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To: swolf
Cavarly armies move a long way. It is not military genius. As for inventing modern warfare, hardly. Modern formations trace not to Mongol decimals but to medieval mobilization systems, which were themselves relics of Roman institutions. Modern staff systems are less than 200 years old. And Mongol armies were not interchangable maneuver units, but local affairs that lived off the land where they formed and massed. Letters and leaders went from Beijing to Moscow, but no army ever did. The armies that conquered China, that conquered India, that conquered the near east, that conquered western Russia - not only were not the same force, they never saw each other.

The problem the Mongols did solve - though only briefly - was internal political faction on the steppe, allowing uniform recruitment and projection beyond it in all directions, to loot. (Every time a unified army left the steppe, it conquered something - nothing new in that). Once they had places looted, however, they had no remaining principle of unity, and broke up into separate hordes. When they conquered places, they brought a few traditions of steppe court life and changed dynasty bloodlines, and otherwise were assimiliated by the vastly more populace places they grabbed. When Tamurlane tried to put a unified empire back together, all he could do was loot various pieces of it in succession, depopulating them in the process, and leaving nothing.

490 posted on 11/15/2004 6:52:29 PM PST by JasonC
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To: JasonC
A Freeper Needs Help!
494 posted on 11/15/2004 7:15:36 PM PST by ConservativeMan55 (http://www.osurepublicans.com)
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To: JasonC

You really need to read up on the history of the Mongol epoch, since you clearly do not know anything about it. One place to start might be Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan, and the Making of the Modern World".


498 posted on 11/16/2004 12:10:44 AM PST by swolf
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