Part 22

Considerably more important were the operations of the Sultan’s lieutenant, Lala-Schahin. There were internal dissensions between the Bulgars and the Roumanian Layko, a feudatory of the King of Hungary. Allying himself with Layko, Lala-Schahin succeeded in capturing Sofia, and for a while even Nisch was occupied. No attempt was as yet made by the Slavs after their earlier defeat to protect themselves on a large scale. At this point the method and aim of the pacific penetration policy of the Sultan, which alternated with carefully devised methods of military aggression, can be seen in the picturesque story of the plot entered into by Andronicus, the son of John the Emperor, and Sandschi, the son of Murad, to take the lives and the crowns of their respective fathers. The conspiracy was detected and defeated, and the young Turkish prince died from the effect of having hot vinegar poured in his eyes. Andronicus, escaping from his prison, after the common Byzantine penalty of blinding his sight had been, perhaps intentionally, inflicted with such mildness that he regained it, made a treaty with the Genoese and with Murad. He agreed to confer special privileges on the Turks if they would help to secure for him the imperial crown. For three years the usurpation lasted, and John and his faithful son Manuel were only restored to their rights by Murad’s friendly connivance, which was secured by the promise of 3000 ducats a year. Of less value must have been the additional agreement that the Byzantine princes would serve in the Sultan’s army.

Andronicus had fled to the Turkish lines and, through the intervention of Murad, he received later Thessalonika as an appanage. He was aided by the Genoese, while his father had as allies the Venetians, a division of interests out of which grew the celebrated naval war, called that of Chioggia, between the two rival cities of Italy. Murad preferred to keep quiet while the two Italian naval powers were in force in his neighborhood, and he devoted himself with much sagacity to fishing in the troubled waters of the Asiatic emirates, with results both in war and diplomacy that were eminently satisfactory.

In 1387 after there had been such successes of the Turks to record as the surrender of Monastir, and Prilep, and Schtip, and even the temporary seizure of Thessalonika, the Servians undertook, under the direction of a feudal lord, Lazar, to organize a systematic plan of resistance. Lazar was first aided by a Bosnian king, Tourtko, who had, however, ambitious designs on certain lands under the Hungarian crown, designs that soon robbed his promised co-operation of its influence. Schischman of Bulgaria was drawn into the league, and in Lazar’s army there appeared also contingents of Albanians and Roumanians standing side by side with the Slavs. The crisis was fully appreciated by Murad. He summoned new troops from Asia, and all the greatest generals took part in the campaign, in addition to his two sons, Bajesid and Jakab. The decisive battle was fought on ground that was part of Lazar’s own domains near Prischtina, on the wide plains called Kossowopolje. Murad was surrounded by his band of Janitschars; to hold back the enemy the camels of the Asiatic troops were drawn up in front. The Christians were confident in their superior number, for they had 200,000 men under arms ready to begin the attack.

From a contemporary account comes the narrative of the death of the Sultan. It is there told how ten young men of distinguished birth, bound by oath to stand by one another, succeeded in forcing their way to the tent of Murad. One of these, Mulasch Obilitsch, managed to inflict two fatal wounds on the neck and body of the aged ruler. But this successful stroke did not end the fight, for Bajesid, who was renowned for the rapidity and daring of his generalship, drove his wing of the Ottoman army into the Christian ranks, broke through them, and put them to flight at the very moment they thought themselves victorious. It is said that in the panic Lazar lost his life; probably he was captured and subsequently sacrificed in revenge for the murder of Murad. (June 15, 1389.)

Both armies withdrew after the battle. Murad’s fate made him a martyr to the faith, and he is one of the Sahibs or Elect of Islam. Even the Greeks praise his character as being benevolent towards the conquered, whom he understood how to win over to his side after he had conquered them by the irresistible force of his arms. He laid the foundations of the Moslem state, adapting it shrewdly for rule over conquered populations. They were accepted as tenants of the new owners of the soil, paying tithes. The Sultan himself received the Kharadsch or tribute money. At the same time the subject races retained their faith, their customs, their church, their courts, and their aristocracy. The warrior class was made up of native Turks and some renegades. These became the sole owners of the land and had to take their place in the regular yearly campaigns. There was, besides, a standing army of young foot soldiers composed of captives taken in war, the Janitschar class, who looked up to the Sultan as their father. For administrative progress there was a corps of officials, whose functions descended from father to son, composed of “Begs.” At the top of this bureaucracy was a Beglerbeg for each half of the kingdom, one for Asia and one for Europe, and a Wesir or Pascha, the equivalent in Turkish of the former word, which is Arabic. The administrative divisions under the Begs were called Sandjaks (flags) because these were carried by the Begs as emblems of their authority.

