Chapter III: Appendix: Genealogy of the Ottoman Sultans 382 (2)

The conquest of Thrace by the Ottomans and the defeat of the allied Christians at the Maritza were as great blows to the Bulgarians as to the Greek Empire, though they had given no assistance to the allies. The occupation of Adrianople and Philippopolis opened the way to a further advance into Bulgaria and Macedonia. It was not, however, till 1366 that Murad availed himself of this advantage, and commenced the series of attacks which ultimately made him master of Macedonia and of a great part of Bulgaria and Serbia. The position of affairs in the peninsula at this time was very favourable to him. The Bulgarians, Serbians, Bosnians, and Greeks were madly jealous of one another; each of them preferred the extension of the Ottoman rule to that of their rivals. Bulgaria alone, if united, might have successfully resisted Murad. But in 1365 its Czar, Alexander, died, and his kingdom was divided between his three sons. Sisman, the elder, got the largest share. The other two gave no assistance to their brother when the Ottomans invaded his country. Between 1366 and 1369, Murad advanced into Bulgaria, and took possession of the Maritza Valley, as far as the Rhodope Mountains. In 1371 Lalashahin encountered an army of Bulgarians and Serbians at Samakof, not far from the city of Sofia, and completely defeated it, with the result that Bulgaria, up to the Balkan range, was annexed to the Ottoman Empire. It remained so for over five hundred years, till its release in our own times.

After this great victory at Samakof, Lalashahin was instructed by Murad not to pursue his conquest of Bulgaria north of the Balkan range, but to proceed westward, and, in concert with Evrenos, to invade Macedonia as far as the River Vardar. This occupied the two generals in the years 1371-2. Kavalla, Druma, and Serres fell into their hands. In 1372 they crossed the Vardar River and penetrated into Old Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia. The main part of Serbia, however, remained in the hands of Lazar, its prince. But he was compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Sultan. As regards the part of Bulgaria not annexed, its prince, Sisman, was allowed to retain his independence. His daughter entered the harem of Murad, with the understanding that she was not to be compelled to adopt the Moslem religion. It was not till 1381 that a further advance was made by Murad. He then sent his armies across the Vardar River and captured Monastir. He also took possession of Sofia, and in 1386 of Nisch, after a fierce struggle with the Serbians.

3. MURAD’S ACQUISITIONS IN ASIA MINOR.

Between the years 1376 and 1380 Murad found himself able to turn his attention in the direction of Asia Minor. In the first of these years he induced the Emir of Kermia, doubtless by threats of war, to give a daughter in marriage to Bayezid, his eldest son. She brought with her as dowry a considerable part of Kermia and the fortress of Kutayia, a position of great strategic importance. In 1377 he followed this up by inducing the Emir of Hamid to sell a great portion of his Emirate lying between Tekke, Kermia, and Karamania, including the district of Ak-Sheir. The effect of this acquisition was to make his frontier conterminous with that of Karamania. Again, in 1378, he declared war against the Emir of Tekke, and annexed a part of his territory, leaving to him Adalia.

Murad made no further effort to extend his dominion in Asia till 1387, when he led a large army against Alaeddin, the Emir of Karamania. For this purpose he called upon the Greek Emperor and the Princes of Serbia and Bulgaria as vassals of the Empire to send their contingents. His two sons, Bayezid and Yacoub, commanded the wings of this army. With a view to conciliate the peasantry of the district he passed through, and to ensure full supplies of food to his army, he gave strict orders that there was to be no pillage, and that the lives and property of the country people were to be respected. Among his troops were two thousand Serbians, whom the Prince of Serbia was bound by his recent treaty to supply. These men refused to obey Murad’s order, and committed atrocious depredations on the route of the army. Murad inflicted severe punishment on them, and directed many of them to be put to death as a warning to the others. The army then marched to meet the Karamanians. A battle again took place on the plain of Angora. Bayezid especially distinguished himself by the fierceness of his cavalry charges and earned for himself the sobriquet of ‘the Thunderbolt.’

There are different versions as to the issue of this battle. Some historians describe it as a great victory for Murad, and claim that he treated the vanquished Emir of Karamania with great generosity, insisting only on a token of submission. Murad, however, was not in the habit of neglecting to take full advantage of any successes of his armies. It is very certain that, in this case, he did not succeed in extending his Empire. Karamania retained its independence for many years to come, and did not even submit to a nominal vassalage. It seems more probable, therefore, that this battle was indecisive, and that Murad withdrew, without having effected his purpose.

