54 chapter two
in 1236/7,77 in 1242 Batu, hardly returned from the central european cam-
paign, ordered general Bayju and the transcaucasian troops to shatter the
seljuk power:78 it was definitively destroyed at the battle of Kösa dagh in
1243.79 the defeated seljuks immediately sent an embassy of capitulation
to the khan on the Volga.80
Batu’s excursions beyond his assigned limits on the steppeland pro-
duced understandable frustration at Qara Qorum: the scale of güyük’s
reaction is a measure of the central power’s efforts to dam the flood of
Jochid hegemony in the Muslim east. eljigidei enjoyed some successes
in this regard when the great Khan ordered him to thwart the golden
horde’s ambitions south of the caucasus, but once he was mercilessly
executed after Möngke took the throne,81 Batu’s influence in this region
grew stronger again.82 the seljuk sultan was not the only one to recog-
nise the Mongol imperial duumvirate of 1251: the king of cilician arme-
nia also visited the sarai khan first, before continuing his journey to the
Mongol capital.83
when Batu settled the new and favourable relationship between him-
self and his monarch, he clearly secured a number of advantages that
more than repaid the effort that he had put in to have Möngke elected
great Khan. he also expected this political investment to pay out even
more profitably in future, by supplementing Jochid eastern holdings with
iraq, syria and egypt.
a project on this scale needed the imperial army to carry it out, and
only the emperor could mobilise it. it was decided at the qurultai of 1251,
where the delegates from the golden horde had the final say, that the
conquest of the islamic east, from which Batu would emerge the clear
77 an-nuwayrī (tiesenhausen, Sbornik, i, p. 133); cf. spuler, Horde, pp. 29–30.
78 an-nuwayrī (tiesenhausen, Sbornik, i, p. 133) calls him the political force behind the
operation, saying that it took place min qibal Batu, ‘on behalf of Batu,’ while al-‛aynī/ibid.,
p. 476, mentions him as actually leading the operation; cf. Jackson, “dissolution,” p. 218.
79 cf. Matuz, “niedergang.”
80 cf. Jackson, “dissolution,” p. 218.
81 cf. pp. 50–51.
82 on eljigidei’s fate, Kirakos (dulaurier, “Mongols,” 11, 1858, pp. 458–459) notes: “From
this time onwards kings, princes, captains and merchants began to come to Batu, meaning
all those who had been molested or robbed of their possessions.”
83 note that in 1246, King hethum i found that the correct course of action was to send
his brother sempad straight to güyük; in the next decade, when he himself made the jour-
ney, he took the detour to sarai (ibid., pp. 463 ff; cf. spuler, Mongolen, pp. 40–41).