Where Mohammad had failed, his great-grandson was to succeed. Belgrade had fallen, Rhodes was now to fall. The pirate-ships of the Rhodian Knights were a pest to the eastern waters of the archipelago and the Asiatic coasts; and not only was it imperative for the Sultan that his line of communication with Egypt should be cleared of the corsair nest, but it was in the interest of public order that the island should be annexed to the Turkish realm. The lords of Rhodes had to depend entirely on themselves, without aid from the west. The first principle of Venetian policy at this time was to keep on good terms with the Turk. The Signory had congratulated Selim on his conquests, and had transferred to him the tribute for Cyprus previously paid by them to the Sultan of Egypt. They had congratulated Solyman on his accession, and of all foreigners they had the most advantageous commercial position in the Ottoman realm. They were therefore careful to lend no countenance to Rhodes. In summer 1522 the main army of the Turks under Solyman himself marched across Asia Minor to the Carian coast, and a fleet of about 300 ships carried select troops. In all, the Turkish army was about 200,000 strong, including 60,000 miners from Wallachia and Bosnia. The Grand-Master, L’Isle Adam, had made all possible preparations. An iron chain locked the harbour; and outside it a boom of timber floated from the windmill tower at the north-east point of the harbour to Fort St Nicholas, which stood at the end of a mole on the north-west side. The houses beyond the walls were demolished, to deprive the foe of shelter and supply stones for new defences. The precaution was taken of removing the slaves from the powdermills; freemen were set to work there day and night. The first great assault (in September) was repelled with such enormous loss, that Solyman resigned himself to the tactics of wearying the garrison out. In December, as the ammunition of the besieged was failing, the Grand-Master agreed to surrender. Free departure within ten days was conceded to all the Latin Knights; any who chose to remain in the island were to be free from taxes for five years, were not to be subject to the child-tribute, and were to enjoy free exercise of their religion. Hostages were exchanged, and Solyman withdrew his army some miles from the walls to allow the garrison to depart in peace. But it was hard to keep the Turkish troops under control, and on Christmas-day a body of soldiers burst in and sacked the city. The majority of the Knights sought refuge in Crete, to find eight years later an abiding home in Malta.
By the capture of the two bulwarks of Christendom which had defied the conqueror of Constantinople, the young Sultan established his fame. Belgrade and Rhodes fallen, as Pope Adrian wrote, “the passages to Hungary, Sicily, and Italy lie open to him.” There was as much cause for alarm in the west as there had been on the captures of Negroponte and Scodra. But the conqueror could not immediately follow up his victories. Now, as often, events in the eastern dominions of the Sultan procured a respite for his western neighbours. A revolt in Egypt and disquiet in Asia Minor claimed Solyman’s attention, and not till the fourth year after the fall of Rhodes could he march on Buda, “to pluck up” in the words of a Turkish historian “the strong-rooted tree of evil unbelief from its place beside the rose-bed of Islam.” Sooner or later, this expedition was inevitable; but it may have been hastened by a year or two through the action of one of the Christian powers.
After the sudden disaster of Pavia (February, 1525) Francis I, a captive in his enemy’s hands, looked abroad for succour, and the only European power he could discern strong enough to bear effectual help was the Turk, to whose extirpation he had devoted himself some years before. No scruple was felt in appealing to the common foe. The French King’s mother dispatched an ambassador to Solyman with rich presents; but in passing through Bosnia he and his companions were slain and robbed by the sanjak-beg. A second envoy, with a letter written by the King himself in his captivity at Madrid, suggesting that the Sultan should attack the King of Hungary, arrived safely at Constantinople. Without committing himself Solyman returned a gracious answer in this style:
“I who am the Sultan of Sultans, the Sovereign of Sovereigns, the distributor of crowns to the monarchs of the surface of the globe, the shadow of God on the earth, the Sultan and Padishah of the White Sea, the Black Sea, Rumelia, Anatolia, Caramania, Rum, Sulkadr, Diarbekr, Kurdistan, Azerbijan, Persia, Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, all Arabia, Yemen, and other countries which my noble ancestors (may God brighten their tombs) conquered and which my august majesty has likewise conquered with my flaming sword, Sultan Sulayman Khan, son of Sultan Selim, son of Sultan Bayazid; you who are Francis, King of France, you have sent a letter to my Porte the refuge of sovereigns”; then he heartens the captive, and observes, “night and day our horse is saddled, and our sword girt on.”
This was the first embassy of a French King to the Porte, the beginning of France’s oriental politics. It was naturally the interest of the Sultan to cultivate friendly relations with the western neighbours of Germany and the Empire. But Francis hardly looked beyond the immediate emergency; and at the beginning of 1526, when he won his freedom by the treaty of Madrid, he undertook to help the Emperor in an expedition against the Turks. The efforts of the Popes meanwhile to organise a Crusade had failed, as before. Adrian had proclaimed a holy truce for three years; the Minorites had dreamed of an army of crusaders furnished by all the monasteries of Europe “for the confusion and destruction of the Turks.” The Reformation reacted on the Eastern Question. The mere fact that the Roman See continuously and consistently exhorted to a Crusade was to the adherents of the new religious movement an argument against a Turkish war. Luther himself announced the principle, that to resist the Turks was to resist God, who had sent them as a visitation. At a safe distance, this was a comfortable doctrine. But some years later, when the visitation drew nigh to the heart of Germany itself, the Reformer was somewhat embarrassed to explain away his earlier utterances.
The diffusion of the doctrine of the Reformers seems to have been one of the causes which slackened and weakened the resistance of Hungary to the Ottoman invasion. But the main cause was that King Louis was not competent as ruler or as leader; he had not the trust of his kingdom, and he was unable to cope with the opposition and dilatoriness of the Diet. The transactions of the Diet during the crisis are a melancholy comedy: the King and the councillors severally disclaiming any responsibility for consequences of the coming invasion and the safety of the realm. Help from his neighbours Louis could not expect. Venice had congratulated Solyman on the capture of Rhodes, and was still on most friendly terms with him; Poland had just concluded a peace with him. The distant kingdoms of England and Portugal promised subsidies, but it was on his brother-in-law Charles V that Louis depended. Charles sent reinforcements, but they came too late, two days after the decision of the campaign. The most competent general the Hungarians could have chosen would have been John Zapolya, the voivod of Transylvania, but he was not trusted. The command devolved upon Louis himself in default of a better man; and at the start want of money rendered it difficult to mobilise. It was decided to defend the line of the Save, but when it came to the point the lukewarmness of the magnates caused this plan to be abandoned. The only really energetic man in the land was Archbishop Tomory, who did what he could to make defensible Peterwardein, the chief fortress of the Danube between the mouths of the Drave and the Save.
The Sultan set out towards the end of April with an army of 100,000 and 300 cannons; and his diary chronicles the heavy rainfalls which made his advance painful and slow, so that he did not reach Belgrade till July 9, when he was joined by his infantry (the Janissaries) which had been transported up the Danube by a flotilla. Ibrahim, the Grand Vezir, had been sent forward to take Peterwardein, and it was in Turkish hands before the end of July. After the fall of this bulwark, a bloody sword was carried, according to custom, throughout the Hungarian land, summoning men to help their country in the hour of her utmost jeopardy. Zapolya was waiting uncertain what to do. Receiving a command from the King to join the army he obeyed slowly, but only reached Szegedin on the Theiss where he remained. There is not the least proof that he was acting in collusion with the Turk; the most that