Murad, who was now near the age of seventy, would have been glad to end his life in repose, but he was recalled to Europe by an outbreak of the Serbians. It appeared that the Serbian soldiers, on their return to their homes, after the campaign against the Karamanians, told the story of the execution of their comrades by order of Murad. It caused universal indignation among the Serbians. They could not understand a war conducted without the levy of booty from the enemy’s country. The whole of Serbia rose in rebellion. An alliance was formed with Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Albania. Assistance was obtained from Hungary and Wallachia. Murad again took the field in command of an Ottoman army, and, crossing the Balkans, captured Schumla and Tirnova, and then marched towards the Danube. Sisman, the King of Bulgaria, shut himself up in Nicopolis, on the Danube, but was soon compelled to come to terms. He agreed to give up Silistria to the Turks, and to pay a tribute in the future.

Lazar, the King of Serbia, in spite of this defection, continued the struggle against the Ottomans, and Sisman himself broke the treaty almost before the ink was dry. He refused to give up Silistria, and sent a contingent in aid of the Serbians. Murad sent part of his army, under Ali Pasha, against Sisman, who was again shut up in Nicopolis. This fortress was captured. Murad was again generous in sparing Sisman’s life, but this time he deprived the southern part of Bulgaria of its autonomy, and insisted on its being completely incorporated in the Turkish Empire.

Lazar, the King of Serbia, continued the war. Murad, in spite of his seventy years, led his army, supported, as in Asia Minor, by his two sons. The decisive battle took place on the plain of Kossova, at the point of junction between Serbia and Bulgaria. It was fiercely contested. At a critical point of it a Serbian noble, Milosch Kobilowitch, who on the previous day had been falsely charged in the Serbian camp with disaffection and treason, gave signal proof of his patriotism by riding boldly into the Turkish lines, as though he was a deserter, and claiming that he had a most important message to deliver to the Sultan. He was allowed to approach Murad, and, while kneeling before him, plunged a dagger into his heart, causing a mortal wound. Milosch then made a desperate rush to escape, but in vain. He was captured and brought to the Sultan’s tent. Meanwhile Murad, in spite of his approaching death, was able to give orders for the charge of his reserves, which decided the battle in favour of the Ottomans. The Serbians and their allies were completely defeated and routed. Lazar was taken prisoner and was brought to the Sultan’s tent. Murad lived long enough to direct the execution in his presence of Lazar and Milosch. He then expired.

To complete the tragedy of the day, Bayezid, on hearing of the death of his father, and his own consequent accession to the throne, gave immediate orders for the murder of his brother Yacoub, who had been his valiant companion in arms in so many battles. This was effected in the presence of the dead body of the father. The brutal deed was justified by a verse from the Koran, “Rebellion is worse than execution.” It was assumed by Bayezid that his brother would claim the throne against him. This was the first recorded case of fratricide in the Othman royal race. Thenceforth it became the settled practice for a Sultan of Turkey, on his accession to the throne, immediately to put to death his brothers and other collaterals, lest they should dispute the succession with him. By the law of succession the eldest living male of the reigning family, and not the eldest son of a defunct Sultan, was entitled to the throne. This supplied an additional motive for the practice of fratricide, for the new Sultan, by murdering his brothers and uncles, ensured the succession, after his own death, to his eldest son free from competition. In later times, however, when public opinion would no longer justify fratricide, and when the law of succession of the oldest male in the family was more fully recognized, the Sultan, on his accession to the throne, directed the close confinement of his next heir, generally his brother. It followed from this practice that the heir to the throne, instead of being employed on State affairs, or as a general, and gaining experience, was treated as a prisoner, and was forbidden to take any part in public affairs. It will be seen that this practice of forced seclusion of the heir to the throne during the lifetime of the reigning Sultan was one of the main causes of the degeneracy of the Othman dynasty.

Reverting to Murad, it has been shown how important an epoch his reign was in the growth of the Ottoman Empire. During the twenty-four years of war, in which he led his armies in the field, he never met with a reverse. He extended the Empire for the first time into vast territories inhabited not by Turks or by Byzantines, but by sturdy Christian races, such as the Bulgarians, Serbians, and Bosnians. For the first time also the Turks came into conflict with the Hungarians, and defeated them. The influence of the Empire was extended practically to the Danube. Some of the intervening territory was not treated as conquered country and added to the Empire, but was allowed to retain the position of tributary or vassal States, as in the case of Serbia. Other parts, such as Thrace, Macedonia, and Bulgaria, were fully incorporated in the dominion of the Sultan.

