TAMERLANE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 11, 24 October 1929, Page 8

TAMERLANE

TERROR OF ASIA. Tamerlane scares the imagination with visions of blood and terror. He conquered Asia, created an empire that fell to pieces, and made pyramids of the skulls of his fallen enemies. A life of action, of remorseless 1 cruelty, of great endurance. He had the will to conquer, and he conquered. Mr Harold Lamb gives a definite impression of the man and his times in "Tamerlane the Earth Shaker," says "John o' London's Weekly.'' The book is written in the style" of many, perhaps too many, modern biographies, with invented dialogue to fit the occasion. But there is nothing flimsy about MiLamb's work; he reconstructs his material with skill. The "Scythian Tamburlaine," as Marlowe calls 1 him, was, at the outset of his terrible career, "a gentleman of little consequence—master of no more than some cattle and land in that breeding ground of conquerors, Central Asia." He had none of the magnanimity of his great predecessor, Genghis Khan, but he had intense and vivid personality, vast ambition, and no scruples. ' He gathered the nomad tribes under his red banner, traversed deserts, looted cities, held kings in bondage. He was a great chess player:— . "For hours during the nights he sat at the chess board, moving the miniature horsemen and ivory castlesi and elephants' over the squares—often as not without a companion. When he played with an opponent he almost always won, and this was not policy on the part of his officers. Timur was a master plaver. To satisfy his study of the game he had a new board made with double the number of squares and pieces. On this he worked out new combinations. ..." . » Tamerlane employed elephants in his main: fighting forces to intimidate the enemy; clad in their great leathern coats' thev moved solemnly forward to the attack. Elephants do not surrender; they die. Here, according to Clayijo, is a summary of Tamerlane's achievements: — "Tamerlane, Lord of Samarkand, having conquered all the land of the Mongols, and India; also having conquered the Land of the Sun, which is a great lordship; also having conquered and reduced to obedience the land of Kharesm- also having reduced all Persia and Media, with the Empire of Tabriz and the City of the Sultan; also having conquered the Land of Silk, with the land of the Gates; and also having conquered Armenia the Less, and Erzerum, and the land of the Kurds—having conquered in battle the lord of India and taken a great part of his territory; also having destroyed the city of Damascus and reduced the cities of. Aleppo, of Babylon and Baghdad; and having overrun many other lands and lordships and won many battles, and achieved many conquests, he came against the Turk Bayazid (who is one of the greatest lords' of the world) and gave him battle, conquering him and taking him prisoner." But Tamerlane built as well as destroyed; lie reconstructed his beloved Samarkand, that Golden City of infinite legend that has fired the peaceful imagination of so many poets ; perhaps that was the one really worthy thing he ever did in his life. He died in 1405.