Three years after conquering
Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan, Muhammad II, at the head of over
100,000 Turks, marched towards the strategic fortress town of Belgrade,
key to Western Europe, in the spring of 1456.
Cognizant of all the death, destruction, and mindboggling atrocities this massive Muslim march presaged—memory of the sack of Constantinople
was still fresh—a great panic swept through the Danube region. Even
Hungarian king Ladislaus V fled his capital to Vienna (on the pretext
that he was going “hunting”).
Only one stood his
ground—only John Hunyadi, the Transylvanian voivode who had long been a
thorn in the Turks’ side. Even as the king fled west, Hunyadi raced to
the eastern frontier—towards, not away from, the Turkish army. He
immediately manned the fortress of Belgrade with 6,000 veteran fighters
at his own expense. Although he implored the higher nobles for aid, few
were responsive.
Meanwhile, the 70-year-old Franciscan friar, John
Capistrano, went to southern Hungary calling on the people to take the
cross and defend their nation against Islam. His “burning zeal,
soul-piercing eloquence, and heroic austerities” set tens of thousands
of the lower classes aflame. Before long, a massive crusader force of
some 40,000 peasants was following Capistrano.
The world had
turned upside down: “Where is the French king,” a contemporary document
inquires, “who wants to call himself the Christian king? Where are the
kings of England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden…? Unarmed peasants,
blacksmiths, tailors, tradesmen are walking in front of the armies!”
By
late June, Muhammad’s vast forces had reached and surrounded Belgrade.
If it fell, all of Hungary and further west would be exposed to and
eventually inundated by the hordes of Asia.
Muhammad ordered the
heavy bombardment to begin on July 4. The crashing and careening cannon
fire was so thunderously loud that it could be heard for a hundred miles
around. Twelve days later, on July 16, massive breaches punctuated this
once formidable fortress.
