Download PDF | The Devils Horsemen The Mongol Invasion Of Europe By James Chambers
Pages: 212
Preface
SEVERAL books have been written in English about the Mongol conquests, the subsequent empires which the Mongols ruled, the travellers who visited them and even the diplomatic relations between their khans and the papacy. But nothing has been written about the Mongol invasion of Europe. In this book I have rashly endeavoured to fill that gap. But I did not set out to write a detailed account of every event that took place in Europe during the invasion. I have simply attempted to tell the story of an extraordinary campaign, outline its causes and far-reaching consequences and place it in its historical perspective.
The contemporary sources were written in more than ten languages and it is unlikely that anyone could read them all in their original. Fortunately, however, most of the Middle Eastern and Oriental sources have been translated into at least one European language by eminent scholars who have added their own notes and commentaries. These translations are listed in the Bibliography and their notes and commentaries were often my guides when the Latin sources were contradictory and the bias of modern Central European historians was obvious. I must also acknowledge that I could not have found my way through the maze of contemporary sources without the further guidance of the leading histories of the Mongol period, particularly the works of G. Vernadsky, B. Spuler, I. de Rachewiltz and J.J. Saunders, and above all the notes and articles of P. Pelliot.
There are now many ways of spelling Mongol names. In the past Europeans based their transliteration on Arabic. Thus, for example, since there is no ‘ch’ in Arabic, Chingis Khan was spelt Jingis Khan and then Genghis Khan. But today it is more common to present the names in a form that is closer to their Oriental pronunciation and this I have attempted to do. However, I have also tried to spell them in a way which will be easy to read and where the Oriental form is very different from the older European spelling, I have only adapted the older form to bring it closer to the Oriental without making it unrecognizable.
Finally I would like to thank Sheila Murphy for her encouragement, Christopher Falkus for his infectious enthusiasm and confidence, my editor, Christine Sandeman, for her patience and judgement, and my wife Josephine for her tolerance.
London 1978 James Chambers
The First Move West
IN the late winter of 1220, Ali ad-Din boarded the only remaining fishing boat in the village of Astara on the shores of the Caspian Sea and sailed out towards the island of Abeskum.
As he passed through the village dressed in rags, he and his handful of followers appeared to be nothing more than another group of refugees, but a few months before Ali ad-Din had been Muhammad Ali Shah, Emperor of Khwarizm, Transoxiana and Khurasan. His rich empire had stretched from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea to the river Indus and the Hindu Kush, yet in those few months he had lost it all; and as the boat pulled away the shore behind became thick with mounted archers charging hopelessly into the water, their arrows falling short in its wake.
When he came to the throne of Khwarizm in 1200 as Muhammad 11, Ali ad-Din also inherited the enormous army with which he had already begun the easy conquest of Khurasan. His empire had been founded by Khutbeddin Muhammad, a Turkish mercenary who had governed the area on behalf of the Seljuks and acquired enough wealth and power to declare independence. Although the indigenous population was Persian, Muhammad I1’s courtiers and soldiers were the Turkish descendants of Khutbeddin’s mercenaries, and the fierce corps of horsemen who formed his bodyguard were Kanglis, a tribe of Kipchaks or eastern Cumans from the steppes beyond the Aral Sea, imported by his mother Turkan Khatun, who was the daughter of their chief. Against such soldiers as these the peaceful Persian people of Khurasan could offer no more than token resistance.
Although he was ambitious, Muhammad was irresolute and unimaginative. He bolstered his lack of security with the strength of his army and camouflaged his lack of confidence with vanity. The easy conquest of his ill-defended neighbours offered him the opportunity not only to indulge an army that was too large to justify in time of peace, but also to increase his own wealth and enhance his reputation. Continuing the campaign that he had begun under his father, he led his army through the rich, irrigated farm lands that had once been desert, secured the ancient cities and annexed the whole of Khurasan to his empire. The operation took not much longer than the time required for his army to cover the distance, but it brought him the prestige that he longed for. While he proclaimed himself to the world as ‘the chosen prince of Allah’ and his sycophantic courtiers nicknamed him the second Alexander, his neighbours, fearful of his army and his ambition, began to offer him tribute and allegiance.
