Best way to fight the Mongols with Medieval European technology

[Marko]

As far as I know the Mongol invasion was in order to create a sufficiently large Khanate for Batu to rule to match his status followed with the refusal of Bela to hand over the Cummans.

As far as fighting the Mongols is concerned they got their asses wooped once they entered Croatia on several ocasions before they retreated and as far as I am aware they scored no victory while on Croatian soil (Slavonia doesn't count, it wasn't part of Croatia back then - more or less ).

Axe armed infantry and light horse archers operating jointly with heavy cavalry in a mountainous, forested kras terrain - a recepy for a Mongol disaster.

 

[Elfwine]

Axe armed infantry and light horse archers operating jointly with heavy cavalry in a mountainous, forested kras terrain - a recepy for a Mongol disaster.

I wondered how the Croats pulled that off. I knew about the terrain - more or less - but not the fighting men.

 

[RGB]

As far as I know the Mongol invasion was in order to create a sufficiently large Khanate for Batu to rule to match his status followed with the refusal of Bela to hand over the Cummans.

As far as fighting the Mongols is concerned they got their asses wooped once they entered Croatia on several ocasions before they retreated and as far as I am aware they scored no victory while on Croatian soil (Slavonia doesn't count, it wasn't part of Croatia back then - more or less ).

Axe armed infantry and light horse archers operating jointly with heavy cavalry in a mountainous, forested kras terrain - a recepy for a Mongol disaster.

They chased Bela from town to town with little opposition for a long time (but failed to catch him) and they also took and burned Zagreb. They didn't have enough men to storm Klis or other Dalmatian towns and definitely not the islands, which is where Bela hid out until they left. But in general I think their forces were just too small by '42 so they met with lots of difficulties in the Balkans (Bulgaria as well as Croatia) where ambushes could be effective now and then.

I don't think it's a good general recipe, just somewhat effective for that very specific situation where there's few of them.

 

[Elfwine]

I don't think it's a good general recipe, just somewhat effective for that very specific situation where there's few of them.

It might work to fight them in the mountains, but that requires mountains to fight them in and the mountains in question being worth it to the Mongols.

For instance, those who would become the Swiss are probably going to be treated like Novgorod.

Attempting to strike Thrace vs. a Byzantine Empire with lots of loot might work, though.

Looking at something like this: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=3751828&postcount=55

It looks as workable as anything you could put in the field. But relying on anything except Divine Providence is going to be hoping for the best while preparing for the worst, and that's not very encouraging.

No plan survives contact with the enemy is not something the Mongols failed to exploit.

 

[RGB]

It might work to fight them in the mountains, but that requires mountains to fight them in and the mountains in question being worth it to the Mongols.

I doubt they would have bothered with Croatia with such small numbers at all if Bela was killed or captured at Mohi, really.

They had 4 tumens, probably depleted, for the entire operation against Hungary, Poland and Germany. The strength diverted to Croatia in '42 couldn't have been more than a few thousand all put together. They felt like they really needed to end that war fast, I think, so they got into risky situations.

 

[LSCatilina]

I don't think it's a good general recipe, just somewhat effective for that very specific situation where there's few of them.

Well, fortified region, mountainous, with heavy cavalry and "ready-to-serve" infantry instead of usual levies...Seems at least interesting (and fitting what we said during this thread) to see how it could be more widespread in Hungary

 

[RGB]

Well, fortified region, mountainous, with heavy cavalry and "ready-to-serve" infantry instead of usual levies...Seems at least interesting (and fitting what we said during this thread) to see how it could be more widespread in Hungary

It did become more widespread in Hungary, so Nogai's similarly small forces never had any repeated success there despite repeated attempts.

Doesn't mean that if the Mongols came in say 1310 with more than four tumen that Hungary would necessarily do that much better than it did in 1241.

But then again arguably the whole Mongol expansion period was a huge anomaly in how these things normally work. They neither migrated west as a whole people like the great khanates before them (most population remained home, some went to Azerbaijan/Persia), nor did they raid from relatively close-by bases like the earlier semi-settled western horse people and like they themselves later did during the 14-18th c.

It could be that we're looking at the question from the wrong perspective, really. Maybe we should ask what let the Mongols do what they did in that short period to start with and what broke down later.

 

[LSCatilina]

It did become more widespread in Hungary, so Nogai's similarly small forces never had any repeated success there despite repeated attempts.

Regarding the OP, it was to be understood as "more widespread". I think particularly of stone fortification, less present than wooden in northen Hungary.

