Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/181

SMYENA: TIMOUE'S CEUELTIES : HIS DEATH 147 Asia Minor. He went to Ephesus, and during the thirty- days he passed in that city his army ravaged the whole of the fertile country in its neighbourhood and in the valley of the Cayster. The cruelties committed by his horde would be incredible if they were not continually repeated during the course of Tartar and Turkish history. In fairness, it must also be said that the Ottoman Turks, although their history has been a long series of massacres, have rarely been guilty of the wantonness of cruelty which Greek and Turkish authors agree in attributing to the Tartar army. One example must suffice. The children of a town on which Timour was marching were sent out by their parents reciting verses from the Koran to ask for the generosity of their con- queror but co-religionist. On asking what the children were whining for, and being told that they were begging him to spare the town, he ordered his cavalry to ride through them and trample them out : an order that was forthwith obeyed. Timour, wearied with victories in the west, now deter- mined to leave Asia Minor and return to Samarcand. This resolution he carried out. He contemplated the invasion of China, but in the midst of his preparations died, in 1405, Death of after a reign of thirty-six years. Bajazed the Thunderbolt died at Aksheir two years earlier, and his son Mousa was permitted to transport his body to Brousa. 1 The battle of Angora gave the greatest check to the Ottoman power which it had yet received. Considering the number of men engaged and the complete victory obtained by Timour, one might have expected it to have been fruitful in more enduring consequences than it produced. But its immediate results, though not far-reaching, were important. The fourteen years' victorious career of the Thunderbolt was brought suddenly to an end. The empire of the Ottoman 1 I have relied for the account of the battle of Angora and the subsequent progress of Timour, mainly upon Von Hammer (vol. ii.), who is at his best in describing this period of Turkish history. The authorities are carefully given by him. Zinkeisen, in his History of the Turks, calls attention to the deterio- ration of the Ottoman armies during the reign of Bajazed, and attributes it to the profligacy of the sultan. l 2