Yelu Chucai - Chinese Statesman

Yelu Chucai - Chinese Statesman

Yelu Chucai belonged to the Yelu clan of the Khitan Liao dynasty, which ruled northeastern China 916–1125. After the fall of Liao his branch of the family remained in northern China and served the Jin (Chin) dynasty (1115–1234) that had destroyed Liao. He was thoroughly Sinicized, a follower of Confucian philosophy, and also practiced Buddhism.

The Mongol army captured him in 1215 and three years later he was sent to Mongolia. He so impressed Genghis Khan in an interview that Genghis appointed him scribe and court astrologer; he accompanied Genghis on campaigns to Central Asia between 1216 and 1219.

When Ogotai Khan succeeded his father as grand khan in 1229, a debate ensued among his advisers on the general policy directions. The extreme faction advocated the extermination of the agricultural population of northern China and use of the land for pasturage.


Yelu Chucai argued forcibly in favor of letting the people live and taxing them, which would generate more revenue and benefit the imperial treasury in the long run. Ogotai decided to give Yelu Chucai’s tawaran a one-year trial period.

Yelu Chucai devised a plan that assessed every adult a fixed tribute paid in silk yarn or silver, and every farming family a set grain tax. This fixed and predictable tax that everyone had to pay was preferable to the random and ruthless looting up to that time, and for the Mongol government resulted in increased revenue.

As a result Ogotai appointed Yelu Chucai head of his secretariat that oversaw the administration for North China; he would use his position to push for more reforms. One was to take a census for more accurate tax assessment.

Another was to apply the Jin code for administration of laws for the Chinese population because the Mongol code was unsuitable for a sedentary culture. In 1238 he was able to hold examinations for the Chinese population across North China. A quarter of the candidates still had the status of prisoners of war or slaves of the Mongols.

The exams were based on the Confucian Classics, and over 4,000 men passed. However Ogotai employed few of those who passed and only in very lowly posts. This was because the Mongol rulers had no intention of sharing power with their Chinese subjects.

Yelu Chucai also had limited success in his tax reforms because of Ogotai’s constant demand for more revenue and orders to increase taxes at will. He turned to a system of tax farming relying on his Central Asian supporters to collect taxes and keeping a portion for themselves.

Central Asians were also favored as moneylenders, who loaned money to farmers to pay their taxes and charged over 100 percent per year in interest. Ogotai also created numerous appanages (fiefs) for his relatives and supporters, who were able to mistreat the people under their control without government interference.

Yelu Chucai died in 1243 in Karakorum. His great contribution was to persuade Ogotai not to exterminate the conquered northern Chinese population. His reforms were largely put aside in favor of Mongol policy interests.

Tului Khan - Mongol leader

Tului (or Tolui) Khan was the fourth son of Genghis Khan and his principal wife, Borte. He was a warrior and a heavy drinker and as his brothers he accompanied his father on campaigns and also commanded troops. To minimize tensions among them Genghis had divided his empire among his sons shortly before his death in 1227.

According to Mongol custom the oldest son is assigned lands farthest away from the paternal homeland. Since the eldest son, Juji, died six months before his death, Genghis gave Batu, eldest son of Juji, the westernmost conquest, which included Russia, called the khanate of the Golden Horde.

His second son, Chagatai Khan, received most of Central Asia. His third son, Ogotai Khan, received western China and parts of Central Asia and was nominated (subject to confirmation by the Mongol council, or kuriltai) khaghan, or khan of khans.

Tului was given the homeland, Mongolia (Mongol custom gave the youngest the paternal homeland) plus northern China and the bulk of the main Mongol military forces of over 100,000 men. His control of this force would greatly benefit the fortune of his sons as they competed for control of the inheritance of Genghis Khan.


In 1203 after defeating his former ally the Kerait confederation (another nomad group), Genghis took its leader Ong Khan’s two nieces as war booty. He kept one as a minor wife for himself and wed the other, Sorghaghtani Beki, to Tului.

She and Tului had four sons, Mongke Khan, Kubilai Khan, Hulagu Khan, and Arik Boke. Since Tului was away campaigning much of the time and died young of alcoholism, his wife was influential in raising her sons.

She is credited with raising them not only to be hunters and warriors as Mongol tradition dictated, but also to read Mongol in the newly created Uighur script, to be religiously tolerant (she was a Nestorian Christian because of her Keriat heritage), and to attend to administration.

Tului and his wife

After Tului died Ogotai Khaghan attempted to marry Sorghaghtani Beki or have his son marry her (under Mongol custom), thus uniting the two branches of the family. She was able to avoid marrying them, with the plea that she had to raise her sons.

She also obtained an appanage, or fief, in northern China in presentday southwestern Hebei (Hopei) province, which she supervised conscientiously. Her second son, Kubilai, also received an appanage, which he first entrusted to alien managers who abused the population. Later under Sorghaghtani Beki’s influence, he took a personal interest in it and improved its administration.

Ogotai died in 1241. His powerful widow became regent and maneuvered the Mongol leaders to elect her son Guyuk as the third khaghan in 1246. Guyuk died in 1248. In a succession struggle that followed Sorghaghtani Beki, with the support of Batu Khan of the Golden Horde, won election for her oldest son, Mongke, in 1251.