Doesn't mean that if the Mongols came in say 1310 with more than four tumen that Hungary would necessarily do that much better than it did in 1241.

Again, the OP wasn't about doing better in 1241?

But then again arguably the whole Mongol expansion period was a huge anomaly in how these things normally work.

Anomaly is fun though. And it admittedly made half of Europe soil its pants.

 

[Elfwine]

I doubt they would have bothered with Croatia with such small numbers at all if Bela was killed or captured at Mohi, really.

They had 4 tumens, probably depleted, for the entire operation against Hungary, Poland and Germany. The strength diverted to Croatia in '42 couldn't have been more than a few thousand all put together. They felt like they really needed to end that war fast, I think, so they got into risky situations.

I agree - just thinking of how mountainous terrain plays the Mongol weaknesses, so IF you can fight them there, you might get similar results even on a larger scale - although this IS looking at how the Mongols put only a limited effort in the West (even Hugalu's vast force is "only" a fifth of the Mongol army, and heavily made up of Armenians and Georgians).

 

[RGB]

I agree - just thinking of how mountainous terrain plays the Mongol weaknesses, so IF you can fight them there, you might get similar results even on a larger scale.

Like the Song invasion?

(that said, they crossed mountains and fought in the highlands quite well on most occasions. But sometimes the ratio of forces didn't work well for them)

Another reason I think for them not being able to storm Europe's cities efficiently in '42 (as opposed to 36-41) was that besides having very low numbers themselves they ran out of auxiliaries/press-ganged arrow-fodder. As Catilina mentioned, they already devastated Hungary so there weren't sufficient amounts of local infantry that could be thrown at castles the way they were in China, Caucasus and Russia, and they likely ran out of auxiliaries brought from Russia with all the rapid sieges in '41 and didn't have enough forces IN Russia to be able to grab more and bring them to Hungary in one season.

Plus supposedly the Mokshans tried to defect to the Germans so Batu had them all killed, presumably they were to be the aforementioned arrow fodder.

(I think Batu was left with a mere 50,000 after the division of the Empire, of which only one tumen or what remained of it was Mongols, the rest were probably Kypchaks and the like. Which could be an estimate you asked me for in the other thread, if it's one rider per "yurt", roughly multiply by 4 or 5, so something like a quarter million Kypchaks left on the steppes, or slightly more than that?)

 

[Elfwine]

Like the Song invasion?

(that said, they crossed mountains and fought in the highlands quite well on most occasions. But sometimes the ratio of forces didn't work well for them)

They did take a very long time to deal with the Song.

But yeah, the Mongols were tough even in the mountains - just that if I had to pick somewhere to play to their weaknesses (within Europe), that would be it.

Europe doesn't have jungles, which would be the best of all possible terrain to play to Mongol weaknesses. Or large scale swamp.

Strategic use of dyke breaking in the Low Countries or the like will seriously interfere with the Mongols, although their speed makes applying that difficult. I don't know if it would be impossible for anyone to counter it, but it would take an army prepared to a level OTL European armies really weren't.

Another reason I think for them not being able to storm Europe's cities efficiently in '42 (as opposed to 36-41) was that besides having very low numbers themselves they ran out of auxiliaries/press-ganged arrow-fodder. As Catilina mentioned, they already devastated Hungary so there weren't sufficient amounts of local infantry that could be thrown at castles the way they were in China, Caucasus and Russia, and they likely ran out of auxiliaries brought from Russia with all the rapid sieges in '41 and didn't have enough forces IN Russia to be able to grab more and bring them to Hungary in one season.

Plus supposedly the Mokshans tried to defect to the Germans so Batu had them all killed, presumably they were to be the aforementioned arrow fodder.

And if Batu never managed to raise a large force from his ulus after this, that suggests part of the answer to the "and what broke down later" - though one wonders about the infantry part of the arrow-fodder department, since they could have just drafted more Russians.

(I think Batu was left with a mere 50,000 after the division of the Empire, of which only one tumen or what remained of it was Mongols, the rest were probably Kypchaks and the like. Which could be an estimate you asked me for in the other thread, if it's one rider per "yurt", roughly multiply by 4 or 5, so something like a quarter million Kypchaks left on the steppes, or slightly more than that?)

Interesting data, thanks.

I wish I knew more about this - there seems to be quite a lot of potential AH material here, if we do away with the Mongols one way or another. But being monolingual in English of all languages is extremely inconvenient when studying Eastern Europe - even if probably written with a bias you couldn't cut with a saber, at least German say would probably cover more than the English speaking world does.

