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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 7, 2022 19:51

Our previous episode took you through important transformations of the Golden Horde during the long-reign of Özbeg Khan; the islamization, and urbanization, of the khanate. Today we share the first part of our coverage of the political dimensions of Özbeg's nearly thirty year reign, focusing on Özbeg's interactions with the Ilkhanate and the Mamluk Sultanate, an area in which Özbeg suffered almost continual defeats. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. As we covered previously, upon becoming khan of the Golden Horde in 1313, Özbeg ordered a wide purge of the Jochid princes, a two-pronged assault to both remove potential rivals and promote Islam among the elite, for those who refused to convert were punished mortally. After his first year in power Özbeg would be remarkably tolerant to other religions within his empire, but he made it abundantly clear that the religion of the Khan and the court was Islam. One of Özbeg's earliest actions was the construction of a mosque in the Crimean city of Solkhat, or as it's known for Turkic speakers, Eski Qırım, or Staryi Krym after the Russian annexation. [note for David: Qırım=Crimea, hard K sound]. Built in 1314, parts of the mosque are still extant, though in the sixteenth century parts of it were moved into a new building some distance away. Özbeg was no idle khan. With the assistance of the powerful bey Qutlugh-Temür, Özbeg further weakened the power of the remaining Jochid princes with the establishment of the qarachi beys as the lead ministers of the empire, putting greater administrative power into the non-Chinggisid elite. The qarachi beys were headed by the beyleribey, the chief bey, held first by Qutlugh-Temür, and later his brother ‘Isa. These two men were instrumental in Özbeg's control. Powerful, islamic lords, their early backing had not just been key in Özbeg seizing power in the first place, but in solidifying Özbeg's islamization of the khanate's upper echelons. Their support and influence among the military-elite were significant in Özbeg's centralization of authority, and in the smooth function of the empire as lands and territories were redistributed with the change in authority. And Özbeg went to great effort to ensure their loyalty, creating a reciprocal marriage alliance with them that the Mongols called quda. Qutlugh-Temür married a Jochid princess named Turabey, while ‘Isa married one of Özbeg's daughters, and in turn Özbeg married one of ‘Isa's daughters. The brothers were then assigned some of the most economically important and lucrative regions within the khanate; Qutlugh-Temür as governor of Khwarezm, but with his authority expanded to stretch to the Lower Volga, while ‘Isa was situated in the Crimean Peninsula. With Özbeg in the capital on the Volga River, three of them were like three weights balancing the khanate. In 1314, only the second year of Özbeg's reign, the Khan of Chagatai Khanate, Esen Buqa reached out to Özbeg. The ten years since the Pax Mongolica in 1304 had hardly instilled the desired unity among the khanates. Esen Buqa Khan was in the midst of growing tensions with the Ilkhanate and Yuan Dynasty, and feared a combined Toluid assault on the Chagatai lands. By then Esen-Buqa had taken captive Ilkhanid and Yuan envoys, and contacted Özbeg in an effort to bring him into an alliance, telling him that the Great Khan, Ayurburwada, saw Özbeg as illegitimate, and wished to depose him. Özbeg, likely on the council of the experienced Qutlugh-Temür, refused the request for support. The Golden Horde did not take part when Yuan forces invaded the Chagatai lands in 1316 while Esen-Buqa was campaigning in the Ilkhanate. The effort at neutrality with the khanates who had influence in Central Asia was also likely influenced by Özbeg's success at bringing the Blue Horde, the eastern wing of the Golden Horde, closely under his control, especially after 1321. The once autonomous, if not outright independent, khanate became essentially a province of the Golden Khan through Özbeg's effort. As the Blue Horde, backed by Özbeg's troops, in this period extended to the Syr Darya and incorporated former Khwarezmian cities of Otrar, Jand and others, Özbeg did not want the Yuan Dynasty intervening with this profitable expansion. Throughout his life Özbeg retained amicable relations with the Yuan Khans, sending them tribute, gifts and his nominal allegiance in exchange for revenues from Jochid estates in China. He valued this income higher, and was not above sending his envoys to the Yuan court to remind them to keep up the payments. Some historians have gone as far as to suggest that Özbeg, influenced by the Yuan administrative system, based his reforms in the Golden Horde upon it's two-tiered system. Others see Özbeg's four qarachi beys an adoption of the system employed by the Yuan, where the keshig's four day-commanders had to countersign the orders of the khan. Furthermore, Özbeg encouraged and profited greatly from the great overland trade. Wares both originating from, and influenced by, China are found within the remains of the Horde cities. The trade across Asia, from Egypt, India, China, the Chagatais and even the Ilkhanate, was the source of much of the great wealth enjoyed by the Jochid khans in the fourteenth century. For more on that, be sure to listen to our previous episode though. But Özbeg was no man of peace. His lack of involvement in Esen Buqa's war with the Ilkhanate and Yuan was not out of a firm belief in the pax Mongolica. In 1314 Özbeg was simply not in a position of security to take part in a larger conflict, and neither did he wish to sour relations with the Great Khan. In fact, Özbeg was to take up seriously Jochid claims on the Caucasus. After his enthronement he sent envoys to the Ilkhanate demanding they cede these lands to the Golden Horde, while another letter reached the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, urging Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad to join him in an attack on the Ilkhanate. When the opportunity presented itself, Özbeg was to commit wholeheartedly to the task. This came after the death of Il-Khan Ölejitü in 1316, and the enthronement of the young Abu Sa'id as Il-Khan the next year. Özbeg promptly set about ordering preparations for an all-out assault; a prince of the Chagatai lineage who had recently defected to the Ilkhanate, Yasa'ur, was convinced to revolt in the eastern part of the Ilkhanate, while Özbeg rallied a great host to assault the Caucasus. In late 1318 the invasion commenced, in what was likely the largest army put to the task since the days of Berke and Nogai almost 60 years before. In the account of the contemporary writer Wassaf, Özbeg's official pretext was that he came to rest the regency of the Ilkhanate away from Choban, the non-Chinggisid who really ran the Ilkhanate while Abu Sa'id was still in his minority. Yet, Abu Sa'id and Choban rose to the occasion. In the east, Yasa'ur's revolt was crushed, and the young Abu Sa'id and Choban defeated and repulsed Özbeg along the river Kur, though not before Abu Sa'id was nearly overcome by the Jochid forces. Özbeg was not put aside though; in the early 1320s he resumed the effort, this time in conjunction with an army under the Chagatai Khan Kebek. The dating is a bit uncertain; 1322 or 1325, or perhaps these were two distinct invasions. Regardless of the date, the result was the same. The Ilkhanate was victorious, Choban's skilled military mind outplaying Özbeg, and Choban even pursued Özbeg's fleeing army back into the Golden Horde. Özbeg's dreams at conquering the Caucasian pastures did not end. In 1335 Özbeg gave it another go, rumoured to have been invited by Abu Sa'id's wife, Baghdad Khatun. In the midst of riding north to meet him, Abu Sa'id died, possibly poisoned by his estranged wife. Yet here too, Özbeg was defeated by Abu Sa'id's hastily chosen successor, Arpa Khan. It may have been too that Özbeg was demoralized when news came of the death of his ally, Qutlugh-Temür, late in 1335. So ended Özbeg's final attempt to invade the lands of the Ilkhanate. No single reason is obviously apparent for the consistent defeats. It was not based on an inherent military differentiation; both armies continued to field lightly-armoured horse archers. The Ilkhans relied on knowledge of the Caucasus, fortifying and blocking the Jochids at river crossings and preempting Jochid mobility. Jochid defeats may not have necessarily been military failures, as much as an inability to advance except through strategic choke points controlled by large, well-supplied Ilkhanid armies. There is an assumption that Ilkhanid troops were on average better armed and equipped than their Jochid counterparts, even though Özbeg may have fielded larger armies. One factor seems to have been Özbeg himself; the Ilkhanate's commanders he faced, Choban Noyan and Arpa Khan, were simply better commanders than Özbeg. Özbeg's repeated assaults on the Ilkhanate became a main detail of his reign in numerous medieval accounts, and was evidently well known; the Book of the Knowledge of all the Kingdoms, an anonymous, late-fourteenth century work by a Spanish Franciscan, is a source where the author claims to have travelled around the world, though generally repeats nonsensical claims. Yet even here, a recognizable account of Özbeg's invasion of the Ilkhanate is presented. A circa 1330 Franciscan account, the Book of the Estate of the Great Khaan, has Özbeg attack Abu Sa'id with 707,000 horsemen, a forced he raised “without pressing hard on his empire.” Some centuries later, Turkic histories like that of Abu'l Ghazi Bahadur Khan even retained mentions of Özbeg's campaigns against the Ilkhanate, even when such sources are otherwise rather brisk or religion focused when it comes to describing Özbeg's reign. With the military front making no progress, Özbeg was not above that other favoured Jochid strategy. That is, attempting to get the Mamluks to do the work for them. Özbeg had opened contact with the Mamluks soon after his enthronement, where he signaled his support for the alliance. Özbeg heavily promoted his conversion to Islam in his letters, as well as his successes in converting the nomadic population. Coupled with allowing the Genoese back into the Black Sea ports and reopening the slave trade with the Mamluks, Özbeg was clearly marking the time had come to move past the poor Jochid-Mamluk relations that had existed during the reign of his predecessor Toqta Khan. For the Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, this seemed a convincing enough transformation, and showed himself willing to commit to Özbeg's initiative. It was this detente, as well as his dreams of a glorious Qalawunid dynasty, that led al-Nasir Muhammad to make an unusual request. In 1315, his messengers arrived in Özbeg's ordu requesting a Chinggisid princess for al-Nasir Muhammad. Thus began the lengthy, and headache inducing, process of organizing the first, and only, marriage between a Chinggisid and the Mamluks of Egypt. It should first be noted that the marriage of Chinggisid women to non-Mongol dynasties was not uncommon. Numerous examples can be found with the other khanates, but for the Golden Horde alone, shortly before al-Nasir's offer Özbeg had married his own sister Konchaka to Prince Yurii Daniilovich of Moscow, and during the 1250s the khans had offered princesses in marriage to the Hungarian king Béla IV. To the Mongols, such a marriage symbolized one thing; submission to the house of Chinggis Khan, for only a subject could have the right to marry a daughter of his lineage. And Özbeg certainly thought so. As we noted in earlier episodes, the Golden Horde likely imagined the Mamluks as their vassals, and Özbeg must have seen this as a confirmation of it, even if the Mamluks did not view it as such. Negotiations went on, and Özbeg's demands for a great dowry —some 27,000 dinars, which the Sultan had to borrow from merchants—were reluctantly met. The princess, Tulunbey, arrived in Cairo in 1320 after five years of back and forth, and the marriage was undertaken. Unfortunately for Tulunbey, Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad was not the most loving of husbands. Al-Nasir Muhammad had, by that point in his life, lost his throne three separate times, and his youth been manhandled by greedy emirs; the consequences of these emirs resulted in the boy sultan suffering an humiliating defeat at the hands of Ghazan Il-Khan in 1300. Extreme paranoia of all those around him was al-Nasir Muhammad's primary personality trait, and he was not exactly unjustified in this. But it seems the Sultan rather quickly came to doubt Tulunbey's heritage, and accused her of not actually being a Chinggisid. The Mamluk chronicles are confused over her background; variously, they identify her as a descendant of Batu, of Berke, or as Özbeg's daughter, sister or niece. Yet these chroniclers do not share al-Nasir Muhammad's doubt over the fact of her being a Chinggisid, and appear almost embarrassed at his accusation. As the Mamluks' general portrayal of Özbeg is as a pious and sincere Muslim monarch, such an accusation of an important ally was a bit of a needless incident. Furthermore, it seems an unusual ploy for Özbeg to play given the scenario, and his outrage over al-Nasir's treatment of her seems rather much had Özbeg in-fact sent a dummy Chinggisid. But even before al-Nasir's suspicions of Tulunbey developed, his detente with Özbeg had already begun to fray. Özbeg had used the marriage to make greater economic and military demands of the Mamluks, requesting that al-Nasir Muhammad attack the Ilkhanate. As the early 1320s saw the ongoing peace talks between al-Nasir Muhammad and the Il-Khan Abu Sa'id, Özbeg's demands for military asssitance were evermore discomforting. The frustration of Özbeg Khan resulted in him sending lower-ranking embassies to the Mamluks, beginning a spiraling game of tit-for-tat where each side further disrespected the other's envoys in an ever-escalating series of diplomatic slaps. At one point Özbeg even forbid the sale of slaves to Egypt in reaction. Perhaps not coincidentally, Özbeg also began to build up his own body of mamluk guards, according to Ibn Battuta. This fall out hardly bode well for the relationship between Sultan al-Nasir and Tulunbey. The marriage to Tulunbey produced no children, and by 1327 al-Nasir divorced her and married her off to a lower ranking commander. It took Özbeg some time to learn of this, but once he did he was furious. In 1334 his letter arrived in Cairo, and lambasted the Sultan, telling him that Tulunbey should have been sent back to the Horde, and wrote “Someone like you should not injure the daughters of the Qa'ans!” Özbeg, like all khans, thought little of the Mamluks' origins as Qipchap slaves. For him to divorce and humiliate a Chinggisid princess was an insult beyond measure. Al-Nasir's very thoughtful response was to claim that Özbeg had been misinformed, and that actually Tulunbey had sadly died. In fact, Tulunbey was still very much alive; her second husband had recently died though, so al-Nasir forced her to marry another commander. This fellow too predeceased her, and Tulunbey was married to a fourth husband. She never returned to the Golden Horde, and died in Cairo in the 1360s, where her tomb remains today. Özbeg requested that al-Nasir Muhamamd provide him a daughter to marry in recompense. Just like he would do with the Ilkhanate when they made the same request, al-Nasir equivocated, claiming his daughters were too young to marry. At the same time, he was marrying them off to Mamluk emirs. The relationship between their two states remained strained. While Mamluks chronicles retain a high opinion of Özbeg, neither al-Nasir or Özbeg cared much for the other, and tension remained until both died in 1341. In effect this was the great result of much esteemed Jochid-Mamluk alliance. What initially may have proved promising, largely turned into diplomatic squabbling, annoyance at the failure of the other party to meet expected demands, and never materialized into actual cooperation against the Ilkhanate. At best it stopped the Ilkhanate from truly concentrating too greatly on the Mamluk or Golden Horde frontiers. At worst, it was coincidental diplomatic posturing with two states the Ilkhanate had gone to war with independently. Özbeg, the mighty Islamic khan, proved no more effective with the Mamluks than his non-Muslim predecessors. Özbeg's “southern policy” with the Mamluks and the Ilkhanate then, was not one of great successes. But what of his western frontiers, with Europe and the Rus'? That will be the topic of our next episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.