To the east of Muhammad’s empire lay the empire of Transoxiana and to the north-east of that, the powerful Buddhist empire of Kara Khitai, which bordered the eastern steppes and screened the kingdoms of Islam from the new empire of the nomad Mongols. When Muhammad, ‘the chosen prince of Allah’, refused to pay any further tribute to the infidel rulers of Kara Khitai, Osman, Emperor of Transoxiana, transferred his own allegiance from Kara Khitai to Khwarizm. Both Osman and Muhammad believed that internal struggles would prevent the Buddhist army from protecting its interests, but when Kara Khitai was invaded from the east by the Mongols, Muhammad saw the chance that even his caution could not resist. While Kara Khitai fell to the Mongols the Khwarizmian army marched almost unopposed into Transoxiana. By opportunism, and without ever really testing his army in the field, Muhammad had made himself one of the most powerful rulers in Islam and with the revenues of Transoxiana in his coffers he was unquestionably the richest.
Lying between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, rivers which were known in the west as the Oxus and the Jaxartes, desolated in the north by the impenetrable desert of Kizil Kum and only made fertile in the south by extensive irrigation, Transoxiana was not rich in natural resources, but across its heart ran the overland trade routes of the world. At the eastern end of the road on the Syr Darya stood the commercial centre of Khojend, in the west near the Amu Darya the mosques, universities and carpet warehouses of Bukhara and between them the city that Muhammad 11 had chosen for his new capital, Samarkand.
Huge suburbs shaded by poplar trees and decorated with fountains and canals surrounded a city so rich that even within its walls every house had a garden. In the factories the citizens wove silk, cotton and silver lamé, the Persian craftsmen worked saddles, harnesses and decorated copper and the workshops of the Chinese quarter produced the rag paper that was used throughout the Middle East. From the fields beyond the suburbs the farmers exported melons and aubergines wrapped in snow and packed in lead boxes. The vast population exceeded five hundred thousand. It was in Samarkand that Muhammad’s courtiers housed their treasures and their harems and lived in a splendour that was unequalled even in the east; it was from there that they rode out to hunt dressed in cloth of gold with tame cheetahs clinging on to the saddles behind them.
Muhammad settled down to enjoy the magnificence of his new capital, but he did not disband his army. An avaricious tax collector, he was as unpopular among the Persian inhabitants of his huge empire as were his plundering Turkish soldiers. To allay his fears of rebellion the army had to be kept at full strength and to keep that army contented and maintain his reputation as a conqueror he would occasionally lead it out on minor expeditions against neighbouring cities in the south. Muhammad Shah’s Persian subjects were, however, helpless. They could turn only to their religious leaders, but these were engaged in a series of sectarian quarrels, and Nasir, Caliph of Baghdad, and spiritual ruler of Islam, had neither the temporal power nor the unity to offer anything more than a desultory chain of hopeless intrigues.
It was after his siege of Ghazna in 1216 that Muhammad first learned of these intrigues. The threat was insignificant, but Muhammad was a timid man. He determined to depose the caliph and replace him with a puppet. Receiving the submission of Azerbaijan and Fars which lay along his route, he marched his army towards Baghdad. It was as though the Holy Roman Emperor were to lead an army towards the gates of Rome. But if the caliph was powerless, Allah was not. The army was dispersed in the mountains by a fierce snowstorm and many of those who did not die of exposure had their throats cut by Kurdish bandits. Muhammad was forced to withdraw, and for the time being, the caliph survived.
Returning to Bukhara the shah found three ambassadors waiting for him. They were men of Khwarizmian origin who had been living in Kara Khitai and they carried gifts so precious that even the shah was impressed: gold ingots and a huge gold nugget, jade and ivory ornaments and cloaks spun from the wool of white camels. When they had laid these before him they delivered a letter.
I send you these gifts. I know your power and the vast extent of your empire and I regard you as my most cherished son. For your part you must know that I have conquered China and all the Turkish nations north of it; my country is an anthill of soldiers and a mine of silver and I have no need of other lands. Therefore I believe that we have an equal interest in encouraging trade between our subjects.
Beneath the letter was a seal and on it inscribed, “God in heaven, the Kah Khan, the power of God on Earth. The Seal of the Emperor of Mankind.’
That evening the shah dined with the ambassadors. If the unconcluded feud with the caliph and the depletion of his army had not embarrassed the ‘chosen prince of Allah’ with more insecurity than he could tolerate, he might well have treated the infidel barbarians with the contempt that they deserved. He knew very little about the Mongol conquerors from the east, although selfinterest had made him send messages of good will during the invasion of Kara Khitai, but if the khan could be trusted the advantages of a trade agreement were obvious. He questioned his guests, asking if the ‘Emperor of Mankind’ was really as powerful as his letter claimed, and the ambassadors, forewarned of his vanity, replied tactfully that although powerful, he was not as powerful as the shah; and they answered honestly when they said that he did not have as many soldiers.
