I was wondering... [Archive]

Meneldil

01-16-2005, 17:11

lol, this topic is full of clichés about the mongols and Ghengis Khan.

It's a common idea that Mongols were a bunch of barbarians who did nothing to civilisation except burning cities, killing people and so on, but that's totally untrue.

In fact, when they first heard about Ghengis Khan, europeans thought he was a foreign christian prince who would help them defeating the muslims.
During the 13th and 14th century, mongols khanates (sp?) were far more advanced than many european countries, mixing all sort of cultures (from China, India, Middle-east). Just read a translation of Marco Polo's travel to Karakorum (sp), and you'll understand that mongols were at least as civilised as christians and muslims (in fact, mongols kinda thought they were more civilised than others)
I seriously doubt Ghengis Khan/mongols hindered western culture as much as you seem to be thinking. Still nowadays, we can't say if mongols' impact on Russia was neither negative nor positive.

I don't want to say that they haven't done horrible things, but only that our opinion about mongols is quite biased, probably because back during this time, people used to call "barbarian" everything they didn't understand.

Togakure

01-16-2005, 17:22

Hmm ... interesting opinions. I know there is at least one significant authority on Ghengis Khan who comments here from time to time, and I'll bet he has a contrasting opinion on at least some of what has been said here. Hopefully he'll pop in and offer his two pence.

Come on now--Hollywood makes plenty of movies that aren't particularly wholesome and that don't glorify American or western culture. Films of this nature just don't make it to the mainstream as often because much of the American public won't as readily flock to them as they will the other stuff.

I love epic films about legendary historical figures, as long as they're done well. Problem is, so many lousy films of this type have been made that I'm skeptical from the start (as are a lot of other people, I think), and tend to just wait fo them to come out on cable or TV unless the reviews are really good.

Haven't seen Troy (because the reviews were not great, and several friends and family members said it wasn't worth paying to see).

Kraxis

01-16-2005, 23:09

Krusader

01-17-2005, 00:56

Another good thing about the Mongols was that after they had conquered and forged their empire, it was very safe to travel across their empire. There were virtually no bandits, and anyone attempting to make a career as highwaymen, would quickly be killed by the Mongols.

And the Mongols allowed their subjects to worship any god or gods they desired.

Still. The Mongols were nasty

Rosacrux redux

01-17-2005, 07:34

Hmm... the Mongols were definitely not civilized, nor comparable with anyone - especially the Muslims. One of their first conquests was China (where they slaughtered a rather large percentage of the inhabitants - about 7 to 11%, according to modern estimates) and that' s where their alleged "culture" comes from - mocking the most advanced culture you find on your path of looting, raping and destroying, is hardly "culture" by itself.

The Mongols have completely annihilated more than 200 large settlements - every man, woman, kid, and animal would die in those. They have completely erased from the face of the planet two large and prosperous cultures (Xsi Xsia and ...what was the other?) by slaughtering every man, woman and chil. They would carry with them in battle thousands of prisoners and force them to march in front of their army, so they would absorb the brunt of the enemy attack. They would kill every person in a city that would resist them. Glorious cities, with maybe even hundreds of thousands of inhabitants that faced the Mongols, were rendered into mere rabble, or - if they were lucky - to a little village population-wise ...

...I mean, if all that ain't barbarism, then we've lost any sense of proportion, haven't we? I would call the slaughter of more than 20 million people (and that's only in Chinghis's conquest) a rather hefty price to pay to be able to travel from Persia to Korea unhindered.

And I am quite sure that much of the backwardness of Asia can be contributed to the Mongols. When they started conquering, Asia was way ahead of Europe. When they finished with it... Europe was catching on and the only Asian culture that still was on the rise, where the Ottomans, and they were outside the Mongolian sphere of inlfluence.

Watchman

01-17-2005, 12:38

...although the Ottomans apparently started out as Turkish refugees from Mongol territory. Anyway, the fact is that even amongst the infamously rapacious steppe nomads, who were always reviled by their settled neighbors for their penchance for pillage and devastation, the Mongols were a class by themselves. Just about everyone else during the period only engaged in massacres and wholesale slaughter as a side effect of the unavoidable pillaging the troops indulged in, and it was normally of a very localized nature (such as the sack of any city taken by storm).

The Mongols intentionally annihilated entire cities and depopulated whole regions as cautionary examples.

Of course, a good director could undoubtly make a pretty good movie that simply waves off any modern sensibilities and takes the steppe marauders as they were; they themselves saw nothing wrong with any of it, after all, and among themselves had quite sophisticated and reasonably palatable codes of conduct. It could be treated as a sort of study on the internal logic of the sort of archaic barbarism modern sensibilities have - thankfully - outgrown. If properly done, the lack of unperiodic moralism should only add to the horror.

Look at movies like Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and the like to witness the basic point of that approach.

I'm none too convinced Hollywood could manage it, though; moral ambiguity isn't the strong point of the spectacle movies coming out of there.

Rosacrux redux

01-17-2005, 15:05

Ah, yes. The good'ole "Black and White" kindergarten morals that made Hollyweird what it is now.

Why would they stray from that recipe? I mean, look at Alexander. Stone didn't subscribe into the "Black-White" morals and he got massacred (a-la Chinghiz?) by all American critics... oh, well, maybe the fact that the film wasn't really much, did also play a part at it... Oh, wait. There is Gang of New York too. Excellent film (IMHO) but it again missed the "Black vs White" point, portraying everybody in shades of grey... and it went down like the Titanic (the ship, not the film) in the American box office. Maybe it's not Hollyweird, but the immature audience, methinks.