2.67 History of the Mongols: Golden Horde #8

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 28, 2022 26:36

“Account of the exalted Sultan Muhammad Uzbak Khan. His name is Muhammad Uzbak, and Khan in their language means ‘sultan.' This sultan is mighty in sovereignty, exceedingly powerful, great in dignity, lofty in station, victor over the enemies of God, the people of Constantinople the Great, and diligent in the jihad against them. His territories are vast and his cities great; they include al-Kafa, al-Kirim, al-Machar, Azaq, Sudaq and Khwarezm, and his capital is al-Sara. He is one of the seven kings who are the great and mighty kings of the world. [...] this sultan when he is on the march, travels in a separate mahalla, accompanied by his mamluks and his officers of state, and each one of his khatuns travels separately in her own mahalla. When he wishes to be with any one of them, he sends to her to inform her of this, and she prepares to receive him.” So the great traveller Ibn Battuta describes Özbeg, Khan on the Golden Horde, during his visit to that khan's camp. From 1313 until his death in 1341, Özbeg enjoyed the lengthiest of reigns of a Mongol ruler, second only to his distant cousin Khubilai Khaan. The powerful Özbeg would be long remembered as the mightiest of Jochid rulers, and his life was a watershed for the Horde. After him, all khans were Muslims, and his life would be a model, the marker of the Horde's Golden Age. Yet, despite the proclamations of his excellence, tensions bubbled under the surface, and Özbeg's great power did not translate into great success. In today's episode, we take you through the transformation of the Golden Horde under Özbeg, looking specifically at islamization and urbanization. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Özbeg was a son of To'rilcha, a grandson of Möngke-Temür Khan, a great-great-grandson of Batu, a great-great-great-grandson of Jochi, and thereby a descendant of Chinggis Khan. Özbeg's father To'rilcha had been a part of the four-wary princely junta that ruled the Horde from 1287 to 1291 under Tele-Buqa Khan. As one of the top princes of this union, and one of the sons of the prestigious Möngke-Temür Khan, To'rilcha had certainly been a powerful prince within the horde. It seems Özbeg drew much of his initial legitimacy from this, and retained a great distaste for his uncle Toqta Khan, who had To'rilcha and the other princes killed in the 1291 coup with the aid of Nogai. Toqta then married Özbeg's stepmother, To'rilcha's chief wife Bayalun Khatun, and apparently exiled Özbeg to Khwarezm, which cemented Özbeg's hatred for his uncle. It's not surprising then that Özbeg is often accused of being behind Toqta's somewhat mysterious death in 1312. As we covered in our episode last week, the sources are contradictory over what immediately followed. Though Mamluk sources tend to have Toqta's sons predecease him, a number of other accounts have Özbeg battle one of Toqta's surviving sons. Regardless, by the start of 1313 Özbeg was duly enthroned as Khan of the Golden Horde, and if he had not done so already, made public his conversion to Islam. Özbeg had a particular view on how to hold onto power, which involved executing a great number of potential rivals to the throne. At least one hundred princes and members of the military elite were killed in perhaps the largest princely massacre of the Mongol Empire and its successor khanates. The justification for many of the deaths was the failure of the given princes to convert to Islam, but this was almost certainly little more than an excuse to substantially trim the branches of the aristocracy. Özbeg wanted to ensure that there would be not only no rivals to his own position, but that only his own sons would be able to succeed him. Certainly, islamization was a key part of Özbeg's reign. There can be no doubt over its spread amongst the Jochid elite from these years onwards, and accounts like Ibn Battuta not only stress the piety of Özbeg and his court, but how islamic institutions were now seeped into the actual administration of the Golden Horde. This ranged from readers of the quran accompanying the royal family everywhere, to Islamic qadi courts now operating alongside the initial justice system established by the dynasty, the jarquchi courts. From Özbeg's coinage, we know he took the Islamic title and name of Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, and in his contacts with the Mamluk Sultanate he expressed loudly the notice of his conversion, and his success in converting the nomads of his empire to Islam. The specific mentions of him killing shamans and Buddhist lamas also indicates an effort to actively uproot the old ways. Yet there remains considerable evidence to continued religious plurality within the Golden Horde and for Özbeg himself. For example, at the very start of his reign he wedded his step-mother, Bayalun Khatun, a widow of both Toqta and his father To'rilcha. An experienced political player with many contacts, her support was important in Özbeg's ascension. Yet wedding his own step-mother was quite against Islamic law and practice. Here Özbeg's qadis conveniently found a loophole; as neither of her previous husbands had been Muslims, neither marriage was thus legal, and hence technically Özbeg was not marrying his own step-mother. We can't know if that convinced anyone, but noone had the power to tell Özbeg “no.” Moreover, we know that Özbeg did not seek to convert the Christian populations of his realm to Islam. The Rus' chronicles mention no effort on the part of Özbeg to do so, and only rarely do they even remark on his status as a Muslim. One of his earliest actions as khan, even in the midst of the most zealous period after his conversion, was going out of his way to welcome the Genoese back to Caffa, and in 1332 granted the Venetians right to build a quarter at Tana, on the mouth of the Don River. In quick order he confirmed tax exemptions for the local Franciscan community and gave them permission to build a cathedral in Caffa. Even when a nominal order went out banning the ringing of church bells, it seems there was little enforcement of it, given that this Franciscan cathedral continued to ring them according to other sources. These were not the only privileges they were granted, for the Franciscans were also given freedom to perform missionary activities deep within Horde lands. A Franciscan letter from 1320 indicates that their missionaries had reached as far as Bashkiria, only six years into Özbeg's reign. A number of extant Franciscan letters survive speaking of the success of their missions due not just to Özbeg's tolerance, but of even his family. Özbeg's chief khatun after Bayalun's death was Taydula, who was specifically noted for her patronage of Christian communities. In fact, letters remain from Pope John XXII and Pope Benedict XII thanking Özbeg and Taydula for their favourable treatment of Christians in the Horde. Though Christians received privileges from Özbeg, there is also references to his treatment of other religious groups. During his trip to the Golden Horde, Ibn Battuta met a Jewish person from Spain. Buddhist Uyghurs remained a part of Özbeg's court. And from other evidence too we know of the continued practice of non-Islamic beliefs well after Özbeg. The Golden Horde's powerful beylerbeyi, Edigü, who took power some fifty years after Özbeg's death, also made a name for himself having to stamp out Buddhism and shamanism. And in the fifteenth century a few eye witness reports, such as Johann Schiltberger, indicate a limited presence of traditional folk religions. In other lands of the former Golden Horde, such as in what is now Kazakhstan, the advance of Islam among the Kazakhs remains a topic of debate, with some arguing that it was not until late in the nineteenth century that the islamization was really complete among the nomads there. Özbeg, much like his predecessors Berke and Töde-Möngke, could make a show of the islamization of their states in diplomacy with the Mamluks, but nomads clung, often quite stubbornly, to their old ways. Yet no mistake should be made; for Özbeg and his successors, their government was now Islamic, and there was no question about that. Özbeg's active promotion of Islam, and invitation of Islamic administrators to his cities and government did a considerable amount to promote the religion and bring more converts. Moreover, Özbeg actively had much of his support come from Islamic beys within the Horde, such as his powerful ally Qutlugh-Temür, the governor of Khwarezm. And the effort stuck. Every khan to succeed Özbeg seems to have been a Muslim. According to the Mamluk chroniclers ibn Taghriberdi and al-Safadi, Özbeg ceased to wear his hair in traditional Mongol fashion or to Mongolian hats. Contemporary accounts from the Ilkhanate written before the 1330s such as Wassaf and Qashani portray Özbeg as a pious Muslim, who strictly punished soldiers who harassed sufis. Özbeg's first embassy to the Mamluks arrived in Cairo in April 1314 and loudly proclaimed their lord's conversion to Islam. And of course Ibn Battuta, traveling and meeting Özbeg in the 1330s, present Özbeg unambiguously as a Muslim, albeit one who enjoyed large feasts and drinking during ramadan. The image that comes across then, is a relatively adaptable monarch when it came to religion, who knew how to press hard when he could and thus promote Islam, but when necessary to remain flexible to local custom, and keep his empire running smoothly. The fact that Özbeg would sit on the Jochid throne for thirty years speaks much to his success in these matters, compared to the very short reigns of many contemporary khans. Of course, nothing can be said about Özbeg's islam without mentioning Baba Tükles. This famous sufi became, in legend, the man who converted Özbeg to Islam. The story goes that he and Özbeg's shamans were to hold a competition to prove whose religion was true by seeing who could survive inside a hot oven. The shaman, as most humans would, burnt to death, but when they checked on Baba Tükles, he was sitting comfortably in the oven wearing nothing but a suit of maille and reciting prayers. Seeing that they had opened the oven's entrance, Baba Tükles asked what the hurry was. Thus was everyone amazed at this miracle, and converted happily to Islam, mashallah. This conversion narrative, masterfully explored in an excellent monograph by Devin DeWeese, became hugely popular in Turkic and Tatar accounts from the sixteenth century onwards. However, Baba Tükles is a mythic figure, not appearing until centuries after Özbeg's death. Sources contemporary to Özbeg name several other individuals, such as a Bukharan sufi named Ibn ‘Abd-ul-Hamid, as the leading men who converted Özbeg. Perhaps one of them became the inspiration for Baba Tükles, though no fourteenth century account references men burnt inside ovens. After the massacres of the Jochid princes, Özbeg set about reorganizing the Jochid administration. In short, the power of the princes was broken, and Özbeg ruled through the non-Chinggisid noyad. For Özbeg, these were the four ulus emirs, called also qarachu begs or ulus begs. Essentially, the four most powerful clan leaders within the Golden Horde not of the dynasty of Chinggis Khan. The head of these four was the beylerbeyi, who acted like the viceroy of the khan. Essentially, these four men discussed and carried out policy with the khan, and their stamp or signature was necessary on all official documents. The origins of the institution are unclear. Similar institutions are recorded in the other khanates; in the Ilkhanate, we know that chancellery documents had to be signed off by the heads of the keshig day guards, powerful, prestigious and hereditary positions. There is some argument that the positions actually were always a part of the Mongol Empire, while others see it as an innovation of Khubilai Khaan, and during the detente between the various khanates after 1304, it spread to other khanates. In the Golden Horde though, the qarachu begs appear distinct from the keshig, and appears as a formal institution throughout all of its successor khanates. For Özbeg, his first beylerberyi was Qutlugh-Temür, the skilled governor of Khwarezm who had been such a stalwart ally of Özbeg in his rise to power. Until his death in the 1330s, Qutlugh-Temür was the number two man in the Golden Horde. Together they led an administrative transformation, redistributing lands, islamicizing parts of government and greatly strengthening the central might of the khan. The Blue Horde, the khanate of the line of Orda east of the Ural River, was nearly totally subsumed in this period and lost its autonomy. Özbeg's new government also fostered the growth of cities within the steppe. The urbanisation of the Horde in the Volga Steppes had been ongoing steadily for years. In a trade network based along the major rivers of the steppe, important camps of the khans and princes, or those few-existing steppe settlements, had flourished under the stability wrought by the Jochids. It should be noted that the nomads of the Golden Horde did not aimlessly wander from one side of the khanate to another. Instead, the entire empire was divided into appanages, and allotted to minghaans. A given minghaan, meaning a thousand men and their families, was given access to pastures and natural resources within that appanage to provide for themselves. When nomadizing, they travelled between these allotted pastures, and were forbidden from accessing those of another minghaan without permission or paying a fee. These minghaans were placed under the control of princes and the military elite, essentially like a feudal estate. What this meant was that the lands of the Eurasian steppe were kept remarkably stable, and no longer divided between warring factions where each sought to claim more land from another. No longer concerned about raiding by Qipchaps, and rivers now marked by permanent ferries sponsored by the khans, merchants moved relatively freely across the steppes, paying taxes and tribute but able to make a tidy profit for a bit of work. With then came either imports from Europe, Mediterranean, Central Asia or China, to exports, such as grains, horses, glass, beads, pottery Siberian furs, honeys, horses and slaves, which travelled to the Rus', Ilkhanate, Mamluk Egypt and as far as India. Indeed, as the Horde's cities grew, so did its ability to manufacture goods for both internal and external trade. And industries grew around them to support these networks, either by importing the materials needed for manufacture, to feeding the employees and housing the merchants who transported it. A wetter climate in the early fourteenth century coupled with the careful control the Jochids kept of land allowances also allowed for a wider cultivation of farmland within the steppes to better feed growing settlements. Then these people's spiritual and entertainment needs had to be met, requiring the construction of mosques and other places of worship, market places, bath houses, manors for the elite and more, which made steady work for builders and stone masons. Altogether this fostered a veritable explosion in the growth of the Horde's major cities during the reign of Özbeg, recorded both in written sources and the extensive archaeological work in the former Horde lands. Well over a hundred such Golden Horde settlements are now known. The most important of these were along the lower reaches of the Volga River, towards the Delta where it meets the Caspian Sea. Here lay the Horde's capitals; the first of these was Sarai, founded by Batu after the withdrawal from Europe. Berke had apparently founded a settlement further upstream, and Özbeg moved the capital there. It is assumed it was to better lay out his desired city, and avoid the flooding which plagued old Sarai, for the Caspian Sea was rising every year of the 1320s. Hence, the new capital was called Berke's Sarai, or Sarai al-Jadid, “New Sarai.” While originally made up of a few hundred felt gers and a handful of permanent structures, these cities rapidly transformed. Felt gers were replaced with immobile homes, originally maintaining the same shape before over time becoming polygonal, then square. Most of the Horde's major cities followed a similar layout as evidenced by archaeological study; one or more main squares surrounded by large buildings, with streets radiating out from it in rectangular districts. They contained great complex manor houses for the nobility; numerous craft workshops, from bone carving, pottery, iron works, glass-blowing, brick making, bronze casting, and jewellery production, as well as bathhouses, mosques, madrassas, necropolises, and orchards. The largest of the ruins is the site known as Selitrennoe, which scholarship currently associates with Sarai al-Jadid, the second capital of the Golden Horde. Its remains stretch over 7 kilometres along the Akhtuba River, a minor branch off the Volga, and 2 kilometres into the steppe, and at its height in the mid-fourteenth century some estimates give it a population of 75,000. Ibn Battuta visited the city in the 1330s, and his description is as follows: “The city of [Sarai] is one of the finest of cities, of boundless size, situated in a plain, choked with the throng of its inhabitants, and possessing good bazaars and broad streets. We rode out one day with one of its principal men, intending to make a circuit of the city and find out its extent. Our lodging place was at one end of it and we set out from it in the early morning, and it was after midday when we reached the other end. We then prayed the noon prayer and ate some food, and we did not get back to our lodging until the hour of the sunset prayer. One day we went on foot across the breadth of the town, going and returning, in half a day, this too through a continuous line of houses, where there were no ruins and no gardens. The city has thirteen mosques for the holding of Friday prayers, [...]; as for the other mosques, they are exceedingly numerous. There are various groups of people among its inhabitants; these include the [Mongols], who are the dwellers in this country and its Sultans, and some of whom are Muslims, then the [Alans], the [Qipchaqs], the [Circassians], the Rus' and [Greeks]. Each group lives in a separate quarter with its own bazaars. Merchants and strangers from the two ‘Iraqs, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere, live in a quarter which is surrounded by a wall for the protection of the properties of the merchants. The sultan's palace in it is called Altun Tash, altun meaning ‘gold,' and tash ‘head.'” The remains of the palace of Altan Tash have likely been identified, and what a magnificent structure it was. As the largest building found within the Golden Horde, the palace in its glory must have been over 32 metres long and over 40 metres wide. Made of fired brick and timber, its great hall alone was 5.8 by 9.4 metres across, with tiled floors and elegant, gilded polychromatic mosaics along the walls. Some 35 rooms have been identified, including a child's room where children's drawings were found carved into the plastered walls. Unlike the palaces of Qaraqorum or Khubilai's capitals at Shangdu or Dadu, the palace of Sarai was not influenced by Chinese design, but Islamic. Seljuq, Khwarezmian and Iranian influences are detected throughout the remains. Similar layouts and designs, albeit on smaller scale, are found in both Sarai itself and the other cities of the Horde. While Özbeg continued to live in nomadic encampments travelling hither and yon across the Horde, he certainly stopped in Sarai when business demanded it, and he sought to ensure he lived in style. The lower Volga from New Sarai down to Hajji Tarkhan on the Volga Delta became the densest part of a new urban network, with these major centres each surrounded by dozens and dozens of smaller settlements, pitted with orchards, farmland and surrounded by the endless grass sea where herds of the nomads still roamed. Typical of these settlements, is that before 1360 they were built without fortifications; no enemy would march across the steppe, and if he did he would have to face the Khan's horsemen. Only when the Horde fragmented, were there foes who could march on Sarai. The growth of the Horde's cities was not caused by Özbeg Khan. Rather, it was a long running process which evolved out of several developments laid down by his predecessors. But Özbeg took advantage of it, and cultivated it. Or at least, his knowledgeable ministers did, and Özbeg supported them, happy to see goods and coins fill up his warehouses while leaving the trouble of collecting it to others. He actively encouraged settlement and trade, welcoming craftsmen, merchants and administrators from across the Middle East and Central Asia to bring their knowledge and wares to his cities. As already mentioned, he granted quarters in cities along the Black Sea to Italian merchants. On their ships the goods of the Golden Horde, particularly grains and slaves, could be sold across the Mediterranean, while desired imports were brought into his empire. From those port cities merchant caravans could travel east to the Volga cities like Sarai al-Jadid; there a merchant could exchange his wares and rest, before returning home, or travelling south to the Ilkhanate, or even eastwards into Khwarezm. Here Gurganj, once destroyed by Özbeg's ancestor Jochi, was restored to prominence and was the Jochid's chief city in the east, a staging point for those travellers going deeper into Central Asia, or perhaps even to Yuan China. Özbeg certainly maintained contacts with the Great Khans, and routinely requested the delivery of the tribute owed him from the Jochid's injü lands in China. Özbeg could take advantage of, and capitalize on, the development of the Jochid lands and the normalization of contacts with the other Chinggisid states. In short, he enjoyed the fruits of a tree grown generations before. And at each ferry crossing, in each city, and each border, every passing merchant paid tax to the Khan of the Golden Horde, in coins minted in Jochid cities and bearing the names of the Jochid Khan. In this manner, Özbeg became a wealthy man indeed. It was a system reliant extensively on wider Eurasian trade networks; thus the Jochid economy would face a terrible consequence were something to happen to that network. But that's a matter for another episode. Having looked at the transformation of the Golden Horde, our next episode will look at the politics and campaigns of Özbeg Khan, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.

god history europe china christians chinese kings italian spain jewish greek middle east muslims islam delta syria account buddhist similar iranians buddhism khan mediterranean islamic felt golden age tem contemporary typical conquest kazakhstan sultans central asia merchants black sea mongolian siberian constantinople venetian rus horde hamid franciscan eurasian mongol mongols batu tatar volga berke franciscans kirim mongol empire caspian sea kafa jack wilson turkic alans kazakhs golden horde ibn battuta genoese orda mamluk mamluks dadu machar volga river though christians jadid caffa pope john xxii jochi mamluk egypt circassians

The Nature and Causes of the Cold War

The History of Computing

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2022 45:53

Our last episode was on Project MAC, a Cold War-era project sponsored by ARPA. That led to many questions like what led to the Cold War and just what was the Cold War. We'll dig into that today. The Cold War was a period between 1946, in the days after World War II, and 1991, when the United States and western allies were engaged in a technical time of peace that was actually an aggressive time of arms buildup and proxy wars. Technology often moves quickly when nations or empires are at war. In many ways, the Cold War gave us the very thought of interactive computing and networking, so is responsible for the acceleration towards our modern digital lives. And while I've never seen it references as such, this was more of a continuation of wars between the former British empire and the Imperialistic Russian empires. These make up two or the three largest empires the world has ever seen and a rare pair of empires that were active at the same time. And the third, well, we'll get to the Mongols in this story as well. These were larger than the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, or any of the Chinese dynasties. In fact, the British Empire that reached its peak in 1920 was 7 times larger than the land controlled by the Romans, clocking in at 13.7 million square miles. The Russian Empire was 8.8 million square miles. Combined the two held nearly half the world. And their legacies live on in trade empires, in some cases run by the same families that helped fun the previous expansions. But the Russians and British were on a collision course going back to a time when their roots were not as different as one might think. They were both known to the Romans. But yet they both became feudal powers with lineages of rulers going back to Vikings. We know the Romans battled the Celts, but they also knew of a place that Ptolemy called Sarmatia Europea in around 150AD, where a man named Rurik settle far later. He was a Varangian prince, which is the name Romans gave to Vikings from the area we now call Sweden. The 9th to 11th century saw a number o these warrior chiefs flow down rivers throughout the Baltics and modern Russia in search of riches from the dwindling Roman vestiges of empire. Some returned home to Sweden; others conquered and settled. They rowed down the rivers: the Volga, the Volkhov, the Dvina, and the networks of rivers that flow between one another, all the way down the Dnieper river, through the Slavic tripes Ptolemy described which by then had developed into city-states, such as Kiev, past the Romanians and Bulgers and to the second Rome, or Constantinople. The Viking ships rowed down these rivers. They pillaged, conquered, and sometimes settled. The term for rowers was Rus. Some Viking chiefs set up their own city-states in and around the lands. Some when their lands back home were taken while they were off on long campaigns. Charlemagne conquered modern day France and much of Germany, from The Atlantic all the way down into the Italian peninsula, north into Jutland, and east to the border with the Slavic tribes. He weakened many, upsetting the balance of power in the area. Or perhaps there was never a balance of power. Empires such as the Scythians and Sarmatians and various Turkic or Iranian powers had come and gone and each in their wake crossing the vast and harsh lands found only what Homer said of the area all the way back in the 8th century BCE, that the land was deprived of sunshine. The Romans never pushed up so far into the interior of the steppes as the were busy with more fertile farming grounds. But as the Roman Empire fell and the Byzantines flourished, the Vikings traded with them and even took their turn trying to loot Constantinople. And Frankish Paris. And again, settled in the Slavic lands, marrying into cultures and DNA. The Rus Rome retreated from lands as her generals were defeated. The Merovingian dynasty rose in the 5th century with the defeat of Syagrius, the last Roman general Gaul and lasted until a family of advisors slowly took control of running the country, transitioning to the Carolingian Empire, of which Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, as he was crowned, was the most famous. He conquered and grew the empire. Charlemagne knew the empire had outgrown what one person could rule with the technology of the era, so it was split into three, which his son passed to his grandsons. And so the Carolingian empire had made the Eastern Slavs into tributaries of the Franks. There were hostilities but by the Treaty of Mersen in 870 the split of the empire generally looked like the borders of northern Italy, France, and Germany - although Germany also included Austria but not yet Bohemia. It split and re-merged and smaller boundary changes happened but that left the Slavs aware of these larger empires. The Slavic peoples grew and mixed with people from the Steppes and Vikings. The Viking chiefs were always looking for new extensions to their trade networks. Trade was good. Looting was good. Looting and getting trade concessions to stop looting those already looted was better. The networks grew. One of those Vikings was Rurik. Possibly Danish Rorik, a well documented ally who tended to play all sides of the Carolingians and a well respected raider and military mind. Rurik was brought in as the first Viking, or rower, or Rus, ruler of the important trade city that would be known as New City, or Novgorod. Humans had settled in Kiev since the Stone Age and then by Polans before another prince Kyi took over and then Rurik's successor Oleg took Smolensk and Lyubech. Oleg extended the land of Rus down the trading routes, and conquered Kiev. Now, they had a larger capital and were the Kievan Rus. Rurik's son Igor took over after Oleg and centralized power in Kiev. He took tribute from Constantinople after he attacked, plunder Arab lands off the Caspian Sea, and was killed overtaxing vassal states in his territory. His son Sviatoslav the Brave then conquered the Alans and through other raiding helped cause the collapse of the Kazaria and Bulgarian empires. They expanded throughout the Volga River valley, then to the Balkans, and up the Pontic Steppe, and quickly became the largest empire in Europe of the day. His son Vladimir the Great expanded again, with he empire extending from the Baltics to Belarus to the Baltics and converted to Christianity, thus Christianizing the lands he ruled. He began marrying and integrating into the Christian monarchies, which his son continued. Yaroslov the Wise married the daughter of the King of Sweden who gave him the area around modern-day Leningrad. He then captured Estonia in 1030, and as with others in the Rurikid dynasty as they were now known, made treaties with others and then pillaged more Byzantine treasures. He married one daughter to the King of Norway, another to the King of Hungary, another to the King of the Franks, and another to Edward the Exile of England, and thus was the grandfather of Edgar the Aetheling, who later became a king of England. The Mongols The next couple of centuries saw the rise of Feudalism and the descendants of Rurik fight amongst each other. The various principalities were, as with much of Europe during the Middle Ages, semi-independent duchies, similar to city-states. Kiev became one of the many and around the mid 1100s Yaroslav the Wise's great-grandson, Yuri Dolgoruki built a number of new villages and principalities, including one along the Moskva river they called Moscow. They built a keep there, which the Rus called kremlins. The walls of those keeps didn't keep the Mongols out. They arrived in 1237. They moved the capital to Moscow and Yaroslav II, Yuri's grandson, was poisoned in the court of Ghengis Khan's grandson Batu. The Mongols ruled, sometimes through the descendants of Rurik, sometimes disposing of them and picking a new one, for 200 years. This is known as the time of the “Mongol yoke.” One of those princes the Mongols let rule was Ivan I of Moscow, who helped them put down a revolt in a rival area in the 1300s. The Mongols trusted Moscow after that, and so we see a migration of rulers of the land up into Moscow. The Golden Horde, like the Viking Danes and Swedes settled in some lands. Kublai Khan made himself ruler of China. Khanates splintered off to form the ruling factions of weaker lands, such as modern India and Iran - who were once the cradle of civilization. Those became the Mughals dynasties as they Muslimized and moved south. And so the Golden Horde became the Great Horde. Ivan the Great expanded the Muscovite sphere of influence, taking Novgorod, Rostov, Tver, Vyatka, and up into the land of the Finns. They were finally strong enough to stand up to the Tatars as they called their Mongol overlords and made a Great Stand on the Ugra River. And summoning a great army simply frightened the Mongol Tatars off. Turns out they were going through their own power struggles between princes of their realm and Akhmed was assassinated the next year, with his successor becoming Sheikh instead of Khan. Ivan's grandson, Ivan the Terrible expanded the country even further. He made deals with various Khans and then conquered others, pushing east to conquer the Khanate of Sibiu and so conquered Siberia in the 1580s. The empire then stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean. He had a son who didn't have any heirs and so was the last in the Rurikid dynasty. But Ivan the Terrible had married Anastasia Romanov, who when he crowned himself Caesar, or Tsar as they called it, made her Tsaritsa. And so the Romanov's came to power in 1596 and following the rule of Peter the Great from 1672 to 1725, brought the Enlightenment to Russia. He started the process of industrialization, built a new capital he called St Petersburg, built a navy, made peace with the Polish king, then Ottoman king, and so took control of the Baltics, where the Swedes had taken control of on and off since the time of Rurik. Russian Empire Thus began the expansion as the Russian Empire. They used an alliance with Denmark-Norway and chased the Swedes through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, unseating the Polish king along the way. He probably should not have allied with them. They moved back into Finland, took the Baltics so modern Latvia and Estonia, and pushed all the way across the Eurasian content across the frozen tundra and into Alaska. Catherine the Great took power in 1762 and ignited a golden age. She took Belarus, parts of Mongolia, parts of modern day Georgia, overtook the Crimean Khanate, and modern day Azerbaijan. and during her reign founded Odessa, Sevastopol and other cities. She modernized the country like Peter and oversaw nearly constant rebellions in the empire. And her three or four children went on to fill the courts of Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands. She set up a national network of schools, with teachings from Russian and western philosophers like John Locke. She collected vast amounts of art, including many from China. She set up a banking system and issued paper money. She also started the process to bring about the end of serfdom. Even though between her and the country she owned 3.3 million herself. She planned on invading the Khanate of Persia, but passed away before her army got there. Her son Paul halted expansion. And probably just in time. Her grandson Alexander I supported other imperial powers against Napoleon and so had to deal with the biggest invasion Russia had seen. Napoleon moved in with his grand army of half a million troops. The Russians used a tactic that Peter the Great used and mostly refused to engage Napoleon's troops instead burning the supply lines. Napoleon lost 300,000 troops during that campaign. Soon after the Napoleanic wars ended, the railways began to appear. The country was industrializing and with guns and cannons, growing stronger than ever. The Opium Wars, between China and the UK then the UK and France were not good to China. Even though Russia didn't really help they needed up with a piece of the Chinese empire and so in the last half of the 1800s the Russian Empire grew by another 300,000 square miles on the backs of a series of unequal treaties as they came to be known in China following World War I. And so by 1895, the Romanovs had expanded past their native Moscow, driven back the Mongols, followed some of the former Mongol Khanates to their lands and taken them, took Siberia, parts of the Chinese empire, the Baltics, Alaska, and were sitting on the third largest empire the world had ever seen, which covered nearly 17 percent of the world. Some 8.8 million square miles. And yet, still just a little smaller than the British empire. They had small skirmishes with the British but by and large looked to smaller foes or proxy wars, with the exception of the Crimean War. Revolution The population was expanding and industrializing. Workers flocked to factories on those train lines. And more people in more concentrated urban areas meant more ideas. Rurik came in 862 and his descendants ruled until the Romanovs took power in 1613. They ruled until 1917. That's over 1,000 years of kings, queens, Tsars, and Emperors. The ideas of Marx slowly spread. While the ruling family was busy with treaties and wars and empire, they forgot to pay attention to the wars at home. People like Vladimir Lenin discovered books by people like Karl Marx. Revolution was in the air around the world. France had shown monarchies could be toppled. Some of the revolutionaries were killed, others put to work in labor camps, others exiled, and still others continued on. Still, the empire was caught up in global empire intrigues. The German empire had been growing and the Russians had the Ottomans and Bulgarians on their southern boarders. They allied with France to take Germany, just as they'd allied with Germany to take down Poland. And so after over 1.8 million dead Russians and another 3.2 million wounded or captured and food shortages back home and in the trenches, the people finally had enough of their Tsar. They went on strike but Tsar Nicholas ordered the troops to fire. The troops refused. The Duma stepped in and forced Nicholas to abdicate. Russia had revolted in 1917, sued Germany for peace, and gave up more territory than they wanted in the process. Finland, the Baltics, their share of Poland, parts of the Ukraine. It was too much. But the Germans took a lot of time and focus to occupy and so it helped to weaken them in the overall war effort. Back home, Lenin took a train home and his Bolshevik party took control of the country. After the war Poland was again independent. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Serbs became independent nations. In the wake of the war the Ottoman Empire was toppled and modern Turkey was born. The German Kaiser abdicated. And socialism and communism were on the rise. In some cases, that was really just a new way to refer to a dictator that pretended to care about the people. Revolution had come to China in 1911 and Mao took power in the 1940s. Meanwhile, Lenin passed in 1924 and Rykov, then Molotov, who helped spur a new wave of industrialization. Then Stalin, who led purges of the Russian people in a number of Show Trials before getting the Soviet Union, as Russian Empire was now called, into World War II. Stalin encouraged Hitler to attack Poland in 1939. Let's sit on that for a second. He tried to build a pact with the Western powers and after that broke down, he launched excursions annexing parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. Many of the lands were parts of the former Russian Empire. The USSR had chunks of Belarus and the Ukraine before but as of the 1950s annexed Poland, Easter Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria as part of the Warsaw Pact, a block of nations we later called the Soviet Bloc. They even built a wall between East and West Germany. During and after the war, the Americans whisked German scientists off to the United States. The Soviets were in no real danger from an invasion by the US and the weakened French, Austrians, and military-less Germans were in no place to attack the Soviets. The UK had to rebuild and British empire quickly fell apart. Even the traditional homes of the vikings who'd rowed down the rivers would cease to become global powers. And thus there were two superpowers remaining in the world, the Soviets and the United States. The Cold War The Soviets took back much of the former Russian Empire, claiming they needed buffer zones or through subterfuge. At its peak, the Soviet Union cover 8.6 million square miles; just a couple hundred thousand shy of the Russian Empire. On the way there, they grew to a nation of over 290 million people with dozens of nationalities. And they expanded the sphere of influence even further, waging proxy wars in places like Vietnam and Korea. They never actually went to war with the United States, in much the same way they mostly avoided the direct big war with the Mongols and the British - and how Rorik of Dorestad played both sides of Frankish conflicts. We now call this period the Cold War. The Cold War was an arms race. This manifested itself first in nuclear weapons. The US is still the only country to detonate a nuclear weapon in war time, from the bombings that caused the surrender of Japan at the end of the war. The Soviets weren't that far behind and detonated a bomb in 1949. That was the same year NATO was founded as a treaty organization between Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. The US upped the ante with the hydrogen bomb in 1952. The Soviets got the hydrogen bomb in 1955. And then came the Space Race. Sputnik launched in 1957. The Russians were winning the space race. They further proved that when they put Yuri Gagarin up in 1961. By 1969 the US put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon. Each side developed military coalitions, provided economic aid to allies, built large arsenals of weapons, practiced espionage against one another, deployed massive amounts of propaganda, and spreading their ideology. Or at least that's what the modern interpretation of history tells us. There were certainly ideological differences, but the Cold War saw the spread of communism as a replacement for conquest. That started with Lenin trying to lead a revolt throughout Europe but shifted over the decades into again, pure conquest. Truman saw the rapid expansion of the Soviets and without context that they were mostly reclaiming lands conquered by the Russian imperial forces, won support for the Truman Doctrine. There, he contained Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe. First, they supported Greece and Turkey. But the support extended throughout areas adjacent to Soviet interests. Eisenhower saw how swiftly Russians were putting science in action with satellites and space missions and nuclear weapons - and responded with an emphasis in American science. The post-war advancements in computing were vast in the US. The industry moved from tubes and punch cards to interactive computing after the Whirlwind computer was developed at MIT first to help train pilots and then to intercept soviet nuclear weapons. Packet switching, and so the foundations of the Internet were laid to build a computer network that could withstand nuclear attack. Graphical interfaces got their start when Ivan Sutherland was working at MIT on the grandchild of Whirlwind, the TX-2 - which would evolve into the Digital Equipment PDP once privatized. Drum memory, which became the foundation of storage was developed to help break Russian codes and intercept messages. There isn't a part of the computing industry that isn't touched by the research farmed out by various branches of the military and by ARPA. Before the Cold War, Russia and then the Soviet Union were about half for and half against various countries when it came to proxy wars. They tended to play both sides. After the Cold War it was pretty much always the US or UK vs the Soviet Union. Algeria, Kenya, Taiwan, the Sudan, Lebanon, Central America, the Congo, Eritrea, Yemen, Dhofar, Algeria, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Thailand, Bolivia, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Angolia, Ethiopia, the Sahara, Indonesia, Somalia, Mozambique, Libya, and Sri Lanka. And the big ones were Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Many of these are still raging on today. The Soviet empire grew to over 5 million soldiers. The US started with 2 nuclear weapons in 1945 and had nearly 300 by 1950 when the Soviets had just 5. The US stockpile grew to over 18,000 in 1960 and peaked at over 31,000 in 1965. The Soviets had 6,129 by then but kept building until they got close to 40,000 by 1980. By then the Chinese, France, and the UK each had over 200 and India and Israel had developed nuclear weapons. Since then only Pakistan and North Korea have added warheads, although there are US warheads located in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and the Netherlands. Modern Russia The buildup was expensive. Research, development, feeding troops, supporting asymmetrical warfare in proxy states, and trade sanctions put a strain on the government and nearly bankrupted Russia. They fell behind in science, after Stalin had been anti-computers. Meanwhile, the US was able to parlay all that research spending into true productivity gains. The venture capital system also fueled increasingly wealthy companies who paid taxes. Banking, supply chains, refrigeration, miniaturization, radio, television, and everywhere else we could think of. By the 1980s, the US had Apple and Microsoft and Commodore. The Russians were trading blat, or an informal black market currency, to gain access to knock-offs of ZX Spectrums when the graphical interfaces systems were born. The system of government in the Soviet Union had become outdated. There were some who had thought to modernize it into more of a technocracy in an era when the US was just starting to build ARPANET - but those ideas never came to fruition. Instead it became almost feudalistic with high-ranking party members replacing the boyars, or aristocrats of the old Kievan Rus days. The standard of living suffered. So many cultures and tribes under one roof, but only the Slavs had much say. As the empire over-extended there were food shortages. If there are independent companies then the finger can be pointed in their direction but when food is rationed by the Politburo then the decline in agricultural production became dependent on bringing food in from the outside. That meant paying for it. Pair that with uneven distribution and overspending on the military. The Marxist-Leninist doctrine had been a one party state. The Communist Party. Michael Gorbachev allowed countries in the Bloc to move into a democratic direction with multiple parties. The Soviet Union simply became unmanageable. And while Gorbachev took the blame for much of the downfall of the empire, there was already a deep decay - they were an oligarchy pretending to be a communist state. The countries outside of Russia quickly voted in non-communist governments and by 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and the Eastern European countries began to seek independence, most moving towards democratic governments. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in 15 separate countries and left the United States standing alone as the global superpower. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO in 1999. 2004 saw Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join. 2009 brought in Albania and Croatia. 2017 led to Montenegro and then North Macedonia. Then came the subject of adding Ukraine. The country that the Kievan Rus had migrated throughout the lands from. The stem from which the name and possibly soul of the country had sprouted from. How could Vladimir Putin allow that to happen? Why would it come up? As the Soviets pulled out of the Bloc countries , they left remnants of their empire behind. Belarus, Kazakstan, and the Ukraine were left plenty of weapons that couldn't be moved quickly. Ukraine alone had 1,700 nuclear weapons, which included 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Add to that nearly 2,000 biological and chemical weapons. Those went to Russia or were disassembled once the Ukrainians were assured of their sovereignty. The Crimea, which had been fought over in multiple bloody wars was added to Ukraine. At least until 2014, when Putin wanted the port of Sevastopol, founded by Catherine the Great. Now there was a gateway from Russia to the Mediterranean yet again. So Kievan Rus under Rurik is really the modern Ukraine and the Russian Empire then Romanov Dynasty flowed from that following the Mongol invasions. The Russian Empire freed other nations from the yolk of Mongolian rule but became something entirely different once they over-extended. Those countries in the empire often traded the Mongol yolk for the Soviet yolk. And entirely different from the Soviet Union that fought the Cold War and the modern Russia we know today. Meanwhile, the states of Europe had been profoundly changed since the days of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and Marx. Many moved left of center and became socialized parts of their economy. No one ever need go hungry in a Scandanavian country. Health care, education, even child care became free in many countries. Many of those same ideals that helped lift the standard of living for all in developed countries then spread, including in Canada and some in the US. And so we see socialism to capitalism as more of a spectrum than a boolean choice now. And totalitarianism, oligarchy, and democracy as a spectrum as well. Many could argue reforms in democratic countries are paid for by lobbyists who are paid for by companies and thus an effective oligarchy. Others might argue the elections in many countries are rigged and so they aren't even oligarchs, they're monarchies. Putin took office in 1999 and while Dmitry Medvedev was the president for a time, but he effectively ruled in a tandemocracy with Putin until Putin decided to get back in power. That's 23 years and counting and just a few months behind when King Abdullah took over in Jordan and King Mohammed VI took over in Morocco. And so while democratic in name, they're not all quite so democratic. Yet they do benefit from technology that began in Western countries and spread throughout the world. Countries like semi-conductor manufacturer Sitronics even went public on the London stock exchange. Hard line communists might (and do) counter that the US has an empire and that western countries conspire for the downfall of Russia or want to turn Russians into slaves to the capitalist machine. As mentioned earlier, there has always been plenty of propaganda in this relationship. Or gaslighting. Or fake news. Or disinformation. One of those American advancements that ties the Russians to the capitalist yoke is interactive computing. That could have been developed in Glushkov's or Kitov's labs in Russia, as they had the ideas and talent. But because the oligarchy that formed around communism, the ideas were sidelined and it came out of MIT - and that led to Project MAC, which did as much to democratize computing as Gorbachev did to democratize the Russian Federation.

