Chapter 41-The War Against the Antichrist
-XLI-
"The War Against the Antichrist"
"The War Against the Antichrist"
For the footnote that Ananda's usurpation of the Yuan throne was in Chinese history, it brought about global ramifications from Iberia to Japan. A myriad of foreign Muslim soldiers supported him, raising extensive paranoia against Islamic influence that in many places took the form of anti-Mongol riots and rebellions. While not a single rebellion succeeded, those who suppressed the rebellions and used them to their advantage emerged as powerful figures. Meanwhile, foreign onlookers in Europe--the wealthiest region of the world not under Mongol domination looked on with horror, for news traveled slowly and accurate news even more slowly. The steady stream of news coming from the east about Ananda's rule and his alleged misdeeds brought a nigh-apocalyptic mindset regarding what the future might hold.
News regarding Ananda slowly crossed the Silk Road. Many Muslim clergy from Cairo to Samarkand were in jubilation at the news that a Muslim served as regent in China, and they prayed he might raise the child khan in his faith. In the Levant and Ilkhanate, imams spoke positively of Ananda and believed it the work of Allah presaging the Mongol Empire soon becoming a proper Islamic state. But when the news reached Europe in early 1307, it aroused great fear, for they believed their one-time ally might make common cause with the infidel. Some even deemed Ananda the Antichrist.
Ananda was not the only Mongol figure deemed an agent of evil. Many Christians identified his two vassals--the Ilkhan Oljeitu and the Jochid khan Toqta--as the kings of Gog and Magog (of which "Mongol" was supposedly but a derivation). To battle against the Antichrist and his armies, thousands tried sailing to the Holy Land so they might serve as the vanguard of Christendom's defenders. Others sold their possessions and sought refuge in the Church in hopes they might hasten Christ's return to deliver them from the great conquerer in the east.
Ananda's chief rival Buyantu also featured heavily in these stories. Said to be the rightful heir displaced by Ananda, Europeans portrayed Buyantu as a wise prince who preferred scholars to pagan mages and Islamic clergy, ruled his land with justice, and consorted with Christian missionaries. This of course held some truth--Buyantu Khan was perhaps the most Confucian Yuan ruler up to that point--although much of it was wishful thinking. Priests prayed to God so that he might grant Buyantu the strength to crush Ananda's realm from within.
Ananda's rise to power came at a time when the Ilkhanate and the restored Christian states in the Levant clashed over territorial jurisdiction. The death of Ghazan in 1306 and the truce with the Mamluks meant the Crusaders redoubled their efforts to press the new Ilkhan Oljeitu for the return of Jerusalem to Christian hands. At first the Crusaders simply requested the entirety of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as it stood at its height in the days before Saladin's great success--the Mongols denied this demand. Subsequently they changed tactics, requesting only Jerusalem and its environs as an eastern extension of their realm--the Ilkhanate also rejected this proposal.
The negotiations took on more and more desperation--Jerusalem's regent Philip of Taranto pledged to give away the entirety of Jerusalem beside a stretch of land encompassing the port of Jaffa and Jerusalem along with a vast sum and offered to marry his daughter to the Ilkhan or his heir. It is said the Ilkhan's negotiators mocked him, declaring Jerusalem to be the patrimony of the khan as God's appointed ruler on Earth who followed the true faith of Islam and protected all faiths in his city. Oljeitu reminded Philip that proceeding in his greed would result in the transfer of all that he owned--and more--to his country and appointed rulers.
Philip took this threat seriously--he arrested hundreds of men who since the end of the war had taken to preying on caravans, executing their leaders and sending the rest in chains to his domain in Italy. Unfortunately, Philip's actions aroused against him powerful nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem who benefitted from the actions of these men, including King Henry II himself. They tried assassinating Philip at a banquet in summer 1307 and injured him enough he was forced to stay with the Hospitallers. His regency ended, and Jerusalem became ever more unstable as a result.
In that same time, an incident occurred in Armenia. Those opposed to the union of the Armenian and Catholic churches persuaded the devout Muslim general Bilarghu to murder Hethum II and his co-ruler Leo III (and forty nobles) at a feast in November 1307. The new king Oshin (Hethum's brother) complained to the Ilkhan, who recalled Bilarghu at once. Unfortunately, by the time Bilarghu actually arrived at the Ilkhan's court, matters had greatly changed.
