http://www.historyofjihad.org/bulgaria.html
Not many know that the Bulgars are also Turks in their origins and it they
who put up the stiffest resistance to the Islamic Turks (Ottomans)
The Bulgars were one people who put up a stiff resistance to the Islamic
Jihad and never surrendered before it, ultimately defeating it. One reason
for this could be that the Jihad was brought to the Bulgaria by people who
belonged to the same ethnic stock as the Bulgars. The Bulgars, as many dont
not know, are of Turkish descent. And had settled in Bulgaria in the 8th
century onwards. They were late converts to Christianity, and had been
adversaries of the Byzantine empire, both before and after their conversion.
Modern day Bulgarians are a mix of the pre-Islamic Turks (Bulgars), the
Avars, Huns and slavs who settled in Bulgaria over the first millennium. The
Bulgars even had the title Khan among them even after their conversion to
Christianity. In fact the word Bulgar is derived from a Turkish root work
"bulgha", which means to mix.
It was ironical that one of the first people that the Ottoman Turks would
have to cross swords in Europe were to be the Christianized Turkic Bulgars.
By the late 14th Century the Bulgars were involved in a desperate struggle
against the Ottoman Turks who presented a very real danger of invading
Europe. In 1393, Turnovo, the capital of Bulgaria fell and the last medieval
Bulgarian king Ivan Shishman was besieged by Islamic invaders in Nicopolis
(the Bulgarian fortress on the Danube River). On 3 July 1395, Ivan Shishman
was killed defending the fortress of Nicopolis. The once mighty Byzantine
Empire had been reduced to little more than the city of Constantinople
itself and Sultan Beyazid I "the Lightning" besieged the city. Beyazid's
father, sultan Murat had created the infantry of Janissaries that was
composed of Christian children robbed from their families and converted by
force to Islam. They were raised in the Islamic religion in order to create
elite troops. The Janissaries played a role of paramount importance in the
military and political spheres of the Ottoman dynasty.
In response to the occupation of Bulgaria, a crusade was preached by Pope
Boniface IX and a Christian army of 10,000 under the leadership of John of
Nevers, son of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, marched to the relief of
Christians who were savagely oppressed by the soldiers of Islam.
The Battle of Nicopolis (Nikopol) on the Danube River opened the gates of
Eastern Europe to the Muslims
In the famous Battle of Nicopolis, a Christian army of French, English,
Germans, Italians and Knights Hospitallers under the leadership of John of
Nevers, son of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Bulgarian infantry and
Hungarian army under King Sigismund of Hungary gave a heroic combat against
the Islamic army of Ottomans and its Serbian and Arab allies.
In the late 14th century the eyes of Western Europe began to turn to the
east as the old enemy began to reassert himself - the Turks. With a fervor
that had not been seen for decades, the chivalry of western Europe responded
by marching east to their greatest ever disaster. John of Nevers, son of
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy leaded an army of 10000 Frenchmen eastward
to Danube. He was joined by 2000 German Knights under the command of
Friedrich, prince of Hohenzollern, 1000 Englishmen under the Lord of
Lancaster, Polish, Austrian, Lombard, Croatian soldiers and Knights
Hospitallers from Rhodes. The admiral Tomanice Nico commanded the fleet of
44 galleries equipped by Venice and Genoa and joined later on by ships from
Rhodes. They joined a 30000 army under King Sigismund of Hungary marching
along the Danube. The objective of Sigismund was to retake the strong
fortresses of Nicopolis and Dorostolum and using them as strongholds to
chase the Islam invaders out of Europe.
The King of Vidin Kingdom (remnant of the Second Bulgarian empire), Ivan
Sratzimir joined the Christian army. The fortress of Vidin was the strongest
defence in the North-West Bulgaria and the action of Bulgarian King
providing significant resources and cavalry troops facilitated greatly the
Crusaders. Afterwards he was besieged and overwhelmed by Ottomans, and sent
imprisoned in Anatolia. The Christian army continued eastwards capturing
Bulgarian towns with the help of Christian population, and advanced deep
into Bulgarian territory. Crusaders brought no siege equipment, trusting on
their courage to defeat the Turks. Instead, Turks held the fortress of
Nicopolis for over two weeks, waiting for reinforcements.
