The place of rendezvous was Varna, but the whole number
of the Christians, who gathered there in the early days of November 1444,
probably did not exceed 20,000 men.
of the Christians, who gathered there in the early days of November 1444,
probably did not exceed 20,000 men.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
The sons of the vanquished Sultan, after the
departure of Tīmūr and his host, quarrelled over the possession of
what remained. Three of them gained territories in Asia Minor, while
## p. 685 (#727) ############################################
Civil war among the Ottomans
685
the eldest, Sulaimān, retook possession of the lands held by his father
in Europe. Most of the leaders of the Ottoman host, the viziers,
governors, and shaikhs, had been either captured or slain, and in
consequence the sons of Bāyazīd fighting in Asia Minor found themselves
destitute of efficient servants for the organisation of government in the
territories which they seized on the departure of the great invader.
The progress of the Asiatic horde created a profound impression in
Western Europe. The eagerness of the Genoese to acknowledge the
suzerainty of Tīmūr gives an indication of their sense of the danger of
resistance. The stories of the terrible cruelties of the Tartars lost nothing
in the telling. When the news of the defeat at Angora, along with
the capture of Brūsa, of Smyrna, and of every other town which the
Asiatic army had besieged, and of the powerlessness of the military
Knights, reached Hungary, Serbia, and the states of Italy, it appeared
as if the West were about to be submerged by a new flood from Asia.
Then, when news came of the sudden departure of the Asiatics and of
the breaking up of the Ottoman power, hope once more revived, and it
appeared possible to the Pope and to the Christian peoples to complete
the work which Tīmūr had begun by now offering a united opposition to
the establishment of an Ottoman empire. Constantinople itself when
Bāyazīd passed it on his way to Angora was almost the last remnant of
the ancient Empire. The battle of Angora saved it and gave it half a
century more of life.
Sulaimān in 1405 sought to ally himself with the Emperor, and his
proposals shew how low the battle of Angora had brought the Turkish
pretensions. He offered to cede Salonica and all country in the Balkan
peninsula to the south-west of that city as well as the towns on the Mar-
mora to Manuel and his nephew John, associated as Emperor, and to
send his brother and sister as hostages to Constantinople. The arrange-
ment was accepted.
Sulaimān attacked his brother ‘İsà in 1405, and killed him? Another
brother, Mūsà, in the following year, attacked the combined troops of
Sulaimān and Manuel in Thrace, but the Serbians and Bulgarians deserted
the younger brother, and thereupon Sulaimān occupied Hadrianople.
Manuel consented to give his granddaughter in marriage to Sulaimān, who
in return gave up not merely Salonica but many seaports in Asia Minor,
a gift which was rather in the nature of a promise than a delivery, since
they were not in his possession. Unhappily Sulaimān, like many of his
race, had alternate fits of great energy and great lethargy, and was given
over to drunkenness and to debauchery. This caused disaffection among
the Turks; and Mūsà, taking advantage of it, led in 1409 an army com-
posed of Turks and Wallachs against him. The Janissaries, who were
dissatisfied with the lack of energy displayed by their Sultan, deserted
i Chalcondyles, iv. p. 170. Ducas says he disappeared in Karamania ; Phrantzes,
p. 86, that he was bowstrung.
CH. XXI.
## p. 686 (#728) ############################################
686
Victory of Mahomet
and went over to the side of Mūsà. Sulaimān fled with the intention of
escaping to Constantinople, but was captured while sleeping off a drinking
bout and killed.
Then Mūsà determined to attack Manuel, who had been faithful to
his alliance with Sulaimān. He denounced him as the cause of the fall or
Bāyazīd, and set himself to arouse all the religious fanaticism possible
against the Christian population under the Emperor's rule. According to
Ducas, Mūsà put forward the statement that it was the Emperor who had
invited Tīmūr and his hordes, that his own brother Sulaiman had been
punished by Allāh because he had become a giaour, and that he, Mūsà,
had been entrusted with the sword of Mahomet in order to overthrow the
infidel. He therefore called upon the faithful to go with him to recapture
Salonica and the other Greek cities which had belonged to his father, and
to change their churches into mosques.
In 1412 he devastated Serbia for having supported his brother, and
this in as brutal a manner as Tīmūr had devastated the cities and
countries in Asia Minor. Then he attacked Salonica. Orkhān, the
son of Sulaimnān, aided the Christians in the defence of the city,
which however was forced to surrender, and Orkhān was blinded by
his uncle.
While successful on land Mūsà was defeated at sea, and the inhabi-
tants of the capital, in 1411, saw the destruction of his fleet off the
island of Plataea in the Marmora. In revenge for this defeat he laid
siege to the city. Manuel and his subjects stoutly defended its landward
walls, and before Mūsà could capture it news came of the revolt of his
younger brother, Mahomet, who appeared as the avenger of Sulaimān.
The siege of Constantinople had to be raised. Mahomet had taken the
lordship of the Turks in Amasia shortly after the defeat of his
father at Angora, and had not been attacked by Tīmūr. The Emperor
proposed an alliance with him, which was gladly accepted, and the con-
ditions agreed to were honourably kept by both parties. Mahomet
came to Scutari, where he had an interview with the Emperor. An army
composed of Turks and Greeks was led by Mahomet to attack his
brother. But Mūsà defeated him in two engagements. Then Manuel,
after a short time, having been joined by a Serbian army, attempted
battle against him, and with success. The Janissaries deserted Mūsà
and went over to Mahomet and Manuel, and his army was defeated.
Mūsà was himself captured and by order of Mahomet was bowstrung.
Mahomet was now the only survivor of the six sons of Bāyazīd,
with the exception of Qāsim, the youngest, who was still living with
Manuel as a hostage; three of his brothers had been the victims of
fratricide. In 1413 Mahomet proclaimed himself Grand Sultan of the
Ottomans.
## p. 687 (#729) ############################################
Mahomet I
687
MAHOMET I, CALLED THE GENTLEMAN (1413–1421).
Mahomet was a soldier at the age of fifteen and proved himself from
the first an able one. After the ten years of civil war already mentioned
he was formally recognised as Sultan. Shortly before his accession he
charged the representatives of Venice, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Wallachia,
who went to offer their congratulations, not to forget to repeat to their
masters that he purposed to give peace to all and to accept it from all.
He added: “May the God of Peace inspire those who should be tempted
to violate it. ” At his accession the Ottomans had lost nearly all
their possessions in Europe except Hadrianople. Bosnia, Bulgaria, and
Wallachia had recovered their freedom. In Asia Minor revolts followed
each other in rapid succession. According to his promise, Mahomet
restored to the Emperor Manuel the strong positions which the Turks
had occupied on the Black Sea, on the Marmora, and in Thessaly; and he
acknowledged the rule of the Serbians over a considerable portion of the
territory they had lost. When the Emperor returned by sea from the
Morea, the two rulers had a friendly interview in Gallipoli on an imperial
ship. In 1416 Mahomet gave permission to the Knights of Rhodes to
build a castle in Lycia as a refuge for fugitives from the Muslims.
In the following year, 1417, he crossed from Hadrianople to Asia
Minor and recaptured Smyrna from Junaid, who had declared himself
independent during the war of succession.
Venice at this time sent out many rovers who, while owning allegiance
to the republic, fought for their own hands, annexed territory to the
sovereign city, but were allowed to establish themselves as rulers. They
plundered the Turkish coasts and captured Turkish vessels wherever
they found them. War with the republic was declared in 1416. The
Sultan had so far not sought war with any European State, nor did he
now seek war with Venice, the republic indeed forcing it upon him. He
fitted out no less than 112 ships, of which thirteen were galleys. The
Venetian fleet was under the command of Loredan. The two fleets met
off Gallipoli on 29 May 1416, when a bloody encounter took place and
the Turks were utterly defeated'. Twenty-seven Turkish vessels were
captured, and a tower built by the Genoese at Lampsacus to prevent the
Turks passing into Europe was rased to the ground?
Mahomet did not seek to play the part of a conqueror in his ex-
peditions against Hungary in 1416 and the two following years, but he
introduced a better organisation into the places which his predecessor
had captured. He erected a series of forts on the frontier of the Danube.
One of the most important was at Giurgevo, opposite Ruschuk. Junaid,
the former governor of Smyrna, was named to the same post in Nicopolis.
1 Jorga, p. 372, speaks of the battle as an event of world importance.
2 Von Hammer, ch. ix, p. 172. The Rapport de Loredano, given in full in
Laugier's Histoire de Venise, 1. 5.
CH. XXI.
## p. 688 (#730) ############################################
688
Character of Mahomet I's reign
לל
Severin, near Trajan's bridge, was fortified. Mahomet endeavoured,
but with less success, to introduce better organisation among the Serbs,
west and northwest of Belgrade, as far as Styria. Sigismund, however,
declared war, and obtained a victory over the Turks between Niš and
Nicopolis in 1419. The last years of Mahomet's reign were comparatively
peaceful.
Mahomet had to meet a pretender, as he is called by the Turkish
historians, who claimed to be Mustafà, brother of the Sultan, who had
disappeared after the battle of Angora. He was supported by Junaid,
the ex-rebel of Smyrna whom we have seen named governor of Nicopolis,
and also by the Wallachs. The rebellion raised by them became more
serious in the reign of the following Sultan. Mahomet died from a fit
of apoplexy, in which he fell from his horse at Hadrianople, at the end
of 1421 or perhaps in January 14221.
