Genghis Khan’s second son and heir, Ogotai, ordered a Mongol army of between twelve and fourteen tumans westward into Russia again. In December 1237 a Mongol army led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan swept down on the city of Riazan, taking the city after a five-day siege. The Mongols favoured winter operations, using the frozen marshes and ice-covered rivers to enhance strategic mobility. Over the following year, the Mongols proceeded to lay waste to north-western Russia, destroying cities, towns and villages.
At the same time, another Mongol army commanded by Batu Khan’s chief of staff, Subotai, pushed into south-west Russia, taking Kiev in December 1237. Russian princes, under the leadership of Alexander Nevsky (so named after his victory over the Swedes at the battle of the Neva in 1240), repelled the Mongol assaults against Novgorod and Pskov, but even these late successes could not turn the tide against the steppe warriors. With the Kievan kingdom destroyed and southern Russia occupied by the Golden Horde, the principalities of northern Russia finally submitted to Mongol rule and became client states. Although practice of the Eastern Orthodox religion was allowed to continue, Russia would remain under Mongol rule for the next 200 years.
Map 4.1 The Mongol Invasion of Europe.
After subduing Russia, Batu Khan extended the Mongol conquests westward in a three-pronged attack against Poland, Hungary and Romania (Map 4.1). In Poland, the northern army under Batu’s lieutenants Baidar and Kadan sacked and burned Krakow on Palm Sunday 1241. Bypassing Breslau, they converged on the city of Liegnitz (modern Legnica), where Henry, duke of Silesia, had collected a formidable army made up of militia Christi (Teutonic Knights, Templars and Hospitallers) and Polish and German lay knights and men-at-arms to bar the way into the Holy Roman Empire. Confronting the Mongols on a plain south of Liegnitz in a place since known as the Walstadt or ‘chosen place’, Henry’s army of around 25,000 men took up positions on level ground with his mounted knights in the van and his large infantry host behind.
The Mongols faced an experienced Christian army at Liegnitz. For over a century, German Catholics had pushed north and east from the Holy Roman Empire, often at the expense of Slavic princes. The German eastward drive was not sponsored by royal or papal policy, but rather a movement led by local nobles. German military gains were consolidated by a massive eastward migration of German peasants who were settled in numerous agrarian villages. Consequently, regions such as eastern Germany and western Poland were not only conquered, they were brought within the Catholic fold.
Spearheading these campaigns were the military orders, led by the Teutonic Knights based in Prussia. Never as influential as the Templars and Hospitallers in the Holy Land, the Knights of the Teutonic Order found a purpose in the spread of Catholicism to pagan and Orthodox Christian areas in central Europe, and later, the Baltic states. Well trained and well armed with sword and lance, and protected by long-sleeve mail hauberks, flat-topped great helms and shields, the military orders functioned as the elite shock troops of these Baltic crusades. They built numerous castles to subdue the countryside and used their skills as heavy cavalry in devastating annual campaigns against infantry-based militias superior in numbers but inferior in tactical capabilities. The Mongols would prove to be a superior opponent.
The battle of Liegnitz began on the morning of 9 April 1241 when Duke Henry ordered his German heavy cavalry to charge the approaching nomadic light cavalry, only to have it beaten back by flights of Mongol shafts (Map 4.2(a)). Undeterred, Henry ordered a second, larger charge, committing the remainder of his heavy horse, including the Polish knights and the military orders. But this time, the Mongol light cavalry wheeled and took flight. Emboldened, the Christian heavy cavalry pressed the attack, pursuing the horse archers off the battlefield (Map 4.2(b)). But things were not as they seemed for the Christian nobility. As the knights became strung out, the pursued mangudai wheeled their more agile mounts and reversed direction, peppering the Christian heavy cavalry with arrows, aiming their shafts at the well-armoured knights’ mounts (Map 4.2(c)). To add to the confusion, the Mongols set up a smoke screen between Henry’s infantry and his trapped knights, hiding the two forces from one another. As Henry watched from among his infantry, the Mongol horse archers and lancers emerged from the smoke and attacked his footmen, routing the Christian infantry (Map 4.2(d)).
