This is a question thats bogging my mind. How did they do it? They have mostly light horse archers and logically they wouldn't be able to beat heavier chinese troops with crossbows and infantry and other peoples like khwarezmians and europeans. It was mostly like this before them, steppe armies would get defeated against sedentary armies in straight battles. If they won they would do so by indirect warfare like cutting their supply off or ambushing. Mongols seem to just be able to engage all sorts of peoples and defeat them in not only combat, but sieges too. How did they do that? Maybe its because they used auxiliary troops which could be heavier, though I don't know how much they did. Anybody good in mongol history care to explain?
Background
An army of donkeys led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a donkey
– Genghis Khan
Tough places will breed tough people. Sources act as if these far North Eastern nomadic steppe tribes came from a higher league, and although all of these tribes such as the Naimans, the Kereyits, the Tartars, etc all provided hard people they had one thing in common once united – they were under the leadership of Genghis Khan. I must sound like a broken record at this point but in my opinion, he’s the greatest military strategist of all time. He used the decimal system dividing his army in to groups of multiples by 10, 1,000 and up to 10,000. The 10,000 is known as a tumen and these seem to be the most important group as they almost functioned like their own force at times during large battles. Genghis Khan would hand pick the leaders of the Tumens himself based on a merit-based system that he employed. He wasn’t too interested in who’s kid you were, but rather, how loyal are you to him and how can he make use of you. There is a story from (I believe) the Secret History of the Mongols that talks about how Genghis Khan had been injured in one of his early campaigns, he took an arrow to his neck and Jelme, one (of 4) of his loyal hounds sucked the blood out of his neck for an entire afternoon.
Part of the reason is that the Mongols who were a war like society, and I’ll touch upon this a bit later, but they would have all been ‘professional’ warriors, for a lack of a better word but above all they had outstanding leadership. Many argue that Subutai, another of the 4 hounds of Genghis Khan, should be considered one of the top 10 generals of all time, and I’d honestly say that if Jebe (another of the 4 hounds) lived longer, he too would be placed on a list such as this. But leadership isn’t all about on-field commands, that would be more like tactics, and as I said…again I stress, in MY opinion, Genghis Khan is the greatest military strategist, and strategy requires more than just winning the battle at hand.
Let’s dive into some specifics:
Leadership and tactics
Friar Giovanni Carpini traveled to the court of the Great Khan Ogedei and said this:
The Tartars (he means Mongols) are such obedient people, the most obedient in the world in regards to their leaders, more so than even our own clergy to their superiors. They hold them in great reverence and never tell them a lie
As you can see by this quote, the Friar is shocked by the unity of the Mongol military, what’s even more shocking is that traditionally steppe nomadic tribes were hard to hold together, Genghis Khan had figured out a way to do this – it was through means of brutality but he kept the loyalty and most importantly the army disciplined.
With the mindset and this level of obedience, you’re able to perform tactics to devastating effects, and the Mongols did this excellently.
The Mongol generals were able to make well informed and smooth decisions based on the information they were getting from their scouts. Being excellent riders and also having many horses, they were able to cover a lot of ground and usually traveled anywhere between 30 to 80 miles ahead of the main army and could report back with information regarding terrain, locations of the enemies, encampments, and all the good stuff. Likewise, they would use scouts in the “skirmish” phase of combat. A Mongol commander may wait to make a decision and just keep the enemy at arm’s length while using their ability to ride so well including the discipline to keep the army together until a well-informed scout reported…the general would then decide if to fully engage or not.
I mentioned they were both excellent riders and had many horses. To quote the Friar, John Carpini once again he said:
The Tartars (again, the Mongols) have so many horses that if I didn’t know any better, all of the horses in the world were in this one location
This is important for many reasons but the reason it’s so important for scouting is because the scout does not have to worry so much about tiring his horse out. He would tire him out as a matter of fact, but travel so far and then switch horse and continue. This was a great advantage and allowed them to gain information quickly.
Probably one of the more popular tricks that the Mongols or rather, steppe nomads in general would use is the feigned retreat. They would act as if they were retreating luring armies into an open area which would be more favorable for their light cavalry or into an ambush. This is where discipline again plays a factor, if I can get my army to act upon a command in unison, it will sell it better giving me the advantage once your army chases me down. This tactic must’ve been really convincing as it was used over and over and over and again. Jebe was apparently excellent at orchestrating the false retreat; the Mongols will use in their campaigns against the Xia, luring them out of mountainous regions. Subutai will famously use this at the Battle of Kalka where he will very cleverly sell a retreat by sacrificing a vanguard of units and retreating for days, leaving behind captives, livestock to add to the deception before the scouts inform him that the Rus and Cuman army was split and now Subutai could counterattack and turn a battle where he was severely outnumbered into a victory by dividing and destroying. This tactic was used again in the invasion of Europe, where Baidar, Orda and Kedan will fight the Duke of Poland (Henry II) at the Battle of Legnica, luring the Polish cavalry into an area where they will be ambushed and destroyed from all sides.
This wasn’t a revolutionary tactic to the steppe peoples but because of great commanders and excellent scouting, the Mongols could employee it to amazing success.
I mentioned the Battle of Kalka and how Subutai used the feigned retreat tactic to convince his enemies. But it’s worth dissecting this a bit more because as you mentioned, the Mongol army was mostly light cavalry with archers. They carried multiple composite bows, they also had a little round shield, they had a short sword, or perhaps some tool like an axe which they weren’t shy about using believe you me but then you had your ‘minority’ in the army, the heavy lancers. Firstly, I’d like to mention that the army did not all look the same, you may have stolen something nicer than myself at our last campaign, and though the Uygur territories fall under Mongol rule eventually and they were known for their blacksmith abilities, it is unlikely they supplied the whole army. But give or take the army would have had what I mentioned and then the heavy lancers would have been slightly more armored and had their spears.
Depending on the battle the heavy cavalry would have been maybe 10%, I’d say at most 15% of the army, but they were used excellently. Subutai used them in Kalka, as I mentioned, he supposedly hid the center comprised of the lancers behind a hill and once the retreating army gave him the confirmation, he gave the go to come over the hill and take the Cumans by surprise. Apparently, the Cumans couldn’t see them and got smashed into and now you had heavy cavalry coming down a hill gaining momentum just running over you.
Another tactic they used their heavy cavalry to devastating effect is using their archers to shoot the outside of an army. So, to give you a visual, they would shoot the furthest left and right simultaneously from angles trying to squeeze the army together and then the heavy lancers would come charging at an army that was now off balance and squished up together.
One of my favorite tactics is the partial encirclement. These people would do this in hunting, they would corner their prey in an area but give them a gap to allow them to escape from and then they would take their prey out. It’s one of the most brilliant ways to deal with retreating armies, the Mongols believed if you fully encircled them they would feel they would have their “backs against the wall” and fight harder, but if you gave them that chance, that hope that they could escape, they would take it. The reality of course was that they were being chased down by the faster horse archers. This was great, especially from a logistic perspective, it was one of the ways of lowering your own casualties but maximizing your enemy’s.