Timur The Lame, The Ottomans And The Byzantines

[Tobias]

G'day All

1402 A.D: the Ottomans had conquered almost all of Anatolia, and the majority of the Balkans. The Byzantine Empire was reduced in territory to Constantinople and Morea (the southernmost area of Greece). The survival of the Empire seemed to be limited to months, not years. Then all of a sudden it had a respite: the last great nomad warrior, Timur the lame, routed the Ottoman army at Ankara. The Ottoman Sultanate fell into warring factions, with Europe under the control of Suleiman.

Although Timur the Lame died in 1404, the Ottoman Empire (united under one Sultan again from 1413) took a long time to reconquer its territory in Europe, and much longer in Anatolia.

Why was this the case? How could one nomad warrior inflict so much damage, and the resistance of the Byzantines slow things down in the Balkans for one of the fastest growing and strongest nations of the time?

And would it have been at all possible (in theory) for Timur to ally himself to the Byzantines? If this occurred, could Byzantium have risen again? What are your opinions?

[Pertinax]

I suggest his use of terror tactics on a scale never seen before( and that is saying something), his progress was marked by massacres beyond the wit and scope of the Mongols,(he was himself a Turcified Mongol aristocrat).Two remarks to throw into the thread-he was astonishingly deadly in battlefield effectiveness but never actually destroyed a major foe in totality( ie: he destroyed armies and cities ). Timur was unusual also in not starting to campaign before the age of 40.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Pertinax

[Pertinax]

Oh dear what a mess that post is-I apologise. What was I doing? :bag:

[Primus Pilus]

Oh dear what a mess that post is-I apologise. What was I doing? :bag:

 

Rather than post that... why not just edit the post?

[Favonius Cornelius]

I suggest his use of terror tactics on a scale never seen before( and that is saying something),

 

Timur was worse than Genghis and Kubali in terms of bloodlust? I figured they were all pretty much the same, what makes you say this? Hard to beat Genghis and his policy of total capitulation or total annihilation.

 

Perhaps this fact, their total barbarity, and decidedly un-Christian religion, would have prevented the Byzantines from ever dealing with them.

[Pertinax]

I was thinking of his charming vote winner of building huge mounds of skulls from butchered captives ,80,000 allegedly at Delhi , a tactic repeated against any enemy even co-religionists.His alleged intention was to restore Mongol power including subjugating China His religious inclinations seem to heve been tinged with a primitive shammanism.I believe his father was responsible for the excellent saying "the world is a beautiful vase full of scorpions" before retiring in disgust to a Muslim monastery.

 

Colin Wilson in " a Criminal History of Mankind " has a jaw dropping piece on Timur.

 

Wilson's " History of Violence" is worth a look.Both the titles mentioned are worth reading even if you disagree with Wilson's approach and sensational style, he at least attempts to look into the mind of the vicious or driven powerful individual.

 

These texts were very fashionable when I was a student and considered ground breaking at that time , I might try and re-read them now to see if time has been kind to the authour

Edited November 15, 2005 by Pertinax

[trajen777]

I was thinking of his charming vote winner of building huge mounds of skulls from butchered captives ,80,000 allegedly at Delhi , a tactic repeated against any enemy even co-religionists.His alleged intention was to restore Mongol power including subjugating China His religious inclinations seem to heve been tinged with a primitive shammanism.I believe his father was responsible for the excellent saying "the world is a beautiful vase full of scorpions" before retiring in disgust to a Muslim monastery.

 

Colin Wilson in " a Criminal History of Mankind " has a jaw dropping piece on Timur.

 

Wilson's " History of Violence" is worth a look.Both the titles mentioned are worth reading even if you disagree with Wilson's approach and sensational style, he at least attempts to look into the mind of the vicious or driven powerful individual.

 

These texts were very fashionable when I was a student and considered ground breaking at that time , I might try and re-read them now to see if time has been kind to the authour

 

The key reason it took so long to recover is the loss of the Ottoman emperor, the civil war that started among his sons and the revolt of a number of his emirs. Could the Byz empire have recovered? Timur was heading west strategically at this time to conquer China, his ability to influence the outcome of Anatolia was questionable. However his destruction of the Ottomans was the last chance of the Byz empire.

 

If they could have kept the Serbs and Bulgars from attacking in the West, and had reallocated there full resources to the battle to reclaim Anatolia it is possible. But doubtful

[Tobias]

Certainly i believe that unlucky series of circumstances have hit the Byzantines almost throughout their entire history; they had had several major defeats and losses of much of their territory, yet they still managed to recover again and again. I believe that should the Byzantines have managed to gain allies in the west, they would gain in the Balkans, and thus have more leeway to concentrate in the disintegrating turks. yes disintegrating; one emir (called Suleiman i believe) restored several territories to the Byzantines in the balkans in order to gain the support of a Byzantine Emperor in his (unsuccessful) bid to become sole roler of the Ottoman Empire, which gives an idea of the amount of distrust amoung the Turks.

However, it was not to be, and certainly, in my opinion, the Byzantines would never had allied themselves to Timur the Lame, nor would Timur have allied himself to the Byzantines (except perhaps as a deception to gain access to Constantinople and sack it). So, no alliance between the Nomad General and the Emperor of the "Romans", and extreme distrust and threats from both sides of what remained of the Byzantines ensured that they would soon fall.