Hmm... can you think of one director that could handle the history in such a way (and has sufficient control over his work - final cut, that is) ? Scorceze, perhaps? He's not big on history, but all his films are handling shades of grey and glorify the underworld and the margins. And he is strong enough to do a film the way he wants it.

Oh, if only Kubrik was alive and sane...

DemonArchangel

01-17-2005, 16:11

There was a chinese movie on Genghis Khan.
Beautiful, beautiful combat (although too much flying)

Brutal too.

Meneldil

01-17-2005, 18:35

Well, Rosacrux, though I agree Mongols burnt a whole lot of cities, killed a huge number of people, I have to disagree about the fact they were less civilised than other.

Just have a look at the muslim conquest, it was the exact same thing (in lesser proportion). Muslims burnt cities, destroyed whole civilisations (Sassanid Persia ? Copte Aegyptia ?) killed a whole lot of innocents, and almost destroyed the Eastern Roman empire, though eventually they built the most advanced civilisation around mediterranea. However, can we say that they were not civilised ? Obviously not.
They took the best part from each civilisation they conquered, and that's what allowed them to be more advanced than christians.
Basically, that's what Mongols have done 800 years laters.

I don't want to be annoying or what, but I think you're opinion is kinda biased.
My sources might be wrong (though I doubt it), but I've read a lot of books on that topic. Many christians or muslims travellers (Marco Polo being one of them) who visited mongols' territories were simply astonished by their culture and their way of life.

And as I said in my previous post, (and from what I've understood from my readings) Mongols thought they were superior to other peoples (that's mostly why they didn't care about killing loads of innocents if that would save one of them) and that they were supposed to rule over the whole known world. Is that what you would expect from an uncivilised culture ?

Rosacrux redux

01-17-2005, 19:47

Just have a look at the muslim conquest, it was the exact same thing (in lesser proportion). Muslims burnt cities, destroyed whole civilisations (Sassanid Persia ? Copte Aegyptia ?) killed a whole lot of innocents, and almost destroyed the Eastern Roman empire, though eventually they built the most advanced civilisation around mediterranea. However, can we say that they were not civilised ? Obviously not.
They took the best part from each civilisation they conquered, and that's what allowed them to be more advanced than christians.
Basically, that's what Mongols have done 800 years laters.

The comparison is completely out of proportion and here's why:

- The Arab conquest was one of faith - they had an ideological background since they wished to spread the word of Allah and his prophet Mohammad. The Mongol urge to rule over everyone is hardly an ideological background.

- The Arabs have forced their culture, language and faith upon the conquered, while the Mongols only picked the local customs to create some sort of "culture" themselves.

- The Arabs, before and after the conquest, had magnificent poets, writers, philosophers. The Mongols had only magnificent butchers.

- The Arabs left a glorious culture, which became the apogee of the medieval world. Excellent works of architecture, science, poetry, thinking... The Mongols left us... the yurt.

- The Arabs shaped the world and almost all the countries they conquered back then still speak their tongue and trace their origin back to the Arabs. The Mongols, not having a culture of their own to spread, were practically completely assimilated in two generations wherever they laid foot.

I don't want to be annoying or what, but I think you're opinion is kinda biased.

How can I be biased? Never known a Mongol, live 20.000 km. away from their land now... how can I be biased?

My sources might be wrong (though I doubt it), but I've read a lot of books on that topic. Many christians or muslims travellers (Marco Polo being one of them) who visited mongols' territories were simply astonished by their culture and their way of life.

Actually most of the accounts, especially of Muslim travellers, speak with horror about the huge, once glorious cities, that now lie in rabbles and about endless mounds of skulls and skeletons that was the trademark of the Mongol passage. Of course M. Polo would speak the contrary, and glorify the Great Khan: he made him disproportionaly rich, why wouldn't he speak favorable about him? (that's if you are looking for "biased" sources)

And as I said in my previous post, (and from what I've understood from my readings) Mongols thought they were superior to other peoples (that's mostly why they didn't care about killing loads of innocents if that would save one of them) and that they were supposed to rule over the whole known world. Is that what you would expect from an uncivilised culture ?

Megalomaniac=cultivated? :dizzy2:

Watchman

01-17-2005, 22:23

The Arabs were actually fairly nice, as period conquerors go. They didn't go out of their way to massacre people or demolish the very foundations of local culture - compare what happened to Mesopotamia during the Arab takeover, and what the Mongols did to it - and actually weren't even too interested in converting most infidels (although the reasons for that were pretty base). Where they went they usually melded into the local culture and populace, although they usually left a mark besides religion. Persian culture, for example, did not particularly suffer from the change of overlords and even the old ruling class largely kept its position - and later on the region would become a shining jewel of learning and high culture.

Well, it never really recovered from the Mongols, who on the side irrecoverably demolished the sophisticated irrigation system that'd fed Mesopotamia since men started building cities - all the engineers got killed, y'see.

A pretty fundamental difference is that in many places the Muslim conquerors were hailed as liberators by the locals (Palestine and Egypt for certain; both the Jews and the Egyptian Christians had some serious grievances with Byzantium). The Mongols, well, weren't.

