The Mongol conquests are popularly associated with senseless massacre, an unparalleled period (before the twentieth century at least) of bloodshed, with the destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire a monument to unending brutality. But as we demonstrate here, even in this famous campaign, the Mongols were not aiming at the death of every person past the Syr Darya River, and took multiple approaches to the submission of cities. In this video we present the reasons for massacre, and the other alternatives cities in Khwarezm faced when Mongol armies reached their door. Patreon: www.patreon.com/jackmeister Mongol Invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oBazW15L-F0.html The Otrar Massacre: Why did the Mongols invade the Khwarezmian Empire? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0ct-dz_ad4k.html Mongol Invasion of the Tangut Kingdom: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ScgDJUf6GVA.html Mongol Invasion of the Jin Empire: 1211-1212: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5RDRG3yGoqc.html Mongol Invasion of the Jin Empire: 1212-1214: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7aaM7trAWGg.html Mongol-Jin War 1214-1216: the Fall of Zhongdu: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wxHKwEHv79I.html
yes for sure they're such great guys. they didnt want to kill everybody.. only most of the people! you can also use this to justify Soviets, Nazis, Red Khmer, ISIS, in fact, any killers. Please. It's such an iron proof, solid logic!
Awesome video, you did a really good job on this one. I'm grateful that your channel and others like it provide us with such high quality content for free, and I hope your channel soon gets the recognition it deserves.
I am very glad the effort is appreciated: RU-vid is a great way to provide easily accessible educational material to people, and it's been great to see the spread of these channels in the last few years.
Start of the video touched me in many ways what Temuujin learned in his early days. Chinggis Khaan's greatest achievement was and is uniting Mongol tribes. It saddens me what happened after his death a few centuries later and how my people are living today. We can't help ourselves fighting among ourselves.
That's very much a theme we will be exploring in future videos. Chinggis' life's work was uniting the Mongols, and it is testament to the job he did that it took decades for fractures to begin to break down the empire. The fact that even today he acts as a unifying figure for people in Mongolia (and even other countries) is the clearest example of the profound effect he had on Mongolian society and culture. In a few videos we will be covering his death, and I plan on doing some retrospective on what his impact and legacy was.
Update a month later: this is still monetized, while two videos which are literally just me talking about primary sources (not even any drawings, it is literally just me on camera) are demonetized. Make of that what you will.
Mongol invaders were not driven by an ideology (religious or otherwise) when commiting the massacres, rather the killings were born of logic and necessity. That certainly seemed weird in the Middle Ages, making the Mongols cold, or inhuman in characteristics. It was as if Earth was invaded by robots.
A succinct summary. I didn't talk on it here, but originally I was going to comment on some older suggestions for the massacres, which have included: an inherent nomadic fear and hatred of urban centres, punishment for refusing to recognize Chinggis Khan's divine mandate, desire to turn all these cities into pasture, or just a want to kill to kill everything. Some of these (Chinggis Khan's divinity) are either anachronistic (such a belief that the Mongols were destined to rule the whole world was probably more a result of the campaign and doesn't seem to have existed in any capacity prior to it) or flat out totally inaccurate, and better reflect what people think about the Mongols than what is actually in the primary sources.
this is bullshit. Mongols didnt need to kill off 90%+ of the population of north China, Persia, Sichuan, Volga Bulgaria. they were killing BECAUSE THEY COULD. they enjoyed it. you dont understand nomad mindset at all. you still use normal people logic to justify genocides. some people just love to kill. to them, these civilians are like NPCs in Grand Theft Auto.
EDITED Doesnt matter the mongols killed anybody your incredibly wrong for saying the mongols didnt kill for ideology they killed because they wanted too and for wealth (loot) women, power. The mongols had absolutely no respect for human life.
If the Muhammed shah khawarezm had read the prophet's story thouroughly,he could have learned that the only time the prophet of islam declared war on a foreign state is when a muslim envoy was killed by a byzantine vassal ............a murder that led to the battle of mu'ta.
I understand that living rules of that time were cruel but do not see the reason of killing envoys from Great Khan by their shahs? Shahs also take responsibilities for that thing!
I've gotten a lot of requests to cover them and the Xiongnu, so I will definitely we doing both in the future. I don't know quite when yet: the next several videos are all planned up to Chinggis' death, and then I may do a few on other areas.
I'm really interested to do videos on them though, as those are areas I don't know as well so they'd be great learning opprotunities for me as well, and the videos where I actually learn a lot of things I didn't know are always my favourite.
Why didnt you mention that innocent women and children were killed? Includeing the killing of babies? Really? You are basically excusing the atrocities of the mongols by giving nonsensical excuses.
