The Lack of a Western European Military Response to the Ottoman Invasions of Eastern Europe from Nicopolis (1396) to Mohacs

(1526) Author(s): Kelly DeVries Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), pp. 539-559 Published by: Society for Military History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/120494 . Accessed: 14/02/2012 03:32
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The Lack of a Western European Military Response to the Ottoman Invasions of Eastern Europe from Nicopolis (1396) to Mohaics (1526)

Kelly DeVries

1396, on the plains south of the central Bulgarian city of Nicopolis, a battle was fought.2 It was what military historians used to call a "decisive battle," a battle that changed history.3 A truly diverse soldiery took the field that day. On the one side, Bayezid I, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks, led a force manned by troops from his homeland, Asia Minor, and from his and his predecessors' conquered and vassal countries, namely Serbs, Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Albanians. Added to these was the Turkish janissary corps, filled with young Christian tribute-children and prisoners of war, now converted to
1. I wish to thank Norman Ilousley, of the University of Leicester, and my colleagues at Loyola College who read and commented on earlier drafts of this article. 2. The date of battle of Nicopolis was disputed until Aziz Suryal Atiya published The Crusade of Nicopolis in 1934. Since that time, 25 September has been recognized as the date of the battle. On the controversy see Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (London: Methuen and Co., 1934), 149-51, and Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (London, Methuen and Co., 1938), 450 n.3. 3. J. J. N. Palmer, England, France, and Christendom, 1377-99 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 204, does in fact call it just that, although the older decisive battle reporters, Sir EdwardCreasy, J. F. C. Fuller, and Joseph Dahmus, have not identified Nicopolis as such. This may be more out of their ignorance of the battle than out of their failure to believe that the effects of Nicopolis warrant such a definition. See Sir Edward Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, 36th ed. (London: Bentley, 1894); J. F. C. Fuller, The Decisive Battles of the Western Worldand their Influence upon History, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London: Paladin, 1970); and Joseph Dahmus, Seven Decisive Battles of the Middle Ages (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983).
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Islam and dedicated to the defeat of their former coreligionists.4 The total Turkish number, estimated by contemporary chroniclers, mostly western writers, at more than 100,000, was probably closer to 15,000.5 Opposing Bayezid was a force composed of allied troops from throughout western and central Europe. Called a crusade army by all contemporary western authors, it was composed of Hungarian, Wallachian, Transylvanian, Hospitaller, German, Burgundian, French, and English soldiers.6 Fewer in number than the Turks, although closer to a total of 12,000 than to the 100,000 found in contemporary sources,7 it was controlled by the Franco-Burgundian cavalry troops and their leaders. This control became a problem, for these soldiers were foreigners to the region, and they refused to listen to the advice of those who lived closer to this enemy. In particular, the Franco-Burgundian generals, Philip of Artois, the Constable of France; Jean II le Meingre dit Boucicault, the Marshal of France; Jean de Vienne, the Admiral of France; Guillaume de la Tremoille, the Marshal of Burgundy; Enguerrand de Coucy VII, and the twenty-three-year-old John the Fearless, whose suc4. On the early history of Ottoman conquests in Europe, see Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600, trans. N. Itzkowitz and C. Imber (New York: Praeger, 1973), 3-16; Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923 (New York:Longman, 1997), 33-50; John V. A. Fine, Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 1987), 325-425; and Peter F. Sugar,Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354-1804 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977), 3-30. On the janissary corps, see Inalcik, Ottoman Empire, 11, and Atiya, Nicopolis, 73-75. 5. The numbers of troops at Nicopolis is disputed. While Atiya (Nicopolis, 66-69, and Crusade, 446) holds onto the large numbers given by contemporary western chroniclers, other historians have chosen to lower them. See Gustav Kling, Die Schlacht bei Nikopolis im Jahre 1396 (Berlin: G. Nauck, 1906), 14-24, 81; IhansDelbriick, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History, vol. 3, Medieval Warfare, trans. W. J. Renfroe, Jr. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 476-81; Norman Ihousley, The Later Crusades: From Lyons to Alcazar, 1274-1580 (New York:Oxford University Press, 1992), 76; and R. Rosetti, "Notes on the Battle of Nicopolis (1396)," Slavonic and East European Review 15 (1936-37): 629-38. For a survey of who claims what in the dispute, see Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), vol. 1, The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 351-53. Setton himself believes in a number between 12,000 and 16,000 on each side. 6. On the composition of the crusader army, see Atiya, Nicopolis, 33-49; Atiya, Crusade, 437-43; Delbriick,History of the Art of War,437-39; Rosetti, "Notes on the Battle of Nicopolis," 629-38; Palmer,England, France, and Christendom, 185-204; I-henry L. Savage, "Enguerrandde Coucy VII and the Campaign of Nicopolis," Speculum 14 (1939), 423-42; Charles L. Tipton, "The English at Nicopolis," Speculum 37 (1962): 528-40; and Richard Vaughan, Philip the Bold: The Formation of the Burgundian State (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1962), 59-78. 7. See note 4 above.
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cession to the throne of Burgundy gave him titular leadership over all of the Franco-Burgundian forces, were reluctant to listen to the recommendations of the Ilungarian king, Sigismund I. Their collective experience in military conflict, extremely impressive as it was, seemed more important to them than Sigismund's knowledge of and experience in fighting the Turks.8 At Nicopolis, the Hungarian king recommended that his and the other central European troops, almost entirely infantry, should be in the vanguard, there to meet the irregular infantry of the Turks who stood in front of their own army. They would take a defensive stance and try to provoke the Turks into a charge which would either be defeated at the contact of the two infantry forces or could be reinforced by the strong Franco-Burgundian cavalry ordered in the rear. This, the Franco-Burgundians refused to do.9 Despite agreement with Sigismund by Enguerrand de Coucy, perhaps the most sage and experienced of the Franco-Burgundian leaders,"' Philip of Artois used his influence and constabulary office to counter the Hungarian king's proposal. According to Jean Froissart, he replied with these words:
Yes, yes, the king of Ilungary wishes to gain all the honor of the day. Ile has given us the vanguard, and now he wishes to take it away, that he may have the first blow. Let those who will believe what he