The battle of Kossovo, in which both opposing armies lost their leaders, became in Servian folklore and poetry a source of inspiration of the kind that among Romance peoples gathers about the defeat of Charles the Great in the Pyrenees and the death of Roland. The incidents of the heroic theme take up the tragedy of the battle; Slavic improvisers sing of the death of Lazar, of his father-in-law, the aged King, and his nine brothers-in-law. Mulasch, the slayer of Murad, who met his death in the flight, is not passed over, nor the 12,000 infidels who perished. Like Murad, Lazar, the “Servian crown of gold,” is celebrated as a martyr of his faith, a hero who went voluntarily to his death. The legend tells how St. Elias, in the form of a falcon, came from the Holy City of Jerusalem, bringing him a letter from the Mother of God, in which he was offered the choice of the heavenly empire or dominion over the earth. Lazar made the choice which gave him the spiritual kingdom.

III BAJESID

The first act of Bajesid’s accession was the murder of his younger brother, whom he summoned to his presence and caused to be strangled. This deed left Bajesid the sole representative of the house of Osman; there was no rival now for him to fear. He wished to stand alone as creator of his own statecraft, for he refused to respect any of the arrangements or conventions made by Murad. His own ideal was foreign to the loose feudalized system previously established; he desired to clear away all the dependent dynasties, and to substitute for them officers of his own, directly controlled by him.

The first important military operation of the new reign was directed against Mircea, a Roumanian lord, who had seized and occupied Nicopolis, lately surrendered to Ali-Pascha, Murad’s vizier, by Schischman, before the battle of Kossovo. All the vassals were called under arms to follow the Sultan, who crossed the Danube to where Mircea was awaiting his attack in a position difficult of access on account of roads and swamps. No details of the fight are given, but Bajesid was the victor. (October 10, 1394.) Mircea fled to the Carpathians.

As one result of their victory the Turks left Bucharest in the hands of an Ottoman garrison under the direction of a Roumanian Boyar Vlad, who was appointed to take the place of Mircea, because of the latter’s failure to perform the obligations of a faithful vassal, though he had met with generous treatment from Bajesid after the battle of Kossovo. He was not present at the battle itself, but rendered himself liable to punishment by sending armed contingents of his own men to help the Christian cause. He had been captured and exiled to Broussa; but he was released on condition of paying a small tribute, and retained his right of sovereignty over his subjects. More remarkable still, Bajesid had undertaken not to permit any Turks to establish themselves in Wallachia, or to found mosques in Mircea’s country. By presuming on this favorable and exceptional treatment, Mircea again had brought himself into the status of an exile.

Sigismund of Hungary saw the necessity of helping his unfortunate neighbor Mircea with the Turks so close at hand. Moreover, the Hungarian ruler’s relations with Western Europe, through his connection with the house of Luxembourg, and his inheritance from Prince Louis of Anjou, placed him in a good position to appeal to the warlike lords and knights of France to aid him against infidel aggression. He turned also to the Republic of Venice as a partner in the undertaking, but the prudent merchants of that commonwealth showed no immediate interest in the projected crusade.

The movement initiated from Hungary put heart into the Byzantines, who, because of the change from the mild Murad to the relentless Bajesid, were now hard pressed in the small corner of territory still left them. There was moral depression as well, for Manuel II, when made co-Emperor with his aged father John, had been obliged to accompany the Sultan in all his campaigns with a contingent. This obligation revealed the desperate straits of the Greek Empire, especially as the contingent numbered only a hundred men. One Greek city, Philadelphia, the single imperial possession in Asia Minor, had been attacked by Bajesid because the citizens refused to receive a Turkish garrison, though John had previously agreed to surrender it to Murad. Among the other vassals who were called to take part in this campaign were Stephen, Prince of the Servians, and Manuel, the Byzantine Emperor. As a further sign of dependence on the Sultan’s will, who seemed bent on devising schemes to humiliate the miserable Greek prince, Manuel had been forced to help to repair the fortifications of Gallipoli, and also to coöperate with the Turks in their preparations to send expeditions to Attica and some of the islands of the Ægean. When John V began to restore some of the ruined fortifications around the imperial city, Bajesid ordered him to desist, threatening, if the command were not obeyed, to deprive Manuel of his sight, for the heir, and co-Emperor, was, as usual, doing duty as a vassal in one of the Turkish military expeditions.

