Such was the ascendancy of one great man, that under his banners the Greeks, for such a length of time degenerate, recalled the remembrance of the brightest days of the military glory of their country; the little province of Albania resisted during twenty years the whole power of the Ottoman empire. The death of Scanderberg threw his companions in arms into despair. “Hasten, brave Albanians,” cried they in the public places, “redouble your courage; for the ramparts of the empire and of Macedon are now crumbled into dust.” These words were at once the funeral oration of a hero and that of his people. Two years had scarcely passed away before most of the cities of Epirus fell into the power of the Turks; and, as Scanderberg himself had foretold to the pontiff of Rome, not a soldier of Christ remained east of the Adriatic Sea.
All enterprises against the infidels were from that time confined to a few maritime expeditions of the Venetians and the Knights of Rhodes. These expeditions were not sufficient to arrest the progress of the Ottomans. Mahomet II. never ceased to meditate an invasion of Germany and Italy. Resolved to aim one last blow at his enemies, he determined, after the example of the Roman pontiffs, to employ the ascendancy of religion, to excite the bravery and the enthusiasm of the Mussulmans. In the midst of a solemn ceremony, and in the presence of the divan and the mufti, he swore “to renounce all pleasures, and never to turn his countenance from the West to the East, until he had overthrown and trampled under the feet of his horses the gods of the nations,—those gods of wood, brass, silver, gold, and painting, that the disciples of Christ made with their hands.” He swore “to exterminate the iniquity of the Christians from the face of the earth, and to proclaim, from the rising to the setting, the glory of the God of Sabaoth and of Mahomet.” After this threatening declaration, the Turkish emperor pressed all the circumcised nations that followed his laws to join him, in order to obey the command of God and his prophet.
The oath of Mahomet II. was read in all the mosques of the empire, at the hour of prayer. The Ottoman warriors flocked to Constantinople from all parts. An army of the sultan’s was already ravaging Croatia and Carniola; and soon a formidable fleet issued from the canal, and attacked the island of Eubœa or Negropont, separated by the Euripus from the city of Athens, which the Turkish historians call the city or the country of the philosophers. At the first news of the danger, the pope ordered public prayers in the city of Rome. He himself walked barefooted in procession before the image of the Virgin; but Heaven, says one of the annalists of the Church, did not deign to listen to the prayers of the Christians; Negropont fell into the hands of the Turks, and the entire population of the island was either exterminated or dragged into slavery. A great number of those who had defended their country with courage expired in tortures. Fame soon carried to Europe an account of the excesses of Ottoman barbarity, and all Christian nations were filled with horror and fright.
After the last victories of the Turks, Germany had reason to dread a prompt invasion, and the coasts of Italy were at the same time threatened. Cardinal Bessarion addressed an eloquent exhortation to the Italians, and conjured them to unite against the common enemy. The pope did everything in his power to appease discord, and at length succeeded in forming a league among the Italian states, similar to that which was entered into after the taking of Constantinople. His legates solicited the assistance of the kings of France and England. Upon his pressing request, Frederick convoked a diet at Ratisbon, and afterwards at Nuremberg, in which appeared the deputies of Venice, Sienna, Naples, Hungary, and Carniola, who described the ravages of the Turks, and painted in the most striking colours the misfortunes which menaced Europe. In these two assemblies, several resolutions were formed for war against the Mussulmans; but not one of them was executed. Such was the general blindness, that neither the exhortations of the pope, nor the frightful progress of the Turks, were able to awaken the zeal of princes or people. The chronicles of the times speak of several miracles by which God manifested his power in these unfortunate days; but there can be no doubt that the greatest miracle of Providence was, that Italy and Germany did not fall into the hands of the Ottomans, when not a human hand was raised to defend them.
