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The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object
of the ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem
of future ages was the second wish of his magnanimous
spirit. All the civil and military transactions of his
reign were diligently recorded in the journals of his
secretaries: (1) the authentic narrative was revised by the
persons best informed of each particular transaction; and it
is believed in the empire and family of Timour, that the
monarch himself composed the commentaries (2) of his life,
and the institutions (3) of his government. (4) But these
cares were ineffectual for the preservation of his fame, and
these precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian language
were concealed from the world, or, at least, from the
knowledge of Europe. The nations which he vanquished
exercised a base and impotent revenge; and ignorance has
long repeated the tale of calumny, (5) which had disfigured
the birth and character, the person, and even the name, of
Tamerlane. (6) Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather
than debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of
Asia; nor can his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he
had the weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps an
honorable, infirmity. (A)
In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible
succession of the house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel
subject; yet he sprang from the noble tribe of Berlass: his
fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had been the vizier (B) of
Zagatai, in his new realm of Transoxiana; and in the ascent
of some generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, at
least by the females, (7) with the Imperial stem. (8) He was
born forty miles to the south of Samarcand in the village of
Sebzar, in the fruitful territory of Cash, of which his
fathers were the hereditary chiefs, as well as of a toman of
ten thousand horse. (9) His birth (10) was cast on one of
those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of the
Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous
ambition. The khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs
aspired to independence; and their domestic feuds could only
be suspended by the conquest and tyranny of the khans of
Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, (11) invaded
the Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age,
Timour had entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth
(C)! he stood forth as the deliverer of his country; and the
eyes and wishes of the people were turned towards a hero who
suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law and of the
army had pledged their salvation to support him with their
lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were
silent and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the
hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the desert with only
sixty horsemen. The fugitives were overtaken by a thousand
Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible slaughter, and his
enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is a wonderful man:
fortune and the divine favor are with him." But in this
bloody action his own followers were reduced to ten, a
number which was soon diminished by the desertion of three
Carizmians. (D)!! He wandered in the desert with his wife,
seven companions, and four horses; and sixty-two days was he
plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence he escaped by
his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After
swimming the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus,
he led, during some months, the life of a vagrant and
outlaw, on the borders of the adjacent states. But his fame
shone brighter in adversity; he learned to distinguish the
friends of his person, the associates of his fortune, and to
apply the various characters of men for their advantage,
and, above all, for his own. On his return to his native
country, Timour was successively joined by the parties of
his confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desert;
nor can I refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity,
one of their fortunate encounters. He presented himself as
a guide to three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy
horse. "When their eyes fell upon me," says Timour, "they
were overwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from their
horses; and they came and kneeled; and they kissed my
stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and took each of
them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of the
first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with
gold, I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I
clothed in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and
the hour of prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we
mounted our horses, and came to my dwelling; and I collected
my people, and made a feast." His trusty bands were soon
increased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against
a superior foe; and, after some vicissitudes of war the
Getes were finally driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana.
He had done much for his own glory; but much remained to be
done, much art to be exerted, and some blood to be spilt,
before he could teach his equals to obey him as their
master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him
to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was
the best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and
jealous; but the policy of Timour, in their frequent
quarrels, exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice and
perfidy; and, after a final defeat, Houssein was slain by
some sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to
disobey the commands of their lord. (E) At the age of
thirty-four, (12) and in a general diet or couroultai, he was
invested with Imperial command, but he affected to revere
the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour reigned over
Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a private
officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom,
five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have
satisfied the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to
the dominion of the world; and before his death, the crown
of Zagatai was one of the twenty- seven crowns which he had
placed on his head. Without expatiating on the victories of
thirty-five campaigns; without describing the lines of
march, which he repeatedly traced over the continent of
Asia; I shall briefly represent his conquests in, I. Persia,
II. Tartary, and, III. India, (13) and from thence proceed to
the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.
