Tamerlane

by Justin Marozzi

  The organisation of Temur’s armies would have been recognised at once by Genghis Khan, for it followed the structure of the Mongols’. There was a left wing, a right wing, the centre and the advance guard. The smallest unit of men was ten soldiers, an onlik, led by an onbashi. Ten of these groups formed the yuzlik, under the next rank of yuzbashi, officers denoted by the kettle-drums slung across the saddles of their outriders. After this came the binlik, a body of a thousand troops under the command of a binbashi. The most senior rank beneath Temur was the amir who presided over ten thousand men, a tuman, whose insignia was the tuk, a long lance with a horse’s tail fastened at its tip.

  Temur always heaped rewards on those who had shown particular valour on the battlefield. Acts of outstanding bravery were commemorated in the official court chronicles. Promotion depended above all on one’s military conduct. An onbashi would be made a yuzbashi after performing some heroic action, while the commander of a hundred became the commander of a thousand. The most senior officers were granted the ultimate title of tarkhan, a position harking back to the days of Genghis Khan. This conferred on them a number of important privileges, among which the most valuable was the permanent exemption from taxes. Unlike any other soldier in Temur’s armies, the tarkhan was entitled to keep everything he plundered. Everyone else had to make over a share of his spoils to the emperor. The tarkhan was also immune from criminal prosecution. Only after he had committed the same crime nine times was he answerable to justice. Perhaps the ultimate prize was his access to Temur at all times.

  It was the responsibility of the aides-de-camp, the tovachis, to ensure that the soldiers were properly equipped. Once conscripted, each man had to report for service with a bow, a quiver containing thirty arrows, a shield and enough grain to feed a horse for a year. For every two cavalrymen a spare horse was required, and each onlik, the body of ten soldiers, had to bring a tent, two spades, a pickaxe, rope, hide, an awl, an axe, a saw and one hundred needles. The Tatar foot-soldier carried a bow, an axe, a dagger, a sabre and a small round shield, wooden with an iron rim, hung at the hip. In winter he wore black sheepskins, coloured kaftans in summer, over either tight or baggy trousers and boots. On his head he sported a tall hat made of fur, felt or sheepskin. There was a comprehensive range of secondary weapons, including maces and varieties of swords, knives and shields. The richer soldiers had helmets, single-edged sabres and coats of mail for themselves and their horses. The Tatar composite bow, the main arm on which Temur’s armies depended, was a formidable weapon, considerably longer than the Persian, Turk or Indian versions.* It fired a heavier arrow with a shorter range.

  Temur’s soldiers made much use of another destructive technology. Greek-fire, invented in the seventh century, was a gelatinous incendiary mixture, fired at one’s enemy through bronze tubes. Its original composition is unknown, a closely guarded secret handed down from one Byzantine emperor to another, but it is thought to have been made from a combination of flammable materials such as sulphur, naphtha, quicklime and pitch in a petroleum base. Since it ignited spontaneously and could not be extinguished by water, it was a profoundly effective weapon, sowing panic among those who faced it.

  In battle, the principal tactics and techniques employed by Temur were horse-archery, envelopment of his enemy where possible, and, a particular favourite, used with enormous success, feigned flight. At Aleppo, for example, his men staged a deliberate retreat, leading the Syrians right behind their lines, where they were fallen upon and utterly routed. The Tatars, wrote an observer at the outset of the fourteenth century, ‘are for the most part victorious over their enemies; yet they are not afraid to turn their backs in a fight if it is to their advantage … Their manner of fighting is very dangerous, so that in one Tatar battle or skirmish there are more slain or wounded than in any great conflict between other nations, which results from their archery, for they shoot strongly and surely, being indeed so skilful in the art of shooting that they commonly pierce all kinds of armour, and if they happen to be routed they flee in troops and bands so well ordered that it is very dangerous to follow or pursue them, because they shoot arrows backwards in their flight, often wounding both men and horses that pursue them.’

  Men predominated in the lines, but war was by no means their exclusive preserve, as Arabshah noted.

