organization of his army on the lines laid down by his father, Orchan.
He also created a new standing corps of soldiers, recruited from the
Christian population of the provinces conquered in Europe. This was
the renowned corps of Janissaries—the new army. Von Hammer and other
historians following him, and more recently Sir Edwin Pears, give very
full details as to the constitution of this corps and the motives of
its founder. They state that one thousand lads, between the ages of ten
and twelve, were in every year conscripted from amongst the children of
Christian parents. The most physically strong and intelligent of them
were taken. They were forcibly converted to Islam, and were trained
with great care for military careers under the immediate direction
of the Sultan. After six years of training they were drafted into a
special corps, which reached, after a few years, a maximum of twelve
thousand men. The discipline of this corps was very severe. It formed
the most efficient and reliable body in the Ottoman army. The men
looked on their regiment as their home. Their lives were devoted to
it. They were not allowed to own property. What they acquired belonged
to the regiment. They were not, till a later period in the history
of the Empire, allowed to marry. They formed the backbone of the
Ottoman armies in war; and in many a hard-fought battle, when disaster
and defeat were imminent, they saved the army by their intrepid and
persistent stand against the enemy. The object which Murad aimed at
is said to have been not merely the strengthening of his army by a
standing force of this kind, but that it should, by its personal
devotion to the Sultan, act as a check on his other turbulent forces.[5]
Sir Edwin Pears says of this force:—
Take a number of children from the most intelligent portion of the
community; choose them for their strength and intelligence; instruct
them carefully in the art of fighting; bring them up under strict
military discipline; teach them to forget their childhood, their
parents, and friends; saturate them with the knowledge that all their
hope in life depends upon their position in the regiment; make peace
irksome and war a delight, with the hope of promotion and relaxation
from the hardship and restraints of the barracks; the result will be
a weapon in the hands of a leader such as the world has rarely seen.
Such a weapon was the army of the Janissaries.[6]
The levy of children was regarded by the Christians as a blood tax of a
terrible kind. The corps thus formed was a most valuable instrument in
the hands of Sultans who were strong enough to control it. But later,
in the times of degenerate Sultans, it became a kind of Prætorian
Guard. It dictated the deposition of Sultans and the nomination of
their successors. It often insisted on a policy of war. In 1648, under
Mahomet IV, the restriction of the force to Christian children was
removed, and the sons of Janissaries and other Moslems were admitted.
Later the levy of Christian children was abandoned, and none but sons
of Moslems were admitted to the corps. After the time of Solyman its
numbers were greatly increased. It became a danger to the State. It
will be seen that in 1826 Mahmoud II took vengeance on it for the
humiliations he and previous Sultans had undergone, and extinguished it
in ruthless scenes of blood.
There cannot be a doubt, however, that Murad, by creating this corps of
Janissaries and recruiting it from the Christian population in Europe,
forged a weapon which for two hundred years to come played a dominant
part in the aggrandizement of the Ottoman Empire.
Knolles, in his graphic history of the Turkish Empire, sums up the
character of Murad in the following sentences, which could not be
improved upon:—
Murad was more zealous than any other of the Turkish kings; a man
of great courage and in all his attempts fortunate; he made greater
slaughter of his enemies than both his father and grandfather; his
kingdom in Asia he greatly enlarged by the sword, marriage, and
purchase; and using the discord and cowardice of the Grecian princes
to his profit, subdued a great part of Thracia, with the territories
adjoining thereto, leaving unto the Emperor of Constantinople little
or nothing more in Thracia than the imperial city itself, with the
bare name of an emperor almost without an empire; he won a great part
of Bulgaria and entered into Serbia, Bosnia, and Macedonia; he was
liberal and withal severe; of his subjects both beloved and feared; a
man of very few words, and one that could dissemble deeply.[7]
IV
BAYEZID I
1389-1403
BAYEZID succeeded his father, Murad, at the age of thirty-four. He
reigned as Sultan for only fourteen years, the last of which was
spent in captivity. No one of the Othman race passed through such
vicissitudes, with such a brilliant career of victory during nearly the
whole of his reign, but ending with overwhelming and crushing defeat.
He had all the courage and military capacity of his three predecessors.
He excelled them greatly in cruelty and brutality. In his private life
he descended to depths of sensuality and unmentionable and degrading
vice which were unknown to them.
