George Shepley

George Shepley became the military governor of federally-occupied Louisiana in June 1862 and served until March 1864. In effect, Shepley functioned as an aide to Gen. Benjamin Butler and, after Butler’s departure, Gen. Nathaniel Banks.  Representing and communicating the wishes of his military superiors, Shepley acted primarily as a liaison between Union officials and the citizens of occupied Louisiana, generally unable to please either constituency.

George Foster Shepley was born in Saco, Maine, on January 1, 1819. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1837, he practiced law in Bangor from 1839 to 1843.  From 1848 to 1849 and 1853 to 1861 Shepley served as a US district attorney. During the Civil War  (1861-1865), he was commissioned colonel of the Twelfth Maine Infantry in 1861 and then promoted to the rank of brigadier general a year later.

Having met and befriended Benjamin Butler at the 1860 Democratic National Convention, Shepley and his unit fought under Butler’s command in the 1862 capture of New Orleans from Confederate forces.  When Butler became administrator of New Orleans, he named Shepley acting mayor in April 1862 and governor of Louisiana a little more than a month later.   As governor, Shepley attempted to appease citizen groups while acting as a spokesperson for higher authorities in the Union, perhaps an impossible task.  When Nathaniel Banks replaced Butler as commander of the Department of the Gulf in December 1862, Shepley soon lost what little power he had.  Banks undermined Shepley’s leadership by removing his power to decide civil cases and supervision of the provost marshal’s office. Following a special election held in 1864, LouisianaUnionist Michael Hahn replaced Shepley and became the first civil governor of the state since secession.

After leaving Louisiana, Shepley was assigned to the District of Eastern Virginia where he became military governor in 1865.  In June of that year, Shepley resigned his commission and returned to Maine where he practiced law until becoming a US circuit court judge in 1869. He died in Portland, Maine, on July 20, 1878.

Adapted from Minnie Thomas Bailey’s entry for the Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, a publication of the Louisiana Historical Association in cooperation with the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Sources: E. J. Warner, Generals in Blue (1964); Joseph G. Dawson, III, Army Generals and Reconstruction: Louisiana, 1862-1877 (1982).

The Winter War

The underlying cause of the Winter War was Soviet concern about Nazi Germany's expansionism. With a population of only 3.5 million, Finland itself was not a threat to the Soviet Union, but its territory, located strategically near Leningrad, could be used as a base by the Germans. The Soviets initiated negotiations with Finland that ran intermittently from the spring of 1938 to the summer of 1939, but nothing was achieved. Finnish assurances that the country would never allow German violations of its neutrality were not accepted by the Soviets, who asked for more concrete guarantees. In particular, the Soviets sought a base on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, from which they could block the Gulf of Finland from hostile naval forces. The Finnish government, however, felt that accepting these terms would only lead to further, increasingly unreasonable, demands.

The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939, by bringing together these former archenemies, revolutionized European politics. The secret protocol of the pact gave the Soviet Union a sphere of influence that included Finland, the Baltic states, and parts of Eastern Europe. When the Germans won a stunningly quick victory over Poland in September 1939, the Soviets hastened to take control in their sphere of influence. In addition to the land taken from Poland in September, the Soviets quickly turned the three Baltic states into quasi-protectorates. Finland followed these events closely; thus, when, on October 5, the Soviets invited Finland to discuss "concrete political questions," the Finns felt that they were next on the Soviets' agenda. Finland's first reaction was to mobilize its field army on October 6, and on October 10 Finland's reservists were called up in what amounted to a general mobilization. The following day the two countries began negotiations that were to last until November 8.

In the negotiations, the main Soviet demand was that the Finns cede small parcels of territory, including a naval base on the Gulf of Finland that the Soviets wanted to help them protect Leningrad. In exchange, the Soviets offered to cede to Finland about 8,800 square kilometers of Karelia along the Finnish border, or about twice the amount of land to be ceded by Finland. Unlike the previous negotiations, these talks were conducted in the public eye, and the Finnish people, like the government, were almost unanimous in rejecting the Soviet proposals. The ostensible reasons for Finland's refusal were to protect its neutral status and to preserve its territorial integrity. In addition, moving the Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus away from Leningrad would have given the Soviets possession of much of the line of Finnish fortifications, the loss of which would have weakened Finland's defenses. Underlying the hardline Finnish negotiating position were a basic mistrust of the Soviets and a feeling that the Soviet offer was merely a first step in subjugating Finland. In this suspicion of an ulterior motive, the Finns were matched by the Soviets, who believed that Finland would willingly assist Germany in a future war.

