Download PDF | John Jefferson - The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad_ The Ottoman-Christian Conflict from 1438-1444-Brill Academic Publishers (2012).
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INTRODUCTION
The Final Charge Late in the afternoon on the tenth of November, 1444, a group of Hungarian and Polish noblemen crowded around their king not far from the fortress of Varna on the Bulgarian coast. These men had undergone a long journey, which had begun on the shores of the Danube in September with the grandiose hope of conquering the Ottoman capital of Edirne , thereby expelling the Turks from Europe.
The move had surprised the Ottoman sultan, Murad II, since Wladislas , king of Poland and Hungary , had earlier that summer negotiated, signed, and solemnly sworn to a ten-year truce. Yet the crusaders had been caught offf guard as well. Until recently they had been under the impression that an international fleet composed of Venetian , Burgundian, Ragusan and papal galleys had successfully blockaded the straits separating the sultan’s Asian and European dominions.
The fleet commanders had announced to the king that Murad and his army were stranded in Anatolia . By the time Wladislas learned that the Sultan had in fact crossed the straits, despite the presence of the crusader fleet, the sultan was already headed to the battlefijield accompanied by the most powerful army in Europe. Upon hearing the news the crusaders made their way to the coastal city of Varna hoping to either defeat the sultan or fijind some avenue of escape. Murad and his army arrayed themselves before Varna in the early morning. Soon after a fijierce battle began.
Though greatly outnumbered, the Christian forces succeeded in routing and/or killing the majority of the Ottoman army, and had even slain the Beylerbey of Anatolia , Karaca Bey, who commanded half the forces of the Empire and in military afffairs answered only to the sultan. A sense of panic was beginning to spread among the sultan’s troops, their usual confijidence shaken after having suffered repeated defeats from the Hungarians since 1440. The janissaries, hoping to quit the battlefijield and avoid the capture of the Ottoman ruler, as had happened at the Battle of Ankara 42 years prior, were advising Murad to withdraw. The Ottoman historian Neşri describes this moment in the Ottoman camp: Having witnessed this [the defeat of the Anatolian troops and the martyrdom of [(Güyeğü) Karaca Bey ] the Rumelian army withdrew to a wide-open space and scattered.
The sultan with only his janissaries left was on the verge of retreating as well. (Dayı) Karaca Bey 1, aware of this situation, dismounted from his horse, grabbed the sultan’s horse’s reins, and said, “Hey, my sultan! What is this? If you go, the infijidel will follow behind our backs to Edirne .” He did not let go of the sultan’s horse’s reins. He rode offf to the top of a high place and stopped, and halted [the sultan’s horse]. At this time there was a janissary agha they called Kazancı Doğan. He reproached Karaca Bey saying with a dour expression, “You killed sultan Alaeddin. This time you intend to do the same to our sultan. Let go [of the reins] and go.” Karaca Bey was by no means deterred. Sultan Murad said to Karaca Bey , “The infijidel has crushed us.” To which Karaca Bey replied, “We will crush them, God willing.”2 Murad declined the advice of his own janissaries, and heeding Dayı Karaca Bey he resolved to stay, bracing himself for the coming assault.
This decision would prove decisive in what was to come. The success of the Christian army thus far had been due largely to the competent and decisive command of John Hunyadi , one of the great military leaders of his time. His fame, though well-deserved and hard won through the last four years of campaigning, had nonetheless aroused the envy of his peers. The fijifteenth-century Byzantine historian Chalkokondyles records a speech purportedly delivered at Varna by the Hungarian nobles which, though certainly fabricated, nonetheless sums up the prevailing sentiment: There were many men in the king’s company who were jealous of Hunyadi and they bore bitterly his virtue in combat. Seeing that he waged war excellently and properly, and that he had put the Army of Asia to flight, and that he was fijighting nobly against the Army of Europe, whose leader named Karaca he had slain, they spoke thusly to the king: “O King, why do we stand here and wait for John [Hunyadi ], allowing him to conquer the enemy and to accomplish what remains as if he were one man alone? It brings us great dishonor. While we waste time here idly, we allow your servant to rush at and fijight against the enemy.
