The Storm from the east not feel like debating what I see as an outdated view on the mongol invasion of Europe. Here I try to present an alternate view based on more recent scholarship.
THE INVINCIBLE WARRIORS?
Mongols in contact with the west
A number of times on these forums various forumites have posted subjects dealing with the mongols, usually assuming that their armies were undefeatable and unstoppable and endlessly quoting Giovanni de Plano Carpini over the succession matter.
I am now fed up, and with launch into a small article over the matter.
Turko-Mongols
It is usually assumed that the enormous armies that attacked the Islamic lands and Europe in the 13th century were purely ”Mongol”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The mongol armies were, by the time they arrived in force in the west, a polyglot collection of steppe people, the predominant one being Turks of different tribes and clans. This can easily be seen in personal and family names: Gemaybek, Toktamish and Kitbuka are all turkish names, to name but three. The egyptian chronicler Ibn-Wasel says of the Mamluk defeat of the mongol armies in 1260-61 that ”they were defeated by their own kin”, as most of the Mamluk slave-soldiers were of turkish origin.
This habit of picking up defeated nomad people along the way is characteristic of steppe nomad warfare and could also be seen in the Hunnish empire. It is likely that less than 20% of the main armies of the invasion of the 1240s were from the mongolian steppes. All these people fought in approximately the same way as the mongols and needed minimal retraining to be incorporated into the mongol army.
The superior bows
A lot have been said of mongol and steppe people recurved composite bows, of whom the best quality was made from horn, sinews and bone. This was the traditional steppe bow, and its construction from animal parts is a cause of the lack of good bowwood, like yew or ash. Some novelties appeared in the period of mongol expansion but basically the construction was the same as before. The surviving examples, from grave-finds, are usually rather small.
This type of bow is easily drawn until one reaches the point of repressure, when the draw is about equal to most other bows of similar strength. Thus the maximum draw of the composite recurved is seldom greater than non-recurved bows, but the bow is less strenous to draw initially. In the west, recurved composite bows of wood had been used at least since the early 12th century, imported from the orient. Some sources also put recurved bows in the hands of the Franks after their defeat of the Magyars. Their main advantage was seen as horseman’s bows. Yew longbows with a pull of up to 140 pounds have been found in germanic graves as early as 300 AD, so the composite bows and the western longbow(NOT an english or welsh invention) were quite equal in power. The early mongols seemed to have lacked a characteristically western arrowhead, however: bodkin armour-piercing arrowheads do not appear in grave finds and are never mentioned by chroniclers.
The undefeatable tactics
Mongol tactics were quite varied, but the main focus was, as with all steppe nomads and their settled cousins (like many of the turkish military class in the Levant) they relied heavily on horse-archery. Close combat was not shunned, but a wearing down of the opponent was most often implemented first. The idea that the mongols implemented revolutionary new tactics is quite flawed. The famed hunting expeditions used by the Khans to train their armies were not a mongol innovation but widely practiced in the turkish areas and in a different form in the islamic territories and the christian west(quite a few books of military trumpet signals meant to control the hunters during the hunt has survived, showing a quite complicated system of military signaling in the medieval west), though the mongols greatly increased the scale and applied the principle to strategy:-The innovation initiated by the mongol empire was its ”timetable system” in which the army leaders were required to convene at spesific points at spesific times to deal with an assumed threat – preplanned confrontations with enemy forces, until which the different units were pretty much left to themselves.
First contact
Europe’s first contact with the Mongol came when the Köten, the Khan of the western Quipchak turk tribe called the Cumans or Polovtsii, old enemies/allies/pests of the russians, appeared at the court of Mstislav Mstlislavich of Galicia and requested alliance, in 1223. After initial successes against the mongol force under Jebei and Sübodai, the russian alliance and the Polovtsii are annihilated while crossing the Kalka river. After this the mongol army turns back after sacking Novgorod Svyatopolch and attacks the Volga Bulgars on orders from the Great Khan. Jebei and Sübodai are defeated by the Bulgars while crossing the river Volga but manage to escape with most of their army. After this they travel farther east and smash their way back home through the Quangli Turks.
