Then Mousa determined to attack Manuel, who had been faithful to his alliance with Suliman. He denounced him as the cause of the fall of Bajazed and set himself to arouse all the religious fanaticism possible against the Christian population under the emperor’s rule. According to Ducas, Mousa put forward the statements that it was the emperor who had invited Timour and his hordes, that his own brother Suliman had been punished by Allah because he had become a giaour, and that he, Mousa, had been entrusted with the sword of Mahomet in order to overthrow the infidel. He therefore called upon the faithful to go with him to recapture Salonica and the other Greek cities which had belonged to his father, and to change their churches into mosques for the worship of God and Mahomet.[125]
In 1412, he devastated Serbia for having supported his brother, and this in as brutal a manner as Timour had devastated the cities and countries in Asia Minor. Then he attacked Salonica. Orchan, the son of Suliman, aided the Christians in the defence of the city, which, however, was forced to surrender, and Orchan was blinded by his uncle.
While successful on land Mousa was defeated at sea, and the inhabitants of the capital, in 1411, saw the destruction of his fleet off the island of Plataea in the Marmora. In revenge for this defeat he laid siege to the city. Manuel and his subjects stoutly defended its landward walls, and before Mousa could capture it news came of the revolt of his younger brother, Mahomet, who appeared as the avenger of Suliman. The siege of Constantinople had to be raised. Mahomet had taken the lordship of the Turks in Caramania shortly after the defeat of his father at Angora, and had been unattacked by Timour. The emperor proposed an alliance with him, which was gladly accepted and the conditions agreed to were honourably kept by both parties. Mahomet came to Scutari where he had an interview with the emperor. An army formed of Turks and Greeks was led by Mahomet to attack his brother. But Mousa defeated him in two engagements. Then Manuel, after a short time, having been joined by a Serbian army, attempted battle against him, and with success. The Janissaries deserted Mousa and went over to Mahomet and Manuel, and his army was defeated. He was himself captured and by order of Mahomet was bowstrung.[126]
Mahomet was now the only survivor of the six sons of Bajazed, with the exception of Isa, the youngest, who was still living with Manuel as a hostage. Three of his brothers Sultan Mahomet the First, 1413–1420. had been the victims of fratricide. In 1413, Mahomet proclaimed himself Grand Sultan of the Ottomans.
He had been loyally aided by Manuel and the Serbians, and in return loyally respected the agreements he had made with both. He gave up, as we have seen, Salonica and the fortified towns on the Euxine, the Marmora and in Thessaly which had been taken from the Greeks.
In 1415, the Turks, who had remained nearly undisturbed on the western side of the Balkans, entered Bosnia. The inhabitants were mostly Bogomils, who had been constantly persecuted by their Catholic neighbours in order to force them to Union with the Church of Rome, were menaced, on account of their refusal, by the king of Hungary, and in reply threatened that they would coalesce with the Turks. Upon such an intimation, the Turks entered the country.[127]
The two rulers, Manuel and Mahomet, continued on friendly terms. It was probably due to the emperor’s influence that the sultan consented, in 1415, to allow the Knights of Rhodes to build a strong fortification on the boundaries of Caria and Lycia as a place of refuge for Christians who should escape from the hands of the Moslems. Ducas gives an account of the interview which took place between the grand master and Manuel and adds that the emperor went so far towards conciliating the Christians that he contented the rulers of Chios, Mitylene, and Phocaea. In returning from the Morea in 1416, Manuel met Mahomet at Gallipoli, the sultan going on board Manuel’s galley and eating with him.
Two years later, the good understanding between Mahomet and the emperor was interrupted by an incident which is creditable to Manuel. A Turkish pretender who claimed to be Mustafa, the elder brother of the sultan, who is supposed to have been killed at Angora, aided by a body of Wallachs, attempted to dethrone Mahomet. They were attacked and beaten back and then took refuge in Salonica. Manuel declined to give them up, but promised that he would prevent the pretender and the leader of the Wallachs from making further attacks upon Mahomet. To accomplish this, he sent the pretender Mustafa to the island of Lemnos and imprisoned the chief of the Wallachs in the monastery of Pammacaristos in Constantinople. But Mahomet would not be satisfied with any punishment less than the death of the pretender, and from this time ceased to trust Manuel. Nevertheless, when, in 1420, the sultan was in passage through Constantinople towards his Asiatic possessions, Manuel behaved loyally. All the members of his council, says Phrantzes,[128] advised the emperor to seize him. Manuel refused and declared that, though the sultan might violate his oath of friendship, he would rather trust to God and respect his own. On Mahomet’s return to Europe through Gallipoli, the council again urged the emperor to capture him. Again, however, he refused, and sent a trusty Death of Mahomet. general to escort him from the Dardanelles to Adrianople. A short time after his arrival, in 1420, Mahomet died.
His death was kept secret for forty days, in order to give time for the arrival of his son, Murad, who was then at Reign of Murad, 1420–1451. Amasia. Murad was proclaimed at Brousa and began his reign by proposing to Manuel the renewal of the alliance which had existed with his father. We have already seen that this proposal was rejected, and that, after fruitless negotiations for the surrender of two of Murad’s sons, war was declared. The emperor thereupon sent to Mustafa the pretender, who still remained prisoner at Lemnos, and, giving him assistance, recognised or appointed him governor of Thrace and of all the places in that province held by the Turks which he could occupy. In return, Mustafa swore to deliver Gallipoli, which had been taken by the Turks in the reign of Bajazed, to the emperor as soon as he had captured it, as well as certain towns on the Black Sea. Mustafa succeeded for a while and with the aid of the imperial troops captured Gallipoli (1420). A number of its Turkish garrison joined his army. Manuel’s general now claimed the fulfilment of his promise to deliver this important town, but Mustafa stated what has often been advanced in our own time as a generally recognised rule in Islam, that a true believer could not surrender to unbelievers territory held by Moslems except by force, that his religion bound him to build a city on the ruins of the Christian city, and that he would rather break his oath than violate the duty imposed by his religion. It was in vain that the emperor’s representative reminded him of his past history: how he had sought refuge at Salonica, how the emperor had risked the anger of Mahomet by insisting upon his refusal to give him up; how at Lemnos he had still been protected. The pretender was obdurate.[129]