Mongol Campaigns

In 1223, however, Sabutai and Chepe were recalled by Jenghiz Khan, and returned by the northern end of the Caspian sea. Schemes of European conquest were suspended for a generation owing to the death of Jenghiz Khan in 1227. Disputes over the succession, for which Jenghiz had designated his second sur viving son Ogdai, retarded further expansion to the West. Jenghiz Khan had called to his aid, in the administration of the immense newly gained empire, Yeliu Chutsai, a statesman of the former Kin empire. The natural result was to give a Chinese complexion to the policy of the Mongol empire, and to discourage adventures in Europe. But eventually Sabutai's scheme for the invasion of the West came to the front once more. The ground had already been prepared for it by his network of spies and propagandists. It is probable that the invading force did not number more than 150,000 men, even when it set out, and that as a result of the losses in the preliminary campaigns and the detachments left to guard the communications with the East, little more than oo,000 took part in the Polish and Hungarian campaigns. The troops themselves came mainly from China, as the occupiers of the former Karismian empire were needed for events there. The horses only could be provided from south Russia, which had been organized as a vast remount depot.

In 1239 Central Russia was subdued as far as Moscow, and security was assured to the rear and communications of the invaders. The real objective was Hungary, for its people were the only branch of the Turco-Mongol race who still remained outside the authority of Jenghiz Khan's successors. But the neighbouring powers concerted, if not combined, to resist the invasion. They included Poland, Bohemia, and the Holy Roman empire, to which Hungary acted as a bulwark. With these powers were arrayed the German military orders, whose mission it was to be the outposts of the West against the heathen.

Szydlow and Liegnitz.

In Jan. 1241 Sabutai, with the prince Batu as his nominal superior, concentrated the Mongol forces in the region Lemberg-Przemysl. His intention was to force the passes of the Carpathian barrier, and to march on the Hungarian capital, Gran. But whilst he thus made his main effort against the principal enemy, it was necessary to assure security against interference from the others. An advance into Hungary, with the Poles and Germans ready to fall on his right flank, would be hazardous. It was necessary to crush these threats to his flank, and to ward off any premature intervention from Austria (the empire) or Bohemia. The tremendous vic tories of Szydlow in Poland and Liegnitz in Silesia have caused some historians to imagine that the Mongol purpose was a general conquest of Europe. But it was no part of Sabutai's strategy to advance into the hilly and wooded regions of western Europe, where the Mongolian horsemen would be at a disadvantage, and their system of tactics unsuitable to the country. The plain of Hungary was his goal, and he kept to it unswervingly.

He divided his force into four armies. Three of these he as signed to the main operation, and the fourth he used to achieve his secondary object—the removal of the danger on his right flank. This army, under Kaidu, moved first, as had Chepe's detachment into Fergana. At the beginning of March 1241 it crossed the Vistula at Sandomir. Then it fell upon the Polish armies of Boleslas and Miecislas at Szydlow and crushed them. Kaidu swept on at hurricane speed, took Cracow, and then Breslau; on April 8 he met at Liegnitz the German forces under Duke Henry of Silesia, together with the orders of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the remains of the Polish troops. A day's march to the south was the army of King Wenceslas of Bohemia.

The Mongols, who were inferior in numbers to the troops of Duke Henry, struck on April 9 before the allied armies could effect a junction, and inflicted a terrible disaster. In less than a month the Mongols had covered some 400 miles, fought two decisive battles, taken four great cities, and conquered Poland and Silesia from the Vistula to the borders of Saxony.

Advance into Hungary.

But while they had been fulfilling this mission of security, Sabutai had wiped out the Hungarian army. He advanced into Hungary in three columns, of which the two flank columns traversed the circumference of an elon gated circle, while he himself with the central mass started later and went through the diameter Thus he set up his forces in a close-linked and secure system with true economy of force, as was later the Napoleonic method. The dates of departure and the routes were evidently so arranged that the three columns should converge and join hands on the Danube near the Hun garian capital, where the main enemy forces were likely to be met.

The central mass—the last to move—forced the pass of Ruska on March I 2, and advanced by the valley of the Theiss to the Dan ube near Gran. Rarely, if ever, in history has the speed of its ad vance been approached. Sabutai's advanced guard arrived at the Danube on the I5th, and Sabutai himself with the main body came up two days later. Within a fortnight all three armies had assem bled, and Sabutai confronted Bela of Hungary, whose army lay across the Danube.

At this moment, however, Kaidu's detachment had yet to fight the battle of Liegnitz, and Sabutai would be uncertain of the situ ation as regards the other enemy armies. Moreover, it would have been difficult for him to force the crossings of the river under the eyes of the enemy, nor would it have been wise to fight a decisive battle with the Danube at his back. Hence he executed a true strategic retreat towards his base at Munkacz, luring on his enemy away from the protection of the Danube and the chance of rein forcement. The retirement was carried out slowly, taking six days to reach the Sajo river, half the distance. Then suddenly he de livered his crushing surprise blow. In the night he crossed the Sajo (q.v.), and at daybreak he struck. By midday the Hun garian army ceased to exist, Bela was in flight, and more than 70,000 of his men were left dead on the battlefield.

For this battle we have accounts sufficiently reliable to grasp the Mongol tactics. Contemporary observers were impressed, above all, by two features : first, the speed, silence, and mechanical perfection of their evolutions carried out by signals with the black and-white flags of the squadrons; second, the deadliness of their fire. Their opponents, in the words of a chronicler, "fell to the right and left like the leaves of winter." The armies of the middle ages, until the English archers in the next century, relied almost entirely on shock tactics. But the Mongols, as Plano Carpini says, "wounded and killed men and horses, and only when the men and horses are worn down by the arrows, do they come to close quarters." After this holocaust, Hungary was occupied without further fighting. There was no attempt to push farther into Europe, apart from one reconnaissance into Austria. But at the end of the year Ogdai died at Karakorum, and the princes were all eager to com pete for the succession. As a result the Mongol armies and their leaders decided to return east. The evacuation of Hungary was carried out systematically and without interference, and Europe, wondering at its deliverance, began to enshroud both the causes of its defeats and the strength of its conquerors in a cloud of legend.