been prevalent in Asia since at least the 9th

century, but only saw widespread use in Europe after the invasions. 35

The Mongol effect even reached into the European art and literature. For

example, the term “panni tartarici”, meaning Mongol cloth, proliferated itself into

the works of renowned authors of the time, including Dante, Chaucer, and Boccaccio.

36 The new trade also helped create Renaissance art when the style of the Asian

34 ibid., 220-22135 ibid, 235-236

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landscape was combined with the European portraits and religious scenes. A story

of Genghis Khan even reached Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. 37

Exerpt from Canterbury Tales (modernization of the original Middle English):

The noble king was called Genghis Khan,Who in his time was of so great renownThat there was nowhere in no region So excellent a lord in all things.He lacked nothing that belonged to a king.As of the sect of which he was bornHe kept his law, to which he was sworn.And thereto he was hardy, wise, and rich,And piteous and just, always liked; Soothe of his word, benign, and honorable,Of his courage as any center stable;Young, fresh, and strong, in his arms desirous,As any bachelor of all his house,A fair person he was and fortunate,And kept always so well a royal estateThat there was nowhere such another man.This noble king, this Tartar Genghis Khan.38

But, like all great things, the Pax Mongolica, and Europe’s stream of worldly

knowledge, ended. The roads that had joined Europe and Asia fell into disrepair,

mainly because the Mongol Empire was becoming more sectionalized. Previously,

the disparate khanates had maintained their portions of the systems transportation

systems because they had commercial interests in each other’s territories, but as

their interests became centralized, there was no longer any incentive to maintain

costly roads across vast deserts, because it wasn’t bringing them profit. 39

36 ibid, 23437 ibid, 237-23938 Chaucer39 Weatherford, 222

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The Black Plague furthered this Mongol collapse: the world population is

estimated to have decreased from 450 million to between 350/375 million because

of it. The disease spread from China and was carried along the Silk Road to Europe

by the Mongol horsemen. Once the correlation between trade and the disease was

realized, this trade between the Orient and Europe halted. In Europe, monasteries

were hit particularly hard not only because the living quarters were densely packed,

the disease thrived in urban environments, but also because the monks had to tend

to the sick. As a result, monastic life never fully recovered.40 During the Medieval

Era, monks in their secluded monasteries had helped keep the fading ember of

Western thought kindling. With the plague wiping them out, other groups had to fill

this void. That group wound up being the aristocracy, who created the idea of a

“renaissance man” somebody disciplined in the culture, the classics, politics, and

war.

Middle East

The initial attacks on Islam started under the reign of Genghis Khan. From

1218-1225, he led a campaign against the Khwarazmian Empire in Persia and

destroyed it. In 1231, after Genghis Khan’s death, under Ogedei’s rule, the conquest

was solidified, and Persia was annexed into the Mongol empire. The Mongols

probably attacked the Khwarazmian Empire because it was the most formidable

state to the west, and the Mongols thought it would make a “good” conquest. Also,

40 ibid,243

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once it was defeated, the Mongol leaders speculated, the rest of the Islamic world

would fall relatively easily since it was made up of small states that were constantly

quarreling with each other, making it unlikely for them to team up. . 41 Then,

between 1236 and 1239, Georgia and the Greater Armenia area were annexed as

well.42

Genghis Khan’s attacks on the Khwarazmian Empire had very long-lasting

effects on the conquered lands and peoples. Most importantly, the Mongol army

virtually destroyed civilization in Islamic Central Asia. All the major metropolises

that resisted were destroyed and many of the inhabitants massacred. Allegedly, at

the cities of Harat and Nishapur 1,600,000 and 1,700,000 were killed, respectively.43

The Mongol armies also devastated the agriculture of Persia and Central Asia, which

was reliant on the qanat, a system of water management in which the water is

brought from a mountain water source and then flows to feed multiple wells using

only gravity. Without the qanat, Central Asia and much of Persia reverted back to

their natural desert state, inhospitable to agriculture. Many areas have not

recovered to this day. 44

In 1242, the Mongol armies made their first attempt at the Near East. After a

series of Mongol victories, the Sultanate of Rum, a large state in central Anatolia,

became tributary. With Rum defeated, there was little regional competition. Soon

after the defeat of Rum, the Muslim city-states of Aleppo, Damascus, Hims, and

Hama bribed the Mongols so that they wouldn’t be conquered. Antioch, which was

41 Balisunset, "Battle of Baghdad (1258 AD)"42 Morgan, 3943 ibid, 6544 ibid, 70

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in the hands of European crusaders, defied the Mongols. However, before subduing

