KALKA river
“SUBOTAI ORDERS A GENERAL ATTACK. THE RUSSIANS ARE UNREADY FOR THE ASSAULT. THERE IS NO OVERALL COMMANDER TO DIRECT THEM AND THEY HAVE LITTLE IDEA WHAT THE MONGOLS ARE UP TO”
01 The Allies Arrive
after a nine-day march from the Dnieper River, the combined army of the Russian princes and Kipchaqs arrives at the Kalka River on 31 May 1223. little do they suspect that Subotai has deliberately lured them away from the Dnieper, by means of a false retreat, expecting that the divisions of the large army will become dispersed as it marches.
02 River Crossing
The Kipchaqs, heading east, cross the Kalka, followed by the Volhynian cavalry and the men of Galicia. The troops of chernigov fall behind, crossing the river only slowly. The men of Kiev at this time do not attempt to cross at all.
03 subotai strikes
Seeing that the major elements of the allied army have become widely separated, Subotai orders a general attack. The allies are unready for the assault. There is no overall commander to direct them and they have little idea what the Mongols are up to. in a departure from usual Mongol tactics, Subotai sends in his heavy armoured cavalry first, instead of leading the assault with horse archers.
04 Rout of The Kipchaqs
The Kipchaqs are quickly routed by the Mongol heavy cavalry. Mongol horse archers next attack the Volhynian cavalry of Prince Daniil, showering them with arrows and charging home with spears. The Volhynians flee before the Mongol onslaught. Prince Mstislav of Galicia readies his men for battle, but the headlong flight of the Kipchaqs and Volhynians sweeps the Galicians along with them towards the Kalka.
05 Chernigov Routed
The leading division of the army of chernigov, under the command of Prince oleg of Kursk, is ready to fight in proper battle order but is defeated by the Mongols and flees. The rest of the chernigov army, which has not had sufficient time to finish crossing the Kalka, is carried away by the fleeing masses of Volhynians and Kipchaqs.
06 Kiev’s last stand
The warriors of Kiev, watching the disaster on the far side of the Kalka River unfold before their eyes, circle their wagons, forming a makeshift fortification. They trundle slowly back towards the Dnieper over three days, under constant Mongol attack. having depleted their drinking water, the helpless Kievans negotiate a surrender.
07 The end
Subotai promises the thirsty Kievans that no blood will be shed if they surrender, but once the Kievans have left their wagons, many are slain and the remainder enslaved. Noble prisoners are placed under wooden planks, suffocating to death as the Mongols sit atop them, enjoying a victory feast.
Genghis, from the beginning a shrewd judge of ability, was also not above taking a former enemy into his service when he saw talent in him. Jebe, Subotai’s co-commander on the raid, was a member of the Yesut tribe of Mongols, and had earlier battled his new master during the tribal wars that saw Genghis, then still known as Temujin, cement his authority over all of the Mongol peoples. In one encounter, Jebe had even managed to bring down Genghis’s own horse. When he was later captured, he anticipated nothing more than being put to death. Instead, Jebe was taken into Genghis’s service and became one of the Great Khan’s highest-ranking generals.
The ride began in February 1221 with
Subotai circling his army around the southern end of the Caspian Sea. After crushing the Christian Kingdom of Georgia that year, the following year Subotai was confronted by a coalition of peoples in the Caucasus, including Alans, Iasians and Kosogians, which sought to block his passage. The coalition was led by the Kipchaqs, a Turkic people who dominated the steppes of what is today southern Russia and Ukraine. Subotai found himself trapped in the mountains on terrain that did not favour Mongol cavalry tactics. Destruction loomed until Subotai, employing brains rather than brute force, bribed the Kipchaqs to leave. Once they had departed he fell upon the abandoned Caucasians and annihilated them. The Mongols then moved on to the Ukrainian steppe, hard on the heels of the unsuspecting Kipchaqs, and smashed their army in a battle near the Don River then sacked the city of Astrakhan.
After spending the winter of 1222-23 out on the steppe north of Crimea conducting reconnaissance of the region, Subotai began to advance westward in earnest, pushing along the Dniester River towards the Russian heartland, slaughtering all in his path. The frightened Kipchaqs warned the Russians that if they did not receive Russian aid then they might very well be forced, by dire circumstances, to join with the Mongols.
The Russians had long-suffered raids by the Kipchaqs, who were themselves steppe nomads with a fondness for preying upon the settled peoples around them, and so for much of the past year they had steadfastly refused the entreaties of the Kipchaqs. Now, however, with the Mongols threatening both peoples, an alliance to fight the common enemy was made, and preparations for a joint war began. Several Mongol ambassadors, who had come seeking peace, were summarily executed. The next group of Mongols to appear did so only to deliver a formal declaration of war.
