Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/776

Rh 748 MONGOLS last, on the 18th of June, he overtook him at Kandurcha, in the country of the Bulgars, and at once forced him to an engagement. For three days the battle lasted, and after inclining now to this side and now to that victory finally de cided in favour of Timur. The Kipchaks were completely routed and fled in all directions, while it is said as many as 100,000 corpses testified to the severity of the fighting. Timur pursued his flying enemy as far as the Volga, slaughtering all who fell into his hands, and ravaged and destroyed the towns of Sarai, Saraichuk, and Astrakhan. Having inflicted this terrible blow on the Golden Horde, Timur distributed rewards to his chieftains, and presided at a series of banquets in celebration of his victory. These rejoicings over, he returned to Samarkand laden with spoils and trophies. But Toktamish, though defeated, was not subdued, and in 1395 Timur found it necessary again to undertake a campaign against him. This time the armies met upon the Terek, and after a fiercely-contested battle the Kipchaks again fled in confusion. When the victory was gained, Timur, we are told, knelt down on the field and returned thanks to Heaven for his success. The pur suit along the Volga was vigorously undertaken, and the slaughter among the fugitives was terrible. The hurried advance of Timur s horsemen threw the Russians into a state of wild alarm, and the grand-prince of Moscow ordered that an ancient image of the Virgin which was believed to possess miraculous power should be taken to Moscow to save that city from the destroyer. Success appeared to attend this measure, for Timur, threatened by the advancing autumn, gave up all further pursuit, and retired with a vast booty of gold ingots, silver bars, pieces of Antioch linen and of the embroidered cloth of Russia, &c. On his homeward march southwards he arrived before Azak, which was then the entrepot where the merchants of the east and west exchanged their Avares. In vain the natives, with the Egyptian, Venetian, Genoese, Catalan, and Basque inhabitants, besought him to spare the city. His answer was a command to the Moslems to separate themselves from the rest of the people, whom he put to the sword, and then gave the city over to the flames. Circassia and Georgia next felt his iron heel, and the fastnesses of the central Caucasus were one and all destroyed. After these successes Timur gave himself up for a time to feasting and rejoicing, accompanied by every manifestation of Oriental luxury. &quot; His tent of audience was hung with silk, its poles were golden, or probably covered with golden plates, the nails being silver ; his throne was of gold, enriched with precious stones ; the floor was sprinkled with rose water.&quot; But his vengeance was not satisfied, and, having refreshed his troops by this halt, he marched northwards against Astrakhan, which he utterly destroyed. The inhabitants were driven out into the country to perish with the cold, while the commander of the city was killed by being forced beneath the ice of the Volga. Sarai next shared the same fate, and Timur, having thus crushed for the second time the empire of Toktamish, set out on his return home by way of Derbend and Azerbijan. The defeated khan succeeded shortly afterwards in recapturing Sarai ; but, being again driven out, he retired in 1398 to Kieff, a fugitive from his king dom. During his reign, which lasted for twenty-four years, he struck coins at Kharezm, Krim, New Krim, Azak, Sarai, New Sarai, Saraichuk, and Astrakhan. The power in the hands of the successors of Toktamish never revived after the last campaign of Timur. They were constantly engaged in wars with the Russians and the Krim Tatars, with whom the Russians had allied themselves, and by degrees their empire decayed, until, on the seizure and death of Ahmed Khan at the beginning of the 16th cen tury, the domination of the Golden Horde came to an end. One. solitary fragment of the Golden Horde, the khanate of Astrakhan, maintained for a time an existence after the fall of the central power. But even this last remnant ceased to be a Mongol apanage in 1554, when it was captured by the Russians and converted into a Russian province. The fate which thus overtook the Golden Horde was destined to be shared by all the western branches of the great Mongol family. The khans of Kasan and Kasimoff had already in 1552 succumbed to the growing power of Russia, and the Krim Tatars were next to The fall under the same yoke. In the 15th century, when Krim the Krim Tatars first appear as an independent power, Tatars - they attempted to strengthen their position by allying themselves with the Russians, to whom they looked for help against the attacks of the Golden Horde. But while they were in this state of dependence another power arose in eastern Asia which modified the political events of that region. In 1453 Constantinople was taken by the Osmanli Turks, who, having quarrelled with the Genoese merchants who monopolized the trade on the Euxine, sent an expedition into the Crimea to punish the presumptuous traders. The power which had captured Constantinople was not likely to be held in check by any forces at the disposal of the Genoese, and without any serious opposi tion Kaffa, Sudak, Balaclava, and Inkerman fell before the troops of the sultan Mohammed. It was plain that, situated as the Crimea was between the two great powers of Russia and Turkey, it must of necessity fall under the direction of one of them. Which it should be was decided by the invasion of the Turks, who restored Mengli Girai, the deposed khan, to the throne, and virtually converted the khanate into a dependency of Constanti nople. But though under the tutelage of Turkey, Mengli Girai, whose leading policy seems to have been the desire to strengthen himself against the khans of the Golden Horde, formed a close alliance with the grand-prince Ivan of Russia. One resiilt of this friendship was that the Mongols were enabled, and encouraged, to indulge their predatory habits at the expense of the enemies of Russia, and in this way both Lithuania and Poland suffered terribly from their incursions. It was destined, however, that in their turn the Russians should not escape from the marauding tendencies of their allies, for, on pretext of a quarrel with reference to the succession to the Kasan throne, Mohammed Girai Khan in 1521 marched an army northwards until, after having devastated the country, massacred the people, and desecrated the churches on his route, he arrived at the heights of VorobiefF overlooking Moscow. The terror of the unfortunate inhabitants at the sight once again of the dreaded Mongols was extreme ; but the horrors which had accompanied similar past visitations were happily averted by a treaty, by which the grand-prince Vasili undertook to pay a perpetual trib ute to the Krim khans. This, however, proved but a truce. It was impossible that an aggressive state like Russia should live in friendship with a marauding power like that of the Krim Tatars. The primary cause of contention was the khanate of Kasan, which was recovered by the Mongols, and lost again to Russia with that of Astrakhan in 1555. The sultan, however, declined to accept this condition of things as final, and instigated Devlet Girai, the Krim khan, to attempt their recovery. With this object the latter marched an army northwards, where, finding the road to Moscow unprotected, he pushed on in the direction of that ill-starred city. On arriving before its walls he found a large Russian force occupying the suburbs. With these, however, he was saved from an encounter, for just as his foremost men approached the town a fire broke out, which, in consequence of the high wind blowing at the time, spread with frightful rapidity, and in the space