Invasion of Poland
Subutai and Batu Khan led two armies against Hungary, while Orda Khan with Chagatai's sons Baidar & Kadan attacked Poland as a diversion to prevent the Poles and Czechs from assisting Hungary in combat. Orda's forces assaulted the southwestern border of Lithuania, then sacked the cities of Sandomierz and Kraków in April 1241, but were unable to conquer Wrocław (Breslau), the capital of Lower Silesia. While Orda was preparing a siege on Wrocław, Baidar and Kadan received reports that king Wenceslaus I of Bohemia was two days away with an army of 50,000 soldiers. Orda Khan broke off the siege and turned to Legnica. There, he intercepted the military forces of Henry II the Pious before they could merge with the forces of king Wenceslaus I.
Orda's deployment of 20,000 mounted archers demonstrated speed and tactical superiority versus the slower more heavily armored European armies. A series of deceptive Mongolian attacks separated the Polish formation, making them vulnerable to salvoes of Mongolian arrows. A smoke screen was used to conceal Mangudai's feigned retreat, thereby misleading Henry's forces. When the European knights pursued the supposedly retreating Mangudai, the Mongols were able to separate the knights from the infantry and defeated them one by one. Henry II the Pious was intercepted while trying to escape the battlefield. His head was paraded on a spear through the town of Legnica.
King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia arrived at the battlefield too late. When he heard that one Mongol group raided as far as the Saxonian town Meissen (Mongol raid on Meissen, Germany), he promptly marched there and sought reinforcements from Thuringia and Saxony. Meanwhile, rapid Mongol troops returned to the East (i.e. Central Silesia) and tried to attack Bohemia via Kłodzko Land, but they were stopped at the border. Afterwards Orda, with Mangudai, joined the forces of Kadan and Baidar at Otmuchów (Otmachau). Together, they quickly passed through Moravia (which was severely looted and devastated), joining with the main Mongolian army in Hungary around the city of Esztergom.
