THE COMING OF THE MONGOLS
As an advancing tide, engulfing in its progression the stretches of
ooze-land which lie in its onward path, sends scurrying before it
flights of waders and other shore-haunting birds, driven from their
feeding grounds, so the great Mongol wave which was creeping upon
Eastern Europe drove before it disordered troops of the Polovtzi
nomads, seeking among their old enemies the safety which their desert
fastnesses no longer afforded. Into the principality of Kiev poured the
fugitives, bringing with them droves of horses, camels, cattle, and
buffaloes--a wonderful and misgiving sight to the staring Russians,
who saw their fierce, untamable foes, the incarnation to them of all
that was barbarous, outlandish, and terrible, cowering and fleeing
from some unseen horror behind. That the wolf of the steppes should
come to lie down, panting and trembling, with the lamb, boded the
advent of anything but a millennium. The accounts given by the Polovtzi
khans of the Mongol hordes which had swept the tribes of Western Asia
before their advancing host, roused the Russian princes to a sense of
the danger they courted by their disunion, and gathered them together
in the old capital to deliberate on a common action in opposition to
the threatened invasion. Mstislav of Galitz, erstwhile of Toropetz,
Mstislav Romanovitch (of the house of Smolensk), Prince of Kiev,
Daniel of Volhynia, Mstislav of Tchernigov, and other princes of less
importance, held high counsel between them, and debated the means of
averting the Mongol advance; and as they paused in their deliberations
to mark the unwonted caravans and uncouth brutes of the desert that
thronged the streets and approaches of Kiev, it must have been borne
in upon them that already Asia had overflowed her limits and swept the
Russian lands into her embrace. And while, taking heart of grace from
the assemblage of so many important princes and the leadership of the
redoubtable Mstislav of Galitz, they consider how best to oppose these
fearsome enemies, it will be of interest to learn something of the
history of this Mongol horde, this mushroom growth that had over-spread
the northern empire of China, made a desolate waste of Persia, carried
its arms into Hindostan, and risen to be the greatest power in Asia,
and which was now threatening to attack the outskirts of Christendom.
In the dreary steppe-land of the Gobi desert, south of the Baikal Sea,
where flows the Onon, a tributary of the Amur, history first locates
the Mongols, in the sixth century, under the name Mongu, possibly
derived from the word “mong,” signifying bold, daring. At that period
they are indicated as a sub-tribe of the Shi-wei, who dwelt to the
north-west of Manchuria, and did not enjoy any considerable importance.
This insignificance continued till the accession, in 1175, to the
Mongol Khanate, of Temudjin, known later under the world-famous name
of Jingis Khan, when the number of his subjects did not exceed 40,000
families. A series of successful wars with the tribes in his immediate
neighbourhood paved the way for more ambitious undertakings, and he
soon carried his victorious standard, the _Tuk_ with nine yak tails,
into the northern empire of China, which was ruled over by the Kin,
or Tartar dynasty (South China being separately governed by the Sung
dynasty). From this point Jingis carried on campaign after campaign
with almost uniform success, till the greater part of Asia grovelled
beneath his yoke. Pitilessly cruel, this “cormorant of conquest” marked
each fresh advance, whether resisted or unopposed, with wholesale
massacres, which, after allowing for Oriental exaggeration, swell to a
ghastly total. “From 1211 to 1223, 18,470,000 human beings perished in
China and Tangut alone at the hands of Jingis and his followers,”[35]
a record which would have turned the early kings of Israel green with
envy. The Mongolian policy was to scatter, ruin, and, if possible,
exterminate existing civilisations and communities wherever their
victorious armies passed.[36] The terror which the Mongol cruelties
inspired unnerved their opponents and disinclined nations with whom
they were at peace from combining against them, while their hardy
desert horses, light equipment, and powers of endurance enabled them
to travel enormous distances in all conditions of weather. Powerful
empires like those of China and Persia writhed beneath their yoke;
