ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠤᠯᠴᠤᠳ ᠤᠨ ᠦᠯᠢᠭᠡᠷ .pdf

© Copyright 1996 by Branden Publishing Company, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Giovanni, da Pian del Carpine, Archbishop of Antivari, d. 1252. [Historia Mongolorum. English] The story of the Mongols whom we call the Tartars = Historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus : Friar Giovanni di Piano Carpini's account of his embassy to the court of the Mongol Khan / translated by Erik Hildinger. p. cm. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 0-8283-2017-9 (pbk.) 1. Mongols—History. 2. Asia—Description and travel. THE STORY OF THE MONGOLS I. Title. DS6.G5413 1996 950'.04942-dc20 96-940 CIP BRANDEN PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc. 17 Station Street Box 843 Brookline Village Boston, MA 02147 Contents Preface 6 Translator's Note. 30 Prologue . 34 Chapter One. The Tartar Country, its Location and Description and its Weather Chapter Two 36 The People, their Clothes, Homes, Possessions and Marriages Chapter Three. 42 Religion, What the Tartars Believe are Sins; Divination, Absolution and Funeral Rites Chapter Four. 50 Their Good and Bad Customs, their Food and their Habits Chapter Five 55 The Founder of the Tartar Empire, its Princes and the Power of the Emperor and his Government Chapter Six 71 War, the Organization of the Tartar Forces, their Arms, their Tactics when Fighting and their Cruelty to Cap- tives, How they Besiege Forts, and their Treachery toward those who Surrender to them WHOM WE CALL THE TARTARS - 5 Chapter Seven.79 How The Tartars Make Peace; the Countries they have Conquered, the Countries which have Resisted them Successfully, and the Despotism the Tartars Exert over their Subjects Chapter Eight 85 How to Fight the Tartars and what to Expect; the Arms and Organization of such Forces; How to Meet Tartar Cunning in Battle, and how to Supply Fortresses and Cities, and What should be Done with Captives Chapter Nine .94 The Provinces We Passed Through and their Location; the Court of the Emperor of the Tartars and his Gov- ernment, and the Witnesses who Met us there Notes. . 121 Bibliography 128 Index. 131 PREFACE he modern state of Mongolia lies to the west and north of China. Seven hundred years ago those who spoke the Mongol language, Tungisic in origin, also lived on the steppes further north and west in what is now Russia and Siberia, and many still do. These Asian people competed for a living with their more numerous Turkic-speaking cousins and their occasional incursions into the civilized lands surrounding the steppes had generally had horrifying consequences for sedentary nations. The Mongols were a nomadic people living from their herds and flocks. Thus they moved between two areas summer and winter, to find grazing for the ani- mals. Their homes were (and some still are) gers, round felt tents easily disassembled or moved from place to place. They travelled by horse which had first been domesticated in southern Russia perhaps three thousand five hundred years ago. They fought interminably among themselves and the bow was their weapon— metal is hard to work and scarce in the steppe. In any case they were superb archers. Mongol society, like that of other steppe peoples, was simple. The religion was shamanistic, an ancient and primitive belief in a multitude of spirits such as is found in northern Asia and among the natives of the Americas who had crossed the Bering straight from Asia so long before. WHOM WE CALL THE TARTARS - 7 The steppe has three distinct areas. To the north a forested belt, then the great grasslands, and finally the desert regions. The better areas were the object of constant struggles among the steppe tribes, whether Mongols, Turks, Merkits, Tatars, Naimans, or any of a dozen nations who are only names today. The trigger of such a conflict might be a political shift among the tribes, or a period of drought, a common occurrence on the steppe, which caused one tribe to seek better territory at the expense of another. Thus, every man was, of necessity, a warrior. War is the profession of the steppe and, among pre-industrial peoples, no one is better at it. Europe knew this from the incursions of the Huns and Magyars in the fifth and eighth centuries; it was revisited by this scourge in the thirteenth, and it was stunned. In April 1241 Mongol armies had killed some one hundred thousand European knights and men-at-arms in Poland and Hungary. They had beaten every western army they had come against. Henry II of Silesia was dead, Boleslav IV, Count of the Poles, was in hiding, and the kingdom of Hungary no longer existed; its king, Bela IV, was fleeing to the Adriatic coast pursued by a Mongol army determined to kill him. As for the country itself, the Mongols began to systematically strip and depopulate it and to strike coins. It belonged to Batu, grandson of Jinghiz Khan, the Emperor of All Men. Meanwhile, Pope Gregory IX and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II