The Mongols Used Primitive Biological Warfare by Catapulting Diseased Bodies

The Mongols were innovators in warfare, and this included one of history first recorded uses of biological weapons. During the siege of the Crimean city of Caffa in 1346, Mongol forces under Jani Beg were struggling to break through the city defenses. Facing a plague outbreak in their own ranks, the Mongols came up with a horrifying solution: they began catapulting the corpses of their plague-dead over the city walls. The defenders were forced to handle and dispose of the infected bodies, and soon plague broke out within the city. This tactic may have contributed to the spread of the Black Death to Europe, as Genoese traders fleeing the city carried the disease with them. While the effectiveness of this early biological warfare is debated, it represents a chilling early example of using disease as a weapon of war.