Could Medieval Knights Have Stopped Genghis Khan? (And Did He Really Change the Climate?)

By Jack the Good Knight (Resident Knight Expert)

Here's a quiz question for the ages! Which political leader/historical figure has made the biggest positive impact on climate change? The answer has been fact checked and it is honestly one of the most extraordinary things I have found in a 20+ year career in sustainability. It is an answer that is difficult to get your head around and it doesn't involve Al Gore!

The climate bit...which is real, horrifying and fascinating all at once!

Nearly 40 million people were believed to be killed in the Mongol invasions, which led to an empire spanning 22 per cent of the Earth's surface. That is an incredible 11% of the entire world's population at the time DEAD. To put this into perspective World War II was estimated to have killed between 3-3.7% of the world's total population.

The Khans were rather good at killing - in fact I would argue that they were the most ruthless war machine in the entire history of humanity (by a distance).

A rather over simplified version of events, but lets say all of those people killed were farmers or involved in land mangagement. They had cleared land, cut down forests, and cultivated fields across an enormous stretch of Central and East Asia. When the villages where they lived were suddenly wiped out (and with no one left to continue the work) the farmland was abandoned.

And the forests came back.

The returning forests pulled an astonishing 700 million tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere, according to a Carnegie Institute study. That's the equivalent of the carbon produced through the annual global consumption of petrol. It was a huge amount of carbon.

Genghis Khan was dubbed "the Green Conqueror" because his army killed so many people that total carbon emissions fell, lowering the Earth's temperature. Some have even claimed Mongol conquests caused the Little Ice Age.

This is probably not the best climate policy for global leaders to pursue. That point really needs to be made quite strongly.

However, claims that the Mongol conquests alone caused a major, directly attributable drop in atmospheric CO2 or a long-term global climate shift are not fully supported. The climate impact from medieval land-use changes is pretty small compared with natural variability, and proxy records from ice cores and tree rings show climatic fluctuations in the medieval period driven primarily by volcanic activity and solar variability.

Yet, Genghis Khan's killing spree would have had an impact, whether it would have been big enough to cause the Little Ice Age is up for debate and quite frankly above my pay grade.

What made the Mongol Army different?

Before we get to the knights, it helps to understand what European armies were facing. Possibly the most formidable fighting force this planet has ever seen. The Mongol army combined preparation, training, leadership, and mental pressure in a way no medieval army matched for organisation or stamina. Soldiers moved with speed, fought with skill, and obeyed commands without hesitation.

The key was mobility. A Mongol warrior could ride extraordinary distances, armies regularly covered 50 miles a day, and fight effectively from horseback with a composite bow that had greater range and power than almost anything their enemies carried. They didn't need to get close to kill you. That was rather the point, they swarmed armies in huge numbers, released arrows, 'retreated' and then came at you again, and again, and again. It often resulted in complete and utter annihalation.

Mongol tactics were essentially a long series of feigned attacks and faked withdrawals, designed to inflict a constant drain by ranged fire, disrupt enemy formations, and draw larger numbers into ambush. These were made possible by continual training and superb battlefield communication using a complex system of flags.

This was the system that conquered China, Persia, Russia, and Central Asia. There is a quite brilliant series 'Conquerer' by Conn Iggulden that covers this in its entirity and I would hugely recommend to anyone interested in finding out more on this fascinating part in history. He really brings the Mongels to life and the series is just brilliant.

And then, in 1241, the Mongels came west.

What actually happened when they met European knights?

We don't have to guess this outcome. It happened. And it wasn't overly pretty for our European neighbours.

In April 1241, the Mongols launched a two-pronged invasion of Central Europe. The European army, composed of Polish, German forces, and Teutonic Knights, faced the Mongol horse archers at the Battle of Legnica - located in modern-day south-western Poland. Using the tactics outlined above, the Mongol warriors outsmarted the European knights. The fierce battle led to the death of Duke Henry II. The Mongols paraded through the area carrying his severed head on a spike. They did a lot of that sort of thing.

Two days later, they destroyed the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi, a town located in Hungary (southwest of the Sajó River if that helps anyone with a great knowledge of Hungarian geography).

The traditional European method of warfare, melee combat between knights, ended in catastrophe when deployed against the Mongols. They just kept their distance and used superior numbers and fire power.

The problem was structural. A European knight's entire purpose was to get close enough to hit someone very hard. The Mongols simply didn't let that happen. They would harry an advancing force with arrows, retreat when pressed, lure the knights forward and out of formation, and then encircle them. The heavier the armour, the more exhausted the horse, the easier the kill.

The Mongol system was a stark contrast to the European one, in which knights advanced with basically no communication with supporting forces. While Mongol commanders coordinated complex manoeuvres in real time from high ground using flag signals, European commanders essentially pointed their knights forward and hoped for the best.

It was, in military terms, a complete mismatch.

Was it all doom and gloom for the knights?

In light of the huge losses it is hard to find any bright spots for European knights in these battles. But let's try...during the Battle of Mohi, while Hungarian light cavalry and infantry were decimated, the heavily armoured knights, including Knights Templar, proved far more effective. The Templar force at Legnica lost only three knights and two sergeants - the armour was very effective in combat against the Mongols. In close combat, a fully armoured European knight was formidable.

The problem was getting to close combat.

The Mongols also consistently struggled against one thing: the outcome was very different when the Mongols faced fortified places, where they either came off worse or failed to gain a complete victory. Stone castles, properly defended, gave the Mongols genuine trouble. Vienna, under Duke Frederick and his knights, managed to annihilate a Mongol squadron when the defenders rallied quickly rather than meeting them in open field. The lesson, stay inside, don't charge out, was hard for a chivalric culture built on the opposite principle. But an essential component if you wanted to survice with your head intact.

Why Europe Survived - it wasn't due to the knights!

Here is the part that medieval Europeans preferred not to discuss. Feudal Europe was saved from sharing the fate of China and Muscovy not by its tactical prowess but by the unexpected death of the Mongols' supreme ruler, Ögedei (Genghis' third son and the second ruler of the Khan Empire) and the subsequent eastward retreat of his armies.

Most of the rest of Europe was saved from further Mongol depredations by the death of the great Khan Ögedei, which necessitated a succession assembly back in Mongolia. Batu Khan and his general Subutai, who had just fought their way to the outskirts of Vienna, turned around and went home. Not because they had been beaten. Because there was a management meeting to attend and select the next leader.

So ultimately, the fate of Europe was determined because of Mongol internal politics, not a failure of arms. European survival was accidental, not earned through military superiority. Things could have been very, very different in the Medieval period if Genghis Khan's son didn't die when he did!

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