Mongke raised Tului posthumously to the position of khaghan and buried him next to Genghis Khan; he also ordered the official worship of Genghis Khan and the veneration of his father, Tului Khan. His younger brother, Kubilai Khan, followed Mongke as khaghan.

Subotai - Mongol general

Subotai

Subotai was probably the greatest Mongolian general of the period of Mongolian empire and played an important role in its establishment and expansion. He was likely from Uriyangqai, the region lying between the Onon and Kerulen Rivers, and came into the service of the young Mongol chieftain Genghis Khan (r. 1206–27) primarily through a long-term family association.

Subotai was an important member of Genghis Khan’s guards by the early part of the 13th century and had already distinguished himself in the latter’s service.

In 1204 Genghis Khan defeated the league formed against him by Tayang-qan of the Naiman, with the active participation of Subotai. The future khan’s enemies were now defeated or dead or had migrated out of Mongolia to flee his wrath.


Among those fleeing were a group of Naiman survivors led by Gücülük, and another group of Merkit led by their chief Toqto’a-beki. Since such groups could recuperate quickly, ally with others, and constitute a major threat to Genghis Khan’s new regime, it was vital to pursue them.

Charged with the task, among others, were Jebe, another talented Mongolian general, and Subotai, initiating at first a general reconnaissance, then an advance west, extending over a decade and a half.

In 1208 Juji, the oldest son of Genghis Khan, defeated the Merkit group in a great battle on the Irtysh River. Toqto’a-beki was killed but his sons, led by Qudu, took their father’s head with them and fled south into Uighur domains.

Merkit group

Sent in pursuit were Jebe and Subotai, securing the submission of the Bešbaliq Uighurs on the way, who participated in a battle against Qudu, who was weakened but escaped, on the banks of the Djem or Cem River (1209).

By that time the situation in eastern Turkistan, long ruled by the Qara-Khitan, was in flux, and the appearance of the Naiman Gücülük further unsettled things. He eventually seized power but even as a refugee constituted a major threat to the new Mongol regime.

Faced with a situation beyond their resources, Jebe and Subotai did what good Mongol commanders almost always did: They concentrated against the enemy more easily dealt with, Qudu, and kept the other under close supervision.

Subotai went after Qudu, and Jebe pursued Gücülük as far as he could into Qara-Khitan territory, without coming into conflict with the still powerful Qara-Khitan ruler. Satisfied that his enemy was no longer an immediate threat, Jebe then joined with Subotai to defeat the Merkit survivors once and for all.

By this time the Merkit were allied with a group of Qangli, a Turkic people, but they were all but destroyed in the battle (1209) at a site called Jade Valley, in the Chinese sources.

Unfortunately before they could return home, mission accomplished, the two Mongol generals encountered a new, unexpected enemy, the Khwarazm-shah Muhammad, and engaged in a clash with him, which was indecisive.

The Mongols withdrew after kindling fake campfires to mask their movements. In the wake of the advances of Jebe and Subotai, the Qangli and Qarluq, another Turkic people, submitted.

Recalled home, both Jebe and Subotai participated in the general assault on the Jin (Chin) dynasty (1125– 1234) in China, leading to the fall of the Jin central capital of Zhongdu (Chungtu) in 1215, the real beginning of Mongolian control in China.

Sent west again, the two Mongol generals protected Mongol interests there and participated in the selesai pursuit of Gücülük, leading to his death in 1218. Eastern Turkistan and large chunks of southern Siberia were under Mongol control, making the latter a serious threat to the Khwarazm-shah Muhammad.

War came soon after the famous Otrar Incident (1218), in which some merchants under the protection of the Mongol ruler were massacred at the orders of a local Khwarazmian official.

Faced with a general assault from, as was the Mongol custom, as many directions at once as possible, the Khwarazmian empire crumbled and the Khwarazm-shah, now a refugee, died on an island in the Caspian in 1220.

At the suggestion of Subotai, who with Jebe had actively participated in the campaign, the Mongols launched the greatest reconnaissance in force in history, an expedition through northern Iran, into the Caucasus, and then across the south Russian steppe, to link up again with other Mongol armies.

The expedition was a success, although Jebe died. On June 16, 1223, the two generals defeated a Russian allied force on the Kalkha River, the Mongols first encounter with a western power. Subotai participated as a senior commander in the selesai subjugation of Jin (by 1234).

Battle between Mongols and Russian allied force on the Kalkha river

Although already an old man by 1235, about 59, Subotai was now tapped for his greatest role of all, that of strategic commander for a generalized Mongol advance to secure the palimony of Juji’s sons, who by tradition, were to receive the most distant pastures of his father in the extreme west of the Mongolian world.

As part of this advance, Subotai participated in the Mongol destruction of Kievan Russia (1237–40) and then was called upon to plan an even larger assault, on eastern Europe, during 1241.

Advancing along multiple lines, with coordinated columns, the Mongols overwhelmed all their opponents although the Hungarians proved somewhat tougher than expected, even though the latter were only partially mobilized.

Only the death of Ogotai Khan (r. 1229–41), the successor of Genghis Khan, seems to have prevented an even wider advance. Returning home, Subotai spent his last years either in the Mongolian homeland or on the borders of China. His sons and grandsons continued to serve Mongol rulers, including those of China.

