WHEN BYZANTINE EMPEROR KONSTANTINOS XI THREATENED SULTAN MEHMET II WITH CIVIL WAR

In February 1451, the 18-year old Mehmet II became Sultan for the second time following the death of his father. Immediately, he had to deal with Karamanid attacks on Ottoman lands in Eastern Anatolia. Emperor Konstantinos XI of Byzantium, attempting to use this situation to the Empire’s advantage, decided to attempt a risky strategy of disruption as he thought that he had an ace in the hole...

 

A great-grandson of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, Orhan Çelebi, lived as a hostage in Constantinople. Other than Mehmet II, Orhan was the only other claimant to the throne. Murad II had previously agreed to pay annually 300,000 aspres for Orhan being kept at Constantinople, but this time, Konstantinos XI asked for a doubling of Orhan’s allowance or otherwise to release him, potentially sparking an Ottoman civil war.

 

Mehmet's Grand Vizier, Çandarlı Halil Pasha received the ambassadors at Bursa. The Grand Vizier was the main force in the Ottoman Government counseling the new Sultan against war and an attack on Constantinople. Because of the blatant provocation, he lost his temper with the Byzantine messengers, supposedly exploding in anger: 

 

"You stupid Greeks, I have had enough of your devious ways. The late sultan was a lenient and conscientious friend to you. The present sultan is not of the same mind. If Constantine eludes his bold and impetuous grasp, it will only be because God continues to overlook your cunning and wicked schemes. You are fools to think you can frighten us with your fantasies, and that when the ink on our recent treaty [1449] is barely dry. We are not children without strength or reason. If you think you can start something, then do so. If you want to proclaim Orhan as Sultan in Thrace, go ahead. If you want to bring the Hungarians across the Danube, let them come. If you want to recover the places which you lost long since, try it. But know this: you will make no headway in any of these things. All that you will achieve is to lose what little you still have".

 

The threat of releasing Orhan gave Mehmet a pretext for concentrating all of his energy and resources on seizing Constantinople, his true goal since he had become Sultan. He began large-scale preparations immediately. He sent a message to Konstantinos: “Either surrender the city or stand ready to do battle.”

Photograph from the Panorama 1453 Museum, Istanbul

The Byzantines had greatly underestimated the young Sultan. On 2 April 1453, Mehmet's advance guard arrived outside Constantinople and began pitching up a camp. On 5 April, the Sultan himself arrived at the head of his 60,000-men army and encamped within firing range of the city's Gate of St. Romanus. The most important siege in History had begun…

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: FLAVIUS STILICHO, THE “LAST ROMAN GENERAL”.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
October 27, 2018

 

