The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (32 page)

Caoursin goes on to note that Mehmet’s passing had been marked by extraordinary convulsions of nature, including powerful earthquakes that shook Rhodes and western Anatolia on 18 March and 3 May 1481. The latter tremor, which caused a huge tidal wave, occurred on the very day that the Grand Turk had died, indicating to Caoursin that the earth was reacting cataclysmically against receiving the remains of one guilty of such monstrous crimes.

For about the time of his departure from life frequent earthquakes occurred in Asia, Rhodes and the isles roundabout, including two of the most marked severity, which were so great and terrible that they laid low many castles, strongholds, and palaces. Even the sea rose more than ten feet and flooded the shores, and straightaway rolling back into the deep it sank as many feet as it had risen, and finally flowed back to its accustomed level. So abundant was the exhalation [of his corpse], and so great the explosion confined within the caverns of the earth, that seven times it sent through the earth its violent shocks and caused a sudden outflow of the sea. The phenomenon is worth recording, and something the Rhodians have never seen before. Although it is explicable by physical principles, nevertheless it usually portends some great event.

By that time the anti-Turkish crusade proclaimed by Pope Sixtus showed signs of becoming a reality, spurred on by the death of Sultan Mehmet and the war of succession that was distracting the Ottomans. On 4 June 1481 Sixtus wrote to the Marquis of Mantua and others that, through the death of Mehmet and the ensuing civil war, God had indicated the way to salvation from the Turks, ‘showing us a light from on high to free us forever from that peril which for years past has struck the Christian commonwealth with so many calamities’. Now was the time to take action, before the Turks could recover from the civil war and the sons of the Conqueror could resume the barbarities of their father. ‘We have our fleet ready in Genoa,’ he wrote; ‘thirty galleys and four ships splendidly equipped will soon be at the Tiber docks; at Ancona also we are arming others, and they will be joined in good course with the royal fleet [of Naples].’

Sixtus knew that interest in the crusade would subside now that the Conqueror was gone. His fears were soon realised when the Bolognese informed him that they wished to withdraw their pledge of financial support for the crusade, for ‘with the Turkish tyrant’s death necessity presses us no more’. The Pope’s envoys in Mantua had already told him that the Marquis Federico was withholding funds that had been collected for the crusade, though Sixtus said that he did not believe this. Sixtus himself tried to set the best possible example by contributing most of his silver plate and sending a large quantity of liturgical vessels to the papal mint to meet his share of the expenses of the crusade.

Sixtus put the papal fleet under the command of Cardinal Paolo di Campofregosa, who had previously been Doge of Genoa, summoning him to Rome along with the papal legate Cardinal Savelli. On 30 June 1481 the Pope and the College of Cardinals went to the church of San Paolo Fuori le Mura for the blessing of the papal fleet. After vespers the Pope held a consistory at which he addressed Cardinal Campofregosa, telling him of the historic importance of his mission. Then, according to the chronicler Volaterranus, Sixtus ‘gave him his legate’s ring and the banner which he had consecrated for the fleet’. Volaterranus writes of how the captains of the fleet came in, kissed the Pope’s feet and were signed with the cross on their breasts.

The Pope and the cardinals then went down to the Tiber, where the galleys of the papal fleet were moored, and they boarded each of them in turn to bestow the apostolic blessing. The crews stood fully armed on the decks and saluted when the Pope came aboard, whereupon, according to Volaterranus, ‘weapons were brandished, swords drawn and struck upon the shields, and military evolutions executed as in actual battle; hundreds of hoarse voices shouted the Pope’s name amid the thundering of the artillery; it was a feast for both ear and eye’.

On 4 July the papal fleet departed to join forces with the royal navy of King Ferrante of Naples in besieging the Ottoman forces at Otranto, which had been isolated since Gedik Ahmet Pasha had been recalled from Valona by Beyazit. The Ottoman troops in the Otranto garrison fought obstinately, but their shortage of arms and supplies forced them to surrender on 10 September. Ferrante immediately informed the Pope, and Sixtus in turn transmitted the good news to the other Christian princes of Europe.

