8. The Khwarezmian Depredations
Genghis launched a brilliant invasion of Khwarezm in 1218 that overwhelmed the empire and extinguished it by 1221. Its fleeing emir was relentlessly chased across his domain to his death, abandoned and exhausted, on a small Caspian island as his pursuers closed in. It was in this war that the Mongols gained their reputation for savagery. Millions of Khwarzmians died, as Genghis ordered the massacre of entire cities that offered the least resistance. He also marched thousands of captives ahead of his armies, as human shields.
By the time Genghis was done, Khwarezm had been reduced from a prosperous and wealthy empire to an impoverished and depopulated wasteland. At the grand mosque in the once thriving but now smoldering city of Bukhara, Genghis told the survivors that he was the Flail of God, and that: “If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you“. Genghis died in 1227, after falling from his horse while campaigning in western China.
