by Dan Davis
It was a failure of leadership, of course. The Saracen soldiers were perfectly capable of mounting a sustained defence, if only they could be directed to do so. They claimed that there had been fifty thousand soldiers in the city, and the place was so vast that it was certainly possible that had been the case before up to twenty thousand of them were drowned north of the city. But the thirty thousand remaining could have formed a core, and with citizens armed and organised, they could have put up stout resistance even in the face of such a multitude of savages outside.
But there was not the will to do it.
For instance, for many days while under bombardment, the Mongol mounted archers rode in their hundreds to the walls and shot arrows over the tops of them into the streets. Tied to these arrows were tightly rolled pieces of paper, upon which messages had been written in good Arabic. These messages promised safety to the people of the city if only they would surrender.
In response, the Saracens loosed a few half-hearted volleys back at the horsemen each time but that was all. No one organised a force to seize these messages before they could be read.
“Give me a horse and I will ride out and fight them,” I said, to the captains at the gates, not because I would actually do it but in the hope of shaming them into taking action. Of course, I was ignored, or driven off. I could see in their eyes that they had already lost the battle in their minds.
The city was battered, uninterrupted, day after day, for an entire week. A bombardment of stones, and explosives that shook the walls and the people to their roots. Those outer walls and buildings slowly crumbled, and so did the remnants of the people’s will.
Escape from the city was impossible. The wide Tigris, flowing as it did through the outskirts of the city, appeared to present the best hope of slipping away. But everyone could see how the river was blocked upstream by the pontoons that the Mongols had built so their troops could flow between both sides of the city. Downstream, it was plain that the shores were patrolled by masses of horsemen who certainly watched closely for people to try to float away by one means or another.
Every day, the caliph or someone serving him sent messengers out from the gate. The rumour was that the caliph was now begging to be allowed to surrender the city. But every day, the messengers returned and the bombardment continued without let up. The caliph had left it too long. Hulegu, I was sure, would never now be turned from the blood-letting that awaited him once the machines of his enslaved Cathay engineers broke through the walls.
The focus of the bombardment was on the eastern wall.
That eastern portion of the city was quite distinct and separated from the rest of Baghdad by the River Tigris that snaked in between in a pronounced curve. Although the walls were said to be over a hundred years old, they were three miles in length, massively built and studded with strong towers. It was not a weak point in the defences. For all their faults as a people, the Saracen builders had designed it well. Joining the eastern section of the city and the rest was three bridges. So even if the Mongols took the east, they would still have to fight across the river. No easy feat.
And the eastern part of the city would surely be fought for. It was newer than the core of the city and contained a beautiful royal palace, and their law college known as a madrassa, as well as the ubiquitous canals and holy buildings.
Masses of Mongol forces converged on that eastern side behind their massive counterweight trebuchets. The troops camped in good order, waiting, and waiting for the walls to crumble, for the towers to fall.
***
“What if all this focus on the eastern wall is merely to divert our attention away from the real direction of the assault?” Stephen suggested as we planned our ambush in the shade of a row of ornate low palms by a narrow canal.
It was a cold day for the lands of Babylon but perfectly comfortable for an Englishman. Indeed, it was warm enough to be comfortable sitting on the paved floor in no more than long Saracen tunics. It would have been a peaceful place, but for the garrison troops sitting and standing in groups all around, just as we were, many in a state of high agitation.
There was also the regular resounding boom of projectiles smacking into the massive, thick walls out of sight to the northeast about a mile away from us.
“Why break a wall,” Hassan said, “only to ignore the breach?”
“To concentrate the Saracen defences here, so the walls elsewhere can be scaled at will before the defenders can cross the city.” Stephen was rightly suspicious of Mongol trickery. “Diversionary assaults are a common tactic, are they not?”
“That is true,” I said, well aware that tens of thousands of men surrounded each side of the city. Any one of the enemy armies would be enough to overwhelm the Saracens within, if they did it correctly. “Let us take a look at it again, shall we?”
Abdullah unrolled the map of the city that he had procured for us and spread it on the floor between us. It was by no means a highly refined document and was seventy years old but it served its purpose well enough. The Tigris snaked and arched through the map, dividing the eastern quarter from the ancient Round City beyond the western bank of the river.
The Round City had three concentric walls, cut through by four roadways leading out from the centre, with gates in the walls. The gates and roads divided the city into quarters, and each gate pointed in the direction of the lands for which it was named. There was the Syrian Gate on the northwest, which led to Damascus. The Basra Gate opposite would lead a man along the route of the Tigris. Southwest was the Kufa Gate, named after the great city on the banks of the Euphrates. And northeast, closest to the river and the eastern quarter beyond, was the Khurasan Gate that led to Persia.
A man travelling into the Round City would proceed along a plumb-straight roadway, walled upon either side, all the way into the open centre. Along the road, he would pass through three gatehouses, in order to pass through the three concentric walls. These gates were like small forts in themselves. Like squat towers. Passing through them was like entering a cool, dark tunnel. There were doors at either ends of the tunnel, with an iron portcullis in the middle. An attacking army would have to fight through that corridor, while defenders above could shoot arrows and throw God-knows what else down on the poor bastards fighting their way along it, step-by-step.
