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Conflict20 July 1402

Battle of Ankara

Timur defeated the Ottoman army near Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid I, plunging the Ottoman state into civil war for a time.

Bayezid I brought before Timur after the Battle of Ankara, from a 1552 manuscript of the Zafarnama (British Library)
Bayezid I brought before Timur after the Battle of Ankara, from a 1552 manuscript of the Zafarnama (British Library)

1533 Safavid artist · Public domain · Source

Timur and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I clashed over the Turkish chieftains of eastern Anatolia. On 20 July 1402 their armies met on the Çubuk plain northeast of Ankara; when troops of Anatolian chieftains serving with the Ottomans went over to Timur, the Ottoman army collapsed. Bayezid was captured and died a prisoner the following year.

The Ottomans fell into an interregnum (1402–1413) as his sons fought for the throne, and Byzantium gained about half a century of survival. But Timur withdrew without ruling Anatolia directly, and Mehmed I reunited the state. In the same year, Joseon produced the Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Ji Do, a world map that reaches as far as Arabia and Africa.

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States at the time
Timurid Herat · victor
Ottoman Empire · defeated

People

  • Timur1336 – 1405

    commander · Conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire (r. 1370–1405), sweeping across western and Central Asia from his capital Samarkand; he died marching on Ming China

  • Bayezid I1360 – 1403

    commander · Ottoman sultan (r. 1389–1402), called “the Thunderbolt”, who crushed a crusade at Nicopolis but was captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara

Themes that include this event

  • Turkic-Islamic Empires and Other Civilizations1000 – 1533

    From the Ghaznavid raids on India to the Mughal Empire and Suleiman I — five centuries in which Turkic-led Islamic empires took western Asia and India, while Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas raised civilisations of their own