Muhammad seemed satisfied by the flattery and by 1218 a commercial treaty had been signed. Khwarizmian trade with the east could now continue unaltered by the spread of Mongol rule and protected by an alliance too powerful to be challenged.
The Caliph of Baghdad, growing hysterical as he watched the shah’s army regaining its strength, decided to make one last effort to save his neck and sent a secret messenger to the Mongol khan pleading for his intervention and warning him not to trust the ambitious shah. So elaborate were his precautions that the message was tattooed on to the envoy’s shaved head and he was not allowed to set out until the hair had grown again. But the effort was wasted. At the Mongol capital of Karakorum the messenger was told that the khan was at peace with the shah and he was sent home without an audience.
Soon after the treaty was signed the first Mongol caravan arrived at Otrar beyond the Syr Darya, led by three Moslem merchants and accompanied by a Mongol ambassador, commissioned to buy the luxurious products of 'Transoxiana for the nobles at the Mongol court. The shah, who had not heard how the khan had treated the caliph’s messenger, still doubted his reliability and when he received a letter from Inalchuk Khwadir Khan, the governor of Otrar, reporting his suspicions that these merchants were spies, he ordered that if the case could be proved the men were to be put to death. It is possible that the merchants were spies, since all Mongol merchants were expected to make military reports wherever necessary, but it is unlikely, since Otrar was so near to the border that the Mongols must have known everything about it already. In either event the suspicion was insignificant enough to warrant no more than a complaint, but the five hundred camels laden with gold, silver, silk and sables were too much of a temptation for the rapacious governor. Without an investigation or a trial he murdered the ambassador, the merchants and the men who led their camels and confiscated their property.
The governor had exceeded his authority and Muhammad could easily have placated the inevitable Mongol outrage by expressing his own abhorrence of the crime and punishing the culprit, but when Ibn Kafraj Boghra arrived at Samarkand as an ambassador from one ally to another, escorted only by two Mongol soldiers and demanding merely that the murderer should be tried and punished, the shah burned the beards and hair of the escorts and gave them Boghra’s severed head to carry back to Karakorum.
It is difficult to see what the shah hoped to gain by such apparently calculated arrogance. Certainly he was ashamed that the richest prince in Islam had been obliged by temporary weakness to make a treaty with an infidel, but the result of his treachery and insults was bound to be a declaration of war. Muhammad had never been a diplomat, he had assumed his reputation as a conqueror and it would seem that he had begun to believe his own publicity. His army was stronger than ever now; he had four hundred thousand men in 'Transoxiana alone, twice as many as the Mongols had ever managed to raise. Perhaps he believed that he could control the trade routes to the east himself, or perhaps he saw this as another opportunity to enhance his reputation by fighting a defensive war on his own ground with vastly superior numbers and prove himself the only man on earth capable of defeating “The Emperor of Mankind’, Chingis Khan. Whatever his motive, the outcome was disaster. Mobilizing for the last time what was the most effective army in the world, the Mongol khan turned it towards the west. For the rest of his life and the life of his successor it was never to be disbanded.
Temujin, Chingis Khan, had retired alone to the haunted shores of Lake Baikal in the grim mountains of northern Mongolia. With the exception of his ten thousand strong imperial guard, the garrisons in conquered kingdoms and one expedition in China, his soldiers had been sent home to their tribes. Satisfied with the size of his empire and always in awe of the civilizations that surrounded him, he had begun to live like them through trade and diplomacy, but the paranoia that had influenced his early life was returning and his love of war was never satisfied. ‘The generosity and loyalty for which he was justly respected in the east had been met in the west with contempt. ‘The greatest pleasure,’ he had said, ‘is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.’ From now on his policy would be that his empire should never be bounded by a kingdom strong enough to threaten its security. Mongol tradition demanded that the murder of the ambassadors should be avenged and if there was to be a war of attrition it might as well be also a war of conquest.
Returning to his city of tents at Karakorum, Chingis Khan summoned his nation of soldiers and sent one last message to the shah: ‘You have chosen war. That will happen which will happen and what it is to be we know not; only God knows.’
