Fifteen thousand men fell in a vain effort to pierce the Tartar lines. The slaughter was so great that Soleiman was unable to rally his forces.[630] When they broke and fled, the offensive movement of the Osmanlis was at an end. Bayezid, now on the defensive, was driven back step by step. His retreat was cut off. With his bodyguard and the refugees from other battalions, he made a gallant fight upon a small hill, holding off the enemy for hours.[631] Long after nightfall, when the main forces of Timur’s army, who had been pursuing the Osmanlis, returned to the scene of victory, they learned that the Ottoman sovereign was still fighting on the hill. There was no more hope for Bayezid. The last of the defenders were overwhelmed. ‘The Thunderbolt continued to wield a heavy battle-ax. As a starving wolf scatters a flock of sheep, he scattered the enemy. Each blow of his redoubtable ax struck in such a way that there was no need of a second blow.’[632] At last, as he tried to withdraw over the hill, he was overpowered,[633] his hands were bound behind his back, and he was sent to Timur’s tent. With Bayezid, his son Musa and several of his highest officials, one of whom was Timurtash, were taken prisoners. Mustafa disappeared. Soleiman, Mohammed, and Isa succeeded in escaping.[634] The battle of Angora is memorable in Ottoman annals as the only crushing defeat experienced by the Osmanlis in the first three centuries of their history, and as the one instance where a sovereign of the house of Osman has been captured. But it cannot be placed among the memorable conflicts that have changed the course of history; for it did not affect the fortunes of the nation that won or of the nation that lost. It was not like Kossova and Nicopolis. XVII Bayezid was brought before his conqueror at midnight, when Timur was seeking relaxation from the strain of the combat in his favourite game of chess with his son, Shah-Rokh. Bayezid had lost nothing of his haughty spirit, and did not try to win the good graces of Timur. He was never more the sovereign than in this moment of humiliation. So impressed was Timur with the manner and bearing of his prisoner, that he accorded him every honour due to his rank.