Sixtus hoped that the recapture of Otranto would be the first step in the reconquest of Christian lands under Ottoman occupation. According to the plan that he had formulated, the papal fleet, joined by the ships of the other Christian powers, would sail across the Strait of Otranto to capture the Ottoman-held port of Valona, and from there the allies would head south to begin the liberation of Greece. The first phase of the Pope’s plan was executed that August, when a Portuguese fleet of twenty-five vessels under the command of the Bishop of Elbora arrived to take part in the crusade, whereupon Sixtus began preparations for the attack on Valona.

An important element of the Pope’s plan was his ward, Andreas Palaeologus. Andreas was the son and heir of Thomas Palaeologus, former Despot of the Morea and brother of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. When Thomas Palaeologus died in 1465 Andreas became the pretender to the throne of Byzantium, supported first by Pope Paul II and then by Sixtus IV, who now saw a God-given opportunity to use him as the symbolic leader of his crusade.

On 15 September 1481 Sixtus instructed the Bishop of Elbora to assist Andreas Palaeologus in crossing the Ionian Sea to the Morea, so that the pretender could begin the reconquest of his late father’s despotate. Three days later the Pope wrote to all the Christian states of Europe, telling them the glorious news of the recapture of Otranto, ‘which we have been waiting for with all of our heart, and which has been most pleasing to us - today we have learned it from our people!’. He then made an eloquent plea for united action: ‘This is the time of deliverance, of glory, of victory, such as we shall never be able to regain if it is neglected now. With a little effort the war can now be brought to a successful conclusion which later on can be done only at the greatest cost and with the greatest injury to ourselves.’

At the same time, Sixtus sent a messenger to the commander of the Christian fleet, Cardinal Campofregosa, urging him to swift action ‘lest we prove unequal to the chance which heaven has offered us’. But the Pope’s plea came to nothing, for dissension in the Christian army at Otranto, along with an outbreak of plague in the papal fleet, led the allied leaders to postpone their campaign indefinitely. King Ferrante informed Sixtus that Campofregosa was about to return with the fleet to Civitavecchia, near Rome, quoting the cardinal’s statement that he had been instructed to do so by the Pope himself. Writing to Ferrante on 21 September, Sixtus replied that he had, on the contrary, intended that the papal fleet should attack Valona directly after the recapture of Otranto. Sixtus then sent strict orders to Campofregosa to set sail for Valona at once.

But by the beginning of October Sixtus learned that the papal fleet had docked at Civitavecchia. The Pope hurried there at once in an attempt to persuade Campofregosa, the Neapolitan ambassador and the ships’ captains to turn the fleet around. Campofregosa reluctantly informed Sixtus that the planned invasion of Greece was for the moment impossible for several reasons, namely the outbreak of the plague, an increasingly mutinous mood among the troops and the ships’ crews, the advanced season of the year and the escalating cost of the expedition. Sixtus declared himself still resolute and prepared to make every sacrifice, according to Volaterranus, who wrote that, though the Pope ‘would, like Eugenius IV, pawn his mitre and sell the rest of his silver plate, all was in vain’.

And so Sixtus admitted defeat for the time being. He returned to Rome on 17 October 1481, bitterly disappointed but consoled by the fact that the Turks were not in a position to invade Italy while the two sons of Mehmet the Conqueror were embroiled in a civil war. But his mood would soon change when he learned that Beyazit had emerged victorious in the war of succession and that Jem was now in exile in Cairo.

Meanwhile, Mehmet’s tomb at Fatih Camii had become a place of pilgrimage, where a constant stream of pious Muslims came to offer their prayers at the foot of the sultan’s catafalque, a custom that continues to the present day: a form of emperor worship dating back to the earliest Turkish times. Turks still refer to Mehmet as Fatih, the Conqueror, and honour him as the ‘Sultan of Sultans’, for in their view none of his predecessors or successors in the House of Osman equalled his accomplishments, most notably the conquest of the city that remained the capital of the Ottoman Empire for the remainder of its history.

The view of Mehmet as ‘the present terror of the world’ endured in the West, where he became the personification of the cruel oriental despot, as Richard Knolles portrays him in the
Generall Historie of the Turkes
, published in 1609-10:

The death of this mighty man (who living troubled a great part of the world) was not much lamented by those who were nearest to him (who ever living in feare of his crueltie, hated him deadly) than of his enemies, who ever in doubt of his greatness were glad to hear of his end. He was of stature but low, and nothing answerable to the height of his mind, square set and strong limmed, not inferior in strength (when he was young) unto anyone in his father’s court, but to Skanderbeg onely; his complexion was Tartarlike, sallow and melancholy, as were most of his ancestors, the Othoman kings; his looke and countenance sterne, with his eyes hollow and little, sunke as it were in his head, and his nose so high and crooked that it almost touched his upper lip. To be briefe, his countenance was altogether such, as if nature had with most cunning hand depainted and most curiously set forth to view the most inward disposition and qualities of his mind: which were in most parts notable… In his love was no assurance, and his least displeasure was death: so that hee lived feared of all men, and died lamented of none.

