The economic and social factors which made conflicts between China on the one hand and the pastoral empires of Mongolia on the other almost inevitable did not normally favor westward expansion. The Mongol conquest of western regions - including Iran and Eastern Europe - may be regarded as a by-product, as it were, of personal ambitions, of mistakes made by rulers of limited abilities, of armies left to their own devices to determine their course of action. In what follows, an attempt will be made to present the main features of Mongol history in the West with a minimum of digressions. This is a field which has been tilled over and over again by scholars good and bad, in voluminous books and short articles. It has been my feeling for a long time that a short, straightforward narrative may be needed, one that can be used for general orientation while, at the same, containing sufficient new material and views to warrant publication in a scholarly periodical. It will be up to the readers to judge whether either of these aims has been achieved here.

The disintegration of the Karakitai state can be set in 1218, when the fleeing Naiman Kuchlug, who for almost a decade had been its effective ruler, was killed by his arch-enemies the Mongols.1 The aim of the Mongols was not the destruction of the Karakitay state but the punishment of Kuchhug, but the move brought them into contact with the bellicose 'Ala' al-Din Muhammad II Sultan of Khwarazm (1200-1220) who in 1218, completely misjudging Mongol power, made the fatal mistake of murdering Mongol envoys, an act always abhorred by the peoples of Inner Asia. The Mongol punitive expedition set in motion that same year led first to the conquest of Transoxiana, then expanded to include Afghanistan and Eastern Iran. The arrogant folly of Muhammad, who was thinking of conquering China, was backed by neither statesmanship nor by adequate military abilities. With his senseless presumption he had made the caliph his mortal foe, dividing thereby the Muslim world on the eve of the Mongol attack; as a poor strategist, he failed to make use of the numerical superiority of his army. As far as any individual can be held responsible for historical developments, the guilt of Muhammad of Khwarazm in bringing about one of the great disasters of human history is beyond doubt. The effects of the Mongol attacks were literally devastating. The complicated system of irrigation was badly damaged, fertile land was turned into desert; the bleak, cheerless regions of Iran and Turkestan still bear witness to the terrible thoroughness of Mongol destruction.

While Chinggis Khan remained in Persia to direct operations personally, two of his generals, Jebe and Sube'etei (ordinarily referred to as Subetei or Subotei) in their pursuit of the fleeing of Shah of Khwarazm reached the Caucasus.2 In the winter of 1220-1221 they attacked Georgia, then ruled by King George Lashen IV. It was the first campaign in which Mongol forces were opposed by a Christian army and, though Grigor of Akanc speaks 3 of the "merciless slaughter" perpetrated by the "nation of the archers", it can be assumed that the small army commanded by Jebe and Subetei had no intention of occupying on a permanent basis either Georgia or Azerbaijan. After some half-hearted attacks on Shirvan and Derbend, the Mongol expeditionary force crossed the Caucasus and, in 1222, emerged on the South Russian steppe which had been home, since the middle of the 11th century, to the Turkic tribes of the Kipchaks or Cumans.4 According to the Arab historian Ibn al‑Athir, the Mongols' first victory was achieved through dividing the joint Kipchak-Alan forces by an appeal to the former, reminding them that the Cumans and Mongols "are of the same race, the Alans, however, do not relate to you," a specious argument which, nevertheless, the Cumans found appealing.5 In January 1223 the Mongol armies entered Sudak (Soldaia) the principal market place in the Crimea, a colony of the Empire of Trebizond, where they met a mixed population consisting mainly of Greeks and Armenians. The Cumans' treachery did not pay off since, separated now from the Alans, they had to bear alone the brunt of a Mongol attack. Defeated, their prince Koten (Kotien) sought refuge with his father-in-law Mistislav of Halich whom he warned by saying that "today they (the Mongols) took our land, and tomorrow they will come and take yours."6 Koten succeeded in persuading some of the Russian princes to take the initiative and meet the Mongols before they had reached Russian territories. This bold attitude brought initial success to the Russian armies and their Cuman allies; it was however insufficient to avert disaster at the principal battle fought near the river Kalka (present-day Kalec, a small tributary of the Kalmius) which, depending on our sources, took place either on May 31 or June 16, 1223. Some of the Russians, led by the Grand Duke of Kiev, resisted in a retrenchment for three days before surrendering on the promise that their lives would be spared. Yet after the surrender all the defenders were massacred, except the leaders, who were smothered under the planks on which the Mongols sat celebrating their victory with a banquet. This was the epilogue of the Battle of Kalka, "a victory over the Russian princes" says the Chronicle of Tver "such as has never been since the beginning of the Russian Land."7

