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The one power that finally managed to BEAT BACK the ruthless MONGOL invasions. With Prof. Nicholas Morton | Pt. 2 · The Smart Cookies podcast

• 0:04
  Yes, welcome back to the second episode on the
• 0:07
  Mongol conquest of the Near East with Professor
• 0:09
  Nicholas Morton, a historian from Nottingham
• 0:12
  Trent University and author of the amazing and
• 0:15
  amazingly readable book, The Mongol Storm, Breaking
• 0:18
  Empires in the Medieval Near East. Welcome back,
• 0:23
  Professor Nick. I'm sorry. Thank you. It's great
• 0:26
  to be back. You very kindly told me I can call
• 0:31
  you Nick, just so our listeners are not like,
• 0:33
  why is he so rude all of a sudden? Actually,
• 0:35
  we ended our last episode with a breathtaking
• 0:38
  hook. The arrival of the Mongol conquerors to
• 0:42
  this frenetic, fractured and complicated region
• 0:45
  filled with Christians and Muslims. regional
• 0:49
  powers of all kinds, such as the Crusader State,
• 0:51
  the Byzantium, the Seljuk Turks that were just
• 0:54
  subjugated at the end of the last episode over
• 0:58
  there in Anatolia, and then the Ayyubid Empire
• 1:00
  down in Egypt. But before we discuss what transpires
• 1:04
  next, I wanted to devote some time to war and
• 1:08
  military matters just for a second, because for
• 1:10
  much of the Mongol invasions... it seems like
• 1:13
  they're playing this game on God mode or something.
• 1:16
  They have a cheat code that is simply not accessible
• 1:19
  to their opponents, no matter what civilization
• 1:22
  they might be coming from. Be it medieval China
• 1:24
  or medieval Hungary, the Mongols just bulldoze
• 1:27
  everything in front of them. And even if they
• 1:29
  get defeated, like you mentioned in the first
• 1:32
  episode, they immediately come back to crush
• 1:34
  you. Now, reading your book, it becomes clear
• 1:37
  that a lot of that comes down to one... elementary
• 1:40
  civilizational aspect that we already addressed
• 1:42
  when talking about the Crusades. And that's the
• 1:45
  fact that there's a huge difference between medieval
• 1:48
  armies of an agricultural society, such as those
• 1:52
  of, I don't know, France or Egypt or China, and
• 1:55
  those of a nomad society, like the Mongols were.
• 1:58
  And that aspect is usually favoring the latter,
• 2:02
  isn't it? Yes. So if you were to ask people who
• 2:05
  they think were the most effective warriors in
• 2:09
  the medieval period, you'd probably get answers
• 2:13
  like Knights Templar. Yeah, because they just
• 2:17
  look cool and they're covered in this armor,
• 2:19
  you know, and we've seen them in movies and they
• 2:22
  look like some sort of a mechanical, unbeatable
• 2:26
  warrior figure. And they are very effective.
• 2:30
  You might also say the Bari and Mamluks from
• 2:32
  the Mamluk Empire in Egypt. These are all very
• 2:34
  effective warriors. It would actually be quite
• 2:37
  rare for someone to pick a Central Asian step
• 2:40
  -mounted archer, but they are the most effective,
• 2:44
  without doubt. They're born and raised to ride
• 2:49
  and shoot and hunt. They can source their own
• 2:53
  weapons and their own arrows from either their
• 2:56
  animals or from the natural environment around
• 3:00
  them. They can cross rivers. Their wagon cities
• 3:03
  basically mean they have no logistics. They bring
• 3:05
  their... um food with them they're incredibly
• 3:09
  hardy if they're victorious in battle they can
• 3:14
  fan out and cover enormous distances raiding
• 3:17
  and attacking and if they're defeated well they're
• 3:20
  all mounted they can get out of the way and in
• 3:24
  battle because they're all expert shots they
• 3:27
  can pour a barrage of arrows down on the slow
• 3:31
  -moving infantry forces of much of I don't know,
• 3:35
  China or Western Europe or the Muslim world.
• 3:38
  And these slow -moving forces can't catch them.
• 3:43
  So it's very, very hard to defeat Central Asian
• 3:47
  steppe archers. And this is why only a couple
• 3:51
  of centuries before the Mongols themselves, the
• 3:55
  Middle East had been conquered by another Central
• 3:57
  Asian power, the Seljuk Sultanate, very similar
• 3:59
  to the Mongols in many respects. And before that,
• 4:04
  you can identify all sorts of other steppe powers,
• 4:07
  whether that's the Avars or the Pechenegs or
• 4:10
  the Huns or others who have invaded agricultural
• 4:13
  societies around their margins. So, yeah, steppe
• 4:17
  archers are incredibly powerful and effective
• 4:20
  in battle, and they continue to dominate armies
• 4:23
  and the effectiveness of armies until the advent
• 4:28
  of advanced gunpowder weapons. in, say, the 17th,
• 4:32
  18th century, that sort of thing. So they dominate
• 4:35
  history for thousands of years. But Genghis Khan
• 4:40
  manages to create a war machine that's even more
• 4:44
  effective than that basic template. And he's
• 4:48
  got a number of military virtues. One of those
• 4:52
  virtues is the willingness to learn. So the Mongols
• 4:57
  realize early on that they're not actually that
• 5:00
  effective in siege warfare. So when they invade
• 5:04
  northern China, they go to great lengths to acquire
• 5:07
  as many siege engineers as possible who can manufacture
• 5:11
  massive siege crossbows or catapults for them.
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  The Mongols also acquired gunpowder technology.
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  And it's at this point in history that gunpowder
• 5:21
  technology spreads out from China to reach various
• 5:26
  places across Eurasia. So they're willing to
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  learn. And they're also interested in mixing
• 5:34
  their forces with other forces. So the Mongols
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  have a great liking for Georgian heavy cavalry.
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  The Georgians have no choice but to fight for
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  them because they've been conquered and subjugated
• 5:47
  by the Mongols. But what the Mongols like doing
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  is mixing Georgian lances with their own mounted
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  archers. because they can make the combination
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  work so again the mongols are learning they're
• 5:59
  adapting and evolving which makes them all the
• 6:03
  more dangerous and they're also hugely innovative
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  they work out different ways of conquering places
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  and one of the perhaps the most striking examples
• 6:13
  of this is when they besiege a town in the caucasus
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  just um just north of the caucasian mountains
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  they can't get into the town They haven't got
• 6:24
  any siege weapons. So they get lots and lots
• 6:27
  of livestock, animals. They take them under the
• 6:31
  castle walls and slaughter them and then pile
• 6:34
  more dead animal carcasses on top of the dead
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  ones until they build a ramp of dead animals.
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  And they climb up the ramp and get into the town.
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  Now, I'm not aware of any other civilization
• 6:45
  that's tried that, but it worked for the Mongols,
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  even if it was an incredibly grisly way of doing
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  it. So the Mongols do have this ability to acquire
• 6:56
  stratagems. And then perhaps overarching all
• 6:59
  these things is the biggest factor of all, which
• 7:04
  can be reduced to a single word. And that word
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  is winning. When you win once, you become encouraged.
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  When you win twice, you become very powerful
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  and confident. When you win a hundred times,
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  You know in your heart no one is going to stop
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  you. Now, there is a danger of overconfidence,
• 7:25
  but on balance, this seems to have been a major
• 7:28
  military asset, not just for you, but also because
• 7:32
  it means that your enemies also know that it's
• 7:35
  very, very hard to defeat you. And so they're
• 7:38
  backing off, even as you're advancing, even before
• 7:41
  they can see you. They don't want to fight you
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  because they know they're going to die. So why
• 7:47
  would they? Just to picture this a little bit
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  better, if you are a Knight Templar covered in
• 7:53
  this armor from head to toe and you have a big
• 7:58
  shield, what are arrows going to do? You may
• 8:00
  be slow, but I imagine these arrows are just
• 8:04
  like bouncing off of you and you just keep advancing
• 8:06
  until you reach your opponent. Yeah. A Knight
• 8:13
  Templar or Crusader Knight will have... a padded
• 8:17
  jacket, a leather sort of tunic, then the chain
• 8:22
  mail, then a shield, and then there will be similarly
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  a leather balaclava with a chain mail balaclava
• 8:28
  and then a helmet on top. They're very, very
• 8:31
  heavily defended. How much was this weighing,
• 8:34
  by the way? Oh, I have no idea. A lot. Yeah,
• 8:37
  yeah, yeah. So the rider is very heavily defended.
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  But here's the thing. The horse isn't. Right.
• 8:46
  Horse armor begins to come in in Western Europe
• 8:50
  in the late 12th century, and it becomes commonplace
• 8:54
  by the 13th. But there's plenty of horses that
• 8:58
  aren't armored, and Mongol arrows will make short
• 9:02
  work of those. And it also has to be said that
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  if you're hit with an arrow, and the Mongols'
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  arrows hit really hard because their bows have
• 9:12
  got enormous draw weight to them. It's not just
• 9:17
  about penetrating the armor. I have heard one
• 9:22
  historian explain how the blunt trauma of being
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  hit by an arrow, so just the sheer weight of
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  the impact, that will be enough to rupture your
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  internal organs, even if it doesn't pierce your
• 9:35
  armor. Wow, okay. Just the sheer impact of it,
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  because, of course, your armor won't prevent
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  a shockwave going into your body. The shockwave
• 9:43
  will pass through the armor. And it's for the
• 9:46
  same reason that when the Knights Templar fight,
• 9:50
  I don't know, their Turkish opponents, their
• 9:53
  Turkish opponents often equipped with double
• 9:56
  -handed maces because they've realized that the
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  Templar's armor is too thick to be easily broken.
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  So they don't try and break it. They just smash
• 10:06
  the Templar with a massive mace and that will
• 10:08
  break up their internal organs and kill them
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  with their armor intact. I was also... I'm intrigued
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  in the book by your observation that contrary
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  to our usual perception, the Mongols actually
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  didn't have an unlimited amount of soldiers.
