classes in the city. Their daughters and sons were torn from them to be
sold to harems in Asia Minor, or for other vile purposes. The parents,
if still strong, were sold as slaves. Numbers of them fled from their
houses and crowded into St. Sophia and other churches, hoping that
their foes would respect places of worship, or expecting that a miracle
of some kind would save them. But it was in vain. St. Sophia acted as
a kind of drag-net in which all the best in the city were collected,
and were carried off thence in gangs. Virgins consecrated to God were
dragged from this and other churches by their hair and were ruthlessly
stripped of every ornament they possessed. A horde of savage brutes
committed unnameable barbarities.
The city was cleared of everything of value and was all but denuded of
its population. By the lowest estimate, fifty thousand persons, mostly
the strong and the young of both sexes, were made captives, and later
were sold as slaves and deported to Asia Minor. Some few escaped from
the city into the country districts. Others found refuge in the Greek
and Genoese galleys in the harbour, which were able to get away and
escape because the crews of the Turkish vessels blockading the port
had deserted in order to take part in the sack. Some were able to hide
themselves in the city, and emerged later when the scene of horrors
was at an end. Others, we know not how many, were ruthlessly massacred
because they were of no value for sale. The proceeds of the sack
and of the sale of captives brought wealth to every soldier in the
Turkish army. No such dire misfortune to a city had occurred since the
destruction of Carthage.
After three days and nights of these orgies the Sultan intervened
and proclaimed an end of them. Meanwhile, on the day of the last
assault, when his troops were in possession of the city, the Sultan
rode into it. He went direct to St. Sophia, and, dismounting, entered
the great church. He took pains at once to prevent any destruction of
its contents, and himself struck down a soldier engaged in this work,
telling him that buildings were reserved for himself. He instructed a
mollah to call people to prayer from the pulpit. He thus inaugurated
the conversion of the splendid Christian church into a mosque.
After this he sent for Notaras, who had been in command of the Greek
forces under the Emperor, and affected to treat him with generosity. He
obtained a list of all the leading men in the city and offered a large
reward for their heads.
On the next day the Sultan made an inspection of the city and paid a
visit to the Imperial Palace. On entering it he quoted the lines from a
Persian poet:—
The spider’s web hangs before the portal of Cæsar’s palace,
The owl is the sentinel on the watch-tower.
Later he presided at a great banquet, where he appears to have imbibed
too freely of wine. When half-drunk he directed the chief eunuch to
go to Notaras and demand of him his youngest son, a handsome lad of
fourteen. Notaras refused, preferring death to dishonour for his son.
The Sultan thereupon ordered Notaras and all his family to be put to
death at once. Their heads were struck off and brought to the banquet
and placed before the Sultan as a decoration of his table.
It was said that the Sultan’s ferocity was stimulated by the last
favourite of his harem, with whom he was much enamoured, and that she,
on her part, was instigated by her father, a Greek renegade. Under this
influence the Sultan ordered the execution of all the persons to whom
on the previous day he had promised liberty. The Papal legate, Cardinal
Isidore, escaped recognition and was sold as a slave by a soldier for
a mean price. He was later ransomed. Orkhan, the grandson of Bayezid,
who had been brought up as a Christian at the Imperial Court, committed
suicide rather than be sold as a slave.
Although many cruel deeds were committed by the Sultan and his
soldiers, and a terrible calamity fell upon the whole community of
Greeks, it cannot be said that the capture of Constantinople was the
scene of such infamous orgies as took place in 1204, when it was
captured by the Crusaders. After the first few hours of entry there was
on this occasion no general massacre. There was not much incendiarism.
The Sultan did his best, successfully, to save the churches and other
buildings.
Although the young Sultan was most brutal in some of his actions,
he showed in others remarkable foresight and statesmanship. One of
his earliest acts, after putting an end to the sack of the city, was
to proclaim himself as protector of the Greek Church. A charter was
granted to the Orthodox members of that Church securing to the use of
it some of the churches in the capital, and authority to celebrate in
them religious rites according to their ancient usage. It also gave to
them a certain amount of autonomy in civil matters. It recognized their
laws of marriage and of succession to property and gave jurisdiction to
the Patriarch and to Ecclesiastical Courts to enforce them.