Halil Ganem claims that Mahomet was the greatest, wisest, noblest,
and most magnanimous of the Ottoman conquerors. He was called
Chelebi,“ the gracious lord,” “the gentleman. ” He was renowned for his
justice as much as for his courage. He was the rebuilder, the restorer,
whose practical wisdom was of as much value to the Ottomans as the
military genius of his predecessor. Their empire on his accession appeared
as a mass of fragments. The attacks on the Greek Empire almost alto-
gether ceased, because the Sultan considered it was his first duty to undo
the mischief following Tīmūr's dislocation of the Ottoman dominions.
The defeat of the Turks by the Venetians and the Sultan's treatment
of the Empire led its rulers to hope once more for the recovery of their
rule, and enabled them to strengthen their positions in the capital. The
story of Mahomet's reign would appear to justify the belief that when
he came to the throne he had decided that, instead of seeking for an
extension of his dominions, he would consolidate and strengthen those
which his predecessors had conquered and he had inherited. While
therefore he did not seek war, he not only improved the administration
of his government, but also founded mosques and schools in the large
towns. Brūsa itself contains the most important of the institutions
established by him, and the Yeshil-jāmi', or Green Mosque, of that city
is at once the most beautiful specimen of Turkish architecture and
decoration and one of the world's artistic monuments.
MURĀD II (1421-1451).
Murād, the lawful heir to the throne, was, on the death of Mahomet,
at Amasia. Indeed the death was concealed by Bāyazīd, the faithful
vizier, until Murād could be produced. Notwithstanding the comparative
calm which characterised the reign of Mahomet, the evidence shews that,
1 Leunclavius says in A. H. 824=A. n. 1421. Chalcondyles, ch. v, makes him reign
twelve years. Ducas, ch. 22, makes the reign last only eight years. The difference
is due to the date fixed on for his accession.
## p. 689 (#731) ############################################
Murād II: increasing numbers of the Ottomans
689
during his reign and during the war of succession which preceded it, the
number of Turks, both in Europe and in Asia, was continually increasing.
Remembering the huge hordes under Timūr, and still more the Turks
who had fled westward before his advance, there can be little doubt that
this increase in the numbers of invading Asiatics was largely due to the
great movement in question. Ducas notes that, after the hordes of Tīmūr
left Persia and passed through Armenia, they invaded Cappadocia and
Lycaonia, where they received permission to pillage the lands of Christians,
and that, without swords or lances, they were in such numbers that they
swept the country before them. The invasion, he adds, was so general
that it spread all over Anatolia and Thrace, even into the provinces
beyond the Danube. They ravaged Achaia and Greece, and while trying
to keep on good terms with the Empire attacked the Serbians, Bulgarians,
and Albanians; they destroyed all nations except the Wallachs and
Hungarians. Ducas believed that there were more Turks between the
Danube and Gallipoli than in Asia. When, often to the number of a
hundred thousand, they entered the various provinces, they took pos-
session of everything they could find. They desolated the country as
far as the frontier of Dalmatia. The Albanians, who were considered
innumerable, were reduced to a small nation. Everywhere they obliged
Christian parents to give to the Grand Signor one-fifth of the prisoners
and booty captured, and the choicest children were taken. From the
rest the young and strong were purchased at low prices, and were com-
pelled to become Janissaries. The victims were then compelled to embrace
the conqueror's religion and to be circumcised. Everywhere the army
formed of tribute children was victorious. Among them, says Ducas,
were no Turks or Arabs but only children of Christians—Romans,
Serbians, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Wallachs. The statement of Ducas
is confirmed by both Turkish and Christian writers.
It was the increased and ever-increasing body of Turks which under
the second Murād was destined to carry the Ottoman banner through-
out the length of the Balkan peninsula. Murād commenced his reign by
an action which shewed, as the Turkish writers insist, that he was a
lover of peace. He proposed to the Emperor Manuel to renew the
alliance which had existed with his father. The Emperor had supported
the claims of the pretender Mustafà, who succeeded in capturing
Gallipoli but then refused to surrender it to the Emperor, alleging that
it was against the religion of Islām to yield territory to infidels except by
force. Shortly afterwards, however, Mustafà was defeated at Lopadium
on the river Rhyndakos by Murād, who obtained possession of Gallipoli,
followed Mustafà, and hanged him at Hadrianople in 1422. Murād then
made war on John, who in 1420 was associated with his father Manuel,
and laid siege to Constantinople in June 1422. The siege continued till
the end of August and was then abandoned. One of the reasons alleged
for so doing was that Murād's younger brother, thirteen years old,
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. XXI.
44
IS
## p. 690 (#732) ############################################
690
European conquests of Murād
named Mustafà, aided by Elias Pasha, had appeared as a claimant to the
throne, and was recognised as Sultan by the Emirs of Karamania and
Germiyān as well as in Brūsa and Nicaea. The rebellion appeared for-
midable, and was not ended till 1426, when the boy was caught and
bowstrung
Thereupon in 1423 Murād returned to Hadrianople, and made it his
capital. John, who was now the real Emperor, made peace with Murād,
but on condition that he paid a heavy tribute and surrendered several
towns on the Black Sea, including Derkos. The Turks during the next
seven years steadily gained ground. Salonica after various vicissitudes,
the chief being its abandonment by the Turks in 1425, was finally
captured from the Venetians in 1430, and seven thousand of its inhabi-
tants were sold into slavery. In 1430 Murād took possession of Joannina.
In 1433 he re-colonised the city with Turks. He later named a governor
at Uskūb (Skoplje), the former capital of Serbia. George Branković
bought peace with Murād by giving his daughter in marriage to him
with a large portion of territory as dowry. From Serbia the Sultan
crossed to Hungary, devastated the country, and retired, but, pushing on
to Transylvania, was so stoutly opposed that he had to withdraw across
the Danube? .
In Greece, during the year 1423, the Turks took temporary possession
of Hexamilion, Lacedaemon, Cardicon, Tavia, and other strongholds.
In 1425 they captured Modon (Methone) and carried off 1700 Christians
into slavery. In the same year one of Murād's generals destroyed the
fortifications at the Isthmus of Corinth. In 1430 the Sultan granted
capitulations to the republic of Ragusa. Three years later a Turkish
fleet ravaged the coasts of Trebizond. The Emperor Sigismund, the King
of Hungary, with Vladislav, King of Poland, was beaten by Murād on the
Danube in 1428.
We are not concerned here with the profoundly interesting negotia-
tions which went on between the Greek Emperors and the Pope, except to
note that the price required to be paid for assistance from the West was
the acceptance by the Orthodox Church of the supremacy of Rome, that
the great mass of the Greek population, owing to many causes, mainly
the recollection of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204–1261), was
bitterly opposed to Union, and that the Emperor and the few dignitaries
who were willing to change their creed so as to bring it about had no
authority, expressed or implied, to act on behalf of the Orthodox Church.
The Union however, such as it was, was accepted in 1430 by the Emperor
John, who had gone to Florence for that purpose. Thereupon the Pope
undertook to send ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six months, to
attack the Turks and give courage to the Christian Powers. Early in
1440 he sent Isidore as delegate to Buda. John, who returned from
Italy in February of the same year, finding that Murād had become
1 Cf. for these events supra, Ch. xviii, pp. 568–70.
## p. 691 (#733) ############################################
Crusade of Vladislav and Hunyadi
691
restive at the action of the Pope, sent to him to declare that his journey
had been solely for the purpose of settling dogmas and had no political
object. He was, however, treating already for common action with
Vladislav, now also King of Hungary. In the same year Skanderbeg
(Skander or Alexander bey), an Albanian who had reverted to Christianity,
declared war against the Sultan.
Meantime the Pope had invited all Christian princes, including
Henry VI of England, to give aid against the Turks. The King of
Aragon promised to send six galleys. Vladislav responded too, and joined
George, King of Serbia, in 1441. John Corvinus, surnamed Hunyadi,
who was Voivode of Transylvania, at the head of a Hungarian army
drove the Turks out of Serbia. A series of engagements followed, in
which the brilliant soldier Hunyadi defeated the Turks. The Emir of
Karamania also attacked the Ottomans in his neighbourhood. Murād went
in consequence into Asia Minor, but the invasion of the Serbians and
Bulgarians compelled him to return. Several engagements took place
between the Slav nations and Murād, the most important being in 1443
at a place midway between Sofia and Philippopolis
. Three hundred
thousand Turks are stated, probably with gross exaggeration, to have
been killed.
Thereupon a formal truce was concluded for ten years in June 1444
between Murād and the King of Hungary and his allies. Each party
swore that his
should not cross the Danube to attack the other.
Vladislav swore on the Gospels and Murād on the Koran. Ducas states
that Hunyadi refused either to sign or swear. This peace, signed at Szege-
din, is regarded by the Turkish writers as intended by Murād to be the
culminating point of his career. Murād was a philosopher, a man who
loved meditation, who wished to live at peace, to join his sect of dervishes
in their pious labour, and to have done with war. But his enemies would
not allow him. The treaty thus solemnly accepted was almost immediately
broken. The story is an ugly one and, whether told by Turks or Christians,
shews bad faith on the side of the Christians. The cardinal legate Julian
Cesarini bears the eternal disgrace of declaring that an oath with the
infidel might be set aside and broken. Against the advice of Hunyadi,
the ablest soldier in the army of the allies, battle was to be joined. The
decision was ill-considered, for the French, Italian, and German volunteers
had left for their homes on the signature of the treaty. John was not
ready to send aid. George of Serbia would have no share in the war.