In Transoxiana the magnificent army of Muhammad Shah waited for the Mongols to advance. Four hundred thousand Khwarizmian Turks and Persian auxiliaries as well as thousands more armed slaves were drawn up in a cordon along five hundred miles of the Syr Darya, with lines of communication stretching back through the garrisoned cities of Khojend, Samarkand and Bukhara into Khwarizm and Khurasan. Mounted on thoroughbred horses and armed with decorated helmets, burnished shields and steel blades that had been bent to the hilt in the forges, the Khwarizmian cavalry lived in luxurious camps that were served by trains of camels and elephants, but much of the rest of the army was inexperienced and ill-disciplined and morale was low. 'The Persian civilians were not entirely opposed to the idea of a Mongol invasion. They had heard that after the invasion of Kara Khitai plundering had been forbidden and religious persecution had been brought to an end; the Persian merchants preferred the idea of high taxes and martial law to the present exploitation and insecurity. Even the Turkish officers were losing what little faith they had left in the shah whose judgement seemed to have been clouded by his dreams and his fear of defeat. His son and heir, Jalal ad-Din, who was as courageous and talented as his father was vain and incompetent, had pointed out that none of the cities along the river were strong enough to withstand a determined assault and the army was drawn up on such an extended front that at no place was there sufficient concentration to fight a major engagement in the field without waiting for reinforcements from Samarkand or creating a gap elsewhere in the line. He had advocated an immediate attack before the Mongols could assemble in force, but his father, convinced that the horsemen of the steppes could not conduct a siege or attack a fortified position, and still trusting in his superior numbers, preferred to sit at home and wait.
Eventually news came that a Mongol army had crossed the Tien Shan mountains and was approaching the Fergana valley, where the Syr Darya turned east beyond Khojend. With fifty thousand men Jalal ad-Din rode down to meet them in the valley and when the Mongols arrived the Khwarizmians were amazed by their first sight of the invincible horsemen. Thirty thousand ragged, starving men, mounted on exhausted ponies, came cantering down the valley in close formation. As the Khwarizmians advanced the Mongols withdrew; when they finally turned in the foothills both armies met in a head-on charge. There were enormous casualties on both sides, but in the end the Mongols retired. Although the result of the battle had been inconclusive and his men were in no condition to give chase, Jalal ad-Din could claim a victory. The news was not received in Samarkand as a vindication of Muhammad’s policy, but it did serve to rebuild the morale of his army and restore the faith of his officers. The Mongols had attempted to turn the Khwarizmian right flank and had been driven away.
In the Uighur country, near the source of the Irtish river, the battle of Fergana was seen in a very different light. When the last letter had been sent to Samarkand, the arrow messengers had galloped across the steppes summoning the Mongol army to assemble on the Irtish river and calling the orloks, marshals of the Mongol army, to a council with their khan. Among the orloks were men who had been with the khan since the very beginning and with whose help he had created a nation out of the scattered and warring tribes. With the boy prince Temujin, whom they had crowned as the Chingis Khan, they invaded the empires of the east, and the rise from poverty to power had created a love and respect far greater than the loyalty demanded by their simple culture. ‘I was like a sleeping man when you came to me,’ said Temujin, ‘I was sitting in sadness and you roused me.’
The best-loved among these ‘raging torrents’ were two men who had risen to the command of an army before they were twenty-five years old and who had become legendary heroes among the people of the steppes: Jebe Noyan and Subedei Bahadur.
The dashing, impetuous Jebe had fought against Temujin in the first tribal wars. The story was told that while fleeing on foot Jebe had been surrounded by horsemen and had challenged them, saying that if they would give him a horse he would fight any man amongst them. When Temujin had commanded that he be given a white-nosed horse he had cut through his captors and galloped into the hills before an adversary could be chosen, but a few days later he rode unarmed into Temujin’s camp and offered to serve him or die. After many years, while commanding the invasion of Kara Khitai, Jebe collected a herd of a thousand white-nosed horses and sent them as a tribute to the khan.
The shrewd, resourceful Subedei of the Reindeer People had earned his reputation by cunning. It was said of him that he had ridden alone into an enemy camp pretending to be a deserter and by persuading them that the Mongol army was far away left them unprepared for a surprise attack. He shared Temujin’s grim determination and supreme ability on the battle field, and as a strategist he had no equal. ‘As felt protects from the wind,’ he said, ‘so will I ward off thine enemies.’ It was Subedei who came first to take counsel with the khan, for it was he who had been chosen to plan the invasion of Khwarizm.
Subedei’s first objective had to be security. While the Mongol armies were assembling, the four hundred thousand Khwarizmians beyond the Syr Darya could advance north of Lake Balkhash and destroy them piecemeal. But Jebe, who had conquered Kara Khitai, was still stationed at Kashgar with thirty thousand men. Jochi, the eldest son of Chingis Khan, was immediately sent to join him with instructions to make a feint at the Khwarizmian right, distract their attention by engaging a major force and then withdraw to safety. They left in the early spring and crossed the Tien Shan mountains through a pass thirteen thousand feet high and five feet deep in snow. Although their supplies were lost in the snowdrifts and they became increasingly exhausted and hungry as the journey continued, they were still able to reach the Fergana valley and hold their own against superior numbers. When they came back to Kashgar their force was almost halved, but they had achieved their objective. Their feint had distracted the Khwarizmian attention, and given Chingis Khan the security to consolidate his army and advance to take the offensive.
