Battle of Ain al- Jalut in Palestine

Book: Kublai Khan; John Man.

Just after the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in the year 1258. Continued: ...To finish
this part of the story we must look forward to a few more years before returning to
Kublai. Syria, its coast a medley of Crusader states, with an Arab dynasty ruling
Aleppo and Damascus inland, was next in line. As Hulegu advanced to the
Mediterranean coast the Christians quickly allied themselves to the Mongol
conqueror, seeing his anti-Muslim campaign as an extension of their own Crusades;
their Armenian co-religionists, too, came on board. Magnanimous as before to
theses Christian allies, Hulegu was as brutal as ever to Muslims. One petty emir
ruling in Diyarbakir, in today’s south-east Turkey, had made the mistake of
crucifying a Christian priest who had been travelling with a Mongol passport.
Understandably he resisted Hulegu’s forces, which made things worse for him. As a
curtain-raiser to the campaign westward, the Mongols took his stronghold, captured
him, and subjected him to death by a thousand cuts, slicing his flesh away bit by
bit, cramming the bits into his mouth, then cutting off his head, which became a
talisman as the campaign proper gathered pace. It moved across the Euphrates,
reaching Aleppo on 24 January 1260. After a six-day massacre here, the lands were
granted to the Crusader king Bohemund VI. Hamah and Hims capitulated.
Damascus was abandoned by its Sultan, who fled to Egypt, and Kitbuqa personally
beheaded its governor. Christians rejoiced, bells rang, wine flowed and a mosque
was restored to Christian worship. Six centuries of Muslim domination seemed to be
over. Then the Mongols turned southward, to Nablus, whose garrison was
exterminated for resisting, all the while making good use of the pastures on the
Syrian borderlands.

Now, at last for Egypt, which was led by Turkish former slaves, the Mamluks
(Mamluk owned), who had murdered their way to power only nine years before. At
this point, news arrived of an event in Mongolia that changed everything. In August
1259 Monkhe had died. On hearing this Hulegu returned to Persia with most of his
invasion force, leaving Kitbuqa in command of the remaining 20’000 men.

The current Egyptian sultan, Qutuz, now did something that seemed the height of
folly, but turned out to be extremely smart. When Hulegu sent envoys demanding
surrender, Qutuz cut of their heads. To the Mongols, the murder of envoys was an
act of barbarism that precluded all further communication, including the possibility
of capitulation. It was the grossest form of insult. Such an act, famously, had
precipitated Genghis’s attack on Khwarezm in 1219. Nothing could have been
better designed to guarantee invasion. It was perhaps, an act of defiance: better
dead than slaves again! But it also could have been a deliberate provocation....
....because Qutuz could have well known that he had a window of opportunity to
beat a Mongol force deduced by Hulegu’s departure, and teetering on the very edge
of sustainability. In Syria, in may, the main rivers- the Quwayq, the Orentes (Asi),
the Barada, the A’waj-drop, the pastures wither. The remaining third of the Mongol
army could only eat and drink at all because the other two-third had gone back
eastward. They were shortly to learn a fundamental truth about campaigning in
these parts, a truth baldly set out by John Masson Smith; ‘Any forces that were
small enough to be concentrated amid adequate pasture and water were not large
enough to take on the Mamluks’. In modern terms, the Mongols were too low on
manpower, vehicles and fuel to fight a major battle. A wiser leader might have
thought twice. But faced with such an insult, so blatant a challenge, the Mongols
had no option but to fight.

In July 1260 a force of some 15,000-20,000 men, perhaps equal to, perhaps rather
less than that of the Mongols (no-one knows the number for sure), left Egypt for
Palestine, revictualled in Acre and on 3 September, during Ramadan, prepared to
meet Kitbuqa’s army near Nablus. This was a very different type of army compared
to that of the Mongols. With egypt’s limited pasture, the average Mamluk would
have had just one horse, well cared for, bigger and stronger than the pony-sized
mounts of the Mongols. The Mongols depended not on speed but on weaponry;
bows and arrows, of course, but also lances, javelins, swords, axes, maces and
daggers. They were excellent bowmen, with weapons made by expert bowyers
(Mongol bows were hand-made) and arrows supplied by professional fletcher in
amazing quantities. John Masson Smith has calculated that at the Battle of Hattin,
were Saladin’s troops defeated the Crusaders in 1187, they used 1.3 million arrows.
The soldiers trained in both speed of fire and accuracy, shooting from a stationary
horse. Carrying so much weight, in the open country were the Mongols were at
home the Malmuk horses would never have been able to catch their enemies and
bring their arms into action; but in a shoot-out the Mongols would lose, as they had
once already, at the Battle of Parvan in Afghanistan in 1221. In addition the Mamluk
fighters were selected for their physical excellence, whereas the Mongols were
ordinary citizen-soldiers, superb as long as they could choose the terms of battle.

This time, they could not. The place was called Ain Jalut, the Spring of Goliath,
because it is here, were the Jezreel valley ends up against the curve of the barren
Gilboa hills, that supposedly slung his fatal stone. No good account of the battle
survives, but according to the most reliable one, Qutuz arrived after a 50-kilometre
march from Acre early in the morning or 3 September, choosing the sites for its
wooded ridges and good water supply. Behind him were the Gilboa hills, and the
rising sun. According to one account, he scattered troops into the nearby slopes and
under trees, and arrayed the rest of them at the bottom of the hills. The Mongols
must have come around the hills from the Jordan, to meet the Mamluks, as they
advanced slowly, making a terrifying noise with their kettle-drums. Too late the
Mongols, blinded by the sun, discovered that they had been outmanoeuvred. With
reinforcements streaming from Gilboa’s side-valleys, the Mamluk cavalry, fresh and
well-armoured, closed around the depleted and weakened Mongols. Two Mamluk
leaders who had joined the Mongols redefected, reducing the Mongol forces yet
further.

The Mongols died almost to a man. According to one account, Kitbuqa was
magnificent to the end, spurring on his men until his horse was bought down, he
himself caught and taken before Qutuz. He refused to bow, proclaiming how proud
he was of being the Khan’s servant- ‘I am not like you, murderer of my master!’
were his last words before they cut off his head.

It was here, in today’s West Bank, that the Mongols war machine ran out of steam,.
They were not invincible after all. Mongol forces would mount several later attacks
on Syria, but never could hold it because, once away from good pastures, thay had
no natural advantage. Genghis’s ambition of a world under Mongol rule had reached
its limits in the west. Future expansion would lie in the east, with Kublai.

The Mongols defeat in 1260 has a peculiar resonance today. Muslims who se
America as the ‘new Mongols’ draw hope from Ain Jalut, for it proves to them that
even apparently overwhelming assault on Islam cannot succeed forever. To quote
one article on the second seizure of Baghdad: ‘Fundamentalists believe they have
every reason to anticipate victory in the battle, because the story of Baghdad did
not end in 1258. The Egyptian Mamluks were able to halt the tide of Mongol
victories at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine two years later’. (Husain Haqqani,
‘The American Mongols’, Foreign Policy May-June 2003). History, of course, has no
force apart from individuals willing and able to put its message into practice; and
there is no reason to think that lack of fuel will limit the US-led coalition, as lack of
pasture limited the Mongols. But Muslims see a message nevertheless, drawing
further reassurance even form the subsequent century-long Mongol occupation of
Persia and Iraq. For long before their rule ended, the Mongols had converted to
Islam- proof for some that, whatever the setbacks, Islam will always in the end be
victorious.