VI
Urban VI, the first Roman pope of the Great Schism, did practically nothing against the Osmanlis. He sent, in 1388, two armed galleys for the defence of Constantinople, and issued letters broadcast promising indulgences to all who would take part in a crusade.[485] But he did not work for a league of the states which recognized him. His successor, Boniface IX, whose reign covered the same period as that of Bayezid, was too occupied in combating the Angevin party in Naples, and in trying to preserve intact the papal states and cities, to pay much attention to the Ottoman menace.
In 1391, Boniface urged George Stracimir, who called himself king of Rascia (Serbia), to conquer Durazzo from the ‘schismatics’, and commanded the Catholic archbishop of Antivari to prevent the Christians of Macedonia and Dalmatia from allying themselves with the Osmanlis.[486] Idle words these were, revealing at once the short-sighted policy of Boniface and his bigotry. For the Osmanlis, in the spring of 1393, were threatening Durazzo.[487] With warring Christian sects, their success was certain.
In Greece the interference of the Latin popes was becoming more and more bitterly resented. Ecclesiastics and laymen alike resented proselytizing and the invariable introduction of a bargaining clause in every appeal for western aid. In March 1393, Dorotheus, metropolitan of Athens and exarch of Greece, who had been justly charged by the Duke of Athens with wanting to introduce into his duchy the Osmanlis, was a fugitive at Constantinople. Tried on the charge brought against him by the Duke, a synod of eight bishops acquitted him.[488] This action was indicative of the feeling throughout the Eastern Church,—better the Osmanlis than the Franks with their Catholic missionaries. Even the changed attitude of Bayezid towards Christianity did little to modify this sentiment.
Although France was supporting the Avignon papacy, Boniface wrote in 1394 to Charles VI, asking him to help Sigismund or at least to allow his subjects to fight under the Hungarian standards.[489] In the course of the same year he twice ordered a crusade to be preached.[490] This was, however, rather an attempt to take under his wing, and give sanction to, a secular movement to help Hungary than an initiative which had originated the movement. For most of Sigismund’s allies were adherents of the other papacy.
At Avignon, Benedict XIII, a Spaniard, mounted the throne in 1394. His influence with the Duke of Burgundy, who dominated the insane French king, was almost as negligible as that of his Roman rival.
Philippe de Mézières, who had taken up the work of Marino Sanudo, and gave his life to the promotion of a crusade, left Cyprus in 1378, and settled in Paris, where he preached and wrote impassioned appeals to Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. His ‘Order of the Passion’, which was to furnish a race of fighters against the Moslem holders of Jerusalem, had replaced the celibate vow of the earlier orders by a vow of marital fidelity, so that ‘defenders of the Holy Sepulchre’ might be propagated, and trained from infancy for their mission. The whole idea of Philippe de Mézières was an anachronism. The age of the crusades had passed. After 1390 the new order fell into oblivion.[491] Like Marino Sanudo, Philippe de Mézières had actually contributed to the aggrandizement of the Osmanlis; for he turned the minds of those who were moved by his appeals from the real menace of Islam to a quixotic and wholly useless dream. The crusades had only emphasized the axiom of history that Syria, including Palestine, must be held either through Mesopotamia or through Egypt.
Against the Osmanlis as against the Moslems of the Holy Land, the Church was no longer able to move Europe. The Nicopolis crusade was undertaken and carried through by secular agencies. It had neither religious motive nor religious backing.
The interest of Hungary in checking the progress of Ottoman conquest was hardly second to that of Venice and Genoa. To the two Italian republics, who had not hesitated to stake their very existence a decade before upon the mastery of the Aegaean Sea and the free passage of the Dardanelles, one would suppose that the battle of Kossova would have been a salutary warning, and that they would have seen the necessity of opposing the Osmanlis to the full extent of their resources. The archives of these cities, however, during the entire reign of Bayezid, reveal a record of double-dealing and insincere diplomacy which was as futile and disastrous as it was shameful.
