No one liked the restoration of the Galicia-Volyn principality. The first, of course, were the Hungarians, and King Andras II sent a large army under the command of his son Bela to Galich. A big army is a big defeat. In 1229, all possible factors were against the Hungarians. Daniel met them on the outskirts of Galich and in the course of numerous skirmishes inflicted heavy losses on them, without engaging in a big battle. The Magyars deployed their army, but the Rusichi continued to press, and then there were also rains, floods and an epidemic among the soldiers. Having suffered heavy losses, the Hungarian army was still able to return home, but for some time they had to forget about the campaigns against Galich.
But there was no time to rest: the internal enemy raised its head to replace the external enemy. All the same Alexander Belzsky, who continued to wish for possession of Volyn, united with the Galician boyars, which continued to muddy the waters. A conspiracy was drawn up, according to which the Romanovichs were to be burned in the palace during a feast (the princely palaces in Galich were built of wood). The conspiracy was revealed by accident: for the sake of laughter, playfully, Vasilko threatened the participants in the conspiracy with a sword, they thought that they had been revealed, and immediately laid out everything they knew. Alexander lost his principality, but in 1231 Daniel still had to leave the city, when, when the Hungarian troops approached, the boyars rebelled again. Andrash of Hungary again sat to rule in Galich.
Daniel could only do the same thing that he always did: fighting in small wars, to conclude alliances in order to use them in the future. After the loss of Galich, he took part in another strife for the capital of Russia, supporting Vladimir Rurikovich, who at that time defended Kiev from Mikhail Chernigovsky. Having received the city in Porosye in gratitude, Daniel distributed them to the sons of Mstislav Udatny, thereby enticing them from the enemy camp. In the same year, it was necessary to repel several raids of the Hungarians and Bolokhovites in Volhynia. The latter were a very headstrong group of tribes that were only indirectly subordinate to Kiev and had their own boyars, and, possibly, their own princes (although the Bolokhov princes are a separate topic altogether). During the formation of the Romanovich state, they perceived the new western neighbor as a threat and constantly interfered in their affairs.
In 1233, Daniel again returned Galich, during the siege of which the prince Andrash died. The unity of the Romanovich state was restored. Alexander Vsevolodovich, the former prince of Belz, was placed in a dungeon, as information appeared about his next conspiracy with the Galician boyars, which was headed by a certain Sudislav, who acted in the best traditions of the Kormilichichs. In 1234, it was necessary to help again Vladimir of Kiev, who was besieged by Mikhail of Chernigov. The blow to the principality of the latter was a success, but soon followed by defeat from the army of the Polovtsians and the Russian prince Izyaslav Vladimirovich, the son of Vladimir Igorevich - one of those three Igorevichs who ruled Galich a quarter of a century ago. Following this, the Galician boyars entered into an agreement with Mikhail Chernigovsky, who misinformed Daniel about enemy actions. As a result, in 1235, Galich was open to attack, was lost by the Romanovichs, and with the approval of the local boyars, the very same Mikhail of Chernigov sat down to rule there.
The constant strife and invasions of foreigners, which did not stop in South-Western Russia after the death of Roman Mstislavich, began to tire everyone. (Even the author of this article got tired of describing all these relatively minor conflicts with a constant change in the layouts of alliances with an almost unchanged composition of the main characters.) Daniil Romanovich was also tired in reality, who, moreover, faced numerous opponents with a small retinue. After the loss of Galich, he decided to take a very radical and controversial step - to recognize himself as a vassal of the recently crowned Hungarian monarch Bela IV, with whom he had good relations (Daniel and Bela were brought up together at the Hungarian court for some time and were friends to a certain extent). Alas, the Romanovichs did not receive help in exchange for such a significant concession, and therefore they had to clean up all this mess on their own, at the same time forgetting about the oath of vassal loyalty.
