Original subtitles

- [Narrator] Our history is no more

than a series of incredible events.

Each one of us can influence its course.

The tiniest of our decisions

can influence the future of mankind.

To know the past is to anticipate the future.

1174, Mongolia.

A clan chieftain is poisoned by a rival tribe.

He dies in front of his young son, whose name is Temujin.

Several years later, dozens of horsemen raid a nomad camp.

They carry off a captive, a magnificent woman.

Her name is Borte.

1214, Peking is taken and sacked by the Mongols.

Over the course of the following years,

China will lose one third of its population.

These three dramatic events are intimately connected.

They are the key moments in the life of a conqueror

unique in the history of humanity, Genghis Khan.

Let's see why.

Mongolia at the end of the 12th century.

Temujin, a child, has lost his father,

poisoned by a rival clan.

While alive, his father was a renowned warrior

and the greatest of the Mongol chieftains.

Dead, he is nothing, nor is his family.

His wife and their seven children

are left to fend for themselves,

abandoned in the middle of the windswept steppes.

They are doomed to certain death.

Temujin is nine years old.

His name means he who beats steel.

Mongolia offers extreme conditions of life,

wedged in between the polar circle to the north

and the Gobi Desert to the south.

It experiences temperatures of minus 100 in winter

and plus 100 in summer.

The land is hard; its people are harder.

The nomads have adapted to these harsh conditions.

They move constantly with their flocks

according to the seasons.

They are expert at living off this hostile environment.

In such climatic conditions, the clan is fundamental.

A man alone is nothing; a clan can survive any winter.

How do you cope when you are a woman

alone with seven children, with no flocks

in the midst of a land teeming with wolves.

On the edge of the gulf, Temujin's mother

shows incredible strength of character and refuses to die.

The family lives off wild berries, roots and rare fish.

They all work for the survival of the group.

Well, almost all.

One of Temujin's brothers takes

their catch of fish by force.

The family is in danger.

Temujin cannot allow this.

He must choose, live together or die alone.

- [Woman] Welcome to the memory of humanity.

Here, we can control time,

analyze and compare billions of events,

and alter them to rewrite history endlessly.

For example, what would life have been like

for Temujin if his father had not been murdered?

In fact, there would have been no place for him

before his father died a natural death.

He would've been like a young shoot

in the shadow of a 100 year old tree

that hid the light of the sun.

To understand the complex character

of the future Genghis Khan, we must look at his childhood.

Long before Temujin's birth, his mother had been kidnapped

from a neighboring tribe by his father.

At age three, when children are beginning to speak,

he was taught to ride a horse.

At five, instead of learning to read,

he was shooting his game birds with a bow

and slitting the throats of sheep.

At nine, the dawn of adolescence, his father is murdered.

At 13, he kills his own brother.

For him, normality is violent death

and it will accompany him throughout his life.

The childhood of Genghis Khan shaped his personality

and influenced the course of history.

Another little boy, the sole survivor among his siblings,

suffers the blows of his drunken father

in the depths of the Russian countryside.

His name is Josef, but later, he will become Stalin,

the man of iron, dictator of the Soviet Union.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,

but not necessarily more humane.

Let's continue.

- [Narrator] Temujin and his family have survived,

but they lead a desperate existence.

During the years of wandering,

though in adolescence leading nowhere, two people will mark

Temujin's destiny forever, a man and a woman.

First, Jamukha, his childhood friend,

who would become his blood brother,

and for Mongols, this idea is extremely powerful, sacred,

but the person essential to the life of Temujin

is not yet at his side.

Just before he died,

Temujin's father had chosen his future bride.

Like his son, she had fire in her eyes

and an exceptional face.

While a teenager, Temujin returns

to find his promised one and marries her.

The young woman's name is Borte.

Their love will be eternal.

Borte quickly gains the ear of her husband.

Her advice is wise, her arguments irrefutable.

Temujin will always listen to Borte, but for the present,

the couple lives happily with their flock.

It is at this moment that an event

will upset the course of history.

Dozens of horsemen suddenly rise up

from nowhere and charge upon them.

It's a matter of revenge.

Even after decades, a Mongol never forgets an affront,

and a young Temujin is now paying

for the actions of his father.

Temujin has only seconds to make his choice.

Remain to defend his wife and die

or flee and leave Borte to be captured.

With iron in his soul, Temujin flees, but he makes a vow.

One day, he will raise an army, he will recover Borte,

and he will avenge this humiliation with blood.

A Mongol never forgets an affront.

His heart cries out for revenge, but Temujin can do nothing.

He has no army.

So he calls upon his lifelong friend,

his blood brother, Jamukha.

Temujin may be no one but Jamukha is now a fearsome warlord.

He has an army and he agrees to help his blood brother.

