empire of the Church, and the European republic had no longer a head
that could warn it of its dangers, an organ that could express its
wishes and its fears, or a tie that could bind together its forces;
religious opinions had no longer sufficient influence to bring about a
crusade, and Christendom had nothing left to defend it but the spirit
of chivalry, and the warlike character of some of the nations of Europe.
The ambassadors whom Manuel sent into the West, repeating the eternal
lamentations of the Greeks over the barbarities of the Turks, solicited
in vain the piety of the faithful. The envoys of Sigismund, king of
Hungary, were more fortunate in their appeal to the bravery of the
knights and barons of France. Charles VI. had not renounced, if the
historians of the time may be believed, the idea of undertaking some
great enterprise against the enemies of the true faith: “in order,”
says Froissart, “to free the souls of his predecessors, King Philip,
of excellent memory, and King John, his grandfather.” The Hungarian
envoys took care to insinuate in their speeches, that the sultan
of the Turks held Christian chivalry in contempt; nothing more was
wanting to inflame the ardour of the French warriors; and when their
monarch declared his intention of entering into the league against the
infidels, every gallant knight in the kingdom flew to arms. This brave
band was commanded by the duke de Nevers, son of the duke of Burgundy,
a young prince whose rash courage afterwards procured for him the
surname of Jean-sans-Peur (John the Fearless). Among other leaders were
the count de la Marche, Henry and Philip de Bar, relations of the king
of France, Philip of Artois, constable of the kingdom; John of Vienne,
admiral; the sieur de Coucy, Guy de la Tremouille, and the marshal de
Boucicault, whose name is mixed with the history of every war of his
time.
All ideas of glory, all sentiments of religion and chivalry were
bound up with this expedition. The leaders ruined themselves to make
preparations for their voyage, and to astonish the East by their
magnificence; the people implored the protection of Heaven for the
success of their arms. The enterprise of the new Crusaders was already
compared to that of Godfrey of Bouillon, and the poets of the times
celebrated the near deliverance of the Holy Land.
The French army, in which were fourteen hundred knights and as many
squires, traversed Germany, and was increased on its way by a crowd of
warriors from Austria and Bavaria. When they arrived on the banks of
the Danube, they found the entire nobility of Hungary and Bohemia under
arms. Whilst reviewing the numerous soldiers thus assembled to oppose
the Turks, Sigismund exclaimed with delight: “If heaven were to fall,
the lances of the Christian army would stop it in its descent.”
Never was a war begun under more happy auspices; not only had the
spirit of chivalry drawn together a great number of warriors beneath
the banners of the cross, but several maritime nations of Italy had
taken up arms for the defence of their eastern commerce. A Venetian
fleet, commanded by the noble Mocenigo, joined the vessels of the Greek
emperor and of the knights of Rhodes near the mouth of the Danube, to
procure the triumph of the standard of the Franks in the Hellespont,
whilst the Christian army should march against Constantinople.
As soon as the signal for war was given, nothing could resist the
impetuous valour of the Crusaders; they beat the Turks everywhere; they
took several towns of Bulgaria and Servia, and laid siege to Nicopolis:
happy had it been if these first advantages had not given them a blind
confidence in victory!
The French knights, who were always found at the head of the Christian
army, could not believe that Bajazet would dare to attack them; and
when it was announced to them that the sultan, with his army, was
drawing near, they chastised the bold scout who gave them the first
intelligence of it. The Mussulman army, however, had crossed Mount
Hemus, and was advancing towards Nicopolis. When the two armies were in
presence of each other, Sigismund conjured his allies to moderate their
warlike ardour, and to wait for a favourable opportunity of attacking
an enemy with whom they were totally unacquainted. The duke de Nevers
and the young nobles who accompanied him, listened with impatience to
the advice of the Hungarians, and believed that they were desirous
of disputing with them the honour of beginning the fight. Scarcely
had the standard of the crescent[70] met their eyes, than they rushed
out of the camp and fell upon the enemy; the Turks retreated, and
appeared to fly; the French pursued them in a disorderly manner, and
soon became separated from the Hungarian army. All at once, clouds of
spahis and janissaries poured down from the neighbouring forests, in
which they had been placed in ambush. All about the country, pikes
had been planted to impede the march of cavalry. The French warriors
being unable either to advance or retreat, and surrounded by an
innumerable army, no longer fought to conquer, but to die with glory,
and sell their lives dearly. After having, during several hours,
carried slaughter into the enemy’s ranks, all the French engaged in the
conflict either perished by the swords of the Mussulmans, or were made
prisoners.
Bajazet, after this first victory, directed all his forces against
the Hungarian army, which terror had already seized, and which was
dispersed at the first shock. Sigismund, who, on the morning of
that day, had counted a hundred thousand men beneath his banners,
threw himself into a fishing-boat, and coasting along the shores of
the Euxine, found refuge in Constantinople, where his mere presence
announced his defeat, and spread consternation.
Such were the fruits of the presumption and want of discipline of the
French warriors. History has lamented their reverses more than it has
blamed their conduct; it has satisfied itself with saying, that in
order to conquer the Turks, the Hungarians should have shown the valour
of the French, or the French should have imitated the prudence of the
Hungarians.
Bajazet, who was wounded in the battle, proved barbarous after victory.
Some historians have said that the sultan had to avenge the death of
many Mussulman captives, who had been massacred by the Christian army.
He commanded all the prisoners, many of whom were wounded and plundered
of their clothes, to be brought before him, and then gave order to his
janissaries to slaughter them before his eyes. Three thousand French
warriors were immolated to his vengeance; but he spared the duke de
Nevers, the count de la Marche, the sieur de Coucy, Philip of Artois,
the count de Bar, Marshal Boucicault, and some other leaders, on
account of the ransom he hoped to procure for them.
When fame carried the news of so great a disaster into France, the
first who spoke of it were threatened with being thrown into the Seine:
many were imprisoned in the châtelet of Paris by the king’s orders.
At length the most sinister reports were confirmed by the account of
messire de Hély, whom Bajazet sent into France to announce the defeat
of the Christians and the captivity of their leaders. This intelligence
spread desolation through both the court of Charles VI. and the kingdom
of France. Froissart adds, in his natural style, “that the high dames
of France were much enraged, and had good cause, for this affected
their hearts too closely.”
In order to mitigate the wrath of the Turkish emperor, Charles VI.
sent him magnificent presents. Messengers passing through Hungary
and the territory of Constantinople, bore to the sultan white falcons
from Norway, fine scarlet cloths, white and red linens from Rheims,
_draps de hautes-lices_, or tapestries, worked at Arras, in Picardy,
representing the history of Alexander, “which thing,” add contemporary
chronicles, “was very agreeable to all persons of worth and honour
to look upon.” At the court of France means could not be devised for
sending into Turkey the money required for the liberation of the
princes and nobles detained in the prisons of Bajazet. A banker of
Paris performed that which no sovereign of Europe could then have done;
in concert with some merchants of Genoa, he negotiated for the ransom
of the prisoners, and undertook to pay for this ransom the sum agreed
upon, of two hundred thousand ducats.
The noble captives, whom the sultan had dragged in his train as far
as Brusa, at length were allowed to return to Europe. Of the number,
all regained their native country, with the exception of two: Guy of
Tremouille died in the isle of Rhodes. The lady de Coucy, who was
incapable of consolation, sent a faithful knight among the Turks, to
learn the fate of her husband, and the knight returned with the fatal
intelligence that the sieur de Coucy had died in his prison.
