The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities (25 page)

HULAGU’S INVASION

Death toll:
800,000
¹

Rank:
55

Type:
conquest

Broad dividing line:
Mongols vs. Arabs

Time frame:
1255–60

Location:
Middle East

Who usually gets the most blame:
Hulagu

Another damn:
Mongol invasion

I
T ANNOYED THE GREAT KHAN MONGKE, GRANDSON OF CHINGGIS KHAN
, that the Muslim minority scattered around his empire considered the caliph in Baghdad—secular ruler of Iraq and spiritual leader of all Sunni Muslims—to be more important than the great khan himself. This could not be tolerated. The caliph had to go.

Rumors of invasion preparations soon came to the ears of the Order of the Assassins, a mysterious Muslim cult in the mo
untain fortress of Alamut in Persia, who trained specialized killers to strike down enemies all over the world. Although the Assassins were no friends of the caliph, when it became obvious that the Mongols were getting ready to invade westward, the Assassins dispatched 400 of their best to cut down Mongke. The plan failed, and in 1253, Mongke ordered his brother Hulagu to retaliate.

In 1256, after a few years of preparation and hard riding, the Mongols arrived, but a new grand master was in charge of the Assassins, and he quickly surrendered to avoid the worst. He accompanied the Mongols on a circuit of the Assassins’ castles, ordering them to surrender, which brought an end to the Order. The grand master was initially treated well for his cooperation, but eventually his Mongol attendants found an excuse to kick and beat him to death.

The next year, Hulagu sent messengers to Baghdad insisting that the caliph tear down the city walls, fill the moat, and come groveling to Hulagu to offer his subservience. The caliph was in the middle of a power struggle among some of his officials and couldn’t find the time to respond, so Hulagu advanced.

The Mongols arrived at Baghdad in January 1258, and within a week it was obvious that further resistance was pointless. The caliph and his generals surrendered, and Hulagu ordered the city destroyed. Although Hulagu himself followed the traditional tribal shamanism of the Mongols, his mother, favorite wife, and chief general were all Nestorian Christians from central Asia, so the Christian population of the city was going to be spared the worst. They were told to take refuge in their church, which was then declared off-limits during the subsequent sack.

The rest of the city’s population was killed. Books from the great library were dumped in the Tigris River, which ran black with ink and red with blood. Because the Mongols believed it was bad luck to spill royal blood onto the earth, they rolled the caliph in a carpet and trampled him to death with horses. This extinguished the line of caliphs that stretched all the way back to Muhammad.

Persian historians later claimed that 800,000 died in the sacking of Baghdad, but in diplomatic correspondence with King Louis IX of France, Hulagu himself reported that he had killed 200,000.

The Mongols then swept through Syria, accepting the surrender of the Arab cities of Damascus and Aleppo and the crusader state of Antioch. The Mongol tide was about to wash over Egypt when word arrived that the Great Khan Mongke had died. Hulagu returned to Mongolia to settle the succession, leaving behind a subordinate to continue the conquest. Egyptian M
amelukes soundly beat these Mongols and killed their general at the Battle of Goliath Spring (Ayn Jalut) in Palestine, the farthest the Mongols would ever reach in this part of the world.
²

HUNDRED YEARS WAR

Death toll:
3.5 million

Rank:
28

Type:
dynastic dispute

Broad dividing line:
France vs. England

Time frame:
1337–1453

Location:
France

Who usually gets the most blame:
Nowadays the Hundred Years War is usually treated as an act of nature (that is, just one of those things), inevitable and not really anyone’s
fault
.

Trick question:
How long did it last?

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all “We died at such a place;” some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

—William Shakespeare,
Henry V

Edwardian War (1337–60)

Ever since the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, England had been ruled by—and let’s not mince words here—Frenchmen. Historians call them English, but most of the English nobility spoke French as their primary language. The laws of England were written in French. The English nobility had major fiefs and summer homes in France, and the king of England often owned as much of France as did the French king. They were French in everything but geography.

When the king of France died childless in 1328, his first cousin, King Edward III of England, put in a claim to be his replacement. Instead, the French nobility picked a weakling they co
uld dominate, rather than a powerful king, such as Edward would be. Of course this infuriated Edward.

Because local wars and intrigues kept him busy, Edward didn’t launch his war to assert his claim for ten years. By that time, he had an exciting new weapon in his arsenal. He had first encountered the longbow while fighting peasants in the wild borderlands alongside Wales. Made from the yew tree and tall as a man, the longbow required enormous strength to pull, but with it, a trained archer could put an arrow through an inch of solid oak at two hundred yards and plate armor at one hundred yards. Impressed at how easily the longbow killed his best knights and disrupted his attacks, Edward made these archers an integral part of his own army.

Since medieval warfare was rarely secret, the French, aware of the impending war, had assembled a fleet and were getting ready to attack first, but the English fleet cornered the French ships at Sluys, the port of Bruges, in 1340. Archers crammed aboard the English fleet swept the crews off the French ships and left the English in control of the channel. “The fish drank so much French blood, it was said afterward, that if God had given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French.”
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After the English landed in France in 1346, the two armies maneuvered around each other in the north of France for several months, trying to corner the other in the most advantageous battlefield. King Edward realized that the best tactical use of his strengths was to set up dismounted knights, foot soldiers, and archers in a defensive hedgehog bristling with spears, swords, and battle-axes, and then to get the French to attack. Finally, at Crecy, the English took a strong position atop a hill and waited for the French to come. As the battle was joined, the French knights were so eager to get at the English that they rode over their own retreating crossbowmen to get to the front lines. In the first round, their big heavy warhorses were ideal targets for the English arrows. Then the dismounted and heavily armored French knights slogged, slipped, and struggled up the muddy slopes, all the while being cut down by English archers. When it was all over the French losses were staggering, leaving their nobility badly depleted.

