RELATIONS OF TREBIZOND WITH TIMOR. 453 A. D. relaxation of this order, for there is no doubt that he was not present at the battle of Angora. His dignity and 1400-1405. fame as a Christian emperor, and the deep detestation felt by all Christians against Bayezid, who had so often defeated the chivalry of the west, would have embalmed the name of Manuel in glory as a champion of a holy war, had he taken any part in the victory of Angora. We have too many accounts of that great battle, both by cotemporary Christians and Mohammedans, to leave any doubt on the subject. At the same time, the close political alliance that existed between Taharten, the emir of Arsinga, who was highly distinguished at the court of Timor, and his brother-in-law Manuel, would alone be sufficient to establish the impossibility of the wary Mongol having overlooked the importance of the empire of Trebizond. Indeed, so minute was Timor's attention to every circumstance that could contribute to aid his cause in the severe struggle he anticipated with the Othoman forces, that he resolved to distract the attention of Bayezid, and deprive him of succours from his European dominions, by attacking the flank and rear of the Turkish army. For this purpose he ordered a fleet to be assembled at Trebizond; and there exists proof of this in a letter of Timor, addressed to John Paleologos, the nephew of Manuel II., emperor of Constantinople, who governed the Byzantine empire while his uncle was begging assistance against the Turks in western Europe. This communication shows the importance attached by Timor to a naval diversion, in case of a prolonged campaign in the interior of Asia Minor. The letter is dated about two months before the battle of Angora. The Tartar monarch orders John Paleologos to prepare immediately twenty galleys, to unite with a fleet of the same number which the emperor of Trebizond was fitting out, and to hold them ready for further orders.1 It is true that no 1 This letter is given by Fallmerayer with his usual judicious observations, CHAP. IV. use was made of these fleets, and that Timor did not § 2. cross the Bosphorus and lay waste the Serai of Adrianople, nor enter the walls of Constantinople; but this must be attributed to the utter destruction of the Othoman forces at Angora, and to the disappearance of every trace of further resistance in every corner of the Othoman empire; not, as Gibbon supposes, because "an insuperable though narrow sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia, and the lord of so many tomans or myriads of horse was not master of a single galley." The reason was different. The same political views which made Timor disdain to visit Trebizond and Brusa led him to despise Adrianople and Constantinople. Timor ruled the world as the general of an army, not as the sovereign of a state. He was a nomad of surpassing genius, but he gloried in remaining a nomad. His camp was his residence, hunting was his favourite amusement, and, as long as he lived, he resolved that no city should relax the discipline of his invincible cuirassiers. In his eyes, wisdom and virtue existed only in tents; vice and folly were the constant denizens of walled cities and fixed dwellings. Before the battle of Angora, Timor had wisely prepared for a long war by calculating that all the resources of the immense empire of Bayezid would have been ably employed to resist the Tartars. But after the irreparable defeat of the sultan, and the Geschichte, 224. See also Muratori Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xxii. p. 806; Marini Sanuti Vite de Duchi di Venezia. Ascala, the principal minister of Timor, was well acquainted with the naval affairs of the Black Sea. He is said to have been born at Caffa, of Genoese origin. Silvestre de Sacy, Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. vi. 410, has published the correspondence of Timor with Charles VI. of France in 1403. He had previously written to the republics of Venice and Genoa, to incite them to attack Bayezid. 1 The army of Timor is usually represented by historians as so numerous, that common-sense tells us no such numbers could find food in the countries through which he marched. Its admirable discipline and the excellence of its equipments, the real causes of its success, are passed unnoticed. It was one of the first armies in which the various bodies of men were distinguished by the colours of their uniforms. Hammer says that Timor had the first regiment of cuirassiers mentioned in the annals of warfare.-Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, ii. 83. A. D. total dissolution of the Turkish army, he overlooked the vitality of the administrative institutions on which the 1400-1405. Othoman power reposed; and, in consequence of the contempt he felt for the Turks as a nation, he erroneously believed that the Othoman empire was based on the military strength of a tribe that appeared to be almost exterminated. Timor saw no Othoman army in the field, while he beheld the Seljouk princes of Asia Minor resuming all the power torn from them by Bayezid. The different tribes of Turks and Turkomans were now only vassals of the Mongol empire, and among them the Othomans appeared by no means more powerful than many others. When the grand army of Timor quitted Asia Minor, a division of the troops visited Kerasunt. But the steep mountains, the winding and precipitous paths, and the want of forage for the cavalry and beasts of burden along the coast, between Kerasunt and Trebizond, saved the capital from their unwelcome presence.1 Manuel, we may rest assured, did everything in his power to collect abundant supplies of provisions and furnish ample means of transport on the shorter lines of road, in order to preserve the caravan routes in the immediate vicinity of Trebizond free from interruption. Fortunately none of these routes conducted to the westward. The revenues of the empire were now in a great measure dependent on the commercial importance of the capital. On quitting western Asia, Timor established his nephew, Mirza Halil, as immediate sovereign over the tributary states of Trebizond, Georgia, and Armenia, as well as over the chieftains of the Turkoman hordes.2 The troubles that ensued in the Mongol empire after Timor's death, and the departure of Mirza Halil to occupy the throne of 1 Schiltberger's Reisen, edit. Penzel, München, 1813, quoted by Fallmerayer, Geschichte, 231. 2 Histoire de Timur-Bec, écrite en Persan par Cherefeddin Ali, traduite par Petis de la Croix, tom. iv. p. 120. CHAP. IV. Samarcand, enabled Manuel to throw off all dependence on the Tartars, and deliver the empire from tribute. $ 3. Manuel III. died in the year 1417. He was twice married; first to Eudocia of Georgia, in the year 1377, by whom he had a son, Alexios IV., and after her death to Anna Philanthropena of Constantinople, by whom he left no children. Alexios was suspected of having hastened his father's death. SECT. III.-REIGN OF ALEXIOS IV. RELATIONS WITH THE TURKOMAN HORDES. FAMILY CRIMES IN THE HOUSE OF GRAND-KOMNENOS1417-1446. His After the retreat of the grand army of the Mongols, the empire of Trebizond was exposed, almost without defence, to the attacks of the two great Turkoman hordes of the Black and White Sheep, who wandered over the whole country between Sinope and Bussora. Kara Yousouf, the chief of the horde of the Black Sheep, appeared for a time to be on the point of founding a great empire between the Mongols and the Turks. conquests extended from the Euxine to the Persian Gulf. The career of Kara Yousouf was marked by the strangest vicissitudes, and a history of his empire would be nothing more than a record of his own singular adventures. Born the hereditary chieftain of a tribe that mustered thirty thousand cavalry, he was more than once forced to gain the necessaries of life as a common robber, while at other times he swept through Mesopotamia at the head of sixty thousand of the finest troops in Asia. As early as the year 1387, he had tried his fortune in battle with Timor; but he was no match for the military skill of the wary Tartar. Undaunted by his first misfortune, he renewed the war in 1393; and though defeated a second time, he again raised his standard against the Tartars in 1400. In this last war, his army was so completely routed, and KARA YOUSOUF OF THE BLACK TURKOMANS. 457 A. D. he was himself so hotly pursued, that, unable to conceal his movements either in the mountains of Assyria or 1387-1420. the deserts of Mesopotamia, he fled to the court of Bayezid. The refusal of the Turkish sultan to deliver him up to Timor, who claimed him as a rebellious vassal, was the immediate cause of the invasion of the Othoman empire by the Mongols. When Bayezid became the prisoner of Timor, Kara Yousouf fled to Cairo, where the Mamlouk king, Furreg the son of Berkouk, gave him an asylum until Timor's death. He then hastened to the banks of the Euphrates, and once more collected the Turkomans round his standard. The genius of Timor no longer directed the movements of the Tartar armies, and success attended the enterprises of Kara Yousouf. Tauris itself was captured, and became the capital of his empire. Kara Yousouf then occupied Arsinga, driving out the family of Taharten. He also defeated Oulough, who commanded the troops of the White Horde of the Turkomans for his brother Hamsa, their chieftain. Alexios IV. was a helpless spectator of these sudden revolutions in his vicinity. He had trusted, when he heard rumours of the impetuous career of Kara Yousouf, that the emir of Arsinga and the chieftain of the White Horde, who were both allied to his family, would serve as a barrier to protect his empire.1 The defeat of these allies compelled the emperor to throw himself on the mercy of the conqueror, and to declare his readiness to submit to any conditions of peace. Kara Yousouf ordered the suppliant monarch to send his daughter, the most beautiful princess of the house of Grand-Komnenos, which had long been celebrated in Asia for the beauty of its daughters, to be the wife of his son Djihanshah, and to pay the same amount of tribute to the Black Turko 1 Kara Youlouk, or the Black Leech, the father of Hamsa and Oulough, or Alibeg, was the son-in-law of Alexios III.- Ducas, p. 69. . |
