The report of the death of Oktai, the second Emperor of the United Tartars, recalled Bati from the west, and in retracing this steps his huge army necessarily wasted away to a great extent. They had found the broken country of Central Europe more difficult than the plains of Russia, and the foe better organized and better equipped, while led by Christian knights of the most distinguished valor. They had fought disorganized Russians at the Kalka, at Kolomna and at the Sit, but the Poles, Silesians, Bohemians and Moravians, whom they met at Liegnitz and Olmutz had not been such easy prey. The consequence was that only in Russian history did the invasion produce great results. The chief result was to give a taint of the Tartar character to Russia henceforth.
When Bati had fallen back to the lower Volga he built a city called Sarai, which he made the capital of a Tartar Empire which he called the Golden Horde, whose territories extended from the Ural and the Caspian to the mouth of the Danube. Within its confines he embraced not only the Tartar tribes but all the survivors of the invasion together with various Turkish nations who began to lose their nomadic character and to settle in a fixed abode. The first three successors of Genghis-Khan were recognized as the head of this new Empire until 1260, when the Golden Horde became an independent state.
About this time the Tartars, who had been pagans when they entered Russia, embraced the faith of Islam, and in 1273 were counted among its most formidable adherers.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