The Finnish government appears to have underestimated the Soviet determination to achieve these national security goals. The two main Finnish negotiators, Vainö Tanner and Juho Paasikivi, vainly urged the Finnish government to make more concessions, because they realized that Finland was completely isolated diplomatically and could expect no support from any quarter if events led to war. General Mannerheim also urged conciliating the Soviets, because Finland by itself could not fight the Soviet Union. When he was ignored, he resigned from the Defense Council and as commander-in-chief, saying that he could no longer be responsible for events. Mannerheim withdrew his resignation when war broke out, however, and served ably as the Finnish military leader. Some historians suggest that the war could have been prevented by timely Finnish concessions. It appears that both sides proceeded from a basic mistrust of the other that was compounded by mutual miscalculations and by the willingness to risk war.

The Soviets attacked on November 30, 1939, without a declaration of war. The Soviet preparations for the offensive were not especially thorough, in part because they underestimated the Finnish capabilities for resistance, and in part because they believed that the Finnish workers would welcome the Soviets as liberators. However, almost no Finns supported the Soviet puppet government under the veteran communist Otto Kuusinen. In addition, in one of its last significant acts, the League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union because of its unprovoked aggression against Finland.

The task facing the Finnish armed forces, to obstruct a vastly larger enemy along a boundary of about 1,300 kilometers, appeared impossible. Geography aided the Finns, however, because much of the northern area was a virtually impassable wilderness containing a few, easily-blocked roads, and Finland generally presented difficult terrain on which to conduct offensive operations. Thus the Finns were able to use only light covering forces in the north and to concentrate most troops in the crucial southeastern sector, comprising the Karelian Isthmus and the area north of Lake Ladoga, that protected the isthmus from rear assault. The position on the isthmus was strengthened considerably by the Mannerheim Line. An additional Finnish advantage lay in the Finns' unorthodox military doctrine. They were trained in the use of small, mobile forces to strike at the flanks and the rear of road-bound enemies. By means of the so- call motti tactic (the name is taken from the Finnish word for a cord of firewood), they sought to break invading columns into small segments, which were then destroyed piecemeal. The final advantage of the Finns was their phenomenally high morale; they knew they were fighting for their national survival. Finland's main disadvantage lay in the glaring, fifty-to-one disparity between its population and that of the Soviet Union. The Finnish hope was to hold out until help could arrive from the West, a forlorn hope as events turned out.

Most observers expected an easy Soviet victory. The Soviets simply advanced all along the front with overwhelming forces, apparently intending to occupy all of Finland. Thanks to the foresight the Soviets had shown in previous years by constructing bases and railroads near the Finnish border, they were able to commit much larger forces than the Finns had anticipated. The main Soviet assault on the Mannerheim Line was stopped, though, in December 1939. Farther north along the line, the Finns were able to employ their motti tactics with surprising effectiveness. At the most famous of these engagements, the Battle of Suomussalmi, two Soviet divisions were virtually annihilated. By the end of December 1939, the Finns had dealt the Soviets a series of humiliating defeats. For a few weeks, the popular imagination of the outside world was captured by the exploits of the white-clad Finnish ski troops gliding ghostlike through the dark winter forests, and in general by the brave resistance of the "land of heroes."

The Soviet invasion brought the Finns together as never before. In an act that only a few years before would have been unthinkable, on Christmas Eve in December 1939, middle-class Finns placed lighted candles on the graves of Finnish Red Guards who had died in the civil war. The magnificent courage displayed by Finnish soldiers of all political persuasions during the Winter War of 1939-40 led Mannerheim to declare afterwards that May 16 would no longer be celebrated, but that another day would be chosen to commemorate "those on both sides who gave their lives on behalf of their political convictions during the period of crisis in 1918."

The defeats and the humiliations suffered by the Soviet Union made it even more determined to win the struggle. The military command was reorganized, and it was placed under General S. K. Timoshenko. The Soviets made intensive preparations for a new offensive, assembling masses of tanks, artillery, and first-class troops. On February 1, 1940, the Soviet offensive began, and this time it was confined to the Karelian Isthmus. Soviet tactics were simple: powerful artillery bombardments were followed by repeated frontal assaults, using masses of tanks and infantry. The Finnish defenders were worn down by the continual attacks, the artillery and the aerial bombardments, the cold, and the lack of relief and of replacements. On February 11, 1940, the Soviets achieved a breakthrough in the Mannerheim Line that led to a series of Finnish retreats. By early March, the Finnish army was on the verge of total collapse. Finland was saved only by agreeing quickly to Soviet terms, which were encompassed in the Peace of Moscow, signed on March 13, 1940.

