Battle of Ankara - Forces

Forces

The exact size of the conflicting armies is not known. When Timur invaded Asia Minor, his army of horsemen with no infantry allowed him to move fast through the Turkish Empire, destroying the Empire's defense piece by piece. Later, before the main battle and during the battle, a number of Bayezid's allies and vassals joined Timur. In Turkey Old and New: historical, geographical and statistical (1880), Sutherland Menzies states that both armies amounted to nearly one million men. Peter Fredet claims that Timur and Bayezid's armies consisted of 800,000 and 400,000 men, respectively. Robert Henlopen Labberton argues that Timur's army had 600,000 men, while Bayezid's army was only 120,000 strong.

In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, historian Edward Gibbon explained in detail the discrepancies over the strength of both forces:

This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah, or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of a Carizmian officer (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617); and it is remarkable enough that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29) adds no more than 20,000 men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix. p. 800) 1,100,000; and the enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested by a German soldier who was present at the battle of Angora (Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii. p. 82). Timour, in his Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his troops, his subjects, or his revenues. ... Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman army (Institutions, p. 153), which is reduced to 150,000 by Phranza (l. i. c. 29), and swelled by the German soldier to 1,400,000. It is evident that the Moguls were the more numerous.

In Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300–1774, David Nicolle remarked that "he sizes of the two armies are reliably estimated at 140,000 on Timur's side and no more than 85,000 under Sultan Bayezid I". Gjon Kastrioti (Skanderbeg's father) together with other Ottoman vassals from Albania (Koja Zaharia, Dhimiter Jonima and probably Tanush Dukagjini) personally led their retainers participating in this battle on Ottoman side.