WI:Mongols conquer Western Europe

Actually, the astonishing thing about the Mongols is how they fought most of their campaigns outnumbered. Wasn't the European force at Legnica much larger than the Mongol force?
 
Why do the Europeans lack scouting abilities?

The Mongols capturing/killing the scouts I can see, but that's different than the Europeans not knowing about scouting.

They did scout, but they didn't put the same emphasis on it that the Mongols did. The Mongols took it very seriously, often outmaneouvering enemies on their own territory, for what that's worth.

Bela scouting properly would have probably located Mongol engineers trying to bridge the river he meant to use as a shield, but he never did, for example.
 
They did scout, but they didn't put the same emphasis on it that the Mongols did. The Mongols took it very seriously, often outmaneouvering enemies on their own territory, for what that's worth.

Bela scouting properly would have probably located Mongol engineers trying to bridge the river he meant to use as a shield, but he never did, for example.

This is true. Though I think having some idea how big the Mongol army is wouldn't be particularly hard to find out.
 
The Yuan dynasty only last 80 or so years in China, so imagine a short lifespan in Europe as well. The ting about horser archer nomads is that when they settle in agricultural regions they lose the horse skills that gave them the military advantage in the first place. This has happened so many times thoughout history as to be a hard and fast rule.
 
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