Tosho wrote:
What if Ogadai the great Khan, heir of Genghis Khan didn't drink himself to death, allowing Subadai Bahadur and Batu Khan to continue their campaign in europe?
Hopefully I think of more "exercises" later.
I don't think it would necessarily annihilate European civilization as:
1. They wouldn't cross the Pyrenees most likely, and I'd like to see a light cav army campaigning in Iberia.
2. Same for Switzerland/Italy, and they might easily be defeated by the alliances of the cities currently in place there if they tried to tangle with them on their own terrain.
3. No boats, they can't get to Britain.
4. I don't see them crossing up over through Finland and into Sweden, etc, though there's not really much there at the moment.
5. I don't see them, again, crossing the Danube and campaigning into the Balkans, though they
could. They could also lose; however, the area is in enough chaos that they might not, too. Taking Constantinople is beyond their capabilities.
Of course, that screws over Germany, Flanders, and France, along with more thoroughly working over what they historically did.
So can anything historically there stop them?
Well, Frederick II "Stupor Mundi" ("The Wonder of the World"), was Holy Roman Emperor at the time, and King of Naples and Sicily. He had also got himself in over his head trying to consolidate his rule of Italy.
But at the same time this was before he had suffered from serious problems in Germany, and when he was at the relative height of his power. Likewise, the armies of the Eastern Nations were not wholly defeated, and so the surviving knights and mercenaries would have flooded west, bolstering his own numbers and providing a relatively loyal bedrock: They had nothing to fight for but to defeat the Tartar to regain their lands, and there would be less suspicion than with the pagan Cumans in Hungary (to a degree).
Also, Germany is not as good cavalry country - especially south-western Germany - Than Eastern Europe. If one will recall, the Hungarians themselves were checked by Otto der Grosse at Lechfeld in similiar circumstances. A badly outnumbered force of heavy European cavalry completed shattered the Hungarian formation, primarily of light cavalry with some light infantry, and won that victory which secured Germany proper from the threat of barbarian invasion (at least, of course, until the Mongols).
The question is, if Frederick II could rally the support necessary, and get the Mongols to take him on where the terrain was favourable. Then we could see another Lechfeld. Certainly if he reigned in his knights and let eastern Germany be ravaged it isn't impossible; they would have to go through him to get to Francia. But that would be a very hard task; OTOH, this is also the man who talked his way into Jerusalem with a Muslim ruler as the man he was negotiating against, and during the height of the Crusades.
Quite enigmatic to say the least; but he was also beset by the problems of a disunited, and un-unitable, Empire, which even in the face of such a threat may prove beyond his capacity to hold together enough support for that style of effort. On the plus side, presupposing that French territory had not yet been penetrated, and the King of France historically having been eager to face the Tartar horde, he might be willing with his cavaliers to adopt such a strategy, assuming he and Frederick can come to an agreement: Which indeed might be easier than Frederick gaining the support of the disparate realms of the H.R.E.
Overall there is the very slimmest of chances that the Mongols might be defeated before they devastate the majority of Europe. But they won't get all of it, and not, really, the important parts when you think of the span of history and in terms of innovation.
all you need is an army of several thousand Byzantine Kataphraktoi and Pronoia Allagion heavy cavalry, heavy infantry etc to put those pathetic barbarians to flight!