The Ottoman Turks to the Fall of Constantinople by Edwin Pears

Author:Edwin Pears
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun
Published: 2017-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

At six o’clock in the morning of 28 July 1402, the two armies joined battle. The left wing of Bayazid’s host was the first to be attacked, but the Serbians held their ground and even drove back the Tartars. The right wing fought with less vigour, and when the troops from Aidin saw their former prince among the enemy, they deserted Bayazid and went over to him. Their example was speedily followed by many others, and especially by the Tartars in the Ottoman army, who are asserted by the Turkish writers to have been tampered with by agents of Timor.

The Serbians were soon detached from the centre of the army, but Stephen, their leader, at the head of his cavalry, cut his way through the enemy, though at great loss, winning the approval of Timur himself, who exclaimed: “These poor fellows are beaten, though they are fighting like lions.” Stephen had advised Bayazid to endeavour like himself to break through, and awaited him for some time. But the Sultan expressed his scorn at the advice. Surrounded by his ten thousand trustworthy Janissaries, separated from the Serbians, abandoned by a large part of his Anatolian troops and many of his leading generals, he fought on obstinately during the whole of the day. But the pitiless heat of a July sun exhausted the strength of his soldiers, and no water was to be had. His Janissaries fell in great numbers around him, some overcome by the heat and fighting, others struck down by the ever pressing crowd of the enemy. It was not till night came on that Bayazid consented to withdraw. He attempted flight, but was pursued. His horse fell and he was made prisoner, together with his son Musa and several of the chiefs of his house¬hold and of the Janissaries. His other three sons managed to escape. The Serbians covered the retreat of the eldest, Sulaiman, whom the grand vizier and the Agha, of the Janissaries had dragged out of the fight.

The Persian, Turkish, and most of the Greek historians say that Timur received his great captive with every mark of respect, assured him that his life would be spared, and assigned to him and his suite three splendid tents. When, however, he was found attempting to escape, he was more rigorously guarded and every night put in chains and confined in a room with barred windows. When he was conveyed from one place to another, he travelled much as Indian ladies now do, in a palanquin with curtained windows. Out of a misinterpretation of the Turkish word, which designated at once a cage and a room with grills, grew the error into which Gibbon and historians of less repute have fallen, that the great Yilderim was carried about in an iron cage. Until his death he was an unwilling follower of his captor.

Timor’s conquests in Asia Minor

After the battle of Angora, Sulaiman, the eldest son of Bayazid, who had fled towards Brusa, was pursued by a detachment of Timor’s army.

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