Mongol forays continued for a while, reaching Novgorod in the north and the line of the Dnieper in the west. A probably halfhearted attempt to take Bulghar 8 ended in failure. Ibn al-Athir, who recorded the event, also noted that subsequently the Mongols returned to meet Chinggis Khan, presumably towards the end of 1223.

To understand the motives and mechanism of the Mongol incursions led by Jebe and Subetei one should bear in mind that these men operated mostly on their own initiative, with no other orders from Chinggis Khan than to follow and capture the Shah of Khwarazm, and in the process of so doing to make as many peoples as possible ???? to Mongol rule. The coordinated movements of Mongol troops separated by thousand miles could only be achieved by rigid adherence to a timetable which obligated individual commanders to appear at a given time and place, but which left to their initiative the actions to be undertaken in the meantime.9 Unexpected withdrawals - such as that from Russia - and reluctance to occupy heavily fortified places, were often viewed by contemporaries and historians alike as defeats, though in reality they were prompted by strategic concepts totally alien at that time to western military thinking. The Mongol generals had to adhere to their timetables.

The Mongol conquests in Iran, and the ephemeral but impressive thrust into Russia, did not pass unnoticed in the West, though the two events were not connected, and the realization that the two campaigns had been conducted by the same people, the Mongols, was not immediate. Throughout the history of Mongol relations with Europe, contacts, both hostile and friendly, were established and maintained in two theaters of operation. Information flowed through two separate channels. Interaction between Mongols and the West took place either in Outremer, through the crusaders, or in Eastern Europe, mainly through Hungary. This two-pronged approach, be it peaceful or warlike, is seldom taken into account by historians.

News of the turmoil caused by the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, and of the plight of the Muslim world, reached the crusaders and raised considerable hope among them. In their minds the Mongols were connected with the mythical people of Prester John,10 or of his son David, and were viewed as Christians, thus potential allies of the crusaders. In 1221, to the armies gathered round Damietta, James of Vitry (Jacobus Vitriacus) "publicly preached that David, king of the two Indies, hastened to the help of the Christians, bringing with him most ferocious peoples who will devour like beasts the sacrilegious Saracens".11 Under the same year of 1221, the chronicle of Alberic of the Three Fountains (Albericus Trium Fontium) recorded that King David came to Cumania and Russia where he destroyed some countries and killed many thousands of Cumans and Russians. In his entry for the following year Alberic specifies that King David and his army are called Tartars by the Hungarians and Cumans. Under the year 1223, Ricardus of Sancto Germano records, "The king of Hungary notified the pope through his ambassadors, that a certain King David, commonly called Prester John, with an unlimited multitude of people had come to Russia. He had left India seven years ago, carrying the body of the blessed Apostle Thomas; and in one day they killed 200,000 Russians and Cumans (Plavci) ..."12 It is clear that the information which had reached the king of Hungary before he sent his report to the pope was, on the whole, of the same nature as that used by James of Vitry but that it originated in Eastern Europe, probably in Russia. This is clearly shown by the use of the name Plavci, the Slavic appellation of the Cumans (Polocvy). One would hardly expect to find the Slavic name of the Cumans in a report originating in the Holy Land. With the withdrawals of the Mongol forces led by Jebe and Subetei "the rumor - to quote Alberic - "that had spread on their behalf, vanished in no time."13 The hope of the crusaders aroused by the coming to their rescue of the Prester John or David turned out to be false; as for the Russian princes and the Hungarians, the Mongol incursion remained an episode without consequences in the long series of conflicts with nomad peoples.

