Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures

  Vasco Núñez de Balboa stares the way the man’s hand is pointing, into the distance where the mountains disappear in the pallor of the sky. That soft and seductive word, Birù, has written itself at once on his soul. His heart thuds restlessly. For the second time in his life, he has found great, unhoped-for promise. The first message, Comagre’s information about the nearby sea, has proved true. He has found the beach of pearls and the Mar del Sur. Perhaps the second message will be the same; perhaps he will succeed in discovering and conquering the Inca domain, the golden land of this earth.

  THE GODS GRANT ONLY ONE IMMORTAL DEED

  Núñez de Balboa is still staring into the distance with a longing gaze. The word Birù, “Peru”, rings in his mind like a golden bell. But he knows—with painful resignation—that he cannot venture to find out more this time. You cannot conquer a kingdom with two or three dozen worn-out men. So first he must go back to Darién, and later, with all the forces he can gather, set out on the way he has now discovered to find the new Ophir. But the march back is as hard as the march out to find the ocean. Once again the Spaniards must fight their way through the jungle, once again they must repel attacks by the natives. And they are not a fighting unit now, but a small group of men sick with fever and staggering with the last of their strength—Balboa himself is near death, and has to be carried in a hammock by the Indios. After four months of terrible stress and strain, he gets back to Darién on 19th January 1514. But one of the great deeds of history has been done. Balboa has fulfilled his promise, all who ventured into the unknown with him are rich now; his soldiers have brought home from the coast of the southern sea treasures never known to Columbus and the other conquistadors, and all the other colonists get their share. One-fifth is put aside for the Crown, and no one begrudges the conqueror the fact that he treats his dog Leoncico like any other warrior as a reward for tearing the flesh from the bones of the unhappy natives, and presents him with 500 gold pesos. Not a man in the colony now quarrels with Balboa’s authority as governor after such an achievement. The adventurer and rebel is honoured like a god, and he can prepare with pride to send Spain the news that he has performed the greatest deed for the Crown of Castile since Columbus. The sun of his good fortune, rising steeply, has broken through all the clouds that have loomed over his life until now. It is at its zenith.

  But Balboa’s happiness does not last long. On a radiant June day a few months later the astonished people of Darién flock down to the beach. A sail has been sighted on the horizon, and already it is like a miracle in this forsaken corner of the world. And look, a second sail appears beside it, a third, a fourth, a fifth; and soon there are ten, no, fifteen, no, twenty—a whole fleet making for the harbour. Soon everyone knows: all this is the work of Núñez de Balboa’s letter, but not the letter with the news of his triumph—which has not yet reached Spain—but the earlier letter in which, for the first time, he described the native chief’s account of the nearby southern sea and the land of gold, asking for an army of 1,000 men to conquer those lands. The Spanish Crown did not hesitate to equip such a mighty fleet for that expedition, but no one in Seville and Barcelona thought of entrusting so important a task to a rebellious adventurer with such a bad reputation as Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Their own choice of governor is sent. A rich, aristocratic and highly regarded man of sixty, Pedro Arias Dávila, usually called Pedrarias, comes with the fleet to act as the king’s governor and restore order to the colony at last, do justice for all the crimes so far committed, find the southern sea and conquer the promised land of gold.

