Mongolian Army

With, the Mongolian armed with Gengis Khan and its successors dominates all its rivals by far. Although Gengis Khan brings some innovations in the control of the traditional war of the Mongols, this domination is not due to innovations, but especially to its organization, the rigorous planning of its operations, applied then with discipline, its imagination at the same time in the Tactique and the Opératique. This army, which did not exist in practice before it dominates the Mongols, is made up of wandering warriors who, before the 13th century, fought primarily to plunder at the time of Razzia S.

Principal characteristics

It uses initially the excellence of the Mongolian warrior in two fields: the shooting with the arc, taught very early with the children of the two sexes, and the cavalry, the Mongols being riders out-par. This cavalry uses small the Cheval Mongolian, rustic, sober and enduring.

Tactic

The Mongolian army (and at the beginning, completely) made up of archers to horse, is almost entirely armed with arcs and swords. Tactic and strategy are imposed to him by the number and its armament: light cavalry, it carries at its top the tactics consisting in badgering the adversary to oblige it to break its formation; not very many (in general the Mongolian armies have twice less troops than their enemies), it must save the life of its warriors.

Mobile and many, the Mongolian cavalry starts the combat where she wishes it, or folds up itself easily when the enemy heavy cavalry approaches too much. The heavy cavalry does not use archers and is conceived mainly to cause a shock - while making use of its mass, its speed and of the fear of their movement of mass (nobody wishes to be trampled with dead) to break the enemy lines. Thus, when the Mongolian cavalry meets a heavy cavalry, its light riders, faster, using arcs and organized in articulated units, the heavy formations of cavalry, which are ruent with the continuation, without succeeding in badger starting the combat. Disabled, these units lose of their compactness, and are dispersed when the Mongols enter to the contact.

Opératique

The Mongols apply an operational concept (known under the name of “operative art” or Opératique, intermediary between the Tactique and the Stratégie) particularly effective. It is at the same time an extension of the traditional tactic of the light cavalry to an operational level (tactics of the weak attack followed by a show of escape which can last of the hours or the days), and the use of various stratagems in order to divert their adversaries. These stratagems can be proposed by any officer or warrant officer, are tested and repeated during the preparation of the countryside and the instruction of graded. This operational concept ensures to them a fast victory over all the enemies of their history.

The campaigns are prepared very upstream. The spies established a long time in advance inform about the state of moral, the more or less large political stability of the people attacked by the Mongols. Several months in advance, of the recognitions announce the difficult passages, the passages without supply (deserted, zones without possible plundering), the water points, the pastures, etc

Displacements of the army are protected very ahead: the scouts inform about the position of the enemy, his force, such or such climatic calamity who will return the crossing of a more hazardous area. Moreover, strong avant-garde S, able to face important forces, precedes the army, giving him time to intervene. Flank-guards and Arrière-garde S supplement the system. These secondary forces are also able to eliminate from the reduced oppositions (allies of the enemy joining it).

Terror

They make use of terror as arms, in two ways. The Mongols offer to the cities an opportunity of going in favorable terms. They are generally dictated in the first great center of settlement of the new area, although there are some exceptions. In the event of refusal, they plunder the city by carrying out the whole population (saving the skilled workers) then burn it and shave it, so much so that certain prosperous cities of Kashrem were not found yet. Moreover, they often build a cranium building outside the walls of the old city as remembering their passage. They then make it possible some survivors to flee to spread terror in the area. They prevent most of the engagements with the invaded people. The Mongols acquire a reputation of invincible and cruel invaders quickly. After the initial victories and the proof of the good intentions of the Mongols, it becomes more difficult for the leaders to convince their people to resist the invasion.

This terror also ensures them of the quiet backs: the cities or the people revolting are assured that the Mongols, if they decide it, will push repression until the end. Terror sufficient step only, the monitoring is ensured by forces very few but made up of the elite of the army, and is directed by the regent. Any beginning of revolt is repressed in egg, and without pity.

Strategy

The strategy is decided within the Kouriltaï (assembled of the people). The future campaigns and the way in which they will be led there are decided.

People out of weapons

The Mongolian people are initially people out of weapons: like all the wandering people, when it fights, if the battle is lost, whole people can disappear (see for example the Petchenègues). Thus, any free man is a warrior, very early: as soon as it can handle the arc sufficiently well while going up to cheval : thus Gengis Khan starts to build its Ourdou at thirteen years.