Certain figures in history undertake actions that reverberate down through time; their successes and failure continue to have consequences centuries after they have died. One such man was Flavius Stilicho, magister utriusque militiae of the Western Roman Empire, guardian of the child Emperor Honorius, senior military commander of all Roman forces in the west and de facto ruler of the Western Empire from the death of Theodosius I in January 395 until his execution on August 23rd, 408.
Stilicho (365-408) was half-Roman, half Vandal. In 383 Stilicho served on an embassy to the Persian king Shāpūr III, afterward marrying Serena, the favorite niece of the emperor Theodosius. In 385 he was appointed master of the soldiery (magister militum) in Thrace, and shortly afterwards directed energetic campaigns in Britain against Picts, Scots and Saxons, and along the Rhine against other barbarians. Stilicho and Serena were named guardians of the youthful Honorius when the latter was created joint emperor in 394 with special jurisdiction over Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain and Africa, and Stilicho was even more closely allied to the imperial family in the following year by betrothing his daughter Maria to his ward and by receiving the dying injunctions of Theodosius to care for his children.
Rivalry had already existed between Stilicho and Rufinus, the praetorian praefect of the East, who had exercised considerable influence over the emperor and who now was invested with the guardianship of Arcadius. Consequently in 395, after a successful campaign against the Germans on the Rhine, Stilicho marched to the east, nominally to expel the Goths and Huns from Thrace, but really with the design of displacing Rufinus, and by connivance with these same barbarians he procured the assassination of Rufinus at the close of the year, and thereby became virtual master of the empire. In 396 he fought in Greece against the Visigoths, but an arrangement was effected whereby their chieftain Alaric was appointed master of the soldiery in Illyricum (397). In 398 he quelled Gildo's revolt in Africa and married his daughter Maria to Honorius. Two years later he was consul. He thwarted the efforts of Alaric to seize lands in Italy by his victories at Pollentia and Verona in 402-3 and forced him to return to Illyricum, but was criticized for having withdrawn the imperial forces from Britain and Gaul to employ against the Goths. He maneuvered so skillfully in the campaign against Radagaisus, who led a large force of various Germanic peoples into Italy in 405, that he surrounded the barbarian chieftain on the rocks of Fiesole near Florence and starved him into surrender.
Empress Maria had died and in early 408 Honorius married another daughter of Stilicho, Thermantia. Stilicho’s influence, however, had declined. It was rumored that he wished to have his son Eucherius elevated to the throne. Reports reached him early in 408 that his army was disaffected. Then came news of the death of the Eastern emperor, Arcadius, and Stilicho proposed to go to Constantinople. Olympius, a palace official, spread the rumor that Stilicho was preparing to put his own son on the Eastern throne, and so the troops in Pavia killed nearly all of the officials present on August 13. Stilicho went to Ravenna but was imprisoned by Honorius’ orders. He was beheaded on August 22; his son Eucherius was put to death shortly thereafter.
In the disturbances which followed the downfall and execution of Stilicho, the wives and children of barbarian foederati throughout Italy were slain by the local Romans. The Gothic army broke through the gates of Rome and sacked the city in August of 410. Many historians argue that the removal of Stilicho was the main catalyst leading to this monumental event, the first barbarian capture of Rome in nearly eight centuries and a part of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Art by Vilius Petrauskas: King Alaric and his staff during the siege of Rome.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: GRAND PRINCE OF SERBIA STEFAN NEMANJA

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
November 25, 2018

Nemanja (c. 1113 – 1199), son of a Prince of Zahumlje, became grand župan (clan leader) of Raška under Byzantine suzerainty in 1169. The Venetians incited the Slavs of the eastern Adriatic littoral to rebel against Byzantine rule. He sided with them and was eventually defeated by the avenging Byzantines. Although Nemanja bowed before Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and surrendered his personal sword, he was imprisoned and brought to the Imperial Capital of Constantinople to take part in a triumphal entry as a defeated barbarian. However, the emperor befriended Nemanja who vowed to never again attack Manuel, while the Emperor in return recognized Stefan Nemanja and his bloodline as the rightful Grand Župans of the Rascian lands.
Following Emperor Manuel I's death in 1180, Stefan Nemanja no longer believed he owed any allegiance to the Byzantines, he formed a new alliance with King Bela III of Hungary, and invaded Byzantine soil. Nemanja conquered Skopje, Prizren, and Tetovo.
In 1190, the new Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos prepared a massive and experienced army to strike against Nemanja. In fall of 1191, the well-prepared Byzantine army, led by the Emperor himself, crushed Nemanja's forces in South Morava. Stefan Nemanja retreated into the mountains, as Byzantines raided all along the river and even burned down the capital in Kuršumlija. However, Nemanja began raiding the Byzantine armies, so Emperor Isaac decided to negotiate a final peace treaty. Though again defeated, he retained Kosovo, Peć, Prizren, Bar, Skadar (Shkodër), and Kotor.
Serbia seemed once again endangered once as Nemanja's former ally, King Bela of Hungary invaded from the north. However, Nemanja's forces quickly pushed the Hungarians back across the border in 1193.
Nemanja abdicated in 1196 and joined his son in a monastery. His son, Stefan Prvovenčani (the “First-Crowned”), was granted the title of king of Raška by Pope Honorius III in 1217. His younger brother, Rastko (later canonized as St. Sava), became in 1219 the first archbishop of an independent Serbian Orthodox church. This close alliance between secular and sacred power gave the Nemanjić state much of its strength and stability.
Illustration: Stefan Nemanja with his army in the front of Byzantine fortress by Borivoje Mikic.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: ALP ARSLAN, 2nd SULTAN OF THE SELJUQ EMPIRE.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
April 23, 2019

