| Battle of the Indus | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theMongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire | |||||||||
 Late 16th-century depiction ofJalal al-Din Mangburni fleeing the battle by crossing the Indus; Genghis Khan looks on. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Mongol Empire | Khwarazmian Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Genghis Khan Chagatai Khan Ögedei Khan | Jalal al-Din Mangburni Amin Malik † Temur Malik † | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 50,000 cavalry[1] | 3,000 cavalry with 700 bodyguards[1] with 30,000–35,000 semi-irregular men[2] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Heavy | ||||||||
  Indus Indus (South Asia) Show map of South Asia | |||||||||
TheBattle of the Indus was fought on the banks of theIndus River, on 24 November 1221, between the armies commanded byJalal al-Din of theKhwarazmian Empire, andGenghis Khan of theMongol Empire. The battle, which resulted in an overwhelming Mongol victory, was the concluding engagement in theMongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire.
After his fatherMuhammad II had died on an island in theCaspian Sea, Jalal al-Din assumed the title ofKhwarazmshah and travelled eastwards. Escaping the Mongols several times, he reachedGhazni and started assembling a large force; he then defeated the Mongol commanderShigi Qutuqu at theBattle of Parwan. This upset victory drew the attention and ire of Genghis Khan, who gathered a force of at least 50,000 and moved towards the Shah, who had lost a large proportion of his force because of a dispute over plunder. Now unable to effectively combat the Khan, he retreated eastwards towards theIndus river; the Mongols caught up to the Khwarazmians on the morning they were due to cross the Indus.
The Shah's army, now numbering around 30,000, assumed a strong defensive position on the banks of the river. They acquitted themselves well in the early fighting, managing to drive back the Mongol forces despite being heavily outnumbered. However, after an elite Mongol detachment managed to outflank the Khwarazmians, the Shah realized the battle was lost; in full armour, he rode his horse off a cliff into the Indus. As a mark of respect for his enemy's bravery, the Khan ordered his archers not to fire, and so the Shah managed to gain the opposite bank; however, his family and nearly all his army were slaughtered.
Genghis Khan had invadedKhwarazm with an army of between 75,000 and 200,000 soldiers in late 1219.[a]Shah Muhammad II, wary of Mongol skill in battle and doubtful of his commanders' loyalties, adopted a defence in depth strategy based on garrisoning his cities, especiallyOtrar,Samarkand andGurganj.[3] However, the Khan demonstrated superior strategic ability, splitting the Shah's forcesto take Bukhara in February 1220 andSamarkand in March; the border town ofOtrar held out for six months until it fell in April.[4] Genghis sent a 30,000 to 40,000 strong Mongol army led byJebe andSubutai to hunt down the Shah, who had begun to flee west with his eldest sonJalal al-Din.[5][6] The Mongol army sacked numerous cities during their long pursuit, includingTus,Qazvin andArdabil;[7] however, the Shah found refuge on an island in theCaspian Sea, where he died in December 1220.[8]
Jalal al-Din reached the city ofGurganj, the former capital of the empire, after his father's death, but found that the nobility was hostile to him, preferring his half-brother Uzlaq-Shah.[9] Discovering a plot against his life, Jalal al-Din left the city and set out southwards across theKarakum Desert, emerging nearNisa where he defeated a Mongol detachment.[10] Meanwhile, two large Mongol forces, led by the Khan's two eldest sonsJochi andChagatai, converged on Gurganj from the northeast and southeast respectively;[11]the capture of the city would take another six months and additional Mongol forces, led byÖgedei, to be accomplished.[12] At the same time, Genghis had sent his youngest sonTolui toconquer the region of Khorasan, which Tolui completed speedily and with extreme devastation — the cities ofMerv,Nishapur were destroyed and their populations massacred, whileHerat was betrayed to the Mongols and escaped destruction.[13] Jalal al-Din narrowly escaped being caught at Nishapur, where he had hoped to raise an army; he evaded his pursuers and managed to reachBost, where his maternal uncle Amin Malik joined him with a reasonable force.[14] The Shah then moved toGhazni, where many Khwarazmian loyalists, includingQurlaq,Khalaj and Turkmens, joined him and within a few weeks he had amassed a well-equipped, if not firmly united, army of around 65,000 soldiers.[15]
After Jalal al-Din moved against some Mongol forces in the area, Genghis Khan sentShigi Qutuqu with force of between thirty and fifty thousand to defeat the Shah;[16][17] however, Qutuqu was unexpectedly defeated at theBattle of Parwan in the autumn of 1221.[18][19] News of this defeat led to large rebellions in several cities, including Merv and Herat. Unfortunately for Jalal al-Din, a large proportion of his force, mostly Afghans under Saif al-Din Ighrak, deserted after the battle because of a dispute over spoils. The Shah knew that the sudden loss of nearly half his army would probably prove fatal, so he decided to seek refuge in India.[20] He returned to Ghazni and then marched east, making for theIndus River to cross intoIndia.[21] However, his pace was slow because a large number of refugees was accompanying his army.[20]
