A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (42 page)

During the spring of 1260 Kitbuqa sent
detachments to occupy Nablus and Gaza, though they never reached Jerusalem
itself. The Franks were thus completely surrounded by Mongols. The Mongol
authorities had no intention of attacking the Frankish kingdom, provided that
it showed them sufficient deference. The wiser Franks were ready to avoid
provocation, but they could not control their hotheads. The most irresponsible
of the barons was Julian, Lord of Sidon and Beaufort, a large, handsome man,
but self-indulgent and foolish, with nothing of the subtle intelligence of his
grandfather, Reynald. His extravagance had already forced him to pledge Sidon
to the Templars, from whom he had borrowed vast sums; and his bad temper had
involved him in a quarrel with Philip of Tyre, who was his half-uncle. He had married
one of King Hethoum’s daughters; but his father-in-law had no influence over
him. The wars between the Mongols and the Moslems seemed to him to offer a good
opportunity for a raid from Beaufort into the fertile Bekaa. But Kitbuqa was
not going to have the newly established Mongol order upset by raiders. He sent
a small troop under a nephew of his to punish the Franks. Julian then summoned
his neighbours to his aid, and they ambushed and slew the nephew. Kitbuqa then
angrily sent a larger army, which penetrated into Sidon and ravaged the town,
though the Castle of the Sea was saved by Genoese ships from Tyre. King Hethoum
when he heard of it was furious, and blamed the Templars, who had taken
advantage of Julian’s losses to foreclose on Sidon and Beaufort. A raid
conducted shortly afterwards by John II of Beirut and the Templars into Galilee
met with equally severe treatment at the hands of Mongol auxiliaries.

1259: Death of the Great Khan Mongka

Kitbuqa, however, was unable to embark on
greater enterprises. On II August 1259, the Great Khan Mongka had died while
campaigning with his brother Kubilai in China. His sons were young and untried.
The army in China therefore pressed for the succession of Kubilai. But Mongka’s
youngest brother, Ariqboga, controlled the homeland, including Karakorum and
the central treasury of the Empire, and he desired the throne for himself.
After several months of manoeuvring and discovering who was his friend, each of
the two brothers held a Kuriltay in the spring of 1260 which elected him as
supreme Khan. Ariqboga was supported by most of his imperial relatives who were
in Mongolia, while Kubilai had the stronger support amongst the generals.
Neither Kuriltay was strictly legal as all the branches of the family were not
represented. Neither side was prepared to wait until Hulagu and the princes of
the Golden Horde or even of the house of Jagatai were informed and sent their
delegations. Hulagu himself favoured Kubilai, although his son Chomughar was of
Ariqboga’s party, while Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde, sympathized with
Ariqboga. It was only at the end of 1261 that Kubilai finally crushed Ariqboga.
In the meantime Hulagu cautiously remained close to his eastern frontier, ready
to move into Mongolia should it become necessary. He had reasons for anxiety.
Ariqboga intervened autocratically in affairs of the Turkestan Khanate,
displacing the regent Orghana by her husband’s cousin, Alghu, whose later
defection and marriage with Orghana contributed largely to Kubilai’s victory.
Hulagu feared a similar intervention into his own dominions. He was moreover on
worsening terms with his cousins of the Golden Horde. While his Court showed
strong Christian sympathies, the Khan Berke was definitely moving into the
Moslem camp and disapproved of Hulagu’s anti-Moslem policy. There was friction
in the Caucasus, which was the frontier between Berke’s and Hulagu’s spheres of
influence. Berke and his generals continually persecuted the Christian tribes;
but Hulagu’s attempt to establish his authority on the north side of the
mountains was thwarted when one of his armies was severely defeated by Berke’s
grand-nephew Nogai near the river Terek in 1269.

With these preoccupations, Hulagu was
obliged to withdraw many of his troops from Syria as soon as Damascus was
taken. Kitbuqa was left to govern the country with a greatly reduced command.
Unfortunately for the Mongols their advance into Palestine provoked the one
great unbeaten Moslem power, the Mameluks of Egypt; and the Mameluks were now
in a fit state to take up the challenge.