 

[RGB]

And if Batu never managed to raise a large force from his ulus after this, that suggests part of the answer to the "and what broke down later" - though one wonders about the infantry part of the arrow-fodder department, since they could have just drafted more Russians.

They didn't draft Russians as much as Volga Finns and presumably Bulgars and others (maybe even Georgians or Caucasian peoples). Russians supplied some contingents but they were surprisingly small, to be honest.

Makes you wonder what exactly was happening there in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the princes certainly all swore fealty but the Mongols couldn't get men out of Vladimir lands, and the princes of Galich fled to Germany even before Kiev was taken and hid there until Batu went home. Must have been pretty chaotic.

Actually, makes sense to me in a way. If they captured Bela, they could have probably gotten the auxiliaries they needed to finish the job, locally. But they didn't...so.

And while the Mongols themselves were very long-ranged, their allied infantry would be difficult to drag around without a real supply system on that kind of scale.

Hm. Well, it's a theory.

 

[Elfwine]

They didn't draft Russians as much as Volga Finns and presumably Bulgars and others (maybe even Georgians or Caucasian peoples). Russians supplied some contingents but they were surprisingly small, to be honest.

Makes you wonder what exactly was happening there in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the princes certainly all swore fealty but the Mongols couldn't get men out of Vladimir lands, and the princes of Galich fled to Germany even before Kiev was taken and hid there until Batu went home. Must have been pretty chaotic.

Actually, makes sense to me in a way. If they captured Bela, they could have probably gotten the auxiliaries they needed to finish the job, locally. But they didn't...so.

Yeah. Seems like they must have been stretched far thinner and far closer to the breaking point than it looked.

Not that any European army was really positioned OTL to do something about it, but if there had been one . . . Batu might find himself limping homeward.

And while the Mongols themselves were very long-ranged, their allied infantry would be difficult to drag around without a real supply system on that kind of scale.

Hm. Well, it's a theory.

True. The methods that the tumens used to be - mostly - free of any logistical demands are useless to the poor bloody infantry.

 

[Bee]

Did the Europeans do anything different after 1250?

 

[Benjamin XVIII]

Funnel them into a chokepoint like a valley or catch them on a bridge and hit them with massed crossbow fire.

Of course good luck finding a commander smart enough to realize how to do this or organized enough to he the right men in the right place at the right time.

It's easy in a video game though! I'm not mocking you BTW, just pointing out that hindsight is 20/20. Medeival European armies did not fight in a way that would be effective against an army organized like the Mongols. The problem is organization, not horse archers themselves.

 

[Elfwine]

Funnel them into a chokepoint like a valley or catch them on a bridge and hit them with massed crossbow fire.

Of course good luck finding a commander smart enough to realize how to do this or organized enough to he the right men in the right place at the right time.

Or Mongols who will just walk into an ambush. It's not impossible for the Mongols to be ambushed or otherwise caught on disadvantageous terms, but any plan for beating them has to take into account that they're not stupid.

 

[kalamona]

Funnel them into a chokepoint like a valley or catch them on a bridge and hit them with massed crossbow fire.

Battle of Mohi.

But it was not about tactics or technology, and aside from tactical superoirity, i think, discipline was the most needed on western side.

 

[Benjamin XVIII]

Or Mongols who will just walk into an ambush. It's not impossible for the Mongols to be ambushed or otherwise caught on disadvantageous terms, but any plan for beating them has to take into account that they're not stupid.

Also probably well outside the skills of any commander around at the time in Europe.

 

[elkarlo]

As far as I know the Mongol invasion was in order to create a sufficiently large Khanate for Batu to rule to match his status followed with the refusal of Bela to hand over the Cummans.

As far as fighting the Mongols is concerned they got their asses wooped once they entered Croatia on several ocasions before they retreated and as far as I am aware they scored no victory while on Croatian soil (Slavonia doesn't count, it wasn't part of Croatia back then - more or less ).

Axe armed infantry and light horse archers operating jointly with heavy cavalry in a mountainous, forested kras terrain - a recepy for a Mongol disaster.

Details please!

 

[Elfwine]

Also probably well outside the skills of any commander around at the time in Europe.

Any I can think of, at least. Outwitting Subotai would take some doing.

And while this scenario doesn't necessarily require OTL individuals, who is leading has a significant role on how effective the European force is, and how effective the Mongol force is - so it's only fair to pick OTL people rather than "well, if the Mongols are lead by a half blind dumbass and the Europeans are lead by the reincarnation of Alexander the Great" . . .