North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
I think the main problem the mongols would have was grazing land, and that shouldn't be TOO hard, after all, the Euros themselves supported larger numbers of horses in armies.
North King said:I think the main problem the mongols would have was grazing land, and that shouldn't be TOO hard, after all, the Euros themselves supported larger numbers of horses in armies.
Oda Nobunaga said:Indeed. "Europe would have beaten the mongols" is an unsupported claim, given that we only have two engagements to look at, and both involved europeans being very soundly beaten by numerically inferior mongol forces.
well, Veii did, but thats in a period long before th emiddle ages; constantinople had some mighty multi-year seiges thoughNorth King said:@BOTP:
China wasn't militarized? What the frick? It was divided, one half of it was a highly militarized nation that had conquered its way to dominance, the other so defensively minded that towns took YEARS to reduce.
Oh, and about this "Euro fortresses were designed to hold out well for long periods of time", well point me to ONE siege in Euro history that lasted ten years. THEN we can talk about holding out a long time.
ahem, the tuetonic knights wer ehardley the best europe had to offer- they couldnt even beat disorginzed Finnish tribes very well, let alone a real army liek the mongolsAbout Leignitz being a mess, that was obvious, most battles against the Mongols were a mess. Regardless, the Euros were sending the elite core of the Teutonic knights, the Polish cavalry, some of the best in Europe, and in Hungary they faced other massive armies. ALL OF THEM WERE DEFEATED. It was barely even a contest, the Mongols simply outinvented, outflanked, and outfought the Euros at every opportune.
not always; richard proved askilel dmarshal coudl knok out those international tensions, and lead a european force to be VERY effective, and bloody the nose of even saladin; given such a huge prempt of self defence, i thinks its likellt that western europe woudl conceed martial ability to eh most able master- a tleast if the pope commanded it, which woudl be likelly in that caseTo say that a contemperary European army raised up to fight the Mongols (which, BTW, would probably be composed of several nationalities, even if from only one nation, and thus would be fractured and disorganized) would be able to beat them in a stand up fight is ludicrous at best.
of course, but the question is if thier plans could themselves be supportedAs for logistics, the Mongols were quite aware of these, they didn't just figure they could keep on fighting forever. They certainly planned in all other instances for the logistical aspect, and they would surely here too as well.
Xen said:Not really- the had compartivlly large cavry forces when comapring to other, non major horse users (*funny, considering how important mounted comabt was- btu then it was predominat more because of what being mounted symbolized, rather then tactical intitiatives) but when comparing to the armies of east? the europeans were primarilly foot, at least for the vast majority of kingdoms
but look at what trouble the europeans DID cause from what few foritfacatiosn they did it from in eastern europe- now, apply that to western europe, and you begin to see th emongols having real problems due to all thos eunrulelly fortifacations hard to access places; hard to access because the europeans deisigned thier fortifacations wwith most of the seige weapons th emongols had, liek the oh so feared trebuchet, in mind- mind you, cannonry did not work better then the regule rphysics at that point.
well, Veii did, but thats in a period long before th emiddle ages; constantinople had some mighty multi-year seiges though
ahem, the tuetonic knights wer ehardley the best europe had to offer- they couldnt even beat disorginzed Finnish tribes very well, let alone a real army liek the mongols
not always; richard proved askilel dmarshal coudl knok out those international tensions, and lead a european force to be VERY effective, and bloody the nose of even saladin; given such a huge prempt of self defence, i thinks its likellt that western europe woudl conceed martial ability to eh most able master- a tleast if the pope commanded it, which woudl be likelly in that case
of course, but the question is if thier plans could themselves be supported
Uiler said:Another thing is while there are not Chinese fortresses per se, Chinese cities were essentially fortresses. They were surrounded by massive walls. Also the location of many important cities were decided in periods of warring states where easily defensive positions were important. We shouldn't forget that for large periods of Chinese history various parts were constantly engaged in civil war. And Chinese tend to be more autocratic about building cities rather than just letting them spring up. There was a lot more central planning involved. For example Nanjing came about because Sun Quan wanted a capital. They scouted around, found a good defensive position and decided to built a capital city there from scratch. Also some cities like Guangzhou originated from military colonies.
