The Verecke Pass || The Mongol Empire LXXXIX

[By Chuck Almdale]

[NOTE: If maps, pictures and legends don’t display properly in your email, go to the blog. Interactive Google maps may not work in your email but will work on the blogsite. There is a link at the bottom to the entire Mongol Empire & Rus’ series.]

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Interactive Google MyMap showing all European locations so far mentioned for the Rus’ 860-1235 CE and Mongol Great Western Invasion, 1235-1241 CE. Click on any marker or line for description. If map doesn’t display properly in your email, go to the blog.

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The Mongol Invasion Force into Central Hungary

After looking at the strategy for the invasion of Hungary in some detail over the past fourteen installments — the overall strategy, the right flank movements in Poland, the left flank movements in Transylvania and the southern Great Hungarian Plain — we’ve arrived at the Mongolian main attack into the heartland of the Kingdom of Hungaria.

The initial size of the Mongolian Great Western Invasion army in 1236 CE varies between sources, and we’ve been using the commonly cited number of 15 tümans, or 150,000 men. Each man had two to four horses and all his personal weaponry and gear. The army carried enough food to get everyone through the winter seasons of battle when rivers were frozen and crossable, and ten-man gers served as portable folding shelters. Pillaging and tribute from conquered people restocked their supplies and satisfied their needs as the campaign progressed. They lost many thousands of men during five years of campaigns against the Kipchaks, Cumens, Volga Bulgars, Caucasians, Crimeans, and the Rus’; for example, they lost 4,000 men in the spring of 1238 during the single 50-day siege of the northern Rus’ town of Kozel’sk. Of their remaining army, they allocated roughly three tümans to remain in Rus’ to organize and keep an eye on the locals and watch their rear, two tümans for the Polish right flank, and most likely two tümans for the Transylvanian left flank. This left a maximum of eight tümans for the main force directly into Hungary, probably closer to six tümans, and perhaps a lot less. This force may have been increased by forced conscripts from among the Rus’.

The leaders of the central invasion force were:

Batu Khan: 2^nd son of Jochi, the eldest son of Temüjin [Genghis Khan]. Both Jochi and Temüjin died in 1227. Batu was about 36 years old in 1241, the supreme leader of the invasion, and the ruler of the Ulus in which this invasion took place.
Subutai: general, spymaster, strategist, tactician and oftentimes commander whom many military historians consider to be the greatest military general of all time. In 1241 he was around 66 years old.
Shayban [Shiban, Siban]: Batu’s younger brother, date of birth unknown.
Bogutaj [Bogutai, Boroldai, Boroldaj, Borolday, Borondaj, Burulday, Burundai, perhaps also Bujgai or Bujakh]: a noyan [general] who seems to be everywhere and nowhere due to the multiplicity of possible spellings of his name, age unknown.

The Cumans in Hungary

The double seal of Queen Mother Erzsébet Kun (Elizabeth the Cuman, 1244-1290), wife of István V (Steven V, King of Hungary 1270-1272). Elizabeth was the daughter of Cuman Khan Köten, murdered in 1241 in Pest.
Source: Wikipedia – Elizabeth the Cuman

As we saw in installment LXIII, in the fall of 1238 some 40,000 Cumans led by Khan Kotian [Köten, Kotjen, Kötöny, Khotyan, Küten, or Kuthen; born 1165] were forced out of the Pontic Steppe east of Kyivan Rus’ lands by the Mongols and fled westward into Hungary. They asked King Béla for asylum in exchange for their loyalty, military support and conversion to Christianity. Some historians claim it was 40,000 men plus their families, but Hungarian historian András Pálóczi-Horváth points out that the land the Cumans were expected to settle on along the Tisa River. could support only 17,000 families. But the nomadic, raiding Cumans did not settle easily among their sedentary neighbors. Robbery and rape by Cumans were reported, then often left unpunished by Béla, who wished no conflicts with Cumans while Mongols threatened invasion. Resentful townspeople began to accuse the Cumans of being agents for the Mongols.