Antioch, the Mongol army left in 1244, because the leaders had to go back to elect a

new khan in Mongolia. 45

Soon after the Mongols left in 1244, a band of Khwarazmian mercenaries, the

remnants of their once great empire, sacked Jerusalem and killed the Christian

population. The mercenaries were doing the bidding of nearby Muslims who invited

them in. Soon after, the same group of Khwarazmians teamed up with the Mamluks

of Egypt and crushed the remnants of the army of the Crusader States at the Battle

of La Forbie. Although the kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291, the crusader

movement never recovered. 46

The largest Mongol attack on the Middle East was the invasion of 1252-1260.

Hulegu, who would later go on to establish the Mongol Il-Khanate, led the attack.

The official reason for the invasion was that the Isma’ilis, Shi’I assassins based in

mountain castles, were giving the Mongols too much trouble, and the Caliphate of

Baghdad, the official head of the Muslim world, refused to help. The Isma’ilis had

sent 300 assassins posed as a diplomatic envoy to the Mongol court in Karakorum.

This enraged the Mongols because they were strong promoters of diplomatic

immunity, a very progressive policy for the time. Since the Caliph of Baghdad was

the official head of the Muslim World, when they declared war on him, they were

declaring war on all of Islam. There are many other reasons, though, for the attack

on Islam, behind the official story. Islam was a very aggressive spreading faith, and

the Mongol leaders presumed that it would spread throughout their empire (which

45 Jackson, 7746 ibid., 75

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it did). So, if the Mongols had the heartland of the religion under banner, the new

converts would not have anywhere to rebel to. Also, the main wife of Mangu, the

Great Khan in 1258, the year of the invasions, was a Nestorian Christian, a sect that

was very hostile towards Islam. It is very probable that she influenced her

husband’s judgment. It also shouldn’t be ignored that the Mongols really just

seemed to like to conquer people and fight wars, and Islam was an ideal target.47

The first stop for the army was the Sultanate of Rum, which was rebelling.

The Mongols defeated them and set up a puppet government. They also destroyed

the mountain castles of the Isma’ilis assassins in northern Persia, effectively ending

the movement. Once they had captured the leader of the sect, they brought him to all

the other bases and made him have them surrender since his word was viewed as

the word of God to these foreigners. 48

Then, in 1258, the Mongol army laid siege to Baghdad. Since 750 AD,

Baghdad had been the capitol of the Islamic world. It was no longer the pantheon of

Medieval wisdom that it had been a few hundred years earlier, but it was still one of

the foremost cities in the world, with a population over 1 million and the largest

library in the world. The city and the surrounding fertile crescent of Mesopotamia

were directly ruled by Caliph Mustasim. He had power to call on the armies of Islam,

which he did with the impending Mongol army coming on his underprepared city.

Unfortunately for him, the Mongols had already conquered everybody except the

Mamluks and Syria. Neither of these two remaining nations came to help either. The

Mamluks were mad at Mustasim, and Syria was also preoccupied with defending

47 Balisunset, "Battle of Baghdad (1258 AD)"48 Jackson, 115

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itself against the imminent Mongol attack. In the end, the caliph only had 50,000

troop at his disposal.49

Preceding the majority of the Mongol army, scouts went ahead and broke the

dykes on the Tigris River, flooding the Muslim camp. Then, the Mongol army

advanced and took all but the innermost walls with relative ease. With the inner city

surrounded, there was little hope for the remaining defenders. Next, the Mongols

offered free passage out to Syria to the hopeless defenders in return for the

surrender of the city. The defenders happily obliged, but this was a Mongol trick. As

the fleeing defenders left, the Mongol troops slaughtered them and then took the

city. Once the Mongols controlled the city, they, in their usual fashion, sacked it and

robbed it of all its wealth. The warriors killed thousands, up to one million by some

estimates. The library was ruined. It is rumored that when all the books were

thrown into the Tigris River, it ran black with ink for days. Baghdad was no longer a

great city, just a shell of its former glory.50 The Mongols’ attack on the Tigris-

