John Bagnell Bury

“ Belgrade had fallen, Rhodes was now to fall. The pirate-ships of the Rhodian Knights were a pest to the eastern waters of the archipelago and the Asiatic coasts; and not only was it imperative for the Sultan that his line of communication with Egypt should be cleared of the corsair nest, but it was in the interest of public order that the island should be annexed to the Turkish realm. The lords of Rhodes had to depend entirely on themselves, without aid from the west. The first principle of Venetian policy at this time was to keep on good terms with the Turk. ”

“ The chief interest perhaps of the efforts made by Nicholas and his successors to bring about an European peace, for the sake of driving back the Turk and recovering Constantinople, lies in the measure which they suggest of the distance which the world had travelled since the age of the Crusades. In the eleventh and in the twelfth, even in the thirteenth century, a religious sentiment could stir the princes and the peoples of Europe to go forth, not to avert a danger, but to rescue a holy place of pilgrimage. ”

“ The greater part of the host which was collected was a tattered undisciplined rabble; but infinite patience and energy overcame all difficulties. With a few vessels Hunyady broke through the chain of barques by which Mohammad had barred the Save, and entered the besieged city. Though the defenders were far inferior in number and equipment, yet by valour and cunning they defeated all the efforts of the enemy and at last forced the whole army to retreat in confusion, and with tremendous losses, amounting to more than 50,000 killed and wounded, 300 guns, and 27 war-boats. ”

“ The situation and prospects of the Ottoman empire seemed changed on the death of the conqueror. The prosperity and growth of that empire depended wholly on the personality of the autocrat who ruled it; and the two sons whom Mohammad left behind were made in a different mould from their vigorous father. Bayazid the elder, who was governor of the province of Amasia, was a man of mild nature who cared for the arts of peace, and would have been well contented to rest upon the conquests which had been already achieved, and to enjoy the fruits of the labours of his fathers. ”

“ Against an army thus disciplined and organised, propelled by the single will of an able ruler, Europe without unity could do nothing. The sipahis were still the restless herdsmen of the waste, impatient of tillage, eager to go forth where there was fighting and plunder; only standing forces of mercenary troops could have availed against them, and such forces would have cost enormous sums of money which were not to be raised. ”

“ One night he penetrated in disguise into the Turkish camp, hoping to slay Mohammad; but he mistook the tent of a general for that of the Sultan. By his address and boldness he seems to have inflicted a serious repulse on the invaders; but he was presently attacked on the other side by Stephen, the prince of Moldavia. After his divided army had sustained a double defeat, he fled to Hungary, and his brother Radu was enthroned by the Turks.
The stress of the struggle now devolved upon the northern principality of Moldavia, and there too a strong man had arisen. ”

“ They were unable to marry or exercise any trade, or leave their camp. It is clear that the existence of such a body of warriors was in itself a constant incentive or even compulsion to warlike enterprises; and peacefully inclined sultans like Bayazid II were unpopular with the Janissaries who were more fanatical in fighting for Islam even than men of Muslim race. Without any bonds of family or country, they were the creatures of the Sultan, in turn imposing their yoke on him. Scanderbeg's tenacious devotion to the memory of his father and the Albanian mountains was an isolated exception. ”

“ If the conquest had resembled in character the old Persian conquest, if the inhabitants had been required only to pay tribute to a distant ruler and receive his garrisons in their cities, the lot of these lands would have been light. But they were taken into full possession by their new lords; and oriental nomads of an alien and intolerant religion were planted as the dominant race amid the Christian population. The circumstance that the Ottomans were nomads (they were a clan of the Turkish tribe of Oghuz) gives their empire its significance in the history of mankind. ”