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  You know, we imagine this giant endless swarm
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  that would just overwhelm simply on account of
• 10:29
  its mass. No, it was just that pretty much every
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  man in their society was a warrior, unlike in,
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  let's say, Christendom at the time, where pretty
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  much every man was a farmer. And then only a
• 10:39
  tiny number of the elite were fighters. The Mongol
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  civilization is not that big. The Mongols managed
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  to rule most of Eurasia with a total population
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  probably no more than two or three million. That's
• 10:52
  just a guess, but it's small, much smaller than
• 10:56
  the civilizations that they've conquered. But
• 10:58
  as you say, they're all fighters. Mongol women
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  also are trained to shoot and ride. They don't
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  typically form part of the main field armies,
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  but they can still fight if they need to. And
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  it's the women who rule the Mongols' massive
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  wagon cities. They're the ones who manage this
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  enormous infrastructure and operation of Mongol
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  society. And the wagon cities follow closely
• 11:23
  behind the armies, which means that once the
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  Mongols have conquered an area, they can consolidate
• 11:29
  their control very quickly because their civilization
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  moves directly behind them but yeah the mongols
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  civilization is not that big their armies can
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  be very big but even with a mongol army of let's
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  say a hundred thousand troops which by medieval
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  standards is massive they're still having to
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  hold down tens of thousands of square miles of
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  territory with comparatively few troops when
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  compared to the size of the underlying population.
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  Before we go back to the events in the Near East
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  after the Mongols have arrived, I have to ask
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  you this. I completely forgot before. There's
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  another very fascinating agent on the map here,
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  one that continues to be kind of the stuff of
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  legends and is still intriguing enough to inspire
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  a lot of pop culture today. I believe I've told
• 12:22
  you that I'm originally from Slovenia and the
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  most famous novel ever written by a Slovenian
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  author, his name was Vladimir Bartol, was called
• 12:29
  Alamut, After a Fortress. The book was also one
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  of the main inspirations for the video game series
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  Assassin's Creed. Both the novel and the video
• 12:39
  game obviously deal with the Nizaris who are
• 12:42
  known for their ingenious use of assassins, some
• 12:45
  sort of super effective Middle Eastern ninjas
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  of sorts. What's real and what's fiction here?
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  The Nizaris are... a branch of Ismaili Shia Islam.
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  And their roots go back a long time before the
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  Mongols, well over a century. And they are intensively
• 13:05
  persecuted in the Middle East by the region's
• 13:10
  Sunni authorities. And the region's Sunni authorities
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  are worried about them for two reasons. The first
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  is that they seem to be very effective at winning
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  new converts. but also because the way that they
• 13:25
  exert their influence is through, as you say,
• 13:28
  political assassination. And lots of leaders
• 13:32
  are very, very worried about this. For example,
• 13:35
  Saladin is so concerned about the dangers of
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  being assassinated by the Nizaris that on campaign
• 13:43
  he spends his nights in a wooden tower which
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  can be locked on the inside just to make sure
• 13:49
  no one can get in. And then outside that tower,
• 13:53
  there's a ring of soldiers, shoulder to shoulder.
• 13:56
  Outside that ring of soldiers is a second ring
• 14:00
  of soldiers. And even then, the assassins still
• 14:03
  almost managed to kill him twice. Oh my God,
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  you spend all this time and effort to become
• 14:07
  the sultan, and then it's the opposite of fun.
• 14:10
  I mean, you have to sleep in a wooden tower.
• 14:13
  Yeah, it's terrifying. The Nizaris are very,
• 14:15
  very effective at what they do. Now... The Nizaris
• 14:20
  have two main centers. There's one center in
• 14:22
  northern Syria, and there's one center in northern
• 14:26
  Persia, northern Iran. And you're right, one
• 14:29
  of the main strongholds is called Alamut. And
• 14:33
  the Nizaris are a major faction in that sort
• 14:35
  of northern Iranian region for a long time. And
• 14:39
  there's even reports at one point of them reaching
• 14:41
  out asking for help from the Mongols because
• 14:45
  Well, they've got enemies at home and the Mongols
• 14:48
  may not be as bad as their current enemies. So
• 14:50
  they're in an awkward position. But certainly
• 14:54
  by the time that we get to sort of the 1240s,
• 14:57
  1250s, the Mongols see the Nizaris as an opponent.
• 15:02
  There are rumors in circulation that the Nizaris
• 15:05
  have said they're going to kill the great Khan,
• 15:07
  which of course will not please the Mongols.
• 15:11
  And the third and final major wave of Mongol
• 15:14
  invasions into the Middle East takes place in
• 15:18
  1252, when a new great Khan called Munkar sends
• 15:24
  his brother Hulagu into the Middle East with
• 15:27
  the biggest army yet. And his task is really
• 15:32
  to destroy everything that's left. And so in
• 15:36
  1258, Hulagu destroys Baghdad. In 1260, Hulagu
• 15:43
  advances into Syria and takes Aleppo and Damascus
• 15:47
  and destroys the Ayyubid Empire. This is the
• 15:51
  final stages of the Mongols' third and most important
• 15:55
  set of invasions into the region. But before
• 16:00
  any of those conquests, the Mongols sack the
• 16:05
  Nizari strongholds in northern Iran, including
• 16:09
  Alamut. So yeah, this is a crucial moment for
• 16:12
  the Nizaris and they never get to kill a Mongol
• 16:15
  senior leader. Utterly fascinating. How is it
• 16:18
  possible to even sustain a tiny state or a kingdom
• 16:20
  with no army and simply with just a small sect
• 16:24
  of assassins, especially given the fact that
• 16:25
  they were surrounded, like you said, by these
• 16:27
  huge empires that in fact did have massive amounts
• 16:31
  of troops? So there are various things that work
• 16:35
  in the Nizaris' favor. assassination is obviously
• 16:40
  a major deterrent. Leave us alone or we'll kill
• 16:43
  you. But also, before the Mongols arrive in the
• 16:48
  region, for a long period, for over a century,
• 16:52
  Persia, Iraq, Syria, these were all parts of
• 16:57
  the Seljuk Empire. I've mentioned the Seljuks
• 17:00
  a little earlier. They were a previous wave of
• 17:03
  invaders from Central Asia. and they created
• 17:06
  a massive empire for themselves across much of
• 17:08
  the Middle East. But from about 1100 onwards,
• 17:12
  all the way through to the Mongol invasions,
• 17:17
  the Seljuk Empire fell apart into smaller fragments,
• 17:21
  emirates and different governors and different
• 17:23
  contenders for power fighting amongst themselves.
• 17:26
  And even the Khwarazmian Empire, the Khwarazmians
• 17:30
  began life as Seljuk governors. So they're a
• 17:34
  symptom of that fragmentation. Now, the Nizaris
• 17:38
  can thrive in this environment because all the
• 17:41
  factions around them are so busy fighting each
• 17:44
  other that they're not fighting them. So that
• 17:48
  plus assassination means that they can survive.
• 17:51
  And the Nizaris also create for themselves these
• 17:55
  virtually impenetrable castles on the top of
• 17:59
  mountains. So they're very, very hard to reach.
• 18:04
  And they can just hold out against attackers
• 18:06
  for many years in some cases. And it's rare that
• 18:10
  a neighboring faction can hold an army together
• 18:12
  for long enough to besiege and overthrow one
• 18:15
  of their castles. All right, let's get back to
• 18:18
  the main story, as it were. So at the end of
• 18:20
  the last episode, you explain how the Mongols
• 18:24
  subjugated the empire of the Seljuk Turks. And
• 18:29
  they don't seem like they were going to stop
• 18:31
  there, which must have flung all of these bordering
• 18:34
  Muslim and Christian states into a state of existential
• 18:38
  anxiety. What happens next? Yeah, so as I said,
• 18:43
  the next wave is unleashed in 1252. And that's
• 18:46
  the one led by Hulagu. He conquers the assassins,
• 18:50
  Baghdad, Syria, overthrowing the Ayyubids. overthrowing
• 18:56
  the Abizid Caliphate, overthrowing the Nizaris.
• 18:59
  And by this stage, the map of the Middle East
• 19:03
  is Mongol, basically. Much of the area is ruled
• 19:08
  directly by the Mongols. And what's left is basically
• 19:12
  client states. Armenia and Georgia, client states.
• 19:17
  Silesian Armenia, client state. And these are
• 19:20
  kind of smaller kingdoms, smaller Christian kingdoms,
• 19:22
  right? These are territories, whether Christian
• 19:24
  or Muslim, the Anatolian Seljuks are Muslim,
• 19:27
  who have agreed to acknowledge Mongol overlordship.
• 19:31
  Right. But these are not like empires or like
• 19:33
  big kingdoms. The Anatolian Seljuks are pretty
• 19:35
  big, but they've been invaded in 1243. The Byzantines
• 19:40
  also submit around this time, and they've tried
• 19:44
  to string out their negotiations with the Mongols
• 19:47
  for a very long time. But they see... This isn't
• 19:51
  going to work. They submit in the 1260s in this
• 19:54
  invasion. And so the map of the Middle East by
• 19:58
  this stage contains only two groups of powers
• 20:03
  that are still independent. One group is the
• 20:08
  Crusader States. Now the Crusader States consist
• 20:11
  of three states. The Principality of Antioch,
• 20:15
  which did submit to the Mongols in 1260, and
• 20:19
  further south, the county of Tripoli and the
• 20:22
  kingdom of Jerusalem. And they're tiny. They
• 20:25
  have no chance against the Mongols. Their response
• 20:28
  to the Mongols who are now on their frontier
• 20:31
  is to try and negotiate. And it seems as if they're
• 20:34
  hoping that by being friendly with the Mongols,
• 20:37
  they can avoid the need to actually submit. It's
• 20:42
  a fairly forlorn hope, but that's what they're
• 20:45
  trying to do. And the final empire, is Egypt.
• 20:50
  Now this requires a little bit of explanation
• 20:53
  because Egypt previously was ruled by the Ayyubid
• 20:57
  Empire, that Saladin's dynasty, but it's not
• 21:02
  anymore. And the reason for that is that the
• 21:06
  Ayyubids during the 13th century purchased large
• 21:11
  numbers of young men as enslaved people and they
• 21:16
  could purchase enslaved people in large numbers
• 21:20
  particularly from the black sea region because
• 21:23
  the mongols were selling them by the tens of
• 21:26
  thousands the mongols are conquering the entire
• 21:28
  area rounding people up taking them to the crimea
• 21:31
  and selling them as enslaved people to whoever
• 21:34
  wants to buy them and the egyptians buy lots
• 21:37
  of them the ayubids and so these enslaved people
• 21:41
  are brought in they are trained to become elite
• 21:43
  warriors and then they fight in the ayubid army
• 21:48
  But there comes a tipping point when these regiments
• 21:54
  of enslaved people called Mamluk regiments, when
• 21:57
  those Mamluk regiments become a little bit too
• 22:00
  big, a little bit too powerful, and they begin
• 22:04
  to realize that they don't have to follow orders
• 22:06
  at all. In fact, they're more powerful than anyone
• 22:09
  else. And so in 1250, while there's another major
• 22:14
  crusade going on in Egypt, the Seventh Crusade,
• 22:18
  The Mamluks very much are among those who win
• 22:22
  this campaign and defeat the crusading army.
