THE GREEK EMPIRE AND THE OTTOMAN TURKS
The Greek Empire after the recovery of Constantinople in 1261—The
reigns of Michael VIII. and Andronicus II.—The Grand Company of the
Catalans—Civil war and deposition of Andronicus II.—The Seljuk and
Ottoman Turks—Conquests of Othman and Orchan—The tribute of
children—John V. and John Cantacuzenos—Stephen Dushan and the Empire
of Servia—First conquests of the Turks in Europe—Vassalage of the
Greek Empire—Turkish successes against the Slavonic States—Bajazet
I. attacks Constantinople—Battle of Angora—Revival of the Ottoman
power—The Emperor John VI. and the Council of Florence—Wars of
Amurath II. with Hungary—Revolt of Albania under Scanderbeg—Mohammed
II. takes Constantinople—Conquest of Servia, Wallachia, and
Bosnia—Conquest of Greece—War with Venice—The Turks in Otranto—Death
of Mohammed the Conqueror.
It is not a little curious that the two powers which claimed to
represent the ancient Empire of Rome both perished in the thirteenth
century. The fall of the Hohenstaufen [Sidenote: The Greek Empire after
1261.] and the Great Interregnum mark the real end of the western
Empire. Henceforth it is nothing more than a feeble kingship of Germany
with a shadowy claim to suzerainty over Italy. The eastern Empire was
annihilated by the destructive triumph of the Crusaders in 1204. Its
so-called revival in 1261 was merely the recovery of Constantinople by a
prince who had previously ruled in Nicæa. The rule of Michael Palæologus
and his successors, though the forms of ceremonies of Roman tradition
were carefully maintained, has no claim to be called a Roman Empire at
all; at the most, it is a Greek or Byzantine Empire. Their territories
were smaller than those of several of the western kings. In Europe they
held little more than Constantinople itself, with the adjacent district
of Roumelia and the peninsula of Chalcidice. To the north and west they
were hemmed in by the independent kingdoms of Bulgaria and Servia. The
greater part of the Morea was split up into small states in the hands
either of Frankish princes or of Venice. Venice also held the important
islands of Corfu, Crete, and Negropont, and many of the lesser islands
in the Ægean were ruled by Venetian families. In Asia Minor the
Palæologi succeeded in retaining for a time the greater part of the west
coast with a few towns on the Black Sea; but the rest of the peninsula
was in the hands of the Turkish sultans of Iconium, with the exception
of a small strip in the south-eastern corner of the Black Sea, which
constituted the so-called Empire of Trebizond. It is true that Michael
VIII. himself, and even some of his feeble successors, made a few
acquisitions of territory, especially in the Morea, but these were
counterbalanced by quite equal losses. The Knights of St. John, who
lived in Crete for a few years after their expulsion from Acre in 1291,
seized Rhodes and the small adjacent islands in 1310. And the Genoese,
who had rendered valuable service in the war with the Latin emperors,
demanded very large concessions as their reward. Not only did they
receive the suburb of Pera or Galata, which they fortified against the
Greek emperors, but they established their power at Kaffa in the Crimea,
and in Azof, at the mouth of the Don, thus securing a monopoly of the
Black Sea trade, and they also seized upon the islands of Lesbos and
Chios.
It is a sorry task to trace the fortunes of the decadent Greek Empire
during the two centuries that were secured to it, not by any ability on
the part of its rulers or any heroism on the part of their subjects, but
partly by a series of accidents which checked the advance of encroaching
neighbours, and partly by the extraordinary defensive strength of the
capital. There is hardly a single episode in this period of Greek
history that inspires any interest or would deserve any attention, but
that the weakness of the Empire was a prominent cause of that rapid rise
of the Ottoman Turks which is one of the great events in history. In
Constantinople itself there is little to record except miserable court
jealousies and intrigues, and the most puerile discussions of minute
questions of religious dogma. The recent establishment of Latin rule had
inspired the Greeks with a bitter hatred of Roman Catholicism, and at
the same time with a consciousness of their own weakness. Hence the
stolid conservatism which characterised the administration in both
Church and State under the Palæologi. ‘The Greeks gloried in the name of
Romans; they clung to the forms of the imperial government without its
military power; they retained the Roman code without the systematic
administration of justice, and prided themselves on the orthodoxy of a
Church in which the clergy were deprived of all ecclesiastical
independence, and lived in a state of vassalage to the imperial Court.
Such a society could only wither, though it might wither slowly’
(Finlay).