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis or Chinggis Khan means “universal ruler.” He was born Temuchin, the son of a minor Mongol chief, and overcame early obstacles to conquer the greatest empire of the world to date, which he bequeathed to his sons. Some believe he was a greater military strategist than Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

At the time of his birth the varied people of the steppes (Turkic, Mongol, and others) lived in mutually warring tribes, raiding one another for animals and women and looting nearby sedentary populations. The harsh environment of the steppes where they lived provided little opportunity for agriculture, limiting the peoples to a nomadic lifestyle of herding and hunting.

His father, Yesugei, died of poisoning at the hands of foes when Temuchin was eight years old, en route home after betrothing him to a girl from his mother, H’oelun’s, tribe. H’oelun and her sons were cast out to fend for themselves after Yesugei died; thanks to Temuchin’s cunning and ruthless determination, they survived.


Eventually he married his betrothed, named Borte; received help from his father-in-law in establishing himself with followers and animals; and won allies. Borte was the mother of four sons (Juji Khan, Chagatai Khan, Ogotai Khan, and Tului Khan) and a daughter. Juji was born around the time his mother was rescued from captivity (she had been captured in a raid by Temuchin’s enemy), casting doubt on his paternity. These four sons became Temuchin’s principal heirs.

From Temuchin to Genghis Khan

In complicated wars Temuchin and his allies won against tribes named the Naiman, Merkid, Oyirad, Tartar, Kereyid, and others, becoming master of the Mongolian plateau by 1205. A great council or khuriltai was convened in 1206 to signal the formation of a confederation at Burkan Khaldan, the holy mountain of the Mongols under Temuchin, and to give him the title Genghis Khan.

From this point on all his followers, regardless of tribal affiliation, were called Mongols. In Mongol ideology the elevation of Temuchin to Genghis Khan was blessed by heaven and therefore it was his right to conquer and to bequeath his conquests to his family.

Genghis Khan’s first great achievement was to organize his men into a unified army. He used the decimal system: Each 10-man group had a leader; 10 of these formed into a 100-man unit under a leader, and so on up, each commander being responsible for 10 men under him.

In time the Mongolian component of his army grew to between 105,000 and 129,000 men. As his empire expanded, subject peoples incorporated into his infantry and cavalry followed the same organizational rules. The Mongolian army did not possess weapons or technology superior to those of its enemies. Its superiority lay in its discipline, mobility, coordination, and maneuverability.

Records were necessary to administer his people, so in 1206 he ordered the creation a script for the Mongol language, and since the man designated for the task was an Uighur, he used the Uighur alphabet for that purpose. Genghis did not learn to read but ordered his sons to learn the written language.

He also promulgated a code of laws and regulations in 1206, called yasa or yasaq, that provided severe punishment, for example, the death penalty applied to murder, major theft, adultery, malicious witchcraft, and other offenses. The severity of the laws resulted in an obedient society, which visitors observed with awe.

Conquest of Xixia, Jin, and Khwarazm

Genghis Khan’s conquests began in 1209 and his first target was the Tangut kingdom to his southwest called Xixia (Hsi Hsia), leading his army personally. After withstanding a siege of their capital city the Xixia accepted peace terms: submission to Genghis Khan and a pledge to support him in future campaigns, and the king’s daughter given to Genghis as wife. After this demonstration of force two sedentary Turkic peoples, Uighurs and Qarluks, came to offer surrender. Both would go far under Mongol rule.

Genghis Khan’s next victim was the Jurchen Jin (Chin) dynasty in north China. He set out against it in 1211 with three of his sons and 50,000 cavalrymen. Although no longer the ferocious fighters of a century ago, the Jin still had a 150,000 strong cavalry of Jurchen soldiers and an infantry of 300,000 to 400,000 Chinese men.

Moreover the Jin Empire had over 40 million people, three million of whom were Jurchen, opposed to the Mongol nation of not much over a million people. In 1211–14 the Mongols devastated much of northern China and looted three of Jin’s five capitals, until Jin submitted to a humiliating peace. Among the captives taken during this campaign was Yelu Chucai (Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai), a learned man of Khitan background who had served in the Jin government.

He would later play an important role in the government of Genghis and his son Ogotai that benefited their Chinese subjects. North China suffered enormously between 1214 and the selesai fall of Jin in 1234, the result of Mongol raids, uprisings against Jin, and war between Jin and Southern Song (Sung).

Meanwhile commanders under Genghis conquered the state called Khara Khitai, situated to the west of Mongolia, in 1218. This cleared the way for Genghis to march against Khwarazm (or Khwarizm), a Muslim state that included Afghanistan and northern Iran, in 1219.

It involved taking heavily fortified cities such as Harat and Samarkand, for which Mongols used the bloody tactic of using captured prisoners as human shields and moat fillers for their assaulting forces. By 1223 Khwarazm had been subdued and Mongol governors had been installed and garrisons put in place.

While his generals proceeded westward across the Caucasus and into western Eurasia, defeating the Russian princes, Genghis returned to Mongolia in 1225. There he planned the destruction of Xixia, which had earlier promised to supply Genghis with men and supplies in his future campaigns but had refused when he began his war against Khwarazm.