When the duke de Nevers, with his companions in misfortune, quitted
the camp of Bajazet, the sultan addressed the following words to him,
as reported by Froissart:—“Count de Nevers, I know right well and
am informed that thou art in thine own country a great lord, and the
son of a great lord. Thou art young; thou mayest, perchance, take as
an injury that requires vengeance that which has befallen thee in thy
first chivalry, and wouldst willingly, to recover thy honour, assemble
forces to come and give me battle; if I suspected this, and if it
were my will, I would make thee swear upon thy faith and upon the law
that thou shouldst never arm thyself against me, nor any of those
that are in thy company; but no, I will neither require thee nor them
to take this oath; but I wish to tell thee that if, when thou shalt
have returned, it may please thee to assemble a power to come against
me, thou wilt find me always ready and prepared for both thee and thy
people.”
This speech, which exhibited all the Ottoman pride, must, without
doubt, have been a lesson for young warriors, whose mad presumption had
brought on all the evils of the war. They despised Bajazet before their
defeat; and his haughty disdain after victory could not appear in their
eyes a vain bravado. “So,” says Froissart, “they remembered it well as
long as they lived.”
On their return to France, the noble knights were received with the
interest that unfortunate bravery inspires. The court of Charles
VI. and that of Burgundy were never tired of hearing them recount
their exploits, their tragical adventures, and the miseries of their
captivity; they told wonders of the magnificence of Bajazet; and when
they repeated the speeches of the sultan, who was accustomed to _say
that he would be lord over all the world, that he would yet come to
Rome, and make his horse eat his oats on the altar of St. Peter_; when
they spoke of the armies which the emperor raised daily to accomplish
his menaces, what fear must, doubtless, have been mixed in the minds of
his auditors with feelings of curiosity and surprise.
The accounts of the duke de Nevers and his companions awakened,
however, the emulation of the warriors, and their misfortunes in Asia
inspired less compassion than a desire to avenge their defeat. A new
expedition against the Turks was soon announced in France, and a crowd
of young nobles and knights eagerly took up arms. The duke of Orleans,
the brother of the king, was inconsolable at not being able to obtain
permission to place himself at their head, and go with them to combat
the infidels. It was the Marshal Boucicault, scarcely returned from
captivity, who led these new Crusaders into the East. Their arrival
on the shores of the Bosphorus delivered Byzantium, which was then
besieged by Bajazet. Their exploits raised the courage of the Greeks,
and redeemed the honour of the soldiers of the West among the Turks.
When, after a year of labours and glorious combats, they returned to
their own country, the Greek emperor Manuel believed he saw fresh evils
ready to overwhelm him, and he resolved to follow Marshal Boucicault
and solicit more assistance from Charles VI.; thus placing all the
hopes of his empire in the French warriors. He was received with great
honours on his passage through Italy; when he had crossed the Alps,
brilliant festivities awaited him in all the great cities. At two
leagues from Paris he found Charles VI., who, with all his nobles,
had come out to meet him. He made his public entry into the capital,
clothed in a robe of white silk, and mounted on a white horse, marks of
supreme rank among the Franks. It was gratifying to see a successor of
the Cæsars imploring the arms of chivalry; and the confidence which he
placed in the bravery of the French, flattered the pride of the nation;
but in the condition of France at that period, it was much more easy to
offer Manuel the spectacle of tournaments, and the brilliant ceremonies
of courts, than to furnish him with the treasures and armies of which
he stood in need. Charles VI. began to feel the approach of that fatal
malady which left the field open to factions, and threw the kingdom
into the greatest misfortunes. England, whose assistance the emperor
of Constantinople likewise solicited, was disturbed by the usurpation
of Henry of Lancaster; and if the English monarch then took the cross,
it was less with the intention of succouring the Greeks than to divert
attention from his own injustice, and to have a pretext for levying
imposts upon his people. At the same time, the deposition of Winceslaus
set the whole German empire in motion; and the nascent heresy of John
Huss already gave the signal for the disorders that were destined
to trouble Bohemia during the fifteenth century. Amidst all these
agitations in Christendom, the only power that could have reëstablished
harmony was itself divided, and the Catholic Church, still a prey to
the rival pretensions of two pontiffs, could neither give its attention
to promote peace among the Christians, nor war against the Turks.
This state of France and Europe completely destroyed all the hopes of
the Greek emperor. After passing two years in Paris, without obtaining
anything, he determined to leave the West, and having embarked at
Venice, he stopped in the Peloponnesus, where he waited patiently
till Fortune should herself take charge of the entire ruin or the
deliverance of his empire.
This deliverance, which could no longer be expected from the Christian
powers, arrived all at once by means of a people still more barbarous
than the Turks, whose conquests made the entire East tremble.
Tamerlane, or Timour, from the bosom of civil wars, had been elevated
to the throne of the Moguls, and revived in the north of Asia the
formidable empire of Gengishan. History is scarcely able to follow this
new conqueror in his gigantic expeditions. The imagination is terrified
at the rapidity with which, to make use of an expression of Timour
himself, he carried “the destroying wind of desolation” from Zagathaï
to the Indus, and from the Indus to the icy deserts of Siberia. Such
was the scourge that Heaven sent to destroy the menacing pride of
Bajazet. The historians of the times are not agreed as to the motives
which armed the leader of the Moguls against the Ottoman emperor; some
attribute Tamerlane’s determination to the complaints of the Mussulman
princes of Asia Minor, whom the sultan of the Turks had driven from
their states; others, faithful to the spirit of their age, and seeking
the causes of great events in celestial phenomena, explain the invasion
of the Tartars by the appearance of a comet, which was visible during
two months to affrighted Asia. Disdaining marvellous explanations, we
will confine ourselves to saying that peace could not last between
two men urged on by the same ambition, and who were not likely to
pardon each other for having at the same time entertained the thought
of conquering the world. Their character, as well as their policy,
is plainly enough indicated in the violent threats they reciprocally
addressed to each other before hostilities, and which became the signal
for the most sanguinary catastrophes.
Tamerlane, having set out from Samarcand, first reduced Seborto,
and as if he wished to give Bajazet, before he attacked him, the
spectacle of the ravages which accompanied his arms everywhere, he all
at once directed the course of his Tartar hordes towards Syria and
the provinces governed by the Mamelukes of Egypt. The valour of his
soldiers, the discords of his enemies, the treachery and perfidy which
he never disdained to call in to the assistance of his power, opened
for him the gates of Aleppo, Damascus, and Tripoli. Torrents of blood
and pyramids of human heads marked the passage of the Mogul conqueror.
His approach spread terror everywhere, as well among the Christians as
among the Mussulmans; and although he boasted in his discourses of
avenging the cause of the oppressed, Jerusalem might, on this occasion,
be grateful that he did not think of delivering her.
At length the Tartars advanced towards Asia Minor. Timour traversed
Anatolia with an army of eight hundred thousand men. Bajazet, who
raised the siege of Constantinople to come to meet his redoubtable
adversary, encountered him in the plains of Ancyra. At the end of a
battle which lasted three days, the Ottoman emperor lost at once his
empire and his liberty. The Greeks, to whom fame soon brought the news
of this victory, tremblingly returned thanks to their fierce liberator;
but the indifference with which he received their embassy, proved that
he had had no intention of meriting their gratitude. Arrived on the
shores of the Bosphorus, the conqueror of Bajazet directed his looks
and his projects towards the West; but the master of the vast kingdoms
of Asia had not a single barque in which to transport himself to the
other side of the canal. Thus Constantinople, after having escaped the
yoke of the Ottomans, had the good fortune to escape also the presence
of the Tartars, and Europe saw this violent tempest dissipate itself at
a distance from her.
The conqueror vented his anger upon the city of Smyrna, which was
defended by the Knights of Rhodes. This city was carried by assault,
delivered up to pillage, and reduced to ashes; the Mogul emperor
returned to Samarcand in triumph, dragging the sultan Bajazet in his
train, and meditating by turns the conquest of Africa, the invasion of
the West, and a war against China.