Together, the two men cross the northern mountains,

far from their native steppes.

They enter the heart of enemy territory.

They await the night.

A Mongol never forgets an affront.

This expedition enables Temujin

to find Borte again, but not only that.

During his campaign, he reveals his abilities as a leader.

He is charismatic, brave and generous.

Several warriors are literally dazzled.

Rather than remain with Jamukha,

they decide to follow his blood brother, Temujin.

History has just changed course.

- [Woman] We have just reached a turning point.

A turning point is a key event, a crossroads in our history

where the world swings one way or the other.

Young Temujin loves Borte with all his heart

and he cannot bear the idea of living without her.

To find her, he builds alliances,

forms an army and sets out to do battle.

This episode will spotlight

his extraordinary gift for command.

Warriors listen to him, and they follow him.

But another side to his character also emerges.

Temujin has all the kidnappers executed,

including their wives and children.

When they kidnapped Borte, his enemies roused

the violence that slumbered within him.

The fearsome war machine is now in motion,

and there is no longer anyone capable of stopping him.

History has just taken a dramatic turn.

Temujin becomes a great chieftain, loved and respected.

Amongst nomads, the position of chieftain is precarious.

You were not born a chieftain.

You become one through personal merit,

and it's difficult to remain one.

Incompetence is not tolerated,

nor is weakness or ill fortune.

In the 18th century, we find

a similar sort of organization among pirates.

With pirates, the captain of a ship is elected by the crew.

If he proves incompetent or loses the confidence of his men,

he can be removed, or worse.

To become and to remain a chieftain,

a Mongol must combine authority, competence, generosity

and in addition, have luck on his side.

Quite an art.

Let's return to the course of events.

- [Narrator] The years that follow are an endless list

of battles, betrayals and massacres.

During this period, Mongolia is occupied by various tribes,

Mongols, but also Merkits, Tatars or Keraits.

They have hated each other for generations.

In ancient times, strong men were able to unite

all the tribes and impose themselves as sovereign lords.

They were known as khan.

Fighting side by side, Temujin and Jamukha seek

to revive this ancestral power.

They know that, once united, the tribes will be invincible.

However, there can only be one khan.

That's what Borte explains to her husband Temujin,

and Temujin always listens to Borte.

The two blood brothers become sworn enemies

and wage war on each other.

Jamukha is a good warrior, but a poor chieftain.

Mendacious and cruel, he loses the respect of his troops.

At the same time, Temujin is drinking

the same muddy water as his men.

He believes in loyalty and merit.

Under his command, simple soldiers can become generals.

Rumors race around the steppes,

building up the legend of Temujin.

Finally, at a great assembly,

the clan chieftains appoint him sovereign.

Temujin becomes the new khan, but he must defend this title.

The new khan still has considerable opposition,

in particular, Jamukha, his blood brother.

The two men fight over many long years.

Temujin suffers defeat after defeat.

His power should have been threatened,

but the opposite happens.

More powerful than weapons, Temujin's charisma

swells his ranks, while at the same time,

Jamukha's cruelty isolates him a little more every day.

The blood brother, exhausted and alone,

is finally handed over to Temujin.

Amongst Mongols, killing a blood brother is very serious,

but there can only be one khan.

Temujin controls all of Mongolia.

He was already khan.

He now proclaims himself

Genghis Khan, the supreme chieftain.

With Mongolia united, Genghis Khan finds himself

at the head of a formidable army.

100,000 warriors from the steppes,

waiting for just one thing,

to set forth and conquer the world.

- [Woman] The word warrior did not exist

in the Mongolian language.

Every man from 14 to 60 is a warrior.

War is all around.

In this nomadic society, one person in four goes to war.

The Mongol warrior is a peerless rider and archer.

The double curved Mongolian bow is a formidable weapon,

shooting further and faster than any other bow.

In 1415, at the Battle of Agincourt,

the English archers let loose 12 arrows a minute

and decimated the French cavalry.

A trained Mongolian archer can shoot

more than twice that many in the same time,

a hailstorm of steel.

The armies of Mongolian horsemen are highly mobile.

As Napoleon said, an army is

its mass multiplied by its speed.

Mongol warriors had understood

that principle centuries before.

They were able to cover almost 60 miles in a day.

The riders responsible for carrying the khan's messages

did even better, up to 800 miles in a week.

To achieve that, they slept and ate in the saddle.

Like North American native Indians,

the Mongols apply the military tactic

advance separately, attack together.

The Mongols were unpredictable, avoiding contact

and preferring to draw the enemy into traps

in order to destroy them from a distance, in perfect safety.

Nobody saw them coming, but everybody heard them attack.

- [Narrator] When you have an army, you look for enemies.

Temujin, now Genghis Khan, will

set fire to the rest of the world.

First, in the south.

