Mamluk and Mongol

The Mamluks:
Army, Organization, and Tactics

by David Tschanz

The smoke from ruined Baghdad sent the cold tendrils of fear throughout the Dar Al-Islam (the Islamic world). Its fall and the end of the Abbasid caliphate suggested that there were no remaining barriers to the destruction of Islamic civilization by the Mongols. Genghis Khan had taunted the Muslims at Bukhara, saying, "I am the Flail of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!" More than one person wondered if it were true - was the Muslim world being punished?

The Islamic world held its collective breath waiting for the next act to unfold, and desperately hoping for someone to block the Mongol advance. If, at that moment, someone had suggested that Egypt could pose an obstacle to anyone, much less the most powerful war machine in existence, they would have been laughed at. Centuries of lethargy had reduced the country to whipping-boy status: it was successively invaded by the Crusaders and by its Syrian neighbors, who took control in 1174. Yet hope and salvation was stirring in the unlikeliest of places - the hearts and minds of a slave army, whose very name, Mamluk, meant "the owned".

When Saladin supplanted the Fatimids and founded the Ayyubid dynasty in 1174, he formed the Mamluks - boys from the tribes of Central Asia who were bought by the Fatimid rulers for training as soldiers - into a distinct military body. Since the Ayyubids were strangers in Egypt, they probably felt more comfortable with the support of their fellow foreigners.

Mamluks typically came from Central Asia where dealers bought children of conquered tribes in Central Asia, promising them great fortunes in the Islamic world. After their purchase Mamluk boys were given several years of rigorous training in horsemanship and archery. They were then used both as bodyguards and to offset the dominating influence of the Arab military in the state. Ayyub (ruled 1240-1249) built up a huge army of Turkish Kipchak slaves, which he had brought from regions north of the Black Sea and installed in the barracks of a citadel on Roda Island in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. They came to be known as Bahri Mamluks ("river slaves").

By the middle of the 13th century, the Ayubbid rulers of Egypt had become completely dependent on these foreign-born slave-soldiers from Central Asia. It was to prove their undoing. Disgusted with the leadership of the dissolute descendant of Saladin, the Bahri Mamluks moved from mere slaves to masters of the court and toppled the Ayyubid dynasty, seizing control of the country, naming one of their own, Qutuz, as the new sultan. The Mamluks were a far cry from the likes of Saladin and Nur al-Din, Arab rulers renowned for their refinement and sense of honor; in fact, they had the same utter lack of scruples as the Mongols that assured they were willing to do whatever it took to ensure success.

ORGANIZATION AND TRAINING

Power in the Mamluk realm was not based on heredity. Every Mamluk arrived as a slave purchased for the purpose. Converted to Islam, he worked his way up from recruit to his eventual position based on merit alone. The Mamluk emphasis on youth and vigor is reflected in the fact that their salaries decreased as they grew older. Every commander of the army and nearly all of the Mamluk sultans started life in this manner. When the reigning sultan died, one of the amirs (governors) - not his son - replaced him, but usually not without a bloody power struggle between himself and other ambitious amirs. The result was a succession of rulers of unrivaled personality, courage and ruthlessness.

After the Mamluks made themselves master of Egypt and Syria, they continued the same policy of recruitment. Agents were sent to buy and import boys from Central Asia for their armies. Mamluks looked on their Egyptian born sons as socially inferior and would not recruit them into regular Mamluk units, which only admitted boys born on the steppes.

This constant influx of new blood provided a check on degeneration when the Mamluks became the rulers and possessors of wealth and power. An autocratic military caste, they ruled with considerable harshness, imposed heavy taxation and held all political and military power in their own hands. The Mamluks made use of the native-born population in civil posts and many achieved high rank and honors in the civil administration.

With such a background it is little surprise that throughout their history, the Mamluk personality and its civilization was a study in contradictions. An obsession with cruelty and death (the favored mode of execution was impalement) coexisted alongside an apparently genuine, sublime, and heartfelt piety, including a deeply felt compassion for society's poor and destitute. On the one hand unlettered and uncultured, the Mamluks were at the same time, enthusiastic promoters of the arts, and creators of some of the most magnificent architecture and breathtaking art in the history of the world. Stories of the intrigues and excesses of this period make gruesomely entertaining reading.

THE MAMLUK ARMY

The Mamluk army was, like the Mongols, based on mounted archers, but the equipment of its troops and its tactics were different. The Mamluk trooper was heavily armed with bow and arrow, sword, dagger, axe or mace, lance, shield and body armor. His horse was fed primarily on fodder, meaning it grew larger and stronger than the grass fed, small horses - really ponies - of the Mongols. However, due to the expense of maintaining a horse in a sedentary society, most Mamluks only had one or two mounts, while a Mongol might have four or more.

