Talk:Battle of Ain Jalut
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Does anyone question the importance of this battle? The Mamelukes did what no one thought possible, defeat the Mongols decisively using their own bag of tricks. The feigned retreat was one of their favorites! Mamelukes also were able to better the Mongols at archery, something the Europeans certainly never did, and also bettered them in close combat. This was the first time the Mongols had encountered a state created solely to maintain a military, and they met their match in it. You have to wonder though, how long the Mamelukes could have withstood the full might of the Mongol Empire? (by 1260 the split between Batu and his cousins was ending Mongol invincibility)
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I don't know if it shattered the myth of Mongol invincibility for the rest of the world (certainyl didn't help China or Russia much) but it did help in convincing the Mamluks that they were indeed capable of beating the Mongols, and also no doubt greatly unnerved the Mongols, so that hence-forth they no longer took the Mamluks lightly.
I should add though, that the feigned retreat tactics are not necessarily unique to the Mongols, but have been a feature of war-fare among other tribal-based armies, including the early Arabian-Islaimic armies (where such retreat-and-re-attaclk tactic was known as "karr wa farr").
MYLO 02:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
What? I've heard that the mameluk army was far larger than 20.000 men. Anyway, I do not think that the Mameluks bested the Mongols, because after all, it was just one defeat, for example, you could say that the Rome was bested in the Battle of Cannae, but it did not stop Rome, nor did Carrhae, so I think that Ain Jalut didn't stop the Mongols, it was dynastic problems. Also I do not think that the Mameluk tactics were better than Mongol ones. Also Mongol recurved bow out-ranged the chinese crossbow. And, the Mongol tactics were modern and Mongols had such a level of discipline and organization that it was not seen since the Roman legions.
The Ain Jalut was a close combat battle, not really mongol speaciality.
Ain Jalut is generally agreed to be the turning point where the Mongol Empire began to fall apart. Aside from being a widely known defeat, it fostered the first Mongol on Mongol warfare, as Berke Khan and the Golden Horde allied themselves with the Mamluks against Hulagu Khan the and Il-Khanate. Yes, it is generally considered that this battle, together with the subsequent failed invasions of Japan, pretty much ignited the inner fire that consumed the Mongol Empire. It really was that important. But you are certainly right that interfamily fighting comsumed the Mongol Empire rather than any outside deafeat. Had they been united, which they were not, they could have avenged any defeat, including this one -- note the article pays full tribute to the fact Berke Khan of the Golden Horde saved the Mamluks!old windy bear 13:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
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That's not entirely true, my good man. The Mamluks didn't beat the Mongols in just one battles, they actualyl beat them repeatedly in future battles (some even bigger than Ain jalut). I think that the Mamluks only lost one battles to the Mongols in their long war with them.
Read Amitai-Preuss "Mamluk-IlKhanate War" as well as John Smith Jr.'s article "Mongol Society and Military in the Middle East" (unfortunately, I can't remember in which book it was in).
Here is what Amitai-Preiss writes in the introduction:
"For sixty years, commencing in AD 1260, the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria were involved in a more or less constant struggle with the ilkhanid Mongols of Persia. During this period, the Mongols made several concerted efforts to invade Syria: in AD 1260, 1281, 1299, 1300, 1303 and 1312. With one exception, all the Mongol expeditions were failures. Even the one Mongol victory on the field, at WadJ al-Khaznadar in AD 1299, did not lead to the permanent Mongol occupation of Syria and the ultimate defeat of the Mamluks, as the Mongols evacuated Syria after an occupation lasting only a few months. Between these major campaigns, the war generally continued in a form which in modern parlance might be described as a "cold war": raids over both sides of the border, diplomatic maneuvers, espionage and other types of subterfuge, propaganda and ideological posturing, psychological warfare, use of satellite states, and attempts to build large-scale alliances against the enemy. Here, as in the major battles, the Mamluks usually maintained the upper hand. Yet, in spite of a conspicuous lack of success on the part of the Mongols, they continued to pursue their goals of conquering Syria and subjecting the Mamluks, until their efforts began to peter out towards the end of the second decade of the fourteenth century. It was only then that the Mongols initiated negotiations which led to a formal conclusion of a peace agreement in AD 1323."
Equally interesting to the battles, is the uncharacteristically catious behavior of the Mongols vis-a-vis the Mamluks. They would repeatedly invade Mamluk territory, then when the Mamluk army apporaches, they would high-tail it back across the border.
That's not the say that it was all man-to-man, since there were other factor leading to the Mamluk victory at Ain Jalut, but the same can be said of Alexadner the Great's victories, and Hannibals, etc... That doesn't take from their actual military accomplishments.
