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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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The deeds of Joannes (Janos) Hunyady might have awakened the Greeks from their lethargy, had any warlike spirit survived in the nation. The victory of the Hungarian army at the pass of Isladi, and a war with the sultan of Karamania, threatened the Ottoman Empire with serious danger; but the victory of Varna re-established the glory of the sultan’s arms. Neither the successes of the Hungarians nor the presence of a papal force in the Hellespont, which at last made its appearance under the command of Cardinal Gondolmieri, could induce Emperor Joannes to unite his cause with that of the western powers. He had obtained too many proofs of the instability and imprudence of their counsels. The moment he heard of the great victory of Sultan Murad at Varna, he sent an embassy to congratulate his suzerain, and solicit a renewal of their alliance, which the sultan immediately granted. Joannes even contrived to avoid taking part in the war carried on against the sultan by his brother Constantine in Greece, and succeeded in preserving uninterrupted peace until his death in 1448. During his inglorious reign of twenty-three years he never forgot that he was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. He proved precisely the temporising manager of the state that circumstances required; and his pliancy averted, during his lifetime, the calamities which were ready to overwhelm the Greek Empire.
REIGN OF CONSTANTINE XIII (1448-1453 A.D.)
Constantine XIII, the last of the Greek emperors, was residing in his despotat at Sparta when his brother Joannes VII died. As he had been recently engaged in hostilities with the sultan, it was doubtful whether Murad would acknowledge him as emperor, and Demetrius availed himself of these doubts to make another attempt to occupy the throne. The deficiency of truth, honour, and patriotism among the Greek aristocracy during the last century of the Eastern Empire is almost without a parallel in history; but Demetrius was too well known and too generally despised to find a large party even in that worthless aristocracy disposed to espouse his cause, while Constantine, on the other hand, was known to possess both candour and energy, and was respected by all except the most bigoted among the orthodox Greeks.
[1451 A.D.]
Sultan Murad II died in February, 1451, after a prosperous reign of thirty years, and was succeeded by his son Muhammed II, who was only twenty-one years old. Muhammed II was a man of great ambition and great talents; he united with extraordinary activity and courage a degree of judgment rare in his high station, and still rarer at his early age.
The conquest of Constantinople was the first object of his ambition. It was by nature the capital of his dominions, and as long as it remained in the hands of the Greeks the Ottoman Empire lay open to the invasions of the western Christians. Having concluded a truce for three years with John Hunyady, the young sultan crossed over into Asia to suppress the hostile proceedings of Ibrahim, the sultan of Karamania.
Constantine, who appears to have formed a very erroneous idea of the talents and character of Muhammed, took this opportunity of insulting him in the most sensitive manner by sending an embassy to demand an augmentation of the pension of three hundred thousand aspers, which the Ottoman court had accorded to the Greek for the maintenance of Orkhan, the grandson of Suleiman. The ambassadors were instructed to insinuate that, if the demand were not granted, Orkhan might be allowed to lay claim to the Ottoman throne.
Mohammed II
(From a medallion in the Royal Muenz Cabinet, Berlin)
Such an insult was not likely to be ever forgotten by a haughty and ambitious prince. The wary young sultan, however, dismissed the ambassadors with courtesy. But as soon as his Asiatic campaign was finished, he ordered the imperial agents to be expelled from the territory in the valley of the Strymon which had been assigned for the maintenance of Orkhan, and stopped all further payments. Shortly after, without informing Constantine of his intention, he constructed a fortress on the Greek territory at the narrowest part of the Bosporus, opposite a fort which had been constructed by Bajazet I on the Asiatic shore. The distance between the two forts is about three-quarters of a mile, and a rapid current flows between. The sultan had made every preparation for completing the work with extraordinary celerity. An ample supply of materials had been collected before his object was known, and as soon as the plan of the fortress was marked out, a thousand masons and two thousand labourers worked incessantly to complete the walls.
Constantine had good reason to consider the construction of this fortress on his territory, within five miles of his capital, and commanding its approach from the Black Sea, as an infraction of the treaty between the two empires, but he was too weak to resent this signal revenge for his own recent threats. He complained of the hostile invasion of the Greek territory, but Muhammed treated his reclamations with contempt, observing that the ground on which the fortress was built, having been purchased and paid for, was Turkish property, and the emperor of Constantinople, being a vassal of the Porte, had no right to dispute the will of the sultan.
The first open resistance was offered by some Greeks, who endeavoured to prevent Muhammed’s engineers from carrying off the marble columns from a church. These pious Christians were cut to pieces by the Ottoman troops. As the work advanced the sultan’s aggressions increased. His soldiers were allowed to plunder; quarrels ensued in which blood was shed, and then the Turks attacked the Greeks who were getting in the harvest, and slew the reapers. Constantine in alarm closed the gates of Constantinople, cut off all communications between the Greeks and the Ottomans, and sent another embassy to the sultan to ask redress. Muhammed replied by a formal declaration of war.
WAR WITH MUHAMMED
[1451-1452 A.D.]
Both parties now began to prepare for the mortal contest. The siege of Constantinople was to be the great event of the coming year. The sultan, in order to prevent the emperor’s brothers in the Peloponnesus from sending any succours to the capital, ordered Tourakhan, the pasha of Thessaly, to invade the peninsula. He himself took up his residence at Hadrianopolis, to collect warlike stores and siege artillery. Constantine, on his part, made every preparation in his power for vigorous defence. He formed large magazines of provisions, collected military stores, and enrolled all the soldiers he could muster among the Greek population of Constantinople. But the inhabitants of that city were either unable or unwilling to furnish recruits in proportion to their numbers. Bred up in peaceful occupation, they probably possessed neither the activity nor the habitual exercise which was required to move with ease under the weighty armour then in use.
So few were found disposed to fight for their country, that not more than six thousand Greek troops appeared under arms during the whole siege. The numerical weakness of the Greek army rendered it incapable of defending so large a city as Constantinople, even with all the advantage to be derived from strong fortifications. The emperor was, therefore, anxious to obtain the assistance of the warlike citizens of the Italian republics, where good officers and experienced troops were then numerous. As he had no money to engage mercenaries, he could only hope to succeed by papal influence. An embassy was sent to Pope Nicholas V, begging immediate aid, and declaring the emperor’s readiness to complete the union of the churches in any way the pope should direct. Nicholas despatched Cardinal Isidore, the metropolitan of Kieff, who had joined the Latin church, as his legate. Isidore had represented the Russian church at the council of Florence; but on his return to Russia he was imprisoned as an apostate, and with difficulty escaped to Italy. He was by birth a Greek; and being a man of learning and conciliatory manners, it was expected that he would be favourably received at Constantinople.