The Eastern Empire—The marriage of Orkhan and Theodora—Solyman crosses the Hellespont—The death of Solyman—Amurath I conquers Adrianople—A crusade against Amurath—Amurath conquers Nish—Revolt of the Slavs—Western Europe at this period—Successes of the Slavs—The battle of Kossova—Sultan Bajazet—Another crusade against Turkey—Bajazet defeats the crusaders—The ascendancy of Tamerlane—Bajazet is defeated by Tamerlane—Death of Bajazet and Tamerlane—Civil war—Musa marches against Servia—Mohammed I succeeds Musa—Amurath II—Pretender Mustapha—Attack on Constantinople—Hunyadi Janos—Peace of Szeggedin—The death of Ala-ed-din—Battle of Varna—Mohammed, son of Amurath—Scanderbeg—Mohammed II—Conquest of Constantinople.

THAT Turkish rule has lasted as long as it has, has not died down like the power of other Asiatic races who swept over Europe, held parts of it for a while, and were then forced out again, is probably due to the fact that earlier Ottoman Sultans took no step in advance before consolidating their power behind them. They allowed time for each conquered province, each subject race to blend into the general nationality of their Empire by the assimilation of military and civil institutions. Asia Minor became a solid Empire under Turkish rule, and allowed the Sultan to look further afield for fresh conquests. He was naturally drawn towards the West, where lay the heart of the Empire out of which successive sons of Othman had carved their possessions. Again, the troubled state of the Greek Empire, frequently rent by civil war, offered the strong young Turk rulers an opportunity for interfering much in the same way that Great Powers of to-day concern themselves with the doings of less well-ordered states. The Eastern Empire was indeed in a parlous state by the{169} time Orkhan had brought his country from a chaos of conquered provinces to a heterogeneous Empire, and invited interference. The Emperor John V (Cantacuzene) realized the power of the Turks, and sought to strengthen his position by an alliance with the Sultan, so a marriage was arranged and celebrated with great pomp and splendour between Orkhan, a widower of some sixty years, and the Emperor’s young daughter Theodora. This should have led to a good understanding between the monarchs, but it did not, as the East was pressing relentlessly on the enfeebled West, and temporary expedients could not avert the coming catastrophe. All about Constantinople were foreign settlements; Venetians and Genoese fought for mastery in the narrow waters of the Bosphorus, and both united to wring concessions out of the Eastern Empire. The rivalry of these two Republics gave Orkhan a reason for interfering, and he decided to ally himself with the Genoese, for he hated the Venetians, who had insulted him by declining to receive his envoys to the Doges. But the Venetians were allied to Emperor John Cantacuzene, in his struggles against another son-in-law, John Pal?ologus.

Solyman, son of Orkhan, crossed the Hellespont by night with a handful of followers and took Koiridocastron, or “Hog’s Castle.” No attempt was made to regain this castle from the Turk, as the Emperor was fully occupied with the armies of his rebel son-in-law, Pal?ologus, and with the Genoese fleet. The Greek Emperor, finding himself in such sore straits, without making any attempt to dislodge Solyman from the castle, without even a remonstrance, implored Orkhan to send him assistance. This Orkhan readily granted; he reinforced Solyman’s small party with an army of ten thousand men. This force defeated Pal?ologus and his Slavonic{170} army, but did not return to Asia; the Turk had landed in Europe, and showed a determination to stay. Cantacuzene offered Solyman ten thousand ducats to evacuate the “Hog’s Castle,” and the Sultan’s son agreed, but before the sum had been paid an earthquake visited Thrace and threw down the walls of its strongholds. The Greeks saw in this a sign of Heaven’s ill-will, the Turks believed it to be a manifestation of the will of Allah in their favour and a plain command to proceed with the conquests in Europe. So while the Greeks were still trembling two of Solyman’s captains, Adjé Bey and Ghasi Fasil, occupied Gallipoli, marched in over its defences shattered by the earthquake. Soon after these events Solyman, when engaged in his favourite sport of falconry, was thrown from his horse and killed. He was buried on the spot where he had landed with his followers, and near him are buried his two captains, to whose efforts the Turks owe their first firm foothold in Europe, when Gallipoli, the key of the Dardanelles, the southern passage to Constantinople, fell into their hands.

From the reign of Orkhan dates the first decisive influence of Turkey over Eastern Europe. Orkhan and his brother, Ala-ed-din, forged the weapons which were to bring the Eastern Empire to its fall and set up another Empire in its place, an Empire which spread far afield over Europe, and trod Western civilization under foot from the Black Sea to the walls of Vienna. To-day that Empire’s European possessions have dwindled down to a small strip of land beyond the City’s old walls and the lines of Chatalja.

