Siege of Baghdad (1258) | |||||||
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Part of the Mongol invasions | |||||||
![]() Hulagu's army conducting a siege on Baghdad walls. |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Mongol Empire Georgian-Mongol alliance |
Abbasid Caliphate | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Hulagu Khan Guo Kan Baiju Kitbuga Koke Ilge DavidVI ulu |
Caliph Al-Musta'sim (P.O.W.) Mujaheduddin Sulaiman Shah (P.O.W.) Qarasunqur. |
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Strength | |||||||
120,000[1]-150,000[2] total (60,000 Georgian people |
50,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown but believed to be minimal | 50,000 soldiers, 90,000-1,000,000 civilians |
The Siege of Baghdad, which occurred in 1258, was an invasion, siege and sacking of the city of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid caliphate at the time and the modern-day capital of Iraq, by the Ilkhanate Mongol forces along with other allied troops under Hulagu Khan.
The invasion left Baghdad in a state of total destruction. A number of inhabitants ranging from 100,000 to 1,000,000 were massacred during the invasion of the city, and the city was sacked and burned. Even the libraries of Baghdad, including the House of Wisdom, were not safe from the attacks of the Ilkhanate forces who totally destroyed the libraries, and used the invaluable books to make a passage across Tigris River. As a result Baghdad remained depopulated and in ruins for several centuries, and the event is conventionally regarded as the end of the Islamic Golden Age.[3]
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At the time Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, an Islamic state whose heart was the modern state of Iraq. The Abbasid caliphs were the second of the Islamic dynasties, having in 751 toppled the Umayyads, who had ruled from the death of Ali in 661.[4] At Baghdad's peak, it had a population of approximately one million residents and was defended by an army of 60,000 soldiers. By the mid-1200s, the caliphate had been long on the wane and was now a minor state; however, although its caliph was a figurehead, controlled by Mamluk or Turkic warlords, he still had great symbolic significance, and Baghdad was still a rich and cultured city. Before the siege by Hulagu Khan, the Mongols under general Baiju raided the modern day Iraq several times in 1238, 1242 and 1246, but not the city itself.
In 1257, the Mongol ruler Möngke Khan resolved to conquer the Abbasid Caliphate next after conquering and creating vassal states out of the surrounding regions. He conscripted one out of every ten fighting men in the empire for the invasion force knowing that Baghdad was a large and central area in the region. This force, by one estimate 150,000 strong, was probably the largest ever fielded by the Mongols. In November of 1257, under the command of Hulagu Khan (also spelled as Hulegu) and the Jalayir general Koke Ilge and with the Chinese commander Guo Kan in vice-command, it set out for Baghdad. [5]. It also contained a large contingent of various Christian forces, chief among which seems to have been the Georgians, who were eager to avenge the sacking of their capital, Tiflis decades earlier by Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah.[6] Other participating Christian forces were the Armenian army, led by their king, and some Frankish troops from the Principality of Antioch.[7] The contemporary Persian observer, Ata al-Mulk Juvayni reports as participants in the siege about 1,000 Chinese artillery experts, and Armenians, Georgians, Persians, and Turks.[2]
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Prior to laying siege to Baghdad, Hulagu easily destroyed the Lurs, and his reputation so frightened the Assassins that they surrendered their impregnable fortress of Alamut to him without a fight in 1256. He then advanced on Baghdad.
Mongke Khan had ordered his brother to spare the Caliphate if it submitted to the authority of the Mongol Khanate. Upon nearing Baghdad, Hulagu demanded surrender; the caliph, Al-Musta'sim, refused. By many accounts, Al-Musta'sim had failed to prepare for the onslaught; he neither gathered armies nor strengthened the city's walls. Even worse, he greatly offended Hulagu Khan by threats he made, and thus assured his destruction.[8]
Hulagu positioned his forces on both banks of the Tigris River, dividing them to form a pincer around the city. The caliph's army repulsed some of the forces attacking from the west, but were defeated in the next battle. The attacking Mongols broke some dikes and flooded the ground behind the caliph’s army, trapping it. Thus were many troops slaughtered or drowned.
The Chinese contingent then laid siege to the city starting January 29, constructing a palisade and ditch, and employing siege engines and catapults. The battle was swift by siege standards: by February 5 the Mongols controlled a stretch of the wall. Al-Musta'sim begged to negotiate, but was refused.
On February 10, Baghdad surrendered. The Mongols swept into the city on February 13 and began a week of massacre and destruction.
Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors.
Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several centuries and only gradually recovered some of its former glory.
Some historians believe that the Mongol invasion destroyed much of the irrigation infrastructure that had sustained Mesopotamia for many millennia. Canals were cut as a military tactic and never repaired. So many people died or fled that neither the labor nor the organization were sufficient to maintain the canal system. It broke down or silted up. This theory was advanced by historian Svatopluk Souček in his 2000 book, A History of Inner Asia and has been adopted by authors such as Steven Dutch.
Other historians point to soil salination as the culprit in the decline in agriculture.[10][11]
The year following the fall of Baghdad, Hulagu named the Persian Ata al-Mulk Juvayni governor of Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia, and Khuzistan. At the intervention of the Mongol Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife, Dokuz Khatun, the Christian inhabitants were spared.[12][13] Hulagu offered the royal palace to the Nestorian Catholicos Mar Makikha, and ordered a cathedral to be built for him.[14]