Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (115 page)

It appears that the important achievements of the Mamluks’ defense were not manifested in their military architecture, but rather in their military organization and their ability to find and maintain the balance between the garrisons on the frontier and the central Mamluk army. This fine balance could only be achieved by a strong centralized regime.

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Military architecture versus political and military organization

Examining the development of Ayyubid fortifications in light of the political and military situation in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries reveals some aspects of the Muslim concept of defense within the political frame of a loose federation. Individual rulers of varying rank each built according to his own immediate needs and capabilities. Nevertheless, fortresses constructed in different regions by different rulers share a number of architectural features. One can see the growing importance the Ayyubids attributed to towers and the steady decline in both quality of construction and width of curtain walls in rural fortifications. Above all they made no attempt to imitate or use as a model the grand concentric fortresses built by the Franks. Ayyubid military architecture clearly reacted and developed according to the gradual decline in Frankish military power. By the mid thirteenth century, although the Franks were still raiding neighboring territories, they avoided large scale confrontations and seldom besieged enemy towns. Siege campaigns were carried out only when a new Crusade arrived and the Kingdom’s army was reinforced. Local Frankish rulers could not recruit the necessary manpower or afford to lose large numbers of men.

The superiority of Muslim siege warfare that began to make itself felt in the last quarter of the twelfth century continued well into the early Mamluk period. Siege campaigns carried out along the coastal plains, Syria and on the banks of the Euphrates clearly display the Mamluks’ high abilities in this field. Siege machines of all sizes were dismantled, transported over great distances and re-assembled in the designated camps, or built from local materials when such were available. It was due to this continuous superiority in Muslim siege warfare that Mamluk military architecture followed lines similar to those of the Ayyubids.

Although influenced by their predecessors, Mamluk work cannot be seen as an amalgamation of Ayyubid and Frankish military architecture. In general, one may describe their construction during this period as an act that resembles fine tuning. The arrival of the Mongols disrupted the balance of power in the region and led to considerable changes in the concept of defense. It did not, however, bring about any substantial innovations in the field of military architecture. The Mamluks arrived at the very end of a long period during which fortresses had been evolving and changing at a rapid pace. They were quick to learn and to make the necessary adjustments. But,
while the last Frankish wave of fortifications in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries included the construction of concentric fortresses, the significant widening of curtain walls, the erection of monumental towers as well as the designing of large scale moats and glacis,
¹
fear of the Mongols or of the Franks found no real tangible expression in Mamluk military architecture along the frontiers or in the rural areas of the Sultanate. The standard of building at Safad, Karak,
and
is outstanding in terms of the scale of the towers and their large galleries. But to a large extent it seems that what existed was more than adequate. The passive role played by the Franks and the inferior siege warfare deployed by the Īlkhānids did not drive or challenge Mamluk architects to make dramatic changes in fortifications. This short answer, however, provides only a partial explanation.

The longer and more complex answer to the question why the Mongol threat did not trigger significant developments in fortress building lies in the political and military organization of the Mamluk sultanate, which differed greatly from that of the Ayyubids and the Franks. Crusader and Ayyubid fortifications were built by a large number of bodies each possessing its own military force. Among the Franks there were the king, the Military Orders, princes, counts and lesser noblemen. Many of the Ayyubid fortresses were built by a similar assembly: sultans, princes and high-ranking amirs. One of the most interesting aspects of Mamluk architecture is its strong expression of a powerful and centralized government run by a sultan and a small entourage of mostly military men.

Holt defined the sultan’s formal rule as “a despotic monarchy” though he claimed that in practice it was “a veiled oligarchy of the great amirs.”
²
The latter pat of this statement cannot be supported when we look at the defense policies practiced during the second half of the thirteenth century. Mamluk fortifications and strategy display the abilities of a centralized regime. The responsibilities concerning fortifications were left solely to the sultan, who relied heavily on his own army quartered in Cairo, and the governors of urban citadels and rural and frontier fortresses. The governors were carefully chosen from among the sultan’s most loyal amirs. When a new sultan ascended to power he almost immediately replaced the fortress governors with his own amirs. In some fortresses a selected number of men from his own core of private Mamluks were left to establish or join the fortress garrison.
³

The Ayyubid system was different. Following the conquest of Safad and Tiberias by
al-Dīn, the two towns were given as an
to one of his most trustworthy amirs, Sa‘ūd b. Mubārak b. Tamīrak. After Sa‘ūd’s death his lands and title were inherited by his son.
⁴
In Syria the
(
holders) were responsible for the defense of their lands. According to Michaudel, “delegation of power was accompanied by delegation of defensive decision making in which
al-Dīn … only rarely interfered.”
⁵
Fortresses in the early Mamluk period were never permitted to be bequeathed by governors to a member of their own family. The case of
,which was given to Bīlīk al-Khaznadār as private property, was almost unheard of.
⁶
Strongholds were considered the property of the sultan. Any changes in their architectural layout or in the composition of their garrisons required the sultan’s approval.