The Ottoman sultan, Beyazid, did not rush into reaction, and waited for his
entire army to muster before responding. He gathered enormous army - some
200 000 Islamic Jihadi warriors, according to the crusader chronicles and
some ottoman chronographs. With the Crusaders stalled at Nicopolis, the
sultan saw his chance and marched to the town's rescue, choosing a defensive
position straddling the road to the city with his flanks protected by
ravines. Ottoman army formed up some four miles south from the Crusader
camp, and invited attack.
At the military council before the battle, Sigismund advised a cautious
approach and proposed to use his own horse-archers as the first attack, with
the Crusader cavalry in reserve to deliver the decisive blow against the
Ottoman lines. The French crusaders refused any role that denied them the
first attack and declared "If God dropped the sky on our heads, we would
maintain it with the tops of our lances!".
At the Battle of Nicopolis, the Ottomans feigned to negotiate a surrender
and slaughtered the Christians with guile
Sensing the determination and the fanaticism of the knights, the Ottoman
king Beyezid decided to use subterfuge. He offered to open negotiations with
the Bulgarians and invited their leader for talks, while agreeing to hand
over the fortress of Nicopolis to the French Knights. Beyezid declared that
he only intended to fight the Hungarians. This ploy did not divide the
Christian allies in their determination to fight the Turks, but created
fissures on how to best fight the Turks. Against the advice of the Hungarian
king and leaving the Hungarian army behind, they Franks entered the Ottoman
lines to take charge of the fortress that Beyazid was offering to hand over
to the Franks. Once they had crossed the ottoman lines, the Ottomans closed
ranks behind the Franks and trapped them. On realizing that they had been
betrayed by the ottomans the Franks rushed to meet the enemy. They charged
the centre of the Ottoman lines, where they could see that the Ottomans had
placed a cavalry force to attack the trapped Franks. And once the French
knights came within range, the first Ottoman line made of horse-archers
moved aside to make way for the French cavalry to rush straight into a trap,
of well dug-in archers behinds rows and rows of sharpened wooden stakes
planted in the ground. The ottoman arrows rained down on the Franks causing
huge casualties and the chronicler wrote ". no rain neither hail can flow so
densely from the sky". So, the crusaders were forced to dismount their
horses.
But even on the ground, the French knights fought terrifying battle against
the Janissaries and succeeded to break their lines killing more than 10,000
of the Jihadis. Despite taking heavy casualties, crusaders broke through to
third Ottoman line, and were also able to hold off an attack by Ottoman
cavalry. When they reached the top of the hill, where the sultan quarter
was, they discovered the Ottoman cavalry and Anatolian sipahis (soldiers)
kept in the rear as reserve. But as they were cut off from the main part of
Christian army, crusaders began to retreat. Attacked from all sides by
Islamic fanatics and their allies, the Christian army was defeated and
massacred, and finally many of them captured.
Meanwhile, far to the rear, the Hungarian royal army was moving towards the
battle. Sigismund preferred to slaughter the disorganized ottoman infantry
instead of rushing to help the encircled French knights. Having defeated and
massacred the Western crusaders, Bayezid committed his main forces against
the Christian army. Sigismund, leading his royal bodyguards, also entered
into the dreadful battle.
Bayezid was wounded and his horse killed but nevertheless he continued the
ferocious fighting. It almost looked like the Christian army might win the
day until the Jannisaries and the Arb contingents emerged from an ambush and
charged the Hungarians. This attack broke the Hungarians, and when
Sigismund's banner was cast down, the whole army dissolved.
