Mongol invaded Baghdad (Feb. 15, 1258)

While Mangu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and third ruler of the Mongol Empire, was conquering China, he sent his brother Hulagu westward to attack the cities of Islam.

In 1256, Hulagu directed his men against the infamous sect of Assassins that had terrorized much of the Middle East since the 11th century. After destroying Alamut, the Assassins’ stronghold, Hulagu then advanced on Baghdad.

Hulagu Khan reached Baghdad and he reprimanded the Caliph for not having supported him in his war against the assassins, thereby breaking oath of allegiance once offered to Genghis Khan.  

Mongol reportedly had the support of some Shi’ites interested in the downfall of the Sunni Caliphate.

Hulagu requested that the Caliph open doors of Baghdad to the Mongols. Abbasid caliph al-Mustasim (1242-1258) failed to make proper preparations for the invasion, rejected demands to recognize Mongol authority.

The mighty Caliph – assured of the solidarity of Muslin armies from Maghreb to Cairo and Damascus, and the obstacle to the Mongol invasion presented by the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris - haughtily rebuffed Hulagu’s demand.

Enraged, the Mongols began their siege 0n February 1 and attacked the walls, ramparts and towers defending the city.

After a prolonged assault during which the city was bombarded by the artillery of the time (ballistic missiles like catapults, mortars, and other machines throwing explosives, smoke bombs, grenades and incendiary rockets), Mongol forces stormed into the city on February 15, 1258 and sacked it ruthlessly. The sack of Baghdad turned into a merciless massacre.

Only the Christian churches and palaces were spared from looting and vandalizing. Muslim citizens were slaughtered by the thousands; mosques were defiled, palaces pillaged. For days, the Mongols and their Christian axillaries murdered and plundered, destroying Baghdad’s famous libraries, hospitals, palaces and mosques.

The orgy of looting and killing continued for seventeen days before the city was set ablaze. As many as 100,000 died in the looting of Baghdad.

The captured Caliph and his male heirs were wrapped in carpets or sewn into sacks and then trampled to death by Mongol horses and warriors.

By fallen the city of Baghdad, leaving Mamluk Egypt the last stronghold of Muslim culture.
Mongol invaded Baghdad (Feb. 15, 1258)

War of Kaifeng (1232 – 1233)

Renewed invasion of north China saw the Mongols Ogedei and Tolui (son of Genghis Khan) defeat the Jin at Yuxian, and then leave General Subetai to besiege the capital Kaifeng.

Kaifeng had been in a state of shock as the Mongols approached, because their arrival was preceded by the bad news of Jin defeats in the northern mountains where the soldiers were in snow up to their knees.

To raise the morale in Kaifeng the emperor deliberately made himself highly visible to his troops by touring the walls as the Mongol bombardment began.

When the Southern Song sent General Meng Hong to aid the Mongols, Emperor Ai Zong escaped along the Yellow River.

The Jin emperor continued resistance in the provinces but was defeated by Mongol and Song forces at Caizhou in 1234.

The Song were granted some ex-Jin territories as a reward but were dissatisfied and attacked Kaifeng and Loyang.

They were driven out but Ogedei resolved to conquer the Song Empire.
War of Kaifeng (1232 – 1233)

Tamerlane vs Bayezid I in Battle of Ankara

Battle of Ankara is a battle between the Ottomans and the Timurids.  The decisive battle of Ankara, or battled of Cubukabad, was fought at Cubukabad near Ankara on July 20, 1402.

Timur (1336-1405), known in the west as Tamerlane, from Samarkand, had founded a vast Eurasian empire stretching from India to Russian.

Regarding himself as the legitimate successor of the Mongol ruler, he considered Bayezid I’s ambition to conquer Muslim states a challenge to his authority.

Sultan Bayezid I led an Ottoman army against a force led by Timur. Bayezid became sultan in 1389 after the assassination of his father Murad on the battlefield at Kosovo.

In battle of Ankara, Bayezid’s army was a hardened and disciplined force of 85,000 men, while Timur commanded between 140,000 and 200,000 men.

The Ottoman troops fought heroically and some 15,000 Turks and Christians are said to have been fallen in the attempt to break the Mongol lines.

When the rest had fled, Bayezid and his rearguard continued to resists far into the night until they were overwhelmed.

Defeated and taken prisoner, Bayezid I was first chivalrously treated by Timur, but later after attempting to escape is said to have been locked up and carried around in an iron cage.

While still in Timur’s custody he died on March 8, 1403, according to some sources by his own.