Full-Scale invasion
In 1237 the mongols return. The russian princes offered no concerted resistance and were defeated piecemeal by the new forces. The Polovtsii were also attacked, and the tribe emigrated to Hungary. The hungarian king Bela IV accepted their offer of conversion and settlement, but the Polovtsii, as a large, homogenous group of nomads, were not well received by the Hungarians overall and friction between the two peoples was common. This eventually led to the Polovtsii leaving Hungary just as the mongols were advancing on king Bela’s kingdom.
In 1240 Kiev, the principle russian city, fell to the mongols who were taking their time subduing russia. After this the mongol army under Batu turned toward Hungary. Splitting into three sections, on march 22 they took an unprepared Cracow after defeating king Boleslaw IV of Poland with elements of the polish army at Chmielmik. The northern flank under Orda entered Schlesien, who were allied with the hungarians. They are harried by Duke Mieczyslaw of Opole, who did not reach Chmelmik in time, while retreating toward Duke Henry II of Schlesien’s forces. Duke Henry II of Schlesien met the mongol north flank at Legnica with the poles who could not make it to Chmelmik, but outnumbered by Orda’s forces and seriously disorganized due to the polish refugees, the battle ended with the death of Henry and the fall of Legnica. Jan Dlugoz’ annals claim the master of the prussian Order also falls at Legnica, but this is not mentioned in the Livonian Rhyme-Chronicle and indeed the master, Henrich von Weide, lives happily until 1246(according to his grave tablet and the Chronicle), so it’s probably apocryphal. Bad scholarship and trusting Dlugoz’ too much has led to an army of the Teutonic Knights being present at Legnica but the order’s own records do not report this – and they are usually reliable. After this the northern flank turns south, avoiding Bohemia, where king Wenceslas has mobilized his army and guards the border without attacking. An small border clash at the austrian borders also takes place, but the northern flank push on, avoiding battle.
The southern flank pushed through the Carpathians while the central army crept toward Bela’s army at a snail’s pace to give the others time to move on. In May the central army broke the Hungarian defenses led by Palatin Denes at the pass of Verecke and approached Pest. It was at this time that the Cumans broke with Bela and turned south, fighting Hungarian reinforcements while pushing their way toward Bulgaria.
The mongol flanks could not reach Pest in time to meet Bela’s armies, so Batu had to engage the king’s forces with the central column alone. On the 11th of april he conducted a surprise attack, perhaps under the cover of night and broke the Hungarian army, but took serious casaulties, as Giovannia de Plano Carpini was personally told when visiting Batu’s camp in 1245. Bela fled and no organized resistance remained east of the Danube. King Konrad IV, son of Emperor Frederick II, mustered his forces and awaited a mongol foray into Austria, which never came. In february 1242 the last elements of the Hungarian army was destroyed by the mongols when crossing the frozen Danube. Bela fled again and while pursued, was not taken. For two months the mongols roamed Hungary and raided Dalmatia and Croatia. After this Batu evacuated Hungary(through Serbia), completing the evacuation in May, and sent his horses for grazing on the russian steppe. He settled down on the southern russian steppe. It is interesting to note that the Danube is the line that marks the end of the eurasian steppe in western europe – the area where steppe empires traditionally have their strength due to being able to replenish their horse herds.
Giovanni de Plano Carpini claims that Ogodei’s death led Batu to abandon his attack and go back to nurture his political ambition. This also fits nicely in with God striking Ogodei down to save his flock. However, Batu kept out of the succession debate and did not go to the elective quriltay in 1246. He also supported Guyuk Khan heartily after his election and seems not to have aspired to Great Khanhood(to which he was not entitled). It is likely that the evacuation of Hungary was carried out because the horses needed grazing and the hungarian plain had been overgrazed by the quite impressive array of horses brought by the invasion force. This coincides nicely with the mongol and steppe people habit of quitting campaigns in the spring to be able to replenish the vital horse herds supporting the army.
The mongols fought two major battles against central european powers during their invasion. The first one at Legnica was against Henry’s army and was succesfull in achieving some degree of surprise due to the mishmash nature of the Duke’s force. It did lead to the northern army not making the rendesvouz, however, despite avoiding battle with the austrians and Wencelas. The second is the attack on the Hungarian camp near Pest outnumbering king Bela’s army while still suffering serious casaulties. Both these victories come about because the Mongols are so much more strategically mobile and flexible than their opponents: the fighting itself seems fairly well-matched, especially at Pest.
