What if the Mongols had stayed in Hungary in 1242?
After crushing the Hungarians and Poles in 1241, the Mongols withdrew in 1242. What if Batu had stayed?
What actually happened
In 1236 the Mongol prince Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan, led a great army west. It destroyed Volga Bulgaria, conquered the principalities of Rus and took Kiev in December 1240. In spring 1241 it struck Central Europe on two fronts: one force defeated Henry the Pious of Silesia at Legnica on 9 April, and two days later Batu and the general Subutai annihilated King Béla IV's Hungarian army at Mohi.
For a year the Mongols occupied the Hungarian plain. In the winter of 1241–42 they crossed the frozen Danube, and Béla fled to the Dalmatian coast, sheltering on an island near Trogir as Mongol detachments hunted him. Then, in spring 1242, the Mongols withdrew east through Serbia and Bulgaria, and never returned in strength; a second invasion of Hungary in 1285–86 failed.
Hungary had lost a large share of its population. Béla rebuilt the kingdom, encouraging the building of stone castles that later helped it resist the second invasion.
The turning point
Why the Mongols left is one of the great debates of medieval history. The traditional answer is the death of the Great Khan Ögedei in December 1241, which required the princes to attend a kurultai to choose a successor. But Batu did not go to Mongolia; he stayed on the Volga and founded the Golden Horde.
Other explanations have gained ground. Denis Sinor argued that the Hungarian plain could not feed the hundreds of thousands of horses a Mongol army needed. A 2016 study by Ulf Büntgen and Nicola Di Cosmo used tree rings to argue that a cold, wet spring in 1242 turned the plain into marsh. Quarrels between Batu and other princes, and the possibility that the campaign was always meant as a punitive raid, are also cited. Most historians now see several causes together.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: word of the Great Khan's death came, but Batu did not go back; the Hungarian plain had grass enough for his horses; Béla IV, on an island off Dalmatia, promised the Khan tribute, and the Khan's tents went up in Transylvania and the Banat.
Beyond the game, a Mongol Hungary would likely have resembled the Rus principalities under the Golden Horde: local rulers paying tribute and seeking patents of office from the khan, rather than a land filled with Mongol settlers. The pasture argument suggests any Mongol presence on the plain would have been thin and seasonal.
Whether the Mongols could have pushed further is doubtful. Central and western Europe's castles, forests and fragmented terrain were poor country for steppe armies, and the Mongol empire was soon absorbed by its own succession struggles. But Austria, Bohemia and Poland would have lived for generations with a tributary frontier at their door.
Ripples through time
The Mongol decision is not linked to other medieval turning points in the game, but it carries into the Renaissance. If the Mongols stayed, the 1500 map has a Kipchak khanate of Genghis Khan's descendants on the lower Danube, in Moldavia and Wallachia, hostile to Hungary. This echoes a real episode: in the late thirteenth century the Golden Horde warlord Nogai built his power base in that same region.
- Carries into the next era Renaissance and the Age of Discovery
Play this turning point
Start in the Middle Ages (1200), or take the scenario Winter in Kiev, which begins in 1238 as Batu's horsemen approach. In the Currents of History story The Mongol invasion you can fight back, flee, or submit to the Khan; submitting pushes for the alternative.
The odds compare the Mongol army with Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, and the Mongols start with a large bonus. The turning point only occurs once the invasion has reached Hungary in your world.
Play this turning point → Start the scenario “Winter in Kiev” →
Questions and answers
Why did the Mongols withdraw from Hungary in 1242?
Possible reasons include the death of Ögedei Khan, a lack of pasture for their horses, a wet spring that flooded the plain, quarrels among the Mongol princes and the limited aims of the campaign. Historians increasingly combine several of these.
What were the battles of Legnica and Mohi?
Two Mongol victories in April 1241: at Legnica in Silesia (9 April) over Henry II the Pious, and at Mohi in Hungary (11 April) over Béla IV.
Could the Mongols have conquered Western Europe?
Most historians think it unlikely. Western Europe's terrain, castles and lack of open pasture would have made a long occupation very difficult for a steppe army.
Sources and further reading
Roger of Torre Maggiore, Carmen miserabile; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona. Modern accounts: Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West; Denis Sinor, 'The Mongols in the West'; Büntgen and Di Cosmo, Scientific Reports (2016).
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