Читать книгу The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks - Edwin Pears - Страница 9

Outrages by the Grand Company.

The Spaniards were now at open war with the Greeks, and even Andronicus would have been glad to get rid of them. They attacked the seafaring population at Rhegium, now called Buyuk Chekmeji, burnt several men, impaled their children, and massacred those whom they had employed to carry off their booty. Their progress was checked for a while by the arrival of sixteen Genoese ships. As the Genoese had had trouble with the emperor, the Spaniards were in hopes of their aid, but the former sent secretly into the city from their fleet to learn the truth about the situation, heard the Greek version of the differences, and then declared for the emperor. The Genoese and imperial fleets attacked the Spaniards, who were led by Berenger, defeated them, captured their leader, and subsequently sent him prisoner to Italy.

Gallipoli was, however, still in the hands of the Catalans Turkish auxiliaries enter Europe.and an attempt to buy the aid of the Genoese to relieve it failed. Michael endeavoured to capture it. Both armies had secured Turkish allies. A decisive battle was fought near Apros, in which the Spaniards were successful. They followed up their victory by ravaging the neighbouring country, and in this they were joined by a band of Turks who had been invited to join them and by Alans who had quitted the imperial service.

The country between Constantinople and Adrianople was laid waste, all the inhabitants abandoning their houses to save their lives. The garrison of Catalans in Gallipoli in like manner ravaged the western part of Thrace; men were killed, women and children, flocks and herds were carried off. The women and children were taken to be sold to, or to be held as slaves by, the Turks.

The emperor, unable either to employ or to defeat the Spaniards and being hard pressed by the Turks in Asia Minor, endeavoured now to buy them off. An embassy was sent to them, but the conditions demanded were impossible, and thereupon the scenes of violence were renewed. Bands of Spaniards and their Turkish allies made incursions in the country behind Constantinople as far as Chorlou, laid siege to Rodosto, and killed all whom they found outside the walls. Those who could escape took refuge in Constantinople. Pachymer states that the Spaniards claimed to have killed five thousand of these peasants. Adrianople was besieged and, though it was not captured, the army of the Alans, who had once more joined the Greeks, was defeated, the vineyards around the city were rooted up and the fertile country converted for the time into a desert. When the emperor again made an effort to buy the Spaniards off he found their terms higher than ever, on account of their success. They not only demanded heavy payments for services never performed, but that the Emperor should pay ransom for the towns, the fortresses and prisoners captured by them.

The two divisions of Spaniards, one under Rocafert, who had been appointed to succeed Roger, and the other under Fernand Ximenes, were now acting separately, and while the negotiations were going on the former set out for Constantinople. They were, however, resisted by the imperial troops and compelled to retire. They continued under Rocafert to devastate Thrace. As they themselves received no food from abroad nor tilled the ground in Thrace and had already devastated the country, they were at length forced to retreat from want of provisions to Gallipoli.

Dissension in the Grand Company.

Happily, serious divisions arose between the Spaniards themselves. A large number of them refused to recognise Rocafert who had been named leader with the consent of Ximenes. On the other hand, Rocafert declared that as he had conquered the country he had no intention of abandoning the leadership. The influence of Guy, the nephew of the king of Sicily, who had brought with him another detachment of foreign freebooters in seven large ships and who counted upon utilising the Grand Company for the re-establishment of the Latin empire in his own family, was unable to settle the differences between the two parties, and they were soon at open war with each other. On one side was Rocafert, on the other were Guy, Ximenes, and Berenger, who had been released by the Genoese.

