77 



TIMUB, SULTAN. 



TIMUR, SULTAN. 



n 



soldiers that he ordered all the wine which was found in the town to 

 be thrown into the Tigris. 



During this time Kard-Yiisuf, prince of Diyarbekir, had recovered 

 part of those districts round Lake Wan which Timur had taken from 

 him in a former campaign; and several princes in Armenia and 

 Georgia were still independent, Timur resolved to bring them to 

 submission, and after having succeeded in this, to attack the king- 

 dom of Kiptshak on its boundaries in the Caucasus. Starting from 

 Baghdad in A.U. 797 (A.D. 1394), he marched to the Upper Tigris by 

 Tekrit, Koha or Edessa, Ho-su, and Keif, all situated in Mesopotamia. 

 He laid siege to Mardin, a strong place in the mountain-passes south- 

 east of Diyarbekir, but not being able to take it, he contented himself 

 with the promise of an annual tribute which Sultan Iza, the master of 

 Mardin, engaged to pay, and he marched to Diyarbekir. This town 

 was taken and plundered. From Diyarbekir Timur marched to 

 Akhlat, north of Lake Wan, crossing the mountains, as it seems, by 

 the passes of the Bedlis, or Centrites. . After having subdued all 

 Armenia and Georgia, Timur reached the river Terek in the Caucasus, 

 aud there fought another bloody battle with the Khan of Kiptshak. 

 In A.D. 1395 and 1396 Timur conquered all Kiptshak, and penetrated 

 as far as Moscow, whereupon he left the command of these countries 

 to his lieutenants, and returned to Samarkand, in order to prepare for 

 a campaign against India. 



Alter the death of Firus-Shah, the master of India between the 

 Indus and the Ganges, several pretenders made claim to the vacant 

 throne. At last Mahmud succeeded in making himself master of 

 Delhi, and in establishing his authority over all the empire of Firus- 

 Shah. Under the pretext of supporting the rivals of Mahmud, 

 Timur declared war against India ; and such was the renown of his 

 name, that ambassadors from all the countries of the East arrived at 

 Samarkand and congratulated him on his new conquests before he had 

 obtained any triumph. Timur left his capital in A.n. 801 (A.D. 1398). 

 He took his way through the passes in the Ghur Mountains, or the 

 western part of the Hiudu-Kush ; and on the 8th of Moharrem, A.H. 

 801 (19th of September 1398), he crossed the Indus at Attock, where 

 Alexander had entered India, and where Genghis Khan had been com- 

 pelled to give up his plan of advancing farther. Timur traversed the 

 Punjab in a direction from north-west to south-east, crossing the 

 rivers Behut, Chuuab, Ravee, the Beeah, the Hyphasis of the ancients, 

 where Alexander terminated his conquests, and the Sutlej, the eastern- 

 most of the five great rivers of the Punjab. Although no great battle 

 had been fought, the Tatars had already made more than 100,000 pri- 

 soners ; and as their number daily increased, Timur ordered them all 

 to be massacred, to prevent any mutiny, which might have become 

 fatal to him in case of a defeat. At last the Indian army was defeated 

 in a battle near Delhi, aud this town, with all its immense treasures, 

 fell into the hands of the conqueror. Delhi was plundered, and a part 

 of it was destroyed, the inhabitants having set fire to their houses, 

 and thrown themselves and their wives and children into the flames. 

 Several thousands of artists and skilful workmen were transplanted to 

 Samarkand. Timur pursued the army of Mahmud as far as the 

 sources of the Ganges, and after having established his authority in 

 the conquered countries, returned to Samarkand in the same year in 

 which he had set out for the conquest of India. 



Meanwhile troubles had broken out between the vassal princes in 

 Persia and the countries west of it; and Timur's own sous, who were 

 governors of this part of the empire, had attacked each other, and one 

 of them was accused of having made an attempt to poison his brother. 

