How big could the Mongol Empire get?

I read the article, mentioned above.
'The Mongols in the West' by Denis Sinor

My purpose was to find out what the author thinks about European (Hungarian) fortifications and their value against the Mongols. Denis Sinor doesn't seem to be impressed too much:

"Experience had shown that fortifications, though not effective in barring the Mongol advance (they were more often than not by-passed), at least provided a shelter for the population."

But I found some other interesting passages by Denis Sinor:

"The invasion of Hungary is a classic example of long-range strategic planning executed with meticulous care on a unprecedented scale...
...it is beyond doubt that no ad hoc, feudal type force could have matched the well disciplined, highly trained, professional soldiers of the Mongol army.
...The (Mongol) evacuation of Hungary, another example of splendid military planning...

Nationalist German claims to the effect that, though the battle (of Liegnitz) was lost, it prevented the invasion of Germany, cannot be substantiated. The Mongol aim was the encirclement of Hungary...
West of the Danube, which was also the western limit of the Eurasian steppe, the Mongols' aim was not so much territorial conquest but, first and foremost, the capture of the fugitive king."
 
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I can't help but think that if disagreements could be sourced, instead of vague statements, it would make an interesting discussion.
The 25 acres/year to support a horse is a relatively liberal estimation (I saw assumptions about 120 acres/year for a horse) made by Denis Sinor (one of the specialist of Central Asian history) in this short article (whom references are avaible at the bottom).

The grazing logistical limits was something acknowledged, even if relatively secondarily, by contemporary elements (such as the letter from Hulagu Khan to Louis IX).
We can (and should), of course, debate how much was needed for horse (keeping in mind that the estimation of 25 acres/year and that the ration 4 horses/1 horseman are fairly small compared to others), but without something to base disagreement on...


Good Agriculture Practice Code for my country, a bit to the north from Hungary, advises on average 1.5 large accounting units per hectare of agricultural land to keep the practice sustainable, while adult horse of 500kg or more equals 1.2 large accounting units. Small Mongol horse needing 10 times that area seemed strange to me. That's all.

Naturally, Mongols neither adhered to good agricultural practices nor cared about long term sustainabilty. Plus the nomadic lifestyle, and logistical and strategic realities were against them, so they couldn't disperse the stock and fully utilize the land's carrying capability.
 
Good Agriculture Practice Code for my country, a bit to the north from Hungary, advises on average 1.5 large accounting units per hectare of agricultural land to keep the practice sustainable, while adult horse of 500kg or more equals 1.2 large accounting units.
I'm not sure what you mean by accounting unit there.

Around there, the rule of thumb is around 1 or 2 hectares for an adult horse in a rich enough ground, 8 to 10 for lesser quality lands.
Which means respectively 5 to 25 (imperial*)acres.
We're talking modern grazing, based on agricultural production there, furthermore : not steady supply of hay, no food complement. Pastoral grazing, simple as that (now, some horses in modern Mongolia are supplied with hay in winter, and I suppose it was the case in medieval times for having a mounting disposal).

Small Mongol horse needing 10 times that area seemed strange to me. That's all
The size of Mongol horses shoud be nuanced by the particularily important physical resilience of their breeds, highlighted in all sources I went into.

The extensive use Mongols (but virtually all Central Asian pastoral peoples as well) made of their horses (hence why the 1 horseman/4 horses ration proposed, altough other sources can give double, thrice or even fourth this) for pastoral and fight uses, constantly moving can explain (in addition of the difference between ancient and modern grazing) which is a fairly cautious acre/horse-per-year ratio, as you said in the latter part of your post.

I do not count, of course, the non-equine cattle that would be present in a mongolized Pannonian Plain and would necessit grazing space too.
 
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@LSCatilina So in this mongolized Pannonian Plain, do we see the mongols becoming a persistent ethnic group and eventually changing in a regular Christian kingdom like the Magyar did? The dynamics clearly won't be exactly the same given the connection to the Golden Horde...and of course, we still need a PoD. Is Ogedei living longer still on the table?
 