@Matthew D. Ai With all respect, there is a reason why Alexander is remembered as essentially a demon in central Asia and parts of Iran; successor states failed to root out this perception. While the scale was most certainly lower, Alexander has committed every single of Mongol atrocities. Slaughters of whole populations(in some cases - senseless), purposeful destruction of irrigation networks, acts of terror, brutal suppression of guerilla, and, finally, mass enslavement(including bringing the very concept of enslavement to regions where slavery wasn't really a thing before him). Bad example.
@Matthew D. Ai Well, I obvsly agree on that point(about Mongols, not about the video). My point was that there is no such thing as mild genocide. Alexander is still a "full member" of that club.
@Matthew D. Ai Of course. If A prince or a General died. They made sure there were no survivors of those towns they conquered. That's not justification. That is what they thought.
The estimates of the number of people killed are not reliable. There were exponentially WAY fewer people back then (as you said.) Your estimates seem to make more sense.
Genghis, the Mongols and their massacre of the khwarezmian population was no different than what the nazis did to the Jews and the rest of Europe. They should be classed into the same group rather than praised for genocide.
Genocide is the constant murder of specific people due to their religious or ethnic background. As far as I know, Mongols committed massacres in Khwarezmia after the fall of a city but never returned on a regular basis to massacre them because they were Khwarezmian.
@@poussincasoar7741 "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group". That is the dictionary definition.
@@real4champions As the Mongols' objective in Khwarazm was to destroy Muhammad II's lands, it could be considered as genocide but there are still differences between the Mongols and the Nazis : Mongols killed civilians as a means to reduce their casualties for future operations while Nazis killed for killing and didn't consider sparing some people for their particular skills like what the Mongols did with merchants and craftsmen (and Herat too).
@@cameltanker1286 except the khwarazmian shah had mongol envoys executed for no reason, if you had your envoys executed I an unwarranted manner would you not be upset to and want revenge?
Mongols learn warfare early on throug hunting. I suspect that this kind of perspective - you attack a distant target from an elevated position, that is considered to be less worthy than a human - promoted disrespect for human life. Your explanation did not convince me. The Huns before and Timur after the Mongols also caused an abominable carnage, but seemingly without other reasons than bloodlust (e.g. Timur killing people who surrendered). Furthermore, this strategy of deterrence did not stop other states from killing Mongol envoys, i.e. I don't see that it worked out. However, I do know that people in all times and places love excuses for acting morally wrong.
Also note that the nomads also mass slaughter livestocks before winter every year. all those sheep, cattles, goats. so to them other humans were no more than those livestocks. but also note, mongloid people in general have less empathy compared to Caucasians. Colombians and Mexicans immediately come into mind. also samurais were also brutal compared to European knights, they'd kill entire family of a commoner if found to be "disrespectful". warfare in china were also usually genocidal (e.g the Three Kingdom Period had lots of entire cities slaughtered).
@@Cumulo9 That ritual you mention sounds like it could really be a piece of this puzzle. However stating that Mongloid peoples are less empathic per se sounds very drastic, if not racist. Just think for example about the Spanish genocide on American peoples or the transatlantic slave trade before thinking that Europeans / Western Asians are less cruel by nature...
@@Crafty_Spirit mongoloids have less empathy is a fact. slaughtering entire cities, tribes, people etc. was common in places like China. even the mid 19th century, while US was in civil war but had little direct deaths of civilians, China was having multiple civil wars (Taiping rebellion, Miao Rebellion, Hui Rebellion) and each one of those had tens of millions massacred civilians.
I find it depressing how much people try to justify mass slaughter because of this that or the other reason. These were bad people and ought to be remembered in the same camp as people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
Unfortunately, hitler mao and stalin will be remembered the same way. History has a way of making all atrocities the same the further back you go. Historians in the future will look at hitler and simply say he was the culmination of the european colonial mindset but he and germany was just late to the party and felt he needed to turn the world order upside down to put germany on top. His treatment and plans for Russia was just an industrialized example of what the european powers did in the Americas.
Its quite simply you and others having an emotional reaction to this piece of history. Do you think it matters one dot wether someone accepts it was cruel, inhumane, blah blah. These vids are educational. Im here to learn. Now, the christian crusades were as cruel and ugly as any campaigns. The whole gamut. Muslim armies have done the same. The spanish in south america, holy f*"k, that was another level. 1000 years ago, the societies had as much in common with us, as we would with a society 1000 years in the future, zilch. Their mindsets, beliefs, everything was different. If u wanna be all emotional about it, thas on you. But you dont need to chide others for a comment.