The fall of the Latin Empire could not take place without causing a
sensation in western Europe, and for some time Michael VIII. had to fear
a possible attempt to effect its restoration. Charles of Anjou, who as
[Sidenote: Michael VIII. and Andronicus II.] the champion of the Papacy
has gained Naples and Sicily from the Hohenstaufen, twice pledged
himself to carry his victorious forces across the Adriatic, in 1266 by
the treaty of Viterbo with the exiled Baldwin II., and in 1281 by the
treaty of Orvieto with Venice and Pope Martin IV. So alarmed was Michael
VIII., that he resorted to the last expedient of a Greek emperor in
distress, and sought to conciliate the Pope by offering to bring about
the union of the Greek with the Latin Church. But his pusillanimity made
him unpopular with his subjects, and proved to be wholly unnecessary.
Both schemes of the Neapolitan king were rendered abortive; the former
by the attack of the luckless Conradin in 1267, the latter by the
Sicilian Vespers in 1282 (see p. 25). These events enabled Michael, who
died in the latter year, to leave an undiminished dominion to his son,
Andronicus II. The new emperor was as superstitious and as timidly
orthodox as any of his bishops could desire, and his personal character
was far better than that of the majority of Eastern despots; but he was
a thoroughly worthless and incompetent ruler. His long reign, which
lasted from 1282 to 1328, was marked by three events which brought the
Empire to the verge of ruin. Ruling over a comparatively small and
unwarlike population, the Greek emperors after 1261 were peculiarly
dependent upon mercenary troops for either defensive or aggressive
warfare. In 1303 chance gave to Andronicus the service of perhaps the
finest fighting force in Europe at that time. The twenty years’ struggle
for the possession of Sicily between the houses of Anjou and Aragon had
just ended in the victory of the latter, and Frederick I. of Sicily was
not unwilling to rid himself of the hardy soldiers from Catalonia and
the other Aragonese provinces who had gained him his crown, but were
likely to be a source of trouble and disorder now that peace had been
concluded. Under the leadership of a brilliant adventurer, Roger de
Flor, these men were formed [Sidenote: The Grand Company.] into the
‘Grand Company of the Catalans,’ and were transported to the eastern
Empire. Properly led, these troops might have taken advantage of the
dismemberment of the Seljuk dominions to gain the whole of Asia Minor
for the Palæologi. But Andronicus II. was incapable of even planning so
ambitious a project. The strength of the Company was wasted in petty
operations; and when the withholding of arrears of pay provoked a
mutiny, the emperor recklessly endeavoured to intimidate the mercenaries
by procuring the assassination of their idolised commander. Vowing
vengeance, the Catalans turned their arms against their employer, routed
the armies that were sent against them, and for the next few years lived
in luxurious idleness upon the spoils which they wrested from the
emperor’s unfortunate subjects. Nor was it possible to expel them, and
they only quitted the dominions of Andronicus when they were tempted in
1310 to enter the service of the duke of Athens. The emperor’s last
years were darkened by a civil war which was almost as disastrous as his
quarrel with the foreign mercenaries. His grandson, another Andronicus,
a [Sidenote: Civil war, 1321-1328.] young man of considerable ability
but of vicious habits, raised the standard of rebellion in 1321 because
he was not admitted to the position of joint-emperor which had been held
by his father till his death in the previous year. The war was
interrupted by several futile attempts to bring about a reconciliation;
but at last the partisans of the young prince, among whom John
Cantacuzenos was the most prominent, gained a complete victory in 1328,
when the capital was taken and Andronicus II. was deposed in favour of
his grandson. Four years later the aged emperor died, after having been
compelled to become a monk in order to render his restoration
impossible. The terrible waste of force in the ravages of the Grand
Company and the miserable contest between grandfather and grandson are
the more significant when it is remembered that in this reign occurred
the first collision between the Greek Empire and its destined
destroyers, the Ottoman Turks.
