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…

ART OF THE DAY: DEFENSE OF THE FORTRESS OF BAYAZID BY THE RUSSIANS (June 8-28, 1877) by LEV LAGORIO

 During the short Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, the Orthodox balkanic coalition led by Russia against the Ottoman Empire scored a number of resounding victories. It was also marked by brutal “ethnic cleansing” of minorities – Christians, Muslims and Jews - by all the parties involved. Adrianople had fallen, Russian troops came as close as 11 km from Istanbul. The firm intervention of Britain stopped them from taking the capital of the Sultans and the Dardanelles, as they came under the threat of the British Mediterranean squadron led by Vice-Admiral Geoffrey Phipps-Hornby stationed at Besika Bay, ready to engage the Orthodox coalition “as to not repeat the bloody blunder of [the battle of] Navarino”-British Prime Minister Disraeli. 

Siege of the citadel of Bayazid by Lev Lagorio, painted in 1891, Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg.

 

 

 

 

In the Caucasus theater, on April 18, 1877, Bayazid (Doğubayazıt in Ağrı Province), 15 km southwest of Mount Ararat, was occupied by the detachment of Lieutenant General Tergukasov, who then moved on, leaving a small garrison in the city. Captain F. Shtokvich was appointed commandant of the Bayazet citadel (the Ishak Pasha Palace). On June 6, 11,000 Turks under the command of Brigadier General A. Faik Pasha, occupied the city and blocked the 1,700-men strong Russian garrison in the citadel. On June 8, Turkish troops attempted to storm the citadel but were repulsed. The Kurdish irregulars plundered the city, carrying out a complete extermination of the local Armenian population. For 23 days, the garrison repelled all the attacks, and on June 28 it was finally saved by the troops of the Erivan detachment of General Tergukasov. During the siege, the garrison suffered 286 casualties.

After the war, under the terms of the San Stefano Peace Treaty (March 1878), Bayazid and the adjacent territories were ceded to Imperial Russia. But according to the decisions of the Berlin Congress (June-July 1878), this was reversed and Bayazid and the Alashkert Valley were returned to the Ottoman Empire. 

End of the siege of the citadel of Bayazid on June 23, 1878.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Viennese authorities were unhappy with this extension of Russian power, and Serbia feared the establishment of Greater Bulgaria would harm its interests in former and remaining Ottoman territories. Britain would defend its interests in Constantinople, in Egypt, Suez, and the Persian Gulf by war if necessary. For Prince Aleksandr Gorchakov, “the British find it hard to understand a war of religious and national sentiment, and being incapable of one themselves, they consequently look for arrières pensées”. As for Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, the Balkans were simply “not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier”!

The British fleet in the Dardanelles with ironclads Alexandra, Agincourt, Achilles, Monarch, Invincible, Rupert, Swiftsure, Hostpur, Defense, Thunderer, Raleigh, Ruby, Sultan, Temeraire and Research: 1. The Fleet nearing the town of Kum Kaleh; 2. The Fleet entering the mouth of the Dardanelles. The Illustrated London News, 1878.

  

Disraeli never dissimulated his sympathy for the Ottoman cause vs the Balkan Christians:

“I find the habits of this calm and luxurious people [the Ottomans] entirely agree with my own preconceived opinions of property and enjoyment, and detest the Greeks more than ever”. (Miloš Ković , Disreali and the Eastern Question, 2007). 

William Gladstone, on the other hand, was fiercely in favor of “humanitarian intervention” on behalf of the Christians and disliked the Turks: “Upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law. For the guide of this life they had a relentless fatalism: for its reward hereafter, a sensual paradise.”

CRIMEA IS ANNEXED BY CATHERINE THE GREAT, April 8, 1783 (O.S.), SECURING ACCESS TO THE BLACK SEA

 

In 1774, Sultan Mustafa III was defeated by Catherine the Great. The Russian fleet had destroyed the Ottoman navy and the Russian army had inflicted heavy defeats on the Ottoman land forces. The ensuing Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca forced the Sublime Porte to recognize the Tatars of the Crimea as politically independent.

