Battle of Baghdad (1258)

Battle of Baghdad (1258)
Part of the Mongol invasions
Hulagu's army conducting a siege on Baghdad walls.
Date January 29 – February 10, 1258 Location Baghdad, modern-day Iraq Result Decisive Mongol victory
Belligerents
Mongol Empire Georgian-Mongol alliance	Abbasid Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Hulagu Khan Guo Kan Baiju Kitbuga Koke Ilge David VII ulu	Caliph Al-Musta'sim (POW) Mujaheduddin Sulaiman Shah (POW) Qarasunqur.
Strength
120,000[1]-150,000[2] total (60,000 Georgian infantry, 12,000 Armenian cavalry,[1] Chinese bombardiers,[2] and Mongol, Turkic, Persian and Georgian soldiers)	50,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown but believed to be minimal	50,000 soldiers, 90,000-100,000 civilians [source?]

The Battle of Baghdad in 1258 was a victory for the Mongol leader Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. Baghdad was captured, sacked, and over time burned.

Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Empire.^[3] This was an Islamic empire in what is now Iraq. The Abbasid caliphs were the second of the Islamic dynasties.

The Mongol army, led by Hulagu (also spelled as Hulegu) Khan and the Chinese commander Guo Kan in vice-command, set out for Baghdad in November of 1257. Hulagu marched with what was probably the largest army ever fielded by the Mongols. By order of Mongke Khan, one in ten fighting men in the entire Mongol Empire were gathered for Hulagu's army (Saunders 1971).

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} L. Venegoni (2003). Hülägü's Campaign in the West - (1256-1260), Transoxiana Webfestschrift Series I, Webfestschrift Marshak 2003. Archived 2019-05-13 at the Wayback Machine
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Cite error: The named reference Geographic was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
3. ↑ "Six Essays from the Book of Commentaries on Euclid". World Digital Library. Retrieved 21 March 2013.