Local autonomies in Hungary late 1200s, including Cumania and Jászság (Eastern Iranian people) in the southern Great Hungarian Plain south and east of Pest. Source: Wikipedia – Kunság  

The invitation to the Cumans to become Christians and settle down in Hungary proved detrimental to the Hungarians. When Mongols conquered a people, they considered all those people to be their possession, to do with as they wished. They were, after all, conquered; therefore their lives were no longer their own. The standard Mongol demands of submission included turning over ten percent of conquered people to the Mongols to use as servants, craftsmen, warriors or slaves however they wished. When the Cumans fled the Pontic steppe for Hungary, Batu Khan considered them rebels, escaped chattel. When King Béla gave them asylum and shelter, Batu considered this as justification for his invasion of Hungary, all of which, once conquered, would then become his property, along with all the people, property and land therein. He sent a message to King Béla several times which include the following statement (Historynet-Mongol Invasions):

Word has come to me that you have taken the Cumans, our servants, under your protection. Cease harboring them, or you will make of me an enemy because of them. They, who have no houses and dwell in tents, will find it easy to escape. But you who dwell in houses within towns–how can you escape me?

In February 1241 CE, King Béla IV of Hungary received Batu Khan’s 3^rd request for submission, which included the above passage. Béla again refused, but concluded that invasion was now imminent. He sent messengers throughout Hungary carrying a bloody sword — the traditional symbol for a national emergency — calling all ispáns [feudal lords] nobles and vassals to defend the kingdom. They were requested to come to council with Béla at his residence in Óbuda, a small island in the Danube about two miles upstream from Pest. The council went on for weeks. He called too upon the Cumans to whom he had granted asylum in Hungary: it was time for them to return the favor, and they agreed.

Archdeacon Thomas of Split writes in his Historia Salonitana (pg. 257):

At last, roused by their loud protests, the king stirred himself and set off for the furthest bounds of his realm. He came to the mountains  that run between Hungary and Ruthenia as far as the borders of Poland. There he went about inspecting all the easiest entry points to breach, and cutting down much woodland, he had long barricades built, blocking with felled trees all the places where transit seemed easiest.

He then sent his palatine [feudal lord of a region] Denis Tomaj [Tomaj nembeli Dénes] into the mountains with a twofold mission: fortify Verecke Pass; learn what he could about the Mongols who had just conquered the Rus’. In early 1241 the Mongols began a campaign of plundering and torching the marches [borderlands] between Hungary and the principality of Halych which had recently submitted to the Mongols; this campaign hampered any attempts at reconnaissance by palatine Denis.

Verecke Pass, 14 Mar 2003. Source: Flickr photo by Ribizlifozelek

The Verecke Pass

Meanwhile Batu and Subutai gathered their troops either at Przemyśl or at Halych — the latter implied by the Hungarian invasion map we’ve been using. Each town was about 120 miles from the pass. Verecke Pass and the mountain approaches to it are not steep: altitude at the north end in Rus’ is 1180 ft (360m), from which the route climbs to 2760ft (840m) then descends to 520ft (160m) over a total distance of roughly 75 miles; roughly an altitude gain of 40 ft. per mile. In late February or early March of 1241 when the snows were still deep, 60,000-80,000 Mongol horse soldiers — plus 1-3 extra horses per man — set out to enter the Carpathians, attack the fortifications at Verecke Pass and descend into Hungary. The map implies that fighting in the pass began on 6 March; six days later they broke through the Hungarian fortifications. Fighting must have been intense to last six days, and with snow, trees, slopes, fortifications and plenty of enemy troops, progress was slow.

1241 Central Europe invasion, movement, and exit routes; Josef Szabo.
Source: Academia – Mongol Invasion of 1241

In his Historia Salonitana, Archdeacon Thomas of Split had this to say (pgs. 259-261):

The period of Lent went by, and it was close to Easter [on 31 March 1241, Julian calendar] when the entire host of the Tatar army burst upon the realm of Hungary. They had forty thousand men with axes who went in advance of the main host cutting down forests, laying roads, and removing all from the places of entry. They were thus able to surmount the barricades that the king had had prepared as easily as if they were made of chaff rather than of great fir trees and oaks piled high. It took little time to trample and burn them down, and they offered no barrier at all to their passage. When they came upon the first peasants in the country, they did not show at first their full savagery of their ruthless nature, but simply rode through the villages and seized plunder without doing great physical harm to the populace.