After the battle of Ancyra, several princes of the family of Bajazet
disputed the ravaged provinces of the Ottoman empire. If the Franks had
then appeared in the Strait of Galliopoli and in Thrace, they might
have profited by the defeat and discords of the Turks, and have driven
them back beyond the Taurus; but the indifference of the Christian
states, with the perfidy and cupidity of some of the maritime nations
of Europe, allowed the Ottoman dynasty time and means to renovate its
depressed power.
The Greeks derived no more advantage from the victory of Tamerlane
than the Latins. Twenty years after the battle of Ancyra, the Ottomans
had retaken all their provinces; their armies again environed
Constantinople, and it is at this point we may apply to the power of
the Turks the oriental comparison of that serpent of the desert which
an elephant had crushed in its passage, which joins its dispersed rings
together again, raises its head by degrees, reseizes the prey it had
abandoned, and clasps it within its monstrous folds.
As long as the Greek emperors were in no fear for the safety of their
capital, they kept up very little intercourse with the Christian
princes of Europe; but upon the appearance of danger, the court of
Byzantium renewed its supplications and its promises of obedience to
the Church of Rome. A conversation of Manuel, reported by Phrantza,
throws a light upon the situation of the Greeks, and upon the policy of
the timid successors of Constantine. “The only resource we have left
against the Turks,” said this prince to his son, “is their fear of our
union with the Latins, and the terror with which the warlike nations of
the West inspire them. Whenever you are pressed by the infidels, send
to the court of Rome, and prolong the negotiations, without ever taking
a decisive part.” Manuel added, that the vanity of the Latins and
the obstinacy of the Greeks would always prevent any real or durable
harmony; and that a union of any kind with the pope, by arousing the
passions of both parties, would only give Byzantium up to the mercy of
the barbarians.
Such counsels, which announce but little frankness in the policy of the
Greeks, could not be long followed up with success. The dangers became
more pressing, the circumstances more imperative; as Christendom only
replied to vain negotiations by vain promises, the successor of Manuel
found himself obliged to give pledges of his faith and sincerity. The
idea of a council was at length adopted, in which the two churches
should come to an understanding, and should approximate. The emperor
John Palæologus and the doctors of the Greek Church repaired to
Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. After long debates, the union
was sworn to on both sides, and solemnly proclaimed. In the West this
event was celebrated as a victory; at Constantinople it raised cries
of blasphemy, apostasy, and impiety. Thus was the prediction of Manuel
accomplished; all the efforts employed to unite opinions, only served
to raise a new barrier between the Greeks and the Latins.
At the councils of Ferrara and Florence, the deputies of the Armenians,
the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians, and
the Ethiopians submitted, as well as the Greeks, to the pontifical
authority, and without doubt also, in the same hope of being succoured
by the Latins, and delivered from the tyranny of the Mussulmans. This
solemn proceeding was less a submission to the Holy See than a homage
rendered to the bravery of the Franks, in whom all the Christians of
Asia and Africa beheld liberators.
Pope Eugenius, however, on receiving the submission of the Greeks, had
promised to send succours to Constantinople and to the Christians of
the East. The pontiff hoped that the union of the two churches and the
preaching of a crusade would fix upon him the eyes of the Christian
world, and restore to the pontifical authority the confidence and
power of which the schisms of the West and the seditious decrees of
the council of Bâle had deprived it. He wrote to all the princes of
Christendom, exhorting them to unite to put a stop to the invasions
of the Mussulmans. Eugenius, in his letter, described all the evils
which the faithful suffered in the countries under the domination of
the barbarians. “The Turks tied troops of men and women together,
and dragged them along in their train. All the Christians whom they
condemned to slavery, were confounded with the vilest booty, and sold
like beasts of burden. In their barbarity, they separated the son from
the father, the brother from the sister, and the husband from the
wife. Those whom age or infirmities prevented from walking were killed
upon the high roads or in the middle of cities. Even infancy could not
excite their pity; they put to death innocent victims that had scarcely
begun to exist, and who, being yet ignorant of fear, smiled upon their
executioners whilst receiving the mortal blow. Every Christian family
was compelled to give up its own sons to the Ottoman empire, in the
same manner as the people of Athens had been formerly forced to send as
a tribute the flower of their youth to the monster of Crete. Wherever
the Turks had penetrated, the fields were cursed with barrenness, and
the cities were without laws or industry; the Christian religion had
no longer either priests or altars; humanity no longer either support
or asylum.” In fact, the father of the faithful forgot none of the
cruelties committed by the enemies of Christ; he could not restrain the
sadness which so many painful images caused him, and conjured princes
and nations to send assistance to the kingdom of Cyprus, the isle of
Rhodes, and particularly to Constantinople, as these were the last
bulwarks of the West.
The exhortations of the sovereign pontiff were addressed to none but
indifferent hearts in the nations of England, France, and Spain.
Neither the sentiment of humanity, nor that of patriotism, had power to
revive the enthusiasm to which the spirit of religion and chivalry had
in past times given birth. Distant crusades, whatever was their object,
began to be considered as only the work of a jealous policy, the
springs of which were set in motion, to banish the princes and nobles
whose power and wealth were coveted. In the state in which Europe then
was, such as loved war, had but too many opportunities for exercising
their bravery, without quitting their homes. The Germans, who had set
on foot forty thousand men to combat the heretics of Bohemia, remained
motionless, when the Turks were represented to them as ready to carry
the standard of Islamism to the extremities of the West.
The pope, however, was not satisfied with exhorting the faithful to
take up arms, he was desirous of setting them the example; the pontiff
levied soldiers and equipped vessels to make war against the Turks. The
maritime cities of Flanders, and the republics of Genoa and Venice,
which had great interests in the East, made some preparations; their
fleets united under the standard of St. Peter, and directed their
course towards the Hellespont. The fear of an approaching invasion
awakened the zeal of the nations inhabiting the shores of the Dneister
and the Danube. The crusade was preached in the diets of Poland
and Hungary. Upon the frontiers threatened by the barbarians, the
people, the clergy, and the nobility obeyed the voice of religion and
patriotism.
The sovereign pontiff named, as legate with the Crusaders, Cardinal
Julian, a prelate of an intrepid character of an ardent genius, arming
himself by turns with the sword of fight and with that of speech; as
redoubtable in the field of battle as in the learned contests of the
schools. After having obtained the confidence of the council of Bâle,
Cardinal Julian distinguished himself in the council of Florence, by
defending the dogmas of the Latin church. His eloquence had roused
up all Germany against the Hussites; now he burned to rouse up all
Christendom against the Turks. The army collected under the banners
of the cross had for leaders Hunniades and Ladislaus; the first, the
waywode of Transylvania, was celebrated among Christian warriors,
and the epithet of the _brigand_, which the Turks attached to his
name, denoted the hatred and terror he inspired among the infidels.
Upon the head of Ladislaus were united the two crowns of Poland and
Hungary, and he merited, by the brilliant qualities of his youth, the
love of both Poles and Hungarians. The Crusaders assembled on the
Danube, and quickly received the signal for war. The fleets of the
sovereign pontiff, of Venice, and Genoa cruised in the Hellespont.
The inhabitants of Moldavia, Servia, and Greece promised to join the
Christian army; the sultan of Caramania, the implacable enemy of
the Ottomans, was to attack them in Asia. The Greek emperor, John
Palæologus, announced great preparations, and got ready to march at the
head of an army to meet his liberators.
Hunniades and Ladislaus advanced as far as Sophia, the capital of
the Bulgarians. Two battles opened for them the passages of Mount
Hemus and the road to Byzantium. The rigours of winter alone arrested
the victorious march of the Christian warriors; and the army of the
Crusaders returned into Hungary, to await the favourable season
for renewing the war. They returned to Buda in triumph, amidst the
acclamations of an immense population. The clergy celebrated, by hymns
and thanksgivings, the first victories of the Christians, and Ladislaus
repaired, barefooted, to the church of Notre Dame, in which he hung up
the standards taken from the infidels.
