Great advantage might have been taken of this powerful diversion of the Persians. But the Venetians, the king of Naples, and the pope, alone put themselves forward to make war against the Ottomans. The sovereign pontiff had caused twenty-four galleys to be built with the produce of the tenths levied for the crusade. This fleet, commanded by Cardinal Caraffa, and collected in the Tiber, after having been blessed by Sextus IV., went to join that of Venice and Naples, and cruised along the coasts of Ionia and Pamphylia, to the great terror of all the maritime Ottoman cities. The Venetians did not fail to direct the operations of the Christian fleet against the cities whose wealth and commerce gave them any cause for jealousy. Satalia and Smyrna were given up to the horrors of war; the first of these, situated on the coast of Pamphylia, was the _entrepôt_ for the productions and the merchandise of India and Arabia. The second, situated in the Ionian Sea, possessed rich manufactures and a flourishing trade. The Christian soldiers committed in these two cities all the kinds of excess with which the Turks were then reproached. After this piratical expedition, the fleet regained the ports of Italy, and Cardinal Caraffa returned triumphant to Rome, followed by twenty-five captives mounted upon superb horses, and by twelve camels, loaded with the spoils of the enemy. The ensigns taken from the Mussulmans, and the chain of the port of Satalia, were solemnly suspended over the gate and in the vaulted roof of the Vatican. Whilst these poor advantages over the Mussulmans were being celebrated at Rome, Mahomet was inflicting terrible blows upon his enemies; and when he returned to Constantinople, he had destroyed the armies of the king of Persia. That which gave the Turkish emperor an immense advantage over the powers which took up arms against him, was that they never acted in concert, either for defence or attack. Discord was not long in being revived among the Christian princes, and particularly among the states of Italy. The pope himself forgot the spirit of peace and union he had preached; he forgot the holy war; and Venice, left alone in the struggle against the Ottomans, was obliged to sue to Mahomet for peace. The Ottomans took as much advantage of peace as of war to increase their power. There now remained nothing of the sad wreck of the Greek empire. Venice had lost all its possessions in the Archipelago and Greece; Genoa at length lost the rich colony of Caffa, in the Crimea. Of all the conquests of the Crusaders, the Christians had only preserved the kingdom of Cyprus and the isle of Rhodes.