The most eminent survivor of the Greek clergy, Gennadius, was sought
for. He had been sold as a slave after the sack of the city to a pasha
at Adrianople. He was brought back to Constantinople and was invested
by the Sultan with the office of Patriarch of the Greek Church.
Mahomet, in doing so, said: “I appoint you Patriarch. May Heaven
protect you. In all cases and all occasions count on my friendship
and enjoy in peace all the privileges of your predecessors.” This was
a most wise and opportune act of policy. The Sultan had been advised
by fanatics among the Turks to order a general massacre of Greeks and
others who would not embrace Islam. Mahomet’s record shows that he
would have sanctioned this if he had thought it for the interest of the
State, and he would probably have revelled in it. In pursuance of a
deliberate policy of enlightened statecraft he rejected this advice. It
was necessary to repeople his capital and to attract others than Turks
to it. Mahomet was also ambitious of further conquests in Europe. He
recognized that the attempt to force a wholesale change of religion on
the vanquished would stimulate their resistance, while a wise tolerance
might weaken it. When the Prince of Serbia asked Hunyadi, the Hungarian
patriot, what he would do with the Orthodox Greek Church if he made
himself master of that province, the reply was, “I will establish
everywhere Catholic churches.” The reply of Mahomet to a similar
question was, “By the side of every mosque a church shall be erected in
which your people will be able to pray.”
This great act of tolerance of Mahomet was far ahead of the political
ethics of the Christian Powers of Europe at that time. His example was
not followed by the Spaniards, when they drove from their country the
Moslem Moors, who had refused to adopt the religion of their victors.
The action of Mahomet is another proof that the Turkish invasion of
Europe was not actuated by religious fanaticism or the desire to spread
Islam. There seems to have been no attempt to induce or compel the
Greeks and others of the conquered city to embrace Islam.
Mahomet also set to work, at an early date, to repeople Constantinople.
For a long time previous to the conquest its population had been
dwindling. In proportion as the Greek Empire was reduced by the loss
of its territories, so the importance of the capital was diminished.
Mahomet invited all who had fled after the capture to return, promising
protection to their property and religion. He directed the transfer of
families of Greeks, Jews, and Turks from many parts of his Empire. When
he took possession of Trebizond and the Morea, many thousands of Greeks
were forcibly removed to Constantinople. The same was the case with
many islands in the Ægean Sea. At the end of his reign Constantinople
was far more populous and flourishing than it had been under the last
Greek Emperor.
Although the capture of Constantinople was the principal feat in
Mahomet’s long reign, and that on which his fame in history chiefly
rests, it was, in fact, only the first of a long list of conquests
which earned for him from his countrymen the title _par éminence_ of
‘the Conqueror.’ During the thirty years of his reign he was almost
always at war in personal command of his armies, and there were very
few in which he did not add fresh territory to his Empire, either in
Europe or Asia.
Bosnia and the Morea, which had become tributary States under previous
Sultans, were now again invaded and were compelled to become integral
parts of the Empire. Their princes were dethroned and put to death.
Wallachia and the Crimea were forced to become vassal States. In Asia,
Karamania, so long the rival and foe of the Ottomans, and which, after
many wars, had agreed to pay tribute, was now forcibly annexed, and
its Seljukian line of kings was put an end to by death. The great city
of Trebizond and its adjoining province of Cappadocia, which had been
cut off from the parent Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by
the Crusaders, and formed into a miniature Empire, under the Comneni
dynasty, was invaded and annexed by Mahomet, and at his instance its
reigning family was put to death. The possessions of the Genoese on the
coasts of the Black Sea were seized and appropriated.
Many islands in the Greek Archipelago, including Lesbos, Lemnos, and
Cephalonia, were also attacked and annexed. The same fate befell Eubœa.
