Читать книгу The History of Psychological Warfare - Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger - Страница 11

Another demonstration of psychological warfare in the past was so effective that its results linger to this day. It is commonly thought that the greatest conqueror the world has seen—Temujin, the Genghis Khan—effected his Mongol conquests with "limitless hordes" of wild Tatar horsemen, who flooded the world by weight of sheer numbers. Recent research shows that the sparsely settled countryside of Inner Asia could not have produced populations heavy enough to overwhelm the densely settled areas of the great Mongol periphery by weight alone. The empire of the Khan was built on bold military inventiveness—the use of highly mobile forces, the full use of intelligence, the coordination of half-global strategy, the application of propaganda in all its forms.6 The Mongols were fighting the Sung Dynasty in China and the Holy Roman Empire in Prussia four thousand miles apart when neither of their adversaries knew (in more than rumor) that the other existed. The Mongols used espionage to plan their campaigns and deliberately used rumor and other means to exaggerate accounts of their own huge numbers, stupidity, and ferocity. They did not care what their enemies thought as long as the enemies became frightened. Europeans described light, hard-hitting numerically inferior cavalry as a "numberless horde" because Mongol agents whispered such a story in the streets. To this day most Europeans do not appreciate the lightness of the forces nor the cold intelligence of command with which the Mongols hit them seven centuries ago.

Genghis even used the spies of the enemy as a means of frightening the enemy. When spies were at hand he indoctrinated them with rumors concerning his own forces. Let the first European biographer of Genghis tell, in his own now-quaint words, how Genghis put the bee on Khorezm (Carizme):

And a Historian, to describe their Strength and Number, makes the Spies whom the King of Carizme had sent to view them, speak thus: They are, say they to the Sultan, all compleat Men, vigorous, and look like Wrestlers; they breathe nothing but War and Blood, and show so great an Impatience to fight, that the Generals can scarce moderate it; yet though they appear thus fiery, they keep themselves within the bounds of a strict Obedience to Command, and are intirely devoted to their Prince; they are contented with any sort of Food, and are not curious in the choice of Beasts to eat, like Mussulmen [Mohammedans], so that they are subsisted without much trouble; and they not only eat Swines-Flesh, but feed upon Wolves, Bears, and Dogs, when they have no other Meat, making no distinction between what was lawful to eat, and what was forbidden; and the Necessity for supporting Life takes from them all the Dislike which the Mahometans have for many sorts of Animals; As to their Number, (they concluded) Genghizcan's Troops seem'd like the Grasshoppers, impossible to be number'd.

In reality, this Prince making a Review of his Army, found it to consist of seven hundred thousand men. … 7

Enemy espionage can now—as formerly—prove useful if the net effect of it is to lower enemy morale. The ruler and people of Khorezm put up a terrific fight, nevertheless, despite their expectation of being attacked by wolf-eating wrestlers without number; but they left the initiative in Genghis' hands and were doomed.

However good the Mongols were in strategic and tactical propaganda, they never solved the problem of consolidation propaganda (see page 46, below). They did not win the real loyalty of the peoples whom they conquered; unlike the Chinese, who replaced conquered populations with their own people, or the Mohammedans, who converted conquered peoples, the Mongols simply maintained law and order, collected taxes, and sat on top of the world for a few generations. Then their world stirred beneath them, and they were gone.