The Romans of Smyrna had been conquered by the Turks under Umur of Aydin & then by the Crusaders. Now a new enemy came to the city, the ferocious Timurids. The Timurids were an Islamo-Mongol Empire which struck fear into their enemies. In the wake of victory over the Ottomans at Ankara, Timur demanded that Smyrna surrender to him. The Crusaders refused, a tragic slaughter ensued.
Although it benefited Constantinople by breaking the Ottoman siege of the City which had been ongoing for years, Timur’s great victory over Sultan Bayezid at Ankara in 1402 left Anatolia totally open to conquest by him and his ruthless armies. For the people of Smyrna, a storm was brewing on the horizon.
They should have expected trouble when he arrived, for Timur was well known as not being a lover of Christians. In fact, “Timur’s forces committed numerous atrocities against the subject Christian communities.” The “Syriac sources speak of monasteries being sacked and all their inhabitants massacred.” Armenian sources mention massacres, destroyed villages, and churches.
Timur, having defeated the greatest Muslim ruler in Anatolia and sacked the Ottoman capital of Bursa (Prousa), set eyes on Smyrna, controlled by the crusaders. The historian Doukas wrote: “He burned, lynched, buried men alive, and inflicted every kind of torment” in Prousa. Surely the news of this terror would have reached Smyrna as Timur sacked town after town on his way there.
When the Timurids arrived at Smyrna, the Knights Hospitaller who held the city boldly refused to surrender! Smyrna was full of refugees fleeing from Timur’s wrath. The city had resisted the Turks for years by resupplying via the sea, however, Timur was a highly determined leader. He had a plan to deal with the stubborn Knights.
Timur needed to cut off the harbor, this would make it so that the Knights could no longer simply defend and wait indefinitely for Timur to have to leave. Doukas records that had so many troops that he ordered “every soldier to pick one stone and cast it into the mouth of the harbor and it was done. When the defenders of the fortress saw this, they lost heart.” But the Crusaders still did not surrender.
Timur assaulted the fortress with vigor, and the defenders impressed Doukas: “The Knights Hospitalers fought bravely from the battlements.” They killed many Timurids but then their bodies filled the moat, allowing more soldiers to walk over them and place ladders on the wall. It was dire, and the Timurids were relentless and readily absorbed the losses.
The Knights, having removed their ships from the harbor before it was blocked now fled on them! The “sources suggest that the knights themselves escaped by sea, though we do not have to believe that allegation that they made a pact with the conqueror.”
The locals begged: “Have mercy on us for we are Christians.. do not leave us behind!” But the Knights sailed off. One source, John of Sultaniyya, recorded that “Smyrna would have escaped destruction had the Hospitaller castellan only hoisted Timur’s standard on the walls.” The people of Smyrna had to face the consequences for the decision made by the fleeing Knights not surrender.
The people of Smyrna and the refugee Romans from surrounding areas who were left behind by the knights were herded into one area – men, women, and children. They were at the mercy of Timur, “who commanded that all should be beheaded by the sword.” So it was, they were slaughtered. Timur had the civilians he massacred turned into a twisted trophy, in imitation of his hero Genghis Khan… He “had towers of heads constructed.” The “heads were deliberately positioned to face outwards.” It must have been a terrible sight.
After sacking Smyrna, Timur “proceeded no further, perhaps because he lacked the naval power to cross” into Europe. Timur returned to Iran to focus on other objectives, full of treasure from Anatolia and with many victories to brag about.
SOURCES:
Decline and Fall of Byzantium by Doukas
From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The Reawakening of Mongol Asia by Peter Jackson.
shadowsofconstantinople.com 