Various Accounts Have Been Published Of The Cause Of His Death;
Some Authorities Ascribing It To Violence, Either By An Arrow, Lightning,
Or Drowning, And Others To Natural Causes.
The event seems to have
unquestionably happened in his camp on the borders of Shansi, August 27,
1227, when he was about sixty-five years of age, during more than fifty of
which he had enjoyed supreme command of his own tribe.
The area of the undertakings conducted under his eye was more vast and
included a greater number of countries than was the case with any other
conqueror. Not a country from the Euxine to the China Sea escaped the
tramp of the Mongol horsemen, and if we include the achievements of his
immediate successors, the conquest of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, the
plundering of Bulgaria, Roumania, and Bosnia, the final subjection of
China and its southern tributaries must be added to complete the tale of
Mongol triumph. The sphere of Mongol influence extended beyond this large
portion of the earth's surface, just as the consequence of an explosion
cannot be restricted to the immediate scene of the disaster. If we may
include the remarkable achievements of his descendant Baber, and of that
prince's grandson Akbar, in India three centuries later, not a country in
Asia enjoyed immunity from the effect of their successes. Perhaps the most
important result of their great outpouring into Western Asia - which
certainly was the arrest of the Mohammedan career in Central Asia, and the
diversion of the current of the fanatical propagators of the Prophet's
creed against Europe - is not yet as fully recognized as it should be.
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