Latest possible point at which "hordes" from central Asia could have attacked Europe

trurle

Banned
I think everybody omit the important factor of slavery. While slavery-based economics is clearly motivating nomads for raids, it also results in lower areal density of fighting nomads (non-combatant slaves need food after all, and nomadic society was food-limited).

Prevent widespread slavery across nomadic states (by religious alteration, exemplary slave revolt or other factor) and you can have more dangerous nomads later into the history. Instead of last large raid by Crimean khan Qırım Giray in 1769, Crimean (or other nomads) can remain dangerous up to 1850. At this point, development of rifles, railroads and soon Gatling Gun, make the cavalry charges increasingly suicidal, regardless of numbers and tactics.

Also, the question of nomadic armour. Most nomadic tribes used leather and cotton, but generally too light designs to be effective. Alternatively, imagine Mongols/Tartars/Nogais wearing a highly resistant Ichcahuipilli cotton armour? The shrapnel or buckshot efficiency will be greatly reduced, and musket or cannon balls are simply not enough to stop a massed charge. Some speed reduction will happen of course, but overall firearms efficiency will be reduced several times anyway.

P.S. The usage of padded armour has declined in Europe in 17-18th centuries, mostly for economic reasons. Armouring nomads will require a good trade links to cotton or flax producers. May be possible for nomads without slavery.
 
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I'm not going to deny that the Pancho Horde's mounted farmboys did have some major successes at first against unmounted Mexican farmboy conscripts, that allowed them to take Mexico City. But the cavalry swarm tactic was relatively easy to counter once the opposition figured out what they were doing and WW1 tactics.

And to be clear, this wasn't even mounted infantry. Pancho Villa mostly used the horde cavalry swarm tactics of throwing as much horses straight at the enemy as possible.
 
Also, the question of nomadic armour. Most nomadic tribes used leather and cotton, but generally too light designs to be effective. Alternatively, imagine Mongols/Tartars/Nogais wearing a highly resistant Ichcahuipilli cotton armour? The shrapnel or buckshot efficiency will be greatly reduced, and musket or cannon balls are simply not enough to stop a massed charge. Some speed reduction will happen of course, but overall firearms efficiency will be reduced several times anyway.

The Central Asian nomads (along with the Russians that faced them at least into the late 17th c.) wore something quite similar to what you're proposing. The Russian version is called a teghilay which as you can imagine is itself a burrowed word. The elites additionally wore mail or plated mail or brigandines, all of which were very good against arrows and swords but less good against muskets. There are some beautiful historical examples of armour given as tribute by Siberian princes to the Russian tsars.

So the concept was well-known, it was the economic side of it that couldn't cope with the demand of armouring every fighter.
 
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Kalmycks like the Bashkirs had long-standing and relatively friendly relations with the Russians are relied on them to help against their most immediate enemies (the Kazakhs, and the Nogais).

In any case, both the Bashkirs and the Kalmycks did join both the Razin and the Pugachev rebellions along with cossacks, Russian peasants and army defectors, and the regular army beat them eventually both times. I guess that's an indicator of about how well they could do in your alternate scenario.

That was the Kalmyks after only a section of them had migrated to Russia (at least in the case of Pugachev's rebellion). I'm wondering if many, many more Kalmyks/Dzungars had migrated to Russia, maybe fleeing from the Qing after realising they had no hope to defeat them, what they might be able to accomplish with greater numbers involved. Alternatively, the Kalmyks stick together in Russia and don't migrate back to China, thus also increasing the numbers of Kalmyks for Russia to contend with.
 
That was the Kalmyks after only a section of them had migrated to Russia (at least in the case of Pugachev's rebellion). I'm wondering if many, many more Kalmyks/Dzungars had migrated to Russia, maybe fleeing from the Qing after realising they had no hope to defeat them, what they might be able to accomplish with greater numbers involved. Alternatively, the Kalmyks stick together in Russia and don't migrate back to China, thus also increasing the numbers of Kalmyks for Russia to contend with.

Well, that would certainly do a number on the Kazakhs, whose pastures the Dzungars would ostensibly occupy if they migrated closer to Russia.

It's an interesting scenario, to be sure.
 
As many posts in the thread evidence, it depends on what one means by "threatening". Semi-nomadic raiders, loosely organized, and using modern vehicles and weaponry, raiding extremely marginal sedentary outposts of industrialized countries that also happen to be weak or failed states? If that is "threatening", well, that still happens to this very day, if not in the vicinity of central Asia, then in Africa.
If OTOH for "threatening" you mean being able to conquer, pillage and burn down a major city - no. Not today and not after the early 1800s.
 
It's a tough POD because gunpowder warfare emphasizes industry and high population concentrations. The Mongols were able to field large armies even before they took over certain urban centers and forcibly conscripted people; BUT they fielded a large army by essentially undergoing a mass migration. A mongol army was made up of old and young men, their wives and children. Where they conquered, they placed down their Yerts and they stayed.

So, for this to work in the 19th century, or even 18th century, is almost impossible. The Mongols themselves would need gunpowder weaponry, but to have these things they would need urban centers of their own.

THe best way I see this working is that the Golden Horde aren't as retarded in controlling Russia. Instead of just propping up Muscovy, they should have kept a few of the Riurkids roughly equivalent in power Vladimir, Kiev, Moscow, and Novgorod all being propped up and turned against one another.