I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor
or zeal, of right or convenience, may be readily found in
the jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Timour
reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries
of Carizme and Candahar, than he turned his eyes towards the
kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris,
that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign
since the death of Abousaid, the last of the descendants of
the great Holacou. Peace and justice had been banished from
the land above forty years; and the Mogul invader might seem
to listen to the cries of an oppressed people. Their petty
tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms: they
separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of
submission or the obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince
of Shirwan, or Albania, kissed the footstool of the Imperial
throne. His peace-offerings of silks, horses, and jewels,
were composed, according to the Tartar fashion, each article
of nine pieces; but a critical spectator observed, that
there were only eight slaves. "I myself am the ninth,"
replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for the remark; and his
flattery was rewarded by the smile of Timour. (14) Shah
Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was one of
the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In
a battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or
four thousand soldiers, the coul or main body of thirty
thousand horse, where the emperor fought in person. No more
than fourteen or fifteen guards remained near the standard
of Timour: he stood firm as a rock, and received on his
helmet two weighty strokes of a cimeter: (15) the Moguls
rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet; and he
declared his esteem of the valor of a foe, by extirpating
all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his
troops advanced to the Persian Gulf; and the richness and
weakness of Ormuz (16) were displayed in an annual tribute of
six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer
the city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest
conquest of Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious
successor. The whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates,
from the mouth to the sources of those rivers, was reduced
to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and the Turkmans of the
black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious pillage of a
caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the native
Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet, by
three expeditions he obtained the merit of the gazie, or
holy war; and the prince of Teflis became his proselyte and
friend.
II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of
Turkestan, or the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour
could not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the
Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and marched seven
times into the heart of their country. His most distant
camp was two months' journey, or four hundred and eighty
leagues to the north-east of Samarcand; and his emirs, who
traversed the River Irtish, engraved in the forests of
Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits. The conquest of
Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, (17) was founded on the
double motive of aiding the distressed, and chastising the
ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained
and protected in his court: the ambassadors of Auruss Khan
were dismissed with a haughty denial, and followed on the
same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success
established Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North.
But, after a reign of ten years, the new khan forgot the
merits and the strength of his benefactor; the base usurper,
as he deemed him, of the sacred rights of the house of
Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he entered Persia at
the head of ninety thousand horse: with the innumerable
forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed
the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him,
amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his
life. After a mild expostulation, and a glorious victory,
the emperor resolved on revenge; and by the east, and the
west, of the Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak
with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured
from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months,
they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily
subsistence was often trusted to the fortune of the chase.
At length the armies encountered each other; but the
treachery of the standard-bearer, who, in the heat of
action, reversed the Imperial standard of Kipzak, determined
the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I peak the
language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi to
the wind of desolation. (18) He fled to the Christian duke of
Lithuania; again returned to the banks of the Volga; and,
after fifteen battles with a domestic rival, at last
perished in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying
enemy carried Timour into the tributary provinces of Russia:
a duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the
ruins of his capital; and Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance
of the Orientals, might easily be confounded with the
genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow trembled at the
approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would have been
feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a
miraculous image of the Virgin, to whose protection they
ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror.
Ambition and prudence recalled him to the South, the
desolate country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers were
enriched with an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of
Antioch, (19) and of ingots of gold and silver. (20) On the
banks of the Don, or Tanais, he received an humble
deputation from the consuls and merchants of Egypt, (21)
Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who occupied the
commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the
river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence,
and trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an
emir, who explored the state of the magazines and harbor,
was speedily followed by the destructive presence of the
Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes; the Moslems were
pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians, who had not
fled to their ships, were condemned either to death or
slavery. (22) Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of
Serai and Astrachan, the monuments of rising civilization;
and his vanity proclaimed, that he had penetrated to the
region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon, which
authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the
obligation of evening prayer. (23)
III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs
the invasion of India or Hindostan, (24) he was answered by a
murmur of discontent: "The rivers! and the mountains and
deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor! and the elephants,
destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the emperor was
more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior
reason was convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous
aspect was safe and easy in the execution. He was informed
by his spies of the weakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the
soubahs of the provinces had erected the standard of
rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan Mahmoud was
despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army moved in
three great divisions; and Timour observes with pleasure,
that the ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most
fortunately corresponded with the ninety-two names or
epithets of the prophet Mahomet. (F) Between the Jihoon and
the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains, which
are styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of
the Earth. The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated;
but great numbers of men and horses perished in the snow;
the emperor himself was let down a precipice on a portable
scaffold - the ropes were one hundred and fifty cubits in
length; and before he could reach the bottom, this dangerous
operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed the Indus
at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively
traversed, in the footsteps of Alexander, the Punjab, or
five rivers, (25) that fall into the master stream. From
Attok to Delhi, the high road measures no more than six
hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to the
south-east; and the motive of Timour was to join his
grandson, who had achieved by his command the conquest of
Moultan. On the eastern bank of the Hyphasis, on the edge
of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and wept: the
Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir,
and stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and
flourishing city, which had subsisted three centuries under
the dominion of the Mahometan kings. (G) The siege, more
especially of the castle, might have been a work of time;
but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultan
Mahmoud and his vizier 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 Moguls 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. Timour made his triumphal entry
into the capital of Hindostan; 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. (H) In this pious design, he advanced one
hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges,
fought several battles by land and water, and penetrated to
the famous rock of Coupele, the statue of the cow, that
seems to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far
distant among the mountains of Thibet. (26) 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 Hindoos.
