In April 1241, at the Ceyo River, a tributary of the Danube River, an elite European army was preparing to attack, wrapped in iron armor and once invincible on the battlefields of Europe. At this time, however, the army was restless, because the opponent they were about to face was the nightmarish Mongol Iron Horse. What kind of great war will the Mongolian Iron Horse and the European elite be fought here? Can this seemingly poorly equipped eastern army compete with Europe's elite ironclad corps? In this issue, I will talk to you about the history of the Mongol Western Expedition.
At the beginning of 1241, after nearly 6 years of conquest, most of Central Asia was conquered by the Mongols, and the entire Chincha steppe became the forward base of the Mongol army. However, before he could rest, he launched a war against Hungary, which was based on multiple considerations. Because the destruction of Hungary could eliminate the threat of occupying the flanks of the Eastern European plain, the Mongol army, under the command of Batu, 120,000 Mongol troops divided into three routes, taking advantage of the fact that the west was not yet alert, and attacked the European land from three directions.
The first to achieve strategic results was the Northern Route Army Baidar, when the Netherlands was fragmented, controlling conrad in eastern Poland, was defeated by a 30,000 Mongol army, the Polish king was faint and incompetent, and the large army led by him was completely annihilated at the Battle of West Trav, and even the capital city was reduced to a sea of fire. The only thing that could be resisted in the whole Netherlands was Henry II, Duke of Silesia.
At this time, the war in Poland had caused panic throughout Europe, especially the neighboring Holy Roman Empire, in order to keep the Mongol army out of the country, they united with various countries to send 50,000 troops south to help. Henry II, knowing that he was invincible, retreated to Rignitz with an army of 30,000 men, in an attempt to join forces with reinforcements to block the Mongol army. After receiving the news, the Mongolian army quickly advanced towards Rignitz, intending to block the assembly road of the enemy's two large armies, but the situation on the battlefield at this time was not optimistic for the Mongolian army. Because at this time, the Mongolian army had been fighting for many years, and the enemy's more than 40,000 reinforcements had arrived. But Henry II was arrogant and rushed to start a decisive battle before the reinforcements arrived.
On April 9, 1241 AD, Henry II led 70,000 troops out of the city, and the famous annihilation of Regnitz in history was about to break out, and Henry II, who had the advantage in this battle, actually died a tragic death. Originally, Henry II divided his army into three fronts, and at the beginning of the battle, Henry II ordered the first front to attack, in an attempt to deplete the main Mongol army and choose the opportunity to carry out a surprise attack. Baidar immediately organized the Mongol army and implemented the strategy of luring the enemy deeper, and soon after the battle began, the Mongolian army showed an invincible posture and retreated backwards. When the enemy's first line broke away from the enemy's main force, it immediately turned around and launched a counterattack, with ambush troops on both sides swarming at the same time, while the enemy first line was composed of holy Roman infantry and Polish miners, and could not form an effective defense to meet the battle and was severely damaged.
At this time the enemy's second front came to support, but this team was composed of defeated troops from all over Poland, mainly infantry, and had no resistance under the speed advantage of the Mongol cavalry. At the moment of a thousand guns, Henry II committed a taboo and led the third line to the rescue, which made Henry II immediately fall into a desperate situation. Although the third formation was a knighthood composed of a large number of elite cavalry, including a Teutonic Knights, which claimed to be the strongest knights in Europe, the cavalry formation was scattered by the collapse of the first two fronts. Subsequently, in the face of the oncoming Mongol heavy cavalry regiment, the entire army was eventually destroyed without any resistance, and Henry II was also beheaded. Just when Baidar successfully completed the task of blocking the Dutch army, the main force of the Mongolian army in the middle road was not in a smooth situation.
In early March 1241, a Mongol army of 60,000 men led by Battus aimed directly at the Hungarian capital, Budapest (two cities on the east and west banks of the Danube). In the face of the Mongol army, King Bella IV of Hungary was very cautious, united with Germans, Austria and other countries, and gathered more than 100,000 elite troops to defend the city of Pest. With its towering walls blocking the first attack of the Mongol army, why did such a cautious Hungarian king end up defeated?
