IV
After his return from the first Anatolian campaign, Bayezid ordered a general advance along the northern and north-western frontiers. One band invaded Bosnia, but did not make much headway. Three bands entered Hungary, and initiated the system of rapid raiding that in time reached as far as Germany, and made the ‘Turks’ the nightmare of Slavic, Teutonic, and Italian Europe. The first battle on Hungarian soil was fought at Nagy-Olosz, in Syrmia, not far from Karlovitz, where three centuries later the Osmanlis signed the death-warrant of their Weltpolitik.
The Danube was crossed also near Silistria. Before the terrible akindjis could penetrate far into his country, the hospodar Mircea surrendered, or was made prisoner. After a short exile at Brusa, he regained his liberty by consenting to the payment of a tribute of three thousand ducats, thirty horses, and twenty falcons.[460] He agreed to help Bayezid against the Hungarians, who had long been asserting a sovereignty over Wallachia, and in return Bayezid promised to settle no Moslems and build no mosques north of the Danube. In the first Hungarian invasion, Bayezid received more valuable aid from the Wallachians than from his janissaries. There were no better fighters in the Balkan peninsula than these descendants of the soldiers of Trajan. The interference of Sigismund prevented an Ottoman invasion of Moldavia, whose hospodars remained altogether independent of the Osmanlis until the reign of Mohammed the Conqueror.[461]
When Louis of Hungary died, he left two daughters. The younger, Hedwig, was chosen as queen of Poland by the Polish nobles. Her marriage with Jagello of Lithuania, who was converted to Christianity and baptized under the name of Ladislas, definitely separated the crowns of Poland and Hungary, and had a far-reaching influence upon the subsequent fortunes of the Osmanlis. The crown of Hungary fell to Mary, whose succession was questioned by Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples, the nearest male heir. His invasion of Dalmatia, in 1385, brought into Hungary Sigismund, second son of Charles IV of Luxemburg, the German Emperor. For Sigismund was betrothed to Mary, but had been slow to take upon himself the rôle of bridegroom, owing to his disappointment over Hedwig’s election by the Poles. Now he entered into the struggle for the Hungarian crown. In 1387, it was placed upon his head. The union between Poland and Hungary was broken, but the fortunes of Hungary and Bohemia, to which throne Sigismund succeeded by blood, were joined in a way that has never been broken to the present time. The outside connexions of the new Hungarian king were a most important factor in the growth of the Ottoman Empire. A strong and vigorous king, whose sole interest lay in the crown of Hungary, might have prevented the spread of the Osmanlis. In fact, after Bayezid’s death, he might easily have destroyed the Ottoman power in Europe. But Sigismund, called in 1411 to the larger rôle of Holy Roman Emperor, became engrossed in the Hussite controversy and the Church councils to end the great schism. While retaining the crown of Hungary, he allowed the Osmanlis to make the preparations which were to end in the Moslem subjugation of that kingdom.
In the early days, when Sigismund’s interests lay in his newly-acquired Hungarian crown, he was alive to the menace of the Osmanlis. He sent a message to Bayezid, demanding by what right he was interfering with Bulgaria, which was a country under Hungarian protection. Bayezid made no response to the address of the king’s ambassador. He merely pointed to the weapons hanging in his tent, and gave a sign that the audience was over.
Sigismund understood, and accepted the challenge. In 1392, he invaded Bulgaria, won an initial battle from the Osmanlis, who would have been annihilated had it not been for their new allies, the Wallachians, and, after a long siege, took Nicopolis on the Danube.[462] By this time Bayezid was able to send a large army into Bulgaria. When Sigismund realized how numerous were the forces coming against him, he saw that his victory bade fair to be nothing more than the acquisition of a prison. Before the Osmanlis could surround him, he wisely abandoned Nicopolis. The retreat became a rout.[463] It was on the return from this expedition that Sigismund met Elisabeth Morsinay, in the county of Hunyadi. From their union was born the great champion, who, while his imperial father was engrossed in theological disputes and the complex interests of the empire, battled bravely against Mohammed I and Murad II.
The expedition of 1392 demonstrated to Sigismund that Bayezid was a foe worthy of a European ruler, that he must be checked if Hungary were to be saved, and that the Hungarians could not again take the offensive against the Osmanlis without aid from western Europe. For the pretensions of Louis to the overlordship of the Balkan States, and the heartless propaganda of the Catholic faith, thinly disguising Louis’s inordinate ambitions, had turned the Balkan peoples against Hungary and ‘crusaders’ from the west. They chose rather to stand on the side of their Moslem enslavers.
Sigismund’s invasion of Bulgaria determined Bayezid to put an end to the arrangement concluded just before Kossova between Murad and Sisman. Bulgaria, like Thrace and Macedonia, was to be an integral part of the empire, and to become converted to Islam and ottomanized, in so far as that was possible. For Sisman, who had re-established himself in his old capital, was too uncertain an ally to be trusted in the event of another Hungarian invasion. In the spring of 1393, an army under Soleiman Tchelebi, Bayezid’s oldest son, to whom this was the first command, surrounded Tirnovo. The bulk of Soleiman’s army was composed of Macedonian Christians and renegades of the first generation. In midsummer,[464] after a three months’ siege, Tirnovo was taken by storm from the side of the old castle, which is still, in part, standing.[465] The inhabitants who escaped fire and sword were carried into captivity in Anatolia. Among them was the patriarch Euthymius.[466]
This was the end of the independence of Bulgaria and of the national church. The loss of the church was a more serious blow than the loss of independence. For the Bulgarian nationality suffered an eclipse of centuries. Under the laws of Mohammed the Conqueror for the ‘self-government’ of the Christian elements of the empire, the Bulgarians were included in the Greek millet (nation). Enemy to every influence, every movement that tended to lessen its temporal power, the Greek patriarchate of Phanar never wearied in its endeavours, and never withheld its approval of the foulest means, to stamp out the Bulgarian national spirit. One cannot visit the old monastery of Rilo without realizing that the Bulgarian sufferings have been more acute from Christian priests than from Moslem governors. One cannot follow the trail of unending persecution in the mute witness of unchurched communities from Monastir to the Black Sea through Macedonia and Eastern Rumelia, and to the Danube, through Bulgarian Serbia and trans-Rhodopian Moesia, without sympathizing with the Bulgarian aspirations of 1913, and without comprehending the wild rage and hatred that drove an ordinarily clear-headed and impassive people into the second Balkan war.[467]
When Tirnovo fell, Sisman was not found in his palace. His fate was a mystery even when Schiltberger went through Bulgaria with the crusaders three years later. Schiltberger believed that he died in captivity.[468] His son, Alexander, became a Moslem to save his life, and was given the governorship of Samsun.[469] He was killed fighting under the Ottoman flag, in 1420, in the rebellion of Dédé-Sultan. The royal family of Bulgaria had no other heirs.
Silistria, Nicopolis, Widin, and the other Danube fortresses were strongly garrisoned and fortified.[470] By conversion and immigration the Moslem population was cultivated, and grew rapidly on this northern frontier of the empire.