It is most fijitting that the king in our army should do military deeds, which might earn great praise from our wives and from those who occupy our cities, as well as among the Turks. Indeed he who puts to flight such a great multitude of men will attain immortal glory, yet standing here and watching what is taking place you are resigned to ignominy. How will you relate this to posterity? For it is not that you are afraid. For there is no fear that we should be defeated attacking the soldiers of the Porte (janissaries), since the Army of Asia was put to flight by John [Hunyadi ] with ease. Indeed, if you do not waver, they will begin to flee. Act, therefore! Let us march against the sultan’s janissaries. For since you are king, it is fijitting that you should battle with a king.3 Though the Christians had up to now achieved much success, they had also sufffered massive losses.
The army, which had been fijighting since ten o’clock that morning, was exhausted and had no means of retreat should the battle turn against them. Isolated groups were beginning to break from the lines and head for safety among the neighboring hills. The king saw an opportunity for decisive action. In one great charge with what remained of his personal retinue he might dislodge the sultan’s forces, perhaps capture, even slay the Emperor of the Infijidels with his own hand. Yet Hunyadi , fearing what such rash action might lead to, strongly disapproved: The day is yours. Do not put yourself at risk by going to fijight these archers (the janissaries) on the mountain,4 because they will kill your horses and send your men to perdition. They (Wladislas’ troops) have won the battle, there is no sense in risking it.
While on the mountain, the sultan can do no harm. If he descends from the mountain to fijight them (Wladislas ’ troops), theirs is the advantage. Tomorrow he must either flee or surrender to you. Most of your men who have fought are tired. They have lost lances and weapons. The sun has set and night is falling. You will be at a great disad 4 introduction vantage if you fijight or attack people at night, who are waiting for you calmly on foot. When they see that you are climbing up the mountain when they, to their advantage, are all fresh and rested, they will defend themselves courageously. For the sake of God, do not put yourself in a position to lose everything that has been gained.
The strongest part of all the enemy army has been routed.5 The king chose to ignore his captain’s advice, and instead followed the advice of the noblemen. He spurred on his horse, followed by a hand-picked contingent of his proudest and strongest knights, totaling perhaps as little as 500 men.6 They surged ahead of the other Hungarian troops along the battle lines and charged after the sultan in his entrenched camp. “The Hungarians and Poles set about them like tigers, mauling the ones at the front of the circle7 no matter how many Christians and horses [the janissaries] wounded and killed.”8 Murad’s own scribes noted with wonder the ferocity of the king’s charge: “Then those accursed men with no religion, those lawless reprobates, abandoned their lust for life and love for home and family and attacked so fijiercely that the earth could not withstand the heat of battle, the air could not endure their harshness and, out of fear, the sun took flight to the safety of the dust.
Along with those men among the janissaries who had not yet fled, the sultan still had some of the Slaves of the Porte , the personal soldiers of his household, to defend him.10 Murad was moreover well-entrenched in a fortifijied position in accordance with Ottoman practice.11 This position consisted of a trench and bulwark, with thousands of iron stakes12 lining the top, behind which stood men armed with cannon and arquebus.13 Behind these men were the soldiers of the palace. Then came a row of camels lined together so as to further impede the enemy. Finally the solaklar , or the sultan’s personal bodyguards handpicked from the Janissary Corps were drawn up in a protective formation. Many of Wladislas ’ men were dispersed or otherwise killed by the gunfijire and bowshot while attempting to breach this prepared position.14 The king, including a number of his knights, was having great difffijiculty breaking out of the trench.15
In an act of will and desperation Wladislas fijinally burst through the impasse, spurring his horse forward he headed straight for the sultan himself. One of Murad’s slave bodyguards standing in the king’s path, a man by the name of Koca Hızır ,16 rose to counter the threat. Wielding his balta, or short battle axe, he hamstrung the king’s mount with a single blow. Wladislas fell to the earth along with his horse. When Wladislas, the “Champion of Christendom ” and the sovereign of two kingdoms, hit the ground he lay helpless in the weight of his armor and the press of enemy troops. Koca Hızır grabbed his axe, lopped offf the king’s head and brought it to Murad. The sultan summoned one of the crusader captives, and when he positively identifijied the head as belonging to the enemy king Murad immediately dismounted, bowed his head to the ground and gave a prayer of thanks. He then ordered the head to be stuck on a pike and raised aloft for both armies to witness.17 Though the battle continued to rage on, the Turks had secured their victory. Two pivotal command decisions were made during the battle of Varna .