The onset of order
The Bolokhovites and Galicians did not stop and began to make constant raids on Volhynia, thereby trying to completely deprive the Romanovichs of any inheritance. In 1236 they made a big raid, but suffered a crushing defeat, many soldiers were captured by the Volyn prince. Mikhail Vsevolodovich (Chernigovsky) and Izyaslav Vladimirovich (who became the prince of Kiev) demanded their extradition, and when they were refused, they began to collect a large army for a campaign against Vladimir. They were joined by the Polovtsy and the Polish prince Konrad Mazovetsky, who had views of the northern territories of Volyn. As before, diplomacy turned out to be no less effective than swords: instead of striking the lands of the Romanovichs, the Cumans fell on the Galician principality, causing great damage. Konrad was defeated by Daniel's younger brother, Vasilko, possibly with the direct or indirect support of the Lithuanians. The remaining army of Mikhail and his son Rostislav (who will play an important role in the future) fell into a siege in Galich in 1237, and only by a miracle the city resisted. To the joy of success, Michael in 1238 rushed to the campaign against Lithuania, leaving his son to reign in his place. Together with him, many Galician boyars from among the radicals went on the campaign. As a result, Daniel was able to easily occupy the city, and the community fully supported him by opening the gates. The Galicia-Volyn principality was restored, this time finally.
All this time the Romanovichs had to fight, fight and fight again. Moreover, the described wars were far from the only ones that Daniel and Vasilko had to wage. So, the Lithuanians did not always behave peacefully, who nevertheless periodically raided the Brest land, which was the extreme northern land of the Volyn possessions. Difficult relations developed at this time with Konrad Mazowiecki, who at first was an ally and then an enemy. In 1238, in addition to the occupation of Galich, it was also possible to deal with the crusaders who invaded the northern possessions of the Volyn principality. I had to take up arms and force the Christian brothers to go back, returning the loot. Along the way, taking this opportunity, Daniel returned to his possession the city of Dorogichin. It was a primordially Russian city (like the whole land around it), which served as the northwestern outskirts of the Volyn principality. Taking advantage of the troubles in Russia, the Mazovian princes captured the city somewhere in the 12th century, and in 1237 Konrad presented it to the Dobrzy Order of Knights, from which Daniel took them away.
Meanwhile, the Mongols were already walking from the east, having managed to walk with fire and sword across North-Western Russia and were approaching the state of the Romanovichs …
Mongol-Tatars
The Mongols (also Mongol-Tatars, also Tatar-Mongols, I will use all three turns as needed), or rather, Ulus Jochi, the future Golden Horde, at that time was a well-oiled machine for distributing cuffs to all interested sedentary and nomadic peoples, who refused to submit or pay tribute to them. Thanks to the experience adopted from the Chinese together with the Chinese cadres, these steppe dwellers knew how to besiege fortresses, take them by storm, and thanks to the absorption of all the other steppe dwellers, they had a large number. They were commanded by Batu Khan, a skillful and tough commander, who, after Genghis Khan and up to Timur, was probably the only Mongol-Tatar commander who could so effectively use a bunch of nomads and dependent sedentary, bending everyone on his way up to the Adriatic Sea.
However, it is also worth understanding something else. Batu fell on Russia in 1237 and fought with it for the next years. Yes, he won victories, yes, the Mongols had an excellent supply of cannon fodder to the hashar (auxiliary army), which was used in siege work and in which case it was the first wave to storm …. But in any scenario with such an active military operations and with the resistance that the Russian princes and cities showed, the horde inevitably had to suffer losses and decrease in number. In addition, far from the entire Mongol army went to the west, and in general the ranks of aggressive nomads were worn out during the past wars. Modern historians, who adhere to a moderate estimate of the number of Batu's troops in 1237, call the number from 50 to 60 thousand people. Taking into account the losses, as well as the departure of two tumens to Mongolia before 1241, the number of the horde by the beginning of the invasion of the Romanovich state can be estimated at about 25-30 thousand people, and maybe even less.
With approximately such an army, Batu came to the Galicia-Volyn principality, after which he still had to fight with the Europeans, who, with full exertion of forces, could exhibit armies of comparable numbers, or even more. Because of this, the Mongols could no longer arrange such a massive offensive, fraught with heavy losses; they could not get involved in long sieges, as this led to a loss of time and the risk of incurring additional losses. Thus, the blow that was inflicted on the Galicia-Volyn state turned out to be weaker than the one that struck North-Eastern Russia in 1237-38, and even less so than the one that Central Asia and the Khorezmshah state endured under Genghis Khan.
Galicia-Volyn principality
Daniil Galitsky, even after the defeat on Kalka, began to look back at what was happening in the steppe, and took into account the possibility of a sudden visit from a strong and numerous enemy. However, the way Batu dealt with the rest of Russia at the beginning of his big march to the west had a stunning effect on the Romanovichs. The battle in the field began to look like a deliberate suicide. Instead of tough, furious resistance, a completely different strategy of minimizing damage was chosen, which from the very beginning was dubious, at least from a moral point of view. The troops were withdrawn aside from the blow of the Mongols, the garrisons in the cities, if they remained, were very small in number. The civilian population also scattered in front of the horde, although this primarily concerned the villagers: the townspeople were in no hurry to escape from the blow. At the same time, those who remained in place should not offer resistance to the Mongols, since in this case they were waiting for a guaranteed death, and in the absence of resistance, there were at least some chances to stay alive.
