"Man's greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women." -- Genghis Khan (Father of all Turks.)    From A Greek Web site, repeated in several other Greek and Armenian sites

GENGHIS KHAN, as portrayed by... super-USA patriot John Wayne? Let that be a lesson to all you Mongol racists... an attack on the Mongols is an attack on America!

All right, Genghis!

Was Conan a Turk?

What a really remarkable quote. I have no idea what newspaper reporter with a press card was lucky enough to get this quote... and managed to accurately translate such words from the original Mongolian... but since I ran into it from one of the ubiquitous anti-Turkish sites (this one happened to be Greek-run), we know it must be true.

Then again, maybe someone watched CONAN THE BARBARIAN, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the title role, was asked: "What is best in life?"... he replied:

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

ADDENDUM: Reader Andrew Patrick informs us: "With regard to the quote from Genghis Khan, the 'slay your enemies…plunder…etc.', was not actually said by Genghis Khan. After he had been traveling around, conquering various peoples and subjugating them for many years, Genghis looked at his three sons and asked them what was best in life. One of his sons replied with the aforementioned quote. Genghis told him that he was wrong, that what was best was riding in the open steppe, with the wind in your hair and a falcon on your wrist (which, ironically, is the opposite of the way it was depicted in Conan, not that Conan is a source of historical knowledge!). Apparently, Genghis was missing the good old days before he set about creating his Empire." WHAT! How could that be, for the anti-Turkish web sites to get their facts completely wrong?? (Thanks, Andrew.)

Mongol women, circa 1920

     At any rate, you get the connection. If Genghis Khan actually said this... and given some of Mr. Khan’s destructive exploits, I’m not saying he might not have said something close... and since there is a Turkic element to the Mongols... bingo! Now the world can conclude there is an essentially barbaric nature to the Turks. (The Orthodox peoples’ ability to make their point from such connections is legendary. Take a probably non-existent quote of Hitler’s that was directed against a people other than the Jews [i.e., the Poles], and... bingo! Instant Holocaust tie-in to the Armenian “Genocide.”)

By the way, let’s put our cards on the table. Another of the West’s favorite bad boys, Attila the Hun, had a Turkic element in him, as well.

History is a matter of perspective. Whose butts did Attila kick? The Romans, during their phase of decline. Yes, the same Romans who engaged in such civilized practices as feeding the Christians to the lions, crucifixions, and spreading terror and misery throughout the far corners of the known world, from the Germanic lands to Britain to Egypt. These lands were not conquered through the practice of tossing daisies.

(To digress for a second, but still in support of the bias of history: a bad boy of Roman history, Nero, is commonly believed to have set fire to Rome while he played his fiddle. In fact, Nero was commanding the thousands of firefighters the city employed, to try to put out the flames. He blamed the Christians afterwards, but now there are a number of historical circles who are convinced Nero was right on the button... and the evidence is pretty compelling. Kind of should make one think about who really burned Izmir.)

Getting back to the Mongols. Yes, the Mongols were jaw-droppingly good at what they did, conquering and pillaging and generally not being very nice. (From the Western viewpoint, which is what I have been exposed to.) However, it was the Age of Empires. The Mongols simply happened to spill blood better than the rest of their foes. Imagine... they subjugated (Southern) Russia, whose natives aren’t one of history’s most civilized folks, as far as conquest is concerned. (It was the Russians’ monumental ethnic cleansing methods of Turkish lands that inspired similar genocidal practices of their fellow Orthodox peoples, the Greeks, the Serbs, the Bulgarians, and the Armenians.) Even the Teutonic Knights could not handle the Mongols, when they directed their attentions westward. Yes, the same Teutonic Knights who gave Russia such Hell. The Mongols even tried to sock it to the Japanese, but the waters that separated them proved too much of a barrier.

Sultan Bayezit I

Timur the Great

The Mongols were so good at what they did, they totally defeated another incredible fighting force... the Ottoman Turks! It was Bayezit I, nicknamed "Yildirim" or "The Thunderbolt" (not the same sultan who opened the Ottoman gates to Spain and Portugal’s persecuted Jews... that was Bayezit II) vs. Timur the Great (Tamarlane). I always wondered how Timur accomplished this, as the Turks were in their fighting prime. (The main reason appears to have been: Timur was smart enough to position his forces in a way that allowed him to cut off the water supply to the Turks. The Ottoman Turks then battled two foes... the Mongols, and thirst. That was one decisive tactic..!) Bayezit lost the battle near Ankara in 1402, and died in captivity a year later, reportedly by suicide; Timur would stop breathing in 1405, taking his empire with him.

NEWS FLASH! Guess who fought alongside the Turks in the above war, in a separate battle at Sivas. Yes, the Armenians. (Hmmm... now I'm getting another thought as to why the Turks might have lost the war, but I'm stifling it.) At any rate, this "military alliance" comes from Armenian historians, and they have focused on the awful fate of the Armenians, at the hands of Timur. (No word on what Timur did to surviving Turks, of course.) [Read Here]

"Timur desired to subdue Bayezit Yildirim, Sultan of the Osmanlis, whose success wounded his pride... After several attacks (Sivas, which in a certain sense was a fief of the Sultan) fell and the Armenians, who in conjunction with the Turks had sought to defend the city, were severely punished to an extent that the majority of them were buried alive. "

Kevork Aslan, Armenia and the Armenians From the Earliest Times Until the Great War (1914), 1920, MacMillan Co., NY Translated from the French by Pierre Crabitès, p 10

At Sivas (Timur) buried alive "4,000 Armenians placed in rows of ten in large trenches, their heads tied to their thighs. A roof covered with earth was placed on these trenches, in order to make the death of these victims as frightful as possible."

