THE HISTORY OF NATIONS TURKEY BILAL, THE BLACK ABYSSINIAN, THE FIRST OF ALL MUEZZINS, CHANTS THE ADZAN (CALL TO PRAYER) FROM THE TOP OF A MINARET: " Ashadnan na Mahomet Rasoul Allah! Bis mill ah Allah-hu-akhar! " "God is Great/ God is Great/ I bear witness there is no other God but God/ I bear witness that Mahomet is the Prophet of God! Come to prayer/ Come to prayer/ Come unto Salvation! God is Great/ God is Great! There is no other God but God." Painting by J. L. Gerome. -.^i- '^ . A\n THE HISTORY OF NATIONS HENRY CABOT LODGE ,Ph.n,LL.D.,EDITOR-INK:HIEr TURKEY by SIR EDWARD S. CREASY Revised and Edited by ARCHIBALD CARYCOOLIDGE.PhJ) Assistant Professor of History H ar V ard University and W.HAROLD CLArUNMA. Department of History H ar vard University Volume XIV Illustrated The H .W. Snow and Son Company Chi r 'a <.1 o Copyright, 1907, by JOHX D. MORRIS & COMPANY Copyright, 1910 THE H. W. SXOW & SOX COMPAXY THE HISTORY OF NATIONS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF HENRY CABOT LODGE, PL.D., L.L.D. Associate Editors and Authors ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE, LL.D., Professor of Assyriology, Oxford Uni- versity SIR ROBERT K. DOUGLAS. Professor of Chinese, King's College, Lon- don CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Oriental History and Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University C. W. C. OMAN, LL.D., Professor of History, Oxford University THEODOR MOMMSEN. Late Professor of Ancient History, Uni- versity of Berlin ARTHUR C. HOWLAND, Ph.D., Department of History, University of Penn- sylvania JEREMIAH WHIPPLE JENKS, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy and Pol- itics, Cornell University KANICHI ASAKAWA, Ph.D., Instructor in the History of Japanese Civilization, Yale University WILFRED HAROLD MUNRO, Ph.D., Professor of European History, Browp University G. MERCER ADAM, Historian and Editor FRED MORROW FLING, Ph.D., Professor of European History, University of Nebraska CHARLES MERIVALE. LL.D., Late Dean of Ely. formerly Lecturer in FRANCOIS AUGUSTE MARIE MIGNET, History, Cambridge University Late Member of the French Academy J. HIGGINSON CABOT, Ph.D., Department of History, Wellesley College JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON, Ph.D., Denartment of History, University of Chicago SIR WILLIAM W. HUNTER, F.R.S., Late Director-General of Statistics in India SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, LL.D., Professor of Modern History, King's Col- lege, London GEORGE M. DUTCHER, Ph.D., Professor ot History, Wesleyan University R. W. JOYCE, LL.D., Commissioner for the Publication of thej Ancient Laws of Ireland ASSOCIATE EDITORS AND AUTHORS-Continu^d JUSTIN McCarthy, ll.d.. Author and Historian AUGUSTUS HUNT SHEARER. Ph.D.. Instructor in History, Trinity College Hartford W. HAROLD CLAFLIN, B.A.. Department of History, Harvard Uni- versity PAUL LOUIS LEGER. Professor of the Slav Languages, C<511ege de France WILLIAM E. LINGLEBACH, Ph.D.. Assistant Professor of European History, University of Pennsylvania BAYARD TAYLOR. Former United States Minister to Germany CHARLES DANDLIKER. LL.D., President of Zurich University SIDNEY B. FAY. Ph.D., Professor of History, Dartmouth College ELBERT JAY BENTON, Ph.D.. Department of History, Western Reserve University SIR EDWARD S. CREASY, Late Professor of History, University Col- lege, London ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History, Harva/-d University WILLIAM RICHARD MORFILL, M.A.. Professor of Russian and other Slavonic Languages, Oxford University CHARLES EDMUND FRYER, Ph.D., Department of History, McGill University E. C. OTTE, Specialist on Scandinavian History J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., President Royal Geographical Society ALBERT GALLOWAY KELLER, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of the Science of So- ciety, Yale University EDWARD JAMES PAYNE, M.A.. Fellow of University College, Oxford PHILIP PATTERSON WELLS, Ph.D., Lecturer in History and Librarian of the Law School, Yale University FREDERICK ALBION OBER, Historian, Author and Traveler JAMES WILFORD GARNER, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois EDWARD S. CORWIN, Ph.D., Instructor in History, Princeton Uni- versity JOHN BACH McMASTER, Litt.D., LL.D., Professor of History, University of Penn- sylvania JAMES LAMONT PERKINS, Managing Editor The editors and publishers desire to express their appreciation for valuable advice and suggestions received from the following: Hon. Andrew D. White, LL.D., Alfred Thayer Mahan, D.C.L., LL.D., Hon. Charles Emory Smith, LL.D., Professor Edward Gaylord Bourne, Ph.D., Charles F. Thwing, LL.D., Dr. Emil Reich, William Elliot Griffis, LL.D., Professor John Martin Vincent, Ph.D., LL.D., Melvil Dewey, LL.D., Alston Ellis, LL.D., Professor Charles H. McCarthy, Ph.D., Professor Herman V. Ames, Ph.D., Professor Walter L. Fleming, Ph.D., Professor David Y. Thomas, Ph.D., Mr. Otto Reich and Mr. O. M. Dickerson. vii PREFACE The " History of the Ottoman Empire," by Sir Edward Creasy, the well-known author of " Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the few good works in English which deals with Turkish affairs. As it appeared at the time of the Crimean War, its writer had not the advantage of being able to profit by a good many important authorities on his subject who have written during the last half century. Nevertheless his mistakes are few, and though, as regards Russia, his tone was influ- enced by the excitement of the events taking place when he wrote, in a new revision of his work it has been possible to remedy this to a certain extent by omitting a few superfluous phrases which be- tray a little too much the passion of the moment. Otherwise in this edition the spirit of Sir Edward Creasy has been scrupulously re- spected. His foot-notes, which were largely bibliographical, have for the most part been suppressed, and a number of redundant passages and unimportant details have been left out, but the wording remains his own. Mr. W. Harold Claflin of Harvard University has in three supplementary chapters brought down the story of the Near East to the present time. And yet the precise point where he stops is only accidental, for the situation remains as unsettled as ever. Any day may bring us the beginning of a new chapter in the struggle between Cross and Crescent which has lasted with so little intennission since long before the Turks first set foot on European soil. Harvard University CONTENTS PART I THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 1250-1520 CHAPTER PAGE I. The Eastern Question 3 11. The Rise of the Ottomans. 1250-1326 . . 9 III. The Ottomans Enter Europe. 1326-1359 . . 19 IV. Conquests in Europe and Asia. 1359-1402 . . 29 V. The Struggle for the Balkan, i 402-1451 . . 52 VI. Mohammed II. and the Conquest of Constanti- nople. 1451-1481 71 VII. Political Institutions and Government under Mohammed II 88 VIII. Bayezid II. AND Prince Djem. 1481-1512 . . 107 IX. Selim I. and the Conquest of Egypt and Syria 1512-1520 .119 PART II CULMINATION OF POWER UNDER SULEIMAN AND THE BEGINNING OF DECLINE. 1520-1699 X. First Years of the Epoch of Suleiman the Great 1520-1533 143 XI. Last Years of the Epoch of Suleiman the Great 1533-1566 158 XII. Selim II. and the Beginnings of Decline. 1566- 1574 191 XIII. Decay of the Empire. 1574-1623 . . . 201 XIV. Revival of the Empire Under Murad IV. 1623- 1640 ........ 215 XV. The Age of the Great Viziers. 1640-1677 . . 225 XVI. Kara Mustapha and the Siege of Vienna. 1685 247 XVII. The War of the Holy Alliance. 1687-1699 . 255 xii CONTENTS PART III DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 1703-1792 CHAPTER PAGE XVIII. Peter the Great and Turkey. 1703-1730 . . 273 XIX. Mahmud I. AND Wars with Russia, Austria, and Persia. 1730- 1763 295 XX. Catherine II. of Russia and Loss of the Crimea 1763-1774 320 XXI. Renewal of the Struggle with Russia. 1774-1792 342 XXII. The Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century 364 PART IV MODERN TURKEY. 1792-1910 XXIII. Turkey in the Age of Revolution. 1792-1812 . ^yy XXIV. Mahmud II. and the Birth of Modern Turkey 408 XXV. Abdul Medjid and the Crimean War. 1839-1856 1808-1839 439 XXVI. Sultan Abdul Aziz and Turkish Efforts at Re- form. 1861-1878 ...... 462 XXVII. Abdul Hamid and the Empire To-Day. 1878-1910 489 Bibliography , . . . . . . . .511 Index . . . . . . . . . -Si? LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS BiBAL Chants the Adzan from the Top of a Minaret {Photo gramire) ...... Frontispiece FAaNG PAGE The Death of Suleiman . . . . . . -52 Entry of Mohammed II into Constantinople . . .80 DjEM IN Rome . . . . . . . . .112 Interior of Saint Sophia 138 Don John of Austria ........ 196 John Sobieski Raises the Siege of Vienna .... 250 The Ambassador of Frederick II and the Grand Vizier Raghib Pasha ........ 318 The Last Charge at Missolonghi ..... 416 The Plenipotentiaries at Berlin. 1878 .... 486 TEXT MAPS Southeastern Europe at the Time of the Entrance of the Ottomans ......... 26 Constantinople and the Bosphorus . . . . .87 Ottoman Dominions at the Time of the Greatest Extent 160 Austria and Turkey after the Peace of Passarowitz . 291 The Caucasian Provinces ....... 363 The Peninsula of the Crimea ...... 456 Turkey's Losses in Europe. 17TH to 19TH Centuries . 509 PART I THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1250-1520 HISTORY OF TURKEY Chapter I THE EASTERN QUESTION THE Eastern Question is as old as history. Herodotus opens the first chapter of his famous work with an account of the successive carrying away of lo, of Europa, of Medea, and of Helen, that is to say, of the mutual raids of Asiatics and Greeks culminating in the Trojan war. That war itself he evidently regards as being the prologue to the drama of the great conflict between Hellenes and barbarians which had taken place in his own day. With an extraordinary approach to modern methods he thus strives to trace back to its legendary origins this antagonism between two continents of which he had just witnessed such an overpowering manifestation. After his time the struggle went on as before, for though after the rout of the Persians at Platea and of the Cartha- ginians at Himera the danger passed away, the offense was not forgotten. One hundred and fifty years later the expedition pro- posed by Philip of JMacedon at the Congress of Corinth, and carried out by his son Alexander, was officially undertaken as a war of revenge for the attacks of Darius and Xerxes upon Hellas. With the conquest of Western Asia by Alexander the Great Europe took the offensive in her turn and asserted the superiority of her arms and her civilization far to the eastward. Persia proper was indeed soon lost again, but Western Asia was maintained. Subse- quently, when the power of the successors of Alexander had decayed, their place was taken by Rome, which checked the reaction attempted by Mithridates and pushed her boundaries toward the east, until she was finally brought to a standstill by the Parthians. Syria and Egypt therefore remained under European political domination, as well as under the influence of the culture of Greece and Rome, for nearly a thousand years ; and even after they had fallen into the hands of the conquering Arab, Asia Minor still continued, for an- other four hundred years, to be, to all intents and purposes, an integral portion of Europe. Toward the latter part of the fourth century after Christ, Asia 4 TURKEY reassumed the offensive, and on her own gigantic scale. In the north the Huns, after making their way across the endless plains and sweeping all before them, for a space under Attila menaced the very existence of Western civilization. The combined efforts of Roman and German at the battle of Chalons barely sufficed to save Christendom from their yoke. It is true that after the death of the mighty sovereign the empire of the Huns crumbled to pieces till they vanished from the scene almost as suddenly as they had appeared, but their places were taken by fresh hordes, Avars, Pechenegs, Kumans, and many more. The last and most appalling wave of these nomad invaders was the Tartar host in the thirteenth century which, while it only terrified the more distant western countries, laid waste Poland and Hungary and reduced Russia to slavery. To this day the Russians have not fully recovered from the effects of this perhaps the worst disaster that has befallen any great European people. Farther southward in the old battleground of former conflicts, a new vigorous Asia, in- flamed with the ardor of a militant faith, revealed itself to the world in the shape of the Arab followers of Mohammed. Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, as well as Persia and Turkestan to the eastward, were overrun with such speed that in the lifetime of men who had known the Prophet himself, the dominions of his suc- cessors extended from the Indus to the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing but the defense of Constantinople by Leo the Isaurian against the main attack of the Caliphate, and the victory of Charles Martel at Tours over the left wing, saved Christian Europe from becoming a province of Islam. The escape was a narrow one, and though Mo- hammedan Spain soon ceased to be a danger in the West, Eastern Christendom, represented by the Byzantine Empire, was forced for generations to keep up the struggle against the Arab, and later the Turk. Unaided by the Latin world, it maintained itself with a tenacity that is far from having met either then or since with the recognition which it deserved. It was indeed only after the strength of the Greeks had been broken by the Seldjuks at Manzikert and after Asia Minor had been overrun by their ruthless swarms, that the hitherto indifferent West, now for its own reasons and in pursuit of its own ideals, suddenly flung itself against the Moslem in the fury of the crusades. The expenditure of human life that followed was enormous. Host after host made its way to the Orient, where, thanks above all to its own THE EASTERN QUESTION 6 indiscipline, it melted away from climate and suffering, from want and pestilence, and from the scimitar of the infidel. When at last the extraordinary movement came to an end, after some two cen- turies and a half of misdirected effort, Europe did not retain one foot of the land which she had gained at the price of such sacrifices. Nay, more, one so-called crusade had turned aside to capture Con- stantinople, thereby dealing to the power which had for ages been the bulwark of the Christian world against Mohammedanism a blow from which it never recovered. It mattered little that the Greeks soon regained possession of their peerless capital, their former vitality was lost forever. Masters of but a small part of their old territories, menaced in Europe from Italy, from Bulgaria, from Servia, having lost the trade which in times past had made them rich, without the armies which had once been the best disciplined in the world, they were in no condition to hold their own in Asia against a new enemy. The coming of the Ottoman Turk may be regarded as the last onslaught that Asia has made upon Europe. In its nature it was as formidable as its predecessors, but it was less sudden, starting from small beginnings. On the other hand, it continued longer to be an acute danger, and the Ottoman state has shown far more vitality in its decline than is the wont of most Eastern empires. Col- lecting the resources of the scattered Turkish populations in Asia Minor, Othman and his successors renewed the attack on Christen- dom. Greeks, Southern Slavs, Albanians, Hungarians, and Western crusaders were in turn vanquished. For over three centuries the forces of the Sultan never lost a great battle by land, save in the one case when they came into collision with the armies of the re- nowned Tartar conqueror Timur. With this exception they long maintained their reputation for invincibility in the open field. Dur- ing the reign of Suleiman I., the mightiest of their princes, they captured Bagdad, the old capital of the caliphs, they established themselves on the Persian Gulf, and they fought the Portuguese in India. During the same period they laid siege to Vienna in the heart of Europe, and they extended their authority along the north African coast almost to the Straits of Gibraltar, while in the waters of the Mediterranean they obtained a naval supremacy which, how- ever, was shattered in the next reign by the combined efforts of Spain, Venice, and the Pope at the memorable sea fight of Lepanto. Nevertheless, for another century the Ottoman Empire continued to 6 TURKEY grow, if slowly. Even though symptoms of decay were already manifesting themselves and the " magnificent " Sultan was followed by a series of incapable monarchs under whom palace intrigue, offi- cial corruption, and demoralization of the army were allowed to do their fatal work almost unchecked, still it was not until the second siege of Vienna and the famous victory of John Sobieski, of Poland, in 1683 that the tide of success finally turned. Disastrous enough in itself for the Turks, the battle of Vienna was even more so in being the first of a long series of crushing de- feats which destroyed their military prestige forever. At the Peace of Carlovvitz in 1699 and again at Passarowitz in 1718 they were forced to their knees. Not only were they compelled to make pain- ful sacrifices of territory, but their whole situation in the world was now so completely changed that it opened up a new phase in the history of the Eastern Question. Henceforth the Ottoman Empire was to play a passive rather than an active part, to be the " sick man," gradually stripped of his possessions, while would-be heirs loudly disputed over the inheritance around what they took to be a death-bed. The Turks have not, indeed, surrendered tamely. They have made many a stubborn fight, cheered occasionally by temporary successes, but in the end one province after another has been lost to their foreign enemies or interested friends, or to their own Christian subjects whom they had goaded into revolt by intolerable misrule. Despite their utmost resistance, it has been their lot merely to furnish the spoil over which the others have quarreled. The active aggressive factors have been these same foreign powers and former subjects who, notwithstanding the obstinacy of the defense, would ere now have put an end to Ottoman dominion in Europe if they could only have agreed among themselves about the succession. This, however, they have never succeeded in doing; in fact, the clash of their rival ambitions has repeatedly provoked the bitterest animosities between them. Animosities of every kind have in truth Ijeen rife in all that has pertained to the Eastern Question. In its later stages one of its noteworthy features has been the revival of that hatred between Latins and Greeks, Catholics and Orthodox, which goes back to the crusades and earlier. Western Europe had disliked the Greeks since the first active contact with them in the days of Godfrey of Bouillon, and each fresh meeting had increased the friction, until it culminated in the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, THE EASTERN QUESTION 7 an injury which Eastern Christendom has never forgiven. The two halves of the Christian world had drawn ever farther apart. On the one side were indifference and contempt, or when circumstances permitted, actual persecution, on the other blind fanatical hostility. Thus the West looked on but little moved while the East fell into Mohammedan slavery. By an extraordinary coincidence the Rus- sians first appeared prominently on the scene just at the time when the power of the Turks had been broken by Austria, and the op- pressed Slavs and Greeks felt that at last they had a natural pro- tector to whom they might turn. In the last two centuries we have, therefore, a very different spectacle presented to us from that of the two preceding. Instead of threatening the existence of their neighbors the Turks have, with great effort and nearly always with loss, barely succeeded in holding their own. Russia, filled with the vigor of a young giant, has ex- tended her borders to the fertile South toward the open sea, which nature has been so chary of granting to her. In faith, as in ideals, she is the heir to the Byzantine Empire, whose capital appears des- tined some day to be hers. She has aided to free millions of fellow Orthodox from Mohammedan rule, while at the same time she has used them for her own purposes, and has found more than once that their aspirations are difficult to harmonize with her own. Austria has alternately cooperated with her in despoiling the Turk, or has jealously opposed her at every step. France, England, and, of late years, Italy and Germany, have all had their interests to pur- sue and have added their quota to the endless complication. In like manner the recently freed subject populations, Servians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Greeks, have none of them, as yet, realized all their hoi>es which conflict with one another irreconcilably; and of late years their mutual dislike has often been keener than their hostility to their former masters. The prophets of a prompt and generally satisfactory solution to all these difficulties have a thankless task. Ever since the discovery of the route round the Cape of Good Hope and since the spread of the Russians across Siberia the old Eastern Question has taken on new dimensions. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, and above all the English, overshadowing and displacing the others, liave in turn built up colonial empires in the farther Orient. Great Britain and Russia ha\c between them so nearly encircled what is left of independent Asia that their rivalry with one another is equally keen in the Near East, the ]Mid- 8 TURKEY die East, and the Far East, the scenes of three questions which in these days of. world politics are gradually merging into one, and that one is of universal importance. Interest may shift for a time from each of these scenes to another. At this moment it is centered on the efforts of a rejuvenated Asiatic power, which may be destined, as believed by some, to stay the movement of European expansion of the last few centuries and to head a mighty reaction of Asia against her foreign masters. Still, as yet the attention of statesmen can never be long entirely diverted from the shores of the Bosphorus. The immediate future of the lands that make up the Ottoman Empire continues to present a problem of the first magni- tude, and the past history of the people who now hold them will always be worth study for those who take an interest in how the world has become what we see it to-day. Chapter II THE RISE OF THE OTTOMANS. 1250-1326 ABOUT six centuries ago a pastoral band of four hundred Turkish famihes was journeying westward from the upper k- streams of the river Euphrates. Their armed force con- sisted of four hundred and forty-four liorsemen ; and their leader's name was Ertoghrul, which means " The Right-Hearted Man." As they traveled through Asia Minor they came in sight of a field of battle, on which two armies of unequal numbers were striving for the mastery. Without knowing who the combatants were, The Right-Hearted Man took instantly the chivalrous resolution to aid the weaker party, and charging desperately and victoriously with his warriors upon the larger host, he decided the fortune of the day. Such, according to the Oriental historian Neschri, is the first recorded exploit of that branch of the Turkish race, which from Ertoghrul's son, Othman/ has been called the nation of the Otto- man Turks. The little band of Ertoghrul was a fragment of a tribe of Oghuz Turks, which, under Ertoghrul's father, Suleiman Shah, had left their settlements in Khorassan, and sojourned for a time in Armenia. After a few years they left this country also, and were following the course of the Euphrates toward Syria, when their leader was accidentally drowned in that river. The greater part of the tribe then dispersed ; but a little remnant of it followed two of Suleiman's sons, Ertoghrul and Dundar, who determined to seek a dwelling-place in Asia Minor, under the Seljukian Turk, Alaeddin, the Sultan of Iconium. It so happened, that it was Alaeddin him- self who commanded the army, to which Ertoghrul and his warriors brought such opportune succor on the battle-field, whither their march in quest of Alaeddin had casually led them. The adversaries, ^"Osman" is the real Oriental name of the Eponymus hero, and the de- scendants of his subjects style themselves " Osmanlis." But the corrupted forms " Othman " and " Ottoman " have become so fixed in our language and literature that it would be pedantry to write the correct originals. 9 10 TURKEY 1250 from whose superior force they delivered him, were a host of Mon- gols, the deadliest enemies of the Turkish race. Alaeddin, in grati- tude for this eminent service, bestow^ed on Ertoghrul a principality in Asia Minor, near the frontiers of the Bithynian province of the Byzantine emperors. The rich plains of Saguta along the left bank of the River Sakaria, and the higher districts on the slopes of the Ermeni Moun- tains, became now the pasture-grounds of the father of Othman. The town of Saguta, or Ssegud, was his also. Here he, and the shepherd-warriors who had marched with him from Khorassan and Ai*menia, dwelt as denizens of the land. Ertoghrul's force of fight- ing men was largely recruited by the best and bravest of the old inhabitants, who became his subjects; and, still more advanta- geously, by numerous volunteers of origin kindred to his own. The Turkish race had been extensively spread through Lower Asia long before the time of Ertoghrul. Quitting their primitive abodes on the upper steppes of the Asiatic continent, tribe after tribe of that martial family of nations had poured down upon the rich lands and tempting wealth of the southern and western regions, wdien the power of the early Caliphs had decayed, like that of the Greek em- perors. One branch of the Turks, called the Seljukian, from their traditionary patriarch Seljuk Khan, had acquired and consolidated a mighty empire, more than two centuries before the name of the Ottomans was heard. The Seljukian Turks were once masters of nearly all Asia Minor, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, Armenia, part of Persia, and Western Turkestan; and their great Sultans, Toghrul Beg, Alp Arslan, and Melek Shah, are among the most renowned conquerors that stand forth in Oriental and in Byzantine history. But, by the middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era, when Ertoghrul appeared on the battle-field in Asia Minor, the great fabric of Seljukian dominion had been broken up by the assaults of the conquering Mongols, aided by internal corruption and civil strife. The Seljukian Sultan Alaeddin reigned in ancient pomp at Koniah, the old Tconium ; but his effective supremacy extended over a narrow compass compared with the ample sphere throughout which his predecessors had exacted obedience. The Mongols had rent away the southern and eastern acquisitions of his race. In the center and south of Asia Minor other Seljukian chiefs ruled various territories as independent princes: and the Greek emperors of Con- stantinople had recovered a consideraljjc portion of the old Roman RISE OF THE OTTOMANS 11 1250-1288 provinces in the north and east of that peninsula. Amid the general tumult of border warfare, and of ever-recurring peril from roving armies of Mongols, which passed upon Alaeddin, the settlement in his dominions of a loyal chieftain and hardy clan, such as Ertoghrul and his followers, was a welcome accession of strength, especially as the new comers were, like the Seljukian Turks, zealous adherents of the faith. The Crescent was the device that Alaeddin bore on his banners; Ertoghrul, as Alaeddin's viceregent, assumed the same standard ; and it was by Ertoghrul's race that the Crescent was made for centuries the terror of Christendom, as the sign of aggressive Islam, and as the chosen emblem of the conquering Ottoman power. There was little peace in Ertoghrul's days on the frontier near which he had obtained his first grants of land. Ertoghrul had speedy and frequent opportunities for augmenting his military re- nown, and for gratifying his followers with the spoils of success- ful forays and assaults. The boldest Turkish adventurers flocked eagerly to the banner of the new and successful chieftain of their race; and Alaeddin gladly recognized the value of his feudatory's services by fresh honors and marks of confidence, and by increased donations of territory. In a battle which Ertoghrul, as Alaeddin's lieutenant, fought against a mixed army of Greeks and Mongols, between Brusa and Yenischeer, he drew up his troops so as to throw forward upon the enemy a cloud of light cavalry, called Akindji, thus completely masking the center of the main army, which, as the post of honor, was termed the Sultan's station. Ertoghrul held the center him- self, at the head of the four hundred and forty-four horsemen, who were his own original followers, and whose scimetars had won the day for Alaeddin, when they first charged unconsciously in his cause. The system now adopted by Ertoghrul of wearying the enemy by collision with a mass of irregular troops, and then press- ing him wuth a reserve of the best soldiers, was for centuries the favorite tactic of his descendants. The battle in which he now em- ployed it was long and obstinate ; but in the end the Turkish chief won a complete victory. Alaeddin, on being informed of this achievement of his gallant and skillful vassal, bestowed on him the additional territory of Eskischeer, and in memory of the mode in which Ertoghrul had arrayed his army, Alaeddin gave to his princi])ality the name of Sultan-Qini. which means "Sultan's Front." 1 TURKEY 1250-1288 The territory which received that name, and still bears it, as one of the Sanjaks, or minor governments of the Ottoman Empire, is nearly identical with the ancient Phrygia Epictetos. It was rich in pasturage, both in its alluvial meadows and along its mountain slopes. It contained also many fertile cornlands and vineyards ; and the romantic beauty of every part of its thickly wooded and well- watered highlands still attracts the traveler's admiration. Besides numerous villages, it contained, in Ertoghrul's time, the strongholds of Karadjahissar, Biledjik, Injeni, and others; and the cities or towns of Eskischeer (so celebrated in the history of the crusades under its old name of Doryla^um), Seid-e-ghari, Lefke, and Siegud, near which is the domed tomb of Ertoghrul, an object still of the deepest veneration to frequent pilgrims from all parts of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the places that have been mentioned were, at the time when Alaeddin, as their titular sovereign, made grant of them to Ertoghrul, held by chieftains, who were practically independent, and who little heeded the sovereign's transfer of their lands and towns. It was only after long years of warfare carried on by Ertoghrul and his more renowned son, Othman, that Sultan- (Eni became the settled possession of their house. Othman, or, according to the Oriental orthography, Osman, is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman Empire; and it is from him that the Turks, who inhabit it, call themselves Osmanlis, the only national appellation which they recognize." Ertoghrul never professed to act save as the vassal and lieutenant of the Sultan of Iconium. But Othman, after the death of the last Alaeddin in 1307, waged wars and accumulated dominions as an independent potentate. He had become chief of his race twelve years before, on Ertoghrul's death, in 1288. Othman, at his succession, was twenty- four years of age, and was already of proved skill as a leader, and of tried prowess as a combatant. His early fortunes and exploits are favorite subjects with the Oriental writers, especially his love ad- ventures in wooing and winning the fair Malkhatoon. The Sheik Edebali, celebrated for his piety and learning, had come, while Othman was very young, to Itbourouni, a village near Eskischeer. Otliman used often to visit the holy man, out of re- spect for his sanctity and learning; and the young prince's visits became still more frequent, after he had one evening accidentally f)btaincd a view of the Sheik's fair daughter, Malkhatoon, a name - Tlu-y consider that the name of Turk implies rudeness and barbarism. RISE OF THE OTTOMANS 13 1288-1291 which means " Treasure of a Woman." Othman confessed his love ; but the old man thought that the disparity of station made a mar- riage imprudent, and refused his consent. Othman sought con- solation for his disappointment in the society of his friends and neighbors, to whom he described with a lover's inspiration the beauty of Malkhatoon. He discoursed so eloquently on this theme to the young chief of Eskischeer that the listener fell in love with Malkhatoon upon hearsay, and, going to her father, demanded her hand for himself. Edebali refused him also, but fearing his vengeance more than that of Othman, the old man removed from the neighborhood of Eskischeer to a dwelling close to that of Ertoghrul. The chief of Eskischeer now hated Othman as his rival. One day when Othman and his brother Goundonroulp were at the castle of their neighbor, the lord of Inseni, an armed force suddenly appeared at the gate, led by the chieftain of Eskischeer and his ally, Michael of the Peaked Beard, the Greek lord of Khirenkia, a forti- fied city at the foot of the Phrygian Olympus. They demanded that Othman should be given up to them ; but the lord of Inseni refused to commit such a breach of hospitality. While the enemy lingered irresolutely round the castle wall, Othman and his brother seized an advantageous moment for a sudden sally at the head of a few com- panions. They chased the chief of Eskischeer off the field in dis- grace, and took Michael of the Peaked Beard prisoner. The captive and the captors became stanch friends ; and in after times, when Othman reigned as an independent prince, Michael left the Christian for the Mussulman creed to join him, and was thenceforth one of the strongest supporters of the Ottoman power. Othman had by this encounter at In?eni triumphed over his rival, and acquired a valuable friend ; but he could not yet gain the maiden of his heart. For two more years the course of his true love ran through refusal and anxiety, until at length old Edebali was touched by the young prince's constancy, and he interpreted a dream as a declaration of Heaven in favor of the long-sought marriage. One night, when Othman was resting at Edebali's house (for the shelter of hospitality could never be denied even to the suitor whose addresses were rejected), the young prince, after long and melancholy musing on her whom he loved, composed his soul in that patient resignation to sorrow, which, according to the Arabs, is the 14 TURKEY 1288-1291 key to all happiness. In this mood he fell asleep, and he dreamed a dream. He saw himself and his host reposing near each other. From the bosom of Edebali rose the full moon (emblem of the beauteous Malkhatoon), and inclining- toward the bosom of Othman, it sank upon it, and was lost to sight. Thence sprang forth a goodly tree, which grew in beauty and in strength ever greater and greater. Still did the embracing verdure of its boughs and branches cast an ampler and an ampler shade, until they canopied the extreme hori- zon of the three parts of the world. Under the tree stood four mountains, which he knew to be Caucasus, Atlas, Taurus, and Hsemus. These mountains were the four columns that seemed to support the dome of the foliage of the sacred tree, with which the earth was now pavilioned. From the roots of the tree gushed forth four rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile. Tall ships and barks innumerable were on the waters. The fields were heavy with harvest. The mountain sides were clothed with forests. Thence in exulting and fertilizing abundance sprang foun- tains and rivulets, that gurgled through thickets of the cypress and the rose. In the valleys glittered stately cities, with domes and cupolas, with pyramids and obelisks, with minarets and towers. The Crescent shone on their summits : from their galleries sounded the Muezzin's call to prayer. That sound was mingled with the sweet voices of a thousand nightingales, and with the prattling of count- less parrots of every hue. Every kind of singing bird was there. The winged multitude warbled and flitted round beneath the fresh living roof of the interlacing branches of the all-overarching tree ; and every leaf of that tree was in shape like unto a scimetar. Sud- denly there arose a mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves toward the various cities of the world, but especially toward Constantinople. That city, placed at the junction of two seas and two continents, seemed like a diamond set between two sapphires and two emeralds, to form the most precious stone in a ring of universal empire. Othman thought that he was in the act of placing that visioned ring on his finger, when he awoke. Othman related this dream to his host ; and the vision seemed to Edebali so clearly to presage honor, and power, and glory, to the posterity of Othman and Malkhatoon, that the old Sheik no longer opposed their union. The Ottoman writers attach great importance to this dream of RISE OF THE OTTOMANS 15 1291-1299 the founder of their empire. They dwell also on the prophetic sig- nificance of his name, signifying the resistless energy with which he and his descendants were to smite the nations of the earth. " 0th- man " means the " Bone-breaker." It is also a name given to a large species of vulture, commonly called the royal vulture, and which is, in the East, the emblem of sovereignty and warlike power, as the eagle is with the nations of the West. Othman is celebrated by the Oriental writers for his personal beauty, and for " his wondrous length and strength of arm," Like Artaxerxes Longimanus, of the old dynasty of Persian kings, and like the Highland chieftain of whom Wordsworth sang, Othman could touch his knees with his hands when he stood upright. He was unsurpassed in his skill and graceful carriage as a horseman ; and the jet black color of his hair, his beard, and eyebrows, gained him in youth the title of " Kan," that is to say, " Black" Othman. The epithet *' Kara," which we shall often find in Turkish history,^ is, when applied to a person, considered to imply the highest degree of manly beauty, Othman's conquests were soon extended beyond the limits of Sultan-CEni, partly at the expense of rival Turkish chieftains, but principally by wresting fortess after fortress, and region after re- gion from the Greek Empire. At the close of the thirteenth cen- tury of our era the Ottoman headquarters of empire' w-ere ad- vanced as far northwestward as the city of Yenischeer, within a short march of the important Greek cities of Brusa and Nicaea, which were now the special objects of Turkish ambition. It would, however, be unjust to represent Othman as merely an ambitious military adventurer, or to suppose that his whole career was marked by restless rapacity and aggressive violence against the neighboring states. From 1291 a. d. to 1298 he was at peace ; and the war that next followed was, at its commencement, a defensive one on his part, caused by the jealous aggressions of other Turkish Emirs, who envied his prosperity, and who were aided by some of the Greek commandants in the vicinity. Thus roused into action, Othman showed that his power had been strengthened, not corrupted, by repose, and he smote his enemies in every direction. The effect of his arms in winning new subjects to his sway was ma- '' R. ,f. Karadhissar, '"' Tlie Bhirk Castle": Kara-Dcni-. '"The Black Sea"; Kara Mustapha, "Black Mustapha"; Karadagh, "Black I^Iountain " ; Kara- Su, Black Water." 10 TURKEY 1299 terially aided by the reputation which he had honorably acquired, as a just lawgiver and judge, in whose dominions Greek and Turk, Christian and Mohammedan enjoyed equal protection for property and person. It was about this time, 1299 a. d.^ that he coined money with his own effigy, and caused the public prayers to be said in his name. These among the Oriental nations are regarded as the dis- tinctive marks of royalty. The last prince of the family of Alaeddin, to which that of Othman had been indebted for its first foundation in Asia Minor, was now dead. There was no other among the various Emirs of that country who could compete with Othman for the headship of the whole Turkish population, and dominion over the whole peninsula, save only the Emir of Caramania. A long and fierce struggle between the Ottoman and Caramanian princes for the ascendency commenced in Othman's lifetime, and was protracted during the reigns of his successors. Othman himself had gained some advantages over his Caramanian rival ; but the weak and wealthy possessions of the Byzantine emperor in the northeast of Asia Minor were more tempting marks for his ambition than the Caramanian plains : and it was over Greek cities and armies that the chief triumphs of the last twenty-six years of Othman's life were achieved. Some of Othman's counselors hesitated at the entrance of the bold path' of conquest on which their chief strode so firmly; but Othman silenced all remonstrance and quelled all risk of dissension and mutiny by an act of prompt ferocity, which shows that the great ancestor of the Ottoman Sultans had, besides the traits of chivalrous and noble feelings which we have recorded, a full share of the ruth- less cruelty that has been the dark characteristic of the Turkish royal house. Othman's uncle, the aged Dundar, who had marched with Ertoghrul from the Euphrates, seventy years before, was still alive, when Othman, in 1299, summoned a council of his principal followers, and announced to them his intention to attack the lord of the important Greek fortress of Koeprihissar. The old uncle opposed the enterprise, and urged the danger of provoking by such ambitious aggrandizement all the neighboring princes, Turkish as well as Greek, to league against them for the destruction of their tribe. En- raged at the chilling caution of the gray-haired man, and, observing probably that others were beginning to share in it, Othman met the arrows of the tongue by the arrows of the bow. He spake not a word in reply, but he shot his old uncle dead upon the spot a bloody RISE OF THE OTTOMANS 17 1301-1326 lesson to all who should harbor thoughts of contradiction to the fixed will of so stern a lord. Koeprihissar was attacked, and fell ; and numerous other strong- holds in the vicinity of Nice soon shared the same fate. In 1301 Othman encountered for the first time a regular Greek army, which was led against him by Muzaros, the commander of the guards of the Byzantine emperor. This important battle took place at Koyounhissar (called Baphoeum by the Greeks) in the vicinity of Nicomedia. Othman gained a complete victory; and in the suc- cessful campaigns of the six following years he carried his arms as far as the coast of the Black Sea, securing fortress after fortress, and hemming in the strong cities of Brusa, Nice, and Nicomedia (which yet were retained by the Greeks), with a chain of fortified posts, where his garrisons, under bold and skillful chiefs, were ever on the watch for the chance of a surprise or the material for a foray. It was in vain that the Byzantine court sought to avert the pressure of this ever active enemy, by procuring a Mongol army to attack Othman's southern dominions. Othman sent his son Orkhan against the invaders, and the young prince utterly defeated them. Age and infirmity began now to press upon Othman, but his gallant son filled his place at the head of the troops with undiminished energy and success. In 1326 the great city of Brusa surrendered to the Otto- mans. Othman was on his death-bed, at Saegud, the first town that his father Ertoghrul had possessed, when his son effected this im- portant conquest ; but he lived long enough to hear the glad tidings, and to welcome the young hero. The Oriental writers narrate the last scene of Othman's life, and profess to record his dying advice to his successor. The fair Malkhatoon had gone before him to the grave ; but the two brave sons whom she had borne him, Orkhan and Alaeddin, and a few of his veteran captains and sages, were at the monarch's death-bed. " My son," said Othman to Orkhan, " I am dying ; and I die without regret, because I leave such a successor as thou art. Be just ; love goodness, and show mercy. Give equal protection to all thy subjects, and extend the law of the Prophet. Such are the duties of princes upon earth ; and It Is thus that they bring on them the blessings of Heaven." Then, as if he wished to take actual seizin of Brusa, and to associate himself with his son's glory, he directed that he should be buried there; and advised his son to make that city the seat of empire. His last washes were loyally complied with; and a stately mausoleum, which stood at 18 TURKEY 1326 Brusa until its destruction by fire in the present age, marked the last resting-place of Othman, and proved the pious reverence of his descendants. His banner and his saber are still preserved in the treasury of the empire : and the martial ceremony of girding on that saber is the solemn right, analogous to the coronations of Christen- dom, by which the Turkish Sultans are formally invested with sovereign power. Othman is commonly termed the first Sultan of his race; but neither he nor his two immediate successors assumed more than the title of Emir. He had, at the time of his death, reigned as an inde- pendent Emir twenty-seven years, and had been chief of his tribe for thirty-nine years of his life of sixty-eight. Notwithstanding his blood-guiltiness in his uncle's death, we must believe him to have been eminently mild and gracious for an Oriental sovereign, from the traditional attachment with which his memory is still cherished by his nation, and which is expressed at the accession of each new Sultan by the formula of the people's prayer, " May he be as good as Othman." Chapter III THE OTTOMANS ENTER EUROPE. 1326-1359 EMIR OTHMAN now slept at Brusa, and Emir Orkhan reigned in his stead. Fratricide was not yet regarded as the necessary safeguard of the throne; and Orkhan earnestly besought his brother Alaeddin to share with him his sovereignty and his wealth. Alaeddin firmly refused to consent to any division of the empire, and so contravene the will of their father, who had ad- dressed Orkhan only as his successor. Nor would Alaeddin accept more of the paternal property than the revenues of a single village, near Brusa. Orkhan then said to him, " Since, my brother, thou wilt not take the flocks and the herds that I offer thee, be thou the shepherd of my people; be my Vizier." The word " Vizier," in the Ottoman language, means the bearer of a burden ; and Alaeddin, in accepting the office, took on him, according to the Oriental his- torians, his brother's burden of power. Alaeddin did not, like many of his successors in that office, often command in person the armies of his race; but he occupied himself most efficiently with the founda- tion and management of the civil and military institutions of his country. All the Oriental writers concur in attributing to Alaeddin the introduction of laws, which endured for centuries, respecting the costume of the various subjects of the empire, and of laws which created a standing army of regular troops, and provided funds for its support. It was, above all, by his advice and that of a contem- porary Turkish statesman, that the celebrated corps of Janissaries was formed, an institution which European writers erroneously fix at a later date, and ascribe to Murad I. Alaeddin, by his military legislation, may be truly said to have organized victory for the Ottoman race. He originated for the Turks a standing army of regularly paid and disciplined infantry and horse, a full century before Charles VII. of France established his fifteen permanent companies of men-at-arms, which are generally regarded as the first standing army known in modern history. 19 20 TURKEY 1326 Orkhan's predecessors, Ertoghrul and Othman, had made war at the head of tlie armed vassals and volunteers, who thronged on horseback to their prince's banner, when summoned for each expe- dition, and who were disbanded as soon as the campaign was over. Alaeddin determined to ensure and improve future successes by forming a corps of paid infantry, which should be kept in constant readiness for service. These troops were called Yaya, or Piade ; and they were divided into tens, hundreds, and thousands, under their respective decurions, centurions, and colonels. Their pay was high ; and their pride soon made them objects of anxiety to their sovereign. Orkhan wished to provide a check to them, and he took counsel for this purpose with his brother Alaeddin and Kara Khalil Tschen- dereli, who was connected with the royal house by marriage. Tschendereli laid before his master and the vizier a project, out of which arose the renowned corps of the Janissaries, so long the scourge of Christendom ; so long, also, the terror of their own sov- ereigns; and which was finally extirpated by the Sultan himself, in our own age. Tschendereli proposed to Orkhan to create an army entirely composed of Christian children, who should be forced to adopt the Mohammedan religion. Black Khalil argued thus : " The conquered are the property of the conqueror, who is the lawful mas- ter of them, of their lands, of their goods, of their wives, and of their children. We have a right to do what we will with our own ; and the treatment which I propose is not only lawful, but benevolent. By enforcing the conversion of these captive children to the true faith, and enrolling them in the ranks of the army of the true be- lievers, we consult both their temporal and eternal interests ; for, is it not written in the Koran that all children are, at their birth, naturally disposed to Islam ? " He also alleged that the formation of a Mohammedan army out of Christian children would induce other Christians to adopt the creed of the Prophet ; so that the new force would be recruited, not only out of the children of the con- quered nations, but out of a crowd of their Christian friends and relations, who would come as volunteers to join the Ottoman ranks. Acting on this advice, Orkhan selected out of the fam- ilies of the Christians whom he had conquered a thousand of the finest boys. In the next year a thousand more were taken ; and this annual enrollment of a thousand Christian children was continued for three centuries, until the reign of Sultan ]\Iohammed IV., in OTTOMANS ENTER EUROPE 21 1326 1648. When the prisoners made in the campaign of the year did not supply a thousand serviceable boys, the number was completed by a levy on the families of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. This was changed in the time of Mohammed IV., and the corps was thenceforth recruited from among the children of Janissaries and native Turks; but during the conquering period of the Ottoman power, the institution of the Janissaries, as designed by Alaeddin and Tschendereli, was maintained in full vigor. The name of Yeni Tscheri, which means " new troops," and which European writers have turned into Janissaries, was given to Orkhan's young corps by the dervish Hadji Beytarch. This der- vish was renowned for sanctity ; and Orkhan, soon after he had en- rolled his first band of involuntary boyish proselytes, led them to the dwelling-place of the saint, and asked him to give them his blessing and a name. The dervish drew the sleeve of his mantle over the head of one in the first rank, and then said to the Sultan, " The troop which thou hast created shall be called Yeni Tscheri. Their faces shall be white and shining, their right arms shall be strong, their sabers shall be keen, and their arrows sharp. They shall be fortunate in fight, and they shall never leave the battlefield save as conquerors." In memory of that benediction, the Janissaries ever wore, as part of their uniform, a cap of white felt, like that of the dervish, with a strip of woolen hanging down behind, to represent the sleeve of the holy man's mantle, that had been laid on their comrade's neck. The Christian children, who were to be trained as Janissaries, were usually chosen at a tender age. They were torn from their parents, trained to renounce the faith in which they were born and baptized, and to profess the creed of Mohammed. They were then carefully educated for a soldier's life. The discipline to which they were subjected was severe. They were taught the most implicit obedience ; and they were accustomed to bear without repining fatigue, pain, and hunger. But liberal honors and prompt pro- motion were the sure rewards of docility and courage. Cut off from all ties of country, kith, and kin, but with high pay and privileges, with ample opportunities for military advancement, and for the gratification of the violent, the sensual, and the sordid passions of their animal natures amid the customary atrocities of successful warfare, this military brotherhood grew up to be the strongest and fiercest instrument of imperial ambition, which remorseless fanati- 22 TURKEY 1326 cism, prompted by the most subtle statecraft, ever devised upon earth. The Ottoman historians eulogize with one accord the sagacity and piety of the founders of this institution. They reckon the num- ber of conquerors whom it gave to earth, and of heirs of paradise whom it gave to Heaven, on the hypothesis that, during three cen- turies, the stated number of a thousand Christian children, neither more nor less, was levied, converted, and enlisted. They boast, ac- cordingly, that three hundred thousand children were delivered from the torments of hell by being made Janissaries. But Von Hammer calculates, from the increase in the number of these troops under later Sultans, that at least half a million of young Christians must have been thus made, first the helpless victims, and then the cruel ministers of Mohammedan power. After the organization of the Janissaries, Alaeddin regulated that of the other corps of the army. In order that the soldier should have an interest, not only in making, but in preserving conquests, it was determined that the troops should receive allotments of land in the subjugated territories. The regular infantry, the Piade, had at first received pay in money; but they now had lands given to them on tenure of military service, and they were also under the obliga- tion of keeping in good repair the public roads that led near their grounds. The irregular infantry, which had neither pay like the Janissaries nor lands like the Piade, was called Azab, which means " light." The lives of these undisciplined bands were held of little value ; and the Azabs were thrown forward to perish in multitudes at the commencement of a battle or a siege. It was over their bodies that the Janissaries usually marched to the decisive charge or the final assault. The cavalry was distributed by Alaeddin, like the infantry, into regular and irregular troops. The permanent corps of paid cavalry was divided into four squadrons, organized like those which the Caliph Omar instituted for the guard of the Sacred Standard. The whole corps at first consisted of only 2400 horsemen ; but under Suleiman the Great the number was raised to 4000. They marched on the right and left of the Sultan; they camped round his tent at night, and they were his bodyguard in battle. One of these regi- ments of royal horseguards was called the Turkish Spahis, a term applied to ca\alry soldiers generally, but also specially denoting these select horseguards. Another regfiment was called the Silih- OTTOMANS ENTER EUROPE 23 1326-1336 dars, meaning- the " vassal cavalry." A third was called tjie Ulufedji, meaning the " paid horsemen " ; and the fourth was called Ghureba, meaning " the foreign horse." Besides this permanently embodied corps of paid cavalry, Alaeddin formed a force of horsemen, who re- ceived grants of land like the Piade. As they paid no taxes for the lands which they thus held, they were termed Moselliman, which means " tax-free." They were commanded by Sandjak Begs (princes of standards), by Bimbaschi (chiefs of thousands), and Soubashi (chiefs of hundreds). There were other holders of the grand and petty fiefs which were called Ziamets and Timars. These terms will be adverted to hereafter, when we reach the period at which the Turkish feudal system was more fully developed and de- fined. But in the earliest times their holders were bound to render military service on horseback, when summoned by their sovereign ; and they were arrayed under banners, in thousands and in hundreds, like the Mosellimans. In addition to the regular and feudal cavalry, there were the Akindji, or irregular light horse, receiving neither pay nor lands, but dependent on plunder, who were still called to- gether in multitudes whenever an Ottoman army was on the march ; and the terror which these active and ferocious marauders spread far and wide beyond the regular line of operations made the name of the Akindji as much known and dreaded in Christendom as that of the Janissaries and Spahis. Orkhan had captured the city of Nicomedia in the first year of his reign ( 1326) ; and with the new resources for warfare which the administrative genius of his brother placed at his command he speedily signalized his reign by conquests still more important. The great city of Nice, second to Constantinople only in the Greek Em- pire, surrendered to him in 1330. Orkhan gave the command of it to his eldest son, Suleiman Pasha, who had directed the operations of the siege. Numerous other advantages were gained over the Greeks : and the Turkish prince of Karasi, the ancient Mysia, who had taken up arms against the Ottomans, was defeated ; and his capital city, Berghama, the ancient Pergamus, and his territory, annexed to Orklian's dominions. On the conquest of Karasi, in the year 1336 of our era, nearly the whole of the northwest of Asia Minor was included in the Ottoman Empire; and the four great cities of Brusa, Nic(Mnedia, Nice, and Pergamus had become slr(Mig- holds of its power. A period of twenty years, without further conquests, and with- ^4 TURKEY 1336-1356 out war, followed the acquisition of Karasi. During this time the Ottoman sovereign was actively occupied in perfecting the civil and military institutions which his brother had introduced ; in securing internal order, in founding and endowing mosques and schools, and in the construction of vast public edifices, which yet attest the mag- nificence and piety of Orkhan. It is indeed a remarkable trait in the characters of the first princes of the Ottoman dynasty that, unlike the generality of conquerors, especially of Asiatic conquerors, they did not hurry on from one war to another in ceaseless avidity for fresh victories and new dominions ; but, on the contrary, they were not more eager to seize than they were cautious and earnest to con- solidate. They paused over each subdued province, till, by assimila- tion of civil and military institutions, it was fully blended into the general nationality of their empire. They thus gradually molded, in Asia Minor, a homogeneous and a stable power ; instead of pre- cipitately heaping together a motley mass of ill-arranged provinces and discordant populations. To this policy the long endurance of the Ottoman Empire, compared with other Oriental empires of both ancient and modern times, is greatly to be ascribed. And the extent to which this policy was followed in Asia Minor, compared with their subsequent practice in European Turkey, in Syria, and in Egypt, may have conduced in giving to the Ottomans a firmer hold on the first-named country than they possess on their territories westward of the Hellespont and southward of Mount Taurus. Every traveler notes the difference ; the Ottomans themselves acknowledge it ; and Anatolia, a name generally though not accurately used as co- extensive with that of Asia Minor, is regarded by the modern Turks as their stronghold in the event of further national disasters. They call it emphatically, " The last Home of the Faithful." The facts already mentioned of the general diffusion of Turkish popu- lations over Asia Minor, before Othman's time, must unquestion- ably have greatly promoted the solidity as well as the extent of the dominion which he and his successor there established ; but the far- sighted policy, with which they tempered their ambition, was also an efficient cause of permanent strength ; and their remote descend- ants still experience its advantageous operation. The friendly relations which Orkhan formed with the Emperor Andronicus, and maintained, though not uninterruptedly, with that prince and some of his successors, contributed to give a long period of twenty years' general repose to the Ottoman power. But in the OTTOMANS ENTER EUROPE 25 1336-1356 civil wars which distracted the last ages and wasted the last re- sources of the Greek Empire the auxiliary arms of the Turkish princes were frequently called over and employed in Europe. The Emperor Cantacuzene, in the year 1346, recognized in Orkhan the most powerful sovereign of the Turks; and he hoped to attach the Ottoman forces permanently to his interests by giving his daughter in marriage to their ruler, notwithstanding the difference of creed and the disparity of years between the young princess and the old Turk, who was now a widower of the age of sixty. The pomp of the nuptials between Orkhan and Theodora is elaborately described by the Byzantine writers; but in the next year, during which the Ottoman bridegroom visited his imperial father-in-law at Scutari, the suburb of Constantinople, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, scenes of a less pleasing character to the Greeks ensued. Orkhan's presence protected the Greek emperor, and his subjects during the display of festive splendor which Scutari exhibited at the meeting of the sovereigns; but when Orkhan had returned to his Bithynian capital, some Ottoman bands crossed the Hellespont and pillaged several towns in Thrace ; but they were at last, after a series of san- guinary encounters, all killed or taken by the superior forces sent against them. Not long afterward the war that raged between the two great maritime republics of Venice and Genoa along almost every coast of the Mediterranean and its connected seas, was the immediate cause of hostilities between the troops of Orkhan and those of his father-in-law, and led to the settlement of the Ottomans in Europe. The Genoese possessed the European suburb of Constantinople, called Galata ; and the Bosphorus was one of the scenes on which the most obstinate contests were maintained between their fleets and those of their rivals, Orkhan hated the Venetians, whose fleets had insulted his seaward provinces, and who had met his diplomatic overtures with contempt, as if coming from an insignificant barbar- ous chieftain. The Venetians were allies of Cantacuzene; but Orkhan sent an auxiliary force across the straits to Galata, which there cooperated with the Genoese. Orkhan also aided the em- peror's other son-in-law, John Paleeologus, in the civil war that was kept up between him and the Greek emperor. In the midst of the distress and confusion with which the Byzantine Empire was now oppressed, Orkhan's eldest son, Suleiman Pasha, struck a bold blow in behalf of his own race, whicli gave the Turks a permanent estab- 26 TURKEY 1356 lishment on the European side of the Hellespont. This important event in the world's history took place in 1356. The Ottoman writers pass over in silence the previous incursions of the Turks into Europe, which gained no conquest and led to no definite advantage ; but they dwell fully on this expedition of Suleiman, and adorn it with poetic legends of the vision that appeared to the young chief- tain as he mused on the seashore near the ruins of Cyzicus. They tell how the crescent of the moon rose before him as the emblem of his race, and united the continents of Europe and Asia with a chain cvpflwa V^ of silver light, wdiile temples and palaces floated up out of the great deep, and mysterious voices blended with the sounding sea, exciting in his heart a yearning for predestined enterprise, and a sense of supernatural summons. With but thirty-nine of his chosen war- riors he embarked at night on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont and surprised the Castle of Tzympe, on the opposite coast. Rein- forcements soon pushed across to the adventurers ; and in three days Tzympe was garrisoned by three thousand Ottoman troops. At this crisis, Cantacuzene was so severely pressed by his rival, John Pala^ologus, that, instead of trying to dislodge the invaders from Tzympe, or even remonstrating against their occupation of OTTOMANS ENTER EUROPE 27 1356 that fortress, he implored the help of Orkhan against his domestic enemy. Orkhan gave up his brother-in-law's cause, and provided assistance to the old emperor. But he ordered that assistance to be administered by Suleiman, the conqueror of Tzympe, an auxiliary the most formidable to those with whom he was to cooperate. Ten thousand more Turks were sent across to Suleiman, who defeated the Slavonic forces which Palaeologus had brought into the empire : but the victors never left the continent on which they had conquered. Cantacuzene offered Suleiman ten thousand ducats to retire from Tzympe. The sum was agreed on ; but before the ransom was paid a terrible earthquake shook the whole district of Thrace and threw down the walls of its fenced cities. The Greeks trembled at this visitation of Providence; and the Turks saw in it the interposi- tion of Heaven in their favor, and thought that the hand of God was smoothing the path for their conquest of the Promised Land. Two captains, Adje Beg and Ghasi Fasil, instantly occupied the impor- tant town of Gallipoli, marching in over the walls which the earth- quake had shattered, and unresisted by the awe-struck inhabitants, Suleiman, on hearing that his troops had occupied Gallipoli, refused to give up Tzympe ; and threw large colonies of Turks and Arabs across the straits, which he planted in the territory which had been thus acquired. The fortifications of Gallipoli were re- paired, and that important post was strongly garrisoned. Suleiman took possession of other places in the Thracian Chersonese, which he strengthened with new walls and secured with detachments of his best troops. The Greek emperor made a formal complaint of these aggressions to Orkhan, who replied that it was not the force of arms that had opened the Greek cities to his son, but the will of God, manifested in the earthquake. The emperor rejoined that the ques- tion was not how the Turks had marched into the cities, but whether they had any right to retain them. Orkhan asked time to consider the subject, and afterward made some proposals for negotiating the restoration of the cities; but he had firmly resolved to take full advantage of the opportunities for aggrandizing the Ottoman power, which now were afforded by the basis for operations in Europe which had been acquired, and by the perpetual dissensions that raged between Cantacuzene and his son-in-law Palaeologus, each of whom was continually soliciting Orkhan's aid against the other, and obtaining that aid according to what seemed best for the inter- ests of the Turkish sovereign the real enemy of them both. 28 TURKEY 1359 Orkhan lived only three years after the capture of Tzympe and GalHpoh : his son Suleiman, to whom he owed those conquests, and in whom he had hoped to leave a successor who should surpass all the glories hitherto won by the house of Othman, had died before him. An accidental fall from his horse, while he was engaged in the favorite Turkish sport of falconry, caused the young conqueror's death. Suleiman was not buried at Brusa ; but, by Orkhan's order, a tomb was built for him on the shore of the Hellespont, over which he had led his race to a second empire. Orkhan died in the year 1359 of our era, at the age of seventy- five, after a reign of thirty-three years, during which the most im- portant civil and military institutions of his nation w^ere founded, and the Crescent was not only advanced over many of the fairest provinces of Asia, but was also planted on the European continent, whence its enemies have hitherto vainly sought to dislodge it dur- ing five centuries. Chapter IV CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA. 1359-1402 THE death of Suleiman Pasha had opened to his younger brother Murad the inheritance of the Ottoman throne. Murad was forty years of age when he succeeded his father Orkhan, and he reigned thirty years over the Ottomans in prosperity and glory. His first projects after his accession were to extend the European conquests of his father and brother ; but he was checked for a time by the enmity of the Prince of Caramania, who stirred up a revolt in the Ottoman dominions in the center of Asia Minor. Murad marched an army rapidly to the scene of the in- surrection, wdiich he completely quelled. He then, in 1360, led his troops to the passage of the Hellespont ; and commenced a series of victories in Europe, which were only terminated by his death on the field of battle at Kosovo in 1389. Besides wresting from the Greeks numerous places of secondary value, Murad captured, in 1361, the great city of Adrianople, which thenceforth became the capital of the Ottoman dominions in Europe, until Constantinople fell before Mohammed II. Pushing his conquests toward Mace- donia and the Haemus, Murad next took Sagrre and Philippopolis. The Turkish armies, like the ancient Roman legions, found a principal part of their booty in the prisoners they made, and who were all destined for sale as slaves. The number of prisoners had increased to such a multitude during these campaigns of Murad that one of his statesmen pointed out to him the importance of steadily enforcing the royal prerogative neglected by his prede- cessors of taking a fifth part of the spoil. This was thenceforth exercised by the Sultans, who sometimes took their double tithe in kind ; but more frequently received a stated sum per head, as the fifth of the value of each slave. In after ages, when a Christian nation remonstrated against this practice, a formal stipulation, excepting prisoners of war of that nation from such liability, was usually established by express treaty. Hitherto the Turkish victories in Europe had been won over 29 30 TURKEY 1362-1376 the feeble Greeks ; but the Ottomans now came in contact with the far more warlike Slavonic tribes which had founded kingdoms and principalities in Servia and Bosnia. Murad also menaced the fron- tiers of Wallachia and Hungary. Pope Urban V. preached a cru- sade against the infidel Turks, and the King of Hungary, the princes of Servia, of Bosnia and Wallachia, leagued together to drive the Ottomans out of Europe. Their forces marched toward Adrianople until they crossed the river Maritza at a point not more than two days' journey from that city. Lalashahin, who then was in com- mand of the Ottoman forces in Europe, w^as unable to assemble an army equal in numbers to that of the confederate chieftains, who mustered more than 20,000 men. But the Christians, in the pride of assured victory, neglected all military precautions against their enemy; and suddenly, while they were all engaged in a nightly revel, the sound of the Turkish drums and fifes and the shouts of " Allah " were heard amid the darkness. Their active enemy was on them ; and they fled in panic rout. " They were caught," says Seadeddin, the Oriental historian, *' even as wild beasts in their lair. They were driven before us as flames are driven be- fore the wind, till plunging into the Maritza they perished in its waters." Such was the issue of the first encounter of the Hungarians and Servians with the Turks ; and centuries of further disaster and suffering to the Christians were to follow. A long list of battles won and towns taken by Murad or his generals between the year of the battle of ]\Iaritza, in 1363, and the year 1376, may be found in the Turkish historians. In the last- mentioned year the capture of the strong city of Nissa by the Otto- mans forced the Prince of Servia to beg peace, which was granted to him on the condition of supplying a tribute of a thousand pounds of silver, and a thousand horse-soldiers every year, Sisvan, the King of the Bulgarians, had also taken part in the hostilities waged by the European Christians against Murad, and he also was com- pelled to sue for mercy. Sisvan disliked paying money, and pre- ferred to obtain peace by giving up his daughter in marriage to the conqueror. IMurad now rested from warfare for six years, during which time he empldvcd liimself unremittingly in tlie internal aftairs of his state. He imjjroved the organization of his military force, and completed the feudal system by which grants of land in each con- quered country were made to ^Mohammedans, on condition that each CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 31 1382-1387 district so granted should supply one or more Spaliis or armed horsemen in time of war. These granted districts or fiefs (as we may term them by applying the phraseology of medieval Europe) were classified into minor fiefs, called Timars; and grand fiefs, called Ziamets. During this season of peace Murad was still soHcitous to extend his dominions ; and he used for that purpose his political and diplomatic skill in forming such matrimonial alliances for members of his family as seemed to promise the future acquisition of new provinces. He married his eldest son Bayezid to the daugh- ter of the Prince of Kermian, a Turkish state in Asia Minor, that adjoined the Ottoman territories in that country. The bride brought as her dowry a new kingdom to the throne of Othman. Murad's own daughter Nifisay was given in marriage to the powerful Turk- ish Prince of Caramania. Murad himself, and two of his sons, at a later period, permitted each a Byzantine princess to be added to their list of wives. Ever since the capture of Adrianople the Greek em- peror had cringed to the Ottoman sovereign, and sought eagerly to keep up such treaties with his infidel neighbor as would promise him a quiet reign, though upon mere sufferance, at Constantinople. But Palaeologus hated him whom he feared; and the Greek emperor vainly, in 1380, underwent the expense and ignominy of a voyage from Constantinople to Rome, where he sought, by the most abject submissions to the Papacy, to obtain a new crusade by the Prankish kings of Christendom against the Alohammedan invaders of its eastern regions. In terror at the wrath which this attempt was likely to excite in Murad, Palseologus sent his third son Theodoras to the Ottoman court, with a humble request that he might be al- lowed to serve in the ranks of the Turkish army. This servile humility allayed the anger of Murad. Notwithstanding the Ottoman ruler's policy in forming a bond of marriage between his house and that of the Turkish ruler of Caramania, a war broke out in 1387 between these two powerful rivals for the headship of the Turkish race in Asia ]\Iinor. A great battle was fought between them at Iconinm, in which the valor of Prince Bayezid on the side of the Ottomans was particularly signal- ized. He is said, by the lightning-like rapidity and violence of his charge upon the enemy on that day, to have acquired the surname of Ilderim, or " the Lightm'ng," by which he is known in history. The Caramanian prince was utterly defeated at Iconium, and owed the preservation of his life and kingdom to the interposition 32 TURKEY 1388 of his wife, who succeeded in cahning tlie anger of her victorious father, and in(hiced him to he satisfied with his defeated rival ac- knowledging his superiority, and kissing his hand in token of submission, Murad dismissed his army and repaired to Brusa. But the old lion was soon roused from his rest, to encounter far more formidable foes, who were leagued together to tear his Euro- pean conquests from his grasp. The Ottoman dominions in Europe at this time, 1388, com- prised nearly the whole of ancient Thrace and modern Rumelia. Some important acquisitions beyond the boundary of this province had also been effected ; and the conquerors pursued the system of planting colonies of Turks from Asia in the conquered districts, while they removed large portions of the old population. By this, and by their custom of recruiting their Janissaries from the flower of the Christian children, they excited the alarm of the neighboring Christian states, who saw a fierce race, alien to them in blood and in creed, thus taking root on their frontier, and organizing the re- sources of the subdued country for future military enterprises. The Bulgarians, the Servians, the Bosnians, all of Slavonic blood, now united in one great national effort against the intrusive Turks. Servia was chief of the movement. She could not forget her proud position, which she had held before the Ottomans had come into Europe, when her great King Stephen Dusan ruled victoriously, from Belgrade to the Maritza, from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, and assumed the high title of " Emperor of the Rumelians, the Macedonian Christ-loving Czar." Beside these Slavonic nations, the Skipetars, of Albany, now armed against the common enemy from Asia. The powers thus allied against Murad expected also and received assistance from the semi-Roman population of Wallachia and from the Alagyars of Hungary, who, like their kinsmen the Ottoman Turks, had won by force a settlement in Europe ; but who, unlike the Turks, adopted the creed and the civilization of European Christendom, and became for ages its chivalrous defenders. Slavonic Poland also sent aid to her sister Slavonic kingdom of the south. No further succor was obtainable. The other great kingdom of that family of nations, Russia, lay at this time in wretched slavery under the Mongols. The great kingdoms of Western Christendom heard with indifference the sufferings and the perils to which its eastern portions were exposed by the new ^Mohammedan power. The old crusading enthusiasm had faded away; nor could, indeed, the im- CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 33 1389 mediate stimulant of a cry to the rescue of the Holy Land be em- ployed against the Ottomans, who had not yet approached the Syrian territory. The internal condition, at the latter part of the fourteenth century, of each of the great European states, which had supplied the heroes of the early crusades, was peculiarly unfavorable for the efforts of those who strove to arouse their descendants to a similar expedition. And the personal character of the sovereigns of England, France, and Germany, in 1388, forbade all hopes of seeing the examples of Richard Coeur de Lion, of Edward I., of Philip Augustus of St. Louis, of Conrad, and Frederick IL, imi- tated by their successors. The weak and worthless Richard IL was sovereign of England; the imbecile Charles VL was enthroned at Paris. Both countries were the scenes of perpetual strife between powerful nobles, and of general confusion and lawlessness. The German Empire, under the coarse and dissolute Wenceslaus, was in a still more wretched condition : and the great civil war between tlie confederations of brigand knights and the burghers of the free cities was raging from the Danube to the Rhine. The Christian princes of Spain were still fully occupied with their long struggles against their own Moorish invaders. The difficulty of uniting the powers of the West in any enterprise against the common foe of their re- ligion was augmented tenfold by the schism in the Papacy, which then divided the whole of Western Christendom. But although the great powers of Western Christendom stood aloof from the struggle made by the Christian nations of the East to free themselves from the pressure of the Ottoman conquests, Murad saw that the league which the ruler of Servia had succeeded in organizing against him was one which it would tax his utmost energies to encounter. The Bulgarians and Servians had com- menced tlie w-ar by falling upon an Ottoman army which was moving through Bosnia. They destroyed fifteen out of twenty thousand Turks ^ by the impetuous suddenness of their attack, and the great superiority of their numljers. After this vigorous blow the Christians relaxed in their exertions. The vacillations and de- lays, which usually mark the movements of a confederacy, kept the forces of the greater number of tlie allies inactive during several months of the year 1389; while their vigorous and resolute adver- sary was pouring his forces into Bulgaria and completing the con- ^ All statcmcnls as to the size of armies, their losses, etc., in the Middle Ages are at best only approximate and should be received with caution. Ed. 34 TURKEY 1389 quest of that important member of their league. Murad was es- pecially incensed against Sisvan, the Bulgarian king, who had kept up the appearance of submissive devotion to the Turkish interests, until he suddenly joined the Servians in the attack upon his son-in- law's forces in Bosnia. The necessity of making regulations for the defense and internal government of Rumelia during the war, and of calling into active service and arranging the full military force of the province, detained Murad himself for a short time in Adrian- ople; but he sent his general, Ali Pasha, forward into Bulgaria with an army of 30,000 men. The Turks now marched north- ward to conquest across that mountain chain of the Balkan, which their descendants in the past century trusted so implicitly as a barrier against attacks upon themselves. Ali Pasha advanced with the main army through the passes of Nadir Derbend upon Shumla, so celebrated in modern Russian w^ars. Shumla surren- dered to the Turks. Tirnova and Pravadi were also captured by Ali Pasha and his lieutenant, Yakshibey; and the Bulgarian king took refuge in Nicopolis on the Danube. Ali Pasha besieged him there, and Sisvan begged for peace. Murad granted it, on condi- tion that Silistria should be ceded to him, and that the conquered Sisvan should pay him a regular tribute. But disputes broke out as to the fulfillment of the terms of peace; the war was recom- menced, and the Turks stormed the strong places of Dridja and Hirschova. Besieged again in Nicopolis, the Bulgarian king sur- rendered at discretion. His life w-as spared ; but Bulgaria was now annexed to the Ottoman Empire, which thus advanced its northern frontier to the Danube. The Servian King Lazarus, alarmed at the destruction of his confederate, now earnestly collected the forces of the remaining members of the anti-Turkish league, and prepared for a resolute struggle. So large was the force which he drew around him that in the pride and confidence of his heart he sent Murad a formal chal- lenge to a decisive battle. Murad had now taken in person the command of the Turkish army, and continued his policy of acting on the offensive, and making his enemy's territory the seat of war. He marched westward from Bulgaria through a difficult and moun- tainous country to the neighborhood of Kosovo, on the frontiers of Servia and Bosnia, where his enemies had collected their troops. The i)lain of Kosovo, on which the fate of Servia was decided on August 27, 1389, is traversed by the little stream of the Schinitza. CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 35 1389 On the north side of this rivulet the combined levies of Servia, Bosnia, and Albania, with their auxiliaries from Poland, Hun- gary, and Wallachia, w^ere arrayed in numbers far exceeding those of the troops which Murad had in hand for battle.^ Accord- ing to the Ottoman historians, Murad summoned a council of war to deliberate whether he should attack the enemy that seemed so superior in force. Several of the Turkish chiefs advised that he should draw up all the camels of their baggage-train in a line before the army, so as to serve as a living rampart, and to disorder the enemy's horse by the sight and smell of those animals. Murad's eldest son, Prince Bayezid, opposed this project : he fiercely urged that Heaven had ever manifestly favored the arms of the house of Othman, and that to employ such artifices would show a distrust of Providence. " The honor of our flag," said he, " requires that those who march beneath the Crescent should meet their enemy face to face, let that enemy be who he will." The Grand Vizier gave his vote also for open fighting, on the authority of what he believed to be a supernatural warning. He had opened the Koran at random, and had fallen upon the verse, " O Prophet, fight the unbelievers and the hypocrites." He had tried these sortcs Koranicas again, and the verse which then presented itself was, " Verily a large host is often beaten by a weaker one." In the other camp the discussions of the confederate princes were equally long and uncertain. Some advised an attack on the Turks by night, in revenge probably for the disaster of the Maritza, twenty-six years before. Others opposed this plan as full of risk and confusion, and also because the enemy would have a better chance of escaping in the night than if they waited for daylight for the victory which they deemed secure. The morning at last broke upon the two camps ; and with the dawn there came a heavy fall of rain, which completely laid the dust, and seemed to ]\Iurad and his followers to be an express sign that God was with them. The rain ceased after a while, and the two armies came forth from their tents on a fair and open field, and drew themselves up for battle. The Turks were arrang'cd in their customary order. As tlie battle was in Europe, the Enroj^can feudatory troops were on the right wing, and those of Asia on tlie left. Prince Bayezid com- manded on the right ; the other wing was led by ^hirad's other sur- - According to the Turkish historian Seadcddin ; the Servian clironicles say that the Turkish army was three times as great as tlie Christian. 36 TURKEY 1389 viving son, Prince Yacoub. Miirad himself was in the center with the Janissaries and the cavalry regiments of his guard. The irreg- ulars, horse and foot, the Akindji, and the Azabs, skirmished in the van. On the Christian side, King Lazarus commanded the center. His nephew, Vuk Brankovic, led the right, and the King of Bosnia the left wing. Both armies advanced resolutely to the charge, en- countered each other fiercely, stood their ground firmly; and the event of the day was long doubtful. The Asiatic troops in the left wing of the Mohammedan army began at last to give way before the warriors of Servia and Albania, who pressed them on the Chris- tians' right. Prince Bayezid brought succor from the right wing of the Ottomans, and restored the fight. Armed with a heavy mace of iron, he fought in person in the thick of the battle, and smote down all who dared to cross his path. While the two armies thus strove together, and the field was heaped thickly with carnage, a Servian nobleman, Milosh Kabilovic, rode to the Ottoman center, pretending that he was a deserter, and had important secrets to re- veal to Murad in person. Pie was led before the Turkish sovereign ; he knelt as if in homage before him and then stabbed Murad with a sudden and mortal stroke of his dagger. Milosh sprang up from his knees, and, gifted with surprising strength and activity, he thrice cleared himself from the vengeful throng of the Ottomans who as- sailed him, and fought his way to the spot where his horse had been left; but ere he could remount, the Janissaries overpowered him, and hewed him into pieces. Murad knew that his wound was mortal ; but he had presence of mhid sufficient to give the orders for a charge of his reserve, which decided the victory in his favor. Plis rival, the Servian king, was brought captive into his presence, and Murad died in the act of pronouncing the death-doom of his foe. The execution of King Lazarus was not the only one of which the royal Ottoman tent was the scene before the close of that day. Prince Bayezid, when the victory over the Christians was secure, returned to the Turkish camp, and was acknowledged by his father's generals as their sovereign. Forthwith, and in the very presence of his father's lifeless remains, Bayezid ordered his brother Yacoub, who had fought valiantly through the battle, to be seized and put to death. This fratricide was committed in pursuance of the maxim of the Koran, " Dis(|uiet is worse than putting to deatli." It was rendered particularly necessary by the evil example of revolt w^hicli their brother Saoudji had given in Murad's lifetime, w-hich proved CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 37 1390-1392 the necessity of cutting off those who were likely to imitate such conduct. The death of Yacoub was also, according to the Turkish historian Seadeddin, justifiable, because the Sultan, the shadow of God upon earth, and the Lord of all true believers, ought to reign in conformity with the ever-to-be-imitated example of God, alone upon the throne, and without the possibility of anyone revolting against him. According to some authorities it was from Bayezid's deadly rapidity in securing his accession by his brother's death that he acquired the surname of " Ilderim." His reign commenced in the camp, and he followed up the war against the Servians with vigor and success, that showed him to be the heir of his father's valor as well as of his throne. Stephen Laserovic, the new King of Servia, found that it was hopeless to continue the struggle, and entered into a treaty by which Servia became the vassal state of the Ottomans. Laserovic gave the Sultan his sister to wife, and agreed to pay as tri- bute-money a certain portion of the produce of all the silver mines in his dominions. Lie undertook also to render, in person, military service to the Sultan in all his campaigns, and throughout his life he honorably performed his portion of the compact. In the great battles of Nicopolis and Angora, Laserovic fought by the side of his brother-in-law. He was (says the modern historian of Servia) apparently bound to this house by an oath, and with the zeal of a kinsman he exerted himself in the adjustment of quarrels that broke out in the Ottoman family. Having successfully concluded the Servian war, Bayezid passed over to his Asiatic dominions, which he increased by fresh conquests over the neighboring states. In 1390 the Turkish "Lightning" was again in Europe, waging war on Wallachia, Bosnia, Hungary, and the wretched remnants of the Byzantine Empire. Myrtche, the Prince of Wallachia, submitted to Bayezid in 1391, and thenceforth Wallachia was for centuries in the list of the tributary states of the Ottoman Porte. The Bosnians, aided by the Hungarians, offered a more obstinate resistance. In 1392 the Hungarian king, Sigis- mund, advanced into Bulgaria and gained several advantages, but was at last overpowered by the superior forces of the Turks, and driven in utter rout back into his own kingdom. It was while King Sigismund in the course of his retreat from the campaign traversed the county of Iluniade, that he saw and became enamored of the fair Elizabeth Alorsini. It is said and sung that monarchs seldom sigh in vain; and from this love-passage of the fugitive Sigisinund 38 TURKEY 1392-1396 ensued the birth of Hunyady the Great, the conqueror of the Turks in many a well-fought field. Bayezid's European enemies obtained a seasonable relief from the pressure of his arms by the sudden attack which the Prince of Caramania made in 1392 upon the Ottoman possessions in Asia. The Caramanian armies were at first so far successful that the Ottoman troops suffered a complete overthrow between Angora and Brusa; and Timurtash, Bayezid's viceroy in Asia, was taken pris- oner. But on the arrival of Bayezid himself in Asia the fortune of the war was speedily changed. The Caramanian prince was defeated and captured, and placed in the custody of his own former prisoner, Timurtash. Without waiting for orders from Bayezid, Timurtash put the unhappy Caramanian to death. Bayezid was at first angry at such an act having been done on the general's own authority, but he excused it on consideration of high state policy, and justified it by the maxim that " The death of a prince is not so bad as the loss of a province." That maxim was afterward regu- larly quoted by the Turkish rulers when they ordered the execution of any prince. Caramania now submitted to the Ottomans, and all the south of Asia Minor acknowledged Bayezid as sovereign. He then sent his armies into the east and north of that country, and annexed Sivas, Kastemouni, Samsoun, and Amassia, with their territories, to his dominions. Bayezid disdained the title of Emir, which his three predecessors had borne, and obtained from the successor of the caliphs (who w^as maintained in empty state by the Mameluke sov- ereign of Egypt, but still recognized as the religious chief of the Mohammedan world) the superior title of Sultan. Proud of his numerous victories and rapidly augmented pow-er, Bayezid now gave himself up for a time to luxurious ease and to sensual excesses of the foulest description. He is the first of the Ottoman princes who infringed the law of the Prophet which forbids the use of wine. His favorite general, Ali Pasha, had set his master the example of drunkenness, and Bayezid debased himself by sharing and imitating his subject's orgies. Bayezid was startled from his flagitious revels by a crusade of the Christian chivalry of Frankistan in 1396. Sigismund, King of Hungary, felt deeply after the day of Kosovo and the fall of Servia the imminence of the peril to which his owai country was exposed ; and he succeeded in moving the sympathies of other mem- CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 39 1396 bers of the Latin Church into active enterprise on his behalf. Pope Boniface IX., in the year 1394, proclaimed a crusade against the Ottomans, with plenary indulgence to all Christians who should forthwith repair to the rescue of Hungary and the neighboring kingdoms. Sigismund was especially earnest in his endeavors to move the Court of France to send troops to his assistance. The cessation of hostilities between France and England, about this time, favored the grant of the Hungarian request; and many of the martial youth of France and Burgundy were now eager for new adventures and fresh scenes of distinction. It was resolved that the Count de Nevers, the son of the Duke of Burgundy, should lead a body of men-at-arms to the aid of the Hungarian king, and that he should be commander-in-chief of the French and other chivalry. Knights and squires began now to gather together, with other gen- tlemen who were desirous of renown. The chief commanders, under the Count de Nevers, were the Count de la Manche and the three cousins of the French King, James of Bourbon, and Henri and Philippe de Bar. They marched from France in companies about the middle of March, 1396; and as they traversed Germany, they were joined by Frederic, Count of Hohenzollern, Grand Prince of the Teutonic Order, and the Grand Master Philibert de Naillac, who came from Rhodes at the head of a strong body of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Besides this splendid auxiliary force, the King of Hun- gary had obtained the services of a body of Bavarian knights, com- manded by the Elector Palatine and the Count of Munspelgarde; and he had also been joined by a band of the chivalry of Styria, headed by Herman, second Count de Cilli. Altogether, the cru- saders of Western Christendom who marched to the Danube against the Ottomans in 1396 appear to have been from 10,000 to 12,000 in number, all men " of tried courage and enterprise," as the old chronicler calls them, full of confidence in their cause and in their own valor, and who boasted in tlie pride of their hearts that " if the sky were to fall, they would uphold it on the points of their lances." Sigismund had collected the full strength of his own king- dom, and had also prevailed on Myrtchc, the Prince or Voivode of W'allachia, to join him in this grand combined attack on the Otto- man power, although Wallachia had some time before obtained peace from tlie Turks on condition of paying a stipulated tribute. The confederate Christian army marched in divisions, partly 40 TURKEY 1396 through Transylvania and Wallachia. and partly through Servia, against the Ottoman dominions. The Servian prince remained faithful to his alliance with Bayezid, and his subjects were therefore visited with merciless pillage and devastation by the army of fellow- Christians who marched through their land. The first Turkish town that Sigismund attacked was Widdin, which surrendered im- mediately. Orsova yielded after five days' resistance. Raco was taken by assault, and the garrison put to the sword, though they laid down their arms and asked for quarter. The practice of refusing mercy to a fallen enemy was by no means confined to the Turkish side : and, indeed, even in the hostilities of one Christian nation against another, no law or custom of war against butchering de- feated and unresisting enemies was yet recognized. When lives were spared it was generally from the hope of obtaining ransom, or from sheer weariness and satiety of slaughter. The Christian army marched next against Nicopolis, which was closely invested. The commander of the Turkish garrison, Yoglan Beg, made a gallant and obstinate resistance, in the full hope that Bayezid would not suffer so important a city to fall without making an effort for its relief. The Sultan had indeed now crossed the Bosphorus from Asia, and was leading the best troops of his empire to encounter these new foes from the Far West. The stubborn valor of the commander of Nicopolis was of the utmost value to his sovereign, by giving him time to concentrate and bring up his forces to the scene of action. Bayezid's generalship was far superior to the mil- itary conduct on the side of the Christians. They, and especially the French, in arrogant confidence of their invincibility, gave them- selves up to riotous carousals, and neglected the most ordinary pre- cautions to ascertain whether any enemy was advancing. " Bayezid would not dare to come across the Bosphorus." Such was their boast, at the very time when Bayezid was swiftly and silently ap- proaching with his well-appointed and well-disciplined army within six leagues of their camp. The Count de Xevers and his French chivalry were at table on September 24, 1396, when messengers hurried in with news that some marauders from the camp had come upon a great army of Turks, which was even then close at hand. The young paladins of France rose hot and flushed at the tidings, and ran to arms, demanding that they should be led instantly to battle. The Turkish irregular troops, the Azabs and the Akindji, were now seen hovering near ; and the Count de Nevers, CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA41 1396 while his French cavalry was forming hastily in line, required of King Sigismund that they should be the van of the Christian army, and fill the post of honor in the battle. Sigismund, who knew well the Turkish tactics, urged on the count that it would be wiser to send some light troops against the half-armed and undisciplined hordes, which they saw before them, and to reserve the French chivalry, as the flower of the Christian army, to meet the Janissaries and Spahis, the best troops on the other side. The Sire de Courcy and the admiral advised compliance with the king's advice, but the constable and the Marechal Boucicault opposed it, out of a spirit of rivalry, and insisted that the French cavalry should not suffer any Hungarians to precede them to battle. The young knights all ap- plauded these proud words ; and in ferocious insolence of spirit, they massacred some Turkish prisoners, whom they had in their power, and who had surrendered on promise of quarter an act of useless perfidy and cruelty, which was soon to receive its chastisement. Bayezid had halted his main army in a plain at a short distance from the Christian camp. There was some rising ground in the interval, which screened the Turks from the enemy's observation. The Sultan sent his irregular troops forward and supported them by a body of Janissaries, and by a large division of his cavalry; but he reserved 40,000 of his best troops, and kept them under arms, and drawn up in perfect order on the plain. On the other side the French cavalry, about 8000 strong, galloped impetu- ously onward, disdaining to wait for the cooperation of the main Hungarian army, with which King Sigismund moved forward more slowly. The French rode the Turkish irregulars down like reeds, and then with leveled spears they charged the advanced di- vision of the Janissaries.'^ They broke this redoubtable infantry, and next encountered with equal success the foremost squadrons of the Turkish regular cavalry that attempted tcj cover the retreat of their comrades. The triple success which the fiery valor of the young French nobles had thus achieved was splendid, and might have led to a complete victory, had they listened to the sage advice of the Sire de Courcy and the admiral, who earnestly implored the Count de Xevers to order a halt, and wait for the Hungarians to come up ; or at least to give time enough for the horses to recover their wind, and for rearranging their disordered ranks. But carried ' The Frencli were obliged to dismount in order to break through the hedgi' of lances which prntected tlie front of the Janissaries. The inedie\al chivalr}- generally dismounted in battle, as, for example, at Poitiers. 42 TURKEY 1396 away by the excitement of the strife, and the intoxication of their partial triumph, the French knights and their young commander continued to chase the flying Spahis, till, on gaining the summit of the high ground, they saw before them, not as they expected, a scared remnant of the defeated Turks, but a steady forest of hostile spears, and the Sultan himself at the head of his chosen troops, which soon began to extend, and wheel their enclosing lines round the scanty band of the rash assailants. The Turkish troops, which they had defeated in the first part of their advance, had now rallied, and formed in the rear of the French knights, cutting off all hope of retreat. In this extremity, charged furiously in every quarter by superior numbers, obliged to combat in confusion and disorder, and with their own strength and that of their horses exhausted by their previous efforts, the Christian chevaliers fought on heroically till they were nearly all cut down or made prisoners. A few only made their way back to the main army of the confederates, into which they carried the disheartening tidings of defeat. Bayezid, after the French were overpowered, restored the regular formation of his troops, and then moved forward against King Sigismund. The two wings of the Christian main army fled at once without striking a blow. The central division of Hungarians, which the king him- self commanded, and the Bavarians and the Styrians, who also were posted in the center, stood firm. They repulsed the Turkish charge, and advanced in turn against the Janissaries and Spahis, forcing these chosen troops of the Ottomans to recoil, when they were themselves fiercely charged by the Servians, who, under their king, Stephen Laserovic, fought as allies of Bayezid in this battle. The overthrow of the Christian army was now complete. Sigis- mund's Hungarian division was almost destroyed ; all the Bavarian knights and many of the Styrians died gloriously around their stan- dards. King Sigismund and a few more of the leaders escaped with difficulty from the field ; but nearly all the best and bravest of the gal- lant army which had marched on that crusade lay stark on the bloody field of Nicopolis, or were helplessly waiting for the doom which it might please the triumphant Sultan to pass upon his captive foes.^ After the conflict Bayezid fixed his camp in front of the res- cued city of Nicopolis, and then rode over the field of battle. He 4 This generally accepted account of the battle presents certain difficulties. It is evident that the Turks were not drawn up in their regular order of battle, and the way in wliich the French met and defeated different bodies, before being overwhelmed, rather indicates that the Turks were attacked in marching CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 43 1396 was enraged to find from the number o his men who lay dead how dear the victory had cost him. He said, " This has been a cruel battle for our people : the Christians have defended themselves des- perately; but I will have this slaughter well avenged on those who are prisoners." Accordingly on the next morning the whole Turk- ish army was drawn up in the form of a crescent, the Sultan being in the center. He commanded the Christian prisoners to be brought before him, and they were led out to the number of ten thousand, with their hands bound behind them, and with halters round their necks. Among them was a youth of Munich, named Schildberger, who had gone to that campaign as attendant on a Bavarian noble- man who fell in the battle. Schildberger, more fortunate than his lord, escaped death in the conflict and in the massacre that followed. He lived to witness and to share the captivity of his first captors; and, after thirty-four years of slavery, returned to his home and wrote there a memoir of his own life, which is the most interesting and most trustworthy narrative that we possess of the campaign of Nicopolis, and of many of the subsequent scenes of Turkish history. The commander of the French chivalry, the Count de Nevers, had been taken in the battle. Bayezid ordered that he should be spared, and permitted him to select twenty-four more of the Christian nobles from among the prisoners, whose lives were also granted. The Sultan then gave the signal for the slaughter of the rest to commence; and the unhappy captives were led in detachments be- fore the royal tent, at the entrance of which Bayezid stood with the Count de Nevers and the twenty-four other Christian nobles who had been spared, but who were forced to witness tlie fate of their comrades and fellow-Christians. The contemporaneous chronicler of chivalry, old Froissart, tells the fate of the martyred chevaliers with natural sympathy: " Many excellent knights and squires of France and other nations, who had been taken in battle or in the pursuit, were now brought forth in their shirts, one after another, before Bayezid, who eyeing them a little, they were led on ; and as he made a signal were instantly cut to pieces by those waiting for them with drawn swords. Such was the cruel justice of Bayezid this day, when upward of three hundred gentlemen of different nations were thus order. Again, it is difficult to explain the tardiness of the Hungarians in sup- porting the Frencli. A good recent account ol this and many subsequent battles in luiroj)!' down to 1537 '^ found in Ab. Kupelweiser's " Kdmpfe mit di'ii Us)iia)iiii," Vienna, 1899. 44 TURKEY 1397 pitilessly murdered. It was a cruel case for them to suffer for the love of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and may He receive their souls ! " It is truly characteristic of Froissart and his age that while he thus bewails the slaughter which befell the three hundred captives of gentle birth, he says not a word respecting the thou- sands of the common soldiery of the Christian army who were massacred at the same time. It is from the Bavarian that we learn the extent and the cruelty of the carnage of that day. Schildberger saw his comrades cut down in heaps by the scim- itars of the Turkish executioners, or battered to death by the maces of the Janissaries w^ho were called forward to join in the bloody work. He himself was saved by the intercession of Bayezid's son, who was moved to pity by the evident youth of the captive. The Count de Nevers and the other lords were ransomed after a long captivity, during which Bayezid carried them about his dominions as trophies of his power and glory, little thinking that he himself was soon to drink still deeper of the same bitter cup of de- feat and shame, and to furnish a still more memorable spectacle of baffled ambition and fallen pride. Bayezid and his captives were at Brusa, in 1397, when the money for their ransom arrived. Before he dismised them he gave them an opportunity of witnessing both his barbaric magnificence and his barbaric justice. Froissart thus relates the haughty leave- taking which the Sultan accorded to the Christian lords : " When the Count de Nevers and the lords of France who were made prisoners at the battle of Nicopolis (excepting the Count d'Eu and the Lord de Courcy, who had died), had been some time enter- tained by the Sultan, and had seen great part of his state, he consented they should depart, which was told them by those w^ho had been ordered to attend to their personal wants. The count and his companions waited on the Sultan in consequence, to thank him for his kindness and courtesy. On taking his leave, the Sultan addressed him, by means of an interpreter, as follows : ' John, I am well informed that in thy country thou art a great lord, and son to a powerful prince. Thou art young, and hast many years to look forward to ; and, as thou mayest be blamed for the ill success of thy first attempt in arms, thou mayest perchance, to shake off the impu- tation and regain thine honor, collect a powerful army to lead against me, and offer battle. If I feared thee, I would make thee swear, and likewise thy companions, on thy faith and honor, that CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 45 1397 neither thou nor they would ever bear arms against me. But no : I will not demand such an oath : on the contrary, I shall be glad that when thou art returned to thy country, it please thee to assemble an army, and lead it thither. Thou wilt always find me prepared, and ready to meet thee in the field of battle. What I now say, do thou repeat to any person, to whom it may please thee to repeat it; for I am ever ready for, and desirous of, deeds of arms, as well as to extend my conquests.' " These high words the Count de Nevers and his companions understood well, and never forgot them as long as they lived." ^ Nothing indeed could surpass the arrogant confidence in the strength of his arms with which Bayezid was inspired by this victory over the chosen warriors of the Christian nations. It was his common boast that he would conquer Italy, and that his horse should eat his oats on the high altar of St. Peter's. From his capital at Brusa he sent vaunting messages to the princes of Asia and Egypt, announcing his victory at Xicopolis ; and the messengers to each Mohammedan court took with them a chosen band of the Christians who had been taken in the battle, as presents from the conqueror, and as attesting witnesses of his exploits. Nor was it in words only that Bayezid showed his unceasing energy against the yet unsubdued nations of the West. His generals overran and devastated Styria and the south of Hungary; and the Sultan himself led the Turkish armies to the conquest of Greece. He marched through Thessaly, as Xerxes had marched nearly nine- teen centuries before. But no modern Leonidas guarded Ther- mopylae; and Locris, Phocis, and Bceotia fell almost without re- sistance into the Turkish power. Bayezid's lieutenants passed with equal celerity across the isthmus of Corinth, and subdued the whole Peloponnesus. Thirty thousand Greeks were removed thence by Bayezid's order, and transported into Asia ; and Turkoman and Tartar colonies were settled in their stead in tlie classic regions of Laconia, ]\Iessenia, Achaia, ArgoHs. and Elis. Athens was taken in 1397, and tlie Turkisli Crescent waved over " The City of the Wise," as she is termed by the Oriental historians, who narrate the triumpiis of Bayezid. Constantinople had more than once been menaced, and had been pressed with actual siege by Bayezid, from which the Greek emperor obtained a temporar}- respite by turning one of the '' It must be rcmciiil)cred that Froissart, though most entertaining, is by no means a trustworthy authority. 