It is difficult for many to believe, since so much is written about the supposed Mongol invincibility, yet the Mamluks are hardly even known, except to historians and readers of Islamic history. but thre fact is that the Mamluks were an extremely powerful and tough, and immensely well-trained force. To put it simply, these were not the kind of guys you screwed around with, no matter who you were, something even the Mongols learned rather quickly.And they do deserve respect for their victories, against the Mongols, the Crusaders, and other enemies.
MYLO 02:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Source for numbers?
Anyone have a source for the fact that it was an even 20,000 on 20,000 combat ? I've read several that stated the Mameluks outnumbered the Mongols by a factor of 3.
l the foregoing give the numbers as roughly 20,000 per side:
- Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1998
- Morgan, David -- The Mong'ols, ISBN: 0-631-17563-6
- Nicolle, David, -- The Mongol Warlords Brockhampton Press, 1998
- Reagan, Geoffry, The Guiness Book of Decisive Battles , Canopy Books, NY (1992)
- Saunders, J.J. -- The History of the Mongol Conquests, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1971, ISBN 0-8122-1766-7
- Sicker, Martin -- The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna, old windy bear 13:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] A View Of Ain Jalut, Goliath Spring
At a time when the Latin-Catholic hierarchy was using its power to turn Christian kings against other Christians and ‘heretics’, the Mongol Khans were enlightened despots of a sort Europe was not to see again until the 18th century. Christianity as understood by the mass of ordinary Christians would have been well served by an alliance:
"To them it seemed as though the prophesied armies of Prester John were on their way at last, and that when Hulegu's soldiers crossed the Euphrates Saint John the Divine's vision of Armageddon would come true. Hulegu was a Buddhist, but he was as impartial in matters of religion as his brother Mangku, and although he manipulated sectarian animosities to divide his enemies, it was the Christians who exercised the greatest influence on his policies: Ked-Buka, who had become his favourite commander, was a Christian, and so was his senior wife Dokuz-Khatun. (The Devils’ Horsemen, page 175)
"Just as the death of Ogedei had saved Christendom, the death of Mangku (Mangu) saved Islam. But Hulegu's position was far more precarious than Batu's had been. As he had wished, Mangku's brother Kubilai had been proclaimed khan in China, but another brother, Arik-Boke, had engineered his own election in Karakorum, and for the first time the supreme khanate of the Mongol Empire was being contested on the battlefield... Isolated and surrounded by potential enemies, Hulegu could do nothing but hang on to the heart of his empire and wait.
"Ked-Buka was left behind to control the new conquests in Syria. He raided as far south as Gaza, and the sultan was captured near Amman and sent to Hulegu's camp, where he was executed. But 'the crusade' was over. Its only achievement had been the return to Christendom of Damascus. One of the mosques became a church and on 1 March the European Count Bohemund, the Middle Eastern King Hayton and the oriental noyan Ked-Buka rode side by side in triumph through the streets, while the Moslem population bowed before the cross that was carried ahead of them. It was a poignant image of a Christian world that so nearly might have been.
"It was the campaign in Syria that saved Europe from another invasion. In Russia the census and subsequent conscription that provided a flow of new tumens for Hulegu's army deprived the Golden Horde of the soldiers who would otherwise have been used to support a full scale offensive in the west (Ibid, page 179-180)
"Ked-Buka left Damascus with a Christian army of twenty-five thousand Mongols, Georgians and Armenians. He knew that the Mamluks had reached Acre and he knew the size of their army, but he was a Mongol general and he was not impressed by numbers. At dawn on 3 September 1260 he crossed the river Jordan and rode ten miles along the Plain of Esdraelon between the mountains of Gilboa and the hills of Galilee, into the valley where David slew Goliath. Here, near the village of Ain Jalut (Goliath's Spring), he met the Mamluk vanguard advancing under Baybars.
"The battle of Ain Jalut has been recorded as one of the most decisive and significant battles in the history of the world. It was not a conclusive victory in itself and it was no dishonour to Georgian, Armenian and Mongol arms that the soldiers fought so well against such odds, but it destroyed the myth of the Mongols' invincibility, it broke the momentum of their conquests and it marked the day when Islam was returned towards triumph from the brink of oblivion. From that time onwards, while confusion and discord divided their enemies, the Mamluks flourished, the final methodical expulsion of the crusaders from Palestine began and Christian influence in Asia was eclipsed. (Ibid, page 184-185)
The defeat of the Christian/Mongol force at Goliath Spring was a disaster for West-Asian Christianity, which thereafter became increasingly a European creed. So much that we need to remind ourselves there was nothing European in its origins, and that its original context was part of the Jewish resistance to Greek and Roman influence over West Asia. Since the battle of Ain Jalut does not match Victorian notions of how history should have happened, it is marginal or excluded in most of our English-language ‘world’ histories. And since it needs to be re-inserted in popular consciousness–a process that may take decades–it might as well be as the battle of ‘Goliath Spring’. To a westerner–indeed to any non-Muslim–Ain Jalut could be a man, a horse, a belly-dancer, a spicy lamb dish or some obscure Muslim religious duty. Saying 'Goliath's Spring' is much more meaningful and focused.