He refused not only to violate his oath but even to permit Skanderbeg to
join Vladislav.
The place of rendezvous was Varna, but the whole number
of the Christians, who gathered there in the early days of November 1444,
probably did not exceed 20,000 men. Hunyadi reluctantly joined. To
the astonishment of the Christians they found immediately after their
army
1 Bartletus, Vita Scanderbegii; Ducas, xxxır; Leunclavius, 107; von Hammer, 11.
299. Callimachus was present at the battle and describes it.
CH. XXI.
41-2
## p. 692 (#734) ############################################
692
Murād's victories at Varna and Kossovo
arrival at Varna that Murād had advanced with the rapidity then char-
acteristic of Turkish military movements, and that he had with him
60,000 men. A great battle followed, during which one of the most
notable incidents was that the Turks displayed the violated treaty upon
a lance, and in the crisis of the battle, according to the Turkish annals,
Murād prayed:
“O Christ, if thou art God, as thy followers say, punish
their perfidy. ” The victory of the Turks was complete. The Christian
army was destroyed? . Murād, who in June 1444 had abdicated in favour
of his son Mahomet when the latter was only fourteen years old, again
retired after the victory of Varna and fixed his residence at Magnesia.
But in 1445 the Janissaries became discontented. His son is reported to
have written to him in the following terms: "If I am Sultan I order you
to resume active service. If you are Sultan then I respectfully say that
your duty is to be at the head of your army. ” Murād accordingly
was compelled to reascend the throne. In 1446 one of Murād's generals
desolated Boeotia and Attica. His fleet in the meantime attacked the
Greek settlements in the Black Sea. Later in the same year Murād
destroyed the fortifications at the Isthmus though he was opposed by
60,000 men. Patras was also taken and burned. Thereupon the Morea
was ravaged, and the inhabitants were either killed or taken as slaves.
Constantine, afterwards the last Emperor of Constantinople, was compelled
to pay tribute for the Morea. During the years 1445-8 a desultory war
was being waged against the Albanians under Skanderbeg. In 1447
Murād, having failed to capture Kroja, later called Aq-Hisār, the capital
of Albania, withdrew to Hadrianople where, according to Chalcondyles,
he remained at
peace
In the autumn of 1448 the war against the Albanians recommenced.
George Castriotes, known to us already as Skanderbeg, was still their
trusted leader, and now and for many years was invincible. Meantime
under the directions of Pope Nicholas V the Hungarians and the Poles
were preparing once more to aid in resisting the advance of the Turks.
Hunyadi, notwithstanding the defeat at Varna, for which he was not re-
sponsible, was named general, and succeeded in forming a well-disciplined
but small
army of 24,000 men. Of these 8000 were Wallachs and 2000
Germans. As the King of Serbia refused to join, Hunyadi crossed the
Danube and invaded his kingdom. While Murād was preparing for a
new attack on the Albanians, Hunyadi encamped on the plains of
Kossovo, where in 1389 the Sultan's predecessor of the same name had
defeated his enemies and had been assassinated. The Turkish army
probably numbered 100,000 men? .
for a
year.
1 For a full description of this battle see The Destruction of the Greek Empire,
pp. 161 and 170, by the present writer. Cf. supra, Ch. xviii, pp. 571-72.
2 Aeneas Sylvius says two hundred thousand, Chalcondyles fifteen hundred
thousand, which vou Hammer reasonably suggests is an error for a hundred and fifty
thousand.
## p. 693 (#735) ############################################
Accession of Mahomet II
693
For some unexplained reason Hunyadi did not wait for the arrival of
Skanderbeg. A battle ensued on 18 October 1448. It lasted three days.
On the second the struggle was the fiercest, but the brave Hungarians
were powerless to break through the line of the Janissaries. On the third
day the Wallachs turned traitors, obtained terms from Murād, and
passed over to his side. The Germans and a band of Bohemians held
their ground, but the battle was lost. Eight thousand, including the
flower of the Hungarian nobility, were said to have been left dead on
the field. During the fight 40,000 Turks had fallen.
The effect of this defeat upon Hungary and Western Europe was
appalling. The Ottoman Turks had nothing to fear for many years from
the enemy north of the Danube. Skanderbeg struggled on, and in 1449
beat in succession four Turkish armies and again successfully resisted an
attempt to capture Kroja. Indeed one author states that the Sultan
died while making this attempt. In the autumn Murād returned to
Hadrianople, where he died in February 1451.
MAHOMET II (1451-1481).
The great object which Mahomet II had to accomplish to make him
supreme lord of the Balkan peninsula was the capture of Constantinople
itself. He was only twenty-one years old when he was girt with the
sword of Osmān. But he had already shewn ability, and had had ex-
perience both in civil and military affairs. The contemporary writers,
Muslims and Christians, give ample materials from which to form an
estimate of his character. From his boyhood he had dreamed of the
capture of New Rome. Ducas gives a striking picture of his sleeplessness
and anxiety before the siege of the city. Subsequent events shewed that
he had laid his plans carefully, and had foreseen and prepared for every
eventuality.
When his father Murād died he was at Magnesia. He hastened to
Gallipoli and Hadrianople, and at the latter place was proclaimed Sultan.
Though he distrusted Khalil Pasha, who had prevented him from retaining
supreme power when his father had abdicated, he named him again to
the post of grand vizier, called him his father, and continued to shew
him confidence. He commenced his reign by the murder of his infant
brother Aḥmad', the only other member of the Ottoman dynasty being
Orkhān who was with the Emperor in Constantinople, though in order
to avoid public disapprobation for the act he had 'Alī, the actual
murderer, put to death”.
Shortly after his arrival at Hadrianople he received ambassadors with
congratulations from Constantinople and the semi-independent emirs of
i Von Hammer notes that Turkish historians praise Mahomet for this act of
brutality, vol. 11. p. 429, note 3.
2 Filelfo, De imbecilitate et ignavia Turcorum, quoted by Jorga, Geschichte, vol.
II. p. 4.
CH, XXI.
## p. 694 (#736) ############################################
694
Preparations for the siege of Constantinople
Asia Minor, but he noted that Ibrāhīm, the Emir of Karamania, was not
represented. Mahomet confirmed the treaty already made with Con-
stantine, and professed peaceful intentions to all. His father had failed
in 1422 to capture the city because of the rebellion of the Emir of Kara-
mania. To prevent the repetition of such opposition the Sultan crossed
into Anatolia and forced the emir to sue for peace.
No sooner had Mahomet left Europe than the Emperor committed
the blunder of sending ambassadors to Khalil Pasha, Mahomet's grand
vizier, who had always been friendly to the Empire, with a demand that
Orkhān, a pretender to the throne for whose maintenance Murād had
paid, should receive double the amount, failing which the ambassadors
suggested that Orkhān's claims would be supported by the Empire. Khalil
bluntly asked them if they were mad, and told them to do their worst.
Mahomet, when he learned the demand, hastily returned to Europe.
He at once set about preparations for the capture of Constantinople.
He concluded arrangements with the Venetians, and made a truce with
Hunyadi for three years, the latter step enabling him to arrange peace
with Hungary, Wallachia, and Bosnia. He amassed stores of arms, arrows,
and cannon balls. He was already master of the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus by means of the castle at Anatolia-Hisār built by Bāyazīd.
In order to seize the tribute paid by ships passing through the Bosphorus,
and also that he might have a strong base for his attack upon the city,
he decided to build a fortress opposite that of Bāyazīd at a place now
known as Rumelia-Hisār. The straits between the two castles are half
a mile wide. In possession of the two he would have command of the
Bosphorus, and could transport his army and munitions without difficulty.
When the Emperor, the last Constantine, and his subjects heard of
Mahomet's preparations, they were greatly alarmed, and remonstrated.
Mahomet's answer was a contemptuous refusal to desist from building a
fort; for he knew that the imperial army was so reduced in strength as
to be powerless outside the walls.
In the spring of 1452 Mahomet himself took charge of the construc-
tion of the fortress, and pushed on the works with the energy that
characterised all his military undertakings. Constantine sent food to
Mahomet's workmen, with the evident intention of suggesting that he
was not unwilling to see executed the work which he could not prevent.
Meantime the Turks gathered in the harvest in the neighbourhood of
the new building, and seemed indeed to have desired that Constantine
should send out troops to prevent them, a step which the Emperor dared
not undertake. All the neighbouring churches, monasteries, and houses
were destroyed in order to find materials for building the series of walls
and castles which formed the fortification. The work was begun in March
1452 and completed by the middle of August. The fortifications still
remain to add beauty to the landscape and as a monument of the con-
queror's energy. When they were completed, as the Turks seized the toll
## p. 695 (#737) ############################################
Western assistance for the Emperor
695
paid by ships passing the new castle, Constantine closed the gates of Con-
stantinople. Mahomet answered by declaring war and appearing before
the landward walls with 50,000 men. But he had not yet completed his
preparations for a siege. After three days he withdrew to Hadrianople.
The value of his new fortification was seen a few weeks afterwards, for
when on 10 November two large Venetian galleys from the Black Sea
attempted to pass they were captured, the masters killed, and their crews
imprisoned and tortured.
