the disintegration of the empire 91
schematically—what each party to the convergence of interests assem-
bled in 1263 contributed to the goal of destroying the ilkhanate, what each
expected and what they received.
Before all others, the Khan’s common interests with the sultan should
be laid out, since these were the basis of the coalition and brought in
the other participants. the purport of the sarai-cairo axis was evident
from the moment it was established. it was made up of two elements: one
military, the joint offensive against the ilkhanate, and the other commer-
cial—specifically, the golden horde’s export of slaves to egypt.
it has been little remarked, although it is of decisive relevance, that
these two strands were actually contradictory and became more so as time
went on, leading eventually to the unraveling of the alliance. Where sarai
considered a mamluk offensive against the ilkhanate as indispensable if
tabriz was to be retaken,135 cairo in its turn saw the import of slaves from
lands north of the Black sea as the absolute priority, particularly after
battles against the mongols in syria had considerably reduced the sultan’s
military capabilities.136 on the nile as on the volga, each capital had justi-
fied concerns about the desirability of satisfying its partner’s needs.
for the sultanate, the destruction of the ilkhanate would open up the
worrying prospect of unified mongol forces in both the cuman steppe and
persia, which would inevitably be bound for a fatal collision with egypt.
Because of this concern, the mamluk rulers did all they could to stoke
up the transcaucasian conflict, where the two mongol states could be
pinned down in a war of attrition, and took good care that all planned
joint operations on the caucasus and euphrates front simultaneously137
were stillborn.138
the khans were similarly chary about the export slave trade, since this
beggared their realm of potential soldiers and tax-payers. these losses
were certainly never compensated by the profit to be made from selling
slaves, and the scale of the losses may be judged from the fact that the
Jochid armies were never able to tip the balance lastingly in their favour
135 see the contents of messages sent by the khans to the sultans in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, Zakirov, Otnosheniya, passim.
136 cf. chapter 4.2; labib, Handelsgeschichte, p. 204, considers this a “vital necessity” for
the mamluk state.
137 this strategic concept was as simple as it was long-lived, as the decades were to
prove; it is first mentioned in Berke’s letter to Baybars of may 1263 (ibn ‘abd al-Ẓāhir/
tiesenhausen, Sbornik, i, p. 51).
138 see the insightful remarks on such operations of Zakirov, Otnosheniya, pp. 4–6, on
which he is an authority.