The fijirst: Murad II’s decision to remain on the battlefijield and not retreat after the majority of his troops had been routed and the battle seemed lost. The second, and perhaps more dramatic, was Wladislas ’ uphill charge, near sunset, against a vastly superior force of disciplined infantry—all this at a time when the battle was more or less won. “Why?” I fijirst asked this question while studying as an undergrad in Krakow , Poland , in a seminar course given by my advisor at the time, Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Baczkowski. The question surrounding Wladislas ’ fijinal charge never left me, and this dissertation was my attempt to answer it.
Wladislas ’ and Murad’s decisions were not simply capricious expressions of sovereign whim. They were determined, and in many ways bound by rational and irrational considerations and the contexts framing these considerations. The options of attack, stay or retreat all had enormous ramifijications not only for the outcome of the battle but for the very reign and even the very person of the sovereigns involved. Because of his decision Murad retained his position as the head of an empire; Wladislas lost both his head and his kingdoms. One way of understanding the choices at Varna , then, is to understand the military and political consequences, immediate and long-term, that the two men had to consider. “If I remain on the battlefijield,” Murad had to ask, “will I emerge victorious or vanquished? That is to say, can my army win? If I quit the battlefijield, then what are the consequences for my realm, my dynasty and my person?” Rational considerations of military and political consequences do not describe these decisions entirely.
There were irrational considerations as well. Among them were religion, personal ambition, a sense of culture and dynastic tradition. The role of these “irrational” considerations in the conflicts I will describe is two-fold. As powerful forces of influence, individuals were not only afffected by them, they used them to afffect and influence others. This was as true for the baggage handlers and foot soldiers as it was for the king himself. When Wladislas decided to charge the sultan directly, he was not only driven by a strong, “irrational” desire to slay “the enemies of Christ,” but also by a desire to cultivate an image of himself as Christendom ’s champion, an image which he had used, and hoped to continue to use for very rational political ends.
In attempting to answer somewhat the question of “Why did Wladislas charge the sultan at Varna and why did the sultan stand his ground?” one has to explore the contexts in which these decisions were made and the events leading up to them. The fijirst part of this work deals primarily with the institutions, politics and dynastic goals of the three main parties—the Church, the Ottomans and the Kingdom of Hungary . The narrative alternates between describing the people and events which led to the conflict of 1438–1444, and the institutional and ideological framework behind them. Part Two continues the narrative in Part One, with a greater focus on the campaigns taking place during Wladislas ’ reign in Hungary, i.e. 1440–1444.
The Historiography of the Conflict From the moment Wladislas died there were attempts to spin the narrative of these momentous events for reasons both political and personal. Reports of the battle and even of the king’s survival were deliberately falsifijied to reduce the political fallout in Poland and Hungary . Years after the immediate impact subsided contemporary politics continued to influence the historical narratives. The single best contemporary western narrative source for these events, the Polish chronicler John Długosz ,18 was clearly led, despite his largely critical approach, by a desire to rehabilitate the image of the Polish-Hungarian king. He openly admits this fact in his chronicle. Though a gifted historian, he felt a need to respond to works by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II ) and other contemporaries who had disparaged Wladislas and his role. The Hungarian chronicler Thuróczy , writing independently of Długosz and with signifijicantly less historical craft, was led by a similar impulse.
Writing for a Hungarian audience he strove to lionize Hunyadi and his accomplishments to the greatest extent possible. These two chroniclers were followed in the fijifteenth century by another round of Polish and Hungarian historians—Callimachus and Bonfijini . Callimachus’ work Historia de rege Vladislao19 is the source of much error on the part of later historians.20 The author clearly relied on Długosz as his main, if not only, source and fijilled in the gaps with his own fancy and to please his benefactors. To Callimachus’ credit, he was working within the tradition of Renaissance panegyric intending to compliment Wladislas’ brother and successor in Poland, Casimir, to whom the work is dedicated.
