Would the Mongols have conquered western Europe?

If mongolians did conquered Western Europe, we will be in the stone age right now. And i will be banging two stones against each another right now

Chances are the Mongols would simply go around the castles and overrun the surrounding countryside. Once the nation was conquered they could turn their attention on the aristos, either by besieging them and starving them out or storming the castle.

The Mongols learned from their earlier mistakes. When facing heavy knights Mongols would stay on the move to keep one step ahead then ambush them unexpectedly, using their speed, range and numbers to counter the knights' armor.

sturm said:

If mongolians did conquered Western Europe, we will be in the stone age right now. And i will be banging two stones against each another right now

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Nah; we'd all just be illiterate

France and the HRE depended heavily on their knights; hence yes they'd be defeated in battle. There is just no way a heavily armed knight would be able to take down horse archers,.

That would work if the number of fortifications were limited as they were in eastern europe at the time of the innitial invasion. However as we have seen from hungary when extensve fortifications were built and more heavy knights were employed the mongols were easily defeated.

At the time of the innitial success of the mongols in eastern europe the Holy Roman Empire and France was awash with castles and other fortifications, also they had much better armoured knights and other soliders.

My bet is the mongols would advance avoiding the major fortifications but would suffer from attacks in the form of abushes or also being surprised attcked by knights as they lay siege to castles or towns. A mongol force would be very vunerable while encamped outside a town for being attacked by an army of heavy knights.

You must also remember that King Louis ix of france was quite a capable leader who would probabaly send a massive army into the holy roman empire to help fight the mongols. This in combination with the many castles of Germany and the high amount of heavy knights would surely cause the Mongol invaders serious problems.

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Castles in Europe? The Mongolians toppled the largest fortifications in China and in Central Asia/Arabia. They had the biggest siege weapons in the world.

It's quite simple. The Mongolians would, at first, never directly attack the castles; instead they'd raid the countryside, kill all the men, and let the women, elderly, and the children to go into castles. All the castles will soon be overpopulated and hence supplies would be in more demand. Than they'd began bombarding the castles with corpses ridden with diseases (like Russia) and due to the overpopulation of these castles, the dieseas will spread like it did during the Black Plague; and ultimately the castles would fall.
Even if the HRE managed to repel the Mongolians, they would look at civil casualties comparable to Germany's losses during the Thirty Years' War (33% of the entire population)

Jebusrocks said:

It's quite simple. The Mongolians would, at first, never directly attack the castles; instead they'd raid the countryside, kill all the men, and let the women, elderly, and the children to go into castles. All the castles will soon be overpopulated and hence supplies would be in more demand. Than they'd began bombarding the castles with corpses ridden with diseases (like Russia) and due to the overpopulation of these castles, the dieseas will spread like it did during the Black Plague; and ultimately the castles would fall.
Even if the HRE managed to repel the Mongolians, they would look at civil casualties comparable to Germany's losses during the Thirty Years' War (33% of the entire population)

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Yeah, Mongol usually did this tactic when they couldn't pass the wall of good castle.

Or, they capture the citizens of the elder, young, and woman, and take advantage of the captives charging against the wall, which the castle mostly could not respond effectively because those soldiers in the castles are killing their father, mother and grandparents or sons or daughters.

Mongol is exploiting this tactic and when castle is not strenously resisting, they swiftly use their own soldiers to cross the wall and break the door, and the game over.

Sometimes, when this tactic is not even working well, they pretended withdrawing its forces and going back to its base, but it was only traps that attract enemy into field, in which case probably no European forces can not resist.

And if this does not even work well, they just ravage all things in that country and just withdraw from the country, in which case the country win the war, but nothing remaining well cause social problems.

Celticguy said:

"If mongolians did conquered Western EuropeThat would work if the number of fortifications were limited as they were in eastern europe at the time of the innitial invasion. However as we have seen from hungary when extensve fortifications were built and more heavy knights were employed the mongols were easily defeated.

At the time of the innitial success of the mongols in eastern europe the Holy Roman Empire and France was awash with castles and other fortifications, also they had much better armoured knights and other soliders.

My bet is the mongols would advance avoiding the major fortifications but would suffer from attacks in the form of abushes or also being surprised attcked by knights as they lay siege to castles or towns. A mongol force would be very vunerable while encamped outside a town for being attacked by an army of heavy knights.

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Well, usually heavy armored knight was not really effective forces against light armored knight(=mongols).
Mongol easily defeated heavy armored knight.
In military, the knight is only effective when it has high mobility. But since they are wearing too much weight, their mobility could not be advantage for them when they are fighting light armored knight, who could deploy high mobility.

By mobility, they can crush enemy from flank side in effective speed.
And even the heavy knight has good armored, the armor can not protect them from sword in close distance.

It is more like T-34 of Soviet versus King Tiger of Germany tanks in the WW2, where T-34 absolutely won over Germany. T-34 was very weak armor but had very fast speed, wherease Tiger had the best artillery and the best armor.

T-34 could not directly destory Tiger in the front side due to Tiger's heavy armor in front side, but T-34 moves into flank side and fires the artillery, and then destroy Tiger so easily from peripheral parts of Tiger tanks, during which the Germans failed to defend its flank side effectively due to slow speed.

Most of tank to tank battle in the WW2 between Soviet and Germany were always that Soviet swiftly penetrated Germans from flank side and Germans had no idea where T-34 is coming from.

Mongols usually deployed this mobility tactic.
Han Chinese was always using "heavy armored knight in Asia," but they soon figured out "heavy armored knight," was nothing but costing budget and slow pigs in the battlefield against nomadic people, who were ascendents of Mongolia.