The Ottoman Turks, or Osmanlis, as they call themselves, were by no
means the only or the earliest members of the [Sidenote: The Ottoman
Turks.] Turkish race to gain distinction. Long before their appearance
in history the Seljuk Turks had risen to ascendency in western Asia,
first as the soldiers and then as the masters of the Saracen caliphs. A
Seljuk dynasty established itself in the eleventh century in Nicæa with
the title of Sultans of Rome, as ruling over great part of the Roman
Empire. The early crusades had aided the Eastern emperors to drive the
Turks back from Nicæa to Iconium, but they remained the dominant power
in Asia Minor. The disruption of the eastern Empire after the Fourth
Crusade would probably have enabled the Seljuks to extend their
dominions if they had not been at the same time exposed to attacks from
the Moguls in the east. It was in this war that we first hear of the
Ottoman Turks. One of the sultans of Iconium was hard pressed in battle
by the Moguls, when the scale was turned by the intervention of a small
but warlike band of Turks under Ertogrul, the father of Othman, from
whom their later name was derived. The grateful sultan rewarded his
unexpected auxiliaries with a considerable grant of lands; and when the
Seljuk power was broken up on the death of Aladdin III. in 1307, Othman
was one of the numerous emirs who acquired independence. Among these
emirs Othman and his successors gradually rose to acknowledged
pre-eminence, chiefly through their victories at the expense of the
Greek emperors, which attracted to their service the ablest and most
ambitious Turks from [Sidenote: Conquests of Othman and Orchan.] the
other provinces. Just before Othman’s death in 1326 his forces captured
the Greek city of Brusa, which became the Asiatic capital of the
Ottomans. Under his son and successor, Orchan, the Turkish power made
immense strides. Orchan’s first enterprise was the attack on Nicæa,
which may be regarded as the second capital of the Byzantine Empire. No
formal siege was laid to the city, but the Turks constructed strong
forts in the neighbourhood, from which they could harass the inhabitants
and cut off supplies of water and food. Andronicus III. and his
minister, John Cantacuzenos, crossed the Bosphorus to attempt the relief
of Nicæa, but were defeated at Pelekanon (1329), the first battle in
which a Greek emperor confronted the Ottoman Turks in arms. Nicæa
surrendered in 1330, and was treated with such leniency as to create a
temporary impression that the Greeks would be better off under Turkish
than under Byzantine rule. The military incapacity of the emperor
allowed Orchan to continue his aggressions with comparative ease; and at
the end of the next ten years the only territories retained by
Andronicus in Asia Minor were the two towns of Phocæa and Philadelphia,
together with a small strip of territory along the eastern coast of the
Bosphorus.
Orchan is famous in Turkish history not only as a conqueror, but also as
a legislator and administrator. One of his institutions proved
invaluable to his successors. The law of Mohammed offered two
alternatives to unbelievers—the Koran or tribute. By payment of tribute
the conquered could purchase the security of life and property and the
permission to retain their own religious worship. [Sidenote: The tribute
children.] Orchan introduced the innovation of exacting this tribute not
only in money or goods, but in children. Every Christian village was
compelled to furnish every year a fixed proportion of the strongest and
most promising boys about eight years of age. These children were
brought up in the Mohammedan religion, and were educated with the
greatest care both for body and mind. As they grew older, according as
they excelled in mental or physical qualities, they were drafted either
into the civil administration or into the army. The civil servants taken
from these children formed an administrative body, which was under the
absolute control of the sultan, and was more efficient than could be
found in any other country at that time. The troops were still more
serviceable. They constituted the famous Janissaries (_Yeni Tcheri_ or
new troops), who for two centuries were unsurpassed by any other
military force. With diabolical ingenuity the Turks secured the victory
of the Crescent by the children of the Cross, and trained up Christian
boys to destroy the independence and authority of their country and
their Church.
A critical period in Byzantine history followed the death of Andronicus
III. in 1341. His young son, John V., was left [Sidenote: John V. and
John Cantacuzenos.] under the regency of his mother, Anne of Savoy. But
the authority of the regent was disputed by John Cantacuzenos, who had
been virtual prime minister under Andronicus, and was now persuaded by
his partisans to assume the imperial title. A prolonged strife of
factions followed, in which both sides were base enough to appeal for
the support of the Turks. Cantacuzenos was successful in gaining Orchan
to his side, but by a bargain which even Greek morality considered
disgraceful. His daughter was married to the Mussulman sultan, and was
sent to reside in the harem at Brusa. But the complaisant father
achieved his object. In 1347 he was recognised as emperor by the
empress-regent, and was to be allowed to hold the executive authority
for ten years, when it was to be shared with John V., who was to marry
Helena, another daughter of Cantacuzenos. The latter was now crowned
again with his wife, and John V. was also crowned with his bride. Thus
Constantinople witnessed the unique pageant of two emperors and three
empresses at the same time.
