Battle of Ain Jalut

Battle of Ain Jalut
Part of the Mongol raids into Palestine
Date 3 September 1260 Location Near Ayn Jalut, Nazareth, Galilee Result Mamluk victory
Belligerents
Mamluk Sultanate	Mongol Empire Kingdom of Georgia Cilician Armenia
Commanders and leaders
Saif ad-Din Qutuz Baibars	Kitbuga  †
Units involved
Light cavalry and horse archers, heavy cavalry, infantry, hand cannoneers	Mongol lancers and horse archers, 500 Cilician Armenian troops, Georgian contingent, local Ayyubid contingents
Strength
Unknown; most sources agree or at least note that it was probably numerically much larger than the Mongol force	One Mongol detachment of about 10,000-12,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Near complete

Ain Jalut, عين جالوت, מעין חרוד

Coordinates	32°33′01″N 35°21′22″E / 32.550354°N 35.356032°E / 32.550354; 35.356032

The Battle of Ain Jalut (Ayn Jalut, in Arabic: عين جالوت, the "Spring of Goliath", or Harod Spring, in Hebrew: מעין חרוד) took place on 3 September 1260 between Muslim Mamluks and the Mongols in the southeastern Galilee, in the Jezreel Valley, not far from the site of Zir'in. The battle marked the south-westernmost extent of Mongol conquests, and was the first time a Mongol advance had been permanently halted. This was blamed on the sudden death of the then-Khagan Möngke Khan; an event that forced the Mongol Ilkhanate Hulagu Khan to take a large part of his army back with him on the way to Mongolia. This left Hulagu's lieutenant, Kitbuga, with only a small detachment of soldiers.

When Möngke Khan became Great Khan in 1251, he immediately set out to implement his grandfather Genghis Khan's plan for world empire. To lead the task of subduing the nations of the West, he selected his brother, another of Genghis Khan's grandsons, Hulagu Khan.

Assembling the army took five years, and it was not until 1256 that Hulagu was prepared to begin the invasions. Operating from the Mongol base in Persia, Hulagu proceeded south. Möngke Khan had ordered good treatment for those who yielded without resistance, and destruction for those who did not. In this way Hulagu and his army had conquered some of the most powerful and longstanding dynasties of the time. Other countries in the Mongols' path submitted to Mongol authority, and contributed forces to the Mongol army. By the time that the Mongols reached Baghdad, their army included Cilician Armenians, and even some Frankish forces from the submissive Principality of Antioch. The Hashshashin in Persia fell, the 500-year-old Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad was destroyed (see Battle of Baghdad), and so too fell the Ayyubid dynasty in Damascus. Hulagu's plan was to then proceed southwards through the Kingdom of Jerusalem towards the Mamluk Sultanate, to confront the major Islamic power.

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