When Dead Men Fly

Dear Money & Crisis Reader,

1346. The siege of Caffa.

The day the dead men flew.

The walled city of Caffa was a Genoese trade settlement, nestled in a wide port on the Crimean Peninsula.

In the late 13th century, the Republic of Genoa bought the city directly from the khan of the Golden Horde and quickly turned it into the largest trading outpost in the Black Sea.

For many years, both the merchants of Genoa and the Mongolian army reaped the benefits of free-flowing trade channels.

But by 1346, religious tensions were high… the khan who sold Genoa the land was long dead…

And the Mongolians wanted their city back.

The Worst Siege in the History of Warfare

Caffa was surrounded.

A city of merchants and sailors, the Genoese couldn’t hope to match the lethal Mongolian army in direct combat… but there was a good chance they could outlast them.

They had fortified walls to keep the invaders out and enough food and water to offset a prolonged siege… and the Mongolian soldiers were dropping like flies.

A mysterious and devastating illness was tearing through the ranks. And as more Mongolian soldiers died every day, the prospect of waiting out the army seemed not only plausible… it seemed laughably easy.

According to Gabriele de’ Mussis, a lawyer in Piacenza, Italy:

It was as though arrows were raining down from heaven to strike and crush [the Mongolian army’s] arrogance. All medical advice and attention [were] useless; the [Mongolians] died as soon as the signs of disease appeared on their bodies: swellings in the armpit and groin… followed by a putrid fever.

With this strange sickness cutting through the ranks of the Mongolian army, the siege looked like it would be over before it had barely started.

But that’s when the Mongolians did something no one could have possibly predicted.

Something horrific… and unthinkable.

De’ Mussis wrote:

The dying [Mongolian army], stunned and stupefied by the immensity of the disaster brought about by the disease, and realizing that they had no hope of escape, lost interest in the siege. But they ordered corpses to be placed in catapults and lobbed into the city in the hope that the intolerable stench would kill everyone inside.

What seemed like mountains of dead were thrown into the city, and the Christians could not hide or flee or escape from them, although they dumped as many bodies as they could in the sea.

This baffling act of cruelty turned the tide of the siege almost instantly.

The streets were piled high with the bodies of the infected soldiers. And it was only a matter of days before the Genoese started to get sick.

The Black Death had come to Caffa.

An Evil Spirit Spreads Poison to Europe

It was the first recorded instance of a deliberate strike using biological warfare.

And it was devastating.

The Black Death cut through the city like a hot knife through butter. And as I’m sure you’re well aware, the disease didn’t stop there.

De’ Mussis wrote:

One infected man could carry the poison to others and infect people and places with the disease by look alone. No one knew, or could discover, a means of defense.

As it happened, among those who escaped from Caffa were a few sailors who had been infected with the poisonous disease. Some boats were bound for Genoa, others went to Venice and to other Christian areas.

When the sailors reached these places and mixed with the people there, it was as if they had brought evil spirits with them: Every city, every settlement, every place was poisoned by the contagious pestilence.

What followed was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.

Eurasia was ravaged, with 200 million deaths in just four years.

Entire towns and cities wiped out by sickness. Economies collapsed. Societies disappeared forever.

All because some idiot with a catapult thought launching the bodies of his dead friends was a viable military tactic.

Experts say it’s highly unlikely the Black Death would have made it farther than Crimea had the Mongolian army not launched their dead into the city.

Unknowingly, they paved a direct path to Europe for the disease… and launched the first man-made pandemic.

Now, the Black Death may be long gone. But we’re just as vulnerable to dangerous pandemics today as we were back then — maybe more so because of how fast we can travel the world and spread disease.

And there’s one pandemic threat that looms large even today. A sickness that’s killed millions and millions of people. And no matter how many times we figure out a way to kill it, it comes back stronger and more resistant to our medicines.

More on that tomorrow.

All the best,

Owen Sullivan
Editor, Money & Crisis

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