Storm from the east, p.5
Storm from the East, page 5
Since the Khwarazm Shah had found conquest a somewhat effortless exercise, he had given serious consideration to conquering China. However, his plans had been halted by reports of the Mongol victories against the Chin – hence the presence of one of his envoys at the sacking of Chung-tu. He had been sent to report on the new power that had emerged from the steppe. Genghis would have long known of the Khwarazm Shah’s reputation. Now they were both aware of each other.
In 1216, Genghis sent to Samarqand three envoys bearing magnificent gifts of gold, jade, ivory ornaments and cloaks spun from the wool of white camels. They were delivered with a letter:
I send you these gifts. I know your power and the vast extent of your empire and I regard you as my most cherished son. For your part you must know that I have conquered China and all the Turkish nations north of it; my country is an anthill of soldiers and a mine of silver and I have no need of other lands. Therefore I believe that we have an equal interest in encouraging trade between our subjects.
The letter was sealed ‘God in heaven, the Kah Khan, the power of God on earth. The Seal of the Emperor of Mankind’. Opinion varies about the real motives behind the letter, given the ambiguous language; but its ostensible purpose seems clear. It was an acknowledgement that he, Genghis Khan, was lord of the East while the Khwarazm Shah was lord of the West, and that perhaps it would be a good thing if there was a trade agreement between their respective empires. In due course an agreement was established allowing the free passage of merchants and traders through their respective territories.
Nevertheless, Genghis’s intentions must be questioned in view of the barely veiled insult in his letter, describing the vastly more powerful Khwarazm Shah as his ‘son’. Could he possibly have been trying to incite trouble with his great neighbour? Even though he had just won some important victories in northern China, the war there was a long way from being concluded. Indeed, it had only just begun. The Mongols had been absorbing new territories to the east and the west, and their meagre manpower was sorely stretched. To have undertaken another campaign at this juncture and against such an adversary would have been reckless in the extreme. Yet to judge from the Mongol chroniclers who recorded these events some time afterwards, it was only a matter of time before Genghis Khan struck out in the west. In the event, however, it was ‘Ala’ al-Din Muhammad II himself who took the initiative.
In 1218 a caravan of some 450 Muslim merchants, travelling from Mongol territory, arrived at the frontier town of Utrar to inaugurate the trade agreement. The Khwarazm Shah’s governor in Utrar, Inalchuq Khwadir Khan, suspecting that the merchants were spies – which they almost certainly were – had them all killed and their property confiscated. When Genghis sent three envoys to the court of the Khwarazm Shah to demand reparations, he responded by killing one of the envoys and burning the beards of the other two. This was tantamount to an act of war, for the Mongols always accorded ambassadors the greatest respect and assumed that the persons of their own ambassadors were sacrosanct.
The Khwarazm Shah must have realised that such contempt would lead to war. Perhaps he had come to believe his own courtiers’ claim that he was, indeed, the new Alexander, and calculated that a swift and effortless encounter with this pagan horseman would render him undisputed master of all Asia. After all, it is thought he had a massive army of some 400,000 men in Transoxiana alone, with reserves scattered throughout the empire – there was no other army to match it anywhere. Whatever his motives, this vain, arrogant, self-deluding individual succeeded in bringing down one of the most appalling disasters ever to befall the eastern Islamic world.
But before Genghis embarked upon a war with the mighty Khwarazm Shah there were a number of irritating issues that had to be settled closer to home. First, he had to deal with an old enemy named Kuchlug, a survivor of the Naimans, who had set himself up as ruler of the Qara Khitai. The second was the threat of insurrection from the survivors of the war against the Merkids, whom Genghis had defeated in 1208. To contend with these problems, he despatched two of his leading generals. The first was Subedei Bat’atur of the Reindeer people, an obscure tribe that still exists today in north-western Mongolia. They still ride and herd reindeer, and are regarded by the rest of the Mongolians as the most unsophisticated barbarians. The other was a man named Jebei Noyan. As soon as Kuchlug had been dealt with the kingdom of Qara Khitai fell into the Mongol dominion, which meant that Genghis’s frontiers now abutted those of the Khwarazm Shah. First blood was drawn when Subedei’s detachment, while in pursuit of the remaining Merkids, had a somewhat bruising encounter with a force led by the Khwarazm Shah’s son, Jalal al-Din, in the Fergana valley, below the Tien Shan Mountains.