“ Mohammad followed the luckless people to this sequestered fort, and on their surrender they were all gathered together and slain, six thousand of them. At Calavryta a renegade Albanian chief who had been in Turkish service was sawn in two. Here and elsewhere thousands were reduced to slavery. Demetrius had submitted without a blow at Mistra; Thomas fled to Corfu and ended his life at Rome as a pensioner of the Pope. It was thus that the Morea became perhaps the most miserable province in the Turkish realm; nor can there be any doubt but that Mohammad deliberately intended this to be its fate. ”

“ In the theoretical morality of Islam nothing is of higher importance than justice and the protection of the oppressed; and it is probable that under the early Ottoman rulers the administration of justice was better in Turkey than in any European land; the Mohammadan subjects of the Sultans were more orderly than most Christian communities and crimes were rarer. Under Mohammad II there were two supreme cadiaskers, or military judges, one for Europe and one for Asia (the conquests of Selim added a third for Syria and Egypt) ”

“ Hunyady crossed the Danube and raided Turkish territory, while Mohammad beleaguered the Servian fortresses of Ostroviza and Semendra (Smederevo) . He took Ostroviza, but Semendra—a stronghold of capital strategic importance for operations against Servia, Hungary, and Wallachia—was saved by the arrival of the Magyar general, and Mohammad retreated. A large detachment of the retreating army encountered Hunyady near Krusovac. No regular battle was fought; a panic seized the Turks and they were routed with slaughter. ”

“ The cavalry were beaten back by the steady fire of the enemy; and the Hungarian right wing, when the Turks spread out leftwards and rounded on its flank, retired towards the Danube. Twenty thousand of the Hungarian army were killed. The King escaped from the field, but in crossing a brook his horse slipped on the bank and he was drowned. The Sultan advanced and took possession of Buda, but he did not leave a garrison; he was not yet prepared to annex Hungary. His army was somewhat demoralised, and grave news came of troubles in Asia Minor. ”

“ The Janissaries, organised by the great Sultan Orchan, constituted the infantry of the Ottoman army, and at the beginning of Solyman's reign they numbered only about 12,000; yet this small body often decided battles; they had won Kosovo and Varna, and had never been known to flee. All except men of Christian birth, thus trained from childhood, were jealously excluded from the corps, which was under the command of the Aga of the Janissaries, one of the highest officers of the realm. ”

“ It is a disputed question whether Venice urged the Ottoman Sultan (as successor to the Byzantine emperors) to lay claim to southern Italy; but at all events in 1480 Mohammad sent an armament under Kedyk Ahmad, and Otranto fell at once. The commandant and the archbishop were sawn in two—the favourite Ottoman mode of intimidation at this time. From the surrounding land some people were transported as slaves to Albania. But the Turks made no progress. Want of provisions hampered them, and presently Ferdinand arrived with an army and confined the invaders to Otranto. ”

“ Ibrahim, says a contemporary Venetian report, is "the heart and breath" of the Padishah, who does nothing without consulting him; he is learned, fond of reading, and knows his law well. In 1529, before setting out for Hungary, Solyman increased his salary to 60,000 ducats and made him commander-in-chief (serasker) of the army: "all that he says is to be regarded as proceeding from my own pearl-raining mouth." This delegation of supreme military command is an innovation not in the spirit of Orchan or Mohammad, and is a premonition of the new paths along which the empire is about to travel. ”

“ Such a levy was almost equivalent to a standing army; but there was also a standing army in a precise sense,—an establishment of paid troops, recruited from captive children who were robbed from hostile or subject Christian countries and educated in Islam. A strict, but not cruel, discipline trained some of them to be foot-soldiers; while others, under an equally severe regime, served in the seraglio; thence rising gradually to offices of state, or being drafted into the brilliant corps of the paid mounted soldiery who were the bodyguard of the Sultan. ”

“ The Ottoman State is marked off from the rest of Europe by a legal and political system which is based entirely on religious foundations. In Christian countries religion has frequently modified the principles of secular law; but in Turkey the problem of legislators has been to relax or adjust the interpretation of the canons of Islam, so as to permit it to take its place among European States, and to establish a modus vivendi with neighbouring unbelievers. Under Mohammad II a general code of law called "the Pearl" was drawn up by the Molla Khusrev in 1470 ”

