Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. Justin Marozzi
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Both discipline and reward came to depend upon the emperor himself rather than the tribal leaders at the lower level. Temur deliberately appointed men from the ranks of his personal followers, including family members, to positions of high command. This was done to undermine the traditional system of armies being led by tribal chiefs, the main source of potential opposition to him – or, in extremis, outright rebellion. It resulted in the formation of a new military class directly loyal to his person, free from the political constraints of the tribe. These men enjoyed hereditary positions, which meant that in time, through their sons and grandsons, as well as his own, the numbers of Temur’s personal followers steadily increased. As his power grew and the size of his armies swelled from captured forces and fresh conscription, the authority of this new elite went from strength to strength, while the influence of the tribal leaders waned in parallel.
The organisation of Temur’s armies would have been recognised at once by Genghis Khan, for it followed the structure of the Mongols’. There was a left wing, a right wing, the centre and the advance guard. The smallest unit of men was ten soldiers, an onlik, led by an onbashi. Ten of these groups formed the yuzlik, under the next rank of yuzbashi, officers denoted by the kettle-drums slung across the saddles of their outriders. After this came the binlik, a body of a thousand troops under the command of a binbashi. The most senior rank beneath Temur was the amir who presided over ten thousand men, a tuman, whose insignia was the tuk, a long lance with a horse’s tail fastened at its tip.
Temur always heaped rewards on those who had shown particular valour on the battlefield. Acts of outstanding bravery were commemorated in the official court chronicles. Promotion depended above all on one’s military conduct. An onbashi would be made a yuzbashi after performing some heroic action, while the commander of a hundred became the commander of a thousand. The most senior officers were granted the ultimate title of tarkhan, a position harking back to the days of Genghis Khan. This conferred on them a number of important privileges, among which the most valuable was the permanent exemption from taxes. Unlike any other soldier in Temur’s armies, the tarkhan was entitled to keep everything he plundered. Everyone else had to make over a share of his spoils to the emperor. The tarkhan was also immune from criminal prosecution. Only after he had committed the same crime nine times was he answerable to justice. Perhaps the ultimate prize was his access to Temur at all times.
It was the responsibility of the aides-de-camp, the tovachis, to ensure that the soldiers were properly equipped. Once conscripted, each man had to report for service with a bow, a quiver containing thirty arrows, a shield and enough grain to feed a horse for a year. For every two cavalrymen a spare horse was required, and each onlik, the body of ten soldiers, had to bring a tent, two spades, a pickaxe, rope, hide, an awl, an axe, a saw and one hundred needles. The Tatar foot-soldier carried a bow, an axe, a dagger, a sabre and a small round shield, wooden with an iron rim, hung at the hip. In winter he wore black sheepskins, coloured kaftans in summer, over either tight or baggy trousers and boots. On his head he sported a tall hat made of fur, felt or sheepskin. There was a comprehensive range of secondary weapons, including maces and varieties of swords, knives and shields. The richer soldiers had helmets, single-edged sabres and coats of mail for themselves and their horses. The Tatar composite bow, the main arm on which Temur’s armies depended, was a formidable weapon, considerably longer than the Persian, Turk or Indian versions.* It fired a heavier arrow with a shorter range.
Temur’s soldiers made much use of another destructive technology. Greek-fire, invented in the seventh century, was a gelatinous incendiary mixture, fired at one’s enemy through bronze tubes. Its original composition is unknown, a closely guarded secret handed down from one Byzantine emperor to another, but it is thought to have been made from a combination of flammable materials such as sulphur, naphtha, quicklime and pitch in a petroleum base. Since it ignited spontaneously and could not be extinguished by water, it was a profoundly effective weapon, sowing panic among those who faced it.
In battle, the principal tactics and techniques employed by Temur were horse-archery, envelopment of his enemy where possible, and, a particular favourite, used with enormous success, feigned flight. At Aleppo, for example, his men staged a deliberate retreat, leading the Syrians right behind their lines, where they were fallen upon and utterly routed. The Tatars, wrote an observer at the outset of the fourteenth century, ‘are for the most part victorious over their enemies; yet they are not afraid to turn their backs in a fight if it is to their advantage … Their manner of fighting is very dangerous, so that in one Tatar battle or skirmish there are more slain or wounded than in any great conflict between other nations, which results from their archery, for they shoot strongly and surely, being indeed so skilful in the art of shooting that they commonly pierce all kinds of armour, and if they happen to be routed they flee in troops and bands so well ordered that it is very dangerous to follow or pursue them, because they shoot arrows backwards in their flight, often wounding both men and horses that pursue them.’
Men predominated in the lines, but war was by no means their exclusive preserve, as Arabshah noted.
There were also in his army many women who mingled in the mêlée of battle and in fierce conflicts and strove with men and fought with brave warriors and overcame mighty heroes in combat with the thrust of the spear, the blow of the sword and shooting of arrows; when one of them was heavy with child and birth pangs seized her, while they were on the march, she turned from the way and withdrawing apart and descending from her beast, gave birth to the child and wrapping it in bandages, soon mounted her beast and taking the child with her, followed her company; and there were in his army men born on the march and grown to full age who married and begot children and yet never had a fixed home.
A leader of impressive intellect and infinite cunning, Temur placed a premium on good, timely intelligence, the lifeblood of his many campaigns. A vast network of spies fanned out from Samarkand across his lands and into the kingdoms and empires of those he sought to conquer. Well represented among them were the Islamic orders, itinerant monks, dervishes, shaykhs and Sufis. ‘He was of rare temper and depth so deep that in the sea of his plans the bottom could not be touched, nor could one reach the high peak of his government by a smooth or rough path,’ wrote Arabshah. ‘He had placed through his realm his informers and in other kingdoms had appointed his spies; and these were amirs like Atilmish, one of his allies, or learned fakirs, like Masaud Kahajani, his chief minister, or traders seeking a living by some craft, ill-minded wrestlers, criminal athletes, labourers, craftsmen, soothsayers, physicians, wandering hermits, chatterers, strolling vagabonds, sailors, wanderers by land, elegant drunkards, witty singers, aged procuresses and crafty old women.’
These men, women and children brought back news from across Asia, from the prices and availability of various commodities to the state of an enemy kingdom, the names of its military leaders and nobles and the mapping of its lands and cities. ‘One skilful plan can perform the service of a hundred thousand warriors,’ Temur was reported to have said.
To aid the flow of information, Temur, like the Mongols, used a system of posting stations known as yams. Up to two hundred horses were kept at each regularly staged post and stable, the costs met by the local population. Clavijo, who witnessed their operations at first hand while on his way to the emperor’s court, left a typically detailed description of how zealously the envoys and couriers went about their work on behalf of the emperor. Such was the importance accorded government business that if any envoy riding a tiring mount came upon other riders with fresher horses, these were required on pain of death to dismount and hand over their animals to the messenger and his entourage. No one was spared this inconvenience: the Spaniard was told that on one occasion Temur’s eldest son and his attendants were forced to surrender their horses to envoys en route to Samarkand.
The information and intelligence contained in his envoys’ despatches was highly valued and jealously guarded by Temur. They were under strict orders to ride full tilt around the clock. ‘Temur indeed sets much store that those he sends and those who come to him should ride post day and night,’ Clavijo recorded. ‘So doing they may easily cover fifty leagues in the twenty-four hours,