As Mongol armies withdrew from the ruins of the
Hungarian kingdom in the spring of 1242, Europe was left with the frightening prospect of what to
do, should the Horsemen of the Great Khan return. In today’s episode, we will look at European
preparations for such an eventuality, and how these measures worked when
Mongol armies did come back into Europe. Lucky for us, these days if the mongols did
come back, we’d only really have to worry about what to make them for dinner. Or, let our
sponsor HelloFresh worry about that for you. This service delivers fresh food to your
home within a week of it leaving the farm, but specifically they deliver precisely what
is needed to create dishes on their meal plan. You pick items from their menu beforehand,
now featuring a new Mediterranean range, and then follow foolproof recipes to
create rich meals without a second thought. They offer vegetarian, pescartarian, and fitness
focused menus too, so you can dine according to your wants and needs, with all the admin taken
care of for you. And it's all top of the line, flavourful picks, with seasonal tastes mixed
in, and plenty of kid-friendly recipes too. You’ll waste no more precious week-night time sourcing and planning meals, waste no more
food throwing away unused ingredients, since you get the right amount to begin with,
and waste no more money - HelloFresh is up to seventy two percent cheaper than getting
food from restaurants or grocery stores. Use our link or go to hellofresh dot com and use code POGKGSEPT16 for 16 FREE MEALS
across 7 boxes + 3 surprise gifts! When the armies of Batu and Subedei
withdrew in 1242, Europe was in a state of panic. Hungary had been occupied for a
year, the Polish Duchies had been ravaged and Mongol forces had darted into the eastern
parts of the Holy Roman Empire and Austria. Early in 1242 Mongol armies had also
cut through the Balkans, with one force perhaps even approaching Constantinople,
then under the rule of the Latin Empire. During Batu’s leisurely withdrawal from Hungary,
he thoroughly sacked anything which had survived the first Passover. Then, he sent more troops into
Halychyna-Volhynia when passing through there. Ultimately he did not return to Mongolia,
but settled on the Volga Steppes. The Mongols did not disappear into the distant mists, but
seemed all too close and ready to strike again. The situation in Europe was tense.
Pope Gregory IX had died in August 1241 in the midst of a violent confrontation with
the Holy Roman Emperor, and his successor had reigned only days before he too passed away.
It took two years for a new Pope, Innocent IV, to be ordained. In the Holy Roman Empire,
an attempt at an anti-Mongol Crusade in 1241 under the Emperor’s son Conrad had collapsed
into civil war in Germany by that autumn. In 1242, the Saintonge War broke
out between France and England. Despite optimistic suggestions by the Holy Roman
Emperor Frederick II, there would be no united front among the European monarchs in the immediate
aftermath of the Mongol Invasion. For those on the frontline of a possible Mongol return, such as
Béla IV, King of Hungary, this was unwelcome news. The powers of Europe had, by and large,
offered no real support during the midst of the Mongol onslaught, and it was clear no assistance
would be forthcoming for further preparation. When King Béla returned to his kingdom in the
fall of 1242, he quickly got to work. He had no pretensions that the Mongols would not come
back to finish the job, and threatening letters demanding his submission were a regular feature
of the rest of his reign. Béla had to prepare for their inevitable return. One of his first
actions was to bring the Cumans back to his realm. These Turkic nomads had previously sought
shelter in Hungary before the murder of their leader caused them to abandon Béla to the
Mongols. Béla coaxed them back with promises of land and a marriage alliance. His son István
was married to a Cuman Princess who was then baptised. The Cumans were given a section of the
Great Hungarian Plain depopulated by the Mongols. The hope was for the now-settled Cumans to be a
first line of defense should the Mongols return. For the rest of the thirteenth century,
Cuman horse archers remained one of the most important parts of the Hungarian army.
