The location of Russia on the border of Asia exposed
that country to the full force of the Mongol attack. Jenghiz Khan's successors,
entering Europe north of the Caspian, swept resistlessly over the Russian
plain. Moscow and Kiev fell in quick succession, and before long the greater
part of Russia was in the hands of the Mongols. Wholesale massacres marked
their progress. "No eye remained open to weep for the dead."
INVASION OF POLAND AND HUNGARY BY THE MONGOLS, 1241 A.D.
Still the invaders pressed on. They devastated Hungary,
driving the Magyar king in panic flight from his realm. They overran Poland. At
a great battle in Silesia they destroyed the knighthood of Germany and filled
nine sacks with the right ears of slaughtered enemies. The European peoples,
taken completely by surprise, could offer no effective resistance to these
Asiatics, who combined superiority in numbers with surpassing generalship.
Since the Arab attack in the eighth century Christendom had never been in
graver peril. But the wave of Mongol invasion, which threatened to engulf
Europe in barbarism, receded as quickly as it came. The Mongols soon abandoned
Poland and Hungary and retired to their possessions in Russia.
