the golden horde and the black sea 169
way that events turned against them in Georgia and the Mamluk frontier
in Syria gave toqta hope that he may be able to persuade Ghāzān to cede
the transcaucasian provinces by diplomatic means. to this end, he sent
an impressive embassy in 1302 or 1303, with over 300 horsemen, which
presented to the Ilkhan the old demand for the restoration of azerbaijan
and the arran. Ghāzān’s brusque reply—“I conquered these lands by the
sword and I will defend them by the sword”101—led to a further cooling
of relations between the two neighbouring states. toqta’s envoys subse-
quently concluded a peace treaty with the new Ilkhan, Öljeitü, in Decem-
ber 1304102 but Sarai—and tabriz on the other side103—considered this
only a pause to recoup strength for future clashes.
toqta knew from his own experience and his predecessors’ that the
Ilkhanid forts in the narrow valleys of the caucasus represented an insur-
mountable obstacle for Jochid cavalry, used to fighting in open terrain.104
under these circumstances, a military attack against persia only had
any real chance of victory if the caucasus front were sufficiently under-
manned, which would only happen if the Ilkhanate had to commit mas-
sive forces to a war with the Mamluks.
In the four decades since the Golden horde’s formation, this reasoning
had become a cornerstone of its foreign policy,105 and formed the basis of
toqta’s diplomatic overtures to the Sultan al-Malik an-Nāṣir Muḥammad
which had begun to flow once more in great numbers” (Grekov, Yakubovskiy, Orda, p. 89).
rubruck mentions the route as flourishing, half a century earlier: “here lies the route taken
by all the Saracens who come from persia and turkia” (rubruck/Jackson, p. 127).
101 as grand vezir, rashīd al-Dīn certainly would have known this embassy’s message
as well, dated to 2nd January 1302 (or in another manuscript, 23rd November 1302), but it
seems that he judged the content to have been embarrassing to his master from the point
of view of “international law,” and therefore left it out of his chronicle (tiesenhausen,
Sbornik, II, p. 79); Waṣṣāf/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, II, pp. 82–83, who dates the first embassy
to 30th January 1303, does not seem to have shared the vezir’s reservations; cf. Spuler,
Horde, pp. 80–81, and idem, Mongolen, p. 86, Zakirov, Otnosheniya, pp. 67–68.
102 Qāshānī/parvisi-Berger, p. 48, haenisch, “Briefe,” Spuler, Horde, p. 83.
103 In a letter to philip the fair of summer 1305, the Ilkhan reports that the peace
was approved by all the Mongol princes, beginning with the great khan of china, so that
he could propose to the french king a resumption of their joint campaigns against the
Mamluks (haenisch, “Briefe,” p. 230); cf. Mostaert, cleaves, Lettres, pp. 56–57, Grous-
set, Empire, p. 460, Desimoni, Conti, p. 40, Soranzo, Papato, p. 350, Vernadsky, Mongols,
pp. 82, 193–194, Spuler, Horde, p. 83, and howorth, History, II, 1, pp. 142–144, Schmid, Bezie-
hungen, pp. 246–247.
104 the defeat that toqtamïsh’s cavalry suffered in winter 1386/7, as they tried to break
these defences, is instructive here; the Mongol army was bottled up in a valley at the
mercy of timur’s archers, who occupied secure positions on the slopes around (cf. ciocîl-
tan, “restauraţia,” p. 586, and below, p. 293).
105 cf. Spuler, Horde, pp. 40 ff., and chapter 3.3.1.