The death of Ogedei Khan in 1241 is sometimes referred to as “the death that saved Europe”, summoning back his princes when they were at the edge of Europe. For sake of argument, assume that Ogedei, who died at age 55, gets a few more years. Also assume that the Mongols are willing - their campaigns in eastern Europe were arguably grand warning shots to the kingdoms of western Europe.
Having said that, their campaigns in eastern Europe against Poland and Hungary show just how unprepared the squabbling fiefdoms at the edge of (at that time) the world’s greatest empire were. The European style of warfare and her heavy knights were woefully outmatched by Mongolian cavalry.
However it wasn’t all bad news for the Europeans. The Mongols came unstuck in Croatia, failing to capture Klis Fortress. The terrain of Europe also gave the home side an advantage, Mongols were at their best on the open steppe and not the mountains and forests of Europe.
So, if they had put their minds to it, could the Mongolian Empire have stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific? Would they do to Rome what they did to Baghdad, the inks of her books staining the Tiber as they did the Tigris? The Pope wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death by horses to mock his station, just as they would do to the Caliph? Their horses grazing in the Po valley?
Or would the forces of Christendom put aside their differences, Europe’s mighty stone redoubts stemming the tide of the Mongolian horde? Use the terrain, weather (the Mongolian composite bows disliked wet conditions) and logistics of their homeland to gain a decisive advantage in battles against the steppe-born enemy?
I think it’s impossible to say. If you watched Mongolia for the 500 years before Genghis was born, you’d laugh to think that they could take over all of Asia and the Middle East, let alone in one man’s lifetime. Ultimately, a lot of the success in war comes down to the skill of the leadership. If the right person gets into the right position at the right time, he can accomplish impressive things.
That’s going to be true for Europe. If the right person comes along to unify the kingdoms, and some good strategists are given free reign to save Christendom, then Europe could prevail. If they don’t, then they don’t.
The Mongols expanded as far as they could. It’s no accident that they stopped conquering the moment they encountered lands with no fodder. Their style of warfare required vast numbers of remounts, and they could not carry food with them. Furthermore, they were fatally weak in seiges - they won most of them by simply charging into poorly-defended cities with dirt ramparts. I truth, there were lots of places the Mongols could not efectively conquer, and didn’t really want to conquer.
Now, could they? Could is a strong word. Certainly they theoretically could do so, but onyl at vast cost in blood and treasure. Unlike many eastern kingdoms, you couldn’t conquer any European land without constant seige warfare. Just killing one king, or winning one battle wouldn’t do. You had to crush every individual point. It wasn’t even so much the power of European fortifications (though those were nasty) as the sheer number of them. It’s possible, but more trouble than it’s worth, which is why nobody ever did it.
Logistics would somewhat mitigate against it. Mongol ponies were exclusively grass-fed and the Carpathian Basin was the last large grazing area capable of supporting any grass-fed army until you hit the Atlantic coast. It was actually a problem for the early Magyars for similar reasons long before the Mongols arrived on the scene. If the CB produced enough grazing for ~150,000 - 300,000 ponies ( various estimates ), that doesn’t translate to a very large army, as multiple mounts were needed for each warrior, not to mention that many of those would have been ruled out ( the Mongols overwhelmingly preferred mares and only occasionally geldings - never stallions ). While deep raids were possible as far afield as France they were also somewhat dependent on stepping stone “islands” of western grazing that made nomad movements predictable in the west and thus prone to ambush.
Beyond that the Mongol Imperial Army, while completely successful in battle, still reportedly suffered significant casualties in most of their major engagements. Adverse terrain, limited grazing and mounting losses that weren’t as easily replaced in the west ( despite the heavy dragooning of part of the Cuman nation ) would have slowed them. I don’t really fancy the chance of any European army in the field against Subedei and his superb officer corps ( neither Frederick II nor Louis IX were notably great commanders ). But the pressure of outside invasion may have ended up temporarily uniting divided western Christendom and France + Germany + Italy could theoretically put a lot of men in the field to soak up damage and perhaps create stasis.
Most likely would probably be a more permanent occupation of the Balkan region with Hungary with its good grazing lands under a junior Jochid prince ( Shayban had apparently been already picked out for that appanage before they decided to retreat from it ) serving as the fulcrum of Mongol authority in the area. So a larger, more intrusive Golden Horde. But given that Ogedei was going to die eventually ( meaning the withdrawal of the elite imperial army ), that Mongol authority in the west would always have gravitated to the more hospitable Russian steppe and would have been focused east and south towards familial rivals and that western Europe was so inhospitable by Mongol standards, I think any far-reaching conquest of western Europe is unlikely. Southern China was similarly inhospitable, but the Mongols there had the advantage of the nearby locus in Mongolia and a northern Chinese population accustomed to accommodation/subordination with/to steppe-dwellers.
