VIII
The fall of Brusa, Nicaea, and Nicomedia did not cause alarm in Europe. The rise of the Osmanlis had scarcely been noticed, even by the Byzantines! The Turkish pirates in the Aegaean, who had no connexion whatever with the Osmanlis,[159] were becoming, however, a menace to the commerce of the Venetians and Genoese and to the sovereignty of the remaining Latin princes of Achaia and of the islands. In one of Marino Sanudo’s letters we find the following significant passage: ‘Marco Gradenigo, writing to me from Negropont (Euboea) on September eighteenth, 1328, declares that unless some remedy be found against the Turks, who have marvellously increased in numbers, Negropont and all the islands of the Archipelago will be infallibly lost.’[160]
In 1327 Andronicus II wrote to Pope John XXII, calling his attention to the Turks as a danger to Christendom, and appealing for aid.[161] Nothing was done at this time. The Byzantines were schismatics, and France at least was more intent upon a recovery of the Holy Land than upon checking the advance of the Moslem corsairs.[162]
Andronicus III, in 1333, followed the example of his grandfather by making another overture to John XXII. He did not scruple to dangle before the Pope the bait of a reunion of the Churches.[163] The same year Venice urged Cyprus and Rhodes to join in a coalition against the Turks.[164] The only practical outcome of the efforts of the popes, the Venetian senate, and the Byzantine emperors to raise a crusade during the reign of Orkhan was the capture of Smyrna, in October 1344. Omar bey, emir of Aïdin, had been caught napping.[165] Smyrna remained in possession of the Knights of Rhodes until it was taken by Timur in 1403.[166]
The futile agitation in Europe against the reawakening of Islam did not in any way hurt Orkhan. On the contrary it helped him greatly. Just as the petty conflict of Andronicus III with Phocaea in 1336 had diverted Orkhan’s powerful southern neighbours, this interference of the Pope, and the activity of Rhodes and Venice, contributed to the prosperity and growth of the Osmanlis by striking a blow at his most dangerous rivals, the Emirs of Sarukhan, Aïdin, and Hamid. After 1340 Orkhan was ready to extend his dominion into Europe. He did not have long to wait.
IX
Orkhan had one rival whose goal was similar to his own. Stephen Dushan, kral of Serbia, was openly aspiring to the imperial throne. Byzantium had no more formidable enemy than this warrior king, who in twenty-five years led thirteen campaigns against the Greeks.[167] The memory of his ephemeral empire has been cherished by the Serbians to this day. In their folk-lore Stephen Dushan and his deeds are immortalized. The halo of romance still surrounds the man and his conquests. It is in vain that historical science has demonstrated the purely temporary character of Stephen’s conquests. It is in vain that he has been divested of the glamour of the chronicles and songs, and pictured in conformity with fact. To the Serbian peasant he is Saint Stephen, the glorious Czar, who brought the Serbian Empire to its zenith. All the cities in which this adventurer and raider set foot are claimed in the twentieth century as a legitimate part of ‘Greater Serbia’. Men have engaged in a bloody war and have died for this fiction.[168]
Stephen Dushan demands our attention because he is the one man who could have anticipated the Osmanlis in winning the inheritance of the Caesars. A statement of his career is necessary before we take up the narration of the events which led to the invasion of the Balkan peninsula by the Osmanlis.
Stephen came into prominence in 1330 during the war which his father, Urosh, made upon Bulgaria. Czar Michael had repudiated the Serbian princess Anna in order to marry a sister of Andronicus III. The Bulgarians were badly beaten. Stephen received for his brilliant part in the campaign the province of Zenta. Although he was only twenty-three, his ambition to rule was already awakened. Dissatisfied, he demanded a half of his father’s possessions. Urosh refused. Stephen marched against him, dethroned him, and imprisoned him. According to some authorities, he had Urosh killed.[169] Whether he actually ordered the assassination or not, he profited by the crime.
During the first decade of his reign, Stephen gathered a majority of the Serbian-speaking peoples under his rule, pushed down to the Dalmatian coast, and asserted Serbian supremacy over a large portion of the territory which his race had hitherto contested with the Bulgarians. His appearance on the Adriatic led to a nominal alliance with Venice.[170] In 1340 he began the invasion of lower Macedonia. When the valley of the Vardar was conquered, he attacked Serres. This city fell into his possession. He now considered himself ready for the advance on Constantinople. Drunk with success, he crowned himself at Serres[171] ‘King by the grace of God of Serbia, of Albania, and of the maritime region, prince of the Bulgarian empire, and master of almost all the Roman empire’.[172] A few months later he changed the title to ‘emperor and autocrat of Serbia and Romania’.[173]