of the great Mongol race.  They conquered Northern China and Central Asia, and after forty years of struggle were united with other Mongol tribes into one nation by Genghis Khan.  His lieutenants subdued a multitude of Turkish peoples, passed the Caspian Sea by its southern shore, invaded Georgia and the Caucasus, and entered upon the southern steppes of Russia, where they came in contact with the Polovtsi, also a Mongol race, the hereditary enemies of the Russians proper.

This summary by the distinguished French academician, M. Rambaud—­our leading authority in Russian history with its related studies—­presents, with sufficient clearness, the character and tendency of Russia in the thirteenth century, when she was invaded and subjugated by Asiatic hordes.

The Polovtsi asked the Christian princes for help against the Mongols and Turks, who were their brothers by a common origin.  “They have taken our country,” said they to the descendants of St. Vladimir; “to-morrow they will take yours.”  Mstislaf the Bold, then Prince of Galitch, persuaded all the dynasties of Southern Russia to take up arms against the Tartars:  his nephew Daniel, Prince of Volhynia, Mstislaf Romanovitch, Grand Prince of Kiev, Oleg of Kursk, Mstislaf of Tchernigof, Vladimir of Smolensk, and Vsevolod, for a short time Prince of Novgorod,[57] responded to his appeal.

To cement his alliance with the Russians, Basti, Khan of the Polovtsi, embraced orthodoxy.  The Russian army had already arrived on the Lower Dnieper, when the Tartar ambassadors made their appearance.  “We have come, by God’s command, against our slaves and grooms, the accursed Polovtsi.  Be at peace with us; we have no quarrel with you.”  The Russians, with the promptitude and thoughtlessness that characterized the men of that time, put the ambassadors to death.  They then went farther into the steppe, and encountered the Asiatic hordes on the Kalka, a small river running into the Sea of Azov.

The Russian chivalry, on this memorable day, showed the same disordered and the same ill-advised eagerness as the French chivalry at the opening of the English wars.  Mstislaf the Bold, Daniel of Galitch, and Oleg of Kursk were the first to rush into the midst of the infidels, without waiting for the princes of Kiev, and even without giving them warning, in order to gain for themselves the honors of victory.  In the middle of the combat, the Polovtsi were seized with a panic and fell back on the Russian ranks, thus throwing them into disorder.  The rout became general, and the leaders spurred on their steeds in hopes of reaching the Dnieper.

Six princes and seventy of the chief boyars or voievodes remained on the field of battle.  It was the Crecy and Poitiers of the Russian chivalry.  Hardly a tenth of the army escaped; the Kievians alone left ten thousand dead.  The Grand Prince of Kiev, however, Mstislaf Romanovitch, still occupied a fortified camp on the banks of the Kalka.  Abandoned by the rest of the army, he tried to defend himself.  The Tartars offered to make terms; he might retire on payment of a ransom for himself and his droujina.  He capitulated, and the conditions were broken.  His guard was massacred, and he and his two sons-in-law were stifled under planks.  The Tartars held their festival over the inanimate bodies, 1224.