But this spirit of generosity quickly passed. Whether it was because Bayezid tried to escape or that Timur feared an attempt at rescue as he marched farther into Ottoman territory, Timur’s attitude soon changed. To break Bayezid’s spirit he began to mock him and treat him with contempt. He ordered him to be put in chains at night, and to be carried on the march in a litter with bars, which was nothing less than a cage.[635] At Brusa, Bayezid’s harem was taken from him. It has been recorded that Timur went so far as to use his unfortunate rival as a footstool for mounting his horse and at the table, and that Bayezid was compelled to witness the degradation of his wife, the Serbian princess Despina, who in a state of nudity served the Tartar conqueror with wine at his feasts.[636]
This disgraceful treatment, coupled with the fact that his sons made no attempt to bring another army to fight for their father’s freedom or even to ransom him, at last broke the spirit of Bayezid. For nine months he had been held up to ridicule in the Tartar army. He had seen his harem violated. He had seen Timur pass with ease from one portion of the Ottoman possessions in Asia to another. Smyrna, which he had never been able to attack, fell before the Tartars. The Turkish emirs whom he had dispossessed were settled again in their states. When Bayezid learned that he was to be taken to Konia, and then to Samarkand, his mind gave way. He died of apoplexy at Ak Sheïr.[637] Timur allowed Musa to take his father’s body to Brusa for burial.[638] He had by this time lost interest in the Osmanlis and Asia Minor, and was dreaming of new fields of conquest.
Bayezid died a victim not ‘to his destiny’, as the Ottoman historians put it, but to his vices, and to his abandonment of the policy of his predecessors, that assimilation should keep pace with territorial aggrandizement. There never need have been an Angora. Timur had no inclination to invade the Ottoman dominions. Bayezid goaded him into it. Even if the test of an Angora had been necessary, Bayezid would have sustained it and weathered the Tartar storm, had he been the same man he was at Nicopolis. In facing a Tartar invasion, the advantage was all on Bayezid’s side. He failed because his mental and physical faculties, which rivalled, if they did not surpass, those of any man of his age, had become impaired by a life of debauchery.
XVIII
After the victory at Angora, the Tartar hordes swept across Asia Minor. Timur sent his grandson, Mohammed-Sultan, in pursuit of Soleiman, who succeeded in escaping from Brusa just as the Tartar horsemen arrived at the gates of the city. The Tartars stabled their horses in the mosques, while the city was ransacked for its treasures and its young girls. Fire followed pillage.[639] The sons of Alaeddin of Karamania were set free, and Bayezid’s wives and daughters, with one exception, were sent to Timur, who had established his residence at Kutayia.
In the search for Soleiman, of whose movements he was in ignorance, Mohammed-Sultan sent soldiers north to Gemlik and Nicaea, and west to Mikhalitch and Karasi. These cities were pillaged, and their inhabitants reduced to slavery. When Mohammed-Sultan learned that Soleiman had escaped to Europe, he sent an embassy to him demanding unconditional surrender. There was no reply. The question of invading Europe was referred to Timur. In the meantime, the advance guard of the Tartars devastated the country which was the cradle of the Ottoman race, while their commander celebrated at Yeni Sheïr his marriage to the eldest daughter of Bayezid. Thus were united the families of Timur and his vanquished foe.[640]
Mohammed-Sultan went into winter quarters at Magnesia.[641] Timur left Kutayia in charge of Shah-Rokh, and moved on to Ephesus. He recalled the columns which had been devastating western Asia Minor, and concentrated his forces against Smyrna. What Bayezid had been unable to accomplish in seven years, Timur did in two weeks.[642] The assault of Smyrna was carried on with unceasing energy, and every possible measure was taken to bring it to a speedy conclusion. The walls were undermined, and bridges built out over the water in order that an attack might be made from the side of the sea. When the fortress which crowns the hill behind the city was entered from the land side, the chevaliers of Rhodes fought their way down to their galleys. With lance and sword and oar they beat off the despairing inhabitants who would have swamped their boats. All except a thousand succeeded in escaping. These were decapitated, and of their heads Timur built a pyramid to commemorate his victory.[643]
Timur returned to Ephesus. As he approached the city, children came out to meet him, singing songs to appease his wrath. ‘What is this noise?’ he asked. When his attendants told him, he ordered his horsemen to ride over the children. They were trampled to death.[644]
Smyrna fell in December, 1402. Timur spent the rest of the winter in Ephesus. He destroyed the work of Bayezid in Asia Minor by restoring to the deposed emirs or their heirs the emirates of Karamania, Tekke, Menteshe, Sarukhan, Aïdin, Kastemuni, and Erzindjian. When he saw that the sons of Bayezid were ready to quarrel about the succession of their father, he began to treat with Isa, Musa and Mohammed, encouraging in each the hope of recognition as sole heir. To Soleiman he sent a diploma, investing him with the Ottoman possessions in Europe as Tartar vassal.[645]
Timur enjoyed the position he had won of arbiter of the destinies of the Ottoman Empire. The princes of Europe were now seeking his favour more insistently than before Angora. Henry IV of England wrote to him most cordially, and expressed the hope that he would be converted and become the champion of Christianity.[646]