The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (23 page)

Lodovico answered on 23 October, saying that he was appointing his son, Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, as his envoy concerning the anti-Turkish expedition. Similar responses were received from other Italian states, but the expedition never materialised.

Uzun Hasan refused to admit defeat, and he sent a message to the Signoria in Venice proposing that they should ‘ride against the Ottomans together’. At the same time he sent Caterino Zeno back to Venice, with a message to the princes of Christendom that he had not abandoned his war against the Ottomans, but would muster a powerful army the following spring to march against Mehmet.

The Signoria responded on 10 December 1473 by sending Ambrogio Contarini as an envoy to Tabriz, with a message telling Uzun Hasan that Venice would commit its fleet to an expedition against the Ottomans, and urging him to attack Mehmet as soon as possible. Contarini, who served as Venetian ambassador at Tabriz in the years 1474-6, describes Uzun Hasan’s appearance at the time: ‘The king is of a good size and very lean, with a pleasant countenance, having somewhat of the Tartar appearance, and seemed to be about seventy years old. His manner is very affable, and he conversed familiarly with every one around him, but I noticed that his hands trembled when he raised the cup to his lips.’

Contarini goes on to write: ‘His eldest son Ughurlu Mehmet was much spoken of when I was in Persia, as he had revolted against his father.’ When news of this rebellion reached Istanbul, Mehmet knew that he no longer had to fear an invasion by the Akkoyunlu. Uzun Hasan died in Tabriz on 6 January 1478, and with his passing the Akkoyunlu literally disappeared from history, the domains of their tribe absorbed by those around them, leaving the Ottomans as the supreme power in the region.

11

Conquest of the Crimea and Albania

Mehmet remained in Istanbul throughout the year 1474, taking his ease in Topkapı Sarayı after the rigours of his victorious campaign against Uzun Hasan. His three sons were all serving as provincial governors in Anatolia, with Mustafa residing in Konya, the capital of Karaman, while Beyazit was in Amasya and Jem in Kastamonu.

Mustafa spent the autumn boating on Lake Beyşehir and hunting in the surrounding countryside. Towards the end of the year he sent his officer Koçi Bey to attack the mountain fortress of Develi Karahisar, south-west of Kayseri, which was still held by the Karamanid. The garrison commander refused to surrender to Koçi Bey, insisting that he would negotiate only with Prince Mustafa himself. Mustafa had in the meanwhile become seriously ill, and he was able to reach Develi Karahisar only with great difficulty. His condition then deteriorated to the point where his advisers decided to take him back to Konya, sending a courier to inform Sultan Mehmet of the situation.

Mehmet immediately ordered Gedik Ahmet Pasha to Develi Karahisar with an army of 30,000, while at the same time he sent his Jewish physician Maestro Iacopo to Konya to treat Prince Mustafa. But Mustafa died en route at Bor, near Niğde, probably in June 1474, according to Giovanni-Maria Angiolello, who was in the prince’s entourage at the time. Mustafa’s companions embalmed his body and brought it to Konya, where it was laid out in a mosque while a courier was sent to Istanbul to inform Sultan Mehmet.

When the news of Mustafa’s death reached Istanbul the only one who had the courage to inform the sultan was Hoca Sinan Pasha, Mehmet’s old tutor. Hoca Sinan dressed in black robes and obtained an audience with Mehmet, who realised at once that he was death’s messenger. Angiolello describes the sultan’s inconsolable mourning for Mustafa, who had always been his favourite son.

The carpets which were spread on the ground were lifted, and standing on the dirt, he was lamenting his son. He gathered the dust and placed it over his head, as a sign of great sorrow. And he was beating his face, his chest and his thighs with his palms, and he groaned greatly. And he remained this way for three days and nights… The entire city was filled with loud lamentation because Mustafa was especially beloved of his father and of all those who had dealings with him.

Mehmet had Mustafa buried in the Muradiye at Bursa, in a magnificent
türbe
that he erected for him near the tomb of Murat II. Angiolello writes of the extraordinary eulogy delivered by Mustafa’s daughter, Princess Nergiszade, whom he calls Herzisdad.

