They had to quit somewhere and they now faced mountains, and further north a heavily fortified country side which made loot gathering expensive while cetainly not impossible.. They also had plenty to digest behind them.
In practice they consolodated upon the richest estates that they already held. In the short term, bad weather and failed crops made up their minds to actually stop and that was good enough.
As said though, the money was aleady behind them. It is also notewothy that they never tried Constantinople, much more to hand and where then thrown back in face of Egypt. Both rendered Europe to the status of chicken feed.
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Scientists finally know what stopped Mongol hordes from conquering Europe
In 1206, Genghis Khan, a fierce tribal chieftain from northern Mongolia, began to take over the world.
The khan's ruthless tactics and loyal horde swept across Asia. One
territory after another fell under the overwhelming force of the Mongol
Empire, which would eventually stretch from the eastern shores of China.
A series of successful forays in Hungary and Poland made even Europe
seem within reach of conquering.
But this unstoppable wave of victories in Europe suddenly
ended. Though Mongols seemed to have been poised to advance
toward Vienna, they instead abruptly returned to Asia.
Historians could only guess why until now, since written accounts
from the point of view of Mongol military leaders are sparse. But a new
study in the journal Scientific Reports looked at a different kind of record to solve the mystery of the horde's abrupt exit from central Europe: tree rings.
This wooden chronicle revealed that a cold and wet period set in for
years, leading "to reduced pastureland and decreased mobility, as well
as hampering the military effectiveness of the Mongol cavalry,"
according to a press release.
Here's how the Mongols rose to power — and how natural climate change
may have forced them to cut their losses and stop a fearsome war of
attrition.
Before Hungary
When Genghis Khan died in 1227, he left his son Ogodei a territory
that extended from northeast China to the Caspian Sea, just north of
modern-day Iran. It measured an astounding 11 million square miles.
"Whether measured by the total number of people defeated, the sum of
the countries annexed, or by the total area occupied, Genghis Khan
conquered more than twice as much as any man in history," historian Jack
Weatherford writes in his book "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World."
After his father's death, Ogodei Khan carried forward his legacy. The
khanate expanded to the east and west, conquering the remainder of
northwest China and pushing into Kievan Rus, now in modern-day Ukraine,
aided by a wet period that allowed the Mongol armies to bring thousands of horses across the largest desert in Asia, the Gobi.
Sarah Kramer
By
1240, Kiev had been sacked and the horde was rapidly advancing west.
Their cavalry and siege tactics were laying waste to the cities of
Europe, and, perhaps more important, they brought along Chinese
gunpowder.
This series of unqualified successes brought the vast Mongol army to
Hungary in March 1241. King Bela IV fled his palace in Pest (now part of
Budapest), and Ogodei's armies slaughtered an estimated 1 million Hungarians: troops, clerics, nobles, knights, and peasants. It was one of the bloodiest defeats of the medieval period.
In December 1241, Ogodei Khan died unexpectedly. Some historians have
argued that Batu, Ogodei's nephew who had been leading the western
campaign, turned back toward the Mongol capital of Karakorum for the
election of a new leader.
But Batu never returned to Mongolia, instead remaining in the south
of modern-day Russia to rule the Golden Horde. Meanwhile, Ogodei's wife,
Toregene, took power as the Great Khatun.
Sarah Kramer
An abrupt end
The following year, everything changed. The horde suddenly turned
south, moving through modern-day Serbia, and then headed back through
Russia. Though subsequent Khans staged occasional raids on European
cities, the major war campaign was over.
Several theories exist as to why the army abandoned its western
front, but, the authors of the new paper argue that none are fully
sufficient to explain the change in course.
The authors sampled wood from five regions of Eurasia to track what
the weather was like during the period of the Mongols' most extensive
reach.
Trees are especially sensitive to small changes in climatic
conditions. In wet years they add thick layers of bark to their trunks;
in dry years the rings are thinner, reflecting the lack of water to a
tree.
The researchers found that the climate in Hungary and its
surroundings was unusually cold and wet for about three years, from 1238
to 1241. The extra moisture and early spring thaw turned the Hungarian
plains into marshes and swampland — unsuitable terrain for moving the
thousands of horses the Mongol armies relied on for transportation and
warfare.
Sarah Kramer
The
last year of the Eastern European campaign, 1242, the researchers note,
was especially damp.
This led to crop spoilage, further reducing the
food supply for the Khans' hordes. Famine later set in and killed
thousands in the region.
It's likely that Ogodei's commanders chose a southern route because
of its relatively drier conditions, the authors write, directing them
away from Europe.
What happened to the Mongols afterward? Ogodei Khan's death kicked
off a spate of power struggles among Genghis' sons and grandsons,
fracturing the Mongol Empire into pieces that never reunified.
His lineage, however, continued to found dynasties in India, China,
Persia, and Siberia. The Mongol people continue to live in China's Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region and modern-day Mongolia, where Genghis
Khan's portrait appears on currency, vodka, and cigarettes and his name
even graces Ulaanbaatar's international airport.
As scientists gain the ability to examine the climate record in
greater detail, we're discovering more about how climate shaped history.
Unusual climates probably allowed Polynesians to spread out across the South Pacific, led to the fall of an ancient metropolis in precolonial Mexico, and encouraged Attila the Hun's campaign of terror against the Roman Empire 800 years before Genghis Khan.
The authors conclude that their study of the Mongolian withdrawal
from Hungary "illustrates the incidence of even small climate
fluctuations upon a historical event."
It also hints at a lesson for our climate future: A relatively small
difference is all it takes to change the course of human history.
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