People very much overestimate the Mongolian ability to overpower western Europe. The Holy Roman Empire is led by one of it's younger more vigorous monarchs who could plausibly hold his tactical ground, Germany is one of the most fortified areas in the world at this point in history with dozens of castles which while the Mongols are almost certainly capable of capturing them would be a long painful bloody slog to do so (and even the comparatively Mongol friendly terrain of Hungary still gave them trouble with the fortified points), and the Mongols are still led by an extremely old obese man who is going to die any day by that point.
WI: Mongolia brakes into Germany
- Thread starter JosefStalin
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Razgriz 2K9
Banned
Why would they do that? I'm sure they could find someone weak-willed (Probably a pipe dream though.)
But eliphas is right in that regard, I don't care what Mongol leader it is, if they couldn't beat Baibars at Ain Jalut, no way in this God-fearing Earth could they beat someone like (I'm assuming you mean) Conrad IV of Germany.
They're both very good emperors by the standard of things. Hell this would probably help him a lot to get the pope and the nobles on his side.
Like I said, they can if they want to, the question is if they would want to. They have technology and the resource to do so. You overestimate the European castles at this point in time which have not yet tangled with gunpowder.
Subutai is not an obese man. He is the best Mongolian general alive and arguably one of the best Generals in human history. He is probably the best siege general alive during that time. Do not equate Ogedei with Subutai. Very different people.
Conrad IV is not even near the strategic and tactical genius of Subutai.
With lesser resources, technology, with a different general and or a different time period, Mongols will probably not be capable of taking Central Europe nor even attempt it like in OTL.
The only thing that would stop the invasion is if Ogedei says so or Ogedei died, which happened in OTL.
Razgriz 2K9
Banned
He said young and vigorous, and by the time of the Battle of Mohi Heath in 1241, Frederick II (who was Holy Roman Emperor), was old...or at least old by Medieval standards.
Dorozhand
Banned
The reason the Mongols were defeated at Ain Jalut was because Baibars was smart enough to beat them at their own game. The rest of Eurasia just did what they had always done, and were defeated every single time. Is the HRE willing to do this?
Who happened to be the greatest general in history, just in case anyone was confused by what eliaphas is saying here. But yes, he was old and obese at this point. He did conquer most of Eurasia prior to this of course, so give the man a break. He was also the driving force behind a unified western campaign, the Mongol royalty were the ones with competing interests. If he got his way, he'd probably commit strongly.
People severely overestimate the Germany of this period given how much trouble the Emperor actually had raising troops. As for the dukes, well, they DID raise a combined army, by the way, to evict the Mongols. They never dared cross the rivers and engage, though, for a whole year. Wonder why.
Several German cities probably get sacked but a Mongol invasion of Germany probably looks a lot more like the 1280s invasion of Hungry than the 1240s invasion.
So let's say that they did come up against castles in Germany...
What sort of force would typical castles hold and sustain in that country? Enough to seriously cause problems for the rest of the force if it bypassed one and moved on? How much damage could be caused to the people if their food source was destroyed or taken and the settlements outside the castles were razed? How long would they be able to hold out?
Also, would it be best for the Mongols to occupy castles if they captured them or to simply try to raze them and prevent anyone from using them again?
What sort of force would typical castles hold and sustain in that country? Enough to seriously cause problems for the rest of the force if it bypassed one and moved on? How much damage could be caused to the people if their food source was destroyed or taken and the settlements outside the castles were razed? How long would they be able to hold out?
Also, would it be best for the Mongols to occupy castles if they captured them or to simply try to raze them and prevent anyone from using them again?
RousseauX
Donor
An Jalut was fought by a fairly small Mongolian force because the main Mongolian force had already departed by that time. And the Mameluke of this period wasn't exactly bad soldiers either.
OTOH the Mongolians utterly crushed the Hungarians and the Poles in the same time frame.
Why is Conrad IV of Germany so special? Is the composition of his army greatly different from that of his immediate eastern neighbors?
Compounded by the fact that large proportion of Kitbugha's force were Armenian and Georgian infantry, and that because of the Syrian Desert and the crusader treachery, he was caught off-guard and could not make a safe retreat and so gave battle not on his own terms.
Brilliant work by the Mamluks nonetheless.
What if the Kahn is able to rape and pillage his way across Germany, despite the little return for the effort and the endless siege, and starts to attack France. Could the Brits and whoever is still left in Iberia could team up against the invaders?
My view on the subject was that if the Mongols HAD managed to capture the King of Hungary at the time like they planned then they would have puppetized him (bringing them into the issue of rights to the Kingdom that he was having with the Duke of Austria), massacred or enslaved the Cumans that had fled to the Danube, and made use of his forces to secure their holdings in Eastern Europe for more maneuvers into Central Europe and the Balkans. From there they would have crushed Poland and used the Poles against the HRE.
I think Vienna would be burned in short order, granted it depends if after all this the HRE rulers had decided to pay tribute or not.