It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour 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 Samarcand, he
proclaimed a new expedition of seven years into the western
countries of Asia. (27) 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 Timour: 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 Mogul 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. The resemblance of character was still more
dangerous than the opposition of interest; and in their
victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and
Bajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle (28)
of the Mogul emperor must have provoked, instead of
reconciling, the Turkish sultan, whose family and nation he
affected to despise. (29) "Dost thou not know, that the
greatest part of Asia is subject to our arms and our laws?
that our invincible forces extend from one sea to the other?
that the potentates of the earth form a line before our
gate? and that we have compelled Fortune herself to watch
over the prosperity of our empire. What is the foundation
of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast fought some battles in
the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast
obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy
sword was blessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience
to the precept of the Koran, in waging war against the
infidels, is the sole consideration that prevents us from
destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark of the
Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert
the thunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over
thy head. Thou art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou
seek to provoke the elephants? Alas! they will trample thee
under their feet." In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the
indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual
contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the
thief and rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his
boasted victories in Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and
labors to prove, that Timour had never triumphed unless by
his own perfidy and the vices of his foes. "Thy armies are
innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of the
flying Tartar against the cimeters and battle-axes of my
firm and invincible Janizaries? I will guard the princes who
have implored my protection: seek them in my tents. The
cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum are mine; and unless the
tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears under the
walls of Tauris and Sultania." The ungovernable rage of the
sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more
domestic kind. "If I fly from thy arms," said he, "may my
wives be thrice divorced from my bed: but if thou hast not
courage to meet me in the field, mayest thou again receive
thy wives after they have thrice endured the embraces of a
stranger." (30) Any violation by word or deed of the secrecy
of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkish
nations; (31) and the political quarrel of the two monarchs
was imbittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in
his first expedition, Timour was satisfied with the siege
and destruction of Siwas or Sebaste, a strong city on the
borders of Anatolia; and he revenged the indiscretion of the
Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand Armenians, who were
buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of their
duty. (I) As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious
occupation of Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade
of Constantinople; and after this salutary lesson, the Mogul
conqueror checked his pursuit, and turned aside to the
invasion of Syria and Egypt. In these transactions, the
Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and even by Timour, is
styled the Kaissar of Roum, the Caesar of the Romans; a
title which, by a small anticipation, might be given to a
monarch who possessed the provinces, and threatened the
city, of the successors of Constantine. (32)
The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in
Egypt and Syria: but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown
by that of the Circassians; (33) and their favorite Barkok,
from a slave and a prisoner, was raised and restored to the
throne. In the midst of rebellion and discord, he braved
the menaces, corresponded with the enemies, and detained the
ambassadors, of the Mogul, who patiently expected his
decease, to revenge the crimes of the father on the feeble
reign of his son Farage. The Syrian emirs (34) were
assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion: they confided in
the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, 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. Timour'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 Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a
short defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of
Aleppo, was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among
the suppliants and captives, Timour distinguished the
doctors of the law, whom he invited to the dangerous honor
of a personal conference. (35) The Mogul prince was a zealous
Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him to revere
the memory of Ali and Hosein; 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 Bochara,
Samarcand, 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 cadhis 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 cadhi. "Fifty years." - "It would be the age
of my eldest son: you see me here (continued Timour) a poor
lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arm has the Almighty been
pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran, Touran, 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 reechoed 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 Moguls 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 Mamalukes to escape with precipitation and
shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by their prince,
the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their walls; and
Timour 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. A family which had given honorable burial to the
head of Hosein, and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to
labor at Samarcand, were alone reserved in the general
massacre, and 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 Timour 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 Mogul hero; but I shall briefly
mention, (36) that he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a
pyramid of ninety thousand heads; again visited Georgia;
encamped on the banks of 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; (37) 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. (38) In the pillage of Syria,
the Moguls 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 Mogul arms, Bajazet had two
years to collect his forces for a more serious encounter.
