In 1226, Chinggis began another campaign against the Tanguts of Hsi-Hsia. They had reneged on their promise to provide troops for the Khwarezm campaign and, as usual, Chinggis had no toleration for disloyalty. This time the nation was entirely subdued, not just turned to vassalage, but during the campaign Chinggis fell from his horse. Recovery was slow, but he continued to command troops in another war against the Chin Dynasty. A lifetime of activity came to an end in 1227, when Chinggis died around age sixty-five. His eldest son, Jochi, had died a few months earlier. Just before the Khwarezm campaign, Chinggis had named his number three son, Ogedei, to succeed him. Ogedei was not a great general but could mediate between his more aggressive brothers. Further, the naming and acceptance of the successor continued the existence and growth of the empire. Chinggis managed to set up an empire that long survived him, a virtually singular action in the annals of nomadic peoples. His incorporation of tribes into one population proved the key, and the traditions he established remained for generations.55
Invasion of Europe and the Battle of Mohi (Sajo River)
IN 1230, OGEDEI SENT THREE TUMENS to suppress the rejuvenated Jalal-al-Din in southern Khwarezm. In that same year the offensive was renewed against the Chin. When the Mongols met some unexpected early setbacks, Subedei was given command and ordered to capture the Chin capital at Kaifeng. During 1232 Ogedei and his brother Tolui both became extremely ill, probably through an excessive intake of alcohol. Subedei thus operated independently, negotiating an agreement with the Sung Dynasty in southern China to assist against the Chin. The allied force finally took Kaifeng and, in 1233, Subedei left a governor and went home. The Sung quickly swallowed up lands along their northern border, including Kaifeng, where they killed Subedei’s governor. The Mongol frontiers were not completely secure.
Within a decade of Chinggis’s death, Ogedei had run through much of the empire’s wealth. In spite of all the pillage and loot gathered during Chinggis’s reign, the cost of building a capital city at Karakorum, maintaining an ever-growing administration, and supplying Ogedei’s alcohol needs had proven extremely expensive. Taxes and tribute were not enough; more conquest and pillage was necessary. At a khuriltai in 1235, various proposals were entertained. Subedei, now the senior general, convinced the sons and grandsons of Chinggis to think big. Subedei proposed to launch two major invasions in completely opposite directions, striking both eastern and western frontiers: China and eastern Europe. Chinggis himself would hardly have dreamed bigger.56 Merchants, scouts, and spies had all confirmed that European kings, princes, and popes were still too busy fighting among themselves to coordinate any serious effort against the Mongol armies.
With Batu, a direct descendant of Chinggis, officially in command, the expedition left in the fall of 1235. Ogedei gave them a core of veterans and instructions to pick up more men on the frontier by whatever means necessary. The tamma (frontier garrisons) Subedei had organized on the frontier after the Great Raid certainly came into play at this point as a way to enlarge his army quickly. By the following spring Subedei and Batu led 50,000 Mongols, 20,000 conscripts, and several corps of Chinese and Persian engineers. Ten princes joined the expedition.57 First, the various Russian principalities would need to be conquered, and then the invasion of eastern Europe could begin.
The opening offensive was launched in two prongs: Subedei and Batu led their forces to the city of Bulgar, at the junction of the Volga and Kama Rivers, while Princes Mangu and Budjek cleared out the steppes of the lower Volga, killing or capturing what eastern Kipchaks remained in the region. A handful fled farther west to offer their services to the Hungarian king, Bela, while the survivors were incorporated into the Mongol army or sold as slaves. The summer and fall of 1236 were spent training the new recruits in Mongol tactics. In December, with the army now numbering at least 120,000 and possibly as many as 200,000, the invasion continued, aided by the frozen rivers acting as highways for Mongol horses. One after another the Russian cities fell. In early 1238 the army divided into two prongs. The first, under one of Subedei’s subordinates, fought and defeated Grand Duke Vladimir 120 miles north of Moscow. The second prong, with Subedei and Batu at the head, drove on Novgorod.58 Novgorod was saved by lucky timing: the spring thaws made travel virtually impossible, so the Mongols turned south.
