The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victorious Turks, whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most important scenes of modern history; but they are founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls [7874] and Tartars, whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those events which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a philosophic mind in the history of blood. [7875]

[7874]: Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the French Orientalists. See de Brosset, Note on Le Beau, tom. XXII, p. 402. -- M. The names of Mongols, Tartars, and Turks are frequently used indiscriminately, but it has already been shown that the Mongols and Turks are two distinct races (see this note), and that the Tartars, more properly called the Tatars, were probably a Mongolian tribe, who occupied so conspicuous a place in the army of Zingis Khan that their name became synonymous with that of the Mongols. The Turks are one of the most considerable of the families of the world; and almost all the nomad Asiatic tribes that devastated Europe from the fourth to the twelfth century belonged to this race. The Huns, Avars, Chazars, Bulgarians, Petcheneges, and Comanians were all Turks. The only Asiatic invaders of Europe during this period who did not belong to the Turkish race were the Hungarians or Magyars, and they were a Finnish or Tschudish people. The Mongols, on the contrary, are not mentioned in European history till the time of their national hero Zingis Khan. Unlike the Turks, the Mongols were not a numerous people. The armies of Zingis Khan and his successors were principally composed of Turks whom the Mongols had subdued; and they contained a comparatively small number of Mongols proper. The real Mongolian tribes are still found, with a few outlying exceptions, in the same seats which they occupied in the time of Zingis Khan. They inhabit the country northward of the Great Wall of China, and westward of the Mandshú country; and they extend northward as far as the northern extremity of the lake Baikal, and westward to the frontier of the Turkish Ouigours. The principal outlying exceptions are the Mongolian tribes in Tibet, and the Kalmuks of the Don, the Volga, and the Jaik. The tribes with which Zingis Khan was more immediately connected were called, after his conquests, Niroun or genuine Mongols. The Niroun Mongols dwelt between lake Baikal and the desert of Shamo. With respect to the orthography of the name, Mongol is more correct than Mogul. The latter is only a Persian and Indian corruption of the true pronunciation. The Chinese write the name Meng-kou, and the Mandshús Monggo, or Mongou. See d'Ohsson, Histoire des Mongols; Rémusat, Recherches sur les langues Tartares; Prichard, Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind, vol. IV, p. 329, seq. -- S. ↩︎