During the invasion, Daniel himself was absent from the principality, circling around the nearest states and persistently trying to put together a strong anti-Mongol alliance capable of resisting the steppe inhabitants. Only once, during the invasion, will he try to return home from Hungary, but he will meet large masses of refugees and decide not to try to fight the steppe people, having only a few hundred of his closest warriors at hand. There is also information that Daniel concluded a personal truce with the Mongols, protecting himself personally and actually giving up his own principality for plunder, but this theory still remains only a theory due to insufficient substantiation.
Refusing to take action, the Galicia-Volyn principality retained a couple of trump cards in its liabilities. The first of them turned out to be the rapid progress in fortification - if the rest of Russia had wooden fortifications that did not represent a large obstacle for the Mongols, then in the Southwest, mixed stone-wooden and exclusively stone structures of fortifications were already being introduced with might and main, multiplied by competent application to the terrain, with several lines of defense and the removal of strong points forward, which prevented the effective use of siege artillery. This greatly complicated the assaults of large cities for the horde, and forced to conduct a correct siege or completely bypass settlements. The second trump card was the rather massive use of crossbows (crossbows) in the defense of cities, which was noted even when defending small fortresses. They did not require serious training of the shooter and shot arrows with great force, piercing Mongol armor when firing from the walls, which bows could not boast of. All this could not but sprinkle pepper on the horde in the upcoming events.
Invasion
From the above, it becomes clear that the campaign against South-Western Russia for the Mongols became a more difficult task than the rest of its parts. There was neither time nor opportunity to thoroughly destroy, plunder, besiege and kill. Probably because of the troubles that befell the local population, relatively little is known, from which historians concluded that the scale of devastation and human losses on the territory of the principality was, albeit very serious, but not catastrophic.
Kiev was the first to hit, which was abandoned by the prince, Mikhail of Chernigov, and where Daniil Romanovich sent a small detachment. The defense was commanded by Dmitry Tysyatsky (Dmitr). The siege of the city took place in the winter of 1240-1241 and ended in the defeat of the Kievites, which was a natural result: having a sufficiently large area, the Russian capital at that time had dilapidated walls due to strife and an insufficiently numerous garrison, even together with Dmitry's reinforcements. After that, having made a short respite, the Mongols attacked the Galicia-Volyn principality. In this they were helped by the Bolokhovites, who went over to the side of the steppe dwellers and showed the ways along which it was most convenient to strike at the very heart of the hated state of the Romanovichs. True, at the same time, the Mongols also demanded tribute in grain from their newfound allies.
There is no specific description of what happened in the future, and I do not undertake to try to describe in detail the entire invasion, since I will have to invent too much, starting from too little information. However, some specific information is still available. The fate of the three cities has earned a special mention in the annals, therefore, in the first place, attention will be focused on them.
One of the first to be hit was the city of Galich. Boyars loyal to the Romanovichs, as well as a significant part of those who could hold weapons in their hands, were absent from the city at that time, which predetermined the outcome in advance. Most likely, the remaining townspeople did not offer resistance to the Mongols and simply surrendered. Archeology does not confirm any large-scale destruction, except for a number of fires, which only partially affected the city fortifications. There are no traces of mass graves. From this we can conclude that the townspeople were simply taken to hashar and were actively used in the future. The depopulated Galich never recovered to its former strength: since 1241 it has been rapidly losing its socio-political and economic role, yielding first to Kholm, the capital of Daniil Romanovich, and then to Lvov, the capital of Lev Danilovich.
A somewhat different picture is observed in Vladimir-Volynsky. It seems that the opinion of the townspeople here was divided, part decided to surrender to the Mongols and repeated the fate of the townspeople of Galich, and part decided to fight and died. Because of this, Vladimir survived the devastation, on its territory there are traces of destruction and burials, but they do not correspond in scale to those that would be expected with an active defense of a city of this size: by 1241 its population reached 20 thousand people. In the future, the city will recover quickly enough, remaining the capital of Volyn.