From the summer of 1238 to the spring of 1240 the Mongols ceased their conquests and camped on the southern Russian steppes. In spite of their string of victories, they had suffered enough casualties that they needed some reinforcements and perhaps more time to fully integrate the captured Kipchaks. In early summer 1240, however, they were on the move again, capturing and destroying Pereiaslav and Chernigov before arriving at Russia’s major city, Kiev, in November. The Mongols were so impressed with the city’s beauty that they offered, as at so many other cities, peace for submission and tribute. As happened so often before, the Mongol emissaries were killed. The decision to do so came from Prince Danil, who had succeeded Mstislav the Brave of Galicia, and so should have known what the Mongol response would be.
Every other city the Mongols had taken on this campaign had boasted no better defenses than wooden walls, allowing siege engines and fire to make short work of them. Though Kiev had some stone walls, the attack focused on the weakest section, the Polish Gate, and this siege likewise lasted no more than a few days. With the northern Russian principalities and the southern steppe subdued, the Mongols headed west from Kiev for Europe.
Subedei divided the army into two expeditionary forces. His intelligence gathering had informed him of the potential forces opposed to him if the Europeans were allowed to mass. Subedei knew that King Bela of Hungary was related by blood or marriage to Polish dukes, a German duke, and the king of Bohemia. The territories abutted each other and could be expected to work together. Thus, with Hungary the primary target, the other three had to be kept busy while Subedei did his work.59 Princes Baidar and Kaidu led two tumens (some sources say three) into Poland.60 Their job was to create sufficient havoc with Polish armies that German and Bohemian forces would either march to assist the Poles or stay home to protect their own lands. All this was designed to protect the strategic right flank of the main Mongol thrust into Hungary.
Batu and most of the princes would force the Carpathian passes due east of the ultimate targets of Buda and Pest. Prince Kuyuk would swing farthest to cross the southernmost Carpathian passes through Transylvania, engaging what armies he could find in the south. Most authors place Subedei in the center with Batu, but a contemporary reference mentions a Mongol general in the south identified as Bogutai, which many seem to think was a variant on “Baghatur,” Subedei’s nickname, meaning brave or valiant. He probably led a column through the mountains on Batu’s left flank then marched north to join the primary attack at the Hungarian capital cities. These moves were to be started in the dead of winter, when the snow would be the most packed and easiest for the Mongol ponies to traverse. It also would surprise the Hungarians, as European warfare was always undertaken in warmer weather. Thirty thousand garrison and line-of-communication troops had been left in Russia, so the European invasion force numbered between 100,000 and 120,000.
In Hungary, King Bela IV was planning as thorough a defense as he could. Unfortunately, he received little cooperation. Europe’s two major armies, that of the Holy Roman emperor, Frederick Hohenstauffen, and that of the pope, were so busy preparing for war against each other they could not spare any time or resources for Bela. Things were little better within Hungary itself. Forty thousand Kipchak/Cuman warriors had appeared before Bela, led by King Khotian. Fleeing the Mongols, Khotian offered his services to Hungary in hopes of saving himself and his troops. Bela jumped at the chance to expand his force with veterans of warfare against the Mongols, but to ease the hostility of the nobility he obliged the Cumans to accept Christianity; they readily agreed. Unfortunately, that did not set as well with the Hungarian nobles as Bela had hoped. They were in a long-standing power struggle with the
king and were not happy to see his personal army expanded with foreigners. Besides, what if they were really a fifth column? Maybe they were actually in league with the Mongols? Suspicions ran high.
Further, many nobles and citizens thought the entire Mongol threat might be a giant hoax. Bela attempted to rouse the citizenry by sending envoys through the countryside carrying bloody swords; in eastern Europe the Mongols were coming to be known as Tartars, from the mythical Tartarus, or hell.61 Unfortunately most people failed to heed the warning. The threat was obvious, however, to anyone who cared to look. Subedei had sent Bela a demand for immediate surrender, since the king had given safe haven to Mongol subjects, the Cumans. Further, many Mongol envoys had not returned, and killing them was always a mistake.