Under Subedei’s plan of invasion the two hundred thousand strong Mongol army was divided into four corps of cavalry, each accompanied by its own detachments of artillery and engineers. The first, commanded by Chingis Khan and Subedei, and the second, commanded by the khan’s two sons Ogedei and Chagatai, set out from the Irtish river. The third and fourth, which had been sent south, set out from Kashgar accompanied by Jebe and Jochi._ Although he had always been outnumbered, the khan had had misgivings about the size of his army and the extent of the enterprise. He had sent a messenger to the eastern King of the Tanguts asking for help, but the only answer was that if he did not have enough soldiers he did not deserve to be khan.
The first attack was launched against the frontier fortress of Otrar where the caravan had been massacred and where Inalchuk Khwadir Khan was still the governor. In the autumn of 1219, while Chingis Khan and Subedei turned north and disappeared, Ogedei and Chagatai invested the city. Knowing that they could not hope for mercy the governor and citizens were determined to fight to the last man. There were eighty thousand soldiers on the walls and it was five months before the Mongols broke through, slaughtering everyone in their path, and another two months before they took the citadel. In the hopelessness of the final massacre the desperate governor and his wife climbed onto the roof of their house and when their arrows ran out the governor showered his assailants with tiles which his wife had torn from the roof around them. Since they had been ordered to take the murderer alive, the Mongol soldiers carefully mined the building and extracted him from the ruins. Inalchuk was sent to Chingis Khan’s headquarters, where molten silver was poured into his eyes and ears until he died.
Meanwhile, in the south, Jebe and Jochi divided. Jebe led twenty thousand men into Khurasan below the Amu Darya with orders to draw off any major force that might be lying in reserve and advance into 'T'ransoxiana from the south, while Jochi rode west. Jochi’s task was the most formidable. His orders were to operate along the five hundred miles of the enemy front, destroying the major fortifications and keeping the rest of the cordon occupied, while Chingis Khan and Jebe worked their way round either flank. After sacking Sengar, which lay in his path, he decided to divide his army and attack the strongholds at either end of the cordon simultaneously. Sending the main part of his army south towards Khojend, he led the remainder north towards Jend.
Although Khojend fell easily before the Mongol onslaught, the invaders had at last met with a worthy adversary. Timur Malik, governor of Khojend, evacuated the survivors on to a fortified island in the Syr Darya and held out with a garrison of a mere thousand men. Each time the Mongols attacked in boats they were driven back and when they began to construct a causeway, Timur Malik countered by filling barges with archers and attacking the builders. The causeway was made from stones, which the prisoners were forced to carry twelve miles from the mountains, and defended by Mongol archers and artillery, but the archers in Timur’s barges were sheltered from the Mongol arrows by huge bulwarks and protected from the incendiary bombs by roofs covered with sand. Nevertheless, in spite of the cost, the causeway crept closer and Timur was forced to abandon his island. Crowding his survivors into boats and the remaining barges, he smashed through the chain that the Mongols had stretched between the banks and escaped down the river.
Having taken Jend and installed a new governor, Jochi was marching back along the river making hit-and-run attacks on the Khwarizmian lines when he heard the absurd news that Timur Malik and his fleet were sailing down the Syr Darya towards the Aral Sea and freedom, while the Mongol pursuers trotted help- lessly along either bank. Halting his army, he built a barricade of boats across the river, mounted it with archers and artillery and waited for the fugitives. Timur Malik, however, was not beaten yet. His barges were full of fresh horses and the Mongols on the river banks were strung out and tired. When he saw the barricade he ordered his fleet to turn suddenly, landed it on the west bank and cut through the Mongol horsemen before Jochi’s men could come to help them. The Mongols saluted him as a hero and his exploits were recorded in the Mongol sagas as well as in the Islamic legends. It was said that Timur Malik was the only survivor of Khojend to escape. Galloping away with only three arrows in his quiver and three Mongols behind him, he turned, shot one of them down, and screaming that he had still two arrows left for the others, vanished into the red sands of Kizil Kum, from which he eventually emerged to join up with Jalal ad-Din.
Muhammad Shah was in Bukhara when he learned that Khojend had fallen and that Jebe was advancing into 'Transoxiana from the south. Moving to Samarkand he assembled his last fifty thousand reserves and sent them down to meet him. This time, however, Jebe’s men were neither exhausted nor starving and the Khwarizmian army was annihilated.
