Larissa
28th March 2003, 15:43
U.S. War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has just announced that American forces are planning to lay siege to Baghdad. He expects that the 5 million citizens
of Baghdad will rise up and welcome the Americans. Basra in the south is currently under siege by the Brits. Geoff Hoon, the U.K. Secretary of War, told the BBC yesterday, "The Iraqis are putting up a fight. I warned in the House of Commons yesterday about some commentators' assumptions that this would be over relatively quickly."
Students of history will recall that the Mongols laid siege to Baghdad in 1245. Without success. The Mongol Il-Khans invested Baghdad again in 1258. The Great Khan Möngke instructed Hülegü, commander of the Mongol army: "If the caliph of Baghdad submits and hastens
to show obedience, cause him no harm, but if he is arrogant and his heart and tongue do not coincide, treat him as you would any [enemy]." The Abbasid
Caliph refused the summons to submit, but his city did not hold out for long: When the Mongols entered the city, they destroyed much of it. The Persian historian Hamd Allah Mustawfi Qazwini put the death toll at 800,000. Hülegü put the figure at more than 200,000 in a letter to Louis IX written in 1262. History records that the Christian inhabitants of Baghad were spared the Mongol wrath.
After Baghdad, in 1260, Hülegü's armies invaded Syria.
Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld are not students of history.
of Baghdad will rise up and welcome the Americans. Basra in the south is currently under siege by the Brits. Geoff Hoon, the U.K. Secretary of War, told the BBC yesterday, "The Iraqis are putting up a fight. I warned in the House of Commons yesterday about some commentators' assumptions that this would be over relatively quickly."
Students of history will recall that the Mongols laid siege to Baghdad in 1245. Without success. The Mongol Il-Khans invested Baghdad again in 1258. The Great Khan Möngke instructed Hülegü, commander of the Mongol army: "If the caliph of Baghdad submits and hastens
to show obedience, cause him no harm, but if he is arrogant and his heart and tongue do not coincide, treat him as you would any [enemy]." The Abbasid
Caliph refused the summons to submit, but his city did not hold out for long: When the Mongols entered the city, they destroyed much of it. The Persian historian Hamd Allah Mustawfi Qazwini put the death toll at 800,000. Hülegü put the figure at more than 200,000 in a letter to Louis IX written in 1262. History records that the Christian inhabitants of Baghad were spared the Mongol wrath.
After Baghdad, in 1260, Hülegü's armies invaded Syria.
Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld are not students of history.