Before the beginning of the war, the Mussulmans had been persuaded that
the destruction of the Christians was written in the book of destiny.
“When all the enemies of the prophet,” said they among themselves,
“shall be destroyed, each of us will have nothing to do but to guide
his plough, and look at his war-horse in his stable.” This opinion,
the offspring of pride and victory, had proved sufficient to relax the
zeal of the Ottoman warriors; and most of them remained in their homes,
whilst the Christians marched towards Adrianopolis.
When fame informed them of the victories of the Franks upon the Danube,
this blind security all at once gave place to fear. The sultan Amurath
immediately sent ambassadors to sue for peace. History is silent
as to the means of seduction employed by the Ottoman envoys to win
the victorious Crusaders; but it is well known that they succeeded
in obtaining a favourable hearing for their proposals. Peace was
determined upon in the council of the leaders of the Christian army.
The parties swore, the one upon the Koran, and the other upon the
Gospel, to a truce of ten years. This unexpected resolution irritated
the pride and zeal of Cardinal Julian, whose mission was to stimulate
the Christians to war. When he saw the leaders of the crusade unite
in a desire for peace, he preserved a haughty silence, and refused to
sign a treaty he disapproved of. The inflexible legate waited for an
opportunity in which he might give vent to his discontent, and force
the Crusaders to resume their arms. This opportunity was not long in
presenting itself.
Amurath, satisfied with having restored peace to his states, and
fatigued with earthly grandeur, renounced the cares of empire, and
buried himself in a retreat at Magnesia. The sultan of Caramania
informed the Christians that their most redoubtable enemy _had lost his
senses_, and had just exchanged the imperial crown for the cap of a
cenobite. He added that Amurath had left the supreme authority in the
hands of a child, and in his message compared this child _to a young
plant which the slightest wind might tear up by the roots_.
The same sultan was so thoroughly persuaded that the Ottoman empire was
in its decline, that he entered Anatolia at the head of an army. About
the same time reports were spread that the emperor of Constantinople
was advancing towards Thrace; that the Greeks of the Peloponnesus
had taken up arms, and that the confederate fleets still awaited a
fresh signal for war in the Hellespont. Another circumstance, not
less important, seemed calculated to awaken the warlike ardour of the
Crusaders; the victory gained near Sophia had given them a powerful
ally in Greece. In this battle, the son of John Castuct, who commanded
the van of the Ottoman army, suddenly abandoned the banners and the
religion of the Turks, to defend the worship and the heritage of his
ancestors in Albania. The messengers of Scanderberg announced to the
leaders of the Christian army, that he was ready to join them at the
head of twenty thousand Albanians, assembled under the standard of the
cross.
All these news, arriving at once, had an immediate effect in changing
men’s minds as well as the face of affairs. A fresh council was called;
Cardinal Julian arose among the leaders, and reproached them with
having betrayed both their fortune and their glory; he reproached
them in severe terms, with having signed a disgraceful peace, which
was sacrilegious, fatal to Europe, and fatal to the Church. “You had
sworn,” said he, “to combat the eternal enemies of Christendom, and
now you have sworn upon the Gospel, to lay down your arms. To which of
these two oaths will you be faithful? You have just thought proper to
conclude a treaty with the Mussulmans; but have you not also treaties
with your allies? Will you abandon these generous allies at the moment
that they are flying from all parts to your assistance, and are coming
to share the perils of a war in which God has so visibly protected your
first labours?
“But, what do I say? You not only abandon your allies, you leave,
without support and without hope, that crowd of Christians whom you
have promised to deliver from an insupportable yoke, and who must now
remain a prey to all the outrages of the Mussulmans whom your victories
have irritated. The groans of so many victims will pursue you into your
retreat, and will accuse you before God and before men.
“You close for ever the gates of Asia against the Christian phalanxes,
and you restore to the Mussulmans the hopes they had lost of invading
the countries of Christendom. To what interests, answer me, have you
sacrificed your own glory and the safety of the Christian world? Had
not war already given you all that the sultan Amurath promises? Would
he not have already given you still more; and do not the pledges
obtained by victory inspire more confidence than the promises of
infidels?
“What shall I say to the sovereign pontiff who has sent me to you, not
to treat with Mussulmans, but to drive them beyond the seas? What shall
I say to all the pastors of the Christian Churches, and to all the
faithful of the West, who are now offering up prayers to Heaven for the
success of your arms?
“There is no doubt that the barbarians, whom we have twice conquered,
would never have consented to a peace, if they had had the means of
carrying on the war. Do you believe they will observe the truce, when
fortune shall become more favourable to them? No; Christian warriors
cannot remain bound by an impious compact which gives up the Church
and Europe to the disciples of Mahomet. Learn that there is no peace
between God and his enemies, between truth and falsehood, between
Heaven and Hell. There is no necessity for me to absolve you from an
oath evidently contrary to religion and morality, to all that which
constitutes, among men, the sanctity and faith of promises. I exhort
you then, in the name of God, in the name of the Gospel, to resume your
arms and follow me in the road of salvation and glory.”
The safety of Christendom may, no doubt, be pleaded in extenuation of
the violence of this discourse; but impartial history, whatever may be
the reasons alleged, cannot approve of this open violation of the faith
of oaths. The leaders of the crusade might merit the reproaches of the
apostolic legate, who accused them of having made a peace disgraceful
in itself and dangerous to Christian Europe; but they certainly also
deserve the contempt of posterity for violating treaties they had so
recently concluded. When Cardinal Julian began to speak, the minds
of his auditors were already wavering; when he had finished his
discourse, the warlike ardour which animated him seized upon the whole
assembly, and manifested itself by the loud acclamations of a general
approbation. With one unanimous voice they all swore to recommence the
war, on the same spot where they had just sworn to maintain peace.
The enthusiasm of most of the leaders was at its height it scarcely
allowed them to observe that they had lost half their army. A great
number of the Crusaders had quitted their colours, some impatient to
return to their homes, but by far the greater part dissatisfied with
a treaty, which rendered their bravery and their exploits useless.
The prince of Servia, a near neighbour of the Turks, and in dread of
their vengeance, did not dare to run the risk of a new war, and sent
no troops to the army of Hunniades and Ladislaus. They waited in vain
for the reinforcements promised by Skanderberg, who was obliged to
defend Albania. There remained not more than twenty thousand men under
the banners of the cross. A chief of the Wallachians, on joining the
Crusaders with his cavalry, could not refrain from expressing his
surprise to the king of Hungary, at the smallness of his numbers;
and told him that the sultan they were going to contend with, was
frequently followed to the chase by more slaves than the Christian
warriors amounted to.
The principal leaders were advised to defer the commencement of the
war till the arrival of fresh Crusaders, or the return of those that
had left them; but Ladislaus, Hunniades, and particularly Julian,
were persuaded that God protected the defenders of the cross, and
that nothing could resist them. They set forward on their march, and
crossing the deserts of Bulgaria, encamped at Warna, on the shores of
the Black Sea.
It was there the Crusaders, instead of finding the fleet which was to
second them, learned that Amurath had left his retreat at Magnesia, and
was hastening to meet them at the head of sixty thousand combatants.