• 22:25
  And immediately after the defeat of the crusading
• 22:28
  army, the Mamluks execute or murder the reigning
• 22:33
  sultan. And then soon afterwards, they take power
• 22:36
  for themselves to create one of the most extraordinary
• 22:40
  states of the medieval era, the Mamluk Sultanate.
• 22:44
  And it's extraordinary because it's a sultanate.
• 22:47
  ruled by enslaved people, ruled by the Mamluks.
• 22:52
  But the Mamluks are exceptionally capable warriors.
• 22:57
  And what makes them so interesting is that they
• 23:00
  are from Central Asia themselves. Because when
• 23:04
  the Mongols conquered Central Asia and before
• 23:07
  they sold these people in the northern coast
• 23:11
  of the Black Sea region, They had been raised
• 23:13
  as nomadic steppe nomads. So their culture and
• 23:17
  way of life and their warcraft is the same as
• 23:21
  the Mongols, except that being centered in Egypt,
• 23:26
  they have access to enormous wealth. So they
• 23:29
  can afford the best horses, the best equipment,
• 23:32
  etc. And this is the remaining empire. This is
• 23:36
  the last real bastion of true military strength
• 23:39
  in the Middle East. in 1260 when the Mongols
• 23:44
  arrive in the region. That reminds me of the
• 23:47
  Janissaries later on in the Ottoman Empire, no?
• 23:49
  That were also kind of extracted from, I don't
• 23:52
  know, the Balkans and then brought into modern
• 23:57
  -day Turkey and then made into these elite soldiers
• 24:00
  that had a lot of power. It's quite common among
• 24:04
  Middle Eastern empires of this era, particularly
• 24:08
  of Turkish. sultanates or emirates to have i
• 24:13
  mean the slave trade is everywhere in the middle
• 24:16
  east but the idea of having specific enslaved
• 24:19
  people as warriors that's very common in many
• 24:22
  empires from this era how come the the west the
• 24:26
  forces of western christendom never launched
• 24:29
  a crusade against the mongols particularly if
• 24:32
  these small crusader states were threatened like
• 24:36
  the kingdom of jerusalem for example Okay, so
• 24:39
  they do. Against the Mongols directly? Directly
• 24:43
  against the Mongols. So when the Mongols invade
• 24:46
  Hungary and Poland, the Pope launches a crusade
• 24:48
  against them. But although crusading forces do
• 24:53
  begin to gather, the crusading forces arrive
• 24:57
  in Hungary after the Mongols have already left.
• 25:00
  They're not fast enough, basically. But for much
• 25:03
  of the later 13th century, what's left of Christendom's
• 25:08
  defences in Eastern Europe. There are a lot of
• 25:12
  crusading indulgences. That indulgences is where
• 25:15
  the papacy offers remission of sins. So you're
• 25:18
  freed from your sins if you fight in holy war.
• 25:21
  Lots of indulgences are offered to the remaining
• 25:24
  defenders of Eastern Europe. The idea being to
• 25:27
  build up Eastern Europe's defences as much as
• 25:29
  possible. in case the Mongols come back. Now,
• 25:33
  they came back as raiders occasionally. There's
• 25:35
  a brief flurry of invasions, but there's no war
• 25:39
  of conquest, but they don't know that. So the
• 25:42
  papacy does work very hard to build up defenses
• 25:45
  in Eastern Europe. In the Middle East, there's
• 25:49
  not really an attempt to launch a crusade against
• 25:52
  the Mongols. And perhaps the reasons that, just
• 25:56
  if I could sort of bring the story forward a
• 25:58
  little bit, then I can explain why. Because the
• 26:01
  Mamluks, they do not have a particularly large
• 26:04
  army. They're very powerful. They're very good
• 26:06
  warriors. But they can probably manage about
• 26:09
  12 ,000 troops. Now, the Mongol invasion army
• 26:13
  into Syria in 1260 under Hulagu is about 100
• 26:18
  ,000 strong. And this is where the Mamluks do
• 26:23
  something a little bit strange. It's something
• 26:26
  that no one else did. And that is that they don't
• 26:30
  wait to be attacked. Now, normally, the way that
• 26:33
  other empires or kingdoms or sultanates respond
• 26:37
  to the Mongols is they do one of two things.
• 26:40
  They submit to the Mongols and therefore avoid
• 26:43
  being invaded. Or they conduct diplomacy with
• 26:46
  the Mongols. And when that diplomacy fails, they
• 26:49
  build up their defenses and try and defend their
• 26:51
  borders when the Mongols attack. But the Mamluks
• 26:55
  do something completely different. The Mongols
• 26:58
  send emissaries to the Mamluks, submit to us
• 27:01
  or we'll kill you, and the Mamluks execute the
• 27:04
  Mongol emissaries and shave the beards from the
• 27:06
  ones they spare, which is an enormous insult,
• 27:11
  massive insult. Usually not a good move, as we've
• 27:14
  discovered in the previous episode. Well, unless
• 27:17
  you are determined to resist, because if you
• 27:20
  do that, from that point, every single person
• 27:24
  in the Mamluk Empire knows... that there can
• 27:27
  be no negotiation. The only thing you can do
• 27:29
  now is fight, because the Mongols won't care
• 27:32
  what you say. They won't care if you submit.
• 27:34
  The level of insult you've offered means that
• 27:37
  you have to defend yourself, you have to fight,
• 27:39
  or the Mongols will kill all of you. And there
• 27:41
  is no other source of course of action here at
• 27:43
  all. But the Mamluks don't wait to be attacked.
• 27:47
  They gather their armies and march out to attack
• 27:50
  the Mongols, even as the Mongols are attacking.
• 27:53
  And there are various Mamluk emirs who are saying
• 27:56
  that this is obviously suicide. But nonetheless,
• 28:01
  it's what they do. And so they march out to fight
• 28:04
  the Mongols. And this is where events work out
• 28:07
  in their favor, because the Mongols aren't used
• 28:09
  to being attacked. They're the ones who attack.
• 28:11
  They're not attacked themselves. And so they
• 28:15
  don't take many precautions against this kind
• 28:19
  of situation. this moment the great khan in mongolia
• 28:24
  dies and so his brother hulagu has a strong incentive
• 28:28
  to get back to mongolia quickly or at least to
• 28:33
  be close to make sure his voice is heard for
• 28:37
  who's going to be the next mongol great khan
• 28:39
  so just as the mamluks are gathering their armies
• 28:43
  to attack hulagu leaves the middle east or he
• 28:46
  moves eastwards Sorry, not the Middle East. He
• 28:49
  leaves Syria into Azerbaijan to be closer to
• 28:52
  what's happening in terms of the Mongol succession.
• 28:57
  And he leaves behind a garrison of 20 ,000 troops
• 29:00
  in Syria to hold the area. The Mamluks don't
• 29:05
  know this, but the Mamluks advance first to the
• 29:08
  Crusader states. And they say to the rulers of
• 29:11
  the Kingdom of Jerusalem, fight with us against
• 29:14
  the Mongols. Pretty reasonable. It's reasonable.
• 29:18
  And of course, this is by no means the first
• 29:21
  time that Muslims and Crusaders have worked together.
• 29:24
  It's happened many times. So it's not unusual.
• 29:28
  And the kingdom of Jerusalem plays a cautious
• 29:31
  game. The rulers of the kingdom of Jerusalem
• 29:35
  say to the Mamluks, you can have, we'll provide
• 29:38
  you with food and we'll sell you horses. So we
• 29:41
  will assist you. But we won't fight alongside
• 29:45
  you because we don't think you're going to win.
• 29:47
  But you can see they're trying to sort of hedge
• 29:49
  their bets. Also pretty reasonable. If the Mongols
• 29:54
  win, the Mongols, we had nothing to do with it.
• 29:57
  And the Mamluks, well, the Mamluks then move
• 30:01
  on from the kingdom of Jerusalem. And it's then
• 30:04
  that they attack the Mongols near Lake Tiberias.
• 30:08
  That's the Sea of Galilee. And there's a battle
• 30:11
  between the Mamluk army and the Mongol garrison
• 30:13
  of 20 ,000 troops, which the Mamluks win. at
• 30:18
  a battle called Ain Jalut. It's commonly considered
• 30:21
  to be one of the most important battles in history,
• 30:24
  and it sort of is. But, of course, for the Mamluks,
• 30:28
  this is a tremendous victory. They've defeated
• 30:30
  the Mongols, celebration, all the rest of it.
• 30:33
  Just for clarification, they didn't defeat the
• 30:36
  entire 100 ,000 -strong army, just the garrison,
• 30:39
  right? The garrison. As you've already picked
• 30:43
  up, there is a problem with this victory, which
• 30:46
  is that, of course, the Mongols, as soon as they
• 30:48
  learn what's happened, Hulagu swears rapid revenge
• 30:54
  with the full weight of his army. So you could
• 30:58
  say, well, the Mamluks, their only achievement
• 31:00
  is to provoke the Mongols to see them as their
• 31:04
  primary enemy and to focus all their energies
• 31:07
  onto defeating the Mamluks. And so this is the
• 31:13
  crucial moment. The Mamluks are the only state
• 31:16
  left in the Middle East strong enough to fight
• 31:19
  the Mongols. And the Mongols have sworn that
• 31:22
  they will attack the Mamluks. It's the turning
• 31:25
  point of the whole thing. But there's another
• 31:28
  process at work here. And this is that when the
• 31:33
  Mongols conquer parts of the world, the various
• 31:38
  different imperial families, in the Mongol Empire.
• 31:42
  And those families are the descendants of the
• 31:45
  various sons of Chinggis Khan. So Chinggis Khan
• 31:49
  had several sons and Tuloy and Jebi and Ogedei,
• 31:55
  various others. And they all have their own dynasty
• 31:59
  attached to them. And the Mongol Empire is divided
• 32:02
  up into different zones of jurisdiction owned
• 32:06
  by various different families. So, for example,
• 32:10
  much of what we would call Russia and Eastern
• 32:13
  Europe is in the area of jurisdiction, or Ulu
• 32:17
  as they were known, of Jebi and Jebi's sons.