No serious Mongol invasion of central or western europe would occur after this. The only time such plans are mentioned in the sources(apart from mongol bravado in front of envoys and such) is Berke Khan’s offer of alliance to Bela IV in 1262(back in place as king of Hungary) asking for a fifth of his army to join him in an attack on the west. This idea eventually petered out, as Berke reprioritized his aims and eventually died in 1267. Small-scale raids into Volhynia and Galacia were repelled after trashing up the countryside in the 1260s and 1270s, and the pagan Lithuanians also tangled with mongol forces in the 1260s, but it was clear that the mongols had no more interest in attacking the west. A quite different idea begins to appear, however.
Allies against the moslems?
After smashing the Khwarasman turks in eastern persia and steamrolling russia, another mongol army under Hulagu had led to the fall of Baghdad in 1258 and the murder of the incompetent caliph Al-Mutassim, and after the fall of Halep in 1259 and Aleppo and Damaskus in 1260, the mongols have broken into the Levant and made contact with the crusading states there. The situation was similar to Russia: the various cities and kingdoms were independent, disorganized and bickered between themselves and with the crusader kingdoms in the Levant. Some alliances between armenians, Outremer Franks and the mongols appear during this time, though not all the franks support the mongols(whose brutality they find off-putting), especially not in Palestine. However, the Mamluk soldiers of Egypt break the mongol invasion force at the first battle of Homs in 1260 and Ain Jalut later the same year and kill Hulagu’s general Kitbuka. While suffering a few defeats of their own, the Mamluks repeat these successes at Euphrates in 1272, Abulustayn in 1277, second Homs in 1281, and Wadi al-Khaznadar in 1299. The mongols might have had supply problems during their campaigns in Syria, but they were, overall, defeated strategically by the Mamluks and their allies.
From this time, an impressive amount of diplomatic correspondence between the Il-Khanate, Latin and Greek Byzantium and the Latin West is preserved. While Islamic, the Il-Khanate was in bitter conflict not only with the Golden Horde to the north, whose leaders also converted to islam and thus ensured that no real integration between them and their russian orthodox subjects could occur (something that would one day in the future ensure them ”special” treatment by the Tsarist Russia), but especially bitter feeling were reserved for the the Syrian and Egyptian Mamluks. Christian Armenians and Outremer Franks had been hopping from side to side in this conflict for some time, but in 1260 the Patriarch(later Pope Urban IV) of Jerusalem started corresponding with Hulagu Khan regarding joint action against the Mamluks.
The northern crusader states(especially Antioch) were also postive toward such ideas because their support of the 1258-60 invasion had led to Sultan Baybars torching their territories repeatedly in 1260. The effort petered out, but in 1266 Abagha Khan, Hulagu’s successor, offered to Pope Clement IV to invade the islamic Levant with 200 000 horse from the east and 100 000 more to join a christian expediton that was to disembark in Armenia. He also offered to turn all the captured cities over to the Latins. Whether or not this was a realalistic idea, the Il-Khanate’s main objective at this point, besides their endless struggles with the Golden Horde and bickering over trade with the Yüan, was smashing the Mamluks, with the very Mongol obsession with destroying the foes who had humbled them utterly.
The alliance proposals from the Il-Khanate to the west was resented by the Golden Horde, who efficiently torpedoed quite a few agreements ; and Berke allied with the Mamluks. The mongol world in the west was not solidly split.
New offers of alliance came in in the 1270s and 1280s and correspondence between the west’s monarchs and the mongol rulers of persia continued. The planned grand alliance never came about; the westerners were sceptical toward the mongols and disliked their haughty attitude, and their main mediterranean shipping contractors, the Venetians, were now much less positive toward the idea of ferrying crusaders across the Mediterranean as the moslems were quite receptive to trade at this point. After the fall of Acre in 1291 it was pretty obvious that the west would not be able to support the Il-Khans directly against the Mamluks and alliance proposals died down.