The Ottoman defeat at the battle of Ankara was a serious blow to the merging new empire, which did not recover until the period of Mehmed II.
Tamerlane vs Bayezid I in Battle of Ankara

Battle of Ain-Jalut 1260 AD

The Mongol army of Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, pressed westward into Syria and Palestine after tis crushing victory over the Muslims of Baghdad.

With an army numbering around three hundred thousand men, Hulagu had been advancing across the Middle East since 1253.

In Persian he had destroyed the castles of the Ismailis sect, who had attempted to assassinate Great Khan Mongke, Hulagu cousin.

Then, he turned against the Abbasid caliphate, razed Baghdad, massacring 200,000 of its inhabitants and executing the caliph.

The Ayyubid caliph was also captured and the city of Aleppo conquered in 1260.

A Muslim Mamluks army of Egypt, which had been preparing to resist the Mongol advance, now swung over to the offensive.

The Sultan of Egypt, Sultan al-Muzaffar Sayf ad-Din Qutuz, strengthening the defenses of Cairo, preparing the city and its inhabitants to defend themselves to the death.

In July 1260, the Egyptian army marched north to confront the Mongols and Sultan Qutuz sent a message to the Franks in Care requesting safe passage and the provision of food.

Franks decided to side with Mamluks in this showdown between two heavyweight powers of the region and agreed to Qutuz’s request.

The battle of Ain-Jalut took place Friday 3 September 1260. The Mamluks approached from the north-west and the Mongols charged into them, destroying the Mamluk left plank.

But Qutuz rallied his troops and launched a counterattack that shook the Mongols. He then launched a frontal attack that led to a complete Mamluk victory.

The battle of Ain-Jalut, the first Mongol defeat in the West ended Hulagu’s invasion.

After the battle of Ain-Jalut, Mongol made only a few small invasions into Syria and never again threatened the Mamluks, who would continue to rule Egypt until eighteenth century.
Battle of Ain-Jalut 1260 AD

The Mongol Conquests

The Mongol Conquests
Over the course of the centuries preceding the great revolutionary movement of the eighteenth to the twentieth century, terror was practiced above all in times of war, and almost always through recourse to the military apparatus rather than that of the police. The army has always been a formidable instrument of state terror.

Before the emergence of modern totalitarian systems, nomad warrior societies practiced large-scale terrorism with fearsome effectiveness. Of all such tribes, the Mongols were the best organized the most terrifying, and the most destructive. At the height of its power, the Mongo Empire was the largest of all time, encompassing practically the entire Eurasian continent.

The Mongols under Genghis Khan had at their disposal a military instrument that was superior to every other army of its time. This superiority was a product of their Spartan way of life, their immersion in the military arts from earliest childhood, their military organization, their mobility, and undisputed preeminence in the rigors of discipline. One further asset available to them was the systematic practice of terror against peoples.

By comparison to sedentary society, nomad society is demographically quite feeble. Thus, the superiority of the nomad warrior had nothing to do with numbers. It was through the concentration of forces and the element of surprise that nomads sought to overwhelm their adversaries as well as through the psychological impact of their attacks on populations ill prepared for such a scourge. They therefore relied in the terror they inspired in civilian populations and armies to prevent uprisings in their wake. Thus terror became a basic tool of nomad strategy of conquest.

Tamerlane was Genghis equal, in military terms, his every operation enjoying success, even though he sometimes met the same adversaries in battle on several occasion. The key characteristics of his style of warfare was his frequent assaults on great cities, including, Damascus, Baghdad, Aleppo, Delhi and Ankara. His adversaries were far from negligible.

The systematic use of terror against towns was an integral element of Tamerlane’s strategic arsenal. When he besieged a city, surrender at the first warning spared its people their live. Resistance on the other hand, was brutally punished by the massacre of civilians, often in atrocious circumstances. When the sack of a city was complete, Tamerlane raised pyramids of decapitate heads. In the 1397 taking Isfahan, a city of about half million inhabitants, observers estimated the number of dead at 100,000 to 200,000.

After the massacre, Tamerlane had some fifty pyramids built, each comprised of thousands of heads. In doing so Tamerlane hoped to persuade other besieged city to surrender at firsts notice. The tactic did not always work, and many towns still refused to capitulate. After the rape of Isfahan however, Tamerlane moved on to Shiraz, which offered no resistance. By his reckoning, this approach prevented bloodshed, at least among those reasonable enough to lay down their weapons without fight. The practice of terror remained methodological at all times and he took pains to spare elites, theologians, artists, poets, engineers, architects and so on.
The Mongol Conquests