Talk:Siege of Baghdad: Difference between revisions

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Shouldn't this be

I agree that the title needs to be changed. I've read dozens of books about the Mongols, and the event generally isn't referred to as a "Battle". Instead it's "The Fall of Baghdad" or "The Sack of Baghdad", "The Conquering of Baghdad", or "The Destruction of Baghdad." I looked through titles at http://scholar.google.com, and based on a quick look, "Fall" and "Sack" are the preferred titles. If I had to choose, I'd probably lean towards "Fall of Baghdad (1258)" as being one of the most neutral, but I could go with "Sack of Baghdad" too. The word "Sack" is stronger and somewhat more emotional, but it's definitely well-sourced. --Elonka 04:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have several

talk) 18:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Makes sense. So, "Sack of Baghdad (1258)" ? Or just "Sack of Baghdad"? --Elonka 21:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Timur appears to have sacked Baghdad again in 1401, but I think this might be a primary topic. What's your thought?

talk) 08:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Hmm, is there an article on the 1401 event? Also, what is being used for the current-event actions? --Elonka 09:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Sack" is such a loaded word... It is also rather limitative: the "sack" was only one of the phases of the siege itself, which is the subject of the article here. I think we should use a broader and more neutral title such as

talk) 09:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

But the same is true of all the other articles called "sack." I wouldn't especially object to

talk) 16:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

Why wasn't the name changed? 68.4.127.102 (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see the extreme sacking of Baghdad as a military tactic. What about the looting and destruction of the House of Wisdom (i.e the Great Library of Baghdad), does it have any military significance over the next Mongolian military campaigns? The Mongols tended to plunder a city for it's wealth, not concerning the next and possible future use of the city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.20.60.197 (talk) 08:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While what you say is basically true, massacres WERE used as a military device by the Mongols - they hoped that the spread of the news would terrify the populations of future areas of conquest so that they would submit without a fight in order to save their lives and property. The effectiveness of such measures is, of course, debatable. It didn't work in Hungary, where large battles ensued that resulted in the virtual annihilation of the Hungarian army and their Cuman allies. And the morality of these actions is pretty clear. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan[reply]

I think it was just the application of the relatively extreme values of a very tough people who had grown up in a harsh, vengeance based society on the steppes to civilization. On the steppes, when someone lost, they were liquidated. That's just how it was. I don't think the Mongols ever got together in a tent and had a great intellectual debate about the military effectiveness of these tactics. Likely, that's just a retroactive interpolation by later historians trying to rationalize the abject horror of the matter.68.19.231.55 (talk) 05:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course they did. This is verified in Reliable Sources. The early Mongol Empire had very good generals, and tactics were regularly discussed and observations of battles later re-evaluated. This is beyond dispute. HammerFilmFan (talk) 21:55, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the comments here are a bit 'poetic' rather than encyclopedic. If this is a quote from somewhere, it might be nice if the reference were cited. The comments on the total destruction of Baghdad are pure fantasy. No one in the field believes that.

While not totally destroyed, by any reasonable examination of the texts, it's clear Baghdad experienced a disaster unimaginable. Had the city been an aircraft carrier, the navy would have sunk it as too badly damaged for repair. Between the Mongols and the Timurids it took centuries for the city to recover. However, any improvement to the section per RS is always desirable. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan[reply]

Can anyone please give a citation for the violent act against the books? In which primary source can we readb about the river Tigris running black because of the Ink of the Books, and that a Horse could cross the river on books??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chendjer (talk • contribs) 13:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The primary sources are various Persian and Arab historians of the time. How much is poetic license and how much is factual is a matter of debate; however, there is NO debate that the destruction of Baghdad is a fact, and that the city was more or less utterly ruined and the population massacred in very great numbers. Some modern historical secondary sources that can give you a very good idea of what happened and descriptions of what the Mongol terror-tactics in warfare are:

  THE DEVIL'S HORSEMEN, by James Chambers
  THE MONGOLS, by David Morgan
  THE EMPIRE OF THE STEPPES, by Rene Grousset
  A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ARAB PEOPLES, by Sir John Glubb

additionally, Will Durant in his "Age of Faith" volume of THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION contains large sections quoted verbatim of the primary sources and has value in that regard. Some time after the destruction, various European accounts by traders and missionaries passing through the area reported the fields of bones and the pitiful remains of the city being used by various beggars and hermits; it took over a century for Baghdad to regain any small percentage of what had been lost. HammerFilmFan (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerFilmFan (talk • contribs) 22:00, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Claim 1: Opening paragraphs of article: "As a result, Baghdad remained depopulated and in ruins for several centuries" Claim 2: Last paragraph of article: "Initially, the fall of Baghdad was a shock to the whole Muslim world, but the city became one of economic centers where international trade, money minting and religious affairs flourished under the Ilkhans"

So... which is it? And how does this make sense? The Ilkhanate disintegrated by 1335, so I'm not sure how you can possibly reconcile claim 1 with claim 2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.218.218 (talk) 18:38, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on this article lately, and expect to be intermittently revising/restructuring until next weekend or so, given a GA review that may get in the way. I will remove the tag by Thursday if work is progressing slowly.

Guo Kan was a son of the Chinese commander Guo Baoyu who served the Mongolian Empire. He and his family served the Mongols and was usually in charge of Chinese artillery and troops recruited under the banner of the Mongolians. They had never been major military commanders. If we need to mention every sub-commanders, the article simply cannot contain it, so that I removed his name. But his name can be mentioned in the article along with other Mongolian officers.--Lauren68 (talk) 12:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An Arab historian said, "The Moslems, being few, were defeated." Before that, we were told that military victory was proof of philosophy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.116.118 (talk) 15:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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While Ian Frasier's New Yorker article is fine for a life-style magazine, he's hardly a scholar of Mongolic/Persian studies, as his intro to the cited article states. We can do much better.HammerFilmFan (talk) 15:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some material and will tighten the prose a bit.HammerFilmFan (talk) 21:18, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The request to rename this article to Siege of Baghdad has been carried out. If the page title has consensus, be sure to close this discussion using {{ subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Requested move/dated|…}} tag, or replace it with the {{subst:Requested move/end |…}} tag.

~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:11, 28 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BegbertBiggs (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. "1258" is as important as "siege of Baghdad". I don't see much of an improvement in removing it from the title in favour of the ho-hum title "siege of Baghdad", which is the kind of thing one just assumes there have been several of. This is especially so since one is as or more likely to find the events of 1258 called the "fall of Baghdad", "sack of Baghdad" or "capture of Baghdad" as siege. Srnec (talk) 18:22, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Cautious oppose There are 6 sieges of Baghdad with articles on Wikipedia, another 3 red links, plus several battles of Baghdad, I feel cautious about deciding there is a primary topic. PatGallacher (talk) 20:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]