Meanwhile, Christendom itself struggled as Pope Urban V continued Boniface VIII's policy of intervening in national affairs. He attempted to restrain hostile factions in Italy by inviting Albert I of Germany to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, always a risky proposition given the Emperor and Pope tended to be bitter rivals. In early 1307, Albert set off on this campaign with 5,000 men and 500 knights, ending his invasion of Bohemia against the young Premyslid king Wenceslaus III who still struggled for the Hungarian throne. In Italy, Albert would encounter nothing but endless intrigues, largely failed attempts to restoring Imperial rule which brought innumerable rebellions, and worst of all, a lukewarm reception by the Pope who sought to avoid an overwhelmingly powerful Emperor.
Despite these intrigues in Italy, the city-state of Venice focused its attention on the crusade declared against the excommunicated Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II. The French king's brother Charles of Valois proved its strongest advocate, hoping success there would gain him the crown he dreamed of as well as improve his brother's fortunes. Alongside Venice, Frederick III of Sicily, the Angevins, and the Serbian claimant Stephen Dragutin joined this coalition with the goal of partitioning Byzantium and restoring the Latin Empire. Naturally, each power had differing goals and priorities that ensured the alliance would be fragile at best.
The Crusader army arrived in April 1307 in two segments. In the north, the Venetians and the Angevins landed in Albania under command of Philip of Taranto (nominally King of Albania), seizing the city of Durazzo from Dragutin's rival claimant Stephen Milutin with the aid of local Catholics. They rapidly marched south along the coast, taking more ports before proceeding inland and laying siege to the fortress of Bellegrada where 25 years prior the Angevins suffered a grave defeat [1]. In the south, Charles of Valois landed at Athens and marched north, aiming to link up with Roger de Flor's warriors of the Catalan Company who crossed the strait of Gallipoli and invaded Thrace.
In Byzantium itself, the response was hindered by a Catalan conspiracy. Ferran d'Aunes, commander of the Byzantine Navy and senior member of the Catalan Company, attempted to depose Emperor Andronikos II with the aid of the priest John Drimys, a supposed descendent of Byzantium's prior dynasty the Laskarids. A great riot occurred in Constantinople between citizens infuriated with the depredations of the Catalans and their Catholic links and the remnant Laskarid supporters who summoned the elderly general (and cousin of the emperor) John Tarchaneiotes as their leader. The anti-Catalan faction won and drove out d'Aunes, Tarchaneiotes, and Drimys. But d'Aunes absconded with nearly the entire Byzantine fleet and helped evacuate those Catalans and Venetians present in the city.
After the Drimys riot, Andronikos II summoned his son and co-ruler Michael IX along with the 73-year old general Michael Tarchaneiotes Glabas [2]. Both men, long opposed to the Catalan Company, were restored to their posts and status. The blinded Alexios Philanthropenos was also rehabilitated and given mercenaries. He confiscated transport ships and hired Genoese vessels to be under the command of the Genoese pirate Andrea Morisco. Thousands of Turkish, Alan, and Bulgarian mercenaries were hired and they renewed the alliance with Stefan Milutin.
Andronikos also had one further ally--the Ilkhanate. The old alliance with the Mongols was periodically renewed over the years, and Andronikos needed it more than ever. In summer 1307, he married his daughter to the Ilkhan Oljeitu and begged him for assistance. The Ilkhan immediately dispatched a letter to the Pope demanding he force the kings of Europe to cease the Ilkhanate subject of Byzantium.
This letter from the Ilkhan arrived alongside letters describing tale after tale of Ananda's persecutions of Christians, both actual and alleged. As Ananda had seized the throne by this time, panic spread in Europe that the greatest king of the east now prepared to march on Europe to conquer the last remaining lands for Islam. Propaganda conflated Ananda's own anti-Christian actions with those of Bilarghu to portray Oljeitu as a great persecutor of Christians. The crusade against Byzantium was thus to become a crusade against the Mongol Empire as a whole.
Crusade of the Poor
In this apocalyptic atmosphere, Pope Urban V was pressed from all sides to declare a crusade against the Mongols. Mobs of poor townsfolk and rural dwellers alike throned the roads in northern Europe, looting and pillaging for sustenance and often committing atrocities against the Jews whom they accused of being spies for the Antichrist. As with previous crusading movements of the lower class, it was deeply unpopular among the nobility. Much like in the Tenth Crusade, the Church permitted it due to the ongoing conflict with the French king. They also feared that Albert I of Germany might become too powerful and undermine the Pope's authority, as the Church knew he only sought to use them to bolster his domestic authority.
