For a short while it appeared as if Berke would continue his brother's earlier policies of westward expansion; several small-scale campaigns were led against Volhynia and Galich. More surprising, and of greater import, was Berke's offer of an alliance to Bela IV. In it, the khan of the Golden Horde suggested establishing marital links between their respective children and promised to exempt Hungary from the payment of taxes; but he asked in return that one-fourth of the Hungarian armed forces should join the Mongols in a campaign against the Western nations. They were, in return, to be given one-fifth of the booty obtained. Faced with a terrible dilemma, Bela turned to Pope Alexander III for help which, of course, was not forthcoming, though peeved advice was freely given. Bela temporized, sending a Cuman-speaking envoy to Berke, whose increasing commitments elsewhere removed this alliance from his list of priorities.

After the death of Batu, within a few years, the political landscape changed considerably. In Batu's lifetime the Mongol empire was practically bicephalous: he had served under - or rather with three great khans, and with the passing years his authority grew rather than weakened. In terms of consanguinity Berke was no further from Mongke or Khubilai, the new great khan (1260-1294), than Batu had been, but we find no trace of the warmth so characteristic of the relationship between Batu on the one hand and Ogedei and Mongke on the other. A further new element was the increased importance gained, in Mongol eyes, by China and Iran. Destiny was to make Khubilai the founder of the Chinese dynasty of the Yuan, Hulegu's descendants were to rule over Iran. The two were brothers, working in harmonious relationship, while Berke was but one of their many cousins in a distant land in which they had no particular interest. Moreover, after the death of Mongke, Berke had supported the contender Ariq-Boke against Khubilai, something the latter was sure to remember. In time, disagreements between Berke and Hulegu became more serious as the il-khan increasingly exerted his influence on areas adjacent to lands of the Golden Horde, for example on Azerbaijan. The various parts of the Mongol empire were slowly drifting apart, their individual rulers paying more attention to the weal of their immediate subjects (or to their own ambitions) than to the general interest of the huge domain.

Religious as well as ethno-linguistic factors led to sharpened antagonism between Berke and Hulegu. Of all the Chinggisid rulers Berke was the first to adopt Islam and he is said to have resented Hulegu's attack on Baghdad and the subsequent murder of the caliph. In fact, in the early years of Berke's rule, some coins minted in Bulghar bear the name of the glorious caliph al-Nasir (1180-1225), widely revered in the lands of Islam.49 The Mamluks of Egypt principal enemies of Hulegu were of the same Kipchak (Cuman) stock as Berke's Turkic subjects, who constituted the ethnic and linguistic majority of the population making up the Golden Horde. Sultan Baibars of Egypt was the first to realize the potential advantages of an alliance with Berke, whom he contacted in 1261. He had reasons to believe in a community of interests, and must have been encouraged by the passivity shown by Berke in the conflict culminating on September 3, 50 1260, at `Ain Jalut in Galilee, where Baibars' predecessor Sultan Kutuz had defeated the Mongol force of Hulegu's general Kitbuka, who lost his life in the battle. The Turkic Mamluk forces proved a match for the Turco-Mongol-Iranian armies of the il-khan. The death of Hulegu in 1265 did not put an end to the hostilities between the two Mongol states, namely the Golden Horde and Persia, and only the death of Berke in 1266 prevented the development of a new full-scale conflict between him and Hulegu's successor Abagha (1265-1282).

Kipchak bonds were stronger than Mongol solidarity, and the ties linking the Golden Horde to Mamluk Egypt prompted the il-khans to search for allies in the rear of the Mamluks. The possibility of an alliance between the il-khans and the Franks was explored by both parties. After the fall to the Mongols of Damascus, on February 24, 1260, James Pantaleon, patriarch of Jerusalem (1255-1261), decided to approach Hulegu with a view to ascertaining his intentions concerning a joint action against the Mamluks. When elected pope under the name of Urban IV (1261-1264), he pursued the matter and the dialogue was continued between his successor pope Clement IV (1265-1268) and Abagha. Contacts between the two were quite frequent and aimed at establishing a coordination of eastern and western forces to counterbalance the formidable Mamluk threat. As soon as he disembarked at Acre on May 9, 1271, Edward of England (the future Edward I) sought to obtain Abagha's help. For a number of reasons which it cannot be our task to analyze here, the alliance between the il-khans and the West failed to become operative. Efforts by Berke and his successor Mongke Temur (1267-1280) were certainly instrumental in barring the il-khans from the Mediterranean world until such time as the collapse of Frank implantations in Outremer made any hope of cooperation between them and the il-khans illusory.

Berke's principal preoccupation lay with the south: the il-khans, the Mamluks and, to a lesser degree, Byzantium. The relations of Byzantium with the il-khans were friendly, Abagha was the son-in-law of Michael VIII Palaeologus (1261-1281), whose illegitimate daughter Maria had been betrothed to Hulegu, but after her fiance's death, she had married his son and successor. Yet, playing safe, Michael VIII could or would do nothing to antagonize Berke, with whose lands he shared a long, common border. In fact, Euphrosyne, another of his illegitimate daughters, was married to Nogai, an ambitious and powerful Mongol general, in his actions quite independent of Berke.