lesser states, such as Great Bulgaria and Georgia, were almost wiped
out of existence. The conquest of this latter country by a division
of the Horde, under the leadership of Chepe and Subatai, two of the
Mongol chiefs, was followed by an incursion into the land occupied
by the Kumans, or Polovtzi, which brought the destroying hosts on to
the verge of the Russian dominion. Southward the flying Kumans were
pursued as far as the Krim peninsula, at which point the Mongols first
came into contact with Western civilisation, burning Sudak, where the
Genoese had a flourishing commercial station. Now were ten ambassadors
sent to the alarmed Russian princes, assuring them that they had
nothing to fear from the Horde, but warning them against showing any
support to the Polovtzi. Fear and resentment made the princes forget
the customs of civilisation, and the messengers were put to death, an
inauspicious opening for the coming struggle. Having thus defied the
gathering storm, the Russians crossed the Dniepr and marched to the
banks of the Kalka, where they prepared to meet these new foes from
the east, as they had aforetime met the Polovtzi and the Petchenigs
before them. But even at this critical moment the princes were not in
complete accord; each was jealous of the other, each fought for his own
hand. Mstislav of Galitz thought he could win the fight with his own
forces and the assistance of the Polovtzi, but the latter were unable
to withstand the Mongol onset and broke in wild confusion. The Russians
fought well, but they fought apart and without cohesion, and were only
united in one overwhelming ruin. The battle of the Kalka, on the 31st
May 1224, was a terrible catastrophe in Russian history, and fitly
heralded a disastrous epoch in her annals. An army of over 80,000 men
was scattered like chaff before the exulting Mongols, and to add to
the horror of the flight the treacherous Polovtzi, on behalf of whom
the Russians had entered into the quarrel, slew and plundered as they
fled. From the fatal banks of the Kalka to those of the Dniepr raced
the broken bands of Russians, the laggards falling beneath the lances
and sabres of their grim pursuers. Six princes, many boyarins, and
thousands of soldiers were numbered among the slain. The young Daniel
Romanovitch of Volhynia escaped wounded from the woeful field, while
Mstislav of Kiev with two other princes defended themselves for three
days in a fortified camp on the bank of the Kalka. Deluded by a false
promise of security, they at length fell into the power of the Mongols,
who slaughtered the men and smothered the princes under planks, holding
wild carousal over their swollen bodies--a scene which recalls the
“night of Cannae’s raging field.” Southern Russia lay helpless at
the pleasure of these merciless enemies, who ravaged unchecked in
the villages and homesteads near the scene of their victory. Then
they did a most unexpected thing; they went. Retiring through Great
Bulgaria, they vanished as suddenly as they had come; of their arrival
and departure might almost be said what was said of their attack on
Bokhara: “They came, dug, burnt, killed, robbed, went.” The Russian
lands awoke as from a nightmare to find their unwelcome guests had
departed.
In the midst of their conquests the separate Mongol bands turned as
if by common instinct back to their native haunts in the remote valley
of the Onon, where they hunted and hawked after swans and cranes,
antelopes and wild asses, in the odd moments when they were not engaged
in hunting men. Then occurred that picturesque gathering which Howorth
has so eloquently described, when the old Khan held his simple court
surrounded by his family and chieftains, a little knot of desert nomads
who between them had conquered half the known world.
The Russians meanwhile, delivered from the desolating presence of the
Mongol hosts, resumed the uneven tenor of their ways; the citizens of
Novgorod continued to displace and re-elect their princes, archbishops,
and posadniks; the boyarins of Galicia to plot and intrigue with
Hungary, Poland, and the house of Romanovitch; the princes to quarrel
over the eternal readjustment of their appanages. And here is a fit
moment to review the unfolding spectacle of national development among
the Russian Slavs since their focussing under the early princes, and
examine the drift and purpose underlying the chronicle of their doings.