The proximal causes of the crusade in the Middle East--the crusade against Byzantium and an ongoing border conflict in Jerusalem--did not seem to provoke any serious Mongol attacks on Christendom during 1307 and 1308. It seems likely that Urban V sought to avoid a crusade until the matter of Albert I's campaign in Italy ended. Regardless, by 1308 the mood in Europe reached new levels of fervor and the border skirmishes showed no sign of ending soon. Thus Urban V issued an official crusade bull on August 13, 1308. This began the crusade later known as the Crusade of the Poor, for its rank and file soldiers all appeared as poor men to medieval chroniclers.
Albert I's march into Italy brought dire effects on the crusade. Charles II of Naples kept most of his army at home and prepared for conflict, for he feared that the soon-to-be-crowned Emperor would incite conflict and make unjust demands on him or the Pope. Intense factionalism began in Genoa and Venice as Albert I's arrival would reorient Italian politics, so these city states contributed far less to the cause. Indeed, powerful figures like young Cangrande della Scala of Verona and Uguccione della Faggiuola (who came to rule several cities as Imperial vicar) would make names for themselves in these years as Albert's chief allies in Italy.
Pope Urban V tried mending relations with Philip IV by retroactively permitting his abuses against church property should he lead the crusade. Although his subjects detested the crusader rank and file, Philip readily took up the invitation and his excommunication was lifted and he raised a new tithe for the crusade (much of which went to repairing his finances). His army was relatively small--only 25,000 men, a substantial number associated with the Knights Templar, for Philip refused the majority of the crusaders who gathered in Marseilles and other ports. Yet it was also because many nobles soured against the venture due to the riots and crimes committed by the commoners. Other nobles feared the king might use his reconciliation with the Pope and improving financial condition for further attacks on their privileges. Among those noteworthy French nobles who participated regardless included Louis, Count of Clermont and the king's second son Philip.
Albert I did support the Crusade himself, however. Since his personal retinue was small, he sent an additional 15,000 men from among his close allies to the Holy Land. His 18 year old third son Leopold was to command these men, and he informed the Pope that his heir Frederick would proceed to the Holy Land upon his coronation. Such a long period of absence for the ruler of the country and his only two adult sons seems aimed at both convincing the Pope to back Frederick as the next Emperor and convincing the nobles he intended to share power in the Empire. Most soldiers from the Holy Roman Empire were those from the Kingdom of Burgundy in the southeast or others such as Henry VII of Luxembourg--all held some affinity toward the French crown.
The Crusader Defence
But until the main Crusader army arrived, the Holy Land had to stand its own ground. Oljeitu's Mongols under Emirs Chuban, Mulay, and Fadl of Palymra with 40,000 men each swept into the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the east and northeast and began taking many castles. Jerusalem's army was dominated by the crusading orders, Genoese, and the Angevins, for most prominent native lords sided with Amaury and had thus been banished. Their own commanders were Peter Embriaco of Gibelet and Simon de Montolif as constable and marshal of Jerusalem respectively--neither were particularly experienced.
Under these circumstances, it is unsurprising that the rapid Ilkhanate advance proved impossible to counter. It is said the Mongols easily infiltrated and seized seemingly impregnable fortifications due to Ilkhanate aid to Jerusalem in rebuilding them. The Hospitallers and some Templars made a stand on February 2, 1309 at the hilltop village of Roeis around half a day's march from Acre, combining with the Kingdom of Jerusalem's army, a large force combining Genoese mercenaries with those soldiers from the County of Tripoli, and a detatchment from Naples under Charles II's younger son Count Peter who asserted control over Henry II as his regent.
The Crusaders struck at Chuban's lines and proved an unmovable obstacle. But Chuban refused to do battle at such an obvious disadvantage and bypassed the Crusader force. Even so, he faced considerable logistical difficulty in his attack on Acre, and it seemed his numbers and morale was dwindling. Moreover, the Crusaders heard of the impending arrival of Fadl's army and decided to destroy Chuban's force before the two Mongol armies might recombine.
