Mongol Misconceptions

I had way better titles in mind for this, but I'm a sucker for alliteration...

So as I discussed in yesterday's update blog I have spent the last few weeks compiling data on the migrations of groups of Turkic and Mongol peoples for a college textbook I am contributing to. I won't bore any of you with the details (don't worry, I'll be pushing the book once it's published!) but it did get me thinking about a topic I come across online a lot. The Mongols, and all of the misconceptions about them.

They were nicer to world leaders than you thought!

Now, spending a few weeks researching their migration patterns doesn't make me a Mongol expert. And every group/empire in history has a number of misconceptions attached to them, but for some reason the ones involving the Mongols and their empire rub me especially the wrong way. It may be because in the last few years, as the result of numerous podcasters and YouTube series, these misconceptions have been spread as gospel fact. So in a vain attempt to limit this damage, here's a few of my thoughts on particular misconceptions.

1. The Mongol Empire was the largest, most powerful empire in history. 

This is the big one, so why not start with it? I'll get this out of the way: they DID have the largest contiguous land empire in history. However, they were not the largest either in terms of total area they occupied or in terms of population. The British Empire at its height was about a million square kilometers largest at its height. At its height, the Mongol empire controlled about 25% of the world's population, and while this does put them up there, it doesn't put them at the top.

Rule Britannia! 

The Umayyad Caliphate, Qing dynasty China, Achaemenid (Persian) Empire, Macedonian Empire (under Alexander the Great), Maurya Empire (in India), and Gupta Empire (also India) all controlled a larger proportion of the world's population at their heights. "Power" can be measured by lots of different metrics, and all of them are highly debatable, so that's out too. Which gets us to our next misconception...

2. The Mongols were unparalleled military geniuses. 

The Mongol military was impressive. Their tactics required a huge amount of discipline, they were well-equipped, and the crushed a number of major states during their time. I don't want to take anything from the Mongol war machine, as it was one of the greatest ever. However, there is this perception online and elsewhere that they used tactics that were entirely unique, and crushed mighty empires left and right, and that they were an unstoppable force of nature (more on that below).

Copywrite Osprey Publishing

Many of the large states the Mongols came up against where in periods of high unstability or otherwise well past their prime. Take China, the Mongols most famous conquest. When Genghis Khan began his invasion, China was not a single, powerful united empire. It was split between several competing states that provided little or no help to one another during the Mongol invasions, and in some cases aided the Mongols against their rival states. Despite this, it took the Mongols a long time to conquer the area that modern China occupies: the invaded the first Chinese state, the Western Xia, in 1205. By the time the final state, the Song Dynasty, stopped organized resistance it was 1279: it had taken the Mongols 74 years of constant warfare to subjugate all of China. They wiped out the Khwarezmian Empire in four years, but this was largely down to the fact that by this point Khwarezmia was plagued by internal rivalries and was on the brink of civil war.

Most of their tactics weren't especially original either. Their favored field tactic, the feigned retreat, was ancient. In China, where the Mongols used the tactic very effectively on numerous occasions, the tactic was even discussed in The Art of War. The success of the tactic was more down to good Mongol discipline in executing it and poor enemy discipline rather than novelty. The Mongols also simply adapted many of their tactics: siege warfare from the Chinese for instance. The Mongols did possess some real military geniuses - Subutai is arguably one of the greatest commanders in history - but acting like they were completely unique in this regard and that they were unstoppable is ridiculous. Which gets us to point 3...

3. The Mongols were unstoppable

The Mongols got beat. A lot. Any large, powerful military does. They failed to invade Japan twice, and this wasn't just down to help from local weather. For more on that argument, I can't recommend Thomas Conlan's In Little Need of Divine Intervention enough. They were defeated by the Mamluks in the middle east several times, most notably at   Ain Jalut in 1260 and Marj al-Saffar in 1303.

Even medieval Islamic warriors used Mace to protect themselves! 

In India the Mongol Empire was defeated by the Delhi Sultanate on multiple occasions, most notably at the Battle of Amroha when 30,000 Mongols were killed or captured, including several Mongol generals. In fact the Mongols never successfully invaded most of India, though their successors the Mughals eventually would. In 1380 the Blue Horde, one of the Mongol Empire successor states, was crushed by the Russians at Kulikovo and lost an army which may have numbered more than 100,000. The point is, the Mongols weren't invincible, and for all their great victories there were also defeats. Which brings us to point 4...

4. The Mongols ruled for a long time. 

This one really depends on what you consider to be a "long" time. But the Mongol Empire as a whole unit only existed from 1206 to 1368, One hundred and sixty two years sounds like a lot, but when compared to other large states and empires, it's not very long at all. For comparison, at time of writing America is 240 years old, at the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 the Roman Empire was 251 years old. The Byzantine Empire, if you only count from the dividing of Rome into two, was 1058 years old. The Ottomans, another empire founded by nomads from the Steppe, were 624 years old when they fell.

