Chapter XVII
The Mohammedan world at the ascent of John’s reign was in turmoil, with two great powers – the Turks and the Egyptians (Mamluks) in a titanic struggle against one another for control of Syria, which had long been contested by both kingdoms. The Mamluks were a band of slave warriors, mostly from Central Asia and the Caucasus that had risen to power in the land of the Pharaohs. Naturally however, there was a problem with dynastic succession – as Muslims were forbade from owning other Muslims as slaves. As Mamluks were slaves, the son of the sitting Mamluk ruler was never allowed, for his life would be that of slave, to become the next ruler of the dynasty, which often led to power struggles within the ranks of the Mamluks. The Burji Dynasty was named not after their first ruler, but after the barracks. The Burji Barracks in Cario, located an island in the middle of the Nile, was a mighty site to see, and a stronghold that the native Egyptians would not be able to crack.
The Mamluks have a rich military history. They had defeated French Crusaders in the thirteenth century, and had even turned back the Mongols after their sacking of Baghdad and destruction of the theoretically unified Mohammedan Caliphate. For some, they were the saviors of Mohammedanism. And that they most certainly were. By the fourteenth century, Egypt was the most economically rich and industrially developed region in the entire western world – Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. When Timur invaded Iraq and later threatened the Mamluks, the great philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun – acting as a sort of court diplomat, convinced Timur that the real riches of the Muslim world was in Turkey, and Timur and his army marched into the Turkish kingdom. At the Battle of Ankara, the Turks were dealt a severe blow – and this marked the beginning of the animosity between the two regimes, not to mention that the sitting Turkic Sultan had claimed the title of Caliph after the extinction of the title with the last Abbasid ruler, Al-Musta'sim Billah, who was trampled to death in a carpet by the Mongols when Baghdad fell.
The Mamluks, like the Turks, were a very tolerant and diverse people. Jews and Christians regularly held political office, even if they were rather menial and less important civil positions – which always went to Sunnis. The Mamluks themselves were not Egyptian, but as I stated, from various tribes and confederacies from the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia – the Burji were predominately Circassians. They ruled over Egypt benevolently, and had helped to foster one of the world’s greatest economies during their stewardship. In particular, the textile industry in Egypt was the world’s finest, and her products were sought not only in Europe, but as far away as Asia too.
The resolute nature of the Late Period Empire in preventing the Turks to capture Constantinople in the fifteenth century, and some of the gains they had made once again in Greece at their expense, caused the Turks to turn their attention southward into Syria where the powerful Mamluks had amassed at their border. Although the Koran forbids the killing of other Muslims, and both being Sunni, the power of politics and rivalries over territory, empire, and economics is always more powerful than religious codes and laws. The animosity was multifold: the Mamluks had directed Timur to attack them in Asia Minor, the two had a bitterly contested rivalry over Syria – of which only one of the two powers could maintain rule or conquer the region, the Mamluks saw themselves as the legitimate defenders of the faith in saving the theoretical caliphate from Christian Crusaders and the Mongol Horde; yet, it was the Turkic Sultan who claimed the title of caliph and the spiritual authority over all Mohammedans. And lastly, the attention of Turkish conquest was set to the Middle East after the failures to crack the walls of Constantine’s fabled city.
Between 1470 and 1495, the two powers were at a standstill over Syria. The Turkish fleet had been destroyed by the Mamluk fleet, who possessed the largest navy in the world by the end of the fifteenth century, including one of the greatest arsenals of heavy ships that would make England or France envious of the naval power and prestige of Egypt. Even the newly revived Roman fleet would fail in combat against the Mamluks and their heavy mast ships if war ever broke out between the two great empires. By contrast however, while the slave sultans of Cairo may have controlled the war at sea, the war on land was much more static and harsh, and probably favored the Turks over the Mamluks.
The Battle of the Alexandrian Coast, where the Mamluk fleet stunned the Turkish fleet and gave the Mamluks supremacy of the Mediterranean.
The Turks, unlike the Mamluks, possessed the most advanced military in the world. Armed with many cannons and firearms, and the world’s most elite fighting force – the Janissaries, the bloodbath in Syria between the two empires was disastrous to say the least. One of the problems for the Mamluks was the lack of responsiveness to use gunpowder weaponry, which was seen as a tool not befitting of the slave soldiers of their empire to actually arm themselves with – with the fear that they might turn these weapons against their masters and overlords.
