The European expedition is to be a major Mongol effort, comparable in scope to the war against China.

It is to become a catastrophe of monumental proportions for medieval East Europeans, who are confronted with devastating wars and serious social disruption.

Nominal command is to be exercised by Batu, because this is the part of the world he has inherited from Chinggis.

The actual commander is the aging, but still brilliant, Subutei.

He is probably the most gifted of all Mongol generals, after Chinggis himself, and he had been one of the commanders of the momentous reconnaissance that had swept through southern Russia fifteen years earlier.