Timur claimed descent from the grand vizier of Djagataï, son and successor of Djenghiz Khan. He came to the throne of Khorassan, with residence at Samarkand, in 1369. In thirty years, while Murad and Bayezid were winning an empire in the Balkan peninsula, Timur became master of the greater part of the Moslem world. Persia, Armenia, the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas, Russia from the Volga to the Don and Dnieper, Mesopotamia, the coasts of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, and western and northern India was his path of conquest.
After he had captured Sivas, Bayezid had not been able to curb the altogether natural impulse that led him into the valley of the Euphrates. In his way stood Kara-Yussuf, a Turcoman prince of Kharput, who was to be, after Timur’s death, the founder of the famous dynasty of the Black Sheep.[611] In 1399, Bayezid had put his son Soleiman, assisted by several of his ablest generals, in charge of an advance movement to the east. Sivas was the base of operations.
Kara-Yussuf, who had a claim upon Timur’s protection because he had guided him on his first expedition into Armenia, appealed to the Tartar court. Before Timur could remonstrate, Kara-Yussuf was captured by the Osmanlis. When Timur learned this, his anger was for the first time directed specifically against Bayezid. There were old complaints against Bayezid. The refugee emirs had not lived at his court for years without impressing upon Timur their woes and the injustice that had been done to them. But Timur was busy with other plans and other conquests. Bayezid’s former activities had not directly touched him.
In his memoirs, Timur records that he tried first to bring Bayezid to reason. ‘I wrote to him a letter of which this is the substance: Praise to God, master of heaven and earth, who has submitted to my authority several of the seven climates and who has allowed the potentates and masters of the world to bend their neck under my yoke. God have mercy upon his humble servant, who knows the limits which are prescribed for him and who does not cross them by a single step. All the world knows your origin, and it is not fitting for a man of your extraction to advance the foot of pride; for you will be able to throw yourself into the abyss of affliction and of misfortune: resist the suggestions of miserable counsellors.... Refrain from opening to confusion and to evils the door of your empire. Send me Kara-Yussuf: if not, by the coming together of our two armies all that is hidden under the veil of destiny will be uncovered to you.’[612]
Instead of paying attention to this letter, Bayezid deliberately committed another overt act by summoning Taharten, emir of Erzindjian, whom he knew to be a vassal of Timur, to appear at the Ottoman court, bringing his treasures with him! When Timur again remonstrated with Bayezid and reminded him of his duty ‘gently and like a friend’, Bayezid responded by summoning Timur to appear before him, and threatening to deprive him of his harem if he refused to come. In order to express his contempt for the Tartar conqueror, Bayezid placed his own name first in letters of gold, and Timur’s name underneath in small black letters.[613]
Why Bayezid took this tack in dealing with Timur is inexplicable. It is impossible to believe that he underrated the power of Timur. One can only suppose that his informants and advisers, to whom Timur alluded in the first warning to Bayezid, urged upon the Ottoman emir the improbability of a Tartar invasion of Asia Minor; for, even after the terrible lesson of 1400, when Bayezid had two years of respite, he took no steps to placate Timur or to prepare adequately against an invasion. He went on blindly to his doom, and displayed none of the consummate diplomatic and military skill that had made the first eight years of his reign among the most brilliant of all Ottoman history.
When Timur saw that Bayezid would not even treat with him, he took the field immediately. Soleiman sent an appeal to Bayezid, who was in Thessaly.[614] There was no response. With feverish haste, Soleiman attempted to put into condition the defences of Sivas, whose strong walls had been admirably constructed by the Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Kaïkobad
TIMUR’S INVASION OF ASIA MINOR