Chuban predicted such a measure and had spent the past days spying on the Crusader force and devising just how to take Roeis. When he heard they departed Roeis, he marched his army through the night and attacked the Crusaders right at the foot of the hill Roeis at the break of dawn. Although he only led 15,000 men to 20,000 Crusaders, his mobility still proved potent and the Mongols outflanked the Crusaders and cut off their retreat. At least half the Crusader force died in the fighting including Jerusalem's constable Embriaco, while the other half took heavy casualties fighting their way out of Chuban's trap. Those who survived fled to various castles to try and hold out in defense.
Concurrent to the attack on Jerusalem came a barons revolt in Cilician Armenia, a long-term Crusader ally. The barons forced king Oshin to flee his own country, for he refused to choose a side. The barons restored Oshin's brother elder brother Sempad to the throne and sent 5,000 men to aid Amaury de Lusignan in defending the Principality of Antioch. Amaury raised many men from Cyprus along with local forces and now commanded 25,000 total. He managed to repel the initial Mongol attack on him led by the Emir Sutay through a series of inconclusive skirmishes largely due to fighting inexperienced Mongols.
Naturally, Amaury de Lusignan refused to aid his hated brother Henry, but did accept the aid of the Hospitallers who came to Antioch. It seems Grandmaster Fulk de Villaret (nephew of Guillaume de Villaret, who died in 1305) believed resistance in Antioch more feasible than in Jerusalem, and he brought with him many from Jerusalem and Tripoli to his side. Further, Amaury was always a strong ally of the Templars who had played a crucial role in his coup against his brother Henry, and their Grandmaster Jacques de Molay quickly organised his knights. Amaury chose to take the offensive and attempted to outflank Aleppo from the north. Initially he was successful--his army defeated a detatchment from Sutay outside Hazart and seized its fortress in October 1308.
Subsequently Sutay launched many raids on Amaury's logistics while approaching Hazart with a portion of his army. Amaury believed it a trick and assumed he outnumbered the Mongols. He pursued the main force of Sutay for an entire day and at sunset reached his army in the meadow of Dabiq. On November 1, 1308, Sutay sprang his trap, where his main deputy emir Husain Kuregen of the Jalayir struck the Armenian force on Amaury's flank. When Sempad's younger brother Constantine fell in the fighting, the Armenians began fleeing. Only a timely counterattack from the Templars saved Amaury's army, but he had taken heavy losses. Amaury placed a garrison at Hazart and retreated to his borders to prepare his defenses.
Mamluk Affairs
The defeats at Roeis and Dabiq disheartened the Crusaders, so much so that the Angevins and Genoese even tried enlisting aid from their former enemy, the Mamluks. But affairs in the Mamluk realm were equally dire. Baibars II was a skilled general but a poor administer who relied on violence to subdue his foes. The population played on his title Rukn ad-Din ("pillar of the faith") by calling him the derogatory nickname "Rakin ad-Din" ("useless in the faith") due to the high prices of food and high taxation Baibars levied. But this taxation was necessary, for Egypt was devastated from the losses in the Tenth Crusade and Baibars still had to prosecute his campaign against the allies of his predecessor an-Nasir Muhammad who dominated the Hejaz alongside their protectors, the Rasulids of Yemen. Thus began an affair that further altered the political situation of the Muslim world.
This expedition failed, for the Emir of Mecca Rumaythah switched sides and joined the Rasulids, Baibars agreed to negotiate with the Crusaders. News of this spread in Cairo and another riot began, for it was believed that Egypt still might be a possible target of a crusade. It seems apocalypticism had taken root in Egypt as well following rumours of the Crusaders being defeated at Dabiq. Such an event corresponded with several hadith that predicted an alliance of Muslims and Christians (much as the Tenth Crusade), followed by the Christians betraying the alliance and the coming of the false messiah [3].
Baibars ordered his Mamluks to trample the riotous crowds and shoot flaming arrows at them. Instead his deputy sultan and chief ally Saif al-Din Salar shot a flaming arrow through his head and proclaimed himself the Sultan in front of the crowd. A riot broke out anyway as Mamluks loyal to Baibars sought vengeance, but Saif al-Din slew them all thanks to the mob coming to his favour. He declared there would be no alliance with the enemies of Islam, although ironically Saif al-Din sought out commerce with the Italian cities regardless. Saif al-Din ordered the clergy to refute any interpretations the apocalypse was nigh as being heretical, and demanded anyone who preaches those rumours be flogged. Clearly, Saif al-Din's priorities lay with rebuilding the country--he could not afford a clash with the Ilkhanate.