I will never not make this joke when talking about the Ottoman Empire

The Yuan dynasty, the dynasty founded by the Mongols in China, lasted only 97 years. While this isn't the shortest dynasty in Chinese history (the Qin after whom "China" is named were only around for 15 years, and the Xin lasted only 14), it certainly puts them in the lower half of the list. Some Mongol successor states, such as the Khanate of Bukhara, did last well until the modern era (The Khanate of Khiva was still around until the Russian Revolution in 1917) but these were often small states that were marginal on the world stage or acted as vassals to greater empires (Khiva was a Russian Imperial protectorate, for instance).

5. The Mongol Bow/Horse/Whatever was better than X group's Bow/Horse/Whatever

I hate these kinds of arguments, but they are super common online and among history "buffs." The problem is, each item or tactic is adapted to its environment, compared items are often from radically different time periods, and there are so many variables that a real comparison will always have problems. The Mongol bow was a great weapon for horsemen on the steppes, but they were very prone to failing in moist environments (like they did during the Mongol invasions of Vietnam and southern China). Their horses were tough and perfectly adapted to the steppe, but were smaller and weaker than western European warhorses and slower than horses found in the Middle East. The point is, making these kinds of arguments, while fun, don't really achieve much and are ultimately unprovable in most cases.

Gawwwww

6. The Mongols left an unparalleled legacy. 

Firstly, as discussed above, comparing historical situations is highly problematic. The Mongols did leave a great legacy, but in many cases it was only indirectly. They left direct cultural legacy; their language and written alphabet is used only by a small portion the modern world's population, their art never really took off outside of their homeland, etc. Oftentimes they adapted the culture, religion, and customs of the regions they lived in. So the Mongols in the middle east soon converted to Islam and adapted their customs, Mongols in China soon became even more Chinese than the locals, etc. In many ways this was a great strength that allowed them to control large territories, but it limited their direct influence on the world. They united large territories (such as modern Russia and modern China), but as discussed above they held these areas for a shot period of time. Their greatest lasting legacies were certainly indirect; their conquest of so much of Eurasia allowed Europeans to learn about Asia, helping to spark the Age of Discovery. It's possible they introduced the Black Death to Europe (although this is disputed), and the chaos and destruction the Mongols left in their wake led to the rise of powerful states like the Ottomans, Moscow (later Russia), and the Mamluks. The Mongols left a rich legacy, but claiming that it beats any other large empire's is debatable at best.

7. The Mongols were an undisciplined horde who only destroyed. 

This combines several of the misconceptions from above. The Mongols did kill untold millions of people, depopulated urban centers, and could be incredibly brutal. In some cases they would leave men behind in destroyed cities to kill rats and dogs, and survivors emerging from cisterns and basements so that no living thing at all would remain. But these were coordinated tactics used to intimidate their enemies. The Mongols, as discussed above, actually had an extremely well-organized, well disciplined army.

Mongol Army Organization

Mongol military commanders were responsible for the equipment of the men under their command, and could be punished if one of their superiors discovered a man with equipment in poor repair. The tactics such as the feigned retreated favored by the Mongols took extremely discipline to execute effectively.

8. The Mongols were the exception...

This is the quote that really sticks in my craw, because it seems to be everywhere online. The problem is, it just isn't true, not in every case at any rate. One often used situation for this quote is invading Russia in winter, which the Mongols DID successfully do while other famous groups like France under Napoleon and the Nazis failed. The problem is, this ignores many variables. The Mongols invaded during a warm period in Eurasian history, while the French invasion was conducted during a small Ice Age and the Nazis invaded during the coldest winter in recorded history (in Russia) up to that time. Also, Russia was a large, powerful, centralized state when invaded by these modern groups, while when the Mongols came in it was split between various competing kingdoms, principalities, and city states.

Additionally, the Mongols are, in many ways, comparable to other large steppe hordes that came before and after. Groups of proto-Mongols had been invading and raiding China for centuries before the coming of Genghis. The Ottomans and Seljuks made effective use of horse archers. The Xiongnu were able to unite the steppe centuries before the "Mongols" appeared. The Avars and the Huns and the Bulgars all invaded Europe well before the Mongols, while the Hephthalites invaded the Middle East at a similarly early date. The Gokturks conquered central Asia from China to the Black Sea, Both the Xianbei in the 400's and the Manchurians had steppe "barbarian" emperors put on a throne in China.

Plus the Manchu Qing had a hilariously awesome flag...

The point of this post isn't to bash on the Mongols, or to detract from their many accomplishments. Rather, I want my readers to think more critically about history. The whole "Mongols are the exception" thing started as a joke, but it has now become taken as some sort of historical truth, and I think this is a harmful think to the study of history at large.


For more (accurate) information on the Mongols, here are some book recommendations!

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. Great reading if you're looking to learn more about the legacy of the Mongols and their place in world history.

Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy by Frank McLynn. This one is a little dry and VERY long, but its full of fantastic little details, and gets into the nitty-gritty about the political and military situations in states just before the Mongols invaded them.

Several books by Asian military history historian Stephen Turnbull from Osprey, if you want to know more details about the Mongol military: Mongol Warrior 1200 - 1350 , The Mongols (Men-at-Arms Series) ,  Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests 1190-1400  

The Mongols and Global History by Morris Rossabi is full of translated contemporary sources on the Mongols by Arab, Armenian, Chinese, Korean, and European chroniclers.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Deckle Edge, for more on the history of Central Asia.

See you next time!