At this intelligence all the extravagant confidence infused by the
Cardinal Julian faded away, and in their despair they accused the
Greeks of having betrayed or abandoned them; and the Genoese, with
the nephew of the Pope, who commanded the Christian fleet, of having
yielded the passage of Galliopoli to the Turks. This accusation is
repeated in all the chronicles of the West; but the Turkish historians
make no mention of it; they, on the contrary, say that Amurath crossed
the Hellespont at a considerable distance from the places occupied
by the Christian fleet; and that the grand vizier, who was upon the
European shore, protected the passage of the Ottoman army by a battery
of cannon. “As soon as the troops of Amurath,” adds the Turkish
historian Coggia Effendi, “gained the shore, they offered up prayers
and thanks to the God of Mahomet, _and the zephyr of victory breathed
upon the Mussulman banners_.” The sultan pursued his march, swearing
by the prophets of Islamism, to punish its enemies for the violation
of treaties. If some authors may be believed, the emperor of the Turks
supplicated Jesus Christ himself to avenge the outrage committed
upon his name by the perjured warriors. At the approach of the
Ottomans, Hunniades and the legate advised retreat; but retreat became
impossible, and Ladislaus determined to conquer or die. The battle
began: and it was then, says the Ottoman historian, “that an infinite
number of valiant men were borne to the valley of shadows by torrents
of blood.” At the commencement of the battle both the right and left
wings of the Mussulman army were broken. Some authors say that Amurath
thought of flying, and that he was stopped by a janissary, who retained
him by the bridle of his horse; others celebrate the firm courage of
the sultan, and compare him to a rock which resists all the blasts of
the tempest. Coggia Effendi, whom we have already quoted, adds that
the Ottoman emperor addressed, upon the field of battle, a prayer to
the God of Mahomet, and conjured him with tears to remove from the
Mussulmans the bitter cup of contempt and affliction.
Fortune appeared to favour the arms of the Crusaders. A great part of
the Ottoman army fled before twenty-four thousand Christian soldiers,
and nothing could resist the impetuous courage of the king of Hungary.
A crowd of prelates and bishops, armed with cuirasses and swords,
accompanied Ladislaus, and intreated him to direct his attacks towards
the point at which Amurath still fought, defended by the bravest of his
janissaries. He listened but too willingly to their imprudent advice,
and having rushed among the enemy’s battalions, he was instantly
pierced by a thousand lances, and fell with all who had been able to
follow him. His head, fixed upon the point of a lance, and shown to
the Hungarians, spread consternation through their ranks. It was in
vain Hunniades and the bishops endeavoured to revive the courage of
the Crusaders, by telling them they were not fighting for an earthly
king, but for Jesus Christ; the whole Christian army disbanded, and
fled in the greatest disorder. Hunniades himself was carried away with
the rest: ten thousand soldiers of the cross lost their lives, and the
Turks made a great number of prisoners. Cardinal Julian perished either
in the battle or the flight.
After his victory, Amurath traversed the field of battle; and as he
observed he did not see among the Christian bodies one with a gray
beard, his vizier replied that men arrived at the age of reason would
never have attempted such a rash enterprize. These words were nothing
more than a piece of flattery addressed to the sultan; but they might,
nevertheless, serve to characterize a war in which the leaders of the
Christian armies obeyed rather the impulses of the imprudent passions
of youth, than the cooler dictates of experience and matured age.
The expeditions of the Christians against the Turks began almost all,
like this, by brilliant successes, and finished by great disasters.
Most frequently a crusade was terminated at the first or the second
battle, because the Crusaders had only valour, and were totally
deficient in qualities which could improve a victory or repair
reverses. When conquerors, they quarrelled for the glory of the fight
or the spoils of the enemy; when conquered, they were at once depressed
and discouraged, and returned to their homes, accusing each other
reciprocally of their defeats.
The battle of Warna secured to the Turks the European provinces they
had invaded, and permitted them to make fresh conquests. Amurath,
after having triumphed over his enemies, again renounced the imperial
crown, and the solitude of Magnesia once more beheld the conqueror
of the Hungarians clothed in the humble mantle of a hermit; but the
janissaries, whom he had so often led to victory, would not permit him
to renounce the world or enjoy the repose he was so anxious for. Forced
to resume the command of armies and the reins of empire, he directed
his views against Albania; and he afterwards returned to fight with
Hunniades on the shores of the Danube. He passed the remainder of his
days in making war against the Christians, and with his last breath
recommended his successor to direct his arms against Constantinople.
Mahomet II., to whom Amurath bequeathed the conquest of Byzantium, did
not succeed his father till six years after the battle of Warna. It was
then that began the days of mourning and calamity for the Greeks; and
it is at this period that history offers us, as a spectacle, a last
and terrible conflict; on the one side, an old empire whose glory had
filled the universe, and which had no defence or limits left but the
ramparts of its capital; and on the other, a new empire, the name of
which was scarcely known, and which already threatened the whole world
with invasion.
Constantine and Mahomet, elevated almost at the same time,—the one
to the throne of Otman, the other to that of the Cæsars, presented
no less difference in their characters than in their destinies. The
moderation and piety of Constantine were admired, and historians have
celebrated his calm and prudent valour in the field of battle, with
his heroic patience in reverses. Mahomet brought to the throne an
active and enterprising spirit, an ardent and passionate policy, and
an indomitable pride. It is asserted that he loved letters and the
arts; but these peaceful pursuits were not able to soften his savage
ferocity. In war, he neither spared the lives of his enemies nor of his
soldiers; and the violences of his character often ensanguined even
peace. Whilst in Constantine a monarch could be recognized brought up
in the school of Christianity, in Mahomet was as easily known a prince
formed by the warlike and intolerant maxims of the Koran. The last of
the Cæsars had all the virtues that can honour and teach the endurance
of a great misfortune. The son of Amurath exhibited the dark qualities
of a conqueror, with all the passions which, in the day of victory,
must leave nothing but despair to the vanquished.
When Mahomet succeeded to the empire, his first thought was the
conquest of Byzantium. In the negotiations which preceded the rupture
of the peace, Constantine did not conceal the weakness of the Greek
empire, and displayed all the resignation of a Christian. “My
confidence is in God,” said he to the Ottoman prince; “if it should
please him to soften your heart, I shall rejoice at that happy change;
if it should please him to deliver up Constantinople to you, I shall
submit to his will without a murmur.”
The siege of Byzantium was fixed to begin in the spring of the year
1453; and the Greeks and the Turks passed the winter in preparation
for the defence and the attack. Mahomet entered with ardour upon an
enterprise to which, for a length of time, all the wishes of the
Turkish nation and all the Ottoman policy has been directed. In the
middle of a night, having sent for his vizier: “Thou seest,” said
Mahomet, “the disorder of my couch. I have carried to it the trouble
which agitates and devours me; henceforth there will be neither repose
nor sleep for me but in the capital of the Greeks.”
Whilst Mahomet was getting together all his forces to commence the war,
Constantine Palæologus implored assistance from the nations of Europe.
Cries of alarm had so often been heard from Constantinople, that some
regarded the dangers of the Greek empire as imaginary, and others,
its ruin as inevitable. In vain Constantine promised, as all his
predecessors had done, to unite the Greek Church with the Roman Church;
the remembrance of so many promises, made in the hour of peril and
forgotten in times of safety, added to the antipathy of the Latins for
the people of Greece. The Pope exhorted feebly the warriors of the West
to take arms, and satisfied himself with sending to the Greek emperor a
legate and some ecclesiastics versed in the art of argumentation and in
the study of theology. Although the Cardinal Isidore brought with him
a considerable treasure, and had in his suite some Italian soldiers,
his arrival at Constantinople must have spread discouragement among the
Greeks, who expected other succours, and appeared to have attached a
very high value to their submission to the Church of Rome.
The princes of the Morea and the Archipelago, with those of Hungary
and Bulgaria, some, in dread of being themselves attacked, the others,
restrained by indifference or the spirit of jealousy, refused to take
any part in a war in which victory would decide their own fate. As
Genoa and Venice had counting-houses and commercial establishments at
Constantinople, two thousand Genoese soldiers and five or six hundred
Venetians presented themselves to assist in defending the city. A
troop of Catalans also arrived, an intrepid soldiery, by turns the
scourge and hope of Greece, whom a love of war and peril brought to the
imperial city. And this was all that was to represent warlike Europe
at the siege of Byzantium.