Goliath's Spring was one of the world’s turning-points. There was always something religious in the Mongol expansion. So a victory by Muslims over a mostly-Christian army led by a Christian Mongol could be taken as a sign that Islam was actually luckier or closer to God. A Christian/Mongol win at Goliath Spring might have meant that Europe’s expansionism would have gone east with Asian-Christian allies.
--GwydionM 21:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
GwydionM I am not sure if I agree with all the mystical stuff -- and the invasion of Europe was basically stopped only because Ogedei died, and by the time Batu khan did not feel he had to keep his army pointed east to protect himself from his cousins, he died. (in 1255 he was planning to invade Europe as he and Subutai had planned 14 years before, and he would have easily won -- but he died, his son ruled briefly and Berke Khan was more interested in stopping Hulagu from exinguishing Islam than he was ruling Europe). You are right that Ain Jalut (a better translation than the one in the article is "spring of Goliath" is one of the great turning points of history, and right again that the west does not wish to admit this. Does this surprise you? Western history pretends many things did not exist which did. The Devil's Horsemen is not a particularly highly regarded source -- it is not cited anywhere near as much as Morgan's The Mongols, or The Mongol Conquests. Chambers, in the Devil's Horsemen, does correctly cite the Mongol Defeat at Ain Jalut and the subsequent wars between the Kipchak khanate in Russia, and Hulagu's Il-Khanate for tying down Berke Khan's army and thereby protecting Europe. However, Berke simply did not see much in Europe worth an invasion, if Batu had lived past 1255, when he was planning to implement Subutai's old European invasion plan, bye bye Europe. What really saved Europe at the time of greatest danger -- Batu's Khanate -- was his need to defend himself against Ogedei's widow during her regency, and then Guyuk Khan. old windy bear 19:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Berke Khan-Mamluk parts
I've removed some of the parts concering the Mamluk relationship with Berke Khan, simply because it gave the false impression that there was a united strategy between the two (with Berke "saving" the Mamluks by attacking Hulagu).
While there was "diplomatic" (an anachronistic term, perhaps) between the two, and even talk of a common front, as Amitai-Preiss points out (p.86):
"The second sphere of understanding [between the Baybars and Berke] revolved around Baybar's and Berke's discovery that they had a mutual enemy in Hulagu and his followers. Beyond this, little else of substance was attaines; certainly, no workable strategy was agreed upon."
The pervious version of the article gave the impression of active help on the part of Berke to the Mamluks, which is not the case. For the most part, the Mamluks depended on themselves and their own military might to fight off the Mongols.
Also, all this ignores the defeats of future Mongol invasion.
MYLO 02:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Whoever wrote this article has a real problem with run-on sentences.
[edit] Wadi al-Khaznadar
"The Egyptian victory over the Mongols would be repeated in 1299 during the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar. Although not as decisive as it had been in Ain Jalut, the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar would feature 20,000 Egyptian forces against over 115,000 enemy forces, including 60,000 Mongols. The Egyptian Mamluks would be victorious, and would suffer a mere 200 casualties compared to an estimated 10-14,000 Mongol casualties."
I thought that Battle ended an indecisive Mongol Victory, with the Mongols sacking Damascus. Right?
Dennis Kercher 18:08, 19 December 2006 (GMT)
Also, I would question the importance of this battle, after all, it was Mongke's death that forced Hulegu back to Mongolia, not the Mamluks.
[edit] Bias
This entire article seems biased for the Mamluks, or "Islam". It consistently sounds as if the author is rooting for them.
[edit] Revision
There are some major mistakes in the article, mainly about the numbers of troops and the battle itself. Also there was a myth around this battle in the Muslim history, that talks about why it ended as it did. The following articles deal with those issues:
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. “Ayn Jalut Revisited”, Tarih, Vol. 2 (1992), pp. 119-150.
Smith, John M, Jr. “Ayn Jalut: Mamluk Success or Mongol Failure?”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 44 (1984), pp. 307-345.
David1776 17:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
