The battle of Kossovo, in which both opposing armies lost their leaders, became in Servian folklore and poetry a source of inspiration of the kind that among Romance peoples gathers about the defeat of Charles the Great in the Pyrenees and the death of Roland. The incidents of the heroic theme take up the tragedy of the battle; Slavic improvisers sing of the death of Lazar, of his father-in-law, the aged King, and his nine brothers-in-law. Mulasch, the slayer of Murad, who met his death in the flight, is not passed over, nor the 12,000 infidels who perished. Like Murad, Lazar, the “Servian crown of gold,” is celebrated as a martyr of his faith, a hero who went voluntarily to his death. The legend tells how St. Elias, in the form of a falcon, came from the Holy City of Jerusalem, bringing him a letter from the Mother of God, in which he was offered the choice of the heavenly empire or dominion over the earth. Lazar made the choice which gave him the spiritual kingdom.
III
BAJESID
The first act of Bajesid’s accession was the murder of his younger brother, whom he summoned to his presence and caused to be strangled. This deed left Bajesid the sole representative of the house of Osman; there was no rival now for him to fear. He wished to stand alone as creator of his own statecraft, for he refused to respect any of the arrangements or conventions made by Murad. His own ideal was foreign to the loose feudalized system previously established; he desired to clear away all the dependent dynasties, and to substitute for them officers of his own, directly controlled by him.
The first important military operation of the new reign was directed against Mircea, a Roumanian lord, who had seized and occupied Nicopolis, lately surrendered to Ali-Pascha, Murad’s vizier, by Schischman, before the battle of Kossovo. All the vassals were called under arms to follow the Sultan, who crossed the Danube to where Mircea was awaiting his attack in a position difficult of access on account of roads and swamps. No details of the fight are given, but Bajesid was the victor. (October 10, 1394.) Mircea fled to the Carpathians.
As one result of their victory the Turks left Bucharest in the hands of an Ottoman garrison under the direction of a Roumanian Boyar Vlad, who was appointed to take the place of Mircea, because of the latter’s failure to perform the obligations of a faithful vassal, though he had met with generous treatment from Bajesid after the battle of Kossovo. He was not present at the battle itself, but rendered himself liable to punishment by sending armed contingents of his own men to help the Christian cause. He had been captured and exiled to Broussa; but he was released on condition of paying a small tribute, and retained his right of sovereignty over his subjects. More remarkable still, Bajesid had undertaken not to permit any Turks to establish themselves in Wallachia, or to found mosques in Mircea’s country. By presuming on this favorable and exceptional treatment, Mircea again had brought himself into the status of an exile.
Sigismund of Hungary saw the necessity of helping his unfortunate neighbor Mircea with the Turks so close at hand. Moreover, the Hungarian ruler’s relations with Western Europe, through his connection with the house of Luxembourg, and his inheritance from Prince Louis of Anjou, placed him in a good position to appeal to the warlike lords and knights of France to aid him against infidel aggression. He turned also to the Republic of Venice as a partner in the undertaking, but the prudent merchants of that commonwealth showed no immediate interest in the projected crusade.
The movement initiated from Hungary put heart into the Byzantines, who, because of the change from the mild Murad to the relentless Bajesid, were now hard pressed in the small corner of territory still left them. There was moral depression as well, for Manuel II, when made co-Emperor with his aged father John, had been obliged to accompany the Sultan in all his campaigns with a contingent. This obligation revealed the desperate straits of the Greek Empire, especially as the contingent numbered only a hundred men. One Greek city, Philadelphia, the single imperial possession in Asia Minor, had been attacked by Bajesid because the citizens refused to receive a Turkish garrison, though John had previously agreed to surrender it to Murad. Among the other vassals who were called to take part in this campaign were Stephen, Prince of the Servians, and Manuel, the Byzantine Emperor. As a further sign of dependence on the Sultan’s will, who seemed bent on devising schemes to humiliate the miserable Greek prince, Manuel had been forced to help to repair the fortifications of Gallipoli, and also to coöperate with the Turks in their preparations to send expeditions to Attica and some of the islands of the Ægean. When John V began to restore some of the ruined fortifications around the imperial city, Bajesid ordered him to desist, threatening, if the command were not obeyed, to deprive Manuel of his sight, for the heir, and co-Emperor, was, as usual, doing duty as a vassal in one of the Turkish military expeditions.
On the death of John V, in 1391, Manuel was allowed to succeed to the title, and, officially, good relations were observed between the Sultan and the ruler of Constantinople. Bajesid, however, had no intention of permitting Manuel, whom he knew to be a man of ability and decision, to gain any new ground. The few places contiguous to Constantinople, over which the Greeks still ruled, were constantly being harassed by Ottoman aggressions. Manuel was really being besieged in his own capital. His constant appeals for help were made in vain; the Venetians found it commercially more advantageous to draw closer to the Osmanlis, especially since Bajesid, by absorbing various emirates in Asia Minor, was in control of important trading towns on that coast. A treaty was concluded between the two powers, and the Venetians went so far as to deny their help to the Frankish lords of the Ægean, and were preparing to weaken continental Greece by efforts to gain territory in that quarter at the expense of the Greek master of the Morea, a son of the Emperor.
While Sigismund was seeking allies in the West against the Turks, and Bajesid was elaborating plans for an invasion of the whole country south of his European holdings, Thessalonika was retaken from the Greeks. Without much difficulty Turkish troops in a raid westward penetrated into the Morea, or Peloponnesus, itself, though a wall had been built by the Venetians across the Isthmus. No permanent settlement was made, but still the country suffered, for many of the inhabitants were sold, and, during the course of the expedition, many cities of Greece experienced, for the first time, the barbarism of a Turkish invasion. This expedition to the south was like so many others under the command of the local “Begs,” because Bajesid himself was bent on completing the conquest of Bulgaria. After a long siege Tirnovo was taken by assault; its churches were sacked, and it was, in general, made an example by the ruthless conqueror. Even the dead were left unburied. Along with a multitude of prisoners, the Bulgarian Patriarch was taken to Asia. As to Sischman, he is reputed to have died, either on the battlefield or in captivity; his capital, which had been the residence of the Bulgar Tsars since 1200, sank to the level of a small market town, though once it had been famous for its beautiful buildings, constructed to rival or imitate those of Constantinople. Bulgaria, already a poor fragment of its original extent after the first stage of the invasion, now ceased altogether to exist as a Slav state.
At this disastrous conjuncture for the Christian cause (1394), Sigismund of Hungary intervened by sending representatives to Bajesid to ask by what right he had destroyed Bulgaria. As an answer to the delegation, Bajesid is said to have shown the bows and arrows which decorated the hall of audience. Long anticipating the warlike aims of the Hungarian King, Bajesid made ready to complete the siege of Constantinople, and so to prevent any coöperation between the Greeks and the Christian power farther north. Sigismund, who, as we have mentioned, had relied on his influence in the West to get aid adequate to the undertaking he had in hand, now knew that his embassy which had visited France had been well received by the King, Charles VI, and his great nobles, many of whom had agreed to take up arms. As head of the expedition, John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, had been selected; there were gathered round him many well-known lords as counselors, and a contingent of 10,000 men, foot and horse. Besides these, there were contingents of knights from Germany, Luxembourg, England, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. Even Venice was induced to supply galleys and money for the cause. The Knights of Rhodes sent their fleet and their Grand Master with it. The Slavs of Poland and the Roumanians also joined the crusade. Even Manuel took heart and promised to keep some of the Turkish army occupied by making an offensive movement.