Frankly the result is not edifying. It is an unpleasant accusation to
hurl against a people, but in these early centuries of their history
they may be aptly likened to the “gray apes” portrayed by Kipling’s
magic pen,--always setting out to do some great thing, never quite
remembering what it was they had meant to do, holding fast to a thing
one moment, letting it go the next, restless and ambitious, without
any clear idea of what they desired, such is the character that must
reluctantly be given them. These blind devotions to the Princes of the
Blood, these aimless rebellions against their authority, these fervid
worshippings of Mother-of-God and saints, these impious plunderings
of cathedrals and monasteries, these kissings and swearings on the
cross, these shameless breaking of oaths, these holy wars against
the Polovtzi, these frequent military and matrimonial alliances
with them, these sacrifices to keep in touch with the Greek Empire
and the south, this abandoning of the south lands to Turko nomads
and Italian merchants, these internal complications, revolutions,
banishments, recalls, leagues, and counter-leagues, shifting as the
sands of a river-bed, what do they bring to mind but a family of
children squabbling and loving and squabbling again in ever-varying
combinations, or, nearer still, the former simile, the gray apes. Other
countries and peoples were, it is true, going through the same period
of anarchy and disorder, but there was at least some method in their
madness. In Italy, amid the wild chaos of republics, principalities,
and imperial cities, there can plainly be discerned in the as yet
scarcely named factions of Guelph and Ghibelline the Papal power
seeking to extend itself on the one hand, and the Imperial interest
striving to establish itself on the other, and a third party playing
off one against the other for the attainment of its own independence.
In Germany, Emperor, electors, prince-bishops, free cities, and the
other constituents of the commonweal are balanced one against the other
in an intricate but perfectly understandable whole, each working to
a definite and rational end. In France and England king and barons
fight out the old battle of monarchy against aristocracy, which is
to be merged one day in a conflict with a newer force--if anything
is new under the sun. But where is the aim or interest in these
minutely-recorded Russian struggles? Hidden away in the forests of
Souzdal, perhaps, lies the embryo or germ of a state policy, if it ever
be hatched into life. Meanwhile Russia is losing ground, literally and
metaphorically, in many directions. Southward, as has been noticed, a
broad zone of steppe, inhabited by Turko tribes, shuts her off from the
coast cities of the Black Sea, where the pushing Genoese have ensconced
their factories. Galicia, with its population of White Kroats, is
becoming less Russian every day. Lit’uania, no longer held under by
the neighbouring provinces, threatens to expand at their expense. The
Baltic lands are drifting into Teutonic and Catholic hands. Velikie
Novgorod herself, absorbed in the details of parochial administration,
has let her magnificent foreign trade slip into the grip of strangers.
For Novgorod was not, as Howorth imagines, “a famous member of the
Hanseatic League”; the League, now beginning to play an important part
in the annals of Northern Europe, merely had a factory and station
there, as it had at London and Lisbon, and this factory speedily
monopolised the oversea trade of the great Russian emporium; “during
three centuries the Hanseatic League concentrated in her own hands all
the external commerce of Northern Russia.”[37] Finally, on the eastern
marches hovered the shadow of the late incursion, an incursion which
might at any moment be repeated.
While the war-clouds were lowering dark and ill-boding over the
land, sank in the west that day-star of Russian chivalry, Mstislav
Mstislavitch, more or less Prince of Galitz. [Sidenote: 1228] Brave
as a boar in battle, in council he was about as intelligent; “nothing
is sadder than victory, except defeat,” and with him certainly a
success was almost as expensive as a reverse could have been. His
brilliant achievements gained no advantage for his family or for
Russia, and on his death Andrew, son of the Hungarian king of that
name, stepped into the vacant sovereignty. This border province, with
its involved political conditions, had a magnetic attraction for the
more adventurous spirits among the Russian princes, and a candidate
was ready to hand to dispute its possession in the person of Daniel
Romanovitch of Volhynia. Just such another knight-errant as Mstislav,
Daniel possessed more of the ability to seize the contested throne
than the address to establish himself firmly on it. The son of an
imperious and overbearing father, he had many enemies. Vladimir
Rurikovitch of Kiev, for instance, had not forgotten that Roman had
made his father assume the tonsure against his inclinations, and in
pursuance of this bequeathed quarrel formed a league against Daniel,
which included the Princes of Tchernigov and Pinsk, and of course the
Polovtzi. By detaching Kotian, the celebrated Polovtzi Khan, from
this confederation, Daniel was able to gain a complete victory over
his enemies. Scarcely was this accomplished than he whirled away, as
his father had done, into the troubled affairs of Poland, where he
supported Duke Konrad of Mazovia against the party opposed to his
regency, his murdered brother, Duke Lesko V., having left his son
and heir, Boleslas V., in his charge. [Sidenote: 1229] Elate with
the success which attended his arms in this direction, on his return
he flung himself, with the hereditary eagle-swoop, on to the city
of Galitz, which fell into his hands, together with the person of
Prince Andrew. This advantage he threw away by permitting his valuable
prisoner to retire to Hungary, whither had already fled Soudislav, one
of the most active of the boyarins who favoured the Magyar dynasty.
