Voldemort
02-06-05, 01:51 PM
...response to jennyratter's thread Who is your least favourite historical figure and why?
Tamerlane was the greatest political Central Asian. His reign from 1370 to 1405, initiated the most active period of Central Asian history. This period, thanks to the impetus imparted by him, was to last to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The name Tamerlane is the sixteenth century European form of the Turkish Timur or Temur-i-link, Temur the lame, a name given him because of a slight limp, variously explained by injury in an early battle or a tubercular infection. Tamerlane was a politician turned soldier. Inside Central Asia, he created a new kind of composite army, his impact on the surrounding homelands was that of an enemy, and his contribution to world history was to what may be called the global arsenal: a new pool of military technology on which all states increasingly drew. This pool remained in much the form left by Tamerlane till the transformations produced by the industrialized warfare of the nineteenth century. Tamerlane and Napoleon were essentially contemporaries.
Tamerlane was primarily a conqueror. Except for Alexander he conquered more than anyone else, more than Chinggis, and did a horrifying amount of destruction. Living in a harsh and grim century, the worst for civilization since the Dark Ages, he was himself perforce harsh and grim. Yet, unlike Chinggis, there was a gleam of enlightenment about him. Although illiterate, he promoted a form of culture which dominated the Islamic world for three centuries and influenced the European Renaissance....
Western Islam and Christendom
Tamerlane's campaign in the west was directed against two enemies: the Ottomans and the Mamluks. In Tamerlane's eyes, which of the two was the more significant? Here a distinction must be made between military and political priorities. In military terms, Tamerlane will have recognized that the Ottoman composite army was, potentially at least, the more dangerous opponent. Though Tamerlane had a high regard for its quality, the Mamluk army had not developed beyond the heavy cavalry, which had frustrated the Il-khanate, whereas the Ottomans, since Kossovo, combined Janissary infantry, Serbian knights, Anatolian spahis, and Turcoman light cavalry. Moreover, the Mamluk command was divided and irresolute, whereas the Ottoman leadership was centralized and Tamerlane regarded Bayezit as an excellent general. His first moves west therefore were directed against the Ottomans: the securing of his own rear area at Tabriz and in the winter pastures of Karabagh, the closing of the door to Bayezit through the occupation of Konia, Sivas and Samsun. In political terms, however, the Mamluks had the higher priority. For Tamerlane's grand design, Aleppo, the Western terminus of the central land route, was an essential part of his empire. So too was the land corridor from the Tigris to the sea, the old classical route from one Seleucia to the other. It was along this route that Tamerlane marched to take Aleppo in 1400, Damascus in January 1401 from the Mamluks, Baghdad in July from theJalayir sultans, before returning to the Anatolian front to defeat Bayezit at the battle of Ankara in July 1402. After Kanduzcha, Ankara was Tamerlane's greatest victory, but it was really won by manoeuvre before being won on the battlefield, when Tamerlane placed himself between the Ottomans and their base. Bayezit was an excellent general, but an essentially European one, and neither he nor his troops were used to the Asiatic war of movement conducted by Tamerlane. Clavijo reports that after Ankara, Tamerlane was expected to return to the attack on the Mamluks, but in fact, his main objectives accomplished, after a brief stay on the plains of Karabagh, he returned to the east to prepare the final campaign against China.
The impact of the campaign needs careful assessment. It is sometimes argued that the battle of Ankara deferred the fall of Constantinople for fifty years and saved Christendom from deeper penetration by an earlier and more dynamic Ottoman empire. The first argument may be accepted, though the loss of Anatolia might have led to more interest in Rumelia, but not the second. Ankara was a serious defeat for the Ottoman army and produced a leadership crisis, but nothing more. The strength of the Ottoman state lay not in any particular army or sultan, but in its institutions: the dyhasty, the kapikulari meritocracy, the devsirme career open to the talents, the Janissary infantry, the associated timariots. These were consolidated rather than subverted by Ankara. Moreover neither Constantinople nor Christendom generally, absorbed in schism and the Hundred Years War, used the respite from the Ottomans to strengthen themselves. From the Ottoman perspective, Ankara was a defaite sans landemain. Tamerlane would not have had it otherwise. He had no wish to to destroy the Ottoman state, and were it not for its threat to his flank in eastern Anatolia might not have fought it. In 1395 Tamerlane wrote to Bayezit, whom he addressed as the Sultan of Edirne, proposing a partition of the Golden Horde along the line of the Dnieper, i.e. a deflection of Ottoman interest to the north rather than to the east. In this the Great Amir may have perceived Ottoman interests more clearly than the sultan...
