Talk:Armeno-Mongol relations

For accuracy disputes, see Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance and attached archives. Srnec (talk) 06:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be okay on removing the {{disputed}} tag at this point. What do others think? Are there still any problematic sections? --Elonka 04:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Though there are indeed some historians who refer to the relationship between Cilician Armenia and the Mongols as an alliance, there are many others {see User:Elonka/Mongol historians#Cilician Armenia) who refer to it as a subject/overlord relationship. In other to keep from giving undue weight to the "alliance" aspect, I recommend that we move this article to a more neutral title, such as "Armeno-Mongol relations". Does anyone else have an opinion? --Elonka 04:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Support, but only under the condition that undue weight is not given to either opinion throughout Wikipedia.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 04:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Just my opinion, but the "Armeno-Mongol alliance", or more often "Armenian-Mongol alliance" are established expressions and subjects of academical inquiry, discussed as such in historical literature (Google Books for a sampling, starting with The Cambridge History of Islam‎.). I think therefore it deserves an article on Wikipedia as such, even if we can have a discussion about the actual nature, extent, duration, effectiveness etc... of this alliance. In my opinion, the "Armeno-Mongol alliance" article should therefore actually be a sub-article of a much broader and richer article on Armeno-Mongol relations, which actually would go far beyond the actual historical events of the military alliance itself. Cheers PHG (talk) 08:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

In the last few days, a vast amount of referenced information has been deleted from this article without discussion (about 25k [1]). Some of the deleted material might be considered redundant or not directly related to the Armeno-Mongol alliance, however a large part is indeed directly connected and giving a lot of information about specific campaigns. Several images have also been removed. Neutral editors are kindly invited to consider the reinstatement of this material:PHG (talk) 07:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Armenian involvement in the conquest of Baghdad (1258)

On February 15, 1258, the Mongols were successful in the Siege of Baghdad, an event often considered as the single most catastrophic event in the history of Islam. The attacking army also had a large contingent of Christian forces. The Georgians and Armenians participated in the offensive.^[1][2] According to Alain Demurger, Frankish troops from the Principality of Antioch also participated, and Bohemond VI was present at Baghdad in 1258.^[3] When they conquered the city, the Mongols demolished buildings, burned entire neighborhoods, and massacred nearly 80,000 men, women, and children. The Georgians had been the first to breach the walls, and were among the fiercest in their destruction.^[4] At the intervention of the Mongol Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife Dokuz Khatun, the Christian inhabitants were spared.^[5][6] Hulagu offered the royal palace to the Nestorian Catholicus Mar Makikha, and ordered a cathedral to be built for him.^[7]

The conquest of Baghdad marked the tragic end of the Abbasid Caliphate. The city of Baghdad, which had been the jewel of Islam and one of the largest and most powerful cities in the world for 500 years, became a minor provincial town.

The Armenians in the Mongol invasion of the Levant (1260)

After Baghdad, in 1260 the Mongol forces, along with their Christian allies, conquered Muslim Syria, domain of the Ayyubid dynasty. They took the city of Aleppo with the help of the Franks of Antioch,^[8] and on March 1, 1260 proceeded to capture Damascus,^[9][10] under the Christian Mongol general Kitbuqa. Numerous historians, some of them quoting Le Templier de Tyr, explain that Kitbuqa entered the city of Damascus in triumph together with Hethoum and Bohemond VI, and that great Christian celebrations were made.^{[11][12][13][14][15]} According to Peter Jackson however, Bohemond VI of Antioch was said to be present in some later accounts but not in contemporary sources, and it is likely a later legend.^[16] The historian De Reuven Amitai-Preiss concludes that the accounts may be exaggerated, but have some truth to them.^[17]

According to the contemporary account of Le Templier de Tyr, mass was celebrated in the Grand Mosque of the Umayyads (the former cathedral of Saint John the Baptist),^[18], and numerous mosques were profaned:

"The king of Armenia and the Prince of Antioch went to the army of the Tatars, and they all went off to take Damascus. When Damascus was taken, the Prince, to the shame of the Sarasins, established a beautiful church, which at the time of the Greeks used to belong to the Christians, and where since then the Sarasins had prayed Mahomet. The Prince had mass held for the Franks and the bells rung. In the other mosques of Mahomet, where the Sarazins were, shrubs were placed, wine was sprayed on the walls, and fresh pork grease was smeared. And if he commanded his people to do some dirt, they would do tenfold."