Mahomet now made no secret of his intention to capture Constan-
tinople. Critobulus gives a speech, which he declares was made by the
Sultan at Hadrianople, attributing the opposition to the Ottomans from
a series of enemies, including Tīmūr, to the influence of the Emperors.
The country around Constantinople was cleared by Mahomet's army.
San Stefano, Silivri, Perinthus, Epibatus, Anchialus, Vizye, and other
places on the north shore of the Marmora and on the coast of Thrace on
the Black Sea were sacked. In November 1452 Cardinal Isidore had arrived
in Constantinople with 200 soldiers sent by the Pope, together with a
papal letter demanding the completion of the Union of the Churches.
In consequence on 12 December a service was held in St Sophia com-
memorating the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches.
Leonard, Archbishop of Chios, had arrived with the cardinal. Six
Venetian vessels came a few weeks afterwards, and at the request of the
Emperor their commander, Gabriel Trevisan, consented to give his
services per honor de Dio et per honor de tuta la christianitade. They had
safely passed the Turkish castles owing to the skilful navigation of their
captain. On 29 January 1453 the city received the most important of its
acquisitions, for on that day arrived John Giustiniani, a Genoese noble
of great reputation as a soldier. He brought with him 700 fighting men.
He was named, under the Emperor, commander-in-chief, and at once
took charge of the works for defence. In April a chain fixed upon beams
closed the harbour of the Golden Horn, its northern end being fastened
within the walls of Galata. Ten large ships, with triremes near them,
were stationed at the boom. The Genoese of Galata undertook to aid in
its defence.
By the end of March, Mahomet's preparations were nearly completed.
Nicolò Barbaro, a Venetian surgeon who was present within the city
from the beginning to the end of the siege, states that there were
50,000 men in the besieging army between the Golden Horn and the
Marmora, a distance of three miles and three-quarters? . Barbaro's estimate
is confirmed by that of the Florentine soldier Tedaldi, who states that
there were 140,000 effective soldiers, the rest, making the number of
1 Filelfo estimates 60,000 foot and 20,000 horse. Ducas' estimate is 250,000,
Montaldo's 240,000. Phrantzes says 258,000 were present. The Archbishop of Chios,
Leonard, with whom Critobulus agrees, gives 300,000, while Chalcondyles increases
this to 400,000.
CB. XXI.
## p. 696 (#738) ############################################
696
The besieging force
יו
וי
Mahomet's army amount to 200,000,“ being thieves, plunderers, hawkers,
and others following the army for gain and booty. ”
In this army the most distinguished corps consisted of at least
12,000 Janissaries, who formed the body-guard of the Sultan. This force
had shewn its discipline and valour at Varna and at Kossovo. This,
the most terrible portion of Mahomet's force, was derived at that time
exclusively from Christian families. It was the boast of its members in
after
years that they had never fled from an enemy, and the boast was
not an idle one. The portion of the army known as Bashi-bazuks was
an undisciplined mob. La Brocquière says that the innumerable host of
these irregulars took the field with no other weapon than their curved
swords or scimitars. “Being,” says Filelfo, “under no restraint, they
proved the most cruel scourge of a Turkish invasion. ”
In January 1453 report reached the capital of a monster gun which
was being cast at Hadrianople by Urban, a Hungarian or Wallach. By
March it had been taken to the neighbourhood of the city. Fourteen
batteries of smaller cannon were also prepared, which were subsequently
stationed outside the landward walls. Mahomet had also prepared and
collected a powerful fleet of ships and large caiques. A hundred and
forty sailing-ships coming up from Gallipoli arrived at the Diplokionion
south of the present palace of Dolma Bagcha on 12 April'. Cannon balls
of a hard stone were made in large numbers on the Black Sea coast, and
brought to the Bosphorus in the ships which joined the fleet.
The Turkish army with Mahomet at its head arrived before the city
on 5 April. The arrangement of the troops was as follows: Mahomet,
with his Janissaries and
others of his best troops, took up his position in
the Lycus valley between the two ridges, one crowned by what is now
called the Top Qāpū Gate, but which was then known as that of
St Romanus, and the other by the Hadrianople Gate. This division
probably consisted of 50,000 men. On the Sultan's right, that is between
Top Qāpū and the Marmora, were 50,000 Anatolian troops, while on
his left from the ridge of the Hadrianople Gate to the Golden Horn were
the least valuable of his troops, including the Bashi-bazuks, among whom
were renegade Christians. With them was also a small body of Serbs.
Two or three days after his arrival Mahomet sent a formal demand
for the surrender of the city upon terms which were probably intended
to be rejected. Upon their rejection he at once made his dispositions for
a regular siege.
For the most part the remains of the walls still exist, so that little
difficulty is found in learning what were Mahomet's chief points of attack.
The Golden Horn separates Galata and the district behind it, known as
Pera, from Constantinople proper, now distinguished as Stamboul, the
Turkish corruption of eis Thy Tów. Galata was a walled city under
1 So Barbaro; Phrantzes gives the total number of ships and boats as 480; Ducas
as 300; Leonard as 250; Critobulus as 250.
## p. 697 (#739) ############################################
The defences of Constantinople
697
the protection of the Duke of Milan, and ruled under capitulations by
the Genoese, and was not attacked during the siege. The length of the
walls which gird Constantinople or, to give it the modern name, Stamboul,
is about thirteen miles. Those on the Marmora and the Horn are strong
but single. Those on the landward side are triple, the inner wall being
the loftiest and about forty feet high. The landward walls have also in
front of them a foss about sixty feet broad, with a series of daṁs in every
part except about a quarter of a mile of steep ascent from the Horn, where
exceptionally strong walls and towers made them impregnable before the
days of cannon.
The walls on the two sides built up from the water were difficult to
capture, because the attack would have to be made from boats. They
therefore required few men for their defence. The landward walls were,
in all the great sieges, except that by the filibustering expedition in
1202–4 called the Fourth Crusade, the defence which invaders sought to
capture. Some places, notably near the Silivri Gate and north of that
of Hadrianople, were weaker than others, but the Achilles' heel of the
city was the long stretch of wall across the Lycus valley. About a hundred
yards north of the place where the streamlet, which gives the valley its
name, flows under the walls to enter the city, stood a military gate
known as the Pempton, or Fifth Military Gate, and called by the non-
Greek writers who describe the siege the St Romanus Gate. It gave
access to the enclosure between the Inner and the Second wall. Mahomet's
lofty tent of red and gold, with its sublima porta, as the Italians called
it, was about a quarter of a mile distant from the Pempton in the valley.
The fourteen batteries, each of four guns, were distributed at various
places in front of the landward walls. The Emperor Constantine had
fixed his headquarters within the city in the vicinity of the same gate.
Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders should
have been stationed on the city side of the great Inner wall. But the
troops for the defence were not even sufficient to guard the second land-
ward wall. Indeed the disparity in numbers between the besiegers and
besieged is startling. To meet the 150,000 besiegers the city had only
about 8000 men. Nearly all contemporary writers agree in this estimate.
Phrantzes states that a census was made and that, even including monks,
it shewed only 4983 Greeks. The result was so appalling that he was
charged by the Emperor not to let it be known? Assuming that there
were 3000 foreigners present, 8000 may be taken as a safe total.
The foreigners were nearly all Venetians or Genoese. The most dis-
tinguished among them was the Genoese Giustiniani. We have already
seen the spirit which actuated Trevisan. Barbaro records the names “for
a perpetual memorial” of his countrymen who took part in the defence.
1 Leonard's estimate was 6,000 Greeks and 3,000 foreigners. Tedaldi says there
were between 5,000 and 7,000 combatants within the city “and not more. ” Ducas
says that there were not more than 8,000 all told.
CH, XXI.
## p. 698 (#740) ############################################
698
The dispositions of the besieged
The arrangements for the defence were made by Giustiniani under
the Emperor. With the 700 men he had brought to the city he first
took charge of the landward walls between the Horn and the Hadrianople
Gate, but
soon transferred his men with a number of Greeks to the
enclosure in the Lycus valley as the post of greatest danger. Archbishop
Leonard took the place which he had left. At the Acropolis, that is
near Seraglio Point, Trevisan was in command. Near him was Cardinal
Isidore. The Greek noble, the Grand Duke Lucas Notaras, was stationed
near what is now the Maḥmūdīye mosque with a few men in reserve.
The monks were with others at the walls on the Marmora side. The
besieged had small cannon, but they were soon found to be useless. The
superiority of the Turkish cannon, and especially of the big gun cast by
Urban, was so great that Critobulus says: “it was the cannon which did
everything. ”
A modern historian of the siegel claims that the population of the
city was against the Emperor. This is scarcely borne out by the
evidence. It is true that a great outcry had been raised against the
Union of the Churches; that the popular cry had been “better under the
Turk than under the Latins;” that the demand of the Pope for the
restoration of Patriarch Gregory, sent away because he was an advocate
of Union with Rome, offended many; that Notaras himself, the first
noble, had declared that he “preferred the Turkish turban to the cardinal's
hat;” and that the populace had sought out Gennadius because he was
hostile to the Union. But when the gates of the city were closed against
the enemy, this sentiment in no way interfered with the determination of
all within the city to oppose the strongest resistance, and the population
rallied round the Emperor.
