Episode 328 - In the Nick of Timur

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then-current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Summer's heating up, and so is the action with Chumba Casino and 2311 Racing.

Whether you're track side with Bubba, Riley, and Tyler, or cooling off at home, the fun never stops at Chumba Casino, the online social casino packed with free-to-play games like Slots, Blackjack, and more.

Jump into Summer at chumbacasino.com and score your free welcome bonus: 2 million free gold coins and 2 free sweeps coins.

No purchase necessary, VGW Group Void where prohibited by law.

CTNC is 21 Plus, sponsored by Chumba Casino.

This episode is sponsored by Better Help.

Hello, everyone.

It can be tough finding someone to talk to these days.

For example, I work from home, alone, and I moved out of London where all my friends live.

Now I have to bother my neighbours or ask ChatGPT when I need some help.

Maybe you've turned to some funny places for support.

But not everyone is a therapist.

Not everyone is the one.

Find your right match with BetterHelp.

If you're in need of empathy, compassion and a real listening ear, there is nothing like therapy.

It can be priceless to carve out a space just for you, where you can get things off your chest and get your head to a happier place.

BetterHelp's online service can help you find the one you're looking for.

Fill in a questionnaire, and they'll match you with a therapist who'll be a good fit for your needs.

They have years of experience and an industry-leading match fulfillment rate.

And if they aren't the one for you, you can switch to a different therapist at any time at no extra cost.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Find the one with BetterHelp.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash Byzantium.

That's better

H E L P dot com slash Byzantium.

Hello everyone and welcome to the History of Byzantium, episode three hundred and twenty eight in the Nick of Timor

Today is the final episode of the History of Byzantium podcast.

The narrative is over.

Constantinople was captured by the Ottomans in 1402 after a prolonged siege.

Sultan Bayezit converted the Ahir Sophia into a mosque and made New Rome his new capital.

The Palaeologan family escaped to Venice, and they would spend the rest of their lives trying to interest the West in restoring them to their home, to no avail.

The new Roman Empire ended its incredible journey after one thousand and seventy

years.

I had you going there for a second, right?

Though that is very nearly what happened.

In our last episode, we saw the Roman Emperor become a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan, and the Palaeologos family become pawns of Venetian and Genoese interests in the Sea of Marmara.

Thessaloniki was taken from the Empire, leaving the Byzantines with little more than Constantinople itself, a couple of islands, and their territory in in the Peloponnese.

The Emperor, John Palaeologos, had to send his son to attend on the Sultan in Anatolia, and was told that if he wanted to see his heir again, he would have to make further concessions.

It had been an unhappy life, and as John lay on his deathbed a few months later, perhaps the only morsel of consolation was that he had not been forced to surrender Constantinople itself, for that seemed the inevitable fate of the Romans within the next decade or so.

The Turks had ignored Constantinople so far.

They were well aware that they didn't have the manpower to face the Theodosian walls, nor a fleet that could push the Venetians and Genoese aside.

But both states understood that a showdown was inevitable.

The Ottoman Empire had Anatolian and Balkan provinces.

If only there was a capital they could operate from, which would allow them easy access to both.

Today is the story of that showdown, and how the Turks should have won, and how all the Byzantines could do was pray for a miracle, and then,

well,

let's see, shall we?

Manuel II Komninos was in the Sultan's camp when news reached him that his father had died.

He slipped away that night and made for the coast.

He was able to find passage and entered New Rome in March 1391, where the people acclaimed him as the legitimate Vasilevs.

Manuel was in no doubt that he'd done the right thing.

If he had waited for the Sultan's permission, there was every chance that Bayezit would have demoted him, allowing his nephew John VII to become the senior emperor instead.

Manuel was just shy of his fortieth birthday, and was far better prepared for office than his father had been.

He'd twice governed Thessaloniki, had shown initiative in defending it, and was well travelled.

He'd gone to Hungary with his father at a young age, then sailed to Venice to rescue John a few years later.

He'd spent time on the islands of the Aegean and in Anatolia at the Sultan's court.

Manuel was also a scholar, a lover of literature and theology who read and wrote a lot.

Despite this impressive pedigree, Manuel had very little room for maneuver as emperor, and given he'd just seized Constantinople without Bayezit's permission, he had to prepare for the Sultan's wrath.

As you can imagine, the growing power of the Ottomans was a cause of deep concern to the other Beyliks in Anatolia.

The previous Sultan Murad had already begun the process of bringing them under his authority, making war on and marriage alliances with Germian to the south and Caraman to the east, but when Murad died in Kosovo, as we talked about last week, the Beyliks began to move against the Ottomans.

