(04-10-2015, 06:08 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: And yes the Mongolians would destroy Alexander, as Hammersmith most eloquently explains. Until the advent of firearms, Horse archers were basically an invincible force on the battlefield. The only way to beat them was more horse archers, walls, or living someplace that didn't have good grazing.I'd say the terrain was a much bigger deal than the strategic value of the land. A mounted archer (or cavalry in general) tends to be useless on anything but on open field.Â
Europe's foresty and mountainy terrain and fortified keeps kept the Mongolians out. Mostly it was the land though. What's the point of land you can't graze horses on?!
I'm kinda butting in on an area where I lack authority (Asian history isn't really my strong point), but I feel like the Mongols tend to get a bit more hyped up than they deserve. They conquered a massive area full of... basically nothing. Lots of little farming villages with no military ambition whatsoever. Largest empire by land area? Sure, but it was just a never-ending stretch of nothing. Kind of like if Oklahoma was an empire.Â
They did a number on the Arabs and Eastern Europe, but I personally attribute that to the fact that the Byzantines and the Caliphates had been beating the shit out of each other on and off for centuries. The Crusades had ravaged the Gulf over and over and the Arabs had focused all of their defenses on stopping attacks from the West. Any Arab general at the time would have looked East and said "There is NOTHING over there. There is literally no point to fortifying this." How I see it, the Mongols basically made the biggest surprise attack in human history, because nobody knew they even existed until they were banging down your door.
