astralis

exnavyamerican,

didn't stop the mongols from razing numerous persian and caliphate cities to the ground. the mongols WERE stopped in their second try against hungary, i believe, but roman fortifications didn't match that of the medieval castles.

as for manpower, i suppose it depends on the period of time you're talking about. rome had some difficulty replacing the 25,000 men lost at teutoberg forest, for example.

and unlike the case of hannibal, where he tried to unsuccessfully win roman vassals and cities to his side...the mongols would have razed them all. that would no doubt cut into the manpower base...

regarding

not just celts in britain, but the ones on the european continent. prior to the carthiginians, these celts were known as the greatest threat to rome, having captured rome before.

finally, it looks to me that the strongest argument against the mongols here would probably be the environment. mongols traditionally did well in wide-open spaces, where their horse cavalry and archers could easily beat the opposition. however, in wooded areas (where infantry is far better), they did not do very well at all...and infantry was rome's strength. i don't think it would have been a problem of bringing/building seige weapons, as the mongols did use seige weapons against baghdad IIRC.

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zraver

I dissagree, Rome sacked the parthian capitol several times and took Armenia and mesopotamia form them. The manipulative legion was not a loose formation, although it was flexible. While the gladius was the real killing tool of the romans, it was not the only tool. The Legions had a large number of slingers an archers as well as cavalry, javlainers, and engineers. in one repsect the Mongols were like the Romans. They borrowed technology without batting an eye. the Gladius or Gladius Hispania came from Gual, the slingers from Greece, they used composite bows and adpated the cavalry tactics of the Huns and other proto-turkish tribes. The Pilum could also due duty as a pike, and onc einside the legiosn formation the gladius/scutum combo would be like a glock and bowie knife vs a bolt action 30-06 in close quaters fight.

Vs a Hungarian force Rome would have smashed the kights into peices. Heavy cavalry is a short ranged shock weapon fit only for use inside of a combined arms formation. Roman legions could out march any cavalry force in the world expcet the mongols, and could run knights to ground and set up seiges, where Rome almost never lost.

The heavy cavalry faield agaist the Muslims, failed agaist the Mongols and later faield agaisnt the infantry. Its rise to prominance was due more to the politcal nature of Europe than any military advantage.

not just open spaces. Rome with a massive merchant marine (strategic mobility) and its critical population and wealth centers clustered in easily defensable (vs cavalry) locations along the coast, and sheer size that required ocean going capabilities to move quickly could have pinned the Mongols down via seige warfare. Asong as Rome could keep the horsemen out of Italy, Greece, Egypt, Spain, and Judea she would eventually win. The parts of the empire most vulnerable to the Mongols were the elast vaualbe to the Romans. One has only to look at the Empires resilency in the face of wave after wave of invasion taking away large but unimportant portions of the empire. it wasn't until the tax and legion systems collapsed that Italy felt the permament heel of the invaders boot.

deadkenny

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then, as we're not likely to see any Hungarian 'knights' vs. Roman legion battles in the foreseeable future.

The Roman manipular formation was 'looser' than a phalanx formation for example - a sort of 'checker board' formation with intentional 'gaps' that provided great flexibility of maneuver (far more than a phalanx for example). My understanding of the 'pilum' is that it was not suitable for use as a 'pike'. It was shorter for one thing, and intended to be thrown. It also had an extended iron 'spearhead' that was intended to 'bend' once it had penetrated an opponent's armour or shield, thereby encumbering him but not being reusable by the opponent. Once the legionare had thrown his pilum he would close in with the shortsword. It was not my intention to state that Rome was unable to ever defeat any contemporary foe with cavalry, but they did in fact have more difficulty with them than they did against predominately infantry foes. Further, the Hungarian knights of almost an entire millenium later would have been far ahead of Rome, or Roman contemporaries, in terms of equipment - whether that's swords, shields, lances, stirrups or fortifications and siege engines. I do not believe that any advantage in Roman 'organization' would have been sufficient to overcome that.

deadkenny

Well, not exactly - 'heavy' cavalry is not defined in terms of a stirrup. Alexander the Great made very effective use of the 'shock' effect of his cavalry - effectively employing it in a 'heavy' cavalry role. The Persians would have been quite surprized to learn that fighting from horseback was a 'chancy business'.