  There were also in his army many women who mingled in the mêlée of battle and in fierce conflicts and strove with men and fought with brave warriors and overcame mighty heroes in combat with the thrust of the spear, the blow of the sword and shooting of arrows; when one of them was heavy with child and birth pangs seized her, while they were on the march, she turned from the way and withdrawing apart and descending from her beast, gave birth to the child and wrapping it in bandages, soon mounted her beast and taking the child with her, followed her company; and there were in his army men born on the march and grown to full age who married and begot children and yet never had a fixed home.

  A leader of impressive intellect and infinite cunning, Temur placed a premium on good, timely intelligence, the lifeblood of his many campaigns. A vast network of spies fanned out from Samarkand across his lands and into the kingdoms and empires of those he sought to conquer. Well represented among them were the Islamic orders, itinerant monks, dervishes, shaykhs and Sufis. ‘He was of rare temper and depth so deep that in the sea of his plans the bottom could not be touched, nor could one reach the high peak of his government by a smooth or rough path,’ wrote Arabshah. ‘He had placed through his realm his informers and in other kingdoms had appointed his spies; and these were amirs like Atilmish, one of his allies, or learned fakirs, like Masaud Kahajani, his chief minister, or traders seeking a living by some craft, ill-minded wrestlers, criminal athletes, labourers, craftsmen, soothsayers, physicians, wandering hermits, chatterers, strolling vagabonds, sailors, wanderers by land, elegant drunkards, witty singers, aged procuresses and crafty old women.’

  These men, women and children brought back news from across Asia, from the prices and availability of various commodities to the state of an enemy kingdom, the names of its military leaders and nobles and the mapping of its lands and cities. ‘One skilful plan can perform the service of a hundred thousand warriors,’ Temur was reported to have said.

  To aid the flow of information, Temur, like the Mongols, used a system of posting stations known as yams. Up to two hundred horses were kept at each regularly staged post and stable, the costs met by the local population. Clavijo, who witnessed their operations at first hand while on his way to the emperor’s court, left a typically detailed description of how zealously the envoys and couriers went about their work on behalf of the emperor. Such was the importance accorded government business that if any envoy riding a tiring mount came upon other riders with fresher horses, these were required on pain of death to dismount and hand over their animals to the messenger and his entourage. No one was spared this inconvenience: the Spaniard was told that on one occasion Temur’s eldest son and his attendants were forced to surrender their horses to envoys en route to Samarkand.

  The information and intelligence contained in his envoys’ despatches was highly valued and jealously guarded by Temur. They were under strict orders to ride full tilt around the clock. ‘Temur indeed sets much store that those he sends and those who come to him should ride post day and night,’ Clavijo recorded. ‘So doing they may easily cover fifty leagues in the twenty-four hours, though by thus riding they will kill two horses. But this may be, rather than to take three days over that journey: for he deems speed to be much to his service.’ This was no exaggeration. Such hard riding inevitably took its toll, the unsightly evidence plain for all to see: ‘By the roadside many were the dead horses we saw during our journey, which had thus been ridden to death and the carcass abandoned: the number indeed a marvel to note.’

  It is hardly surprising, given the range of his military triumphs, the part of the world from which he came, and the conscious emulation, when it suited him, of the t
raditions inspired by his illustrious predecessor, that Temur should find himself compared with Genghis Khan. History’s verdict has been divided, with the rival camps occupying the ground staked out for them by the original protagonists, Arabshah on the one hand and Yazdi on the other.

  In a recent history of Russia and the Mongols, Leo de Hartog found Temur both cruder and crueller than Genghis.

  Temur was as merciless as the Mongol world conqueror had been, but his subtle methods were often characterised by sadism, which had never been present in Genghis Khan. In the field of religion there were also great differences between the two. A parochial Muslim, Temur had little understanding of other faiths, while the shamanistic Genghis Khan was particularly tolerant towards other religions.