Immediately upon hearing the news of Kossova, the Venetian Senate sent to Andrea Bembo, who had been negotiating with Murad, a letter instructing him as to the course he should follow in view of the death of Murad. He was to seek out the son who had survived, or, if both sons were alive, to be very cautious until one son had killed or defeated the other. In the meantime, he was to make overtures to both, telling each one, without letting the other know, that the Senate ‘had heard of the death of his father, and on that account had great sorrow. For we have always regarded him as a most particular friend, and we loved him and his state. Likewise we have heard of his happy elevation to the power and lordship of his country, concerning which we have been very happy, because, in like manner as we have sincerely loved the father, we love and are disposed to love the son and his dominion, and to regard him as a particular friend.’ Then Bembo was to speak of the commercial privileges desired by the Senate, and to disclaim the action of the Venetian admiral, Pietro Zeno, who had attacked the galleys of Murad.[492]
Immediately upon hearing which son had become the successor of Murad, the Senate sent Francesco Quirini to Bayezid with gifts to secure the renewal of the commercial treaty concluded several years before with Murad. Bayezid readily offered to protect Venetian commerce, but he gave no guarantee.[493]
The appearance of the Osmanlis on the Aegaean Sea, and their sacking of Chios, Negropont,[494] and Attica, greatly alarmed the Senate. Fear was expressed for the safety of the Venetian fortresses in Negropont and Crete.[495] All garrisons were ordered, provisioned, and reinforced.[496] In 1393, forgetting their sincere love for Bayezid, the Senate decided to treat with Sigismund for an offensive alliance against the Osmanlis.[497] So it cannot be believed that the Venetians did not see the growing danger.
In September of the next year they responded favourably, although vaguely, to a letter in which Sigismund notified them that in the coming springtime he would ‘go against the Turks to their loss and destruction’.[498] But when, in May 1396, a Hungarian embassy arrived in Venice to announce the readiness for a forward movement, and to secure the promised aid, Venice pledged herself only to the extent of four galleys, and that on condition that Rhodes, Chios, and Mytilene would co-operate with the Venetians.[499] A high-sounding letter was sent to Tommaso Monicego, ordering him to move against the Osmanlis ‘for the preservation of the city of Constantinople and for the honour of the republic’.[500] Too weak and too inexperienced to withstand the hardened mariners of Italy, the Osmanlis disappeared from the sea for the moment. Their navy was only six years old, and could not yet match itself against the ghiaours. Monicego fought no battle, for there was no enemy to oppose him. But he made no effort to hinder the passage of the Osmanlis from Asia to Europe and from Europe to Asia. The sincerity of the naval co-operation in the Nicopolis crusade is open to the gravest suspicion.[501]
While the Senate was putting off Sigismund with assurances and promises that never materialized, they continued to treat with Bayezid and Manuel. In September 1394, the Osmanlis appeared in the Adriatic at the mouth of the Boyana, and seized Venetian subjects there. The danger to Durazzo was imminent, for the Osmanlis were now masters of the valley of the Drin. When the Senate deliberated on measures for securing the release of the prisoners and for the defence of Durazzo, they decided to make representations rather than threats to Bayezid.[502] He naturally paid no attention to the Venetians. They did not intend to apply force, so he continued the subjugation of Albania and Greece.
To Manuel the Senate wrote a letter in 1394, recommending him ‘to trust in God, to trust in the measures which the Christian princes would know how to take, to write to the pope and to these (the Christian princes), promoting a general alliance’.[503] But one finds in the deliberations of the Senate no speech or motion or letter from which one could infer that they themselves had any hope whatever of the efficacy of the procedure suggested to Manuel. In fact, within six months, in spite of the imminence of the Hungarian offensive campaign that was to ‘drive the Turks out of Europe’, the Senate actually decided to send ambassadors to Bayezid to urge upon him the advisability of an accord with the Byzantine emperor.[504] It was only because the crusade of Sigismund was already launched, and they realized the uselessness of it, that they gave up this questionable démarche, and discussed measures for the safety of the Venetian fleet, and for preventing Constantinople from falling into Bayezid’s hands without coming into any open rupture with the Osmanlis.[505] Did Venice, while ostensibly co-operating with the crusaders, fear that a victory at Nicopolis would bring about the hegemony of Hungary in the Balkan peninsula, and secretly wish for the success of the Osmanlis?
As for Genoa, no other policy was considered than that of outbidding Venice for Bayezid’s favour. Fulsome congratulations upon his succession were sent to Bayezid. In the autumn of 1390, a Genoese embassy appeared at Adrianople to remind Bayezid of the traditional friendship of the Consulta for his father and grandfather. Their assurances were backed up by valuable gifts.[506] While cultivating the friendship of the Osmanlis, the Consulta levied a compulsory tax upon all the communes where they could enforce their authority for the purpose of increasing the Genoese fleets in the Aegaean Sea and at Constantinople.[507] A watchful eye was kept on the Venetians and the Osmanlis. Neither Sigismund nor Manuel received real aid from Genoa.
For the necessary outside support and assistance in the crusade which appeared to him indispensable for the safety of Hungary, Sigismund had to look elsewhere than to the divided papacy, and to the republics of Venice and Genoa. Whether Sigismund’s fears of the ability of the Osmanlis to destroy Hungary were well founded is open to question. But there is no doubt that his activity prevented the capture of Constantinople in the early years of the reign of Bayezid.