father’s death and sought refuge at the court of Timur, who
received him with honour and at once agreed to espouse his cause.
With this intention he despatched a force against Urus Khan,
and gained some advantage over him, but, while fitting out
another army to make a fresh attack, news reached him of the
death of Urus. Only at Sighnak are coins known to have been
struck during the reign of Urus, and these bear date from 1372
to 1375.
He was followed on the throne by his two sons, Tuktakia and Timur Malik, each in turn; the first reigned but for a few weeks, and the second was killed in a battle against Toktamish, the son of his father’s enemy. Toktamish now (1378) seized the throne, not only of Eastern Kipchak but also of the Golden Horde, over which his arms had The Reign of Toktamish. at the same time proved victorious. He reigned as Nāṣir ed-din Jetal ed Mahmud Ghujas Toktamish. His demands for tribute from the Russian princes met with evasions from men who had grown accustomed to the diminished power of the later rulers of the Golden Horde, and Toktamish therefore at once marched an army into Russia. Having captured Serpukhov, he advanced on Moscow. On the 23rd of August 1382 his troops appeared before the doomed city. For some days the inhabitants bravely withstood the constant attacks on the walls, but failed in their resistance to the stratagems which were so common a phase in Mongolian warfare. With astonishing credulity they opened Moscow Sacked.the gates to the Mongols, who declared themselves the enemies of the grand-prince alone, and not of the people. The usual result followed. The Russian general, who was invited to Toktamish’s tent, was there slain and at the same time the signal was given for a general slaughter. Without discriminating age or sex, the Mongol troops butchered the wretched inhabitants without mercy, and, having made the streets desolate and the houses tenantless, they first plundered the city and then gave it over to the flames. The same pitiless fate overtook Vladimir, Zvenigorod, Yuriev, Mozhaisk and Dimitrov. With better fortune, the inhabitants of Pereslavl and Kolomna escaped with their lives from the troops of Toktamish, but at the expense of their cities, which were burned to the ground. Satisfied with his conquests, the khan returned homewards, traversing and plundering the principality of Ryazan on his way. Flushed with success, Toktamish demanded from his patron Timur the restoration of Khwarizm, which had fallen into the hands of the latter at a period when disorder reigned in the Golden Horde. Such a request was not likely to be well received by Timur, and, in answer to his positive refusal to yield the city, Toktamish marched an army of 90,000 men against Tabriz. After a siege of eight days the city was taken by assault and ruthlessly ravaged. In the meantime Timur was collecting forces to punish his rebellious protégé. When his plans were fully matured, he advanced upon Old Urgenj and captured it. More merciful than Toktamish, he transported the inhabitants to Samarkand, but in order to mark his anger against the rebellious Wars with Timur.city he levelled it with the ground and sowed barley on the site where it had stood. On the banks of the Oxus he encountered his enemy, and after a bloody battle completely routed the Kipchaks, who fled in confusion. A lull followed this victory, but in 1390 Timur again took the field. To each man was given “a bow, with thirty arrows, a quiver, and a buckler. The army was mounted, and a spare horse was supplied to every two men, while a tent was furnished for every ten, and with this were two spades, a pickaxe, a sickle, a saw, an axe, an awl, a hundred needles, 812 ℔ of cord, an ox’s hide, and a strong pan.” Thus equipped the army set forth on its march. After a considerable delay owing to an illness which overtook Timur his troops arrived at Kara Saman. Here envoys arrived from Toktamish bearing presents and a message asking pardon for his past conduct; but Timur was inexorable, and, though he treated the messengers with consideration, he paid no attention to their prayer. In face of innumerable difficulties, as well as of cold, hunger, and weariness, Timur marched forward month after month through the Kipchak country in pursuit of Toktamish. At 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 decided 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.
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. Timur, threatened by the advancing autumn, gave up 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 wares. 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. “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.” 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 Derbent and Azērbāijān.
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 century, the domination of the Golden Horde came to an end.
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 Kazan and Kasimov had already in 1552 succumbed to the growing power of Russia, and the Krim Tatars were next to fall under the same yoke. In the 15th century, when the KrimThe Krim Tatars. Tatars first appear as an independent power, 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 Black Sea, 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 opposition Kaffa, Sudak, Balaklava and Inkerman fell before the troops of the sultan Mahommed. 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 Constantinople. But though under the tutelage of Turkey, Mengli Girai, whose leading policy seems to have been