In 1305 Philip the Fair received a letter(in Mongolian) from Oljeitu, the new Il-Khan, where he happily informed him that the descendants of Chinggis kaghan had achieved peace over the world and linked the postal stations of the different mongol empires. He further advised Philip, whom he adressed as the king of the west, to achieve the same kind of peace all over his realm. Philip did not, to my knowledge, comment on this.
This eternal peace between the mongol descendant khanates lasted only a few years and the Il-Khanate fell periodically into anarchy while the Golden Horde wasn’t so stable either. Intercine warfare kept going until Timur put an end to most of it in the late 14th century, but Timurs ambitions lay to the east. The western-mongol alliance was never to be.
Conclusion and afterword
Clearly, defeating the mongols militarily was difficult but not impossible. The fact that so few battles actually happened during tht 1240s invasion makes it difficult to theorize over this, however. Western units defeating mongols happened several times during vanguard skirmishes and the Mamluks managed, with a military technique that focused not only upon horse archery but also on western-style charges by the spahi successors, to defeat the Il-Khanates troops on numerous occasions and keep the mongols out of the Levant.
It also seems like the mongols, apart from possibly Berke(if he was serious) had no real intention of going further west. Unlike their Yüan cousins the Golden Horde and Il-Khanate were quite happy dominating the steppes – and after defeating the Hungarians they regarded that territory as subject to them(even if they never actually submitted). Peaceful contact and correspondence with the christian west and Byzantium was quite frequent in regards to the Il-Khanate, and the Golden Horde (as the poorer and smaller western khanate) spent its energies against its brother khanates and in succesion struggles.
Primary sources, chroniclers:
Al-Maqrizi, Cairo
Ibn-Wazel, Damietta
Giovanni de Plano Carpini
The Livonian Rhyme – Chronicle(unattributed)
Jan Dlugoz
Codex Comanicus(unattributed)
The Primary Chronicle of Novgorod(unattributed)
Matthew Paris
The secret history of the mongols(unattributed – not complete edition)
Marco Polo’s Il Millione
Historians, modern(various publications).
Erik Christensen, Dennis Sinor, A.P. Martinez, Erik Hildinger, Reuven Amitai-Preiss, David Nicolle, R.A. Rasovski, John Chambers, A.N. Kirpichnikov, Amin Malouf
Some net searches
THE INVINCIBLE WARRIORS?
Mongols in contact with the west
A number of times on these forums various forumites have posted subjects dealing with the mongols, usually assuming that their armies were undefeatable and unstoppable and endlessly quoting Giovanni de Plano Carpini over the succession matter.
I am now fed up, and with launch into a small article over the matter.
Turko-Mongols
It is usually assumed that the enormous armies that attacked the Islamic lands and Europe in the 13th century were purely ”Mongol”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The mongol armies were, by the time they arrived in force in the west, a polyglot collection of steppe people, the predominant one being Turks of different tribes and clans. This can easily be seen in personal and family names: Gemaybek, Toktamish and Kitbuka are all turkish names, to name but three. The egyptian chronicler Ibn-Wasel says of the Mamluk defeat of the mongol armies in 1260-61 that ”they were defeated by their own kin”, as most of the Mamluk slave-soldiers were of turkish origin.
This habit of picking up defeated nomad people along the way is characteristic of steppe nomad warfare and could also be seen in the Hunnish empire. It is likely that less than 20% of the main armies of the invasion of the 1240s were from the mongolian steppes. All these people fought in approximately the same way as the mongols and needed minimal retraining to be incorporated into the mongol army.
The superior bows
A lot have been said of mongol and steppe people recurved composite bows, of whom the best quality was made from horn, sinews and bone. This was the traditional steppe bow, and its construction from animal parts is a cause of the lack of good bowwood, like yew or ash. Some novelties appeared in the period of mongol expansion but basically the construction was the same as before. The surviving examples, from grave-finds, are usually rather small.
This type of bow is easily drawn until one reaches the point of repressure, when the draw is about equal to most other bows of similar strength. Thus the maximum draw of the composite recurved is seldom greater than non-recurved bows, but the bow is less strenous to draw initially. In the west, recurved composite bows of wood had been used at least since the early 12th century, imported from the orient. Some sources also put recurved bows in the hands of the Franks after their defeat of the Magyars. Their main advantage was seen as horseman’s bows. Yew longbows with a pull of up to 140 pounds have been found in germanic graves as early as 300 AD, so the composite bows and the western longbow(NOT an english or welsh invention) were quite equal in power. The early mongols seemed to have lacked a characteristically western arrowhead, however: bodkin armour-piercing arrowheads do not appear in grave finds and are never mentioned by chroniclers.