Muhammad began to panic. He could not turn front tu nank and face Jebe’s advance, since his entire front, the cordon along the Syr Darya, was pinned down and crumbling under Jochi’s superior mobility, while the strongholds at either end of it had fallen; and he could not commit more men without leaving his capital defenceless. His officers were advising him to evacuate Transoxiana altogether, when the news came that Chingis Khan and Subedei had appeared outside the gates of Bukhara, four hundred miles behind the Khwarizmian lines: a manoeuvre which B.H. Liddell Hart has described as one of the most dramatic surprises in the whole history of war.
It has been suggested that Chingis Khan maintained secrecy by marching round the north of the Aral Sea and crossing the Amu Darya from the west, but it is unlikely that he would have been able to pass through that part of the steppes unobserved by the Kanglis, who were Khwarizmian allies, and the overwhelming contemporary evidence is even more extraordinary. He reached Bukhara by crossing the Kizil Kum desert, which the Khwarizmians believed to be impenetrable. The Persian historian Juvaini, who lived through the invasion of Khwarizm, records that, after leaving his sons at Otrar, Chingis Khan turned north and received the submission of Zarnuk. Although they were forced to pay tribute and some of their young men were conscripted into the Mongol labour gangs, the citizens were spared, for the khan was only interested in one prisoner. A man distinguished for his knowledge of the desert was chosen from among the local Turkomans and forced to lead the Mongol army through Kizil Kum. The route that they followed, known as the Khan’s Road, was used by merchants after the war.
At the beginning of March 1220 Chingis Khan and Subedei surrounded Bukhara, leaving only one gate unguarded. Although heavily garrisoned, Bukhara was so far behind the lines that it had not been fortified to withstand a long siege and the Kanglis, who formed the main part of the garrison, were more accustomed to fighting in the open than defending city walls. Alarmed by the prospect of inevitable death in the ruins of a foreign city, twenty thousand of them, pretending that they were launching a surprise attack, rode out through the unguarded gate by night and then fled to the north. The Mongols let them go. They had hoped that the unguarded gate would tempt some of the garrison to come out and fight in the open, but they had not expected them merely to attempt an escape. Next day, when the Kanglis’ path was blocked by the Amu Darya, the Mongols came up behind them and cut them to pieces. While the remainder of the garrison under their governor, Gok Khan, retired into the citadel, the Persian inhabitants sent out their imams to surrender Bukhara to Chingis Khan.
With his youngest son Tolui, who had accompanied the expedition to learn the arts of war, Chingis Khan led the Mongol army into the city and rode through the doors of the Friday Mosque. At this point many historians claim that Chingis Khan mounted the pulpit and said, ‘The hay is cut; give your horses fodder’, which must have been a signal for the general pillage to begin, but their assumption is based on a mistranslation, and even the contemporary Moslem historians point out that, although the Mongols collected tribute, there was no disorganized plunder of Bukhara. The khan merely said that he had come to tell them that they must find provisions for his army. “The countryside has been harvested; you must feed our horses.’ When the khan had spoken, some of the scholars were sent to open the granaries, but the soldiers had already found them.
While the Mongol soldiers deployed themselves throughout the city, two of the leading imams walked through the chaotic streets to the Friday Mosque and discovered the scene that has been a source of lamentation to all the Moslem historians. Doctors and scholars were standing around the courtyard holding Mongol horses, which were devouring grain from the cases that had held the Korans, while the pages of the holy books lay scattered on the tiles beneath their hooves. Dancing girls had been summoned from the city and forced to perform on pain of death. Beneath the pulpit, singing and clapping, the officers of the Mongol high command indulged their insatiable national weakness for alcohol. ‘Am I awake or asleep?’ asked the Imam Hassan Zaida, famous for his piety. ‘It is the wind of God’s omnipotence,’ said the Imam Rukn ad-Din Imamzada, most excellent of savants. ‘We can not speak.’
In the days that followed the soldiers systematically drove the citizens from their houses and only allowed them to return when they had taken such gold and silver as they required. The garrison of the citadel, however, knowing that in the long run their position was hopeless, attacked the citizens and the Mongols by night and day with fatalistic courage. The citadel of Bukhara was in an unusual position: it stood outside the city, with its gate leading through the walls. Chingis Khan ordered that it should be attacked from all sides and the buildings around the gate were demolished to clear the way for an assault. Thousands of citizens were driven in front of the army to give cover to the soldiers and over them swept a constant artillery barrage. The citadel was soon taken, but, with the exception of the mosques and palaces, the buildings of Bukhara were made of wood and the defensive barrage from within the citadel had created a fire that could not be controlled in the heat of battle. By the time the soldiers and citizens were able to turn their attention to the fire they were able to save very little. Most of Bukhara had been burnt to the ground.
