John Abbott - The Empire of Russia - From the Remotest Periods to the Present Time

Leaving troops in garrison throughout the subjugated country, the conqueror commenced his march towards the west, laden with the spoils of plundered cities. Like the rush of a torrent, his armies swept along until they entered the vast wilds of Turkomania. Here the "great and the mighty Saladin" had reigned, extending his sway from the Caspian Sea to the Ganges, dictating laws even to the Caliph at Bagdad, who was the Pope of the Mohammedans. Mahomet II. now held the throne, a prince so haughty and warlike, that he arrogated the name of the second Alexander the Great. With two such spirits heading their armies, a horrible war ensued. The capital of this region, Bokhara, had attained a very considerable degree of civilization, and was renowned for its university, where the Mohammedan youth, of noble families, were educated. The city, after an unavailing attempt at defense, was compelled to capitulate. The elders of the metropolis brought the keys and laid them at the feet of the conqueror. Genghis Khan rode contemptuously on horseback into the sacred mosque, and seizing the Alcoran from the altar, threw it upon the floor and trampled it beneath the hoofs of his steed. The whole city was inhumanly reduced to ashes.

From Bokhara he advanced to Samarcande. This city was strongly fortified, and contained a hundred thousand soldiers within its walls, besides an immense number of elephants trained to fight. The city was soon taken. Thirty thousand were slain, and thirty thousand carried into perpetual slavery. All the adjacent cities soon shared a similar fate. For three years the armies of Genghis Khan ravaged the whole country between the Aral lake and the Indus, with such fearful devastation that for six hundred years the region did not recover from the calamity. Mahomet II., pursued by his indefatigable foe, fled to one of the islands of the Caspian Sea, where he perished in paroxysms of rage and despair.

Genghis Khan having thoroughly subdued this whole region, now sent a division of his army, under two of his most distinguished generals, across the Caspian Sea to subjugate the regions on the western shore. Here, as before, victory accompanied their standards, and, with merciless severity, they swept the whole country to the sea of Azof. The tidings of their advance, so bloody, so resistless, spread into Russia, exciting universal terror. The conquerors, elated with success, rushed on over the plains of Russia, and were already pouring down into the valley of the Dnieper. Mstislaf, prince of Galitch, already so renowned for his warlike exploits, was eager to measure arms with those soldiers, the terror of whose ravages now filled the world. He hurriedly assembled all the neighboring princes at Kief, and urged immediate and vigorous coöperation to repel the common foe. The Russian army was promptly rendezvoused on the banks of the Dnieper, preparatory to its march. Another large army was collected by the Russian princes who inhabited the valley of the Dniester. In a thousand barges they descended the river to the Black Sea. Then entering the Dnieper they ascended the stream to unite with the main army waiting impatiently their arrival.

On the 21st of May, the whole force was put in motion, and after a march of nine days, met the Tartar army on the banks of the river Kalets. The waving banners and the steeds of the Tartar host, covering the plains as far as the eye could extend, in numbers apparently countless, presented an appalling spectacle. Many of the Russian leaders were quite in despair; others, young, ardent, inexperienced, were eager for the fight. The battle immediately commenced, and the combatants fought with all the ferocity which human energies could engender. But the Russians were, in the end, routed entirely. The Tartars drove the bleeding fugitives in wild confusion before them back to the Dnieper. Never before had Russia encountered so frightful a disaster. The whole army was destroyed. Not one tenth of their number escaped that field of massacre. Seven princes, and seventy of the most illustrious nobles were among the slain. The Tartars followed up their victory with their accustomed inhumanity, and, as if it were their intention to depopulate the country, swept it in all directions, putting the inhabitants indiscriminately to the sword. They acted upon the maxim which they ever proclaimed, "The conquered can never be the friends of the conquerors; and the death of the one is essential to the safety of the other."

The whole of southern Russia trembled with terror; and men, women and children, in utter helplessness, with groans and cries fled to the churches, imploring the protection of God. That divine power which alone could aid them, interposed in their behalf. For some unknown reason, Genghis Khan recalled his troops to the shores of the Caspian, where this blood-stained conqueror, in the midst of his invincible armies, dictated laws to the vast regions he had subjected to his will. This frightful storm having left utter desolation behind it, passed away as rapidly as it had approached. Scathed as by the lightnings of heaven, the whole of southern Russia east of the Dnieper was left smoking like a furnace.

The nominal king, Georges II., far distant in the northern realms of Souzdal and Vladimir, listened appalled to the reports of the tempest raging over the southern portion of the kingdom; and when the dark cloud disappeared and its thunders ceased, he congratulated himself in having escaped its fury. After the terrible battle of Kalka, six years passed before the locust legions of the Tartars again made their appearance; and Russia hoped that the scourge had disappeared for ever. In the year 1227, Genghis Khan died. It has been estimated that the ambition of this one man cost the lives of between five and six millions of the human family. He nominated as his successor his oldest son Octai, and enjoined it upon him never to make peace but with vanquished nations. Ambitious of being the conqueror of the world, Octai ravaged with his armies the whole of northern China. In the heart of Tartary he reared his palace, embellished with the highest attainments of Chinese art.

Raising an army of three hundred thousand men, the Tartar sovereign placed his nephew Bati in command, and ordered him to bring into subjection all the nations on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, and then to continue his conquests throughout all the expanse of northern Russia. A bloody strife of three years planted his banners upon every cliff and through all the defiles of the Ural mountains, and then the victor plunging down the western declivities of this great natural barrier between Europe and Asia, established his troops, for winter quarters, in the valley of the Volga. To strike the region with terror, he burned the capital city of Bulgaria and put all the inhabitants to the sword. Early in the spring of the year 1238, with an army, say the ancient annalists, "as innumerable as locusts," he crossed the Volga, and threading many almost impenetrable forests, after a march, in a north-west direction, of about four hundred miles, entered the province of Rezdan just south of Souzdal. He then sent an embassage to the king and his confederate princes, saying:

"If you wish for peace with the Tartars you must pay us an annual tribute of one tenth of your possessions."

The heroic reply was returned,

"When you have slain us all, you can then take all that we have."

Bati, at the head of his terrible army, continued his march through the populous province of Rezdan, burning every dwelling and endeavoring, with indiscriminate massacre, to exterminate the inhabitants. City after city fell before them until they approached the capital. This they besieged, first surrounding it with palisades that it might not be possible for any of the inhabitants to escape. The innumerable host pressed the siege day and night, not allowing the defenders one moment for repose. On the sixteenth day, after many had been slain and all the citizens were in utter exhaustion from toil and sleeplessness, they commenced the final assault with ladders and battering rams. The walls of wood were soon set on fire, and, through flame and smoke, the demoniac assailants rushed into the city. Indiscriminate massacre ensued of men, women and children, accompanied with the most revolting cruelty. The carnage continued for many hours, and, when it ceased, the city was reduced to ashes, and not one of its inhabitants was left alive.