The Mongols could have conquered Europe?

[Joecoolyo]

That's what most Mongol incursions started as. See, Russia/China/Khwarezm. The trick was figuring out when the raid had done enough damage, that it might be profitable to change over to conquest.

Yeah, that is true. Khwarezm was a dedicated invasion though after the faux pas with the trading caravan.

So I guess we fall back on Dach's argument from here, the Mongols closest to Europe did not have the capability or the resources to pull this off, and the Mongols in China who did were too dead-set on finishing the Song to commit anything other than that.

 

[Dachs]

As I recall last time we did this, I ended up somewhere in the vicinity of thinking that, sure the Mongols could possibly have conquered western Europe, on the condition that they had adapted and intregrated themselves into European society, and into how European politics were played at the time, with some mutual adaptation. Which I believe is not that far off from how they did it in China? If the Mongols sizeing Europe up for a fit convert to Christianity in the process maybe we might have a different ball-game...?

Maybe. But even if the Mongols of what eventually became the Blue and/or Golden Hordes decided to convert to Christianity, they'd still have to deal with the fact that they'd be trying to, effectively, conquer Europe from Russia - "from" in the sense not only of a geostrategic direction, but "from" also meaning "relying chiefly on the manpower, economic power, and military might of". That's never actually happened, or even come sort of a little bit close to happening. Whereas in China they were trying to conquer southern China from northern China, relying chiefly on the resources and military forces of northern China in the process. That had already happened more than a few times in Chinese history, and would happen again.

So I guess we fall back on Dach's argument from here, the Mongols closest to Europe did not have the capability or the resources to pull this off, and the Mongols in China who did were too dead-set on finishing the Song to commit anything other than that.

The Mongols in China were not even part of the equation.

And it's Dachs, not Dach.

 

[Verbose]

Maybe. But even if the Mongols of what eventually became the Blue and/or Golden Hordes decided to convert to Christianity, they'd still have to deal with the fact that they'd be trying to, effectively, conquer Europe from Russia - "from" in the sense not only of a geostrategic direction, but "from" also meaning "relying chiefly on the manpower, economic power, and military might of". That's never actually happened, or even come sort of a little bit close to happening. Whereas in China they were trying to conquer southern China from northern China, relying chiefly on the resources and military forces of northern China in the process. That had already happened more than a few times in Chinese history, and would happen again.

Well, actually my thinking was that Russia wouldn't be close enough, but that the Mongols would have to set up shop in some form in a more westerly direction — Hungary, Poland or? But the general point is that to conquer Europe they would have to integrate in it to an extent where it would eventually become debatable whether they could still be regarded as "Mongol".

 

[Dachs]

That sort of implies a sustained impetus towards general European conquest over the course of decades or centuries, a rather different proposition than a single war against a single opponent like the war against the Song was - and almost certainly something that could not even be intellectually sustained, let alone militarily, by any sort of Christian European Mongol state.

 

[Joecoolyo]

The Mongols in China were not even part of the equation.

Never said they were, just that they were the only ones with the resources and organization to even begin such an operation, and they wouldn't do it.

And it's Dachs, not Dach.

derpderp

 

[Mouthwash]

Can someone please explain to me the Pope's reaction towards killing their own horses and burning their crops? I need sources.

 

[Dachs]

Look, turning the whole of Catholic Europe into a suicide cult, Jonestown writ large, is not a particularly good method of fighting off invaders.

 

[Traitorfish]

Fun, though.

 

[Mouthwash]

But how would they have gotten past the Po river valley despite being surrounded by the armies of the HRE, France, and the Italian states? That's what I picture happening.

 

[red_elk]

Europeans would have needed to kill their wives too, otherwise Mongols would be tempted to rape them.

 

[Dachs]

But how would they have gotten past the Po river valley despite being surrounded by the armies of the HRE, France, and the Italian states? That's what I picture happening.

Why do you keep focusing on northern Italy?

Anyway. Strategic envelopment is not the same thing as operational envelopment. We are talking about medieval armies, not the armies of the First World War; they could not hope to block every route out of the north Italian lowlands against a sufficiently determined and skilled attacker with knowledge of the region. Especially since effective cooperation between Friedrich II, Louis IX, the papacy, and the northern Italian estates opposed to Friedrich would be virtually impossible to achieve.

What would make northern Italy a potential death trap are things significantly more mundane. The region had a preponderance of fortified places, which would force any Mongol attacker to lay siege to them, something that they could certainly do but not in any sense quickly. It was a malarial wasteland, a graveyard of large invading armies, and the longer the Mongols stayed in the region the more men and horses they would lose to disease. Northern Italy also would not have possessed fodder in any sufficient amount for the horses the Mongols would require; there is no place that could, west of the great Hungarian Plain. And while the Alps would not serve very well as a rampart from which the Imperial forces could surround the Mongols, they would serve extremely well as a way to isolate them from the remaining Mongol forces and make coordination with the others, a hallmark of effective Mongol operational maneuver, all but impossible without even needing to station large numbers of troops in the way.

But abstractly thinking about potential operations in Italy or Germany is unnecessary, and sketching out anything but the most vague idea of how the campaigns might go would be pointless. It is quite apparent that the Mongols would not have posed a serious threat to the liberty of Christian Europe without needing to work through the whole potential conquest step by step.

 

[Princeps]

The mongols conquered most of Asia before dissolving into warring successor khanates, many of which continued the tradition of impressive conquests, like the Timurids and Mughals. In the 1200s, they would have easily swept aside any field army Europe could plausibly send to resist them. Conquering the entirety of Europe would have been a longer ordeal, as Europe was very fortified and it was not the most favorable terrain to mongol cavalry armies. But, assuming the mongols would have stayed united and determined in that goal, they could have conquered Europe in piecemeal fashion quite rapidly. The Mongols would have needed to exterminate the agricultural population along a corridor that their armies will take next summer to guarantee a plentiful supply of fodder for their horses. Europe didn't have any significant military or economic advantage in this period: European advantages arose when Europeans began to master new capital-intensive innovations after 1550s.