It is true that for the brief period the Great Khanate held together the Silk Road saw some serious traffic; many historians postulate control over its riches was what the Mongols mainly were after to begin with, and the infrastructure of the realm was on a serius upswing. Well, that lasted until the Khanate fragmented and the pieces started squabbling, which severely reduced trade along the Road for some fairly obvious reasons.

And that brief stability was only achieved after incredible bloodshed and irrepairable damage to both the economy, the culture and the very demographics of vast regions...

No, the Arab blitzkrieg doesn't compare to the Mongols at all. The Arabs at least were only partially nomadic, and could appreciate the ancient cultures they met. The sons of the high steppes didn't much care, and all too often just torched the whole thing and sold the surviving inhabitants to slavery.

Kraxis

01-18-2005, 00:45

The Arabs had always been in contact with the middle eastern cultures, so they very much knew about highcultures, and they were both impressed and highly interested in them. They even had some rather impressive cities down in Yemen and along the Red Sea coast, the Mongols had 0 cities and 0 towns prior to their conquests. Their only contact with a highculture was their raids into China as they had always done (hence the wall).

If we look at Spain and the Muslim invasion it becomes apparent that they were hardly savage at all. They even tried to buff up and look more scary to the Visigothic troops. But they simply weren't. The Visigoths didn't really lose because they were overpowered, they were not, but they did not have the population on their side. How could the population be against a rather strict noble class, though hardly cruel, but for a deadly and butchering enemy? In that case they would either help the Visitgoths or try to stay neutral.

Afghanistan also suffered heavily, they too lost those vital irrigationsystems, and it hasn't even been brought up to that standard yet. That is why it is such a desolate place now... Bactria was a prosperous area when Alexander arrived and stayed that way after it broke off from the Seleucids, it even invaded northern India and won. After the Mongols the area simlpy vanished. Even the Timurids kept away from the area as it wasn't worth it. Timur himself invaded every opponent that tried to invade his lands, everyone but the Bactrians. He just defeated them and signed a good deal to keep them away, not because he had had trouble defeating them. Apparently it wasn't worth capturing.

The Mongols wiped out the greatest civilization west of the Indus, the Kwarazhmian Empire. They removed Kiev from the maps, one of the most splendid cities in Europe for no other reason than it had sent its armies into the field... It wasn't even besieged as far as I know. Don't say that they were not some of the most brutal conquerors ever.
That they adopted the local culture when they settled down doesn't make up for their extreme terrors.

BalkanTourist

01-18-2005, 07:01

The last two posts really ticked me. You guys are obviously unaware of the cruelties inflicted by the Ottoman Turks upon the Christians in Eastern Europe. How could you say they were noble conquerors?! Do you know that the biggest church in the world - St. Sophia in Constantinople was turned into a moask? No, there are no noble conquerors. All conquerors are the same, there are no good or less bad conquerors. What about the Spanish in S. America? How were they different from the Mongols? Oh, I am sorry they belong to the Western Civ, so they at least had superior culture. But massacres are massacres no matter what. What about the English and N. America? The use of black slaves in millions? Hitler? No, Western Civ is not much different.
Back to the Muslims. That religion was created in the deserts of Arabia and was based on conquest. They had to spread the word of Allah to the infidels. Christianity wasn't much different - the Crusades and the Spanish conquest of S. America show us that. I can speak about the the Ottoman Turks because I am pretty familiar with their conquest in the Balkans. The Turks were at the beginning of the Feudal stage when they conquered Bulgaria which had experienced that stage 700 years earlier. That begining is defined by strong centralized government - absolute monarchy. As it develops it turns into a limited monarchy and that was at the begining of Rennaisance. Bulgaria was at the begining of the later stage and was experiancing a period of fragmentation as local feudals were proclaiming independace (no national feelings yet). So the devided country was an easy pray for the strong centralized and comperatively young Ottoman state. Numerous attrocities were commited. People were forced to become muslim or lose their head. Whole villages were exterminated. The consequences are even to this day - Bosnia is inhabited of islamized Serbs and Croats, the Bulgarian muslims who are called pomaks. Those are the children of the people who chose to live 300 years ago. Every rebellion was put down with rivers of blood, piles of sculls, burned churches, raped women and the children, the children were taken to be janissaries - the most fearsome troops in the Ottoman army. Those were christian children who often were sent back to the christian regions of the Empire to put down rebellions or the force people to become muslim. Churches were only allowed to be built if they were not higher than a Turk on his horse. When the Turks conquered they immediately put to the sword all the nobility. They also burned thousands of books. What religious tolerance do you see in that? People living in Western Europe should ask themselves why is the West more developed? Can you see the line where the Ottoman Empire reached nearly 400 years ago? East of Budapest is certainly less developed and poorer than west. Except for the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians no one else from the "christian world" to the west bothered to help their christian brothers to the east. the last crusade ended in 1444 when the joint forces of Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Serbs and Bulgarians were crushed by the Ottomans with the help of Venice near Varna in Bulgaria. That sealed the fate of the East. People from all over Southeastern Europe still have to suffer the consequences - fragmented countries (ever wondered why people in the Balkans still have territorial desputes? thank the Turks for that), ethnic animosities, poor economies...... I'd much rather be conquered by a higher developed country.

Byzantine Prince

01-18-2005, 07:40

Balkan Tourist what does Balkan history have to do with the fact that a blockbuster movie about Ghengis Khan hasn't been made?

Also your little "no conqueror is good" theory is completely wrong. I could argue the exact opposite, but what would be the point. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand. So let's plase stay on topic.

