The Siege of Baghdad, 1258. Islam Nearly Wiped from the Earth. Mongol Expansion. Wholesale Slaughter.

When the Mongols tore through Baghdad, they did not merely sack a city for its plunder or to claim power, this time they dismantled a civilization. The once-great capital of the Islamic world, a center of power, knowledge, and commerce for half a millennium, was left a husk of its former self. Its libraries, once holding the accumulated wisdom of centuries, were reduced to ashes. Its people, once scholars, merchants, and rulers, were slaughtered or scattered. For generations, Baghdad remained little more than a ruin, a forgotten relic of an empire that had been wiped from history. It would take centuries before it would rise again, but it would never reclaim the dominance it once held.

Baghdad. January 22 - February 10, 1258.
Mongol Forces: modern historians believe up to 200,000 Mongol Warriors.
Arab Forces: unknown, but reportedly roughly 100,000 Citizen Soldiers.

Additional Reading and Episode Research:

• Legg, Stuart. The Heartland.
• Melegari, Vezio. The Great Military Sieges.
• Chambers, James. The Devil's Horsemen.

Transcript

 Thanks for tuning in to this episode of History's Greatest Battles. Season 2, where we explore History's Greatest Sieges. If you know anybody that enjoys this genre of history, please share the podcast with them. And stay tuned after the episode for some special remarks.

In the winter of 1258, the Mongol war machine reached the heart of the Islamic world. For decades, their armies had torn through kingdoms and empires, leaving behind only smoldering ruins and broken rulers. What had begun as a steppe confederation had become an empire without rival, stretching from China to the edges of Europe. Every enemy that stood against them had been destroyed. Every city that resisted had been erased.

For five centuries, the Abbasid Caliphate had ruled the Islamic world, its capital standing as a center of wealth, power, and scholarship. Baghdad had survived wars, dynastic struggles, and crusades. It had defied history itself, remaining unbroken while lesser empires crumbled. But history did not matter to the Mongols. They came not to negotiate, but to end the Abbasid rule entirely.

What followed was more than the fall of a city. It was the end of an era. A civilization that had once stood at the forefront of science, medicine, and philosophy was shattered. The consequences would shape the centuries that followed. The Islamic world, fractured and leaderless, would never reclaim the same unity under a single caliph. The Mongols, despite their victory, would find their expansion checked. And in the power vacuum left behind, new forces would rise, the Mamluks in Egypt, the Turks in Anatolia, and eventually, the empire that would define the next era of Islamic rule: the Ottomans.

The events of that winter reshaped the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. In its wake, the Mongol myth of invincibility was both affirmed and challenged. The world as it had been was gone. What came next would be decided not by those who had ruled before, but by those who had the strength to seize what remained.

Lets now experience, the siege of Baghdad.

Welcome to History's Greatest Battles, Season Two, Episode 24: The Siege of Baghdad. From the 22nd of January to the 10th of February, 12 58.

Mongol Forces: modern historians believe up to 200,000 Mongol Warriors.

Arab Forces: unknown, but reportedly roughly 100,000 citizen soldiers.

When the Mongols tore through Baghdad, they did not merely sack a city for its plunder or to claim power, this time they dismantled a civilization. The once-great capital of the Islamic world, a center of power, knowledge, and commerce for half a millennium, was left a husk of its former self. Its libraries, once holding the accumulated wisdom of centuries, were reduced to ashes. Its people, once scholars, merchants, and rulers, were slaughtered or scattered. For generations, Baghdad remained little more than a ruin, a forgotten relic of an empire that had been wiped from history. It would take centuries before it would rise again, but it would never reclaim the dominance it once held.

When Genghis Khan died in 1227, his empire did not slow, it surged forward like an unstoppable tide of steel and fire. Mongol horsemen thundered across Eastern Europe, their banners flickering in the wind, while in the Middle East, their very presence cast a long and terrible shadow.

By the 1230s, Mongol warriors roamed the lands of modern Georgia and Azerbaijan, their horses grazing on soil that would soon be soaked in the blood of the fallen. The Middle East, fragmented and blind to the gathering storm, remained locked in its own internal wars, crusaders clashed with Muslims in the Holy Land, Byzantines battled the Seljuk Turks for Anatolia, and in Egypt, the Mamluk dynasty, forged in war, was beginning its ascent.

By the 1250s, Mangu sat as the Great Khan, ruler of the known world’s most feared empire. His brother Hulagu, the iron fist of Mongol conquest in the southwest, was given a command: Persia must fall.

