Mongol conquest of Europe; A short glimpse:
Background:
During the winter of 1226-27, while en route across Gobi to make war on Tangut,Genghis Khan paused to haunt wild horses. The reddish grey horse shied when the wild horses charged him, throwing the almost seventy years old Khan on ground. Despite internal injuries and raising fevers,Genghis refused to listen to the concerns of his wife Yesui and continued his campaign. Six months later only a few days before the final victory,Genghis Khan died and Ogodei,his third son became the ruler of the vast empire.
Unlike his father, Ogodei was far from being a tough steppe warrior. According to Persian chronicler Ata-Malik Juvaini,Ogodei “was ever spreading the carpet of merrymaking and treading the path of excess in constant appreciation to wine and the company of beautiful women.”
By 1235, Ogodei had consumed most of his father’s wealth. His city was expensive to build and maintain.The Mongols produced no corps, they had no tradesmen, craftsmen to earn revenues. If the Mongol empire had to survive a new target had to be looted.
The Khuriltai:
To decide the target for future conquest ,Ogodei summoned a Khuriltai (an assembly of Mongol chieftains for decision making or electoral process) near his newly built capital of Karakorum. While each chieftains had their own share of ideas, one battle soaked one eyed veteran had a different proposal. The sixty year old, remarkably fat warrior Subodei had been one of the finest generals in Mongol Army. More than a decade earlier,in 1221 he had a taste of war with the Georgians and now he wanted to venture on European soil again.
The preparation:
Preparation for the campaign of Europe started with messengers treading out in all directions to deliver decision and distribute assignments.The Mongols sent in small squads to probe enemy defences,to locate appropriate pasturelands and water resources for their animals. Where the natural grasslands seemed inadequate the Mongols sent small detachments of soldiers to burn villages and farms to revert the land back to grasslands before the main Army arrived.With close to fifty thousand Mongols and another one hundred thousand allies led by the two most ablest grandsons of Genghis Khan, Batu and Mongke the European campaign began.
The invasion on Bulgars:
In 1236,the year of the monkey the invasion began with the conquest of Volga,occupied by the Bulgars. The Mongols followed their usual protocols before each and every invasion they made by sending envoys to request the capital city to surrender,join the Mongol family and become the vassal of the Golden Khan.The Mongols applied their time tested strategy on dividing the army in to two and attacking the enemy in at least two fronts. If any city moved its army to help another city,the Mongols immediately pounced upon the unguarded one,very similar to the strategy applied by the wolves far east in the Siberian steppe. With such uncertainty and danger to its home,no city intended to aid the others.
Subodei led his forces northwards of Volga, while Mongke (son of deceased Tolui) led another force southwards to attack the Kipchak Turks, some of whom fled and the others agreed to join the Mongols to invade the Russian cities. After a quick routing of the Volga Bulgars the Mongols turned this region as their base camp for their three years long parade through Russia and modern Ukraine.
The fall of Riazan:
Riazan was a prosperous Russian city located on Oka river,196 KMs south west of Moscow. Each Mongol warrior seized a number of civilians for digging fortifications, cutting trees and hauling supplies. They burnt villages and made the villagers running towards the walled city with enormous panic. This is also an age old trick of the steppe warfare. While in the contemporary battles fought across the world, the looted,raped civilians followed the invading army towards the main town to be attacked. But the Mongols used to begin their attack with a brilliant psychological and economic warfare by sending the panic stricken villagers towards the main city. The Mongols built another wooden wall around the already walled city of Riazan, sealed off the gates preventing the city defenders from sending troops to attack the Mongols. The wall sealed its own people, starving for reinforcements, foods and water leaving any chance of escaping in case of emergency.
From the safety of their newly built wall,the Mongols looked down upon the city exactly as generations of Mongol hunters looked at their tightly bunched preys from behind the safety of their ropes strung from tress and hung with felt blankets. They bombarded the city with rocks,woods,flaming pots of naptha and gunpowders. The terrible smell and smoke were thought to be part of black magic and source of disease in medieval Europe. Such was the terror spread among the city dweller that later the victims reported that the attackers travelled not only on horses but on trained attack dragons as well.