By the terms of the Peace of Moscow, Finland ceded substantial territories: land along the southeastern border approximately to the line drawn by the Peace of Uusikaupunki in 1721, including Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri; the islands in the Gulf of Finland that were the object of the negotiations in 1938-39; land in the Salla sector in northeastern Finland (near the Murmansk Railroad); Finland's share of the Rybachiy Peninsula in the Petsamo area; and the naval base at Hanko on the Gulf of Finland, which was leased for thirty years. The ceded territories contained about one-eighth of Finland's population; virtually all of the inhabitants moved over to Finnish territory, thereby losing their homes and livelihoods.

Finland's losses in the war were about 25,000 dead, 10,000 permanently disabled, and another 35,000 wounded, out of a population of only 3.5 million. Estimates of Soviet losses vary greatly. A subsequent Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, estimated in his memoirs that the Soviet losses were about one million men. In addition, the Soviets lost much of their military credibility. Foreigners had observed keenly the performance of the Red Army in Finland, with the result that the military capabilities of the Soviet Union were widely discounted. Four months after the conclusion of the Winter War, Adolf Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union, an event that historians generally consider a turning point of World War II.

It is true that the Red Army had performed badly in Finland, but there had been some extenuating circumstances. The winter of 1939 to 1940 was one of the coldest winters of the century, and the Soviet troops were not trained for action under Arctic conditions. The Soviet officer corps had been decimated by the purges of the 1930s, and the officers were intimidated by the presence of political commissars within their units. There was, especially in the first phase of the fighting, poor coordination of the various arms (infantry, artillery, armor, aircraft), and there were deficiencies in preparation and in intelligence. In the year following the Winter War, the Soviets worked hard at correcting their weaknesses, with the result that in 1941 the Red Army was a much more effective military machine.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

Wars of the Second Coalition 1798-1802

The FRENCH REVOLUTION had already triggered the War of the First COALITION in 1792, and the nation’s ongoing aggression drove the pope out of the Vatican and inspired the creation of Roman, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics. These developments prompted Austria, Britain,Russia, Portugal, Naples, and the Ottoman Empire to form a second coalition against France.

The first hostilities took place in Italy, where French forces overran the Piedmont in November and December 1798. In southern Italy Neapolitan forces, led by the Austrian general Karl Mack von Leiberich (1752­-1828),invaded the Roman Republic and took Rome itself on November 29. This prompted a French counterattack,

which drove the Neapolitans out of Rome by December 15. The major battle in this early phase of the war was at Civita Castellana on December 4, in which 10,000 French troops trounced 26,000 Neapolitans. Neapolitan losses were some 2,500 casualties versus 500 killed or wounded on the French side. The major campaigns of the war began in 1799.

ITALIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1799 

After his Neapolitan troops mutinied following their defeat, General Mack defected to the French, and Naples soon dropped out of the war, becoming the Parthenopean Republic, a French satellite. However, in June 1799 some 17,000 Neapolitan royalists, in concert with a British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758­-1805) and with the aid of the Lazzaroni, a Neapolitan mob, ousted the French occupiers from Naples. King Ferdinand (1751­ 1825) was restored to the Neapolitan throne, and, backed by the British fleet, Neapolitan troops retook Rome on September 29.

In the meantime, in northern Italy a French army of 53,000 moved into position in March 1799 to attack some 52,000 Austrians along the Adige River near Verona. The French objective was to defeat this force before it could be joined by Russian troops marching from the east. A French repulse at Magnano on April 5 bought sufficient time for the arrival of Russian forces, which boosted coalition strength here to 90,000. On April 27 the Russians defeated some 30,000 French troops at Cassano, between Milan and Brescia. On April 28 Milan and Turin fell to the Russians. However, coalition commanders then blundered by dividing their forces to lay siege to remaining French garrisons. Seizing on this mistake, French general Jacques Macdonald (1765­1840) rushed 35,000 French troops from the south to join other French troops at Genoa. The resulting Battle of Trebbia, from June 17­19, resulted in a severe defeat for the French. The Russians went on to another victory at Novi on August 15, and the French retreated across the Apennines.

Most of the Russian army was sent into Switzerland at this point, and some 60,000 Austrians were left to continue fighting against the remaining French in Italy. By the end of the year, the Italian gains Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-­1821) had made in the War of the First Coalition had been all but completely wiped out.

