Venice now held nothing on the Albanian coast but Durazzo, Antivari, and Butrinto; while the Turks, in possession of Albania, began to push forward to the Ionian Islands and Italy. Zante, Cephalonia, and Santa Maura belonged to the Neapolitan family of Tocco, with the title of “Count of Cephalonia and Duke of Leucadia.” Mohammad seized these three islands (1479); but an agreement in 1485 gave Zante to Venice, who paid a tribute for it to the Porte.
The condition of Italy at this juncture allured Mohammad across the Adriatic. The King of Naples was at war with Florence and was nursing ambitious designs of making himself lord of all Italy, and Venice watched his proceedings with the deepest suspicion. It is a disputed question whether Venice urged the Ottoman Sultan (as successor to the Byzantine emperors) to lay claim to southern Italy; but at all events in 1480 Mohammad sent an armament under Kedyk Ahmad, and Otranto fell at once. The commandant and the archbishop were sawn in two—the favourite Ottoman mode of intimidation at this time. From the surrounding land some people were transported as slaves to Albania. But the Turks made no progress. Want of provisions hampered them, and presently Ferdinand arrived with an army and confined the invaders to Otranto. But help was urgently needed; for it was known that the Sultan would come himself next year with an overwhelming force. Except a few troops and galleys sent from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic, no help came. The situation was, however, unexpectedly saved. Mohammad’s attention was diverted by the more pressing necessity of conquering Rhodes; and then his sudden death delivered Rhodes and Italy alike.
Throughout the years of the Venetian war Mohammad had been busy and fortunate elsewhere, in the east and in the north. Of the small principalities which had sprung up after the collapse of the Seljuk power in Asia Minor, only that of Caramania (Lycaonia and Isauria with parts of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia) still remained independent. The death of its lord, Ibrahim (1463), was followed by a war among his sons, which gave Mohammad an opportunity. The capture of Konia (Iconium) and Caraman (Laranda) secured him the rule of the whole land except Seleucia on the south-eastern coast, and he assigned this important province, which he systematically dispeopled, to his youngest son Mustafa. This conquest, following upon that of Trebizond, brought on the inevitable struggle with the rival oriental monarch, Uzun Hasan the Turcoman. He had extended his sovereignty from the Oxus to the limits of Caramania, and a large part of Persia was under his dominion. Caramania was a useful “buffer-State.” Uzun Hasan wrote to Mohammad demanding the cession of Trebizond and Cappadocia, and complaining of the execution of King David Comnenus. Mohammad promised to meet him at the head of an army. The Turcoman invaded Caramania to restore the dethroned princes and took Tokat (1471); but in the next year Mustafa defeated him in a hard-fought battle by the shores of Lake Caralis. The decisive battle was fought in 1473 (July 26) on the banks of the Euphrates near Terdshan. Mustafa and his brother Bayazid led each a wing of their father’s army, and were opposed respectively to the two sons of Uzun Hasan. The strife swayed long, before it was decided by the Ottoman artillery. Mohammad wrote himself: “the fight was bloody, costing me the bravest of my pashas and many soldiers; without my artillery, which terrified the Persian horses, the issue would have been longer doubtful.” The significance of this victory, of which Mohammad probably thought more than of all his achievements except the capture of Constantinople, lay in its securing Caramania and Asia Minor. He was now free to follow out his schemes of conquest in Europe.