The imprudent behaviour of the French knights in falling into the Ottoman
lure of surrendering the fortress to them was the major cause of the
disaster. The Christian army was divided into independent troops that were
defeated and massacred one by one. It was a devastating loss. The French
took severe casualties, including Philip, Count of Bar, and Jean de Vienne,
the Admiral, although many more were captured. Sigismund escaped by ship,
but John was captured and later ransomed. John's ransoming was the
exception; Bayezid, enraged by the heavy losses (around 60,000 Islamic
Jihadi warriors perished according to several authors and estimates),
slaughtered most of the Christian prisoners the next day organizing the
horrendous massacre ceremony that has been immortalized by the painting of
Jean Froissart.
The looming shadow of Islam over Europe in the 14th century was
frighteningly real
This massacre and dismemberment of Christian prisoners the sufferings and
misery and of the Christians was an eye opener to the Europeans who believed
that Islamic soldiers like any other enemy they had faced, respect the
military customs of not slaughtering soldiers who had laid down their
weapons and had surrendered.
The French survivors returning with accounts of the disaster sent a chill
thru France and the defeat sent a wave of fear across Europe. Powerless
against the well organized and hugely backed Islamic invasion in East
Europe, the Western monarchs and Italian republics tried to find a new way
to resist the impending doom in the form of a Saracen invasion. For three
centuries the Ottoman empire cast a showed of doom on the French, Italian
and German monarchs and republics who watched with increasing fear the
Ottoman attempts to overpower the East Europe. Only in late 17th century the
Western powers found ally formidable enough to roll back the Islamic
threat, - the Polish king Jan Sobeiski and later the Russian empire under
Katerina (Catherine) and Peter the Great.
Lessons from the Battle of Nicopolis
At Nicopolis, the Turks used techniques of hoodwinking the Bulgarians and
the French Knights into feigned negotiations, luring them into a tap and
then slaughtering them mercilessly. These are techniques that are still used
by the Jihadis in waving white flags and then gunning down the American
marines in Iraq, or of using women and children as human shields to act as
cover for the suicide bombers in Israel. The Jihadis still use foul means
which they used against the French Knights at Nicopolis. The knights, drawn
from all over Europe, had gone into battle assuming that they faced a
fierce, but honorable enemy. But with the massacre of the prisoners of war
the Europeans were reminded in 1396 at Nicopolis that they could henceforth
expect no mercy if captured by the invading Muslims, and thousands were to
meet their end in this brutal way. At Nicopolis thousands of Christian
soldiers who had laid down their weapons were slaughtered in a bloodthirsty
orgy lasting several hours after the battle had ended. The opening of
negotiations was normally used to end hostilities or to stop hostilities
from taking place. But with the subterfuge used at Nicopolis, with
devastating effect, taught the Europeans that the Muslims were never to be
trusted. That the Muslims by instinct were a dishonorable people.
The Battle of Varna
The final crush of Christian states in Balkans struggling desperately
against the tyrannical Ottoman dynasty invading Europe and devastating
Balkans under the banner of Islam, arrived with the disaster of the Battle
of Varna in 1444. With this defeat faded away the last hope of Bulgarian and
other Christians for delivery and end any serious attempts to prevent the
invasion of East Europe by Ottomans for centuries.
The Ottoman Empire was the longest lasting Muslim invasion of European soil
ever. Lasting from the beginning of the 13th Century right to the start of
the 20th, this group of mixed race Middle Eastern Turks, driven by a
fanaticism molded in their Muslim religion, occupied vast stretches of
central and southern Europe, twice being turned back at the very gates of
Vienna in their attempts to seize all of Europe. The impact and legacy of
the Ottomans upon central and southern Europe was therefore vast, and
crucial to any understanding of the racial and cultural mix which has made
south-eastern Europe (Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo)the volatile place that it is
today.
The defeat at Nicopolis in 1396 blew away the last hope of Bulgarian people
for delivery. Thus, this year is considered as the year when Bulgaria
plunged into the Dark Ages under the oppressive Islam domination for almost
5 centuries. After passing through many hands during the course of history,
by the middle of the second Christian millennium, Bulgaria was in the hands
of the Ottomans.
