Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (47 page)

After the siege of Safad (1266) Baybars appointed a commander of the fortress, a second-in-command and an arsenal supervisor, who immediately saw to the collecting of arrows and siege machines left over in the Mamluk camp. Mamluk
soldiers were brought over from Damascus to strengthen the Safad garrison. Maintaining the garrison cost 80,000 dirham per month. The land in the vicinity of Safad, once owned by the Franks, was transferred to the amirs but there is no further information concerning the daily expenses of the fortress, i.e. if they were paid through local taxation or by the sultan.
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If there was no core from which a garrison could be built, a new garrison was established. At the end of the siege of Marqab (684/1285) Qalāwūn constructed an entirely new garrison that included 1,000 infantry archers and troops (
jarjya,
), 400 craftsmen, 150 amirs, infantry soldiers who were probably armed with javelins, swords and mace heads and 550 Mamluks from the
, the
and the
. The entire battery of siege machines was moved from the Mamluk siege camp to the fortress, together with all the pots of naphtha and wooden logs remaining from the siege. Garrison salaries, the costs of rebuilding the fortress and daily expenses were paid out of taxes collected from the local population.
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Along the coastal plain, in addition to the small garrison at Qāqūn, Türkmen tribes were settled in the vicinity by Baybars who entrusted the region’s safety and defense to them.
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In more remote places the majority of the garrison was recruited from the local population,
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occasionally reinforced by a small number of Mamluk soldiers from the sultan’s army or from the Mamluk contingents belonging to one of the local Syrian amirs.

The Mamluk incursion into Cilicia during the summer of 697/1298 ended with the conquest of three Armenian fortresses: Tall
,
and Nujayma. The recruitment of garrisons for all three was entrusted to the governor of Damascus. Soldiers of all ranks and specialties were recruited by order of the governor, who organized the garrisons and saw that they were properly armed and taken care of.
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During especially tense periods garrisons were temporarily reinforced, as was done by
when he went on pilgrimage to Mecca during the winter of 713/1313.
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The garrison’s size was not dictated by the strategic importance of the site. This peculiar situation probably resulted from the fact that most of the fortresses were not built by the Mamluks themselves and there was not always a correlation between the initial size of the fortress, the military or political changes that occurred in the region and the needs of the Sultanate.

Under Frankish rule Marqab served as an administrative center for a fairly large regional population.
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When it was taken by Qalāwūn, he composed a garrison that numbered 2,100 men, although the fortress was not located on or near the frontier and may have even lost its importance as an administrative center.

We have no information about the size or composition of the fortress garrisons at
and al-Bīra, which were often besieged by Īlkhānid armies. In comparison to Safad or
al-Akrād the two Euphrates fortresses were fairly modest. Although the fortresses were well built and planned, with several levels, underground storage and vaults, it is doubtful whether they could accommodate more than a few hundred men each. It is possible that the local population was counted upon, and was expected to take an active part in the defense; though none of the sources explicitly says so. The only mention of the role of townspeople in the defense of
is during the siege
of 1313. Once the besieging army retreated, the locals went out and collected all the siege machines left in the Īlkhānid camp.
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The finest example e have of local participation in the defense of a city comes from Damascus. In 699/1300, after the Īlkhānid army had left, the guarding of the city walls was entrusted to the townsmen.
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Once the city had recovered, the Mamluk governor of the citadel decided to carry out important reforms in order to improve the local population’s fighting skills. Targets were placed in the madrasas and mosques, and men were ordered to practice archery. Shopkeepers were instructed to hang their weapons inside their shops. In addition, each of the city markets was assigned an amir who organized the local civilian population.
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