They consisted of four hundred thousand horse and foot, (39)
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 Timour, and a colony of Tartars, whom he had
driven from Kipzak, 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 Suvas. In the
mean while, Timour 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
Caesarea; 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; (40) 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 Timour
and the shame of Bajazet. For this signal victory the Mogul
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,
(41) 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 forwards 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. (42) 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 Timour. The
conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line of
elephants, the trophies, rather than the instruments, of
victory; the use of the Greek fire was familiar to the
Moguls 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. (43) 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 (J) had provoked a mutiny among
the Turks; and even his son Soliman 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 Timour; (44) 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 Mogul 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 Boursa, 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 Soliman, 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 Boursa, the grandson of Timour
advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and flourishing city; and
the Mogul 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 carracks, 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 Timour, in fourteen days,
had reduced a fortress which had sustained seven years the
siege, or at least the blockade, of Bajazet. (45)
The iron cage in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane,
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. (46) They appeal with confidence to the
Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, 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 Timour informed that
the captive Ottoman was at the door of his tent, than he
graciously stepped forwards 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 Mousa, 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 Boursa, Timour 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 Mogul 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 his
promise was disappointed by the sultan's untimely death:
amidst the care of the most skilful physicians, he expired
of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of Pisidia, 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 Boursa; and his son
Mousa, 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; (47) 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; (48) 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,
some of whom shall be produced in the order of their time
and country. 1. The reader has not forgot the garrison of
French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind him for the
defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to receive
the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the overthrow
of their great adversary; and it is more than probable, that
some of them accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of
Tamerlane. From their account, the hardships of the prison
and death of Bajazet are affirmed by the marshal's servant
and historian, within the distance of seven years. (49) 2.
The name of Poggius the Italian (50) is deservedly famous
among the revivers of learning in the fifteenth century. His
elegant dialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune (51) was
composed in his fiftieth year, twenty-eight years after the
Turkish victory of Tamerlane; (52) whom he celebrates as not
inferior to the illustrious Barbarians of antiquity. Of his
exploits and discipline Poggius was informed by several
ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite
to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian
confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a
spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two Italian
chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date, which would prove at
least that the same story, whether false or true, was
imported into Europe with the first tidings of the
revolution. (53) 3. At the time when Poggius flourished at
Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah composed at Damascus the florid and
malevolent history of Timour, for which he had collected
materials in his journeys over Turkey and Tartary. (54)
Without any possible correspondence between the Latin and
the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron cage;
and their agreement is a striking proof of their common
veracity. Ahmed Arabshah likewise relates another outrage,
which Bajazet endured, of a more domestic and tender nature.
His indiscreet mention of women and divorces was deeply
resented by the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the
wine was served by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld
his own concubines and wives confounded among the slaves,
and exposed without a veil to the eyes of intemperance. To
escape a similar indignity, it is said that his successors,
except in a single instance, have abstained from legitimate
nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and belief, at least in
the sixteenth century, is asserted by the observing
Busbequius, (55) ambassador from the court of Vienna to the
great Soliman. 4. Such is the separation of language, that
the testimony of a Greek is not less independent than that
of a Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of Chalcondyles
and Ducas, who flourished in the latter period, and who
speak in a less positive tone; but more attention is due to
George Phranza, (56) protovestiare of the last emperors, and
who was born a year before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two
years after that event, he was sent ambassador to Amurath
the Second; and the historian might converse with some
veteran Janizaries, who had been made prisoners with the
sultan, and had themselves seen him in his iron cage. 5.
The last evidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish
annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by
Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. (57) They unanimously
deplore the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit may
be allowed to national historians, who cannot stigmatize the
Tartar without uncovering the shame of their king and
country.
From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion
may be deduced. 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; the complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian
princes, were just and vehement; and Timour betrayed a
design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarcand.
An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under
the tent, provoked the Mogul 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. Timour had read in some fabulous
history a similar treatment of one of his predecessors, a
king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned to represent the
person, and expiate the guilt, of the Roman Caesar (58) (K)
But the strength of his mind and body fainted under the
trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be
ascribed to the severity of Timour. He warred not with the
dead: a tear and a sepulchre were all that he could bestow
on a captive who was delivered from his power; and if Mousa,
the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins of
Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia had
been restored by the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.
