In the summer of 1242, a Mongol force invaded the Latin Empire of Constantinople. This force, a detachment of the army under Qadan then devastating Bulgaria, entered the empire from the north. It was met by the Emperor Baldwin II, who was victorious in a first encounter but was subsequently defeated.
The encounters probably took place in Thrace, but little can be said about them owing to the paucity of sources. Subsequent relations between Baldwin and the Mongol khans have been taken as evidence by some that Baldwin was captured and forced to make submission to the Mongols and pay tribute. Together with the major Mongol invasion of Anatolia the following year (1243), the Mongol defeat of Baldwin precipitated a power shift in the Aegean world.
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Wait For It...The Mongols!: Crash Course World History #17
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The Mongols - Battle Strategy
Transcription
Hi I’m John Green, this is crash course world history and today we’re gonna discuss… wait for it… THE MONGOLS. So you probably have a picture of the Mongols in your head. Yes, that’s the picture: brutal bloodthirsty, swarthy, humorously mustachioed warriors riding the plains, wearing fur, eating meat directly off the bone, saying bar bar bar. In short, we imagine the Mongol empire as stereotypically barbarian. And that’s not entirely wrong. But if you’ve been reading recent world history textbooks like we here at Crash Course have, you might have a different view of the Mongols, one that emphasizes the amazing speed and success of their conquests— how they conquered more land in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. How they controlled more than 11 million contiguous square miles. And you may have even read that the Mongols basically created nations like Russia and even Korea. One historian has even claimed that the Mongols “smashed the feudal system” and created international law. Renowned for their religious tolerance , the Mongols, in this view, created the first great free trade zone, like a crazy medieval Eurasian NAFTA. And that’s not entirely wrong either. Stupid truth, always resisting simplicity. [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] So remember herders? We talked about them way back in episode one as an alternative to hunting and gathering or agriculture. Here are the key things to remember: 1. Nomads aren’t Jack Kerouac: They don’t just go on like random road trips. They migrate according to climate conditions so they can feed their flocks. 2. Nomads don’t generally produce manufactured goods which means they need to trade, so they almost always live near settled people. And 3. Because they live in generally live close to nature and in harsh conditions, pastoralists tend to be tougher than diamond-plated differential calculus. Like, think of the Huns, or the Xiongnu. Or the Mongols. [sweet, familiar horns of the Mongol-tage blare] Okay, Stan. That’s enough. Back to me. Stan. I AM THE STAR OF THIS SHOW NOT THE MONGOLS!!! Hi. Sorry about that. Right, so one last thing: Pastoral people also tend to be more egalitarian, especially where women are concerned. Paradoxically, when there’s less to go around, humans tend to share more, and when both men and women must work for the social order to survive, there tends to be less patriarchal domination of women. Although Mongol women rarely went to war. I can’t tell your gender. I mean you’ve got the pants, but then you also have the floopity flop, so... That’s the technical term, by the way. I’m a historian. [suspiciously lacking a mustache] If you had to choose a pastoral nomadic group to come out of central Asia and dominate the world, you probably wouldn’t have chosen the Mongols. Because for most of the history we’ve been discussing, they just hung out in the foothills bordering the Siberian forest, mixing herding and hunting, quietly getting really good at archery and riding horses. Also the Mongols were much smaller than other pastoral groups like the Tatars or the Uighurs. And not to get like all Great Man History on you or anything, but the reason the Mongols came to dominate the world really started with one guy, Genghis Khan. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. The story goes that Genghis or Chingus [?] Khan was born around 1162 with the name Temujin to a lowly clan. His father was poisoned to death, leaving Temujin under the control of his older brothers, one of whom he soon killed during an argument. By 19 he was married to his first and most important wife, Borte, who was later kidnapped. This was pretty common among the Mongols, Temujin’s mom had also been kidnapped. In rescuing his wife, Temujin proved his military mettle and he soon became a leader of his tribe, but uniting the Mongol confederations required a civil war, which he won, largely thanks to two innovations: He promoted people based on merit rather than family position, and second he brought lower classes of conquered people into his own tribe while dispossessing the leaders of conquered clans. Thus he made the peasants love him. The rich hated him— but they didn’t matter anymore, because they were no longer rich. With these two building block policies, Temujin was able to win the loyalty of more and more people and in 1206 he was declared Great Khan, the leader of all the Mongols. How? Well, the Mongols chose their rulers in a really cool way. A prospective ruler would call a general council called a khuriltai, and anyone who supported his candidacy for leadership would show up on their horses, literally voting with their feet. Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Horses don’t have feet they have hooves. I hate you, Me From the Past. Also, NO INTERRUPTING THE THOUGHT BUBBLE!! After uniting the Mongols, Genghis Khan went on to conquer a lot of territory. By the time he died in his sleep in 1227, his empire stretched from the Mongol homeland in Mongolia all the way to the Caspian Sea. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So that’s a pretty good looking empire, and sure a lot of it was pasture or mountains or desert, but the Mongols did conquer a lot of people, too. And in some ways with Genghis’ death the empire was just getting started. His son Ogedei Khan expanded the empire even more. And Genghis’ grandson Mongke was the Great Khan in 1258 when Baghdad, the capitol of the Abbasid Empire, fell to the Mongols. And another of Genghis’ grandsons, Kublai Khan, conquered the Song Dynasty in China in 1279. And if the Mamluks hadn’t stopped another of Genghis’ grandsons at the battle of Ain Jalut, they probably would have taken all of North Africa. Genghis Khan sure had a lot of grandkids... It must be time for the open letter. [gladly glides gracefully to faux glow] An Open Letter To Genghis Khan’s Descendants: But first, let’s check what’s in the secret compartment today. Oh. A noisemaker and champagne poppers? Stan, you know I suck at these. Ohhh, it’s because it’s a BIRTHDAY PARTY!! YAY. Happy birthday to Genghis Khan’s descendants. How do I know it’s your birthday, Genghis Khan’s descendants? Because every day is your birthday. Because right now on the planet Earth, there are 16 million direct descendants of Genghis Khan, meaning that every day is the birthday of 43,000 of them. So, good news, Genghis Khan; Your empire might be gone, but your progeny lives on. And on, and on, and on. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Best Wishes, John Green Unfortunately for the Mongols, those guys weren’t always working together, because Genghis Khan failed to create a single political unit out of his conquests. Instead after Genghis’ death, the Mongols were left with four really important Empires called Khanates: 1. The Yuan Dynasty in China 2. The Il-Khanate in Persia 3. The Chagadai Khanate in Central Asia and 4. The Khanate of the Golden Horde in Russia. If you remember all the way back to the Hellenistic period, this is similar to what happened to another good general who wasn’t much for administration, Alexander the Great. Also, neither of them ever conquered India. The Mongols succeeded primarily because of their military skill. Genghis Khan’s army, which never numbered more than 130,000 was built on speed and archery. Just like this guy. [No arrows on the pitch, please.] Mongol mounted archers were like super fast tanks, compared to the foot soldiers and knights they were up against. But wait, all the military history nerds are saying: once people knew that the Mongols were coming, why didn’t they just hole up in their castles and forts? It’s not like the Mongols had flying horses. EXCEPT THEY DID. They didn’t? Stan, why are you always making history boring?? So the Mongols apparently didn’t have flying horses, but they were uncommonly adaptable. So even though they’d never seen a castle before they started raiding, they became experts at siege warfare by interrogating prisoners. And also adopted gunpowder, probably introducing it to Europeans, and they even built ships so they could attack Japan. That might have worked, too except there happened to be a typhoon. Also, people were terrified of the Mongols. Often cities would surrender the moment the Mongols arrived, just to escape slaughter. But of course, that only happened because there were occasions when the Mongols, did, you know, slaughter entire towns. So with all that background, let us return to the question of Mongol awesomeness. First, Five arguments for awesome: 1. The Mongols really did reinvigorate cross-Eurasian trade. The Silk Road trading routes that had existed for about 1000 years by the time the Mongols made the scene had fallen into disuse, but the Mongols valued trade because they could tax it, and they did a great job of keeping their empire safe. It was said that a man could walk from one end of the Mongol empire to the other with a gold plate on his head without fear of being robbed. 2. The Mongols increased communication throughout Eurasia by developing this pony express-like system of weigh stations with horses and riders that could quickly relay information. It was called the yam system and also included these amazing bronze passports, which facilitated travel. 