Unlike his father, Jalal al-Din had natural gifts as a military leader and would have been a match for any of the Mongol princes had he been given command of a force of significant size. Having assumed that war with the Mongols was now inevitable, Jalal al-Din had counselled his father that the best strategy was to deploy their massive force in a series of highly mobile corps that could be despatched to encounter any invading Mongol troops. Instead, his father had elected to spread the entire force in a thin line along the River Syr Darya. Jalal al-Din argued that the line was not strong enough to withstand a determined assault, and that the best thing would be to launch a pre-emptive strike before the Mongols could put together any kind of substantial force. Again, he was ignored, although he was given permission to patrol the frontier in case of any incursions.
It was Subedei’s ill-fortune to be leading some 30,000 exhausted Mongols, doggedly in pursuit of renegade Merkids, through the passes in the Tien Shan Mountains and straight into 50,000 of the Khwarazm Shah’s soldiers led by Jalal al-Din. Although the battle was inconclusive and both sides suffered heavy losses, the Mongol column was forced to retreat with its wounded back across the passes. The encounter served as an object lesson. Jalal al-Din would be a serious obstacle to any invasion, and his whereabouts would have to be carefully monitored.
To help him plan this expedition, Genghis called a great quriltai of his most senior generals. It would not be like a raid against the Chin; this would be the largest military expedition the Mongols had ever conducted. As he became more involved in the planning, Genghis was urged by one of his wives to give some thought to the succession of the empire. He was already fifty-six, and the outcome of the adventure was by no means certain. In considering the problem, he examined the qualities of each of his sons. Despite his obvious qualities as a general the eldest son, Jochi, was ruled out because of doubts about his paternity. His mother, Borte, had given birth to him after being rescued from the Merkids, who had captured and raped her soon after her marriage to the young Genghis. His second son, Chaghadai, the so-called guardian of the Yasa, was a scrupulously fair administrator; but Genghis was not fond of him, regarding him as a somewhat narrow-minded and obstinate character. Ogedei was clearly the most intelligent and educated of the sons; an able if not distinguished commander, he was extremely generous, fond of good company and good alcohol, and, although far less athletic than his father, he seemed the most open to new ideas. The fourth son, Tolui, even more of a drunkard than Ogedei, was already regarded as a brilliant general but was also thought to be too quick-tempered. Genghis struggled over the choice between his two youngest sons, and finally settled upon Ogedei. The other three were made to promise that they would not oppose Ogedei’s succession, and with this matter resolved Genghis returned to planning the campaign.
In the meantime, from right across the eastern steppe tens of thousands of men were being summoned from their herds and ordered to report to Genghis’s ordus. Gradually the army swelled to perhaps something between 150,000 and 200,000. It represented the largest concentration of Mongol power that had ever been mustered – yet it was still less than half the size of the opposition. Given these hard facts, it was decided to co-ordinate an attack against the Khwarazm Shah on a number of different positions at the same time. The Mongol force was divided into four corps: the first commanded by Genghis and Subedei, the second by his sons Ogedei and Chaghadai, the third by Jebei and the fourth by Jochi. Still conscious of his meagre forces, Genghis decided to call in the agreement he had made with the Tanguts, that they would furnish him with soldiers whenever and wherever he requested them. The Tangut king’s reply was disappointing: he said that if he [Genghis] didn’t have enough men of his own, then he didn’t deserve to be khan. Stung by this response, Genghis grimly set forth alone on the campaign in the west.
