Chapter 2 - The Meccan War
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Mamluk soldiers in training.
Prior to the beginning of the war in 1410, tension had slowly been building in the Middle East. The Mamluks had been on a campaign for the better part of the opening of the 15th century. Under pressure from a strong, expanding Timurid Khanate in the north, who were in the process of conquering the lands of Anatolia from the Ottomen Turks, sought means to expand their territory. They made large territorial gains, taking lands south of Egypt in Nubia and Ethiopia, stopping just short of dissolving the Ethiopian Kingdom, as well as several large islands in the Mediterranean. After exhausting most of the Mamluk's avenues for easy conquest, the Malik of Egypt, al-Nasr Faraj Burji, would finally make a formal declaration of war on the Hedjazi, in an attempt to wrest control of the cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as the surrounding lands, from them. al-Nasr had been hoping for an easy victory against the vastly outnumbered Hedjazi. However, the string of alliances that the controllers of the Holy City had engineered, would hope in several major powers from around the Muslim world.
The Hedjazi called upon their allies; the Sultanate of Algiers, the Jalayrids, the Sultanate of Yemen, the Sultanate of Tripoli, and the Sultanate of Oman. The Yemeni, Omani, and Hedjazi would popularly become known as the 'Arab League' during the war, due to their close proximity to each other and early cooperation between the three countries. Faced with these overwhelming odds, The Mamluks issued a call to arms to their allies in Morocco, as well as the vassal state of Adal to the south.
Army on the march from Constantine
League ships quickly moved, forming a blockade in the Red Sea. The Mamluks, having a very minor naval presence within the sea, were unable to muster up a substantial resistance to the blockade, which would continue until the end of the war.
The opening moves of the war were a mixed bag for both sides. The Jalayrids fought fiercely, driving off much of the Mamluk forces in the Levant, pushing them back to the Sinai peninsula before the Egyptians could muster an effective counter attack. The Algerians, on the other hand, were delivered defeat after defeat by the Moroccan armies.
The League, after mustering its forces at Mecca, would number nineteen thousand strong, with the Omani composing of one third of the entire force. After a brief march, they would encounter a Mamluk army of twenty-one thousand a few miles from the city of Medina.
Mamluk cavalry charging.
The battle was a disaster for the League.
The League army was composed mostly of light infantry and cavalry, with only a small portion of their troops wearing any sort of armor.
The battle began with small cavalry skirmishes. The two armies would send their cavalry forward, sling javelins at each other, then withdraw. The lines of infantry clashed soon after. Not only were the League soldiers outnumbered, they were also under equipped and poorly trained, many of them being local tribesmen levied into the army. It did not take long for the army to route.
The League horsemen had limited success against the Egyptian light cavalry. However, once the Mamluk heavy cavalry entered the fight, the elite fighting force of the Egyptians, the League cavalry was driven from the field.
The Battle of Medina was a crushing defeat for the Arab League, and the effective end of their part in the war.
The Hedjazi Malik was forced to cede his lands to the Mamluks after the battle, and the Egyptians marched into Yemen soon afterwards. They quickly occupied the country, and the Sultan of Oman quickly signed a peace with the invading Mamluks, accepting his defeat, and the war ended after three years.
Aside from the Mamluk's achieving their goals in the war, their Moroccan allies were able to overwhelm and annex the Algerian Sultanate into their own realm. The Jalayrids managed to sign a truce with the Mamluks, without anything being lost or gained between either of them.
While the Mamluks were the victors in the war, they would face a sharp decline after the death of al-Nasr Faraj Burji. They would effectively cease to be a major power in the world for the next hundred years, and would pave the way for the Omani to begin their conquests in Africa.