The reward of this clemency was a new attack on Galicia by the
Hungarians, led by Prince Bela (afterwards Bela IV.) The elements were
unpropitious; torrents and floods damaged and hindered the invading
army, and contributed to its defeat, and the Hungarians recrossed
the Karpathians in evil plight. The position of Daniel was, however,
too precarious to withstand for long the resources of Hungary, the
disaffection of his subjects, and the enmity of some of his brother
princes. Foremost among the latter was his cousin and inveterate
enemy, Aleksandr of Belz, who, having been implicated in a plot which
miscarried, fled to Hungary and roused the king to a new attempt on
this fair and coveted province. The boyarins, who saw themselves,
doubtless, of more authority and importance as the courtiers of a
foreign prince than under the personal rule of a vigorous Russian
kniaz, deserted to the Hungarian standard, and the young Andrew became
once more “King of Galicia.” His death in 1234 paved the way for the
restoration of the Romanovitch, and the boyarins of the Magyar party
had to seek safety beyond the mountains. Less concerned, however, in
strengthening his hold upon this slippery fief than in carrying his
arms into quarrels which did not concern him, Daniel rushed to the
assistance of his late enemy, Vladimir of Kiev, who was embroiled in
a war with Mikhail of Tchernigov. Daniel ravaged the latter province,
but disaster overtook him and Vladimir in the shape of a defeat by a
Polovtzi army, led by Isiaslav, grandson of the immortalised Igor of
Severski--a strange combination. [Sidenote: 1236] Kiev and Galitz both
fell into the hands of the victors, Mikhail establishing himself in the
latter principality, while Isiaslav held Kiev. On the departure of the
Polovtzi he was obliged to restore the city to Vladimir, who in turn
ceded it to Yaroslav Vsevolodovitch, prince and sometime persecutor
of the Novgorodskie; he, on leaving Novgorod, placed in his stead his
son Aleksandr, afterwards celebrated as “Nevski.” Daniel flitted about
the neighbouring lands like a restless ghost, seeking aid against the
intruding Olgovitch, even in Hungary, where Bela had succeeded his
father Andrew (1235), and where the exile could obtain nothing more
than promises, which were scarcely likely to be fulfilled. Nor did he
receive warmer support from Duke Konrad.
In the north-west things were in a somewhat chaotic condition; the
year 1236 was marked by a disaster to the Sword Brethren, in which
Volquin von Winterstadt and a large proportion of his knights lost
their lives, having ventured rashly into the Lit’uanian country, where
they were surrounded by the enemy and cut to pieces. The following year
the Order was amalgamated with that of the Teutonic Knights, who had
established themselves in Prussia under the Grand-Mastership of Herman
von Salza. This province had been formally presented to them by the
Emperor Frederick II., by the Duke of Mazovia, and by Pope Gregory IX.,
finally by Pope Innocent IV., notwithstanding which, the inhabitants of
this much-bestowed country offered a vigorous resistance to their new
masters.