The first Mameluk Sultan, Aibek, had been
unsure of his position. To legitimize himself he had not only married the
Dowager Sultana Shajar ad-Dur but had appointed an infant Ayubite prince as
co-Sultan. But the little al-Ashraf Musa counted for nothing and soon was found
to be a useless expense; and in 1257 Aibek quarrelled with the Sultana. She was
not prepared to be insulted by an upstart; and on 15 April she arranged for his
murder by his eunuchs as he was taking his bath. His death almost provoked a
civil war, some of the Mameluks crying for vengeance against the Dowager,
others supporting her as the symbol of legitimacy. Eventually her enemies won.
On 2 May 1257, she was beaten to death, while Aibek’s fifteen-year-old son, Nur
ad-Din Ali, was made Sultan. But the youth neither represented a respected
dynasty nor had himself the personality of a leader. In December 1259, he was
deposed by one of his father’s former comrades, Saif ad-Din Qutuz, who became
Sultan in his place. On his accession various Mameluks such as Baibars, who had
fled to Damascus from dislike of Aibek, returned to Egypt.

1260: The Mameluks ask for Help from the Franks

Early in 1260 Hulagu sent an embassy to
Egypt to demand the Sultan’s submission. Qutuz put the ambassador to death and
prepared to meet the Mongols in Syria. It was at this moment that news of
Mongka’s death and of the civil war in Mongolia obliged Hulagu to remove the
greater part of his army away to the east. The troops left with Kitbuqa were
considerably fewer than those which Qutuz now collected. Besides the Egyptians
themselves there were the remnants of the Khwarismian forces and troops from
the Ayubite Prince of Kerak. On 26 July the Egyptian army crossed the frontier
and marched on Gaza, with Baibars leading the van. There was a small Mongol
force at Gaza, under the general Baidar. He sent to warn Kitbuqa of the
invasion, but before help could arrive, his men were overwhelmed by the
Egyptians.

Kitbuqa was at Baalbek. He prepared at
once to march down past the Sea of Galilee into the Jordan valley, but he was
held up by a rising of the Moslems in Damascus. Christian houses and churches
were destroyed, and Mongol troops were needed to restore order. Meanwhile Qutuz
decided to march up the Palestinian coast and strike inland further north, to
threaten Kitbuqa’s communications if he advanced into Palestine. An Egyptian
embassy was sent therefore to Acre to ask for permission to pass through
Frankish territory and to obtain provisions on the march, if not active
military aid.

The barons met together at Acre to discuss
the request. They were feeling bitter against the Mongols owing to the recent
sack of Sidon, and they were distrustful of this Oriental power with its record
for wholesale massacre. Islamic civilization was familiar to them; and most of
them much preferred the Moslems to the native Christians to whom the Mongols
showed such favour. They were at first inclined to offer the Sultan some armed
auxiliaries. But the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Anno of Sangerhausen,
warned them that it would be unwise to trust the Moslems very far, especially
if they were to become elated by victory over the Mongols. The Teutonic Order
had many possessions in the Armenian kingdom; and Anno probably appreciated
King Hethoum’s policy. His prudent words had some effect. The military alliance
was rejected, but the Sultan was promised free passage and victualling
facilities for his army.

During August the Sultan led his army up
the coast road and encamped for several days in the orchards outside Acre.
Several of the emirs were invited to visit the city as honoured guests, and
amongst them was Baibars, who on his return to the camp suggested to Qutuz that
it would be easy to take the place by surprise. But Qutuz was not ready to be
so perfidious, nor to risk Christian reprisals while the Mongols were still
unbeaten. The Franks grew somewhat embarrassed by the number of their visitors,
but were consoled by a promise that they should be allowed to buy at reduced
prices the horses that would be captured from the Mongols.