Once Bayezit was secure on the throne, he decided that something had to be done.

Where his father had attempted to politely neutralise their rivals in Anatolia, Bayezit would hammer them into submission and make himself the undisputed master of Anatolia.

Bayezit was in his early thirties, and already had a reputation as a fearsome general, who moved his armies quickly and decisively hence his nickname, Thunderbolt.

He would also become known for his heavy drinking and erratic temper.

Since he was about to attack his fellow Muslims in Anatolia, the sultan preferred to use as many Christian troops as possible.

This caused less ill feeling amongst his own soldiers, and his Balkan vassals were unlikely to rebel while fighting so far from home.

Since this was a pressing concern for Bayezid, he forgave Manawil's disobedience on certain conditions.

He increased the tribute which Constantinople was to pay, and installed an Islamic judge in the city to deal with all legal cases involving Muslims.

He also demanded that Manawil return to his camp that summer to serve on campaign.

Manawil left his mother Helena as regent and set out in June to join the Thunderbolt.

We'll talk about Manawil's experience of the campaign in a couple of episodes' time, but that year was a frightening demonstration of Ottoman power.

In the months leading up to Manuel's arrival, Bayezid had swept south from his capital at Bursa and annexed the three major Beyliks of Sarohan, Ayden and Menteshare.

The Aegean coastline was now entirely in his hands.

He then moved east against Germian, for so long the largest Beylik in the region.

This rapid advance alarmed the Emirates further east, who quickly forged alliances against the Ottomans.

Manuil joined Bayezit as he advanced onto the plateau and then into Paphlagonia.

The ancestral lands of the Komninoi were taken and their emir was executed.

The Ottomans were only checked when they advanced into the lands of Karaman, who controlled the old Seljuk heartlands around Konya, formerly Iconium.

Despite pausing for now, the facts of the campaign were indisputable.

The Ottomans were now an imperial dynasty.

They ruled western Anatolia in addition to their Balkan provinces, and it would not be long before all the Turkish chiefs of Anatolia would have to make peace, one way or another.

Bayezitz's frequent campaigning allowed him to build a professional, battle-hardened, central army, one which he could lead to any troublespot he liked.

And this recruitment did not detract from the forces available to his Balkan marcher lords, who still led raids every summer.

Now, in theory, all the warriors of Western Anatolia were at his disposal as well, though many nomads were loyal to their former Beyliks and had to be integrated carefully.

Manuel returned to Constantinople disheartened in january thirteen ninety two.

He hated Bayezid, and had found it a miserable experience to fight on behalf of a state that was clearly going to destroy his own.

He had come home betrothed, though.

He'd served with other Balkan lords on campaign, and a month after his return, he wed Helena Dragash, daughter of Constantine Dragash, a Serbian ruler in Macedonia.

This union was approved of by Bayezid, since both men were under his thumb.

The following year, Bayezit moved back to the Balkans.

The Bulgarian Tsar John Schishman had thrown off Ottoman suzerainty and gone into rebellion.

We presume with support from Hungary, whose kings were intermittently trying to forge an anti-Turkish alliance.

They did not come to John's rescue, though.

The Turks defeated him, captured Trinovo, and put him in chains.

Two years later he was executed, and Bulgaria was annexed directly into the growing Ottoman Empire.

Bayezit moved to Seres that winter, the fortress town to the north of Thessaloniki.

He ordered Manuil to join him there.

When the emperor arrived, he was alarmed to find his nephew and rival, John VII, was also present, as was his brother, Theodore, his father-in-law, Constantine Dragash, and various other Serbians.

None of these Christian princes had been told that this would be a summit meeting, and so not unreasonably, they feared that Bayezit was going to massacre them.

That wasn't the case, Bayezit just wanted to intimidate and berate his vassals, which had mixed results, as we'll see.

He ordered the mutilation of several Roman officers for supposed crimes, but let their leaders go unharmed.

The Sultan then led his armies into Thessaly, which had now been opened up as the next front for the marcher lords to terrorize.

He took with him Manuel's younger brother Theodore, who was the Byzantine ruler of the Peloponnese.

Quick digression on the lands in Greece, which we've barely talked about in the past century.

As you may recall, it was Michael VIII who ordered an invasion of the Peloponnese shortly after retaking Constantinople.

The Roman fleet lifted the coastal defences from the Latins and their marines moved inland.

At that point, the crusader lords who controlled the interior counterattacked and the two sides came to a fairly stable stalemate.

The Roman Peloponnese had been the most peaceful corner of the empire since, but was now an active military front again.