— Gestes des Chiprois, Le Templier de Tyr, quoted in "Histoire des Croisades III", René Grousset^[19]

The Mongol invasion effectively destroyed the Ayyubid Dynasty, who had been overthrown in Egypt ten years before but had held on in Syria. The last Ayyubid king An-Nasir Yusuf died in 1260.^[20] With the Islamic power centers of Baghdad and Damascus gone, the center of Islamic power transferred to the Egyptian Mamluks in Cairo.

Battle of Ain Jalut (1260)

The Franks of the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli and the Armenians aside, in 1260, the Franks of Acre maintained a position of cautious neutrality between the Mongols and the Mamluks. The powerful Venetian commercial interests in the city regarded with concern the expansion of the northern trade routes opened by the Mongols and serviced by the Genoese, and they favoured an appeasement policy with the Mamluks, that would support their traditional trade routes to the south. In May 1260 they sent a letter to Charles of Anjou, complaining about Mongol expansion and Bohemond's subservience to them, and asking for his support.^[21]

They did send the Dominican David of Ashby to the court of Hulagu in 1260,^[22] but also entered into a passive alliance with the Egyptian Mamluks, which allowed the Mamluk forces to move through Christian territory unhampered,^[23] in exchange for an agreement to purchase captured Mongol horses at a low price in the event of a Mamluk victory (a promise which was not honoured by the Mamluks).^[24] This allowed the Mamluks to counter-attack the Mongols, at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut on September 3, 1260. It was the first major battle that the Mongols lost, and effectively set the western border for what had seemed an unstoppable Mongol expansion. According to the 13th century historian Kirakos, many Armenians and Georgians were also fighting in the ranks of Kitbuqa.^[25] The Armenian historian Smpad writes that about 500 troops from Armenia accompanied the Mongols.^[26]

Following Ain Jalut, the remainder of the Mongol army retreated to Cilician Armenia under the commander Ilka, where it was received and re-equipped by Hetoum I. Hulagu sent a counter-attack which briefly occupied Aleppo, but it was repelled by the princes of Hama and Homs, subjects to the Sultan.^[27]

The Mamluk leader Baibars began to threaten Antioch, which (as a vassal of the Armenians) had earlier supported the Mongols.^[28] In the summer of 1262, the king of Armenia went to the Mongols and again obtained their intervention to deliver the city.^[29][30] The city was saved through Mongol intervention.^[31]

"In 1264, l'Il-Khan had me called, as well as the vartabeds Sarkis (Serge) and Krikor (Gregory), and Avak, priest of Tiflis. We arrived at the place of this powerful monarch at the beginning of the Tartar year, in July, period of the solemn assembly of the kuriltai. Here were all the Princes, Kings and Sultans submitted by the Tartars, with wonderful presents. Among them, I saw Hetoum I, king of Armenia, David, king of Georgia, the Prince of Antioch (Bohemond VI), and a quantity of Sultans from Persia.

— Vartan, trad. Dulaurier.^[32]

However, in response to Hetoum I and Bohemond VI's request for help, Hulagu was only capable of attacking the frontier fort of Al-Bira (1264-1265).^[33]

Mongols and Armenians in Jerusalem in early 1300

Mongol raids on Jerusalem are sometimes thought to have occurred during the Mongol invasions of Syria and Palestine by Ghazan in the year 1300. There are pervasive Medieval accounts, whether from European, Armenian or Arab sources, claiming that the Mongols occupied Jerusalem in 1300. There is little evidence however that this actually happened, and modern scholars are divided on the question. After the Mamluk forces retreated south to Egypt, the main Mongol forces retreated north in February, and Ghazan left his general Mulay to rule in Syria.^[34] Accordingly, there existed a period of about four months from February to May 1300, when the Mongol il-Khan was the "de facto" lord of the Holy Land.^[35] According to Alain Demurger, Ghazan captured Jerusalem after he had taken Damascus,^[36] and his general Mulay was in Jerusalem in 1299/1300.^[37] But Mulay's small force had to retreat when the Mamluks returned in May 1300.^[38][39] Ghazan also promised to return in the winter of 1300-1301 to attack Egypt.^[40]

An Armenian monk named Nerses Balients, converted to Catholicism by the Dominicans,^[41] stated that the Armenian King Hetoum II, with a small force, had reached the outskirts of Cairo and then spent some fifteen days in Jerusalem visiting the Holy Places:

