In the early sixteenth century, several major countries in the Middle East clashed one after another to expand their spheres of influence. In 1514, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Dynasty fought for control of eastern Anatolia, and the Ottoman Empire won a complete victory.
Set yourself on fire
The defeated Safavids were eager to seek help from all sides in order to resist the invasion from the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the Mamluk dynasty, which ruled Egypt, the Red Sea coast, and Syria, intended to intervene in the matter. The Mamluk sultan (ruler title) believed that allowing the Ottoman Empire to expand would seriously endanger the balance of power in the region, so he wanted to limit the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to Anatolia, leaving Persia to the Safavid dynasty, and the Mamluk dynasty continuing to control the Arab world.
To the Mamluks' surprise, however, their intervention not only did not curb the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, but instead drew the flames of war to themselves. It turned out that the Ottoman ruler Selim I had been hesitant to attack the Safavid dynasty first or the Mamluk dynasty first, and the Mamluks' intervention helped Selim I make up his mind.
Who are the Mamluks?
On August 24, 1516, the mamluk sultan, who was in his prime, gathered in the Dabik steppe outside Aleppo, Syria, with 20,000 of the country's most elite Mamluk warriors, across from the Ottoman army led by Selim I.
"Mamluk" means "possessed" or "slave" in Arabic. Coming from the Eurasian steppes and the Caucasus, they were brought from an early age to Cairo, Egypt, to convert to Islam and indoctrinated with boundless loyalty to religion, the state, and their masters. Each Mamluk undergoes harsh military training over a long period of time, eventually being trained into a highly effective killing machine. As adults, the Mamluks were given freedom and joined the ruling elite. The Mamluks were one of the most powerful armies of the Middle Ages, having defeated the Crusaders from Europe and the Mongol Iron Horsemen from Asia.
Battle of the Steppes of Dabik
The Mamluk armies of the Dabik steppe were well-equipped, and their weapons were made of high-strength steel and studded with gold. The Mamluks believed that flamboyant equipment could give warriors full confidence. However, the Ottoman army on the other side of the battlefield was more confident. This army has been in the battlefield for a long time, extremely experienced in battle, and more importantly, they have reached 60,000 people, which is 3 times the number of Mamluk troops.
It wasn't long before the battle began on the Dabik steppe. It was a battle of national fortunes between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Empire, and neither side could afford to lose. Before the war, many people thought that this would be a contest of equal strength, but when the two sides were short-handed, the battlefield was one-sided. The Ottoman army slaughtered the Mamluks as if they had entered a slaughterhouse, and the latter had almost completely lost its ability to resist...
Defeat of the Mamluks
The Battle of the Dabik Steppe ended in a complete victory for the Ottoman Empire, so the question is, why did the once invincible Mamluk army suddenly become vulnerable?
There is a view that the Mamluks are too far behind the Ottomans in terms of strength, so they will not be able to withstand the impact of the other side. However, in the history of war, examples of victories abounding in terms of military strength, which is more than this difference, and the so-called "soldiers are expensive, not expensive." The fact that the Mamluk Sultan was able to personally lead his army into battle showed that he did not see anything wrong with the inferiority in strength. Thus the mere attribution of the Mamluk defeat to the military strength is clearly an oversimplification and far-fetched explanation.
There is also a view that the Mamluks were old and relied on the individual combat capabilities of soldiers, while the Ottoman army already had a modern gunpowder infantry regiment equipped with muskets. Therefore, the two armies are not in one dimension, and this battle naturally has no fight. But you know, it was still 1516, how powerful could the muskets be at that time? Even more than a hundred years later, the Chinese Ming Dynasty army with muskets and artillery was still beaten by the Manchu Qing Eight Banner Army, which used cold weapons. Therefore, in the war of the early sixteenth century, the musket was not enough to be the protagonist who decided the direction of the war.
In fact, the real reason for the Mamluks' vulnerability was due to their internal problems. Several of the late Mamluk rulers were either cowardly or violent, and the state gradually declined under their management, and the contradictions within the ruling class intensified. It was precisely because of this that the Ottoman Empire decided to target the Mamluk dynasty. Before the outbreak of the war, Salem I successfully persuaded the commander of the city of Aleppo to secretly defect, who was the commander of the left wing of the Mamluk army in the Battle of the Dabik Steppe. As soon as the war broke out, the governor of Aleppo defected en masse with his left-wing army, which led to a rapid rout of the Mamluk army.
"Fortresses are often the first to be breached from within", but the once invincible Mamluks eventually fell under the butcher's knife of the Ottoman Empire due to the betrayal of their own people.
Reference: The Arabs