THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 101Undiscouraged by his defeat, Mehmet continued with further expedi-
tions. In 1456 he undertook a third Serbian campaign. Later in the same
year, in response to attacks by pirates, he moved against the Genoese
islands in the Aegean. By 1461 Greece and Serbia were under his control.
The next major campaign came in April 1480 when the Ottomans at-
tacked the island of Rhodes, held by the Knights of Saint John, an order
of religious knights founded during the Crusades. After the Ottoman guns
had broken the walls and everything was set for the final assault, the
Janissaries went on strike and refused to attack. Their commanding gen-
eral had forbidden them the right to pillage the city. Refused the booty
that had historically been theirs, the Ottoman army reboarded its ships
and sailed back to Istanbul. The Knights of Saint John had their first great
turn of luck since the Crusades. They would be lucky again.
Later in the same year the Ottomans landed in Italy, near the city of
Otranto. After taking the city, they pillaged it, murdered half the popu-
lation, and shipped the rest back to slavery.
Mehmet II died shortly after this expedition, on May 3, 1481. Mehmet
had made significant changes to the Turkish forces. Under him the Otto-
man army developed a massive artillery train, but this was not favored
for field operations because it was slow and restricted the traditional rapid
movements of the Ottoman cavalry. The defeats suffered by Bayezit II
under the Mamluks in eastern Anatolia had taught the Ottomans the value
of handheld firearms, and arquebuses were introduced, as were some few
mobile cannon. The armorer corps, which handled these weapons, num-
bered no more than 625 men in 1574 but began to rapidly expand.
Mehmet II also organized the cannon corps to manufacture and use
cannons. It came to its full strength under Bayezit II’s reforms. In 1574 it
had a total strength of about 1,100 men and by the seventeenth century it
had grown to about 5,000. Siege warfare had become more sophisticated,
and the Ottomans developed a pioneer corps charged with digging the
mines and trenches used in attacking fortresses. In addition, the special-
ized gun known as the mortar came into use and corps of mortar crews
was also organized. Some of these were attached to the Janissaries and
others to the Spahis.
When Mehmet II died, the Janissaries became involved in the struggle
for succession because of several defeats that they had suffered under
Ahmet, Mehmet’s eldest son. As a result of the struggles, Bayezit (1481–
1512) rose to the Peacock Throne. Bayezit’s assumption of the throne was
contested when Cem, another of Mehmet II’s sons, demanded that the
empire be divided and that he be given Anatolia. A decisive battle oc-
curred on June 20, 1481, and Bayezit’s numerically superior army won a