The basis of Mongol warfare was unadulterated terror. Massacre, rapine and torture were the price of defeat, whether enforced or negotiated…. The whole apparatus of terror was remorselessly applied to sap the victim’s will to resist, and in practical terms this policy of “frightfulness” certainly paid short-term dividends. Whole armies were known to dissolve into fear-ridden fragments at the news of the approach of the toumans…. Many enemies were paralysed … before a [Mongol] army crossed their frontiers. THE ART OF WARFARE ON LAND, DAVID CHANDLER, 1974