Later, it transforms this lifestyle into a requirement: each man must be immediately available for a campaign. He must permanently have four horses at his disposal; its weapons must be in good state permanently (maintained by its family) and it must have vivres for the countryside. It is enough for them consequently to a few minutes to be ready when the rider-arrows transmit the order of mobilization.

That goes even further: when Gengis Khan began, it had only few warriors under its orders, and faced other Mongols. The two clans faced, in two lines of riders. To prevent that its group is turned, it had as a habit to press it on a side on an obstacle (a sufficiently bulky wood, a mountain, a rather broad river), and other, on the camping of its clan. The women, who handle the arc as well as the men, defend the camp, and are capable to prevent any attempt at catch to reverse.

The reputation that the Temudjin young person is done while arriving, from nothing, to increase its Ourdou by successive combat, brings a crowd of volunteers to him. Thanks to its Charisma, it models a Mongolian army combatant according to his sights, and not according to the traditional methods.

Modernization and rationalization

Creation of units

It creates an army with a hierarchy in the organization of the units, based on the new figure, although the system resembles a decimal system (the Mongols allot virtues particular to the new figure):

the basic unit is a group of nine riders, ordered by a chief (either a group of ten men, whose chief is often called dizainier in Occident);
the squadron comprises nine groups, either 90 riders, plus, also the chief major of his group (or hundred men on the whole);
the gourane , group of ten squadrons, is 999 men, plus his chief;
later, of the toumanes of ten thousand men is set up.

These toumanes (from 2 to 25 at the most) constitutes the Mongolian army together. They are sometimes gathered in army corps (2 to 4 toumanes), in order to facilitate their command, or to conduct autonomous campaigns.

Framing of the army

The function command is renewed. A staff is created, the iourt-chi: it is charged to prepare the campaigns. This preparation is meticulous (so much so that one sees more the also meticulous one until Napoleon or even until the Second world war), on all the plans:

Logistic (see low);
information: on all the aspects of the country to be conquered, as well geographical (relief, climate), soldier (fortified towns, enemy tactics, manpower) that on the company opposing (mentality, habits).

A body of officer is created: it is subjected to a permanent drive, adapted to the next countryside.

The best of these officers can become the oerleuks - kind of marshals - to which is entrusted army corps for the secondary campaigns. From an absolute fidelity, they profit from the same confidence of Gengis Khan: the wire and family members of Large Khan are followed and evaluated by these marshals at the time of their first campaigns. If the report/ratio is unfavourable, they are retrogressed like privates (such one of his/her sons-in-law).

Connections and communications

The framing of the army profits from excellent means of communication and connection:

on the battle field, it uses a system of horns and flags, lowered and raised by the commander, who allows the general-in-chief, thanks to the drive and with the discipline of the troops, to move his troops on positions envisaged of the battle field or to choose the pace of displacement, as the load, the retirement, skirting, and this, as soon as he decided it;
with long distance, the rider-arrows transmit the orders of an army to the other, carry the orders of mobilization, communicate the information of the spies or the scouts in record time (thanks to a system of relay, in particular).

Discipline

The discipline is an element which makes it possible to obtain, in war, best soldiers; it is essential to ensure of the regular victories. While succeeding in imposing it on its troops, Gengis Khan in fact of the warriors of exception.

Obedience is imperative, under penalty of death, on all the levels of the hierarchy. Many failures with the rule are punished only by death: case of two men deviating from their unit without the agreement of their chief during the combat. On the other hand, each one is entitled to the word and on the initiative.

The operations are often repeated with the drive. At the time of the combat, they are carried out without hesitation.

Logistics and military Engineering

Logistics is also a strong point of the Mongolian army. Any man in age to fight must permanently have important quantities of not-perishable provisions (primarily of the dried meat), to answer the mobilization constantly. Its horses (each warrior must have of them three or four in a position to support a long campaign) are rustic and squat, endure without sorrow the cold and of long distances day laborers. They are accustomed to find themselves their food, therefore fodder is useless; they can be even satisfied with lichens or yellow grass frozen under snow.