Another strong ruler followed Orkhan, Amurath I, his youngest son, in 1359. There were troubles in Asia to keep the new Sultan engaged, the Prince of Carmania stirred up several Turkish Emirs to rise against the House of Othman. This matter settled, Amurath bent his mind{171} to further conquests in Europe, and by 1361 he had captured the great city Adrianople and made it his capital. Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, scene of many historic events. Here Emperor Valens met the Goths as they were streaming down the Valley of the Maritza, and tried to stem the tide of barbarian invasion; but the Goths broke the trained legions of Rome, who for years after could not be brought to face that foe again, and Valens, the Emperor, was numbered among the slain. A few centuries later Bulgarians and Greeks met here, and again an Emperor fell; whereas the Goths contented themselves with slaying Valens in battle, the conquering Bulgarians made a drinking-vessel of the skull of Nicephorus I, vanquished at Adrianople.

To-day Bulgarians are investing a Turkish force in Adrianople, the first European capital of the Sultans, where Amurath I lies buried. From here Amurath prepared the way for the conquest of Constantinople; from here he set out on those expeditions which brought one Christian nation after another under the Turkish yoke. Here, too, the Turks first met their present enemy, the Slav. Hitherto their opponents had been only the enfeebled Greeks, and these had few, if any, friends in Europe. As schismatics, the Pope was not concerned with their fate, but when Amurath’s campaigns extended westward, and threatened Catholic countries, Pope Urban V became alarmed, and called upon Western Europe for a new crusade. The King of Hungary, the Princes of Servia, Bosnia, Wallachia, formed a league intended to drive the Osmanli out of Europe; they collected their armed forces and marched towards the East, crossing the Maritza about two days’ march from Constantinople. There was no force of equal strength available to Lalashahin, then in command of the Ottoman forces in Europe, for the allied Princes{172} disposed of some twenty thousand men, and the Turkish army was scattered about in various garrisons. The Christians, assured of victory, neglected all military precautions, were caught unprepared during a night of revelry, “as wild beasts in their lair. They were driven before us as flames before the wind, till, plunging into the Maritza they perished in its waters,” says Seadeddin, the Oriental historian. This was the first encounter between Turks and Slavs; there were many others, mostly with the same result, and resulting in centuries of suffering for the vanquished. But the times have changed; the Slav, no longer careless, undisciplined, ill-prepared, has met the Turk again by the banks of the Maritza, and before the West—prepared, purposeful, and strong—the East has failed as it always has done, as it ever will do.

It was Amurath I who thus began to place the yoke on the Slav nations of Eastern Europe; his troops captured Nissa (Nish), the strong city of the Servians, and forced their Prince to sue for peace; it was granted on the condition that he supplied a tribute of a thousand pounds of silver and a thousand horse-soldiers every year. Sisvan, King of the Bulgarians, had also taken part in the crusade of Western Christianity against Amurath, and he was compelled to beg for mercy, which was shown him at the price of his daughter’s marriage to the conqueror.

But the Slavs, Servians, Bulgarians, and Bosniaks were not disposed to give in calmly to the methods of colonization adopted by Turkey. Most of Thrace was added to the European possessions, and all Roumelia, and there seemed to be no limit to the Osmanli’s greed of territory. The natives of conquered districts were removed to other parts of Turkey, and Turks and Arabs sent to colonize in their stead. All this urged the princes of the neighbouring Slav races to another mighty effort against{173} the Asiatic invader. Servia, remembering her past greatness, was chief of the movement, which was joined by an Albanian people, the Skipetars, Wallachians and Magyars from Hungary, Poles from the northern Slav kingdom, all combined with the southern Slavs in this enterprise. But the old crusading enthusiasm was dead, and Western Europe, which had sent heroes such as Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard C?ur de Lion, Frederick Barbarossa, looked on with apathy at the encroachments of the Turk and the spread of Islam. Richard II, weak and worthless, was King of England, the imbecile Charles VI reigned over France, and the Germanic Empire was torn by civil wars, raging between robber knights and the free towns of the Hansa, under the dissolute Emperor Wenzel. The chivalry of Spain was still fully occupied with its own crusade against the Moors, and finally there were divisions in the Papacy itself between Clement VII and Urban VI. So no help could come to the Slav Crusaders from the West. Still the league against Amurath was powerful, and he realized that its subjection would tax all his energy and resources. He made all necessary arrangements for the good government of Asia during his absence in the field, then crossed the Hellespont to meet the enemy.

