Battle of Ankara

The Battle of Ankara was a catastrophic Ottoman defeat at the hands of the Timurid conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), temporarily derailing Ottoman expansion. Timur had been building his own empire in Central Asia and Persia, and had clashed with Bayezid over control of Anatolian territory. He marched on Anatolia with a massive army and faced Bayezid near Ankara. Bayezid's position was undermined when a substantial portion of his Anatolian forces defected to Timur during the battle — many were troops from the very principalities Bayezid had absorbed and whose former rulers now fought with Timur. The Ottoman army was broken, and Bayezid himself was captured. He died in captivity months later. Timur then ravaged much of Anatolia and looted Smyrna. The battle plunged the Ottoman state into a decade of civil war among Bayezid's sons. However, the Ottoman state survived, recovered, and within fifty years achieved its greatest triumph with the conquest of Constantinople.