Euphrates river valley did in two years what the crusaders were unable to do in

150.51

With Mesopotamia defeated, all that was left of Islamic rule in the Middle

East was in Syria and Egypt. The next stop was Syria, and once it was defeated the

Mongols planned to move on to the Mamluks in Egypt. In Syria, the conquering army

raided and sacked many towns. They took Aleppo and sacked Jerusalem in early

1260. Even Crusader State Antioch, which had been the only state that refused to

49 Balisunset, "Battle of Baghdad (1258 AD)"50 ibid51 Weatherford, 184

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submit in 1244, capitulated. As a result the Mongols captured land that had been

previously lost to the Muslims.52 But then, in mid-1260, just as they had 18 years

earlier in Europe, the Mongols withdrew to elect a new khan. As with the European

withdrawal, there are other possible reasons for the Mongols’ departure. The Syrian

sand was hard on the Mongol’s horses feet, and there was not adequate pasture land

for the vast number of Mongol horses and the herds of pack animals that trailed the

army.53

Then, in September 1260, with the majority of the Mongol army having gone

back with Hulegu to Mongolia, the remaining forces engaged the Mamluks at Ayn

Jalut, in modern-day Israel. This was the first time that the Mongols were decisively

defeated. The battle had immense consequences. It marked the furthest that the

Mongols would reach in Asia; after the battle, the remaining Mongol forces had to

retreat from Syria, and, save a brief stint of Mongol control in 1299, Syria and

Palestine stayed in the hands of the Mamluks until after the Mongols lost power in

the Middle East. If the Mongols had won, they would have probably gone on to take

Cairo with little difficulty, which would have put them in control of Mecca and

Medina, the two most important cities in the Islamic religion. (The Mamluks

controlled Mecca and Medina, and if their capitol, Cairo, was taken, then Mecca and

Medina would fall easily.) Islam was effectively politically submissive with Baghdad

under Mongol control, because Islam no longer had any form of centralized political

authority, but if the Mongols had controlled Mecca and Medina, then Islam would

have been completely submissive to the Mongols. 54

52 ibid. , 11853 Jackson, 115-116

21


Once the dust had settled from the initial conquests, Hulegu, a grandson of

Genghis Khan, established the Il-Khanate in 1256. The Il-Khanate spanned from

modern day Pakistan in the east, to Turkmenistan in the north, to Western Turkey in

the west, to the Persian gulf in the south, centered around Persia. It was a

subordinate kingdom to the promimary Mongol kingdom, Kublai’s Yuan Dynasty in

China. In fact, Il-Khanate means “subordinate khanate”.55

The ruling Mongols did not try to impose their shamanistic beliefs on the

populace or impose a foreign religion. At first the Mongol rulers retained their

shamanistic beleifs, but then they experimented with various popular faiths. After

their indigenous shamanism, they tried Buddhism. After Buddhism it was Nestorian

Christianity. Nestorian Christianity was quite popular, but Islam was more so,

andthe rulers eventually yielded to the populace and converted to Islam. 56

One of the most noteworthy leaders of the Il-Khanate was the chronicler and

politician Rashid al Din. He was born in 1247 in Persia to Jewish parents. He

eventually converted to Islam since it was hard to be successful while a member of a

minority religion. As a chronicler, his most important work was Jāmiʿal-Tavārīkh, a

history of the Mongols and their actions in the Middle East. Much of what is known

today about the Mongols in the Middle East from their perspective comes from

Rashid. Rashid al Din could speak Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Mongolian.

His language skills helped get him the position of the Vizier of southern and central

Persia. He was executed when a new emperor came to power in 1318. 57

54 Ahmed, "The Battle of Ayn Jalut « History of Islam"55 "The Islamic World to 1600: The Mongol Invasions (The Il-Khanate)"56 Jackson, 14157 Netzer, "Rashid Al-Din"

22


Once the Il-khanate was in power, they continued to try to take Syria and

Egypt. In 1282, at the Battle of Hims, the Mongols and Crusaders teamed up, but it

was to no avail. In 1299, the Il-khans even defeated the Mamluks and briefly

occupied Syria and Palestine, but the Mamluks soon after took it back. 58

When the Mongols first attacked the Middle East, it was no longer the united

Islamic state that it had been a few hundred years earlier. While still technically

subservient to the caliph of Bagdhad, all the states acted virtually independent of his

word. The Mongols tried to reestablish this order under their own rule, but they

were never able to because they failed to capture Mecca, Medina, and Cairo.