1260: The Battle of Ain Jalud

While he was at Acre Qutuz learned that
Kitbuqa had crossed the Jordan and had entered eastern Galilee. He at once led
his army south-eastward, through Nazareth, and on 2 September he reached Ain
Jalud, the Pools of Goliath, where the Christian army had defied Saladin in
1183. Next morning the Mongol army came up. The Mongol cavalry was accompanied
by Georgian and Armenian contingents; but Kitbuqa lacked scouts, and the local
population was unfriendly. He did not know that the whole Mameluk army was
close by. Qutuz was well aware of his own superiority in numbers. He therefore
hid his main forces in the hills nearby, and only exposed the vanguard led by
Baibars. Kitbuqa fell into the trap. He charged at the head of all his men into
the enemy that he saw before him. Baibars retreated precipitately into the
hills, hotly pursued, and suddenly the whole Mongol army found itself
surrounded. Kitbuqa fought superbly. The Egyptians began to waver, and Qutuz
entered the battle himself to rally them. But after a few hours the superior
numbers of the Moslems made their effect. Some of Kitbuqa’s men were able to
cut their way out, but he refused to survive his defeat. He was almost alone
when his horse was killed and he himself was taken prisoner. His capture ended
the battle. He was taken bound before the Sultan, who mocked at his fall. He
answered defiantly, prophesying a fearful vengeance on his victors and boasting
that he, unlike the Mameluk emirs, had always been loyal to his master. They
struck off his head.

The battle of Ain Jalud was one of the
most decisive in history. It is true that owing to events that had occurred
four thousand miles away the Mongol army in Syria was too small to be able,
without great good fortune, to undertake the subjection of the Mameluks, and it
is true that had a greater army been quickly sent after the disaster, the
defeat might have been retrieved. But the contingencies of history forbade the
reversal of the decision made at Ain Jalud. The Mameluk victory saved Islam
from the most dangerous threat that it has ever had to face. Had the Mongols
penetrated into Egypt there would have been no great Moslem state left in the
world east of Morocco. The Moslems in Asia were far too numerous ever to be
eliminated but they would no longer have been the ruling race. Had Kitbuqa, the
Christian, triumphed, the Christian sympathies of the Mongols would have been
encouraged, and the Asiatic Christians would have come into power for the first
time since the great heresies of the pre-Moslem era. It is idle to speculate
about the things that might have happened then. The historian can only relate
what did in fact occur. Ain Jalu
d made the Mameluk
Sultanate of Egypt the chief power in the Near East for the next two centuries,
till the rise of the Ottoman Empire. It completed the ruin of the native
Christians of Asia. By strengthening the Moslem and weakening the Christian
element it was soon to induce the Mongols that remained in western Asia to
embrace Islam. And it hastened the extinction of the Crusade States; for, as
the Teutonic Grand Master foresaw, the victorious Moslems would be eager now to
finish with the enemies of the Faith.

The Mongols in Syria

Five days after his victory the Sultan
entered Damascus. The Ayubite al-Ashraf, who had deserted the Mongol cause, was
reinstated in Horns. The Ayubite emir of Hama, who had fled to Egypt, returned
to his emirate. Aleppo was recovered within a month. Hulagu, angry as he was at
the loss of Syria, could do nothing till order was restored in the heart of the
Mongol Empire. He sent troops to recover Aleppo in December, but after a
fortnight they were forced to retire, having massacred a large number of
Moslems in reprisal for the death of Kitbuqa. But that was all that Hulagu
could achieve to avenge his faithful friend.

The Sultan Qutuz set out on the return
journey to Egypt covered with glory. But, though Kitbuqa’s prophecy of
vengeance was never wholly fulfilled, his taunt of the disloyalty of the
Mameluks very soon was justified. Qutuz had grown suspicious of his most active
lieutenant, Baibars; and when Baibars demanded to be made governor of Aleppo,
the request was brusquely refused. Baibars did not wait long to take action. On
23 October 1260, when the victorious army reached the edge of the Delta, Qutuz
took a day’s holiday to go hunting hares. He set out with a few of his emirs,
including Baibars and some of his friends. As soon as they were well away from
the camp, one of them came up as though to make a request of the Sultan, and
while he firmly held him by the hand as though he was going to kiss it, Baibars
rushed up from behind and dug his sword into his master’s back. The
conspirators then galloped back to the camp and announced the murder. The
Sultan’s chief of staff, Aqtai, was in the royal tent when they arrived and at
once asked which of them had corn-mitted the murder. When Baibars admitted that
it was he, Aqtai bade him sit on the Sultan’s throne and was the first to pay
him homage; and all the generals in the army followed his example. It was as
Sultan that Baibars returned to Cairo.

CHAPTER
IV

SULTAN
BAIBARS

‘
And
the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king
shall rule over them
.’ ISAIAH XIX, 4