Both Manuel and Theodore decided to break with the Ottomans after their experience at Ceres.

Byezit's unpredictable behavior led them to conclude that they would not be safe in his presence again.

Theodore opened negotiations with the Venetians to help him defend the city of Argos from future attacks, and the Italians were now interested, since the Ottoman advance into Greece directly threatened their ports of Methoni and Kirone.

A few months later Manuel was summoned to the Sultan's side and refused to go.

The Emperor had had enough of being bullied and threatened.

It was time to stand up to the Turks and face the consequences.

He didn't have to wait long.

As soon as he he finished his campaign, Bayezit ordered his army to march to Constantinople.

In September 1394, the Ottoman army reached the outskirts of the Queen of Cities and torched the surrounding area.

Manuel locked the gates and waited.

Bayezit had already decided against a direct assault.

Instead, he would set up a permanent blockade and starve the Romans into submission.

He divided his men between three camps.

Some were stationed in Thrace, others just over the Golden Horn near Galata, and a third group on the Asian side of the Bosphorus.

The sultan had built a fortress there, a few miles north of the city, from which his ships could patrol the waters.

His fleet at Gallipoli would do the same.

Unlike previous sieges, his men did not have to worry about freezing in their tents through the winter.

They could be regularly rotated to nearby fortresses to warm up.

The goal was to make life in Constantinople so miserable that the inhabitants would voluntarily submit to Ottoman rule.

Dozens of other Christian cities had made the same choice, including Thessaloniki.

This might take a little longer, but it would end the same way.

The Romans would stay trapped inside their capital for the next eight years.

Life became harder and harder, and many gave up.

Others prayed that the Virgin Mary would save them, as she had saved the city so many times before.

The fact that those who stayed survived for nearly a decade was down to several factors.

Manuel's leadership must be one of them, and the determination of the population not to be enslaved, but there was also the food supply.

Even when the city was home to several hundred thousand people, Constantinople was so vast that it had room for farmland within its walls.

And since the Crusaders had burnt down huge sections of the city in 1204, there was now ample space for olives, grapes, and wheat to be grown, as well as grass to graze animals on.

Famine and starvation were on their way, but this lifeline kept the state going.

Venice and Genoa were also in the mix.

The Genoese colony at Galata maintained a tense state of neutrality throughout proceedings.

They didn't want to alienate the sultan, who might soon be their new landlord.

But at the same time their position just over the Golden Horn meant there was a constant black market operating between them and the besieged Romans.

Ironically then it was the Venetians who worked the hardest to stop Constantinople from being sacked.

The merchants of Venice had no interest in the Ottomans dominating the Aegean and threatening their ports.

However, they also had no interest in aggravating a man who might well win the day, so they vacillated throughout the course of the siege over how much aid to send.

In the end, they ran the blockade every so often to bring wheat to the city, as well as providing assistance through diplomacy and espionage.

Despite this, it only took a few months for people to begin to starve.

Food prices skyrocketed, and people became desperate.

Businesses began to shutter, and the black market thrived.

People went into terrible debt to survive, sold off their homes for less than they were worth, and illegally used their wives' dowries to stay afloat.

Abandoned homes were torn down to provide firewood.

The government searched frantically for money.

Manuel debased his coinage, confiscated gold from the Ahir Sophia, and seized abandoned property illegally.

There were a few who made an ugly profit from these proceedings, wealthy business people with connections to the Italian republics.

Their agents would sneak messages over the Golden Horn or run the blockade with ships from the Aegean.

Once packages of food reached the city, they would charge five times the normal amount and make a killing, using the profits to buy up prime real estate at knockdown prices.

The summers were easier to manage, but each winter would bring famine and people would abandon the city in droves, lowering themselves on ropes and surrendering to the Ottomans or bribing the Genoese to enter Galata.

Not just the poor were abandoning the sinking ship, prominent members of the court and aristocracy were using their connections to flee.

Manuel tried to stop them, but his resources were limited.

He wrote reproachfully to a friend who'd escaped to Italy

You who have preferred a foreign land to your own, do not imagine that you are fulfilling your obligations towards it by loudly lamenting its fate while you stay out of range of the arrows.

In its time of crisis, you must come and share the dangers, and as much as you can aid it by deeds, if you have any interest in proving yourself a soldier clear of indictment for desertion,

Manuel was active in the only ways he could be, administering justice, collecting money to pay his soldiers, and sending endless appeals for help to Western Europe.

Fortunately, Bayezitz's actions aided the Emperor in this endeavor.

