Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/97

THE TUBES 63 It was in vain that the emperor entered into league with bands of Tartars or with other Turks to attack the armies of Othman, for the forces of this skilful leader were too numerous to be subdued. Brousa had to purchase peace from him. Othman failed, however, to capture Ehodes, which was bravely defended by the military knights from the West, and a monk named Hilarion at the head of the imperial troops gained some successes. The imperial troops succeeded also in 1310 in defeating a certain Mahomet whose dominions were in Caramania. But even with the aid of a band of Tartars who had allied themselves with the emperor, who was in command of twenty thousand of the imperial troops, little could be done to check Othman's steady progress. Meantime in Europe, on the north shore of the Marmora, the band of Turks who had been associated with the Grand Company, but who did not acknowledge the rule of Othman, besieged Ganos and laid waste the surrounding country. The troubles which arose a few years later between the Emperor Andronicus the Second and young Andronicus, enabled the Turks steadily to encroach on the empire in Asia Minor, and their introduction as partisans in the civil war which went on in 1322 familiarised them and probably Othman himself with inroads into the country between Constantinople and Gallipoli. 1 So far we have been concerned almost exclusively with those portions of the Asiatic army and the hordes which followed it which came westward to the south of the Black Sea. But it must be noted that the body of invaders of the same race who had come westward to the north of that sea, and who had attacked Russia, Poland, and Hungary, had constantly received additions to their numbers. This northern division was possibly more numerous than the Turks in Asia Minor. As early as 1265, a certain Timour, 1 Gregoras states that the Turkish ships employed by Andronicus plundered all the coasts and the islands (viii. 10). Chalcondylas claims that Othman with eight thousand Turks who occupied the Thracian Chersonesus was entirely defeated.