page_title: Timurid conquests and invasions
section_title: Caucasus
hierarchical_section_title: Timurid conquests and invasions / Caucasus
context_page_description: Timurid conquests and invasions started in the eighth decade of the 14th century with Timur's control over Chagatai Khanate and ended at the start of the 15th century with the death of Timur. Due to the sheer scale of Timur's wars, and the fact that he was generally undefeated in battle, he has been regarded as one of the most successful military commanders of all time. These wars resulted in the supremacy of Timur over Central Asia, Persia, the Caucasus and the Levant, and parts of South Asia and Eastern Europe, and also the formation of the short-lived Timurid Empire. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time.
  Timur gained power over the Western Chagatai Khanate after defeating Amir Husayn, the regent of the Chagatai Khanate, at the Battle of Balkh but the laws laid down by Genghis Khan prevented him from becoming Khagan in his own right because he was not directly descendant of Genghis Khan by birth. Instead, he installed a puppet Khan descended from Ögedei, Suurgatmish.
context_section_description: Kingdom of Georgia, a Christian kingdom dominanted on the most of Caucasus, was subjected many times by Timur between 1386 and 1403. These conflicts were intimately linked with the wars between Timur and Tokhtamysh, the last Khan of Golden Horde. He officially proclaimed his invasions to be jihad against non-Muslims. Although Timur invaded the Georgia many times but he never made attempt to make Georgia a Muslim country. Timur personally led most of these raids to subdue the recalcitrant Georgian monarch. Kingdom of Georgia suffered a great loss due to these invasions and never recovered again. By the time George VII was forced to accept Timur's terms of peace and agree to pay tribute, he was a master of little more than gutted towns, ravaged countryside and a shattered monarchy.
  Timur's first appearance in the Caucasus was a response to  Tokhtamysh’s marauding inroad into Northern Iran through the Caucasian lands in 1385. After having overrun Azerbaijan and Kars, Timur marched into Georgia. Firstly he assailed Samtskhe atabegate, the principality of Kingdom of Georgia. From there, he marched against Tbilisi which the Georgian king Bagrat V had fortified. The city fell on November 21, 1386, and King Bagrat V was captured. However Bagrat V was given some 12,000 troops to reestablish himself in Georgia under Timur's suzerainty.
  In the following years Timur  invaded Georgia many times and remained victorious in most of conflicts. In spring of 1387, he returned to Georgia to take revenge for the ambush and escape. In 1394, he again captured eastern provinces which were taken by Georgians during Tokhtamysh–Timur wars.
  In 1395 the desperate Georgians allied themselves with Sidi Ali of Shekki and captured the Jalayirid prince, Tahir. This event prompted Timur to return, later in 1399. He took Shekki and devastated the neighboring region of Kakheti. In the spring of 1400, Timur moved back to destroy the Georgian state once and for all. He demanded that George VII should hand over the Jalayirid Tahir but George VII refused and met Timur at the Sagim River in Lower Kartli, but suffered a defeat. After the war, of those who survived the fighting and reprisals, many thousands died of hunger and disease, and 60,000 survivors were enslaved and carried away by Timur's troops.
  In late 1401, Timur invaded the Caucasus once again. George VII had to sue for peace, and sent his brother with the contributions. Timur made peace with George VII on condition that the King of Georgia supplied him troops during his campaign against Ottoman Empire and granted the Muslims special privileges. Once the Ottomans were defeated, Timur, back to Erzurum in 1402, decided to punish the king of Georgia for not having come to present his congratulations on his victory. Historians reported that 700 towns were destroyed and their inhabitants massacred by Timurid forces.
  George VII had to pay a huge tribute in the name of Timur. After the tribute, Timur made peace with George VII and then finally he left Caucasus permanently. All the territories from Beylagan to Trebizond were officially given by Timur as an appanage to his grandson Khalil Sultan.
caption: The Mongol dominions, 1300–1405; the Timurid Empire is shaded. Timur is also protector of Mongol dominions.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:28 16:26:58", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "310", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9658", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "938"}