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A Book Review - The Volga: A History by Janet M. Hartley

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2022 4:57

A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga River and its vital place in Russian history—named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times “A memorable journey into the heart of Russian social, political, and cultural history.”—Jennifer Eremeeva, Moscow Times “'Without the Volga, there would be no Russia.' The final words of Janet Hartley's book sound sweeping. But its 400 pages make the case powerfully.”—The Economist The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation—and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/support

history europe russia russian world war ii best book russian federation stalingrad russian empire volga caspian sea jennifer eremeeva volga river janet m hartley

Hang Her!

The Berean Call Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2021 17:28

Chapter Two “Only one who has felt the nearness of death can truly be grateful for each new day, no matter how much suffering it might bring.” Thus speaks Maria Linke, survivor of nine years' imprisonment in the death camps and prisons of Stalin's Russia following World War II. There have been many “God is faithful amid the horrors of war” stories, and although East Wind fits this description, it is far more than just another war story. The unusual aspects of Maria's life make this book so arrestingly different. The winsome portrait of a childhood lived on the banks of the Volga River as the daughter of a wealthy pre-Revolution German industrialist . . . The tragedy of banishment to Siberia and life among the nomadic tribes there . . . The flight from a burning Cossack village and escape to Germany during the Russian Revolution . . . Teen years in lively Berlin . . . World War II and her work as an interpreter in the labor camps of Germany . . . Her arrest as a spy by the advancing Russian armies . . . Miraculous escapes from death . . . Romance . . . The infamous Waldeheim trials . . . And transcending it all, the rare sense of humor that could find laughter in the most horrible of circumstances.

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S2 E45: We've all Heard about Sativa and Indica, so What is Cannabis Ruderalis?

The Cannabis Professor Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2021 23:16

In 1924, a Russian botanist named Janischewski was studying wild cannabis by the Volga River, when he happened upon a unique specimen...The leaves were different, the height was drastically changed, but what else was hidden in the genetics of this strange plant and why is it a common feature in many modern grow houses?Join the Cannabis professor as he digs through the weedy history of Cannabis Ruderalis and why it's an important tool for novice growers and modern strains!@thecannabis.professor

russian heard cannabis indica sativa volga river ruderalis

Eating To Feel Energised

Always In Season

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2021 24:34

On the show today, I am joined by the incredible adventure athlete, Laura Kennington. Here we chat about how what she makes in the kitchen has a huge impact on how she performs during her inspiring sporting adventures and how a pub quiz led her to kayak the longest river in Europe, the Volga River in Russia. Keep updated with Laura's adventures https://www.instagram.com/laurakairos/?hl=en https://linktr.ee/laurakairos You can follow host James Golding on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/james_golding_chef/ and Maple from Canada UK https://www.instagram.com/maplecanadauk/ for more seasonal recipe inspiration James' recipes are available here: https://www.maplefromcanada.co.uk/benefits-of-maple/ambassadors/james-golding/

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Episode 20 - Paulus receives a shocking briefing as ice floes drift down the Volga

german russian shocking moscow drift sixth receives briefing paulus stalingrad verdun wehrmacht barbarossa volga passchendaele alan clark volga river

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 1, 2020 20:36

General Paulus' Sixth Army has fought its way right up to the edge of the Volga River. Russian positions had been reduced to a few pockets of stone, seldom more than three hundred yards deep bordering on the right bank of the Volga. The Krasny Oktyabr or October plant as its also known had fallen to the Germans who had paved every foot of the factory floor with their dead. The Barrikady plant was half lost, the Germans were at one end of the foundry facing the Russian machine guns in the now extinguished ovens at the other. The defenders of the Tractor Factory had been broken into three groups by constant German attacks. These islands of resistance were now almost impossible to dislodge as the German's discovered. The Sixth Army is exhausted. Alan Clark in his book on Barbarossa points out that they were as raddled and spent as had been Douglas Haig's divisions at Passchendaele exactly a quarter of a century before during the First world war. You'd have to say there was an implacable madness that had seized all parties in this conflict. The Russians in the city were fighting to the death as there was no-where to go east of Stalingrad. It was all open steppe and losing this city was not just symbolic. They would have been pushed all the way to caucuses – at least that's what many Russians soldiers believed. But Stalin and his generals were cooking up a nasty surprise for the Germans. That would follow within a few weeks. If the Wehrmacht's Army Group B had the strength, the correct course would have been to strike at Voronezh up the Don River and lever the Don Front away from close to Stalingrad. The German left flank was in a particularly weak condition and striking further north would have caused the Russians to move reinforcements closer to Voronezh which was also closer to Moscow. But hindsight is always an inexact science isn't it? The Wehrmacht was desperately extended on a front which had almost doubled in length since the start of the Summer campaign. The Russians meanwhile were building their forces and it was at this point that they had the stronger army. It was in this dangerous position that the weaker armies, the Sixth and the Fourth Panzer, continued to rely on initiative rather than pure-blooded military strategy. Once the German momentum was lost, they were on extremely perilous ground. There were two clear future strategies as the cold of winter descended on the southern steppe. First would have been an orderly withdrawal to defensive positions and tightening of the front. There were obvious places to do this – the Chiur River and the Mius River. The Second was pretty much part of German ideology. Continue attacking because whomever was last standing, won the battle. Stalingrad had turned into Verdun or Passchendaele .

Do Be A Monster - The Creature Craze

Don't Be An Idiom

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 31, 2020 65:04

From the minds that brought you Don't Be An Idiom...it's Do Be A Monster! Today you can listen to the very first episode of Albert & Ryan's brand new "sideshow pod" that explores the origin stories of mythical monsters, creatures, critters, folkloric freakazoids, unbelievable beings, and more. Today Ryan takes a dip in the cool waters of Russia to introduce you to the slimiest trouble-maker this side of the Volga River, the one and only Vodyanoy. Then traverse the south of France with Albert to explore the legendary tale of the Beast of Gévaudan. Go grab your sharpest set of teeth, a pocketful of eyeballs, and a few jugs of goop, and come on down to creep town!

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History of the Mongols SPECIAL: Subutai

