Subutai
Subutai conquered more territory than any commander in history and could not read. He was the son of a blacksmith of the Uriankhai, a forest people rather than steppe aristocracy, and joined Temujin's service as a young man - which in most armies of the period would have ended in a junior command. He directed or planned some twenty campaigns across an arc from Korea to Hungary, and is credited with more than sixty battles. The method was reconnaissance, deception and independent columns converging on a schedule. He kept scouts a week ahead, used feigned flight so consistently that opponents who knew about it still fell for it, and moved separated armies that arrived at the same place on the same day without any means of communication faster than a horse. With Jebe he took a reconnaissance of two tumens around the Caspian, destroyed the Georgian army in passing, and beat a much larger Rus and Cuman force at the Kalka in 1223 - a raid of some 8,000 kilometres. The European campaign of 1241 is the demonstration. Three columns entered Poland and Hungary; Legnica and Mohi were fought two days apart, hundreds of kilometres apart, and both were annihilations. The Mongols withdrew after Ogedei died, and the reason is still argued. He was in his seventies at his last campaign against the Song and died in 1248 by the Tuul river. Western staff colleges rediscovered him in the twentieth century and Liddell Hart wrote him up as the ancestor of armoured warfare.
- Lived: 1175 CE – 1248 CE
- Nationality: Mongol
- Roles: military
