time; but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the Sultan Mahmud
and his wazir to descend into the plain, with ten thousand cuirassiers,
forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and twenty elephants,
whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp and poisoned daggers.
Against these monsters, or rather against the imagination of his troops,
he condescended to use some extraordinary precautions of fire and a
ditch, of iron spikes and a rampart of bucklers; but the event taught
the Mongols to smile at their own fears; and as soon as these unwieldy
animals were routed, the inferior species (the men of India) disappeared
from the field. Timur made his triumphal entry into the capital of
Hindustan, and admired, with a view to imitate, the architecture of the
stately mosque; but the order or license of a general pillage and
massacre polluted the festival of his victory. He resolved to purify his
soldiers in the blood of the idolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass,
in the proportion of ten to one, the numbers of the Moslems. In this
pious design he advanced one hundred miles to the northeast of Delhi,
passed the Ganges, fought several battles by land and water, and
penetrated to the famous rock of Cupele, the statue of the cow,[58] that
_seems_ to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far distant among
the mountains of Tibet. His return was along the skirts of the northern
hills; nor could this rapid campaign of one year justify the strange
foresight of his emirs, that their children in a warm climate would
degenerate into a race of Hindus.
It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timur was informed, by his speedy
messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on the confines of
Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and the ambitious
designs of the sultan Bajazet. His vigor of mind and body was not
impaired by sixty-three years and innumerable fatigues; and, after
enjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarkand, he proclaimed
a new expedition of seven years into the western countries of Asia. To
the soldiers who had served in the Indian war he granted the choice of
remaining at home or following their prince; but the troops of all the
provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at Ispahan
and wait the arrival of the imperial standard. It was first directed
against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only in their rocks,
their castles, and the winter season; but these obstacles were overcome
by the zeal and perseverance of Timur: the rebels submitted to the
tribute or the _Koran_; and if both religions boasted of their martyrs,
that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners, who were
offered the choice of abjuration or death.
On his descent from the hills the Emperor gave audience to the first
ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of
complaints and menaces, which fermented two years before the final
explosion. Between two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of
quarrel will seldom be wanting. The Mongol and Ottoman conquests now
touched each other in the neighborhood of Erzerum and the Euphrates; nor
had the doubtful limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of
these ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his
territory, of threatening his vassals and protecting his rebels; and, by
the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms
he had usurped and whose life or liberty he implacably pursued. In their
victorious career Timur was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet was
ignorant of a superior.
In his first expedition, Timur was satisfied with the siege and
destruction of Sebaste, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia. He
then turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt, where the military
republic of the mamelukes still reigned. The Syrian emirs were assembled
at Aleppo to repel the invasion; they confided in the fame and
discipline of the mamelukes, in the temper of their swords and lances of
the purest steel of Damascus, in the strength of their walled cities,
and in the populousness of sixty thousand villages; and instead of
sustaining a siege, they threw open their gates and arrayed their forces
in the plain. But these forces were not cemented by virtue and union,
and some powerful emirs had been seduced to desert or betray their more
loyal companions. Timur's front was covered with a line of Indian
elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and Greek fire; the
rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the
Syrian crowds fell back on each other; many thousands were stifled or
slaughtered in the entrance of the great street; the Mongols entered
with the fugitives; and after a short defence the impregnable citadel of
Aleppo was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants
and captives, Timur distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he
invited to the dangerous honor of a personal conference. The Mongol
Prince was a zealous Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him
to revere the memory of Ali and Hasan; and he had imbibed a deep
prejudice against the Syrians as the enemies of the son of the daughter
of the apostle of God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question,
which the casuists of Samarkand and Herat were incapable of resolving.
"Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side or on that
of my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity of
one of the cadis of Aleppo, who replied, in the words of Mahomet
himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; and
that the Moslems of either party who fight only for the glory of God may
deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphs was
a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and the frankness of a
doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the Emperor to exclaim:
"Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a
tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the Prophet." A prudent
explanation restored his tranquillity, and he passed to a more familiar
topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadi. "Fifty
years." "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here,"
continued Timur, "a poor, lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arms has the
Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran, Turan, and the
Indies. I am not a man of blood; and God is my witness that in all my
wars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies have always
been the authors of their own calamity." During this peaceful
conversation the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood and reëchoed with
the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated virgins.
