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On Christmas Day 1241 the armies of Batu Khan, founder of the Golden Horde, crossed the Danube while the disunited kingdoms of the West lay at their mercy. The Mongol invasion of Europe was entering its final phase, and it seemed as if all of Christendom was about to be destroyed by the soldiers from Hell. The Devil's Horsemen, based on a wealth of contemporary sources, describes the tactics and training of the finest army the world had ever seen, and tells the story of Subedei Bahadur, the illiterate military genius who brought 20th century warfare to medieval Europe. Remembered today only as savage barbarians, the author shows how the Mongols were in fact formidable soldiers who invented strategies and tactics later adopted to devastating effect by Rommel and Patton. Had the last of the great Khans lived only a few years longer, the largest empire ever known would have stretched not just to the Carpathians and the Euphrates, but as far as the Atlantic Ocean itself.… (more)
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Chambers provides a fascinating summary of the
Their civilizational commitment to preparing themselves for military conquest is rivaled by no one (except maybe Sparta). They were extremely brutal, and their episodes of mass slaughter and rape of nuns (for example) create quite the mental image. They are certainly not the only civilization to practice barbarity, but the scale on which they did is probably unmatched.
This book was written in 1979. While Chambers does not say this directly, I wonder if the events of the Iranian Revolution were on his mind as he neared completion of his work. In two places he mentions just how close Islam came to its extermination. Of course, the Mongols almost brought about the end of Christianity as well. However, several Mongol Khans were sympathetic to Christianity. Regarding the Mongol conquest of Syria, and the subsequent prostrating of local Muslims to the Christian cross (the Christians had aided in the conquest), Chambers writes: “It was a poignant image of a Christian world that so nearly might have been.” Had St. Louis and other Christian leaders made some different judgments what happened in Syria might have happened everywhere else in the Muslim world.
Instead they were beaten back and the legacies they left were nothing in comparison to Rome or Greece. Rather, many of their territories suffered for centuries and were left ripe for even worse atrocities to come. Namely Communism.
I'm baffled by the review below. If you are a student of