In the early days of the siege Mahomet destroyed all the Greek
villages which had already escaped the savagery of his troops, including
Therapia and Prinkipo.
departure of Tīmūr and his host, quarrelled over the possession of
what remained. Three of them gained territories in Asia Minor, while
## p. 685 (#727) ############################################
Civil war among the Ottomans
685
the eldest, Sulaimān, retook possession of the lands held by his father
in Europe. Most of the leaders of the Ottoman host, the viziers,
governors, and shaikhs, had been either captured or slain, and in
consequence the sons of Bāyazīd fighting in Asia Minor found themselves
destitute of efficient servants for the organisation of government in the
territories which they seized on the departure of the great invader.
The progress of the Asiatic horde created a profound impression in
Western Europe. The eagerness of the Genoese to acknowledge the
suzerainty of Tīmūr gives an indication of their sense of the danger of
resistance. The stories of the terrible cruelties of the Tartars lost nothing
in the telling. When the news of the defeat at Angora, along with
the capture of Brūsa, of Smyrna, and of every other town which the
Asiatic army had besieged, and of the powerlessness of the military
Knights, reached Hungary, Serbia, and the states of Italy, it appeared
as if the West were about to be submerged by a new flood from Asia.
Then, when news came of the sudden departure of the Asiatics and of
the breaking up of the Ottoman power, hope once more revived, and it
appeared possible to the Pope and to the Christian peoples to complete
the work which Tīmūr had begun by now offering a united opposition to
the establishment of an Ottoman empire. Constantinople itself when
Bāyazīd passed it on his way to Angora was almost the last remnant of
the ancient Empire. The battle of Angora saved it and gave it half a
century more of life.
Sulaimān in 1405 sought to ally himself with the Emperor, and his
proposals shew how low the battle of Angora had brought the Turkish
pretensions. He offered to cede Salonica and all country in the Balkan
peninsula to the south-west of that city as well as the towns on the Mar-
mora to Manuel and his nephew John, associated as Emperor, and to
send his brother and sister as hostages to Constantinople. The arrange-
ment was accepted.
Sulaimān attacked his brother ‘İsà in 1405, and killed him? Another
brother, Mūsà, in the following year, attacked the combined troops of
Sulaimān and Manuel in Thrace, but the Serbians and Bulgarians deserted
the younger brother, and thereupon Sulaimān occupied Hadrianople.
Manuel consented to give his granddaughter in marriage to Sulaimān, who
in return gave up not merely Salonica but many seaports in Asia Minor,
a gift which was rather in the nature of a promise than a delivery, since
they were not in his possession. Unhappily Sulaimān, like many of his
race, had alternate fits of great energy and great lethargy, and was given
over to drunkenness and to debauchery. This caused disaffection among
the Turks; and Mūsà, taking advantage of it, led in 1409 an army com-
posed of Turks and Wallachs against him. The Janissaries, who were
dissatisfied with the lack of energy displayed by their Sultan, deserted
i Chalcondyles, iv. p. 170. Ducas says he disappeared in Karamania ; Phrantzes,
p. 86, that he was bowstrung.
CH. XXI.
## p. 686 (#728) ############################################
686
Victory of Mahomet
and went over to the side of Mūsà. Sulaimān fled with the intention of
escaping to Constantinople, but was captured while sleeping off a drinking
bout and killed.
Then Mūsà determined to attack Manuel, who had been faithful to
his alliance with Sulaimān. He denounced him as the cause of the fall or
Bāyazīd, and set himself to arouse all the religious fanaticism possible
against the Christian population under the Emperor's rule. According to
Ducas, Mūsà put forward the statement that it was the Emperor who had
invited Tīmūr and his hordes, that his own brother Sulaiman had been
punished by Allāh because he had become a giaour, and that he, Mūsà,
had been entrusted with the sword of Mahomet in order to overthrow the
infidel. He therefore called upon the faithful to go with him to recapture
Salonica and the other Greek cities which had belonged to his father, and
to change their churches into mosques.
In 1412 he devastated Serbia for having supported his brother, and
this in as brutal a manner as Tīmūr had devastated the cities and
countries in Asia Minor. Then he attacked Salonica. Orkhān, the
son of Sulaimnān, aided the Christians in the defence of the city,
which however was forced to surrender, and Orkhān was blinded by
his uncle.
While successful on land Mūsà was defeated at sea, and the inhabi-
tants of the capital, in 1411, saw the destruction of his fleet off the
island of Plataea in the Marmora. In revenge for this defeat he laid
siege to the city. Manuel and his subjects stoutly defended its landward
walls, and before Mūsà could capture it news came of the revolt of his
younger brother, Mahomet, who appeared as the avenger of Sulaimān.
The siege of Constantinople had to be raised. Mahomet had taken the
lordship of the Turks in Amasia shortly after the defeat of his
father at Angora, and had not been attacked by Tīmūr. The Emperor
proposed an alliance with him, which was gladly accepted, and the con-
ditions agreed to were honourably kept by both parties. Mahomet
came to Scutari, where he had an interview with the Emperor. An army
composed of Turks and Greeks was led by Mahomet to attack his
brother. But Mūsà defeated him in two engagements. Then Manuel,
after a short time, having been joined by a Serbian army, attempted
battle against him, and with success. The Janissaries deserted Mūsà
and went over to Mahomet and Manuel, and his army was defeated.
Mūsà was himself captured and by order of Mahomet was bowstrung.
Mahomet was now the only survivor of the six sons of Bāyazīd,
with the exception of Qāsim, the youngest, who was still living with
Manuel as a hostage; three of his brothers had been the victims of
fratricide. In 1413 Mahomet proclaimed himself Grand Sultan of the
Ottomans.
## p. 687 (#729) ############################################
Mahomet I
687
MAHOMET I, CALLED THE GENTLEMAN (1413–1421).
Mahomet was a soldier at the age of fifteen and proved himself from
the first an able one. After the ten years of civil war already mentioned
he was formally recognised as Sultan. Shortly before his accession he
charged the representatives of Venice, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Wallachia,
who went to offer their congratulations, not to forget to repeat to their
masters that he purposed to give peace to all and to accept it from all.
He added: “May the God of Peace inspire those who should be tempted
to violate it. ” At his accession the Ottomans had lost nearly all
their possessions in Europe except Hadrianople. Bosnia, Bulgaria, and
Wallachia had recovered their freedom. In Asia Minor revolts followed
each other in rapid succession. According to his promise, Mahomet
restored to the Emperor Manuel the strong positions which the Turks
had occupied on the Black Sea, on the Marmora, and in Thessaly; and he
acknowledged the rule of the Serbians over a considerable portion of the
territory they had lost. When the Emperor returned by sea from the
Morea, the two rulers had a friendly interview in Gallipoli on an imperial
ship. In 1416 Mahomet gave permission to the Knights of Rhodes to
build a castle in Lycia as a refuge for fugitives from the Muslims.
In the following year, 1417, he crossed from Hadrianople to Asia
Minor and recaptured Smyrna from Junaid, who had declared himself
independent during the war of succession.
Venice at this time sent out many rovers who, while owning allegiance
to the republic, fought for their own hands, annexed territory to the
sovereign city, but were allowed to establish themselves as rulers. They
plundered the Turkish coasts and captured Turkish vessels wherever
they found them. War with the republic was declared in 1416. The
Sultan had so far not sought war with any European State, nor did he
now seek war with Venice, the republic indeed forcing it upon him. He
fitted out no less than 112 ships, of which thirteen were galleys. The
Venetian fleet was under the command of Loredan. The two fleets met
off Gallipoli on 29 May 1416, when a bloody encounter took place and
the Turks were utterly defeated'. Twenty-seven Turkish vessels were
captured, and a tower built by the Genoese at Lampsacus to prevent the
Turks passing into Europe was rased to the ground?
Mahomet did not seek to play the part of a conqueror in his ex-
peditions against Hungary in 1416 and the two following years, but he
introduced a better organisation into the places which his predecessor
had captured. He erected a series of forts on the frontier of the Danube.
One of the most important was at Giurgevo, opposite Ruschuk. Junaid,
the former governor of Smyrna, was named to the same post in Nicopolis.
1 Jorga, p. 372, speaks of the battle as an event of world importance.
2 Von Hammer, ch. ix, p. 172. The Rapport de Loredano, given in full in
Laugier's Histoire de Venise, 1. 5.
CH. XXI.
## p. 688 (#730) ############################################
688
Character of Mahomet I's reign
לל
Severin, near Trajan's bridge, was fortified. Mahomet endeavoured,
but with less success, to introduce better organisation among the Serbs,
west and northwest of Belgrade, as far as Styria. Sigismund, however,
declared war, and obtained a victory over the Turks between Niš and
Nicopolis in 1419. The last years of Mahomet's reign were comparatively
peaceful.
Mahomet had to meet a pretender, as he is called by the Turkish
historians, who claimed to be Mustafà, brother of the Sultan, who had
disappeared after the battle of Angora. He was supported by Junaid,
the ex-rebel of Smyrna whom we have seen named governor of Nicopolis,
and also by the Wallachs. The rebellion raised by them became more
serious in the reign of the following Sultan. Mahomet died from a fit
of apoplexy, in which he fell from his horse at Hadrianople, at the end
of 1421 or perhaps in January 14221.