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 26, 2020 40:53

To coincide with the release of the Kings and Generals Biography video of the Mongol general Subutai, for our podcast we’ll present for your listening an extended version of that script, courtesy of our series historian writer. While Subutai is the most well known of all medieval Mongolian generals, the full extent of his career is rarely presented in a single document. With this episode, we’ll hopefully do just that for you; providing an idea of the vast scope of Subutai’s campaigns and his service to three generations of Chinggisids, providing along the way an idea of what made up this man’s personality, and some historiography on him. This version of the script will be accessible to read with full footnotes and sources on the academia.edu page of our series writer, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Of all the generals of the Mongol Empire, none stand taller than Subutai, who led armies from China, across Iran, the Caucasus, Russia and into Eastern Europe. Yet, Subutai remains a murky figure, with difficult to access primary sources providing fertile ground for all manner of myths to grow instead. Utilizing the latest scholarship and medieval materials, we will paint for you a more accurate biography of one of history’s fiercest generals. Perhaps the best place to start would be his name. Subutai, the most common form of his name on the internet, comes from the Chinese rendering of his name( 速不台 ). Numerous transliterations of his name exist, but perhaps the best approximation of the Mongolian is Sübe’etei. The common epithet attached to his name, Ba’atar, signifies bravery and is often translated as hero or knight. Sübe’etei was born in northwestern Mongolia in 1175-1176, to the Uriyangqat Mongols. There has been modern confusion of the Uriyngqat Mongols, nomadic pastoralists in the Mongolian steppe, with the Turkic Uriyangqai of the forests north of Mongolia, reindeer herders who did not raise the vast herds sheep, goat or horses. This confusion has resulted in the common misconception today that Sübe’etei was a Tuvan. However, the 13th and 14th century sources clearly identify Sübe’etei as a man of the steppe, whose father herded sheep and their family having been in close contact with that of Chinggis Khan’s for five generations, a sublineage of the Mongol tribe to which Chinggis Khan belonged. Stephen Pow in his article with Jingjing Liao on Sübe’etei suggests part of the appeal to this belief of Sübe’etei as a ‘reindeer herder,’ is the irony in one of history’s greatest cavalry commanders being a man who did not learn to ride a horse until well into his adulthood. Though specific details of Sübe’etei’s early life are lost to us, we can assume it mirrored that of other Mongolian children. He would have learned to ride a horse, shoot a bow, hunt and herd animals from a young age, the basic skills necessary for warfare on the steppe. In the politically chaotic period of late 12th century Mongolia, Sübe’etei and his family likely suffered from raids and predatory marauders. As a young boy, he found a role model in the form of a fellow Mongol named Temujin. Since the time of Sübe’etei’s great-great-grandfather Nerbi, their families had been close allies, and perhaps from Sübe’etei’s earliest days Temujin had appeared as the centre of Sübe’etei’s world. In the Secret History of the Mongols, around 1185 Temujin was elected as Khan of his Mongol lineage, the Borjigon. Per the Secret History’s account, Sübe’etei, perhaps little more than 10 years old, attended, accompanied by his older brother Ca’urqan and their older cousin, Jelme. In Sübe’etei’s most formative years, he attached himself to this rising warlord, whose family he would stay in loyal service to for the next six decades. Sübe’etei’s role, if any, in the many trials of Temujin’s rise to power are unmentioned. At 14 years old he would have been enrolled into military service as a lightly armoured horse archer. It is not until 1203, when Sübe’etei was about 27, that we have the first described event of his life. That year, Temujin suffered a devastating setback, betrayed by his ally Toghrul, the Ong Khan of the Kereyit. Defeated in battle by Toghrul and Jamukha, another ally turned enemy, Temujin’s army was scattered and with a small force he fled to Lake Baljuna in eastern Mongolia. Slowly, his allies trickled in, one of whom was Sübe’etei’s father Qaban, driving a flock of sheep to Baljuna to feed Temujin’s hungry men. As described in the Yuan shi, Qaban was ambushed and captured by robbers. Sübe’etei and his brother Ca’urqan, not far beyond with the rest of the animals, followed the tracks of the robbers and ambushed them. Bringing down several robbers, the rest panicked and fled. Their father was rescued, and they brought the much-needed sheep to Temujin at Baljuna. Heartened by their loyalty and courage, he rewarded them; Ca’urqan was made a commander of 100, and Sübe’etei was enrolled into the keshig, the imperial bodyguard, as was common for younger brothers of unit commanders. Alongside physically protecting the Khan, the keshig also served as his closest servants, preparing his meals, protecting his herds and maintaining his belongings. The keshig also served as a training school for commanders, where the skills of leading armies, logistical needs and battle were advanced. It is here that Sübe’etei began his education as a general. By 1206, Temujin had unified the tribes of Mongolia, taking the title of Chinggis Khan and declaring the Mongol Empire. Sübe’etei was among those rewarded for his service. It was not without sacrifice, as his older brother had died in the fighting against the Naiman in western Mongolia. With 95 others, in 1206 Sübe’etei was appointed to command a minggan, 1,000 men. His reputation as a ferocious warrior in the name of the Khan had already begun to be established, for at the sametime he was noted among Chinggis Khan’s Four Dogs of War: Jebe, Qubilai Noyan and Jelme Uha. Unlike Chinggis’s four Horses -Bo’orchu, Muqali, Boroqul, Cila’un Ba’atar- who were Chinggis Khan’s personal friends from his youth, the Four Dogs were among the deadliest men of the Khan’s arsenal. To paraphrase the Secret History of the Mongols, the Four Horses were the men at Chinggis’ side, while the Four Dogs were those charging wherever the Khan pointed. Brutal, daring, often cruel yet utterly loyal, the Four Dogs were Chinggis’ swords to wield against Asia. It was in this service that Sübe’etei would excel. In the first Mongol invasions, against the Tangut Kingdom in 1209 and the Jin Dynasty in 1211, Sübe’etei’s mentions are sparse. In 1212 Sübe’etei was the first onto the walls of Huanzhou. He was richly rewarded for his role in taking the city, and for his courage he earned the title of Ba’atar. Jebe Noyan, with whom Sübe’etei was often partnered with, went on a long ranging campaign across the Jin Empire in 1213, through Manchuria and taking one of the Jin capitals, Tung-ching. It’s possible Sübe’etei accompanied him on their series of long marches, feigned retreats and sacked cities, but such is only speculation. By 1216 Chinggis Khan was back in Mongolia, his armies having taken the Jin supreme capital of Zhongdu and left them on the backfoot. In Mongolia Chinggis had to deal with rebellions and foes who had survived the unification. One army under Boroqul was sent to subdue the forest peoples around Lake Baikal, who were in open revolt against Mongol rule; Jebe was sent to capture a fugitive Naiman prince who had usurped power in the Central Asian realm of the Qara-Khitai; Muqali was to command the armies fighting the Jin; and Sübe’etei was to accompany Chinggis’ eldest son Jochi far across the western steppes, in pursuit of Merkit tribes who had fled Mongolia and sought shelter with the Qipchap-Qangli east of the Caspian Sea. This was the Mongol Empire’s first great expansion west of the Altai Mountains. The precise dating and presence of Jochi on this western campaign has been debated by scholars, but we will follow the likeliest chronology proposed by historian Christopher Atwood. Before they set out on the long journey, the Secret History of the Mongols has Chinggis provide Sübe’etei an iron reinforced cart for the journey. This statement may perhaps be the partial origin for the myth that Sübe’etei was immensely overweight, and that no single horse could carry him, requiring instead specially made carts! No medieval source describes Sübe’etei’s weight in any capacity, but Stephen Pow noted that Rashid al-Din mentions of an elderly Uriyangqat who needed to be carried everywhere in a cart, as well as a grandson of Orda bin Jochi who was immensely obese and also required a cart to travel, for no horse could bear him. Possibly, such descriptions were confused with Sübe’etei, encouraged, Pow suggests, again by the “irony of a man [unable to] ride a horse becoming the nomadic cavalry’s greatest general.” In two battles over late 1218 and early 1219, Sübe’etei and Jochi defeated the Merkit and their Qangli allies in what is now western Kazakhstan. On the long trek back across the steppe to Mongolia they made an unexpected meeting. The ruler of the vast Khwarezmian Empire, Muhammad II, intercepted the Mongols somewhere in central Kazakhstan. Jochi and Sübe’etei informed Shah Muhammad they had no quarrel with him, that their task had been simply to deal with the Merkits. But Muhammad had come north looking for a fight, and the Mongols would have to do. Outnumbered, the Mongols made a good show of themselves, the right wings of both armies pushing back the opposing left. Both armies fought until darkness forced them apart. Lighting many fires to make it appear they were setting up camp, the Mongols slid away into the night. The Khwarezmians awoke the next morning to see the mysterious enemy had vanished. Horrified by the destruction wrought by this encounter in the field, Muhammad Khwarezm-shah seems to have developed a phobia of facing the Mongols in open battle. Jochi and Sübe’etei returned to Chinggis late in summer 1219, in similar time to the arrival of news of the infamous Otrar Massacre. The Khwarezmian governor of Otrar, Shah Muhammad’s uncle, murdered a trade caravan sent by Chinggis Khan. It is unclear if the massacre took place with or without Muhammad’s support, but when Chinggis’ envoys arrived demanding punishment for the butchery, Muhammad had them executed. As Jebe had by then conquered the Qara-Khitai, the aggressive Khwarezmians were now direct neighbours of the Mongol Empire. Scarcely had Jebe, Jochi and Sübe’etei returned to Mongolia when they set out to invade the Khwarezmian Empire at the end of 1219. The story of the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm is well told and does not require our attention here. Muhammad, seeking to avoid field battles relied on garrisons within city walls, believing the Mongols, as nomads, lackes sige capabilities. He was sorely mistaken. By spring 1220 the northern frontier of Khwarezm had collapsed. Muhammad fled deeper into his empire, and in pursuit Chinggis Khan unleashed his dogs of war: Jebe Noyan and Sübe’etei Ba’atar, supported by a third tumen under Chinggis’ son-in-law Toquchar.Across Khurasan and northern Iran sped Shah Muhammad. Jebe and Sübe’etei followed. While Muhammad was their primary goal, as they went they took the submission of cities- those which resisted were marked for Toquchar to secure as he followed behind them until his death outside of Nishapur in November 1220. After Nishapur, Jebe and Sübe’etei split up to cover more ground. In Radkan, Sübe’etei was so pleased by the pleasant climate that he apparently avoided any bloodshed, appointed a Mongol governor and moved on. In Quchan, the Mongols committed great slaughter. In Mazandaran, Jebe captured Shah Muhammad’s mother and his harem, sending them back to Chinggis Khan. Jebe and Sübe’etei reunited at Rayy, tracking Shah Muhammad to Hamadan. Sources differ on what exactly happened at Hamadan. Nasawi describes a battle near the city, ibn al-Athir has the Shah escape before they arrive and Juvaini wrote that the Mongols caught him on the road, wounding him with arrows before he escaped. No matter what occurred, after Hamadan Jebe and Sübe’etei lost his trail. Muhammad died a few weeks later, succumbing to pneumonia on an island in the Caspian Sea in December 1220. Spending that winter in Azerbaijan’s Mughan Plain, Jebe and Sübe’etei spent the next two years pinballing across the Caucasus and northwestern Iran. Inflicting a devastating defeat on the Georgian King Giorgi Lasha in February 1221, by the summer they cut back to Persian ‘Iraq where cities they had previously taken were revolting. The Eldeguzid Atabegs of Azerbaijan wisely refused Georgian requests for an alliance and instead submitted to Jebe and Sübe’etei. By mid-1222, messengers had returned from Chinggis Khan, informing them that they could continue the conquest against the Qipchap tribes north of the Caucasus. Striking the enemy from unexpected directions was always a favourite ploy of Chinggis Khan, and the Qipchaq had already shown themselves to be enemies by allying with the Merkit and fighting for the Khwarezm-shah. While passing north, Jebe and Sübe’etei took the city of Shamakhi, employing a particularly gruesome tactic. To mount the walls, corpses of locals and livestock were piled into a platform. For three days, the Mongols fought from it until it decomposed and collapsed. Such tactics had a use far greater than the individual siege, for they contributed to a dread reputation designed to discourage resistance. Upon exiting the Caucasus, Jebe and Sübe’etei were confronted by a much larger force of Alans and Qipchaqs, perhaps alerted to the Mongol approach by the Shah of Derbend. After a difficult journey through the mountains, Jebe and Sübe’etei were reluctant to fight against such odds. Sending messengers to the Qipchaq, they bribed them into abandoning the Alans. After overcoming the now isolated Alans, the Mongols then fell upon the unsuspecting Qipchaq, killing their most powerful leaders. Under their leader Kotjen, the Qipchaq survivors fled west to the Rus’ Principalities. There, Kotjen organized an alliance between his son-in-law, Prince Mstislav the Bold of Galicia, and several other leading Rus’ princes. Modern retelling has often presented what follows, the famous Kalka River Battle, as Sübe’etei’s master stroke, perfectly drawing the Rus’ and Qipchap into a long distance feigned retreat. However, as historian Stephen Pow has recently argued, the primary sources suggest a much closer run thing. Often overlooked has been a small engagement in the lead up to the battle, where the Rus’ chronicles described a Mongol general Hamabek being caught and killed by the Rus’s Qipchaq allies. Pow argues that Hamabek is actually how the 13th century Rus’ interpreted Yama Beg, the Turkic form of Jebe’s name and that by which the Qipchaq knew him by. Bold and often leading from the front, Jebe’s recklessness evidently cost him his life, caught hiding in a kurgan and perhaps, embarrassingly, cut in half. Jebe had been the commanding officer and something of a mentor to Sübe’etei. To suddenly lose him, thousands of kilometres away from any reinforcements and deep in enemy territory, meant Sübe’etei was thrust for the first time into independent command. The famous nine day feigned retreat which followed may have therefore been an actual retreat. The Qipchap and Rus’ hotly pursued them, until Sübe’etei noticed the enemy had strung themselves out. At the Kalka River in May 1223, Sübe’etei turned about and brought the full weight of his army against the Qipchaps, who broke. Fleeing Qipchaps collided with the oncoming Rus’, breaking their formation as Mongol arrows rained upon them. The result was a massacre. Survivors held up on a nearby hill resisted briefly before being convinced to surrender by Sübe’etei. With guard and weapons let down, the Rus’ were slaughtered, their leaders captured and smothered under boards upon which the Mongols feasted and celebrated. Sübe’etei had won a great victory, but was in no position for further conquest. While often presented as the great, undefeated conqueror, the Kalka Campaign had been only narrowly won. On the return journey, sometime in late 1223 or early 1224, Sübe’etei’s forces passed through the territory of the Volga Bulghars along the Volga and Kama Rivers. Laying ambushes for the Mongols had several places, the Bulghars drew the Mongols into feigned retreats, surrounding and killing many. Some modern writers of popular biographies, such as Frank McLynn and James Chambers, have Sübe’etei regroup his forces and inflict a defeat in turn upon the Bulghars. Such statements have no basis in the historical sources. The most detailed description of the encounter with the Bulghars is in the chronicle of ibn al-Athir, who describes the Mongols suffering heavy losses against the Bulghars, before moving on to campaign farther south along the Volga, attacking the Qipchaq settlement of Saqsin. Some authors may have conflated Saqsin as a location in Bulghar territory, or been misled by outdated works like those of Abraham d’Ohsson and Rene Grousset, who presented the encounter much more favourably for Sübe’etei. The need to dismiss Sübe’etei’s defeat is necessary in order to uphold his popular image as the undefeated champion of Chinggis Khan. The most heavily utilized sources such as Juvaini and the Secret History of the Mongols provide no specific comments on, or outright ignore, the encounter with the Bulghars. In comparison, those who actually provide evidence for the encounter, such as ibn al-Athir and Friar Julian, remain much more difficult to access, allowing the exaggerated version of Sübe’etei’s record to often go about unchallenged. We can also note another popular rumour relating to this campaign. It is sometimes claimed that Sübe’etei, while venturing into the Crimean peninsula in 1223, formed an alliance with local Ventian merchants there. The Mongols would attack representatives of Venice’s other Italian rival, Genoa, present in Crimea at the port of Sudaq, and provide exclusive trade privileges to the Venetians. In exchange, the Venetians would provide intelligence and maps for the Mongols in Europe, as well as spreading rumours of Mongol ferocity to sow dissent and fear. James Chamber’s The Devil's Horsemen forwards this, among many other false claims on Sübe’etei’s life. As historian Peter Jacskon has noted in his review of Chambers’ book, “Chambers has borrowed the whole idea from Bréhier’s L’église et l’Orient au moyen âge: it is derived ultimately from Cahun’s Introduction à l’histoire de l’Asie (1896), which has all the authority of a historical novel.” The actual Italian presence in Crimea in the early 13th century was minimal. The Mongol sack of Sudaq had nothing to do with Genoa, the major source describing the incursion, ibn al-Athir, signifies the city as a place where the Qipchaq came to sell their wares and slaves, making no mention of any Italians. Historian Denis Sinor describes Suqaq as an outpost of the empire of Trebizond, home to a mixed population of Greeks and Armenians. Meanwhile A.C.S Peacock has argued that there is evidence that Sudaq, also known as Soldaia, at the time of the Mongol arrival to the Crimean peninsula was actually in the hands of the Seljuqs of Rum. Beyond the story of the Venetians bribing the Mongols into sacking Genoan rivals at Sudaq being false, there is simply no medieval evidence supporting any alliance between Venice and the Mongol Empire, and appears to be in part a conflation of later Italian contacts among the Mongols, most notable in the form of Marco Polo. This was however, the acts of individual merchants, rather than the Venetian state. While this campaign from Shah Muhammad’s death until Sübe’etei’s return to Mongolia is often termed the Great Raid, and described as if it was intended to just gain information on the west, this is a modern extrapolation. The contemporary sources describe it in terms no different than any other stage of the conquests. If a reconnaissance-in-force, then it was a great success; but if intended to seize the western steppe and subdue the Qipchap, it was a poorer showing, marred by the humiliating death of Jebe, heavy losses, a military defeat and no conquered land. The Secret History of the Mongols describes the entire campaign in a laconic line: “Sübe’etei Ba’atur had been put in a difficult situation by these peoples.” It would take well over a decade before the region saw a permanent Mongol presence, and Sübe’etei knew that in order to avenge Jebe and his own defeat, he would need to return in overwhelming force. Upon his return to Chinggis Khan, Sübe’etei was in an imminent position. Despite his great trial in the west, he faithfully returned with loot for the Khan. Chinggis was preparing for the final campaign against the Tangut, but told Sübe’etei to visit his parents, who he had not seen in a decade. Sübe’etei simply responded, “If the emperor will be busy working and the vassal will be at rest, my heart will be in deep uneasiness.” The Khan’s loyal hound, Sübe’etei led in the conquest of the Tangut in 1226, cutting off the western half of the Tangut Kingdom, skirting along the south to subdue Uyghurs and other local tribes before striking the Tangut’s western border. There, he sacked numerous counties along the Tangut-Jin frontier in Gansu, ensuring no aid would come from that direction. 5,000 captured mares he sent to Chinggis Khan, and it was here that he learned of his master’s death in August 1227. Chinggis Khan was the single most influential figure on Sübe’etei’s life, and in his memory he would continue to loyally serve his family. Attending the coronation of Chinggis’ son Ogedai as Khan in 1229, Sübe’etei was rewarded with an imperial princess as a wife. Soon after his enthronement, Ogedai resumed the war with the Jin Dynasty. A Mongol army commanded by Doqulqu was shockingly defeated at Dachangyuan in the first weeks of 1230 by the Jin general Pu’a and his “Loyal and Filial Army,” made up of captives and deserters from the Mongols. Ogedai lacked the authority of his father and the confidence of many of the generals, who thought his younger brother Tolui was the better captain. Such military defeats uneased the new Khan and undermined his position. To offset this, in the last days of 1230 Ogedai led an army against the Jin accompanied by Tolui and Sübe’etei. With the Jin Dynasty’s northern border protected by the Yellow River and its southern by the neutral Song Dynasty, access to Jin territory was through the mountains guarding Henan province’s west, a route blocked by the formidable Tongguan fort. Thre, the garrison wisely refused to be lured into a feigned retreat. Frustrated and not desiring to be stuck in a long and costly siege, Ogedai sent Sübe’etei to find a route through the hills south of the fort. Sübe’etei managed to force a smaller pass, cutting through and ransacking towns in western Henan. Through the hilly terrain his forces became spread out, and the Jin general Chenheshang with 1,000 men of the Loyal and Filial Army cornered and defeated Sübe’etei at Daohuigu 倒回谷. Suffering heavy losses of both men and horses, Sübe’etei was forced to retreat back to a furious Ogedai. So enraged was Ogedai that he removed Sübe’etei from command, and nearly did Sübe’etei disappear from history if Ogedai’s brother, Tolui, did not step in and vouch for him. A new strategy was decided on, a triple pronged assault on all the Jin frontiers. Ogedai with the main army was to cross the Yellow River along its central stretch, another army would probe the eastern end while Tolui and Sübe’etei were to bypass Tongguan entirely, cutting south through Song territory to come behind Jin lines. Unable to diplomatically gain military access through Song lands, Tolui and Sübe’etei had to rush through potentially hostile territory. The result was unexpectedly successful. In the last weeks of 1231 they penetrated the Song frontiers, feeding men and horses in country untouched by the Mongol-Jin war. After a few weeks of plundering they cut north into the Jin lands. The main Jin generals, Pu’a and Hada, pulled back troops from Tongguan to catch Tolui and Sübe’etei, skirmishing over January 1232 until the Mongols were surrounded on Sanfeng Mountain that February. Pu’a sent a threat boasting that he would rape the Mongols’ women once he was done with them. When a snowstorm blew over the armies, Sübe’etei told Tolui to wait it out, telling him the Jin forces were weak people from cities who could not handle the elements, while the hardy Mongols would endure. After three days, deeming the Jin were suitably weakened, the Mongols charged down the hill and routed them. As punishment for Pu’a’s boast, the Mongols sodomized the Jin prisoners. The captured general Hada asked for death, with his final wish to lay eyes on Sübe’etei. Perplexed when he heard of this, Sübe’etei came to see the captive Hada, telling him, “You will die momentarily. Why do you want to see me?” To which Hada replied, “Each of us vassals work for our respective masters. You are braver than other generals, and by nature you are a hero. Could that all really just be random chance? I have met you and now I shall die in peace.” One they linked up with Ogedai’s army, Tolui and Ogedai returned north, leaving Sübe’etei as supreme commander against the Jin. With Jin offensive ability shattered, Sübe’etei invested their capital, Kaifeng. It took a year for the city to fall, in which time the Jin Emperor escaped and many losses were inflicted on the Mongols. When Sübe’etei alerted Ogedai to the city’s final surrender in early 1233, he was prepared to carry out the standard practice of massacre for the city’s prolonged resistance. In Sübe’etei’s mind, it was a well deserved punishment and one he was eager to carry out. But Ogedai was convinced by his Khitan adviser, Yelu Chucai, to spare the inhabitants. What followed is perhaps the most illustrative example of Sübe’etei’s worldview, as far as we can understand it. Sübe’etei was to limit killing to just members of the Jin imperial family, the Wanyan clan 完顏氏, and not harm the inhabitants. Having gone from being prepared to kill them all, Sübe’etei, whatever his personal thoughts on the matter, now carried out the Khan’s will to the greatest detail. Halting depredations of Kaifeng and its population, Sübe’etei allowed them to travel unhindered in search of food. Travel was permitted north of the Yellow River to organize food shipments for the beleaguered population, and Sübe’etei’s biographer in the Yuan shi goes as far as to say the people appreciated him for his efforts. Sübe’etei led the final push against the Jin, ending their dynasty in early 1234. Back in Mongolia by 1235, Sübe’etei took part in the organization of his most well known endeavour: the Great Western Campaign. Sübe’etei reached his apogee, the senior commander alongside the leading princes of the third generations of Chinggisids under Batu bin Jochi. With a great army, over 1236 they swallowed up the western steppe. The only organized Qipchaq resistance under their leader Bachman was swiftly crushed; the Volga Bulghars who had once ambushed Sübe’etei could do little as the great wave washed over them and destroyed their cities. One of the Mordvin principalities wisely submitted to Sübe’etei; the other foolishly offered a brief resistance. The divided Rus’ principalities were quickly picked off. The Mongols rested men and horses in the summer before resuming attacks in the winter when the frozen rivers were easily traversable. In this way, from 1237 to 1240 the Rus’ cities were burned. Few cities lasted as long as two weeks, though Mongol losses were incurred and part of the army under Guyuk and Mongke returned to Mongolia late in 1239. By the start of 1241, Sübe’etei and Batu had brought the Mongol Empire to the edge of Europe, splitting their forces to take multiple routes through Poland, Hungary and Transylvania. Sübe’etei wanted to draw the Hungarian royal army onto ground of his choosing, forcing them to cross an exposed bridge over the Sajo River where on the far bank the treeline would hide flanking Mongol forces. King Bela IV foiled this by not crossing the bridge. The new plan was for Batu to force the bridge while Sübe’etei tried to cross downriver and outflank the Hungarians. Either impatient or Sübe’etei was behind schedule, Batu charged the bridge too early, resulting in heavy losses and the Mongols being repulsed. Angered with Sübe’etei’s failure to cross the river, a new plan was used; early on April 11th, the bridge guard was overcome by Mongol catapults. Crossing over the River, near the village of Mohi the Mongols encircled and destroyed the Hungarian royal army. Despite the success, some Mongol princes were apprehensive of pressing on after the costly fighting. But Sübe’etei shamed them for their cowardice, telling them, “If my lord wishes to retreat, then retreat by yourself. Until I reach Bacha city on the Danube River, I will never return.” The loyal Dog of Chinggis Khan now had to whip his grandchildren into shape. So they pressed onwards, pushing as far as Austria until the Mongols began to withdraw at the end of March 1242. Finding their catapults and siege techniques ineffective against stout stone fortifications, Batu and Sübe’etei desired to step back and restrategize. The withdrawal from Hungary was methodical, campaigning as they went to reduce whoever survived the first pass. Sübe’etei stayed with Batu up to the Volga River, where in late 1243 or 1244 Batu set up his permanent encampment. Sübe’etei scolded Batu for refusing to attend the quriltai in Mongolia to elect Ogedai’s successor, but before departing, Sübe’etei and Batu came to peace regarding the losses at the battle of Mohi. In time, Batu gave thanks to Sübe’etei, attributing to him the reason for their successes. Sübe’etei was back in Mongolia by 1246 to meet the new Khan of Khans, Ogedai’s son Guyuk. Now aged 71, Sübe’etei was one of the few remaining individuals left who had personally known Chinggis Khan. The Franciscan Friar John de Plano Carpini, during his journey to Guyuk’s enthronement in 1246, mentions the elderly Sübe’etei, a figure of immense respect among the Mongols “known among them as ‘the knight.” Later that year, the venerable Sübe’etei went on his final campaign, a brief incursion against the Song Dynasty, as described by the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din. Yet, this campaign goes unmentioned in Chinese sources. Possibly, the elderly Sübe’etei was forced by age or illness to step back from the campaign before it could achieve anything. Perhaps Guyuk’s death in early 1248 ended this campaign prematurely. Either way, we know Sübe’etei was back in Mongolia by 1248, for he died there later that year, somewhere along the Tula River, aged 73. Sübe’etei, most famous of all Mongolian generals, was one of the few to die of old age. Sübe’etei’s sons continued to serve as commanders, the most well known being Uriyangqadai, who accompanied them on the great western campaign, served with Kublai Khan against the Dali Kingdom, occupied Thang-long, modern Hanoi in Vietnam, and fought against the southern Song Dynasty. Uriyangqadai’s son Aju was another of Kublai Khan’s lead generals, who served alongside his father in Yunnan and northern Vietnam. After leading in the siege of the Song fortress-city of Xiangyang, Aju, longside Bayan of the Barrin, was the top Mongol commander in the final campaigns against the Song Dynasty. After the ferocity of Uriyangqadai and Aju, their descendants picked up the pen instead of the bow. Aju’s son Bolianjidai was an administrator well known for his leniency, while his own son Tongtong was a scholar and academic, and from then the lineage of Sübe’etei disappears from us. Utterly loyal to Chinggis Khan, perhaps no other commander in history could be said to have travelled so many kilometres. Depending on how one counts, Sübe’etei fought in over 50 battles and sieges against almost every major power of the thirteenth century, though despite some claims was not undefeated. Neither was he the sole strategist of the Mongols, and often his most effective campaigns were those where the planning had been in the hands of Chinggis Khan or Tolui. Sübe’etei had no care for administration, only in carrying out the Khan’s will against his enemies. Frustrated by Chinggis’ descendants, Sübe’etei still carried out their mandate with thoroughness and ferocity. To quote Stephen Pow in his email correspondence with this author, Sübe’etei “emerges from the surviving writings as very loyal to emperors, sardonic toward enemies, and ultimately loyal to Chinggis Khan’s yasa or vision in terms of carrying out missions, following orders even if they went against his own preference. A bit of Cardinal Richelieu can perhaps be found in him – his only enemies were those of the state... and the state was the khan”. We hope you’ve enjoyed our extended look at Sübe’etei’s life; you can find the written version of this script, featuring all the various sources and footnotes, on the academia.edu page of our series writer, Jack Wilson. If you’d like to help us continue bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

history europe china dogs song travel russia chinese devil kings italian suffering modern greek iran survivors vietnam spending poland austria crossing depending khan utilizing venice hungary frustrated brutal lighting eastern europe shah attending chambers loyal laying striking hungarian defeated unable conquest kazakhstan mongolia rum din numerous pow armenian azerbaijan pu crimea georgian orient ins marco polo secret history galicia yuan hanoi mongolian transylvania asie uyghur thang jin horsemen rashid tung venetian rus genoa perplexed mongol caucasus mongols bachman horrified outnumbered angered central asian batu halting hada yunnan crimean bayan volga manchuria khans conquests henan kublai khan mongol empire caspian sea bacha genghis jack wilson lake baikal naiman danube river turkic yellow river scarcely gansu song dynasty alans inflicting thre temujin tuvan cardinal richelieu orda aju cila james chambers kublai four horses altai mountains kaifeng volga river nishapur cahun subutai

Episode 16 - Sergeant Pavlov, Railway Crows and the Sixth Army targets the Red October plant

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2020 18:34

This is episode 16 which deals with the fighting in the city in the last week of September and first week of October 1942. Remember last episode we covered the ongoing battles around the Nail Factory, Mamaev Hill and the Grain elevator. The 62nd Army had experienced panic in the last week of September as the German divisions pushed hard against the Volga River bank, cutting off parts of the army. But reinforcements from Siberia had been rushed across the Volga River into Stalingrad and arrived in the nick of time, bolstering the defenders. Another famous soldier had also arrived in the city in mid-September, and that was Sergeant Jacob Pavlov. He'd jumped off the lorry which had brought him and his companions to within six miles of Stalingrad on the East Bank of the Volga. Sergeant Pavlov was part of the unit reinforing Major-General Alexander Rodimtsev's much depleted 13th Guards Division which was concentrated around the Lazur Chemical Factory – an area known as the ‘tennis racket' due to a rail track that ran around the area which was shaped exactly like a tennis racket. Pavlov was a short broad-shouldered man with penetrating grey eyes that surprised journalists who interviewed him after the war as they exuded warmth, rather than the thousand yard stare usually associated with veterans. He became known as the House Owner and ended the war with the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. That's double ironic because Pavlov never owned property his entire life. But he was a hero. The clue to his remarkable story is why he was dubbed with this nickname – and indeed his story stands out in the annals of all those told about Stalingrad. Pavlov was born in a village not far from the source of the Volga River far to the north in the province of Leningrad. He'd faced Hitler's forces in Poland in the early days of Operation Barbarossa – particularly those of Field Marshal von Bocks' central group. Since June 1941 he'd experienced nothing but fighting retreats. Now he was facing Hitler's Nazi war machine at a place marking their most eastern advance which was a further irony considering what he was going to do. There would be no more retreating for Sergeant Pavlov. I'll come back to his story through this series.

