The Mamluks Halt the Mongols at Ain Jalut

In 1260, the westward advance of the Mongol Empire met its first enduring barrier in the Jezreel Valley of southeastern Galilee. Following the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 and the fall of Damascus, Hulegu Khan demanded the submission of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. The Mamluk ruler, Sultan Qutuz, rejected the ultimatum, executing the Mongol envoys and displaying their heads at the gates of Cairo. A major confrontation appeared imminent, but geopolitical upheaval intervened to reshape the balance of forces in the Levant.

The death of Mongke Khan during his campaign against the Southern Song dynasty prompted Hulegu to withdraw the bulk of his army eastward to attend the kurultai, leaving a diminished garrison west of the Euphrates. Command fell to Kitbuqa, a Naiman general left with a much reduced force that included contingents from Georgia, Cilician Armenia, and regional Syrian allies. Accounts of its size vary, but modern historians generally put it at no more than about twenty thousand troops.