The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might stimulate
their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory command
of producing an adequate number of heads, which, according to his
custom, were curiously piled in columns and pyramids. The Mongols
celebrated the feast of victory, while the surviving Moslems passed the
night in tears and in chains.
I shall not dwell on the march of the destroyer from Aleppo to Damascus,
where he was rudely encountered, and almost overthrown, by the armies
of Egypt. A retrograde motion was imputed to his distress and despair;
one of his nephews deserted to the enemy; and Syria rejoiced in the tale
of his defeat, when the Sultan was driven, by the revolt of the
mamelukes, to escape with precipitation and shame to his palace of
Cairo. Abandoned by their Prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still
defended their walls; and Timur consented to raise the siege if they
would adorn his retreat with a gift or ransom, each article of nine
pieces. But no sooner had he introduced himself into the city, under
color of a truce, than he perfidiously violated the treaty, imposed a
contribution of ten millions of gold, and animated his troops to
chastise the posterity of those Syrians who had executed, or approved,
the murder of the grandson of Mahomet. After a period of seven centuries
Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a Tartar was moved by religious
zeal to avenge the blood of an Arab.
The losses and fatigues of the campaign obliged Timur to renounce the
conquest of Palestine and Egypt; but in his return to the Euphrates he
delivered Aleppo to the flames and justified his pious motive by the
pardon and reward of two thousand sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to
visit the tomb of his son. I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes
which mark the character of the Mongol hero, but I shall briefly mention
that he erected, on the ruins of Bagdad, a pyramid of ninety thousand
heads; again visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of the Araxes; and
proclaimed his resolution of marching against the Ottoman Emperor.
Conscious of the importance of the war, he collected his forces from
every province; eight hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military
list, but the splendid commands of five and ten thousand horse may be
rather expressive of the rank and pension of the chiefs than of the
genuine number of effective soldiers. In the pillage of Syria the
Mongols had acquired immense riches; but the delivery of their pay and
arrears for seven years more firmly attached them to the imperial
standard.
During this diversion of the Mongol arms, Bajazet had two years to
collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four
hundred thousand horse and foot whose merit and fidelity were of an
unequal complexion. We may discriminate the janizaries, who have been
gradually raised to an establishment of forty thousand men; a national
cavalry (the _spahis_ of modern times); twenty thousand cuirassiers of
Europe, clad in black and impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia,
whose princes had taken refuge in the camp of Timur: and a colony of
Tartars, whom he had driven from Kiptchak, and to whom Bajazet had
assigned a settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearless
confidence of the Sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if he
had chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near the ruins
of the unfortunate Sebaste.
In the mean while Timur moved from the Araxes through the countries of
Armenia and Anatolia. His boldness was secured by the wisest
precautions; his speed was guided by order and discipline; and the
woods, the mountains, and the rivers were diligently explored by the
flying squadrons, who marked his road and preceded his standard. Firm in
his plan of fighting in the heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided
their camp, dexterously inclined to the left, occupied Cæsarea,
traversed the salt desert and the river Halys, and invested Angora;
while the Sultan, immovable and ignorant in his post, compared the
Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail. He returned on the wings of
indignation to the relief of Angora; and as both generals were alike
impatient for action, the plains round that city were the scene of a
memorable battle, which has immortalized the glory of Timur and the
shame of Bajazet.
For this signal victory the Mongol Emperor was indebted to himself, to
the genius of the moment, and the discipline of thirty years. He had
improved the tactics, without violating the manners, of his nation,
whose force still consisted in the missile weapons and rapid evolutions
of a numerous cavalry. From a single troop to a great army, the mode of
attack was the same; a foremost line first advanced to the charge, and
was supported in a just order by the squadrons of the great vanguard.
