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| Elbasan Castle |
On the Road Again
Refreshed by
his year out from conquering, Mehmet took to the campaign trail again in 1466.
His army hit Albania, devastating the countryside while the Albanians fled to
the mountains. Even there the Ottoman army pursued them, taking 20,000
prisoners and then laid siege to Kruje which was defended by Skanderbeg
and the Venetians under Gian-Maria Contarini.
Mehmet left
Balaban Bey to continue the siege while he organised the building of a fortress at Elbasan thirty miles to the south. This
fortress would become the main base for any further campaigns in Albania.
Mehmet then departed for Adrianople leaving 400 men to garrison the new
fortress.
Late 1466
saw Skanderbeg make a hurried trip to Rome to beg aid from the pontiff,
arriving on 12th December. The Mantuan ambassador reported;
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| Ferrante of Naples |
‘The Lord Scanderbeg arrived
here on Friday, and the households of the cardinals were sent out to meet him.
He is a man of advanced age, past sixty; he has come with a few horses, a poor
man. I understand he will seek aid.’[i]
In early
January the Pope offered Skanderbeg the relatively miserly[ii] sum of 5,000 ducats[iii]. But he left Rome
without any money at all, bar 200 ducats[iv] from a cardinal that he
used to pay his bill at the inn, saying that it would be better to war on the
church rather than the Turk.
The Pope
then had a change of heart and gave Skanderbeg 2,300 ducats[v]. Skanderbeg received
further monies from King Ferrante of Naples and he returned to Kruje where he
killed Balaban, routed his forces and set off to besiege Elbasan.
Dark Times Indeed
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| Patras Castle |
With
Mehmet’s attention diverted in Albania the Venetians, under the command of Vettore
Capello, swept into the Aegean taking the islands of Imbros and Lemnos before besieging Patras[vi]. Őmer Bey, Mehmet’s commander in
Greece, forced the Venetians to lift the siege and abort the campaign.
The
Venetians sent Capello on a peace mission in December. Mehmet demanded the
return of Imbros and Tenedos along with an annual tribute; all of
which Capello refused. The peace mission may have been crippled by the
machinations of Florentine and Genoese agents, eager to see their rivals drain
their resources fighting the Ottomans.
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| Lezhe Castle |
Angered by
the loss of his army besieging Kruje, Mehmet returned to Albania in 1467
devastating the countryside once again. Having unsuccessfully scoured the
country for Skanderbeg, Mehmet returned to besiege Kruje. The siege was lifted in late
summer but Skanderbeg was ill; he departed for Lezhȅ where he died in January after a short illness leaving Albania and his
son to the protection of the Venetians.
The
following year Mehmet campaigned in the south, his objective had been the new
Mamluk Sultan Kaitbey. But his wrath was diverted to one of his vassals who
failed to answer the call to arms; Pir Ahmet. The Ottoman troops overran Karaman;
‘Pir Ahmed fled to Taș-Ili.
The Sultan took Kavel, Konya,
the capital of the Karamanids, and Larende and
gave responsibility for the administration of the province to Prince Mustafa………in
the spring of 873 [1469] the Sultan remained in Istanbul and sent an army into
Karaman to clean up the rebels.’[vii]
Then Mehmet
dismissed Mahmut Pasha, replacing him as Grand Vizier with Ishak Pasha[viii].
All Roads Lead to Negroponte
The
Venetians decided that now, while Mehmet’s attention was distracted elsewhere, was
an ideal time to launch an expedition against the Turks. The Doge suggested to his
Captain General of the Sea; Jacopo Loredan, that
‘Never, in everyone’s
judgement, has there been a more promising and favourable period than at
present for embarking upon an expedition against the Turk, the fierce enemy of
our faith………..you must consider embarking upon such an expedition as you shall
deem both honourable and expedient.’[ix]
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| Gallipoli peninsula |
In the
summer of 1469 the Venetians were horrified to discover that Mehmet had massed
a fleet at Gallipoli, along with an army of 80,000 and was planning a campaign
aimed at ending Venetian power in the eastern Mediterranean. The two forces
were to combine at the Venetian colony of Negroponte.
The Venetians
attempted to rally support in Europe and were ignored; even so they were able
to mass a navy, but it paled against the force that Mehmet had created.
According to one of the Venetian captains Geronimo Longo;
‘At first I estimated it at
300 sail; now I would put it at 400. The whole sea appeared like a
forest………they row magnificently, with a fast stroke; true, their galleys are
less good than ours under the oar, but under sail and in every other aspect
they are superior……..to confront so mighty a force, I consider that we shall
need not less than a hundred good galleys.’[x]
By mid 1470
the Venetians could boast 53 galleys and numerous smaller boats to fend off the
Ottoman fleet. The Venetian Senate appointed a new Captain-General of the Sea,
Niccolo de Canale; an unfortunate choice as de Canale was;
‘A man of letters rather
than a fighter, a learned man readier to read books than direct the affairs of
the sea.’[xi]
The Fall of Negroponte
 |
| Negroponte |
The Ottoman
fleet sailed out of the Dardanelles on 3rd June 1470 as Mehmet led
the army down from Thrace. The army attacked Imbros, Limnos and Skyros while shadowed by the vastly outnumbered Venetian fleet. The Ottoman
fleet anchored off Negroponte on 15th June and the troops
disembarked south of the fortress.