3. Another thing that travelled along the Mongol trade routes was cuisine. For example, it was because of the Mongols that rice became a staple of the Persian diet. Which I mention entirely because I happen to like Persian food. 4. The Mongols forcibly relocated people who were useful to them, like artists and musicians and, especially administrators. As you can imagine, the Mongols were not much for administrative tasks like keeping records so they found people were good at that stuff and just moved them around the empire. This created the kind of cross-cultural pollination that world historians these days get really excited about. And 5. The Mongols were almost unprecedentedly tolerant of different religions. They themselves were shamanists, believing in nature spirits, but since their religion was tied to the land from which they came, they didn’t expect new people to adopt it and they didn’t ask them to. So you could find Muslims and Buddhists and Christians and people of any other religion you can think of prospering throughout the Mongol empire. And it’s that kind of openness that has led some historians to re-evaluate the Mongols- Seeing them as kind of a precursor to modernity. But there’s another side to the story that we should not forget, so, here are five reasons why the Mongols might not be so great: 1. Here is Genghis Khan’s definition of happiness: “The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters." Off-topic, but if that quote rings a bell, it might be because Oliver Stone blatantly plagiarized Genghis Khan in the movie Conan the Barbarian. 2. Is an extension of one. The Mongols were seriously brutal conquerors. I mean, not uniquely brutal, but still: The Mongols destroyed entire cities, and most historians estimate the numbers they killed to be in the millions. 3. Their empire didn’t last. Within 80 years they’d left China and been replaced by a new dynasty, the Ming. And in Persia they blended in so completely that by the 15th century they were totally unrecognizable. I mean, they’d even taken up agriculture! Agriculture, the last refuge for scroundrels who want to devote their lives to working instead of skoodilypooping. 4. They also weren’t particularly interested in artistic patronage or architecture. I mean, your palace may last forever, but my yurt can go anywhere. 5. The Mongols were probably responsible for the Black Death. By opening up trade they also opened up vectors for disease to travel, in the case of the Plague via fleas infected with Yersinia pestis. And at least according to one story, the Mongols intentionally spread the plague by catapulting their plague-ridden cadavers over the walls of Caffa in the Crimea. [grody to the max] While this primitive act of biological warfare might’ve happened, it’s unlikely to be what actually spread the plague. More likely it was the fleas on the rats in the holds of Black Sea ships that were trading with Europe. But that trade only existed because of the Mongols. Alright Stan, one last time; Cue the Mongol-tage [oh, sweet thundering melody of carnage] So the Mongols promoted trade, diversity, and tolerance. And they also promoted slaughter and senseless destruction. What you think about the Mongols ends up saying a lot about you: Do you value artistic output over religious diversity? Is imperialism that doesn’t last better or worse than imperialism that does? And are certain kinds of warfare inherently wrong? If you think those are easy questions to answer, than I haven’t been doing my job. [Darn you, FIFA '11!] Regardless, I look forward to reading your answers in comments. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next week. CrashCourse is produced and directed by Stan Muller, Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson, The show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself And our Graphics Team is ThoughtBubble [More awesome than maple syrple] Last week's Phrase Of The Week was Hawaiian Pizza If you want to suggest future phrases of the week or guess at this week's, you can do so in comments Where you can also ask questions about today's video that can be answered by our team of historians. By the way, if you want to wear your love for CrashCourse there's a Mongols shirt, link in the video info. [No exceptions!] Thanks for watching CrashCourse. Nobody can beat CrashCourse viewers. Well, except for the Mongols. [when the Mongol-tage rolls, we all win] [outro music] [outro music] [outro music] [Scratch the last, Nyan-Mongol FTW!!!] [outro] [outro]
Sources
There is only one primary source that explicitly mentions a Mongol raid into the Latin Empire: the anonymous Austrian Chronicle completed about 1327. Its account was copied into the Chronicle of Leoben and the Annals of Heiligenkreuz. The event is dated to 1243, an obvious error for 1242.[1] According to the Austrian chronicles:[2]
Tatars and Cumans, meeting no resistance or opposition, withdrew from Hungary with an endless booty of gold and silver, garments and animals, leading many captives of both sexes to the scandal of the Christians. Entering Greece, they depopulated the entire land except for the castles and well-fortified cities. But the king of Constantinople, named Baldwin, went out in battle against them, at first he was victorious, but the second time he was defeated by them.[3]
A brief account in the Chronography of the Syriac prelate Bar Hebraeus (died 1286) must refer to the Mongol invasions of Bulgaria and Thrace in 1242, although it is mis-dated to 1232:
And the Khan continued to wax strong. And he prepared to attack Constantinople from the quarter of the Bulgarians. And the kings of the Franks heard of this, and they gathered together and they met Batu in battle, and they broke him and made him flee.[4]
This passage seems to confirm that the Mongol armies in Bulgaria, which were under the overall command of Batu, attacked in the direction of Constantinople and were defeated at some point either by the Bulgars or the Latins.[4][5]
John of Garland in his epic poem On the Triumph of the Church, which he completed about 1252 while teaching at the University of Paris, lists the victims of the expansion of the Mongol empire:
The avenger arriving from the East mows down everything he encounters
And subdues the West with his sword.
