CHAPTER V.

REIGN AND CHARACTER OF MAHOMET II.-SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE — FURTHER CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA-REPULSE BEFORE BELGRADE — CONQUEST OF THE CRIMEA-UNSUCCESSFUL ATTACK ON RHODES -CAPTURE OF OTRANTO-DEATH OF MAHOMET.*

MAHOMET II., surnamed by his countrymen "the Conqueror," was aged twenty-one years when his father died. He heard of that event at Magnesia, whither the Grand Vizier had despatched a courier to him from Adrianople. He instantly sprang on an Arab horse, and exclaiming, "Let those who love me, follow me," galloped off towards the shore of the Hellespont. In a few days he was solemnly enthroned. His first act of sovereign authority showed that a different spirit to that of the generous Amurath would now wield the Ottoman power. Amurath had left a little son, a babe still at the breast, by his second wife, a princess of Servia. Mahomet ordered his infant brother to be drowned in a bath, and the merciless command was executed at the very time, when the unhappy mother, in ignorance of her child's doom, was offering her congratulations to the murderer on his accession. Mahomet perceived the horror which the atrocity of this deed caused among

* See Von Hainmer, books 12 to 18.

his subjects; and he sought to avert it from himself by asserting that the officer who had drowned the infant prince had acted without orders, and by putting him to death for the pretended treason. But Mahomet himself, when in after years he declared the practice of royal fratricide to be a necessary law of the state, confessed clearly his own share in this the first murder of his deeply purpled reign.

He had now fully outgrown the boyish feebleness of mind, which had unfitted him for the throne when twice placed on it by his father six years before. For craft, capacity, and courage, he ranks among the highest of the Ottoman Sultans. His merits also as a farsighted statesman, and his power of mind as a legislator, are as undeniable as are his military talents. He was also keenly sensible to all intellectual gratifications, and he was himself possessed of unusually high literary abilities and attainments. Yet with all these qualities we find combined in him an amount of cruelty, perfidy, and revolting sensuality, such as seldom stain human nature in the same individual. The character of Sylla will perhaps supply the closest parallel with that of the renowned Ottoman destroyer of the Greek Empire.

Three years before Mahomet II. was girt with the scymetar of Othman, Constantine XI. was crowned Emperor of Constantinople,-a prince, whose heroism throws a sunset glory on the close of the long-clouded series of the Byzantine annals. The Roman empire of the East was now shrunk to a few towns and a scanty district beyond the walls of the capital city; but that city was itself a prize of sufficient splendour to tempt

the ambition and excite the hostility of a less aspiring and unscrupulous spirit than that of the son of Amurath. The Ottomans felt that Constantinople was the true natural capital of their empire. While it was in the hands of others, the communication between their European and their Asiatic provinces could never be secure. Its acquisition by themselves would consolidate their power, and invest them with the majesty that still lingered round those walls, which had encircled the chosen seat of Roman empire for nearly eleven hundred years.

The imprudence of Constantine, who seems to have judged the character of Mahomet from the inability to reign which he had shown at the premature age of fourteen, hastened the hostility of the young Sultan. Constantine sent an embassy, demanding the augmentation of a stipend which was paid to the Byzantine court for the maintenance of a descendant of Solyman, Sultan Bajazet's eldest son. This personage, who was named Orkhan, had long been in apparent retirement, but real custody at Constantinople, and the ambassadors hinted that if their demands were not complied with, the Greek Emperor would immediately set him loose, to compete with Mahomet for the Turkish throne. Mahomet, who at this time was engaged in quelling some disturbances in Asia Minor, answered with simulated courtesy ; but the old Grand Vizier, Khalil, warned the Byzantines, with indignant vehemence, of the folly of their conduct, and of the difference which they would soon experience between the fierce ambition of the young Sultan and the mild forbearance of his predecessor. Mahomet had indeed bent all his energies

on effecting the conquest of the Greek capital, and he resolved to secure himself against any interruption or division of his forces, while engaged in that great enterprise. He provided for the full security of his territories in Asia; he made a truce of three years with Hunyades, which guaranteed him from all attack from the north in Europe; and he then contemptuously drove away the imperial agents who received the revenues of the lands allotted for the maintenance of Orkhan, and began to construct a fortress on the European side of the Bosphorus, about five miles above Constantinople, at a place where the channel is narrowest, and immediately opposite one that had been built by Bajazet Yilderim on the Asiatic shore. Constantine remonstrated in vain against these evident preparations for the blockade of his city; and the Ottomans employed in the work were encouraged to commit acts of violence against the Greek peasantry, which soon led to conflicts between armed bands on either side. Constantine closed the gates of his city in alarm, and sent another embassy of remonstrance to the Sultan, who replied by a declaration of war, and it was evident that the death-struggle of the Greek empire was now fast approaching.

Each party employed the autumn and winter of 1452 in earnest preparations for the siege, which was to be urged by the one and resisted by the other in the coming spring. Mahomet collected the best troops of his empire at Adrianople; but much more than mere numbers of soldiery, however well disciplined and armed for the skirmish, or the battle-field, was

requisite for the capture of the great and strong city of Constantinople. Artillery had for some time previously been employed both by Turkish and Christian armies; but Mahomet now prepared a more numerous and formidable park of cannon than had ever before been seen in warfare. A Hungarian engineer, named Urban, had abandoned the thankless service and scanty pay of the Greeks, for the rich rewards and honours with which the Sultan rewarded all who aided him in his conquest. Urban cast a monster cannon for the Turks, which was the object both of their admiration and terror. Other guns of less imposing magnitude, but probably of greater efficiency, were prepared; and ammunition and military stores of every description, and the means of transport, were collected on an equally ample scale. But Mahomet did not merely heap together the materials of war with the ostentatious profusion so common in Oriental rulers. He arranged all, he provided for the right use of all, in the keen spirit of skilful combination, which we admire in the campaigns of Cæsar and Napoleon. He was almost incessantly occupied in tracing and discussing with his officers plans of the city, of his intended lines, of the best positions for his batteries and magazines, of the spots where mines might be driven with most effect, and of the posts which each division of his troops should occupy.

In the devoted city, the Emperor, with equal ability, but far different feelings, collected the poor resources of his own remnant of empire, and the scanty succours of the western nations, for the defence. The efforts which