Orda Khan - Invasion of Poland

Invasion of Poland

Subutai & Batu Khan led two armies against Hungary, while Orda Khan with Chagatai's sons Baidar & Kadan attacked Poland as a diversion to prevent the Poles and Czechs from assisting Hungary in combat. Orda’s forces assaulted the southwestern border of Lithuania, then sacked the cities of Sandomierz and Kraków in April 1241, but were unable to conquer Wrocław (Breslau), the capital of Lower Silesia. While Orda was preparing siege on Wrocław, Baidar and Kadan received glowing reports that king Wenceslaus I of Bohemia was two days away with an army of 50,000 soldiers. Orda Khan broke off the siege and turned to Legnica where he intercepted the military forces of Henry II the Pious, before there could be any kind of merging between the forces of Henry II and the forces of king Wenceslaus I.

Orda’s deployment of 20,000 mounted archers demonstrated speed & tactical superiority versus the slower more heavily armored European armies, series of deceptive Mongolian attacks separated the Polish formation making them vulnerable for salvoes of Mongolian arrows. A smoke screen was used to conceal the Mangudai’s withdrawal, thereby misleading Henry’s military forces. After the European knights pursued the fleeing Mangudai, the Mongols were able to separate the knights from the infantry and defeated them one by one. Henry II the Pious was intercepted while trying to escape the battlefield, his head was paraded on a spear while marching through the town of Legnica.

King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia arrived at the battle field too late. When he heard that one Mongol group raided as far as the Saxonian town Meissen promptly marched there and seek reinforcements from Thuringia and Saxony. Meanwhile, rapid Mongol troops returned back to the East (i.e. Central Silesia) and tried attack Bohemia via Kłodzko Land but they were stopped at the border. Afterwards Orda with Mangudai joined forces of Kadan and Baidar at Otmuchów (Otmachau) and together quickly passing through Moravia (which severely looted and devastated) joining with the main Mongolian army in Hungary around the city of Esztergom.