by Alan Mikhail
Selim’s forces attack ‘Ala’ al-Dawla
With his war preparations moving on apace, Selim sent a warning shot across the Mamluks’ bow. Acting on reconnaissance from Khayr Bey in Aleppo, Selim dispatched a small battalion to attack one of the Mamluks’ proxies in the buffer zone of southeastern Anatolia. In June, Ottoman forces easily seized the territories of a group they had previously armed, the Dulkadir tribal confederation, capturing ‘Ala’ al-Dawla, its leader. As a not-so-subtle message of aggression, and a continuation of the imperial gift-giving tradition, Selim sent ‘Ala’ al-Dawla’s head to Sultan al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, in Cairo. To leave no room for misinterpretation, and to follow proper diplomatic protocol, Selim pinned to the severed head a formal declaration of war.
NOW THAT SELIM’S INVASION was clearly a question of when rather than if, al-Ghawri bolted into action. Like Selim, he organized his troops and readied their weapons; he also sent a mission to Shah Ismail’s court to raise the possibility, which he had so recently rejected, of a Mamluk–Safavid alliance against the Ottomans. A year after the ignominy at Chaldiran, Ismail was able to stay sober long enough to outline plans for a joint military force; however, the envoy al-Ghawri sent to the Safavid court happened to be another of Selim’s spies. Even as Ismail prepared to dispatch troops to al-Ghawri in the spring of 1516, Selim sent another threatening letter to the Mamluk sultan, informing him that he knew all about his “secret” plans with the Safavids, calling him a stupid coward, and adding for good measure that he would soon destroy the Mamluk Empire.
Startled by the letter, al-Ghawri resolved to move his troops north toward the border as soon as possible. The sooner he reached the theater of war, he wagered, the more advantageous a position he could stake out. Preparations proved complicated, however, which stalled his departure from Cairo. To raise the huge army that war in Syria would demand, al-Ghawri required every village to supply men for the expedition, with peasants and merchants alike conscripted. Not surprisingly, such coercion spurred many to flee, which sowed chaos across the empire and exacerbated shortages in the rural labor pool needed for food production. And, even as less food was being harvested, al-Ghawri demanded a larger share of it than usual for the state. On the rampage, soldiers seized horses from government mills as well as from those owned by villages. Without horses, the mills could not turn, leading to a scarcity of flour throughout Egypt and Syria. And without flour, there was no bread. All of this contributed to a situation of near-famine that devastated towns from Cairo to Anatolia.
Moreover, given general mismanagement and the massive outlay required to combat the Portuguese in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the Mamluk treasury in those years was starved for cash. This meant that most soldiers were paid with promissory notes—clearly not a recipe for inspiring a loyal fighting force. Conscripts regularly mutinied, deserting their camps and often seizing food to take back to their villages.
Next came distressing news from Iran. The Safavid forces that Ismail had promised to al-Ghawri’s envoy—the one who doubled as Selim’s spy—would not be arriving after all. Morale was simply too low after Chaldiran to muster an adequate number of troops, and the few soldiers who did begin the march southward could not make it past the Ottomans’ fortified line at Diyarbakir. After centuries of uneasy rapprochement, the Mamluks—underresourced and undermanned—would have to go it alone against their far more formidable Ottoman adversary.
CHAPTER
19
CONQUERING THE NAVEL
Battle of Marj Dabiq
DESPITE ITS ENORMOUS RELIGIOUS AND HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE for all of the Middle East’s major faiths, Jerusalem in the early decades of the sixteenth century was a minor town with a minuscule population of fewer than six thousand souls. Over centuries of attempted Crusades, European Christians had only briefly been able to control the city, which had been ruled by Muslim powers since 638, a mere six years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Although the Crusader Columbus ultimately never set foot in Jerusalem, he had long sought to seize the holy city—a project he pursued with not inconsiderable zeal, but as it turned out, on the far side of the Atlantic. Selim would soon succeed where Columbus and nearly all other Crusaders had failed—he conquered Jerusalem.