In Persia, one force stood in the Mongols’ path, the Assassins. For nearly two centuries, they had spread terror from the shadows, striking down rulers with the dagger’s silent kiss. When word reached Mangu that these fanatics had marked him for death, he did not hesitate. He unleashed Hulagu with one simple command: annihilate them.

Hulagu’s army carved its way into the mountains of northern Persia, where the Assassins lurked in their hundred fortresses, high on their crags like vultures watching over the land. One by one, these bastions fell. Then came Alamut, their stronghold, their heart. It withstood the Mongol siege for three years, but in the end, even its walls crumbled. Grand Master Rukn ad-Din, the ruler of the Assassins, sued for peace, but there would be no mercy.

On November 19, 1256, Rukn ad-Din laid down his arms, but surrender did not mean survival. The Mongols did not wage war halfway. Men, women, and children, all were put to the sword. The historian Juvaini, who marched with Hulagu, wrote that “the world was cleansed” of the Assassins. And indeed, there was nothing left of them but echoes.

Rukn ad-Din alone was left alive, a prisoner to be dragged before the Great Khan. But Mangu would not even look upon him. The once-mighty Grand Master of the Assassins was discarded like refuse, slain soon after, likely by the very men who had taken him captive.

With the last of the Assassins crushed beneath Mongol boots, Hulagu turned westward. His next target was the jewel of the Islamic world, the fabled city of Baghdad, where the Caliph Mustasim sat upon his throne, oblivious to the storm roaring toward him.

The Mongols, for all their ferocity, ruled with a brutal sort of pragmatism. They tolerated all faiths, but a religion that sought to spread its dominion over others was a challenge to Mongol supremacy. Worse still for the Caliph, Mangu’s chief wife was a Nestorian Christian who harbored nothing but contempt for Islam. Baghdad had few friends in the Mongol court.

Hulagu’s forces swelled with reinforcements, hardened Mongol warriors from the wars against the Seljuk Turks, and a contingent of Christian knights from Georgia, eager to spill Muslim blood.

Hulagu, ever the strategist, sent envoys to Mustasim, demanding an answer: why had Baghdad not aided in the Mongol war against the Assassins? The insult could only be rectified by submission. Mustasim was to tear down his walls and swear loyalty to the Great Khan.

Mustasim had no army fit to stand against the Mongols, but he had history on his lips. He sent back a message filled with arrogance, reminding Hulagu that Baghdad had stood for centuries, unbroken, defiant. Many had tried to take the city. All had failed.

But history does not fight battles, armies do. And Mustasim had none that could stand against what was coming.

As the Mongols drew ever closer, Mustasim’s bravado crumbled. He sent envoys, offering gold but not submission. It was a fatal mistake. Hulagu, insulted beyond measure, gave the order. The Mongol army split into four columns, encircling Baghdad like wolves closing in for the kill.

At last, the caliph woke to the horror of his situation. Orders were given, walls were to be repaired, the people armed. But it was too little, too late. And within the city, al-Alkami still whispered. He was working against Baghdad, not for it.

The vizier, ever the coward, had already reached out to Hulagu in secret, bargaining away Baghdad’s fate in the hopes that the Mongols would let him rule over the ruins.

Al-Alkami’s treachery ran even deeper. A Shi’ite, he had spent years persecuting Baghdad’s Sunni majority. When the call to arms was sent, those who might have fought for the city’s survival chose instead to let it burn.

Panic-stricken, Mustasim at last sent forth his cavalry, 20,000 men riding out on January 11, 1258, to meet the Mongol horde. They never stood a chance.

The Mongols, masters of war, did not meet them in an open field. They shattered the dikes of the Tigris River, unleashing a flood that swallowed the Muslim camp whole. Before the battle had even begun, most of Mustasim’s warriors were either drowned or broken. The few who reached the Mongol lines were cut down with merciless precision.

Almost none returned. One week later, on January 18, the Mongols stood before Baghdad itself, its fate already sealed.

Baghdad was still the heart of Islam, but it was a heart that had grown weak, its golden age long past. Its power was an illusion. And the Mongols were about to tear the illusion apart.

When the siege began, Baghdad’s once-thriving markets were already half-empty, abandoned in the face of impending doom. The Mongols wasted no time. They seized the suburbs, encircled the city in a great earthen ditch, and brought forth their siege engines, monstrous war machines that would soon pound the city into dust.