After the surreptitious victory at Nicopolis, the Ottomans led by Murad's
successors kept on pressing further and further into Europe, meeting feeble
resistance along the way. In 1439, Serbia was formally annexed to the
Ottoman Empire and in 1440, the city of Belgrade was besieged, although it
was not seized by the Ottomans at that time. In 1444, a renewed Christian
assault on the Ottomans was again defeated at the battle of Varna in
Bulgaria. This battle was vividly described in a letter from Aenas Sylvius
Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, to Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan,
written immediately after the battle. "Our men did not shrink from joining
battle, which began on the feast of St. Martin itself, 11 November 1444. So
fierce and savage was the fighting that rarely could such a battle had ever
been fought between mortal men! For a long time its outcome was uncertain;
it was contested with equal force by both sides. As long as our men fought
for Christ and our opponents for Mohammed, enthusiasm for battle was such
that fifteen thousand were wounded on each side. "So long as the battle was
equal, neither side wished to stop. The more blood that was spilled, the
keener the hand-to-hand fighting. Those who escaped from the field say that
no battle as bloody has been fought anywhere in Europe within the memory of
our fathers. They also say that no fewer Turks than Hungarians fell, and, if
the record is correct, eighty thousand men died in this battle."
The Janissaries: the "stolen European children" became the ottoman elite
One of the more remarkable ways in which the Ottomans kept their fighting
strength up was through a unit of soldiers known as the Janissaries. The
Janissaries were the Ottoman's elite forces - and they were also originally
European Christian Children taken by force from their families. One of the
Ottoman leaders, Emir Orkhan (1326 - 1359), who was the first to occupy
European continental soil, issued an edict to the conquered Europeans in the
Balkans that they must hand over to the Ottomans 1,000 male babies "with
faces white and shining" each and every year. The youths were brought before
the Ottoman sultan, and the best of them - in terms of physique,
intelligence, and other qualities - were selected for education in the
palace school. There they converted to Islam, became versed in the Islamic
religion and its culture, learned Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, and
were compelled to serve the Ottomans, with their origins being concealed
from them. They became the best and most trusted armed unit within the
Ottoman Empire- a supreme act of irony.
This yearly tribute - reminiscent of the demand by the Moors for White
virgins from the unfortunate Goths in Spain - was continued for an
astonishing 300 years until 1648, during which time not only were 300,000
formerly Christian European absorbed into the Ottoman hierarchy (and for the
greatest part also into the Turkish elite's bloodstream) but the Janissaries
became known as one of the most efficient army of soldiers in the world. It
is no exaggeration to say that they sustained the Ottoman Empire in Europe
for much of its existence, playing a not inconsiderable role in many of the
great victories of that Empire.
The Turks delusion about themselves being Europeans and their false case for
admission into the EU
Every year, one thousand European male babies were taken by the Ottomans for
indoctrination into Islam. In Asia Minor - Turkey - the Europeans were
raised to serve the Muslim empire, as soldiers or administrators. In this
way hundreds of thousands of Europeans entered the modern Turkish gene
pool - and contributed to the Europeanization of the Turk. The belief of the
Turks today that they are Europeans comes from this forced abduction of
European children their forced conversion to Islam and their conscription
into the Ottoman army. On this falsehood also rests Turkey's case for
admission into the EU (European Union). The Janissaries were only finally
disbanded in 1826 after a large rebellion against their Ottoman Muslim
masters saw many thousands of the Ottomans killed. In 1574, the Janissaries
had 20,000 men in their ranks - by 1826 the unit numbered some 135,000. The
overtly racial make-up of the Janissaries always created problems of its
own. Every now and then, the European soldiers would rebel against their
Turkish masters - numerous rebellions are recorded, each being suppressed,
until a famous rebellion in 1826 saw the unit finally disbanded.
