The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (12 page)

Mehmet then returned to Corinth, where the defenders in the citadel surrendered to him on 2 August. Shortly afterwards he concluded a treaty with Thomas Palaeologus, who surrendered to him Patras and other places in the northern Peloponnesos, which were put under the governorship of Ömer Bey. On his homeward march Mehmet took the opportunity to see Athens, whose defenders had finally surrendered to Ömer Bey just two months beforehand. Kritoboulos describes Mehmet’s enthusiasm on seeing the famous city he had read about in his Greek studies.

He saw it and was amazed, and he praised it, and especially the Acropolis as he went up into it. And from the ruins and the remains, he reconstructed mentally the ancient buildings, being a wise man and a Philhellene and as a great king, and he conjectured how they must have been originally. He noted with pleasure the respect of the city for their ancestors, and he rewarded them in many ways. They received from him whatever they asked for.

When Mehmet entered Athens he was given the keys to the city by the abbot of the Kaiseriani Monastery. Mehmet responded by exempting the abbot and his monks from the head tax imposed on all non-Muslims, and the monastery itself was taxed at the rate of only one gold coin a year. The people of Athens, which by that time was a small town huddled around the ruins of the ancient city, were allowed to run their internal affairs through a
gerousia
, or council of elders, while Ömer Bey and his successors as governor resided in the palace that the Acciajuoli had abandoned in the Propylaea, the monumental entryway to the Acropolis. Mehmet also endowed a small mosque - Fatih Camii - in the Roman agora, where it can still be seen.

On Mehmet’s return journey he stopped off to visit Negroponte (Chalkis), having informed the Venetian
bailo
Paolo Barbarigo in advance. The fortified town of Negroponte stood at the tip of the peninsula on Euboea that projects to within 40 metres of the mainland, from which the island is separated by the Euripos strait, famed for the tidal current that changes direction a dozen times each day. The defence wall formed a triangular circuit around the town, two sides along the coast and the third on the landward side, which was protected by a ditch 6 metres deep and 30 metres wide. The main gate was at the tip of the peninsula, where a bridge spanned the strait, with a huge tower at the end near the mainland, to which it was connected by a drawbridge.

According to Kritoboulos, when Mehmet came within sight of Chalkis he paused to survey the fortress of Negroponte across the narrow strait in the island of Euboea: ‘Proceeding according to plan, he arrived opposite Chalkis, in Euboea. There he saw the frequent currents and changes of the Euripos, the peculiar situation of the island, its condition and its excellence, and the way in which it was related to the mainland, with only a very narrow strait between.’

Then, accompanied by 1,000 horsemen, Mehmet rode down to the bridge, where the
bailo
Barbarigo was waiting to greet him at the gateway of the Venetian fortress, along with all the terrified townspeople of Negroponte, who were carrying palm branches to welcome the sultan. Mehmet then rode through the town, closely examining the fortress, the most powerful Venetian stronghold on the eastern coast of Greece, which he would have to deal with in expanding his empire in the Aegean.

Meanwhile, Mehmet was paying close attention to his dominions in the Balkans, where dynastic changes in Hungary and Serbia had destabilised the whole region.

Ladislas Posthumus died in November 1457, shortly before his eighteenth birthday, to be succeeded as King of Bohemia by George of Podebrady and as King of Hungary by Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi, the former regent.

The old Despot of Serbia, George Branković, died on 2 May 1457, whereupon his daughter Mara, widow of Murat II, fled to take refuge with Mehmet for fear of her brother Lazar, who succeeded his father. Then on 20 January 1458 Lazar himself died, and a regency was formed by his widow Helena, his blind brother Stephen and Michael Angelović, who had been the Grand Voyvoda, or chief minister, of the late despot. The regents were divided in their political aims, for Helena and Stephen favoured Hungary, while Michael, a brother of Mehmet’s grand vezir Mahmut Pasha, was pro-Ottoman. Michael and his followers began a revolt in Smederova, the Serbian capital, but he was defeated and captured by Helena, who gave him over as a prisoner to the Hungarians.

