Why were the Mongols so successful?

Why were the Mongols so successful? Mongol military history and battle tactics.
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[ErnestJay]

Mongols doesn't need a "supply line" like other armies back then, because they're nomadic people, they just "bring their supplies with them", like sheep, horses, deer, bulls, etc.
They even bring their home, typical mongolian yurt are easy to assemble and disassemble at any places, rather than construct a huge military camp every few hundred miles, they just make a camp full of yurts and after the mission is over, they just disassemble those yurts and go somewhere else.

[marouaniAymen]

Great ability to adapt to sudden changes and new tactics, great mobility, intelligence gathering.

[stredent]

Merit-based promotions. Pretty hard to beat a group of competent soldiers.

[HarpoMarxTheSpot]

They were motivated because a soothsayer told them they would be featured in an Age of Empires 2 campaign in 800 years

[maxwelsh]

Because Mongols were steppe peoples, horses were fundamental to their system of agriculture. Every man would have multiple horses. With settled peoples, horses were reserved (usually one each) for the nobles or a small core of professional soldiers. This meant Mongols could move much faster than even their opposing cavalry forces. When one horse got tired, they would leap on to another without slowing down. When enemies looked at so many horses, they would assume one horse = one man, and drastically overestimate the mongol numbers. This was a powerful psychological warfare advantage.

[jonathanmillner]

The Yam (mongol pony express) was formed under Genghis but perfected under Ogedei. Ogedei said of all of his accomplishments, perfecting the Yam system he felt was his biggest. Think about this. Mongols could be fighting the Jin in northern China and 1, 000km away Genghis can get messages from the front in like 3-4 days. He could send a re-enforcement army to harass around the enemy or cut off supply lines or what have you... but no other commander in history could command an army almost in real time from 1, 000km away like that. It is incredibly revolutionary because he's not thinking about taking your giant army here against your giant army there. He's thinking how to swoop the whole region in the best possible way and just meeting you perpetually in upfront battle may not always be the best tactic. So he does this thing called communicating and it revolutionizes warfare because now he can break his army up into smaller and smaller groups that can be used more effectively ravaging the countryside and stuff. Plus... he can't manage a giant empire with messages only moving 40km a day. This ability to regularly move messages 250km a day won't be seen again until.... the telegraph comes out. If messages moved slower, Genghis could've never conquered vast swathes because he could never manage it all logistically. So, it is also a contributing factor that led to great war strategy, but had great governmental and trade purposes as well too. But this communicating was a revolution in just how war was conducted. There is no way they could've ever gotten close to Europe if they hadn't developed the Yam. Also, it was along all these Yam routes that the trade routes ran and since the Mongols loved trade, this all created the Pax Mongolica. First time east and west linked by safe trade. The silk road... ya... Mongols kinda had a thing in that. Right behind their general warfare tactics... the Yam probably is the next best thing. And horse archery among steppe peoples wasn't a new thing. The Yam... that's a mongol original. Really just pretty amazing to think a people can and did move as fast as they did before the car. Yam couriers were regularly doing 250km a day. The Mongols actually forbade messages from moving on foot except for a few really outlier places that couldn't support horse. And they could and did move messages that distance everyday...

[jeremybasset]

1- the mongol bow. Far more range and _ridiculously_ more powerful than any other of the time. Mongol Arrows piercing right through shields was common.

2 - the Mongol horse. Sturdy. Light. Strong. Adaptable. Could go on without food and rest for longer than any of their enemies could imagine physically possible, allowing for an entire army on horseback to travel vast distances and appear on the horizon at dawn.

3 - the mongol warrior. Unforgiving lands breed unforgiving warriors, but to survive on the barren and freezing steppe requires a special kind of person. Not only were they as hardy as their beloved horses and able to withstand any amount of suffering without wavering loyalty to their Khan, but they also had the fierce cunning and intuition of a predator. They were wolves of the plains. The highest mongol commanders attained their rank by showing they were the most intelligent (and almost as important) the most ruthless.

4 - military traditions. As you said in the video, promoting by skill, organization of the units, and surprising adaptability. Even to the point of using heavy cannon better than the Chinese (Sung Dynasty)

5 - they were led by freakin Genghis Khan for Christ's sake

[ICSSecurityResearch]

Just having those small intimate teams can make an Army great. Knowing exactly how your buddy fights right next makes a team extra lethal. It’s exactly what Special Forces does with their teams.

[logoncal]

Simply put: The mongols played 4d chess.

