Perhaps it was because of the advice of Ali Pasha, who told him that the taking of Constantinople would bring upon him a really effective European intervention, or because he preferred to expend his energies in the Greek peninsula and in Asia Minor, that Bayezid did not carry out his threat to Manuel. These are the common explanations of the failure to follow up the victory of Nicopolis with the extinction of the Byzantine Empire.[587] As far as the Greeks were concerned, the inheritance of the Caesars was his. He had successfully defended against Europe what he had won. Constantinople could have been taken by assault. In fact, from his spies within the city, Bayezid knew that the inhabitants were favourable to surrender, and would probably force the hand of Manuel, if the Osmanlis made a show of beginning the assault. Bayezid must have been deterred from this enterprise, however, by the realization of his inability to hold the city without having the mastery of the sea.
One of Bayezid’s chief claims to greatness as a statesman is the way in which he handled Venice and Genoa. At any time during his reign, the Italian republics could have cut him off from Asia if he were in Europe, or from Europe if he were in Asia. Bayezid was master of most of the Balkan peninsula and of half of Anatolia; but he did not control the path from one portion of his empire to the other. Since he had come to the throne, Genoa had fallen under the influence of France. There was a strong anti-Ottoman sentiment in the Venetian Senate, which at any instant might crystallize into open hostility.[588] Europe was for the moment stirred over the fate of the Nicopolis crusaders. Bayezid knew that this was not the time to take Constantinople.
Then, too, after the great victories of Kossova and Nicopolis, and his successful campaign against Karamania, Bayezid allowed himself to succumb to the insidious temptations that assail the warrior when he passes from the tent to the palace. It was not astonishing that the pleasures of the table and of the harem proved irresistible to him. Bayezid, who had the best qualities of his age, allowed himself to become debauched by indulgence in shameful and unspeakable vices. His brilliant mental and physical qualities began to suffer the inevitable eclipse. His example was contagious. For, as the Osmanlis say, ‘the fish begins to corrupt at the head’.
XIII
In April 1398, and again in March 1399, Boniface IX ordered to be preached throughout Christendom a crusade for the defence of Constantinople.[589] His appeals fell on deaf ears. Wenceslaus was approaching the end of his power in the empire, Richard of England was fighting for his throne, Florence was in a struggle with the Visconti, the Duke of Burgundy and the Duke of Orleans were disputing the regency in France. Only Venice and Genoa were vitally interested in the fate of Constantinople.
Because Genoa had put itself under the guardianship of the Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI of France, and son-in-law of Duke Giovanni Visconti of Milan, the interests of her Pera colony demanded some attention from the powerful Valois and Visconti families. This made possible the sole response to the appeals of Manuel and the Pope, the expedition of Marshal Boucicaut.
In the summer of 1399, a force of ten thousand Osmanlis, after coming into more or less open conflict with the Genoese of Galata, attempted to enter Constantinople. The defenders were few; for the inhabitants, as at the time of the final siege in 1453, were more likely to be found in the bazaars than on the city walls. They had little desire to prolong a condition which was paralysing their business activities. Clavijo, who visited Constantinople four years later, was informed that the attack failed only because of the lack of skill and energy shown by the Osmanlis.[590] Until they had cannon to help them, the Osmanlis never displayed fighting ability in an assault upon fortifications. At this critical moment, aid arrived from Europe.
Boucicaut was the only one of the prisoners of Nicopolis that accepted the challenge of Bayezid. He did not forget the biting words of the audience at Brusa at the time of their release. On June 26, 1399, with four ships and two armed galleys, he set sail from Aiguesmortes. His force of twelve hundred chevaliers and foot-soldiers had much more cohesion and experience than the volunteers who gathered round Jean de Nevers at Dijon three years before. He was joined at Tenedos by several Genoese and Venetian galleys. After a victory in the Dardanelles over seventeen Ottoman galleys, the first recorded naval combat of the Osmanlis, Boucicaut reached Constantinople ‘just in time to save the city’. He was received with great joy by Manuel, and given the rank of Grand Constable.[591]
For several weeks, Boucicaut and his followers spread terror among the Osmanlis in the Gulf of Nicomedia and the Bosphorus. The Ottoman sailors, no match for the Provençals and Italians, took to cover. An assault on Nicomedia failed, but the fearless marshal made several raids into the interior,[592] and against the Ottoman settlements on the shores of the Marmora and gulfs of Nicomedia and Mudania. His one notable success was against Riva, near the Black Sea entrance of the Bosphorus, on the Asiatic shore.[593] After the castle had been stormed, and the garrison put to the sword, Boucicaut attained the objective of his raid. In the mouth of the river Riva, from which the town takes its name, were hidden the Ottoman galleys and smaller vessels, which had taken refuge there when Boucicaut first appeared in the Golden Horn. All the Ottoman shipping was destroyed by fire.
In order to remove the danger to which Constantinople was subjected by the presence of John Palaeologos, son of Andronicus, at Silivria, constantly intriguing with the Osmanlis, Boucicaut urged Manuel to become reconciled with his nephew. He went, himself—it was less than a day’s sail—to fetch John to Constantinople.[594]