In 1438 King Henry V of England, Burgundy and France died, aged 52. His son, Henry VI, was only three years old and so a Regency council was set up. Soon two factions have arisen: those who support the House of York and the Duke of York in his claim to the throne and then those who support the House of Lancaster and the King. The Yorkists are strong in the north of England as well as Burgundy. The Lancastrians however have the support of Louis, warden of France. Soon low-level warfare is being raged across the three kingdoms. The Yorkists seized Paris in 1440 and the Lancastrians seized London. Over thirteen years of warfare, sometimes flaring up sometimes cooling down, a rough status quo is settled upon. When Louis of France is murdered in 1443 his successor, Charles of Carlisle, is a Yorkist and orders the standard of the Duke of York to be raised across France. Many refused, such as the Lord of Coucy who, remembering his father’s pledge of loyalty to Henry V, sides with the Lancastrians. This perturbs the Yorkists, for Coucy is incredibly strong. On the 13th March 1443 the Baron de Coucy was attacked while taking Mass. There were four assassins who surrounded him in his private chapel. Two held him back while another stabbed him in the throat and another watched the door. When they saw the Baron’s confessor coming they fled, leaving him to die slowly. His heir, Edmund, is made Baron aged four and is dominated by his Yorkist mother whom was rumoured to be having an affair with Edward, the son of the duke of York and Duke of Aquitaine. The Lancastrians, meanwhile, had strengthened their hold in England. Suspected Yorkists had been slowly removed by Lancastrians and eventually on 26th of March in response to the murder of the Baron de Coucy, an anti-Yorkist riot broke out in London. The Mayor, a suspected Yorkist and the leaders of several Guilds were dragged into the street and roughly beheaded in a wave of anti-Yorkist and anti-mercantilist rage. Once order was restored the blame was pinned on Thomas Maine, a guild member who was rumoured to have made a secret deal with the Duke of York. He would stir up trouble in London prompting Yorkists to be threatened. The Duke would then return to England with soldier under the pretence of defending his property. Instead he would take control of Parliament and then force the King to abdicate in his favour. It was far-fetched yet just enough so to be widely believed, and the Duke of York was widely discredited.
Soon it appeared that France was Yorkist, England Lancastrian. When Henry VI died (suspiciously) in 1448 both sides crowned their man king. The Yorkists put forward Edward, son of the Duke of York, whereas the Lancastrians put forward Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V’s younger brother. Both proclaimed themselves King of England, France and Burgundy yet in effect the Lancastrians had already forfeited France and Burgundy. The Yorkists planned an invasion of Britain which occurred in 1449 yet the invading army was defeated and forced back. Finally in 1450 a peace accordant was reached. The Lancastrians were to hold England, Ireland and Wales, the Yorkists would have France and Burgundy. The two sides agreed on this and to create some sort of peace Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s widow and thereby a ‘Lancastrian’ was married to Edward of France. Thus the English Civil War ended.
In 1450 Sultan Murad of Kiev, died. He died of pneumonia while in Moscow. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmet, who was in Kiev at the time of his father’s death. The Law of Fratricide was enacted and two days after the death of Murad, Mehmet was announced Sultan in the Kiev Mosque. His hold on power was weak. He was still very young, only eighteen years old. He was therefore forced to give out a cash bonus to the janissaries to ensure their support. Once this was done he determined to fight a war of conquest in order to cement his rule. In 1452 he planted his seven horsetail standard in the Kremlin of Moscow. From across the empire came thousands of horsemen, Tartar, Cossack, Turk, Russian and Mongol. He also brought 8,000 janissaries raised from Circassians. He also had a new artillery force- some 30 cannon with two great ones that could fire a 20 lb ball almost a mile. These were loaded onto carts along with the janissaries and drawn across the steppe during summer. Their destination was Novgorod.