All this led Mehmet to launch an expedition into Serbia under Mahmut Pasha in the spring of 1458, while he himself was campaigning in the Peloponnesos. Mahmut took the lower town of Smederova but he was unable to capture the citadel, so he lifted his siege to attack other places in Serbia as well as the Hungarian fortress of Trnav. He then proceeded to Skopje to meet Mehmet, who had arrived there with his troops after his campaign in the Peloponnesos. Mehmet had planned to demobilise his army in Skopje, but Mahmut Pasha advised him to keep his men under arms because he had learned that the Hungarians were preparing to attack them. News then arrived that a Hungarian force had attacked an Ottoman fortress at Tahtalu, where they were routed by the Turkish defenders. Only then did Mehmet demobilise his army, after which he returned to Edirne to spend the winter at Edirne Sarayı.

The following spring Mehmet led a campaign into Serbia, his objective being the capture of Smederova, which surrendered to him without a struggle on 20 June 1459. The fall of Smederova led all the smaller fortresses of northern Serbia to surrender as well. By the end of 1459 all of Serbia was under Mehmet’s control, with some 200,000 Serbs enslaved, beginning an Ottoman occupation that would last for more than four centuries.

At the beginning of January 1459 civil war erupted in the Peloponnesos between Thomas and Demetrius Palaeologus, a struggle in which the Turkish forces, papal troops and Albanian marauders also became involved. Mehmet at first left the war to his local commanders, but then in May 1460 he mustered his forces in Edirne and led them into the Peloponnesos. According to Sphrantzes, Mehmet ‘marched straight into Mistra, where the despot Lord Demetrius was… Demetrius had no alternative but to surrender to the sultan, who took possession of Mistra and imprisoned Demetrius’. Mehmet then went on to conquer the rest of the Peloponnesos, apart from Monemvasia and the Venetian fortresses at Koroni, Methoni and Nauplion.

When he captured the Byzantine stronghold at Gardiki, according to Sphrantzes, Mehmet slaughtered all 6,000 or so inhabitants, including women and children - a savage example that led Greeks in other places to surrender to him without a struggle.

The despot Thomas Palaeologus fled to Corfu, which was held by the Venetians. Thomas then made his way to Rome, carrying with him the head of St Andrew, which had been preserved in the metropolitan cathedral of Patras. On 12 April 1462 he presented the Apostle’s head to Pope Pius, who had it enshrined in the basilica of St Peter. Thomas then spent the rest of his days as a guest of the Pope in Rome, where he died on 12 May 1465, his wife having passed away three years earlier. One of their two sons, Andreas, died a pauper in Rome in 1502, while the other, Manuel, moved to Istanbul, where he may have converted to Islam. One of their two daughters, Helena, married the Serbian despot Lazar, while the other, Zoë, wed Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilievich of Russia, changing her name to Sophia. Through her the Russian imperial line claimed a link with the Byzantine emperors, so that in 1492 the metropolitan Zosimus called the prince of Moscow ‘sovereign and autocrat of all Russia, the new Tsar Constantine of the new city of Constantine, Moscow’. And when Sophia’s son succeeded as Tsar Basil III the monk Philotheus hailed him as the only true emperor: ‘The Christian Empires have fallen, in their stead only stands our ruler… Two Romes have fallen but the third stands and a fourth there shall not be. Thou art the only Christian sovereign in the world, the lord of all faithful Christians.’

After his conquest of the Peloponnesos, Mehmet took Demetrius Palaeologus and his wife and daughter back with him to Edirne. Mehmet then gave Demetrius an endowed estate at Aenos, where he and his family lived comfortably for the next decade. Demetrius then retired to a monastery in Edirne, where he died in 1470, his wife and daughter passing away in the same year.

When Mehmet was not on campaign he divided his time between Edirne Sarayı and the palace he had been building on the Third Hill of Istanbul. The new palace in Istanbul, which later came to be known as Eski Saray, was completed in 1458, and thenceforth it supplanted Edirne Sarayı as the principal imperial residence. One of Mehmet’s concubines, a girl known as Çiçek, or Flower, gave birth to his son Jem in Eski Saray on 2 December 1959, the first male of the imperial Ottoman line to be born in Istanbul. By that time Mehmet’s two older sons had been sent off to serve as provincial governors, with Beyazit residing in Amasya and Mustafa in Manisa, from where he would later be transferred to Konya.

Meanwhile, Pope Calixtus III had died in Rome early in August 1458. He was succeeded by Cardinal Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who on 3 September was consecrated as Pope Pius II. Soon after his coronation he announced that on 1 June 1459 he would convene at Mantua a congress of the Christian powers to organise a crusade against the Turks. After the congress the emperor Frederick III and other German princes agreed to contribute to the crusade 32,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. On 14 January 1460 Pius declared a three-year crusade against the Turks, promising a plenary indulgence for all those who fought in the Christian army or who supported those who did, and he promised that he himself would serve if his health permitted.

