KIPCHAKS AND THE MONGOI CAMPAIGNS AGAINST

KIPCHAKS AND THE MONGOI CAMPAIGNS AGAINST
EASTERN EUROPE 
 
 
István Zimonyi 
Hungary, Szeged University 
 
There were three important political actors in the beginning of the 13th century 
in Eastern Europe. The Kipchak tribes ruled the steppe zone, while the Kievan Rus 
and Volga Bulgars controlled the forest zone. The Kipchak tribes reached Eatern 
Europe in the middle of the 11th century and from that time on they played 
important role not only in the history of Rus and Volga Bulgars, but they had deep 
impact in Georgia, Byzantium, Danube Bulgaria and Hungarian Kingdom. The 
Mongols creating a vast empire in the first half of the 13th century waged war 
twice against Eastern Europe and after successful conquest the Golden Horde was 
founded.
1
This paper focuses on the Mongol campaigns against the Kipchaks within the 
western conquest. The Kipchak tribes of Eastern Europe migrated along the rivers. 
The reconstruction of their settlements was based on the direction of the Rus 
attacks which have survived in the Russian annals, the archaeological excavations, 
the territorial distribution of the Kipchak stone sculptures and the evidence of place 
names. Accordingly the following groups can be distinguished: Danube, Bug, 
Dnepr, Azov, Don, Donec, Caucasus and Volga-groups.
2
The Mongol forces attacked Eastern Europe first through the Caucasus in 
1223. The campaign was a part of a larger war against the empire of the 
Khwarazmshah. Chinggis Khan’s troops assembled on the river Irtish in the 
summer of 1219 and reached Otrar in the autumn. The Khwarazshah distributed his 
forces among the big cities as he was afraid of a decisive battle, but Chinggis Khan 
abandoning the tactics applied in north China conquered the towns of Transoxania 
one by one. Otrar was captured after five months siege in February 1220. Bukhara 
was taken in the same month and Samarkand in March. The empire came to an 
end. Jal l al-Dīn, the son of the Shah was the only leader, who defeated the 
Mongols in a battle, but he was forced to retreat to India. Chinggis Khan sent his 
generals Jebe and Sübötey to pursuit Muhammad, the Khwarazmshah according 
the basic Mongol strategy. He flew to an island of the Caspian Sea and died there 
in January 1221.
3
The Mongol generals asked the permission of Chinggis Khan to 
continue the campaign to reconnoitre the western countries and so they attacked 
Azerbaijan and Georgia, then they crossed the Caucasus in 1222. The Alans made 
an alliance with the nomadic Kipchaks.
4
The Mongols sent envoys to the Kipchaks 
according to Ibn al-Athīr who were successful in alienating the Kipchaks stating 
that the Mongols and Kipchaks were of the same stock (jins) and they have 
1
The western campaigns of the Mongols in general: Spuler 1943, ; Vernadsky 1953; Grekov-Jakubovskij 1950; 
Tihvinskij 1970; Göckenjan 1991; Sinor 2001; sourcebooks on the campaigns: Göckenjan, Sweeney 1985; 
Tatárjárás emlékezete; Revised and supplemented version: Tatárjárás. 
2
Fedorov-Davidov reconstructed six (1966, 147-150) and Pletneva eight groups (1974, 19-23), twelve by Pritsak 
1982, 340-341 
3
Ratschnecsky 1993, 118-134. 
4
The term used in Muslim and eastern sources, whereas Cumans in western and Polovtsians in Russian sources. 