46 TURKEY 1400 churches of Constantinople into a mosque, and by binding him- self to pay the Sultan an annual tribute of 10,000 ducats. But, in 1400 Bayezid, no longer sated in his ambition with such conces- sions, commanded the Greek emperor to surrender his crown to him, threatening extermination to all the inhabitants of the city in case of refusal. The Byzantines nobly replied, " We know our weakness, but we trust in the God of justice, who protects the weak and lowly, and puts down the mighty from on high." Baye- zid was preparing to execute his threats, when the desolater was laid desolate and the victor overthrown, not by any efforts of European statesmanship or violence, but by the superior might of another Asiatic conqueror, before whom the spirit of the Ottoman pow-er, high and unmatchable where Timur's was not, " became a Fear as being overpowered." Timur the Tartar, as he is usually termed in history, was called by his countrymen Timur-Leng, that is, Timur the Lame, from the effects of an early wound, a name which some European writers have converted into Tamerlane, or Taraberlaine. He was of Mongol origin, and a direct descendant, by the mother's side, of Genghis Khan. He was born at Sebzar, a town near Samar- kand, in Transoxiana, in 1336, and was consequently nearly seventy years of age, when his conquests clashed with those of Bayezid, and the Ottoman pow-er was struck by him to the dust. Timur's early youth was passed in struggles for ascendency with the petty chiefs of rival tribes, but at the age of thirty-five he had fought his way to undisputed preeminence, and was proclaimed Khan of Zagatai by the Kuraltai, or general assembly of the warriors of his race. He chose Samarkand as the capital of his dominion, and openly announced that he w'ould make that dominion comprise the whole inhabitable earth. When he took possession of the throne of Samarkand, he assumed, in addition to his name of Timur (w-hich means " Iron," and which typified, in the eyes of the Orien- tals, the resistless might w-ith which he subdued all things), the titles of the Great Wolf (Gurgan), the Lord of the Age (Sahet Kiw^an), and Conqueror of the World (Jehargyr). The boastful appellations of Eastern sovereigns are frequently as ridiculous as they are pompous; but those which Timur bore were emblems of fearful truths; for in the thirty-six years of his reign he raged over the world from the great wall of China to the center of Russia on the north ; and the Mediterranean and the Nile were the west- CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 47 1400-1402 ern limits of his career, which was pressed eastward as far as the sources of the Ganges. He united in his own person the sovereignties of twenty-seven countries, and he stood in the place of nine several dynasties of kings. He was often heard to quote a passage of an Eastern poet, which declares that as there is but one God in heaven, so there ought to be but one lord on earth, and that all the king- doms of the universe could not satiate the ambition of one great sovereign. Bayezid had, by his generals, extended the frontier of his em- pire in the east of Asia Minor during the three years that followed the battle of Nicopolis. Timur's dominions were already spread over Georgia and other countries west of the Caspian Sea, so that a collision between these two great potentates of the Mohammedan world became inevitable. Each sheltered the princes whom the other had dethroned, and a series of angry complaints and threats followed, which soon led to open insult and actual war. The strong city of Sivas (the ancient Sebaste in Cappadocia) near the Armenian frontier, which had submitted to Bayezid, was the first place in the Ottoman dominions which Timur assailed ; and it was by the tidings of the fall of Sivas that Bayezid was recalled from the siege of Constantinople. Bayezid had sent Ertoghrul, the bravest of his sons, with a chosen force to protect Sivas; and the strength of the fortifications, the number and spirit of the popu- lation, and the military skill with which they were directed, had seemed to set the threats of its Tartar assailants at defiance. But Timur employed thousands of miners in digging huge cavities beneath the foundations of the city walls, taking care to prop up the walls with timber planking and piles until the excavations were complete. When this was done the miners set fire to the timber, and tlie walls sank down by their own weight. The defenders of Sivas saw their town and ramparts thus swallowed up by the earth before their eyes, and implored in despair the mercy of the conqueror. Never had Timur shown himself so merciless. Four thousand Christian warriors from Armenia, who had formed part of the garrison, were buried by his orders. Prince Ertoghrul and the Turkish part of the garrison were put to the sword. The fall of Sivas delayed that of Constantinople. Bayezid proceeded to Asia Minor in bitterness of heart for the blow that had been struck at his empire, and in deep affliction for the loss of the best beloved of his sons. 48 TURKEY 1402 Before he had reached the eastern provinces of his dominions Timiir had marched southward from Sivas, spreading devastation far and wide through the southern regions of Asia Minor. An insult from the SuUan of Egypt had drawn the wrath of the Tartar conqueror in a southern direction, and Syria experienced for two years the terror and the cruelty of his arms. In the spring of 1402 Timur marched again against the Ottomans. A new inter- change of letters and emhassies had taken place between him and Bayezid, which had only incensed still more each of these haughty conquerors against the other. But though professing the utmost scorn for his adversary,- Timur knew well how formidable were the Turkish arms, and he carefully drew together for this campaign the best-appointed, as well as the most numerous army, that his vast dominions could supply. He practiced also the subtle policy of weakening his enemy by sowing discontent and treachery among Bayezid's troops. Timur's secret agents were sent to the Ottoman camp, and urged on the numerous soldiers of Tartar race w^ho served there, that they ought not to fight against Timur, who was the true chief of all Tartar warriors, and that Bayezid was un- worthy to command such brave men. The efforts of these spies and emissaries were greatly aided by the dissatisfaction which Bayezid's ill-judged parsimony and excessive severity in discipline had already created in his army. His best generals observed the bad spirit which was spreading among the men, and implored their Sultan not to risk a decisive encounter with the superior forces of Timur, or at least to regain the good-will of his soldiers by judicious liberality. Bayezid was both arrogant and avaricious ; he determined to attack his enemy, but to keep back his treasures; reserving them, as one of his generals bitterly remarked, as cer- tainly for Timur's use, as if the Turkish bullion was already stamped with Tartar coinage. Bayezid advanced with about 120,000 men against the far superior forces of Timur, which w^ere posted near Sivas. The Mongol emperor did not immediately encounter the Ottomans, but maneuvered so as to ensure that the battle should take place on ground most advantageous for the action of cavalry, and on wliich lie could avail himself most fully of his numerical superiority. By an able forced march through Kaisyraiah and Kirschehr, he evaded Bayezid, and reached the city and plain of Angora. He immediately formed the siege of the city, knowing that Bayezid would not suffer the shame of letting so important CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 49 1402 a place fall without an effort to relieve it. As he expected, the Ottoman Sultan hurried to the rescue of Angora, and Timur then took up an advantageous position on the broad plain of Tchibuka- bad, to the northwest of the town. Notwithstanding the immense preponderance of numbers which he possessed, the Mongol sov- ereign observed all military precautions. One of his flanks was protected by the little river Tchibukabad, which supplies Angora with water; on the other he had secured himself by a ditch and strong palisade. Bayezid, blinded by his former successes, seemed to have lost all the generalship which he usually exhibited, and to have been seized at Angora by the same spirit of rashness which possessed the Prankish chivalry whom he overthrew five years before at Nicopolis. He camped first to the north of Timur's po- sition ; and then, to show his contempt for his enemy, he marched his whole army away to the high grounds in the neighborhood, and employed them in a grand hunting. The troops were drawn out, according to the Asiatic custom, in a vast circle, enclosing many miles; and they then moved in toward the center, so as to drive the game to where the Sultan and his of^cers were posted. Un- fortunately the districts in which Bayezid made this, his last chase, were destitute of water, and the sufferings of his troops, whom he thus devoted to the image of war, equaled those which an army ordinarily endures in war's stern reality. Five thousand of the Ottoman soldiers perished with thirst and fatigue to promote their Sultan's fatal sport. After this imperial folly Bayezid marched back to his enemy, but he found the camp which he had left was now occupied by the Tartars, and that the only stream of water to which the Ottoman army could gain access had been turned and filled up by Timur's orders, so as to be almost unserviceable. Bayezid was thus obliged to seek a battle, nor would he have de- clined it even if he had the choice, such was his pride and confidence in his power. On July 20, 1402, the decisive conflict took place. The Mongol army is said to have exceeded 800,000 men, and it certainly was far more numerous than that led by Bayezid, who could not have brought more than 100,000 into the field,'' and not only in numbers, but in equipment, in zeal, and in the skill with which they were directed, the superiority was on the side of ^ The well-known figures of Gibbon place the Turkish army at 300,000 and the Tartar at 600,000 men. It would have been impossible to subsist such huge hosts in Asia Minor at that time. 50 TURKEY 1403 the Mongols. Except the corps of Janissaries, who were under the Sultan's immediate orders, and the Servian auxiliaries, who fought gallantly for the Ottomans under their king, Stephen Laserovic, Bayezid's troops showed little prowess or soldiership at Angora. The arts of Timur's emissaries had been effective; and when the action commenced, large numbers of the Tartars who were in Bayezid's service passed over to the ranks of his enemies. The contingents of several of the Asiatic tributary princes took the same course; and it was only in the Ottoman center, where Baye- zid and his Janissaries stood, and in the left center, where the Servians fought, that any effective resistance was made to the fierce and frequent charges of the Mongol cavalry. Bayezid saw that the day was irreparably lost, but he rejected the entreaties of his officers to fly while escape was yet practicable. He led his yet unbroken veterans to some rising ground, which he occupied with them, and there beat off all the attacks of the enemy through- out the day. But his brave Janissaries were sinking beneath thirst, fatigue, and wounds; and it was evident that the morning would see them a helpless prey to the myriad enemies who swarmed around them. At nightfall Bayezid attempted to escape from the field, but he was marked and pursued ; his horse stumbled and fell with him; and Mahmud, the Titular Khan of Jagetai, who served in Timur's army, had the glory of taking the great Sultan of the Ottomans prisoner. Of his five sons who had been in the battle, three had been more fortunate than their father. Prince Suleiman had escaped toward the ^gean Sea, Prince Mohammed to Amassia, and Prince Issa toward Carmania. Prince Musa was taken pris- oner; and the fifth. Prince Mustapha, disappeared in the battle, nor was his fate ever certainly known. Bayezid was at first treated by Timur with respect and kind- ness; but an ineffectual attempt to escape incensed the conqueror, and increased the rigor of the Sultan's captivity. Thenceforth Bayezid was strictly watched by a numerous guard, and was placed in fetters every night. When the Mongol army moved from place to place Timur took his captive with him; but, in order to avoid the hateful sight of his enemies, Bayezid traveled in a covered litter with iron lattice-work. The ignominy which Bayezid underwent was sufficient to break a proud heart, and he died in March, 1403, eight months after tlie battle of Angora. Timur had sufficient magnanimity to set at liberty Prince Musa, Bayezid's son, and to CONQUESTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 51 1405 permit him to take the dead body to Brusa for honorable interment in the burial-place of the Ottoman sovereigns. He himself did not long survive his fallen rival. He died at Otrar on February i, 1405, while on his march to conquer China. In the brief interval between his victory at Angora and his death he had poured his desolating armies throughout the Ottoman dominions into Asia Minor, sacking the Turkish cities of Brusa, Nice, Khemlik, Akshehr, Karahissar, and many more, and then assailing the great city of Smyrna, which had escaped the Ottoman power, and had been for half a century held by the Christian Knights of St. John of Jeru- salem. Timur directed the siege of Smyrna in person. In fifteen days a mole had been thrown across the harbor, which deprived the besieged of all succor, and brought the Tvlongol troops close to the seaward parts of the city ; large portions of the landward walls had been undermined ; huge movable towers had been constructed, from which the besiegers boarded the city's battlements, and Smyrna was taken by storm, notwithstanding the heroic defense of the Christian knights. Timur ordered a general massacre of the inhabitants without mercy to either age or sex. It was the custom of the Tartar conqueror to rear a vast pyramid of human heads when any great city had been captured by his troops. The garrison and population of Smyrna proved insufficient to supply materials for one of these monuments on his accustomed scale of hideous grandeur. But Timur was resolved not to leave the site of Smyrna without his wonted trophy; and he ordered that the supply of heads should be economized by placing alternate layers of mud between the rows of heads in the pyramid. In 1404 the conqueror rested for a short time from blood-shedding, and displayed his magnificence in his capital city of Samarkand, which he had not seen for seven years. But the unslaked thirst of conquest and slaughter urged him onward to the attack of the Chinese Empire before the year was closed ; and that wealthy and populous realm must have been swept by his destroying hordes had it not been saved by the fever which seized him at Otrar, after his passage of the river Sihoon on the ice in February, 1405. Timur died in that city, at the age of seventy-one, having reigned thirty-six years, during which he slied more blood and caused more misery than any other human being that ever was born upon the earth. Chapter V THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN. 1402-1451 THE Ottoman Empire, which during the fourteenth century- had acquired such dimensions and vigor, lay at the be- ginning of the fifteenth century in apparently irretrievable ruin. Besides the fatal day at Angora, when its veteran army was destroyed, and its long-victorious sovereign taken captive, calamity after calamity had poured fast upon the house of Othman, Their ancient rivals in Asia Minor, the Seljukian princes of Caramania, Aidian, Kermian, and other territories, which the first three Otto- man sovereigns had conquered, were reinstated by Timur in their dominions. In Europe the Greek Empire accomplished another partial revival, and regained some of its lost provinces. But the heaviest and seemingly the most fatal of afflictions was the civil war which broke out among the sons of Bayezid, and which threat- ened the utter disintegration and destruction of the relics of their ancestral dominions. At the time of Bayezid's death, his eldest son, Suleiman, ruled at Adrianople. The second son, Prince Issa, established himself as an independent ruler at Brusa, after the Mongols retired from Asia Minor. Mohammed, the youngest and the ablest of the brothers, formed a petty kingdom at Amassia. War soon broke out between Mohammed and Issa, in which Mo- hammed was completely successful. Issa fled to Europe, where he sought protection and aid from Suleiman, who forthwith at- tacked Mohammed, so that European Turkey and Asiatic Turkey were now arrayed against each other. At first Suleiman was suc- cessful. He invaded Asia and captured Brusa and Angora. Meanwhile the other surviving son of Bayezid, Prince Musa, had, after his liberation by Timur, been detained in custody by the Seljukian Prince of Kermian, through whose territories he was passing with the remains of Bayezid, which he was to bury at Brusa. The interposition of ]\Iohammed had put an end to this detention, and Prince Alusa fought on ^Mohammed's side against Suleiman in Asia. After some reverses which they sustained from 62 TliF. DKATH (IF IIIK Sri.r.W SII.KIMAN NKAR ADRIAXOPLE STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 53 1402-1410 Suleiman in the first campaign, Musa persuaded Mohammed to let him cross over to Europe with a small force, and effect a diver- sion in Mohammed's favor by attacking the enemy in his own ter- ritories. This maneuver soon recalled Suleiman to Europe, where a short but sanguinary contest between him and Musa ensued. At first Suleiman had the advantage; but the better qualities of this prince were now obscured by the debasing effects of habits of de- bauchery. He treated his troops with savage cruelty and heaped the grossest insults on his best generals. The result was that his army passed over to the side of Musa, and Suleiman was killed, while endeavoring to escape to Constantinople, in 1410. Musa was now master of the Ottoman dominions in Europe, and speedily showed that he inherited a full proportion both of the energy and of the ferocity of his father Bayezid. In an expe- dition which he undertook against the Servian Prince, whom he accused of having treacherously aided Suleiman in the civil war, he is said not only to have practiced the customary barbarities of ravaging the country, carrying off the male youth as captives and slaughtering the rest of the population, but, according to the Byzantine writer Ducas, Musa caused the carcasses of three Servian garrisons to be arranged as tables, and a feast to be spread on them, at which he entertained the generals and chief captains of the Ottoman army. The Greek emperor, Manuel Palceologus, had been the ally of Suleiman; Alusa therefore attacked him and besieged his capital. Palseologus called over Mohammed to protect him, and the Asiatic Ottomans now garrisoned Constantinople against the Ottomans of Europe. ]\Iohammed made several gallant but unsuccessful sallies against his brother's troops, and was obliged to recross the Bos- phorus, to quell a revolt that had broken out in his own territories. ]\Iusa now pressed the siege of the Greek capital ; but Mohammed speedily returned to Europe, and obtained the assistance of Stephen, the Servian king. The armies of the rival Ottoman brethren were at last arrayed for a decisive conflict on the plain of Chamurli, near the southern Servian frontier. But Musa had alienated the loyalty of his soldiers by conduct similar to that by which Sulei- man's desertion and destruction had been caused, while Mohammed was as eminent for justice and kindness toward those who obeyed him, as for valor and skill against those who were his opponents. When the two armies were about to close in battle, Hassan, the 64 TURKEY 1410-1413 Aga of the Janissaries on the side of Mohammed, stepped out before the ranks and exhorted his old comrades, who were on the part of Mtisa, to leave the cause of a madman from whom they met with constant outrage and humiliation, and to range them- selves among the followers of the most just and virtuous of the princes of the house of Othman. Enraged at hearing his troops thus addressed, Musa rushed against Hassan and cut him down with his own hand, but was himself wounded by an officer who had accompanied Hassan. Musa reeled back, bleeding, toward his own soldiers, who were seized with a panic and broke their ranks, and fled in all directions. Musa endeavored to escape, but was found by the pursuers lying dead in a marsh near the field where the armies had met. His death ended the war of succession in the Ottoman Empire, for Prince Issa had disappeared some years before, during the hostilities between Suleiman and Mo- hammed in Asia, and Mohammed w'as now, after Musa's death, the sole known surviving son of Bayezid. Sultan Mohammed I. w-as surnamed by his subjects Pehlevan, which means the Champion, on account of his personal activity and prowess. His graciousness of disposition and manner, his magnanimity, his love of justice and truth, and his eminence as a discerning patron of literature and art, obtained for him also the still more honorable title of Tschelebi, which, according to Von Hammer, expresses precisely the same idea which is conveyed by the English word " gentleman." Other Turkish sovereigns have acquired more celebrity; but Mohammed, the Champion and the Gentleman, deserves to be cited as one of the noblest types of the Ottoman race. His humanity and his justice are attested by Greek as well as by Oriental historians. He was through life the honorable and firm ally of the Byzantine emperor. After the fall of Musa, Mohammed received at Adrianople the ready homage of the European subjects of the Ottoman Em- pire, and the felicitations of the neighboring rulers. The emperor Palseologus and Mohammed had reciprocally aided each other against Musa; and Mohammed honorably showed his gratitude and good faith by restoring, according to promise to the Greek Empire, the strong places on the Black Sea and the Propontis, and the Thessalian fortress which had been previously wrested from it by the Turks. A treaty of amity was also concluded between the Sultan and tlie Venetians. STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 55 1410-1413 A brief season of unusual calm was thus obtained for the countries westward of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont; but Asia was seething with insurrection and war, and Mohammed was speedily obliged to quit his feast of peace at Adrianople to recon- quer and secure the ancient possessions of his house. The im- portant city of Smyrna and the adjacent territory were at this period commanded by an Ottoman governor of the name of Djouneid, who had resumed possession of them after the Mongols had withdrawn from Asia Minor, and who had succeeded after- ward in making himself also master of the principality of Aidin. Djouneid had submitted first to Suleiman, and afterward to Mo- hammed, as his Sultan; but during the last civil war he had openly revolted against Mohammed, and he now aspired to make himself an independent sovereign. At the same time the Prince of Caramania had taken advantage of the absence of Mohammed and his best troops from Asia to attack the very heart of the Ottoman Asiatic dominions, and had laid siege to Brusa. The city was well garrisoned, and held out firmly against him; but he burned to the ground the mosques and other public buildings of the suburbs ; and, in the rage of his heart against the race of Othman, he ordered the tomb of Bayezid, which was outside the city walls, to be opened, and the remains of that Sultan to be given to the flames. While the Caramanians were thus engaged in profaning the sanctuaries of their own creed, and in violating the repose of the dead, they suddenly saw approaching them from the west the funeral procession of Prince Musa, whose body had been borne by Mohammed's orders from Europe to Asia for burial in the mosque of Murad at Brusa. The besiegers were panic-stricken at this unexpected spectacle; and the Carmanian prince, thinking pos- sibly that Sultan Mohammed with an army was close at hand, or perhaps seized with remorse and ghostly terror at the sepulchral apparition, fled from Brusa, unchecked by the bitter reproach of one of his own followers, who said to him, " If thou fliest be- fore the dead Ottoman, how wilt thou stand against the living one?" The Sultan, when he had crossed over from Europe to Asia with his forces, marched first against his rebellious vassal. He besieged Smyrna and compelled it to surrender; and Djouneid was soon reduced to beg for mercy, which Mohammed, moved by the tears of the fallen rebel's family, accorded him. He then 66 TURKEY 1413-1416 marched against the Caramanians. He captured many towns in person ; but was obh'ged to leave his army by a sudden and severe malady which baffled the skill of all his physicians save one, the celebrated Sinan, who prescribed the news of a victory as the best medicine that the Sultan could receive. His favorite general, Bayezid Pasha, soon supplied the desired remedy by completely defeating the Caramanians and taking their prince, Mustapha Beg, prisoner. Mohammed recovered his health at the joyous intel- ligence of this success. The Caramanians now sued for peace, which the Ottoman Sultan generously granted. The captive Caramanian prince in Mohammed's presence placed his right hand within the robe on his own bosom, and solemnly pronounced the oath, " I swear that so long as there is breath in this body I will never attack or covet the Sultan's possessions." Mohammed set him at liberty with every mark of honor; but while he was yet in sight of the conqueror's camp, the prince, who held that between the Caramanians and the Ottomans war ought to reign from the cradle to the grave, commenced marauding on some of the herds that were grazing on the plain round him. His officers reminded him of the oath which he had just taken; but he drew from his bosom a dead pigeon squeezed tightly in his right hand, and sar- castically repeated the words of his oath, " So long as there shall be breath in this body." Incensed at this perfidy, Mohammed renewed the war, and gained great advantages; but he again was generous enough to grant peace on the reiterated entreaties of the Caramanians, They had received such severe blows in the last war that terror now kept them quiet for several years, and the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan enjoyed peace and tranquillity, which ^lohammed further secured by entering into friendly diplomatic relations with the various princes of upper Asia, so as to avert further invasions like those of Timur. On his return to Europe, in 141 6, Mohammed became involved in a war with the Venetians. The petty lords of many of the islands of the ^gean Sea were nominal vassals of the republic of Venice; but, in disregard of the treaty between that power and the Sultan, they continued to capture the Turkish shipping and to plunder the Turkish coasts. Mohammed fitted out a squadron of galleys to retaliate for their injuries, and this led to an encounter with the Venetian fleet, which, under tlieir admiral, Loredano, STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 67 1416-1421 completely defeated the Turks off Gallipoli on May 29, 1416. Peace was soon restored; and a Turkish ambassador appeared at Venice in the same year, with a new treaty between his master and the repubHc. Mohammed's troops sustained some severe reverses in expeditions undertaken against Styria and Hun- gary, between 1416 and 1420; but no very important hostilities were waged between him and his neighbors in European Christendom. A far more serious peril to the Sultan was a revolt of the der- vishes, which broke out both in Europe and Asia, and was only quelled by the Sultan's troops after several sanguinary battles. This insurrection was organized by the judge of the army, Bed- reddin, aided by an apostate Jew, named Tirlak. The nominal chief of the fanatics was a Turk of low birth, named Baerekludye Mustapha, whom they proclaimed as their spiritual lord and father. All these three perished either in battle or by the executioner, and their sect was extinguished with them. After this formidable peril had passed away Mohammed was called on to defend his throne from another domestic enemy. It has been mentioned that one of Bayezid's sons. Prince Mustapha, who was present on the day of Angora, disappeared after the de- feat of the Turks in that battle. His body was not found among the slain, though Timur caused diligent search to be made for it; nor was the mode of his escape (if he escaped) ever ascertained. Certain it is that, in 1420, a claimant to the Ottoman sovereignty appeared in Europe who asserted that he was Mustapha, the son of Sultan Bayezid, and who was recognized as such by many of the Turks. Supported by the Prince of Wallachia, and by Djouneid, the old rebel against Mohammed, the pretender pene- trated into Thessaly with a large army. Mohammed met him with his customary vigor, and a pitched battle was fought near Salonica, in which the claimant was utterly defeated and fled for protection to the Greek commandant of that city. The Byzantine emperor refused to surrender the suppliant fugitive, but consented to keep him in strict custody on condition of Mohammed paying annually a large sum of money, ostensibly for the captive's maintenance, but in reality as the wages for his imprisonment. Mohammed I. was but forty-seven years of age at the time of his death, and his reign as Sultan of the reunited empire had lasted only eight years. The news of his death was concealed from the public for more than forty days, while intelligence of the event was 68 TURKEY 1421-1422 sent to Prince Murad. who at the time of his father's illness held a command on the frontiers of Asia Minor. Murad II., when called from his viceroyalty in Asia Minor to become the sovereign of the Turkish Empire, was only eighteen years of age. He was solemnly recognized as Sultan, and girt with the saber of Othman at Brusa ; and the troops and officers of state paid willing homage to him as their sovereign. But his reign was soon troubled by insurrection. The Greek emperor, despising the youth of Murad, released the pretender Mustapha from confinement, and acknowledged him as the legitimate heir to the throne of Baye- zid, having first stipulated with him that he should, if successful, repay the Greek emperor for his liberation by the cession of a large number of important cities. The pretender was landed by the By- zantine galleys in the European dominions of the Sultan, and for a time made rapid progress. Large bodies of the Turkish soldiery joined him, and he defeated and killed the veteran general Bayezid Pasha, whom Murad first sent against him. He then crossed the Dardanelles to Asia with a large army, but the young Sultan showed in this emergency that he possessed military and political abilities worthy of the best of his ancestors. Mustapha was out- maneuvered in the field ; and his troops, whose affection to his person and confidence in his cause he had lost by his violence and incapacity, passed over in large numbers to Murad. Mustapha took refuge in the strong city of Gallipoli, but the Sultan, who was greatly aided by a Genoese commandant named Adorno, besieged him there and stormed the place. Mustapha was taken and put to death ; and the Sultan then turned his arms against the Greek emperor, and declared his resolution to punish the unprovoked enmity of Palseologus by the capture of Constantinople. The embassies, charged with abject apology, by w^hich the Greeks now sought to appease the Sultan's wrath, were dismissed W'ith contempt; and in the beginning of June, 1422, Murad was be- fore the trembling capital with 20,000 of his best troops. Ten thousand of the dreaded Akindji. under their hereditary com- mander, jVIichael Beg, had previously been let loose by the Sultan upon the lands which the Greek emperor yet retained beyond the city walls, and had spread fire and desolation through the doomed ter- ritory, without any attempt being made by the Byzantines to check or to avenge their ra\ages. ]\Iurad's own army seemed still more irresistible, and the Sultan carried on the siege with a degree of STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 59 1422-1424 skill, as well as vigor, rarely to be found in the military operations of that age. He formed a line of embankment only a bowshot from the city wall, and extended it from the sea to the Golden Horn, so as to face the whole landward side of the city. This rampart was formed of strong timber, with a thick mound of earth heaped up along its front ; and it received uninjured the discharges of firearms and the shocks of the heaviest stones that the balistas of the Greeks could hurl against it. Under cover of this line Murad's army urged on the work of attack. Movable towers were built to convey storm- ing parties to the summits of the city wall ; mines were laboriously pushed forward, and breaching cannon were now for the first time employed by the Ottomans, but with little effect. Wishing to in- crease the zeal and the number of the assailants, Murad proclaimed that the city and all its treasures should be given up to the true be- lievers who would storm it, and crowds of fanatic volunteers flocked to the camp to share in the harvest of piety and plunder. Among the recruits were a large number of dervishes, headed by a renowned saint named Seid Bokhari, who announced the day and the hour at which it was fated for him to lead the Mohammedans to the capture of Constantinople. Accordingly, at the appointed time, one hour after noon on Monday, August 25, 1422, Seid Bokhari led on the Ottoman army to the assault. Five hundred dennshes, who had stipulated that the Christian nuns of Constantinople should be assigned as their particular share of the booty, formed the forlorn hope of the stormers. The Ottomans attacked vehemently, and the Greeks resisted steadily along the whole length of the city wall; but it was near the gate of St. Romanus that the combat raged most fiercely. The Christians as well as the Mohammedans were animated by religious enthusiasm, and by the assurance that their arms were aided by the interposition of supernatural power. At last some said that they beheld, and all believed that there was seen on the outer bastions, a bright apparition of a virgin robed in garments of violet hue and dazzling luster, whose looks darted panic amid the assailing columns. This was the Panagia, the Holy Virgin, who had descended for the special protection of the sacred maids of the Christian city from tlie boastful impiety of the monks of Moham- med. The besiegers themselves (not unwilling perhaps to find some pretext for their defeat, besides the strength of the fortifications and the bravery of tlie defenders) ga\e credit and confirmation to tliis 60 TURKEY 1424-1430 legend. It is certain that the attack failed, and that the siege was soon afterward raised. In 1424 Mnrad returned to Europe, having reestablished per- fect order in his Asiatic provinces, and chastised the neighboring sovereigns who had promoted hostilities against him. Murad did not renew the siege of Constantinople, but accepted a treaty by which the Greek emperor bound himself to pay an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats to the Sultan, and surrendered the city of Zeitoun (Lysima- chia) and all the other remaining Greek cities on the River Strania (Strymon) and the Black Sea, except Selymbria and Derkos. In 1430 Murad besieged and captured the important city of Thessalonica, which had thrown off its allegiance to the emperor, and placed itself under the protection of the Venetians, who were at that time in enmity with the Sultan. Other accessions of power in the same quarter, and successful hostilities with various Asiatic princes, are recorded in the detailed narratives of the acts of Murad ; but the main feature of the reign of this great Sultan is his long contest with the warlike nations on the northern and western fron- tiers of his European dominions, a struggle marked by many vicissi- tudes, and which called forth into energetic action the high qualities of Murad himself, and also of his renowned opponents, Hunyady, the hero of Hungary, and Scanderbeg, the champion of Albania. We have seen how valuable to the Turkish Empire, in its season of disaster, after the overthrow of Sultan Bayezid, was the steady fidelity and friendship with which the Lord of Servia, Stephen La- serovic, adhered to his engagements with the house of Othman. That prince died in 1427, and his successor, George Brankovic, who was bound by no personal ties, like those of his predecessor, to the interest of the Ottomans, resolved to check their further prog- ress. The Hungarians also, whom the recollection of dreadful de- feat at Nicopolis had kept inactive during the temporary dismember- ment and feebleness of the power which had smitten them, now felt their martial confidence in their own p-rowess revive; and their jeal- ousy of the growth of the Turkish dominion was reawakened. More- over, the Bosnians, who saw their country gradually overrun from the military frontier on which the Ottomans had established them- selves at Supi, and the Albanians, who beheld their strong places, Argyro-castrum and Croia, in Murad's possession, were conscious that tlieir national independence was in danger, and were favor- ably disposed for action against the common foe. Wallachia was STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 61 1430-1442 eager for liberation ; and the unsleeping hatred of the Caramanians to the Ottomans made it easy for the Christian antagonists of the Sultan in Europe to distract his arms by raising war and insurrec- tion against him in Asia. Yet there was for several years no general and vigorous confederation against the Sultan, and a checkered series of partial hostilities and negotiations filled nearly twenty years, during which the different Christian neighbors of the Sultan were sometimes his antagonists and sometimes his allies against each other. At last the accession of Ladislaus, the third King of Lithuania and Poland, to the crown of Hungary, brought fresh strength and enterprise to the Sultan's foes, and a severe struggle followed which, after threatening the utter expulsion of the house of Othman from Europe, confirmed for centuries its dominion in that continent, and wrought the heavier subjugation of those who were then seeking to release themselves from its superiority. In 1442 Murad was repulsed from Belgrade, and his generals who were besieging Hermanstadt, in Transylvania, met with a still more disastrous reverse. It was at Hermanstadt that the renowned Hunyady first appeared in the wars between the Hun- garians and the Turks. In his early youth he gained distinction in the wars of Italy; and Comines in his memoirs celebrates him under the name of the White Knight of Wallachia. After some campaigns in Western Christendom, Hunyady returned to protect his native country against the Ottomans; and in 1442 he led a small but chosen force to the relief of Hermanstadt. He planned his movements ably; and aided by an opportune sally of the gar- rison, he completely defeated ]\Iezid Beg, the Turkish general, killing many of his troops, and taking prisoner jNIezid Beg himself, his son, and many more. Hunyady was no whit inferior to the fiercest Turkish generals in crucliy. i\Iezid Beg and his son were hewn to pieces in his presence, and one of the chief entertainments at the triumphal feast of the victorious Hungarians was to see captive Turks slaughtered during the baiKjuet. Murad sent Shehaddedin Pasha with an army of 80,000 men against Hunyady to avenge this disgrace. But the " White Knight," as tlie Christians called Hunyady, from the color of his armor, met Shehadeddin at Vasog, and, though his numbers were far inferior, utterly routed the 'J'urks with e\"en heavier loss than they had sustained before Hermanstadt. The next year. 62 T U R K E Y 1443 1443, is the most illustriotis in the career of Hunyady, and brought the Ottoman power to the very brink of ruin. The Servian, the Bosnian, and the Wallachian princes were now actively coopera- ting with King Ladislaus against the Sultan ; and an attack of the Caramanians on the Ottoman dominions in Asia compelled Murad to pass over to that continent and carry on the war there in per- son, while he left to his generals the defense of his empire in Europe against the Hungarians and their allies. The Christian army that invaded European Turkey in the remarkable campaign of this year was the most splendid that had been assembled since the French chivalry and the Hungarians advanced against Bayezid at Nicopolis; and it was guided by the ablest general that Christendom had yet produced against the house of Othman, The fame of Hunyady had brought volunteers from all the nations of the West to serve under him in the holy war against the Mohammedans; and the most earnest efforts of Pope Eugenius and his legate, Cardinal Julian, had been de- voted to give to these champions of their faith the enthusiasm as well as the name of crusaders. The main body of the confed- erates, consisting chiefly of Hungarian, Servian, Wallachian, and German troops, crossed the Danube near Semendria. Hunyady, at the head of 12,000 chosen cavalry, then pushed forward nearly to the walls of Nissa. King Ladislaus and the Cardinal Julian followed him with the Polish and part of the Hungarian troops, and with the crusaders from Italy. On November 3, Hunyady won the first battle of the campaign on the banks of the Morava, near Nissa. The grand army of the Turks was beaten, and fled beyond the Balkan, with the loss of nine standards, 4000 jirisoners, and many thousand slain. Hunyady followed close upon the foe, cap- tured the city of Sophia, and then prepared to cross the Balkan, and advance upon Philippopolis. The passage of the Balkan is an exploit almost as rare in military history as those passages of the Alps that have conferred so much luster on Hannibal, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. Alex- ander forced the barrier of the Balkan in 335 b. c, probably through the same pass which Hunyady penetrated from the oppo- site direction in 1443 a. d. Murad I. crossed the Balkan in 1390; and the Russian general, Diebitsch, forced this renowned moun- tain chain near its eastern extremity in 1827. Hunyady and Die- bitsch are the only two commanders who have crossed it from STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 63 1443-1444 north to south, in spite of armed opposition; and the fact of their accomphshing- that exploit against the same enemy (though with an interval of nearly four centuries), and the splendor of the suc- cess which each thereby obtained over the Ottoman power, make the similitude between their achievements more remarkable.^ Two defiles, the openings of which on the northern side are near each other, one to the west named the defile of Soulourder- bend, the other to the east that of Isladi, or Slatiza, lead through the Balkan on the road from Sophia to Philipoppolis. The Turks, who defended the passage against Hunyady, had barricaded both these defiles with heaps of rocks; and when they found the Hun- garian vanguard approach, they poured water throughout the night down the mountain slope, which froze as it fell, and formed at morning a wall of ice against the Christians. Undaunted by these obstacles and the weapons of the enemy, Hunyady encouraged his men by voice and example to clamber onward and through the western defile, until they reached a part where the old Roman works of Trajan completely barred the way. The Hungarians retreated, but it was only to advance up the eastern defile, which was less perfectly fortified. There, through the rest of the winter's day, Hunyady and his chivalry fought their gallant upward battle against Turkish arrow and scimitar, amid the still more formidable perils of the precipice, the avalanche, the whelming snowdrift, and the bitter paralyzing cold. They triumphed over all; and the Christmas day of 1443 was celebrated by the exulting Hungarians on the snow-plains of the southern slopes of the conquered Balkan. Murad had been personally successful in Asia ; but the defeats which his forces had sustained in Europe, and the strength of the confederacy there formed against him, filled him with grave alarm. He sought by the sacrifice of the more remote conquests of his house to secure for the rest of his European dominions the same tranquillity which he had reestablished in the Asiatic, After a long negotiation a treaty of peace for ten years was concluded at Szegedin on July 12, 1444, by which the Sultan resigned all claims upon Servia and recognized George Brankovic as its independent sovereign. Wallachia was given up to Hungary; and the Sultan paid 60,000 ducats for the ransom of ]\Iahmud Tchelebi, his son- 1 The same feat was again performed by the Russians in the late Russo- Turki-,h war, 1877-187S. 64 TURKEY 1444 in-law, who had commanded against Hunyady ; and had been taken prisoner in the late campaign. The treaty was written both in the Hungarian and in the Turkish languages; King Ladislaus swore upon the Gospels and the Sultan swore upon the Koran that it should be truly and religiously observed. Murad now thought that his realm was at peace, and that he himself, after so many years of anxiety and toil, might hope to taste the blessings of repose. We have watched him hitherto as a man of action, and we have found ample reason to admire his capacity and vigor in council and in the field. But Murad had also other virtues of a softer order, which are not often to be found in the occupant of an Oriental throne. He was gentle and affec- tionate in all the relations of domestic life. Instead of seeking to assure his safety by the death of the two younger brothers, for whose fate their father had been so anxious, Murad treated them with kindness and honor while they lived, and bitterly lamented their loss when they died of the plague in their palace at Brusa. The other brother, who took up arms against him, was killed with- out his orders. He forgave, for the sake of a sister who was married to the Prince of Kermian, the treasonable hostility with which that vassal of the house of Othman assailed him; and the tears of another sister for the captivity of her husband, Mahmud Tchelebi, and her entreaties that he might be rescued from the power of the terrible Hunyady, were believed to have prevailed much in causing Murad to seek the pacification of Szegedin. When that treaty was concluded Murad passed over to Asia, where he met the deep affliction of learning the death of his eldest son. Prince Alaeddin, who had shared with him the command of the Ottoman forces in Asia during the operations of the preceding year. The bitterness of this bereavement increased the distaste which Murad had already acquired for the pomp and turmoil of sovereignty. He determined to abdicate the throne in favor of his second son, Prince Mohammed, and to pass the rest of his life in retirement at Magnesia. But it was not in austere privation, or in tlie fanatic exercises of iMohammedan monasticism, that Murad designed his private life to be wasted. He was no con- temner of the pleasures of sense; and the scene of his retreat was amply furnished with all the ministry of every delight. 'I he tidings of warfare renewed by the Christian powers soon roused tlie bold Paynim, like Spenser's Cymocles, from his Bower STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 65 1444 of Bliss. The King of Hting-ary and his confederates had recom- menced hostihties in a spirit of treachery that quickly received its just reward. Within a month from the signature of the treaty of Szegedin the Pope and the Greek emperor had persuaded the King of Hungary and his councilors to take an oath to break the oath which had been pledged to the Sultan. They represented that the confessed weakness of the Ottomans, and the retirement of Murad to Asia, gave an opportunity for eradicating the Turks from Europe, which ought to be fully employed. The Cardinal Julian pacified the conscientious misgivings which young King Ladislaus expressed by his spiritual authority in giving dispensa- tion and absolution in the Pope's name, and by his eloquence in maintaining the infamously celebrated thesis, that no faith is to be kept with misbelievers. Hunyady long resisted such persuasions to break the treaty ; but his conscience was appeased by the promise that he should be made independent King of Bulgaria, when that province was conquered from the Turks. He only stipulated that the breach of the treaty should be delayed till September i, not out of any lingering reluctance to violate it, but in order that the confederates might first reap all possible benefit from it by securely establishing their forces in the strongholds of Servia, which the Ottomans were then evacuating in honest compliance with their engagements. On September i the king, the legate, and Hun- yady marched against the surprised and unprepared Turks with an army of 10,000 Poles and Hungarians. The temerity which made them expect to destroy the Turkish power in Europe with so slight a force was equal to the dishonesty of their enterprise. They ad- vanced into Wallachia, where Drakul, the prince of that country, joined them with his levies. The Christian army, in full confidence of success, crossed the Danube and marched through Bulgaria to the Black Sea. They then moved southward along the coast, de- stroying a Turkish flotilla at Kaundjik, receiving the surrender of many fortresses, and storming tlie strongholds of Sunnium and Pezech. The Turkish garrisons of these places were put to the sword or thrown over precipices. Kavarna was next attacked and taken, and finally the Christians formed the siege of the celebrated city of Varna. The possession of Varna was then, as now, considered essen- tial for the furUier advance of an invading army against the Turk- ish European empire. Hunyady was still successful; Varna sur- 66 TURKEY 1444 rendered to his arms; the triumphant Christians were encamped near it, when they suddenly received the starthng tidings that it was no longer the boy Mohammed that was their adversary, but that Sultan Murad was himself again. They heard that the best warriors of Asiatic Turkey had thronged together at the summons of their veteran sovereign that the false Genoese had been bribed to carry Murad and his army, 40,000 strong, across the Bosphorus, by a ducat for each soldier's freight, thus baffling the Papal fleet that cruised idly in the Hellespont. Other messengers soon hurried into the Christian camp, who announced that the un- resting Sultan had come on against them by forced marches, and that the imperial Turkish army was posted within four miles of Varna. A battle was inevitable; but the mode in which Hunyady prepared for it showed that his confidence was unabated. He rejected the advice which someone gave in a council of war to form intrenchments and barricades round their camp, and there await the Sultan's attack. He was for an advance against the advancing foe, and for a fair stricken field. The young king caught the enthusiastic daring of his favorite general, and the Chris- tian army broke up from their lines, and marched down into the level ground northward ^ of the city, to attack the Sultan, who had carefully strengthened his encampment there by a deep ditch and palisades. On the eve of the feast of St. Mathurin, November 10, 1444, the two armies were arrayed for battle. The left wing of the Christian army consisted chiefly of Wallachian troops. The best part of the Hungarian soldiery was in the right wing, where also stood the Frankish crusaders under the Cardinal Julian. The king was in the center with the royal guard and the young nobility of his realms. The rearguard of Polish troops was under the Bishop of Peterwardein. Hunyady acted as commander-in-chief of the whole army. On the Turkish side the two first lines were composed of cavalry and irregular infantry, the Begler-Beg of Rumelia commanding on the right and the Begler-Beg of Ana- tolia on the left. In the center, behind their lines, the Sultan took his post with his Janissaries and the regular cavalry of his body- 2 Murad had probably crossed tbe Balkan by the pass that leads from Aidos to Parvadi, and had then marched eastward upon Varna. This would bring him to the rear of Hunyady. STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 67 1444 guard. A copy of the violated treaty was placed on a lance-head and raised on high among the Turkish ranks as a standard in the battle, and as a visible appeal to the God of Truth, who punishes perjury among mankind. At the very instant when the armies were about to encounter, an evil omen troubled the Christians. A strong and sudden blast of wind swept through their ranks and blew all their banners to the ground, save only that of the king. Yet the commencement of the battle seemed to promise them a complete and glorious victory. Hunyady placed himself at the head of the right wing, and charged the Asiatic troops with such vigor that he broke them and chased them from the field. On the other wing the Wallachians were equally successful against the cav- alry and Azabs of Rumelia. King Ladislaus advanced boldly with the Christian center, and Murad, seeing the rout of his two first lines, and the disorder that was spreading itself in the ranks round him, despaired of the fate of the day. and turned his horse for flight. Fortunately for the house of Othman, Karadja, the Begler-Beg of Anatolia, who had fallen back on the center with the remnant of his defeated wing, was near the Sultan at this criti- cal moment. He seized his master's bridle and implored him to fight the battle out. The commandant of the Janissaries, Yazidzi- Toghan, indignant at such a breach of etiquette, raised his sword to smite the unceremonious Begler-Beg, when he was himself cut down by a Hungarian saber. Murad's presence of mind had failed him only for a moment, and he now encouraged his Janissaries to stand firm against the Christian charge. Young King Ladis- laus, on the other side, fought gallantly in the thickest of the strife; but his horse was killed under him, and he was then sur- rounded and overpowered. He wished to yield himself up pris- oner, but the Ottomans, indignant at the breach of the treaty, had sworn to give no quarter. An old Janissary, Khodja Khiri, cut off the Christian king's head and placed it on a pike, a fearful companion to the lance on which the violated treaty was still reared on high. The Hungarian nobles were appalled at the sight, and their center fled in utter dismay from the field. Hunyady, on returning with his victorious right wing, vainly charged the Janissaries, and strove at least to rescue from them tlie ghastly trophy of their victory. At last he fled in despair with the wreck of the troops that he had personally commanded and with the Wallachians who collected round him. The Hungarian rear- 68 TURKEY 1445 guard, abandoned by their commanders, were attacked by the Turks the next morning and massacred almost to a man. Besides the Hungarian king, Cardinal Julian, the author of the breach of the treaty and the cause of this calamitous campaign, perished at Varna beneath the Turkish scimitar, together with Stephen Ba- thory and the Bishops of Eilau and Grosswardein.-^ This over- throw did not bring immediate ruin upon Hungary, but it was fatal to the Slavonic neighbors of the Ottomans, who had joined the Hungarian king against them. Servia and Bosnia were thor- oughly reconquered by the Mohammedans. Seventy Bosnian for- tresses are said to have opened their gates to the Turks within eight days. The royal house of Bosnia was annihilated, and many of her chief nobles embraced Mohammedanism to avoid a similar doom. Murad's projects for retirement had been disappointed by the necessity of his resuming the sovereign power to save the Ottoman Empire from the Hungarians and their confederates. After the decisive blow which he had dealt at Varna to the enemies of his race, the Sultan again sought to obtain the calm of private life, and was again compelled to resume the cares of state. Early in 1445 he abdicated a second time in favor of his son, and went back to his Epicurean retreat at Magnesia. But the young hand of Mohammed was too feeble to curb the fierce Turkish soldiery, and the Janissaries showed their insubordinate violence in acts of pillage and murder, and in arrogant demands for increased pay, which threatened open mutiny and civil war. The veteran states- men whom Murad had placed as councilors round his son saw the necessity of recalling their old master to the helm of the empire. Murad yielded to their entreaties and hastened to Adrianople, where he showed himself once more to the people and the army as their sovereign. He was rapturously welcomed. The ringleaders in the late disorders were promptly punished and the masses were judiciously pardoned. Order was thoroughly restored in court and camp. Young Prince Mohammed, who had twice during twelve months tasted supreme power, and twice been compelled to resign it, was sent to iMagnesia, to remain there till more advanced age should make him more capable of reigning. Murad did not venture a third lime on the experiment of abdication. He has been "5 The latest and best account of the battle of Varna is given in Kupelnieser, pt. i. chap. V. STRUGGLE FOR THE BALKAN 69 1443-1448 highly eulogized as the only sovereign who had ever abdicated twice and descended into private life after having learned by experi- ence the contrast between it and the possession of a throne. The remaining six years of Murad's life and reign were sig- nalized by successful enterprises against the Peloponnesus, the petty despots of which became tributary vassals of the Ottomans, and by a great defeat which he gave his old antagonist, Hunyady, at Kosovo, after a three days' battle in October, 1448. Li Albania his arms were less fortunate ; and during the latter part of Murad's reign his power was defied and his pride repeatedly humbled by the celebrated George Castriot, called by the Turks Scanderbeg, or Lord Alexander, the name by which he is best known in history. The father of this champion, John Castriot, Lord of Emal- thia (the modern district of IMoghlene), had submitted, like the other petty despots of those regions, to Murad early in his reign, and had placed his four sons in the Sultan's hands as hostages for his fidelity. Three of them died young. The fourth, whose name was George, pleased the Sultan by his beauty, strength, and intelligence. Murad caused him to be brought up in the Moham- medan creed, and when he was only eighteen conferred on him the government of one of the Sanjaks of the empire. The young Albanian proved his courage and skill in many exploits under Murad's eye, and received from him the name of Iskanderbeg, the Lord Alexander. When John Castriot died Murad took posses- sion of his principalities and kept the son constantly employed in distant wars. Scanderbeg brooded over this injury, and when the Turkish armies were routed by Hunyady in the campaign of 1443, determined to escape from their side and assume forcible possession of his patrimony. He suddenly entered the tent of the Sultan's chief secretary, and forced that functionary, with the poniard at his throat, to write and seal a formal order to the Turkish commander of the strong city of Croia, in Albania, to deliver that place and the adjacent territory to himself, as the Sultan's viceroy. He then stabbed the secretary and hastened to Croia, where his stratagem gained him instant admittance and submission. Lie now publicly abjured the Mohammedan faith, and declared his intention of defending the creed of liis forefathers, and restoring the independence of his native land. The Christian p()])ulati(jn fiocked readily to his banner, and the Turks were massacred without mercv. h'or nearlv twentv-five 70 TURKEY 1448-1451 years Scanderbeg contended against all the power of the Otto- mans, though directed by the skill of Murad and his successor, Mohammed, the conqueror of Constantinople. The difficult nature of the wild and mountainous country which he occupied aided materially in the long resistance which he thus opposed to the else- where triumphant Turks. But his military genius must have been high, and without crediting all the legends of his personal prowess, we may well believe that the favorite chief of the Albanian moun- taineers in the guerrilla warfare by which he chiefly baffled the Turks must have displayed no ordinary skill and daring, and may have possessed strength and activity such as rarely fall to the lot of man. The strongest proof of his valor is the superstitious homage w^hich they paid to him when they occupied Lissa, in the Venetian territories, whither Scanderbeg had at last retired from Albania, and where he died in 1467. The Turkish soldiers forced open his tomb and eagerly sought portions of his bones to wear as amulets, thinking that they would communicate a spirit of valor similar to that of the hero to whose mortal fabric they had once belonged. The Sultan, under whom Scanderbeg had fought in youth, died long before the bold Albanian who once had been his favorite pupil in the art of war, and afterward his most obstinate adversary. Murad expired at Adrianople in 145 1, after having governed his people with justice and in honor for thirty years. His noble quali- ties are attested by the Greek as well as by Turkish historians. He was buried at Brusa. The English historian, Knolles, who wrote in 1610, says of his sepulcher : "Here he now lieth in a chapel without any roof, his grave nothing differing from that of the common Turks, which they say he commanded to be done in his last will, that the mercy and blessing of God might come unto him by the shining of the sun and moon, and the falling of the rain and dew of Heaven upon his grave." Chapter VI MOHAMMED 11. AND THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1451-1481 MOHAMMED n., surnamed by his countrymen " the Conqueror," was aged twenty-one years when his father died. He heard of that event at Magnesia, whither the Grand Vizier had dispatched a courier to him from Adrianople. He instantly sprang on an Arab horse, and exclaim- ing, " Let those who love me follow me," galloped off toward the shore of the Hellespont. In a few days he was solemnly enthroned. His first act of sovereign authority showed that a different spirit to that of the generous Murad would now wield the Ottoman power. Murad had left a little son, a babe still at the breast, by his second wife, a princess of Servia. Mohammed ordered his infant brother to be drowned in a bath ; and the merciless com- mand was executed at the very time when the unhappy mother, in ignorance of her child's doom, was offering her congratulations to the murderer on his accession. Mohammed perceived the horror which the atrocity of this deed caused among his subjects ; and he sought to avert it from himself by asserting that the officer who had drowned the infant prince had acted without orders, and by putting him to death for the pretended treason. But Mohammed himself, when in after years he declared the practice of royal frat- ricide to be a necessary law of the state, confessed clearly his own share in this the first murder of his deeply-purpled reign. He had now fully outgrown the boyish feebleness of mind which had unfitted him for the throne when twice placed on it by his father six years before. For craft, capacity, and courage he ranks among the highest of the Ottoman Sultans. His merits also as a far-sighted statesman, and his power of mind as a legis- lator, are as undeniable as are his military talents. He was also keenly sensible to all intellectual gratifications, and he was himself possessed of unusually high literar}^ abilities and attainments. Yet with all those qualities we find combined in him an amount of 71 72 TURKEY 1448-1451 cruelty, perfidy, and revolting- sensuality such as seldom stain human nature in the same individual. Three years hefore Mohammed II. was girt with the scimitar of Othman, Constantine XI. was crowned Emperor of Constanti- nople a prince whose heroism throws a sunset glory on the close of the long-clouded series of the Byzantine annals. The Roman Empire of the East was now shrunk to a few towns and a scanty district beyond the walls of the capital city; but that city was itself a prize of sufficient splendor to tempt the ambition and excite the hostility of a less aspiring and unscrupulous spirit than that of the son of Murad. The Ottomans felt that Constantinople was the true natural capital of their empire. While it was in the hands of others, the communication between their European and their Asiatic provinces could never be secure. Its acquisition by themselves would consolidate their power, and invest them with the majesty that still lingered round those walls, which had encircled the chosen seat of the Roman Empire for nearly eleven hundred years. The imprudence of Constantine, who seems to have judged the character of Mohammed from the inability to reign which he had shown at the premature age of fourteen, hastened the hostility of the young Sultan. Constantine sent an embassy demanding the augmentation of a stipend which was paid to the Byzantine court for the maintenance of a descendant of Suleiman, Sultan Bayezid's eldest son. This personage, who was named Orkhan, had long been in apparent retirement, but real custody, at Constantinople, and the ambassadors hinted that if their demands were not complied with the Greek emperor would immediately set him loose to 'compete with Mohammed for the Turkish throne. Mohammed, who at this time was engaged in quelling some disturbances in Asia Minor, answered with simulated courtesy; but the old Grand Vizier, Khalil, warned the Byzantines with indignant vehemence of the folly of their conduct, and of the difference which they would soon experience between the fierce ambition of the young Sultan and the mild forbearance of his predecessor. Mohammed had indeed bent all his energies on effecting the conquest of the Greek capital, and he resolved to secure himself against any inter- ruption or division of his forces while engaged in that great enter- prise. He provided for llie full security of his territories in Asia; he made a truce of three years with Hunyady which guaranteed him from all attack from the north in Europe; and he then con- CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 73 1452 temptuously drove away the imperial agents who received the revenues of the lands allotted for the maintenance of Orkhan, and began to construct a fortress on the European side of the Bospho- rus, about five miles above Constantinople, at a place where the channel is narrowest and immediately opposite one that had been built by Bayezid Ilderim on the Asiatic shore. Constantine re- monstrated in vain against these evident preparations for the blockade of his city, and the Ottomans employed in the work were encouraged to commit acts of violence against the Greek peasantry, which soon led to conflicts between armed bands on either side. Constantine closed the gates of his city in alarm, and sent another embassy of remonstrance to the Sultan, who replied by a declara- tion of war, and it was evident that the death-struggle of the Greek Empire was now fast approaching. Each party employed the autumn and winter of 1452 in ear- nest preparations for the siege, which was to be urged by the one and resisted by the other in the coming spring. Mohammed col- lected the best troops of his empire at Adrianople ; but much more than mere numbers of soldiery, however well disciplined and armed for the skirmish or the battlefield, was requisite for the cap- ture of the great and strong city of Constantinople. Artillery had for some time previously been employed both by Turkish and Chris- tian armies ; but Mohammed now prepared a more numerous and formidable park of cannon than had ever before been seen in war- fare. A Hungarian engineer named Urban had abandoned the thankless service and scanty pay of the Greeks for the rich rewards and honors which the Sultan bestowed on all wiio aided him in his conquest. Urban cast a monster cannon for the Turks, which was the object both of their admiration and terror. Other guns of less imposing magnitude, but probably of greater efficiency, were prepared; and ammunition and military stores of every de- scription, and the means of transport, were collected on an equally ample scale. But Mohammed did not merely heap together the materials of war with the ostentatious profusion so common in Oriental rulers. He arranged all, he provided for the right use of all, in the keen spirit of skillful combination, which we admire in the campaigns of Caesar and Napoleon. He was almost inces- santly occupied in tracing and discussing with his officers plans of the city, of his intended lines, of the best positions for his ])atter- ies and magazines, of the spots where mines might be driven with 74 TURKEY 1452-1453 most effect, and of the posts which each division of his troops should occupy. In the devoted city, the emperor, with equal ability, but far different feelings, collected the poor resources of his own remnant of empire and the scanty succors of the Western nations for the defense. The efforts which he had made to bring the Greek Church into communion with the Church of Rome to secure cordial and effectual support against the Mohammedans, had alienated his own subjects from him. The lay leader of the orthodox Greeks, the Grand Duke Notaras, openly avowed that he would rather see the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the Pope in Constantinople. Only six thousand Greeks, out of a population of one hundred thou- sand, took any part in the defense of the city. The Latin auxiliaries were partly contributed by the Pope, who sent Cardinal Isidore with a small body of veteran troops and some pecuniary aid to the Greek emperor. The Italian and Span- ish commercial cities that traded with Constantinople showed their interest in her fate, by sending contingents to her defense. Bands of Aragonese, of Catalans, and of Venetians gave assistance to Constantine, which their skill and bravery made of great value, though their numbers were but small. His most important aux- iliary w^as the Genoese commander, John Giustiniani, who arrived \vith two galleys and three hundred chosen men a little before the commencement of the siege. Altogether, Constantine had a gar- rison of about 9000 troops to defend walls of fourteen miles in extent, the whole landward part of which, for a space of five miles, was certain to be attacked by the Turkish troops. The fortifications, built in ancient times, and for other systems of war- fare, were ill-adapted to have heavy cannon placed and w^orked on them ; and many places had been suffered to become dilapidated. Still, amid all this difficulty and distress Constantine did his duty to his country and liis creed. No means of restoring or improv- ing the defenses were neglected which his own military skill and that of his Latin allies could suggest, and which his ill-supplied treasury and his disloyal subjects w^ould enable him to provide. But the patriotism, and even tlie genius, of a single ruler are vain to save the people that will not save themselves. The Greeks had long been ripe for slavery, nor could their fall be further delayed. In the spring of 1453 tlie Turks were for the last time before the city, so often besieged by them and others, and so often be- CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 75 1453 sieged in vain.* Mohammed formed his lines, as Murad had done, from the harbor to the sea, and they were strengthened with a similar embankment. Fourteen batteries were formed opposite those parts of the landward wall of the city that appeared to be the feeblest. The chief attack was directed against the gate of St. Romaniis, near the center of the wall. Besides the Turkish cannon, balistas were planted along the lines, which hurled large stones upon the battlements. The Turkish archers kept up a shower of arrows on any part of the walls where the defenders showed themselves; and a body of miners, whom the Sultan had brought from the mines of Novoberda, in Servia, carried on their subterranean works as far as the city wall, and forced large open- ings in the outer of the two walls. The aggregate of the Turkish troops is variously estimated at from 70,000 to 250,000. The smaller number must have been sufficient for all the military opera- tions of the siege; nor is it probable that Mohammed would have increased the difficulty of finding sufficient provisions for his army by uselessly crowding its ranks. Besides the land forces, the Sultan had collected a fleet of 320 vessels, of various sizes, but all inferior to the large galleons of the Greeks and their allies. But the Chris- tian ships were only fourteen in number. These were moored in the Golden Horn, or Great Harbor, the entrance of which was secured by a strong chain. The siege commenced on April 6, 1453, and w^as prolonged by the bravery and skill of Constantine, 1 Von Hammer enumerates twenty-nine sieges of the city since its founda- tion by the Megarians, 658 b. c, under the name of Byzantium. It was besieged, 477 B. c, by Pausanias, gcneraHssimo of the Greeks, after the campaign of Platiea ; in 410 B. c, by Alcibiades ; in 347 b. c, by Leon, general of Philip of Macedon ; in 197 a. v., by the Emperor Severus; in 313. by the Caesar Maxi- mius; in 315, by Constantine the Great; in 616, by Khosroes, King of Persia; in 626, by the Chagan of the Avars ; in 654, by the Arabs under Moawya ; in 667, by Yezid, the Arab; in 672, by Sofien Ben Aouf, the Arab; in 715, by Moslema and Omar Abdul-Aziz, the Arabs ; in 739, by Suleiman, son of the Caliph Abdul Melek; in 764, by Paganos, Krai of the Bulgarians; in 780, by llanm-al-Rashid; in 798, by Abdul-^Melek, Harun's general; in 811, by Kramus, Despot of the Sclavi; in 820, by the Slavian Thomas; in 866, by the Russians, under Askold and Dir; in 914, by Simeon, Krai of the Bulgarians; in 1048, by the rebel Thornicius; in 1081, by Alexius Comnenus; in 1204, by the Crusaders; in 1261, by INIichael Pahtologus; in 1356, by Bayezid Ilderim, for the first time; in 1402, by tlie same, for the second time: in 1414, by Musa, Bayezid's son; in 1422, by Murad II.; and in 1453, by Mohammed II. Since then it has been unbesieged for four centuries. Of the numerous commanders who luive attacked the city, eight only have captured it : Pausanias, Alcibiades, Severus, Constantine, Alexius Comnenus, Dandolo, Michael Palaeologus, and Mohammed. 76 TURKEY 1453 Giustiniani, and tlieir Latin troops until May 20. Many gallant deeds were performed during this time. The ability with which Giustiniani taught the defenders to work their artillery, and to use the important arm of war which they still exclusively pos- sessed in the Greek fire, excited the regretful eulogies of the Sultan himself. A general assault, which the Turks hazarded be- fore the walls were completely breached, and in which they em- ployed the old machinery of movable towers, was repulsed; and the besiegers' engines were destroyed. A squadron of four Geno- ese ships and one Greek ship from Chios forced their way through the Turkish flotilla and brought seasonable supplies of corn and ammunition to the city. This action, which took place in the middle of April, was the most brilliant episode of the siege. Mohammed had ordered out a division of his galleys, 150 strong, to intercept the five ships of the Christians that were seen running swiftly and steadily through the Propontis before a full and favor- able wind. The Greeks thronged the walls, and the Turks crowded down to the beach to watch the issue of this encounter. The Sultan himself rode down to the water's edge in full expectation of witnessing a triumph of his marine force and the destruc- tion or capture of his enemies. On came the Christian ships, well- armed, well-manned, and well-maneuvered. They crashed through the foremost of their brave but unpracticed assailants. Their superior height made it impossible for their enemies to grapple or board them, and the very number and eagerness of the Turks increased the disorder in which their vessels soon were heaped confusedly together. Shouts of joy rose from the city walls, while Mohammed, furious at the sight, spurred his horse into the very surf, as if with his own hand he would tear the victory from the Greeks. Still onward came the exulting Christian seamen. From their tall decks they hurled large stones and poured incessant volleys of the inextinguishable Greek fire upon the Turkish barks beneath and around them. Onward they came to the harbor's mouth ; the guard-chain was lowered to receive them ; and the welcome reinforcement rode securely in the Golden Horn, while the shattered remnant of the Turkish squadron crept back to the shore, where their sorrowing comrades of the land force and their indignant Sultan awaited them. Mohammed, in his wrath at the loss, and slill more at the humiliation which he had sustained, ordered his defeated admiral, Baltaoghli, to be impaled on the spot. CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 77 1453 The murmurs and entreaties of the Janissaries made him recall the atrocious command, but he partly wreaked his wrath by inflicting personal chastisement on his brave but unsuccessful officer. The victory which the five relieving galleys obtained did more even than the material succor which they conveyed to reanimate the defenders of Constantinople. But it was a solitary reinforce- ment. Constantine and Giustiniani never again " saw the horizon whiten with sails " that bore hope and succor on their wings. And Mohammed was no Xerxes, to be disheartened by a single defeat, or to turn back from an enterprise because its difficulties surpassed expectation. Unable to gain the entrance of the har- bor, he determined by a bold engineering maneuver to transport part of his fleet across the land, and launch it at the upper part of the Golden Horn, where in the narrow smooth water, and with aid ready from either shore, his galleys would have the mastery over the far less numerous though larger vessels of the Greeks. A smooth road of planks was accordingly made along the five miles of land which intervene between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn ; and a large division of the Turkish galleys was hauled along it and safely launched in the harbor. As it was necessary to over- come a considerable inclination of the ground, this engineering achievement reflects great credit on Sultan Mohammed ; though the transport of war-galleys over broad spaces of land was no novelty, either in classical or medieval warfare; and a remarkable instance had lately occurred in Italy, where the Venetians, in 1437, had moved a fleet overland from the Adige to the Lake of. Garda. Master of the upper part of the harbor, Mohammed formed a pontoon bridge across it, the western end of which was so near to the angle of the landward and the harbor walls that cannon placed on the pontoon bridge could play upon the harbor side of the city. Giustiniani in vain attempted, with the Genoese and Greek galleys, to destroy this bridge and burn the Turkish flotilla. The Venetians renewed the attempt with e(|ually bad success. ]\Iean- while, the exertions of the besiegers on the original and chief line of the siege were unremitting. The fire of their batteries, though slow and feeble in comparison with the artillery practice of modern times, was kept up for seven weeks, and its eft'ects were at last visible in the overthrow of four large towers and the yawning of a broad chasm in the city walls near the gate of St. Romanus. The ditch was nearly filled up by the ruins of the defenses, and the 78 TURKEY 1453 path into Constantinople was at last open. Mohammed now sent a last summons to surrender, to which Constantine nobly replied that if the Sultan would grant him peace he would accept it, with thanks to Heaven, that he would pay the Sultan tribute if demanded, but that he would not surrender the city which he had sworn to defend to the last moment of his life. The capitulation was de- manded and refused on May 24, and the Sultan gave orders for a general assault on the 29th. Within the city, the Greek population passed alternately from terror at the coming storm to turbulent confidence in certain superstitious legends which promised the help of saints and angels to men who would not help themselves. Only a small proportion of his subjects listened to the expostulations and entreaties, by which their noble-minded emperor urged them to deserve the further favor of Heaven by using to the utmost those resources which Heaven had already placed in their hands. Even among those who bore arms as part of the garrison the meanest jealousy of their Latin auxiliaries prevailed. On the very eve of the final assault, when Giustiniani, who was charged with the defense of the great breach, required some additional guns, the Grand Duke Notaras, wdio had the general control of the ordnance, refused the supply, saying that it was unnecessary. The Latins did their duty nobly. Of the twelve chief posts in the defense, ten were held by them. Giustiniani in particular distinguished himself by his valor and skill. He formed new works in the rear of the demolished towers and gate of St. Romanus; and extorted the admiration of the Sultan, who watched his preparations, and exclaimed, '" What would I not give to gain that man to my service ! " But the chief hero of the defense was Constantine himself. He knew that his hour was come, and prepared to die in the discharge of duty with the earnest piety of a true Christian and the calm courage of a brave soldier. On the night before the assault he received the Holy Sacrament in the church of St. Sophia. Lie then proceeded to the great palace and lingered for a short time in the halls where his predecessors had reigned for so many centuries, but which neither he nor any prince sprung from his race was ever to see again. When he had passed forth from the palace to take his station at the great breach, and there await his martyrdom, all thoughts of earth!}' grandeur were forgotten, and, turning to those around him, many of whom had been his companions from youth. CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 79 1453 Constantine asked of them, as fellow-Christians, their forgiveness for any offense that he had ever committed toward them. Amid the tears and prayers of all who beheld him, the last of the Caesars then went forth to die. In the Ottoman camp all was ready for the work of death. Each column had its specified point of attack; and the Sultan had so arranged the vast masses of men at his command that he was prepared to send fresh troops successively forward against the city, even if its defenders were to hold their ground against him from daybreak to noon. At sunrise, on May 29, 1453, the Turkish drums and trumpets sounded for the assault, and the leading divisions of the Sultan's army rushed forward. Prodigal of lives, and reckoning upon wearing down the resistance of the garrison by sending wave upon wave of stormers against them, Mohammed placed his least valued soldiers in the van, to receive the first steady volleys of the Greek guns, and dull the edge of the Christian sword. The better troops were to follow. The main body of the Janissaries, under the Sultan's own eye, was to assault the principal breach. Detachments of those chosen warriors were also directed against other weakened points of the defense. At the same time that the attack commenced from the camp the Turkish flotilla moved against the fortifications along the harbor, and the assault soon raged by sea and by land along two sides of the Greek city. For two hours the Christians resisted skillfully and steadily; and though the Sultan in person, by promises, by threats, and by blows, urged his columns forward to the great breach, neither there nor elsewhere along the line could they bear back the stubborn courage of the defenders; nor could a living Mohammedan come into Constantinople. At last Giustiniani, who, side by side with the emperor, conducted the defense of the great breach, received a severe wound, and left his post to die on board his galley in the harbor. The garrison was dispirited at the loss; and the chiefs of the assailing Janissaries, observing that the resist- ance had slackened, redoubled their eft'orts to force a passage. One of them, named Hassan of Ulubad, conspicuous by his stature and daring, rushed with thirty comrades up the barricaded ruins of one of the overthrown towers that flanked the breach. They gained the summit; and though Hassan and eighteen of his forlorn hope were struck down, others rapidly followed, and carried the Greek defenses by the overwhelming weight of their numbers. 80 TURKEY 1453 Nearly at the same time another Ottoman corps effected an entrance at a shghtly-protected part of the long line of walls, and wheeling round, took the garrison in the rear. Constantine saw now that all was lost, save honor, and exclaiming, " I would rather die than live!" the last of the Romans rushed amid the advancing foe and fell stretched by two saber wounds among the undistinguished dead. Torrent after torrent of the conquerors now raged through the captured city. At first they slew all whom they met or overtook, but when they found that all resistance had ceased, the love of plunder predominated over the thirst for blood, and they strove to secure the fairest and strongest of the helpless thousands that cowered before them for service or for sale as slaves. About the hour of noon Sultan Mohammed, surrounded by his viziers, his pashas, and his guards, rode through the breach at the gate of St. Romanus into the city which he had conquered. He alighted at the church of St. Sophia, and entering the splendid edifice, he ordered one of the Muezzins who accompanied him to summon the true believers to prayer. He then himself mounted the high altar and prayed. Having thus solemnly established the creed of the Prophet in the shrine where his fallen adversary had on the preceding eve celebrated the holiest Christian rite, and where so many generations of Christians had worshiped, Mohammed ordered search to be made for Constantine's body. It was found under a heap of slain in the great breach, and was identified, beyond all possibility of dispute, by the golden eagles that were embroidered upon the emperor's buskins. The head was cut off and exhibited for a time between the feet of the bronze horse of the equestrian statue of Justinian in the place called the Augustan. The ghastly trophy of Mohammed's conquest was subsequently embalmed and sent round to the chief cities of Asia. The greater number of the emperor's Latin auxiliaries had shared his noble death. Some few had made their way to the harbor and escaped through the Ottoman fleet. Others came as captives into Mohammed's power, and were either put to death or required to pay heavy ransoms. The Genoese inhabitants of the suburb of Galata obtained terms of capitulation by which they were protected from pillage. The Grand Duke Xotaras was brought prisoner before Mohammed, who made a sliow of treating him with favor, and obtained from him a list of the principal Greek dignitaries and officers of state. The ENTRY OF MOTI.\M>rEn TT IXTO COXSTAXTINOPLE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 81 1453 Sultan instantly proclaimed their names to his soldiers and offered icx)0 sequins for each of their heads. On the day after the capture of the city Mohammed continued his survey of his conquest and took possession of the imperial palace. Struck by the solitude of its spacious halls, and the image of desolation which it presented, Mohammed repeated two lines of the Persian poet Firdusi : * The spider's web is the royal curtain in the palace of Caesar; the owl is the sentinel on the watch-tower of Afrasiab." The quotation showed the well-read and elegant scholar, but the subsequent deeds of the Sultan on that day exempli- fied the truth that intellectual eminence is no sure guarantee against the coexistence of the vilest depravity. But though thus merciless in his lust and wrath, Mohammed knew well that for Constantinople to become such a seat of empire as his ambition desired it was necessary that the mass of the Greek population which had escaped death and captivity during the sack of the city should be encouraged to remain there, and to be orderly and industrious subjects of their new master. The measures taken by him with this design attest the clear-sighted statesmanship which he possessed. Constantine had alienated his subjects from him by conforming to the Latin Church. Mohammed now gratified the Greeks, who loved their orthodoxy far more than their liberty, by installing a new patriarch at the head of the Greek Church, and proclaiming himself its protector. This was on June i, only ten days after the storm. He then by solemn proclamation invited all the fugitives to return to their homes, assuring them of safety and encouraging them to resume their former occupations. A formal charter was afterward granted by him, which declared the person of the Greek patriarch inviolable, and exempted him and the other dignitaries of his church from all public burdens. The same document assured to the Greeks the use of their churches, and the free exercise of their religious rites according to their own usages. But the Greek population of Con- stantinople had been long declining, and even before its sufferings in the fatal siege, had been far inadequate for the vast space occu- pied by the buildings. Mohammed, therefore, sought other modes of replenishing the city. Thousands of families were transplanted to the capital from various parts of his empire ; and at every acces- sion of territory he colonized his capital with portions of his new subjects. Before the close of his reign Constantinople was again 82 TURKEY 1453-1456 teeming with life and activity; but the Greek character of the city was merged amid the motley crowds of Turkomans, Albanians, Bulgarians, Servians, and others, who had repaired thither at the Sultan's bidding. The vision of Othman was now accomplished, and Constantinople had become the center jewel in the ring of Turkish Empire, Mohammed II. was but twenty-three years of age when he took Constantinople. The fragments of the Greek Empire, which had lingered for a while unconnected with the central power of the emperor, were speedily subdued by the new ruler of Constantinople. The Peloponnesus was conquered in 1454, and Trebizond in the following year. Servia and Bosnia were completely reduced into Turkish provinces. The last Bosnian king and his sons surrendered to IMohammed on a capitulation which guaranteed their lives, and which the Sultan swore to observe. Mohammed obtained a de- cision from the Mufti Ali-Bestami, which declared that the Sultan's treaty and oath were not binding on him, as being made with un- believers, and that he was at liberty to put his prisoners to death. The mufti begged, as a favor, that he might carry his own opinion into effect by acting as executioner. The captive Bosnian king was ordered into the Sultan's presence, and came with the treaty of capitulation in his hand. The mufti exclaimed, " It is a good deed to slay such infidels," and cut the king down with his own saber. The princes were put to death in the interior of the tent. In Albania, Scanderbeg held out gallantly against the power of the Sultan, who, in 1461, was even forced to accede to a tempo- rary treaty which acknowledged Scanderbeg as Lord of Albania and Epirus. Hostilities were soon renewed, and the Turks gradu- ally gained ground by the lavish sacrifice of life and treasure, and by the continued pressure of superior numbers. But the break- water which Scanderbeg long formed against the flood of Mo- hammedan conquest, and the glorious resistance which Hunyady accomplished at Belgrade, were invaluable to Western Christen- dom. They delayed for many years the cherished projects of ]Mo- hammed against Italy; and the victory of Hunyady barred the principal path into the German states. It was in 1456 that the Sultan besieged Belgrade, then regarded as the key of Hungary. Hunyady exerted in its defense all the fiery valor that had marked him from his youtli up, and the skill and caution which he had acquired during maturer years. He was powerfully aided by the CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 83 1456 bands of crusaders whom the efforts of Pope Callxtus III, and the celebrated preacher, St. John Capistran, brought to his assistance. The tidings of the fall of Constantinople had filled Western Chris- tendom with shame, indignation, and alarm. Formal vows of war- fare for the rescue of the fallen city from the infidels were made by many of the chief princes, but evaporated in idle pageants and un- executed decrees. But when another great Christian city was assailed, and when it was evident that if Belgrade fell Vienna and other Western capitals would soon be in jeopardy, religious zeal and patriotic caution were for a time active, and a large and efficient auxiliary force was led by Capistran, in person, to fight under the banner of Hunyady. Mohammed had been made over- confident by his success at Constantinople and boasted that Belgrade would be an easy prize. His powerful artillery soon shattered the walls; and in a general assault, on July 21, 1456, the Janis- saries carried the trenches and forced their way into the lower part of the town. But the Christians at Belgrade w^ere numer- ous, were brave, and ably commanded. Capistran rallied the gar- rison; the Turks were repulsed from the upper town; and after six hours' hard fighting they were driven out of the portion which they had occupied. At this critical moment the martial saint, with the discernment of a great general and the fiery energy of a devo- tee, sallied with a thousand crusaders upon the enemy's batteries. Calling on the name of Jesus, while their panic-stricken enemies fled with cries of " Allah ! " the Christians fought their way into the Ottoman camp and captured the whole of the besiegers' artillery. Mohammed, indignant at the flight of his troops, strove in vain to stem the tide and fought desperately in person against the ad- vancing foes. With a blow of his saber he struck off the head of one of the leading crusaders, but received at the same instant a wound in the thigh, and was obliged to be carried off by his at- tendants. Furious at his defeat and disgrace, he saw, as they bore him away, Hassan, the general of the Janissaries, and overwhelmed him with reproaches and threats. Hassan replied that many of his men were slain and that the rest would no longer obey the word of command. He then, before his sovereign's eyes, threw himself among the advancing Hungarians and met a soldier's death. The Sultan's horseguards checked the further pursuit of the Christians and secured the retreat of their wounded master. But three hun- dred cannons and the whole of the Turkish military stores were 84. TURKEY 1456 captured; and 25,000 of Mohammed's best troops had fallen. Hunyady did not long survive this crowning triumph of his gal- lant, though checkered, career. He died at Belgrade twenty days after the flight of Mohammed from before the walls. In Asia Mohammed's arms were more uniformly successful. He conquered and annexed to his empire Sinope and Trebizond, and he finally subdued the princes of Caramania,^ those long and rancorous enemies of the house of Othman. The most important of all his conquests, after that of Constantinople, was the subjugation of the Crimea, in 1475, by one of the most celebrated of the Turk- ish captains, Ahmed, surnamed Kediik, or Broken-mouth, who was Mohammed's Grand Vizier from 1473 to 1477. The imme- diate causes of the expedition to the Crimea were the Sultan's hostility with the Genoese, who possessed the strong city of Kaffa in that country, and the entreaties which the deposed Khan of the Crim Tartars addressed to Mohammed for aid against his revolted brothers. But it cannot be doubted that a prince of Mohammed's genius discerned the immense value of the Crimea to the occupiers of Constantinople, and the necessity of securing his dominions by its annexation. Ahmed Kediik attacked Kaffa with a powerful fleet and an army of 40,000 men. That city, then called Little Constantinople, from its wealth and strength, surrendered in four days. The booty which the conqueror seized there was immense; 40,000 of the inhabitants were transplanted to Constantinople, and 1500 young Genoese nobles were compelled to enter into the corps of Janissaries. The whole of the peninsula was speedily occupied by the Turkish troops, and the Crimean Khans were thenceforth for three centuries the vassals of the Ottoman Sultans. Mohammed was frequently engaged in hostilities with the Venetians as well as with the Genoese.^ The archipelago and the coasts of Greece were generally the scenes of these wars, in the course of which the Sultan obtained possession of Euboea, Lesbos, Lemnos, Cephalonia, and other islands. The conquest of the Euba^a was marked by base treachery and cruelty on the part of the Sul- tan, and signalized by the pure courage of a Christian heroine. The Venetian commander, Paul Erizzo, after a long and brave defense, surrendered the citadel on condition of the Sultan pledg- 2 The Caramanians were aided by the Turkoman ruler of Persia, Ussun Hassan, whom Mohammed defeated in the battle of Terdshan, 1473. Next to the capture of Constantinople, Mohammed deemed this his greatest victory. Ed. 3 War between Venice and the Turks began in 1463 and lasted till 1477. CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 85 1456-1480 ing his word for the safety of all within it. Mohammed signed the capitulation; and when the garrison had marched out and laid down their arms he put all of them, except the Greeks, to death with the cruelest tortures. Paul Erizzo was sawn in two by his orders. The daughter of the Venetian general, the young and fair Anne Erizzo, was dragged to the Sultan's tent, but the Christian maiden preferred death to dishonor, and, unmoved by either promise or threat, she w^as killed by the slaves of the angry tyrant. The unconquered Scanderbeg died in 1467, and the state he had created died with him. Albania and the district of Herzegovina were united with the Sultan's dominions. These conquests brought the Turkish arms into more extensive contact w^ith the possessions of Venice along the eastern coasts of the Adriatic. In 1477 a powerful Turkish army marched into the territory of Friuli, at the northern extremity of that sea, and menaced Venice itself. The Venetians formed fortified camps at Gradina and Fogliania, and carried a line of entrenchments from the mouth of the Isonzo to Gasrz. But the Turks, in the October of that year, passed their lines. Omar Pasha, the Ottoman general, next passed the Tagl- iamento, a stream destined to become illustrious in after warfare. The Turkish troops spread themselves w^ithout resistance over all the rich level country as far as the banks of the Piave; and the trembling senators of Venice saw from their palace-roofs the north- ern horizon glow with the light of burning towns and villages. The Turks retired in November, loaded with booty. Venice eagerly concluded a treaty of peace with the Sultan, which (according to one Italian historian) contained a stipulation by which the re- public was to aid the Sultan, if attacked, with a fleet of 100 galleys, and the Sultan was, in case of like necessity, to send 100,000 Turk- ish cavalry against the enemies of Venice. The subjugation of Italy was a project which Mohammed, though often obliged to delay, had never abandoned. In 1480 he prepared to carry it into execution on a scale of military and naval preparation equal to the grandeur of the enterprise; and at the same time he resolved to tjuell the sole formidable enemy that yet remained near the heart of his dominions. The strong island of Rhodes was still in the possession of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who had established themselves there in 1311 and gallantly maintained their sovereignty of the island as an inde- 86 TURKEY 1480 pendent power for upward of a century and a half. Three rene- gades from the order liad incited the Suhan to attack Rhodes, by giving him plans of its fortifications and promising that it would be easily captured by forces which the Turks could employ against it. Mesih Pasha was sent to capture Rhodes in the April of 1480 with a fleet of 160 galleys, a powerful army, and a large part of the heaviest artillery. The Ottoman Pasha effected a landing on the island, and after capturing some inferior posts he formed his lines of siege against the city itself, which is built on the northern extremity of the isle. The Grand Master of the knights, Peter d'Aubusson, defended the city with indomitable fortitude and con- summate skill ; but it must have fallen had it not been for the ill-timed avarice or military rigor of the Turkish commander. After a long siege and many severe encounters the Turks made a gen- eral assault on July 28, 1480. Their artillery had opened a wide rent in the walls; their numbers were ample; their zeal was never more conspicuous. In spite of the gallantry of the Christian knights, the attacking columns had gained the crest of the breach ; and the Ottoman standard was actually planted on the walls, whtsn Mesih Pasha ordered a proclamation to be made that pillage was forbidden, and that all the plunder of the place must be reserved for the Sultan. This announcement filled the Turkish army with disgust and disaffection. The soldiery yet out- side the town refused to march in to support their comrades who had won the breach, and these were borne back and driven in dis- order from the city by a last desperate charge of the chevaliers, who had marked the sudden wavering of their assailants. The siege was raised, and Rhodes rescued for half a century. On the same day that the Turks advanced to their unsuccessful assault on Rhodes the leader of their other great expedition, Ahmed Kediik, the conqueror of the Crimea, effected his disembarkation on the southern coast of Italy, where no Ottoman before him had placed his foot. He landed on the Apulian shore and marched against Otranto, which was then considered the key of Italy. His fleet cast anchor in the roads, and the city was promptly and fiercely assailed both by sea and by land. The resistance of Otranto, though spirited, was brief. The place was stormed on August II, 1480. Out of a population of 22,000, the greater num- ber were massacred without mercy, and the wretched survivors sub- jected to the worst atrocities of Turkish warfare. 1481 CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE 87 Mohammed was now master of a strong city and harbor, which secured an entrance for his armies into Italy. His arms had met reverses at Rhodes when he was absent; but he resolved to con- duct the next enterprise in person. Early in the spring- of 1481 the horsetails were planted on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus as signals for a new campaign; but no one, save the Sultan him- COMSTANTOronS AND THE BOSFHOKUS ei. 'c " s c A self, knew against which quarter the power of Turkey was now to be directed. His maxim was that secrecy in design and celerity in execution are the great elements of success in war. Once, when at the commencement of a campaign one of his chief officers asked him what were the main objects of his operations. Alohammcd answered shar])ly, " If a hair of my beard knew them, I would |)luck it out and cast it into the fire.'' No one could tell what tin-one was menaced by the host that now gathered at the Sultan's bidding; but while the musters were yet incomplete, the expedi- tion was arrested by the death of the Sulian, who expired suddenly in the midst of his army on ]\Iay 3, 1481. Chapter VII POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNMENT UNDER MOHAMMED II THE personal character of Mohammed 11. has been already discussed; nor would we willingly turn again to a repul- sive subject. What he accomplished as a conqueror for the advancement of the Ottoman power has been made apparent in the narrative of his reign, but it would be injustice to pass over his political institutions; and we may conveniently take this occa- sion of surveying generally the internal organization of the Turkish Empire. From the time when Othman first killed his uncle in full council for contradicting his schemes, to the self-imposed limitations of the Sultans during the last few years, there is no trace in Turkish his- tory of any civil constitutional restraint upon the will of the ruling sovereign. There is indeed a popular tradition among the Turks that the Sultan has a right to put to death seven men, and no more, in each day without any cause, save that it is his pleasure so to do. But even the limitation of arbitrary homicide which this tradition imports has never been real ; and abundant instances may be found in the reigns of Selim I., of ]\Iurad IV., Mohammed IV., and of Mohammed the Conqueror himself, where far greater numbers have been sacrificed without form of trial at the royal command. The title of " Hunkiar," the " Manslayer," is (or till lately has been) one most commonly used by the subjects of the Sultan in speaking of their sovereign, not as conveying any censure or imputation of tyranny, but in simple acknowledgment of his absolute power of life or death. Only the person of the mufti, the chief of the men of law, has been supposed to be in- violable, an exception doubtful even in theory and unimportant in practice, as the Sultan ccnild depose a refractory mufti when- ever he pleased, and tlie inviolability of the individual must cease with the loss of ofiice. The sovereign's power is absolute over 88 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 89 property as well as over person ; but the Sultans have ever refrained from seizing property that has been consecrated to pious uses. Such an act would have been regarded as sacrilegious by zealous Mohammedans, and have been probably followed by an insurrec- tion. Nor, in practice, has private property suffered in Turkey from royal rapacity, except in the case of officers in the service of the government whose wealth has always been subject to confisca- tion. All honor, commands, and dignities have been in the Sul- tan's absolute disposal to give or to take away as he pleases; and all his Mohammedan subjects are equal before him, none having any privilege of birth, either from family or from place of nativity, one over the other. But though free from the barriers of civil law, and unchecked by the existence of any privileged aristocracy, no Turkish Sultan could openly disregard with impunity the obligations and restraints of the religious law of the Mohammedans. He combines legisla- tive with executive power ; but his hatti-sherifs, or imperial edicts, are regarded as subordinate to the three primary sources of law, w^hich are the Koran, itself the written word of God; the Sunna, or traditional sayings of the Prophet, and the sentences or de- cisions of the four first great Imams, or Patriarchs, of the Mo- hammedan religion. The edicts of princes are called Urfi, which means supplemental. The collection of the edicts, which successive Sultans pronounce on each ecclesiastical or temporal emergency not provided for in the first three sources of Mohammedan law, is called Kanounname (the book or the code of canons) from the Greek word Kanon, which has been applied by the Turkish jurists to political as well as to ecclesiastical legislation. By ancient and long-continued custom, the Sultan, before the execution of any important political act, obtains its sanction by a solemn declaration, or Fetwah, of the chief mufti in its favor. In- stances occur in Turkish history where the refusal of the mufti has caused the sovereign to abandon his project; and some writers have represented this officer as exercising an effective constitutional check on the royal prerogative, and possessing a veto like that of the old Roman tribunes, or the Polish nobles. But the fact of the mufti being removable from office at the royal will shows how erroneous are such theories. When a resolute and not unpopular Sultan is on the throne the mufti is a mere passive instrument in his hands; though sagacious rulers in Turkey, as elsewhere, have 90 TURKEY understood the policy of sometimes showing a seeming deference to judicial rebuke; and the deep devotion of most of the Sultans to their religion must have made them, to some extent, really value the solemn opinions of the highest interpreters of their law, which is based upon their religion. When, indeed, the reigning sovereign is feeble and unsuccessful, the opposition of the mufti, seconded by " the hoarse voice of insurrection " round the palace walls, may be truly formidable; and his declaration that the Sultan is a breaker of the divine law, a tyrant, and unfit to govern, forms a sentence of deposition which popular violence has often carried into effect. In truth, with a martial and high-spirited people, earnestly attached to the national religion and keenly sensitive as to their national honor, such as the Ottoman Turks have ever been, the worst practices of despotic sovereignty are, and ever must be, curbed by the practice of armed resistance and popular vengence. As we proceed in this history we shall often see the heads of the sovereigns' ministers fall at the people's bidding, and we shall become familiar with scenes of dethronement and regicide. These wild and terrible remedies of the evils of absolute monarchy have often in Turkey, as elsewhere, been cruelly misapplied. They have often degenerated into mere military mutinies, or into the sordid and anarchical riotings of a city rabble. But they have pre- served the Ottoman race from utter prostration. The implicit and religious loyalty of the Ottoman nation to the House of Othman (however roughly they may have dealt with individual members of it) has been uniform and undiminished. It is from that family alone that the Padishah (the Emperor), the Zil-Ullah (the shadow of God, as the Sultan is styled), can be supplied. Governors of provinces have frequently revolted against the sovereign authority. They have made themselves locally in- dependent, and carried on wars on their own account, even against the sovereign himself. But they have always professed titular allegiance to the royal house; nor has any adventurous seraskier or pasha ever attempted to seat a new dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. The certain continuity with which Sultans of the race of Othman, in lineal male descent from their great founder, have for four centuries held that throne, offers a marked contrast to the rapid vicissitudes with which imperial families rose and fell during the ages of the Greek Empire. Nor can the annals of any POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 91 of the royal houses of Western Christendom show us, hke the Turkish, an unbroken succession of thirty sovereigns without the scepter ever lapsing to the spindle, and without the accession of a collateral branch. The will of the Sultan has been, from the earliest period of Turkish history, the mainspring of the Ottoman Government; and in demonstrating its plenary iiuportance we have been led far beyond the times of the conqueror of Constantinople. In con- tinuing our examination of the Turkish institutions as organized by the legislation of that prince, there will be less need to deviate from chronological regularity. The figurative language of the institutes of Mohammed II., still employed by his successsors, describes the state under the mar- tial metaphor of a tent. The Lofty Gate of the Royal Tent (where Oriental rulers of old sat to administer justice) denotes the chief seat of government. The Italian translation of the phrase, ^' La Porta Suhlima," has been adopted by Western nations w^ith slight modifications to suit their respective languages ; and by " the Sub- lime Porte " we commonly mean the Imperial Ottoman Govern- ment. The Turkish legists and historians depict the details of their government by imagery drawn from the same metaphor of a royal tent. The dome of the state is supported by four pillars. These are formed by: ist, the Viziers; 2d, the Kadi el Askars (judges) ; 3d, the Defterdars (treasurers) ; and 4th, the Nis-chan- dyis (the secretaries of state). Besides these, there are the Outer Agas, that is to say, the military rulers; and the Inner Agas, that is to say, the rulers employed in the court. There is also the order of the Ulema, or men learned in the law. The Viziers were regarded as constituting the most important pillar that upheld the fabric of the state. In Mohammed's time the Viziers were four in number. Their chief, the Grand Vizier, is the highest of all officers, both of the dignitaries of the sword and of the pen. The legal order supplied the second pillar of the state. The chiefs of the legal order were, in the time of Moham- med IT., the two Kadi el Askars, who respectively presided over the judicial establishments of Europe and Asia. The other high legal dignitaries were, ist, the Kho-dya, who was the tutor of the Sultan and of the princes royal ; 2(1, the ]\Iufti, the authoritative expounder of the law: and 3(1, the Judge of Constantinople. As has been mentioned, the third and fourth state pillars consisted of 92 TURKEY the officers of tlie Exchequer, who were called Defterdars, and of the secretaries, who were termed Nis-chandyis. The great council of state was named the Divan; and in the absence of the Sultan the Grand Vizier was its president. The other Viziers and the Kadi el Askars took their stations on his right, the Defterdars and the Nis-chandyis on his left. The Tes- keredyis (or officers charged to present reports on the condition of each department of the state) stood in front of the Grand Vizier. The Divan was also attended by the Reis-Effendi, a general secre- tary, whose power afterward became more important than that of the Nis-chandyis ; by the Grand Chamberlain, and a Grand Mar- shal, and a train of other officers of the court. The Grand Vizier had the power of convoking a special divan at his own palace when he judged it necessary, and to him was intrusted the custody of the imperial seal. Besides the military Agas, who were very numerous, many officers in the civil departments held the rank of Aga, which means ruler. The administration of the provinces was in the time of Mohammed II. principally intrusted to the Begs and Begler Begs. These were the natural chiefs of the class of feudatories, whom their tenure of office obliged to serve on horseback in time of war. They mustered under the Sanjak, the banner of the chief of their district, and the districts themselves were thence called Sanjaks, and their rulers Sanjak-begs. The title of Pasha, so familiar to us when speaking of a Turkish provincial ruler, is not strictly a term implying territorial jurisdiction or even military authority. It is a title of honor, meaning literally the Shah's or sovereign's foot, and implying that the person to wdiom that title was given was one whom the sovereign employed. The classical reader will remember that among the ancient Persians the king's officers were called the king's eyes and the king's hands. The title of Pasha was not at first applied among the Ottomans exclu- sively to those officers who commanded armies, or ruled provinces or cities. Of the first five pashas that are mentioned by Ottoman writers three were literary men. By degrees this honorary title was appropriated to those whom the Sultan employed in war, and set over districts and important towns ; so that the word " Pasha " became almost synonyuKJiis witli the word governor. The title "Padi- shah," wliich the Sultan himself bears and which the Turkish diplomatists have been very jealous in allowing to Christian sov- POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 93 ereigns, is an entirely different word, and means the great, the imperial Shah or Sovereign.'* In the time of Mohammed II. the Ottoman Empire contained in Europe alone thirty-six Sanjaks or banners, round each of which assembled about 400 cavaliers. The entire military horse and foot of the empire in both continents was more than 100,000, without reckoning the irregular bands of the Akindji and Azabs. The ordinary revenues of the state amounted to more than 2,000,- 000 ducats. The Janissaries were still the main strength of the Turkish armies. Mohammed increased their number, yet he had never more than 12,000 under arms. But when we remember to how great a degree the other nations of that age relied on their cavalry, and neglected the composition and equipment of their infantry, we can well understand the advantage which the presence of a chosen body of perfectly trained foot soldiers in the Turkish armies must have given them in pitched battles, and still more in sieges and other elaborate operations of warfare. The English and the Swiss were the only two Christian nations of that period which sent into the field a well-armed infantry, not raised from the mere rabble, but from the valuable classes of the population ; and the Turkish saber never clashed with the English bills and bows, or with the heavy halberds of Helvetia. The pay and the privileges of the Janissaries were largely augmented by the conqueror of Constantinople : and, as the Turk- ish power was extended in Europe, care was taken to recruit that chosen corps from children who were natives of that continent rather than among the Asiatics. The levies for that purpose were gen- erally made in Albania, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. It is said that there was seldom need to employ force in collecting the requisite number of suitable children, and that the parents were eager to obtain the enrollment of their boys in the list of Janissary recruits. This, if true, is rather a proof of the moral depravity of the Christian population which the Ottomans subdued than of any mildness of the Ottomans in enforcing the institutions of Khalil Tchendereli. It is also stated that no compulsion was used to induce the young recruits to leave the Christian and adopt the Mohammedan faith : ^ Francis I. was the first luiropcan sovereign to wliom the Turks accorded the title of Padishah. It was not conceded to the Holy Roman Emperor till 1606, and not to tlie Russian sovereigns till 1774. Ed. 94 TURKEY but this was a mere pretext of forbearance ; as, from the early age at which the children were selected, it would be absurd to suppose that they were free agents in .following the new religious rites and repeating the new prayers which were taught them as soon as they entered the training schools of the Janissaries. It is cer- tain that the compulsory enrollment and conversion of youths taken in war was often practiced, as in the instance of the young Genoese nobles, who became the captives of Mohammed at the conquest of Kaffa. The attention which the Ottomans paid to their artillery, and to the adoption of every improvement in military engineering, must have been another great cause of their superiority to the na- tions wdiose brave but tumultuous and ill-provided armies they encountered. Nor is the care which their Sultans and Pashas be- stowed upon what in modern military language would be termed the ordnance and commissariat departments, less remarkable. The Greek Chalcondylas, the contemporary of Murad II., in his ac- count of the Ottoman armies, after describing their number, the excellence of their organization, and the strictness of their disci- pline, mentions the corps that were especially employed in keeping the roads on the line of march in available condition ; he speaks of the abundant supply of provisions that was always to be found in their well-arranged and symmetrical camps; and he notices the large number of beasts of burden which ahvays accompanied a Turkish army, and the employment of a special corps to ensure the proper transport of provisions and military stores. There was certainly no state of Christendom during the fifteenth or sixteenth century which cared for the well-being of its soldiers on such seemingly generous but truly economical principles. The cam- paigns of Mohammed himself, especially that against Constanti- nople, and those of his grandson Sultan Selim, furnish many instances of the enlightened liberality and forethought with which the medieval Turks provided their soldiery with those material instruments and adjuncts of warfare the importance of which, in order to enable an army " to go anywhere and do anything " has been so fully taught by Wellington in the present age. When the Ottomans conquered a country, the territory was divided into tlu'ee portions. Part became ecclesiastical property, and was devoted to pious and charitable purposes, to the main- tenance of the mosques, the public schools, the hospitals, and other POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 95 institutions of a similar character. The lands appropriated to these purposes were called Vaks or Vakoufs. A second part became full private property, resembling the allodial lands in medieval Christendom. This property was subject to different liabilities, according to the creed of its owner. If held by a Mussulman, it was called Ashriie, that is to say, tithable, and the holder was obliged to pay a tithe of its produce to the state. This was the only burden attached to it. If left in the possession of a Christian, its holder paid tribute (kharaj) to the state, which consisted of a capitation tax, and also of a tax levied on the estate, which was sometimes a fixed sum according to its extent, and was sometimes an impost on its proceeds varying from an eighth to one-half. The remaining part of the conquered country became domain-land, including, ist, those of which the revenues were appropriated to the state treasury or miri; 2d, unoccupied and waste lands (of which the amount is large in Turkey) ; 3d, the private domain of the Sultan; 4th, escheated and forfeited lands; 5th, the appanages of the Sultan's mother and other members of the blood royal; 6th, lands assigned to the offices filled by Viziers; 7th, lands assigned to Pashas of the second rank; 8th, lands assigned to the ministers and officers of the palace; and, 9th, the military fiefs, the Ziamets and Timars. These last formed the largest class of the domain- lands, and are the objects of most interest to the student of comparative history. The smallest fief or portion of conquered land granted out to a distinguished soldier was called a Timar, and generally contained from three to five hundred acres. Each fief was to furnish in time of war an armed horseman for each 3000 aspres of its revenue, like the knight's fee, which was the integer of English feudal array. The larger fiefs or Ziamets comprehended upward of five hundred acres, and there was a still higher class of fiefs, called Begliks or lordships. The general name for the holders of mil- itary fiefs was Spahi, a Cavalier, a title which exactly answers to those which we find in the feudal countries of Christian Europe. The Ziamets and Timars appear to have been generally hereditary in the male line. When any became vacant by failure of heirs or by forfeiture for misconduct, the Begler Beg of the district filled up the vacancy, his nomination being subject to approval by the i'orte. The higher rank of Beg or Bey, and the still higher rank of Begler Beg, were not at first hereditary, but were conferred by 96 TURKEY the Sultan on individuals selected by him. It was, however, usual to let the rank and estate of a Beg pass from father to son, and in later times the custom of hereditary descent grew often into a right, there being a considerable difference in this respect among the various provinces of the empire. We seem to have here before us the essential elements of feudalism; and we might naturally expect to find a feudal aris- tocracy developing itself in Turkey, and aggrandizing itself, as in medieval Christendom, at the expense both of the monarchy and commonalty. We shall, in fact, find such an aristocracy growing up in the Ottoman Empire, but not until we come to the recent century and a half of decline and corruption which preceded the reforms of Sultan Mahmud II. and of the late Sultan Abdul Medjid. Such an aristocracy did not exist during the ages of Ottoman progress and splendor. The causes of its non-existence during that period are, perhaps, to be principally found, ist, in the high personal energies and abilities of the Sultans under whom the Turkish conquests were effected and the Turkish Empire con- solidated; 2d, in the existence ol the Janissary force; 3d, in the effects of the religion of the Turks, both in elevating the au- thority of the sovereign and in maintaining a feeling of equality among all his Mohammedan subjects, and, 4th, in the absence of that habitual aptitude for public assemblies which is the charac- teristic of nations that contain a considerable element of Germanic or Scandinavian race. It is to be remembered that the feudal system of medieval Europe was principally fashioned and matured during the reign of feeble and unsuccessful princes who were engaged in repeated and calamitous contests not only with barbarous invaders and do- mestic temporal rebels, but with the bishops and the Popes of their church. But let us suppose a succession of princes, such as Charlemagne and his father, to have continued among the Franks, and vvc sliall readily understand that the haughty peers and in- subordinate noblesse of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with their rights of private warfare, of subinfeudation, and territorial jurisdiction, would never have arisen in France. We shall still more fully realize to our minds the difference if we suppose the Frankish sovereigns to have been, like the Turkish Sultans, the heads bf>tli of the church and state, and to have combined in their own persons the claims of both Pope and Emperor. And if we POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 97 look to the history of England we shall clearly see that a feudal system of baronial reforms, as well as of baronial aggrandize- ments, never could have grown up under successive rulers of the stamp of Henry VIIL The fact is indisputable (to whatever cause we assign it) that the Ottoman Empire employed the military spirit of feudalism for national defense and for conquest, but kept clear (during its flourishing ages) of the social and political influences both for good and for bad which feudalism produced in the west of Europe. No feudal nobility existed among the Turks until the period of the decline of the empire, when the Dereh Begs, or lords of the valleys, as the mutinous feudatories termed themselves, made themselves hereditary chiefs, and, fortified in their strongholds and surrounded by their armed vassals, defied their sovereign and oppressed their dependents. But except this period (which the new reforms terminated), the Ottomans have never had a nobility or noblesse, or a caste or class of any kind that was privileged by reason of birth. All the Mohammedan subjects of the Sultan (who are not in a state of domestic slavery) are on a level be- neath him. Equality in the eye of the law among the Turks them- selves is a social fact, as well as a legal theory. Neither law nor popular opinion ever recognized in Turkey any superior claim of one part of the nation to the enjoyment of civil or military offices, such as the noblesse of France possessed over the roturiers. No surprise or indignation was ever felt if the Sultan elevated the poorest Osmanli from the toils of a common artisan or laborer to the highest dignity; and, on the other hand, the deposed Vizier or Seraskier descends to an inferior employment, or into the mass of the Moslem population, without loss of caste or any change in his future civil rights and capabilities. With a few exceptions (such as that of the remarkable house of the Kiuprilis), family names are unknown in Turkey. There could not be a stronger proof of tlie entire absence of aristocracy from her institutions. There is another element of European civilization the ana- logue of which appears among the Ottomans. This is the mu- nicijial, or the principle of local self-government in local mat- ters. Each trade or craft has its guild (esnaf) and every village has its municipality. The inhabitants choose their own elders or head-men, wlio assess and collect tlic amount of public contribu- tions imposed upon the community, manage the municipal funds, 98 TURKEY which are in some cases considerable, act as arbitrators in minor disputes, attest important contracts, and are the customary organs of remonstrance against official oppression. This excellent system is not confined to the Ottomans themselves, but it flourishes among the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Christian Bulgarians under their sway. It is believed that these nations acquired it from the Turkish conquest, and the boon may be thought to outbalance much of the misery that has fallen upon the Rayas from the same quarter. The Ulema, the order of men learned in the law, has been mentioned as supplying, according to the institutes of Mohammed II., one of the four pillars of the Turkish state. The predecessors of Mohammed II., especially Orkhan, had been zealous in the foundation of schools and colleges; but Mohammed surpassed them all, and it was by him that the " Chain of Ulema " was or- ganized, and the regular line of education and promotion for the legists and judges of the state was determined. The conqueror of Constantinople knew well that something beyond mere animal courage and military skill w^as requisite in order to maintain as well as to create a great empire. Eminent himself for learning and in the acquirements of general science, Mohammed provided liberally for the encouragement of learning and science among his people. He knew also well that to secure the due administration of justice it is necessary that the ministers of justice should be re- spected; and that in order for them to be respected, it is necessary that they should not only have learning and integrity, but rank and honor in the state, and that they should be raised above the temp- tations and anxieties of indigence. Mohammed established and endowed numerous public schools of the higher order, or colleges, called Medresses, in addition to the elementary schools, the Mek- tebs, that are to be found in every quarter of every town and in almost every large village in Turkey. To become a member of the Ulema it w^as necessary to commence and complete an elab- orate course of study of the law^, to pass repeated examinations, and to take several successive degrees. While care was thus taken to make the Ulema consist of men of the highest learning and abilities, great outward honor, liberal endowments, and many im- portant privileges w^re conferred on those who attained that rank. The Ulema supplies all the professors in the high schools, who are called Aluderrls; and from this order also are chosen all the POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 99 ministers of justice, including the Kadis, or judges of the smaller towns and rural districts; the Mollas, or judges of the principal cities; the Istambul Effendi, the judge and inspector-general over the city of Constantinople ; the Kadiaskers, or supreme judges of Rumelia and Anatolia ; and the Mufti, the importance of whose office has been already considered. It is to be carefully remem- bered that the Ulema is not an ecclesiastical body, except so far as law in Mohammedan countries is based on the Koran. The actual ministers of public worship, such as the Imans, who pro- nounce the public prayers, the Sheiks or preachers, and others, form a very subordinate part of the Ulema, There is no country in which the clergy, properly so called, have less authority than in Turkey, or where the legal profession has more. It ought also to be recorded to the honor of the Ottomans that more respect is shown among them than in any Christian nation to the school- master, and to all who are eminent for possessing intellectual en- dowments themselves, or for their skill in guiding others to acquire them. Hitherto we have been examining the institutions of the Turkish Empire with reference chiefly to the dominant Mohammed- ans. They are yet to be regarded with reference to the conquered but unconverted races, the Rayas, who have always formed the large majority of the population in European Turkey, and a very considerable proportion of the inhabitants of the Asiatic provinces. We must also consider the position of the slaves. The Koran, while it enjoins war against unbelievers, requires the Mohammedan to spare the peoples of the Books (a term including the Christians and the Jews), on their submission to pay tribute. *' The bended head is not to be stricken off " ; such is the maxim of the Turkish law. It was once asked of the j\Iufti, " If eleven Mussulmans without just cause kill an infidel, who is a subject of the Padishah and pays tribute, what is to be done?" The judicial reply was, " Though the ^Mussulmans should be a thousand and one, let them all die." The Rayas (as the tributary Christians are called in Turkey) were entitled to protection for property as well as for person, and to the free exercise of their religion. It is written in the Koran, " My mission," saith the Prophet, " is to combat the unbelievers until they say ' there is no God but God.' When they have uttered these words, they have preserved their blood and their goods from all attack from mc. 100 TURKEY their own belief, they must give account to God." The earliest capitulation between Mussulmans and Christians, being the capitu- lation granted by the Caliph Omar to the Christians of Jerusalem in 637 A. D., and the charter given by Mohammed II. to the Greeks of Constantinople, were alike framed in the spirit of this text. The Christian subjects of Mohammedan power were bound to pay tribute ; they were forbidden the use of arms and horses ; they were required to wear a particular costume to distinguish them from the true believers, and to obey other social and political regulations, all tending to mark their inferior position. In Turkey, the terrible tribute of children was an additional impost on the Rayas. Other- wise, it is correctly said that the lot of the Christian subjects of the Ottomans w^as less severe than that of the Jews in the various states of medieval Christendom. During the later ages of cor- ruption and anarchy in the Turkish Empire the Rayas were un- questionably made the victims of numberless acts of lawless cruelty and brutal oppression; but these were the results of the decay of the Ottoman Government, and not the effects of its institutions as ordained in the ages of its vigor. Domestic slavery has always existed among the Turks, as among other Oriental nations, but in a milder form, and with brighter hopes for those who undergo it, than the history of servitude among the various races and in the various ages of the world usually exhibits. The Turkish law protects the slave from arbitrary cruelty and brutal or excessive chastisement; and the general kindness of the Turkish character (when not excited by war or religious fanaticism) has been a still more effectual safeguard. The Koran inculcates the duty of treating a faithful servant with generosity ; and teaches that the man who sets free his fellow-creature from slavery does much to set himself free frc^m the infirmities of human nature and from the torments of hell fire. The emancipated slave, if a true believer, becomes at once the equal in civil rights of all the other Mohammedan sub- jects of the Sultan. Many of the ablest officers, both in war and in peace, of the Sublime Porte have been originally slaves : and a wide field has thus ever been open to her rulers for choosing men of tried ability and devotion for the highest and most confidential employments. Another important source whence the Ottoman ranks have been recruited has been the long stream of voluntary deserters POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 101 from the Cross. The Turkish court and camp, where no heed was taken of a man's pedigree or birth-place, but where distinction, wealth, and power were open to all the bold and brave, who would profess the creed of the Prophet, presented irresistible attractions to many of the Rayas, and also to those strong and daring spirits from abroad, for whom, either through their own faults or the fault of their fellow-countrymen, all similar careers in Christen- dom were closed. We may observe the working of this attraction even in the recent times of Turkish adversity. It was far more effective when the Crescent was the symbol of victory and con- quest. If we look to the period when the Turkish power was at its height, the period of the reign of Suleiman L and Selim II., we shall find that out of ten Grand Viziers of this epoch eight were renegades. Of the other high dignitaries of the Porte during the same period we shall find that at least twelve of her best generals and four of the most renowned admirals were supplied to her by Christian Croatia, Albania, Bosnia, Greece, Hungary, Calabria, and Russia. There was no fear of these apostates from the Christian faith ever halting in zeal for their new masters. Their sincerity as to their adopted creed might be doubtful, but not so their animosity against that faith which they had deserted ; and Christendom for ages supplied her foes with the ablest, the most unscrupulous, and the most deadly leaders against herself. All the circumstances of the settlement of the Turks in Europe tended to keep up in them the spirit of war and the capacity as well as the zeal for future victories. By enrolling the flower of the children of the subjugated European provinces as Janissaries, by the impost of tribute money, by the sale of captives, and the acquisition of other plunder, by parceling out the conquered lands into fiefs, wherein the best soldiers of the victorious army were planted as military colonists each conquest was made to supply the means for further conquests, and Turkish war grew by what it fed on. Tlie Moslem occupants of the rich and beautiful lands east of the Adriatic felt their pride in their own prowess daily con- firmed, and their fervor for the faith of the Prophet daily rekindled by the sight of the Christian Rayas around them, on whom fell the chief burdens of taxation and manual toil, " a weaponless herd, whose duty was obedience and subjection." This long-continued position of unquestionable and unques- 102 TURKEY tioned superiority, "with nothing to provoke the strong to need- less cruelty," may have conduced to develop in the Turkish character that dignity of manner, that honorable self-respect, that truthfulness, honesty, and sense of justice, that gentleness and humanity even toward the brute creation, which the bitterest ene- mies of the Ottomans confess, and which is the theme of uniform admiration with foreigners who have been dwellers in the Ottoman Empire. Lying and theft are the vices of weakness; and a morbid fondness for practicing petty tyranny over creatures weaker than themselves is the special sin of those who have been subject to op- pression. But it would be eminently unjust to attribute the char- acteristic virtues of the Turks solely to the circumstance of their having long been a conquering people settled among a subject population, though such a fact must have had its influence. Those virtues are found among the Ottoman Turks of Asia, where the number of Rayas is far less than westward of the Dardanelles, as well as among the sparse Moslems of European Turkey : nor have those virtues been found to decay with the declining fortunes of their empire. JMuch is due to the moral precepts of their creed, which ensures sobriety and cleanliness, as well as benevolence, in- tegrity, and charity, among its true disciples. But the Turks are also distinguished above other Mohammedan nations for their high personal qualities, though these are alloyed with many evil traits, which, however, are to a great extent the peculiar vices of their men in power. Among no people are the injurious effects of court intigue, and of elevation to high authority and wealth upon individual character, so marked as among the Ottomans. Modern observers have been repeatedly struck by the metamorphosis of the high-minded and generous coun- try gentleman of Anatolia or Rumelia, exemplary in all the relations of domestic life, into a sordid grasping tyrant and a selfish voluptuary of the worst description, when invested with the power and exposed to the temptations of a Pasha. And it must be confessed that the renegades from Chris- tendom, of whom so large a portion of the Turkish officials has been comjjosed, have generally set the worst example in all re- spects to the rulers of native origin. The ferocious cruelty which has too often marked the Turks in warfare, and their ruthless fanaticism, when roused by the cry that their religion is in danger, are seeming contradictions to the general benevolence and gentle- POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 103 ness of character which have been ascribed to them as a people; but they are seeming contradictions only. The Turk is, in ordi- nary life, calm, mild, and indulgent, not because he is void of the fiercer passions, but because he is self-trained to control them. The Sultan's summons to war still meets a ready response from the inherent bravery of every Turk: and Europe has of late years justly admired the gallantry with which the Ottomans have risen to defend their land and their faith from almost overwhelm- ing enemies, and amid every circumstance of difficulty and dis- couragement. If such is the martial spirit of the people, now that they advance to the campaign " with no fear and little hope," what must it have been in the olden time, when almost unvarying victory crowned their arms, and when honor and wealth were the prompt rewards of distinguished valor. We may imagine the excitement and the exultation which the announcement of a new war and the summons to a fresh enterprise must have created throughout the Moslem world on either side of the Dardanelles, from the Euphra- tes to the Danube, from the Crimea to the Peloponnesus, in the days of Mohammed the Conqueror or Suleiman the IMagnificent. The feudal chivalry left their Ziamets and Timars and mustered beneath the banner of the neighboring Beg or Pasha, each vying with the other in the condition and magnificence of his horse and accouterments and in the display of his band of armed and mounted retainers. The Ziam who signalized his prowess might hope for elevation to the rank of Beg; and the Timariot who brought in ten prisoners or ten enemies' heads was entitled to have his minor fief enlarged into a Ziamet. The ^Moslem who did not yet possess either Ziamet or Timar and was not enrolled in the regular paid troops still served as a zealous volunteer on horse or foot, according to his means, and, besides the prospect of enriching himself by the plunder of the province that was to be invaded, or the city that was to be besieged, he looked forward to win, by daring deeds performed among the Akindji or Azabs one of the Timars, that at the end of the war would be formed out of the newly-conquered territory, or which the casualties of the campaign would leave vacant. The regular troops, the Janissaries, and the royal horseguards, who fought immediately under the Sultan's eye, and whose trade was war, were even more eager for the oppor- tunities of booty and promotion. Above all, religious enthusiasm 104 TURKEY roused the Moslem of every class to share in the Holy War against the misbelievers. The Koran teaches, indeed, that war is in itself an evil, and pronounces that " Man is the work of God. Cursed be he who dares to destroy God's workmanship." But it teaches also that, when there is war between the true believers and the enemies of Islam, it is the duty of every Mussulman to devote to such a war his property, his person, and his life. The Koran divides the world into two portions, the House of Islam, Dar-ul- Islam, and the House of War, Dar-ul-harb. It has generally been represented by Western writers on the institutes of Mohammedanism, and