  In fact, it is not at all clear that Temur was as merciless as Genghis. There are numerous stories of acts of clemency on his part. Cities which surrendered quickly, such as Herat, Urganch and Baghdad, tended to be treated far more leniently than those whose resistance occasioned casualties among Temur’s soldiers and required an all-out assault. Those which opted to rise against him, however, could expect little quarter. As for the destruction which followed his every campaign, Temur was much more likely than Genghis to spare both men and monuments; and even when he did not he frequently had the same cities his men had razed to the ground rebuilt in the interests of trade and agriculture.

  That Temur was cruel is beyond question. But to accuse him of sadism is to indulge in unfounded speculation which owes more to the prejudices of the twenty-first century than the values of the fourteenth, when human life was held far cheaper than it is today. Temur was no exemplar of cruelty. When the Mamluk sultan Baybars took Antioch in 1263, for example, he had the sixteen-thousand-strong garrison slaughtered and the hundred thousand inhabitants sold into slavery. The massacres Temur committed were neither for his amusement nor pleasure. They were carried out to strike terror into his opponents’ hearts, to rid his newly conquered territories of opponents, and to minimise the risks of rebellion.

  The charge of religious intolerance is likewise wide of the mark. Temur used Islam primarily as an instrument conferring prestige and legitimacy on his actions. The charge of parochialism is one that not even his detractors, least of all Arabshah, would have recognised. Temur’s was the politics of the expedient. In an age when the Crescent and the Cross faced each other across the Aegean and the Mediterranean like the standards of hostile armies, it was Temur, and not the Ottoman sultan, who made friendly overtures towards the Christian princes of Europe. In Temur’s thinking the practicalities of trade between Europe and Asia could outweigh the traditional, deeply held religious antagonism between Christendom and the lands of Islam. He was a man of vision, his intellectual horizons as broad as the steppes across which he led his armies to victory.

  Arminius Vambery, the nineteenth-century Hungarian traveller and philologist, was better able to put Temur in historical perspective. He dismissed comparisons with Genghis. ‘Those who would rank Temur side by side with a Chinghiz, as a mere savage, wilful tyrant, are doubly in error,’ he wrote. ‘He was pre-eminently an Asiatic soldier who used his victories after the fashion of his time and country.’

  Genghis had delegated civil and military command. After his early conquests, he directed his sweeping campaigns from his headquarters in Karakorum. Temur, a more reckless commander, had no interest in holding back from the fray. Samarkand, though the imperial capital, came to know him as an absentee emperor, forever appearing with untold riches plundered from the great cities of Asia, celebrating his victories at famously sumptuous banquets that could last several months, before disappearing again on campaigns of up to five years. Unlike Genghis, Temur was rarely absent from the battlefield, where he frequently threw himself into the action at great personal danger.

  Sir John Malcolm, the nineteenth-century soldier, statesman and historian, provided one of the best appreciations of Temur’s military charisma: ‘Such a leader as Temur must have been idolized by his soldiers … he was careless of the opinion of other classes in the community. His object was fame as a conqueror; and a noble city was laid in ashes, or the inhabitants of a province massacred, on a cold calculation that the dreadful impression would facilitate the purposes of his ambition.’

  But whatever their respective styles on the battlefield, perhaps the most striking difference was evident off it. By today’s standards, Temur was a nomadic conqueror. He was constantly on the move. Hardly had he finished one campaign than his armies were assembled for another. Genghis and his Mongol hordes would, however, probably have viewed Temur’s career with disdain, for in Samarkand the Tatar had built a permanent capital, a concession to the way of life of the despised settled population, and a violation of the nomadic tradition cherished by the warriors of the steppe. Temur’s beloved city, the Pearl of the East, betrayed his love of opulence. The splendid mosques and madrassahs, the parks and the palaces, each of them a wonder of the world, revealed an appreciation of artistic excellence and architectural beauty that was entirely foreign to Genghis. Both men unleashed havoc across half the known world, put millions to the sword and razed to the earth cities standing in their path. But only Temur saw fit to rebuild, for he was a creator as much as a destroyer. This marked him out as a different breed of conqueror altogether. Much of his life was spent honouring the ancient traditions established by his Mongol predecessor, but by the time he died Temur was his own emperor, in thrall to no other man. Samarkand was the greatest expression of this individuality. It was a tribute to his undefeated military career and a monument to his imperial vanity.

