Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The rumors swirling in France had it that a mighty Christian king had arrived to save Byzantium, but this was only half true. The Turkic warrior Timur the Lame had been born in central Asian Uzbekistan more than sixty years before and had spent his life in the saddle at the head of a Mongol horde. His dream was to restore the glorious empire of Ghengis Khan, and to that end he unleashed his army in an extraordinary burst of conquest. By the year 1400, he had an empire that stretched from India to Russia and from Afghanistan to Armenia. Spies preceded his troops, spreading tales of his inhuman cruelty, weakening the morale of the defenders and spreading panic. In Damascus, he herded the citizens into the Grand Mosque and burned it to the ground; in Tikrit, he ordered each soldier to show him two severed heads or forfeit their own; and in Baghdad, he slaughtered ninety thousand civilians and built a pyramid out of their skulls. Lands he passed through became deserts, cities became ghost towns, and whole populations fled.

At the turn of the century, he crossed into Ottoman territory, bringing the enraged sultan speeding from his siege of Constantinople. When the two armies met outside of Ankara on July 20, 1402, the carnage was terrible. Fifteen thousand Turks fell, and the sultan himself was captured. Timur the Lame cheerfully took possession of Bayezid’s harem and, according to some accounts, used the sultan as a footstool, carrying him before the army in an iron cage.^* The Mongol warlord was now the master of Asia Minor, but he was restless and more interested in conquest than administration. After a few more outrages—he sacked Philadelphia and built a wall of corpses to commemorate it—he withdrew to invade China, leaving a shattered Ottoman Empire and a chaotic Anatolia in his wake.

Now was the moment to drive the Turks out of Europe, but as usual Manuel II could find many vague promises but no actual help to accomplish it. Whatever chance there was to turn the tide passed by forever the moment the new sultan arrived in Adrianople. Bayezid’s son Süleyman had survived the devastating Mongol attack, and he slipped across the Bosporus to take possession of the European provinces while his brothers fought it out in Asia Minor. Skillfully neutralizing his Christian neighbors by granting Venice and Genoa trade concessions, Süleyman contacted the Byzantine emperor and offered extraordinary terms. Manuel II was, of course, to be released immediately from the humiliation of vassalage; Thrace and Thessalonica were instantly returned to the empire, along with the monastic community of Mount Athos; and, as the final pièce de résistance, Süleyman offered to become Manuel’s vassal.

On the warm afternoon of June 9, 1403, Manuel II entered triumphantly into Constantinople. He had left as the servant of the sultan and against all conceivable odds had returned the master. Crowds cheered him as he walked down the streets, church bells rang out jubilantly throughout the city, and a special service of thanksgiving was held in the Hagia Sophia. Despite Süleyman’s subservient posturing, however, the Ottoman sultan had the better end of the bargain. With a few gulps of swallowed pride, he had gained a valuable respite. Byzantium was as weak as ever, and its newfound prestige was merely an illusion. A concerted effort by Christendom just might have been able to push the Turks out of Europe while they were still fragmented, but the Ottoman willingness to come to terms had lulled the European powers into a false sense of security. Convinced that the threat had been overblown, they turned their attentions elsewhere and left Byzantium terribly alone. It would’ve been better for the empire by far if Manuel had rejected Süleyman’s terms.

The respite from Ottoman aggression was all too brief. In 1409, Süleyman’s brother Musa crossed into his territory and besieged the city of Adrianople. Manuel II gave what aid he could to his vassal, but, after a brief struggle, Musa captured the city and strangled Süleyman. By 1411, the new sultan was at the walls of Constantinople, determined to punish the emperor for supporting the wrong side, and Manuel was only able to rescue the situation by encouraging Mehmed—a third brother—to overthrow Musa. The siege was lifted and Musa succumbed in his turn to the bowstring, but once again Constantinople was subject to the Ottoman whim.