The border emir Fadl ibn Isa al-Fadl gladly accepted Saif al-Din's aid toward these aims. He pacified the Bedouins of the Sinai and the Red Sea coast, demanding the Mamluk Sultan provide him with fiefs, servants, and rewards for the campaign and funds for several new mosques lest he switch allegiance to the Ilkhanate. Fadl's strategic position between the Crusaders, the Hejaz, and the Ilkhanate and his nominal authority over the Bedouins as Amir al-Arab made him a vassal Saif al-Din sought to please at all costs. As Saif al-Din sought to restore the lost territories in the Levant and restore order in the Hejaz, he granted Fadl these requests.
Therefore, in 1308 Fadl and his brother Muhammad prepared for a campaign in the Hejaz to defeat the rebellious Mamluk factions who allied with the emir of Mecca Utayfah and his Rasulid allies. He relied heavily on the emir of Medina, Muqbil ibn Jammaz. Fadl's army drove Rumaythah from Mecca and installed his more loyal brother Humaydah as emir there. By early 1309, he won a great victory against the Rasulids and their Mamluk allies. It is said that the rebel Mamluks beheaded both sons of Al-Nasir Muhammad, each no older than the age of five, and presented them to Fadl in exchange for reinstatement in the Mamluk force. Fadl executed them and sold their families as slaves to his brother.
Fadl remained in the Hejaz in 1309 and 1310 administering justice, building alliances among the Bedouins, restoring Mamluk authority, and hunting down rebels such as Mansur ibn Jammaz, claimant to the Emirate of Medina. The latter had amassed a considerable number of tribal allies and even allied with Abu al-Gharth of Mecca, full brother of former emir Utayfah. It seems in late 1310, Mansur and Abu al-Gharth paid off Fadl, sending him the revenue of several caravans and a few hundred loyal warriors (which he sent to his brother Muhanna). Fadl demanded more grants from Saif al-Din to continue his operations in the Hejaz, but Saif al-Din rejected this. As a result, Fadl withdrew his troops.
Thus chaos once more returned the Hejaz as Abu al-Gharth and Mansur ibn Jammaz besieged Medina and crushed the Mamluk loyalist Muqbil. Mansur conducted a thorough purge of the city and killed most of his half-brothers and all of Muqbil's children he found. Saif al-Din demanded Fadl return to the Hejaz, but Fadl claimed his warriors had deserted thanks to his brother Muhammad and joined his brother Muhanna out of their own ferver to crush the Crusaders, demanding income to bribe them back. As Saif al-Din and Fadl argued over the terms of the campaign, the enemies of the Mamluk government only advanced further.
Subsequently Mansur and Abu al-Gharth attacked Mecca, and Humaydah fled to Cairo. But just as soon as that occurred, Mansur turned on Abu al-Gharth in the middle of the night and murdered him. The shocked Meccan army could hardly resist Mansur's force and either fled or defected en masse. Meanwhile, Mansur began minting coins in his name and ordered his name read at Friday sermons, thereby declaring himself an independent Sultan and accomplishing the long-term ambition of his father Jammaz ibn Shiha.
Unlike Jammaz's short tenure as an independent Sultan, Mansur lay the groundwork for a more lasting state which is termed the Sultanate of the Hejaz. It seems he maintained a tacit alliance with Fadl ibn Isa and the Ilkhanate, but also continued using the machinery of Mamluk governance. For instance, the remnants of the al-Nasir Muhammad faction he employed as bureaucrats and local emirs to counterbalance the powerful Bedouin tribes. He proved generous in distributing tax fiefs to these men, but also sufficiently rewarded his allies. Most notably, Jammaz sponsored pirates who extorted Mamluk shipping, most notably those of his subordinate emir at the port of Yanbu. This gave the Hejazi state significant local power and authority and alongside Fadl's interference, kept the Mamluks from attempting any reconquest. The devolution of Mamluk Egypt thus continued.