RHINE AND SWISS CAMPAIGNS OF 1799 

In March French forces under General André Masséna (1758­-1817) surprised Austrian troops at Vorarlberg and Grisons and scored a series of hard-won victories. In the meantime, along the Rhine French general Jean-Baptiste Jourdan (1762­-1833) led his 40,000-man Army of Mayence against some 80,000 Austrians. Despite some successes, Jourdan was defeated, and command was turned over to Masséna. He made a fighting retreat to Zurich, then on June 7 withdrew to the west from that city. Regrouping in August, he resumed the offensive but was repulsed outside of Zurich during August 13­16.

Having apparently dealt with the French, Archduke Charles (1771-­1847) pulled more than half his troops out of Switzerland to fight in the Netherlands. Only some 40,000 coalition troops were left in Switzerland under Russian general Alexander Korsakov (1753­-1840)-although more Russians were on their way from Italy.

Masséna exploited the present coalition weakness, and on September 25 at the Third Battle of Zurich, he routed Korsakov. In the meantime, General Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov (1729­-1800) led 20,000 Russians up from Italy on an epic fighting march through the Alps, but he was relieved of command by order of the czar before he was able to reinforce Korsakov.

NETHERLANDS CAMPAIGN OF 1799

 In August 1799 Frederick Augustus, duke of York (1763­ 1827) landed a force of 27,000 British troops at GroetKeeten, quickly defeating Dutch forces, then joining with Russian troops to create a coalition army of 35,000. This force engaged French and Dutch (Batavian Republic) troops at Bergen on September 16 but suffered a defeat.

Undaunted, York regrouped in October and renewed his offensive, which resulted in the inconclusive Second Battle of Bergen on October 2. York then fought the FrancoDutch army at Kastrikum on the North Sea coast on October 6. A breakdown in communications between the British and Russians contributed to a stunning coalition defeat in which 3,439 of 20,900 troops were lost; Franco-Dutch losses were 1,398 of 17,300 troops engaged.

York withdrew. Despite his setbacks, he had succeeded in neutralizing the Dutch fleet, and with the signing of the Convention of Alkmaar later in the year, the Netherlands was out of the war.

ITALIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1800 

The War of the Second Coalition saw the meteoric rise of Napoleon, who overthrew the weak government of the French Directory on November 9, 1799, and became first consul--effectively dictator of the French Republic. Also at this time Czar Paul I (1754­-1801) precipitously withdrew Russia from the Second Coalition. This left France in a hopeful position. Although Italy was lost, France held on to all other fronts. Nevertheless, French losses were considerably more than 300,000, and Napoleon understood that he had to end the hemorrhage through decisive counteroffensives in Italy and Germany. His plan was to invade Italy via Switzerland. As Masséna reeled under attack from the Austrians at Genoa, Napoleon led 51,400 troops via the St. Bernard Pass (with detachments also crossing at the St. Gotthard and Simplon Passes) into Italy.

Arriving on the Lombard plain on May 24, Napoleon took Milan and Pavia and then marched to the relief of Masséna at Genoa. However, with his forces greatly reduced,Masséna surrendered Genoa to the Austrian army on June 4, before Napoleon reached him.

In the meantime, the Austrians concentrated 31,500 men, their main force, at Alessandria, bracing for the arrival of Napoleon. He encountered 29,000 Austrians under Michael Melas (1729­1806) just east of Alessandria, at Marengo, on June 14. The resulting battle was one of Napoleon’s signal victories. The Austrian army was routed, with 9,402 casualties, and Austria sued for peace.

GERMAN CAMPAIGN OF 1800 

During the spring French general Jean Moreau (1763-­1813) defeated the Austrians at Stockach (May 3),Moskirch (May 5), and Biberach (May 9), driving them into Bavaria. The armistice concluded after Mapplied to Germany as well, but on November 13 hostilities revived there as a 136,000-man Austrian army confronted Moreau’s 119,000-troop Army of the Rhine. After several minor battles the two forces met at the Bavarian town of Hohenlinden on December 3. Because the Austrian forces were committed to the battle in piecemeal fashion, Moreau scored a significant victory and harried the retreating Austrians as they fell back toward Vienna. 

Simultaneously, other French forces renewed the battle in Italy,and Austria soon sought terms. The Treaty of Lunéville was concluded on February 9, 1801, ending the major phases of the War of the Second Coalition. Britain continued to fight on its own for another year, however, until the signing of the Treaty of Amiens on March 27, 1802.

France emerged from the war with its many gains intact. However, the nation was severely depleted and war weary. It would be up to Napoleon, initially as first consul,then consul for life, and, finally, emperor, to rally the nation to the remainder of its military destiny.