According to the treaty, the Crimean Khanate formally gained its independence (but in reality made the Crimea a protectorate of Russia). The Porte also ceded to Russia two key seaports, Azov and Kerch, obtaining freedom of navigation for the Russian Navy and the merchant fleet in the Black Sea, allowing Catherine II to start a policy of control and hegemony over that sea. The treaty also granted to Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman loss of the Crimea and the end of the Crimean Khanate caused Muslims everywhere to question the sultans' legitimacy as defenders of Islam.

After the failure of the Crimean revolts of 1777-1782, in March 1783, Prince Grigory Potemkin made a rhetorical push to encourage Empress Catherine to annex Crimea. Having just returned from Crimea, he told her that many Crimeans would happily submit to Russian rule. Encouraged by these news, Empress Catherine issued a formal proclamation of annexation on 19 April [O.S. 8 April] 1783. The Tatars did not resist the annexation. Crimea was incorporated into the Empire as "Taurida Governorate". Catherine the Great's incorporation of the Crimea into the Russian Empire increased Imperial Russia's power in the Black Sea area. 

In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea. Sultan Abdül Hamid I restarted hostilities in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92. Emperor Joseph II of Austria joined the war on the side of the Russian Empire. This conflict turned into another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimized the Russian claim to the Crimea and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. The Crimea was the first Muslim territory to slip from the sultan's suzerainty. The Ottoman Empire's frontiers would gradually shrink for another two centuries, and Russia would proceed to push her frontier westwards to the Dniester.

-Painting: The Triumph of Catherine the Great by Vassily Nesterenko, Tavrichesky Hall of the Grand Palace in Tsaritsyno, 2007.

-Further reading: Antoine-Ignace Anthoine, Essai historique sur le commerce et la navigation, 1805; I also advise the reading of Brian L. Davies' The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire, 2016 and Eugene Miakinkov's War and Enlightenment in Russia: Military Culture In The Age Of Catherine II, 2020.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: MURAT, NAPOLEON’S CAVALRY COMMANDER

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
October 21, 2018

Murat at the battle of Aboukir by Job. His previous battles in Egypt had seen Napoleon take a defensive posture while the Mamluk armies battered themselves to destruction. This time, he went on to the offensive. While the infantry attacked the centre of the first line, Murat’s cavalry was sent against both the left and right flanks of the Ottoman line. This first line was rolled up and forced back on to the second line. Napoleon then rested his army, before starting the second phase of the battle at three in the afternoon. This second phase resulting in a crushing French victory. The Ottoman army was forced back into the sea. Thousands of Ottoman soldiers drowned attempting to escape, while Sir Sidney Smith’s fleet attempted to rescue as many men as possible. Amongst the escapees was the future ruler of Egypt, Mohammed Ali. This part of the battle is probably most famous for one of the very few occasions where opposing generals fought a personal combat, in this case between Mustapha Bey and Murat, the French cavalry commander. Murat’s cavalry charge brought him within feet of Mustapha. The two commanders spotted each other. Mustapha fired at Murat from close range, hitting him in the jaw. Murat responded with a sabre blow, chopping off two of Mustapha’s fingers and taking his pistol with them!

Joachim Murat (March 25, 1767 —October 13, 1815), was an outstanding and dashing French cavalry leader who was one of Napoleon’s most celebrated marshals and who, as a surprising good king of Naples (1808–15), lent stimulus to Italian nationalism. Prone to wearing flamboyant costumes, he was extremely brave and fought in approximately 200 battles.
The son of an innkeeper, he studied briefly for a career in the church but enlisted in a cavalry regiment in 1787 and, when war broke out in 1792, won rapid promotion. In October 1795 he was on hand in Paris at the moment that Napoleon Bonaparte was entrusted with the mission of suppressing a royalist insurrection; Murat’s contribution in bringing up cannon won him a place as aide-de-camp to Bonaparte for the Italian campaign of 1796–97. In Italy and later in Egypt (1798–99) he established his reputation as a gifted and daring leader of cavalry. At Aboukir, he led a cavalry charge against the Ottomans and captured the Turkish commander, Mustapha Bey, in a single combat (one of the few genuinely documented examples of this happening). Again he served his chief well in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), by which Bonaparte seized power as first consul. Murat’s reward was the hand of Napoleon’s youngest sister, Caroline.