Chinggis Khan died in August 1227. In his lifetime he had apportioned his huge empire between his four sons. Jochi, the eldest, had died a few months before his father, and so his ulus (the part allotted to him) fell to his son Batu. This was the westernmost part of what was about to become the great Mongol Empire, and, roughly speaking, comprised Khwarazm, Siberia west of the Irtysh, the plain between Lake Aral and the Ural mountains. To Chagaday, the second son of Chinggis, was allotted Transoxiana, while - in accordance with ancient custom - Tolui, the youngest, inherited the Mongolian homeland. The third son, Ogedey, was to rule over the lands lying east of Transoxiana but at a quriltay (national assembly) held in 1228 or 1229, he was elected Great Khan, supreme ruler of the entire empire. Consolidation of Mongol domination over territories conquered under his father's rule and further expansion characterize Ogedey's reign (1228/29-1241). The conquest of North China and the reconquest of Persia, where Jalal al-Din son of the late Muhammad of Khwarazm established himself after Chinggis Khan, had left the country, have no direct bearing on our subject. More relevant to our topic is the fact that soon after his accession Ogedey convoked a second quriltay at which it was decided to launch a major campaign against the Russians, the Alans (called As by the Mongols) and the Bulghar, whose lands bordered on the camping grounds of Batu. An impressive bevy of princes - including Tolui's son M6ngke, the future Great Khan - was charged with the task of subjugating the "rebels" (i. e. those who had not yet recognized Mongol rule), and they were joined by the baghatur Subetei, veteran of the previous campaign and probably de facto commander of this second invasion. Thereupon the princes returned, each to his own camp, in order to prepare for the campaign.14 In accordance with the strategic concept indicated earlier, a rendezvous was agreed upon, and early in 1236, in Juvaini's words, "they came together in the territory of the Bulghar. The earth echoed and reverberated from the multitude of their armies, and at the size and tumult of their forces the very beasts stood amazed.”15

The left wing of the Mongol army facing west was under the command of Mongke who, possibly to secure his rear, penetrated into the Kipchak territory. The Cumans must have gotten wind of the impending invasion, for one of their chiefs, whose name is known only in its Chinese tran????ion Hu-lu-su-man,16 felt it wise to undertake the long journey to the court of Ogedei to offer him his spontaneous submission. During his absence Mongke's army invaded the eastern part of the Kipchak territory where Hu-lu-su-man's son ????ted himself, apparently without combat. After a long and adventurous pursuit in the marshy regions of the Volga delta, another Cuman chief by the name of Bachman was caught and killed and his army destroyed. The same fate befell the chief of the Alans. Having thus subdued the Kipchak steppe, Mongke joined the other Mongol forces at the city of Bulghar, which was taken in the autumn of 1237.

As is shown by the careful preparation of the campaign against Bulghar - the year-long lull before the final assault - much more was at stake for the Mongols than simply the conquest of this important trading center. The operational plan - and without any doubt such a plan did exist - envisaged the conquest of the Russian principalities, Poland and Hungary, in fact the whole of Eastern and part of Central Europe: a gigantic operation, to last over several years. The conquest of Bulghar was the first episode in the Mongol Blitzkrieg, to use a modern term, a series of devastating, well-nigh irresistible attacks against a number of Russian cities. As was their wont, the Mongols preferred to wage war in the cold season, whose rigors they did not mind, the frozen rivers being then no obstacle to their troop movements. Ryazan, defended by the Grand Duke Yuri, fell on the 21st December 1237, followed by Kolomna, Vladimir, Suzdal, and Moscow, at that time a city of small significance. By the beginning of March 1238 fourteen cities had been taken by the Mongols, including Torzhok, the fall of which marked the end of this campaign organized on the pattern of a huge battue in which the troops, divided in columns of ten thousand men, methodically combed the whole country. In the words of Rashid al-Din, after this lengthy and by no means easy campaign the Mongol chiefs "entered the houses and rested."17 This overly simple statement can be put into a better perspective through a remark made in a document entitled De facto Ungarie Magne written by a certain Ricardus,18 who culled most of his information from Julianus and, possibly, other Hungarian sources. According to him, near or in Magna Hungaria a Friar Preacher (perhaps Julianus?) met a Mongol envoy, who told him that a Mongol army, encamped at a distance of five days' journey "intended to march against Germany but was waiting for an other army which had been sent to destroy the Persians."19 It is likely that the Mongol armies poised to attack the West were awaiting further reinforcements to be sent, probably by the noyan Chormagan, the powerful proconsul in the western territories of Iran, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. Be that as it may, the information reveals yet another example of the coordination of military operations so characteristic of Mongol global strategy. In the Spring of 1238, the Mongols stood just east of the Dnieper. We are able neither to trace the exact frontline nor to describe the happenings of the following two years. In fact, it seems certain that no major operation was undertaken in this period, which was one of preparation for the great attack on Hungary.