Early in his reign he adopted a much bolder attitude toward the
Christian Powers of Europe than Murad had thought prudent. To a
deputation from Italy asking for a renewal of commercial privileges, he
replied that when he had conquered Hungary he intended to ride to Rome,
and there give feed to his horse with oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.
His treatment of his Christian subjects was much harsher than that of
his predecessors.
Bayezid followed up his father’s great victory at Kossova over the
Serbians, and compelled Stephen, the successor of Lazar, to sue for
peace. The terms of the treaty then agreed to were very moderate.
Instead of being incorporated in the Ottoman Empire as Bulgaria had
been, Serbia was to be an autonomous State, under vassalage to the
Ottoman Empire, paying tribute in money, and bound to provide and
maintain a contingent of five thousand soldiers at the disposal of the
Sultan. Stephen, its prince, also gave his sister, Despina, to the
Sultan as an additional wife. He most loyally carried out his promises
to Bayezid. In the great battles of Nicopolis against the Hungarians
and the crusaders from Western Europe, and of Angora against Timur, the
Serbian contingent fought with the utmost bravery, and there were no
more loyal soldiers in the Ottoman ranks.
Having come to terms with Serbia, Bayezid marched southwards with
his army, and took up a menacing position near to Constantinople,
where the aged and feeble John Palæologus still reigned, supported
by his son Manuel as co-Emperor. By threatening to promote the cause
of Andronicus, whose eyesight had not been quite extinguished, after
his mad rebellion against the Emperor, the Sultan compelled the two
Emperors to sign a treaty, under which the remnant of the Greek Empire
became an abject vassal State to that of the Ottomans. The Emperors
promised to pay an annual tribute of thirty thousand pieces of gold
and to supply a contingent of twelve thousand men to the Ottoman army
to be at the disposal of the Sultan for any purpose he might design.
They also undertook to surrender to the Ottomans the stronghold of
Philadelphia, the only remaining possession of the Byzantine Empire
in Asia Minor. When the officer in command of that city refused to
surrender it, Bayezid insisted on the Greek Emperor employing his
contingent in capturing his own city, and on his leading the assault on
it, with the aid of his son Manuel, for the purpose of handing it over
to himself, their nominal ally, but crafty and designing foe. It would
be difficult to imagine a lower depth of humiliation and cowardice
than that to which the Emperor and his son thus descended. These
public humiliations were aggravated by a domestic one. Bayezid, having
captured at sea a vessel bringing a foreign princess as a bride for
Manuel, took a great fancy for the lady, and insisted on her entering
his own harem.
Bayezid next turned his attention to Asia Minor, where he was mainly
ambitious to add to his Empire. His first effort there was directed
against Aidin. After defeating its Emir and annexing the State, he
dealt in the same way with the Emirs of Sarukhan and Mentsche. He
then made an attack on the city of Smyrna, at that time in possession
of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The Knights made a vigorous
resistance, and Bayezid, not having command of the sea, was compelled,
after six weeks, to withdraw from the siege. He next, in 1391,
attacked the Emir of Tekke, and took from him what had been left under
his rule by Murad, including the important city of Adalia. The Ottoman
frontier was now conterminous with that of Karamania, whose Emir,
Alaeddin, was brother-in-law to the Sultan. This family connection
was no protection to him. Bayezid invaded and laid siege to Konia.
He withdrew on Alaeddin agreeing to give up a slice of his Emirate,
including the city of Ak-Sheir.
Having achieved these annexations, for which there was no justification
other than mere greed for the extension of his Empire, Bayezid
returned to Adrianople, leaving his general, Timurtash, in command
of the conquered provinces. The Greek Emperor John, meanwhile, had
been engaged in putting his capital into a state of defence, and for
this purpose had demolished three of the most beautiful churches of
Constantinople, intending to use their masonry for the erection of new
forts. The Sultan, when he heard of this, sent word to the Emperors
ordering them to desist from any such work, and threatening to deprive
Manuel of his eyesight. The Emperor had no alternative but to obey.
But this humiliation was the last he had to endure. He died very
shortly afterwards, under the weight of his cares and anxieties, as
some historians say, but according to others of gout and debauchery.