BalkanTourist

01-18-2005, 10:41

Tell, you what BP, how about you don't read whatever I write from now on. Everytime you see my name, automatically scip my post. I'll do the same with yours. From what I have read, you seem to be entering puberty just about now, or have just entered it, and that's a stage of my life I long passed, so go look for someone your age to bug!

Rosacrux redux

01-18-2005, 11:40

I don't think anyone said that the Muslim conquest (of the Arabs or their cultural offspring - Berbers, Turks etc.) was "noble" or "fair" or anything like that. Surely, anyone who's country and people has been under muslim rule in one or another stage couldn't say that.

The same goes for every conquest and conqueror - even my own pet peeves as Alexander or the Romans: Conquest does horrible things to the conquered. Alexander surely spread the Greek culture, and allowed the ancient world to experience a glorious age of knowledge and wealth... but he also sacked Tyros, burned down Persepolis and slaughtered quite a lot of people here and there, to serve as an example. The Roman rule over Greece, for instance, wasn't "cruel" per se, but the Romans did sack Corinth and slaughtered all it's inhabitants. Two examples of the two most "cultivated" conquerors ever to show that indeed conquest brings along misery and pain in every case.

The Muslims, and especially the Turks, were far from benevolent rulers or conquerors - they too were ruthless and murderous. And the Turks conquered some people (the Byzantines, for instance) that were quite more advanced and sophisticated than themselves.

I was reffering mainly to the Arab conquest, the initial phase of expansion when the Khalifate was one and huge. They surely commited numerous acts of cruelty and practiced extensive ethnic cleansing (Syria and it's de-greekfication is one case, Persia and the annihilation of all Zoroastrians is another, the massacres in Egypt is a third and there are a 100 more examples) but they didn't only slaughter and butchers, as the Mongols apparently did.

The Arabs had a culture of their own, and spread that culture - and their national identity, how many countries do you know outside of the Arab peninsula that call themselves "Arabs" now? - in the conquered territories and then, by absorbing the local elements, they created a magnificent culture that was centuries ahead of anything Europe (save Byzantium) had to offer at that time.

There is no comparison with the savage nomads from the steppe - they were absorbed into the local population in a few generations and no country that has experienced their conquest refers to them as anything beyond brutal murderers.

Gregoshi

01-18-2005, 16:04

Civil dialog appears to be taking a beating so far in 2005. It must stop please. ~:pissed:

The Wizard

01-18-2005, 18:50

I actually think it would be a boon to an actor if could accurately prortray a really nasty guy, one who loved being it. And yes Genghis Khan was one such man. You need not show a lot of killing, merely a village burning in the background and very satisfied Mongols.
The problem arises that the current Mongols might not like the way we would portray their forefathers as such men. It could quickly become a widespread view that it was merely done because we had to have something to hate him for, as we would not allow an easterner to be seen as greater than our own (the good old racist argument).

Meneldil, what you speak of are the ones after Genghis, he himself despised such 'cultured' behaviour as weak. Under him it was rather deadly. Remember the mountains of skulls and the sack of Baghdad, such things did not come from nothing as the Europemans themselves were nasty, but here come a people who were worse than the Europeans.
The Mongols were, though, quickly absorbed into the local culture and they lost themselves, and as such they became 'merely' a new local elite.
When they settled down it was great for everyone, they lost that hard edge in war and became more like those they met (less likely to be as cruel as they once had been).
Actually, Chingis Khan was not such a very bloodthirsty man as everyone seems to think. When he attacked Persia -- his most notorious and bloody campaign -- it was after the Khwarizmians had slain his emissaries coming in peace, and sent their heads back. Chingis replied by an invasion. Each and every action he ever undertook, with the possible exception of his very early campaigns, were as a result of someone doing him wrong.

Also, put the Mongol killings in perspective for once. That people lived in one of the harshest climates on the planet; it is no wonder that they were able to survive the Russian winter, and not only that, but also conquer most of the country during it! It was a harsh life, for tough people. Only the strongest survived. Intertribal warfare was concluded by the victors by slaughtering the enemies menfolk and cattle, to make sure they wouldn't return and take vengeance, for fortunes on the steppes could change as swiftly as the directions of the wind.

With that background, it is actually quite logical that they undertook such brutal actions as the subjugation of the rebellious Qara-Qitai, or such great slaughterings as in Persia. Of course, this does not justify their actions, but there was no need for that in those days. An idea of 'universal human rights' has only meeted widespread support since after the great wars of the 20th century, even though its first proposal was by Cyrus the Great way back in the 540s BC.

Also, towers of skulls? That is a myth concerning Chingis Khan. In fact, it stems from a man who wished to eminate that same aura of frightened respect that Chingis seemed to possess, and a man who actually took real pleasure in killing and slaughtering: Timur-i-Lenk, Tamerlane. Understandably, the two have been mixed up in European culture, for the two were not much different in the eyes of the Europeans, especially since Timur claimed descent from Chingis Khan (the good man today has approx. 12 million descendants). It was Timur who built these gruesome structures as a warning to any who dared to oppose him. Not that it worked; Timur had to return many times to a formerly 'conquered' region to subjugate it again after it had rebelled.