At this period, several Christian powers were at war with each other:
the continuator of Baronius remarks on this subject, that the soldiers
who then perished in battles fought in the bosom of Christendom, would
have been sufficient to disperse the Turks, and drive them back to the
outward verge of Asia. But if history, on this occasion, accuses the
nations of the West of indifference, what ought it to say of that of
the Greeks for their own defence? The efforts of Constantine to unite
the two Churches had weakened the confidence and zeal of his subjects,
who prided themselves upon being orthodox. Among the Greeks, some,
in order to owe nothing to the Latins, declared that God himself had
undertaken to save his people, and upon the faith of some prophecies
they had made, they awaited in inaction a miraculous deliverance.
Others, more dark in their scholastic reveries, were not willing that
Constantinople should be saved, because they had predicted that the
empire must perish to expiate the crime of the union. Every hope of
victory had in their eyes something impious and contrary to the will
of Heaven. When the emperor spoke of the means of safety that still
remained, and of the necessity for taking arms, these atrabilarious
doctors drew back with a kind of horror, and the multitude they had
misled ran after the monk Genadius, who, from the depth of his cell,
cried out constantly to the people, that there was nothing to be done,
and that all was lost.
When we study the whimsicalities of the human mind, that which most
affects the enlightened observer is, to see there are men whose passion
is words, whom self-love attaches to vain subtleties, and for whom the
ruin of the world would be a less painful spectacle than the triumph
of an opinion they have opposed. On the eve of the greatest perils,
Constantinople was filled with people whom hatred for the Latins made
forgetful of even the approach and menaces of the Turks. The grand
duke Notares went so far as to say that he would like better to see in
Byzantium the turban of Mahomet than the tiara of the pontiff of Rome.
It is not useless to remind our readers here, that in all these
debates there was no question that affected the truths of
Christianity,—nothing but some points of ecclesiastical discipline:
celebrating the mass in the Latin tongue, consecrating unleavened
bread, mixing some cold water in the chalice, communicating with
Azymites—these were things that were to be hated, things that were
to be feared much more than Islamism. Such were the motives for which
the Greeks repulsed the Franks, their natural allies, loaded them with
anathemas, and invoked the maledictions of Heaven upon their own city.
Amidst these deplorable disputes the voice of patriotism was never
listened to, and indifference, selfishness, and cowardice were able
to conceal themselves under the respectable appearance of religion
and orthodoxy. A great part of the population of Constantinople
had abandoned the city; among those that remained, the richest had
buried their treasures, which they might have employed in the general
defence, and which they soon lost, with their liberty and their lives.
The imperial city only contained within its bosom four thousand nine
hundred and seventy defenders, and the emperor was obliged to plunder
the churches to support them. Thus, from eight to nine thousand
combatants formed the entire garrison of Byzantium, and the last hope
of the empire of the East.
Mahomet had completed his immense preparations. As the conquest of
Byzantium and the pillage of Constantinople were the richest recompense
that could be offered to the valour of the Ottomans, all the soldiers
were, in some sort, associated with the ambition of their leader. The
warlike ardour and fanaticism which had distinguished the companions
of Omar and the first champions of Islamism were now revived. From all
the regions which extend from the chain of Taurus to the banks of the
Ebro and the Danube came crowds of warriors, attracted to the army by
the hopes of booty or the desire of distinguishing themselves in a
religious and national war. In order at once to give a clear idea of
the decay and weakness of the Greeks, and of the strength and power of
the Ottomans, it will suffice to say, that Constantinople and all that
remained of the territory of the empire contained a smaller number of
inhabitants of all kinds than Mahomet mustered soldiers beneath his
banners.
The Ottoman army set out from Adrianople at the beginning of March;
and on the sixth of April Mahomet pitched his tent before the gate of
St. Romanus. The signal for battle was speedily given on both sides.
In the early days of the siege, the Greeks and the Turks displayed all
that the art of war had invented or perfected among the ancients and
moderns. Among his formidable preparations, Mahomet had not neglected
artillery, the use of which was then spread through the West. One of
his cannons, founded under his own eyes at Adrianople, was of such
gigantic proportions, that three hundred oxen dragged it along with
difficulty, and it launched a ball of seven hundred quintals (seven
hundred pounds weight) to a distance of more than six hundred toises
(six hundred fathoms). Almost all the historians of the time speak of
this terrible instrument of war, but say very little of the effect it
produced in the field of battle. On examining with care the accounts
of contemporaries, and particularly the descriptions they have left us
of these enormous machines of bronze, which they had so much trouble
to move, we feel persuaded that at the siege of Byzantium the Ottoman
artillery inspired more fright and surprise than it did execution. The
Turks showed very little skill or zeal in seconding the Frank engineers
and artillerymen whom Mahomet had taken into his service; and it was
a great blessing for Christendom that so powerful a discovery was not
perfected at once in the hands of barbarians, whom Europe could not
have resisted if they had joined this new force to the advantages they
already possessed in war.
The Turks employed other arms and other means of attack with much more
success; such as mines dug under the ramparts, rolling towers, which
were brought close up to the walls, rams which battered the walls,
balistæ, which launched beams and stones, arrows, javelins, and even
the Greek fire, which still rivalled gunpowder, although the latter was
destined soon to make it neglected and forgotten. All these means of
destruction were employed at the same time, and assaults were renewed
unceasingly. The besieged could not avail themselves of all their
machines, from the want of hands to work them; and when we reflect on
the smallness of the number of the defenders of Constantinople, we are
astonished that they were able to resist, for more than fifty days,
the innumerable host of the Ottomans. This generous soldiery occupied
a line of more than a league in length, repelling, night and day,
the assaults of the enemy, repairing the breaches in the walls, and
making sorties; they appeared to be everywhere at the same time, and
to be equal to everything, animated by the presence of their leaders,
and particularly by the example of Constantine. Several times fortune
favoured the efforts of this heroic troop, and tingled a few gleams
of hope with the sentiment of sadness and terror which prevailed
in Constantinople. The besieged preserved one advantage, the city
was inaccessible towards the Propontis and on the side of the port.
Mahomet had assembled a numerous fleet in the canal of the Black Sea;
but it only served for the transmission of provisions and warlike
stores. The Ottoman marine could not contend with the marine of the
Greeks, particularly with that of the Franks; and the Turks themselves
acknowledged that they must yield the empire of the seas to the
Christian nations.
About the middle of the siege, five vessels from the coasts of
Italy and Greece arrived in the canal. The whole Ottoman fleet was
immediately in motion, and advanced to meet them; from their numbers
they surrounded them, and attacked them several times, with the view
of getting possession of them, or of turning them from their course.
Mahomet encouraged the combatants with voice and gesture from the
shore. When the Ottomans appeared to be failing in their attempt, he
could not restrain his anger; urging his horse into the sea, he seemed
to threaten the elements, and, like a barbarian king of antiquity, to
accuse the waves of being obstacles to his conquests. On the other
side, the Greeks, collected on the ramparts of the city, awaited the
issue of the combat in great anxiety. At length, after an obstinate and
bloody conflict, all the Turkish ships were dispersed or cast upon the
shore; and the Christian fleet, laden with provisions and soldiers,
sailed in triumph into the port of Constantinople.
