In a recent article dedicated to the Ninth Crusade, we explained that the English prince and future king Edward I landed in Acre in the spring of 1271, ready to confront the Egyptian Mamluks under Sultan Baibars. His army was too small to prevail on its own, but he had an exotic ally with whom he had previously reached a strategic agreement: the Mongol Abaqa Khan, great-grandson of Genghis, who, fulfilling the agreement, led a raid into the Syrian-Palestinian strip and withdrew before the enemy could repel him. But it was neither the first nor the last time the Mongols attacked that region.

Their raids had begun in 1258 under the command of Hulagu, grandson of Genghis, who, since being elected Khan two years earlier, had begun an expansion through southwestern Asia that earned him the nickname the Terror of Islam. It was not without cause. Like his brother Kublai, Hulagu had received an exquisite education and often surrounded himself with scholars, but in war he acted brutally and mercilessly, which Muslims suffered especially, since although he was of shamanic faith, he showed sympathies for Buddhism and Christianity.

Before succeeding his other brother Möngke as head of the khanate, he was sent by the latter against the Nizaris—the famous sect of the hashashin or “assassins”—to avenge the murder of their uncle Chagatai, destroying their fortress of Alamut and killing their leader. This was in the year 1256, and then it was the turn of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Ayyubid dynasty of Syria, which also fell, leaving Aleppo and Damascus in his hands, among other cities. All those territories were partly occupied and partly ceded to Bohemond VI of Antioch, while the Franks sought advantage by remaining neutral.

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Sixteenth century illustration showing the Mongol conquest of the Nizarid fortress of Alamut. Credit: Virginia MOA / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The next objective was the elimination or submission of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, for which the largest Mongol army in history was assembled. However, the death of Möngke forced Hulagu to suspend the expedition and return to face the usual succession crisis, which led to the disintegration of the Mongol Empire into four independent khanates, although Kublai was recognized as the figure of reference. It was he who granted Hulagu the so-called Ilkhanate of Persia, which encompassed areas of present-day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Before withdrawing, Hulagu had left in Syria a small force of ten thousand men under the command of General Kitbuqa, a Nestorian Christian, who continued the advance conquering cities as far as Ascalon and probably Jerusalem; the latter he handed over to the Christians, according to a letter sent to King Louis IX of France, although it is unlikely that he had occupied it permanently. He also left garrisons in Gaza and Nablus, towns he subjected to a savage looting, which prompted the Mamluks to stop them once and for all, as they were dangerously close to Egypt.

The counterattack launched by the Mamluk sultan Kutuz was resolved in the Battle of Ain Jalut, in Galilee (the first, by the way, in which cannons were reportedly used), where he feigned a retreat of his left flank that allowed the Mongols to charge at it and disrupt it at the cost of being enveloped by a clever maneuver executed by troops that Kutuz had kept hidden, taking advantage of his numerical superiority. Kitbuqa was captured and eventually executed, but his opponent was assassinated during the return by his second-in-command, Baibars, a former white Turkic slave, who thus became the new sultan.

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The East after the disintegration of the Mongol Empire. Credit: Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

It was he who finished expelling the Mongols a year later, defeating them in the Battle of Homs, and then tried to destroy them from within by initiating negotiations with Berke, Khan of the Blue Horde (in present-day Russia). The reason was that Berke was a Muslim convert and his people Turkic, so he had more in common with the Mamluks than with the Mongols.

The fact is that Baibars ended the myth of Mongol invincibility and even negotiated with the Franks to hand over what was left of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as they had allowed him to pass through their domains fearing the Mongols more than the Muslims.

The cause of that fear was another massacre ordered by Kitbuqa, this time in Sidon, which, however, was not without reason; it was a reprisal for the foul play of Julian Grenier, lord of that city and of Beaufort, whom his contemporaries described as irresponsible. Grenier had taken advantage of the chaos to loot the Bekaa Valley in 1260, which was under Mongol protection, and when Kitbuqa sent his nephew to demand an explanation, he had him killed. In this way, an alliance that would soon, in just eleven years, come back to the table could have been endangered.

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First Mongol incursions in the Levant, in 1260. Credit: Map Master / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

Specifically, it was in 1271, on the occasion of the Ninth Crusade organized by Louis IX in 1269. The French monarch could do little more than begin it, as he died in Tunis shortly thereafter, ill with dysentery or typhoid fever, but the baton was taken up by the eldest son of Henry III of England, Edward.

His army was small, just over a thousand men (plus some reinforcements provided by his brother Edmund of Lancaster, the Bishop of Liège, and a Breton contingent), so he needed allies. He brought in the aforementioned Bohemond VII of Antioch and Hugh III of Cyprus, but others withdrew after the death of Louis IX. Therefore, the Mongols were a good option.

Hulagu had also died, in 1265, and now his son Abaqa ruled the Ilkhanate, a Buddhist and sympathizer of Nestorian Christianity, who did not maintain good diplomatic relations with the Franks but did with most of the West, exchanging correspondence with Bohemond VI, Pope Clement IV, Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII, and King James I of Aragon (whom he may have influenced to organize a failed expedition to Acre in 1269). Abaqa received with interest the English envoys sent in 1271, just after Edward arrived in Acre, to reach an agreement.