In view of an attack by the imperial troops and of the necessity of finding provisions, a peace was patched up between the two Spanish factions, and they started in a body to attack Salonica and plunder Macedonia. The six thousand Spaniards were accompanied by three thousand Turks. Rocafert’s division led. The van of the second division reached the camping ground of the first before it had been completely evacuated, and the two armies at once began fighting each other. Berenger hastened to put an end to the quarrel and was killed by Rocafert’s brother. Ximenes was captured. Rocafert was now the sole leader. He attempted to capture Salonica but failed. He then retreated in order to return to Thrace: but his position was growing weak. He appealed to a French admiral, who had arrived in the northern Aegean as the precursor of the expected great expedition from the West, for his intervention with the Spaniards who distrusted him, but the admiral seized and carried him off to the king of Naples, where he was thrown into prison and starved to death.

When the partisans of Rocafert in the Grand Company learned of what they regarded as the treachery of the French admiral, they murdered their officers under the belief that they were parties to the capture. They elected new leaders, marched into Thessaly, and took service with the descendants of the crusading barons who had carved out territories for themselves in that province and in Greece. It is unnecessary to follow them there. It is sufficient to say that the Greek army had dogged their movements, had fought well, had Its end, 1315.defeated them in many engagements, and that what may be regarded as the last struggle with the Grand Company took place in 1315.

Disastrous results from attempts to restore empire.

The devastation caused by the attempts from the West to re-establish the Latin empire culminating in the disorders caused by the Grand Company was such that the empire’s chances of recovering its strength were enormously diminished. The fall of the city in 1204 had been followed by the destruction of the organisation in Asia Minor for resisting the progress of Asiatic hordes towards Europe. One may conjecture that the great statesman Innocent the Third, who had foreseen some of the evil effects which would inevitably follow from the success of Dandolo and Montferrat, would have realised the necessity of aiding Constantinople in making such resistance. Unfortunately, Innocent’s successors were less statesmanlike. Instead of seeking to strengthen the Greeks in Constantinople by condemning the wild lawlessness of the Spaniards, their dominating idea was to restore the Latin empire, so as to force the members of the Orthodox Church to enter into Union. The results of all their attempts were altogether disastrous. The empire was weakened on every side. Its component parts had always been loosely bound together. Long distances in ages of badly constructed roads had prevented the development of loyalty as a bond of union. The traditional attachment to the autocrat at Constantinople had been shaken by the change of dynasties. Peasants living far away from the capital, who had no other desire than to till their lands in peace, were ready to accept the rule of a Serbian or a Bulgarian, of a powerful rebel against the empire or even of the Turks themselves, provided they were undisturbed. Those who were in the neighbourhood of the capital were in worse plight. The development of trade and commerce had been hindered. Thrace had become a desolation. During five years the Spaniards had lived on the country and only deserted it when there remained nothing further to plunder. The thriving communities extending along all the northern shores of the Marmora from the city to Gallipoli were impoverished or destroyed. Flourishing vineyards and oliveyards were abandoned. The fishing and shipping communities ceased to find occupation. Great numbers of the inhabitants were exterminated.

The richest city in Europe had become poverty-stricken. The coinage, which for centuries had served as the standard for the whole Western world, had been debased in order to find money to pay foreign mercenaries. Worse than all, while the empire had been employed in resisting these invaders from the West, the Bulgarians, Serbians, and, far more important than either, the Turks had gained strength and had enormously enlarged their territories.

To the Catalan Grand Company must be attributed the introduction of the first body of Turks into Europe. It might have been expected that the traditions of Spaniards would have influenced them sufficiently to have refused Moslem aid, that Western Europe would have raised the cry of treason to Christendom when it learned that bands of Turks had been engaged to fight against a Christian though a schismatic emperor; but the filibusters who had been invited into the empire for the defence of Christendom thought only of plunder, and Western Europe was either indifferent or thought there was little to choose between schismatics and Moslems.

The attempts to restore the Latin empire had failed, but the emperor and his people were in presence of a much more formidable enemy than the West had furnished. The Asiatic hordes whom the city had successfully resisted for a century and a half before its capture were now constantly encroaching on imperial territory. As these hordes were destined to be the destroyers of the Empire, I propose next briefly to notice their origin and history.