8. On the Franco-Burgundianleadership of the crusaders, see Atiya, Crusade, 438-40; Vaughan,Philip the Bold, 61-62; and Savage, "Enguerrandde Coucy VII," 423-42. Other notables in the crusader army included: the Count Palatine Ruprecht Pipan, Count Ilerman II of Cilly, BurgraveJohn III of Nuremberg,John Ilolland, earl of Iluntingdon, John Beaufort, Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master of Rhodes, and Nicholas Kanizsay, archbishop of Gran. But none of these seem to have held much power in the tactical planning of the battle, and most may have stayed in the rear with Sigismund and the Ilungarian, Wallachian, and Transylvanian troops. One can only wonder what might have occurred had John of Gaunt and Philip the Bold been in attendance at Nicopolis, as both had initially agreed. Two recent articles further clarify the Franco-Burgundianmake-up and leadership of this army. Both appeared in the 1997 Annales de Bourgogne, vol. 68, no. 3, containing actes delivered at the Colloque international, "Nicopolis, 1396-1996," organized by the Acad6mie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon et le Centre national de la recherche scientifique and held at the Conseil regional de Bourgogne: Bertrand Schnerb, "Le contingent franco-bourguignon a la croisade de Nicopolis," 59-74, and Norman IIousley, "Le Marechal Boucicaut a Nicopolis," 85-99. 9. Atiya, Nicopolis, 82-84; Atiya, Crusade, 447; and Savage, "Enguerrandde Coucy VII,"434-35. This comes chiefly from Jean Froissart, Chroniques, in Oeuvres de Froissart, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Brussels: V. Devaux et cie., 1867-77), 15: 265-68. Froissart was basing this on the testimony of eye-witnesses to the battle. 10. Froissart, Chroniques, 15: 268. Savage is adamant that Coucy did in fact agree with Sigismund ("Enguerrandde Coucy VII,"434-35).
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KELLY DEVRIES sends to us, but for my part I never will.... In the name of God and Saint George, you shall see me this day prove myself a good knight.1"

And so it happened; with a flurry of pride and enthusiasm the Franco-Burgundian cavalry rode head-long into their Turkish opponents, waiting patiently behind a line of stakes. Initially, this force was successful, breaking through the stakes and pushing the Turkish irregulars back. A second attack by the crusaders also achieved success. But the Turks did not flee, and when the counterattack came from Bayezid's regular troops-cavalry, infantry, and archers-the impetus of the crusaders had been spent and, even though some Germans and Hungarians rushed to reinforce them, they were routed.12 Those who could, tried to flee from the battlefield, but the Danube River blocked their path and few were actually able to leave the scene of what had become a slaughterhouse. Among those who were able to flee were the Wallachians and Transylvanians. They had not even been involved in the fight on that day; instead, they had, when the tide of battle turned against their allies, refused to go to their fellow crusaders' aid.13Sigismund himself retreated to the Danube, boarded a boat and sailed to safety.14 The effects of the battle of Nicopolis were quickly felt. On the battlefield, Franco-Burgundian soldiers, used to the protection of ransom in western warfare, were instead hewed down without mercy. Only after the capture of John the Fearless were prisoners accepted, and even then several hundred more Christian troops were summarily executed at the Sultan's order. A mere three hundred, from a total of perhaps as many as

11. Froissart, Chroniques, 15: 268. (All translations are the author's unless otherwise noted.) 12. Atiya, Nicopolis, 89-93; Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Art of Warin the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1905), 2: 351-52; Delbruck, History of the Art of War, 478-79; and Setton, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 352-55. Atiya (Nicopolis, 92-93) maintains that there was German and Hungarian reinforcement, even though Johannes Schiltberger (Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa [1396-14271, ed. K. F. Neumann and trans. J. B. Telfer [London: Hakluyt Society, 18791, 3) is the only contemporary author to contend that this took place. lIe was an eyewitness to the battle and may have been taken prisoner in this charge, and this convinces Atiya as against Le livre desfais du Mareschal de Bouciquaut (ed. D. Lalande [Geneva: Droz, 19851, 110-11), which claims that the Hungarians fled without entering the conflict. Setton agrees with Atiya (Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 354-55). 13. Atiya, Nicopolis, 93-95, and Savage, "Enguerrandde Coucy VII,"436. 14. Atiya, Nicopolis, 93-94. On Sigismund's role in the Nicopolis campaign in general and the battle in particular,see MartinKitzinger,"Sigismonde, roi de Hongrie, et la croisade," in Actes du colloque "Nicopolis 1396-1996," Annales de Bourgogne 68 (1997): 23-34.
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response 6,000 who had been involved in the fighting, were eventually spared.'5 Their ransom paid, an amount of more than 200,000 ducats, they returned home some nine months later.'6 The Turks had also suffered huge losses, which perhaps helps to explain their postbattle bloodthirstiness, but they suffered far less than did the crusaders; and they had won the battle.'7 It took time for the news of this defeat to reach western Europe. To some, like the great crusader propagandist, Philippe de Mezieres, whose speeches and writings may have done much to instigate the journey to Nicopolis, it was a time to criticize those who had been defeated. In his Epistre lamentable et consolatoire, he accuses the crusaders of following the "three daughters of Lucifer"-"pride, cupidity, and luxury"instead of the four virtues of good governance-"order, the discipline of chivalry, obedience, and justice."'8 To others, like French poet Eustace Deschamps, it was a time for honoring the dead. In a poem entitled "Pour les Fran9ais morts a Nicopolis," Deschamps praises the crusaders for "they carried the banner of Our Lady against the Turks; but these devoted men were slain by the lance. May God have mercy on each of their souls."19But most received the news only with sadness and mourning. Marshal Boucicault's biographer writes: When the reports [of defeat] were made known and published, nobody could describe the great grief which they caused in France,
15. Atiya, Nicopolis, 94-97; Setton, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 355-56; and Jean Richard, "Les prisonniers de Nicopolis," in Actes du colloque "Nicopolis 1396-1996," Annales de Bourgogne 68 (1997): 75-84. 16. On the ransom for John of Fearless and other captives and how it was raised, see Vaughan,Philip the Bold, 71-78. 17. Atiya, Nicopolis, 96-98. 18. This text, although in several manuscripts, remains unedited in its entirety. A partial edition, under the title Epistre lamentable et consolatoire sur le fait de la desconfiture lacrimable du noble et vaillant roy de Honguerie par les turcs devant Ia ville de Nicopoli, can be found in Oeuvres de Froissart, 16: 444-525. See also Atiya, Nicopolis, 124-25; Atiya, Crusade, 152-54; N. Jorga, Philippe de Mezieres (1327-1405) et la croisade au XIVe siecle (Paris: E. Bouillon, 1896), 498-504; Philippe Contamine, "La Consolation de la desconfiture de Hongrie de Philippe de M6zi6res (1396)," in Actes du colloque "Nicopolis 1396-1996," Annales de Bourgogne 68 (1997): 35-48; Joan Williamson, "Philippede Mezieres and the Idea of Crusade," in The Military Orders: Fighting for Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. M. Barber (Aldershot, Eng.: Variorum, 1994), 358-64; and Kiril Petkov, "The Rotten Apple and the Good Apples: Orthodox, Catholics, and Turks in Philippe de Mezieres' Crusading Propaganda," Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 255-70. 19. Eustace Deschamps, Oeuvres completes, ed. Q. de Saint Ililaire and G. Raynaud (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1878-1903), 7: 77-78. Deschamps later wrote another poem which also praised those who participated in the crusade, "Faicte pour ceuls de France quant ilz furent en Ilongrie" (8: 85-86). These are also included in Atiya, Nicopolis, 129-32.
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both on the part of the duke of Burgundy,who doubted whether he would be able to get his son back for money, and [thought] that he would be put to death, and on that of the fathers, mothers, wives, and male and female relativesof the other lords, knights and squires who were dead. A great mourningbegan throughoutthe kingdomof France by those whomn it concerned;and more generally,everybody lamented the noble knights who had fallen there, who represented the flower of France. . . All our lords had solemn masses for the dead sung in their chapels for the good lords, knights and squires, and all the Christianswho had died.... But it may be well that we had more need of their prayerson our behalf, since they, God willing, are saints in Paradise.211 But it is not the immediate effects of the battle of Nicopolis which have interested historians, nor should they concern us here. For a long time after this battle there were to be very few more "saints in Paradise." The battle of Nicopolis was to be the last unified engagement of western European troops fought against the Turks for more than 140 years. Not even the fall of Constantinople in 1453 inspired a western European military response. In fact, it was only after the Christian defeat at the battle of Mohaics,fought in 1526, which heralded the fall of Hungary, and the unsuccessful Turkish attack on Vienna in 1529, that another large western European army would be raised to oppose Turkish invasions into southeastern and central Europe. The question is why; why were western powers so reluctant for such a long time to again engage Turkish armies? The answer to this question can be found in part in the sermons given by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius IL,at the conference of Mantua, held in 1459.21 At that conference, Pius II, in again attempting to call a crusade against the Turkshe had initially tried to do this in 1456, with some success, as will be seen below-surmised that there were two reasons why there had not been a western response to Turkish incursions in southeastern Europe since the battle of Nicopolis: first, the western European Christian powers had been too busy fighting other Christians, either in international or civil wars; and second, the western European realms were too frightened by the Turks to go against them.22 To these, a third reason could be added for the lack of western military response against the Turkish inva20. Le livre desfais du Mareschal Bouciquaut, 118-19.
21. This conference, really "a series of bilateral meetings of the Pope and individual 'national' embassies or groups of embassies," is discussed in Jocelyne G. Russell, "The Ilumanists Converge: The Congress of Mantua (1459)," in Diplomats at Work: Three Renaissance Studies (Stroud, U.K.: Alan Sutton, 1992), 51-93. Pius II's account of the Congress can be found in Pius II, The Commentaries of Pius II, 5 vols., trans. F. A. Gragg (Northampton, Mass.: Smith College Department of Ilistory, 1937-57), 191-217.