Stalingrad

Following the launch of Operation Barbarossa , the German forces invading Russia divided into   two, with one group moving south to capture the oil  fields of the Caucasus, and the other attacking Stalingrad  in August 1942. Having learned of the plan, on July 28,  the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had decreed that the city’s  defenders would take “Not one step back.” He forbade   the evacuation of residents, saying that their presence would make the army fight  harder. The assault began with an intensive Luftwaffe bombing, which reduced  much of the city to rubble. The German ground forces then advanced into the city.  By mid-September, they had pushed the defending Soviet forces in Stalingrad back  to just a narrow strip of the city along the west bank of the Volga River. At this point,  the city became the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war, as streets and  individual buildings were battled over, often changing hands several times.

The turning point came on November 19,  when the Soviets launched a twopronged attack on the Romanian and Hungarian armies protecting the Germans’  rear flank. The two prongs met to encircle the Germans in Stalingrad, but Hitler  ordered his forces to continue to fight to the death. The Germans attempted to  break through the Soviet ring and to resupply the trapped army by air, but to no  avail. On January 31, 1943, the German field marshal in command at Stalingrad,  Friedrich Paulus, surrendered to the Soviets. Had the German forces not divided,  reducing the Stalingrad attack force, the outcome might have been very different.  The Axis forces are thought to have suffered nearly 800,000 dead, wounded, or  missing; Soviet casualties were estimated to be approximately 1.1 million.

As the Germans advanced on Stalingrad, any residents who could   fight were called to arms, and many others, including children, were put   to work building barricades. Factory workers and college students were  formed into militias, while the 1077th Anti-aircraft Regiment, a unit made   up mainly of young women volunteers, was given the task of stopping   the German 16th Tank Division. The city’s defenses were strengthened   by the arrival of regular Soviet forces; however, to get to the front lines   they had to make perilous crossings of the Volga River, under constant   bombardment from German artillery and aircraft.  The Soviet defenders’ strategy was to fight for every building. They  converted apartment buildings, factories, and offices into fortifications held  by small units, and if the Germans captured a position, the Soviets tried to   retake it. Fighting on and around Mamayev Kurgan, a hill above the city, was  particularly merciless, and the position changed hands frequently. After   three months of brutal engagement, the Germans finally reached the Volga  River and took control of around 90 percent of the city. Nevertheless, the  defenders kept fighting, notably on the slopes of Mamayev Kurgan and   in the industrial area in the north of the city, and did not stop until the  Germans surrendered.

Murad II

(b. 1404–d. 1451) (r. 1421–1444; 1446–1451) Ottoman sultan The son of Mehmed I (r. 1413–21) and one of his concubines, Murad was born in June 1404 in Amasya. At the beginning of his reign he had to deal with two pretenders to the throne (“False” Mustafa, that is, his uncle, and his own younger brother Prince Mustafa) supported by the Byzantine Empire and Venice. He also had to confront the Anatolian emirates of Germiyan, Karaman, Menteşe, and Isfendiyaroğulları, which all rejected Ottoman suzerainty and occupied Ottoman territories. The most dangerous threat, however, came from European crusaders led by the Hungarians who in the winter of 1443–44, in response to Ottoman encroachments in the previous years, invaded Murad’s Balkan lands as far as Sofia, Bulgaria. After he had overcome these threats and concluded treaties with Hungary and Karaman (1444), in a hitherto unprecedented move Murad abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son Mehmed II (r. 1444–46; 1451–81). However he was soon recalled by his trusted grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha to command the Ottoman troops against the crusaders— who, despite the recently concluded truce, launched a new campaign in the autumn of 1444—and to quell the insurrection of the Janissaries, the sultan’s elite infantry. Eventually Murad assumed the throne for a second time (1446). The crises of 1444–46 were as dangerous as those of the interregnum and civil war of 1402–13, and threatened the very existence of the Ottoman state. Using sheer military force and a variety of political tools (diplomacy, appeasement, vassalage, marriage contracts), Murad not only saved the Ottoman state from possible collapse but during his second reign (1446–51) he also consolidated Ottoman rule in the Balkans and Asia Minor. Murad II left a stable and strong state to his son Mehmed II, who during his second reign (1451–81) transformed it into a major regional empire.