  The situation is an awkward one for Pedrarias. On the one hand he has the mission of calling the rebel Núñez de Balboa to account for his earlier hunting-down of the first governor, and if he is proved guilty putting him in chains or executing him; on the other, he has to discover the southern sea. However, as soon as his boat comes ashore he learns that this same Núñez de Balboa, whom he is to bring to justice, has done the great deed himself, that the rebel has already celebrated the triumph meant for him, and has done the Spanish Crown the greatest service since the discovery of America. Of course he cannot now put such a man’s head on the block as if he were a common criminal; he must greet him courteously and offer honest congratulations. From this moment, however, Núñez de Balboa is lost. Pedrarias will never forgive his rival for having done the deed that he himself was to do, and that would have ensured his eternal fame through the ages. Of course, he must hide his hatred for their hero from the colonists for fear of embittering them too soon; the investigation is adjourned, and Pedrarias even makes a show of peace by betrothing his own daughter, whom he has left in Spain, to Núñez de Balboa. But his hatred and jealousy of Balboa are in no way mollified, only heightened when a decree arrives from Spain, where they have at last heard of Balboa’s deed, bestowing a suitable title on the former rebel making him an Adelantado, and telling Pedrarias to consult him on every important matter. This country is too small for two governors; one will have to give way, one of the two must go under. Vasco Núñez de Balboa senses that the sword hangs over him, for military and legal power are in the hands of Pedrarias. So for a second time he tries flight, which served him so well the first time, flight into immortality. He asks Pedrarias for permission to equip an expedition to explore the coast of the southern sea and conquer the land for a long way around. But the former rebel’s secret intention is to make himself independent of any control on the other side of the sea, build his own fleet, be master of his own province and if possible also conquer the legendary Birù, that Ophir of the New World. Pedrarias cunningly agrees. If Balboa perishes in the attempt, all the better. If he succeeds, there will still be time to get rid of that over-ambitious man.

  So Núñez de Balboa embarks upon his new flight into immortality, and the second is perhaps yet more magnificent than the first, even if the same fame has not been allotted to it in history, which honours only success. This time Balboa does not cross the isthmus only with his men. He has the wood, planks, sails, anchors and pulleys to build four brigantines dragged over the mountains by thousands of natives. Once he has a fleet over there, he can take possession of all the coasts, conquer the pearl islands and the legendary land of Peru. This time, however, fate is against the adventurer, and he keeps encountering new resistance. On his march through the moist jungle worms eat the wood, the planks rot and are useless. Not to be discouraged, Balboa has more trees cut down and fresh planks prepared on the Gulf of Panama. His energy performs true wonders—all seems to be going well, the brigantines are already built, the first in the Pacific Ocean. Then a sudden tornado floods the rivers where the ships lie ready. They are torn away and capsize in the sea. Balboa must begin again for the third time, and now at last he manages to complete two brigantines. Only two more, three more are needed now, and then he can set off and conquer the land of which he dreams day and night, ever since that native pointed south with his outstretched hand, and he heard, for the first time, the tempting name Birù. Recruit a few brave officers and good reinforcements for his crews, and he can found his realm! Only a few more months, only a little luck to go with his innate daring, and the name of the conqueror of the Incas would be known to world history not as Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, but as Núñez de Balboa.

  Even to its favourites, however, fate is not always generous. The gods seldom grant mortal man more than a single immortal deed.

  DOWNFALL

  With iron-hard energy, Núñez de Balboa has prepared his great enterprise. But the success of his audacity in itself puts him in danger, for the suspicious eyes of Pedrarias anxiously observe his subordinate’s intentions. Perhaps news has reached him, through treachery, of Balboa’s ambitions to rule his own province; perhaps it is just that he jealously fears a second success on the part of the former rebel. At all events, he suddenly sends Balboa a very friendly letter, asking him to come back to Acla, a town near Darién, for a discussion before he sets out on his voyage of conquest. Balboa, hoping to get more sup
port from Pedrarias in the form of reinforcements, accepts the invitation and immediately turns back. Outside the gates of the town, a small troop of soldiers marches towards him, apparently to greet him; he joyfully goes to meet the men and to embrace their leader, his brother-in-arms of many years, his companion in the discovery of the southern sea, his great friend Francisco Pizarro.

  But Pizarro lays a heavy hand on his shoulder and tells him he is under arrest. Pizarro too longs for immortality, he too longs to conquer the land of gold, and perhaps he is not sorry to know that so bold a predecessor will be out of the way. Pedrarias the governor opens the trial for alleged rebellion, and it goes ahead fast and in defiance of justice. A few days later Vasco Núñez de Balboa and the most loyal of his companions go to the block. The executioner’s sword flashes, and in a second, as his head rolls, the first human eyes ever to see both the oceans that embrace our earth at the same time are extinguished for ever.

