This is coolbert: It is a favorite saying of pundits to say that more people have been killed in wars of religion that for any other reason. Well, that is just not so. The wars of nationalism fought in the Twentieth Century passed by far the number of persons killed in previous wars by a lot! That is not to say that the wars of prior centuries were not brutal and bloody. The one century that stands out in particular was the Thirteenth Century, the 1200's.

The 1200's saw the rise of the Mongols. The predations of the Mongols were indeed enormous. This was one of the great forces in history and the impact has in all probability never been gauged.

The first great wave of Mongol attacks was on the neighbors of the Mongols. These predations occurred during the time of the great Genghis. After consolidating his own rule among the Mongol tribesmen, he then organized them for further conquest. Bloody further conquests. First came the "empire" of the Xia Xia [various spellings] [western China]. Then came the conquest of the Chin Empire [northern China]. Then came the conquest of the Khwarazem Empire [central Asia, Afghanistan, Persia]. This conquest came as a reply to a challenge issued by the Khwarazem Emperor, Mohammad Shah. A revolt from within the former Chin Empire was then suppressed, and power consolidated once again by Genghis. It is interesting to note that Genghis is the one man who has the greatest number of descendants alive today on the planet [16 million!!]. To read an intersting article about this fact, click here.

Following the death of Genghis, his successors embarked on further conquests. The Song Empire [southern China] was conquered. The Russian principalities were conquered. The Caliphate of Baghdad fell to Hulagu Mongol, a grandson of Genghis. This caliphate was the most advanced society in the world at the time. But it did not help them one bit, they were still conquered!

The further conquests were then followed by a long period of consolidations and also numerous expeditions of conquest that were not successful. An attempt to conquer Europe was turned back by the death of the Great Khan. An attempt to conquer the Mameluke kingdom of Egypt was repulsed by the Mongol defeat at Ain Jalut, in the Galilee. Expeditions of conquest into Vietnam, Burma, Java, and Japan were all unsuccessful. The two latter expeditions were sea borne expeditions, using amphibious tactics developed during the riverine campaign against the Song Empire.

Daniel Boorstein has written about the Mongol conquests and said that although the predations of the Mongols were profound in the number of deaths caused, peace in the realm of the Mongol conquests was almost absolute. Widespread trade was established among the various parts of the Mongol Empire and relative calm prevailed for about a century. It is hard to see, however, that the slaughter that preceded the calm justified the former.

coolbert.