Callimachus did not fail to compliment his other patrons as well.21 In agreement with Jarosław Nikodem22 and other Polish scholars I fijind almost no historical value in the Historia de rege Vladislao in terms of establishing a narrative of events. On the contrary, there are many pitfalls in using the source due to the author’s tendency to fabricate. Some of Callimachus’ fabrications crept into the work of Antonio Bonfijini, the celebrated court historian of Hunyadi ’s son, King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Bonfijini seems to have used all three of the above sources—Długosz , Callimachus and Thuróczy. At times, when the sources difffered from one another, he mentioned two possibilities. At other times, such as in his narrative of Şehabeddin’s defeat in 1442, he is guilty of fabrication on par with Callimachus.23 Since almost all of the information in his chronicle for this period can be traced back to one of the three above-listed sources I refer to him very sparingly.
Aside from the efffect on their own local politics, most fijifteenth-century Christian chroniclers saw the conflict from 1438–1444 and its climax at Varna as a fijinal prelude to the capture of Constantinople , i.e. a last and failed attempt to liberate the East. This was true most of all of the Byzantines. Their hopes of possible liberation via a Western crusade perished along with the Polish-Hungarian king. It is perhaps for this reason that the great Byzantine historians devoted so much attention to these events, in many cases more than to the 1453 siege of Constantinople. Their narratives, often informed by Byzantine, Western and Ottoman sources constitute a valuable and unique perspective on the events. A similarly unique view is gained from non-Balkan Christian sources, in particular the Burgundians (Wavrin or Brocquière ). Though they participated in these events they were less immediately afffected by the outcome, and were writing for an entirely diffferent audience with a wholly separate agenda. For Ottoman historians the conflict and its dramatic outcome served as clear confijirmation of the dynasty’s divine mission. It was a great victory handed to them by God and should be remembered as such by future generations. With their emphasis on victory as confijirmation of Providential backing, the Ottoman historians downplayed severely any hints of defeat in the years prior to 1444.
The failed Ottoman Siege of Belgrade in 1440, described at length by western sources, barely receives mention in Ottoman narratives. On the whole, however, these histories are equally if not more reliable than their western counterparts. A description of these events as part of the greater conquest narrative of the Ottoman dynasty continued to play a large role in the lengthy Ottoman histories of the early sixteenth century. Their main drawback and a source of unending frustration for the historian is the almost universal lack of dates in Ottoman chronicles, which have to be determined in large part by reference to Western sources. Arab histories tend to do a much better job of dating and are invaluable in determining contemporary events in Anatolia and the Near East. It is a pity that they make such limited mention of events in the Balkans. Most useful in establishing places, names and dates are the literally hundreds of letters and other contemporary Western documents. Written mostly in Latin and published in a number of diffferent collections and compilations they are the best means of nailing down the “historical grammar” of the events. Most contain a clear place and date of issue contemporary to the events themselves.
They are addressed to a specifijic audience often for the purpose of providing accurate and comprehensive information with an agenda quite diffferent from the narrative chronicles. It was not until the twentieth century that extensive critical use was made of these documents (perhaps due to their publication throughout the nineteenth century), which resulted in a number of corrections to earlier historical works which had been based mostly on chronicles. There are also a handful of Ottoman letters and documents from the period, which likewise provide a fijirsthand perspective of the dynasty’s political and military agenda.
As more and more archives containing Ottoman documents are exhaustively examined perhaps future researchers will discover more of these sources. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the defeat of Hungary in 1526 the Battle of Varna faded into relative obscurity, with a living memory of the event kept alive mostly in tales and folksongs. It no longer seemed relevant to the current state of afffairs in which the Ottomans seemed fijirmly and forever entrenched in the Balkans. It was not until Ottoman authority began to collapse that memories of the crusade resurfaced. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Wladislas and the story of his dramatic defeat appeared in a number of Polish plays, particularly those written by the Jesuit intelligentsia. The event served as fodder for Protestant propagandists as well, who saw Cesarini ’s absolution of the king’s oath of peace in 1444 and the resulting defeat as divine retribution for canonical, papist folly.24 With the second siege of Vienna and the ensuing Ottoman defeat another attempt to expel the Ottomans from Rumelia seemed inevitable.