Map 4.2 The Battle of Liegnitz, 1241. (a) Phase I: Duke Henry’s Christian forces sally forth from Liegnitz to confront the advancing Mongols on the plain of the Walstadt (1). Henry orders his German cavalry to charge the enemy horse archers (2), but they are met with a hail of arrows (3) which force them back. (b) Phase II: Henry orders a second charge with his remaining heavy cavalry (1), including his Polish knights and elite military orders. The Mongol light horsemen wheel and retreat (2), and are pursued by the slower-moving Christian knights, opening a gap between themselves and their infantry (3). (c) Phase III: In trying to close with the swiftly moving horse archers the Christian knights begin to lose their cohesion, and their formations become strung out. The Mongol bowmen quickly reverse direction and engage the knights (1). More Mongol cavalry join the fray (2) and approach the Christian infantry undetected because of a smoke screen set between them and their cavalry (3). (d) Phase IV: As Henry watches, Mongol horse archers and lancers emerge from the clouds of smoke and plough into his infantry, which quickly begin to rout (2). The duke is cut down as he tries to flee the battlefield with some of his bodyguards (3), and the surviving Christians are easily picked off by the fast-moving Mongol cavalry (4).
Duke Henry was killed trying to escape with three bodyguards, his men picked off one by one by Mongol horse archers. Henry pushed his mount until it collapsed, and he tried to run in his armour until the steppe warriors rode him down. The day ended with his head on the end of a pike, which was then carried around the walls of Liegnitz. Although accurate casualties do not exist for this engagement, what is known is that most of the crusaders, together with the Polish aristocracy and the flower of northern Europe’s knightly class, lay dead on the Walstadt. The Mongols cut off an ear of every fallen Christian warrior to make an accurate body count. Nine bags of ears were collected from the European dead and sent to Batu Khan as tribute. The battle of Liegnitz in Poland would be the first of three Mongol victories in central Europe in a one-week span, each of them characterized by unprecedented strategic mobility and timing.
While Baidar and Kadan were sweeping through Poland, Batu Khan’s central army was moving across the Carpathian Mountains and into the Hungarian plain at breath-taking speed, moving at some 60 miles per day over rough terrain and through deep snow. Hovering close to Pest, Batu taunted the Hungarian king, Bela IV, and an army of perhaps 80,000 men, including European-style heavy cavalry (including his own elite shock troops, the Knights Templars) and even some light cavalry nomadic mercenaries. Bela’s army was huge, and by medieval standards, quite good, and he felt he had a large enough host to meet the Mongol invasion. But unknown to the Hungarian monarch, it was 9 April, the same day as the debacle at Liegnitz, some 400 miles to the north-west. A day later, the southern Mongol army stormed Hermannstadt and destroyed the army of Transylvania. Unaware of his strategic position between two victorious Mongol armies, Bela took Batu’s bait and moved away from Pest in search of a decisive battle.
As the Hungarians advanced, the Mongols retreated slowly ahead of them for two days. Batu and Subotai rode ahead of the army to inspect the battlefield where the engagement would take place. On the afternoon of 10 April, the Mongols rode over the heath and crossed the only stone bridge over the Sajo River and continued another 10 miles westward into the woods (Map 4.3(a)). Bela arrived at the Sajo in the evening, then sent 1,000 Hungarian horsemen across the bridge to reconnoitre the woods. Finding nothing but Mongol horse tracks, they returned to guard the bridge as the remainder of the Hungarian army made its camp on the heath (Map 4.3(b)). For added protection, Bela drew hundreds of wagons in a circle around the tents, securing them with ropes and chains. If the Mongols wished to attack the Hungarian position, they would have to cross a lone bridge guarded by 1,000 horsemen and then penetrate a makeshift wagon fortress.