AFTER SEVERE DELAYS, THE Mamluk sultan al-Ghawri led his army out of Cairo on May 17, 1516, aiming for Jerusalem as his first major encampment in Syria. Before leaving the capital—which was gripped in those years by a series of plague outbreaks, on top of the food shortages and fiscal crisis—al-Ghawri had designated one of his senior advisers, Tuman Bey, as regent during his absence.
Trying to minimize the effects of the blazing hot early summer sun, al-Ghawri and his troops crossed the Sinai peninsula’s landscape of orange sandstone and tawny gravel mostly at night, and mostly along the Mediterranean coast, away from the region’s treacherous canyons and quicksand, and its notorious bandits. By the middle of June they had arrived at Jerusalem and were camped outside its walls.
As rulers always did when passing through Jerusalem, al-Ghawri took the opportunity to pray at the Dome of the Rock and other mosques in the city, and to visit its historic sites. Meanwhile, his men gathered all the provisions they could, and enjoyed the cool waters of the ponds and streams nearby. After what the troops probably felt was too short a respite, al-Ghawri continued the push north toward the Ottoman border. Along the way, he maintained a policy of forcibly seizing food, resources, and men. As in Egypt itself, this of course did not endear him to the local population. Still, he deemed brutal coercion his most effective means of raising an army quickly and then supporting it.
His next stop was Damascus, a rich city of soaring arches featuring expensive designs of alternating black basalt and white limestone. Damascus, with its estimated ten thousand households, had always been loyal to the Mamluks, and mounted massive ceremonies to welcome al-Ghawri—although the festivities failed to lift the somber fog of looming war wafting through the city’s narrow, curving streets and tunneled thoroughfares. When, as was the custom, the city’s European merchants threw gold and silver coins at the feet of the sovereign, some of al-Ghawri’s underpaid and starving conscripts lunged at the money, almost toppling the Mamluk sultan from his horse. Like the soldiers, the people of Damascus felt the desperation of that ruinous summer too, as al-Ghawri monopolized resources and manpower for his total-war preparations.
On July 10, nearly two months after departing Cairo, al-Ghawri finally arrived at Aleppo, where he planned to set up his headquarters. One of the oldest cities in the world, founded in the third millennium BCE, Aleppo is strategically located between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. Its most prominent religious site, the Umayyad mosque, dates to the eighth century and claims to house the remains of the father of John the Baptist. (Its famed minaret, once one of the highest points in the city, was constructed in 1090 and destroyed in 2013 during the Syrian Civil War.) The weary Mamluk soldiers ran amok through the twisting lanes, commandeering and looting houses, stealing from the marketplace, monopolizing vital resources, raping and killing. Thus, Aleppo felt more like an occupied city than one hosting its imperial army before triumphantly sending it off to war. As they prepared for battle, al-Ghawri and his officers had no inkling that the governor of the city had turned on them and aligned his fortunes with the Ottomans.
While the Mamluks were making their way north, Selim began his own undulating march south. He instructed one of his top generals in the east—a trusted military adviser from his Trabzon days—to mobilize as large a contingent of troops as possible and to rendezvous with him at Elbistan, a former stronghold of the Dulkadir confederation about 180 miles north of Aleppo. Selim reached Elbistan, on the banks of the churning Ceylan River, on July 23; the auxiliary forces materialized a week later. Now on opposite sides of the buffer zone, Selim and al-Ghawri dispatched embassies trading offers, insults, and threats. Each had the same message for the other: surrender or die. Neither sovereign, of course, was particularl
y eager to do either, and both killed several of the other’s envoys. Now, in late July 1516, far from their capitals, after months of mobilization and back-and-forth vitriol, war was imminent.
On July 30, word arrived in Selim’s camp that the Mamluk army was on the move toward his position. The departure of al-Ghawri’s troops for the battlefield was decidedly inauspicious. The people of Aleppo cursed and jeered the Mamluk sultan and his army as they marched out through the gates, berating the soldiers for the havoc they had caused. As Aleppo faded behind them, rumors began swirling among al-Ghawri’s advisers that Khayr was a traitor, supplying information to the Ottomans and providing safe haven to Ottoman sympathizers. Could this explain why the residents of Aleppo were allowed to treat the Mamluk army with such disrespect, unchecked by the city’s authorities? Al-Ghawri was unsure what to believe, but he could not allow this to distract him from the unstoppable momentum toward war.