 These events became as many occasions of new conquests for Timur, 

 who overran the whole country between Persia and Syria. Siwas 

 (Sebaste), one of the strongest towns of Asia Minor, which belonged to 

 the Oamanlis, was taken after a siege of eighteen days. The Moham- 

 medan inhabitants were spared; the Christians, ! among whom were 

 inor6 than 4000 Armenian horsemen, were interred alive. (A.H. 803 ; 

 A.D. 1400.) Among the prisoners was Ertoghrul, the son of Bayazid, 

 sultan of the Osmaulis, who defended the town for his father, and 

 who was put to death after a short captivity. The fall of Siwas aud 

 the murder of Ertoghrul were the signals for war between Timur and 

 Bayazid, who had filled Europe with the terror of his name, and who 

 was then besieging Constantinople. The rapidity of his marches and 

 the impetuosity of his charges had procured him the surname of 

 ' llderim,' or the ' Lightning ; ' and accustomed to victories over the 

 knights of Hungary, Poland, France, and Germany, he did not dread 

 the Tatars of Timur. Previously to the siege of Siwas, he had, 

 uegociated with Timur about some Turkish emirs in Asia Minor, and 

 especially about Taherten, king of Armenia, a vassal of Timur, who 

 had been deprived by Bayazid of several of their best towns, and 

 whom Timur protected. To humble his pride, Bayazid imprisoned 

 the Tatarian ambassadors, and Timur in revenge carried devastation 

 into the dominions of the Osmanlis. 



Before Bayazid had crossed the Bosporus, Timur, offended by 

 Ferruj, sultan of Egypt, overran Syria, then a dependence of Egypt. 

 The army of Ferruj was routed with dreadful slaughter at Haleb, and 

 this populous town was taken by the Tatars, who entered it with the 

 flying Egyptians. Plunder, bloodshed, and cruelties signalised this 

 new conquest (llth to 14th of Rebuil-ewwal, A.H. 803; 30th of Octo- 

 ber to 2nd November, A.D. 1400), which was followed by the fall of 

 Damascus (9th of Sha'ba"n, A.H. 803; 25th of March 1401). Artists 



and workmen were as usual carried off to Samarkand and other towns 

 of Turkistan. Ferruj became a vassal of the Tatars. Baghdad having 

 revolted, Timur took it by storm on the 27th of Zilkide, A.H. 803 (9th 

 of July A.D. 1401), and 90,000 human heads were piled up on the 

 public places of the town. 



Hitherto negociations had still been carried on between Timur and 

 Bayazid, who had advanced into Asia Minor with a well-disciDlined 

 although not very numerous army. But Bayazid having discovered 

 that Timur had bribed several regiments of Turkomans that were in 

 the army of the Osmanlis, the negociations were broken off, and the 

 two greatest conquerors of their time advanced to meet each other in 

 the field. 



After the fate of Haleb, Damascus, and Baghdad, Timur had assem- 

 bled his army near Haleb, and, crossing the range of the Taurus, he had 

 proceeded north-westward, to the northern part of Anatolia. At 

 Angora he met with Bayazid. The battle, one of the most eventful 

 which have ever been fought, took place on the 19th of Zilhije, A.U. 

 804 (20th of July, A.D. 1402). After an obstinate resistance the 

 Osmanlis, who were much less numerous than the Tatars, were 

 routed. Old Bayazid, to whom flight was unknown, despised every 

 opportunity of saving himself, and so strong was the habit of victory 

 in him, that he could not conceive his defeat even when he saw the 

 general rout of his warriors. At the head of his janissaries, Bayazid 

 maintained himself on the top of a hill ; his soldiers died of thirst or 

 fell by the sword and the arrows of the Tatars ; at last he was almost 

 alone. When the night came he tried to escape ; his horse fell, and 

 Bayazid was made a prisoner by the hand of Mahmud Khan, a 

 descendant of Genghis Khan, and who was under-khan of Jagata'i. 