Mongols would not have needed to focus on Italy. They could have swept across the Holy Roman Empire into France and so on. Italy would have fallen, most likely, to the Muslims along with the byzantines.

The Industrial revolution would have unfolded as it did. The Altaic armies would not have reached England or Spain and eventually, the Mongols in Europe would have converted to Christianity and simply become a part of Europe's ruling class, perhaps its apex for a time. They simply weren't numerous enough to displace a local culture. So, I'd argue that the effect of a Mongol conquest would have been rather limited, resulting in perhaps a poorer central Europe, a Muslim southern Italy, but nothing like "destruction of Christendom".

 

[sophie]

But how would they have gotten past the Po river valley despite being surrounded by the armies of the HRE, France, and the Italian states? That's what I picture happening.

Who are you talking to here? I don't think anybody on this thread has seriously made this argument thus far, nor anything even remotely close to this argument, for that matter.

 

[innonimatu]

But, assuming the mongols would have stayed united and determined in that goal, they could have conquered Europe in piecemeal fashion quite rapidly. The Mongols would have needed to exterminate the agricultural population along a corridor that their armies will take next summer to guarantee a plentiful supply of fodder for their horses. Europe didn't have any significant military or economic advantage in this period: European advantages arose when Europeans began to master new capital-intensive innovations after 1550s.

As you admit, Europe had people. Plenty of people. That's a huge military and economic advantage against an invader that absolutely cannot move large numbers into the territory. There simply was no way for the mongols to transfer large armies across the wastelands of Asia to attack Europe, even if they did tried to leverage on their chinese resources. They'd have to conquer and submit large numbers of europeans, then use them to attack the rest of Europe. It was not going to happen: they never even managed to subdue the princes of the Rus, only get the occasional tribute mixed with rebellions. Europe, unlike northern China, was too fragmented and too foreign to be conquered and then controlled by the mongols. The mongols who did get there across Asia as reinforcements would be constantly ground down fighting rebellions.

The mongols, like the Romans, the Arabs, or the Ottomans at the maximum extent of their empires, were pushing the limits of what with their technology could be controlled by a single imperial center, or even a single people, without losing its cohesiveness, without losing the ability of suppression rebellions. Their limits were larger because their mobility (nomads on horseback -> faster communications) was greater than the military of those other empires, but they had reached them in eastern Europe, in the territory of what became the Golden Horde.

It is proof of their military success that they did reach those limits (not that I'm accepting that the mongols would have fared well fighting in Germany, for example), but logistics were always the ultimate limitation on empires with successful armies. Even in the modern age: the planners of the british empire, in the steam age, spent much of their time obsessed about ways to cut expenses and prop up puppets to alleviate over-stretched resources (men and finances) after they bit too much by annexing the Middle East after WW1.

 

[Dachs]

Even in the modern age: the planners of the british empire, in the steam age, spent much of their time obsessed about ways to cut expenses and prop up puppets to alleviate over-stretched resources (men and finances) after they bit too much by annexing the Middle East after WW1.

Before, even.

 

[Mouthwash]

Why do you keep focusing on northern Italy?

Anyway. Strategic envelopment is not the same thing as operational envelopment. We are talking about medieval armies, not the armies of the First World War; they could not hope to block every route out of the north Italian lowlands against a sufficiently determined and skilled attacker with knowledge of the region. Especially since effective cooperation between Friedrich II, Louis IX, the papacy, and the northern Italian estates opposed to Friedrich would be virtually impossible to achieve.

What would make northern Italy a potential death trap are things significantly more mundane. The region had a preponderance of fortified places, which would force any Mongol attacker to lay siege to them, something that they could certainly do but not in any sense quickly. It was a malarial wasteland, a graveyard of large invading armies, and the longer the Mongols stayed in the region the more men and horses they would lose to disease. Northern Italy also would not have possessed fodder in any sufficient amount for the horses the Mongols would require; there is no place that could, west of the great Hungarian Plain. And while the Alps would not serve very well as a rampart from which the Imperial forces could surround the Mongols, they would serve extremely well as a way to isolate them from the remaining Mongol forces and make coordination with the others, a hallmark of effective Mongol operational maneuver, all but impossible without even needing to station large numbers of troops in the way.

But abstractly thinking about potential operations in Italy or Germany is unnecessary, and sketching out anything but the most vague idea of how the campaigns might go would be pointless. It is quite apparent that the Mongols would not have posed a serious threat to the liberty of Christian Europe without needing to work through the whole potential conquest step by step.

But wouldn't they have been trapped there? Wouldn't the other sides attack from behind as soon as they went after one? Remember Hannibal also fought the Romans there.

 

[Verbose]

But wouldn't they have been trapped there? Wouldn't the other sides attack from behind as soon as they went after one? Remember Hannibal also fought the Romans there.

Weerl. Considering what European politics tended to be like, just maybe they might find themselves a side to ally with pro tem?

 

[sophie]

But wouldn't they have been trapped there? Wouldn't the other sides attack from behind as soon as they went after one? Remember Hannibal also fought the Romans there.

lol. Yeah whatever. BUT THE PO RIVER!

 

[Mouthwash]

Who are you talking to here? I don't think anybody on this thread has seriously made this argument thus far, nor anything even remotely close to this argument, for that matter.

I made that argument in my first post.

 

[sophie]

I made that argument in my first post.

No, you made an argument against it. Who are you talking to?