The undefeatable tactics
Mongol tactics were quite varied, but the main focus was, as with all steppe nomads and their settled cousins (like many of the turkish military class in the Levant) they relied heavily on horse-archery. Close combat was not shunned, but a wearing down of the opponent was most often implemented first. The idea that the mongols implemented revolutionary new tactics is quite flawed. The famed hunting expeditions used by the Khans to train their armies were not a mongol innovation but widely practiced in the turkish areas and in a different form in the islamic territories and the christian west(quite a few books of military trumpet signals meant to control the hunters during the hunt has survived, showing a quite complicated system of military signaling in the medieval west), though the mongols greatly increased the scale and applied the principle to strategy:-The innovation initiated by the mongol empire was its ”timetable system” in which the army leaders were required to convene at spesific points at spesific times to deal with an assumed threat – preplanned confrontations with enemy forces, until which the different units were pretty much left to themselves.
First contact
Europe’s first contact with the Mongol came when the Köten, the Khan of the western Quipchak turk tribe called the Cumans or Polovtsii, old enemies/allies/pests of the russians, appeared at the court of Mstislav Mstlislavich of Galicia and requested alliance, in 1223. After initial successes against the mongol force under Jebei and Sübodai, the russian alliance and the Polovtsii are annihilated while crossing the Kalka river. After this the mongol army turns back after sacking Novgorod Svyatopolch and attacks the Volga Bulgars on orders from the Great Khan. Jebei and Sübodai are defeated by the Bulgars while crossing the river Volga but manage to escape with most of their army. After this they travel farther east and smash their way back home through the Quangli Turks.
Full-Scale invasion
In 1237 the mongols return. The russian princes offered no concerted resistance and were defeated piecemeal by the new forces. The Polovtsii were also attacked, and the tribe emigrated to Hungary. The hungarian king Bela IV accepted their offer of conversion and settlement, but the Polovtsii, as a large, homogenous group of nomads, were not well received by the Hungarians overall and friction between the two peoples was common. This eventually led to the Polovtsii leaving Hungary just as the mongols were advancing on king Bela’s kingdom.
In 1240 Kiev, the principle russian city, fell to the mongols who were taking their time subduing russia. After this the mongol army under Batu turned toward Hungary. Splitting into three sections, on march 22 they took an unprepared Cracow after defeating king Boleslaw IV of Poland with elements of the polish army at Chmielmik. The northern flank under Orda entered Schlesien, who were allied with the hungarians. They are harried by Duke Mieczyslaw of Opole, who did not reach Chmelmik in time, while retreating toward Duke Henry II of Schlesien’s forces. Duke Henry II of Schlesien met the mongol north flank at Legnica with the poles who could not make it to Chmelmik, but outnumbered by Orda’s forces and seriously disorganized due to the polish refugees, the battle ended with the death of Henry and the fall of Legnica. Jan Dlugoz’ annals claim the master of the prussian Order also falls at Legnica, but this is not mentioned in the Livonian Rhyme-Chronicle and indeed the master, Henrich von Weide, lives happily until 1246(according to his grave tablet and the Chronicle), so it’s probably apocryphal. Bad scholarship and trusting Dlugoz’ too much has led to an army of the Teutonic Knights being present at Legnica but the order’s own records do not report this – and they are usually reliable. After this the northern flank turns south, avoiding Bohemia, where king Wenceslas has mobilized his army and guards the border without attacking. An small border clash at the austrian borders also takes place, but the northern flank push on, avoiding battle.
The southern flank pushed through the Carpathians while the central army crept toward Bela’s army at a snail’s pace to give the others time to move on. In May the central army broke the Hungarian defenses led by Palatin Denes at the pass of Verecke and approached Pest. It was at this time that the Cumans broke with Bela and turned south, fighting Hungarian reinforcements while pushing their way toward Bulgaria.
