Conciliating embassies.
Within a few weeks of Mahomet’s arrival in Europe from Magnesia ambassadors were sent to his court at Adrianople from Constantine and other rulers in Europe and Asia Minor who were under his suzerainty to congratulate him on his accession. As his first care was to make sure of his own position and to gain time, Mahomet received them all with apparent cordiality and promised to observe the treaties made by his father. At the request of the representatives of the emperor he not merely confirmed the existing treaties, but declared his willingness to pay an annual sum of three hundred thousand aspers chargeable upon the produce of the Strymon Valley for the maintenance of Orchan.[198]
Then he returned to Caramania, where Ibrahim Bey, who had already shown himself ready to join Hunyadi and other enemies of the Turks, was in revolt.[199] There must be no repetition of the incident which had made Murad’s attempt to capture the city a failure. No sooner had the sultan left Europe than, with an indiscretion which Ducas condemns, ambassadors from the emperor were sent to ask that the pension promised for the support of Orchan should be doubled and at the same time to demand leave, if the request were refused, that Constantine might be at liberty to set him free. The messengers insinuated that in such case Orchan would be an acceptable candidate for the Ottoman throne. The request was of course a threat, and was so treated by Halil Pasha—who had been friendly to the late emperor and who continued his friendship to Constantine—and by Mahomet himself. When Halil heard their demand he bluntly asked them if they were mad. He told them that they had a very different man to deal with from the easy-going Murad; the ink on the treaty was not yet dry, and yet they came as if they were in a position to demand better conditions than had been already granted. ‘If you think,’ said Halil, ‘you can do anything against us, do it: proclaim Orchan prince; bring the Hungarians across the Danube and take from us, if you can, the lands we have captured; but I warn you that you will fail and that if you try you will lose everything.’[200] The account given by Ducas has every appearance of truthfulness. Halil felt that his own attempts to save the city were being thwarted by the emperor himself. He, however, promised to report to Mahomet what they had said and kept his word.
His master dealt with the ambassadors much more diplomatically. He was outside Europe, and it would be inconvenient if any attempt should be made to prevent him returning to Adrianople. Besides, he must have time to come to terms with Caramania. He therefore represented that he was quite disposed to accede to the demands submitted to him, but that, as he was going to Adrianople in a short time, it would be better that they should submit to him there that which was judged best for the empire and the citizens.
Returns to Adrianople, and begins his active preparations.
Thereupon the sultan with all haste made terms with Ibrahim Bey of Caramania and returned to his European capital. When there he at once gave orders that the pension to Orchan should no longer be paid, and sent to arrest all the tax-gatherers in the Strymon Valley who were collecting the money to pay it.
He had quieted one possible ally of the empire. He addressed himself next to another opponent who had shown that he could be terribly formidable. He made a truce with John Hunyadi for three years and concluded arrangements with the rulers of other states. He strengthened his army. He amassed stores of arms, arrows, and cannon-balls. He superintended the thorough reform of the administration of the revenue, and in the course of a year he accumulated a third of the taxes which would otherwise have been squandered.
Purposes building fort on Bosporus.
Then he determined to carry into execution a plan which would give him a strong base for operations against the city he was resolved to capture. He was already master of the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. At what is now Anatolia-Hissar he possessed the strong fortification built by Bajazed. It is at the place where Darius crossed from Asia into Europe and where the Bosporus is narrowest, being indeed only half a mile broad. Mahomet already possessed by treaty, made with his father, the right to cross the straits and to march through the peninsula behind Constantinople to his capital at Adrianople. He now, however, proposed to build another fortification at some point on the opposite—that is the European—shore. It would serve the double purpose of enabling him to command the straits and of giving him a base for obtaining his supplies from Asia and for the attack by sea upon the city. With a fleet already large at the Dardanelles and with the command of the Bosporus, he hoped to isolate Constantinople so far as to prevent it from receiving any aid in men or supplies of food. The command of the Bosporus would be a blow to the trade of Venice and Genoa as well as to the emperor. Ships would be prevented from trading freely with, and bringing supplies from, the Black Sea. It might have been expected that the emperor would have put forth all his strength to oppose the execution of such a design. The all-sufficient explanation is, that, even if his naval strength had been sufficient to delay the crossing of Mahomet’s crowd of builders, the army was too hopelessly insignificant to hold the shore against that which could soon arrive from Adrianople on its rear.
Remonstrances against project.