Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (15 page)

34 Gevay, vol. I, pt. 4, pp. 6-9.

35 Gevay, vol. I, pt. 4, pp. 27-42.

For a long time now it has been the case that the poor Christians in your territories have been deceived by being persuaded that they were about to set out against the Turks. And every year they are deceived in this way, and their treasures are extracted from them on this pretext, and frequent Diets and meetings are held for this object. Therefore I have determined to set out against the king of Spain, and your orators have come to the frontiers of the kingdom of Hungary, and have delivered their message to my supreme standard-bearer Ibrahim Pasha, whom God preserve and increase. And he has himself reported everything to me, from which I have learned your desire. Know that my intention is not directed against you, but against the king of Spain. This has been so since I began with my sword in the kingdom of Hungary. When we arrive at his German boundaries, it is not fitting for him to abandon his provinces and kingdoms to us and take flight, for the provinces of kings are as their very wives, and if these are left by their fugitive husbands as a prey to foreigners, it is an extraordinary and a disgraceful thing. The king of Spain has for a long time declared his wish to go against the Turks; but I by the grace of God am proceeding with my army against him. If he is great in heart, let him await me in the field, and then, whatever God wills, shall be. If, however, he does not wish to wait for me, let him send tribute to my Imperial Majesty. But you have sent your ambassadors to seek peace and friendship with me. If anyone seeks peace from us in truth and good faith, it is proper that we should not refuse him. And when we seek peace from anyone, it is with truth and good faith. Know that we have given your envoys free speech according to our custom, and we have said everything openly to them. Written in our great and honorable imperial quarters at Esseg, on July 12, I532. 38

Obviously, then, the Turkish advance was not to be arrested by offers of peace. For the moment at least, the Sultan was determined to meet the Emperor, if possible

86 Gevay, vol. I, pt. 4, pp. 87-88; Bucholtz, IV, 100-101.

on the field of battle. Charles realized, too, that Europe looked to him to defend it against the Moslem in its hour of direst peril. When he had returned into the Empire in 1529, his chief interest, as we have already seen, had been the suppression of the Lutherans; but the heretics had proved unexpectedly difficult. They had drawn up the articles of thek faith, the Confession of Augsburg, in 1530, and the Emperor had condemned it, though not so vigorously as the more ardent Romanists had hoped. On February 27, 1531, the Protestant leaders at Schmal-kalden had formally concluded a "League for the Defence of the Gospel." Clearly the Lutherans could not be dealt with offhand. They were a far more serious problem than the Emperor had expected, and meantime the Turkish peril grew increasingly imminent. The inference was obvious. He must make terms, temporarily at least, with the heretic, in order to get his support against the Ottoman. A truce was accordingly arranged with the Lutherans at Nuremberg in June, 1532, and formally proclaimed on the third of the following August. The Protestants were given the Emperor's private assurance (in view of his relations with the Catholic Electors he dared do no more) that all suits against them in the Imperial Court would be dropped (on no other condition would they consent to bear aid against the Turk); and the final settlement of the religious question was indefinitely postpone.—Thus ended one of the decisive crises in the history of the Lutheran Reformation. It is indeed one of the strangest ironies of fate that the cause of Protestantism should have owed so much to the "Commander of the Faithful/'

In the meantime large Christian forces were beginning to assemble at Vienna. It is impossible to estimate their total strength, for many of them did not arrive till the crisis was past, but it is safe to say that if Suleiman had elected to attack the Austrian capital, he would have been

confronted by one of the largest armies—possibly the very largest—that Western Europe had ever been able to collect. Ferdinand's own domains had responded nobly to his call; the Imperial contingents were even larger than had been expected; Charles had hurried his Spanish and Italian veterans across the Alps. One thing alone was lacking, the presence of the Emperor himself, the man whom Suleiman had set forth to seek. Charles, however, had elected to remain at Ratisbon, two hundred miles farther up the Danube. He had arrived there on the last day of February, and did not leave till September 2. 37 It would be interesting to know whether or not the Sultan had discovered where his chief foe really was. The fact remains that instead of following the river route, as every one had expected him to do, he struck across country, to the south of Vienna, as if to encounter an enemy farther westward. On his way thither he was held up at the little town of Guns, near the Hungarian frontier, some sixty miles south-southeast of the Austrian capital. The Turkish vanguard, under the command of Ibrahim, had reached there on August 5. Four days later Suleiman himself arrived. 38