It is possible that personal intrigues in the Mongol high command slowed down the rhythm of the preparations. Jealousies among high-ranking officers are a perennial feature of military life, and we are able to follow the development of a quarrel between Batu on the one side, and Bori and Guyuk on the other. The Secret History of Mongols contains the text of a message purportedly sent by Batu to the Great Khan Ogedei. In it, Batu relates how, having subdued the Russians and eleven nations, the victorious Mongol chiefs gathered for a feast. Seating himself at the banquet Batu, the senior among the princes present, took a few gulps before the others. This was taken amiss by Guyuk and Buri who refused to join the feast arguing that since "Batu is our equal, why did he drink first?" Other princes joined Guyuk and Buri in heaping insults upon the head of Batu, whom they compared to a "woman with a beard." Batu, deeply hurt, related the events to the Great Khan, his uncle, pointing out that the conflict erupted just at the time when "having been sent to fight against rebels of a different race, we were asking ourselves whether we had been successful."20 On receiving the message Ogedei flew into a tremendous rage, and his invectives uttered against Guyuk and duly recorded in the Secret History (§276) make for most impressive reading. The Great Khan's decision fell in favor of Batu whom he entrusted with the conduct of the next campaign.

The rest of 1238 passed in minor operations, apparently aimed at securing the flanks and the rear of the Mongol army. Though it is impossible to follow with any precision the troop movements, we know that on the 26th December of that year Sudak, on the Crimean peninsula, was, once again, looted. Another event, of greater importance, was a new attack on the Cumans, resulting in their mass-emigration to Hungary. Although linguistically and racially homogenous, the Cumans constituted a loose federation of tribes quite independent of one another. The western part of the Kipchak country had for some time been ruled by Koten, already mentioned, who, though connected by family ties with Russian princes, had so far refused to embrace Christianity. Perhaps prompted by the imminence of a Mongol invasion, Koten sent ambassadors to Bela IV, king of Hungary, asking for asylum for himself and his whole people, comprising about forty thousand warriors, and, in return, promising his conversion. Encouraged by the Dominicans, who saw in this immigration the opening of a new and promising field of proselytism and the fulfillment of their old hopes, cherished by St. Dominic himself, for the conversion of the Cumans, Bela accepted the offer. On Easter Day 1239 he received Koten personally at the frontiers of Hungary and acted as godfather at his baptism. On the eve of a possible Mongol invasion it seemed a statesmanlike decision to accept the alliance of a people disposing of a large and efficient army, and the sight of a people coming of its own accord to ???? to the suzerainty of the king of Hungary was bound to enhance Bela's prestige and popularity, which stood fairly low among the lords of his own country. Things turned out differently. The integration of the Turkic speaking, nomadizing Cumans into Hungarian life caused many problems, and, by favoring his recently immigrated subjects, Bela alienated the bulk of his own people. Internal tensions between the king and his subjects, lords and commoners, greatly weakened the country at a time when it was faced with unprecedented danger.