22. Commentaries of Pius II, 213-16.

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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response sions: the Hungarians were simply too successful in their wars against the Turks. To many in the west, there was no need for a crusade against the Ottomans, for the path to their further southeastern and central European conquests led through Hungary, and Hungary for a very long time after the battle of Nicopolis was able to defend itself well. Calling for a crusade at Mantua in 1459, it was as easy for Pius II to recognize that he would have to "take measures to settle the quarrels between the French and the English and to assure the peace of Germany,"23as it is for modern historians to note a correspondence between the dates of the invasions of the Ottoman Turks in eastern Europe and the German domestic chaos and the Hundred Years' War in central and western Europe. It was simply too difficult to expect warring princes to abandon their fights against each other and to potentially weaken their defenses in order to fight enemies far from home. As Pius writes, "no king could be found who did not stand in terror of his neighbor and fear to leave his own house empty." Peace between them all was needed, and it would be a diplomatic nightmare to try to arrange such: all of this wouldtake a long time; ambassadorswould have to be sent and the contestants would have to be summoned from distant regions; they would have to be sounded, persuaded, and skillfully handled;for how could the enmities of many years be dispelled in a few days?24 Of course, Pius II was not the first person to recognize the need for peace, especially between England and France, before a unified effort could be made against the Turks. From the very beginning of the Hundred Years' War, popes had tried to use the call to crusade to bring peace between these warring states. In 1345, Pope Clement VI wrote separate letters to Kings Philip VI of France and Edward III of England asking them to stop fighting and to unite to go on crusade. "Oh, how much better to fight against the Turkish enemies of our faith, than the present fratricidal strife," the pontiff wrote to the English king.25 But the following year brought the battle of Crecy and the siege of Calais, and distant Turkish incursions became unimportant. In 1370, a new pope, Urban V,
23. Ibid., 214. 24. Ibid. 25. The text of this letter is in Robert of Avesbury,De gestis mirabilibus Edwardi III, ed. E. M. Thompson (London: Longman [et al.l, 1889), 394-95. See also Ilousley, The Later Crusades, 38-39; Michael R. Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace: Some Late Medieval Themes," in Documenting the Past: Essays in Medieval History Presented to George Peddy Cuttino, ed. J. S. Hamilton and P. J. Bradley (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 1989), 218; Aziz Suryal Atiya, "The Crusade in the Fourteenth Century," in A History of the Crusades, 6 vols., ed. K. M. Setton, vol. 2, The Later Crusades, ed. R. L. Wolffand H. W. Ilazard (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 12; and Peter Topping, "The Morea, 1311-1364," ibid., 133.
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repeated a call to crusade to the kings of France and England, hoping that the peace brought about with the Treaty of Bretigny, signed ten years previously, might encourage them to unite versus the Turks. But, in this his timing was poor, as the conflict had just begun to heat up again.26 And in 1451, Pope Nicholas V wrote to Kings Henry VI of England and Charles VII of France to plead with them for peace so that they might help to avert the fall of Constantinople. No peace was made and no help was forthcoming.27 But one did not have to be a pope to recognize the need for peace between warring Christian states before a crusade against the Turks could be undertaken. The list of those making such claims is numerous and includes some of the most important writers of the late Middle Ages. In the early fourteenth century, French "travel writer" Burcard warned Philip VI that the Turks were so powerful that should there not be a unified effort by all western nations against them, a crusade would fail.28In about 1380, John Gower also recognized this need for harmony, writing: The lineal descent by rightof his mother proclaimsChristas the heir of the land in which he was born.... But a paganinterloperholds it now ... we do not carry on war against these men by attacking either their persons or their property.... Instead we are fighting open battles over worldlypossessions with our brothers.29 And in 1420, Emmanuel Piloti devoted the first few pages of his Traite sur le Passage en Terre Sainte to a plea for the Venetians to solve their problems with the German Emperor and for the duke of Burgundy to stop his war against the French king. Only then could Christians deliver Jerusalem from the hands of Turkish pagans.3"Others who called for an end to warfare in western Europe so that a crusade against the Turks could be underEustace Deschamps,33 taken include Pierre de Thomas,3l John Mandeville,32
26. Deno Geanakoplos, "Byzantium and the Crusades, 1354-1453," in Wolffand hIazard,eds., The Later Crusades, 79. 27. Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace," 219. See also the letter from Ilenry VI to the ambassadors of Philip the Good of Burgundy in Anne F. Sutton, "The Contents of the Manuscript,"in The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England: John Vale's Book (Stroud, U.K.:Alan Sutton, 1995), 140-41. 28. Atiya, Crusade, 95-113, and Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace," 222. 29. John Gower, "Voxclamantis," in Complete Works, 4 vols., ed. G. C. Macaulay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899-1902), 111.9.650-70, V.5.307-10. See also Elizabeth Siberry, "Criticism of Crusading in Fourteenth-Century England," in Crusade and Settlement, ed. P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, U.K.: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), 130. 30. Emmanuel Piloti, Trait6 d'Emmanuel Piloti sur le passage en Terre Sainte (1420), ed. P.-II.Dopp (Leuven, Belg.: E. Nauwalaerts, 1958), 9-10. 31. Atiya, Crusade, 128-36, and Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace," 222-23. 32. Sir John Mandeville, Travels, ed. M. Letts (London: Ilakluyt Society, 1953), 1: 2. See also Siberry, "Criticism of Crusading," 131. 33. Deschamps, Oeuvres comple&tes, 1: 138-39.
