Mongol Warrior 1200–1350

Osprey Warrior #84

by Stephen Turnbull

The Mongol warriors are one of the great success stories of world military history. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan and his successors the Mongols conquered much of the known world, fighting in territory ranging from the frozen steppes, the wilderness of Palestine, the jungles of Java and the great rivers of China. Through all this they showed a remarkable ability to adopt, adapt and improve a vast range of military techniques and technology, from siege weapons to naval warfare. This book tells the story of this remarkable military organisation, including details of weaponry, tactics, training and beliefs.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, Medieval History

64 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2003

About the author

Stephen Richard Turnbull is British a historian specializing in eastern military history, especially the samurai of Japan. His books are mainly on Japanese and Mongolian subjects. He attended Cambridge University where he gained his first degree. He currently holds an MA in Theology, MA in Military History and a PhD from the University of Leeds where he is currently a lecturer in Far Eastern Religions. He has also written a number of books on other medieval topics. He is semi-retired but still holds the post of Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at Akita International University in Japan.

Reviews

[Peter Huston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mongol Warrior, 1200-1350. Osprey Warrior 84.
Written by Stephen Turnbull, and Illustrated by Wayne Reynolds.

Scope – big
Completeness – Good
Appeal - good
Accuracy –good as far as I know

In 2004, I had the privilege of attending Cornell University and studying East Asian Studies and Chinese history. During this time, at least one of my fellow grad students and I had a discussion about Osprey books. His views were negative, but not necessarily due to the contents. According to him, if you have credentials they wish, Osprey will work hard to recruit you to write a book for them (he said he’d received this treatment. I find that claim believable, but did not see evidence of it.) He also said that most academics, including his advisor, look down on people who write Osprey books. The combination had led to some dramatic conversations and stressful but humorous events in his life.
But speaking as someone with some academic training in history (I ultimately earned a master’s degree in the subject) although Osprey books can be a bit hit and miss, this one came through for me in a clutch. I was taking a seminar on Marc Polo and the Mongol Empire with Dr. Charles Peterson, now retired, and had my heart set on writing a paper on the logistics of the Mongol Horde. What did those folks eat and how did they maintain themselves as they rode from one end of the Eurasian landmass to the other and back, conquering everything in their path. Professor Peterson thought I’d have trouble finding that information and encouraged me to choose a different topic. But I was determined to look deeper into this.
Although I tried the usual academic databases for scholarly papers on the subject of what the Mongols ate, I just wasn’t finding the information.
However, when I purchased this Osprey book, bing! –there it was. A very good and properly sourced description of what the Mongol warrior ate when he was on campaign. I tracked down the sources, tracked down other articles by the same author (John Masson Smith), began looking at his sources, and had successfully tapped into the vein and soon had written a good paper on the subject that I am still proud of to this day. (If I had it to do over again, I would also track down who had cited the paper that excited me, but that’s another matter. We live, we learn, we hone and improve our skills and historical research and scholarship is the same way.)
So, how is this book anyway? Quite good. It’s 64 pages long, with a section of beautiful full color paintings in the front and black and white illustrations throughout. The contents are concise yet seem quite complete for people who wish to understand the Mongol Warrior of this period and how he and the army he fought with were such a success.
Recruitment, Training, Appearance and Dress, Daily Life, Campaign Life, Tactics and how the Mongol armies of the time adapted to the new challenges they met on their far flung wide reaching campaigns, as well as a glossary, bibliography, and index are all addressed in this informative yet concise book. I recommend it highly.

[Lordoftaipo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is official. The Mongols are my favourite civilisation of all the AOE4 civs (nerdiness intensified) in real life, though seldom played. Their military prowess came from two flexibilities.

The first flexibility is the agility to charge at a lightning speed and the ability to dismount at any moment’s notice and remount to one’s sparehorses, with which they would make a fear-instilling scene of a march. It was, and still is inextricably linked with how they tied their infants on the saddle to make horse-riding rather than a pastime, a survival instinct.

The second flexibility is the adaptability to changing terrains. Little did I know that Mongols fought on the Korean peninsula, Japan, and Java before. The stretch of Eurasia allowing for steppe tactics being already wide and permissive as it was, had called to their bloodlust. They made advances on the southeast Asian seas, mighty empires devoid of open plains, and places where horsemen had to fight as an infantry.

I never imagined these nomads were capable of foraging enough resources to build trebuchets. The mere fact that they knew how to siege is beyond my humble understanding. Do not get me started on their horses. Unquestionably of the same breed, ‘the horses of Tartar’ famously knew how to graze on a snow-covered plain. At times of emergency, their blood would be a food source!

No wonder they were a civilisation spoken of with trepidation.

[Paul A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good, basic overview on the lifestyle, training, and tactics of the Mongol cavalryman during their conquests in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Plenty of detailed plates and images. Unfortunately, the author discusses some commonly repeated myths, such as the use of silk undershirts as a antibacterial, "arrow-proof" additional layer, despite its lack of first-hand accounts. Additionally, some illustrations depict the strings of the Mongol bows incorrectly, where the string between the nock and string bridge does not move, even when the bow is drawn. Still, a good place to start one's study of Mongol history.

[Manolo González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you can know about these great warriors, even though is hard to know a lot about them due lack of sources. Sad.

[Mary Soon Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summer reading book reviews, book #11, "Mongol Warrior 1200-1350" by Stephen Turnbull.... This book is part of the very handy Osprey series of short, illustrated military history books. Having read other reference works about the Mongols, much of the material in this book was familiar to me, but it was still a good refresher.... Not for the first time, I read the assertion that Mongols wore silk shirts so that arrowheads could be more easily removed from their wounds. And not for the first time, I wondered if this really works. Another interesting tidbit, the book said that the Mongol armies (or their grazing animals) would have eaten through eight square miles of grassland per day en route to Syria, which seems a perfectly manageable amount provided the army didn't pause in one spot for long.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice pictures and info hard to find elsewhere, but they don't cite their sources