Historical Analysis: Should Genghis Khan Be Charged with War Crimes?

This essay explores the controversial question of whether Genghis Khan and his associates should be charged with war crimes, considering his legacy as both a brilliant conqueror and a figure associated with immense bloodshed. The analysis weighs arguments for and against, examining the historical context of the Mongol Empire, the scale of its conquests, and the cultural and technological exchanges that occurred during the Pax Mongolica. It also addresses the counter-arguments, including the devastation caused by Mongol invasions, the spread of disease, and the Mongols' perceived lack of cultural and economic innovation beyond military prowess. The essay concludes by suggesting that Genghis Khan should not be charged with war crimes, portraying him as a complex figure whose actions are subject to interpretation based on differing perspectives and historical narratives. Desklib offers students access to similar essays and study resources.

Should Genghis Khan &his associates
be charged with War Crimes

Table of Contents
Topic: Should Genghis Khan and his associates be charged with War Crimes?..........................................4
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Main Body...................................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

Topic: Should Genghis Khan and his associates be charged with War Crimes?
Introduction
Genghis Khan is considered as the one of history's greatest conquerors, who unified
Mongolia's tribes and subsequently expanded his kingdom across Asia to the Adriatic Sea.
Genghis Khan was a brilliant warrior and ruler who, from humble beginnings, brought all of
Mongolia's nomadic tribes under his control in a tightly ordered military state. He after which
shifted his focus to the settled peoples beyond his nomadic realm's borders, embarking on a
series of plundering and conquest campaigns that eventually took the Mongol armies as far as the
Adriatic Sea in one direction and the Pacific coast of China in the other, establishing the great
Mongol Empire. The prime purpose of this report is to generalize the whole factors and
determine that “Should Genghis Khan and his associates be charged with War Crimes?”.
Through this report , it will make more possible to make clear understanding about the Genghis
Khan and his associates.
Main Body
The greatest conqueror the world has ever known was Genghis Khan. He is a cultural
icon, probably second only to Jesus Christ in terms of fame, This the exact embodiment of
brutality &barbarism in popular images.
The actual Genghis Khan, on the other hand, was a true phenomenon. From the Adriatic to the
Pacific, he &his children conquered peoples, reaching modern-day Austria, Finland, Croatia,
Hungarian, Poland, Vietnam, Burma, Japan, &Indonesia. The Mongol empire spanned 12
million square miles, roughly the same size as Africa. The Roman Empire, on the other hand,
was roughly half the size of the continental United States. Because the Americas &Australasia
were unknown to the 'global island' of Europe, Asia, &Africa, Mongol conquests covered the
majority of the known world by 1240. The modern countries that were once part of the Mongol
empire account for 3 billion of the world's 7 billion people (Brook and et. al., 2018).
The majority of historians believe that this remarkable feat was the result of a massacre &
bloodshed that would not be seen again until the twentieth century. The genuine historian's role

is to try a balanced, reasonable assessment of this traditional judgement, all the more so because
modern revisionist history has already seen somewhat of a criticism pendulum 'overswing.' A
mode of thinking holds the Mongols responsible for every military atrocity ever committed,
while the other views them as harbingers of world peace &stability, albeit marred by a few
regretful excesses.
Sir John Keegan, a military historian, blamed Genghis Khan for the Spanish
Reconquista's barbarism against the Moors in the late 15th century, as well as the killing of the
Aztecs &Incas. "The terrible fate of an Incas &Aztecs... finally cleaned back to Genghis Khan
himself," according to legend. The Mongols are said to have imported ruthless ferocity to Islam,
which in turn passed it on to the warriors, who in turn passed it on to the warriors, who in turn
passed it on to the warriors, who in turn passed it on to Spain &, after Columbus' voyages of
discovery, the New World The warriors, according to Harvard historian Donald Ostrowski, were
the ones who introduced "ruthless savagery" to Muslims (Campbell, 2019).
After 1220, the Mongol preference for trade over fighting progressively grew, especially
after Genghis Khan was persuaded that cultivation produced more money than nomadic.
Although it has been said that one can travel from Palestine to Mongolia without being harassed
if you wore a gold plate on your head, the voyage was nevertheless difficult due to archaic
transportation. Traveling from Turkey to Beijing took 295 days even in the idyllic days of the
Pax Mongolica. The Mongols, on the other hand, unquestionably opened up a lot.
Until 1250, there had been a restricted European perspective in the west that has seen the
world as basically ending at Jerusalem. The Franciscans Carpini & Rubruck's voyages, as well as
Marco Polo's given rise to new horizons. The scale of the world &its inhabitants were finally
grasped by educated people. Venetian traders came in Beijing, Mongolian envoys in the
Bordeaux & Northampton, &Genoese consuls in Tabriz, shrinking the world. In China, there
have been Arab tax officers, Mongolian lawyers in the Egypt, &French craftsmen in Karakorum,
the Mongol capital. Uighur &Chinese elements impacted Iranian art. Firearms, silk farming,
ceramics, & woodblock printing were all brought from China to the Islamic world &Europe. The
Mongol empire functioned as a conduit for technology, science, &culture, mainly between China
&Iran, but not exclusively. In a nutshell, the Mongol conquests constituted a crucial link in the
'global system'. The Silk Road's southern route that had fallen out of fashion in favour of the

