Most Important Battles Challenge (3 Redo)

Battle of LegnicaBefore Leipzig was called Leipzig, it was Legnica. If you travel to Poland today on April 9th, you might be a little surprised to find most people celebrating. That's because in the year 1241, on that very day, Leipzig (or Legnica, whatever you want to call it) was host to another battle -between the Mongol Empire of Ghengis Khan and a combined force of Poland, the Teutonic Order, and several orders of knights (both on foot and on cavalry) sent by the Pope himself, including the feared Knights Templar and Hospitallers. The Mongols, according to their own records, deployed under 20,000 soldiers (some historians estimate only 8000), while the European army numbered between 32,000 and 60,000. While the numbers may not have been huge, the soldiers involved were the elites - one of the strongest medieval European armies ever assembled against the most deadly army in history - the very same army that had, at the battle of Baghdad, killed every person they could find at what was then one of the biggest cities in the world. The main strategist for the Mongols, Subodai (who holds the record to this day for the most amount of land conquered with his brilliant tactics and strategies), correctly predicted the entire European strategy and sent his battle orders by letter from Hungary while also preparing to fight the Hungarians and their allies at the famous battle of Mohi. As the Polish marched forth to clash ranks, the Mongols set up a smokescreen using gunpowder to stop the Europeans coordinating with each other. The Mongols also had Polish speaking people shout fake orders around to the soldiers to manipulate them, at one point causing most of the Polish army to retreat. The knights that the Polish had deployed to flank the Mongol position were harassed by the speedy Mongol horse archers, and then deceived by the Mongol horsemen into thinking their own infantry were in fact Mongol infantry (after the European infantry had already been charged by the heavy mongol cavalry). Once the Polish had killed many of their own men, the main Mongol army feigned a retreat, knowing the heavy knights would charge faster than the infantry. The knights were simply picked off one by one with arrows, while the infantry were ambushed. In the end, essentially the whole of the European army was slain. The Mongols had meant for the attack to be a mere diversion for their main battle at Mohi (even if Legnica proved far more important as I will show in a moment), so they did not press onwards - if they had, however, then the only army of any importance that remained for them to defeat was France, who fought in almost exactly the same way the Polish did. The Polish decided that, despite the fact all their main commanders and the vast majority of their army were slain, the Mongols must have taken such heavy losses they were forced to retreat. Although we now know this to be false, the Polish still honor April 9th as the day their country made a heavy sacrifice to save all of the rest of Europe from Mongol tyranny. Mongols, or Tarters as they were then called, were believed to be agents of the devil, so defeating them was seen in a spiritual sense as vastly significant. Why (else) was this battle important? First, this was the first time in history mainland European forces faced gunpowder. Rumors of it had existed for a long time, and the Mongols had previously used it in a small number of battles against the Russian principalities (although never to the same extent), but this is the first recorded use in a significant set battle on the European mainland. The introduction of gunpowder to Europe by such colonizers as the Mongols was arguably the later catalyst for European colonization with gunpowder, which has had a huge impact on the histories of whole of America, Africa, Oceania and southern Asia (India, Afghanistan, SE Asia etc). Second, the smokescreen strategy had never been used before, hence why the Europeans were so totally unprepared for it. In modern warfare, smokescreens are used all the time to force enemies into different positions and to generally put them off. Indeed the use of smokescreens was among Napoleon's favorite tactics. They owe it all to Subodai and his strategy at this very battle. Third, because Mohi was mostly an infantry and ranged unit battle, this is the one that taught the Europeans that maybe having the heaviest horses and biggest lances did not assure victory. Although it did persist for around a century, Legnica marked the beginning of the end of the custom of knighthood. In doing so, it again completely reformed the nature of western warfare. Fourth, this was the first major battle that most of these powers, such as the Germans and French, had actually seen the Mongols in, rather than only hearing accounts from people running away from the Mongols (the Mongols were always happy to let a few run away to spread some fear in their enemies). Something they did not expect is for the commander to not even be at the battle-site. Indeed, it was custom for the Mongols to have the person in charge standing on a nearby hill issuing orders with flag signals, as it gave a better overview of the battlefield. The European custom was for the main commander to be the first to charge into battle. This also began to change after seeing the effectiveness of having a broad overview of the battle site at Legnica, as being in the thick of things is exactly what made the smokescreen so impossible to work with. Fifth, the decimation the strongest knight orders in Europe had a significant impact on another series of wars where religion was invoked - the Crusades. Crusades were all notably less successful after Legnica, partly because it was an incredibly demoralizing victory and a serious embarrassment for those that earnestly thought God would protect their unit on the battlefield, but also simply because many of them died there and thus couldn't fight the Muslims. Sixth, the sheer power of the battle's memory. It is Legnica that is remembered as the one that saved Europe, not Mohi, and the very idea of a narrative of "saving" a whole continent with a single battle is far more powerful than, say, a narrative of one nation being the dominant power in a continent.