The sultan burned to avenge this disgrace to his arms, and resolved
to make a last effort to render himself master of the port of
Constantinople. As the entrance of it was guarded by several large
vessels, and closed by a chain of iron that could neither be broken
nor passed, the Ottoman monarch employed an extraordinary method, which
the besieged had not foreseen, and the success of which displayed the
force of his will and the extent of his power. In a single night,
between seventy and eighty vessels, which were at anchor in the canal
of the Black Sea, were transported by land to the gulf of Ceras. The
road was covered with planks, plastered with grease, along which a
multitude of soldiers and workmen made the vessels slide. The Turkish
fleet, commanded by pilots, with sails unfurled, as if upon a maritime
expedition, advanced over a hilly country, and traversed a space of two
miles by the light of torches and flambeaux, to the sound of clarions
and trumpets, without the Genoese, who inhabited Galata, daring to
offer any opposition to its passage. The Greeks, fully occupied in
guarding their ramparts, had no suspicion of the designs of the enemy.
They could not comprehend what could be the cause or the object of all
the tumult that was heard during the whole night from the seashore,
until the dawn of day showed them the Mussulman standards floating in
their port.
We naturally here inquire what resistance was made by the vessels which
guarded the iron chain, and by those which had entered the port, after
having dispersed the Ottoman fleet. We may suppose that every warrior
who had fought in the Christian ships was then employed in defending
the ramparts of the city; or, it is probable, that the part of the
gulf in which the Turkish ships descended, was not deep enough to be
accessible to large vessels. However this may have been, the Mussulmans
lost no time in taking advantage of their success. Scarcely were the
Turkish boats launched, when a multitude of workmen were busily engaged
in constructing floating batteries on the same spot where the Venetians
made their last assault in the fifth crusade.
This bold enterprise, carried out with such audacity and success,
spread trouble and consternation among the besieged. They made several
attempts to burn the fleet and destroy the works the enemy had begun;
but they in vain had recourse to the Greek fire, which had so often
saved Constantinople from the attacks of the barbarians. Forty of
their most intrepid warriors, betrayed by their imprudent valour, and
perhaps also by the Genoese, fell into the hands of the Turks, and a
death amidst tortures was the reward of their generous devotion.
Constantine used reprisals, and exposed the heads of seventy of his
captives upon the ramparts. This mode of making war announced that
the combatants no longer listened to anything but the inspirations of
despair or the furies of vengeance. The Mussulmans, who daily received
supplies of all kinds, prosecuted the siege without intermission.
The certainty of victory redoubled their ardour; Constantinople was
assaulted on several sides at once, and the garrison, already weakened
by the conflicts and labours of a long siege, were obliged to divide
their forces to defend all the points attacked.
The repairs of the fortifications on the side of the port had been
neglected. Towards the west, several of the towers, particularly that
of St. Romanus, were falling into ruins. In this almost desperate
situation, what was, if possible, still more deplorable, the garrison
of Byzantium was possessed by the spirit of discord. Violent debates
arose between the grand duke Notares and Justiniani, who commanded the
Genoese troops. The Venetians and the Genoese were several times on
the point of coming to blows; and yet history can scarcely point out
the subjects of these unfortunate quarrels. Such was the blindness
produced by the spirit of jealousy, or rather by despair, that in this
chosen band of warriors, who were every day sacrificing their lives in
the noble cause they had embraced, it was not uncommon to hear mutual
accusations of cowardice and treachery.
Constantine endeavoured to appease them; and himself, always calm in
the midst of discord, appeared to be actuated by no other feeling than
a love of country and a thirst for glory. The character he exhibited
when surrounded by dangers, ought to have procured him the confidence
and the affection of the people; but the turbulent and seditious
spirit of the Greeks, and the vanity of their disputes would not
permit them to appreciate true greatness. They reproached Palæologus
with misfortunes which were not his work, and which his virtue alone
could have repaired. They accused him of completing the ruin of an
empire which all the world abandoned, and which he alone was willing
to defend. They not only no longer respected the authority or the
intentions of the prince; but every one who was exalted either by
rank or character, became an object of reprobation or mistrust. By a
consequence of that restless spirit which, in public disorders, urges
the multitude to seek obscure supports, certain predictions, fully
credited by the people, announced that the city of the Cæsars could
only be saved by a miserable mendicant, in whose hand God would place
the sword of his wrath.
As the day of their great calamities approached, the congregations of
the churches proportionately increased. The image of the holy Virgin,
the patroness of Constantinople, was solemnly exhibited, and carried
in procession through the streets. These pious ceremonies, doubtless,
presented something edifying, but they did not inspire the bravery
necessary for the defence of a country and a religion in extreme
danger; and Heaven, amidst the perils of war, did not listen to the
prayers of an unarmed trembling people.
During the siege, capitulation had been several times spoken of.
Mahomet required that the capital of an empire, of which he already
possessed all the provinces, should be given up to him, and he
would permit the Greeks to retire with their treasures. Palæologus
was willing to consent to pay a tribute, but he would not give up
Constantinople. At length, in a last message, the sultan threatened
to immolate the Greek emperor with his family, and scatter his
captive people throughout the earth, if he persisted in defending the
city. Mahomet offered his enemy a principality in the Peloponnesus;
Constantine rejected this proposition, and preferred a glorious death.
From that moment peace was no more mentioned, and Byzantium was left to
the chances of an implacable war.
The sultan announced to the army an approaching general assault: the
wealth of Constantinople, the captives, the Greek women, were to be the
rewards of the valour of the soldiers; he for himself, only reserved
the city and the edifices. To add religious enthusiasm to that of war,
dervises pervaded the ranks of the Ottoman army, exhorting the soldiers
to purify their bodies by ablutions, and their souls by prayer; and
promising the delights of paradise to the defenders of the Mussulman
faith. At the end of the day, great fires, lighted by the orders of
the sultan, spread a lurid splendour over all the shores of the sea,
from the point of Galata to the Golden Gate. The Ottoman emperor then
appeared in the midst of his army, promising again the plunder of
Byzantium to his soldiers; and, to render his promise more solemn,
he swore to it _by the soul of Amurath, by four thousand prophets,
by his children, and lastly by his cimeter_. The whole army burst
forth in exclamations of joy, and repeated several times: _God is
God, and Mahomet is the messenger of God_. When this warlike ceremony
was finished, the sultan ordered, under pain of death, that profound
silence should be observed throughout the camp; and from that moment
nothing was to be heard around Constantinople but the confused tumult
of an army in which everything was in motion, preparing for a terrible
and decisive combat.
In the city, the garrison kept watch upon the ramparts, and observed
with anxiety the movements of the Ottoman army. They had heard with
affright the noisy exclamations of the Turks; but the sudden silence
which followed them redoubled their alarm. The light from the enemy’s
fires was reflected from the summits of the towers and from the domes
of the churches, and rendered the darkness which covered the city
more awful. Constantinople, in which the labours of industry and all
the ordinary cares of life were suspended, was plunged in a profound
calm, which, however, afforded neither sleep nor repose to any one; it
was the dismal aspect of a city which some great scourge has rendered
desolate. Only around the temples some few plaintive sounds were heard,
imploring with the voice of prayer the mercy of heaven. Already might
the words of the Persian poet be applied to that unfortunate city,
which the conqueror repeated on the morrow in the pride of his triumph:
_The spider silently spins his web beneath the roofs of the palaces,
and the bird of darkness utters his mournful cries upon the towers of
Efrasiab_.
Constantine called together the principal leaders of the garrison to
deliberate upon the dangers which threatened the empire. In a pathetic
discourse, he endeavoured to revive the courage and the hopes of his
companions in arms; speaking to the Greeks of patriotism, and to the
Latin auxiliaries of religion and humanity, he exhorted them all to
have patience, but above all to preserve concord. The warriors who were
present at this last council, listened to the emperor in melancholy
silence; they did not dare to interrogate each other upon the means of
defence, which all knew to be useless. They embraced each other with
tears, and returned to the ramparts, filled with the most sinister
forebodings.