Following the demise of the il-khans, the Timurid Empire came to replace it. The

Timurids furthered the destruction that the Mongols had started. Eventually, the

Ottomans became the leading Middle Eastern power, but the damage was done. The

hundreds of years of chaos and destruction set the Middle East behind Europe and

China, from s trauma from which it has yet to recover.

Crusader States

By the time Mongol invasions were reaching the Near East, the Crusader

States had been on a steady track of decline since soon after the First Crusade of the

11th century. They were down to a few coastal strongholds and were heavily reliant

on European manpower for defense.

When the Crusaders got word that there was a large army coming from the

east, destroying Islam, they believed that it was a large Christian army from the east

58 Jackson, 170

23


coming to save Christianity. Genghis Khan was called “King David”. The Crusaders’

belief in King David stopped them from rejecting Egypt’s reasonable peace terms at

the end of the 5th Crusade in 1221. They thought that David and his army would

come to the Crusader aid at any moment. 59

As absurd and misinformed as this sounds, there was a valid reason for the

crusader misbelief. When the Mongols were campaigning against the Christian

kingdom of Georgia, they would put a cross at the front of their army. Since the

Georgians had little knowledge of the Mongols, they thought that the Mongols were

fellow Christians. The Georgians then put their guard down against these

mysterious Christian brethren from the East. With the enemy no longer prepared,

the Mongols attacked and won. So technically, if the crusaders heard that there was

a army bearing the cross, coming from the east to destroy Islam, they were not

incorrect. Nestorian Christians from the East had the same wishful thinking as the

Latins in the Levant. These Nestorians, being further east and therefore in closer

contact with the Mongols, added more credibility to the King David myth. The

Nestorians probably believed the myth because they were constantly oppressed by

their Islamic rulers, so they would rally upon any chance that they had for salvation,

as ludicrous and improbable as it might seem.60

Eventually, it became very clear the Mongols were not in fact a Christian

army from the east coming to destroy Islam and save the Crusader States (which at

this point were shrunken down to a few coastal strongholds). But, as it turned out,

the Mongols had no immediate intention of destroying the Crusader States either. At

59 Jackson, 4860 ibid, 49

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first, during the 1252 invasion, when the Mongols established their dominance over

the Middle East, the Crusader States stayed politically neutral. In 1259, when the

Mongol army was starting to campaign in Syria, the Crusader States did not set an

alliance with the Mongols high on their list of priorities. The Latin Kingdom of

Constantinople, which had been established in the Fourth Crusade, was going

downhill; there were also problems with Muslims in Sicily; the Church, which ran

the Crusader States’ diplomacy, was too bogged down with these other issues to ally

themselves with the Mongols. In 1260, when the Mongols were about to engage the

Mamluks in battle, the Crusaders allowed the Mamluks safe passage through their

lands on the way to battle. After the Mongols were defeated at Ayn Jalut and sent

back out of Syria, there was a power vacuum in Syria. The Crusaders reported back

to Europe that if they were given a crusading army they could retake all the land

that had been lost over the previous 160 years, but this never happened. Soon the

power vacuum in Syria was filled by the Mamluks.61

After 1262, when the Mongol Empire was undergoing civil war, the Mongols

tried to make friends with the Crusaders. The Crusader States didn’t really have a

choice but to ally themselves with the Mongols. While the Mongols had trouble with

the powerful Mamluks, they would have had no trouble at all crushing the tiny

Crusader States. Also, the Mongols were Christian sympathizers. Since at this point

Il-Khanate was yet to accept a major religion, the Crusaders were hopeful that they

might convert the Mongol leadership. If this were to happen, they would have a very

powerful ally against their Islamic neighbors. 62

61 ibid, 119-12262 Morgan, 135-136

25


Thus, the Mongol-Frankish alliance was born. Most of the Mongols’

interactions were with the European kings rather than the Crusader States

themselves. The Crusader States were very weak by the mid 13th century, so the

Mongols were hoping more for a crusading army from the continent rather than

help from the Franks in Palestine. In 1268, the Mamluks captured Antioch, further

weakening the Crusader States. All that was left was the County of Tripoli and the