on the habits of Mohammedan nations, that the Dar-ul-harb^ the House of War, comprises all lands of the misbelievers; so that there is, or ought to be, per- petual hostility on the part of the true believers against the dwellers in Dar-ul-harb^ although actual warfare may be suspended by treaty. There is even a widely spread idea among superficial talkers and writers that the holy hostility, the " Jehad " of Mussulmans against non-Mussulmans, is not limited to warfare between nation and nation, but that " it is a part of the religion of every Moham- medan to kill as many Christians as possible, and that by counting up a certain number killed they think themselves secure of Heaven." But careful historical investigators and statesmen long practically conversant with Mohammedan populations have exposed the fallacy of such charges against those who hold the creed of Islam. " The craving of the Mohammedans, as such, for Christian blood is purely a myth." Their Prophet was certainly a stern iconoclast, and taught the duty of unremitting warfare against idolaters. In the Koran he bids his disciples " Fight on till there be no temptation to idolatry, and the religion becomes God's alone." But the Prophet also taught them with regard to Jews and Cb.ristians, " Dispute not except with gentleness ; but say unto them, We believe in the revelation w^hich has been sent down to us, and also in that which hath been sent down to you, and our God and your God are one." A country which is under Christian rulers, but in which ]\Iohammedans are allowed free profession of their faith, and peaceable exercise of their ritual, is no portion of the House of War, of the Dar-ul-harb; and there is no religious duty of warfare, no " Jehad," on the part of true Mussulmans POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 105 against such a state. This has been of late years formally de- termined by the chief authorities in IMohammedan law with respect to British India, and the principle is practically acknowledged by the British being publicly prayed for in every mosque through- out her Indian dominions, which contain a population of not less than 40,000,000 of Mohammedans. But, unquestionably, Mohammedans of all ages have believed and have acted on the belief that when there is actual warfare be- tween a state that holds the faith of Islam and enemies who are of a different creed it is a holy war on the part of the Moslems. Certain pacific texts of the Koran may be cited that appear to some extent to qualify the fierce spirit of others, but the general tone of the Mohammedan Sacred Book is eminently warlike, and must in the palmy days of Islam have stirred the bold blood of the Turks, like the sound of a trumpet, to wrest fresh cities and provinces for Allah from the Giaour. The Turkish military code breathes the full inspiration of the words of the Prophet, " In the shade of the crossing scimitars there is Paradise." Every Mohammedan is required to be a soldier. Every soldier killed in battle for the defense of the faith is styled schedid or martyr. And the Moslem who deserts his post or flies before the foe is held' to sin against both God and man : his punishment is death in this world and hell fire in the next. No enemy with arms in liis hands is entitled to quarter; and war is held to make all modes of destruction lawful. Captives, women, and children, and all that can do Mohammedans no harm are ordered to be spared ; but those among the enemy, who from their abilities, station, or other causes, may hereafter become dangerous to the true believers, may be slain, though they have ceased to resist. All cruelty and mutilation are forbidden, and all breach of faith. Capitulations must be observed, and prom- ises to an enemy kept by whomsoever they were given. If the sovereign disapprove of the terms, he must punish his Moham- medan officer who made them. The Turk is never to make a disad- vantageous treaty unless when every mode of warfare has been tried, and under pressure of the direst necessity. But such a treaty, if once made, is to be kept strictly. In the general view which we have been taking of the Turkish institutions we have lost sight of the individual Mohammed the Conqueror. But our attention is forcibly recalled to him when we cite one of the cannns of llie Turkisli svstem of government, with- 106 TURKEY out notice of which our survey would be incomplete. It is the legislation of imperial fratricide. Mohammed II. ordained it by the following part of his institutes: "The majority of my jurists have pronounced that those of my illustrious descendants who ascend the throne, may put their brothers to death, in order to secure the repose of the world. It will be their duty to act accordmgly" Chapter VIII BAYEZID II. AND PRINCE DJEM. 1481-1512 ON the death of Sultan Mohammed II. a struggle for the sovereignty ensued between his two sons, Prince Bayezid and Prince Djem, in which success rested with the elder but not the braver or abler of the brothers. Both the princes were absent from Constantinople at the time of their father's decease. Prince Bayezid, then aged thirty-five, was at Amassia, the capital of the province which he ruled; and Prince Djem, who was twenty- two years old, was in Caramania, of which his father had made him governor. Bayezid was of a contemplative, melancholy dispo- sition, simple in his habits, austere in his devotions, fond of poetry and speculative philosophy, whence came the surname of Sofi (the Mystic), which is given to him by many of the Ottoman historians. Djem had the energy, the ambition, the love of pomp, and the voluptuousness which had marked his father the Conqueror; and, without sharing his brother's fondness for metaphysics and ab- struse learning, Djem was more eminent even than the other mem- bers of his highly gifted family for his love of poetry, and his own poems are ranked among the most beautiful in Turkish literature. On the death of Sultan Mohammed being known in the camp and capital, the Janissaries rose in open anarchy, plundered the houses of the rich Jews and other wealthy inhabitants, and put to death the Grand Vizier, who had vainly endeavored to disguise from them the fact of the Sultan's death. As this minister was known to be a supporter of the interests of Prince Djem, the Janissaries were easily led by the adherents of the elder brother to pronounce in favor of Prince Bayezid; and the rest of the army followed their example. Messengers had been dispatched to each prince by their respective partisans in the capital ; but the bearer of the important tidings to Prince Djem was waylaid and slain on the road; and Bayezid obtained the inestimable advantage over his competitor of first learning that the throne was vacant, and first reaching Con- stantinople to claim it. The Janissaries appeared before him on 107 108 TURKEY 1481-1482 his arrival at tlie capital and asked forgiveness for their late acts of violence; but these formidable suppliants asked it in battle ar- ray, and accompanied their petition by a demand for an increase of pay, and for a donative on their new sovereign's accession. Bayezid obeyed all their requests; and thenceforth the distribution of large sums of money at the commencement of each reign among these Mohammedan praetorians became a regular custom in Tur- key, alike burdensome to the treasury and disgraceful to the Sultan, until it was abolished by the Sultan Abdul-Hamid during the war with Russia, three hundred years after the time of the second Bayezid, Djem was not of a disposition to resign the sovereignty to his brother without a struggle; and, remembering the bloody law by which their father had made imperial fratricide a state maxim, the young Ottoman prince may be said to have armed as much for life as for empire. A civil war followed, in which the abilities of the veteran Ahmed Kediik the conqueror of Kaffa and Otranto, and the treachery of some of Djem's principal followers gave the vic- tory to Bayezid. A proposition had been made before the battle by Djem to his brother to divide the empire, Bayezid taking the European and Djem the Asiatic provinces. Bayezid refused to listen to such a scheme ; and when the aged Sultana, Seldjoukatoun, who was the daughter of Mohammed I. and the great-aunt of the two rivals, came to his camp and endeavored to move his fraternal feelings in Djem's favor, Bayezid answered with stern brevity by citing the Arab proverb, " There is no relationship among princes." Nevertheless, the Mystic Sultan, though resolute to maintain his rights, and to suffer no dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, showed no remorseless eagerness for his brother's death till after Djem had proved that, so long as life was in him, he would strive for a kingly crown at Bayezid's expense. After his first defeat on June 20, 1481, and the dispersion of his army Djem fled to the dominions of the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, where he was fa- vorably recci\e(l and sheltered for a year, during which time he visited the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. He and a daughter of ]\Iohamme(l I. are the only members of the Turkish royal family that have made that pilgrimage. In 1482 Djem, assisted by the Egyptian sovereign and some of the malcontent Ottoman com- manders in Asia Alinor, renewed the war, Imt was again defeated and forced to seek safely in foreign lands. He did not return to B A Y E Z I D 1 1 109 148Z his former protector, but sought the means of passing to the Ottoman dominions in Europe, in the hopes of reviving the civil war with effect in that continent, though unsuccessful in the Asiatic, as Prince Musa had done during the interregnum after the defeat of the first Bayezid. With this view, he requested the Grand Master of Rhodes to grant him a temporary shelter and the means of passing into Europe. The Knights of St. John assembled in solemn chapter to dis- cuss Prince Djem's requisition; and it was finally resolved that it was consonant with the dignity and policy of the Order to receive the Ottoman prince. Accordingly, on July 23, 1482, Djem, with thirty attendants, landed at Rhodes and entered on a long period of captivity most discreditable to the Christian potentates by whom he was nominally protected, but who in reality made him the subject of barter and sale, of long imprisonment, and ultimately of treacherous murder. He was received at Rhodes by the Grand Master and his knights with ostentatious pomp and every semblance of hospitable generosity. But it was soon thought desirable to remove him from Rhodes to one of the commanderies which the order possessed in France. It was considered by D'Au- busson and his comrades that by removing the Ottoman prince from their island they would be better able to evade the demands which Sultan Bayezid was sure to make for the surrender of his brother to him, and that there would be less risk of losing their prisoner by assassination. Before Djem left Rhodes, D'Aubusson took the precaution of obtaining his signature to a treaty, by which Djem bound himself, in the event of his ever becoming Sultan, to conditions highly favorable to the Order. D'Aubusson, whose skill as an unscrupulous diplomatist was at least equal to his gallantry as a soldier (which we have had oc- casion to admire while tracing the times of iMohanmied 11.), next sent an embassy to the reigning Sultan in order to secure all possi- ble advantages from having the Pretender in the power of the knights. It was agreed that there should be peace and free trade between the Order and the Porte, and that the Sultan should pay a yearly sum of forty-five thousand ducats, ostensibly for the main- tenance of his brother, but in reality as the price of his compulsory detention in some of the possessions of the knights. Before Djem had thrown himself into the hands of the Chris- tians, Bayezid had offered him the revenues of the province which 110 TURKEY 1482-1489 he had formerly governed, on condition of his living quietly at Jerusalem. Djem refused this offer, and demanded the cession of certain provinces to him in full sovereignty. Bayezid replied that " Empire is a bride whose favors cannot be shared." On Djem's persisting in his resolution to seek through Christian help the means of renewing the civil war, Bayezid endeavored unremittingly to compass his death, or at least to purchase his imprisonment. The high-spirited but unhappy prince, whose adventures and poetical talents have made him a favorite character in Prankish as well as Turkish history, was landed by a galley of the knights at Nice in November, 1482. Djem expressed his gratification with the beautiful scenery of the Frankish city, but was urgent to com- mence his journey to Hungary, whence he designed to pass into Rumelia. His conductors informed him that as he was on French territory he ought not to depart without the formal permission of the king of the country. Djem accordingly sent one of his suite to Paris, and was assured by the chevaliers that his messenger might easily travel thither and return in twelve days. But care was taken to arrest the Turkish envoy on the road; and Djem lingered for many months at Nice, closely watched, though treated with apparent respect, and in vain expectation of a messenger from the French court. At last the plague broke out in that city, which gave the knights a plausible excuse for conveying their prisoner to a com- mandery in the interior of the kingdom. The greater number of the Ottoman prince's native followers were now forcibly removed from him ; and Djem was confined, first at Roussillon, then at Puy, and afterward at Sassenage, where he inspired the fair Philippine Hel- ena, the daughter of the lord of the castle, with an ardent passion, which was not unreturned, and love for a time lightened the weary hours of the captive. For seven years the Ottoman prince was detained in France. The remonstrances against such treatment which he addressed to the knights and to the Christian princes and chiefs by whom he was visited, and his repeated attempts to escape, were fruitless, though he was an object of interest to all Christen- dom, and many kings negotiated with the Grand Master D'Aubus- son, for the purpose of obtaining possession of the claimant to the Ottoman throne. D'Aubusson purposely protracted the discussion of terms, and was unwilling to put an end to a custody, which al- though little creditable, was eminently lucrative to the Knights of St. John. Djem's family, consisting of his mother, his wife, and B A Y E Z I D 1 1 111 1489 his infant children, were at Cairo. D'Aubusson had the unknightly craft to obtain twenty thousand ducats from the wife and mother of his victim, under pretense that the prince was immediately to be set at liberty and that the money was necessary for the expenses of his voyage. This was in addition to the forty-five thousand ducats which Sultan Bayezid paid annually as the price of his brother's captivity. At last Charles VIII. of France interposed, not to set Prince Djem free, but to transfer him from the hands of the Knights of Rhodes to the custody of the Pope. A guard of fifty French knights was appointed to attend the Turkish prince, and it was agreed that in the event of the Pope giving him up to any other Christian sov- ereign without leave from the French court, a sum of ten thousand ducats should be paid as forfeit money to Charles. The court of Rome undertook to indemnify the Knights of Rhodes, and a variety of privileges were accordingly granted to them by the sovereign Pontiff; and D'Aubusson himself received the honor of being made a cardinal. In 1489 Prince Djem made his entry into Rome, with the empty pageantry of honors like those amid which he had eight years previously been conducted into Rhodes. He was lodged in the Vatican and formally presented to Pope Innocent VIII. by the Grand Prior of Auvergne and the ambassador of France. It was in vain that the chamberlains and other Papal officers urged on Djem the necessity of paying the accustomed homage to the spiritual head of the church and temporal sovereign of Rome. The son of Mohammed the Conqueror would neither veil the turban nor bend the knee, but walking straight up to the Pope, Djem saluted him as the cardinals do, by a kiss on the shoulder. Then in a few words, full of manly feeling and princely spirit, Djem asked the Pontiff's protection and requested a private interview. It was granted, and Djem then narrated the hopes deferred, the deceits and the hard- ships which he had undergone during his captivity. He spoke of the cruelty of his separation from his mother, his wife, and his chil- dren, and of his earnest desire to behold them again, and to sail to Fgypt for that purpose. The tears flowed fast down the cheeks of the unhappy Turkish prince while he told his wrongs; and even the Pope was moved and wept as he listened. But Innocent said that for Djem to sail for Egypt was incompatible with his project for winning his father's throne; that the King of Hungary required his 112 TURKEY 1489-1494 presence on the frontiers of that kingdom ; and that, above all, he ought to think seriously of embracing the Christian faith. Djem replied that such an act of apostasy would irretrievably ruin him in the opinion of his fellow-countrymen ; and he proudly stated that he would not be false to his religion for the sake of the Ottoman Em- pire, or for the sake of the empire of the world. Innocent did not press the work of conversion further, but closed the interview with words of consolation and encouragement. At this time there happened to be at Rome an ambassador from the Sultan of Egypt, and soon afterward there arrived an ambas- sador from Sultan Bayezid. The Egyptian ambassador sought out Prince Djem and prostrated himself before him as before the lawful sovereign of Turkey. Djem learned from him that the Rhodian Grand Master had extorted the twenty thousand ducats from Djem's mother and sister under the false pretense of their being required for the voyage from France. Djem and the Egyptian envoy complained loudly at the Papal court against the Rhodian Knights for this fraud and demanded the restitution of the money. The Pope and Sultan Bayezid's ambassador interceded in favor of the knights, and by their means the Order was discharged from the debt for five thousand ducats paid down immediately. The ambas- sador from the Turkish court was charged with the ostensible mis- sion of presenting to the Pope certain holy relics of the Crucifixion, but he was also commissioned to arrange the price for which Inno- cent VIII. would pledge himself to keep Djem within the Papal States. Forty thousand ducats a year was the sum agreed on be- tween the rulers of Rome and Constantinople for this purpose; and Djem was accordingly detained at the court of Innocent for three years, and on the death of that Pontiff the Turkish prince was safely guarded in the Vatican until the successor to Innocent was elected. The new Pope was Alexander Borgia. He forthwith sent an ambassador to Bayezid and arranged for the continuation of the payment of the forty thousand ducats for the detention of Djem. But Borgia also stipulated that he was to have the option of re- ceiving three hundred thousand ducats paid down at once, if he took the shortest and most effectual means of securing Djem from invad- ing Turkey, by juitting him to death. Meanwhile Charles VIII. invaded Italy, and on the last day of 1494 entered Rome. Pope Alexander sought refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo, taking Djem with him as one of the most valuable of BAYEZID II 113 1494 the Papal treasures. Eleven days after the entry of the French army there was an interview between Pope Alexander and King Charles for the purpose of arranging a treaty of peace. One of the chief conditions was the transfer of Prince Djem into Charles's hands. He accompanied the French army from Rome to Naples and witnessed the slaughters of Monte Fortino and Monte San Giovanni. But the death of the captive was determined upon, and while Italian and Turkish historians differ as to the mode of the crime, accord- ing to the Oriental writers, Djem's barber, a Greek renegade, named Mustapha, inoculated his master with deadly venom by wounding him with a poisoned razor. They add that Ivlustapha acquired favor afterward with Bayezid for this service, and was raised by degrees to the dignity of Grand Vizier. All agree that Djem was murdered, and died by a slowly wasting poison.^ Sultan Bayezid sent a formal embassy to reclaim his remains from Christendom, and Prince Djem was buried with royal pomp at Brusa. Sultan Bayezid, though victorious in civil war, gained little glory in the encounters of the Ottoman power with foreign enemies during his reign. Immediately on his accession the veteran con- queror Ahmed Kediik was recalled from Otranto to aid Bayezid against domestic foes; and Ahmed's successor, Khaireddin, unsup- ported from Turkey, was obliged to capitulate to the Duke of Cala- bria,, after a long and gallant defense. Thus Italy was relieved from the grasp which the dreaded Ottomans had laid on her ; nor was any lodgment of the Turks within her peninsula again effected. Bayezid was engaged in frequent wars against the Venetians and the Hungarians, and also against the Poles, which brought little in- crease to the empire, except the acquisition of the cities of Lepanto, Modon, and Coron. There is small interest in tracing the details of the campaigns of the Ottoman troops in Europe during this reign, marked, as they are, by a degree of ferocity and cruelty on the Christian as well as on the Turkish side which is repulsively strik- ing even in the history of medieval warfare. The epoch of Bayezid II. is brighter in the history of the Turkish navy than in that of the Ottoman armies. Kemal Reis, the first great admiral of the Turks, signalized himself under this prince and became the terror of the Christian fleets. He was originally a slave, and had been presented to the Sultan by the Capudan Pasha Sinan. His remarkable beauty 1 Recent writers believe that a deliberate system of intoxication was used to tmdcrminc Djem's health, and this and not poison was the cause of his death. > Ev. 114 TURKEY 1483-1490 caused Bayezid to name him " Kemal," which means " Perfection," and he was in youth one of the royal pages. The first mention of him as a sea-captain is in 1483, when he was placed in command of the fleet which Bayezid sent to ravage the coasts of Spain, in con- sequence of an earnest entreaty which the Moors of Granada had sent to the Sultan of Constantinople, as " lord of the two seas and the two continents," for succor against the overwhelming power of the Spanish Christians. Kemal Reis afterward, in 1499, won a desperate hattle over the Venetians off the island of Sapienza and materially assisted in the reduction of the city of Lepanto. We find him also, in 1500, contending skillfully and boldly against the far superior fleets of the Pope, of Spain, and of Venice. The Ottoman marine had not yet acquired such an ascendency in the Mediter- ranean as it afterward held under Bayezid's grandson, Sultan Suleiman. Bayezid's melancholy and dreamy disposition made him in- different to the excitements of strife and conquest ; and though, as a zealous devotee, he looked on warfare against the infidels as meri- torious, and though sometimes, as an act of religious duty, he shared in the campaigns of his troops, his general policy was to seek peace at almost any sacrifice. As is usually the case with overpacific princes, he was unfortunate enough to be entangled against his will in many wars, from which his empire acquired little advantage, and he himself less credit. Besides his hostilities with Christian pow- ers, he was obliged to oppose by armed force the encroachments wdiich the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt and Syria continually made on the Ottoman territory on the southeastern confines of Asia Minor. The first war between the Ottoman sovereigns of Constan- tinople and the rulers of Egypt began in 1485, and was eminently disastrous for the Turks. Their armies were repeatedly beaten by the Mamelukes; and the spirit of revolt which had so long smoldered in Caramania broke out and menaced open war. The Ottoman generals succeeded in reducing the Caramanians to subjection ; but Bayezid, after five years of defeats by the Egyptians, concluded a peace with them, which left in their hands three fortresses whicli they had conquered. The w^ounded pride of the Sublime Porte was soothed by the pretext that the three fortresses were to be considered as given to endow the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, of which the Egyptian Sultan was ]M-otector. As Bayezid advanced in years the empire was again troubled BAYEZID II 115 1509-1511 with domestic dissension and civil war. He had made his sons and grandsons governors over provinces ; and as the Sultan's infirmities increased, his three surviving sons, Korkud, Ahmed, and Selim, began to intrigue against each other with a view of securing the suc- cession. Selim was the youngest of the three, but the ablest, and the least likely to be deterred by any scruples of remorse from cut- ting his way to the throne by the readiest path. He was governor of Trebizond. His martial habits and bold readiness with tongue and hand had made him the favorite of the troops; and he sought to aggrandize his influence by making incursions into the Circassian territory on his own account. When the old and pacific Sultan remonstrated against these proceedings, Selim replied by demanding a Sanjak in Europe, so as to place him nearer to the central seat of government. He next asked permission to visit his father at Adrianople, to pay his filial respects ; and, on this being refused, he crossed the Black Sea and advanced to Adrianople with a retinue so numerous and well appointed that it deserved the name of an army. The old Sultan, who was suffering under severe illness, joined the forces which some of his faithful followers had collected for his defense; but he wept bitterly on seeing the standards of Selim's troops and at the prospect of encountering his own child in battle. In this mood he was easily persuaded to negotiate by the Begler Beg of Rumelia, who strove to avert the unnatural conflict and acted as mediator between father and son. Selim received the European government of Semendra ; and the Sultan promised not to abdicate in favor of his brother Ahmed, who was known to be the old man's favorite child. While these events were passing in Europe, Asia Minor was troubled by the machinations of the other two princes, Korkud and Ahmed, and still more by the hordes of brigands who, under the feeble sovereignty of Bayezid, long infested the kingdom, and at last formed a regular army in conjunction with the numerous devotees of the Shiah sect, who at that time abounded in Asia Minor. They professed unbounded veneration for the great Shiah Prince, the Persian ruler. Shah Ismail ; and the leader of this mixed force of ruffians and fanatics took the name of Shah Kouli, which means " Slave of the Shall" ; but the Ottomans called him Sheytan Kouli, which means " Slave of the Devil." Pie defeated several detachments of the Sultan's troops ; and at last it was thought necessary to send the Grand Vizier against him. The Devil's Slave resisted skillfully and desperately, and both he and the Vizier at last 116 TURKEY 1511 perished in an obstinate battle which was fought near Sarimschaklik in August, 1 5 1 1 . SeHm took advantage of these disturbances as pretexts for his keeping an army together to be ready for any emergencies of the state. At last he forcibly entered Adrianople and assumed the rights of an independent sovereign. Some, however, of the Otto- man soldiery were yet averse to the dethronement of their old sov- ereign, and Bayezid marched upon Adrianople w'ith a true though small army. Selim came out wath his troops to meet him, and the old Sultan was with difficulty persuaded to give the order to engage his rebellious son. At length Bayezid raised himself on the cush- ions of his litter and called out to his army, " My slaves, you who eat my bread, attack those traitors." Ten thousand loyal soldiers at once raised the battle-cry of " God is great," and rushed upon the rebel ranks. Selim's troops were broken by the charge and fled in disorder ; and Selim was indebted for his safety to the fleetness of his horse, called Karaboulut (the Black Cloud), and to the devotion of his friend, Ferhad, who threw himself in a narrow^ pass betw^een the flying prince and the foremost cavaliers of the pursuers. Selim fled to Akhioli on the Black Sea, w'here he embarked for the Crimea. The Khan of that peninsula w-as his father-in-law, and Selim was soon at the head of a new army of Tartar allies and Turkish mal- contents, and in readiness to strike another blow- for the throne. Bayezid anxiously wished to make his second son, Ahmed, his successor; but neither this prince nor his elder brother Prince Korkud was popular with the Janissaries, who looked on Selim as the fit Padishah of the warlike house of Othman, and who con- sidered the impiety of his attacks upon his own father to be far outweighed by the warlike energy and relentless vigor which he displayed. Bayezid had secretly encouraged some w'arlike prepar- ations of Ahmed in Asia; but the indignation of the soldiery of the capital against that prince compelled the old Sultan to disown his acts, and even to send a messenger to the Crimea to Selim, requiring him to march to the protection of the capital from Ahmed. It was winter when Selim received the welcome summons, but he instantly assembled 3000 horsemen, half of whom were Tartars, and hast- ened round the northwestern coast of the Euxine. Many of his followers perished by the severity of the cold and the length and rapidity of their marches; but the indomitable Selim still pressed forward. He crossed the Dniester on the ice near Akerman, and, BAYEZID II 117 1512 disregarding an injunction which the terrified Bayezid sent him to repair to his government at Semendra, he continued his progress toward the capital. When he was yet thirty miles from Constan- tinople, the Aga of the Janissaries came to meet him; and he made his entry into the capital in almost royal state, with the viziers and other dignitaries of state in his train. The old Sultan had amassed a large treasure during his reign; and he now sought to bribe his rebellious son back to obedience by an immediate donation of three hundred thousand ducats and the promise of a yearly payment of two hundred thousand more. Selim regarded the offered treasure as an additional inducement to seize the throne, and refused all terms of compromise. Bayezid still occupied the royal palace, the Serail ; but on April 25, 15 12, the Janissaries, the Spahis, and the tur- bulent population of Constantinople assembled before the palace- gates and demanded to see the Sultan. The gates of the Serail were thrown open and Bayezid received them seated on his throne. He asked them what it was they desired, and the populace cried with one voice, " Our Padishah is old and sickly, and we will that Selim shall be the Sultan." Twelve thousand Janissaries followed up the popular demand by shouting their formidable battle-cry ; and the old Sultan, seeing the people and the army against him, yielded, and uttered the words, " I abdicate in favor of my son Selim. May God grant him a prosperous reign! " Shouts of joy pealed round the palace and through the city at this announcement. Selim now came forward and kissed his father's hand with every semblance of respect. The old Sultan laid aside the emblems of sovereignty with the calm indifference of a philosopher, and asked his successor the favor of being allowed to retire to the city of Demotika, where he had been born. Selim escorted him to the gate of the capital, walk- ing on foot by his father's litter, and listening with apparent defer- ence to the counsels which the old man gave him. But the de- throned Sultan never reached Demotika: he died at a little village on the road on the third day of his journey. His age, and his sufferings both of mind and body, sufficiently accounted for his death ; but a rumor was widely spread that he had been poisoned by an emissary of his son. The savage character of Selim may be thought justly to have exposed him to suspicion; but there seems to have been no clear evidence of the horrible charge. It is in the reign of Bayezid K, that the ominous name of Russia first appears in Turkish history. In 1492 the Czar, Ivan 118 TURKEY 1512 III., wrote a letter to Bayezid on the subject of certain exactions which had recently been practiced on Russian merchants in Turkey, and proposing a diplomatic intercourse between the two empires. Three years afterward Michael Plestcheev, the first Russian am- bassador, appeared at Constantinople. He was strictly enjoined by his master not to bow the knee to the Sultan, and not to allow precedence to any other ambassador at the Ottoman court. Plestcheev appears to have displayed such arrogance as justly to offend the Sultan. Bayezid stated in a letter on the subject to the Khan of the Crimea (who had exerted himself to promote friend- ship between the empires) "that he was accustomed to receive respect from the powers of the East and the West, and blushed at the thought of submitting to such rudeness." Had Bayezid's father or son been on the Turkish throne the haughty Muscovite would probably have received a sharper chastisement than the mild mark of offended dignity which Bayezid displayed by sending no am- bassador to Russia in return. No one at Bayezid's court could foresee that in the rude power of the far North, whose emissaries then excited the contemptuous indignation of the proud and polished Osmanlis, was reared the deadliest foe that the house of Othman was ever to encounter. Chapter IX SELIM I. AND THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA. 15 12-1520 SULTAN SELIM I. was forty-seven years of age when he dethroned his father. He reigned only eight years, and in that brief period he nearly doubled the extent of the Ottoman Empire. The splendor of his conquests/ the high abilities which he displayed in literature and in politics, as well as in war, and the imperious vigor of his character, have found panegyrists among European as well as Asiatic writers; but his unsparing cruelty to those who served, as well as to those who opposed him, has justly brought down on his memory the indignant reprobation of mankind, as expressed by the general sentence of the great majority both of Oriental and Western historians. In his own reign the wish, " Mayst thou be the Vizier of Sultan Selim," had become a common formula of cursing among the Ottomans. Selim's Viziers seldom survived their promotion more than a month. They whom he raised to this perilous post knew that they were destined for the executioner's saber, and carried their last wills and testaments with them whenever they entered the Sultan's presence. Unsparing of the blood of his relations, his subjects, and his ablest servants, Selim was certain to be fond of war; and his reign was one of almost ceaseless carnage. Vigorous in body and mind, and indifferent to sensual pleasures, he pursued with keenness the martial pastime of the chase. He devoted all his days to military duties or to hunting. He slept but little, and employed the greater part of the night in literary studies. His favorite volumes were books of history or of Persian poetry. He left a collection of odes written by himself in that language, for which he showed a marked preference. Selim showed especial favor and honor to men of learning, and promoted many of them to posts of high dignity and importance. He intrusted to the historian Idris the task of organ- izing the newly-conquered province of Kurdistan; and the jurist Kernel Pasha Zade accompanied him on his Egyptian expedition as 119 120 TURKEY 1512 historiographer. Selim was tall in stature, with long body though short limbs. Contrary to the example of his predecessors he kept his chin close shaved, but he wore enormously large black mous- tachios, which, with his dense and dark eyebrows, contributed to give him the fierce aspect which impressed with awe all who beheld him. His eyes were large and fiery; and his red complexion showed (ac- cording to the report of the Venetian ambassador Foscolo) a sanguinary disposition. His pride met with a sharp trial on the very first day of his reign. The Janissaries resolved to force from their new Sultan a donative, and drew up in double lines along the street through which he was expected to pass. They v^^ere to clash their arms together when he arrived, as an impressive hint of the means which had given him the throne, and of the means which might force him from it. Selim was apprised of their gathering, and, indignant at the prospect of thus passing publicly under the yoke of his own soldiers on the first day of his reign, he avoided the humiliation by riding round in another direction. He dared not, however, refuse the donative; and a distribution larger than had been made on any similar occasion nearly exhausted the treasury. Selim had acquired the throne by successful rebellion against his father; and he had good reason to dread the jealousy of his brothers, who were in command of some of the best provinces of the empire, and were little likely to give up the imperial heritage without a struggle. Of the two surviving brothers of Selim, the eldest, Prince Korkud, was childless; the second, Prince Ahmed, had four sons. Selim himself had but a single son, Prince Suleiman. At first Selim's brothers appeared willing to acknowledge him as Sultan, and accepted the confirmation in their respective govern- ments which he offered. But Prince Ahmed, who ruled at Amasia, soon showed his design of striving for the throne by occupying the great city of Brusa and levying heavy taxes on the inhabitants. Selim marched instantly into Asia ]\Iinor at the head of a powerful army and sent a fleet to cruise along the coasts. Ahmed fled before him and dispatched two of his sons to implore assistance from the Persian prince, Shah Ismail. Selim took possession of Brusa and sent the greater part of his army into winter quarters. Encouraged by some of Selini"s officers whom he had gained over Ahmed renewed the war and gained several slight advantages. Selim instantly caused his Grand Vizier, who was one of the traitors CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 121 1513 against him, to be strangled, and proceeded to further executions of a more atrocious character. Five of the young princes, his nephews, were in honorable detention in the houses of some of the chief men of Brusa. Selim sent a body of Janissaries to the palace who strangled the princes without mercy. At the tidings of this massacre, Prince Korkud, who had hitherto been quiet in his government of Saroukhan, saw clearly what doom was designed for himself. He endeavored to win over the Janissaries, and prepared for a struggle for life or death with Selim. Selim detected his brother's plans, and without giving any intimation of his discovery or his purpose, he left Brusa, under pretense of a great hunting, and then suddenly advanced with 10,000 cavalry into Korkud's province. Korkud fled with a single attendant of the name of Piali. They were pursued and captured. Selim sent an officer named Sinan to announce to his brother that he must die. Sinan arrived in the night at the place where the royal captive was detained, and, waking Prince Korkud from sleep, he bade him come forth to death. Korkud demanded a respite of an hour, and employed it in writing a letter in verse to his brother, in which he reproached him with his cruelty. He then gave up his neck to the fatal bowstring. Selim wept abundantly when he read his brother's elegy. He carried his real or pretended grief so far as to order a general mourning for three days ; and he put to death some Turkomans who had guided the pursuers of Kor- kud to his hiding place, and who came to Brusa to ask a reward for that service. In the meanwhile Prince Ahmed had collected a considerable force, and had gained further advantages over Selim's forces, which, if vigorously followed up, might have given him the throne. But Ahmed, though personally brave, was far inferior to his brother in energy and perseverance. Selim reinforced his army, and on April 24, 1 5 13, a pitched battle was fought, in which Ahmed was completely defeated and taken prisoner. His doom was the same as that of Korkud, and was executed by the same officer, Sinan. Before death Ahmed had begged to see the Sultan, but the re(|uest was refused, and Selim remarked that he would give his brother such a domain as fitted an Ottoman prince. Ahmed under- stood the words, and when Sinan entered gave himself up to death without resistance. Before he was bowstrung, he drew from his finger a jewel said to e(|ual in value a year's revenue of Rumelia, 122 TURKEY 1513 and charged Sinan to convey it to Selim as his brother's parting gift, with the hope that the Suhan would excuse the smallness of its worth. Ahmed was buried with the five murdered young princes at Brusa. SeHm now thought himself secure on the throne, and prepared for foreign warfare. Fortunately for Christendom, it was against other Mohammedan powers that his energies were directed, and he willingly arranged or renewed a series of treaties with the different states of Europe, which secured tranquillity along the western fron- tiers of the Ottoman Empire. Selim had not fallen off from his ancestors in zeal for the faith of Islam. He was indeed the most bigoted of all the Turkish Sultans. But it was the very vehemence of his bigotry that made him hate the heretics of Islam even more than the Giaours of Christendom. The schism of the Sunnites and the Shiites (the first of whom acknowledge and the last of whom repudiate the three immediate successors of the Prophet, the Caliphs Abubeker, Omar, and Othman) had distracted the Mohammedan world from the earliest times. The Ottoman Turks have been Sunnites. The contrary tenets have prevailed in Persia ; and the great founder of the Safawi dynasty in that country, Shah Ismail, was as eminent for his zeal for the Shiites' tenets as for his ability in the council and his valor in the field. The doctrine of the Shiites had begun to spread among the subjects of the Sublime Porte before Selim came to the throne; and, though the Sultan, the Ulema, and by far the larger portion of the Ottomans, held strictly to the orthodoxy of Sunnism, the Shiites were numerous in every province, and they seemed to be rapidly gaining proselytes. Selim determined to crush heresy at home be- fore he went forth to combat it abroad ; and in a deliberate spirit of fanatic cruelty he planned and executed a general slaughter of all his subjects who were supposed to have fallen away from what their sovereign considered to be the only true faith. Selim did not allure his victims by false professions of esteem, or by profaning the rights of hospitality, but he organized a system of secret police throughout his dominions, which contemporary writers term admirable; and he thus obtained a complete list of all the Mohammedans in European and in Asiatic Turkey who were suspected of belonging to the sect of the Shiites. The number of the proscribed, including men, women, and children, amounted to CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 123 1514 seventy thousand. Selim distributed troops throughout the empire, and stationed them in each city and district, in strength proportioned to the number of Shiites that it contained. He then suddenly sent forth the messengers of death, and the whole of those unhappy be- ings were arrested. Forty thousand of them were slain; the rest were condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The contemporaneous Ottoman historians give Selim the title of " The Just " for this act of atrocity. The slaughter of his coreligionists increased the animosity with which Shah Ismail already regarded Selim; and the two sov- ereigns prepared for an encounter with equal rancor and resolution. Many grounds of quarrel, besides that of religious difference, ex- isted between them. Shah Ismail had humbled the Ottoman arms in some encounters with the troops of the governors of the Turkish provinces near his frontier in Bayezid's reign ; he had also sheltered the fugitive Prince Murad, son of Selim's brother Ahmed; and he now assembled his troops, with the avowed intention of deposing and punishing Selim and of placing young Murad on the Turkish throne. Selim, on his part, made his preparations for an aggressive campaign with his accustomed vigor and determination. The re- nown of the Persian arms and of the skill and good fortune of Shah Ismail were widely spread throughout the East; and when Selim announced his intention of attacking Persia the members of his council were ominously mute. Thrice the Sultan told them that he would lead them to war, and thrice they spoke not, till at last a common Janissary, named Abdullah, who stood by on guard, broke the silence, and throwing himself on his knees before the Sultan, told him that he and his comrades would rejoice in marching under him to fight the Shah of Persia. Selim made him Beg of the Sanjak of Selnik on the spot. The Turkish army mustered in the plain of Yenischeer. Selim began his march on April 20, 15 14, on a Thursday, a day of the week thought fortunate by the Ottomans. In a general re- view of his army at Sivas, Selim ascertained that his available forces amounted to 140,000 well-armed men, and 5000 more were employed in the commissariat department, which also was provided with 60.000 camels. He had a reserve force of 40,000 men placed in echelon, between Kaissyraia and Sivas. The great difficulty of the campaign was to keep up his line of communications and to en- sure a supply of provisions; as the Persians, instead of encountering 124 TURK E Y 1514 him on the frontier, retired before him, laying waste the whole country and leaving nothing that could shelter or feed a foe. Selim's chief magazines were at Trebizond, whither his fleets brought large supplies, and whence they were carried on mules to the army. Sclim endeavored to provoke Ismail to change his judicious tactics and risk a battle, by sending him more letters, written partly in verse and partly in prose, in which he taunted the Persian sovereign with cowardice in not playing out the royal part which he had usurped. Ismail replied to the homilies and rhapso- dies of the Sultan by a calm and dignified letter, in which he denied the existence of any reason why Selim should make war on him, and expressed his willingness to resume peaceful relations. Ismail then regretted that the Sultan should have assumed in his corre- spondence a style so unnatural and so unfitting the dignity of the nominal writer; but with polished irony Ismail asserted his firm belief that the letters must have been the hasty productions of some secretary who had taken an overdose of opium. Ismail added, "That, without doubt, the will of God would soon be manifested; but it would be too late to repent when that manifestation had com- menced. For his part, he left the Sultan at liberty to do what he pleased, and was fully prepared for war if his amicable letter was ill received." This letter was accompanied by the present of a box of opium, ostensibly for the supposed secretary who had written the letter in Selim's name; but, as Selim himself was addicted to the use of that drug, the satiric stroke was sure to be keenly felt. Enraged at the dignified scorn of his adversary, Selim vented his wrath by an outrage on the law of nations, and ordered the Persian envoy to be torn to pieces. The Ottoman army continued to advance through the north of Diarbekir, Kurdistan, and Azerbijan, upon Tabriz, which was then the capital of Persia and the usual royal residence of Shah Ismail. The prudent system of operations which the Persian prince con- tinued to follow inflicted great hardships upon the advancing Turks, as wherever they moved they found the country entirely desolate, and the difiiculty of forwarding supplies increased with each march. The Janissaries murmured; but Selim only redoubled his vigilance in preserving strict order, and his exertions in pro- viding as far as possible the means of reaching Tabriz. One of his generals, Ilemdar Paslia, who had been brought u]^ with Selim from infancy, was persuaded by the other officers to remonstrate with the CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 125 1514 Sultan against marching farther through those desert countries. SeHm beheaded him for his interference and still marched on. At Sogma, Selim received an embassy from the Prince of Georgia and a welcome supply of provisions. At length the pride of Ismail overcame his prudence ; and, ex- asperated at the devastation which the war caused to his subjects, and at the near approach of his insulting enemy to his capital, the Persian prince determined to give battle, and arrayed his forces in the valley of Calderan. Selim's joy Avas extreme when, on mount- ing the heights to the westward of that valley, on August 23, 15 14, he saw the Persian army before him. He gave command for an immediate engagement, and drew up his troops in order of battle on the heights, before marching to action in the valley. He had about 120,000 troops, of whom 80,000 were cavalry. But both men and horses were worn by the fatigues and privations of the march, and seemed to be ill-fitted to encounter the magnificent cav- alry of the Persians, which was perfectly fresh and in admirable spirit and equipment. The Persian cavalry was equal in numbers to the Turkish horse, but it constituted the whole of Shah Ismail's army. He had neither infantry nor cannons, while Selim brought a powerful train of artillery into action, and a large portion of his Janissaries bore firearms. Selim drew up the feudal cavalry of xVnatolia on his right wing under Sinan Pasha, and the feudal cavalry- of Rumelia on the left, under Hassan Pasha. He placed his batteries at the extremity of each wing, masking them by the light troops of his army, the Azabs, who were designed to fly at the enemy's first charge and lure the best Persian troops under the muzzles of the Turkish guns. The Janissaries were a little in the rear, in the center, protected by a barricade of baggage- wagons. Behind them were the Sultan's horseguards, and there Selim took his own station. On the other side Ismail drew up two chosen brigades of cavalry, one on each side of his line, one of which he led himself and the other was intrusted to the command of a favorite general. Ismail designed to turn his enemy's wings with these two brigades, and, avoiding the Ottoman batteries, to take the Janissaries in the rear. He anticipated that Selim's light troops, the Azabs, would, when charged, wheel away to the extreme right and left of the Ottoman line, so as to unmask the cannons ; and he therefore ordered that his two brigades should not endeavor lo break through the Azabs, but should wheel as they 126 TURKEY 1514 wheeled, so as to keep the Azabs between them and the artillery, until they were clear of the guns, and then ride in on the flanks and rear of the Ottoman army. This maneuver seemed the more prac- ticable as Selim's cannons in each wing were chained together, so that it was almost impossible to change their position when the battle had once commenced. Full of confidence, the Persian cava- liers galloped forward with loud cries of " The Shah ! the Shah ! " and the Turks raised the cry of " Allah ! " and stood firm to meet them. The wing which Ismail led in person was completely suc- cessful. He outflanked the wheeling Azabs, and then, bursting in on the left of the Ottomans, he drove them in confusion upon their rearguard. But, on the other side of the field, Sinan Pasha, the commander of the Turkish right wing, outgeneraled his opponent. Instead of wheeling his retreating xA.zabs away from the front of the batteries, Sinan called them straight back, let them pass over the chains by which the guns were fastened together, and then poured in a deadly discharge upon the dense column of Persian horse that was galloping forward in close pursuit. The Persian general was one of the first that fell, and the whole left of the Per- sians was thrown into disorder, which a charge of Sinan's Spahis soon turned into utter rout. Victorious in this part of the battle, Selim was able to bring succor to his defeated troops, who had been broken by Shah Ismail. He led his Janissaries into action, and the Shah's cavalry, already somewhat exhausted and dismayed by their previous efforts, were unable to break this veteran infantry, or long to endure their fusillade. The Persians had begun to waver, w^hen Shah Ismail himself fell from his horse, wounded in the arm and the foot. The Turks closed upon him, and he was only saved by the devoted gallantry of one of his followers, ]\Iirza Sultan AH, who rushed upon the Ottomans, exclaiming, " I am the Shah." While the enemy mastered Mirza AH and examined his person, Ismail was raised from the ground. Another of his attendants named Khizer gave up his own horse, on which Ismail was mounted by those around him and hurried from the field. The victory of Selim was complete, but it had been dearly pur- chased. No less than fourteen Ottoman Sanjak Begs lay dead on the field of battle , and an equal number of Khans who had fought on the Persian side had also perished. Selim took possession of his enemy's camp, in which were his treasures and his harem, including the favorite wife of the Shah. CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 127 1514 Selim put all his prisoners, except the women and children, to death, and then marched upon Tabriz, and entered the Persian capital in triumph. Selim levied on the conquered city a contribution of looo of its most skillful artisans. These were sent by him to Constantinople, and received houses and the means of carrying on their respective manufactures in the Ottoman capital. After a halt of only eight days at Tabriz, the Sultan marched northward toward Karabagh, meaning to fix his winter quarters in the plains of Azerbijan, and resume his career of conquest in the spring. But the discontent of the troops at this prolongation of their hardships, and their desire to revisit their homes, broke out into such general and formidable murmurings that Selim was, like Alexander, compelled to give way, and return with his victorious but refractory veterans toward Europe. His expedition, however, was not barren of important augmentation to his empire. The provinces of Diarbekir and Kur- distan, through which he had marched against Ismail, were thor- oughly conquered and annexed to his dominions by the military skill of the generals whom he detached for that purpose, and still more by the high administrative ability of the historian Idris, to whom Selim confided the important duty of organizing the government of the large and populous territories which had been thus acquired. The pacific overtures of Shah Ismail were haughtily rejected by the Sul- tan; and throughout Selim's reign there was war between the two great Mohammedan sovereigns, in which the Persian arms were generally unsuccessful against the Turkish, though Shah Ismail maintained the contest with spirit and preserved the greater part of his territories under his sway. Selim's hatred against the Shiite heretics and his warlike energy were unchecked throughout his life; but after the campaign of Calderan he did not again bring the whole weight of the Otto- man power to bear upon Persia, nor did he himself again lead his invading armies against her. Syria and Egypt proved more tempt- ing objects to his ambition ; and the aggressive strength of the ^^.lameluke rulers of those countries made a decisive contest between them and the Ottomans almost inevitable. The dominion of the Mamelukes is one of the most remarkable phenomena in history, especially in the history of slavery. The word ]\Iameluke, or Mem- look, means slave; and this body of Oriental chivalry, which, for nearly six centuries, maintained itself in lordly pride in Egypt, 128 TURKEY 1250-1516 which encountered Selim and Napoleon with such valor as to extort the admiration of those two great conquerors, and which, though often partially broken, was only destroyed by the darkest treachery this military aristocracy of the East consisted of men who had been bought and sold and bred as slaves, and who recruited their own ranks, not from among the natives of the land which became their country, but from the slave markets of far distant regions. Malek Salech, of the Eyoub dynasty of the Sultans of Egypt, formed in the beginning of the thirteenth century (a hundred years before the institution of the Janissaries) an armed corps of twelve thousand slaves. These, from their servile condition, were called Memlooks. Their discipline and military spirit soon made them formidable to their masters, and in 1264 they killed Touroon Shah, the last prince of the Eyoub dynasty, and placed one of their own body on the throne of Egypt. The first Mameluke sovereigns of Egypt were called Baharites. They conquered Syria, a country which the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and all the various rulers of Egypt, down to the times of Napoleon and Mohammed Ali, have ever regarded as a necessary rampart for their dominions along the banks of the Nile. In 1382 Berkuk, a Mameluke of Circassian race, overthrew the Baharite sovereign, and founded the dynasty of the Circassian Mamelukes, which continued to reign till the time of Selim's invasion. At this period the military force of the Mame- lukes consisted of three classes of warriors, all cavalry superbly mounted and armed, but differing materially in rank. First, tliere were the ]\Iamelukes tliemselves properly so called all of whom were of pure Circassian blood and who had all been originally slaves. The second corps was called the Djelbans, and was formed principally of slaves brought from Abyssinia. The third, and lowest in rank, was called the Korsans, and was an assemblage of mercenaries of all nations. There were twenty-four Begs or heads of the jMamelukes, and they elected from among themselves a Sultan, who was called also Emir al Kebir, or Chief of I'rinces. lie reigned over Egypt and Syria, and was also recognized as supreme sovereign over that part of Arabia in which are the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The first war between the Mamelukes and the Ottoman Turks broke out, as we have seen, during the weak reign of Bayezid II. at Constantinople, and terminated to the disadvantage of tlie Sub- lime Porte. The ^Mameluke princes saw clearly that under Sultan CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 129 1250-1516 Selim the vast resources of the Turkish Empire would be wielded in a far different spirit from that of his father, and they watched with anxious attention the conquests of the provinces of Diarbekir and Kurdistan, which Selim made from the Persians, and which brought the Ottoman frontiers more extensively in contact with those of the Egyptian possessions :n Syria. The Sultan of Egypt, Kansu Ghawri. assembled a strong army of observation in the north of Syria, in 1516. Sinan Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman forces in the southeast of Asia Minor, reported this to Selim, and stated that he could not with safety obey the Sultan's orders to march toward the Euphrates while menaced by the Mamelukes on flank and rear. Selim assembled his Divan at Constantinople and the question of war with Egypt was earnestly deliberated. The Secretary Mohammed (who was distinguished for his scientific attainments and whom Selim had raised to office as a mark of his regard for science) spoke strongly in favor of war, and urged that it ought to be a point of honor with the Sultan of the Ottomans to acquire by conquest the protectorate of the Holy Cities. Selim was so delighted with the warlike speech of his favorite philosopher that he gave him the rank of Vizier on the spot. Mohammed at first de- clined the promotion, but Selim took a summary method of curing his scruples. With his own royal hands he applied the bastinado to the man whom he delighted to honor till the diffident follower of science accepted the proffered dignity. It was resolved to wage war in Egypt, but messengers requiring submission were first to be sent in obedience to the precepts of the Koran. Selim, however, did not delay his preparations for warfare until the result of the mes- sage was ascertained. He left Constantinople at the same time with his ambassadors and placed himself at the head of the intended army of Egypt. Kansu Ghawri was at Aleppo when Selim's ambassadors reached him. He committed the folly as well as the crime of treat- ing them with insult and personal violence, though on the approach of tlie Turkish army he set them at liberty, and vainly endeavored to open negotiations. Tlie first battle, which determined the fate of Syria, was fought on August 2, 15 16, not far from Aleppo, in a plain where, according to Mohammedan tradition, is the tomb of David. The eft'cct of the Turkish artillery and the dissensions among the Mamelukes themselves gave Selim an easy victory: and the aged Sultan Kansu died while endeavoring to escape. The ISO TURKEY 1516-1517 Mamelukes chose as their new Sultan Tuman Beg, a chief eminent for his valor and the nobility and generosity of his disposition. Their defeat had not damped the spirits of the Mamelukes, who remembered their victories in tlie former war and considered them- selves far superior to the Ottomans in military skill and personal prowess. During the confusion caused by the defeat and death of the Sultan, and the retreat of the principal surviving Begs to Cairo for the purpose of electing his successor, Selim had been suffered to occupy Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, and the other Syrian cities, without resistance; but it was resolved to defend the passage of the desert against him, and an advanced force of Mamelukes was sent to Gaza, while Tuman Beg concentrated the mass of the Egyptian forces in the vicinity of Cairo. Selim prepared for the difficult march from the inhabited por- tion of Syria to the Egyptian frontier with his customary fore- thought and energy. He purchased many thousand camels, which were laden with water for the use of his army while crossing the desert, and he distributed a liberal donative of money among his men. His Grand Vizier, Sinan Pasha, defeated the advanced force of the Mamelukes near Gaza after an obstinate fight which was determined in favor of the Turks by their artillery. The Turkish army then crossed the desert in ten days and marched upon the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Tuman Beg's army was at Ridania, a little village on the road leading toward that city, and it was there that the decisive battle was fought on January 22, 15 17. Two of the Egyptian Sultan's chief officers, Ghazali and Khair Beg, had betrayed him, and baffled the skillful tactics by which he hoped to take the Ottoman army in flank while on the march. Though compelled to fight at disadvantage, the Mameluke chivalry never signalized their valor more than on the fatal day of Ridania. At the very commencement of the action a band of horsemen, armed from head to foot in steel, galloped from the Egyptian left in upon the Turkish center to where the Sultan's own banner was displayed. Tuman Beg himself and two of his best captains, Alan Beg and Kurt Beg, led this daring charge. They had sworn to take the Ottoman Sultan dead or alive; and Selim was only saved by their mistaking for him Sinan Pasha, the Grand Vizier, who was at that moment in the center of a group of the principal officers of the Turkish army. Tuman Beg speared Sinan through and through : CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 131 1517 Alan Beg and Kurt Beg killed each a pasha, and then, rapidly wheeling their ready chargers, the bold Mamelukes rode back to their own army, though Alan Beg received a severe wound from a bullet. The other Mamelukes (save those whom treachery kept back) charged with valor worthy of such chiefs ; but the efforts of this splendid cavalry were as vain against the batteries of Selim's artillery as were in aftertime the charges of their successors against the rolling fire of Napoleon's squares. Tuman Beg and a relic of his best cavaliers escaped to Adviye, but 25,000 Mamelukes lay heaped on the plain of Ridania. Selim sent a detachment of his army to occupy Cairo. They entered it without resistance, seven days after the battle; but the indomitable Tuman Beg suddenly came upon the intrusive garrison and slew them to a man. Selim sent his best troops to retake the city, which had no regular fortifications, but in which the Turks now found every street barricaded and every house a fortress. A desperate street battle now ensued, and for three days the Mame- lukes held Cairo against the assaulting columns of the Sultan. At the suggestion of the traitor Khair Beg, Selim now proclaimed an amnesty to such Mamelukes as would surrender. On the faith of this promise the warfare ceased, and eight hundred of the chief Mamelukes voluntarily became Selim's prisoners, or were given up to him by the citizens. Selim had them all beheaded, and then or- dered a general massacre of the wretched inhabitants of Cairo; fifty thousand human beings are said to have perished in this atrocious butchery, Kurt Beg, who was reputed the most valiant of the Mame- lukes, was for a time concealed in Cairo, but Selim, by prom- ises of safety, induced the champion of the Circassian race to present himself before him. Selim received him, seated on his throne and with all the dignitaries of his camp around him. Selim, looking on him, said, " Thou wast a hero on horseback where is now thy valor?" " It is always with me," answered Kurt Beg laconically. " Knowest thou what thou hast done to my army?'' " Right well." Selim then expressed his astonishment at the attack on his person, which Kurt Beg had, in concert with Tuman Beg and Alan Beg, dared to make at Ridania, and which had proved so fatal to Sinan Pasha. Upon this, Kurt Beg, who was as renowned for his elo- quence as for his courage, poured forth a brilliant eulogy on the valor of the Alanielukes, and spoke with contempt and abhorrence 132 TURKEY 1517 of guns, which, he said, killed so cowardly and so like an assassin.* He told Selim that the first time that Venetian bullets (so the Mame- lukes call cannon and miisket-balls) were brought into Egypt was in the reign of Eschref Kanssou, when a Mauritanian offered to arm the Mamelukes with them ; but the Sultan and the Begs of the arn\y rejected that innovation in warfare as unworthy of true valor, and as a departure from the example of the Prophet, who had con- secrated the saber and the bow as the fit weapons for his followers. Kurt Beg said that the Mauritanian had, on this refusal, cried out, " Some of you shall live to see this empire perish by these bullets." " Alas! " added Kurt Beg, " that prediction is accomplished: but all power is in the hands of God the Most High." " How comes it," said Selim, " if ye place all your strength in the word of God. that we have beaten you, and driven you from your strong places, and thou thyself standest here a prisoner before me ? " " By Allah," answered Kurt Beg, " we were not overthrown because ye were braver in battle or better horsemen than we ; but because it w^as our destiny. For, all that has a beginning must have an end, and the duration of empires is limited. Where are the Caliphs, those cham- pions of Islam? Where are the mightiest empires of the world? And your time also, ye Ottomans, will come; and your dominion shall in turn be brought to nothing. As for myself, I am not thy prisoner, Sultan Selim, but I stand here free and secure by reason of thy promises and pledges." Kurt Beg then turned to the traitor Khair Beg, who stood by Selim during this interview, and after heaping the most withering invectives on him, he counseled Selim to strike the betrayer's head off, lest he should drag him down to hell. Then said Selim, full of wrath, " I had thought to set thee free, and even to make thee one of my Begs. But thou hast loosened thy tongue in an unseemly course, and not set respect of my pres- ence before thine eyes. He who stands before princes without reverence, is driven from them with shame." Kurt Beg answered with spirit: " God preserve me from ever being officer of thine." At these words Selim 's rage overflowed, and he called for execu- tioners. A hundred swords were ready at his command. " What good will my single head do thee," continued the fearless Mameluke, " when so many brave men are on the watch for thine; and Tuman 1 The interview between Selim and Kurt Beg is not imaginary, but drawn from tlie account of Sheik Seinel, an eyewitness. Cf. Von Hammer, "History of the Ottoman Empire," book xii. CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 133 1517 Beg still trusts in God ? " Selim signed to one of his headsmen to strike. While the saber was swung round to slay, the doomed hero turned to Khair Beg, " Take my bloody head, traitor, and place it in thy wife's lap, and may * God make the betrayer betrayed.' " Such were the last words of Kurt Beg, the bravest of the brave Mamelukes. Tuman Beg, after the final loss of Cairo, sought to strengthen himself by employing Arabs in his army, contrary to the former practice of the Mamelukes. He gained some advantages over detachments of Selim's army, and Selim offered him peace on condition of his acknowledging himself to be vassal of the Ottoman Sultan. But the treacherous massacre at Cairo and the execution of Kurt Beg had exasperated the Mamelukes, and they put Selim's messenger and the whole of his attendants to death. Selim retorted by the slaughter of 3000 prisoners. The war continued a little longer, but the Arabs and the Mamelukes under Tuman Beg quar- reled with each other and fought in the very presence of the Otto- man army, which poured its cannonade upon the combatants with impartial destructiveness. At length Tuman Beg's forces were entirely dispersed, and he himself was betrayed into the hands of the Turks. When Selim was informed of his capture he ex- claimed, " God be praised ; Egypt is now conquered." He at first treated his brave prisoner with merited respect, but the traitors Ghazali and Khair Beg were determined that their former sovereign should perish, and they raised Selim's suspicions that there was a plot to liberate the royal prisoner and restore him to power. Selim, on this, ordered him to be put to death, and the last Mameluke Sultan, the brave, the chivalrous, the just Tuman Beg, perished on April 17, 1517. Egypt was now completely subdued by the Turks; but Selim remained there some months, engaged in settling the future gov- ernment of the new empire which he had acquired, and in visiting the public buildings of its capital. The mysterious monuments of the Pharaohs and the relics of the splendors of the Ptolemies had no interest for the Ottoman Sultan. Pie did not even visit the Pyramids, but all his attention was concentrated on the mosques and other religious foundations of the early Mohammedan sover- eigns of Egypt. He attended divine worship in the chief mosques of Cairo on the first Friday after the ccMiquest, and gave to the as- sembled people an impressive example of religious humility and 134. TURKEY 1517 contrition by causing the rich carpets which had been spread for him to be removed, and by prostrating himself with his bare fore- head on the bare pavement, which he visibly moistened with his tears. The mode of administering the government of Egypt was a subject of deep anxiety to Selim, as it had been to all former con- querors of that wealthy and powerful country. The Persian kings, the Roman emperors, and the Syrian Caliph had ever found good cause to dread that their Egyptian province would assert its inde- pendence. An ambitious pasha, if of daring genius and favored by circumstances, might have raised up against the Ottomans the Arabian nation, of which Egypt (according to its last great con- queror, Napoleon) is the natural metropolis. Selim even feared that the division of Egypt into several pashalics would not be a sufficient guarantee for its subjection to the Porte, and he there- fore resolved to divide authority among the variety of races in the country, and so to secure his imperial sovereignty. He did not extirpate the Mamelukes; nor did he provide for their gradual extinction by forbidding the Begs to recruit their households with new slaves from Circassia. Twenty-four Begs of the Mamelukes, chosen from those who had acted with the invaders, continued to preside over the departments of the province, and their chief, the arch-traitor Khair Beg, Vv^as styled governor of Egypt. Selim, however, sent Khair Beg's wives and children to Europe, as se- curities for his good behavior. He formed a more effectual and lasting safeguard for the Turkish supremacy by placing a perma- nent force of 5000 Spahis and 500 Janissaries in the capital, under the command of the Ottoman Aga Khaireddin, who had orders never to leave the fortifications. This force was recruited from among the inhabitants of Egypt, and formed gradually a provin- cial militia with high privileges and importance. Selim placed the greater part of the administrative functions of law and religion in the hands of the Arab Sheiks, who possessed the greatest in- fluence over the mass of the population, which, like themselves, was of Arabic origin. The Sheiks naturally attached themselves, through religious spirit and inclination, to Constantinople, rather than to the Mamelukes, and drew the feelings of the other Arab inhabitants with them. Selim took no heed of the Copts, the aboriginal natives of Egpyt, but it was from among this despised class and the Jews that the Mameluke Begs generally selected CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 135 their agents and tax-gatherers, and the villages were commonly under the immediate government of Coptic local officers. The Mameluke Sultans of Egypt, whose dynasty Selim cut short, had been the recognized suzerains and protectors of the holy cities of Arabia ; and Selim now acquired the same titles and rights, which were of infinite worth in the eyes of that imperial devotee, and which were, and are, of real practical value to an Ottoman Sultan, from the influence which they give him over the whole Mohammedan world. Another important dignity which the Sultan Selim and his successors obtained from the conquest of Egypt was the succes- sion to the Caliphate and to the spiritual power and preeminence of the immediate Vicars of Mohammed himself. After the deaths of the four first Caliphs, who had been personal companions of the Prophet, the spiritual sovereignty of Islam passed successively to the Ommiade Caliphs and to the Abbassides, whose temporal power was overthrown by Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, in 1258. But though the substantial authority of the Caliphs, as independent princes, was then shattered, the name was perpetu- ated three centuries longer in eighteen descendants of the house of Abbas, who dwelt in Egypt with titular pomp, but no real power, in the capital of the Mameluke rulers, like the descendants of the Great Mogul in British India. They gave their names to the edicts of the Mameluke Sultans when required ; and we have seen in the case of the Ottoman Bayezid I. that Mohammedan princes in other countries still regarded the Egyptian Caliph as the fountain of honor, and sought from him the stamp and sanction of sover- eignty. When Selim conquered Egypt he found there Mo- hammed, the twelfth Caliph of the family of Abbas, and he induced him solemnly to transfer the Caliphate to the Ottoman Sultan and his successors. At the same time Selim took possession of the visible insignia of that high office, which the Abbassides had re- tained the sacred standard, the sword, and the mantle of the Prophet. In a preceding chapter of this volume, attention has been drawn to the importance of the Turkish Sultan being at once the spiritual and the temporal chief of his Mohammedan subjects of liis being both Pope and emperor. It will readily be imagined how much the Sultan's authority must have been augmented by his acquiring the sacred position of Caliph, Vicar of the Prophet of 186 TURKEY 1517-1520 God, Commander of the Faithful, and Supreme Imam of Islam. It gives the Turkish Sultan dignity and authority (and may, pos- sibly, give him practical influence), not only over his own Mo- hammedan subjects, but over all who profess the creed of Islam, whatever be their race and whatever be their country except the Persians and the few others who hold the Shiite tenets. In September. 15 17, Sultan Selim led back his victorious army from Egypt to Syria. A thousand camels, laden with gold and silver, carried part of the rich spoils of the war, and a more valu- able portion had been sent by Selim on board the Ottoman fleet to Constantinople. This consisted of the most skillful artisans of Cairo, whom Selim selected, as he had done at Tabriz, and removed to the capital city of his empire. Selim halted his army for some months, first at Damascus and afterward at Aleppo. During this time he received the submission of several Arabian tribes, and ar- ranged the division of Syria into governments and the financial and judicial administration of that province. He returned to Con- stantinople in August, 1 5 18. He had been absent but little more than two years, and in that time had conquered three nations, the Syrian, the Egyptian, and the Arabian. Selim's attention was now earnestly directed to the develop- ment of the maritime resources of his empire. In 15 19 he built 150 new ships of various dimensions, some of 700 tons; at the same time 100 new galleys that lay ready for launching were ordered to be rigged and fully equipped for sea. A powerful army of 60,000 men, with a large train of artillery, was collected and kept on foot in Asia Minor, ready to enter on a campaign at the first word of command. It was supposed by some that Selim designed a great attack upon Persia, but it was generally believed that the Turkish preparation would make for Rhodes. But Selim was resolved not to strike until the blow v;as sure to be effective, and the armaments in the Turkish seaports and the building of fresh dockyards and arsenals were continued with unremitting industry in the succeeding year. From the immense naval force which was thus created, it could no longer be doubted that Rhodes was the object of attack. Selim had not forgotten the humiliating repulse from that stronghold of the Christians which his grandfather had sustained ; and he would not open the campaign until everything that could Ijc required during the expedition had been amply pro- vided and arranged. e\cn in the minutest details, Flis Viziers were CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 137 1520 more eager to commence the enterprise, and drew down on them- selves the rebuke of their stern and thoughtful master. One day when the Sultan, in company with Hassan Khan, the father of the historian Seadeddin, was leaving the mosque of Eyoub, he saw one of the new first-class galleys, which he had ordered to be fitted out and kept ready for launching, sailing along the port of Constantinople. Transported with fury, he demanded by whose order the galley had left the stocks ; and it was with great difficulty that the Grand Vizier, Piri Pasha, saved the admiral's head by representing to the Sultan that it had long been usual to launch vessels when they were completely ready. Selim called his Viziers round him and said to them, " You try to hurry me to the con- quest of Rhodes; but do you know what such an expedition re- quires? Can you tell me what quantity of gimpowder you have in store? " The viziers, taken by surprise, were unable to answer; but the next day they came to the Sultan, and said that they had ammunition sufficient for a siege of four months. Selim answered angrily, " What is the use of ammunition for four months, when double the amount would not be enough? Do you wish me to repeat the shame of Mohammed II. ? I will not begin war, nor will I make the voyage to Rhodes, with such scant preparations. Besides, I believe that the only voyage which I have to make is the voyage to the other world." These words were uttered with a true presentiment of ap- proaching death. He left his capital with the intention of going to Adrianople, and though symptoms of acute disease had already appeared, he rode on horseback, notwithstanding the remonstrance and entreaties of his physicians : nor could they prevail on him to discontinue the use of opium. When he reached the little vil- lage, on the road to Adrianople, where he had formerly given battle to his father, and where, according to tlie Venetian narra- tive of his death, he had received his father's curse, the agony of his disease became so violent that he was compelled to stop. On the seventh night after he had left Constantinople, Hassan Khan, who was his inseparable companion, was sitting by the dying monarch and reading to him from the Koran. The move- ment of Selim's lips seemed to show that he followed the words of the reader; but, suddenly, at the verse "The word of the Al- mighty is salvation." Selim clenched his hand convulsively, and ceased to live (September 22, 1520). 138 TURKEY 1520 This prince died in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the ninth of his reign. No one can deny his high administrative and mihtary abilities; and in rehgion, though a bigot of the darkest order, he was unquestionably sincere. His personal eminence in literature and his enlightened and liberal patronage of intellectual merit in others are matters of just eulogy with the Oriental writ- ers. One of the most remarkable legal characters of his reign is the Mufti Djemali. If he disgraced himself by the fetwah with which he sanctioned, on the most frivolous pretexts, the war with Egypt, the honesty and the courage with which he often opposed the cruelty of Selim are highly honorable to his memory; nor can we refuse our praise to the monarch who repeatedly curbed his haughty will and abstained from the coveted bloodshedding at his subject's rebuke. On one occasion Selim had, for some slight cause of wrath, ordered 150 of the persons employed in his treas- ury to be put to death. Djemali stood before the Sultan and said to him, " It is the duty of the Mufti to have a care for the weal of the Sultan of Islam in the life to come. I therefore ask of thee the lives of the 150 men unrighteously sentenced by thee to death." Selim answered, " The Ulema have nothing to do with afifairs of state. Besides the masses are only to be kept in order by severity." Djemali replied, " It is not a question of policy of this world, but of the next, where mercy meets with everlasting reward, but un- just severity with everlasting punishment." Selim gave way to the Mufti, and not only spared those whom he had sentenced, but restored them to their functions. The most memorable exercise of Djemali's salutary influence was in preserving the whole Greek population of the Ottoman Empire from the destruction with which they were menaced by Selim's bigotry. After the massacre of the heretical Shiites, Selim formed the idea of extirpating unbelief and misbelief of every kind from his dominions, and he resolved to put all the Chris- tians to death, and turn their churches into Mohammedan mosques. Without avowing his precise purpose, he laid before his Mufti Djemali the general question, " Which is the most meritorious to conquer the whole world or to convert the nations to Islam? " The Mufti gave an answer that the conversion of the infidels was incontestably the more meritorious work, and the one most pleas- ing to God. Having obtained this fetwah, Selim ordered his Grand Vizier forthwith to change all the churches into mosques, CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND SYRIA 139 1520 to forbid the practice of the Christian religion, and to put to death all who refused to become Mohammedans. The Grand Vizier, alarmed at the sanguinary edict, consulted Djemali, who had un- consciously given the fetwah which the Sultan used to justify the massacre of these Christians. By Djemali's recommendation the Greek patriarch sought an audience of the Sultan, and, although with much difficulty, was heard before the Divan at Adrianople. He appealed to the pledges given by Mohammed II. in favor of the Christians when Constantinople was conquered, and he eloquently invoked the passages of the Koran which forbid compulsory con- version, and enjoin the Mussulmans to practice religious toleration to all the people of the Books who submit to pay tribute. Selim yielded to the remonstrances and entreaties of the menaced Greeks, and to the urgent advice of his best counselors, so far as to abstain from the slaughter of the Rayas which he had intended. Still he refused to suffer the finest churches of Constantinople to be used any longer by the Christians : they were changed into mosques ; but inferior structures of wood were built in their stead, and the ruinous churches were repaired by Selim's orders, so that apparent respect might be paid to the grant of liberties from his great ancestor to the Greeks. The reign of Selim I. closes the three centuries which mark the rise of the Ottoman Empire and constitute its period of aggrandizement. The anonymous Turks whom Ertoghrul, the " right-hearted man," had led into Asia Minor seeking the pat- ronage of Alaeddin, Sultan of the Seljukian branch who had already possessed themselves of the rich lands of Asia Alinor, had thus, quickly and strongly, established themselves through the favor of Alaeddin and their successors, gradually displaced the broken dominion of the Seljukian chiefs, whom they found ruling over the various territories as independent princes, and substituted their own strong supremacy. Selim I. in the early sixteenth cen- tury had completed the task of Ertoghrul and his hardy clan in win- ning back to the Turkish race the rich regi(3ns of Asia Minor, of Syria, of Mesopotamia and Armenia, which the conquering hordes of Mongols, as well as internal dissension among the Seljukians themselves, had rent away. The Crescent device of Alaeddin's banner, which Ertoghrul and his followers defended, was destined to endure for centuries as the standard of the sons of Othman. Under Orkhan that emblem won many towns from the Greeks and 140 TURKEY 1520 under Miirad I. it crossed the Hellespont and established Ottoman dominion in Europe. Under Bayezid I, and Murad II. its empire was extended. Under Mohammed II. the Crescent was raised over coveted Constantinople, overthrew the Byzantine empire and conquered Trebizond. Bayezid II. at the end of the fifteenth cen- tui-y and Selim I. at the commencement of the sixteenth main- tained its prestig^e and passed on the Crescent to their successors as the terror of Christendom and the sign of the conquering Otto- man power. PART II CULMINATION OF POWER UNDER SULEI- MAN AND THE BEGINNING OF DECLINE. 1520-1699 Chapter X FIRST YEARS OF THE EPOCH OF SULEIMAN THE GREAT. 1520-1533 THE period comprised widiin the reign of Suleiman I. ( 1 520- 1 566) is one of die most important, not only in Otto- man history, but in the history of the world. The great monarchies of Western Christendom had now emerged from the feudal chaos. They had consolidated their resources and matured their strength. They stood prepared for contests on a grander scale, for the exhibition of more sustained energy, and for the realization of more systematic schemes of aggrandizement than had been wit- nessed during the centuries which we term the ages of medieval his- tory. At the commencement of this epoch (1520) , nearly forty years had passed away since the Ottomans had been engaged in earnest conflict with the chief powers of central and western Europe. The European wars of the feeble Bayezid II. had been coldly waged, and were directed against the minor states of Christendom ; and the fierce energies of his son Selim the Inflexible had been devoted to the conquest of Mohammedan nations. During these two reigns the great kingdoms of modern Europe had started from childhood into manhood. Spain had swept the last relics of her old Moorish conquerors from her soil, and had united the scepters of her various Christian kingdoms under the sway of a single dynasty. France under three warlike kings, Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., had learned to employ in brilliant schemes of foreign conquest those long-discordant energies and long-divided resources which Louis XL had brought beneath the sole authority of the crown. In England and in the dominions of the house of Austria similar developments of matured and concentrated power had taken place. ^Moreover, while the arts, which enrich and adorn nations, had received in Christendom, toward the close of the fifteenth century, an almost unprecedented and unequaled impulse, the art of war had been improved there even in a higher degree. Permanent armies, comprising large 143 144 TURKEY 1520 bodies of well-armed and well-trained infantry, were now em- ployed. The manufacture and the use of firearms, especially of ar- tillery, were better understood and more generally practiced; and a school of skillful as well as daring commanders had arisen, trained in the wars and on the model of the Great Captain Gon- salvo of Cordova. Besides the commencement of the struggle between France and Austria for the possession of Italy, many great events signalized the transition period from medieval to modern history, at the end of the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixteenth centuries : and those events, though not all strictly connected with warfare, were all of a nature calculated to waken a more far-reaching and a more enduring heroism among the Christian nations, and to make them more formidable to their Mohammedan rivals. The great maritime discoveries and the con- quests effected by the Portuguese and the Spaniards in the East Indies and in the New World; the revival of classical learning; the splendid dawnings of new literatures; the impulse given by the art of printing to enlightenment, discussion, and free inquiry all tended to multiply and to elevate the leading spirits of Chris- tendom, to render them daring in aspiration, and patient of diffi- culty, and of suffering in performance. There was also reason to expect that these new energies of the Franks would find their field of action in conquests over Islam, for religious zeal had again become fervent in that age, and the advancement of the Cross was the ultimate purpose of the toils of the mariner, the philosopher, and the student, as well as of the statesman and the soldier. The hope that the treasures to be derived from his voy- ages would serve to rescue the Holy Land from the infidels was ever present to the miind of Columbus amid his labors and his sufferings, and amid the perils of the unknown deep, even as Charles VIIL, amid his marches and battlefields between the Alps and Naples, still cherished the thought of proceeding from conquered Italy to the rescue of Constantinople from the Turks. The probability of a marked change in the balance of power between Christendom and Islamism before the middle of the six- teenth century may seem to have been materially increased by the fact tliat one Christian sovereign combined many of the most powerful states under his single rule. The Emperor Charles V. reigned over an empire equal to that of Charlemagne in space, SULEIMAN THE GREAT 145 1520 and immeasurably surpassing it in wealth and strength. He had inherited the Netherlands, the Austrian states, and the united Spanish monarchy, with the fair kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, He obtained by election the imperial throne of Germany; and Cortes and Pizarro gave him the additional transatlantic empires of Mexico and Peru, with their almost countless supplies of silver and gold. It might, perhaps, have been foreseen that the possessor of this immense power would be trammeled when employing it against the Ottomans by the ambitious rivalry of France and by the religious dissensions of Germany, but, on the other hand, the Ottoman Empire was at least in an equal degree impeded from full action against Christendom by the imperial rivalry of Persia, by the hatred of Shiite against Sunnite, and by the risk of revolt in Syria and Egypt. Yet the house of Othman not only survived this period of peril, but was lord of the ascendant throughout the century, and saw numerous and fair provinces torn from the Christians, and heaped together to increase its already ample dominions. Much, unquestionably, of this success was due to the yet unimpaired vigor of the Turkish military institutions, to the high national spirit of the people, and to the advantageous position of their ter- ritory. But the principal cause of the Ottoman greatness through- out this epoch was the fact that the empire was ruled by a great man great, not merely through his being called on to act amid combinations of favoring circumstances not merely by tact in discerning and energy in carrying out the spirit of his age but a man great in himself, an intelligent ordainer of the present, and a self-inspired molder of the future. Sultan Suleiman I., termed by European writers " Suleiman the Great " and " Suleiman the Magnificent," bears in the histories written by his own countrymen the titles of " Suleiman Kanuni " (Suleiman the Lawgiver) and "Suleiman Sahibi Kiran " (Sulei- man the Lord of his Age). That age was remarkably fertile in sovereigns of high ability. The Emperor Charles V., King Francis I., Pope Leo X., Henry VIIL, Vasili Ivanovitch, who laid the foundations of the future greatness of Russia, Sigismund I. of Poland, Andreas Gritti, the sage Doge of Venice, Shah Ismail, the restorer and legislator of Persia, and the Indian Akbar, the most ilhistrious of the dynasty of the Great Moguls, shone in the drama of the world at the same time that Suleiman appeared there. 140 TURKEY 1520 Not one of these great historical characters is clothed with superior luster to that of the Ottoman Sultan. Suleiman had, while very young, in the time of Bayezid II., been intrusted with the command of provinces; and in his father's reign he had, at the age of twenty, been left at Constantinople as viceroy of the empire, when Selim marched to attack Persia. He governed at Adrianople during the Egyptian war, and during the last two years of Selim's reign he administered the province of Saroukhan. Thus, when at the age of twenty-six he became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, he had already gained experience as a ruler; and he had displayed not only high abilities, but also a noble generosity of disposition which won for him both affection and respect. The people, weary of the ferocity of Selim the In- flexible, rapturously welcomed the accession of a new ruler in the prime of youthful manhood, conspicuous by dignity and grace of person, and whose prowess, justice, clemency, and wisdom were painted by fame and hope in the brightest colors. The first acts of Sultan Suleiman announced that an earnest love of justice and generous magnanimity would be the leading principles of his reign. Six hundred Egyptians, whom Selim had forcibly transplanted to Constantinople, received permission to re- turn to their homes, A large sum of money was distributed to merchants who had suffered by Selim's arbitrary confiscation of their property for trafficking with Persia. Several officers, high in rank, including the admiral of the fleet, who were accused of cruelty and malversation, were brought to trial, convicted, and executed. The report of these and similar deeds of the new Sul- tan spread rapidly through the empire, and Suleiman's commands to his viceroys to repress every kind of disorder among rich and poor, among Moslems and Rayas, and to make the impartial dis- pensation of justice the great object of their lives, received uni- versal applause and general obedience. The people felt that they were under a strong as well as a merciful government, and the Sul- tan was better loved for being also feared. It was only in Syria that any troubles followed the death of Sultan Selim. There the double traitor, Ghazali, the Mameluke Beg, who had betrayed the IMameluke cause to the Turks and had received the Syrian govern- ment as his reward, attempted to make himself independent ; but Suleiman sent an army against him without delay, and the defeat and death of the rebel not only restored tranquillity to Syria, but SULEIMAN THE GREAT 147 1521 checked the hostile designs of Shah Ismail, who had assembled his forces on the frontier and stood in readiness to avail himself of Ottoman weakness as Persia's opportunity. It was not, however, long before Suleiman was called on to display his military abilities in foreign w^arfare, and it was over the Hungarians that his first conquests were achieved. There had been disturbances and collisions on the frontiers of Hungary and Turkey in the last part of Selim's reign ; and the weak prince, wdio filled the Magyar throne, Louis II., now imprudently drew the full weight of the Ottoman power against his dominions by insulting and putting to death the ambassador of Suleiman, The young Sultan instantly placed himself at the head of a powerful army, which was provided with a large train of heavy artillery, and arrangements were made for the transport and regular delivery of stores and supplies, which showed that Suleiman possessed the forethought and skill, as well as the courage, of his father. The Ottoman soldiery followed him to battle with peculiar alacrity, and their military enthusiasm was augmented by their belief in his auspicious destiny, on account of his name, on account of the prosperous commencement of his reign, and still more on account of the fortunate recurrence of the mystical number Ten in all that related to him. The Orientals have ever attached great importance to numljers, and they esteem the number Ten the most fortunate of all. Suleiman was tlie tenth Sultan of the house of Othman ; he opened the tenth century of the Hegira; and for these and other decimal attributes he was styled by his countrymen " the Perfecter of the Perfect Number." The first campaign of Sultan Suleiman against the Giaours was eminently successful. Sabac/^ and other places of minor im- portance in Hungary were besieged and taken by his generals ; but Suleiman led his main force in person against Belgrade, which long had been a bulwark of Christendom against the Turks, and before which ^Mohammed, the captor of Constantinople, had so signally failed. P>elgrade was now captured. August 29. 1521, and Sulei- man, after having turned the principal church into a mosque, re- paired the fortifications and provided for the maintenance of the city as a Turkish strongliold, marched back in triumph to Constan- tinople, after his first victorious campaign. Under liis active and skillful superintendence new buildings for ornament and use in ])eace and in war rose rapidly in the prin- 148 TURKEY 1522 cipal cities of the empire. The arsenal at Constantinople was enlarged, and thousands of workmen were daily employed in fram- ing and fitting out new squadrons, and in the preparation of naval and military stores on an unprecedented scale of grandeur. In taking Belgrade, Suleiman had surmounted one of the two shoals by which the victorious career of Mohammed II. had been checked. He now resolved to efface the shame of the other reverse which his renowned ancestor had sustained, and to make himself master of the Isle of Rhodes, where the Christian Knights of St. John of Jerusalem had so long maintained themselves near the heart of the Turkish power. Indeed, the possession of Rhodes by the Otto- mans was indispensable to free communication between Constan- tinople and her new conquests along the Syrian coasts and in Egypt, and for the establishment of that supremacy of the Ottoman navy in the east of the Mediterranean which Suleiman was determined to effect. On June i8, 1522, the Ottoman fleet of 300 sail quitted Constantinople for Rhodes. Besides its regular crews and immense cargoes of military stores, it carried 8000 chosen soldiers and 2000 pioneers. At the same time Suleiman led an army of 100,000 men along the w^estern coast of Asia Minor. The place of rendezvous for fleet and army was the Bay of Marmarice. where, long after- ward, in 1 80 1, the English fleet and army, under Sir Ralph Aber- cromby, were mustered as allies of the Turks for the reconquest of Egypt from the French. The Grand Master of Rhodes at the time of Suleiman's attack was Villiers De Lisle Adam, a French knight of proved worth and valor. The garrison consisted of 5000 regular troops, 600 of whom were knights. Besides these, the seafaring men of the port were formed into an effective corps ; the citizens were enrolled and armed ; the peasantry, who crowded from the rest of the island into the city to escape the Turkish marauders, were disciplined as pioneers, and the slaves were made to work on the fortifications. The defenses of the city had been much increased and improved since the siege by Mohammed II. 's troops; and even if the outer walls were breached and carried, there were now inner lines of strong walls prepared to check the assailants ; and several quarters of the city had their own distinct fortifications, so as to be tenable (like the quarters of ancient Syracuse) even after other parts of the city were in possessiDn of tlie besiegers. Suleiman lauded in the island of Rliodes on July 28, 1522, SULEIMAN THE GREAT 149 1522 and the siege began on August i. It was prolonged for nearly- live months by the valor of De Lisle Adam and his garrison, and by the skill of his engineer, Martinego. The war was waged almost incessantly underground by mines and countermines, as well as above ground by cannonade and bombardment, desperate sallies, and still more furious assaults. A breach vv'as effected, and some of the bastions of the city were shattered early in September, and four murderous attempts at storming were made and repulsed during that month. Three more assaults, one on October 12, one on the 23d, and one on November 30, were fiercely given and heroically withstood, though the effect of the cannonade on the fortifica- tions was more and more visible. The Turkish commanders at length resolved to lavish no more lives in attempts to storm the city, but to trust to their mines and artillery for its gradual de- struction. Advancing along trenches according to the plan of grad- ual approach which since has been habitually employed, but which was previously unknown, or, at least, never used so systematically, the Turks brought their batteries to bear closer and closer upon the city, and at length established themselves within the first defenses, Suleiman now offered terms of capitulation, and the besieged re- luctantly treated for a surrender. There were yet the means of prolonging the defense ; but there were no hopes of succor, and the ultimate fall of the city was certain. Honorable terms might now be obtained, the Order might be preserved, though forced to seek a home elsewhere, and the Rhodians might gain protection from the conqueror for person and property. To continue their resistance un- til the exasperated enemy overpowered them would be not only to sacrifice themselves, but to expose the citizens to massacre, and their wives and daughters to the worst horrors of war. These reasons weighed with De Lisle Adam and his knights, as with truly brave men, and they laid down their good swords which they had so honorably wielded. That they did their duty to Christen- dom in their surrender, as well as in their previous resistance, was proved afterward by tlie effectual check v.iiich their Order gave to Suleiman at Alalta. How much heroism vrould the world have lost if the Knights of St. John had obstinately sought in Rhodes the fate of Leonidas ! By the terms of capitulation (December 2, 1522) which Sulei- man granted to the knights, he did honor to unsuccessful valor, and such honor is reflected with double luster on the generous victor. 160 TURKEY 1523-1525 The knights were to be at hberty to quit the island with their anns and property within ten days in their own galleys, and they were to be supplied with transports by the Turks if they required them: the Rhodian citizens, on becoming the Sultan's subjects, were to be allowed the free exercise of their religion ; their churches were not to be profaned ; no children were to be taken from their parents, and no tribute was to be required from the island for five years. The insubordinate violence of the Janissaries caused some infraction of these terms, but the main provisions of the treaty were fairly carried into effect. By Suleiman's request an inter- view took place between him and the Grand Master before the knights left the island. Suleiman addressed, through his inter- preter, words of respectful consolation to the Christian veteran; and, turning to the attendant Vizier, the Sultan observed : " It is not without regret that I force this brave man from his home in his old age." Such, indeed, was the esteem with which the valor of the knights had inspired the Turks that they refrained from defacing their armorial bearings and inscriptions on the buildings. For more than three hundred years the Ottomans have treated the memory of their brave foemen w'ith the same re- spect, and the escutcheons of the Knights of St. John who fought against Sultan Suleiman for Rhodes still decorate the long-cap- tured city. Suleiman had experienced the turbulence of the Janissaries at Rhodes, and he received three years afterward a more serious ])roof of the necessity of keeping that formidable body constantly engaged in warfare, and under strict but judicious discipline. The years 1523 and 1524 had not been signalized by any foreign war. The necessity of quelling a revolt of Ahmed Pasha, who had succeeded Khair Beg in the government of Egypt, had occupied part of the Ottoman forces ; and after the traitor had been de- feated and killed, Suleiman sent his favorite Grand Vizier Ibra- him, a Greek renegade, into that important province to resettle its administration and assure its future tranquillity. Suleiman's personal attention for the first eighteen months after the campaign of Rhodes was earnestly directed to improving the internal gov- ernment of his empire; but, in the autumn of 1525, he relaxed in his devotion to llie toils of state, and, quitting his capital, he re- paired, for the first time, to Adrianople, and followed there with ardor the amusement of the chase. The Janissaries began to mur- SULEIMAN THE GREAT 151 1525-1526 mur at their Sultan's forgetfulness of war, and at last they broke out into open brigandage and pillaged the houses of the principal ministers. Suleiman returned to Constantinople and strove to quell the storm by his presence. He boldly confronted the mutinous troops and cut down two of their ringleaders with his own hand, but he was obliged to pacify them by a donative, though he after- ward partly avenged himself by putting to death many of their officers whom he suspected of having instigated or of having neg- lected to check the disorder. He then recalled his Vizier Ibrahim from Egypt, and, by his advice, determined to lead his armies into Hungary, with which country he was still at war, though no im- portant operations had taken place since the campaign of Belgrade. Suleiman was at this time vehemently urged to invade Hungary by Francis I.^ of France, who wished to distract the arms of his rival Charles V. ; and, on the other hand, an ambassador had been sent from Persia, the natural foe of Turkey, to the courts of Charles and the King of Hungary, to form a defensive and offensive league against the Ottomans. In 1526 the Sultan invaded Hungary with an army more than 100,000 strong and 300 pieces of artillery. Like his predecessors Selim and Mohammed II., he paid extreme attention to this im- portant arm of war, and throughout his reign the artillery of the Ottomans was far superior in number, in weight of metal, in equipment, and in the skill of the gunners to that possessed by any other nation. King Louis of Hungary rashly gave battle, with a far inferior force, to the invaders. The Hungarian chivalry charged with their wonted gallantry, and a chosen band forced their way to where Suleiman had taken his station at the head of his Janissaries. The Sultan owed his life to his cuirass, against which the lance of a Magyar knight was shivered. But the fiery valor of the " furious Hun " was vain against superior numbers, arms, and discipline. In less than two hours the fate of Hungary was decided. King Louis, eight of his bishops, the greater num- ber of the AIag}'ar nobles, and 24,000 Hungarians of lower rank had perished. Search was made by the victors for the body of King Louis, which was found in a stream near the field of battle. Louis had been wounded in the head, and was endeavoring to escape, but his horse was forced from the bank by the throng of 1 After the defeat and capture of Francis I. at Caria, his mother, Louise d'Angouleme, wrote to Suleiman, asking his aid against Charles V. 152 TURKEY 1526-1529 the fliers, and the weiglit of liis armor bore him down in the deep water. The Sultan felt a generous sorrow on learning the fate of his rival sovereign, who was nearly his equal in years. Suleiman exclaimed. " ATay Allali be merciful to him, and punish those who misled his inexperience. I came indeed in arms against him; but it was not my wish that he should thus be cut off, while he had scarcely tasted the sweets of life and royalty." This battle was fought at jMohacs on August 28, 1526, and is still known by the terribly expressive name of " the Destruction of Mohacs." After this decisive victory Suleiman marched along the Dan- ube to the twin cities of Buda (or Ofen) and Pesth, on the opposite banks of that river, and the capital of Hungary at once submitted to him. The Akindji swept the whole country with fire and deso- lation, and it seemed as if it was the object of the Ottomans to make a desert rather than a province of Hungary. At last, at the end of September, Suleiman began his homew-ard march. His soldiers were laden with the richest plunder, and they drove be- fore them a miserable herd of 100,000 Christians, men, women, and little children, destined for sale in the Turkish slave-markets. Disturbances in Asia Minor had hastened Suleiman's departure from Hungary, but he returned in the third year, still more men- acing and more formidable. The struggle was now^ to be with Austria; and the next campaign of Suleiman, the campaign of the first siege of Vienna, is one of the most important in German and in Ottoman history. Suleiman entered Hungary in 1529 under the pretext of plac- ing on the throne the rightful successor to King Louis, who fell at Mohacs. That prince died without issue, and the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, brother of Charles V., claimed the crown as Louis's brother-in-law, and by virtue of an old treaty. But there was an ancient law of Hungary by which none but a native prince could occupy the throne, and a powerful noble, named Zapolya, appealed to this in opposition to Ferdinand, and procured some of the surviving magnates of the land to elect him as king. A civil war ensued, in which the adherents of Ferdinand and his Austrian forces defeated Zapolya's troops and drove him from the kingdom. Zapolya then took the desperate step of applying for aid to the Sultan. Ferdinand, alarmed on hearing of this proceeding of his rival, sent an embassy to Constantinople to negotiate for a peace with Suleiman, or at least to obtain a truce. Flis envoys had the SULEIMAN THE GREAT 153 1529 ill-timed boldness to require, at the same time, the restoration of Belgrade and of the chief places which the Turks had captured in Hungary. Nothing could exceed the arrogance shown by the Ottoman ministers to the rival claimants of the Hungarian throne. The Grand Vizier told the Polish Palatine Lasky, who acted as ambassador for Zapolya, that every place where the hoof of the Sultan's horse once trod became at once and forever part of the Sultan's dominions. " We have slain King Louis of Hungary," said the Vizier ; " his kingdom is now ours, to hold, or to give to whom we list. Thy master is no king of Hungary till we make him so. It is not the crown that makes the king it is the sword. It is the sword that brings men into subjection; and what the sword has won, the sword must keep." He promised, however, that Zapolya should be king, and that the Sultan should protect him against Ferdinand of Austria and all his other enemies. Sulei- man himself confirmed his Vizier's promise, and added, " I will be a true friend to thy master. I will march in person to aid him. I swear it, by our Prophet Mohammed, the beloved of God, and by my saber." Ferdinand's ambassadors were dismissed with indignant scorn, and they were ordered to say from Suleiman to Ferdi- nand that hitherto there had been little acquaintance or neigh- borhood between them, but that they soon should be intimate enough. He would speedily visit Ferdinand, and drive him from the kingdom he had stolen. " Tell him," said Suleiman, " that I will look for him on the field of Mohacs, or even in Pesth; and if he fail to meet me there, I will offer him battle beneath the walls of Vienna itself." These were no idle menaces from the Lord of the Age ; and the forces of the Ottoman Empire were speedily mustered for the march from Constantinople to Vienna. Suleiman left Constantinople on May lo, 1529, accompanied by an army of 250,000 men and 300 cannons. A season of almost incessant rain made their march to the Danube laborious and slow, and it was September 3 before the Sultan's army reached Ofen, which had been occupied by the troops of Ferdinand during the preceding year. Ofen was taken in six days, and Zapolya was solemnly installed by the Turkish victors on the ancient throne of the dynasty of Arpad. The Sultan then continued his advance to Vienna, taking with him his vassal king and a corps of the Hun- garians who recognized Zapolya as their so\ereign. With the storms of the autumnal equinox, the first squadrons 154 TURKEY 1529 of the terrible irregular cavalry of the Turks swept round the walls of Vienna. These Akindji, 30.000 strong, called by the French " Faucheurs " and " Ecorcheurs " " mowers " and " flayers " by the Germans " Sackmen," were led by Michael Oglu, the descend- ant of Michael of the Peaked Beard, who had been the friend of the first Othman. These ferocious marauders, who received no pay, and whose cruelty exceeded even their rapacity, spread dev- astation and slaughter throughout all Austria as far as the River Ems. On the eve of the feast-day of St. Wenceslaus, Septem- ber 27, Suleiman himself arrived with the main Turkish army beneath Vienna, and fixed the imperial headquarters on the high ground to the west of the village of Simmering. Twelve thou- sand Janissaries were posted round the Sultan's tent. Seven encampments were raised by the various divisions of the army, form- ing nearly a circle round Vienna, and the whole country west of the Danube, far as the eye could range from the highest steeple in the city, was white with the Moslem tents. The water-meadows and islands of the Danube, and its branches near the city, were also strongly occupied; and a flotilla of 400 Turkish barks, well- manned and commanded, watched the city by water and kept up the communication between the besieging troops. The force that defended Vienna amounted to only 16,000 men, and when the campaign began the fortifications of the city con- sisted of little more than a continuous wall, about six feet thick, without bastions; the artillery amounted to only seventy-two guns. King Ferdinand had exerted himself earnestly to induce the other German princes to aid him ; but his brother, the Emperor Charles, was occupied with his own ambitious schemes in Italy; and the princes of the empire, to whom Ferdinand had appealed at the Diet of Spires, thought more of their religious differences with each other than of the common danger of their fatherland, though warned by Ferdinand that Sultan Suleiman had declared his determination to carry his arms to the Rhine. The Diet voted aid. but it was inadequate and tardy; and, while the princes de- liberated, the Turk was in Austria. Ferdinand himself dreaded Suleiman's threats, and kept aloof from Vienna. But some brave Christian leaders succeeded in forcing their way into the city before it was entirely beleaguered, and a body of Spanish and German veterans, under the Palgrave Philip, proved an invaluable rein- forcement to the garrison. But, though the Christian defenders SULEIMAN THE GREAT 155 1529 of Vienna were few, they were brave and well commanded. The Palgrave Philip was the nominal superior, but the veteran Count of Salm was the real director of the defense. All possible prepara- tions were made while the Turks were yet approaching-. The suburbs were destroyed. A new earthen rampart was raised within the city ; the river bank was palisaded ; provisions and stores were collected ; and the women and children and all the other inhabitants who were unable to do service as combatants or as laborers were compelled to leave the city. Providentially for Vienna, the inces- sant rains, and the consequent badness of the roads, had caused the Turks to leave part of their heaviest artillery in Hungary. They were obliged to rely chiefly on the effect of mines for breaching the walls, but the numbers and the zeal of the besiegers made the fall of the city apparently inevitable. Many sallies and partial assaults took place, in which great gallantry was displayed on both sides ; and infinite skill and devo- tion were shown by the defenders in counteracting the mining operations of their enemies. But the Ottoman engineers succeeded in springing several mines, which tore open large gaps in the defenses, and on three consecutive days, October lo, ii, and 12, the Turks assaulted the city with ruthless desperation, but were repelled with heavy carnage by the steady valor of the besieged. The Ottoman forces now began to suffer severely by scarcity of provisions and by the inclemency of the season, and the slaughter which had fallen on their best troops filled the army with discour- agement. But it was resolved to make one more attempt to carry Vienna, and on October 14 the Turkish infantry, in three huge col- umns, charged up to the breach, which their miners and cannoneers had rent for their road to victory and plunder. Suleiman had endeavored to stimulate their courage and emulation by a liberal distribution of money, and by the promise of high rank and wealth to the Moslem who should be first on the crest of the breach. The Grand Vizier and the highest officers of the army accompanied the stormers, and when the Christian cannons and musketry roared forth their deadly welcome and the dispirited Mohammedans reeled back from tlie blood-stained ruins, the Tin-kish chiefs were seen amid the confusion, striving, after the old Oriental custom, to force their men on again to the assault by blows with stick and whip and sword. But even the best veterans now sullenly refused obedience, and said that they had rather be killed by the sabers of their own 166 TURKEY 1529 officers than by the long muskets of the Spaniards and the German spits, as they called the long swords of the lanzknechts. About three in the afternoon the Turkish engineers sprung two new mines, which threw down much more of the wall, and under cover of a fire from all their batteries the Sultan's troops were again formed into columns, and brought forward once more up to the breach. It was only to heap it again with Turkish dead. The hero of the defense, Count Salm, received a wound on the last day of the siege that proved ultimately fatal: but though other chiefs had fallen; though the Ottoman shot and shell had told severely among the Christian ranks; though many brave men had perished in sorties and in hand-to-hand conflict in the breaches; and though many had been swept away by the bursting of the Turkish mines, the courage of the garrison grew higher and higher at each encounter with their lately boastful but now despairing foes, Suleiman him- self felt at last compelled to abandon the favorite project of his heart, and drew his troops finally back from the much-coveted city. October 14, the day on which Vienna was saved from the greatest of the Sultans, is marked by the German historian, Von Hammer, as being made memorable in his country's history by many great events. It is thfe day of the fall of Breisach (1639), of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), of the battle of Hochkirken (1758), of the surrender of Ulm (1805), of the battle of Jena (1806), and of the overthrow of Napoleon at the battle of the nations at Leipsic in 1813. It was near midnight, after the repulse of Suleiman's last as- sault upon Vienna, that its full effect appeared. The Janissaries then, by the Sultan's order, struck their tents; and all the spoil which had been swept into the Turkish camp, and which could not be carried away, was given to the flames. At the same time, the disappointed and savage soldiery commenced a general massacre of ten thousand Christian captives, whom the deadly activity of the Akindji had brought in during the three weeks of the siege. The fairest girls and boys were preserved to be led into slavery, but the rest were put to the sword or thrown yet alive into the flames without mercy. After this last act of barbarous but im- potent malignity, the Turkish army retreated from Vienna.^ Sulei- 2 It is probable that the mustering of 70,000 imperial troops who threatened the Turkish communications had its effect in causing the abandonment of the siege Eu. SULEIMAN THE GREAT 157 1529-1533 man's courtiers pretended to congratulate him as victorious; and he himself assumed the tone of a conqueror, whom the fugitive Ferdinand had not dared to meet, and who had magnanimously retired after chastising, though not destroying, his foes. But the reverse which he had sustained was felt deeply by him through- out his life, and it was said that he laid a curse upon any of his descendants who should renew the enterprise against Vienna. There is no foundation for the charge which later writers have brought against the Grand Vizier Ibrahim, of having been bribed to betray his master, and to baffle the operations of the besiegers. The city was saved by the heroism of her defenders, aided, un- questionably, by the severity of the season, which the Asiatic troops in the Ottoman army could ill endure, and by the insubordination of the impatient Janissaries. But, whatever be the cause assigned to it, the repulse of Suleiman from Vienna is an epoch in the history of the world. The tide of Turkish conquest in central Europe had now set its mark. The wave once again dashed as far, but only to be again broken, and then to recede forever. Chapter XI LAST YEARS OF THE EPOCH OF SULEIMAN THE GREAT. 1533-1566 PEACE was concluded between the Sultan and Ferdi- nand in 1533, by which Hungary was divided between Ferdinand and Zapolya. Suleiman had, in the interval, again invaded Germany with forces even stronger than those which he led against Vienna; and as Charles V., on this occasion (1532), put himself at the head of the armies of the empire which gathered zealously around him. a decisive conflict between the two great potentates of Christendom and Islam was anxiously expected. But Suleiman was checked in his advance by the obstinate defense of the little town of Giins, and on August 29. 1532, after honorable terms had been granted to the brave garrison of that place. Sulei- man, finding that Charles did not come forward to meet him, but remained posted near Vienna, turned aside from the line of march against that city, and after desolating Styria returned to his own dominions. Each, probably, of these two great sovereigns was un- willing to risk life, and empire, and the glorious fruits of so many years of toil and care on the event of a single day: and neither was sorry that his adversary's lukewarmness for battle furnished a credible excuse for his own. The warlike energies of the Otto- mans were now for some time chiefly employed in the East, where the unremitted enmity of Persia to Turkey, and the consequent wars between these two great Alohammedan powers, were a cause of relief to Christendom, which her diplomatists of that age freely acknowledged. Suleiman led his armies against the Persians in several campaigns (1533, 1534. 1535, 1548. 1553. 1554), during which the Turks often suffered severely through the difficult nature of the countries tlirough which they traversed, as well as through the bravery and activity of the enemy. But the Sultan effected many important conquests. Pie added to the Ottoman Empire large territories in Armenia and ^Mesopotamia, and the strong cities of Erivan. Van, J\Iosul, and, above all, of Bagdad, which rhe Orientals call "The Mansion of Victory." 