The general's eye watched over the field, and at his command the front
and rear of the right and left wings successively moved forward in their
several divisions, and in a direct or oblique line; the enemy was
pressed by eighteen or twenty attacks; and each attack afforded a
chance of victory. If they all proved fruitless or unsuccessful, the
occasion was worthy of the Emperor himself, who gave the signal of
advancing to the standard and main body, which he led in person. But in
the battle of Angora, the main body itself was supported, on the flanks
and in the rear, by the bravest squadrons of the reserve, commanded by
the sons and grandsons of Timur. The conqueror of Hindustan
ostentatiously showed a line of elephants, the trophies rather than the
instruments of victory; the use of the Greek fire was familiar to the
Mongols and Ottomans; but had they borrowed from Europe the recent
invention of gunpowder and cannon, the artificial thunder, in the hands
of either nation, must have turned the fortune of the day. In that day
Bajazet displayed the qualities of a soldier and a chief; but his genius
sunk under a stronger ascendant; and, from various motives, the greatest
part of his troops failed him in the decisive moment. His rigor and
avarice had provoked a mutiny among the Turks; and even his son Solyman
too hastily withdrew from the field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in
their revolt, were drawn away to the banners of their lawful princes.
His Tartar allies had been tempted by the letters and emissaries of
Timur, who reproached their ignoble servitude under the slaves of their
fathers; and offered to their hopes the dominion of their new, or the
liberty of their ancient, country. In the right wing of Bajazet the
cuirassiers of Europe charged with faithful hearts and irresistible
arms; but these men of iron were soon broken by an artful flight and
headlong pursuit; and the janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile
weapons, were encompassed by the circle of the Mongol hunters. Their
valor was at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and the weight of
numbers; and the unfortunate Sultan, afflicted with the gout in his
hands and feet, was transported from the field on the fleetest of his
horses. He was pursued and taken by the titular Khan of Zagatai; and,
after his capture and the defeat of the Ottoman powers, the kingdom of
Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his standard at
Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the ministers of rapine and
destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest and best beloved of his
grandsons, was despatched to Bursa, with thirty thousand horse; and such
was his youthful ardor that he arrived with only four thousand at the
gates of the capital, after performing in five days a march of two
hundred and thirty miles. Yet fear is still more rapid in its course;
and Solyman, the son of Bajazet, had already passed over to Europe with
the royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the palace and city was
immense; the inhabitants had escaped; but the buildings, for the most
part of wood, were reduced to ashes. From Bursa, the grandson of Timur
advanced to Nice, even yet a fair and flourishing city; and the Mongol
squadrons were only stopped by the waves of the Propontis. The same
success attended the other mirzas and emirs in their excursions, and
Smyrna, defended by the zeal and courage of the Rhodian knights, alone
deserved the presence of the Emperor himself. After an obstinate
defence, the place was taken by storm; all that breathed was put to the
sword; and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched from the
engines, on board of two caracks, or great ships of Europe, that rode at
anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in their deliverance
from a dangerous and domestic foe and a parallel was drawn between the
two rivals, by observing that Timur, in fourteen days, had reduced a
fortress which had sustained seven years the siege, or at least the
blockade, of Bajazet.
The "iron cage" in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Timur, so long and so
often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by the
modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with
confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which
has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I
shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative of this memorable
transaction. No sooner was Timur informed that the captive Ottoman was
at the door of his tent than he graciously stepped forward to receive
him, seated him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing
pity for his rank and misfortune.
"Alas!" said the Emperor, "the decree of fate is now accomplished by
your own fault; it is the web which you have woven, the thorns of the
tree which yourself have planted. I wished to spare, and even to assist,
the champion of the Moslems. You braved our threats; you despised our
friendship; you forced us to enter your kingdom with our invincible
armies. Behold the event. Had you vanquished, I am not ignorant of the
fate which you reserved for myself and my troops. But I disdain to
retaliate; your life and honor are secure; and I shall express my
gratitude to God by my clemency to man."