@LSCatilina So in this mongolized Pannonian Plain, do we see the mongols becoming a persistent ethnic group and eventually changing in a regular Christian kingdom like the Magyar did?
I don't know : altough it's possible, I'm not sure how much we could end up with a Pannonian "Tatarstan", and it could be something more akin to the various tribal groups as Cumans, Boszormenis, Pechenegs, Kabars, etc. that were historically swallowed up by Hungarians, or as a sub-group as Szeklers. Basically a mosaicized Hungary, ethnically-wise, where the Hungarian identity would have an harder time acculturating or modling them.
Possibly, IMO, a mongolicized Hungarian-Cumanic ensemble; a western rough equivalent to mongolicized Turko-Siberian ensembles IOTL.
The dynamics clearly won't be exactly the same given the connection to the Golden Horde...
Pannonia ITTL would likely become, due to geographical and political constraints, a primary or (at worst) a secondary political center of the proto-Golden Horde, eventually a chiefdom of its own when the Mongol ensemble will split (the Carpathian highlands are going to be hard to entierly control : the absence of a strong Danubian rival will maintain them under Mongol control, until something like Bulgaria or Poland re-emerges).

of course, we still need a PoD. Is Ogedei living longer still on the table?
I rather think we should meddle with Batu Khan : IOTL, he was fairly content with sanctuarizing Russia and the pontic steppe, his lack of ambition making the IOTL withdrawal more likely to happen. We need a more ambitious (but not too much, we don't want him to claim the Mongol Khaganate, as he wouldn't focus that on Europe) Batu, willing to expand his dominion deeper in Europe.
 
Shouldn't the bits of Indochina the Mongols invaded historically (along with Japan) be Mongol as well?
As I added Europe, Egypt/Syria and India to the Mongol Empire(s) in ATL, I thought that some secondary, minor, peripheral invasions/conquests of OTL wouldn't have taken place for sheer lack of resources and time.

From all I know "bits of Indochina" were never intended as a Mongol conquest even in OTL - they were punitive retaliatory expeditions for their raiding Mongol China.

And Japan was invaded in OTL when the Mongol World Empire was de facto divided and Japan was the only decent place left to invade for Kublai Khan.

In ATL the Mongols stay united longer and they have better places to conquer (less protected by nature and richer).
 
I don't know : altough it's possible, I'm not sure how much we could end up with a Pannonian "Tatarstan", and it could be something more akin to the various tribal groups as Cumans, Boszormenis, Pechenegs, Kabars, etc. that were historically swallowed up by Hungarians, or as a sub-group as Szeklers. Basically a mosaicized Hungary, ethnically-wise, where the Hungarian identity would have an harder time acculturating or modling them.
Possibly, IMO, a mongolicized Hungarian-Cumanic ensemble; a western rough equivalent to mongolicized Turko-Siberian ensembles IOTL.

Pannonia ITTL would likely become, due to geographical and political constraints, a primary or (at worst) a secondary political center of the proto-Golden Horde, eventually a chiefdom of its own when the Mongol ensemble will split (the Carpathian highlands are going to be hard to entierly control : the absence of a strong Danubian rival will maintain them under Mongol control, until something like Bulgaria or Poland re-emerges).


I rather think we should meddle with Batu Khan : IOTL, he was fairly content with sanctuarizing Russia and the pontic steppe, his lack of ambition making the IOTL withdrawal more likely to happen. We need a more ambitious (but not too much, we don't want him to claim the Mongol Khaganate, as he wouldn't focus that on Europe) Batu, willing to expand his dominion deeper in Europe.

Interesting. Could you expand on what you mean by a "Hungarian-Cumanic ensemble"? I'm not familiar with the "Turko-Siberian ensembles".

I'm wondering how the conversion of the Golden Horde to Islam would effect Pannonia. Would the Pannonian mongols recruit Islamic administrators like the OTL Golden Horde did? Or do they turn to the Catholic Church? How does this effect Nogai Khan and his policies? What about the later mongol raids into Poland and Hungary? Or the Islamic Lipka Tatars that OTL fled to Poland later on? The ramifications of a mongol Pannonia are fascinating.

