Alternate History: Mongols invade England

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Although the Hungarian Campaign was quite a successful campaign, and it just about left Europe wide open for attack from the Mongols, they would've been undone by exactly the same thing which undid the Huns; lack of pasture. The huns easily pushed through Eastern and CNetral Europe, but the wide open grazing lands which the Huns needed were becoming more and more scarce, and their army became harder to maintain, it pretty much disintegrated after that. (Or at least Im pretty sure that's how it happened.)Gotta go look this up

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You do know that the Mongols conquered Iran right? That isn't exactly a steppe, it's a very mountaineous, arid country with forestation some places, and desert in others.

And has also been a major haunt for assorted nomadic and seminomadic empires for millenia. The damn steppe stretches as far as Syria and Anatolia in the southwest after all.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

You do know that the Mongols conquered Iran right? That isn't exactly a steppe, it's a very mountaineous, arid country with forestation some places, and desert in others.

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And the Persians and Medes did not start out as nomads, right? There is also that little thing about Media being able to supply thousands of horses. And that is western Iran. The eastern was the one that included Bactia, Arachosia, Parthia, Aryana...all those nomad HA infested satrapes of the Persian empire.

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

You do know that the Mongols conquered Iran right? That isn't exactly a steppe, it's a very mountaineous, arid country with forestation some places, and desert in others.

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And the Persians and Medes did not start out as nomads, right? There is also that little thing about Media being able to supply thousands of horses. And that is western Iran. The eastern was the one that included Bactia, Arachosia, Parthia, Aryana...all those nomad HA infested satrapes of the Persian empire.

There's too much talk about the superiority of the Mongols etc IMHO. Yes, they were pretty much superior to all other armies of that time, but in the end they were not as successful as many other nations and kingdoms were since in the end they were shattered, and their political system can't have been all too stabile if their invasion of Europe was halted by the death of a single man.

What if-scenarios are pretty pointless in a way, since it's obvious that what happened was unevitable anyway, and that the fact that it did happen and crushed the dreams for some while others benefited from it shows that it couldn't really have gone any other way. It's like asking: What if Germany had won WW2? Well, they wouldn't have either way. All empires and expansionist states are bound to fail sooner or later.

Okay, I concede defeat there. But a big part of the country is very mountaineous and I don't think that the argument that the Mongols would be owned by the fortifications in mountaineous Europe.

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Originally Posted by Innocentius

All empires and expansionist states are bound to fail sooner or later.

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I guess I better move out of United States then :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Randarkmaan

Okay, I concede defeat there. But a big part of the country is very mountaineous and I don't think that the argument that the Mongols would be owned by the fortifications in mountaineous Europe.

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You know, I rather imagine the Mongols largely left the mountains alone. Like everyone else. Those things were always virtually ungovernable haunts of raiders and rebels, as well as too poor to bother with in any case. They tended to produce decent mercenaries though - harsh people used to harsh lives, and often quite willing to leave their high homes in pursuit of riches in the lowlands.

Plus the thing with Europe is, it was forested. Quite densely as well, for a long time before the population grew enough they had to colonize the woodlands into fields and pasture. Those deep forests were a serious obstacle to armies at the best of times, and on top of that the blasted fortress networks tended to reach there as well although in rather modest forms.