It belonged to the Republic of Venice, which was also deprived of
others of its possessions on the coast of the Morea. Besides all these
enterprises, Mahomet in several successive years sent armies to ravage
parts of Styria and Transylvania. He even sent an army across the
frontier of Italy to ravage the region of Friuli, and other districts
almost within sight of Venice, whose Republic was compelled to enter
into an ignominious treaty, binding it to assist the Ottomans in
other wars with a naval force. The last achievement of the ambitious
Sultan was to send a force to the South of Italy, where it captured
Otranto. The only captures which Mahomet attempted without success
were those of Belgrade, in 1456, and the island of Rhodes in 1480. The
case of Belgrade was of the greatest importance, for it long barred
the way to the invasion of Hungary and Germany. The Sultan himself
took command of the army of attack with a hundred and fifty thousand
men and three hundred guns. He thought the capture of it would be an
easy task after that of Constantinople. But Western Europe, which had
rendered so little assistance to the Greek Empire in its extremities,
was alarmed at the prospect of the invasion of Germany through the loss
of Belgrade. The Pope preached another crusade, and a large body of
knights volunteered for the defence of this frontier city.
Hunyadi led the Hungarians in this his last campaign. The lower town
was taken by the Turks after great loss of life; but the upper town
made a protracted resistance. The Christian knights in a notable
sortie attacked the batteries of the enemy, captured all the guns, and
wounded the Sultan himself. Mahomet was compelled to raise the siege
after losing fifty thousand men. It was the last feat of the Hungarian
patriot. He died twenty days after this signal success. It was fifty
years before Belgrade was again attacked and captured and the road was
opened for the invasion of Hungary and Vienna.
In all these campaigns Mahomet personally led his armies in the field,
with the exception of those for the invasion of the Crimea, the attack
on Rhodes, and the capture of Otranto, where he delegated the task to
able generals, of whom he appears to have had an abundant supply. But
there never was a great commander who more completely dominated the
generals under him and maintained his supremacy in the State. He made
no confidences as to his intended military operations, or what were his
immediate objects of attack. There were no councils of war. His armies
were collected, year after year, on one side or other of the Bosphorus,
without any one knowing their destination. When, on one occasion, one
of his generals asked him what was his next object, he replied that if
a single hair of his beard knew what his intentions were he would pluck
it out and cast it into the fire. He held secrecy and rapidity to be
the first elements of success in war, and he acted on this principle.
With the exception of the single case of the invasion of Wallachia,
the provocation for war was in every case on the part of the Sultan.
Invasion and attack were preceded by laconic messages calling upon the
State or city aimed at to surrender, and the actual attack was made
with the shortest possible delay.
Having determined on war and invasion, his object was pursued with the
utmost vigour, and wholly regardless of the loss of life. As a rule,
his campaigns were short; but the war with Venice was an exception. It
lasted for many years. It consisted mainly of attacks on strongholds
of the Republic in the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of
Greece and Albania, where the fleets of the two Powers played a large
part. The conquest of Albania also was only effected after a struggle
spread over many years, in which the patriot hero, Scanderbeg, defeated
successive attacks by Ottoman armies enormously exceeding his native
levies. It was not till after the death of this great chief, in 1467,
that Mahomet was able to wear down opposition in Albania by sheer force
of numbers.
Early in his reign Mahomet recognized the strategic value of
Constantinople. It became the keystone of his Empire. He transferred
the seat of his government to it from Adrianople. He fortified the
Dardanelles by the erection of two castles on either side of it near to
Sestos and Abydos, each with thirty guns, which commanded the Straits.
This secured his capital from attack. It prevented the entrance of
a hostile fleet into the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea. He added
greatly to his navy, and made it superior to that of any other single
Power in the Mediterranean. It gave him absolute supremacy in the Black
Sea and the Sea of Marmora. The possessions of the Genoese in the Black
Sea were at his mercy. He sent a flotilla of small vessels up the
Danube to assist in the siege of Belgrade.