• 32:23
  The Middle East is also part of Jebi's Ulu. He,
• 32:28
  or Jebi, or to be more precise, Jebi's descendants
• 32:31
  by this point, consider the Middle East to be
• 32:34
  part of their jurisdiction. But when Hulagu...
• 32:38
  conquered the region. He's from a different Ulu,
• 32:41
  a different imperial family. And so the Golden
• 32:48
  Horde, as Jebi's descendants are known, they
• 32:52
  demand that Hulagu acknowledges that they are
• 32:55
  overlords to the Middle East. Hulagu has to recognize
• 32:58
  this is their territory. This is their part of
• 33:01
  the Mongol Empire. He has no right to call this
• 33:04
  part of the Middle East his own empire. They
• 33:07
  own it, so he has to acknowledge that he rules
• 33:10
  at their favor. But he refuses to do this. He
• 33:15
  refuses to acknowledge the Ulu of Jebi or the
• 33:20
  Golden Horde's overlordship. He even executes
• 33:24
  various commanders from that Ulu, and so it's
• 33:28
  going to be war. It's going to be war between
• 33:30
  the Golden Horde in the north, Jebi's Ulu, and
• 33:34
  Hulagu's territory in the Middle East that he's
• 33:36
  conquered, which becomes known as the Ilkhanate.
• 33:40
  And so just as Hulagu is swearing revenge on
• 33:44
  the Mamluks, and just as the Golden Horde is
• 33:47
  preparing to re -invade Hungary and Poland and
• 33:51
  Western Christendom, they go to war with each
• 33:54
  other. Another lucky break. A lucky break for
• 33:58
  the Mamluks, a lucky break for Western Christendom.
• 34:02
  And so for much of the next 20 years, the Golden
• 34:08
  Horde, Jebe's Ulu, and Hulagu's Ilkhanid in the
• 34:13
  south, they're fighting each other in the Caucasus.
• 34:16
  And that means that it's almost over 20 years
• 34:20
  before an army attacks the Mamluk Empire, because
• 34:24
  they're so busy and caught up with their own
• 34:26
  disputes. And so in the interim period, in that
• 34:31
  20 -year period, the Mamluks build up their trade,
• 34:35
  build up their defences. They massively fortify
• 34:38
  the line of the Euphrates River. They expand
• 34:44
  their army and they train their army by breaking
• 34:47
  down what's left of the Crusader states. So in
• 34:51
  the 1260s, while the Mongols are fighting each
• 34:53
  other, the Mamluks are pulling down all the Crusader
• 34:57
  castles. all the crusader cities until by around
• 35:00
  1280 there's only a few left and that's when
• 35:04
  the mongols re -invade and a much more significant
• 35:08
  battle takes place more significant in my opinion
• 35:11
  anyway at the battle of homs when the mamluks
• 35:14
  meet the full strength of the mongol field army
• 35:18
  which is thought to have been between 60 and
• 35:20
  80 000 troops the mamluks have about 30 000 troops
• 35:25
  and the Mamluks do manage to defeat the Mongols.
• 35:29
  And so that, in my view, that's the turning point
• 35:31
  battle, because the Mamluks meet the Mongols
• 35:33
  at full strength and defeat them. That's pretty
• 35:38
  impressive, I'm not going to lie. But if we can
• 35:41
  turn our attention to sort of the internal dynamics
• 35:44
  of these Mongol empires, now it's not just one.
• 35:48
  One extremely interesting thing that is perhaps
• 35:52
  counterintuitive was their, as you write in the
• 35:54
  book, sustained interest in the pursuit of science
• 35:57
  and learning. So when the Mongols conquered a
• 36:00
  city, they often spared the artisans and especially
• 36:03
  the intellectuals, even when they slaughtered
• 36:07
  everyone else. Not exactly a policy we would
• 36:09
  necessarily again associate with the so -called
• 36:13
  brute conquerors. Tell us more about that. Yeah,
• 36:17
  so again. I'm going to repeat what I said previously,
• 36:21
  which is the Mongols are exceptionally violent,
• 36:23
  but they're also highly organized. It's not just
• 36:26
  a horde of barbarians. It's not like that at
• 36:29
  all. I know, but also intellectuals will not
• 36:32
  exactly help you advance your military goals
• 36:36
  necessarily, right? Like theologians or astronomers.
• 36:40
  Well, the Mongols think they will. Okay, so it's
• 36:44
  more pragmatic than that. Okay. Yeah, fine. The
• 36:47
  Mongols want people who can be useful to them.
• 36:51
  So as you quite rightly say, when the Mongols
• 36:54
  conquer a city, they'll kill everyone except
• 36:58
  for the high quality artisans. So if you're a
• 37:01
  really good goldsmith or textile worker, or if
• 37:07
  you're really good at raising horses or you manufacture
• 37:09
  weapons, you will be spared. Your family won't,
• 37:13
  but you will be spared. You will be taken to
• 37:15
  another part of the Mongol Empire where you'll
• 37:17
  be set to work practicing your trade because
• 37:20
  the Mongols can see it's useful and the Mongols
• 37:22
  are interested in trade. Their initial invasions
• 37:26
  cause a huge amount of disruption to trade, but
• 37:29
  they're very keen to recover that trade as fast
• 37:31
  as possible soon afterwards because, like every
• 37:34
  single civilization that I've ever read about,
• 37:37
  they want to acquire as much money as possible.
• 37:41
  How many exceptions are there to that kind, to
• 37:43
  empires not wanting to have large amounts of
• 37:46
  money? But the Mongols, as you say, they're also
• 37:49
  interested in intellectuals, theologians, religious
• 37:54
  leaders, and what they want from them. Again,
• 37:57
  they're very practical in what they want. They
• 38:00
  want people to discover how to make alchemy work.
• 38:07
  And why wouldn't you? What government wouldn't
• 38:10
  want the ability to turn iron into gold? I mean,
• 38:14
  you would be unstoppable. Now, we know that's
• 38:17
  not possible scientifically. They don't know
• 38:20
  that. It hasn't been worked out yet. And lots
• 38:23
  of civilizations in Eurasia think that alchemy
• 38:26
  is possible. So that's one task. Another thing
• 38:31
  that they want, particularly from astrologers,
• 38:34
  so people who can read the signs in the stars,
• 38:37
  is they are working in the belief that astrology
• 38:40
  can genuinely tell the future and again what
• 38:44
  government wouldn't want people who can tell
• 38:48
  the future accurately for them and the mongols
• 38:52
  believe that astrologers can do that for them
• 38:54
  so they want people who can do that and at this
• 38:58
  point astrology is deemed to be a serious science
• 39:00
  like physics and biology and chemistry would
• 39:03
  be for us today And the other thing the Mongols
• 39:07
  want from medical experts is anything that can
• 39:10
  extend the life and prosperity of the Mongols'
• 39:14
  imperial family. Because, again, who wouldn't
• 39:18
  want to live double, three times a normal human
• 39:21
  lifespan? Now, today we know that with the technology
• 39:26
  even that we have today, that's not possible.
• 39:29
  But they don't know that. And so they want people
• 39:32
  who can research these things. And many of the
• 39:35
  scientists, they managed to gather together.
• 39:38
  And these scientists can be from all the way
• 39:40
  across Eurasia. They set them these tasks. And
• 39:46
  of course, these scientists and philosophers
• 39:48
  and medical experts, many of them know that they
• 39:52
  can't do these things, but they're not stupid.
• 39:54
  They're not going to say they can't do them.
• 39:56
  So as a result. the Mongols create research institutions.
• 40:02
  The most famous one is at a place called Maraga.
• 40:05
  And the Mongols pour resources onto this place.
• 40:09
  It has a huge, great observatory for looking
• 40:12
  at the stars and a library and other facilities.
• 40:16
  Because the Mongols want these things researched.
• 40:19
  And I'm not quite sure what the various scientists
• 40:23
  then did, but they managed to keep the Mongols
• 40:25
  happy enough to keep the thing going for quite
• 40:28
  a long time. That's crazy. They established some
• 40:31
  sort of proton NASA of their own at that time.
• 40:35
  And it's interesting because genuine scientific
• 40:38
  advances did take place there. So, for example,
• 40:42
  there's one philosopher called Nasir al -Din
• 40:45
  Tusi, and he made significant advances in spherical
• 40:51
  trigonometry. So things that have actually informed
• 40:55
  the wider progress of science did take place
• 40:59
  there. Mongols had no use for spherical trigonometry,
• 41:02
  but they took place there anyway. Speaking of
• 41:06
  the Mongols wanting to extend their lives a little
• 41:10
  bit, I had to laugh when reading your book because
• 41:13
  a lot of the time you write that the Khans died
• 41:16
  in some sort of alcoholic stupor. So I'm guessing
• 41:20
  they weren't like listening to their doctors
• 41:23
  that much. And also they seem to have a pretty
• 41:25
  rough lifestyle. mildly put so yes the traditional
• 41:32
  mongol lifestyle is very it's quite tough it
• 41:36
  involves moving even if you're a con even if
• 41:39
  you're a leader yeah so the traditional lifestyle
• 41:41
  it means moving from winter to summer grazing
• 41:44
  you're in the saddle every day you have to cope
• 41:48
  with extremes of temperature and weather and
• 41:51
  rain and it's a tough lifestyle and they they
• 41:55
  don't eat very much either they eat um occasional
• 42:00
  meat they don't tend to eat their animals they
• 42:03
  might kill sort of deer or bush marmots or things
• 42:08
  like that local animals but they tend to keep
• 42:10
  their own animals for their hides or for their
• 42:13
  milk but they don't have they don't eat a great
• 42:17
  deal they'll sometimes bloodlet their animals
• 42:19
  and mix the blood with meat or with other ingredients
• 42:24
  to make nourishing food but it's it's thin it's
• 42:28
  it's it's not much to go with but it from a military
• 42:32
  perspective that makes them all the more powerful
• 42:34
  because they can survive on very very little
• 42:36
  and that includes their leaders but once the
• 42:41
  mongols have started to conquer empires or massive
• 42:45
  areas of civilization like china or persia then
• 42:50
  their lifestyle becomes a lot more complicated
• 42:53
  and a lot more luxurious. And so they do start
• 42:56
  to wear enormously fashionable clothing. And
• 43:00
  they do have tents that can accommodate 2 ,000
• 43:02
  people. And they live in palaces. And they start
• 43:06
  to look and act and behave much more like opulent
• 43:10
  rulers rather than tough nomads from the Central
• 43:13
  Asian steppe. And just to give you an idea of
• 43:16
  how far this went, Emissaries to the Mongol court
• 43:20
  observed that on each different day of the week,
• 43:23
  the Mongol court wore different clothes. So today
• 43:27
  we'll wear red clothes and tomorrow we'll wear
• 43:30
  clothes of a different color. Everybody at court.
