What Made The Mongol Horse Archer So Effective? | Warrior's Way | Battlefields Of History

[Music] I hate War as only a soldier who has lived it can only as one who has seen its brutality its futility its stupidity so said Dwight D Eisenhower supreme commander of the Allied Forces at D-Day most of us would [Music] agree and yet despite its Carnage and sens destruction we can see bravery toughness and tenacity the kind that also speaks to the best in [Music] humanity in this series we pay tribute to Warriors men and sometimes women whose stories speak to us down the centuries whether fighting the good fight or defending a lost [Music] cause they followed the warriors's way [Music] is the Mongol warriors were as feared as any soldiers have ever been the Mongols on the attack showed no [Applause] [Music] mercy what must it have been like to fight alongside these tribesmen from the great step to have been part of one of the greatest armies in history the Mongol horde canish for that is his name is one such Warrior a Mongol Cavalry man canish has had a tough childhood even by Mongol standards the name canish actually means not human and was once a popular Mongol name since it was believed that it would protect the child from evil spirits kubish is an orphan whose childhood is spent among distant relatives it's a tough start in tough times in some respects his backstory is like that of the greatest of all Mongol Warriors jangus Khan who lived around 180 years before the time of kubish unlike the great Khan kubish is not destined for Glory and fame but he is still a moving part of the massive yet intricate Mongol War [Music] Machine well the Mongols were the most ruthless people that probably ever existed I think as a warrior class as Warriors they had the least value of human life there was no regard for anybody who live you know if you if you gave up any resistance to the Mongols you died and they had no care about that sometimes if they went into a town and decided that they needed to move on they would ransoming Artisans out so if you could bake bread or you could or you could make something you're in pretty good shape if you weren't they just that was it you were [Music] dead Jenis Khan's Cry of feed the horses might sound innocent enough but those very words feed the horses were the Mongol Army signal to slaughter rape and pillage a civilian population in those days there was almost no such thing as a male civilian population in Mongolia virtually every Mongol man was either a soldier or supported the military in some [Music] capacity being a warrior was a way of life and a highly disciplined one in the 12th and 13th centuries the great cons of the Mongol Empire carved out the largest Empire the world has ever seen and maybe ever will see and Mongol Cavalry were the Vanguard for the armies of that Empire striking Terror into the hearts of their enemies for over 150 years their brutality was legendary but when you dig deeper into Mongol history you realize they were of course remarkably more subtle and complex the Mongols succeeded because of their discipline their speed and their discipline and the uh the awe in which they were held they fought in small group groups of very mobile Cavalry it was certainly professional Army the name hord is from the Mongolian word u which in fact means the camp I think that's probably where this idea of The Horde came from but no they were extremely disciplined force and again they may have appeared to be one huge horde one Mass but in fact they were working in small sometimes independent groups which could come together when the occasion demanded renowned for their ferocity Mongol Cavalry attacked with lightning speed and devastating Effectiveness with the bow and arrow pure Warriors who fought during winter unlike those lazy Europeans they were the fighting force that spearheaded conquest of the largest ever Empire by land mass in world history the Europeans called them Devils when they were first confronted with them in the 13th century of course European armies were no strangers to savagery themselves but none were more violent than the Mongols who massacred millions in their frenzy of conquest and looking at military societies throughout history and how good some were some are there because they simply expand like the Roman they simply expand they take over and that's that the Ottomans did the same thing the Mongols they ruled in fear they would sweep in they'd sweep through a place they took everything wasn't um tied down nailed down they burned everything else they killed everybody else and they left and there was often a time when nobody would rule in that place would come into that area even though the Mongols had left because they were scared to death that they were on the Mongol Frontier and that they would [Music] return there is no doubt that to ride with a Mongol horse Soldier kubish would have to be a trained killer willing even to commit what today would be considered war crimes but let's not forget these were warlike [Music] days we are speaking about Middle Ages this was the age of brutality from our point of view especially for example when we are mentioning that Mongols were able to destroy the whole cities and kill everybody uh if the city did not give up uh before the battle this was something usual this was something that was somehow natural even for the European Warriors [Music] they deliberately encouraged this reputation