[ashukhalifan]

Years of fighting in China before the arrival of Mongols had enhanced the warfare technology way ahead of rest of the world by centuries. When Mongols invaded Northern China using other tactics, they learned lot more than anyone else in the world. Combined with the agility of Mongol armies the siege tactics proved to be too much for any army. At the sight of mongols, they would go and hide into their fortresses, hoping to resist them till reinforcement arrived, only to find that their castles walls being razed within hours..
It was a big factor..

[FromNothing]

Great video. I love this style of video that gets into great detail of the organization and units.

[williamkartatar]

They are teleporting again, I am having flashbacks.

[matthewmcneany]

Logistics, it's always logistics.

[AmrodOfDale]

Short, concise and well informed video, a pleasure to watch!

[robertheisenberg]

The redistribution of wealth my Khan made poor people love him and the rich hate him but it didn’t matter because the dead cannot speak anyway

[makkah]

I’ll count some of the reasons why I think they were so successful:

1. They got a great horses capable of resisting thirst and freezing climates.
2. They are nomadic nation. Thus, every single person of them is a warrior rather than being an unarmed civilian.
3. Whenever they reach a village to conquer, they give only two options, one of which is the choice to fight for them for a given period of time while the other is to be immediately executed. The families of those who choose to fight are taken as hostages until the period is done so that they make sure no one run away. Basically, they give those who accept this choice a reason to fight and hope that they can meet their families again.
4. The front of their army is filled with people who are forced to fight, so that they avoid any possible loses among them.
5. Their conquer over China has supplied them with massive human resources.
6. Since they execute any people refusing to give up and enroll their army even if those people changed their mind later and tried to accept the choice, terrifying reputation has spread even faster than the Mongolian army itself.

[John_Conner]

I absolutely love this. I love how you explain all the details but still summarize with imagery. I have always been curious as to how they did this. I figured it was because they were extremely mobile and intelligent. The closest I could come to understanding these concepts was playing a video game called Mount and Blade. It's fantasy but its based on historical warriors.



You start out by yourself or a small group of guards based upon your choices and your status. Eventually raising money through various means you can field your own armies. If you are good enough you can conquer and manage towns, castles, and even kingdoms. I loved making my Swadian knight army. Mostly comprised of armored knights on armored warhorses with a few platoons of heavily armored ground troops protecting my well trained longbowmen.



They were fast and I used blitzkrieg style tactics to absolutely smash any army on the battlefield. When it came time to assault a castle they were so resilient because of their armor and shield. The army was stupid expensive to maintain and required a serious amount of work to get money to keep it funded but it never lost a battle. I rarely lost any troops.. except... when I fought the Khergit Khanate. The game's version of the Mongols. Their entire army is horseback based and is usually the same speed or faster than mine. Such a pain in the ass to fight. They would clash then retreat and was the only army to cause me any significant loss to my troops.



I finally had to create new tactics to even remotely come close to winning a battle. Mounted archers are faaacking annoying and they would whittle my army down over time because they would lure small groups of troops away, surround them and kill them. Some battles took 45 minutes to complete because of these tactics if I chased. I eventually had to make changes to my army loadout in order to beat them. The only way for me to kill them was to use the same tactics that were similar to how American fighter pilots adapted to fight the Japanese (climb and dive in pairs, bait and killer). I reduced my cavalry significantly and vastly increased my archers and heavy footman with tower shields and put them at the top of a hill and usually would move into trees if at all possible. I would run my cavalry into them and then instant peel and run away. I would be with the cavalry on my horse so I could monitor enemy movements as they would break up into smaller groups and run everywhere.



I would use the hills to my advantage and run crisscross patterns across them. This would allow me to kill some of them while fleeing in order to whittle their numbers down but the goal was to get them to think I was fleeing and to turn around and chase me to harass me. I would then have my footsoldiers run down the hill to flank and then turn my cavalry around and pin as many of them as possible while my archers killed them. I repeated as often as I could before they broke and fled (usually half strength). I never chased as it would always cause huge losses. Once the army fled I sacked and destroyed every Khergit town, castle, and city I could. Everything was killed, salted, and burned as I did not want them to retake it and get their economy back to rebuild (you usually don't want to do that as it really hurts your economy). They were always my first target and I made sure their empire was destroyed as quickly as possible. So annoying to fight and after seeing this it kinda matched what I had to deal with. I can only imagine the pain of dealing with them in real life. Very impressive actually.

[lukezuzga]

This was awesome! Value over merit instead of birth was their best advantage. Thx forntje vidm

[tomasgonzalez]

A video on Why were the mongols so succesful?? Oh my good yes!!!!

[SmigGames]

Great video. Putting oneself in the shoes of their victims, it must have been one of the most terrifying things to experience. At least rival kingdoms would play by the same rules, to some extent. This would have been felt like an alien invasion or something.