On the death of John V, in 1391, Manuel was allowed to succeed to the title, and, officially, good relations were observed between the Sultan and the ruler of Constantinople. Bajesid, however, had no intention of permitting Manuel, whom he knew to be a man of ability and decision, to gain any new ground. The few places contiguous to Constantinople, over which the Greeks still ruled, were constantly being harassed by Ottoman aggressions. Manuel was really being besieged in his own capital. His constant appeals for help were made in vain; the Venetians found it commercially more advantageous to draw closer to the Osmanlis, especially since Bajesid, by absorbing various emirates in Asia Minor, was in control of important trading towns on that coast. A treaty was concluded between the two powers, and the Venetians went so far as to deny their help to the Frankish lords of the Ægean, and were preparing to weaken continental Greece by efforts to gain territory in that quarter at the expense of the Greek master of the Morea, a son of the Emperor.

While Sigismund was seeking allies in the West against the Turks, and Bajesid was elaborating plans for an invasion of the whole country south of his European holdings, Thessalonika was retaken from the Greeks. Without much difficulty Turkish troops in a raid westward penetrated into the Morea, or Peloponnesus, itself, though a wall had been built by the Venetians across the Isthmus. No permanent settlement was made, but still the country suffered, for many of the inhabitants were sold, and, during the course of the expedition, many cities of Greece experienced, for the first time, the barbarism of a Turkish invasion. This expedition to the south was like so many others under the command of the local “Begs,” because Bajesid himself was bent on completing the conquest of Bulgaria. After a long siege Tirnovo was taken by assault; its churches were sacked, and it was, in general, made an example by the ruthless conqueror. Even the dead were left unburied. Along with a multitude of prisoners, the Bulgarian Patriarch was taken to Asia. As to Sischman, he is reputed to have died, either on the battlefield or in captivity; his capital, which had been the residence of the Bulgar Tsars since 1200, sank to the level of a small market town, though once it had been famous for its beautiful buildings, constructed to rival or imitate those of Constantinople. Bulgaria, already a poor fragment of its original extent after the first stage of the invasion, now ceased altogether to exist as a Slav state.

At this disastrous conjuncture for the Christian cause (1394), Sigismund of Hungary intervened by sending representatives to Bajesid to ask by what right he had destroyed Bulgaria. As an answer to the delegation, Bajesid is said to have shown the bows and arrows which decorated the hall of audience. Long anticipating the warlike aims of the Hungarian King, Bajesid made ready to complete the siege of Constantinople, and so to prevent any coöperation between the Greeks and the Christian power farther north. Sigismund, who, as we have mentioned, had relied on his influence in the West to get aid adequate to the undertaking he had in hand, now knew that his embassy which had visited France had been well received by the King, Charles VI, and his great nobles, many of whom had agreed to take up arms. As head of the expedition, John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, had been selected; there were gathered round him many well-known lords as counselors, and a contingent of 10,000 men, foot and horse. Besides these, there were contingents of knights from Germany, Luxembourg, England, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. Even Venice was induced to supply galleys and money for the cause. The Knights of Rhodes sent their fleet and their Grand Master with it. The Slavs of Poland and the Roumanians also joined the crusade. Even Manuel took heart and promised to keep some of the Turkish army occupied by making an offensive movement.

In July, 1396, the various contingents from the Occident met the Hungarian and Roumanian armies at Bada. Mircea, who had had personal experience with the Turkish military power, advised, with the wisdom that comes from defeat, a policy of defensive action, that the allies should wait for Bajesid’s advance into Hungary. But this dilatory program was not acceptable to the Western knights, who declared that they were there to fight, not to waste time in the inaction of a camp. Accordingly the army went down the Danube to Ossovo, and the river was crossed near the so-called Iron Gates.

After winning some initial successes in a land where only the garrisons were Turkish, the crusaders, on September 12, reached Nicopolis, a place well fortified and strongly held by a veteran Ottoman general, Dogon-beg, who commanded a garrison of seasoned troops. At first the French knights tried to take the place by storm; but there were not enough ladders. It was, therefore, resolved to starve it out. The siege was in progress when Bajesid arrived from Constantinople. When he heard of the danger of his general he burnt his siege machines and hastened to Nicopolis. The crusaders would not at first believe that the Sultan was marching upon them; those who first reported the news in the camp were treated as spies and had their ears cut off. When it was found to be true, the Christians massacred the prisoners already taken.