  THE CONQUEST OF BYZANTIUM

  29 May 1453

  THE DISCOVERY OF DANGER

  On 5th February 1451, a secret messenger goes to Asia Minor to see the eldest son of Sultan Murad, the twenty-one-year-old Mahomet, bringing him the news that his father is dead. Without exchanging so much as a word with his ministers and advisers the prince, as wily as he is energetic, mounts the best of his horses and whips the magnificent pure-blooded animal the 120 miles to the Bosporus, crossing to the European bank immediately after passing Gallipoli. Only there does he disclose the news of his father’s death to his most faithful followers. He swiftly gathers together a select troop of men, bent as he is from the first on putting an end to any other claim to the throne, and leads them to Adrianople, where he is indeed recognized without demur as the master of the Ottoman Empire. His very first action shows Mahomet’s fierce determination as a ruler. As a precaution, he disposes of any rivals of his own blood in advance by having his young brother, still a minor, drowned in his bath, and immediately afterwards—once again giving evidence of his forethought and ruthlessness—sends the murderer whom he employed to do the deed to join the murdered boy in death.

  In Byzantium, they are horrified to hear that this young and passionate prince Mahomet, who is avid for fame, has succeeded the more thoughtful Murad as Sultan of the Turks. A hundred scouts have told them that the ambitious young man has sworn to get his hands on the former capital of the world, and that in spite of his youth he spends his days and nights in strategic consideration of this, his life’s great plan. At the same time, all the reports unanimously agree on the extraordinary military and diplomatic abilities of the new Padishah. Mahomet is both devout and cruel, passionate and malicious, a scholar and a lover of art who reads his Caesar and the biographies of the ancient Romans in Latin, and at the same time a barbarian who sheds blood as freely as water. This man, with his fine, melancholy eyes and sharp nose like a parrot’s beak, proves to be a tireless worker, a bold soldier and an unscrupulous diplomat all in one, and those dangerous powers all circle around the same idea: to outdo by far with his own deeds his grandfather Bajazet and his father Murad, who first showed Europe the military superiority of the new Turkish nation. But his initial bid for more power, it is generally known, is felt, will be to take Byzantium, the last remaining jewel in the imperial crown of Constantine and Justinian.

  That jewel lies exposed to a fist determined to seize it, well within reach. Today you can easily walk through the Byzantine Empire, those imperial lands of Eastern Rome that once spanned the world, stretching from Persia to the Alps and on to the deserts of Asia, and it will take you only three days, whereas in the past it took many months to travel them; sad to say, nothing is now left of that empire but a head without a body—Constantinople, the city of Constantine, old Byzantium. Furthermore, only a part of that Byzantium still belongs to the emperor, the Basileus, and that is today’s city of Istanbul, while Galata has already fallen to the Genoese and all the land beyond the city wall to the Turks. The realm of the last Roman emperor is only the size of a plate, merely a gigantic circular wall surrounding churches, the palace and a tangle of houses, all of them together known as Byzantium. Pitilessly plundered by the crusaders, depopulated by the plague, exhausted by constantly defending itself from nomadic people, torn by national and religious quarrels, the city cannot summon up men or courage to resist, of its own accord, an enemy that has been holding it clasped in its tentacles so long. The purple of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Dragases, is a cloak made of wind, his crown a toy of fate. But for the very reason that it is already surrounded by the Turks, and is sacrosanct to all the lands of the western world because they have jointly shared its culture, to Europe Byzantium is a symbol of its honour. Only if united Christendom protects this last and already crumbling bulwark in the east can Hagia Sophia continue to be a basilica of the faith, the last and at the same time the loveliest cathedral of East Roman Christianity.