• 43:33
  Everyone. Because they all have the wealth to
• 43:36
  afford a huge array of clothing. So they're living
• 43:40
  lifestyles more luxurious than anyone. These
• 43:43
  are imperial nomads now. They're not sort of
• 43:47
  nomads from a Central Asian steppe. And the fashions
• 43:51
  the Mongols create are so influential that even
• 43:54
  in weird, far away, distant, remote and foreign
• 43:59
  places like the Kingdom of England, Mongol ambassadors
• 44:02
  create a massive fashion stir. As when the Mongol
• 44:06
  ambassadors arrive in these places, people start
• 44:09
  to want to dress like them because they're setting
• 44:12
  the style for the whole of Eurasia. What about
• 44:15
  the unholy amounts of boozing? Was that always
• 44:18
  there? Because there's a lot of kumis, I don't
• 44:21
  know if I pronounced that right, in the book.
• 44:23
  So the Mongols drink a lot, and it's part of
• 44:27
  their culture. And in fact, it gets very frustrating
• 44:31
  for one Franciscan friar called William of Ruebrook
• 44:34
  from France, as he goes to the Mongol Empire
• 44:37
  hoping to convert the Mongols. And the Mongols
• 44:41
  say to him, we have heard... If we convert to
• 44:45
  Christianity, we can no longer drink kummus,
• 44:48
  which is fermented mare's milk. And William says,
• 44:52
  no, there's no problem with that at all. Of course,
• 44:54
  you can carry on drinking kummus. But the Mongols
• 44:56
  refused to believe him. So he's very frustrated
• 44:59
  because he can't convert them to Christianity,
• 45:01
  even though there's no actual block on converting
• 45:05
  to Christianity. But the Mongols believe there's
• 45:07
  a block, so they don't convert. Or the ones he
• 45:10
  speaks to don't anyway. But yeah, the Mongols
• 45:13
  love kumis, fermented mare's milk. And when it's
• 45:17
  the season for producing it, they produce it
• 45:20
  in huge quantities and they have it at their
• 45:22
  feasts, at their banquets. It's quite nutritious.
• 45:25
  You get a lot of calories from it, so it can
• 45:27
  be quite healthy. I can't say I've tried it myself,
• 45:31
  although perhaps I probably should. But it's
• 45:34
  not the only alcohol they try. And of course,
• 45:36
  as they conquer other parts of the world, they
• 45:39
  acquire tastes for other alcoholic drinks as
• 45:42
  well, particularly rice wine. But there's no
• 45:45
  awareness that alcohol is, well, there's only
• 45:49
  some awareness, I should say, that alcohol is
• 45:51
  really, really bad for you if consumed in extreme
• 45:54
  quantities. And so, yes, many Mongol Khans and
• 45:58
  Mongol leaders do die from alcoholism. alcohol
• 46:01
  poisoning or alcohol -related poisoning. Yet
• 46:06
  another fascinating policy, very surprising indeed,
• 46:11
  of the Mongols was relative religious tolerance.
• 46:15
  Would you believe that? I was really, really
• 46:16
  shocked when I was reading this. Now, the Mongols
• 46:18
  had their own theology. We talked about it in
• 46:20
  the first episode. But they believed that as
• 46:22
  long as you kind of didn't interfere with that,
• 46:24
  you could basically do your own thing, whether
• 46:27
  you were a Muslim, a Christian, or something
• 46:29
  else. I mean, that is... Pretty astonishing,
• 46:31
  especially if we compare that with the fanaticism
• 46:34
  of medieval Europe, for example. Yeah, it's not
• 46:37
  common anywhere that you'll get tolerance on
• 46:40
  that level. But the Mongols have some interesting
• 46:43
  ideas here. As you say, they've got their own
• 46:46
  religious beliefs, and those religious beliefs
• 46:49
  are supreme. So the Mongol right to rule the
• 46:53
  world, that is a belief that encompasses all
• 46:56
  the rest of the world, including all other religions.
• 47:00
  So anyone within the Mongol Empire has to accept
• 47:02
  that, whatever else they believe. But that aside,
• 47:07
  as you say, they're quite tolerant. The Mongols
• 47:09
  have a theology which is explained to one Western
• 47:13
  European envoy by the great Khan Mongke. And
• 47:17
  Mongke held up his hand and said, right, so you
• 47:22
  have all the different religions of the world.
• 47:26
  And they're like fingers on a hand. They're different,
• 47:29
  but they're all connected. That's a very interesting
• 47:33
  thing by itself to say, but my interpretation
• 47:36
  on that has always been, and they're all connected
• 47:38
  to the palm, which is the Mongols' beliefs. So
• 47:42
  they're all sort of offshoots of the central
• 47:44
  idea of the Mongolian body. I've interpreted
• 47:46
  that a little bit, but that's always been my
• 47:49
  sense. Because the Mongols have no difficulty
• 47:52
  with other religions. So, for example, when the
• 47:56
  Mongols demand the submission of a Christian
• 47:59
  power, they will embroider their demands for
• 48:03
  submission with passages from the Bible. Because
• 48:07
  their beliefs encompass those of the Bible. So
• 48:10
  the Bible is a holy book for them, too, because
• 48:12
  it's within their broader umbrella of religion.
• 48:16
  Kind of meta -religion. In a sense, yeah. And
• 48:19
  when the Mongols ask Muslim powers to submit,
• 48:21
  they will embroider their demands with passages
• 48:23
  from the Quran. And it's not a problem for them.
• 48:26
  It's all part of their beliefs as they see them.
• 48:30
  And so as a result, they're not going to persecute
• 48:32
  people for having other faiths because they consider
• 48:36
  them all to be within their broader religious
• 48:39
  framework. And in fact, it's in this era that
• 48:42
  you actually have a growing and a reasonably
• 48:44
  large Buddhist community in the Middle East.
• 48:48
  They've already been there before, not in numbers.
• 48:51
  But a Buddhist community grows in the Middle
• 48:53
  East under Mongol rule. It doesn't last for long
• 48:56
  once the Mongols move on from these beliefs onto
• 48:59
  other religions, but nonetheless. And so it is
• 49:04
  extraordinary that there is this practice of
• 49:06
  religious tolerance, but it's tolerance within
• 49:10
  the Mongols' existing beliefs. You can't contradict
• 49:13
  what the Mongols do believe. That's not going
• 49:15
  to work. But as I mentioned earlier, the Mongols,
• 49:18
  rather like intellectuals, or artisans they also
• 49:22
  want to gather together religious leaders because
• 49:25
  the mongols believe that whether you are a religious
• 49:28
  leader from islam buddhism judaism um any any
• 49:34
  religion basically you still have access to religious
• 49:39
  power you still have some kind of religious power
• 49:42
  and the mongols want these religious leaders
• 49:45
  to use their religious power for the betterment
• 49:49
  of the mongol empire just as they want weapon
• 49:52
  smiths to make weapons for them or astrologers
• 49:55
  to predict the future they view them in practical
• 49:58
  terms as people who can do stuff to advance the
• 50:01
  mongol empire and its cause the title of your
• 50:04
  book as we already said is the mongol storm and
• 50:06
  as scary as a storm can be the fact is it always
• 50:10
  ends as you already hinted what happened after
• 50:15
  the mamelukes defeated the Mongols at full strength.
• 50:21
  Yeah, so the Mongol Empire really begins to encounter
• 50:25
  trouble after this. And for the next 20 years,
• 50:30
  really, so Ain Jalut, that was the first battle
• 50:32
  where the Mamluks defeated that Mongol garrison,
• 50:34
  that's 1260. And Homs is where they defeated
• 50:38
  the Mongols at full strength. The Mongols, again,
• 50:42
  won't return to the Middle East in really large
• 50:45
  numbers. won't try and attack the Mamluk Empire,
• 50:47
  I should say, for another 20 years. And the reason
• 50:50
  it takes so long is they're fighting amongst
• 50:53
  themselves, they're fighting the Golden Horde,
• 50:55
  so the rival branch of the Mongol Empire to the
• 50:58
  north of the Black Sea, or they're fighting other
• 51:00
  powers further east. So they're caught up with
• 51:03
  their own affairs, and there are also the beginnings
• 51:06
  of rebellions against Mongol rule, which again
• 51:09
  tie up their forces. So during that period, the
• 51:13
  Mamluks develop their defenses even more. Their
• 51:17
  armies get even bigger. And it's in this last
• 51:20
  period, so between 1280 and 1299, that the Mamluks
• 51:24
  destroy the Crusader states in their entirety.
• 51:28
  Essentially, they're training their armies on
• 51:30
  destroying Crusader castles in preparation for
• 51:33
  an invasion they know is coming from the Mongols.
• 51:37
  And so in 1291, with the fall of Acre, the last
• 51:41
  remains of the Crusader states fall. and the
• 51:44
  Mamluks destroy the mainland Crusader states.