There was little stone in the plains around Baghdad, but that did not slow the Mongols. They pulled timber from trees, tore apart homes, and stripped the city’s outskirts of anything that could be used as ammunition. The bombardment began.

Arrows rained down upon the city, not just with fire, but with words. The Mongols offered terms: surrender, and live. Resist, and suffer.

Only now did Mustasim grasp the truth, Baghdad would fall. He sent envoys, begging to swear fealty. But Hulagu had moved beyond diplomacy. He would take the city, and he would take it in blood.

For days, the Mongol war machines pounded Baghdad’s walls without pause, the city shaking under the relentless assault. Then, on February 6, the storm broke. Hulagu gave the order. The final attack had begun.

Within hours, the eastern wall was theirs. The defenders, battered and demoralized, could do little to stop the tide.

Then, just as quickly as the onslaught began, Hulagu called for a halt. He sent word to the surviving defenders, lay down your arms, and you will be given safe passage to Syria. It was a lie. A calculated, ruthless lie.

The moment they stepped beyond the city gates, defenseless, they were cut down. There would be no retreat, no escape, only death.

With his city in ruins, Mustasim surrendered. He placed himself, his three sons, and 3,000 of his court into Mongol hands, still clinging to the delusion that he would be spared.

Seeing their caliph submit, Baghdad’s people believed the slaughter had ended. They emerged from hiding. But the Mongols had no interest in prisoners. They were butchered where they stood.

There was no escape except within the walls of the Christian churches, Mongol allies, and therefore the only ones granted mercy. For everyone else, the nightmare was only beginning.

From his place in captivity, Mustasim watched the city he had failed burn. He listened to the screams of his people. Then, on February 15, his own turn came.

Hulagu, ever the master of humiliation, sat Mustasim down for a final feast. As the Mongols looted the treasures of Baghdad and its people died in the streets, the conqueror turned to the broken caliph and sneered, why had he hoarded his wealth instead of using it to defend his empire?

When the Mongols had what they wanted, the location of the caliph’s hidden vaults, Mustasim and his sons were given their final punishment. They were sewn inside carpets, wrapped so tightly they could not move. Then, Mongol horses were driven over them, crushing them to death beneath pounding hooves. A ruler of an empire, trampled like dirt.

How many died? No one truly knows. The numbers range from 80,000 to a million. What is certain is this, Baghdad, once the jewel of the Islamic world, became a graveyard.

So many bodies choked the streets and the riverbanks that even the Mongols, who had waded through fields of death before, could not bear the stench. They moved their camp just to escape the rot.

What the Mongols did not destroy, they took. Two great wagon trains, heavy with plunder, rolled toward Karakorum, the spoils of a civilization reduced to ashes.

For an entire month, the Mongols ravaged what remained. They took what they wished, burned what they did not, and when they finally left, Baghdad was barely more than a memory.

And what of the traitor, al-Alkami? The Mongols placed him in charge of the ruins, but his victory was hollow. He lived only three months before death took him, some say from grief, others from a more direct Mongol hand.

Word of Baghdad’s annihilation spread like wildfire. The lesson was clear, resistance meant death. One by one, the great cities of the Muslim world bent the knee.

Only Aleppo dared to resist, and even it could not hold. There, Mongols and crusaders fought side by side, united not by loyalty, but by a shared thirst for Muslim blood.

With Mustasim’s death, a dynasty that had ruled for five centuries was wiped from existence. The Abbasid caliphate, born from the bloodline of Muhammad’s uncle Abbas, was no more.

Had fate turned slightly, Islam itself might have been shattered. But history, as always, had other plans.

Twice now, the Mongol warpath had been halted not by armies, but by death. Genghis Khan’s passing had spared Europe. Now, Mangu’s death pulled Hulagu away from his conquest, stopping the Mongol tide before it could consume all of Islam.

Hulagu turned his back on the smoldering ruins of Baghdad and rode for Karakorum. The Mongols had a new khan to choose, and conquest would have to wait.

Hulagu, drawn away by the politics of empire, left a force behind under the command of Kit-Boga, one of the finest Mongol generals. But this time, the Mongols had miscalculated. On September 3, 1260, they met an enemy unlike any they had faced before, the Mamluks, warriors forged in fire, trained from childhood to kill or die.

For the first time, the Mongol advance was shattered. The myth of their invincibility was gone. Ain Jalut was not just a battle, it was the turning point. The Mamluks, the slave-soldiers who had risen to become kings, had done what no army before them could. The Mongols, who had burned Baghdad to the ground, would go no further. The Middle East belonged to the Mamluks now.