Because of its location, Constantinople could not be bypassed by traders or envoys plying between Egypt and the Golden Horde. The relationship between the Golden Horde and Egypt was based on common interest in trade and in foreign policy. Egypt depended on the Golden Horde for the importation of slaves on which Mamluk power rested, and which was, from the Horde's point-of-view very lucrative. The historian al-'Umari praises the physical and mental qualities of the Turks from the Kipchak steppe.51 In foreign policy an alliance between the Golden Horde and the Mamluks was the best way to keep the il-khans at bay. Trade had to pass through the straits controlled by the Byzantine emperor who could, and on occasion did, retain envoys. One such instance occurred in 1265 when relations between Berke and Michael VIII Palaeologus became strained to the point of open hostility. The probable cause was the detention by the emperor of the Souk sultan `Izz al-Din Kaykawus II who, out of favor with Hulegu, fled to Constantinople, where he was coolly received by Michael VIII. reluctant to antagonize the il-khan. For reasons we do not have to examine here `Izz al-Din was even imprisoned until, in the Spring of 1265, he was liberated by a coalition of the troops of Nogai and Constantine Tech, tsar of Bulgaria. The Mongol troops then ravaged much of Thrace and Bulgaria.52 `Izz al-Din, eventually settled in the Crimea, a territory controlled by the Golden Horde, where he died in 1279. The incident, insignificant in itself, illustrates the delicate situation of Byzantium, set at the crossroads between the two mutually hostile Mongol states.

It will be remembered that after the evacuation of Hungary the withdrawing Mongol armies converged on Bulgaria, then ruled by regents acting on behalf of the child king Koloman I. To avoid an invasion similar to that suffered by Hungary, they decided to recognize Mongol suzerainty. For the following years the sources are mute on Mongolo-Bulgar relations, but a letter of Bela IV to the pope written in 1254 indicates that at that time the Bulgarians were still paying tribute to the Mongols.53 Apparently the campaign of 1265 was the first occasion when Bulgarian obligations to the Mongols involved military action.

More than political alliances or trade, religion constituted the most important sphere for contacts between the Slavic population of the Golden Horde and Byzantium. The conquest in 1261 of Constantinople by Michael VIII Palaeologus restored there the predominance of the Orthodox Church and the patriarchate to which, since its foundation, the Russian Church was subordinated. The immense authority enjoyed by the Russian metropolitan, the bishops, and the clergy in general, constituted, together with the language, the strongest of bonds holding together a politically fragmented people and linking it, through eastern Christianity, to Byzantium. Though a convert to Islam, on the whole, Berke maintained the great Mongol tradition of religious tolerance, and Mongke Temur, who reverted to the undefined theism of the early Mongol rulers, granted the Church important privileges such as exemption from taxation.

Those who survived the initial massacres connected with a Mongol attack were usually left to their own devices and were allowed to continue in their accustomed mode of life, largely undisturbed by their culturally and physically distant overlords. For the Turkic populations of the steppe region the Mongols were congenial, through intermarriage the conquerors were slowly absorbed, turcicized. Further north, in the agricultural lands or in the forested regions, the daily life of the Slavic populations were barely affected by the Mongol control exercised over the Russian princes. These had to present themselves to the khan to obtain confirmation of their right to rule, but the choice of the prince was left to the Russians and the Mongols did not normally interfere in the process. Their principal preoccupation was with the collection of taxes which, at the beginning of their rule, was in the hands of their own officials (the basqaq) but, little by little in the 14th century, was entrusted to the Russian administrations. In the early periods of the Mongol occupation, taxation was rather occasional and had to be paid mainly in kind - men, animals, provisions to feed both of them, furs; but, as time went on, it was reorganized and a distinction was made between sedentary and nomadic populations. The former paid the qalan (Russian poslina), the latter the qubcur, which remained an occasional levy.54

The Mongol occupation, whatever its long range effects, did little to alter the political infrastructure of the Russian principalities and, as already mentioned, increased the cohesive force represented by the Church. Generally speaking, the Russian princes, engaged in a permanent, often armed, struggle with one another, took care not to offend the khan, whose retaliatory powers they feared, and whose help could decide the outcome of their internal conflicts. It was almost as if the histories of Russia and the Golden Horde were running parallel, as if they were neighboring states, sometimes friendly, at other times hostile, when the intervention by the rulers of the Golden Horde was virtually that of a foreign power. The effectiveness of Mongol rule was greatly diminished during what can barely be called the reigns of the two insignificant successors of Mongke Temur, who died in 1280. The first of these, Tode Mongke, more interested in Islam than in the affairs of state, abdicated in 1287, and his nephew and successor Tolebuka (1287-1291) did little except lead two unsuccessful campaigns against Arghun. At Nogai's instigation he was murdered by Toktai (Toqtogha), a son of Mongke Temur.

