The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13 ...

Following the deaths of king Georgi 17 Laia (1223) and
Iwane Zak'arean (1227), Christian Caucasia, already
seriously weakened now lost the possibility of united
resistance against attackers, and this at the very moment
when it was needed most.
The fourth invasion of Armenia occurred in 1236. It
was short and merciless, and confined to the northeastern
and northern regions. In that year the Mongol general
Chormaehun. now established at the Mongol summer camp in
the Mughan plain of IzarbaTjan, sent out detachments under
various commanders to capture all the key fortresses in
northeastern Armenia . Unlike the first appearance of the
In the period from 1230 to the reappearance of the Mongols
in western Armenia, the situation there was hardly stable.
BH records that the fortress-cities of Zarberd and Xlat*
constantly were passing back and forth among Muslim rivals
(BH pp. 400-401). In the early 1230's we see Armenians
and Georgians fighting in the armies of the Sal jug. sultan
in Palestine (BH p. 400). The same author records a
famine in western. Armenia around 1234 (BH p. 401). In the
late 1230's, Khwarazmian rgmnants gtill were powerful
enough to give sultan Ghiyath al-Din problems, ravaging
Samosata and Xarberd (ST p. 403) 7£ p. 77); Armenian colophons
also speak of Mongol raids in western Armenia
prior to 1236. See Tov.j^Ll., #403 P. 878, #405 PP. 882-83.
1 HAP III pp. 606-607; SEPHA p. 103; CAMA p. 360; Kirakos*
History contains considerable information on the conquest
of parts of Caucasia prior to the submission of certain
pringes^ After noting the establishment of the Mongols
in Mughan. he commences in ch . 21 with ah account of the
capture and destruction of Gaujak, a city then densely
settled with Muslim Persians:
"Immediately the T'at'ar army arrived and beseiged Ganjak
on all sides, battling it with numerous war machines. They
struck the orchard which surrounded the city. Then they
demolished the city wall using catapults on all sides.
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