Never forgiving anyone who had betrayed him, Genghis personally led the campaign against Xixia in 1226, destroying cities and the countryside and wrecking the irrigation works that rendered the land cultivable, and besieging its capital. Genghis Khan died in August 1227 because of complications from a fall while hunting in 1225.

According to his wishes the war against Xixia continued until its destruction. His last orders were “The Tangut people are a powerful, good and courageous people, but they are fickle. Slaughter them and take what you need to give to the army.... Take what you want until you can take no more.” Genghis Khan’s body was returned to Mongolia; en route anyone who saw his cortege was killed.

He was buried on Burkhan Khaldun; the exact burial place was kept secret and has not yet been found. Before his death he had divided his conquests among his four sons, who were his principal heirs, and other relatives, and appointed his third son, Ogotai, his successor as Grand Khan, subject to confirmation by the Khurialtai.

The Brutal Military Leader

Genghis Khan was unequaled as a military leader and conquered the largest empire yet seen and with unprecedented cruelty. He was a shrewd strategist who used many means to achieve his goals. He was a good psychologist who used terror and precedence to induce his enemies to surrender because any city that resisted would be razed and its people killed. He was a good organizer who militarized his whole people and saw to the logistical side of campaigns.

He was adept at using spies and probing actions to take the measures of his enemies. He also used diplomacy to prevent his enemies from uniting or forming alliances. Finally he learned new military technologies and adapted to new needs, for example employing Middle Eastern siege engineers to help him take walled cities.

To Christian Europeans he was the anti-Christ and Scourge of God. China had never experienced such brutal conquerors, who threatened to turn the agricultural country into pastureland for their horses. He was especially cruel to cities and city dwellers.

In his sweep across north China in 1212–1213 over 90 cities were left in ruins. The Jin capital in modern Beijing burned for three months. Those persons his forces let live because they had skills became Mongol slaves or were allowed to return to their ruined homes to serve their new lords.

Chagatai Khanate

Chagatai Khanate

Genghis Khan (c. 1167–1227) had four sons by his principal wife, Borte. The eldest son, Juji, and second son, Chagatai, were such fierce rivals that Genghis decided to bypass both in favor of his third son, Ogotai Khan as his successor khaghan (Grand Khan), and all of his sons agreed with his choice.

Genghis also assigned territories to each son to govern, although all would acknowledge the leadership of the khaghan and cooperate with him in expanding the Mongol Empire. Juji received land farthest from the paternal homeland—the western territories that would include Russia and eastern Europe; his followers were called the Golden Horde.

Chagatai received west Turkestan, the Tarim Basin, and the western Tian Shan (T’ien Shan) region. Ogotai received Dzungaria and part of Central Asia, while the youngest son, Tului, received the Mongolian homeland. This arrangement was confirmed just before Genghis Khan died in 1227. Two years later the Kuriltai (council of nobles) elected Ogotai the next khaghan.


Chagatai’s allotment, which was enlarged later, also included the Ili River valley, Kashgaria, Turfan and Kucha in present-day northwestern China, and Transoxiana, including the towns of Samarkand. These disparate lands became known as the Chagatai Khanate. Except for the oasis towns most of the khanate was steppe land inhabited by various nomads, most of Turkic ethnicity.

Chagatai was a warrior and also a staunch upholder of Mongol traditions. Genghis had appointed him guardian of the Mongolian law code called “Yasa” which he had sternly administered. Chagatai and his successors kept up a seminomadic lifestyle, changing from winter to summer camp as the seasons dictated.

Whereas the Mongol realms under Kubilai Khan and his heirs in China, the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), and the il-khanate of Hulagu Khan and his successors in Persia and the Middle East had fixed boundaries, rich resources, large sedentary populations, and long established traditions of governance, the Chagatai Khanate had shifting boundaries, tribal populations with weak state institutions, and relatively sparse resources.

Chagatai statue

It was hemmed in by other Mongol dominions ruled by branches of Genghis Khan’s descendants in three directions—the Yuan dynasty, the Il-Khanate, and the Golden Horde in Russia. The only direction for expansion was into Afghanistan and India. Beginning in the 1290s Chagatai Khanate forces took control of eastern Afghanistan from which they raided northwestern India.

In 1303 an expedition of 120,000 men besieged Delhi for two months and devastated a wide area. Another force of 40,000 horsemen returned to India in 1304 but was defeated and 9,000 prisoners were trampled to death by elephants. A similar fate befell the men of the last attacking army in 1305–1306.

Not able to expand outward the heirs of Chagatai were constantly embroiled in wars and rivalries of the other three branches of the family, and among themselves. Although the Chagatai Khanate was poor in resources, its central location along the Silk Road allowed it to collect abundant taxes and tolls. Frequent wars and predatory policy toward trade and sedentary people often resulted in the breakdown and ultimately decline in international trade by land routes.

Major differences and incompatibilities divided the eastern and western halves of the khanate. The western part, originally part of the Khwarazm kingdom, was Islamized, urbanized, and more advanced than the eastern region, which was more pastoral, nomadic, and animistic. Lacking a cohesive government, each went its own way.

Chagatai died in 1242 and was succeeded by his grandson Kara Hulagu. Interference by the khaghan and involvement by the Chagatai Khanid rulers in the dynastic struggle of other branches of the family resulted in many upheavals.