 One of bis sons, Muza, was likewise made prisoner ; another, Mustafa, 

 fell most probably in the battle, for he was never more heard of; 

 three others, Solirnan, Mohammed, and Iza, escaped with part of their 

 troops. Timur received his royal prisoner with kindness and gene- 

 rosity. Afterwards, when some faithful Osmanlis tried to save their 

 master, he was put into chains, but only at night. Accompanying 

 Timur on his march, he sat in a ' kafes,' that is, in a sedan hanging 

 between two horses, and this was probably the origin of the story that 

 Timur had put Bayazid in an iron ' cage' like a wild beast, a story 

 which has chiefly been propagated by Arabshah and the Byzantine 

 Phranzes (i., c. 26). Bayazid died in his captivity at Akshehr, about 

 a year [after the battle of Angora (14th of Sha'ban, A.H. 805 (8th of 

 March, A.D. 1403), and Timur allowed Prince Muza to carry the body 

 of his father to Brusa. 



The sons of Timur pursued the sons of Bayazid as far as the Bospo- 

 rus, but having no fleet, they did not cross this channel. They ravaged 

 the country, and afterwards joined their father Timur, who with the 

 main body of his army took Ephesus and laid siege to Smyrna. This 

 town, which belonged to the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, fell after a 

 gallant resistance, in the month of December 1402. However, the 

 conquest of Asia Minor from the Osmanlis was only a temporary 

 triumph, for a short time afterwards it was recovered by Mohammed I., 

 the son and successor of Bayazid. After having thus carried his arms 

 as far as the shore of the Ionian Sea, Timur withdrew to Persia to 

 quell an insurrection, and then retired to Samarkand. He was pre- 

 paring for the conquest of China, but he died on his march to that 

 country, at Otrar on the Jaxartes, on the 17th of Sha'ban, A.H. 807 

 (19th of February 1405), in his seventy-first year, after a reign of 

 thirty-six years, leaving thirty-six sons and grandsons, and seventeen 

 grand-daughters. A considerable part of Timur's western and northern 

 conquests, Asia Minor, Baghdad, Syria, Georgia, Armenia, and the whole 

 kingdom of Kiptshak, were lost by his successors almost immediately 

 after his death. In Persia and Jagata'i his descendants reigned for a 

 century ; and for three centuries they ruled over Northern India 

 under the name of the Great Moguls. 



Timur has been compared with Alexander, but he is far below him. 

 It is true, that except in India, Alexander found only effeminate 

 nations on his way, while Timur fought with the most warlike nations 

 of the world ; but the enemies of Alexander formed great political 

 bodies which were governed by one absolute master, while the warlike 

 nations which were subdued by Timur were divided into a, multitude 

 of tribes and governed by numerous princes, each of whom was 

 jealous of his neighbour. Timur overran the territory of two mighty 

 nations, the Turks-Osmanlis, and the Tatars of Kiptshak, but he was 

 not able to subdue them. Both Alexander and Timur protected the 

 arts and sciences, but Timur could only transplant them by force 

 from one place to another, while poets and scholars flocked to 

 Alexander because he could appreciate their talents. Timur's cruelty 

 was the consequence of his savage and barbarous temper; Alexander 

 only forgot the laws of humanity when he was overpowered by wioe 

 or by passion. Timur was a man of extraordinary talents, who accom- 

 plished great things after long experience and severe struggles; 

 Alexander, a true genius, came, saw, and vanquished. The greatness 

 of Timur inspires awe, and we shrink from it with horror ; the great- 

 ness of Alexander attracts us because it is adorned with the amiable 

 qualities of his character. 



The life of Timur is the subject of many valuable works. Sheref- 

 ed-din-'Ali wrote the history of Timur in Persian, which has been 

 translated into French by Pe"tis de la Croix, under the title ' Histoire 

 de Timur-Bec, counu sous le nom du Grand Tamerlan/ &c., Paris, 