It turned out that they believed that the Mongol army was a non-God-created pagan, by no means an opponent of the "holy army", and the morale of the whole army was high. However, the Mongol army, which failed in the first attack, chose to avoid its sharp edge, and at the suggestion of Subutai, Batu led the Mongolian army to retreat slowly, which made the coalition army despise the Mongolian army even more and requested a pursuit. Near the Seyo River, the allied commanders used this small river as a barrier and sent 1,000 elites to guard the only stone bridge across the river to prevent the Mongol army from sneaking in at night. At this time, the Mongol army had been divided into two routes, one led by Batu to attack the stone bridge, and the other led by Subutai to encircle from the downstream. However, there were twists and turns in the implementation.
The Commander of the Mongol Army, Battus, was greedy and adventurous, and before waiting for the signal of Subutai, he took the lead in attacking the Stone Bridge, and the Stone Bridge was narrow and completely unable to play the advantages of the Mongol cavalry, resulting in Battus' beloved general Baha Bald to die at the head of the bridge. At this time, Batu brought 7 crossbow guns to launch a fierce bombardment of the stone bridge, and then sent a death squad to rush forward desperately, and finally took the stone bridge. Batu's rashness just happened to cover, and Subutai led a large army to successfully cross the river, and the two large armies were about to form an encirclement posture against the coalition forces.
At this time, the Hungarian Prince Koroman personally led the allied cavalry to meet, which was a heavy cavalry regiment covered with iron armor, the elite troops of Hungary and other countries, they had been moving forward in the European battlefield, and the Mongolian army was only wearing simple leather armor. In Koroman's view, this will be a war without suspense, everything will settle tonight, what exactly will make this elite suffer heavy losses?
It turned out that in the face of the rapid charge of the Korromans, the Mongol cavalry adopted a roundabout tactic, avoiding the front and relying on the advantage of light armor to maintain a suitable distance from the enemy. This directly led to the uselessness of the spears and knightly swords of the allied forces, but the Mongol bow in their hands could accurately shoot the bow and arrow into the joint of the armor. At that time, the Mongol cavalry would have a method of warfare called "Sabbath Archery", which could accurately turn around and shoot at the target while retreating, which caught the knights in front of the charge off guard, and the entire heavy knights seemed to be caught in a quagmire. At the same time, the most common tactic of the Mongol army was to use light cavalry to contain and heavy cavalry to sweep the tail, and when the enemy fell into chaos, the Mongol heavy cavalry regiment immediately launched a charge, and in their hands there was a weapon called "bone" (shaped like a long-handled hammer with multiple garlic-shaped protrusions), which could easily cause vertebrae fractures under the heavy blow, and was a weapon against heavy armor. Under the seemingly chaotic lineup of Mongol cavalry, tens of thousands of allied troops were killed in turn and suffered heavy casualties.
Koroman, who had escaped by chance, immediately organized heavy infantry after returning to the barracks in an attempt to break through the encirclement and break out of the siege. However, the Mongol army did not directly confront, but relied on accurate archery to kill the enemy from a distance, at the same time the Mongolian army ignited fire around to create smoke, taking advantage of the confusion of the enemy's formation, the Mongol cavalry with lightning speed, the coalition division and encirclement of the heavy damage. Losing two elite commandos, the coalition army did not dare to fight easily, the encirclement was gradually reduced, at this time Koroman and others launched a breakthrough again, but in the face of the Mongol army's arrow rain siege, again suffered heavy losses, even Koroman was seriously injured.
A few days later, the allied forces had run out of ammunition, and the Hungarian king officially ordered the whole army to break through. In order to avoid the other side from fighting with trapped beasts, the Mongol army opened a hole in the west of the encirclement, and saw the hope of the coalition army desperately began to flee, and the Mongol army launched a pincer pursuit, after 6 days of pursuit, it returned to the Danube River again, at this time the coalition army was exhausted, Batu ordered a general attack to annihilate the other side, and the famous Battle of the Seyo River ended.
Throughout the Western Expedition, the Mongol cavalry annihilated all the elites of The most belligerent countries in Europe, such as Hungary, Germania, Poland, and Saxony, but the losses of the Mongol army were also relatively heavy, so Babutai ordered the whole army to rest in the Fertile Hungarian Plain, preparing to launch the next round of offensive from this unexervished base. In the process, the north road army came to converge, while the south road army continued to conquer. The situation was very favorable to the Mongolian army, and another wave of offensive would most likely push the front line to the east coast of the Atlantic, but an accident occurred. At the beginning of 1242, the news of the death of the Mongol Great Khan WoKoutai reached the army, at this time Wo Kuotai had been dead for more than a year, and the nobles who had the right to inherit, as well as the eldest sons of the clans, were far away in Europe, and the form was very delicate, and Battu and others had to end the Western Expedition.