The leader of these Mongol expeditionary forces was Batu, a grandson of the legendary Genghis. He displayed an inheritance of his grandfather's tactical prowess, apparently suffering one known defeat throughout the entire twenty years of the campaigns. Batu first made his presence known in Russia in 1222 on the shores of the Kalka River, where he defeated a force of Russian princes and a native pagan tribe called the Cumans. Five years later, Genghis Khan died, putting Batu's father Ogedai in command of the entire Mongol nation. It is unclear when his forces finally set out, but a fairly clear marker for the beginning of the campaigns was in 1236, when Batu conquered the Volga Bulgars in southwestern Russia. The kingdom of Georgia fell in the same year. In late December of the following year, the Mongols under Batu captured the Russian city of Riazan. The city of Vladimir fell in February of 1238, and then Batu began to attack the northern realms of the Kievan Rus', one of the oldest Russian kingdoms, eventually settling his army by the River Don for about a year. Batu's lightning attacks and swift advances can be at least in part to using the climate to his advantage - he made his best progress in the winter, when the Russian rivers froze over. The crafty Mongol general used them like highways to move his army much faster than he ever could have simply shoving them through the snow. In late 1239, he was on the move again, splitting his force, sending an expeditionary force north under the command of a general named Khaidu, while he attacked the Carpathian Rus' in southwestern Russia and the present-day Balkans. Kiev, the oldest known Russian city, would fall a year later in 1240. The following year, 1241, would be a cataclysmic one for Europe. The Mongols were coming.
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Topic: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (Read 1259 times)