ACCESSION AND POLITICAL TURMOIL

When he was 12 years of age, Murad was sent to Amasya as prince-governor to administer the province of Rum (north-central Turkey). He helped to consolidate his father’s rule after the civil war (1402–13), and fought against the rebel Börklüce Mustafa. With his commanders he also conquered the Black Sea coastal town of Samsun from the Isfendiyaroğulları Turkish emirate. Murad was only 17 when his father died. Mehmed I’s viziers concealed the sultan’s death until Murad arrived in the old capital, Bursa, and was proclaimed sultan (June 1421).
Murad II’s viziers refused to comply with the agreement Mehmed I had made with the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391–1425). According to that agreement, upon Mehmed I’s death Murad was to be acknowledged as Mehmed’s successor and was to rule from the capital Edirne in the European part of the empire while his brother Mustafa was to remain in Anatolia. Their younger brothers (Yusuf and Mahmud, aged eight and seven) were to be handed over to Manuel. The emperor was to keep them (along with Mehmed I’s brother Mustafa) in custody in Constantinople and receive an annual sum for their upkeep. Since the viziers refused to hand over princes Yusuf and Mahmud to the Byzantines, Emperor Manuel released from his custody Prince Mustafa (Mehmed’s brother) and Cüneyd (the former emir of Aydın who had rebelled against Mehmed I). “False” Mustafa, as Ottoman chroniclers dubbed Murad II’s uncle, soon defeated Murad II’s troops and captured the Ottoman capital, Edirne, where he proclaimed himself sultan. He also enjoyed the support of the Rumelian frontier lords, including the Evrenosoğulları and Turahanoğulları, who viewed Ottoman centralization attempts in the Balkans as detrimental to their own freedom of action. In January 1422, at the head of his troops (some 12,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry), Mustafa crossed to Anatolia through the Straits of Gallipoli. However, Murad II’s troops stopped him before he could reach Bursa. Mustafa fled to the Balkans but was apprehended by Murad’s men near Edirne and hanged as an impostor (winter 1422). In view of Murad II’s strengthened position, the marcher-lords of the European provinces also acknowledged him.
Murad II’s troubles were far from over. His 13-yearold younger brother Mustafa, called “Little” Mustafa by Ottoman chroniclers, was used by Byzantium and the Anatolian emirates to challenge Murad’s rule. However, he too was defeated (due to the desertion of his vizier and troops) and executed (February 1423). In the following years Murad II annexed the emirates of Aydın, Menteşe, Germiyan and Teke, thus reconstituting Ottoman rule in southwestern Asia Minor. While Murad was unable to subjugate Karaman, the most powerful Anatolian emirate, he exploited the unexpected death of the Karaman emir, Mehmed Bey (1423), and the ensuing power struggle. Mehmed Bey’s son, Karamanoğlu Ibrahim Bey, surrendered the territories his father had occupied in 1421, including the lands of the former emirate of Hamid west of Karaman.

VENICE, BYZANTIUM, AND HUNGARY

After consolidating his rule in Anatolia, Murad’s primary goal was to reestablish Ottoman rule in the Balkans by forcing the Balkan rulers to accept Ottoman vassalage and by capturing strategically important forts and towns. This, however, led to direct confrontation with Venice and Hungary, two neighboring states with vital interests in the region. Venice’s commercial interests in the Balkans were guarded by the republic’s colonies and port cities that dotted the Balkans’ Adriatic coast from Croatia in the north to Albania and the Morea (the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece) in the south. In addition to its bases in the Morea, in 1423 Venice also acquired Salonika from its ruler, the Byzantine despot (lord) of the Morea. Ottoman recovery of Thessaly—a territory in present-day central Greece once conquered by Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) but ceded to the Byzantines by Prince Süleyman during the civil war of 1402–13—and the conquest of southern Albania by the early 1430s threatened the republic’s commercial bases in the Adriatic. Murad never acknowledged Venice’s possession of Salonika, which had been under Ottoman siege since 1422. The city succumbed to the Ottomans in 1430. Venice tried to block further Ottoman advance in the Balkans by supporting anti-Ottoman forces, whether in Albania or in Anatolia (such as the Karamanids). The republic also concluded treaties with Hungary and Byzantium against the Ottomans, both of which were now more eager than ever to confront the Ottomans.