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14th-century miniature depicting Abaqa on horseback, accompanied by his son Arghun and his grandson Ghazan. Credit: Rashid al-Din / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The khan gladly agreed and sent his troops to devastate Syria: Antioch, Aleppo, Amman, Homs, Apamea, Caesarea… They were not very numerous either, about ten thousand horsemen plus Seljuk auxiliaries, since the bulk of the army was engaged in other conflicts in Turkestan. That is why the operation was limited to a raid, which his general, Samagar, ordered to end upon hearing of the imminent arrival of Baibars, but not before provoking a massive exodus to Egypt of Muslims who still remembered Kitbuqa’s harsh campaign, all of which facilitated the negotiation of a truce between Edward and the sultan.

However, that withdrawal beyond the Euphrates did not mean there would be no more Mongol presence in Palestine. Once the Ninth Crusade ended—so short-lived that many include it in the Eighth—and Baibars died in 1277, Abaqa attacked Syria again between 1280 and 1281, now with the Franks on his side—especially the knights of the Hospitaller Order—and taking Bagras, Darbsak, and Aleppo. He even encouraged other Christians to launch a new crusade supported by Leo II of Armenia, but only Edward—now crowned King of England—and the Hospitallers responded. The Englishman could not gather funds and only the warrior monks ultimately accompanied the Mongols.

Together they recaptured the Krak fortress—it had belonged to the order until its loss in 1271—and then returned to their quarters promising to resume the campaign in the winter of that year. However, when the time came, barely two hundred Hospitallers and a few knights from Cyprus joined them because the new sultan, Qalawun, renewed the truce with the Christians for another decade, allowing their pilgrims access to Jerusalem. And even though this time there were fifty thousand Mongols plus thirty thousand Armenian, Georgian, and Greek allies, they were repelled in the Second Battle of Homs.

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Mongol raids between 1299 and 1300. Credit: MapMaster / Wikimedia Commons

Abaqa died the following year, possibly amid a delirium tremens caused by excessive drinking or poisoned by his Persian finance minister, who practiced Islam (in fact, he was accused and eventually executed). It was his grandson Ghazan who, although he also converted to that religion—from a tolerant position that admitted other creeds—resumed raids against Syria in 1299, defeating the Mamluks at the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar (or Third Battle of Homs) and taking Aleppo. General Mulay pursued the enemy in their retreat to Gaza, forcing them to take refuge in Egypt; he then returned, conquered Damascus, and finally went back beyond the Euphrates to resupply.

Thus, the Ilkhanate became the absolute master of the Holy Land. However, the situation lasted barely four months in 1300, because as soon as the Mongols left, the sultan regained the lost territory without even needing to fight. One of the historiographical enigmas of that brief period is whether Mulay managed to seize Jerusalem, something on which experts disagree. From references in medieval sources, it can be inferred that they may have taken the city but then left it, as was their custom, especially given the difficulty of gathering the material and human resources required to defend it.

Be that as it may, in Europe at the time it was believed that they had, and that they were going to return it to the Christians; moreover, there were even rumors that they had taken Egypt and would continue on to Barbary and Tunisia, liberating captives, and Pope Boniface VIII even issued the bull Ausculta fili referring to the matter, in addition to ordering processions and encouraging pilgrimages.

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The Franco-Mongol Ghazan offensive between 1300 and 1301. Credit: PHGCOM / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

Likewise, that summer, the pontiff received a large Mongol embassy that took part in the festivities of the jubilee year; it was led by the Florentine adventurer Guiscard Bustari, rumored to have come to restore the Holy Land to the Franks.

That wave of enthusiasm did not subside until September, when news began to arrive about the withdrawal of Mulay’s forces and the reestablishment of Mamluk power in the Syrian-Palestinian region. Spirits then declined, and the new call for a crusade made by Ghazan did not take root; he launched it alone in 1303. He managed to reach Damascus, but could not go beyond and withdrew with the plan to try again the following year. Unfortunately for him, he fell ill that fall and died in the spring of 1304.

He had no children, and his brother Öljaitü—raised as a Christian but successively converted to Buddhism and Islam, first Sunni and then Shia—proclaimed the latter as the official religion with the idea of bringing the regime closer to the majority of the population, which did not prevent him from attempting one last and final campaign against the Mamluks, which failed because he was expecting European aid that never came. He then redirected the political-military focus toward the Caspian Sea region. After the death of his son and successor, Abu Sa’id Bahadur, the Ilkhanate fragmented and the Mongol incursions came to an end.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on April 23, 2025: Cómo los mongoles conquistaron toda Tierra Santa, y luego se retiraron sin luchar

SOURCES

J. J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests

Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410

Reuven Amitai, Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281

Robert Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: the early Mamluk sultanate, 1250-1382

Wikipedia, Incursiones de los mongoles en Palestina

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