At the same time, the Mongols have to be more able administrators over an Asian population center. Perhaps Korea. Then, come the 17th century, the Mongols might not be holding onto most of China, but if they still have Korea, Manchura, Mongolia, and slightly past the Urals and the Crimean sea, what you have there is a formidable empire. Given them the benefit of having gun powder weapons and canons adopted from Russian church bell technology.

Perhaps in the 19th century, a great Mongol administrator rises up and sends his armies to unite Mongol lands. At this point, Russia has not conquered their Mongol neighbors, and for good measure, they are still split between two or three different states, with the Polish, Lithuanians, and Swedes chomping at the bit to attack.

So, when the Mongols unite again perhaps Russia tries to stop the Mongols, but their armies are too large, especially with other European powers backstabbing them. Then, after 10 years of subjugating Russia and securing alliances, perhaps the Mongols strike again into Poland, partitioning Poland with Germany.

There, now you have come central Asian hordes partitioning parts of Europe :)
 
No, we're saying that the barbarians can't win. The Comanche may have done some damage for a while, but they couldn't and didn't win in the long run.

Their heyday was against sparse populations of settled folk, not against a dense population of farmers, too.

The Comanche could easily have taken and sacked Mexico City (from any time from 1750 to 1850 or so) if they put their efforts to it. All it would've taken was enough Comanche war leaders to decide that Mexico City was a good target and they would've been able to do so by routing the people raiding Mexico to one target in Mexico City.

The reason they didn't was because they focused on agricultural settlements to deliver them free horses, cattle, and other goods. They had no need to take a modern center like Mexico City because it would've required a harder (but probably winnable knowing the state of Mexico's military which allowed them to raid so deep into Mexico in the first place) fight for less goods than what they could get from raiding peripheral settlements.

The same would apply to probably any post-1700 steppe horde. And the Comanche and other powerful Plains Indians seem to be the last real steppe hordes actively inflicting severe damage on settled peoples.
 

tenthring

Banned
The fundamental issues is that the settled societies were actually "the hordes".

They vastly outnumbered the nomads, and the nomads relied on being vastly superior to the settles societies in combat to make up for it. Horse archers needed to achieve huge Kill to Death ratios to make the math work out. So long as they could shoot from a distance without being at too much of a risk of being shot back that worked. Once you can put enough lead into the air it doesnt.
 
Perhaps Korea. Then, come the 17th century, the Mongols might not be holding onto most of China, but if they still have Korea, Manchura, Mongolia, and slightly past the Urals and the Crimean sea, what you have there is a formidable empire.
No, Korea is the one least likely part of the Yuan empire to stay Yuan beyond its collapse.
 
Someone implied that basically the warloads in certain places of Africa are the modern-day equivalents of Mongol hordes, using jeeps instead of horses. Is there a way to get a ATL of a Central Asian tribe uniting others in the WWI or interwar years while Russia/Soviet Union is occupied in Europe with Civil War and going on using jeeps and guns to unite Central Asia, and take advantage of a preoccupied and disunited China? Once it threatens Afghanistan, Tibet, or Iran surely the British take notice, but they can't do much without Japanese help. If it is POSSIBLE at all to get such a modern-day khanate, how do they react to WWII and the Sino-Japanese theater of war? They could be a formidable counterweight to Japan, or they could be the linchpin to help the Japanese and Germans to link up in an ATL. Instead of USSR and Britain occupying Iran, it could be Germans and Central Asians forcing Iran on the side of the Axis. India fights a two-front war.
 
Someone implied that basically the warloads in certain places of Africa are the modern-day equivalents of Mongol hordes, using jeeps instead of horses. Is there a way to get a ATL of a Central Asian tribe uniting others in the WWI or interwar years while Russia/Soviet Union is occupied in Europe with Civil War and going on using jeeps and guns to unite Central Asia, and take advantage of a preoccupied and disunited China? Once it threatens Afghanistan, Tibet, or Iran surely the British take notice, but they can't do much without Japanese help. If it is POSSIBLE at all to get such a modern-day khanate, how do they react to WWII and the Sino-Japanese theater of war? They could be a formidable counterweight to Japan, or they could be the linchpin to help the Japanese and Germans to link up in an ATL. Instead of USSR and Britain occupying Iran, it could be Germans and Central Asians forcing Iran on the side of the Axis. India fights a two-front war.

That somehow remind me of Baron von Ungern-Sternberg.
 
Someone implied that basically the warloads in certain places of Africa are the modern-day equivalents of Mongol hordes, using jeeps instead of horses. Is there a way to get a ATL of a Central Asian tribe uniting others in the WWI or interwar years while Russia/Soviet Union is occupied in Europe with Civil War and going on using jeeps and guns to unite Central Asia, and take advantage of a preoccupied and disunited China? Once it threatens Afghanistan, Tibet, or Iran surely the British take notice, but they can't do much without Japanese help. If it is POSSIBLE at all to get such a modern-day khanate, how do they react to WWII and the Sino-Japanese theater of war? They could be a formidable counterweight to Japan, or they could be the linchpin to help the Japanese and Germans to link up in an ATL. Instead of USSR and Britain occupying Iran, it could be Germans and Central Asians forcing Iran on the side of the Axis. India fights a two-front war.

No, unless there's an external player having the money, the industrial resources, the strategic lift and the interest to supply jeeps and guns. And fuel. And ammo. And all the high-tech gadgets needed. They had no factories out there.
The Chinese warlords are the closest comparison you can make at that time, but even they had external patrons.
You might be getting to something if you don't insist on off-road high-tech mobility and accept to be restricted to existing rail lines; but then you have little capability for fast, unpredictable, lateral strategic movements.
 
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