The Mongols formed one of the finest armies ever known--and when they swept across the Danube on Christmas Day 1241, the west lay at the mercy of these "horsemen from hell." From a wealth of contemporary sources comes the story of these soldiers, and especially of Subedei Bahadur, the illiterate military genius who brought 20th-century warfare to Medieval Europe. A fascinating examination of their tactics and training--good enough to invent strategies that Rommel and Patton would later use to such devastating effect--proves the Mongols were more than mere barbarians: they were martial masterminds of the highest order.
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The Devil’s Horsemen THE MONGOL IN V A S IO N OF EUROPE
James Chambers
BOOK CLUB ASSOCIATES
T his edition published 1979 by Book Club Associates by arrangement with Weidenfeld and Nicolson Copyright © 1979 by James Chambers All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transm itted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, w ithout the prior permission of the copyright owner. Printed and bound in G reat Britain by M orrison & G ibb L td, London and E dinburgh
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST OF MAPS
ix
PREFACE
xi
1 The First Move West 2 3 4 5
Reconnaissance in Force Aftermath Interlude The Mongol War Machine
6 The Carving of the Mongol Yoke 7 The Invasion of Europe Begins 8 9 10 11
yii
i 19 23 51 70 85
The Fury o f the Tartars The First Ambassadors The Tartar Crusaders The End o f an Era
96 114 137 156
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE MONGOL IMPERIAL FAMILY
170
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY GLOSSARY
179
INDEX
181
Illustrations
between pages 144 and 145 Portrait of Chingis Khan (Imperial Portrait Gallery, Peking) Chingis Khan riding into battle (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) The Frashi Pavilion at Karakorum (The Warburg Institute) The bier of Chingis Khan (The Warburg Institute) Walls of the Erdeni Tsu monastery (John Massey Stewart) A yurt in the summer pastures of Inner Mongolia (Camera Press) Cameo of Frederick 11, Holy Roman Emperor (Museo Provinciale Campano, Capua) Wooden statue of Louis ix of France (The Mansell Collection) Mongol army in pursuit of King Bela of Hungary (Illumination from the manuscript of The Chronicle of Marcus K alti, s xiv) Chingis Khan’s army defeats his rivals for the khanate (The Mansell Collection) Modern Mongol on horseback (Fitzroy Maclean) Mongol archer on horseback (Victoria & Albert Museum) Archer of Kubilai Khan’s reign (The Mansell Collection) Mongol paitze (token of bearer’s commission) (John Freeman Photographers/Trustees British Museum) Hulegu feasting before his invasion of Iran (The Warburg Institute) Siege of Baghdad (The Mansell Collection)
Maps 1 Eastern Europe and Northern Asia before the Mongol Invasion 2 Russia at the time of the Mongol Invasion 3 Eastern Europe at the time of the Mongol Invasion 4 The Middle East
xiv 68 84 136
Preface
S ever al books have been written in English about the Mongol conquests, the subsequent empires which the Mongols ruled, the travellers who visited them and even the diplomatic relations between their khans and the papacy. But nothing has been written about the Mongol invasion of Europe. In this book I have rashly endeavoured to fill that gap. But I did not set out to write a detailed account of every event that took place in Europe during the invasion. I have simply attempted to tell the story of an extraordinary campaign, outline its causes and far-reaching con sequences and place it in its historical perspective. The contemporary sources were written in more than ten lan guages and