Novgorod had, since the days of Alexander Nevsky, been an independent Republic. Her wealth lay in furs and amber which she exported through the Hanseatic League. Her citizen army was well-equipped if small, and her defences strong. On April 13th 1452 Mehmet laid siege to the city of Novgorod. A sally made by the defenders was contemptuously brushed aside and the cannon were set up. They immediately began pounding the walls and continued to do so ceaselessly for two weeks. Time was crucial, if the city had not been taken by Autumn the army would have to withdraw lest they be caught in the lethal Russian winter. On the 3rd May the first charge was made. 5,000 conscripts from across the Sultanate flooded into the breach. The Republic’s forces held, battling their way through the hordes of conscripts who served as nothing but cannon-fodder. When one man asked why the conscripts were so poorly armed, Mehmet replied: “Food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as good as any.” Two days of fighting and the janissaries had yet to engage. The defenders were exhausted. Finally, on May 6th, the janissaries marched. The advanced to the sound of flutes and drums and cannon fire. Mehmet had also built raised platforms for the cannon so that they could fire over the city’s defences spreading panic and chaos. The janissaries flooded into the breaches (three had been made by then) and after eight hours of fighting the defenders were massacred. Then the horsemen attacked. 12,000 horsemen flooded into the city. The streets were narrow and more than a few horsemen were trapped in dead-ends and massacred. Finally, after the customary three days left for pillaging, Mehmet entered the city. The populace were either killed or enslaved- 20,000 slaves were marched to the Black Sea for export. 40,000 people were missing. The city was almost completely flattened. Mehmet shed a single tear when he saw the ruined churches, the shelled-out Kremlin and the ruined streets. He is reported to have said: “ So many kings, so many princes, so many ancient lords and reverend bishops, all gone, erased from history, their memory never to be revived. Such is the fate of all endeavours.” He ordered the city to be re-built and her walls repaired. He men worked furiously and they wintered in Novgorod that year as they had wintered in Moscow previously. Mehmet meanwhile sent patrols out into the countryside, subjugating the peoples. He by no means controlled the whole land, yet large tracts of land accepted him as their master. They reached the Baltic, and Mehmet ordered that a city be built there in Spring of 1453. The city, Fatih Murad was built on the banks of the Neva river in marshland. For years no one settled there, yet Mehmet sent thousands of captives there to settle. Eventually, a floating city was built. Some called it an Islamic Venice of the north. Great mosques were built and grand palaces. Docks were planned and wharves laid. Soon shipping resumed enriching the merchants and Mehmet. The Hanseatic League sent envoys to the Sultan, asking him for trade concessions. These were given and a Hanseatic colony founded in Fatih Murad. It was called by the locals the Swedish quarter, for although the Hanseatic League was multinational, they were commonly referred to by the Turks as ‘the Swedes’. This did not amuse the King of Sweden.
Alarmed by the appearance of Turks on their eastern flank, the Teutonic Knights organised a massive invasion force, with the blessings of the Holy Roman Emperor. 30,000 men were organised, with a further 15,000 coming form Lithuania who felt similarly threatened. The army was a mixture of knights, men-at-arms, heavy infantry (mostly Polish and German) as well as light cavalry from Lithuania. They marched north to Fatih Murad, which the Germans called Muradstadt. They were only 100 miles from the city when on April 23rd 1454 Mehmet met them in battle. His janissaries marched in close formation towards the German centre, where the German infantry was. The two forces engaged and for awhile it looked as If the Turk’s superior discipline would win out. However, the German knights, having learnt from their previous encounters with the Turks, now came crashing into the janissaries flanks. The slave-soldiers wavered and began to flee. It was only the timely arrival of 5,000 cossacks that kept them in rank. The steppe horsemen enveloped the knights and although less heavily armed, they were able to kill them through a combination of ranged attacks and the use of their long knives which were excellent at punching through plate armour.