The northernmost of the devastated cities was Berestye (Brest). Apparently, the townspeople initially resisted the Mongols, but then decided to surrender and, at their request, left the city to recount and facilitate the plunder of the city. However, it was not in the habits of the steppe inhabitants to forgive any resistance, and in such situations, even giving promises of safety to surrendering, they acted in the same way. When Roman and Vasilko arrived at the city, it was completely empty and plundered, but without traces of obvious destruction. Near the city in a spacious clearing lay the corpses of its inhabitants, whom the Mongols killed as punishment for the fact that the birch bark dared to offer at least some resistance. It is possible that the strongest men were still taken to the hashar and used in the future.
There were cities that resisted the Mongols to the last. Among these are Kolodyazhin, Izyaslavl, Kamenets. All of them were burned and depopulated. On the ashes of some of them, archaeologists found the remains of crossbows and tension rings attached to the shooter's belt. All this creates the impression that the Mongols nevertheless walked with fire and sword through the Galicia-Volyn principality with sufficient ease.
However, there were also completely opposite examples. Stone-wooden or stone fortification, and, moreover, competently located on the ground, turned out to be a tough nut to crack for the steppe people. In the case when a fairly numerous garrison was located on the walls under the command of skilled military leaders, Batu was forced to simply bypass these fortifications by the side, which he did not do, for example, with Kozelsk. The relatively new fortresses in Kremenets and Danilov were never taken by the Mongols, despite several attempts. At the sight of Kholm, which at that time was probably the most fortified city in Russia and was even evaluated by Europeans as very well defended, Batu was only forced to show off in full view of its walls for some time and go further, to Poland, satisfied with plunder unprotected villages in the vicinity of the new capital of the Romanovich state. The captive voivode Dmitr, whom the khan continued to carry with him, seeing this, advised him to go further, to Europe, since "this land is strong." Considering that the steppe dwellers never met the Galician-Volyn army in the field, and the number of troops was far from infinite, the advice seemed to the khan very sensible. Without delaying sieges of well-fortified cities, Batu set out with his army further to Poland.
Despite the fact that Batu Khan passed through the Galicia-Volyn principality quickly and ruined it to a much lesser extent than other Russian lands, the losses were still great. Many cities lost their entire population, killed in battles, destroyed as a punishment or taken to hashar (from the latter, as a rule, very few returned). Significant economic damage was caused to the country, especially to the handicraft business, which was located in the cities most affected by the steppe inhabitants. Under the guise of the Mongol conquest, the crusaders recaptured Dorogochin from the Russians, and the Bolokhovites, together with Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich, tried to take possession of the Galician principality, albeit not very successfully.
However, there were also positive aspects. Batu left quickly enough, defeating the Poles at Legnica in April. The steppe inhabitants, apparently, walked in a narrow strip, from city to city, and did not touch a significant part of the state's territory. For example, Bakota remained on the sidelines, which was one of the centers of salt production on the Dniester. Some of the cities survived the plunder and destruction of the population, thanks to which it was possible to preserve at least some share of the former handicraft production - and in the coming years in the Galicia-Volyn state it will not only quickly recover, but also surpass the pre-Mongol period in scale. Finally, by refusing a field battle and actually surrendering the country's territories for plunder, Daniil Romanovich was able to save his main political trump card at all times - the army. If the prince lost her, then the Galicia-Volyn principality, most likely, would soon come to an end. Having preserved it, he was already in April 1241 able to move on to regain control over his state.
As for the Mongols, they, apparently, suffered quite serious losses during a short campaign in the territory of Southwestern Russia. Their number during the battles in Poland and Hungary is weighedly estimated from 20 to 30 thousand people, and after the end of the campaign there were only 12 to 25 thousand. The Mongols had to fight with the Europeans in the minority, using the advantageous sides of the cavalry army. Serious sieges of large fortresses were practically not carried out, the military power of the horde quickly degraded to the level of extraordinary robbers and village burners. Ulus Jochi no longer had such large-scale actions, and when they appeared, strife began among the Mongols themselves, and therefore Europe no longer knew such large-scale invasions of the steppe inhabitants as in 1241-1242. Lack of forces and means, as well as serious resistance of local peoples and a large number of stone fortresses on the road led Batu's great campaign of conquest to a deep raid into Europe, the benefits of which were reduced to a great intimidation of the entire Christian world. As a result, only the nearest territories of Russia and the Balkans fell into dependence on the Ulus Jochi.
