Chapter 5 – The 1st Schismatic War
Back in the Grand Jalayirid Caliphate of Awesome (a name instituted by Ahmad in his later years) the death of Ahmad led to widespread celebration. The people went out into the streets and had a merry and peaceful time. As merry and peaceful as a 40,000 man rebellion can be with its lynching of public officials and toppling of statues of the Dear Leader.
Shah Walad, Ahmad’s son, was always happy to go around slaughtering peasants with scythed chariots; while he was a proficient warrior, he also had agricultural concerns in mind: the chopped off limbs served as a welcome source of fertilizer. It would be this orchestration of military and economical rule that would characterize his long reign.
Turksmen shown here, sober.
However to the North loomed a threat: the unwashed Black Sheep Turks, having run out of Al-Korans to use as toilet paper and sheep to… umm… eat – you can’t really blame them if you take a look at their ‘women’ - began their descent upon the Caliphate’s lands.
The great mark of Shah Walad’s cunning was to disguise his troops as sheep. On a desolate mountain pass in the Zagros mountains, the enemy mob wandered around when suddenly they took notice of the 12,000 strong herd that had suspiciously been following them for the entire day. Desperate for a good… MEAL, the Shi’a barbarians descended up the sheep pelts unarmed and were thoroughly massacred. On a battle lasting several days. In which they continually retreated and ‘attacked’ again the same way. Every. Single. Time. The first Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnostics appeared at this time, by a remarkable coincidence.
Eventually these Sheep-Huggers were annihilated, and their territory slowly colonized by the scum of Jalayirid society, marketing executives and accountants, led by the speculative drive engineered by Walad’s government.
To support the money needed to buy up stock in the newly founded Caspian Sand Ventures Corporation, inflation rose rather dramatically as a result of the minting of sand-coins. Overnight, the Bedouins of the Arabian Desert became dirt-rich. This also led to an increase of population of these southern territories, favouring the settlement of Bedouins and an overall increase in tax revenue. Suddenly the Caliphate found that it was sitting on vast sources of wealth – Beige Gold.
Special wet sand edition.
All was good for 7 years, and the country’s economy prospered based on this sustainable resource. However, the conflict that had been brewing for 30 years, that of the Jalayirid schism (or Abbasid Schism, as the Caliphate and its supporters’ records called it) came to a head. The Ottoman Empire declared war upon the Mamlukian schismatics, and called the Caliphate to war. The Caliphate obviously joined to assert its religious authority. A series of indecisive battles followed in Syria and Cappadocia. The borders ebbed and flowed, with the Mamlukes managing to capture Mosul once, and the Caliphate’s armies being stopped 7 kilometers short of Mecca due to harassment on its supply lines by Bedouins.
Jalayirid and Ottoman advances depicted in green; Mamlukian ones in red.
The only ‘decisive’ engagement occurred near Damascus a year into the war. A combined Ottoman-Jalayirid army of 20,000 led by Walad faced a Mamlukian one of 19,000, under Muhammad Burji. The armies met on an open plain with Mount Qasioun in the distance. The combined allied forces attempted to surround the Mamlukes; they were, however driven back by the threat of a rear charge of the Mamluke Sultan’s guard, numbering 500 hundred heads. Walad then sent his light cavalry to attack, a tribute given by the Black Sheep Turks.
These managed to lure the Mamluke cavalry away from the main force, pelting them with javelins. Meanwhile, the two armies attempted to outmaneuver each other, being driven off immediately from the other sides’s counter maneuvers. This continued until Walad gave the order to attack.
As the lines grew closer, the Jalayirid army grew wider, so as to box the Mamlukes. This they did to a certain degree, although the better armed pike-soldiers of the enemy soon managed to make breaks in the Jalayirid front, isolating them into smaller pockets. Desperate, Walad flanked the force and decided to strike at Burji, to entice the other army to rout. Luckily, one of his riders managed to land a blow directly in his cuirass, felling him.
As the Mamlukian army began to rout and Walad felt safe to press his advantage, a cloud of dust appeared in the horizon. The Mamluke cavalry had managed to destroy the exhausted skirmishers and was readying itself to pounce on the rear of the army. The Iraqis and Persians routed, along with the Turks. From the battle men fled in all directions, from both sides.
Aftermath
The battle has been called a Pyrrhic victory for the Mamlukes, as it kept Syria from being overrun. However, this came at the cost of 27,000 men on both sides, and neither side managed to get much from the battle, other than the loss of many of their finest warriors.
In the weeks following the battle, negotiations began, despite the protests from the Jalayirid Caliph, who advocated that the allies should regroup and strike while the Egyptians were dealing with the succession of their Sultan. The Turkish faction disagreed, and managed to conclude a peace deal that gave them greater influence over Cyprus. With the prospect of standing alone in a major war against a richer and larger rival, with its manpower and treasury drained, the Caliphate had to agree to this inconclusive treaty.
As such, religious and geopolitical matters were left mostly unchanged at the end of this war, the major development being the growing distrust and competition between the Ottoman Devleti and the Caliphate for the declining Mamluke Sultanate, who did not manage to fully recuperate from the war due to the Succession Crisis it found itself in.
A follow-up war was inevitable.
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I wanted to post some battle schematics but accidentally pushed the 'Post' button. So try to imagine the scene in your head