Episode 13 - Chuikov takes command of the 62nd Army as the fighting escalates on 14th September 1942

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2020 23:03

Episode 13 is full of fire and brimstone as the Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army finally arrive in Stalingrad proper. That's when the fighting becomes more personal with every house and every apartment a stronghold and skirmishes begin to take place inside different rooms of the same house. By the end of the first week of September 1942 the German Sixth Army had come up to the western limits of the city almost along the whole of its length, while the Fourth Panzer Army were probing the southern limits. Ditches and barricades proved no lasting barriers to the weight of German pressure, only men and women could hold the Wehrmacht back. The air-attacks had stopped for only a freak building here and there stood untouched among the vast devastation. The great blocks of flats, the fine public buildings were now crazy hollow shells. Civilians were now sheltering in the basements and some would remain in these gloomy pits until the defeat of the Germans in February 1943. And it was for this crazy shell of a city that the fiercest of all city-battles of the Second World War was joined. For the Russians, its factories could no longer contribute to the Soviet war-effort, for the Germans it was useless as a shelter. Even its strategic value either for the Germans or the Russians was now extremely doubtful. For Hitler as we'll see, it was to become an object of a Führer-prestige obsession. For Stalin it would become the symbol of the ultimate Russian defiance. For the Germans it would be synonymous with final defeat – for the Russians it was to mark the beginning of final victory. Last episode I explained how General Golikov was left behind on the West bank of the Volga River joining General Lopatin who commanded what was left of the 62nd Army. Golikov had begged to be allowed out of Stalingrad but Kruschev who was the political commissar in command along with Yeremenko told him to pull himself together. Lopatin on the other hand was a nervous wreck and hardly an ideal leader of men at this moment.

west fighting german russian army world war ii command soviet civilians ditches stalingrad wehrmacht volga river kruschev

Episode 11 - The 16th Panzer Division batters its way into Stalingrad suburbs as Zhukov arrives

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 30, 2020 20:46

The German fourth panzer army is attacking Stalingrad from the south, and the Sixth Army has swung to attack from the north west led by the Wehrmacht's Battering Ram, the 16th Panzer Division. Russian generals were taken by surprise by this dash from the Don. They were expecting the Germans to approach directly from the west and had built fortifications with that route in mind. Instead, General Paulus had pulled a fast one and his vanguard arrived at the northern suburbs by the afternoon of 23rd August. That was also the day in which the Luftwaffe had pulverised the city using carpet bombing as the main technique. 40 000 civilians were dead by the day's end, many caught at Mamaev Hill as we heard last week. The Germans had broken through to the Volga River on a five mile front in the north. By now the enormous city of around 600 000 and stretching for 30 miles along the Volga was enveloped in flames. Everything around was burning and collapsing. Sorrow and death had entered into thousands of Stalingrad homes as one commentator said. By midnight of 23rd August the 16th Panzer division on the outskirts of Stalingrad had outrun its support. Twelve miles behind them, the 3rd Motorised Division had halted for the night. 60th Motorised Division was ten miles behind the 3rd – bogged down in the giant traffic jam I mentioned last week. These three were now completely separated from each other like islands on the Russian Steppe. Until these were enjoined by the entire Sixth Army, they were extremely exposed and vulnerable to Soviet counter-attacks. General Hans Hube who commanded the 16th Panzer Division ordered his tanks to form themselves into a defensive perimeter called a hedgehog with the division's artillery covering a 360 degree front. In what was almost a miracle, Russian militia had dug interlocking strongpoints overnight. Some were dressed in their Sunday best and work clothes as they crouched behind their mortars and machine guns and challenged the finest tank army in the world. Their first target was Combat Group Krumpen who crumpled under their huge artillery bombardment, then unpainted T34s that had literally just been driven off the assembly line charged into battle on 24th catching Hube offguard. Back at HQ, Paulus received another shock. The 3rd Motorised Brigade had been ambushed while ransacking a Soviet freight train bursting with American Ford Trucks and Willies Jeeps. They were forced to create a hedgehog defensive position as the Russian 35th Guards Division poured down onto them from the North. The reckless counter attack, suicidal almost, extended the gap between the 3rd and the 60th motorised Divisions still further. In the south, the Russian 64th Army was causing the German Fourth Panzer army some difficulty and they failed to push through to the Volga which was the initial plan. Refugees were fleeing the city, crossing over the vast river in barges and small boats while German planes strafed these people. The fire that had started in the oil storage tanks opposite the city centre continued to burn as oil spread across the river engulfing some of these boats. The troops of the 64 and 62nd armies were deployed in a fighting retreat towards the city. The roads were crowded with refugees. Peasants from collective and state farms were moving – migrating really – the families traveling with their all-important livestock where they could. Russian general Chuikov was on board a boat traveling from the east bank of the Volga back to the city and was greeting by a scene at one of the main ferry piers which shook him.

Episode 10 - An air raid pulverises Stalingrad and Russian women slow 16th Panzer division's advance

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2020 23:49

This is episode 10 and the marauding Wehrmacht is at Stalingrad's door – the enemy is at the gates. As we'll hear, the savage air raids the were a precursor to the main event that symbolised the start of the months of a battle that would change the world. We'll also hear the extraordinary story of truly courageous young women just out of high school and what they managed to achieve to the north of the city. We'll begin by joining German units and hear individual stories from soldiers who were convinced that within a week they'd be enjoying the delights of the Soviet Union's model city on the Volga River. Why not? The Russians were facing a stronger and more experienced force and had resorted to arming civilians as a last gasp effort to halt the German juggernaut bearing down on the oil rich caucuses. As we know, Hitler had split Army Group South and sent the First Panzer Army off South Eastwards towards the Black Sea coast and the oil producing region in a move which had baffled the Soviets. It had baffled his own Generals although they quickly forgot their misgivings about splitting Army Group South. On the 21st August 1942 infantry companies under General von Seyderlitz's LI Corps crossed the Don River at dawn using inflatable boats. They established a bridgehead at the village of Luchinsky. More Germans paddled furiously over the Volga, while downriver at Vertyachy an entire battalion crossed the river in around a hour. Pioneer units went to work building pontoon bridges to take the panzers and other vehicles of General von Wietersheim's XIV Panzer Corps across. The Don meanders about here, after flowing almost directly South East, it suddenly turns and flows westerly towards the Black Sea instead of continuing onwards to the Caspian Sea. IT's at that point where there's a land bridge between the Don and the Volga. In a few thousand years they'll probably weather their way towards each other and lead to the formation of a large marshland. But here we are in 1942 with the Germans crossing what they called The Stream. Some of the members of the Sixth Army had already decided that the mysterious Don was a place of beauty and would be setting up their farms there after the War. Most of course, would be dead within six months. But let's not jump the gun.

Episode 7 - Stalin issues order 227 “Not One Step Backwards” as the Sixth Army approaches the Don

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 2, 2020 18:49

This episode we're starting the week-to-week coverage of the battle and it's the end of July 1942. As we've heard, Hitler had split his Southern Army in two sending the Fourth Panzers to the Black Sea to secure the coast while the 6th Army continued onwards towards the Don River. Hitler had ignored General Halder's protestations about the buildup of Soviet troops to the East of these units – at least a million men were now based across the Volga River and in the Caucuses. The Soviets were also producing at least 500 tanks a month which was almost the same number Germany's massive manufacturing sector was churning out – and Hitler didn't believe that either. He also thought the Russians were close to collapse. They weren't. On the 28th July 1942 Hitler was celebrating the capture of Rostov in the South and his southern Army's rapid drive towards the Don River where the Soviet army faced annihilation. If the German army made it west of the Don River, they would then be able to challenge Soviet troops on the Volga and in Moscow, Joseph Stalin was aware what that would mean. The Germans would cut his country in two and seize the all-important Black Sea ports feeding material into Moscow. In other theatres there was even more bad news. A large allied shipping convoy with the code name PQ-17 on its way to Russia had been destroyed in the Barents Sea. In his office in the Kremlin, Stalin was pacing back and forth listening to the latest report on the war presented by General Vasilevsky. It was full of the words retreat, withdrawal, surrender. Apparently this is where Stalin blurted “They've forgotten my Stavka order!” which he had issued in August 1941. “That was anyone who removed their insignia during battle and surrendered would be regarded as a malicious deserter who's family would be arrested.” The deserters would be shot dead on the spot. “They've forgotten it!” he yelled. “Write a new one along the same lines.” He ordered Vasilevsky. The General had a few hours to redraft the order and then report back to Stalin who was seething now convinced that some of his own army had lost their nerve and needed severe disciplining.

2.22. History of the Mongols: Europeans in the Mongol Empire

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2020 34:05

Especially in modern textbooks and broad historical surveys, the Mongol withdrawal from Europe in 1242 is presented as the Mongols ‘disappearing into the mists of the east,’ as far as the Europeans were concerned. But in the immediate wake of the 1242 withdrawal, Europeans needed to know more about this new foe. Rather than a ‘Mongol disappearance’ from the European mind, European diplomats and representatives made the trip to the Mongol Empire on behalf of Kings and Popes- even to distant Mongolia. A number of these travellers wrote down accounts of their journeys, providing us yet another viewpoint to events within the Mongol Empire. In this episode, we will discuss three of these accounts from the 1240s and 1250s- that of John de Plano Carpini, Simon of St. Quentin and William of Rubruck. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Our first journey is that of John of Plano Carpini, or Giovanni da Pian del Carpine. Like today’s other accounts, Plano Carpini was a member of a religious order, in this case the Franciscans, an influential group of Christian mendicants founded in the early 13th century by St. Francis of Assisi. Known for their rejections of wealth, simple brown habits, or robes, and often going about barefoot, since the lifetime of St. Francis they had worked closely with the Catholic Church in Rome. John of Plano Carpini was a leading figure among the Franciscans, having been at the forefront of their expansion into Germany. The impetus for Plano Carpini’s journey could not have come from a higher authority, that of Pope Innocent IV. This Pope had in 1245 organized the First Council of Lyons, one of those great ecclesiatical gatherings held every few years in the High Middle Ages to determine church doctrine and how to react to temporal matters. At Lyons in 1245, the biggest topics on the menu were two great foes of the Pope: Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Mongols. While Innocent’s main concern was the Kaiser, there was great worry over the mysterious horsemen. On the initiative to learn more about them and establish diplomatic ties to avert a repeat of the horrors in Hungary, Pope Innocent sent the 65 year old John of Plano Carpini on the long road east in late 1245. Aided along the way by the King of Bohemia and the High Duke of Poland, Carpini soon reached the Prince of Volhynia, Vasilko. Vasilko and his brother, Daniel of Galicia, were the westernmost princes of Rus’, and who escaped most of the destruction suffered by the other Rus’ principalities. With Vasilko, Carpini was provided the most up-to-date information on the Mongols one could have in Europe. Passing the ruins of Kiev and an emptied countryside, only at Kaniv did Carpini reach territory under direct Mongol rule. As official envoys of the monarch the Mongols dubbed “the great Pope,” Carpini and his small company were provided escorts and use of the yam system, the great continental messenger route. Once on the yam, Carpini’s route picked up speed. They rode day and night over the steppe, changing horses three or four times a day as they reached yam stations. By April 4th 1246, they were in the camp of Batu. Batu did not return to Mongolia after the invasion of Europe, instead setting up his camp in the great swath of grassland along the Volga River which made up the middle of his territory, where he held immense power. Carpini saw that Batu used King Bela IV’s linen tents as his own, taken as booty after the victory at Mohi. At Batu’s camp their letters from the Pope were translated into Russian, Persian and Mongolian, and then they were sent on their way. This stage of the journey is one Carpini had little love for. They rode their horses day and night, sometimes eating nothing except millet with water and salt, or only drinking snow melted in kettles. They passed the ruins of the cities of the Khwarezmian Empire, the names of which Carpini had no chance to learn before they had moved on. By July 1246, they were in Mongolia. The hard ride had a purpose, for Carpini arrived in in time for the election of the new Great Khan, Guyuk. As messengers of the Pope they were treated well, provided their own tent and provisions. Carpini gives a fantastic description of Guyuk’s enthronement and the accompanying ceremonies- one detail is a sudden hailstorm postponing Guyuk’s official enthronement until August 24th. He noticed representatives of powers from across Asia: the Rus’ Prince Yaroslav of Suzdal’, Chinese and Korean representatives, princes from the Kingdom of Georgia and the ambassador of the Caliph of Baghdad, among many others. Carpini’s embassy spent little time with the new Great Khan, offering only a brief description of him: quote, “The present Emperor may be forty or forty-five years old or more; he is of medium height, very intelligent and extremely shrewd, and most serious and grave in his manner. He is never seen to laugh for a slight cause nor to indulge in any frivolity, so we were told by the Christians who are constantly with him.” On the matter of Chrisitianity, Carpini shares rumours that Guyuk was on the verge of converting. Guyuk did have affinity for the religion, as some of his closest advisers were Christians of the Nestorian flavour. No such baptism for Guyuk was forthcoming, however. As for Carpini’s actual mission to Guyuk, it proved less successful. Guyuk explained that the slaughter wrought in Hungary and Poland was due to the failure of the Europeans to submit to Heaven’s will and Mongol authority. Further, more would come, and when Carpini departed Guyuk’s camp for Europe in November 1246, he left utterly convinced that Guyuk was intent on marching on Europe. With this fear in mind, Carpini tailored his work as a manual to prepare for the Mongol return. He wrote a very accurate description of the appearance of the Mongols, their culture and society, to detailed descriptions of their armour, tactics, and strategy. He follows this with recommendations on how they should be countered. His solution is that European armies needed to copy the organization of the Mongols and their discipline: literally, they should adopt the decimal organization system and instil the same punishment for desertion or failure to advance. The importance of crossbows were emphasized; the need to not allow themselves to be flanked and to watch for feigned retreats; maintain reserve units to assist the line and always have the army covered by scouts to alert to Mongol movements. If relying on fortifications, they needed to be built in places inaccessible to siege weapons. Care should be shown to captured prisoners: using the descriptions he provides, he argues that Europeans needed to learn to identify the Mongols from those subject peoples forced to fight for the Khan. These peoples, Carpini says, would fight against the Mongols if provided the chance. When Carpini is describing things he did not directly observe, he falls easily into accepting myths and rumours. In his account Jesus Christ and the scriptures are honoured in China (which he never visited), there are literal monsters under Mongol control, and the Mongols were repulsed from Greater India by its Christian King, Prester John. However, he provides a keen eye at Mongol politics at the start of Guyuk’s reign, listing the top chiefs and mentions Mongke and his mother Sorqaqtani, who he says “among the Tartars this lady is the most renowned, with the exception of the Emperor’s mother [Torogene], and more powerful than anyone else except Batu.” On his return journey, Carpini remet with Vasilko of Volhynia and Daniel of Galicia, who sent with Carpini letters and envoys to Pope Innocent for cooperation, leading to Pope Innocent crowning Daniel King of Ruthenia, or Galicia-Volhynia, a brief flirtation of Orthodox and Catholic unity. Innocent provided no support for the newly independent monarch beyond this, and Daniel saw his autonomy crushed at the end of the 1250s with a major Mongol attack. Carpini’s account, written on his return to Europe, was hugely disseminated through Carpini’s own efforts and its inclusion in one of the most popular medieval encyclopedias, Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale. It's clear, detailed descriptions of the Mongols, based entirely on observation, was hugely influential on the writings of other travellers. Some have even argued it spurned the beginnings to more analytic, scientific descriptions of the world, in part as it brought a detailed presentation on a world outside of Europe. It was not exactly a friendly world, mind you. Carpini returned with a letter from Guyuk demanding the submission of the Pope and all the monarchs of Europe, immediately, and in person- with the direct threat of horrific consequences if they failed to do so. As Carpini returned from the Mongol Empire in 1247, another embassy reached the Mongols in what is now Armenia. Pope Innocent ordered a party of Dominican friars from the Crusader states to bear a letter to the Mongols, opening a second diplomatic front in the event Plano Carpini did not return. The Dominicans were another mendicant order founded in the 13th century, famous both as preachers and inquisitors, and visually distinctive in their black cloaks over white habits. This group of Dominicans was led by a Friar Ascelin, but the account was written by another member of the embassy, Friar Simon of St. Quentin. An online translation has been made accessible online by our friend of the podcast Dr. Stephen Pow- check out www.simonofstquentin.org to read the full account, with maps! The Dominican embassy arrived in the camp of the Mongol commander of the Caucasus- Baiju Noyan, on the 24th May, 1247. Learning of their arrival, Baiju sent a representative to enquire as to their purpose, and things immediately got off to a poor start. Upon being asked who they were the representatives of, Friar Ascelin replied, “I am the envoy of the Lord Pope, who among Christians is considered superior in dignity to all men and to whom they show reverence as to their father and lord.” To which Baiju’s representative became immediately annoyed and responded, “How, speaking with such proud words, do you say that your lord pope is the greatest of all men? Does he not know that Khan is the son of God and that Baiju Noyan and Batu are his princes and thus their names are made known and exalted everywhere?” To which Friar Ascelin replied that the Pope knew none of these names, and that they were simply instructed to find the nearest Mongol army -wherever that might be- and to present a letter from the Pope urging a cessation to the slaughter of Christians. From here, the meeting devolved. The representative returned to Baiju with the message, and returning in a new set of clothes, asked what gifts the Pope had sent for Baiju. The embassy had failed to provide any, stating that in fact, people sent gifts to the Pope! When he returned from Baiju, again in a new set of clothes, he scolded them for failing to show up with gifts- then inquired if they were at the head of any European armies being sent into Syria. Before allowing the embassy to meet Baiju, they were then ordered to genuflect before him- which the Friars refused to do, fearing it was idolatry. One in their party who had some experience with Mongol customs informed them it wasn’t idolatry they were asking for- just a sign of the submission of the Pope and Catholic Church to the Khan. On this, the Friars proudly stated they’d rather be decapitated than imply the submission of the Church. They would genuflect and even kiss the soles of Baiju’s feet on the condition that he became a Christian. The response was… not ideal. “You advise us that we become Christians and be dogs like you. Isn’t your pope a dog and aren’t all you Christians dogs?” the Mongols shouted at the party, and upon learning of this insolence Baiju ordered them all to be killed. Baiju’s advisers urged mercy- don’t kill all four of the friars, only two! Another suggested it would be better to skin the lead friar and send him back to Rome stuffed with straw. Or, have two of them beaten by sticks by the whole Mongol army! Another voice said the wisest course was to place them at the front of the army during a siege, and allow them to be killed by enemy missiles. Murder was only abandoned when one of Baiju’s wives talked him down from it- reminding him quite rightly it was poor conduct to kill envoys, and it would bring him into trouble with the imperial court. Brought back from the brink- and this was still only the first day, mind you- Baiju’s representative inquired what would be an appropriate way for them to worship Baiju. No solution could be reached. The Mongols could not understand the stubbornness of the Christians in this regard: from their point of view, the Christians worshipped wood crosses and stone churches, and could not comprehend why the same respect could not be shown to Baiju, chosen by the Great Khan who was chosen by Heaven itself! The Friars’ explanations turned to theology, how St. Peter granted the keys to the Pope and so on. Lost in translation, the arguments went nowhere, until it was decided that Acelin would hand over the Pope’s letters but not appear before Baiju. The letter then needed to be translated for Baiju, which required Friar Ascelin explaining it word by word to Greek and Turk translators, who then explained it to Persian translators, who then translated it into Mongol, who then read it out for Baiju. Annoyed by the initial proceedings, Baiju showed them disrespect after that. Left waiting in the hot sun, they were initially told they would be allowed to leave on the 12th of June, 1247, but this was rescinded when Baiju learned of the approach of Eljigidei to be his new superior. Eljigidei was a close ally of Great Khan Guyuk, sent west to resume military operations in the region. Given only minimal bread and water, they could only wait. And wait. And wait. With no sign of Eljigidei and Ascelin fretting over continued delay, he finally got a councillor to plead on their behalf with promises of gifts. Baiju prepared a letter to send to the Pope, and things looked just about ready for the Dominicans to depart… when Eljigidei finally arrived. Then followed 7 straight days of feasting, drinking and celebrating before finally, some nine weeks after their initial arrival, on the 25th of July 1247 the Friars left Baiju’s camp. Like Plano Carpini, Ascelin returned with a letter from the Mongols, this time from Baiju, and within it were only the strictest of demands. The Pope was to come himself, in person, and submit to the Mongols. Failure to do so meant he was an enemy to the Great Khan, and only one fate awaited the enemies of the Great Khan. By the end of the 1240s Pope Innocent IV had at least two letters from top Mongol leaders- one of them the Great Khan, Guyuk- demanding his immediate submission. That’s a fairly strong indication that the Mongol high command was intent on the subjugation of Europe. Much like Carpini, Ascelin’s colleague Simon recorded considerable detail on the customs, habits and warfare of the Mongols, with information on the strategies and tactics they used in their expansion over Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia- much of it from first hand sources. As much as they were failed conversion and diplomatic efforts, they were valuable sources of intelligence on a foe they had frustratingly little information on. The impression garnered over the 1240s was of an immensely antagonistic power interested in nothing less than mastery of the world. Our final traveller for today is William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who also made the long trip to Mongolia carrying a letter from the King of France Louis IX- though insisting the entire time he was not a diplomat, merely holding the letter for a friend. Rubruck’s mission both in structure and situation differed from his predecessors. There is no indication he ever met John de Plano Carpini: he was familiar with his work, but not enough that he could get Carpini’s name correct in his own account, referring to him as John of Policarpo. Rubruck provides one detail about himself in his own account: that he was rather on the large side. Stationed in the Holy Land, he joined the crusading King Louis IX in Cyprus in winter 1248, and went with him on his disastrous Egyptian campaign of 1250- the Seventh Crusade. This campaign was a catalyst to the usurpation of the Mamluks in Egypt over the Ayyubids, something to have major consequences for the Mongols in a few years. Rubruck’s accounts do not indicate he was among them during the debacles further down the Nile in 1250, during which Louis was captured by the Mamluks, held for ransom and released. The following years the French King spent restoring local fortifications in Palestine, humbled and penitent. It seems in this period Rubruck spent quite some time with the King and Queen. Louis had already been in contact with the Mongols, having sent the Dominican friar Andrew of Longjumeau to the Great Khan’s court in the 1240s, and received envoys from Eljigidei in early 1249. This led to nothing: Guyuk was dead before the Dominican reached his court, and Eljigidei, as a close ally of Guyuk, was soon to follow him on Mongke’s orders. Rubruck, as a good Fransciscan, was keen to spread the word of God among the heathens and had learned from Andrew of Longjumeau’s report of German miners carried east as slaves by the Chagatai prince Buri during the invasion of Hungary. Keen to bring salvation to the Mongols, and peace to these slaves, it was Rubruck’s own initiative to travel to the Mongol Empire in 1253. Before he left King Louis provided Rubruck a letter to the Khan, as a sort of “while you’re going that way,” rather than an official embassy.. Learning that a Jochid prince, Sartaq son of Batu, was a Christian, Rubruck decided to make a stop at his court first, perhaps hoping to seek his assistance for the long trek. Taking his leave of King Louis likely at Jaffa, Rubruck set out north and reached Constantinople in April 1253, there getting a chance to preach in St. Sophia, the modern Hagia Sofia; he spoke with other men who had gone as envoys to the Mongols; and there picked up a companion, another Franciscan named Bartholomew of Cremona. Sailing across the Black Sea to Crimea, he travelled north into the steppes to the camp of Sartaq. Sartaq was the first of many disappointments for Rubruck. His Chrisitanity Rubruck found lacking, and his secretaries admonished Rubruck for calling him a Christian, telling him “Do not say that our master is a Christian. He is not a Christian; he is a Mongol.” The customary gift giving resulted in much of his possessions being taken or outright stolen. In the four days they were there, they were not even provided food, only airag, fermented mare’s milk, though Rubruck took a liking to it. Rubruck stressed he was not an envoy, merely carrying a letter of friendly intent from King Louis. This made a real mess. This was not an area in Mongol diplomacy their world view accounted for. To quote historian Peter Jackson in his translation of Rubruck’s account, “the Mongols were in fact unable to comprehend why representatives of independent peoples should trouble to visit the imperial court if not to bring submission.” Sartaq, not understanding the purpose of Rubruck’s letter, decided this was a matter for his father Batu to settle. So Rubruck, at this time in his mid forties and trying to travel barefoot as in Franciscan tradition, was forced to follow Plano Carpini’s route over the Volga Steppe to the court of Batu. He was amazed at the size of Batu’s camp, comparing it to a large city. Taken before the tent of Batu, he gazed upon the second most powerful man in Asia. Sitting upon a golden throne with a wife at his side, Rubruck provides us our only physical description of Batu Khan: “He regarded us with a keen gaze, as we did him. He struck me as being of the same build as the lord John of Beaumont, and his face was covered at this time with reddish blotches.” As numerous commentators have stated, it is a deep shame that we do not know what build John of Beaumont was. Through his interpreter, Rubruck spoke to Batu and the audience, in which he urged Batu to be baptized. Batu gave a slight smile, and the audience began laughing at Rubruck. Batu interrogated Rubruck, having learned through spies of King Louis’ military expedition to Egypt. Telling the Khan that the purpose was to recapture Jerusalem, Rubruck was given airag and sent to the side. Batu decided it was best to send this representative of the French King right to the highest authority: Mongke Khaan, quite without Rubruck’s consent and with no choice in the matter. “There is no counting the times we were famished, thirsty, frozen and exhausted,” Rubruck says of the lengthy voyage in winter 1253 over Central Asia to Mongolia. Rubruck’s account, unlike that of Carpini, is full of personal opinions on matters: mainly in the form of how much he hated everything. Their hygiene and personal habits, such as relieving themselves in the middle of the open steppe right beside him he found ‘excessively tiresome.’ By the end of December 1253 William of Rubruck was in the camp of Mongke Khaan, some ten days journey from Karakorum. Unlike with Ascelin and Baiju, Rubruck was asked how he would like to make his obeisance to the Khan, per European custom or Mongolian. Rubruck would sing praises to God, then do as Mongke wished. Inside a tent Rubruck describes as covered in gold, the friar provides a brief description of Mongke. The Khan was seated on a golden couch with a wife, dressed in spotted fur, snub nosed, of medium build and about 45 years old. One of Mongke’s daughters was seated on the steps before him: Rubruck says she was very ugly. The initial meeting did not go very far. Alcohol was offered, and Rubruck’s interpreter helped himself. After Mongke’s first statement, “Just as the sun spreads its rays in all directions, so my power and that of Batu are spread to every quarter,” Rubruck’s interpreter was too drunk to translate, and the friar was quickly pushed to the side. Rubruck did not have a good time in the Mongol court. Provided lodging and food, he found himself interrogated and often mistreated. The Mongols sought information on Europe, on what and how many goods and animals the French possessed, and if the Pope was really 500 years old. Rubruck had gone to convert the heathens and bring salvation to the captured German miners: he succeeded in converting only six people during his stay and learned the Germans were beyond his reach in Central Asia. Rubruck was stuck with Nestorian and Greek Orthodox Christians which he did not take a great liking too, there only to enrich themselves. The priests, among many others, were convinced Mongke was on the verge of converting to their creed. Rubruck saw that the Khan didn’t care for any of them, content to utilize all their prayers. Spending several months in Mongke’s camp and Karakorum, the imperial capital, Rubruck met persons from all over Asia. From ambassadors from the Nicaean Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, Baghdad and China to Europeans brought as captives to Mongolia. He met Hungarians, Germans, Russians and French. One was William Buchier of Paris, a goldsmith highly prized by the Mongols. He designed and built the famous silver tree of Karakorum: literally, a tree made from silver with conduits running through it, at the base through four silver lions and higher up coming down as spouts shaped as snakes. From the lions came airag, fermented mare’s milk; from the gilded mouths of four snakes poured grape wine; qaraqumiss, refined mare’s milk; bal, a honey drink, and a rice wine. At the top of the tree was a silver angel with a trumpet. On command, a man inside the tree would sound the trumpet, alerting stewards in another room to feed the alcoholic beverages through their respectives conduits. Below each animal was a vessel to collect the drinks, and when filled they were carried to the cheery guests, applauding at the show. Aside from this and the Khan’s palace in Karakorum, Rubruck found the city terribly unimpressive, likening it to a small town in France but with a very diverse population. Rubruck endured a number of almost sitcom-like vignettes during his time there. On one occasion he joined with a Nestorian priest to ‘save’ one of Mongke’s sickly wives through a decoction of rhubarb and holy water. Most notable was a religious debate he took part in, sparked by a conflict between Rubruck and the Buddhist priests at Karakorum. While Rubruck gives a detailed and accurate description of the Buddhist customs he saw, he had little care for the Buddhists themselves. This spat turned into the Mongols hosting a religious debate- on one side, Rubruck representing the Catholic Church, with Nestorian Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims, and on the other Buddhists lamas. Three umpires - a Buddhist, Christian and Muslim- judged. Mongke, in typical fashion, called for a respectful debate forbidding insulting remarks to opponents, on pain of death. Rubruck’s version is that he was the star player, deftly disarming the arguments of the Buddhists while his own teammates proved incompetent. We lack any other accounts of this debate, so we should perhaps take it with a grain of salt. He does remark that even though his arguments were like, totally 100% awesome and really effective, no one was convinced to become a Christian because of it, and the debate ended with everyone drinking heavily with half his team singing loudly and presumably, off-key. The most interesting portion of Rubruck’s narrative is his brief interview with Mongke Khaan, albeit through an interpreter. In this discussion, Mongke provides a fascinating explanation for his religious view: “We Mongols believe that there is only one God, through whom we have life and through whom we die, and towards him we direct our hearts. But just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind several paths. To you God has given the Scriptures and you Christians do not observe them. You do not find in the scriptures, that one man ought to abuse another, do you? And likewise you do not find that a man ought to deviate from the path of justice for financial gain. So, then, God has given you the Scriptures, and you do not observe them; whereas to us he has given soothsayers, and we do as they tell us and live in peace.” After this, Rubruck was instructed to return to the west with a letter for King Louis, upon which he lamented he had no chance to attempt to convert the Khan. Mongke’s letter to Louis is preserved in Rubruck’s account, and it’s somewhat more cordial compared to the demands of Guyuk. I mean, it still has demands that the Kings of Europe come and submit to him, and that it would be foolish to trust in distance and mountains to protect them. But it offered something of an apology- well, not quite an apology- for inconsistent messaging by the envoys of Eljigidei, and for Andrew of Longjumeau’s journey which met not Guyuk Khan, but his widow Oghul Qaimish. On Oghul Qaimish, Mongke stated his opinion on her rather bluntly in his letter: “But as for knowing the business of war and the affairs of peace, subduing the wide world and discerning how to act for the best- what could that worthless woman, lower than a bitch, have known of this?” That he would so openly write this in an official channel- a letter to another monarch- is indicative of the malice he felt to her, and partially explains some of the violence Mongke ordered against the house of Ogedai. Alas for William of Rubruck, but well for us, was that he was unable to return to King Louis to deliver the message in person. Believing Louis had remained in the Crusader States, after reaching the court of Batu in the Volga steppe, Rubruck cut south through the Caucasus- briefly staying in Baiju Noyan’s camp, where he heard of the approach of Hulegu, Mongke’s younger brother, and a massive army marching through Iran. Learning that Louis had returned to France, Rubruck’s Franciscan superiors ordered him to remain in Acre, forced to send Mongke’s letters alongside a written account of his journey, which luckily for us survives. Unlike Carpini’s account, Rubruck writes little on the warfare of the Mongols, spending more time on their customs and character, with remarkably astute, though not compassionate, descriptions of the cultures and religions he saw throughout his journey. It’s also a detailed geographical and observational survey, challenging views set out by ancient writers. For instance, noting that the Caspian Sea was not an ocean but a lake; noting the proper courses of the Don and Volga Rivers; connecting the Chinese to the Seres mentioned in antiquity; noted linguistic connections between various groups and, upon finding no evidence for popular medieval monsters like the dog-headed people, argued against their existence. One of the few people to read Rubruck’s account in the 13th century was the English Franciscan Roger Bacon, who met Rubruck in Paris in 1257. Bacon was the first European to record the mixture for gunpowder in 1267. It’s sometimes suggested that Rubruck provided it to Bacon, but as Rubruck mentions nothing of the sort in his account, this is unlikely. And that is a brief overview of three early European journeys to the Mongol Empire. Not as famous as the slightly later journey of one Messer Marco Polo, but fascinating nonetheless. Our next episode will be an overview of the reign of Great Khan Mongke, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

