Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

Do you shudder at even this cool recital? Far worse horrors are still being endured by the Christian people of Armenia this very day on ground that is dyed with the blood of a thousand years of martyrdom. And still Christian Europe is unmoved; and the Turk, drunk with the blood of his victims still is propped up on his throne by the arms that should drive him back to the deserts of Tartary: and Christian America contents itself with trying by their relief funds to keep alive the starving remnants of this harried race whose cry to Christendom is “either kill us or in God’s name redeem us.”

As Timour took up again his march from desolated Siwas he dragged with cords along the stones of the road at the heels of his horse the head of the governor of Siwas, one of the sons of Bajazet who was then besieging Constantinople. Aroused by the danger that threatened him yet with a deep sadness caused by the death of his son which settled upon him as if in presentiment of his own fate, Bajazet raised the siege, called all his forces together to meet the bloody Conqueror of the East. Aleppo and Damascus meanwhile fell with terrible slaughter, and now on the plains not far from Siwas, Timour awaited the coming of Bajazet.

Tamerlane hesitated to engage in this battle with a race of his own blood, the champions of the faith of the Prophet, who were fighting like himself for the triumph of Islam. His envoys were disgracefully treated and his messages were answered with most haughty and insulting letters. “Thy armies” said Bajazet “are innumerable; be they so: but what are the arrows of the flying Tartars against the scimitars and battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janizaries?”

Then this deadly insult: “If I fly from thy arms, 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.”

On receiving this letter Timour exclaimed: “Decidedly the son of Mourad is mad.”

All day long Timour reviewed his troops of horse as the squadrons passed before him, then turning again to the envoy he made a last offer of peace, “Say to your master that he can still, in accepting my just and moderate conditions, spare the fatal dissension of two servants of the one God, and torrents of human blood to Asia.”

Bajazet was both deaf and blind to the advice of his viziers, his generals and the last message of Tamerlane; and was determined to meet with his army of four hundred thousand men which he had seen gathering for two years, the well trained army of eight hundred thousand men who were formed in nine divisions under the four sons and five favored grandsons of the greatest warrior of the world.

Never had the sun of Asia shed its light upon so vast a multitude of warriors gathered for so deadly a conflict on July 28, 1402. Timour brought forward only five hundred thousand of his choicest troops, horse and foot, yet they covered the amphitheater of the hills which arose behind the river in the basin to the north of Angora. He had most carefully chosen his field of battle and his position, and facing him was the vast army of Bajazet. All historians, Arabian, Greek and Ottoman agree that over one million men faced each other on this listed field. The situation added to the tragic majesty of the spectacle. The plain, the gradation of the hills and the rugged mountains of Angora made a circus worthy of these imperial gladiators of the two Asias.

Timour was stationed on an elevated mound whence he could survey the whole field, while behind him and out of sight from the enemy were forty divisions of select cavalry ready at the critical moment to strengthen any wavering squadrons, or to be hurled on the field to consummate the victory.

The first dawn of day upon the mountains of Angora illuminated those two armies in order of battle but motionless. But when the sun had dispelled the shade from the foot of the hills, at the rolling of drums of the Turks with the cry of Allah Achbar the army of Bajazet was put in motion. Soon the battle was on. The first charge of one wing of Tartar cavalry was broken by the immobility of the Servian mountaineers.