It would be well for the fame of fortunate destroyers of their species, if they would remember and be admonished by the remark of Ahab to Benhadad, king of Syria: “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast to himself as he that putteth it off.” The sultan Bajazet belonged to the numerous class of military vain boasters, which is not, while we write, even now extinct. We have seen, that A.D. 1402, Constantinople and the Greek empire, were on the verge of destruction at his hand. The really formidable chivalry of the west had intervened to save them, but had been broken in the battle of Nicopolis. The Ottoman sultan saw no power to make him afraid; and supposing himself master of the situation, he thus addressed the Dragon-emperor: “Our invincible scymitar has reduced almost all Asia (Minor) and many and large countries in Europe (“the Rest of the Men”) excepting only the city of Constantinople; resign that city, or tremble for thyself and thine unhappy people.” The killing of “the third of the men” thus seemed imminent full half a century before the prophetic period of 391 years and 30 days had elapsed that fixed it. But the eyes of the Eternal Spirit are always upon the truth. He never slumbers nor sleeps; so that all the boastful Bajazets in creation can neither expedite nor delay what he has decreed. As we have seen, He prepared the Timour-Mogul angel-power to make vain the boasts of the Ottoman sultan, and to delay the catastrophe of the vision until the expiration of the period of the time appointed. Thus, “the savageas Gibbon says, “was forced to relinquish his prey by a stronger savage than himself; and by the victory of Tamerlane the fall of Constantinople was delayed about fifty years.”
Bajazet died in captivity, A.D. 1403; but the Ottoman Dynasty did not expire with him. “The massy trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and more lively vegetation.” When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia, he left the cities without a palace, a treasure, or a king. The open country was overspread with hordes of shepherds and robbers of Tartar and Turkman origin; the recent conquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs; and his five sons seemed eager, by their civil discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. There was as yet no fourth angel-power to be loosed. Its preparation, so far as it had progressed during the second interval, was interrupted, with little prospect of renewal and completion.
But the events of the ensuing eighteen years changed the face of affairs. This was a period of preparation, in which was completed the development of the fourth Euphratean angel-power. It was a period of war between the sons of Bajazet, which resulted in the destruction of them all, except Mohammed I. This prince, before his father’s captivity, had been intrusted with the government of Amasia, and the Turkish frontier. In his rapid career, Timour overlooked this obscure angle of Anatolia, “bounded by” Georgia on the east, the Greek kingdom of Trebisond on the west, and the “great river Euphrates” on the southwest; where Mohammed, without provoking the conqueror, maintained his silent independence. He obtained Anatolia by treaty, and Thrace by arms. The last eight years of his reign were employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy.
He was succeeded by his son Amurath II., who, by the aid of the Genoese, captured Adrianople, and so reunited the Ottoman empire, A.D. 1421.