WI: Hungarian victory and Mongol disaster at Mohi

The Sajó River is the first major river east of te Danube other than the Tisza and on the main road - the battle took place where the Mongols wanted it, most likely they wanted to attack the hungarian army during river crossing.

It is rather hard to tell but not out of question. However the final plan looked like getting Hungarians distracted by a fake frontal attack while Mongolian left wing under Subotai would cross the river and provide encirclement of their force. Wiki's reference to the Battle of Kalka ("It is more likely that their original plan was to ambush the Hungarians while crossing the river, as in the Battle of the Kalka River") is not quite precise. At Kalka only the troops of Galitz-Volyn and the Polovtsy attacked across the river and had been beaten on the other side of it (AFAIK, there nothing in the Russian chronicles about them being attacked while crossing) and the bulk of the Russian force under Great Prince of Kiev did not move from a fortified camp. These troops had been surrounded, forced to capitulate and them massacred.

Then, of course, it should be kept in mind that they already defeated few Hungarian forces: one of Ugrin Csák, Archbishop of Kalocsa, one of Count of Palatine and one more at at Oradea so perhaps they could plan to continue along the same lines (keeping medieval army as a single body was not a trivial task).

Judging by the (recorded) Subotai comments, river near the bridge was shallow and reasonably easy to cross even outside the bridge so Batu's attack should not be limited exclusively to the bridge. Anyway, getting even just 10,000 cavalrymen across the river using a single bridge should be a long story. Taking into an account that the bridge was at least 200 meters long it is quite reasonable that at this place the river was quite shallow.

Béla contrary to popular beliefs (or maybe Kálmán, the more military-minded broter) was not a complete moron: he gave no battle for the mongols that way. Instead, he left a relatively strong guard at the bridge and camped on - see what te mongols want.
Now, i dont really buy the "half of the army and the nobles get drunk celebrating victory" - the nobles did not participated in the night battles, and the whole thing sounds... weird.

Well, yes. Except that a notion of a discipline was almost absent in the contemporary European armies. Anyway, it seems that initially the bridge was not guarded and Coloman and Ugrin arrived they found small Mongolian vanguard already on the bridge (and defeated it).

Most likely they gone camping, left a guard at the bridge, waiting for the next day.
Now, Subotai seeing that his first plan not works, changed them: early dawn attack at the bridge, keeping the hungarian attention there and flanking the army.

Also quite possible. A great general should be able to react fast on the changing or unanticipated situation.

However, it was a risky plan, since not only his divided the army, but the divided parts also divided by the river crossing - if the hungarian army sniffs it or the timing goes south, he would have been in trouble.

Actually, Batu would be in trouble as happened in OTL due to his faulty timing. The Hungarians hardly had been able to counter both Mongolian attacks.

However, not only his assesment of the situation was right, he was lucky too (important attribute of generals) - his delay with the crossing was possibly not intentional, but simply took too much time. Most likely e had to build some kind of road trough the swampy area surrounding the river.

His timing was correct. Batu's timing was not: he attacked too early for which Subotai later rebuked him. This was, IIRC, the only event when Batu is mentioned as an independent commander and earlier his cousins had been making the disparaging remarks about his military performance. As for the road, Subotai was talking exclusively about building the ramp bridge across the deep part of the river.

Now, with the austrian knights and the Cumans...the chances that the hungarian army notices the flanking not to mention, can react to those flankings, Subotai could be not so lucky.
Of course, he was one of the greatest military minds, but Béla (or Kálmán - my suspicion) was a cautious one and the OTL battle was already a closer thing than the results suggests.

In a different situation Subotai's plan would be seriously different so the underlying assumption that he would do the same thing is questionable at best.

BTW, if you can share the Mongolian view of the battle - it seems, you can access them - in english, i would be grateful..

Don't have it in English and already quoted the relevant part: during the battle following the premature crossing Batu panicked and ordered Subotai to come to his help instead of crossing the river. In other words, to abandon the plan and to have a frontal battle. Subotai answered that Batu, if he wants, can retreat across the river but he, Subotai, would proceed. After receiving the message Batu regained the backbone and kept fighting being supported by his "artillery". In a meantime Subotai arrived and kicked the s--t out of the Hungarians who retreated to their camp. Wiki's timing (suggesting that Batu offered withdrawal across the river after this happened and that Subotai refused to retreat at that point) does not make a slightest sense. Getting enemy encircled in a fortified camp was Mongolian (Frederic's, Napoleon's, Moltke's, Schliffen's, etc.) tactical dream. :rolleyes:

Of course, the whole thing is an illustration of Subotai's prestige: a general of a lesser stature would be risking an execution for disobeying a direct order coming from Genghizid in charge of the campaign. But Subotai not just dared to do this but he also got away with publicly answering rebuke from Batu with one of his own. Now, another side of the coin was Batu's public acknowledgement that Subotai was right and crediting him with success of the campaign. Batu was not a great general but he was a very capable politician and statesman.
 
Don't have it in English and already quoted the relevant part
This Mongolian source was extremely informative, thanks for that. Wonder why the whole thing hasn't been translated to English yet.

I think the relevant question here in terms of the ATL: how bad can Batu mess up the battle? Can he mess it up so bad that Subotai orders withdrawal?
 
I cant add much to the battle however the reasons for the strained relation between king Bela IV and the hungarian nobility were only a small part due to the cumans. The main problem was that Bela was working on rescinding as many of his fathers land grants to the nobility as possible.
His policy was sensible in the way that his father - Andras II - was an idiot and his policy in this regard weakened the king dangerously - shortly after the mongols it lead to rampant feudal anarchy on Hungary. However it also led to the strained relations and to many of the nobles not turning up to oppose the mongols.
 
This Mongolian source was extremely informative, thanks for that. Wonder why the whole thing hasn't been translated to English yet.

I think the relevant question here in terms of the ATL: how bad can Batu mess up the battle? Can he mess it up so bad that Subotai orders withdrawal?

Most important relevant is engagement. Will Subotai be willing to engage assuming Hungarian army size changes now rather than later?

Edit : The other relevant question is Subotai engaging on the same place at Sajó River.

Next would be applying same tactics.

Batu messing UP means Subotai engaged and gave battle, at the same place as otl using the same tactics while everything else is Different for the Hungarian side.
 
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Even if Batu engages at his own accord? Would Subotai let him and the vanguard die? (assuming he gets them into a really bad situation)

Batu would not engage on "his own accord" with Subotai being around. It is absolutely out of question. The very fact that Subotai refused to execute Batu's order and not only got away with it but also got away with publicly explaining Batu his mistake (and then had been publicly credited by Batu for all achievements in that campaign) should tell you who was in charge of the military operations. Unlike their European contemporaries, the Mongols had an iron discipline in their army and attitude "I'd do whatever I want no matter what are the orders" simply was not there.

At most, he could attack too early (which he did) or too late. The same goes for the notion of him and his troops (why do you consider them being the vanguard?) "dying": it was quite clear from Subotai's message that he was talking about Batu's retreat. And retreat did not mean that all Batu's troops would be retreating by using the bridge (I'm not sure that all of them crossed the river by using it). Sajo, as I understand, is not such a big river and the bridge was at least 200 meters long. Which means, and this is confirmed by Subotai's later rebuke of Batu's reprimand, that near the bridge river was shallow and the Mongols could get across it on their horses. The bridge was needed for transporting Mongolian stone throwers across the river but not necessarily for the troops to cross.
 
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