From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the
Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand
of Timour: 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; (59) and the lord of so many
tomans, or myriads, of horse, was not master of a single
galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus 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 Timour 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. Soliman, 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 (60) (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 Mogul 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 Timour; and a rare gift of a giraffe, or
camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the
tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less
astonished by the portrait of a Mogul, who, in his camp
before Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the
invasion of the Chinese empire. (61) Timour was urged to this
enterprise by national honor and religious zeal. The
torrents which he had shed of Mussulman blood could be
expiated only by an equal destruction of the infidels; and
as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best
secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of
China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the
profession of faith in one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The
recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was an insult on the
Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire afforded the
fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou,
founder of the dynasty of Ming, died four years before the
battle of Angora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate
youth, was burnt in his palace, after a million of Chinese
had perished in the civil war. (62) Before he evacuated
Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon a numerous
army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to open
the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to
found cities and magazines in the desert; and, by the
diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map
and description of the unknown regions, from the source of
the Irtish to the wall of China. During these 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 Samarcand, (63) 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. The
marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons was esteemed an
act of religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and the
pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials.
They were celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated
with innumerable tents and pavilions, which displayed the
luxury of a great city and the spoils of a victorious camp.
Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens;
the plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of
every liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously
invited: the orders of the state, and the nations of the
earth, were marshalled at the royal banquet; nor were the
ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian) excluded
from the feast; since even the casses, the smallest of fish,
find their place in the ocean. (64) The public joy was
testified by illuminations and masquerades; the trades of
Samarcand passed in review; and every trade was emulous to
execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with
the materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage
contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms
and their brides retired to the nuptial chambers: nine
times, according to the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed
and undressed; and at each change of apparel, pearls and
rubies were showered on their heads, and contemptuously
abandoned to their attendants. 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 Timour may remark, that, after devoting
fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy
period of his life were the two months in which he ceased to
exercise his power. But he was 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 Touran: 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 Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age,
nor the severity of the winter, could retard the impatience
of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon 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, 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 Pekin. (65)
The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his
posterity is still invested with the Imperial title; and the
admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a
deity, may be justified in some degree by the praise or
confession of his bitterest enemies. (66) Although he was
lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not
unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential
to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance
and exercise. In his familiar discourse he was grave and
modest, and if he was ignorant of the Arabic language, he
spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish
idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on
topics of history and science; and the amusement of his
leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or
corrupted with new refinements. (67) In his religion he was a
zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; (68) but
his sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a
superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints
and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of
policy. In the government of a vast empire, he stood alone
and absolute, without a rebel to oppose his power, a
favorite to seduce his affections, or a minister to mislead
his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that whatever might
be the consequence, the word of the prince should never be
disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously
observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were
more strictly executed than those of beneficence and favor.
His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty
at his decease, were his first and most submissive subjects;
and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were
corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the
bastinade, and afterwards restored to honor and command.
Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social virtues;
perhaps he was not incapable of loving his friends and
pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded
on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud
the wisdom of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is
not impoverished, and for the justice by which he is
strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony of
authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect
the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and
idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and
merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to
cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage industry
and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to
increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are
indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of
these duties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense.
Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the throne,
Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his
prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might
carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was
his confidence of merit, that from this reformation he
derived an excuse for his victories, and a title to
universal dominion. The four following observations will
serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and
perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather
the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If some
partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by
the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than
the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the
petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but
whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the
reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing
cities was often marked by his abominable trophies, by
columns, or pyramids, of human heads. Astracan, Carizme,
Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna,
and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly
destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps
his conscience would have been startled, if a priest or
philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom
he had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order.
(69) 2. His most destructive wars were rather inroads than
conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan,
Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a
desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he
departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither
troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect
the obedient, natives. When he had broken the fabric of
their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils
which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these
evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. 3.
The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field
which he labored to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual
inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labors were
often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of
the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the
Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master
and their duty. The public and private injuries were poorly
redressed by the tardy rigor of inquiry and punishment; and
we must be content to praise the Institutions of Timour, as
the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever
might be the blessings of his administration, they
evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern,
was the ambition of his children and grandchildren; (70) the
enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the
empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest
son; but after his decease, the scene was again involved in
darkness and blood; and before the end of a century,
Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the
north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The
race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his
descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the
Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors
(the great Moguls (71)) extended their sway from the
mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to
the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their
empire had been dissolved; their treasures of Delhi have
been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest of their
kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian
merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The
massy trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the
hurricane pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and
more lively vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had
evacuated Anatolia, he left the cities without a palace, a
treasure, or a king. The open country was overspread with
hordes of shepherds and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin;
the recent conquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs,
one of whom, in base revenge, demolished his sepulchre; and
his five sons were eager, by civil discord, to consume the
remnant of their patrimony. I shall enumerate their names
in the order of their age and actions. (72) 1. It is
doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true Mustapha,
or of an impostor who personated that lost prince. He
fought by his father's side in the battle of Angora: but
when the captive sultan was permitted to inquire for his
children, Mousa alone could be found; and the Turkish
historians, the slaves of the triumphant faction, are
persuaded that his brother was confounded among the slain.
