I was wondering...

[DemonArchangel]

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

Brutal too.

[Meneldil]

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]

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?

[Watchman]

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]

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]

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]

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.