they encouraged this why because it was a method of being cruel to be kind people were so in awe of them and so frighting that they in fact often surrendered without a fight the Mongols were Past Masters at psychological warfare as well as physical iCal Warfare one story about Mongol brutality which persists is of the pyramids of decapitated enemy skulls the Mongols were said to have built the story about the pyramids the towers of skulls is a true story but in fact it applies to Tain Tain is often Associated or often connected with the Mongols but strictly speaking he was from a different era and from a different armies he rose to power after the fall of the chingas heads after the Empire basically fell and his aim was to recreate the Emperor of chingas Khan and he was known for his ferocity for his cruelty uh and for these pyramids of skulls um said on fairly good authority to have stacked 55,000 skulls uh in a heap after he invaded India brought back some 55,000 carts of gems and jewels and gold and all sorts of things but in doing so he killed masses of number of people tamaran captured the ottoman Sultan bead the first and used to cart him around beaz had finally beat his skull um until his brains poured out and he died of suicide which would have been for an ottoman sulan the greatest of humiliations U and tamarlane seemed not to have bothered at all just buried him a long way that was it the Mongol hordes maintained their reputation for savagery and brutality for over 250 years but what was it about these mounted marksmen that made them such effective Warriors how was a relatively small army of Cavalry and foot soldiers from the steps of Eurasia able to conquer most of the Known World the key to the Mongols success in battle and in building their vast Empire was their unique relationship with the animal at the heart of their culture and way of life the horse their Chief means of doing so was the horse and actually not even a horse we probably call it a pony they were rather small and uh the Mongols developed a society around them especially a military society around them every Warrior had at least three or four that that he strung along with him uh he would change mounts if one needed uh he would eat um the horse when it tired and died he would drink the Mar's milk when he was thirsty and uh he would use the saddle to cook his food uh place the uh raw meat in between the horse and the saddle and uh probably wasn't the most tasty of uh of delights but seemed to exist that way and so the society changed the military Society changed the world it saids that children children could ride a horse before they could uh before they could walk we don't know if that's literally true but it could it could it could well be so I think this is uh this combined with their discipline is why they were so effective well again I mean they're famous for their small very powerful bows which they could famously fire behind them they could turn in the saddle and fire behind them and this is again is an art they would have learned from from very young there has likely been no No Rider of horses in the world that surpasses a Mongol Warrior at his height the Mongols had small ponies they knew how to pasture them they knew how to bird them they knew how to feed them on March they knew how what they needed to eat they knew how much water they needed they knew how to use every facet of the horse if it was living and they knew every facet of the horse of it had died they understood there was the Romans their precursors to the Hunts they saw them as men and horse together not as separate individuals and I think the Mongols have that similar idea later on we can talk about knights in their horses we can talk about anybody in their horses and they do not match like a mongle and his host horse does he could live on that horse he could sleep on that horse he could shoot arrows off the back of that horse he could conduct Cavalry raids off that horse and he also knew when to Simply get off and pasture and sleep next to [Music] it Mongol horses were tough durable and fast every Mongol cavalrymen had four or even more horses switching from one to another during a campaign which meant no one horse was ridden until exhausted this meant the Mongol Army could move much faster than any other fighting force of the time often covering 60 to 100 Mil in a day the Mongol way was that of the warrior but it was also the way of The Nomad the nomads usually tend to have a particular uh style of War of course they were using their horses which means that they were mounted Warriors they were able to move from place to place with a high speed they were using bows or spars which means that they were able to surprise their enemies they could fight they could pretend that they escaping the battle but on the other way they were able to turn around very swiftly and surprise the enemy with a Sudden Impact even uh after a very long period of escape the camps the or were more like mobile cities Jaan the Persian historian he's known for his Pros he he wrote a history of Jenis Khan uh he was eyewitness now the point about Javan is this he earned he learned his arrogance he learned his sophistication in Mongol dos in camps he was brought up in a Mongol Camp why is this so is that uh in the camps um representatives from all the leading families were there they were the sons and the daughters they were they were hostages effectively but comfortable