god jesus christ history learning church europe china lost france french germany care kingdom christians chinese european failure german murder russian kings left greek rome jerusalem iran alcohol muslims catholic spending poland sitting passing scriptures korean pope egyptian syria palestine buddhist bacon catholic church khan hungary kyiv emperor innocent sailing persian alas hungarian conquest peter jackson cyprus lost in translation lyons mongolia nile armenia baghdad keen orthodox dominican holy land crimea central asia beaumont generals galicia black sea assisi mongolian acre turk bartholomew seres popes annoyed constantinople crusader bohemia rus franciscan aided mongol caucasus mongols jaffa friars anatolia dominicans batu cremona volga pian conquests franciscans stationed caliph mongol empire caspian sea genghis holy roman emperor buri king louis policarpo high middle ages first council daniel king karakorum hagia sofia prester john baiju french king chrisitianity kublai mamluks great khan tartars nestorian volga river king louis ix jalut rubruck subutai suzdal

2.19. History of the Mongols: Mongol Occupation of Europe

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 1, 2020 29:10

For two days’ walk a trail of corpses lead from the bridge over the Sajo River. Arrows protruding from fallen Hungarians, limbs bent at unnatural angles, leading to a dense marsh where armoured bodies lay sunk in the bloodied water. Riders picked over the bodies, collecting unbroken arrows, still usable weapons and armours while finishing off survivors. Great piles of loot were made, to be divided among the troops, and Batu Khan, grandson of Chinggis, took the royal tents of the Hungarian King, Bela IV, for himself. Bela had escaped, but the Mongol riders would pursue. In the aftermath of the carnage at the battlefield at Mohi, the rest of the Hungarian Kingdom and Europe itself seemed open to Mongol horsemen. Batu and Subutai may have envisioned leading their men into the cities of Italy, Germany and France, but within a year they pulled their forces back from Europe. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. The Mongols considered the battle of Mohi, over the 10th and 11th of April, 1241, among their greatest victories, a hard fought battle over a determined enemy. Though the battle over the bridge was close, Mongol losses running high and certain princes wishing to retreat, in the end Batu and Subutai outplayed the Hungarians and destroyed the royal army. Yet King Bela IV had escaped, as had his brother Prince Coloman, and a number of Hungarian nobles had not been present, never providing their troops to Bela in the first place. Nonetheless, the battle’s outcome was a massive disaster for the Hungarians. Alongside the sheer volume in manpower lost, many of the Kingdom’s highest ranking figures had been killed. From top bishops, archbishops, the Knights Templar within the Kingdom, to Bela’s chancellor, were among the fallen. In one stroke, the head of the Hungarian administrative apparatus was nearly severed. Though Bela and his brother Coloman survived, they were on the run, desperate to get as far from the Mongols as possible. In the even terrain of the Great Hungarian Plain east of the Danube River, it was hard to get far enough. Prince Coloman reached Pest, where the Hungarian army had rode from so confidently a week prior. He urged the inhabitants to flee, but was rebuffed, the wall-less town choosing then to begin building ditches and defences. Coloman rode on to Zagreb in Croatia where he succumbed to his injuries in May. Bela rode to his territories west of the Danube River, near the Austrian border where his wife and young children were. There they were invited to seek refuge in Austria by its Duke, Frederick. Bela headed to the Austrian fortress of Hainburg, where he was promptly imprisoned, the Austrian Duke demanding an exorbitant ransom from the Hungarian King: at least 1,000 marks in coin, another 1,000 in gold, silver vessels, jewels, and five western counties of Hungary to be ceded to Frederick. Bela reluctantly paid, then rejoined his family in Hungary before fleeing south to Croatia. Duke Frederick sought to take these territories by force, but due to local resistance, was only able to hold three. Angered, he began extorting money from refugees seeking shelter in Austria! Bela reached Zagreb around May 18th, in time to bury his dear brother Coloman, in some accounts forced to give him an unmarked grave to avoid it being descretated by the Mongols. In his absence, Hungary was left to the Mongols. In the Hungarian Plain where fortifications sat on level ground and consisted of wood or earthworks, the Mongols were unstoppable. Historical sources and archaeology show horrific destruction, depopulation and indiscriminate slaughter. In some regions of the plain population loss reached as high as 70% , many villages permanently abandoned. Remains of people trapped within burning buildings abound. The few locations built in difficult to access sites, such as mountaintops or thick marshand protected with stone, fared better, but these were rare and of little consolation to the majority. Demographically, this caused a massive shift with refugees flooding out of the plain to western and northern Hungary, territory more rugged and easily fortifiable. We have evidence of desperate, impromptu defenses built around churches, often the only stone buildings accessible. Ditches and earthworks were dug in concentric layers around churches, incorporating the local cemeteries and features. Arrowheads and bodies are always found, indicating only hopeless last stands. At Pest, Batu and Subutai linked up with Qadan, Burundai and Bojek, the commanders who had campaigned through Transylvania. The hastily constructed defences of Pest were easily penetrated, the town burned down by the 30th of April. From Pest, the Mongols ravaged the cities on the east and north banks of the Danube River, unable to cross it. By July 1241 Mongols riding west along the north bank of the Danube reached the Duchy of Austria. Austria’s Duke Frederick defeated some Mongol parties, in the process making a fascinating capture: an Englishman, banished from England around 1220, who had wandered east, developed a skill for languages and eventually wound up in Mongol service, where he was richly rewarded for his talents. He was sent as envoy to King Bela at least twice, before meeting his fate in Austria. Finding resistance stiff and yet still unable to find an unguarded crossing point over the Danube River, the Mongols soon turned back from Austria. To terrify the defenders on the west side of the Danube, the Mongols piled bodies of the slain on the east bank, and were said to have speared small children on lances and parade them ‘like fish on a spit.’ Waiting for the river to freeze, Mongol forces were left to harass central and eastern Hungary for the remainder of 1241. An emotional eye witness account of the horrors of the 1241 occupation is recorded for us by the Archbishop of Varad, Master Roger, sometimes called Rogerius. Written shortly after the invasion, Roger describes his own harrowing journey on the run from the Mongols, including first hand information from other survivors. Roger had fled Varad, modern Oradea in Romania, shortly before the city was destroyed by Qadan. Watching from the forest, he saw Qadan leave only the castle standing before withdrawing. After several days, the castle’s defenders came down from the walls to rebuild the town, thinking their deep moat and wooden towers had scared off the Mongols. One day at dawn Qadan’s riders reappeared, killing those outside the walls then surrounding the castle, setting up seven catapults which bombarded the walls ceaselessly day and night; towers and newly fortified sections of the walls were all demolished. The defenders were killed, and the women and survivors who fled into the church were trapped when the Mongols set it aflame. Withdrawing again, the Mongols waited several days before returning again to kill those survivors who had come out for food. Roger saw this carried out several times; a German village on the Çris River which he nearly stayed in was obliterated shortly after his departure; Cenad, where he hoped to flee, was destroyed before he could arrive; and for a while he found refuge at a fortified island, accessible only by a narrow passage and gates. After his servants abandoned him, stealing his money and clothes, Roger left the island for the nearby forest, from where he watched Mongol forces arrive. Setting up on one side of the river, the Mongols tricked the defenders into mobilizing there, anticipating the Mongols would try a river crossing. Then, another group of Mongols struck the now undefended gates, striking the defenders from the rear and taking the island. Horrific slaughter ensued, and once again after a few days the Mongols returned to kill those survivors who, through hunger, were forced to come out to search for food. Knowing many people hid in the forests, the Mongols sent captured persons into the forests with messages that they would spare anyone who gave themselves up before a set deadline, allowing them to return to their homes. Having found the Royal Seal from the corpse of Bela’s Chancellor at Mohi, they dispersed forged documents in the name of the King, sending this message to discourage flight. “Do not fear the ferocity and madness of the hounds and do not dare to leave your houses, because, although on account of some unforeseen circumstances we had to leave behind the camp and our tents, yet by the favor of God we intend gradually to recover them and fight a valiant battle against the Tatars; therefore, do nothing except pray that merciful God may permit us to crush the head of our enemies.” Starving and scared, many complied and returned to their villages, Master Roger among those leaving the forests. The Mongols appointed basqaqs to govern these regions, both Mongols, subject peoples and Hungarians who had sided with them. Roger describes attaching himself to a man who had “already become a Tatar in deeds.” In this way, the well educated churchman accompanied his new master to weekly meetings of the overseers, who installed, over summer 1241, a regional administration. Courts and local governments were established to maintain a sort of justice- one which involved the overseers collecting numerous beautiful women for their own purposes. The villagers were to resume life and bring in the harvest. Once collected, the Mongols rode out, took what they needed for their own men and horses, and burned the rest. With a cold winter and continued depredations in spring 1242 preventing planting, a horrific famine followed. Roger makes this interesting statement after the Mohi battle: “First they set aside Hungary beyond the Danube and assigned their share to all of the chief kings of the Tatars who had not yet arrived in Hungary. They sent word to them on the news and to hurry as there was no longer any obstacle before them.” Evidently, the Mongols anticipated not just raiding Hungary, but allocating its territory and people to the princes and the Great Khan as they had elsewhere. Over 1241 at least, the Mongols were still expecting to stay in the region and continue to expand. With much of his kingdom left in the hands of the Mongols, King Bela tried to organize some sort of resistance. While in Zagreb in summer 1241 Bela corresponded with the Pope , Gregory IX, for help from the west. Gregory essentially shrugged off Bela’s pleas, informing him no help would come as the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, were locked in conflict. The Kaiser in his letters to King Henry III of England and Louis IX of France did say they should unite against the incursion, and his son Konrad, King of Germany, collected a crusading force, but this all came to naught. Konrad’s army advanced some 80 kilometres east of Nuremberg in July 1241 before dispersing, the Mongol threat to Germany proper having dissipated for the time being. By September, the German nobility was rebelling against Konrad and civil war breaking out, while the Saintonge War between France and England began in early 1242. While Pope Gregory had ordered the preaching of crusade against the Mongols, he died in August 1241, his successor surviving only three weeks, leaving the position vacant until Innocent IV’s election in 1243. Bela would see no aid from the west. The winter of 1241-1242 was brutally cold, exacerbating the famine and suffering in eastern Hungary. The few fords and ferries over the Danube River were guarded by Hungarian defenders on the river’s west bank, but as the temperature dropped precipitously and ice began to form on the river, they knew it impossible to watch the full length of the frontier. Despite efforts to break the ice, the Danube froze around Christmas 1241. To test the ice, the Mongols left a group of horses unguarded, and when they saw Hungarians cross the ice to herd the horses back over the river, they knew it was safe to cross. Batu and Subutai took their riders over the river, falling on the untouched western edge of Hungary. Once more, unfortified sites and villages suffered greatly from Mongol riders. But here the terrain was more rugged, fortifications more common and there had been time to improve defenses and plans. In the first days of 1242, Batu directed his energies against Esztergom, the kingdom’s preeminent political and religious centre. Hungarian prisoners were sent forward to build a wall of bundles of twigs before the moat, to screen 30 siege engines. The population felt confident behind their moats, walls and wooden towers, but stones lobbed from the catapults destroyed the towers and homes within the city. Next, they hurled bags of dirt into the moat, the garrison unable to clear it due to the precision of Mongol archers. With it apparent that the walls would soon be breached, the townsfolk set fire to the suburbs, destroyed the fine fabrics, buried gold and silver, killed horses and generally hid everything of value, then retreated to the citadel. Once Batu learned he had denied his prize, he was furious. The stone citadel was surrounded with wooden palisades, but they were unable to take it- a Spaniard named Simon led a skilled defence with able balistarius, referring either to crossbowmen or counter siege engines, keeping the Mongols at bay. Perhaps with good reason, it was a commonly held belief in Europe that crossbows were a weapon feared by the Mongols. The Chinese catapults the Mongols utilized were designed for use against walls of pounded earth- common in China and Central Asia, and highly effective against earth works and wooden walls, as among the Rus’ principalities. A stone walled fortress however, proved resilient. See, the Chinese catapult was a traction catapult, sometimes called a mangonel, and was powered entirely by manpower. Large teams of men, each holding a rope, would pull on one end of the catapult arm, thus propelling the given projectile. Such a machine was, comparatively speaking, easy to build and take apart, and could be fired relatively quickly. To increase the velocity of the projectile, it was a matter of increasing the size of both the team and the machine. However, their range and strength was less than the cunningly designed counterweight trebuchet, which began to appear in the 13th century. The Mongols would, in time, require these counterweight trebuchets in order to take the greatest of Song Dynasty fortifications, Xiangyang, as the classic traction catapult proved insufficient to the task of those mighty walls protected by wide moats. Likewise, it seems stone fortifications, which in Central and Western Europe were often built on high points difficult to access, proved beyond the means of the traction catapult. Esztergom’s outer walls had fallen, but the stone central castle withstood their efforts, and if the defenders had their own counter batteries, Batu may have been infuriated to watch his own men and machines for the first time targeted by enemy catapults. Batu was certainly in a foul mood: when 300 ladies from the city came out in their finest clothes to beg for mercy, Batu ordered them robbed and decapitated before finally leaving the city. Nothing stood of Esztergom except the citadel, the surrounding suburbs a smoking ruin. Szekesfehervar, one of the Kingdom’s chief cities, similarly withstood a brutal assault. Everything outside the city walls was obliterated but the able garrison, possibly a group of Hospitaller Knights, built their own siege weapons to counter those of the Mongols. The siege lasted only a few days before the Mongols moved on. The ferocious pace the Mongols had taken cities in Eastern Hungary was not repeated in the western part of the Kingdom, where the enemy refused to meet the Mongols in the open field. With depleted numbers Batu may have lacked the will to conduct prolonged, bloody sieges, his siege weapons struggling against stout stone walls. With the garrisons refusing to rush out for feigned retreats, Batu found his operational abilities reduced. While Batu struck Esztergom at the start of 1242, Qadan had been sent south to hunt down Bela IV, who had moved on from Zagreb. After a flight down the Dalmatian coastline, Bela took refuge on an island just off shore before finally going to sea, narrowly avoiding Qadan’s riders. At one point, he sailed close to the shore to view Qadan’s army, who could only watch in frustration. Early in the season with limited pasture, Qadan only had a small force, but took out what anger he could, burning down numerous settlements from Zagreb itself past Dubrovnik, before abandoning the pursuit in March. Qadan cut through the Serbian Kingdom and the southern edge of the Hungarian Kingdom, taking Belgrade, before meeting with Batu in Bulgaria. And it is the end of March, 1242 that we reach the most controversial topic of the campaign, as Batu began to pull back from Hungary, having found no great success in the territories beyond the Danube. This was no hurried rush to escape the country however. The earlier mentioned Master Roger was still in Mongol service at this point, recording that up until the withdrawal began, he was under the impression Germany was to be the next target. Roger then describes the journey as slow, loaded with booty, weapons, herds of cattle and sheep, methodically searching hiding places and forests to find both persons and goods they had missed in their first advance. Upon returning to Transylvania, where the rugged region and thick forests provided much cover for survivors, and castles had since been refortified, Batu ordered a renewed onslaught. Roger states succinctly, “With exception a few castles, they occupied the whole country and as they passed through, they left the country desolate and empty.” Orda and Baidar returned through Poland, burning Krakow a second time. Batu reached Bulgaria, where the King, Ivan Asen II, had died in July 1241, leaving only young heirs and anarchy to succeed him. With the kingdom already in chaos the Mongols were fuel to the fire, and Bulgaria may have submitted to them. A Mongol army reached the borders of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, where Emperor Baldwin II defeated them, only to be defeated in a second engagement. We lack information on the meeting beyond that: as per the suggestion of historian John Giebfried, this may perhaps be a description of Baldwin falling for a feigned retreat. Baldwin, it must be noted, had granted shelter to Cumans fleeing Hungary, a cardinal sin in the eyes of the Mongols. The attack seems to have been limited, though Baldwin must have felt in a tenuous position with Mongols on his northern border and soon on his eastern with Baiju’s subjugation of the Seljuqs in 1243. Before reentering the steppe, the Mongols began reducing rations for their many prisoners- at this juncture, anticipating the worst, Master Roger fled into the woods. The rest were told they may return home, and the jubilant crowd made it several kilometres down the path before the Mongols rode them down for sport. In the steppe, Batu’s route was slow, allowing men and horses to rest after years of hard campaigning. His younger brother Shingqur led Mongols forces in the suppression of a Qipchaq rebellion later in the year, pursuing them all the way to the northern Caucasus. Batu and his army wintered in that same region before marching north, in 1243 reached the Volga River where he set up his encampment. He never returned to Mongolia. I’m sure you sat through that whole section screaming “But what about Ogedai’s death!” Ogedai Khaan died on the 11th of December, 1241. It’s often presented that the army had to hurry back in order to elect Ogedai’s successor as per custom. But as we have just noted above, the Mongols continued to campaign in Eastern Europe after they pulled back from western Hungary. In fact, based on the time it took Batu to reach the Volga steppe, his pace was downright leisurely- and he never returned to Mongolia, Subutai himself staying with Batu for a few years. Ogedai’s successor, his son Guyuk, was not elected until 1246, and Guyuk had left the army in 1240 before even the fall of Kiev. To put simply, the withdrawal in 1242 was not in order to elect the new Great Khan. We must ask if a messenger could have even reached Batu before his withdrawal began at the end of March 1242. Assuming the messenger left immediately on the discovery of Ogedai’s body in December 1241, that’s less than four months to cross the entirety of the Eurasian steppe in the middle of winter, a tough ride even for a Mongol. Sources such as Rashid al-Din indicate Batu didn’t learn of Ogedai’s death until well after the departure from Hungary. If not withdrawing because of Ogedai’s death, then what was the reason? Numerous theories have been proposed, some more convincing than others. Some have suggested the attack was never intended as more than a raid, though we have pointed to statements suggesting otherwise. Historian Denis Sinor suggested the Hungarian plain provided insufficient pasture for the Mongols’ vast herds of horses, though Sinor’s math for the matter leaves something to be desired. Based on environmental data, Nicola di Cosma suggested an exceptionally wet spring forced the Mongols to turn back. While the data may suggest a wetter spring, the historical sources do not indicate this was an issue for the Mongols in 1242. They certainly do mention occasions when it was an issue for the Mongols, such as the so-called ‘second Mongol invasion of Hungary,’ of Nogai Khan, where numerous sources reference foul weather hamphering Mongol efforts. Of course, every nation in Europe likes to claim their heroic efforts inflicted so many losses on the Mongols that it forced them to turn back. Despite the campaign being a greater effort than popularly portrayed, the Mongols were routinely victorious in field battles, so support from that quarter is rather lacking. Historian Stephen Pow has recently offered a new explanation based on close examination of the historical sources. He suggests a shift in Mongol goals over 1241-2, a realization based on Mongol losses and frustration with continuous sieges and strong stone fortresses. The withdrawal, in his view, was not a full retreat with intent of never returning, but a temporary strategic retreat. Recall, if you will, our episode on the final conquest of the Jin Dynasty, wherein, due to struggles with the mighty fort of Tongguan, Ogedai, Tolui and Subutai temporarily withdrew from the Jin Empire for a season to restrategize. With a new plan of attack, the Mongols successfully bypassed Jin defences and overwhelmed the empire. Pow’s suggestion is essentially that this was the intention as to Europe. Finding their catapults and efforts having little success against stone fortifications, and having suffered losses over the continued campaigning, Batu and Subutai decided to pull back in early 1242 to rest men and horses and determine a new plan to overcome Europe. They considered Hungary conquered, and once reinforcements had been gathered, they fully intended on returning and extending their rule. The campaigning on their departure from Hungary was to consolidate the conquered territory. However, political matters evolving in the aftermath of Ogedai’s death meant Batu’s attention was drawn away from Europe for the time being. If you found that all a bit confusing, don’t worry- we’ll be interviewing Dr. Stephen Pow himself in the next episode to discuss his theory, and the other suggestions, in greater detail. As for Hungary, King Bela IV returned to his kingdom late in 1242 once he was sure the Mongols were gone. What he found was a shattered hull, the Great Hungarian Plain mostly depopulated through massacre and flight. Bela spent the next decades rebuilding his kingdom and preparing defences. The erection of stone castles by both him and the nobility was encouraged, the great majority of which were built west of the Danube on the border with Austria where most of the population now was. The Danube itself was to be a great defensive line, fortifying the important crossing points. To defend the now depopulated Hungarian plain, Bela invited the Cumans back into Hungary almost immediately, granting them this empty pasture. To secure their loyalty, Bela married his son, Stephan, to the daughter of a lead Cuman Khan -possibly a daughter of Khan Kuthen. Further marriage ties were organized with neighbouring states, with unsuccessful efforts to build an anti-Mongol coalition, all for the inevitable return of Mongol armies.But that is a topic for another episode; our next task is an interview with historian Stephen Pow on the theories of the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

