ABSTRACT
In all the civilised countries of the world the power of the Mongols had been definitively broken, but under their dominion the aspect of the world had changed. At the time of the first Mongolian invasion, Western Asia was little better than a rubbish heap, out of which avaricious chieftains of Turanian stock were seizing the largest morsels they could get hold of. Further connexion between the trading centres of Western Asia and the western world was already interrupted by the middle of the fourteenth century. The Golden Horde had maintained power longer than the two other Mongolian realms. Though defeated by Tamerlane, it was still strong enough to repulse the attacks of the Polish-Lithuanian armies on Russia; and even in decay it was strong enough to hold its neighbours in terror and to enforce obedience from the vassal princes.