hostages [Applause] he history and peoples are always more complicated than the stereotypes travel to Mongolia today and leaving the modern and developed Capital ulam Batar [Music] behind you'll discover that many rural Mongolian still lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles in the grasslands families living together in large circular tents the famed y just as they have for centuries they are constantly on the move with their herds in search of fresh grazing grounds the Mongolians who thrive in this harsh yet picturesque landscape would not trade it for all the riches of modern civilization perhaps you need to sit around a campfire on the great step sipping Mongolian milk vodka under a blanket of stars to truly understand today the Mongolian's deadliest enemy may be the fast encroaching modern world but this is how it's been for almost a millennia kubish understood it and he is from 800 plus years ago some people are born loners and he is one of them then again he is never quite alone own There is almost always one of his horses for company what puts the Mongol on top of the warlike societies is probably that they were from the birth to the old age organized as an army uh even in the simple and uh usual aspects of their life uh they were really taught to fight since they were kids kubish would have been trained from Boyhood to fight ride and shoot shooting arrows from horseback is the defining characteristic of a Mongol Warrior but what weapons were used in close quarter combat the Mongols were great horse archers that's the what that's what made them uh all step archers were really good horse archers the Mongols seem to have been able to to twist in their saddle and to shoot their arrows off the rear of the horse thus not having the head of the horse ever distract them this made them greatly accurate it also endeavored them to to continue to to shoot arrows while the horse is is riding that gave the Mongols an advantage over anybody who who was stayed in one position or could not chase them and do the same the nomadic bow was an interesting weapon it was much shorter than the European long bow obviously it was necessary for the bow to be shorter uh in order to be used as a mounted weapon Nomads were able to fight even behind their back because they were able to stand in their settles and they were able to shoot behind them which was key for for example the pretended escapes Mongol armies included heavy Cavalry units which like their European counterparts carried lances and wore metallic armor and swords and daggers for close quarter combat but the mounted Bowman we think of as Mongol Cavalry wore light armor very light in some instances Jing said they used to wear silk undergarments and this is because if you uh a shot with an arrow the silk will not stop it exactly but it will absorb it um and then uh the point of the arrow doesn't actually cut through the silk so it's easy to pull the arrow out using the silk and you pull the silk out that would pull most of the arrow out as well it will um it will limit the Damage Done [Music] they wore the silk um and they wore it well as defense of armament even if it could not compete with greatest of uh iron armors that were in the world it still had a wonderful ability to stop an arrow before penetrating and dirting a wound enough for infection to set in we've got interesting stories about Mongols living for a very long time being wounded with things that should have killed them otherwise and the think one of the conclusions that the historians to come by is that the silk is part particularly strong but also particularly uh hygienic as a way of both honing their fighting skills and Gathering meat for a huge feast the Mongols held an annual great winter hunt during which thousands of Horsemen gathered any Warrior who failed to kill an animal could expect to hang his head in shame canish is quietly confident as he goes on his first nurge during the hunt they were using certain military tactics and they were learning to fight by that way they should circle around the animals and if any Warrior would uh let any animal uh Escape it would means that he will be severely punished by this way they were trained for the battles the great winter hunt or nurge was a cruel business but kubish is proud to have taken part in it the nurge which again all Mongols participated in they would form um a circle this could be hundreds of kilometers in diameter the idea was to capture all livestock all animals within that Circle they would do this by SL slowly constricting the circle this is over hundreds of miles slowly bit by bit they could would constrict the circle and push all animals within it into the center this took intelligence they had to send signals to each other where animals were grouping where they were so a lot of skills were learned um and again this would go on for days on end pushing these animals to the center and it said by the time they the circle narrowed to a small area the animals were going absolutely wild crazy but they were not allowed to let them die uh only when the commander called a hul to the nurge would the captain or the highest ranking person be allowed to kill an animal and then they would uh then there would be a blood thirsty feast and the animals of course would be saved for the uh for the winter one Noble tradition that has survived down the generations is the eagle hunt the bond between Mongol Hunter