The Mongols were the greatest war machine of their time, a storm that swept across continents, erasing civilizations in its wake. But no army is truly unstoppable. Empires rise, empires fall, and in the end, only those with the will to fight survive.

The caliph of Baghdad believed his city was eternal. It wasn’t. The Mamluks believed they could turn back the Mongol tide. They did.

This is war. It does not favor kings or peasants, faith or heresy. It favors those who understand its brutal truth, strength is the only law, and those who forget it are doomed to be remembered only in ruins.

History does not stand still. The sack of Baghdad was the death of an empire. Ain Jalut was the rebirth of another. The Mongols had reshaped the world, but they had not broken it. The Islamic world, though battered, endured. The Mamluks, warriors of iron discipline, rose as its new guardians. The Mongol horde had learned a lesson they had never needed before, some enemies will not kneel.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. We've had some good comments over the last few. This one from the Siege of Paris. DavidPitchford6510. Wrote.

 I was summoned to the family court slaughter pens. And transported to the no fault divorce sensation camps, and afterwards offered myself as a rescue male.

No one played music for me or made videos. Instead, they jeered and scowled at me. Better to be an elephant than a sacrificial in email. Yes, the harrowing tale of the rescue male dragged against his will to the family court slaughter pens. It sounds like a CCOs purgatory, a tragedy so profound. Even the elephants of Paris would shed a tear, and yet here you stand, my friend, a survivor of the great alimony wars, unbowed, unbroken, and presumably still making rent.

Truly history will remember your sacrifice. History's greatest battle, certainly will, or at least this comment section will. 

And this one. From the siege of Pna  Koala, 1980 rights, nothing was stopped. Osman Pian, the defenders surrendered. The flags and the saber of Osman Pasha are in the Museum of Plevin, the Russian un, the Russians underestimate the situation. In the being and launched two unsuccessful attacks. But as soon as Plevin was encircled and supply stopped, the ottoman started to starve.

And Plevin, not ple, I wrote ple because that's Anciently how it was written. Water supply is not so good as other parts of Bulgarian Balkans. The third and later fourth assault by the combined forces of Russia and Romania cut off the last possible retreat road for the Ottomans. By Bulgarian historical estimation, both armies had around 30 to 40 k.

The 110,000 number you have in your profile is the total number of Russian forces in these part of the Balkans. The Russians used nearly 30,000 to block all the Balkan roads, and nearly 20,000 went in the direction of Sophia. The rest moved towards the Black Sea. Nearly 20,000 stayed in reserve due to the movement of the Ottoman Balkan force led by Suleman Pasha.

My granduncle took part in the third and fourth attack of pna. Of Plevin, and later was one of the few Bulgarian. Who made it to Orain  geek's? Chirk replied to that comment. Balkan cope  and, uh, here's my thoughts.  Your comment brings up important points, particularly regarding the eventual ottoman surrender in the strategic encirclement of ple. 

However, saying that nothing was stopped ignores the wider strategic consequences of the siege. Osman P'S resistance absolutely stopped the Russian offensive for five months. The Russian high command had expected a swift victory over the Ottomans, but Lyna became an immovable obstacle that stalled their advance in the Bulgaria.

This particular delay forced Russia to divert massive reinforcements and change the entire timetable of the war. By the time Lyna finally fell, winter was setting in and the chance for a rapid march on Continental Noble was lost. You're correct that the final encirclement 

and supply shortages made Osmond P'S position untenable had PNA fallen quickly. Russian forces might have reached the ottoman capital before international pressure could intervene. Instead, the drawn out siege gave Britain and Austria hungry time to react preventing Russia. From fully capitalizing on its initial momentum, you're correct that once the city was encircled and supplies were cut off, starvation and dwindling resources doomed the defenders.

However, it was precisely because of Osman CIO's prolonged stand that the Russians were forced into such a costly and time consuming investment. In the first place, the multiple filled assaults, the heavy casualties, and the realization that brute force would not take the city demonstrated how modern firepower and defensive entrenchments had changed warfare. 

Your grand uncle's participation in the third and fourth assaults on later at a deer, Adrian Oppel is remarkable. Bulgarian played a significant role in the war, and their contributions are often overlooked in favor of the larger Russian and Ottoman narratives. His experience was part of a turning point in military history.

One that reshaped all of the Balkans and laid the groundwork  for Bulgaria's future independence.