The Roumanians north of the Danube had long ago been entangled in the ecumenical struggle. Mirtschea the Great, prince of Wallachia, who by astute diplomacy steered his way between Hungary and Poland, had fought for Christendom in the disastrous battles of Kosovo (1389) and Nicopolis (1396), but was obliged to submit to the suzerainty of Mohammad I (1412). After his death civil wars between pretenders desolated and demoralised the principality for forty years, until (1456) a strong man came to the helm in the person of Vlad IV. The princes of Wallachia and of Moldavia were elected by the people out of the princely families; but they had unlimited power, being the supreme judges, with control over the life and death of their subjects, and the complete disposal of the public revenue. Thus only a steely-hearted, resolute man was wanted to restore order; and Vlad accomplished this by a policy of relentless severity which has handed him down to history under the name of the Devil or the Impaler. Having assured his throne and established friendly relations with his neighbours Moldavia and Hungary, he defied the Turk by refusing the tribute of children which Wallachia paid like other subject-lands. Mohammad sent an envoy, Hamza Pasha, accompanied by 2000 men, with secret instructions to seize Vlad’s person. But the Wallachian overreached them, and impaled them all; then crossing the Danube, he laid waste the Turkish territory. In 1462 Mohammad arrived at the head of an army, bringing with him Radu, Vlad’s brother, to take the place of the latter. Like Darius, he sent a fleet of transports to the Danube to carry the army across. Vlad withdrew his forces into the deep oak-forests, which formed a natural fortification. One night he penetrated in disguise into the Turkish camp, hoping to slay Mohammad; but he mistook the tent of a general for that of the Sultan. By his address and boldness he seems to have inflicted a serious repulse on the invaders; but he was presently attacked on the other side by Stephen, the prince of Moldavia. After his divided army had sustained a double defeat, he fled to Hungary, and his brother Radu was enthroned by the Turks.
The stress of the struggle now devolved upon the northern principality of Moldavia, and there too a strong man had arisen. In 1456 Peter Aron gave tribute to the Turk, but this prince was overthrown in the following year by Stephen the Great. At first Stephen did not rise to his role of a champion against the unbelievers. He set his desire on securing the fortress of Kilia (near the mouth of the Danube) which belonged to Hungary and Wallachia in common, and he actually urged Mohammad’s invasion. But he failed to win Kilia at this moment, and his capture of it three years later, when Wallachia belonged to the Turk, was an act of hostility to Mohammad. Five years later he invaded Wallachia, dethroned Radu, and set up in his stead La’iot, a member of the Bassarab family which has given its name to Bessarabia. At this time Mohammad was occupied with other things, but the conflict would come sooner or later, and Stephen stirred himself to knit alliances and form combinations to east and to west. He was in communication with Venice, with the Pope, with Uzun Hasan. The victory of Terdshan left Mohammad free to throw an army into Moldavia under the command of Sulayman Pasha. Stephen, reinforced by contingents sent by the Kings of Poland and Hungary, gained at Racova (on the Birlad stream) a great victory—the glory of his reign—which entitles him to a place near Hunyady and Scanderbeg (1475). But a new element was brought into the situation in the same year by the simultaneous expedition which was sent against the Genoese settlements of the Crimea. Caffa capitulated—40,000 inhabitants were sent to Constantinople; and its fall was followed by the surrender of Tana (Azov) and the other stations. Mohammad could now launch the Tartars of this region against Moldavia on the flank; and next year (1476) this befell. Unassisted by Poland or Hungary, who were each suspicious of his relations with the other; attacked by the Wallachian prince whom he had himself enthroned; assailed on the other side by the Tartars,—Stephen was worsted with great loss by a Turkish army led by the Sultan, who had come to avenge the shame of Racova, in a forest glade which is called the Place of Battles (Rasboieni). But he rallied, and Mohammad retired without subduing the country. Eight years after this the Turks seized the two fortress-keys of Moldavia—Kilia and Tschetatea Alba (1484). Before his death, Stephen made a vain attempt to form an East-European league against the infidel—embracing Moscow and Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. But his experience convinced him that the struggle was hopeless, and on his death-bed (1504) the advice which he gave to his son Bogdan was to submit to the Turkish power. On the accession of the Sultan Selim (1512) Moldavia submitted, paying a yearly sum to the Porte, but keeping the right of freely electing her own princes.
The war with Venice and the struggle with Uzun Hasan had hindered Mohammad from concentrating his forces upon the subjugation of Rhodes, where the Knights of St John maintained an outpost of Christendom. On the conclusion of the Venetian peace he began preparations for a serious attack on Rhodes, and in 1480 Masih Pasha sailed with a considerable fleet and laid siege to the town. The whole of Europe had been aware that the blow was coming, and much had been done to meet it. The defence devolved upon the Grand-Master of the Order, Peter