Best way to fight the Mongols with Medieval European technology
- Thread starter Zuvarq
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I would say scorched earth on surrounding areas and fortify choke points. Recruit other horse archers from the Mongols backyard will help. But really do not chase the horse archers even if they begin to slaughter peasants and throw the heads inside the wall. Preferably said fortress would be doubly walled with the civilians being in the inner wall to at least try to prevent the spread of disease from dead or infected animals from getting in. Even then though I don't know how well it would work
Something like the old stuff of http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/strategikon/strategikon.htm - modernized to allow for better development of shock cavalry over the years - both tactically and strategically.
"That general is wise who before entering into war carefully studies the enemy, and can guard against his strong points and take advantage of his weaknesses. For example, the enemy is superior in cavalry; he should destroy his forage. He is superior in number of troops; cut off their supplies. His army is composed of diverse peoples; corrupt them with gifts, favors, promises. There is dissension among them; deal with their leaders. This people relies on the spear; lead them into difficult terrain. This people relies on the bow; line up in the open and force them into close, hand-to-hand fighting. . . . If they march or make camp without proper precautions, make unexpected raids on them by night and by day. If they are reckless and undisciplined in combat and not inured to hardship, make believe you are going to attack, but delay and drag things out until their ardor cools, and when they begin to hesitate, then make your attack on them. The foe is superior in infantry; entice him into the open, not too close, but from a safe distance hit him with javelins."(59)
The only prayer a European force has of beating the Mongols is understanding this part (well, the work in general, but this part especially) and having forces capable of meeting the Mongols in the right place to apply it.
It's not a technological issue, it's an organizational and operational issue. Head to head won't work, "hunker down" has its own issues.
And as the Rus show OTL, simply being experienced at fighting nomads and having horse archers isn't enough. You need to know how to fight smarter, not harder.
Repeating myself because this is the point that OTL European armies failed so hard at, and which no possible choice of weapons is going to make up for.
I think it's less about technology than infrastructures and society, really.
The first point is to have more widspread use of fortified points, in stone when possible. Remember, medieval warfare is less about open battles than siege : you can win on battlefield but fail to control the territory. Actually it's what happened to Mongols in Hungary OTL.
Seriously this is the most important, a garrison in a fortified town or stronghold can hope realistically hold a military force at least twice as big easily, and up to ten (being a great maximum) as long they are organized and revitailed.
Then, have an earlier de-servisation as you already did in west Europe. I explain myself, while you don't need to make all the serves as "free" peasants ("free" because servage isn't much about individual freedom or not, more like a difference on which part of it).
No, I mean more having a fusion of social situation as well legal between serves and non-serves, leading maybe to a more important usage of infantry.
Kings with authority, and therefore able to "centralise" their forces enough would be appreciable.
You might me unable to defend all Eastern Europe, but it would be certainly more easy to avoid the defeat and make the Mongols besiege (without granted sucess, far from it) every great place, leading to a ruin of the country.
Of course, the logistical problem would be the worst ennemy of Mongols, so...
Not really.
Not only medieval battles are rarely decisive, but these armours were expensive, quite "fragile" (in the sense of when a piece lack or his damaged, it's heavy for no gain).
Furthermore, it prevents the fighter to move freely : it's perfect for the late Middle-Ages where the knights were more or less guided missiles, but for fighting against nomads that base their warfare on great mobility? Meh.
Sure it have its advantages, but for equipping a large army quickly, nothing better than chainmail, admittedly with some "plate equipment" in kit.
Not really. There aren't enough men able to afford it to make a difference (plus what LSCatilina said).
Again, fix the operational and organizational issues. Technology is up to the task, but society isn't.
Eh, they would for starters need MORE knights under a very very savvy commander. The technology of the time was good enough, really.
People had good mail, crossbows, blah blah blah. Nothing really revolutionary happened between then and when the Mongols started faltering.
European armies at the time were frightfully unprofessional outside the men at arms who formed a very small proportion of the total. Hungarian infantry fled and trampled itself at Mohi, Russian city milita and tribal levies didn't even manage to get organised into anything coherent on a couple of occasions before the battle joined. I have no doubt Western Europeans, if they had the happy occasion to face the Mongols, would do just as badly if not worse.