• 51:48
  But the battles to the end of the Crusader states
• 51:52
  are not some epic confrontation, not some massive
• 51:55
  titanic duel. The Mamluks are just knocking over
• 52:00
  Crusader castles to train their forces and build
• 52:03
  up their territories while waiting for their
• 52:06
  main opponent, who are the Mongols. But yes,
• 52:10
  the Mongols do come back in 1299. And on this
• 52:14
  occasion, the Mongols win. And so it's very interesting
• 52:18
  to see what happens next. So the Mongols invade
• 52:21
  under Sultan Ghazan in 1299. He's the main Mongol
• 52:25
  leader. Sultan Ghazan, the leader of the Ilkhanate,
• 52:30
  advances into Syria, crosses the Euphrates border,
• 52:34
  defeats the Mamluks to the north of Damascus,
• 52:37
  and then takes Damascus. And so he has the Mamluk
• 52:42
  Empire. At bay, he's in a position to conquer
• 52:45
  the Mamluk Empire in its entirety. And it's really
• 52:49
  interesting. He doesn't do it. And historians
• 52:53
  have been rather puzzled by this. Why did he
• 52:56
  not do it? Why did he not extend his conquests
• 52:59
  and defeat his longstanding opponent after all
• 53:02
  these years? And one quite interesting comment
• 53:06
  is made by a Knights Templar observer who was
• 53:10
  present in the Middle East. at least picked up
• 53:13
  rumors of what was going on he said it's quite
• 53:16
  simple the mongols can't graze their horses in
• 53:20
  the area and so perhaps a little bit like i mentioned
• 53:23
  in the previous podcast with eastern europe yeah
• 53:26
  it's the environment that defeats the mongols
• 53:29
  not armies because if they can't graze their
• 53:32
  animals their civilization can't move and as
• 53:35
  i mentioned in the previous podcast too the mongols
• 53:39
  encountered exactly the same problem in southeast
• 53:41
  asia When they tried to cross into jungle territory,
• 53:44
  they can't do it. So perhaps it's the desert
• 53:46
  or the more arid landscapes of southern Syria
• 53:50
  that defeated the Mongols rather than anything
• 53:52
  else. I also think it may be because the Mongols
• 53:55
  were quite a long way beyond their own frontier
• 53:58
  by this point. And so they couldn't sustain themselves
• 54:01
  so far from home. the Mamluk Empire survives,
• 54:05
  not because it defeated the Mongols, but because
• 54:08
  the Mongols couldn't make their conquests permanent.
• 54:11
  In fact, a few decades after this, in 1323, the
• 54:16
  Mongols and Mamluks create a peace treaty, and
• 54:19
  that's the end of the fighting. You write that
• 54:21
  the Mongols ultimately accelerated the process
• 54:24
  of Islamization of the Near East, even though,
• 54:26
  like we explored before, they were shamanistic
• 54:29
  when they first... started conquering this region.
• 54:32
  However, the Mongols could choose from any different
• 54:34
  religions, monotheistic or otherwise. How come
• 54:38
  they didn't choose Christianity or Buddhism,
• 54:42
  for example? Sure. It seems as if some Mongol
• 54:45
  leaders did, but you're right. In the long term
• 54:47
  in the Middle East, the Mongols convert to Islam.
• 54:50
  Because you just said there was a sultan that
• 54:52
  came over at the end and could have conquered
• 54:55
  the Mamluk Empire. and then chose it, he didn't.
• 54:59
  So I did pick that up. If he was a Sultan, he
• 55:02
  was probably Muslim, right? Yes, by this point,
• 55:05
  the Mongols are at a fairly early stage in their
• 55:08
  conversion to Islam, but Sultan Ghazan is Islamic,
• 55:11
  and he is the ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate.
• 55:14
  So by this point, the Mongols are very much converting.
• 55:18
  But it goes something like this, that when the
• 55:22
  Mongols conquered a region, that the most effective
• 55:26
  way... If you have been conquered by the Mongols,
• 55:29
  but you have survived, the most effective way
• 55:32
  to survive under Mongol rule is not to try anything
• 55:36
  silly, like build an army and try and resist
• 55:39
  the Mongols on the battlefield, the sort of Hollywood
• 55:42
  sort of, we suffered enough, we'll fight against
• 55:45
  the oppressor. That will not work. You'll just
• 55:47
  be destroyed. The people who are effective in
• 55:51
  rebelling against the Mongols are people who
• 55:53
  go to the Mongol Empire, after they've been conquered
• 55:57
  with a big smile on their face. And they say,
• 56:01
  you were right to conquer us. We deserved it.
• 56:05
  You have taught us better morality as a result
• 56:08
  of this. Lots of societies try this. And having
• 56:13
  said that, they then try and make themselves
• 56:15
  useful to the Mongols. We'll run your regions.
• 56:19
  We'll run your cities. We'll gather your taxes
• 56:22
  and we'll do it well. Now, who wouldn't accept
• 56:26
  that kind of offer? And so much of the bureaucracy
• 56:29
  of the Mongol Empire is carried out by local
• 56:32
  administrators who have agreed to work with the
• 56:35
  Mongols and are making themselves useful. And
• 56:39
  then you can go one stage further, having made
• 56:41
  themselves useful, they might say to the Mongols,
• 56:42
  why don't we act as tutors for your children?
• 56:46
  Why don't we act as advisors for your rulers?
• 56:50
  Now, the various people who are offering themselves
• 56:53
  as tutors, administrators or bureaucrats to the
• 56:56
  Mongols, they're not doing it out of kindness
• 56:58
  and generosity. They're doing it because they
• 57:01
  want to work their way up the Mongol hierarchies,
• 57:05
  because the more useful they make themselves,
• 57:07
  the more they can steer Mongol policy. And so
• 57:11
  at an early stage, they might be able to say,
• 57:14
  well, from our community and our community, we're
• 57:18
  really loyal to you. So why don't you leave us
• 57:20
  alone? But our next door neighbors who we've
• 57:23
  always hated, They're troublemakers. Why don't
• 57:26
  you do something about that? And so they can
• 57:28
  steer the Mongols in that way. But of course,
• 57:31
  what they're really after is if you can get yourself
• 57:33
  into a position where you are acting as tutor
• 57:36
  or educator for leading the children of leading
• 57:40
  Mongols, perhaps you can steer them to hold your
• 57:43
  beliefs. And the conversion of a leading Mongol
• 57:48
  to your religious beliefs, that is a major win.
• 57:52
  everyone's trying it buddhists christians muslims
• 57:56
  they're all trying it they're all trying to persuade
• 57:58
  the mongols to convert to their faith and in
• 58:02
  the middle east the mongols do convert to islam
• 58:05
  in the long term now there are examples of previous
• 58:08
  to this of mongols who seem to show a leaning
• 58:10
  towards buddhism or christianity but in the long
• 58:13
  term they convert towards islam but what's interesting
• 58:16
  is even when the mongols are converted to islam
• 58:19
  That doesn't mean that they become natural friends
• 58:22
  of the Mamluk Empire. The Mamluks immediately
• 58:25
  denounce them as being not proper Muslims. They're
• 58:30
  not heretics. And the Mongols themselves, they
• 58:33
  hold a lot of their shamanistic beliefs at the
• 58:36
  same time as their Islamic beliefs. They mix
• 58:38
  them together. So the Mamluks still very much
• 58:40
  do not accept them. And they have a reason to
• 58:43
  do this because what they really don't want is
• 58:46
  for the Mamluk armies to say, well, why are we
• 58:48
  fighting fellow Muslims? They want to make sure
• 58:50
  their armies remain motivated to fight the Mongols,
• 58:53
  as there are various reasons for doing this.
• 58:56
  But yeah, the fighting carries on. But the Mongol
• 58:59
  Empire does become steadily more, it becomes
• 59:02
  more and more Islamic as the 13th and 14th century
• 59:06
  go on. Funny, because when our pal, what was
• 59:09
  his name, Rubrik, was visiting them and trying
• 59:11
  to convert them to Christianity, they were like,
• 59:13
  nah, because we can't drink anymore and we love
• 59:15
  our booze. And then they convert to Islam. which
• 59:18
  prohibit, which explicitly prohibits drinking.
• 59:23
  I'm not sure what happened there in terms of
• 59:27
  how that thinking sort of developed. But yeah,
• 59:30
  it's not something that seems to have formed
• 59:34
  a block for the Mongol conversion to Islam. In
• 59:38
  the book, you also detail how they kind of figured
• 59:40
  out that if they convert to Islam, that will
• 59:42
  give them a bit of an advantage. I believe in
• 59:45
  recruiting in certain areas or something like
• 59:47
  this. And they already had this proximity to
• 59:50
  these Turkic warriors and tribes in the way of
• 59:54
  living. And that also kind of eased this conversion.
• 59:58
  Yes. So about two centuries before the Mongols
• 1:00:01
  invaded, the Middle East had another major invasion
• 1:00:04
  out of Central Asia led by the Seljuk Turks.
• 1:00:08
  And the Seljuk Turks were very, very similar
• 1:00:10
  to the Mongols in their origins, at least. They
• 1:00:13
  were shamanistic from Central Asia. They invaded
• 1:00:16
  the Middle East. And in fact, one observer commented
• 1:00:20
  that the way to tell a difference between a Mongol
• 1:00:22
  and a Turk is the Mongols tie up their robes
• 1:00:26
  on one side of their body and the Seljuks tie
• 1:00:28
  up their robes on the other. They were that similar?
• 1:00:31
  They're that similar. And so the Seljuks, after
• 1:00:34
  their invasions that started in about the year
• 1:00:37
  1000, the Seljuks slowly convert to Islam over
• 1:00:41
  the next two centuries. And so by the time the
• 1:00:43
  Mongols invade, they have fully converted to
• 1:00:46
  Islam. So the Mongols are invading a region where
• 1:00:49
  there are lots and lots of Turkish peoples who
• 1:00:51
  are very similar to them, who have already converted
• 1:00:54
  to Islam, but who are various natural allies,
• 1:00:57
  natural to have joined the Mongol Empire. once
• 1:01:00
  the Mongols have conquered the Middle East. And
• 1:01:02
  so you might well say, well, perhaps the Mongols
• 1:01:05
  sort of followed in the footsteps of the Seljuk
• 1:01:07
  Turks, particularly as the descendants of the
• 1:01:11
  Seljuk Turks then joined into the Mongol Empire,
• 1:01:14
  providing a very natural source of influence
• 1:01:16
  and the sharing of ideas and theologies. As we've
• 1:01:20
  seen, empires are always rising and falling.
• 1:01:23
  And the fall of the Mongols was the rise of the
• 1:01:25
  Mamelukes in Egypt. And perhaps even more interesting,
• 1:01:29
  especially for me, since I'm from the Balkans,
• 1:01:31
  for a very young power that would define this
• 1:01:34
  region for pretty much the next five to six hundred
• 1:01:36
  years. And that was, of course, the Ottoman Empire.
• 1:01:39
  How did the Mongols ultimately cause, at the
• 1:01:42
  time, these scattered Turkmen nomads to finally
• 1:01:46
  unite? After pretty much, what, two, three centuries
• 1:01:50
  of aimless discord? Yes. So when the Mongols
• 1:01:54
  invaded the Middle East, naturally, there were
• 1:01:57
  tens, hundreds of thousands of people who moved
• 1:02:01
  westwards to get out of the way. Some took refuge
• 1:02:06
  in the Mamluk Empire. Some took refuge in the
• 1:02:10
  Crusader States. But basically, they're trying
• 1:02:12
  to go anywhere that will get them away from the
• 1:02:15
  Mongols. And among their numbers are tens, possibly
• 1:02:19
  hundreds of thousands of Turkish nomads. Now,
• 1:02:23
  Anatolia, modern day Turkey, was already and
• 1:02:27
  had been for two centuries a major site of migration
• 1:02:31
  for Turkish nomads moving out of Central Asia
• 1:02:34
  and ending up in the central Anatolian plateau
• 1:02:38
  and areas of flat grazing ground in the middle
• 1:02:41
  of Anatolia and then around the periphery of
• 1:02:43
  that as well. And in that area, of course, they
• 1:02:46
  then have a frontier with the Byzantine Empire.