On August 5, Selim delivered a rousingly inspiring speech before leading his army out of Elbistan. From his campaign in Georgia through to his victory at Chaldiran, he had learned that the key to success on the battlefield was keeping his soldiers motivated and fortified. Thus, he rode back and forth through the ranks, looking into the eyes of as many of the men as he could. God, he told them, wanted them to crush the Mamluks, wanted them to seize his holiest cities for the Ottoman Empire. Before they could reach Mecca and Medina, though, Syria awaited them, with its beauties and riches, and Jerusalem with its mosques and spiritual blessings. Mamluk subjects, Selim assured his men, wanted Ottoman rule. As he had always done, Selim promised his soldiers not only victory but also the full spoils of their conquests.
He also told his professional soldiers the truth, and they took heart: they were better equipped than the Mamluks, their guns and cannons technologically superior to the armaments the enemy possessed. The Ottomans had gained valuable knowledge of firearms from their wars in the Balkans, and also from Jewish gunpowder experts who had fled to the empire from Spain after 1492. The rout at Chaldiran had been proof of the supremacy of Ottoman artillery. By contrast, the feeble Mamluk army, debilitated by previous failures, was staggering under the weight of its own ineptitude. Against them, Selim assured his men, they were supremely focused and sharply trained, battle-tested and battle-ready.
As the crushing heat bore down, Selim’s forces carried their weapons, morale, and expectations of glory across the rolling hills, occasional plains, and treacherous mountain valleys between Elbistan and Aleppo. In mid-August, they neared Aintab, about a hundred miles north of Aleppo, where they met a small advance force of Mamluk soldiers. After a brief skirmish, the Ottomans beat them back, taking a few prisoners. Selim continued pushing southward, onto the fertile soils of northern Syria. On the evening of August 23, 1516, they reached Marj Dabiq, about thirty miles north of Aleppo, where the Mamluk army awaited them.
THE NEXT MORNING, a Sunday, the two armies collided on the flat plains of Marj Dabiq, with metal biting into flesh, blood dripping to earth. The fighting lasted from first light to late afternoon. Although both sides brought approximately sixty thousand men to the battlefield, only about fifteen thousand of the Mamluk force were trained professionals. The rest were conscripts: a hodgepodge of merchants, disgruntled peasants, mercenaries, and townsmen, many with questionable commitment. A number of them did whatever they could to shirk combat altogether—deserting, avoiding the front lines, even maiming themselves. Those who did fight were woefully untrained, with no idea how to load a musket or align in battle formation, or even how and when to retreat. As Selim had predicted, the Ottomans’ superior technology carried the day, supporting waves of cavalry as they mowed down the Mamluks’ pathetic forces. As had happened at Chaldiran, the blasts of the Ottomans’ cannons and guns spooked the Mamluks’ horses, which bucked and bolted in every direction. The horsemen, too, lacked training and experience. For the Mamluks, the scorching August day was nothing less than grisly chaos.
Around noon, with battle raging, the duplicitous Khayr requested entry to Sultan al-Ghawri’s tent. Beyond all of the extremely valuable information Khayr had fed to the Ottomans over the years, it was in this moment that his treason best served Selim and his army. Khayr informed the Mamluk sovereign—technically still his own sovereign—that the Ottomans had surrounded the Mamluk army and would soon be closing in. According to Mamluk sources, Khayr recommended surrender as the only way for al-Ghawri and his commanders to survive. Given his suspicion of Khayr’s loyalties, al-Ghawri viewed this information warily. But whether or not Khayr told the truth, and whether or not al-Ghawri believed him, was irrelevant. Word of Khayr’s message spread quickly. Rumors swirled: the Mamluks were trapped; a massive bloodbath was about to occur; escape was now impossible. The troops—professionals as well as irregulars—panicked, and most fled for their lives. By early afternoon, the Mamluk army had been devastated; the few soldiers who managed to stay alive into the late afternoon then cleared out as quickly as they could. As the ascending gunsmoke mingled with the kinetic light of a summer evening, what had been a day of screams and explosions on the Marj Dabiq battlefield dissolved into a night of eerie quiet. In the crepuscular haze, all that remained were Mamluk corpses and the moans of the mortally wounded.
