What Made the Mongols So Hard to Defeat?

[Captain Pyjama Shark]

Hi all.

Recently I was discussing with a friend the merits of the horse-archer.  I mentioned how we often over exaggerate the effectiveness and invincibly of the horse-archer.  For example, Antony included plenty of light troops with is legions in his Parthian expedition.  Archers and slingers on foot outranged horse-archers quite considerably, and were more than able to drive off Parthian horse-archer attacks.  Furthermore, even Crassus at Carrhae suffered comparatively little until the morale of his men broke. The discipline, armour and shields of his legionaries held up quite well despite an entire day of arrow barrages.

My friend said that he didn't understand then how the Mongols suffered so few defeats in their golden era.  If light troops on foot can easily defend against horse-archers, than why do we cite the Mongol horse-archer as an undefeated opponent? Obviously I know that they did perform greatly, but I have to re-evaluate my thoughts on it a little bit.  And I also know that there's a 1500 year difference between my examples, but I still think the question is worth asking. 

So, tl;dr, why couldn't Mongol horse-archers be stopped?

 

[NikeBG]

So, tl;dr, why couldn't Mongol horse-archers be stopped?

I think it's better to separate this into two questions:
- Why were the Mongols so hard to defeat?
- Why were horse archers so hard to defeat?
Considering the Mongols weren't the only horse archers of their time, and they did face and defeat other armies which relied heavily on horse archers.

Of course, the obvious answer would be mobility, but I think the Mongol case has quite more to it and I'll let someone more knowledgeable on the topic answer that.

 

[Almalexia]

I'd say on the strategic level, facing the Mongol armies is enough to make any ancient, medieval, or modern commander **** his pants. It is a force of incredible speed and maneuverability on and off the battlefield, capable of being self-sufficient on the march in most situations and ruthless enough to extract what it needs easily from the land and people when it cannot, they can skirmish at range and shock at the charge equally well, they are disciplined and cruel, and balanced cruelty with mercy to demoralize the enemy and force one's troops to surrender or desert en-masse. And when presented with a strong point, they could easily either skirt around it and press onwards, similar to island-hopping in the Pacific, or bring together the most sophisticated corps of siege engineers available in the world to break it down and destroy it to cripple the will of the enemy. With its speed and maneuverability it could choose where and when to fight, cause the enemy to overextend itself in the defense, or circle around it to strike at their heartland. And in regards to other horse nations, they were highly efficient in making an example of those who resisted, and absorbing those who complied efficiently into its ranks and strengthening their horde even further.

Trying to think of ways to defeat them, 800 years later, is enough to give me a headache. Trying to do so when they were riding down on your nation, with the sacking of hundreds of cities and the deaths of millions of people behind them, is something I could scarcely imagine.

 

[DanAngleland]

One tactical point to make is that the Mongols didn't exclusively use horse archers. As far as I'm aware their armies were virtually all mounted in field battles, but that included heavy cavalry as well, like other steppe armies. After all, western heavy cavalry developed from steppe cavalry such as the Sarmatians who famously were used by the Roman army in many places including Britain. So any Mongol army posed all the threats that cavalry can to an enemy. Another tactical point about steppe armies is that the horse archers at least had small, stocky horses with high stamina, whereas armies which favoured heavy cavalry, such as Europeans, bred horses that had characteristics more suited to short powerful bursts of speed for charging with lances. This meant the steppe armies have an advantage in pursuit and fleeing.

Of course, other steppe armies were similar, so what made the Mongols different? I think it is partly that they didn't simply invade one empire and settle, like the Parthians did. I think the Mongol modus operandi was to kill much of the population of large cities, leave a small garrison and a puppet governor to collect taxes, and then to leave and conquer somewhere else, so that they retained the strategic attacking advantage of a nomad army (a huge army turns up with little or no warning because of its speed, so that you have few troops to defend the local area).

Another thing that made the Mongols different was the organisation; Genghis Khan formed an army into divisions, the largest being 10,000 I believe (tumens I think they were called). I think this aided logistical planning and also enabled better communication (and thus manoeuvring) on the battlefield, because command and leadership of different smaller groups was formalised. I don't know anymore than that, but I think the Mongols were just more politically stable once Genghis Khan had united all the tribes and set up a hierarchy. Before this the tribes were warring amongst each other, and so didn't pose a huge threat to the outside world, let alone the continued one they would now be for decades.

So the advantages of the Mongols are mainly strategic- they remained united for longer because of the political stability that Genghis Khan introduced and together with the policy of not settling down to run conquered empires directly this meant they retained the advantages of a large nomad army longer than most comparable forces. Tactically the new army organisation helped them be more effective in battle.

 

[Almalexia]

Expanding on my mention of their siege corps, their ability and willingness to co-opt conquered specialists from their far flung empire also contributed enormously to their success. Whether it was Persian or Arab siege engineers, Chinese chemists and crossbowmen, Armenian knights, or Central-Asian horse archers, all were highly specialized in their fields of war, and when brought together could bring a devastating combined-arms force.

 

[nijis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the Mongols' string of near-unbroken victories really only ran for the generation of Chingis and Subotai and maybe one generation after that. This would suggest that it was leadership - not tactical sense per se, but the ability of these leaders to enforce the kind of organization and training regimen that allowed the Mongols to coordinate so well together on the battlefield.

 

[Captain Pyjama Shark]

The idea I'm getting from this thread is not that the Mongols were tactically unbeatable, but rather so well led strategically that no one ever had a chance to hand them a defeat on the battlefield.  That is, during their first generation, at least.

 

[Swordmaster]

Definitely leadership and discipline.

