The situation and prospects of the Ottoman empire seemed changed on the death of the conqueror. The prosperity and growth of that empire depended wholly on the personality of the autocrat who ruled it; and the two sons whom Mohammad left behind were made in a different mould from their vigorous father. Bayazid the elder, who was governor of the province of Amasia, was a man of mild nature who cared for the arts of peace, and would have been well contented to rest upon the conquests which had been already achieved, and to enjoy the fruits of the labours of his fathers. Jem, governor of Caramania, was a bright, clever youth, endowed with a distinguished poetical talent; he might easily have been lured into a career of military ambition, but perhaps he hardly possessed the strength and steadfastness necessary for success. When Bayazid reached Constantinople, on the news of his father’s death, he found that the Janissaries had begun a reign of terror in the city. They had slain the Grand Vezir, who, being disposed to espouse the cause of Jem, had, according to a common practice in such cases, concealed the Sultan’s death; and they had plundered the habitations of the Jews and Christians. They favoured the claims of Bayazid, and were tranquillised when they had exacted from him a pardon for their outbreak and an increase of their pay. Meanwhile Jem—who claimed the throne on the ground that, though the younger, he was born in the purple—had advanced to Brusa, and was there proclaimed Sultan. But he was willing to compromise. Through his great-aunt he made a proposal to Bayazid that they should divide the empire—Bayazid to rule in Europe, and he in Asia. The question at stake was not merely a personal one, the extent of Bayazid’s sovereignty, but the integrity and power of the Ottoman empire. Moreover, it involved a direct violation of one of the fundamental canons of Islam: that there shall be only one supreme Imam. Bayazid’s decision accordingly influenced the history of the world. He refused to accept Jem’s offer; “the empire,” he said, “is the bride of one lord.” The rival claims were settled by the award of battle in the plains of Yenishehr, where the treachery of some of Jem’s troops gave the victory to Bayazid. The defeated brother fled to Cairo, and his attempt in the following year to seize Caramania in conjunction with an exiled prince of that country was repelled. Then he sought refuge at Rhodes; his chances of success lay in the help of the Christian powers of Europe.
Jem arrived at Rhodes under a safe-conduct from the Grand-Master and the Council of the Knights, permitting him and his suite to remain in the island and leave it at their will. But it was soon felt that it was not safe to keep the precious person of the prince at Rhodes, so near the realm of Bayazid, who was ready to resort to any foul means of seizing or destroying him; and Jem and the Grand-Master agreed that France would be the best retreat, pending the efforts which they hoped would be made to restore him. To France, accordingly, Jem sailed (September, 1482). After his departure, the Knights concluded first a treaty of peace with Bayazid for the Sultan’s lifetime, and secondly a contract by which he agreed to pay them 45,000 ducats a year, in return for which the Grand-Master undertook to maintain and guard Jem in such a way as to cause no inconvenience to the Sultan. In an age when the violation of engagements was regarded as justifiable, and was even in certain cases recommended by the heads of the Church, there is no more shameless instance of perfidy than this. D’Aubusson had guaranteed Jem his freedom, and undertaken to espouse his cause; he now took Bayazid’s money to be Jem’s jailor. His conduct could not even be defended on the plea of the interests of religion, which in those days were often furthered by dishonesty and bad faith; on the contrary, it was a treachery to the cause of Christendom, to which Jem’s ambitions—according to the letters which D’Aubusson himself wrote to the western powers—furnished so unique an opportunity against its foe. For six years Jem was kept a prisoner in France, being constantly removed from one castle to another by his Rhodian guards, and making repeated attempts to escape which were always frustrated; while the Pope, the King of Naples, and the King of Hungary were each seeking to induce D’Aubusson to deliver the prince into his hands. At length Innocent VIII came to an arrangement. The concession of various privileges, and a cardinal’s hat for D’Aubusson, persuaded the Knights, who were already anxious to rid themselves of a charge which involved them in troublesome relations with both Bayazid and the Sultan of Egypt. Another series of negotiations was required to obtain from Charles VIII permission for Jem to leave France; and not till March 1489 did the Turkish prince arrive at Rome. Pope Alexander VI, who succeeded Innocent in 1492, and who was threatened by the invasion of Charles VIII, affected the most friendly relations with Bayazid and had recourse to him for money and other support. In 1494 the document containing this Pope’s instructions to his envoy, together with letters from Bayazid, was intercepted at Sinigaglia, in the possession of Turkish envoys who had landed at Ancona and were on their way to Rome. The compromising papers were taken to Charles VIII at Florence, and the Pope’s treachery to Christendom was exposed. One of the Sultan’s communications to the Pope is significant. Considering—wrote Bayazid in Latin, a language with which he was well acquainted—that sooner or later Jem must die, it would be well, for the tranquillity of his Holiness and the satisfaction of the Sultan, to hasten a death which for him would be life; and therefore he implored the Pope to remove Jem from the vexations of this life and send him to a better world. For the dead body of the prince he promised 300,000 ducats, with which the Pope might buy estates for his sons. Charles VIII advanced to Rome, and the terms which he made with Alexander VI comprised the transference of Jem into his own power. Jem accompanied the King southward, but he was in ailing health, and at Capua became so ill that he could go no further. He was taken in a litter to Naples, and died there in high fever (February, 1495). The Venetians, who were the first to inform the Sultan of his brother’s end, wrote in a pointed way that he had died a natural death; but, as it was their policy at this moment to keep on good terms with the Pope, this testimony does not weigh much in deciding the question whether, as was certainly believed at the time, Jem’s health was undermined by a deliberate system of intoxication. The insufficiency of our material compels us to leave the question open; but the circumstances are at least suspicious, and in any case the French were innocent.
Thus for thirteen years the western powers held Jem as a menace over the head of the Turkish Sultan; but this singular episode did not affect the course of Turkish history. A second ruler like Bayazid, Machiavelli thought, would have rendered the Ottoman power innocuous to Europe. The temper of the man was displayed at once not only by the abandonment of the Rhodian expedition, but by a reduction of tribute granted to Ragusa, and by a modification in Venice’s favour of the treaty which had recently been concluded with that republic (1482). His reign was marked indeed by raids on Croatia and the Dalmatian coast, by intermittent hostilities with Hungary, by incursions into Moldavia and even into Poland; but the only serious war was with Venice, which broke out in 1499 after twenty years of peace. In that interval the republic had acquired the island of Cyprus (1489) and extended her influence in the Aegean, and the Sultan at last deemed it time to check her course. Active naval preparations in the