[Her funeral oration] lasted more than an hour, in which she praised his virtues and mentioned by name some of the people who had been brought up with him, saying that, had he survived, the world would have known much better his good will towards his followers; and that death was the common lot of all. She said many other things which made her hearers all to weep. Even Herzisdad herself was obliged to stop and weep at suitable moments, which she did with very decorous movements and gestures, showing at the same time a great audacity. For all that she said and did she was much praised, as much for her wisdom as for her erudition in Arabic literature and expert knowledge on every subject pertaining to a woman of her condition. So that her fame spread as far as Constantinople, and even in other countries people talked of the qualities and virtues of this young woman.

Mehmet then transferred Jem from Kastamonu to Konya, to replace Mustafa as provincial governor of Karaman, where he would remain for nearly a decade.

The death of his beloved son apparently embittered Mehmet against Mahmut Pasha, whom he seems to have held responsible for Mustafa’s death, according to both Western and Turkish sources. All the sources agree that there was deep enmity between Mahmut and Mustafa, though they differ on the reason for this hatred. Several sources suggest that Mustafa had seduced or raped Mahmut’s wife, and some say that the grand vezir took his revenge by poisoning the prince. The Turkish poet Muali, in his epic
Hünkârname
, writes that Mustafa’s dying words were a request that Mehmet be told who was responsible for his death: ‘My last request from my father is this: let him ask Mahmut Pasha about this disaster that befell me. He did this evil to me because of his enmity. Let the truth be known to you.’

According to Muali, Mahmut Pasha went from his place of retirement in Hasköy to offer his condolences to Sultan Mehmet at Topkapı Sarayı, although his old tutor Kürt Hafız advised him not to go. At the palace gate Mahmut met his former slave Teftin Ağa, who gave him the same advice. But Mahmut went ahead and shed tears for Mahmut in Mehmet’s presence, wearing black robes as was customary for mourners. His enemies told the sultan that Mahmut was only feigning grief, and that he had been in good humour shortly afterwards, as Hoca Sadeddin writes in his chronicle: ‘The spy that they sent entered suddenly and unexpectedly in the gathering of the honorable Pasha [Mahmut] and he saw the Pasha dressed in white, seated in a cheerful gathering and playing chess. He took off the mourning clothes before the Sultan and the army did.’

Shortly afterwards Mehmet had Mahmut Pasha arrested and taken to the Castle of the Seven Towers in Istanbul, where he was executed by strangulation on 18 July 1474. According to Muali, the sultan justified the execution by saying: ‘It is impossible that Mustafa’s enemy should remain alive.’

Such was the end of Mahmut Pasha, who by all accounts was the greatest of all the early Ottoman grand vezirs. Kritoboulos, in praising Mahmut Pasha, writes: ‘From the time that he took charge of the affairs of the great Sultan, he gave everything in this great dominion a better prospect by his wonderful zeal and his fine planning as well as by his implicit and unqualified faith in and goodwill toward his sovereign. He was thus a better man than them all, as shown by his accomplishments.’

Gedik Ahmet Pasha, who had replaced Mahmut Pasha as grand vezir, was sent on an expedition into Anatolia to regain all the places in Karaman that had been lost by the Ottomans during the war with Uzun Hasan. He recaptured Ermenek and Minyan on the central plateau, as well as Silifke and other coastal fortress towns to its east that had been taken by the Christian allies of Uzun Hasan. He then called all the Türkmen tribal chieftains of Karaman to a meeting, at which he entertained them with a great feast before having almost all of them killed, enslaving their families and followers. Only a few of the Türkmen chiefs escaped to their remote mountain fortresses, where they continued to hold out into the early sixteenth century before they were finally conquered by the Ottomans.

The final conquest of Karaman freed Mehmet to resume his march of conquest in southern Europe. There the sultan’s principal foe was still Venice, whose fortresses in Albania and elsewhere along the eastern coast of the Adriatic were preventing him from advancing deeper into Europe.

King Matthias Corvinus was also a foe to be reckoned with, and in the autumn of 1473 Mehmet sent Mihailoğlu Ali on a raid into Hungary. The raiders met no opposition and returned with some 16,000 captives, according to the Turkish chronicler Oruç.

Early in the spring of 1474 Mehmet launched an expedition into Albania under the command of Hadım Süleyman Pasha, the
beylerbey
of Rumelia. A Bosnian by birth, Süleyman had been captured as a youth and castrated, becoming a
hadım
, or eunuch, serving in the harem of Topkapı Sarayı, where he became a favourite of Sultan Mehmet and quickly advanced to the highest levels in the Ottoman bureaucracy.