• 1:02:50
  Now, the Mongols conquered Turkey, as it became
• 1:02:54
  known, but the Turkmen nomads never submitted,
• 1:02:58
  or they may have done so temporarily, but never
• 1:03:01
  in the long term. And so the Mongols, they drive,
• 1:03:05
  inadvertently perhaps, or due to their invasions,
• 1:03:08
  huge numbers of Turkmen nomads into Anatolia.
• 1:03:13
  try and force them to submit, but they don't.
• 1:03:15
  And as soon as the Mongols relax their grip in
• 1:03:19
  Anatolia, even for a moment, the Turkmen rebel.
• 1:03:24
  And so you have a situation where you have the
• 1:03:26
  Mongols trying to enforce their control, and
• 1:03:29
  the Turkmen nomads, and the Mongols are really
• 1:03:32
  trying to send armies into the region. They may
• 1:03:34
  get out of the way, or they might fight. But
• 1:03:38
  as soon as the Mongols relax their attention,
• 1:03:40
  even for a moment, They rebel again. And so you
• 1:03:43
  have a cycle of rebellion after rebellion after
• 1:03:46
  rebellion against Mongol rule. And the Turkmen
• 1:03:49
  groupings get bigger and bigger, often centered
• 1:03:53
  on a single city. And they become known as Turkmen
• 1:03:57
  Beyliks. And there are lots of Turkmen Beyliks.
• 1:04:01
  There's the Turkmen Beylik of Karaman, for example.
• 1:04:05
  Or there's the Turkmen Beylik of Smyrna. or Aydin,
• 1:04:10
  among others, as many of them, and they change
• 1:04:12
  all the time. But among the various families
• 1:04:16
  displaced by the Mongols, forced westwards, and
• 1:04:20
  which put down roots in northwestern Anatolia,
• 1:04:24
  modern -day Turkey, is a family called the Ottomans.
• 1:04:28
  And these are the origins of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1:04:33
  And many of these Beyliks, not so much the Ottomans
• 1:04:36
  in this early period, they are instrumental.
• 1:04:38
  in forcing the Mongol invasions to come to a
• 1:04:42
  halt. And so it's interesting that in so many
• 1:04:46
  cases, it's peoples displaced by the Mongols,
• 1:04:50
  whether that's the Turkmen in Anatolia or the
• 1:04:52
  Mamluks, who of course were originally people
• 1:04:54
  displaced and sold as enslaved people to Egypt.
• 1:04:58
  It's peoples who are displaced or sold by the
• 1:05:01
  Mongols who ultimately forced the Mongol invasions
• 1:05:04
  and conquests to stop. Also kind of reminiscent
• 1:05:08
  of Mongol beginnings, these different nomadic
• 1:05:12
  beyliks that become bigger and bigger until they
• 1:05:14
  become one big state. It's how the Mongols actually
• 1:05:17
  started, isn't it? It'll take the Ottomans 100
• 1:05:19
  years to fully gain control. They don't have
• 1:05:23
  their own Genghis Khan. Yeah, it takes them a
• 1:05:25
  long time and they've got various problems themselves.
• 1:05:28
  But by the time we get to it, and the Mongols...
• 1:05:32
  re -invade under the Emir Timur in the 14th century,
• 1:05:36
  but that goes way beyond what we're talking about
• 1:05:38
  today. But yeah, ultimately, the Ottomans do
• 1:05:41
  conquer all the Beyliks and the Byzantine Empire.
• 1:05:44
  And as is well known, from there, they expand,
• 1:05:48
  whether that's into Syria, Egypt, the Balkans,
• 1:05:51
  many other parts of the world. Yeah, I hope your
• 1:05:54
  next book is about the Ottoman, the rise of the
• 1:05:56
  Ottoman Empire, because we got to keep this story
• 1:05:57
  going. You know, this is too good to just stop
• 1:06:00
  here. That makes no sense. By the way, one conclusion
• 1:06:04
  that you make at the end of the book is that
• 1:06:06
  because of the Mongol invasions, the Europeans
• 1:06:08
  get a much better understanding of the enormous
• 1:06:12
  scale of the lands that lay in the east, something
• 1:06:15
  they had no idea about previously. No more Prester
• 1:06:20
  John here. And of course, it wasn't just about
• 1:06:22
  the lands. It was about the riches. these lands
• 1:06:25
  contained. Now you don't say this in the book,
• 1:06:28
  this is maybe a bit far -fetched, but would you
• 1:06:31
  perhaps say that we can trace the mindset of
• 1:06:34
  later European colonialism to this sort of expanded
• 1:06:39
  awareness? Yes, I kind of hint at it in my conclusion.
• 1:06:45
  The Mongol Empire is more... It changes, obviously,
• 1:06:49
  many more things than just the Mongol civilization
• 1:06:52
  itself. It profoundly influences the Chinese
• 1:06:55
  civilization and the Islamic world and Byzantium.
• 1:07:00
  And it also influences Western Europe. It influences
• 1:07:04
  Western Europe in a number of ways. Firstly,
• 1:07:07
  the Mongols play their part in spreading gunpowder
• 1:07:11
  technology to various different parts of Eurasia.
• 1:07:16
  Obviously, cannon guns will play their part in
• 1:07:20
  the rise of Western European empires. Also, the
• 1:07:25
  practice of trying to support the Crusader states
• 1:07:30
  leads Western Europe to build much, much bigger
• 1:07:35
  ships than it ever had done previously. Of course,
• 1:07:38
  many European empires depend on large ships and
• 1:07:42
  the ability to carry large numbers of people
• 1:07:44
  over great distances. But the Mongols play their
• 1:07:48
  part in this too for another reason, which is
• 1:07:50
  that prior to this, Western Europe knew virtually
• 1:07:54
  nothing about Asia. It knew from the Crusades
• 1:07:58
  about the area around Jerusalem. It had some
• 1:08:02
  idea of the area to the west of the Tigris River,
• 1:08:06
  perhaps, of modern -day northern Iraq. There
• 1:08:09
  may be some distant memories from the Viking
• 1:08:12
  traders who traded. as far east as Uzbekistan,
• 1:08:17
  but the memory there is pretty thin. It doesn't
• 1:08:20
  really know what's much further east than that.
• 1:08:23
  But due to the Mongols, and people going to the
• 1:08:28
  Mongols to conduct diplomacy, like John of Piano
• 1:08:30
  Carpini, who I mentioned previously, or the friar,
• 1:08:33
  William of Rubruck, or the merchant, Marco Polo,
• 1:08:37
  as he's famously known, they traveled enormous
• 1:08:40
  distances to China, parts of and parts of eurasia
• 1:08:45
  that had never been visited before by european
• 1:08:48
  travelers and then they came back and they wrote
• 1:08:52
  down what they had seen and what they had seen
• 1:08:55
  was enormous riches and millions and millions
• 1:08:59
  of people who weren't christians and so you start
• 1:09:04
  then sets up a series of ambitions that will
• 1:09:09
  carry out in later centuries there's a huge amount
• 1:09:12
  of money out there perhaps there is the potential
• 1:09:16
  for very lucrative trade in time conquest by
• 1:09:22
  exploring all these places perhaps another route
• 1:09:25
  will be opened up to reach jerusalem which of
• 1:09:29
  course is a major preoccupation for western christendom
• 1:09:32
  maybe jerusalem can be approached from another
• 1:09:34
  angle now we know now on a basis of the map you've
• 1:09:38
  got to cross the pacific if you want to go all
• 1:09:40
  the way around the world and approach jerusalem
• 1:09:42
  from another dimension but they're discovering
• 1:09:45
  these things i don't know that in western europe
• 1:09:47
  and then of course there is the idea that of
• 1:09:51
  course a mission maybe missionaries could go
• 1:09:53
  out and try and win converts from these other
• 1:09:56
  cultures so the experience of conducting diplomacy
• 1:09:59
  and trade with the mongols wakes up it draws
• 1:10:03
  western europe's attention to a much wider world
• 1:10:06
  at the same time that technologies are being
• 1:10:10
  developed or reaching Western Europe, which could
• 1:10:13
  then facilitate the creation of overseas empires.
• 1:10:16
  Now, we're talking about very dim and distant
• 1:10:19
  origins of, say, the massive empires of the modern
• 1:10:23
  era. But perhaps we are looking at some of the
• 1:10:26
  seeds that would ultimately create those empires.
• 1:10:31
  When we talked about the Crusades, I couldn't
• 1:10:34
  help but mentioning Kingdom of Heaven, the movie.
• 1:10:38
  which you weren't too impressed by. Is there
• 1:10:40
  any sort of TV show or movie about the Mongols
• 1:10:44
  that's pretty good? I have to confess, I don't
• 1:10:47
  tend to watch them. I know that there's a series
• 1:10:50
  on Marco Polo, but I'm afraid I haven't watched
• 1:10:53
  it. Okay, no, that's terrible. I've seen that
• 1:10:55
  one. Please don't watch that. There's a blind
• 1:10:59
  Kung Fu master that's always fighting 200 people,
• 1:11:02
  and he's teaching Marco Polo how to do Kung Fu.
• 1:11:05
  And that's like one of the biggest parts of the
• 1:11:07
  show. It was pretty silly. I see. But no, for
• 1:11:10
  the most part, I find... Too heartbreaking for
• 1:11:14
  a historian to watch those, I suppose. It's no
• 1:11:16
  fun watching TV with me when we're watching historical
• 1:11:19
  stuff with friends or family because I start
• 1:11:23
  complaining and no one wants that. That's wrong.
• 1:11:26
  That's wrong. No one wants that. Yeah, I've heard
• 1:11:30
  there was a Russian movie about Genghis Khan,
• 1:11:33
  but I haven't seen it. I don't know. Yeah, whatever.