But even if we make him more ambitious somehow, he'd still have to retreat to Russia once the news of Ogedeis death came in no? After doing some digging, I've come across the idea that Batu retreated in order to defend himself against Guyuk who was a favorite to win the election (apparently they were fierce enemies). He retreated to his center of power while his other generals (like Subutai) went back for the election because it would render him vulnerable to be at Karakorum or Hungary if Guyuk won. Instead he managed to delay the election for a few years until they finally elected Guyuk without him. This is all conjecture but it all seems fairly reasonable to me given the lack of information we have. It's also not like we don't have a precedent in the retreat to a Kurultai leading to stunted expansion (Hulegu Khan retreating after Mongke died which allowed the Mamluks to win Ain Jalut). Perhaps we could also PoD in a Khan friendly to Batu instead of OTL Guyuk?
 
Yeah but all those things are distinctly post medieval and in fact post Industrialisation. Europe post 17th/18th century is/was exceptional, Europe pre then not so much. Europe did have a okay chance of surving the first wave of Mongol attacks simply because of distance but if you get a Mongol polity firmly established in Russia/Middle East that can maintain it's unity and focus there is no reason why they couldn't push West over the following decades. The armies of the HRE and France are no more intrinsically unbeatable than those of the Sejuks.

Yes they are... The Mongols with every advantage possible to them, given by their victims (Abbasids and other Islamic polities) were hard pressed conquering Fars and Iraq. Hulagu should have been denied in Tabarestan due to the impenetrable fortresses of the Is'maili. They would have been had the Is'maili not decided to dissimilate into the Mongols and surrender their lands and the Abbasids not provide assistance to the Mongols at every stage until the conquest of Baghdad. Then, once an Islamic polity challenged the Mongols in earnest, we saw the result at Ain Jalut.... Do not underestimate the armies of the western world, the Mongols are not special enough to defeat Rome in the West which itself in its domain, was stronger than even the Mamluks in every measurable.
 
Yes they are... The Mongols with every advantage possible to them, given by their victims (Abbasids and other Islamic polities) were hard pressed conquering Fars and Iraq. Hulagu should have been denied in Tabarestan due to the impenetrable fortresses of the Is'maili. They would have been had the Is'maili not decided to dissimilate into the Mongols and surrender their lands and the Abbasids not provide assistance to the Mongols at every stage until the conquest of Baghdad.
Every polity/entity/community has a bunch of excuses to justify their being conquered by the Mongols. That's a necessity to heal psychological wounds, the hurt pride, etc.

And there is a grain of truth in these excuses, to some extent, of course.
I mean if all the Muslim world had risen as a united and well coordinated force against the Mongols; if every Is'maili impenetrable fortress had fought to the last man... the Mongols would have had no chance to conquer them.

But the Muslims had been fighting Muslims for centuries, they were sometimes happy to see the Mongols eliminating their (Muslim) enemies, and realized that they are the next in line to be conquered, when it was too late.
When a strong fortress saw an entire Mongol army under it's walls, the defenders knew that they are doomed, and instead of fighting and gloriously dying for all the Muslim polity, they found good excuses to surrender; instinct of self-preservation is the strongest, and human nature is imperfect.

That's what made the Mongol conquest possible in the Muslim world in OTL.
The same reasons would have made the Mongol conquest possible in (Western) Europe in ATL (if Ogedei had lived 5-10 years longer).

Then, once an Islamic polity challenged the Mongols in earnest, we saw the result at Ain Jalut....
The main Mongol troops withdrew to Mongolia proper to elect the new Great Universal Khaan. What was left at Ain Jalut were mostly non-Mongol troops and a handful of the ethnic Mongols. Immediately after that the Mongol World Empire started to disintegrate (Mongols finally fighting each other), so the Mamluks were lucky to escape the Empire strike back.

