40 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
But the power of the Turks for a time suffered a blow that seemed to end it once for all. “Just at the moment when the Sultan seemed to have attained the pinnacle of his ambition, when his authority was unquestioningly obeyed over the greater part of the Byzantine empire in Europe and Asia, when the Christain states were regarding him with terror as the scourge of the world, another and a greater scourge came to quell him, and at one stroke all the vast fabric of empire which Bayezid had so triumphantly erected was shattered to the ground and this terrible conqueror was Timur, the Tartar or as we call him “Tamurlane”. He established his superiority over the petty chiefs that had arisen out of the ruins of the vast kingdom of Chengizkhan. Tamurlane carried every thing at the point of sword and subdued every province that was under Bayezid. The Tartar and the Turk faced in 1402. As the Turks were engaged in laying seige to Constantinople, the Sultan heard of the news of the victory of Tamurlane over his troops at Siwas. Bayezid collected his troops and hurried to give battle in person but lost it at Angora and the edifice of the Turkish empire crumbled to pieces.” [1] Reared with consummate skill and maintained with the utmost bravery the Turkish empire succumbed before the “Asiatic Despot”, the embodiment of “the wrath of God”. “The history of the Ottomans seemed to have suddenly come to an end. Seldom has the world seen so complete, so terrible, a catestrophe as the fall of Bayezid from the summit of the power to the shame of a chained captive.” [2]
Unfortunately however Tamurlane did not survive to avail the fruits of his victory and his apparent stroke was far from being a final blow to the Ottoman empire. Mr. Lane Poole says “The most astonishing characteristic of the rule of the Turks is its vitality. Again and again its doom has been pronounced by wise prophets, and still it survives. Province after province has been cut off the empire, yet still the Sultan sits supreme over wide dominions, is revered or feared by subjects of many races. Considering how little of the great qualities of the ruler the Turk has often possessed, how little trouble he has taken to conciliate the subjects whom his sword has subdued, it is amazing
1 Stanley Lane- Poole— “ Turkey” (New York, 1899) p. 7.
2 Ibid., p. 73.