prepared to continue their personal war while Mongol scouts approached Venice. There was no army the Europeans could muster to oppose them. There seemed no reason to suppose that western Europe would not suffer the fate of central Europe and Russia. T 8 - THE STORY OF THE MONGOLS. WHOM WE CALL THE TARTARS - 9 In February 1241 the Mongol army had left its base in southern Russia and begun to cross the frozen rivers into central Europe. It consisted of about seventy thousand men, all of them cavalry. Nominally com- manded by Batu, a grandson of Jinghiz Khan, he was guided by his grandfather's famous lieutenant, Subotai, a brilliant campaigner. This general had commanded in the campaigns against the Northern Sung of China and had helped in the destruction of the Kwarizmian Em- pire. He had planned the campaign against Europe for a year and the results would show. The Mongols had defeated every major Russian principality and had spent a year resting and regrouping in what is now the Ukraine before crossing into central Europe. Their target was Hungary, though to achieve its defeat the Mongols wished to remove opposition from other quarters. To that end the Mongol army was divided into two unequal forces. The smaller part of about thirty thousand men started off first at the begin- ning of March and went north into Poland to draw off any support for Hungary that might be found there. It was commanded by two of Jinghiz Khan's grandsons, Baidar and Kaadan, and swept in a northward arc past the edge of the Carpathians and into Poland. The larger army of about forty thousand advanced under the command of Subotai and Batu a few days later and was itself broken into two contingents each of which entered the Carpathians by a different route and crossed into Hungary. Mongols scouts were seen ranging Poland and Hungary and the European nobility began to muster armies. Count Boleslav IV of Poland, one of several lords who claimed to be its king, assembled one. It consisted of Polish knights, foreign knights from as far away as France and Germany, and members of the military orders. These last, such as the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers were monks who submitted to rigid personal discipline and fought as knights for the protec- tion of the church. They were Europe's most disciplined and professional soldiers. This army numbered about thirty thousand. Duke Henry of Silesia drew up a similar, somewhat larger army. To the south, King Bela of Hungary gathered his forces, but found it difficult as his nobles mistrusted his power and were uncooperative. The Mongol column which had gone north began to search for resistance in Poland. Baidar and Kaadan were aware of Duke Henry's army and determined to meet and prevent it supporting Bela in Hungary in his contest with Batu and Subotai. Far to the south Subotai and Batu's forces approached the guarded Hungarian passes of the Carpathians. After slow going in the snow for a few weeks the northern column under Baidar and Kaadan split into two. On March 18 they met the first resistance, the combined armies of Boleslav and Prince Mieceslas. The Mongols split the Europeans apart at the battle, the Poles heading south, the Slavs west. The Mongols then swept ahead to Kracow from which the inhabitants were fleeing; they burnt the city. This done, they tossed a bridge across the Oder and took Breslau only to discover that the Duke Henry of Silesia had gathered his army near Liegnitz, now Legnica in modern Poland. Henry's army numbered about forty thousand and awaited support from a Bohemian army of fifty thousand under King Wenceslas. The Mongols were outnumbered and knew of Wenceslas's approach. Baidar and Kaadan 10 - THE STORY OF THE MONGOLS. decided to attack at once before the western armies could join. Meanwhile, in Hungary, King Bela had thought to stop the Mongol advance by cutting trees across the paths in the Carpathian mountains and by strengthening the fortress garrisons which defended the passes. He used the tune he supposed he had gained to contend with his nobles and prepare for the campaign. On March 10 he received news that the Mongols, or Tartars as he knew them, had begun to attack the passes. Four days later Nador Denes, the commander of the passes arrived to announce that they had fallen and that the Mongols were advancing. Indeed they were. They came down the mountains covering forty miles a day in the snow, a speed unlike anything the Hungarians had ever seen. Bela began to marshal his army in the German town of Pesth across the Danube from his fortress at Buda. In Poland, Duke Henry and his Polish-German army left the safety of Liegnitz on the morning of April 9 to try to join up with Wenceslas. Instead they were con- fronted by the Mongol army on a plain south of Lieg- nitz, a place afterwards called the “Wahlstatt“, or chosen place. The Europeans took up positions on level ground and prepared to fight. Their army, made up of both knights and infantry was arrayed in conventional fashion with