During the Third Syrian War, 1494, the two empires were locked in their worst struggle yet. At Aleppo, an Army of 30,000 Turks and 36,000 Mamluks would meet at the field of one of the great ancient cities of a bygone world. The Turks had with them some 50 cannons, as opposed to just a handful of Mamluk cannons that were poorly equipped, armed, and commanded by ill-trained artillerists. The two day battle of Aleppo was one of the most brutal conflicts between Muslims since the Battle of Karbala, the infamous battle in which the Sunni-Shi’a split was heightened when 70 members of the Prophet’s family were killed by the Sunni Umayyads. Indeed, the high preponderance of horses and camels, guns, swords, spears, and arrows made the oncoming fight something out of the apocalypse. In fact, some of the millenarian Mohammedans, believing that the apocalypse was soon approaching, identified the battle as the event before the Final Judgment. This millenarian fever was something that created an even more tense atmosphere. The Turkic sultan even wrote:
This battle between those of us who are the true believers can only be seen through the lens of the Return of Christ and the inauguration of God's Kingdom and the final judgment upon humanity. The wholesale slaughter of believers like what is forthcoming, can only be justified in light of the end of history and the beginning of God's Kingdom on earth.[1]
The battle commenced with a large cannonade by the Turks, dispersing the Mamluk heavy cavalry allowing for a general infantry advance. The Janissary corps reached within 50 yards of the Mamluk infantry, most of whom were armed with swords and spears. As the Mamluks rushed forward, three deadly volleys of musket fire broke out from among the Janissaries causing severe casualties to the Mamluk forces. The Turkish cavalry then charged forth, riding down and shattering the Mamluk infantry body. As the Mamluks retreated, the Turkish advance became somewhat disorganized, and the Mamluk cavalry slammed into the center of the overexposed Turkish advance. Splitting the Turkish army in two, the frontward half was cut to pieces. At the end of the first day of battle, some 10,000 Mamlukes had been killed and captured with about an equal number of Turks.
At the commencement of battle on the second day, both sides opened with prayers in the direction of Mecca. The Mamluks, possessing superior numbers, attempted to outflank the Turkish army 10 miles to the right of the Turkish lines. However, once again the Turkish artillery prevented the Mamluks from further advance dealing heavy losses to the Mamluk army. The Turkish cavalry attempted to seize the initiative and did so quite effectively. Riding down and dispersing the Mamluk cavalry, the Turks had a straight line to the main Mamluk encampment where Sultan Abraham Burji was standing. Fearing for his life, the Mamluk sultan fled the field anticipating defeat. The Turkish cavalry chased after him, but were gunned down by the six Mamluk artillery pieces and royal guard. When the Mamluk infantry broke however, the battle ended in the pyrrhic Turkish victory. The Turks had lost some 14,000 men in the battle, and the Mamluks nearly 20,000. Despite the victory at Aleppo, the Turks were routed north of Damascus about 4 weeks later – bringing both sides to the negotiation tables. Settling on an un-advantageous peace for both sides, the Third Syrian War ended just like the past two – neither side could claim true victory. The Mamluks however, were probably the closest thing to a winner, as they held back the Turkish invaders even if at great losses.
The Battle of Aleppo, a slaughter of Mohammedans upon Mohammedans was something that surely made Muhammad weep. The Syrian Wars forced Turkish expansionist ambitions back west to Greece, and soon enough, the Turks were set on besieging Constantinople once more.
The Third Syrian War is important for John X for the fallout that befell him and the Roman Empire as a result of the failed Turkish conquest. Although Theodoras was still emperor during the war between the Turks and Mamluks, by the time John ascended to the throne the Turks attention of conquest in Syria turned once more to Greece and Constantinople. Believing that the young emperor was inexperienced, and he certainly was, and that the empire was politically, economically, and militarily weak after the civil war that ended in Theodoras’s death – the Turks re-assembled their armies and prepared for another war against the Romans. Hoping this time would be the final deathblow against the heirs of Augustus, the Turks formally invaded the Roman Empire in April 1500. Emperor John was but 16 years old at the time, and faced his first major crisis.
The Turkish army was well-equipped and battle-hardened. Numbering at some 40,000 professional soldiers under arm. The Roman Army was half that size with a standing at only 16,000 strong, of which about half were mercenaries under the command of the various ranking nobles in Greece and their loyalty was also suspect (not to say that the normal Roman soldier's loyalty outside of John's new Imperial Guard were equally suspect). Although, for the first time since the Komnenoi Dynasty, the Roman navy was larger than their Mohammedan foe (but smaller than that of the Mohammedan Egyptians) – the real war wasn’t to be fought on the waves of the Mediterranean but the hills and plains of Greece. Rather than wait behind the walls of Constantinople, John sallied forth and marched out of the city – boldly taking the fight straight to the Turks at Adrianople. Another Turkish-Roman War had begun.
[1]In Islamic Theology, Jesus has a Second Coming to bring forth the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment of humanity, the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (Paradise), and he will reign for 40 years. In that aspect, Islamic eschatology is very close to Christian views of the end-times, with the notable exception of Jesus only reigning for 40 years, as opposed to the Christian pre-millennial view of 1,000 years commonly found among Fundamentalist Protestant circles.
