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Comment by CyanBird | Hacker News Reader

> They did great up until they hit Poland and the Balkans, where they faced harsher terrain

I keep seeing these historic revisionist takes and it just leaves me... Empty inside, do these people believe that modern Tajikistan is flat? That China is an endless grassland? That Afghanistan, Georgia, the Koreas and East Manchuria, or heck even northern India and Pakistan, are all these places just empty plains? The entirety of you know.... Iran???

Hungary is no more mountainous than the places I mentioned above, I suppose arguing makes no sense here as I feel that these supposed lines or argument are somehow inherently related to a broader sense of "Western excepcionalism"

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Yeah... the whole region is dotted with castles. They did really well on ravaging and ransacking cities that were on plains, or close to larger fields. Hungary and Serbia are part of the the Panioan Plane, which is open terrain and perfect for them.

They couldn't take Dubrovnik (the first well fortified western European city), and also were defeated on mountainous terrain by the Bulgarians. They wouldn't been able to take something more fortified like Constantinople. They actually had clashes at the time, but it was mostly raids by the Mongols.

So, it is pretty clear. In Europe, the Mongolians did great on open terrain, planes, and cities that didn't have great natural defenses. They didn't do that well on cities that were better fortified, and with natural defenses (mountains). They raided and ransacked the areas, and moved on as they couldn't sustain a siege in such terrains.

"The Bulgarian victory can likely be attributed to the mountainous terrain, to which the Mongols were not accustomed.[16]"

In Chechnya, Mongols maintained a siege for more than a decade, and finally won.

Let’s remember that at its height the mongol empire was spanning from the Sea of Japan to modern day Ukraine.

That include the mountainous region of Nepal and Tibet.

From what we know of their administration, their focus was on maintaining control of the rich region around Beijing, Xanadu and Cheng du. Not so much the Eastern Europe.

> That include the mountainous region of Nepal and Tibet.

I don't believe the Mongols ever dominated Tibet. They may have made inroads into grassy northern regions such as Kham. In fact I believe that Genghis as Emperor of China paid tribute to Tibetan rulers.

I'd like to see a source for Mongols crossing the Himalaya and impacting Nepal.

> I don't believe the Mongols ever dominated Tibet.

Then again... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Tibet

Thanks; I am better-informed. I suppose my opinion was based on Genghis's non-invasion. I hadn't heard of Godan before.

If the Mongol attacks had reached the west. First time, the Mongols would kill all the peasants outside the castles and city walls. Or the peasants would join the mongols. The absence of peasants meant the cities were starving.

Thanks. And it’s not like western Europe was the prize. More an easy target.

China was the real deal.

No, he is wrong. Europe was a much harder target. They did well on cities on the Paeonian plains, where it was their natural terrain, but did not do well on European mountainous terrain. They couldn't even take Dubrovnik, let alone Constantinople. (it took the Ottomans half a century, and the advent of the cannons to finally conquer it).

Was not Constantinople in a pretty bad position, so they had to ask Blanche de Castille and whoever was ruling France for help around 1240 ?

Constantinople ruler at the time, Baldwin II was either killed or captured Sources agree that the city started paying tribute to the mongol.

( one is a document excommunicating Baldwin for accepting overloadship from the mongols )

So the city was not taken but the situation was pretty bad.

Similarly, Bulgaria and Hungary were taken too if I’m remember correctly.

While they didn't "take" Constantinople, they vassalized the nearby Trebizond Empire and beat the Latin Empire's leader in battle, potentially capturing him leading to unknown concessions. Then the re-emergent Byzantines bought an alliance rather than battle them.

Constantinople was conquered, and pillaged, by Crusaders diverted there by the Doge of Venice as ways to repay their debts to him. Those crusaders just didn't stay, that's all.

https://roman-empire.net/army/the-sack-of-constantinople/

Yes. Western crusaders smashed altars and raped nuns. The first Latin Pope to officially apologize to us for this was John Paul II, in Anno Domini 2001, almost eight hundred years after the atrocity took place. This apology was rendered just 2 years after he controversially kissed a Koran.

>"What a beautiful scripture, containing teachings nigh-incompatible with our dogmas!! ちゅ〜 <3"

>"Ohhhhhhhh that one is for year 2099. Okay. I see what happened, I started a century too far into the Novus Ordo playbook. Sorry. Sorry. The pages got stuck together. What was on the start of this page? 2001? Apologizing for the atrocity? Ohhhhkay, right. Back on track."

2001 a Grace Odyssey.

>> Gods gonna recognize hus folks

That was used, apparently, as an excuse by the Crusaders killing Christians. A bunch of scum, even by their own standards. The Doge, 80 and blind, played that bunch like fiddle so. He got a mercenary army to sack one of his biggest economic competitors for free, and he got to keep the plunder.

That quote, "God will know His own" was said at the height of the Albigensian crusades, which was carried out IIRC approximately 100 years later against the Cathars. Because the Catholic Church played such a major part in civil life, competing claims to authentic Christianity in Western Europe distinct from their church was considered an existential threat. I am in no way condoning what they did, but a good way to relate to the context in which they made this decision would be to consider how Sovereign Citizens are looked at by authorities in our contemporary times.

The Cathars were mostly tolerated by the local authorities and nobility in the south of France though. The Albigensian were basically a land grab by the nobles in northern France in expense of their souther brethren and nothing more (why would the catholic king of Aragon and the count of Toulouse fight on the side of the Cathars otherwise?)

Those religious lines, especially during "wars of religion" start to get blurry pretty quick. In the 30 years war France, Catholic, fought with the Swedes, Protestant, against the Habsburgers, Cathloic. Why? Because France didn't like the idea of having a Habsburg empire to its south, Spain, and west, Germany.

You raise a point worth discussing. In our contemporary times there are more traditional political factions and local authorities in the USA who believe in the legitimacy of the United States political process or at least the constitution (many sovereign citizens don't, preferring the articles of confederatin) yet are also more sympathetic to sovereign citizens than their counterparts, and could be interested in temporary alliances with them if trouble broke out. At the end of the day, Aragon remained under Catholic authority either way, but wanted to use tolerance of the Cathars as a wedge to keep hold of territory. Similarly, I could imagine a rural law-abiding United States bloc preferring that, for economic or political reasons, there be a nearby commune of Sovereign Citizens who are strange, under-documented, and sometimes live in potentially hazardous conditions, but are friendly and willing to pitch in to help the broader community out of a shared sense of common "American freedomism" so long as law enforcement and other day-to-day restrictions aren't carried out in ways they consider illogical or intrusive.

Revisionist geography?

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