If Mustapha escaped from that disastrous field, he was
concealed twelve years from his friends and enemies; till he
emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerous party, as
the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would
have been his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha
been saved by the Greeks, and restored, after the decease of
his brother Mahomet, to liberty and empire. A degenerate
mind seemed to argue his spurious birth; and if, on the
throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottoman sultan,
his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet,
delivered the impostor to popular contempt. A similar
character and claim was asserted by several rival
pretenders: thirty persons are said to have suffered under
the name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions may
perhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly
secure of the death of the lawful prince. 2. After his
father's captivity, Isa (73) reigned for some time in the
neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, and the Black Sea; and his
ambassadors were dismissed from the presence of Timour with
fair promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soon
deprived of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the
sovereign of Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious
allusion, that the law of Moses and Jesus, of Isa and Mousa,
had been abrogated by the greater Mahomet. 3. Soliman is
not numbered in the list of the Turkish emperors: yet he
checked the victorious progress of the Moguls; and after
their departure, united for a while the thrones of
Adrianople and Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and
fortuntae; his courage was softened by clemency; but it was
likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by
intemperance and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of
discipline, in a government where either the subject or the
sovereign must continually tremble: his vices alienated the
chiefs of the army and the law; and his daily drunkenness,
so contemptible in a prince and a man, was doubly odious in
a disciple of the prophet. In the slumber of intoxication
he was surprised by his brother Mousa; and as he fled from
Adrianople towards the Byzantine capital, Soliman was
overtaken and slain in a bath, (L) after a reign of seven
years and ten months. 4. The investiture of Mousa degraded
him as the slave of the Moguls: his tributary kingdom of
Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor could his
broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and
veteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in
disguise from the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis
in an open boat; wandered over the Walachian and Servian
hills; and after some vain attempts, ascended the throne of
Adrianople, so recently stained with the blood of Soliman.
In a reign of three years and a half, his troops were
victorious against the Christians of Hungary and the Morea;
but Mousa was ruined by his timorous disposition and
unseasonable clemency. After resigning the sovereignty of
Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy of his ministers,
and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet. 5. The
final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his
prudence and moderation. Before his father's captivity, the
royal youth had been intrusted with the government of
Amasia, thirty days' journey from Constantinople, and the
Turkish frontier against the Christians of Trebizond and
Georgia. The castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemed
impregnable; and the city of Amasia, (74) which is equally
divided by the River Iris, rises on either side in the form
of an amphitheatre, and represents on a smaller scale the
image of Bagdad. In his rapid career, Timour appears to
have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle of
Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror,
maintained his silent independence, and chased from the
province the last stragglers of the Tartar host. (M) He
relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhood of Isa; but
in the contests of their more powerful brethren his firm
neutrality was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa,
he stood forth the heir and avenger of the unfortunate
Soliman. Mahomet obtained Anatolia by treaty, and Romania
by arms; and the soldier who presented him with the head of
Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of his king and
country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign
were usefully employed in banishing the vices of civil
discord, and restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of the
Ottoman monarchy. His last care was the choice of two
viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, (75) who might guide the youth
of his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence,
that they concealed above forty days the emperor's death,
till the arrival of his successor in the palace of Boursa.
A new war was kindled in Europe by the prince, or impostor,
Mustapha; the first vizier lost his army and his head; but
the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family are still
revered, extinguished the last pretender to the throne of
Bajazet, and closed the scene of domestic hostility.
In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of
the nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the
empire; and Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by
private ambition, were animated by a strong and invincible
tendency of cohesion. Their efforts might have instructed
the Christian powers; and had they occupied, with a
confederate fleet, the Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans,
at least in Europe, must have been speedily annihilated.
But the schism of the West, and the factions and wars of
France and England, diverted the Latins from this generous
enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite, without a
thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary
interest to serve the common enemy of their religion. A
colony of Genoese, (76) which had been planted at Phocaea (77)
on the Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly
of alum; (78) and their tranquillity, under the Turkish
empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In
the last civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor,
Adorno, a bold and ambitious youth, embraced the party of
Amurath; and undertook, with seven stout galleys, to
transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan and five
hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship; which
was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life
and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without
reluctance, applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the
midst of the passage, knelt before him, and gratefully
accepted a discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed
in sight of Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians,
armed with lances and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the
conquest of Adrianople; and this venal service was soon
repaid by the ruin of the commerce and colony of Phocaea.
