After the battle of Angora, Suliman (the eldest son of Bajazed), who had fled towards Brousa, was pursued by a detachment of Timour’s army. He managed to cross into Europe and thus escaped. But Brousa, the Turkish capital, fell before Timour’s attack, and its inhabitants suffered the same brutal horrors as almost invariably marked either Tartar or Turkish captures. The city, after a carefully organised pillage, was burned. The wives and the daughters of Bajazed and his treasure became the property of Timour. Nicaea and Ghemlik were also sacked and their inhabitants taken as slaves. From the Marmora to Caramania, many towns which had been captured by the Turks were taken from them. Asia Minor was in confusion. Bajazed’s empire appeared to be dropping away in every part east of the Aegean. Suliman, however, established himself on the Bosporus at Anatolia-Hissar, and about the same time both he and the emperor at Constantinople received a summons from Timour to pay tribute. The emperor had already sent messengers to anticipate such a demand. Timour learned with satisfaction that the sons of Bajazed were disputing with each other as to the possession of such parts of their father’s empire as still remained uncaptured by him. [Sidenote: Timour captures Smyrna.] In 1402, the conqueror left Kutahia for Smyrna, which was held, as it had been for upwards of half a century, by the Knights of Rhodes. In accordance with the stipulation of Moslem sacred law, he summoned them either to pay tribute or become Mahometans, threatening them at the same time that if they refused to accept one or other of these conditions all should be killed. No sooner were the proposals rejected than Timour gave the order to attack the city. With his enormous army, he was able to surround Smyrna on three sides, and to block the entrance to it from the sea. The ships belonging to the knights were at the time absent. All kinds of machines then known for attack upon walled towns were constructed with almost incredible speed and placed in position. The houses within the city were burned by means of arrows carrying flaming materials steeped in naphtha or possibly petroleum, though, of course, not known under its modern name. After fourteen days’ vigorous siege, a general assault was ordered, and the city was taken. The knights fought like heroes, but were driven back into the citadel. Seeing that they could no longer hold out, and their ships having returned, the grand master placed himself at their head, and he and his knights cut their way shoulder to shoulder through the crowd of their enemies to the sea, where they were received into their own ships. The inhabitants who could not escape were taken before Timour and, without distinction of age or sex, were butchered.