1.5: The Mongols

The Mongols were nomads and herders with very strong traditions of horse riding, archery, and warfare, who lived in the eastern steppes of Asia. Traditionally, they threatened China. In 1206 the Mongols elected a leader named Temujin (b. 1167) “Khan,” which simply means “warlord.” After his election, he launched the single most successful campaign of empire-building in world history, eventually becoming known as Genghis Khan, or “Great Khan”.

Temujin personally oversaw the beginning of the expansion of the “Mongol Horde”. Over the following decades, Mongol armies conquered all of Central Asia itself, Persia (in 1221), northern China (in 1234), Russia (in 1241), the Abbasid Caliphate (in 1258), and southern China (in 1279). Importantly, most of these conquests occurred under Temujin’s sons and grandsons (he died in 1227), demonstrating that Mongol military prowess was not dependent on Temujin’s personal genius. Ultimately, the Mongol empires (a series of “Khanates” divided between the sons and grandsons of Temujin) stretched from Hungary to Anatolia and from Siberia to the South China Sea.

Figure 2.1.1: The Mongol Empire at its height, under Temujin’s grandson Kublai Khan, was the largest land empire in world history.

In 1241, Poland and Hungary would have been incorporated into the Mongol empire if the Great Khan Ogodei (Temujin's third son) had not died, and the European Tumen were recalled to the Mongol capital of Karakorum. This event spared what could have been a Mongol push into Central Europe itself. As it happens, the Mongols never came back.

Mongol rule had mixed consequences for both Asian and European history. Trade stabilized across the west–east axis in Eurasia, as Silk Road traders enjoyed a relatively peaceful route. It also terrified Europeans, who heard travelers’ tales of the non-Christian “Tatars” in the east who had crushed all opposition. Meanwhile, in Russia, it created a complex political situation in which the native Slavic peoples were forced to pay tribute to Mongol lords. To this day, the period of Mongol rule is often taught in Russia as the period of the "Tatar Yoke," when any hope of progress for Russia was suspended for centuries while the rest of Europe advanced. While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, it still has a kernel of truth.