different religion than the Alans. The Mongols promised treasure and clothing to 
the Kipchaks, who accepted the offer and left the Alans and dispersed. First the 
Alans were crushed and then the Cumans.
5
The Mongols spent the winter in the 
northern Caucasus and took Sugdak on the Crimea.
6
In 1223 they penetrated into 
the steppe and they killed the son of Konchak, Yuriy and Danil Kobyakovich 
during the wars, but Köten and other princes escaped.
7
The western Russian princes paid little attention to the raid of Chinggis Khan, 
as the Russian annals did not record it at all. The prince of Galych, Mstislav was 
informed about the events in the Caucasus by his father-in-law, the Kipchak ruler 
Köten, who offered presents for making an alliance against the Mongols. Mstislav 
convoked the Russian prince to Kiev. The princes of Kiev and Chernigov took part 
in the war council and decided to march together with the Kipchaks against the 
Mongols toward southeast and to attack the Mongols on the steppe. The main 
body of the army went along the Dnepr and met the envoys of the Mongols under 
Zarub who declared that the Mongols did not intend to attack the Rus’ territories 
west of the Dnepr and said: “We have heard that you are marching against us, 
having harkened to the Polovtsians/Kipchaks; but we have not attacked your land 
or your villages, nor have we marched against you; but we have come, sent by 
God, against our serfs and our grooms, the pagan Polovtsians. Make peace with us. 
Should (the Polovtsians) escape to you, then drive them off and take their goods 
for yourselves. We have heard that they have done much evil to you, and for this 
reason we are fighting them.”
8
The report contains several topoi, but reflects the 
aim of the Mongols to divide the opponents. The Russians killed the envoys and 
the reinforcement from Chernigov, Galych and Smolensk arrived. The allied forces 
reached the easternmost bend of the Dnepr, when other Mongol envoys arrived: 
“You have harkened to the Polovtsians and have killed our envoys and are 
marching against us. March on, then. But we have not attacked you. May God (be 
judge) of all men.”
9
The Russian troops crossed the Dnepr and marched forward on 
the steppe. The battle took place on the Kalka on 31 May between the Mongols 
and Russian-Kipchak army. The Kipchak troop under Yarun retreated. The three 
leading princes fell during the fight and the Mongols defeated the Russian forces 
and pursued the remnants as far as the Dnepr, then retreated.
10
The crushing defeat 
was due to the feud among the Russian princes and lack of unity among the 
commanders, absence of the troops from the powerful northern and eastern 
principalities such as Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal. The casualties amounted to 
the half of the participating princes.
11
The news of the Mongol attack in 1223 
reached Europe through Henry of Livonia’s Chronicle.
12
5
The basic source is Ibn al-Athīr description on the Mongol campaign. On operations in the Caucasus cf. Schütz 
1973.
6
Ibn al-Atīr X, 416–417; Richards 2010, 222–223; A tatárjárás… 58–59). 
7
NPL 62, 265. 
8
Fennell 1983, 65 
9
Dietze 1971, 94-96; Fennell 1983, 66. 
10
The Russian annals recorded the events under title the “Tale of the battle on the Kalka” in different versions, 
which preserved reliable historical data. Cf. Fennell 1980, 18-31. 
11
Fennell 1983, 63-68 
12
Göckenjan, Sweeney 1985, 29-32. 