Around 18 Russian princes, together with the Kipchaqs, formed a large army of some 80,000 men, and together marched eastward to confront the invaders. Among those taking part in the expedition were Mstislav Romanovich, Grand Prince of Kiev; Daniil Romanovich, Prince of Volhynia; and Prince Mstislav of Galicia, plus a number of other princes. They were joined on the expedition by the Kipchaqs under Khan Koten, who was also the father-in-law of Mstislav of Galicia. Worryingly, just 20,000 of the troops they led were properly armed and trained to fight.
While the bulk of the Mongol army now moved east, heading away from Russia, a small rearguard of 1,000 Mongol horsemen was left behind to delay the Russian-kipchaq advance. Control over the huge allied army was less than ideal. Assembling at the Dnieper River on 22
May 1223, the Russian crossing was severely hindered by the distrustful princes’ bickering over who should be the supreme commander of the combined army. In many ways the massive host was a collection of several smaller armies, not a single, united force. The heavily outnumbered Mongol rearguard was destroyed once the Russians had at last crossed, but only after it had inflicted significant casualties with its deadly archery.
Subotai and Jebe were in fact drawing the Russians ever further from the Dnieper, luring them onto territory they had already scouted. They were engaged in a false retreat on a strategic scale. It was the Mongols’ preference to destroy an enemy’s field armies outside of its frontiers and far away from any fortified strongholds, before plunging deep into the defenceless territory. They also knew that the allied army lacked a supreme commander, and so its major units would inevitably become separated as some moved ahead faster than others. Subotai allowed them small, meaningless victories against token forces to encourage them to continue the chase. This lasted for nine days after the crossing of the Dnieper and the allied army, as the Mongols expected, did indeed become dangerously
“WITH THE MONGOLS THREATENING BOTH PEOPLES, AN ALLIANCE TO FIGHT THE COMMON ENEMY WAS MADE”
attenuated over the course of the march, stretching out some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from nose to tail.
disaster at the Kalka River
On 31 May 1223 Subotai chose to make his stand on the small Kalka River, in what is today Ukraine, and struck first, just as the pursuing allied army was in the middle of crossing the river. Showing his military flexibility, Subotai decided not to begin the battle with the showers of arrows launched by horse archers, as was typical practice among the Mongols and other steppe nomads, but instead sent in his heavy armoured cavalry first. This cavalry charge, delivered at the outset of the battle, proved decisive. The Mongols immediately engaged the Kipchaqs in close combat and soon ran them off. The armoured cavalrymen’s next targets were the Russians from the Principality of Volhynia. They too were routed.
The unengaged Russians of Galicia saw what was happening and tried to form a battle line, but they were carried away by the tide of fleeing Kipchaqs and Russians that once formed the advance guard. The men of Chernigov were caught in the midst of their own river crossing and were also carried away by fleeing allied troops. Elsewhere, Prince Oleg of Kursk put his men into a semblance of order, but these too were defeated by the irresistible Mongols.
The 10,000 men of Kiev under Prince Mstislav Romanovich circled their wagons and defended themselves well for several days as they tried to make their way back west to the Dnieper. Having run out of drinking water on the steppe, they surrendered, as Subotai promised that no blood would be spilled and that they would eventually be released upon the payment of a ransom.
The Battle of the Kalka River was over, but the misery for the Russians was not yet at an end. The Mongols killed many of the capitulating Kievans outright and took the rest captive. Keeping to the strict letter of
“KEEPING TO THE STRICT LETTER OF HIS WORD, SUBOTAI SAW TO IT THAT THE RUSSIAN ARISTOCRATS’ BLOOD WAS NOT SPILLED. INSTEAD THEY WERE SUFFOCATED BENEATH WOODEN PLANKS WHILE MONGOLS FEASTED ATOP THEM”
his word, Subotai saw to it that the Russian aristocrats’ blood was not spilled. Instead they were suffocated beneath wooden planks while Mongols feasted atop them, doing this in revenge for the deaths of their ambassadors before the war had commenced. All told, it was reported that some 90 per cent of the allied army met its end by the Kalka. Of the 18 Russian princes thought to have participated in the expedition, a dozen lost their lives. Subotai and Jebe’s Mongols suffered minimal losses.
For now, the Mongols were not in Russia to stay. Subotai was soon summoned back east by Genghis to conduct another mission. With the successful conclusion of Subotai’s great cavalry raid, the victorious nomads returned to the deep Eurasian steppe. To the mauled Russians, they seemed to vanish into thin air, making them seem more like supernatural demons that had come to terrorise the world.
The Mongols would, however, return in
1237, and this time they meant to make their presence permanent. The Russians were again smashed, and the Mongols inaugurated a period of harsh overlordship known as the Mongol Yoke. The Russians suffered terribly and were forced to pay heavy tribute to the masters from the steppe. economic development in the country came to a complete halt, and only at the end of the 15th century did Mongol domination in Russia end for good.