In the early summer of 1395, Ottoman forces crossed the Danube and entered Wallachia to the east of Hungary.

They didn't stay long, but it was a warning to Europe that the Turkish menace was not as distant distant as they might think.

King Sigismund of Hungary, egged on by Manuel, called for a crusade.

It took a year to assemble, but in autumn thirteen ninety six a large army crossed the Danube and advanced along its banks.

The bulk of the army were Hungarians and Wallachians,

but a large contingent of French knights had travelled excitedly to provide the army with its shock troops.

With smaller contingents from Germany and England joining in, and the Venetians, Genoese and Knights Hospital all offering naval support, this was surely Byzantium's best chance of escape.

The plan was to march along the Danube, capturing forts and waiting to see which direction Bayezid approached from.

The crusaders moved from Buda to Vidin and finally to Nicopolis, where the Turkish garrison barred the gates and waited for help.

According to the Latin sources there was a disagreement amongst the crusaders, which may sound familiar.

King Sigismund, well aware of the Ottoman threat, preached caution, as the Komninoi had done long before.

But the French knights were all for charging at the enemy's heart to prove their valour.

On the morning of the 25th of September, 1396, the French took matters into their own hands, charging up a hillside three miles from Nicopolis to assault some Turkish-like cavalry.

Though the Turks scattered, the French had not scouted the terrain properly.

More Turkish cavalry were nearby, along with their Serb allies.

The heavily armoured Latin knights were too slow to escape and were cut down by the advancing Ottomans.

As they routed back to camp, the crusader army broke apart.

The Wallachians abandoned the field immediately and panic spread.

Bayezit led his army in, and the battle was over within the hour.

Many soldiers drowned trying to cross the Danube, while the sultan enslaved, executed, and ransomed the rest.

King Sigismund escaped, and since Constantinople had received temporary relief from the siege, he sailed down to the Golden Horn to inform Manuel in person.

That must have been a bitter conversation.

The Vasilefs later wrote

This terrible disaster struck us with the utmost violence, and tore up by the roots all the fairest hopes.

Crusading had had its day.

The Latins could no longer scare away nomadic tribes and drive towards Jerusalem.

They faced a disciplined professional army with a terrifying general at its back.

It was notable that the Serbian forces in the Sultan's army never considered joining their fellow Christians.

They had been dealing with the Ottomans for half a century now.

They knew what they were up against and had no faith that the Latins would come to their aid when the reprisals began.

The Sultan returned to Constantinople and retightened his grip.

His soldiers launched some attacks on the walls as he watched on, though this was mainly a show of force to encourage surrender.

He also sent his marcher lords to attack the Peloponnese.

The end was nigh for the Romans.

Inside the city, a deep depression set in.

Whole neighborhoods, churches, and monasteries were being abandoned and falling into ruin.

Constantinople was a city of small villages by this point, the population dwindling to less than fifty thousand.

Trees grew in the hippodrome, and the once thriving Messi lay silent except at its eastern end.

Paranoia gripped the elites who remained, as they accused one another of secretly negotiating with the Turks.

Even the patriarch had to defend himself against such charges, and it seems entirely likely that he had written to Bayazit to try and secure his own safety when the city inevitably fell.

Manuel continued to send letters and emissaries to the west begging for aid.

He also explored the possibility of surrendering the city to the Venetians.

If the Italians would defend New Rome, perhaps that was the best way for the emperor to save his people.

The Venetians politely declined, as they were not prepared to wage all-out war against the Ottomans

yet.

But they did offer Manuel and his family safe passage to the Republic if the Turks breached the walls.

The Pope and various other Christian leaders did raise money for the beleaguered Byzantines, and in 1399 the French crusader Jean Le Mangre, known as Bouquico, volunteered to defend Constantinople.

He'd survived the defeat at Nicopolis and wanted to stop the Turks from capturing this venerable Christian city.

He brought a thousand men with him, including four hundred experienced knights.

Manuel joined them in launching sorties against the Turks.

The attacks were successful, but they hardly changed the situation.

The Ottomans simply retreated and returned when the coast was clear.

If food could be gathered during these intervals, that was positive, but it could hardly feed a city of tens of thousands.

Once he'd appreciated the bleakness of the situation, Bukiko persuaded Manuil to travel to Western Europe in person to ask for help.

That was the only way, he believed, that a new crusade could be recruited.

Five years into the siege, Manuel had few other options, but leaving the city was extremely dangerous.

Without him, the people might capitulate, and he would be branded a coward.

Bucico asked him who could take his place and reassure the population, and unfortunately, there was only one man.