In preparing for the battle there was a fatal diversity of views. Sigismund wished to put Mircea’s men in the first line, since they were not regarded as good warlike material; next to this division he wished to station the Hungarians, and then, as the chief support of the whole, the knights from the West. But the French would hear nothing of this plan, which they regarded as equivalent to an insult; the place in front belonged, they thought, to them by right. A few of the most experienced counselors of John of Burgundy agreed with Sigismund, but nothing could be done to persuade the mass of the French warriors to give way. In the Ottoman army there were no differences of opinion; the Sultan’s vassals were answerable to his command, and, it is to be noted, that Stephen, the young Servian despot, with a contingent of trained warriors, fought for Bajesid against the crusaders. But with this exception the Sultan’s army, in all reckoned at 110,000, was composed of Moslem troops. Out of the 110,000 ranged on the other side, there were about 20,000 crusaders, of whom 16,000 were French. These, with the bravado that came from the traditions of western chivalry, undertook to bear the brunt of the fighting. Sigismund again tried to secure the adoption of his more cautious plan, but without result. The constable of France, Count d’Eu, gave the signal to advance, and the French knights moved to the onslaught with cries of “Vive St. Denis, Vive St. George.” Sigismund’s army, composed of trusty Transylvanians, Hungarians, and Tschechs, was in the center, and on the right wing behind the crusaders, while Mircea’s men made up the left. The Turks were drawn up in three lines; in the first were irregular troops, “akindji” and “azabs,” and a body of mercenaries; in the second Asiatic foot soldiers flanked by two squadrons of “spahis”; behind were stationed what might be called the guard regiments, the Janitschars and the spahis of the Porte; a short distance away in individual formation stood the 5000 Servians under Stephen.

In their reckless dash forward the knights carried everything before them, the irregulars first, and Janitschars afterwards, though these were protected by a line of inclined pointed stakes. The horsemen had no difficulty in leaping over these obstacles, and made fearful execution with their swords on the Turks in the level plain. But, while the French were driving through their enemies in front like a flying wedge, the Turks on the two wings were reforming to make an inclosing movement around the knights. As these could not withdraw, they continued the charge right into the second line of Bajesid, where they put “hors de combat” five thousand Turks. But by this time both men and horses were exhausted, and the ranks were broken. The more cautious leaders advised Count d’Eu to fall back on the Hungarians for support, but he gave orders to renew the charge. The third line of the enemy could not, however, be broken; the Western crusaders were being overwhelmed by fresh bodies of Ottomans.

The Frenchmen might have been aided easily by their allies behind them, but at this moment Mircea, with his Wallachians and the Transylvanian contingent, suddenly deserted the field. This cowardly action threw the rest of the army into a panic. Soon Sigismund was left with but a fraction of his army, the men from the Christian lands in the East lent no aid, nor did they stand their ground. The Hungarian King advanced to rescue the Western crusaders, but a charge made by the Servians, who had as yet kept out of the battle, prevented the union of the now separated portions of the Christian army. The French, though left alone, performed great feats of arms, fighting, as the chronicles say, like mad wolves and frothing boars. Gathering together in small groups of eight or ten, the knights, using their long swords, fortified themselves behind the heaps of dead and wounded Turks. It was told how the standard of the Virgin, defended by John de Vienne and his companions, was six times struck to the ground, only to be proudly lifted again until the heroic Frenchman himself fell, still clasping in his arms the tattered standard. Sigismund also fought desperately, but there was no escape except by retreating northward to the Danube, where the galleys of Rhodes and Venice took on board what was left of the great army of the crusaders.

The splendid equipment of the Western knights furnished Bajesid with immense spoil; but it was a dear victory. From thirty to forty thousand of his men lay dead on the field, as a witness to the prowess of French chivalry. Wherever the French fought, the chronicles record that “for one Christian of those who lay dead on the field, there were thirty Turks or more, or other men of that faith.” Maddened by his losses, the Sultan ordered his prisoners to be killed. The massacre went on all day; 2000 were executed; only those escaped who were likely to be ransomed for large sums, and a few prisoners whose age was less than twenty years. It was the soldiers’ greed rather than the Sultan’s clemency which brought the butchery to an end.

When the news of the defeat was received at Paris, there was universal mourning. Then an embassy was sent, with rich presents for the Sultan, to arrange the ransom of the prisoners. The amount settled upon was 200,000 florins. The Western ambassadors were treated with great courtesy and magnificent entertainments were provided for their amusement. In parting from one of the distinguished captives, John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, Bajesid said, “I do not wish to require from you the oath not to bear arms against me again; if, when you return home, you still find yourself in the humor for fighting me, you will find me always ready to meet you on the field of battle, for I am born for war and conquest.” As presents for Charles VI of France, in exchange for those that had been sent him, he despatched by the French envoys various warlike accouterments, among others a drum and bowstrings, made of human flesh.

The fancifulness of the Turk was also seen by his sending with those who made the formal announcement of his victory to the Moslem princes of Asia and Egypt, the Western prisoners all equipped in their heavy armor to enable the leaders of his own faith to understand the significance of his success. As a result of the battle of Nicopolis, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Roumania accepted Ottoman rule; at the same time the adjoining lands of the Hungarian King became the field of Turkish raids.