Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (8 page)

Even in times of nominal peace between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire there was almost uninterrupted warfare on their borders. This warfare was waged by pashas and governors, and for the most part through irregular incursions, though the forces engaged were often large enough to fight pitched battles with heavy loss of life. In 1515 John Zapolya, the voivode or governor of Transylvania, whom we shall encounter again, had led ten thousand men, in spite of an existing truce, in a raid on Servia. Here he was defeated by the pasha of Semendria, with the loss of the cannon of Belgrade, which he had taken with him on the expedition, so that the city was short of artillery when next attacked by the Turks. But officially the truce continued. The Hungarians, unaided, were far too weak to undertake serious offensive operations, and Sultan Selim was busy in other directions. When Suleiman came to the throne, one of his first acts was to despatch to the Hungarians a chaush (messenger), named Bahram,

to offer them peace on condition that they should pay him tribute. At the same time fresh attacks were made along the frontier. The Sultan can hardly have had any expectation that his terms would be accepted. Probably he was merely summoning his enemy to submit before making a formal declaration of war. In any case the Hungarians were so enraged at the insult implied by Suleiman's demand that they answered by casting his envoy into prison. According to one account, the chaush was finally sent back to Suleiman with his nose and ears cut off. Others maintain that he was murdered, and yet others state that a false report that he had been murdered was sent back to Constantinople. In any case it is obvious that enough had been done to rouse the fury of the Sultan, while the arrival, at about the same time, of the severed head of the rebel Ghazali from Syria convinced him that he had nothing more to fear from his Asiatic possessions. He therefore determined to take immediate measures for revenge.

Hungary was near enough to Constantinople to be able to appreciate, more justly than most of Western Europe, the character and ability of the new Sultan. As reports of his preparations continued to pour in during the early months of 1521, the country was rent afresh with confusion and discord. The peril was obvious and imminent, and the more clear-sighted were convinced that it could not possibly be met without aid from the rest of Europe. Ambassadors were accordingly sent to the Pope, to the republic of Venice, to the king of Poland, and to the Emperor and the imperial Diet. Leo X was full of sympathy, but replied that unfortunately he had no money to spare. Venice declared that she could not possibly act alone, but would not fail to exhort all the princes of Christendom to give aid. Sigismund I, who had been king of Poland since 1506, although he was the uncle of Louis of Hungary, was far too cautious to expose his own realm

to the risk of war with the Turk. It was to the Empire that the Hungarians felt they had most reason to look for substantial assistance. On April 3, one of their envoys, Hieronymus Balbus, addressed the Diet at Worms in a lengthy speech, in which he dwelt on the horrors of Turkish invasion, the debt that Europe owed to Hungary for defending it for so long, the perils of the present moment, and the urgent need of immediate help from the Empire in its own interest as well as in that of the entire Christian world.

"For who prevented the unbridled madness of the Turks from raging farther?" he asked;

The Hungarians. Who checked their fury that overwhelmed like the swiftest torrent? The Hungarians. Who warded off the Turkish darts from the throats of the commonwealth of Christendom? The Hungarians. Who, finally, preferred to turn against themselves the whole power and onslaught of the barbarians, rather than lay open to them an entrance into the lands of others? The Hungarians. Long, long ere now, a terrible tempest would have burst into the vitals of Germany and Italy, were it not that, as if a wall had been set up against it, it was dammed in and kept from spreading by the Hungarians themselves, so that till recently it has only raged within the bounds of Pannonia. But now the Hungarian kingdom is in such straits, and its people have been so continuously slaughtered, that it is not only unable to subdue its foes, but unless it be aided from without, it cannot any longer restrain or resist them. 2

Balbus had unquestionably been eloquent, but unfortunately his appeal could not possibly have been worse timed. The month of April, in which he made it, saw

2 Oratio habita in Imperiali Conventu Die Tertia Aprilis MDXXL Summary in Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V., II, 758-759. "Responsum Imperatoris et Statuum," ibid., p. 759.

the young Emperor's multifarious cares and responsibilities in Western Europe pile up in such fashion as they were never destined to do again. Charles was involved in a bitter quarrel with the Diet over the constitution of the Imperial Council of Regency. He had just despatched a letter to Francis I which was almost equivalent to a declaration of war. The progress of the various revolts in his Spanish kingdoms was ominous. On April 18, Martin Luther had made his famous speech to the Diet; 8 on the nineteenth, the young Emperor had solemnly condemned him. 4 It was on that very evening, or the next day, that the imperial reply was handed to the Hungarian envoys. We cannot wonder that it was discouraging. Nothing could possibly be done to help Hungary at the present, though large hopes were held out for the future. If King Louis should prove unable to defend himself in the immediate crisis, the Empire would approve of his making a truce with the Turks for a year, "provided always, that it should be one not dishonorable nor injurious to himself, to the Catholic faith, or to the commonwealth of Christendom."