After five days of relentless bombardment, the Mongols finally emerged from their wall and entered the city by scaling and through the holes of the battered walls. As a contemporary Russian chronicler “No eye remained open to cry for the dead.”
Mathew Paris, a monk of the Benedictine abbey at St.Albans in Hertfordshire, England records that after capturing most of the Russian cities the Mongols turned their eye towards the largest and most important political and religious centre of the Slavic world, Kiev.
Courtsey: Genghis Khan and the Making of modern world by Jack Weatherford
Invasion of Kiev:
In the November’1240, year of the Rat, taking the advantage of frozen rivers, the Mongol envoys arrived at the gates of Kiev shortly before the city authorities murdered them and rouse their dead bodies high above the city gates.
Under the leadership of Mongke,when the Mongol fighters amassed outside the city, it was recorded by the priests as “clouds of Tatars.” The noise of the Mongols were so loud that the people inside the city could not hear one another talk. The civilians sought refuge in the Church of the virgin. The number grew so large that their weight caused the entire building collapse. On 6th December, the Mongol forces entered the city and burnt it to the ground. The Kievian general Dmitri fought so gallantly that Batu Khan released him with great appreciation and let him live with honor.
The Novgorod chronicle began referring Batu Khan as Tsar Batu,a title that literally meant Caesar Batu. With the fall of Kiev,the Mongolian conquest of East Europe was complete and they evicted a series of refugees towards central Europe,so that they can spread the story of horror and frightening tales of Mongol atrocities.
Subodei, while the central European rivers were still frozen in February’1241 wasted no time in sending new scouting squads to reach the plain grasslands of Hungary. Europe had little heard about the earlier conquest of Genghis Khan in Asia and only had little idea of his destruction of Khwarizm empire. But suddenly with the fall of Kiev and with the arrival of large contingent of refugees and their horrified stories, it felt a huge shuddering all of a sudden. Matthew Paris continues his records as “ with the force of lightning into the territories of the Christians, laying waste the country, committing great slaughter,and striking inexpressible terror and alarm into every one.” This reference to” lightning” warfare was possibly the first mention of the style that later acquired the German name Blitzkreig.
Subodei dispatched three pronged army of fifty thousand towards Hungary in the south and a smaller diversionary force of twenty thousand across Poland towards Germany in the North. The Mongols crossed an extra ordinary four thousand miles from their base in Mongolia to the German cities of Teutonic knights and Hanseatic League. In the north the passed through Poland as a stone skips on a pond. One city continued to fell one after another.
Wahlstatt; The Chosen Place;
Duke Henry II of Silesia gathered an army of thirty thousand,including knights through out Germany,Hungary and Poland. He even amassed a pool of gold miners in his troops who will be later happily taken aback to the Mongolian steppe for their skills in mining. On 9th April’1241 the two armies met at Leigntz,near the modern German-Polish border. The Mongols chose an open area for fighting,six miles away from the city. And the battlefield thereafter became known in German as Wahlstatt,the chosen place.
The Duke charged his cavalry to the Mongol ranks,who after repelling the first wave surprisingly started turning away from the battle ground. With cries of battle victory,the European knights broke their ranks and began chasing their enemies who slowly retreated only a short distance beyond the weapon of the knights.
When the templar’s horses began to tire under the heavy armour of their cheery riders, suddenly explosive noises and heavy smoke engulfed them. As described by the chronicler Jan Dlugosz,the Mongols used a device resembling a “great head,from which there suddenly bursts a cloud with foul smell that envelops the Poles and makes them all but faint.”
The smoke cut of the knights from the archers and infantries behind them. The overconfident hunters quickly became disorganized, confused and tiring prey trapped into a brilliant net of deceiving warfare. The European documents records a death toll of twenty five thousand of Duke’s thirty thousand men while the gold miners were taken to display their skills in the rich mineral deposit of Dzungaria in Western Mongolia,a personal property of Ogodei.
The entire campaign from Kiev to Germany had been just a diversionary tactics by the Mongols to prevent the Europeans from sending soldiers to fend off the real Mongol objective: Invading the grassy plains of Hungary.