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2.16. History of the Mongols: To Russia with Hate

czech leo jan volga river

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2020 29:42

Had you a bird’s eye view of the Eurasian steppe in 1236, you could have watched an unparalleled sight. Perhaps more than 100,000 mounted warriors spread out in vast columns converging upon the Kama River, followed with nigh on one million horses, goats, and sheep at some distance behind; thousands of carts, some small enough to be pulled by a single ox, to those so large they required full teams of oxen. Mounted on these carts were spare weapons and arrows, specialists and engineers in siege technology and the tools they needed to build their fearsome machinery, and on the largest carts, royal Mongols gers, round felt tents to house the many princes leading the army. Their very movement changed the landscape, politically and ecologically. The nomadic Turkic peoples who inhabited the steppe fled before them; new roads were cut, others formed by the very passage of ten thousand horses stripping bare the grassland; to avoid lengthy detours in order to stay on schedule, rivers were blocked and diverted to accommodate the great carts. This was an army with one purpose: to conquer everything as far as the hooves of Mongol horses would take them. This was the Great Western Invasion, Mongol princes from across the dynasty collected and hurled as a great spear westwards, which in the coming years would land deep into Europe. I’m your host David, und this is… The Great Western Invasion is perhaps the most famous campaign of the Mongol Empire. It’s a campaign of big names and big personalities: Batu, Mongke, Guyuk and the great commander Subutai. It’s a story you likely know the broad strokes of already, the bloody conquest of the Russian principalities culminating in the famous battles of Liegnitz and Mohi. It’s generally presented as the master stroke of Subutai’s strategic genius,commonly said that the Mongols would have driven right to the shores of Britain if hadn’t been for the untimely death of Ogedai Khaan at the end of 1241, forcing them to withdraw to elect his successor. It’s a great story and quite cinematic, but one which barely conveys any of the complexities of the great invasion, and one ripe with exaggerations and myths. Over the next episodes we’re going to try to change your view of the invasion, including as many of the intricacies and historiography of it as we can to provide a fuller understanding of the campaign, and a better, though more nuanced, respect for Mongol military success. Mongol knowledge of the west came through an offshoot of the invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire, when Jebe Noyan and Subutai Ba’atar led an army through the Caucasus and onto the steppe, where they fought with the nomadic Turkic Cuman-Qipchaq tribes, an army of the Rus’ principalities on the Kalka River, and the Volga Bulghars, the mercantile masters of the Volga River’s trade routes. We covered this in a previous episode, so check that out for the specifics. Though popularly portrayed as a reconnaissance in force, it was a hard fought campaign resulting in the death of Jebe Noyan and Mongol defeats or narrowly won victories. The defeats demanded Mongol retaliation, as did the loss of a top commander- it’s easy to imagine Subutai personally wanting to avenge himself and his fallen friend, as Jebe may have been a mentor to him. The foes encountered in the west had shown themselves fierce fighters, and the Mongols left with an impression that overwhelming force was needed for further campaigning in the region. The Cuman-Qipchaqs, a loose confederation of Turkic tribes inhabiting the steppes from the borders of Hungary past the Caspian Sea, were a particular issue. Nomadic enemies, similar in lifestyle to the Mongols themselves, were perceived as their greatest threat. Not only could they more readily flee Mongol armies than any sedentary foe, thus continuing to be a threat, but they were likewise skilled horse archers. If united under a charismatic leader as Chinggis Khan had done with the Mongol tribes, the Cuman-Qipchaqs could directly challenge Mongolian hegemony in the steppe. In the Mongolian universalist ideology which developed at the end of Chinggis Khan’s life, everything beneath Eternal Blue Heaven was the Mongols to rule. The fact that these foes had fought the Mongols, at times even besting them, was a state of open rebellion that the Great Khan could not allow. Subutai had withdrawn from the western steppe over 1224, but that was not the final Mongol encounter in the west before the great invasion. Modern Kazakhstan was by then the ulus of Jochi, the territory granted to Chinggis Khan’s eldest son. As Jochi had died in 1225, the appanage was now headed by Jochi’s second son, Batu- this was the territorial beginnings of the later Golden Horde. From the Jochid ulus, the Mongols had a forward base to attack their foes within the Volga steppe. The closest foe was the Volga Bulghars, a distant Turkic relation to the Bulgarians who gave their name to the empires on the Danube in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Controlling the meeting point of the Volga and Kama Rivers, their influence extended to the Urals in the east, and to the borders of the Rus’ principalities in the west. Dominating the fur trade and other exports from the local Finno-Ugric population like the Mordvins and Bashkirs, Volga Bulgharia was a major trade centre, the stopping point between the Rus’ principalities and Khwarezmian Empire. At least, it had been until Chinggis Khan wiped the Khwarezmian Empire from the map. With extensive contacts in Khwarezm and the Qipchaq tribes of the region, the Volga Bulghars were well informed of the fall of Khwarezm and approach of Subutai in 1223, and defeated him on the Volga River that year. Despite this victory, they were not left in a great position. The most powerful Rus’ princely state, that of Vladimir-Sudzal’, was encroaching on Bulghar territory and competing for control over the Mordvins, making one of the Mordvin principalities their vassal. The Bulghars tried to appease the Rus’ through peace negotiations, hoping to focus their efforts for a Mongol return. It proved fruitless. In 1229 with Ogedai’s ascension came the second Mongol attack, in which Mongol forces seized the steppe from the Ural River to the Volga, overrunning the Bulghars’ border guards. This attack was led by the commanders Koketei and Sonitei, though it’s commonly suggested that this Sonitei may have been a misspelling of Subutai in the source. If it was Subutai, he was soon recalled to aid Ogedai and Tolui in the final conquest of the Jin Dynasty. The 1229 attack caused a great displacement of tribes, fleeing deeping into Bulghar territory to escape the Mongols. Another attack came in 1232, spending the winter in Bulghar country but were unable to move onto their capital. Relatively smaller armies had undertaken these two offensives; with significant forces dispatched under Chormaqun to finalize conquests in Iran and accompanying Ogedai, Tolui and Subutai to destroy the Jin, as we have covered in our previous episodes, major resources were unavailable to attack Bulghar. Victory over the Jurchen Jin in 1234 changed this, freeing up troops to divert elsewhere. Most of the Mongol army and its auxiliaries were pulled back within weeks of the final victory over the Jin, though some forces remained on the border due to an attack from the Song Dynasty. Despite Song attacks, Ogedai ordered only minor offensives against them for the time being; the west had to be dealt with. In 1235 a great quriltai was held in Mongolia to which the available princes of the dynasty were invited. In classic Ogedai fashion upon their gathering an entire month was spent in feasting, drinking and celebrating; gifts and loot were handed out from the treasury; the laws and ordinances of Chinggis Khan were read out again. After this imperial bender, it was time to get to business. Ogedai’s son Qochu was ordered to hold the frontier with the Song Dynasty, while the rest of the available forces were to be taken west. The Mongol leadership was under the impression that the western end of the continent was home to fierce foes. Ogedai’s only surviving full brother, Chagatai, had been collecting information for him. In the Secret History of the Mongols, Chagatai gave this warning to Ogedai: “The enemy people beyond consist of many states, and there, at the end of the world, they are hard people. They are people who, when they become angry, would rather die by their own swords. I am told they have sharp swords.” Chagatai's idea was that this should be a unified effort with all branches of the dynasty -that is, from the lines of Chinggis Khan’s four sons with Borte- contributing troops. This was agreed to. While the western campaign is sometimes depicted as a side show, the sources inform us that the chief figures of the third generation of Chinggisids were present. A number of Jochi’s numerous children, especially his most important sons Orda, Batu, Shiban and Tangqut, were to be present. From Chagatai’s line were Buri and Baidar, Buri his grandson via Moetugen, Chagatai’s beloved favourite who had died in the Khwarezmian campaign. Ogedai’s own sons Guyuk and Qadan represented him, and from the line of the late Tolui was his eldest, Mongke, and Mongke’s half-brother Bojek. If some of these names sound familiar to you, it's because these were among the most prominent Chinggisids of the next decades: Batu, founder of the Golden Horde, with Guyuk and Mongke to be Great Khans in the years after Ogedai. Kolgen, a son of Chinggis Khan from a secondary wife accompanied them, as did the most famous of all Mongol generals, Subutai. While Batu was the lead prince and it was ostensibly his territory they were expanding, Subutai was to hold overall command. Ogedai wished to lead this army himself, but was talked out of it by the assembly- it was deemed too dangerous an expedition, and Ogedai’s health may have already declined past being fit for such a trek. Each of these princes brought the troops attached to their households and appanages, resulting in a massive and diverse army. Common estimates range from 100,000-150,000 men- largely Mongolian and Turkic horse archers, but with an important contingent of Chinese siege engineers. Representatives of other conquered peoples joined them- Tanguts, Uighurs, Khitan, Jurchen, already conquered Qipchaqs and perhaps even Central Asian Iranians. A mainly cavalry army, speed, maneuverability and overwhelming firepower was its strength, taking advantage of the seemingly unlimited grassland and pasture of the great Eurasian steppe. We know at one point in the quriltai it was considered to send a vast army of Chinese along with them, but this idea was talked down: Yelu Chucai declared they were unfit to the climate and long march. A moment must be given to what the strategic goals were. The Qipchaq and Bulghars were obviously targets, with the Rus’ to be punished for allying with them. In general, the western steppe was to be conquered, but beyond that? It’s often said the famous European component of the invasion was an afterthought, little more than a raid, but there is some suggestion that Hungary was a definite target right from the beginning. Most Mongol imperial sources discuss Hungary, or rather, their garbled name representing the Kingdom, as a target from the outset. In the 1220s the Hungarian King, Bela IV, who we will meet in our next episodes, had declared himself King of the Cumans. The Hungarian Kingdom wanted to expand its control over and convert the neighbouring Cumans to Christianity. It’s possible rumour made it down the steppes that the Hungarian King was not the Cuman King in name only, but the actual lord of the Cuman tribes in fact. For the Mongols, who saw the Cuman-Qipchaqs as enemies, this made their “king” a major foe. As they moved west they likely gained more accurate information on him, but in distant Mongolia it was hard to correct that. Beyond that, we have statements from the likes of Friar Julian, who will be introduced below, stating in 1236 that the Mongols intended on attacking Rome. So the army, representing the four branches of the Chinggisid dynasty, had a goal to essentially conquer everything westwards, specifically intending on Europe as a part of this. After the quriltai, the princes returned to their ordus, [or-doos] to assemble their forces: the various armies marched separately, setting out in spring 1236 to unite on the Kama River on the edge of Volga Bulghar territory. We are provided an absolutely fascinating perspective from an Hungarian Dominican friar who traveled through Volga Bulgharia on the eve of the Mongol invasion. Called Julian, or sometimes Julianus, he had been sent to find the Hungarians who remained in their old homeland. In a journey that took him across the steppe, through the Rus’ principalities, and Volga Bulgharia, he arrived east of Volga Bulgharia in what he called Magna Hungaria - “great Hungary,” inhabited by a Ugric people whose language, Julian was astonished to find, was mutually intelligible with his own, despite the 400 years since the Magyars had separated from them to enter the Pannonian Basin. These were the Bashkirs, related to the modern people of the same name in Russia’s Bashkortostan, though the modern descendants have been thoroughly turkicized. More relevant for us, Julian was in Magna Hungaria and Volga Bulgharia while Mongol armies gathered on the Kama River only a few days away. There is a sense that the Bulghars were quite aware of the strength of the Mongol army and the approaching terror, but lacked the manpower to repulse such a horde, leaving them to watch helplessly. During his time there, Julian encountered Mongol envoys moving ahead of the main army with demands of submission. Julian departed before the Mongol attack on Bulghar, and we are provided no specifics on the fall. The Bulghar cities were well fortified, their army of fine repute, but they had been weakened in recent years by conflict with the Rus’ and Mongols. Over winter 1236, their capital cities were destroyed and the state of Volga Bulgharia ended. While there, Friar Julian heard that Saqsin, a Turkic city along the lower Volga, had already fallen to them. Indeed, it seems the Mongols made to secure the steppes around the northwestern Caspian before moving onto the Volga Bulghars. This was a region inhabited by the Qipchaq-Olberli-Qanglis of the Cuman-Qipchaq confederation, who had fought the Mongols several times. We have little specific details of this, except for one episode. Many Cuman-Qipchaq peoples fled west before the Mongols, while others submitted, with limited resistance by one individual in particular. This was Bachman of the Olberli Qipchaqs. The ruler of a territory along the Ahktuba, a branch of the lower Volga, Bachman emerged sometime in the late 1220s and early 1230s, trying to organize against the Mongols. The leading Cuman-Qipchaq chiefs had fallen to Jebe and Subutai during their campaign in 1222-1223, leaving few in the Qipchaq steppe with the following or influence to rise up. According to the Yuan Shih, dating from the early Ming Dynasty, part of Subutai’s specific instructions had been to strike down this Qipchap chief. Before the fall of Volga Bulgharia, Subutai advanced with the vanguard ahead of the main and scattered Bachman’s army, somewhere along the Caspian Sea, capturing Bachman’s wife and sons. Subutai then turned back for the Kama River to await the main army before moving onto the Bulghars. Bachman was reduced to irregular warfare with a small following, striking at Mongol parties while fleeing southwards. In early 1237 as the main army under Subutai continued on from the ruins of Volga Bulgharia, Mongke and his half brother Bojek were despatched to hunt Bachman down, each travelling down a bank of the Volga. Finding an old woman left behind by Bachman’s troops who pointed them after him, Mongke and Bojek cornered Bachman on an island in the river. Heaven showed its favour when the winds picked up and pushed the water back to reveal a ford. Crossing rapidly, Mongke and Bojek’s army fell upon the unprepared and outnumbered Bachman, destroying the remnants of his men. Bachman was captured, asking only for the final honour to be killed by Mongke’s own hand. Mongke instead had Bojek cut Bachman in half, essentially putting an end to any form of organized Cuman-Qipchaq resistance to the Mongol advance. After Bachmann’s death, Mongke and Bojek marched back across the steppe to rejoin the main army, which had stayed busy. The Bashkirs had been dispersed and subjugated, Volga Bulgharia destroyed, the next target being the Mordvins, another Ugric people still extant today, giving their name to the Russian republic of Mordovia. The Mordvins were divided into two principalities; once both under Volga Bulgharian influence, the western had since fallen under the domination of the Rus’. The eastern principality submitted to the Mongols and provided troops; the western made the mistake of resisting and was crushed. This left the Mongols on the borders of the Rus’ principalities. Halting on the Voronezh River in late summer 1237, Batu and Subutai waited to allow Mongke and Bojek to rejoin them, finalizing their plan of assault, sending envoys to demand submission and waiting for the rivers to freeze in order to cross them. The Rus’ principalities were the divided heirs to the Kievan Rus’; still linguistically and culturally a part of the same heritage and the Riurikid dynasty, but politically each principality was an independent entity. In the 1230s, the most powerful was the northeastern principality of Vladimir-Suzdal’ under the Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich. While the Volga Bulghars had made efforts to prepare for the Mongol return, it seems the great slaughter on the Kalka River did nothing for the Rus’, who chalked it up to another attack, though a destructive one, by the various nomads of the steppe. Few rumours of the Mongols had reached the Rus’ in the following years, and their return was sudden and unexpected. For Batu’s force, the closest Rus’ principality was Ryazan, which bravely, but foolishly, refused to submit. The Princes of Ryazan, Murom and Pronsk sent an army against the Mongols, at the start of winter 1237, which was destroyed near the Voronezh River, the Rus’ horsemen pierced by Mongol arrows. On December 16th, 1237, Batu’s armies arrived outside Ryazan, surrounding the city with a stockade. On the 21st of December, the city’s wooden walls were breached by catapult and battering ram, the Mongols pouring in. In the words of the Chronicle of Novgorod, the Mongols “killed the Knyaz and the Knyaginya and men, women, and children, monks, nuns and priests, some by fire, some by the sword, and violated nuns, priests’ wives, good women and girls in the presence of their mothers and sisters.” The slaughter was total and indiscriminate. Grand Duke Yuri was unable, or unwilling to help. Some historians such as Alexander Maiorov have suggested based on the Laurentian Chronicle that Yuri had actually accepted a Mongol demand for submission, having sent back their envoys with gifts. In the Chronicle, Roman Igorevich, the brother of the Prince of Ryazan fled with his druzhina bodyguards, hotly pursued by Mongols, making his way to Kolomna on the Oka River. There he was unexpectedly supported by the commander- an officer of Grand Duke Yuri- who tried to help him. The Mongols won the battle, but one of their generals was killed- Kolgen, a son of Chinggis Khan. The killing of a Chinggisid prince was always cause for horrific retaliation, and even if Yuri had accepted submission, or at least hoped to avoid violence, it was too late. The consequence of Kolgen’s death was the rapid assault and sacking of numerous cities across the northern principalities over spring 1238, among them a small town called Moscow on the 15th of January. Grand Duke Yuri fled north, his capital of Vladimir falling on February 7th, his family killed in the process. On the 4th of March , Yuri and a small force was caught on the Sit’ River by the Mongol Noyan Boroldai. Yuri was captured and suffered a horrific death the sources could only allude to Only at Torzhok and Kozel’sk did resistance last weeks. Kozel’sk in particular was a bloody affair, aptly defended under its young prince Vasilko. Batu was unable to force the city for almost two months. At one point a wall was breached and the Mongols rushed it, only to be repulsed. Only when Qadan and Buri arrived with reinforcements was the city to be taken. Before the city fell in May 1238, the citizenry rushed from the gates in an unexpected charge, taking the Mongols by surprise and inflicting heavy casualties, destroying catapults and killing the sons of three commanders before the Mongols overcame them. According to the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, the Mongols came to call Kozel’sk “the evil city,” and none dared mention it in their presence. Of the major cities of the northern principalities, only the republic of Novgorod escaped slaughter with the timely submission of its prince, Alexander Nevsky, perhaps aided by the spring melt turning the approaches to the city into marsh and hamphering Mongol advances. Nevsky is most famous today as the victor over the Teutonic Knights at Lake Peipus in 1242, a small victory the Rus’ clung to in an era of devastation. With the onset of warmer weather around May 1238, the Mongols withdrew from northern Rus’ to rest men and horses and take stock of their efforts. Why did the Rus’ fair so poorly? From December 1237 to May 1238, the Mongols took the major cities of the northern principalities with few holding out longer than a couple of days. We can boil it down to two main factors. The first being the matter of defenses and weaponry. The defenses of the Rus’ cities were mainly logs on top earthworks, with towers few or non-existent and stone works rare. For catapults designed to bring down the great pounded earth walls of China, such walls provided little defense. Mongol siege techniques were simply far advanced beyond that of the Rus’, where sieges were generally blockades to starve out the inhabitants and catapults exceedingly uncommon. Defenders behind the city walls had nothing to compare to the range of Chinese catapults, leaving them only able to watch as the walls were battered down from afar. Cities and fortresses were, unlike Europe, built on level and approachable ground, making them easy to surround, advance to, and easy to strike with siege machines. The other cause for the swift Rus’ defeat was the deep fragmentation of the principalities. Princely conflict was tense in the years building up to, and even during, the Mongol invasion, princes keen to watch their neighbour take the force of the Mongol assault, only to be surprised when they were struck next. In comparison, the Mongols had a mostly unified and effective leadership- though their own princely antagonisms were about to begin to rear their heads. Mongol army units were able to cooperate and move independently from hundreds of kilometres apart, kept in contact with a series of messengers and set timelines to meet. Rather than a massive assemblage moving altogether, the Mongol army split into contingents led by their princes and commanders, units of 1000 darting across Rus’. The sensation within the cities must have been that they were totally surrounded, new parties of Mongols riding to and fro daily, their numbers seemingly endless. Like the cities of the Khwarezmian Empire, the Rus’ cities were basically each left to their own defense, allowing the Mongols to always isolate the enemy and enjoy local superiority in numbers despite the fierceness of the Rus’ garrisons. By the time Batu ordered the withdrawal for summer 1238, northern Rus’ was devastated. Archaeologically the evidence of the slaughter of men, women and children has sadly corroborated Rus' accoutnts, though the destruction was not as total as commonly portrayed, as Rus’ princes still had military and economic power to continue fighting each other in the following years. Their ability to offer an effective military resistance to the Mongol Empire was broken, and it would be well over a century before the Rus’ could provide a direct military challenge to Mongol forces. Still, not all the principalities were destroyed in this first wave: the south and far western principalities like Chernigov, Kiev, Galicia and Volhynia had not yet been targeted, and the Cuman-Qipchap inhabited steppe between the Caspian and Black Seas still needed to be conquered, the next tasks for Batu and Subutai after their break for summer 1238, and the topic for our next episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

