Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/183

This page needs to be proofread.

STEUGGLES BETWEEN BAJaZED'S SONS 149 remnant of the ancient empire, and seemed as if it required only one more attempt, and that not needing that the sultan should put forth all his strength, to secure its capture. The battle of Angora saved it and gave it half a century more of life. A struggle which lasted for six years began between the sons of Bajazed. Suliman, in 1405, sought to ally himself with the emperor, and his proposals show how low the battle of Angora had brought the Turkish pretensions. He offered to cede Salonica and all country in the Balkan peninsula to the south-west of that city as well as the towns on the Marmora to Manuel and his son John, now associated as emperor, and to send his brother and sister as hostages to Constantinople. The arrangement was accepted. Suliman, having thus made himself secure, attacked his brother Isa in 1405, defeated and killed him. 1 Another brother, Mousa, in the following year, attacked the combined troops of Suliman and Manuel in Thrace, but the Serbians and Bulgarians deserted the younger brother, and thereupon Suliman occupied Adrianople. Manuel consented to give his granddaughter in marriage to Suliman, who in return gave up not merely Salonica but many seaports in Asia Minor : a gift which was rather in the nature of a promise than a delivery, since they were not in his possession. Unhappily, Suliman, like many of his race, had alternate fits of great energy and great lethargy, and was given over to drunkenness and to debauchery. This caused disaffection among the Turks ; and Mousa, taking advantage of it, led an army in 1409, composed of Turks and Wallachs, against him. The Janissaries, who were dissatisfied with the lack of energy displayed by their sultan, deserted and went over to the side of Mousa. Suliman fled with the intention of escaping to Constantinople, but was captured while sleeping off a drinking bout and killed. 1 Chalc. iv. p. 170. Ducas says he disappeared in Caramania ; Phr. p. 86, that he was bowstrung. There was, according to Chalcondylas, another son of Bajazed, the youngest, also named Isa, who was baptised and died in Con- stantinople in 1417. This was probably the son given over as hostage to Manuel.