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Won every battle, lost the war
Elephants on the Red River
Uriyangqadai, son of the great general Subutai, led the Mongols down the Red River in northern Vietnam, part of a plan to hit the Chinese from the north, west, and south. The Dai Viet moved their army up the opposite bank by boat, with a corps of elephants. Uriyangqadai knew from campaigns in Burma that the only way to rout elephants was with flaming arrows to the feet.
The Boats Not Burned
He also knew his men hated boats. Mongols crossed rivers on goatskins, because a boat was a floating cart, and carts belonged to women. He sent a detachment to burn the Dai Viet boats so the enemy could not escape once the elephants broke. The detachment never did it. When the battle started and the elephants ran wild, those Mongols wanted to be in the fight.
An Empty Capital
The Mongols won, but the Dai Viet forces sailed back to Hanoi, evacuated the city, took all the food, and disappeared into the delta. The Mongols captured the capital and found nothing in it. They retreated.
How did Vietnam repel later Mongol invasions?
The Dai Viet, ruled by the Tran dynasty, faced Mongol armies again in 1285 and 1287. In 1288 the commander Tran Hung Dao drove iron-tipped stakes into the bed of the Bach Dang River. The Yuan fleet sailed in at high tide, and the tide went out, trapping the ships on the stakes. Most of the fleet was destroyed.
Why were war elephants hard to stop?
A war elephant could trample infantry and terrify horses that had never smelled one. Wounded elephants often panicked and turned back, crashing through their own side. Armies in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Persia used them for centuries. At the Hydaspes in 326 BC, Alexander the Great's cavalry horses balked at the sight and smell of King Porus's elephants.
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