Yuri of Vladimir, for example, was simply outwaited and outmaneuvred on his own land. The Mongols delayed until the levied army was forced to go to winter quarters (and thus divide between camps) and then attacked the Russians one camp at a time.
In doing so part of them crossed winter forests on a trek the length of which is best comparable to all of Poland - quickly enough that it was a total surprise for Yuri.
There are ways of beating nomads - Russians were pretty good at those, typically:
1. Frequent fortifications (alas mostly wooden in their case)
2. Wagenburgs
3. Luring the opponent into marshland or city fights
4. Getting better-armoured horse archers of your own
The Mongols though stormed cities faster than most people estimated they could, brought engineers with them, and waited until the opponent was disorganized which is not hard with a feudal army. I think that really, that's all there was to it.
The Hungarians eventually learned how to fight (granted, small) numbers of Mongols: lots and LOTS of (stone) forts, quick-reaction forces of their own (horse archers and light cavalry), and not giving their main forces field battles but instead engaging all the scouting/raiding/foraging parties to keep them occupied.
Given enough centralisation and small Mongol numbers, anyone could have done in even in the 1240s. It's just that nobody in Europe had quite enough of what it took until the Mongols clearly overextended. And everyone in Europe (even people who were good at building forts) was very poor at taking them, so falling back and holding out was the natural tactic. The Russians for example despite repeatedly beating the Knights in the field never once took a single castle in Livonia. The Knights themselves only took Pskov because the city opened the gates. And so on. Except the Mongols where they could bring the numbers took big old stone walls in days, weeks at most, rarely longer than a month. They just couldn't in Europe because they were conquering CHINA and IRAN at the same time, you know? By the time they got to Hungary they definitely didn't have the critical mass anyway.
Once the Western Invasion ended and the Empire permanently split the Mongols never had the numbers to try something similar again, so it kind of became moot.
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I beg to differ. The west european militias were not only more integrated into warfare and have a great military capacity (able to defeat the regular nobility armies) but the military level was more "modern" than Russian or Hungary.
Well, wooden fortification can do very well actually. It's that easy to burn it quickly and most of all, they had frequently stone parts (I don't recall the name right now, but it's the usual variation on murus gallicus)
Still the logistic for waiting this while living on a ravaged country lacked, at least in the first raids and would pose a problem. Again, once in strongholds and fortification, europeans army could withstand a siege relativly long (especially when the Mongols would have to do it for each place)
Other than that, I agree with you on this.
EDIT : I was thinking, maybe a germanic settlement in Upper Hungary up to OTL Slovenia using their feature and a surplus of population could help.
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Riain
Banned
The knights were not 'professional' other than in a personal skill at arms sense. They were wont to charge off at any provocation and get cut off and killed in detail by horse archers. The Crusades proved a European force could handle itself against nomadic horse archers, indeed the Turks had to modify their tactics because of a lack of success against well organised and led European troops.
On the other hand, the Crusades also prove that "well organized and well lead" being absent turn a medieval European force into perfect prey for a nomadic horse archers.
Dorylaeum (1147) vs. Arsuf. Or even vs. the 1097 battle.
Nothing is more ineffectual than impetuous heavy cavalry, nothing is more lethal than well ordered lance-and-bow.
One would think that people having a personal skill in arms for an army, training their life in this prospect could be considered as professionals.
Now, I see what you mean, but knights were decisive in matter of managment : in Hungary you didn't have enough urban and patriciat power to create an alternative (and then have an emulation within knighthood) and the result was sometimes random.
The Turks adapted themselves to Byzantine techniques and weren't really in the same warfare as Mongols at this period (even if Arslan had to return to it, but the defeat of 1101 is mainly due to desorgansation).
Now do we have demographic information about XIII century Hungary and on how much noble fighters they could expect? I think it could matter to continue with the comparison with Crusades (that isn't bad per se, but personally I would use more the late period, where they managed to not be thrown at see in one big move but rather little by little thanks to good use of fortifications).
And I respectfully disagree. There is no evidence that Western-style infantry posed any problem at all to either 13th/14th c. Russians, Bulgarians or Hungarians the few times they met, and it wasn't decisive in the Crusades either where similar technology was used by the opponents. It was almost certainly better than Eastern European tribal levies and maybe as good as princely retinues on foot, but they probably wouldn't have made a difference in field battles with the Mongols, is all I'm saying.
The western knights on the other hand really did cause a lot of problems (Turks and Byzantines and Russians all acknowledge that in their chronicles) and the Western Europeans were much better at building castles, at least a couple of centuries ahead to be honest by the late 13th c.
In any case, fighting nomads was routine for Russia and it wasn't for the French. I fail to see why the French would be better at it.
The French also had no native horse archers, Russia had plenty.
Horse archer armies (settled, not nomad) were the stuff that legitimately stopped the Mongols in the field on occasion: in Afghanistan, India, Syria, Volga Bulgaria... Knights also managed to do respectably against the Mongols (at Ain Jalut, and even in defeats like at Legnica and Kolomna and Sit' river) but the infantry invariably couldn't stand up to them in the field.
Wooden fortifications do great. Neither Bulgar nor Kiev had fallen in centuries before the Mongols came (they surrendered plenty to internal struggles, but no hostile siege ever suceeded), to put things in perspective. The Mongols didn't care
They still took an impressive amount of places in '41, they just seemed to have lost it in by '42. I suspect they really just ran out of men. They even had to scrap attacking Germany to unite to face Bela at Mohi (in '41) and they got no reinforcements since then.
Happens when you get greedy and try to conquer the world with less than a million total population.
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As you said, it's not about technology but infrastructures and institutions.
As far I know, you didn't had something comparable to patrician militias in Eastern Europe (you had urban militias, but quite poorly managed and almost only usable in larger armies being no that more than traditional levies of peasants).
In term of managment, it would have done : there's no mystery if after the development of these, you had an influx of "commoner" mercenaries, leaders, etc with consistent use of strategic matter.
Mechanical artillery,
Better infrastructure, better management, better coordination thanks to a "central" figure (not saying central state, but the king at least served at that : unifying military forces), better widespreading of strategic knowledge (thanks to diffusion of latin and greek texts, as well new works of it)
Without considering the strategic and logistic nightmare it would be to have Mongols reaching France in enough numbers, of course.
Can I advise you the work of Philippe Condamine "War in the Middle-Ages"? he's quite the expert on this.
Wooden fortifications do great. Neither Bulgar nor Kiev had fallen in centuries before the Mongols came, to put things in perspective. The Mongols didn't care
After the battle of the Kalka, they preferred not to advance tough the Russian army was virtually entierly destroyed, as they couldn't force fortification with only cheap jokes.
For the second and more important invasion, I would want to point they didn't controlled the places : they burned them to the ground. While it prevented Russians to play "Hungary-style" and wait for the Mongols to disperse their efforts, it prevented Mongols to have a real control other than tributary to Russian principalities.
Would have they took the time to conquer them one by one, Russia would be still Mongol today and probably Eastern Europe as well.
Less than running out of men, it's (in my opinion) the logistic problem of having a big army to ravitail in a country they ravaged but not really controlled. They actually TRIED to have a demesne there, coining money and all...But failing to control strategic places...
No, you didn't, that's true. I'm not sure it would have made a difference. Might have helped in sieges. But medieval European infantry, even very professional infantry, still has a pretty poor record in Eastern European battles.
In any case...well. There couldn't have been. Russia didn't have a lot of coin once the Byzantine trade died up (no native metals), so the original professionals became pretty straightforwardly feudal by the 13th c. but professional infantry didn't develop until much later.
And any patricians became horsemen.
Russians had those too, mentioned in the chronicles. In fact they generally had good on-the-spot engineers too (since the 10th c. at least, where it is mentioned that they had to build bridges and cut roads through the forest before campaigns)...but they rarely used them in sieges. I suspect it's because cities surrendered to rival princes rather than seriously fighting it out, because nothing really changed if this or that prince took over.
Hence the emphasis on open battle. Which the Mongols exploited readily.
Yuri was as much a king as Henryk, and so was Danilo, and of course Kwarazm was really rather unified compared to France.
Rus was by all accounts a very literate society (not intellectual, just literate) by the standards of the day - but I'm not really sure that last part would really help
For my own part I wonder what a European army was even capable of in the middle of winter, which is when all the major campaigns took place.
After they committed to fight the Song? No chance at all
France would be OK, I think.
Yes on that first part, no on that second part, there was never enough of the Mongols to turn anyone that outnumbered them Mongol. But no, they had very poor control of Russia, and they really did burn every fortified city in the steppe as they advanced.
