Mongol Invasion
In 1241 Wenceslaus successfully repelled a raid on Bohemia by forces serving under Batu Khan and Subutai of the Mongol Empire as part of the Mongol invasion of Europe. The Mongols did not send their main army to the Kingdom of Poland, Bohemia and Silesia, and only Moravia suffered devastation at their hands. The raids into these four areas were led by Baidar, Kadan and Orda Khan with a force of around 20,000 Mongols. Following the Mongol victory at the Battle of Legnica, Wenceslaus fell back to gather reinforcements from Thuringia and Saxony, but was overtaken by the Mongol vanguard at Kłodzko. However, the Bohemian cavalry easily fended off the Mongol detachment. As Baidar and Kadan's orders had been to serve as a diversion, they turned away from Bohemia and Poland and went southward to join Batu and Subutai, who had crushed the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohi.
When Subutai heard in 1242 that Grand Khan Ögedei had died the previous year, the Mongol army retreated eastward, because Subutai had three princes of the blood in his command and Genghis Khan had made clear that all descendants of the Khagan (Grand Khan) should return to the Mongol capital of Karakorum for the kurultai which would elect the next Khagan. The Polish people, unaware of the reason why the Mongols left so suddenly, simply assumed that they had been defeated in battle.
Read more about this topic: Wenceslaus I Of Bohemia
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