The Handy Military History Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

thesis was studied by many people over the next forty years; even Adolf Hitler appears to have been influenced by it. Hitler, however, reduced a complicated, even fascinating, thesis to a short lesson in the geopolitics of his region. To Hitler, it was apparent that he who controlled the Eurasian heartland—roughly defined as the lands between Poland and the Urals—would also control the globe.

      How strong, or weak, did the empires look around the year 600?

      The Western Roman Empire was no more, and the Chinese Han Empire had fallen, only to be replaced by the Tang dynasty. Africa had numerous peoples and kingdoms, but none of them were strong enough to speak to the needs of that continent, much less the Middle East and beyond. About the only viable empire at that moment was the Byzantine, which had been established 300 years earlier.

      The Byzantines—they called themselves “Romans”—were well aware of being the only centripetal force in their world, but they had a great foe in the Parthians, who had replaced the Persians a few centuries earlier. The Byzantines and Parthians fought many battles and wars, with the former finally gaining an ascendancy under the Emperor Heraclius in the 620s. Just as he secured military success in the Middle East, Heraclius received a rather threatening message from the Arabian Peninsula. A man named Mohammed, who claimed to be the Prophet of God, urged Heraclius to abandon Christianity and to serve Allah. What Heraclius thought of this message is unknown, but his subjects and his descendants would wrestle with this force for a very long time.

THE MONGOLS

      Which one person—more than any other—perceived the value of holding the heartland of Asia as the way to dominating the World Island?

      This, beyond doubt, was Genghis Khan. When we speak or write of great military leaders, Genghis is among the top five of anyone’s list, but when we examine what he accomplished with the rather crude means and methods of his time, it is tempting to say that he truly was the greatest military leader in human history and one heck of a strategist as well.

      What was his boyhood like?

      We call him Genghis Khan, meaning “Great Ruler” or “Universal Emperor,” but his birth name was Temujin, and he came from a family of minor nobles within the Mongol tribe. His parents betrothed him to Borte, a girl from a family higher up the social ladder, but both he and she underwent enormous trials before their wedding. Genghis’ father died when the boy was seven, and he had to struggle for many years, seeking the patronage of various tribal leaders. There was a heartrending period in which his mother and younger brothers practically starved, but Genghis survived these trials and took vengeance of all his enemies over time.

      Genghis was, indeed, as cruel and vengeful as he sounds, but he also possessed tremendous talent, both social and military. While he may have lacked charm, he had enormous powers of persuasion, and he had the patience to wait to achieve his objective. By about the year 1195 he turned against his major sponsor, and after defeating him in battle, Genghis became leader of the Kerait subgroup of Mongols. From there, Genghis went from strength to strength, acquiring more peoples and groups as time went on.

      Did Genghis know that he was destined for greatness?

      He was a rather practical person, and when asked that very question, he replied that he knew he had been chosen by “the Sky” (as Mongols referred to the divine) when, as a boy of sixteen, he escaped an ambush by almost fifteen men and ended up killing or capturing them all. From that moment forward, he experienced little to no doubt.

      Numerous victories came in his early forties, and in the summer of 1206—the year that Mongols called “Year of the Leopard”—Genghis was chosen as Great Khan or Great Leader of all the Mongol tribes. This was a heady achievement for anyone, but to Genghis it was but the enormous first step in his quest for world dominance.

       Do we know what Genghis looked like?

      We really don’t. We have as many as a dozen eyewitness reports, but they differ from each other to such a degree that it is difficult to reach a consensus. One of the few things on which most accounts agree is that he was neither tall nor short and that his face was deeply marked, perhaps because of the many deprivations he experienced in youth.

      Was Genghis ever beaten in battle?

      By our Western, standard of military technique, Genghis was beaten on numerous occasions, meaning that he ended up yielding the battlefield to his opponent. To him, a man of the great Eurasian steppe, this meant next to nothing. The enormous sea of grass, as many people call it, was too large for any person or army to occupy; what mattered was winning the final battle and putting one’s enemies to the sword. And at these tasks, Genghis was unparalleled.

      Which enemy, or neighbor, did he turn against first?

      China was, at that time, divided in three sections: the Xi Xia in the northwest, the Chin in the northeast and center, and the Song Empire in the south. Had these three sections been fully unified, there was no way Genghis, or any other power, could ever have defeated them, but the social and political divisions opened the way to Mongol conquest. One should not minimize the difficulties involved, however.

      A statue of Genghis Khan stands by his mausoleum in Ordos, China.

      Genghis had once been an ally of the Xi Xia Empire, but in 1211 he turned on that section of China, and he may have been one of the first of all military leaders to ride through the Great Wall (whether he had to fight his way past a Chinese garrison is not known). The civilians of Xi Xia fought fiercely, and Genghis became progressively more brutal during this conquest. He captured Zanadu—which we today know as Beijing—in 1215.

      Were the Mongol slaughters compressive?

      Noncombatants were usually spared, and Genghis had enough of a hold on his warriors to ensure this, but if a city or fortified place held out too long—in the eyes of the Mongols—then it was subjected to a terrible sack, and everyone’s lives were forfeit. Genghis had an uncanny sense of knowing when to use mercy as a tool and when to withhold it; as a result, many towns and cities capitulated immediately upon his arrival. At the same time, the Mongols increased their knowledge of urban warfare. They learned a great deal from the Chinese about gunpowder explosions and whirling mechanisms that released dozens, even scores, of darts. Whether they gained their knowledge of the counterweighted trebuchet from the Chinese or from the Middle East is difficult to say, but they soon became masters of its use.

      Whom did Genghis turn on after the subjection of the Xi Xia?

      He wanted to take a breather and consolidate his conquests, but the Muslim ruler of Khawramzeen infuriated him unnecessarily. Genghis sent emissaries and merchants to the capital of the Khawaramzeen; on the first occasion they were rebuffed, on their second visit many were killed. Genghis—who could not abide the breaking of an oath or guarantee—therefore prepared for war. Nearly three years passed before he crossed the Gobi Desert, but the size of his force—perhaps 150,000—indicated his resolve.

      Where were the major battles of this campaign?

      The first skirmish was fought in the open, and the Mongols won handily even though they were outnumbered. As a result, the emperor of the Khawramzeen moved well back from the frontier to a fortified city, and from that point on the war was one of sieges. Bukhara fell in 1219 and the glorious city of Samarkand—one of the truly great merchant cities of the ancient world—in 1220. Samarkand’s fall was followed by an enormous slaughter; one Muslim tourist passing by thirty years later counted almost twenty mounds of skulls, clearly packed by the Mongols after the sack.

      Did this campaign have a religious aspect? Was Genghis against the Muslims?

      Not to our knowledge. Genghis seems to have been completely convinced that “the Sky,” as he called his deity, was supreme and that nothing could stand against him. Genghis, therefore, was much more interested in spreading his own glory and increasing his own power, and there were times when he seemed rather like a god—or a