Murad, when not engaged in war, devoted himself to perfecting the 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.

Returning to Adrianople, Bayezid determined to obtain immediate possession of Constantinople. The Greek Empire had been already deprived of nearly all territory outside the walls of its capital. The Sultan opened proceedings against it by sending an envoy to the Emperor with this insulting message:—

When I dethroned your predecessor, Manuel, it was not in your
interest but in mine. If, then, you want to remain my friend, you
must surrender your crown. I will give you any other government you
may wish for. If you do not consent, I swear by God and the Prophet I
will not spare a soul in your city; I will exterminate all of them.

The citizens of Constantinople, rather than experience the terrible fate which they knew would befall them in the event of a successful assault by the Ottoman army, were willing to come to terms. But the Emperor, who was buoyed up by hope of assistance from the Christian Powers, refused to acquiesce in a pusillanimous surrender. He replied to the ambassador in dignified terms: “Tell your master that, feeble as we are, we know no other power to whom to address ourselves if it be not God, Who protects the feeble and humbles the powerful. Let the Sultan do what he pleases.”

At this stage, and before he could give effect to his threats, Bayezid was compelled by great events in Asia to raise the siege of Constantinople. Hitherto, in twelve years of incessant war, Bayezid had been uniformly successful. He had annexed the greater part of Asia Minor, Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, and Thessaly. He had reduced to vassalage the Greek Empire itself and Serbia, Wallachia, Bosnia, and a great part of Greece. He had defeated the feudal chivalry of Europe in the great battle of Nicopolis. He had not met with a single reverse. The next two years, the last of his reign, were to result in disastrous and overwhelming defeat to him, in his capture and death, and in the temporary crumpling up of the Turkish Empire. He came into conflict for the first time with Timur, a general and a conqueror more resolute, crafty, able, and cruel than himself.

Timur the Tartar, better known to us as Timurlane—Timur the lame, for he had met in early life with an accident which lamed him—was the greatest, the most ruthless, and the most devastating of warriors recorded in all history. Born in 1333, a descendant through his mother of the great Gengis Khan, he began life as a petty chief of a Tartar tribe in the neighbourhood of Samarkand. It was not till he had reached the age of thirty-five that he achieved eminence over other neighbouring Tartar States. He then conceived the ambition of universal conquest. “As there was only one God in heaven,” he said, “so there should be only one ruler on earth”—that one was to be himself. He went a long way towards gaining this object of his ambition, for he embarked on a career which, in rather less than thirty-five years, resulted in an empire extending from the Great Wall of China to the frontier of Asia Minor, and from the Sea of Aral to the River Ganges and the Persian Gulf. He had, by this time, conquered twenty-seven separate States and extinguished nine dynasties. He effected his purpose, not only by force of arms, but by a deliberate policy of terrorism. After victory he was of settled purpose ruthless in cruelties on the greatest scale.

It was obvious that, sooner or later, he would come into conflict with what was, at that time, the only other growing military Power in the world—the Ottoman Empire. The two potentates had already become neighbours, and causes of dispute and antagonism were often arising between them. Each had sheltered refugee princes, whose territories had been absorbed by the other, and who were engaged in intrigues to stir up war between the two rivals, in the hope of regaining their possessions. Insolent messages passed between the two potentates.

What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? [wrote Timur to
Bayezid]. Thou hast fought some battles in the woods of Anatolia;
contemptible trophies! Thou hast obtained some victories over the
Christians of Europe; thy sword was blessed by the Apostle of
God; and thy obedience to the precepts of the Koran in waging war
against the infidel is the sole consideration that prevents us from
destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark of the Moslem world.
Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert the thunder of our
vengeance which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than
an ant; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas, they will
trample thee under their feet.

Bayezid replied in terms of the greatest indignation. He protested that Timur had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes.

Thy armies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows
of the flying Tartars against the scimitars and battle-axes of my
firm and invincible Janissaries? I will guard the princes who have
implored my protection; seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan
and Erzerum are mine; and unless the tribute be paid I will demand
the arrears under the walls of Tauris and Sultania.