Much of the kingdom’s population had been driven to the westernmost part of Hungary, near
the Austrian border, or north into what is now Slovakia. From the Danube River westwards Béla
ordered, and encouraged the nobility, to build more fortifications, particularly in stone,
and on more rugged, hard-to-access locations. These had been some of the few fortifications
which had survived the first Mongol assault, such as at Esztergom, though they also represented
ongoing trends in European castle construction. With the death of the last Babbenburg Duke
of Austria in 1246, Béla then went to war, unsuccessfully, with his Bohemian neighbour
Ottokar over those lands, a failed effort to push his kingdom even more west. One of his key
strategies was also to establish a network of marriage alliances with Polish Dukes, the Duke of
Bavaria, the Princes of Halychyna-Volhynia, and with Rus’ princes who had fled into Hungary. With
Halychyna-Volhynia, Béla offered encouragement for its ruler, Daniil Romanovich, to declare his
independence from the Mongols as King of Ruthenia, making a convenient buffer-state
between Hungary and the Mongol Empire. Alongside those relationships, Béla continued
to contact the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, seeking aid, funds, troops, whatever they could
spare, presenting himself as the front-line defender of Christendom. With Pope Innocent
IV, Béla had a relatively supportive ally, who organized the First Council of Lyons in 1245
to deal with the threats to the Christian peoples: the Mongols, the fall of Jerusalem in 1244,
and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick. But Innocent’s Papal successors were less keen
on Béla’s continued exultations for support. Pope Alexander IV and his successor Urban IV both
essentially told Béla to shove it, critiquing his reliance on pagan Cumans and basically telling
him the Mongol invasions were punishments for the sin of the Hungarians. In the end, little
material Papal assistance ever actually came to the Hungarians. The results of Béla’s
policies we will return to in a few minutes, but we can compare his efforts with the
suggestions his contemporaries made. The most deliberate European response to the
Mongol invasion was the Council of Lyons in 1245. Pope Innocent IV invited hundreds of prelates from
across Europe to discuss the problems facing the Church. Among other important pontifical matters,
such as deciding the colours of Cardinals’ hats and excommunicating Emperor Frederick, the Church
Council heard from those who had experienced the invasion first-hand in Eastern Europe. It was
decided to learn more about these Mongols, and to do so several embassies were organized.
These were made up of the Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans. The most well-known
of these was Giovanni de Pian del Carpine, or John de Plano Carpini as his name is more commonly
rendered. Carpini departed on his mission in 1245, arriving in the Mongol imperial capital
of Qaraqorum in time for the election of Great Khan Güyük in 1246, before returning
with the Khaan’s letters demanding the Popes and King come to Mongolia to submit. It was an
impressive journey for a 65-year-old Italian. During his travels Carpini took extensive
notes, observations and conducted interviews with as many people as possible, especially from
European captives taken during the Mongol invasion who provided Carpini first-hand
details of Mongol battle strategy. Together, Carpini compiled a lengthy manual on how
to battle the Mongols. Thoroughly he described the appearance, dress, and customs of the Mongols; not
in exaggerated mythic terms, but with the detailed eye of an observer who felt lives depended on
it. His information is accurate, corroborating well with other European, Chinese and Persian
accounts. Carpini’s extensive ethnography of the Mongols —whom he calls Tatars throughout— was no
accident. One of the key strategies, he suggested, was recognizing the difference between the
Mongols, and the people they ruled over, for Carpini believed that should these people be
freed, they would fight against the Mongol menace. Indeed, unity in the face of the Mongols was one
of Carpini’s primary arguments for a successful defense. Carpini was quite aware of the disunity
within Europe even in the face of the previous Mongol attack, and Güyük Khaan himself told
Carpini that he was preparing to finish the conquest. Carpini’s work stressed the need
for cooperation between European powers, both at diplomatic, strategic levels — that is,
not to allow one kingdom to face the Mongols on its own— and at operational and tactical levels
— tight discipline must be kept over troops, they must not break formation to pursue fleeing
Mongols, and the army itself needed to be under unified command. No single power or army,
Carpini stressed, could stand against them. Much of Carpini’s suggestions were
to emulate the Mongolian army. Scouts should always be on watch day and night,
while the army itself should be organized in the Turko-Mongolian decimal structure to ease command.
