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136 DESTRUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE their lives by abjuring Christianity, had their throats cut by order of the sultan. 1 The battle at Nicopolis gave back to Bajazed almost at once all that the allies had been able to take from him. The defeat of Sigismund, with his band of French, German, and Italian knights, sent dismay to their countrymen and the princes of the West. In the same year, Bajazed gained successes over the Moslem prince of Caramania and a Turkish pretender at Sinope, rebels who had been induced to rise in the hope that they might take advantage of the attack of Sigismund and his allies. The sultan's great object, however, was to complete his triumphs by the capture of Constantinople. His grand vizier had, in 1396, while blockading the city, urged the inhabitants to declare for the young Prince John, who was the Turkish protege. On refusal, Bajazed sat down to besiege the city, and only abandoned the idea of an assault when it was pointed out that to do so would make enemies of all the Christian powers. In 1396, apparently immediately after the battle of Nicopolis, and as an essential step towards the capture of the city, he built on the Bosporus the castle still remain- ing at Anatolia-Hissar, about six miles from the city. It served at once, and continued to serve until 1453, as a useful base of operations. After having completed it, says Chalcondylas, he went to besiege Byzance, and summoned Manuel to surrender the city. 2 The emperor, who had just welcomed six hundred French knights, sent by Charles the Sixth of France, did not deign to reply. Two years later, in 1398, in order to avoid an attack by the Turks, who were drawing near the capital with an army numbering ten thousand, nominally to support John, Manuel consented, as we have seen, to share the throne with his nephew, and 1 Gibbon suggests, on the authority of the Hist. Anonyme de St-Denys, that the French had murdered their Turkish prisoners on the eve of the engagement, and that the sultan was merely retaliating (Gibbon, vii. 37). 2 Chalc. ii. 807.