This civil war had not only given to the Turks a dangerous insight and
influence in Greek politics, it had also enabled a rival power to extend
itself on the western side of the empire. Stephen Dushan, who had become
king [Sidenote: Conquests of Stephen Dushan.] of Servia in 1333, took
advantage of the anarchy in Constantinople to seize Albania, Epirus, and
Thessaly, and thus to extend his dominions to the Adriatic on one side
and to the Ægean on the other. He assumed the title of Emperor of
Roumania, Slavonia, and Albania. It would probably have been for the
ultimate advantage of Europe if he could have extinguished the Greek
empire altogether by the conquest of Constantinople. But he was not
strong enough to do this, and his territories were divided after his
death in 1355. His conquests left the European dominions of Byzantium
hardly larger than those in Asia. Besides the capital, with the adjacent
part of Thrace, there were Thessalonica and another strip of territory,
about a third of the Morea, and a few islands in the Ægean. Even between
Constantinople and Thessalonica there was no secure communication except
by sea, as the intervening territory was held by Servia.
The treaty of 1347 was not likely to bring about lasting peace in
Constantinople, and in 1351 a quarrel between John V. and his
father-in-law gives us another illustration of the weakness of the
empire. The dispute became mixed up with the standing quarrel between
the Venetians and the Genoese. The Genoese maintained that alliance with
the Palæologi which had given them their predominance [Sidenote: Renewed
disorder in Constantinople.] in the east, and therefore Cantacuzenos
tried to overthrow them by obtaining the support of Venice. The two
Italian republics fought out their own quarrel in Greek waters, without
much regard to the interests of their allies. The Venetians were
defeated in 1352 in a great naval battle fought within sight of
Constantinople, and Cantacuzenos was compelled to confirm all the
privileges of the victors. His authority never recovered from the blow,
and in 1354 he was compelled to abdicate and become a monk.
The same year in which John V. became sole emperor witnessed the first
permanent establishment of the Turks [Sidenote: The Turks in Europe.]
upon European soil. Hitherto they had only appeared either as plunderers
or as the auxiliaries of Cantacuzenos. But in 1354 Suleiman, Orchan’s
eldest son, took advantage of an earthquake, which had destroyed the
walls of many towns in Thrace, to seize and garrison Gallipoli. John V.,
afraid that the Turks might support Matthew Cantacuzenos, who claimed to
take his father’s place as emperor, was unable to attempt their
expulsion, and Gallipoli became the basis for later conquests. Suleiman
died in 1358, and Orchan in 1359; but the new sultan, Amurath or Murad
I., added one city after another to his rule, till in 1361 he made
himself master of Adrianople, which became the European capital of the
Turks for nearly a century. The fact that these early conquests of
Amurath were gained without serious opposition in the districts in which
the party of Cantacuzenos had been most numerous seems to show that
faction had overpowered all sense of patriotism among the Greeks. The
conquest of Adrianople brought the Turks to the northern boundary of the
Byzantine empire, and for the next few years they were occupied with
wars against the Slavonic states—Bulgaria, Servia, and Bosnia—great
parts of which were conquered or compelled to pay tribute.
John V., finding himself surrounded by the growing dominions of the
infidel, made desperate efforts to obtain aid from western Europe. In
1369 he [Sidenote: Vassalage of the Empire.] actually went to Rome to
meet Urban V., who had just returned to his capital, and agreed to a
written profession of faith, in which he accepted the Roman view on all
the questions at issue between the two Churches—that the procession of
the Holy Ghost is from both Father and Son; that unleavened bread may be
used in the Sacrament; and that the Church of Rome is supreme in matters
of faith and jurisdiction. But the document was worthless to either
side. The emperor could not coerce the faith of his subjects, and the
Papacy in the middle of the fourteenth century was powerless to rouse
any crusading ardour among the European princes. Discouraged by the
failure of this negotiation, the pusillanimous emperor sought a still
more humiliating path to safety. He became the vassal of the Turkish
sultan, allowed him to occupy Thessalonica; and when his own son
Andronicus headed a successful rebellion, it was put down by Turkish aid
purchased by a treaty which stipulated for the payment of tribute by the
Greek emperor (1381).
The Slavonic states to the north and west of Constantinople offered a
more resolute, though not in the end a more successful resistance than
the Greeks. In 1387 a great [Sidenote: Turkish conquests in the north.]
league was formed for mutual protection, under the leadership of the
king of Bosnia. For a time this checked the Ottoman advance; but in 1389
Amurath won a complete victory over the allied forces at Kossova, where
the Servian king was slain. Amurath himself was killed after the battle
by a Servian noble who pretended to be a deserter. But the murder
brought no gain to the Slavonic cause, as Bajazet I. succeeded at once
to his father’s position and reaped all the fruits of the victory. The
new king of Servia had to give his sister in marriage to the sultan, and
to promise both tribute and military service. Wallachia was also made to
pay tribute, and Bulgaria was annexed to the Ottoman dominions, which
were thus extended to the Danube. The most vigorous effort made by a
European combination against the infidel, when Sigismund of Hungary was
joined by a band of French nobles under John of Nevers, heir to the
duchy of Burgundy, only served to give another still more brilliant
victory to Bajazet under the walls of Nicopolis (1396). Sigismund
narrowly escaped captivity; and John the Fearless, as he was afterwards
called, was only allowed to save the lives of twenty-four of his
fellow-prisoners, who were to carry back to Europe the tale of the
prowess and the fantastic mixture of cruelty and magnanimity displayed
by their conqueror.