In the meantime the Bulgarians and Serbs had become over-confident, owing to a successful battle in Bosnia; an Ottoman army moving through that country was attacked by the Allies with great vigour, and fifteen out of twenty thousand Turks killed. Inactivity on the part of the Christians marked the next few months, while Amurath was pouring troops into Bulgaria, and completing the conquest of that important member of the league. Ali Pasha, Amurath’s general, marched with an army of thirty thousand men against Sisvan, over the passes of the Nadir Derbend, and forced Shumla to surrender; Tirnova{174} and Pravadi fell, and the Bulgarian King fled to Nicopolis. Here Ali Pasha besieged him, and Sisvan begged for peace. The terms of peace eventually agreed to by the conquering Turk put an end to Bulgaria’s existence as a political entity; it became a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Lazar, King of the Servians, the head of the Powers leagued against Amurath, was alarmed at the rapid strides made by the Osmanli forces, and prepared for a resolute struggle. Amurath accepted the formal challenge sent him by the Servian King, and marched westward towards the frontiers of Servia and Bosnia; on the plain of Kossova he met the Allies. After a night spent in a council of war in both camps, the antagonists met on the plain of Kossova, the “Amselfeld,” as the Germans call it. To northward of the small stream Shinitza, which traverses the plain, the chivalry of Servia, Bosnia, and Albania, their auxiliaries from Poland, Hungary, and Wallachia, were drawn up in battle array on 27th August, 1389.

But the crusaders were unable to stand before the fierce onslaught of the Osmanli, despite their reckless bravery. Slav chivalry went under in a sea of blood, though Milosh Kabilovitch had inflicted a fatal wound on the conqueror. The battle of the “Amselfeld” settled the fate of the southern Slavs for many centuries.

Amurath II had died from the wound inflicted by Milosh Kabilovitch, and his son Bajazet reigned in his stead. He pursued the war against Servia energetically, and made that country a vassal state of the Ottomans. King Stephen Lazarevitch, successor to King Lazar, gave the Sultan his sister to wife, and agreed to pay as tribute a certain portion of the produce of the silver mines in his dominions. Thus Bajazet broke down Servia’s resistance, and then turned against the other states which had taken part in the latest crusade. Myrtché, Prince of Wallachia, submitted, and his{175} country became a vassal state of Turkey; Sigismund, King of Hungary, invaded Bulgaria, but after some slight successes, was defeated by a superior Turkish army in 1372, and forced to retreat. While returning to his country from this campaign King Sigismund saw fair Elizabeth Morsiney, and loved her. Their son, the great Hunyadi Janos, avenged King Sigismund in his victorious campaigns against the Turks.

Once again Western chivalry attempted to check the rising tide of Islam. Sigismund, King of Hungary, felt the danger of that power pressing on his frontiers, and succeeded in moving the sympathies of other members of the Catholic Church. So when Pope Boniface IX, in 1394, proclaimed a crusade against the Osmanli, many of the martial youth of France and Burgundy, set free by the end of the one hundred years’ war with England, joined in this new crusade. Count de la Manche, three cousins of the King of France, James of Bourbon, Henri and Philippe de Bar, acted as commanders under Count de Nevers; besides these were other Frankish nobles, Philippe of Artois, Comte d’Eu, and Constable of France, Lord de Courcy, Guy de la Tremouille, Jean de Vienne, Admiral of France, St. Pol. Montmorel, and Reginald de Roze, marched from France, and on their way through Germany were joined by Frederic, Count of Hohenzollern, Grand Commander of the Teutonic Order, and Grand Master Philibert de Naillac, who came from Rhodes with a strong body of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. There came also Bavarian knights, under the Elector Palatine, and the Count of Mumpelsgarde; Styria sent its contingent under Count de Cilly. In all, some ten to twelve thousand of the flower of Western chivalry came down the Danube, full of high pride, and boasting that “if the sky should fall, they would uphold it on the point of their spears.” Myrtché, Prince of{176} Wallachia, though vassal and tributary to the Sultan, had been induced to tempt the fortunes of war once more, and joined the hosts of the Crusaders.

Bajazet was away in Asia, but his general, Yoglan Bey, defended Nicopolis stoutly against the Crusaders, who closely invested it, and so gained time for his master. Swiftly and silently came Bajazet, with his well-trained, well-disciplined army, and the Christian knights at table on the 24th September, 1396, were suddenly informed that a large Turkish army was bearing down upon them. The Franks flew to arms and charged recklessly into battle; their impetuosity and want of discipline proved their undoing, and by evening Bajazet had vanquished this last crusade against the rising fortunes of Islam. King Sigismund escaped; most of the prisoners taken by the Turks were massacred, and those who were spared lived weary months in captivity at Broussa until ransomed in 1397.

Thus was the West defeated in its attempt at rescuing Eastern Christians, and Bajazet’s victorious armies moved on to new conquests; they overran and devastated Styria and southern Hungary, marched through the pass of Thermopyl?, where there was no Leonidas and his devoted band to bid them halt, and under their conquering Sultan, Locris, Phocis, and B?otia fell to the sword of Othman, till finally the whole Peloponese was a Turkish province.

Constantinople, the only remaining portion of the Greek Emperor, had escaped so far, bu............