The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the
humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son Musa,
who, at his request, was sought and found among the captives of the
field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a splendid pavilion; and the
respect of the guards could be surpassed only by their vigilance. On the
arrival of the harem from Bursa, Timur restored the queen Despina and
her daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required that
the Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the profession
of Christianity, should embrace, without delay, the religion of the
Prophet. In the feast of victory, to which Bajazet was invited, the
Mongol Emperor placed a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand,
with a solemn assurance of restoring him with an increase of glory to
the throne of his ancestors. But the effect of this promise was
disappointed by the Sultan's untimely death. Amid the care of the most
skilful physicians, he expired of an apoplexy, about nine months after
his defeat. The victor dropped a tear over his grave; his body, with
royal pomp, was conveyed to the mausoleum which he had erected at Bursa;
and his son Musa, after receiving a rich present of gold and jewels, of
horses and arms, was invested by a patent in red ink with the kingdom of
Anatolia.
Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been extracted
from his own memorials and dedicated to his son and grandson, nineteen
years after his decease; and, at a time when the truth was remembered by
thousands, a manifest falsehood would have implied a satire on his real
conduct. Weighty, indeed, is this evidence, adopted by all the Persian
histories; yet flattery, more especially in the East, is base and
audacious; and the harsh and ignominious treatment of Bajazet is
attested by a chain of witnesses.
I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully described the first
ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spirits were
harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. But his
mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet;
and Timur betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to
Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under
the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and
in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not
as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of
Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death
might, without injustice, be ascribed to the severity of Timur.
From the Irtysh and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to
Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hands of Timur; his armies
were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire
to conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already
trembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an
insuperable, though narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of
Europe and Asia; and the lord of so many myriads of horse was not master
of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosporus and Hellespont, of
Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the one by the Christians,
the other by the Turks. On this great occasion they forgot the
difference of religion, to act with union and firmness in the common
cause; the double straits were guarded with ships and fortifications;
and they separately withheld the transports which Timur demanded of
either nation, under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same
time they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant
embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honors of
victory. Solyman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency for his
father and himself; accepted, by a red patent, the investiture of the
kingdom of Romania, which he already held by the sword; and reiterated
his ardent wish of casting himself in person at the feet of the king of
the world. The Greek Emperor--either John or Manuel--submitted to pay
the same tribute which he had stipulated with the Turkish Sultan, and
ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could
absolve his conscience so soon as the Mongol arms had retired from
Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious
Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of
subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean,
entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his
yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of
Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhaps imaginary, danger was
averted by the submission of the Sultan of Egypt, the honors of the
prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacy of Timur; and a rare
gift of a giraffe, or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at
Samarkand the tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less
astonished by the portrait of a Mongol, who, in his camp before Smyrna,
meditates, and almost accomplishes, the invasion of the Chinese empire.
Timur was urged to this enterprise by national honor and religious zeal.
He received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions, from
the source of Irtysh to the Wall of China. During the preparations, the
Emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed the winter on the
banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia; and slowly
returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and nine months.
On the throne of Samarkand he displayed, in a short repose, his
magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the people;
distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments; employed his
riches in the architecture of palaces and temples; and gave audience to
the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the
last of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of
the oriental artists. A general indulgence was proclaimed; every law was
relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the sovereign
was idle; and the historian of Timur may remark that, after devoting
fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy period of his
life was the two months in which he ceased to exercise his power.
But he soon awakened to the cares of government and war. The standard
was unfurled for the invasion of China; the emirs made their report of
two hundred thousand, the select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Turan;
their baggage and provisions were transported by five hundred great
wagons and an immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might
prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in
the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarkand to Peking. Neither age
nor the severity of the winter could retard the impatience of Timur; he
mounted on horseback, passed the Sihun on the ice, marched seventy-six
parasangs (three hundred miles) from his capital, and pitched his last
camp in the neighborhood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of
death. Fatigue and the indiscreet use of iced water accelerated the
progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia expired in the
seventieth year of his age, 1405, thirty-five years after he had
ascended the throne of Zagatai. His designs were lost; his armies were
disbanded; China was saved; and, fourteen years after his decease, the
most powerful of his children sent an embassy of friendship and commerce
to the court of Peking.