Careful, I am not denigrating a culture, but instead, a cultural military. But, the Mongols decisively defeated the Russians, Polish, Teutonic Knights, and the Hungarians. I don't think it is a giant assumption to say that they'd defeat the French and English too. The only reason why they didn't was internal Mongolian politics.
I'm more careful about extrapolating quite that far. By that logic we can make a case for a lot of different peoples being fully able to defeat other peoples. For example, the English decisively defeated the French quite a few times - and still lost the war. Thus, we can just as easily say that the Mongols defeating Eastern Europeans does not immediately equate to them defeating all of Western Europe.
Quite a few historians argue the same point as you do (though I think they're often more careful about saying "the only reason why they didn't. . ." because such a statement does imply 'facts not in evidence' as it were. But I disagree with them too, because it's only supposition. I don't even disagree that it's a strong possibility. I just disagree that it's the invariable conclusion.
This also ignores earlier steppe nomads who invaded Europe - like the Huns, Avars, and Hungarians. All of whom had stunning successes against sedentary armies.
The Huns is a good example. They defeated Roman armies far more often than once, as well as plenty of other peoples. They did not, however, conquer Western Europe. They didn't even end up conquering the Romans.
The Avars are even better. They found that the Franks were a very difficult foe and turned away from them - and then only defeated the Gepids by joining forces with the European Lombards. And it was the Franks (and Bulgars) that destroyed the Avars.
I'm not sure the assumption that mercenary=adaptable is sound. Mercenaries can be just as rigid as non-mercenaries, it depends on their individual tactics, strategy, etc.
The point was that the Europeans were fully capable of seeing weaknesses in their tactics and troop supplement, and would readily take on different kinds of troops to fill any gaps they felt existed. They may not have done it by conquering entire peoples and taking over their troop stock, but the theory is the same as the one used by the Mongols; identify shortcomings and fix them.
It is certainly not a factual issue, since the Mongols never bothered invading western europe
Never bothered? That implies they didn't think it was worthwhile. From what I understand most historians agree that the Mongols would have attacked Western Europe fully if their empire had not fragmented.
The Mongols were able to defeat a wide variety of powerful militaries, and the Europeans they did fight, the Mongols defeated them decisively. It isn't a huge leap to say that the Mongols could have beaten the Western Europeans. And it isn't an insult to the Europeans either.
As I mention above - it isn't a huge leap, no. But it isn't factual, nor the only supposition one can make. (I'm ignoring the 'faced a wide variety of powerful militaries' because the Europeans did the same, but I'm going to get into that later on here.)
By the time the Mongols had reached the west, they had conquered the Abbassids and Song China, as well as every nomadic kingdom inbetween.
The Abbasids had already taken hard hits from Western Europeans for centuries, however. It's no great surprise that they were screwed when a large, functional army showed up out of nowhere. As a matter of fact, there was plenty of talk of truce between Western Europeans and Abbasids when the Mongols showed up, because neither group in that area had sufficient strength left, after 200 years of war, to take on the group alone.
It's like you and Two-Tonic (if I can use you for this, TT!) beating the crap out of each other for about an hour, and then me coming in and knocking you out with a 2x4. It's not the greatest victory for me, is it?
It isn't whether Europe is a world power or not, but when it was. By your own admission, Europe in the medieval period was mired in internal conflicts. The Seljuqs (a nomadic empire) were a serious threat in the south east, and the Almoravids were a serious threat in the south west (Spain).
Quite right. But even by the admission of decidedly anti-European historians (one of my favourites being David Nicole), the Europeans were a powerhouse of the medieval period. They controlled Western and Eastern Europe, held huge amounts of land in the Middle East and Egypt, and, though most people don't seem to realize it, were an established sea power thanks to the Italians, especially the Venetians.
As a matter of fact, I have yet to come across the claim before that the Europeans were not a serious power of the era. As I pointed out, only the Western Europeans and Mongols seem to have, during that time in history, really maintained themselves as a power outside their normal 'sphere.'
Song China played an important role in Mongolia and Turkestan in an effort to control the nomad threat. They recieved tribute from Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Tibet, and other smaller kingdoms. To say the Song China was less of a world power than England or France is illadvised, at best.
What I see when you say this is 'Asians were a power in Asia.' So this goes back to varied enemies and that.
I point to the Normans. They swept down from Scandinavia and took a huge portion of land for themselves (Normandy), took over a fair amount of France, conquered England, took part of Italy, held states in the Middle East for 2 centuries, aided in taking part in conquering some smaller states of Egypt, and even were the driving force in sacking Byzantium.
That's a huge amount of land for one group to run across and take over. The problem is that many people look at Western Europeans as one group - Western Europeans. Those same people are more than willing to see Chinese as Chinese and Japanese as Japanese, instead of seeing them all as Asians.
It has to be one or the other. Either Asians are Asians, or Western Europeans aren't 'just Western Europeans.' When taken out of the context of being one giant group of people, the Western Europeans' accomplishments are much more impressive and have a greater regional span.
PS. I hope this has been fun for you. A real historical discussion is rare for me, and this is lots of fun!
Oh yeah, no hard feelings. I also love these kinds of discussions. Not many people out there can talk intelligently about history in this way - it's excellent. Most of the discussions I get involved in concerning history usually involve phrases like : "L33t1111!one, sameri sooo pwnd!"
1. The Mongols did indeed have heavy cavalry, complete with (at least) half-armor for their mounts (typically the two front ranks, the back three ranks having lighter or no armor). Whether it was iron or horn, or some combination I'll let the real experts debate.
From what I've read, the Mongols did not have -effective- heavy cavalry. It was one of their weak points. At least compared to the heavy cavalry of Europeans and Middle Easterners. It just doesn't seem to have really been something the Mongols ever got particularly effective at using.
5. But then, I'd pillage anyplace for a Klondike Bar, so clearly I'm not one to judge.
Okay, I am so sigging this.
Chinese influence through trade and cultural exchange was felt not only in the Far East but all over Asia.
As I pointed out above, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Asians were a power in Asia. I don't recall any Chinese states in Italy, however.
I'm not sure how you define the 'sphere' of certain peoples, but as far as I understand it, I may point to other examples:
Alexander's conquest of the Middle East, Egypt and parts of Central Asia left traces which can be seen even today (and I don't mean archeological evidence only).
I think you may have missed where I pointed out that I was referring to the medieval period. Obviously the Macedonians, Romans, and other peoples, did a fine job of conquering their known worlds in earlier eras.
Bizanthia exerted efficient control over the Levant, the Crimean Peninsula and almost the whole of North Africa for centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Byzantium inhereted the conquests of the Roman Empire. They exerted effective control over lands they already held. But again - medieval period.
The Arabs remained in Spain for almost eight centuries and Grenada is somewhat away from Baghdad or Damascus.
The Moors most certainly did stay in Spain. But they exerted no true power there, either, mostly fighting a defensive war to stay. They did not conquer, but settled uncontested until someone decided that being Christian meant no living in Europe.
You have probly already established this but the mongols didnt have very many people. The reason they did so well was because of there genious military tactics.
Didn't have many people? You're kidding, right? It wasn't unusual for the Mongols to outnumber their foes. There were plenty of them, especially if you count all of their subjugated peoples as Mongols.