Chingis was a much more able administrator, and with the administrative and legislative system he devised at the khuriltai on the banks of the Onon river in 1206, the Mongols were able to hold on to lands for much longer than their 'successor', Timur, whom's empire collapsed quickly after his death, his heirs only able to hold on to pieces of it. Of course, when the Khakhan became more interested in China (Qubilai) and after a while dropped the title Khakhan altogether in favor of 'Yuan emperor', the empire dissolved into a number of independent states.

~Wiz

BalkanTourist

01-18-2005, 19:57

Rosacrux, you seem very interested in the matter of conquest. May I suggest a book that might be of interest - "Conquest and Cultures" by Thomas Sowell. I am reading it right now. Trust me it's a very interesting book.

BalkanTourist

01-18-2005, 20:03

"Also, put the Mongol killings in perspective for once. That people lived in one of the harshest climates on the planet; it is no wonder that they were able to survive the Russian winter, and not only that, but also conquer most of the country during it! It was a harsh life, for tough people. Only the strongest survived. Intertribal warfare was concluded by the victors by slaughtering the enemies menfolk and cattle, to make sure they wouldn't return and take vengeance, for fortunes on the steppes could change as swiftly as the directions of the wind."

I second that! And for that they get my respect. What the mongols did does not need approval but requires respect nevertheless.

Byzantine Prince

01-18-2005, 20:17

Also, put the Mongol killings in perspective for once. That people lived in one of the harshest climates on the planet; it is no wonder that they were able to survive the Russian winter, and not only that, but also conquer most of the country during it! It was a harsh life, for tough people. Only the strongest survived. Intertribal warfare was concluded by the victors by slaughtering the enemies menfolk and cattle, to make sure they wouldn't return and take vengeance, for fortunes on the steppes could change as swiftly as the directions of the wind.

AHH, if only that was true. The Mongols were the viscious and brutal to every single human or animal being. They would kill children, seniors, cats, dogs, cattle, men, women, infants. The list goes on. This is all from a book I've read about nomad people. I'm not just saying for the sake... you know.

Actually, Chingis Khan was not such a very bloodthirsty man as everyone seems to think.HAHAHA!! When he attacked Persia -- his most notorious and bloody campaign -- it was after the Khwarizmians had slain his emissaries coming in peace, and sent their heads back. Chingis replied by an invasion. Each and every action he ever undertook, with the possible exception of his very early campaigns, were as a result of someone doing him wrong.

Yeah sure, and Hitler was also a good man right? Don't kid yourself, those emissaries were sent to demand a surrender of the entire empire. What would you do if a bunch nomads walked in and asked you to give them everything or else you die!!?!?

Also, towers of skulls? That is a myth concerning Chingis Khan.

Not really. People would visit these towns that were run over by the Mongols and they would write about how you couldn't walk in there because it smelled so bad.

Also another thing. Did you know that Hitler himself modelled his invasion of eastern Europe after the mongols. Yeah he looked at history books and that's how he got his idea to exterminate everyone just like the mongols to the same people so long ago.

The Wizard

01-18-2005, 20:38

And I am quite sure that much of the backwardness of Asia can be contributed to the Mongols. When they started conquering, Asia was way ahead of Europe. When they finished with it... Europe was catching on and the only Asian culture that still was on the rise, where the Ottomans, and they were outside the Mongolian sphere of inlfluence.
You may be quite sure, but you're not right.

For starters, slaughters by medieval armies cannot have been so amazingly large-scale that it could have led to the huge economical and cultural decline that you propose. Such results by war alone are only possible since the Great War.

No, the reason must be searched for elsewhere, and it is quite easily found. The reason that Asia suffered such widespread and great decline in prosperity is the Black Death, from which Europe recovered but Asia did not.

You see, whereas the Europeans reacted to the Black Death with widespread hysterica, urban unrest and revolution, the people of Iran, Arabia and Central Asia reacted by going back to ancient family and tribal traditions and loyalty, reducing birthrates and (presumably, at least ~;p) hoped for better times. Agriculture and trade retreated as the population decreased. Huge areas reverted to nomadism, and as proof this worked, bedouins, who had always been nomads, seem to have survived the plague quite well.

Into this, plus the chaos caused by the desintegration of the Mongol successor states (which did not cause huge devastation, at least not anywhere near the decline caused by the Black Death) in the mid-14th century, was born Timur-i-Lenk. His native Transoxania, paradoxically, was experiencing a revival, and under such a brilliant general it was only logical that the surrounding regions were attacked.

Timur's campaigns, however, were inefficient in leaving the enemy defeated, and he had to return to regions like Iran multiple times to put down rebellions, right to his death in 1405. Since he was a ruthless and bloodthirsty man, he tended to try to crush his enemies through fear alone. As proven, that did not work. This points out that the Mongols were more advanced in administration, and more respected and loved, than a man who lived approx. 200 years later.

The bad administration of and the hate for Tamerlane also resulted in the fact that his great empire fell apart immediately after his death, and the same happened to his successors. Every time a Timurid died, there would be a civil war over his territory. Timur's successors did not lack in ability, but the foundation left by Timur himself was too weak to be useful.

While Europe eventually recovered, Asia could not, for it had to begin anew from becoming nomadic. Asia had to be repopulated and de-nomadisized. This was not exactly easy with the violent wars fought between the Timurids, Uzbhegs, Afghans, Persians and the exploitation by the Europeans (we're talking 18th century now). Weak dynasties, plus a strongly deminished population and therefore deminished economy, lead to the fact that Asia was weak and open for exploitation by European powers such as Russia, France and Britain. This kept them weak, because strong powers could not be profitable.

