he great city on
the heights of the right bank, towering over the wide river with her
white walls and towers adorned by Byzantine artists, and innumerable
churches with cupolas of gold and silver. Mangu proposed capitulation
to the Kievians; the fate of Riazan, of Tchernigof, of Vladimir, the
capitals of powerful states, announced to them the lot that awaited
them in case of refusal, yet the Kievians dared to massacre the envoys
of the Khan. Michael, their Grand Prince, fled; his rival, Daniel of
Galitch, did not care to remain.

On hearing the report of Mangu, Batu came to assault Kiev with the
bulk of his army. The grinding of the wooden chariots, the bellowings
of the buffaloes, the cries of the camels, the neighing of the horses,
the howlings of the Tartars rendered it impossible, says the annalist,
to hear your own voice in the town. The Tartars assailed the Polish
Gate and knocked down the walls with a battering-ram. The Kievians,
supported by the brave Dmitri, a Galician boyar, defended the fallen
ramparts till the end of the day, then retreated to the Church of the
Dime, which they surrounded by a palisade. The last defenders of Kiev
found themselves grouped around the tomb of Yaroslaff. Next day they
perished. The Khan gave the boyar his life, but the "Mother of Russian
cities" was sacked. The pillage was most terrible. Even the tombs were
not respected. All that remains of the Church of the Dime is a few
fragments of mosaic in the Museum at Kiev. St. Sophia and the
Monastery of the Catacombs were delivered up to be plundered, 1240.

Volhynia and Galicia still remained, but their princes could not
defend them, and Russia found herself, with the exception of Novgorod
and the northwest country, under the Tartar yoke. The princes had fled
or were dead: hundreds of thousands of Russians were dragged into
captivity. Men saw the wives of boyars, "who had never known work, who
a short time ago had been clothed in rich garments, adorned with
jewels and collars of gold, surrounded with slaves, now reduced to be
themselves the slaves of barbarians and their wives, turning the wheel
of the mill and preparing their coarse food."

If we look for the causes which rendered the defeat of the brave
Russian nation so complete, we may, with Karamsin, indicate the
following: 1. Though the Tartars were not more advanced, from a
military point of view, than the Russians, who had made war in Greece
and in the West against the most