and Eagle remains as strong today as ever it is nice to see that some things don't change 900 years ago the Mongols were a warlike race whose main preoccupations were hunting survival and fighting each other the Mongolian step had no real borders and the Mongols respected none anyway they believed it was their Destiny to conquer the world but if they were ever going to conquer the world they would need a [Music] leader cometh the hour cometh the man as the saying goes jangus also pronounced chingis Jenis or jingis original name tumin was and is one of the most famous conquerors in all history born in 1162 all sorts of Legends grew up around jangus Khan such as the tale that he was born with a blood clot in his little hand a sign of things to come like canish jangus Khan had a difficult childhood he was born the son of a yaka Mongol Chief however when he was 10 his father was poisoned and his mother kidnapped jangus became Chief but the tribe abandoned him and for a while he was forced to survive on his wits digging roots for food and stealing sheep before he was able to return to his tribe to prove himself worthy to lead it what of think secret history M almost tells us that Genghis had a hard life as a child genus's KH mom is abducted then he had problems with his brothers well uncle's always had problems with his brothers in fact gas's own Sons had problems and grandsons were had problems with each other his family was Dishonored and been exiled from the uh from the tribe that seems to be the case as well that could have happened I suppose to other people but the fact that all of these things together happen to gangus and he yet he rises above them all gives him an origin story that's not unlike those that even today tug at our heartstrings it must have tugged at the heartstrings of many people who he encountered and thought well can I trust this guy should I follow him well look at how he's done look at what he's raised himself to be jangus Khan's first historic feat was to unite the Waring tribes on the great step into unified Mongolia before 12:6 the various tribes the Mongols tartars nean kites all of these various tur Mongol tribes spent their their lives fighting each other jingis Khan United them he dissolved this uh tribal system and amazingly successful he abolished the tribes and that's why they all became Mongols he divided the various units into units of 10 10 men were under the command of a leader of 10 those leaders of 10 were under the command of a leader of 100 those leaders of 100 were under the command of a leader of a thousand up to the leaders of 10,000 these were the elites these were the chosen handpicked by jingis Khan himself um who whose loyalty was beyond question these leaders are [Music] 10,000 once that insanely difficult task had been accomplished Jenis then set about extending his empire into Persia and China and oversaw the Mongols first Victorious encounter with the Russians Khan was a military genius to rival Alexander the Great or [Music] [Applause] Napoleon Jenis Khan's military genius could quickly adapt itself to changing conditions a good example when he set out on his trail of conquests practically all his troops were Cavalry this was fine when it came to defeating other armies of Nomads such as rival Mongolian tribes but as they pushed into China they began to encounter the problem of having to lay Siege and penetrate cities Jenis Khan captured some enemy engineers and offered them a choice between a slow and painful death or serving in the great Khan's Army so when they moved into China the they had very little experience of uh of Siege Warfare but they learned why because they Incorporated other armies other peoples it wasn't long before the Mongols were able to lay Siege to large cities using trebuchet Siege Towers catapults burning oil and all the machinery and techniques of Siege Warfare in this way they were able to capture zangu or as we better know the city today Beijing later the Jinn Emperor Aon committed suicide there rather than be taken by jangus Khan virtually the whole world was seeing the consequences of trifling with the Mongol horde ultimately jangus Khan came to rule an Empire which extended from Northeast China to the Caspian Sea in total an astounding 28 million square km but all things must pass not long after being thrown from his horse Jenis Khan died in 1227 from internal bleeding even without jangus the Mongols were able to continue his Warrior tradition they were smart enough to know they didn't know everything they had no hesitation copying from the Persian or the Chinese Art of War it was the Chinese who introduced them to gunpowder historians have for long time resisted giving the nomadic peoples the credit for using and diffusing gunpowder but it seems to be our only conduit between the East and the West as the Mongols historians have now gone back through and especially looking at those camp campaigns in the early 13th century recognizing that the Mongols did use gunpowder weapon they used it as a very crude bombs um they used it as flamethrowers uh they would attach it and um crude bombs not very efficient bombs they would try to for example put it under these bombs underneath walls and blow them up but again they weren't that efficient but certainly gunpowder started to be used and the Mongols started to use it with gunpowder the Mongol Army became even more fearsome adversaries Brutal by all means yes