The latterly mentioned is similar to the dynastical struggles of Sassanid Persia in the late 5th and the 6th centuries, before the ascension of Khusrau Anushirivan. Byzantium was interested in a strong Persia to keep off the nomadical peoples moving about, such as the Chionite Ephtalites and the Huns.

So: Asia became weak do to the reaction of the people there to the Black Death, which on the long term was bad. As opposed to the European reaction to the Black Death, which on a short term cost more lives but on the long term guaranteed a quicker recovery. Add this to the many struggles between the Timurids, and the fact that the Timurids were replaced by the backward Uzbhegs, plus the violent and frequent wars between Persia, the Uzbhegs and the Afghans, because of which the nations in question were weakened sufficiently to be easily manipulated and exploited and therefore kept weak by the European powers, who had recovered quickly from the Black Death and due to the Mongol Silk Road recieved huge amounts of technology from the East, more than ever before.

The Mongols therefore contributed greatly not only to the start of the Rennaissance, but also to the prosperity of the places they conquered. The safety that the Khakhan promoted, and the good administration and legislation of the Mongols, plus their will to cooperate with subjugated peoples, led to a great revival of economic prosperity under Mongol supervision. Sometimes this took a while, such as in the Il-Khanate, but eventually it would prove to be positive, only to be destroyed by Timur-i-Lenk (widely regarded in his day as a Mongol, as his troops were, which explains a lot of the belief in the solely negative effect of the Mongols on conquered territory) and the Black Death before him.

~Wiz :bow:

The Wizard

01-18-2005, 21:11

AHH, if only that was true. The Mongols were the viscious and brutal to every single human or animal being. They would kill children, seniors, cats, dogs, cattle, men, women, infants. The list goes on. This is all from a book I've read about nomad people. I'm not just saying for the sake... you know.Probably an exaggerated account of the practice. You need only slaughter the menfolk and the cattle and take the women, leave the children (perhaps take them). It's all good for your tribe -- no more threat, more women, more slaves to sell, which means more money and therefore more power! Why slaughter them all? And don't come with 'because they like to', because I will prove to you next that Chingis Khan was not a bloodthirsty man, but rather a man who used traditional nomadic ways to defeat his enemy. Oh sure, he had his occasional outbursts, but as you will see, most of his statements embody his essentially logical approach to declaring war -- "you do me wrong, I do you wrong".

"Genghis Khan told them that they, the common people, were not at fault, that high-ranking people among them had committed great sins that inspired God to send him and his army as punishment."

This is what Chingis said to the people of Bukhara, according to a contemporary source, when they surrendered. The surrender happened after the siege, but the city was not annihalated, and their surrender was accepted immediately. Chingis Khan, in the campaign into Persia, spared those that surrendered without a fight. Those that did not were attacked and killed. Seems pretty logical to me, especially in the context of the day.

He was, above all, a shrewd ruler, playing off enemies against each other, sparing those who surrendered, and destroying those who chose to fought. Seeing such destruction as at Samarqand, and then with the knowledge that those who had not resisted had been spared, would have prompted many a man to surrender rather than fight. It's a principle that the Roman emperor Aurelian also used, as did Alexander the Great. Now, you might be able to say that their slaughterings were not as great, but what did Alexander face? Great, heavily populated empires like the Khwarezm-shah Empire? No, small, divided principalities such as India. Great cities such as Babylon surrendered to the new Great King and were spared. Persepolis was even burned for no particular reason! Aurelian, also, employed the entire principle on a smaller scale, so to say. At first he spared Palmyra when it surrendered after Zenobia's attempted flight to Palmyra, but when it rebelled again it was demolished.

Yeah sure, and Hitler was also a good man right? Don't kid yourself, those emissaries were sent to demand a surrender of the entire empire. What would you do if a bunch nomads walked in and asked you to give them everything or else you die!!?!?I would like to see your proof of this. Every single account I have read about the beginning of the invasion, except those that were obviously biased, states that a Khwarizmian governor killed a Mongolian caravan passing through his lands. Chingis Khan sent emissaries to demand explanation and the punishing of the governor in question, most favorably by the Mongols themselves. Instead, his emissaries were humiliated by having their leader killed and the others' beards burned off, and then sent back to Chingis. This was, of course, an outrage and Chingis declared war.

Not really. People would visit these towns that were run over by the Mongols and they would write about how you couldn't walk in there because it smelled so bad.I repeat: towers built out of skulls is a myth about the Mongols born out of what the Timurids did. People confused the two and that is how the modern myth was born.

Also another thing. Did you know that Hitler himself modelled his invasion of eastern Europe after the mongols. Yeah he looked at history books and that's how he got his idea to exterminate everyone just like the mongols to the same people so long ago.I doubt that. Besides, how can you attribute a man's lust for killing simply to the fact that he read a book about the Mongols? I read a book about them, but do I want to kill each and every Jew I come across? No. The fact that he did so was probably a product of his own twisted, sick mind.

~Wiz

Rosacrux redux

01-19-2005, 10:24

Wizard

I am afraid your admiration of the Mongols is distorting your view towards them. You do admit that they were irredeemably cruel and savage, yet you think that’s justified because …they were nomads and lived in harsh condition?????

Yes, and Hitler wasn’t really responsible for the holocaust, because he had a traumatic child age.