  Over four decades the city soaked up Temur’s offerings like an avaricious mistress. There was gold, silver, precious stones, marble, exotic beasts, fabulous cloths, silks, tapestries, slaves and spices; yet still she was not satisfied. Each time he returned with more, she sent him back out into battle. Her glorification required ever increasing spoils from countless victories. Only constant campaigning could deliver them.

  By the end of the 1370s, Temur’s emerging empire took in the treasures and territories of Khorezm and Mawarannahr. Now, with Samarkand whispering in his ear, his eyes roved westward for more.

  * * *

  * Yazdi is by no means alone in providing such a glowing profile. Subsequent writers have also been mesmerised by Temur’s blaze of conquests. Military historians, above all, have been overwhelmed. Writing in 1915, Sir Percy Sykes echoed Yazdi’s conclusions in remarkably similar language, calling him ‘the greatest Asiatic conqueror known in history’, ‘the bravest of the brave’, ‘an unsurpassed leader of men and a very god of war adored by all ranks’.

  * To this day this most demanding of games is known as Tamerlane chess.

  * The word is used here in the sense of the lesser jihad, meaning holy war, rather than the greater jihad, by which the Prophet Mohammed exhorted his followers to fight a personal struggle against vice, passion and ignorance, to improve themselves as human beings and demonstrate their commitment to Islam.

  * Sunni Islam, the most widely followed, orthodox sect of Islam, stressed the original dynasty of the caliphs, while the Shi’a faction, which broke off in 661, supported the rival dynasty of caliphs begun by Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet. Sunni and Shi’a Islam are united only by three core doctrines: the oneness of God, and belief in both the revelations of the Prophet and resurrection on the Day of Judgement.

  † Sufism is a mystical orientation within Islam, its followers dedicated to following an inner way or spiritual path to bring them closer to God. The soul is regarded as able to reach out from the physical body to the divine spheres. The many varied techniques of Sufism tend to revolve around rhythm, repetition and endurance, whether through recitation of certain phrases or through singing and dancing. The whirling dervish, who reaches a trancelike state by spinning ever faster to the accompaniment of music, is perhaps the best-known example of Sufism in practice. The original whirling dervish, it is said, was none other than Rumi
, the Sufi mystic and poet.

  As waves upon my head the circling curl,

  So in the sacred dance weave ye and whirl.

  Dance then, O heart, a whirling circle be.

  Burn in this flame – is not the candle He?

  Sufism remains strongest in Egypt and Sudan, particularly in rural areas, but has declined in popularity to the extent that today there are only an estimated five million followers within the entire Muslim world.

  * The Central Asian composite bow, made from horn, wood and sinew, was one of the most devastating bows ever created. Historians have rightly made much of the English longbow, scourge of the French at the battles of Crécy and Agincourt in the Hundred Years’ War, but the composite bow was a superior weapon by far. Unlike the longbow, which was about six feet in length, it was extremely short, varying between forty and fifty inches. This portable size made it an ideal weapon for a mounted archer, who, unlike the longbowman on the ground, did not become obsolete against a charging enemy after only one or two shots. Moreover, despite its small size, its curved frame provided a draw just as long as that of the longbow, and a range double that of a wooden bow of similar weight. The longbow had to be the height of a man to withstand the strain of the long draw. The more advanced technology of the composite bow, which used three different materials, avoided such constraints. Although designs changed over the years, and from region to region, the composite bow had a wooden core which formed the frame and determined its final shape. On the side facing the archer was a layer of buffalo horn, which could withstand great compression. The opposite side – facing the target – was covered with sinew, which could withstand high levels of tension. These were bonded together with glue, given a covering of tree bark, skin or leather, and then coated in paint or lacquer to protect the hygroscopic weapon from the elements. A reflexed bow, it curved sharply forward when at rest, stretching back considerably when drawn. In the hands of Temur’s mounted archers, who used bronze thumb rings to give them maximum draw on the bowstring, the weapon was used to brilliant effect.