Halil Ganem claims that Mahomet was the greatest, wisest, noblest,
and most magnanimous of the Ottoman conquerors. He was called
Chelebi,“ the gracious lord,” “the gentleman. ” He was renowned for his
justice as much as for his courage. He was the rebuilder, the restorer,
whose practical wisdom was of as much value to the Ottomans as the
military genius of his predecessor. Their empire on his accession appeared
as a mass of fragments. The attacks on the Greek Empire almost alto-
gether ceased, because the Sultan considered it was his first duty to undo
the mischief following Tīmūr's dislocation of the Ottoman dominions.
The defeat of the Turks by the Venetians and the Sultan's treatment
of the Empire led its rulers to hope once more for the recovery of their
rule, and enabled them to strengthen their positions in the capital. The
story of Mahomet's reign would appear to justify the belief that when
he came to the throne he had decided that, instead of seeking for an
extension of his dominions, he would consolidate and strengthen those
which his predecessors had conquered and he had inherited. While
therefore he did not seek war, he not only improved the administration
of his government, but also founded mosques and schools in the large
towns. Brūsa itself contains the most important of the institutions
established by him, and the Yeshil-jāmi', or Green Mosque, of that city
is at once the most beautiful specimen of Turkish architecture and
decoration and one of the world's artistic monuments.
MURĀD II (1421-1451).
Murād, the lawful heir to the throne, was, on the death of Mahomet,
at Amasia. Indeed the death was concealed by Bāyazīd, the faithful
vizier, until Murād could be produced. Notwithstanding the comparative
calm which characterised the reign of Mahomet, the evidence shews that,
1 Leunclavius says in A. H. 824=A. n. 1421. Chalcondyles, ch. v, makes him reign
twelve years. Ducas, ch. 22, makes the reign last only eight years. The difference
is due to the date fixed on for his accession.
## p. 689 (#731) ############################################
Murād II: increasing numbers of the Ottomans
689
during his reign and during the war of succession which preceded it, the
number of Turks, both in Europe and in Asia, was continually increasing.
Remembering the huge hordes under Timūr, and still more the Turks
who had fled westward before his advance, there can be little doubt that
this increase in the numbers of invading Asiatics was largely due to the
great movement in question. Ducas notes that, after the hordes of Tīmūr
left Persia and passed through Armenia, they invaded Cappadocia and
Lycaonia, where they received permission to pillage the lands of Christians,
and that, without swords or lances, they were in such numbers that they
swept the country before them. The invasion, he adds, was so general
that it spread all over Anatolia and Thrace, even into the provinces
beyond the Danube. They ravaged Achaia and Greece, and while trying
to keep on good terms with the Empire attacked the Serbians, Bulgarians,
and Albanians; they destroyed all nations except the Wallachs and
Hungarians. Ducas believed that there were more Turks between the
Danube and Gallipoli than in Asia. When, often to the number of a
hundred thousand, they entered the various provinces, they took pos-
session of everything they could find. They desolated the country as
far as the frontier of Dalmatia. The Albanians, who were considered
innumerable, were reduced to a small nation. Everywhere they obliged
Christian parents to give to the Grand Signor one-fifth of the prisoners
and booty captured, and the choicest children were taken. From the
rest the young and strong were purchased at low prices, and were com-
pelled to become Janissaries. The victims were then compelled to embrace
the conqueror's religion and to be circumcised. Everywhere the army
formed of tribute children was victorious. Among them, says Ducas,
were no Turks or Arabs but only children of Christians—Romans,
Serbians, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Wallachs. The statement of Ducas
is confirmed by both Turkish and Christian writers.
It was the increased and ever-increasing body of Turks which under
the second Murād was destined to carry the Ottoman banner through-
out the length of the Balkan peninsula. Murād commenced his reign by
an action which shewed, as the Turkish writers insist, that he was a
lover of peace. He proposed to the Emperor Manuel to renew the
alliance which had existed with his father. The Emperor had supported
the claims of the pretender Mustafà, who succeeded in capturing
Gallipoli but then refused to surrender it to the Emperor, alleging that
it was against the religion of Islām to yield territory to infidels except by
force. Shortly afterwards, however, Mustafà was defeated at Lopadium
on the river Rhyndakos by Murād, who obtained possession of Gallipoli,
followed Mustafà, and hanged him at Hadrianople in 1422. Murād then
made war on John, who in 1420 was associated with his father Manuel,
and laid siege to Constantinople in June 1422. The siege continued till
the end of August and was then abandoned. One of the reasons alleged
for so doing was that Murād's younger brother, thirteen years old,
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. XXI.
44
IS
## p. 690 (#732) ############################################
690
European conquests of Murād
named Mustafà, aided by Elias Pasha, had appeared as a claimant to the
throne, and was recognised as Sultan by the Emirs of Karamania and
Germiyān as well as in Brūsa and Nicaea. The rebellion appeared for-
midable, and was not ended till 1426, when the boy was caught and
bowstrung
Thereupon in 1423 Murād returned to Hadrianople, and made it his
capital. John, who was now the real Emperor, made peace with Murād,
but on condition that he paid a heavy tribute and surrendered several
towns on the Black Sea, including Derkos. The Turks during the next
seven years steadily gained ground. Salonica after various vicissitudes,
the chief being its abandonment by the Turks in 1425, was finally
captured from the Venetians in 1430, and seven thousand of its inhabi-
tants were sold into slavery. In 1430 Murād took possession of Joannina.
In 1433 he re-colonised the city with Turks. He later named a governor
at Uskūb (Skoplje), the former capital of Serbia. George Branković
bought peace with Murād by giving his daughter in marriage to him
with a large portion of territory as dowry. From Serbia the Sultan
crossed to Hungary, devastated the country, and retired, but, pushing on
to Transylvania, was so stoutly opposed that he had to withdraw across
the Danube? .
In Greece, during the year 1423, the Turks took temporary possession
of Hexamilion, Lacedaemon, Cardicon, Tavia, and other strongholds.
In 1425 they captured Modon (Methone) and carried off 1700 Christians
into slavery. In the same year one of Murād's generals destroyed the
fortifications at the Isthmus of Corinth. In 1430 the Sultan granted
capitulations to the republic of Ragusa. Three years later a Turkish
fleet ravaged the coasts of Trebizond. The Emperor Sigismund, the King
of Hungary, with Vladislav, King of Poland, was beaten by Murād on the
Danube in 1428.
We are not concerned here with the profoundly interesting negotia-
tions which went on between the Greek Emperors and the Pope, except to
note that the price required to be paid for assistance from the West was
the acceptance by the Orthodox Church of the supremacy of Rome, that
the great mass of the Greek population, owing to many causes, mainly
the recollection of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204–1261), was
bitterly opposed to Union, and that the Emperor and the few dignitaries
who were willing to change their creed so as to bring it about had no
authority, expressed or implied, to act on behalf of the Orthodox Church.
The Union however, such as it was, was accepted in 1430 by the Emperor
John, who had gone to Florence for that purpose. Thereupon the Pope
undertook to send ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six months, to
attack the Turks and give courage to the Christian Powers. Early in
1440 he sent Isidore as delegate to Buda. John, who returned from
Italy in February of the same year, finding that Murād had become
1 Cf. for these events supra, Ch. xviii, pp. 568–70.
## p. 691 (#733) ############################################
Crusade of Vladislav and Hunyadi
691
restive at the action of the Pope, sent to him to declare that his journey
had been solely for the purpose of settling dogmas and had no political
object. He was, however, treating already for common action with
Vladislav, now also King of Hungary. In the same year Skanderbeg
(Skander or Alexander bey), an Albanian who had reverted to Christianity,
declared war against the Sultan.
Meantime the Pope had invited all Christian princes, including
Henry VI of England, to give aid against the Turks. The King of
Aragon promised to send six galleys. Vladislav responded too, and joined
George, King of Serbia, in 1441. John Corvinus, surnamed Hunyadi,
who was Voivode of Transylvania, at the head of a Hungarian army
drove the Turks out of Serbia. A series of engagements followed, in
which the brilliant soldier Hunyadi defeated the Turks. The Emir of
Karamania also attacked the Ottomans in his neighbourhood. Murād went
in consequence into Asia Minor, but the invasion of the Serbians and
Bulgarians compelled him to return. Several engagements took place
between the Slav nations and Murād, the most important being in 1443
at a place midway between Sofia and Philippopolis
. Three hundred
thousand Turks are stated, probably with gross exaggeration, to have
been killed.
Thereupon a formal truce was concluded for ten years in June 1444
between Murād and the King of Hungary and his allies. Each party
swore that his
should not cross the Danube to attack the other.
Vladislav swore on the Gospels and Murād on the Koran. Ducas states
that Hunyadi refused either to sign or swear. This peace, signed at Szege-
din, is regarded by the Turkish writers as intended by Murād to be the
culminating point of his career. Murād was a philosopher, a man who
loved meditation, who wished to live at peace, to join his sect of dervishes
in their pious labour, and to have done with war. But his enemies would
not allow him. The treaty thus solemnly accepted was almost immediately
broken. The story is an ugly one and, whether told by Turks or Christians,
shews bad faith on the side of the Christians. The cardinal legate Julian
Cesarini bears the eternal disgrace of declaring that an oath with the
infidel might be set aside and broken. Against the advice of Hunyadi,
the ablest soldier in the army of the allies, battle was to be joined. The
decision was ill-considered, for the French, Italian, and German volunteers
had left for their homes on the signature of the treaty. John was not
ready to send aid. George of Serbia would have no share in the war.