The Mongols had conducted two month-long sieges at Rang Castle andBamyan, but Genghis Khan marched towards Ghazni after receiving news of the defeat at Parwan.[22] The Mongols sent detachments ahead to seize several passes that led from Ghazni toPeshawar, so when the deserters under Ighrak finally decided to rejoin Jalal al-Din, he found the way barred. One Mongol detachment was defeated by Jalal al-Din at Gadriz,[23][24] but the Mongols, travelling at the fastest possible pace, managed to catch up on the banks of the Indus, defeating his rearguard.[21]
Both armies formed up for battle at dawn. Jalal al-Din took command of the center with 5,000 troops, including 700 bodyguards in reserve. Amin Malik took command of the Turks on the right wing,[25][26] while the Afghans manned the left wing, probably commanded by Temur Malik.[27] The Shah anchored his left wing on a ridge that ran straight into the river, while the flank on the right wing was protected by the riverbank.[27][19] With this placement, the Shah had taken away the Mongol advantage of fighting a mobile battle of outflanking manoeuvres,[23] and by fighting in a confined space, their advantage of having superior numbers were reduced.[28]
Genghis deployed his forces in a crescent-shape, pinning the Khwarazmians against the river; he personally commanded the reserve to make sure the Shah wouldn't be able to break through the Mongol lines and escape.[29] The Mongol right was commanded by Chagatai and the left by his brother Ögedei. The Mongol army outnumbered Jalal al-Din's forces by a large margin,[23] but they probably were exhausted from their forced march across the mountains and Genghis Khan may have engaged the enemy before his full force had gathered.[27][28]
At dawn on 24 November, the battle began with the wings engaging each other; the Khwarazmian left held their strong defensive position despite the Khan consistently feeding in new troops, while Ögedei was driven back on the Mongol left.[19] Realizing the strength of the ridge, Genghis sent a general named Bela Noyan with an elitebahadurtumen to climb it and outflank the Khwarazmians.[25] Jalal al-Din attacked the Mongol center; although his personal biographer al-Nasawi has him reach Genghis Khan and put him to flight. Even though the Mongols could not use their arrows effectively in the crowded conditions, they managed to stop the Khwarazmian advance, killing Temur Malik in the mêlée.[27][28]
Although many men were lost during Bela Noyan's climb, the Mongol detachment successfully scaled the ridge and attacked the Shah's left wing from the flank and rear.[30] The Khwarazmian right was also retreating, and eventually broke; Amin Malik was intercepted and killed as he tried to flee to Peshawar.[26] Even though it was evident that the battle was now lost, Jalal al-Din continued to fight until noon.[30] After his maternal cousin Akhash Malik implored him to flee, he charged the now Mongol-controlled ridge, breaking through the lines.[31][30] He then rode his horse off the edge of the 30-foot cliff, but managed to reach the opposite shore. Witnessing the feat and calling his sons to witness, Genghis forbade his archers to shoot the Shah and stated "Fortunate should be the father of such a son".[24]
Although the Shah's life was spared, the lives of his men, most of whom had followed their leader's example, were not. In total, only around four thousand reached the other bank, with many being shot in the water by Mongol archers.[26] The Shah’s camp, harem and treasures were captured, and all male members of his family, including his seven year old and infant sons, were killed.[32]
Jalal al-Din managed to collect the survivors of his army; displaying his military acumen, he defeated local rulers and started establishing a small state in India. Genghis did not make any great effort to pursue his defeated foe, only sending troops when Jalal al-Din recrossed the Indus to bury his dead.[33] The Khan was mostly occupied with subjugating the Afghans nearJalalabad, and the Mongol army then wintered in theSwat valley.[34][26] Genghis Khan next sent his son Ögedei to sack Ghazni and subdue some of the Afghan mountain forts, a task which took fifteen months to fully accomplish.[35] With that done, the Khan returned to Mongolia leisurely, reaching it in 1224–25.[36]
A small force commanded by Dorbei Doqshin failed to make contact with Jalal al-Din; when he rejoined the Khan atSamarkand, he was immediately sent out once again on the same mission, with orders not to fail.[37] They besieged the Shah for forty days in spring 1224, before the summer heat forced them to retreat.[33][b] Jalal al-Din later received news from his brother Ghiyath al-Din, who had established dominion over the Khwarazmian territories in Western Iran and Iraq, inviting him to return and re-establish Khwarazmian power.[39] Leaving his lands in thePunjab in the hands of a lieutenant, the Shah then marched acrossMakran, leaving India after a stay of three years, to set up his rule in parts of Persia and Anatolia.[40] Before theBattle of Garni in 1225, Jalal al-Din sent a letter toQueen Rusudan demanding Georgian submission; Rusudan responded with an insulting letter, mocking how badly the Khwarazmshah had been beaten by Genghis Khan at the Indus.[41]