Even with these direct threats, Hungarian nobles acted like a modern Congress, arguing minutiae and personal privilege in the face of crisis. They demanded guarantees of Cuman loyalty, as well as payment in gold and in power for their assistance. The stalemate continued even after 10 March, when a messenger arrived with the news that the Mongols were attacking through the Carpathian passes. Bela pleaded, but the barons continued to resist. The Hungarian army stood by, awaiting orders.62 Not until four days later, when more messengers reported the passes were now in Mongol hands, did anything happen in Buda or Pest—and it was not was Bela had hoped for. Bela promised to keep the Cuman leaders under house arrest, but after a patrol captured a Cuman fighting alongside the Mongols, the nobles thought they had that was sufficient “evidence” that the Cumans were playing both ends against the middle. Nobles and citizens attacked and killed King Khotian. The assassination had dire consequences. Prior to this the Cumans had regarded themselves as allies of the Hungarians and were willing to support them; now they turned against Hungary and fled the country, sacking towns and villages on their way out of the region.63 Thus Bela lost not only a huge contingent of troops, but a force that knew the enemy. All he had now was a group of self-centered political generals.
In the north, Kaidu and Baidar succeeded in their mission. They attacked and captured the town of Sandomierz before the Poles even knew an invasion was coming. They defeated a Polish army outside Krakow and then moved on to Breslau. With growing urgency, Henry of Silesia gathered a 40,000-man army and occupied the town of Liegnitz. Wenceslas of Bohemia was marching to join him with a further 50,000. Before he could do so, however, Baidar arrived with two tumen. He knew Wenceslas was only a day or two away, but Henry did not. Rather than be shut up inside the city indefinitely, Henry deployed his forces outside the city on 9 April. The standard Mongol feigned retreat did its work again, spreading out the overeager pursuers until they could not act in unison. Henry’s army was destroyed; Wenceslas withdrew to protect Bohemia. His army occupied the passes into the country and successfully kept Mongol forays out. Unconcerned, Baidar rode south to join Batu, pillaging Moravia along the way. In this campaign a relatively small Mongol force had eliminated all possibility of intervention by Bela’s allied armies many times its size, allowing it the time and opportunity to join Batu.64
In southern Hungary, Kuyuk was covering the far left flank as Baidar was handling the far right. His three tumens defeated Magyar forces at Hermanstadt and Weisenburg at the same time Baidar was defeating Henry at Liegnitz in Poland. Meanwhile, the central Mongol thrusts came together on the plain east of the Danube, gathering before Pest in late March and early April. They made no attempt to invest Pest or cross the Danube to engage Bela’s growing army on the west side. Without knowing how many more troops Bela might yet raise, the Mongols packed up and left. Subedei proceeded to slowly withdraw his army eastward, just as he had prior to the battle at the Kalka River, keeping contact with the pursuing Hungarians as they marched farther and farther from their home base.65
In retrospect one wonders how the Russians and Europeans could be fooled so many times, but at least Bela had the foresight to keep his army together, rather than engage in a wild pursuit as had occurred so many times previously. Just past the village of Mohi, below the junctions of the Sajo and Hernad rivers, Batu and Subedei had their battlefield. They took their forces across the single stone bridge on the Sajo and disappeared into the woods beyond the river. When the Hungarians arrived and scouted the east bank, they found nothing but hoofprints. This seemed a good position to make camp, on the west side of the river facing the lone bridge. The size of Bela’s army is disputed, anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000.
They set up camp on the west side of a bend in the Sajo and chained their supply wagons together in a giant laager perhaps half a kilometer across. On the surface, establishing a strong defensive position would make sense, but only if the Hungarians were armed for defense. Instead, they were a heavy cavalry army, needing room to operate. Still, with no sign of Mongols in the immediate neighborhood, it seemed to be the right thing to do. Bela and his advisors made a basic mistake in their plan for the outlay of the camp, however: they pitched their tents too close to one another and in a haphazard manner. The ropes holding down the tents slowed the movements of the men and their animals, which were tied up next to them. The camp apparently had no streets, and movement in it must have been difficult in daytime and nearly impossible at night.66
Bela seized the bridge and placed 1,000 men on the east bank to hold it. Today, the land within the bend of the river holds Lake Koromi; in 1241 marshes reportedly were along both sides of the river from the Sajo-Hernad junction southward. The Hungarians apparently depended on those marshes to cover their flanks. Though occupying the bridge appeared to be favorable for the Hungarians, in fact, Subedei had laid a masterful trap. As the bridge was the single point of crossing in the area, by giving the bridge to the Hungarians it seemed as if the Mongols had continued in their eastward movement. Bela could thus be sure of continuing the pursuit the following day.67
Assuming 100,000 men at the start of the European invasion, three tumens sent to Poland and three more through Transylvania in the south, this would mean a Mongol force at the Sajo River of 40,000. Assuming an upper estimate of 120,000 at the beginning and only two tumens sent to Poland, then the Mongols at Mohi would number 70,000. Batu established camp some five miles from the bridgehead. Whether through direct observation or the reports of scouts, he knew the Hungarian numbers and disposition. The plan was for him to assault the bridgehead and then the camp while Subedei led three tumens downriver. They would build a temporary bridge to cross well to the south, and then hit the Hungarian right flank and rear.
