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Originally Posted by IDonT
1.) You are assuming that a single tumen would conquer Rome. In that regard I agree with you it can't. It would take the same amount of forces that conquered Song China and the Kwarazim Empire and taking into account that a big sea is in the smack middle of the empire.
2.) Say you have 100,000 troops guarding a 100 mile frontier. You have to disperse your forces in order to defend your strong points. You can't have them all at one time. That means that superior Mongolian mobility can fight and destroy smaller units in detail.
3.) Secondly, never underestimate the ability of superior mobility to frustrate the Roman commanders. If Scipio has his 20 legions in battle formation at A, why would Subutai attack him there when he can force him to defend B? A large enemy force like that travels in separate columns, which can be attack independently and wipe out with out the aid of the others.
4.) A roman Legion can march about 30 miles a day. A single tumen can travel 100 miles a day.
5.) The main problem with an infantry based army, no matter how well led or motivated, is that it cannot forced a well led cavalry army to a fight. It cannot dictate the terms of the battle. In simpliest terms, the Mongol Tumen can run away if it is in trouble, while a Roman Legion can't.
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1- No, you said Sudedei with a single Tumen could beat any Roman army. If 10,000 isn't even enough to reduce a single well garrisoned magor population center your claim is false.
2- That was the strategy of the late Imperial times, if you back up a few hundred years to Romes Height then the borders are all but open and the roads and ports are the key allowing the legions who at this time were groups in the equivalent of corps to reach any point in the empire in record time.
3- infantry armies in the classical world did not divide, the Romans understood the value of mass.
4- Not qute true, horses even steppe ponies are not very durable. The longer a horse army is in the feild or the farther it is from its base the weaker its horse flesh. By the time the Mongols withdrew out of Poland and Hungary they were starving and out of horses and thier rate of travel was so adversly affected only some of those required to attend the Grand Kuraltai made it. And then the army left in Russia had to be compeltely rebuilt.
5- Again not tue, one has only to look at the American West to see how the US Infantry ran the Nez Perce and other horse tribes to ground. A man can outwalk a horse over the copurce of a week. Make that months and the horse is dead and as long as the man has food and boots he is still walking. No non-predatory creature on earth can outwalk a man in the long run.
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They wouldn't have to sustain them for very long as they would simply create a local famine and keep moving. And of course fighting along the coast already implies the Mongols would have crushed field armies on the way.
Taking North Africa cuts off grain to Rome. If the Romans are hemmed inside of Italy then the richest parts of the empire are open to be sacked. A Mongol army feeding off local resources in grain growing provinces means a famine in the empire.
If a horse army doesn’t care for the local population at all then you will be surprised how much a province can feed a horse army. And then one had to factor in the refugee issue.
Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica might make nice final stands after the Mongols have conquered the mainland, but the Mongols did build a navy and reached (and briefly took with a small force) Java
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How do you create a local famine inside an empire linked by roads and a professional bureacy? taking North Africa is a stretch even for the Mongols. It is not horse country, they are thousands of miles from suitable repalcements, the Romans can cross the med in days and keep the port cities suplied and the Mongols end up bottled up. ther eis not enough timber to build a feet to cross the straits of Gibraltar and if they tried to turn around they double the distance thier poor horses have to travel. While North Africa is called the bread basket of Rome, in truth it was the olive basket. Egypt, anatollia, Italy, Gual, and Spain all had signifigant cropland.
I don't agree with the refugee issue, people ithe anciwent world didn't leave their land this is one reason why thier are so many romanesque traits in so many different Euriopean countries today; the Romans never left.
And I am sorry, but the Mongols trying to swim ashore on Scicily or Corsica (asuming they defeat the Roman Navy) is a sitting duck to the legions who unlike the Samuari do not fight indivually and would have pushed them back into the sea.