to my citations.
“There was even more. A large number of dignitaries began to renounce their titles and incomes because, without them, they were not liable to answer to the tax and (pre)war duties of the Porte. In turn, the Sultan had many of the spahis impaled, so as to instil fear in the others. However, those were just moves of desperation.
“Disconsolate, Selim II returned to Constantinople and tried to uncover the reasons for the defeat. He held insufferably long sessions of the Dīvān, interrogating everyone around him, debating with the Grand Vizier until deep into the night about the causes and consequences of the loss, he talked to everyone who was considered to be wise and experienced, he questioned soothsayers, he confronted prophets, and everywhere and to everyone he repeated that ‘such a misfortune had never ever occurred to the Turkish empire before.’ He did not try to conceal his perturbation in the least.”
I continued to support this rare historical illustration of panic with facts from the chronicles of contemporaries.
“The Sultan in this frenzy of fear made several consistently irrational moves: of those people who directly participated in the battle at Lepanto, he punished some without reason, and he rewarded others undeservedly. The second vizier, old Pertev Mehmed-pasha, who had been against the conflict but still fought courageously in it – the Sultan removed his title as vizier and did not allow him to even try to justify the faults of others (because he had none himself). At the same time he rewarded the Algerian pirate, bey Uluj Ali (who had also been against going to battle!), because he regarded him to be a hero. In fact, when Uluj Ali realised that events were not unfolding favourably for the Turks, he retreated from the battle in good time, or even better said, too early. He snuck away from the Preveza harbour, gathering up the remains of the flotilla along the way. He managed to gather eighty-odd ships, some intact and others damaged, and flying a banner he had stolen from the Maltese knights, he sailed into the harbour at Constantinople, practically like a victor. In return for this bravery, he was awarded the position as the new admiral of the Ottoman fleet. (Or perhaps the Sultan, actually, was clever enough to fill the position of the killed kaptan derya Muezzinzade in the least troublesome way.)”
Of course, Pamuk knew more about this than I did. He added:
“About the Sultan’s psychological state, I gathered most from his behaviour toward his favourite and oldest friend Jelal Celebi, with whom for years he had been drinking and carousing, sharing all his secrets with him. He renounced him and ostracised him from the court, just because the Grand Mufti Ebusuud Efendi marked him as one of those guilty of the defeat (even though down to this very day it is difficult to connect any of his roles with the battle or the decisions made about it).
“It should be said that both the Sultan and the Grand Vizier, in terms of their relationship, kept their wits about them and they did not turn on each other. Most likely they both realised that it would just make things much worse, and that, in such a situation, it would be hard for either of them without the other.
“Both of them made gestures worthy of praise: Mehmed-pasha did not ever even refer to his timely opposition to starting the battle of Lepanto, nor did he ever repeat it again, and he did not use the opportunity to blame it all on someone else – which he easily could have. The Sultan did not show even the slightest signs of anger toward the Grand Vizier, and rage was out of the question. He let him know, in various ways, that he was aware that Mehmed-pasha Sokollu had been right. But he never said it out loud.”
I asked Pamuk, “What do you think: when the Sultan was deciding whether to go to battle with the European fleet or not, did he take into account the Christian background of his first and second vizier, and that of the pirate bey? Did he think about those things like the admiral of the fleet did?”
“I’m sure he did not. Whatever kind of person any of the Sultans in power were, each of them had hundreds of chances to test the loyalty of their subjects. Think about it. Why were there so many steps in front of each of them to advance in their careers? And why did every promotion take so long? Because, even the smallest step taken was a test of the marriage between ambition and loyalty! The Sultan did not need to lower himself to the level of insulting his subjects like Muezzinzade did. If the Sultan had any doubt, someone lost their head.”
Although Bajica’s age seemed to be a constant problem for his advance -ment at the beginning, after a time it became a desirable addition to the talent, dedication and focus he showed in his studies. He was sought after not only by those boys who did not in the least like being subjugated to a foreign faith or to others’ wishes, but he was also quite often consulted by his teachers and by officers in various services of the Sultan. He was noticed by everyone and thus, with a dozen or so other young men who had also stood out, he was destined for an education at an accelerated pace.
It was only three years into his stay at the Edirne caravansary, together with the other gifted young men, that the experience of fighting a war was forced into his life. Five years after the capture of Belgrade, in April of 1526, Sultan Suleiman set off on a new campaign against Hungary. His favourite, Grand Vizier Ibrahim-pasha, by background a Greek from Parga, demanded that the mature boys from the caravansary accompany the ruler so that they would become war-hardened as quickly as possible, ready to become officers. Thereby, Deli Husrev-pasha, as the one who carried out secret and important missions, once again determined the path to success for the young men. He left his brother Mustafa, as being too young, at the court in Edirne (even though he had arrived at the caravansary before Bajica/Mehmed and was thereby ‘older’ than him).
In his first life as Bajo Sokolović, Bajica had thought of Belgrade mostly as a capital city in which he, in fact, had never set foot. News from that gorgeous fortification had reached him, like it did to others, from merchants who often visited unfamiliar places. Even when he discounted part of their stories as the normal exaggeration of facts, even then the remainder indicated that it was undoubtedly a proper, seriously fortified city. He had thought about the city often, but had no desire to go there. Because nearby he had the River Drina which, he reflected, could not be much different from the Sava or Danube; and in other places he had seen several smaller fortified towns, and he could therefore imagine what a capital might look like. Travellers told that, except for its size, it was not much different from the town previously built in 1404 under the Serbian despot, Stefan Lazarević.
Since he had become Mehmed Sokollu, however, his thoughts about Belgrade had gone further. For five years now, since the town had been taken by Sultan Suleiman, it had become primarily Ottoman, and then the most important Ottoman point of departure (and therefore of resistance) toward Central Europe and the starting point of the old dream to conquer, after Hungary, the Austrian empire and, of course, to get to the gates of Vienna. Bajica now saw the place also as an Ottoman who had mastered strategy, planning and military strength, but who also possessed an imposed belief in invincibility. At the same time, a new emotion began to recur that he recognised in amazement because it rose in anticipation in him about a city that he had never seen. The only answer he could offer himself in this questioning was found in the probability that this was part of the resistance of the still crude duality of which he was made. And when he did see the city, he realised that he had to fall in love with it as he had – ahead of time and in his head. Looking at the gates, the towers, the ramparts and the buildings within this Fiçir bayir,11 and its European style houses next to Kalemegdan12 connected by cobblestone streets and alleys, the old Orthodox churches and the mosques being built, with a fountain here and there and an outer city gate; seeing all that, he understood why he had had to fall in love with it. Belgrade was like him: a half-breed with clear signs of the addition of a new life on the existing one, quite different from the previous one. Still, in the city he saw both Serbs and Turks. They were right next to each other; whether they liked each other, put up with each other or simply stomached each other, he could not tell. But it