From The Mongol Invasion of 1241, János B. Szabó (pg. 81):

It was here that a messenger sent from the border by Palatine Denis of Tomaj arrived with the news that the Mongols had reached the Russian Gate (the Verecke Pass) and demolished the defensive works. The Palatine’s army was unable to stop them, and even Denis himself was barely able to make it back to the king, accompanied by only a handful of his soldiers.

Seal of Denis (II) Tomaj (1237), Palatine of Hungary 1235-1241.
Source: Wikipedia – Denis Tomaj  

Denis, severely wounded, escaped with a few men and raced as best he could to Béla — still in council in Óbuda — to report the defeat. The Mongols were now in Hungary and for all Denis knew, not far behind him. Denis then went the few miles downriver to Pest to recover from his wounds and continue in service with the army.

Óbuda is the closer island in the Danube; in the distance Buda (R) Pest (L).
Source: XPatLoop – Óbuda Island

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Entire Mongol Empire & Rus’ Series: Click Here
First Installment: Why didn’t the Mongols Conquer Europe in the 13th Century?
Previous Installment: Mongols in the Great Hungarian Plain || Mongol Empire LXXXVIII
Next Installment: Tatars in Pest || Mongol Empire XC
This Installment: The Verecke Pass || Mongol Empire LXXXIX

Sources
History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (Historia Salonitana);Archdeacon Thomas of Split, General Editors: János M. Bak, Urszula Borkowska, Giles Constable, Gerhard Jaritz, Gábor Klaniczay; Central European University Press, 2006 Budapest and New York. Link to free PDF.

Mongol Invasion of 1241 and Pest in Hungary, The; János B. Szabó; Academia.com. Link to free PDF.

HistoryNet – Mongol Invasions, Battle of Liegnitz
HistoryNet – Mongols on the march & logistics of grass
Historum – Military History  – Mongol siege fighting on foot 
Quora – How did Bela IV retake his country
Wikipedia – Batu Khan
Wikipedia – Boroldai
Wikipedia – Carmen Miserabile 
Wikipedia – Carpathian Mountains 
Wikipedia – Central Europe, Mongol Invasion of 
Wikipedia – Denis Tomaj
Wikipedia – Holy Roman Empire, Mongol Incursions into 
Wikipedia – Hungary, First Mongol Invasion of   
Wikipedia – Mohi [Sajó River], Battle of 
Wikipedia – Mongol Invasions and Conquests 
Wikipedia – Rogerius, Master 
Wikipedia – Subutai
Wikipedia – Veretskyi [Verecke] Pass 

The Feigned Retreat | The Mongol Empire: Part XVII

[By Chuck Almdale]

An Ancient Cavalry Tactic

The feigned retreat likely appeared millennia before recorded history began, not long after humans tamed horses and developed bows they could use from horseback.

At the Battle of Thermopylae [480 BCE], the Greeks are described by Herodotus as using feigned retreats to disorder the Persian formations. [This] means it was a known tactic back then.

Quora – Who invented the fake retreat?

The feigned retreat is a horse soldier tactic; large groups of foot soldiers are too slow and cumbersome to use it. Because the domestication of horses began on the steppes of Asia, it would likely be steppe nomads who would first discover and develop tactics utilizing horses. Long bows cannot be easily fired from horseback; the horse gets in the way when moving the bow from side to side or when firing directly ahead or behind. The shorter and often more powerful recurved bow—which may well have been developed specifically to be used effectively from horseback—was the perfect weapon for the mounted steppe nomad. Following that development, it would not take long to discover than getting your opponent to chase you while you fire arrows at him from a safe (to you) distance and simultaneously lure them into a trap was an efficient way to kill your foe while avoiding hand-to-hand combat with swords, spears or clubs. The following event may be when western Europeans (Romans) first learned about it at the hands of the Parthian Empire of central Asia.