A body of the genius is quickly created for the seat of the cities. Being unaware of all the art of the seat, the Mongols recruit - of force - specialists in the conquered cities. Qualified engineers, workmen and craftsmen become thus Pontonnier S, Sape the USSR, artillerists (handling catapults S and Trébuchet S). This need is anticipated as of the preparation for the conquest: the list of the craftsmen or qualified people of a city is drawn up by the spies. Thus, these people are saved (like their families) then integrated into the body of the genius. A solid pays and of the various advantages then their fidelity preserves. It is Ogodaï, future Grand Khan, which is in charge of the command of this auxiliary body. But even before the constitution of this body, the Mongols had tactics of seat: diversion of the river (depriving the besieged city of a water provision and a defense), or reduction of the city by the famine.

Individual armament

Function aggression

The arc is the principal weapon of the Mongolian combatants, which enables them to beat an adversary without entering to the contact (it has a range of approximately 300 meters or more). This armament is supplemented by a curved sword for the close combat (which is avoided most of the time). This curved and light sword is more handy than the long right swords, and makes it possible to avoid or of feinter more easily.

Gengis Khan makes technological improvements in the Mongolian art of the war. The Mongols were the first to be made use of “bends S”. They were in fact ceramics balls, hollow, filled with blasting powder. Old texts refer there and one found some recently on a wreck of cast Mongolian boat at the time of the attempt at invasion of Japan (see Conquêtes gengiskhanides)

Function protection

One opposes classically to the European knights or to the Byzantine Cataphractaire S, which carry heavy metal carapaces, limiting the vision and the movement, the Mongols using of the patent leather armours, doubled silk, to protect itself. These lighter armours leave to the Mongolian warriors more possibilities of movement, a better field of view, and tire less, giving them an advantage compared to their adversaries. Moreover, if a soldier is struck by an arrow, it penetrates the skin and bores the flesh but silk is not bored, simply drawn in the wound. A Mongolian doctor can then easily withdraw the arrow, wrapped fabric, that reducing the chances of Infection and facilitating the cleaning and the binding of the wound, allowing even sometimes the warrior to immediately turn over to the combat. This simple process saves many lives. At the time of a prolonged conflict, the Mongols thus often oppose an army of veterans to country conscripts, with disastrous results for the adversaries of the Mongols.

The Mongols used also a heavy cavalry, also using the effect of shock of the load. It is in particular present at the Bataille of Liegnitz (1241).

Posterior evolutions with the reign of Gengis Khan

Under the reign of Tamerlan, the Mongolian army makes free massacres, and is announced by its cruelty, even useless. Even if the army of Gengis Khan also massacred whole cities, it always did it with a precise aim, and more often saved cities. Later on, this attitude changes.

Weaknesses of the Mongolian army

The tribal structure

Although the tribal bonds were more or less broken by Gengis Khan, they are maintained at least for the succession. Thus, the division of the empire with died of Gengis Khan saves without question Europe: Poland and Hungary were crushed, conquered Russia before the Mongols between-tear for the succession.

The demographic weakness

The Mongols are to the maximum three million, of which less 500 000 of Blue Mongols (Mongols of Gengis Khan), is less than 250.000 combatants. These weak manpower are diluted in the important conquered populations. Moreover, internal divisions, which see the Mongols fighting between them, still increase this weakness. Lastly, the progression of agriculture encroaches on the Mongolian traditional grounds, which see their cattle-breeding areas being reduced with time.

Grounds little adapted to the cavalry

If the seats did not pose a problem insurmountable with the Mongols, in-outside big spaces being appropriate for the deployment and the operations of their cavalry, their army was shown not very effective. This is why the Mongols adopted a strategy which consisted in forcing the enemy armies to leave the enclosure of their city for thus sifting them arrows on the battle field (only when it was about a seat). What was definitely easier than to make fall the walls from the cities to be able there to enter without being importuned there. Thus the Afghan mountains remained little subjected, only the great routes and the cities being really conquered. In the same way, the Mongols stopped on banks of the oceans, and could not make the conquest of Japan whose banks were firmly defended. But the Mongols skilfully knew, most of the time, to avoid by their effective information, and their skilful operations, the unfavourable grounds, to fight the enemy where they were sour to gain the victory.

See too

Armed with Mongolia for the army of the modern Mongolia
On a close subject, an article of anglophone Wikipédia: Advanced military of Gengis Khan

External bonds

Stratisc.org

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