No, they didn't make it to Jerusalem. That's the short version. However, this is one of my favorite eras in history, so here's the long version, known by my main squeeze as "the sleeping potion." <G>
The Mongols conquered Persia and Iraq, then planned a move down into Syria. It looked like an easy conquest, as the Muslim Sultans had degenerated a lot since Saladin's day. The Crusader states were generally too weak to do anything but sign treaties of submission. However, enter Saint Louis, 9th Louis King of France. I consider him the George W. Bush of Medieval History, though Louis wasn't afraid to risk his own hide in his dumb geopolitical moves.
Louis wanted to make The Kingdom of Jerusalem safe. How? By attacking Egypt. Sort of like avenging 9/11 by attacking the country that wasn't involved. The attack went fine are first. The Sultan sent a weak army out to meet Louis and he beat them easily. The Sultan's main force, the fierce Mameluk slave warriors, remained in Cairo to protect the Sultan. Louis took the city of Damietta on the Nile and looked to be on his way to conquering Egypt.
But the Mameluks had grown weary of serving lazy and cowardly degenerates. They murdered the Sultan and took over Cairo. Then, they decided to rid the land of the goofy French king. They caught Louis in a surprise attack, destroyed his army, and took him prisoner. The ransom nearly broke France and The Crusader States.
The Mameluks consolidated not only Egypt, but decided to defend the Syrian states. When the Mongols showed up, they were no longer facing wimpy soldiers, but mighty Mameluk armies with a grudge and some leaders who understood diplomacy. The Mameluks had a grudge because it was the Mongols who had defeated their fathers in Russia and sold them as slaves to the Arabs.
Still, as powerful as the Mameluks were becoming, they had no chance against the full Mongol army. But several factors conspired to help them. Kublai Khan was now The Great Khan and he wanted to conquer China. So, he split the force that was to invade Syria in half. Then, during the actual invasion, the Muslims of The Golden Horde in Russia quarreled with their pagan cousin, the Il Kahn of Persia. The combined army took Aleppo and Damascus, but then the Golden Horde got angrier and angrier about the Il Khan cutting off the head of The Caliph of Baghdad, and they pulled out of the combined army. Even worse, they attaked the Il Khan's cities in Northern Persia, so he and most of his army had to return to defend their territory. He left a much smaller army to manage the new conquests.
This smaller army met the larger one of the Mameluk Sultan, Qutuz. Qutuz surprised them, outnumbered them and used a successful ruse by his brilliant general, Baibars (who had led the rout of King Louis), but, even then, barely defeated the Mongols. However, he took no prisoners and killed them all. The Mameluk prestige was great and they drew more and more warriors to their banner.
The Mongols invaded several more times, but the scenario was pretty much the same. If they sent a large enough army to win, then The Golden Horde attacked their northern border while they were in Syria. If the army was small enough, Baibars, who was now Sultan after murdering his friend, Qutuz, would defeat them. Eventually, Baibars was strong enough to contest with the Il Khan's full army and he actually pushed the Mongols back.
The Mameluks were the first ones to stop the Mongols and then actually push them back. The Mongols, divided into several quarreling factions, with the Great Khan having no real power to command them all, saw their empire start to decline.
Baibars then turned his attention on ridding The Holy Land of the remaining Crusaders.
The Mongols tried to form an alliance with Saint Louis, but he dithered and then attacked Tunisia, for no reason whatsoever. He died of illness after conquering Tunisia, obviously, without ever having a geography lesson.
I know, boring. But I love that kind of stuff. |