And he added an insult of a yet grosser kind which, by its allusion to the harem, was the worst that could be devised by a Moslem:—

If I fly from thy arms may my wives be thrice divorced from my bed;
but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest thou
again receive thy wives after they have thrice endured the embrace of
a stranger.

After this interchange of abuse Timur determined, in 1400, to attack and invade Asia Minor from Armenia, at the head of a horde of armed men, estimated by historians at not less than eight hundred thousand. He laid siege to Sivas, in Cappadocia, on the Armenian frontier, which had only been captured by Bayezid about three years previously. It was now defended by a garrison of Turks, under command of Ertoghrul, the eldest son of Bayezid. The fortifications were immensely strong, but Timur was ready to sacrifice any number of men in assaulting and capturing the city. He employed six thousand miners in undermining its defences with galleries and propping up the walls temporarily with timber smeared with pitch. When the mines were completed, fire was applied to the timber, and the walls gradually sank into the cavities laid open to them, and afforded entrance to the assaulting columns. The city was captured. Four thousand of its defenders were buried alive by order of Timur, and Ertoghrul was executed.

Bayezid, thus challenged, advanced, in 1401, with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men to avenge the disaster at Sivas. Timur, however, after the capture of that city, refrained from advancing farther into Asia Minor. He passed into Syria and captured Damascus, and thence into Mesopotamia for the capture of Bagdad. It was not till the next year, 1402, that he determined to return to Asia Minor and to humble Bayezid. He retraced his steps to Sivas, and thence, after a further exchange of insolent messages with the Ottoman Sultan, he went in search of him towards Angora, taking the route of Cæsarea and Kir Sheir.

Bayezid had also collected a great army in the east of Asia Minor, and had finally concentrated it in the neighbourhood of Angora. He showed none of his previous skill as a general, though all of his insolence and bravado. His army was discontented by his avarice, and by his neglect to pay them out of the well-filled treasury. He refused to follow the advice of his best generals, who warned him against meeting Timur’s vast hosts on a field where they could deploy their whole strength. The two armies met at last on the plain of Angora, the site of many previous famous battles. It is almost inconceivable that Bayezid, in arrogant contempt of his foe, employed his army, in the face of the enemy, in a great hunt for game, which led them into a district devoid of water, where his soldiers suffered terribly, and five thousand are said to have died of thirst.

On return to their camp they found that Timur had diverted the stream which supplied it with water. Bayezid was forced to fight at a disadvantage. The Tartars, who formed a fourth part of the Ottoman army, were not to be relied on in this battle. Their sympathies were with their fellow-Tartars under Timur. Bayezid had committed the fatal error of placing them in the front line, after his usual tactics of meeting the first encounter of the enemy with inferior troops. But in this case the Tartars deserted on the field of battle. The Serbian contingent, under Prince Stephen, and other Christian vassal troops fought with the utmost gallantry and loyalty. But it was in vain. The whole Ottoman army was outnumbered, overwhelmed, and routed with great slaughter. Bayezid with his bodyguard made a last stand. “The Thunderbolt,” says the Turkish historian, “continued to wield a heavy battle-axe. As a starving wolf scattering a flock of sheep he scattered the enemy. Each blow of his redoubtable axe struck in such a way that there was no need of a second blow.” But in the end he was overpowered and taken prisoner.

Bayezid for some time after his capture was treated with unwonted generosity by Timur, who was impressed by his dignified bearing, in spite of his overwhelming defeat and humiliation. But after an attempt to escape he was more rigidly guarded, and was put into fetters at night. The treatment of him became more cruel and contemptuous. He was carried by day in the train of Timur, when on the march, in a litter, which was in effect a cage[12] with open bars, exposed to the derision and contempt of the Tartars. His wife, Despina, the Serbian princess, was compelled to serve Timur with drink at his meals in a state of nudity, and with other women of Bayezid’s harem was taken into that of the conqueror. Timur is also said to have made a footstool of his conquered foe.

Bayezid died of a broken heart after eight months of humiliation, at the age of forty-eight. During that time Timur overran the greater part of Asia Minor, capturing Nicæa and Brusa and many other strongholds from the Ottomans, and Smyrna from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The walls of Smyrna were undermined in the same way as those of Sivas. In two weeks Timur effected a capture which Bayezid had failed to do in three times that length of time. The Knights, when they found that the city was no longer tenable, fought their way down to their galleys against the crowd of despairing inhabitants. Most of them escaped to Rhodes and effected there another settlement. Those who failed to escape were put to death by Timur, who built a pyramid of their heads. Everywhere there was ruthless cruelty. When approaching the city of Ephesus, children came out to meet him singing songs to appease his wrath. “What is this noise?” he asked. When told, he ordered his horsemen to ride over the children. They were trampled to death.