What might have been interesting is a Mongol Khanate in the Balkans that might have eventually gone Christian as a weird little twist on history.
And quite likely. The mongols, much like the Vikings before them, conquered but did not spread their culture, and tended to adopt the local beliefs and completely erase their own identity in a handful of generations.
a one-off wrecking is a disaster, c.f. what happened to Hungary. Repeated wrecking of the countryside is how you negotiate protection/tribute payments and set yourself up as the overlord, regardless of the local rulers’ ability to hide in their castles. After all, if the king cannot protect his tax base, it makes sense for him to negotiate rather than keep holding out while his subjects are devastated.
On the other hand, maybe Mongol logistics were simply not up to speed for supporting an army of occupation long enough to get this done.
I thought the Mongol “invasion” of Europe in the 13th Century, was actually more of a reconnaissance in force, rather than a serious attempt to conquer Europe. The actual invasion never came, as you point out, because of the death of Ogedei Khan.
I once read an AH novel by John Maddox Roberts, King of the Wood, where the Mongols decided Europe was too poor to bother conquering. But eventually they discover and invade North America (the eastern seaboard of which has been settled for generations by Norse, some Christian, some pagan; while the Aztec civilization, bloody and gold-rich, thrives in Mexico).
Could they “conquer”, maybe. Could they hold it for any length of time? Probably not.
Once your supply train gets so long, you become really vulnerable. That’s a big part of why Afghanistan has been dubbed “the place where empires go to die” for centuries. Add to that the very human traits of greed and intrigue. At some point there would inevitably be a prince who got the bright idea that he should be the khan… and the folks in the conquered lands would use the ensuing civil war as a chance to bolt for freedom.
No, you’re probably thinking of Jebe and Subedei’s remarkable 5,500 mile reconnaissance in force of the Caucasus and Russian steppes in 1221-1223 while Genghis was still alive. Heavily outnumbered they swept through the region defeating all comers, most famously at the Kalka River. It was partly that expedition that fired Subedei’s imagination and in concert with the political desires of the Jochids led to the European invasion.
The invasion of 1237-1241 on the other hand was a full-on assault designed to conquer territory. I suppose it depends how you define “Europe”, but that campaign led to the direct conquest and occupation of the states of the Cumans, Kama Bulgars, Bashkirs and parts of Kievan Rus, with the rest of Russia being forced into submission, leading to the creation of the Golden Horde. The attacks that swept north into Poland and Bohemia were diversionary ( brilliantly so ), but the invasion of Hungary was more serious and was the main target, presumably due to its abundant pasture-land.
Whether the Mongols intended to permanently occupy Hungary is still debated, but it is logical they might have done so, given its suitability as a forward power-base. Ogedei’s death caused the automatic recall of the crack units of the Mongol standing army under the command of Subedei ( who answered to the Great Khan and not the Jochid princes ) as well as the various senior Genghisid princes wanted to have a say in the election of the new Great Khan, including the ostensible commander of the expedition, Batu of the newly formed Golden Horde.
Hence the meme that Ogedei’s death ( and the succession struggle that ensued ) saved Western Europe from conquest. As noted above, I and many others think such was unlikely. But given the performance of the Mongols against European field forces up to that moment, it is easy to see why there is speculation.
Similarly the death of Mongke in 1259, the last Great Khan of a unified Mongol Empire, is often said to have saved the Levant ( i.e. Egypt and Syria ).
South China was also a considerably tougher nut to crack, though. And even more inhospitable to providing for steppe ponies than Western Europe.
Horses do not absolutely need steppe grasslands to live - they can be grain-fed, if necessary. Other nomad type armies had in the past operated in Westen Europe, such as the Huns - and they were much less advanced in terms of supply and organization than the Mongols.
I have heard the geographic-determinist argument for why the Mongols could not have taken Europe, but to my mind it doesn’t hold; the Mongols did in fact rule in places beyond the grasslands, notably Sung China as you mention. Much more convincing is the argument that Mongol imperial unity only had a certain shelf-life and the overwieldy Mongol Empire doomed to break into warring factions eventually. Conquest on a grand scale far from their power-base was only really possible where the Mongols were unified.
What is certain is that the Mongols would not have stopped at Hungary had Ogedei not dropped dead. Why should they? Nothing but some tough geography really stood in their way after their crushing victories in Poland and Hungary, certainly the Europeans had shown no ability to unite in the face of the menace threatening them (or even to understand it), and tough geography had a poor record of stopping the Mongols when it was not defended vigorously by united and determined opponents.
