At the councils of Ferrara and Florence, the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians, and the Ethiopians submitted, as well as the Greeks, to the pontifical authority, and without doubt also, in the same hope of being succoured by the Latins, and delivered from the tyranny of the Mussulmans. This solemn proceeding was less a submission to the Holy See than a homage rendered to the bravery of the Franks, in whom all the Christians of Asia and Africa beheld liberators.
Pope Eugenius, however, on receiving the submission of the Greeks, had promised to send succours to Constantinople and to the Christians of the East. The pontiff hoped that the union of the two churches and the preaching of a crusade would fix upon him the eyes of the Christian world, and restore to the pontifical authority the confidence and power of which the schisms of the West and the seditious decrees of the council of Bâle had deprived it. He wrote to all the princes of Christendom, exhorting them to unite to put a stop to the invasions of the Mussulmans. Eugenius, in his letter, described all the evils which the faithful suffered in the countries under the domination of the barbarians. “The Turks tied troops of men and women together, and dragged them along in their train. All the Christians whom they condemned to slavery, were confounded with the vilest booty, and sold like beasts of burden. In their barbarity, they separated the son from the father, the brother from the sister, and the husband from the wife. Those whom age or infirmities prevented from walking were killed upon the high roads or in the middle of cities. Even infancy could not excite their pity; they put to death innocent victims that had scarcely begun to exist, and who, being yet ignorant of fear, smiled upon their executioners whilst receiving the mortal blow. Every Christian family was compelled to give up its own sons to the Ottoman empire, in the same manner as the people of Athens had been formerly forced to send as a tribute the flower of their youth to the monster of Crete. Wherever the Turks had penetrated, the fields were cursed with barrenness, and the cities were without laws or industry; the Christian religion had no longer either priests or altars; humanity no longer either support or asylum.” In fact, the father of the faithful forgot none of the cruelties committed by the enemies of Christ; he could not restrain the sadness which so many painful images caused him, and conjured princes and nations to send assistance to the kingdom of Cyprus, the isle of Rhodes, and particularly to Constantinople, as these were the last bulwarks of the West.
The exhortations of the sovereign pontiff were addressed to none but indifferent hearts in the nations of England, France, and Spain. Neither the sentiment of humanity, nor that of patriotism, had power to revive the enthusiasm to which the spirit of religion and chivalry had in past times given birth. Distant crusades, whatever was their object, began to be considered as only the work of a jealous policy, the springs of which were set in motion, to banish the princes and nobles whose power and wealth were coveted. In the state in which Europe then was, such as loved war, had but too many opportunities for exercising their bravery, without quitting their homes. The Germans, who had set on foot forty thousand men to combat the heretics of Bohemia, remained motionless, when the Turks were represented to them as ready to carry the standard of Islamism to the extremities of the West.
The pope, however, was not satisfied with exhorting the faithful to take up arms, he was desirous of setting them the example; the pontiff levied soldiers and equipped vessels to make war against the Turks. The maritime cities of Flanders, and the republics of Genoa and Venice, which had great interests in the East, made some preparations; their fleets united under the standard of St. Peter, and directed their course towards the Hellespont. The fear of an approaching invasion awakened the zeal of the nations inhabiting the shores of the Dneister and the Danube. The crusade was preached in the diets of Poland and Hungary. Upon the frontiers threatened by the barbarians, the people, the clergy, and the nobility obeyed the voice of religion and patriotism.