If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the
relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the
praise and gratitude of the Christians. (79) But a Mussulman,
who carried into Georgia the sword of persecution, and
respected the holy warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to
pity or succor the idolaters of Europe. The Tartar followed
the impulse of ambition; and the deliverance of
Constantinople was the accidental consequence. When Manuel
abdicated the government, it was his prayer, rather than his
hope, that the ruin of the church and state might be delayed
beyond his unhappy days; and after his return from a western
pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news of the sad
catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and rejoiced by
the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and the
captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel (80) immediately sailed
from Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of
Constantinople, and dismissed his blind competitor to an
easy exile in the Isle of Lesbos. The ambassadors of the
son of Bajazet were soon introduced to his presence; but
their pride was fallen, their tone was modest: they were
awed by the just apprehension, lest the Greeks should open
to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman saluted the
emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands the
government or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his
favor by inviolable friendship, and the restitution of
Thessalonica, with the most important places along the
Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of
Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of
Mousa: the Turks appeared in arms before the gates of
Constantinople; but they were repulsed by sea and land; and
unless the city was guarded by some foreign mercenaries, the
Greeks must have wondered at their own triumph. But,
instead of prolonging the division of the Ottoman powers,
the policy or passion of Manuel was tempted to assist the
most formidable of the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a
treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by the
insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops
were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably
entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the
first step to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was
suspended by the prudence and moderation of the conqueror:
he faithfully discharged his own obligations and those of
Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude and peace; and left
the emperor guardian of his two younger sons, in the vain
hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their
brother Amurath. But the execution of his last testament
would have offended the national honor and religion; and the
divan unanimously pronounced, that the royal youths should
never be abandoned to the custody and education of a
Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were
divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the
presumption of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous
weapon of revenge, by dismissing the true or false Mustapha,
who had long been detained as a captive and hostage, and for
whose maintenance they received an annual pension of three
hundred thousand aspers. (81) At the door of his prison,
Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of
Gallipoli, or rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price
of his deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the
throne of Romania, than he dismissed the Greek ambassadors
with a smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that,
at the day of judgment, he would rather answer for the
violation of an oath, than for the surrender of a Mussulman
city into the hands of the infidels. The emperor was at once
the enemy of the two rivals; from whom he had sustained, and
to whom he had offered, an injury; and the victory of
Amurath was followed, in the ensuing spring, by the siege of
Constantinople. (82)
The religious merit of subduing the city of the Caesars
attracted from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to
the crown of martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by
the promise of rich spoils and beautiful females; and the
sultan's ambition was consecrated by the presence and
prediction of Seid Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, (83)
who arrived in the camp, on a mule, with a venerable train
of five hundred disciples. But he might blush, if a fanatic
could blush, at the failure of his assurances. The strength
of the walls resisted an army of two hundred thousand Turks;
their assaults were repelled by the sallies of the Greeks
and their foreign mercenaries; the old resources of defence
were opposed to the new engines of attack; and the
enthusiasm of the dervis, who was snatched to heaven in
visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the
credulity of the Christians, who beheld the Virgin Mary, in
a violet garment, walking on the rampart and animating their
courage. (84) After a siege of two months, Amurath was
recalled to Boursa by a domestic revolt, which had been
kindled by Greek treachery, and was soon extinguished by the
death of a guiltless brother. While he led his Janizaries to
new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine empire was
indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty
years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palaeologus was
permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred
thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he
held beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire,
the first merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal
qualities of the sultans; since, in human life, the most
important scenes will depend on the character of a single
actor. By some shades of wisdom and virtue, they may be
discriminated from each other; but, except in a single
instance, a period of nine reigns, and two hundred and
sixty-five years, is occupied, from the elevation of Othman
to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike and
active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience
and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful
luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated
in the council and the field: from early youth they were
intrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and
armies; and this manly institution, which was often
productive of civil war, must have essentially contributed
to the discipline and vigor of the monarchy. The Ottomans
cannot style themselves, like the Arabian caliphs, the
descendants or successors of the apostle of God; and the
kindred which they claim with the Tartar khans of the house
of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery rather than in
truth. (85) Their origin is obscure; but their sacred and
indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no violence
can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the
minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be
deposed and strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an
infant or an idiot: nor has the most daring rebel presumed
to ascend the throne of his lawful sovereign. (86)
While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually
subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious
general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been
confirmed by the practice of five centuries, and is now
incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation.