The leaders of Armenia are dead, the lords of Syria surrender,
The Black Sea groans at the yoke of subjection.
The Caucasus bows, the Danube offers up its weapons in surrender,
Thrace, defeated, mourns its leader.[6]
Thrace was, at the time, a part of the Latin Empire. John seems to imply that its leader, Baldwin II, was killed defending Thrace against the Mongols. While this was not so, there is evidence that the rumour of Baldwin's death was current in western Europe in 1242. Philippe Mouskes in his Rhymed Chronicle of French history, which goes up to 1242, reports that in that year news reached the French court "from Greece ... that the emperor was dead." Prince Geoffrey II of Achaea, who was married to Baldwin's sister Agnes, even sailed with an army to Constantinople on the basis of this rumour, perhaps hoping to seize the throne.[3][7] There is contrary evidence, however, from papal letters that indicates that the false rumour of Baldwin's death was current only between the fall of 1243 and early 1244.[8]
The historian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in the nineteenth century was the first modern historian to notice the passage in the Chronicon Austriacum and attribute the attack to Qadan's army then passing through Bulgaria.[1][9]
Invasion
Baldwin II had made an alliance with some Cumans under their leaders Saronius and Jonas by 1239.[10][11] It seems likely that he was giving shelter to Cumans fleeing the Mongols. The same act of giving shelter to the Mongols' Cuman enemies was the pretext for the Mongol invasion of Hungary, and probably also for the invasion of Bulgaria. It is likely that the attack on the Latin Empire resulted from the same motive: to punish the protectors of the Cumans.[5][12]
Baldwin II was in Constantinople on 12 February 1242, when he addressed a letter to King Louis IX of France. He was again in Constantinople when he addressed a letter to Louis's influential mother, Blanche of Castile, on 5 August 1243. The Mongol invasion must have taken place between these dates, since it drew Baldwin away from the capital.[13] The sources indicate only that the battles took place in Greece, a broad term in medieval sources, which could mean all the territory claimed by the Latin and Byzantine empires. It definitely included Thrace, which was part of the Latin Empire and bordered Bulgaria, which makes it the likely location of the Mongol raids.[14]
According to the Chronicon Austriacum, Baldwin fought two battles with the invading force, which included some Cuman allies of the Mongols. Historians have offered several explanations of the Austrian chronicle's two battles and for Baldwin's motive in riding out to meet the invader. Peter Jackson suggests that Baldwin's initial victory may have come at the expense of these Cumans before the Mongol force arrived to defeat him.[15] John Giebfried, on the other hand, suggests that the two battles may in fact be two phases of a single battle, making Baldwin II the victim of a feigned retreat. He argues, however, that Baldwin possessed sufficiently strong forces to have defeated a Mongol army. He had an alliance of his own with a group of Cumans and had recruited a large army in western Europe for his crusade against Tzurulon in 1239.[13] Jean Richard suggests that in 1242 Baldwin may have been defending his Cuman allies when they came under Mongol attack.[12] Henry Howorth suggests that he had been called to the defence of the young ruler of Bulgaria, Kaliman I, who was his vassal.[16]
Baldwin may have been captured after his defeat, which would explain how rumours of his death originated. In that event, he was likely forced to accept Mongol overlordship and to make annual tribute payments in return for release.[12][13]
Aftermath
By 1251 or 1252, Baldwin II certainly had diplomatic relations with the Mongol Empire, since he sent an ambassador, Baldwin of Hainaut, all the way to the imperial Mongol capital of Karakorum. In 1253, he gave William of Rubruck, a Franciscan missionary, letters of recommendation for Sartaq, the son of Batu, khan of the Golden Horde. Batu was Qadan's superior in 1242 and his army had also invaded Bulgaria.[12]
