10 - Fortified Landscape of Herat and its Environs

Summary

We shall make him climb the town walls, which are as high as mountains[,] until the nails of his ten fingers are worn away […]. We shall make him climb the town walls[,] which are made of hard-pounded earth.

The Fortified City

Herein lies the Mongols’ fear of sedentary peoples and their fortifications; fear born of bitter experiences in China, which cost Mongols blood and treasure. The Mongols came to excel at siege warfare with the benefit of Chinese siege engineers and technologies; and by using sedentary people against their own fortifications (“arrow-fodder” as John Masson Smith put it). The Mongols’ fears, however, were well rooted. Hence their opposition to the rebuilding of Herat’s fortifications.

Fahkr al-Dīn launched projects in 699/1299–1300 to fortify Herat. Nikudari raids and Mongol threats to his power lent urgency to his fortification ventures. In so doing he was defying the Mongols and their opposition to rebuilding in Herat, much less rebuilding fortifications. A central project was Herat’s citadel, Qalʿa-yi Ikhtiyār al-Dīn, which is named after commander (sālār) Ikhtiyār al-Dīn Muḥammad Hārūn (fl. 721/1321). Development of trenches, walls, bastions, and gateways was Fahkr al-Dīn’s related project. The dialectic of offense v. defense determines the character and physiognomy of fortifications.

Offense and Defense

Offense and defense are complementary facets in warfare: offensive strategies and tactics shift and shape defensive strategies and tactics. It applies not only to warfare, but also, for example, to American football, where the defensive team adapts to the offensive team’s unfolding play. A maxim is that an attacker’s/defender’s methods evolve (based on lessons learned in combat— warfare is Darwinian), compelling the other side to adapt. The side that must adapt is (in theory) a step behind the evolved enemy; for example, if a new artillery piece can penetrate a two meter-thick rampart, then the wall must be thickened. Herat resisted Elǰigidei for over six months; but certain cities of Transoxiana and Khurasan fell to the Mongols relatively quickly. Nishapur’s defenses had been weakened by Ghuzz attacks in the twelfth century; hence Tolui’s fairly swift breach of Nishapur’s walls.