Military Integration in Mongol Warfare The development of Combined Arms Warfare in the Mongol Empire
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Abstract
Armies of the Mongol Empire are typically imagined as vast armies of nomadic horse archers. While this is true and horse archers always remained the core component of the Mongol military in any part of the empire, the Mongol military used a variety of different units based on the operational theater and the availability of different units. Early in the Mongol conquests, the Mongols adopted siege warfare and developed a corps of engineers and artillery. Additionally, large units of infantry were used not only in China but also in other regions. The conquest of the Song Empire necessitated the development of a navy. Despite the disasters during the invasions of Japan, the Mongols actually became quite adept at naval warfare, particularly riverine warfare, not only using local methods, but also adopting tactics from steppe warfare to riverine combat. Finally, special units developed. Some of which were elite units, but other emerged for different types of warfare while still others, such as shamans, were embedded with armies but were only used when necessary. This discussion will examine the incorporation of sedentary troops into a nomadic military as well as how the Mongol military commanders learned to use them together.
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References
This paper originated out of a lecture given at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (September 18, 2018) and then the American Center for Mongolian Studies (April 10, 2019).
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