I have it marked down as an important battle: the Third Battle of Homs in 1299, when the Mongols defeated the Mamluks after two previous losses at the same place. But when I look at it more closely, I’m not sure there’s much of a story here, more of a status report.
The Mongolian Ilkhans had invaded Syria in 1260 and 1271. Both times, the Mongols were at a disadvantage on the terrain, small in numbers, and were defeated. But the narrative of the Mongol invasion that began with Hulegu’s grandfather Genghis Khan had come to an end. After their 1258 victory over Baghdad, the Ilkhans of Persia continued to contest for territory against the Mamluk government in Egypt, but the lines were no longer clearly drawn, the story was no longer developing.
The Golden and Blue Hordes of Batu Khan’s lineage converted to Islam and aligned with the Mamluks against their own kin. Then after Hulegu’s son Abaqa died, another son took power and he, too, had converted to Islam. Traditional Buddhist/Christian/Tengri Mongols took back power and installed Abaqa’s non-Muslim son, but eventually Abaqa’s grandson Ghazan converted to Islam, again. Being a Muslim didn’t mean he couldn’t ally with Mongols, Franks, or anyone else; but it became a matter of one regional power balancing against another. It wasn’t about religion, and sometimes not even about ethnicity.
So when Ghazan’s Mongols allied with Armenians and some remaining Templars and Hospitallers, and won a battle against Egyptians near Damascus in 1299, it was not game-changing. Mongolian cavalry still couldn’t actually hold the region, and shortly they retreated to places less dry. Ghazan’s ambassador joined the knights at sea, where they tried to establish a base on Ruad Island. Ghazan made plans with Pope Boniface VIII for a new Crusade in 1302, but it never materialized: the Mongols just could not operate in the region.
Ghazan’s brother Öljeitu was baptized Christian by his mother, tentatively converted to Buddhism, then became a Muslim like Ghazan. At the same time, as the next Ilkhan he was very friendly with the Pope and never dropped the intention to help re-establish a Frankish Holy Land. The old Greek dynasty had finally taken Constantinople back from its Latin Crusade rulers and was trying to rebuild its power. Öljeitu married a Byzantine princess (illegitimate, but that never bothered the polygamous Mongols), allying with Constantinople against their local Turks. Those local Turks would become the main story shortly.
In China, Kublai Khan’s grandson Temür became Emperor in the new city of Khanbalik, and in 1304, the other lineages of Genghis who had been in rebellion against Kublai decided to accept Temür as Great Khan. Unified, the Mongols could have organized a new giant expedition as they had done before, but they probably recognized the geographical limits. It was enough to just go on maintaining what they had, and the Great Khans of China became more and more Buddhist and Confucian as they assimilated to their conquest.
And that’s about how things continued until 1370, when Amir Temur (Tamerlane) revived the Mongol invasions.