ANST - FW: Musing on June 20 -- So Lovely in Angora

[j'lynn yeates]

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- -----Original Message-----
From: Ellsworth Weaver [mailto:astroweaver at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 07:56
To: 2thpix at surfari.net
Subject: Musing on June 20 -- So Lovely in Angora


Dear Folk,

On July 20, 1402, was fought a battle which decided the religious
fate
of Europe, the control of the Middle East and the area the NATO
recently bombed. It was fought by forces on one side commanded by a
man
nicknamed "Lightning" and on the other side led by a guy nicknamed
"The
Lame." Hard to know if the good guys won. This is the anniversary of
the Battle of Angora.

The Turks had taken most of what the Latin Eastern Empire called
Romania and were expanding into Europe. On St Vitus day, June 28,
1389,
Prince Lazarus was the supreme commander of the Christian army
fighting
against the Turkish Emperor Mourat, who attacked the Serbian lands.
Lazarus was assisted by his son-in-law Vuk and the Bosnian duke
Vlatko
Vukovich (gotta love these guys!) The Serbian army was defeated, and
Prince Lazarus, together with a great number of Serbian feudal lords,
were captured and killed. After the battle, the Turkish Sultan got
himself killed – okay, assassinated by a Serb. Now the Serbians still
celebrate this defeat because they at least got to whack the Turkish
bad-guy. Of course, Serbia as an independent nation then was
essentially wiped off the face of the earth.

Sultan Bayezid "The Lightning" (Yildirim Bayezid) Bayezid I became
the
next Sultan of the Turks in 1389. He was known as "The Lightning"
because of his studly behavior in battle. An example might serve:
During his sultanate a great army of Crusaders was gathered together
to
rout the Turks, reconquer Byzantium end seize Jerusalem. They were
besieging Nighbolou fortress near the Danube and Bayezid arrived to
lift the siege. One night he battled, alone, through the enemy troops
and reached the castle walls. Leaning casually against the wall he
shouted up at the ramparts. Hearing his voice Doghan Bey, the
Commander
of the Castle, hurriedly asked what was the matter. "I have come with
my army to relieve you," Bayezid replied. "Do not surrender!" He then
sped back to his headquarters and continued the fight. How’s that for
inspiring?!

Bayezid worked to expand his territory in Asia Minor. He essentially
claimed the whole of what is now Turkey. He seemed afraid of no one
and
nothing. There was only slight problems with his dreams of expansion,
that lame guy named Timur.

I have seen his name spelled Timor Lenk, Timurlane, the West called
him
Tamerlane. Anyway, he spelled trouble to any of his foes. A spiritual
descendant of Gengis Khan, this Mongol was set on restoring
ruthlessness and brutality to what had become a rather staid bunch of
very cultured, stay-at-home, Islamic guys.

Timur never took up a permanent residence anywhere. He personally led
his almost constantly campaigning forces, enduring extremes of desert
heat and lacerating cold. When not campaigning he moved with his army
according to season and grazing facilities. His court traveled with
him, including his household of one or more of his nine wives and
concubines. Is that a good thing? He thought so. He strove to make
his
capital, Samarkand, the most splendid city in Asia, but when he
visited
it he stayed only a few days and then moved back to the pavilions of
his encampment in the plains beyond the city.

Timur was, above all, master of the military techniques developed by
Genghis Khan, using every weapon in the military and diplomatic
armory
of the day. He never missed an opportunity to exploit the weakness
(political, economic, or military) of the adversary or to use
intrigue,
treachery, and alliance to serve his purposes. The man was a genius.
The seeds of victory were sown among the ranks of the enemy by his
agents before an engagement. His horsemen were taught to sing "The
Song
that Never Ends" in most excruciatingly high voices. He conducted
sophisticated negotiations with both neighboring and distant powers,
which are recorded in diplomatic archives from England to China. In
battle, the nomadic tactics of mobility and surprise were his major
weapons of attack.