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response Christine de Pisan,34the anonymous author of the Tractatus de Regimine Principium written for King Henry VI,35 and St. Bridget of Sweden.36 (St. Bridget even asked her cousin, the Swedish king, Magnus, to intervene in the Hundred Years' War because the French and English were behaving like "beasts.") Perhaps the most influential of these late medieval proponents of peace as a means of crusade was Philippe de Mezieres. Mezieres, who was so critical of the crusaders after their defeat at Nicopolis, had been tireless in his efforts to get the crusade underway. In almost all of his writings and sermons, he asks for peace between the warring western kingdoms. In his Letter to King Richard II, written in 1395, he is especially eloquent in his pleas for peace between England and France. Praising the English king, Everyone,both French and English,knows that ... since the consecration and rule of the young KingRichard,the evil wound, so often referredto, has spilled out less poison than at any time in the last sixty years, Mezieres compares him to a lodestone who is not only loved by his own subjects, but, what is more, has attractedhis enemies, accepted by long habit as naturalenemies, namely, the good men of France,and indeed, our much loved KingCharleshimself. This lodestone has odd powers, but one of the greatest is that it was able to stop the flow of blood, especially that which had been lost in the war between France and England. This would allow the two kings, now at peace, to take their subjects on a "Holy Passage" to regain the Christian lands acquired by Mezieres's so-called King Vigilant, the Sultan of Babylon.37
34. Christine de Pisan, Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc, ed. A. J. Kennedy and K. Varty (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languageand Literature, 1977). 35. Tractatus de regimine principium ad regem Henricum sextum, in Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, ed. J. P. Genft (London: Royal Ilistorical Society, 1977), 70. See also Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace," 224. 36. J. Jorgensen, Saint Bridget of Sweden (London: Longmans, Green, 1954), 270-73. See also Powicke, "Waras a Means of Peace," 222. 37. This letter can be found both in its original Old French and in an English translation in Philippe de Mezieres, Letter to King Richard II: A Plea Made in 1395 for Peace between England and France, ed. and trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1975). The quotations appear on pp. 12-13. Similar messages can be found in all of Mezieres' writings. See Jorga, Philippe de Mezieres. On the peace negotiations between France and England at this time, see Fran9oise Autrand, "Lapaix impossible: les negociations franco-anglaises a la fin du 14e siecle," in Actes du colloque "Nicopolis 1396-1996," Annales de Bourgogne 68 (1997): 11-22.
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Frequent as they were, such messages of peace still fell on deaf ears during times of military conflict between these states, and nothing during those times could induce the princes of western Europe to participate in a crusade against the Turks, not the constant fourteenth- and fifteenth-century invasions of Ilungary, not the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and not even the capture of Otranto and surrounding areas in southern Italy in 1480. But during the few brief times of peace, some westerners did respond to calls for crusades by diligently planning antiTurkish campaigns. Such had been the case with the Nicopolis crusade, which directly followed the marriage of Richard II to Isabel, the daughter of Charles VI, and the signing of a peace treaty between Richard's England and Charles's France early in 1396.38 Yet, even more impressive, although without ever having actually encountered the Turks, might be the crusade planned in 1454-56 by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. Induced by guilt heavily placed on him by then Cardinal Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini for the lack of western intervention to save Constantinople-Pius also enjoyed reminding Philip that his father had been the leader of the defeated forces at the battle of Nicopolis and had been held as a prisoner by the Turks39-Philip the Good undertook the planning of an elaborate crusade against the Ottomans and their leader, Mehmed II. Announcing his desires at the famous Feast of the Pheasant, held at Lille on 17 February 1454, Philip vowed to undertakeand carry out with the help of our blessed creator [a crusade against the conquerorsof Constantinople]by recruiting as many troops as he can find, both fromthose who have made a vow for the aid and defence of our said Christianfaith, and from among those who are resolved to go. And ... to set out next spring in person on this journey.411 Peace in the Ilundred Years' War had been brought about the year before with the expulsion of the English from France, and it was time for Philip, and his French cousins, he insisted, to turn their military experience against the Turks.
38. Atiya, Nicopolis, 9, and Palmer, England, France, and Christendom, 180-207. According to the Chronique du rnligieux de Saint Denis (6 vols., ed. L. Bellaguet [Paris: Impr. de Crapelet, 1839-521, 2: 520-22), it was the shock and mourning over the defeat at Nicopolis which restarted the Ihundred Years' War. 39. See, for example, Commentaries of Pius II, 69. 40. This is from a report written by Charles the Bold, Philip's son, to the sovereign-bailiff of Namur on 20 December 1454. It can be found in Richard Vaughan, Philip the Good: The Apogee of Burgundy (London: Longmans, 1970), 359-60. On Philip's devotion to the idea of a crusade throughout his reign, see Jacques Paviot, "La devotion vis-a-vis de la terre sainte au XVe siecle: L'exemple de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (1396-1467)," in Autour de la premiere croisade: Actes du Colloque