158 LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 159 1547 The modern Turk, who seeks consolation in remembering the glories of the Great Suleiman, must dwell with peculiar satisfac- tion on the tokens of respectful fear which his nation then received from the most powerful, as well as from the weaker, states of Christendom. And the year 1547 is made a peculiarly proud one in the annals of the house of Othman by the humble concession which its rival, the Austrian house of Hapsburg, was then com- pelled to make to its superior strength and fortune. The war in Hungary had been renewed in consequence of the death of John Zapolya in 1539, upon which event Ferdinand claimed the whole of Hungary, while the widow" of Zapoyla implored the assistance of the Sultan in behalf of her infant son. Suleiman poured his armies into that country, and in 1541 and the following years he again commanded in person on the banks of the Danube. He pro- fessed the intention of placing the young Prince Zapolya on the throne of Hungary and Transylvania, when he should have at- tained tlie age of manhood; but Ofen and the other chief cities were now garrisoned with Turkish troops ; the country was allotted into Sanjaks, over which Turkish governors were appointed, and the Ottoman provincial system was generally established. The strong cities of Gran, Stuhlweissenburg, and many others were taken by the Turks in this war; and though their success was not unvaried, the general advantage was so far on the side of the Sultan that as early as 1544 Charles V. and Ferdinand made overtures for peace, and in 1547 a truce for five years was con- cluded, which left the Sultan in possession of nearly the whole of Hungary and Translyvania, and which bound Ferdinand to pay to the Sublime Porte 30,000 ducats a year a payment which the Austrians called a present, but the Ottoman historians more cor- rectly term a tribute. This treaty, to which the Emperor Charles, the Pope, the King of France, and the Republic of Venice were parties, may be con- sidered as a recognition by Christendom of the truth of Suleiman's title, " Sahiiji Kiran," *' Lord of his Age." Austrian pride, in- deed, had previously stooped so low before the Sultan that King Ferdinand, when seeking peace in 1533, consented to style himself tlie brother of Ibrahim. Suleiman's fa^orite minister, and thus to place himself on the level of a Turkish Vizier. Francis L had repeatedly sought the aid of Suleiman in the most deferential and submissive terms. That aid was more than once effectively given 160 TURKEY 1547 by the Turkish invasions of Hiing-ary and Germany, which com- pelled the emperor to draw the weight of his arms from off France, and, still more directly, by the Turkish fleets which were sent into the Alediterranean to attack the enemies of the French king. England during the reign of Suleiman had no need of foreign help; but we shall see her in the reign of Suleiman's grandson, when menaced by the power of Spain, have recourse to the Sub- lime Porte for aid and protection, as respectfully and earnestly as the proudest Follower of the Prophet could desire. We have hitherto directed our chief attention to the military history of Suleiman's reign, but the awe which the Ottoman Empire inspired in this age was due not only to the successes gained by the Turkish armies, but also to the achievements of the Turkish na\-y, which extended the power and the renown of Sul- tan Suleiman along all the coast of the ^Mediterranean, and in the more remote waters of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. His predecessors had devoted much care and treasure to the maritime force of their empire, but they were all surpassed in this respect by Suleiman, and the skill and valor of his admirals made the Ottoman flag almost as formidable by sea as it was by land. The LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 161 1518-1532 most celebrated of the Turkish naval commanders in this reign was Khaireddin Pasha, better known in Europe by the surname of Barbarossa. It was principally by his means that the piratical states of North Africa placed themselves under the sovereignty of the Sultan, and that the naval resources of the Sublime Porte were augmented by the commodious havens, the strong forts and cities, the well-built and well-found squadrons, and the daring and skill- ful corsairs of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. Barbarossa was born in the island of Mitylene. His father, a Spahi of Rumelia, had settled there when the island was con- quered by Mohammed IP Of four sons, the eldest, Ishak, traded as a merchant in Mitylene; the other three, Elias, Urudsch, and Khizo, afterward called Khaireddin, practiced commerce and piracy conjointly during the reign of Bayezid IP and Selim. Elias fell in a sea-fight with the Knights of Rhodes. Urudsch was taken prisoner, but was released through the influence of Prince Korkud, then governor of Carmania. Ui"udsch and Khaireddin next practiced as bold and fortunate sea-rovers under Mohammed, the Sultan of Tunis. They saw, however, the feeble- ness of the IMohammedan princes of the North African seaports, and they knew the strength of the Ottoman Empire, especially under such a ruler as Selim. They paid court therefore to the Sublime Porte by sending one of their richest prizes to Constan- tinople, and received in return two galleys and robes of honor. They now made themselves masters of some small towns on the African coast, and, being joined by their brother, Ishak, the mer- chant of Mitylene, they increased their squadron, and succeeded in taking possession by force or by stratagem of Tennes and Tel- messan, and also of the strong city of Algiers. Ishak and Urudsch soon after this fell in battle with the Spaniards, and Khaireddin was left sole master of their conquests. He formally recognized the sovereignty of the Turkish Sultan, and received from Selim the regular insignia of office, a saber, a horse, and a banner, as Begler Beg of Algiers. Khaireddin carried on active war against the Spaniards and the independent Arab tribes of North Africa. He took from the Si)aniards the little island in front of the port of Algiers, which had for fourteen years been in their occupation ; and he defeated and captured a Spanish squadron which was sent to succor the garrison. Acting steadily up to his policy of pro- fessing allegiance to the Sublime Porte, Barbarossa sent regular 162 TURKEY 1532-1537 reports of his operations to Constantinople, and desisted, in obe- dience to orders received thence, from attacking the ships or coasts of France, when that country became connected by treaty with Turkey. The Sea-King of Algiers was now required by Sultan Suleiman to measure himself with a formidable opponent in the Genoese Doria, the favorite admiral of Charles V. Barbarossa repulsed Doria's attack on the island of Djerbel, and then, joining his galleys with those of the corsair, Sinan, he sailed in triumph along the Genoese coast, which he swept with fire and devastation. He next conveyed 70,000 of the persecuted Moors of Spain from Andalusia to strengthen his own Algerine dominions. In the mean- while Doria had captured from the Turks the city of Koron, in the Morea; and Suleiman, who recognized in Barbarossa the only Mohammedan admiral that could compete with the Genoese hero, sent for Khaireddin to consult with him at Constantinople as to the best mode of carrying on the war by sea against the Spaniards. Khaireddin set sail from Algiers in 1533 in obedience to his Padishah's commands, with eighteen vessels, five of which be- longed to pirates, who had volunteered into the Sultan's service; and he captured on the voyage two of Doria's galleys. He was received by the Sublime Porte with the highest honor, and under his personal direction the arsenals of Constantinople were busy throughout that winter with the equipment of a powerful fleet of eighty-four vessels (including the Algerine squadron), with which Barbarossa sailed for Italy in the spring of 1534, while Suleiman was commencing his campaign against Persia. Barbarossa, now Khaireddin Pasha, sacked Reggio, Speronga, and Fondi. His attack on the last-mentioned place was made principally in the hope of surprising and carrying off the celebrated beauty of the age. Giulia Gonzaga, the wife of Vespasian Gonzaga. Barbarossa wished to present her as a courtly offering to Suleiman, and he designed that the flower of the fair of Christendom should shine in his Sultan's harem. Barbarossa's crews landed stealthily in the night and assailed Fondi so vigorously that the beautiful Giulia was only roused from sleep by the alarm that the Turks were in her palace. Evading their hot pursuit with the greatest difficulty and danger, she was set on horseback in her nightdress by an Italian cavalier, who rescued and rode off with her to a place of safety. After plundering the Neapolitan coasts Barbarossa sailed across to Africa and captured Tunis, which had long been the ob- LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 163 1537-1543 ject of his ambition. He did not, however, retain this prize more than five months. The Moorish prince, whom he expelled, im- plored the assistance of Charles V., and the emperor led to Tunis an army and fleet of such strength that Barbarossa, after a brave and skillful defense, was obliged to abandon the city. The cold- blooded and unsparing cruelty with which, after Barbarossa's retreat, the unresisting and unoffending city was sacked by the Christian forces which had come thither as the nominal allies of its rightful king, equaled the worst atrocities that have ever been imputed to the Turks. Though driven from Tunis, Khaireddin was still strong at Algiers, and, sailing from that port with seventeen galleys, he took revenge on Spain by plundering Minorca, and he then repaired to Constantinople, where the Sultan conferred on him the highest naval dignity, that of Capudan Pasha. In 1537 he again desolated the shores of Italy ; and when Venice took part in the war against the Sublime Porte, Barbarossa captured from her nearly all the islands that she had possessed in the Archipelago, and the cities of Napoli di Romania and Castel Nuovo. He recovered Koron from the Spaniards, and on September 28, 1538, engaged the com- bined fleets of the Pope, Venice, and the emperor in a great battle off Prevesa. Barbarossa on this occasion practiced the bold ma- neuver of cutting the line, which Rodney, St. Vincent, and Nelson afterward made so celebrated in the English navy. The Turkish admiral's force was inferior to the enemy in number and size of vessels and in weight of metal, but by seamanship and daring Barbarossa gained a complete and glorious victory, though the coming on of night enabled the defeated Christians to escape with- out very heavy loss. The disastrous reverse which Charles V. sustained when he attacked Algiers in 1541 was chiefly the work of the elements. Barbarossa commanded the Turkish fleet sent by Suleiman to pro- tect Algiers, but he was detained in harbor l^y the same tempest that shattered the sliips of Spain. The last great service in which Khaireddin was employed by the Sultan was in 1543. when he was sent with the Turkish fleet to assist Francis I., and acted in conjunction with the French squadron in the Mediterranean. He captured the city of Nice, though the castle held out against him ; and he is said to have roughly reproved the French officers for their negligence and for the defective state of their shins as to 164 TURKEY 1544-1546 equipment and necessary stores. The allies, whom he came to protect, were obliged to listen submissively to his rebukes, and it was only by the earnest entreaties and apologies of the French admiral, the Due d'Enghien, that the choler of the old Turkish veteran was appeased. During the later years of Barbarossa's life he was, when not employed at sea, a regular attendant, as Capudan Pasha, at the Divan of the Sublime Porte, where the counsels of the old admiral were always listened to with respect. He died in 1546, and his tomb on the side of the Bosphorus near Beshiktash still invites attention by the romantic beauty of its site, and by the recollection of the bold corsair who sleeps there by the side of the sounding sea, which so long he ruled. His wealth had been principally devoted by him to the foundation of a college : a striking tribute to the general respect for literature and science which prevailed in Suleiman's court, and which exercised its influence even over the rugged temper of Barbarossa, who, from the circumstances of his early life, could not possibly have been a Turkish Raleigh. Some, however, of the Ottoman admirals were themselves eminent for their scientific attainments, and for their contributions to the literature of the country. Such were Piri Reis and Sidi Ali, two of the commanders of the squadrons which by Suleiman's orders were equipped in the ports of the Red Sea, and which, issuing thence, conquered for the Sultan of Constantinople the port of Aden, which England now possesses and justly values for its important position in the line of European commerce with India by the Red Sea and Egypt, Many other cities and districts on the coasts of Arabia, Persia, and the northwest of India were added to the Ottoman Empire; and many gallant contests were sustained with the Portuguese, as well as with the native rulers, by the Turkish admirals, the octogenarian Suleiman Pasha, and ]\Iurad, and the two whose names have been already mentioned. Piri Reis was the author of two geographical works, one on the /Egean and one on the Mediterranean Sea, in which their currents, their soundings, their harbors, and their best landing-places were described from personal surveys. Sidi Ali was a poet as well as a sailor, and besides his productions in verse, he wTote a descrip- tion of his travel overland to Constantinople from Geejerat, where his fleet had been damaged by tempests so as to be no longer able to cope with the Portuguese. Sidi Ali was also the author of LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 165 1546-1560 several mathematical and nautical treatises, and of a work called " Mouhit," on the navigation of the Indian Sea, which he drew from the best Arabian and Persian authorities of his time on the subject of India. Two other Turkish admirals of this reign must not be omitted, Dragut (more correctly called Torghud) and Piali. Piali was a Croatian by birth, Dragut was born a subject of the Sultan, but of Christian parentage. Early in life he joined the crew of a Turkish galley and was chosen captain of a band of thirty sea- rovers. He collected a force of thirty vessels and attacked the Island of Corsica, but was defeated by Doria, who took him pris- oner and chained him to the bench of his galley, where Dragut toiled at the victor's oar for many a weary month. At last Barba- rossa rescued him by threatening to lay Genoa waste if Dragut was not set free ; and under the patronage of Khaireddin, Dragut soon reappeared on the waves, chief of a squadron of twenty galleys, that spread terror along the coasts of Italy and Spain. He made himself master of Mehedia and Tripoli, and, following the example of Barbarossa, he acknowledged himself to be the Sultan's vassal, and received in return high rank and substantial aid from Constan- tinople. The Spaniards took Mehedia from him; but Dragut had more than once the advantage of Doria in their encounters, and was almost as much dreaded in the Alediterranean as Barbarossa himself. His boldness of spirit was shown even toward the Sultan. He had on one occasion been tempted by the sight of a rich fleet of Venetian argosies, and had captured them, though there was peace at that time between the Republic of St. ]\Iark and the Porte. Dragut was ordered to Constantinople to ansv^er for this outrage, and, as the Grand Vizier Rustam was his enemy, his head was in serious peril. But Dragut, instead of obeying the order of recall, sailed out of the Straits of Gibraltar and took service under the Emperor of Morocco, until Suleiman, after Barbarossa's death, recalled him by pledge of pardon and ample promises of promotion. We shall soon have occasion to notice his final services and death at tlie siege of Malta. Piali Pasha was cliiefly signalized during the reign of Suleiman by the capture of Oran, and by the great defeat which he gave in 1560 to the combined Christian fleets that were destined for Tripc^li and the isle of Djerba. Two hundred vessels were prepared for this expedition by the Pope, and l)y the rulers of Genoa, Florence, 166 TURKEY 1546-1560 Malta, Sicily, and Naples. Doria was high admiral of the fleet, and Don Alvaro de Sandi commanded the army which it convoyed. The fleet effected the passage to Djerba in safety; the troops were landed, the island nearly subdued, and a fortress erected. But before the Christian galleys left the waters of Djerba, Piali had heard of the attack, and had left the Dardanelles with a fleet which was reinforced at Modon by the squadrons of the governors of Rhodes and Mitylene. On May 14, 1560, he attacked Doria's fleet and completely defeated it. Twenty galleys and twenty-seven transports of the Christians were destroyed ; seven galleys ran for shelter up the channels of Djerba, w^here they were subsequently captured ; the rest fled to Italy, leaving their comrades of the land forces to be besieged and captured in their new fortress by the troops whom the active Piali soon brought together against them. On September 27 Piali reentered the harbor of Constantinople in triumph. He had previously sent a vessel to announce his victory, which appeared in the Golden Horn with the captured high standard of Spain trailing in the sea behind her stem. On the day of the arrival of Piali, Suleiman went to the kiosk of his palace, at the water's edge, to honor with his presence the triumphal procession of his Capudan Pasha. Don Alvaro and other Christian prisoners of high rank were placed conspicuously on the poop of the Ottoman admiral's galley, and the captured vessels were towed along rud- derless and dismasted. Those who were near Sultan Suleiman observed that his aspect on this proud day of triumph bore the same grave and severely calm expression which was its usual character- istic. The ambassador of King Ferdinand, who was present, attrib- uted his stoical composure to magnanimity, and admired " the great heart of that old sire," which received unmoved anything that for- tune could bring. Glorious, indeed, and prosperous as had been the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, he had, as a man, drunken deeply of sorrow and remorse, and the Erinyes of family bloodshed, that for so many centuries had haunted the house of Othman, were fatally active in his generation. To be friendless is the common penalty of despotic power ; and Suleiman must have felt it the more severely inasmuch as he appears naturally to have had a capacity for friend- ship and to have sought earnestly for it in the early part of his reign. His celebrated Grand Vizier, Ibrahim, was for many years not only his most trusted councilor and general, but the companion LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 167 1536-1558 of his pleasures and his studies. Yet his suspicions were at last raised against the overpowerful and incautious favorite, and a Vizier whom a Sultan begins to dread has not long to live. Ibrahim was married to Suleiman's sister, but not even this close affinity could save him. Ibrahim came to the palace at Constantinople on March 5, 1536, to dine with the Sultan, as was his custom; and when on the next morning messengers from his home came to seek him, they found him strangled. The state of his body showed that he had struggled hard for life, and a hundred years after- ward the traces of his blood on the palace walls were pointed out, fearful warnings of the lot that awaited those who sought to win their entrance there as royal favorites. Von Hammer gives a long list of other high officers whom Suleiman once honored and trusted, but whom he ultimately gave to the fatal bowstring. But these acts of severity seem slight compared with the deaths of the princes of his own race who perished by his orders. Having been an only son, Suleiman was spared the guilt of fratricide on his acces- sion to the throne, but he showed repeatedly in the course of his reign that when state necessity called for blood, the holiest feelings of humanity interposed in vain. His cousin, the descendant of the unfortunate Prince Djem, who came into his power when Rhodes was taken, was put to death with all his family by Suleiman's com- mand, and there was still nearer and dearer blood upon his hands. While Suleiman was still young, a Russian girl in his harem, named Khurrem ^ (which means "the joyous one"), had gained an almost unbounded influence over him by her beauty and liveliness ; and such was the fascination of her manners so attrac- tive and soothing to the weary spirit of royalty were the animated graces of her conversation ; her skill was so subtle in reading the thoughts of her lord, and in selecting the most favorable times for the exercise of her power in guiding them, that she preserved her ascendency in his affections long after they both had outlived the season of youth, and until the day of her death, in 1558. She had persuaded Suleiman to enfranchise her, and to make her his wife, according to the Mohammedan ritual. And the honors paid by him to her memory proved the constancy and fer\-or of his passion even after death. Her domed mausoleum was raised by him close to the magnificent mosque, the Suleimaniye. which he had con- 1 She was called by the foreign ambassadors " La Rossa," i. c, the Russian woman. This name was subscqnently euphonized into Roxalana, and it is by this name bhe is most commonly known. 168 TURKEY 1530-1553 strticted, and which he appointed as his own place of sepulture. The tomb of the Sultana Khurrem still attests the fatal fondness which the Russian beauty inspired in the greatest of the Turkish Sultans, and which transferred the succession to the throne of Othman from a martial and accomplished hero to a ferocious but imbecile drunkard, Suleiman had a son, Prince Mustapha, born to him by a Circassian, who had been the favorite sultana before the Muscovite slave Khurrem enslaved her master. Khurrem also bore children to Suleiman; and all her address was employed to secure the succession to the throne for her son, Prince Selim. As a neces- sary step toward that object, she sought the destruction of Prince Mustapha, who, as the elder born, was regarded as the natural heir. A daughter of the Sultana Khurrem was married to Rustam Pasha, who, by her influence, was raised successively to the dig- nities of Begler Beg of Diarbekir, and of Second Vizier, and finally to the highest station in the empire below the throne, to the office of Grand Vizier. Rustam Pasha employed all his power and influence as his mother-in-law directed him ; and she thus acquired a ready and efficient instrument for the ruin of the devoted Mus- tapha. This unhappy prince was distinguished for personal grace and activity, and for high spirit and intelligence. In the various governments which were intrusted to him by Suleiman, as he ad- vanced toward manhood, he gave proof of such abilities, both civil and military, that he was looked on as likely to surpass his father in glory, and to become the most eminent of all the house of Oth- man. The malignant artifices of Khurrem and Rustam awakened in Suleiman's mind first jealousy and then dread of his overpopular and overpraised son. As Suleiman advanced in years, the poison- ous whisperings of the stepmother grew more and more eff^ective. The old Sultan was studiously reminded how his own father, Selim, had dethroned Bayezid II., and the vision was kept before him of a renewal of that scene, of a young and vigorous prince, the favorite of the soldiery, seizing the reins of empire, and of an aged father retiring to Demotika and death. It was at last, in 1553, when Suleiman was preparing for the second war with Persia, that he was fully wrought up to the conviction that Prince Mustapha was plotting against him, and that it was necessary, before he marched against the foreign enemy, to crush the germs of treason at home. In the autumn of that year Suleiman placed himself at the head of the troops which had been collected in Asia Ivlinor, and LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 169 1553-1561 with which it was designed to invade Persia. The season was then too far advanced for such mihtary operations, and the army was to winter at Aleppo, and to open the campaign in the following spring. But Suleiman had been persuaded that it was not safe for him to tarry at Constantinople. He was told by his Grand Vizier that the soldiers in Asia Minor were murmuring and plotting among themselves in favor of Prince Mustapha, and that the prince encouraged their preparations for a military revolution against the old Padishah Suleiman. He repaired, therefore, to the army, and Khurrem's son. Prince Selim, at his mother's instigation, sought and obtained the Sultan's permission o accompany him. When the army reached Eregli (the ancient Heraclea), Prince Mustapha arrived at headquarters, and his tents were pitched with great pomp in the vicinity of those of the Sultan. On the next day the Viziers paid their visits of compliment to the prince, and received presents of sumptuous robes of honor. On the following morning Prince Mustapha mounted a stately and richly caparisoned charger and was conducted by the Viziers and Janissaries, amid the loud acclamations of the soldieiy, to the royal tent, w^here he dismounted in expectation of having an audience with his father. His attendants remained at the entrance to the tent; Prince Mus- tapha passed into the interior, but he found there, not the Sultan, not any of the officers of the court, but the seven Mutes, the well- known grim ministers of the blood-orders of the Imperial Man- Slayer. They sprang upon him and fastened the fatal bowstring round his throat, while he vainly called for mercy to his father, who was in an inner apartment of the tent. According to some accounts, Suleiman, impatient at the long-continued struggle between the Mutes and his victim, looked in upon the horrible scene, and with threatening arm and angry brow urged his executioners to com- plete the work of death. While the prince thus perished within the tent, his master of the horse, and a favorite Aga, who had accompanied him to the entrance, were cut down on the outside. The tidings of this execution soon spread through the camp, and the troops, especially the Janissaries, gathered together in tumultu- ous indignation and called for the punishment of the Grand Vizier, to whose intrigues they imputed the death of their favorite prince. To appease their fury, the obnoxious Rustam was deprived of his office, and Ahmed Pasha, who had distinguished himself in the Hungarian wars, was made Grand Vizier in his stead. But after the 170 TURKEY 1565 lapse of two years the son-in-law of the all-powerful Sultana was restored to his former dignity, and Ahmed Pasha was put to death on frivolous charges of misconduct and disloyalty. Besides the domestic sorrows which clouded the last years of Suleiman, his military glory and imperial ambition sustained, in the year 1565 (the year before his death), the heaviest blow and most humiliating disappointment that had befallen them since the memorable retreat from Vienna. This second great check was caused by the complete failure of the expedition against Malta, which was led by the admirals Mustapha and Piali, and nobly and victoriously encountered by the Knights of St. John of Jeru- salem, under their heroic Grand Master, La Vallette. After the knights had been driven from Rhodes on Suleiman's conquest of that island, in the beginning of his reign, they had established their order at Malta, which, together with the neighboring island of Goza, was given to them by the Emperor Charles V., who com- passionated their misfortunes, admired their valor, and appreciated the importance of the services which they rendered to Christendom, as a barrier against the advancing power of the Ottomans. When the knights took possession of Malta it was little more than a shelterless rock, but they discerned the natural advantages of the place and immediately commenced fortifying the remarkable sys- tem of harbors on the southeastern side of the island, where the city of Malta now rears its grim ranges of batteries and bastions beneath the British flag. The squadrons of the knights, issuing from the Maltese havens, cooperated actively with the fleets of Spain, and of every foe of the Crescent ; and an incessant warfare was carried on under the Maltese Cross against the Turks, in which deeds of chivalrous enterprise were often performed, but in which a piratical love of plunder and a brutal spirit of cruelty too often disgraced the Christian as well as the Mohammedan belligerents. The attention of Suleiman was soon fixed on INIalta, as the new nest of the revived hornets, who intercepted the commerce and assailed the coasts of his empire; and at last the capture by five Maltese galleys of a rich Turkish galleon, belonging partly to some of the ladies of the seraglio, exasperated the Sultan, who regarded it as an insult to his household. He was further urged to an attack upon the Order by the Mufti, who represented to him how sacred a duty it was to rescue the numerous Moslem slaves who were held in cruel bondage by the knights. Nor can we suppose him to have been LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 171 1565 indifferent to the military and political importance of the possession of Malta. If the Ottoman arms had once been securely established in that island, it would have served as a basis for operations against Sicily and South Italy, which hardly could have failed of success. Accordingly, a mighty armament was prepared in the port of Constantinople during the winter of 1564. The troops amounted to upward of 30,000, including 4500 Janissaries, and the fleet comprised 181 vessels. The Fifth Vizier, Mustapha Pasha, was appointed Seraskier, or commander-in-chief of the expedition, and under him was the renowned Piali, the hero of Djerba. The equally celebrated Dragut was to join them at Malta, with the naval and military forces of Tripoli, and all the stores and munitions of war that the skillful engineers and well-stocked arsenals of Constan- tinople could supply were shipped in liberal provision for a difficult siege and long campaign. The fleet sailed from the Golden Horn on April i, 1565. The Grand Vizier, Ali, accompanied the Seraskier and Capudan Pasha to the place of embarkation, and it was long remembered that, at parting, he said laughingly : " There go two brisk companions, of an exquisite relish for coffee and opium, on a voyage of pleasure among the islands. Their fleet must be all laden with the Arabian bean and essence of henbane." The knights knew well what a storm was about to break on Malta, and they exerted themselves to the utmost to improve the defenses of their island home. The old city, as it then existed, occupied the central of the three spits of land which project into the Great Harbor on the eastern side. The innermost of these projecting peninsulas, called Isle de la Sangle, was also occupied and fortified. ]vIount Sceberras, the ridge of land which runs out to the open sea, dividing the great eastern harbor from the western harbor, called Port ]\Iuscet, and on which the modern city of La Valletta stands, was not at this time built upon, except at the extremity, where an important castle, called the Fort of St. Elmo, had been raised to command the entrances of both harbors. On a muster of the forces of the defenders of Alalta they were found to consist of 700 knights, besides serving brothers, and about 8500 soldiers, comprising the crews of the galleys, hired troops, and the militia of the island. Spain sent a small auxiliary force, and promised that her Viceroy of Sicily should bring ample succor. The Pope gave a sum of 10,000 crowns, but from no other Chris- tian power did the knights receive aid. Their means of safety 172 TURKEY 1565 consisted in their strong and well-armed walls, their own skill and courage, and above all, the genius and heroism of their Grand Mas- ter, John de la Vallette, who had been elected, providentially for Malta, about seven years before its memorable siege. When the approach of the Ottoman armament was announced. La Vallette assembled his knights and addressed them: "A formidable enemy is coming like a thunder-storm upon us; and if the banner of the Cross must sink before the misbelievers, let us see in this a signal that Heaven demands from us those lives which we have solemnly devoted to its service. He who dies in this cause dies a happy death ; and to render ourselves worthy to meet it, let us renew at the altar those vows which ought to make us not only fearless, but invincible in the fight." The brotherhood devoutly obeyed their master's exhortation. They renewed the vows of their religious knighthood, and after this solemn ceremonial, and after partaking together of the Holy Sacrament, they swore to give up all feuds among themselves, to renounce all temporal objects and pleasures until their deliverance was effected, and to stand between the Cross and profanation to the last drop of their blood. The Ottoman fleet appeared off Malta on May 19, 1565. Piali wished to wait for the arrival of Dragut before they commenced operations, but the Seraskier on the next day disembarked the troops and began the attack upon St. Elmo. The rocky nature of the ground on Mount Sceberras made it impossible for the Turkish engineers to work trenches, and as substitutes they pushed forward movable breastworks of timber, which were thickly coated on the outside with clay and rushes kneaded together. Five days after the commencement of the siege the Turkish sea-captain Uludj Ali (called by the Christians Ochial), who was destined to acquire such celebrity in the next reign, arrived with six galleys from Alexandria; and at last, on June 2, Dragut appeared with the squadron of Tripoli. The old admiral disapproved of the attack on St. Elmo, saying that the fort must have fallen of itself when the city was taken; but he declared that as the operation had been commenced, it ought to be persevered with. Fresh batteries were placed by his directions against the fort ; and in particular he establislied one upon the opposite or western side of Port ]\Iuscet on the cape that still bears his name. The Turkish ships plied the seaward defenses of the fort with their artillery; on the land side thirty-six heavy guns battered it in breach, and the balls of LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 173 1565 Dragut's battery from across Port Muscet swept the ravelin with a raking fire. The httle garrison did their duty nobly, and, aided by occasional reinforcements from the main body of their comrades, who held the Bourg and the Isle de la Sangle, they repulsed re- peated attempts made by the Turks to escalade their walls, and they impeded the advance of the enemy's works by bold and frequent sorties. The Viceroy of Sicily had promised La Vallette to send a relieving force to the island by the middle of June, and every day that the defense of St. Elmo could be prolonged was considered by the knights as of vital importance for the safety of the island. When some of the knights posted in the fort represented to La Vallette the ruined state of its defenses, and the rapidly increasing destructiveness of the Ottoman fire, he told them that they must die in discharge of their duty, and the noble band of martyrs remained in St. Elmo to die accordingly. Dragut ordered a general assault on the fort on June i6, 1565. The landward walls had now been shattered and rent, and the Turkish stormers advanced without difficulty through the yawning breaches; but behind these the knights, arrayed in steady phalanx and armed with long pikes, formed a living wall against which the bravest Turks rushed with their scimitars in vain. Meanwhile, the Christian cannon from St. Angelo and St. Michael, the forts at the extremities of the Bourg and the Isle de la Sangle, played with terrible effect on the flanks of the huge columns of the assailants. After six hours' con- flict the Ottomans retreated, leaving two thousand of their comrades slain. Dragut himself received his death-wound during the assault. A cannon-ball from the Castle of St. Angelo splintered a rock near which he was standing, and the fragments of stone struck the old seaman's head. The Seraskier, with whom he had been conversing respecting the construction of a new battery to reply to St. Angelo, ordered a cloak to be flung over the corpse, and remained calmly on the spot while he completed the requisite instructions to the engi- neers. Seven days afterward the death of Dragut was avenged by the fall of St. Elmo, after a furious and long-continued assault, in which every man of the defenders " was slain in valiant fight." In the siege of this outwork 300 knights and 1300 soldiers of the Order and 8000 of the Turks perished. Mustapha Pasha, when he looked from the ruins of tin's small castle across to the massive towers of the Bourg, which was now to be attacked, could not help 174 TURKEY 1565 exclaitningf, " If the child has cost us so much, what shall we have to pay for the father? " He sent a Christian slave to summon the Grand Master to surrender. La Vallette led the messenger round the lofty ramparts, and pointing down to the deep ditches beneath them, he said, " Tell the Seraskier that this is the only land that I can give him. Let him and his Janissaries come and take posses- sion." Mustapha commenced the attack with ardor, and both the Bourg and the Isle de la Sangle were closely invested and cannon- aded from the mainland, while also a row of formidable Turkish batteries thundered on them from St. Elmo and IMount Sceberras. This great siege was prolonged until September 1 1 by the obstinate vehemence of the besiegers and the truly chivalrous gallantry of the besieged. During the continuance of the operations the Turks were reinforced by a flotilla from Algiers, commanded by the Begler Beg Hassan, the son of the great Barbarossa and son-in- law of Dragut. Hassan demanded leave to sustain the honor of these illustrious names by leading an assault upon the Isle de la Sangle. The Seraskier placed 5000 men at his disposal, and with these Hassan attacked the works from the mainland, while Can- delissa, a Greek renegade, who had grown gray in piracy and war, led the Algerine galleys to an attack on the inner part of the harbor. Hassan brought back only 500 men out of his 5000, nor was Candelissa more successful. No less than ten general assaults were made and repulsed before the siege was raised; and innumerable minor engagements took place, in which each side showed such valor as to earn its enemy's praise, and each side also unhappily too often stained its glory by the exhibition of ferocious cruelty. In one of these encounters tlie Seraskier had sent a band of able swimmers across part of the harbor with axes to destroy a stockade which the knights had erected. La Vallette opposed tliese assail- ants by calling for volunteer swimmers from among the ^Maltese. The islanders came forward readily for this service, and, stripping themselves naked, and armed only with short swords, a band of them swam to tlie stockade, and after a short but desperate struggle in the water tliey completely routed the Turkish hatchet-men and saved the wcjrks. The long repetition of defeat and bootless carnage by degrees wore out the energies of the Turks. And at last, at the beginning of September, the news arrived that the long-expected fleet of tlie Sicilian Viceroy was on the sea. The succors thus tardily sent to La Vallette and his brave comrades amounted to less LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 175 1566 than 8000 men, but rumor magnified their numbers, and the weary and dispirited besiegers on September 11 abandoned their heavy ordnance and left the island, which had been crimsoned with so much slaughter and had been made the theater of such unrivaled heroism. This memorable siege is said to have cost the lives of 25,000 Turks, and of 5000 of the brave defenders. So reduced, in- deed, was the garrison at the time of its rescue that when they marched out to take possession of the guns which the Turks had abandoned. La Vallette could only muster 600 men fit for service. At the time when the tidings that the siege of Alalta was raised reached Constantinople, Suleiman was preparing for a new struggle with Austria. The disputes between the rival parties in Hungary had again brought on hostilities. Maximilian II. (who had suc- ceeded Ferdinand) had in person attacked and captured Tokay and Serencz, and the Turkish Pasha, Mustapha Sokolli, had in- vaded Croatia. Suleiman determined to conduct the campaign against the young German emperor in person; and there can be little doubt that this Austrian war saved the Knights of Malta from a renewed attack in 1566, which must, in all human proba- bility, have been fatal. Suleiman was now seventy-six years old, and so enfeebled by age and illness that he was no longer able to sit on horseback, but was borne in a litter at the head of his army, which commenced its march from Constantinople to Hungary on May I, 1566. Before he left his capital for the last time Suleiman had the satisfaction of seeing the great aqueducts completed, which had been built by his orders for the supply of the city. The Sultan arrived at Semi in, in Hungary, on June 27, and received the solemn homage of young Sigismund Zapolya, the titu- lar King of Hungary and Transylvania under Ottoman protection. Suleiman especially desired to capture in this campaign the two strong places of Erlau and Sziget, which had on former occasions baffled the attacks of the Turks. A bold exploit of Count Zriny, the Governor of Sziget, who surprised and cut off a detachment of Bosnian troops while on their marcli to reinforce the Sultan's army, determined Suleiman to make Sziget the first object of his arms ; and on August 5, the Ottoman forces encamped round that city. It was destined to be the death-place of both the Turkish sovereign and the Christian chief. Zriny himself burned the lower, or new town, as indefensible, but great reliance was placed on the strength of the 176 TURKEY 1566 citadel, which was protected by a deep fen that lay between it and the old or upper town. The Turks carried the town in five days, though not without severe fighting and heavy loss, and Zriny and his garri- son of 3200 men then retired to the citadel, where they hoisted the black flag, and took an oath never to surrender, but to fight to the last man and the last gasp. The Turkish engineers formed cause- ways across the marsh, and they established breastworks near the walls where the Janissaries were posted, who kept down the fire of the artillery of the besieged by an incessant discharge of musketry upon the embrasures, and at every living object that appeared above the parapet. The heavy cannons of the Ottomans were placed in battery, and the walls began to crumble beneath their salvos. Suleiman was impatient of the delay which the resistance of so small a place as this citadel now caused him, and he sum- moned Zriny to surrender, and sought to win him over to the Otto- man service by offering to make him ruler of all Croatia. Zriny, whom his countr3'men have not unworthily named the Leonidas of Hungary, was resolute to die in defense of his post, and he inspired all his men with his own spirit of unflinching courage. Three as- saults were given by the Turks in August and September, all of which Zriny repelled with great loss to the besiegers. The Turkish engineers now ran a mine under the principal bastion, and the at- tacking columns were kept back until the effect of the explosion could be ascertained. The mine was fired early in the morning of September 5, and the bright streak of fire that shot up into the sky from the shattered bastion might have been thought to be the death-light of the great Sultan, who had died in his tent during the preceding night. A few hours before his death he had written to his Grand Vizier complaining that " the drum of victory had not yet beat." He was not destined to witness Sziget's fall, though his army continued the siege as if by his command, and all except his Grand Vizier, Sokolli, believed that he still lived and reigned. Sokolli is said to have killed the Sultan's physicians lest the important secret should transpire, and to have issued orders in Suleiman's name, while the messengers conveyed the dispatches to Prince Selim which summoned him to the throne. The fire of the Turkish batteries was continued for four days after the explosion of the mine, until all the exterior defenses of the citadel were destroyed, and of the inner works only a single tower was left standing. In that tower were Zriny and 600 of his LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 177 1566 men; the rest of the garrison had perished. On September 8, the Janissaries advanced in a dense cokimn along a narrow bridge that led to this last shelter of the defenders, and Zriny, feel- ing" that his hour was come, resolved to anticipate the charge. The gallant Magyar prepared himself for death as for a marriage feast. He wore his most splendid apparel, and a diamond of high price glittered in the clasp of his crest of the heron's plumes. He fastened to his girdle a purse containing the keys of the tower, and a hundred ducats carefully chosen of Hungarian coinage. " The man who lays me out," he said, " shall not complain that he found nothing on me for his trouble. These keys I keep while this arm can move. When it is stiff, let him who pleases take both keys and ducats. But I have sworn never to be the living finger-post of Turkish scorn." Then from among four richly ornamented sabers, which had been presented to him at some of the most brilliant epochs of his military career, he chose the oldest one. '' With this good sword," he exclaimed, " gained I my first honors, and with this will I pass forth to hear my doom before the judgment-seat of God." He then, with the banner of the empire borne before him by his standard-bearer, went down into the court of the tower, where his 6oo were drawn up in readiness to die with him. He addressed them in a few words of encouragement, which he ended by thrice invoking the name of Jesus. The Turks were now close to the tower gate. Zriny had caused a large mortar to be brought down and placed in tlie doorway, and trained point-blank against the entrance. He had loaded this with broken iron and musket balls. At the instant when the foremost Janissary raised his axe to break in the door it was thrown open. Zriny fired the mortar ; the deadly shower poured through the mass of the assailants, destroy- ing hundreds of them in an instant, and amid the smoke, the din, and the terror of this unexpected carnage, Zriny sprang forth sword in hand against the Turks, followed by his devoted troop. There was not one of those 6oo Magv^ar sabers but drank its fill on that day of self-immolation, before the gallant men who wielded them were overpowered. Zriny met the death he sought, from two musket-balls through the body and an arrow wound in the head. The Ottomans thrice raised the shout of " Allah ! " when they saw him fall, and they then poured into the citadel, which they fired and began to plunder; but Zriny. even after death, smote his foes. He had caused all his remaining stores of powder to be placed be- 178 TURKEY 1566 neath the tower, and, according to some accounts, a slow match was applied to it by his orders immediately before the Magyars made their sally. Either from this, or from the flames which the Turks had themselves kindled, the magazine exploded while the tower was filled with Ottoman soldiery, and together with the last battlements of Sziget 3000 of its destroyers were destroyed. Suleiman the Conqueror lay stark in his tent before the reek- ing and smoldering ruins. The drum of victory beat unheeded by him who had so longed for its sound. He was insensible to all the roar of the assault, and to the " deadly earthshock " of the fired magazine of Sziget. Nor could the tidings which now reached the camp of the surrender of the city of Gyula to Pertev Pasha " soothe the dull cold ear of death," The secret of the decease of the Sultan was long well guarded. For seven weeks the great Turkish army of 150,000 soldiers went and came and fought, and took towns and cities in the name of the dead man. The Vizier Sokolli had caused the body to be partly embalmed before the royal tent was removed from before Sziget, and when the camp was struck the corpse was placed in the covered litter in which Suleiman had traveled during the campaign, and which was now borne along among the troops, surrounded by the customary guards, and with all the ceremonies and homage which had been shown to the living monarch. Sokolli and the other high officials, who knew the truth, after the siege and capture of Babocsa, and some other operations which employed the attention of the troops, gradually drew them toward the Turkish frontier. Suleiman's signature was adroitly counterfeited, written orders were issued in his name, and the report was sedulously spread among the soldiers that a severe attack of gout prevented the Sultan from appearing in public. At last Sokolli received intelligence that Prince Selim had been enthroned at Constantinople, and he then took measures for revealing to the soldiery the death of the great Padi- shah. On October 24, 1566. the army was about four marches dis- tant from Belgrade, and had halted for the night in the outskirts of a forest, Sokolli sent for the readers of the Koran who accom- panied the troops, and ordered them to assemble round the Sultan's litter in the night, and at tlie fourth hour before daybreak (the hour at which Suleiman had expired forty-eight days before), to read the appointed service for the dead from the Koran, and call upon the name of God. At the chosen time, amid the stillness of the night, the army was roused from sleep by the loud clear voices of the LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 179 1566 Muezzins, that rose in solemn chant from around the royal tent, and were echoed back from the sepulchral gloom of the forest. Those who stood on the right of the corpse called aloud, " All do- minion perishes, and the last hour awaits all mankind ! " Those on the left answered, " The everliving God alone is untouched by time or death.'' The soldiers, who heard the well-known announce- ment of death, gathered together in tumultuous groups, with wild cries of lamentation. When the day began to break, the Grand Vizier went through the camp addressing the assemblages of troops and exhorting them to resume their ranks and march. He told them how much the Padishah, who was now at rest and in the bosom of God, had done for Islam, and how he had been the soldier's friend : and he exhorted them to show their respect for his memory not by lamentations, which should be left to the priests, but by loyal obedience to his son, the glorious Sultan Selim Khan, who now was reigning in his stead. Soothed by these addresses, and the promise of a liberal donative from the new Sultan, the army returned to military order and escorted the remains of their monarch and general back to Belgrade. Suleiman's body was finally deposited in the great mosque at Constantinople, the Suleimaniye, which is the archi- tectural glory of his reign. Sultan Suleiman L left to his successors an empire to the ex- tent of which few important permanent additi(jns were ever made, except the islands of Cyprus and Candia, and which under no sub- sequent Sultan maintained or recovered the wealth, pcnver, and prosperity which it enjoyed under the great lawgiver of the house of Othman. The Turkish dominions in his time comprised all the most celebrated cities of biblical and classical history, exce])t Rome, Syracuse, and Persepolis. The sites of Carthage, Alemphis, T}-re. Nineveh, Babylon, and Palmyra were Ottoman ground; and the cities of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Damascus. Smyrna, Nice, Prusa, Athens, Philippi, and Adrianople, besides many of later but scarcely interior celebrity, such as Algiers. Cairo. ]\[ecca, Medina, Bassora, Bagdad, and Belgrade, obeyed the Sultan of Constantinople. The Nile, the Jordan, the O routes, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Don, the Dnieper, the Danube, the Ilebrus, and the Pyssus rolled their waters '* within the shadow of the Horsetails." The eastern recess of the ^^lediterranean, the Propontis, the Palus Masotis, the Euxine. and the Red Sea were Turkish lakes. The Ottoman Crescent touched the Atlas and the Caucasus; it was su- 180 TURKEY 1566 preme over Athos, Sinai, Ararat, Mount Carmel, Mount Taurus, Ida, Olympus, Pelion, Hoemus, the Carpathian and the Acroceraun- ian heights. An empire of more than a million and a half square miles, embracing- many of the richest and most beauti- ful regions of the world, had been acquired by the descendants of Ertoghrul, in three centuries from the time when their forefather wandered a homeless adventurer at the head of less than five hundred fighting men. Suleiman divided this empire into twenty-one governments, which were again subdivided into 250 Sanjaks. The governments were: i, Rumelia, under which term were then comprised all the. Ottoman continental possessions in Europe south of the Dan- ube: these included Ancient Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Illyria, Dalmatia, and Mcesia. 2. The islands of the Archipelago : this government was vested in the Capudan Pasha. 3. Algiers and its territory. 4. Tripoli in Africa. 5. Ofen, comprising the conquered portions of western Hungary. 6. Temeswar, combin- ing the Bannat, Transylvania, and the eastern part of Hungary. 7. Anatolia, a title commonly given to the w^iole of Asia Minor, but here applied to the northwestern part of the peninsula, which includes the ancient Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Mysia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pisidia, and the greater part of Phrygia and Galatia. 8. Karaman, which contains the residue of the last-mentioned ancient countries, and also Lycaonia, Cilicia, and the larger part of Cappa- docia. 9. Rum, called also the government of Sivas, and at times the government of Amasia: it comprehended part of Cappa- docia and nearly the whole of the ancient Pontus that lay in Asia Minor. 10. Sulkadr: this embraced the cities of ]\Ialatea, Samosata, Elbostan, and the neighboring districts, and the im- portant passes of the eastern ridges of Mount Taurus. 11. Trebi- zond : the governor of this city commanded the coasts round the southeastern extremity of the Black Sea. 12. Diarbekir. 13. Van : these two governments included the greater part of Armenia and Kurdistan. 14. Aleppo. 15. Damascus: these two embraced Syria and Palestine. 16. Egypt. 17. Mecca and Medina, and the country of Arabia Petrrea. 18. Yemen and Aden: this government extended over Ara1)ia Felix and a considerable tract along the coast of the Persian Gulf and northwestern India. 19. Bagdad. 20. Mosul. 21. Bassora : these three last contained the conquests which Selim and Suleiman had made from the Persians in Mesopo- LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 181 1520-1566 tamia and the adjacent southern regions: the Tigris and the Euphrates (after its confluence with the other river) formed their eastern hmit, and at the same time were the boundaries between the Turkish and the Persian dominions. Besides the countries that were portioned out in these twenty- one governments, the Suhan was also sovereign over the vassal states of Wallachia, Moldavia, Ragusa, and Crim Tartary. They paid him tribute, which in the cases of the two former were con- siderable; and the last-named feudatories of the Porte, the Crim Tartars, furnished large and valuable contingents to the Turkish armies. It is not easy to define the territory then belonging to the vassal khans of the Crimea beyond that peninsula. They and their kinsman, the Tartar khans of Astrakhan, were chiefs of numerous and martial tribes that roved amid the steppes to the north of the Euxine and round the Sea of Azov ; but the fluctuation of their almost perpetual wars with the Cossacks, the Muscovites, and each other prevents the fixing of any territorial boundaries in those regions for any specified epoch. At least twenty different races of mankind inhabited the vast realms ruled by the great Suleiman. The Ottomans themselves, who are now calculated to amount to about ten to eleven millions, are believed to have declined in number during the last three cen- turies ; and we may take fifteen millions as an approximate enumera- tion of them in the sixteenth century, distributed then, as now, very unequally over the empire. Asia containing four-fifths of them, and Asia Minor being especially their chosen home. Three millions of Greeks (the name and the language continue, whatever we may think as to the predominance of the Slavonic over the Hellenic ele- ment in the modern Greek nation) dwelt in the southern portion of European Turkey; a million more were in Asia Minor. The Armenian race, little extended in Europe, was numerous in Asia, and may have formerly amounted, as now, to between two and three millions. The Slavic part of the population was the largest. Bul- garia, Servia, Bosnia, Alontenegro, the Herzegovine, were chiefly peopled jjy Slavs, who -were also numerous in Moldavia and Wallachia, and there were many thousands of them in Transylvania and AHjania. They may be estimated at six millions and a half at the epoch which we are particularly examining. The race called kumanians, and supposed to have sprung from the Roman con- querors of the Dacians, and from the conquered Dacians themselves, 182 TURK K Y 1520-1566 dwelt principally in Wallachia and Moldavia; their number may have been four millions. The Albanians, who term themselves Skipetars, and are termed by the Turks Arnauts, were and are a nation of mountaineers bold, hardy, and unscrupulous, fond of robbery at home and warfare abroad. Their number is now esti- mated at one million and a half, and is likely to have varied but little. The Tartar race formed the population of the Dobrudsha and of the Crimea, and the countries round the coast of the conti- nent connected with it. Judging from the amount of soldiery sup- plied by the Crim Tartars to the Ottoman armies, and other circumstances, a million and a half would probably represent their number in the reign of Suleiman. The Arabic race was extensively spread through Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and the whole North African coast, and the Arabian subjects of Suleiman must have been nearly six millions. The Maronites, the Chaldeans, and the Druses of Syria w^ere together under a million. The Kurds, a race of close affinity to the Persians, can be only guessed to have numbered the like amount, and the Turkomans of Diarbekir and the neighborhood cannot be numbered at more than 100,000. We have yet to add the ]\Iagyars of that part of Hungary which obeyed the Sultan ; the Germans of Transylvania, the Berbers of Algeria and the other African provinces, the Copts of Egypt, the Jews, the Tsiganes (who were and are numerous in Moldavia), and the remnants of the Mamelukes. In speaking of an age and of nations in which the numbering of the people was not practiced, it is vain to take a retro- spective census with any pretensions to minute accuracy, but prob- ably our calculation would not be very erroneous if we considered that from forty-fi\e to fifty millions of subjects obeyed the com- mands and were guided by the laws of Suleiman Kanuni. Of tlie various races which we have enumerated, the Ottomans, the Tartars, tlie Arabs, the Kurds, the Turkomans, the Mamelukes, and the Berbers held the Mohammedan creed, which had been adopted also by large numbers of the Bosnians, Bulgarians, and Albanians. The rest, except the Jews and the Tsiganes, belonged to different branches of the Christian religion, the adherents of the Greek Churcli lieing by far the most numerous. The regular military force of the empire in the year of the capture of Sziget, the sunset glory of Suleiman's reign, was double that wliich he found at his accession. He raised the number of the Janissaries to 20,000. and the whole paid and permanent army. LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 183 1520-1566 including the royal horseguards and other troops, amounted under him to 48,000 men. Suleiman bestowed the greatest attention upon his Janissaries. He formed from among them a corps of invalids into which only veteran soldiers of high merit, who had grown gray in the service or had been disabled by wounds, were admitted. Suleiman also complimented these formidable troops (and his suc- cessors continued the custom) by being himself nominally enrolled in their first regiment, and coming among them at the pay day, and receiving a soldier's pay from the colonel. He honored another distinguished regiment of the Janissaries by accepting a cup of sherbet from their commander when he inspected the barrack. This incident also gave rise to a custom for each Sultan, on his accession, to receive a cup of sherbet from the aga or commander-in-chief of the Janissaries, which he returned to that warlike functionary with the words (significant of Ottoman pride and ambition) "We shall see each other again at the Red Apple.'' the name which the Turks commonly gi\e to the city of Rome. The number of the feudatory troops, and the irregular levies, at the time of the campaign of Sziget, exceeded 200,000. The park of artillery contained 300 cannon and the fleet amounted to 300 sail. Notwithstanding the improvement in the armies of Western Christendom, to which we have referred when speaking of the epoch of the accession of Suleiman, the Ottoman troops were still far superior to them in discipline and in general equipment. We have already mentioned the preeminence of the Turks of that age in the numerical force and efficiency of their artillery, and the same remark applies to their skill in fortification and in all the branches of military engineering. The difference between the care that was paid to the physical and moral well-being of Suleiman's troops and the neglect of " the miserable fate of the poor soldier " in his rivals' camps, is still more striking. There are some well-known passages in the writings of Busbequius, the Austrian ambassador at the Otto- man court, who accompanied the Turkish forces in some of their expeditions, in which he contrasts the cleanliness and the good or- der at a Turkish camp, the absence of all gambling and the sobriet}' and temperance of the men, with the tumult, the drunkenness, the license, the brawling, and the offensive pollution that reeked in and around Christian tents in that age. It were difficult, even for the most experienced commissary-general of modern times, to suggest im[)ruvements on the arrangements and preparations for the good 184 TURKEY 1520-1566 condition and comfort of the Ottoman soldiers that may be read of in the narratives of Suleiman's campaigns. We may mention as one of many beneficial regulations the establishment of a corps of Sakkas, or water-carriers, who attended in the field and on the march to supply water to the weary and wounded soldiers. Com- pare this with the condition of the Black Bands who followed Bourbon under the banner of the Emperor Charles. An ample revenue judiciously collected, and prudently though liberally employed, was one decisive advantage which Suleiman possessed over his contemporary monarchs. The crown lands of the Sultan at that time produced the large sum of five million of ducats. The tithe or land-tax, the capitation tax on the rayas, the customs, and the other regular taxes raised this to between seven and eight millions. The burden of taxation on the subject was light, and it was only twice in his reign that Suleiman levied an additional impost. The necessity caused by the sieges of Belgrade and Rhodes, in the beginning of his reign, and the cost of armaments in the year of the battle of Mohacs, compelled him to impose a poll-tax on all his subjects, without distinction of creed or fortune. But the amount was small on each occasion, and never was a similar measure again necessary. The victorious campaigns of the Sultan were soon made to reimburse their outlays, and still further to enrich the Porte. Large contributions were drawn from Hungary and Transylvania ; and Ragusa, Moldavia, and Wallachia poured tribute into the treasury of the Porte. Another less glorious source of revenue was found in the confiscated goods of the numer- ous high officers of state who were executed during this reign. By invariable usage the property of those who die thus is forfeited to the Crown ; and the riches of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim and other unhappy statesmen of this age wxre no unimportant accessions to the ways and means of the years in which they perished. We examined the general principles of the Ottoman govern- ment when reviewing the institutes of Mohammed the Conqueror. Every branch of the administration of the empire received improve- ment from Suleiman Kanuni, who like another great conqueror and ruler, Justinian I., has come down to posterity with his legislative works in his hand. He organized with especial care the Turkish feudal system of the Ziamets and Timars, reforming the abuses which had then already begun to prevail. He ordained that no Timar, or small fief, should be allowed to exist if below a certain LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 185 1520-1566 value. A number of the smaller fiefs might be united so as to form a Ziamet, or grand fief, but it was never lawful to subdivide a Ziamet into Timars, except in the case of a feudatory who was killed in battle and left more than one son. By permission of the supreme government several persons might hold a fief as joint tenants; but it was still reckoned a single fief ; and any partition and subdivision not especially authorized by the Sublime Porte itself was severely punished. The reader who is familiar with the workings of the feudal system in western Europe will perceive how admirably these provisions were adapted to check the growth of evils like those which the practice of subinfeudation produced in medieval Christendom. The Turkish fiefs descended from father to son. There was no power of devise or alienation : and in default of male issue of the deceased holder, the Timar or the Ziamet reverted to the Crown. It had been usual before Suleiman's time to allow the Viziers and governors of provinces to make grants of the lapsed fiefs within their jurisdiction, but Suleiman restricted this to the case of the minor fiefs. None but the Sultan could make a new grant of a lapsed Ziamet, and in no instance did the feudatory who received the investiture of a Timar from a subject pay any homage or enter into any relation of feudal duty to the person who invested him. There was no mesne lordship. The Spahi was the feudal vassal of his Sultan and of his Sultan alone. The number of the larger fiefs, or Ziamets, in Suleiman's time was 3192; that of the smaller fiefs, or Timars, was 50,160. It will be remembered that each Spahi, or holder of a military fief, was not only bound to render military service himself in person, but, if the value of his fief exceeded a certain specified amount, he was required to furnish and maintain an armed horseman for every multiple of that sum ; or, to adopt the phraseology of early English institutions, the estate was bound to supply the Crown in time of war with a man-at-arms for each knight's fee. The total feudal array of the empire in the reign of Suleiman amounted to 150,000 cavalry, who, when summoned by the Begler Begs and Sanjak Begs, joined the army at the appointed place of muster and served throughout the campaign without pay. We must not only add this number to the 48,000 regularly paid and permanent troops, when we estimate the military force of the Turkish Empire in its meridian, but we must also bear in mind the numerous squadrons of Tartar cavalry which the vassal Khans of the Crimea sent to swell the 186 TURKEY 1520-1566 Turkish armies; and we must remember the swarms of irregular troops, both horse and foot, the Akindji and the Azabs, which the Suhan's own dominions poured forth to every campaign. ^ There is no surer proof of tlie true greatness of Suleiman as a ruler than the care which, at the same time that he reformed the Turkish feudal system so as to make it more efficient as an instru- ment of military force, he bestowed on the condition of those Rayas, who, like the serfs of medieval Europe, cultivated the lands assigned to the Spain's. The " Kanuni Raya," or " Code of the Rayas." of Suleiman, limited and defined the rents and services which the Raya who occupied the ground was to pay to his feudal lord. It is im- possible to give any description of this part of the Turkish law which shall apply with uniform correctness to all parts of the Sul- tan's dominions. But the general effect of Suleiman's legislation may be stated to have been that of recognizing in the Raya rights of property in the land which he tilled, subject to the payment of certain rents and dues, and the performance of certain services for his feudal superior. When the difference of creed between the law- giver and the Rayas is remembered, and we also bear in mind the fact that Suleiman, though not a persecutor like his father, was a very sincere and devout Mohammedan, we cannot help feeling that the great Turkish Sultan of the sixteenth century deserves a degree of admiration which we can accord to none of his crowned contem- poraries in that age of melancholy injustice and persecution be- tween Roman Catholic and Protestant throughout the Christian world. The difference between the lot of the Rayas under their Turk- ish masters and that of the serfs of Christendom, under their fellow- Christians and fellow-countrymen, who were their lords, was practically shown by the anxiety which the inhabitants of the coun- tries near the Turkish frontier showed to escape from their homes and live under that Turkish yoke which is frequently represented as having always been so tyrannical. " T have seen," says a writer, who was Suleiman's contemporary. " multitudes of Hungarian rustics set fire to their cottages and fly with their wives and children, their cattle and instruments of labor to the Turkish terri- tories, where they knew that, besides the payment of the tenths, they would be subject to no imposts or vexations." Besides the important branches of law and government that - Tlie figures arc probably only approximate. LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 187 1520-1566 have been mentioned, the ceremonial law (a far more serious sub- ject in the East than in Western Europe), the regulations of police, and the criminal law, received the personal attention of the great Sultan, and were modified and remodeled by his edicts. Every sub- ject-matter of legislation is comprised in the great code of Ottoman law compiled by Suleiman's Molla, Ibrahim of Aleppo, which has been in authority down to the present age in the Turkish Empire. Suleiman mitigated the severity of the punishments which had previously been appointed for many offenses. The extreme slight- ness of the penalties with which crimes of sensuality were visited by him is justly blamed as a concession to the favorite vices of the Turkish nation, but, in general, his diminution of the frequency with which the punishments of death and mutilation were inflicted entitles him to the praise of the modem jurist. Some of the more noticeable laws of Sultan Suleiman are those by which slanderers and tale-bearers are required to make compensation for the mischief caused by their evil-speaking; false witnesses, forgers, and passers of bad money are to have the right hand struck off; interest is not to be taken at a higher rate than eleven per cent. ; a fine is imposed for three consecutive omissions of a Mussulman's daily prayer, or a breach of the solemn fasts; kindness to beasts of burden is enjoined. Whatever the political economists of the present time may think of the legislation of Suleiman Kanuni as to wages, manu- factures, and retail trade, their highest praises are due to the en- lightened liberality with which the foreign merchant was welcomed in his empire. The earliest of the contracts, called capitulations, which guarantee to the foreign merchant in Turkey full protection for person and property, the free exercise of his religion, and the safeguard of his own laws administered by functionaries of his own nation, was granted by Suleiman to France in 1535. An extremely moderate custom duty was the only impost on foreign merchandise ; and the costly and vexatious system of prohibitive and protective duties has been utterly unknown among the Ottomans. No stipu- lation for reciprocity ever clogged the wise liberality of Turkey in her treatment of the foreign merchant who became her resident, or in her admission of his ships and his goods. The splendor of the buildings with which Suleiman adorned Constantinople suggests a point of comparison between the great Turkish legislator and the Roman emperor who ruled ten centuries 188 TURKEY 1520-1566 before him in addition to that which their codes naturally bring be- fore the mind. The long list, in which the Oriental historians enumerate the sumptuous edifices raised by Suleiman in the seven- hilled city of the Bosphorus, recalls the similar enumeration which Procopius has made of the architectural splendors of Justinian. And it was not only in the capital, but at Bagdad, Koniah, Kafifa, Da- mascus, and other cities that the taste and grandeur of Suleiman were displayed. Besides the numerous mosques w^hich were founded or restored by his private liberality, he decorated his empire and pro- vided for the temporal welfare of his subjects by numerous works of practical utility. Among them the great aqueduct of Constan- tinople, the bridge of Tchekmedji, and the restored aqueducts of Mecca are mentioned as the most beneficial and magnificent. The names of the poets, the historians, the legal and scientific WTiters who flourished under Suleiman would fill an ample page, but it would be one of little interest to us while Turkish literature remains so generally unknown in Western Europe, even through the medium of translations.^ But, because unknown, it must not be assumed to be unreal, and Suleiman was as generous and discerning a patron of literary merit as any of those sovereigns of Western Europe who have acquired for their ages and courts the much- coveted epithet of " Augustan." Suleiman's ow^n writings are considered to hold an honorable station, though not among the highest in his nation's literature. His poems are said to be dignified in sentiment and correct in expres- sion; and his journals, in which he noted the chief events of each day during his campaigns, are highly serviceable to the investigator of history. They prove the Sultan's possession of qualities which are of far more value in a sovereign than are the accomplishments of a successful author. They show" his sense of duty, his industry, and his orderly and unremitting personal attention to the civil as well as the military affairs of the vast empire that had been committed to his charge. Eaults, deplorable faults, are unquestionably to be traced in his reign. The excessive influence which he allowed his favorite Sultana to acquire, the cruel deaths of his children and of so many statesmen whom he gave over to the executioner are heavy stains on his memory. His owm countrymen have pointed 3 Von Hammer's work on Ottoman literature is an honorable exception ; and a series of very valuable letters, on the same subject, by Von Hammer, appeared in the English " Athenaeum " some years ago. LAST YEARS OF SULEIMAN 189 1520-1566 out the defects in his government. Kotchi Beg, who wrote in the reign of Murad IV. (1623), and who is termed by Von Hammer the Turkish Montesquieu, assigns in his work on the " Decline of the Ottoman Empire," which he traces up to the reign of the first Suleiman, among the causes of that decline ist, the cessation in Suleiman's time of the regular attendance of the Sultan at the meet- ings of the Divan ; 2d, the habit then introduced of appointing men to high stations who had not previously passed through a gradation of lower offices ; 3d, the venality and corruption first practiced by Suleiman's son-in-law and Grand Vizier, Rustam, who sold to peo- ple of the lowest character and capacity the very highest civil offices, though the appointment to all military ranks, high or low, was still untainted by bribery or other dishonest influence. Kotchi Beg fur- ther censures Suleiman for his evil example in exceeding the limits of wise liberality by heaping wealth upon the same favorite Vizier, and allowing him not only to acquire enormous riches, but to make them, by an abuse of the Turkish mortmain law, inalienable in his family. This was done by transforming his estates into Vaks or Vakufs; that is to say, by settling his property on some mosque or other religious foundation, which took from it a small quit-rent, and held the rest in trust for the donor and his family. While admitting the justice of these charges of the Oriental historian. Von Hammer exposes the groundlessness of the censure which European writers have passed upon Suleiman when accusing him of having introduced the custom of shutting up the young princes of the house of Othman in the seraglio instead of training them to lead armies and govern provinces. He points out that all the sons of Suleiman who grew up to manhood administered pashalics under him, and that one of his last acts before his death was to appoint ^lurad, his grandson, to the government of Magnesia. In the same spirit in which Arrian sums up the character of Alexander the Great, the German historian rightly warns us, when estimating that of Suleiman the Great, not to fix our attention ex- clusively on the blamable actions of his life, but to remember also the bright and noble qualities which adorned him. As a man he was warm-hearted and sincere, and honorably pure from the de- praved sensuality which has disgraced too many of his nation. We must remember his princely courage, his military genius, his high and enterprising spirit, his strict observance of the laws of his religion without any taint of bigoted persecution, the order and 190 TURKEY 1520-1566 economy which he combined with so much grandeur and munifi- cence, his liberal encouragement of art and literature, his zeal for the diffusion of education, the conquests by which he extended his empire, and the wise and comprehensive legislation with which he provided for the good government of all his subjects ; let him be thus taken for all in all, and we shall feel his incontestable right to the title of a great sovereign, which for all the intervening centuries he has maintained. Chapter XII SELIM II. AND THE BEGINNINGS OF DECLINE 1566-1574 SULEIMAN the Great, the Magnificent, the Lawgiver, the Lord of his Age, was succeeded by a prince to whom his own national historians give the epithet of " SeHm the Sot." The ignoble vices of this prince (to secure whose accession so much and such dear blood had been shed) had attracted the sorrowful notice and drawn down the indignant reprimand of the old Sultan in his later years ; but there was now no brother to compete for the throne with Selim; and on September 25, 1566, the saber of Oth- man was girt for the first time on a sovereign who shrank from leading in person the armies of Islam, and wasted in low debauchery the hours which his predecessors had consecrated to the duties of the state. The effects of this fatal degeneracy were not imme- diately visible. The perfect organization, civil and military, in which Suleiman had left the empire, cohered for a time after the strong hand which had fashioned and knit it together for nearly half a century was withdrawn. There was a numerous body of statesmen and generals who had been trained under the great Sultan, and thus somewhat of his spirit was preserved in the realm until they had passed away, and another generation arisen, which knew not Suleiman. Foremost of these was the Grand Vizier Mohammed Sokolli, who had victoriously concluded the campaign of Sziget after Suleiman's death, and who, fortunately for Selim and his kingdom, acquired and maintained an ascendency over the weak mind of the young Sultan, which was not indeed always strong enough to prevent the adoption of evil measures, or to curb the personal excesses of Selim's private life, but which checked the progress of anarchy, and maintained the air of grandeur in enter- prise and of vigor in execution by which the Sublime Porte had hitherto been distinguished. An armistice was concluded with the Emperor Maximilian in 191 192 TURKEY 1480-1554 1568, on the terms that each party should retain possession of what it then occupied; and there was now for many years an unusual pause in the war between the houses of Hapsburg and Othman. The great foreign events of Selim's reign are the at- tempts to conquer Astraklian and unite the Don and the Volga, the conquest of Cyprus, and the naval war of the battle of Lepanto. The first of these is peculiarly interesting, because the Turks were then for the first time brought into armed collision with the Rus- sians. In the middle of the sixteenth century, while the Ottoman Empire, then at the meridian of its glory, was the terror and admira- tion of the world, the Russian was slowly and painfully struggling out of the degradation and ruin with which it had been afflicted by two centuries and a half of Tartar conquest. The craft and courage of Ivan III. and Vasili Ivanovich had, between 1480 and 1533, emancipated Moscow from paying tribute to the Khans of Golden Horde; and, by annexing other Russian principalities to that of Moscow, these princes had formed a united Russia, which ex- tended from Kief to Kasan and as far as Siberia and Norwegian Lapland. Even thus early the Grand Dukes, or, as they began to style themselves, the Czars of Moscow, seem to have cherished ambitious projects of reigning at Constantinople. Ivan III. sought out and married Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial family from which the conquering Ottomans had wrested Byzan- tium. From that time forth the two-headed eagle, which had been the imperial cognizance of the emperors of Constantinople, has been assumed by the Russian sovereigns as their symbol of dominion. During the minority of Ivan the Terrible (who succeeded in 1533) a period of anarchy ensued in Russia, but on that prince assuming the government, the vigor of the state was restored, the Khanates of Astrakhan and Kasan were conquered and finally annexed to Russia, the Don Cossacks were united with the empire, and Yermak, one of their chiefs, invaded and acquired for Ivan the vast regions of Siberia. The Russians, at the time of Selim's accession, had been in- volved in fierce and frequent wars with the Sultan's vassals, the Crim Tartars; but the Porte had taken no part in these contests. But the bold genius of the Vizier Sokolli now attempted the reali- zation of a project which, if successful, would have barred the southern progress of Russia by firmly planting the Ottoman power SELIM II AND DECLINE 193 1554-1570 on the banks of the Don and the Volga and along the shores of the Caspian Sea. The Turkish armies, in their invasions of Persia, had always suffered severely during their marches along the sterile and mountainous regions of Upper Armenia and Mazerbijan. Some disputes with Persia had arisen soon after Selim's accession which made a war with that kingdom seem probable, and Sokolli proposed to unite the rivers Don and Volga by a canal, and then send a Turkish armament up the Sea of Azov and the Don, thence across by the intended channel to the Volga, and then down the latter river into the Caspian, from the southern shores of which sea the Ottomans might strike at Tabriz and the heart of the Persian power. Those two mighty rivers, the Don and the Volga, run toward each other, the one from the northwest, the other from the northeast, for many hundred leagues, until they are within thirty miles of junction. They then diverge, and the Don pours its waters into the Sea of Azov near the city of that name ; the Volga blends with the Caspian at a little distance from the city of Astrakhan, which is built on the principal branch of the delta of that river. The project of uniting them by a canal is said to have been one entertained by Seleucus Nicator, one of the ablest of the successors of Alexander the Great. It was now revived by the Grand Vizier of Selim II., and though the cloud of hostility with Persia passed over, Sokolli determined to persevere with the scheme, the immense commercial and political advantages of w^hich, if completed, were evident to the old statesman of Suleiman the Great. Azov already belonged to the Turks, but in order to realize the great project entertained, it was necessary to occupy Astrakhan also. Accord- ingly, 3000 Janissaries and 20,000 horse were sent to besiege As- trakhan, and a cooperative force of 30,000 Tartars was ordered to join them, and to aid in making the canal. Five thousand Janissaries and 3000 pioneers were at the same time sent to Azov to commence and secure the great work at its western ex- tremity. But the generals of Ivan the Terrible did their duty to their stern master ably in this emergency. The Russian garrison of Astrakhan sallied on its besiegers and repulsed them with con- siderable loss. And a Russian army 15,000 strong, under Prince Serebinov, came suddenly on the workmen and Janissaries near Azov and put them to headlong flight. It was upon this occasion that the first trophies won from the Turks came into Russian hands. An army of Tartars which marched to succor the Turks was also 194 TURKEY 1570-1571 entirely defeated by Ivan's forces ; and the Ottomans, dispirited by their losses and reverses, withdrew altogether from the enterprise. Their Tartar allies, who knew that the close neighborhood of the Turks would ensure their own entire subjection to the Sultan, eagerly promoted the distaste which the Ottomans had acquired for Sokolli's project, by enlarging on the horrors of the climate of Russia, and especially on the peril in which the short summer nights of those northern regions placed either the soul or the body of the true believer. As the Mohammendan law requires the evening prayer to be said two hours after sunset and the morning prayer to be repeated at the dawn of day, it was necessary that a Moslem should, in a night of only three hours long (according to the Tar- tars), either lose his natural rest or violate the commands of his Prophet. The Turks gladly reimbarked and left the unpropitious soil ; but a tempest assailed their flotilla on its homeward voy- age, and only 7000 of their whole force ever returned to Constan- tinople. Russia was yet far too weak to enter on a war of retaliation with the Turks. She had subdued the Tartar Khanates of Kasan and Astrakhan, but their kinsmen of the Crimea were still for- midable enemies to the Russians, even without Turkish aid. It was only two years after the Ottoman expedition to the Don and Volga that the Khan of the Crimea made a victorious inroad into Russia, took Moscow by storm, and sacked the city (1571). The Czar Ivan had, in 1570, sent an ambassador, named Nosolitov, to Constantinople to complain of the Turkish attack on Astrakhan, and to propose that there should be peace, friendship, and alliance between the two empires. Nosolitov, in addressing the Viziers, dwelt much on the toleration which his master showed to Moham- medans in his dominions, as a proof that the Czar was no enem.y to the faith of Islam. The Russian ambassador was favorably received at the Sublime Porte, and no further hostilities between the Turks and Russians took place for nearly a century. But the Ottoman pride and contempt for Russia were shown by the Sultan omitting to make the customary inquiry of Nosolitov respecting his royal master's health, and by the Czar's representative not receiving the invitation to a dinner before audience which was usually sent to ambassadors. Besides his project for uniting the Volga and the Don, the Grand Vizier Sokolli had revived the oft-formed project of open- SELIMII AND DECLINE 195 1570-1571 ing a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Sokolli grandly designed to make such a channel through the Isthmus of Suez as would enable the Ottoman fleets to sail from sea to sea. His schemes in this quarter were delayed by a revolt which broke out in Arabia, and was not quelled without a difficult and sanguinary war. And when that important province was brought back to submission the self-willed cupidity and violence of Sultan Selim himself involved the Porte in a war with Venice and other Christian states for the sake of acquiring the island of Cyprus, which he had coveted while he was governor of Kutahia in his father's lifetime.^ There was a treaty of peace between Venice and the Porte , but Selim obtained from his Mufti Ebusouud a fetwah authorizing him to attack Cyprus in open violation of the treaty. Cyprus had at one time been under Mohammedan rulers, and the Turkish authorities now proclaimed and acted on the prin- ciple that the sovereign of Islam may at any time break a treaty for the sake of reconquering from the misbelievers a country which has formerly belonged to the territory of Islam. The Grand Vizier Sokolli earnestly, but vainly, opposed the war with Venice. His influence was counteracted by that of the infamous Lala Mustapha, who had in Suleiman's reign been Selim's instrument in the destruction of Prince Bayezid and his family. Lala Mustapha obtained the command of the expedition against Cyprus, and the island was subdued by the Turks (1570-1571), though 50,000 of them perished to effect its conquest. The con- duct of the war of Cyprus was as disgracefully treacherous and cruel on the part of the Turks as its inception had been flagrantly unjust. The Venetian commandant, Bragadino, who had defended Famagosta, the chief stronghold of the island, with heroic valor and constancy, was subjected to the grossest indignities, and at last flayed alive, though he had surrendered on the faith of a capitulation by which the garrison were to march out with all their arms and prop- erty and to be transported in Turkish vessels to Candia. The fall of Cyprus, the unscrupulous violence with which it had been attacked, and the immense preparations in the Turkish seaports and arsenals now raised anxious alarm, not only at Venice, but all along the Christian shores of the ^Mediterranean. The Pope, 1 It seems that Selim, like Cassio, found the attraction of Cyprus wine irre- sistible. A Jew, named Joseph Nassy, had been Selim's boon companion, and persuaded him that he ought to be master of the isle in which the juice of the grape was so delicious. See Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 400. 196 TURKEY 1571 Pius v., succeeded in forming a maritime league, of which the Spaniards, the Venetians, and the Knights of Malta were the prin- cipal members, and at the head of it was placed Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., and one of the most re- nowned commanders of the age. The confederate fleets mustered at Messina early in the autumn of 1 571. The force led thither by Don John consisted of seventy- seven Spanish galleys, six Maltese, and three of Savoy. The Papal squadron, under Marc Colonna, added twelve galleys. The Vene- tian Admiral Veniero brought 108 galleys and six huge galeasses, or mahons. of a larger size and carrying a heavier weight of metal than had yet been known in Mediterranean warfare. Great care had been paid by all the confederates to the proper selection of their crews and the equipment of their vessels. Nobly born volunteers from all parts of Roman Catholic Christendom had flocked together to serve under so celebrated a chief as Don John, and in such an honorable enterprise ; and the Christian fleet, in the highest state of efficiency, sailed across to seek its enemies eastward of the Ionian Gulf. The Turkish naval forces were assembled in the Gulf of Cor- inth. The Capudan Pasha, Muzinzade Ali, was commander-in- chief, and under him were the well-known Uludj Ali, Begler Beg of Algiers; Djaffer Pasha. Begler Beg of Tripoli; Hassan Pasha, the son of Khaireddin Barbarossa, and fifteen other begs of maritime Sanjaks, each of whom was entitled to hoist his banner on his galley as a Prince of the Sea. The troops embarked on board the fleet were commanded by Pertev Pasha. The fleet amounted to 240 galleys and sixty vessels of smaller size. Uludj Ali and Pertev Pasha represented to the commander-in-chief that the fleet was hastily and imperfectly manned, and that it was imprudent to fight a general battle until it was in a better state of equipment. But ^Mnzinzade's courage prevailed over his discretion, and the destruc- tion of his fleet was the result. On October 7, 1571, a little after noon, the Christian fleet appeared near the entrance of the Gulf of Patras, off the little islands of Curzolari (the ancient Echinades), which lie at the mouth of the Aspro Potamo (the Achelous), on the Albanian shore. The Ottoman fleet sailed out of the Gulf of Lepanto to encounter them, and formed in line of battle, Uludj Ali commanding the left wing, Mohammed Shaulah, Beg of Negropont. heading the right nON' jniTN" OF AT'PTRIA, TTIF. VICTOR OF T.FPAN'TO (P,orn 1546. Died t?7R") Paujtiiis; hy /}!on.<:o Scinches CoeUo SELIMII AND DECLINE 197 1571 wing, and the Capudan Pasha, aided by Pertev Pasha, being in the center. Don John drew up his chief force in the center in the form of a crescent. The Prince of Parma (afterward so well known in Holland, and the intended conqueror of England), the Admiral of Savoy, Caraccioli, the Neapolitan admiral, and other illustrious leaders were in command of it. The Marquis of Santa Croce com- manded a squadron that was stationed in the rear of the main line as a reserve. A division of fifty-three galleys, under the Venetian proveditor, Barbarigo, formed the right wing, and the left wing consisted of fifty-four galleys, under Gian Andrea Doria, nephew of the great admiral of the Emperor Charles. Don John took his own station in advance of the center line, and the other two admirals of the fleet, Colonna and Veniero, were at his sides. The Turkish Capudan Pasha seeing this, brought forward his own galley and those of Pertev Pasha and his treasurer to answer the challenge of the tliree admiral galleys of the Christians, that thus stood forward between the battles, like the Promachi in the conflicts of the Homeric heroes. Don John showed his gallantry by thus taking the post of danger; but he also showed his skill by placing the six great Venetian galeasses like redoubts at intervals in front of the con- federate fleet. The Turks had less fear of these huge vessels than might have been justified by the event of the day ; but there was a pause before they began the attack, and each fleet lay motionless for a time, regarding with admiration and secret awe the strength and the splendor of its adversary's array. At length the Turkish ad- miral fired a gun, charged with powder only, as a challenge to begin the action. A ball from one of Don John's heaviest cannon whistled through the Ottoman rigging in answer; with loud shouts amid the clangor of their drums and fifes the Turks rowed forward to the attack, and the action, commencing on the Christian left, soon be- came general along the line. The large Venetian galeasses now proved of the utmost service to the Christian fleet. The Turkish galleys in passing them were obliged to break their order; and the fire kept up by the Venetian artillerymen from the heavy ordnance of the galeasses was more destructive than ever yet had been wit- nessed in naval gunnery. Still the Turks pressed forward and engaged the Christian left and center with obstinate courage. The two high admirals of the conflicting fleets, Don John and Muzinzade AH, cncountereil each other with equal gallantry. Their vessels 198 TURKEY 1571 clashed together and then lay closely locked for upward of two hours, during which time the 300 Janissaries and 100 arquebusiers of the Turk, and the 400 chosen arquebusiers who served on board Don John's ship, fought with the most determined bravery. The two other admiral galleys of the Christians had come to the support of Don John, and the Capudan Pasha's galley was similarly aided by her consorts ; so that these six ships formed a compact mass in the midst of the battle like that which was grouped round Nelson in the Victory, by the Temeraire, the Redoubtable, and the Neptune at the battle of Trafalgar. The death of Muzinzade, who fell shot dead by a musket ball, decided the memorable contest. The Turkish admiral galley was carried by boarding; and when Santa Croce came on to support the first line with the reserve the whole Ottoman center was broken, and the defeat soon extended to the right wing. In their left Uludj Ali was more successful. He outmanuvered Doria, turned his wing, and, attacking his ships when disordered and separated one from another, Uludj Ali captured fifteen Maltese and Venetian galleys, and with his own hand struck off the head of the commandant of Messina. But seeing that the day was irre- parably lost for Turkey, Uludj collected forty of his best galleys, pushed with them through the Christian vessels that tried to inter- cept him, and stood safely out to sea. They were the only Turkish vessels that escaped. The Ottomans lost in this great battle 260 ships, of which ninety-four were sunk, burned, or run aground and destroyed upon the coast ; the rest were captured and divided among the allies. Thirty thousand Turks were slain and 15,000 Chris- tians who had served as galley slaves in the Ottoman fleet were rescued from captivity. The confederates lost fifteen galleys and 8000 men. Many princely and noble names are recorded in the lists of the killed and wounded of that day; but there is none which we read with more interest than that of Cervantes. The author of " Don Quixote " served at Lepanto as a volunteer in the regiment of Moncada, which was distributed among part of the fleet. On the day of the battle Cervantes was stationed on board the galley Marquesa, and though suffering severely with illness, he distinguished himself greatly in the action, during which he received two arquebus wounds, one of which maimed his left hand for life. He often referred with just pride to the loss of his hand, and ever rejoiced at having been present at the glorious action at Lepanto ; " on that day SELIMII AND DECLINE 199 1571-1573 SO fortunate to Christendom, when " (in his own words) " all nations were undeceived of their error in believing that the Turks were invincible at sea." ^ The glories of the " Fight of Lepanto " thrilled Christendom with rapture, and they have for centuries been the favorite themes of literature and art. But the historian, Von Hammer, well ob- serves that we ought to think with sadness of the nullity of the results of such a battle. After occupying three weeks in dividing the spoils of Lepanto, and nearly coming to blows over them, the Christian squadrons returned to their respective ports, to be thanked, lauded, and dismissed. Meanwhile, the indefatigable Uludj Ali, with the squadron which he had saved from Lepanto, gleaned together the Turkish galleys that lay in the different ports of the Archipelago, and at the end of December sailed proudly into the port of Constantinople at the head of a fleet of eighty-seven sail. In recompense for his zeal, he received the rank of Capudan Pasha, and the Sultan changed his name of Uludj into Kilidj, which means *' The Sword." The veteran Admiral Piali was yet alive, and under his and Kilidj Ali's vigorous and skillful directions a new fleet was constructed and launched before the winter was past. While the rejoicing Christians built churches the resolute Turks built docks. The effect was that before June a Turkish fleet of 250 sail, comprising eight galeasses or mahons of the largest size, sailed forth to assert the dominion of the seas. The confederate Christian powers, after long delays, collected a force numerically superior to the Ottoman ; but though two indecisive encounters took place, they were unable to chase Kilidj Ali from the western coasts of Greece, nor could the Duke of Parma undertake the siege of Modon, which had been designed as the chief operation for that year. It was evident that though the Christian confederates could win a battle, the Turk was still their superior in a war.^ The Venetians sought peace in 1573, and in order to obtain it consented not only that the Sultan should retain Cyprus, but that Venice should pay him his expenses of the conquest. It was not unnaturally remarked by 2 Cervantes, " Don Quixote," book iv. ch. 12. 3 The Venetian envoy, Barbaro, endeavored to open negotiations at Con- stantinople in the winter after the battle of Lepanto. The Vizier, in reference to the loss of the Turkish fleet, and the conquest of Cyprus, said to him : " There is a great difference between our loss and yours. You have shaved our chin; but our beard is growing again. We have lopped off your arm; and you can never replace it." 200 TURKEY 1573-1574 those who heard the terms of the treaty that it sounded as if the Turks had gained the battle of Lepanto. After Venice had made peace with the Porte, Don John under- took an expedition with the Spanish fleet against Tunis, which Uludj Ah had conquered during the year in which Cyprus was attacked. Don John succeeded in capturing the city, which was the more easy inasmuch as the citadel had continued in the power of the Spaniards. Don John built a new fortress and left a powerful garrison in Tunis ; but eighteen months after his departure his old enemy, Kilidj Ali, reappeared there and after a sharp siege made the Sultan again master of the city and citadel, and stormed Don John's new castle. Tunis now, like Algiers and Tripoli, became an Otto- man government. The effectual authority which the Porte exer- cised over these piratical states of North Africa (which are often called the Barbaresque Regencies) grew weaker in course of time; but the tie of allegiance was not entirely broken, and though the French have seized Algiers, the Sultan is still sovereign of Tripoli and Tunis, the scenes of the successful valor of Dragut and Kilidj Ali. Selim the Sot died not long after the recovery of Tunis; and the manner of his death befitted the manner of his life. He had drunk off a bottle of Cyprus wine at a draught, and on entering the bathroom with the fumes of his favorite beverage in his head, he slipped and fell on the marble floor, receiving an injury of the skull which brought on a fatal fever (1574). He showed once a spark of the true Othman by the zeal with which he aided his officers in restoring the Turkish navy after Lepanto. He then contributed his private treasures liberally, and gave up part of the pleasure-gardens of the Serail for the site of the new docks. Except this brief flash of patriotism or pride, his whole career, both as prince and Sultan, is unrelieved by a single merit ; and it is blackened by mean treach- ery, by gross injustice and cruelty, and by groveling servitude to the coarsest appetites of our nature. Chapter XIII DECAY OF THE EMPIRE. 1574-1623 MURAD III. was summoned at the age of twenty-eight from his government at Magnesia to succeed his father at Constantinople. He arrived at the capital on the night of December 21, 1574, and his first act was to order the execution of his five brothers. In the morning the high oi'ficers of state were assembled to greet their master, and the first words of the new Sultan were anxiously watched for, as ominous of the com- ing events of his reign. Murad, who had retired to rest fatigued v^'ith his voyage, and literally fasting from all but sin, turned to the Aga of the Eunuchs and said, " I am hungry ; bring me something to eat." These words were considered to be prophetic of scarcity during his reign ; and the actual occurrence of a famine at Constan- tinople in the following year did much to confirm the popular super- stition. Sokolli retained the Grand Vizierate until his death in 1578, but the effeminate heart of Murad was ruled by courtiers, who amused his listless melancholy, and by four women, one of whom was his mother, the dowager Sultana, or (as the Turks term her) the Sultana Valide, Xour Banou : the next was Murad's first favor- ite Sultana, a Venetian lady of the noble house of Baffo, who had been captured by a Turkish corsair in her early years. The third was a beautiful Hungarian, who, however, never quite superseded the influence of the Venetian ; the fourth was Djanfeda, the Kraya, or grand mistress of the harem. These were the chief ladies who interposed and debated on all cjuestions how the power bequeathed by the great Suleiman should be wielded, and with whom the house of Othman should have peace or war. Except for collisions that from time to time took place near the boundary line in Hungary between the Turkish Pashas and Chris- tian commandants of the respective border countries, the Ottoman Empire preserved peace with the powers of Christian Europe during tiic reign of iXiurad III. until two years before his death, when war 201 202 TURKEY 1579-1588 was declared against Austria. Commercial and diplomatic relations were established under Alurad with the greater part of Western Europe, the Ottomans ever showing the same wise liberality in all that relates to international traffic, that has been already mentioned. England, which until the time of Alurad III. had been a stranger to Turkey, sent in 1579 three merchants, William Harebone, Ed- ward Ellis, and Richard Stapel, to Constantinople, who sought and obtained from the Porte the same favor to English commerce and the same privileges for English commercial residents in Turkey that other foreign nations enjoyed. In 1583 William Harebone was accredited to Constantinople as the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who was then the especial object of hatred of Philip II. of Spain, and sought anxiously to induce the Sultan to make common cause with her against the Spanish king and the Pope of Rome. In her state papers to the Ottoman court, the Protestant queen styled her- self " The unconquered and most puissant defender of the true faith against the idolaters who falsely profess the name of Christ " ; and there is a letter addressed by her agent at the Porte to the Sultan in November, 1587, at the time when Spain was threatening England with the Great Armada, in which the Sultan is implored to send, if not the whole tremendous force of his empire, at least sixty or eighty galleys, " against that idolater, the King of Spain, who, relying on the help of the Pope and all idolatrous princes, designs to crush the Queen of England, and then to turn his whole power to the destruction of the Sultan, and make himself universal monarch.'' The English advocate urges on the Ottoman sovereign that if he and Elizabeth join promptly and vigorously in maritime warfare against Spain, the " proud Spaniard and the lying Pope with all their followers will be struck down " ; that God will protect His own, and punish the idolaters of the earth by the arms of England and Turkey.^ The evils which the general prevalence of venality and the force of feminine intrigue at the Sultan's court had brought upon the Ottoman Empire were not yet apparent to foreigners, who only saw its numerous fleets and armies, and only heard of its far-extended conquests ; but before the close of Murad's reign the inevitable fruits of corruption and favoritism were unmistakably manifest. Every appointment, civil, military, judicial, or administrative, was now 1 The letters are given at length by Von Hammer (" History of the Otto- man Empire ") in his notes to his thirtv-ninth book. DECAY OF EMPIRE 203 1589-1593 determined by court influence or money. The Sultan, who squan- dered large sums on the musicians, the parasites, and buffoons, by whom he loved to be surrounded, was often personally in need of money, and at last stooped to the degradation of taking part of the bribes which petitioners for office gave to his courtiers. The armies and military organization of the Porte now began to show the workings of this taint, not only through the effect of incompetent men receiving rank as generals and as officers, but through the abuses with which its feudal system was overrun, and the sale of Ziamets and Timars to traffickers of every descrip- tion : even to Jews and Jewesses, who either sold them again to the best bidders or received the profits of the feudal lands in defiance both of the spirit and letter of the law. An alarming relaxation of discipline among the troops and increasing turbulence and insubor- dination accompanied those scandals; and at last, in 1589, the Janis- saries openly attacked the Serail of the Sultan where the Divan was assembled, and demanded the head of Mohammed Pasha, Begler Beg of Rumelia, surnamed " the Falcon " for his rapacity. Their anger against this royal favorite was not causeless, for it was at his insti- gation that the pay of the troops had been given in grossly debased coinage. They now attacked the palace and cried, " Give us up the Begler Beg, or we shall know how to find our way even to the Sultan." Murad ordered that the soldiery should receive satisfac- tion, and accordingly the heads of the guilty Pasha and of an innocent treasurer whom they had involved in their angry accusa- tions were laid before these military sovereigns of the sovereign. It has been truly said that the government which once has bowed the knee to force must expect that force will thenceforth be its master. Within four years the Janissaries revolted twice again, and on each occasion compelled the Sultan to depose and change his Vizier. In 1591 these haughty prcetorians coerced their sovereign into placing on the vassal throne of ^loldavia the com- petitor who had obtained their favor by bribes. While these and many other tumults, in some of which the Spahis and Janissaries waged a civil war against each other in the streets, convulsed the capital, the provinces were afflicted by the rapacious tyranny of their governors and the other officers of state, and by its natural results. The garrisons of Pesth and Tabriz mutinied on account of their pay being kept back. The warlike tribes of the Druses in Lebanon took arms against their provincial oppressors. The revolt of Transyl- W4> TURKEY 1593-1595 vania, Moldavia, and Wallachia was a still more formidable symptom of the wretched condition of the empire. The risings in these provinces were encouraged by the war with Austria, which broke out in 1 593. And in 1 594 the war with Persia was renewed, and marked by little success on the Turkish side. While his realm was in this distracted state, Sultan Murad sickened and died (January 16, 1595). Weak both in mind and body, he had long been perplexed by dreams and signs which he believed to be forebodings of death. On the morning of the last day of his life he had gone to a magnificent kiosk lately built by Sinan Paslia on the shore of the Bosphorus, which commanded an extensive prospect, and he lay there watching the ships that sailed to and from the Propontis and the Euxine. His musicians, as usual, were in attendance, and they played an air which recalled to Murad's memory the melancholy words of the song to which it belonged. He murmured to himself the first line : " Come and keep watch by me to-night, O Death ! " And it chanced that at that very time two Egyptian galleys saluted the Porte, and the concussion caused by the guns' fire shattered the glazed dome of the kiosk. As the fragments fell around the Sultan he exclaimed, " At another time the salute of a whole fleet would not have broken that glass ; and now it is shivered by the noise of the cannon of these galleys. I see the fate of the kiosk of my life." Saying so he wept bitterly, and was led by his attendants back to his palace, where he expired that very night. Mohammed HI., who now succeeded to Murad, was the last hereditary prince who was trusted with liberty and the government of provinces during his predecessor's lifetime. Thenceforth the Ottoman princes of the blood royal were kept secluded and immured in a particular part of the palace called the Kaweh (cage), from which they passed to die or to reign, without any of the minor employments of the state being placed in their hands. The fear lest they should head revolts was the cause of this new system, the effect of which on the character and capacity of the rulers of Turkey was inevitably debasing and pernicious. Safiye, now Sultana Valide, ruled generally in the court and councils of her son, Mohammed, with even more predominant sway tlian she had exercised in the time of the late Sultan. Mohammed was a weak-minded prince, but capable of occasional outbursts of DECAY OF EMPIRE 205 1595-1596 energy, or rather of violence. The disasters which the Turkish arms were now experiencing- in Wallachia and Hungary made the Sultan's best statesmen anxious that the sovereign should, after the manner of his great ancestors, head his troops in person and en- deavor to give an auspicious change to the fortune of the war, Safiye, who feared that her son when absent from Constantinople would be less submissive to her induence, opposed this project, and for a long time detained the Sultan among the inglorious pleasures of his seraglio, while the imperialists, under the Archduke Maxi- milian and the Hungarian Count Pfalfy, aided by the revolted princes of the Danubian principalities, dealt defeat and discourage- ment among the Ottoman ranks and wrung numerous fortresses and districts from the empire. The cities of Gran, Wissgrad, and Babocsa had fallen, and messengers in speedy succession announced the loss of Ibrail, Varna, Kilic, Ismail, Silistria, Rutschuk, Buch- arest and Akerman. These tidings at last roused the monarch in his harem, and he sent for the Mufti, who, fortunately for Turkey, was a man of sense and patriotic spirit. Adopting a characteristic mode of advising an Ottoman prince, the Mufti took an opportunity of placing in Mohammed's hands a poem of Ali Tchelabi, one of the most eminent writers of the time, in whose verses the misfortunes of the empire and the calamitous progress of the Hungarian war were painted in the strongest colors. The Sultan was sensibly affected by its perusal, and ordered that the solemn service of prayer and of humiliation should be read, which requires the Mussulman to pray and weep and do acts of contrition and penitence for three days. The Sultan and all his officers of state and all the Moham- medan population of the city attended and humbled themselves at these prayers, which were read by the Sheik Mohizedden in the place of the Atmeidan. beliind the arsenal. Eight days afterward an earthquake shook Constantinople and overthrew many towns and villages in Anatolia. The consternation and excitement of the Ottomans now were excessive. All classes called on the Padishah to go forth to the holy war against the unbelievers, and the formid- able Janissaries refused to march to the frontier unless the Sultan marched with them. The historian Seadedtlin. who held the high dignity of Khodja, or tutor to ^Mohammed, the Mufti, and the Grand Vizier urged on their sovereign that the only hope of re- trieving the prosperity and even of assuring the safety of the empire lay in his appearing at the head of his armies. Their exhortations, 206 TURKEY 1598 aided by the pressure from without, prevailed over the influence of the SuUana Valide. Mohammed III. left his capital for the frontier in the June of 1596 with pomp and state which recalled to some spectators the campaigns of the great Suleiman. The sultan's resolution to head his armies had revived tlie martial spirit of the Ottomans; and the display of the sacred standard of the Prophet, which now for the first time was unfurled over a Turkish army, excited still more the zeal of the true believers to combat the enemies of Islam. This holy relic had been left at Damascus by Sultan Selim I. after he obtained it from the last titular Caliph of the Abassides, on his con- quest of Egypt. During the reign of Murad III. it was conveyed from Damascus to Constantinople, and it has since that time been preserved by the Sultans as a treasure for extreme need, to be dis- played only on great emergencies, when it has become necessary to employ some extraordinary means to rouse the military spirit of the Ottomans, or to recall them to their religious allegiance to their Sultan, as the Caliph and the successor of the Prophet Mohammed, whose holy hands once bore that standard in battle. The historian Seadeddin accompanied his imperial pupil in this campaign, and his presence proved of value for the purpose of gain- ing victories, as well as for that of recording them. The Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, Hassan Sokolli Pasha, and Cicala Pasha were the principal commanders under the Sultan. The biography of the last-mentioned Pasha furnishes so striking an example of the career of a renegade in that age that it may claim mention in these pages. Cicala Pasha was a Genoese renegade, captured in boyhood by the Turks and brought up under the favor of the Sultan Sulei- man. He had distinguished himself in the Persian wars and in the naval wars in the Mediterranean. At this time Cicala, though disliked by the Sultana Valide, was high in the Sultan's favor. The Archduke Maximilian, who commanded the imperialists, retired at first before the superior numbers of the great Ottoman army, and the Sultan besieged and captured Erlau. The imperial- ists now having effected a junction with the Transylvanian troops under Prince Sigismund, advanced again, though too late to save Erlau, and on October 23, 1596, the two armies were in presence of each other on the marshy plain of Cerestes, through which the waters of the Cincia ooze toward the river Theiss. There were three days of battle at Cerestes, On the first day DECAY OF EMPIRE 207 1596 part of the Turkish force under Djaffer Pasha passed the Cincia, and after fighting bravely against superior numbers was obhged to retreat with the loss of looo Janissaries, lOO Spahis, and forty- three cannon. The Sultan now wished for a general retreat of the army, or at least that he should himself retire. A council of war was summoned in the Ottoman camp, at which the historian Seadeddin was present and advocated vigorously a more manly policy. " It has never been seen or heard of," said he, " that a Padishah of the Ottomans turned his back upon the enemy with- out the direst necessity." Some of those present recommended that the Pasha Hassan Sokolli should lead the troops against the enemy. Seadeddin answered, " This is no affair for Pashas : the personal presence of the Padishah is absolutely indispensable here." It was finally resolved to fight; and the Sultan was with difficulty per- suaded to stay with the troops. On October 24, there was another action, and the Turks secured some passages through the marsh. Each side now concentrated its strength, and on October 26, the decisive encounter took place. At first the Christians seemed com- pletely victorious. They drove back the leading divisions of the Turks and Tartars, attacked the Ottoman batteries in flank, captured the whole of the guns, forced the Janissaries to give way, and drove the Asiatic feudal cavalry in headlong rout from the field. The Sultan, who beheld the engagement from an elevated seat on a camel's back, wished to fly, but Seadeddin exhorted him to be firm, and quoted the verse of the Koran that says, " It is patience that brings victory, and joy succeeds to sorrow." Mo- hammed clasped the sacred standard, and kept his station, protected by his bodyguard and his pages from the victorious imperialists, who now broke their ranks and rushed to plunder the Ottoman camp. At this critical moment, Cicala, who had hitherto sat inactive in command of a large body of irregular Turkish cavalry, gave the word to his men, and the spurs to his steed, and down came the wild horsemen galloping over friend and foe and sweeping the panic-stricken Christians by thousands into the swamps of the Cincia. Terror and flight spread tlirough e\-ery division of the imperialists, and in less than half an hour from the time when Cicala began his charge ]\Iaximilian and Sigismund were flying for their lives, without a single Christian regiment keeping their ranks or making an endeavor to rally and cover the retreat. Fifty thou- sand Germans and Transylvanians perished in the marshes or be- 208 T TI 11 K E Y 1596-1599 iieath the Ottoman saber. Ninety-five cannons, of very beautiful workmanship, were captured by the Turks, who at the beginning of the battle had lost all their own, and the whole camp, treasure of the archduke, and all his material of war were among the fruits of this victory, one of the most remarkable that the Ottomans ever obtained. The principal credit of the day was fairly ascribed to Seaded- din and Cicala. Cicala was promoted after the battle to the rank of Grand Vizier, but was speedily deprived of it by the jealous inter- ference of the Sultana Valide. He held it, however, long enough to be the cause of infinite evil to the empire by his ill-judged and excessive severity to the troops, that had given way at the beginning of the battle. It was found that 30,000 Ottoman soldiers, princi- pally belonging to the Asiatic feudal force, had fled before the Giaours. Cicala stigmatized them as Firaris, or runaways. He ordered that their pay should be stopped and their fiefs forfeited. He publicly beheaded many of these unfortunate soldiers who came into his power, but by far the greater number, when they heard of the new Vizier's severity, dispersed and returned to their homes. The attempts made to apprehend and punish them there naturally caused armed resistance ; and the Firaris of Cerestes were among the foremost and most formidable supporters of the rebellion which soon afterward broke out in Asia Minor and desolated that coun- try for many years. Mohammed HI. eagerly returned after the battle to Constanti- nople, to receive felicitations and adulation for his victory, and to resume his usual life of voluptuous indolence. The war in Hungary was prolonged for several years, until the Peace of Sitvatorok in the reign of Mohammed's successor. But neither the imperialists nor the Turks carried on operations with any vigor in the interme- diate campaigns; and the chiefs of the revolted principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, after disputes with each other, sought and obtained terms of reconciliation with the Porte. During the inglorious remainder of the reign of Mohammed III. the evils of military insubordination and the tyranny of the pro- \incial rulers continued to increase. In 1599 a chief of the military feudatories in Asia Minor, named Abdul Hamid, but better known by tlie title of Karazaridji, which means " The Black Scribe," availed liimsclf of the universal disorder and discontent to organize a wide- -IMcad revolt against the P(jrtc, and to assume the rank of an inde- DECAY OF EMPIRE 209 1600-1603 pendent prince. He formed an army of Kurds, Turkomans, and the fugitive Spahis of Cerestes; and, aided by his brother, Delhi Husein, the Governor of Bagdad, he gave repeated defeats to the Ottoman armies sent against him. In 1601 the Persian monarch, Shah Abbas, took advantage of the weakness of the ancient enemy of his nation to make war upon Turkey, and began rapidly to re- cover the provinces which Persia had lost in the last reign. In the June of 1603 Sultan Mohammed put to death his eldest son, Mah- mud, a prince of high abilities and courage, and of whose reign great expectation had been formed. Mahmud had requested his father to give him the command of the armies employed against the rebels in Asia Minor. This show of spirit alarmed the weak and jealous mind of Mohammed, and on being informed that a holy man had predicted to the prince that a new Sultan would soon ascend the throne, he ordered his son to be seized and strangled. The Sultana who had borne the prince to him and all Mahmud's favorite companions were at the same time thrown into prison, and at the end of a month were all put to death. Mohammed III. did not long survive this act of cruelty. On October 27, a dervish met him in the palace-gate and prophesied to him that in fifty-five days he would meet with some great calamity. The prediction weighed heavily on the superstitious mind of the sickly voluptuary, and, like many other predictions of the same kind, tended powerfully to work- its own fulfillment. On the fifty-fifth day, December 23, 1603. Mohammed III. died, and was succeeded by Sultan Ahmed I., the elder of his two surviving sons. Ahmed I. was fourteen years of age when he commenced his reign. By his humanity, or the humanity of his councilors, his brother, Prince Mustapha, was spared from being put to death according to established usage. The mental imbecility of Prince Mustapha may also have been a reason for saving his life, partly out of contempt and partly out of the superstitious reverence with which all lunatics are regarded in the East. In the beginning of young Ahmed's reign he showed some flashes of imperious decision which might have been thought to be the dawnings of a vigorous and successful reign. His Grand Vizier, who was to lead a fresh army into Hungary, made some exorbitant demands on the treasury and threatened not to march unless they were complied with. Ahmed sent him the laconic and effective answer, " If thou vainest thy liead thou wilt niai-cli at once." But tlic promise cA Ahmed's 210 TURKEY 1606 boyhood was belied by weakness and selfishness as he approached maturer years. Negotiations for a peace between Austria and the Porte had long been pending, and a treaty was finally concluded on Novem- ber II, 1606, at Sitvatorok. No change of importance was made in the territorial possessions of either party, except that the Prince of Transylvania was admitted as party to the treaty, and that province became to some extent, though not entirely, inde- pendent of the Ottoman Empire. But the Peace of Sitvatorok is important as marking an era in the diplomatic relations of Turkey with the states of Christendom. Hitherto the Ottoman Sultans, in their pacifications with Christian princes, had affected to grant short truces as faAors from a superior to inferiors. They generally ex- acted annual contributions of money, which Oriental pride con- sidered to be tributes ; and they displayed, both in the style of their state papers and by the low rank of the persons employed by them to conduct the negotiations, the most haughty and offensive arro- gance. But at Sitvatorok the Turks acknowledged and observed the general principles and courtesies of international law. Their commissioners had full powers signed by the Sultan and the Grand Vizier, and they gave the Austrian sovereign the title of Padishah, or Emperor, instead of terming him, as had been usual with their predecessors, merely " the King of Vienna." - The peace w^as to be a permanent one; the annual payment of the 30,000 ducats by Austria to the Porte was abolished ; presents were to be made by the Turks to the imperialists, as well as by the imperialists to the Turks ; and in future all ambassadors sent by the Sultan to Vienna were not to be, as formerly, chosen from among the menial officers of his court or camp, but were to be at least of the rank of Sanjak Beg. It was fortunate for the Ottoman power that the religious dis- sensions in Germany soon after this period caused the outbreak of tlie great war which devastated that country for thirty years, and kept the house of Austria fully occupied in struggling for empire and safety against Bohemians, Saxons, Danes, Swedes, and French, instead of availing itself of the weakness of the Turks and enter- ing upon a career of conquest along the Saave and the Danube. The Spanish monarchy, the other great enemy of the Porte, after 2 The title had already in Suleiman's time been given to the King of France. Ed. DECAY OF EMPIRE 211 1606-1617 the death of Philip II. decayed even more rapidly and uniformly than the Turkish Empire after the death of Suleiman. France and England were friendly toward the Turks, and even if they had been hostile, were too much engaged each with its own domestic dissensions during the first half of the seventeenth century for any formidable projects of conquest in the East. Russia had declined during the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and she was, long after his death, rent by revolts and civil wars which were termi- nated by the accession of the house of Romanov (1613) ; but the reign of the first czar of that dynasty (161 3-1645) was fully occu- pied with endeavors to restore the Russian nation from the misery and anarchy into which it had fallen, and in recovering provinces which had been seized by the Swedes and Poles. No first-class European power was in a condition to attack Turkey during that crisis of her extreme misery and feebleness, which lasted through the first thirty years of the seventeenth century, which was checked by the stern hand of Murad IV. during the last seven years of his reign, but was renewed under the reigns of his imbecile successors, until the ministry of the first Kiuprili in 1656. The Poles and the Venetians were the chief European foes of Turkey throughout this time, Poland was too much torn by domestic faction to accomplish aught worthy of the chivalrous valor of her armies ; and Venice, never a sufficient adversary to cope single-handed with a great empire, was in a state of skillfully disguised but incurable and increasing decrepitude, Persia was the most dangerous foreign enemy of Turkey during the first half of the seventeenth century; but though the Asiatic possessions of the Porte beyond the Taurus were often in imminent peril, there was little risk of Persian armies advancing so far westward as to strike at the vital parts of the Ottoman dominions. Ahmed I, reigned for eleven years after the peace of Sitvatorok. During this time his Grand Vizier, Murad, gained advantages over the rebels in xA.sia Minor which partially suppressed the spirit of revolt in that quarter. The war with Persia was continued, but almost uniformly to the disadvantage of the Turks ; and the weak- ness of the empire was signally proved by the ravages which the fleets of the Cossacks perpetrated with impunity along the southern coasts of the Black Sea. In 161 3 a flotilla of these marauders sur- prised the city of Sinope, which is described as liaving been then one of the richest and best fortified ports of Asia Minor. 212 TURKEY 1617-1621 Sultan Ahmed died November 22, 1617.