Out of their fools’ paradise of fancied security on their eastern
border the Russians were rudely aroused by the news that the Volga
lands were being devastated by the Mongols, that Bolgar was in ashes,
that the heads of the Tartar horses had been turned west, and that
their hoofs were now scoring broad tracks through the forests towards
Riazan. [Sidenote: 1237] On before them journeyed an eerie harbinger
of ill, a woman (described in the Chronicles as a sorceress), with
two attendants, and bearing a demand from Batu, the Mongol Khan,
for a tenth part of the princes’ treasures. Batu, nephew of Ogotai
Khan, who had ruled the Horde since the death of his father Jingis
(1227), may well have been astonished at his own moderation, since
he was followed by an army estimated at 300,000 men. But the Princes
of Riazan and Mourom refused his demand with a defiance of the true
heroic ring: “When we are dead you can have it all.” “Just as it
afterwards happened,” as the old Saxon Chronicles used to say. No aid
was forthcoming from the Grand Prince Urii in response to the urgent
appeals from Riazan, and the devoted principality received the full
shock of the Mongol attack. The town was taken by assault after six
days’ incessant fighting round the walls, and a “blood bath,” to use
an appropriate German expression, ensued in the streets, houses, and
churches. The Prince of Riazan and many of his family perished in the
general slaughter. This was in the month of December, but, undeterred
by the snow which choked the forest roads and filled the valleys, Batu
turned north towards Souzdal, leaving behind him a banquet of frozen
corpses for the wolves and foxes, ravens and vultures. Moskva, Tver,
Souzdal, and Vladimir fell one by one into the power of the Mongols
and experienced their cruel fury. [Sidenote: Feb. 1238] In the latter
city perished Vsevolod and Mstislav, sons of Urii, who had retreated
to the banks of the Sit, where he turned to bay against the ravagers
of his province. Here, on the 3rd March, was fought a battle big
with importance for Russia, the West fighting against the East, the
forest-lands against the steppe, Christianity against Shamanism. Urii
had deferred the decisive moment too long, and paid with his life the
penalty of his mistake; his disheartened soldiers broke before the
overwhelming numbers of the Mongols, and left them undisputed masters
of the Grand Principality. The East had won. Not for many a long
century, if ever, would Russia shake off the Oriental influences which
the Mongol victory imposed upon her. From her history the shadow of
the Horde, one is tempted to forebode, in the words of Poe, “shall be
lifted nevermore.”
The Bishop of Rostov, haunting the scene of desolation, found the
headless body of the Grand Prince, and conveyed it to the church
of the Virgin at that town, where it was afterwards joined by its
recovered head and interred, together with the corpse of Vassilko
Konstantinovitch, who also fell on that fatal field. The triumphant
Mongol host marched towards Novgorod, but turned aside on seeing the
fastnesses of swamp and lakelet with which that town was girdled,
and to which it owed its safety. Less fortunate were Volok-Lamskie,
Torjhok, and Kozelsk, which drooped one by one before the blight of
conquest and devastation. To the latter town, which resisted the enemy
for two months and slew of them four thousand, the Mongols gave the
name of “the evil city.” Vasili, its defending kniaz, fighting to the
last, was said to have been drowned in blood--an end worthy of the
war-lusting vikings of the twilight past.
Careful not to leave a foe behind him, Batu withdrew his forces to
the basin of the Don, to hunt out the Kumans once more from their
hiding-places, and to rest his warriors and their horses in the
steppe-lands to which they were accustomed. Yaroslav seized this
opportunity to hasten from Kiev to the evacuated Souzdalian province,
of which desolated region he was now sovereign. To him fell the task of
restoring order to a distracted country and courage to an affrighted
people. Despite the terror which loomed in the deserts near the Don, he
was able to give his attention to the succour of Smolensk, over-run by
the Lit’uanians, whom he brilliantly defeated. In the south, far from
making common cause against the national enemy, or seeking to revenge
the cruelties which had been meted out to so many of the Russian
cities and towns, the Romanovitch and Olgovitch princes renewed their
private feuds and fief-grabbings. Mikhail of Tchernigov and Galitz
left the latter province in the keeping of his son Rostislav, while he
seized on Kiev, vacated by the new Prince of Souzdal-Vladimir. While
Rostislav and his boyarins were absent on an expedition against the
Lit’uanians, the ever-imminent Daniel made the inevitable eagle-pounce
on Galitz, and despite the opposition of its bishop, was received with
acclamation by the people, who buzzed around him, in the words of the
Chronicle, “as bees swarm about their queen.”
Meanwhile, in the deserts of Astrakhan, Kotian, the old Polovtzi Khan,
had been defeated by the Mongols, and fled, he and his, along the
wild steppe country till he came to the Karpathian range and sought
refuge in the Hungarian kingdom. Russia no longer offered a safe
retreat. Swiftly and remorselessly the death-dealing Horde bore down
on the middle provinces, and throughout the length and breadth of the
land bishops and priests and people knelt in agonised supplication
to their all-powerful God to deliver them from their savage enemies.