Throughout all his campaigns Mahomet exhibited perfidy and cruelty on
a scale almost without precedent. Princes, generals, and armies, who
capitulated on the promises of safety of life and respect of property,
were put to death without compunction, in gross breach of faith. The
inhabitants of cities were sold into slavery or transferred forcibly to
Turkish dominions, in total disregard of solemn pledges.
A notable case of this kind was that of Bosnia, where the final victory
was achieved by the Ottoman Grand Vizier, in command of one of the
armies engaged, under the supreme command of the Sultan. The Prince of
Bosnia and his army capitulated on the distinct engagement in writing
that their lives would be spared. Mahomet was full of wrath at this
concession. It was his deliberate policy to extinguish by death the
family of any reigning prince whom he vanquished in war. He consulted
on the point the Mufti, with doubtless a strong hint as to what the
answer should be. The Mufti issued a _fetva_ which declared that no
treaty of this kind with an infidel was binding on the Sultan. The
holy man went so far as to offer himself to act as executioner. When
the Bosnian king was summoned to the presence of the Sultan, and came
before him trembling, with the treaty of capitulation in his hand,
the Mufti himself struck off his head in the presence of the Sultan,
exclaiming that it was a good deed to put an end to an infidel. The
_fetva_ in this case formed a precedent for numerous similar cases. The
whole of the royal family of Comnenus, the Emperor of Trebizond, who,
without a fight, surrendered his kingdom to Mahomet, upon the promise
of life and private property to himself and his family, were put to
death a few weeks later in Constantinople on the most flimsy pretence.
In a similar way, when the island of Eubœa was captured from the
Venetians in 1470 by the Sultan, the Venetian garrison, supported
by the Greek population, made a most gallant defence and inflicted
enormous losses on the Turks. Paul Evizzo, the Venetian general in
command of the island, eventually surrendered on the promise of safety
of life to himself and his army. Mahomet broke his word. He put to
death the whole of the Venetian garrison by the cruel method of
impaling. The gallant Evizzo was, by the Sultan’s order, sawn in two.
His daughter was summoned to Mahomet’s tent, and when she refused to
submit to his lust, was put to death by his order. The island was added
to the Ottoman Empire in 1471.
It must be admitted that in all these conquests the Ottoman armies were
very greatly superior in number and in armaments. In many cases they
were also assisted by the disunion of their opponents. The subjection
of Karamania was due to the death of its last king, Ibrahim, who
left seven sons behind him. Six of them were sons of a wife of royal
descent, the seventh the son of a slave. The father favoured the
youngest, whom he declared his heir. The other six fought for their
patrimony against the youngest and besieged him in Konia, the capital.
Mahomet thought that this was a good opportunity to intervene and to
annex the whole country. Without any cause of quarrel he marched an
army of a hundred thousand men into the country and waged war against
all the sons. The Grand Vizier, Mahmoud Pasha, was sent on in advance,
and defeated Ishak, the youngest son of Ibrahim, in front of Konia.
The terms of capitulation were thought by Mahomet to be too humane. He
determined to punish Mahmoud for his leniency. The cords of his tent
were cut while the Vizier was asleep. The tent fell on the luckless
sleeper. This was a sign of disgrace. Mahmoud, who was a most able
and successful general and statesman, was removed from his post and
was put to death. The Karamanian dynasty, which for so long had been
the rival of that of Othman, was now completely subdued. The country
became a province of the Turkish Empire. Its two principal cities were
depopulated and lost their splendour. It never again gave trouble to
the Ottoman government.
