The warrior who united the Mongol tribes and created an empire that was the largest the world has known, has long defied historians.
Though he breached the Great Wall of China, captured Peking, ravaged Afghanistan, Persia and Russia, and between 1237 and 1242 invaded Europe itself, little is left in the way of contemporary records.
History is thus inclined to denigrate or idealize, depending upon the historian. He is a monster, given to grave cruelties, or he is "one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world."
The above quote is from the author of this book and his partialities are apparent. Genghis Khan (a romanization the author prefers over the more scholarly Ghinggis Khaan) was the ideal general whose genius lay in his ability to organize. At the same time, we are told, he never saw himself as the head of a people: he was the head of the Mongol aristocracy which he had united.
He had a strong effect upon the Mongol peoples who had lived in great confusion. And, as Leo de Hartog tells us, "the greatness which they attained under his leadership gave the Mongols a certain pride." He united "a brilliant gift for organization" with "an astonishing insight into human character."
All of which may very well be true, but there is still the monster to be accounted for. There exists an eye-witness account of the fall of Peking (a Persian ambassador told the Persian historian Juzjani what he saw) that is filled with monstrous detail. The sacking of the place lasted more than a month and was on a vast scale. The ambassador saw bones of people who had been killed piled in great heaps. Near one of the city gates were piled the remains of, it is said, 60,000 girls who had hurled themselves from the walls to avoid falling prey to the Mongols.
Also, it was standard Mongol practice to force prisoners to fight in the front ranks against their own compatriots. If they refused, merciless mass executions followed. These cannon-fodder prisoners dispatched, higher-ranking captures could be eliminated. Thanks to their rank, however, no royal blood was to be spilled. The unfortunates were strangled by bow strings or asphyxiated under piles of carpets. When the Russian princes of plundered Kiev were taken, they were put under a floor of loose planks upon on which the Mongols then, with singing and dancing, celebrated their victory.
Genghis Khan, whom Muslim writers later always branded as "the accursed," was, contends de Hartog, no monster -- merely a man of his times. Towns could be razed and the inhabitants slaughtered because "the Mongols had no idea of the social function of a town. All they innocently knew "was to plunder and destroy it and massacre its inhabitants."
Genghis Khan was merely a child of his era and his country. His outrages "must be viewed in the context of the times and the prevailing social conditions." True, during the Mongol conquest inconceivable numbers of people died and destruction was enormous, but this as only "the consequence of the extent of Genghis Khan's campaigns." A beneficial consequent of his atrocious methods was that people were too frightened to rebel. Thus the Khan engineered a great era of "peace," a kind of Pax Mongolica.
Political genius and/or scourge of the earth, Genghis Khan was thrown by his horse and in 1227 expired at the age of 66. His sons continued the family tradition in a number of ways. The son installed in his place commanded that 40 beautiful women be chosen from the most distinguished families. These, dressed in splendid robes covered with jewels, were sacrificed on the grave of the world conqueror "to await his soul in the hereafter."
The children of the Khan went on to menace Europe and actually got as far as Germany. In 1242 they reached Neustadt, south of Vienna. What this vast army would have further destroyed is not known because, though the sons were as cruel as their father, they were not as talented. There was squabbling, and the Mongol Empire, the Khan's great achievement, slowly crumbled into the seething, fragmented condition from which it had come.
There had been a great conquest but, as our historian notes, much damage had been done. Even (in an unusually impassioned phrase from this usually restrained historian) "the heart had been torn out of the old Russia." Nonetheless, there is much to admire.
This de Hartog does at length, searching out all sources (the bibliography is enormous) and telling his story with an impartial even impersonal intent that allows to the Khan and his times to -- as best they are able -- speak for themselves.
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