No doubt the Mongols would do it, though. They might force their prisoners through first, then send their Turkomen and Georgians in. Hulegu had enough men to spend a thousand on each gatehouse.
The Round City was a marvel of a design, truly. A work of mathematical precision. Easy for an engineer to draw upon parchment, I suppose, but the Saracens had actually made the thing from stone. And the Round City was vast, filled with homes, mosques, palaces, gardens, pools.
“Where are we now?” I asked.
Abdullah tapped a point across the river in the eastern quarters. “Here. You see, this is the road to the bridge. On the other side is the Palace of Khuld, then the Round City via the Khurasan Gate.”
“Stephen? Did you survey the bridges?”
“As they are pontoon bridges, they can be easily cut if the Mongols attempt to cross by them from the east and so we would find ourselves cut off. We should remain on the western side of the Tigris when the attack proper comes.”
“The eastern city will almost certainly be attacked first,” I said. “William will come. I believe it. Like a feral dog to a carcass, he will be drawn inward and then we shall draw him to us. They will breach the walls in one place or many on the east.” I jabbed my finger into the eastern quarter, where we sat. “Where is the square where we lay our ambush?”
“It is here,” Abdullah said, placing his finger between the outer and middle wall of the Round City.
Hassan let out a long sigh. “It is a wonderful place to lay an ambush, Richard. But getting away from there will surely be almost impossible.”
“I am certain you have it right, Hassan,” I said. “But how likely is it any of us can escape from
this city with our lives?”
It was not something we had spoken of overly much, but we all knew it was the truth. Eva caught my eye for a moment with a look that was full of meaning. Fear, sadness. Perhaps even hope, or relief that we would at least die together.
Hassan coughed and stroked his beard. “As long as Hulegu Khan is dead, I shall die with peace in my heart.”
“Fine, fine,” I said. “Is the square close enough to the road that William or Hulegu could be drawn into it? Could they see a banner that we might hold aloft?”
Eva nodded. “A banner could be seen from there if the riders can see over the walls that run beside the road. We could make it more certain if the main road was blocked by something between the outer gatehouse and the middle one, then our square by the madrassa and the palace would be the most obvious route to ride through to go around the blockage.”
“Why not go the other way around a barrier?” I asked, tracing it with my finger on the map.
She had thought of that, of course. “A man can get through on foot but the archways in the wall on that side of the road are too low for riders. And Hulegu and William would be mounted, would they not?”
Of course.
“We draw his company into the square between the palace and the madrasa, yes?” I asked. “Thomas, Abdullah, did you find a way to the roof of the palace?”
The Templar nodded, a smile forming on his lips. “You would not believe it but there are no great lords within, now. Just Saracen soldiers lounging about. A few captains challenged us but Abdullah shouted them down, saying we served Feth-ud-Din and he would have them castrated if they obstructed us.”
“Good man,” I said. “And it overlooks the courtyard?”
“A section of the wall, perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high. As high as that tree over there with the dead palm leaf. But with clear view down into the square, yes, good for archers and perfect for javelins.”
“Could you jump down from that height?” I asked.
“I would rather not,” he said.
“I could,” Khutulun said. “So could Orus.” She muttered a translation to her brother, who nodded in confirmation.
“And it is possible to block the exits from the square?” I asked Eva.
“There are five ways in at ground level. Three pathways from the streets, and one leading into the madrasa.”
“That makes four,” I said.
She nodded. “A corner of the square overlooks a pool. There is a fence that I doubt any horse could jump.”
I looked at Hassan as I spoke because he had described how his fedayin would carry out such a murder. “We let his first soldiers through, then block the exits behind them, trapping Hulegu, William, and the others within. We attack from all sides.”
“Assuming Hulegu comes into the city,” Thomas said. “Which he will likely not.”
“Assuming William comes at all,” Stephen said.
“And the other immortals of Hulegu’s court,” Eva pointed out.
“Indeed, all of it is based on the assumption that William and Hulegu’s immortals will enter the Round City at all,” Stephen said. “And if they do, that they will use the Khurasan Gate.”
I snatched the map from the ground and rolled it up, growling at them. “We have thought it through as well as can be. Do not lose faith, you doubting fools. All will be well. Trust me, I have done such things many times. This plan will work perfectly.”
In fact, it would be a disaster.
***
The trebuchets slammed ton after ton of rock into the high, thick eastern wall. Stones in the wall shook with the impacts, then cracks between them began to form. Chunks of mortar and sandstone were chipped away, piece by piece, and the base at points along the long wall began to accumulate piles of rubble.
Enemy formations continued to ride close to the city and rain their arrows down onto the defenders up on the walls.
The Abbasid soldiers fought back from the wall, shooting arrows and throwing javelins. But the Mongol’s Turkomen infantry were sent forward to collect the massive piles of rubble and bring them back out beyond the suburbs to the irrigated fields where the trebuchets sat. Even though hundreds were killed in the process, the Turkomens were so numerous, and they worked so tirelessly, that they constructed a number of stone platforms out in the wet fields.