John VII was nearly thirty and still ruled the Thracian town of Salimbria as a crowned vassilefs.

The son of Andronicus, Manuil's disloyal brother, still had support inside Constantinople.

Could he be trusted, though?

From past behaviour, there was every chance he would try and oust Manuel from office.

There was also suspicion that he might collude with Bayezid.

We can't reconstruct Manuel's motives entirely, but Bukiko acted as intermediary to bring about a reconciliation.

On the 4th of December 1399, John arrived in Constantinople, and the Emperor greeted him in a public display of family unity.

Manuel packed his bags, briefed his nephew, and departed six days later.

Manuel's feelings about his nephew are made a little clearer by the fact that he took his wife and young children with him, and as he waved goodbye to Constantinople, he must have considered it a very real possibility that he would never see the city again.

Manuel would be gone for more than three years, and his efforts would bring no help to Byzantium, which we'll talk about in a couple of weeks' time.

To his credit, John held the city without serious incident, but it became ever clearer that his cause was doomed.

Meanwhile Bayezit campaigned in Anatolia, bringing the eastern plateau more firmly under his control.

In 1397 the sultan captured Conya.

In 1398 he took Sivas, Roman Sebastea.

In 1399 he annexed Erzinkan and Melatia,

Roman Melatine.

Bayezit was getting close to his goal.

Once he'd taken the mountain strongholds he would bring discipline to the plateau.

All of Anatolia lay within his grasp, and in retrospect, his timing was terrible.

You see, the Romans had been directing their prayers west, hoping that a Latin army would save them from destruction, but salvation came from the east.

As you know, the great Mongol Empire that formed in the thirteenth century had broken apart around the year thirteen hundred, with the Ilkhanate of Persia and the Golden Horde on the northern steppe being the two successor states which concerned us.

Well to their east, though, the Chagatai Khanate was another confederation which emerged after the death of Kubla Khan.

Its territory covered the modern Stans,

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and so on.

In 1370, a warlord named Timur seized control of the Khanate and began a vicious campaign of expansion.

Across the next thirty years he destroyed both the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate, establishing a new state based largely in Iran, with its capital at Samarkand.

In the finest tradition of the Mongols, Timur was utterly ruthless, sacking cities, massacring the inhabitants, and leaving behind pyramids of skulls.

Despite the horror of these stories, the Byzantines sent ambassadors to track him down.

It was hard to predict where Timur would strike next, though.

He was in India in 1398, 1398, but the next year he appeared in the Caucasus.

After subduing Armenia and Georgia, he made contact with the Turkish chiefs of eastern Anatolia.

They were more than happy to submit to his authority, and several of the ousted Balik chiefs of western Anatolia gathered around his court.

Timor didn't have an axe to grind with the Ottomans, he just wanted submission and a peaceful border.

He didn't want a large aggressive empire on his doorstep, but that's what he found.

In 1402, the great warlord invaded Anatolia.

Bayazit gathered a large army, and the two sides met near Ankara in late July.

As with the best Mongol generals, Timor had left nothing to chance.

He brought the former emirs of the Anatolian Beleks into his camp and instructed them to make contact with their brethren in the Ottoman army.

He also occupied a position which controlled access to the river nearest the battlefield.

He even sent word to the Genoese to patrol the bosphorus to stop the Turks from retreating and crossing to Europe.

The battle was fierce at first, but the nomads in the Ottoman ranks deserted to their former lords, who now stood with Timor.

The Ottoman army broke apart and was eventually surrounded.

Bayezid was taken alive.

The Ottomans had suffered a crushing defeat, almost out of nowhere.

The former Beleks of Anatolia were all resurrected, and the sons of Bayezid scattered.

The Romans had sent out two embassies, each ready to congratulate the victor and offer him their submission.

The party who were to visit Bayezit carried with them the keys to Constantinople.

John had decided that if the Sultan defeated Timor, then further resistance was futile.

Now those emissaries raced back to New Rome to announce the wonderful news: the Thunderbolt has been defeated, the siege is over, the Virgin Mary has saved us again.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then-current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Summer's heating up, and so is the action with Chumba Casino and 2311 Racing.

Whether you're trackside with Bubba, Riley, and Tyler, or cooling off at home, the fun never stops at Chumba Casino, the online social casino packed with free-to-play games like Slots, Blackjack, and more.

Jump into Summer at chumbacasino.com and score your free welcome bonus: 2 million free gold coins and 2 free sweeps coins.

No purchase necessary, VGW Group, void where prohibited by law.

CTNC is 21 Plus, sponsored by Chumba Casino.