Siege of Smyrna 1402
.jpg){kind=link}
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1402 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Turkey | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Timurid conquests and invasions | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Knights Hospitaller, Timurid Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 38.4239, 27.1428 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Smyrna (December 1402) was fought between the Knights of Rhodes, who held the harbour and sea-castle of Smyrna (now İzmir) in western Anatolia, and the army of the Turco-Mongol emir Timur. The Turco-Mongols blockaded the harbour and attacked the fortifications with stone-throwing siege engines, while the defenders, numbering only about 200 knights, countered with arrows and incendiary projectiles. After two weeks of strong resistance against a far superior adversary, the outer wall was destroyed by mining and breached. Some of the garrison managed to escape by sea, but the inhabitants and the city itself were destroyed.
The main sources for the siege are the Persian historians Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi and Mirkhwand and the Arab Ahmad ibn Arabshah, who wrote in the service of Timur's successors. For the Knights of Rhodes, the official history of Giacomo Bosio, written early in the seventeenth century, is an important source. From the Ottoman (Turkish) perspective, there is Neşri and the Künhü'l-aḫbār of Mustafa Âlî. For the Byzantines, there are Doukas and Laonikos Chalkokondyles; for the Genoese, Agostino Giustiniani.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Smyrna (revision 1369613358), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Greek landing at Smyrna 1919 · 1 km
- Battle of Magnesia 190 BC · 33 km
- Battle of Myonessus 190 BC · 42 km
- Battle of Focchies 1649 · 43 km
- Battle of Corupedium 281 BC · 44 km
- Battle of Notium 406 BC · 54 km
Other battles of the Timurid conquests and invasions
- Timurid conquests and invasions 1370
- Siege of Urgench 1379
- Siege of Herat (1381) 1381
- Siege of Isfahan (1387) 1387
- Siege of Alinja 1388
All 6 battles of the Timurid conquests and invasions →
Browse more: battles in Turkey · Asia · Medieval battles