Passing the Mongol Wheel Test
Ulen...
Glad you found the thesis interesting. It certainly added to my Mongol references. My interest in the Mongols goes back to the ancient days when I was a boy in the early 1950s. It was greatly focused by SWC conversations with Ken White. Subotai was one in Ken White's short-list of generals who deserved close study. Thus, my more recent interest in Subotai; and eventually my realization that the Mongols were really part of "Gian Gentile's army" (conventional, well-regulated, professional). They were scarcely the semi-barbarian horde envisioned even by such as Carl von Clausewitz (On War, p & h trans.; 7 tiny refs to "Tartars").
IMO: The Mongols were a very professional and conventionally organized armed force, particularly as compared to the Eastern European rabbles they met and defeated. They had well developed rules of strategy and tactics, and perhaps the greatest operational soldier, Subotai. As British officers were shaped by the Etonian fields, Mongol officers were shaped by the Great Hunts - practice makes perfect. Gabriel, Genghis Khan's Greatest General: Subotai the Valiant (2006).
For a fictional (based on history) account of the misfortune of a young Mongol officer to be kept frozen in grade for a combat faux pas, see Rutherfurd, Russka (mass paperback, 1991), chap. 3 "The Tatar", the "bad report" at p.154. They also had a well developed sense of their own systematic and moral theologies; e.g., Eliade, Shamanism (1964).
In tune with that, they developed a set of rules for war, spanning jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum. Gabriel's Subotai has a general summary of siegecraft and surrender policies (pp.39-42); and, for individual events, discussions in the four chapters (ch. 3-6) dealing with regional campaigns. Gabriel argues that Russian and Polish fortifications and cities presented no great challenge to the Mongols; but that Germany's castles and cities (and I'd add its mountains and forests) would have been a far harder nut to crack (pp.119-120).
Subotai lived out his days on the Danube, in close proximity to his son Uriangkatai and grandson Achu who were officers in the Golden Horde of Batu. In 1257, Uriangkatai led an army against the Kingdom of Annam; and took and pillaged Hanoi in December. (Gabriel, Subotai, p.136, nn.22-24). I'd not be an LBJ snark, if I didn't note here that Uriangkatai's concept was not based on "graduated response". In any event, it was not distance or lack of mobility that led to the Mongols stopping at the Eastern Danube.
Whatever the Mongols did (call it what you will) was driven by military and/or political considerations. The command decisions appear to have been largely left to the judgment of the commander on the scene. Thus, the rules tended to be flexible. However, if the siege commander accepted a surrender, that did not mean that those surrendering would not be killed. E.g., as to jus post bellum, we read such as "All males taller than the axle of a wagon are put to death". See, Massacres.
It's well to keep in mind that the Mongols operated with relatively small forces (they only appeared to be overwhelmingly large to the credulous, such as Saint Carl); they operated over very long and remote lines of supply and communication; and the people they conquered (like the Mongols themselves) very much accepted the law of talion - and hence could not be trusted. Thus, I tend to accept the answer of the "Massacres" author as the better reasoning behind the Mongols' policies:
What would David Kilcullen say to the last paragraph ?When Genghis Khan attempts the conquest of the world (1209), the Mongol population numbers between 400 000 and 600 000 inhabitants, among which 200 000 are warriors. Together, all the countries targeted for conquest can muster a global population of more than 200 millions inhabitants (which is then 400 times the total number of inhabitants in Mongolia). The Mongols are a tiny minority and their army is almost always outnumbered when facing the various enemies on countless battlefields.
The fact that their enemies are much more numerous triggers an inferiority complex among the Mongols, and the panic fear that their armies may be drowned some day in the multitude of the conquered populations. The only solution to make these conquered populations less dangerous, would be to decrease their numbers; and the only way to achieve that would be to massacre an important part of each of them.
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If one asks: why all those massacres?, the only answer that comes to mind is military necessity. The coming of the Mongol horsemen was generally not followed by rebellion (except in the Khwarezm and especially the Khorassan), because the revolts were crushed beforehand by a terror without precedent. Such massacres, when 98% of the population of certain regions is exterminated, leave a lasting impression. When only 2% of the population is left alive, terror works and the survivors have no inclination to revolt anymore.
Furthermore, during a military campaign, depopulation is sometimes the most convenient means of securing the rear. There is no need to leave behind an occupation army in a depopulated land. The great novelty is to be able to control a territory without ever having to occupy it.
Partisan war against the occupier is impossible. You cannot harass the occupier, then there is no occupation. This kind of remote control (the Mongol armies are stationed far away from the rare conquered cities that have been left intact) renders all modern techniques of urban guerrilla warfare or jungle warfare completely inefficient against the Mongols.
Regards
Mike
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