The fall of Bulgaria opened the gates for the fall of Constantinople
The city of Constantinople had managed to hold grimly on through all these
Ottoman advances: far behind the Muslim front line, the city grew weaker and
weaker. Finally, in 1453, the Ottoman army launched a mighty effort to break
the city. After bombarding the city walls with cannon fire for months, a
determined overnight attack, saw the city fall at last - the official end of
the Eastern Roman Empire, defended only by 7,000 Byzantine and Frankish and
other European knights from all over Europe against a Turkish army numbering
in the hundreds of thousands. Constantinople was made the new Ottoman Muslim
capital and renamed Istanbul, a name by which it is still known. Spurred on
by this great victory, the Ottomans proceeded in short order to seize all of
Greece, Albania and Bosnia. A plan to invade Italy was only aborted after
the Ottoman emperor of the time died half way through the planning.
War at sea - The Portuguese Spanish and Italians confront and defeat the
Turks at Lepanto
By 1500, European explorers had discovered a sea route to the East, and
after this year Portuguese fleets began to attack Arab ships in the Indian
ocean, seriously affecting the Ottoman's trading routes to the east. An
Ottoman sea fleet was built especially to destroy the Portuguese fleets -
several engagements followed, some successful for the Portuguese, others
successful for the Turks. It was only in 1571, that an alliance of European
nations, inspired by Pope Pius V with the aid of the Spanish and the
Venetians, destroyed Turkish sea power in the Mediterranean at the Battle of
Lepanto in that same year. The Battle of Lepanto saw the two fleets -
together comprising at least 500 ships and about 100,000 men - engage each
other for a whole day, ending with a great European victory - about 80
Turkish ships were sunk and a further 130 captured. The Turks were routed at
sea - a significant event as it marked the first time that the Ottomans had
been defeated by an European force.
The psychological effect of this victory upon Europe was marked - the
Spanish writer Cervantes noted in his novel, Don Quixote, that the battle
"revealed to all the nations of the world the error under which they had
been laboring in believing that the Turks were invincible on Sea." On land
however, the struggle between the various Eruopean nations and the Turks
continued unabated. In many regions the Turks exacted as cruel a punishment
on the locals as they had on the inhabitants of Constantinople. The Ottomans
attempted to lay siege to Belgrade in 1456, but were defeated by a Hungarian
national hero, whose name is still celebrated today, Janos Hunyadi. The
Ottomans finally seized Belgrade in 1521, and in 1526, the Turks inflicted a
crushing defeat on the hastily gathered together Hungarian army at the
battle of Mohacs, where the Hungarian King and more than 20,000 European
soldiers were killed.
The Turks went on to capture the city of Buda (later to join with a
neighboring city, Pest, to become the city of Budapest) in 1526 - but then
withdrew from western Hungary, leaving that part to its own devices. By
1483, the Turks had conquered most of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The two
territories remained provinces of the Ottoman Empire for the next 400 years,
although unsuccessful uprisings against the Turks occurred frequently during
the 19th Century. Macedonia, bordering on Greece and Turkey, was one of the
first territories to fall to the Ottoman invasion - it remained under
Turkish rule until the Balkan War of 1912 which saw the Ottomans driven out.
The Turkish Ottoman invasion of 1389, saw the Serbian army defeated at the
battle of Kosovo, but sporadic fighting between the Serbs and the Turks
continued till 1459, when the Ottomans captured Smederevo, south of
Belgrade. Serbia then came under direct Ottoman rule.
The first siege of Vienna - Turks seize the Ukraine
In 1521, the Ottomans finally managed to capture Belgrade and the island of
Rhodes in 1522. By 1529, the Muslim Ottoman armies had reached Vienna in
modern day Austria. By sheer tenacity, the city withheld the siege, and the
Ottomans were forced to retreat. In 1571, the Ottomans seized the island of
Cyprus and even began raiding the emerging Russian state to the northeast of
their extensive empire on the European mainland. In 1661, the Ottomans
captured much of present day Ukraine from Poland, and in 1669, conquered the
island of Crete. With one great last effort, the Ottomans then re-launched
their attack on Vienna in 1683. By 1683, the Christian armies of Europe had
prepared their defenses around Vienna well. Their armies routed the
Ottomans; with the death blow to the Muslim assault being dealt by the
arrival of a Polish army (from whom the Ottomans had captured part of the
Ukraine).