^ He left seven sons, three of whom, in course of time, ascended the throne, but his immediate successor was his brother Mustapha. Hitherto there had been an uninterrupted transmission of the empire from father to son for fourteen generations. According to Von Ham- mer, the law of succession which gives the throne to the elder sur- viving male relation of the deceased sovereign had been adopted by the house of Othman from the house of Genghis Khan, but so long as the practice of royal fratricide continued it was impossible for any dispute to arise between the son of a Sultan and that son's uncle. In consequence of the life of his brother Mustapha having been spared by Ahmed I., that prince now became Sultan, to the temporary exclusion of his young nephew Prince Othman. But the idiocy of A'lustapha as soon as he was drawn from his place of confinement and enthroned was so apparent that in less than three months the high ofificers of state concurred in deposing him, and summoning Prince Othman, then aged fourteen, to reign in his stead (February 26, 16 18). The short and unhappy reign of Othman H, was marked by the signature of a peace with Persia, on conditions agreed to during the preceding reign, and rendered necessary by the repeated defeats of the Turks. The Ottomans restored all the conquests that had been made during the reigns of Murad HI. and Mohammed HI. and the eastern boundary of the empire receded to its line in the reign of Selim II. Relieved from the burden of the Persian war, Othman devoted all his thoughts to the overthrow of his domestic enemies, the Janissaries and Spahis, whom he not unjustly regarded as the chief curses of the empire, of which they had foiTnerly been the chief support. The Janissaries, in particular, were now re- garded as the tyrants over both sovereign and people, and the long feud between the throne and the barrack of the troops of Hadji Bektash now commenced, which was only terminated in the nine- teenth century by the ruthless energy of Mahmud H. Othman made war on Poland in 162 1, chiefly with the view of weakening the Jam'ssary regiments by loss in battle and the hardships of the cam- [)aign. The losses wliich the whole army sustained in that war, 2 The second year of the reign of Ahmed I. is marked by the Turkish writers as the date of the introduction of tobacco into the empire. The Ottomans became such enthusiastic and inveterate smokers that within fifty years a pipe was looked on as the national emblem of a Turk. The use of coffee had been intro- duced into Constantinople in the reigii of the great Suleiman. DECAY OF EMPIRE n$ 1621-1622 and the calamitous retreat with which the operations of the Sultan (though partiall}' victorious) were concluded, made Othman un- popular with all ranks. And by ill-considered changes in laws and customs, by personal affronts to leading statesmen, and by the exer- cise of vexatious severity in trifling regulations of police he alien- ated all classes of his subjects from his throne. In the spring of 1622 he announced an intention of performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was well known that his real design was to proceed to Damascus and place himself at the head of an army of Kurds and other troops, which his favorite Grand Vizier, Dilawer Pasha, was to collect near that city. With this army, when disciplined on a new model, the Sultan was to march upon Constantinople, destroy the Janissaries and Spahis, and completely reorganize the govern- ment. Sir Thomas Roe, the English ambassador then resident at the Turkish capital, wdiose letters graphically describe the tragical ca- reer of Othman, says of this scheme that, " Certainly this was a brave and well-grounded design, and of great consequence for the recovery of this decayed empire, languishing under the insolence of lazy slaves, if God had not destroyed it." But, in truth, Othman utterly lacked the secrecy and the vigor with which alone actions of such depth and danger can be performed. When the Janissaries rose in furious tumult (-May, 1622) to forbid the pilgrimage to Mecca and to demand the heads of Othman's ministers, the Sultan had neither troops ready to defend him nor was there any party in his favor among the people to whom he could appeal. Instigated by the traitor Daud Pasha, who hated Othman for having raised a rival to the Grand Vizierate, and by the mother of Sultan Mustapha, who knew^ that, if this revolt were quelled, Othman would seek to secure himself by putting all his kin to death, the insurgent soldiery proceeded from violence against the ministers to an attack upon the person of the Sultan, which had hitherto been held sacred amid the wildest commotions. Othman was dragged off to the Seven Towers, while the lunatic Mustapha was a second time carried from his cell and installed on the throne. Daud Pasha, now Grand Vizier, was determined not to leave his traitorous enterprise in- complete, and with three comrades he proceeded to Othman's prison and strangled him, with circumstances of gross and insolent cruelty. The atrocity of tliis murder before long caused remorse among the Janissaries themselves. Among the few glimmerings of intel- lect which Sullan Ahislapha showed during his second reign were 214 TURKEY 1623 an expression of grief for the death of Othman, and a hattisherif commanding- that his murderers should be punished. Generally, Mustapha continued to be as incapable of governing an empire, or of common self-government, as he had been found at his first ac- cession. His mother, the Sultana Valide, exercised the principal power in his name, and the high offices of state were intrigued or fought for by competitors who relied on the bought swords of the Janissaries and Spahis as their best means of promotion. So fear- ful at length became the anarchy and misery at Constantinople that even the very soldiers were touched by it. Some instinctive spirit of military discipline still survived among them, and their proud attachment to the Ottoman Empire, which the valor of their pre- decessors had raised to such power and splendor, had not become wholly inoperative. They assented to the urgent entreaties of the chief ministers that they would forego their customary donative if a new Sultan was invested with power; and in August, 1623, the lunatic Mustapha was a second time deposed, and Prince Murad, the elder surviving brother of Sultan Othman, a child of only eleven years of age, was placed on the throne. Mustapha's second reign had lasted little more than a year, but it had been productive of infinite misery to the empire. The Persian war had been renewed. Bagdad and Bassora fell into the hands of enemies. All Asia Minor was desolated by the revolt of Abaza, who had been governor of Merasch, and who was said to have aided the Sultan Othman in concerting that sovereign's project for destroying the Janissaries. It is certain that after Othman's murder Abaza proclaimed himself as that prince's avenger and the sworn foe of the Janissaries, whom he pursued with implacable ferocity. In the general dissolution of all bonds of government, and in the absence of all protection to industry or property, the empire seemed to be sinking into the mere state of a wilderness of beasts of prey.-'^ The misery and confusion of the empire is most strikingly testified to by the English ambas- sador, Sir Thomas Roe, who in speaking of the decline of the Turk- isli power uses the metaphor now w^ell-worn of the sick man. He says : " It has become, like an old body, crazed through many vices which remain when the youth and strength is decayed." 3 " Sir Thomas Roc's Embassy," p. 22. Chapter XIV REVIVAL OF THE EMPIRE UNDER MURAD IV. I 623- I 640 MURAD IV., at the time of his accession (September 10, 1623), was under twelve years of age. But even thus early he gave indications of a resolute and vengeful character, and showed that a prince animated by the spirit of the first Selim was once more on the Ottoman throne. The Turkish historian, Evliya, relates of him : *' When Su4tan Murad entered the treasury after his accession, my father, Dervish Mohammed, was with him. There were no gold or silver vessels remaining only 30,000 piastres in money, and some coral and porcelain in chests. ' Inshallah ' (please God), said the Sultan, after pros- trating himself in prayer, ' I will replenish this treasury fifty-fold with the property of those who have plundered it.' " The young Sultan during the first year of his reign acted principally under the directions of his mother, who, providentially for the Ottoman Empire, was a woman of remarkable talent and energy, which were taxed to the uttermost to meet the dangers and disasters that clouded round the dawn of her child's sovereignty. From every part of the empire messengers arrived with evil tidings. The Persians were victorious on the frontier. The rebel Abaza was lord and tyrant over Asia Minor. The tribes of the Lebanon were in open insurrection. The governors of Egypt and other provinces were wavering in their allegiance. The Barbaresque regencies as- sumed the station of independent powers, and made treaties with European nations on their own account. The fleets of the Cossack marauders not only continued their depredations along the Black Sea, but even appeared in the Bosphorus and plundered the imme- diate vicinity of the capital. In Constantinople itself there was an empty treasury, a dismantled arsenal, a debased coinage, exhausted magazines, a starving population, and a licentious soldiery. Yet the semblance of authority was preserved, and by degrees some of its substance was recovered by those who ruled in the young prince's 215 216 TURKEY 1623-1632 name ; and, though amid tumult and bloodshed, and daily peril to both throne and life, young Murad, observing all things, forgetting nothing, and forgiving nothing, grew up toward man's estate. There is a wearisome monotony in the oft-repeated tale of military insurrections, but the formidable mutiny of the Spahis, which convulsed Constantinople in the ninth year of Murad's reign, deserves notice on account of the traits of the Turkish character which its chief hero and victim remarkably displayed; and also because it explains and partly palliates the hard-heartedness which grew upon Murad, and the almost wolfish appetitie for bloodshed which was shown by him in the remainder of his reign. In the beginning of that year a large number of mutinous Spahis, who had disgraced themselves by gross misconduct in the late unsuccess- ful campaign against Bagdad, had straggled to Constantinople and joined the European Spahis already collected in that capital. They were secretly instigated by Redjib Pasha, who wished by their means to effect the ruin of the Grand Vizier Hafiz, a gallant though not fortunate general, to whom the young Sultan was much attached, and who had interchanged poetical communications with his sov- reign when employed against the Persians. The Spahis gathered together in the hippodrome on three successive days (February, 1632), and called for the heads of the Grand Vizier Hafiz, the ]\Iufti Jahia, the Defterdar Mustapha, and other favorites of the Sultan, seventeen in all. The shops were closed, and the city and the Serail were in terror. On the second day the mutineers came to the gate of the palace, but withdrew on being promised that they should have redress on the morrow. On the third day, when the morning broke, the outer court of the Seraglio was filled with raging rebels. As the Grand Vizier Hafiz was on his way thither to attend the Divan, he received a message from a friend, who warned him to conceal himself until the crowd had dispersed. Plafiz answered with a smile, " I have already this day seen my fate in a dream ; I am not afraid to die." As he rode into the Seraglio the multitude made a lane for him, as if out of respect; but as he passed along they cast stones at him ; he was struck from his horse and borne by his attendants into the inner part of the palace. One of his followers was murdered and one grievously wounded by the Spahis. The Sulian ordered Hafiz to make his escape, and the Grand Vizier took a boat at the water-gate of the Serail and crossed over to Scutari. Meanwhile the rebels forced their wav into the MURAD IV til 1632 second court of the Seraglio, which was the usual hall of the Divan, and they clamored for the Sultan to come forth and hold a Divan among them. The Sultan appeared and held a Divan standing. He spoke to the mutineers, "What is your will, my servants?" Loudly and insolently they answered, " Give us the seventeen heads. Give these men up to us, that we may tear them in pieces, or it shall fare worse with thee." They pressed close upon the Sultan, and were about to lay hands on him. "You give no hearing to my words ; why have you called me hither ? " said Murad. He drew back, surrounded by his pages, into the inner court. The rebels came after him like a raging flood. Fortunately the pages barred the gate. But the alarm and the outcry became the greater. They shouted aloud, " The seventeen heads, or abdicate." Red jib Pasha, the secret promoter of the whole tumult, now approached the young Sultan, and urged on him that it was neces- sary to still the tumult by granting what was demanded. He said that it had become a custom for the chiefs to be given up to the soldiery. " The Unchained Slave must take what he pleases ; better the head of the Vizier than that of the Sultan." Murad sorrowfully gave way and sent a summons to Hafiz to return and die. The Vizier hesitated not and as he came back the Sultan met him at the water-gate. The gate of the inner court was then opened. The Sultan ascended the throne of state, and four deputies from the insurgents, two Spahis and two Janissaries, came before him. He implored them not to profane the honor of the Caliphate, but he pleaded in vain; the cry was still " The seventeen heads." Mean- while Hafiz Pasha had made the ablution necessary to death, which the Mohammedan law requires, and he now stood forth and ad- dressed Murad. " My Padishah," said he, " let a thousand slaves, such as Hafiz, perish for thy sake. I only entreat that thou do not thyself put me to death, but give me up to these men, that I may die a martyr, and that my innocent blood may come upon their heads. Let my body be buried at Scutari." He then kissed the earth, and exclaimed, " In the name of God, the All-merciful, the All-good. There is no power or might save with God, the most High, the Almighty. His we are, and unto Him we return." Hafiz then strode forth a hero into the fatal court. The Sultan sobbed aloud, the pages wept bitterly, the Viziers gazed with tearful eyes. The rebels rushed to meet him as he advanced. To sell his life as a martyr, he struck tlie foremost to the ground with a well-aimed 218 TURKEY 1632 buffet, on which the rest sprang on him with their daggers and pierced him with seventeen mortal wounds. A Janissary knelt on his breast and struck off his head. The pages of the Seraglio came forward and spread a robe over the corpse. Then said the Sultan, " God's will be done ! But in His appointed time ye shall meet with vengeance, ye men of blood, who have neither the fear of God before your eyes nor respect for the law of the Prophet." The threat was little heeded at the time, but it was uttered by one who never menaced in vain. Within two months after this scene fresh victims had fallen before the bloodthirsty rabble that now disgraced the name of Turkish troops. The deposition of Murad was openly discussed in their barracks, and the young Sultan saw that the terrible alter- native, " Kill, or be killed," was no longer to be evaded. Some better spirits in the army, shamed and heartsick at the spirit of brigandage that was so insolently dominant over court and camp, placed their swords at their sovereign's disposal ; and a small but brave force, that could be relied on in the hour of need, was grad- ually and quietly organized. The dissensions also among the mutin- ous troops themselves, and especially the ancient jealousy between the Spahis and the Janissaries, offered means for repressing them all, of which Murad availed himself with boldness and skill. His first act was to put the arch-traitor, Red jib Pasha, suddenly and secretly to death. He then proceeded to the more difficult one of reducing the army to submission. The was done on May 29, 1632, the day on which the Sultan emancipated himself from his military tyrants, and commenced also his own reign of terror. Murad held a pub- lic Divan on the shore of the sea near the Kiosk of Sinan. The Mufti, the Viziers, the chief members of the Ulema were there, and the two military chiefs, who had devoted themselves to the cause of the Sultan against the mutinous troops, Kcese Mohammed and Rum Mohammed. Six squadrons of horseguards, whose loyalty could be trusted, were also in attendance and ready for immediate action. Murad seated himself on tlT throne and sent a message to the Spahis, who were assembled in the hippodrome, requiring the attendance of a deputation of their officers. Murad then summoned the Janissaries before him and addressed them as faithful troops who were enemies to the rebels in the other corps. The Janissaries shouted out that the Padishah's enemies were their enemies also, and took with zealous readiness an oath of implicit MURAD IV 219 1632 obedience, which was suggested at the moment. Then all present, the Sultan, the Viziers, the Mufti, and the chief officers, signed a written manifesto, by which they bound themselves to suppress abuses and maintain public order, under the penalty of bringing on their heads the curses of God, of the Prophet, of all angels, and of all true believers. Murad had need of acts as well as of words, and the work of death speedily began. Energetic and trusty emissaries were sent through Constantinople, who slew the leaders of the late insurrec- tion, and all whom Murad marked for destruction. The troops, de- prived of their chiefs and suspicious of each other, trembled and obeyed. The same measures were taken in the provinces, and for many months the sword and the bowstring were incessantly active. But it was in the capital, and under Murad's own eye, that the revenge of royalty for its long humiliation reaped the bloodiest har- vest. Every morning the Bosphorus threw up on its shores the corpses of those who had been executed during the preceding night, and in them the anxious spectators recognized Janissaries and Spahis whom they had lately seen parading the streets in all the haughtiness of military license. The personal appearance and cour- age of Murad, his bold and martial demeanor, confirmed the respect and awe which this strenuous ferocity inspired. He was in the twentieth year of his age, and though but little above the middle stature, his bodily frame united strength and activity in a remark- able degree. His features were regular and handsome. His aquiline nose, and the jet-black beard which had begun to grace his chin, gave dignity to his aspect ; but the imperious luster of his full dark eyes was marred by a habitual frown, which, however, suited well the sternness of his character. Every day he displayed his horsemanship in the hippodrome; and he won the involuntary admiration of the soldiery by his strength and skill as a cavalier and swordsman, and by his unrivaled force and dexterity in the use of the bow. He patrolled the streets in disguise at night, and often, with his own hand, struck dead the offenders against his numerous edicts in matters of police. If any menacing assemblage began to form in any of the streets, the Sultan received speedy tidings from his numerous spies; and before revolt could be ma- tured, Murad was on the spot, well armed, and with a trusty guard of choice troops. He rode fearlessly in among the groups of Spahis or Janissaries, who slunk in savage silence from before their Sultan, 220 TURKEY 1630-1637 each dreading lest that keen eye should recognize and mark him, and that unforgiving lip pronounce his doom. The insurrection in Asia Minor had been quelled in 1630 by the defeat and submission of Abaza, whom Murad had spared, principally out of sympathy with his hatred toward the Janissaries, and had made Pasha of Bosnia. He now employed that able and ruthless chief in Constantinople, and appointed him Aga of his old enemies, the Janissaries. Abaza served his stern master well in that perilous station; but he at last incurred the displeasure of Murad, and was executed in 1634. The habit of bloodshedding had now grown into a second nature with the Sultan. All faults, small or great, were visited by him with the same short, sharp, and final sentence; and the least shade of suspicion that crossed his restless mind was sufificient to ensure its victim's doom. He struck before he censured, and at last the terror with which he was re- garded was so general and profound that men who were summoned to the Sultan's presence commonly made the death-ablution before they entered the palace. In the last years of Murad's life his ferocity of temper was fearfully aggravated by the habits of intoxication which he ac- quired. In one of his nocturnal perambulations of the capital he met a drunkard named Mustapha Bekir, who entered into conver- sation with him, and boasted that he possessed that which would purchase all Constantinople, and " the son of a slave '' himself. (" The son of a slave '' is a term by which the Turkish people often speak of the Sultan.) In the morning Murad sent for the man and reminded him of his words. Nothing daunted, Bekir drew a flask of wine from his robe and held it out to the Sultan, saying : " Here is the liquid gold, which outweighs all the treasures of the universe, which makes a beggar more glorious than a king, and turns the mendicant Fakir into a horned Alexander." Struck with the con- fidence and joyous spirit of the bold bacchanal. Murad drained the flask, and thenceforth Alustapha Bekir and the Sultan were boon companions. When the plague was in 1637 carrying off 500 victims daily at Constantinople, Murad often passed his nights in revels with his favorite. " This summer," he said, " God is punishing the rogues. Perhaps by winter Hie will come to the honest men." Never, however, did Murad wholly lose in habits of indulgence the vij^'or of either mind or body. When civil or military duty required his vigilance, none could surpass him in austere abstemi- M U R A D I V 221 1630-1638 ousness or in the capacity for labor. And, with all his misdeeds, he saved his country. He tolerated no crimes but his own. The worst of evils, the sway of petty local tryants, ceased under his dominion. He was unremittingly and unrelentingly watchful in visiting the offenses of all who were in authority under him, as well as those of the mass of his subjects ; and the worst tyranny of the single despot was a far less grievous curse to the empire than had been the military anarchy which he quelled. Order and subordina- tion were restored under his iron sway. There was discipline in the camps ; there was pure justice on the tribunals. The revenues were fairly raised and honestly administered. The abuses of the feudal system of the Ziamets and Timars were extirpated; and if Murad was dreaded at home, he made himself still more feared by the foe abroad. It was at first highly perilous for him to leave the central seat of empire. He commenced an expedition into the troubled parts of his Asiatic dominions in the end of the year 1633 ; but when he had marched a little beyond Nicomedia he hanged the chief judge of that city because he found the roads in bad repair. This excited great indignation among the Ulema, and the leaders of that for- midable body began to express sentiments little favorable to the Sultan's authority. W^arned by his mother, tlie Sultana Valide, of these discontents, Alurad returned suddenly to Constantinople and put the chief ^lufti to death. This is said to be a solitary instance of the death of a Mufti by a Sultan's order. It effectually curbed the tongues and pens of the men of tlie law during the remainder of ]\lurad"s reign. In 1638 he made his final and greatest expedition against the Persians, to reannex to the Otto- man Empire the great city of Bagdad, which had been in the power of those enemies of tlie lnjiise of Othman and of the Sunnite creed for fifteen years, and had been repeatedly besieged in vain by Turkisli armies. There is a tradition in the East that Bagdad, the ancient city of the Caliphate, can only be taken by a sovereign in person. The Great Suleiman had first won it for Turkey; and now, at tlie end of a century after that conquest, Murad IV. pre- pared his armies lor its recovery. The imperial standard of the Seven Horsetails was i)lantcd on the heights of Scutari on March 9, 1638. and a week afterward Murad joined the army. A proc- lamation was made by which tlie march from Scutari to Bagdad was divided into no days' journey, with fixed periods for halts; 22 TURKEY 1638 and on May 8 the vast liost moved steadily forward in unmunnur- ing obedience to its leader's will. Throughout this second progress of Murad he showed the same inquisitorial strictness and merciless severity in examining the conduct of all the provincial authorities that had been felt on his former march to Eriwan. Pashas, judges, Imams, and tax collectors thronged to kiss the Sultan's stirrup, and if there was the slightest taint of suspicion on the character of any functionary for probity, activity, or loyalty, the head of the un- happy homager rolled in the dust beneath the imperial charger's hoofs. On November 15, 1638, after the preappointed no days of march and 86 days of halt, the Ottoman standards again appeared before Bagdad, and the last siege of this great city com- menced. The fortifications were strong; the garrison amounted to 30,000 men, 1200 of whom were regularly trained musketeers; and the Persian governor, Bektish Khan, was an officer of proved ability and bravery. A desperate resistance was expected, and was encountered by the Turks ; but their numbers, their discipline, and the resolute skill of their Sultan prevailed over all. Murad gave his men an example of patient toil, as well as active courage. He labored in the trenches and pointed the cannon with his own hands. And when, in one of the numerous sorties made by the garrison, a Persian soldier, of gigantic size and strength, challenged the best and boldest Turk to single combat, Murad stood forth in person, and after a long and doubtful conflict clove his foe from skull to chin with a saber stroke. On December 22 the Turk- ish artillery had made a breach of eighty yards, along which the defenses were so completely leveled that, in the words of an Ottoman writer, " a blind man might have galloped over them with loose bridle without his horse stumbling." The ditch had been heaped up with fascines, and the Turks rushed forward to an assault which was for two days baffled by the number and valor of the besieged. On the evening of the second day Murad bitterly re- proached his Grand Vizier, Tayar Mohammed Pasha, for tlie repulse of the troops, and accused him of want of courage. The Vizier replied, " Would to God, my Padishah, that it were half as easy to ensure for thee the winning of Bagdad as it will be for me to lay down my life in the breach to-morrow in thy service." On the third day (Christmas eve, 1638) Tayar Mohammed led the forlorn hope in person, and was shot dead through the throat M U R A D I V 23 1638-1640 by a volley from the Persian musketeers. But the Turks poured on with unremitted impetuosity, and at length the city was carried. Part of the garrison, which had retired to some inner defenses, asked for quarter, which was at first granted ; but a conflict having accidentally recommenced in the streets between some Persian mus- keteers and a Turkish detachment, Murad ordered a general slaughter of the Persians, and after a whole day of butchery scarcely 300 out of the garrison, which had originally consisted of 30,000 men, were left alive. A few days afterward Murad was exasperated by the accidental or designed explosion of a powder magazine, by which 800 Janissaries were killed and wounded ; and he commanded a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, in which 30,000 are computed by the Ottoman historians to have perished. In February Murad commenced his homeward march, after having repaired the city walls, and left one of his best generals with 12,000 troops to occupy Bagdad, which has never since been wrested from the Turks. The Sultan reached Constantinople on June 10, 1638, and made a triumphal entry into his capital, which is memorable, not only on account of its splendor and of the importance of the conquest which it celebrated, but because it was then that Constanti- nople beheld for the last time the once familiar spectacle of the return of her monarch victorious from a campaign which he had conducted in person. A peace with Persia, on the basis of that which Suleiman the Great had granted in 1555, was the speedy result of Murad's victories (September 15, 1639). Eriwan was restored by the Porte ; but the possession of Bagdad and the adjacent territory by the Ottomans was solemnly sanctioned and confirmed. Eighty years passed away before Turkey was again obliged to struggle against her old and obstinate enemy on the line of the Euphrates. For this long cessation of exhausting hostilities, and this enduring acknowledgment of superiority by Persia, Turkey owes a deep debt of gratitude to the memory of Murad IV. Murad died at the age of twenty-eight, on February 9, 1640. In the interval between his return from Bagdad and his last illness he had endeavored to restore the fallen naval power of his empire : he had quelled the spirit of insurrection that had been rife in Albania and the neighboring districts during his absence in Asia, and he was believed to be preparing for a war with Venice. A fever, aggravated by his habits of intemperance and by his 224 TURK E Y 1640 superstitious alarm at an eclipse of the sun, proved fatal to him after an illness of fifteen days. One of his last acts was to command the execution of his sole surviving brother, Ibrahim. It may be doubted whether this mark of " the ruling spirit strong in death " was caused by the delirium of fever, or from a desire that his favorite, the Silihdar Pasha, should succeed to the throne on the extinction of the race of Othman, or whether Murad IV. wished for the gloomy satisfaction of knowing that his house and dynasty would descend to the grave with him. The Sultana Valide pre- served Ibrahim's life, and used the pious fraud of a false message to the Sultan that his command had been fulfilled. Murad, then almost in the pangs of death, " grinned horrible a ghastly smile " in the belief that his brother was slain, and tried to rise from his bed to behold the supposed dead body. His attendants, who trembled for their own lives should the deception be detected, forcibly held liim back on the couch. The Imam, who had been waiting in an adjoining room, but had hitherto feared to approach the terrible dying man, was now brought forward by the pages ; and while the priest commenced his words of prayer, the " elf era vis animi " of Murad IV. departed from the world. ChapterX V THE AGE OF THE GREAT VIZIERS. 1 640-1677 WE have now traced the fortunes of the house of Othman during a period of nearly four hundred years. A further space of rather more than two centuries remains to be examined, which comprises the reigns of fifteen princes. But, with the exception of the great though unsuccessful Mahmud II., perhaps with the exceptions also of Mustapha II. and Selim III., the Turkish princes whom we are proceeding to contemplate form figures of but languid interest on the historic page. The decay of the state accords wnth the degeneracy of its rulers ; and minute descriptions of the troubles and calamities of declining empire are generally monotonous and unattractive. We shall indeed still have our attention drawn to fierce and eventful wars; and we shall still meet wnth names that must ever live high in martial renown ; but they are wars in which the Crescent has generally, though not invariably, gone back; they are principally the names of command- ers who have grown great, not in the advancement, but at the expense of the house of Othman ; such names as Montecuculi, Sobieski, Eugene, and Suvarov. Yet gleams of glory and success on the Turkish side will not be found altogether wanting, and there have been truly great men in the councils and the armies of Turkey. She has had her Kiuprilis, and others, whose names have long deserved and commanded more than merely Oriental celebrity. We may remark, also, that these last two centuries of Ottoman history, though less picturesque and spirit-stirring than its earlier periods, are more practically instructive and valuable for us to study, with reference to the great problems which the states of Central and W^estern Europe are now called on to solve. When Sultan Alurad TV. expired, his brother Ibrahim, whom witli his own dying breath he had vainly doomed to die, w^as the sole surviving representative in male descent of the house of Oth- man. Ibrahim had during ^Murad's reig'n been a prisoner in the royal palace, and for the last eight years had trembled in the daily 225 2J26 TURKEY 1640-1648 expectation of death. When the grandees of the empire hastened to his apartment with the tidings that Sultan Murad was no more, and with congratulations to their new sovereign, Ibrahim in his terror thought that the executioners were approaching, and barred the door against them. He long refused to believe their assurances of Murad's decease, and was only convinced when the Sultana- mother ordered the body of her dead son to be carried within sight of the living one. Then Ibrahim came forth, and mounted the Turkish throne, which received in him a selfish voluptuary, in whom long imprisonment and protracted terror had debased whatever spirit nature might have originally bestowed, and who was as rapacious and bloodthirsty as he was cowardly and mean. Under Ibrahim the worst evils that had prevailed in the time of Murad's weakest predecessors were speedily revived ; while the spirit of cruelty in which Murad had governed continued to rage with even greater enormity. For a short period Ibrahim's first Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha, labored to check the excesses and supply the deficiencies of his sov- ereign. The Christian subjects of the Porte received from Kara Mustapha impartial justice; and he attempted with some degree of temporary success to keep down the growth of abuses in the finan- cial administration of the empire. He had the perilous honesty to speak with frankness to the dissolute tyrant whom he served, to oppose Ibrahim's mad caprices, and to strive against the pernicious influence of the favorite sultanas and buffoons, who trafficked in the sale of posts and dignities. The offense which the Vizier thus gave, and the reputation of having amassed much wealth, were sure causes of ruin to one who served a moody and avaricious master like Ibrahim. At the same time the Vizier's character was far from faultless, and his errors and his merits cooperated to effect his destruction. The successor of Kara Mustapha in the Grand Vizierate was Sultanzade Pasha. Pie was determined not to incur his predecessor's fate by uncourtly frankness toward his sovereign. He flattered every caprice, and was the ready instrument of every passion of the Sultan, whose immoderate appetite for sensual pleasures and savage fondness of ordering and of witnessing acts of cruelty now raged without stint or shame. The treasures which the stern prudence of Murad had accu- mulated were soon squandered by the effeminate prodigality of his successor. In order to obtain fresh supplies of gold for his worth- AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 227 1640-1648 less favorites, and for the realization of his wild fancies, Ibrahim sold every office of state, and every step in the honors both of pen and sword, to the highest bidder. The burdens of the old taxes were inordinately increased, and new imposts were added, the very names of which showed the frivolous causes for which the Sultan drained the resources of his subjects, thus adding the sense of insult to that of oppression. One of Ibrahim's passions w^as a morbid craving for perfumes, especially for amber. Another was an excessive fondness not only for w^earing, but for seeing around him, furs of the most rare and costly description. To meet these desires Ibrahim created two new taxes, one called the fur tax and the other called the amber tax. A colonel of the Janissaries, named Black Murad, to whom the five hundred men of his regiment were devotedly attached, at this time returned from the Candian wars and was met on landing by a treasury officer, who, in con- formity with the resolution of the Divan, demanded of him so many sable-skins, so many ounces of amber, and a certain sum of money. Rolling his eyes, bloodshot with wrath, on the tax-gatherer. Black Murad growled out : " I have brought nothing back from Candia but gunpowder and lead. Sables and amber are things that I know only by name. Money I have none; and if I am to give it you, I must first beg or borrow it." The disasters of the Venetian wars during the year 1648 irritated more and more the Ottoman nation against their imbecile but oppressive ruler, and a formidable con- spiracy was organized to deprive him of the power which he abused. The conspiracy was headed by Black Murad, with whom were associated many officers of the Janissaries and the whole body of the Ulema, whose chief had been grossly insulted by Ibrahim. The insurgents surrounded the palace, put to death the obnoxious Vizier, and in spite of the entreaties of the Sultana Valide declared Ibrahim deposed in favor of his son Mohammed. Ibrahim was kept in sure but not rigorous captivity for ten days, when a tumult among the Spahis, some of whom raised a cry in his favor, decided his fate. The chiefs of the late revolution resolved to secure them- selves against a reaction in behalf of Ibrahim by putting him to death. They laid a formal case before the Mufti, and demanded his opinion on the following question : " Is it lawful to depose and put to death a sovereign who confers the dignities of the pen and of the sword not on those who are worthy of them, but on those who buy them for money? " The laconic answer of the Mufti was, 228 TURKEY 1640-1648 *' Yes." The ministers of death were accordingly sent to Ibrahim's prison, whither the Mufti, the new Grand Vizier Sofi Mohammed, and their principal colleagues also repaired, to witness and to ensure the fulfillment of the sentence. Ibrahim was reading the Koran when they entered. Seeing them accompanied by the executioners, whom he himself had so often employed to do their deadly work in his presence, he knew his hour was come, and he exclaimed, " Is there no one of all those who have eaten my bread that will pity and protect me? These men of blood have come to kill me! Oh, mercy ! mercy ! " The trembling executioners were sternly com- manded by the Mufti and the Vizier to do their duty. Seized in their fatal grasp, the wretched Ibrahim broke out into blasphemies and curses, and died invoking the vengeance of God upon the Turkish nation for their disloyalty to their sovereign. The Mufti justified his regicidal fetwah by the authority of the sentence in the law which says : " If there are two Caliphs let one of them be put to death." This sentence Von Hammer terms " a proposition to shudder at in the law of Islam. A proposition Vvhich, arbitrarily applied and extended, sanctions the execution not only of all deposed sovereigns, but also of all princes whose exist- ence seems to menace the master of the throne with rivalry. It is the bloody authorization of the state maxim of the Ottomans for the murder of kings' brothers, sons, and fathers." ^ The principal foreign events of the reign of Ibrahim were the siege of Azov and the commencement of the long war with the Venetians, called the war of Candia. The important city of Azov, which commands the navigation of the sea of that name, and gives to its occupiers great advantages for warlike operations in the Crimea and along all the coasts of the Euxine, had, at the time of Il)rahim's accession, been for four years in the possession of the Cossacks of the vicinity, who were nominal subjects of the Russian Czar. Ibrahim's first Vizier, Kara Mustapha, was well aware of the necessity of maintaining the Turkish power northward of the Black Sea; and in 1641 a strong army and fleet left Constantinople f(jr the recovery of Azov. This expedition was aided by a Tartar force under the Khan of the Crimea. The Cossacks defended the place braxely. and after a siege of three months the Turks were obliged t(j retire with a loss of 7000 Janissaries and of a multitude of auxiliary W'allachians, Moldavians, and Tartars, whom the 1 Von Hammer, "History of the Ottoman Empire," vol. iii. p 321. AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 229 1640-1648 Ottoman historians do not enumerate. A fresh expedition was sent in the next year, and on this occasion Mohammed Ghirai, the Crimean Khan, led no less than 100,000 Tartars to Azov, to co- operate with the regular Turkish troops. The Cossacks found themselves unable to resist such a force. The Czar refused to aid them, and sent an embassy from jMoscow to Ibrahim, renouncing all concern with Azov, and desiring to renew the old amity between Russia and the Porte. In this emergency the Cossack garrison, with the same ferocious energy which their race has often displayed, set fire to the city which they could no longer defend, and left a heap of ruins for the Turks and Tartars to occupy. The Ottoman general rebuilt the city and fortified it anew with care commensurate with the importance of the post. A garrison of 26,000 men, in- cluding twenty companies of Janissaries, with a numerous train of artillery, was left under Islam Pasha to protect the Turkish interests in these regions. The incessant attacks of the Cossacks on the Turkish and of the Tartars on the Russian territories were tlie subjects of frequent complaints between the courts of Moscow and Constantinople dur- ing Ibrahim's reign. Each sovereign required the other to keep his lawless vassals in check. The Czar Alexis ]\Iikhaiovich pro- tested against being held responsible for the acts of the Cossacks, whom, in a letter to the Sultan, he termed " a horde of malefactors who had withdrawn as far as possible from the reach of their sovereign's power in order to escape the punishment due to their crimes." The Sultan and the Vizier, on the other hand, required that no one on the side of Russia should do the least damage to aught that belonged to a subject of the Sublime Porte, either on the Sea of Azov or the Black Sea. The pretext of shifting the blame on the Cossacks, and in general, all excuses, were to be inadmissible. On condition of this being done, and of the Czar paying the ancient tribute to the Khan of the Crimea, the Sultan promised not to aid the Tartars against Moscow. But whatever the sovereigns might write or desire, still the system of border war between Cossack and Tartar was carried on ; and the Turkish and Russian troops more than once came into collision north of the Black Sea in Ibrahim's time while protecting their irregular confederates or seeking re- dress for themselves. In 1646 the Tartars pursued the Cossacks into the southern provinces of Russia and brought away thence 3000 prisoners, whom they sold for slaves at Perekop. A Russian 230 TURKEY 1640-164& army advanced against Azov, to avenge that affront, but was beaten in several actions by Mousa Pasha and the Turkish garrison, who sent 400 prisoners and 800 Muscovites' heads to Constantinople as trophies of their success. The Crimean Khan, Islam Ghirai, was more bitter against the Russians than was his master the Sultan, and boldly refused to obey orders from Constantinople not to molest those whom he regarded as the natural enemies of the Turkish Empire. He had early in 1648 made an incursion into Poland and Russia, and car- ried off 40,000 subjects of those realms into slavery. The Polish and Russian sovereigns sent ambassadors to the Sublime Porte to ask redress : and Ibrahim dispatched two of his officers to the Crimea with a letter to the Khan in which he was commanded to collect the Christian prisoners whom he had seized in violation of all treaties, and to send them to Constantinople, that they might be given up to the representatives of their governments. Khan Ghirai read the letter, and coldly replied " I and all here are the Sultan's servants. But the Russians only desire peace in appear- ance; they only ask for it while they feel the weight of our vic- torious arms. If we give them breathing time, they ravage the coasts of Anatolia with their squadrons. 1 have more than once represented to the Divan that there were two neglected strong places in this neighborhood, which it would be prudent for us to occupy. Now, the Russians have made themselves masters of them; and they have raised more than twenty little fortified posts. If we are to remain inactive this year, they will seize Akerman, and conquer all Moldavia." With this answer the Sultan's mes- sengers were obliged to return to Constantinople. The immediate occasion of the war of Candia was the offense given in 1644 to the Sultan by the capture of a rich fleet of mer- chant vessels which was voyaging from Constantinople to Egypt. The ca])tors were Maltese, not Venetian, galleys, but they anchored with their prizes in the roads of Kalismene on the south coast of Candia, which had now been in the possession of the Venetians since the time of the fourth crusade, when, on partitioning the conquered Greek Empire, they purchased that important island from their fellow-crusader the Marquis of Montserrat, to whom it had first been allotted as his portion of the sacred spoil. Sultan Ibrahim was maddened with rage when he heard of the capture of the Turkish ships, some of which were the property of one of AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 231 1640-1648 the chief eunuchs of the imperial household. He threatened de- struction to the whole Christian name, and ordered armaments to be instantly dispatched against the Maltese knights ; but his officers persuaded him not to renew the enterprise, in which the great Sulei- man had failed so signally, against the barren and strongly for- tified rock of Malta; and rather to turn his arms to the acquisi- tion of the rich and valuable Isle of Candia. They pointed out to him that Candia was most advantageously situated for incorpora- tion with the Ottoman dominions, and that it might be easily wrested by surprise from its Venetian masters, who had given just cause for hostilities by allowing the piratical Maltese to secure their booty on the Cretan coasts. It was resolved accordingly by the Porte to attack Candia. There was at that time peace be- tween Turkey and Venice. Ibrahim and his ministers determined to aid force by fraud, and they pretended to receive most gra- ciously the excuses which the Republic of St. Mark offered for the accidental reception of the Maltese galleys at Kalismene. A large fleet and army Iqft the Dardanelles on April 30, 1645, with the declared object of assailing Malta; but, after the expedition had paused for a time on the south coast of the Morea, the Gener- alissimo Yusuf Pasha put to sea again, read to his assembled captains the Sultan's orders, which had previously been kept secret ; and instead of sailing westward for Malta, stood to the south with a favorable wind, which brought the Turkish squadron to Canea, at the western extremity of the Isle of Candia, on June 24. The suspicions of the Venetian Government as to the real object of the expedition had not been wholly quieted by the protestations of the Sultan's ministers. Orders had been sent from Venice to put the fortresses of the island in a state of defense, and to collect the militia ; and reinforcements had been sent to the garrison. But the native population hated the rule of the Venetian oligarchy ; and the troops and galleys under the governor's command were inadequate for the defense of so long a line of seaboard as Crete presents to an invader. The Turks landed without opposition; and Canea, the principal city of the western part of the island, was besieged and captured by them before the end of August. In the following year they took Retino, and in the spring of 1648 they began the siege of Candia, the capital of the island. This memorable siege was prolonged for twenty years by the desperate exertions of the Venetians, who strained their utmost resources 232 T U 11 K E Y 1648-1656 to rescue Candia. They frequently inflicted severe and humiliating defeats on the Turkish squadrons; they even captured the islands of Lemnos and Tenedos from the Ottomans, and more than once ravaged the coasts near Constantinople; but they were never able to drive away the besieging army from before Candia; though the operations of the Turks were retarded and often paralyzed by tlie imbecility and corruption of the Sublime Porte throughout the reign of Ibrahim, and the first part of that of his son Mohammed IV., whose elevation to the throne at the age of seven years, when his father was deposed and murdered, has been already narrated. It would be useless to dwell on the internal history of Turkey during the minority of Mohammed IV., or to recapitulate the ever- recurring incidents of court intrigue, military insubordination and violence, judicial venality, local oppression and provincial revolt. The strife of factions was aggravated by the deadly rivalry that sprang up between the old Sultana Valide, the Sultan's grand- mother, and his mother, the young Sultana Valide, whose name was Tarkhan a rivalry which led to the murder of the elder princess. As no stronger foe than Venice attacked the Ottoman Empire, it lingered on through this period of renewed misery and weakness, until at length, in 1656, through the influence of the Sultana Tarkhan, the Grand Vizierate was given to an aged states- man named Mohammed Kiuprili, who deserves to be honored as the founder of a dynasty of ministers that raised Turkey, in spite of the deficiency of her princes, once more to comparative power, and prosperity, and glory, and who long retarded, if they could not avert, the ultimate decline of the Ottoman Empire. Mohammed Kiuprili was the grandson of an Albanian who had migrated to Asia Minor and settled in the town of Kiupri, near the mouth of the River Halys. The ruler of the councils of tlie Ottoman Empire had been, in early youth, a kitchen-boy, from which situation he rose to that of a cook. After twenty-five years of service he became the steward of the Grand Vizier Khosru: and under Khosru's successor he was made Master of the Horse. That successor favored Kiuprili, as being a native of the same province as himself; and by his influence Kiuprili was made Governor of Damascus, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, and one of the Viziers of state. Afterward he accepted the inferior post of Sanjak Beg of Giuztcndil in Albania, where he led an armed force against S(jme of the numertjus insurgents of that region, but was defeated AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 233 1656-1661 and taken prisoner. After he was redeemed from captivity he retired to his native town, but was persuaded by a Pasha, called Mohammed with the Wry Neck, to follow him to Constantinople. His new patron became Grand Vizier, but soon began to regard Kiuprili as a dangerous rival for court favor. It does not, however, appear that Kiuprili used any unfair intrigues to obtain the Grand Vizierate. Friends who knew the firmness of his character, his activity, and his keen common sense, recommended him to the Sultana Valide as a man who might possibly restore some degree of tranquillity to the suffering empire, and the Grand Vizierate was offered to Kiuprili, then in the seventieth year of his age. He refused to accept it, save upon certain conditions. He required that all his measures should be ratified without examination or discussion; that he should have free hands in the distribution of all offices and preferments, and in dealing out rewards and punish- ments, without attending to recommendations from any quarter, and without any responsibility; that he should have authority superior to all influence of great men or favorites ; that exclusive confidence should be placed in him, and all accusations and insin- uations against him should be instantly rejected. The Sultana Valide, in behalf of her son, swore solemnly that all these condi- tions should be fulfilled, and Mohammed Kiuprili became Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. His former patron, Mohammed the Wry-Necked, had been dismissed to make room for him ; and the court had ordered that the deposed minister should be put to death, and that his goods should be confiscated in the usual manner. Kiuprili interceded and saved his life, and gave him the revenues of the government of Kanisha. This was the first, and it was almost the last, act of humanity that marked Kiuprili's administration. A stern correc- tion of abuses was required, and Kiuprili applied it, not indeed with the ostentatious cruelty of Sultan Murad IV., but with the same searching and unsparing severity which had marked that monarch's rule. Kiuprili took the precaution of compelling the Mufti to sign a fetwah sanctioning by anticipation all the Grand Vizier's measures, and he then employed the most efficacious means for ridding the empire of all who disturbed or threatened public order. A number of fanatical Sheiks and dervishes wlu^ troubled Constantin(;ple by their tumults, and their lawless violence against all who did not comply with their dogmas, were seized 234 TURKEY 1656-1661 and banished. One of them, who murmured against the Vizier, and who had great influence with the populace, was strangled and thrown into the Bosphorus. Kiuprili intercepted a letter from the Greek Patriarch to the Voievode of Wallachia, containing a pre- diction very similar to those which are frequent in our own time. The Patriarch said, "The power of Islam is drawing to an end. The Christian faith will soon be supreme. All their lands will speedily be in the possession of the Christians; and the Lords of the Cross and the Church-bell will be the Lords of the empire." Kiuprili read in this an encouragement to revolt, and hanged the Greek Patriarch over one of the city gates. No delinquency past or present, no preparation for plot or mutiny, escaped the Vizier's vigilance. He planted his spies in every province and town, and secured the agency of trusty and unquestioning executioners of his commands. The impress of a resolute will was felt throughout the empire, and men obeyed without hesitation the man whom they perceived never hesitated himself, never neglected or abandoned those who served him, and never forgave those who thwarted or disobeyed him. Thirty-six thousand persons are said to have been put to death by Mohammed Kiuprili's command during the five years of his Grand Vizierate. The chief executioner of Constantinople, Sul- fikar, confessed afterward that he himself had strangled more than four thousand and thrown them into the Bosphorus. Von Hammer, who repeats and accredits these numbers, states that the aged despot, who thus marked every month of his ministry by the sacrifice of more than five hundred lives, had acquired a reputation for mildness and humanity when he was a provincial governor. It is fair to suppose that he lavished human life when Grand Vizier, not out of any natural cruelty in his disposition, but from the belief that he could not otherwise suppress revolt and anarchy, and maintain complete obedience to his authority. The price at which the restoration of order was bought under Mohammed Kiuprili was indeed fearful ; but, though excessive, it was not paid in vain. The revolts which had raged in Transylvania and Asia Minor were quelled; the naval strength of the empire was revived; the Dar- danelles were fortified ; the Ottoman power beyond the Black Sea was strengthened by the erection of castles on the Dneiper and the Don ; and, though the war in Candia still lingered, the islands of Lemnos and Tenedos were recovered from the Venetians. His AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 235 1661 own authority in the empire was unshaken until the last hour of his life; and he obtained for his still more celebrated son, Ahmed Kiuprili, the succession to the Grand Vizierate. It is said that old Kiuprili, when on his death-bed, October 31, 1661, after recom- mending his son as the future Vizier, gave the young Sultan four especial rules to follow. One was, never to listen to the advice of women : another was, never to let a subject grow over-rich : the third was, to keep the public treasury full by all possible means: and the last, to be continually on horseback, and keep his armies in constant action. Sultan Mohammed IV. was now advancing toward manhood, but he was of far too weak a character to govern for himself. His great delight was the chase, and to this he devoted all his energies and all his time. Fortunately for his empire, he placed the most implicit confidence in Ahmed Kiuprili, the new Vizier, and maintained his favorite minister in power against all the nu- merous intrigues that were directed against him. Ahmed Kiuprili was the real ruler of Turkey from 1661 to his death in 1676; and he is justily eulogized both by Ottoman and Christian historians as the greatest statesman of his country. He was only twenty-six years of age when he was called on to govern the empire, but his naturally high abilities had been improved by the best education that the schools of Constantinople could supply, and he had learned practical statesmanship as a provincial governor and general dur- ing the ministry of his father. Ahmed Kiuprili could be as stern as his sire, w'hen duty to the state required severity; and he was equally tenacious in not permitting the least encroachment on his authority. But he was usually humane and generous, and his most earnest endeavors were directed to mitigate the burdens of imperial taxation, and to protect the people from the feudal exac- tions of the Spahis, and from the arbitrary violence of the Pashas and other local functionaries. Like his father, Ahmed Kiuprili commenced his administration by securing himself against any cabals of the Ulema ; and he gave at the same time a noble rebuke to the chief of that order, who spoke in the Divan against the memory of the late Grand Vizier. Ahmed Kiuprili said to him, " Mufti, if my father sentenced men to death, he did so by the sanction of thy fetwah." The Mufti answered, " If I gave him my fetwah, it was because I feared lest I should myself suffer under his cruelty." " Effendi," rejoined the 236 TURKEY 1661-1 564 Grand Vizier, " is it for thee, who art a teacher of the law of the Prophet, to fear God less than His creature?" The Mufti was silent. A few days afterward he was deposed and banished to Rhodes, and his important station given to Sanizade, a friend on whom Ahmed Kiuprili could rely. It was in the civil administration of the Turkish Empire that the genius of Ahmed Kiuprili found its best field of exercise, but he was soon called on to fulfill the military duties of the Grand Vizierate, and to head the Ottoman armies in the war with Austria, which broke out in 1663. This, like most of the other wars between the two empires, originated in the troubles and dissensions which were chronic for a century and a half in Hungary and Transyl- vania. After several conflicts of minor importance during 1661 and 1662 betvv'een the respective partisans of Austria and the Porte in these provinces, who were aided against each other by the neighboring Pashas and commandants, an Ottoman army was collected by the Grand Vizier on a scale of grandeur worthy of the victorious days of Suleiman Kanuni : and Kiuprili resolved not only to complete the ascendency of the Turks in Hungary and Transylvania, but to crush entirely and finally the power of Austria. ]\Iohammed IV. marched with his troops from Constantinople to Adrianople; but there he remained behind to resume his favorite hunting while his Grand Vizier led the army against the enemy. The Sultan placed the sacred standard of the Prophet in Kiu- prili's hands at parting; and on June 8, 1663, that formidable en- sign of Turkish war was displayed at Belgrade. Kiuprili had under his command 121,000 men, 123 field-pieces, 12 heavy bat- tering cannon, 60,000 camels, and 10,000 mules. With this im- pijsing force he overran the open country of Hungary and Transylvania almost without opposition, and besieged and cap- tured the strong city of Neuhausel in the September of that year, which was the most brilliant achievement that the Turks had effected in Europe since the battle of Cerestes, more than fifty years before. The Vizier, after this siege, did not recommence active operations with his main army until the spring of the following year, but his light troo])s spread devastation far and wide through Austria. In May, 1664, Kiuprili advanced and crossed the river Mur, and he besieged and captured the fortress of Serivar, which the Tiu-k.s dismantled and ^et fire to. on July 7, as a mark of contempt lor the reigning Emperor of Austria, by whom it had AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 237 1664 been founded. From the ruins of Serivar the Ottoman army marched northward, passing by the western extremity of Lake Balaton. They captured Egervar, Kipornak, and other strong places, and on July 26 the Turks reached the right bank of the River Raab^ near to the town of Ksermend. Could they cross that river tlie remainder of the march against Vienna seemed easy ; the imperialist army which opposed them in this campaign was inferior to them in numbers ; but happily for Austria, that army was commanded by one of the ablest generals of the age, who was destined to gain the first great victory of Christendom in a pitched battle in open field against the full force of the Turkish arms. Count Raymond de Montecuculi was, like many other of the greatest generals known in modern history, an Italian. He was born at Modena, of a noble famil}^ of that duchy, in 1608. He en- tered into the Austrian service, and acquired distinction in the lat- ter part of the Thirty Years' War, and afterward in hostilities against Poland. In 1664 he was named generalissimo of the im- perial forces and sent to check the menacing progress of the Turks. The Austrian and Hungarian army, which was placed under Montecuculi's command, was weak in numbers, and at the opening of the campaign he was unable to prevent the Vizier Kiuprili from crossing the Mur and reducing the Christian cities that lay between that river and the Raab. But while the Turks were engaged in these operations ]\Iontecuculi effected a junction with the auxiliary troops of the states of the empire, and also with a valuable force of French troops which had vc^Juntarily marched under the Count of Coligny and other noblemen to serx'e in the Hungarian war. With his army thus strengthened, Montecuculi took up a position near Krermend on the Raab, covering the road to Vienna ; and, from the breadth and rapidity of llie river in that place, the attempts made by the Ottoman vanguard to f(jrce a pas- sage were easily repulsed. Kiuprili now marched up the Raab, along the right bank toward Styria, closely followed along the left bank by Montecuculi, who thus turned the enemy farther away from the Austrian capital, and also from the Turkish reserves wliich were concentrating at Buda and Stuluveissenburg. Several efforts of the Turks to cross the river were checked by the imperialists, but at last the armies marched past tlie point where the Laufritz flows into the Rarih, in ^he vicinity of the village of St. Gothard, and then the single stream of the Raab wanted deptli and breadth suflkient 238 TURKEY 1664 to present a serious obstacle to the Turks. Both armies, therefore, halted and prepared for the battle which appeared to be inevitable. Some overtures for negotiation first took place, in which the Turk- ish officers behaved with the utmost arrogance. When Reningen, the Austrian envoy, spoke of the restoration of Neuhausel to the emperor, the Vizier and his Pashas laughed at him, and asked whether anyone had ever heard of the Ottomans voluntarily giving up a conquest to the Christians. They refused to admit the terms of the old Treaty of Sitvatorok as a basis for a peace, and said that peace must be granted, if at all, on principles created by the recent successes of the Sublime Porte. Montecuculi continued his prep- arations for battle: he issued careful directions to his troops, par- ticularizing the order of their array, the relative positions of each corps, the depth of the lines, and the disposal of the baggage and stores. August i, 1664, saw the result of Montecuculi's sage dispositions, and the first great proof that the balance of superi- ority between the Ottoman and Christian arms had at last been changed. The convent of St. Gothard, which has given name to this memorable battle, is on the right bank of the Raab, at a little dis- tance above its confluence with the Laufritz. A space of level ground extends along the right bank of the Raab westward from the convent and village of St. Gothard to the village of Windisch- dorf, also on the right bank of the river. These two villages formed the extreme wings of the Turkish position before the battle. Along the left bank of the river there is an extent of level ground of equal length with that on the right side, but of much greater breadth ; and it was here, on the left side, that the conflict took place. In the center of the plain, on the left side (that is to say in the center of the imperialist position) stands the village of IMoggersdorf, and immediately opposite to Moggersdorf the river bends in and de- scribes an arc toward the southern or Turkish side. This greatly facilitated the passage of the river by the Vizier, as he was enabled to place guns in battery on each side of the convex of the stream, and sweep away any troops that disputed the landing place on the other bank, in the center of the bend of the river. Montecuculi placed the auxiliary German troops of the empire in the center of his line, in and near to the village of Moggersdorf. The Austrians and Hungarians were in his right wing; the French auxiliaries formed his left. The Turks had a large superiority in numbers, and AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS S39 1664 in personal courage they were inferior to no possible antagonists. But the military discipline of the Turkish soldiers had become lamentably impaired since the days of Suleiman, when it com- manded the envious admiration of its Christian foes. It had even declined rapidly since the time when the last great battle between Turk and German was fought at Cerestes (1596). The deteriora- tion in the intelligence and skill of the Ottoman officers was still more conspicuous. On the opposite side, the German and the other armies of Western Christendom had acquired many improvements in their weapons, their tactics, and their general military organiza- tion during the Thirty Years' War, which had called into action the genius of such commanders as Tilly, Wallenstein, Gustavus Adolphus, Bernhard, Torstenston, Turenne, and Montecuculi him- self. The Turkish artillery, though numerous, was now cumbrous and ill-served, compared with the German. The Janissaries had given up the use of the pike (which seems to have been one of their weapons in Suleiman's time), and the Ottoman army was entirely deficient in foot brigades of steady spearmen, and also in heavily- armed regular cavalry. The German infantry was now formed of pikemen and of musketeers; and part of their horse consisted of heavy cuirassier regiments, which, in Montecuculi's judgment, were sure, if a fair opportunity of charging were given them, to ride down Turkish infantry or cavalry, witliout it being possible for any serious resistance to be offered to them. In that great general's opinion, the want of the pike, which he calls " the queen of weapons," was the fatal defect in the Turkish military system. We shall find the Chevalier Folard, half a century afterward, expressing a similar judgment with reference to the negligence of the Turks in not adopting the invention of the bayonet. Montecuculi's criticisms on the defects in the Turkish armies were written by him after the battle of St. Gothard ; but his mili- tary sagacity must have divined them as soon as he observed the Vizier's troops and made trial of their tactics and prowess in the early operations of the campaign. But the Turks themselves, be- fore they fought at St. Gothard, knew not their own deficiencies ; they were flushed with triumph at the advantages which they had hitherto gained under Ahmed Kiuprili ; and with full confidence in their chief and themselves, they advanced, about nine in the morn- ing of August I, 1664, to the Raab, and began the passage of the eventful stream. Kiuprili had placed his batteries along the 240 TTRKEY 1664 sides of the arc of the stream, which has already been described ; and his Janissaries, who were drawn up in the Turkish center, crossed the river without much loss and attacked and carried the village of Moggersdorf, The center of the Christians was thus com- pletely broken, and the Ottomans appeared to be certain of victory, when Montecuculi brought succor from the right wing. Prince Charles of Lorraine, who in this battle gave the prelude of his long and brilliant career, led his regiment of Austrian heavy cavalry to the charge in person, and killed with his own hand the commander of the Grand Vizier's guards. The advanced troops of the Turkish center, thus taken in flank by the Austrian cavalry, were driven back to the Raab; Moggersdorf was then attacked by the imperialists, and set on fire; but the Janissaries, who had entrenched themselves in the village, refused to retreat or surrender, and kept their post till tliey perished in the flames, with obstinacy (says Montecuculi) worthy to be reflected on and admired. Kiuprili brought large re- inforcements over from the right bank, and Montecuculi now^ sent word to the Count of Coligny and the French in his left wing that it was time for them to aid him with all their might. Coligny sent him instantly looo infantry and two squadrons of cavalry, under the Due de la Feuillade and Beauveze. When Kiuprili saw the French coming forward with their shaven chins and cheeks and powdered perruques, he asked scornfully of one of his attendants, " Who are these young girls? " But the young girls, as he termed them, without regarding the formidable Turkish battle-cry of "Allah!" rushed upon the Turks and cut them down, shouting out on their part, " Allans! Allons! Tiie! Tiie!" Those Janis- saries who escaped that carnage remembered long afterward the French cry of "Allons! Tiie!" and the Due de la Feuillade w'as for many years talked of in their barracks as " Fuladi," which means " The man of steel." Kiuprili's first attack had failed, though he still retained some ground on the left bank of the Raab. It w^as now near noon and he l)repare(l for a combined attack, such as he ought to have made in the first instance, upon both the Christian wings, while at the same time he assailed their center with greater forces. Four large masses of irregular Ottoman cavalry dashed across the Raab at ]\ronte- cuculi's right wing: three similar bodies attacked the French on the left; Kiii])i-ili led a force of cavalry and infantry upon the center. Meanwiiile, detached squadrons were ordered to pass AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 241 1664 the river at points a little distant from the field of battle, and gain the flanks and rear of the imperialists. An obstinate conflict now took place all along the line. Some parts of the Christian army gave ground, and several of its generals advised a retreat ; but Montecuculi told them that their only chance of safety, as well as of victory, was to take the oiffensive with a mass of the best troops and make a desperate charge on the Ottoman center. A strong force of the Christian cavalry was now concentrated for this pur- pose, and the word was passed along the ranks that they must break the Turks or perish. John Spork, the imperialist general of cavalry, who was called the Austrian Ajax, prostrated himself bareheaded on the ground in front of his men and prayed aloud : " Oh, mighty Generalissimo, who art on high, if thou wilt not this day help thy children the Christians, at least do not help these dogs the Turks, and thou shalt soon see something that will please thee." Having arranged his lines for the decisive charge, Montecuculi gave the word, and the imperialists rushed forward with a loud shout, which disconcerted the Turks, who, accustomed themselves to terrify their enemy by their battle-cry and to give the attack, recoiled before the unexpected assault of their opponents. Thrown into utter confusion by the irresistible shock of Montecuculi's cuirassiers, which was supported vigorously by the Christian musketeers and pikemen, the Ottomans were driven into the Raab Janissary, Spahi, Albanian, Tartar going down alike be- neath the impetuous rush of the Christian center, or flying in panic rout before it. The Ottoman cavalry in the wings lost courage at seeing the defeat of their center, where the Vizier and all their best troops were stationed, and they rode off the field without an effort to retrieve the fortune of the day. IMore than 16,000 Turks perished in the battle ; and the triumph of IMontecucuIi was graced by the capture of fifteen pieces of cannon and forty standards. On the morrow the victor caused a solemn service of thanksgiving to be celebrated on the field of battle. A chapel was founded there, and still attests the scene of this memorable battle, which commenced the compensation for the 300 years of defeat which European Christendom had sustained from Turkey, ever since the day when the confederate forces of Servia and Hungary were crushed by Sultan rMurad T. at Kosovo. It is because the battle of St. Gothard presents thus to our 242 TURKEY 1664 notice a turning point in the military history of Turkey that it has been described with a particularity of detail such as can be given to none of the long list of battles which yet will come before our notice while tracing the declining fortunes of the Ottoman Empire. The advantage also of possessing the comments of Montecuculi himself on this campaign, and on Turkish warfare generally, has been an additional reason for giving prominence to his victory at St. Gothard. The defects which he points out in the Turkish mili- tary system continued to exist until the reign of the Sultan Mah- mud II. They may be summed up as consisting in the neglect of the Turks to keep pace with the improvements made by other na- tions in the weapons and in the art of war, and in the appointment of incompetent officers through bribery and other corrupt influ- ences. The pernicious effects of these vices of the Ottoman war department have been partly counteracted by the remarkable per- sonal valor of the common soldiers among the Turks, their sobriety, and the vigor of their constitutions, and also by the care taken to provide them with good and sufficient provisions both when in barracks and when employed on active duty. These are favorable points in the Ottoman service which every military critic from Count Montecuculi down to Marshal Marmont has observed; and the more important of them, those which regard the natural soldierly qualities of the Ottoman population, show that Turkey has never lost that element of military greatness which no artificial means can create or revive, but to which the skill of great statesmen and great generals, if the Sultan's empire should be blessed with them, may superadd all that has for more than two centuries been deficient. The immediate result of the battle of St. Gothard was a truce for twenty years on the footing of the Treaty of Sitvatorok, which the Turks before their defeat had so arrogantly refused. But Neuhausel remained in the possession of the Ottomans, so that Ahmed Kiuprili, notwithstanding his great overthrow by Montecu- culi, was able to reenter Constantinople as a conqueror. His influ- ence over the Sultan was undiminished, and the next great military enterprise that Kiuprili undertook was one of uncheckered success and glory. This was the reduction of the city of Candia, which had now for nearly twenty years been vainly besieged or blockaded by the Turks. Mohammed IV. at first proposed to lead in person the great armament which Kiuprili collected at Adrianople for this ex- AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 243 1664-1669 pedition. The imperial tent was raised in the camp, and the Sultan caused to be read before him the accounts of the Turkish historians which narrate the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II., the battle of Calderan under Selim I., and the sieges of Rhodes and Belgrade by Suleiman. But Mohammed IV. appeased the martial ardor which those recitals produced in him by hunting with re- doubled energy. It was only in the chase that he was enterprising and bold; he shrank from the battle-field, and he was not even a hero in his harem, where a Greek slave-girl of Retino tyrannized with capricious violence over the overfond and overconstant Padishah. This favorite Sultana was zealously devoted to the in- terests of Kiuprili, who was thereby rendered so secure in his au- thority that he ventured to remain in the island of Candia from the time of his landing there in 1666 to the surrender of the long- besieged capital in 1669. During these last three years of the siege every possible effort of bravery and all the then available resources of the military art were employed both by assailants and defenders. Morosini (afterward renowned as the conqueror of the Morea, and surnamed the Peloponnesian) commanded in the city, ably seconded by the Due de la Feuillade, the hero of St. Gothard, and many other high-born and high-spirited volunteers, who flocked from every country of Christendom to Candia, as the great theater of military glory. On the Turkish side, Kiuprili and his generals and admirals urged on the operations of the besiegers by sea and by land with indomitable obstinacy, and with a degree of engineering skill from which the Turks of more recent times have far degenerated. It is computed that during the final thirty-four months of the siege in which Kiuprili commanded, 30,000 Turks and 12,000 Venetians were killed. There were fifty-six assaults and ninety-six sorties, and the number of mines exploded on both sides was 1364. Several attempts were made by the Venetians to purchase peace without ceding Candia. But to their offers of large sums of money Kiuprili replied : " We are not money-dealers ; we make war to win Candia, and at no price will we abandon it." The Ottomans persevered in their enterprise, until Morosini, on September 6, 1669, surren- dered on honorable terms the city which the incessant mining had converted into a confused mass of gigantic mole-heaps. A peace was made between Venice and the Porte, by which the city and island of Candia became the property of the Sultan. Kiuprili re- mained there several months after the conquest was completed, dur- 244 TURKEY 1669-1672 ing which time he was well and wisely employed in organizing the local government of Crete under its new sovereign. The next scene of warlike operations on which Ahmed Kiuprili entered deserves especial attention, because it brings us to the rival claims of Poland, Russia, and Turkey to dominion over the Cos- sacks, and is intimately connected with the long and still enduring chain of hostilities between the Russian and Turkish Empires. The Cossacks of the Don had become subjects of Ivan the Terrible, Czar of Moscow, in 1549; but the Cossacks of the Dnieper and the Ukraine were long independent, and their first connection was with Poland. The Poles affected to consider them as vassals, but the wisest Polish rulers were cautious in the amount of authority which they attempted to exercise over these bold and hardy tribes. The imperious tyranny of other less prudent sovereigns of Poland was met by fierce opposition on the part of the Cossacks, who called in their former constant enemies, the Tartars, to aid them against their new Polish oppressors. Deserted, after some years of warfare, by the Tartars, the Cossacks of the Ukraine appealed to the Russian Czar Alexis. Many years of checkered and sanguinary hostilities followed, and at last the Cossack territory was nominally divided between Russia and Poland at the Truce of Andrusshovo, in 1667. But the Cossacks who dwelt near the mouths of the Rivers Boug and Dnieper, and who were called the Zaporogian Cossacks, refused to be included in the Polish dominions by virtue of that arrange- ment, and placed themselves under the protection of the Czar. In 1670 the Cossacks of that part of the Ukraine which had been left under Poland petitioned the Polish Diet for certain privileges, which were refused, and a Polish army under Sobieski was sent into the Ukraine to coerce the Cossack malcontents. The Cossacks, under their Hetman Doroshenko, resisted bravely ; but at last they determined to seek the protection of the Sublime Porte, and Doroshenko, in 1672, presented himself at Constantinople, and re- ceived a banner with two horse-tails, as Sanjak Beg of the Ukraine, which was immediately enrolled among the Ottoman provinces. At the same time, the Khan of the Crimea was ordered to support the Cossacks, and 6000 Turkish troops were marched to the Ukraine. The Poles protested loudly against these measures. The Czar added his remonstrances, and threatened to join Poland in a war against Turkey. The Grand Vizier haughtily replied that such threats were empty words and (nil of place, and that the Porte would preserve its AGE OF GREAT VIZIERS 245 1672-1676 determination with regard to Poland. A short time previously another Turkish minister had answered similar warnings by boast- ing, " God be praised, such is the strength of Islam, that the union of Russians and Poles matters not to us. Our empire has increased in might since its origin ; nor have all the Christian kings, that have leagued against us, been able to pluck a hair from our beard. With God's grace it shall ever be so, and our empire shall endure to the day of judgment." In the Polish campaign of 1672 Sultan Mohammed IV. was persuaded to accompany the powerful army which Kiuprili led to the siege of the important city of Kaminiets, in Podolia. Kaminiets fell after nine days' siege, on August 26, 1672, and Lemberg shared its fate on September 9. The imbecile King of Poland, Michael, then made the Peace of Busacz with the Turks, by which Poland was to cede Podolia and the Ukraine and pay an annual tribute to the Porte of 220,000 ducats. The Sultan re- turned in triumph to Adrianople; but the congratulations which were lavished on him as conqueror of the Poles w^ere premature. Sobieski and the other chiefs of the Polish nobility determined to break the treaty which their king had made. They refused to pay the stipulated tribute, and in 1673 ^^^^ Grand Vizier made prepara- tions for renewing the war upon the Poles, and also for attacking the Czar of Russia, from whom they had received assistance. The Turks marched again into Podolia; but on November 11, 1673, Sobieski, who now led the Poles, surprised the Turkish camp near Chotim and routed Kiuprili with immense slaughter. The Princes of Wallachia and Moldavia had deserted from the Turkish to the Polish side with all their contingents, a transfer of strength which aided materially in obtaining Sobieski's victory. But Kiu- prili's administrative skill had so reinvigorated the resources of Turkey that she readily sent fresh forces into the Ukraine in the following year. Sobieski with his Poles and the Russians (who now took an active part in the war) had the advantage in the cam- paign of 1674 ; and in 1675 Sobieski gained one of the most brilliant victories of the age over tlie Turks at Lemberg. But the superior strength and steadiness of the Porte and Kiuprili in maintaining the war against the discordant government of Poland were felt year after year, and in 1676 the Turkish commander in Podolia, Ibra- him, surnamed Sheitan. that is, " Ibrahim the Devil," made himself completely master of Podcjlia and attacked Galicia. Sobieski (who 246 TURKEY 1676-1677 was now King- of Poland) fought gallantly with far inferior forces against Ibrahim at Zurawna, but was glad to conclude a peace, October 17, 1676, by which the Turks were to retain Kaminiets and Podolia, and by which the Ukraine, with the ex- ception of a few specified places, was to be under the sovereignty of the Sultan. Three days after the Peace of Zurawna Ahmed Kiuprili died. Though his defeats at St. Gothard and Chotim had fairly given rise to an opinion among the Ottoman ranks that their Vizier was not born to be a general, his military services to the empire, for which he won Candia, Neuhausel, and Kaminiets, were considerable ; and no minister ever did more than he accomplished in repressing in- surrection and disorder, in maintaining justice and good govern- ment, and in restoring the financial and military strength of his country. He did all this without oppression or cruelty. He pro- tected all ranks of the Sultan's subjects; he was a liberal patron of literature and art; he was a warm friend, and a not implacable enemy; he was honorably true to his plighted word toward friend or foe, toward small or great : and there is far less than the usual amount of Oriental exaggeration in the praises which the Turkish historians bestow upon him as " The light and splendor of the nation; the conservator and governor of good laws; the vicar of the shadow of God ; the thrice learned and all-accomplished Grand Vizier." Chapter XVI KARA MUSTAPHA AND THE SEIGE OF VIENNA 1685 THE value of such a minister as Ahmed KiupriH to Turkey was soon proved by the rapid deterioration in her fortunes under his successor in the Vizierate, Kara Mustapha, or Black Mustapha, a man whose character was in every respect the opposite of Kiuprili's, and who to slender abilities united the wild- est ambition and almost boundless presumption. He was son-in- law to the Sultan, and by the influence which that marriage gave him he obtained the high office which he abused to the ruin of his master and the deep disaster of his country. Kara Mustapha's favorite project was a new war against Austria, in which he hoped to capture Vienna and to make himself the nominal viceroy but real sovereign of ample provinces between the Danube and the Rhine. But the first years of his Vizierate were occupied in an inglorious war with Russia. That empire had been no party to the late Peace of Zurawna, and it supported Doroshenko against the Porte when that fickle Cossack grew discontented with the Sultan's authority, Kara Mustapha led a large army into the Ukraine and besieged Tchigirin. but was beaten by the Russians and fled with ignominy across the Danube. In the following year he resumed the war with fresh forces, and after several alternatives of fortune he stormed Tchigirin on August 21, 1678. But the losses which the Turks sustained both from the Russian sword and the climate were severe ; and it is said that even at this early period of the wars between the two nations the Turks entertained an instinc- tive apprehension of the power of the ]\Iuscovites. A peace was made in 1681, by which the Porte gave up the disputed terri- tory to Russia, and it was stipulated that neither power should raise fortifications between the Rivers Boug and Dniester. Five years afterward a territorial arrangement was concluded between Poland and Russia which recognized the sovereignty of the Czar over the whole of the Ukraine. 247 248 TURKEY 1G82-1683 In 1682 Kara Mustaplia commenced his fatal enterprise against Vienna. A revolt of the Hungarians under Count Tekeh against Austria, which had been caused by the bigoted tyranny of the Em- peror Leopold, now laid the heart of that empire open to attack; and a force was collected by the Grand Vizier, which, if ably handled, might have given the house of Hapsburg its death-blow. Throughout the autumn of 1682 and the spring of 1683 regular and irregular troops, both horse, foot, artillery, and all kinds of munitions of war, were collected in the camp at Adrianople on a scale of grandeur that attested and almost exhausted the copiousness which the administration of Kiuprili had given to the Turkish re- sources. The strength of the forces which Kara Mustapha led to Vienna is known from the muster-roll which was found in his tent after the siege. It amounted to 275,000 men.^ It is probable that not less than half a million of men were set in motion in this last great aggressive effort of the Ottomans against Christendom. The Emperor Leopold had neither men nor money sufficient to enable him to confront such a deluge of invasion, and after many entreaties he obtained a promise of help from John III. Sobieski, King of Poland, whom he had previously treated with contumely -and neg- lect. Poland was at peace with Turkey, nor had the Porte in any way failed in observance of the recent treaty. But neither Sobieski nor other Christian adversaries of the Turks were very scrupulous as to such obligations, and the Polish king promised to aid the Austrian emperor with 58,000 men. The Turkish army pro- ceeded along the western side of the Danube from Belgrade and reached Vienna without experiencing any serious check, though a gallant resistance was made by some of the strong places which it besieged during its advance. The city of Vienna was garrisoned by 11,000 men under Count Stahremberg, who proved himself a worthy successor of the Count Salm who had fulfilled the same duty when the city was besieged by Sultan Suleiman. The second siege of Vienna lasted from July 15 to September 12, 1683, during which the most devoted heroism was displayed by both the garrison and the inhabitants. The numerous artillery of the Turks shattered the walls and bastions, and the indefatigable labors of their miners were still more effective. The garrison was gradually wasted by the numerous assaults which it was called on 1 Probably less than half this number were fighting men. Enormous swarms i)f camp-followers acconii)unied the Turkish armies at this time. Ed. SIEGE OF VIENNA 249 1633 to repulse, and in the frequent sorties by which the Austrian com- mander sought to impede the progress of the besiegers. Kara Mustapha, at the end of August, had it in his power to carry the city by storm, if he had thought fit to employ his vast forces in a general assault, and to continue it from day to day, as Murad IV. had done when Bagdad fell. But the Vizier kept the Turkish troops back out of avarice, in the hope that the city would come into his power by capitulation ; in which case he would himself be enriched by the wealth of Vienna, whereas if taken by storm the city would become the booty of the soldiery. The Turkish army mur- mured loudly at the incompetency, the selfishness, and the vain con- fidence of their chief, who took no measure for checking the approach of the relieving army that was known to be on its march, though the passage of the Danube might easily have been guarded against Sobieski by a detachment from the immense forces which were at the Grand Vizier's command. Sobieski had been unable to assemble his troops before the end of August, and even then they only amounted to 20,000 men. But he was joined by the Duke of Lorraine and some of the German commanders, who were at the head of a considerable army, and the Polish King crossed the Danube at Tulm, above Vienna, with about 70,000 men. He then wheeled round behind the Kalemberg Moun- tains to the northwest of Vienna, with the design of taking the besiegers in the rear. The Vizier took no heed of him ; nor was any opposition made to the progress of the relieving army through the difficult country which it was obliged to traverse. On Septem- ber 1 1 the Poles were on the summit of Mount Kalemberg ; and " from this hill," says Coyer, the biographer of Sobieski, " the Christians were presented with one of the finest and most dreadful prospects of the greatness of human power: an immense plain and all the islands of the Danube covered with pavilions, whose magnifi- cence seemed rather calculated for an encampment of pleasure than the hardships of war; an innumerable multitude of horses, camels, and buffaloes ; 2,000,000 men - all in motion, swarms of Tartars dis- persed along the foot of the mountain in their usual confusion ; the fire of the besiegers incessant and terrible, and that of the besieged such as they could contrive to make ; in fine, a great city, distinguish- able only by the tops of the steeples and the fire and smoke that covered it." 2 This is of course a gross exaggeration. 250 TURKEY 1683 But Sobieski was well accustomed to the menacing" aspect of Turkish armies; his eagle glance saw instantly the Vizier's want of military skill, and the exposure of the long lines of the Ottoman camp to a sudden and fatal attack. " This man," said he, " is badly encamped : he knows nothing of war ; we shall certainly beat him." And in a letter sent by him to the Queen of Poland on the night be- fore the battle he wrote these words : " We can easily see that the general of an army, who has neither thought of entrenching himself nor concentrating his forces, but lies encamped as if we were one hundred miles from him, is predestined to be beaten." The ground through which Sobieski had to move down from the, Kalemberg was broken by ravines, and was so difficult for the passage of the troops that Kara Mustapha might, by an able dis- position of part of his forces, have long kept the Poles in check, especially as Sobieski, in his hasty march, had brought but a small part of his artillery to the scene of action. But the Vizier displayed the same infatuation and imbecility that had marked his conduct throughout the campaign. He at first refused to believe that Sobieski and any considerable number of Polish troops were on the Kalemberg; and, when at last convinced that an attack would be made upon his lines, he long delayed the necessary order for the occupation of the hollow ways through which alone the Poles could debouch from the slopes of the high ground which they had gained. Unwilling to resign Vienna, Mustapha left the chief part of his Janissary force in the trenches before the city, and led the rest of his army toward the hills down which Sobieski and his troops were advancing. In some parts of the field where the Turks had partially entrenched the roads their resistance to the Christians was ob- stinate ; but Sobieski led on his best troops in person in a direct line for the Ottoman center, where the Vizier's tent was conspicuous, and the terrible presence of the victor of Chotim was soon recog- nized. " By Allah ! the king is really among us," exclaimed the Khan of the Crimea, Selim Ghirai, and turned his horse's head for flight. The mass of the Ottoman army broke and fled in ho^^eless rout, hurrying Kara IVIustapha with them from the field. The Janissaries, who had been left in the trenches before the city, were now attacked both by the garrison and the Poles, and were cut to pieces. The camp, the whole artillery, and the military stores of the Ottomans became the spoil of the conquerors, and never was there a victory more complete, or signalized by more splendid JDIIX S()i;iK>KI, KIX(, OF I'OLAM), MCCulO iHh H AKI)-rKK>>KII (iHXT Vl).\ ^TAIIKKM ISKKC. AXI) KAISKS T 1 1 K SIi;r;K I )F ViKXXA JJi-urrnii; by Alfred Mucha SIEGE OF VIENNA 251 1683-1687 trophies. The Turks continued their panic flight as far as Raab. There Kara Mustapha collected round him some of the wrecks of the magnificent army which had followed him to Vienna. He sought to vent his fury by executing some of the best Turkish offi- cers who had differed from him during the campaign. His own fate, when he was executed by the Sultan's orders a few weeks afterward at Belgrade, excited neither surprise nor pity. The great destruction of the Turks before Vienna was raptur- ously hailed throughout Christendom as the announcement of the approaching downfall of the Mohammedan Empire in Europe. The Russians and the Venetians declared war against the Porte ; and Turkey was now assailed on almost every point of her European frontiers. The new Grand Vizier Ibrahim strove hard to recruit the armies and supply the deficiency in the magazines which the fatal campaign of his predecessors had occasioned. But city after city was now rent rapidly away from Islam by the exulting and ad- vancing Christians. The imperialist armies, led by the Duke of Lorraine, captured Gran, Neuhausel, Buda, Szegedin, and nearly all the strong places which the Turks had held in Hungary. The Venetians were almost equally successful on the Dalmatian frontier; and the Republic of St. Mark now landed its troops in Greece, un- der Morosini. who rapidly made himself master of Coron, Navarino, Nauplia, Corinth, Athens, and other chief cities of that important part of the Turkish Empire. In Poland the war was waged less vigorousl3\ nor did tlie Turks yet relinquish their hold on Kaminiets. But a great defeat which the main Ottoman army sustained on August 12, 1687, at Mohacs, on the very scene of Suleiman's ancient glory, excited the discontent of the soldiery into in- surrection against the Sultan, and on November 8, in that year, Mohammed IV. was deposed, in the forty-sixth year of his age and thirty-eighth of his reign. In the reign of Mohammed IV. an innovation on the ancient stern institutions of the empire was completed, which also was probably caused as much by weakness as by humanity. It was in 1675, in the last year of the Vizierate of Ahmed Kiuprili, that the final levy of 3000 boys for the recruiting of the Turkish army was made on the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, The old system of filling the ranks of the Janissaries exclusively with compulsory conscripts and converts from among the children of the Rayas had been less and less rigidly enforced since the time 252 TURKEY 1675 of Murad IV. Admission into the corps of Janissaries now con- ferred many civil as well as military advantages, so that it was eagerly sought by men who were of Turkish origin and born to the Mohammedan faith. The first measure of relaxation of the old rule was to treat those who were the children of Janissaries as eligible candidates for enrollment. Other Mussulman volunteers were soon received, and the levies of the tribute of children from the Christians grew less frequent and less severe, though they were still occasionally resorted to in order to supply the thousands of pages, who were required to people the vast chambers of the Serail, and who were in case of emergency drafted into the army of the state. But ever since the year 1675 ^^^^ Rayas of the empire have been entirely free from the terrible tax of flesh and blood by which the Ottoman military force was sustained during its early centuries of conquest. With this change in the constitution of the corps of Janissaries, the numbers of that force were greatly increased : large bodies of them were now settled with their families in the chief cities of the empire, where they engaged in different trades and occupations. Though still able to contend at sea with such an enemy as Venice, the Sublime Porte had seen a still greater decline take place in its naval power than in its military, compared with the state of its fleets and armies in the days of the great Suleiman. This was principally caused by the progress of carelessness and corruption in the navy-boards and arsenals at Constantinople ; but much of it was due to the Sultan's losing that firm hold on the resources of the Mohammedan powers of North Africa which his great ancestor possessed when Barbarossa and Dragut executed his bidding with the fleets of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. The Barbaresque regencies had in the middle of the seven- teenth century become practically independent states. They some- times sent naval succor to the Porte in its wars; but this was done rather in a spirit of voluntary good will and recognition of com- munity of creed and origin, similar to that which formerly made Cartilage give occasional aid to Tyre, than out of the obedient sub- ordination of proxincial governments to central authority. The strength and audacity of these piratical states, especially of Algiers, had s(j increased tliat not only did their squadrons ravage the Christian coasts of ilie Mediterranean, but their cruisers carried on tlicir depredations beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, both northward SIEGE OF VIENNA 253 1655-1687 and southward in the Atlantic. They pillaged the island of Ma- deira; they infested the western parts of the English Channel and the Irish Sea for many years; and the Algerine rovers more than once landed in Ireland, and sacked towns and villages, and carried off captives into slavery. They even ventured as far as Iceland and Scandinavia, as if in retaliation for the exploits of the old Norse sea kings in the Mediterranean seven centuries before. Algiers had a marine force comprising, besides light galleys, more than forty well-built and well-equipped ships, each manned by from 300 to 400 corsairs and mounting from forty to fifty gims. The num- ber of Christians who toiled in slavery in the dockyards and ar- senals at Algiers or at the oar in ker fleets fluctuated from between 10,000 to 20,000. Tunis and Tripoli had their fleets and their slaves, though on a smaller scale. The English admiral Blake tamed the savage pride of these barbarians in 1655. He awed the Dey of Algiers into the surrender of all his English prisoners, and when the Dey of Tunis refused to do the same, Blake burned the pirate fleet under the guns of the town, destroyed the forts, and compelled obedience to his demands. The Dutch admiral De Ruyter and the French admiral De Beaufort also at different times punished the insolence of the Barbary corsairs ; but their outrages and cruelties were never entirely quelled till Lord Exmouth's bombardment of Algiers in the last century. In 1663 England concluded a treaty with Algiers and the Porte by which she was to be at liberty to chastise the Algerines, when they broke their engagements, without its being considered a breach of amity between England and Turkey. The rulers of the Barbaresque States styled themselves Dahis or Deys. According to some authorities, the Algerine chiefs termed themselves Deys as delegates of the Sultan. According to others, the title came from the old Asiatic word Dahi, which signified a superior, even at the time of the ancient republic of j\Iecca, and afterward among the Ishmaelites. They were elected by the mili- tary body, consisting of the descendants of the Janissaries and others of Turkish race. They used to apply to the Sultan for his firman appointing them Pashas, and confirming their election; but this soon became a mere formality. Although his immoderate fondness for hunting made ]\Io- hammed IV. habitually neglect the duties of government, he was never indifferent to literary pursuits, and he showed an hereditary fondness for the society of learned men. His patronage of the 254 TURKEY 1687 chase and his patronage of letters were sometimes strangely blended. He was liberal in his encouragement of historical writers, especially of such as professed to record the current history of his own reign. He loved to see tl^em at his court ; he corrected their works with his own pen; but he expected that each royal hunting should be chronicled by them with sportsmanlike minuteness, and that the death of each wild beast which was slain by the Sultan's hand should be portrayed with poetic fervor. A despotic patron is dan- gerous to the life of the author, as well as to the vitality of his works. The Turkish historian Abdi was one whom Sultan Mo- hammed IV. delighted to honor. The Sultan kept him always near his person, and charged him with the special duty of writing the annals of his reign. One evening Mohammed asked of him, " What hast thou written to-day?" Abdi incautiously answered that nothing sufficiently remarkable to write about had happened that day. The Sultan darted a hunting-spear at the unobservant com- panion of royalty, wounding him sharply, and exclaimed, " Now thou hast something to write about." Chapter XVTI THE WAR OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE. 1687-1699 SULEIMAN II. when raised to the throne of the Ottoman Empire in 1687 had Hved for forty-five years in compulsory seclusion and in almost daily peril of death. Yet as sovereign he showed more capacity and courage than the brother whom he succeeded, and perhaps if he had been made Sultan at an earlier period Turkey might have escaped that shipwreck of her state which came on her after the death of her great minister Ahmed Kiuprili, through the weakness of Sultan Mohammed IV. and the misconduct of his favorite Vizier Kara Mustapha, the origi- nator of the fatal march upon Vienna. Suleiman despised the idle sports and debasing sensuality of his predecessors, and earnestly devoted himself to the task of reorganizing the military power of his empire, and of stemming, if possible, the progress of defeat and disaster. But he was unable to control the excesses of the mutinous Janissaries, who, throughout the winter which followed Suleiman's accession, filled Constantinople with riot and slaughter, and com- pelled the appointment and displacement of ministers according to their lawless will. It was not until the end of June. 1688, that the Sultan was able to complete the equipment of an army, which then marched toward the Hungarian frontier. The Austrians and their allies had profited vigorously by the disorders of the Turkish state, and had continued to deal blow after blow with fatal efi^ect. Three generals of the highest military renown, Charles of Lorraine, Louis of Baden, and Prince Eugene, now directed the imperialist armies against the discouraged and discordant Ottomans. The important city of Erlau in Hungary surrendered on December 14, 1687, and came again into the dominion of its ancient rulers, after having been for a century under Mohammedan sway. Gradiska, on the Bosnian frontier, was captured by Prince Louis of Baden. Stuhweissenberg was in- vested, and as the Turks had abandoned Block and Peterwaradin, the route to Belgrade lay open to the Austrian armies. A Turkish 255 256 T U R K E Y 1688-1689 general named Yegen Osman was ordered to protect Belgrade, but he was cowardly or treacherous, and as the imperialists advanced, he retreated from Belgrade after setting fire to the city. The Austrian troops, following close upon the retiring Turks, extin- guished the flames and laid siege to the citadel, which surrendered after a bombardment of twenty-one days, on August 20, 1688. Stuhweissenberg was stormed on September 6, and Yegen Osman fired Semendra and abandoned it to the advancing Christians. Prince Louis destroyed a Turkish army in Bosnia, and city after city yielded to the various Austrian generals who com- manded in that province and in Transylvania, and to the Venetian leaders in Dalmatia. The campaign of the next year in these re- gions was almost equally disastrous to Turkey. The Sultan an- nounced his intention of leading the Ottoman armies in person, and proceeded as far as the city of Sofia. Part of the Turkish forces were posted in advance at the city of Nish, and were attacked there and utterly defeated by the imperialists under Prince Louis of Baden. Nish, evacuated by the Turks, was occupied by the con- querors. On the tidings of this defeat reaching the Turkish head- quarters at Sofia, the Sultan, in alarm, retreated within the mountain range of the Balkan to the city of Philippopolis. Floren- tin, Fethislam, and Widdin next fell into the power of the im- perialists, and before the close of the year 1689 Great Waradein and Temeswar were all that the Ottomans retained of their late extensive provinces north of the Danube, while even to the south of that river the best portions of Bosnia and Servia were occupied by the victorious Austrians. Li the southern parts of European Turkey the fortune of the w^ar was equally unfavorable to Sultan Suleiman. Morosini, one of the greatest generals that the Republic of St. Mark ever produced, completed the concjuest of the Morea, which he divided into four Venetian provinces.^ It was only against the Poles and the Rus- sians that the Turks and tlieir Tartar allies obtained any advantages. A large Tartar force from the Crimea, led by Azmet Ghirai, overran part of Poland in 1688, reinforced the Tartar garrison in Kaminiets, and defeated tlic Poles on the Sireth. The Russian general Galitzin attempted to invade the Crimea. He obtained some advantages (jver part of the Tai-tar forces, but when he advanced toward the ^ It was at tile siLL;e of Athens during this campaign tliat the explosion of a Turkibli magazine ijartially ilestroycd the Parthenon. WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 257 1688-1689 Isthmus of Perekop, in the autumn of 1688, he found that the re- treating Tartars had set fire to the dry grass of the steppes and reduced the country to a desert, from which he was obliged to retire. And, in 1689, when the Russians again advanced to the isthmus, they were completely defeated by the Ottoman troops that had taken post there to guard the Crimea. But these gleams of success could not dissipate the terror which the disasters in Hungary and Greece had spread among the Turkish nation. Seldom had there been a war in which the effect that can be produced on the destinies of nations by the appearance or the absence of individual great men was more signally proved. On the Christian side, Sobieski, Eugene, Louis of Baden, the Prince of Lorraine, and ]\Iorosini had com- manded fortune, while among the Turks no single man of mark had either headed armies or directed councils. Yet the Ottoman nation was not exhausted of brave and able spirits, and at length adversity cleared the path of dignity for merit. In the November of 1689 the Sultan convened an extraordi- nary Divan at Adrianople, and besought his councilors to advise him as to what hands he should intrust with the management of the state. In the hour of extreme peril the jealcms spirit of intrigue and self-advancement was silent; and all around Suleiman II. ad- vised him to send for Kiuprili Zade Mustapha, brother of the great Ahmed Kiuprili, and to give the seals of office to him as Grand Vizier of the Empire. Kiuprili Zade Mustapha at the time when he assumed this high dignity was fifty-two years of age. He had been trained in statesmanship during the Vizierates of his father and brother, Mo- hammed and Ahmed Kiuprili, and it was expected and hoped, on the death of Ahmed in 1676, that Sultan Mohammed IV. would place the seals in the hands of Kiuprili Zade. Unhappily for the Ottoman nation, that Sultan's partiality for his own son-in-law prevailed ; nor was it until after thirteen years of misgovernment and calamity had nearly destroyed the empire that the third Kiuprili succeeded his father and brother as director of the councils and leader of the armies of Turkey. His authority was greatly increased by the deserved reputation v/liich he enjoyed of being a strict o1)server of the ^Mohammedan law, and an uncompromising enemy to profligacy and corruption. After liaving paid homage to the Sultan on his appointment he summoned to the Divan all the great dignitaries of the empire and 258 TURKEY 1689 addressed them on the state of the country. He reminded them in severe terms of their duties as Moslems, of their sins; and he told them that they were now undergoing the deserved chastisement of God. He described to them the extreme peril in which the empire was placed. " If we go on thus," said he, " another campaign will see the enemy encamped beneath the walls of Constantinople." He then pointed out to them how they ought to act as true believers, and bade them take heart and be courageous in the defense of their country, however hardly they might find themselves pressed. Kiu- prili abolished some imposts introduced by his predecessor, which produced little to the state, while they were peculiarly vexatious to the subject ; but he sought to fill the exhausted treasury by exacting heavy contributions from all the late officials who had enriched themselves at the public expense. All the superfluous gold and silver vessels of the palace were sent to the mint to be coined into money for the military chest. And Kiuprili set the example to the other chief men of the state of aiding the public cause by similar contributions. He gave up the whole of his plate, and the Grand Vizier's table was served thenceforth with vessels of copper. Funds for the immediate prosecution of the war were thus obtained ; and the belief of the Turks in the ability and in the holiness of the new Vizier brought recruits rapidly to the army, which was collected near the capital. Kiuprili called out all the veterans who had been discharged and pensioned, and he distributed them among the new levies. He placed governors on whom he could rely in the most important pashalics. He sought also fit men and measures for the revival of the Turkish marine. Mizirli Zade Ibrahim, w^ho had distinguished himself in the defense of Negropont against the Venetians, was raised to the chief naval command in the Mediter- ranean, and another bold and skillful officer, Mezzomorto, was commissioned to form and lead a flotilla on the Danube. When Kiuprili was made Grand Vizier one of the invading armies of the enemy had advanced as far as Uskup, in northern Macedonia, where it was actively aided by the Christian Albanians and their Patriarch. A chieftain of those regions, named Karpos, had accepted a diploma of investiture from the Austrian emperor, and, assuming the old title of Krai, had fortified himself in Egri- Palanka. It was indispensable to relieve Turkey at once from the foes who thus struck at the very heart of her power in Europe. Kiuprili held a council of war at Adrianople, at which Selim Ghirai, WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 259 1690 the Khan of the Crimea, and Tekeli, the Hungarian refugee, were present. Khodja KhaHd Pasha, the Seraskier of the Morea, a na- tive of Uskup, was sent with all the regular Turkish troops that could be collected against that place. The Crimean Khan, at the head of a large Tartar force, cooperated with him. They gained two victories over the combined bodies of Germans, Hungarians, and Albanians who had assumed tlie old medieval badge of the Cross. The chieftain Karpos was seized by the Tartars and ex- ecuted on the bridge of Uskup. Nearly all the important posts which the invaders and their insurgent confederates had occupied in those districts were recovered by the Sultan's troops, and the pres- sure on this vital part of the empire was almost entirely removed. Encouraged by these successes, Kiuprili pushed forward with the greatest vigor his armaments for the next campaign. Louis XIV., who was at war with the German Empire, sent in the winter of 1680 a new ambassador, the iMarquis de Chateauneuf, to Constanti- nople, to encourage the Turks to persevere in hostilities against Austria. Chateauneuf was also ordered to negotiate, if possible, a peace between Turkey and Poland, to prevent the recognition of William of Orange as King of England by the Sublime Porte, and to regain for the Catholics in Palestine the custody of the Ploly Sepulcher, which the Great Patriarch had lately won from them. Chateauneuf obtained the last object, and he found in the new Vizier a zealous ally against Austria. But the Turks refused to suspend hostilities with Poland ; and with regard to the Prince of Orange and the English crown, Kiuprili answered that he should recognize the king whom the English people had proclaimed. He added that it would ill become the Turks, who had so often dethroned their own sovereigns, to dispute the rights of other nations to change their masters. In August, 1690, Kiuprili Zade Mustapha took in person the command of the Ottoman armies that advanced from Bulgaria and Upper Albania through Servia against tlie imperialists. After a murderous fight of two days Kiuprili drove the Austrian general Schenkendorf from his lines at Dragoman, between the cities of Sofia and Nish. The Vizier then formed the siege of Nish, w^hich capitulated in three weeks. Tlie Austrian generals were prevented from concentrating their forces for its relief by a well-planned irruption into Transylvania by the Hungarian refugee Tekeli at the head of a Turkish army. Tekeli defeated the imperialists in 260 TURKEY 1691 that province, and proclaimed the Sultan as sovereign lord, and himself as Prince of Transylvania. After the capture of Nish the Grand Vizier marched upon Semendria, which was stormed after resisting desperately for four days. Widdin was also regained, and Kiuprili then undertook the recovery of Belgrade. On the twelfth day of the siege a shell from the Turkish batteries pierced the roof of the principal powder magazine of the city and a destruc- tive explosion ensued, which gave the Turks an easy conquest. Hav- ing placed a strong garrison in this important city, and completed the expulsion of the Austrians from Servia, Kiuprili returned to Constantinople. He was received there with deserved honors after his short but brilliant campaign, in which he had compelled the invading Giaours to recede from the banks of the Morava and the Nish to those of the Danube and the Save. On May lo, 1691, Kiuprili the Virtuous received a sec- ond time the Sacred Standard from the hands of his sovereign. Sultan Suleiman, who died before the campaign was opened. Sulei- man n. was succeeded by his brother, Ahmed H., who was girt with the saber of Othman on July 13, 1691. The new Sultan con- firmed Kiuprili in his dignity, and the Vizier proceeded to con- centrate his forces at Belgrade, and to throw a bridge over the Save. He then marched up the right bank of the Danube to encoun- ter the imperialists, who, under the command of Louis of Baden, descended from Peterwaradin. The two hosts approached each other on August 19, near Salankeman. At the same time the Christian and Mussulman flotillas which accompanied their re- spective armies along the Danube encountered on the river. The Turkish flotilla was victorious ; but on the land the day proved a disastrous one for the house of Kiuprili and for the house of Oth- man. Contrary to the advice of the oldest Pashas in the army, the Vizier refused to await behind the lines the attack of the imperial- ists. The veteran warrior Khodja Khalid censured this impetu- osity. Kiuprili said to him, " I invited thee to follow me that thou mightest figure as a man, and not as a phantom." Khalid, touching the thin hairs of his gray beard, replied, " I have but a few days to live. It matters little whether I die to-day or to-morrow; but I would fain not have been present at a scene in which the empire can meet with nought but calamity and shame." " Advance the cannon!" cried Kiu])ri]i, and himself formed the Spahis for the fight. Kcmankesli Pasha began the battle by rushing with 6000 WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 261 1691-1695 Kurdish and Turkoman irregular cavalry upon the Christian lines. " Courage, my heroes," cried Kemankesh, " the Houris are waiting for you!" They galloped forward with shouts of "Allah!" but were received by the Christians with a steady fire which drove them back in discomfited and diminished masses. Again they charged impetuously; again they broke, fell, or fled. The Austrians now pressed forward to where the Sacred Standard was reared in the Mohammedan ranks. Ismael, the Pasha of Karaman, dashed against them with the troops of Asia. His squadrons were en- tangled in an abattis of felled trees, by which the Prince of Baden had protected his right wing. The Asiatics wavered and were repulsed. Kiuprili saw his best men shot down round him by the superior musketry of the imperialists. " What is to be done?" he cried to the officers of his guards. They answered, " Let us close and fight sword in hand." Kiuprili, arrayed in a black vest, invoked the name of God and threw himself, with drawn saber, against the enemy. His guards rushed onward with him. An obstinate and sanguinary struggle followed, which was decided against Turkey by the bullet that struck Kiuprili while cleaving his way desperately through the Austrian ranks. His guards lost courage when they saw him fall, and the fatal tidings that their great Vizier was slain soon spread disorder and panic throughout the Ottoman army. The Prince of Baden's triumph was complete, and the Turkish camp with 150 cannon fell into the conqueror's power. But the victory was dearly purchased, and the Austrian loss in men and officers was almost equal to that of the Turks. The battle of Salankeman drove the Ottomans again from Plungary; Tekeli was defeated by the imperialists and expelled from Transylvania, and throughout the four years of the disastrous reign of Ahmed IL the current of defeat was unabated. Besides the curse of the victorious sword of the foreigners, and the usual miseries of domestic insurrection, the fearful visitations of pestilence and famine came upon the devoted empire. A great earthquake threw down part of Smyrna, and a still more destructive conflagration ravaged Constantinople in Sep- tember, 1693. Heartbroken at the suft'erings and shame of the state, and worn by disease, Ahmed II. expired on February 6, 1695. Mustapha II., the son of the deposed Mohammed IV., now came to the throne, and showed himself worthy of having reigned in happier limes. On the third day after his accession he issued 262 TURKEY 1695-1697 a hattisherif, in which he threw the blame of the recent mis- fortunes upon the Sultans and announced his intention of restoring the ancient usages, and of heading his armies in person. The most active measures were then taken to hasten the prep- arations for the campaign, and the gallantry of the young Sultan was at first rewarded by important success. He advanced in the summer of 1695 from Belgrade to Temesvar, and recaptured the important fortresses of Karansebes, Lipna, and Lugos. On Sep- tember 22 he encountered near Lugos the Austrian army under General Veterani. Sultan Mustapha gained a complete victory, and Veterani and half his troops were left dead on the field. During the winter which followed this victory Mustapha and his councilors toiled unremittingly to repair the finances of the empire, and to increase the number and improve the discipline of the troops. Heavy taxes were laid on tobacco, on black eunuchs, and other articles of luxury. Many of the chief men of the empire seconded their sovereign's zeal, and raised bodies of troops at their own expense, of which they took the command. Mustapha had formed a corps of 3000 infantry from the royal gardeners, or Bos- tandjis, of Adrianople and Constantinople. He now dvided these into three regiments, which were equipped in peculiar uniform and trained with especial care. The Sultan opened the campaign of 1696 at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army. He defeated the Austrians near Temesvar and raised the siege of that place. Mustapha strengthened the garrisons of the fortresses which the Turks still held in Hungary, and then returned to Adrianople, not unjustly proud of his achievements, though the great Suleiman, whom he chose as his model, would probably have pushed his ad- vantages further. The liopes and pride of Turkey now began to revive, but in 1697 Prince Eugene took the command of the im- perialist armies in Hungary, and the Crescent soon went down before him. Sultan Mustapha collected his army for this fatal cam- paign at Sofia, and marched thence to Belgrade, where he halted and held repeated councils of war. Some enterprises of minor importance, the sending forward of a detachment to reinforce the garrison of Temesvar, and the occupation of several posts along the Danube, were successfully attempted, but there was discord among the Ottoman officers, and there was oscillation in the Sultan's will as to the main line of operations that ought to be followed. The Grand Vizier, Elwas Mohammed, was unpopular with the other WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 263 1697 Pashas, who leagued together to oppose his projects and thwart his tactics. He wished to keep the army on the right bank of the Danube, and crossing the Save, to march upon Peterwaradin and attempt the recovery of that important fortress. The other officers proposed to cross the Danube and the Theiss, and to endeavor to surprise Eugene's army, which was camped on the banks of the Bacska. After much angry discussion this last project was adopted. The army crossed the Danube and the Theiss, but it was found that all hope of surprising Eugene was idle, and the Austrians and Turks both endeavored to gain the fort of Zitel, which is situated at the junction of the Theiss with the Danube. The Ottomans obtained some advantage over a detachment of Eugene's army, and sacked Zitel. They then reverted to the scheme of besieging Peterwaradin, and marched to Valova, where they began to construct bridges to enable them to pass to the right bank of the Danube and attack Peterwaradin, the old bridges having been occupied or destroyed by the Austrians. Finding that Eugene had secured Peterwaradin against attack, they held another council of war and resolved to march northward up the right or eastern bank of the Theiss and attack Szegedin. The activity of Eugene disconcerted this project also. He threw a strong division into Szegedin, and with the rest of his army followed the Turks, watching for a favorable oppor- tunity of attacking them. This was soon obtained. The Austrian hussars captured one of the Pashas, named Djafer, who, finding his life threatened, confessed to the Austrians that the Sultan had given up his project of attacking Szegedin, and now designed to cross the Theiss near Zenta, with the intention of marching upon upper Hungary and Transylvania. Eugene instantly moved with all possible speed tow'ard Zenta, in the hopes of assailing the Otto- man army while in the act of passing the river. It was on September ii, about two in the afternoon, that the Sultan saw his great enemy approach. The Turks had formed a temporary bridge across the river, and the Sultan, the cavalry, and the greater part of the artillery of his army had passed over to the left or eastern bank, but the infantry was still on the western side. The Sultan and his officers had taken the precaution of forming a strong entrenchment to protect their rear during the passage of the bridge, and seventy guns had been kept in position on the right bank for that purpose. Undaunted by these prepara- tions, Eugene formed his columns, as they came up, into line for 264) T U R K E Y 1697 the attack; and although at this critical time a courier arrived from Vienna with peremptory orders to Eugene not to risk a battle, he determined to disobey his emperor's orders, and continued his preparations for a decisive engagement. If the Ottomans had antic- ipated him by a resolute advance against the Austrian center before luigene's troops had all arrived, and before his artillery had been brought into position, it is probable that they would have crushed tiie imperialists. But discord and disorder were rife in the Sultan's camp. The Grand Vizier summoned the Pashas and Spahis, most of whom had passed over to the eastern bank, back to the menaced side ; but he did not move beyond his entrenchments, and the Sultan himself did not recross the river to share in and conduct the conflict. Only two hours of daylight were left when Eugene had completed his dispositions for action. He formed his army into a half-moon, so as to assail the whole semicircle of the Turkish entrenchments, and he posted his cannon where they commanded the bridge. He then made a simultaneous attack on every part of the Turkish lines, and was everywhere successful. The Turks fought without con- cert or confidence, and a large body of Janissaries mutinied and began to massacre their own officers in the very heat of the action. The Christians gave no quarter; more than 20,000 Turks were slain, including the Grand Vizier and a large number of Pashas, and more than 10,000 were drowned in endeavoring to pass the river. The battle was lost and won before the close of the day, and in the words of Eugene in his dispatch to Vienna : " The sun seemed to linger on the horizon to gild with his last rays the victorious stand- ards of Austria." The Sultan, from the eastern bank of the Theiss, witnessed the destruction of his host, and fled with the remnants of his cavalry in dismay to Temesvar. Thence he retired to Constantinople, and never appeared again at the head of an army. In the extreme distress to which the defeat at Zenta had once more reduced the Ottoman Empire, resort was again had to the house of Kiuprili, and again that illustrious family supplied a minister who could prop, if he could not restore, the falling state. Husein Kiuprili had, in the time of the Vizierate of Ahmed Kiuprili, received the name of Amud Shah Zade, which means " Son of tlie Uncle." lie was so called because he was the son of Hassan, who was tlie younger brother of Mohammed Kiuprili and the uncle of Ahmed Kiu^jrili. Amud Shah Zade Ifusein Kiuprili had in early WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 265 1697 life been an idle voluptuary, but the disasters which befell Turkey after the expedition against Vienna roused him to a sense of what he owed to the honor of his house and to his country. He filled many important offices with zeal and ability, and when raised to the Grand Vizierate in 1697, he gave proofs of his possessing in ample degree that genius for finance and for administrative reform which was the eminent characteristic of his family. Every possible effort was made by him to collect the means of opposing further resistance to the enemies of the empire. A tax was laid upon coffee ; a contribution in the nature of an income tax was required from all the principal officers of the state ; and Husein Kiuprili even ven- tured to appropriate to the urgent necessities of the country a large sum from the revenues of the religious foundations. He succeeded in collecting and equipping an army of 50,000 foot and 48,000 horse for the defense of the European provinces. A Turkish fleet was sent into the Black Sea and another into the Mediterranean. But while the Vizier thus prepared for war it was with the wish for peace. He knew too well the exhaustion of the empire, and felt the impossibility of preventing further disasters if hostilities were continued. It was not only in the Danubian provinces that the war went hard with Turkey. The Venetians were making further progress in Dalmatia, and in Greece they were advancing beyond the Isthmus of Corinth ; though Xegropont had been bravely and successfully defended against them, and seasonable relief had been obtained for the Ottoman forces that were employed along the coasts and in the islands of the Archipelago, through the gallantry of the Turkish admiral Mezzomorto, who gained two victories over the Venetian fleets. Poland was an inactive antagonist, but Russia had become a truly formidable enemy. Peter the Great was now sov- ereign of that vast empire, and was teaching the lately rude and barbarous Russia to know her own gigantic strength, and also to use it like a giant. He had already drawn around him skillful officers and engineers from Western Europe ; and he had formed a body of troops on the models of the imperialist and French armies. But ships, harbors, and maritime power were the dearest objects of his heart ; and one of the earliest marks of his ambition (never lost sight of by himself or any of his successors) was to obtain the mastery of the Black Sea. With this view he prosecuted the war against Turkey witli a vigor and skill very different from the conduct of Galitzin and other former Russian commanders. 