but they were also clever tacticians skilled Cavalry men riding Swift horses the Mongols were capable of all sorts of quick Nimble Maneuvers that would catch their foes off guard the Mongols repertoire of Maneuvers included ambushes hid and run and wave attacks then there was the so-called feigned retreat in which the Mongols would fake defeat and flee the enemy would follow and be led into an ambush one of the most famous um techniques was the Fain Retreats and this worked again and again even though they became famous for it they would often uh pretend to uh to give up he wouldn't surrender they would just turn and flee and without fail this one the armies would Chase they would call them cowards and of course this was a this was a technique they would simply move the battle to a more a different location more advantageous to to to to them and then they would suddenly turn and Ambush the puruan Army naturally these kind of hairpin turns as part of battle strategy were based on reliable sources of information and it is the mission in life for canish to be part of the Mongols 13th century intelligence Network because the Mongols deployed networks of Scouts and spies men like canish these Messengers were vital before mounting a major attack the Mongols would spend months scouting enemy defenses supply lines and possible Escape Routes it was the practical application of what the Chinese philosopher Suns wrote In The Art of War every battle is won before it's ever [Music] fought Mongols were using uh lot of elements of psychological warfare uh especially they were trying to pretend that their army is much bigger than it really was uh they were for example mounting their slaves or wives or kids or even just taking the uh horses without uh Riders together in order to look much uh numerous they were using using the branches of trees in order to produce enormous clouds of dust this way they could somehow surprise their uh enemies and they could also appear from an unexpected place because of the Dust because of the uh element of surprise and because of the speed of their horses in our story canu has made a messenger and Scout in the Mongol Army which suits his disposition just fine in many ways he has always felt closest to animals the Eagles that he has hunted with since he was a boy the horses that carry him on his way and never complain or make fools of themselves when they drink like some humans he [Music] knows a solitary life is no hardship for canish but but he cannot begin to imagine the importance of the messages he will one day deliver to all corners of the vast Mongol Empire Mongols were using a very sophisticated system of uh Messengers or enoys it was a let's say the key organization of their vast Empire they really need to travel from or to send messages from place to place very swiftly by this they used certain stations where the envoy could change the horse and uh travel with a swiftest speed as it was [Music] possible by this way even hundreds of kilometers could be crossed during one day of course every Envoy had the same military train training as a usual [Music] Warrior long-distance communication in the Mongol Empire was based on Supply or message routes known as the yam a yam was a system of relay stations used by the Mongol Riders to trans transfer messages quickly and effectively the first messenger would travel by horseback to the nearest yam where another messenger already stationed there would take over and travel to the next station while the original Rider recovered from his journey and so on it went I'm a great opinion that communication traveled faster in the premodern world than we want it to have travel we want everything to travel basically the um speed of a horse or basically the speed of a of a ship traveling at normal speeds in fact they had messenger services we know the Mongols had messenger services we know that those messenger services traveled on many horses over many days for many men to carry one message in his life as a messenger and Scout canis travels along the Silk Road trade routes where it was said a maiden with a plate of gold on her head could wander safely from one end to the other the year is 1241 canish is 21 and is a scout and Courier and ogi Khan is the supreme leader of the Mongol horde ogi the young man who jangus Khan chose to be his successor was in many respects his father's son for ogi was not content with ruling over his father's newly conquered lands no OG Khan sought to expand the Empire who knows how far to the limits of the Known World [Music] perhaps where was the end of the world for the Mongols they get all the way to the uh to Russia they get all the way to the Hindu Kush the had all the way to the Iranian Kush the the extent of Asia in their minds is probably been crossed they do make it all the way into Hungary but what promotes them into Hungary is UN Unknown by Christmas 1241 oade and his generals had expanded the Kate by conquering what was left of Northwest China and pushing into Russia the year before they had sacked Kiev in modern-day Ukraine and The Horde was rapidly moving West all of Europe trembled in the face of the Mongols their terrifying reputation the ruthless Mongol Cavalry and their sophisticated Siege tactics when the huge Mongol Army reached Hungary King Bala IV tried to stop them at the Battle of mohi but even the fierce hungarians were no match for the Mongol hordes their European campaign the