The Mongols would have conquered Europe

Some quick rebuttals"I cannot find any sources claiming that Kiev had a weakness"It's a pity that Dmytro's account has never made it to the internet. I have it in a small anthology of early European writings about the Mongols. Several other sources, however, drawing on Dmytro's account, do make reference to the fact that the walls, while smoking and battered, were still standing after the siege (if only implicitly) - see . http://www.archive.org... for one example. The walls did not fall - only the gate did. "Baghdad had massive walls . .. and the Mongols broke through without exploiting a weak point"While Baghdad's walls were comparable, the siege was over a decade later (. http://en.wikipedia.org...(1258)). In that time the Mongols took many more Chinese prisoners to work their catapults. The Mongol army at Baghdad was also much larger than the one assaulting Kiev (how much is not certain, but some historians think it may have been ten times larger), suggesting more siege weapons were also available, and most importantly, it was a different army. Möngke Khan and Batu Khan used different companies of siege engineers, and by 1258 were in legally seperate nations with no military-sharing. Thus while some commanders from Mongolia may have been able to break through walls a decade after the siege of Kiev, Batu certainly could not, nor could he sit in Europe and wait for a decade, nor would his army have been capable if he did. "the Hungarians, despite their earlier refuge, executed the Cumans as spies"This happened after the Mongols invaded. Before, the Mongols used it as their motivation for going to war. After, it was the dead emmissaries that were sent to the Mongol camp. Did having peace mean the Mongols could not have moved though Venetian territory to invade? Yes if the Mongols wanted access to their maps of Europe. The Venetians controlled the trade of two important commodities - wool and wine - and thus knew more about Europe than any Mongol spy network could ever hope to accomplish. The Mongols knew this. They were certainly not showing any of the characteristic Mongol pre-invasion signs, such as sending out emmissaries with ridiclious demands. The Mongols were experts at psychological warfare. .. Any sort of religious inclination to fight could have been dealt with. The closest psychological parraell would be Japan - the Japanese emporer, practically treated as a God in Shinto, asked for the Mongols to be defeated. And they were. In Europe, the parraell would be the Pope. I will agree that the Mongols made both the Japanese and Europeans fear them, I disagree that they made them not want to fight. Persia is different - you couldn't simply say "All I am after is the Pope" because immediately every Christian nation on Earth would fight the Mongols. Religious loyalty is much harder to stop than Persian-style political loyalty. "the Mongols were masters at improvisation, psychological warfare, and were not at all helpless on unsuited terrain"I agree with the first two, but not the third. The terrain at Mohi is steppe - exactly the terrain that the Mongols are most suited to fighting in! And since the weather was Summerish, it was nowhere near as wet as what they would have encountered had they pressed further. "they actually forced the crossbowmen to retreat"Wrong - they forced the bridge-guards to retreat as the Hungarian king forgot to tell his main army to prepare for battle. The main body of crossbowmen did not retreat after they were actually called to battle until after Subudai arrived. "Actually, the Europeans did not have much contact with each other"As disproven by the Crusades, which stemmed from almost every Catholic nation. "the idea took hold that the battles of Liegnitz and Mohi had in fact been Pyrrhic victories for the barbarian hordes"This was after their retreat. Before their retreat, they were preparing their battle strategies. "the Mongols would often ignore large fortified cities and destroy the less protected ones, denying them reinforcements or supplies"Castles were designed to last for months in case of a siege, which were very common back then. It is likely a castle would have lasted longer without supplies than the Mongol army, cut off in the forests of Southern Germany by an even larger army (the Mongols only had ~25,000 men at Mohi). "and could have gotten many of their supplies from where they were by pillaging"You can't pillage horses if there are no horses. "They even assembled their own siege engines"I agree they could have done this, but that does not give them horses. "the Mongols took with each soldier about four or five horses"And they used ALL OF THEM. Mongol strategies did not usually work without this sort of manuverability. "The Holy Roman Empire was weak from war with the Pope"Your own source labels them one of two "powerhouses of Europe. "Alternative invasion routeThis map shows my strategy, in blue, against my opponent's strategy, in red. Previous mongol attacks are green. I will grant that my opponent's strategy has the major advantage of avoiding a sea crossing (though it involves many major river crossings), and being fought on more Mongol-friendly terrain since it avoids northern Europe. The disadvantages are manifold. First, it would be even easier to cut off the Mongol supply line between the Alpes and the sea. The Holy Roman Empire, which controlled significant tracts of land in the Po river valley still, along with France, who were at the time strongly allied with Milan, the Bohemian army, still marching around looking for the Mongols, the Italian states of Genoa, Pisa, Milan and Florence, as well as the Papal States themselves, are all likely to have wanted to fight the Mongols in this valley, meaning the Mongols would be practically under attack from all sides. While these nations are unlikely to have co-operated much, the Mongols would undoubtably grow weary of being a passive army in the valley. The moment they attack anybody, however, whichever army is on their rear would see that as an oppertunity to strike. The Po river valley would thus present a sort of massive colleseum for the Mongols, with them in the middle and all the nations of Europe surrounding them. If I was a Mongol strategist, I would certainly retreat, regroup and rethink my battle plan. Furthermore, Mongols usually liked to overwhealm enemies with feignt attacks and attacks on a single location from multiple angles. This would be impossible if they were trapped inside a single valley. Attacking Venice would objectively be a strategic error. ConclusionMy opponent has failed to present a compelling case that the Mongols could have invaded Europe. His battle plan for a Mongol invasion is even worse than mine, and even mine was bad! The resolution is negated.