Illustration by Giuseppe Rava: Murat leads the gigantic charge at Eylau.

In the Italian campaign of 1800 Murat helped win the decisive Battle of Marengo, and in 1801 he rapidly concluded the campaign against Bourbon-ruled Naples by imposing the Armistice of Foligno. As governor of Paris in 1804, he was included among the first generals promoted to the rank of marshal after Napoleon’s coronation as emperor on December 2. In 1805 he played a conspicuous role in the Austerlitz campaign, helping to pin the Austrian Army in Ulm, where it was forced to surrender, and defeating Austrian and Russian cavalry on the field of Austerlitz. At Jena in 1806 his energetic pursuit completed destruction of the Prussian Army; at Eylau in 1807 Napoleon ordered Murat to charge the Russians, and he led the 80 cavalry squadrons (15,000 men) of the cavalry reserve in one of the largest cavalry charges in history.

Murat, King of Naples by François Gérard, c. 1812.

When he was sent to act as Napoleon’s lieutenant in Spain he tried to gain possession of the unoccupied Spanish throne. His intrigues led instead to Spanish opposition and a rising in Madrid that, though quelled (May 2, 1808), ended his hopes. Though Napoleon gave the Spanish throne to his brother Joseph, he rewarded Murat with Joseph’s former place as king of Naples, under the name Joachim-Napoléon. In Naples Murat carried out important reforms, breaking up the vast landed estates and introducing the Napoleonic Code. The administration was opened to advancement by merit, cotton growing was encouraged, and effective measures were taken against the chronic brigandage. Murat even foresaw the unification of Italy, a development at whose head he sought to place himself through the encouragement of secret societies that eventually played a major role in the Risorgimento.

October 1815, Murat is executed by a firing squad, by Giuseppe Rava. His body was never found. Murat’s remains are thought to have been interred in a mass grave underneath Pizzo’s Church of St. George, but there were rumors that they had been spirited away to France.

In 1812 Murat took part in Napoleon’s Russian campaign and once more distinguished himself at Borodino; but, left in charge of the shattered Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow, he abandoned it to try to save his kingdom of Naples. In 1813 he wavered between loyalty to Napoleon and negotiation with the allies. The Austrians signed a treaty with him, but the former Bourbon rulers of Naples raised objections, and his situation was in doubt when Napoleon returned to France in 1815. Napoleon refused to offer him a military command during the Waterloo campaign, a serious mistake that greatly reduced the effectiveness of his cavalry at Waterloo. He then staked his hopes on an appeal to Italian nationalism, but he was forced to flee to Corsica disguised as a Danish sailor. In October, with 26 men, he made a last, hopeless attempt to recover Naples, was taken prisoner and shot. Before his death he shouted to the firing squad: "Soldiers! Do your duty! Straight to the heart but spare my face. Fire!"

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: MATTHIAS CORVINUS (Hunyadi Mátyás), THE POWERFUL HUNGARIAN RENAISSANCE KING.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
January 24, 2019 · 

Matthias Corvinus (1440-1490) was born in Cluj, Transylvania. The nickname “Corvinus,” comes from the Latin corvusa, or crow, a bird depicted on the Hunyadi coat of arms. On the death of Hunyadi, a bitter struggle over the crown of Hungary broke out. In January 24, 1458 a faction of Hungarian nobles elected Matthias as the next king, believing as a young and educated man he would be easy to control.
Opponents of Matthias proclaimed as king the Habsburg emperor Friedrich III, who accepted his election and seized the crown jewels of Hungary as symbol of his authority. Matthias proved an able leader, however, and crushed opposition, taking as prisoners many of his rivals as well as Vlad Dracula, the prince of Wallachia. In 1463, Friedrich gave up his claim, accepted Matthias as the king of Hungary, and returned the crown. 

Black Army infantry, by Croatian artist Velimir Vuksic from the series "The Army of Janos Hunyadi and Matthias I Corvin".