The legend surrounding fijigures such as Hunyadi and Wladislas were revisited in this context. Gibbon devoted most of chapter 67 of his multi-volume Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to these events. The spread of nationalism and the Balkan liberation movement of the nineteenth century naturally provoked a revisitation of the events of the 1440s. In contrast to previous centuries, the conflict was seen less as a struggle of Christendom versus Islam and more of a national struggle between the peoples of East-Central Europe and their perceived oppressor the Ottoman Turks. Poland and Hungary , though not occupied by the Ottomans, were nonetheless involved in their own liberation movements and the heroic fijigures of Hunyadi and Wladislas were drawn out to inspire whole generations of militant revolutionaries. Much as Długosz in the fijifteenth century, Polish historians sought to present Wladislas in the best possible light, in part as a reaction against German historiography which tended to downplay Poland’s achievements during its Golden Age. During this time the theory was fijirst advanced that Wladislas , who was now the archetypal warrior-martyr of the Polish national struggle, did not in fact perjure himself in 1444. Hunyadi was likewise transformed into the epitome of a Hungarian national hero. His person was claimed by Serbian and Romanian historians as well.
Despite the nationalistic tendencies of nineteenth century historiography great advances were made in the publication of source material, in particular the documents and letters mentioned above.25 This paved the way for twentieth century historians, who were able to draw on far more sources than their predecessors. The most signifijicant twentieth-century historian of the conflict in question was the relatively unknown (outside of Poland ) Jan Dąbrowski.
The predecessor of my own advisor, Prof. Baczkowski, Dąbrowski was the most accomplished historian of late medieval Polish history in the early twentieth century. He was also a specialist in Polish-Hungarian relations. In 1922 he wrote the defijinitive book on King Wladislas ’ four-year reign in Hungary .26 It still stands as the best study of that topic.27 Despite its thematic focus the book contains much on the Turco-Hungarian conflict, inarguably Wladislas ’ major foreign policy concern during his reign. Attempts by other twentieth-century Polish historians to improve on Dąbrowski’s work, despite being accomplished historians themselves, have proved in large part fruitless. This is more a testament to Dąbrowski’s exhaustive effforts than their own failings. Prior to writing Dąbrowski headed a team of Polish academics who scoured the archives in Venice , Poland , and above all Hungary , compiling documentary evidence. Aside from these, he made greater use of recently published materials. As he wrote in his introduction: I have also tried to use published foreign sources on the subject to a greater extent than has been done up to now. The number of these has signifijicantly increased in recent years thanks to new publications.
I have gained much as well by referring to earlier published sources which have been up to now ignored by Polish historiography—such as the chronicle of Jehan de Wavrin . This is also true of Turkish sources which were made available to me by the outstanding publications of Thury,28 and which have been partially used by Polish historians.
The source material which I possessed enabled not only a more accurate rendering of the actual development and sequence of events, but also their clarifijication in a way which difffers in more than one instance from some of the conclusions thus far reached by Polish historians.29 Almost ninety years after the publication of his work a similar situation exists. Much has been written since 1922 on Varna and the Turco-Hungarian conflict from 1438–1444. There have been several book-length treatments of the Varna crusade, the most signifijicant being the works of Bistra Cvetkova and Edward Potkowski.30 Yet these book-length publications failed to take into account the recent publication of signifijicant new source material, most importantly Ottoman works many of which have only been published or discovered in the last few decades.
The appearance of a larger number of Ottoman sources is due in large part to the revival of Turkish historiography in the twentieth century. Previously historians were forced to rely on rather selective and uncritical Latin translations of original Ottoman works, such as Leonclavius’ Historiae Musulmanae Turcorum, de monumentis ipsorum written in 1591, or Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches published in ten volumes between 1827 and 1835. Even József Thúry’s late-nineteenth century Hungarian translations of Ottoman sources, which Dąbrowski relied on in his work, seems from my limited perspective as leaving much to be desired.31 Though these authors did a great deal to introduce Turkish sources to historians their works were not on par with western critical editions of historical sources published throughout the nineteenth century. In the fijirst half of the twentieth century Friedrich Giese and Franz Babinger were important pioneers in the publication of quality critical editions of Ottoman sources.