Mongolians didnt care for education, or books, history etc.
How many library did they burn, how many books did they destroyed? How many monuments did they sack, looted, or burned?
Thats why i said they would have get us bad in the stone age

From what I know the Mongols even if they can conquer West Europe, I still dont think they would have. Simple conquering West Europe is not profitable for the Mongols when u compare WE stand of civilization and riches (knowledge and resources) at that time to the more advanced Middle East or the the 3 Kingdoms of China. The terrain would cause them a little headache too. Actually WE didnt have to pay the blood price like Middle East and China when they profited from Mongolian achievements

Divus, Mongolians mostly destroyed the Great Seljuq Empire, which was more civilized then the Ottoman empire, which caused great problems to eastern countrys, by holding there development for ages to come.. even today countrys in east Europe cant be like the westerns because of the ottomans, who destroyed churches, executed aristocracy and intelligent people, who mass murdered people, by burning citys and killing milions and milions of people.

If there is any turk in the forum im sure that he would agree that the Seljuqs are far more civilised then the Ottomans.
And mongolians, okay scare tactic i understand that, but by burning librarys your destorying history, education, information etc.
Life maybe was good for the mongolians but not for the conqured nations.

sturm said:

Divus, Mongolians mostly destroyed the Great Seljuq Empire, which was more civilized then the Ottoman empire, which caused great problems to eastern countrys, by holding there development for ages to come.. even today countrys in east Europe cant be like the westerns because of the ottomans, who destroyed churches, executed aristocracy and intelligent people, who mass murdered people, by burning citys and killing milions and milions of people.

If there is any turk in the forum im sure that he would agree that the Seljuqs are far more civilised then the Ottomans.
And mongolians, okay scare tactic i understand that, but by burning librarys your destorying history, education, information etc.
Life maybe was good for the mongolians but not for the conqured nations.

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You obviously have the wrong idea about the Mongolians. Yes the Mongolians would destroy the history of various regions; however they encouraged education and learning. In fact, it was during the time of the Mongolians that the world flourished under a new age, Freedom of Religion, Education, etc. etc. and the security given to virtually anyone in the Empire. Yes initially, for the first few decades of conquest, things might not look so well; but afterwards, most countries like the Yuan, Illkhanate, and the Golden Horde thrived

Well, in the innitial invasion in 1241 they spent almost a full year without gaining access to over 80 fortified positions ( castles, walled towns, monastries).

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Not quite true; the Mongolians advanced all the way into Krakow and took town at least half a dozen castles in the process; all in less than half a year. The campaigns left Hungary with devastating civilian casualties; at least forty percent of the total population.

From this my case of the Western European with their huge amount of castles, manpower, heavy knights would surely have caused the Mongols serious trouble. My opinion is that they would have defeated the Mongols if they could adapt to the Mongols tactics in time and implement an effective strategy.

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Ur comparing the population of Western Europe to the Mongolian empires? The castles? In northern China alone the population was a hundred million; all subjects to the Mongolian empire. The population of France even in the Fifteenth century numbered less than twenty million.
How would the heavy knights cause the Mongolians any trouble? The Mongolians excelled at heavy infantry/heavy cavalry armies; just look at the Jerchens and the Khawzis! How r u gonna implement Mongolian tactics with heavy knights? The Mongolian lancers would merely pierce every knight coming their way, IF they survived the trek across anyhow! The fact and matter is this. Prior to the English invasion of France, the French and Germans heavily depended on their infantry and heavy cavalry to win battles; Their ideals for chivalry destroyed any type of mass conscription that would be of any use. To add to this, none of these countries used range weapons other than the merc. crossbows (whom, though great, will never match Chinese crossbows); leaving all European armies in silver platter to a full-scale Mongolian invasion. In Northern China, there were at least several hundred fortifications spread throughout the region; and what is more, the entire steppe was blocked off by the Great Wall of China!

Let me also add that the Mongols also conducted attacks against the Lituanians which were repelled in 1259, 1275 and 1277.

As I said before, when the Mongols returned to Hungary in 1286 they were defeated. It was the Hungarians who learned from their previous mistakes and not the Mongols. The reason for the Hungarian victory is that they built hundreds more fortifications which frustrated the Mongol advance and employed more heavy knights, which used in an ambush situation agains the mongols were very effective in cutting down cavelry archers.

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Correction... Mongols RAIDED Lithuania. Also.. after Ogodei's death, no one ever bothered even sending a real force to Europe. It should also be noted that the Mongolians never actually sent a full-scale invasion to Europe. The largest invasion included only two generals. At the same time, the Mongolians were sending expeditions in the hundreds of thousands to other locations. After Subudei had to return and failed to bring in any loot, the Mongols dismissed the idea of another massive expedition immediately.
Also, later invasions of Hungary were conducted by a faction within the Mongolian Empire, and not the Mongolian Empire itself.

Also in Spain 1212 the christians won the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and had quite a battle hardened and well equipped army. If a Spanish and French army was raised to come to the help of the HRM, I have no doubt that the mongols would have been defeated.

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Mongolian soldiers fought from an early age and basically lived riding a horse. A full Mongolian invasion would include at least four hundred thousand MONGOLIAN soldiers, plus, if they really wanted, two million from China, several tens of thousands from Burma, Korea, Central Asia, and Arabia. In fact, it is believed that, if needed, the Mongolians could have amassed a veteran army of nearly six million men (if you included levies, it would have been more than twenty million), of which 400 000 Mongolians would partake the battle with a large amount of Chinese professional soldiers and so on. It would include one million cavalry, three million infantry from China alone (land based soldiers to be exact, so including ranged armies) and many more... These would be veteran soldiers led by decent generals from across Mongolia and even China.