[35] Sir H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols.
[36] Howorth sees in the recurring devastations of such men as Jingis, Attila, Timur, Bonaparte, and their ilk, the hand of “Providence” operating to purge the world of “the diseased and the decaying, the weak and the false, the worn out and the biased, the fool and the knave.” The Mongol massacres were so thorough and indiscriminate that it is hard to say what classes of human beings came safest out of the ordeal, but in the wars of Napoleon it would certainly not be a survival of the fittest; the weak, the cowardly, the frivolous would be least likely to perish; the strong, the brave, the patriotic would be those who “foremost fighting fell.”
[37] Riesenkampff, Der Deutsche Hof zu Nowgorod.
[38] Both Von Hammer-Purgstall (Geschichte der Goldenen Horde) and Howorth allude to Poppon as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a post held at that date by Konrad of Thuringen; also both include him among the slain, though the former has a note to the effect that this could not have been Poppon “of Osterino,” who died much later. Poppon of Osterna was at this date Provincial or Land-master in Prussia, and lived to be elected Grand Master in 1253.
[39] Howorth, following Wolff, discredits the widely-accepted story of a Bohemian victory over the Mongols at Olmutz, and refers the event to a success over the Hungarians and Kumans twelve years later.
[40] Von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde.
[41] Laszlo Szalay, Geschichte Ungarns.
[42] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
[43] A. M. H. J. Stockvis, Manuel d’histoire, de généalogie, etc.
[44] Colonel Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo.