When, in the late 1390s, Bayezid I extended his rule over eastern Anatolia, the clash between the Ottomans and Taimur became unavoidable. Taimur claimed descent from Genghis Khan (r. 1206–27), the founder of the Mongol Empire, and thus considered himself the ruler of all territories once controlled by the Ilkhanid-Mongols, including Seljuk-Ilkhanid Anatolia.
Taimur thus demanded that Bayezid accepted him as suzerain. In open defiance, Bayezid turned to the head of Sunni Islam, the caliph in Cairo, and requested the title of “sultan of Rum,” used by the Rum Seljuks, whom the Ottomans considered their ancestors. The Turkoman principalities of eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan tried to maneuver between Bayezid and Taimur, giving ample pre-text for each ruler to attack the other.
According to Colin Imber, Taimur’s strategy was as much political as military, exploiting the fragile loyalties of Bayezid’s subjects in Anatolia. In 1390, the lords of the old emirates of Germiyan, Saruhan, Aydın, and Menteshe had sought the protection of Taimur after Bayezid had annexed their lands. He now placed these men in prominent positions in his army. At the same time, his envoys had negotiated with the tribal chiefs of Anatolia, whose men fought in Bayezid’s army, to desert Bayezid on the battlefield.
Furthermore, before the battle began, he had occupied a position which controlled access to the water supplies, exhausting Bayezid’s men even before the conflict. His strategy succeeded. When the battle opened, the cavalrymen from the old emirates, seeing their former lords in Taimur’s army, deserted Bayezid. So, as pre-arranged, did the tribal levies.
When these men changed sides, the forces under the command of his elder and younger sons, Süleyman and Mehmed, abandoned the field, leaving Bayezid with only his Janissary bodyguard and the contingent from Serbia under Stephen Lazarevic´. He ended the battle as a prisoner of Taimur. He died a year later in captivity.
Ottoman domains in eastern and central Anatolia, recently seized by Bayezid from the Anatolian Turkoman principalities, were restored by the victor to their former lords. A bitter fight started among Bayezid’s sons over the remaining Ottoman realms, and a decade of interregnum and civil war almost led to the downfall of the Ottoman sultanate.
