[624] A great deal has been written about the date of Angora, but all authorities agree in putting it between July 20 and July 28, 1402. Cf. _Art de vérifier les Dates_, i. 193; Silvestre de Sacy, in _Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, vi. 488-95; Moranvillé, in _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, lv. 437-8. A few early western writers have given 1397 and 1403, while Petits de la Croix, in his French translation of Sherefeddin, is a decade too late in all his dates. The latter part of July 1402 is fixed by all contemporary authorities on this battle. Abu’l-Mahasin, in his history of the reign of the Egyptian sultan Barkok, states that the greater part of Bayezid’s army perished by thirst before his capture. [625] On the nationality of the Tartars who betrayed Bayezid at Angora, see the latter part of the note of Bruun on the ‘White Tartars’ in the Hakluyt ed. of Schiltberger, pp. 114-17. [626] From the account of the Dominican Friar, pp. 458-9, it seems clear that Bayezid was the aggressor until after Soleiman’s command had been cut to pieces. [627] Sherefeddin, iv. 8-12; Dominican Friar, p. 458. [628] Afterwards Mohammed I. Many western writers have confused him with his nickname of Kiritchelebi (Girigilibi in Rabbi Joseph, i. 257, and a variety of spellings in other early writers), and made him thus his own father, to account for the later Sultan Mohammed. [629] In this battle I have used Sherefeddin, Arabshah, Dominican Friar, in _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, lv. 437-68, Schiltberger, Clavijo, and the invaluable letters in Marino Sanuto, Muratori, xxii. 794-7. The authorities for Angora and Timur are classified in the bibliography below. [630] Sherefeddin, iv. 15, says the carnage in this battle was seven times greater than in any of Timur’s previous victories. The Dominican Friar, p. 459, puts the Ottoman losses at 40,000. [631] Schiltberger, p. 21, says that he retreated to this hill with 1,000 horsemen. Hammer is in error in saying that Bayezid ‘resisted like a hero at the head of his _ten thousand_ janissaries with whom he had occupied the slope of a hill’: ii. 91. There were never as many as ten thousand janissaries enrolled in the Ottoman army until a century after Bayezid’s death. See above, p. 119. In oriental historians numbers are almost invariably exaggerated at least tenfold. [632] Solak-zadé, p. 63. Sherefeddin and Arabshah bear witness to Bayezid’s personal courage. [633] The Ottoman historians explain the capture of Bayezid by the fact that he was unhorsed. Some say that he was mounted on an inexperienced horse. A great deal was written about the battle of Angora at a much later date, but, as in describing the battles of Kossova and Nicopolis, I have limited myself to contemporary sources. [634] Mustafa’s fate was never cleared up. Mohammed and Isa fled naked, according to the Dominican Friar, p. 450.