• 1:11:36
  For the end, provocative question. Do you think
• 1:11:39
  we can learn from history? In the previous episode,
• 1:11:42
  we were kind of talking about, you know, how
• 1:11:45
  these various kingdoms were preparing for the
• 1:11:48
  Mongol invasion, and we found out that they weren't
• 1:11:50
  preparing at all, meaning they didn't form any
• 1:11:53
  sort of big coalitions with each other, even
• 1:11:56
  though they're facing an existential threat.
• 1:11:58
  Do you think we've gotten a little bit better
• 1:12:01
  in this or not at all? I think the human condition,
• 1:12:05
  you can see, I'm not sure we are better than
• 1:12:09
  previous human generations in previous centuries.
• 1:12:14
  I think that the human condition is fairly similar.
• 1:12:18
  But there are some things that I think can be
• 1:12:20
  said. And that is that what we're looking at
• 1:12:24
  in the Middle East at the time of the Mongol
• 1:12:27
  invasions is a chaotic landscape. a landscape
• 1:12:32
  where you have no security, you have no idea
• 1:12:35
  whether you, your family, your community will
• 1:12:37
  survive for tomorrow, let alone next year. It's
• 1:12:42
  highly unstable. No one knows what the future
• 1:12:45
  holds. There's so much fighting, so much violence
• 1:12:48
  on so many different fronts that you have to
• 1:12:51
  live from day to day very carefully and never,
• 1:12:54
  and making future plans is very difficult. And
• 1:12:58
  I think that that's something that's very important
• 1:13:00
  because We live in a world, many of us do today,
• 1:13:05
  in a world that is very, very stable. Or it has
• 1:13:10
  been very, very stable. And so, for example,
• 1:13:14
  in parts of Europe, societies have been stable.
• 1:13:18
  There's been very little fighting or upheaval
• 1:13:21
  in many parts of Europe for decades. Now, obviously,
• 1:13:25
  there are exceptions. Ukraine would be an obvious
• 1:13:27
  one. But for many of us... Complete stability
• 1:13:30
  throughout our entire lives has been taken for
• 1:13:34
  granted. It's just normal. And we make our decisions
• 1:13:37
  around a very stable environment. We make decisions
• 1:13:42
  fairly slowly. We gather evidence. We make sensible
• 1:13:47
  choices. We change our approaches incrementally.
• 1:13:51
  We get lots of different people's opinions to
• 1:13:55
  make our choices. Because this is decision -making.
• 1:13:58
  that pays well when things are stable. Now, in
• 1:14:04
  the Middle East in the 13th century, things were
• 1:14:05
  not stable. And I would say that the countries
• 1:14:09
  or the cultures or states that behaved most like
• 1:14:14
  we would now are those that said, okay, the Mongols
• 1:14:18
  are approaching. Let's gather information on
• 1:14:20
  them. Okay, the Mongols are closer now. Let's
• 1:14:23
  conduct diplomacy with them and see what they
• 1:14:25
  want and see if we can negotiate something with
• 1:14:27
  them. The Mongols are even closer. OK, we'll
• 1:14:29
  build up our defences so we can protect ourselves.
• 1:14:32
  And then the Mongols invade. Now, every single
• 1:14:36
  country that adopted that course of action was
• 1:14:39
  destroyed. But that's also a course of action
• 1:14:43
  that today in the 21st century, most of us would
• 1:14:46
  seem to see as being very, very logical, very
• 1:14:50
  sensible. But they all got destroyed. The cultures
• 1:14:54
  and the countries and regions that survived best
• 1:14:57
  were those who submitted really, really early.
• 1:15:02
  So, for example, the kingdom of Silesia submitted
• 1:15:06
  long before the Mongols were within several hundred
• 1:15:09
  miles of their borders. They submitted really
• 1:15:12
  early. And the Mongols appreciated that and gave
• 1:15:15
  them preferential treatment. And then on the
• 1:15:18
  other end of the spectrum, you have the Mamluks.
• 1:15:21
  who were more aggressive than anyone else, and
• 1:15:24
  they survived better than anyone else. And I
• 1:15:27
  think that within this, there is food for thought
• 1:15:31
  about the way that people make decisions in safe
• 1:15:36
  environments, secure environments, and in chaotic
• 1:15:39
  environments. Because the decisions that seem
• 1:15:42
  to work in safe environments are not the same
• 1:15:46
  as seem to work in chaotic ones. In chaotic environments,
• 1:15:52
  people who make extreme decisions early and then
• 1:15:55
  follow through with them, in these cases at least,
• 1:15:58
  seem to have survived better than those who made
• 1:16:01
  what we would call sensible decisions. I'm thinking
• 1:16:05
  now about, you know, we talked about the Nizaris,
• 1:16:08
  how they employed assassination, and then, like
• 1:16:11
  you said, the Mamluks were extremely aggressive,
• 1:16:13
  and then some of these kingdoms tried... sort
• 1:16:16
  of a middle way between diplomacy and submission.
• 1:16:19
  And one chapter that, I don't know if it's a
• 1:16:22
  chapter, but part of the book that made me smile
• 1:16:25
  a lot is the Byzantium, the empire over there,
• 1:16:29
  and how they realized that they don't have the
• 1:16:32
  military strength. And they also didn't kind
• 1:16:35
  of want to submit. So they tried like scheming
• 1:16:37
  in diplomacy for a really, really long time.
• 1:16:40
  These are my kind of people. Of course, at the
• 1:16:42
  end, it kind of didn't. didn't help because they
• 1:16:45
  also got destroyed. But yeah, at least they tried,
• 1:16:50
  I suppose. They did. I mean, the Byzantines had
• 1:16:53
  the unique characteristic of managing to find
• 1:16:55
  a third alternative in Mongol diplomacy, because
• 1:16:58
  normally it's submit or face invasion. The Byzantines'
• 1:17:04
  third way was just to keep talking. To make it,
• 1:17:08
  maybe we'll submit, but we need to carry on talking
• 1:17:11
  about it. And on one occasion... The Mongols'
• 1:17:13
  ambassadors died of illness, which may well have
• 1:17:16
  been illness. And on another occasion, the Byzantines
• 1:17:20
  led the Mongols through their empire through
• 1:17:22
  the most complicated route possible to give the
• 1:17:25
  impression their empire was huge, which they
• 1:17:28
  could then use to help negotiate. But yeah, even
• 1:17:31
  so, the Byzantines, the sources don't say they
• 1:17:35
  submitted, but they did come to terms with the
• 1:17:37
  Mongols. And it's difficult to believe that that
• 1:17:40
  involves anything other than submission. Yeah.
• 1:17:44
  Professor Nick, thank you. So now I'm calling
• 1:17:47
  you Professor Nick, which is the worst combination
• 1:17:49
  of all. Thank you so much. What a delight, as
• 1:17:52
  always. However, this isn't the only book you
• 1:17:56
  wrote. You have many more books, so maybe we're
• 1:17:58
  going to have many more conversations. I hope
• 1:18:00
  we will. If you're willing. yeah this is this
• 1:18:03
  i've written or edited lots of books and those
• 1:18:06
  include books on um the military history of the
• 1:18:09
  crusades i've written a book on uh the first
• 1:18:13
  crusaders early relations and perceptions of
• 1:18:17
  islam i've written a book on the military orders
• 1:18:21
  so templars hospitalers teutonic knights so there's
• 1:18:24
  lots to see if you want details of my book just
• 1:18:27
  type my name into google And you'll see either
• 1:18:30
  my YouTube site, which has a handle of at Medieval
• 1:18:34
  Near East, or you'll see my university address.
• 1:18:37
  Just type in Nicholas Morton, Nottingham Trent
• 1:18:39
  University. You can also follow me on Twitter,
• 1:18:42
  Instagram, Blue Sky Threads, and LinkedIn. Awesome.
• 1:18:47
  There you go. Where can people find your book?
• 1:18:49
  I can't show a copy because I bought the Kindle
• 1:18:51
  version. Okay. Maybe you have a copy over there
• 1:18:54
  that you can show. Okay. Hold that thought. Just
• 1:18:57
  a sec. Will do. So yes, there we go. This is
• 1:19:00
  Mongol Storm. There it is. But I have a new storm
• 1:19:04
  arriving next year, which is going to be called
• 1:19:07
  the Crusader Storm. So that will be a book exploring
• 1:19:11
  the history of the Crusades in the century before
• 1:19:14
  the Mongols. But like the Mongol Storm, it's
• 1:19:17
  looking at the Crusades from lots of different
• 1:19:20
  cultural perspectives. So Mongol Storm is looking
• 1:19:23
  at the Mongol invasions from about 10 different
• 1:19:25
  cultural perspectives. The Crusader Storm will
• 1:19:28
  be looking at the Crusades from about 10 different
• 1:19:30
  cultural perspectives. Outstanding. Looking forward
• 1:19:33
  to it. And thanks again. Thank you so much for
• 1:19:35
  listening. Please subscribe to the podcast on
• 1:19:37
  YouTube. Follow and rate on Spotify and Apple
• 1:19:40
  Podcasts. Every marketing tutorial out there
• 1:19:43
  insists it's really important that I hassle you
• 1:19:45
  about this, so I'm doing it right now. Also,
• 1:19:47
  if you'd like to, please support me on Patreon.
• 1:19:49
  This is a one -person podcast, as I always say.
• 1:19:51
  I do everything by my little old self. There's
• 1:19:52
  no team behind me. It's very sad, I know, but
• 1:19:55
  you can help by hopping on Patreon and finding
• 1:19:58
  the Smart Cookies podcast on there. And then
• 1:20:01
  last, but certainly not least, as always, I have
• 1:20:04
  to thank my existing patrons. Tovarishin, Tovarishitsa,
• 1:20:07
  absolute legends. Without you, there would be
• 1:20:09
  no Smart Cookies, which makes you... actual producers
• 1:20:13
  of this show. So eternal thanks goes to Amy Yontz,
• 1:20:17
  Matija Renčel, Florian Hauer, Petar Karbo, Matija
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  Zupančić, Dejan Žulnir, Derej Rok, Tržan, Saša
• 1:20:23
  Vipatnik, Neven Svijanović, Juš Premrov, Sirkezi,
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  Goran Ivašič, Anža Sever, Oule, Marin Ferrara,
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  Aljaš Maher, Štrole, Aida Mancian, Miha Medved,
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  Medinjo, Goran, Gordon, Lorenzo, Jure Čuk, Mila,
• 1:20:34
  Carmen Vronica, and Tai Chi. I am deeply touched,
• 1:20:38
  so thank you very much.