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The Second Battle of Sarvandik'ar was fought in 1276 A.D. between an army of the Mamluks of Egypt and a unit of Cilician Armenians, in a mountain pass that separates Eastern Cilicia and Northern Syria. The battle was part of the Armenian war effort against a much larger and better trained army that habitually raided the Cilician Plain and threatened to annihilate the Armenian Kingdom. ==Preceding events and discussion== The Cilician Armenian Princes were the most important local Christian fighting force before the arrival of the Crusaders in Outremer in the late 1090s and they became the most natural regional allies of the Crusaders. Many Armenian mercenaries also became available in the early 12th Century. Together, allies or mercenaries, they served as cavalry and as highly regarded infantry archers in the Crusader armies, often organized in large units and sometimes under their own princes. At times, their numbers in the Latin Crusader States rose to 4,000 horsemen and 10,000 infantry. The feudalization of Cilician Armenia in the 12th and 13th century made it even easier for Armenian warriors to fit in the armies of the Crusader States. Thanks to his military and diplomatic prowess and with the support given by the Holy Roman Emperors (Frederick Barbarossa and his son, Henry VI), prince Levon Rupenian was able to elevate the status of his principality to a kingdom. The newly reformed Cilician Armenian monarchy sought to model itself on the Norman feudal system. The important role played by Cilician Armenia in the military history of the Crusaders has rarely been recognised though it was well understood by both the Crusaders and their Muslim foes. The Cilician Armenians were not reduced to feeble numbers, as the Franks were. They counted up to 100,000 troops, according to the contemporary sources, of which a third were horsemen and it is of note that the Armenian heavy cavalry was very similar to that of the Franks. In fact, their general equipment resembled more and more the one of the Latins. A network of fortresses had been raised in Cilician Armenia in order to protect the country and the defense of the borders was entrusted to knights of the military orders. When the Mongols appeared near the Mediterranean in the 13th century, King Hethum I accepted to become a Mongol vassal. The foundations of a military collaboration were laid and this brought the Armenians in direct conflict with the Mamluk Sultanate. Some modern historians, notably Angus Donal Stewart, who relies heavily on Muslim sources, has reservations that Armenian armies of the time could pose serious problems to the Mamluks, given the latters' reputation as an elite force of the 13th century Muslim world. He argues that the Mamluk column of 1276 was largely consisting of Turkmen invading from the direction of Marash and that Marius Canard found no Arab source which mentions this raid, concluding that it had merely local significance. Indeed, the only knowledge of it comes from Bar-Hebraeus the Syriac Orthodox catholicos and chronicle author. After the Mamluk victory over the Mongol Ilkhanate at Ain Jalut in 1260, where a force of reportedly 500 Armenian knights and their retinues also participated, the Mamluk armies started a series of devastating raids against the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, an ally of the Ilkhanate and a prosperous Christian state bordering the Eastern Mediterranean. Notably, in 1266, in the absence of the Mongol allies and of King Hethum I who was traveling to Karakorum to summon help, the Armenians suffered a crushing defeat while taken by surprise by the Mamluk army at Mari, near Darbsak. In 1275, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars invaded Cilician Armenia, sacked its capital Sis (but not the citadel) and demolished the royal palace. His marauding troops massacred inhabitants of the mountain valleys and took large quantities of booty. The port city of Ayas was destroyed and burned by a Mamluk column and some 2000 Frankish and Armenian inhabitants drowned while attempting to take refuge on the ships in the harbor. The Cilician Plain was laid waste and its inhabitants put to the sword or carried as prisoners. According to eyewitnesses, only those who took refuge in fortified places escaped the carnage. The city of Tarsus was also ruined. In this context, Armenian nobility, mostly safe in its mountain strongholds, rallied around King Leo II (the son of Hethum I) and Constable Sempad. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Second Battle of Sarvandik'ar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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