The Mongol Campaign in Hungary, 1241-1242: The Archaeology and History of Nomadic Conquest and Massacre Wayne Lee 2019, Journal of Military History

https://www.academia.edu/40926370/The_Mongol_Campaign_in_Hungary_1241_1242_The_Archaeology_and_History_of_Nomadic_Conquest_and_Massacre?rhid=41970136564&swp=rr-rw-wc-144543534&nav_from=8bc1784d-96bf-4322-9ecf-0acfb78922fb Contemporaneous narrative sources described the Mongol conquest of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241-1242 as extremely devastating, characterized by extensive and indiscriminate massacres. Measuring the reality of any ancient massacre, however, tends to be difficult in the absence of sufficient archaeological or documentary data. This article integrates conquest process theory, literary evidence, and data from substantial new archaeological work to explore the motivation and nature of Mongol invasion and the consequences for rural settlements on the Great Hungarian Plain. Our investigations suggest that the Mongol campaign in Hungary used a military strategy shaped by the usual methods of nomadic pastoral societies in wars among themselves in which the extensive massacres of the defeated population, along with the elimination of some of the local political elite, were widely used in order to establish a new political order and consolidate victory. The limitations of the Mongols' political structures at that juncture in their imperial expansion and the basic nature of their subsistence system curtailed traditional state-like forms of territorial control and may have contributed to the departure of the Mongol forces from the Hungarian Kingdom.