Parthian Empire (247 BCE-224 CE) cavalry obliterated Roman infantry at Carrhae in 53 BCE. Source: Britannica – Parthia

The Battle of Carrhae was fought in 53 BCE between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire near the ancient town of Carrhae (present-day Harran, Turkey). An invading force of seven legions of Roman heavy infantry under Marcus Licinius Crassus was lured into the desert and decisively defeated by a mixed cavalry army of heavy cataphracts and light horse archers led by the Parthian general Surena. On such flat terrain, the Legion proved to have no viable tactics against the highly-mobile Parthian horsemen, and the slow and vulnerable Roman formations were surrounded, exhausted by constant attacks, and eventually crushed. Crassus was killed along with the majority of his army. It is commonly seen as one of the earliest and most important battles between the Roman and Parthian Empires and one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history.

Wikipedia – Battle of Carrhae

The ‘Parthian Shot,’ aka ‘parting shot.’ Hephthalite horseman on British Museum bowl 460-479 CE British Museum. Note lack of stirrups. Source: Wikipedia – Parthian shot

The Parthians did not have stirrups and had to clasp the horse tightly with their legs at all times. The stirrups of the Mongols were large and supported more of the foot than many modern stirrups, providing superior stability while firing in any direction. Their superb horsemanship, bowmanship, improved saddles and stirrups, lightweight armor and accessories, and additional well-rested horses hidden at a crucial location, combined to make the Mongols utterly lethal when using the feigned retreat.

Standing in his stirrups, a Mongolian soldier could shoot even while retreating. Ars Technica – The Mongols built an empire

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Genghis Khan and his generals utilized the feigned retreat countless times throughout the building of their empire; against the armies of China, central Asia, the Kyiv Rus’, Poland and Hungary. Their enemies never caught on, perhaps because there were often no survivors to tell the tale, or no one wanted to admit they fell for this ancient mounted nomad tactic. In all likelihood, any horse-based army anywhere would have this tactic in their arsenal unless they were burdened with heavy armor as were the cavalry of western Europe. The feigned retreat tactic could only be used when you were certain you could outrun your pursuers in the space available, which might be a small battlefield or hundreds of miles of featureless steppe. Heavily armored cavalry, in all honesty, can’t outrun much of anything before the horses become exhausted. As the nomads of the steppes of Asia were the most horse-reliant people in the world, it’s understandable that they would know this tactic best and use it most effectively.

A pair of 1,100-year-old metal stirrups unearthed from a Mongolian woman’s grave in 2016. They were part of a well-preserved saddle with reinforcements that would have allowed the rider unprecedented mobility. Ars Technica – The Mongols built an empire

Five examples of Mongolian feigned retreat

13th century depiction of Mongols using the counterweight trebuchet form of catapult. When you can’t break their walls with stones, entice them to come out and chase you. Source: Wikipedia – Trebuchet

The Juyong Gate in the Jin Dynasty – When you can’t storm the fortress

When the Mongols discovered their catapults were useless against the stone fortress, perched high on a hill, they decided to try their favorite tactic, the false retreat.

Great wall above the Juyong gate. Source: Trip.com

One morning the Mongol troops climbed onto their horses and rode away, leaving all their siege weapons and equipment lying on the ground. The Jin troops in the fortress watched suspiciously as the Mongol troops disappear over the horizon.

Juyong Gate, modern reconstruction.
Source: TravelChina Guide – Great Wall

When they did not return, the general of the Jin forces, Wanyan Fuxing, ordered the gates be opened and the army sent out to seize all the equipment. While they were busily gathering the weapons and hauling them into the fortress, the Mongol cavalry suddenly swarmed upon them from over the hills. Jebe’s force came from one direction; Subutai’s force, previously unseen by the Jin, from another. Before they could race back to the fortress, the Mongols fell upon them. The impregnable fortress of Juyung Kuan, door agape, quickly fell to the Mongols, and the 30,000-man Jin garrison was completely destroyed. The last barrier between the Mongol army and the Jin capital city of Zhongdu had fallen. It was the late autumn of 1211.