It was then that the Lithuanian cavalry advanced. Moving around to the rear of the cossacks they threatened their rear. They were caught in the open, however, by 8,000 tartars and Turks who surrounded them and routed them. The Turks then surrounded the Germans and forced them back. At the end of the battle the Lithuanians, having suffered severe casualties (2,500 out of 4,000 fielded) went to Mehmet and asked for peace. Mehmet received their embassy and had them swear loyalty to him. they agreed to pay tribute and to give soldiers for his expeditions and were guaranteed defence from the Teutonic Knights, whom they still did not trust and had had several confrontations with during the campaign.
Meanwhile, in the German camp things were taking a different course. The Teutonic Knights under their Grand Master Herman von Krondstadt were arguing for attacking the Turkish camp whereas the Imperial forces led by Francis von Swabia favoured retreating to East Prussia and making peace with this mighty neighbour. The headstrong Grand Master could not be dissuaded, nor could his men, and that night 2,000 of them rode out of camp. They charged across the plain separating the two camps until they came towards the Turkish camp. They were spotted from afar, and a counter-attack was organised. 1,500 Turks hid themselves to either side of the Knight’s path. Then a unit of janissaries- some 500 men, arranged themselves before the camp. The Knights, seeing the soldiers, charged at them and smashing into their ranks. Then the hidden men rose up and surrounded them. As the conflict escalated, yet more men from the camp were called into the fray (they had been woken when the Knights were first sighted and had been ready for some time) so that the Knights were soon completely surrounded. Herman was pulled from his horse and captured as were some 300 of his companions. The rest were butchered.
The next day, Mehmet sent demands of ransom to the Germans. The defacto commander, Francis, was then confronted by a conundrum. Would he empty the war chest to save 300 very fine knights? Doing so would bankrupt the expedition and mean his soldiers would go without pay. If he did not pay, he could pay his disgruntled soldiers and lose a political enemy. With such unchivilrous intentions therefore, he rejected the demand. The day after, he watched from the camp’s ramparts as all three hundred were flayed alive by tartars. Their mutilated bodies were left to rot outside the camp until someone finally collected them and buried them.
A truce was organised with Mehmet- Francis and his army were to withdraw to Prussia and pay 2,000 Guilders to the Sultan. Once they had returned they would petition the Emperor to send envoys offering peace. The army withdrew in May and arrived back in the Empire in June. Mehmet waited in Fatih Murad throughout the Autumn, watching the construction of the new city. Finally in October, just before the Winter became truly savage, three envoys arrived. They offered peace between the two monarchs. Mehmet’s reply to Emperor Charles was thus:
Padishah Mehmet of Kiev, Lord of 10,000 miles, Khan of the Golden Horde, Sultan of the Rus, the Shadow of God on Earth, would address the King of Rome. We have considered your pleas for peace and have decided that in our wisdom that we shall permit you existence on the condition that you shall make no more futile moves of aggression against our lands, for if you do then our wrath shall descend upon you as the Eagle descend upon the rabbit.
The envoys were forced to winter in Muradstadt due to the winter and they took the opportunity to see the new city. They marvelled at the new Palace, which they declared finer than Nero’s Golden House and also the magnificent domes that peppered the city. Most awe inspiring, however, was the Sultan’s Arsenal, which was being built further upstream from the city. The idea was to have iron and other raw materials floated downstream and then processed before the finished guns would be floated downstream to the barracks where they would be unloaded. It employed 2,000 craftsmen including a certain Transylvanian who had promised Mehmet that he could make the biggest guns in the world. Mehmet had accepted his world and now the man was helping build great cannon that could shoot 70 lb rocks for over a mile out of bronze with iron hoops to reinforce the barrels. The envoys also marvelled at the janissaries in their barracks where they drilled for hours on end using weapons as diverse as pikes, words and even the new muskets that were being introduced. They were amazed to see them expertly and through force of discipline, fire as a rank at once. They however dismissed it as a parlour trick and that by the time they had reloaded the charging knights would have cut them down.
Turkish St.Petersburg!!!
