Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Mongol Invasion of Europe
The Crusades reader talks about the Mongol presence in the Middle East. However, the Mongols advanced much farther west than just the Middle East; it turns out that they invaded and conquered all the way through Central Europe. They originally had conquered Russian lands, sacking Kiev in 1240. Apparently many of the Russian boyars fled westward into Hungary, as well as a people called the Cumans. Batu Khan, the leader of the Mongols in this operation, cited this as a reason to invade and conquer Hungary, as the Cumans were thought of as traitors in the Mongolian Empire. (Of course, he probably would have invaded anyway, and this was just a petty excuse.) The Hungarian forces were absolutely decimated by the Mongols, who then killed Hungarians who resisted them. Luckily for Western Europe, the Geat Khan died in 1242 and Batu Khan went back all the way to Central Asia, where he had a chance of being elected Great Khan, taking pretty much all of the Mongol army that he had back with him. This is the general reason cited by historians as to why the Mongols stopped their invasion of Europe. The invasion prompted Hungary to build many stone fortresses, which were effective the next time the Mongols invaded Hungary in the 1280's.
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It's interesting that this is a less well know part of the Crusades and even the Middle Ages. I feel that this has to do with the western bias of Europe. Most of the history we study focuses around western Europe and we seem to neglect the eastern part of the continent. I feel that this could have something to do with the religious differences between east vs west and our origins as colonies of Western Europe. Anyway, I get excited any time eastern European history creeps up into the overall Western tradition. Great point to post on.
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