Hungary, then, could have no aid from without, and must count on her own resources. And her conduct, in the weeks that elapsed between the arrival of the ominous news from Worms and the approach of the Ottoman army, gave sadly conclusive proof of the indiscipline, insubordination, and disunion of her subjects. Her Council of State was convened on April 24. The defence of her two border fortresses of Belgrade and Sabac (on the south bank of the Save, some sixty miles to the westward) was obviously the first problem to be solved. But both were commanded by proud Hungarian noblemen, who stoutly refused to hand over their charges to any officer appointed

3 Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser V., II, 551-555. * Deutsche Reichstagsakten, II, 558.

by the crown. They declared that they were quite competent to perform their duties alone, provided only that they were furnished with money, provisions, ammunition, and cannon; and when the Council became importunate, they withdrew to their own estates. The sailors of the Danube flotilla, who had received no pay for three years, seized the opportunity to go to Buda-Pesth and complain; as they got nothing but indefinite promises, they also speedily dispersed. In June Hungarian society made haste to betake itself to Pressburg, to be present at the wedding of King Louis with his Hapsburg bride, and participate in the magnificent festivities which had been arranged to celebrate it.

Meanwhile Suleiman had left Constantinople on February 16- At Sofia, whence definite news of his advance first reached Hungary, he was joined by Ferhad Pasha with three thousand camels carrying ammunition; thirty thousand more camels which had been collected in Asia and were now laden with grain followed on, a day's journey behind; a requisition of ten thousand wagon loads, to be paid for from the treasury, was laid on the Christian population of the region. There were three hundred cannon, and forty ships were equipped on the Danube. At Nish the army was divided. One part, commanded by Ahmed Pasha, the beylerbey of Rumelia, and followed a few days later by Suleiman himself, moved against Sabac; the Grand Vizir Piri Pasha with another force marched on Belgrade. The akinji, or irregular cavalry, were also separated into two bodies, one to serve as scouts to the main army, the other to make a raid into Transylvania.

Sabac defended itself with fruitless heroism. Ahmed Pasha captured it before Suleiman arrived, and the western flank of Belgrade had been turned. We may follow the events of the next three weeks in excerpts from the diary of the Sultan;

On July 7, came news of the capture of Sabac; a hundred heads of the soldiers of the garrison, who had been unable like the rest to escape by the river, were brought to the Sultan's camp* July 8 these heads are placed on pikes along his route. Ahmed Pasha is admitted, with the Sanjak Beys, to kiss his hand. Suleiman visits the fort, and orders the construction of a bastion with a moat: he also commands that a bridge be built over the Save, so that his army may cross to the northern bank. Suleiman establishes his headquarters in a hut, so as to accelerate the construction of the bridge by his presence. The pashas, armed with sticks, spur on the eiforts of the workmen. . . . July 18. Day of rest. The bridge is finished; but the Save is flooded. July 19. The water covers the bridge so that it can no longer be used. Orders to cross by boats. Provisions sent overland to Belgrade. . . . July 29. Suleiman sets forth for Belgrade along the Save. July 31. He arrives before the walls of Belgrade amid the cheers of his army. 5

The Grand Vizir had already been there for a month, and had captured Semlin; the south side of the Danube was now completely blocked from the westward. Suleiman spent the first of August in surveying the situation; on the second a general assault was launched, but was repulsed with a loss of five or six hundred men. The next day heavy cannon were planted on the island in the Danube, and the city was bombarded from that point. "Five hundred Janissaries," so runs the Sultan's diary, "were ordered to go up the Danube in boats so as to intercept the succors which the Hungarians had promised to send." August 8—like August 8, 1918—was a "black day" for the besieged. A triple attack was delivered. "The enemy," continues the diary, "abandoned the defence of the town and set fire to it; they retired to the citadel." There they held out for three weeks more, but the Hungarians, now reduced to less than half their original num-