Mongols met with the Hungarian Army this was particularly interesting uh meeting because uh hungarians originally were Nomads as Mongols so they were using originally the same way of warfare but we are speaking about the 13th century so the Hungarian army during the 13th century was already a common European army with heavy Horsemen uh heavy armor and using a short distance uh fight technique on the other hand the Mongols were using the typical nomadic tactic so they were using the Swift attacks light Cavalry and they were surprising uh their enemies so in a way it was meeting with the uh between the uh European and the nomadic Warfare in the aftermath of the battle of mohi ogad armies Unleashed hell on the hungarians killing an estimated 1 million people whether Noble Knight or peasant they were indiscriminately put to the slaughter by the Mongol Invaders it was one of the bloodiest invasions of a blood soaked period in history Hungary first the rest of Europe next that is how it must have looked December 1241 as the rest of Christian Europe quaked in its boots and then something like a miracle occurred the great OG Khan the bloodthirsty son of jangus Khan had always been a hard Drinker then one night in December of 1241 he drank himself to death aged 65 with the death of ogan the Mongols withdrew from the fringes of Europe they turned their forces back towards karakuram the Mongol capital for the election of a new leader right on the brink of invasion and they suddenly withdrew Hungary aside Europe had been spared the Mongol war machine but exactly why one thing can be certain when you've got nomadic forces or you have forces that rely on charismatic leadership like the Mongols did is when that charismatic leader dies there's a vacuum and that vacuum is going to be filled by somebody we know with the Ottomans for example that when the sultan died the West could breathe easy for a few years while that uh inheritance was settled when a great Khan died uh all the princes had to reconvene in a So-Cal kural tie it's like a great council meeting they had to meet in a kural tie to decide on the next leader so it was Paramount that all the princes return to the center to make this decision if they didn't come they wouldn't partake basically that prevented the possible expansion the conquest into Europe [Music] after their withdrawal from Central Europe in 1242 Mongol armies would return from time to time to slaughter raid and plunder but there would be no large scale Invasion and their withdrawal that year was the beginning of the end of the Mongol Empire hog Khan's fatal drinking binge had saved Western Europe from the Mongol hordes but was that necessarily a good thing or might a generation under Mongol rule have accelerated their development so it's quite possible yes that uh Europe would have fallen but that's not necessarily A Bad Thing remember Iran fell to the Mongols we had the alanet and they first of all they became Iran again they benefited they had a very they they they were able to absorb it remember that the Mongols absorb people interesting enough when they conquered Iran they formed together they form this Multicultural multiethnic State ruling with the with the Persians who knows once the actual invasion was over the Mongols usually turned out to be fairly benevolent [Music] dictators but it isn't the Mongols tolerance and Enlightenment for which they will be remembered or their skills as administrators they'll always be remembered for their cons their conquerors and their ferocious Warriors theirs was truly the Warrior's Way the life of a Mongol Warrior wouldn't have much appeal for most of us today too violent but also too arduous and austere but what lessons can be learned from the Brave and resilient Mongol Warrior what lessons can we learn from the Mongols probably don't let him exist again they were an incredibly ruthless terrible War fighting machine that destroyed everybody in it in its wake no more Mongols well that's one viewpoint but here's another I mean people say when did it end the Mongol Empire didn't end and for example um it came to an end in Iran but uh there was no Mongol didn't go home you know they just faded away and you know they didn't you know nobody ever went home in China the Yuan Dynasty came to an end and yes the actual great KH did return to Mongolia but he went with his uh W with his immediate Army but you know for all the millions of people who made up the Yuan Dynasty they didn't go anywhere they were there in other words it just it was assimilated so I think the greatest mistake that people made about the Mongols they think of them as an entity which sped from the step around the world it didn't it was a movement it was a revolution and it was transforming the whole [Applause] [Music] time and it lasts in one shape or form until [Music] today although we may not not know it we may all have the spirit of the great KH living on within [Music] us in his crammed 64 or so years jangus Khan had several wives and hundreds of concubines to ensure his legacy would last long into the future who knows you may even share some of this great Warrior's DNA geneticists have estimated that around 16 million people alive today are genetic descendants of D jangus Khan was that the Warrior's Way well it was certainly a way of keeping the Khan's Legacy and warlike Spirit Alive long after he had Departed the field of [Music] battle [Music] [Music] [Music]