Harold Lamb
Ed. Dall'Oglio
pp. 380
"Erein mor nigen bui", the path of a man is one!
In this book the path of Tamerlane, the last of the great conquerors, is told.
Tamerlane was born around the 1335 in Shahr-e Sabz (Green City), currently in Uzbekistan, near the great river Amu Darya, south of Samarkand.
"His house was a house of wood and raw clay, with a masonry fence that enclosed a courtyard and a garden."
Although he had a house, he spent almost his entire life as all the nomads did, on horseback and under a tent.
Tamerlane's father, Tagarai, a gentle man, was the tribal chief of the Tatars Barlas, a tribe of warriors: "they were Tatars, men of tall stature, large and prominent. Bearded, sunburned, they walked - when it was really necessary to go on foot - swinging the person and never turning for anyone, unless it was a more respected Tatar."
The name Tamerlano is the phonetic transposition of Timur-i-lang or Timur the lame, an illness contracted following one of the many battles in which he took part.
Of course friends and subjects were careful not to call it that, their king was for them Amir Timur Garigan, Lord Timur, the Splendid.
Timur spent his time with the boys of his age, showing off right away because of his seriousness and skill in riding and using weapons: bow and sword.
One day the news reached him that the "creator of kings" was looking for him.
Faithful to the call of his lord, Kazgan, he settled the family affairs and set out for Sali Sarai, an area near the Amu Darya river where the Tatars, "lords, young men of noble lineage and warriors", were camped.
It was there that he pointed out. One day Kazgan instructed Timur to retrieve horses stolen from a group of marauders.
Timur behaved well and took the spoils back to his lord, who has since grown fond of him.
Timur soon became a "bahatur", one of the legendary heroes of the Tatar clans, those who went to battle as to a party. He sat among them and participated in the battles.
He was a born, vigorous, untiring leader, he loved to command and possessed a virtue that not all leaders possess: in whatever situation he found himself he always remained calm and thoughtful.
Time passed and Timur took a wife, Aljai Khatun Agha.
His importance also grew at court and Kazgan named him "ming-bashi", commander of a thousand men and put him at the head of the vanguard of his army.
Shortly afterwards Kazgan, with the help of Timur and his warriors, conquered Herat and captured the lord of the city. From this arose internal disagreements and Kazgan was killed by some of his subordinates.
Timur, as soon as he was informed, began to pursue them and did not stop at nothing until he had reached and killed them.
A period of chaos followed the death of Kazgan.
The son could not take the reins of the command in Samarkand. The Clans began a struggle without respite, "only those who can wield a sword can hold a scepter" was in fact the motto of the Tatars.
Two clan chiefs over all vied for power: Hadji Barlas, Timur's uncle, and Bayazid Jalair.
In the midst of the chaos left by Kazgan's death, the Great Khan of the north, ruler of the Mongol Jats, decided to descend into the south to reaffirm his dominion over territories long lost.
Timur, even on that occasion, remained calm, unlike the other tribal chiefs who seemed mad with fear.
He decided to stay in his Green City home and wait.
When the enemy avant-gardes arrived in front of his house, he welcomed the scout commander and offered him and his men a sumptuous feast. The officer, forced by the bond of hospitality, prevented men from helping Timur's assets but asked for gifts of great value in return. Timur satisfied him and expressed his willingness to meet the great northern Khan to pay him homage.
The great Khan, Tugluk, was encamped with his court near Samarkand, where Timur joined him with all his possessions and those of his clan.
When he arrived in front of the great Khan, he dismounted and paid tribute to him: "My father, my khan, lord of the ordu, I am Timur, chief of the Barlas tribe of the Green City". Then he gave him all his possessions, adding that the gift would have been much greater if some of the officers who had accompanied him had not robbed him.
Timur thus conquered the khan Tugluk and from him, before he left again to the north to quell the riots that had broken out in his absence, he was named "tuman-bashi" that is commander of ten thousand men.
Timur had been the only one not to flee in front of the great northern khan, of course, he had not been able to fight, he did not have the strength, but he had shown everyone his diplomatic skills and had thus saved his valley and his city of looting and destruction. He had also created envy and this once again led to struggles and wars for power.
A few years later the great Khan returned to the south to restore order. Timur was invested with the title of prince of Samarkand but Tugluk left his son Ilias and General Bikijuk in the area with the task of supervising the kingdom.
These Mongols were marauders and they proved it.
Timur protested to his sovereign for the behavior of his son and the general but got nothing so he rebelled and after the first skirmishes, declared outlawed, he had to run away into the desert.
Timur's fortune begins from the escape in the desert, and it will be in the difficulties that all his skills as a warrior, strategist and conqueror will emerge.
The book continues in the story of the life of the great conqueror, of he who could rightly be called the worthy heir of Genghis Khan.
Until the end, in the 1405, at the age of about seventy, when he was stopped by an illness in the harsh winter that saw him marching towards Cathay, at the head of his enormous army.
He had conquered everything. He had always fought in the head of his men and where he had passed he had always won great victories.
His men loved him, his people respected and feared him.
Faced with an enemy who surrendered he was capable of acts of just prodigality, faced with an ally who betrayed him raised pyramids of heads, detached from his neck.
Justice in the kingdom was exercised with firmness and fairness.
His ministers, if they respected their duty, were rewarded, if they failed or behaved wrongly with the people, they were taken off!
Timur, was the last of the great conquerors, but he was also a great builder. Samarkand, under him, became the largest capital in the world, hosting about two million people, of all races and religions.
Wherever he went he looked at everything and on his return home he had the works he had admired in the conquered cities raised.
His reign could be traveled far and wide without danger.
Along the main roads post stations allowed travelers to stop and change horses, and to Timur couriers to travel without interruption to bring news to their lord.
Unfortunately, like many of his predecessors, after conquering everything, he left the kingdom, partly, in chaos, since there was no other Timur capable of maintaining power.
Timur was a great conqueror, mostly unknown in the West, although he probably owed the salvation of Europe that would otherwise have fallen under the Ottoman Empire!
Alessandro Rugolo
