The treaty of June 1444 thus solemnly ratified was almost immediately broken.[140] To the eternal disgrace of Treaty violated by Christians. Ladislaus and of the cardinal legate, Julian Cesarini, who had accompanied Hunyadi on the campaign just described, and who figures as the evil genius of Ladislaus until his death, it was broken by the Christians. History furnishes few examples of equally bad faith.
All the evidence goes to prove that the Turks intended to respect the treaty. The sultan, indeed, had taken the opportunity of abdicating and of formally handing over the government to his son, Mahomet, a boy fourteen years old, and had already retired to Brousa with the intention of going on to Magnesia, to live in peace and quietness. Murad wanted rest. Even when he was seen by La Brocquière, probably in 1436, he was ‘already very fat.’ A short, thick-set man with a broad brown face, high cheekbones, a large and hooked nose, he looked, says the same writer, like a Tartar—that is, like a Mongol. Voluptuous in the worst Turkish sense of the word, he also loved wine and banished a believer who dared to reprove him for drinking it. ‘He is thought,’ adds La Brocquière, ‘not to love war, and this opinion seems to me well founded.’[141] Just about this time also he lost his eldest son, Aladdin, to whom he was much attached, and was overcome with grief. Hence his determination to get rid of the cares of government.
The opportunity to the Christians seemed tempting. News had arrived that a powerful fleet of seventy ships had appeared in the Bosporus, ten triremes having been sent by the pope and ten others at his request by Latin princes. The duke of Burgundy and a French cardinal had arrived at Constantinople to urge John to join in a Christian league. The cities of Thrace were undefended by the Turks, and the fleets, it was believed, could prevent Murad with his army from crossing into Europe. The only obstacle to vigorous and successful action was the newly signed treaty.
Pretexts were found that Ladislaus had had no right to agree to a truce without the consent of the pope, and that Murad had not executed his part of the treaty. Ladislaus hesitated to break his oath, but Cardinal Julian urged that his league with the Christian princes of the West was better worth respecting than his oath to the miscreant. According to more than one author, he maintained the proposition that no faith need be kept with infidels.[142] Finally, the cardinal called down upon his own head all punishment due to the sin, if sin there were, in violating the oath. But in the name of the pope, the vicar of God on earth, he formally released the king from the obligations to which he had sworn.[143]
The action of Ladislaus was in reality not merely wicked and immoral, but ill-advised and hasty. Even in the short interval between the conclusion of peace and the declaration of war, the French, Italian, and German volunteers had gone home. John was not ready to aid him. Phrantzes had been sent to Ladislaus, to the cardinal, and even to the sultan, to temporise and to prevent an outbreak of war before a coalition could be formed. Hunyadi very reluctantly gave his consent to the violation of the truce, and then only on condition that the declaration of war should be postponed until September 1. George of Serbia not only refused to violate the engagement into which he had solemnly entered with Murad but refused to permit Scanderbeg to join Ladislaus. The whole business was ill-considered and ill-managed, and the fault lies mainly with the cardinal.
When Murad’s dream of quiet days at Brousa was disturbed by the news that the treaty solemnly accepted a few weeks earlier had been violated by the faithless Christians, who in this case are justly characterised by the Turks as infidels, he at once resumed the duties of a ruler and prepared to go to the aid of his son, young Mahomet. With the aid of the Genoese he crossed the Bosporus, probably at the extreme north end below the Giant’s Mountain, where the entrance into the Black Sea was, and long continued to be, known, from the number of temples which had existed there from pre-Christian times, as the Sacred Mouth. The Italian and Greek fleets near the capital were unable successfully to resist the passage, the ascent of the Bosporus being almost impossible for sailing vessels during the continuance of the prevailing north winds. From thence Murad hastened to meet the army of Ladislaus.[144]
Battle of Varna, Nov. 11, 1444.
The place of rendezvous for the Christian armies was Varna. Ladislaus took the field in the autumn, with only ten thousand fighting men. He marched along the valley of the Danube, and was joined by Drakul, prince of Wallachia, with five thousand of his subjects. The total of the two armies probably never exceeded twenty thousand men.
The Wallachian prince advised prudence and delay. He pointed out that even a hunting party of the sultan contained as many men as were now collected to oppose him. Hunyadi, however reluctant he had been to enter on the campaign, seems to have thought that, once the armies had started, their only hope of safety lay in expedition and in being able to obtain a strong position for fighting. The discussion between the two brave leaders led to a quarrel, in which Drakul drew his sword, but was immediately overpowered and compelled to purchase safety by the promise of a further reinforcement of four thousand men.[145] Drakul then retired, and his place was taken by his son. Many of the towns and villages passed through on their march were held by Turks, but the Christian armies, in most cases, easily overcame all opposition, and in their course plundered the schismatic Bulgarians and their churches as if they had been enemies.