Excerpt 2

The Mongol Invasion of Europe

The Mongol invasions of Russia and Eastern Europe occurred first with a brief sortie in 1223 CE and then again in a much larger campaign between 1237 CE and 1242 CE. The Mongols, seemingly coming from nowhere and quickly gaining a reputation as the 'horsemen of the Devil', enjoyed victory after victory, and eventually got as far west as the city of Wroclaw in Poland. Great cities like Tbilisi, Kiev and Vladimir fell and, reaching the Danube river, they sacked the Hungarian cities of Buda, Pest, and Gran (Esztergom). Neither the Russians or the major European powers could organise themselves sufficiently to adequately meet the five-pronged attack the Mongols had launched or deal with their swift cavalry, incendiary-firing catapults and terror tactics. The rest of Eastern and Central Europe was only saved by the death of Ogedei Khan (r. 1229-1241 CE) which caused the Mongols to retreat. 

The armies of Genghis Khan had swept across western Asia, circled around the Caspian Sea and even defeated a Russian army at Kalka 1223 CE but, now, many of the defeated states in the region were proving less than willing to pay the khan the tribute expected of them. Accordingly, Ogedei sent an army to persuade them. The Khwarazm Empire bore the brunt of Ogedei's fury throughout the 1230s CE. In 1235 CE northern Iraq was invaded. Victory followed victory, and the Mongol armies pushed into Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia in 1238 CE, steadily wearing down the fortified towns of the region, sacking such cities as Tiflis (Tbilisi) and extracting tribute from local princes.

In a multi-pronged and intercontinental assault on Eurasia and Eastern Europe from 1236 CE, another army marched through Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan, defeating the Bashkirs and Bulgars along the way, to then attack the Russian principalities across the Volga River in the winter of 1237-8 CE. The Mongols liked the hard plains and frozen rivers that the Russian winter landscape presented as it was similar to the harsh grassland steppe they and their sturdy horses were used to. In 1237 CE the city of Ryazan (Riazan) was besieged between 16 and 21 December, its dreadful fate described thus in the Voskresensk Chronicle:

The horror of Ryazan would be repeated again and again as the Mongols showed no mercy, and the Russian princes, beset by long-standing rivalries, could not work together even in this great emergency. Next came Moscow's turn to be torched, at the time not the great city it would later become, then Suzdal in 1238 CE, and finally Vladimir, the fortified capital, was besieged. Grand Duke Yuri II fled the city, leaving his wife and sons to face the attack. Having gathered his army together, Grand Duke Yuri then returned to try and relieve the city, but it had already fallen on 7 February to the Mongol battering rams and catapults, its cathedral torched. The duke's army was defeated and he himself was killed at the battle of Sit River. Disaster followed disaster, Torshok was another city that fell, this time after a prolonged resistance, on 23 March 1238 CE. In contrast, Novgorod was saved from attack as spring arrived and the Mongol army finally turned around and withdrew back to north of the Black Sea.