Next the final phase of Mongolian invasion of Europe,the Hungarian chapter. (coming after a short break)
Background:
During the winter of 1226-27, while en route across Gobi to make war on Tangut,Genghis Khan paused to haunt wild horses. The reddish grey horse shied when the wild horses charged him, throwing the almost seventy years old Khan on ground. Despite internal injuries and raising fevers,Genghis refused to listen to the concerns of his wife Yesui and continued his campaign. Six months later only a few days before the final victory,Genghis Khan died and Ogodei,his third son became the ruler of the vast empire.
Unlike his father, Ogodei was far from being a tough steppe warrior. According to Persian chronicler Ata-Malik Juvaini,Ogodei “was ever spreading the carpet of merrymaking and treading the path of excess in constant appreciation to wine and the company of beautiful women.”
By 1235, Ogodei had consumed most of his father’s wealth. His city was expensive to build and maintain.The Mongols produced no corps, they had no tradesmen, craftsmen to earn revenues. If the Mongol empire had to survive a new target had to be looted.
The Khuriltai:
To decide the target for future conquest ,Ogodei summoned a Khuriltai (an assembly of Mongol chieftains for decision making or electoral process) near his newly built capital of Karakorum. While each chieftains had their own share of ideas, one battle soaked one eyed veteran had a different proposal. The sixty year old, remarkably fat warrior Subodei had been one of the finest generals in Mongol Army. More than a decade earlier,in 1221 he had a taste of war with the Georgians and now he wanted to venture on European soil again.
The preparation:
Preparation for the campaign of Europe started with messengers treading out in all directions to deliver decision and distribute assignments.The Mongols sent in small squads to probe enemy defences,to locate appropriate pasturelands and water resources for their animals. Where the natural grasslands seemed inadequate the Mongols sent small detachments of soldiers to burn villages and farms to revert the land back to grasslands before the main Army arrived.With close to fifty thousand Mongols and another one hundred thousand allies led by the two most ablest grandsons of Genghis Khan, Batu and Mongke the European campaign began.
The invasion on Bulgars:
In 1236,the year of the monkey the invasion began with the conquest of Volga,occupied by the Bulgars. The Mongols followed their usual protocols before each and every invasion they made by sending envoys to request the capital city to surrender,join the Mongol family and become the vassal of the Golden Khan.The Mongols applied their time tested strategy on dividing the army in to two and attacking the enemy in at least two fronts. If any city moved its army to help another city,the Mongols immediately pounced upon the unguarded one,very similar to the strategy applied by the wolves far east in the Siberian steppe. With such uncertainty and danger to its home,no city intended to aid the others.
Subodei led his forces northwards of Volga, while Mongke (son of deceased Tolui) led another force southwards to attack the Kipchak Turks, some of whom fled and the others agreed to join the Mongols to invade the Russian cities. After a quick routing of the Volga Bulgars the Mongols turned this region as their base camp for their three years long parade through Russia and modern Ukraine.
The fall of Riazan:
Riazan was a prosperous Russian city located on Oka river,196 KMs south west of Moscow. Each Mongol warrior seized a number of civilians for digging fortifications, cutting trees and hauling supplies. They burnt villages and made the villagers running towards the walled city with enormous panic. This is also an age old trick of the steppe warfare. While in the contemporary battles fought across the world, the looted,raped civilians followed the invading army towards the main town to be attacked. But the Mongols used to begin their attack with a brilliant psychological and economic warfare by sending the panic stricken villagers towards the main city. The Mongols built another wooden wall around the already walled city of Riazan, sealed off the gates preventing the city defenders from sending troops to attack the Mongols. The wall sealed its own people, starving for reinforcements, foods and water leaving any chance of escaping in case of emergency.
From the safety of their newly built wall,the Mongols looked down upon the city exactly as generations of Mongol hunters looked at their tightly bunched preys from behind the safety of their ropes strung from tress and hung with felt blankets. They bombarded the city with rocks,woods,flaming pots of naptha and gunpowders. The terrible smell and smoke were thought to be part of black magic and source of disease in medieval Europe. Such was the terror spread among the city dweller that later the victims reported that the attackers travelled not only on horses but on trained attack dragons as well.