Leaders of the Chagatai Khanate became involved when Mongke Khaghan died in 1259 and a succession struggle erupted between his brothers Kubilai and Arik Boke; they sided with the winner Kubilai. Later they supported Kaidu Khan, a grandson of Ogotai, who challenged Kubilai for the throne of the khaghan. The destructive wars continued until Kaidu’s death in 1301.

Although Kubilai won against his rivals, the unity of the Mongol Empire was fractured forever, and even though the Chagatai rulers were not in contention for overall leadership, their central position in the line of communications between the different branches of the family played a significant role in the breakdown of unity of the Mongol Empire.

The frequent civil wars and changes of rulers (there were 30 khan up to 1230) fatally weakened the central authority at the expense of local leaders. As the Chagatai Khanate was disintegrating in 1369, there rose in Samarkand a Mongol-Turkic leader who claimed descent from Genghis Khan.

His name was Timurlane (Tamerlane), meaning Timur the Lame. His military career that ended with his death in 1403 would replicate that of his famous ancestor. In the 14th century Chagatain rulers converted to Islam, the religion of many of the Turkic peoples they ruled. The official language of the khanate was changed from Mongolian to Chagatai Turkic. It continued to be used in the region they ruled until modern times.

Poland

kingdom of Poland map

The history of the kingdom of Poland is traditionally dated from 966, when the 31-year-old Mieszko I, of the Piast dynasty of the Polans tribe, was baptized into Christianity. The country derived its name from his tribe. He was married to Dobrawa, the daughter of Bolesław (Boleslas) I of Bohemia, a strategic nuptial alliance that brought him a relationship with the Holy Roman Empire in his feuding with the Wieletes and Volinians.

Wichman, count of Saxony, who was also a noble of the empire, backed them. Thus Mieszko’s marriage gave him a strong counterweight to his enemies. Most likely his conversion to Christianity was a prerequisite to the marriage.

In a move designed to cement his diplomatic position, Mieszko I also swore allegiance to Emperor Otto I the Great. This was essential to his plans for expansion of Piast lands. In 955, 10 years before Mieszko I’s conversion, Otto had cemented his primacy throughout central and eastern Europe.


In 955 he decisively defeated the invading Magyar tribe at the Battle of the Lechfeld, near Aubsburg in Bohemia. As David Eggenberger writes in An Encylopedia of Battles, “the Germans crushed the Magyars with heavy losses in a tenhour battle. The decimated barbarians fell back across modern Austria.”

They settled in what became Hungary, which still recalls its heritage on its postage stamps with the inscription Magyar Posta. By his death in 992 Mieszko I had considerably expanded his realm, including not only what was then known as Little and Greater Poland, but also Pomerania and Silesia.

Throughout his reign, he assured himself of at least the quiet complicity of the Holy Roman Empire, by swearing allegiance, after Otto I, to the emperors Otto II and III. As a loyal vassal he supplied troops to Otto III in his campaign against the Polabians, Slavic tribesmen who lived along the Elbe River.

Mieszko I was succeeded by his son Bolesław the Brave, his son by Dobrawa. (He also had children by his second consort, Oda, three sons: Mieszko, Lambert, and Swietopełk.) Bolesław continued his father’s wars for Piast aggrandizement. In 999 he seized Moravia and next conquered Slovakia. When in 1002 Otto III died prematurely at the age of 22, Boleslas took the ultimate gamble and attacked the Holy Roman Empire while it was in a succession crisis for the throne. Emperor Henry II, duke of Bavaria, was ultimately crowned emperor in the place of his deceased cousin in June 1002.

Bolesław’s aggression against the empire set off a series of struggles between him and Henry II, which would eventually lead to a compromise peace in 1018. Bolesław was compelled to return Bohemia to the empire, although the empire was recognizing Bolesław’s strength, and Henry did not contest Bolesław’s keeping Lusatia and Misnia. He wisely pledged allegiance to the emperor. But in 1025 a year after Henry II’s death, Bolesław crowned himself the first king of Poland and freed himself of any feudal obligation to serve the emperor.

His son Mieszko II, who had already gained experience by ruling the city of Kraków for his father, succeeded Bolesław. Mieszko II, seven years after he became king of Poland, resumed his father’s assault on the empire. The duchy of Kiev, under Yaroslav the Wise, not forgetting Bolesław’s intervention, made common cause with the Emperor Conrad II, so that Poland was invaded from both the east and west.

First forced to flee to Bohemia, Mieszko II eventually reconquered his kingdom and, after swearing allegiance to Conrad, was able to resume the kingship. He was assassinated in 1034, most likely the victim of a plot by the Polish nobility.

Casimir (Kazimierz) I succeeded his father as king and, unlike his father and grandson, followed a policy of peace and reconciliation. A peasant revolt followed the murder of his father and, taking advantage of the turmoil, the Czechs invaded in the south.

What was then known as Greater Poland was so devastated that the royal capital became Kraków in Little Poland, which apparently was considered loyal to Casimir and to his father before him. Prior to the choice of Kraków, the kingdom had had no real center of administration.

The new Emperor Henry III, however, feared the growing anarchy in Poland and eastern Europe, concerned that the unrest could spread to Imperial lands. Consequently he negotiated a peace among the belligerents, which confirmed Casimir as king of Poland in the first year of his reign, 1046. Confirmed by the emperor, Casimir served as king of Poland until 1058.