Their effforts were soon taken up by native Turkish historians, who through the Türk Tarih Kurumu publishing house have greatly increased not only the number of available sources but the quality of previously published material with newer, more critical editions. The most signifijicant fijind of twentieth century historiography in regards to the conflict described herein is without doubt the anonymous Gazavât-ı Sultan Murad b. Mehemmed Han.32 For the years 1443–1444 it even outstrips Długosz in terms of length and accuracy of narrative. This source was fijirst mentioned by Halil İnalcik and M. Oghuz in an article in 1948.33 İnalcik analyzed the source in greater detail in his 1954 book Fatih Devri Üzerinde Tetkikler ve Vesikalar.34 He even provided a small fragment of the text in an appendix. There was no critical edition of the work published, however, until 1978.
Even then, this source, which is the most lengthy and arguably most signifijicant source for the conflict from 1443–1444 has been little used by western historians of the last thirty years. This is primarily on account of language—the work is written in Ottoman Turkish. To give an extent of the ignorance surrounding this source one can point to a passage in the relatively recent six-volume A History of the Crusades (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), edited by the respected historian of the late crusading era Kenneth M. Setton, which claims to be “the defijinitive history of the crusades.” On a footnote on the very fijirst page (vol. VI, p. 277) of a rather lengthy chapter about the wars of the 1440s the author writes: “The Ottoman sources for this period are sparse, and those which speak of Varna add relatively little.” Even without the Gazavât this would be a highly questionable statement. In 2006, while already in the process of researching this work, Colin Imber published an English translation of the Gazavât along with several other sources on the history of the Varna crusade.35 This will no doubt increase its accessibility to current and future historians. At the same time modern Turkish historians have added greatly to the secondary literature by analyzing these events from an Ottoman perspective with a deep understanding of the culture and institutions of the time. Halil İnalcik ranks fijirst and foremost among these researchers.
Though sometimes criticized by Balkan historians for being too sympathetic to the Ottoman perspective, I fijind such comments to reflect chauvinism on the part of the former rather than the latter. Like Dąbrowski, İnalcik’s use of the available source material is equal parts judicious, creative and exhaustive. Numerous other sources have also appeared in the last several decades. A whole series of documents concerning the Council of Florenc e were published in critical editions by the mid-twentieth century and were behind Joseph Gill’s comprehensive The Council of Florence (Cambridge: 1959). Though Gill’s book has a papal bias, his work is moderated by other treatments of the subject such as Gerald Christianson’s Cesarini : the Conciliar Cardinal (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1979). A good deal of research has also been done on Late Medieval Crusading. Norman Housley’s work The Later crusades, 1274 -1580: from Lyons to Alcazar deserves specifijic mention, and his works help in determining Varna ’s place in the larger theme of later crusades. A signifijicant chapter in twentieth century historiography of the conflict is the controversy surrounding the ten-year truce between Murad and Wladislas and the so-called Act of Szeged . Discussion over this issue produced a flurry of writings, some of them from Dąbrowski himself. The debate was sparked in the late 1930s when Oskar Halecki re-introduced the theory that Wladislas had not in fact ratifijied the Ottoman treaty and therefore not perjured himself prior to the battle.