The origin of the Croissant bread commemorates the defeat of the Crescent by
the armies of the Cross
The great victory feast held by the European armies after this victory led
to the origin of the bread now known as a croissant. The victors ordered
bread to be made in the shape of the quarter moon shape of the Turkish flag,
so that they could physically eat the emblem of the enemy at the feast. From
then on the croissant, a curved sickle moon shape bread, became popular in
all Europe. The Ottomans fell back in confusion - at last the Europeans had
seized the initiative, and they pressed home their advantage. In 1697, a new
Austrian commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, defeated a huge Ottoman army at
Senta in northern Serbia, inflicting massive casualties upon them. The
Ottomans were forced to sue for peace. In terms of the treaty of Karlowitz,
the Ottomans were forced to give up substantial parts of Eastern Europe,
including Belgrade, to the victorious European army. This was to mark the
beginning of the Ottoman retreat from the Balkan Peninsula.
Renewed European assaults sound death knell for Ottomans
The Russians, after their initial failure against the Turks in 1711,
launched their assault on the Turks in 1714, And in a surprise attack saw
the Ottomans in Rumania defeated. After 345 years of subjugation, the Serbs
launched a nine year long revolt in 1804, but were suppressed by the Turks
in a brutal campaign in 1813. Undeterred, the Serbs launched yet another
attempt to eject the Turks in 1815, and this time were successful - within a
few months most of Serbia was cleared of Turks. The Ottomans then accepted
the de facto situation and granted Serbia self-government. Following the
Russian Turkish Wars of 1828 and 1829, Serbia gained even greater autonomy.
Finally, the Ottomans withdrew all claims to Serbia in 1867. Greece became
independent in 1829 after launching military campaigns against the Ottomans,
backed with material support from both Britain and Russia. The final blow to
the Ottoman military machine was a huge revolt by the White Janissaries in
1826 which ended in the Ottomans having to execute thousands of the
Jannisary soldiers. In this year the Ottomans finally disbanded the
Janissaries.
Bulgaria throws off the Jihadi Yoke
Fifty years later, a rebellion in Bulgaria saw tens of thousands of Muslims
being slaughtered by avenging Bulgarian mobs: this led to reprisals by
Muslims in which tens of thousands of Bulgarian were slain in what became
known as the Bulgarian Atrocities.
Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and the final freedom of Bulgaria
Russia then declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877. In a swift campaign,
the Russians drove the Ottomans back to Constantinople and forced them to
sign the Treaty of San Stefano of 1878, which stripped them of most of their
European territories, including Bulgaria, Macedonia and Thrace. Britain
gained possession of Cyprus in return for a pledge to the sultan to aid the
Ottomans if they needed military assistance in the future, a guarantee that
would never be acted upon. The Ottoman Empire was now in terminal phase. On
all fronts the European powers seized territories - Tunisia was taken by the
French in 1881, and Egypt (which had briefly been reoccupied by the Ottomans
after Napoleon had left) was taken by the British in 1882.
The Next Muslim Invasion of Europe
Thus ended the last Muslim invasion of Europe that used violence as their
passport of entry, the first being turned back by Charles Martel in 732. The
Muslim invasion of Europe today is thru the medium of those Muslims who are
entering Europe in the guise of immigrant workers, many of whom are Turks.
Especially in some cities in Germany, the Turks represent nearly 10 percent
of the population. And if Europe takes the unfortunate decision of allowing
Turkey into the European Union, then we shall see opened the gates of Europe
to a third Muslim invasion, when they will overrun Europe through the
immigration of non-Turkish Muslims into Turkey and onward into Europe. To
conquer Europe by swamping it with Muslim immigrants who will multiply
manifold using the womb as a weapon to change Europe's character into a
majority Muslim country where the Europeans will be made to suffer what Theo
Van Gough did at Amsterdam. Time is running out for us to stem the tide of
the third Muslim invasion of Europe that is gaining strength with every
passing day.
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