Mongols

With irresistible vigour and astonishing speed the Mongols made their way through the forests of Penza and Tambov, and appeared before the "beautiful city" of Ryazan. For five days they dis charged a ceaseless storm of shot from their balistas, and, having made a breach in the defences, carried the city by assault on Dec. 21, 2237. Moscow, at this time a place of little importance, next fell to the invaders, who then advanced against Vladimir, which at length succumbed. A dire fate overtook the inhabitants of Ko zelsk, near Kaluga, where, in revenge for a partial defeat inflicted on a Mongol force, the followers of Batu held so terrible a "car nival of death" that the city was renamed by its captors Mobalig, "the city of woe." With the tide of victory thus strong in their favour the Mongols advanced against Kiev, "the mother of cities," and carried it by assault. The inevitable massacre followed and the city was razed to the ground.

Victorious and always advancing, the Mongols, having desolated this portion of Russia, moved on in two divisions, one under Batu into Hungary, and the other under Baidar and Kaidu into Poland. Without a check, Batu marched to the neighbourhood of Budapest, where the whole force of the kingdom was arrayed to resist him. While the careless Hungarians were sleeping, Batu launched his attack. Panic-stricken and helpless, they fled in all directions, fol lowed by their merciless foe ; the roads for two days' journey from the field of battle were strewn with corpses. The king, Bela IV., was saved by the fleetness of his horse, though closely pursued by a body of Mongols, who followed at his heels as far as the coast of the Adriatic, burning and destroying everything in their way. Meanwhile Batu captured Budapest, and on Christmas day 1241, having crossed the Danube on the ice, took Esztergom by assault.

While Batu had been thus triumphing, the force under Baidar and Kaidu had carried fire and sword into Poland. While laying waste the country they received the announcement of the death of Ogdai, and at the same time a summons for Batu to return eastwards into Mongolia.

While his lieutenants had been thus carrying his arms in all directions, Ogdai had been giving himself up to ignoble ease and licentiousness which ended in his death on Dec. 22, 1241. He was succeeded by his son Kuyuk, who reigned only seven years. On the death of Kuyuk, dissensions which had been for a long time smouldering between the houses of Ogdai and Jagatai broke out into open war, and after the short and disputed reigns of Kaidu and Chapai, grandsons of Ogdai, the lordship passed away for ever from the house of Ogdai. It did not go, however, to the house of

Jagatai, but to that of Tule.

Mangu Khan and Hulagu.

On July 2, 1251, Mangu, the eldest son of Tule, and nephew to Ogdai, was elected khagan. With perfect impartiality, Mangu showed tolerance to the Christians, Mohammedans and Buddhists among his subjects although Sham anism was recognized as the State religion. Two years after his accession his court was visited by Rubruquis (q.v.) and other Christian monks, who were hospitably received. The description given by Rubruquis of the khagan's palace at Karakorum shows how wide was the interval which separated him from the nomad, tent-living life of his forefathers. On his accession complaints reached Mangu that dissensions had broken out in the province of Persia, and he therefore sent a force under the command of his brother Hulagu to punish the Ismailites or Assassins (q.v.), who were held to be the cause of the disorder. Marching by Samarkand and Karshi, Hulagu crossed the Oxus and advanced by way of Balkh into the province of Kuhistan or Kohistan. The terror of the Mongol name induced Rukneddin Gurshah II., the chief of the Assassins, to deprecate temporarily the wrath of Hulagu by offers of submission, but Rukneddin having been killed, 1256 (see ASSAS SINS), Hulagu marched across the snowy mountains in the direc tion of Baghdad to attack the last Abbasid caliph and his Seljuk protectors. On arriving before the town he demanded its sur render. This being refused, he laid siege to the walls in the usual destructive Mongol fashion, and at length, finding resistance hope less, the caliph was induced to give himself up and to open the gates to his enemies. On Feb. 25, 1258, the Mongols entered the walls and sacked the city (see CALIPHATE ad fin.). While at Bagh dad Hulagu gave his astronomer, Nasir ed-din, permission to build an observatory, which, splendidly furnished with armillary spheres and astrolabes, was erected at Maragha. The fall of Baghdad was almost contemporaneous with the end of the Seljuks of Konia as an independent power, though their actual destruction did not take place until 1308 (see SELJUKS). The Mongol invasion resulted in a famine which desolated 'Iraq-Arabi, Mesopotamia, Syria and Rfim. The Mongols did not starve with the people but went for ward through Syria. Aleppo was sacked, Damascus surrendered I26o) and Hulagu was meditating the capture of Jerusalem to restore it to the Christians when news of Mangu's death reached him and he returned to Mongolia leaving Kitboga in command of his Syrian forces.