The army had to advance or retreat together, follow orders and not break off into small
parties that could be picked off piecemeal. In Carpini’s view, the Mongols had to be defeated
in the field. He actively discouraged hiding in castles; doing so, he argued, only allowed
the Mongols to overrun the countryside and kill whoever they came across. A castle was
worth nothing if the kingdom was reduced to ash and its people were taken captive. While he
offers advice on how to design fortifications to resist the Mongols, this was a last line of
defense rather than a primary means of protection. Carpini’s suggestions for castle design
mirrored ongoing efforts in Hungary at the time: that is, on elevated positions difficult
to target by siege machines, well supplied, with deep ditches and well-built walls. But,
Carpini urges the defenders not to base their entire defence on such forts. As he wrote:
“Moreover, in regard to this point, it should be known that the Tartars much prefer
men to shut themselves into their cities and fortresses rather than fight with them in the
open, for then they say they have got their little pigs shut in their sty, and so they place
men to look after them as I have told above.” No, the Mongols had to be
confronted head-on, before their armies split to attack several points.
For equipment, Carpini listed the following: “Whoever wishes to fight against the
Tartars ought to have the following arms: good strong bows, crossbows, of which [the
Mongols] are much afraid, a good supply of arrows, a serviceable axe of strong iron or a battle-axe
with a long handle; the heads of the arrows for both bows and cross-bows ought to be tempered
after the Tartar fashion, in salt water when they are hot, to make them hard enough to pierce
the Tartar armour. They should also have swords and lances with a hook to drag the Tartars from
their saddle, for they fall off very easily; knives, and cuirasses of a double thickness,
for the Tartar arrows do not easily pierce such; a helmet and armour and other things to protect
the body and the horses from their weapons and arrows. If there are any men not as well armed
as we have described, they ought to do as the Tartars and go behind the others and shoot
at the enemy with their bows and crossbows. There ought to be no stinting of money when
purchasing weapons for the defence of souls and bodies and liberty and other possessions.”
On his return in 1247, Carpini had his account read out and copied as he travelled, ensuring
that it spread across Europe. As such, his work, the Ystoria Mongalorum, became the most popular
account of the Mongols in Europe in the thirteenth century. Later writers plagiarised and adapted
it. The most famous of these was John Mandeville, a fourteenth century author who copied
from Carpini for his own fictional travels. The question remains though; did Carpini’s
work influence European defensive measures against the Mongols? It is difficult to answer
in the affirmative. While Carpini’s work was quickly popularized, there’s little evidence to
connect it to defensive or offensive measures employed against later Mongol attacks. Aside from
the improved fortifications, Carpini suggested, something which originated independently
of Carpini, the hopes for united armies operating as one body to prevent the Mongols from
overrunning the countryside never materialized. After the Prince of Halychyna-Volhynia
Daniil Romanovich had been encouraged by the Hungarians and Pope to assert
his independence against the Mongols, he received no support beyond a Papal-approved
crown, and this independence was soon crushed. The 1260 invasion of Poland by Boroldai Noyan
was immensely destructive, more so than the first Mongol attacks according to the Polish chronicler
Jan Długosz. Here there was no record of any of Carpini’s suggestions being adhered to; the Poles
received no outside aid, and the battles were all sieges, in which the Mongols overran quickly
the Polish defenders. The Mongols retreated laden with booty and captives, having been given
free roam to ravage the countryside. In Bulgaria, the Jochid prince Nogai’s troops plundered
annually over the 1270s. Only in 1283 did Nogai’s troops, commanded by a Byzantine ally, meet a
significant military defeat against the Serbians, during a failed crossing over the River Drim.
