Empire of Silver (36 page)

Tsubodai’s campaign against the west lasted from around 1232 to 1241. Over that time, he encountered Russians, Bulgars and Hungarian Magyars, took Buda and Pest, attacked Poland and modern-day Serbia, and sent scouts as far as northern Italy. In just one winter, over a period of two months, his tumans took twelve walled Russian cities. They had learned the use of catapults, ballistae, even a form of wall-smashing trebuchet in their wars against northern China. Russia had nothing capable of stopping the war machine of the Mongols.

It is true that Tsubodai preferred to campaign in winter and used the frozen rivers as a network of roads through the cities. Like Genghis before him, he and his generals were ruthless with fallen enemies, slaughtering vast populations. His one worry seems to have been the wide battlefront making it easy to flank or encircle his tumans. Time and again, he sent tumans out in sweeps into Poland, Hungary or Bulgaria to clear the way of possible enemies.

The legendary French Knights Templar said at the time that there was no army between Tsubodai and France that could stop him. Yet even the death of Ogedai might not have halted Tsubodai, had he not had the princes of the nation with him. Batu, Jochi’s son, was there, as was Guyuk, Ogedai’s son. Ogedai’s grandson Kaidu was also present. It was he who raided into Poland with Baidur and fought the extraordinary battle
of Liegnitz, preventing the Polish armies flanking the main attack against Hungary. I have not used Kaidu as a character here, for fear of the ‘Russian novel problem’, where every page brings new characters until the reader loses track. I did include Mongke in the campaign – he was there for most of it, including Kiev. Kublai was not present as one of the princes. He remained in Karakorum, studying Buddhism and establishing the Chinese influence that would dominate his adult life.

Jebe too was absent for that campaign, though I have kept him as a minor character. The
Secret History
does not tell his ending, unfortunately. As with Kachiun and Khasar, a once great leader simply slipped from the pages of history and was lost. Early death was common in those days, of course, and they almost certainly met their end through disease or injury, a death so ordinary as to be ignored by chroniclers.

Temuge did make a final, rash attempt to become khan after the death of Ogedai. It was unsuccessful and he was executed.

Interestingly, Sorhatani
was
given her husband’s rights and titles on his death. In that one decision, she instantly became the most powerful woman in the khanate – and in the world at that time. Three of her four sons would become khan through her influence and training. She supported Ogedai as khan and was consulted by him as the empire grew and became established. The one time she refused his wishes was when he offered to marry her to his son, Guyuk. She turned the offer down, preferring to concentrate her considerable energies on her sons. History confirms her wisdom in that matter.

When Tsubodai’s tumans entered Hungary over the Carpathian mountains, he faced the armies of the Hungarian King Bela IV. That monarch had accepted 200,000 Cuman refugees from Russia, a Turkic people similar to the Mongols in many ways. In exchange for their conversion to Christianity, they were
given a brief sanctuary. Their leader Köten was baptised and his daughter married King Bela’s son to seal the agreement. In exchange, King Bela was able to field an army of nomadic horsemen in addition to his own forces. He also expected help from the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, who was king of what is now Germany, Italy, Sicily, Cyprus and Jerusalem, or perhaps Pope Gregory IX. However, they were locked in their own struggle for power, with the Pope excommunicating Frederick II and even declaring him the Antichrist. As a result, the king of Hungary was left to resist the Mongol invasion almost without support. He did have forces from Archduke Frederick of Austria, but they withdrew after the death of Köten in a riot. The Cumans also left.

It is true that King Bela sent bloody swords throughout his kingdom to raise the people. There is a record of Batu’s missive to the king, demanding that the Russian Cumans and their leader Köten be handed over. Batu’s message was stark and simple: ‘Word has come to me that you have taken the Cumans, our servants, under your protection. Cease harbouring them, or you will make of me an enemy because of them. They, who have no houses and dwell in tents, will find it easy to escape. But you who dwell in houses within towns – how can you escape me?’

It is interesting to note that the demand was sent in Batu’s name. As a senior prince and son to Jochi, the first-born of Genghis, he was in nominal command of the Golden Horde, as they were known. Yet it was Tsubodai who led them strategically and tactically. It was a complex relationship and it came to a head when news of Ogedai’s death finally reached them.

Budapest is around four and a half thousand miles west of Karakorum in the same land mass. Tsubodai’s extraordinary campaign took the Mongol tumans right across Kazakhstan, Russia to Moscow and Kiev, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Eastern Prussia and Croatia. They were knocking
on the door of Austria when Ogedai died. It was in fact the French King Louis IX who fixed a confusing name for the Mongols in European minds. As he prepared his armies to march, he told his wife that his soldiers would send the Tartars to hell, or the Tartars would send them to heaven. He deliberately punned on the Latin word for hell, ‘Tartarus’, and the erroneous name ‘Tartar’ stuck for centuries as a result.

I have omitted a detailed description of the battle of Liegnitz, which took place as the climax of Baidur’s sweep through Poland. It is the nature of such a sweep that there are many battles, against varied opponents, but there is a limit to how many can be squeezed into a novel, even one about the Mongols. In history, Liegnitz is one of the few really well-known Mongol battles – omitting it is the equivalent of writing about Nelson without mentioning the Nile. For the sake of the plot flow, however, I think it was the right decision. At Liegnitz, Baidur used the feigned retreat, but he added the innovation of tar barrels that sent white smoke across the battlefield. This simple device prevented one half of a Polish army seeing what was happening to the other half. It could easily have been the climax of this book, but the other well-known battle is Sajo river and that was Tsubodai’s triumph.

Tsubodai’s final recorded battle combined not only a night attack and flanking manoeuvre, not only the masterful use of terrain in the way he made the river work for him, but also the now ancient trick of leaving a path for the enemy to escape, only to fall on him as he does. Tsubodai led three tumans across a ford to the south of the encamped Hungarian armies, sending Batu against the left flank at dawn, while the rest galloped further to hit the Hungarian rear. King Bela was forced to take refuge in his night camp, while the Mongols caused chaos with firecrackers, burning tar in barrels and shooting random arrows. They had gone from the prey to the hunter and made the most of it.

In the midst of the chaos, King Bela’s men saw a ridge of ground running west that lay out of sight of the Mongols. He tested the escape route by sending out a small number, watching as they rode to safety. As the day wore on, the king tried to send his entire army from the camp. In their panic, they lost formation and were strung out over miles. It was at that point that Tsubodai’s men attacked the column. He had scouted the ground. He knew the ridge and had deliberately left the route open to trap them. Depending on the source, the Mongol tumans slaughtered 40–65,000 of the Hungarian army, ending it as an entity for a generation or more. King Bela escaped the slaughter and fled to Austria. When the Mongols left, he went on to rebuild Hungary from ruins. He is still honoured as one of Hungary’s great kings, despite his disastrous encounter with Tsubodai.

In many ways, it was a fitting end to Tsubodai’s military career, though of course he did not see it like that. Hungary was in ruins when the news came of Ogedai’s death and everything changed.

The brilliant tactical manoeuvres of Liegnitz and the Sajo river were rendered void by the Mongol withdrawal. They are rarely taught outside military schools, in part because they did not lead on to conquest. Politics intruded on Tsubodai’s ambitions. If it had not, all history would have changed. There are not many moments in history when the death of a single man changed the entire world. Ogedai’s death was one such moment. If he had lived, there would have been no Elizabethan age, no British Empire, no Renaissance, perhaps no Industrial Revolution. In such circumstances, this book could very well have been written in Mongolian or Chinese.

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^*
Published in the USA as
Genghis: Birth of an Empire