The Bane of the Middle East, Timur Tamerlane

History saw the rise of many, MANY, strong figures who turned the tide for nations, driven by their... well hubris, mostly. Unfortunately, many of these names have been lost, forgotten by history, because we focus so much of our attention on a select few. People like Amanirenas, Belisarius or even Baybar, deserve to stand beside Alexander, Nobunaga and Hannibal. This is why this posy will focus on the man who nearly brought down the Ottoman Empire, warlord turned emperor, Timur Tamerlane.

Timur’s upbringing is worthy of an epic fantasy story. Born in Transoxania, a territory south-east of the Aral Sea and between the Jaxartes and Oxus River, fate really stacked things against our man. His people were a minor nomadic tribe in part of the Barlas Confederation, subject to the Chagatai Kanate. Living in poverty, a young Tomur lived on petty theft to sustain himself and his family until he was shot by a shepherd in the leg. This injury would permanently cripple him, leaving him with a limp and giving him his moniker of The Lame. However, troubles were brewing, providing Timur with the opportunity to rise above his station. You see, it has now been a few years since the death of Genghis Khan and the fragmentation of his empire, and while the Northern Golden Horde and Eastern Yuan Dynasty fared fairly well, the southern Ilkhanate and central Chagatai Khanate weren’t so lucky. The former was completely destroyed by the Black Plague while the later saw a collapse of central authority and Truco-Mongol warlords carving their own thiefdoms.  

Timur started off as a mercenary, leading a band of seven warriors, he managed to gain control of his homeland by backing up the right people until he was undermined by nepotism. Fleeing to the mountains of modern-day Afghanistan, Timur used his vast linguistic skills, courtesy of his previous profession, and assembled a large host and took back Transoxania. Once he secured his small kingdom, Timur took the title of Emir, since the calling of Khan and Khalif were barred from him due to his birth, and went on to expand his real life. Proving himself an extraordinary commander, despite his handicap, he easily conquered the surrounding lands and extended his control all the way to the Caspian Sea. Once the body of water reached, he turned south toward the remnants of the Ilkhanate, now reduced to squabbling warlords. Taking a page out of Genghis Khan's book, Timur adopted a policy of surrender or annihilation. This proved quite effective as many large cities were conquered without raising a sword, Timur growing reputation as a merciless killer doing the work. His conquest would be put on holds from time to time due to conflicts with the Golden Horde, by far Timur’s greatest rivals at the time, and even inflicted on him his only known defeat at Tashkent. Timur tried to solve the issue by backing Tokhtamysh for control over the Horde, but this didn’t work and he was attacked once again while campaigning in Mesopotamia.

Having run out of patience, Timur gathered a mighty host and wadge a scorched earth campaign against the Mongols. Tokhtamysh, unable to stop his old allies, was deposed but the damage was done, and the Golden Horde would never recover from Timur’s invasion. After this little track, the Emir then turned his eyes toward the wealthiest nation on the planet, and the only one to have actually resisted Mongol Incursions, the Delhi Sultanate. Although the Sultanate wasn’t what it used to be, they remained a force to be recon with, but fortunately for Timur he was up to the task.  The Indians, despite their best efforts, were unable to stop Timur’s advance, leading to hundreds of thousands of people being put to the sword. One of Timur's favoured tactics was sending burning camels in the enemies' line, as the flame and scream of the animals sent the war elephants, fielded in large number buy the Sultanate, in a frenzy. The campaign would end with the sack of Delhi, making it the single most lucrative plundering in the life of the Emir, who returned with untold riches to his Samarkand. This would cause the fall of the Delhi Sultanate and pave the way to the Mughal Empire.

On this note, Timur proclaimed himself to the Sword of Islam, the devastation of his campaigns was such that he was called Prince of Destruction. This wasn’t helped by his brutal reprisal of revolting cities in Mesopotamia, which would make Vlad the Impaler smile.  

After his little trip in India, Timur turned his eyes West once again and readied his next incursion. This time his forces were aimed at the Mamluk Sultanate and growing ottoman Empire, with who he had not so friendly correspondences for a while. Now although the Empire wasn’t the powerhouse it would become, the Ottoman still were posing themselves as a dominant military force and were led by the energetic Bayezid I, also known as the Thunderbolt. In fact, the Sultan was on the verge of Conquering Constantinople when he received news of the herd of Timur’s invasion, leading him to drop the siege. The two rulers would clash at the battle of Ankara, where after a fierce battle the Ottomans were soundly defeated. Bayezid I was captured and would die sin captivity, although the how isn’t clear but knowing Timur it wasn’t pleasant. Beyond the death of their Sultan being already quite bad, Bayezid hadn’t named an official heir yet and the four sons who had escaped the disaster of Ankara quickly plunged the empire into a decades long civil war, the Ottoman Interregnum. This conflict went one for a decade, nearly destroying the growing nation and ended with the victory of Mehmed the first, grandfather of Mehmed the second who would go on and finish what Bayezid started at Constantinople. Meanwhile the Maluk were slightly luckier, as the Turco-Mongols raided mostly the Levant while focusing their efforts in Anatolia. However, they too would be left severely weakened, and the following instabilities caused by the attacks nearly ended the Sultanate until emir Shaykh regained control of the situation.

Back with Timur, the man didn’t stay idle for long and quickly set to what could have been his crowning jewel, the conquest of China. Now things had changed a lot here since his childhood, and the Yuan, mostly thanks to Kublai's inept descendants, had been overthrown by the Mings. Enlisting the aid of the remanent of the Chagatai Kanate and northern Mongol tribes to lead an assault on the Ming, preparing for a clash of epic proportion. And then he died to the Tibetan Winter, quite anticlimactic.  

Timur’s death would lead to the temporary fragmentation of his empire, but his son Shahrukh would bring back most of the pieces which would survive until 1507 when it was conquered by the Safavids.