Feigned retreat Tactic. Behance

On the battlefield in the Kingdom of Georgia – Faced with a larger armored cavalry and infantry trained in hand-to-hand combat

When the Georgian cavalry charged the Mongols, Subedei immediately employed the false retreat maneuver and ordered his troops to retreat. The Georgian Knights chased the fleeing cowardly Mongol cavalry, but couldn’t quite catch up to them due to the weight of all their armor. When the Mongols sensed that the Georgian horses were exhausted, they headed to their secret goal—the armored Georgians still clanking along behind— and lept upon the well-rested reserve horses waiting for them. Meanwhile, Jebe’s light archers, hiding with the reserve horses, barraged the Georgians with arrows. Subedei’s cavalry then counterattacked. In hand-to-hand fighting, the Mongols used spears with hooks or lassos to pull down the heavily armored knights, who could not then remount. The entire Georgian army—10,000 cavalry and 20,000 foot soldiers—was destroyed. It was a catastrophe for the Kingdom of Georgia. It was September 1222.
Genghis Khan: The World Conqueror, pgs 793-95

Caracole tactic: useful in feigned retreats, when surrounding an enemy force, or when facing a broad front. A succession of speedy horse archers fire at the foe, never getting close enough to be effectively counterattacked.
Source: Behance

At the Kalka River against Kyivan Rus’ – Luring a larger, armored cavalry many miles into the prepared trap

The Mongols suddenly turned tail and rode away in disarray. The Russian dukes, encouraged by their superior numbers, chased them and killed a few of the Mongol rearguard. The chase went on for either hours or days (reports differ) until the Mongols reach their main camp at the Kalka River [Kal’chyk] (near Mariupol, on Tahanroz’ka Gulf on the Sea of Azov in modern-day Ukraine). Suddenly they turned to face the Rus’ army. At that moment, from both sides of the hills they were passing, flames of naphtha shot up into the sky and a thick smoke soon covered the area like a veil. The fleeing Mongol vanguards disappeared into this smoke. At the same moment, showers of arrows fell upon the pursuing Rus’ troops. The Cuman troops fighting alongside the Kyivan Rus’ had seen all this before when they lost to the Mongols on the Kipchak plain to the southeast and they abruptly left, heading for Hungary, as it turned out. The flight of the Cumans broke the Kyivan lines and the Mongol cavalry exploited the gaps, turning the battle into a rout. The Mongols surrounded the Kyivan army (their frequent strategy following a false retreat and sudden counterattack), and annihilated it with barrages of arrows. The Russian troops were completely destroyed in just one day, the plain was covered with dead Russian soldiers, and survivors were few. It was May 31, 1223.

Statue of General Bo’orchu, Mongolian government palace, Sukhbaatar square, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. (Photographer: Ray Juncosa)

In western Poland at Liegnitz – Separating cavalry from support infantry

When the battle on the Wahlstadt plain began, the Mongols moved without battle cries or trumpets, transmitting signals by silent flags. Their formations appeared loose and in disarray. When the European first squadron charged into them, the Mongols flowed away like water, out of harm’s reach, while showering them with extremely accurate arrows. When the second and third European divisions charged, the Mongols turned tail and retreated in terror. Smelling victory, the knights pursued, eager to skewer the Tartar cowards with their lances and broadswords. Something strange then happened.

From the fleeing Tartars came a single rider who rode around the Polish knights shouting in Polish, “Byegaycze! Byegaycze!” (“Run! Run!”)  The Poles took this shouting at face value and left the battlefield. Duke Henry then rode forth with his fourth division and engaged the Mongols in close combat. The Mongols fought fiercely but briefly; again they fled, again pursued by the Polish knights. The chase led the mounted knights far out in front of their unmounted support foot soldiers. From somewhere, smoke began to drift across the battlefield behind the Polish knights and their infantry lost sight of the knights.