From cathedral, church, and roadside shrine wails the pitiful litany,
“Save us from the infidels!” Candles burn and incense swings, and
anguish-stricken hearts yearn out their prayer, “Save us from the
infidels!” Call Him louder. Perchance He sleepeth.
Tchernigov and Péréyaslavl experienced the common fate, the general
ruin; town and country alike suffered the affliction of fire and sword
and rapine. Shuddering villagers, lying awake around their flickering
hearths at night, would hear the uneasy barking of their watch-dogs,
scenting or seeing something not yet palpable to human senses; and
later the house-pigeons would fly far and wildly over a landscape lit
up by a glow that was not the dawn.
After a short respite, while the destroyers had turned aside again to
the deserts of the Don, Central Russia once more became the scene of
their ravaging. It was now the turn of Kiev to become the miserable
victim of their attentions. Around the mother of Russian cities (a
very Niobe under present circumstances), the sacred site of the tombs
and relics of the grand old princes, the resting-place of “all the
glories,” gathered a host that blackened the face of the country for
miles round. Batu himself, Mengu and Kujuk, sons of Ogatai (the Grand
Khan), and five other princes of the family of Jingis, came to help the
city on the Dniepr to its doom. Mikhail of Tchernigov fled to Hungary
on the approach of the enemy, and even the daring Daniel Romanovitch
preferred not to shut himself up like a trapped rat in Kiev or Galitz,
and sought refuge with King Bela, leaving, however, in the former town
his voevoda Dimitri to direct the defence. Happy had it been for the
inhabitants had they all fled from the death-trap. Within the walls men
could scarce hear themselves speak for the floating din of creaking
carts, bellowing oxen, groaning camels, neighing and stamping horses,
and yelling Mongols which resounded on all sides. [Sidenote: 1240]
Against the Polish gate day and night the battering-rams crashed and
splintered, till a breach was effected by which the besiegers entered.
S. Sofia had become the last refuge of the defenders, but the roof,
crowded with fugitives, gave way beneath the pressure, and forestalled
the vengeance of the Mongols. Men, women, and infants, houses,
churches, tombs, and shrines became a prey to the children of the
desert, a vast hecatomb to grace the funeral pyre of the old Russia.
The famous monastery of Petcherski, where the monk Nestor wrote his
Chronicle, shared the general destruction, and from amid its crashing
ruins the pagans seized the massive gold cross which had adorned its
cupola.
From this victory the Horde pressed on through Volhynia and Galicia;
Vladimir, Galitz, and other Red Russian towns fell beneath their
attack, and then the conquering host branched off into two divisions;
one, under the command of Batu, invaded Hungary; the other, led by
Baidar and Kaidu (sons of Jagatai), carried desolation into the Polish
provinces. The storm, sack, and burning of Lublin, Zawikhost, Sendomir,
and Krakow, and the ravaging of the province of Breslau led up to the
pitched battle of Liegnitz, where the might of Poland measured itself
in desperate struggle with the Mongol wave. On the Christian side stood
Duke Henry II. of Silesia; Boleslav, son of the Markgraf of Moravia;
Miecislav, Duke of Ratibor; and Poppon d’Osterna, Provincial Master
(in Prussia) of the Teutonic Order. Outnumbered by the Mongols, the
Poles fought valiantly and with effect, till at last their spirit
failed them; the great Tuk banner, lurid with flaring naphtha, and
decorated with two gleaming sheep bones, transversely crossed, seemed
to reproduce, amid unholy goblin flames, their own mystic symbol. The
powers of darkness and the seething masses of human foes were too
formidable a combination to fight against, and the chivalry of Poland
broke and fled. Duke Henry on that awful night fought savagely as
he fled, but was torn down at length by his untiring pursuers. Many
a count and palatine shared his fate; from every corpse the savage
victors cut an ear, and nine sacks full were sent to the Grand Khan,
together with the head of Duke Henry, as a record of the slain.[38]
In tracing the Mongol march of devastation through Silesia, Moravia,
and Transylvania into Hungary, it is only necessary to observe that
wholesale slaughter, destruction, and sweeping victory continued to
