A review by chalicotherex
The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe by James Chambers

4.0

The Mongols stomped the planet from 1206 to the end of the century, and it effected pretty much everyone. The book follows the campaigns of the Mongols. Everyone knows about their superiority with mounted archers, but they also used Chinese engineers and artillery, which was so advanced that they scared the Europeans to death by advancing under a smoke screen, or firing early rockets at them. They drowned enemies by flooding dykes or by tricking armies into following them onto insufficiently thick ice.

I think the only emotion a medieval person could feel that would be greater than being part of the victorious Mongol army would be the absolute dread of knowing that the horde is bearing down on you. Consider that Kai-Kawus tried to supplicate a khan by giving him socks which bore Kai's face on the bottom, so that the Khan could spend his days trampling on Kai's face. Or the other prince who threatened to wring the Khan's ears, and followed through by giving him gold earrings. Or the fact that the Pope was ordered to visit Karakorum to pay tribute.

It couldn't last forever: like many great empires, it eventually dissolved due to insufficiently strict adherence to the right of primogeniture, while in the long term the growing use of gunpowder eventually rendered the Mongols' tactics obsolete.

A fitting tribute to the strange and beautiful alienness of the Mongols.