FReeper Canteen ~ Part II of The Mongols ~ November 16, 2004

www.coldsiberia.org ^ | November 16, 2004 | LaDivaLoca

[LaDivaLoca]

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Part II of The Mongols

Mongol Military Might

Mediaeval historians used to assert that the Mongol military superiority was due to their overwhelming numbers. As we are now aware of, this is incorrect, and assertions of Mongol numerical superiority must be interpreted as partly a specious excuse for European inferiority when fighting against the Mongols in the battlefield. Even though they never fought against the most powerful warriors who ever existed in the West, the Celts, there is no doubt that the Mongols proved superior to all those whom they met in battle.

Quality, not quantity, was the key to the incredible unbroken line of Mongolian military successes. Since the spiritual aspects of this phenomenon has been covered elsewhere on these pages, what will be elucidated here is the technical details of their military performance, their equipment and their use of it.

Organization

Although supreme command lay in the hands of the Supreme Khan, the high Mongol principle of promotion to posts of leadership and authority on the basis of ability alone, introduced and enforced by Chingis Khan, resulted in an unmatched quality of troops from the ordinary soldiers to the top command. Each Mongol warrior was simply incomparably superior to their Western counterparts. This exceedingly high quality ensured the competence and integrity of the commanding leaders. Thus, leaders at every level could always be entrusted with a high degree of independence in the decisions and in the execution of the different moves and operations.

After the death of Chingis Khan in 1227, none of his successors inherited his genius. For this reason, the real command of the large armies rested with the generals he picked when he was still alive, although the princes of the blood held the nominal command. The diamond among all the generals of Chingis Khan was Subedei, whose mastery of every aspect of warfare, such as intelligence, psychological warfare, military tactics and strategy and logistics, won him a place in history as the mastermind of the great Mongol campaign in Russia and Europe during 1236-1242. Subedei as a man personified the best characteristics of the Mongol forces: caution, high intuition, great intelligence and understanding, mobility, alertness, speed and power. Other eminent Mongol generals worthy of note are Chepe and Muqali, the latter did much to secure Mongol victories in China.

The organization of the army was based on the decimal system. The largest unit was the tjumen, which was made up of 10.000 troops. A large army used to consist of three tjumens (Plural form t'ma in Mongolian), one consisting of infantry troops who were to perform close combat, the two others were meant to encircle the opponent from both sides. Each tjumen consisted of ten regiments, each of 1.000 troops. The 1.000 strong unit was called a mingghan. Each of these regiments consisted of ten squadrons of 100 troops, called jaghun, each of which was divided into ten units of ten, called arban. There was also an elite tjumen, an imperial guard which was composed of specially trained and selected troops. As for the command structure, the ten soldiers of each arban elected their commander by majority vote, and all of the ten commanders of the ten arbans of a tjumen elected the commander of a jaghunby the same procedure. Above that level, the khan personally appointed the commanders of each tjumen and mingghan. This appointment was made on criteria of ability, not age or social origin.

The commanders of tjumens and mingghans had the military title of noyon. A commander of a whole army, which as mentioned typically consisted of three tjumens or more of light cavalry and in addition several mingghans of artillery, carried the title of orlok. In other words, the orlok was the commanding general.

source: http://www.coldsiberia.org/monmight.htm

Next Tuesday, Part III of The Mongols

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Goodnight Spotsybelle!
Ms.B

[Ms.Poohbear]

Good nite spotsy
God Bless Hugs
Ms. Poohbear

[Fawnn]

I'm sorry to hear about your Fibromyalgia diagnosis. I wouldn't wish this stuff on anyone.

I can't tolerate pain meds. My doctor attended a Fibromyalgia symposium last year and said that any treatment currently out there has more risks than benefits.

It's a work in progress, and will be for some time, but you might want to check out my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Fibromyalgia site at http://chronicfatigue.about.com/ .

There's a discussion Forum at http://forums.about.com/ab-chronicfatig/messages , too. (That's the more active Forum. There's a Fibromyalgia-specific Forum, but many who post to the CFS Forum are like me and deal with Fibromyalgia, too.)

[Ms.Poohbear]

thanks for the info

[Colonel_Flagg]

Good night, Spotsy .. hope tomorrow is better for you :)

[Ms.Poohbear]

Its off to bed . It has been a long day.
Hugs to all. God Bless

[laurenmarlowe]

I hope you have a great vacation!

[Kathy in Alaska]

I will be off to the airport Wednesday night. And I will take my laptop with me, AND I have DSL in my room. This is where I lived before moving to Alaska, so I'm going home. I have lots of stuff that I just keep there.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

I hope you have a wonderful time, Ma!
Hugs!
Ms.B

[Kathy in Alaska]

You won't even know I'm gone. Well, you will because I have to socialize. But I'll be here almost like normal.

[Kathy in Alaska]

I'm so sorry to hear about your health issues, Ms Pooh.

I'll be saying a prayer for you as you work through this.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Good night Ma!
Good night Canteeners and Troops!
God Bless and keep you....
Ms.B

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good night and sleep well, ms b.
Hope you start feeling better real soon.

[Kathy in Alaska]

I'm late.....

Thanks, Severa, for the moving update. Be sure to make contact with Ms Behavin....she's right near where you are moving.

Hi, JJ!!

Hi, Robbie!!

[StarCMC]

No problem!! I was excited to actually have it on the computer so I could play is fairly quickly!! :o)

[Kathy in Alaska]

I was excited to actually have it on the computer

LOL!! I know THAT feeling!

[Spotsy]

Ms.Poohbear, sorry I missed you on Tuesday night!
Hope you are feeling better.
Are you ready for the holidays?