This argument was refuted by others, among them Dąbrowski, who saw in Halecki’s arguments a nationalistic and pro-Catholic bias that led him to ignore more apparent explanations. Francisc Pall’s re-discovery of Ciriacus of Ancona ’s correspondence regarding the negotiations of 1444 played a central role in this debate, and inspired Pall to continue his research into other aspects of the conflict. The debate is still very much alive today (See chapter seven). Other sources published in recent decades include the Byzantine Kleinchroniken, the Ottoman Takvimler or historical lists and the Annals of Murad II. Critical editions of the histories of the Ottoman historians Oruç Bey , Neşri , Aşıkpaşazade and others have likewise been published. The recent re-discovery of Zaifiji ’s Gazavât is of great signifijicance, and it is hoped that a general publication of this work will soon appear. French historian Jacques Paviot has produced two books that contain excellent assessments of Philip the Good’s fleet and his involvement in crusading, to include Varna . The original Czech edition of Konstantin Mihalović ’s Memoires of a Janissary was also unearthed and relatively recently re-published with an accompanying English translation.36 The list goes on (see the bibliography at the end of this book).37
Purpose and Scope In my research I have analyzed over 400 documents, i.e. letters, manifestos, records of sale, proclamations, reports, etc. In addition I have pored over nearly a dozen full-length chronicles or accounts, distributed equally among Christian and Muslim authors. Up to now there has been no general monographic work on these events to draw on such a comprehensive range of previously published and recently appearing primary sources.38 Much of this has to do with the diverse linguistic range of the texts. In order of precedence the relevant languages for the primary sources are: Medieval and Renaissance Latin, Ottoman Turkish, Byzantine Greek, Late Medieval French, Late Medieval Czech, Late Middle High German, Medieval Italian (various dialects), Persian, Arabic, Old Serbian, and Late Medieval Polish.39 Much of the primary literature regarding these events has not been translated.40 This has forced scholars to rely on second-hand information contained in scholarly books and articles to bridge linguistic gaps. I have been able to access, in their original, works in all of the above languages save Byzantine Greek and Persian.41
This has allowed me to conduct a complete reassessment of the events described based on a side-by-side comparison of primary sources. Most of these sources were composed independent of one another, and by comparing them directly with one another the historian is able to confijirm, complement and call into question parts of an account mentioned in other sources. The result, I believe, is a narrative of events far fuller and more accurate than any yet published. Though striving to abide by the maxim ad fontes wherever and whenever possible, I have by no means neglected the books and articles comprising the secondary literature. Numerous works have been written in the last hundred years on topics relevant to these events. There have been signifijicant contributions from Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, Polish, French, Italian, German and Turkish authors, with a spate of articles and books discussing the topic from a number of other countries as well.42
Though I have been able to access much of this secondary literature there are still important gaps in research. The most signifijicant of these is Hungarian. Though the relevant fijifteenth-century Hungarian sources are in Latin, I have been unable to access a good deal of the modern Hungarian books and articles. The problem is mitigated somewhat by the availability of many of the more prominent Hungarian works in Polish, English, German or French translations. Dąbrowski’s own exhaustive exploration of Hungarian source material, though somewhat outdated, has been my other great pillar of reliance. A similar problem exists for me in regard to Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian and Greek books and articles.43 Although the detailed scholarship contained in these secondary works has been useful in elucidating specifijic aspects of the conflict, there have been very few attempts at a full treatment of the subject.44 Any such attempt needs to likewise incorporate a broader and more in-depth examination of this secondary source material.
Though it is important, for instance, to understand the specifijic tactical maneuvers and military outcomes of Şehabeddin’s defeat in 1442, it is also important to understand the general trends of Ottoman military conquest in the fijifteenth century, and to look in-depth at the political and social motivations driving Ottoman warfare at that time. Such topics fulfijill and complement one another, and their treatment side-by-side yields diffferent insights than their separate analysis. Specifijic examples illustrate the larger themes, and larger themes provide depth and understanding to the specifijic events. The aim of this work is to undertake such a comparative analysis, encompassing far more primary sources than any previous work and interpreting them with reference to the vast secondary literature that has appeared in the last century. The pages that follow speak to the results of this endeavor. The Balkan conflict from 1438–1444 is ideal for exploring the relationship between politics, warfare and religion in late medieval Central Europe and the Balkans. To what extent were these political conflicts, and to what extent religious? Were they holy wars or political wars? It is tempting to write that they were more political conflicts heavily influenced by religion, than religious conflicts influenced by politics. Certainly reasons of state interest played a far greater role than, say, during the First Crusade. But this had more to do with the changed nature of the late medieval state than a retrogression of popular piety. In any case this sort of statement is dangerously misleading. It is impossible to say where politics began and religion ended, and the actors themselves seem to have drawn no such lines.