Meanwhile John V. had died in 1391, and was succeeded by his second son,
Manuel II., the elder brother, Andronicus, having died in 1381. Manuel
had been compelled [Sidenote: First Turkish siege of Constantinople.] to
lead a Greek contingent into Asia to aid Bajazet in taking Philadelphia,
one of the last cities in Asia Minor which retained its independence,
and was still at Brusa when the news arrived of his father’s death. He
succeeded in escaping to Constantinople, but it was lucky for him that
the sultan was engaged in reducing to obedience the Seljuk emirates
which had not yet recognised the supremacy of the Ottoman dynasty. This
enabled Manuel to make good his position, but he had to accept the same
subjection as had been imposed upon his father. When, however, the great
coalition was formed under Sigismund to resist the Turks, Manuel had
welcomed the prospect of regaining his freedom, and Bajazet had learned
how little he could trust the fidelity of his imperial vassal. After his
victory at Nicopolis the sultan determined to inflict a signal
punishment on all those tributary princes who had ventured to oppose
him. In 1397 he reduced Epirus and Thessaly, while Manuel was harassed
by the recognition of his nephew John, the son of Andronicus, as
emperor. Recognising the futility of relying upon his own strength to
resist the sultan, Manuel came to terms with his nephew, admitted him as
a colleague, and left the administration in his hands, while he himself
set out on a tour through western Europe to implore assistance. During
his absence Bajazet laid regular siege to Constantinople, and would
probably have completed its conquest if he had not been called away to
Asia to resist the attack of the great Tartar leader, Timour, or
Tamerlane, who had already marched victoriously over the greater part of
Asia. In the famous [Sidenote: Battle of Angora, 1402.] battle of
Angora, the Ottoman Turks met with a crushing defeat (1402). Bajazet
himself fell into the conqueror’s hands, and was still a captive when he
died in 1403.
The battle of Angora gave Constantinople a reprieve for fifty years.
Manuel, whose western journey had given him little beyond experience and
discouragement, was unexpectedly able to return to his capital and to
banish the nephew whom necessity rather than affection had compelled him
to admit as a colleague. It is true that he had to pacify Timour by
paying to him the same tribute as he had owed to Bajazet. But the Tartar
had too much to do in the east to undertake the conquest of Europe, and
his destructive career came to an end in 1405 as he was on his way to
attempt the subjugation of China. The Ottoman power seemed to be
annihilated. Not only did the Seljuk emirs in Asia recover their
independence, but for ten years after Bajazet’s death his four sons
carried on a fratricidal struggle for the succession. Yet all that the
Emperor Manuel could gain from such extraordinary good fortune was the
recovery of Thessalonica and a few districts in Thessaly and Epirus.
When in 1413 Mohammed I. succeeded in reuniting his [Sidenote: Revival
of the Ottoman power.] father’s dominions, the Greek emperor with the
other European vassals hastened to renew their submission; and the
sultan met with so little difficulty in Europe, that he was able to
devote the remaining eight years of his reign to the reduction of the
princes of Caramania and other opponents in Asia. The extraordinary
rapidity with which the Ottomans recovered their power after the
apparently shattering blow of 1402 proves that their authority, thanks
to the wisdom and ingenuity of Orchan, rested upon far stronger
foundations than that of any other Asiatic conquerors.
Mohammed I. was succeeded in 1421 by his son Amurath II. Manuel
Palæologus, rendered confident by the unbroken peace of the last few
years, was bold enough to stir up opposition against the new sultan by
supporting a pretender who claimed to be a son of Bajazet. Amurath had
no difficulty in defeating and putting to death the rival claimant, and
in 1422 he undertook another siege of Constantinople in order to punish
the emperor’s insolence. An attempt to carry the walls by storm was
repulsed with heavy loss to the assailants, but the raising of the siege
was due to a rebellion in Asia in favour of a brother of the sultan.