The Mamluks were picked troops and thus on the whole were better raw material for soldiers than their Mongol counterparts, who were just average men. In addition, the Mamluks underwent thorough, long-term training, though it should be emphasized that the most exclusive and rigorous training was provided to the "royal" Mamluks. These al-mamalik al-sultaniyya were composed of the sultan's personal mamluks, those of former sultans, and mamluks of deceased or deposed amirs. It should be noted that at the battle of Ain Jalut, Qutuz had been Sultan less than a year, an inadequate period in which to build a large unit of personal mamluks.

Only the royal Mamluks were usually given the first-rate training of the Sultan's military schools. The amirs' Mamluks had an inferior military education. In addition, during the early years of the Mamluk period, many of the troopers in the amirs' units were not even Mamluks, but rather free horsemen. These could have been Kurds, refugee Muslim military personnel (including Mamluks), and Mongol wafidiyya (arrivals).

The royal Mamluks received thorough training in swords man ship, horsemanship, lancework, and archery on the ground and from a galloping horse. Having mastered horsemanship and the lance, the young Mamluks were sent to the hippodrome, where they received coaching in teamwork. The Mamluks did group exercises, learned how to enter, come out, turn right or left, advance or retreat together and to know, in any fight, their own place as well as that of their compatriots. Of particular importance in their training was shooting while galloping. Mamluk training was of only relatively small tactical units. There was nothing to indicate that maneuvers of large-scale units in the field were undertaken, as with the Mongols during their hunts.

With regard to their mounts, not all of their horses were of Arabian stock. A major source of Mamluk mounts was Cyrenaica (al-barqa). These horses were very strong and were something between an Arabian horse and a packhorse, with the latter's sturdy legs, and thus well suited to rough terrain. The Mamluks also brought with them to battle reserve horses, the jana'ib (plural of janib)(reserve mount), the number of which varied, depending on the wealth of each amir and the importance he attributed to this matter. It is unclear if the regular Mamluk troops, be they royal Mamluks, or the Mamluks of amirs and halqa(elite cavalry) troopers, had recourse to spare mounts, but it appears that their use was not as widespread as among the Mongols.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS AGAINST THE MONGOLS

Despite the fact that both armies were essentially cavalry forces, the battlefield tactics of the Mamluks differed from the Mongols. Since each Mamluk only had one or at most two mounts, they could not compete with the mobility of the Mongols, each of who had several horses at his disposal. Rather, they exploited their better-quality bows and arrows and their training. The intensive practice which the Mamluks underwent in the hippodrome in shooting while at full gallop indicates that they were trained to launch a frontal attack at the right time, letting off arrows (whether or not in concert is another question) at their enemy

The typical engagement would open with a Mongol assault. The Mamluks, mounted on standing horses, would let off a steady fire of effective arrows the Mongols approached, absorbing the initial attack. Unless the Mongols could use their greater mobility to outflank and surround the Mamluks, or superior numbers to wear them down, Mamluk archery would eventually balance and then overtake the Mongols' horsepower. They would then go over to the offensive, launching a concerted, all-out attack, the front rank (at least) shooting as they rode until they reached the enemy lines, where they would then bring into play maces, axes, swords and perhaps lances. On occasion, it seems, the Mamluks employed repeated attacks, perhaps hit-and-run archery barrages (reminiscent of the Mongol tactics)_ in order to soften up the enemy.

At least that was the way it went in theory. What the actual tactics and fighting methods used by either army at Ain Jalut was is less clear. Contemporary sources are usually less than explicit about the actual fighting methods employed in the battles. Typically the battle is described in expressions such as this describing Mamluk attacks: "[Qutuz] himself and those with him launched a brave assault (hamla sadiqa)"; "they launched against them a concerted attack (hamalu `alayhim hamlat rajul wahid)"; "the [Mamluk] armies in their entirety attacked together (... fa-hamalat al- `asakir bi-rummatiha hamlat rajul wahid)." As for Ain Jalut, we have no clear information beyond that the Mongols attacked first; and, according to the Mamluk historian al-Maqrizi, the two sides "slammed into each other (idtarabat)." For that matter, there is little mention of the use of bows and arrows by both sides, apparently because it was obvious to all authors (and presumably their readers) that this was the way these armies fought.

LATER HISTORY

The Mamluks held uncontested power in Egypt until 1517 when Cairo fell to the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman ruler, Selim, put an end to the Mamluk sultanate but did not destroy the Mamluks as a class; they kept their lands, and Mamluk governors retained control of the provinces and were even allowed to keep private armies. In the 18th century, when Ottoman power began to decline, the Mamluks were able to win back an increasing amount of self-rule. In 1769 a Mamluk leader, Ali Bey, proclaimed himself sultan, and declared independence from the Ottomans. Although he fell in 1772, the Ottoman Turks still felt compelled to concede an increasing measure of autonomy to the Mamluks and appointed a series of them as governors of Egypt. The Mamluks were defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte during his invasion of Egypt in1798, and their power as a class was ended in 1811 by Muhammad Ali.

Mamluk and Mongol

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