The country which suffered most from the cruelties of Mahomet was
Greece. Here, again, disunion was the main cause of its ruin. Two
brothers of Constantine, the last Greek Emperor at Constantinople,
Demetrius and Thomas, held sway as tributaries of the Sultan, the
one at Argos, the other at Patras. Unmindful of the danger which
threatened them, they fought one another for supremacy, after the death
of Constantine, and were assisted in their internecine war by large
numbers of turbulent Albanians, who transferred their services, now to
one and now to another of these petty despots, and are said to have
changed sides three times in the course of a single Sunday. Mahomet,
in 1458, thinking that the disputes between the two brothers afforded
a good occasion for getting full possession of the Morea, invaded it
with a large force. The two brothers, instead of uniting to defend the
country, continued to fight against one another, and attempted, at the
same time, singly to fight against the Turks. There followed scenes
of massacre and rapine as Mahomet’s army passed through the country,
besieging and capturing successively its many petty strongholds. In
nearly every case, after vigorous resistance, capitulation was offered
and agreed to on promise of life to the garrisons. In no case was
the promise kept. As a rule, the fighting-men were massacred after
surrender, their leaders were sawn in two, and the other inhabitants
were sold into slavery, or were in some cases transferred _en masse_ to
Constantinople as colonists to fill the empty city. The two brothers
were driven from the country. Demetrius appears to have made some kind
of terms with the Sultan, one of which was that his daughter should
enter Mahomet’s harem. This promise was not kept; she was not thought
worthy of it, and she was insulted by being deprived of the only eunuch
who attended her. It is not stated what became of her. Thomas fled from
the country, carrying with him, instead of treasure, a valuable relic,
the head of St. Andrew, with which he disappeared from history. The
Sultan possessed himself of the whole country, with the exception of
two or three seaports in the hands of the Venetians. The memory of this
cruel invasion of the Turks was deeply impressed on the minds of the
people of Greece. But for 471 years, with a short interlude when it was
held by the Venetians, it remained a Turkish province.
On his way back to Constantinople the Sultan passed by Athens, where
one Franco reigned as Duke, but tributary to the Turks. He gave orders
that Franco was to be strangled. As a special favour this operation
was effected, not in the tent of the Turkish general, but in his own
domicile, and thus the last spark of Greek independence passed away.
It is not perhaps fair to judge of Mahomet as regards his cruelties
and perfidies by a high standard. His opponents, the chiefs of the
countries he invaded and conquered, were, in many cases, not inferior
to him in these respects. Scanderbeg, whose patriotic defence of
Albania won for him the reputation of a saint in his own country, and
a high place in history, was most cruel and vindictive whenever he
had the opportunity. He habitually massacred the prisoners taken in
his battles. The two despots of the Morea were not behindhand in this
respect. The Prince, or Voivode as he was called, of Wallachia, Wlad by
name, was one of the most cruel and bloodthirsty ruffians recorded in
history. He was known by the name of “the Impaler.” He revelled in the
dying agonies of the prisoners and other victims whom he subjected to
this cruel death. They were reserved for this purpose to enliven his
banquets. When some guest expressed surprise that he could bear the
odour emanating from the victims of this death, the prince directed the
immediate execution of his guest, on a higher pale than the others, so
that he might not be incommoded by the odour he complained of.
Mahomet invaded Wallachia, in 1462, with an army of two hundred
thousand. In his pursuit of Wlad he came across a field where twenty
thousand Turks and Bulgarians had been put to death, one-half of them
by impalement and the other half by crucifixion. Mahomet defeated and
drove into exile this ruffian, and installed in his place a favourite
named Radul, who had been brought up at his Court as a page. On the
death of this man Wlad turned up again, but was killed by a slave.
Wallachia, which previously had been compelled to pay tribute by
Mahomet, was now made a vassal State. The Sultan appointed its prince.
It was not otherwise treated as a Turkish province.
The failure of the Turkish general to capture the island of Rhodes
was said to be due to the fact that, just before the final assault,
after long resistance by the Knights who held this island, the Turkish
general issued an order to the army that there was to be no pillage
of the city, wishing to reserve for the Sultan and himself the wealth
which might be captured. This dispirited the Turkish soldiers, and they
made no effort for success in the assault. The Knights again repulsed
the attack and the siege was raised. It was not till 1520 that Rhodes
was finally captured.