northern & middle routes got resurrected, connecting both Aral & Caspian Seas with Byzantium.
Many authors even link the Pax Mongolica to Christopher Columbus' new world, the age of
European colonization & expansion, &the Enlightenment.
There is some truth to all of this, but anti-Mongolisms have presented several powerful
counter-arguments. Some historians argue that the Pax Mongolia’s purported age of peace
&serenity has been exaggerated, &that pro-Mongolisms have focused on the unusual 20-year
period from 1242 when the great peace was a reality, while ignoring the fall of Genghis' empire
into four shards. Others argue that the 'global system' viewpoint is exaggerated, because trade
between east &west was primarily one-way, &there were no actual Chinese Rubrucks, Carpinis,
or Marco Polos (DUDIN, 2017).
They also argue that the significance of western-based voyages across Asia has indeed
been exaggerated, as well as that they cannot be compared to the accomplishments of the Age of
Exploration. A refinement of this viewpoint is that a truthful 'world system' can only be realized
if maritime trade is included, however the Mongols feared the ocean & preferred an arduous
journey of up to 18 months to the terrors of the sea, with the Indian Ocean serving as the main
stumbling block (Young, 2016).
Finally, some argue that even if we accept the existence of a "world organization," whose
unexpected implications were mostly negative, as the Mongol empire functioned as a conduit for
deadly illness. Rinderpest, also known as steppe murrain, is a disease that affects ungulate
animals &is similar to measles in humans. It was spread throughout Eurasia from the 1240s
onwards by the Mongol conquests of Russia &Eastern Europe. Worse worse, the Mongols could
have been to blame for the Black Fate's spread.
Central Asia, in especially the recent Silk Route avenues opened up by the Mongols,
which had their terminus in Crimea, appears to have been a major vector of the virus's
emergence. In the anti-Mongol indictment, there are two final counts. One may be because,
while the Mongols were incredible warriors &conquerors, their system was always intrinsically
unstable because they can't negotiate or create, instead living off the surplus of the conquered
&as such relying entirely on the vanquished's labour. This entailed a never-ending circle of

invasion, subjugation, &exploitation as more &more Mongol princelings arose with 'entitlement'
to privilege.
Perhaps more importantly, the Mongols were culturally imbalanced. They had made a
huge leap of military technology, putting them well ahead of Western Europe, but Europeans
were producing Robert Bacon, Anthony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, & St Louis in the meantime.
Even though Europeans also couldn't match the Mongols in terms of slaughter (especially the
atrocities committed against the Albigensians), they did produce the Divine Comedy, the
Carmine Burans, the Egyptian de la Rose, &the amazing series of old churches at Chartres,
Amiens, Reims, Beauvais, Toledo, Burgos, Perfumes, York, & Litchfield, all of which were
finished or under construction in the 13th century (Taulbee, 2017).
Genghis Khan, an uneducated barbarian, was a genius in many ways, not least because
his accomplishments seemed to appear out of nowhere. All of the other great conquerors were
literate &drew on a vast tradition &body of knowledge - Alexander the Great from Aristotle,
Julius Caesar from the entire canon of ancient Greece, &Napoleon from the Enlightenment
&Romantic revolution. As compared to his contemporary Francis of Assisi, though, Genghis is
likely to appear a moral midget. Interestingly, it was Francis's followers who had first interacted
with the Mongols, bringing back an incredible account of Genghis Khan's life that will last as
long as mankind itself (Dunphy, 2018).
The Life & Legacy of Genghis Khan
The Life &Legacy of Genghis Khan offers an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for visitors
to travel back in time to 13th-century Mongolia &meet one of history's most famous &divisive
people," said Erin Graham, president &CEO of OMSI. “The experience demonstrates how
culture, science, &creativity are intertwined, as well as the global impact that this moment in
Mongoli an history has had (MUKTAR and et. al., 2021).

