Whenever death and destruction is mentioned in the context of Middle Ages, rampaging Mongol hordes are among the first things that come to mind. And indeed, few nations in history have managed to earn such notoriety for their martial prowess. The Mongols would manage to forge the largest empire in history in a record-short time thanks to the efficiency of their military system.
Cutting-edge technology and tactics combined with sheer brutality made the Mongols the most dreaded military force of the day.
To imagine how the world must have seen the Mongols back then, imagine a modern-day army with American technology level, ruthlessness of the Nazis and manpower of the entire East Asia to back them, led by a megalomaniac tyrant with absolute sway over his warriors. Not a very cheerful image? Well, that is precisely the same thing Medieval kings of Middle East and Europe felt about Mongols.
The rise of the Mongols
The Mongols were merely another society of tribal nomads in East Asian steppes before 13th century. A clan-based society like most equivalents, Mongols were constantly involved in endemic warfare. Military campaigns were largely limited to cattle raiding and skirmishes between neighbouring tribes. All that changed with the rise of Genghis Khan.
Borjigin Temujin was born in 1162 as the son of a tribal chief. After his father's assassination, Temujin would spend his childhood in poverty as other families usurped his father's place, at one time even being enslaved by the enemies of his family. His noble background and knowledge about Mongol tribal politics eventually allowed Temujin to rally supporters and through alliances and a good share of violence unite the warring Mongol tribes. In 1204, Temujin would become the khan of all Mongols, taking up the name and title of Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan was not content with the thus-far insignificant status that the newly-united Mongol state commanded on global scene. However, to forge an empire, a powerful army was necessary, so Genghis would put his accumulated military skills and experience to forge the most powerful and efficient fighting force of the Middle Ages.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan
A modern army with Medieval weapons
Rather than trying to think up something entirely new, Genghis would simply improve on what he already had - the Mongol warriors and their current skills.
The Mongol warrior was highly suited for mobile warfare, a necessity in the vast Asian steppes. Since horses were the only form of high-speed transport in existence, and Mongol children would start learning to ride almost as soon as they learned to walk, every Mongol warrior was obviously an excellent horseman. Since Mongols would often have to hunt for food, most were also proficient archers. Combining these two skills resulted in a highly mobile army that could strike from afar. Mongol horse archers were in fact so mobile they could travel up to 100 kilometres a day - a rate surpassed only by German panzer divisions in WWII.
Organization was where Genghis Khan could really innovate. He was arguably the first leader to create squad-level units of 10, which were organized into groups of 100, which were in turn organized in groups of 1000 men, a system roughly equivalent to modern structure of companies, regiments and divisions. Each group was accountable exclusively to their superior officer. While earlier Mongol khans would base their armies around tribal affiliations, Genghis Khan would change that. Now, soldiers from various tribes were being assigned to the same units to ensure that their only loyalty could be that to the Khan.
Discipline was enforced very harshly - for acts of cowardice, negligence or desertion, the entire unit of the offender was punished by death. If a unit of 10 deserted, the whole company of 100 would be beheaded. Punishments and rewards alike were awarded strictly by merit - noble blood would confer no advantage or privileges, and a capable commoner was indeed able to eventually earn the rank of a general. However, while the penalties were severe and discipline strict, it was nonetheless not considered excessive - Mongols seemed to prefer the approach that fewer, but stricter rules is better.
Mongol army would also adopt regular training and drills, as would later professional armies, which was virtually unknown in contemporary Europe, where individual combat skills were emphasized. Medieval European armies would rely mainly on levies, knights and mercenaries generally being the only professional soldiers that trained regularly.
Since Mongol army was meant to live off the land without external supply sources, soldiers were expected to be able to forage their own food on campaign. While most Mongol men were already capable hunters on their own, armies would often organize mass hunting trips that would serve both as training exercises, entertainment and would also provide the army with food. Soldiers would also hunt and fish individually on campaign to feed themselves, if no reliable supply source (such as looting the surrounding countryside) was available.
The new army was first put to test in Northern China with great success. The influx of Chinese technological expertise would allow Mongols to even further improve their combat abilities, as Chinese engineers would now provide their know-how on advanced siege engines and exotic weapons like gunpowder grenades and rockets.
Equipment
After conquering North China, the standard equipment of the Mongol warrior became more or less set. The primary weapon of every Mongol was the Mongol compound bow. Crafted from gluing together layers of wood and horn and strung with sinew, this bow was extremely powerful, capable of achieving ranges up to 650 metres (although the practical effective range was much smaller, about 200-300 metres) - twice the range of the famed English longbow. At the same time, the Mongol bow remained reasonably small to be easily used from horseback. Considering that the very lifestyle of Mongols ensured they had horsemanship and archery skills in spades, this made the Mongol bow the assault rifle of its day.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_bow
The second most important part of a Mongol's gear was his horse. Mongol horses were small, sturdy and famed for their endurance and meager nutritional demands. A warrior on a campaign would bring 3 to 4 horses along to quickly change rides whenever his current mount needed a rest. These horses could also serve as emergency rations if food stocks were low. Mongols were known to be able to ride sometimes for days on end.
