The Handy Military History Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

Yes. If they could take down the Russians, Poles, and Hungarians in such short order, the Mongols could surely have defeated the German, French, and English knights. Sections of Spain and Italy—shielded by mountain ranges—might have held out, but the broad heartland of Northern Europe would have been conquered.

      Did any people really call themselves the Assassins?

      No. Their name for themselves was in Arabic, and it referred to their status as dissenters from the mainstream of Islam. Over time, however, they became known as the Assassins to millions of other people.

      The Assassins were major users of the drug hashish, which is where their nickname derived. By 1250, they were a major force in the Middle East. Ruling from a series of mountain castles in Syria and Iraq, they sent out small bands of highly skilled men who did, indeed, carry out assassinations. The reason the Mongols wanted to subdue them was for the prestige of eliminating such a powerful force.

      A 1307 manuscript by the author Rashid ad-Din shows a Middle Eastern city under siege by the Mongols.

      Who carried out the Mongol campaign against the Assassins?

      Hulegu was a brother of Mongke Khan. In 1253, he began a very slow march to the west, arriving in the Middle East two years later. Hulegu pointedly avoided Baghdad because he wanted to take down the Assassins first. Several sieges ensued, with both sides using all sorts of creative weaponry. The Assassins employed trebuchets and flaming arrows; the Mongols promptly seized the trebuchets and used them in return. All the castles were taken and the Grand Master of the Assassins killed.

      Hulegu then turned his attention on Baghdad. The caliph of that city resented the Mongol belief—often expressed—that they were the instruments of God. Baghdad held out for weeks, and when the Mongols entered, they carried out a truly hideous sack. Not only was the caliph killed—the Mongols placed him in blankets and shook him to death—but many thousands of people, civilians and combatants alike. During the entire Mongol rule, no city suffered a worse fate than Baghdad.

      Could anyone defeat the Mongols?

      Not when they were at their best. As long as they had faith in their leader and plenty of hay for their ponies, the Mongols were generally unbeatable. The Middle East did not provide a lot of fodder for the ponies, however, and in 1260 the Mongols received their first check (to call it a defeat would be going too far).

       Did these Franciscan friars travel as great a distance as Marco Polo?

      Father John del Carpine and Friar William of Rubruck arrived almost a half century before Marco Polo, and if the Mongols controlled all of China at that time, their travels would have been just as extensive. At the time, however, it was sufficient to reach the tent city of Karakorum. There, Friar William of Rubruck found a Parisian goldsmith who had been captured during the Mongol attack on Hungary and who was now in the service of Mongke Khan.

      While at Karakorum, the Franciscan friars observed enormous military preparations. They rightly suspected that these were directed at the Muslim-controlled Middle East but did not know that the first place selected for destruction was the Kingdom of the Assassins, in present-day Syria and Iraq.

      Moving south from Aleppo, which they captured, the Mongols passed by Jerusalem on their way to the Sinai Desert. Just before entering the Sinai, they met an army of Mamelukes, sent from Cairo.

      Was there much difference between a Mameluke and a Mongol?

      Ethnically, there was not very much. The Mamelukes had been in the Middle East for well over a century, however, and they had adopted many of the Western approaches to fighting. They were composed of a mixture of cavalry and infantry, and they were regarded as “slaves” of their sultan, to whom they had tremendous loyalty. In this, they were rather similar to the Mongols.

      The Battle of Ain Jalut was a small thing when compared to many others. Roughly 20,000 men on each side jostled for a few days, each side attempting to get the upper hand through maneuver. When there were direct, head-on confrontations, the Mamelukes gave as good as they got. This, in itself, was rather astonishing, and the Mongols withdrew. The situation in 1260 was similar to that of 1242: in both cases, the Mongol leaders were preoccupied with concerns about who would rule at home—in Mongolia—as well as who would triumph in battle.

THE MONGOLS IN CHINA

      Who emerged triumphant in the struggle for the succession?

      Mongke Khan died in 1258, at about the time Baghdad was sacked by his brother Hulegu. Mongke’s death set off a succession crisis that lasted for nearly five years. The youngest son in the family, Kublai, had the best claim to the throne, but many Mongols suspected he was not tough—or battle-ready—enough to fill the shoes of Mongke, Kuyuk, and Ogedai (no one ever compared any of these leaders to Genghis, who was rightly perceived as the founding father of them all).

      Kublai proved better at warfare than anyone expected, however. He defeated his brother Ariq Boge several times, and by 1265 he was the undisputed leader of the Mongols. His uncle, Batu, had now died, and leadership of the Golden Horde—in southern Russia—was nominally in Kublai’s name. Kublai, however, made a clear decision to concentrate on the eastern end of the Mongol Empire. The heartland already belonged to the Mongols; neither the Europeans nor the Muslims posed any threat; and Kublai, therefore, decided to bring down the Song Dynasty in southern China. This proved much tougher than anyone expected.

      Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis, was the founder of the Yuan Dynasty and ruled over much of present-day China, Korea, and Mongolia.

      What was different about the Song Dynasty?

      Genghis had, of course, defeated the Xi Xia and the Chin empires, but neither of these was the real heartland of China. Ethnic differences between these two northern peoples and the Song Dynasty led to an abundance of confidence on the part of the latter. Perhaps the northern Chinese had succumbed to the Mongols: the Southerners never would.

      The people of the Song Empire resisted as stoutly as their rulers. The cities of southern China were far larger than anything the Mongols had ever encountered, and all manner of techniques and tricks were employed by both sides. As a result, the slaughter of the innocents increased in scale as well, and Kublai’s long, ten-year campaign to subdue the Song was filled with atrocities. Not until 1275 was the conquest complete.

      Was Kublai the first member of his family to be Chinese?

      He was, of course, ethnically as Mongolian as they come. But Kublai recognized, soon after the conquest of the Song, that the Chinese would never remain under the leadership of a monarch they perceived as foreign. He therefore became, in appearance, almost as Chinese as the Chinese themselves. This attempt at assimilation worked quite well for Kublai and his Chinese subjects; the Mongols, however, were displeased that their ruler—the grandson of Genghis—became a rather sedentary monarch, living in the cities of northern China during much of the calendar year.

      Who provides us with our best “look” at Kublai?

      This person is none other than Marco Polo (1252–1306), one of the best-known names from all of history. Though it has become fashionable to dismiss aspects of Marco Polo’s writing—and there is no doubt that he exaggerated—it is foolish to throw away the good parts. He spent a number of years in China and met Kublai many times.

      “The personal appearance of the Great Khan, Lord of Lords,” Marco Polo wrote, “is such as I shall now tell you. He is of a good stature, neither tall nor short, but of a middle height. He has a becoming amount of flesh and is very shapely in all his limbs. His complexion is white and red, the eyes black and fine, the nose well formed and well set on.” Kublai was in middle age when he first met Marco Polo: the Khan later became corpulent. But he was, when Marco Polo arrived in northern China, the greatest king or lord that the world had ever known.