Kingdom of Jerusalem (ironically, by 1268, neither domain actually contained the

city of their namesake anymore), both reduced to a few coastal cities. In 1272, an

English army, led by Edward I, and a Mongol army led two separate attacks on

Palestine. The two armies never coordinated, though, and attacks failed. In 1281, at

the Battle of Hims, the Franks and the Mongols finally teamed up to take on the

Mamluks. Before the battle could start, the Mamluks got between the Franks and the

Mongols so they could not communicate. The Mamluks were badly hurt but

victorious nonetheless. This was a second turning point for the Mongols in the

Middle East. Afterwards, save a brief stint of Mongol control of Syria in 1299, the

Mongols stopped trying to fight the Mamluks, and stuck instead to diplomacy.63

Ten years after Hims, in 1291, Acre, the last Latin foothold in the Holy Land,

fell to the Mamluks. While the Crusaders can be blamed for their own demise

because of their failure to ally themselves with the Mongols, at the time their actions

seemed justified. In 1260, when the Mongols were invading Syria, the Mamluk

Sultanate in Egypt was less than five years old. Their rule was very unstable, yet

they had a very strong army. The Crusaders assumed that the Mamluks would beat

63 Jackson, 165-168

26


the Mongols, which they did at Ayn Jalut, and then the state would disintegrate soon

after, before they could turn their swords against the Crusader States. The

Crusaders weren’t even too wrong with their judgment of the Mamluk instability. On

his way back from Ayn Jalut, Qutuz, the sultan was assassinated. However, a general

named Baybars came to power and set up a stable regime, which then went on to

destroy the remaining Crusader States.64

Later Mongol History

After the death of Monke Khan in 1259, the Mongol Empire went into a civil

war, which lasted from 1260 through 1264. The war was fought over the title of

Khan between two of Genghis Khan’s grandsons, Kublai and Arigh Boke. Kublai won

in the end, but the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe, which had supported Arigh

Boke, seceded. The Il-Khanate also gained some autonomy. It was no longer part of

the official empire, but still a client state. The Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia,

which had already been semiautonomous before the civil war, used the chaos to

completely secede itself from the central Mongol government.65 After the war, little

territory had been lost, and all the lands stayed in Mongol hands; the problem was

that rather than being in the centralized hands of one Great Khan, the power was

distributed, stopping the threat of a centralized, expanding Mongol world empire.

By 1279, all of China was under Mongol control. With this new unified

domain, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty. The Yuan Dynasty is unique because it

was both a domain of the Mongol Empire and a Chinese dynasty. Eventually the

64 ibid, 12265 ibid, 124-127

27


Mongol rulers became increasingly sinoized. However, the populace was not content

with the Mongol rulers. They still remembered the destruction that the invading

Mongol army had brought decades earlier. To make matters worse for the rulers,

during the mid-14th century the Chinese countryside saw a series of droughts and

famines, further upsetting the populace. Rebellion might have been able to be

avoided, but the series of inadequate rulers following Kublai Khan’s death put the

last nail in the coffin. By the 1250s, rebellions broke out across the empire. By 1268

a group of rebels led by the peasant leader Zhu Yuanzhang had captured the Mongol

capital in Beijing. With this act, they ended the Yuan Dynasty and established the

Ming Dynasty. Under the Ming China would see some of its greatest prosperity. 66

1368 is traditionally seen as the end of the Mongol Empire. While Mongol-

controlled states persisted for the next several hundred years, there was no longer

any centralization. In fact, sometimes the Mongol states even went to war with each

other. The Il-Khanate, for example, was constantly at war with the Golden Horde. In

1370, the Golden Horde even captured Tabriz, the Il-Khanate’s capital. 67

Soon after, it seemed like all hope had been lost for the Mongol empire, but

there was a temporary reprive. With the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, a Central Asian

Warlord named Timur (1336-1405) created a new empire of his own, rivaling that

of Genghis Khan. He was born to humble means in the Chagatai Khanate, but soon

rose to be one of the greatest conquerors in history. First he conquered

Transoxiana. Net he moved on to take the Ilkhante, which by the time he entered

was basically a collection of local kingdoms. Persia and Transoxiana became the

66 http://www.chinavoc.com/history/yuan.htm67 "The Islamic World to 1600: The Mongol Invasions (The Il-Khanate)"

28

http://www.chinavoc.com/history/yuan.htm


heart of his empire. After that he defeated the Golden Horde, Syria, and the

Ottomans in Asia Minor. These areas, however, were never annexed into his empire.