When in 1424 Amurath returned to Europe after putting down disorder in
the east, Manuel hastened to appease his wrath by the payment of
increased tribute and by the cession of several cities in Thrace.
John VI., who succeeded his father, Manuel II., in 1425, was perhaps the
feeblest of all the Palæologi. His whole reign was spent in endeavouring
to evade dangers [Sidenote: Reign of John VI.] which he was incapable of
confronting. The best known event of his reign is the Council which was
held in 1438 and 1439, first at Ferrara, and then at Florence, to
negotiate for the union of the eastern and western Churches (see p.
236). As far as the powers of the Council went, the treaty of union was
fully and finally ratified. But the Greeks could resist their own ruler
with more courage and confidence than they could face the infidel
assailant, and such a storm of reprobation greeted the return of the
emperor and the envoys that they hastened to disavow their formal acts.
The decrees of the Council of Florence remained a dead letter. It was
fortunate for John that he had no occasion to rely either upon western
aid or upon the loyalty of his subjects. His very weakness and pliancy
disarmed hostility and avoided all occasions of rupture. His reign was a
period of almost complete peace. Thessalonica, which had repudiated the
rule of Constantinople and put itself under the protection of Venice,
was conquered by Amurath in 1430. But with this exception the Sultan
paid little attention to the Byzantine empire, and devoted all his
energies to war with more formidable enemies in the north and west.
In 1427 a new king came to the throne of Servia, and set himself from
the first to repudiate the vassalage to which his predecessors had been
subjected since the great battle of Kossova. The Wallachians and
Bosnians were inspired by the same sentiments, and George [Sidenote:
Amurath II.’s wars with Hungary.] of Servia purchased the aid of
Sigismund of Hungary by ceding the great border fortress of Belgrade.
Against this powerful confederacy Amurath waged a successful war for
several years. In 1438 he had advanced as far as Semendria; and Albert
of Austria, who had succeeded Sigismund on the throne of Hungary, vainly
endeavoured to compel the sultan to raise the siege. Semendria fell, but
the war was checked for a time by an outbreak of dysentery in both
armies, and Albert perished of the disease. This was followed by an
event which for a moment turned the balance in favour of the Christians.
In 1440 Hungarians offered their vacant crown to Ladislas of Poland in
order to enlist the aid of the great house of Jagellon. For four years
the combined Slavs and Magyars not only held their own against the
dreaded Janissaries, but even gained some notable successes. Under the
leadership of John Hunyadi the allies repulsed the Turks from the walls
of Hermanstadt and defeated them in the open field (1442). In the next
year Hunyadi crossed the Danube, routed a Turkish army near Nissa, and
pursued the fugitives in a brilliant march across the Balkans. These
successes extorted from Amurath the treaty of Szegedin (July 12, 1444),
by which he abandoned his suzerainty over Servia and Bosnia, and allowed
Wallachia to be annexed to Hungary. So chagrined was the sultan at this
unexpected reverse, that he resigned the government to his son,
Mohammed, and retired to seclusion at Magnesia. This news inspired the
Christian princes and prelates with the belief that the Ottoman power
was on the verge of ruin, and that another effort would suffice to bring
about its complete overthrow. The representations of Pope Eugenius IV.
and his legate persuaded Ladislas, against the advice of Hunyadi, to
repudiate the treaty of Szegedin and to renew the war. The Hungarian
army crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, marched to the coast of the Black
Sea, and captured the important town of Varna. But Amurath had been
roused from his retirement by the news of this act of Christian
treachery. Hastily collecting his troops, he advanced to Varna. In the
battle which ensued the invaders were scattered to the winds, and
Ladislas was slain (November 10, 1444). Servia and Bosnia were once more
reduced to submission; and although Hunyadi tried to renew the struggle
in 1448, he was defeated and taken prisoner in the second battle of
Kossova.
Amurath had retired for the second time to Magnesia after the victory of
Varna, but he was recalled by the outbreak of disorders which Mohammed
was unable to quell, and he continued to rule till his death in 1451.
During his last years he was busied with a rising in Albania, headed by
George Castriot, or Scanderbeg, as the Turks [Sidenote: Scanderbeg in
Albania.] called him. This famous patriot had been trained in the
Turkish service, and thoroughly understood the strength and the weakness
of their tactics. Collecting round him a band of hardy mountaineers, he
avoided all conflicts in the open ground; and, aided by the difficult
character of the country, maintained a harassing guerilla warfare for
more than twenty years. But though he caused great annoyance to his
enemies, he was not strong enough to divert them from the career of
successful aggression which has given to a prince, who had twice shown
an apparent incapacity for government, the name of Mohammed the
Conqueror.