The best one can answer is that it depends on which party is under discussion, and at which point in the conflict. Would the Venetians have contributed to the fleet in 1444 if they had not stood to make clear political gains? Probably not. But one can rephrase the question, and ask if the Venetians would have joined the fijight if they were a Muslim, and not a Christian power. This latter question seems at fijirst absurd. Had Venice been a Muslim state, the entire political make-up of the Mediterranean would have been diffferent. But this alone speaks to the importance of religion. Notions of Christendom and the Abode of Islam are essential to understanding fijifteenth-century politics. As Norman Housley writes regarding Christendom: “Indeed, it is arguable that the concept of Christendom, the fijirst to take shape among the various preconditions for the crusading movement, was also the last to vanish. Its chief manifestation was an a priori hostile view of the Turks, and the welcoming of their defeat, even when it was accomplished by a power which would normally, for political and religious reasons, be viewed with suspicion.”45
The opposite was true as well, and traitors to the religious communities on both sides were ill regarded and ostracized. It may be for this reason that such states were in the end unsuccessful in building an independent position for themselves as regional powers. The Genoese are a clear example of this on the Christian side. Ibrahim Bey , the Prince of Karaman , played an identical role within Islam. Other examples support the important role of religion in the conflict. Wladislas ’ own decision to go to war in 1444 seems to have had more to do with the religious influence of Cardinal Cesarini than the political interests of Hungary . And what of the Duchy of Burgundy, whose involvement in the crusade brought her no political gain or loss, but was motivated almost entirely by ideals of religious and dynastic traditions?
The question of which was more important, religion or politics, defijies easy explanation. It can only be hoped that by the end of this work the reader has a clearer understanding of the interplay of these two factors in fijifteenth-century inter-faith warfare, through the example of one of its most signifijicant conflicts. The abundant source material made it possible to focus my exploration of these themes on a relatively brief period of six years—from the death of Sigismund of Luxembourg until Wladislas ’ death at Varna , i.e. 1438–1444.
These years are tied together by a consistent narrative arc. Though Ottoman foreign policy began to shift around 1435/36 they did not begin their campaign of expansion in earnest until 1438, the year in which Murad himself conducted the largest raid on Hungary in living memory and laid the groundwork for the conquest of Serbia . The latter took place in 1439, along with the union of the Eastern and Western Churches and an intensifijied efffort on the part of the papacy to launch an anti-Ottoman crusade. 1440 saw the fijirst Ottoman setback at Belgrade and the election of Wladislas to the Hungarian throne, in itself a response to Ottoman aggression. From 1440–1442 the tide began to turn, until in the beginning of 1443 when the Hungarians were ready to take the offfensive. The Long March and its qualifijied successes brought hope not only to the Balkans but all of Christendom .
These hopes were dashed on the battlefijield at Varna in 1444 with the defeat of the crusader army and the death of King Wladislas .46 Not only within Christendom , but within the Ottoman Empire there is a thematic consistency to these years. The Ottoman energy and vigor harnessed by the Porte’s expansionist policy from 1438 to 1439 is palpable in the sources. Murad seemed not only well on his way to regaining Bayezid’s empire but pushing the borders even further. Yet beginning at Belgrade and continuing through 1442 an infectious doubt and despair grew after the sultan’s armies sufffered defeat after major defeat.
The problem manifested itself in, and was itself the result of, friction at court between the “peace party” and the “war hawks.” By the autumn of 1444 visible cracks were beginning to appear in the seemingly indomitable House of Osman , with outbreaks of revolt and insurrection not only among the empire’s vassals and dependencies, but within the very capital itself. The Ottomans were thrown offf balance and forced to react to events they themselves did not direct, but which were clearly being determined by their Christian rivals, a situation they had not experienced since their entry into Europe nearly a century prior.
This dynamic was decisively eradicated at Varna . Turkish dominance in the Balkans was fijirmly re-established; the Ottomans regained the offfensive initiative. This fact of Balkan politics would not be called into question again for centuries. This fijinal outcome was in its simplest sense the result of decisions made by Murad and Wladislas in the afternoon of November 10th at Varna . Yet the considerations weighed in making those decisions were, as mentioned above, both the product of previous years’ events and the religious, military and political context in which those events occurred. The following chapters, it is hoped, will elucidate both the events and their context such that the historical phenomena of 1438–1444 seem understandable, even if at times they defy familiarity.
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