Battle of Ankara: Information from Answers.com

Battle of Ankara

Part of the Ottoman-Timurid wars

Date	July 20, 1402
Location	Çubuk field, near Ankara
Result	Decisive Timurid victory

Belligerents

Timurid Empire

Ottoman Empire

Commanders

Timur

Beyazid I
Stefan Lazarevic

Strength

140,000 men

85,000 men^[1]

65,000 Turks
5,000 to 10,000 Serbs^[2]^[3]

Casualties and losses

15,000-25,000 killed and wounded^{[citation needed]}

15,000-40,000 killed and wounded^{[citation needed]}

The Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora, fought on July 20, 1402, took place at the field of Çubuk (near Ankara) between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turko-Mongol forces of Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire.

1 Background
2 Forces
3 The battle
4 Aftermath
5 Notes
6 External links

Background

Timur was the most powerful Central Asian ruler since Genghis Khan. By long and relentless fighting, he sought to rehabilitate the Mongol Empire of his ancestors.

Timur had conquered Georgia and Azerbaijan in 1390, expanding his empire to the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The two powers soon came into direct conflict. Bayezid demanded tribute from one of the Turkish emirates who had pledged loyalty to Timur and threatened to invade. Timur interpreted this action as an insult to himself and in 1400 sacked the Ottoman city of Sebaste (modern Sivas). Beyazid was stung into furious action and when Timur invaded Anatolia from the east, Bayezid summoned his forces and confronted Timur's forces near Ankara. The conflict, overall, was the culmination of years of insulting letters exchanged between Timur and Bayezid.

Forces

This section requires expansion.

The armies were about equal in size. Even though some eyewitnesses reported over one million troops in Timur's horde, the real number is probably closer to 200,000. While Bayezid's army was approximately equal to Timur's, it was mainly composed of infantry and 5,000 to 10,000 Serbian heavy knights led by Despot Stefan Lazarevic.^[2]^[3]^[4] Timur's forces were almost entirely mounted with a few Indian war elephants.[1]

The battle

This section requires expansion.

Painting by Stanisław Chlebowski, Sultan Bayezid prisoned by Timur, 1878, depicting the capture of Bayezid by Timur.

The battle began with a large-scale attack from the Ottomans, countered by swarms of arrows from the Timurid horse archers. Several thousands were killed and many surrendered to Timur. During the battle the main water supply of both armies, Çubuk Creek, was diverted to an off-stream reservoir near the town of Çubuk by Timur, which left the Ottoman army with no water. The final battle took place at Catal hill, dominating the Çubuk valley. The Ottoman army, both thirsty and tired, was defeated, though Bayezid managed to escape to the nearby mountains with a few hundred horsemen. However, Timur had the mountains surrounded and, heavily outnumbering Bayezid, soon captured him. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Ottoman army was further weakened by the desertion of the Tatars and the Sipahis from the Anatolian Beyliks, who left Bayezid alone and joined Timur's forces.

Aftermath

European nations had, at first, encouraged the Timurid invasion and the Genoese were said to be flying the Mongol standard from the walls of Galata in support of Timur. However, after a few months following his destruction of the Ottoman power in Anatolia, fear of being the next target had gripped the European people.^{[citation needed]} Fearing the devil they knew to one they did not, Italian ships ferried the beaten Ottoman soldiers into Thrace to safety. At least one Muslim writer complained that, despite being Muslims, Timur's soldiers ravaged in Asia Minor like barbarians.

The Battle of Ankara had a temporary effect on the political ground of the Balkans, where at the time the Ottomans had the initiative. Because of the Timurid invasion, the siege of Constantinople was lifted and Ottoman troops were withdrawn from the Balkans to counter the new threat.

This event had split the Ottomans into factions since Bayezid's sons were still alive and free after he himself was captured. Most of the Ottoman Turks had fled into Europe. The result was a civil war among Bayezid's four sons. This temporary weakening of the Ottomans resulted in delaying the end of the Byzantine Empire and the eventual Ottoman conquest of Balkans.

Notes

^ David Nicolle & Angus McBride, Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300-1774, Osprey Publishing, p. 29 "...The size of the two armies are reliably estimated at 140,000 on Timur's side and no more than 85,000 under Sultan Bayezid I..."
^ ^a ^b Anzulović, Branimir (1999). Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York: New York University Press. p. 40. ISBN 0-8147-0671-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=iMD6Gcu-gfwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA40,M1.
^ ^a ^b Bury, J. B. (1923). The Cambridge Medieval History. vol. 4. Tanner, J. R., Previté-Orton, C.W., Brooke, Z. N. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 562.
^ Finkel, Caroline, Osman's Dream, (Basic Books, 2006), 28.

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