2RHPZ
08-23-2004, 06:48 PM
Mongol Invasion of Europe
Part 1 of 6
By Erik Hildinger for Military History Magazine
On April 9, 1241, Duke Henry II of Silesia, also known as Henry the Pious, marched out of his city of Liegnitz (now the Polish city of Legnica) to meet the dreaded Mongols, or Tartars, as they were then called by the Europeans. The invaders from the east had already attacked Lublin and sacked Sandomir. Henry's army was the last left to oppose the Tartars in Poland. As he rode through the city, a stone fell from the roof of St. Mary's Church and narrowly missed killing the duke. The people rightly took it for an omen of misfortune.
Henry knew that, only weeks earlier, a Tartar army had routed a combined force of Poles and Slavs under his cousin Boleslav V and burned Kraków on Palm Sunday. He now waited anxiously for the assistance of his brother-in-law, King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, who was marching to join him with 50,000 men. But Henry did not know when they would come, and he wondered if he should have waited behind the walls of Liegnitz for his Bohemian allies. Henry feared that the Tartars who ravaged his country might be reinforced if he waited too long for Wenceslas' arrival, so he and his army left the protection of Liegnitz on that April day and advanced toward the town of Jawor, where he reckoned he was most likely to meet up with the Bohemian king. His army of about 30,000 consisted of Polish knights, Teutonic Knights, French Knights Templar and a levy of foot soldiers, including German gold miners from the town of Goldberg. Opposing him was a host of about 20,000 Mongols, fresh from victories over the other Polish armies and commanded by Kaidu, a great-grandson of Genghis Khan.
Terrible as the Mongol incursion into Poland was, it was merely a diversion to keep the Europeans from uniting to resist the conquest of the Mongols' primary objective--Hungary. Since 1236, a Mongol army of 150,000 had been consolidating the rule of Ogadei, Genghis Khan's son and chosen successor as khakan ("great khan"), over the principalities of western Russia. In overall command of the horde was Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan. The real mastermind of the expedition, however, was Subotai, longtime lieutenant of Genghis Khan. Subotai had commanded divisions of the great khan's army in the campaigns against the Northern Sung of China and had helped in the destruction of the Khwarazmian empire of Persia.
During the Russian campaign, the Mongols drove some 200,000 Cumans, a nomadic steppe people who had opposed them, west of the Carpathian Mountains. There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection, in return for which they offered to convert to Western Christianity. A mass conversion would enhance Hungary's prestige with the pope. Moreover, the Cumans pledged 40,000 warriors, experienced in the Mongols' mobile steppe warfare, to Hungary's defense. Béla gladly accepted the offer, but many of his nobles distrusted the Cumans. His decision gave the Mongols an official excuse to make Hungary their next object for conquest.
After holding a council of war in Przemysl in December 1240, Batu sent an ultimatum to King Béla IV. "Word has come to me," he wrote, "that you have taken the Cumans, our servants, under your protection. Cease harboring them, or you will make of me an enemy because of them. They, who have no houses and dwell in tents, will find it easy to escape. But you who dwell in houses within towns--how can you escape me?" Rejecting the ultimatum, Béla sent heralds throughout Hungary carrying a bloody sword, the traditional symbol for a national emergency, to rally the nobles and vassals to the kingdom's defense.
Nobles from Hungary and adjacent kingdoms responded to the call. One of the latter, Archduke Frederick of Austria, had long had chilly relations with Béla over control of territories along their borders. Once in Hungary, he noticed that the kingdom's settled subjects were not getting along well with the nomadic Cumans. Frederick stayed in the capital, Buda, but he had been ferried across the Danube River to the small merchant town of Pest when a riot broke out--some say at his instigation--in which the Cumans' khan, Khotyan, was killed and his head thrown into the street. The enraged Cumans left the country for Bulgaria, pillaging as they went, while Archduke Frederick returned to Austria to observe the coming war from the sidelines.