The emperor entered the church of St. Sophia, where he received the
sacrament of the communion; the sadness which was observable on his
countenance, the pious humility with which he solicited forgetfulness
of injuries, pardon for his faults, the touching words which he
addressed to the people, which resembled eternal adieus, redoubled the
general consternation. The sun of the last day of the Roman empire
arose: it was the 29th of May; the signal for assault was given to the
Turkish army before dawn: the multitude of Mussulman soldiers rushed
towards the walls of the city. The attack was made at the same time
on the side of the port, and near the gate of St. Romanus. In the
first charge, the assailants everywhere met with a firm resistance;
the Catalans and the Genoese did all that the courage of Franks could
effect. Palæologus fought at the head of the Greeks, and the sight
alone of the imperial banner filled the Ottoman soldiers with terror.
Three hundred archers from the isle of Crete, sustained gloriously
the ancient renown of the Cretans for their skill with the bow. Among
this brave band it is but just to point out Cardinal Isidorus, who had
caused the fortifications he was charged to protect to be repaired at
his own expense, and who fought till the end of the siege, at the head
of the soldiers he had brought from Italy. History likewise owes great
praise to the monks of St. Basil, who had no doubt adopted the party of
the union, and whose valour and glorious death expiated the blind and
fatal obstinacy of the Byzantine clergy.
The historian Phrantza compares the close ranks of the Mussulmans to an
extended tightened cord, which might have been placed round the city.
The towers which defended the gate St. Romanus crumbled away beneath
the blows of the rams and the discharges of the Ottoman artillery. The
exterior walls were carried; the dead and the founded, confounded with
the ruins, filled up the ditches. And yet upon this horrible field of
battle the defenders of Byzantium fought still; nothing could weary
their constancy nothing could shake their courage.
After two hours of frightful conflict, Mahomet advanced with his
chosen troops and ten thousand janissaries. He appeared in the midst
of them, with his mace in his hand, like the angel of destruction; his
threatening looks animated the ardour of his soldiers, and he pointed
out to them by his gestures the points that were to be attacked. Behind
the battalions he led, a troop of those men whom despotism charges with
the execution of its vengeance, punished or constrained all who wished
to fly, and forced them forward to the carnage. The dust which arose
from the steps of the combatants, with the smoke of the artillery,
covered both the army and the city. The clang of the trumpets, the
crash of the ruins, the explosion of the cannons, and the shock of arms
completely drowned the voices of the leaders. The janissaries fought
in disorder; and Constantine, who had remarked it, was exhorting his
soldiers to make one last effort, when the aspect of the fight became
all at once changed. Justinian having been struck by an arrow, the
pain of the wound was so intense as to force him to quit the field of
battle. The Genoese and most of the Latin auxiliaries followed his
example. The Greeks, left alone, are soon overwhelmed by numbers; the
Turks pass the ramparts, get possession of the towers, and break open
the gates. Constantine fought still; but soon, covered with wounds, he
fell among the heap of dead, and Constantinople was without a head and
without defenders.
What a spectacle is that of an empire which has but one moment of
existence left, and which is about to finish amidst the furies of war,
and beneath the sword of barbarians! All at once every tie of society
is broken; religion, patriotism, nature have no longer laws that can
be invoked; even wisdom and experience can yield none but useless
counsels. All the ascendancy and splendour of virtue, genius, or even
valour, have no longer power to distinguish or protect the citizens.
Those magnificent palaces which constituted the pride of princes,
nobody possesses them now. Among all the numerous edifices of a great
capital, no one can find an asylum or an abode. The city has no longer
warriors or magistrates, nobles or plebeians, poor or rich; the whole
population is but a troop of slaves, who await with terror the presence
of an irritated master. Such was Constantinople at the moment the
conquerors were preparing to enter it.
When some of those who had defended the ramparts retreated into the
city, announcing the coming of the Turks, they could not obtain belief;
when the Turkish battalions came pouring in, the people, says the
Greek historian Ducas, “were half dead with fear, and could scarcely
breathe.” The multitude rushed about the streets, without knowing
whither to go, and uttering piercing cries. Women, children, and old
people flocked to the churches, as if the altars of Christ could prove
an asylum against the savage disciples of Mahomet!
It is not our task to describe the disasters which followed the taking
of Constantinople. The massacre of the unarmed inhabitants, the
city given up to pillage, holy places profaned, virgins and matrons
overwhelmed with outrages, an entire population loaded with chains;
such are the horrible pictures that are to be found in the annals of
the Turks, the Greeks, and the Latins. Such was the fate of that city
which frequent revolutions had covered with ruins, and which became at
length the ridicule and the prey of a nation it had long despised. If
there be anything consolatory amidst so many distressing scenes, it is
the virtue of Constantine,[71] who would not survive his country, and
whose death was the last glory of the empire of the East.[72]
When we consider the weakness of the Greek empire and the power of
its enemies, we are astonished it was able to resist so long. The
Ottomans were governed by all the passions which favour conquests; the
Greeks had not one of the qualities which are useful in defence: to be
convinced of this, we have but to see how the two nations acted. When
Mahomet proclaimed his enterprise, the Ottomans flocked to his army
from all parts of his empire; whilst at the first report of the siege,
a great part of the population of Constantinople deserted the city. We
have seen that the dervises encouraged the Mussulman soldiers, and held
up to them the war against the Greeks as a holy war. The Greek priests,
on the contrary, discouraged the defenders of Byzantium, and were not
far from considering the resistance of Constantine as a sacrilegious
action. During the assaults made upon the imperial city, the Turkish
soldiers, to fill up the ditches, cast into them their tents and their
baggage, preferring victory to all they possessed. It is well known
that at the same time the richest Greeks were employed in burying
their wealth, preferring treasures to patriotism. We could add other
remarkable features, but these quite sufficiently show on which side
the strength was. What most strongly foretold the ruin of Byzantium,
was the small degree of confidence the Greeks had in the duration of
their empire. Never did the ancient Romans more clearly show the power
and ascendancy of their patriotism, than when they designated Rome,
the _eternal city_. Constantinople saw the number of its defenders
diminish, and their courage became weaker, in proportion with the
facility with which the sinister predictions of its approaching ruin
found credit among the people.
When Byzantium, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, fell into
the hands of the Latins, the empire still possessed great means of
defence, and yet twenty thousand Crusaders achieved the conquest of it;
which places the valour of the Franks much above that of the Turks.
This would perhaps be the best place to examine what was the influence
of the crusades over the destiny of the empire of the East. In the
first expedition of the Latins, Asia Minor was delivered from the
Turks, who were already masters of Nice, and threatened Constantinople;
but the Crusaders sold the services they had rendered at too high a
price: on the one part, violence, on the other, perfidy, disturbed the
harmony that ought to have subsisted between the Greeks and the Latins.
At length the taking of Constantinople by the Franks was a mortal blow
to the empire of Byzantium. Amidst the war, schism became enlarged by
hatred; and schism, in its turn, doubled the reciprocal hatred. This
division favoured the progress of the Turks, and opened the gates of
Constantinople to them.
What is most unfortunate in the conquest of the Ottomans is, that they
preserved nothing, not even the name of Byzantium. The barbarians who
overthrew the empire of the West, adopted the religion and manners
of the conquered nations; which, by degrees, caused the traces of
invasion and conquest to disappear. The Turks, on the contrary, were
resolved to make the Koran triumph wherever they carried their arms.
As soon as they were masters of Constantinople, the altars of Christ
were overturned, and everything changed with religion. The city of
Constantine became more widely than ever separated from Christendom;
and as it was for the infidels the gate of the West, Christian Europe,
which during nearly three centuries had sent its fleets and its armies
into Asia, had reason at last to tremble for itself. From that period
crusades took a new character, and were nothing but defensive wars.