By 1398, Timor and his army pushed eastward and sacked Delhi in India. Timur is

infamous for his extreme cruelty to the peoples he conquered. For example, before

the Battle of Delhi he executed 100,000 Hindu prisoners, just to make a point.

Frequently, after sacking a city, he would make towers of skulls out of the heads of

the former inhabitants for his amusement.68

Timur liked to fancy himself and his empire as the second coming of the

Mongol world empire. This very well might have been the case, but while planning

his attack on China, in 1405, Timur died. After his death the expansion stopped.

Samarqand, his capital, situated in modern day Uzbekistan, underwent a cultural

golden age for the next 50 years, but while his dynasty persisted until 1526, by the

mid 15th century the empire had fragmented into various local principalities ruled

by Timur’s squabbling descendants. 69 Timur’s failure to reunite the Mongol empire

marked the end of any hope for a unification of the Mongol factions. After the

dissolution of the Timurid Empire, minor empires ruled by Genghis Khan’s

descendants continued to rule for many years. The rulers of the Mughal Empire of

India and the Safavid Dynasty of Persia both had Mongol blood dating back to

Genghis Khan running through their veins. 70

Conclusion

68 "The Islamic World to 1600: The Mongol Invasions (The Timurid Empire)"69 ibid70 ibid

29


How were the Mongols able to keep this vast empire unified for over 100

years in an age before any advanced form of telecommunications or transportation?

The short answer is: “The Yam”. The Yam was the Mongol empire’s main

transportation system. Established by Ogedei Khan in 1234, there was a stopping

post ever day’s journey. With a horse at full speed riding between each post,

information could travel hundreds of miles each day.71

The Mongol armies also reached a level of military supremacy over all their

opponents that has yet to be met. For over 50 years, from the ascension of Genghis

Khan to the withdrawal from Syria in 1259, the Mongol armies went virtually

undefeated. This was in a large part due to their superior tactics. Many steppe

peoples had used pitched battle tactics similar to the Mongols, heavily reliant on the

horse with constant false withdrawals. The Mongols differed from their

predecessors, and exceeded them, because they were willing to adapt to the

technologies of the peoples they conquered. From the Chinese, for example, the

Mongols learned the intricacies of siege warfare, which later became vital for

capturing the huge walled cities of the Middle East. The Mongols also believed in

meritocracy. For example, Subedei, the greatest Mongol general, rose from meager

origins, born as the son of a blacksmith. He defeated Hungary and Poland, in battles

hundreds of miles apart, within two days of each other.72 Also, Mongol culture was

very militaristic. From a very young age the men were constantly on horseback,

which trained them for the later conquests. There was also a tradition of embarking

on a semi-annual hunt, where the warriors honed their bow skills for battle.

71 Jackson, 91

30


The Mongol Empire was the second largest empire in history, and the largest

contiguous empire in history. At its largest, the Great Khan was in direct control of

approximately 22% of the Earth’s land. The only empire larger was the British

Empire of the late 19th and early 20th century. The vast majority of the British

Empire was uninhabited wasteland: from the Canadian tundra, to the tribal areas of

Africa, to the jungles of New Guinea, to the vast Australian desert. The only heavily

populated area that the British Empire controlled was India. The Mongols, on the

other hand, controlled the population centers of the Middle East, China, and Eastern

Europe, 650 years earlier. Originating as not even the most powerful group on the

northeastern part of the Eurasian steppe, the Mongols went to take over most of

what was then the known world. Although they might have been brutal if resistance

was given, if a nation submitted, the Mongols would include them in their vast world

trade network, and the nation would prosper.

Footnotes:

31


72 Oestmoen

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Davis, Richard L. "Mongol Empire, Biggest Land Empire in History." Laughter - Lawter Genealogy Research Center. Web. 16 Sept. 2010. <http://franklaughter.tripod.com/cgi-bin/histprof/misc/mongol.html>.

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Westward Campaigns and Relations of the Mongol Empire

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