Timur reinstated in their former territories, as tributaries to his own Empire, most of the petty princes who had been dispossessed by the Turks, including the Emir of Karamania. He eventually returned to Samarkand, where he made preparations for the invasion of China, but before this could be realized he died, at the age of seventy-one, two years after the death of Bayezid. As a result of his raid into Asia Minor the Ottoman Empire there, for the time being, completely collapsed. But the Tartars disappeared without leaving any trace behind them.

If Bayezid’s physical downfall was overwhelming and humiliating, his moral decadence was even worse, and, as it turned out, was more permanently injurious to the people of his Empire by the evil example it set. In the brief periods of peace, spent at Brusa and Adrianople, he gave way to self-indulgence and vice of a deplorable kind. He was the first of his race to break the laws of the Prophet and to drink too freely of wine. In company with his Grand Vizier, Ali, he was addicted to drunken orgies. Still worse, he was tempted by that boon companion to give way to vice of unmentionable depravity, condemned by all the world. The Empire was ransacked for good-looking boys, the sons of Christian parents, who were compelled to embrace Islamism and to enter the service of the Court, nominally as pages, but really to pander to the degrading desire of the Sultan. In adopting such practices, Bayezid set the fashion to others of his entourage. The moral infection then spread widely among the upper classes of society, especially among the judges and ulemas. There can be little doubt that immorality infected the upper society of the Empire and was one of the causes which ultimately led to decadence and ruin.

It is to be noted of Bayezid that in his short but strenuous career of conquest he did not show any falling off of vigour and courage as a result of his excesses. But in his final campaign against Timur his conduct was so fatuous as to give rise to the belief that his gross debauchery had resulted in softening of the brain. However that may have been, he met in Timur a greater man than himself who, even at the age of seventy, had lost none of his vigour of mind and body, and who, as master also of bigger battalions, was practically invincible.

V

MAHOMET I

1413-21

ON the death of Sultan Bayezid, in captivity, it seemed as though the Ottoman Empire was doomed to extinction. Asia Minor had already passed out of its hands, and was either in possession of the Emirs who had been reinstated in their territories by Timur, and who had sworn allegiance to him, or was still in the occupation of the invading Tartars. It was not to be expected that the Empire in Europe would survive when it could no longer draw support from Asia. The Christian populations of Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Wallachia would soon reassert their independence, and the Greek Empire might be expected to recover some of its lost provinces. The Turkish Empire, however, showed a most unexpected vitality. It survived not only the invasion of Timur, but civil war, which after the death of Bayezid broke out between four of his sons. An interregnum of ten years occurred, during which there was internecine war between these claimants to his throne. The Empire emerged from these stupendous difficulties, under the able rule of the youngest of them, Mahomet I, as strong as ever, and without the loss of a single province.

Timur’s hosts, after ravaging the whole of Asia Minor, departed like a swarm of locusts which has denuded a district of its produce and then seeks fresh ground. They returned to Central Asia. They left nothing behind in Asia Minor of Tartar rule, either of an army or of an administration. The field was left open to the Ottomans to fight among themselves and their former vassals and neighbours for such a settlement as could be achieved by the strongest of them.

Of the six sons of Bayezid, five fought with him at Angora in command of divisions of his army. One of them, Mustapha, was supposed to be among the slain; another, Musa, was taken prisoner and shared the captivity of his father. The other three escaped. The eldest of them, Solyman, accompanied by the Grand Vizier, Ali, and Hassan, the Agha of the Janissaries, made his way to Adrianople, where, on the death of Bayezid, he had himself proclaimed Sultan, and exercised power as such over the European provinces of the Empire. Issa, a younger son, fled to Brusa, where he also claimed to be successor to his father, and Mahomet, the youngest son, but by far the ablest, retired to Amasia, a small principality in the north-east of Asia Minor. He there assumed authority over the district. After the death of their father these three claimants for succession to his Empire fought it out between themselves, and, later on, a fourth claimant was added to the list in Musa, who had been set free by Timur, in order that he might convey the dead body of his father for interment at Brusa.