Then the Mongols attempted to conquer the Volga Bulgars, but they had precise 
information about the nomadic tactics of the Mongols and they put up ambushes 
for the Mongols and defeated them. Ibn al-Athīr recorded: “Most of them were 
killed, none but only a few escaped. It was said they were about 4 000 men. They 
went to Saqsin returning to their king, Chinngis Khan. The territoty of the 
Qipchaqs became empty of them and whoever survived of them returned to his 
country. The road was cut: The Tatars had entered it and nothing arrived from 
them from fox, ermine, sable, etc. of what is carried from these countries. When 
they left it (the road), they returned to their country and the roads was 
uninterrupted and carried the goods as before.”
13
During the first Mongol invasion 
the Kipchak tribes between the Dnepr and Volga were temporally conquered. 
Parallel with the campaign of Jebe and Sübötey Jochi, the eldest son of 
Chinggis Khan marched on the Syr-darya and captured the towns of Sugnak, 
Özkend, Barchin and Ashnas and finally Jand im April 1220. Afterwards Chingis 
Khan sent Jochi, Ögedey and Chagatay against Khw razm during his campaign in 
Transoxania. Ögedey and Chagatay sieged the town and returned to their father, 
while Jochi marched to the steppe and remained there till the spring of 1223. 
Chinngis Khan with his sons met him between Chimkent and Jambul and spent the 
summer with hunting. Then Jochi returned his camp.
14
Rashīd al-Dīn recorded the 
events in another way after the siege of Khwarazm stating: „Chagatay and Ögetey 
then set off to join their father, and they reached Chingiz-Khan before the fortress 
of T laq n. As for Jochi, he set out from Khw razm for the Erdish, where his 
heavy baggage was, and reached his ordos. Previously, Chingiz-Khan had ordered 
Jochi, he set out upon the conquest of the northern countries, such as those of the 
Bular, Bashghïrd, Orus, Cherkes, and the Qïpchaq Steppe, and to subjugate them. 
As /Jochi/ had held back from this operation and returned to his own tents, 
Chingiz-Khan was extremely annoyed and said: ‘I will put him to death without 
seeing his face.’ Jochi was taken suddenly ill.”
15
Finally Jochi died and the conflict 
came to an end. Rashīd al-Dīn mentioned the order of Chingiz-Khan to attack the 
western countries once again: „It had been previously ordained by a yarlïgh of 
Chingiz-Khan that Jochi should proceed with an army and seize and take 
possession of all the northern countries, such as Ibir-Sibir, Bular, the Qïpchaq 
Steppe, and the lands of the Bashghïrd, Rus, and Cherkes as far as Darband on the 
Caspian, which the Mongols call Temür-Qahalqa. Jochi neglected this command, 
and when Ögedey Khan acceded to the Khanate, he charged Batu with the same 
undertaking, deputing his nephew Möngke Qa’an, the latter’s brother Böchek, and 
his own son Güyük Khan, along with such great emirs as Sübetey Bahadur, the 
army commander of the Uriyangqat people who came to this country with Jebe, at 
the head of an army, to gather all together with the other princes under Batu and set 
about the conquest of the northern countries.”
16
The chronology of this neglected 
command is debated, as Juwaynī having described the campaign of Jebe and 
Sübedey as far as the cross of the pass Darband in the Caucasus than he wrote that 
13
Ibn al-Athīr XII, 388-389; Zimonyi 1992/3, 350; Zimonyi 1985, 197-204; Volžskie Bulgarija 1988). 
14
J. A. Boyle, Djuči: EI II, , 571; Ratschnevsky 1993, 136-137. 
15
Boyle 1971, 118, Thackston 1999, 359. 
16
Boyle 1971, 107-108; Thackston 1999, 352 

Sübedey met Jochi in the Dasht-i Qipchaq in the beginning of 1224 and both 
joined to Chingis Khan:
17
„Then they came to Darband and none remembered that 
any army had ever passed through or gone to war by this route, but they had resort 
to a stratagem and so passed through. The army of Tushi stationed on the Plain of 
the Qifchaq and that region; they linked up with them and departed from thence to 
rejoin Chingiz-Khan.”
18
According to Rashīd al-Dīn Jochi refused to meet Chingis Khan as he 
neglected his command to attack the western countries, so it cannot be dated before 
1223, which seem to be logical, as Jochi could help the campaign led by Sübötey 
and Jebe. All in all Chingis Khan sent his eldest son Jochi to the west. The details 
and results of this attack is not known, only the western border of Jochi ulus were 
recorded by Juwaini: «When during the reign of Chingiz-Khan the kingdom 
became of vast extent he assigned to everyone his place of abode, which they call 
yurt. To his eldest son, Tushi (Tūšī), he gave the territory stretching from the 
regions of Qayaligh
19
(Qay līġ) and Khorezm (Hw rizm) to the remotest parts of 
Saqsin (Saqsīn) and Bulghar (Bulġ r) and as far as the hoof of Tartar horse had 
penetrated.”
20
We have no data on the attack of Jochi between 1224 and 1227. 
Chinggis-Khan’s attention turned toward the Tanguts and he died during the 
campaign against the Tanguts in 1227. 
The new great khan, Ögödey was elected in 1229, whose first step was to 
conquer the Qitays in north China. It meant that greater forces were not sent 
against Eastern Europe between 1227 and 1235. The Russian annals mentioned 
border incidents in 1229 and 1232 referring to the Volga-region.
21
Both attacks had 
consequences for the Kipchaks and Volga Bulghars. In 1229 a Mongol raid is 
recorded in the Russian annals: “In 1229 the inhabitants of Saqsin and the Polovec 
escaped from the Tatars to the Bulgars from the south and the Bulgar advanced 
guard also retreated as they were defeated by the Tatars near the Yayik (Ural) 
river.”
22
In 1232 the Mongols attacked the Volga Bulgars nott reaching their Great 
Town (Biler).
23
The eastern borders of the Volga Bulghars were conquered. These 
Mongol attacks had an impact on the Kipchaks along the Volga. 
Ögedey having consolidated the East, i.e. North China and Persia convoked a 

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