Partly of course because they could exploit the land regardless and partly because it would be very distracting to have those at your back as you push on.
Well.
I think they failed to capture Bela, which was a huge problem for them (the country kept resisting), and they failed (in '42) to force the Danube and cut off reinforcements from Austria.
They didn't have the men to do both, that much is clear.
Whether they could never bring enough men there, I am really unconvinced. What makes Hungary more difficult than Georgia or gods forbid China? But they couldn't in '41/42.
To be honest, I am not sure what their goal even was. They left plenty of major Russian cities untouched, northern Poland escaped, they didn't do anything in Bohemia (just marched through it)...but they tried setting up shop in Hungary for sure. I'm not sure how they could hold Hungary without Austria or Bohemia, but there we go.
It's a big mystery.
But they gathered forces for a year before taking Kiev, they gathered them again for a year before the Western Campain...they could do long-term. They just never got the chance to try for very long. After Ogedei died every ulus became an existential threat to the others. Both Hulegu and Batu rushed home to prepare for the possibility that their relatives might invade them.
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Riain
Banned
European infantry wren't the decisive arm against horse archers, but they did keep them at bay with crossbows and provided a base of maneauvre for the shock cavalry of the knights and sargeants. When a European army like Richard or Barbarossa's stopped and shook out into battle formation there was little the Turks could do to force a decision.
Not that fighting horse nomads was easy, the Byzantine texts say they are the toughest opponents and to use every pecaution and strategem against them. But they aren't unbeatable supermen.
Not that fighting horse nomads was easy, the Byzantine texts say they are the toughest opponents and to use every pecaution and strategem against them. But they aren't unbeatable supermen.
Wait you mean strategic conceptions are useless, and that strategic science is a scam?I'm sure that last part would really help
Not that bad as you seem to think. Granted it's a bad season for warfare, but not only every army is touched by this (especially armies depending on regular ravitail, not having reserves big enough) then you have too regular skirmishes at which point they were making more damages to infrastructures than "regular" war, leading the Church to forbid it.
But again, that's not the point : the decisive batlles on open battlefield are EXTREMLY rare, and during winter the benefit goes to the one that is within fortification while the opponent have his balls frozen.
Without taking in account the bases of Mongols were neighbouring China, yes.After they committed to fight the Song? No chance at all
France would be OK, I think.
France was, litteraly, at the other edge of the world : you can't expect making big ammount of men going quietly as far, needing a big ravitail, passing by ravaged aeras and not having some troubles in logistic.
Both that and taking the many other strong places as Bela in Hungary
It's not the country that was more difficult it was :
1) A reliance, an heavy one, on fortifications rather than open battles
2) The distance from Mongol bases and traditional "farming/breeding" regions.
Yes they had too few men, but it's less a cause than a consequence for me.
Err...Did they had a goal except "I see, I loot" in first place?
No, they aren't supermen. But the Mongols rolled opponents that were used to fighting nomads. That's why we're having this discussion, if they were just Cumans or Seljuks we really wouldn't be.
(That, and crossbows were pretty common in Eastern Europe too though I can't really say if they were used in the field or just in sieges)
Err...Did they had a goal except "I see, I loot" in first place?
Hm. Interesting about Europeans in winter (though seems the attitude is perfect for receiving the Mongol surprise, since they really did travel and campaign in winter). I will try to find that book of yours, though.
As for that quoted part, what, your turn to make cheap jokes? These are the people who scouted things out years in advance, staged elaborate diplomatic incidents to provoke war, and masterfully played divide and conquer with people ostensibly way more civilized than themselves. Come on now
They probably did have a plan, even if that plan long-term really was "loot everywhere with home base in Hungary". That plan implies they had a strategic design to take and hold Hungary in the first place. Seems sloppy work by their standards, anyway. And Hungary learned quick.
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I think one of the big difference were Cumans, Pechenegs, Seljuks relied on raids AND on close (from raided PoV) bases.
While the Mongols had quite far bases, that Russians couldn't even hope reach, and felt themselves of the "wait, let's take a moment to protect these, to plan our raids in order to not threaten ourselves". Apeshit it was.
Of course, it's far from being the first or even secondary explanation, but I like it
More or less the same than elsewhere in Europe I think : naval fight, sieges and a few open battlefields.