What were the key stages in the Mongol military expansion?

What were the key stages in the Mongol military expansion? What combination of tactics enabled them to win victory after victory across Asia? How should we interpret the Islamic, Chinese, and European accounts of the Mongol conquests? Where, when, and why were the Mongol conquests halted?What were the key stages in the Mongol military expansion?Mongolian army had vast vanguard units, so they could go ahead of the main troops and spy and inform what lies ahead. These fast, mobile units were also extremely deceiving to the opponents who often were lured by their low numbers and pursued to hunt them only to find the major troops ahead. This was the case of Polish and Hungarians, who engaged the small units believing to be the only invaders and when they left their fortified position, they ended defeated at the hand of the main core Mongolian army. The Mongolian army had excellent logistic to allow communication, supplies, and movement across extremely long distances. They used frozen rivers as the communication lines, and were moving fast up to 50 miles in one day.



During the battle, they usually elected elevated hills to be the main communication points and used flags as the way to communicate with the troops. The troop were grouped into 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000, where each unit had responsible leader. The invasions were carried by armies approaching the enemy from numerous sides. The conquest of Hungary was done with a multiple points to overwhelm the enemy. The pushed along the Danube from Moldavia, across the Carpathians Mountains from Poland, and Czech lowlands to be met in the center of the Hungary. The sheer size of the army was enough to destroy any opponents, but also it created the problems along the way. The army needs to be fed, which meant to plunder as much it could be possible in occupied territory. Mongolian soldier had between 3-5 horses to change them as they travel, but also it became difficult as they approach Central Europe. During occupation of Hungary, their horses started to starve, and Mongols left without even trying to impose their form of government as they had done in neighboring Ukraine and founded Golden Horde.



The Mongolian expansion was based on blitzkrieg tactic, and was not intended to acquire territory the way it was done by European, Roman, Greece, Persian, or Arabian empires. These empires wanted to create material wealth from taxes imposed on the population, which meant very little to Mongols. The acquisition of the territory meant thorough destruction of land, destroying any possible landmarks, killing entire population, and even damages the habitable environment. The environmental damage in Central Asia is still visible to these days. Another effective tactics was capturing the capital and killing all ruling elite as was done in Baghdad, which effectively ended of the state. However, this tactic was not effective in their march westward, since European feudal states were fragmented, and destroying each city along the way was draining resources.



Mongols had not very effective siege machine, and contrary, they were not successful in capturing castles and cities once they left Eurasian steppes. They had fallen to capture many fortified places in Hungary, Poland, Croatia, and Moravia. The Mongols were defeated during siege of Olomouc, capital city of Moravia, and next to Prague the largest city in Czech Lands in the medieval era. They had unsuccessfully attempted to take over Wroclaw, capital city of Silesia. While they had won the battle of Liegnice, it was very costly with army had probably lost 陆 of its troops. Within Kingdom of Hungary they were unable to subdue opposition and cities like Trnava, Bratislava and numerous castles (Orava, Filakovo, Spis, Lietava) were not captured. During the invasion of Balkans, Mongols got all the way to Mediterranean Sea, but could not capture the key port cities like Split and Zadar. Either way, while they mastered numerous battles and captured 陆 of the known world, they were not invincible. It is estimated that invasion of Europe was carried by 200,000 troops, from which only 20,000 returned. Many historians often overestimate the possibility of Mongolian invasion of the Western Europe in 1241. Western Europe could not and would not be captured with 20,000 soldiers left in Hungary. This alone was not enough to take Vienna or Venice, which is a modern hearsay not having a base on the contemporary sources. Hungary had recovered quickly and continued to function as major European player in medieval affairs without interruption.



Probably after adventure into Hungary, Mongolian leadership was aware, that capturing a Europe would be extremely costly and difficult in a comparison of the steppe kingdoms of Eurasian plains. The Mongols were preparing a plan that will stretch their empire from Pacific to Atlantic and they had certainly resources, power, and logistics to overrun even the most powerful European monarchy of the time, France. But I believe capturing Europe is not possible with strong naval units, which was the weakest point of Mongolian army. They were unable to carry invasion of Japan or Java, and certainly would not be successful in destroying European naval powers with just horse cavalry.What were the key stages in the Mongol military expansion?they pushed their armies in every direction quickly with cavalry, they used their old mounted cavalry traditions to bolster their hordes and because each man had at least 3/4 horses they could travel for days on end, and even eat their horses if neccesary. they exterminated any settlement that rose up against them and use those settlements as a warning for other populations and prevented revolts. when they conquered the nations they used their populations to again increase their armies, such as the koreans and use those to invade other countries like japan for example. their expansion stopped when genghis khan died and his sons and relatives squabbled for power, allowing the surrounding nations to attack, using their own tactics against them such as the hungarians, poles and mamluks. the army was backed by strict discipline and organisation with lighter armour than most european factions with flexibility on the advantage.What were the key stages in the Mongol military expansion?Here's a good time line of their conguests. Scroll down for dates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of鈥?/a>



This site will answer your other questions.

http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h11mon.htm