The Ottomans in the meanwhile had been advancing in Anatolia as well as in Europe. Before his final conquest of the Peloponnesos, Mehmet sent his grand vezir Mahmut Pasha on an expedition against the port town of Amasra, Genoa’s principal commercial colony on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia. The Genoese surrendered without a struggle in the autumn of 1459, after which two-thirds of the populace were carried off to Istanbul as slaves.

Then in the spring of 1461 Mehmet launched an expedition against the Byzantine Empire of Trebizond, sending a fleet of 300 vessels along the Black Sea coast of Anatolia under Kasım Pasha, while he and Mahmut Pasha led an army overland, a force estimated as 80,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry in addition to the artillery and supply train. The fleet and army converged at the port town of Sinop, then held by the Isfendiyarid emir Ismail, who surrendered to Mehmet without a struggle.

Meanwhile, David Comnenus, who succeeded his brother John IV as Emperor of Trebizond in 1458, had established an anti-Ottoman alliance with Uzun Hasan, chieftain of the Akkoyunlu, or White Sheep, a powerful Türkmen tribe that controlled much of eastern Anatolia. Uzun Hasan’s mother, Sara Hatun, was born a Syrian Christian; his paternal grandmother was a Byzantine princess from Trebizond, as was his wife Theodora, a daughter of John IV Comnenus, of whom a Venetian traveller had written that ‘it was common knowledge that no woman of greater beauty was living at that time’.

Uzun Hasan sent Sara Hatun as an emissary to Mehmet, whom she met when he paused in his march at Erzincan. She negotiated a peace treaty between Uzun Hasan and Mehmet, and then she tried to persuade the sultan to give up his campaign by pointing out the great difficulty of marching through the Pontic Alps, saying: ‘Why tire yourself, my son, for nothing better than Trebizond?’

But Mehmet was adamant and continued his march towards Trebizond, the difficulties of which are described by Constantine Mihailović:

And we marched in great force and with great effort to Trebizond, not just the army, but the Sultan himself; first because of the distance; second because of the harassment of the people; third, hunger; fourth, because of the high and great mountains and, besides, wet and marshy places. And also rains fell every day so that the road was churned up as high as the horses’ bellies everywhere.

While crossing the mountains above Trebizond the sultan’s supply train of 100 horse-drawn wagons bogged down in the mud. Mehmet had the supplies loaded on to 800 camels he had brought along for just such an emergency. But one of the camels, which were carrying chests with 60,000 gold pieces, slipped and fell down the mountainside, scattering the coins along the slope. The convoy was halted until the coins had been recovered, according to Mihailović, who writes: ‘The Emperor stayed there that day resting and gave the janissaries 50,000 pieces to divide among themselves.’

By the time that Mehmet’s army reached Trebizond the fleet under Kasım Pasha had begun to besiege the city, which was held by the emperor David Comnenus, the last Byzantine ruler still holding out against Mehmet. Mahmut Pasha sent a message from Mehmet to David offering him terms of surrender. According to Doukas, Mehmet warned David that ‘if you do not give ear to these proposals, know that annihilation awaits your city. For I will not leave this spot until I have leveled the walls and ignominiously killed all the inhabitants.’

David agreed to the terms and Mehmet took possession of Trebizond on 15 August 1461, exactly 200 years to the day after Michael VIII Palaeologus had recaptured Constantinople from the Latins. David Comnenus was allowed to move with his family and all his portable possessions to Edirne, where Mehmet gave him an estate in Thrace. David lived comfortably there for nearly two years, but then on 26 March 1463 Mehmet had him and the male members of his family arrested and brought to the Castle of the Seven Towers in Istanbul. There, on 1 November 1463, David was executed along with six of his seven sons and a nephew. Mehmet spared David’s wife, Helena, their youngest son George, and their daughter, Anna. The empress Helena buried her six sons and died soon afterwards. George, who was only three, was given to a Turkish family and raised as a Muslim; when he came of age he fled to Georgia and reverted to Christianity, after which he disappeared from history, the male imperial line of the Comneni vanishing with him. Anna was married successively to two Ottoman pashas, becoming a Muslim, and after the death of her second husband she ended her days in Mehmet’s harem in Istanbul.