IDonT

The fact that the Mongols were horse archers have nothing to do with their military capability. Comparing them to other horse archers is like comparing a Roman Legion to a Gaulic army base on the fact that they fought on foot with a sword and a shield. Totally different animal. The mongols were a highly discipline and highly mobile force, supported by a mature logistic system and superbly led.

Here is a reason why a single Mongolian Tumen (10,000 troops) under Subutai can beat any army a Romans can field.

Mobility and Disciline

The ability to appear suddenly without warning cannot be underestimated. People get so caught up with firepower and defence that they forget the third factor of mobility.

Superior mobility provides the Mongolian Tumen the best chance of victory such as:
1.) choosing the time and place to fight
2.) fighting only when it has an advantage, retreating when it doesn't
3.) lead to better terrain scanning
4.) faster way of figuring out at which route to march an army
5.) faster assimiliation of local knowledge

Being more manueverable than a typical Roman army gives a Mongolian Tumen far greater flexibility in how to employ its forces. The feined retreat is one always quoted example. It has been done before including the Romans. But no Roman army ever retreated 100 miles and spreading out its enemy over a 30 mile front and defeating each outnumbered section in detailed.

Furthermore, having a more manueverable army leads to flanking manuevers that are a hundred miles apart. That makes the Roman Ceasar or Scipio believed that two separate armies are attacking it thus making them split their army, making them susceptable to destruction in detail.

A slower army can never dictate when to fight against a more mobile army. They are subject to when the enemy wants to fight, and it is usually during times of great distress. A well led, highly mobile, and highly motivated and disciplined force is very hard to beat.

They were the first disciple of the shock and awe. Note: Never in this post have I talked about military tech.

zraver

The pilum was sturdy enough to penetrate armor or sheild with just the power of a single throwing arm. ye sit would deform to render it useless and unusable for return fire and to make continued carryingof the sheild impractical, however imagine that hardened armor piercing tip impacting a pony or horse warrior with a 1000lbs of charging horse behind it.

As for technology, the armor of the Hungarian knight was probalby of inferior quality, it was made over long winter nights by the warriors themselves or local smiths of questionable ability. Rome was an industrial power with standardized levels of equipment and quality produced by dedicated craftsmen who were well versed in their trade. A Roman armorer didn't make mail as a side job.

Hungarian mail was a double mail and covered more of the body, but it was still iron (of questiopnable smithing) and was very heavy and restricted mobility. Roman mail or segmentata was not the principle defensive technology, that belongs to the Scutum that was far in advance of any medievil shield, and the shield also acted as a weapon and the lighter weight of the legionares protection increased mobility. The Roman legionare was also in superb physical condition, the knight maybe, maybe not.

from the time of Constantine to the Mongol invasion, military technology evolved, but it did not progress.

10,000 men vs armies of 50,000+ legionares and support troops. I don't think so.

1-10,000 men is not enough to affec tthe reduction of the Roman cities and centers of gravity.

2- Roma has superior strategic mobility along the coast, and untouchable stragtic depth in North Africa, Greece (Thermopylae anyone), Britian, Spain and Italy, Scicily, sardina, Corsica etc. None of these areas will sustain a horse army for long.

3- Rome had great commanders every bity as good as Sudedei namely Scipio, Julius Ceaser, Maximus etc.

4- Roman discipline and professional standards were every bit as high as the Mongols

5- No one beat Rome when it came to copying new technologies and ideas.

6- Rome knew its own Terrain and the road system made the legiosn nearly as fast as the Tumen overland.

7- in the logn run the very durable legion could outmarch a Tumen once the Mongols remuda was worn down through loses or campaigning.

Blademaster

A Mongol could cross 1000 miles in 10 days using the ancient Mongolese version of Pony Express. That tells us how good their lines of communication were.