The commander at Guns was Niklas Jurisic, the former ambassador. He had with him a handful of cavalrymen, with whom he was about to depart for the general muster at Vienna at the time that the Turks arrived; and not more than 700 of the inhabitants could be counted on to aid in the defence. He had no cannon, few muskets, and only a limited amount of powder. Yet rather than desert the rest of the population of the town and the mass of fugitives from the open country who had taken refuge there, he decided to hold the place as long as he could, if

87 M. de Foronda y Aguilera, Estancias y Viajes del Emperador Carlos V (1914), pp. 361-364.

38 lorga, II, 415-416; Martin Rosnak, Die Belagerung der komgl. Freystadt Guns im Jahre 1532 (Vienna, 1789), pp. 16-27.

only to delay the advance of the invaders. And his defence was one of the most heroic in the annals of Christian warfare. The Turks utilized their artillery to excellent effect. They erected a "mount" or wooden bulwark opposite the walls. They exploded mines, and made wide breaches in the defences. Yet every one of the ensuing assaults was beaten off. On August 28, Jurisic replied to a summons to yield, that the town belonged to his King, not to him, and that he would surrender it to no one as long as he lived; also that he would pay no money in tribute, since he had none. After this performance had been twice repeated, another attempt was made to storm the fortress, this time with such fury that the assailants succeeded in getting possession of one of the breaches; whereupon the unarmed population, in horror at the dreadful prospect awaiting them, set up such a shriek of despair that the Turks, mistaking it for the cries of reinforcements, were seized with a sudden panic and fled. Three hours later a herald announced to the garrison that in recognition of their bravery the Sultan had decided to spare them. Their commander was summoned to the tent of the Grand Vizir to discuss the conditions of capitulation. As all means of further resistance were exhausted, Jurisic complied. Ibrahim received him with marked honor and granted him favorable terms. The surrender was to be but nominal; the only Turks it admitted to the place were a handful who were stationed there to man the breaches and keep out the rest. Neither Suleiman nor Ibrahim had yet realized how small had been the force that had detained them. 39

The Sultan must have been in grave doubt what to do after he had wasted almost the whole of August before Guns. There was incessant rain, and the season was getting ominously late. Vienna was now garrisoned by much

a9 Rosnak, passim; Hammer, V, 160-164.

larger forces than those who had defied him three years before. He had loudly announced that he had come to cross swords with Charles V; and Charles, whether Suleiman knew it or not—and "that is the question"~~was still at Ratisbon. In view of all the facts, as well as the uncertainties, of the situation, it can be no matter of surprise that the Sultan elected to turn southward and ravage the Austrian province of Styria. To do so was in one sense to admit defeat. On the other hand it enabled him to say, as he had done in the case of Ferdinand in 1529, that the enemy whom he had come forth to fight was not to be found, and that therefore he had no further interest in prolonging the struggle. Henceforth the Turkish campaign really degenerated into a great raid. Almost all fortified places were left unmolested; the sole object seemed to be to lay waste the largest possible areas of the countryside. 40 The Sultan's diary contains a number of significant entries. For example, on September 15: "Halt— in order to gather together again the army which was widely dispersed: fog so thick that it was impossible to tell one from another"; and on the twentieth, at the passage of the Drave, "The three army corps arrive at once at the entrance to the bridge, and there was confusion and tumult. The Grand Vizir and the other pashas take their stations on the bridge; and after the Grand Vizir had sat his horse for an entire day to make the army defile before him, the Sultan presents him with a richly caparisoned steed and a sum of money." 41 The army, like all raiding forces, was obviously getting out of hand, and Suleiman must have been glad when he reached Constantinople on November 21. "Five days of feasts and illuminations. . . ," reads his diary; "the bazaars remain open all night and Suleiman goes to visit them incog-

40 Hammer, V, 165-175.

41 Quoted in Hammer, V, 481-482.

nito." 42 Doubtless he wanted to know if his subjects had been deceived into thinking that he had really returned victorious. The official Turkish version of the campaign continued to be that the Sultan had gone forth to meet his greatest Christian rival in the field, but that it had proved impossible to have a battle, because the Emperor had remained in hiding. The fact that Charles had stayed in Ratisbon until after the Turks had turned aside into Styria lent a certain verisimilitude to this story, but it is unlikely that either Europe or the Turks took it seriously. The outstanding fact remained, that, however good his excuses, Suleiman had failed to accomplish what he had set out to do. He had not really succeeded in "saving his face"; ** though, as the sequel will show, he continued to keep up the bluff.