“ On the other hand Francis I concluded a treaty with Zapolya, who promised that if he died without male heir the crown of Hungary should descend to the French King's son, the Duke of Orleans. No French prince was destined ever to sit on the Hungarian throne; but before half a century had passed a grandson of Francis was to wear the crown of Poland, and the political idea was the same.
One of the results of the victory of Mohacs was the consolidation of Ottoman rule in the north-western countries, Bosnia and Croatia. ”

“ But in the fifteenth, though the unbeliever had won his way into Europe, had reached the Danube and threatened the Adriatic, the imminent danger to Christendom left Christendom lukewarm. Except religious zeal, there was no force which could compel an European effort. With the growth of "humanism" the old kind of religious enthusiasm had passed away. Pope Nicholas himself illustrated the change of things since the days of Urban II, when, at the very time of his proclaiming a Crusade, he privately sent agents to the East, to rescue from the deluge all Greek manuscripts they could lay hands on. ”

“ Mirtschea the Great, prince of Wallachia, who by astute diplomacy steered his way between Hungary and Poland, had fought for Christendom in the disastrous battles of Kosovo (1389) and Nicopolis (1396) , but was obliged to submit to the suzerainty of Mohammad I (1412) . After his death civil wars between pretenders desolated and demoralised the principality for forty years, until (1456) a strong man came to the helm in the person of Vlad IV. The princes of Wallachia and of Moldavia were elected by the people out of the princely families ”

“ The oppressive measures adopted by them, at the instigation of the Pope and Hungary, towards the Patarenes, alienated many of that sect, who fled into Turkey or remaining in the country acted as spies for the Sultan, while some actually embraced Islam. Mohammad resolved to reduce Bosnia to complete subjection. When he sent an embassy to demand tribute, King Stephen, taking the envoy into a treasure-chamber, said, "Here is the tribute; but I have no mind to send it to the Sultan." "It is a fine treasure to keep," replied the envoy, "but I know not whether it will bring you luck ”

“ But the cause of Ahmad was not won. The Janissaries, whose hearts had been captivated by the bold stroke of Selim, broke out in mutiny and riot when Ahmad drew nigh to take possession of the throne, and were pacified only by a pledge from Bayazid that this design should not be carried out. Ahmad thereupon sought to get Asia Minor into his power; Corcud intrigued at the same time for his own hand; and finally, in the spring of 1512, Selim advanced from the Crimea to the Danube, and, supported by the Janissaries who would brook no opposition, forced Bayazid to abdicate (April 25) . ”

“ In the perpetual struggle between the herdsmen and the tillers of the soil which has been waged from remote ages on the continents of Europe and Asia, the advance of the Ottomans was a decisive victory for the children of the steppes. ”

“ For three and a half years he wrought and hoped, but with all his efforts could do no more than send a few ducats to Scanderbeg, or float a few galleys to harass the shores of the eastern Aegean. He was succeeded by Aeneas Sylvius, under the name of Pius II (August, 1458) . While the West had been talking, Mohammad had been advancing; and in a great Council, assembled with much trouble at Mantua (1459) , Pius said: "Each of his victories is the path to a new victory; he will conquer the kings of the West, abolish the Gospel, and ultimately impose the law of Mohammad on all peoples." ”

“ Demetrius, distinguished by his luxury, ruled over the east, and his seat was in the rocky fortress of Mistra, at the foot of Mount Taygetus, three miles west of Sparta. The court officials, who were the ministers of their oppression, were detested throughout the land, which was further distracted by the hatred between the Greek inhabitants and the Albanian shepherds, who had come down and settled here in the previous century after the fall of the Servian empire. The invasion of the Turks in 1452 had desolated the land and given the Albanian herds a wider range ”