characterise the advance of the Horde.[39] In Hungary men had awaited
with cold and anxious hearts the onfall of the Mongols. Had they not
heard with sorrow and foreboding at Christmas-tide last year the
doleful intelligence of the fall of Kiev? And the wild stories of each
fresh batch of fugitives--Kumans, Russians, Poles, Silesians--increased
the terror of the Mongol name and brought their armies nearer. The King
rallied his nobles round him (none too well-affected though they were)
in a determined effort to stem this swarthy torrent that threatened
to submerge the country. The prelates of the realm, good old fighting
churchmen as they were, led their vassals in person to the fight. On
the field of Mohi (name strangely like that of the other fatal battle
in their history), on the banks of the Sajó, the cross of S. Stefan
went down before the yak-tailed Tuk, and the nomad warriors triumphed
over the Magyar chivalry. Hemmed in on all sides, the Hungarians were
powerless; “it was not a battle, but a butchery.”[40] Bela fled to the
Karpathians, thence to Austria; his brother Kalman reached Kroatia,
where he died of his wounds. Among the slain were the Archbishops
Mathias of Gran and Ugolin of Kalocza, the Bishops of Raab, Neutra, and
Siebenbürgen, and counts and nobles galore, the flower of Hungarian
aristocracy. Surely not to be reckoned as “the weak and the false,”
“the fool and the knave.” Bela, betrayed by the Duke of Austria and
hunted from one refuge to another by the remorseless enemy, took ship
from the Dalmatian coast and left his kingdom in the hands of Batu.
Southern Hungary, Servia, Dalmatia, and parts of Bulgaria were ravaged
by detachments of the Horde, but south of Albania and west of Austria
they do not appear to have penetrated. The news of the death of the
Grand Khan Ogatai, and possibly the increasing difficulty of supporting
so large a body of men in a devastated country, determined Batu to
withdraw his hosts from the scene of their conquests, and the Mongol
swarms melted away from the erstwhile fertile lands which they had
turned into a howling wilderness. Bela returned to take possession
of his stricken kingdom, confronted on all sides by evidences of the
great calamity; “the highways were grown with grass, the fields were
white with bones, and here and there for more than a day’s journey
round, no living soul.”[41] In distant corners of Europe men shuddered
at the tales that were told of these fearsome sons of the desert; in
marvel-loving Constantinople it was gravely averred that they had
the heads of dogs and fed upon human flesh, and the dread of their
coming kept the fishermen of Sweden and Friesland from attending the
herring-market on the English coast, thereby demoralising prices.[42]
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Sir H. H. Howorth, _History of the Mongols_.
[36] Howorth sees in the recurring devastations of such men as Jingis,
Attila, Timur, Bonaparte, and their ilk, the hand of “Providence”
operating to purge the world of “the diseased and the decaying, the
weak and the false, the worn out and the biased, the fool and the
knave.” The Mongol massacres were so thorough and indiscriminate that
it is hard to say what classes of human beings came safest out of
the ordeal, but in the wars of Napoleon it would certainly not be a
survival of the fittest; the weak, the cowardly, the frivolous would be
least likely to perish; the strong, the brave, the patriotic would be
those who “foremost fighting fell.”
[37] Riesenkampff, _Der Deutsche Hof zu Nowgorod_.
[38] Both Von Hammer-Purgstall (_Geschichte der Goldenen Horde_) and
Howorth allude to Poppon as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a
post held at that date by Konrad of Thuringen; also both include him
among the slain, though the former has a note to the effect that this
could not have been Poppon “of Osterino,” who died much later. Poppon
of Osterna was at this date Provincial or Land-master in Prussia, and
lived to be elected Grand Master in 1253.
[39] Howorth, following Wolff, discredits the widely-accepted story of
a Bohemian victory over the Mongols at Olmutz, and refers the event to
a success over the Hungarians and Kumans twelve years later.
[40] Von Hammer-Purgstall, _Geschichte der Goldenen Horde_.
[41] Laszlo Szalay, _Geschichte Ungarns_.
[42] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.