"Why the unstoppable Mongol Empire halted their" Topic

…European conquest

"History remembers Genghis Khan in two distinct ways: a ruthless conqueror and founder of the largest contiguous empire to ever exist. In 1206 Genghis Khan achieved what many other conquerors could not by bringing all the Turco-Altaic peoples of the Mongolian Plateau under his authority. Subduing these people, known as "those who live in felt tents," was only the beginning. The first great khan of the Mongol Empire was a military genius who drove his armies to expand territory, adapt rapidly, and fight with endurance.

Genghis Khan's empire continued to spread across Asia, sweeping away preexisting states. In the east, the Mongols destroyed the kingdoms of the Jurchen and the Tangut in modern-day China, while to the west they crushed the Khitan and the Khorāsānians of Transoxania in Central Asia. The latter had defied the Mongols by providing refuge for traitors and nomads fleeing their forces…"

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Armand

1st Mongol: "Why aren't we going further west?"
2nd Mongol: "See those things over there?"
1st Mongol: "Yeah, they're trees. So what?"
2nd Mongol: "Waaay too many of'em. And nasty people hiding among them. Not a good place for our horses either."
1st Mongol: "Oh, good points…"

;-)

the mongols knew how to use cover and fight they did in many battles, you think the roman legions decided oh good we will conquer the west because we have trees and love fighting in them. They stopped because of the death of the khan and the need to return to appoint a new khan and the division within the empire caused the issue, also the mongols like all empires thrive on wealth and the east was wealthier and closer to there core strength

I did not read the article cited by Tango (I'm cheap), however, I believe that I recall from school that the initial Mongol invasion halted when the Great Khan passed away. The nobles had to gather in their homeland in order to select a new Khan. As I read that on a stone tablet, there may be more interesting theories that I have missed over the past several decades?

Absent cooperation between the European princes, I am not sure whether the Mongols could have been militarily stopped. I have read an interesting article in "Science Alert" which hypothesizes that climate change stopped the Mongols, at least in Central Europe. There was apparently a climate fluctuation which limited crop production and which turned the Hungarian plain into a sea of mud, thereby limiting movement. The limited harvests made it harder/impossible for the Mongols to feed their forces and their horses. I'm more inclined to believe the returning home to fight over who gets to be the new ruler of the sky theory.

It is not easy to trade space for tactical advantage in Central Europe like the Mongols did at the Battle of the Kalka River. So I agree with Zephyr1 but would probably add mountains, hills and the lack of wide expansive steppes as the explanation. The death of Great Khan precluded a continued Mongol expansion but I don't think it changed the inevitable limits of it. It would have hit the wall anyway.

Interesting to see this topic pop up just now. I'm about to read "The Devil's Horsemen" by James Chambers; an older, popular history to be sure, but should provide an overview, cause I'm curious about how this empire became such an unstoppable force so quickly and then faded away so completely.

Maybe in the pre-modern world, it was simply very difficult for a nation-state to expand much beyond its core geographical base? The European empires based around the Med faced troubles expanding beyond the seas, across the Sahara, into eastern European tribal lands. The Muslim empires ran into problems when their armies reached northern and western Europe and India and sub-Saharan Africa. The Asian empires hit boundaries of desert, ocean, mountains, and taiga. Could the Mongol horse culture and military foundation successfully expand beyond the steppes, or sustain itself among a large foreign population?

Thanks

Armand

The Mongols were stopped by the excessive complexity of logistics and the impossibility of controlling the newly conquered distant European territories. The Mongols did not settle in those territories where it was impossible for them to lead the usual nomadic way of life and this limited the range of their possible interests.