The navy
then created a bridge of boats from the mainland and half the army crossed to
Euboea. Mehmet sent 2,000 cavalry to devastate the countryside while he offered
the residents ten years grace from taxes. The bailo of the fortress Paolo Erizzo and the two co-captains of the
fortress were offered positions in the Ottoman bureaucracy which was
contemptuously dismissed.
Mehmet
ordered the setting up of four batteries to assault the fortress and town. But
even so the siege dragged on for several weeks; at least 14,000 of the Ottoman
army died in the failed assaults[xii]. The Venetian navy
failed to attack and Negroponte finally fell on 11th July. The battle changed nothing as far as the Venetian senate were
concerned; the fight against the infidel would continue.
Peace Plans; War Plans
Mara
Branković and her sister Catherine[xiii] contacted Mehmet in
1470 offering to act as intermediaries between the Porte and the Venetian Senate. Mehmet
informed his stepmother that he would be prepared to meet an envoy from Venice
to discuss terms. The Venetians informed the Pope of this development;
‘We understand very well
that this is one of the usual cunning stunts of the Turk, in whom we believe
that absolutely no trust should be placed, for he yearns for the destruction of
our faith and religion….it has seemed best to us to play his own game of
pretence and to go along with him.’[xiv]
The senate
sent two envoys to Istanbul to meet with Mehmet; they were to suggest to Mehmet
that each side keep what they currently held. The Venetian peace mission was a
failure as neither party was prepared to accept the other’s terms.
A general
defensive alliance between the states of Italy against the Turk was agreed in
December 1470. Pope Paul died in July 1471 and the new Pope, Sixtus IV, called for a crusade against the infidel, sending out envoys calling
for support for this latest crusade.
Diversions
In 1470 the
Anatolians took advantage of Mehmet’s preoccupation with Negroponte and
fomented uprisings. Two separate uprisings were led by Pir Ahmet, attempting to
recoup the lands lost to Mehmet, and his brother Kasim Bey who attacked Ankara and laid waste the surrounding countryside. Pir Ahmet was a client of Uzun Hasan, long one of Mehmet’s
enemies.
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| Qarabagh |
Hasan
entered into an alliance with the Venetians and they offered to mount a
diversionary attack in the Mediterranean. Uzun Hasan declared to the Venetians
that, having defeated the Shah of Persia and Abu Said at the battle of Qarabagh, that now;
‘No other obstacle remains,
save the son of the Ottoman Turk, Mehmed Bey, and it is an easy thing to abase
and eradicate his dominion and lordship.’[xv]
Mehmet
appointed Davud Pasha as Sancak-bey of Ankara and sent Rum Mehmet Pasha, at the head of an army, to put down the rebellion.
Rum Mehmet retook all of Karaman, north of the Taurus Mountains and then marched southwards to attack the Varsak
Türkmen tribe[xvi]
led by Uyuz Bey. The Varsak tribe ambushed Rum Mehmet’s army and he was forced
to retreat at the end of the campaign season.
 |
| Alanya |
The 1471
campaigning season saw Mehmet send Ishak Pasha to Anatolia to renew the
offensive against Pir Ahmet and his brother. Pir Ahmet was forced to flee,
again taking refuge with Uzun Hasan. Meanwhile Kasim Bey evaded capture and
continued the fight.
Rum Mehmet’s
troops captured Alanya with the aid of the navy. Alanya
gave the Ottomans control of the eastern Mediterranean seaboard as far as Silifke, still in the hands of the Karamanids. Silifke was taken by Prince
Mustafa and Gedik Ahmed Pasha in the summer of 1472.
The crusaders
assembled at Rhodes in June and then sailed for Antalya which they burned to the ground. The port of Smyrna was overcome by a crusading fleet on 13th September 1472 and
burnt to the ground.
Bibliography
The Grand
Turk – John Freely, I.B. Tauris and Co Ltd, 2009
The
Janissaries – Godfrey Goodwin, Saqi Books 1994
Lords of the
Horizons – Jason Goodwin, Henry Holt & Co 1998
The Ottoman
Empire – Halil Inalcik, Phoenix 1994
The Ottoman
Empire – Lord Kinross, Folio Society 2003
A History of
Venice – John Julius Norwich, Penguin Books 1982
The Ottoman
Empire – Andrina Stiles, Hodder & Stoughton 1989
www.wikipedia.en
[i]
The Grand Turk - Freely
[ii]
The Pope was worried by the instabilities in central Italy
[iii]
In 2013 the relative: historic standard of
living value of that income or
wealth is £3,453,000.00
economic
status value of that income or
wealth is £96,890,000.00 economic power value
of that income or wealth is £1,520,000,000.00 www.measuringworth.com
[iv]
In 2013 the relative: historic standard of
living value of that income or
wealth is £138,100.00
economic
status value of that income or
wealth is £3,876,000.00 economic power value
of that income or wealth is £60,800,000.00 www.measuringworth.com
[v]
In 2013 the relative: historic standard of
living value of that income or
wealth is £1,588,000.00
economic
status value of that income or
wealth is £44,570,000.00 economic power value
of that income or wealth is £699,200,000.00 www.measuringworth.com
[vi]
In the northern Peloponnese
[vii]
The Grand Turk - Freely
[viii]
Replaced in his turn by Rum Mehmet Pasha in 1471
[ix]
The Grand Turk - Freely
[x]
A History of Venice - Norwich
[xii]
Mostly expendable troops, not the Janissaries
[xiii]
Who had joined Mara at her estate at Ježevo in 1469
[xiv]
The Grand Turk - Freely
[xv]
The Grand Turk - Freely
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