He had been fighting up in Russia and had taken Moscow, spent a year
there just because he could, in 1395. While he was up there, his
southern lands started acting as though Timur would not come back.
Mistake.

In 1398 Timur invaded India. Well, it was just that the Muslim
sultans
of Delhi were showing excessive tolerance to their Hindu subjects.
Timur was a consecrated lad. Cannot blame a guy for practicing his
faith. He crossed the Indus River on September 24 and, leaving a
slippery trail of carnage, marched on Delhi. The army of the Delhi
sultan Mahmud Tughluq was destroyed at Panipat on December 17, and
Delhi was reduced to a mass of ruins, from which it took more than a
century to emerge. By April 1399 Timur was back in his own capital.
An
immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away; 90 captured elephants
were
put to work to carry stones from quarries to erect a mosque at
Samarkand. Allah be praised, it is good to be a Mongol!

Timur set out before the end of 1399 on his last great expedition, in
order to spank the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan
Bayezid I (remember Lightning) for their seizures of certain of his
territories. After restoring his "peace and prosperity" upon
Azerbaijan, he marched on Syria; Aleppo was stormed and was asked for
a
small donation for its "liberators" (sacked), the Mamluk army
defeated,
and Damascus occupied (1401). Damascus artisans, especially those who
worked in steel, were being corrupted and under-appreciated there.
Timur decided that they would by much safer in the capitol.  The
deportation of its artisans to Samarkand did deal a fatal blow to
Damascus prosperity. Sigh, well you just have to break a few eggs to
make an omelet.

In 1401 Baghdad was also taken by storm, 20,000 of its citizens went
to
meet their god, and all its monuments were destroyed. After wintering
in Georgia (just south of Atlanta), Timur invaded Anatolia (what we
call Turkey). It was outside of Angora -- the city we now call Ankara
- -- that the Lightning and the Lame met in that fateful clash.

Remember Prince Lazarus of Serbia? His son, Despot Stefan (1389-1427)
was an exceptional man; a man fit for his times. A dashing man of
war,
letters, and politics, he was the hero of the Battle of Angora, where
he fought as a Turkish vassal for Bayezid, the guy who helped kill
his
father. Not once, not twice but three times Stefan led charges
against
the Mongol host. The Mongols were justly famous for their light
mounted
archers. They won the day. Stefan survived, miraculously. Sultan
Bayezid was taken prisoner but died of "grief" after seven months
imprisonment. He was just 43 years old. His corpse was brought to
Bursa
and interred in his mausoleum.

As for Timur, after he destroyed the Turkish army, he went off to
capture Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. Having received offers of
submission from the sultan of Egypt (no fool, he) and from John VII
(then co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire with Manuel II Palaeologus),
Timur returned to home to Samarkand (1404) to change horses and to
prepare for an expedition to China. Hey, he was running out of folks
to
bring into the Greater Mongol Coprosperity Sphere. He got sick on the
way and died in February 1405. Nothing mammalian could have touched
him; it had to be microbial.

His body was embalmed, laid in an ebony coffin, and sent to
Samarkand,
where it was buried in the incredible tomb called Gur-e Amir. When
the
Russians opened Timur’s coffin in the 1940s, they found the corpse of
a
rather tall Mongol, well-built, but lame in both his right arm and
leg.
Just in case you thought he was being slammed with that name. His
sons
fought over the vast empire.

The Ottoman Turks took enough time to reorganize after Angora that
Europe finally realized the threat and stopped their advance. We
might
all have been Moslem today if that hadn’t happened.

What have we learned from this? A Mongol on the roof is quite a
daunting sight; it may not mean a thing but then, again, it might?
Archery is a great persuader? Two go in, one comes out? Pay your
taxes
and no one gets hurt? How about, if you ain’t got your health, you
got
nothing?

As always, if you forward these, please leave my name and sig intact.
Got some Mongol friends, myself.

Taking care of my health,
J.  Ellsworth Weaver

SCA—Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis
TRV – Sebastian Yeats


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