the mounted soldiers in the van and the infantry behind. When the engagement began the Europeans were disconcerted at the enemy's moving without battle cries or trumpets— all signals were given by pennant and standard. It was difficult to gauge the Mongols' num- bers: their formations were denser than those of the knights and they appeared half as numerous as in fact WHOM WE CALL THE TARTARS - 11 they were. The first of Duke Henry's divisions charged and was beaten back by Mongol arrows. The heavily armored knights not only could not close with the lightly equipped horse archers, they were driven into a retreat. A second charge followed. This one, unlike the first, seemed successful, the Mongols fleeing before the knights. Encouraged, the knights pressed on their attack, eager to meet the Mongols with lance and broadsword. The enemy continued to melt away before them, evidently unable to face the charge of such heavy horsemen. However, things were not as they seemed; the knights had fallen victim to the steppe tactic of the feigned retreat. The Mongols, unlike the knights, had been taught to retreat as a tactical move and as they did so they drew the knights into a line separated from the infantry. The Mongols then swept to either side of the knights who were strung out, and showered them with arrows from their powerful composite bows. Other Mongols lay in ambush, prepared to meet the knights as they fell into the trap. Where the Mongols found the knights' armor effective against their arrows they simply shot horses. The dismounted knights were then easy prey for the Mongols who ran them down with lance or saber with little danger to themselves. There was a final trick: smoke drifted across the battlefield between the infantry and the knights who had charged ahead so that neither force could see the other. The Europeans suspected sorcery and this explanation is found in the chronicles. The Mongols slaughtered the Europeans on their own terms and virtually annihilated them. Duke Henry was killed trying to escape and, following a Mongol custom used to count the dead, an ear was cut from each dead European. The Mongols filled nine sacks with ears. Contemporary records state 12 - THE STORY OF THE MONGOLS. twenty-five to thirty thousand of Henry's men were killed. Wenceslas and the Bohemians prudently halted their approach and retreated to a defensive position. Baidar and Kaadan, satisfied that there was no longer any serious threat from Poland, headed south to Hungary to rejoin the other Mongol army. On April 9, 1241, the very date of the Battle of Liegnitz, Bela left Pesth with his army of one hundred thousand to meet the Mongols who ravaged his country. Unlike Henry he would escape with his life, though for a time the Kingdom of Hungary would no longer exist. The Hungarians advanced on the Mongols who retreated slowly ahead of them for several days. The retreat went on toward the plain of Mohi near the river Sajo where the Mongols pulled back further past woods beyond the opposite bank and disappeared. The Hun- garian scouts could find no Mongols, only their horses' tracks. Bela camped in the plain of Mohi and drew his wagons into a laager around the camp for protection. To his back and on either hand were woods. Should the Mongols wish to attack they would first have to cross the river to his front and there was only one bridge. Bela sent his brother Koloman, a capable soldier, to hold it with a thousand men. Before light the Mongols had begun to move. They attacked the bridge, but were driven off. Meanwhile, though the Hungarians did not know it, other Mongols had moved upriver. The Mongols again attacked the bridge, but this time with catapults. Some reports tell of incendiary missiles pitched by these machines: flashing and smoking pots that disconcerted the Hungarians and drove them away. The Mongols took the bridge and by WHOM WE CALL THE TARTARS - 13 the time Bela could respond thousands of them had crossed the river ready to engage. The Hungarians charged into the mass of Mongols who, because they had little room to maneuver and were outnumbered and lightly armored, took a beating from the knights. The other Mongol force, led by Subotai, had meanwhile crossed the river unobserved. Batu received the Hun- garian attack and then swept to the Hungarians' left flank, causing them to turn. Subotai appeared at the Hungarian rear. The Europeans had been completely outmaneuvered and they pulled back to their camp where the Mongols then attacked once more with catapults throwing burning tar and naphtha. As fires and smoke spread through the camp and it became more difficult to remain there, an odd thing happened: the Mongol army showed a gap to the west. Cautiously, a few of the Hungarians left the camp to escape through it. Those who went first were allowed to pass. Others followed. Many threw down their weapons and equip- ment to lighten their horses' loads for the run. More and more fled. The flight quickly became uncontrollable as the Hungarians tried to