As he prepared to leave, Chingis Khan ordered that the walls be destroyed lest the city should be defended again, and from the pulpit of the festival musalla he commanded the citizens to bring forward their richest men. A hundred and ninety natives of the town and ninety visiting merchants were produced and to each of these was assigned a Mongol tax collector to assess their wealth. Juvaini writes that they were treated fairly; they were neither tortured nor humiliated and were not required to pay anything that was beyond their immediate means. The khan preached from the pulpit and told the people of the atrocities that had led to his invasion. ‘It is your leaders who have committed these crimes,’ he said, ‘and I am the punishment of God.’
Throughout the invasion of 'Transoxiana each Mongol column had maintained its objective while timing its movements to provide security for the others. While Jochi had concentrated the shah’s attention on his front, Jebe and Chingis Khan had been able to march round either flank. While Jebe threatened the south, Chingis Khan had marched unobserved across the north. And now, with perfect timing, Subedei’s strategy reached its climax. From the four points of the compass, protected by the lines of destruction that lay behind them, the Mongol armies converged on the Khwarizmian capital of Samarkand. Marching west from Otrar, Ogedei and Chagatai wheeled left and came down from the north. From Khojend in the east came Jochi, from the south Jebe and from Bukhara in the west Chingis Khan and Subedei.
As the Mongol armies moved into the suburbs, forcing their prisoners to march with standards so that their strength would seem to be even greater than it was, Chingis Khan established his headquarters in the Blue Palace and rode out to inspect the defences. After two days he ordered the first assault and, following the usual Mongol custom, the prisoners, still disguised as soldiers, were made to march in front of the army. Fifty thousand Kanglis marched out of the city on foot to meet them; the Mongols withdrew until their horsemen were able to wheel and fall upon them from both flanks, and at a single blow the garrison was halved. Three days later thirty thousand Kanglis rode out under 'Tughai Khan, the shah’s uncle, who had been left in command when the shah had fled on the approach of the Mongols. They offered to join the Mongol army, claiming that, since they too were nomads of the steppes, they would not fight against their brothers. Deserted by their garrison, the citizens opened their gates and surrendered. Samarkand, which had been expected to hold out for at least a year, had fallen in five days. On 12 March 1220 Chingis Khan rode through the Prayer Gate in the north-west of the city like the hero of some eighteenth-century romance. Before him rode ‘the Great Quiver Bearers’ and ‘the Old Elite Guard’ and at his side Subedei and Tolui.
Those people of religious sects who had opposed the shah were ordered to keep to their houses and guards were placed on their doors, while the rest of the population was driven outside the city and only allowed to return when the soldiers had finished pillaging their houses. A hundred thousand prisoners were retained and of these sixty thousand were selected to work as craftsmen and labourers, while the remainder were allowed to buy their freedom for two hundred thousand dinars.
The rest of the garrison, twenty thousand strong, held out in the citadel for a few more days; a thousand of them managed to escape by night, but the rest were killed. Outside the city the Kanglis who had surrendered were surrounded in their camp and slaughtered. To the Mongols disloyalty was abhorrent, even in an enemy. ‘A man who is once faithless,’ said Chingis Khan, ‘can never be trusted.’
The Mongol army camped in the plain of Nasaf and set about training their Persian and Turkish conscripts, while Ogedei studied the Khwarizmian artillery. The walls of Samarkand were pulled down and the city was only garrisoned by as many men as were required to keep order. The Mongols had been impressed by its magnificence, and Yeh-Lu Ch’u-Ts’ai, mandarin chancellor of the Mongol empire, wrote: ‘Indeed Samarkand is a delicious place.’
However, Chingis Khan had failed in his attempt to capture the shah and miscalculated the effect of conquering Transoxiana. The rest of the empire was still capable of raising half a million men without the revenues of Transoxiana. Yet although the military aristocracy were now looking to Jalal ad-Din for leadership, the khan believed that the capture of the shah might lead some of the subjugate peoples to surrender. Summoning Jebe, Subedei and his son-in-law Toguchar, he gave them twenty thousand men and ordered that they should track down the shah, pausing only to destroy those cities that gave him refuge or refused to surrender.
