Battle of Ankara The Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora , fought on 20 July 1402 , took place at the field of " Çubuk " ( near Ankara ) between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turko - Mongol forces of Timur , ruler of the Timurid Empire . The battle was a major victory for Timur , and it led to a period of crisis for the Ottoman Empire ( the Ottoman Interregnum ) . However the Timurid Empire went into terminal decline following Timur ' s death just three years after the battle , while the Ottoman Empire made a full recovery , and continued to increase in power for another two to three centuries . Background . Timur was one of the most powerful Central Asia n rulers since Genghis Khan . By long and relentless fighting , he sought to rebuild the Mongol Empire of his predecessors . Timur had conquered Georgia and Azerbaijan in 1390 and Syria in 1399 after defeating the Mamluks , expanding his empire to the borders of the Ottoman Empire . The two powers soon came into direct conflict . Bayezid demanded tribute from one of the Anatolian Beyliks who had pledged loyalty to Timur and threatened to invade . Timur interpreted this action as an insult to himself and in 1400 sacked the Ottoman city of Sebaste ( modern Sivas ) . In 1402 , the Ottomans campaigned in Europe , trying to conquer Hungary . Timur , a wise and educated military leader , found it as a proper moment to attack and destroy the Ottoman empire . Beyazid was stung into furious action and when Timur invaded Anatolia from the east , hurried back from Europe in order to confront fast moving Timur somewhere in the west of Turkey . Timur , whose whole army was mounted , took a u - turn moving fast through Anatolia , slaughtering Ottoman conscripts , taking away horses , destroying Ottoman cities and towns in his path . The conflict , overall , was the culmination of years of insulting letters exchanged between Timur and Bayezid . Forces . The exact size of the conflicting armies is not known . When Timur invaded Asia Minor , his army of horsemen with no infantry allowed him to move fast through the Ottoman Empire , destroying the Empire ' s defense piece by piece . Later , before the main battle and during the battle , a number of Bayezid ' s allies and vassals joined Timur . In " Turkey Old and New : historical , geographical and statistical " ( 1880 ) , Sutherland Menzies states that both armies amounted to nearly one million men . Peter Fredet claims that Timur and Bayezid ' s armies consisted of 800 , 000 and 400 , 000 men , respectively . Robert Henlopen Labberton argues that Timur ' s army had 600 , 000 men , while Bayezid ' s army was only 120 , 000 strong . In " The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " , historian Edward Gibbon explained in detail the discrepancies over the strength of both forces : This number of 800 , 000 was extracted by Arabshah , or rather by Ebn Schounah , ex rationario Timuri , on the faith of a Carizmian officer ( tom . i . c . 68 , p . 617 ) ; and it is remarkable enough that a Greek historian ( Phranza , l . i . c . 29 ) adds no more than 20 , 000 men . Poggius reckons 1 , 000 , 000 ; another Latin contemporary ( Chron . Tarvisianum , apud Muratori , tom . xix . p . 800 ) 1 , 100 , 000 ; and the enormous sum of 1 , 600 , 000 is attested by a German soldier who was present at the battle of Angora ( Leunclav . ad Chalcondyl . l . iii . p . 82 ) . Timour , in his Institutions , has not deigned to calculate his troops , his subjects , or his revenues . Timour himself fixes at 400 , 000 men the Ottoman army ( Institutions , p . 153 ) , which is reduced to 150 , 000 by Phranza ( l . i . c . 29 ) , and swelled by the German soldier to 1 , 400 , 000 . It is evident that the Moguls were the more numerous . [ The forces of Bayezid are put at 90 , 000 by Sad ad - Din ( tr . Bratutti , 214 ) . Of course the number given by Timur cannot be accepted . ] In " Armies of the Ottoman Turks , 1300 – 1774 " , David Nicolle remarked that " [ t ] he sizes of the two armies are reliably estimated at 140 , 000 on Timur ' s side and no more than 85 , 000 under Sultan Bayezid I " . Gjon Kastrioti ( Skanderbeg ' s father ) together with other Ottoman vassals from Albania ( Koja Zaharia , Dhimiter Jonima and probably Tanush Dukagjini ) personally led their retainers participating in this battle on Ottoman side . Battle . The battle began with a large - scale attack from the Ottomans , countered by swarms of arrows from the Timurid horse archers . Several thousands were killed and many surrendered to Timur . Serbian Prince Stefan Lazarević and his knights together with Wallachian forces successfully fought off the Timurid assaults and did cut through the Mongol ranks three times . Each time Stefan advised Bayezid to break out with him but Bayezid repeatedly declined to do so resulting in the proud and stubborn Sultan after a lengthly resistance to be captured . But the Serbians managed to save one of Bayezids sons and the treasury from the Mongols and made their way to Constantinople . The Serbian troops wore heavy black armour which reflected the Timurid arrows Timur admired the Serbian troops who " fight like lions " . During the battle the main water supply of both armies , Çubuk creek , was diverted to an off - stream reservoir near the town of Çubuk by Timur , which left the Ottoman army with no water . The final battle took place at Catal hill , dominating the Çubuk valley . The Ottoman army , both thirsty and tired , was defeated , though Bayezid managed to escape to the nearby mountains with a few hundred horsemen . However , Timur had the mountains surrounded and , heavily outnumbering Bayezid , soon captured him . Despite being heavily outnumbered , the Ottoman army was further weakened by the desertion of the Tatars and the Sipahis from the Anatolian beyliks , who left Bayezids ' side and joined Timur ' s forces . Aftermath . European populations had , at first , seen the Timurids as a blessing and the Genoese were said to have flown the Mongol standard from the walls of Galata in support of Timur . However , after a few months following his destruction of the Ottoman power in Anatolia , fear of being the next target had gripped the European people . Preferring the devil they knew to one they did not , Italian ships ferried the beaten Ottoman soldiers into Thrace to safety . Timur was furious at the Italian sailors who rescued the Ottoman soldiers , but with no ships , he was in no position to do anything to stop it . At least one Muslim writer complained that , despite being Muslims , Timur ' s soldiers ravaged in Asia Minor like barbarians . Due to the Timurid invasion , the Ottomans abandoned their most recent siege of Constantinople and their troops were transferred to Asia Minor to counter the new threat . The Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Ankara bought the Byzantine emperor and much of Eastern Europe a brief respite . This event was catastrophic for the Ottoman state , fracturing what remained and bringing almost total collapse of the empire . This resulted in an civil war among Bayezid ' s sons . A total collapse of the Ottoman Empire was probably only averted due to the fact that Timur himself died only three years later , sparking their own Timurid civil war as various family members battled each other for succession . The Ottoman civil war continued for another 11 years ( 1413 ) following the Battle of Ankara . The victor , now Sultan Mehmed I , wisely chose to relocate his empire ' s capital to the European side of the Bosphorus . Succeeding years of internal social and religious strife would lead to further delays in any meaningful Ottoman expansion . Remarkably , only 51 years after this near collapse , the Ottomans would finally achieve the long sought - after Islamic dream of capturing Constantinople ( 1453 ) . This was a feat only realized once before , by the Western knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 . The battle is also significant in as being the only time a Sultan has been captured in person . It has been claimed that over 50 , 000 Turks laid dead within just a few hours .