The first move was in the autumn of 1219 against the city of Utrar, where a force of some 50,000 Mongols led by Chaghadai and Ogedei advanced on the city walls. The governor knew he could expect no mercy, so he poured scorn on the Mongol demand to surrender and, with his 80,000-strong garrison, settled down to a long siege. Meanwhile, the forces under the command of Jebei and Jochi moved south. Jebei had command of 20,000 men, with whom he was ordered to draw off any major enemy force guarding the southern approaches, and then advance into Transoxiana. While all eyes were on him, Genghis and Subedei moved their contingent quietly out of Mongolia, crossed the Syr Darya River into Transoxiana and then, instead of riding south, turned due west and promptly disappeared. It was as though they had ridden off the map. Meanwhile Jochi’s force roamed up and down the Syr Darya with orders to attack the Khwarazm Shah’s strongholds at Khojend, and to harry their defences before also crossing the river.
Genghis and Subedei were in fact leading their forces on a secret route through the Kizil Kum Desert to the north-east of the Khwarazm Shah’s territory. This region was thought to be impenetrable, but the Mongols had a guide to show them the way. Genghis knew the Khwarazm Shah’s spies could not follow his progress; as far as the enemy were concerned, the entire division did not exist. It emerged, however, in March 1220 some 650 km (400 miles) behind the enemy lines, when the people of Bukhara sighted the Mongol force on the outskirts of their city. Stunned by this remarkable apparition, the Turkish garrison burst from the city gates and attempted to fight their way free. They were slaughtered to a man. According to the Persian historian Juvaini, the plain ‘seemed to be a tray filled with blood’. Totally demoralised, the inhabitants surrendered without a fight.
Once Genghis had entered the ‘cupola of Islam’, as Juvaini described Bukhara, he rode into the largest mosque thinking it was the Sultan’s palace. When it was explained that it was a house of God, he ordered it to be converted into stables and the cases that held the Koran to be used for mangers. As copies of the Koran were thrown to the four winds, Genghis mounted the pulpit inside the mosque and lectured the citizens about the treachery of their Sultan. ‘I am the punishment of God,’ he told them. ‘If you had not committed great sins, he would not have sent a punishment like me.’ Genghis, determined there would be no hindrance to the plundering of the city, ordered the entire civilian population to abandon everything and leave with nothing but the clothes they stood in. As the city was being sacked, a fire broke out and swept through the closely packed wooden houses. When the fires were out all that was left were the most prominent stone structures; the rest had become ‘a level plain’. Juvaini estimated that upwards of 30,000 had been slain, while thousands more women and children were led off into slavery in Mongolia along with cartloads of booty.
However, the majority of the population had been allowed to escape, to roam the countryside and seek refuge where they could, and take with them terrible accounts of the fate of Bukhara. The object was to terrify and demoralise the inhabitants of Samarqand, the Khwarazm Shah’s capital. When Genghis approached that city, he forced prisoners from Bukhara to march ahead, which swelled the ranks of his army and, of course, provided shields against the enemy’s arrows. Samarqand was expected to hold out for a year; it capitulated after five days. Neither Genghis Khan nor any of his army had ever seen anything quite like it. They roamed the streets and avenues, drinking at the fountains and gorging themselves on the exotic fruits and sherbets. The Turkish garrison, all 30,000, were put to the sword. The population was divided into sections: women were set apart to be raped and then sent off as slaves; the clerics were all spared; while the entire population of craftsmen and artisans were also transported to the Mongol homeland where they would be employed at Genghis’s court.
While Genghis and Subedei had captured the jewels of the Khwarazm Shah’s empire, Chaghadai and Ogedei had still been engaged in the siege of Utrar. It had taken five months before the walls were breached, and another month to take the citadel where the garrison and most of the inhabitants had taken refuge. When the citadel walls too had been breached almost the entire garrison and most of the citizenry were slaughtered, but Genghis had sent orders that he wanted the governor, Inalchuq, taken alive. He and his wife, knowing they were doomed, had taken to the roof of the armoury from where his wife ripped off tiles, which he then hurled at his pursuers. The Mongols began demolishing the building stone by stone, until they had Inalchuq in their grasp. They took him to Samarqand, where he was executed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears. Utrar was then put to the torch, and later levelled to the ground.