After the death of Paul II., who had not time to achieve his work, and did not witness the effect of his preachings, his successor, Sextus IV., neglected nothing for the defence of Christendom. When scarcely seated on the pontifical throne, he deputed cardinals to several states of Europe, to preach peace among Christians and war against the Turks. The legates were specially intrusted to press the levying of the tenths for the crusade. They were authorized to launch the thunders of excommunication against those who should oppose this impost, or who misapplied the produce of it. This severity, which occasioned troubles in England, and still more in Germany, succeeded in other countries, and furnished the sovereign pontiff with means for preparing for war. But none of the princes of the West took up arms, and Christendom was still exposed to the greatest perils, when fortune sent succour it had no reason to look for from the depths of Asia.
Of all the powers that had promised to combat the Ottomans, the only one that did not fail, was the king of Persia, to whom Calixtus III. had sent a missionary, and who declared himself the faithful ally of the Christians. In his reply, the king of Persia bestowed the greatest praises on the pope, encouraged him in his resolution of attacking Mahomet, and announced to him that he himself would commence hostilities. At the time his letter was received at Rome, his troops were already crossing Armenia, and several Ottoman cities had fallen into the hands of the Persians. Mahomet was obliged to abandon or to suspend his projects of conquest on the side of Europe, to march against these new enemies, with the greater part of the strength of his empire.
Great advantage might have been taken of this powerful diversion of the Persians. But the Venetians, the king of Naples, and the pope, alone put themselves forward to make war against the Ottomans. The sovereign pontiff had caused twenty-four galleys to be built with the produce of the tenths levied for the crusade. This fleet, commanded by Cardinal Caraffa, and collected in the Tiber, after having been blessed by Sextus IV., went to join that of Venice and Naples, and cruised along the coasts of Ionia and Pamphylia, to the great terror of all the maritime Ottoman cities. The Venetians did not fail to direct the operations of the Christian fleet against the cities whose wealth and commerce gave them any cause for jealousy. Satalia and Smyrna were given up to the horrors of war; the first of these, situated on the coast of Pamphylia, was the entrepôt for the productions and the merchandise of India and Arabia. The second, situated in the Ionian Sea, possessed rich manufactures and a flourishing trade. The Christian soldiers committed in these two cities all the kinds of excess with which the Turks were then reproached. After this piratical expedition, the fleet regained the ports of Italy, and Cardinal Caraffa returned triumphant to Rome, followed by twenty-five captives mounted upon superb horses, and by twelve camels, loaded with the spoils of the enemy. The ensigns taken from the Mussulmans, and the chain of the port of Satalia, were solemnly suspended over the gate and in the vaulted roof of the Vatican.
Whilst these poor advantages over the Mussulmans were being celebrated at Rome, Mahomet was inflicting terrible blows upon his enemies; and when he returned to Constantinople, he had destroyed the armies of the king of Persia. That which gave the Turkish emperor an immense advantage over the powers which took up arms against him, was that they never acted in concert, either for defence or attack. Discord was not long in being revived among the Christian princes, and particularly among the states of Italy. The pope himself forgot the spirit of peace and union he had preached; he forgot the holy war; and Venice, left alone in the struggle against the Ottomans, was obliged to sue to Mahomet for peace.
The Ottomans took as much advantage of peace as of war to increase their power. There now remained nothing of the sad wreck of the Greek empire. Venice had lost all its possessions in the Archipelago and Greece; Genoa at length lost the rich colony of Caffa, in the Crimea. Of all the conquests of the Crusaders, the Christians had only preserved the kingdom of Cyprus and the isle of Rhodes.
During more than a century, the kings of Cyprus had implored the assistance of the West, and contended with some successes against the Saracens, particularly the Mamelukes of Egypt. The maritime cities of Italy protected a kingdom from which trade and navigation derived great advantage. Every day fresh warriors from Europe afforded it the support of their arms. A few years after the taking of Constantinople, history remarks Jacques Cœur, who had obtained the restitution of his wealth, establishing himself in the isle of Cyprus, and consecrating his fortune and his life to the defence of the Christians of the East. After his death, there was to be seen, in a church at Bourges which he had founded, this inscription:—“The Seigneur Jacques Cœur, Captain-general of the Church against the infidels.”[79]