Arrival of the Crusader Army
Were there one bright spot for the Crusaders, it was the arrival of Philip IV's army to the beleaguered Kingdom of Jerusalem in January 1310. The 25,000 strong force of French warriors united with around 35,000 zealots from Northern Europe and relieved Mulai's siege of Acre. Mulai believed the enemy vulnerable to his cavalry and led them on a lengthy feigned retreat, but local Crusader commanders informed Philip of the danger. Thus Philip sent his own cavalry in ambush and countered Mulai (who replaced Chuban in 1308) at the town of Caymont. The French knights, particularly the Knights Templar under its Grandmaster Jacques de Molay outfought Mulai's cavalry, ensuring the center of Mulai's army was demolished by a charge from the zealous lower class warriors who lacked any fear of death.
Spurred on by the Templars and Hospitallers, Philip IV decided to march onwards to Jerusalem. No doubt he envisioned himself in the same light as his saintly grandfather Louis IX. Philip viewed himself as a man whom corrupt churchmen hated despite his saintly character. If he restored Jerusalem, he believed the Pope might agree to all his demands, permitting him to dominate Europe in both spiritual and secular affairs.
As in the Tenth Crusade, the rank and file of the Crusader army proved unruly. The fanatical Crusaders ravaged villages and committed atrocities on not just Muslims and Jews but Christians as well. These villagers preferred the largely tolerant Ilkhanate rule to Christian rule, and a general belief appeared that the villagers were under the spell of the Antichrist. Crusaders tortured to death an elderly Syriac priest in a rural village and burnt alive the remainder in their homes, for a rumour broke out that the priest bore the mark of the Beast "666" on his head and was administering it to all he might find. Crusade terror extended into even already controlled territory as deserters turned into bandits and persecuted local citizens. Logistics became stretched as villagers hid or even destroyed food, water, and livestock lest it be used by the Crusader army.
Ilkhanate emir Muhanna ibn Isa of Palmyra raised his own force of mostly Bedouins at this time and began making many raids deep into Jerusalem's territory. His brother, Emir Fadl ibn Isa, joined him, despite the latter nominally serving the Mamluks as an emir in the northernmost portions of the Hejaz. Logistics became even more strained as a result, and the Crusader army's progress became slow and they paused not far from Jerusalem. Seeing a fine opportunity, Mulai struck with a new army on February 1, 1311 at Nablus and forced Philip's army back toward the north, where they encamped near the town of Afel in the Plain of Jezreel southwest of Nazareth.
The eschatological significance of this place was well known, for they were not far from the mountain of Megiddo. There the Book of Revelation claimed would be the site of the final Battle of Armageddon. Early in that day, some heard the voice of Jesus, claiming he was commanding their army. Fervor reached incredibly highs in the Crusader force and even Philip could not control their actions.
Mulai commanded only 40,000 warriors and quickly was forced to retreat by the aggressive Crusader force. But the Crusader advance was haphazard and they focused too much on killing those soldiers of his who lagged behind. This let Mulai reorganise his force and conduct repeated raids on the Crusaders, breaking up their lines even further before he launched a cavalry charge that nearly routed his enemy. Philip IV counted on such a strategy and placed his most disciplined forces in the center and rear guard. This reserve matched Mulai's charge and neatly countered it.
Just as Mulai's cavalry could go no further, Muhanna appeared with 7,000 Bedouins and other reinforcements (including those sent by his brother Fadl), riding both camels and horses. The most indisiciplined of the Crusaders believed it to be an allied army sent by Jesus himself and stopped their retreat. Fadl deliberately spread out his army to create the illusion they commanded an entire army. This force charged and cut off the rear vanguard of the Crusader army as well as slaughtering or capturing many of the fanatics. With the path to retreat cut off and Mulai's force regaining initiative thanks to the reinforcements, Philip could do nothing but fight his way to a retreat.
The Battle of Afel became one of the great Christian defeats in the Holy Land, nearly as terrible as Hattin. Philip IV lost well over half of his army, with notable casualties including the Count of Clermont and Henry VII of Luxembourg. His son Philip became a captive of Fadl ibn Isa alongside several other prominent French nobles and Leopold of Austria. Templar Grandmaster Jacques de Molay barely escaped with his life.