de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Clermont-Ferrand, 22-25juin 1995), ed. M. Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), 401-11. 548
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In January 1456, Philip revealed his campaign plan. It included the number of men he wished to have on the journey and who was to lead them, including clerical and notarial staff-two secretaries were to know Latin and German and two Latin, French, and Dutch. It also contained "advice" on the route, on "raising troops and what they will cost," on "the shipping which will be needed if the route is via Italy," and on how the army should act in Germany if the route is on land. A most impressive part of the plan is the attention that Philip paid to the acquisition and transportation of gunpowder weaponry. Perhaps influenced by the reports of Mehmed's guns at Constantinople,4' Philip insists early in his plan that there were to be "Five or six hundred gunners, carpenters, masons, smiths, pioneers, miners, workmen [who] will be needed with their tools, armed and equipped with pikes, ready to fight if necessary, [and who were] to have the same wages as archers." Furthermore, these gunners were to be placed "between the vanguard, the main division and the rearguard" when the army was on the march, and they were to be commanded by the Burgundian master of artillery. Later in the plan, Philip also asks for the recruitment of six hundred more culveriners from Burgundy and Picardy.42 For a while, Burgundy was filled with excitement for the crusade, and one must wonder what might have happened had Philip actually been able to join with the successful Hungarian troops outside of the walls of Belgrade on 22 July 1456, when, led by John Hunyadi and a seventy-year-old Franciscan friar, John of Capistrano, they crushed the Turks of Mehmed II. But Philip never conducted this or any other crusade against the Turks, and once involved in the War of Public Weal against France, begun in 1465 and lasting in one way or another until his death in 1467, he had no peace left to fight any crusade.43 He was forever
41. See Kelly DeVries, "Gunpowder Weaponry at the Siege of Constantinople, 1453," in War,Army and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean, 7th-1 6th Centuries, ed. Y. Lev (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 343-62. 42. The entire plan is printed in Vaughan, Philip the Good, 360-65. On the importance of gunpowder weaponry to the Burgundian dukes, in particular Philip the Good, see Kelly DeVries, "The Guns of the Burgundian Dukes in the Later Middle Ages" (forthcoming). 43. This crusade has many commentators: Vaughan, Philip the Good, 358-72; Johanna Dorina Ilintzen, De Kruistochtplannen van Philips den Goede (Rotterdam: W. L. & J. Brussl, 1918); Jacques Paviot, La politique navale des ducs de Bourgogne, 1384-1482 (Villeneuve d'Aseq, Fr.: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1995), 105-52; J. Finot, "Projet d'exp6dition contre les Turcs pr6par6e par les conseillers du due de Bourgogne Philippe le Bon," Memoires de la societe des sciences de Lille, 4th series, 21 (1895): 161-206; Armand Grunzweig, "Philippe le Bon et Constantinople," Byzantion 24 (1954): 47-61; Yvon Lacaze, "Philippe le Bon et les terres d'empire: La diplomatie bourguignonne a l'oeuvre en 1454-1455," Annales de Bourgogne 36 (1964): 81-121; Yvon Lacaze, "Politique 'M,6diterran6enne' et projets de croisade chez
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a disappointment to Pius 1I.44 Most of the contemporary sources about the battle of Nicopolis contend that the crusaders there had never before encountered such "cruelty" or "evil" in war. The massacre which took place during and after the fight was unforgettable, creating terrifying memories for the survivors and a legend of horror for those who were not present. Soon the Turks had become the symbol of evil, an evil which surpassed anything previously contemplated by western Europeans. This myth continued to be propagated and expanded by fifteenthcentury travelers to the east, pilgrims and spies, whose writings were copied and popularized throughout western Europe. Some, such as John of Segovia, a pilgrim, and Bertrandon de la Broquiere, a spy, believed that the image of the Turks was wrong, that they were benevolent and humane people who treated foreigners, regardless of religion, with kindness. In fact, after a lengthy stay in the Turkish lands, Bertrandon wrote: "I have found that the Turks are much more friendly to me than are the Greeks."45 However, these writers convinced few of their different image of the Turks, although one convert, Pope Pius II, did come to realize that the image of Turkish evil and violence was untrue, a sentiment he expressed frequently throughout his lengthy letter to Mehmed II written sometime around 1459. (Indeed, Pius even seems to understand that the military depredations which others had ascribed solely to the Turks"many cities have been destroyed, sacred buildings burned, virgins raped, and matrons violated"-were the responsibility of both sides, Turk and Christian, who "have contended for supremacy by the
sword. "46)
Philippe le Bon: De la chute de Byzance a la victoire chr6tienne de Belgrade (mai 1453-juillet 1456)," Annales de Bourgogne 41 (1969): 81-132; Constantin Marinesco, "Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne, et la croisade. Deuxi6me partie (1453-1467)," Bulletin des etudes portugaises de l'Institut franVaise de Portugal, no. 13 (1949): 3-28; Jacques Paviot, "'Croisade' bourguignonne et int&r&tsg&nois en mer Noire au milieu du XVe siecle," Studi di storia medioevale e di diplomatica 12-13 (1992): 135-62; and Ilenri Taparel, "Geoffroy de Thoisy: Une figure de la croisade bourguignonne au XVe si6cle," Moyen Age (5) 2 (1988): 381-93. 44. See, for example, Pius II's comments at Mantua about Philip in Commentaries of Pius II, 213-14. 45. Bertrandon de la Broquiere, Le voyage d'Outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquiere, ed. C. Sh6fer, in Recueil de voyages et de docutments pour servir a l'histoire de la g6ographie depuis le XIIIejusqu'a la fin du XVIe siMcle,vol. 12 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1892), 149. On Bertrandon, see Atiya, Crusade, 197-207, and M. Izeddin, "Deux voyageurs du XVe si6cle en Turquie: Bertrandon de la Broqui6re et Pero Tafur," Journal asiatique 239 (1951): 159-74. On John of Segovia, see Richard W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass.: Ilarvard University Press, 1962), 86-92. 46. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Epistola ad Mahomatem II (Epistle to Mehmed II), ed. and trans. A. R. Baca (New York: Peter Lang, 1990). The quote is on pp. 11-12.

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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response Much more popular and more common than these images of the Ottomans were the negative ones which, instead of describing them as benevolent and humane, characterized the Turks as "most treacherous" (Raymond Peraudi),47 "ruthless and cruel" (Pero Tafur),48or "cruel and ambitious" (Jehan de Waurin).49Even the titles of some treatises meant to describe the Turks carried a conviction that they were "cruel," to quote the title of Bartholomew de Jana's short work,5" or "sinful and iniquitous," to use George of Hlungary'stitle.51 But it was the Turkish military practices which elicited the greatest amount of enmity among anti-Turkish writers. They decried their "unnatural mastery over alien races," to use the words of Jean Germain,52 or their blind obedience to officers, according to Bertrandon de la Broquerie.5;3 Ghillebert de Lannoy spoke out against the Turkish practice of using prisoners of war as military slaves,54 a view shared by Emmanuel Piloti, who recalled the two hundred prisoners of war taken at Nicopolis which Bayezid had sent to the Sultan of Egypt.55Other prisoners were slain and mutilated, as Philippe de Commynes writes:

On this aspect of Pius II's writings and teachings, see Southern, Western Views of Islam, 98-103. Earlier in his life, Pius had not held the same view, believing instead that the Turks "were uncivilized men who are hostile to good manners and to literature" (Piccolomini, Epistola, 1). 47. In P. Fredericq, ed., Codex documentorum sacratissimarum indulgentiarum neerlandicarum (1300-1600) (The hlague: n.p., 1922), no. 290. This has been translated in Norman Ilousley, Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274-1580 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), 173-75. 48. Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, ed. and trans. M. Letts (London: IIarper and Brothers, 1926), 128. See also Atiya, Crusade, 212-14, and Izeddin, "Deux voyageurs du XVe siecle en Turquie." 49. Jehan de Waurin, RWcueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, 5 vols., ed. W. and E. L. C. P. Ilardy (London: Longman [et al.j, 1864-91), 5: 257. 50. Bartholomew de Jana, Epistola de crudelitate Thrcarum in Patriologia graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: Lutstiae Parisorum, 1866), 1055-78. 51. J. A. B. Palmer, "Fr. Georgius de Ilungaria, O.P., and the Tractatus de

moribus condicionibus et nequicia turcorum," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

34 (1951-52): 44-68. 52. Jean Germain, "Le discours du voyage d'Outremer au tres victorieux roi Charles VII prononce en 1452 par Jean Germain, eveque de Chalon," ed. C. Shefer, Revue de l'orient latin 3 (1895): 303-42. See also Atiya, Crusade, 204-08, and Southern, Western Views of Islam, 94-99. 53. Bertandon de la Broquiere, Le voyage d'Outremer, 221-22. 54. Ghillebert de Lannoy, CEuvresde Ghillebert de Lannoy, Voyageur,Diplomate et Moraliste, ed. C. Potvin (Leuven, Belg.: P. et J. Lefever, 1878), 119. See also Atiya, Crusade, 190-97. 55. Piloti, Traite d'Emmanuel Piloti, 412. See also Richard, "Les prisonniers de Nicopolis," 81-82.
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The stradiots [a janissary company in the Turkish armyl pursued [our menj ... up to the marshal's lodgings where the Germans were quartered, and they killed three or four and took away their heads, for such was their custom. For when the Venetians were at war with the Turk named Mohammed the Ottoman [Mehmed II] ... he did not want his men to take any prisoners; and he gave them a ducat for each head.56

