Had you a bird’s eye view of the Eurasian steppe in 1236, you could have watched an unparalleled sight.  Perhaps more than 100,000 mounted warriors spread out in vast columns converging upon the Kama River, followed with nigh on one million horses, goats, and sheep at some distance behind; thousands of carts, some small enough to be pulled by a single ox, to those so large they required full teams of oxen. Mounted on these carts were spare weapons and arrows, specialists and engineers in siege technology and the tools they needed to build their fearsome machinery, and on the largest carts, royal Mongols gers, round felt tents to house the many princes leading the army. Their very movement changed the landscape, politically and ecologically. The nomadic Turkic peoples who inhabited the steppe fled before them; new roads were cut, others formed by the very passage of ten thousand horses stripping bare the grassland; to avoid lengthy detours in order to stay on schedule, rivers were blocked and diverted to accommodate the great carts. This was an army with one purpose: to conquer everything as far as the hooves of Mongol horses would take them. This was the Great Western Invasion, Mongol princes from across the dynasty collected and hurled as a great spear westwards, which in the coming years would land deep into Europe. I’m your host David, und this is…       The Great Western Invasion is perhaps the most famous campaign of the Mongol Empire. It’s a campaign of big names and big personalities: Batu, Mongke, Guyuk and the great commander Subutai. It’s a story you likely know the broad strokes of already, the bloody conquest of the Russian principalities culminating in the famous battles of Liegnitz and Mohi. It’s generally presented as the master stroke of Subutai’s strategic genius,commonly said that the Mongols would have driven right to the shores of Britain if hadn’t been for the untimely death of Ogedai Khaan at the end of 1241, forcing them to withdraw to elect his successor.  It’s a great story and quite cinematic, but one which barely conveys any of the complexities of the great invasion, and one ripe with exaggerations and myths. Over the next episodes we’re going to try to change your view of the invasion, including as many of the intricacies and historiography of it as we can to provide a fuller understanding of the campaign, and a better, though more nuanced, respect for Mongol military success.       Mongol knowledge of the west came through an offshoot of the invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire, when Jebe Noyan and Subutai Ba’atar led an army through the Caucasus and onto the steppe, where they fought with the nomadic Turkic Cuman-Qipchaq tribes, an army of the Rus’ principalities on the Kalka River, and the Volga Bulghars, the mercantile masters of the Volga River’s trade routes. We covered this in a previous episode, so check that out for the specifics. Though popularly portrayed as a reconnaissance in force, it was a hard fought campaign resulting in the death of Jebe Noyan and Mongol defeats or narrowly won victories. The defeats demanded Mongol retaliation, as did the loss of a top commander- it’s  easy to imagine Subutai personally wanting to avenge himself and his fallen friend, as Jebe may have been a mentor to him. The foes encountered in the west had shown themselves fierce fighters, and the Mongols left with an impression that overwhelming force was needed for further campaigning in the region. The Cuman-Qipchaqs, a loose confederation of Turkic tribes inhabiting the steppes from the borders of Hungary past the Caspian Sea, were a particular issue. Nomadic enemies, similar in lifestyle to the Mongols themselves, were perceived as their greatest threat. Not only could they more readily flee Mongol armies than any sedentary foe, thus continuing to be a threat, but they were likewise skilled horse archers. If united under a charismatic leader as Chinggis Khan had done with the Mongol tribes, the Cuman-Qipchaq