One of the reasons behind the power of their armies was excellent communication that this universal use of horses enabled - mounted messengers would relay the message to others stationed at every 100 kilometres. Gengis Khan organized an entire service of messengers, which at the heyday of his empire, could deliver a message from Eastern Europe to China coast in less than a month, a considerable rate for land-based transport even today.
Every warrior would wear a suit of lamellar armour, composed of many small metal plates bound together with rings and/or riveted to a fabric base. The real secret of Mongol armour was added with the conquest of China - a silk undercloth. Silk is a notoriously strong natural fiber, used even in modern bulletproof vests of some models. An arrow impacting on such an armour could penetrate the metal plates, but could not entirely pierce the silk, instead pushing it into the wound. The stricken warrior could therefore easily remove the arrow and continue battle or at least withdraw to safety without the risk of bleeding to death.
Gunpowder was another powerful tool obtained from the Chinese. Mongols were known to use primitive hand grenades and rockets in sieges. An uncommon but documented variant was the explosive arrow - a clay grenade bound to an arrow.
Shock and awe
What doubled the Mongol effectiveness on battlefield was their extensive use of psychological warfare. Genghis Khan is said to have instructed his warriors on one occasion to light 5 campfires each instead of the usual one, so that the army appeared much bigger to enemy observers at night. On other occasions, Mongols would drag branches behind their horses to kick up large clouds of dust for the same effect of making the army look bigger. Small unit infiltration, ambushes and ruses were also commonly used. Mongol army was a multinational force - men of conquered nations were pressed into service (or often volunteered for the potential rewards that a successful campaign could offer) and used for their knowledge of local terrain, languages and customs.
Shock & awe is what best describes the swift and merciless Mongol attacks, which were something between a war of conquest and a mass migration, with a hefty share of genocide added just for good measure. Genghis Khan, unlike certain modern leaders, however was none too keen on winning the enemies' hearts and minds, and instead favoured a more simple approach - those, who surrendered and became his vassals without battle were spared, while those who resisted were slaughtered to the last. As the Mongols earned their fearsome reputation, many cities indeed surrendered voluntarily to escape the otherwise inevitable massacre. A favoured terror tactic used in sieges was the kharash - the Mongols would use prisoners from earlier battles as human shields, driving them forwards to set up siege ladders and breach the gates. Adding to the defenders' reluctance to fire upon their compatriots, this would reduce Mongol casualties and also help to deplete munition stocks of the defenders. Mongols would also never kill the entire population of their ransacked cities, so the few survivors could flee and spread word of their brutality, terrifying and demoralizing the enemy.
Despite his legendary brutality that is estimated to have cost 40 million people their lives, Genghis Khan was not entirely a bloodthirsty tyrant. Mongols would, for example, practice religious tolerance, a thing relatively unheard of in Europe and Middle East at the time. Likewise, a capable man could earn rank and standing in the Mongol Empire regardless of his nationality. Even the fabled Mongol yoke was somewhat relative - in most locations, their rule was limited to collection of annual tributes and conscription in the army. All this, of course, was done not out of humanitarian concerns, but purely pragmatic reason - to keep subjects from rebelling. Genghis Khan wanted to make a clear statement that loyalty and honest service will be rewarded, while rebellion will be crushed without mercy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Army
Conclusions
While indeed fearsome and capable of defeating any other military force of the day, Mongol army too wasn't without flaws. The widespread use of horses, the key to Mongol mobility, was also it's weakness - much like German mechanized divisions needed ample oil, Mongol armies needed vast grasslands to fuel their transports. While the steppes and plains of China and Central Asia While could feed the thousands of horses that Mongol warriors brought along, the same wasn't true for the forests of Eastern Europe. So while some historians believe that Europe only narrowly escaped total conquest by Genghis Khan's grandson Batu Khan, the fact that the borders of Mongol Empire roughly coincide with the location of large plains suitable for massed cavalry operations proves otherwise.
Ultimately it was not rebellion or external conquest that destroyed the mighty Mongol empire, but the Mongol custom of gavelkind, dividing the titles and lands equally between all sons. Genghis Khan would split his mighty empire among his sons, whose descendants would eventually begin to quarrel among each other until their might was eclipsed by new powers emerging in the West.
Janis Snepsts - I am an amateur historian and writer, and a big enthusiast of all things related to history. My other passion is literature. When it comes ...
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