the world, before whom the strongest States tottered. With an energetic
Khan at their head, who organised them on military lines, such a horde
transformed itself into an incomparable army, compelled by the instinct
of self-preservation to hold fast together in the midst of the hostile
population which they subjugated; for however superfluous a central
government may be in the steppe, it is of vital importance to
a Conquering nomad horde outside it. Consequently, while that part
of the people which remained in the steppe was split up into loose
clan associations, the other part, which emigrated, possessed itself of
immense territories, exterminated the greater part of entire nations
and enslaved the rest, scattered them as far as they pleased, and
founded a despotically governed State with a ridiculously small band
of horsemen.
The high figures in the chronicles are fictions exaggerated by terror and imagination, seeing that large troops of horsemen, who recklessly destroyed everything around them, would not have found in a narrow space even the necessary pasture for their many horses. Each Mongol under Chinghiz Khan, for example, was obliged to take with him 18 horses and mares,[1] so as always to have a fresh steed and sufficient mare’s milk and horse’s blood for food and drink. Two corps under the command of Sabutai and Chebe sufficed this great conqueror for the overthrow of West Asia.[2] In four years they devastated and in great part depopulated Khorasan, North Persia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia, Armenia, Caucasia, the Crimea, and the Volga territories, took hundreds of towns, and utterly defeated in bloody engagements the large armies of the Georgians, Lesghians, Circassians, and Cumans, and the united forces of the Russian princes. But they spared themselves as much as possible, by driving those of the subjugated people who were capable of bearing arms into the fight before them (as the Huns and Avars did previously), and cutting them down at once when they hesitated.
But what the Altaian armies lacked in numbers was made up for by their skill in surprises, their fury, their cunning, mobility, and elusiveness, and the panic which preceded them and froze the blood of all peoples. On their marvellously fleet horses they could traverse immense distances, and their scouts provided them with accurate local information as to the remotest lands and their weakness. Add to this the enormous advantage that among them even the most insignificant news spread like wildfire from avl to avl by means of voluntary couriers surpassing any intelligence department, however well organised. The tactics of the Mongols are described by Marco Polo in agreement with Plano Carpini and all the other writers as follows: ‘"They never let themselves come to close quarters, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into the enemy. And as they do not count it any shame to run away in