 

[RalliX]

The Mongols only fought enemies on their own terms most of the time. Because they could do that, due to the aforementioned factors of good communication, logistics, leadership, discipline, etc, it produced a very high win to loss ratio. You're not going to lose many battles unless you're fighting battles you're going to lose. That's pretty much the gist of it.

When they lost their supreme leadership, settled into city life, and began warring among themselves, they lost advantages primary to their expansion. This is essentially how all empires fall, by degradation of the structure that brought them to their greatest height in the first place.
By forgetting the lessons of their forefathers.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Clearly America needs to drive out the British once more to restore themselves to greatness!

 

[RalliX]

Clearly America needs to drive out the British once more to restore themselves to greatness!

British? The Federal Government is the new British.

 

[Flin Flon]

I'm gonna go with leadership as well. Most of the world relied on nobles for their generals and commanders, while the Mongols valued skill over birth rights.

 

[matmohair1]

Spoiler

http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic24a.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic24b.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic10a.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic10b.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic11a.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic11b.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic12a.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic12b.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic13a.jpg
http://****-k.narod.ru/Historical_Arts/Kiev_Russia/pic13b.jpg

 

[Kharille]

One main feature was it was a meritocracy.  As long as you were competent they gave you a job.  Subotai almost killed Genghis with an arrow.  Instead of executing him, Ghenghis offered him a job.  I also read somewhere they were 60% heavy cavalry and 40% horse archers.  They were able to pick their battles and divide up their enemies.  Plus for cities they enlisted foreign engineers.

 

[kweassa]

■ First and foremost definately the leadership.

The rise of Mongols display those distinctly familiar series of traits commonly observed in the rise of great, successful empires and dynasties. You get that same 'feeling' when you see the rise of Cyrus the Great, Alexander III, the final three generations of Qin as they culminate upto becoming the masters of China.. etc etc..

By medieval standards, maintaining a singular, coherent control over an empire as large as the Mongols is practically impossible. As much, the nomadic tribes themselves are practically impossible to unite under a single banner for a long time. Compared to other civilizations, the nomadic social structure and customs, the very way of life, is simply unfit for maintaining a centralized rule. Hence, the reason the first two~three generations since the rise of Mongols became their prime, and from that point on downhill.

Exceptional leaders, uniting massive number of 'hordes' under a single rule, single purpose, conquering vast territories with huge manpower led by some of the most brilliant military commanders in history... and then when all of them grow old and pass away, *poof*. Huge territory to rule, left with insufficient methods of governance.


■ Under the first condition mentioned above, the steppe armies themselves were structurally and tactically very difficult to counter for individual states/forces.

Steppe archers and swarm-tactics are nothing special. The people of the steppes have been doing it for at least a thousand years before the rise of the Mongols in the 12th century. They have always invaded agrarian states nearby, the most common form of such invasion usually happening in northern China where the Chinese have been battling steppe invaders for a thousand years.

Usually, despite the slippery and tricky nature of swarm tactics, the greatest weakness of steppe armies were the fact that they were steppe armies. The numbers were always limited, they were easy to turn against each other politically, "divid et imperi" against the steppe people were favorite diplomatic tactics for the Chinese empires.

They also lacked perserverance and determination, and usually would refrain from deep invasions. The usual form of attacks being border raid/skirmishes with limited tactical objectives of pillaging and stealing. Usually they would turn back in the presence of strong fortifications.

Only when in certain historical occasions where Chinese empires grew weak and their people dividied, that the steppe people started thinking strategically, invading deep into China and forming their own states and empires.

When great leaders arose from the Mongols, all of that changed. The "horde" finally amassed an army that moved relentlessly with a highly centralized command structure. Their numbers were often much too great for individual city-states to repell. And not only where they numerous, but their tactical mobility and precision became unprecedentedly impressive with leaders like Subotai or Jebe.

And most of all, that centralized command structure, with high morale, and a great sense of purpose, the horde finally became relentless enough to be able to hold sieges to enemy fortifications. Instead of the "tribal" tradition of simply moving away from well defended cities and forts, they were now bringing in their own engines to lay siege and keep the pressure on what used to be the best form of defense against swarmers/skirmishers.


■ In contrast, the opposition the Mongols faced, were usually weak and divided. In a realistical sense, even if the Mongols were not steppe people, and even if they simply had "conventional" types of armies, still most opposition would have suffered similar fates, since an "alliance between many armies" is never the same as a vast horde united into one nation. The efficiency just doesn't compare, having to coordinate multiple armies from different states to form an allied defense, against an army that is unitied under a single rule, singlue chain of command...  and just damned luck those rules, those sitting at the top of the chain of command, were military geniuses.

So on one hand, we have a huge horde of people united by some of the most charismatic and brilliant military leaders of history, and then on the other hand, we have feudal-level armies from different lands trying to coordinate a joint-defense against that ginormous horde. Sometimes that worked. Some of them gave even the Mongols a run for their money, despite so many disadvantages, but ultimately, in most cases the attempt was futile.

When you have 400 thousand warriors led by world's greatest military tacticians, just gathering soldiers 500 from here, 1k from there... just isn't going to cut it.

 

[ancalimon]

The way they look at you probably.

Spoiler

 

[kweassa]

The way they look at you probably.

Spoiler

As racist as ever.

I suppose your turkish master race had different gazes

 

[Bluehawk]

The way they look at you probably.

Spoiler

average_Finn.jpg

 

[ancalimon]

The way they look at you probably.

Spoiler

As racist as ever.

I suppose your turkish master race had different gazes

She is a cute child. You really don't get the joke?

 

[Antonis]

As much as I hate to be the devil's advocate for ancalimon, yes, he was joking by saying they basically stare you to death with cuteness(this adorable kid at least).