In less than a day, the trebuchets were brought forward onto these platforms. Hassan and Abdullah said it was to provide a solid base to spread the weight of the machines and stop them from sinking in the friable, fertile earth. Stephen suggested the extra height to which they were raised would increase the range and elevation of the projectiles the machines threw. I pretended to be unimpressed.
“Have you ever seen a siege progress this rapidly?” Thomas asked me on the third day.
“I have never seen anything like any of this,” I admitted.
I had ordered that my people stick together at all times. The common inhabitants of the city were suffering incredible fear, and although we were all dressed as Abbasid soldiers and Baghdad housed people from all over the world, some of us were quite obviously foreigners. That was not a safe thing to be in such a situation and we had to deal with everything from angry glances to arguments that had to be diffused, to being cornered by garrison troops and forcing our way free. Eva and Khutulun kept their faces and bodies hidden but still they were subjected to hungry looks every time we were on the streets. While we could not be all together all the time, I felt safest when I had Abdullah with us, because giving the plebeians an aristocratic tongue-lashing turned out to be one of his greatest talents.
Beyond the wall, the barbarians swarmed amongst the partially ruined suburbs that lined the crisscrossing canals and channels. The conurbations thinned and became the homes of the agricultural people in the distance, where the thousands upon thousands of barbarians had dug their camps.
“The benighted bastards are in a rare hurry,” Thomas said, shaking his head in wonder.
Enemy forces swarmed forward, under attack from the walls. A group of dozens and then hundreds began to form about half a mile along the wall from us. We could not see clearly, because of the towers and the buildings of the suburbs blocking the view. But we pointed out to each other the sight of ladders and ropes being brought forward.
“They’re making an attempt at the walls,” I said.
“Don’t think much of the Saracens, do they,” Eva muttered.
I knew what she meant. Chances of storming a well-manned wall were very low unless the defenders were to break and give up the position.
“They are used to their enemies running in terror,” I said. “The bloody bastards.”
“We should rejoice,” Thomas muttered very softly. “We should praise God that this, the greatest city of the Saracens, is destroyed.”
I glanced along the wall to where Abdullah stood, watching the attack with a face full of anguish. He still had family within the city, and although they had disowned him, he must surely have felt the terror that we all feel when our loved ones are in danger. His mother was old and useless to the Mongols. His brothers were minor functionaries and would surely be slaughtered. His sisters’ husbands would also be killed, and the women would be taken as slaves and forcibly married to some filthy barbarian, treated horribly and would be expected to bear him children until she died. If she was lucky.
“It is good that the city falls,” I said to Thomas. “And we are thankful to God. But where will these demons be stopped? Do you believe that Damascus will stand where Baghdad falls? Will Acre withstand this army?” I gestured at the uncountable horde that camped in companies as far as eyes could see. “Or even a quarter of it?”
“God will not allow Christendom to fall,” he said.
I nodded. “As He did not allow Jerusalem to fall? As He protected Spain?”
The Templar grew uncomfortable. “We must be worthy of His protection.”
I sighed. Theology was beyond me. “I hope He can see
we’re doing our bloody best.”
One of the towers far to the north along the wall flung a smoking projectile at the massed companies near the base of the wall. It slammed in amongst them and a great belch of flame bloomed to engulf dozens of men. It roared, like some demon. I imagined the agony, the screams. The survivors streamed away in panic, horses bolting. The Saracens on the wall cheered and Abdullah pounded a fist on the stonework.
“Can we not find a way to fight?” Abdullah asked, turning to me with tears in his eyes. “We could help fend them off, could we not?”
I felt a momentary urge to do just that. There was the smell of blood in the wind and then smoke with the mouth-watering scent of burning flesh. It would feel good to kill a few Mongols or their allies. Or Saracens, for that matter. But that was all a distraction.
“We have discussed this many a time,” I said to Abdullah. “We must stay the course. Our revenge is close at hand. Come. Watching this does nothing for us. There is still much to prepare. Come, Abdullah, come away.”
After less than a week, three breaches were created in the eastern walls and multiple towers fell.
The Mongols attacked the eastern walls by climbing up the rubble piles at the base of the breaches and the Abbasid garrison defended as best they could. Using their poorest troops first, the enemy sent hundreds at a time with ladders and ropes to scale the slopes and the standing walls at the sides of them, even while the trebuchets continued to send their stones crashing into the walls and towers. Most assaults were turned back with relative ease, with thousands of arrows pouring down on the Turkomens and Uyghurs. There were Saracens employed, also, many of them formerly of the Khwarazmian lands centred on Samarkand but also former allies from closer to Baghdad were employed. The Atabeg of Mosul and the Atabeg of Shiraz sent armies from their cities against the wall. Khorasani and Turanian troops threw themselves up the ladders, determined to break into the greatest city in the world and loot the caliph three ways from Sunday.