After his defeat at the hands of the Ottomans at the Battle of Nikopol in 1396, the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1387–1437, Holy Roman Emperor from 1433) developed a new defensive strategy to contain Ottoman expansion. He envisioned a multilayered defense system consisting of a ring of vassal or buffer states between Hungary and the Ottomans; a border defense line that relied on forts along the lower Danube; and a field army that could easily be mobilized. Forcing the Balkan countries such as Serbia, Wallachia, and Bosnia to accept Hungarian overlordship inevitably led to confrontation with the Ottomans who also wanted to make these countries their vassals. Desperate, the Balkan states often changed sides or accepted double vassalage. Serbia is a good example. Its ruler Stephen Lazarević (r. 1389–1427), known as Despot Lazarević by his Byzantine title, tried to be on good terms with Murad II. At the same time, he was Sigismund’s vassal after 1403 and one of Hungary’s greatest landlords after 1411. According to the Hungarian-Serbian Treaty concluded in May 1426 in Tata (present-day northwestern Hungary), Sigismund acknowledged Stephen’s nephew George (Djuradj) Branković as his heir, who would also keep his uncle’s possessions, except for Belgrade and Golubac, key fortresses for Hungary’s defense on the Danube River, which would pass to Sigismund. When Despot Stephen died in June 1427, Sigismund took possession of Belgrade, “the key to Hungary” in contemporary parlance. Golubac’s captain, however, sold his fort to the Ottomans, causing a major gap in the Hungarian defense line. Sigismund tried in vain to capture the fort in late 1428. By 1433, the Ottomans had occupied most of the Serbian lands south of the Morava River. Despite the fact that Despot George Branković married his daughter, Mara, to Sultan Murad in 1435, and sent his two sons as hostages to the Ottoman court, he was considered an unreliable vassal. Taking advantage of the death of Sigismund (1437) and the ensuing collapse of the central authority in Hungary, by 1439 Murad had subjugated Serbia, capturing its capital Smederevo on the Danube. With the capture of Salonika, Golubac, and Smederevo, Murad had reestablished the Balkan possessions of his grandfather, Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402). Although Murad failed to capture Belgrade in 1440, his five-month siege forced Hungary and her allies to act more forcefully against the Ottoman advance. They also were urged to do so by Byzantium and the papacy, which had just concluded their historic agreement regarding the Union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1437–39). The Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaiologos (r. 1425–48) signed the accord in 1439 in the hope that his acknowledgement of papal supremacy would result in Western military and financial assistance against the Ottomans. Hungary, which suffered repeated Ottoman raids from 1438, led the anti-Ottoman coalition. The country’s new hero, János (John) Hunyadi, royal governor of the Hungarian province of Transylvania (1441–56) and commander of Belgrade, thwarted several Ottoman raids in the early 1440s, defeating the district governor (sancakbeyi) of Smederevo (1441) and the commander of the Ottoman forces in Europe, the beylerbeyi of Rumelia (September 1442).

ABDICATION AND THE CRUSADE OF VARNA

In October 1443 the Hungarian army led by King Wladislas (r. 1440–44) and Hunyadi invaded the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire as far as Sofia. Although they did not conquer any territory, the campaign forced Murad II to seek peace. Through the mediation of Murad’s Serbian wife Mara and his father-in-law George Branković, the Hungarian-Ottoman Treaty was concluded in the Ottoman capital Edirne on June 12, 1444, and was ratified by the Hungarians on August 15 the same year in Nagyvárad (Oredea, Transylvania). Having concluded a truce with the Hungarians and the Karamanids, who had coordinated their attack on the Ottomans in Asia Minor with the Hungarian invasion, Murad abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son Mehmed II and left for Bursa (August 1444). However, Hunyadi’s victories prompted the papacy to forge a new anti-Ottoman Christian coalition with the aim of expelling the Ottomans from the Balkans. Despite the Hungarian-Ottoman truce, preparations for the Crusade went on, for the papal legate declared the peace made with the “infidels” void. These were dangerous times for the Ottomans. In Albania, Iskender Bey (known in the West as Skanderbeg), alias Georg Kastriota—a local Christian who had been brought up a Muslim in Murad II’s court and sent back to Albania to represent Ottoman authority there— rose up against the Ottomans in 1443. By spring 1444 the Byzantine despot of the Morea, Constantine, had rebuilt the Hexamilion (six-mile) wall that had defended the Corinth isthmus and thus the Peloponnese against attacks from the north since the early fifth century C.E. In the summer of 1444, the Byzantine emperor released another pretender against Murad and, most dangerously, on September 22, 1444 the crusading army crossed the Ottoman border into the Balkans. At this critical moment, on the insistence of Çandarlı Halil Pasha, Murad was recalled from Bursa and, arriving in Edirne, assumed the command of the Ottoman troops, while his son Mehmed II remained sultan. The Ottomans met the crusading army at Varna on November 10, 1444. Outnumbered by 40,000 to 18,000, the crusaders were defeated; Hungarian king Wladislas died in battle; and Hunyadi, the hero of the Turkish wars, barely escaped with his life. Despot Branković remained neutral throughout the campaign, as the Ottomans had kept their end of the treaty of Edirne by returning Smederevo and all the other forts stipulated in the agreement on August 22.