It was a feigned retreat and as always, it worked. Once the knights were sufficiently far from their infantry, the fleeing Mongol cavalry turned and swept out to both sides of the strung out and disarrayed knights, and showered them with arrows. Other Mongols sprang from hiding. When arrows failed to bring down a knight, they shot his horse out from under him. Unhorsed, the heavily armored knights were nearly helpless, and the Mongol heavy cavalrymen ran them down with lances and swords. The determined and highly-trained Knights Templar made their stand and—to a man—died. Duke Henry tried to gallop away, but the Mongols chased him down, beheaded him, and paraded around the walls of Liegnitz with his head on the end of a spear. It was April 9^th, 1242.

Closeup of stirrup of General Bo’orchu statue, Ulaanbaatar. (Photographer: Ray Juncosa)

From Pest to the Sajó River – For many days a small ‘cowardly’ force entices a large armored Hungarian force to the Mongols’ preferred battleground

Mongolian forces began appearing around Pest on March 15, 1242, and literally made pests of themselves with spying, pillaging and enticing Hungarian forces to chase them. Still unready for battle, King Béla forbade all engagement with the enemy. Finally ready by early April, King Béla led 60,000-70,000 troops out to fight the Mongols near Pest. After a minor skirmish the Mongolians retreated, confirming the proud Hungarian opinion that after all the Tartar vermin were but cowardly thieves, incapable of standing up to the greatest army and the greatest leaders in Europe, and likewise confirming the belief among the soldiers that King Béla had taken this pathetic excuse for an invading army far too seriously. In forced march, the Hungarian army pursued the disorganized, cowardly Mongols eastward for a week, until they reached the flooded Sajó River on April 10^th. The Mongols fled across the river to the east side, probably across the single bridge near Mohi. The Hungarians stopped to rest and wait for additional supplies to catch up. They surrounded their camp with wagons, a common countermeasure against such pesky nomadic armies. Many of Béla’s troops had never fought in a single large force, but only as small units of mounted knights meeting other small units of mounted knights; lack of organization and discipline was more the rule than the exception. The Mongol force they had chased was quite small. The Hungarians did not suspect that a much larger Mongol army was hiding within and beyond the forest on the east bank of the Sajó River. The famous battle of Mohi occurred the following day, April 11, 1241.

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The Mongols were always an invading army, forced to carry all their supplies and equipment, loath to lose men to battle or the elements. Following loyalty, Temüjin may have valued efficiency most highly. Soldiers, arrows, horses, swords, siege engines, food—all were costly to lose and costly and time-consuming to replace. He promised his troops he would not waste their lives with foolish inefficiency, pointless hardship, needless battle. To take a city or defeat an army without losing a man was always the goal.

Most surviving Mongolian equestrian equipment dates from the 19th century, when Mongolia was part of the Chinese Qing dynasty. In many cultures, stirrups could ornamental as well as functional, displaying craftsmanship expressive of their creators. The degree and complexity of the decoration of this pair of stirrups, coupled with the fact that they are entirely cast in silver, distinguishes them as one of the finest, if not the finest pair of Mongolian stirrups from the late Qing period known. In addition, they are outstanding examples of late Mongolian silversmith’s work in any medium. Source: Met Museum – Collection

A great deal of additional information on the Mongolian army can be found here.
Facts and Details – Mongol Army: Tactics, Weapons, Revenge and Terror

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Entire Mongol Empire Series: Click Here
First Installment: Why didn’t the Mongols Conquer Europe in the 13th Century?
Previous Installment: The Mongols return to Zhongdu
Next Installment: The Qara Khitai

The False Retreat Tactic
Genghis Khan: The World Conqueror. Djang, Sam; New Horizon Books, 2011. Pg 662, 793-95
Britannica – Parthia
History on the Net – Genghis Khan’s Secrets
Wikipedia – Battle of Carrhae
Wikipedia – Feigned retreat
Wikipedia – Mongol military tactics and organization
Wikipedia – Parthian Empire
Wikipedia – Parthian shot