The histories of Mongolia and China

have always been connected.

Chinese emperors have always sought

to divide the Mongol tribes in order to live in peace.

But now, the Mongols are united.

They finally have their chance of revenge.

In a few years, he sweeps the Tanguts off the map,

then falls upon the Jin.

Unable to carry out a siege,

he forces Chinese engineers into service.

Thanks to them, he takes Peking and sacks it,

infuriated by the city's resistance.

After having annexed Manchuria, Genghis Khan invades Korea.

Granting the Songs a respite, he throws himself

upon central Asia, ravages Russia and Turkey.

The world is in flames.

The Mongols are feared everywhere,

because for Genghis Khan, war is also psychological.

By cultivating terror, the Mongols break

their enemies' will to fight.

Any resistance is punished with a massacre.

The men are slaughtered, the women made slaves.

They build highly visible pyramids of skulls.

Everywhere, the talk is of impaling, horrific torture,

prisoners used as human shields.

On each occasion, a few survivors are spared,

not out of mercy,

but just so that they can convey the message.

Don't resist Genghis Khan.

The recipe, though inhuman, is horribly effective.

In just a few years, Genghis Khan builds

the biggest empire in history.

From Iran to Korea, his empire imposes

an age of peace known as the Pax Mongolica.

Commerce flourishes, trade routes are created.

Asia opens up to Europe permanently.

- [Woman] 10 million square miles,

more than one quarter of the landmass of the planet.

Throughout history, only the British Empire

has been able to rival it in size,

and to think that in the beginning,

Genghis Khan's Mongolia had only 900,000 people.

But the surface area of an empire

must be compared to its lifespan.

Alexander the Great conquered a territory

measuring two million square miles,

but it all collapses with his death a few years later.

Napoleon manages to gather 70 million people

over 30,000 square miles but the empire lasts only 10 years.

Hitler predicted the Reich would last 1,000 years.

He had to settle for 12.

The Roman Empire counted up to 88 million people

over 1.5 million square miles, and it lasted 500 years.

Throughout history, one truth becomes clear.

Empires that last are not those that rely on force alone.

They are the ones that promote human development.

So what of Genghis Khan's empire?

- [Narrator] Exhausted, Genghis Khan

finally dies at the age of 72.

Behind him, tens of millions of corpses.

The destruction is on an unprecedented scale.

The Chinese had a saying.

All that the Mongols don't understand, they destroy,

and so it will be with irrigation systems

as well as libraries.

Genghis Khan did not seek to conquer the world.

He wished to return the land

to its legitimate masters, the Mongols.

But ironically, Genghis Khan's wars

will ruin his own country completely.

With a small population, Mongolia sees all its males

go off to war only to return

during a period of extreme hardship.

Mongolian conquests do not end

with the death of Genghis Khan.

His descendants carry on the work for years to come.

(dramatic music)

And the hecatomb is only just beginning.

In China, ravaged by war, health conditions are disastrous.

The vast territory becomes the seat

of a terrifying epidemic, the Black Death.

It will ravage China for years, but not only China.

Carried by fleas, the disease takes advantage

of the Pax Mongolica.

Thanks to trade and the Silk Road,

the epidemic spreads throughout the whole of Europe,

where it invades the cities,

infects the countryside and poisons the villages.

Within four years, the Black Death exterminates

one third of the population of Europe.

The continent will take 200 years to recover,

but that is another story.

- [Woman] Barbarians pass, civilizations remain.

The Mongols carried out the greatest invasion

China has ever seen, but not the only one.

Since time began, Mongol warriors have swept across China,

to the point where China finally built

a wall to protect the country.

Built over several centuries,

the Great Wall of China never succeeded

in preventing Mongol invasions.

Elsewhere in the world, similar attempts were made,

such as the Roman lines and their 300,000 miles of defenses.

That also failed against the Germanic invasion.

Closer to our time, the Berlin Wall tried to preserve

an economic model by cutting Germany in two.

When it fell, it took the USSR down with it.

We might think these walls belong to the past.

That is wrong.

From a wall protecting the United States

from Mexican illegals to the anti-migrant fences

between Hungary and Serbia, 50 borders have been fortified

and more than 12,000 miles of barriers erected

over these last 25 years,

more than the Wall of China in 2,000 years.

For the last 15 years, the world is closing in

behind its borders, and yet history shows

that it is not walls that protect countries.

Slowly, without realizing it,

the nomad Mongols arriving in China became used to comfort.

They adopted the Chinese way of life.

The harsh custom of the steppes gradually

fell into oblivion and the descendants

of those terrible warriors became Chinese.

China integrated them and then swallowed them up.

To live in peace, eat your fill.

Watch your children grow.

Civilization's weapons are slower than those of conquerors.

Time works on their side.

(dramatic music)