Russian cities and the Slavic populations were not the only victims of the Mongol invasion. The Mordvins - a warlike Finno-Ugric people, today widely dispersed over the vast territory between the Oka and Bielaya rivers but in the 13th century concentrated in the Middle Volga region - had to bear the brunt of their attack, which also destroyed Great Hungary (Magna Hungaria). The exact location of that country is the subject of some scholarly controversy, as is the ethnic composition of its people, but it is safe to say that for all practical purposes, as far as our limited knowledge extends, Magna Hungaria is geographically undistinguishable from Bulghar. In 13th century sources it is identified with the land of the Bashkirs, today Turkic-speaking, and also, as indicated by its name, with that of the Hungarians. It was a contemporary, and not unreasonable belief, which modern research tends to support, that Magna Hungaria was an ancient abode of those Hungarians who had not migrated to Danubian Hungary. At the time with which we are concerned, knowledge of an interest in Magna Hungaria were sufficiently alive to prompt some Hungarian Dominicans to set out on an expedition aimed at locating their separated kin and converting them to Christianity. In their wake another Dominican friar, named Julianus, undertook the same journey, but by the time he reached the "limits of Russia," Magna Hungaria, Bulghar and "numerous other nations" had been subjugated by the Mongols. It is not a slight to suggest that missionary zeal was not the only motive prompting one of those "Preachers, Minorites, and other messengers, whom the king of Hungary had sent to explore", who were referred to in a letter sent by a Hungarian bishop to the bishop of Paris and cited by Matthew Paris.21 In other words Julianus was a spy and, in fact, the report he prepared, which has survived in a mutilated form, contains detailed information on the whereabouts of the Mongol armies. Passing through Suzdal shortly before its occupation by the Mongols, Julianus was warned by the Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimir-Suzdal that "day and night the Tatars deliberate upon how they may come and conquer the Christian kingdom of Hungary. For they are said to have in mind to come and conquer Rome and the land beyond Rome."22 The Grand Duke's warning was based on reliable information. He had captured Mongol envoys crossing the territory of Suzdal and had taken away from them a letter addressed to the king of Hungary. Painfully deciphered and translated it turned out to be an ultimatum:

I, Chayn,23 messenger of the heavenly king, to whom he has given on earth to exalt those who ???? to him and to cast down his adversaries, I wonder at you, king of Hungary, that although I have sent you messengers thirty times,24 you have sent me back none of them, nor did you send me messengers of your own or letters. I know that you are a rich and powerful king, and that you have many soldiers under you, and that you govern alone a great kingdom. Therefore it is difficult for you to ???? to me voluntarily. Further, I have learned that you keep the Cumans, my slaves, under your protection. Whence I charge you that henceforward you do not keep them with you, and that you do not make me your enemy on their account. For it is easier for them to escape than for you. Since they, having no houses and continually on the move with their tents may possibly escape. But you, living in houses and possessing fortresses and cities, how can you flee from my grasp?

The year 1239 had passed without any major event, and so did the first eleven months of 1240. On December 6, 1240, Kiev, perhaps the most important town in Russian lands, fell after a siege of only nine days. Excavations throw harsh light on the suddenness of the city's destruction.25 There was found a pot full of porridge with a wooden spoon stuck in it, which someone had no time to eat when the house was set on fire. There are the valuable crystal beads that filled a jug dropped and left behind by their fleeing owner. More tragic are the remains of two small girls huddled together in a stove from which hiding place they would never emerge, or the hiding place of a few desperate men who tried to dig an underground passage through which to escape from the burning town; but the walls above them collapsed, burying them all, including a certain artisan, Maxim, who can be identified as the very man who had left his porridge uneaten in another part of the town. Probably no one at that time - least of all the Mongols themselves - was aware of the importance of the fall of Kiev. Yet this was the first and principal cause of the shifting towards the east, and towards Moscow, of the center of gravity of Russian life, a move which was to have a decisive influence not only on Russian but also on world history.

The fall of Kiev was immediately followed by that of other towns in Halich and Volhynia, but these were minor undertakings aimed at preparing the attack on Hungary, the strategic objective of the Mongol campaign.