The goal of the expedition was the fortress of Shkoder (Scutari, Albanian Scodra), on the lake of the same name in northern Albania, which flows into the sea through the river Bojana. The Venetians were expecting an attack on Shkoder, and had garrisoned the mighty fortress there with 2,500 troops under the command of the valiant Antonio Loredano.

Süleyman Pasha set out with an army of 80,000 troops, including 8,000 janissaries, whom he marched across Serbia and Macedonia to northern Albania. His advance guard of 10,000 arrived before Shkoder on 17 May 1474 and immediately attacked the town, hoping to catch the defenders unprepared. But Loredano sent out his garrison and they were able to drive back the attackers, with heavy casualties on both sides.

When news of the attack reached Venice the Senate sent a fleet under the joint command of Triadan Gritti and Piero Mocenigo, who sailed seven of their galleys up the Bojana to Shkoder, leaving the rest on patrol off the Albanian coast. Leonardo Boldu, the Venetian
provveditore
of Albania, also enlisted the local Montenegrin warlord John Chernojevich to aid in the defence of Shkoder with his Albanian warriors, some 8,000 of whom were ferried south across the lake to the fortress.

When Süleyman arrived with the main army on 15 July he surrounded Shkoder and put it under siege, bombarding the fortress with his heavy artillery. At the beginning of the siege he set out to built a barricade across the mouth of the Bojana to trap the Venetian ships upriver. But the Venetian commanders sailed their galleys down the Bojana, and after a battle with the Ottoman troops defending the barricade they broke through into the Adriatic and joined the fleet cruising off the coast.

When the Ottoman bombardment and infantry attacks failed to take the fortress Süleyman offered generous terms of surrender to Loredano, who contemptuously refused them. Süleyman then ordered another infantry attack, which was turned back after an eight-hour battle in which some 3,000 to 6,000 Ottoman troops were killed, according to the various sources. This led Süleyman to abandon the siege, and on 28 August he withdrew his army and began the long march back to Istanbul.

The victory over the Ottomans at Shkoder was marked with a gala celebration in Venice. But the Signoria knew that it was just a matter of time before Mehmet launched another expedition against Albania. Reports soon reached Venice that Mehmet was preparing a huge fleet, and so the Signoria decided to increase the Venetian fleet to 100 galleys.

On 2 November 1474 Venice agreed with Florence and Milan to ally themselves for twenty-five years in a war against the Turks, with Ferrara subsequently joining the pact. Pope Sixtus refused to join the league, which he saw as an attempt to limit his freedom of action, and instead he formed a separate alliance with King Ferrante of Naples. Venice was angered by this and withdrew its ambassador from Rome, so ‘that the world may know what manner of shepherd it is who looks calmly on as his flock is being devoured and does not come to its help’.

After Süleyman Pasha returned from Shkoder to Istanbul he disbanded his army, but then Sultan Mehmet ordered him to prepare for another campaign early the following year, this time against Count Stephen the Great, voyvoda of Moldavia.

Two years earlier, during the Ottoman campaign against Uzun Hasan, Stephen had taken advantage of Mehmet’s absence in Anatolia to invade Wallachia, which at the time was ruled by the sultan’s vassal Radu, brother and successor of Vlad the Impaler. Stephen defeated Radu at Cursul Apei (Rimnicu Sarat) in a three-day battle on 18-20 November 1473. Stephen then deposed Radu as voyvoda of Wallachia and replaced him with his own man, Laiot Basaraba, who subsequently went over to the Ottomans after he was defeated by them. This led to a confused two-year struggle, which Mehmet sought to end by sending an expedition into Moldavia against Stephen and restoring Laiot Basaraba as voyvoda of Wallachia.

Süleyman Pasha’s army crossed the Danube into Wallachia early in January 1475. On 10 January they were ambushed by Stephen’s army and totally routed, with some 40,000 killed out of a total force of 90,000, according to the Venetian Paolo Ogniben.

Another Venetian source, Domenico Malipiero, writes that Mara Branković, Mehmet’s stepmother, told Geronimo Zorzi, the Venetian ambassador to Istanbul, ‘that the Turks had never suffered a greater defeat and had exhorted him to continue his journey in good spirit, because the Turk had good reason to make peace, and he would never have a better opportunity to negotiate’. But when Zorzi reached Istanbul, where he had an audience with an unidentified pasha, he found that peace terms offered by the Ottoman government were unacceptable.