Nogai and Prince Tele-Buqa led a large attack on the Hungarian Kingdom in 1285. Here the
defensive measures of the late Béla IV were put to the test, and once more no influence
of Carpini’s suggestions can be determined. The Cumans who Béla had so carefully recalled to
the Kingdom revolted at the start of the 1280s, in response to Christianization efforts led against
them. Though the revolt was put down in 1282, many of these Cumans fled the Hungarian Kingdom
outright, a number defecting to the Golden Horde, thus unraveling Béla’s intended
offensive arm against the Mongols. The second Mongol invasion of Hungary is only
poorly covered in the extant primary sources, though study of these sources has
advanced our knowledge of the campaign since even our own video on it. While it remains
a popular claim in online circles to assert that fierce European heavy cavalry under King László
routed the Mongol armies, there is no surviving source that describes any such encounter. Charters
issued by László seem to indicate that he stayed in the western part of the kingdom, mostly in
Buda and Pest, throughout the Mongol assault. As archaeologist Michal Holeščák noted, it
seems unlikely that a King so beleaguered and suffering from harassment from the Church
and his Barons would have missed an opportunity to glorify a victory over the Mongols, had he
one to share. Instead, the campaign was largely one of the small skirmishes and short sieges. The
Mongols seemed unwilling to besiege major sites and ravaged the countryside instead, and when
they began to withdraw in the spring of 1285, the sources described them as carrying a
considerable amount of slaves and booty; it seems up to that point, the campaign was by
and large successful. Carpini’s doctrine here evidently played no role in the defence. Only the
botched withdrawal through the Carpathians stopped the campaign from being a success, where lightly
armoured Vlachs, Saxons and Szekély harassed the Mongols armies and freed a number of prisoners.
As reported in sources from Poland, the Rus’ Principalities to Egypt, Tele-Buqa’s army was
lost to severe weather, epidemic and starvation, turning the mission into a disaster.
It seems that Carpini’s suggestions were not heeded in Hungary. When Nogai and Tele-Buqa, now
Khan of the Golden Horde, attacked Poland in 1287, the campaign was much less successful.
Major cities repulsed the Mongol attacks, and the Mongols had to contend with pillaging
the countryside and undefended areas. But Carpini would have found some solace in the fact that some
Hungarian lords travelled in Poland to provide assistance against the Mongols: this was the
closest to a united military front ever offered. The 1280s marked the last of the
major Mongol attacks on Europe. Raids launched by the Golden Horde
continued well into the fourteenth century, but these were on a considerably smaller
scale. Throughout the first half of the 1300s, Khan Öz Beğ showed a remarkable willingness
to negotiate for diplomatic settlements when he, the Polish King and the Lithuanian
Grand Duke butted heads over Halychyna-Volhynia. While Öz Beğ wasn’t afraid to threaten a Mongol
invasion, his desires to conquer the Ilkhanate stopped him from ever committing any real strength
to the far west. But after Öz Beğ’s death, the balance shifted. The ravages of the Black
Death, ecological and economic catastrophes and repeated civil wars left the Golden Horde
in a state of anarchy from 1360 through to 1380. After being stabilized by Toqtamish Khan,
the Horde was once again plunged into turmoil with the invasion of the great Emir, Tamerlane. In
the midst of this, the rulers of Hungary, Poland and Lithuania invaded Horde’s western lands. The
Lithuanians took Kyiv and drove to the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the sources generally offer little
detail into the specifics of a given victory. Strong cavalry forces marked much of these
armies, with their own horse archers; these were the types of forces which, ironically,
often fared the best against the Mongols, as was the case with the Mamluk Sultanate of
Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate. Thus, Carpini’s suggestions had little influence on the actual
successes European armies did have; but in regard, he was quite correct. When the Mongol armies were
no longer providing a disciplined, united front, they fell victim to the armies that could.
More videos on the history of the Mongols are on the way, so make sure you are subscribed
and have pressed the bell button to see them. Please, consider liking, commenting, and sharing -
it helps immensely. Our videos would be impossible without our kind patrons and youtube channel
members, whose ranks you can join via the links in the description to know our schedule, get
early access to our videos, access our discord, and much more. This is the Kings and Generals
channel, and we will catch you on the next one.