Map 4.3 The Battle of Sajo River, 1241. (a) Phase I: King Bela IV’s Hungarian army pursues a Mongol army under Batu Khan from the vicinity of Pest to the confluence of the Sajo and Tisza rivers (1). Unbeknownst to Bela, Batu and Subotai had already reconnoitred the area and chosen it as a battlefield. The faster-moving Mongol horsemen cross the only bridge over the Sajo and disappear into the forest (2). Bela orders a reconnaissance into the thickets on the far side of the river, but the Hungarians fail to locate their foe and return to the south-west bank of the river. (b) Phase II: Posting a detachment at the bridge (1), Bela’s army establishes a camp (2) and encircles it with wagons chained together for additional protection. Meanwhile, Batu and his officers survey the enemy positions from a hilltop overlooking the field (3). Though confident in the strength of its position, Bela’s army is actually boxed in by marshes to the right, the Sajo to the front, and the forests of the Lomnitz and Diosgyor to the left and rear. (c) Phase III: As night falls, Batu orders Subotai to take 30,000 horsemen through the hilly terrain to the Sajo (1), where they are to construct a bridge across the river. Batu moves the remainder of the army into position to attack the Hungarians across the stone bridge (2). (d) Phase IV: Batu orders his Mongol horse archers into action (1), but Bela’s heavy cavalry detachment is able to hold them off because of the narrow approach at the bridge (2). The brave stand of the guards buys sufficient time for the Hungarians’ main force to sortie from the camp and advance to the bridge (3). In the meantime, Subotai’s force begins its bridging task (4).
(e) Phase V: Unable to overcome their Hungarian opponents across the narrow bridge, the Mongols employ seven light catapults as field artillery (1), hurling incendiaries into the ranks of Bela’s force (2). The ensuing disorder creates an opportunity for Batu and the Mongols to swarm across the contested span (3) and begin to deploy on the heath. (f) Phase VI: Batu slowly deploys his forces (1), fixing the Hungarians’ attention upon his archers and subtly arranging his formation in such a way as to leave the Hungarians vulnerable to Subotai’s undetected force approaching from the west (2). Bela launches charge after charge into the numerically inferior Mongol ranks (3), and the steppe warriors’ lines begin to thin. Inexplicably, Batu orders his surviving archers to begin to encircle the Hungarian heavy cavalry (4). (g) Phase VII: As Batu’s depleted ranks form a crescent-shaped formation to confront Bela’s superior force (1), Subotai’s fresh archers appear behind the Hungarian formations and begin to form their own crescent (2), threatening to encircle the heavy cavalry. As the Mongol arrows rain down, Bela realizes he has lost the initiative and orders a withdrawal (3) to his fortified camp. (h) Phase VIII: Pressing home their attack (1), the Mongols bring up their field artillery (2) and begin launching incendiaries into the fortified camp (3). The Hungarians attempt to charge the siege machines, but are driven back. After several hours of pounding, Hungarian morale begins to collapse as Mongol lancers begin to mass for the coup de grâce (4), but a gap opens during this movement (5) and a trickle of Hungarian fugitives through this opening soon becomes a flood. Bela’s closest followers remain and are slaughtered. The Hungarian survivors fleeing through the gorge towards Pest are hunted down by the merciless horse archers and the Christian army is effectively destroyed.
Looking down from a hilltop above the Hungarian encampment, Batu and his officer corps surveyed the terrain. On the right of the Christian position were the marshes of the Tisza, ahead of them was the Sajo, and on their left and behind them the hills and forests of the Lomnitz and Diosgyor. He must have felt as though he had his enemy ‘trapped like cattle in a corral’. The only escape route was back west through the gorge from which they came.
When night fell, Batu ordered Subotai to take 30,000 cavalry through the hills and quickly build a wooden bridge across the Sajo beyond the heath (Map 4.3(c)). The movement of such a large force should have alerted the Hungarian defenders, but Bela’s scouts detected nothing. Batu’s strategy was a simple one: engage the Hungarian king’s front, while Subotai secretly moved into position and attacked the rear. The battle of Sajo River began just before dawn on 11 April when Batu with 40,000 men launched a cavalry attack against the stone bridge (Map 4.3(d)).
King Bela’s guard held the bridge until reinforcements arrived from the camp, and it seemed as though the dense ranks of defenders could hold out forever against the narrow column of Mongol cavalry. But Batu solved the problem by bringing up seven light catapults to bombard the far side of the bridge with incendiaries and grenades (Map 4.3(e)). Confused by the tactical use of siege artillery on the battlefield, the Hungarian ranks drew back from the bridge in disorder, allowing the Mongol horse to cross the stone bridge safely behind a ‘rolling barrage’.