Upon the death of Casimir, Poland entered a period of instability, a condition that would appear throughout much of the country’s history. Casimir’s son Bolesław II ruled as duke from 1058 and was only crowned king in 1076. Three years later he was forced into exile. His brother Ladislas (Władysław) I Herman succeeded him; however he soon resigned the kingship.

Bolesław III, the son of Ladislas, was able to restore the royal authority in Poland, and effective government was restored. Bolesław III reigned from 1102 to 1138 and even succeeded in defeating the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V twice in battle. However out of diplomatic expediency, he later swore allegiance to the Emperor Lothair II, Henry’s son.

Mongol Invasions

Mongol Invasions

The death of Bolesław in 1138 signaled the beginning of almost 200 years of domestic strife, as rival members of the Piast dynasty struggled for supremacy. Poland, which under Miesko I had been a dominant power in eastern Europe, was reduced to a small player in international affairs.

The explosion of the Mongols into Europe in 1240 destroyed the entire strategic balance in eastern and central Europe. In 1223 during the reign of Genghis Khan, the Mongol warlord Subotai had smashed the Kievan army in the Battle of the Kalka River.

In December 1237 the Mongols took Riazan and began a systematic campaign of crushing the Russian city-states. On December 6, 1240, according to Eggenberger, the Mongols stormed into Kiev, “plundering and killing at will. Kiev was burned to the ground.”

This time, rather than making a large raid as the invasion of 1223 really had been, the Mongols had come to stay. While Subotai and Batu Khan continued west, directly threatening weakened Poland, the khanate of the Golden Horde was established on the “lower Volga,” according to Eggenberger. “For most of two centuries, most of Russia south of Novgorod lay under Asiatic suzerainty.”

After the conquest of Russia Subotai and Batu headed directly into Poland and Hungary, having divided their army into three parts. Fighting for Ogotai Khan, who had succeeded Genghis Khan in 1227 as the great khan in 1241, the Mongols virtually crushed the military power of eastern Europe, leaving Piast Poland in serious jeopardy. During the Mongol (or Tatar) assault on Poland, they headed toward the city of Kraków. There one of the truly heroic episodes of military history took place.

On the Rynek Glowny, or Main Market Square, stood St. Mary’s Church. According to Polish legend, an elderly watchman saw the Mongols approaching and sounded the trumpet call of the Hejnal to alert the town. Since the trumpet was played regularly, nobody was alarmed at first. But when he played it over and over, the townspeople became alarmed. Suddenly, the trumpeter stopped playing.

They saw the Mongols coming closer, and volleys of arrows from Polish archers drove them back. After the battle, somebody climbed up to the tower and found the old watchman dead, a Mongol arrow through his throat. In honor of his saving the city, the Hejnal is played every hour.

The Order of Teutonic Knights

Teutonic Knights

The power vacuum created by the implosion of Piast Poland also faced another threat from the west, a condition that would mark Polish history. In 1190 the Teutonic Knights, an order of crusaders, was established. Pope Celestine III confirmed the order as a religious order of knights in 1196, as did Innocent III in 1199. Yet unlike the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights would not make a name for themselves in the Holy Land.

Instead, as H. W. Koch writes in Medieval Warfare, the Teutonic Knights “remained a purely German movement ... particularly in the context of its long-term development of the German east.” The Teutonic Knights’ drive to the east became a permanent threat to the stability of Poland and the Lithuanian princes to the east.

Conrad (Konrad) of Masovia, son of Casimir II of Poland, asked the Teutonic Knights for their aid against the fierce and pagan Prussian tribes. In order to bring the Teutonic Knights to accept his offer, he ceded to them Polish territory around Kulm on the Vistula River. As crusaders, the order was happy enough to take on the Prussians at the request of the Polish ruler.

Pope Honorius III in 1226 issued the Bull of Rimini to give papal backing to the coming war against the Prussians, in fact raising it to the status of a crusade. But, along with the crusade against the Prussians, the Bull of Rimini gave the order rights to make its first expansion into Polish territory.

The land around Lobau and Kulm was speedily converted by 1230, and Conrad of Masovia, apparently seeing no threat to Polish sovereignty, obligingly handed it over to the Teutonic Knights. By the time that the grand master of the order, Hermann von Salza, died in 1239, Koch notes, “the Order controlled more than a hundred miles of the Baltic coast.”

A Prussian uprising took the order by surprise in 1261, and it was not until 1271 that the order gained the upper hand. But when it did, the Teutonic Knights again focused on their expansion eastward. Danzig became part of the realm of the knights, and in 1309 Grand Master Siegfried von Feuchtwangen made the expansion a definite war aim of the Teutonic Order, while Ladislas Łokietek (Elbow-high) was the king of Poland.

Ironically it was under Wladyslaw that Poland began to regain its unity and strength. The first open clash between the Poles and the order came in 1311, when the order supported John of Luxembourg, the king of Bohemia, in his bid for the crown against Ladislas.

John and the order were defeated, but the war marked the onset of almost a constant state of tension and intermittent fighting between the Teutonic Order, the Ordenstaat, and the Polish monarchy. Casimir III of Poland began to rebuild his country’s military position in the 1340s for what began to look like an ultimate reckoning with the Teutonic Knights.