Since the end of the 1260's Nogai represented the most dynamic force within the Golden Horde and was often viewed by outsiders as its ruler, the "tsar", a title he never claimed. Nogai's life was spent in incessant wars. He intervened repeatedly in the internecine conflicts of the Russian principalities, invaded Transylvania (1285), and in the following year compelled the Serbian king Stephen Uros II Milutin to recognize his suzerainty. He also reasserted Mongol claims on Bulgaria, had the swineherd Ivajlo, leader of a mystical popular movement, murdered, made George Terter (1280-1302) his vassal and, after George's flight to Byzantium, set his own creature Smilec on the throne.

When he helped the young Toktai to assume power, Nogai no doubt hoped to find in him a puppet to be manipulated or ignored as the case might be. Things turned out differently, for Toktai (1291-1312),55 a man of exceptional ability, took in hands the reins of government with a marked will to rule. Clash between him and his old mentor became inevitable, and at the first trial of armed strength Toktai was defeated. About a year later, probably towards the end of 1299, Nogai, feigning illness - a usual ruse of his - and referring to himself as a feeble old man, tried to mount an unexpected attack on Toktai who, informed of the true state of affairs, prepared for the battle in which Nogai's forces were defeated and the fleeing Nogai slain. Many of Nogai's undertakings, particularly those in the Balkans, were futile, yet be certainly had a vision of Mongol grandeur which he endeavored to serve with uncommon talent. His wisest move was towards the il-khans of Persia, with whom he maintained friendly relations. With some ups and downs in the level of cordiality, peace with the il-khans was maintained also by Toktai.

In Iran, after Abagha's death, the short rule of Neguder - who converted to Islam and took the name of Ahmad (1282-1284) was a stormy interlude leading to the enthronement of the Buddhist Arghun (1284-1291), whose reign was marked by grievous financial troubles. The country's general situation deteriorated further under his brother Gaikhatu (1201-1295), deposed by a revolution which brought to the throne his nephew, son of Arghun, Ghazan (1295-1304). Under his rule the perennial problem, to whose domain Caucasia belongs, emerged once again. In 1301, after a half-hearted attempt to annex the territory in dispute, Toktai, to no avail, tried to obtain the same result by diplomatic means. Ghazan died at the early age of thirty-one and Toktai - face-to-face with the third il-khan doggedly stuck to his territorial claims, now to be pressed upon the new il-khan Oljeitu (1304-1316). The lukewarm reception by the Mamluk sultan Al-Malik an-Nasir of a suggestion for joint action against the il-khan made Toktai change his mind. A covenant of peace entered upon by him and Oljeitu put an end to the long, fratricidal strife. In a letter written in Mongolian and addressed to Philip the Fair in the summer of 1305, Oljeitu informed the king of France of the happy event: 56

... (we) the descendants of Chinggis kaghan who through forty and five years, up to the present, have indulged in mutual recrimination now, protected by Heaven, all of us, elder and younger brothers, have reached a mutual agreement and from the country of the Chinese where the sun rises to the limits of the world we have joined our countries and have linked the postal stations.

Oljeitu's desire for peace with the Golden Horde and for alliance with the Franks was genuine, motivated though it was by his wish to strengthen his position vis-a-vis the Mamluks. In his correspondence with Pope Clement V he offered to put 200,000 horses and as many loads of corn at the disposal of the Christian armies were these to disembark in Cilician Armenia, where they would be joined by 100,000 horsemen to be led by the il-khan in an attack against the Mamluks. The Armenian prince Hetoum, known as the historian Hayton, had an accurate picture of the situation: 57

As for me, who know quite well the Tartars' intentions, I firmly believe that they would willingly ... hand over all the cities and the land conquered to the Christians, since because of the great heat obtaining there during the summer, the Tartars would not stay in those regions, and would readily agree that the Christians should receive and hold them. For the Tartars do not wage war against the sultan of Egypt for territorial gains - since the whole of Asia is already subject to them - but because the sultan is their principal enemy, who has done them more wrong than anyone else.

We have here another example of Mongol vindictiveness and the relentless pursuit of their enemies. Oljeitu's correspondence with the kings of France, of England, of Aragon, and with the pope, shows his lively interest in strengthening his ties with the West.58 To this end, as a gesture of goodwill, he was ready to make concessions in the religious field. Although he had switched his allegiance to the Shi'ah and had initiated a persecution of the Buddhists, he allowed Christian proselytism among his subjects. Franciscan and Dominican missionaries were unhampered in their work in il-khanid territories.

The peace between the rulers of the Golden Horde and the Il-khans was of short duration. Under Abu Said (1316-1335), the last effective il-khan, a reversal of alliances took place through a peace agreement (1323) which put an end to the long-lasting feud between il-khans and the Mamluks and, unavoidably brought about a renewal of the conflict between the two Mongol sister-states. The chaotic conditions into which Persia sank after the death of Abu Said need not detain us here; not surprisingly, conflict with the Golden Horde played its part yet again in the tangled story. In 1335 Toktai's successor Ozbeg launched an attack against Azerbaijan, and in 1357 his son and successor Jarubeg (1342-1357) even entered Tabriz; the disintegrating il-khanid state could not offer organized resistance against the invading forces of the Golden Horde.