Famine strikes Egypt under Baibars

1272

A catastrophic Nile flood failure brought famine to Egypt, driving grain prices to ruinous heights and forcing Baibars to open state granaries. The crisis revealed the fragility beneath Mamluk military power: an empire of swordsmen still utterly dependent on the annual behavior of a single African river. The famine killed thousands and forced the sultan to temporarily halt his campaigns against the Crusader states.