In 1385 Jogaila (Jagiello), the grand duke of Lithuania, married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, converting to Christianity. He ruled Poland as Ladislas (Władysław) II. In 1226 Lithuania had become united when the Lithuanians under their leader, Mindaugas, had defeated the Livonian Knights of the Sword (allies of the Teutonic Knights), at Siaulai.

This marriage, the result of the Union of Krewo, established the Jagiello dynasty and became the foundation of Polish resistance to the territorial expansion of the order. Meanwhile the rule of the order had grown more oppressive, through both taxation and demands on military service, to persecute the war against the Poles and their Lithuanian allies. Both Prussians and Pomeranians looked to their former enemies, the now united Poles and Lithuanians, for relief against the Ordenstaat.

In 1407 his brother Ulrich, who showed contempt for the abilities of the Poles and Lithuanians to confront the Ordenstaat, succeeded Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen. In 1410 the order’s grand master Ulrich von Jungingen decided to force the issue before Wladislaus II and a Polish-Lithuanian force could reach the order’s headquarters at Marienberg in Prussia.

On July 15 the Teutonic Knights met the combined Polish and Lithuanian forces at Tannenberg, or Grunwald. Wladislaus’s cousin, the grand duke Vytautas of Lithuania, commanded the actual Polish field army.

In the fierce combat that followed, as Koch writes in Medieval Warfare, “the Poles concentrated their attack at one point of the German front, broke through and then with their numerical superiority of 3:1 engulfed the army of the Teutonic Order and defeated it.”

Although Tannenberg was the decisive battle of the war, the knights did not surrender or cede their territory, and the struggle was continued by Ulrich’s successor Heinrich von Plauen, the 24th grand master of the Teutonic Order. For over 50 years hostilities continued between Poland and the order.

At the same time among the Prussians and Pomeranians, resentment continued against the exactions of the Ordenstaat. Finally the situation became untenable for the Teutonic Knights. In 1454 the Prussians directly approached King Casimir IV of Poland for aid in throwing off the order’s rule.

In what became known as the Thirteen Years’ War, the Prussian Confederation fought with Casimir IV against the Teutonic Order. Lithuania, the ally of Tannenberg, was also at war with Poland but did not side with the order.

In one of the first battles of the war at Chojnice in April 1454, Casimir IV was defeated in his attempt to take the city by the order and mercenaries under Bernard Szumborski in its pay. Eventually, however, the prolonged struggle outstripped the ability of the order to continue the fight.

Pope Paul II, with both warring parties being Roman Catholics, stepped in to help negotiate a settlement. By the terms of the Treaty of Thorun in 1466, the order ceded control of Prussia. Prussia became a vassal state of the Polish Crown under King Casimir IV, who now ruled a unified Poland, which would emerge as the strongest state in eastern Europe.

Ogotai Khan

Ogotai Khan

Ogotai Khan was the third son of Genghis Khan and spent most of his early life campaigning. Realizing the implacable enmity between his first and second sons, Juji and Chagatai Khan, Genghis decided in 1219 to bypass both for supreme leadership of the Mongols after his own death in favor of Ogotai.

He reconfirmed this decision before his death in 1227. Ogotai was confirmed as the Mongols’ second khaghan (grand khan) by the khuriltai of Mongol leaders in 1229 and established Karakorum on the upper reaches of the Orkhon River as his capital, surrounding it with a defensive wall.

True to his martial heritage Ogotai began his reign with massive campaigns to expand the Mongol empire, amassing four armies. One marched westward to conquer the steppelands of central Eurasia and the Russian principalities, across the Ural Mountains, and the Volga River.


Led by the old warrior Subotai and Batu (Juji’s son), its goal was to secure and enlarge the inheritance of the sons of Juji (who had predeceased Genghis Khan).

A second army’s goal was to complete the conquest of Khwarazm, which includes modern Iran, then onto the Middle East and Asia Minor. A third army took on Korea, which had been conquered earlier but had revolted against the unbearable conditions of Mongol rule.

Finally Ogotai and his younger brother Tului Khan led a force to finish the conquest of the Jin (Chin) dynasty in northern China. They took the Jin capital Kaifeng (K’ai-feng) in 1233; the last Jin emperor committed suicide in 1234 and all northern China came under Mongol rule.

Subotai’s army had the most spectacular success, conquering the Turkish tribes of the Russian steppes, all the Russian principalities except Novgorod, the Ukraine, Poland, Moravia, and Hungary. They were at the gates of Vienna before withdrawing in 1241 on the news of Ogotai’s death. The army sent to conquer the Middle East added western Persia and the Caucasus to Mongol control.

Coronation of Ogotai Khan

Korea submitted in 1259. Ogotai also made administrative reforms to centralize the administration to ensure his control over the Mongol lords and the efficient gathering of taxes and tribute from his sedentary subjects.

Thanks to a remarkable non-Mongol adviser Yelu Chucai (Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai) reforms were begun in northern China that ended the brutal looting and massacre of the population on the premise that working people paid more taxes than expeditions could gather.

After the campaign against Jin, Ogotai returned to Karakorum and abandoned himself to a life of pleasure, hunting and drinking so heavily that an official was appointed to count the amount of wine he drank daily.