FUGITIVES FROM MONGOL WRATH
Although Inalchuq had been dealt with, the Khwarazm Shah had escaped Genghis’s troops. The Sultan had ignored his son’s appeal to stay and carry the fight back to the invader, and instead took flight in the hope of finding refuge in Mesopotamia. Genghis sent Subedei and Jebei in pursuit. They followed him from town to town, from province to province – and the Khwarazm Shah found no refuge. Jalal al-Din had also departed Samarqand, but it was his intention to stay in the field and harass the Mongols in an attempt to halt their progress. In the event, however, he too became a fugitive, and for as long as he remained at liberty the Mongols were prepared to burn and slaughter everything in their path in their efforts to capture him. Genghis and his son Tolui took up this task themselves. They rode south across the Oxus River, pursuing Jalal al-Din down through south-eastern Persia into what is now Afghanistan, then into Pakistan and across the Indus River. The destruction that was wrought along the way was on a scale never before experienced in steppe warfare. When Merv fell in 1221, the Persian chroniclers claim that Tolui slaughtered 700,000, sparing just eighty craftsmen. Nishapur suffered just as badly, as did Balkh; once one of the greatest cities of the age, filled with magnificent mosques, hospitals and palaces – a place where Alexander had visited and Zoroaster had once preached. Today it is an empty arena of walls guarding a windswept plain.
Jalal al-Din evaded capture throughout the campaign and in so doing became, in Persian chronicles, a figure of epic qualities. His exploits stirred the citizens of a number of cities to revolt, but this only brought down Mongol wrath on an even greater scale. For a week the Mongols devoted themselves to the slaughter of the inhabitants of Herat, after which most of the city, bar the citadel, was levelled to the ground. Jalal al-Din continued to trouble the Mongol forces for years to come, but was never able to concentrate his forces into any significant size and was never again a serious threat. His father, on the other hand, was hunted into ignominy.
Subedei and Jebei pursued the Khwarazm Shah through Tus and Rayy up to the western shores of the Caspian Sea. Subedei had been ordered to finish off the Khwarazm Shah, and in the process was given leave to carry out a reconnaissance in force of the lands between the Caspian and Black Seas. The Khwarazm Shah was eventually pursued to Astara on the shores of the Caspian, where he discarded his fine clothes, took up the rags of a beggar and, with a small group of followers, attempted to slip out of the town unnoticed. Penniless and anonymous, he boarded a small fishing boat just as a Mongol troop raced to the shores, firing their arrows in vain after the little boat. The mighty Khwarazm Shah made it to the tiny island of Abeskum, where he finally died of pleurisy in January 1221. He had fallen from the greatest heights to utter poverty, and was buried in a torn shirt borrowed from one of his servants.
The rest of Subedei’s campaign has entered the annals of military history as one of the greatest adventures in cavalry warfare. His contingent continued through Azerbaijan and into the Christian kingdom of Georgia, then around the western and northern shores of the Caspian Sea into Russia. Once he had made his way through the pass at Derbent, his column emerged on to the plain north of the Caucasus. Here they were confronted by an alliance of Turkic tribes from the western steppe: Alans, Cherkes and Kipchaks. Though both sides suffered serious losses, these Western tribesmen proved no match for the easterners and Subedei continued his ‘Great Raid’ across the Russian steppe. When the Russian princes heard news of the foreigners’ progress through their territory, they put together a united force to challenge what had by now become a much-weakened detachment – it was no longer an army. But again, the locals came off worse in a crushing defeat at the battle of Kalka in 1223. It was now five years since the Mongols had gone to war.