He refused not only to violate his oath but even to permit Skanderbeg to
join Vladislav.
The place of rendezvous was Varna, but the whole number
of the Christians, who gathered there in the early days of November 1444,
probably did not exceed 20,000 men. Hunyadi reluctantly joined. To
the astonishment of the Christians they found immediately after their
army
1 Bartletus, Vita Scanderbegii; Ducas, xxxır; Leunclavius, 107; von Hammer, 11.
299. Callimachus was present at the battle and describes it.
CH. XXI.
41-2
## p. 692 (#734) ############################################
692
Murād's victories at Varna and Kossovo
arrival at Varna that Murād had advanced with the rapidity then char-
acteristic of Turkish military movements, and that he had with him
60,000 men. A great battle followed, during which one of the most
notable incidents was that the Turks displayed the violated treaty upon
a lance, and in the crisis of the battle, according to the Turkish annals,
Murād prayed:
“O Christ, if thou art God, as thy followers say, punish
their perfidy. ” The victory of the Turks was complete. The Christian
army was destroyed? . Murād, who in June 1444 had abdicated in favour
of his son Mahomet when the latter was only fourteen years old, again
retired after the victory of Varna and fixed his residence at Magnesia.
But in 1445 the Janissaries became discontented. His son is reported to
have written to him in the following terms: "If I am Sultan I order you
to resume active service. If you are Sultan then I respectfully say that
your duty is to be at the head of your army. ” Murād accordingly
was compelled to reascend the throne. In 1446 one of Murād's generals
desolated Boeotia and Attica. His fleet in the meantime attacked the
Greek settlements in the Black Sea. Later in the same year Murād
destroyed the fortifications at the Isthmus though he was opposed by
60,000 men. Patras was also taken and burned. Thereupon the Morea
was ravaged, and the inhabitants were either killed or taken as slaves.
Constantine, afterwards the last Emperor of Constantinople, was compelled
to pay tribute for the Morea. During the years 1445-8 a desultory war
was being waged against the Albanians under Skanderbeg. In 1447
Murād, having failed to capture Kroja, later called Aq-Hisār, the capital
of Albania, withdrew to Hadrianople where, according to Chalcondyles,
he remained at
peace
In the autumn of 1448 the war against the Albanians recommenced.
George Castriotes, known to us already as Skanderbeg, was still their
trusted leader, and now and for many years was invincible. Meantime
under the directions of Pope Nicholas V the Hungarians and the Poles
were preparing once more to aid in resisting the advance of the Turks.
Hunyadi, notwithstanding the defeat at Varna, for which he was not re-
sponsible, was named general, and succeeded in forming a well-disciplined
but small
army of 24,000 men. Of these 8000 were Wallachs and 2000
Germans. As the King of Serbia refused to join, Hunyadi crossed the
Danube and invaded his kingdom. While Murād was preparing for a
new attack on the Albanians, Hunyadi encamped on the plains of
Kossovo, where in 1389 the Sultan's predecessor of the same name had
defeated his enemies and had been assassinated. The Turkish army
probably numbered 100,000 men? .
for a
year.
1 For a full description of this battle see The Destruction of the Greek Empire,
pp. 161 and 170, by the present writer. Cf. supra, Ch. xviii, pp. 571-72.
2 Aeneas Sylvius says two hundred thousand, Chalcondyles fifteen hundred
thousand, which vou Hammer reasonably suggests is an error for a hundred and fifty
thousand.
## p. 693 (#735) ############################################
Accession of Mahomet II
693
For some unexplained reason Hunyadi did not wait for the arrival of
Skanderbeg. A battle ensued on 18 October 1448. It lasted three days.
On the second the struggle was the fiercest, but the brave Hungarians
were powerless to break through the line of the Janissaries. On the third
day the Wallachs turned traitors, obtained terms from Murād, and
passed over to his side. The Germans and a band of Bohemians held
their ground, but the battle was lost. Eight thousand, including the
flower of the Hungarian nobility, were said to have been left dead on
the field. During the fight 40,000 Turks had fallen.
The effect of this defeat upon Hungary and Western Europe was
appalling. The Ottoman Turks had nothing to fear for many years from
the enemy north of the Danube. Skanderbeg struggled on, and in 1449
beat in succession four Turkish armies and again successfully resisted an
attempt to capture Kroja. Indeed one author states that the Sultan
died while making this attempt. In the autumn Murād returned to
Hadrianople, where he died in February 1451.
MAHOMET II (1451-1481).
The great object which Mahomet II had to accomplish to make him
supreme lord of the Balkan peninsula was the capture of Constantinople
itself. He was only twenty-one years old when he was girt with the
sword of Osmān. But he had already shewn ability, and had had ex-
perience both in civil and military affairs. The contemporary writers,
Muslims and Christians, give ample materials from which to form an
estimate of his character. From his boyhood he had dreamed of the
capture of New Rome. Ducas gives a striking picture of his sleeplessness
and anxiety before the siege of the city. Subsequent events shewed that
he had laid his plans carefully, and had foreseen and prepared for every
eventuality.
When his father Murād died he was at Magnesia. He hastened to
Gallipoli and Hadrianople, and at the latter place was proclaimed Sultan.
Though he distrusted Khalil Pasha, who had prevented him from retaining
supreme power when his father had abdicated, he named him again to
the post of grand vizier, called him his father, and continued to shew
him confidence. He commenced his reign by the murder of his infant
brother Aḥmad', the only other member of the Ottoman dynasty being
Orkhān who was with the Emperor in Constantinople, though in order
to avoid public disapprobation for the act he had 'Alī, the actual
murderer, put to death”.
Shortly after his arrival at Hadrianople he received ambassadors with
congratulations from Constantinople and the semi-independent emirs of
i Von Hammer notes that Turkish historians praise Mahomet for this act of
brutality, vol. 11. p. 429, note 3.
2 Filelfo, De imbecilitate et ignavia Turcorum, quoted by Jorga, Geschichte, vol.
II. p. 4.
CH, XXI.
## p. 694 (#736) ############################################
694
Preparations for the siege of Constantinople
Asia Minor, but he noted that Ibrāhīm, the Emir of Karamania, was not
represented. Mahomet confirmed the treaty already made with Con-
stantine, and professed peaceful intentions to all. His father had failed
in 1422 to capture the city because of the rebellion of the Emir of Kara-
mania. To prevent the repetition of such opposition the Sultan crossed
into Anatolia and forced the emir to sue for peace.
No sooner had Mahomet left Europe than the Emperor committed
the blunder of sending ambassadors to Khalil Pasha, Mahomet's grand
vizier, who had always been friendly to the Empire, with a demand that
Orkhān, a pretender to the throne for whose maintenance Murād had
paid, should receive double the amount, failing which the ambassadors
suggested that Orkhān's claims would be supported by the Empire. Khalil
bluntly asked them if they were mad, and told them to do their worst.
Mahomet, when he learned the demand, hastily returned to Europe.
He at once set about preparations for the capture of Constantinople.
He concluded arrangements with the Venetians, and made a truce with
Hunyadi for three years, the latter step enabling him to arrange peace
with Hungary, Wallachia, and Bosnia. He amassed stores of arms, arrows,
and cannon balls. He was already master of the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus by means of the castle at Anatolia-Hisār built by Bāyazīd.
In order to seize the tribute paid by ships passing through the Bosphorus,
and also that he might have a strong base for his attack upon the city,
he decided to build a fortress opposite that of Bāyazīd at a place now
known as Rumelia-Hisār. The straits between the two castles are half
a mile wide. In possession of the two he would have command of the
Bosphorus, and could transport his army and munitions without difficulty.
When the Emperor, the last Constantine, and his subjects heard of
Mahomet's preparations, they were greatly alarmed, and remonstrated.
Mahomet's answer was a contemptuous refusal to desist from building a
fort; for he knew that the imperial army was so reduced in strength as
to be powerless outside the walls.
In the spring of 1452 Mahomet himself took charge of the construc-
tion of the fortress, and pushed on the works with the energy that
characterised all his military undertakings. Constantine sent food to
Mahomet's workmen, with the evident intention of suggesting that he
was not unwilling to see executed the work which he could not prevent.
Meantime the Turks gathered in the harvest in the neighbourhood of
the new building, and seemed indeed to have desired that Constantine
should send out troops to prevent them, a step which the Emperor dared
not undertake. All the neighbouring churches, monasteries, and houses
were destroyed in order to find materials for building the series of walls
and castles which formed the fortification. The work was begun in March
1452 and completed by the middle of August. The fortifications still
remain to add beauty to the landscape and as a monument of the con-
queror's energy. When they were completed, as the Turks seized the toll
## p. 695 (#737) ############################################
Western assistance for the Emperor
695
paid by ships passing the new castle, Constantine closed the gates of Con-
stantinople. Mahomet answered by declaring war and appearing before
the landward walls with 50,000 men. But he had not yet completed his
preparations for a siege. After three days he withdrew to Hadrianople.
The value of his new fortification was seen a few weeks afterwards, for
when on 10 November two large Venetian galleys from the Black Sea
attempted to pass they were captured, the masters killed, and their crews
imprisoned and tortured.