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I think the question is, if the Mongolians laid siege to European fortresses for 5-10 years using Muslim and Chinese siege technology, could those fortresses actually hold out
What's this continual stuff about how much trouble those fortifications caused? It was mentioned once and now everyone is pouncing on it. The only reason they are even noticable as a blip on your Anti-Mongol radar is that the field armies of Hungary were defeated so fast as to make them the only possible points of resistance. And King Bela put so much faith into them, apparently, that he ran away.
North King said:I think the main problem the mongols would have was grazing land, and that shouldn't be TOO hard, after all, the Euros themselves supported larger numbers of horses in armies.
Oda Nobunaga said:Indeed. "Europe would have beaten the mongols" is an unsupported claim, given that we only have two engagements to look at, and both involved europeans being very soundly beaten by numerically inferior mongol forces.
North King said:No, really? What I'm saying is that the huge supply trains of the Western Euro armies managed to survive there as well, though there was difficulty in procuring fodder, it was not impossible.
Uiler said:Another thing is, I'm not sure the Mongolians were all that serious about invading Europe. Remember in China they used to engage the Chinese in seiges that would last 5 years. In Europe they didn't even bother. They come across a fortification, shrug their shoulders and go "Why bother?" It seemed more like a raid rather than an entirely serious invasion attempt. It seemed more like a "Let's do it because we can" thing. In China after the death of Genghis Khan derailed the first attempt they came back later and defeated China over a gruelling 40 years. In Europe the death of a great Khan derailed the first attempt and then they didn't even bother to come back. It didn't seem as if there was a lot of seriousness involved. China seemed to be the main focus of their attention and Europe was just a sideline they engaged in their spare time.
Jeff Yu said:By the way, Xen, how's it coming on those names? What are the names and places of the battles outside of east Asia (ie China and Japan) where the Mongols used mass infantry armies? Since according to you the Mongols used massed infantry tactics everywhere except during their initial rise I'm sure you would have no problem providing countless examples.
BOTP said:First of all, how do you expect the Mongols to transport their seige trains to Europe? And Why would the Mongols want to stay besieging a fortress for 10 years That would negate their mobility (the one thing that makes them famous) and just make them a sitting duck for larger relief armies.
A lot of ignorance here. In 1285 the Kipchak Tatars returned to Europe and occupied Transylvania. As before they were unsupported by Chinese or Persian artillery. In 1286 the Mongol Prince Nogai advanced against Cracow and Tole-Buka attacked Sandomir. But the Poles showed they had learnt by their sobering experience at Liegnitz half a century earlier. This time the garrisons werent tempted to engage the horse archers in the field. They clung to their walls and both cities held out against the Tatar assaults. So the Poles faced the same evil and they defeated it, and the defences of civilisation failed to crumble. The Mongols once again withdrew, first to Volynia, and then to the longitudinal belt of steppes north of the Black Sea: the empty expanses of European Scythia. And they never came back.
Xen said:
you "misunderstand" only to try to slur my point- I specificilly said that th emongols didnt give a hell about thie rinfantry- and didnt make great tacticle concessiosn for it; but that dosent stop the end result from beign what it was- the infantry taking up an incresinglly important role, until, with steppe natiosn that did fulyl settle, it eclpised the cavalry entirelly- that didnt happen witht he moongols, the ecplise of the cavalry, but the tacticle important of the massed infantry is not to be denyied either.
Jeff Yu said:Then name some Mongol battles outside of East Asia where they used massed infantry tactics then. I didn't even ask for ones where they played a key role. Name some Mongol battles where they used massed infantry at all, period.
This is starting to smell suspciously like BS, just like when you spuriously claimed that Atilla's Huns were a massive horse-mounted steppe army, when in fact they were a settled people settled into Hungary for generations and in fact leading a confederation of Eastern European barbarian peoples.
BOTP said:You can't possibly judge the European Military on just two battles. And do you know how the Mongols won and why the Hungarians didn't? The best way we can even hope to even compare the two in battle, is creating simulations for the armies you can use a baseline of gauging their respective effectiveness against similar enemies (like the Scythians and Huns, Chinese, Turks, Sracens, etc.)
Will only answer to this due to lack of time.North King said:Oh, and about this "Euro fortresses were designed to hold out well for long periods of time", well point me to ONE siege in Euro history that lasted ten years. THEN we can talk about holding out a long time.