The Syrian Wars Between the Turks and Mamluks
The Mohammedan world at the ascent of John’s reign was in turmoil, with two great powers – the Turks and the Egyptians (Mamluks) in a titanic struggle against one another for control of Syria, which had long been contested by both kingdoms. The Mamluks were a band of slave warriors, mostly from Central Asia and the Caucasus that had risen to power in the land of the Pharaohs. Naturally however, there was a problem with dynastic succession – as Muslims were forbade from owning other Muslims as slaves. As Mamluks were slaves, the son of the sitting Mamluk ruler was never allowed, for his life would be that of slave, to become the next ruler of the dynasty, which often led to power struggles within the ranks of the Mamluks. The Burji Dynasty was named not after their first ruler, but after the barracks. The Burji Barracks in Cario, located an island in the middle of the Nile, was a mighty site to see, and a stronghold that the native Egyptians would not be able to crack.
The Mamluks have a rich military history. They had defeated French Crusaders in the thirteenth century, and had even turned back the Mongols after their sacking of Baghdad and destruction of the theoretically unified Mohammedan Caliphate. For some, they were the saviors of Mohammedanism. And that they most certainly were. By the fourteenth century, Egypt was the most economically rich and industrially developed region in the entire western world – Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. When Timur invaded Iraq and later threatened the Mamluks, the great philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun – acting as a sort of court diplomat, convinced Timur that the real riches of the Muslim world was in Turkey, and Timur and his army marched into the Turkish kingdom. At the Battle of Ankara, the Turks were dealt a severe blow – and this marked the beginning of the animosity between the two regimes, not to mention that the sitting Turkic Sultan had claimed the title of Caliph after the extinction of the title with the last Abbasid ruler, Al-Musta'sim Billah, who was trampled to death in a carpet by the Mongols when Baghdad fell.
The Mamluks, like the Turks, were a very tolerant and diverse people. Jews and Christians regularly held political office, even if they were rather menial and less important civil positions – which always went to Sunnis. The Mamluks themselves were not Egyptian, but as I stated, from various tribes and confederacies from the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia – the Burji were predominately Circassians. They ruled over Egypt benevolently, and had helped to foster one of the world’s greatest economies during their stewardship. In particular, the textile industry in Egypt was the world’s finest, and her products were sought not only in Europe, but as far away as Asia too.
The resolute nature of the Late Period Empire in preventing the Turks to capture Constantinople in the fifteenth century, and some of the gains they had made once again in Greece at their expense, caused the Turks to turn their attention southward into Syria where the powerful Mamluks had amassed at their border. Although the Koran forbids the killing of other Muslims, and both being Sunni, the power of politics and rivalries over territory, empire, and economics is always more powerful than religious codes and laws. The animosity was multifold: the Mamluks had directed Timur to attack them in Asia Minor, the two had a bitterly contested rivalry over Syria – of which only one of the two powers could maintain rule or conquer the region, the Mamluks saw themselves as the legitimate defenders of the faith in saving the theoretical caliphate from Christian Crusaders and the Mongol Horde; yet, it was the Turkic Sultan who claimed the title of caliph and the spiritual authority over all Mohammedans. And lastly, the attention of Turkish conquest was set to the Middle East after the failures to crack the walls of Constantine’s fabled city.
Between 1470 and 1495, the two powers were at a standstill over Syria. The Turkish fleet had been destroyed by the Mamluk fleet, who possessed the largest navy in the world by the end of the fifteenth century, including one of the greatest arsenals of heavy ships that would make England or France envious of the naval power and prestige of Egypt. Even the newly revived Roman fleet would fail in combat against the Mamluks and their heavy mast ships if war ever broke out between the two great empires. By contrast however, while the slave sultans of Cairo may have controlled the war at sea, the war on land was much more static and harsh, and probably favored the Turks over the Mamluks.
The Battle of the Alexandrian Coast, where the Mamluk fleet stunned the Turkish fleet and gave the Mamluks supremacy of the Mediterranean.
The Turks, unlike the Mamluks, possessed the most advanced military in the world. Armed with many cannons and firearms, and the world’s most elite fighting force – the Janissaries, the bloodbath in Syria between the two empires was disastrous to say the least. One of the problems for the Mamluks was the lack of responsiveness to use gunpowder weaponry, which was seen as a tool not befitting of the slave soldiers of their empire to actually arm themselves with – with the fear that they might turn these weapons against their masters and overlords.
