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

Indeed, quite often the Turkmans disobeyed commands to
resist plundering and, what is important from the stand-
point of the establishment of any centralized Turkish state
in the pre-Mongol period, Saljuq sultans were frequently
obliged to send armies against the lurkmens—-fighting
Turkmen rebels almost as often, it would seem, as the
autochthonous populations . Furthermore, the nomadic
pastoraliat Turkmens were the bane not only of the Saljuq
authorities, and, of course, of the sedentary Armenians,
but also of the Euslim states which bordered Armenia on the
east (the Shaddadids of Ganjak in Caucasian Albania) and
south (the Uarwanids), in the period of the invasions.
Each successive invasion—Saljuq, Khwarazmian, Mongol and
llmurid—pushed before it, brought along with it, or
dragged in its wake into Asia Minor thousands of these
virtually uncontrollable nomadic warriors who (when totally
unchecked) devastated the cities searching for plunder,
destroyed the countryside and the complex irrigation systems
turning cultivated fields into pasturage for their sheep
herds, and reduced the possibilities for internal and
international trade by infesting the trade routes between
2
cities, and attacking caravans . Despite C . Cahen's
1 W p. 27, pp. 32-50.
2 DMH pp. 258-85.
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