Study on the History of Ancient Egypt: What was the early Mamluk army like?

 

Several years of fighting between the Mongolian Western Expedition and the Mamluk Army

In the first half of the 13th century, the Mongols caused serious damage to the eastern part of the Islamic world. Finally, in 1258, Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led the Mongolian army to invade Iran, occupy Baghdad, and the Caliph was executed. In 1259, the Mongolian army crossed the Euphrates River and tried to occupy it.

In January 1260, the Mongolian expeditionary army occupied Aleppo. In February 1260, Damascus was occupied, and the Mongol army attacked Gaza and Hebron. At this time, Cairo seemed within reach in the eyes of the Mongols. Although the Sultan Baibars of the Mamluk dynasty and his opponent Kufuz Ofegput were fierce opponents at the time, they also realized the seriousness of the Mongolian army's western expedition, so the two reached a settlement. Decided to form a united front to resist the invasion of the Mongolian army. In September 1260, the Mamluk army and the Mongolian army led by Kite Buhua fought for the first time in Ain Zalut. According to records, all the soldiers of the Mongolian army at the beginning had the upper hand, only because they were attacked Kufuz's ambush, the Mamluk army defeated the Mongolian army. The Mongolian general Kite Buhua was captured. So far, Mongolia has never been to such a distant place.

The victory of this battle had a huge impact on the psychology of the entire Mamluk people, showing that the Mongols were not invincible, and also provided a convincing reason for the legitimacy of Mamluk rule. In terms of foreign and commercial policy, the Mongols wanted to communicate with European Christianity and plan a joint response to the Islamic enemy. Faced with this situation, Baibars chose to form an alliance with Berge Khan of the Golden Horde, aiming to end the rule of the Ilkhanate. After the death of Abu Said Khan in 1335, the Ilkhanate perished, and Egypt became an unchallengeable force in the region.

The Mongols and even the Crusaders were not large enough to pose a military threat. Egypt also survived the economic impact of Mongol conquests elsewhere and managed to establish itself as a commercial center. Chief among the many implications of the Mamluk victory was that if the Mongols had crushed Egypt, they might have crushed the Western world with them, including Andalusia and perhaps Europe. Following the fall of Baghdad, Egypt, spared from war, became a center of Islamic thought.

The End of the Crusades in Egypt

It is precisely because of the continuous threat of the Mongolian Western Expeditionary Army and the invasion of the Frankish Crusaders that they strongly hope to unite with the Egyptian Mamluk Army and eliminate the Frankish Crusaders and other Western European interest groups on the coast of Palestine. Baibars also began to seek two major goals after the battle of Ain Zarut. One was to unite Egypt and China, cultivate a well-trained and disciplined standing army, and build a unified Mamluk country. In order to prevent the Mongols from making a comeback; the second is to eliminate Palestine and Latin Christians.

On the coast, armies including the military order and the commercial cities of Italy, notably Genoa and Venice, occupied the best agricultural land and lush urban centers respectively. Although the Crusaders posed a slight threat in the short term compared to the Mongols, in the long run, their occupation of territory was intolerable for strategic reasons, and the Crusaders regarded the ports and forts established by the Mamluks as their own. As a base for future operations, it coordinated strategies with the Mongol Empire many times in the 13th century in an attempt to form an alliance to fight against the Mamluk army in Egypt.

In 1248, King Louis IX of France attacked Egypt from Cyprus. However, due to the seasonal flooding of the Nile River in Egypt. The flooding immobilized land armies and gave the Mamluk defenders, who were more familiar with the weather conditions, an advantage. The Knights Hospitaller then built a fortress on Mount Tabor hill northwest of Baysan, which threatened the Mamluk route through Palestine.

Thus, in 1263 the Baybars attacked Mount Tabor for the first time, destroying the partially completed fortifications. In the same year, he also held campaigns against other crusader areas. In 1265, Caesarea, a port of the Crusaders, was captured. As a counterattack, the Pope banned direct trade between Christian merchants and Christians after 1291 and did not do so until 1344. The successive issuance of these policy clauses directly accelerated the pace of the Mamluks' resistance to the Crusades' invasion of the Middle East.

In 1291, Ashraif Hellele, the son of Galawin, led the Mamluk army to conquer Acre, an important town in Palestine, after nearly three months, and then recovered many forts and fortresses of the Franks along the way. The influence of the Crusaders in the area was completely eliminated. In 1311, Pope Clement V summoned two envoys of King Henry I of Cyprus (1291-1324), James de Cacciatis and Simon de Carmadino, to Vienna The meeting was called, and the king of Armenia submitted a memorandum to the Pope and his councilors, making recommendations on how to conduct a new crusade to restore the Holy Land lost to the Mamluks in 1291. The proposal is divided into two parts. The first part proposed an embargo against Egypt, enforced by a Latin Christian galleon, the need for a naval blockade of Mamluk lands, and the key role Cyprus would play in enforcing the blockade.

Egypt lacked iron, timber, and pitch, and timber was used in Egypt not only to build ships that sailed along the Nile but also to build canals. Cavalry weapons and stirrups were made of iron, while the pitch was used to line ships. Banning "false Christians" from sourcing these goods would also prevent the Sultan from profiting by trading with them, forcing the Sultan to either abandon these areas or spend huge sums of money to fortify them. From the Black Sea coast to Egypt through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, an embargo on all merchants of these goods would greatly weaken the power of the Sultan. The second part of the proposal advocated a strong direct attack on Egypt based on Cyprus to resume the original expedition and send regular reinforcements.

In 1365, the Crusaders attacked Mamluk Egypt again. At that time, the army of King Peter I of Cyprus launched an attack, and occupied and plundered Alexandria, but with the approach of Mamluk reinforcements from Cairo, Mamluk The K dynasty took back Alexandria. After the crusader kingdoms fell, the entire region came under Mamluk's rule. The threat of the Mongol Ilkhans hovering over the eastern frontier of the Sultanate was eliminated in 1323 AD after a peace treaty was signed. While the Mamluk Sultanate witnessed some internal rebellion and the royal family in Cairo suffered tension and conflict, its borders were relatively peaceful and secure for the next 200 years. After the Crusaders were repelled, a large number of Christian churches built by the Crusaders were converted into mosques.