266 T U R K E Y 1695-1697 Peter resolved first to conquer the strong city of Azov, which, as has been mentioned, had been fortified by the Turks with pecuHar care, and was justly regarded as a position of the greatest impor- tance. He led an army of 60,000 men (including his new-modeled regiments) against Azov in 1695. He also formed a large flotilla of vessels drawing but little water, which cooperated with his army in the siege. His first attempt was unsuccessful, and he sus- tained a repulse which was severe enough to discourage a spirit of ordinary firmness. The Russians were driven back from Azov in 1695 with a loss of 30,000 men. But in the following spring the Czar renewed the siege with fresh forces. His flotilla defeated a squadron of light Turkish vessels that attempted to relieve the city, and he kept in check the Ottoman Pashas, who advanced from the Crimea with troops along the coast as far as the village of Akkumin. Azov surrendered to the Czar on July 28, 1696, and he immediately began to improve the fortifications and harbor, and to fit out ves- sels of war on a scale which showed for what important ulterior projects the possession of Azov had been sought by Russia. Thus menaced from many quarters, the Ottoman court listened willingly to the English ambassador, Lord Paget, who urged on the Turkish statesmen the necessity of peace, and offered the media- tion of England to obtain it. Similar proposals had been made by the representatives of Holland and England at earlier periods of the war, and negotiations had once been opened at Vienna, but no salutary result had followed. But now both Turkey and her chief antagonist, Austria, were sincerely desirous of peace. The Emperor Leopold had indeed seen his armies obtain triumphs which might have filled many monarchs with ambitious visions of ampler con- quests, and might have led to a march upon Constantinople, as the fit retribution for the repeated siege of Vienna. But Leopold was of a wiser or a colder spirit. He was anxious for sure and peaceful possession of the valuable provinces that had already been recon- quered from the Turks in the war, and though Austria had been generally victorious, she had suffered severely in men and in treas- ure. Above all, the prospect that the succession to the Spanish throne would soon become vacant made the German Emperor anxious to terminate hostilities in Eastern Europe and prepare for the great strui^gle in the West, which was already foreseen as inevitable. Lord I'agel proposed to the Porte that England should inter- WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 267 1697-1698 vene to effect a pacification on the footing of iiti possidetis; that is to say, on the principle that each of the contending parties should keep what it possessed at the time of commencing negotia- tions. Sultan Mustapha could ill brook the cession of such broad and fair territories as a treaty framed on this rule would assign to his adversaries, and he endeavored to introduce some important modifications. He placed before Lord Paget a counter-project, written in his own hand (an unprecedented act for a Turkish Sul- tan), and which was accompanied by a letter from the Grand Vizier to the King of England. The mediation of England was requested, in order that peace might be concluded generally on the iiti possidetis basis, but with stipulations that the Austrians should abandon Transylvania, that the city of Peterwaradin should be razed, that the Austrians should evacuate all the fortified places on the Turkish side of the river Unna, and with other exceptions of a similar nature. Lord Paget's secretary was sent by him with the Grand Vizier's letter to Vienna ; and the Austrian Government was informed of the readiness of England to mediate between the belligerents. In reply to this, a communication was made to the Porte that the Emperor Leopold was willing to treat for peace, but on condition that each party was to keep all that it then possessed, and on condition also that Russia was comprised in the treaty. Venice and Poland were added, and Holland cooperated with England as a mediating power. The Czar Peter, though not desir- ous of continuing the war single-handed against Turkey, was disinclined for peace, and dissatisfied with the proposed principle for negotiation. He passed through Vienna in 1698, and while in that capital he had an interview with the Emperor Leopold on the subject of the treaty with the Ottoman. Peter questioned the Austrian sovereign about the causes of his desire for peace with Turkey. Leopold replied that he had not sought for peace, but that England had, in the first instance, offered her mediation, and that each of the allied Christian sovereigns was to keep the con- quests which he had made. But the Russian was anxious not only to secure Azov, but to obtain the important city of Kertch in the Crimea, and he insisted that the cession of this place should be made a term of the treaty, and that in the event of Turkey declining to give it up, Russia and Austria should form a fresh league against her. Tic was answered by a promise to endeavor to obtain Kertch for him, but he was t(jkl that it was mA fit to renew an oft'ensive 268 T U R K E Y 1698 alliance on the eve of assembling a congress for pacification. In another conversation which Peter had with the Austrian minister, Count Kinsky, he asked what power it was that insisted on a peace. The Austrian replied, " Our Holy Roman Empire insists on it ; Spain insists on it ; it is required by England and Holland, and, in a word, by all Christendom." "Bew^are! " replied the Czar, " how you trust to what the Dutch and the English say. They are looking only to the benefit of their commerce; they care nothing about the interests of their allies." The Polish sovereign also objected to recognizing the titi possidetis principle. He complained that a treaty on this footing would leave the Ottomans in possession of Kaminiets, which was the key to Poland. At length, after many difficulties and delays, the five belligerent and the two mediating powers sent their plenipotentiaries to the place appointed for that congress, which was the town of Carlowitz, on the right bank of the Danube, a little below Peterwaradin, October 24, 1698. The German historian, Von Hammer, says truly of the Peace of Carlowitz, that it is one of those treaties which ought to be considered with particular care, even as there are certain battles which demand and receive the special attention of the historical stu- dent. The Treaty of Carlowitz is memorable, not only on account of the magnitude of the territorial change which it ratified, not only because it marks the period when men ceased to dread the Ottoman Empire as an aggressive power, but also because it was then that tlie Porte and Russia took part for the first time in a general European congress, and because, by admitting to that congress tlie representatives of England and Holland, neither of which states was a party to the war, both the Sultan and the Czar thus admitted the principle of intervention of the European powers, one with another, for the sake of tlie general good. The negotiations at Carlowitz were long, and the representa- tives of tlie mediating powers had, more than once, great difficulty in preventing an angry rupture. Besides disputes as to ceremonials and titles, the congress was required to arrange many serious claims and objections, and each of the belligerents, except Austria and Venice, desired some deviations in its own favor from the general ^(li possidelis principle. The Russian envoy long and fiercely insisted on the cession of Kertch. The Ottomans wished Austria U) in've nj) 1'ransylvania, or to ])ay an annual sum for retaining it. '1 hey also desired Venice to restore many of her conquests beyond WAR OF HOLY ALLIANCE 269 1698 the Morea, and that the Russians should evacuate Azov. The Poles asked for the restoration of Kaminiets, and the imperialists, though generally loyal to the fundamental principle of the congress, intro- duced new matters of dissension by demanding that the custody of the Holy Sepulcher should be restored to the Franciscans, that the Jesuits should be confirmed in their possessions in the Isle of Chios, and that the Porte should grant certain privileges to the Trini- tarians, a society instituted for the purpose of ransoming Christian captives from slavery. The Greek ]\Iavrocordato, who was the principal diplomatist on behalf of the Sultan at the congress, replied to these claims of Austria that the Sublime Porte knew nothing of Trinitarians, of Franciscans, or of Jesuits. It was, however, agreed that certain articles should be drawn up, by which the Sultan promised to continue his protection to the Christians according to the ancient capitulations and hattisherifs. On another point the Ottomans were characteristically and honorably firm. Austria required that Count Tekeli, the Hungarian chief who had taken shelter in Turkey, should be given up as a rebel to the emperor. This was refused, and nothing could be exacted beyond a promise on the Sultan's part that Tekeli and his partisans should be kept at such a distance from the frontier as not to be able to foment dis- turbances in any part of the emperor's dominions. Austria, on the other hand, consented that the confiscated dowry of Helen Zriny, Tekeli's wife, should be restored to her, and that she should be allowed to join her husband. At length, after many weeks of arguments, bickerings, threats, and intrigues, the terms of pacification were arranged. Austria and Turkey concluded a treaty for twenty-five years, by which the emperor was acknowledged sovereign of Transylvania, all Hungary north of the ]\Iarosch and west of the Theiss, and of Slavonia, except a small part between the Danube and tlie Save. With Venice and Poland treaties witliout limitation of time v^'cre effected. Po- land recovered Poclolia and Kaminiets. X'^enicc retained her con- quests in Dalmatia and the ]\Iorca, but restored to the Turks those which she had made to the north of the istlnnus of Corinth. Russia refused to consent to anything more than an armistice for two years, which was afterward enlarged into a jieace for thirty years, as the Czar's attention was. in the commencement of the eighteentli century, principally tlirected to schemes of aggrandizement at the expense of Sweden. Uy this armistice the Russians kept possession 270 TURKEY 1698-1699 of Azov, and of the districts which they had conquered to the north of the sea of that name. It was on January 26, 1699, that the pacification of Carlo- witz was completed. It left the two feebler Christian powers, Venice and Poland, restored to temporary importance, the one by the acquisition of the Morea, the other by the recovery of Kaminiets. But it was in the altered state of the three greater belligerents, compared with what they had been in 1682, that men recognized the momentous effects of the Seventeen Years' War, which was termi- nated at Carlowitz. Russia had now stretched her arms southward, and grasped the coasts of the Maeotis and the Euxine. At the beginning of the war Austria trembled for the fate of her capital, and saw her very national existence seriously menaced; at the end of the conflict the empire of the house of Hapsburg was left, not merely in security, but enlarged, not merely enlarged, but perma- nently strengthened and consolidated ; while the house of Othman saw many of its fairest dominions rent away, and was indebted for the preservation of the remainder from conquest by the invading Christians to the intervention of two other Christian states. From that time forth all serious dread of the military power of Turkey has ceased in Europe. " Her importance has become diplomatic. Other nations have from time to time sought to use her as a political machine against Austria or the growing power of Russia, and this diplomatic importance of Turkey has grown proportionately greater as the sovereigns of Russia became desirous of possessing the Black Sea for the carrying out of their plans." Another, and that a more general and enduring cause why the affairs of Turkey have con- tinued to inspire interest and anxiety, has been the consideration of the formidable increase of aggressive power which must be acquired by the conquering state that makes the Ottoman territories integral portions of its own dominions. The empire, which, while possessed by the Turks, is effete for purposes of attack, might, under the lordship of others, supply the means for crushing the liberties of the world. PART III DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1703-1792 Chapter XVIII PETER THE GREAT AND TURKEY. 1703-1730 THE Grand Vizier Kiuprili Husein availed himself of the return of peace to check the disorders which had arisen in many parts of the empire, especially in Egypt and the Crimea, during the last calamitous years of the war. He also endeavored to effect a general reform in the administrative depart- ments of the army and navy, in the finances, in the puhlic schools and colleges, in the laws respecting religious and charitable founda- tions, and in the treatment of the Christian subjects of the Porte. it was particularly in this last respect in his humane and wise mitigation of the burdens of the Rayas that the Amud Shah Zadc Husein showed himself a worthy successor of his relative Kiuprili the Virtuous. Unhappily for the empire, the influence of Kiuprili Husein was thwarted by that of other faxorites of Sultan ]\'Ius- tapha, and the fourth great minister of tlie house of Kiuprili retired from office, worn out in body and in mind, within three years after the Peace of Carlowitz. Kiuprili the Wise, as Kiuprili Husein was justly surnamed, died in the autumn of 1702. The Sultan did not retain the throne long after the loss of his able minister. Alustapha H. appears to have been spirit-broken by tlie disastrous close of his military career, and the latter part of his reign shows no trace of the vigor or of the conscientious zeal in the discharge of duty which signalized him in the commencement of his sovereignty. The once resolute leader of his own armies sank into an effeminate sensualist who forgot the boasted example of Suleiman the Lawgiver and appeared rather to follow that of Ibrahim. The general discontent of the nation produced the usual result. An insurrection broke out in Constantinople in 1703, which raged for several weeks, until Mustapha, who showed no spark of his former courage, abdicated in favor of his brother Ahmed HI., who became Sultan at thirty years of age. The position which the successes of Russia in the late war had given her on the shores of the Sea of Azov and the Euxine con- 273 274 TURKEY 1700-1705 tinued to fill the Ottoman councils with anxiety. Although the armistice, which alone the Russians would agree to at Carlowitz, was not broken, there were six months of earnest and often angry negotiations between the Czar and the Porte in 1700 before the final terms of peace between them were arranged. Eventually a treaty was signed which purported to assure amity between Russia and Turkey for thirty years. One of the first acts of Sultan Ahmed III. on his accession to the Turkish throne was to write a letter to Peter in which he complained of the menacing preparations in the Czar's southern provinces and declared that he could place no reliance on the Russian protestations of friendship. But Ahmed was not of a warlike disposition, and the intestine commotions by which his realm was troubled in the beginning of his reign made him anx- ious to avoid hostilities with his powerful neighbor. Russia also was too much occupied at this time by her contest with Sweden to make her desire a new war with Turkey, and another temporary settlement of the disputes between the two empires was effected in 1705. Still the Porte watched every movement of the Czar with jealous care. A fleet of Turkish galleys was sent every year to cruise in the Black Sea and observe the new fortifications which the Russians formed on its coast. Kertch and Yenikale were strongly garrisoned with regular Ottoman troops, and a Turkish castle was built near Taman on the Asiatic side of the straits of Kertch. The gallant conflict which Charles XII. maintained with Russia was the object of the admiring attention of all Europe during the first decade of the eighteenth century, and by none was the romantic career of that heroic king watched more earnestly than by the Ottomans, who felt deeply the value of the Swedish arms in averting from Turkey the ambitious attacks of the Muscovite sovereign. The Czar Peter was called by the Ottoman historians " White Mustache," while they speak of King Charles by the appropriate title of " Iron Head." It is known from these writers that the Turkish governor of Ochakov sent an envoy to Charles's camp at Thorn to negotiate an alliance against Russia. And when the Swedish king was in the Ukraine he received assurances from the same quarter that the Khan of the Crimea should lead an army of Tartars to his aid. But these communications were without the sanction of Sultan Ahmed, and when Charles, after his disastrous PETER THE GREAT 275 1705-1709 overthrow at Pultava (July 8, 1709), took refuge in Turkey he was received with dignified hospitality, but Ahmed showed no desire to break the peace with Russia for the purpose of restoring the King of Sweden to power. But the Porte returned a noble refusal to the demands of the triumphant Czar, when he required that Charles should not be permitted to remain in the Ottoman dom.inions, and sought by every possible threat and promise to obtain the extradition of the Hetman Mazeppa, who had accom- panied Charles into Turkey and whom the Russian claimed for punishment as a traitor to their sovereign, Charles XII. at first took shelter at Ochakov, but soon removed to Bender, where the Porte assembled a little army for his pro- tection. The necessity of such a precaution had been shown by an attack which the Russians made on a body of Swedes who were collected in Moldavia. The Czar's forces suddenly crossed the frontier, surprised the Swedes near Czernowitz, and carried nearly all of them away into Russia as prisoners. This violation of the Ottoman territory caused the greatest indignation at Con- stantinople, and it was with extreme difficulty that the Russian Ambassador Tolstoi prevented an immediate declaration of war. The Grand Vizier, Tshuli AH, was in favor of maintaining peace with the Czar and opposed vehemently the demands of Charles, who wished the Sultan to furnish him with 30,000 Spahis and 20,000 Janissaries to escort him across Poland toward his own dominions. To have sent such an army as this with Charles would have necessarily involved the Porte in hostilities with both Poland and Russia, and Tshuli Ali bade the Divan remember the suffer- ings of Turkey in the last war as decisive arguments against such a measure. On the other hand the Sultana Valide, who admired the chivalrous courage of Charles, pleaded his cause warmly with the Sultan and asked often of her son. " Wlicn would he aid her lion against the bear?" At the end of 1709 the pacific party in the Divan prevailed, and the treaty which had been signed between Russia and Turkey in the reign of ]\Iustapha II. was renewed, but with an additional article which stipulated that the King of Sweden should be at liberty to return to his states by such road as he should judge fitting. The Sultan sent a letter to the king informing him that by virtue of this clause he could return to his kingdom in full security, and the letter was accompanied by 10,000 ducats for the expense of the journey and by presents of horses 276 TURKEY 1710 from the Sultan and the Vizier. Charles accepted the Sultan's j^ifts. but made no preparations for leaving Turkey, and the Sultan, "irritated at the failure of the Vizier's plans for relieving him of the burden of Charles's presence in the empire, deprived Tshuli AH of the seals of office and made Nuouman Kiuprili Grand Vizier in June, 17 lo. Nuouman Kiuprili was the son of Kiuprili the Virtuous, the Grand Vizier who fell in battle at Salankaman. The accession to power of a fifth Grand Vizier of this illustrious family was hailed with joy by all the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, and Nuou- man began his ministry amid the highest expectations of all ranks of his countrymen. These expectations were not fulfilled. Nuou- man Kiuprili showed the same toleration, the same wisdom, and justice which had marked his father in his treatment both of Rayas and Moslems. But he was one of those statesmen who, partly out of vanity, partly out of nervousness, take upon them- selves the personal discharge of more duties than they are equal to, and who give disgust and annoyance to their colleagues and subordinate officials by needlessly and unseasonably interfering with the petty details of departmental business. Hence there speedily arose confusion and discord in the government of which he was the chief, and the disappointment which men felt at the failure of their exaggerated hopes and predictions respecting him brought on the last Kiuprili by a natural reaction an equally ex- cessive amount of unpopularity. He was dismissed from the (irand Vizierate within fourteen months from the time when he had received that high office, and retired to his former subordinate but honorable station of governor of the important island of Euboca. Tlie numerous aggressions of the Russians on the Turkish territory caused frequent petitions for protection and redress to be sent to the Sultan by the inhabitants of his frontier provinces, and tlic agents of Charles XH. at the Turkish court used all pos- sible means to make these and similar inducements to war produce their full effect upon Sultan Ahmed. The Khan of the Crimea, Devlet Ghirai, was as anxious as the Swedish king for immediate hostilities between Turkey and Russia. No part of the Ottoman dommions was so seriously menaced by the ambitious preparations of the Czar as tlic Crimean peninsula and the adjacent districts wliicli Devlct Ghirai ruled as vassal to the Sublime Porte. The PETER THE GREAT 277 1710 Russians had built fortified posts near Kamienski at a short dis- tance from Perekop; they had also erected a castle at Samandjik at the point of the confluence of the Samara and the Dnieper. Another fortress had been built by them at Taighan, and the care with which Azov and the new port of Taganrok were fortified and the strength of the flotilla which the Czar had formed there were also causes of alarm to the Khan which he succeeded in communi- cating to the Sultan. Poniatowski, Charles's chief agent in the Turkish court, pointed out these preparations of the Czar as proofs that he designed now that he was master of Azov and the coasts of the sea, to assail and conquer the Crimea, whence the victorious Russians would soon attack Constantinople. Besides these causes pf complaint against Russia the partisans of Charles in the Divan referred to the growing ascendency of that power in Poland, where the troops of the Czar had now seized and garrisoned the important fortress of Kaminiets. Other causes why Turkey should suspect Russia were also mentioned, such as the Czar's subjugation of the Cossacks Potkal and Bersbasch and the Russian occupation of Stanileshti, a fortress o\-er against Jassy. ]\Ioved 'oy these repre- sentations of the anti-Russian party the Sultan summoned the Crimean Khan to Constantinople and in a solemn audience which Ahmed gave him Devlet Ghirai urged with vehemence the neces- sity of an immediate rupture with Russia. He warned the Porte that the Czar's agents were secretely intriguing with the Rayas of the empire, and that if time were allowed for the completion of their machinations the Russians would by tliese means win all the European dominions of the Porte. His reasonings finally pre- vailed with Sultan Ahmed. The Khan was dismissed with rich presents of honor, and the !Mufti was consulted as to tlie lawfulness of war with Russia and returned a fetwah which pronounced the war to be not only justifiable, but necessary. Orders were issued to enroll 30,000 Janissaries and large numbers of other troops, and a circular was sent to all the governors of the coasts enjoining them to prepare and place at the disposition of the Capudan Pasha (whose fleet was ready for sea) a certain number of vessels draw- ing but little water, and therefore fit for operations in the Sea of Azov. According to a barbarous usage which the Ottomans have only lately discontinued the declaration of war with Russia (Xo- veinber 28, T710) was marked by tlie im])risi)nnient of the Russian i\mbassador Tolstoi in the Castle of ibe Se\"en Towers. S78 TURKEY 1710-1711 It is probable that the Russian sovereign would wilHngly have deferred hostihties with Turkey. It was not till near the close of the year 1710 that Peter completed his conquest of Livonia and was at liberty to draw troops from the scene of his operations against the Swedes and against the party among the Poles that was opposed to him toward the Ottoman frontier. Had the war been delayed for another year it is probable that the Russians would have entered upon the contest with much greater advantages than they possessed in 171 1. But finding it impossible by negotia- tions to induce the Sultan to desist from his preparations for an immediate conflict, the Czar on February 25, 171 1, directed war against the Turks to be solemnly proclaimed in the principal church of Moscow. In order to increase the zeal of the Russian soldiery and prob- ably also with a view of inducing the Christian populations of Turkey to join him, Peter endeavored to give the war all the appearances of a war of religion. The rapid development of the vast power of Greco-Christian and Slavonic Russia and the approaching conflict between her and the house of Othman excited in the highest degree the Greek and Slavonic nations that were subject to the Turkish yoke. They looked upon the Czar as their coming liberator, and their enthusiasm was augmented by a rumor that an ancient prophecy had been discovered in the tomb of Constantine which pointed to the Rus- sians as the nation destined to chase the Turks from Constantinople. Even the small and remote tribes of the Montenegrins sent mes- sengers to Peter offering to attack their Turkish rulers and make a diversion in his favor. The Czar thanked them by a letter and by presents, but the primary aim of his negotiations with the Christian subjects of the Sultan was to secure the cooperation of the Hospo- dars (jf Wallachia and Aloldavia. It was into these principalities that he designed first to lead his army, and he wished to make them a secure basis for his further operations in invading Turkey. Brancovan, the Hospodar of Wallachia, had for a long time estab- lished an understanding with Russia which the Porte at last sus- pected and directed Prince Cantemir, the Hospodar of Moldavia, to attack him and deprive him f)f his government. But Cantemir him- self determined to aid the Russians and obtained such favor with the Czar as raised the jeal(jusy of Brancovan, who by a double treachery Ijegan to intrigue with the Turks for the purpose of misleading PETER THE GREAT 279 1711 Peter and bringing him and his army into a position where the Turks could assail them with advantage. The new Grand Vizier, Baltadji Mohammed Pasha (who had originally been a wood-cutter in the Serail), began his march from the neighborhood of Constantinople toward the Moldavian frontier in May, 171 1, at the head of a large and admirably equipped army. The Czar collected his forces in the south of Poland and in June advanced into Moldavia. His troops suffered severely on their line of march, and great numbers perished by privations and dis- ease before they reached Jassy and before any actual hostilities had commenced. Peter halted at Jassy for a short time and endeav- ored to gain stores of provisions in that city, but the supplies which Cantemir obtained for him were but scanty and the Wallachian Hospodar, Brancovan, was now acting in the interest of the Turks. In this emergency the Czar was advised to march southward toward some extensive magazines of provisions which the Turks were said to have collected near the lower part of the river Sereth and which he was assured that he might seize without difficulty. At the same time he was misled by false reports that the Vizier's army had not yet passed the Danube. The Czar accordingly marched the main body of his army down the right (or western) bank of the river Pruth, which runs nearly southward from the vicinity of Jassy to the Danube, falling into that river near Galatz a little below the confluence of the Sereth. But while the Russians were at Jassy the Grand Vizier had crossed the Danube at Isakdji, below the junction of the Pruth, and had been joined in Bessarabia by the Khan of the Crimea at the head of a large force of Tartar cavalry. The Ottoman commanders were informed of the march of the Czar down the western bank of the Pruth and they forthwith led their combined troops to the eastern bank of the river that they might cross it and attack the Russians in ^Moldavia. The Russian General Sheremetiev was posted with a detachment from the Czar's army near the part of the river wliicli the Turks and Tartars approached. He endeavored to prevent them from passing, but 10,000 Tartar horsemen swam the river and four bridges w^ere thrown over by night wdiich enabled tlie Vizier to place an overwhelming force on the w'estern or ^Moldavian side. Slicremcticv fell back and re- joined the main Russian army near Ivaltash, The intelligence which he brought was in the highest degree alarming to the Czar, whose force, weakened l)y disease and famine, was far inferior to 280 TURKEY 1711 that of tlic Ottomans, and was at this time still further reduced in consequence of two large detachments under Generals Renne and Jonas having' been sent into the interior districts of Moldavia and \Vallachia. The Czar retreated a little distance up the right bank of the ri\cr in the vicinity of the village of Kush and he then en- trenched himself in a seemingly strong position between the Pruth and a marsh in imitation of the tactics of Sobieski at Zurawna. But the low ground on w-hich the Russians were encamped was commanded by hills at a little distance which the superior num- bers of the Vizier's army enabled him to occupy. The Russians were thus completely blockaded in their camp ; they were almost destitute of provisions and suffered severely from thirst, as the Turks had planted batteries on the left bank of the Pruth which swept the river and made it almost certain death for the Russians to approach the water. The Vizier prudently abstained from at- tacking them, and all the efforts which the Russians made in two days of severe fighting to force the Turkish lines were completely repulsed. In this emergency the Czar and his men must either have ])erishcd with famine and thirst or have surrendered at discretion if it had not been for the dexterity of Catherine, the Czar's wife, who had accompanied Peter in this expedition, and was truly the saving angel of Russia. Catherine collected her own jewels and trinkets and all the gold that was in the possession of the chief Russian officers in the camp. She sent these by the Chancellor Shafirov to the quarters of the Turkish Vizier, and together with the presents of Catherine the chancellor carried a letter written by the General Shercmetiev, in tlie name of the Czar, asking for peace. The Kiaya of the Grand Vizier had great influence with Mohammed Baltadji and to him Catherine's envoy addressed himself. The Kiaya recei\-ed the presents and advised the Vizier to be favorable to the Russian petitioners. ^Mohammed Baltadji assented, and nego- ti;iLi(ins for a treaty were accordingly commenced. The agent of the King of Sweden. Count Poniatowski, who was in the Vizier's camp, protested against any terms being granted to the Russians, and the Klian of the Crimea joined warmly in Poniatowski's re- monstrance. lUit the Grand Vizier paid no regard to their opposi- tion, and his secretary. Omar Pffendi. drew up the celebrated treaty which liberated the Czar and his army from their extreme peril on July J I, 17 I I . Tlie treaty commenced witli a recital that by the grace of PETER THE GREAT 281 1711 God the victorious ^Mussulman army had closely hemmed in the Czar of jMuscovy with all his troops in the neighborhood of the river Pruth, and that the Czar had asked for peace, and that it was at his request that the following articles were drawn up and granted : By the first article the Czar was to surrender the fortress of Azov and its territories and dependencies in the same condition as they were in when the Czar took possession of them. By the second article the Czar consented that his new city of Taganrok in the Sea of Azov, his fortifications at Kamienski, and his new castle on the river Taman, should be destroyed, and that they should never be rel^uilt. The cannon and all the military stores of the Czar at Kamienski were to be given to the Sublime Porte. The third article stipulated that the Czar should no longer interfere in the affairs of the Poles or of the Cossacks, who were dependent either on the Poles or on the Khan of the Crimea, and all the Russian forces in their territories were to be withdrawn. The fourth provided for freedom of commerce, but directed that in future no Russian ambassador should reside at Constanti- nople. It is probable that the Russian intrigues with the Greeks and other Rayas may have caused this stipulation. The fifth article required that the Russians should set at liberty all the ^loslems whom they had taken prisoners or made slaves of either before or during the war. I'he sixth declared that inasmuch as the King of Sweden had placed himself beneath the wings of the mighty protection of tlie Sublime Porte, he should have a free and safe passage to his own kingdfjm without any hindrance from the Muscovites, and it wa^ recommended that Russia and Sweden sliould make peace with each other, if they could come to an understanding. The seventh ordained tliat in future the Porte should do no harm to the Aluscovites and that they slit)ul(l do none to the sub- jects and dependents of the Sublime Porte. The treaty concluded with a declaration of the Grand Vizier that the royal and infinite goodness nf his llirice jjowerful and gracious Lord and Padishah was entreated to ratif\- these articles and to overlook tlie previous e\"il conduct of tlie Czar. It a\erred that the Vizier made the jieaee 1)_\ \irlue of full ])o\\ers \'ested in him. It directed that hostages should 1)6 given bv tlie Czar for 282 TURKEY 1711 the fulfillment of the articles, and that the army of the Czar might then return forthwith by the nearest road to their own country without being molested by the victorious forces, by the Tartars, or by any other persons whatever. The Chancellor Baron Shafirov and General Sheremetiev were given up to the Ottomans as hos- tages, and the Czar and his surviving troops, glad at this escape from destruction, but shamed and sorrow-stricken at their losses and humiliations, marched back from the fatal banks of the Pruth to the Russian territories. The debt of Russia to Catherine, who united all woman's wit to all man's firmness at the Pruth, was worthily acknowledged by Russia's sovereign in 1724 when Peter caused her to be solemnly crowned as empress, and proclaimed to his subjects and the world how Catherine had aided him at the battle of the river Pruth against the Turks, where " our [the Russian] army was reduced to 22,000 men and that of the Turks consisted of 270,000. It was in this desperate exigency that she especially signalized her zeal with courage superior to her sex, and to this all the army and the whole empire can bear witness." Historians of all nations have vied with each other in repeating these praises of the heroine of the Pruth, but w^ith respect to the third chief actor in that memo- rable scene, the Turkish commander, a far different tone has pre- vailed both among his contemporaries and among those who in subsequent times have discussed that crisis in the affairs of the Muscovite and the Ottoman nations. The current charge against the Vizier is that he was bribed by the gifts of Catherine and consented to the escape of the deadly enemies of his country. It has been replied to this on behalf of Mohammed Baltadji that all the presents which Catherine had in her power in the Russian camp at the Pruth to offer to him and his Kiaya, even if all that she could collect from the officers and soldiers were added to her own jewels and furs, must have been quite insignificant as bribes for one in the station of Grand Vizier. It may also be thought that the Turkish commander, if avaricious, could have gratified his avarice better by compelling an unconditional surrender of the Russian army and all that it possessed, in which case he w^ould also have had a prospect of obtaining rich gifts from the friends of the chief captives in order to secure his influence for their release. By some it lias been tliought that the Vizier favored tlie Czar out of dislike to his rival the King of Sweden, who had treated jMoham- PETER THE GREAT 1711 med Baltadji with injudicious rudeness and contempt. But so many other methods of punishing the ill-manners of Charles were open to the Vizier, if he chose to do so, that it is difficult to suppose such a motive to have been the primary principle of his conduct in signing the armistice with the Muscovite commanders. It is impossible to suppose that the Vizier feared the effect of a desperate attack by the enemy whom he spared or to adopt the opinion ex- pressed by one historian of Russia that the Russians at the Pruth would probably have defeated the Turkish force if they had boldly attacked it. They had already been worsted in several engage- ments, and the spirit and discipline of Mohammed Baltadji's army were far superior to those of the oft-defeated Ottoman troops whom Romanzov afterward broke through in a similar situation. The Czar's confession of his extreme distress is decisive evidence that the condition of the Russian army was forlorn when the Vizier consented to treat. It was probably on no one fixed prin- ciple or from any one definite motive that the Turkish commander acted when he took the half-measure of releasing his prey on con- ditions which humiliated and injured without incapacitating for revenge. ]\Iohammed Baltadji deserves credit as a military man for his conduct of the war, but, though we may acquit him of corruption, the pacification by which he concluded the campaign must be censured as grievously unstatesmanlike. If it was his desire to disarm the hostility of Russia by generous moderation, he exacted too much; if he wished to crush her power, he did too little. The advice of the old Samnite, Herennius Pontius, to his son when he held the Roman legions in his power at Caudium, even as Alohammed Baltadji held the Russians at the Pruth, was sound and true. " Frank generosity may in such cases win a friend, or stern severity may destroy an enemy. To halt between the two is pernicious imbecility." Turkey had as deep cause as Samnium to rue the middle course that was taken by her general. Though the war between Russia and the Ottoman Porte did not actually break out again during the lifetime of Peter it is well known that he designed its renewal and made immense prepara- tion for that purpose of which the leaders of the Russian armies availed themselves in the campaign against the Crimea in 1736.^ The heritage of hatred and revenge passed undiminished to Peter's successors, and Russia taught Turkey in 1774 when the anniversary 1 See Manstein's " JMemoirs of Marshal !Munnich," p. 117. 284 TURKEY 1711-1713 of the Treaty of the Priith was carefully selected for the signature of the Treaty of Kainardji that the ignominy which Mohammed Baltadji had inflicted on the great Czar was neither forgiven nor forgotten. The indignation of Charles XII. at the pacification of the Pruth, his refusal to leave the Turkish dominions, and his obstinate conflict at Bender with the Spahis and Janissaries sent to remove him, are well-known passages of the biography of that adventurous prince. It was not only by the partisans of the Swedish king at the Sultan's court that the Grand Vizier was assailed with reproaches for his suspicious lenity to the Russians, The general discontent of the Turks was such that Ahmed deposed Mohammed Baltadji from the Vizierate, and the two officers who were believed to have been most active at the Pruth in forwarding the peace, the Kiaya Osman Aga and the Reis Effendi, were put to death at Constanti- nople by the public executioner. The delay of the Russians in fulfilling the treaty increased the irritation of the Porte against the Czar, and it was with considerable difficulty that the Eng- lish ambassador, Sir Robert Sutton, and the Dutch ambas- sador, Collyer, prevented a new declaration of war on the part of the Turks. By their mediation a treaty was signed on April 1 6, 171 2, which substantially reenacted the stipulations agreed on at the Pruth and explicitly provided that the Czar should withdraw his troops from Poland within thirty days. But the Russian sovereign showed no disposition to cease from his armed interference in the affairs of that unhappy country, and, in the East, though some of the smaller fortifications which had been raised by him near the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea were demolished by his orders, the important new city of Taganrog was main- tained by him, nor was Azov itself surrendered to the Turks. The Sultan again prepared for war, but again the intervention of the English and Dutch ministers was successful. A treaty was finally arranged in 171 3 between Russia and Turkey, of which the first six and the eleventh articles corresponded with the seven articles dictated by Mohammed Baltadji at the Pruth. Azov was then restored to the Turks and Taganrog demolished, and the great strife between Turkey and Russia now ceased for an unusually long period, lliougli the Czar never forgot his purposes of ambi- tion and re\enge, and tlie collection of magazines and military stores at the River Don was continued throughout his reign. PETER THE GREAT 285 1713-1715 The Grand Vizierate was at this time held by Sultan Ahmed's favorite son-in-law, Damad AH, called by some writers AH Kumurgi, the name by which he is immortalized in English poetry.^ He w^as a statesman of considerable administrative ability, an elo- quent speaker, and distinguished for his literary acquirements. The character of wild and bigoted ferocity which has sometimes been ascribed to him is erroneous. He was an earnest advocate of the peace with Russia, but he willingly promoted the scheme of a war of retaliation and recovery against Venice, a design which the Porte had never ceased to cherish since the Peace of Carlowitz. At the very time of that treaty the Turks seem to have been well aware of the weakness of the Venetian Republic, if unsupported by the great powers of Christendom, and when they ceded the Morea it was with the knowledge that they were powerful enough to regain it whenever they could compel Venice to fight single-handed against them. The feebleness shown by Venice during the great war among the Christian states which was closed by the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt, her timorous inaction which she vainly strove to hide under the pretext of dignified neutrality, and the contemptuous infringements of her territory by the belligerent par- ties, all tended to excite the Ottomans to attack her. Her great Captain Morosini, to wdiose individual genius her victories in the last war were mainly due, was now dead, and it was known that so far from having strengthened her hold on the ]\Iorea by wanning the affections of the Greeks and binding them to her cause by a feeling of community of creed and of interest against the Turks, she was as bitterly hated in her new province as she had formally been hated by her subjects in Cyprus and Candia, and that the Moreotes would rather be under the rule of the Mohammedans than under that of the schismatics of the Latin Church. The Turks had made great military preparations in 171 2 and 171 3 in consequence of the expectation then prevalent of a renewal of hostilities with Russia, and when the risk of w'ar in that quarter had ceased it was resolved to employ the forces of the empire in a sudden and over- whelming attack upon Venice. The Grand Vizier, Damad AH, led this enterprise the more readily because he was a firm believer in astrology, and the language of the stars announced to him in 1 71 5 that he was to Ijc tlie conqueror of the Alorea. Some collisions that had taken place between the Turkish and Venetian galleys 2 See B\Ton's " Siege of Corinth." 286 TURKEY 1715-1716 and the aid which Venice had given, or was said to have given, to tlie insurgents of Montenegro served as pretexts for the war. The Grand Vizier led an army of 100,000 men supported by a fleet of 100 sail against the weak Venetian force in the Morea in the sum- mer of 1 71 5. The siege of Corinth w^as terminated by the fall of that city on June 25 ; Palamidi, Napoli di Romania, Modon, and Koron, were captured by the triumphant Vizier with al- most equal celerity. The operations of the Turkish fleet were no less successful, and by the end of November, 1715, Venice had lost the wdiole of the Alorea and had been driven from all the islands of the archipelago. The Ottomans designed to follow up their success by attacking Corfu and then proceeding to assail the Venetian possessions along the coasts of the Adriatic. But the Emperor Charles VI., who at first only offered his mediation between the belligerents, had now decided on taking a more active part, ostensibly for the sake of protecting the Venetians, but it is probable that hopes of aggrandizing himself by further conquests from the Turks princi- pally led him to form an offensive and defensive alliance with Venice in the beginning of the year 171 6. The greater number of the Turkish statesmen and generals were anxious to avoid a war with the Germans, but the Grand Vizier was eager to attack them. War w-as declared against Austria in a council held at Adrianople, and the fetwah of the ]\Iufti sanctioning the war was solemnly read before the assembled dignitaries of the sword and pen. Damad Ali took in person the command of the forces that w-ere to act against the Austrians. This army was assembled at Bel- grade in July, and a council of war was held there, in which (as at the opening of the campaign under Sultan Alustapha in 1696) it was debated whether Temcswar or Peterwaradin should be the point on which the troops should march. Husein, the Aga of the Janissaries, advised a movement toward Temeswar. The Khan of the Crimea (who as usual had joined the army at the Danube with his contingent of Tartar cavalry) proposed that an incursion should he made into Transylvania. Tlie Begler Beg of Rumelia replied that tlicy lUiglit to rcnicml)er the disaster of the Zenta and not risk another army in tlie presence of Prince Eugene along the difficult line of march to Temcswar. With regard to the scheme of an inroad into Transylvania he remarked that the Tartar cavalry. PETER THE GREAT 287 1716 if once let loose on such an enterprise, would cumber themselves with plunder and unfit themselves for warfare. His voice was for the march on Peterwaradin, either to fight the enemy if he would give them battle, or to form the siege of that city. The Grand Vizier heard the discussion without giving his own opinion, but he deter- mined to march upon Petewaradin, which he believed to be protected only by 1500 Austrians under Count Pfalfy, the main body of the army being encamped at Futaks under Prince Eugene. A bridge was accordingly formed across the river Save and the Turkish army moved along the south bank of the Danube toward Peter- waradin. It was remarked and remembered by the Ottoman soldiery, as an evil omen, that their commander, though he might have chosen one of the lucky days of the week for the passage of the Save, such as Saturday, Monday, or Thursday, yet thought fit to cross the river on a Tuesday and not in the fortunate hour of morning, but in the afternoon. The first encounter with the Austrians took place near Carlo- witz. The Turks found a body of the enemy's troops posted there under Count Pfalfy, amounting to 8000 men according to the Ottoman historians, to 300 according to the reports of the German generals. Kurd Pasha, who commanded the Turkish vanguard, demanded of the Grand Vizier and obtained permission to charge them, and thus the first act of hostilities by which the Peace of Carlo witz between the houses of Plapsburg and Othman was for- mally broken took place in the immediate vicinity of the spot where the treaty had been signed. The Turks were victorious in the action and took 700 prisoners, among whom was General Count Brenner. On the following day Damad Ali continued his advance upon Peterwaradin, which is only two leagues from Carlowitz. But Prince Eugene had already taken up a position across the intended Turkish line of march. He encamped in the very entrenchments which Surmeli Pasha had formed in the last war. Damad Ali halted his army in presence of the Austrians and kept his men under arms for three hours in the expectation that Eugene would sally from his lines and attack him. But the Austrians moved not, and the Vizier hesitated to assail them in tlieir fortified camp. He or- dered his men to break ground and form trenches as if for a siege, and the Turks labored so zealously during the night that before morning they had pushed the approaches within a hundred feet of the Austrian camp. 288 TURKEY 1716 On the following clay, August 13, 17 16, Eugene drew out his forces for a regular battle which Damad Ali had no wish to avoid. Eugene had 187 squadrons of horse and 62 battalions of infantry. He arranged them so that the left wing was protected by a marsh and his right by some rising ground. The Turkish army numbered over 100,000, of whom 40,000 were Janissaries and 30,000 Spahis, the rest consisting of Tartars, Wallachians, Arna- outs, and Egyptians. Ali drew up his cavalry on the right wing to oppose that of the Austrians; his infantry was ranged in the center and on the left. The battle began at seven in the morning. The German cavalry proved their superiority to the Asiatic in regular charges, and the victory of the Christians seemed secure, when the Janissaries on the Turkish left broke the Austrian infantry, routed the wing opposed to them, and pressed hard upon the center. Eugene immediately brought up a reserve of horse with which he charged the Janissaries and retrieved the fortunes of the day. The Grand Vizier, during the beginning of the action, took his station near the Sacred Standard of the Prophet which was displayed in front of his tent. He remained there till the bold Ahmed, commander of his right wing, was slain, and till the flying Spahis from that part of the battle began to sweep by him, heedless of the reproaches and saber strokes by which he strove to check their panic rout. Damad Ali then put himself at the head of a body of officers and galloped forward into the thick of the fight. A bullet pierced his forehead and he fell mortally wounded. His followers placed him on a horse and removed him to Carlowltz, where he soon expired. Two of the Turkish generals and the his- torian Rashid formed a guard round the Sacred Standard and bore it safely away to Belgrade. As soon as their flight and the Grand Vizier's fall were known in the left wing where Sari Ahmed, the Begler Beg of Anatolia, commanded, the Janissaries who had hitherto combated valiantly gave way and retreated toward Bel- grade. The battle was over at noon. Three thousand Germans and twice that number of Turks had fallen. Eugene took posses- sion of his enemy's camp, and 140 cannon, 150 banners, five horse- tails, and an immense amount of booty and military stores were the trophies of tlie prince's victory. But the joy of the Austrians was troubled by the sight of the body of the unfortunate General Bren- ner, which was found barbarously mutilated. A feeble attempt was made ]>y the Turks to relieve the im- PETER THE GREAT 289 1716-1717 portant city of Temesvar, the last bulwark of Islam in Hungary, the siege of which had been commenced by Prince Eugene twenty days after his victory at Peterwaradin. Eugene defeated Kurd Pasha, who led a division of the Ottoman army against him, and Temesvar capitulated on November 28, 171 6. At the begin- ning of the war Eugene had endeavored to rouse the Servians and their kindred tribes beyond the Save to cooperate with the Austrians, and had promised them the aid of the emperor's armies to shake off the yoke of Turkish oppression. The Servian youth flocked zealously under Eugene's banners, and after the fall of Temesvar a corps of 1200 Servians under the command of the imperial General Dettin made an inroad into Wallachia and pene- trated as far as Bucharest. The great object of the Austrian operations in the year 1717 was the capture of Belgrade. Eugene invested that city in June with a magnificent army of 80,000 men, which comprised great numbers of the princes and nobles of Germany and France, who sought distinction by serving under so renowned a commander as Eugene and in so brilliant an enterprise. Belgrade was garrisoned by 30,000 Turks, who resisted their besiegers bravely and endured with patience a blockade of two months. In the beginning of August an Ottoman army 150,000 strong under a new Grand Vizier advanced to attempt the rescue of Belgrade. Eugene's troops had suffered severely during the siege, and if the Turks had attacked him promptly on their arrival their superiority of num- bers and condition, and the panic caused by their appearance, would in all probability have assured their victory. But the Grand Vizier hesitated, and held councils of war, and formed earthworks and redoubts round the lines of the Austrian army, which was now besieged in its turn, but which rapidly regained its former confi- dence in itself and its commander on finding that the foes, not- withstanding their numbers, delayed the expected attack. The greater part of the imperial forces was posted round Belgrade between the Danube and the Save, but there were strong detach- ments on the opposite banks of these rivers which were required to keep the garrison in check and coni])lete the investment of the city. The Vizier's army was ranged round the rear of Eugene's main force in a large semicircle from the south bank of the Danube to the east bank of the Save. For fifteen days the Vizier kept up a heavy cannonade upon the Austrian lines, which Eugene replied 290 TURKEY 1717-1718 to witli all the artillery tliat he could safely withdraw from the bat- teries against the city, but the sufferings of the Austrian troops from fatigue, disease, and want of provisions were so severe that the liberation of Belgrade and the capture or destruction of the besiegers seemed inevitable. The Vizier now drew his works nearer to those of the Austrian entrenchment, the cannonade grew fiercer, and the Turks were evidently making preparations to storm the imperialists' lines of defense. In this emergency Eugene resolved on the daring measure of anticipating the enemy's assault and of leading his enfeebled and scanty army against the strong fortifica- tions and immense numbers of the Vizier's host. He made the attack at two in the morning of August i6 with complete success. The Turkish outposts were negligent, the discipline of their whole army was lax, they had slept in careless confidence, they woke to panic confusion, and when once the Christian columns were within their works the greater part of them fled without even attempting resistance. Ten thousand Ottomans were slain or trampled to death in flight. Their camp, their artillery, and the whole of their military stores were captured. Belgrade surren- dered on the second day after the battle. Eugene had the prudence to grant favorable terms of capitulation to its numerous garrison, and a campaign which had seemed likely to be marked with his utter ruin and the destruction of the Austrian army was thus terminated by him with a splendid triumph and a most important conquest. The Porte now sought earnestly for peace with Austria, and the proffered mediation of England and Holland was again gladly accepted. The court of Vienna was at this time alarmed at the prospects of a new general war in the west of Europe, which had been created by the restless genius of Cardinal Alberoni, The victorious career of Eugene in the East was therefore checked, and the emperor determined to secure the conquests which had been already won by treating with Turkey on the basis of the nti possidetis, though a negotiation on this principle was a flagrant sacrifice of the interests of Venice, the ally for whose sake Austria had pretended to embark in the war. Tlie negotiations for peace were opened in June, 171 8, at a small town in Ser\ia called Passarowitz. The representatives of the mediating states. England and Holland, were present as had been the case at Carlowitz. The articles of peace were solemnly PETER THE GREAT 291 1718-1730 signed on July 21. Venice gave up the Morea to the Porte, and though she retained a few fortresses which she had acquired in Dalmatia and Albania, she was obliged to make over to the Sultan the unconquered districts of Zarine, Ottovo, and Zubzi, in order to keep open the Turkish communications with Ragusa. Her cession of the Morea showed that the power and glory of Venice had departed from her with the last of her heroes, Morosini. After the Peace of Passarowitz Venice possessed no part of Greece except the Ionian Islands, and on the Albanian coast she had noth- ing but the cities and districts of Butrinto, Parga, and Prevesa, a little strip of territory two leagues broad and twenty in length. Like Spain, Venice had been illustrious as a defender of Christen- dom against the Ottomans when the power of Turkey was at its height, and, like Spain, Venice sank into corruption and imbecility even more rapidly than their fast-declining antagonist. Austria, by the Treaty of P''assarowitz, not only obtained the city of Temesvar and its territory, and tlius completed the recov- ery of Hungary from the l\irkis]i power, but she then extended her dominion over large portions of W'allachia and Servia aggrandize- ments of her empire which she failed to retain long, but which were 292 TURKEY 1730-1731 long remembered by ber rulers witb ambitious regret and desire. Tbe treaty of 1718 assigned to Austria tbe cities of Belgrade, Semendria. Rimnik, Krasova, and many more. It made the river Aluta, in Wallachia, the boundary of the two empires, thus assign- ing to Austria the whole of the country termed Little Wallachia. Six other rivers, the Danube, the Timok, the little Morava, the Dwina, the Save, and the Unna, then fonned the frontier line, so that nearly all Servia and some valuable territories in Bosnia were transferred from the Sultan to the house of Hapsburg. The Aus- trians had not indeed realized the threat expressed by some of their generals in the first year of the war when they boasted that they would go on conquering until the Austrian Empire touched the Black Sea and the /Egean, but Eugene gave to the Emperor Charles VI. a dominant position in Eastern Europe such as the most renowned of his predecessors had never acquired and which that emperor himself lost soon after the death of the great com- mander to whom its temporary possession was due. The abilities of Sultan Ahmed's Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who directed the government from 17 18 to 1730, presented an unusual degree of internal peace in the empire, though the frontier provinces were often the scenes of disorder and revolt. This was repeatedly the case in Eg}'pt and Arabia, and still more frequently in the districts northward and eastward of the Euxine, especially among thiC fierce Nogai tribes of the Kuban. The state of the countries between the Black Sea and the Caspian was rendered still more unsettled by the rival claims of Russia and the Porte ; for it was difficult to define a boundary between the two empires in pursuance of the partition treaty of 1723, and a serious dispute arose early in the reign of Ahmed's successor, in 1731, as to the right of dominion over the Circassians of the Kabartas, a region about half way between the Euxine and the Caspian, near the course of the River Terek. The Russians claimed the Kabartas as lands of Russian subjects. They asserted that the Circassians were originally Cossacks of the Ukraine, who migrated thence to the neighborhood of a city of Russia called Terki, from which they took their name of Tchercassians, or Circassians. Thence (according to the memo- rial drawn up by the Czar's ministers) the Circassians removed to the neighborhood of Kuban, still, however, retaining their Christian creed and their allegiance to the Czar. The continuation of the story told that the tyranny of the Crim Tartars forced the PETER THE GREAT 293 1730 Circassians to become Mohammedans, and to migrate farther east- ward to the Kabartas ; but it was insisted on that the Circassians were still to be regarded as genuine subjects of their original earthly sovereign, and that the land which they occupied became the Czar's territory.^ This strange political ethnology had but little influence upon the Turks, especially as the Czar had in a letter, written nine years previously, acknowledged the sovereignty of the Sultan over the Circassians. The course of the Persian war, in which the Turks had at first made successive conquests, wnth little check from the Shah's armies, though often impeded by the nature of the country and the fierce spirit of the native tribes, became after a few years less favorable to Ottoman ambition. The celebrated Nadir Khan gained his first renown by exploits against the enemies of Shah Tahmasp. A report reached Constantinople that the lately despised Persians were vic- torious and were invading the Ottoman Empire. This speedily caused excitement and tumult. Sultan Ahmed had become unpop- ular by reason of the excessive pomp and costly luxury in which he and his principal officers indulged, and on September 20, 1730, a mutinous riot of seventeen Janissaries, led by the Albanian Patrona Khalil, was encouraged by the citizens as well as the soldiery, till it swelled into an insurrection before which the Sultan quailed and gave up the throne. Ahmed voluntarily led his nephew Mahmud to the seat of sovereignty, and made obeisance to him as the Padishah of the empire. Pie then retired to the apartments in the palace whence his successor had been conducted, and died after a few years of confinement. The reign of Ahmed III., which had lasted for twenty-seven years, though marked by the deep disasters of the Austrian war, was, on the whole, neither inglorious nor unprosperous. The recovery of Azov and the Morea and the conquest of part of Persia more than counterbalanced the territ )ry which had been given up to the Austrian emperor at the Peace of Passarowitz. Ahmed left the finances of the Ottoman Empire in a flourishing condition, which had been obtained without excessive taxation or extortionate rapacity. He was a liberal and discerning patron of literature and art, and it was in his time that the first printing press was set up in Constantinople. It was in this reign that an important change in tlie government of tlie Danubian principalities was introduced. ^ Sec Von Hammer, " History oi the Ottoman Empire/' book Ixvi. note i. 294 TURKEY 1730 Hitherto the Porte had employed Voievodes, or native Moldavian and Wallachian nobles, to administer those provinces. But after the war with Peter the Great in 171 1, in which Prince Cantemir betrayed the Turkish and aided the Russian interests, the Porte established the custom of deputing Greeks from Constantinople as Hospodars or viceroys of Moldavia and Wallachia. These were generally selected from among the wealthy Greek families that inhabited the quarter of Constantinople called the Fanar, and con- stituted a kind of Raya noblesse, which supplied the Porte with functionaries in many important departments of the state. The Moldo-Wallachians called the period of their history during which they were under Greek viceroys (and which lasted until 1821) the Fanariote period. Chapter XIX MAHMUD I. AND WARS WITH RUSSIA, AUSTRIA, AND PERSIA. 1 730-1 763 SULTAN MAHMUD was recognized by the mutineers as well as by the court officials, but for some weeks after his accession the empire was in the hands of the insurgents. Their chief, Patrona Khalil, rode with the new Sultan to the Mosque of Eyub, when the ceremony of girding Mahmud with the sword of Othman was performed, and many of the chief officers were deposed and successors to them were appointed at the dicta- tion of the bold rebel, who had served in the ranks of the Janis- saries, and who appeared before the Sultan barelegged, and in his old uniform of a common soldier. A Greek butcher, named Yanaki, had formerly given credit to Patrona, and had lent him money during the three days of the late insurrection. Patrona showed his gratitude by compelling the Divan to make Yanaki Hospodar of Moldavia. The insolence of the rebel chiefs became at length insupportable. The Khan of the Crimea, whom they threatened to depose, was in Constantinople, and with his assistance the Grand Vizier, the Mufti, and the Aga of the Janissaries suc- ceeded in freeing the government from its ignominious servitude. Patrona was killed in the Sultan's presence, after a Divan in which he had required that war should be declared against Russia. His Greek friend, Yanaki, and 7000 of those who had supported him were also put to death. The jealousy which the officers of the Janissaries felt toward Patrona, and their readiness to aid in his destruction, facilitated greatly the exertions of the Sultan's sup- porters in putting an end to the reign of rebellion, after it had lasted for nearly two months. The conduct of the war in Persia against the Turks was resumed in 1733 by Nadir Khan (during whose absence the Otto- mans had obtained considerable advantages), and that chieftain gave the Sultan's forces several defeats and laid siege to the city of Bagdad. But that important ])ulwark of the Ottoman Empire was rescued from him by the Grand Vizier, Topal Osman. 295 296 T U R K E Y 1730-1731 This is a name justly cclc1)ratc(l by Christian as well as Mo- hammedan writers, and it is gratifying to turn from the scenes of selfish intrigue and of violence and oppression which the careers of Grand Viziers generally exiiibit, and to pause on the character of a Turk of the eighteenth century, who was not only skillful, sage, and valiant, but who gave proofs of a noble spirit of generosity and gratitude such as does honor to human nature. Osman was born in the Morea ; he was educated in the Serail, at Constantinople, where native Turks were now frequently brought up. since the practice of levying Christian children for the Sultan's service had been discontinued. At the age of twenty-six he had attained the rank of Begler Beg, and was sent on a mission from the Porte to the governor of Egypt. On the voyage his ship en- countered a Spanish corsair and was captured after a brave defense, in the course of which Osman received a wound which lamed him for life, whence he obtained his name of Topal or lame Osman. The Spanish pirates carried their prize into Malta, where a French- man of Marseilles, named Vincent Arnaud, was then harbor-master. Arnaud came on board the prize, and was scrutinizing the prisoners, when Osman addressed him, and said : " Can you do a generous and gallant action ? Ransom me, and take my word, you shall lose nothing by it." Struck by Osman's appearance and manijer, the Frenchman turned to the captain of the vessel and asked the amount of the ransom. The answer was a thousand sequins, a sum nearly equal to $2500. Arnaud then said to the Turk, " I know nothing of you, and would you have me risk a thousand sequins on your bare word ? " Osman replied that Arnaud could not be blamed for not trusting to the word of a stranger ; " but," he added, " I have nothing at present but my word of honor to give to you, nor do I pretend to assign any reason why you should trust to it. Flowever, I tell you if you do trust to it, you shall have no occasion to repent." The Oriental proverb says well that " there are paths which lead straight from heart to heart." Arnaud was so wrought upon by Osman's frank and manly manner that he prevailed on the Span- iards to set him at Iil)erty for 600 sequins, which sum the generous Frenchman immediately paid. He provided Osman with a home and medical assistance until his wounds were healed, and then gave him the means of ])rocecding on his voyage to Egypt. As soon as Osman reached Cairo he sent back 1000 sequins as payment to Arnaud, with a present of 500 crowns, and of rich furs, which are M A H M U D I 297 1731-1732 considered the most honorable of all gifts in the East. A few years afterward Osman signalized himself greatly in the Tur- kish reconquest of the Morea, and in 1722 he was appointed Seraskier, and commanded all the Turkish troops in that country. He immediately invited Arnaud's son to visit him in the Morea, and conferred mercantile privileges on the young man and placed opportunities for lucrative commerce within his reach, which en- abled him to accumulate large wealth, with which he returned to his father. In 1728 Osman was governor of Rumelia, and he then invited his French benefactor and his son to visit him at Nish, his seat of government, where he treated them with distinction and honor such as no Ottoman Turk had ever before been seen to accord to a Christian. On taking leave of him at Nish, Arnaud said, as a compliment, that he trusted to live to visit Osman as Grand Vizier at Constantinople. When Topal Osman attained that rank in 1 73 1 he again invited Arnaud and his son to become his guests, and, receiving them in his palace, in the presence of the highest dignitaries of the state, Osman pointed out the elder Arnaud and said : " Behold this Frenchman ; I was once a slave loaded with chains, streaming with blood, and covered with wounds; this is the man who redeemed and saved me; this is my master and benefactor; to him I am indebted for life, liberty, fortune, and everything I enjoy. Without knowing me, he paid for me a large ransom; sent me away upon my bare word, and gave me a ship to carry me where I pleased. Where is there even a IMussulman capable of such generosity?" Fie then took both the Arnauds by the hand and questioned them earnestly and kindly concerning their fortune and prospects, ending with an Asiatic sentence,'' God's goodness is without bounds." lie afterward gave them many re- ceptions in private, when they met without ceremony as friends, and he sent them back to their country loaded with the richest presents. Topal Osman was superseded in tlie Grand Vizierate in 1732. His friends and dependents lamented bitterly over his downfall, but Osman bore it with a nobler feeling than the ordinary stoicism of a Turk under misfortune. According to his English biographer, he summoned his friends and family round him and addressed them thus: "What is the reason of your aflliction? Have I not always said that the office of Grand Vizier is of all the most likely to be short? All my concern was I slionld get out of it with honor; 298 T U R K E Y 1733-1736 and, thanks to God, I have done nothing with which I reproach myself. j\Iy master, the SuUan, approves of my services, and I resign with perfect satisfaction." He then gave orders for ren- dering thanks to Heaven, as if it had been one of the most happy events of his hfe. Before Topal Osman had been long in retirement the alarming progress of the Persian armies made the Porte again require his services, and he was sent into Asia as generalissimo of the Turkish armies in that continent, and was invested with almost unlimited powers. He marched to encounter the dreaded Nadir, and on July 19, 1733, gave him a complete overthrow in a pitched battle near the banks of the Tigris, about twelve leagues from Bagdad. The victory thus gained by Topal Osman on the Tigris rescued Bagdad; and he again defeated the Persians, near Leitan, in the same year. But in a third battle with Nadir, near Kerkoud, the Turks were routed, and Topal Osman himself died the death of a gallant soldier, fighting sword in hand to the last, rather than disgrace himself by flight. His body was borne off the field by some of his attendants, and was afterward brought for burial to Constantinople. Nadir gained repeated victories over the Ottoman generals who succeeded Topal Osman, and in 1736 the Porte gladly made a treaty of peace with its formidable enemy, which fixed the same boundary between Turkey and Persia that had been determined by the old treaty made with ]\Iurad IV. In the preceding year the Russians had made a compact of peace and amity with Nadir by which they abandoned those Persian provinces which they had appropriated by the partition treaty made between Peter the Great and Ahmed III. The court of St. Petersburg thought it more profitable to begin a war of conquest against Turkey, now weak- ened by the sword of Nadir Shah, than to strive for the retention of districts round the Caspian Sea, which were then far distant from any strong parts of the Russian Empire. It was with reluctance and alarm that the Porte found itself again involved in hostilities with the powers of Christendom. The war with Persia had been zealously undertaken, and though un- successful, was not unpopular. In combating the Persians the Turks fought against heretics whom they hated a hundredfold worse than tlie unbelievers, and they hoped also to achieve new conquests or t(j recover ancient dominions. But the prospect of M A H M U D I 299 1733-1734 collision with either of the great neighboring Christian empires caused far different feelings. Neither Ottoman pride nor Aloham- medan fanaticism could now expect to see the Crescent reassert in the battlefield that superiority over the Cross which it had held in the days of Mohammed the Conqueror, and in those of Suleiman the Lord of his Age. The last dreams of such a reaction had vanished when Damad Ali, the conqueror of the Morea, fell before Eugene at Peterwaradin.- The Turkish ministers who succeeded that " dauntless Vizier " ^ knew the superiority which the military system of Austria and Russia had acquired over the Turkish. They watched carefully the political movements of Christendom, and made it their chief study to preserve peace. It was in vain that the French ambassadors at Constantinople strove to excite the Porte to war with Austria, and that the Swedish envoys urged it to recom- mence the struggle against Russia. The Turkish statesmen sought and followed the pacific advice of the representatives of England and Holland, the two maritime powers whose intervention had obtained the Treaties of Carlowitz and Passarowitz, and who had no selfish interest in plunging Turkey into the perils of new wars. In general the Ottoman Empire was then regarded by the Christian powers much as it has been in our own times. The decay of its military force was considered to be irretrievable ; and the speedy expulsion of the Turks from Europe and the dismemberment of their dominions were confidently and covetously expected. Some sagacious observers judged differently. The celebrated French military writer, the Chevalier Folard. attributed the defeats of the Turkish armies in the early part of the eighteenth century almost entirely to their neglect in not availing themselves of the improve- ments that had been made in the weapons of war. In his o])inion it was the bayonet that had given the Christians their victories over the Moslems. Pie thought the Turks inferior in courage to no nation living, and far superior in all soldierly qualities to the Russians, whom Peter the Great had then recently made formidable to Europe. Folard believed that there needed l)ut the appearance of some military reformer, some enlightened Vizier among the Otto- mans, to restore them U) their old renown, and change the face of the affairs of the whole world. Montescjuieu also, the highest politi- cal genius of the first half of the eighteenth century, ])ointed out to his contemporaries that tlieir anlicip.'itii.ns of witnessing tlie fall of J " Thus uttered Coumotirgi, the dauntless Vizier." Byron. 800 T U 11 K E Y 1734-1735 the Ottoman Empire were premature. He foresaw with marvelous sagacity that Turkey, if her independence were ever seriously men- aced by either of the great military monarchies in her neighborhood, would find protection from the maritime powers of Western Eu- rope, who know their own interests too well to permit Constanti- nople to become the prize of either Austrian or Russian invaders. This caution was in 1734, as in after years, unknown or un- heeded at the court of St. Petersburg, Russia had at this time ready for action a veteran army which had gained reputation in the war in Poland, and she possessed a general of no ordinary military genius in Count IMiinnich, who had brought her troops into a high state of efficiency and was eager for opportunities of further distinction. The Russian army was excellently officered, chiefly by foreigners from Western Europe, and the artillery (that important arm of modern warfare to which the Russians have owed so many advantages) was unusually numerous and well- appointed. The Empress Anne and her advisers thought that the time had come for avenging upon the Turks the disgrace which had been sustained in 171 1 on the banks of the Pruth, and Austria, which was then governed by the infirm Charles VI., was persuaded to join Russia in her schemes of aggression. There had been nu- merous disputes between the empress and the Porte arising out of their unsettled claims to Daghestan, and the Kabartas, and other districts between the Black and the Caspian Seas. The march of Tartar troops from the Crimea through the Caucasian territories for the purpose of cooperating with the Ottoman armies in the north of Persia had been forcibly resisted by the Russians, and collisions had taken place which gave an ample supply of pretexts for war to the empress and her licentious favorite, Biren, by whom the councils of St. Petersburg were chiefly swayed. Turkey had also caused grave offense to Russia by earnestly re- monstrating in 1733 against the iniquitous attacks of the Russians up{m the independence of Poland. The Reis Effendi made an explicit protest against the occupation of that country and its capital by the empress's troops. He was met by tlie answer that the Russians had only entered Poland for the sake of enabling the Poles to proceed to the election of their new king in freedom, which bVance was endeavoring to disturb by her intrigues in favor of Stanislaus Lesczinski. The Turk rejoined that the Sublime Pi)rte did not concern itself as to whom the Poles chose for their king. M A H IVI U D I 301 1735-1736 but that it was resolved to uphold the national independence of Poland. The envoy of Russia then made a long catalogue of com- plaints against the Porte for permitting the Tartars to attack the Cossacks, for marching troops through the Caucasian territory, and for not delivering up a refugee from Russia named Kalumin- ski. These grievances were said to be the reason why Russia in- creased her forces in the south. These and similar recriminations were continued during the two next years, but Biren and the em- press were resolved on war, which the ministers of the maritime powers vainly labored to prevent. So long as the hostile intentions of Russia were only manifested by conflicts with the Tartars along the ill-defined frontiers of Turkey near the Crimea and the Caucasus the Porte continued to negotiate, but in May, 1736, intelligence reached Constantinople that the empress's army under Marshal Miinnich had captured two Turkish fortresses near Azov and that Russian troops were actually besieging that important city. On May 28, 1736, war was de- clared by a solemn fetwah against Russia, and on that very day Miinnich stormed the lines of Perekop. We possess in the memoirs of General Manstein, who served under ^Marshal Miinnich and who was also frequently employed in the diplomatic service of the Russian cabinet, an unquestionable source of ample information respecting these Crimean campaigns and also respecting the inveterate policy of Russia toward Turkey. General Manstein expressly states that Peter I., unable to stomach the Treaty of the Pruth, had long ago planned the war on the coasts of the Black Sea which the Empress Anne undertook. He had formed vast magazines on the River Don and had collected materials for a flotilla which was to waft his army down that river and the Dnieper. .Ml was ready for the commencement of a cam- paign when death cut sliort his projects (May ]6, 1727). On the accession of the Empress Anne, in 1730, the design of a Turkish war was revived ; and General Keith was sent by the court of St. Petersburg to Southern Russia to inspect the state of the maga- zines which Peter the (jrcat had formed, a^id to reorganize, so far as was necessary, his armaments for an attack on the Ottoman d(i- minions. The troubles in Poland obliged the empress to defer lios- tilities against tlie J'orte; but when, in 1735, the Russians had been complctclv successful against the independent party among the Tholes. Miiimich and his l)cst troops were moved into the Ukraine: 302 T IT R K E Y 1736 and it was resolved to commence the campaign against Turkey by attacking Azov, and to make also the greatest possible efforts against the Tartars of the Crimea, in order to conquer their whole country and establish the Russian power over the Black Sea, In the month of March Miinnich advanced with six regiments of infantry, three of dragoons, and 3000 Cossacks of the Don to St. Anne, a fortress which the Russians had erected about eight miles from Azov. The Turkish governor of that city sent one of his officers to compliment the marshal on his arrival on the frontiers, and to express the Pasha's full belief that the Russian force had no design of breaking the peace which existed between the two em- pires. Munnich replied in terms of vague civility; but on March 27 he passed the River Don, and marched on Azov with such speed and secrecy that he captured two of the outworks of the city before the main body of the Tartars knew of his approach. He then invested Azov itself, and on the arrival of the Russian General Leontiev with reinforcements Miinnich left him to carry on the siege until the arrival of Count Lacy, for whom the command of tlie operations in tliat quarter was designed. Miinnich himself on April 6 repaired to Tsarichanka, where the main Russian army was assembling, which was to effect the great enterprise of the campaign, the invasion of the Crimea, The Russian forces for this operation, when concentrated at Tsarichanka, two leagues from the Dnieper, on May 19, 1736. consisted of twelve regiments of dragoons, fifteen regimicnts of regular infantry, ten of militia, ten squadrons of hussars, 5000 Cossacks of the Don, 4000 Cossacks of the Ukraine, and 3000 Zaporogian Cossacks, amounting altogether to 54,000 men. IMiinnich had directed every regiment to take with it supplies of bread for two months, and tlie officers were bidden to make similar provision for themselves. Such ample magazines had been pre- pared that even a larger supply might have been distributed ; but the means of transport were deficient. Miinnich was unwilling to defer operations until more wagons and beasts of burden could be collected, but lie ordered Prince Trubetskoi to undertake that im- portant duty, and to send forward continual convoys of provisions with tlie fresli regiments which had not yet arri\-ed but were on tlieir marcli to join the army. These orders of the marshal were ill-obeyed by tlie prince, and the invading forces suffered severely from his neglect. M A H M U D I 303 1736 Miinnich formed his army in five columns and marched down the left bank of the Dnieper, defeating some bodies of Tartar horse which had advanced to reconnoiter the invaders; they then moved by Zelenaya Dolina and Tchernaya Dohna to the banks of the little River Kolytschka. Thence he marched to the narrow isthmus which connects the Crimean peninsula with the continent, and on May 26, 1736, the Russian marshal halted at a short distance from the celebrated lines of Perekop. These lines were drawn across the isthmus a little to the north of the town of Perekop, at a part where the land is not more than five miles in breadth, from the Black Sea, to that recess of the Sea of Azov which is called the Putrid Sea. The defenses consisted of a trench about thirty-six feet wide and twenty-five feet deep, backed by a rampart seventy feet high, if measured to its summit from the bottom of the ditch. Six stone towers strengthened the lines and served as outworks to the fortress of Perekop, which stood behind them. The position was believed by the Tartars to be impregnable, and they assembled here under their Khan against Miinnich to the number of 100,000, aided by a force of 1800 Turkish Janissaries, who garrisoned the towers. Miinnich first sent a detachment of 2500 men and some pieces of artillery forward on his left (the side nearest to the Sea of Azov), to make a false attack on that quarter and draw away the enemy's attention from the Russian right (the side nearest to the Black Sea), on which he designed the real assault to l^e given. The maneuver was perfectly successful ; and the Tartars, who had hurried to the eastern part of the lines to meet the Russian de- tachment that menaced them, were thrown into alarm and con- fusion when the main Russian force appeared, in six strong columns, advancing steadily and rapidly against the Tartar left, on the western part of their position. No attempt seems to have been made to flood the ditch, and the Russian columns descended into it, crossed it, and began to clamlier u]) the opposite rampart, while their batteries poured a heavy fire upon the parapet and pre- vented the Tartars from forming so as to offer any effective oppo- sition. Terrified at seeing tlie enemy thus boldly passing through the works on which they had relied, the Tartars betook themselves to flight; and the Russians surmounted the rampart, and drew up on the southern side almost without resistance. The Russian gen- eral, ^r.'uistein, who took part in the c\ents of the day, remarks that 304 TURKEY 1736 it would probably have been impossible to force the lines in that manner against any other enemy than the Tartars. But he observes that the entrance into the Crimea would, nevertheless, have been practicable, inasmuch as the neighboring part of the Sea of Azov is so shallow in summer that it is easily fordable, and Perekop can thus be always turned, even if it cannot be stormed. It does not appear that either party in this campaign endeavored to avail them- selves of the all-important cooperation, which a flotilla of heavily- armed gunboats would give, for the purpose either of attack or defense. The tower and the city of Perekop were speedily captured by the victorious Russians, and Miinnich then detached General Leontiev with 10,000 regular troops and 3000 Cossacks to attack the fortress of Kilburn, on the extremity of the tongue of land of the same name, which projects into the Black Sea near the mouth of the River Dnieper, and opposite to Ochakov on the mainland. This was June 4, and on the same day the marshal held a council of war, in which the future operations of the main army were considered. The greater number of the Russian officers were averse to entering farther into the Crimea, and they pointed out to the commander-in-chief that the army had now only twelve days' supply of bread. They urged that at least it would be prudent to halt until expected convoys of provisions arrived. But Miinnich was eager for the glory of being the conqueror of the Crimea, and would not rest content with the capture of Perekop. He told his generals that if they advanced boldly into the Tartar territory they would find the means of subsisting at the enemy's expense, and he refused to halt longer at the isthmus, and so give time for the Tartars to recover from their panic. The army accordingly moved forward across the steppes of the northern part of the Crimean peninsula, harassed incessantly by the Tartar cavalry, but protected against any serious attack by the skillful dispositions of the marshal. Miinnich formed his force into one vast hollow square composed of several battalions, each of which was also formed in square. The baggage was in the middle. This arrangement has, since his time, been generally ado])ted by the Russian generals when acting in open countries with forces chielly of infantry against large masses of hostile cavalry. As Miinnich advanced he kept up his communi- cati()n witli I'erekcjj) and the Ukraine by forming little redoubts in favorable jjositions, at a short distance from each other. Each of M A H M U D I 305 1736 them was garrisoned by an officer, and ten or twelve regular foot soldiers or dragoons, and thirty Cossacks. A complete chain of fortified posts was thus formed, along which intelligence was readily transmitted. General Manstein observes that it was aston- ishing to the army to find how vainly the Tartars endeavored to assail their little citadels. Not one of them was captured, and it was only in a few instances that the Russian couriers failed to pass from post to post in safety. Besides thus preserving the army's communications, the soldiers who were posted along the line of march were charged with the useful service of making hay and storing it up for the supply of the horses of the army on their return, when the herbage of the steppes was likely to be exhausted. Thus arrayed, and with these precautions, the Russians moved on through the Crimea, taking also constant care to guard against the peril which they incurred from the Tartar custom of setting fire to the long grass of the steppes, now dried by the fierce sunbeams of the Crimean summer. Vessels of water were ordi- narily carried in the numerous wagons that accompanied the army for the refreshment of the soldiers while on the march; and Miin- nich now ordered that every wagon and carriage should be provided with the means of putting out fire ; and whenever the army lialted, the grass and soil were dug up and removed for the breadth of three feet round the camp. The town of Koslov, now better known as Eupatoria, on the western coast of the Crimea, was the first point on which Miinnich marclied on leaving Perekop. Koslov was considered at that time to be the richest commercial city in the peninsula. It was taken and sacked by the Russians on June ly. Thence ]\Iunnich led his troops to Bakchiserai (the Palace of Gardens), the ancient residence of the Khans of the Crimea. This city was also assaulted, and after a short resistance the Tartar garrison fled from their post. IMunnich then drew his Russians and Cossacks up outside the defenseless town, and sent in a quarter of his army at a time to pillage for a fixed number of hours. The Ixirbarous work was fully accomplished. Two thousand private houses and all the public buildings were destroyed. The vast palace of the Khans, the splendid library which Selim Gherai had founded and that which had been collected by the Jesuit mission in the Crimea perished in the flames. Simplieropolis, to the northeast of Bakchiserai, was next attacked by the Russians ; its inhabitants and its wealth were given up to the brutality and rapacity of the 806 T U R K E Y 1736 soldiers, its buiklings to the flames. Miinnich then took the road towards Kaffa, with the desire of establishing the Russian force permanently in tliat advantageously situated city. But his army, which had inflicted so much misery and devastation on the Crimea, was itself suffering fearfully, and the marshal saw his ranks dimin- ishing every day, not by battle, but by disease, want, and fatigue. The Tartars laid waste the country wherever the march of the in- vading columns was pointed, and the barbarous cruelties of the Russians themselves cooperated in increasing their privations. General Manstein asserts that the Crimean campaign of 1736 cost Russia nearly 30,000 soldiers : and he justly censures the rashness of Miinnich, who plunged with his army into the peninsula, on the sole hope that perhaps they would be able to subsist at the enemy's expense. He blames also the excessive severity of the marshal in discipline, and his recklessness in imposing unnecessary fatigues on the soldiers. He states that the Russians were so exhausted by their sufferings and trials that men used to drop down stark dead on the march, and that even officers died of famine and misery. ^Miinnich returned to Perekop on July 17, and evacuated the Crimea on August 25, having first razed a considerable por- tion of the defenses of the isthmus. General Manstein observes as a proof of the severity of the losses which the invaders had sus- tained that every Russian regiment which entered the Crimea in 1736 had its full complement at the beginning of the campaign that is to say, each regiment of infantry was 1575 strong and each regiment of dragoons 1231. But when the army was reviewed at Samara by Miinnich at the end of September there was not a single regiment that could array 600 men round its colors. Never in the annals of warfare had the sufferings of an invading force been more deeply deserved. The whole campaign of the army under Miinnich in the Crimea had been marked by the most atrocious cruelty and the most savage spirit of devastation. No mercy was shown by the Russians to age or sex. Towns and villages were fired and their inhabitants slaughtered, even where no resistance was offered to the Russian troops. The monuments of antiquity were wantonly de- faced, libraries and schools were given to the flames, and public buildings and places of worship were purposely and deliberately destroyed. The Sultan's arms were visited but by a single gleam of suc- cess. In November, when the survivors of Miinnich's army were in M A H M U D I 307 1736-1737 winter quarters, Feth Ghirai, the new Khan of the Crimea (his pre- decessor Kaplan Ghirai having been deposed by the Porte for want of vigor in opposing Miinnich's invasion), made an inroad into the Ukraine, defeated a body of 500 Russians and spread devastation throughout the province. The Tartar force returned to the Crimea with a Hving booty of no less than 30,000 Russian captives, whom they carried off into slavery. The Ottoman court was solicitous to put an end to the war with Russia, and made frequent attempts to negotiate a peace, sometimes through the intervention of France and Sweden, and sometimes through that of Austria, which last was insidiously proffered in the hopes of retarding and arresting the preparations of the Turks for a new campaign. The Emperor Charles VI. was, in reality, eager to share with Russia the spoliation of the Turkish provinces: and in January, 1737, a secret treaty was made between the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg, which stipulated that the Austrian armies should invade Turkey in concert with the Russian forces. But it was wished that the emperor's troops should have the same advantage of taking the Turks by surprise which the Russians had obtained when they attacked Azov and the Crimea without any declaration of war. The Austrian statesmen therefore feigned to be solicitous for peace, and a congress was opened at N'imirov, in which the empress's and the emperor's plenipotentiaries kept up the hollow show of negotiations until the November of 1737. Turkey was willing to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace ; but when at last the representatives of Russia and Austria were pressed into a declaration of the terms on which they were willing to grant it, their demands were such as to be unendurable to the Ottoman spirit. While the diplomatists of Russia and Austria had been spin- ning out the web of faithless negotiation, their armies had attacked the Turks with equal ambition, but with far different success. Mijnnich took the field two months before congress had begun its meetings at Nimirov with an army of 70,000 men and a park of artillery that numbered 600 pieces of different caliber. Aliinnich was high in favor with the court at St. Petersl^urg, which cared little for the cruel sacrifice of troops by wliich the exploits of the last campaign had been purchased, and the resources of the empire were freely placed at the marshal's disposal for the new operations which his daring ambition suggested. Aliinnich employed the early 308 TURKEY 1737 months of 1737 in the collection of stores, and of wagons, in the formation of a flotilla of flat-bottom gunboats, and in perfecting the organization and training of his army. His severity was in- human ; but it is to him that the foundation of that iron discipline is ascribed by which the Russian armies have ever since been distinguished. Miinnich left to General Lacy the renewal of the invasion of the Crimea. His design for the main army under his own command was to advance down the northwestern coast of the Euxine and to capture the important city of Ochakov. He crossed the River Boug on June 25 without experiencing the least opposition from the Turks, whose troops were slowly assembling at Bender. On July 10 the Russian forces encamped before Ochakov. The Turk- ish generals had succeeded in throwing a division of their best men into that city before Miinnich had arrived, and the Russian general found that he had to deal with a garrison 20,000 strong, well provided with artillery and stores of every description. The Turks fought bravely and made many desperate sallies, which from the number of troops engaged and the heaviness of the slaughter deserve to be considered regular battles. IMiinnich's men suffered severely from want of provisions, of fascines, and other ordinary materials for carrying on a siege. Still Miinnich persevered with fierce temerity, which his own generals censured, and which the marshal's good fortune alone crowned with success. After a cannonade of two days a fire was observed to break out in the city, and ]Miinnich instantly hurled his whole army on the defenses, without regard to the state of the fortifications in the quarter where the assault was given, and without providing his columns with ladders or fascines, or other usual means for passing any obstacle that they might encounter. The Russians forced their way to the foot of the glacis and found there a deep trench, which completely checked their farther advance. With unflinching but useless bravery they remained there nearly two hours, under a heavy cannonade and musketry fire from the city, to which they replied by useless volleys. At length they broke and fled back in confusion, and had the Turkish commander followed up his success by a \-igorous sally of the whole garrison, the siege must have been raised, and ^.Tiinnich's army would have been almost certainly de- stroyed. But only a few hundred of the garrison followed the flying Russians, and Miinnich was able before lone to re-form his men M A H M U D I 309 1737 and prepare for a renewal of the attack. The conflagration con- tinued to spread in the city, and early on the morning after the first assault the principal Turkish magazine of powder exploded and destroyed 6000 of the defenders. The Seraskier, alarmed at this catastrophe, and seeing the flames within gathering still greater fury, and the Russians without reassembling for the charge, hung out the white flag and capitulated, on the condition of surrendering himself and his forces prisoners of war. While the capitulation was being arranged the Russian hussars and Cossacks of the Don forced their way into the city and began to plunder it. The Seraskier and part of his troops had already marched out to surrender, but the Russian soldiery attacked them, slaughtered many, and drove the rest back into the town. The Seraskier sent again to Miinnich to say that he surrendered at discretion, and to beg quarter for himself and men. The Russian commander then sent forward a regiment of guards, who conducted the Seraskier and between 3000 and 4000 of the garrison as prisoners to the Russian camp. But great num- bers of the Turks were massacred without mercy, and many were drowned in a vain attempt to swim off to some Turkish vessels which had been moored near the city during the siege, but which on seeing its capture weighed anchor and sailed with the evil tidings to Constantinople. The bodies of more than 17,000 Turks were buried by the victorious Russians when they took possession of Ochakov. They had themselves lost in killed and wounded during their short but sanguinary siege nearly 4000 men. Disease, want, and fatigue were, as usual, still more deadly scourges to the invaders. ]Munnich found that his army was less strong by 20,000 men than it had been at the commencement of the campaign. He had projected a further advance upon Bender, but a report that the Turks had fired the steppes which it would be necessary to cross in a march upon that city, and the enfeebled state of his army, made him determine on returning to the Ukraine, after repairing the fortification of Ochakov and leaving a strong garrison to secure his conquest. In the meanwhile Lacy attacked the Crimea with a force of 40,000 men, supported by a fleet under Admiral Bredal in the Black Sea and by a flotilla of armed rafts and gunboats which Lacy caused to ])c constructed in the Sea of Azov. The Khan of the Crinie.'i h:ul ropairtM] tlie lines of Perekop with great care, and po.;ted liis army Ijcliintl tlicm, with the intent to defend them nuich 310 TURKEY 1737 better against Lacy than they had been defended by his predecessor against Miinnich. But Lacy marched his army along the narrow bank of land which extends from near Yenitchi on the mainland toward Arabat in the Crimea, nearly across the whole entrance of the Putrid Sea. He formed bridges of casks and rafts over the gaps in this perilous water, and entered the Crimea on July 23, 1737, without the loss of a single man. He defeated the Tartars near Karasou Bazaar, and then led his men up and down through the devoted country, pillaging, burning, and slaying, after the manner of Miinnich's troops in the preceding year. Lacy left the Crimea in August by a bridge which he formed over the nar- row part of the Putrid Sea near Shungar. The Russians boasted that during this short invasion they had burned 6000 houses, thirty- eight mosques, two churches, and fifty mills. Austria commenced her treacherous attack upon Turkey in 1737 by suddenly assailing the city of Nish, in imitation of Miinnich's advance against Azov in the preceding year. One im- perialist army, under Field-Marshal Seckendorf, entered the Otto- man territory in Servia in the month of July, and at the same time other Austrian forces were marched against the Turkish pos- sessions in Bosnia. Nish was captured without difficulty, and Seckendorf then sent part of his army against Widdin; but the Turks had time to strengthen the garrison of that city, and the invaders perished rapidly by disease and want in their marches and counter-marches along the banks of the Timok and the Danube. The Austrians had begun tlie war in a spirit of overweening pride in their own military skill and prowess, and in arrogant contempt of their enemy. Full of recollections of the triumphs of Eugene, they thought that the superiority, which under that great captain they had maintained over the Ottomans, was certain to continue, and that to advance against the Turks was necessarily to conquer. The cabinet of Vienna was even more arrogant and rash than the officers whom it employed. When one of the generals proposed to the army-board at Vienna that the palpable weakness of the artillery force should be remedied by providing each battalion with two field-pieces, his request was rejected, on the principle that the emperor's armies had always defeated the Turks, notwithstanding any deficiency in cannon, and that the same would continue to be the case. 1 he natural results of such a spirit in the camp and council were visible early in the campaign. It was found that the Turks M AH MUD I 311 1737-1738 fought with courage and skill ; and rash attempts on the part of the imperiahsts met with severe repulses. At the first appearance of reverse the Austrian generals began to quarrel among themselves, and the calamities of their troops soon increased. On the Turkish side the Grand Vizier took the command, ably assisted by the French renegade Bonneval, the fruits cf whose military ability were manifested in the unusual accuracy of the maneuvers of the Otto- man forces and in the improved discipline of the troops. After a short and inglorious campaign Seckendorf led the remains of his army back into Hungary. The Turks recovered Nish and pene- trated at several points into the Austrian territories. In Bosnia the result of the campaign was similar. The Mohammedan population of that province resisted the invading imperialists with enthusiastic valor, and though the Austrian troops at first gained some ad- vantages, they were before the close of the year driven back out of Bosnia with disgrace and loss. In the following year the emperor placed new generals at the head of his armies, and a new Grand Vizier, Yegen Mohammed Pasha, led the Ottomans against them. The Turks did not wait for the advance of the Austrians, but acted on the offensive in great force and with remarkable boldness. They took Mehadia in Hungary, and laid siege to the important fortress of Orsova on the Danube. The Austrians were successful in an action at Kornia near Mehadia, July 4, 1738, against Hadji Mohammed, but their loss of men was greater than that of the Turks, and the Grand Vizier, coming up with fresh forces, drove the imperialist army back, captured Semendria, and resumed the siege of Orsova, which surrendered to the Ottomans on August 15. The Austrian commanders, disunited and disheartened, led their troops back in precipitate retreat within the walls and lines of Belgrade. The Turkish cavalry followed them and occupied the heights near that city, where the imperialist army lay shamefully inactive and the prey of pestilential disorders. A body of Austrian hussars tluiL ventured to encounter the Turks was routed with severe loss ; and the Grand Vizier, when he recalled his cavalry from Belgrade, closed the campaign amid merited honors and rewards, which the Sultan caused to be distributed to the general and officers of the armv. and to every ])rivate soldier who had distinguished himself by bravery and good conduct. Though less brilliantly successful against the Russians, the 312 TURKEY 1738 Turks during the year 1738 prevented those formidable enemies from making any important progress along the coast of the Black Sea. Marshal Munnich again led his army across the Dnieper and the Bong, and defeated several bodies of Turkish and Tartar troops that encountered him near those rivers. But on arriving at the Dniester he found a powerful Ottoman army strongly entrenched in a position which he was unable to force, and which barred his intended advance for the purpose of besieging Bender. But disease and the want of supplies were as usual much more deadly enemies to the Russians than either Turkish or Tartar swords, and Munnich returned in the autumn to the Ukraine with an army that had accomplished little and suffered much. ]\Iarshal Lacy repeated the invasion of the Crimea in the July of this year. He appeared with an army of from 30,000 to 35,000 men at the northern part of the Isthmus of Perekop ; and the Khan, who thought that the Russians now really meant to penetrate the Crimea by that route, prepared for an obstinate defense of the lines. But Lacy turned them without the loss of a life. The inlet of the Sea of Azov, which adjoins the eastern side of the isthmus, is shal- low at all times, and especially so in summer. The consequence is, that if the wind at that season blows for a few hours stronglv from the west, and drives back the water, the passage from the mainland to the Crimea may be effected without making use of the Isthmus of Perekop. On July 7 the favorable wnnd sprang up, and Lacy instantly formed his army in a single line along the coast and marched them across the bed of the gulf, before the wind had lulled and the waves returned. A few baggage-wagons that followed in the rear were lost, the wind having ceased to blow- from the west soon after the Russian troops had effected their passage. Lacy immediately took the Tartar position at Perekop in the rear. That city surrendered on the 8th, and the Russians were successful in an engagement on which the Tartars ventured against part of Lacy's army. Lacy's object in this campaign was to obtain possession of Kaffa. then the strongest place in the Crimea and the mastery of wliich was considered to involve the conquest of the wliole penin- sula. Rut tlic ravages of the Russian armies in the preced- ing years liad so wasted the country that Lacy could not find the means of suljsistence for his army. The Russian fleet, which Avas ordered to l)ring him supplies, was blown off the coast and severely damaged bv a storm. After a few ineffectual marches and M A H M U D I 313 1738-1739 counter-marches the Russians were obhged to return to Perekop and thence to their own country. Negotiations for peace had been frequently resumed during the war, and in the winter of 1738 fresh attempts to terminate hos- tihties were made under the mediation of France. But these were baffled by the exorbitant demands which the Russian court con- tinued to put forward. Marshal Munnich was the great inspirer of this ambitious spirit in the councils of the empress, and the vehement opposer of peace. He had repaired to the Russian capital at the close of the campaign of 1738, and employed all his influence to cause the continuance of the war, and to induce Russia to strike boldly for the conquest of Constantinople itself. He proposed to effect this not merely by Russian arms, but by raising the Christian subjects of the Turks against their master. He pointed out to the court of St. Petersburg what w^as the true state of the Ottoman Empire in Euro])e, with its Mohammedan population so many times outnumbered by the millions of Rayas, who had been oppressed for centuries, but who had never ceased to hate their conquerors, and who were now watching with anxious joy the progress of the Russian power. He told the empress that all the Greeks regarded her as their legitimate sovereign, and that the strongest excitement ])revailed among them. " Now," he said, " now is the time to take advantage of their enthusiasm in our cause, and to march upon Constantinople, while the effect which our victories have produced is fresh and vivid. Such an opportunity may never be offered again." The Empress Anne adopted readily this " Oriental P'roject," as it was termed, of Marshal ]\Iiinnich. The army in the south of Russia was largely recruited, and emissaries were sent into Epirus and Thessaly to prepare the inhabitants for a rising against the Turks. IMiinnich determined in 1739 to gain the right bank of the Dniester without exposing his troops to the sufferings and losses which lie knew by experience were the inevitable attendants of the march along the northwestern coast of the Euxine. He ac- cordingly led his army into Podolia, audaciously violating the neutral territory of the Polish state, in spite of the remonstrances that were addressed to him against this contemptuous breach of the law of nations. S])reading desolation round them as if in an enemy's country, Afiinnich's Russians and Cossacks traversed PodoHa and crossed ihe Dniester into Moldavia at Sukowza (August 1.2, 1739). about six leagues from the Turkish fortress 314 TURKEY 1739 of Chotim. The Seraskier of Bender, Veli Pasha, took up a position in front of Chotim, but was completely defeated on August 1 8, and Chotim surrendered a few days after the battle to the Russians. Aliinnich proclaimed Cantemir (a descendant of the former rulers of IMoldavia), Prince of Moldavia under Russian protection, and Cantemir immediately raised the natives in arms against the Ottomans and the Sultan's viceroy. Miinnich marched upon Jassy, the capital of the province, and he and Prince Cantemir entered that city without opposition. Thence the Russian general wheeled into Bessarabia, intending to reduce Bender and the other strong places of that district, and so secure his base of operations before he advanced southward into the heart of European Turkey. But he was checked in the mid career of triumph by tidings of the disastrous defeats which his Austrian allies had been sustaining on the Upper Danube, and of the still more disgraceful terms on which they had begged peace of the common enemy. The main Austrian force was assembled near Peterwaradin in May. It amounted to 56,000 men, without reckoning the artillery- men, or the hussars, and other light and irregular troops. Marshal Wallis intended to commence the campaign by the siege of Orsova, and he had positive orders from the emperor to fight a pitched battle with the enemy at the first opportunity. The Austrians crossed the River Save on June 27, and marched along the right bank of the Danube toward Orsova. The Turkish army un- der the Grand Vizier Elhadj Alohammed Pasha advanced through Semendria and took up a strong position on the high ground near Krotzka. Wallis on approaching Krotzka thought that he had only a detachment of the Turks to deal with, and hurried forward through a deep defile with only the cavalry of his army to the en- counter. On debouching from the hollow way the Austrian horse regiments found themselves among vineyards and tracts of under- wood, where it was impossible for them to form line or charge, and they were assailed in all directions by a heavy musketry fire from the Turkish infantry which the Vizier had skillfully posted round the mouth of the defile. Unsupported by any foot or artillery, the Austrian cavalry suffered severe loss, and was driven back in dis- order through the pass. The Turks advanced, occupying the heights on either side of the road, and assailed the right wing of the Austrian infantry. A furious engagement was maintained in this part of the field lill sunset, when Wallis drew back his troops to M AH MUD I 315 1739 Vinza. The Austrian loss in the battle of Krotzka was more than 10,000 in killed and wounded, and though the Turks also had suf- fered severely in the latter part of the action, they were in the highest degree elated by their victory. The Austrian general, whose de- spondency equaled his former presumption, soon fell back upon Belgrade. The Turks followed and opened their batteries against the city, the soldiers exclaiming, " Let us take advantage of the panic and blindness which God has inflicted upon the unbelievers for having broken the Peace of Passarowitz." Wallis and Neipperg now endeavored to obtain terms from the Grand Vizier, and a series of negotiations ensued, in which the Austrian generals and pleni- potentiaries showed infatuation, cowardice, and folly even greater than General Mack afterward displayed in the memorable capitula- tion of Ulm. The French ambassador, Villeneuve, came to the Grand Vizier's camp near Belgrade to give the mediation and guar- antee of France to the pacification which Wallis and Neipperg sought with almost shameless avidity. Preliminary articles were signed on September i, by which Austria was to restore to the Porte the city of Belgrade and all the districts in Bosnia, Servia, and Wallachia, which the emperor had taken from the Sultan at the Peace of Passarowitz. As a security for the execution of these preliminaries, a gate of Belgrade was given up to the Turks. It was stipulated by the Austrians that Turkey should at the same time make peace with Russia, and messengers were sent accordingly to the camp of Aliinnich. The victorious Russian general received the intelligence of the convention of Belgrade with the greatest indig- nation ; but he knew that it was impossible for him to resume his march upon Constantinople with the powerful and victorious army of the Vizier free to act against his flank, and Russia reluctantly consented to terminate a war which had cost her such heavy sacri- fices in treasure and in men, at the very time when her most ambitious schemes of conquest seemed to be on the eve of realization. The terms of the Treaty of Belgrade, as finally arranged be- tween the Porte and Austria, were substantially the same as those of the preliminary articles. The treaty between Russia and Turkev provided that the city of Azov should be demolished and its terri- tory remain desert as a borderland for tlie two empires. Russia was to be at liberty to erect a fortress on tlie Kuban, but Taganrog was not to be rebuilt. Tt was expressly provided by the third article '.U6 TURKEY 1739-1768 of the treaty that Russia should keep up no fleet either in the Sea of Azov or in the Black Sea, and that she should build no vessels of war on the coast of any part of those seas. She acknowledged the independence of the Kabartas, and a commission was appointed to fix the boundary line between the two empires. This gave Russia an increase of territory on the side of the Ukraine. Chotim and the other conquests of Russia in Moldavia and Bessarabia were restored, and the treaty gave to the subjects of both the Turkish and Russian sovereigns assurance of pardon for anything done by them during the war. Such was the Peace of Belgrade, one of the most honorable and advantageous for Turkey that she has ever made with European powers. It marks the reign of Sultan Mahmud I. with luster, which is the more conspicuous from the contrast between this pacification and the humiliating and calamitous character of the treaties by which subsequent struggles of the house of Othman with its European neighbors have been concluded. The evil day seemed now to be long deferred. A period of rest from the perils of war, unusually long in Ottoman history, inter- venes between the signature of Turkey's treaties with Austria and Russia in 1739 and the calamitous renewal of her strife with the latter power in 1768. Not that these twenty-nine years were seasons of perfect calm. A war with Persia broke out in 1743, but was terminated in 1746 by a treaty which made little change in the old arrangements between the two empires that had been fixed in the reign of IMurad IV. There were from time to time the cus- tomary numbers of tumults and insurrections in various territories of the Sublime Porte; and the governors of remote provinces oc- casionally assumed practical independence, disregarding the Sul- tan's commands, though professing allegiance to him, and handing down their power from father to son, as if they were hereditary potentates in their own right. These disorders were sometimes quelled and sometimes overlooked, according to the relative strength and weakness, vigilance and supineness, of the central gov- ernment and the insubordinate provincials. The most serious of these internal disturbances of the empire were those that became chronic in Egypt, proving that the magnificent conquest of Selim the Inflexible was gradually passing away from the feeble grasp of his successors. The latter part of the reign of Sultan Mahmud I. is made M A H M U D I 317 1748-1768 memorable not only in Turkish history, but in the general history of Mohammedanism by the rise and rapid increase of the sect of the Wahabites in Arabia. These Puritans of Islam (of which they claimed to be the predestined reformers and sole true disciples) were so named after their founder, Abdul Wahab, which means " The Servant of the All-Disposer." This leader was born at Alaynah, in Arabia, near the end of the seventeenth century of the Christian era and about the beginning of the twelfth century after the Hejira. His father was Sheik of his village, and young Abdul Wahab was educated in the divinity schools at Bassora, where he made rapid progress in Mohammedan learning and at the same time grew con- vinced that the creed of the Prophet had been overlaid by a foul heap of superstition, and that he himself was called on to become its reformer. He returned to Arabia, where, fearless of danger and unbaffled by temporary failure, he proclaimed his stern denuncia- tions of the prevalent tenets and practices of the mosque and state. He inveighed particularly against the worship of saints, which had grown up among the ]Mohammedans, against their pilgrimages to supposed holy places, and against their indulgence in several pleasures which the Koran prohibited. At first he met with ridicule and persecution from those to whom he preached ; but he gradually made converts, and at length his doctrines were adopted by Mo- hammed Ben Suoud, the Sheik of the powerful tribe of the Mes- salikhs, who at the same time married Abdul Wahab's daughter. The new sect now became a formidable political and military body, Abdul Wahab continuing to be its spiritual chief, but the active duties of military command being committed to Ben Suoud, who enforced the new faith by the sword, as had been done previously by the Prophet and the early Caliphs. Aziz, the son, and Suoud, the grandson of ^^lohammed Ben Suoud, continued the same career of armed proselytism with increased fervor, and the Wahabite sect spread through every region of Arabia. The attempts of successive Sultans and Pashas to quell this heresy and rebellion were in vain until the Pasha of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, undertook the task. He o\ertlirew the temi)oral empire of the Wahabites and sent their last Kniir in chains to Constantinople, where he was beheaded in 1818. But the W^ahabitc doctrines are said still to prevail among many of the Bedouin tribes. Tlie pacific policy maintained by Turkey toward Austria upon the death of the Emperor Charles VT. in 1740 is the more honorable 318 TURKEY 1748-1763 to the Ottoman nation, by reason of the contrast between it and the lawless rapacity which was shown by nearly all the Christian neigh- bors of the dominions of the young Austrian sovereign, Maria Theresa. The King of Prussia, the Elector of Bavaria, the Elector of Saxony, and the Kings of France, Spain, and Sardinia, agreed to dismember the Austrian Empire, and began the war of spoliation (called the war of the Austrian Succession), which was terminated by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. Sultan Mahmud not only scrupulously abstained from taking any part against Austria, the old enemy of his house, but he offered his mediation to terminate the hostilities which raged between the powers of Christendom. With equal justice and prudence the Turks took care not to become entangled in the other great European contest which followed that of the Austrian Succession after no very long interval, and which from the period of its duration (1756- 1763), is known in history as the Seven Years' War. Sultan Mahmud I. had died ( 1754) before the outbreak of this last-mentioned contest, but his brother and successor, Othman III., adhered to the same system of moderation and non-interference which his predecessor had established, and he thus preserved peace for the Ottoman Empire during his three years' reign, from 1754 to 1757. He was succeeded by Sultan Mustapha III., the son of Sultan Ahmed III. The name of ^Mustapha has always been ac- companied in Turkish history by calamity and defeat, and we now approach the time, when, under the third Sultan of that inauspicious designation, the struggle between the Porte and Russia was re- sumed, with even heavier disasters to Turkey than those which she endured when she strove against Austria and Prince Eugene in the reign of Sultan T^Iustapha II. The first years, however, of Mustapha III. were not un- promising or unprosperous. The administration of the affairs of the empire was directed by the Grand Vizier Raghib Pasha, a min- ister not perhaps equal to the great Ottoman statesmen Sokolli and tlie second and third Kiuprilis, but a man of sterling integrity, and of high diplomatic abilities. The chief efforts of Raghib Pasha himself were directed to the strengthening of Turkey against the inveterate hostility of the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg by alliances with other states of Christendom. The results of the War of Succession and of the Seven Years' War had been to bring Prussia fcM'ward as a new power of the first magnitude in Europe. i-; AM l',A.