his followers (except for some Turks who joined them) were not Moslem, as the Seljuks had been when they arrived in the Near East. Not only was this a matter of moment to Christians and Buddhists - there were both Nestorians and Buddhists among the Mongols - but it meant that the Mongols were not identified with the religion of the majority in the Near East.In 1218 Chinghis Khan turned to the west and the era of Mongol invasions opened in Transoxiana and northern Iran. He never acted carelessly, capriciously, or without premedition, but it may well be that the attack was provoked by the folloy of a Moslem prince who killed his envoys. From there Chinghis went on to a devastating raid into Persia followed by a swing northward through the Caucasus into south Russia, and returned, having made a complete circuit of the Caspian.All this was accomplisehd by 1223. Bokhara and Samarkand were scaked with massacres of the townspeople which were meant to terify others who contemplated resistance. (Surrender was always the safest course with the Mongols and several minor peopls were to survive with nothing worse than the payment of tribute and arrival of a Mongol governor.) Transoxiana never recovered its place in the life of Islamic Iran after this. Christian civilization was given a taste of Mongol prowess by the defeat of the Georgians in 1221 and of the southern Russian princes two years later. Even these alarming events were only the overture to what was to follow.Chinghis died in the East in 1227, but his son and successor returned to the West after completing the conquest of northern China. In 1236 his armies poured into Russia. They took Kiev and settled on the lower Volga, from which they organized a tributary system for the Russian principalities they had not occupied. Meanwhile they raided Catholic Eurpoe. The Teutonic knights, the Poles and the Hungarians all went down before them. Cracow was burnt and Moravia devastated. ...
