THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 99Word of Hunyadi’s victories brought more and more western crusaders.
The Albanian revolt spread, and the Byzantine despot of Morea moved
back into central Greece and reoccupied Athens and Thebes. The Ottoman
treasury was empty. A short negotiated peace did not last long. The cru-
sader army moved south on September 1, 1444, and was joined by Hun-
yadi’s force of Transylvanian knights at Orsova. The Ottomans advanced
and met the Christians near Varna on November 10, 1444. At first, the
battle went for the crusaders. A Christian victory seemed so sure that
Murat looked to flee, but he was convinced to remain. In the renewed
fighting that broke out, the horse of King Ladislas of Hungary was killed
under him, throwing the king to the ground in the middle of the melee. A
Janissary brought his scimitar down on the hapless king’s neck, decapi-
tating him. The head was quickly put on a pike and displayed to the
Hungarians, who panicked and fled.
The battle was bloody, but without significant fruits. Four years later
Hunyadi was still fighting with a new army of 24,000 men. He engaged
the Turks at Kosovo (October 17–20, 1448) near the site of the earlier
battle, and again the fighting was touch-and-go until the Wallachians de-
serted Hunyadi in favor of the sultan. This was too much for the hard-
pressed Hunyadi, and his forces broke after three days of fighting.
Murat died in 1451 and was succeeded by Mehmet II “The Conqueror”
(1451–81). Mehmet’s crowning military achievement was the capture of
Constantinople. Though not calm, the Balkans became settled enough that
Mehmet could focus on the ultimate prize, and he began his siege in
February 1453. A cry for help went out from Byzantium to the West, but
only a few hundred foreign volunteers, mainly Genoese, actually came to
help the besieged city. The first major attack came on April 6, with a
heavy bombardment against Theodosius’s Wall, on the landward side of
the city. Storming attempts followed this, but the small imperial garrison
beat these off. A great chain boom lay across the Golden Horn and pre-
vented enemy ships from approaching from the seaward side.
On May 31, 1453, a Genoese fleet of three galleasses and an imperial
grain ship arrived in the Bosporus to bring relief to Constantinople. At-
tacked by the Ottomans, the Genoese defeated their attempts to board
while the galleasses cut their way through the low-slung galleys of the
Ottoman fleet. Using Greek fire and swivel guns they pushed into the
inner harbor, leaving a swath of destruction behind them.
Mehmet was furious at the failure of his fleet and ordered his admiral
impaled. His generals prevailed upon him to spare the poor admiral’s life,
so Mehmet beat him senseless with a stick as four slaves held him.