And the conquered were degraded and molested, as Thomas Basin writes:
There was in [Otranto] a bishop of irreproachable conduct and old age. These savage barbarians [the Turks] (more like dogs than humans, one might say) subjected this man to a most horrible death, without consideration of his dignity or his age, without any pity or fear of God whatsoever. They impaled his body from his groin all the way to his head so that his entrails were completely pushed out of the body. And they exacted the worst violences on many women and virgins of the town, and then they humiliated them by making them wear very short garments to cover their pudenda.57

These images of violence were increased by the stories of Turkish depredations brought west by those fleeing the fall of Constantinople. To Cardinal Bessarion, it was the desecration of the symbols of Christianity which showed the true barbarity of the Turks:
As for the venerable image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which the entire population of Constantinople used to worship before all else with the greatest devotion, those impious butchers detached its gold, silver and precious stones, cut up their meat on it for a long time, before finally trampling it beneath their feet, breaking it up with an axe, and burning it. The representations of our Saviour in the vaults of the church, which were too high up to reach by hand and pollute with excrement, they shot arrows at shamelessly hurling abuse: "Let's see if the God of the Christians knows how to escape from our
hands."58

But to most others it was their abuse of the city's inhabitants

which was

most vile and most terrifying. Testimonies like that of Michael Ducas were numerous:
Who can recount the calamity of that time and place? ... The commonest Turk sought the most tender maiden. The lovely nun, who 56. Philippe de Commynes, The Memoirs of Philippe de Commynes, 2 vols., ed. S. Kinser and trans. I. Cazeaux (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1973), 2: 520. 57. Thomas Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, ed. C. Samaran (Paris: Soci6t6 d'edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1963-72), 118-19. 58. L. Mohler, ed., "Bessarions Instruktion fiurdie Kreuzzugspredigtin Venedig (1463)," Romische Quartalschrift 35 (1927): 337-49. A translation is found in I-lousley, Doc-uments, 147-54. This quote is on p. 148.
552
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response heretoforebelonged only to the one God, was now seized and bound by another master. The rapine caused the tugging and pulling of braidsof hair, the exposure of bosoms and breasts, and outstretched arms.59 Philippe de Commynes sums it up in a single short sentence: "No cruel 6 act was omitted."6 The stories of Turkish atrocities continued through the end of the fifteenth and into the next century. So pervasive were they that the archbishop of Spalato, Bernadino Zane, even recounted one in the first session of the Fifth Lateran Council (10 May 1512): Within the confines of Europe [the Turks] have usurped no mean dominion with the effusion of much Christian blood.... Not one among them has learned respect for the female sex, for the piety of youth, or compassion for the aged.... They snatch children from the arms of their parents and infants from the breast of their mothers; they violate wives in frontof husbands,they snatch virginsfrom the embrace of their mothers in wild lust, they cut down aged parents as though useless, in full view of their children; they yoke youths to the plough as if they were oxen and they destroy the cultivated land.61 But by the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new interpretation of these Turkish military evils began to be declared: the Turks were performing these atrocities on Christians only because the Christians deserved it.62 In other words, God was using the Ottomans and their abuses to punish sinful Christians. Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther, not often in agreement, both subscribed to this belief. As Erasmus puts it, "God, offended by our wickedness, from time to time uses the outrages committed by these barbarians to reform us,"63 while
59. Michael Ducas, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, trans. fI. J. Magoulias(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975), 227. 60. Commynes, Memoirs, 2: 431. 61. As translated in Carl Max Kortepeter,"The Turkish Question in the Era of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517)," in The Ottoman Turks: Nomad Kingdom to WorldEmpire (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1991), 111. 62. While a new interpretation of Turkish military evils, the idea of military defeat due to the sins of the losers (pecatis exigentibus) was not new. See Kelly The Circle of Warin the Middle Ages, DeVries, "Godand Defeat in MedievalWarfare," ed. D. Kagayand L. J. A. Villalon (Woodbridge,U.K.: Boydell Press, 1998). 63. Desiderius Erasmus, "On the WarAgainst the Turks/Debello turcico," in The Erasmus Reader, ed. E. Rummel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 318. Nevertheless, Erasmus held that the answer to the Turkish problems was not war but conversion, warning those who wished to contend against them that the result would be even more warfare and the likelihood of attacks made against Germany. See Erasmus Reader, 315-33; James D. Tracy, Erasmus of the Low Countries (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1996), 194-96; and Peter Ileath, "Warand
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Luther, initially at least, agrees, "the Turk is the rod of the wrath of the Lord our God."64 Some might believe that images of Turkish cruelty such as these should have roused a military response from the west, and they might use the fact that on almost every occasion when they were said or written, this was done to encourage a crusade. In fact, the opposite occurred; instead of encouraging a crusade against the Turks, such images frightened those who might otherwise have gone to war against the Ottomans. Why should they submit themselves to such cruelties and degradations?65 This reaction was recognized by Pius II at Mantua. He understood the fear of the western armies in fighting against these legendary images of violence and malevolence: "A crusade against the Turks demanded very great strength, since, having been victorious for so many years, they inspired terror in Christians by their mere fame and prestige." But this was an unfounded fear, he said, for the Turks "had achieved their fame through the cowardice of the Greeks, who had been conquered because they were unarmed and weaklings." Instead, the opposite was true: The courageof Christianshad alwaysbeen a terror to the Turksand they had never been worstedunless betrayedor overpoweredby too great odds, when they were weary of conquest, or because our Lord
Peace in the Works of Erasmus: A Medieval Perspective" in The Medieval Military Revolution: State, Society and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. A. Ayton and J. L. Price (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995), 121-44. 64. Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk, trans. C. M. Jacobs and R. C. Schultz, in Luther's Works, 46, ed. R. C. Schultz (Philadelphia: A. J. lHolmanCo., 1967), 170. From as early as 1518 Luther believed that "der Turcke ist unsers herr Gottes zornige rute." This position led Pope Leo X in 1520 to include this in his bull, Exsurge Domine, as one of his bases for condemning the reformer. Luther reacted to this specific condemnation by claiming that the reason why the papacy continued to call for a crusade against the Turks was to increase its own wealth: "The popes had never seriously intended to wage war against the Turk;instead they used the Turkish war as a cover for their game and robbed Germany of money by means of indulgences whenever they took the notion" (Luther's Works, 164). This addition to Luther'sarguments only intensified his belief that the Turks were being used by God to punish the sins of Christian Europe. Later, Luther would change his view on this. See Kenneth M. Setton, "Lutheranismand the Turkish Peril,"Balkan Studies 3 (1962): 133-68. 65. While atrocity stories appear with the recounting of almost every military situation throughout the MiddleAges, those that arise from the Turkish invasions seem to have an almost clear-cut fatalism associated with them, as if there is to be no relief from the terror caused by the invaders, no revenge from God. As such these stories are similar to those that accompany the successful military operations of other nonChristians against Christians, i.e. the Mongol invasions, but differ from atrocity stories which accompany military adventures of Christian versus Christian forces. It should be said, however, that there is a need for a study of atrocity stories in the Middle Ages.
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response God was angry at our sins. But if they would gather their strength, not only all Christendom,which comprisedso many wide provinces, but Italy alone, if she were united, could wipe out the Turks.66 But Pius II'scall for unity and for facing the Turkish "evils" went unheeded. The third reason for a lack of western military response to the Turkish invasions after the battle of Nicopolis is far simpler than the other two and also less ideological. But in it may lie the actual basis for inaction, at least in the minds of the western political leaders whose decisions to not go against the Turks are here being criticized. As long as the kingdom of Hungary was providing a buffer zone of military contact between the Ottoman Turks and the rest of central and western Europe, there was no reason for the west to engage in military conflict with them. Pius II may have unwittingly revealed this reason for a lack of western military response in his call for a crusade at Mantua: "If Hungary surrendered to the Turks, the door was wide open into Germany and Italy."67Hungary controlled the routes of western European invasion, and, what is more, the Hungarians were Catholic Christians, not schismatic Orthodox Christians.68 The Turks, too, knew of the significance of Hungary and attempted to invade the country continually. But between Nicopolis and Mohaics, the Hungarians had been able to win some battles and relieve some sieges, and whenever they had been defeated in military conflict, which was in fact more frequent, they had still been able to keep the Ottoman Turks from conquering their homeland. After the defeat at Nicopolis, Sigismund I returned to Buda and awaited what he thought was an imminent invasion of his kingdom. But it did not come; Bayezid did invade Vidin, a kingdom which had thrown open its doors to the Hungarian king in an attempt to keep the Turkish invaders at bay, but the Ottoman Sultan was more interested in pursuing his futile siege of Constantinople than in attacking Hungary.69This gave Sigismund some time, time which he used to build new walls around Buda and to fortify vulnerable parts of the rest of his lands.70 He