5 Quoted in Hammer, V, 408-410.

her, had begun to quarrel with the Servian mercenaries; finally, after one of the great towers had been blown up by a mine, the latter forced their masters to surrender on August 28. The Hungarians had been promised that they should have leave to depart unmolested, and the Sultan's diary would lead us to believe that the promise was kept; it seems more probable, however, that most of them were massacred. The Servians, on the other hand, were transplanted to the environs of Constantinople, where they founded a village, called Belgrade, which exists,to the present day. In spite of the twenty different attacks which the Turks are said to have delivered, the siege does not seem to have cost them heavily. A number of smaller fortresses, deserted by their garrisons, also fell into the hands of the invaders, while the few troops which the Hungarians had sent to their rescue were forced to remain helpless observers of the disaster they were unable to prevent. Two days after the capitulation, the Sultan went to say his Friday prayers in the lower town, in a church which had been converted into a mosque. The troops were rewarded, an administration was installed, and three thousand Janissaries were left behind as a garrison. On October 19, Suleiman reentered Constantinople, where the inhabitants came out, rejoicing, to receive him. During his absence he had lost two infant children, and a third died of the smallpox ten days after his return; but these bereavements were not suffered to interfere with the celebrations of his triumph. His success had already been announced to all the magistrates and governors of his realms, and a special envoy was despatched to the Venetians, who received him on October 28 in solemn audience, and rewarded him with a present of five hundred ducats. 6 The Doge wrote the same day to his ambassador in England to tell him that the Sultan's messenger had also "de-

* Marino Samito, Diarii, vol. XXXII, coll. 68-70, 72-73.

clared that his master had left all his artillery in those parts [i.e., at Belgrade] for the purpose of returning in the spring to follow up the victory. This news is lamentable, and of importance to all Christians/' 7

Thus one of the two great outposts of Christendom had fallen into the hands of the Ottomans. Within a year of his accession the new Sultan had successfully carried through an enterprise in which two of his most distinguished predecessors had failed. The last important barrier had been removed from the Danube route into the northwest.

In 1522 Suleiman undertook and accomplished the corresponding, though far more difficult enterprise on the Mediterranean: the conquest of the island of Rhodes, just off the southwestern corner of Asia Minor. The island is an irregular narrow pointed ellipse, with its axis running from the southwest to the northeast. Forty-nine miles long and twenty-one across at its widest point, it has an area of 564 square miles. A mountain top near the centre rises to more than 4000 feet above the sea. Separated by a channel about seven miles wide from the mainland, it lies some eighty miles from Crete on the one side, and two hundred and fifty from Cyprus on the other. Its sole important town, and the key to the possession of the entire island, was the strongly fortified city of Rhodes, about two miles to the southeast of the extreme north tip, that nearest the mainland. Seventeen minor castles were perched at intervals on the cliffs along the shore; but there was not the remotest chance of their defending themselves if the city of Rhodes should be taken. 8

7 Calendar of State Papers, Venice, IH, 185.

8 On the topography and monuments of Rhodes see Fradin, Baron de Belabre, Rhodes of the Knights (Oxford, 1908), with plans and many unique illustrations from photographs taken by the author; and Albert Gabriel, La Cite de Rhodes, MCCCX-MDXXII (Paris, 1921).

During the thirteenth century the island had been a rendezvous of Italian adventurers and Turkish corsairs, but in 1309 it was conquered by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who had been obliged to leave the Holy Land after the fall of Acre in 1291, and had spent the intervening eighteen years in Cyprus. On their arrival at Rhodes, they at once set to work to make it their permanent home. The fortifications of the city, already formidable, were vastly strengthened. Each one of the eight "langues" or companies, into which the Order, according to the languages spoken by its members, was divided, was charged with the duty of defending a portion, or bastion, of the walls. Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen, Italians, Castilians, and Aragonese and the men of Auvergne and Provence vied with one another to render impregnable the sections committed to their safekeeping. But the Knights were not content with measures of passive defence. They regarded it as their sacred duty to continue the onslaughts of the crusaders, and to attack the Moslem wherever he could be found. During the two centuries after their arrival, they made themselves masters of eight of the adjacent islands and erected a fortress on each of them. They welcomed and aided Christian pirates. When Moslem prisoners were taken, they were usually butchered. In 1320, we are told, 6250 Turkish captives were slaughtered in cold blood; a fanatical Englishwoman on her way to the Holy Land is said to have killed a thousand of them with her own hand. 0 The story is hard to believe, though it is supported by contemporary evidence. In any case it is indicative of the spirit of the times, and we cannot wonder that the Turks regarded the Knights as professional pirates and cutthroats. In the fifteenth century milder counsels had prevailed. The Knights got a foothold on the mainland at Budrun, the ancient Halicarnassus; and it