To solidify their control over northern France, the English brought the English Channel port of Calais under a long and frustrating siege. Finally, the leading citizens of the starving town offered to surrender. The English were planning the customary massacre of the defenders as the penalty f
or causing them so much trouble, but the town’s leaders willingly offered themselves up to be killed if only the people would be spared. Their courage moved the heart of the English queen, who obviously did not know the first thing about the proper way of waging war. She pestered her husband to show mercy. Edward relented—probably with a weary sigh—so the leaders and people of Calais were expelled instead of killed. Then the city was thoroughly Anglicized.

With the north secure, the war moved south. In 1356, King Edward’s son, Edward the Black Prince, marauded inward from English-controlled Aquitaine on the western coast of France, leading his army 260 miles across the center of France, burning towns and castles in order to provoke the French king into coming to stop him. When the English arriv
ed at the Loire River, however, they discovered that the French had destroyed the bridges, stranding the English 160 miles from the safety of the English Channel. They turned around to go home, but the French army caught up at Poitiers in September. The 7,000 Englishmen were outnumbered by as many as five to one.

Because horses were large, vulnerable targets for the English archers, the French chose to advance on foot. Their first wave arrived exhausted and was cut to pieces. While trying to retreat, they blundered into the second wave, which was thrown into chaos as well. Finally King John I of France regrouped and led the third and largest wave toward the English position, just as the English charged out to press their advantage. The English overwhelmed the French nobility and drove them into headlong retreat toward the safety of the town of Poitiers, but when the fleeing French arrived, they found the gates shut. The English cavalry caught up and easily massacred the tired survivors of the battle. France was running out of knights and options.
²

Among the captives from the Battle of Poitiers were King John of France and his son, who were taken to England, where the Black Prince gave them a royal tour and they were cheered by the populace. (Just because they were at war, that was no reason to be uncivil to a guest.) Negotiations for his release never quite worked out, and the French king died still captive in London in 1364.

After a truce was negotiated in 1360, the English army was supposed to pack up and go home, but huge numbers of suddenly unemployed mercenaries didn’t have nice homes to return to. They had enjoyed living off the conquered French and refused to give it
up. Instead, they stayed behind and roamed the countryside in predatory armies, looting, raping, and extorting.

Caroline War (1369–89)

As King Edward of England grew old and feeble, he began to neglect the English position on the continent. After a nine-year truce, the new French king, Charles V, decided to resume the war and see if history had shifted in France’s favor.

The pendulum of chance was definitely swinging back toward the French. England’s Black Prince came down with a wasting disease and died in 1376. When his father the king followed one year later, the English throne went to Richard, the ten-year-old son of the Black Prince, rather than to a battle-tested warrior. The French pressed their growing advantage, and except for a few coastal enclaves, they cleared the English off the continent. By the 1380s, the French had fixed their English problem and were raiding ports along the English coast.

Interlude of Insanity and Peace (1389–1415)

After the death of Charles V in 1380, the French throne went to his twelve-year-old son, Charles the Mad. He didn’t start with that nickname, but in 1392 a mysterious illness made his hair and nails fall out. While still feverish and slightly delirious, Charles VI went riding with his entourage. A sudden noise startled him into drawing his sword and hacking through everyone he saw. He slew four attendants before he could be stopped.

His bouts of odd behavior came and went, but they became progressively longer and worse as he got older. He alternated between a listless stupor and frantic gaiety. Once he accidentally set fire to himself and several fr
iends while playing a shaggy wild man at a masked ball, and his life was saved by a quick-thinking duchess who smothered him under her skirts. On his bad days, he urinated in his clothes, smashed furniture, and allowed his children to go ragged with neglect. For a while he believed he was made out of glass and would break if jostled.
³

Charles was too crazy to lead France at war, so peace broke out. Instead, the French royal family spent the next few decades killing each other in court intrigues as various relatives of the king fought over who was really in charge. Although Isabella, the German-born French queen, had been passionately in love with Charles at first, and continued trying to make an heir with him despite his dan
gerous behavior, she eventually started an affair with the king’s brother, the duke of Orleans. It continued until agents of the king’s uncle, Philip the Proud, duke of Burgundy, cut the king’s brother down in the streets of Paris.

Hank Cinq

After almost a full generation of peace, the new king of England, Henry V, decided to press the issue yet again. Hoping to take advantage of the chaos at the French court, Henry invaded France in 1415. After taking the port of Harfleur in a bloody assault (Shakespeare: “Once more into the breach . . .”), he hunted the French army on a long march through mud, rain, and clammy autumn weather. Disease and malnutrition slowed and weakened his army, and then the French army stood in his way, ready to fight, at Agincourt.

Although outnumbered two to one (at least), the English took up a strong defensive position on a narrow field, with both flanks anchored in the woods. There they waited and tormented the French with clouds of arrows from English longbows. Angered beyond reason, the main line of dismounted French knights attacked while still under a deadly hail of arrows. When the two opposing lines of heavy infantry finally closed, the French were already tired, frustrated, and fewer. They were slaughtered.

Meanwhile, behind the English line, a mob of French peasants raided Henry’s camp to loot and steal. With chaos unfolding behind him, Henry worried that the French prisoners of war under loose guard in hi
s camp might rearm and attack his rear, so he ordered them killed. The English nobility refused to commit such a dastardly deed, so Henry told his archers—who were peasants and less squeamish about violating the rules of chivalry—to kill the prisoners. About the same time, the French army fled the field from Henry’s front and gave the English their victory.
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