«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Mongol Warfare and the Creation of the Mongol Empire m 139 n diminishing flow of the rivers that watered the Mongols’ ponies in Syria 1 . The battle, fought in September, had already been lost in the spring. The Mamluks won all their battles with the Mongols except the battle of W §dÊ al Khaznad§r in 1299. The Mongols were unable to exploit that victory because, as in 1260, they could not maintain in Syria the huge army that had won it 2 . Climatic factors stymied the Mongols not only in Syria (great heat and low- flowing streams) but also in India (more heat and the monsoon), despite repeated Mongol efforts in both, ending, if not in defeat, in the migration characteristic of nomads in such regions, back to cool highlands in late winter or early spring 3 . In combat, the Mamluks won by surviving the Mongols — hit-and-run attacks, and when the Mongols ran out of arrows, and their ponies out of steam, the Mamluks counterattacked. They wore armor, which limited the effect of the Mongols’ archery, and they were well armed, and well trained, with weapons not only for archery 4 , but for hand-to-hand fighting: lances, swords, axes, maces and daggers. They trained with the lance, usually held in both hands, by aiming at the gallop at rings or pegs, and practiced fencing, making offensive jabs and butt-strokes, and defensive parries 5 . The sword was their best shock weapon, however 6 , and a properly trained Mamluk 1 An explanation proposed in Smith, “ ‘Ayn J §låt ”, esp. 339–40. 2 Ibid . Ghazan led 65,000 soldiers — eleven half-tümens — with 325,000 ponies and 50,000 camels: Vassaf , Tarikh-iVassaf , M.M. Isfahani ed. (Bombay, 1269/1852–3), 373. See also Ann K.S. Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia (New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 21–24. 3 Mongols based in Afghanistan and Oxiana (see Smith, “Qishlaqs” for the bases) raided northwestern India frequently from Chinggis — time on, but never captured Delhi until Tamerlane, who arrived, with nine tümens, in late 1398 — and left in early 1399, on the usual climate-driven schedule: see Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate (Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 1999), 313. The army of Delhi, like that of Mamluk Egypt, included (along with large numbers of foot-soldiers that Egypt did not provide) several tens of thousands of slave-soldiers with horses, armor, and (arguably) excellent skills in archery. “Although each year the Mongols come from Khurasan ... [they] yield up their ghosts wherever the Turks [Delhi’s mamluks] send the showers of their fatal arrows”: M. Wahid Mirza, The Life and Works of Amir Khusrau (Lahore: Panjab UP, 1962), 55. 4 At which they were very accomplished: see Saracen Archery , Ch. 25, esp. items iii, v, vii; and comments 2, and esp. 5 (which may be amplified by Arab Archery , 136, 150–52). 5 Some Mongols learned lance-fighting too: see Rashid 1309, 118–19, pl. 40. 6 According to Maqrizi, Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks , M. Quatremère trans., 4 vols. in 2 (Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1837, 1845), 2.2, 146, the Mamluks dropped their lances as they approached the Mongols at the battle of W §dÊ al Khaznad§r, and drew their swords. An illustration in the Diez Album (MS Diez A, fol. 70) — see Phillips, , plate 20, or Ipş Ì roğlu, pl. 9 — shows horsemen, swords in hand and lances underfoot, approaching dismounted archers, exactly as in Maqrizi’s account. Both the account and the picture have the (probably Mongol) defenders buffered by their loosed ponies milling about between them and the (likely Mamluk) attackers.