Mohammed II. ascended the throne with the firm determination to reduce
the tributary states into complete subjection, and to begin the work
with the Greek Empire. The year 1452 was spent in open preparation
[Sidenote: Mohammed II. takes Constantinople.] for the siege of
Constantinople. A fort was built upon the Bosphorus, troops and stores
were collected from all parts of the Turkish dominions, and foreign
engineers were employed to construct larger cannon than had ever yet
been employed in warfare. Constantine, who had succeeded his brother
John in 1448, was fully aware of the danger which threatened his
capital. To remove any difficulties with the western powers he confirmed
the acts of the Council of Florence, and the union of the Churches was
formally celebrated in St. Sophia. The bigoted Greeks looked on in
sullen indignation, and resolved to do nothing for a prince who thus
paltered with heresy. And Latin Christendom was not prepared to do
anything in return for this tardy acceptance of its creed. France and
England were exhausted by their long struggle, which was just ending in
the loss of the English possessions on the mainland; Philip of Burgundy
was absorbed in the extension of his rule in the Netherlands; Germany
was hopelessly distracted; and Frederick III., the weakest of emperors,
was unable to govern even his own hereditary provinces. In the eastern
states the disputes that had gathered round the succession of Ladislas
Postumus distracted attention from vital interests in the distant Balkan
peninsula. The only peoples who could give any aid to the Greeks were
the Venetians, Genoese, and Catalans, whose trade with the Levant
impelled them to do all in their power to maintain the feeble ramparts
of Christianity against the Turks; and their forces, scanty as they were
in proportion to the work to be performed, provided the only efficient
garrison for the city of the eastern Cæsars. In the spring of 1453 the
great siege began. The first general assault was repulsed; and a Genoese
squadron, by superior weight and seamanship, forced its way through the
immense Turkish flotilla which attempted to exclude the arrival of
supplies and reinforcements by sea. But this was the last success of the
defenders, whose limited numbers had to hold five miles of
fortifications against an overwhelming attack. On the 29th of May the
last assault was ordered, and after a desperate struggle for two hours
the Janissaries forced an entrance through a great breach which the
artillery had made in the wall. The Emperor Constantine, whose heroism
did something to redeem the cowardly incapacity of his predecessors,
fell at the head of the defenders of his capital. The mass of the Greeks
did nothing to resist the advance of the victorious assailants, and
Mohammed II. made a triumphal progress to the Church of St. Sophia,
which witnessed on that day the first celebration of the worship of the
Prophet. The measures of the conqueror were marked by consummate wisdom.
To conciliate the bigotry of the natives, which had signally contributed
to his victory, and to interpose a permanent barrier between his new
subjects and western Christendom, Mohammed proclaimed himself the
protector of the Greek Church, and allowed the installation of a new
Patriarch, whose gratitude should take the form of servility to his
Mussulman patron. To remove the disastrous results of the siege,
Mohammed set himself to restore the buildings of the city, and to
encourage the immigration of settlers from all parts of his dominions.
Before the end of his reign Constantinople was more populous and more
flourishing than it had been at any time under the rule of the
Palæologi.
The European powers were aghast when the news arrived that
Constantinople had fallen; but as they had been impotent to save the
city, they were still more unable to attempt its recovery with any
prospect of success. This was fully recognised by those states which
were most immediately concerned. The Venetians and Genoese continued
their inveterate rivalry in the haste with which they made terms with
the conqueror, and purchased the retention of their trading privileges
and of their possessions in the east by the payment of tribute. The two
brothers of Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas, who had established
themselves as petty princes at Patras and Mistra in the Morea, obtained
temporary recognition upon similar terms, and even received Turkish aid
to put down a rebellion among their subjects. Leaving these self-seeking
vassals in their humiliating dependence, Mohammed turned his arms to the
subjection of the tributary states in the [Sidenote: Conquest of Servia,
Wallachia, and Bosnia.] north. In 1455 he advanced through Servia,
expelled its king, and in the next year laid siege to Belgrade. Here he
met with his first and most serious reverse. The crusading army raised
by Hunyadi and Capistrano not only relieved the fortress, but drove the
sultan and his shattered army in disorderly flight to Sofia (see p.