To be continued
Tamerlane was the greatest political Central Asian. His reign from 1370 to 1405, initiated the most active period of Central Asian history. This period, thanks to the impetus imparted by him, was to last to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The name Tamerlane is the sixteenth century European form of the Turkish Timur or Temur-i-link, Temur the lame, a name given him because of a slight limp, variously explained by injury in an early battle or a tubercular infection. Tamerlane was a politician turned soldier. Inside Central Asia, he created a new kind of composite army, his impact on the surrounding homelands was that of an enemy, and his contribution to world history was to what may be called the global arsenal: a new pool of military technology on which all states increasingly drew. This pool remained in much the form left by Tamerlane till the transformations produced by the industrialized warfare of the nineteenth century. Tamerlane and Napoleon were essentially contemporaries.
Tamerlane was primarily a conqueror. Except for Alexander he conquered more than anyone else, more than Chinggis, and did a horrifying amount of destruction. Living in a harsh and grim century, the worst for civilization since the Dark Ages, he was himself perforce harsh and grim. Yet, unlike Chinggis, there was a gleam of enlightenment about him. Although illiterate, he promoted a form of culture which dominated the Islamic world for three centuries and influenced the European Renaissance....
Western Islam and Christendom
Tamerlane's campaign in the west was directed against two enemies: the Ottomans and the Mamluks. In Tamerlane's eyes, which of the two was the more significant? Here a distinction must be made between military and political priorities. In military terms, Tamerlane will have recognized that the Ottoman composite army was, potentially at least, the more dangerous opponent. Though Tamerlane had a high regard for its quality, the Mamluk army had not developed beyond the heavy cavalry, which had frustrated the Il-khanate, whereas the Ottomans, since Kossovo, combined Janissary infantry, Serbian knights, Anatolian spahis, and Turcoman light cavalry. Moreover, the Mamluk command was divided and irresolute, whereas the Ottoman leadership was centralized and Tamerlane regarded Bayezit as an excellent general. His first moves west therefore were directed against the Ottomans: the securing of his own rear area at Tabriz and in the winter pastures of Karabagh, the closing of the door to Bayezit through the occupation of Konia, Sivas and Samsun. In political terms, however, the Mamluks had the higher priority. For Tamerlane's grand design, Aleppo, the Western terminus of the central land route, was an essential part of his empire. So too was the land corridor from the Tigris to the sea, the old classical route from one Seleucia to the other. It was along this route that Tamerlane marched to take Aleppo in 1400, Damascus in January 1401 from the Mamluks, Baghdad in July from theJalayir sultans, before returning to the Anatolian front to defeat Bayezit at the battle of Ankara in July 1402. After Kanduzcha, Ankara was Tamerlane's greatest victory, but it was really won by manoeuvre before being won on the battlefield, when Tamerlane placed himself between the Ottomans and their base. Bayezit was an excellent general, but an essentially European one, and neither he nor his troops were used to the Asiatic war of movement conducted by Tamerlane. Clavijo reports that after Ankara, Tamerlane was expected to return to the attack on the Mamluks, but in fact, his main objectives accomplished, after a brief stay on the plains of Karabagh, he returned to the east to prepare the final campaign against China.
The impact of the campaign needs careful assessment. It is sometimes argued that the battle of Ankara deferred the fall of Constantinople for fifty years and saved Christendom from deeper penetration by an earlier and more dynamic Ottoman empire. The first argument may be accepted, though the loss of Anatolia might have led to more interest in Rumelia, but not the second. Ankara was a serious defeat for the Ottoman army and produced a leadership crisis, but nothing more. The strength of the Ottoman state lay not in any particular army or sultan, but in its institutions: the dyhasty, the kapikulari meritocracy, the devsirme career open to the talents, the Janissary infantry, the associated timariots. These were consolidated rather than subverted by Ankara. Moreover neither Constantinople nor Christendom generally, absorbed in schism and the Hundred Years War, used the respite from the Ottomans to strengthen themselves. From the Ottoman perspective, Ankara was a defaite sans landemain. Tamerlane would not have had it otherwise. He had no wish to to destroy the Ottoman state, and were it not for its threat to his flank in eastern Anatolia might not have fought it. In 1395 Tamerlane wrote to Bayezit, whom he addressed as the Sultan of Edirne, proposing a partition of the Golden Horde along the line of the Dnieper, i.e. a deflection of Ottoman interest to the north rather than to the east. In this the Great Amir may have perceived Ottoman interests more clearly than the sultan...
To be continued