His son, Manuel, who was detained at the Court of the Sultan, acting
as a kind of Groom of the Chamber, on hearing of his father’s death,
secretly fled and reached Constantinople, where he was installed as the
successor to his father. Bayezid by way of reprisal for this directed a
blockade by land of Constantinople. There commenced what was virtually
a siege by land of the city, which lasted for seven years, till the
invasion of Asia Minor by Timur caused a diversion and brought it to an
end.
Leaving a part of his forces to conduct this blockade, and with
instructions to harass the Greek garrison by day and night, Bayezid,
with the larger part of his army, marched through Bulgaria, and
compelled the Prince of Wallachia to submit as a vassal of the Ottoman
Empire. A part of his army then penetrated into Syrmia and engaged
in war with the Hungarians. It was defeated and driven back, and
Sigismund, the Hungarian King, was able to make a counter-attack, and
to capture the important stronghold of Nicopolis. He, in turn, was
forced to abandon the city, mainly by the assistance given to Bayezid
by the Wallachians. It was during his retreat through the Duchy of
Hunyadi that Sigismund met and became enamoured with Elizabeth Moronay.
The offspring of this liaison was the celebrated Hungarian hero Hunyadi
the Great, who later took such an active part against the Turks.
In 1393, Bayezid sent an army, under command of his eldest son,
Solyman, to invade the northern part of Bulgaria, which still enjoyed
an autonomous existence. Tirnova, its capital, was taken by storm after
a siege of three weeks. Its inhabitants were sent into Asia Minor as
slaves. He then decided to incorporate the northern part of Bulgaria in
the Ottoman Empire in the same manner as the southern part had already
been treated. This completed the servitude of the Bulgarian people.
Sisman, their prince, disappeared from the scene, and the ruling
family became extinct. The land was confiscated, except in a few cases
where the owners were allowed to become Moslems. It was parcelled out
to Turks under a feudal system involving military service, while the
cultivators of the soil were reduced to serfdom.
About this time the fortresses of Nicopolis, Widdin, and Silistria fell
into the hands of the Ottomans and opened the way into Hungary. Bayezid
commenced a system of raids into that country, not for the purpose, at
that time, of acquiring its territory, but for plunder. His Turkish
‘akinjis,’ or irregulars, spread terror over wide districts, burning
and destroying villages and carrying off their inhabitants for sale
as slaves. He fitted out ships also with the same object in the newly
acquired ports in Asia Minor, and ravaged the islands of Chios and
Negropont and districts on the coast of Greece.
Bayezid was now compelled by an outbreak in his recent acquisitions in
Asia Minor, fomented by the Emir of Karamania, to suspend operations
on his northern frontier in Europe and to transfer his army to Asia.
He received at Brusa an envoy from his brother-in-law, Alaeddin of
Karamania, suing for peace. Bayezid replied that the sword alone
could determine the issue between them. He sent an army at once,
under Timurtash, against the Karamanians. It encountered Alaeddin on
the plain of Ak-Tchai. The Turkish army was completely successful.
Alaeddin and his two sons were captured, and without waiting for
authority from Bayezid, Timurtash had them hanged. When Bayezid heard
of this treatment of his brother-in-law, he affected to be greatly
distressed and incensed, but he soon consoled himself by a text from
the Koran, “The death of a prince is less regrettable than the loss of
a province,” and he gave practical application of the verse by orders
to his army to occupy and annex the whole of Karamania. There was no
resistance. Konia and other cities in the eastern part of the State
were taken. In spite of this, however, Karamania was not at this time
finally incorporated in the Ottoman Empire. After the invasion of Asia
Minor by Timur it recovered its independence, and it was not till
seventy years later that it was finally subjected and incorporated.
About the same time, 1393-4, Bayezid made further important conquests
in Asia Minor—namely, Samsun, Cæsarea, and Sivas, the last of the most
important fortresses on the frontier of Armenia. These great successes
both in Europe and Asia were followed by a period of repose, during
which Bayezid gave himself up to a life of gross debauchery. He was
recalled from this by threats of war on the part of Sigismund, King of
Hungary, and he soon showed that he had lost none of his vigour and
dash.