Corpus Script. His Byzant. Ducas I, XV, pp. 59-60; Armenian Affairs,” I/I Winter 1949-50, “A Brief Sketch of Armenian History,” Vazkène Aykouni, p. 16
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Genghis Khan looked a bit like Charlie Chan, don't you think? See ADDENDUM* below

At any rate, racist Greeks and Armenians have a field day in their web sites and guest book comments by describing the Turks as Mongols. Isn’t that awful? Not as far as the Greeks and Armenians’ insults, because it’s their calling to make sure the Turks suffer from the worst possible negative image, no matter what. However, what have they against the poor Mongols? (Granted, the Mongols have a definite image in the West as being somehow subhuman... they have it even worse than the Turks’ perceived sub-humanity.) Today, the Mongols are subjugated by the Chinese, and live in the most poverty-stricken lands in the world, their days of glory long behind them. How low can you get, kicking a people when they’re down. If anything, the Turk-haters should be grateful to the Mongols, for it was Timur the Great’s devastating victory against the Turks that prevented the Turks from threatening Europe again for a long time. Gratitude, however, is one thing that has always been in short supply, where the Orthodox peoples are concerned.

By the way, if what I ran into in a "Proud to be White" site (while searching for a picture of the real Genghis Khan, shown above) is true.... and the reported history appears fairly accurate, despite the racist bent...  the Germans are credited with stopping the advance of the Huns, saving white Europe from "destruction." The Germans' contribution sounds credible... pretty ironic they were regarded as "The Hun" during World War I, huh? (I understand that nickname was first given to the Germans by the Germans themselves, by the way.)

The extent of Hun domination in Europe... from the "White"site.

      

In fairness... as if fairness is a priority with extremist Greeks and Armenians.... Greeks and Armenians should be careful before launching into their racist tirades. What they are saying is, they are white, and Turks are not... which makes them better. This is a funny thing, because the centuries have proven to be the great racial equalizer. Put a Greek, Turk and Armenian together, and there would be no clear-cut Caucasian champion. Perhaps Armenians might edge out a little in pure whiteness, if we are to listen to Adolf Hitler, whose regime declared the Armenians to be an Aryan people (And we know what a scholarly authority Hitler was on the Armenians, based on the aforementioned quote he very likely never said).

(Actually, the jury is out on whether Hitler concluded the Armenians were Aryan, or whether the Armenians came up with the idea... in order to cozy up to the prevailing force at the time. Only to change sides, once the Nazis' cause was lost.... displaying typical Armenian loyalty.)

 If we take a look at this "Proud to be White" site — which sounds like it could have been written by Greeks and Armenians who love to regard the Turks as "hordes from Asia," declaring the Turks an inferior race  — let's see what they have to say about the Greeks: 

This darkening of the population (caused partly by the Nordic and original European elements of Grecian society warring themselves to death — and partly by the importation of masses of already mixed Middle Eastern peoples) runs directly in tandem with the decline and fall of Classical Greece.

The gradual darkening of the Grecian peoples was noted by many famous Greek writers of the time. By drawing comparisons with the Greek peoples, the surrounding Nordic tribes were of fair complexion. Hippocrates makes reference in his works to the "long heads" (that is, Nordic skulls) of the Macedonians — while Aristotle made copious references to the fairness of the Scythians and the Macedonians. The Greek soldier and historian Xenophon (430-354 BC) also made a point of referring to the blond haired and fair eyed Macedonians and Scythians in his book Anabasis, which described a Greek expedition against the Persians.

By the time of the Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus (who reigned directly after Julius Caesar), the Roman historian Manilius counted the Greeks as amongst the dark nations of the world, referring to the Greeks as part of the "colorate gentes" (Astronomica, iv, 719.)

This process, which happened over a period of centuries, was to be aggravated by the Turkish invasion of Greece and the Balkans nearly 1,200 years later.

So don't feel bad about being "colored," Greek people... the "White Power" historian mostly has it in for the Turks, as you can see!

 

* ADDENDUM regarding the picture above, of Genghis Khan. Reader Hannah Morong wrote: "The portrait of Genghis Khan on your website probably doesn't look anything like Genghis Khan at all. Genghis Khan didn't let anyone paint his picture or sculpt him. No images of Genghis Khan were made until 50 years after his death. The portrait in question was commissioned by Genghis Khan's grandson Khubilai Khan in the Chinese style to make him appear Chinese... A book I would highly recommend as both fascinating and informative is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Another good one is 1421- The Year China Discovered America." (Thanks, Hannah.)

 

To Those Armenians Who Regard Mongols as Beneath Their Contempt:

Avedis K. Sanjian, who largely enjoys the respect of the Armenian community, wrote (The Armenian Communities in Syria Under the Ottoman Empire, 1965, p. 14):

In the first half of the thirteenth century the Mongols swept through Armenia and far into Anatolia. Hence, with a view to protecting the integrity of Cilicia, King Het'um I concluded military alliances with the Mongol Goyuk Khan in 1247 and also with his successor Mangu Knan in 1253 .... Not only did the Armenians cooperate with the Mongols in the economic blockade of Egypt by withholding exports of Cilician timber, but Armenian contingents fought side by side with the Mongols in Anatolia as well as Syria.

Hypocritical Armenians!

Well... not the only time Armenians have sided with "barbarians." Seven centuries later, Armenians would find themselves "fighting side by side" with the Wehrmacht. (That is, until the Nazis discovered the Armenians made poor soldiers, wherein they were relegated to operations behind-the-lines... including clean-sweeping the very people Armenians love to associate themselves with, in hopes of attaining genocidal sympathy.)

 

Related:

How do Turks Fit in "The Story of Mankind"?