Thread by @6Voodoo

Modern society and social media demand instant gratification, but history shows us that sometimes the best victories are won generation to generation, with each handing the next a brick in the wall. How a father saved Europe in the Second Mongolian Invasion of Hungary in 1285.

2/ In 1241, the Mongols were the dominant military power in the world, stretching from Korea in the East to the very borders of modern Europe. With the defeat of the every nation to the east, only two states, Hungary and Poland stood between the Mongols and Western Europe.

3/King Béla IV of Hungary lead a fractured kingdom rife with political and religious infighting, unchecked immigration from Eastern tribes fleeing the Mongols, and an unreliable Europe to his rear. Béla knew the Mongols were coming.

4/Unlike the dead Sultan in burned Baghdad, he went to Europe to beg for help. None came. The Austrians had been Hungary’s enemy for years and offered minuscule support. The Pope tried to raise a crusade, but the Holy Roman Empire had descended into turmoil and civil war.

5/ When the Mongols raided in 1241, Béla faced them nearly alone. And promptly got his shit shoved in. The Mongols ransacked Hungary, killing nearly 25% of its population, and destroyed the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi.

6/Only a secession crisis in the Mongol Empire pulled Subutai from Hungary to return to Mongolia to elect a new Khan. To add insult to injury, "allied" Austria annexed some Hungarian border regions.
Hungary had fought the Mongols alone and though defeated, miraculously survived

7/ King Béla could have cried and moped, but he got to work. He looked at his loss and realized that there were lessons to learn. He saw that the little help Christendom did send; Genoese crossbowmen and the mighty Knights Templar had been decisive on the battlefield.

8/He also saw that fortified cities had stretched Mongol supply lines to dangerous levels. King Béla didn’t know when the Mongols would return, but he took what he had learned and began to make changes.

For the next 4 decades Hungary prepared.

9/ Béla reformed his army, and his entire society. He promised European nobles lands and title in Hungary if they could raise heavy cavalry units. He recruited more crossbowmen. He gave Knighthoods to the middle class, allowing them to serve in a Baron’s new Heavy Cavalry.

10/ He also used his own funds to build more defenses. Wooden palisades in the fields gave way to modern stone walls on hills, where Mongol siege engines couldn’t reach.

Béla was far from perfect.

11/ His inability to integrate eastern tribes, namely the Cumans, into Hungarian society created great tensions within his realm, and actually helped lead to the second Mongol invasion. He even fought a war with his son Ladislaus IV over the succession.

12/ But for 4 decades he dragged Hungary into a new, self reliant future and hardened it for war.

By the time war came in 1285 Béla was dead. His son, Hungary’s new king Ladislaus IV, had at his disposal all the tools he would need to defend his people. And defend it they did.

13/ When the Mongols invaded in the winter of 1285, they found almost all of Hungary locked inside high stone castles, with the countryside devoid of forage needed for the Mongol cavalry.

14/The Hungarians would pin the Mongols against a city’s walls, and then hammer them with heavy European armored cavalry. Hungarian barons, and their newly empowered knights fought the Mongols wherever they could, acting independently they bled the lightly armored Mongols dry.

15/ The Mongolians besieged city after city, and it wore the army used to open warfare on the steppes into the ground. By the time the Mongols decided enough was enough the following winter, the Hungarians smelled blood.

16/ They stalked the beleaguered and starving Mongols into the Carpathian Mountains, where they slaughtered Mongol General Talabuga’s army so badly, that it effectively ceased to exist and legend says he rode back to Mongol territory with only his wife and one horse.

17/ Hungary’s neighbor Poland, always nervous of invasion, had watched carefully. By the time the Mongols invaded Poland again, Poland had copied the Hungarian plan, and shattered the invading Mongol army. A large Mongol invasion force would never return to Europe.

18/ A father who wanted his son to inherit something of value had spent his life building. He managed naysayers, and other crises, and kept his eyes on the ball and even though he wasn’t alive to see it play out, his work saved Christian Europe itself.

19/ There are many lessons to take from this story. Béla’s inability to integrate the Cumans into society led to strife and a weakened Hungary in both 1241 and 1285. A nation is an integrated people, divisive subcultures are always dangerous. But really this story is about us.

20/ Hungary wasn’t a particularly strong power, but it understood that laser focus on a goal and enough time could make them stronger. They understood, like we understand, that victory doesn’t always come on the first try, and sometimes it takes time.

21/ This is one of the reasons leftists go after the nuclear family structure. They understand its power to teach, and to impart values, and they fear it. They fear you making the next generation strong, capable, and proud.

22/ They fear that our descendants will beat theirs, because ours will have principles and commitment, and theirs will have softened from pseudo victory and gluttony. They are coming for what makes us strongest, our family.

23/ This is the power you have, although the days may be long and the years may be short, you are the key to the next generation’s battles. What you impart today might save tomorrow. We might not see results today, and we might not even feel like we are winning, but we are.

24/Even when we suffer a defeat, we are learning, like Béla did. We are forging bonds with the next generation that no power on earth will break.

It felt like a good time to bring this thread back. Get after it!