->,\|i(IK u\- FKF.IH.KK K II. At i d M I' A M Kl i lA 1111- (,lv\Mi \ I / 1 KK KACHir, I'ASIIA. (i\ rill-. i<(iA|i 1(1 illK "Sir.l.lMi: I'uKIK," K) SICN HIE TREATY OF A M IIA BKIWKKX I'K1>>1A AM) TL'KKEV l\iintin)i ('.y A. Miich.i MAHMUD I 319 1760-1763 Prussia, from her geographical position, had nothing to gain by any losses which might befall Turkey; and both Austria and Russia had been bitter and almost deadly foes to the great sovereign of the house of Brandenburg, Frederick 11. A treaty therefore between Prussia and Turkey seemed desirable for the interests of both states, and many attempts had been made to effect one before Raghib Pasha held the seals as Grand Vizier. At length in 1761 the envoy of Frederick II, to Constantinople signed a treaty of amity between Prussia and the Porte, similar to treaties which the Turkish court had already concluded with Sweden, Naples, and Denmark. But Raghib Pasha's design was to convert these preliminary articles into a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance. The English ambassa- dor strove earnestly to forward this scheme, while the ministers of Austria and Russia endeavored to retard and baffle it. Considerable progress had been made in the negotiations, when the death of Raghib Pasha in 1763 put an end to a project, which, if successful, would certainly have been followed by a new war with Austria. In that war the Prussians would have cooperated with the Turks, and it might have materially varied the whole current of subsequent Ottoman history. Chapter XX CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA AND LOSS OF THE CRIMEA. 1763-1774 /I FTER the death of Raghib Pasha in 1763 Sultan Mus- /-\ tapha III. governed for himself. He was a prince of con- jL JL siderable industry and talent, and honestly desirous of pro- moting the interests of the Ottoman Empire ; but he was hasty and headstrong, and he often proved unfortunate during the latter part of his reign in his selection of councilors and of commanders. And the scepter of the power most inimical and most formidable to Turkey was now grasped by one of the most ambitious, the most un- scrupulous, and also the ablest sovereigns, that ever swayed the vast resources of the Russian Empire. Catherine II. (who has been termed with such terrible accuracy both as to her public and private character, the Semiramis of the North) reigned at St. Petersburg. A military revolution had placed her on the throne instead of her weak husband, and it was only by preserving the favor of the Russian army, and by encouraging the fanaticism of the Russian people, that she could hope to preserve her royalty or her life. The military chiefs by whom her husband had been murdered and who were her own personal favorites, the Orlovs, and their associates were eager for hostilities. The Porte watched with anxiety and alarm the aggressive but insidious policy which was pursued toward every weak state that was within the sphere of Russian influence. That policy was to foment disturbances and civil war ; to interfere in the pretended character of a friend of the weaker party; to sow the seeds of new and worse dissensions, and then to make the misery and anarchy which Russian arts had produced the pretext for the subjugation of the exhausted state by Russian arms. It was in Poland, " that commonwealth of common woe," ^ that this Muscovite Machiavelism was chiefly practiced during the first years of Catherine's reign. Prussia became the accomplice of Russia against Poland. Frederick II. no longer sought the alliance of 1 The phrase is Sir Walter Raleigh's, applied by him to Ireland. 320 C A T H E R I N E 1 1 821 1764-1768 ' Turkey against his old enemies at Vienna and St. Petersburg, but concluded in 1764 a treaty with Catherine by which the two parties mutually pledged themselves to maintain each other in pos- session of their respective territories, and agreed that if either power were attacked, the other should supply an auxiliary force of 10,000 foot and 1000 horse. But it was expressly provided that if Russia were assailed by the Turks, or Prussia by the French, the aid should be sent in money. The Ottoman court protested continually but vainly against the occupation of Poland by Russian and Prussian troops; against the disgraceful circumstances of fraud and oppression under which the election of Catherine's favorite, Stanislaus Poniatowski, as king, was forced upon the Poles; and against the dictatorship which the Russian General Repnin exercised at Warsaw. The Turkish remonstrances were eluded with excuses so shallow as to show the contempt with which the Russians must now have learned to regard their Ottoman neighbors, both in diplomatic and warlike capacities. The Turkish Government, through their interpreters, continued from time to time to put the most pressing questions to the ministers of these courts, seeking for an explanation of the deeds of violence which were taking place in Poland. The Russian resident always pretended that he heard nothing of such events, or declared that these were " merely measures for the protection of the freedom of the republic, and for the maintenance of solemn engagements." Sultan Mustapha and his Viziers at last felt that they were treated as dupes and fools ; and the indignation raised at Constanti- nople against Russia was violent. This was augmented by the attacks made by the Russian troops on the fugitive Poles of the independent party who had taken refuge within the Turkish frontier, and who sallying thence carried on a desultory warfare against their enemies, which the Russians retaliated at every oppor- tunity, without heeding whether they overtook the Polish bands beyond or within the Ottoman dominions. At last the Russian gen- eral Weissman followed a body of the confederated Poles into the town of Balta, on the confines of Bessarabia, which belonged to the Sultan's vassal, tlie Tartar Khan of the Crimea. The Russians be- sieged the town, took it by storm, plundered, and laid it in ashes. Turkey had received proofs of Russian hostility in other regions. There had been revolts in Montenegro and in Georgia, and there had been troubles in the Crimea, all of which were aggravated, if 322 TURKEY 1768-1769 not created, by Russian agency. The Divan resolved, on October 4. 1768. that Russia had broken the peace between the two empires, and that a war against her would be just and holy. But it was determined that the Grand Vizier should have a final interview with Obresskov, the Russian minister at Constantinople, and inform him that peace might be preserved, but solely on condition that Russia should bind herself under the guarantee of her four allies. Denmark, Prussia, England, and Sweden, to abstain from all future interference with elections to the crown of Poland, or in the religious differences in that kingdom ; that she should withdraw her troops from Poland, and no longer hinder the Poles from en- joying full liberty and independence. Obresskov was summoned to an audience by the Grand Vizier, who interrupted the compli- mentary speeches of the Russian diplomatist by showing him a paper, by which Obresskov had pledged himself on behalf of the empress, four years previously, that the Russian army of observa- tion in Poland should be reduced to 7000 men, whereas it had been augmented to 30,000. Obresskov replied that this last num- ber was exaggerated, but owned that there were 28,000 Russian soldiers in Poland. " Traitor, perjurer! " cried the Vizier. " Hast thou not owned thy faithlessness ? Dost thou not blush before God and man for the atrocities which thy countrymen are committing in a land which is not theirs? Are not the cannons, which have overthrown a palace of the Khan of the Tartars, Russian cannons? '" The Vizier required him to sign instantly a paper containing the pledge on which the Divan had determined. Obresskov replied tliat he had not sufficient authority for such an act. The declaration of war was then pronounced, and the Russian minister was sent to the prison of the Seven Towers. The general feeling of Europe was favorable to the empress. England in particular, though she offered her mediation to prevent the Turkish war, was at this period and for many years afterward desirous of seeing the power of Russia augmented, and of uniting her witlj Prussia, Denmark. Sweden, Holland, and England her- self in a great northern alliance in opposition to the combination of France and Spain under the house of Bourbon. This design had l)cen formed by Lord Chatham (then Mr. Pitt) during the Seven Years' War; and it continued to be a favorite project of Eng- lish statesmen. The French minister Choiseul naturallv reirarded CATHERINEII 323 1768-1769 Russia with very different feelings. But that great statesman also discerned how necessary it was to watch jealously the growth of the Muscovite power, not only for the sake of French interests, but for the sake of the general commonweal of Europe. However just their cause, the Turks began the war too soon. When Sultan Mustapha issued his declaration of hostilities against Russia in the autumn of 1768, his anger had got the mastery over his judgment. He should have endured the affronts offered to him a little longer, and not taken up arms before the summer of the following year. He might then have had the full force of his empire in readiness to make good his threats. But it was impossi- ble to bring his Asiatic troops together during the winter, and the opening of the campaign on the Dniester and Danube was thus delayed till the spring of 1769, a delay which enabled the Russians to make ample preparations for assailing Turkey on almost every part of her northern frontier, both in Europe and Asia. Neither were the Turkish fortresses in a proper state of repair, nor suf- ficiently stored when the war was proclaimed at Constantinople. The Ottoman Government endeavored to make good these defects during the winter ; but the spring found the Turkish equipments still far from a due state of efficiency. One bold leader on the side of the Moslems, and almost the only one who displayed any warlike abilities in support of the Crescent during the first years of this disastrous war, made a vigor- ous onslaught on the southern provinces of Catherine's empire long before the other generals on either side thought it possible to bring troops into the field. This was the Tartar Khan of the Crimea, Krim Ghirai. Before the end of January. 1769, the Tartar chief collected at the ruins of Balta, which the Russians had de- stroyed in the preceding summer, 100,000 cavalry. With this vast force of hardy marauders Krim Ghirai crossed the River Boug, and then sent one detachment toward the Doneck and another toward Orel, wliile the main body under his own command swept over the Russian province of New Servia. For fourteen days Krim Ghirai rode at his will through Southern Russia, with drums beating and colors flying, while his wild horsemen swept the land with an ever- widening torrent of devastation. Krim Ghirai died within a month after his return from this expedition against Russia. The Porte appointed as the Khan's successor Devlct Gliirai. a prince without spirit or capacity. These 324 TURKEY 1769 were deficiencies in which he too closely resembled the Grand Vizier and the other leaders of the Sultan's forces. Meanwhile, the Em- press Catlierine and her generals had been preparing for the war with their characteristic energy. One Russian army, 65,000 strong, was collected in Podolia, under the command of Prince Alexander Michailovitch Galitzin, who was directed to besiege and capture the city of Chotim and then to occupy Moldavia. A second, under General Count Peter Alexandrevitch Rumiantsov, was to protect the frontiers of Russia between the Dnieper and the Sea of Azov, and to reconstruct the fortresses of Azov and Taganrog, which had been razed in pursuance of the Treaty of Belgrade. While the Grand Vizier was slowly moving with the Sultan's main army from Constantinople to the Danube, Galitzin passed the Dniester, and made an unsuccessful attempt upon Chotim, after which he re- treated across the Dniester. Indeed, so far as Galitzin was con- cerned, the sarcasm of Frederick II. of Prussia on the conduct of the war was well deserved. He called it a triumph of the one- eyed over the blind. But among the other Russian commanders and generals of division were Rumiantsov, Weissman, Bauer, Ka- menski, and, above all, Suvarov, in whom Frederick himself would have found formidable antagonists. The Turkish army crossed the Danube and advanced as far as Khandepe on the Pruth, between Chotim and Jassy. The de- ficiency of provisions and the swarms of gnats and mosquitos which tormented the Turks in that locality made the Grand Vizier change his line of operations and march toward Bender. They halted at Jassipede (June 9, 1769), where they found the supplies of food equally scarce, and the gnats and mosquitos equally abun- dant as at Khandepe. Meanwhile, Galitzin had reorganized his army and received large reinforcements in Podolia. The wretched government of Poland had been compelled by the Russians to declare war against Turkey, and Sultan Mustapha and his Mufti issued a fetwali by which the Turkish troops were directed to attack Poland and treat it as a hostile country. A series of operations and skirmishes in the neighborhood of Chotim fol- lowed, in which Prince Galitzin and the Grand Vizier rivaled each other in imbecility. At last the numerous complaints which the Sultan received against his son-in-law made him recall Emin Moliammed. who was lieheaded at Adrianople in August. Ali Moldowandji. who liad distinguished himself in some engagements CATHERINEII 325 1769 near Chotim, succeeded Emin Mohammed in the Grand Vizierate. On receiving the chief command of the Ottoman forces All made several bold attacks on the Russians near Chotim and endeavored to penetrate into Poland. Ultimately the Turks were unsuccessful, and Chotim surrendered on September i8, 1769. The Turkish army was now utterly disorganized and hurried back to the left bank of the Danube, recrossing that river at Isakdji by the same bridge of boats that had been constructed for their passage at the beginning of the campaign. The empress had now recalled Galitzin and given the chief command to Rumiantsov. Under that bold and able chief the Russians speedily overran Moldavia, defeat- ing the Turks at Galatz and at Jassy. Rumiantsov entered the capital of the principality and received there, in the name of the Empress Catherine, the homage of the Moldavian Boyards. The Russian influence speedily extended to Wallachia, and the Wal- lachian Boyards at Bucharest solemnly placed the insignia of gov- ernment in the hands of Russian commissioners, took the oath of allegiance to the Empress Catherine, and sent a deputation to St. Petersburg to protest their loyalty and implore her imperial pro- tection. In Trans-Caucasia and Armenia the Prussian generals Todleben and Medem had been uniformly successful, and had received in the empress's name homage and oaths of allegiance from great numbers of the inhabitants. But Catherine had resolved on carrying out her project of conquering Turkey by means of its own Christian popu- lation on a bolder and grander scale in another part of the Ottoman dominions. The designs of Peter the Great and jMarshal Miin- nich to arouse the Greeks against their Turkish master had never been forgotten at St, Petersburg, and Catherine now revived them with enthusiasm. The aged Marshal Miinnich (who during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth had been banished to Si- beria) was at Catherine's court, and eagerly encouraged her to renew what had been termed his " Oriental Project." Rus- sian emissaries had long been actively employed in the Morea and other parts of Southern Turkey in Europe, and the empress received numerous assurances of the devotion of the Greeks to the crown, and of their eagerness to rise against their Mohammedan oppressors. The empress and her favorites, the Orlovs, resolved not to wait till their land armies had effected the perilous and doubt- ful march from the Dniester to the vicinity of Greece, but to send a 326 TURKEY 1769-1770 Russian fleet with troops into the Mediterranean, and thus assail the Sultan in the very heart of his power at the same time that he was hard pressed on the Danube, in the Crimea, and in upper Asia. The state of Egypt, where Ali Beg had made himself virtual sovereign, and had discarded even the appearance of allegiance to the Porte, furnished an additional motive for the expedition. It was thought that Greece, Egypt, and Syria might be rent from the house of Othman in a single summer; and Constantinople itself was sup- posed not to be safe, if a sudden and bold attack were to be made through the ill-fortified channel of the Dardanelles and the Sea of Alarmora. Toward the end of the summer of 1769 a Russian fleet of twelve ships of the line, twelve frigates, and a large number of transports carrying troops left the port of Cronstadt for the Medi- terranean. Count Alexis Orlov had the chief command of the expedition, and was nominated by Catherine generalissimo of the Russian armies and high admiral of the Russian fleets in the Medi- terranean Sea. Admiral Spiridov commanded the fleet under Orlov, but the real leaders in all the naval operations were Admiral Elphinstone, Captain Gregg, and other English officers, some of whom were to be found in almost every ship of the fleet. At the end of February, 1770, the Russian fleet was off the Morea, and Orlov landed among the Mainotes, who rose fiercely in arms against their Turkish masters. The force of Russian troops which Orlov disembarked was utterly insufficient to maintain order or discipline among those savage mountaineers and their country- men from the rest of Greece, who also joined him in large numbers. They practiced the most revolting cruelties upon all the Turks whom they could overpower in the open country or less defensible towns ; Misitra, the chief place in Maina, in particular, was the scene of fearful atrocities, afterward still more fearfully revenged. Four hundred Turks were slaughtered there in cold blood, and Ottoman children, torn from their mothers' breasts, were carried up the tops of tlie minarets and thence dashed to the ground. At Arkadia the Turkish garrison surrendered to the Russian general, Dolgoruki, on the faith of articles of capitulation which guaranteed their lives. Dolgoruki's Greek followers slew them all and burned the town to the ground. In the stronger cities the Turks repelled all the as- saults of Orlov and his Greek brigands. He was obliged to raise the siege of ]\Iodon and Coron, and on April 8 the Albanian troops, which several of the Turkish bees had drawn together from GATHER INEII 327 1770 beyond the isthmus, encountered the main body of the Russo-Greek force near Tripohtza. The Greeks thought themselves so sure of victory that they had brought women with them, with sacks ready to be loaded with the spoil of the Mussulmans. But they were utterly defeated and massacred without mercy in the flight. After having issued some vaunting manifestos, in which he called on the Greeks to imitate the example of their fellow- Christians of the true church in Moldavia and Wallachia, who, he said, had risen to the number of 600,000 in defense of their faith and freedom, Orlov reimbarked his troops, and the Turkish Seraskier, jMuhinzadi. who had com- manded at Tripolitza, assumed the title of " Fatihi Mora," which meant that he had reconquered the Morea. At sea the Russian undertakings were more successful. On July 7, 1770, Orlov's fleet came in sight of the Turkish near the Isle of Chios. Sultan Mustapha had throughout his reign paid especial attention to his navy, and tlie Turkisli Capudan Pasha, Hosameddin, had now under his command a force which the Turk- ish writers describe as two corvettes, fifteen galleons, five xebecques. and eight galliotes; it comprised one ship of 100 guns, one of 96, four of 84, one of 74, one of 70, and six of 60. The Russians had eight ships of the line and seven frigates. The Turks were worsted in the action, which was chiefly memorable for the desperate bravery shown by one of the Sultan's admirals, named Hassan of Algiers. At the battle of Chios, while his superior officer kept at a distance from the enemy, Hassan ran his ship alongside that of the Russian admiral and fought yard-arm and yard-arm, till both vessels caught fire from the Russian hand grenades and blew u^) together. Spiridov and Theodore Orlov escaped in the Russian ship's boats before the explosion, in which 700 of their men perished. Hassan kept the deck to the last, and, though severely injured, escaped with life and swam ashore. The defeated Turkish shi])s took refuge in the port of Tchesme, the ancient Cyssus, wliere tlie Roman fleet 191 b. c. defeated that of King Antiochus. Seeing the Turkish ships cooped together in this narrow bay. the English officers on board Orlov's fleet formed and executed tlie bold project of attacking them and burning them as they lay on the very night after the battle. After this signal triumph (which procured for Count Orlov the surname of Tschesmeski), Elphinstone proposed that the Russian fleet should instantly sail for the Dardanelles, force the passage, and then at once proceed to bombard Constantinople. Such a bold 328 T U R K E Y 1770 stroke would probably have been successful, as the panic caused at Constantinople by the tidings from Tchesme was extreme, and the fortifications both of the straits and the capital had been neglected. But Orlov hesitated and lost time, while the Sultan dispatched his late Vizier, Moldowandji (who had been recalled from the Danube and deprived of the seals), together with Baron De Tott, to strengthen and defend the Dardanelles. The proceedings of the two officers were characteristic. Moldowandji began by white- washing the old walls of the forts, to make the Russians think that the works, which looked so bright and clean, must be new or newly repaired. The Frank engineer erected four batteries, two on the European and two on the Asiatic side, so as to place any vessel that endeavored to pass under a cross fire. An attempt which Orlov at last made to destroy the first Turkish fort was ineffectual, and the Russian chief then resolved to make himself master of Lemnos, and formed the siege of the castle of that island. After sixty days' in- vestment the Turkish garrison offered to capitulate ; and, according to some accounts, the articles were actually prepared and hostages given for their execution, when a daring exploit of Hassan of Al- giers saved Lemnos and drove Orlov discomfited from his prey. After the sea-fight of Chios, Hassan had gone to Constantinople to be cured of his wounds. As soon as he was capable of exertion he obtained an interview with the new Grand Vizier, and offered to raise the siege of Lemnos. He asked for no troops, or ships, or artillery, but merely for permission to collect volunteers among the population of Constantinople, for sabers and pistols to arm them with, and for some light vessels to take them to Lemnos. With 4000 such volunteers he said he would save the island. Hassan's reputa- tion was high among the Turks of all ranks, and the fanatic rabble of the capital enrolled themselves readily for this service against the Giaours, under so valiant a chief of the true believers. The French General De Tott felt it his duty to remonstrate with the Grand Vizier against a proceeding which seemed to be so insane and which was in such palpable contravention of all the rules of war. The Vizier answered that he also thought Hassan's scheme absurd, but that it was sure to do good, as, if it succeeded, it would save Lemnos; or, if it failed, it would rid Constantinople of 4000 rogues and ruffians. The event showed that the Algerine corsair knew how such work was to be done better than the Vizier and the baron. Landing unperceived by the besiegers with his 4000 desperados on CATHERINEII 329 1770 the eastern side of Lemnos, Hassan, in the gray of the morning of October lo, fell suddenly upon Orlov's lines, saber and pistol in hand, cut down Russian artillerymen, soldiers, and sailors, in the trenches, and drove the rest in a panic to their ships, in which they reimbarked and abandoned the enterprise. The Russian fleet accomplished little during the remainder of the war, though Orlov took possession of some of the Greek islands and endeavored to maintain an insurrection in Egypt. So went the war in the South ; but it was on the natural line of contest between Russia and Turkey in the frontier lands of the weaker of the two empires that the fortune of the combatants was decided. The inauspicious campaign of 1769 was followed there by others still more disastrous for the Ottoman arms. Moldavia was the scene of the early operations in 1770, and before the new Grand Vizier, Khalil Pasha, had reached that province, the Russian Gen- eral Rumiantsov had defeated the advanced bodies of the Turks and Tartars and driven them in confusion back upon the army with which the Vizier was advancing. Khalil Pasha came in presence of the enemy near Kartal. The Vizier had led and rallied a force of about 30,000 effective troops ; with these he entrenched himself in front of the Russian position, while a vast host of Tartars under Kaplin Ghirai, the new Khan of the Crimea, collected on the other side. Rumiantsov's troops were emboldened by repeated victories ; and he knew the disaffection and demoralization which previous defeats had created among his adversaries. He led his army in three columns against the Viziers camp (August i, 1770), stormed it with inconsiderable loss, and took possession of immense treasures and stores with which the Ottomans had cumbered themselves, and of their whole artillery, amounting to 160 pieces. The number of slain on the Turkish side was small, in consequence of the panic haste with which they fled. The Vizier reassembled a part of his host on the southern side of the Danube, and the Tartar Khan un- dertook to provide for the safety of the Turkish fortresses in the Dobrusha and Bessarabia. But Kaplan Ghirai was as incompetent as his predecessor Dewlet had been, and fortress after fortress fell before the Russians. Kilia, Akerman. and Ismail surrendered after short sieges ; but at Bender, in Bessarabia, the Tartar popula- tion resisted desperately. The siege lasted two months, and when the final assault was given (September 27, 1770), although the Russians, by favor of a dark night and the laxity of the Turkish 330 TURKEY 1770 discipline, succeeded in escalading the walls by surprise, the conflict in the streets was maintained with equal fury on both sides for ten hours, and two-thirds of the population perished before the Russians won the town. Their own loss is said to have been so severe as to have drawn a caution from the empress to Count Panin that it was better not to take such a town than to win it at such a price. Brailow, or Ibrail, on the Danube, also made a gallant defense for eio-hteen days, and repulsed an assault of the Russians with heavy loss; but there was no hope of relief for any of the Turkish gar- risons on the Dniester or the Danube. The Grand Vizier's army had disbanded, and that high commander was left with about 3000 half-starved men to receive tidings of the successive capture of the bulwarks of the empire. At the close of the campaign all the Turkish fortresses on the Lower Danube were in the power of the Russians, and the line of advance along the coast of the Black Sea was laid open. A gleam of consolation came this year from the Crimea, where an attempt of the Russians to force the lines of Perekop was de- feated. But in the following summer the armies of the Giaours were again directed upon the Crimean peninsula with fatal efficacy, and that splendid conquest of Mohammed II. was reft by Catherine II. from the house of Othman. Another new Khan had been ap- pointed by the Porte, named Selim Ghirai, and the Turkish council of war judged his presence in his own country to be more important than it would be on the south of the Danube. Selim Ghirai accord- ingly left the Grand Vizier's camp and repaired to Bagtcheserai, the Tartar capital of the Crimea and the ancestral residence of its sovereigns. There Selim indulged in the pomps and pleasures of viceroyalty until he was roused by the startling tidings that Prince Dolgoruki was before Perekop with a Russian army of 30,000 regular troops, and 60,000 Noghai Tartars, who had taken sen^ice under the empress. Selim hurried to defend the isthmus, but the lines were stormed, a division of the Tartar army beaten by Prince Prosorofski, and the town of Perekop besieged and taken. While the siege of this place was proceeding Selim Ghirai received intelli- gence that another Russian army 10,000 strong had attacked and captured Taman on the Asiatic side of the straits of Kertch, that they had entered the Crimea on its eastern point and were in full march for Kaffa. Bewildered by these multiplied perils, the un- happy Khan quitted an entrenched camp which he had formed at CATHERINEII 331 1770 Tuzla and hastened to Bagtcheserai. He entered his capital al- most alone, and in such a state of agitation and terror that he was incapable of giving any commands for defense. The Russians soon appeared before the walls, and Selim then fled to Mount Karadagh, where several members of his family had collected with their fol- lowers and had formed a fortified post. Fearing to fall into the hands of his enemies, the Khan abandoned this refuge also without striking a blow, reached the coast, and embarked with a few friends in a vessel which conveyed them to Constantinople. This igno- minious flight of the prince deprived the Tartars of the last ray of hope. Many sought the means of leaving their fatherland, which they saw about to become the dominion of the Giaours, and con- siderable numbers set sail for Anatolia. Others sought to make peace with the conquerors. Dolgoruki promised them independence under the rule of a prince of the royal house of Ghirai, and also under the protection of the Empress of Russia. They took the oaths of allegiance to the Russian empress accordingly, and sent forty-eight deputies of their nation and two sons of Selim Ghirai to St. Petersburg to implore the imperial favor of Catherine. While waiting the gracious response of Catherine to her Crimean sup- pliants Dolgoruki installed Shahin Ghirai as Khan. The Russian general received the surname of Crimski for this important con- quest, and the Muscovites rejoiced that they had now completed their revenge for the ancient ignominies and oppressions which their race had formerly endured under the Tartars. Of the three great Tartar Khanates which so long afflicted Russia, those of Kazan and Astrakhan had been overthrown by Ivan the Terrible. It had been reserved for Catherine II. to strike down the last stem of the Tartar stock by subjugating the Khanate of the Crimea. The rapid progress of the empress's armies, the seemingly ap- proaching ruin of tlie Ottoman Empire, and the establishment of Russian authority in Bessarabia and the Moldavian and W'allachian principalities had made even Austria desirous to interpose in behalf of her ancient Mohammedan enemy, and to save herself from the perilous proximity of her ambitious ^Muscovite friends. France, England, and Prussia had offered to mediate between the contend- ing parties early in the war, but the Empress Catherine had made it a point of personal and national honc^r to allow no one to interfere between her and the Ottoman enemy. Rumiantsov had caused an intimation to be conveyed to the Turkish government that peace 332 TURKEY 1770-1771 might be obtained on much easier terms by a direct apphcation to the empress herself than would be granted if the agency of any third parties was employed. But the tangled web of diplomacy was still continued, Austria, Prussia, and France being the most active in its complication. Frederick II. of Prussia and Joseph II. of Austria (who was now associated with his mother, Maria Theresa, in the rule of that empire) had determined at a personal interview which took place between those two sovereigns to interpose on behalf of Turkey, but as they had not agreed on any joint line of action, their respective representatives at Constantinople, Zegelin and Thugut, made their offers of mediation in separate interviews with the Reis Effendi. In a conversation between that minister and Thugut, the Turks suddenly proposed that Austria and the Porte should enter into an offensive and defensive alliance against Russia. The Reis Effendi added, " When the Russians are driven out of Poland, it will de- pend entirely on the pleasure of the imperial court whether it will place a king of its own choice on the throne of Poland or divide the territories of that kingdom with the Porte." To this project of Pol- ish partition (of which Sultan Mustapha himself was the author) Thugut replied that it was not a fit time for the consideration of so vast a project, which could only be effected by a great effusion of blood, whereas the object of his communications with the Porte was to put an end to a war which had already been too sanguinary. At the same time that he was making these offers to Austria the Sultan was treating with France for an active alliance against Russia. The French court offered the Porte to place at its dis- posal a fleet of fourteen or fifteen ships of war, in return for which certain annual subsidies were to be paid by Turkey. France prom- ised also to obtain similar assistance for the Sultan from Spain. This project, which was called the Scheme of the Maritime Alliance, was not accepted by the Porte ; though the French ambassador was requested and promised to obtain from France ships of war, stores, and artillerymen, which were to be purchased and hired at a fixed rate of payment. The Austrian minister, Thugut, obtained information of this project, and sought to conclude an engagement on the same principle between Austria and the Porte. A convention was actually signed (July 6, 1771) by which the Porte bound itself to pay a subsidy of 20,000 purses (equal to 11,250,000 florins), to cede Little Wallachia to Austria, to liberate Austrian commerce CATHERINE II 1771-1772 from all taxes, and to guarantee her merchant ships from all attacks by the Barbaresque powers. Austria in return pledged herself to procure the restoration to the Porte of all the territories that Russia had conquered in the war. An installment of the money was paid to Austria, and the troops were put in motion toward the frontiers, where they served to overawe the Turks and Poles far more than the Russians. The English ambassador had succeeded in obtaining a copy of the secret convention between Austria and the Porte, and had com- municated it to the courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin. Frederick was desirous of a peace between Russia and Turkey, both on account of his plans against Poland and because his annual payment to Russia, by virtue of the treaty of 1766 (which bound him to supply certain sums in lieu of troops to Russia in a Turkish war), began to be burdensome. He saw in this secret treaty between Austria and the Sultan an engine for moving Russia to make peace with the Porte. The Empress Catherine, on the other hand, was more and more anxious for the Prussian money. But before January, 1772, though no progress had been made toward a Turkish peace, the common avidit}^ of Russia and Prussia for the dismemberment of Poland had drawn those powers closer together; and a secret con- vention had been concluded, by which, in return for a promise of part of the Polish territory, Frederick bound himself to take arms against Austria if Russia should be attacked by that power. But the same guilty bribe was now operating on the court of Vienna. Austria joined the crowned conspiracy against Poland, and totally changed her position toward the Ottoman court. She did not offer to return the Turkish money which she had received in part payment of her promised cooperation against Russia, but her ambassador was instructed to memorialize the Porte in concert with the Prussian minister, and to urge the necessity of convoking a congress for settling terms of peace. Catherine, by arrangement with her con- federate spoliators of Poland, now abated somewhat of her haughty pretensions to sole action, and declared tliat she was ready to accept the good offices of the imperial court. i\n armistice by sea and land between the Turkish and Russian forces was agreed on, and during the remainder of the year 1772 negotiations were carried on at Fokschani and Bucharest. They were prolonged into the following spring, when they were broken off and hostile operations resumed. The breathing-time which these negotiations procured for the 334 TURKEY 1772-1778 Turkish forces had been well employed. At the end of the year 1 77 1 Sultan Mustapha had again conferred the Grand Vizierate on Muhinzadi Mohammed Pasha, who had signalized himself in 1770 by the recovery of the Morea, and afterward by his energy when transferred from the chief command in Greece to the important Danubian government of Widdin. Muhinzadi had been Grand Vizier before the war, but he had offended the Sultan by advising him not to commence hostilities against Russia until his preparations for war were more complete. For this sound counsel Muhinzadi had been displaced from his high office, but the bitter experience of three campaigns taught the Sultan how unwise had been his haste both in attacking the empress and in degrading his Vizier. In the inferior posts of Seraskier of the Morea and Seraskier of Widdin, Muhinzadi had made an honorable exception to the general incom- petency of the Turkish commanders ; and the Sultan turned to him as the man in his dominions best fitted, both by his abilities in the field and by his sagacity in council, to bring the calamitous war to an end, or to maintain it with better fortune for the empire. Muhinzadi had striven hard to obtain a pacification at the Fokschani and Bucha- rest congress ; but he had also throughout the fifteen months of negotiations neglected no available means for restoring the spirit of the Ottoman troops and for barring the further advance of the Russians toward Constantinople. He punished all acts of brigan- dage with unrelenting severity, and beheaded a number of officers who had set the example of cowardice in presence of the enemy. He reorganized the wrecks of the defeated armies and raised fresh troops, especially from among the Bosnians and the other most war- like of the Mohammedan populations of the empire. He strength- ened the garrisons and stores of the fortresses, which the Turks yet retained on the Danube, especially of Silistria ; but he foresaw the necessity of being prepared to defend the inner barrier of the Balkan against the Russians, and with this view he made Shumla the head- quarters of his forces. In the spring of 1773 hostilities were renewed and Rumiantsov crossed the Danube at Balia with the principal Russian army, which was commanded under him by Generals Stupishin and Po- temkin. Osman Pasha, the Seraskier of Silistria, endeavored to prevent the passage of the river, but the flank movement of General Weissman protected the operation, and the Seraskier's troops, after fighting bravely, were repulsed and driven into Silis- CATHERINEII 335 1773 tria. The importance of this post was keenly fek by the Sultan as well as by the Russian leaders, and Ibrahim Pasha, who had commanded the Turkish vanguard in a late unsuccessful attack on the enemy, received a letter from Sultan Mustapha himself which contained these laconic but emphatic orders : " If thy life is dear to thee thou wilt rally thy beaten horsemen and fly to the succor of Silistria." Rumiantsov battered the town with seventy cannons and a large number of mortars. The walls were soon trenched and the Russian columns advanced to storm. One hundred wagon-loads of fascines had been provided to fill up the outer ditches, and a murderous conflict took place, the Russians charging with their characteristic obstinacy and the Ottoman garrison resisting with determined valor. Rumiantsov continuously sent fresh troops forward, and the assault was renewed again and again for six hours, when at last the Turks gave way, the outer lines were passed, and the Russians poured into the suburbs exulting at having won Silistria. Bvt here Osman Pasha's troops, reinforced by all the male population, rallied and fought with redoubled fury. The peculiarity in the sieges of Turkish towns (which has been so often remarked by military writers), that the chief resistance in them begins at the very crisis where all resistance in ordinary sieges terminates, was fully exemplified at Silistria in 1773. The Russian columns were at last beaten back and Rumiantsov abandoned the siege with heavy loss. This victory of Osman Pasha, which was mainly due to his own courage and to the gallantry of Essud Has- san Pasha, the commandant of the place, is the most brilliant ex- ploit on the Ottoman side during the campaign of 1773. The Russian generalissimo, Rumiantsov, irritated at his fail- ure at Silistria, was anxious to obtain some success on the right of the Danube before he placed his troops in winter quarters. Accordingly, he sent a column under Prince Dolgoruki across the Danube at Hirsova and ordered General Ungern to move from Babatagh and cooperate in an attack on the Ottoman forces which were again assemloled at Karasu. This proved completely suc- cessful and tlie greater part of the Turkish troops dispersed and fled toward Shumla. Elated witli this triumph the Russian generals separated their forces, and I'ngern witli about 6000 infantry and 3000 horse marched toward Varna in the hope of carrying that important place by a sudden attack, while the rest of the Russians 336 TURKEY 1773 moved upon Shtimla. This division captured the town of Bazard- chik after a feeble resistance, nearly all the garrison and inhabitants having fled. The facility of their conquest did not prevent the Russians from practicing the most barbarous atrocities on the remnant of the population, which consisted almost entirely of feeble old men and helpless women and children. But these cruelties were not long unpunished. When it w-as known in the camp at Shumla that the army at Karasu had been routed and that the enemy was marching toward the Balkan, the Grand Vizier assembled a council of war and asked if there was any officer of spirit and resolution who would undertake to rally the fugitives from Karasu and Bazard- chik and repair the calamity that had happened. The Reis Effendi, Abdurrisak, volunteered for the perilous duty, and his offer was gladly accepted by the Vizier and the other members of the coun- cil. Accompanied by Wassif Effendi, the Turkish historian, by the ]\Iufti of Philippopolis, and by 400 men, nearly all of whom w^ere his own household retainers, the brave minister for foreign affairs set forward, and on the road to Kozlidje succeeded in reuniting the fragments of the different Turkish corps w^hich were scattered about the neighborhood. At Kozlidje he attacked the Russian vanguard and beat it, and then hurrying forward he fell upon the Russians in Bazardchik. The}^ fled before him with precipitation, thinking that the whole Ottoman army was upon them, and leaving part of their baggage and stores as trophies of -Vbdurrisak's daring exploit. ]\Iean while General Ungern had received a severe repulse at Varna. The Turkish commander in the Black Sea, Kelledji Osman Pasha, was cruising with a small squadron near Varna wlicn the Russian army approached the walls. He immediately landed his Kiaya with 600 marines to the succor of the place. The fortifications were weak and the Russians after a short cannonade advanced to storm. But they were dri\en back in disorder from one part which they had endeavored to carry without having fascines for tlie ditches or scaling-ladders for the walls, and the division which at another part had made good its entrance and occupied the Christian quarter of the town was attacked there in turn and driven out again by the Turks. Prince Dolgoruki with part of tlie Russian force retired to Babatagh ; the rest under Gen- eral Ungern retreated upon Ismail, The Russian loss at Varna CATHERINEII 337 1773-1774 amounted to nearly 2000 killed and wounded, and they left behind them 100 baggage-wagons and ten cannon. The successful de- fense of Varna and the recovery of Bazadchik were the last two events of the campaign of 1773, a campaign in which the balance of advantages was considerably on the side of the Turks. This brought, however, inadequate consolation to the Sultan amid the general decline of the fortunes of the empire since the commencement of the war and for the disappointment of the hopes which he had based on his own supposed preeminence in state policy. Sick in body as in mind, he complained that he was weary of the mode in which his Seraskiers carried on war, and when the news of the second defeat at Karasu reached Constantinople Mustapha exclaimed that he would repair to the army in person. His ministers represented to him that such an important step ought not to be taken without consulting the Divan, and the Ulema de- clared that the departure of the sovereign for the army might be attended with evil consequences in the actual state of circumstances, especially having regard to the bad state of his health. On this the Sultan deferred his journey to the camp until the restoration of his health, a time that never came. The hand of death was already upon him, and on December 25, 1773, after many weeks of severe suffering. Sultan Mustapha III. expired. He was succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid, who had been shut up in the Serail for forty-three years till called from the dreary monotony of a royal prison to the cares and fears of a royal throne. He made few alterations in tlie government and had the good sense to appreciate the merits of his Vizier, ]Muhinzadi, and of his Capudan Pasha, Hassan of Algiers. Above all he was sin- cerely desirous of peace, as were his ministers, his generals, and every class of men in his empire, except the Ulema, wlio raised theological objections to the Sultan as Caliph abandoning his sover- eignty over the Tartars, and against the cession of the Ottoman fortress of Kertch and \'enikale to the Russian Giaours. But the new campaign was soon marked by such reverses and perils as silenced these orthodox demurrers, and the dignitaries of the sword who longed for peace prevailed over the dignitaries of the law who demanded warfare. On April 14 the Grand Vizier displayed the horsetails with great pomp in front of his camp at Shumla. A hymn on tlie birth of the Prophet was recited, and a grand council was held 3S8 TURKEY 1774 at which it was resolved to take the offensive and drive the Russians from Hirsova. But the Russian general at that place was Suvarov, and instead of waiting to be attacked he advanced toward the Turks, formed a junction with the division of General Kamenski, and brought the Turkish army, 25,000 strong, to action at Kozlidje. He completely defeated them, captured their camp, baggage, and military stores, and twenty-nine cannon. The defeated army dis- persed over the country, and when the Generals Kamenski and Milarodovitch advanced, after the battle, upon Shumla the Grand Vizier found that he had but 8000 troops under him to defend that extensive position. Even among these a faction-fight broke out, and detachments of the Russians moved southward of Shumla to the very gorges of the Balkan. In this emergency the Grand Vizier sent an officer to the Russian camp, where the generalissimo, Count Rumiantsov, now commanded in person, to request an ar- mistice. This was refused, but the Vizier was invited to send pleni- potentiaries to treat for peace. After a brief delay, during which Muhinzadi obtained the sanction of the Sultan, the plenipoten- tiaries were dispatched to treat with Prince Repnin, on behalf of Russia, and the first conference took place on July 6 at Kainardji. The negotiations were carried on with military celerity, for both sides were sincerely anxious for a termination of the war. Nothwithstanding the conquests and glory which Russia had achieved she was suffering almost more severely than her beaten enemy. Her losses in battle had been heavy, and as is customary with Russian armies, the number of the soldiers that had perished by disease and privation far exceeded the amount of the killed and wounded. At home many of her provinces were ravaged by the plague. A district near Astrakhan had been left almost desolate by the migration of a horde of 400,000 Calmucks who, irritated by the oppressive interference of the Russian Government with their free customs, left the territories of the empress in 1771 and retired within the frontiers of the Chinese Empire. Still more formidable to the power of Catherine was the civil war raised against her by the remarkable impostor Pugatchev who, during 1773 and the greater part of 1774, spread desolation throughout southern Russia. If in addition to all this it is remembered that the first great treaty for the partition of Poland was made in 1773, and that there was deep need of Russian troops to coerce the anar- chical but high-spirited population of that ill-fated land, we may CATHERINE II 839 >774 appreciate at its true value the boasted magnanimity of Russia in exacting no harsher terms of peace from Turkey in 1774 than had been almost consented to in 1772. The Peace of Kainardji consisted of twenty-eight public arti- cles ; to these were added two secret clauses by which the Porte bound itself to pay to Russia within three years 4,000,000 rubles, and the empress engaged that her fleet should be withdrawn from the archipelago without delay. The twenty-eight public articles were the most important. They established that the Tartars of the Kuban, the Crimea, and the adjacent regions between the Rivers Berda and Dnieper, and also of the countries between the Boug and the Dniester as far as the frontier of Poland, were to be politically an independent nation governed by their own sovereign of the race of Genghis Khan, elected and raised to the throne by the Tartars themselves. It was expressly stipulated that " neither the Court of Russia nor the Ottoman shall interfere under any pretexts whatever with the election of the said Khan, or in the domestic, political, civil, and internal affairs of the said state, but, on the contrary, they shall acknowdedge and consider the said Tartar nation in its political and civil state upon the same footing as other powers who are governed by themselves and are depend- ent upon God alone." But from out of the natural territories of this newdy organized Tartar nation Russia retained for herself the fortresses of Kertch and Yenikale in the Crimea, with their ports and districts, also the city of xA.zov with its district, and the Castle of Kilburn at the north of the Dnieper with a district along the left bank of the Dnieper. The opposite fortress of Ochakov with a similar dis- trict was to remain in the possession of the Turks. With the ex- ception of Azov, Kilburn, Kertch, Yenikale, and the Kabartas Russia gave up all her conquests. The Porte confessed that it received back from her Aloldavia and Wallachia on conditions which it religiously promised to keep these were (in substance) " the grant of an amnesty for all offenses during the war, free exer- cise of the Christian religion, humane and generous government for the future, and permission from the Porte that according as the circumstances of tliese two principalities may require the min- isters of the imperial court of Russia resident at Constantinople may remonstrate in their favor, and a promise to listen to them with all the attention which is due to friendly and respected powers." 340 TURKEY 1774 A very important clause of the treaty (Art. VII.) respecting the Christian subjects of the Sultan generally declared that " The Sublime Porte promises to protect constantly the Christian religion and its churches, and it also allows the ministers of the imperial court of Russia to make upon all occasions representations as well in favor of the new church at Constantinople, of which mention will be made in Article XIV., as on behalf of its officiating minis- ters, promising to take such representations into due consideration as being made by a confidential functionary of a neighboring and sincerely friendly power." ^ The words of section XIV., to which section VII. referred, were : " After the manner of the other powers, permission is given to the High Court of Russia, in addition to the chapel built in the minister's residence, to erect in one of the quarters of Galata in the street called Beg Oglu a public church in which Christians may worship according to the Greek ritual, which shall always be under the protection of the ministers of that empire and secure from all coercion and outrage." Article VIII. stipulated that Russian sub- jects should have full liberty to visit the holy city of Jerusalem without being subjected to capitation tax or other impost, and that they should be under the strictest protection of the laws. Other articles provided that merchant ships belonging to the two contracting powers should have free and unimpeded navigation in all the seas which wash their shores, that merchants should have a right to such sojourn as their affairs required, " and," as clause XI. of the treaty expressed it, " for the convenience and advantage of the two empires there shall be a free and unimpeded navigation for the merchant ships belonging to the two contracting powers in all the seas which wash their shores." The same clause gave expressly to Russia the right of having resident consuls in all parts of the Turkish Empire where it should think fit to appoint them, but no equivalent right was given to Turkey to have consuls in Russia. The treaty merely said that the subjects of the Sublime Porte were to be permitted to carry on commerce by sea and land in Russia with all advantages of the most favored nations. Such in substance was the Treaty of Kainardji, in which one of 1 This is the clause on which Prince Menschikov in 1853 founded the claim of Russia to tlie general protection of all the inhabitants of the Turkish countries who were members of the Greek Church. C A T H E R I N E 1 1 341 the ablest diplomatists of the age, Thngut, the Austrian minister, saw not only the preparation of the destruction of the Mohammedan Empire of the East, but also the source of evil and troubles without end for all the other states of Europe. The German historian of the house of Othman considers that treat)^ to have delivered up the Ottoman Empire to the mercy of Russia, and to have marked the commencement of the dissolution of that empire, at least in Europe. He sees in the articles of Kainardji " the germs of those of Adrianople." Chapter XXI RENEWAL OF THE STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 1 774-1 792 THE literary men of Western Europe and the Ulema of Turkey alike regarded the Treaty of Kainardji as con- summating the glory of Russia and the degradation of the house of Othman. The encyclopedists of Paris wrote felicitations to the Empress Catherine and to her generalissimo, Count Rumiant- sov, which were echoed by all pretenders to enlightened opinions in other parts of Europe who recognized the centralization of liter- ary authority amid the circles of the French metropolis. In Constantinople devout followers of Islam looked wistfully to Asia as their refuge from the great infidels, as they termed the Russians, and sorrowfully recalled the old tradition that the city abounding in faith is destined to be taken by the Sons of Yellow- ness. But still many among the Ottomans were superior to the torpor of despairing fatalism. They understood better both their duty to their empire and the precepts of their Prophet, who bade his followers not to lose heart at reverses in warfare, but to view them as visitations of Allah designed to prove true believers. Foremost among these better spirits was the Capudan Pasha Hassan of Algiers, now commonly styled Gazi Hassan for his glorious conflicts against the Giaours. Sultan Abdul Hamid placed almost unlimited authority in his hands, and Hassan strove to re- organize the military and naval forces of Turkey and to prepare her for the recurrence of the struggle against Russia which all knew to be inevitable. He endeavored to discipline the troops, but finding that all attempts to introduce improved weapons and drill, or to restore subordination among the Janissaries and Spahis were fruitless, he gave up these schemes, but proposed a new order of battle by which more effect was to be given to the fury of the wild Turkish onset. " He would have divided an army of 100,000 men into ten different corps which were to attack separately and so arranged that the retreat of the repulsed corps should not over- whelm and put in disorder those which had not attacked. He 342 STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 343 1774-1777 affirmed that though the artillery of a European army would make great slaughter, yet no army could withstand ten Turkish attacks, which are furious but short if they do not succeed, and the attack of 10,000 is as dangerous as of 100,000 in one body, for, the first repulsed, the rest on whom they fell back immediately take to flight." This system of attacking in detail was never found practicable, and probably the Capudan Pasha in proposing it was judging more from his experience of the capacities of squadrons of ships than from any sound knowledge of the possible evolutions of troops in face of an enemy. The navy was a force which Hassan understood far better, and his efforts to improve the Turkish marine were spirited and judicious, though some of his practical measures showed the true ruthless severity of the old Algerine sea-rover. Hassan possessed little science himself, but he respected it in others, and his great natural abilities and strong common sense taught him how to make use of European skill and of the most serviceable qualities which the various seafaring populations of the Sultan's dominions were known to possess. The repairs and improvements which he sought to effect in the Turkish navy extended to the construction of the vessels, the education of the officers, and the supply of seamen. Aided by an English shipbuilder Hassan en- tirely altered the cumbrous rigging of the Turkish ships and equipped them after the English system. He lowered their high and unwieldly sterns, and he gave them regular tiers of guns. He collected all the good sailors that he could engage from Algiers and the other Barbaresque states, and also from seaports on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, though he was still obliged to depend chiefly on Greek crews for the navigation of his fleets, as the Turks refused to do any duty on shipboard beyond working the guns. He compelled the commanders of vessels to attend personally to the good order and efficiency of their ships and crews, and by a still more important measure he endeavored to keep a sufficient body of able seamen always ready at Constantinople to man the fleet in case of an emergency. He also founded a naval school for the scientific education of officers for the fleet. But all these plans of the brave and sagacious admiral were thwarted and ultimately nullified by the envy and prejudices of other officials of the state. Nor was Hassan more successful in an attempt which he made at a thorough reform of the ancient but much aggravated abuses 344 TURKEY 1777-1778 of the Turkish feudal system by which Ziamets and Timars were given to court favorites who trafficked in their sale, and the Porte was deprived in time of war of the greater part of its military resources. The necessity of recovering for the Sultan some of the prov- inces which during the recent troubles of the state had cast off all allegiance made it impossible for Hassan to be a regular resident in the capital, and gave frequent opportunities for his enemies to countermine his policy during his absence. Against open foes in the field he commanded ably and successfully. He defeated the forces of Sheik Tahir in Syria, besieged him in Acre, captured that important city, and reduced the district round it to temporary obedience to the Porte. In 1778 he recovered the Morea and destroyed or expelled the rebellious Albanians, who had been led into that peninsula in 1770 to fight against Orlov and the Greek insurgents, and who had after the departure of the Russians established themselves there in law- less independence, oppressing, plundering, and slaughtering both the Greek and Turkish residents with ferocious impartiality. After relieving the Peloponnesus from this worst of all scourges, the tyranny of a wild soldiery which had killed or deposed its officers, which had never known the restraint of civil law and had shaken off all bonds of military discipline. Hassan was made governor of the liberated province and exerted himself vig- orously and wisely in the restoration of social order and the revival of agriculture and commerce. Subsequently to this he led a large force to Egypt against the rebellious ^Mamelukes. He had made himself master of Cairo and had effected much toward the re- establishment of the Sultan's authority in that important province when he was recalled to oppose the Russians in the fatal war of 1 787-1792, a contest still more disastrous than that which had terminated in the Treaty of Kainardji. The interval of fourteen years between the two wars had been marked by measures on the part of Russia as ambitious and as inimical toward the Turks as any of her acts during open hostili- ties. A temporary peace was necessary for Russia in 1774. but after Pugatchev's rebellion was quelled and the Russian grasp on the provinces which she had rent frc^m Poland was firmly planted Catherine scarcely sought to disg-uise how fully she was bent on the realization of the " Oriental Project.'' Her second grand- STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 345 1778-1779 son was born In 1778. He was named Constantine. " Greek women were given him for nurses and he sucked in with his milk the Greek language, in which he was afterward perfected by learned Greek teachers ; in short, his whole education was such as to fit him for the throne of Constantinople, and nobody then doubted the em- press's design." The annexation of the Crimea to the Russian dominions was formally completed in the year 1783, but the plot for the subjec- tion of that peninsula had been in progress from the very date of the Treaty of Kainardji by which Russia solemnly bound herself to treat the Crimean Tartars as an independent nation accountable to God only for their internal government and to abstain from all interference in the election of their sovereign or in other matters of their civil policy. Under the old pretexts of friendly mediation and of relieving her frontier from the dangerous neighborhood of anarchy, Russia soon made the Crimea a second Poland, except that in this case there were no accomplices with whom she was obliged to share the spoil. The Tartars had elected as their Khan Devlet Ghirai, who did not prove sufficiently subservient to the in- fluence of St. Petersburg. The Russians, therefore, fomented dis- affection and revolts against him, and made these troubles the pretext for marching an army into the peninsula for the ostensible purpose of restoring order. They sedulously disclaimed all proj- ects of conquest, but they effected the abdication of Devlet Ghirai and the election in his stead of Shahin Ghirai, who had been a hostage at St. Petersburg and was known to be most unpopular with the majority of his countrymen. The expected results soon followed. The new Khan, being threatened both by his own sub- jects and by the Turks (who justly regarded his election through Russian intervention as a breach of the late treaty), sent a deputa- tion of six of his ]\rirzas to St. Petersburg (1776) to implore the empress's protection. This was graciously promised, and Rumlant- sov was ordered to collect troops on the Dnieper to act, if necessary, against the Turks. But the Sultan felt himself too weak to renew the war. Some risings of the Tartars of Kuban against Russia were sternly quelled by Suvarov, and in 1779 a convention was signed between Russia and Turkey by which the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji were formally recognized and renew^ed with the addition of explanatory clauses by which the Sultan acknowledged the new Khan as lawful ruler of the Crimea and bound himself to 346 TURKEY 1779-1783 prompt performance of the religious formalities by which it was necessary for him as Caliph of the orthodox Mohammedans to give due spiritual sanction to the Tartar sovereignty. Shahin Ghirai, the object and unhappy instrument of Russian statecraft, was not suffered long to enjoy even the semblance of royalty. Prince Potemkin placed dexterous agents at the Tartar court who persuaded the weak Khan to adopt Russian usages and costume, which only served to offend the national pride and religious prejudices of his people, and to commit numerous costly absurdities which brought him more and more into public hatred and contempt. At the same time they secretly but sedulously encouraged the dis- affection of his subjects. A revolt soon broke out, and the terrified Khan was persuaded by his Russian friends to call in the troops of the empress to his assistance. Again the Russian soldiers oc- cupied the Crimea in the guise of pacificators, but Potemkin and his imperial mistress now thought that they might safely appropri- ate the long-coveted prize. The Tartars who opposed the Russian measures were slaughtered or expelled without mercy, and partly by threats, partly by bribes, Shahin Ghirai was induced to resign the crown of the Crimea and the Kuban to the empress, and to attest that the individuals of his family in which the throne was hereditary were rightly deposed forever. In the empress's manifestos respecting the annexation of the Crimea, the Kuban, and the adjacent territories to Russia (which were published in April, 1783) the same spirit of grim hypocrisy was maintained with which Europe was already familiarized by the sayings and doings of the empress and her confederates in the case of Poland. It was pretended that the Russian sovereign was seeking only to confer benefits on the Tartar nation. They were to be delivered by her from the miseries of civil war and internal anarchy, and were also to be relieved from the evils to which their former position between the frontiers of the Turkish and Russian dominions exposed them in the event of any collision of those two powers. These flourishes of Russian liberality served the sophists and declaimers of Western Europe with materials for new panegyrics on the magnanimity of the Empress Catherine, but the Tartars themselves felt the oppression of Russian conquest in all its bitter reality. Some of them took up arms for the inde- pendence of their country, and the chief men of the nation hardly sought to disguise their disaffection under Muscovite rule. General STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 347 1783 Paul Potemkin (the cousin of the prince) put the malcontents to the edge of the sword in a massacre in which 30,ocx) Tartars of every age and sex are said to have perished. Many thousands more were obliged to quit the country. Among the refugees from Russian tyranny were 75,000 Armenian Christians, all of whom except 7000 perished from cold, hunger, and fatigue, as they endeavored to cross the steppes on the eastern side of the Sea of Azov. Paul Potemkin, for this carnage and his conquests, was rewarded by the dignity of grand admiral of the Black Sea and governor of the new Russian province of Tauris, as the Crimea and the adjacent terri- tory on the mainland were now denominated. Prince Potemkin (under whose directions the general had acted) was signalized by the title of the Taurian. The result of these injuries and vio- lences was that Russia increased her dominion by the possession of all the countries which had made up the independent Tartar king- dom, so formally recognized and guaranteed by herself in the treaties of 1774 and 1779. These countries were not only the Crimean peninsula itself with its admirable harbors and strong positions, but also extensive regions along the north coast of the Euxine, and in Asia the Island of Taman and the important Kuban territory, where the outposts of Russian power were now planted ready for further advance against either the Turkish or the Persian dominions in Upper Asia. The progress of this high-handed robbery excited the greatest indignation at Constantinople, nor did Western Europe observe unmoved such inordinate aggrandizement of the Russian power. The American Revolution was over. The house of Bourbon had gratified its ancient feelings of feud by aiding in the humiliation which the events of that war inflicted on England. France for a brief period before her Revolution was at leisure to consider the general interests of the civilized world. Louis XVL and his minister, De Vergennes, were sincerely desirous to check the ambitious career of Catherine and to save the Turkish Empire from dismemberment. Austria was found to be too much under Russian influence to be trusted, and the French court addressed itself to that of England on the subject of the Crimea, even before the definitive treaty of peace between France and England was formally signed. In June, 1783, D'Adhemar, the repre- sentative of France at London, informed Fox, who was then Secre- tary of State for Foreign Affairs, that " The ]\Iost Christian King 348 TURKEY 1783 had just received from the cabinet of St. Petersburg the official notification that Russia had taken possession of the Crimea and the Kuban. Would England look on with indifference at such a spirit of conquest ? " The English minister replied by expressing a doubt of the fact of definite possession of those provinces having been taken by Russia ; he said that Frederick of Prussia would make war sooner than allow it. Again and again by orders from his court D'Adhemar addressed Fox on the subject. He asked : " \\''ould England see with indifference a Russian fleet in the Bos- phorus? Was it wished that Constantinople should be given up to Catherine? At any rate, could not some limit be imposed on the empress's career of conquest? Might not the Kuban be conceded to her, so as on that cession to found a demand for her resigning the Crimea ? If France and England w^ould join in a remonstrance their voice must be attended to at St. Petersburg, but acting singly France would not be heeded." Fox coldly replied that it was too late to interfere. " The annexation of the Crimea was now a fait accompli. Besides, England had engagements with the empress which it was inconvenient to break." Thus repelled by the minister, D'Adhemar sought and obtained an audience from the King of England. He explained to George HI. the importance of the Rus- sian conquests, he pointed out the political intimacy that was form- ing between Joseph H. of Austria and the Russian sovereign, and their evident intention to dismember Turkey as the greater part of Poland had already been seized and partitioned. The honesty and strong common sense of George HI. were moved, and lie exclaimed with indignation, " If things are to go on in his fashion Europe will soon be like a wood where the strongest roljs tlie vvealcest and there will be no security for anyone." But a King of England can only act constitutionally through his ministry and parliament. Fox persevered in his indifference to Turkey or rather in lii.s i)arLiality to Russia, nor, indeed, is it probable that the English people, ex- hausted as they were by a long and unsuccessful war, would at that period have cooperated willingly with France in new hostilities. The irritation felt against that country for the part which she had taken against luigland in the American contest was too bitter, and the recollection of the combined fleets of the house of Bourbon riding supreme in the Channel was far too fresh and painful. The French minister by a dispatch of August 8. 1783. sor- rowfully assured his court that there was no hope of obtaining STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 349 1783-1787 the cooperation of England, and that Mr. Fox seemed bound to a false system, but M. d'Adhemar added a prophetic expression of belief that a nullification of the policy of England in so grave a matter could not be permanent, and that sooner or later England would come to an understanding with France for the purpose of arresting the progress of the military and naval power of Russia which threatened to overwhelm the East.^ The Prussian king, when applied to by De Vergennes to act in concert with France in the Oriental question, merely replied by complaints against the alliance of 1756 between the houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon, and he called on France to renounce her connection with Austria before slie asked Prussia to take part with her. The same disregard was shown at Vienna as at the other capitals of Western Europe to the proposals of France ; Louis XVI. judged it imprudent to act alone. The Sultan was informed that he must look for no aid from the West. He knew too well the strength of his northern adversary and his own. The Turkish preparations for the recovery of the Crimea were discontinued, and a new treaty was signed on January 8, 1784, between Turkey and Russia, by which it was agreed that the new state of things in the Crimea, Taman, and the Kuban should not disturb the peace between the two empires. The stipulation of the Treaty of Kainardji, which assured to the Porte the sovereignty o\'er Ochakov and its territory, was formally renewed, and tlie third article of the new convention provided that whereas tlie Ri\-er Kuban was ad- mitted as the frontier in the Kuban. Russia renounced all sover- eignty over the Tartar nations beyond that river, that is to say between the River Kuban and the Black Sea. The pacific words inserted in this treaty, like those in the con- vention of 1779, were mere hollow formalities, for the Porte could not but cherisli resentment for tlie wrongs to which it seemed to submit, and the aggressive am!)ition of Catherine was only stimu- lated by conquests and concessions. Austria was n<>w entirely de- voted to the interests of Russia, and a league was made between the two empires by which each bound itself to aid the otlier. In a triumphal progress which Catherine made in the early part of the year 1787 to her new Taurian province she was joined by ihe ' A minute and inlcrcstin.L;- narrative oi these negotiations is s^ivcn by M. CapcfiKuc in liis recent historical work, entitled "Louis AT/., srs rrLifi.ins c'tlouiatiqucs avcc I'J'.uropc, I'lndc, I'Amcriquc, ct I'llinfiir Ottouwi;." p]v 105- 2og. 360 TURKEY 1787 Emperor Joseph at Kherson. He accompanied her to the Crimea, and amid the festivities and frivoHties of their journey the im- perial tourists sometimes argued and sometimes jested on the details of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and on the questions of what was to be done with the Greeks, and what was to become of " those poor devils the Turks." Bakchiserai, the ancient capital of the deposed Tartar Khans, was the scene of many of these schemes and scoffs, and the downfall of the Sultan was gayly plotted at Sebastopol also, as Catherine's new city by the Gulf of Aktiar was pompously designated. The empress and her guests saw there with pride and exultation a new Russian navy riding in the finest harbors of the Black Sea.^ Even then they boasted of the facilities which Sebastopol would give for a sudden and a decisive attack upon the Turkish capital. It was the design of Catherine and Joseph to attack Turkey along the whole line of her northern frontier from the Adriatic to the Caucasus. But, as it was wished by the empress to keep up her character for magnanimity and equity in the literary world of Christendom, means were taken to provoke the Turks to be the first in declaring war. The emissaries of Russia excited disturb- ances in Moldavia, Wallachia, Greece and other parts of the Otto- man Empire. Offensive claims were put forward on the part of the empress to the province of Bessarabia and the towns of Achakov and Akerman, on the pretext that they had formerly been governed by the Khans of her new Taurida. These and similar measures irritated more and more the haughty spirit of the Osmanlis, which had already been deeply incensed at the open insults put upon Turkey by the Russian and Austrian sovereigns during their progress to the Crimea, in which their hostility to Turkey had been so little veiled that when Catherine and Joseph passed through the southern gate of her new city of Kherson a pompous inscription in the Greek language was set up announcing that this was the way to Byzantium. Had Gazi Hassan been at Constantinople in the summer of 1787 it is probable that the war would have been deferred until Turkey had prepared herself to sustain it with more vigor. His policy was to complete the subjugation of the rebellious and dis- - As a matter of fact the strength of the fleet was largely a sham. Potemkin, throughout the journey, by various devices cleverly deceived Catherine as to the amount of work which had been accomplished in her new possessions. STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 351 affected provinces of the Sultan before the renewal of the contest with the foreign enemy. In furtherance of this plan he was in 1787 occupied in the recovery of Egypt to his sovereign's power. But partly through the rivalry with which the Grand Vizier, Yusuf, and other Ottoman grandees regarded Gazi Hassan, and partly through the popular indignation at Constantinople, which the studied insults and aggressions of Russia excited, hostilities were declared by the Sublime Porte against that country on August 15, 1787; the Sultan unfurled the Sacred Standard of the Prophet, proclaimed a holy war, and summoned the True Believers to assemble round the banner of their faith. The first object of the Turks was to recover the fortress of Kil- burn, which had been ceded to the Russians by the Treaty of Kain- ardji, and to regain the mastery of the important embouchure of the Rivers Boug and Dnieper. For this purpose Gazi Hassan was recalled from Egypt and placed in command of the Sultan's land and sea forces in and near the Black Sea. On the Russian side Prince Potemkin (who chiefly directed the operations of the war) sent Suvarov to defend the menaced fortress. A division of the Turkish army was posted at Ochakov, on the coast immediately oppo- site to Kilburn, and Gazi Hassan's design was to land part of these forces and also the troops which his fleet had conveyed from Con- stantinople on the Kilburn side for the purpose of assailing the fortress by land, while the Turkish fleet bombarded it from the sea. Suvarov's troops were few in number and Kilburn was then ill-fortified, but his generalship and daring not only protected it, but nearly destroyed the assailants. Suvarov erected a battery at the very entrance of the Liman (as the embouchure of the two rivers which widens out after the passage between Ochakov and Kilburn is termed) and he drew together a strong force of Russian gunboats from Nicolaiev under the Prince of Nassau Siegen. Suvarov permitted the Turkish fleet to enter the Liman without molestation, and he remained inactive till the Turks had disem- barked from 6000 to 7000 men on the Kilburn shore. He then made a sudden and desperate attack on them with two battalions of in- fantry, which he led on with fixed bayonets, and when he had broken them with tliis cliarge he brought forward some regiments of Cossacks to complete their rout. All the Turkish troops that had been landed on the Kilburn shore were slain. At the same time the Russian battery at the end of the promontory opened its 352 TURKEY 1787-1788 lire upon the Turkish ships and the flotilla of the Nicolaiev gun- hoats assailed them in the Liman. The greater part of Hassan's armament was destroyed, and thus at the very commencement of the war the prestige of success (always important in war, but doubly so when the contest is with Orientals) was fixed on the side of the Russians. The approach of the winter season checked the progress of hostilities during the remainder of 1787, and in the following year a seasonable diversion in behalf of Turkey was effected by the war which broke out between Sweden and Russia and which de- tained the empress's best fleet and many of her troops in and near the Baltic. War had not yet been declared between Austria and Turkey, and the Emperor Joseph's internuncio at Constantinople was instructed to offer the mediation of his sovereign to prevent the further effusion of blood. The cause of this delay on the part of Joseph was the troubled state of his dominions in the Nether- lands, but as soon as a temporary suspension of these disturbances had been effected the Austrian sovereign resumed his hostile prepa- rations against Turkey. He even endeavored to obtain a treacher- ous advantage by surprising the important fortress of Belgrade while he still affected the character of a peacemaker. This dis- creditable enterprise took place on the night of December 2, 1787. But the Austrian troops that were sent against the Turkish city across the Danube and the Save were delayed by natural obstacles and by the want of due concert between their commanders. The morning found a detachment of them under the walls of Bel- grade who were exposed to certain destruction, if the Turkish garrison assailed them. But the Pasha who governed there pre- tended to be satisfied with the apologies of the Austrian officer in command and permitted him and his men to withdraw unmolested. This shameful violation of public faith and the law of nations on the part of Austria was met by the Ottomans with only a dignified appeal to the gratitude of the emperor. They reminded him of the forbearance of Turkey in the time of Austria's distress after the death of Charles VL and of the scrupulous honesty with which the treaties between the two empires had been observed by suc- cessive Sultans. But cupidity and ambition had more influence on Austria than such feelings as gratitude or generosity, as honesty or honor, nu'l on Febnriry to. 1788, Josenh published a declara- tion of war ill which he i'.iiiLiited the docunier.t by which tiie STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 353 1788 Emperor Charles VI. had commenced the war of 1737, even as he- had imitated the treachery of his predecessor in attacking the possessions of a neighbor while still professing peace and good will. Joseph hoped to aggrandize his dominions by the conquest and annexation of not only Bosnia and Servia, but also of Moldavia and Wallachia. He began the war witli an army of 200.0CO men and a train of 2000 pieces of artillery, but what he effected in 1788 with this enormous force was more in accordance with the scanty justice of his cause than with the magnificence of his preparations. It had been arranged that a Russian army should enter Moldavia and march thence to cooperate with the .\ustrians. But the break- ing out of the Swedish war obliged tlie empress to reduce the Rus- sian corps that was to act with Joseph's troops to a division of 10,000 men under General Soltikov. The same cause prevented the sailing of the intended Russian armament to the archipelago. But the empress's fleet on the Black Sea was now strengthened and well equipped, nearly all the ofiicers being foreigners. Russian troops made vigorous progress in the regions between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and the main army Vv'hich was collected near the River Boug, under the favorite Prince Potemkin, was numerous and efficient, though little activity was shown in its operations dur- ing the greater part of the year. On the Turkish side Ocliakov was strongly garrisoned, and was regarded as the bulwark ui ti'e em]iire iigainsl Pcjtemkin's army. Gazi Hassan commanded on the Black Sea, and the Grand Vizier assembled his forces in IViilgaria to act as necessity rc(iuired either against the Russians, wlio were expected to advance by their old line of invasion through ]>cssarabMa and AX'aHachia, or again.-t tlie Austrians, who threatened Turkey from tlie northwest. Joseph wasted tlie early part of tlie \'e;ir in wailing for tiie Russians and in unsuccessful intrigues with the Pasha of Scutari ruid other Turkish C(jmmanders whose customary insubordination toward tlieir Sultan was erroneously tr.ougiit convertible into traitorous cooperation with the enemies of their race and faith. When at length, the Austrian so\-creign. aslianied at the riijicnle which liis indecision had brought on him, began to advance he encountered an obstinate resistance from tlie Mohammedan ]x:)pulation of Bosnia, thougli in Servia tiie Kayas again welcomed the imperial- ists and formed armed bands that fought bravely against the Turks. 354 TURKEY 1788 But the Grand Vizier, who found that there was no serious peril of a Russian advance upon the Balkan during that year, moved his whole force upon the flank of the Austrian line of operations, Joseph retired with precipitation. The Turks crossed the Danube, defeated an Austrian army under Wartersleben at Mehadia, laid waste the Bannat, and threatened to invade Hungary. Joseph now gave the command of part of his forces called the army of Croatia to Marshal Laudon, a veteran hero of the Seven Years' War, who in- stantly assumed the offensive, defeated the Turks opposed to him at Dubitza, and before the close of the campaign had advanced into the heart of Bosnia and besieged and taken the town of Novi, Joseph himself had marched with 40,000 men to relieve General Warters- leben and to protect Hungary. But during a night march from Karansebes toward Temesvar on September 20 the Austrian army fell into a causeless panic which thoroughly disorganized the troops for a time. This, combined with the heavy losses from disease, made the whole cam- paign a fruitless one for the Austrians, while the Turks gained some small successes. Altogether Austria lost in the operations of this year 30,000 men in killed and wounded, the greater part of whom fell at Karansebes or in desultory skirmishes, and 40,000 more, who were swept away by pestilential disorders. On the northwestern coast of the Black Sea, where Prince Potemkin commanded, the Russians effected little during the greater part of the year, though Ochakov was invested as early as August. At length Potemkin summoned the victor of Kilburn to urge on the siege, and the Russian arms made their customary progress under Suvarov, though he was obliged by a wound to retire from headquarters before the final assault was given. This took place on December 16, 1788. Valor, maddened to ferocity, was shown on both sides. The Turks of Ochakov had before the siege surprised a Russian village in the vicinity and mercilessly slaugh- tered all the inhabitants. Potemkin and Suvarov caused the Rus- sian regiments that were to assault the town to be first led through this village as it lay in ashes and with its streets still red with the blood of their fellow-countrymen. With their natural stubborn savage courage thus inflamed by the longing for revenge, the Russians advanced on December 16 over the frozen Liman against the least fortified side of the city. Whole ranks were swept away by the fire of the besieged, but the supporting columns still STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 355 1788-1789 came forward unflinchingly through musketry and grape; 8000 Russians fell, but the survivors bore down all resistance and forced their way into the city, where for three days they reveled in murder and pillage. No mercy was shown to age or sex, and out of a popu- lation and garrison of 40,000 human beings only a few hundred (chiefly women and children) escaped, whom the exertions of the officers in the Russian service rescued from the indiscriminate fury of the soldiery. In the March of 1789 the Turkish Grand Vizier began the campaign against Austria with unusual activity. He left troops on the lower Danube to observe the enemy in Wallachia and Mol- davia, and crossed the river at Rustchuk with 90,000 men, whom he led in person. He advanced rapidly toward Hermanstadt in Tran- sylvania with the design of pressing forward and carrying the war into the hereditary provinces of the emperor. Unfortunately for Turkey, the death of Sultan Abdul Hamid at this crisis caused a change of Grand Viziers, and the able leader of the Turks was superseded by the Pasha of Widdin, a man utterly deficient in military abilities. The effect of this change was the abandonment of the late Vizier's plans for the campaign, and the Turkish troops were drawn back to the south of the Danube. Sultan Selim HI., the successor of Abdul Hamid, ascended the Turkish throne on April 7, 1789, being then twenty-seven years old. He was a young man of considerable abilities and high spirit, and his people gladly hailed the accession of a youthful prince, active in person and energetic in manner, under whom they hoped to see an auspicious turn given to the long-declining fortunes of the empire. Selim had been treated by his uncle, the late Sultan, with far greater kindness and had been allowed much more freedom, both bodily and mental, than the non-reigning princes of the blood-royal were usually permitted to enjoy. One of his intimate associates was an Italian physician named Lorenzo, and from him and other Franks Selim eagerly sought and ob- tained information respecting the nations of Western Europe, their civil and military institutions, and the causes of that superiority which they had now indisputably acquired over the Ottomans. Selim even opened a correspondence with the French king and his ministers, Vergennes and ^Montmorin, in which he sought political instruction from the chiefs of what he was taught to regard as the foremost nation of the Franks. He felt keenly the abuses which 356 TURKEY 1789 prevailed in his own country, and it is said that his father, Sultan Mustapha III., had bequeathed to him a memorial (diligently studied and venerated by young Selim) in which the principal events of Mustapha's unhappy reign were reviewed, the degeneracy of the Turkish nation discussed, and the great evils that prevailed in the state were pointed out with exhortations to their thorough removal. Thus trained and influenced Selim came to the throne an ardent reformer, but the war which he found raging between his empire and the confederate powders of Austria and Russia re- quired all his attention in the beginning of his reign, which opened with the darkest scenes of calamity and defeat. The great mass of the Austrian forces in 1789 w^as placed under the able guidance of IMarshal Laudon. The Prince of Co- burg commanded the corps which was to cooperate with the Russians. Potemkin's army after the destruction of Ochakov oc- cupied the country from the Dnieper to the delta of the Danube, and Suvarov (who had nov^ recovered from his wound) was sent into Moldavia w^ith the Russian division which was to assist the Prince of Coburg. Sultan Selim had recalled Gazi Hassan from the command of the fleet in the Black Sea, where he had experienced several reverses, and the old admiral was now placed at the head of the Turkish army which was to act against Coburg's forces. Hassan advanced upon the Austrians who were stationed at Fok- shani, at the extreme point of Moldavia. He would probably have overwhelmed them if they had not been succored by Suvarov, who marched his army no less than sixty English miles over a wild mountainous district in thirty-six hours. Suvarov reached the Austrian position at five o'clock in the evening of July 30. Instead of waiting for Hassan's assault he issued his order for battle at eleven o'clock tlie same night, and at two hours before daybreak the next morning he led the allied armies forward against the Turkish fortified camp in one of those bold bayonet attacks which became national and natural to the Russian soldiery under his guidance. The Turks were utterly routed and all their artillery and baggage taken. Another and a larger army was collected by Selim's orders and exertions which on September 16 encoun- tered Suvarov with the same result, though the contest was more obstinate. This great victory of the Russian general was gained by him near the River Rimnik, whence came the well-merited surname of Rimnikski wliich was conferred on Suvarov by his STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA 357 1789-1790 empress. The excitement and alarm of the Turks were now ex- treme, and Selim in order to appease the popular tumult at Constan- tinople disgraced himself by putting to death the gallant, though lately unsuccessful veteran, Gazi Hassan. The Ottoman forces in Bosnia and Servia experienced defeats almost as severe from the imperialists under Laudon. Belgrade and Semendria were cap- tured, and the advance of the converging Russian and Austrian armies upon the Turkish capital seemed irrestrainable when the Emperor Joseph was compelled by the disorder and revolts which had broken out in almost every part of his dominions to check the progress of his forces in Turkey, and to employ them against his own subjects. The death of the Austrian sovereign in 1790 re- lieved the Sultan from one of the most vehement, though not of the most resolute, foes of the Ottoman pow'er."' The succeeding emperor, Leopold, alarmed at the perilous condition of many of his most important provinces and menaced with war by Prussia, was anxious to conclude a secure and honoral^le peace with Tur- key, and after some further operations on the Danube in the course of which the Austrians captured Orsova, but were defeated by the Turks near Giurgevo, an armistice was agreed on which was eventually followed by a peace, though the negotiations were jm-o- tracted into the middle of the year 1791. The Treaty of Sistova (as this pacification was termed) was signed on August 4 of that year. The emperor relinquished all his conquests except the town of Old Orsova and a small district in Croatia along the left bank of the River Unna. With these slight variations the same boundary between Austria and Turkey was reconstiiutetl in 1791 that had been defined by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739. Russia was a far more persevering and a far liiore deadly enemy to tlie Ottomans. The Empress Catherine made peace with Sweden in the August of 1790, but she long treated witli haughty neglect the diplomatic efforts of England and J'russia in favor of the Turks. Constantinople was tlie great prize v.hicli she sought to win at any cost and at all hazards, and she boasted that slie would find there a capital fur her empire even 11 tiie West- ern powers were to drive her from St. i'etersburg. In general this design was veiled under the showy pretext of rescuing the -With the death of the lui-iperor Joseph er.ds ihe cor)pcration of A;;o by the most powerful 366 TURKEY of his Mohammedan subjects the Sultan's authority was systematic- ally disregarded, though the forms of allegiance and lip-worship might still be preserved. Revolt and civil war were the common practices of the chief Pashas. In Acre, Djezzar Pasha refused tax and tribute, put to death the Sultan's messengers, and tyrannized over the neighboring country with a savage cruelty that procured him his surname of The Butcher. The Pasha of Bagdad was equally insubordinate, and for many years the Porte received no revenues from the rich territory which that potentate commanded. The same was the case with the Pashas of Trebizond and Akhalzik. In Widdin the celebrated Pasvan Oglu for many years defied the whole force of the Sultan and made invasions of the adjacent prov- inces like an independent and avowed foreign enemy. These are only some of the most conspicuous instances of viceregal revolt. It would be impossible to enumerate all the cases of local rebellion and civil war of which the Pashas were the causes, or the victims, or both, and it is hardly possible for the imagination to compre- hend the character or the amount of the sufferings with which these evils must have worn and wasted the population of the empire. Even when the orders of the central government received obedience the misery of the people was extreme. It has been already mentioned that the appointments of the Pashas (with some excep- tions) were annual, and they were generally and notoriously ob- tained for money. It was seldom that the Turk who intrigued among the officials and court-favorites at Constantinople for a Pashalic was possessed of the necessary purchase and bribery money. He usually borrowed the requisite sums from one of the v/ealthy Greeks of the Fanar, or from one of the Armenian bankers. The lender of the money became in reality the mortgagee of the Pashalic, and he may be said to have been a mortgagee in posses- sion, inasmuch as his confidential agent accompanied the Pasha as secretary, and was often the real ruler of the province. As usually happens when a few members of an oppressed race purchase power under the oppressors, these Raya agents of Moslem authority were the most harassing and merciless in their policy toward their fellow-countrymen. The necessity which the Pasha was under of repurchasing his appointment at the end of each year prevented him in ordinary cases from shaking off this financial bondage. Sometimes before an appointment could be obtained from the Porte it was required that one of the Sarrafs or Armenian bankers should THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 367 become surety for the due transmission of the imperial revenue. The power thus given to the money-lenders, who by their refusal to continue their security could reduce the Turkish grandee to the state of a private individual, was a fresh source of exaction to the inhabitants of the Pashalic. By these and similar other abuses the greatest possible amount of extortion and cruelty toward the subject was combined with the smallest possible benefit to the im- perial government, as each of the agents and subagents who were employed in this system of bribery, usury, and peculation, endeav- ored to wring all he could from those beneath him and to account for as little as possible to his superiors. The Ayans, or Provincial Notables, who ought to have protected their fellow-countrymen from the Pasha and his attendant harpies, became too often his ac- complices. If an Ayan was refractory and honest, it was an easy thing to ruin him by a false charge brought before a Cadi, who had generally purchased his appointment by the same means as the Pasha, and was therefore equally venal and cruel. As the Pashas had the power of life and death in their respec- tive districts, and each maintained the pomp and luxury of an East- em court as well as the force of a camp, all of which had to be paid for by the provincials, the motives to tyranny on the part of the viceroy were infinitely multiplied, and the checks to it were almost entirely absent. If the requisite amount of revenue was regularly transmitted to Constantinople, no questions were asked as to how it had been collected. Long and vehement complaints against the cruelty of a Pasha might rouse the Sublime Porte to punish him. especially if he was wealthy. But in such cases the provincials ob- tained no redress for their past wrongs. The treasures of the bow- strung Pasha were appropriated by the Sultan; and those from whom they had been extorted only gained a new governor, fre- quently more rapacious, because more needy, than his predecessor. The power of the inferior Turkish ofBcers, the Begs and Agas. was like that of the Pasha in kind, both as to obtainment and exercise, though less in degree. There were also throughout the empire swarms of petty local tyrants, who farmed from the Porte the revenues of small districts of four or five villages each, under grants which were termed Mocattelis, if the lease was for life, and Iltezim, if it was for a term of years. The weakness and disorder of the Turkish Empire were seri- ously increased by the enormous alnises of its feudal system, and by 368 TURKEY the infinite and antagonistic variety of dominations, princedoms, and powers that had been suffered to grow up in many of its most important provinces. In describing the state of the Ottoman Empire when at its meridian of glory under Suleiman the Ordainer atten- tion has been drawn to the peculiar incidents of feudalism among the Turks in their best ages, and to the causes which prevented the growth of an insubordinate noblesse, like that which defied the throne and oppressed the commons throughout nearly all Christen- dom in the medieval times. But before the close of the eight- eenth century all this had been widely changed; and Turkey (especially in its Asiatic districts) abounded with mutinous hered- itary feudatories, who generally were styled Dereh Begs or Lords of the Valleys, and their lawless arrogance toward their sovereign and oppression of their dependents emulated the worst baronial and knightly abuses that ever were witnessed in Germany or France. A nominal deference to the Sultan and his Pasha might be professed, but an officer from Constantinople who endeavored to enforce any order of the Sublime Porte in the stronghold of a Dereh Beg would have met with the same treatment that an emissary of the Emperor Frederick III. might have expected in the castle of a German baron on the Rhine, or as the messengers of Charles the Simple would have received if they had carried threat or mandate to Brittany or Rouen. It is impossible to supply any adequate description of the num- ber and nature of the minor local powers that struggled with each other and with the central government of Turkey during this period of " her wild misrule of her own anarchy." The account wdiich Sir John Cam Hobhouse (afterward Lord Broughton) gave of a single province, Albania, may serve as an example. He says, " Specimens of almost every sort of government are to be found in Albania. Some districts and towns are commanded by one man, under the Turkish title of Bolu Bashee, or the Greek name of Capudan, which they have borrowed from Christendom; others obey their elders; others are under no subjection, but each man governs his own family. The power in some places is in abeyance, and although there is no ap- parent anarchy, there are no rulers. This was the case in our time at the large city of Argyro Castro. There are parts of the country where every Aga or Beg, which, perhaps, may answer to our ancient country squire, is a petty chieftain exercising every right of the men of the village. The Porte, which in the days of Ottoman greatness THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 369 divided the country into several small Pashalics and commanderies, is now but little respected, and the limits of her different divisions are confused and forgotten." In the nominally central government at Constantinople the Grand Vizier was still the Sultan's principal officer in temporal affairs, both civil and military; and the Mufti, as head of the Ulema, continued to be next in spiritual rank to the Sultan, who, as Caliph, was and is the religious chief of all Sunnite Mohammedans. Un- der the Grand Vizier, besides his Kaimakan or lieutenant, were the Kiaya Beg, who attended to the home department, and also to the war office. Foreign affairs were the special province of the Reis Effendi. The Thaush Bashi was vice-president of the Grand Vizier's judicial tribunal, and chief of the police force of the capital. He also acted as the Lord High Marshal. Besides these, there were the Nischandyis or secretaries, the Defterdars or treasurers, and the holders of the other ancient offices that have l^een descriljed when we examined the Turkish system of government in the times of Mohammed the Conqueror. And, without attempting to enumerate or analyze the prolix catalogue of ceremonious courtiers and speculating placemen, who are described by those who wrote a century ago on Turkish matters, it may be generally stated, that, both in quantity and character, they were such and so many, as are usually found to multiply in decaying empires, especially in empires of the East. The Imperial Divan was now generally convened not oftener than about once in six weeks. The ordinary Di\an of the Grand Vizier sat much more frequently, and formed a court of justice, at which, besides the Vizier, the Capudan Pasha, the two Katli- askers, and the Xischandyis and Defterdars attended. On important occasions a grand council was summoned, consisting of nearly forty members and comprising the chiefs of all the orders in the state. In extreme emergencies the members were called together to what was termed a standing Divan, and deHberated without taking seats. The power of the Ulema. and especially of the head of them, the Mufti, to which we liave already alluded, had increased and was increasing. So was the amount of ecclesiastical property, tlie Vakufs. And thougli t1ie system of ])ermitling so large a proi)or- tion of the landed property of the empire to be held in mortmain 370 TURKEY was unquestionably evil, it was made to act in some degree as an alleviation of other evils, which generally affected the possessors of property under the extreme misgovernment of Turkey. Not only private estates, but whole districts and cities were the properties of mosques or other ecclesiastical foundations; and the occupier of them, on paying the stipulated quit-rents (which were usually light), lived in undisturbed possession, and in immunity both from the imposts of the central government and the exactions of the local functionaries. Similar privileges were often enjoyed by those who dwelt in districts that were the special property of the Sultana Valide and other high individuals. There were also many places where by ancient custom or royal grant, the Raya lived almost free from the intrusion of any of the dominant race; and where it was absolutely forbidden for any Turk to become a resident. It was to the existence of these and similar privileged localities in the empire to the protection which the Prankish residents enjoyed under their own laws and consuls to the exceptional good government of just and able men who sometimes became Pashas and also to the stern order sometimes enforced in their provinces by some of the most ferocious Pashas, who would tolerate no crimes but their own, that Turkey was indebted for what little commercial activity and wealth was to be found in her at the period of which we are speaking. If we look to the means which the Sultan possessed of assert- ing his authority against domestic rebels or foreign invaders, we shall find the military system of the empire so wretched that instead of wondering at the success of the Christian powers against it, there seems to be rather cause for surprise at the Russians and Austrians not having completed its overthrow. There were the paid troops, called generally the Kapikouli (which means, literally, slaves of the Porte), and the unpaid troops, who were termed Toprakli. The largest and by far the most important part of the paid troops was the once renowned corps of the Janissaries. In one of the earlier chapters of this work we have traced the institution of this soldiery by the councils of the Vizier Alaeddin and Black Khalil Tschen- dereli in the reign of Orkhan, the second sovereign of the house of Othman. We have seen the increase of their numbers and the ex- cellence of their discipline under Mohammed the Conqueror, and Suleiman the Lord of his Age; their growing insubordination under llie subsequent Sultans; the change in the system by which they were recruited ; the increase of their numbers ; and the decrease THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 371 of their military efficiency. At the close of the eighteenth century they were computed to consist of 150,000 registered members, who were settled in the various towns of the empire, where they arro- gated authority and military preeminence, and at the same time followed various trades. But the large number of those who pro- cured the enrollment of their names as Janissaries for the sake of the privileges and immunities which were thereby acquired was no proof that any force of corresponding amount could be relied on by the state for actual service. The grossest frauds as to the char- acter and capacity of the individuals who were placed on the muster- rolls were practiced by the private Janissaries themselves, and still more extensively by officers, who also enriched themselves by draw- ing pay for non-existent hundreds and thousands. Still, the Janissaries formed a large community in the empire, and one of the greatest importance both in war and in peace. They were conspicu- ous for their bigotry as Mohammedans, and as they knew the sus- picion with which they and their predecessors had been regarded by successive Sultans, they in turn watched every innovation and re- form with jealousy and hatred, and were ready even to rise in each other's aid to exercise the right of oppressing the Rayas who were beneath them, and what they deemed their still more sacred right of insurrection against the authorities that were over them. Beside the Janissaries, there was a force of artillerymen, called Topidjis, said to be 30,000 in number, but dispersed, like tlie Janissaries, in the chief cities of the empire, and bound to join their standards on receiving orders. The Bostandjis, or gardeners, of the imperial palaces of Adrianople and Constantinople continued to be enrolled and armed, and formed a kind of bodyguard for the Sultan. There were other small bodies of regular infantry : and the old cavalry corps of the Spahis and tlie Silihdars were still pre- served, though in little numerical strength or efficiency. The irregu- lar forces, the Toprakli, consisted chiefly of the old feudal con- tingents which the holders of Ziamets and Timars were bound to supply, but which, owing to the abuses in tliese institutions, were now uncertain in amount and inferior in quality; nor could the services even of those who appeared beneath the horse-tails be relied on for the continued operations of a war. There were also in time of hostilities, levies of troops called Miri-Askeris, which received pay while in the field. When a Turkish town was besieged, tlie ^Mohammedan inhabitants were enrolled as a kind of national guard 372 TURKEY for service while the peril lasted, and were called Yerli Neferats. The other irregular volunteers that joined a Turkish army were termed Guenullus. Great assemblages of armed men from these various sources were sometimes arrayed under the Ottoman standards, especially in the early part of a war. At the opening of a first campaign the Porte could set in motion 300,000 sabers; and if the war was a suc- cessful one, there was no lack of volunteers to recruit the armies. But these large hosts were for the most part mere heaps of irregular troops, incapable of discipline, and destitute of experience. They were seldom even nominally enrolled for more than six months, and on the first serious reverse that the army met with they disbanded by thousands, and dispersed toward their homes, generally plunder- ing the provinces in their way, whether hostile or friendly. Christian or Mohammedan. Behind walls or entrenchments, and in confused engagements in broken countries, the native valor of the individual Turk, and his skill in the use of the saber, made him a formidable opponent; and the wild charge of the Ottoman horse, often over ground which no other cavalry would dare to traverse, was still more destructive to a shaken or unready enemy. But, as compared with the steady movements and intelligent organization of the forces of European Christendom, a Turkish army was (as Napoleon termed it) a mere Asiatic rabble. Two astonishing but indisputable facts both attest and account for this. Throughout the Turkish infantry and cavalry there was now no regulation whatever as to what weapons should be used, nor were any of them ever drilled together, or instructed to act in bodies in the commonest military evolution. Each armed himself as he pleased ; and when an action had commenced, each may be said to have fought as he pleased. The French General Boyer well describes the Turkish soldiers of this time as " without order or firmness, unable even to march in platoons, advancing in confused groups, and falling on the enemy in a sudden start of wild and savage fury." The condition of the navy, notwithstanding the exertions of Gazi Hassan and of the Capudan Pasha Hussein, who succeeded him, was even worse than that of the army. And altogether it may be safely asserted that the Turkish Empire had reached its nadir of misery and weakness about a century ago. With the com- mencement of Sultan Selim's reforms a new era was opened. It is true that Turkey has since then suffered from defeats and THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 373 revolts she has lost armies, fleets, and provinces ; but a new spirit has been infused into her rulers and statesmen, which, though often checked, has never been extinguished; and which, what- ever may be her ultimate doom, has falsified the confident predictions of Volney and other writers at the close of the eighteenth century, according to whom " the Sultan, equally af- fected with the ignorance of his people, was to continue to vegetate in his palace, women and eunuchs were to continue to appoint to offices and places, and governments were still to be publicly offered for sale. The Pashas were to pillage the subjects and impoverish the provinces. The Divan was to follow its maxims of haughtiness and intolerance. The people to be instigated by fanaticism. The generals to carry on war without intelligence, and continue to lose battles, until this incoherent edifice of power, shaken to its basis, deprived of its support, and losing its equilibrium, should fall, and astonish the world with another instance of mighty ruin." But threatened states, like threatened men, sometimes live long, and in no small degree the very weakness of the empire was destined to insure its longer integral existence. The Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century then the most powerful in the w^orld, covering as it did, with the exception of Morocco, Spain, France, and Italy, all the countries of the Mediterranean, all the coasts of the Black Sea, and nearly all the shores of the Red Sea, and reaching far into southeastern Europe, until it gathered into its embracing boundaries all of Hungary and the kingdoms south of the lower Danube could command the respect of the European powers and warranted the obsequious haste of the rival nations in congratulating the Turkish Sultan on each new victory gained. But the sieges of Vienna and Malta brought the first real turn in the tide of affairs. Even then was discernible the intermittent but no less unmis- takable symptoms of a slow but inevitable decline. Political and military affairs began to show the increasing influence of the harem, as the sovereign withdrew into seclusion and abandoned the direct government of his empire. The demoralization of the Janissaries could have only one consequence. The Ottoman Empire from the very first had risen by force ui arms, and had been likened to an " armed camp." Consuming, but never producing, it had enriched itself by the countries it conquered without benefiting them in return. The disasters of the seventeenth century were all irreparable, the 374 TURKEY fight of Lepanto, St. Gothard, Vienna, and, on the very eve of the new century, the defeat at Zenta. The eighteenth century added its quota in the loss of Petewaradin and Belgrade, with Temesvar and Ismail toward the latter part of the century. Step by step the course of humiliation was marked by the successive treaties from Sitvatorok in 1606, when the empire first receded, to Carlowitz in 1699, which marked the first actual dismemberment of the empire. Passarowitz came in 171 8, Kainardji in 1774, and the Treaty of Jassy in 1792 may be said to close the century. Even the treaties of Falksen and Belgrade, though less unfavorable, cannot be considered as conferring any lasting advantages on the Ottomans. It was the Treaty of Carlov^^itz on the eve of the eighteenth century that gave to history, in the phrase of Nicholas of Russia, the famous " Sick Man of the East." The feebleness of the empire was undisputed, and its ultimate dissolution, soon or late, was as- sured no less by the internal desperateness of the disease than by the officious solicitations of the invalid's logical inheritors. The prophecy of Volney in 1788 was much the same as that of Sir Thomas Roe, more than a century and a half before. And the same prophecy is heard in our own day, more than two hundred years later, but meanwhile the patient yet lives. PART IV MODERN TURKEY. 