What if the Mongol/ a Mongol fraction pulls a Magyar ?Exactly as the title says, what would it have taken to get the Mongol Empire to successfully push further west into Europe than Ukraine?
What if the Mongol/ a Mongol fraction pulls a Magyar ?Exactly as the title says, what would it have taken to get the Mongol Empire to successfully push further west into Europe than Ukraine?
So basically the Kalmyks?What if the Mongol/ a Mongol fraction pulls a Magyar ?
Even if the mongols managed to stretch their conquests to Europe, and that’s a bigger if than what people might believe, nothing would really change. The Mongols usually left their vassals to their devices once proven trustworthy, so when their empire eventually collapses, because no matter what that’s inevitable, Poland and Hungary would break free like Rus did. In cultural terms, nothing would change either, the Mongols left little to no cultural impact whatsoever.
Let's start from the end.
The Mongols, even if their OTL footprint in Europe had been quite small (most of the Tatars had been the same Turik nomads who had been there before the invasion), had a very serious impact on their Western neighbors. And that impact was clearly related to the Mongols.
To start with, administrative organization (breaking into the standard tactical units) of the Muscovite army had been based on the Mongolian and remained in place until mid-XVII. The same goes for the "easternization" of the Muscovite army in the terms of weaponry and even horses. While arguably the Russian princedoms would eventually join into the single state, in OTL impact of the GH on that process is undeniable and the same goes for Tsar's authority/early creation of the absolutist state. Besides questionable issue of the Russian obscenities, there was definite influence in the terms of the costumes and some words.
As far as Poland/Lithuania are involved, their "classic" warfare also was developed with quite certain enemy in mind and the famous winged hussars had been the most spectacular part of the answer.
BTW, in the pre-Mongolian times Russians, Poles and Lithuanian had been using the swords. Sabre is post-Mongolian "contribution".
Then, in the scheme that I proposed, the changes would go much further. If the Mongols are crushing the Guelphs in Italy, this means that Frederic II has a good chance to expand his power to the whole Italy, which may mean a surviving Hohenstaufen dynasty, potentially earlier unification of Italy, diminished power of the Papacy, no French conquest of the Naples, no eventual Aragonian rule in Sicily, etc.
I didn’t know Mongolians had such an impact military wise, I admit I didn’t dwell much on that, but concerning the Tsar’s absolutism, that would have been there regardless, all Rus principalities, except for Novgorod, were absolutist, indeed, Vladimir I had as much power over his subjects as Ivan IV.
And come on, Mongols in Italy? How? Italy has no vast plains and it’s crossed by the Appenines throughout it’s entire length.
They wouldn’t be able to use the entirety of their cavalry, supply lines would be easily cut off since they don’t even have a fleet, they’d get stuck and die of the same illness that struck countless people in the Italian marshes, that’s how Attila’s third great invasion failed, not to say he was necessarily Mongolian, but there’s more than one parallel between Huns and Mongols.
It would only work is Frederick actually aligned himself with the Mongols and gave them support, but he was a rather smart ruler, and if there’s a golden rule any good ruler knew back in the day, was to never let in a force which you can’t get out later.