Under all the circumstances it was fairly obvious that neither side would be averse to a cessation of hostilities. The Emperor was anxious to get away to Italy and Spain. He finally reached Vienna on September 23, two days after the Turks had crossed the Drave, and stayed there till October 4. By that time there could be no possible doubt that Suleiman was going home. On November 6 Charles was in Mantua, and on April 22, 1533, he reached Barcelona. 44 The Sultan, on or before his return to Constantinople, received the unwelcome news that Andrea Doria, the Emperor's Genoese admiral, had captured the town of Coron, on the southwestern promontory of the Peloponnesus, ravaged the adjacent coasts, and finally returned to Genoa, with 60,000 ducats' worth of Turkish cannon. 45 A campaign against Persia was also imperative in the immediate future. We cannot wonder that Suleiman made haste to grant the safe-conducts which Fer-

42 Quoted in Hammer, V, 483. ^Hammer, V, 175-176. ^Foronda y Aguilera, pp. 365-374. 45 R. B. Al,in, 299.

dinand demanded of him before the end of the year 1532 for a new embassy to treat of peace. 46

Hieronymus of Zara, who headed the mission, was an elder brother of Niklas Jurisic, the former ambassador and defender of Giins. He reached Constantinople on January 10, 1533. Within four days of his arrival he had not only had an interview with the Grand Vizir but also an audience with the Sultan himself, and found them both far more ready to treat than had any of his predecessors. Yet both Ibrahim and Suleiman insisted on the recognition of their supremacy. Before negotiations could begin, Ferdinand must first send the keys of the city of Gran in token of submission. 47 Ferdinand's envoy needed fresh instructions before he could consent to this, and accordingly sent his son Vespasian back to Vienna with a Turkish chaush to learn his master's decision. 48 An immediate truce was concluded, and the military commanders on both sides were duly notified. As this was the first time that any Ottoman diplomatic representative had ever come to Austria, King Ferdinand made a point of receiving the chaush with all possible ceremony. He promptly accepted the terms demanded by the Turks, but reassured his Hungarians with the remark that, if necessary, it would be easy to make other keys for the gates of Gran. At his brother's desire, he also despatched as a second envoy a certain Cornelius Schepper, who, though not officially accredited by Charles, was yet instructed to represent his interests.

While he was waiting for his son's return, Hieronymus of Zara had been treated with marked honor at Constantinople. Suleiman had expressly directed that, if he so desired, he should be allowed to attend services on holy

^Hammer, V, 178.

47 Hammer, V, 178-179; Marino Sanuto, Diarii, vol. LVII, coll. 574-576. , vol. II, pt. i, p. 72.

days in the Christian quarter of the city, and that he should be given horses and an escort if he wished to go about and see the sights. When at last his son got back and he formally presented the keys of Gran, the Grand Vizir smiled and motioned him to keep them. Nevertheless, in the lengthy discussions which followed, Ibrahim, who is described by the ambassadors as being below middle height, swarthy, with a long face and half a dozen prominent teeth in his under jaw, showed himself even more talkative and boastful than ever. Sometimes he would expatiate on the events of recent history, and lay down the law on topics of every sort. Sometimes he would ply the envoys with questions, such as which was the better country, France or Spain? Why was Spain not so well cultivated as France? Was there any city in it as fine as Paris? 49 He spoke with lofty contempt of the Emperor, who when

he was in Italy threatened to bring war against us, and promised that he would quiet the Lutheran faction and force it to the old rite. He came into Germany; there, as far as the Lutherans were concerned, he did nothing. An Emperor should not begin anything which he cannot finish, or promise anything that he cannot perform. He told the world that he would have a Council, and he has not had one. We are not of that kind. ... , 50 If I wanted to, I could well make them have a Council. And the Christians should not excuse themselves, one of them because he had the gout, another a headache, and give other reasons still why they could not come. ... If I wished, I would put Luther on one side and the Pope on the other and force them both to hold a Council, 51