China has the advantage of being much closer, and having convenient disloyal (to the Chinese government) populations to use as mercenaries, as well as a few political advantages. First, the Sung were rather incompetent in military matters, and prone to overly-dramatic actions with no sensible value. Innative, yes, with some early gunpwder experiments. But in true courtly fashion, they developed an army which couldn’t in any way threaten the court… with the result that it couldn’t threaten the Mongols.
Finally, unlike any western nation, the Song had another weakness: as Macchiavelli explained in the context of Alexander the Great’s war against Persia, once the Emperor was dead there was no further threat. By contrast, the divided lands of were Europe were harder to subjugate. Note that most of the Mongol conquests were won by single victories: once they took the field, or acapital city, the Mongols had no opposition left.
South China took ~45 years to subdue ;). This with the resources of Mongolia and northern China immediately on hand. I don’t think Europe was as tough a nut to crack, but the resources of the Golden Horde were not up to that sort of sustained conflict, not when they had their cousins in the Il-Khanate to contend with.
It wasn’t geography alone, but geography + politics + eventually limited military resources that made a Mongol dominance of western Europe unlikely to my mind.
Yes, but grain-feeding their stock suddenly removes a major tactical advantage of the Mongol system. You lose strategic mobility as you have to deal with the supply train necessary to feed your horses. Whether the Mongols could have adopted such a radical change to their system is one thing. Whether they would have in the short-term is another.
Other nomad armies did indeed harass Europe, but they all faced the same constraints that the Mongols did and all were hampered by them. It is no coincidence that both the Avars and the Magyars based themselves out of modern Hungary. It has been argued that it is also not coincidence that the Magyars eventually moved away from horse-pastoralism and settled down as an agricultural state - the Carpathian Basin simply was unable to support a major nomadic power ( unlike the Russian steppe ).
Agreed. But as noted Ogedei was only going to live so long. The question is what another, let’s say five years buys them and whether what it buys is sustainable beyond that. Like I said a more permanent occupation of Hungary seems reasonable. So does subjugation of neighboring Balkan states like Bulgaria. Much beyond that of a permanent nature does not. Germany and northern Italy rocked by destructive razzias? Quite likely. Poland or even Bohemia at least temporarily reduced to vassalage a la northern Russia? Conceivably.
But Germany and France conquered? Or even farther afield, England or the Iberian states? Seems unlikely in whatever time they had available to work.
Tough geography had an excellent record of slowing Mongol progress if we use southern China as an example. The situation was not identical in Europe, but again it was distant from the center and Batu actually had bigger fish to fry re: family politics.
I would place “politics” as first priority in that list.
The real question I think is “could the Mongols have kept their unity long enough to subdue Europe?” I’d agree that this was unlikely but it was not impossible.
That depends. To an extent, you can compensate by foraging directly off the countryside. The problem is that pesants do not regenerate like grassland does when their fields and barns are stripped bare by hungry nomad ponies (and themselves given the old rough-and-ready treatment no doubt) - to a great extent you can only do this once per area.
The difference is I think that the Huns, Avars etc. tended to behave more like the later Golden Horde - that is, live in a state of parasitism off of settled societies, treating them somewhat like a slowly-renewing natural resourse (see comments about foraging off of pesants above).
They had no real wish to settle down and actually rule. Rather, they engaged in periodic raiding and blackmail. This enabled them to live in the way they loved (as nomads) while still enjoying the booty of settled peoples.
It does not of necessity mean that they could not defeat settled societies - they often did - nor that they could not be imperialists. They did not because they had no intention of doing so. The intention of becoming actual imperialists is above all what made the Mongols so unique.
I agree that the real question is how long Mongol unity, and unity of purpose, could have lasted. A case could be made that an empire that large was bound to fly apart, particularly given the inherent fractionalism of Mongol politics! Also, the growth of religious particularism among the Mongols themselves.
As good a point can be made that the early death of Ogedei certainly saved Europe much grief, even if the question of outright conquest cannot by its nature be answered. I tend to think that the actual obsticles to conquest have been somewhat exaggerated by present-day historians in reaction to the earlier “but for Ogedei drinking himself to death, Europe would be Mongol” line.
That is often said, but in the same sense that a lack of pastureland may have hindered the Mongols’ ability to permanently conquer Europe, Masson-Smith and Amitai have argued that the Levant simply didn’t have the grazing and/or water resources necessary for the Mongol army (or, maybe more accurately, didn’t have them in combination with one another; areas with enough water during the dry season wouldn’t have offered nearly enough grazing). Timur took Damascus, but he was a better logistician than most of the Chinggisids and yet he never tried to push on toward Egypt, and his descendants couldn’t even hold on to Syria.