The arrival of Prince Frederick von Hapsburg from Italy at the head of 5,000 reinforcements--including several hundred Teutonic Knights--alleviated fears of the Kingdom's total fall. They defeated Fadl not long after, but morale never remained the same after the defeat at Afel. Likewise, by this point the main theater of the war shifted north. Mulai dispatched reinforcements to Sutay who invaded Antioch in force, first defeating Amaury in the field several times before he laid siege to Antioch.
The Siege of Antioch lasted over a year, but in May 1312 the city fell. Amaury de Lusignan was assassinated by a knight who served the House of Ibelin who promptly opened the gates to the city. By Sutay's orders, all European Christian men beside Amaury's immediate family were to be killed and their churches destroyed, but local Christians, Muslims, and Jews were spared and not to be harmed at all. Although Amaury's brother Guy tried negotiating safe passage for the nobles, Sutay refused, citing an order from Oljeitu to slaughter all Western Christians in the city. It appears Oljeitu took to such a drastic measure due to his particular contempt for Amaury, who alongside his loyalists spurred much of the conflict in the Levant.
Mongol soldiers went house to house arresting Europeans wherever they were found and confined in a field where they were beheaded and their skulls stacked into a pyramid, crowned by one skull with a crown supposedly belonging to Amaury de Lusignan, although others claim it was Amaury's brother Guy who was executed alongside his teenage son Hugh. Many high-ranking Cypriot and Antiochene nobles died in this massacre, including many members of the House of Ibelin. Prisoners of war from the campaign were forced to witness this atrocity in which supposedly 10,000 were killed (although likely far less).
Beside this affair, Oljeitu was magnanimous in peace. He named Amaury's second son Henry as ruler of a much-reduced Principality of Antioch which was now cut off from Cilician Armenia and the County of Tripoli by two Ilkhanate garrisons. With Amaury's death, his brother Aimery moved quickly and installed himself as King Aimery II of Cyprus. Jerusalem similarly lost much of its land and was reduced to a few scattered castles on the coast. He forced a vast tribute from the subjugated states, forced their children to reside at his court in Tabriz as hostages, stationed garrisons in their ports whose upkeep was drawn from additional taxes, and demanded they provide him troops as necessary. At last, the Mongol Empire stood on the Mediterranean.
But this was only one portion of what ranked among the largest wars the Mongol Empire faced. There was also a large campaign in Eastern Europe where the Jochids invaded once more. In Anatolia, the Ilkhanate also launched a great campaign against rebellious Turkish beys and Crusaders alike, a campaign which saw much intrigue and backstabbing in the Ilkhanate's attempt to preserve their Byzantine ally. Even in distant Yuan China, the History of Yuan mentions the war as a great campaign by Buyantu's western vassals to defend the patrimony of the ruling dynasty, and despite his reputation as an ally to Christendom Buyantu sent grants to both Oljaitu and Toqta to reward their successes. With its vast scope, the crusade against the Mongol Empire and her allies carried great ramifications for centuries to come in Europe, the Middle East, and all Asia.
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Author's notes
Author's notes
While often spoken of, the Crusader-Mongol alliance was actually among the few positive moments in a mostly hostile relationship. Much of what I wrote in this chapter is indeed based on medieval perceptions of the Mongols, and it's not hard to envision a Muslim coming to lead a global empire (Ananda) combined with their refusal to return Jerusalem to Crusader hands as causing a mass panic.
I split off into the next chapter most of the section regarding the separate crusade against the Byzantines, the Catalan Company, and Ilkhanate campaign against the Turkish beyliks. This too is related to the conflict. I also desire to create a world map for how things are in the early 1310s, and specifically a zoomed in map for the Levant and Anatolia. I do enjoy writing about the continued expansion of the Mongol Empire since they really did have a lot of potential in this period.
As ever, thanks for reading!
[1] - To make a long story short, Serbia was in a civil war in the early 14th century between Stephen Dragutin and Stephen Milutin, with the former pro-Angevin. Bellegrada is today Berat in Albania.
[2] - Of some uncertain relationship to John Tarchaneiotes
[3] - To make a long story short, these hadith claim that the "Romans" (which was interpreted to mean Christians in general) will fight an apocalyptic battle at Dabiq (basically the equivalent of the Battle of Armageddon), a town in Syria north of Aleppo, after which the Dajjal (basically the Islamic antichrist) will appear and deceive many before Jesus and the Mahdi return and defeat him and restore truth and justice to the world
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