Note 1099 — Chapter XIV · —Plains, Steppes And Deserts

The rapidity and wide scope of such conquests is explained largely by the fact that nomads try to displace only the ruling classes in the subjugated territory, leaving the mass of the population practically undisturbed. Thus they spread themselves thin over a wide area. How lasting are the results of such conquests depends upon the degree of social evolution attained by the herdsmen. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, after the manner of overlords, organized their conquered nations, but left them under the control of local princes,1099 while their tribute gatherers annually swept the country like typical nomad marauders. The Turks are still only encamped in Europe. They too make taxation despoliation. And though their dominion has produced no assimilation between victor and vanquished, it has given political consolidation to a large area occupied by varied peoples. The Hyksos conquest of Egypt found the Nile Valley divided into several petty principalities under a nominal king. The nomad conquerors possessed political capacity and gave to Egypt a strong, centralized government, which laid the basis for the power and glory of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The Tartars in 1279 A.D. and the Manchus in 1664 conquered China, extended its boundaries, governed the country as a ruling class, and left the established order of things undisturbed. The Saracen conquest of North Africa and Spain showed for a time organization and a permanence due to the advanced cultural status of the sedentary Arabs drawn into the movement by religious enthusiasm. The environment of Spain tended to conserve the knowledge of agriculture, industry, architecture, and science which they brought in and which might have cemented Spaniard and Moor, had it not been for the intense religious antagonism existing between the two races.