"The king of Armenia, back from his raid against the Sultan, went to Jerusalem. He found that all the enemies had been put to flight or exterminated by the Tatars, who had arrived before him. As he entered into Jerusalem, he gathered the Christians, who had been hiding in caverns out of fright. During the 15 days he spent in Jerusalem, he held Christian ceremonies and solemn festivities in the Holy Sepulchre. He was greatly comforted by his visits to the places of the pilgrims. He was still in Jerusalem when he received a certificate from the Khan, bestowing him Jerusalem and the surrounding country. He then returned to join Ghazan in Damas, and spend the winter with him"

— Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Armeniens I, p.660^[42]

According to the historian Claude Mutafian, this may be on this occasion that Hetoum II remitted his amber scepter to the Armenian convent of Saint James of Jerusalem.^[44]

Response

The images were removed either because they were not directly related to the subject of the article, or because they were better suited in other more specific topics. There were so many images in this article that they were just bumping into each other along the margin of the article, so I thinned them out to make them more effective. For example, the image of the Cathedral of St. James really has little to do with this article, and is already included in the article about King Hethoum II. The information about the Mongol raids through Palestine (and possibly Jerusalem) is already adequately covered in Mongol raids into Palestine. The Battle of Ain Jalut receives a minor mention here, and the rest is more appropriate for the Battle article itself. If there's anything I removed which is not already covered elsewhere, please bring it up and we can discuss it. --Elonka 20:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind answer Elonka. So you are saying that the problem is not with the material itself, but rather that it is redundant with the material already in other articles? I am delighted that you do not dispute this material, but unfortunately, it seems that you have been deleting this very material from other articles nonetheless. As far as I can see, the huge amount of information highlighted above about the involvement of the Armenians with the Mongols has disapeared from other articles as well:

• All details about the role of the Armenians at the capture of Damascus in 1260 have disapeared.
• Any information about the Armenians at Ain Jalut has disapeared from the Battle of Ain Jalut article, appart from the Armenians barely being mentioned as participants to the offensive.
• Any information about the role of the Armenians in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1299-1300 has disapeared from Mongol raids into Palestine (now Armenians are not even mentionned in the article!).

So I am afraid this is lot of referenced information being purely and simply being suppressed here. Can you kindly consider its reinstallement? These are important pieces of information which deserve representation in an article on the Armeno-Mongol alliance. Cheers. PHG (talk) 06:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Both Ain Jalut and the 1260 battle for Damascus are still in the article. See Armeno-Mongol alliance#Collaboration in the Middle East. --Elonka 21:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, in both cases you left one cursory statement but deleted all the specifics. For Damascus in 1260 you only left "on March 1, 1260 proceeded to capture Damascus, under the Christian Mongol general Kitbuqa" but you deleted all the specifics of this event (about 30 lines, above). In the case of Ain-Jalut, you only left "at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut, a battle in which 500 troops from Armenia may have participated, fighting on the side of the Mongols" but eliminated all the information about the Armenians in the aftermath of the battle. For Jerusalem, you deleted any mention of the possible involvement of the Armenians. Cheers PHG (talk) 05:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Of the first two, I'm open to adding a bit more info... Which one would you like to discuss first? --Elonka 05:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

As a start, I suggest you reinstate the above material, and then highlight material you might have specific issues with. You can bring it up for discussion, or use {{reference needed}} tags etc... according to the normal Wikipedia procedure. I also honestly can't understand why you are "not open" to having something about Jerusalem, when it is something which is dicussed by historians. If historians have divergent opinions, let's properly describe it in the article, rather than act as if the subject did not exist. Cheers PHG (talk) 18:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm starting a new thread, to discuss specifically the section related to Damascus. Here is what I propose re-adding to the article in Armeno-Mongol relations#Collaboration in the Middle East:

They took the city of Aleppo with the help of the Franks of Antioch, and on March 1, 1260, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, they also took Damascus.^[45][46][47] Historical accounts, quoting from the writings of the medieval historian Templar of Tyre, used to describe the three Christian rulers (Hetoum, Bohemond, and Kitbuqa) entering the city of Damascus together in triumph,^[48][47] though modern historians have questioned this story as apocryphal.^[49][50][51]

How does that sound? --Elonka 02:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)