The failure of the men of the West was largely due to the fact that they despised the common enemy. They were under the curious delusion that the Turk was not a fighting man; that, though he had been successful in beating Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians, he was no warrior, and that he had thus far succeeded because he had never encountered European soldiers. This delusion lasted for at least two centuries after the capture of the city. Almost every Western writer who visited Constantinople spoke of the defeat of the Turks as a task well within the power of a European state. That such a blunder influenced the men of the West before the capture of the city, may be illustrated by the statement of two contemporaries. In an oration by Aeneas Sylvius, who afterwards became Pope Pius the Second, delivered at Rome in 1452, before Pope Nicholas, King Ladislaus, and a number of cardinals, the orator appealed to the knowledge of his audience to recognise that the Turks were ‘unwarlike, weak, effeminate, neither martial in spirit nor in counsel; what they have taken may be recovered without difficulty.’[160] A like testimony is given by La Brocquière in 1438, but with much more caution, since he had been through Asia Minor and had seen the Turks. Nevertheless, this Western traveller states that, though he would not depreciate them, he is ‘convinced that it would be no difficult matter for troops well mounted and well led to defeat them,’ and, in regard to himself, he adds, ‘I declare that with one half of their numbers I should never hesitate to attack them.’[161] He fully realised, as he explains again and again, that their victories had been gained by their enormous superiority in numbers, but though he was very far from despising them as soldiers, he regards them individually as greatly inferior to the soldiers of Western states. His estimate of the inferiority of the Turk was shared by his countrymen and Western statesmen generally,[162] but they did not recognise to the same extent as he did how great and ever increasing was the host which had to be fought. Nor did they recognise, as did he, the wonderful mobility of the Turkish army. It was the same error of forgetting their mobility which brought disaster upon Hunyadi at Varna and at Cossovo-pol.
While the first mistake was in underrating the might of the enemy in regard to numbers, warlike spirit, and mobility, the Western powers blundered also in dividing their forces. The sermon before the pope already referred to, on New Year’s Day 1452, called for international concerted action to defend Constantinople, Cyprus, and Rhodes. The mistake was in trying to do too much. On many occasions, as we have seen, the forces sent against the Turk were divided, and an army which might have been sufficiently strong to strike an effective blow against one of the Turkish divisions was defeated in detail when split into two or three, to be sent against Saracens, or to the aid of the military knights, as well as against the Turks.
The one chance of safety for Constantinople now lay in the inhabitants themselves, with such forces as, at the instigation of the pope, should be sent to the aid of the emperor. But to add to the chagrin and difficulties of the aged John at seeing the Christian armies defeated, he had once more formally to promise the sultan that he would not assist any of the enterprises set on foot from the West. Nor did the influence of the disasters upon the emperor and people of Constantinople stop here. A formidable party in the city, headed by the bishop of Ephesus, which was opposed to the Union, and which strongly resented the proceedings at the Council of Florence, was greatly strengthened. Its members pointed to the victories of Murad, and asked, with scorn, what had been gained by the abandonment of their faith. They knew that they had the support of Murad in their opposition to the Unionists, and the fact that they were not forcibly suppressed by the Court party during the reign of John’s successor can probably be best accounted for on the ground that any strong steps taken against their members would be represented to the sultan as a violation of the engagement to have no further intrigues with the West.
Death of John, October 1448.
The disaster of Cossovo-pol hastened the death of John, which took place on the last day of October 1448, within a few days after he had heard the news.[163]
Of Murad, February 1451.
In February 1451, his great contemporary, Murad, died at Adrianople. He had been a successful warrior, and, with the exception of his failure to capture Belgrade, had succeeded in most of his enterprises. Gibbon is perhaps justified in speaking of him as a philosopher in matters of religion, but he was relentless in imposing his creed. Cantemir, his eulogist, relates that in Epirus he converted all the churches into mosques, and ordered every male Epirot, under penalty of death, to be forcibly made a Mahometan. He deserves the praises of Turkish writers. Chalcondylas and Ducas recognise in him certain good traits of character. The first says that he was a just and equitable man, and Ducas gives him credit not undeserved for having scrupulously respected the treaties which he made with Mahometans or Christians. His son Mahomet, who now becomes the second sultan of that name in the Ottoman dynasty, was at Magnesia when he heard the news of his father’s death.