Blademaster

Obviously you forgot how good the Chinese armies were when facing against the Mongols. They were every bit as professional and disciplined as the Romans and they had far superior weaponry and their logistic chains was not something to sneer at. The Chinese did have good commanders but what did them in was that the Mongols totally defeated the Chinese decision cycle and rendered any capacity to learn from defeats. The Mongols rarely ever gave their enemies to learn from mistakes. Romans were victorious over the longer run because they had the luxury of learning their mistakes and applying their lessons to the next battle or campaign. When Romans face against the Mongols, the Romans won't have time to learn their mistakes.

pdf27

Lines of communications in this particular case appears to be referring to supplies, not information. Incidentally, the Roman postal service would typically move a despatch 170 miles per day (using a relay system - some sources claim up to 500 miles per day, which I have trouble believing). That's nearly double the speed of the Mongols, showing the benefits of having a decent road system. The Romans also have shipping available, thus can use the Mediterranean as a major shortcut when appropriate.

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Officer of Engineers

Something needs to be said about that. The Mongols mode of transportation is also their logistics train. Each Mongol warrior rides 5 horses. During a fast march, he would pick one horse to drink blood from to keep up his strength until he puts the horse down for good for a meal.

In times of desperation, he can eat up to four horses (or share as an army goes) and arrive fresh enough for battle.

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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.

Ironduke

Where would this battle take place? Most of Europe in classical times would not be exactly conducive to the type of warfare the Mongols carried out... Europe has a very complex terrain, especially in the areas ruled by the Romans.

There's no way in any time that the Romans would have had an advantage over their enemies in the steppes of Asia and the plains of eastern Europe. Geography could have also well confounded the Mongols in southern and western Europe.

The maximum extent of the Mongols in Europe was limited to Russia, Poland, and Hungary. I suspect the Mongols passed into eastern Hungary, directly from the north, where the Carpathians narrow and there's easy passage.

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troung

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.

The javelin is outranged by the reflex bow: as are most Roman weapons. The Mongol cavalryman might carry 40-60 arrows which took of less space then a javelin of which only a handful could be carried. Roman cavalry could likely not stand up to Mongol cavalry either in shock (compared to heavy Mongol cavalry) and skirmishing or numbers. And the Mongols had engineers of their own.

They lost in Java and Vietnam if one considers the Yuan a Mongol state.

Mongol siege weapons were brought into the Middle East: Hulegu’s sack of Baghdad is an example of siege weapons tugged across Asia. And before he used them on Baghdad he used them on Persia.

Mongol siege equipment is what turned them from a force of cavalry raiders to empire builders as unlike past steppe raiders the Mongols could reliably seize a defended city.

The Mongols were a force of horse-archers and could field large numbers with lots of horses. Rome's cavalry was small in comparison to the force the Mongols could bring to the field. And not all Mongols had leather once they left Mongolia: armor was acquired through their victories so by the time they reached the Middle East armor was more common.

The Mamlukes won in no small part because the Illkhanate was forced to go to war with the Golden Horde and sent only a rump force against the Mamlukes: who by the way fought in a similar style to the Mongols and backed away from sending forces to help the Caliph because they knew they couldn't face the Hulegu.

And the Mongols kept control over China, Persia, Central Asia and Russia for quite some time.

And that bulk of the population and wealth would be subject to raids and sieges by the Mongols. And there is the political issue of being in that situation, with cities full of refugees causing disease and food storages.

Turko-Mongol forces could number over 100,000 for an invasion.

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deadkenny

I'm not sure it was 'sturdy' enough to penetrate armour, or a shield, and do any damage - the idea was simply to 'stick into' the shield, such that it would be an encumberance and perhaps prompt the target to drop the shield. In any case the key point is that the pilum was far too short to be an effective 'pike' for use against cavalry. It was a throwing weapon. The Macedonian 'sarissa' for example was estimated to be as long as 22ft. The idea of a 'pike' weapon is that it is long enough for the pikes of the rearward ranks to reach forward past the front most rank. The pilum was so short that the second rank couldn't even reach far enough past the front rank to be effective. That, plus the lances of the 'knights' that they would be facing in this hypothetical scenario would outreach the front rank of Romans. If a Roman infantry force had been 'caught' in the open by a charge from such heavy cavalry, they would have been slaughtered and trying to use the pilum as pike would not have saved them.

zraver

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.

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.