Also, you might attribute the fall of the East to the plague, which was quite worse in Europe, btw and not all East experienced the plague anyway – China didn’t. India didn’t. Why did they stay behind? I find your reaction theory rather unfounded as well. I think that’s wrong as well. A couple other posters have illustrated how the Mongols destroyed the infrastructure and the fact that they depopulated Asia is not my speculation but a well-established historical fact.

You might like the Mongols because they were great warriors and such. But that shouldn’t hinder you from understanding that they were also the worst thing that happened to humanity ever.

BalkanTurist

Thanks for the suggestion. I am not extremely keen on conquests per se, I am more into critical interpretation of them and scientific evaluation of the various factors that preceded the conquest and of course of the consequences for all parts involved.

If the book you suggest is anything like what I described, I'll look it up.

BalkanTourist

01-19-2005, 15:11

It talks about how conquests affect cultures and shape civilizations. It is more of a social sciences book, rather than a historical book. It analyzes rather than tells.

Rosacrux redux

01-19-2005, 15:35

Then I think I'm gonna love it. I'll try to find it.

thanks!

The Wizard

01-19-2005, 19:33

Wizard

I am afraid your admiration of the Mongols is distorting your view towards them. You do admit that they were irredeemably cruel and savage, yet you think that’s justified because …they were nomads and lived in harsh condition?????
Perhaps you missed my comment... I said it was not justified in the least by it, but it at least explains their attitude to warfare. Mongols weren't those to torture and maim... they 'limited' (with lack of a better word) themselves to killing and sacking 'alone' (again, with lack of better wording), and usually from a distance.

Yes, and Hitler wasn’t really responsible for the holocaust, because he had a traumatic child age.
Er... I do not understand where this comment comes from... if you insinuate that I excuse Hitler because I said his lust for killing was because of his sick and twisted mind, then you either entirely missed my point or you are just plain very wrong. My point was that reading a book on the Mongols does not make one want to go on mass-murderings all on its own.

Also, you might attribute the fall of the East to the plague, which was quite worse in Europe, btw and not all East experienced the plague anyway – China didn’t. India didn’t. Why did they stay behind?
Why was the plague 'quite worse' in Europe? Did I not mention that the European reaction to the disease cost more lives on the short term but let the Europeans recover faster on the long term, and the other way around for Asia? Then, looking at the statistics alone, it was worse in Europe, but that is not the whole story, as I explained above.

China wasn't exactly staying behind in any way at the date of the Mongols. The Ming and Qing dynasties were extremely powerful forces, but the latter failed because of bad leadership, child emperors, court intrigue ruling politics, and because it had isolated itself from the world and was therefore backwards and ignorant of the threat that the Western powers posed. And all that only happened in the end of the 18th century, because before that China under the Qing dynasty could easily rank itself amongst the most powerful nations in the world -- it even conquered Mongolia! No, the Mongols had nothing to do with the Mongol conquests.

And in my opinion, the Mongols had absolutely nothing to do with the weakening of India. All they did to India was a raid led by Chingis, which wasn't half as destructive as the defeat of the Khwarizm-shah Empire. India became very powerful and very prosperous two centuries later, when a Timurid, Babur, descended from the Hindu Kush into the Indus valley and eventually conquered all of the Indian peninsula, and founded the Mughal dynasty. The Mughal empire was also one of the most powerful and advanced civilizations on the world, until the 18th century (a century where European fortunes rose greatly and the fortunes of the rest of the world seem to have fallen greatly -- it was in this period that the Middle East also lost much of its power... think of the Ottomans, Persia, etc.) when a massive defeat of the Mughals at the hands of the 'Napoleon of the East', Nadir Shah of Persia, caused the sacking of Delhi, after which the Persians left with the Peacock Throne, a huge amount of Mughal treasure including the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and a massive amount more of treasure. It is estimated that Nadir Shah's army doubled in size just by the camp followers needed to carry all this loot (elephants, camels, etc.).

To me it seems you overestimate the destruction caused by the Mongols, and it isn't the first time we've disagreed over that point of the Mongols. A while back we had another argument in a thread about how to defeat the Mongols. There I also pointed out that every region conquered by the Mongols and then incorporated into their empire saw a period of economical rebirth and prosperity. Regions that were not incorporated into the empire for various regions, such as Hungary, Poland, and India, were left hurting for a while. Perhaps that is the explanation of some people's belief that the Mongols only brought bad things?

I find your reaction theory rather unfounded as well. I think that’s wrong as well. A couple other posters have illustrated how the Mongols destroyed the infrastructure and the fact that they depopulated Asia is not my speculation but a well-established historical fact.
Why do you think it's wrong? I'd like some arguments for this, for I am interested in why you chose to disbelieve it, for I don't think the rest you say in the quote has anything to do with my arguments for a good casus belli for Chingis concerning the Khwarizmians.

And, regarding that rest of the quote, I would like to know why you believe that a medieval army was able to cause such widespread destruction and depopulation as the Mongols apparently did according to you. I find that very hard to believe. They didn't have carpet bombers, they didn't have WMD's, they didn't have million-man armies and neither did they have armored divisions (tanks etc.). How could they have brought Asia such decline with only sword and bow and muscle power? And how could it have stayed bad for more than 800 years solely as a result of the Mongol conquests? You'd think the Mongols and their successors in the area would've done something to make the regions strong, looking at the duration of the Mongol khanates remaining after the death of Qubilai Khan (which were still mainly ruled by Mongols or at least people who had Mongol blood), and the efforts of such rulers as the Safavids and Mughals. No, on such a long term the Mongols had very little effect, and what effect their was, was positive in the end.