Mahomet now made no secret of his intention to capture Constan-
tinople. Critobulus gives a speech, which he declares was made by the
Sultan at Hadrianople, attributing the opposition to the Ottomans from
a series of enemies, including Tīmūr, to the influence of the Emperors.
The country around Constantinople was cleared by Mahomet's army.
San Stefano, Silivri, Perinthus, Epibatus, Anchialus, Vizye, and other
places on the north shore of the Marmora and on the coast of Thrace on
the Black Sea were sacked. In November 1452 Cardinal Isidore had arrived
in Constantinople with 200 soldiers sent by the Pope, together with a
papal letter demanding the completion of the Union of the Churches.
In consequence on 12 December a service was held in St Sophia com-
memorating the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches.
Leonard, Archbishop of Chios, had arrived with the cardinal. Six
Venetian vessels came a few weeks afterwards, and at the request of the
Emperor their commander, Gabriel Trevisan, consented to give his
services per honor de Dio et per honor de tuta la christianitade. They had
safely passed the Turkish castles owing to the skilful navigation of their
captain. On 29 January 1453 the city received the most important of its
acquisitions, for on that day arrived John Giustiniani, a Genoese noble
of great reputation as a soldier. He brought with him 700 fighting men.
He was named, under the Emperor, commander-in-chief, and at once
took charge of the works for defence. In April a chain fixed upon beams
closed the harbour of the Golden Horn, its northern end being fastened
within the walls of Galata. Ten large ships, with triremes near them,
were stationed at the boom. The Genoese of Galata undertook to aid in
its defence.
By the end of March, Mahomet's preparations were nearly completed.
Nicolò Barbaro, a Venetian surgeon who was present within the city
from the beginning to the end of the siege, states that there were
50,000 men in the besieging army between the Golden Horn and the
Marmora, a distance of three miles and three-quarters? . Barbaro's estimate
is confirmed by that of the Florentine soldier Tedaldi, who states that
there were 140,000 effective soldiers, the rest, making the number of
1 Filelfo estimates 60,000 foot and 20,000 horse. Ducas' estimate is 250,000,
Montaldo's 240,000. Phrantzes says 258,000 were present. The Archbishop of Chios,
Leonard, with whom Critobulus agrees, gives 300,000, while Chalcondyles increases
this to 400,000.
CB. XXI.
## p. 696 (#738) ############################################
696
The besieging force
יו
וי
Mahomet's army amount to 200,000,“ being thieves, plunderers, hawkers,
and others following the army for gain and booty. ”
In this army the most distinguished corps consisted of at least
12,000 Janissaries, who formed the body-guard of the Sultan. This force
had shewn its discipline and valour at Varna and at Kossovo. This,
the most terrible portion of Mahomet's force, was derived at that time
exclusively from Christian families. It was the boast of its members in
after
years that they had never fled from an enemy, and the boast was
not an idle one. The portion of the army known as Bashi-bazuks was
an undisciplined mob. La Brocquière says that the innumerable host of
these irregulars took the field with no other weapon than their curved
swords or scimitars. “Being,” says Filelfo, “under no restraint, they
proved the most cruel scourge of a Turkish invasion. ”
In January 1453 report reached the capital of a monster gun which
was being cast at Hadrianople by Urban, a Hungarian or Wallach. By
March it had been taken to the neighbourhood of the city. Fourteen
batteries of smaller cannon were also prepared, which were subsequently
stationed outside the landward walls. Mahomet had also prepared and
collected a powerful fleet of ships and large caiques. A hundred and
forty sailing-ships coming up from Gallipoli arrived at the Diplokionion
south of the present palace of Dolma Bagcha on 12 April'. Cannon balls
of a hard stone were made in large numbers on the Black Sea coast, and
brought to the Bosphorus in the ships which joined the fleet.
The Turkish army with Mahomet at its head arrived before the city
on 5 April. The arrangement of the troops was as follows: Mahomet,
with his Janissaries and
others of his best troops, took up his position in
the Lycus valley between the two ridges, one crowned by what is now
called the Top Qāpū Gate, but which was then known as that of
St Romanus, and the other by the Hadrianople Gate. This division
probably consisted of 50,000 men. On the Sultan's right, that is between
Top Qāpū and the Marmora, were 50,000 Anatolian troops, while on
his left from the ridge of the Hadrianople Gate to the Golden Horn were
the least valuable of his troops, including the Bashi-bazuks, among whom
were renegade Christians. With them was also a small body of Serbs.
Two or three days after his arrival Mahomet sent a formal demand
for the surrender of the city upon terms which were probably intended
to be rejected. Upon their rejection he at once made his dispositions for
a regular siege.
For the most part the remains of the walls still exist, so that little
difficulty is found in learning what were Mahomet's chief points of attack.
The Golden Horn separates Galata and the district behind it, known as
Pera, from Constantinople proper, now distinguished as Stamboul, the
Turkish corruption of eis Thy Tów. Galata was a walled city under
1 So Barbaro; Phrantzes gives the total number of ships and boats as 480; Ducas
as 300; Leonard as 250; Critobulus as 250.
## p. 697 (#739) ############################################
The defences of Constantinople
697
the protection of the Duke of Milan, and ruled under capitulations by
the Genoese, and was not attacked during the siege. The length of the
walls which gird Constantinople or, to give it the modern name, Stamboul,
is about thirteen miles. Those on the Marmora and the Horn are strong
but single. Those on the landward side are triple, the inner wall being
the loftiest and about forty feet high. The landward walls have also in
front of them a foss about sixty feet broad, with a series of daṁs in every
part except about a quarter of a mile of steep ascent from the Horn, where
exceptionally strong walls and towers made them impregnable before the
days of cannon.
The walls on the two sides built up from the water were difficult to
capture, because the attack would have to be made from boats. They
therefore required few men for their defence. The landward walls were,
in all the great sieges, except that by the filibustering expedition in
1202–4 called the Fourth Crusade, the defence which invaders sought to
capture. Some places, notably near the Silivri Gate and north of that
of Hadrianople, were weaker than others, but the Achilles' heel of the
city was the long stretch of wall across the Lycus valley. About a hundred
yards north of the place where the streamlet, which gives the valley its
name, flows under the walls to enter the city, stood a military gate
known as the Pempton, or Fifth Military Gate, and called by the non-
Greek writers who describe the siege the St Romanus Gate. It gave
access to the enclosure between the Inner and the Second wall. Mahomet's
lofty tent of red and gold, with its sublima porta, as the Italians called
it, was about a quarter of a mile distant from the Pempton in the valley.
The fourteen batteries, each of four guns, were distributed at various
places in front of the landward walls. The Emperor Constantine had
fixed his headquarters within the city in the vicinity of the same gate.
Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders should
have been stationed on the city side of the great Inner wall. But the
troops for the defence were not even sufficient to guard the second land-
ward wall. Indeed the disparity in numbers between the besiegers and
besieged is startling. To meet the 150,000 besiegers the city had only
about 8000 men. Nearly all contemporary writers agree in this estimate.
Phrantzes states that a census was made and that, even including monks,
it shewed only 4983 Greeks. The result was so appalling that he was
charged by the Emperor not to let it be known? Assuming that there
were 3000 foreigners present, 8000 may be taken as a safe total.
The foreigners were nearly all Venetians or Genoese. The most dis-
tinguished among them was the Genoese Giustiniani. We have already
seen the spirit which actuated Trevisan. Barbaro records the names “for
a perpetual memorial” of his countrymen who took part in the defence.
1 Leonard's estimate was 6,000 Greeks and 3,000 foreigners. Tedaldi says there
were between 5,000 and 7,000 combatants within the city “and not more. ” Ducas
says that there were not more than 8,000 all told.
CH, XXI.
## p. 698 (#740) ############################################
698
The dispositions of the besieged
The arrangements for the defence were made by Giustiniani under
the Emperor. With the 700 men he had brought to the city he first
took charge of the landward walls between the Horn and the Hadrianople
Gate, but
soon transferred his men with a number of Greeks to the
enclosure in the Lycus valley as the post of greatest danger. Archbishop
Leonard took the place which he had left. At the Acropolis, that is
near Seraglio Point, Trevisan was in command. Near him was Cardinal
Isidore. The Greek noble, the Grand Duke Lucas Notaras, was stationed
near what is now the Maḥmūdīye mosque with a few men in reserve.
The monks were with others at the walls on the Marmora side. The
besieged had small cannon, but they were soon found to be useless. The
superiority of the Turkish cannon, and especially of the big gun cast by
Urban, was so great that Critobulus says: “it was the cannon which did
everything. ”
A modern historian of the siegel claims that the population of the
city was against the Emperor. This is scarcely borne out by the
evidence. It is true that a great outcry had been raised against the
Union of the Churches; that the popular cry had been “better under the
Turk than under the Latins;” that the demand of the Pope for the
restoration of Patriarch Gregory, sent away because he was an advocate
of Union with Rome, offended many; that Notaras himself, the first
noble, had declared that he “preferred the Turkish turban to the cardinal's
hat;” and that the populace had sought out Gennadius because he was
hostile to the Union. But when the gates of the city were closed against
the enemy, this sentiment in no way interfered with the determination of
all within the city to oppose the strongest resistance, and the population
rallied round the Emperor.
In the early days of the siege Mahomet destroyed all the Greek
villages which had already escaped the savagery of his troops, including
Therapia and Prinkipo.