Sigismund had fretted under the constant raids on his kingdom, above
referred to, and had for some time past been contemplating war against
the Ottomans for the recovery of the fortresses on the Danube, which
were so great a menace to him. For this purpose he appealed, in 1395,
to the Christian Powers of Europe for assistance. He was backed up by
Pope Boniface IX, who preached another crusade against the infidels.
Through the efforts of the King of France, Charles VI, a large number
of leading nobles of France were induced to band together, under the
Comte de Nevers, son of the Duke of Burgundy, a young man of twenty-two
years, without any military experience. A thousand horsemen, chevaliers
of good birth and position, and six thousand attendants and mercenaries
were enrolled in France for this adventure. Others came from England
and Scotland, and from Flanders, Lombardy, and Savoy. On their march
through Germany to Hungary they were joined by great numbers of German
knights, under Count Frederick of Hohenzollern, the Grand Prior of the
Teutonic Order, and by a large force of Bavarians, under the Elector
Palatine. Later they were reinforced by a number of the Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem, under the command of de Naillac, their Grand
Master. When joined by the Hungarian army, under Sigismund, and by
the contingents from Wallachia and Bosnia, they made up a total force
of about sixty thousand men. The expedition was in the nature of a
crusade, but was more secular than religious in its aims and methods,
and was regarded, it seems, by most of those engaged in it rather
as a kind of picnic than as a serious campaign. The composite force
collected together at Buda, in Hungary, in the summer of 1396, and
thence marched down the Danube to Nicopolis, capturing Widdin and
Sistova on the way. When passing through Serbia they ravaged wide
districts inhabited by innocent Christians, and emulated, if they did
not exceed, the Ottomans in cruel devastation, as though they were in
an enemy’s country. They established their camp before Nicopolis in
September, but for sixteen days they refrained from assaulting the
fortress, which was bravely defended by an Ottoman garrison, thus
giving time to Bayezid to collect his army and to advance against the
allied forces.
The Christian camp was the scene of riotous living and gambling. Large
numbers of courtesans had accompanied the crusaders. The whole army
was in a state of indiscipline and disorder. The French knights were
boastful. They spoke with contempt of the Turkish troops, and could not
believe that there was any danger from them. Bayezid, whose army was
full of confidence in its superiority, was allowed to approach within
striking distance, without any attempt to harass his advance. Even then
the Christians did not believe there was danger. The Turks suddenly
came into contact with them. The knights were compelled to abandon
their gaming tables and their women, and to face the enemy whom they
had so much despised.
The Ottoman army was preceded by large numbers of scouts and
irregulars. The leaders of the chevaliers, knowing nothing of the
numbers of the Ottomans or of their methods in war, and utterly
despising them, most rashly proposed an immediate attack by the whole
force of their splendid cavalry. The King of Hungary, who had had
experience of the Ottomans and who knew their method of masking the
main body of their army by irregulars, was more cautious, and advised
that the foot soldiers of Hungary and Wallachia should be first
employed to meet the attack of the Turkish irregulars, and that the
cavalry should be reserved to meet the main body of the Ottomans. The
chevaliers were furious at this suggestion. They suspected Sigismund
of playing for his own hand, and of wishing to rob them of the glory
of a great victory. They insisted on an immediate attack. Sigismund,
on hearing of this decision, said, “We shall lose the day through the
great pride and folly of these French.” And so it turned out.
The chevaliers advanced in splendid array and had no difficulty in
dispersing and slaughtering the mob of Turkish irregulars. But this
impetuous charge spent their energy and tired their horses. When they
were confronted by the main body of the Ottomans, sixty thousand in
number, they were powerless to resist. They were surrounded and were
compelled to surrender. The main body of Hungarian foot soldiers,
when they came in contact with the Ottomans, were not more fortunate.
The Wallachians, who formed one of the wings of the army, when they
saw how the battle was going, retired from the field without a fight.
The centre of the Hungarian army, under Sigismund, supported by the
Bavarians, made a most gallant fight, and might have been successful
if it had not been that the Serbian army, under Prince Stephen, came
at a critical time, in support of the Ottomans, and turned the scale
in their favour. After a battle of only three hours the Christian
allies were completely defeated with great slaughter on both sides. Ten
thousand of the Christians, including most of the surviving chevaliers,
were taken prisoners. Those who escaped across the Danube suffered
terribly in their retreat through Wallachia. They were beaten and
maltreated by the peasantry, for whom they had shown no consideration
in their advance.