Next page > Forces Converge > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
http://historymedren.about.com/library/prm/bl1mongolinvasion.htm
Part 1 of 6
By Erik Hildinger for Military History Magazine
On April 9, 1241, Duke Henry II of Silesia, also known as Henry the Pious, marched out of his city of Liegnitz (now the Polish city of Legnica) to meet the dreaded Mongols, or Tartars, as they were then called by the Europeans. The invaders from the east had already attacked Lublin and sacked Sandomir. Henry's army was the last left to oppose the Tartars in Poland. As he rode through the city, a stone fell from the roof of St. Mary's Church and narrowly missed killing the duke. The people rightly took it for an omen of misfortune.
Henry knew that, only weeks earlier, a Tartar army had routed a combined force of Poles and Slavs under his cousin Boleslav V and burned Kraków on Palm Sunday. He now waited anxiously for the assistance of his brother-in-law, King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, who was marching to join him with 50,000 men. But Henry did not know when they would come, and he wondered if he should have waited behind the walls of Liegnitz for his Bohemian allies. Henry feared that the Tartars who ravaged his country might be reinforced if he waited too long for Wenceslas' arrival, so he and his army left the protection of Liegnitz on that April day and advanced toward the town of Jawor, where he reckoned he was most likely to meet up with the Bohemian king. His army of about 30,000 consisted of Polish knights, Teutonic Knights, French Knights Templar and a levy of foot soldiers, including German gold miners from the town of Goldberg. Opposing him was a host of about 20,000 Mongols, fresh from victories over the other Polish armies and commanded by Kaidu, a great-grandson of Genghis Khan.
Terrible as the Mongol incursion into Poland was, it was merely a diversion to keep the Europeans from uniting to resist the conquest of the Mongols' primary objective--Hungary. Since 1236, a Mongol army of 150,000 had been consolidating the rule of Ogadei, Genghis Khan's son and chosen successor as khakan ("great khan"), over the principalities of western Russia. In overall command of the horde was Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan. The real mastermind of the expedition, however, was Subotai, longtime lieutenant of Genghis Khan. Subotai had commanded divisions of the great khan's army in the campaigns against the Northern Sung of China and had helped in the destruction of the Khwarazmian empire of Persia.
During the Russian campaign, the Mongols drove some 200,000 Cumans, a nomadic steppe people who had opposed them, west of the Carpathian Mountains. There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection, in return for which they offered to convert to Western Christianity. A mass conversion would enhance Hungary's prestige with the pope. Moreover, the Cumans pledged 40,000 warriors, experienced in the Mongols' mobile steppe warfare, to Hungary's defense. Béla gladly accepted the offer, but many of his nobles distrusted the Cumans. His decision gave the Mongols an official excuse to make Hungary their next object for conquest.
After holding a council of war in Przemysl in December 1240, Batu sent an ultimatum to King Béla IV. "Word has come to me," he wrote, "that you have taken the Cumans, our servants, under your protection. Cease harboring them, or you will make of me an enemy because of them. They, who have no houses and dwell in tents, will find it easy to escape. But you who dwell in houses within towns--how can you escape me?" Rejecting the ultimatum, Béla sent heralds throughout Hungary carrying a bloody sword, the traditional symbol for a national emergency, to rally the nobles and vassals to the kingdom's defense.
Nobles from Hungary and adjacent kingdoms responded to the call. One of the latter, Archduke Frederick of Austria, had long had chilly relations with Béla over control of territories along their borders. Once in Hungary, he noticed that the kingdom's settled subjects were not getting along well with the nomadic Cumans. Frederick stayed in the capital, Buda, but he had been ferried across the Danube River to the small merchant town of Pest when a riot broke out--some say at his instigation--in which the Cumans' khan, Khotyan, was killed and his head thrown into the street. The enraged Cumans left the country for Bulgaria, pillaging as they went, while Archduke Frederick returned to Austria to observe the coming war from the sidelines.
Next page > Forces Converge > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
http://historymedren.about.com/library/prm/bl1mongolinvasion.htm