Muhammad was in Balkh when he heard that the Mongols had taken Samarkand. Mistrusting the loyalty of the local tribesmen, he fled west, escorted only by his bodyguard, and rode through Khurasan towards Nishapur, commanding his subjects to burn their crops and flee into the cities.
Jebe, Subedei and Toguchar crossed the Amu Darya and followed him at the rate of eighty miles a day, accepting the surrender of the cities that lay in their path. On the way Toguchar, relying on his position, had plundered some of the villages. Such was the discipline of the Mongol army that he was reduced to the ranks where he remained until killed in action.
By the time the hunters arrived at Nishapur the shah had fled north towards Kazvin, but his panic had reached such a pitch that he was even afraid of his own soldiers. Every night he slept secretly in a different tent and one morning discovered that his own had been pierced with arrows. He no longer dared to hold out in any of his cities where the hopelessness of his position had given the Persians the courage to rise against their Turkish garrisons.
At Kazvin and again at Hamadan the shah attempted to fight a rearguard action, but the second time he came so close to capture that his horse was wounded by a Mongol arrow. He lost his nerve completely, abandoned his bodyguard and eventually escaped, exhausted, to the island of Abeskum.
On to January 1221 Muhammad Shah of Khwarizm died of pleurisy. He had spent his last days in such poverty that he was buried without a shroud, wearing only a torn shirt that had been taken from one of his servants.
Before retiring into winter quarters on the delta of the rivers Kura and Arax, Jebe and Subedei raided Azerbaijan. The drunken old Atabeg of Tabriz saved his city with an enormous payment of silver and thousands of horses which the Mongols took back to their camp to break and train.
When he heard of the shah’s death Chingis Khan summoned Subedei to Samarkand. Covering over twelve hundred miles in seven days, the young orlok rode to the khan’s headquarters and reported on conditions in the west. The khan’s position was not as secure as he had expected. ‘The Mongol terror had not disunited the empire and, rather than leaving it leaderless, the shah’s death had merely replaced an incompetent father with a courageous and resourceful son. Yet Subedei believed that one concerted push would destroy Jalal ad-Din before he had time to rally his subjects. All the soldiers in Khwarizm that were still prepared to fight were converging on Jalal ad-Din’s banner; it would only take one victory to conquer the empire, but, if that victory were not accomplished soon, the empire might rally and the Mongols be cut off. The khan accepted Subedei’s assessment, but he also accepted his request not to be involved in the last campaign.
Beyond the Caspian Sea lay the western steppes that led into Europe. There were princes there who, when Khwarizm was taken, might become the new enemies of the Mongol Empire, but their lands were uncharted and their strength was unknown. Chingis Khan gave Subedei a few reinforcements and granted permission that he and Jebe might lead a reconnaissance into the western steppes, but he commanded that they should not take more than two years and that they should return across the north of the Aral Sea where Jochi would join them to assist in the conquest of the eastern Bulgars.
Subedei returned to rest with Jebe in the camp on the Caspian Sea and prepare for the expedition that was to contribute more than any other to the legend of the Mongol horsemen and to remain for ever the most outstanding cavalry achievement in the history of war.
Meanwhile Chingis Khan marched south in search of Jalal adDin. His lines of communication were becoming badly stretched and he had always believed that the land behind his army should not be capable of supporting an enemy, but what followed has been rivalled in atrocity only by Hitler in central Europe. The Mongol army spread out through Khurasan, burning crops, razing cities and slaughtering the entire population. When the Mongols finally caught up with Jalal ad-Din’s army on the banks of the Indus, the new shah’s bodyguard put up a courageous defence against overwhelming odds, but when the position became hopeless, Jalal adDin leapt into the river with his standard in his hand, swam across to the opposite bank and escaped. Watching from a cliff, Chingis Khan said to his soldiers, ‘Fortunate should have been the father of such a son.’
On the road back to Samarkand the refugees were treated with mercy and kindness, for they were now subjects of the Mongol Empire. ‘It is time to make an end of killing,’ said Yeh-Lu Ch’u-T’s’ai.
Khwarizm was placed in the hands of military governors and Chingis Khan prepared to leave. ‘My sons will live to desire such lands and cities as these,’ he said, ‘but I can not.’ The Taoist master Ch’ang Ch’un had travelled two thousand miles to Samarkand to teach the khan philosophy, but the imams of Islam had thought of him as a savage and he had returned their contempt. ‘Why do you make the pilgrimage to Mecca?’ he asked. “Do you not know that God is everywhere?’
Returning home along the path of his invasion Chingis Khan paused to erect a stone pillar. On it he inscribed: ‘I turn to simplicity; I turn again to purity.’
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