Hence the glorious myth of the brave Mamluks, who stopped the Mongol conquest.

If there had been some petty Saxon duke, defeating a minor Mongol detachment right at the moment when the Mongols started evacuating Hungary because of the election of the Great Universal Khaan, this petty European duke would have been glorified as the savior of Europe. Every European would have said: "You see, the brave Europeans proved their valor and scared the shit out of the Mongols".
 
=Could you expand on what you mean by a "Hungarian-Cumanic ensemble"?
Cumans were settling regions west of their confederation by the early XIIIth century, notably in Bulgaria, Vallachias and Hungary; becoming there a significant military and political factor : unfying Vallachias, forming most of the army of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and Hungarian kings searched to impose their rule on them (claiming to be king of Cumans, ruling, more or less technically, on transCarpathian territories).
With the Mongol invasions of Europe, many Cumans sheltered themselves in Hungary which was the reason for Mongols to invade it. Long story short, Hungarian politics prevented any kind of real military defense, and IOTL the devastated central regions were ressetledby Cumans after 1241.

ITTL, they would still be important auxiliaries for Mongols, if unreliable, as they were in Russia where they formed a mongolized ensemble as Tatars. I'd see something similar, with the aformentioned caveat that you'd rather end up with scattered settlement than an ethnogenesis in the Pannonian Plain. Eventually, the Khaganate in the Pannonian plain (which I think would inherit the name of Khaganate of Kipchak, and not the Golden Horse ITTL) would probably be dominated by mongolized Cumans (it's possible that the khaganate would be based on Cuman presence and stretch from Hungary to Vallachias) and Hungarians, forming something similar to what Cumans did in Vallachias and Bulgaria.

I'm not familiar with the "Turko-Siberian ensembles".
Basically, the lot of steppe polities as Kazan, Nogaï, etc.

I'm wondering how the conversion of the Golden Horde to Islam would effect Pannonia. Would the Pannonian mongols recruit Islamic administrators like the OTL Golden Horde did? Or do they turn to the Catholic Church?
Keeping in mind that the *Kipchak Khanate would probably end up quickly as a political/institutional center of its own (dominated or not by centers in IOTL Russia), I don't think that an Islamization would be likely there, even if it happens (which is not obvious, giving the opposition to the conversion politics of Oz Beg Khan IOTL) in an equivalent of Golden Horde.
A Catholicisation seems more likely, less because of Hungarian influence (several Cumans were baptised in the first half of XIIIth century, but how well would it holds with the collapse of the Hungarian state?) than because of the IOTL Catholic (mostly Fransiscan) efforts.
Not that you won't have a possible influence from Orthodox Christianity, but while not unthinkable (due to Cumans links in Bulgaria), it would ask for a counter-clockwise development.

How does this effect Nogai Khan and his policies?
Assuming the balance of power within the western polities of Mongols remain the same, which I don't think would be self-evident (would it be only because part of Nogai lands could be included in the *Kipchak Khanate, altough we might end with Nogai being Khan of it), how Oz Beg Khan acted with Christian IOTL, meaning tolerating them at the contrary of Buddhists and Shamans, makes me think that a Christianized (probably not wholly denominational in a first time, Catholicized rather than Catholic IMO) Khanate.

What about the later mongol raids into Poland and Hungary?
Probably butterflied away as such, altough you'd have other raids : as it would be in relations with *Golden Horde's politics, I'd expect Poland and Russia to take most of the heat.

But even if we make him more ambitious somehow, he'd still have to retreat to Russia once the news of Ogedeis death came in no?
Eventually, maybe. But Batu Khan never really searched the rulership over Mongols, and seems to have been fairly content with what he had (which is why we have to make him more ambitious, but not that ambitious that he would come to the kurultai to actively meddle with the succession. IOTL, while Batu and Guyuk weren't clearly fond of each other, Batu doesn't seems to have that minded who would become Khagan, as long as he was still ruling over the western peoples (which might be why he remained in Russia, in order to assert his claims).
 
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