I think Vienna would be burned in short order, granted it depends if after all this the HRE rulers had decided to pay tribute or not.
dead_wolf
Banned
There always seems to be more than a healthy dash of Eurocentrism when these types of questions are asked in other forums, and I see it's the same here. Really the question should be, why would the Mongols stop with Germany? As Dorozhand brought up, the Mongols completely wrecked Hungary with a scouting force. All of the issues that are brought up; the weather, the geography, the forests, the castles, feudal politics, etc. etc., these are all things the Mongols have fought and overcome before time and again. It was the largest most militaristic most expansionist empire the world had ever seen or would see until the Age of Imperialism. It's armies numbered in the millions when European kings struggled to raise thousands to their cause. It would have been a cakewalk.
There always seems to be more than a healthy dash of Eurocentrism when these types of questions are asked in other forums, and I see it's the same here. Really the question should be, why would the Mongols stop with Germany? As Dorozhand brought up, the Mongols completely wrecked Hungary with a scouting force. All of the issues that are brought up; the weather, the geography, the forests, the castles, feudal politics, etc. etc., these are all things the Mongols have fought and overcome before time and again. It was the largest most militaristic most expansionist empire the world had ever seen or would see until the Age of Imperialism. It's armies numbered in the millions when European kings struggled to raise thousands to their cause. It would have been a cakewalk.
Perhaps, but to reverse that logic, if anyone on this board were to gush about literally any other society in history, they'd be laughed at. The Spartans, the Romans, the CSA, the Germans, Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, none of them come even remotely close to the kind of fanboy worship the Mongols get. I'm a bit weary of the debate, but even you must acknowledge the monotony of it, to say nothing of how much mockery your tone would get you in any other context.
dead_wolf
Banned
None of them conquered 1/4th of the world's population in less than a century. Just sayin'
If anything the Mongols are underappreciated, if not for the achievements of their own empire but at the least the massive impact and legacy they left behind.
I'm all for pointing out their weakness or taking a realistic approach to their study and applying that to alternate history; sure yeah they built a massive empire that wasn't rivaled for hundreds of years... which immediately fell apart once they stopped conquering new lands. But saying that the Count of Anhalt-Zerbst, who could at most muster a hundred men to his cause, almost all of them peasant levies who don't really care whose in charge and just want to get back to the autumn harvest, is going to stand a chance against a hundred thousand Mongol invasion army, which constitutes a "scouting force," because of the trees, or because it's a little rainy, it's just ridiculous. It ignores not only the historical record, which in and of itself is something of blasphemy if you're wanting to take a realistic approach to alternate history, but all logical sense, in favor of applying some sort of weird Eurocentrist feeling that somehow Europe was special and surely the righteous Europeans would have fought off the dirty hordes simply because they're European and therefore inherently different or superior.
It was falling apart before Kubulai was even dead. Nayan? The feud between the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde?
Where are you going to get a hundred thousand man Mongol invasion army? I have a recollection of RGB mentioning Batu commanding four tumen OTL - which is less than half that number.
Yes, the Mongol Empire has those numbers, but most of those forces are doing things far more important to the Mongols than Europe.
And the Count of Anhalt-Zerbst does not even come close to the best the West has to oppose Mongol armies. He's not even in the top hundred. People have mentioned the armies that say, the frickin' Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire can muster - not individual counts.
That's where fighting in the rain, in the forests, with relatively little pasture land, etc. etc. starts becoming problematic - the Mongols did lose battles other than Ain Jalut and their invasions of Japan. And with the exceptional of the aging Subutai himself, their best and brightest don't seem to have been either OTL involved or interested in invading Europe.
All of that is going to complicate just stomping Europe as casually as everyone who presents the Mongols as an unstoppable force tends to argue. I'm not saying that's a good chance, but it's certainly not going to be something where the Mongols can ride up and people surrender faster than they can keep track of where these foreign lords even are from.
And I'd say people are vastly overimpressed by the Mongols as a concept to the point where they really don't understand what actually allowed them to succeed. The Mongol invasion of Hungary came at one of the weakest points in their history, with a king who everyone despised, and where the castles where still a daunting challenge. I mean just to give an example of how the myth of the mongols has far, far, far outstretched what they really where, them having millions of men under arms is almost certainly a vast overestimation. It's demographically and logistically impossible given the devastation in the wake of Mongol conquest that they could support an army of that size, even assuming non-Mongolian auxiliaries it'd be out of their reach by a large margin.
As far as I'm concerned the problem is twofold and combined, the fortifications are gonna necessitate lengthy sieges (some will be little better than roadblocks but the more impressive ones will be lengthy sieges that could take months or years) coupled with the fact that they are fighting in a region where they can't support nearly the number of horses their armies are used to marching with. There's only so much you can steal from the peasants and if they get caught up in lengthy siege after lengthy siege they are going to die a death of a thousand cuts to the Germans. Not exactly glorious victory but still a pretty effective victory.