MURAD’S SECOND REIGN

While the Ottomans were victorious at Varna, the 1444 campaign revealed the vulnerability of the Ottoman state that had been brought back from the brink of extinction just a generation ago. It also revealed the friction between the viziers of Murad II and Mehmed II. Murad’s trusted grand vizier Halil Pasha, the scion of the famous Turkish Çandarlı family that had served the House of Osman since Murad I (r. 1362–89) in the highest positions, wanted to avoid open confrontation with the Ottomans’ European enemies. Mehmed II’s Christian-born viziers belonged to a new cast of Ottoman statesmen who were either recent Muslim converts or recruited through the Ottoman child-levy (devşirme) system and pursued a more belligerent foreign policy. In order to avoid a possible disaster such aggressive policy might cause, Halil Pasha decided to recall Murad for the second time from his retirement in Manisa, using as pretext the 1446 Janissary rebellion in Edirne, which erupted partly because of Mehmed’s debasement of the Ottoman silver coinage in which the Janissaries received their salaries. Upon assuming his throne for the second time, Murad returned to the Balkans. In a swift campaign in 1446, Ottoman troops breached the Hexamilion wall (December 1446). Other Ottoman troops were fighting, with limited results, against Skanderbeg in Albania. Murad achieved his last great victory at the second Battle of Kosovo Polje in Serbia (October 16–18, 1448) against another crusading army, again consisting primarily of Hungarians led by Hunyadi. When he died in 1451, his son Mehmed II, by then 19 years of age, was poised to revenge his humiliation and to assert his authority by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy against his Christian rivals.

Further reading: Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923 (New York: Basic Books, 2005); Oskar Halecki, The Crusade of Varna: A Discussion of Controversial Problems (New York: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, 1943); Joseph Held, Hunyadi: Legend and Reality (Boulder, Co.: East European Monographs, 1985); Colin Imber, ed., The Crusade of Varna, 1443–45 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006); Camil Mureşanu, John Hunyadi: Defender of Christendom (Portland, Or.: Center for Romanian Studies, 2001)

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Battle of Montemaggiore 1041

During a fresh offensive in southern Italy, Norman and Lombard forces beat a Byzantine army at the Olivento (17 March). The Norman William d’Hauteville then attacked again at Montemaggiore, on the Ofanto river, near Cannae. Though the catepan Michael Doukeianus had called up a large Varangian force from Bari, the battle was a rout and many of Michael's soldiers drowned in the Ofanto on the retreat. After the defeat, Michael Doukeianus was relieved of his duties and sent to Sicily. He was replaced by Exaugustus Boioannes, who was also beaten later the same year at Monte Siricolo.

Background

The battle was fought on 4 May 1041, less than two months after the Battle of Olivento, the first battle of a renewed revolt of Lombard-Norman forces against the Byzantine Empire instigated by Arduin the Lombard. The battle at Olivento was the first battle between Normans and Byzantines since the Battle of Cannae in 1018, but the outcome shifted this time from Byzantine victory to defeat.

While the Normans originally only fought as mercenaries in Italy, they took increasing control during the 1041 revolt, and started to carve out territory for themselves after the Battle of Montemaggiore. The site of the battle was the river Ofanto near Cannae, but the name of the mountain Montemaggiore is usually used to refer to the 1041 battle.

USRC Wolcott (1831)

A Revenue Cutter Service name. Oliver Wolcott, son of Oliver Wolcott who served in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence, was born in 1760; succeeded Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, serving from 1795 to 1800 ; and was Governor of Connecticut 1817 to 1827. He died in 1833.

Wolcott, named for Oliver Wolcott, the second Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, served in Newport, Rhode Island; New Haven, Connecticut; New London, Connecticut; and Wilmington, Delaware. Ordered to Mobile, Alabama, in December 1844, she was driven ashore in Pensacola Bay on the coast of Florida during a storm. After repairs, she was attached to the United States Navy for service during the Mexican War to carry dispatches in the Gulf of Mexico. In September 1846, she was stricken from the commissioned list of the U.S. Revenue-Marine.

In June 1849, Wolcott was laid up in Mobile for repairs, and on 3 July 1849 she was transferred to the United States Coast Survey. The United States Government sold Wolcott at Mobile on 8 January 1851.