15

The Sons of the Conqueror

After remaining in Cairo for nearly six months Jem made a second attempt to take the Ottoman throne from his brother Beyazit in the spring of 1482. He was encouraged to do so by Kasım Bey, former emir of the Karamanid Türkmen, who wanted to regain his emirate from the Ottomans, and offered to help Jem in a renewed war of succession against Beyazit. Jem also received help from the Mamluk Sultan Kaitbey, who had given him refuge after he was defeated in his first war of succession against Beyazit the previous year.

But Beyazit, whose army was commanded by Gedik Ahmet Pasha, easily defeated Jem’s forces. Jem and Kasım were forced to flee before the advancing imperial army, taking refuge in the Taurus Mountains above the Mediterranean coast with a small band of loyal followers. Beyazit sent Iskender Pasha to pursue the fugitives with his cavalry, but the imperial troops lost their way in the trackless mountains and soon gave up the chase. For Jem and Kasım had been taken by their Türkmen nomad guides into the highlands of Pisidia, which even Alexander the Great had failed to penetrate when he conquered Asia Minor in 334 BC. There they went to ground early in the summer of 1482, while Beyazit fumed at his inability to find Jem and end the war of succession that had troubled the whole first year of his reign.

Jem at first considered fleeing to Persia, but Kasım persuaded him to seek refuge in western Europe, where the Christian princes would help him regain his throne. Kasım had his own interests at heart in giving this advice, for he knew that if Jem led a European army against the Ottomans then Beyazit would leave Karamania undefended, whereupon he could regain control of his emirate.

Jem first sent a letter to Venice requesting asylum, but the Signoria refused, not wishing to provoke Beyzazit into making war on them. Beyazit learned from his spies of Jem’s approach to the Venetians, and he wrote to the Senate reaffirming the peace treaty that had been signed between the Ottomans and the Serenissima, adding that he assumed Venice wished to preserve ‘the good and sincere and faithful peace and friendship which we have between us’. The Senate responded by congratulating Beyazit on his ‘glorious victory’ in the civil war he had been forced to fight against his brother Jem, now a fugitive.

After his rejection by the Venetians Jem sent a similar letter to the Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson, with whom he had established cordial relations three years beforehand, during the negotiations between Sultan Mehmet and the Knights of St John on Rhodes. D’Aubusson and his council agreed to give Jem refuge, whereupon he and his followers boarded a Rhodian ship at Anamur on the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia. On 22 July 1482 they entered the harbour of Rhodes, where d’Aubusson and his knights gave Jem a royal welcome, showing him around the walled city that his father had failed to conquer less than a year earlier.

D’Aubusson knew that it was just a matter of time before the Ottomans made another attempt to take Rhodes. This was why he had agreed to give Jem asylum, for he wanted to use him as a pawn to keep Beyazit at bay, playing on the sultan’s fear that his brother would be used as a figurehead in a war against the Turks.

When d’Aubusson first announced Jem’s arival on Rhodes to the Christian princes of Europe Pope Sixtus responded by saying that Christendom would gain much from possession of the pretender, and that they could possibly use him in a crusade to ‘rid the world of Mohammed’s descendants’. But, privately, d’Aubusson had little confidence that the Christian powers would manage to unite in peace and use Jem in a crusade. So in the meantime he saw no reason why he should not use the pretender to his own advantage.

As soon as Beyazit learned that Jem had taken refuge on Rhodes he began negotiating with the Grand Master about his brother’s custody, for he wanted him safely out of the way so as to prevent another war of succession. Eventually their representatives concluded a peace treaty, which contemporary sources refer to as the most favourable ever granted by the Ottomans to the Christians up to that time. As part of the agreement the sultan was to send the knights on 1 August of each year a payment for Jem’s upkeep of 40,000 ducats (of which d’Aubusson apparently kept 10,000), and for the present year the same amount was to be paid in forty days.