Ep. 67 Kâta Kabanová By Janáček

Opera For Everyone

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 11, 2020 119:22

The torment and passion of a young wife living in a small town on the Volga River inspire exquisitely lush music from the incomparable Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Káta Kabanová dreams of soaring like a bird, but falls to earthly desires. As she yearns to take to the sky, her young lover prophetically notes, “Life is much easier for a man. I shall be free to do as I wish, but you. . .” Hosted by Keely and Pat

Episode 152: The Freshwater Seahorse and Other Mystery Water Animals

Strange Animals Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2019 15:38

This week let's look at some (mostly) smaller mystery animals associated with water! Thanks to Richard J., Janice, and Simon for the suggestions! Further reading: What Was the Montauk Monster? The black-striped pipefish. Also, that guy has REALLY BIG FINGERTIPS: The Pondicherry shark, not looking very happy: A ratfish. What BIG EYES you have! The hoodwinker sunfish, weird and serene: The Montauk monster, looking very sad and dead: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Let’s finish off the year with an episode about a few mystery animals, specifically a few mystery animals associated with water. Thanks to Richard, Janice, and Simon for the suggestions! We’ll start off with a mystery suggested by Richard J, but not the Richard J. who is my brother. A different Richard J. Apparently half the people who listen to my podcast are named Richard, and that’s just fine with me. Richard wanted to know if there are there such things as freshwater seahorses. We’ve talked about seahorses before in episode 130, but seahorses are definitely marine animals. That means they only live in the ocean. But Richard said he’d heard about a population of seahorses native to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, which is in South America. I put it on my suggestions list, but Richard was on the case. He sent me a link to an article looking into the mystery, which got me really intrigued, so I bumped it to the top of my list. Because I can do that. It’s my podcast. Freshwater seahorses are supposedly known in the Mekong River and in Lake Titicaca, and sometimes you’ll see reference to the scientific name Hippocampus titicacanesis. But that’s actually not an official scientific name. There’s no type specimen and no published description. Hippocampus is the generic name for many seahorse species, but like I said, they’re all marine animals and there’s no evidence that any live in freshwater at all. Another scientific name supposedly used for the Mekong freshwater seahorse is Hippocampus aimei, but that’s a rejected name for a seahorse named Hippocampus spinosissimus, the hedgehog seahorse. It does live in parts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, including around Australia, especially in coral reefs, and sometimes in the brackish water at the Mekong River’s mouth, but not in fresh water. On the other hand, there’s no reason why a seahorse couldn’t adapt to freshwater living. A few of its close relatives have. There are a few species of freshwater pipefish, and in the world of aquarium enthusiasts they are actually sometimes called freshwater seahorses. The pipefish looks like a seahorse that’s been straightened out, and most of them are marine animals. But some have adapted to freshwater habitats. This includes the black-striped pipefish, which is found off the coasts of much of Europe but which also lives in the mouths of rivers. At some point it got introduced into the Volga River and liked it so much it has started to expand into other freshwater lakes and rivers in Europe. The pipefish is closely related to the seahorse, but while it does have bony plates like a seahorse, it’s a flexible fish. It swims more like a snake than a fish, and it can anchor itself to vegetation just like a seahorse by wrapping its tail around it. It mostly eats tiny crustaceans and newly hatched fish, since it swallows its food whole. It usually hides in vegetation until a tiny animal swims near, and then it uses its tube-shaped mouth like a straw to suck in water along with the animal. Just like the seahorse, the male pipefish has a brooding pouch and takes care of the eggs after the female deposits them in his pouch. So where did the rumor that seahorses live in the Mekong come from? The Mekong is a river in southeast Asia that runs through at least six countries, including China, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Parts of it are hard to navigate due to waterfalls and rapids,

How To Make A Viking Ritual Sacrifice

Doktor Snake's Myth And Magic Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 22, 2019 6:00

Create a wooden idol of a Norse or Saxon god or goddess of your choice - or a whole family of gods - and ask them for whatever it is you need, and leave an offering. From historical sources, it is pretty clear that our Northern European pagan ancestors would take offerings to a circle or ring of wooden idols that depicted the gods, and would literally ask them for a given favour. In return, they'd leave offerings, which could be fruit and vegetables, some personal possession of value, or they'd sacrifice an animal (which from a modern perspective I don't condone). Anyway, there's an account from the tenth century that shows how the Vikings made offerings to their gods in return (usually) for material favours. In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad called Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River and recorded a meticulous account of their customs and practices, including making offerings to the gods. ___________ References Odin's Wife: Mother Earth in Germanic Mythology by William P. Reaves https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odins-Wife-Mother-Germanic-Mythology-ebook/dp/B07L62M3R3/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=william+p+reaves&qid=1571659076&sr=8-1 And William P. Reaves' scholarly website Germanic Mythology at: http://www.germanicmythology.com/ Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North (Penguin Classics) by Paul Lunde and Caroline E.M.Stone https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ibn-Fadlan-Land-Darkness-Travellers/dp/0140455078/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11AXY9DVFLR0E&keywords=ibn+fadlan+and+the+land+of+darkness&qid=1571659128&sprefix=ibn+fadl%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1

land sacrifice vikings ritual viking arab baghdad norse saxon northern european volga river caroline e

Sunset #1 - Volga River

Welcome to my sound!

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2018 40:42

Sunset #1 - Volga River by Anatoly Shalya

sunsets volga river

Episode 40 – Cry Me a River

Miss Information: A Trivia Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2018 84:14

In our 40th episode, Julia bends our ears and conveys the Global Rivers You Should Know [along with related sidebars] in this super-sized water-themed ep. [And Canadian Tourism Board, if you’re listening, we’re available.] Later, enjoy a quiz called “Rolling on a River”! . . . [Music: 1) Johann Strauss II, “The Blue Danube Waltz,” 1867; 2) Frau Holle, “Ascending Souls,” 2017. Courtesy of Frau Holle, CC BY-NC 3.0 license.]

music mississippi rolling gambling rivers courtesy missouri river nile river amazon river proud mary cc by nc cry me a river danube river frau holle johann strauss ii volga river

AT#605 - Travel Along the Volga River in Russia

Amateur Traveler Travel Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2018 52:53

Hear about travel to Russia along the Volga River as the Amateur Traveler talks to travel writer Mark Baker about this destination that he recently wrote about.

travel russia volga mark baker amateur traveler volga river

AT#605 - Travel Along the Volga River in Russia

Amateur Traveler Podcast (iTunes enhanced) | travel for the love of it

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2018 52:53

Hear about travel to Russia along the Volga River as the Amateur Traveler talks to travel writer Mark Baker about this destination that he recently wrote about.

travel russia volga mark baker amateur traveler volga river

AT#605 - Travel Along the Volga River in Russia

Amateur Traveler Travel Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2018 52:53

Hear about travel to Russia along the Volga River as the Amateur Traveler talks to travel writer Mark Baker about this destination that he recently wrote about.

travel russia volga mark baker amateur traveler volga river

Episode 16 - The Battle of Stalingrad

Killing Time

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2018 107:03

A disastrous offensive launched by the Red Army in May, 1942 around Kharkov ended in a rout that paved the way for a renewed German offensive deep into southern Russia and the Ukraine beginning on June 23, 1942. The goal was to break Soviet resistance by capturing the oilfields of the Caucasus and the River Volga at Stalingrad. The Red Army was once again put on the defensive and soon their backs were against the Volga River, desperately trying to hang on in the face of an implacable and ruthless enemy bent on the annhilation of the Slavic people. This battle, fought in subhuman conditions between August 1942 and January 1943 cost nearly 2 million casualties and unspeakable suffering for those who fought and died there. This is the story of the battle many consider the turning point of World War II in Europe.

europe battle russia ukraine german world war ii soviet slavic caucasus stalingrad red army kharkov volga river

Space Rocket History #56 – First Space Walk – Voskhod 2 with Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev – Part 2

Space Rocket History Archive

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2018 28:17

Leonov opened the airlocks outer hatch He was positioned on his “back” and this orientation revealed the beauty of earth in its entirety. His heart began to race as he pushed his upper body outside and saw the deep blue vista of the Mediterranean Sea, fringed by the easily recognizable shapes of Greece and Italy and, farther east, the Crimea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Volga River…

history italy greece rocket crimea pavel mediterranean sea spacewalks caucasus mountains alexei leonov volga river leonov voskhod

Sergey Kutsuev - Video Live@Volga River Session (Ulyanovsk) 19.08.2017

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2017 134:29

Треклист:01) T-Killah & Дневник Хача vs. Felguk - Это нормально (Sergey Kutsuev Mash) 02) Shakira feat. Beyonce - Beautiful Liar (Alex Shik Remix) 03) Willy William Feat J Balvin - Mi Gente (DJ SLAVING Remix) 04) DMX - Party Up (DJ SAVIN & Alex Pushkarev Remix) 05) DNCE vs. Paul Vinx & Vol2Cat - Kissing Strangers (Sergey Kutsuev Mash) 06) Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee, Carlos Martin & Serrano ft. B-Phisto vs. Art Fly - Despacito (Dmitry V Mash) 07) Estradarada vs. Madonna & Justin Timberlake feat. Chris Decay, Chippon & Pride - Вите Надо Выйти (Dmitry V Mash) 08) T-Fest x Скриптонит vs. DNK - Ламбада (Dmitry V Mash) 09) Clean Bandit feat. Sean Paul and Anne Marie feat. Oguzhan Guzelderen x Pedro Carrilho - Rockabye (Sasha Froloff Mash-Up) 10) Jah Khalib vs. Michael White - Если Чё Я Баха (Dj Dizzy & Dj Aster Mash Up) 11) Usher feat Lil Jon x Brohug - If I'm Yeah! (Patrick Junior Mashup) + Sergey Kutsuev vs. Brohug - Tribal Dance (Sergey Kutsuev Edit) 12) BON JOVI, BIJOU GERRY GONZA - ITS MY LIFE 2017 (Starjack COLLINI MAINFLOOR HITTER) 13) Linkin Park vs Hardwell - Apollo Numb Encore (Starjack 2K17 Future House Mashup) 14) Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Lis & Hot Loud Remix) 15) Blur - Song 2 (Chunky Dip & Holly-J Bootleg) 16) Bob Sinclar Vs Dzeko - Rock This Party (2017 Bootleg) 17) Higheffect ft Silvia Dias & Klaas vs Fedde Le Grand - Sweet Dreams (Zak Mash Up) 18) Pitbull vs. Haipa - Hotel Room Service (Sergey Kutsuev Edit) 19) David Guetta (feat Justin Bieber) - 2U (Afrojack Club Mix) 20) David Guetta & GLOWINTHEDARK, Fat Joe & Remy Ma feat. French Montana & Infared & Bougenvilla - All The Way Up (Arthur Wein Mash) 21) MiyaGI & Эндшпиль & KIIDA - Тамада (Black Shark MashUp) 22) Скруджи, Sergey Kutsuev vs. Brohug - РукаЛицо (DJ GLARION & DJ OLMEGA Mash Up 2017) 23) Jah Khalib vs. Johnny Smart & Dj ModerNator - Мамасита (Dmitry V Mash) 24) Natan vs. Yastreb - Я хочу быть с ней (Sergey Kutsuev Short Bootleg) 25) Willy William feat. Cris Cab & Kolya Dark & Rakurs vs Alex Vik - Paris (Nikki Wei Mash) 26) Freedos vs. Sergey Kutsuev - Daddy Hermetico (Dmitry V Mash) 27) T-Fest vs. Maldrix - Улети (Sergey Kutsuev Mash) 28) Missy Elliott vs. Bodybangers & N.A.S.A.- Get Ur Freak Blow (Dmitry V Mash) 29) Miyagi & Эндшпиль feat. NERAK - DLBM (Frost & Robby Mond Remix) 30) Грибы vs. Kronic, Far East Movement & Savage feat. Audiorockers & Matt Raiden - Копы (Dmitry V Stolen Mash) 31) Fatman Scoop, MAKJ, Michael Sparks - Space Jam (Original Mix) 32) LP, Swanky Tunes, Going Deeper vs. Sonny Banks - Lost On You (Sergey Kutsuev Mash) 33) Deorro X Chippon - Bailar (Yuri Rider Mash-up) 34) Tiesto & Sevenn - Boom (Dj Jurbas & Dj Trops Remix) 35) Tujamo Ft. Sorana - One On One (Brohug Remix) 36) Die Atnwoord vs. Garrix & Heldens - Babys Bouncy (DJ Kuznetsoff Mashup) 37) Pitbull feat. TJR - Don't Stop The Party (KIZh Remix) 38) Tujamo & Plastik Funk - Who (Waveshock Remix) 39) Monatik vs. dEVOLVE - Vitamin D (Sergey Kutsuev Пажощ Mash) 40) Макс Барских vs. Tom Enzy - True Туманы (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 41) Иван Дорн vs. Tocadisco, DBSTF ft. Maurice West - Пажощ Бигуди (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 42) Queen vs. Blasterjaxx - Show Must Go On (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 43) T.a.t.u. vs. Blasterjaxx & Giorno - Not Gonna Get Us (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 44) Atb, Dash Berlin, A-One, Ruslan Rost - 9 Pm (Sergey Kutsuev Work Mash) 45) Грибы vs. Hoox - Тает Лед (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 46) Юлианна Караулова vs. Laidback Luke ft. Pelari - Разбитая Любовь (Dmitry V Festival Mash) 47) Время и Стекло vs. Keanu Silva, Mobin Master feat. 2 Eivissa with Banks & Rawdriguez - Имя Заебавшее твое (Dmitry V Mash) ver. 2 48) Mot vs. Slider & Magnit - Заебавшие всех треки (Dmitry V Piece of Shit Mash)

banks savage usher lp justin timberlake shakira pitbull bon jovi david guetta linkin park anne marie mot serrano missy elliott bootleg tiesto fat joe going deeper sean paul french montana daddy yankee lil jon miyagi klaas laidback luke remy ma atb slider clean bandit tujamo natan dash berlin luis fonsi swanky tunes fatman scoop blasterjaxx glowinthedark makj far east movement keanu silva dnce willy william tocadisco kronic blur song garrix bodybangers mobin master dbstf eivissa monatik jah khalib rakurs volga river infared carlos martin t fest t killah cris cab sergey kutsuev freedos chunky dip audiorockers alex pushkarev remix ulyanovsk robby mond remix ruslan rost dj trops remix higheffect sorana one on one brohug remix

Sergey Kutsuev - Live@Volga River Session (Ulyanovsk) 19.08.2017

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2017 134:00

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volga river sergey kutsuev ulyanovsk

Sergey Kutsuev - Live@Volga River Session (Ulyanovsk) 19.08.2017

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2017 134:00

…

volga river sergey kutsuev ulyanovsk

Sergey Kutsuev - Video Live@Volga River Session (Ulyanovsk) 19.08.2017