After five days of relentless bombardment, the Mongols finally emerged from their wall and entered the city by scaling and through the holes of the battered walls. As a contemporary Russian chronicler “No eye remained open to cry for the dead.”
Mathew Paris, a monk of the Benedictine abbey at St.Albans in Hertfordshire, England records that after capturing most of the Russian cities the Mongols turned their eye towards the largest and most important political and religious centre of the Slavic world, Kiev.
Courtsey: Genghis Khan and the Making of modern world by Jack Weatherford
Invasion of Kiev:
In the November’1240, year of the Rat, taking the advantage of frozen rivers, the Mongol envoys arrived at the gates of Kiev shortly before the city authorities murdered them and rouse their dead bodies high above the city gates.
Under the leadership of Mongke,when the Mongol fighters amassed outside the city, it was recorded by the priests as “clouds of Tatars.” The noise of the Mongols were so loud that the people inside the city could not hear one another talk. The civilians sought refuge in the Church of the virgin. The number grew so large that their weight caused the entire building collapse. On 6th December, the Mongol forces entered the city and burnt it to the ground. The Kievian general Dmitri fought so gallantly that Batu Khan released him with great appreciation and let him live with honor.
The Novgorod chronicle began referring Batu Khan as Tsar Batu,a title that literally meant Caesar Batu. With the fall of Kiev,the Mongolian conquest of East Europe was complete and they evicted a series of refugees towards central Europe,so that they can spread the story of horror and frightening tales of Mongol atrocities.
Subodei, while the central European rivers were still frozen in February’1241 wasted no time in sending new scouting squads to reach the plain grasslands of Hungary. Europe had little heard about the earlier conquest of Genghis Khan in Asia and only had little idea of his destruction of Khwarizm empire. But suddenly with the fall of Kiev and with the arrival of large contingent of refugees and their horrified stories, it felt a huge shuddering all of a sudden. Matthew Paris continues his records as “ with the force of lightning into the territories of the Christians, laying waste the country, committing great slaughter,and striking inexpressible terror and alarm into every one.” This reference to” lightning” warfare was possibly the first mention of the style that later acquired the German name Blitzkreig.
Subodei dispatched three pronged army of fifty thousand towards Hungary in the south and a smaller diversionary force of twenty thousand across Poland towards Germany in the North. The Mongols crossed an extra ordinary four thousand miles from their base in Mongolia to the German cities of Teutonic knights and Hanseatic League. In the north the passed through Poland as a stone skips on a pond. One city continued to fell one after another.
Wahlstatt; The Chosen Place;
Duke Henry II of Silesia gathered an army of thirty thousand,including knights through out Germany,Hungary and Poland. He even amassed a pool of gold miners in his troops who will be later happily taken aback to the Mongolian steppe for their skills in mining. On 9th April’1241 the two armies met at Leigntz,near the modern German-Polish border. The Mongols chose an open area for fighting,six miles away from the city. And the battlefield thereafter became known in German as Wahlstatt,the chosen place.
The Duke charged his cavalry to the Mongol ranks,who after repelling the first wave surprisingly started turning away from the battle ground. With cries of battle victory,the European knights broke their ranks and began chasing their enemies who slowly retreated only a short distance beyond the weapon of the knights.
When the templar’s horses began to tire under the heavy armour of their cheery riders, suddenly explosive noises and heavy smoke engulfed them. As described by the chronicler Jan Dlugosz,the Mongols used a device resembling a “great head,from which there suddenly bursts a cloud with foul smell that envelops the Poles and makes them all but faint.”
The smoke cut of the knights from the archers and infantries behind them. The overconfident hunters quickly became disorganized, confused and tiring prey trapped into a brilliant net of deceiving warfare. The European documents records a death toll of twenty five thousand of Duke’s thirty thousand men while the gold miners were taken to display their skills in the rich mineral deposit of Dzungaria in Western Mongolia,a personal property of Ogodei.
The entire campaign from Kiev to Germany had been just a diversionary tactics by the Mongols to prevent the Europeans from sending soldiers to fend off the real Mongol objective: Invading the grassy plains of Hungary.
Next the final phase of Mongolian invasion of Europe,the Hungarian chapter. (coming after a short break)
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