Sigismund and the Grand Prior of Rhodes, at a late stage of the battle,
abandoned the army to its fate. They escaped in a small boat down the
Danube, and were taken on board by a Venetian vessel, which conveyed
them to Germany through the Black Sea, the Dardanelles, and the
Adriatic. On passing the Straits the Turks paraded before their eyes
the knights made captives at Nicopolis. One of these prisoners thus
described what took place:—
The Osmanlis took us out of the towers of Gallipoli and led us to
the sea, and one after the other they abused the King of Hungary as
he passed, and mocked him and called to him to come out of the boat
and deliver his people; and this they did to make fun of him, and
skirmished a long time with each other on the sea. But they did not
do him any harm, and so he went away.[8]
On the morning of the battle of Nicopolis, Bayezid, when told of the
heavy losses of his own army, and that in the early part of the battle
the chevaliers had massacred a number of Turks who had surrendered
on promise of life, was greatly incensed. He gave orders that all
the Christian prisoners to the number of ten thousand were to be put
to death in his presence. He made an exception only in favour of
twenty-four of the knights, including de Nevers, their leader, for
whose release a heavy ransom might be expected. But they were compelled
to witness the execution of their comrades in arms.
On taking leave of them a year later at Brusa, Bayezid addressed de
Nevers in these proud and insolent terms:—
John, I know thee well, and am informed that you are in your own
country a great lord. You are young, and in the future I hope you
will be able to recover with your courage from the shame of the
misfortune which has come to you in your foul knightly enterprise,
and that in the desire of getting rid of the reproach and recovering
your honour you will assemble your power to come against me and
give me battle. If I were afraid of that and wanted to, before your
release, I would make you swear upon your oath and religion that you
would never bear arms against me, nor those who are in your company
here. But no; neither upon you nor any other of those here will I
impose this oath, because I desire, when you have returned to your
home, and will have leisure, that you assemble your power and come
against me. You will find me always ready to meet you and your people
on the field of battle. And what I say to you, you can say in like
manner to those to whom you will have the pleasure of speaking about
it, because for this purpose was I born, to carry arms and always to
conquer what is ahead of me.[9]
Before their final departure, Bayezid treated these knights to a day’s
sport on a regal scale; seven thousand falconers were employed on
the occasion, and five thousand men led dogs to pick up the game. The
historian does not state what was the bag resulting from this great
battle.
Of the twenty-four knights only one, Marshal Boucicaut, took up the
parting challenge of Bayezid and returned to the East to make war
against him. The others showed no desire to wipe out the disgrace of
their defeat.[10]
After this great battle at Nicopolis the Ottoman army made irruptions
into Wallachia, Styria, and Hungary. The city of Peterwardein was
captured and eighteen thousand of its inhabitants were sold into
slavery. Another division invaded Syrmia, and devastated the country
between the Drave and the Danube. The fortresses on the river taken by
the crusaders were recaptured. The raid into Wallachia was a failure.
The Turks engaged in it were defeated and driven back. Bayezid himself
threatened Buda, in Hungary, but his progress was checked by a long
and painful fit of gout. Gibbon moralizes on this in the following
sentence: “The disorders of the moral are sometimes corrected by those
of the physical world; and an acrimonious humour falling on a single
fibre of one man may prevent or suspend the misery of nations.”[11] The
invasion of Hungary on this occasion was a failure.
After this campaign Bayezid returned to Adrianople, and there occupied
himself by inflicting further humiliations on the Greek Empire. He
forced Manuel to resign and imposed John, the son of Andronicus, as
its Emperor. He then issued forth again with his army, in 1397, and
fell like a thunderbolt on Greece, without any warning or cause of
complaint. He marched with his army through Thessaly, capturing on
the way Larissa and Pharsalia. He passed through Thermopylæ. The mere
passage of his army sufficed to subdue Doris and Locris. His two
generals, Yacoub and Evrenos, then invaded the Peloponnesus. The latter
captured and pillaged Argos. Its inhabitants, to the number of thirty
thousand, were sold as slaves and deported to Asia. Colonies of Turks
were planted in the Morea. Theodore Palæologus, who acted as despot
there on behalf of the Greek Empire, agreed to become tributary of the
Sultan.