Jean Richard suggests that Baldwin of Hainaut's mission was a renewal of submission, since a new khan had been elected since 1242.[12][17] The Latin Empire is not listed by William of Rubruck among the tributaries of the Mongol Empire, however, nor was Baldwin II excommunicated for accepting Mongol overlordship as Bohemond V of Antioch was.[13]
The Mongol invasion of the Latin Empire took place just a year before the Mongols' crushing victory over the Seljuks of Anatolia at the battle of Köse Dağ (26 June 1243). Although Baldwin II had negotiated an alliance with the Seljuks in 1241, it was the Byzantine emperor John III Vatatzes who provided aid to the Seljuks, his erstwhile enemies, at a critical juncture in 1242 while they were under Mongol attack. As a result, the position of Vatatzes was strengthened with regards to the rump Seljuk state and the position of Baldwin, defeated by the Mongols himself, was weakened.[18][19] Moreover, a two-year truce between Baldwin and Vatatzes expired on 24 June 1243. The Byzantine emperor seems to have taken advantage of Baldwin's situation to attempt to retake Constantinople, albeit unsuccessfully, as reported in the chronicle of Martin da Canal.[20]
Notes
- ^ a b Vásáry (2005), p. 70.
- ^ Madgearu (2016), pp. 230–31; Vásáry (2005), p. 70n: Tartari et Chumani nemine resistente et occurrente, recesserunt ab Ungaria cum infinita preda auri et argenti, vestium, animalium, multos et captivos utriusque sexus ducebant in obproprium christianorum. Qui intrantes Greciam totam terram illam depopulabant, exceptis castellis et civitatibus valde munitis. Rex vero Constantinopolitanus nomine Paldwinus, congressus est cum eis, a quo primo victi in secunda congressione victus est ab eis.
- ^ a b Giebfried (2013), p. 132.
- ^ a b Madgearu (2016), pp. 230–31.
- ^ a b Jackson (2005), p. 65.
- ^ Giebfried (2013), p. 132. The translation is Martin Hall's. The last line in the original Latin is Suum luget Thracia victa ducem.
- ^ Longnon (1969), p. 243.
- ^ Van Tricht (2019), p. 69.
- ^ Hammer-Purgstall (1840), p. 126.
- ^ Vásáry (2005), p. 66.
- ^ Madgearu (2016), p. 223.
- ^ a b c d e Richard (1992), p. 118.
- ^ a b c d Giebfried (2013), p. 133.
- ^ Richard (1992), p. 116.
- ^ Jackson (2005), p. 79 n. 56.
- ^ Howorth (1880), p. 58.
- ^ Jackson (2005), p. 103.
- ^ Richard (1992), p. 119.
- ^ Giebfried (2013), p. 134.
- ^ Van Tricht (2019), p. 70.
Sources
- Giebfried, John (2013). "The Mongol Invasions and the Aegean World (1241–61)". Mediterranean Historical Review. 28 (2): 129–39. doi:10.1080/09518967.2013.837640. S2CID 162681768.
- Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von (1840). Geschichte der goldenen Horde in Kiptschak, das ist: Der Mongolen in Russland. Pest: C. A. Hartleben.
- Howorth, Henry H. (1880). History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th Century. Vol. Part II: The So-Called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia, Division I. New York: Burt Franklin.
- Jackson, Peter (2005). The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410. Routledge.
- Longnon, Jean (1969). "The Frankish States in Greece, 1204–1311" (PDF). In R. L. Wolff; H. W. Hazard (eds.). A History of the Crusades, Volume 2: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 234–74.
- Madgearu, Alexandru (2016). The Asanids: The Political and Military History of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1280). Leiden: Brill.
- Richard, Jean (1992). "À propos de la mission de Baudouin de Hainaut: l'empire latin de Constantinople et les mongols". Journal des Savants. 1 (1): 115–121. doi:10.3406/jds.1992.1554.
- Van Tricht, Filip (2019). The Horoscope of Emperor Baldwin II: Political and Sociocultural Dynamics in Latin–Byzantine Constantinople. Brill.
- Vásáry, István (2005). Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365. Cambridge University Press.
This page was last edited on 24 November 2023, at 18:16