The new sultan, Jalal al-Din Mangburni, withdrew south into Khorasan with the Mongols in hot pursuit. He succeeded in raising a new army in Afghanistan. This marked the beginning of a decade-long military campaign in which he fought off the Mongols on multiple occasions while trying to revive the Khwarezmian Empire in new lands beyond the Mongols' reach in the mountains and pastures of the southern Caucasus and eastern Anatolia.
Casus belli: Massacre at Otrar
The Khwarezmians stepped onto the stage of history in the late twelfth century when they gained their independence from the waning Seljuk Empire. At the height of his power at the outset of the thirteenth century, sultan Mohammed controlled Transoxiana, Afghanistan, and most of Iran. Unfortunately, he made the fatal mistake of provoking Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan sent a caravan of merchants, composed of both Khwarezmians and Mongols, into Khwarezmia in 1218 for