66. Commentaries of Pius II, 213-14. 67. Ibid., 214. 68. Despite the attempt at healing the schism between western and eastern Christianity at the Council of Florence (1438-1445), feelings of animosity were intense on both sides. "I would have preferred to see this village ruled by the turban of the Sultan than the crown of the Pope," were the words of the Constantinopolitan Grand Duke Notaras. See H. Evert-Kappesowa, "La tiare ou le turban," Byzantinoslavica 14 (1953): 245-57. This quote is on p. 245. 69. Sugar,Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 22-23. 70. Erik Figedi, "Medieval Hungarian Castles in Existence at the Start of the Ottoman Advance," in War and Society in Eastern Central Europe, vol. 3, From Hunyadi to Rak6czi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary, ed. J. M. Bak and B. K. Kiraly (New York: Social Science Monographs, Brooklyn
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also began to adapt to Turkish fighting methods, learning their strategies and tactics and adopting their weapons.71 In a wider sense, then, he was following his own advice at Nicopolis; he took a defensive stance and adopted the military methods of the Turkish enemy. Thus when the next attacks upon Hungarian lands came, actually not until 1419 because of a leadership conflict among the Ottomans,72 the Hungarians were prepared for them. Because of these preparations, no major conquest of Hungary proper was able to take place until 1437, the Turks having to settle for a military policy of raiding the border lands of Wallachia and Transylvania until then.73 When a Turkish conquest was finally attempted in 1437, under Murad II, the Hungarians were prepared to carry out an active defense of their lands. Under the Transylvanian voivode, Janos Hunyadi, the Hlungarian army was transformed into a military of strength and direction. Despite having been relatively inactive for so long, it now became an energetic participant in the conflict. Raids began to crisscross the borders, with attacks on Turkish targets being traded with those on Hungarian targets. And after 1440, when the inhabitants of Belgrade, Hungary's main border fortress, were able to withstand a vicious siege by Murad with a strong and determined defense of their town, the Hungarian army went on the offensive, marching deep into the Turkish-occupied Balkans in 1441, defeating one Ottoman army at Gyulafahervair on 23 March 1442 and another at Vaskapu later that summer, and, the following year, reconquering Vidin. This forced Murad II to sign a truce with the Hungarians in 1442 which surrendered Vidin and Wallachia to Hunyadi and created Serbia and Bulgaria as buffer zones between the two powers. (It also brought a coup against Murad, replacing him for a brief time with his son, Mehmed II). But the Hungarian warfare could not
College Press, 1982), 59-62. On the fortification of Buda, see Karoly Magyar, Budapest: Der mittelalterliche konigliche Palast von Buda (Budapest: n.p., n.d.). 71. See Joseph Ileld, "MilitaryReform in Early Fifteenth Century Ilungary,"East European Quarterly 9 (1977): 129-39; Erik Fulgedi,"Two Kinds of Enemies-Two Kinds of Ideology:The Ilungarian-TurkishWarsin the Fifteenth Century,"in Warand Peace in the Middle Ages, ed. B. P. McGuire (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1987), 146-60; Stephen Christensen, "European-OttomanMilitaryAcculturation in the Late Middle Ages," ibid., 227-51; Norman Liousley, "Frontier Societies and Crusading in the Late Middle Ages," Mediterranean Historical Review 10 (1995): 104-19; and Andras Borosy, "TheMilitia Portalis in Hungarybefore 1526," in Bak and Kirily, eds., From Hunyadi to Rdk6czi, 63-80. On the Ilungarian strategy against the Ottomans in general, see Gyula Rizs6, "Hungarian Strategy against the Ottomans (13651526)," inXXII. Kongret der Internationalen KommissionfiArMilitargeschichte Acta 22: Von Cr&eybis Mohacs Kriegswesen im spaten Mittelalter (1346-1526) (Vienna: Ileeresgeschichtliches Museum, 1997), 226-37. 72. Sugar,Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 23-29. 73. These raids occurred in 1419, 1420, 1421, and 1432.
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response be sustained, and when Hunyadi chose to break the peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1444 at the encouragement of the Pope, the Byzantines, and various Balkan princes, but without western European military assistance, the Hungarians were soundly defeated at the battle of Varna. All that had been gained prior to 1442 was lost, and Hunyadi and his troops were forced to retreat to the safety of their frontier fortresses.74 Still, the Turks were unable to capitalize on the Hungarian loss, and even though they were once again able to defeat the Hungarians at the second battle of Kossovo in 1448, their prized pathway to central and western Europe remained closed to them. It did mean, however, that there was no one to help out the embattled lands throughout the rest of the eastern Mediterranean, and Serbia, Albania, and Constantinople all fell to the Ottoman Turks in the next few years. In the summer of 1456, the Turks, now under the strong and militarily innovative Mehmed II, again tried to conquer Hungary, but, as mentioned above, they were once more beaten back by a force led by Jainos Hunyadi with the addition and inspiration of John of Capistrano, an unlikely warlord who could not even speak to the Hungarian troops, as he did not know their language, but who was revered as a living saint by the soldiers.75 Jainos Hunyadi died following the defense of Belgrade. First, one of his sons, Laszlo, and then, another, Matthias Corvinus, picked up where their father had left off, successfully defending the kingdom until 1490. Their defensive work was constant, with raids being conducted nearly
74. See PIl Engel, "Janos Ilunyadi and the Peace 'of Szeged' (1444)," Acta onientalia academiae scientarum Hungaricarum 48 (1995): 241-57. 75. On Janos IIunyadi and Ilungarian military history of the period, see Joseph hIeld, Hunyadi: Legend and Reality (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1985); Bela Menczer, "The Turk at the Gates: The Hunyadi Saga,"History Today 16 (1966): 174-83; Pal Engel, "Janos I-lunyadi: The Decisive Years of his Career, 1440-1444," in Bak and Kiraly, eds., From Hunyadi to Rdk6czi, 103-23; L. Kupelweiser, Die Kampfe Ungarns mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohacs, 2d ed. (Vienna, 1899); F. Szakaly, "Phases of Turco-HungarianWarfarebefore the Battle of Mohacs," Acta orientalia academia scientia Hungarensis 33 (1979): 65-111; and Oscar Ilalecki, "The Defense of Europe in the Renaissance Period," in Didascaliae: Studies in Honor of Anselm M. Albareda, Prefect of the Vatican Library, ed. S. Prete (New York:B. M. Rosenthal, 1961), 121-46. On the campaign and battle of Varna,see Oscar flalecki, The Crusade of Varna (New York:Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, 1943); Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), vol. 2, The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1978), 82-107; and Edward W. Bodnar, "Ciriaco d'Ancona and the Crusade of Varna: A Closer Look," Mediaevalia 14 (1988): 253-79. On Mehmed II, see DeVries, "Gunpowder Weaponry";Franz Babinger,Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, ed. W. C. hhickmanand trans. R. Manheim (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978); I-halil Inalcik, "Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) and His Time," Speculum 35 (1960): 408-27; and Albert LI. Lybyer, "Mohammed the Conqueror,"Slavonic and East European Review 15 (1936-37): 639-48.
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every year into the Ilungarian border lands by Mehmed 11.76 Ilowever, once this strong Turkish ruler died, in 1480, his successors could not follow in his footsteps, at least not until Suileyman I, "the Magnificent," came onto the Sultan's throne in 15)20. Immediately after his ascension, he turned nearly the entire strength of his gigantic army against Ilhungary, and this time the Hungarian king, Lajos (Louis) II Jagielo, could not withstand the Turkish attacks. In 1521, Suileyman besieged Belgrade, the site of so many previous lIungarian victories, and it fell; and on August 29, 1526, at the battle of Mohacs, the Turks soundly, and perhaps decisively, defeated the fHungariantroops. Buda was occupied following the battle and reoccupied in 1528.77 As had been predicted by Pius hI,the route was open to central and western European conquest, and the following year, 1529, Siileyman began the first Turkish siege of Vienna.78 Did the western Europeans know of these Hungarian military confrontations? Judging from the chroniclers' concern about Hungarian affairs of the period, there was an intense interest in what was going on in the east.79 As well, ambassadors from each of the western states and a papal legate were kept at Buda to report on Turkish military movements. These were not individuals who were there solely to perform diplomatic duties, but to keep their homelands apprised of the defense of the Hun-