The sovereign pontiff named, as legate with the Crusaders, Cardinal Julian, a prelate of an intrepid character of an ardent genius, arming himself by turns with the sword of fight and with that of speech; as redoubtable in the field of battle as in the learned contests of the schools. After having obtained the confidence of the council of Bâle, Cardinal Julian distinguished himself in the council of Florence, by defending the dogmas of the Latin church. His eloquence had roused up all Germany against the Hussites; now he burned to rouse up all Christendom against the Turks. The army collected under the banners of the cross had for leaders Hunniades and Ladislaus; the first, the waywode of Transylvania, was celebrated among Christian warriors, and the epithet of the brigand, which the Turks attached to his name, denoted the hatred and terror he inspired among the infidels. Upon the head of Ladislaus were united the two crowns of Poland and Hungary, and he merited, by the brilliant qualities of his youth, the love of both Poles and Hungarians. The Crusaders assembled on the Danube, and quickly received the signal for war. The fleets of the sovereign pontiff, of Venice, and Genoa cruised in the Hellespont. The inhabitants of Moldavia, Servia, and Greece promised to join the Christian army; the sultan of Caramania, the implacable enemy of the Ottomans, was to attack them in Asia. The Greek emperor, John Palæologus, announced great preparations, and got ready to march at the head of an army to meet his liberators.
Hunniades and Ladislaus advanced as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarians. Two battles opened for them the passages of Mount Hemus and the road to Byzantium. The rigours of winter alone arrested the victorious march of the Christian warriors; and the army of the Crusaders returned into Hungary, to await the favourable season for renewing the war. They returned to Buda in triumph, amidst the acclamations of an immense population. The clergy celebrated, by hymns and thanksgivings, the first victories of the Christians, and Ladislaus repaired, barefooted, to the church of Notre Dame, in which he hung up the standards taken from the infidels.
Before the beginning of the war, the Mussulmans had been persuaded that the destruction of the Christians was written in the book of destiny. “When all the enemies of the prophet,” said they among themselves, “shall be destroyed, each of us will have nothing to do but to guide his plough, and look at his war-horse in his stable.” This opinion, the offspring of pride and victory, had proved sufficient to relax the zeal of the Ottoman warriors; and most of them remained in their homes, whilst the Christians marched towards Adrianopolis.
When fame informed them of the victories of the Franks upon the Danube, this blind security all at once gave place to fear. The sultan Amurath immediately sent ambassadors to sue for peace. History is silent as to the means of seduction employed by the Ottoman envoys to win the victorious Crusaders; but it is well known that they succeeded in obtaining a favourable hearing for their proposals. Peace was determined upon in the council of the leaders of the Christian army. The parties swore, the one upon the Koran, and the other upon the Gospel, to a truce of ten years. This unexpected resolution irritated the pride and zeal of Cardinal Julian, whose mission was to stimulate the Christians to war. When he saw the leaders of the crusade unite in a desire for peace, he preserved a haughty silence, and refused to sign a treaty he disapproved of. The inflexible legate waited for an opportunity in which he might give vent to his discontent, and force the Crusaders to resume their arms. This opportunity was not long in presenting itself.
Amurath, satisfied with having restored peace to his states, and fatigued with earthly grandeur, renounced the cares of empire, and buried himself in a retreat at Magnesia. The sultan of Caramania informed the Christians that their most redoubtable enemy had lost his senses, and had just exchanged the imperial crown for the cap of a cenobite. He added that Amurath had left the supreme authority in the hands of a child, and in his message compared this child to a young plant which the slightest wind might tear up by the roots.
The same sultan was so thoroughly persuaded that the Ottoman empire was in its decline, that he entered Anatolia at the head of an army. About the same time reports were spread that the emperor of Constantinople was advancing towards Thrace; that the Greeks of the Peloponnesus had taken up arms, and that the confederate fleets still awaited a fresh signal for war in the Hellespont. Another circumstance, not less important, seemed calculated to awaken the warlike ardour of the Crusaders; the victory gained near Sophia had given them a powerful ally in Greece. In this battle, the son of John Castuct, who commanded the van of the Ottoman army, suddenly abandoned the banners and the religion of the Turks, to defend the worship and the heritage of his ancestors in Albania. The messengers of Scanderberg announced to the leaders of the Christian army, that he was ready to join them at the head of twenty thousand Albanians, assembled under the standard of the cross.