Genghis Khan created one of 1st international postal system
The Mongols' most powerful weapon, besides from the bow &the horse, might be their
enormous communications protocol. One of his first ordinances as Khan was the founding of the
"Yam," a mounted courier service. This mediaeval express was made up of a well-organized
network of post offices &way stations that ran the length &breadth of the Empire. Authorized
riders could ride up to 200 miles per day by pausing to rest or switch mounts every few miles.
The system not only allowed commodities &data to flow at breakneck speeds, but it also served
as the Khan's eyes &ears. Khan could quickly keep up with military &political developments &
communicate through his vast network of spies &scouts thanks to the Yam. Foreign dignitaries
&merchants were also protected by the Yam throughout their trips. The service was notably
employed by Marco Polo &John of Plano Carpini in subsequent years (Radomski, 2017).
It is analyzed that , there are no absolute heroes or villains if you dig deeper. &this is not
a social declaration; rather, it is a straightforward reason of the fact that goodness &badness are
more often relevant to their surroundings &the view of those concerned. Even those as
universally recognized as peaceful &harmless as Jesus &Gandhi were assassinated by those who
either despised or feared them. Gandhi &Jesus, in the eyes of Godse &Pilate, were monsters, not
heroes. So, while Genghis was &continues to be a hero for the Mongols &Turks whose
descendants have ruled empires spanning Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, &the Levant, he was
unquestionably a villain for such people of Samarkand, Kashgar, Balkh, Herat, Shiraz, Baghdad,
&other cities plundered &looted by his armies. However, it is important to note that all Islamic,
Persian, as well as other works portraying Genghis as a bloodthirsty warlord are based on later
tales & were most likely inspired by the authors' conceptions (Remy, 2018).
However, it is important to note that all Islamic, Persian, &other works portraying
Genghis as a bloodthirsty warlord are based on later tales &were most likely inspired by the
writers' imaginations. The scale of Genghis Khan's atrocities is directly dependent on the extent

of his conquests. Mongol conquests, &according to some historians, were the first true world
wars, affecting nearly every corner of the known world to some degree. With the Mongol
Empire's worldwide consequences in mind, it's only natural to expect so many casualties. They
would have similar encounters to report if the Romans conquered Japan or the Arabs reached
South Africa. Armed with swords, spears, &daggers, ancient &mediaeval armies did not have
the luxury of early modern British &French rifelmen terrifying Africans & Indians by their
technology' enchantment (Sanders, 2016).
Conclusion
On the basis of this report it can be concluded that Genghis Khan & his associates should
not be charged with the War crime because Genghis Khan worked like a hero & also supported
their people a lot. Genghis Khan did various good things such as established freedom of the
religion, banned torture, Genghis Khan incorporated enemies into the army, left conquered cities
alone, Genghis Khan promoted people based on the individual merit, Genghis Khan outlawed
slavery, Genghis Khan established universal law and also universal writing system.

References
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relations since Chinggis Khan. University of Chicago Press.
Campbell, D., 2019. Underworld: The definitive history of Britain’s organised crime. Random
House.
DUDIN, P., 2017. THE NEW POLITICAL ELITE OF INNER MONGOLIA AND ITS ROLE
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Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945-1947. McFarland.
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ZHUMABAYEV, A., 2021. HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE HISTORY OF TARKHAN
INSTITUTE. Astra Salvensis.
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Sanders, A., 2016. Mongolia-Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture.
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Taulbee, J.L., 2017. Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and War Crimes in Modern History: Blood and
Conscience [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO.
Young, M.R., 2016. Managing a dental practice the Genghis Khan way. CRC Press.