Ogotai Statue

His second wife, Toregene, moved quickly to consolidate her authority even before he died while on a hunting trip; he was buried in Jungaria in his personal appanage (fief).

According to Mongol custom his widow, Toregene, became regent until the khuriltai elected a new ruler. Her goal was to ensure the election of her son Guyug as the next khaghan, despite much opposition by other branches of the Mongol royal house. After four and half years she succeeded.

Alexander Nevsky - Russian King

Alexander Nevsky - Russian King

Alexander Nevsky, a Russian prince named after his victory over the Swedes on the Neva in 1240, was the son of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Vsevolodovich), who was apparently poisoned by the Mongols. During Alexander’s early life, independent Russia had three major enemies—encroaching Swedes, Teutonic Knights, and the Mongols.

Alexander chose to tolerate, and even collaborate, with the latter but took seriously the threat from the north and west and became a leader in the struggle against both western enemies. He defeated a large Swedish invasion when just 20 years old, and on April 5, 1242, he stopped an even larger invasion by the Teutonic Knights.

The Teutonic Knights were an order first formed during the Third Crusade, similar to the better-known Knights Hospitallers of Saint John, but unlike the latter order, it quickly shifted its attentions to eastern Europe.


Initially in connection with privileges granted by King Andrew the II of Hungary (1211), the Teutonic Knights fought against that king’s enemies, the Turkic Quman of the south Russian steppe and nearby areas.

Later (from 1230) it took the lead in fighting against the pagan Russians and then, after the order had absorbed the Livonian Sword Brothers, the Teutonic Knights began to get involved in Russian affairs, acting against the city of Novgorod.

It was in this connection that Alexander, a proven military leader, was recruited by Novgorod to become its prince and fight against the Teutonic enemy. The result was the famous defeat on the ice of Lake Peipus of 1242 in which the invading army was all but destroyed by cleverly positioned and deployed Russians who knew the landscape better than their rivals.

Possibly Alexander had Mongol allies, since archery played an unusual role in the battle. The Teutonic Knights remained a power in eastern Europe but were never a direct threat to Russia in the way that the order was in 1242, so the results of the victory lasted.

Alexander’s young adulthood was disrupted by the reappearance of the Mongols and their conquest of virtually all of Russia. The Mongols had first come into contact with Russian forces on June 16, 1223, during a clash on the Kalka River.

Alexander Nevsky Statue

In 1237 an even larger Mongol army launched an invasion of Russia. Among the first Russian city-states to fall was Ryazan, in December 1237, followed by Vladimir, in February 1238, and in March 1238, Torzhok, which offered fierce resistance.

By then spring came and the ground was too wet for effective campaigning, but the Mongols returned again, after some campaigning in the steppe against the Turkic peoples during the winter of 1240. Their advance seemed unstoppable and Kiev, the leader of the coalition of princes that was then Russia, was taken on December 6, 1240, ending an masa of Russian history.

Pausing to regroup, the Mongols launched a massive and well-coordinated invasion of eastern Europe, masterminded by the Mongolian general Subotai. Only the sudden death of Ogotai Khan (r. 1229–41) stopped the advance, as the interested parties prepared for the power struggle that would accompany the election of a new supreme khan.

The election of Mongke Khan (r. 1251–59) quieted things for a while. After his death the Mongols of Russia, known as the Golden Horde, split off permanently from Russia as various parties dueled for supremacy.

At the point that Alexander defeated the invading Teutonic Knights and thereby established, again, his reputation in Russia, the Mongols appeared to be more and more disunified. Alexander was both a mediator and a mitigator, where he could, of the worst abuses of Mongol control.

During the 1240s and early 1250s Alexander, who took his father’s oath of submission seriously, made efforts to appear a loyal vassal of the Mongols and formally acknowledged their power. He continued to enjoy influence with the Mongols and within Russia, one of the reasons he was appointed grand prince in 1252, after the Mongols had deposed his predecessor.

At that time Russia was divided into territories where there was a direct Mongol presence, usually located on the fringes of the Russian cultural area and close to the steppe zone, and territories controlled indirectly by the conquerors. This included Novgorod controlled by Alexander.

It was the Mongol custom to send out tax collectors and other emissaries to canvass the wealth of their territories. First came a census, then generally the appointment of a direct Mongol representative, a basqaq, “the one pressing down,” and finally tax collectors.

It was the presence of these Mongol officers, more than attacks by Mongol armies, that plagued Mongol subordinates in Russia and provoked continued unrest and even outright opposition and rebellion, which always provoked a powerful military response.

During the late 1250s it was Novgorod, still proud from its 1242 victory led by Alexander against the Teutonic Knights, and until then left unassaulted by the Mongols, that was the source of discontent.

Alexander’s actions in quieting it make clear the role he had chosen in Mongol Russia. He made sure that opposition to the Mongols was suppressed, and then Alexander personally sponsored the census taking in Novgorod.

Novgorod paid, and had its pride humbled, but it survived intact (1259). Alexander is also said to have intervened on behalf of the Orthodox Church, to secure its privileges and help prevent Mongol attacks on other cities.

At the time of his death, in 1263, he was still actively engaged in such activities. He was rewarded with sainthood. After Alexander’s death a considerable legend formed, fueled by a vita that presents Alexander as a saintly protector of Russia against the Mongols. He was also associated with some popular uprisings.