One of the corpses was that of their leader, Sultan al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri himself. When his soldiers first started to desert the fight, he had tried to stop them. “This is the moment to take heart!” he implored them. “Fight, and I will reward you!” But his attempts at inspiration failed. Nearly alone on the battlefield and exhausted by the relentless August heat, the seventy-five-year-old al-Ghawri recognized that his empire was slipping away. According to the most detailed account of his death, by the Mamluk chronicler Ibn Iyās, al-Ghawri “was gripped by a sort of paralysis [perhaps from a hernia] that affected the side of his body, and his jaw dropped open. He asked for water, which was brought to him in a golden goblet. He drank some, turned his horse to flee, advanced two paces, and fell from his saddle.” His body hit the ground and lay motionless. As the Ottoman cavalry galloped forward, celebrating the victory Selim had promised them, their horses’ hooves trampled the Mamluk sultan—just another anonymous, half-buried body in the dirt.
The next day, August 25, as the sun rose shimmering in the east, the extent of Selim’s victory proved stunning. Al-Ghawri had met an ignominious end; his fighting force was gone; most of his empire’s top administrators had been killed, including the governors of Damascus, Tripoli, Safed, and Homs. Now, all of Syria, with its rich markets, agricultural lands, and strategic significance, lay before Selim, undefended. The tattered Mamluk Empire, alive though it remained, had been pummeled and injured, mortally so.
THE MAMLUK ARMY’S HUMAN shards dragged themselves back to Aleppo from Marj Dabiq. Towing their weapons, their maimed, and their frayed spirits, they approached the city’s outskirts starving and battered. Their clothes hung from them like Spanish moss; some had no shoes. Spotting the bedraggled soldiers in the distance, the people of Aleppo—led by Khayr Bey, who was now openly professing his allegiance to the Ottomans—closed the city’s nine massive wooden gates against them. The hapless soldiers would have to beg for refuge elsewhere. Aleppo had become an Ottoman city.
After years of depredations under Mamluk rule, the residents of Aleppo eagerly recognized Selim as their legitimate ruler. On August 28, the gates were thrown open so that he could make his triumphant entrance: a parade of exuberant soldiers, drummers, and cannons. That week, Friday prayers in the city’s mosques were said in the Ottoman sultan’s name.
In Aleppo’s central citadel, Selim received Khayr, his spy, and a key to his victory. Perched on a hill and surrounded by its own moated wall, and with only one entrance, the citadel was the city’s crown jewel and one of the oldest continuously inhabited structures on earth. Whoever controlled the citadel controlled Aleppo. Selim thanked Khayr in front of the city’s elite and welcomed him into the imperial administration as the first Ottoman gov
ernor of Aleppo. The two then sat down with Selim’s military commanders to review the Ottomans’ current war footing, plot future strategy, and appoint officials to root out any lingering Mamluk supporters in the city. All of Aleppo’s vast wealth—its long-distance trade connections from West Africa to Southeast Asia, its rich bazaars dealing in textiles, spices, and metalwork—now came under Ottoman control. Selim also took possession of the gold, silver, food, arms, and supplies that al-Ghawri had commandeered on his way to Aleppo and stashed in the citadel before he set off for battle, and distributed it to his soldiers as a reward for their victory and motivation for what lay ahead.
Before leaving Aleppo, Selim put into place the bureaucratic and legal structures of Ottoman governance that would bring the city and its neighboring regions squarely under the empire’s rule. Governors, judges, tribal chieftains, and notables from surrounding towns and villages arrived by horse and mule and on foot to pay their respects to the forty-five-year-old sultan. In return for their promised loyalty, Selim allowed most of them to keep their positions. Kurdish and Turkmen tribes in the area, and the rulers of cities such as Malatya, Aintab, and Raqqa, all recognized Ottoman sovereignty and agreed to pay tribute to the empire in exchange for protection. Selim also sent a military detachment to the Safavid border as a show of force, to dispel any notion that the Ottoman–Mamluk conflict somehow rendered Syria or Anatolia vulnerable to attack.