The mongol flanks could not reach Pest in time to meet Bela’s armies, so Batu had to engage the king’s forces with the central column alone. On the 11th of april he conducted a surprise attack, perhaps under the cover of night and broke the Hungarian army, but took serious casaulties, as Giovannia de Plano Carpini was personally told when visiting Batu’s camp in 1245. Bela fled and no organized resistance remained east of the Danube. King Konrad IV, son of Emperor Frederick II, mustered his forces and awaited a mongol foray into Austria, which never came. In february 1242 the last elements of the Hungarian army was destroyed by the mongols when crossing the frozen Danube. Bela fled again and while pursued, was not taken. For two months the mongols roamed Hungary and raided Dalmatia and Croatia. After this Batu evacuated Hungary(through Serbia), completing the evacuation in May, and sent his horses for grazing on the russian steppe. He settled down on the southern russian steppe. It is interesting to note that the Danube is the line that marks the end of the eurasian steppe in western europe – the area where steppe empires traditionally have their strength due to being able to replenish their horse herds.
Giovanni de Plano Carpini claims that Ogodei’s death led Batu to abandon his attack and go back to nurture his political ambition. This also fits nicely in with God striking Ogodei down to save his flock. However, Batu kept out of the succession debate and did not go to the elective quriltay in 1246. He also supported Guyuk Khan heartily after his election and seems not to have aspired to Great Khanhood(to which he was not entitled). It is likely that the evacuation of Hungary was carried out because the horses needed grazing and the hungarian plain had been overgrazed by the quite impressive array of horses brought by the invasion force. This coincides nicely with the mongol and steppe people habit of quitting campaigns in the spring to be able to replenish the vital horse herds supporting the army.
The mongols fought two major battles against central european powers during their invasion. The first one at Legnica was against Henry’s army and was succesfull in achieving some degree of surprise due to the mishmash nature of the Duke’s force. It did lead to the northern army not making the rendesvouz, however, despite avoiding battle with the austrians and Wencelas. The second is the attack on the Hungarian camp near Pest outnumbering king Bela’s army while still suffering serious casaulties. Both these victories come about because the Mongols are so much more strategically mobile and flexible than their opponents: the fighting itself seems fairly well-matched, especially at Pest.
No serious Mongol invasion of central or western europe would occur after this. The only time such plans are mentioned in the sources(apart from mongol bravado in front of envoys and such) is Berke Khan’s offer of alliance to Bela IV in 1262(back in place as king of Hungary) asking for a fifth of his army to join him in an attack on the west. This idea eventually petered out, as Berke reprioritized his aims and eventually died in 1267. Small-scale raids into Volhynia and Galacia were repelled after trashing up the countryside in the 1260s and 1270s, and the pagan Lithuanians also tangled with mongol forces in the 1260s, but it was clear that the mongols had no more interest in attacking the west. A quite different idea begins to appear, however.
Allies against the moslems?
After smashing the Khwarasman turks in eastern persia and steamrolling russia, another mongol army under Hulagu had led to the fall of Baghdad in 1258 and the murder of the incompetent caliph Al-Mutassim, and after the fall of Halep in 1259 and Aleppo and Damaskus in 1260, the mongols have broken into the Levant and made contact with the crusading states there. The situation was similar to Russia: the various cities and kingdoms were independent, disorganized and bickered between themselves and with the crusader kingdoms in the Levant. Some alliances between armenians, Outremer Franks and the mongols appear during this time, though not all the franks support the mongols(whose brutality they find off-putting), especially not in Palestine. However, the Mamluk soldiers of Egypt break the mongol invasion force at the first battle of Homs in 1260 and Ain Jalut later the same year and kill Hulagu’s general Kitbuka. While suffering a few defeats of their own, the Mamluks repeat these successes at Euphrates in 1272, Abulustayn in 1277, second Homs in 1281, and Wadi al-Khaznadar in 1299. The mongols might have had supply problems during their campaigns in Syria, but they were, overall, defeated strategically by the Mamluks and their allies.