To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and
singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive
subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of
wandering Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the
Oxus to the Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still
covered with the white and black tents of their rustic
brethren. But this original drop was dissolved in the mass
of voluntary and vanquished subjects, who, under the name of
Turks, are united by the common ties of religion, language,
and manners. In the cities, from Erzeroum to Belgrade, that
national appellation is common to all the Moslems, the first
and most honorable inhabitants; but they have abandoned, at
least in Romania, the villages, and the cultivation of the
land, to the Christian peasants. In the vigorous age of the
Ottoman government, the Turks were themselves excluded from
all civil and military honors; and a servile class, an
artificial people, was raised by the discipline of education
to obey, to conquer, and to command. (87) From the time of
Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans were persuaded
that a government of the sword must be renewed in each
generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be
sought, not in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and
warlike natives of Europe. The provinces of Thrace,
Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia, became the
perpetual seminary of the Turkish army; and when the royal
fifth of the captives was diminished by conquest, an inhuman
tax of the fifth child, or of every fifth year, was
rigorously levied on the Christian families. At the age of
twelve or fourteen years, the most robust youths were torn
from their parents; their names were enrolled in a book; and
from that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained,
for the public service. According to the promise of their
appearance, they were selected for the royal schools of
Boursa, Pera, and Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the
bashaws, or dispersed in the houses of the Anatolian
peasantry. It was the first care of their masters to
instruct them in the Turkish language: their bodies were
exercised by every labor that could fortify their strength;
they learned to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the
bow, and afterwards with the musket; till they were drafted
into the chambers and companies of the Janizaries, and
severely trained in the military or monastic discipline of
the order. The youths most conspicuous for birth, talents,
and beauty, were admitted into the inferior class of
Agiamoglans, or the more liberal rank of Ichoglans, of whom
the former were attached to the palace, and the latter to
the person, of the prince. In four successive schools,
under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of horsemanship
and of darting the javelin were their daily exercise, while
those of a more studious cast applied themselves to the
study of the Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and
Persian tongues. As they advanced in seniority and merit,
they were gradually dismissed to military, civil, and even
ecclesiastical employments: the longer their stay, the
higher was their expectation; till, at a mature period, they
were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who stood
before the sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the
government of provinces and the first honors of the empire.
(88) Such a mode of institution was admirably adapted to the
form and spirit of a despotic monarchy. The ministers and
generals were, in the strictest sense, the slaves of the
emperor, to whose bounty they were indebted for their
instruction and support. When they left the seraglio, and
suffered their beards to grow as the symbol of
enfranchisement, they found themselves in an important
office, without faction or friendship, without parents and
without heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them
from the dust, and which, on the slightest displeasure,
could break in pieces these statues of glass, as they were
aptly termed by the Turkish proverb. (89) In the slow and
painful steps of education, their characters and talents
were unfolded to a discerning eye: the man, naked and alone,
was reduced to the standard of his personal merit; and, if
the sovereign had wisdom to choose, he possessed a pure and
boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman candidates were
trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of action; by
the habits of submission to those of command. A similar
spirit was diffused among the troops; and their silence and
sobriety, their patience and modesty, have extorted the
reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. (90) Nor can the
victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and
exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the
independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies,
the mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of
intemperance and disorder, which so long contaminated the
armies of Europe.
The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the
adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful
weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that would give
them a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a
weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had been made in
the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or
Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a
mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with
a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon
observed, that if the expansive force were compressed in a
strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be expelled with
irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise aera of
the invention and application of gunpowder (91) is involved
in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we may
clearly discern, that it was known before the middle of the
fourteenth century; and that before the end of the same, the
use of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was
familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and
England. (92) The priority of nations is of small account;
none could derive any exclusive benefit from their previous
or superior knowledge; and in the common improvement, they
stood on the same level of relative power and military
science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the secret
within the pale of the church; it was disclosed to the Turks
by the treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of
rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to
reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The Genoese,
who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his
preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his
cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople.
(93) The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the
general warfare of the age, the advantage was on their side,
who were most commonly the assailants: for a while the
proportion of the attack and defence was suspended; and this
thundering artillery was pointed against the walls and
towers which had been erected only to resist the less potent
engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of
gunpowder was communicated without reproach to the sultans
of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman power;
the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of Asia;
and the advantage of the European was confined to his easy
victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast
the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the
slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts
of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh
or weep at the folly of mankind.