Matthias raised a powerful army of mercenaries, the Black Army, to expand the borders of Hungary. In the beginnings, the core of the army consisted of 6–8,000 mercenaries. In the 1480s, the number was between 15,000 and 20,000, however the figures in the great Viennese military parade reached to 28,000 men (20,000 horsemen, 8,000 infantry) in 1485. The soldiers were mainly Bohemians, Germans, Serbs, Poles and, from 1480, Hungarians. Thus the Black Army was far larger than the army of Louis XI of France, the only other existing permanent professional European army in the era.
Matthias campaigned against the Turks in the Balkan Peninsula, defeating them in several battles in Serbia and Transylvania. In 1471 Matthias renewed the Serbian Despotate in south Hungary under Vuk Grgurević for the protection of the borders against the Ottomans. In 1479 an Ottoman army, on its return home from ravaging Transylvania, was annihilated at Szászváros (13 October 1479) in the Battle of Breadfield. The following year Matthias recaptured Jajce, drove the Ottomans from northern Serbia and instituted two new military banats, Jajce and Srebernik, from reconquered Bosnian territory. 

Art by Tibor Tornyai: Coronation of Matthias Corvinus on 24 January 1458. The young prince was then only 14 years old.
 
In 1480 an Ottoman fleet seized Otranto in the Kingdom of Naples. At the solicitation of the pope Matthias sent the Hungarian general, Balázs Magyar, to recover the fortress, which surrendered on 10 May 1481. Again in 1488, Matthias took Ancona under his protection for a while, occupying it with a Hungarian garrison. 

At home he established a new judicial system, improved education, and patronized several Italian artists, whom he invited to work at his court. He also built a prestigious library of books and manuscripts, the second largest in Europe after the papal library in Rome. According to Marcus Tanner, Matthias ruled "a European superpower" at the end of his reign. His conquests, however, were lost within months of his death.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: ALI PASHA OF EGYPT'S SWORD: HIS OWN SON IBRAHIM PASHA, CONQUEROR OF GREECE AND SYRIA.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
April 9, 2019 

Ibrahim Pasha was born at Kavala, Rumelia (now Greece). A son (or adopted son), of the famous Albanian vali Muḥammad ʿAlī, in 1805 Ibrahim joined his father in Egypt, where he was made governor of Cairo. During 1816–18 he successfully commanded an army against the Wahhabite rebels in Arabia. Muḥammad ʿAlī sent him on a mission against the remnants of the Mamluks to the Sudan in 1821–22, and on his return he helped train the new Egyptian army on European lines.
When the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II asked for Egyptian assistance to crush the Greek revolt, an expedition commanded by Ibrahim landed in Greece in 1824 with 17,000 men and subdued the Morea (Peloponnese). He defeated the Greeks in the open field, and though the siege of Missolonghi proved costly to his own troops and to the Ottoman forces who operated with him, he brought it to a successful termination on April 24, 1826. But he suffered setbacks in Mani (Southern Peloponnese), the Greek guerrilla bands harassed his army, and in revenge he desolated the country and sent thousands of the inhabitants into slavery in Egypt. These measures of repression aroused indignation in Europe and led to the intervention of the naval squadrons of the United Kingdom, the Restored Kingdom of France and Imperial Russia in the Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827). Their victory was followed by the landing of a French expeditionary force, the Morea expedition. By the terms of the capitulation of October 1, 1828, Ibrahim evacuated the country.
In 1831, his father's quarrel with the Porte having become flagrant, Ibrahim was sent to conquer Syria. He took Acre after a severe siege on May 27, 1832, occupied Damascus, defeated an Ottoman army at Homs on July 8 defeated another Ottoman army at Beilan on July 29, invaded Asia Minor, and finally routed the Grand Vizier Reşid Mehmed Pasha (with whom he had conquered Missolonghi 6 years before) at Konya on December 21. There were now no military obstacles between Ibrahim's forces and Constantinople itself! In May 1833, Ibrahim became governor-general of the provinces of Syria and Adana ceded to Egypt after his victories during the Egyptian–Ottoman War. In 1838, the Porte felt strong enough to renew the struggle, and war broke out once more. Ibrahim won his last victory for his father at Nezib on June 24, 1839. But the United Kingdom and the Austrian Empire intervened to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. By 1848 Muḥammad ʿAlī had become senile, and Ibrahim was appointed viceroy but ruled for only 40 days before his death on November 10, 1848.