From this time, an impressive amount of diplomatic correspondence between the Il-Khanate, Latin and Greek Byzantium and the Latin West is preserved. While Islamic, the Il-Khanate was in bitter conflict not only with the Golden Horde to the north, whose leaders also converted to islam and thus ensured that no real integration between them and their russian orthodox subjects could occur (something that would one day in the future ensure them ”special” treatment by the Tsarist Russia), but especially bitter feeling were reserved for the the Syrian and Egyptian Mamluks. Christian Armenians and Outremer Franks had been hopping from side to side in this conflict for some time, but in 1260 the Patriarch(later Pope Urban IV) of Jerusalem started corresponding with Hulagu Khan regarding joint action against the Mamluks.
The northern crusader states(especially Antioch) were also postive toward such ideas because their support of the 1258-60 invasion had led to Sultan Baybars torching their territories repeatedly in 1260. The effort petered out, but in 1266 Abagha Khan, Hulagu’s successor, offered to Pope Clement IV to invade the islamic Levant with 200 000 horse from the east and 100 000 more to join a christian expediton that was to disembark in Armenia. He also offered to turn all the captured cities over to the Latins. Whether or not this was a realalistic idea, the Il-Khanate’s main objective at this point, besides their endless struggles with the Golden Horde and bickering over trade with the Yüan, was smashing the Mamluks, with the very Mongol obsession with destroying the foes who had humbled them utterly.
The alliance proposals from the Il-Khanate to the west was resented by the Golden Horde, who efficiently torpedoed quite a few agreements ; and Berke allied with the Mamluks. The mongol world in the west was not solidly split.
New offers of alliance came in in the 1270s and 1280s and correspondence between the west’s monarchs and the mongol rulers of persia continued. The planned grand alliance never came about; the westerners were sceptical toward the mongols and disliked their haughty attitude, and their main mediterranean shipping contractors, the Venetians, were now much less positive toward the idea of ferrying crusaders across the Mediterranean as the moslems were quite receptive to trade at this point. After the fall of Acre in 1291 it was pretty obvious that the west would not be able to support the Il-Khans directly against the Mamluks and alliance proposals died down.
In 1305 Philip the Fair received a letter(in Mongolian) from Oljeitu, the new Il-Khan, where he happily informed him that the descendants of Chinggis kaghan had achieved peace over the world and linked the postal stations of the different mongol empires. He further advised Philip, whom he adressed as the king of the west, to achieve the same kind of peace all over his realm. Philip did not, to my knowledge, comment on this.
This eternal peace between the mongol descendant khanates lasted only a few years and the Il-Khanate fell periodically into anarchy while the Golden Horde wasn’t so stable either. Intercine warfare kept going until Timur put an end to most of it in the late 14th century, but Timurs ambitions lay to the east. The western-mongol alliance was never to be.
Conclusion and afterword
Clearly, defeating the mongols militarily was difficult but not impossible. The fact that so few battles actually happened during tht 1240s invasion makes it difficult to theorize over this, however. Western units defeating mongols happened several times during vanguard skirmishes and the Mamluks managed, with a military technique that focused not only upon horse archery but also on western-style charges by the spahi successors, to defeat the Il-Khanates troops on numerous occasions and keep the mongols out of the Levant.
It also seems like the mongols, apart from possibly Berke(if he was serious) had no real intention of going further west. Unlike their Yüan cousins the Golden Horde and Il-Khanate were quite happy dominating the steppes – and after defeating the Hungarians they regarded that territory as subject to them(even if they never actually submitted). Peaceful contact and correspondence with the christian west and Byzantium was quite frequent in regards to the Il-Khanate, and the Golden Horde (as the poorer and smaller western khanate) spent its energies against its brother khanates and in succesion struggles.
Primary sources, chroniclers:
Al-Maqrizi, Cairo
Ibn-Wazel, Damietta
Giovanni de Plano Carpini
The Livonian Rhyme – Chronicle(unattributed)
Jan Dlugoz
Codex Comanicus(unattributed)
The Primary Chronicle of Novgorod(unattributed)
Matthew Paris
The secret history of the mongols(unattributed – not complete edition)
Marco Polo’s Il Millione
Historians, modern(various publications).
Erik Christensen, Dennis Sinor, A.P. Martinez, Erik Hildinger, Reuven Amitai-Preiss, David Nicolle, R.A. Rasovski, John Chambers, A.N. Kirpichnikov, Amin Malouf
Some net searches
) from the start. A variable Mongol empire is only natural. 