ʿAḍud al-Dawla Abū Shujaʿ Muḥammad ibn Dāʾūd Chaghribeg, (c. 1030—1072), was the second sultan of the Seljuq Turks, who inherited the Seljuq territories of Khorāsān and western Iran and went on to conquer Georgia, Armenia, and much of Asia Minor (routing the Byzantine army at Manzikert).
The Seljuq empire was a medieval Turko Persian Sunni Muslim empire founded by Tughril Beg in 1037. It controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Arabian Gulf. They united the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades.
To expand the influence of Islam in the neighboring territory, Alp Arslan ("Heroic Lion") marched into Armenia and Georgia, and finally subdued them in 1064 AD. Alp Arslan invaded the Byzantine empire in 1068 AD but during the first three campaigns, the Turks were defeated and driven across the Euphrates.
At the Battle of Manzikert, fought in 1071, the Seljuk Empire clashed again with the Byzantine Empire led by Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. What followed was a disastrous defeat for the Byzantine army. The emperor was betrayed by his Cuman Turks as well as the contingents of Franks and Normans, the Byzantines totally routed. Romanos IV was captured and brought to Sultan Alp Arslan. Alp Arslan placed his boot on the Emperor's neck and forced him to kiss the ground. A week later, he was released by Arslan in exchange of a large ransom.
This large victory was followed by Seljuq conquest of most of Anatolia and marked the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire as a militarily viable state.
11 months later, the Sultan had arrested Yussuf al-Khwarezmi, the hostile commander of the Berzem fortress when preparing to march against Turkestan. He condemned Yussuf to death but was suddenly stabbed by him with a dagger and died shortly thereafter.
Sultan Alp Arslan died at the age of 43. Alp Arslan's conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is seen as one of the pivotal precursors to the launch of the 1st crusade.
Art by Mustafa Öner.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: CHILBUDIUS, MAGISTER MILITUM PER THRACIAM (? - 534)

By Siniša Đuričić,
May 10, 2019

 

Chilbudius or Chilbuldius (Greek: Χιλβούδιος, Khilboudios) was a Byzantine general, holding the rank of magister militum per Thraciam in the early 530s. He was apparently killed in battle c. 533, but an impostor claimed his identity c. 545-546. The only source for both men is Procopius.
According to some scholars Chilbudius was probably a Slav, although Florin Curta argues this view was misled by the story of the Antian namesake who claimed his identity.
The name has also been considered to be Germanic origin.Bohdan Strumins'kyj suggested a Gothic name, *Hil(i)baudeis / *Hil(i)būdeis, a name attested in Old High German as Hillibodo, rather than the traditional Slavic etymology of *xvalibud ("awakener of glory"). This demonstrates the difficulty in etymologizing proper names.
Chilbudius served as a member of the household of emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565). Procopius introduces him as a vigorous soldier and commends him for his lack of avarice. He claims that Chilbudius was not seeking to amass wealth for himself.
Chilbudius was appointed magister militum per Thracias "in the fourth year" of Justinian' reign (530/531). He was the direct successor of Germanus in that post. He was tasked with defending the Danube limes against barbarian incursions. He served for three years (c. 533/534), eventually moving his forces to the north of the Danube. In this manner, Chilbudius prevented invasions in Byzantine territories while taking the battle to hostile territory. He was reportedly killed in battle with Slavs (South Slavs) at the end of this period.
In 545/546, one of the Antae, held captive by the Sclaveni, claimed to be Chilbudius. With the Antae and the Sclaveni temporarily at peace with each other, the Chilbudius impostor passed to the hands of another member of the Antae. A Byzantine captive held by the same man persuaded their master that his fellow slave was the real Chilbudius. He also tried to convince said master to return the captive to Justinian, which would require a journey through Byzantine areas. When among the other Antae, the impostor revealed his actual identity and tried to claim the status of a freedman. His tribesmen found him more useful as Chilbudius than as one of them. He was pressured to continue the pretense.
At about this time, Justinian started negotiations with the Antae. He offered to them the ancient city of Turris, "to the north of the river Ister" (the Danube), and its vicinity. The city had been reportedly built by Trajan (r. 98-117) but lay deserted at the time. The Antae would be allowed to settle in this area and receive payment for guarding the Byzantine borders against the Huns, effectively gaining foederati status. The Antae accepted, but on the condition that "Chilbudius" would be restored to office, attempting to raise their man to the rank of magister militum. The plot was reportedly unveiled by Narses, who captured the Chilbudius impostor and transported him to Constantinople. His subsequent fate is unknown. Whatever his real identity, the impostor reportedly spoke Latin fluently.