148 chapter four
persian city meant that they had no other choice but to concentrate on
the sea, and develop a Black Sea policy worthy of the name.
4.1.3 Berke and the Loss of Tabriz: The Basis of the Golden Horde’s Black
Sea Policy
In the whole history of the Golden horde, there is no more radical break
than that which came approximately mid-way through Berke’s reign, and
which divides into two the existence of the ulus of Jochi.
the wider historical frame for these events was the disintegration of
the chinggisid empire as a whole. for the Mongols settled on the cuman
steppe, the division of the Western half of the empire into two distinct
states was to have consequences as disastrous as they were irreversible.
With the Great Khan’s support, the newly-founded Ilkhanate drove the
Jochids away from their central asian and transcaucasian fiefs, so that
the Golden horde found itself isolated in the steppes, and lost its access
to the Silk road at the same time as it lost any prospect of sharing in the
profits of the Iraqi spice route.19
thus in 1261 the Mongols of the cumans steppe found themselves
afflicted by lasting losses on many levels, which provoked strong reac-
tions. their varied responses aimed either at recapturing their lost great-
ness or at adapting to the new conditions as an act of necessity.
Seen from the longer-term historical perspective, it is striking that on
the one hand these two strategies were almost permanent fixtures of pol-
icy, and on the other hand that Berke, first to apply the strategies, was
able by the time of his death in 1266 to build a lasting basis for the Golden
horde’s new foreign policy. In his initiatives, whether fully developed or
merely sketched out, we see a complete list of all his successors’ deeds,
when they either tackled his plans anew or brought them to completion.
Berke Khan set his political and military plans into motion so speed-
ily that they give the impression of having been fully formed from the
start. after all diplomatic attempts to recover tabriz from the first Ilkhan
hülegü were thwarted, Berke launched the transcaucasian campaign of
1262/3, and at the same time sealed the alliance with the Mamluk Sul-
tan Baybars against their common enemy in persia. thus Berke decisively
drew up the lines of the fateful triangle of geo-political force within which
his successors at Sarai would move, unvaryingly.
19 See chapters 2.1.2, 2.2, 3.1.