Batu Khan’s steppe horsemen pushed off the bridge and formed up on the centre of the heath slowly, consciously turning the Hungarian army and orientating it so that Subotai’s force could strike it in the rear (Map 4.3(f)). Outnumbering the Mongol force arrayed in front of him by two to one, Bela launched wave after wave of Hungarian heavy cavalry charges against the nomads. For two ferocious hours, the Mongols fought off the Hungarian nobility with missile fire, but casualties were high. At this moment, Batu inexplicably ordered his dangerously depleted ranks to stretch out into a half circle as if to surround the Christian troops (Map 4.3(g)). And just as the Hungarian heavy horse were preparing to finally break through the thin Mongol line, Subotai arrived on the battlefield and arrayed his fresh 30,000 cavalry in a matching half circle behind the defenders. As the two crescents converged behind a rain of arrows, the Hungarians realized that they had lost the initiative, and withdrew in good order back into their fortified camp. The Mongols surrounded the circled wagons and pressed their attack.
Batu now ordered Mongol artillery forward to pound the Hungarian encampment with incendiaries (Map 4.3(h)). Sensing this danger, Bela rallied enough knights to charge the siege weapons, but they were driven back. Consequently, the Hungarian encampment suffered several hours of pounding, with most of the tents burned and the integrity of the wagon fortification wrecked. As Hungarian morale plummeted, Mongol heavy cavalry lancers began to mass for the coup de grâce. But the concentration of Mongol lancers created a gap in the attackers’ lines in front of the gorge to the west. Seizing this opportunity, a few Hungarian horsemen made a run for the gorge and escaped. Soon, many others followed, throwing down their arms and armour to lessen the burden on the mounts. With a wholesale collapse imminent, only the Templars and Bela’s most faithful troops stayed to protect the camp. Formed up in a wedge, these brave soldiers were cut down by Mongol missile fire then smashed by the final Mongol heavy cavalry charge. Sharing the fate of their brothers-in-arms two days earlier at Liegnitz, the Templars died to the man.
Meanwhile, the runaway column was beginning to stretch out over the heath and through the gorge, just as the Mongols had planned. Now the Hungarian rout took on the characteristics of a Mongol hunt, with horse archers riding on both sides of the column, picking off the riders one by one with arrow, lance or sabre. Soon, the heath became a sea of riderless horses, and the road for 30 miles back to Pest was littered with Christian dead. The battle of Sajo River cost the Hungarians dearly. Conservative estimates place the number of dead at 60,000 men, or three-fourths of the entire army. Bela miraculously escaped from the battle unrecognized, fleeing across the foothills and taking a fresh horse from his faithful each time his own faltered. He made his way south, ending his days in exile in Croatia.
The battles of Liegnitz and Sajo River illustrated all the characteristics of Mongol steppe warfare, including feigned retreat, ambush and encirclement. These engagements also showed the inherent strength of light and heavy cavalry tactical systems working together, first to wear enemy forces down, and then to finish them off. The Russians, Poles and Hungarians all failed to recognize the theory behind the Mongol attacks, believing erroneously that their well-armed and armoured feudal heavy cavalry could meet and beat the combined-arms tactics of the steppe warriors. Without a large contingent of light infantry to fend off the nomadic horse archers, the Christian armies could not negate their enemy’s mobility and firepower. Because of the relative brevity of the Mongol campaigns in eastern Europe, the Russians, Poles and Hungarians did not have the time to adjust to the steppe warriors’ tactics in the same way the Latin crusaders did in their campaigns against Seljuk light cavalry in the Levant. The crusaders’ understanding of the proper use of combined arms, especially the use of light infantry to neutralize light cavalry, would have been essential had western Europe been forced to defend itself against prolonged Mongol depredations.
After destroying the flower of Hungarian chivalry at Sajo River, the Mongols returned to Pest and burned the city. The steppe warriors then rode up and down the east bank of the Danube River terrorizing the countryside and depopulating entire regions. One favourite ruse was to promise the Christian peasantry protection if they harvested the crops, then once the work was done, the Mongols killed them. They even used Bela’s royal seal, captured from the camp, to forge proclamations to prevent the mustering of a new army. For eight months, the three Mongol armies laid waste to central Europe, sacking Buda and threatening Vienna. Mongol detachments seeking Bela even penetrated south and west until they reached the Adriatic.
With both pope and holy Roman emperor mobilizing Europe to resist further westward penetrations, the Mongols disappeared as quickly as they came. In December 1241, the death of Ogotai forced Batu and Subotai to return to the new Mongol capital at Karakorum to elect a new great khan, ending forever the Mongol threat to Europe. The last great Mongol invasion was directed at the Near East in the second half of the thirteenth century.