Batu launched his assault on the bridgehead just before dawn on 11 April 11 1241. Bela’s brother Koloman commanded the covering force, and they put up a fierce resistance. Once pushed back across the bridge, they stood their ground against Mongol attempts to wedge themselves across the narrow stone structure. Success finally came with the Mongol introduction of seven trebuchets, which began to bombard the force on the west side of the river with explosives. The ammunition may have consisted of pots of burning naptha or perhaps pots of burning gunpowder. If the latter, it probably was used more to create a smokescreen than do any real damage, but the explosions were certainly enough to scare European horses and dishearten European soldiers. With the Mongol bridgehead on the west bank, the trebuchets now increased their range and drove the Hungarians farther back toward their camp as the Mongols advanced behind the rolling barrage. This seems to mark the first time in European history that smoke delivered by indirect weapons fire, outside of a siege, was employed. This masked the movement of the assault troops, demoralized the Hungarians, and focused their attention to the front while Subedei was preparing his flank attack.68
If Batu planned all along to use his trebuchets in this fashion, then it is a terrific example of the Mongols’ grasp of tactics. If he decided on the spot to use them, upon facing the unexpectedly stubborn resistance displayed by the knights, then the action shows the ability of the Mongols to adapt on the spot to whatever tactical problem faced them.69
Bela’s forces rallied
and charged the Mongols, who were able to keep up their traditional arrow storm but were limited in their ability to flank their enemy. Indeed, the repeated charges of heavy cavalry caused serious Mongol casualties, but Batu’s forces endeavored to not only hold on but to stretch their line to the right. Batu started this battle with no more than four tumens under his direct command, and they now faced the full force of the Hungarian army of perhaps 100,000. This focused Hungarian attention just where it was supposed to be, for when Subedei’s flanking force arrived it struck the Hungarian army in the rear. The Hungarians had little choice but to retreat into their laager, which now became the target of the trebuchets’ explosives. Batu’s force stretched to its right as Subedei’s maintained pressure on the camp and stretched to its left. They did not, however, link up—they left a gap between their forces. Some sources mention a gorge open to the west, but modern terrain maps do not show it. Still, it was an opening and, while a contingent of Knights Templar threw another assault at the Mongols, many of those in the laager took the opportunity to make a run for it.
It was not, of course, a Mongol mistake. Foot soldiers and knights alike dropped their heavy armor and weaponry to make their best speed, but they could not outrun well-placed Mongol cavalry waiting for them. The result was slaughter in the open rather than slaughter in the camp, which occurred as well. Contemporary casualty reports put the Hungarian losses at 70,000. No numbers on Mongol casualties are available, but they were certainly severe. Nevertheless, within three days the Mongols were again at Pest, which now lay undefended. They destroyed the city, but did not immediately cross the Danube.
As in most of the Mongol battles, Subedei led a retrograde movement to contact. Once the Hungarians were encamped and deployed, Batu launched a deliberate attack against the bridgehead and, once across it, against the Hungarian army itself. His attack really was a feint, even though it was probably in greater force than Subedei’s flank march, which was the hammer to Batu’s anvil. Batu’s attack was not a surprise in and of itself, but the use of trebuchets as battlefield artillery and the introduction of gunpowder were both major surprises to the Hungarians. The Mongol commanders failed to dictate the tempo as much as they desired, since Subedei’s flank march took longer than expected owing to difficulty in bridging the river. The Mongols certainly succeeded in exploiting the victory, since both the Hungarians on defense and those on the run were destroyed. The pursuit started with the Mongols merely chasing fleeing Hungarian troops, but ended with the whole Mongol army appearing before Pest.
Masters of the Battlefield Page 24