The invasion of Hungary is a classic example of long-range strategic planning ????uted with meticulous care on a unprecedented scale. Against Hungary the Mongols envisaged a triple drive in which the right and left wings were each to launch a three-pronged attack, while the center, constituting the main force, would advance undivided. The right flank, facing west, was under command of Batu's brother Orda, seconded by Baidar and Qaidan, sons of Chagaday. Pushing west from Vladimir, its primary aim was the neutralization of Bela's Polish and Silesian allies. Bela's daughter Kinga was the wife of Boleslaw, son of Leszek the White of the Piast dynasty. The right wing of Orda's army, under his personal command, moving in a north-westerly direction, skirted or actually entered Prussia and, following an almost semi-circular course, descended south to Breslau (Wroclaw). Orda's center, under the command of Qaidan, advanced in a fairly straight line in the direction of Breslau, while the left wing, led by Baidar, crossed the San and moved south-west towards Cracow. Sandomierz (Sandomir) fell on February 13, 1241, Cracow on March 22. The advance of Baidar was deliberately slow, following the course of the rivers, first that of the San, then the Vistula, and, after the fall of Cracow, downstream, the Odera. On April 2, before Breslau, Baidar joined the armies of Orda and Qaidan. Once again, for them the timing was perfect. The city was set on fire, either by the Mongols or by the inhabitants themselves, who took refuge in the fortress, set on an island. Their first attack against this fortress having failed, the Mongols, reluctant to lose time, pushed on to face the first serious obstacle in their way since they left Vladimir. On April 9th, on the battlefield of Liegnitz, they clashed with the forces of Henry II, duke of Silesia, Bela's cousin, helped by a strong contingent of Templars. The Mongol victory was decisive, and Henry II himself lost his life on the battlefield. Nationalist German claims - which here and there surface - to the effect that, though the battle was lost, it prevented the invasion of Germany, cannot be substantiated. The Mongol aim was the encirclement of Hungary which, now that their rear was safe, they entered from the north-west, through Moravia. Time was pressing, for Orda's army was bound to operate its junction with that of Batu somewhere near Pest, which it intended to reach by going downstream, on the left bank of the Danube. There was no time to enter Bohemia, whose wise king Wenceslas I - though ready to defend his land - avoided any hostile initiative. A small Mongol force sent to reconnoiter the Austrian border withdrew as soon as contact had been made.

The identity of the commander-in-chief to the left wing, facing south, cannot be established with any certainty. We do know, however, that Qadan, son of the Great Khan Ogedei, assisted by Bori, a grandson of Chagaday, was in charge of the corps which on March 31, coming from the north-east, crossed the Carpathians through the pass of Borgo into Transylvania. Another, probably weaker, Mongol force, whose commander cannot be identified, skirted the Carpathian arc and crossed it at the pass of Ojtuz (Oituz). The third, southernmost, left wing entered Transylvania through the defile of the river Olt. The three aforementioned armies joined forces in Csanad (Cenad), in the region of the confluence of the Maros (Mures) and the Tisza (Tisa). No organized resistance had been encountered by these converging army groups, which were now prepared to join forces with the armies of Orda and of Batu for a decisive blow against Bela.

The central army corps, under Batu - commander-in-chief of all the Mongol forces in the west - was poised for attack along the Dniester. Subetei, veteran hero of so many Mongol victories, and Shiban, a brother of Batu, were to second him. While there is no reliable evidence on the numerical strength of the three Mongol armies, it would appear that the one commanded by Batu and Subetei was stronger than the combined forces of the right (Orda) and left (Qadan and others) wings. Batu chose to enter Hungary from the North, through the "porta Russiae", i.e. the Pass of Verecke, used by the Hungarians themselves some three hundred years earlier for the conquest of their future homeland. It seemed for a while that this new attack would destroy the state which the earlier invasion had founded; in the laconic statement of a Bavarian chronicler "The kingdom of Hungary which has lasted for three hundred and fifty years, is destroyed by the Tatars."26