76. See Gyula Razs6, "The Mercenary Army of King Matthias Corvinus," in Bak and Kiraly, eds., From Hunyadi to Rdkoczi, 125-40. 77. See Andras Kubinyi, "The Road to Defeat: Ilungarian Politics and Defense in the Jagiellonian Period," ibid., 159-78; Ferenc Szakaly, "The Ilungarian-Croatian Border Defense System and Its Collapse," ibid., 141-58; Laszl6 M. Alfoldi, "The Battle of Mohacs, 1526," ibid., 189-202; Pal Fodor, "Ottoman Policy Towards Ilungary, 1520-1541," Acta orientalia academiae scientarum HIungaricarum 45 (1991): 271-345; Mircea Dogaru, "Les pays roumains et la bataille de Mohacs," and Cemalettin Ta?kiran, "Lart de guerre dans l'Empire Ottoman et la bataille de Mohacs (jusqu'au XVIe siecle)," both in XXII. KongreBSder Internationalen Kommissionjfir Militergeschichte, 132-44, 207-17. 78. Andrew C. Ihess, "The Road to Victory: The Significance of Mohacs for Ottoman Expansion," in Bak and Kiraly, eds., From HIunyadi to Rdk6czi, 179-88. 79. See for example the numerous references to Ilungarian affairs found in Jean de Waurin; Philippe de Commynes; Chronographia regnum Francorum, 3 vols., ed. II. Moranville (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1891-97); Antonio Morosini, Chronique: extraits relatifs et l'histoire de France, 4 vols., ed. G. Lefevre-Pontalis and L. Dorez (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1898-99); Mathieu d'Escouchy, Chronique, 3 vols., ed. G. du Fresne de Beaucourt (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1863-64); Chronique des PaysBas, de France, d'Angleterre et de Tournai, in Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, 3, ed. J. J. de Smet (Brussels: M. Ilayez, 1856); Olivier de la Marche, M6moires, 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1883-85); Thomas Basin, Histoire de Charles VII, 2 vols., ed. C. Samaran (Paris: Societe d'edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1933-44) and Histoire de Louis XI, 3 vols., ed. C. Samaran (Paris: Societ6 d'edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1963-72); and Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 3 vols., ed. Vallet de Viriville (Paris: P. Jannet, 1858). 558
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Lack of a WesternEuropean Military Response garian kingdom.8"1 Their reports were nearly always positive and, in fact after the peace of 1442, enthusiastic. Their message: no military response was necessary. One might conclude that a western European military response to the Turkish invasions in southeastern Europe between 1396 and 1526 was necessary, and that the lack of such a response cost the freedom of Christians throughout eastern Europe and the Balkans. It may also have caused the loss of H lungary. One might even contend that had there been a strong and united western European military response to the Ottomans that Constantinople might not have fallen, or that, had the crusade of Philip the Bold gone forward in 1456 as planned, to follow up on the Hungarian victory over the Turks outside Belgrade, that Constantinople might have been reconquered. But such conclusions would be only conjecture. Military history was changing at the end of the Middle Ages, although in this instance not in a way to fit the "Military Revolution" thesis. What was changing was the notion of the crusade, that western European soldiers had "a right" or "a duty" to travel long distances to fight a non-Christian enemy, even if that enemy was invading lands once held by other Christians. The crusade of Nicopolis was the last crusade. After its failure, the western European princes found that they were too busy with conflicts against their Christian neighbors or their own people, that the Turks as an army and as individual soldiers were too frightening and "evil" to contend with, and that, at least for the short term, the Hungarians were doing a fine job of keeping the Turks out of the rest of Europe.

80. Ilalecki, "Defense of Europe," 128-37.

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