412). This signal triumph saved Hungary and eastern Germany from serious
danger for eighty years, but it failed to effect the liberation of the
Balkan states. The Hungarian hero died on the scene of his greatest
exploit; and the subsequent death of Ladislas Postumus, and the
difficulties attending the succession, distracted the attention of
Hungary from the eastern war. Mohammed II. returned to the attack with
renewed vigour, and in 1457 and 1458 Servia was again overrun and made a
province of the Ottoman dominions. For the next three years Mohammed was
engaged with war in Albania and in Greece, but in 1462 he again turned
northwards and completed his work by the annexation of Wallachia (1462)
and of Bosnia (1464).
The incompetence of the two surviving Palæologi, Thomas and Demetrius,
and their incessant quarrels with each other, created such anarchy in
the Morea that intervention [Sidenote: Conquest of Greece.] was almost
forced upon the Turks. At first a few garrisons were sent to the chief
cities for the enforcement of order, but in 1460 an army was despatched
to take more stringent measures. Resistance was hopeless. Demetrius was
taken prisoner and conveyed to Asia Minor, where a small territory was
assigned to him rather as a place of exile than as a principality.
Thomas fled in a Venetian galley to Corfu, and thence made his way to
Rome. By the end of the year the whole of the peninsula, with the
exception of a few harbours which were held by the Venetians, was in
Turkish occupation. At the same time, the Turks were also active to the
north of the isthmus of Corinth. The last duke of Athens was put to
death by the bowstring; and his duchy, with the other Frankish
principalities which had survived since the partition of Greece among
the Crusaders, was annexed by the Turks. In the Ægean the conquest of
the islands was undertaken by a Turkish fleet, and was completed in 1462
by the capture of Lesbos. Only Rhodes continued to make good its
resistance under the Knights of St. John.
The annexation of Greece constituted a serious danger to the Venetians,
who now held the only considerable possessions in the east which were
left under Christian rule. So far they had gained rather than lost by
the fall of Constantinople, because their treaty with Mohammed in 1454
had given them greater advantages over the Genoese than they could have
extorted from the Palæologi, who had usually favoured their rivals. But
a series of significant events convinced them that the sultan was not
likely to observe the treaty any longer than his interest impelled him.
While he was still confronted with serious problems in the north and the
south, he had good reason for desiring to pacify Venice. But his
successive conquests had removed these difficulties from his way, and
there was no longer any substantial reason for allowing the Venetian
dominions to escape the fate that had attended the other tributary
states. There had always been a party in Venice which had opposed the
[Sidenote: War with Venice.] policy expressed in the treaty of 1454; and
the obvious approach of danger, heralded by the fall of Lesbos, enabled
this party to gain the upper hand in 1463. It is needless to trace the
history of the war, which has been already alluded to in connection with
the history of Venice (see Chapter XII.). On the whole, it was
creditable to the capacity and the resolution of the great maritime
republic; and though the Venetians could not prevent the loss of
Negropont and the conquest of Albania, which had been left under their
protection on the death of Scanderbeg, they obtained better terms than
were given to any other opponent of Mohammed. By the treaty of
Constantinople in 1479 the Turks obtained Albania and the islands of
Negropont and Lemnos, but Venice was able to keep her possessions in the
Morea and some of her trading privileges in the Levant on payment of
increased tribute. The Venetian quarter in Constantinople was restored
under the administration of a bailiff appointed by the Republic.
The conquests of Mohammed II. were not confined to Greece and the Balkan
peninsula. In Asia Minor he extinguished [Sidenote: Other conquests of
Mohammed II.] the independence of the feeble empire of Trebizond (1461),
which had been allowed to remain in harmless obscurity under a branch of
the Comneni ever since their expulsion from Constantinople in 1204. He
also completed the subjection of the princes of Caramania, the most
inveterate opponents of the Ottoman ascendency. To the north of the
Black Sea he extorted tribute from the Tartars of the Crimea, and ruined
the Genoese by depriving them of their valuable establishments at Kaffa
and Azof. In 1480 he undertook an enterprise which made almost more
sensation in Europe than the siege of Constantinople. A Turkish force
landed on the coast of Apulia and took possession of Otranto. For the
moment men believed that the conqueror of the eastern empire would
complete his fatal work by the capture of Rome, the capital of the west.
But the dreadful anticipation was never realised. The death of Mohammed
in [Sidenote: Mohammed’s death, 1481.] 1481 led to the recall of the
garrison from Otranto. Under his successor Bajazet II., the only one of
the early Ottoman rulers who did not display conspicuous courage and
ability, the progress of the Turkish arms was stayed for a generation,
to be resumed again under Selim I., the conqueror of Egypt, and under
the great Suleiman, who at last overcame the obstacle offered by
Belgrade, and added to his dominions the greater part of Hungary.