During the Third Syrian War, 1494, the two empires were locked in their worst struggle yet. At Aleppo, an Army of 30,000 Turks and 36,000 Mamluks would meet at the field of one of the great ancient cities of a bygone world. The Turks had with them some 50 cannons, as opposed to just a handful of Mamluk cannons that were poorly equipped, armed, and commanded by ill-trained artillerists. The two day battle of Aleppo was one of the most brutal conflicts between Muslims since the Battle of Karbala, the infamous battle in which the Sunni-Shi’a split was heightened when 70 members of the Prophet’s family were killed by the Sunni Umayyads. Indeed, the high preponderance of horses and camels, guns, swords, spears, and arrows made the oncoming fight something out of the apocalypse. In fact, some of the millenarian Mohammedans, believing that the apocalypse was soon approaching, identified the battle as the event before the Final Judgment. This millenarian fever was something that created an even more tense atmosphere. The Turkic sultan even wrote:
This battle between those of us who are the true believers can only be seen through the lens of the Return of Christ and the inauguration of God's Kingdom and the final judgment upon humanity. The wholesale slaughter of believers like what is forthcoming, can only be justified in light of the end of history and the beginning of God's Kingdom on earth.[1]
The battle commenced with a large cannonade by the Turks, dispersing the Mamluk heavy cavalry allowing for a general infantry advance. The Janissary corps reached within 50 yards of the Mamluk infantry, most of whom were armed with swords and spears. As the Mamluks rushed forward, three deadly volleys of musket fire broke out from among the Janissaries causing severe casualties to the Mamluk forces. The Turkish cavalry then charged forth, riding down and shattering the Mamluk infantry body. As the Mamluks retreated, the Turkish advance became somewhat disorganized, and the Mamluk cavalry slammed into the center of the overexposed Turkish advance. Splitting the Turkish army in two, the frontward half was cut to pieces. At the end of the first day of battle, some 10,000 Mamlukes had been killed and captured with about an equal number of Turks.
At the commencement of battle on the second day, both sides opened with prayers in the direction of Mecca. The Mamluks, possessing superior numbers, attempted to outflank the Turkish army 10 miles to the right of the Turkish lines. However, once again the Turkish artillery prevented the Mamluks from further advance dealing heavy losses to the Mamluk army. The Turkish cavalry attempted to seize the initiative and did so quite effectively. Riding down and dispersing the Mamluk cavalry, the Turks had a straight line to the main Mamluk encampment where Sultan Abraham Burji was standing. Fearing for his life, the Mamluk sultan fled the field anticipating defeat. The Turkish cavalry chased after him, but were gunned down by the six Mamluk artillery pieces and royal guard. When the Mamluk infantry broke however, the battle ended in the pyrrhic Turkish victory. The Turks had lost some 14,000 men in the battle, and the Mamluks nearly 20,000. Despite the victory at Aleppo, the Turks were routed north of Damascus about 4 weeks later – bringing both sides to the negotiation tables. Settling on an un-advantageous peace for both sides, the Third Syrian War ended just like the past two – neither side could claim true victory. The Mamluks however, were probably the closest thing to a winner, as they held back the Turkish invaders even if at great losses.
The Battle of Aleppo, a slaughter of Mohammedans upon Mohammedans was something that surely made Muhammad weep. The Syrian Wars forced Turkish expansionist ambitions back west to Greece, and soon enough, the Turks were set on besieging Constantinople once more.
The Third Syrian War is important for John X for the fallout that befell him and the Roman Empire as a result of the failed Turkish conquest. Although Theodoras was still emperor during the war between the Turks and Mamluks, by the time John ascended to the throne the Turks attention of conquest in Syria turned once more to Greece and Constantinople. Believing that the young emperor was inexperienced, and he certainly was, and that the empire was politically, economically, and militarily weak after the civil war that ended in Theodoras’s death – the Turks re-assembled their armies and prepared for another war against the Romans. Hoping this time would be the final deathblow against the heirs of Augustus, the Turks formally invaded the Roman Empire in April 1500. Emperor John was but 16 years old at the time, and faced his first major crisis.
The Turkish army was well-equipped and battle-hardened. Numbering at some 40,000 professional soldiers under arm. The Roman Army was half that size with a standing at only 16,000 strong, of which about half were mercenaries under the command of the various ranking nobles in Greece and their loyalty was also suspect (not to say that the normal Roman soldier's loyalty outside of John's new Imperial Guard were equally suspect). Although, for the first time since the Komnenoi Dynasty, the Roman navy was larger than their Mohammedan foe (but smaller than that of the Mohammedan Egyptians) – the real war wasn’t to be fought on the waves of the Mediterranean but the hills and plains of Greece. Rather than wait behind the walls of Constantinople, John sallied forth and marched out of the city – boldly taking the fight straight to the Turks at Adrianople. Another Turkish-Roman War had begun.
[1]In Islamic Theology, Jesus has a Second Coming to bring forth the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment of humanity, the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (Paradise), and he will reign for 40 years. In that aspect, Islamic eschatology is very close to Christian views of the end-times, with the notable exception of Jesus only reigning for 40 years, as opposed to the Christian pre-millennial view of 1,000 years commonly found among Fundamentalist Protestant circles.
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