  Constantine realizes the danger at once. Understandably afraid, for all Mahomet’s talk of peace, he sends messenger after messenger to Italy: messengers to the Pope, messengers to Venice, to Genoa, asking for galleys and soldiers to come to his aid. But Rome hesitates, and so does Venice. The old theological rift still yawns between the faith of the east and the faith of the west. The Greek Church hates the Roman Church, and its Patriarch refuses to recognize the Pope as the greatest of God’s shepherds. It is true that at two councils, held in Ferrara and Florence some time ago, it was decided that the two Churches should be reunified in view of the Turkish threat, and with that in mind Byzantium should be assured of help against the Turks. But once the danger was no longer so acute, the Greek synods refused to enforce the agreement, and only now that Mahomet has become Sultan does necessity triumph over the obstinacy of the Orthodox Church. At the same time as sending its plea for timely help, Byzantium tells Rome that it will agree to a unified Church. Now galleys are equipped with soldiers and ammunition, and the papal legate sails on one of the ships to conduct a solemn reconciliation between the two western Churches, letting the world know that whoever attacks Byzantium is challenging the united power of Christendom.

  THE MASS OF RECONCILIATION

  It is a fine spectacle on that December day: the magnificent basilica, whose former glory of marble, mosaic and other precious, shining materials we can hardly imagine in the mosque that it has now become, as it celebrates a great festival of reconciliation. Constantine the Basileus appears with his imperial crown and surrounded by the dignitaries of his realm, to act as the highest witness and guarantor of eternal harmony. The huge cathedral is overcrowded, lit by countless candles; Isidorus, the legate of the Pope in Rome, and the Orthodox patriarch Gregorius celebrate Mass before the altar in brotherly harmony, and for the first time the name of the Pope is once again included in the prayers; for the first time devout song rises simultaneously in Latin and Greek to the vaulted roof of the everlasting cathedral, while the body of St Spiridon is carried in solemn procession by the clergy of the two Churches, now at peace with one another. East and west, the two faiths, seem to be bound for ever, and at last, after years and years of terrible hostility, the idea of Europe, the meaning behind the west, seems to be fulfilled.

  But moments of reason and reconciliation are brief and transient in history. Even as voices mingle devoutly in common prayer in the church, outside it in a monastery cell the learned monk Genadios is already denouncing Latin scholars and the betrayal of the true faith; no sooner has reason woven the bond of peace than it is torn in two again by fanaticism, and as little as the Greek clergy think of true submission do Byzantium’s friends at the other end of the Mediterranean remember the help they promised. A few galleys, a few hundred soldiers are indeed sent, but then the city is abandoned to its fate.

  THE WAR BEGINS

  Despots preparing for war speak at length of peace before they are fully armed. Mahomet himself, on ascending the throne, received the envoys of Emperor Constantine with the friendliest and most reassuring of words
, swearing publicly and solemnly by God and his prophets, by the angels and the Koran, that he will most faithfully observe the treaties with the Basileus. At the same time, however, the wily Sultan is concluding an agreement of mutual neutrality with the Hungarians and the Serbs for a period of three years—within which time he intends to take possession of the city at his leisure. Only then, after Mahomet has promised peace and sworn to keep it for long enough, will he provoke a war by breaking the peace.

  So far only the Asian bank of the Bosporus has belonged to the Turks, and ships have been able to pass unhindered from Byzantium through the strait to the Black Sea and the granaries that supply their grain. Now Mahomet cuts off that access (without so much as troubling to find any justification) by ordering a fortress to be built at Rumili Hisari, at the narrowest point of the strait, where the bold Xerxes crossed it in the days of the ancient Persians. Overnight thousands—no, tens of thousands—of labourers go over to the European bank, where fortifications are forbidden by treaty (but what do treaties matter to men of violence?), and to maintain themselves they not only plunder the nearby fields and tear down houses, they also demolish the famous old church of St Michael to get stone for their stronghold; the Sultan in person directs the building work, never resting by day or night, and Byzantium has to watch helplessly as its free access to the Black Sea is cut off, in defiance of law and the treaties. Already the first ships trying to pass the sea that has been free until now come under fire in the middle of peacetime, and after this first successful trial of strength any further pretence is superfluous. In August 1452 Mahomet calls together all his agas and pashas, and openly tells them of his intention to attack and take Byzantium. The announcement is soon followed by the deed itself; heralds are sent out through the whole Turkish Empire, men capable of bearing arms are summoned, and on 5th April 1453 a vast Ottoman army, like a storm tide suddenly rising, surges over the plain of Byzantium to just outside the city walls.