The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay. Eversley George Shaw-Lefevre
acted as despot there on behalf of the Greek Empire, agreed to become tributary of the Sultan.
Returning to Adrianople, Bayezid determined to obtain immediate possession of Constantinople. The Greek Empire had been already deprived of nearly all territory outside the walls of its capital. The Sultan opened proceedings against it by sending an envoy to the Emperor with this insulting message: —
When I dethroned your predecessor, Manuel, it was not in your interest but in mine. If, then, you want to remain my friend, you must surrender your crown. I will give you any other government you may wish for. If you do not consent, I swear by God and the Prophet I will not spare a soul in your city; I will exterminate all of them.
The citizens of Constantinople, rather than experience the terrible fate which they knew would befall them in the event of a successful assault by the Ottoman army, were willing to come to terms. But the Emperor, who was buoyed up by hope of assistance from the Christian Powers, refused to acquiesce in a pusillanimous surrender. He replied to the ambassador in dignified terms: “Tell your master that, feeble as we are, we know no other power to whom to address ourselves if it be not God, Who protects the feeble and humbles the powerful. Let the Sultan do what he pleases.”
At this stage, and before he could give effect to his threats, Bayezid was compelled by great events in Asia to raise the siege of Constantinople. Hitherto, in twelve years of incessant war, Bayezid had been uniformly successful. He had annexed the greater part of Asia Minor, Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, and Thessaly. He had reduced to vassalage the Greek Empire itself and Serbia, Wallachia, Bosnia, and a great part of Greece. He had defeated the feudal chivalry of Europe in the great battle of Nicopolis. He had not met with a single reverse. The next two years, the last of his reign, were to result in disastrous and overwhelming defeat to him, in his capture and death, and in the temporary crumpling up of the Turkish Empire. He came into conflict for the first time with Timur, a general and a conqueror more resolute, crafty, able, and cruel than himself.
Timur the Tartar, better known to us as Timurlane – Timur the lame, for he had met in early life with an accident which lamed him – was the greatest, the most ruthless, and the most devastating of warriors recorded in all history. Born in 1333, a descendant through his mother of the great Gengis Khan, he began life as a petty chief of a Tartar tribe in the neighbourhood of Samarkand. It was not till he had reached the age of thirty-five that he achieved eminence over other neighbouring Tartar States. He then conceived the ambition of universal conquest. “As there was only one God in heaven,” he said, “so there should be only one ruler on earth” – that one was to be himself. He went a long way towards gaining this object of his ambition, for he embarked on a career which, in rather less than thirty-five years, resulted in an empire extending from the Great Wall of China to the frontier of Asia Minor, and from the Sea of Aral to the River Ganges and the Persian Gulf. He had, by this time, conquered twenty-seven separate States and extinguished nine dynasties. He effected his purpose, not only by force of arms, but by a deliberate policy of terrorism. After victory he was of settled purpose ruthless in cruelties on the greatest scale.
It was obvious that, sooner or later, he would come into conflict with what was, at that time, the only other growing military Power in the world – the Ottoman Empire. The two potentates had already become neighbours, and causes of dispute and antagonism were often arising between them. Each had sheltered refugee princes, whose territories had been absorbed by the other, and who were engaged in intrigues to stir up war between the two rivals, in the hope of regaining their possessions. Insolent messages passed between the two potentates.
What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? [wrote Timur to Bayezid]. Thou hast fought some battles in the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was blessed by the Apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precepts of the Koran in waging war against the infidel is the sole consideration that prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark of the Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert the thunder of our vengeance which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than an ant; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas, they will trample thee under their feet.
Bayezid replied in terms of the greatest indignation. He protested that Timur had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes.
Thy armies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of the flying Tartars against the scimitars and battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janissaries? I will guard the princes who have implored my protection; seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzerum are mine; and unless the tribute be paid I will demand the arrears under the walls of Tauris and Sultania.
And he added an insult of a yet grosser kind which, by its allusion to the harem, was the worst that could be devised by a Moslem: —
If I fly from thy arms may my wives be thrice divorced from my bed; but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest thou again receive thy wives after they have thrice endured the embrace of a stranger.
After this interchange of abuse Timur determined, in 1400, to attack and invade Asia Minor from Armenia, at the head of a horde of armed men, estimated by historians at not less than eight hundred thousand. He laid siege to Sivas, in Cappadocia, on the Armenian frontier, which had only been captured by Bayezid about three years previously. It was now defended by a garrison of Turks, under command of Ertoghrul, the eldest son of Bayezid. The fortifications were immensely strong, but Timur was ready to sacrifice any number of men in assaulting and capturing the city. He employed six thousand miners in undermining its defences with galleries and propping up the walls temporarily with timber smeared with pitch. When the mines were completed, fire was applied to the timber, and the walls gradually sank into the cavities laid open to them, and afforded entrance to the assaulting columns. The city was captured. Four thousand of its defenders were buried alive by order of Timur, and Ertoghrul was executed.
Bayezid, thus challenged, advanced, in 1401, with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men to avenge the disaster at Sivas. Timur, however, after the capture of that city, refrained from advancing farther into Asia Minor. He passed into Syria and captured Damascus, and thence into Mesopotamia for the capture of Bagdad. It was not till the next year, 1402, that he determined to return to Asia Minor and to humble Bayezid. He retraced his steps to Sivas, and thence, after a further exchange of insolent messages with the Ottoman Sultan, he went in search of him towards Angora, taking the route of Cæsarea and Kir Sheir.
Bayezid had also collected a great army in the east of Asia Minor, and had finally concentrated it in the neighbourhood of Angora. He showed none of his previous skill as a general, though all of his insolence and bravado. His army was discontented by his avarice, and by his neglect to pay them out of the well-filled treasury. He refused to follow the advice of his best generals, who warned him against meeting Timur’s vast hosts on a field where they could deploy their whole strength. The two armies met at last on the plain of Angora, the site of many previous famous battles. It is almost inconceivable that Bayezid, in arrogant contempt of his foe, employed his army, in the face of the enemy, in a great hunt for game, which led them into a district devoid of water, where his soldiers suffered terribly, and five thousand are said to have died of thirst.
On return to their camp they found that Timur had diverted the stream which supplied it with water. Bayezid was forced to fight at a disadvantage. The Tartars, who formed a fourth part of the Ottoman army, were not to be relied on in this battle. Their sympathies were with their fellow-Tartars under Timur. Bayezid had committed the fatal error of placing them in the front line, after his usual tactics of meeting the first encounter of the enemy with inferior troops. But in this case the Tartars deserted on the field of battle. The Serbian contingent, under Prince Stephen, and other Christian vassal troops fought with the utmost gallantry and loyalty. But it was in vain. The whole Ottoman army was outnumbered, overwhelmed, and routed with great slaughter. Bayezid with his bodyguard made a last stand. “The Thunderbolt,” says the Turkish historian, “continued to wield a heavy battle-axe. As a starving wolf scattering a flock of sheep he scattered the enemy. Each blow of his redoubtable axe struck in such a way that there was no need of a second blow.” But in the end he was overpowered and taken prisoner.
Bayezid