~Wiz

Sethik

01-19-2005, 22:02

I seriously doubt Ghengis Khan/mongols hindered western culture as much as you seem to be thinking. Still nowadays, we can't say if mongols' impact on Russia was neither negative nor positive.

Didn't he retard Russia's development by several hundred years? Because Russian was under Mongol rule it did not participate in the Renaissance. Up until Peter the Great (1700s I think) Russia was a back water country still stuck in the middle ages.

Alexander on the other hand pretty much IS Western Culture enbodied. Greek Culture is Western Culture.

Please elaborate. I find that statement completely false.

Watchman

01-20-2005, 00:16

Boys and girls, let's stop apologizing for the Mongols, shall we ? There's no point in idolizing them. Conquering armies are always a veritable plague on any region they capture; nomads tend to be doubly so, as they are more mobile and can thus pillage and devastate better, and - let's be honest here - more often than not tended to consider settled people barely human (even by the low general standards of the time).

The Mongols were really just a reductio ad absurdum of the Conquering Nomad phenomenom. They conquered more land than any other nomad empire before or after them; fielded bigger armies, and possibly better too; and in some places brought such utter ruin to whole populations and entire regions so as not to have an equal anywhere* else in history, expect perhaps the conquest of South and Central Americas and even there the big killer was disease and not violence. And then they collapsed to squabbling little splinter khandoms inside about a hundred years.

* And I do mean anywhere; the only other case I know of where military violence was enough to cause permanent damage to demographics is the Albiguensian Crusades/Cathar wars, and that's a maybe. In any case the scope of those was far smaller.

The Mongols also took terror tactics to a whole new level. One of their basic SOPs was to utterly annihilate any city that tried to defy them as a warning to others, although they were pragmatic enough to spare armorers and similar useful craftsmen. This was rather helpful in terrifying enemies into surrender and convincing fortifications to give up without a fight, and to be fair they usually treated such cases reasonably humanely.

But then, for example Khwarimzam was totally razed on general principles due to the Khwarimzamshah having "personally insulted" the Khan... Ditto for Persia, far as I know, and Hungary seems to have gotten a more limited version of the same treatment.

If there were no piles of skulls, that was only because the Mongols didn't bother. They'd actually have welcomed such wild tales to further terrify their foes, though.

The bottom line is, these people took conquering nomad violence to such heights and scales as to have no equal, did so very much on purpose and out of the sheer savage joy of pillaging (something all armies tend to fall guilty of), and were quite proud of it.

Trying to excuse away their atrocities is quite pointless revisionism. They lived in a world entirely different from such modern sensibilities and would probably have been offended at such slander. In any case such anachronistic romanticism is silly and shallow; why should they even be tried to be made into something else than the terrific warriors and terrible conquerors they were and gloried in being ? Accept them as they were, both awesome and horrifying. Trying to pass judgement, positive or negative, from modern standpoints on them is really nothing more than cultural imperialism, imposing one's own values on entirely different people.

Trying to excuse away the mind-boggling massacres they carried out, however, is vulgar apologism for sheer barbarity that shocked even their thick-skinned contemporaries, as was the whole idea.

Kraxis

01-20-2005, 04:11

The whole 'fear of terror' theory falls apart to a great extent when we see that the Mongols practiced the wholesale slaughter of people and animals, then left for a few days, then sent back the entire rearguard to mop up any survivors that had escaped the killings.
How can you induce a practical fear if you make certain it won't get spread? Yes, others would rather soon know of the total destruction, but largely when it was too late, when they were told by those that had been drafted (armourers and egineers), and then it was too late.
Genghis died, and on his deathbed he demanded the sack of Ning-hsia, and it happened... What kind of last wish is that?
Merv was so utterly destroyed that the land could be plowed over afterwards. Hardly a case of mere cruelty, that was extreme destruction on an unneeded level.

The simple fact that a single mongol rider could enter a subjugated Persian village and begin to kill off people and nobody daring to stop him says something about the amount of cruelty they showed people (these people would know of the destruction of the cities).
There is even an instance where a mongol warrior captured an enemy but had no weapons (wonder how he did that), he then ordered the poor man to put his head on the ground, left him to get his sword, returned, found the man still there and promtly beheaded him. Why did the man stay? Out of terror.

And since both muslim and christian sources are equally apalled by the Mongols, they do not share the same view of each other. Yes, they hated and loathed each other, and said plenty of bad stuff, and did as much bad stuff as they said about each other. But to them the Mongols were always top dogs at outright slaughter. How can that be if everyone had been equally bad? The simple reason is that the Mongols had been worse. And it wasn't as if the christians loathed the Mongols any great amount really. In 1259 Armenia sent an army to help the Mongols attack into Syria, not because they had been subjugated but because they genuinely wanted to help. Hey, they were anti-muslim and that was good enough, those accounts of the brutality for the moment reserved for the muslims. So we can't say that the christians were more biased than normally.

The Kara-Khitai were an independant empire who had dared to harbour Kuchlug... Hardly renegades.

The simple message to the Mamlukes (just prior to Ain Julut) was something like 'bow down to the Khan or be destroyed'. A formal declaration of war really... Needed? No, but it is certain that they would not have been treated any differently than others who had done something to 'deserve' their fate. But luck had it that Hulegu sent most of his forces towards Mongolia.