The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 - (From Barbarossa to Dante) by Unknown
page 278 of 539 (51%)
page 278 of 539 (51%)
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subdued nearly all Asia. They arrived, proud of their exploits,
animated by the recollection of a hundred victories, and reinforced by numerous peoples whom they had vanquished, and hurried with them to the West. When the princes of Galitch, of Volhynia, and of Kiev arrived as fugitives in Poland and Hungary, Europe was terror-stricken. The Pope, whose support had been claimed by the Prince of Galitch, summoned Christendom to arms. Louis IX prepared for a crusade. Frederic II, as emperor, wrote to the sovereigns of the West: "This is the moment to open the eyes of body and soul now that the brave princes on whom we reckoned are dead or in slavery." The Tartars invaded Hungary, gave battle to the Poles in Liegnitz in Silesia, had their progress a long while arrested by the courageous defence of Olmutz in Moravia, by the Tcheque voievode Yaroslaff, and stopped finally, learning that a large army, commanded by the King of Bohemia and the dukes of Austria and Carinthia, was approaching. The news of the death of Oktai, second Emperor of all the Tartars, in China, recalled Batu from the West, and during the long march from Germany his army necessarily diminished in number. The Tartars were no longer in the vast plains of Asia and Eastern Europe, but in a broken hilly country, bristling with fortresses, defended by a population more dense and a chivalry more numerous than those in Russia. To sum up, all the fury of the Mongol tempest spent itself on the Slavonic race. It was the Russians who fought at the Kalka, at Kolomna, at the Sit; the Poles and Silesians at Liegnitz; the Bohemians and Moravians at Olmutz. The Germans suffered nothing from |
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