1792-1910 Chapter XXIII TURKEY IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION. 1792-1812 RELIEVED from the immediate pressure of Russian war by the Peace of Jassy, and from the imminent peril of its re- . newal by the death of Empress Catherine, SuUan Seh'm earnestly applied himself to the difficult and dangerous duty of internal reform. To meet the multitude of evils that distracted the state, he projected manifold and extensive changes in almost all its departments. The abuses of the feudal system were to be dealt with by abolishing feudality itself. The Ziamets and Timars were to be resumed by the sovereign on the deaths of their holders, and their revenues were thenceforth to be paid into the royal treasury, and appropriated to the maintenance of a new military force. The ad- ministration of the provinces was to be ameliorated by curtailing the powers of the Pashas. Each ruler of an Eyalet or a Liva was to be appointed for three years, and at the expiration of that term the renewal of his office was to depend on his exertions to give sat- isfaction to the people over whom he ruled. Another reform was proposed, from which the provincials would have derived still greater benefits. All farming of the taxes was to be abolished ; and the revenue was to be collected l3y officers of tlie imperial treasury. In the general central government the Grand Vizier's i)o\ver was to be restrained by making it necessary for him to consult the Divan on all important measures. The Divan was to consist of twelve superior ministers, one of whom was bound to attend especially to the collection of the funds by which the new troops were to be kept on foot. The spread of intelligence and the advancement of edu- cation among all classes of his subjects were earnestly enc(Uiraged by Selim III. The printing establishment which had been founded in the reign of Ahmed III. was revived, and many European works on tactics and fortification were translated from the h>ench and published by the Sultan's orders, under the inspection of the Turkish mathematician, Abdurrhahim Effendi. Selim also showed favor 377 378 TURKEY 1792 and patronag-e to the establishment of schools throughout his do- minions. It was especially among the Greeks that new educational institutions sprang up and old ones regained fresh energy under the Sultan's auspices ; and when it was found that the revolutionary party among the Greeks availed themselves of this intellectual move- ment to excite their fellow-countrymen against the Turks, Selim, instead of closing the Greek schools and printing offices, established a Greek press at Constantinople, and sought to counteract the efforts of those opposed to the Turkish Government by employing the pens of the Greek clergy of the capital in its favor. He de- signed to provide a certain number of his Ottoman subjects with a better political education than could be acquired at Constantinople, by attaching them to the permanent embassies which he sought to establish at the chief European courts. Turkish missions were re- ceived at London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin; but the cabinet of St. Petersburg artfully avoided Selim's proposal to accredit a regular ambassador to the Russian Empire. However needful were these and other measures for improving the civil and social condition of the inhabitants of the Turkish Em- pire, and however valuable they were likely to prove, if carried into effect, Selim well knew that a properly disciplined and loyal armed force was as indispensable for the enforcement and maintenance of internal reform as it was for preserving the integrity of the empire from further attack from without. The example of Peter the Great of Russia, who, by means of the new troops that Lefort trained for him on the model of the armies of Western Europe, overthrew both domestic and foreign foes, was ever before the eyes of Selim ; and the inquiring Turkish sovereign may have been aware that already in the west, so high an authority as Adam Smith had declared that " whoever examines with care the improvements which Peter the Great introduced into the Russian Empire will find that they almost all resolve themselves into the establishment of a well-regulated standing army." Among the prisoners made by the Turks during the last war, there was one who was a Turk by birth, but had long been in the Russian service, in which he had attained the rank of lieutenant, and the reputation of a good officer. The Grand Vizier, Yussuf Pasha (by whose troops he had been taken), was fond of conversing with him on the military systems of the two nations, and was at last persuaded to allow a little corps (consisting chiefly of renagades) to be armed and drilled on the AGE OF REVOLUTION 379 1792-1798 European plan. The Vizier used to amuse himself with seeing them go through their exercises, and when he left the camp at the end of the war he took the little company with him and stationed them at a village at a short distance from Constantinople. The Sultan, hearing of them, expressed a wish to see " how the infidels fought battles," and went to one of their parades. He instantly saw the superiority of their fire to that of the ordinary Turkish troops, and appreciated more than ever the advantages which the arms and discipline of his Christian enemies had long given them over the Ottoman troops. The little band was kept on foot, and Omar Aga, as its chief was called, was enabled to recruit it by enrolling other renegades, and also a few indigent Turks, who consented to learn the exercise and wield the weapons of tlie Giaour. The Divan was required by the Sultan to consider the policy of introducing the new system among the Janissaries; but this produced a mutiny, which the Sultan appeased for the time by fair promises, and by desisting from any further measures, though Omar Aga's company was still kept together. In 1796 General Albert Dubayet arrived at Con- stantinople as ambassador from the French Republic. He brought with him as a new and acceptable present to the Sultan several pieces of artillery, with all their appointments and munitions, to serve as models, and a number of French artillerymen and engineers, who were to instruct the Turkish Topidjis, and to aid in the management of the Ottoman arsenals and foundries. The am- bassador was accompanied also by drill-sergeants from the French horse and foot regiments, who were to give lessons to the Spahis and Janissaries. The efforts of the French artillerymen were well received; and marked improvements in the fabric, and the equip- ment, and the working of the Turkish guns was effected by them. Some progress was made in arming and training a squadron of horse on the European system ; but the Janissaries again absolutely and angrily refused to adopt the arms or learn the maneuvers of Frankish infantry; and Duloayet's drill-sergeants were only able to serve the Sultan by improving the discipline of Omar Aga's men. Albert Dubayet died within a few montlis after his arrival at Con- stantinople, and many of his officers then left Turkey. But the Capudan Pasha. Hussein, who, like the Sultan, saw the value of the new system, took some of them into his own service, and by high pay and i)atronag-c induced a few more Mussulmans to enter into Omar's corps. These new tr(H)ps were about 600 in numl)er when 380 TURKEY 1798 war broke out between France and Turkey, in 1798, in consequence of the attack which the French Republic, or rather Napoleon Bonaparte, made on Egypt. It had been the anxious wish of Sultan Selim to keep clear of the conflicts which the French Revolution had produced in Europe. He knew the paramount necessity of reorganizing his empire, and the impossibility of this being effected while it was involved in the jeopardies of war. But the tidings which reached Constantinople in July, 1798, that a French army, 30,000 strong, under the most cele- brated general of the republic, had suddenly landed in Egypt and taken the city of Alexandria by storm, left the Sultan no alternative. It was true that the Turkish authority in Egypt was little more than nominal, and that the Mamelukes, the real lords and tyrants over that country, were as deeply hated by the Sublime Porte as by the Copts and the Fellahs whom they oppressed. It was true also that Napoleon professed hostility against the Mamelukes only, and put forth proclamations in which he vaunted the sincerity of the alli- ance between the Turks and the French, at the very time that he was ordering all the severities of military execution against the Turkish Janissaries who had defended Alexandria. But the inten- tion of the French general to conquer and retain Egypt for France, or rather for himself, was self-evident; nor could the Porte forego its rights of dominion over that province, where its Pasha was still titularly the supreme ruler, and which it had made vigorous efforts to reduce to effective obedience so lately as 1787, when the outbreak of the Russian war checked Gazi Hassan in his successful per- formance of that duty. We know from Napoleon's own memoirs that he expected to overawe Constantinople by means of the mag- nificent fleet which had brought the French army to Egypt. ^ His victory over the Mamelukes at the Battle of the Pyramids on July 21, and the submission of Cairo six days after that battle, seemed to ensure the realization of the dazzling visions which had led him across the Mediterranean. But on August i Nel- son destroyed the French fleet in the battle of the Nile. This at once removed all considerations of alarm which might have made the Sultan pause. An alliance was concluded between Turkey, Russia, and England, and war was solemnly declared against France. An Ottoman army and a fleet were forthwith ordered to be assembled at Rhodes, and another army was collected in Syria. J Montholon's '" History of the Captivity of Napoleon," vol. iv. p. 195. AGE OF REVOLUTION 881 1799 The formidable Pasha of Acre, Djezzar Pasha, though contemptu- ously independent of his Sultan in times of peace, consented to act as his Seraskier against the Giaours of Franghestan, and took the command of the Syrian forces. It was designed that the Syrian army should cross the desert and attack the French in Egypt early in 1799, and that the armament from Rhodes should act simul- taneously with it by landing 16,000 of the best Turkish troops under Mustapha Pasha at Aboukir. The activity of Napoleon discon- certed these projects. Instead of waiting to be thus assailed in Egypt, he anticipated his enemies by crossing the desert into Syria during the winter, and carrying offensive war into that important province. In his own words, he expected that " according to this plan, the divisions of the army of Rhodes would be obliged to hasten to the aid of Syria, and Egypt would remain tranquil, which would permit us successively to summon the greatest part of our forces to Syria. The Mamelukes of Murad Beg, and of Ibrahim Beg, the Arabs of the Egyptian desert, the Druses of ]\Iount Lebanon, the Metualis, the Christians of Syria, the whole party of the Sheiks of Azov in Syria might join the army when it was master of that country, and the commotion would be communicated to the whole of Arabia. These provinces of the Ottoman Empire in which the Arabian language was spoken desired a great change, and only waited for someone to bring it about. Should the fortune of war be favorable, the French might, by the middle of summer, reach the Euphrates with 100,000 auxiliaries, who would have as a rescr\c 25,000 veteran Frenchmen of the best troops in the world and numerous trains of artillery. Constantinople would then be menaced ; and if the French could succeed in reestablishing friendly relations with the Porte, they might cross the desert and march upon India toward the end of autumn." ^ These dreams of Oriental conquest were finally dissipated be- fore St. Jean d'Acre. Djezzar Pasha had proved himself in readi- ness and energy no unwortliy opponent of the great victor of Italy and Egypt; and English skill and gallantry now cooperated with the stubborn valor of the Turks. Djezzar had sent Abdallah, the Pasha of Damascus, forward with the advanced guard of tlie Syrian forces as early as January, 1799. Al)da]lah garrisoned Gaza and Jaffa, and proceeded as far as El Ariscli, which is the key o\ Egypt on its Syrian side. Na]iolcon commenced his march in 2 Montholon'b "History <>i the Captivity of Napoleon," vol. iv. 382 TURKEY 1799 February. He took, without difficulty, El Arisch on February 15, and Gaza a few days afterward. Jaffa resisted more obstinately, but was breached and stormed on March 3. Two thousand Turkish soldiers, who were made prisoners here, were on the following day put to death in cold blood. Napoleon then advanced upon Acre, which was the only place that could stop him from effecting the complete conquest of Syria. The siege began on March 20, and was maintained with the greatest vigor and determination on both sides until May 20, when Napoleon reluctantly abandoned his prospects of an im- perial career beyond the Euphrates and the Indus, and retreated with the remains of his forces upon Egypt. In this siege no less than eight assaults were given by the French, and eleven desperate sallies made by the defenders. The operations of Napoleon were greatly retarded in the first weeks by his deficiency in heavy artillery. Sir Sydney Smith, who was cruising off Syria with two English ships of the line, captured the flotilla which was conveying the French battering train along the coast; and he aided the de- fenders of Acre still more effectively by landing gunners and marines from his own ships, and also the emigrant French officer, Colonel Philippeaux, who took the command of the engineer force in the city. Philippeaux and many more brave men perished dur- ing the defense; and the French obtained in April some mortars and heavy guns which their Rear Admiral Perree landed near Jaffa. A large army also which the Pasha of Damascus assembled in Syria for the relief of Acre was completely defeated and dispersed by Napoleon and two divisions of his troops at the battle of Mount Thabor, while the remainder of his force maintained the position before the besieged city. But it was impossible for him to prevent Djezzar Pasha from receiving reinforcements by sea ; and on May 7 a Turkish squadron landed 12,000 men in the harbor. These included the new troops, armed with musket and bayonet and disciplined in the European system, who have been already de- scribed. This body signalized itself by gallantry and steadiness during the remainder of the siege, and attracted the notice of the besieging general as well as of the Turks. Napoleon had received further supplies of artillery, and the greater part of the defenses of Acre became a mass of blood-stained ruins. But every attempt of the French to charge through the living barriers of the garrison and their English comrades was repulsed with heavy loss. The 1799 AGE OF REVOLUTION 383 number of Napoleon's wounded who lay at Jaffa and in the camp was 12,000, and the plague was in his hospitals. ^ His retreat was conducted with admirable skill and celerity, and Napoleon soon found that his presence in Egypt was deeply needed to quell the spirit of insurrection that had arisen there, and to encounter the Turkish army from Rhodes, This army, commanded by Mustapha, the Pasha of Rumelia, and escorted by Sir Sydney Smith's squadron, landed at Aboukir on July II. It consisted of about 15,000 infantry, with a con- siderable force of artillery, but without horse. Mustapha Pasha assaulted and carried the redoubts which the French had formed near the village of Aboukir, put to the sword the detachment of Marmont's corps which he found there; and then, in expectation of an attack from the main French army, he proceeded to strengthen his position with a double line of entrenchments. Napoleon col- lected his forces with characteristic rapidity, and on July 25 was before the peninsula of Aboukir. The action that ensued was well contested but decisive. Napoleon cut off some detached bodies of the Turks, and carried their first line without much diffi- culty. But behind the second line the Pasha's troops resisted des- perately, and aided by the fire of the English gunboats in the bay, they drove the French columns back with considerable loss. At this critical moment the Turks left their entrenchments and dispersed about the field to cut off the heads of their fallen enemies. Napoleon took instant advantage of their disorder. He sent his reserves for- ward ; and Murat, with the French cavalry, dashed through an opening between the redoubts into the midst of the Ottoman posi- tion. Murat forced his way to ^Mustapha Pasha's tent, and had exchanged blows with the Turkisli general, each slightly wounding the other, before the Pasha, seeing the inevitable ruin of liis army, consented to surrender. Pursued at the point of the bayonet by the victorious French, the mass of tlie Tiu-ks were thrust into the sea, the whole bay appearing for a few minutes to be covered with their turbans, until they sank by thousands and perished beneath the waves. After this victory, which restored to the French, for a few months, the undisputed' possession of h^gypt, Napoleon de- parted from that country to w in empire in the West, though it had eluded him in the Eastern world. General Kleber, who was left in command of the French force 3 ]\lontlioloii, "Jlistory of llic Caplivit} of Xapolcon/" vol. iv. p. j8o. S84 TURKEY 1800-1807 in Egypt, entered into a convention with Sir Sydney Smith, the English commodore, for evacuating the province, but the Enghsh admiral, Lord Keith, refused to ratify the terms, and a large Turkish army, under the Grand Vizier, entered Egypt early in the year 1800. Kleber completely defeated this host at the battle of Heliopolis on March 20, and it was ultimately by the English expedition under Abercrombie and Hutchinson that Egypt was wrested from the French. On the western frontier of the Ottoman dominions in Europe some territorial acquisitions were made in consequence of the war between the Porte and France, and of the alliance of the Sultan with Russia and England, which that war produced. France had, by the Treaty of Campo Formio, between her and Austria, in 1797 (when these two powers agreed that the republic of Venice should be extinct), obtained possession of the Ionian Islands and their de- pendencies on that continent, Prevesa, Parga, Vonitza, Gomenitza, and Butrinto, which had formed portions of the Venetian do- minions. Immediately that the war was declared against France by the Porte in 1798, Ali Pasha, the celebrated Despot of Epirus, marched troops upon Prevesa, Vonitza, and Butrinto, and won these cities from the French. Soon afterward a Russian fleet from the Black Sea sailed to the Bosphorus, where it was joined by a Turkish squadron, and the combined armament entered the Mediterranean, where it conquered the Ionian Islands, and afterward endeavored to aid the enemies of the French on the coasts of Italy, which then witnessed the strange spectacle of the forces of the Sultan and the Czar cooperating to support the Pope. The Ionian Islands were at first (1801) placed under the joint protectorate of the Russians and Turks, Disputes naturally fol- lowed, and it was agreed in 1802 that one of these ill-matched guardians should resign. It was left to the Greek inhabitants of the islands to make the selection. They chose to retain the Russian em- peror as their protector, and the Turks withdrew accordingly. The acquisition of these islands was always a favorite project with Ali Pasha, more, however, with a view to aggrandize himself than from any desire to strengthen his master. But he never succeeded in obtaining them. They passed in 1807 from Russian to French sovereignty, and were afterward captured by the English, who were for many years tlie supreme rulers of what was termed the Septinsular Republic. AGE OF REVOLUTION 386 1800-1802 The possession of the old Venetian districts on the mainland was confirmed to Turkey by agreement between her and Russia in 1800. Butrinto, Prevesa, and Vonitza, which had been taken by AH Pasha, were retained by him ; but Parga, which was garrisoned by a body of hardy Suhotes, refused to submit, and nobly main- tained her independence for fourteen years. During four more years she was protected by England, and when that protection was withdrawn, and the city given up to the Pasha, the inhabitants (like the Phocseans of old) abandoned their homes rather tlian be- come the subjects of an Eastern despot. We have been glancing far forward, while speaking of the fate of these relics of the old Venetian Empire in Greece, in order that they may not again require our notice. But we must now revert to the early part of the nine- teenth century. It has been mentioned that the Turks, in the year 1802, gave up to Russia their share of the protectorate of the Seven Islands ; and in October of that year the influence of Russia obtained a hattisherif from the Sultan in favor of the inhabitants of Moldavia and Wallachia, by which the Porte pledged itself not to remove the reigning Hospodars of those principalities without previous reference to Russia, and not to allow any Turks, except merchants and traders, to enter either territory. The November of the preceding year, 1801, had been a still more important epoch. It was then that a general though brief pacification throughout Europe was effected, in which the Ottoman Empire was included, so far, at least, as regarded foreign powers. By a treaty between France and Turkey (negotiated concurrently wath the Peace of Amiens be- tween France and England), Napoleon, then Chief Consul, ac- knowledged the sovereignty of the Porte over Egypt and its other dominions in full integrity; and the Sultan renewed the ancient privileges which the French, under their kings, had enjoyed in Turke}^ The old policy of France, in seeking tlie friendship of the Ottoman court, was now revived, and before long the skill of Napoleon's ambassadors, Generals Rrune and Sebastiani, restored the French influence at Constantinople. Selim had now a second respite from war with any European power, until he was attacked by Russia in 1806. But this was no period of tranquillity for the Turkish I'jnpire. The Wahabites re- newed their attacks on Syria, and in 1802 tliey captured the cities of Mecca and ^Medina, so that all Arabia was now in their posses- sion. The loss of the Holv Cities, the indignities with which the 386 TURKEY 1802-1806 Wahabites treated the sanctuaries and relics of Mohammedanism, and the cruelties practiced by them toward the Hadjis, or pilgrims, especially those of the Sunnite persuasion, excited a profound sensa- tion throughout the Ottoman Empire, and tended to prejudice the Turkish part of the population against their innovating Sultan, whose reign was marked by such visitations. In Egypt the remnant of the Mamelukes long kept at bay the troops by which Selim en- deavored to bring that province under effectual control. In Syria Djezzar Pasha resumed his old attitude of haughty insubordination toward the Porte, and exercised independent tyranny until his death, in 1804. On the Danube Pasvan Oglu maintained himself against all the forces that the Sultan could employ for his reduction, until at last the Porte in 1806 made peace with its stubborn rebel, con- firmed him in all the power which he had usurped, and sent him the insignia of a Pasha of the highest rank. The troubles in Servia deserve more careful consideration, as their ultimate effect was to withdraw that important province from the practical authority of the house of Othman, and to convert it into an independent Christian state. The narrative of this is also closely connected with that of the contest between the Janissaries and the Sultan, and it gives fearful proof of the stern necessity un- der which Selim and Mahmud acted in all their measures against that force. It has been mentioned, while tracing the events of the war of the Emperor Joseph 11. against Turkey, that the Austrian forces which entered Servia were actively assisted by the Rayas of that province. The Servians formed a considerable force, both of horse and foot, which rendered excellent service to the emperor and de- fended many important districts from the attempts made by the Turks to reconquer them. When the Peace of Sistova gave Servia back to the Porte, with merely a provision for an amnesty in favor of such of the inhabitants as had acted against the Sultan, Turkish commissioners were sent from Constantinople to take possession of the province: and their surprise was extreme, and not unmingled with apprehension, when they found the change that had taken place in their Christian subjects, whom they had been accustomed to re- gard as " a weaponless and submissive lierd." One of them ex- claimed to the Austrian officers, when a Servian troop, fully armed and accoutered, marched out in military array from one of the fortresses, "Neighbors, what have you made of our Rayas? "^ * Ranke's " Servia," p. 84. AGE OF REVOLUTION 387 1803 The Servian regiments were disbanded, and the Turks returned to their old dominion ; but the military spirit which had been called into action among the Rayas could not be easily extinguished. It was, however, not against, but in aid of the Sultan, that the Servians next appeared in arms. That turbulent tyranny of the Janissaries was the cause of this strange phenomenon. At no place had the members of that body proceeded to such lengths of lawless outrage as at Belgrade, where their commanders already styled themselves Dahis, in imitation of the rulers of the Barl3aresque states, who had originally been raised to independent power from among a mutinous soldiery. The Janissaries of Belgrade and the other Servian towns robbed and murdered not only the Rayas, but their fellow-countrymen, the Spahis the feudal lords of the land. The Pasha's authority was so insignificant that the Austrians, dur- ing the war, treated with the Aga of the Janissaries instead of with the legitimate viceroy of the Sultan. As this state of insubordina- tion and violence was renewed in Servia after the peace, Selim de- termined to act vigorously against these rebels, and Ebu Bekir was sent to Belgrade as Pasha, with a firman which commanded the Janissaries to quit that city and the entire pashalic. According to the too common policy in the East of using the basest crimes to punish criminals, the chief leader of the Janissaries was removed by assassination, and the firman was then published and enforced. The expelled Janissaries joined Pasvan Oglu, the rebel of \\'id(lin. and at their instigation Pasvan's forces invaded Servia. In this emergency, Hadji Mustapha (who had succeeded ICbu Bekir as Pasha of Belgrade) called on the Servians to take up arms in de- fense of the province. Both Hadji Mustapha and Ebu Bekir had governed Servia with justice and humanity, and the country had flourished and become enriched l)y commerce with Austria under their rule. The Servians gladly obeyed the summons of the Pasha against their old tyrants, the rebel Janissaries, and victoriously de- fended the pashalic. But the other Janissaries of tlie empire, and especially those at Constantinople, received tlic tidings of the events in Servia with the highest indignation, with which the Ulema and the Mohammedan population in general largely sympathized. Selim found it necessary to give way; Hadji ^lustapha received an order of the Divan to readmit the Janissaries to Belgrade. They were restored accordinglv, and they recommenced their sway there In- murdering one of the chief Servian oihcers, and soon proceeded to 388 TURKEY 1803 overpower and murder the Pasha. They condescended to ask for a new Pasha from the Porte ; but their intention to keep the sovereign power in their own hands was evident. Four of their chiefs assumed the title of Dahis, and allotted the country among them. Each was the Tetrarch of a district; but Belgrade was their common capital, where they met and deliberated. As the number of the Janissaries of Belgrade seemed insufficient to uphold their power, they formed another armed force of Mohammedans from Bosnia and Albania, who flocked together to the pillage of Servia. It was not only the Rayas over whom they tyrannized 'the old Turkish feudal proprietors, the Spahis, were expelled by them from the province, and the Janissaries now established themselves as absolute lords of the soil. In Bosnia Ali Beg Widaitsh of Sumnik made himself master of a large territory in the same manner, and entered into close alliance with the Dahis of Belgrade. Pasvan Oglu also (who was still in rebellion against the Porte) was their confederate; and thus a Mohammedan brigand league was formed nearly across the whole north of European Tartary, in direct antagonism to the house of Othman. The exiled Spahis of Servia implored the Sultan's aid, and the Rayas, whose sufferings were now infinitely multiplied, also called on him as their sovereign to rescue them from these op- pressors. The Servian Kneses (as the Christian local magistrates were termed) sent an address to Constantinople in which they recapitulated some of the wrongs which they endured. They said they were not only reduced to abject poverty by the Dahis, but " they were attacked in their religion, their morality, and their honor ; and no husband was secure as to his wife, no father as to his daughter, no brother as to his sister. The church, the cloister, the monks, the priests, all were outraged." The Porte was at this time destitute of means to crush the Dahis. It could only threaten. An intimation was sent to Belgrade that unless the Janissaries amended their conduct the Sultan would send an army against them ; " but not an Ottoman army, for it would be a grievous thing to cause true believers to fight against each other ; but soldiers should come against them of other nations, and of another creed; and then such evil should overtake them as had never yet befallen an Osmanli." On hearing this the Dahis said to one another, " What army can the Padishah mean ? Is it to be of Austrians or Russians ? Nay, 1804 AGE OF REVOLUTION 389 he will not bring those foreigners into his empire." " By Allah," they exclaimed, " he means the Rayas." They believed that the Sultan would send a general to arm and lead the Servians under their Kneses against them. They resolved to prevent this by a massacre of all such Rayas as, from their position or spirit, might prove dangerous. Each Dahi repaired for this purpose to his own district, and in February, 1804, they simultaneously commenced the work of horror. Great numbers of the chief Servians were at first surprised and slaughtered, but some received timely warning and fled. The Dahis and their emissaries continued to murder, and the belief grew general in Servia that it was intended to extirpate the entire Christian population. But there were still bold and able men among them, and too high a military spirit had been created by re- cent events in the Servian Rayas for them to perish without resistance. At first the shepherds and peasants, who lied from their homes and joined the Heiduks, or robbers, in the mountains, did so merely to save their lives or to gain a chance of taking life for life. Their next thought w^as how they could return to their homes in safety. But soon came the reflection that, in order to be safe, they must put down their oppressors, and that this could only be done by a national war throughout the country. Such a war was soon organized in Servia. The Heiduk chiefs came forward zealously in the good cause, and there were many other men of capacity and courage who combined the peasantry of the various districts in a general rising. The bands of the Dahis were rapidly driven from the open country, from the villages, and from all the smaller towns ; and in a few weeks all Servia was in the hands of Servians, except Belgrade and some of the other strong fortified places. The Servians now determined to choose a commander-in-chief of their nation. They offered the supreme dignity to George Petrovich, called Czerny George by his countrymen, and Kara George (both meaning Black George) by the Turks. The name of Kara George is that by which he is most conspicuous among the heroes of revolutionary warfare. Kara George ' was the son of a Servian peasant, and was born at Vischessi between 1760 and 1770. lie served in the corps of Servian volunteers against tlie 1\n-ks in tlie Austrian war of 1788-1791, and after the I'eacc of Sistova he was for some years a "It will be noted that the present Kintj of Servi.'i i- a de-condant of Kara George. 390 TURKEY 1804 dealer in swine, one of the most profitable and respectable employ- ments in Servia. When the Dahis began their outrages Kara George left his forests and swine-droves and betook himself to the mountains, where he became one of the most redoubtable of the Heiduks. When the war of independence broke out he showed himself as eminent for skill in command as for personal bravery in action. He despised pomp and parade, and in the days of his high- est prosperity, when sovereign of Servia, and of more than Servia, he was always seen in his old herdsman's garb and his well-known black cap. He was in general kindly disposed, but was easily irri- tated, and was terrible in his wrath. He would cut down or shoot the offender with his own hand ; and he made no distinction between friend and foe, between stranger and kinsman. But, though cruel, he was not vindictive, and if he could be brought once to promise forgiveness, he pardoned with the heart as well as w^ith the lip. Kara George knew the fierceness of his own character, and so did the Servian people before they chose him to rule over them. When he was proposed in the assembly, he at first excused himself on the ground that he did not know how to govern. The Kneses replied that they would give him counsel. He then said, " I am too hasty of mood for the office. I cannot stop to take counsel. I shall be inclined to kill at once." They answered that " such severity was needed at that time." It w-as not in a single year that the liberation of Servia was accomplished. The Dahis had been surprised and driven out of the open country at the first uprising of the patriots, but they were not thoroughly overcome without a formidable struggle. They called to their aid their confederate AH Beg of Bosnia ; and they enrolled among their supporters many of the bands called Krid- shalies, formed of adventurers of every description, creed, and class, who had fought in the late wars, and who were leagued together, like the Free Companies of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, the Servians received help from an unex- pected ally. The Pasha of Bosnia came to their assistance with the Sultan's forces from that province, and Turkish recruits appeared in the Servian camp. The Porte was now firmly resolved that the Janissaries of Belgrade, as the most turbulent of that turbulent body, should, if possible, be crushed; and the arms of the Servians were to be employed, together with those of loyal r^Iohammedans. for that purpose. The union was again successful ; but the Servians AGE OF REVOLUTION 391 1804 this time insisted that the destruction of their tyrants should be made sure. The Dahis and their followers were not to be exiled, they were to be slain. The Pasha felt little anxiety to interpose in their favor. Such as could not escape to Pasvan Oglu were cut down without mercy, and the heads of the four Dahis were dis- played in the Servian camp. The Pasha now pronounced the object of the war to be gained. The rebellious enemies of the Sultan had been punished, and the old order of submission by Rayas to Turks was to be restored. He directed the Servians to disarm, and return to their flocks and herds. But the command w'as issued not to spirit- less and powerless Rayas, like those of the olden time, among whom humility before the Moslems had become a second nature, but to practiced and victorious soldiers, v'ho had fought and beaten the most renowned of the old Ottoman troops, who had stormed Turk- ish fortresses and had torn down Alohammedan standards. The Servians regarded as their real chiefs, not the Pashas and the Spahis, but Kara George and the other leaders of their own race and creed men who had shared in the extremity of the land's dis- tress, and had been foremost in fighting their way out of it. These were the commanders whose words alone were heeded, and their words were not words of submissiveness. The Servian chiefs were men who had created their own strength and power; they were sur- rounded each by his band of resolute partisans, called Momkes, ready for any service; and they were not disposed to resign the pleasure of commanding, which they so recently had enjoyed. The original objects of the uprising of Servia had been merely to rihtain protection for life and honor against the bloodthirsty and ])rutal Dahis; but in the course of that struggle a national feeling had been evoked, and a national power evolved, which made it inijiossi- ble that Servia should not now aspire to a higher destiny than she had known since Sultan ^Murad II. overthrew the Prince C.eorge Brankovich and his Christian confederates at Varna. The struggle which the Servians had hitherto maintained against the Sultan's Mohammedan rebels was now to be continued against the Sultan himself. They determined to seek the aid of one of the great powers of Christendom. Austria was tirst thought of. Many of them had fought under her l>anncr, and many of their kindred tribes were already under the sovereignty of th.e Kaiser ot 'Vienna. But it was rememberctl that the Austrians. ihougli they had more than once occupied Servia, liatl always given l)ack the 392 TURKEY 1804-1805 country and the people to the Turks. Moreover, Austria was known to be now directing all her energies to the conflict which was approaching on her western frontiers between her and the French, by whom she had been twice humbled during the last few years. But there was another great Christian empire near Servia. Russia was strong and active, and undefeated by either Turks or French, both of whom her famous general, Suvarov, had repeatedly van- quished. The Russians, moreover, were, like the Servians, Chris- tians of the Greek Church, and they had shown their zeal for their coreligionists by their repeated and formidable intercessions with the Porte in behalf of the Moldavians and Wallachians. The Ser- vians accordingly, in August, 1804, sent a deputation to St. Peters- burg, which returned in February, 1805, with a favorable answer. But the Russian emperor advised the Servians first to prefer their requests at Constantinople, promising to support them by all his influence with the Sultan, The Servians, in obedience to this direction, sent, in the sum- mer of 1805, an embassy to Constantinople, which was instructed to demand that in future all the fortresses of their country should be garrisoned by Servian troops, and that, in consideration of the suf- ferings of the province during the recent troubles, all arrears of taxes and tribute should be remitted. The first article was the most important, and the one respecting which most difficulty was antici- pated, especially as at the time when it was preferred Belgrade and other strong places in Servia were still in the power of the Moslems. The period when these demands were laid before the Porte was an important crisis in Selim's reign. The rival influences of France and Russia in the Divan, and also the conflicting spirits of reform and conservatism in the Ottoman nation, were now engaged in a trial of strength with which the Servian question became closely connected, Russia was at this time at war with France, and was redoubling the efforts which she had been making for several years to gain such a paramount authority in Turkey as should render the populations and resources of the Ottoman Empire subservient to the Czar's schemes of aggrandizement against his Western enemies, as well as in the Eastern world. Selim had made large concessions to Russia since they had become allies in 1798, concessions which the Turkish nation viewed with anger and alarm. Her fleets had been permitted to pass and repass the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, after as well AGE OF REVOLUTION 393 1804-1805 as before the general pacification in 1801. This had caused great indignation among the Turks in Constantinople, and the Sultan had been obliged to declare that such permission should not be repeated if Russia were at war with any nation friendly to the Porte. By means of the squadrons which she thus sent from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, Russia had largely increased her force in the Ionian Islands, and she further augmented that force by levying troops among the Albanians of the mainland, notwithstanding the remon- strances of the Turkish authorities. We have already noticed her successful claims regarding Moldavia and Wallachia in 1802; and in the early part of 1805 the influence of Russia over the Sultan was still more strikingly displayed on the southeastern coasts of the Black Sea. The Porte consented that the Russians should have the free navigation of the River Phasis in Mingrelia, and erect fort- resses and place garrisons on its banks for the better security of their flotillas. The Pasha of Erzerum was ordered to assist the Russians in establishing these posts, and in any other operations that might be of use to them, for the purposes of the war with Persia, in which Russia was then engaged. The Russians took more than full advantage of this permission by occupying districts at some distance from the Phasis, seizing the fortress of Anakria, and building another on the coast of the Black Sea. At last, when Russia was about to join Austria and England against Napoleon in 1805, her ambassador, Italinski, formally declared to the Reis Effendi that his government found it necessary, owing to the state of affairs in Europe, to require that Turkey should forthwith enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with Russia; that all the subjects of the Sultan who professed the faith of the Greek Church should thenceforth be considered t(i be under the protection of the Emperor of Russia, and that whenever ihey were molested by the Turks the Porte should be ])ound to do right upon the representations of the Russian ambassador. These requi- sitions of Italinski were made at the same time that the demands of the Servian deputation were laid before ihc Sultan on the avowed recommendation of Russia. The Turkish ministers succeeded in gaining time in their con- ferences with Italinski, but it was necessary to come to a prompt decision as to what line the Porte shotild follow in dealing with the Servians. There were strong inducements to endeavor to win their loval devotion to the Sultan bv a frank concession of their wishes. 394 TURKEY 1805 Selim had now made considerable progress in his military reforms. The Topidjis (the artillerymen) had been trained to a promising extent by French officers, and they were placed on a footing superior to that of the Janissaries. Omar Aga's little corps, which had acquired so much credit in the defense of Acre, had further signal- ized itself by destroying some formidable bands of brigands or free companions which had ravaged Bulgaria and Rumelia and de- feated the Janissaries whom the Pashas of those provinces led against them. Selim increased the number of new troops. Two regiments of the Nizam Djidites, uniformly armed and accoutered after the most approved French models, were now seen performing the same evolutions as those of the best European troops. Special funds were provided for their pay; a few of the Pashas especially Abdurrahman of Karaman adopted zealously their Sultan's views, and in 1805 Selim ventured on the bold measure of issuing a decree that in future the strongest and finest young men should be .selected from among the Janissaries and other corps in the empire, for the purpose of serving in the Nizam Djidid. This was at the time when the power of the Janissaries in Belgrade had been broken by the Rayas ; but in other parts of the empire they gave terrible proofs of their strength. At Adrianople they gathered together in resistance to the Sultan's edict to the num- ber of 10,000. A Cadi who endeavored to enforce the royal orders was seized by them and strangled, and in the greater part of the empire it was found impossible, at least for the present, to carry out the reforms which had been decreed. The services of a brave and well-armed Raya like the Servian would have been invaluable to Selim if he could have been sure that they would have loyally preferred the cause of the Sultan to that of Russia, and if he could have employed them against the Janissaries of Adrianople and the capital without raising in rebellion the great mass of his ]Moham- medan subjects, already deeply incensed at the means which had been used against the Dahis of Belgrade. Threatened as Selim was at this very time by Russia, and in hourly expectation of being obliged to appeal to the fanatic energy of the ]\Ioslem population of his empire for a final efi^ort of despair against the invading Giaours, he abandoned the thought of winning the friendship of the Servian Rayas, and determined to treat them as foes whom he must deprive of the means of injuring him. The Servian deputies at Constan- *^ Ranke's 'Serviii," p. 151. AGE OF REVOLUTION 395 1806 tinople were arrested, and Afiz, the Pasha of Nish, was ordered to enter Servia and disarm the Rayas. Kara George met him at the frontier of the province and defeated him, and when in 1806 Servia was attacked by two of the Sultan's armies on different sides of tlie province, the Servians (who had now become altogether a warlike people, every man bearing arms) defended themselves heroically. They drove back their invaders with heavy loss, and by capturing Belgrade and the other fortresses which had hitherto been gar- risoned by Turks, they made themselves completely masters of their own country. The generalship displayed by Kara George during this campaign was of the very highest order. Under him Servia, in 1806, completed her independence w-ithout foreign interference and by the weapons of her own sons alone. But before another year's warfare commenced she obtained important assistance through the outbreak of avowed hostilities between Russia and the Porte. While the Russian ambassador, Italinski, had pressed the Porte with demands which, if complied with, would have made the Sultan the mere vassal of the emperor, the French minister had l>een equally earnest in encouraging Selim to resist, and in endeavoring to induce him to acknowledge Napoleon as Padishah, or Emperor of France. The British ambassador, as well as the Russian, strongly opposed this recognition of their great enemy by his new imperial title, and war was plainly threatened by botli tliese powers in the event of any closer connection being formed between I'rance and Turkey. The successes gained by Napoleon over the Austrians and Russians in the autumn and winter of 1805 materially aug- mented the inlluence of the Frencli minister at Constantinople and diminished the dread with which Russia was regarded. The effect of the French victories round Ulm and in Moravia was practically felt in the Black Sea and the Bosphorus. A cori)s of 15.000 Rus- sians which had been collected at Sebast(jpol to overawe or attack Turkey w'as withdrawn into central Russia, to replace the troops which it was necessary to march westward against the advancing French. Italinski grew more moderate in his tlcniands on the Porte, which were heard with increasing indifference, while those of France were listened to with more and more attention. The Treaty of Presburg, by wliich Xapuleon on December 26, 1805, triumpliantly concluded hi-^ war with Austria, trans- 396 TURKEY 1806 ferred to the French sovereign, among other territories, Dal- matia and part of Croatia; so that the French were now in contact with the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon is said to have made it a point of primary importance thus to advance his dominions to the frontier of Turkey, and acquire the means of keeping a force ever ready to act promptly and effectively, either in supporting Turkey or in seizing on a share of her provinces, as circumstances might make it expedient. A copy of the Treaty of Presburg was promptly laid before the Grand Vizer by Ruffin, the French minister, who dilated on tlie advantage which it would be to the Sultan to se- cure the friendship of the great conqueror w^ho had now become his neighbor. The efifect of this was speedily displayed in a hatti- slierif by which the titles of Emperor and Padishah were solemnly given to the ruler of the French, and when in the summer of 1806 General Sebastiani arrived at Constantinople as an ambassador ex- traordinary from Napoleon to Selim, that able military diplomatist persuaded the Sultan to take measures which w^re almost certain to lead to a war between Turkey and Russia. Such a war was then most desirable for Napoleon's purposes, as it w^as calculated to make an important diversion of part of the Russian forces from the great scene of conflict in Prussian Poland, where the Emperor Alexander was striving to support King Frederick William of Prussia against the armies of victorious France. At Sebastiani's instigation the Sultan deposed the Hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia, Prince Morutzi and Prince Ipsilanti, who were more than suspected of being the pensioned agents of the Russian court. This dismissal of the Hospodars without any pre- vious notification to St. Petersburg was a violation of the pledge given in the hattisherif of 1802, and the Russian ambassador at Constantinople protested angrily against it. He was joined in his remonstrances by the ambassador of England, and they informed the Porte that "the armies and fleets of the allies w^ere about to receive a new impulse." This meant that a Russian army would be marched into Moldavia, and that an English fleet would sail against Constantinople.'^ Selim offered to repair the breach of his engage- ment respecting the government of the principalities, and an order w^as issued to reinstate Morutzi and Ipsilanti as Hospodars. But before this could be accomplished the tidings reached Constantinople that Russian troops had entered Moldavia and advanced as far as Lord Broughton's " Travels," vol. ii, p. 390. 1807 AGE OF REVOLUTION 397 Jassy. The Emperor Alexander had promptly seized on the pretext which the intelhgence of the dismissal of the Hospodars gave him for an attack upon Turkey, and 35,000 men under General Michel- son were ordered into Moldavia and Wallachia, without even the formality of a declaration of war. The Russians speedily overran the principalities and beat back the scanty forces 'with which tlie Turkish commanders of the neighboring Pashalics had endeavored to check their progress. On December 27 Michelson entered Bucharest, and it was announced that his troops would speedily cross the Danube. A declaration of war by the Sublime Porte against Russia was the natural and inevitable result of the indignation which these things excited at Constantinople ; nor was the Turkish Government awed into submission by the threats of the British minister, Arbuthnot, who required that the Porte sliould instantly renew its alliance with Russia and England and dismiss tlie ambassador of France, and who menaced Turkey with an attack by the combined English and Russian fleets, as well as by the Russian armies, in case of non-compliance with his demands. The Reis Effendi returned an answer of much sense and dignity, in which he recapitulated the exertions which Turkey had made to preserve peace, and csi)ecially alluded to the late humiliation which Sultan Sclim had voluntarily undergone in reinstating the two traitorous Hospodars. He staterl that in making war with Russia after her attack on Turkish prov- inces and Turkish troops, the Sultan was only repelling force by force. Pie expressed a hope that a great and enlightened nation like the British would appreciate the sacrifices which the Sublime Poric had made for the sake of amity, and the spirit which now made it act in self-defense. On receiving this reply the English minister repaired to the fleet that was then moored off Tenedos. under the command of Admiral Duckworth. The admiral's instructions were to i)rocced forthwith to Constantinople and to insist on the surrender of the Turkish fleet, or to burn it and bombard tbc town. On l-Vbruary 19, 1807, the fleet, consisting of seven .-liips of the line and two frigates, favored by a strong wind from the south, sailed through the formidable straits of the Dardanelles with little or no loss. A Turkish scjuadron of one sixty-tour gun ship, foiu" frigates, and some corvettes that lay in the Sea of Marmora was de>; roved by the English; and, if Constantinople had been promptly assailed, 398 TURKEY 1807-1812 it could not have been defended with any prospect of success, so defective were the fortifications and such was the panic caused by the forcing of the straits. But the English wasted time in negotia- tions, while the Turks, roused from their temporary consternation, and excited and directed by Sultan Selim and General Sebastiani, labored energetically at the defenses of the capital, until the English commander became convinced that it would be impracticable for him to make any impression on them. Accordingly, the English fleet withdrew from the Sea of Marmora and on March 3 re- passed the Dardanelles, but not without a dangerous contest and severe loss. The Turks on the first occasion had been negligent, surprised, and dismayed. They were now well-armed and pre- pared. Under the direction of French engineers, whom Sebastiani had sent down from the capital, they had repaired the old batteries and erected new ones. Even the huge granite-shooting guns that had lain inactive opposite each other on the European and Asiatic shores for centuries were now employed, and with no inconsiderable effect. Several of the English ships were struck and seriously injured by the 800-pound globes of stone which these cannon dis- charged. An English expedition against Egypt was undertaken almost immediately after that against Constantinople, and was still more unsuccessful. A small British force, utterly inadequate for such an enterprise, was landed near Alexandria. It occupied that city, and endeavored also to reduce Rosetta, but was ultimately obliged to retire from Egypt after much loss both of men and reputation. In the Archipelago a Russian squadron under Admiral Siniavin gained some advantage over the Turkish fleet, but the Turkish Capudan Pasha was able to retire into the Dardanelles and protect the capital, and altogether in the South the fortune of the war in 1807 was not unfavorable to the Ottomans. In the North the Rus- sian and Turkish forces on the Danube carried on the contest with- out either side gaining a decided superiority over the other. Indeed, the war which began at the close of 1806 and was terminated by the Treaty of Bucharest in 181 2, is, of all the struggles between Turkey and Russia, the least interesting and the least important. Neither party put forth its full strength against the other. Hostilities were suspended for a considerable time by the truce of Slobosia; and, even while they were being carried on, Russia was obliged to employ her chief force either to combat or to watch a far more formidable 1807 AGE OF REVOLUTION 399 enemy. She had only the use of her left hand against the Turk. On the Ottoman side the revolts, the civil wars, and the revolutions of this period were almost incessant. At the commencement of hos- tilities the Pasha of Karaman (who was a partisan of Sultan Selim's reforms) while leading a force, trained on the new model, toward the seat of war on the Danube, was intercepted at Babaeska on the Yena by a large force of Janissaries and other troops opposed to the change of system. A battle ensued, in which the Karamanians were utterly defeated. It was evident that Selim was the weakest in the balance of physical power between himself and his malcontent subjects, and that a decisive struggle was fast approaching. The death (early in 1807) of the Mufti, who had been a devoted friend to Selim, and had aided in all his undertakings, was a heavy blow to the Sultan. The Ulema, as a body, were most inimical to his reforms, and their new chief entered into an active alliance with the leading Janissaries against the throne. But the individual who did most to overthrow Selim was the Kaimakan, Musa Pasha. This man had, during twenty years of court intrigue, been the seemingly meek instrument of the ambition of others, and was generally despised as a submis- sive drudge of office. Selim gave Musa Pasha the important office of Kaimakan, in the hope that its real powers would be dormant in his hands, and that he would be abundantly content with the mere pageantry of high station. ]\Iusa used the opportunity of his office to instigate the mutinous spirit of the Janissaries and other mal- contents, while he at the same time retained the confidence of the Sultan by the outward show of simple-minded loyalty. An order that was given by Selim in ]\Iay (not much more than two months after the departure of the English fleet) for some changes in the equipment of the garrison of the forts on the Bcjsplidrus. was the immediate signal for the fatal revolt. The garrison mutinied, and the Janissaries of the capital, who were in cooperation with them, repaired to the Etmeidan (the headquarters of Janissary sedition for centuries), and there overturned their camp-kettles, in token that they would no longer accept food from Sultan Selim. Under the influence and on the lying assurance of the traitorous Kaimakan the Sultan tried to api)easc the storm 1)y concession, and by the sacrifice of his best ministers, instead of sending for his new troops who were near the ca])ital and defending the seraglio with his body- guard until their arrival. The natural result was a resolution (if 400 TURKEY 1807 the mutineers to depose their sovereign. They obtained a fetwah from the Mufti sanctioning their proceedings; and, headed by the traitor Musa, who now threw off tlie mask, the Janissaries forced their way into the palace and placed Mustapha, the eldest son of the late Sultan Abdul Ilamid, on the throne, Selim retired with dignity to the prison apartments, and there employed the brief remainder of his life, not vainly, in instructing his young cousin, Prince Mahmud, afterward Sultan Mahmud II,, how to rule the empire, and in holding out his own fate as a warning against the weakness which the Sultan who would reform Turkey must dis- card in order to save both her and himself. Mustapha IV,, whom the Janissaries and their accomplices then made Padishah of the Ottoman Empire (May 29, 1807), was at this time about thirty years old. He was a prince of imperfect education and slender capacity. During the few months in which he was the titular sovereign of Turkey the armed multitude who had appointed him were its real rulers. But the deposed Sultan had friends, and a bold effort to restore or at least to avenge him was speedily and sternly made. The Pasha of Rustchuk, Mustapha Bairactar, ow^ed his elevation to Selim, and as soon as the truce of Slobosia with the Russians (August, 1807) enabled him to move his forces from the frontier, Bairactar marched upon Constan- tinople, At the end of 1807 he was at the head of 40,000 soldiers, chiefly Bosnians and Albanians, who were encamped on the plains of Daud, about four miles from the capital. He summoned to his camp many of the chief men of the empire, who assembled at his bidding and swore to aid in abolishing the Janissaries and in restoring good government to the empire. Sultan Mustapha re- mained in his palace, little heeded and little honored, even in semblance, for a space of six months, during which Mustapha Bair- actar, from his tent on the plains of Daud, exercised the chief authority in the Ottoman Empire, At length he led his Albanians to the capital itself, w^ith the design of dethroning Mustapha. and reinstating Selim III. The adherents of Mustapha (or rather the partisans of the Janissaries and the Ulema) closed the gates of the Serail against him, Bairactar had brought with him from the headquarters of the army of the Danube the sacred stand- ard of Mohammed, Pie unfurled this before the Serail, and demanded that the gates should be opened to admit him and his brave soldiers, who were bringing back the holy banner from the AGE OF REVOLUTION 401 1808 wars. The chief of the Bostancljis replied from the wall that the gates could not be opened but by command of Sultan Mustapha. " Talk not of Sultan Mustapha," shouted Bairactar with fury; " let us see Sultan Selim, our Padishah and thine, false slave." He gave orders for an immediate assault ; an entrance into the palace was soon effected, but, brief as the delay was, it proved fatal to Selim. On hearing the demand of Bairactar, Mustapha ordered that Selim and his own brother, Mahmud, should be instantly seized and strangled. By their deaths he would have been left the sole representative of the house of Othman, whom no Osmanli would dare to destroy or depose. The executioners found and murdered Selim, though not till after a desperate resistance, which was main- tained by the unhappy prince almost long enough to save his life; for at the very time when he was expiring under the bowstring of Mustapha's mutes Bairactar's Albanians had forced the outer gate. As Bairactar pressed forward to the inner gate it was suddenly thrown open, and IMustapha's eunuchs cast the body of Selim be- fore him, saying, " Behold the Sultan whom ye seek." Bairactar bent over the corpse of his benefactor and wept bitterly, but his confederate, the Capudan Pasha, Seid Ali, shook him by the shoul- der and exclaimed, " This is the time for vengeance, not for tears." Bairactar roused himself, and they rushed into the presence- chamber, where Sultan Mustapha had placed himself on the throne, in the hope of awing the insurgents by the display of legitimate royalty. But Bairactar dragged him down, exclaiming, "What dost thou there? Yield that place to a worthier." :Mustapha had almost gained the security of being the last of the Othman princes. The mutes and eunuchs who liad murdered Selim sought eagerly after young ^Tahmud. who had been secreted by a vigilant and faithful slave in the furnace of a bath. While the ministers of death were searching the very apartment in which he was hid. the shouts of the victorious .\ll)anians rang through the palace, testimonies not only of life ])rescr\C(l. but of royalty acquired for Mahmud. Before the night had closed in the cannon of the Seraglio announced to the pcf^^le of Constantinoi)]e tliat Mustapha had ceased to reign, and that Mahmud II. was Padishah of the Ottoman world. (July 28, 1808.) Bairactar assumed power as the Grand Vizier of the new Sultan, and acted for a time with vigor and success against the party that had dethroned Selim. Musa Pasha and other traitors were 402 TURKEY 1807-1809 executed, and a plan was commenced for superseding the Janissaries by a new armed force under an old name. The troops, whom Bairactar designed to arm and train on the European system, were to be called Seymens, the title of an ancient corps in the Ottoman service. The Vizier's measures were received with simulated, which he mistook for real, submissiveness by the Janissaries and the Ulema. In fatal confidence he dismissed his provincial army, retaining not more than 4000 European soldiers on whom he could rely in the capital, but Cadi Pasha, who was his friend, was en- camped near Scutari with 8000 Asiatic troops. On the second night after the departure of the Bosnian and Albanian forces a large body of the Janissaries surrounded the Palace of the Porte, where the Vizier resided, and set fire to the building. Bairactar escaped into a stone tower, which was used as a powder magazine. There he defended himself desperately, but, either by accident or design, the tower was blown up and the Vizier perished before he could collect his adherents or communicate with Sultan Mahmud. The whole Janissary force of the capital now assailed the Seymens. But these were aided by Cadi Pasha, who led his 8000 Asiatics across from Scutari and commenced a furious engagement with the Janissaries, which raged for two days in the streets of Constantinople with varying fortune. The Capudan Pasha, Seid Ali, cooperated with Cadi Pasha, and caused a ship of the line that lay in the harbor to fire repeated broadsides upon the part of the tower where the Janis- saries' barracks were situated. Several extensive districts of Con- stantinople and immense magazines of military stores were set on fire during this fearful conflict, which was still maintained on the morning of ]\Iarch 17, 1809, when the Galiongi and the artillery- men, who had hitherto been neutral, pronounced in favor of the Janissaries, and determined the victory. The Sultan and his at- tendants had kept the palace gates closed, and the deposed Sultan, ]\Iustapha, had been put to death in his apartments while the resul of the civil war in the streets was still doubtful. It is uncertain Vv'ho gave the order for iMustapha's execution, but it is certain that if he had been left alive the victorious Janissaries would have restored him to the throne and have murdered Mahmud. As sole scion of the house of Othman, i\Iahmud knew that he bore a charmed life. But he was obliged to yield, at least in appearance, to the demands of the victors. An imperial edict was issued in favor of the Janissaries. All the customs of the Franks and all the late 1807 AGE OF REVOLUTION 403 innovations were solemnly cursed and renounced ; and the old sys- tem, with all its abuses, seemed to be reestablished more firmly than ever. But there were men of judgment and action among the Turks who had seen all these things, and who saw in them only the sterner proof of the necessity of sweeping changes. They were obliged to think in silence, but they were preparing themselves for the time when their thoughts might be embodied in deed. Above all, the Sultan himself watched from year to year, as Murad IV. had watched under not dissimilar circumstances,^ for the hour and the means of ridding himself and his country from these worst, these home-oppressors of his race. We must now turn again to the provinces near the Danube that were the scenes of the war between the Porte and Russia. No great advantages had been obtained by the forces of the emperor over those of the Sultan, and Kara George, thougli victorious in defense of Servia, had been unsuccessful in an attem[)t to concjuer Bosnia, when, in consequence of the Peace of Tilsit, between Alex- ander and Napoleon on June 7, 1807, the French general. Guille- mot, negotiated a cessation of hostilities between the Turks and Rus- sians, which was agreed to at Slobosia in the August of the same year. One of those terms of the Treaty of Tilsit, which were made public, stipulated that the Russians should evacuate Moldavia and Wallachia, but that the Turks should not reenter those provinces until a peace between them and the Emperor Alexander was finally arranged. There was a show of attempting to make this the basis of a treaty at Slobosia, but nothing was definitely settled, although an armistice was agreed on in which the Servians were included. Hostilities were in fact suspended for nearly two years, when the irritation caused among the Turks by the evident design of l^ussia to retain Moldavia and Wallachia, and the behef that their iiUcrests had been sacrificed by the French emperor, led to the renewal of the war. It was not without cause that the sincerity of Napoleon's pnv fessions of friendship for the Sublime Porte was suspected. In the interviews between him and the Emperor Alexander, when those two great potentates dazzled each other with the scheme that they should form an Imperial Duumvirate of the world, each gave up his weaker allies. As the 'J^-iumvirs who divided the Roman world. when they met on the little island on the Rhenus, .sacrificed each his s The account of tlic revolutions 1807-1809 is chiefly taken from Lord Broughton, and fron: Jr.ci'.crcau St. Denis. w 404 TURKEY 1807-1808 own friends to the ambition and wrath of the others, so Alexander and Napoleon, on their raft on the river Niemen, sacrificed friendly nations. Spain was to be abandoned to the French emperor in return for his leaving Turkey at the mercy of the Muscovite. It was fonnally provided by a secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit that if the Porte did not comply with the private recommendations of France and Russia, her European provinces, except Rumelia and Constantinople, should be withdrawn from the vexation of Turkish government ; ^ and it was arranged between the tVk^o emperors that the provisions in the public treaty for the evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia by the Russians should be practically disregarded. Afterward Napoleon, in the negotiations of his ministers with Alexander, and in their subsequent interviews at Erfurt, sought to effect a dismemberment of Turkey, by which some of her best provinces should fall to his own share. Two plans w^ere discussed, by one of which the Turks were to be allowed to retain their Asiatic and part of their European territories ; by the other, the Ottoman Empire was to be almost annihilated. The first scheme assigned to Russia the Danubian principalities and Bulgaria. The Balkan was to be the boundary. France was to have Albania, Greece, and Candia. Bosnia and Servia were to be transferred to the Austrians, as a compensation to them for seeing the Russians established at the mouth of the Danube. According to the second project Austria was to be bribed by receiving not only Bosnia and Servia, but Mace- donia also, except the town and harbor of Saloniki. France was to take (besides Albania, Greece, and Candia) all the islands of the Archipelago, Cyprus. Syria, and Egypt. Russia's portion was to be Wallachia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Thrace, and the Asiatic provinces nearest to the Bosphorus. The Turks, thrust back beyond Mount Taurus, might still worship Mohammed on the banks of the Euphrates. This last gigantic scheme of national robbery involved the cession of Constantinople to Russia, and to this Napoleon would not consent. His minister, Caulaincourt, proposed to obviate the difficulty by making Constantinople and the shores of the straits a neutral territory, a kind of Hanseatic free state, like Hamburg or Bremen. The Ivussian negotiator, De Romanov, was tenacious "The text was, " Soustrairc Ics provinces d'Europc aiix vexations de la Porte, exceptc Constiuitinople ct la Roiimilie." See Thiers, " Histoire du Con- sulat ct de I'Empire," vol. vii. p. 668. AGE OF REVOLUTION 405 1807-1808 as to Constantinople, the city of St. Sophia, the true metropohs of the Greek Church, and the natural capital of the empire of the East. Caulaincourt hinted that Constantinople might perhaps be given up by France, but only on condition of her occupying the Dardanelles and the coasts of those straits as the proper means of passage for her armies into Syria by the old route of the crusaders. The Rus- sian would not yield the Dardanelles, and stated tliat the emper(3r would prefer the first, the limited scheme of partition, to any ar- rangement that would give France the keys of the passage between the Euxine and the Mediterranean. Thus wrangled they over the ideal proceeds of an uncommitted crime, little thinking that Moscow was soon to blaze, with French invaders for her occupants, and that Paris in a few more years was to yield to Russian cannon, while the house of Othman proceeded to complete its fourth century of unbroken dominion at Constantinople. However much Alexander and Napoleon in 1807 and 1808 differed in their theories respecting the future of Turkey, the Rus- sian emperor had this practical advantage, that he retained pos- session of Wallachia and Moldavia, and it became evident to the Austrian as well as to the Ottoman court that he had no intention of retiring from them. Austria regarded the establishment of the Russian emperor's dominion in these Danubian principalities with the utmost anxiety and alarm. Justly suspecting that France and Russia were leagued together against the integrity of Turkey, Aus- tria employed her mediation to reconcile the Porte with England, as the only power that could effectually withstand the i)niject of the cabinet of the Tuileries and St. Petersburg. Aided by this in- fluence, Sir Robert Adair, the English ambassador, concluded the Treaty of the Dardanelles with Turkey in January. 1809. The im- perious menaces by which France and Russia endeavored to prevent the Porte from making peace with England only incensed tlie Turk- ish nation more and more against Ivussia. The national cry was loud for war, and tlie Ottomans demanded tliat it should be war in earnest, and not broken by armistices to suit the convenience of false foes and falser friends. Volunteers for the campaign came forward readily from the Alohammedan ])Opulations of every part of the empire, but such was the extreme disorganization which the recent revolution had caused that there was no concert, no subordination, and sometimes not even the semblance of superior authority, among the Turkish commanders. 406 TURKEY 1809-1811 About the same time that hostiHties between the Turks and Russians recommenced on the Danube the Austrian Empire began its calamitous war of 1809 with France, a war in which Russia, in pursuance of her confederacy with Napoleon, took part against Austria. It is true that the Emperor Alexander's troops entered but languidly into that struggle, for the general feeling among the Russians toward Napoleon was already one of jealousy and dislike. But the prevalence of those very feelings, in which the emperor himself ere long fully shared, kept the attention of Russia fixed more on her perils from the West than on her prospects in the South, and neither her best nor her largest armies were drawn away from the Polish to the Danubian provinces. Still, before the end of 1809 her general. Prince Bagration, had taken Isaktja, Tulosch, and Hirsowa, on the right bank of the lower Danube. The Servians and the Turks of Bosnia again fought with varying success, neither party being able to make any serious impression on the territories of the other. In the next year the Russians captured Silistria on June 10, but they failed in a series of operations against the Grand Vizier's camp at Shumla, and on August 3 they sustained a sanguinary overthrow in an assault made by them upon Rustchuk. The Russians owned to a loss of 8000 killed and wounded in this obstinate contest. In the autumn of 1810 the Russians obtained some important successes. A large Turkish army was entirely de- feated at Battin, on September 7, with the loss of camps, artillery, and baggage. Sistova, Rustchuk, and other strong places were yielded to the Russians, but all their attempts at penetrating through Shumla across the Balkan were unsuccessful. In the fol- lowing year the Russian generals on the Danube were ordered to act only on the defensive, so evident and so imminent was the gathering storm from the West against Russia. The Turks boldly carried the war to the left bank of the Danube, and fought with great gallantry in several engagements, but through the incompetency of their com- manders they were beaten in detail, and one whole army was obliged to surrender to the Russian general, Kutusov, as prisoners of war. Russia was now most anxious to conclude peace with the Porte, in order to have the full means of defending herself against Napoleon. Several attempts at negotiating a treaty were made in 181 1, but without success, as the Emperor Alexander required the annexation of not only Bessarabia, but Moldavia and Wallachia, to his empire. AGE OF REVOLUTION 407 1811-1812 terms which Sultan Mahmud peremptorily refused. But the grow- ing pressure of the danger from France made the Russians abate their demands, and consent to restore Moldavia and Wallachia, but on condition that Bessarabia should remain in their possesssion. Napoleon now recognized, when too late, the error which he had committed in sacrificing the friendship of Turkey to the hope of propitiating or duping Russia. He directed his ambassador to urge the Sultan to advance with the whole strength of his empire on the Danube; and promised in return, not only to secure Moldavia and Wallachia, but to obtain also the restoration of the deeply regretted Crimea to Turkey. But this " war-breathing message " arrived too late. The Porte had already resolved on a cessation of hostilities with Russia. The envoys of the Emperor Alexander and the English ministers found means to give the Turks full in- formation as to the designs which Napoleon had encouraged and brought forward for the dismemberment of their empire; so that Sultan Mahmud now naturally disregarded the interests of the French and sought only to obtain an alleviation of the miseries which his own nation was enduring. By the Treaty of Bucharest, which was signed on May 28, 18 12, the River Pruth was made the boundary between the Russian and Turkish lunpires, from the point where it enters Moldavia to its confluence with the Danul)c. All Moldavia to the right of the Pruth and the whole of Wallachia were given back to the Sultan, who bound himself to maintain and respect all the former conventions and stipulations in favor of the inhabitants of the restored countries. The eighth article of the treaty relates to Servia. It recited that, " though it was impossible to doubt that the Sublime Porte would, according to its principles, act with gentleness and magnanimity toward the Servians, as to a people that had long been under its dominion, still it was deemed just, in consideration of the part taken by the Servians in the war, to come to a solemn agreement respecting their security.'' A full amnesty was therefore granted to the Servians. The regulation of their internal affairs was to be left to thenisehcs, and only moderate imposts were to be laid on them, whicli \vcrc not to be farmed, but received directly by the treasurers of the Porte. But the Servian fortresses were to be given np to tlie Sultan, and were again to be occupied by Turkish garrisons. Chapter XXIV MAHMUD II AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN TURKEY. 1 808- 1 839 PERIL from Russia, peril from England, peril from France, peril from mutinous Janissaries and factious Ulemas, peril from many-headed insurrection among Wahabites, Mame- lukes, Servians, Albanians, Greeks, Druses, Kurds, Syrians, and Egyptians, peril from rebellious Pashas, who would fain have founded new kingdoms on the ruins of the house of Othman such were some of the clouds that hung over the reign of Mahmud, the second Sultan of that name and the thirtieth sovereign of his dy- nasty. He braved them all. Though often worsted by fortune he never gave up the struggle, and his memory deserves the respect of those who are capable of judging historical characters according to the rule laid down by Demosthenes, the great statesman of antiquity, according to the principle of giving honor to sage forethought and energetic action, wdiether favored by prosperous or baffled by adverse circumstances. The evils that Mahmud saw around him were gigantic, and he gave up the repose of his seraglio to grapple with them in the true heroic spirit. It would be absurd to assert that he fell into no errors, it would be rash to maintain that he was sullied by no crimes, but take him on the whole he was a great man, who, amid difficulty, disappointment, and disaster, did his duty nobly to the royal house whence he was sprung and to the once magnificent empire which it was his hard lot to govern. It is observable in the early part of Mahmud's reign that two formidable classes of his enemies were swept away by the instru- mentality of a high officer, who afterward became himself the most formidable of all the foes who crossed the Sultan's path. The -Mamelukes were destroyed and the ^^"ahabites completely conquered by Mahmud's Egyptian Pasha, Mohammed Ali, one of the most remarknlole men that the Mohammedan world has pro- duced in modern limes. Mohammed Ali was born in ^lacedonia about the year 1765. 408 M A H M U D 1 1 409 1807-1819 He served in the Turkish army against the French in Egypt and learned there the superiority of the arms and tactics of Western Europe over those of the Turks and Mamehikes. He afterward distinguished himself greatly in the repulse of the English expedi- tion against Egypt in 1807. Having attained the rank of Pasha of the province he strove sedulously to free the country and himself from the lawless tyranny of the Mamelukes. He effected this in 181 1 by a stroke of the vilest treachery and most ruthless cruelty. Under the show of reconciliation and hospitable friend- ship he brought those formidable cavaliers to his palace, and then caused them to be shot down by his Albanian guards while cooped helplessly together in a narrow passage between high walls. The Mamelukes were effectually exterminated by this atrocious massacre, and Mohammed Ali rapidly consolidated his power within his province and also extended it beyond the Egyptian territory. His armies, under his sons, carried on a series of campaigns against the Wahabites in Arabia, at first with varying success, but at last the power of those fierce sectaries was completely broken. The holy cities and the rest of Arabia were recovered, and Abdullah Ibn Saud, the last Emir of the AVahabites, was made captive. Mo- hammed sent him to Constantinople, where he was beheaded on November 19, 18 19. The Egyptian Pasha next conquered Xubia and Sennaar and annexed those regions to his dominions. He had formed an army on the European model, trained and officered by European military adventurers, chiefly from France, whom the cessation of the great wars in Christendom after 181 5 set at liberty and who were tempted to Egypt by the high pay and favor which Mohammed offered. Equal care was taken in pre- paring and manning a naval force, in the iinpro\-ement of harbors, the construction of docks and roads, and all those other territorial improvements which are at once the emblems and the engines of wdiat is called enlightened despotism. The ])eople of I^-gypt suf- fered bitterly under :Mohammed's imposts and still more under the severe laws of conscription by which he filled llic ranks of his army. But arbitrary and oppressive as was Mohammed's system it suc- ceeded in gaining him the great object of his heart, a ]icrmanent and efficient military force, as was well prcnc.l when he aided the Sultan against the Greeks and still better proved at a later period in the campaigns which Mohammed's son, Ibrahim Pasha, conducted against the generals of the Sultan himself. 410 TURKEY 1813-1815 Before, however, we consider these last-mentioned events we must revert to the affairs of Servia and the other northern prov- inces of European Turkey. It has been observed how vague and unsatisfactory were the stipulations respecting the Servians that were introduced in the Treaty of Bucharest. One natural result of this was that Kara George and the other Servian chiefs were desirous of having some definite provisions made for the security of their people before the Turks took possession of the fortresses, whereas the Sultan's officers insisted on Belgrade and the other strongholds being given up to them immediately. While these and other differences were pending Molla Pasha of Widdin, who (like the former chief of that Pashalic, Pasvan Oglu) was in active rebellion against the Sultan, proposed to the Servians that they should ally themselves with him against the Porte. The Servians declined this offer in compliance with the advice of the Russians, who were endeavoring to induce Turkey to join the con- federation against France (Napoleon not yet having been com- pletely overthrown), and were consequently at that time desirous of saving the Porte from embarrassment. The disputes between the Turks and Servians continued to increase, and in 1813 Turkish armies assailed and overran the country. Kara George (who had made himself absolute ruler of the Servians and from whom at least the example of courage was expected) now betrayed his self-assumed trust. He buried his treasure, which was considerable, and fled across the frontier into Austria. Once more Servia seemed hopelessly bowed down beneath the Turkish yoke, but the gallantry of one of her Kneses, Milosh Obrenovich, once more preserved her. Animated and guided by him, the Servians rose in arms in 181 5, and before the close of the year the Turkish troops that had occu- pied the country were broken and dispersed, though the fortresses remained in the occupation of the Sultan's garrisons. Two formid- able Ottoman armies advanced upon Servia in the succeeding year, but instead of overwhelming her they halted on the frontier and offered to negotiate. This hesitation on the part of the Ottomans was caused by the universal excitement then prevailing through- out the Christian populations of Turkey, who expected an inter- vention in their behalf to be made by the confederate sovereigns of the Holy Alliance and were ready to rise throughout the empire at the first signal of encouragement. The Porte also had watched with anxiety and akirm the proceedings of the Congress at Vienna MAHMUDII 411 1815 to which no representative of the Ottoman Empire was admitted, and the league of the three sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, as " Holy Allies," seemed eminently menacing to the ex- cluded Ottomans. Under these circumstances the Sultan was averse to entangling and risking his whole available military force In a war against the Servian Rayas. No absolute attempt was made to conquer Servia, but a series of embassies and treaties occupied several years, during which Milosh made himself absolute ruler of the Servians much after the manner of his predecessor, Kara George. Kara George himself, who ventured to return to his country, was seized and shot by the commands of Milosh on the requisition of the Turks.^ Milosh observed the external semblance of obedience to the Porte, which had reason at that period to be content that a chief should rule the Servians who would keep them In control, and whose self-interest would deter him from joining in revolutionary projects for the total overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. But it is not probable that after the Holy Al- liance had clearly shown its disinclination to interfere in the affairs of the East Mahmud would long have acquiesced In the real inde- pendence of the Grand Knes of Servia had It not been for the grave difficulties that were brought upon the Sultan by the Greek in- surrection and other circumstances connected with that celebrated event. Many causes combined to originate and to sustain the Greek War of Independence. The first and the most enduring were un- questionably those feelings which are among the noblest of our nature, and which the national historian of modern Greece refers to wlien he claims peculiar glory for liis country, " because from the very commencement of the struggle, her purpose, proclaimed before God and man, was to break tlie yoke of the stranger and to raise again from the dead her nationality and her independence. She took up arms that she might by force of arms thrust out of Greece a race alien to her in blood and in creed, a race that had by force of arms held her captive for ages and that regarded her to the last as its captive and as subject to the edge of its sword." To these public feelings were added, in the bosoms of many, the remembrance and the sense of intolerable private wrong. More- 1 This assassination has given rise to a liitter fetid between the descendants of Kara George and Milosh, which has reccnti}' given proof of its activity in the terrible murders at Belgrade, 1903. 412 TURKEY 1815 over, the general diffusion of knowledge among the Greeks and the impulse that had been given to education and literary pursuits since the time of Selim IIT. powerfully contributed in arousing the courage as well as the intelligence of a long-oppressed and much-enduring people. Many also of the Greeks had acquired both wealth and habits of energetic enterprise by the advancing commerce of their nation, and the insular and seafaring population of the country had generally shown the greatest activity and skill in availing themselves of the opportunities which the state of Europe for the first fifteen years of the century gave them for securing a large share of the carrying trade of the Levant. While Greece thus possessed admirable materials for a national maritime force she had also better resources for an immediate military struggle on land than nations which have been subject to others for cen- turies can usually command. Her bands of Klephts, or robbers, were numerous, well-armed, and brave, and such an occupation in a country in the condition of Greece before the revolution im- plied no greater degree of discredit than was attached in England during the early Norman reigns to the " bold outlaws " of Sher- wood, or in Greece herself in the Homeric ages to the avowed sea-rover and pirate. There was also in central and northern Greece another important class of armed natives, forming a kind of militia, which had been originally instituted and sanctioned by the Turks themselves for the purpose of maintaining order and repressing the Klephts. These national guards (as they might be termed) were composed exclusively of Greeks and w^ere officered by Greeks, but they acknowledged the authority of the Pashas of their respective districts. They frequently consisted of Klephts who had come in from the mountains and made terms with the government, and who were thenceforth denominated " Tame Klephts," but the regular name of the defensive troops was the Armatoli. The Porte had for some years before the Greek revolu- tion been jealous of the numbers and organization of the Armatoles, and violent efforts had been made to reduce their strength, which chiefly resulted in driving them into open rebellion and increasing the power of the armed, or wild, Klephts. Another circumstance which favored still more the insurrection of Greece was the density and homogeneousness of its Christian population, far exceeding the usual proportions to be found in the Turkish Empire. Napoleon had remarked in one of his conversations at St. Helena on the sub- M A H M U D 1 1 413 1770-1815 ject of the East that the Sultans had committed a great fault in allowing so large a mass of Christians of the same race to collect together and in such numerical preponderance above their masters, as in Greece, and he predicted that " sooner or later this fault will bring on the fall of the Ottomans." ^ Such were the impulses and resources which Greece possessed within herself for her War of Independence which must, however, have been ultimately unsuc- cessful (notwithstanding the gallantry with which it was waged) had it not been for the sympathy which the Greek cause excited among all the nations of Europe, Ever since the ineffectual rising with Russian help which took place in 1770 the Greeks had been incessantly scheming fresh attempts. Toward the close of the century Rhigas, their national poet, whose lyrics powerfully contributed to keep up the flame of freedom in the hearts of his countrymen, formed the project of uniting the whole Greek nation in a secret confederacy for the overthrow of their Turkish masters. Thus was originated, and first organized the celebrated Hetseria. It made rapid and extensive progress under Rhigas, but it decayed after his death in 1798. It was revived in 1814 am.ong the Greeks of Odessa by Nicholas Skophas. He termed it the Society (or Hetzeria) of the Philikoi, and by engrafting it on a literary society which was flourishing at Athens he obtained the means of spreading it with rapidity among the most intelligent Greeks, and at the same time of masking it from the suspicion of the Turks. The association soon comprised many thousand members, A great number of officers in the Russian service were enrolled in it, and it was sup- posed to identify Russian policy and Greek interests more closely than really was the case, a supposition highly favorable to its advancement, as the belief that they were acting under Russian authority and were sure to receive Russian aid in time of need nat- urally increased the numerical strength and boldness of the confederates. The association had its hierarcliy, its secret signs, and its mysterious but exciting formalities. 'Its general spirit may be judged of by the oath administered to the initiated in the third of its seven degrees: " Fight for thy Faith and thy Father- land. Thou shalt hate, thou shalt persecute, tliou shalt utterly destroy the enemies of thy religion, of thy race, and of thy coun- try." The IletcCria had its brandies and agents in every province - Montholon, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon," vol. iv. p. 229. 414) TURKEY 1820 of European Turkey, in the cliief cities of Asia Minor, and in every foreign state where any number of Greeks had settled. Early in 1820 its chiefs were making preparations for a general insurrection which could not have been much longer delayed. But the event which was the immediate cause of the rising was the war between the Sultan and .Mi Pasha, which broke out in the spring of that year and offered the Greeks the advantage of beginning their revo- lution while the best troops of the Porte were engaged against a formidable enemy against one v/ho long had been himself one of the strongest and crudest oppressors of the Greek race, but now seemed driven by self-interest to become its most valuable ally. Nothing certain at this time was known in the Divan at Con- stantinople of the danger that was gathering against the Ottoman power in the Hetseria of the Greeks, and Sultan Mahmud had determined on commencing one of the many difficult tasks of his reign, that of effectually putting down the over-powerful and re- bellious vassals who had long maintained their empires within his empire and who overshadowed the majesty of his throne. None of these was more insolently independent, or had given juster cause of alarm or offense to the Porte, than Ali of Epirus, the Pasha of Janina, whose name has already often occurred to us, but who requires more special notice in considering the recent history of the Ottomans and their subject-races. Ali Pasha was an Albanian, and his family belonged to one of the tribes that had long embraced ^Mohammedanism. His ancestors had, for several generations, been hereditary chiefs of the little fortified village of Tepelene, where Ali was born about the year 1741. His father (who died before Ali was fourteen) had been deprived of nearly all the possessions of the family in a series of unsuccessful feuds with the neighboring chieftains. Ali's mother, Khamko, trained the lad up to make revenge and power the sole objects of his existence. He formed a band of freebooters, at the head of which he sometimes won plunder and renown, and some- times experienced extreme reverses and peril. On some occasions he sought refuge in the mountains, where he wandered as a soli- tary Klepht. or robber, till he again gathered comrades and struck for power as well as for existence. After some years of romantic but savage adventures Ali had recovered the greater part of tiie territories of his family and had acquired fame throughout .M- bania as a bold and successful chieftain. He did good ser\ ice MAHMUDII 415 1820 in the armies of the Porte against the Austrians in 1788, and partly by the reputation thus gained, but still more by bribery, he obtained from the Divan the Pashalic of Trikala, in Thessaly. By unscrupulous and audacious craft and crime he afterward made himself Pasha of Janina, in Epirus, which thenceforth was the capital of his dominions. Gifted with great sagacity and embar- rassed by no remorse and little fear, Ali triumphed over rival Begs and Pashas, and almost accomplished the subjugation of the neigh- boring mountain tribes, though he experienced from them, and especially from the gallant Suliotes, a long and obstinate resistance. Every forward step of All's career was stained by the foulest treachery and the most fiendish cruelty. But the cities and lands under his rule obtained peace, security, and commercial prosperity. Ali watched eagerly the conflicts and changes of which nearly all Europe was the scene for many years after the breaking out of the first French Revolution. He had frequent negotiations with Napoleon and other rulers of the West, who substantially, though not formally, recognized him as an independent potentate. It is said that " his scheme was to make himself master of all Albania, Thessaly, Greece, and the Ionian Islands, and the Gulf of Arta, a bay with a narrow entrance, but spacious enough to contain the united fleets of Europe, was to become the center of this new em- pire. His Albanians were the best soldiers in Turkey, the forests of Janina and Delvino abound with excellent timber, and Greece would have furnished him the most enterprising sailors in the ]\Ied- iterranean." Ali never could realize this project, but he maintained and increased his dominion until 1819, when the acquisition of Parga was his last triumph. ]\Iahmud had long resolved to quell his insubordinate Pasha, whose haughty independence was no- torious throughout Europe, and a daring crime committed by Ali in February, 1820, gave the immediate pretext for his destruction. Two of Ali's agents were detected in Constantinople in an attempt to assassinate Ismail Pasha, who had fled from Janina to avoid the effects of the Pasha's enmity, and had been employed in the Sultan's own court. A fetwah was forthwith issued by which Ali was declared Fermanli (or outlaw), and all loyal Viziers and other subjects of the Padishah were ordered to make war upon the rebel. In the conflict which ensued Ali had at first some success, but ATah-nuid inspired his generals \^ ith some portidu of his own energy, and by sternly declaring that he would put to death anvune who 416 TURKEY 1821-1829 dared to speak in favor of the outlaw, the Sultan checked the usual efficacy of the bribes which AH dispensed among many members of the Divan. Cooped up in Janina Ali prolonged his resistance till the beginning of 1822, when he was lured into the power of his enemies by pretended terms of capitulation, and put to death by Kurshid Pasha, who commanded the besieging army. But while the " old Lion of Janina " (as Ali was called) thus long held at bay the Sultan's forces and detained one of the ablest, though most ferocious, of the Sultan's generals, almost all Greece had risen and beaten back the Ottomans, and a similar in- surrection had been for a time successfully attempted in the trans- Danubian provinces. In February, 1821, Ipsilanti, a Greek who had obtained high distinction in the Russian army and who was then the chief of the Hetaeria, crossed the Pruth into Moldavia with a small band and called on his countrymen throughout the Turkish Empire to take up arms. Unhappily, the very first acts of the Greek liberators (though Ipsilanti was not personally re- sponsible for them) were the cruel and cowardly murders of Turkish merchants in the towns of Galatz and Jassy. The tidings of these things, with the addition of much exaggeration and many false rumors, soon reached Constantinople. The consequent in- dignation, and the alarm of the Mohammedans at the widespread confederacy of their Rayas against them, which was now sud- denly revealed, produced a series of savage massacres of the Greek residents in the capital, and these were imitated or exceeded by the Turkish populations, and especially the Janissaries in Smyrna and other towns. Indeed, throughout the six years' war that followed the most ferocious and often treacherous cruelty was exhibited on both sides. But many acts of heroism worthy of the best days of ancient Greece cast a luster on the cause of the insurgents and added to the sympathy with which the peoples of Christian Europe regarded their efforts, sympathy which was shown in the acces- sion of frequent volunteers to the Greek armies and in liberal contributions by individuals and private societies to their funds before the kings of Christendom interfered in the conflict. In Moldavia and Wallachia the Turks destroyed Ipsilanti's force and put an end to the insurrection at the battle of Drageschan, on June 19, 1 82 1. But in Greece and on the Greek seas the bands and light squadrons of the insurgents were generally victorious over the Turkish armies and fleets, until in 1825 Sultan Mali- M A H M U D 1 1 417 1826 mud summoned to Greece the forces of his Egyptian Pasha, Mohammed Ali. The effect of superior arms and discipHne was at once apparent. Ibrahim Pasha at the head of his father's regular battahons defeated the Greeks in every encounter, laid waste their territory at his will, and gradually reconquered the cities and for- tresses which had been won from the Turks, Missolonghi (which was regarded as the great bulwark of western Greece) falling after a noble resistance, on April 22, 1826, and Athens surrendering in the June of the following year.^ While the Egyptian troops were thus maintaining a decided superiority by land the squadron sent by Mohammed Ali had com- bined with the Turkish, and a powerful fleet of heavily-armed and well-manned ships was thus collected under the Sultan's flag in the Greeks waters, with which the lighter vessels of the insurgents were utterly unable to cope. The usual curses of a liberal cause, when the fortune of arms goes against it disunion and civil war now raged among the Greek chiefs, and despite the general gal- lantry of the nation and the high abilities and boundless devotion displayed by some of the leaders, Greece must have sunk in 1827 if the forces of the three great powers of Christian Europe had not appeared with startling effect on the s.cene. Before, however, we consider the final catastrophe of the Greek war we must revert to the intervening transactions between the Porte and the court of St. Petersburg on the subject of Servia and the principalities, and also to the bold measures by which the Sultan, in 1826, struck down the long-hated and long-dreaded power of the Janissaries and revolutionized the military system of his empire. The destruction of the Janissaries is the greatest event of Mahmud's reign. While considering the state of Turkey in the first years of Selim III. we have seen how indispensably necessary it had become, both for the internal amelioration of the empire and for strengthening it against attacks from without, that tliere should be a thorough change in the composition, the organization, the discipline, and the arms of the regular troops. ,We have seen how obstinately the Janissaries resisted all improve- ments and the savage fury with which they destroyed the sovereign and the statesmen who endeavored to effect the requisite alterations. Since those events the worthlessness of the Janissaries in the field " An interesting account of the war whicli abounds in picturesque details will be found in W. A. Phillips's " The Greek War of Independence." 418 TURKEY 1826 had been further proved, not only in the campaigns on the Danube in 1810 and 181 1, but still more concktsively in their repeated fail- ures against the Greek insurgents. On the other hand, the vic- torious progress of the Egyptian troops in Greece demonstrated that the European discipline could be acquired by Mohammedans as well as by natives of Christendom, and that the musket and bayonet were as effective in the hands of a Copt or Arab as in those of a IMuscovite or Frank. The comparison between the troops sent from his Egyptian provinces and those supplied by other parts of his empire was at once inspiriting and galling to the Sultan. He saw that Mohammed Ali had realized in Egypt the very projects which had hitherto been beyond the power and almost beyond the daring of the Padishahs of the Ottoman world. Mah- mud determined that this contrast should cease to shame him and that the Janissaries should no longer survive the Mamelukes. But he knew well the numerical strength and the unscrupulous violence of the body which he was about to assail. Scarcely a year of his reign had passed in which some part of his capital had not been destroyed by fires caused by malcontent Janissaries, or in which it had not been necessary to make some concession to their turbulent demands. It was impossible to collect and destroy them by any stratagem, such as Mohammed Ali had used against the Mamelukes, nor, indeed, is there any act of Mahmud's life which justifies us in suspecting that he would have been willing to employ such treacher- ous artifices, even if they could have availed him. Mahmud fore- saw that a battle in the streets of Constantinople must decide the question between him and the Janissaries, and he diligently strengthened himself in the arm of war which is most effective in street contests. It is said that when he heard of the manner in which Murat, in 1808, used cannon to clear the streets of Madrid of the insurgent populace, it made such an impression on the Sul- tan's mind that it never was forgotten.* He sedulously improved the condition of his own artillery force and by degrees officered it with men on whose loyalty and resolution he could rely. When, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he made ready for the final struggle with his Janissaries, he had increased the force of Topidjis, or artillerymen, in and near Constantinople to 14,000, and he had placed at their head an officer of unscrupulous devotion to his sovereign's will. This general of Turkish artillery was named * Ranke, " Scrvia," p. 369. M A H M U D II 419 1826 Ibrahim, but his conduct on the day of the conflict and his swarthy complexion made him afterward known by the grim title of Kara Djehennin, or " Black Hell." Mahmud also had taken an oppor- tunity to appoint as Aga of the Janissaries themselves Hussein, who was ready to carry out all the Sultan's projects. The Grand Vizier was staunch to his sovereign and a man of spirit, and a large body of trustworthy Asiatic troops was encamped at Scutari, which could be brought into action at the fitting moment, Mahmud also reasoned, not unsuccessfully, with the leading Ulema on the folly of their abetting by their influence the obstinate disloyalty of the Janissaries, who might once have been the truest champions, but were now clearly the worst enemies of Islam. He had a little before this time raised to the dignity of Chief Mufti a man who would support him, and he determined to proceed in strict ac- cordance W'ith every recognized formality and law so as to throw upon the Janissaries the odium of being the first to appeal to brute force. In a great council of Viziers and Ulema held in June, 1826, it was resolved that only by encountering the infidels with a regularly-disciplined army was it possible for the Moslems to regain the advantage over them, and a fetwah was drawn up and signed by all the members of the council which ordered a certain number out of each Orta of the Janissaries to practice the requisite military exercises.^ After some murmurings and partial tumults the whole body of the Janissaries of the capital assembled on June 15, 1826, in the Atmeidan, overturned their camp-kettles, the well-known signal of revolt, and advanced upon the palace with loud cries for the heads of the Sultan's chief ministers. But ]\Iahmud was fully prepared for them. He unfurled in per- son the Sacred Standard of the Prophet and called on all true believers to rally round their Padishah and their Caliph. The en- thusiasm of the people was roused into action on his side, and he had ready the more effectual support of his artillerymen and Asiatic troops. As the Janissaries pressed forward through the narrow streets toward the Serail, " Black Hell " and his gunners showered grape on them, and round shot cut lanes through their struggling columns. They fell back on the Atmeidan and defended themselves there with musketry for some time with great steadiness and courage. After many had perished the remnant of the sons of Hadji Begtasch retired in good order to their barracks, wdiich ^ Ranke, " Servia," p. 369. 420 TURKEY 1826 they barricaded, and they prepared themselves to offer the most desperate resistance to the anticipated assault. But Mahmud and his officers risked no troops in such an encounter. The Sultan's artillery was drawn up before the barracks and an incessant storm of shot and shell was poured in on the devoted mutineers. Some of the most daring of them sallied out, saber in hand, but were all shot or cut down as they endeavored to escape. Some few begged for mercy, which w^as sternly refused. The artillery of Kara Djehennin continued to thunder upon the buildings till they were set on fire and utterly destroyed, and the last of the Janissaries of Constantinople perished among the blazing and blood-stained ruins. The number of those who fell on this memorable day has been variously estimated. The most accurate calculation seems to be that which gives 4000 as the number of the Janissaries killed in the battle. Many thousands more were put to death afterward in the various cities of the empire, for Mahmud followed up his victory with unremitting vigor and severity. The Janissary force throughout the Ottoman dominions was abolished, their name was proscribed, their standards destroyed, and the assemblage of new troops on a new system was ordered, which were (in the words of the Sultan's proclamation) to sustain the cause of religion and of the empire under the designation of the " Victorious Moham- medan Armies." At this point in Sultan Mahmud's career it was not without reason that he was " aroused into courageous self-confidence and animated with high and promising hopes." The endurance and the preparations of eighteen years had gained their reward. He had accomplished the task which had baffled so many of his pred- ecessors ; lie had swept away the military tyranny under which the empire had groaned for centuries. At last the Sultan felt real freedom for himself and real sovereignty over his kingdom. He now formed an army of upward of 40,000 men, clothed, armed, and disciplined after the European system. It w-as expected that this force would by degrees be raised to tlie number of 250,000. True it is that Mahmud found no adequate aid from among en- lightened members of his own nation, that nearly everything had to be done " by the Sultan's own iron will." But that will had already worked wonders, and each success gave him tenfold means for achieving others. In the provinces the most formidable of the M A H M U D 1 1 421 1826 rebellious Pashas who had set at nought the authority of the throne in the beginning of his reign were now dead or deposed, and, above all, the head of Ali of Janina had been shown by Mahmud himself, in stern triumph, to his submissive Divan. The Wahabites were crushed, the Mamelukes exterminated. Mohammed Ali had hitherto committed no overt act of insubordination. Rebellion had been trodden out in Moldavia and Wallacliia, and though it had blazed more fiercely and more enduringly in Greece, it seemed about to be extinguished there also by the victorious Turko-Egyptian forces of Ibrahim Pasha. All that Mahmud now required from fortune was immunity from attack by foreign powers during the period of transition through which it was necessary for Turkey to pass be- tween the abolished old and the yet uncreated or immature insti- tutions under which he designed her to flourish. In the opinion of Count von Moltke, one of the ablest historians of Mahmud's reign, " if Turkey had enjoyed ten years of peace after the destruction of the Janissaries, Sultan Mahmud's military reforms might in that time have gained some strength, and, supported by an army upon which he could depend, the Sultan might have carried out the need- ful reforms in the administration of his country, have infused new life into the dead branches of the Ottoman Empire, and made him- self formidable to his neighbors. All this was prevented by Russia, which nipped the Sultan's military reforms in the bud." And the strongest possible proof of the wisdom with which Mahmud's measures were planned, of the beneficial effects which they actually produced in Turkey, and far greater benefits which they would have conferred if Russia had not hastened to attack her while those measures had scarce begun to ripen, is to be found in the dis- patches of the chief statesmen of Russia during the war of 1828- 1829, in which they take credit for their sagacity in discerning in Mahmud s reforms the necessity for prompt hostilities on the part of Russia, and in which they own that Turkey had displayed, under the stern guidance of Mahmud, a degree of energy and power higher than she had long previously possessed, and they felicitate themselves in not having waited until the new Turkish forces, which even in their infancy were so hard to conquer, had acquired con- sistency and mature strength. It was singularly unfortunate for Sultan Mahmud that only a few months before he struck the decisive blow which destroyed tlie principal old military force of Turkey, there was a change of 422 TURKEY 1826 emperors at St. Petersburg. In Alexander I. the abhorrence of revohttion had predominated over every other sentiment. He therefore kept aloof from the side of the Greek insurgents, and in the latter part of his life, which was clouded with melancholy and sickness, he was indisposed to the energetic action which wars of conquest require in a sovereign. But on December 24, 1825, he was succeeded on the Russian throne by Nicholas, a prince of many high merits, but a genuine representative of Russian national feeling, and, as such, ready and willing for a war in sup- port of the Christians of the Greek Church against the " old arch- enemy " of Muscovy. Moreover, the civil strife which had broken out at St. Petersburg on the accession of Nicholas, at the end of 1825, and the disquiet which had not ceased to pervade the Rus- sian nation, and especially the army, made the statesmen of St. Petersburg consider a Turkish war most desirable for their own empire's internal security. The negotiations which had been long pending between Russia and the Porte respecting Servia, the principalities, and other matters, were resumed in a far more peremptory tone by the ministers of Nicholas than had previously been employed toward the Ottomans, In August of 1826 (two months after the destruction of the Janissaries) the Russians in- sisted that the Porte should forthwith give up certain fortresses in Asia, which were alleged to have been ceded by the treaty of Bucharest, that the Moldavians and Wallachians should be re- stored to their full prvileges, as before the revolt of 1821, and that the confirmation of the political rights of the Servians should be no longer delayed. The Turks at first received these demands with avowed indignation, but in the utterly unprepared state of Tur- key at that crisis of internal change, the Sultan felt himself obliged to give way, and on October 7, 1826, the very last day which Russia had allowed for deliberation, the Treaty or Convention of Akerman w^as signed. It ratified the Treaty of Bucharest, and ordained that the Moldavians and Wallachians should thereafter enjoy all the priv- ileges conferred by the fifth article of that treaty, and also those bestowed by the hattisherif of 1802. The future Hospodars of the provinces were to be elected by the Boyars from among their own body for a period of seven years. No Hospodar was to be deposed by the Porte without the consent of Russia. The Molda- vian Boyars, who had been implicated in the insurrection of 1821, M A H M U D 1 1 423 1827 and obliged to take refuge in Russia, were now to be at liberty to return and to resume their rank, estates, and possessions. With respect to Servia the Porte and a body of deputies from the Servian nation were to settle the necessary regulations for the future gov- ernment of the province, which were to be forthwith published in an imperial hattisherif, and become part of the treaty between Russia and Turkey. It was stated that among the privileges of the Servians which were to be thus guaranteed were religious liberty, free choice of their chiefs, independent internal self-govern- ment, the reunion of the districts that had been detached from Servia, the consolidation of the various imposts in a single charge, freedom of commerce, the establishment of hospitals, schools, and printing-offices, and an edict that no ^Mohammedans should be al- lowed to reside in Servia except those belonging to the garrisons of the fortresses. The Treaty of Akerman contained many other stipulations, all to the disadvantage of Turkey, such as that the Porte should be obliged to indemnify Russian merchants for de])rc- dations committed by the Barbary corsairs, and that in granting the free navigation of the Black Sea to nations which had not yet obtained the right, the Porte would do so in such a manner as to cause no injury to Russian commerce. Bitter as was the humiliation which the necessity of accepting the Treaty of Akerman imposed upon Mahmud, he was soon to experience heavier blows from the same quarter and also from powers which he had hitherto regarded as sure friends. On July 6, 1827, a treaty was signed at London between Russia, England, and France, the object of which was declared to be to stop the effusion of blood and to effect the reconciliation of the Turks and the Greeks. The mediation of the three high contracting powers was offered for this purpose, and the basis of pacification was to be the prac- tical independence of Greece, the Sultan retaining only a nominal sovereignty and receiving a fixed annual tribute to be collected by the Greeks themselves. An armistice was to be insisted on before the discussion of terms, and if the Porte rejected this inter- Acntion the three powers were to form international relations with the Greeks by sending and receiving consuls, and thereby recog- nizing the insurgent prtnince as an independent state. Tlie oft'er of these terms was eagerly accepted by the Greeks, then in their extreme distress, but indignantly rejected by Sultan Mahmud. He 424 TURKEY 1827 Stated that the country which it was proposed to withdraw from his rule had for centuries formed part of the Ottoman Empire, and that those whom powers professing friendship to the Porte de- signed to treat with and recognize as a Greek government were mere brigands and rebels to their lawful sovereign. The Sultan appealed to history as offering no example of such interference in violation of all principles of legitimate authority, and also to the law of nations, by which every independent power has a right to govern its own subjects without the intervention of any foreign power whatever. He declared finally his inflexible resolution never to renounce his rights. The statesmen of Christendom who interposed on behalf of the Greeks had great difficulty in justifying their intervention under any generally recognized principle of the law of nations, es- pecially after the forcible manner in which the chief continental Christian potentates had lately concurred in upholding the legiti- mate right of ancient sovereignty against the revolutionists of Italy and Spain. They shrank from openly professing a broad general principle that it is lawful and laudable to aid the oppressor against the oppressed. The main ground on which the interven- tion was vindicated was the alleged necessity of affording protection to the subjects of other powers who navigated the seas of the Levant in which for many years atrocious piracy had been exer- cised, while neither Turkey nor revolted Greece w^as, dc facto, either able or willing to prevent the excesses springing out of this state of anarchy. But, unfortunately for the validity of this pretext, the three powers intervened at the very crisis when the Sultan had ac- quired a decided ascendency in the war, and when it was clear that in a short time the contest would be over and the condition of the Levant restored to what it had been for centuries. Moreover, if the suppression of piracy in the Turkish waters had been the genu- ine object of England, France, and Russia, they might have effected it with a tenth part of the force employed at Navarino, and in order to effect it there was not the least occasion for them to burn the Sultan's men-of-war, or to land troops to reduce his fortresses in the Morea. On October 20, 1827, the combined squadrons of England, France, and Russia entered the Bay of Navarino, in wlu'ch the Turko-Egyptian fleet was moored. The avowed object of the allies was to compel Ibrahim Pasha to desist from further hos- MAHMUD II 425 1827 tilities against the Greeks. Their force amounted to ten ships of the Hne, ten frigates, and some smaller vessels. It was much superior to that of the Sultan, which, though it comprised a large flotilla of small barks and nineteen frigates, presented only five line-of-battle ships. It is probable that the ministers of England and France (who could have no wish to see Turkey weakened for purposes of Russian ambition) hoped to the very last that such an imposing demonstration of force would awe the Sultan or his officers into submission and that Greece might thus be saved with- out her old masters being further injured. But the stern, unbend- ing spirit that nerved Sultan Mahmud was fully shared by his admirals, the Capudan Pasha, Tahir Pasha, and Moharem Beg. An engagement was the inevitable result of the entrance of the allied fleet into Navarino, an engagement in which the Turko- Egyptians fought for four hours with desperate valor, until the whole of the Sultan's magnificent armament was destroyed, except a few insignificant barks that w'ere left stranded on the shore. The consequences of the battle were immense, far, indeed, beyond what the concjuerors either designed or desired. It was not merely that the Greek question was virtually decided by it. Ibrahim gladly retiring from the Morea to Egypt with the chief part of his army, and a division of French troops, under Marshal Maison, completing the deliverance of the Greek territory, but Turkey was by this " untoward event," as tlie Duke of Wellington termed it, left defenseless before Russia. Men said that '* the Sultan had de- stroyed his own army, and now his allies had destroyed his navy." Still ]\Iahmud and his people would not bend to the stranger and to the rebel, nor would the Divan, even after Navarino, accept the Treaty of London, which the ministers of the three powers, espe- cially of Russia, now pressed in more and more peremptory tone. But the Turkish statesmen knew their peril and endeavored to in- duce the ambassadors to remain at their posts and to communicate to their respective courts the offers of the Porte respecting the future treatment of Greece. These were a complete pardon and amnesty, a remission of all arrears of taxes and tribute, a restora- tion of confiscated property, a reestablishment of all privileges, and, finally, a pledge of milder government. The ambassadors refused to accept any terms but those of the treaty, and on December 6 left Cdiistantinople. An attempt was made by tlie Reis Effendi to reopen negotiations, but tlie Ixussian minister, to whom the 426 TURKEY 1827-1828 communication was sent, returned no answer. Though Russia was nominally at peace with all the world (her Persian war hav- ing ended by a convention in November) she was calling out new levies of conscripts, concentrating troops in Bessarabia, and collecting military stores and transports in her harbors in the Black Sea in readiness for an invasion of the Ottoman dominions. There were also many topics of dispute between the Sultan and the em- peror as to certain Asiatic fortresses retained by Russia and those never-failing sources of difference, the affairs of the principalities and of Servia. Convinced that his great enemy intended to attack him in the spring, the Sultan took the bold step of being the first to declare war, and a hattisherif was issued on December 20, in which, addressing the Pashas and Ayans of his empire, the Sultan recited the wrongs which he had endured from Russia, among which he classed the unjust extortion of the Treaty of Akerman, and he called on all true Mussulmans to show again the determined valor with which the Ottomans had in ancient times established in the world the true religion, and to resist the foe whose object was to annihilate Islam and tread the people of Mo- hammed under foot. In the ensuing war the vigor shown by Mahmud astonished both friends and foes. Russia employed in the first campaign about 100,000 troops of all arms in European Turkey. The num- ber might easily have been greater, 1)ut she judged it prudent to retain large armies in Poland, Finland, and the Ukraine, and a far less spirited resistance on the part of the Turks was expected than that which was actually encountered. In Asia, her general, Count Paskievitch, led an army 30,000 strong into the Turkish provinces besides having a reserve of 16,000 more. At sea her superiority was incontestable. She had sixteen line-of-battle ships in the Black Sea besides frigates and smaller vessels, and in the Archipelago she had the fleet which had aided in destroying the Turkish navy at Navarino. Throughout the war this command of the sea was of infinite importance to her, and in particular the operations against Varna in 1828, and the decisive movements of Diebitch in 1829 were only rendered possible by her uncontrolled possession of the Euxine. ]\Iahmud had only been able to collect an army of about 48,000 troops trained on the new system. These were ])rincipally mere lads wIkt were selected in the hope that their prejudices against the Prankish innovations would not be so violent M A H M U D 1 1 427 1828 as generally prevailed among the elder Turks. The Prussian gen- eral Baron Von Moltke,^ who served with the Turks throughout the war, describes vividly the disheartening spectacle which this infant force presented and its difference from the aspect of the old Ottoman troops. " The splendid appearance, the beautiful arms, the reckless bravery of the old Moslem horde had disappeared," but the German writer adds, " yet this new army had one quality which placed it above the numerous host which in former times the Porte could summon to the field it obeyed.'' Besides these troops the Sultan was obliged to call together the feudal and ir- regular forces of his empire, chiefly from Asia, for throughout European Turkey the deepest discontent with their sovereign's reforms prevailed among the Ottomans. Bosnia, a remarkably warlike and strongly Mohammedan province, sent no troops at all, and many of the officers whom he was obliged to employ were attached to the old order of things and were almost as bitter in their disaffection to the Sultan as in their antipathy to the Russian Giaours. But the artillery force was numerous and loyal, and the armed Turkish inhabitants of the towns which the enemy as- sailed showed as usual the greatest spirit in self-defense and con- tributed greatly to the prolongation of the war, which was, in its first campaign at least, principally a war of sieges. In the operations of 1828 in Europe the Russians occupied the principalities with little opposition and crossed the Danube early in June, Braila was taken on June 15, but not till after an unexpectedly long and obstinate defense which cost the invad- ers 4000 men and much valuable time. The Russians then advanced on Shumla and Varna. Before Shumla they gained no advantage, and suffered several severe blows. But Varna fell after a gallant defense, which was, however, ultimately tarnislied by the treachery of Yussuf Pasha, the second in command, who went over to the enemy with nearly 5000 men. Silistria repulsed the Russian corps that besieged it, and altogether, at the close of the European campaign, the position of tlie combatants was such that in the words of the ablest military critic of the war,''^ " If we con- sider the enormous sacrifices tliat tlie war cost the Russians in 1828 it is difficult to say whether they or the Turks won or lost it. It remained for a second campaign to decide the value of the first." ^' The famous Prussian chief of staff in the Franco-German War of 1870. ' -Moltke. 428 TURKEY 1828-1829 In Asia the genius of Paskievitch had gained far less checkered advantages for the Russian emperor. Besides Anapa (which was captured by the Russian armament that afterward cooperated in the siege of Varna) the Turks lost in Asia during 1828, Kars, Akhalkhahki, Hertwitz, Akhaltzikh, and other important fortresses. They were beaten also in a pitched battle, and Paskievitch obtained an admirable position for an advance into Asia Minor in the fol- lowing year. But it was to the Danube and the Balkan that the statesmen of Europe looked most attentively, and the general feel- ing (especially in Austria) was that Russia had been overrated, that the Sultan was unexpectedly powerful, and that the war was likely to be prolonged without any heavy catastrophe to the Turkish Empire. Russia herself felt keenly the need of recovering her prestige by more signal success in another campaign, which she resolved to make a decisive one. Accordingly, in 1829, more numerous and better appointed forces crossed the Danube, and they were led by Marshal Diebitch, a general who thoroughly entered into the spirit in which his im- perial master wished the war to be conducted and concluded. " He besieged one fortress and fought one battle, but this brought him into the very heart of the hostile empire. He arrived there followed by the shadow of an army, but with the reputation of irresistible success." Such is the expressive eulogy in which Baron Von Moltke epitomizes the Turkish campaign of Marshal Diebitch, thence surnamed Sabalskanski, that is to say, the Grosser of the Balkan. In Asia the Emperor Nicholas was equally well served by the genius and bravery of Marshal Paskievitch, the victor of the battle-field of Akhaltzikh and the captor of Bayezid, Khart, and Erzerum. The main Turkish army of Shumla, emboldened by the partial successes of the last year, commenced operations in 1829 by at- tempting, Alay 17. to recover Pravadi from the Russians. While the Grand Vizier's army was engaged in this enterprise (which was conducted with great valor but little skill and admirably opposed by the Russian generals Roth and Rudiger) Marshal Diebitch, who had commenced the siege of Sili stria on May 18, moved the greater part of the Russian force from before that fortress, and by a series of rapid and brilliant movements placed himself in connection with Roth and Rudiger in a position between Pravadi an7; death of, 355 Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 478; character of, 489 Abdul Hamid (Karazaridji) : revolt of, 208 Abdul Medjid, Sultan of Turkey: re- forms of, 96; accession of, 437; reign of, 439 ", death of, 472 Abdullah Ibn Saud: last emir of the Wahabites, 409 Aberdeen, Lord : policy toward Russia, 447; his ministry resigns, 458 Aboukir: battle of (1799), 383 Acre: sieges of (1832), 433; (1840), 437 Adair, Sir Robert : concludes Treaty of the Dardanelles (1809), 405 Aden : captured by Turks, 164 Adorno : aids Mustapha, 58 Adrianople : captured (1361), 29 Adrianople, Treaty of (1829), 431 Africa, North : reduced by Arabs, 4 Ahmed I, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 209; death of, 212 Ahmed TI, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 260 : death of, 261 Ahmed III, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 273 ; abdicates, 293 Ahmed, son of Bayezid II : intrigues for the succession, 115; resists sov- ereignty of the Sultan. 120 Ahmed Fevzy : treachery of, 436 Ahmed Kediik, Turkish captain : sub- jugates the Crimea, 84; his cam- paign in Italy, 86, 113 Ahmed Kiuprili : see Kiuprili, Ahmed Ahmed Pasha, Governor of Egypt : re- volt of, 150 Aidian : reinstated by Timur, 52 Akbar the Great: contemporary of Suleiman, 145 Akerman, Treaty of (1826) : account of, 422; as cause for Russo-Turkish war, 426; convention confirmed by Treaty of Adrianople, 432 Alaeddin, Sultan of Iconium : aided by Ertoghrul, 9 Alaeddin, son of Othman I : becomes vizier of Orkhan, 19 Albanian League, 492 Aleppo: battle of (1516), 129 Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), Pope: his connection with the custody of Prince Djem, 112 Alexander the Great : conquers western Asia, 3 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia : sup- ports Prussia against France, 396; in the Peace of Tilsit , 403 ; suc- ceeded by Nicholas I, 422 Alexander II, Emperor of Russia: ac- cession of, 458; liberal policy of, 473 ; in Russo-Turkish war, 482 Alexander III, Emperor of Russia: death of, 495 Alexander Karageorgcvitch, Prince: be- comes prince of Servia, 443 ; de- posed, 465 Alexander of Battenburg: account of, 492 ; defeats Servians at Slivinitza, 494 Alexander, Lord : see Scanderbeg Alexandria: taken by the French (1798), 380; bombarded (1882), 496 Alexis Mikhaiovich, Czar of Russia: 519 620 INDEX disclaims responsibility over the Cossacks, 229 Algiers: taken by Khaireddin Barba- rossa, 161 ; taken by the French (1830), 432 Ali Beg Widaitsh: allies with dahis of Belgrade, 388, 390 Ali Kumurgi: see Damad Ali Ali Moldowandji, Grand Vizier of Tur- key : succeeds Emin Mohammed, 324 _ Ali Pasha, Turkish general : campaign in Bulgaria, 34 Ali Pasha, despot of Epirus : wins cities from the French, 384; at war with Turkey, 414 Alp Arslan : Seljukian power under, 10 Alma River: battle of (1854), 455 Amassia : annexed by Bayezid, 38 Amurath : see Murad Anatolia : stronghold of modern Turks, 24 Andrassy, Count: at Berlin Congress, Andronicus, Emperor: his relations with Ottomans, 24 Andrusshovo, Truce of (1667), 244 Anne Ivanovna, Empress of Russia ; re- news war with Turkey, 300; adopts Oriental Project, 313 Angora: battle of (1402), 37, 48 Arabia : rise of the Arabs, 3, 4 ; impor- tance of holy cities of, 135 ; con- quered by the Turks, 136, 164; dis- orders in, 195, 292 Arbuthnot : British minister to Turkey, 397 Armenia: Turkish conquests in, 158; de- scription of, 497 Army and Navy: first standing army of modern history introduced by Turks, 19; navy improved by Selim I of Turkey, 136; strength under Sulei- man the Great, 148, 182; under Mo- hammed IV of Turkey, 239; esti'- mate of Ottoman military service, 242 ; decline of the navy, 252 ; naval strength under Mustapha III of Turkey, 327 ; plans of Gazi Hassan respecting, 342; Selim III attempts to improve, 378 ; demoralization of, under Selim III of Turkey, 370; Mahmud II reorganizes, 417, 440; present status, 509; see also Janis- saries Arnaud, Vincent: befriends Topal Os- man, 296 Asia Minor : becomes an integral part of Europe, 3 Astrakhan: siege of (1554), 193 Athens : taken by Bayezid, 45 ; sur- renders to Turks (1827), 417 Aubusson, Pierre d'. Grand Master of Knights of St. John: account of, 109 Austria : her relation to the Eastern Question, 7; in the Holy Alliance, 41 ; invaded by Suleiman the Great, 152, 175; Murad III at war with, 202; campaigns of Ahmed Kiuprili in, 236; campaigns of Damad Ali in, 286 ; in Treaty of Passarowitz, 291 ; intervention in Russo-Turkish war, 307; attacks Turkey, 310; signs secret convention with Turkey ('^77''^) y 332; at war with France, 406; in agreement of the Dar- danelles, 437 ; hostile to Russia, 487 Austrian Succession, War of, 318 Avars : invasion of, 4 Azov: sieges of (1641), 228; (1696), 266; threatened by Russia, 302 B Babaeska: battle of (1807), 399 Bagdad : conquered by Suleiman the Great, 158; adorned by Suleiman, 188; sieges of (1638), 221; (1733), 295 Baharites : first Mameluke sovereign of Egypt, 128 Bairactar: becomes grand vizier, 401 Bajazet: see Bayezid Bakchiserai : sacked by the Turks (1736), 305; Russians in, 350 Balkan, The, 62 Balta: siege of (1768), 321 Baltadji Mohammed Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey : account of, 279 Barbaresque Regencies: growth of, 252; relation to Turkey, 365 Barbarossa, Khaireddin : account of, 161 INDEX 521 Batlin: Turkish defeat at (1810), 406 Bayezid I, Sultan of Turkey : account of, 31; at battle of Kosovo, 35; acces- sion of, 36; assumes title of Sultan, 38 ; death of, 50 ; his tomb desecrated by Mohammed I, of Turkey, 55 Bayezid II, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 107; death of, 117 Bayezid Pasha : account of, 56, 58 Beirut: siege of (1840), 437 Belgrade: sieges of (1456), 82; (1521), 147; (1688), 256; (1691), 260; (1717), 289; attacked by Austria, 352 Belgrade, Treaty of (1739) : account of, 315, 374 Bender: siege of (1770), 329 Berghama (Pergamus) : annexed by Orkhan, 23 Berkuk : first of Circassian Mamelukes in Egypt, 128 Berlin, Congress of (1878) : account of, 487 Berlin, Treaty of (1878) : account of, 488, 491 ; provides reforms in Ar- menia, 4q8 Beylan: battle of (1832), 434 Bismarck, Otto Edward Leopold, Prince von : his attitude toward the Eastern Question, 487 Boniface IX, Pope : proclaims crusade against Turks, 39 Bosnia : attacked by Bayezid, 37 ; recon- .quered by Turks, 68; made Turkish "province, 82 Bourmont, Marshal : his Algerian ex- pedition, 433 Braila : siege of (1828), 427 Brancovan, Prince, Hospodar of Wal- lachia : intrigues with Russia, 278 Bredal, Russian admiral : commands tleet in Black Sea, 309 Broughton, Lord : his account of tlu' revolutions (1807-1809), 403 note Brusa: desired by the Turks, 15, 17; made Bayezid's capital, 45 ; sacked by Timur, 51 Bucharest, Treaty of (1812) : account of. 398, 407; ratified by Treaty of Akcr- man, 422 Buda-Pfstli : twin cities taken by Sulei- man the Great, 152 Bulgaria: annexed to Ottoman Empire, 34; account of troubles in, 476 Busacz, Peace of (1672), 245 Byzantine Empire : its struggle against Arab and Turk, 4 Cairo: taken by Selim I of Turkey, 131 Calderan : battle of, i^S Caliphate: acquired by the sultans, 135 Calixtus III, Pope : aids Hunyady, 83 Calmucks : migrate from Russia, 338 Campo Formio, Treaty of (1797), 384 Candia (Crete), War of: account of, 230 Candia, capital of Crete: threatened by Turks, 242; siege and capture (1669), 243 Canning, Stratford, Viscount Stratford de RedcIifTe: his influence as Eng- lish ambassador, 439, 443, 449; re- called, 446 Cantacuzene, Emperor: recognizes power of Orkhan, 25 Cantemia, Prince, Hospodar of ]Mol- davia: aids Russia, 278 Capistran, St. John : aids Hunyady, 83 Caramania: resists Ottoman Turks, 16; submits to Bayezid, 38; reinstated by Timur, 52 ; reduced by Bayezid Pasha, 56; insurrection in, 61, 62; subdued, 84 Carlowitz, Peace of (1609) : account of, 268, 374; broken, 287 Castriot, John : account of, 6g Castriot, George: see Scanderbeg Catherine I, Empress of Russia : secures peace with Turkey, 280 ; honored by Peter the Great, 282 Catherine II, Empress of Russia : her re- lations with Turkey, 320 Caulaincourt, Armand Augustin Louis de : minister of Napoleon, 404 Cavour, Count di : diplomacy of, in Crimean War, 459 Cerestes : battle of (1596), 206, 239 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, author of "Don Quixote": at the battle of Lepanto, 198 Chalcondylas, Demetrius : his estimate of Turkish military strengtli, 94 622 INDEX Chalons: battle of (451 a. d.), 4 Chamurli : battle of, 53 Charles VIII, King of France: transfers Prince Djcin to custody of the Pope, hi; invades Italy, 112; plans rescue of Constantinople, 144 Charles V, Holy Roman emperor: ex- tent of empire of, 145 ; at war with Turkey, 158; defeated at Algiers, 163 Charles VI, Holy Roman emperor : aids Venice against Turkey, 286; power in Eastern Europe, 292; death of, 317 Charles XII, King of Sweden : at war with Russia, 274; terms of Peace of Pruth respecting, 281, 284 Charles VI, King of France : contem- porary of Murad I of Turkey, 33 Charles I, King of Rumania : account of, 464 Charles Martel : saves Europe from Saracens, 4 Chateauneuf, Marquis de : his embassy to Constantinople, 259 China : Timur extends power in, 46 Chotim : siege of (1739), 314 Christendom : division of, 7 Christians in Turkey: protection of, 269, 340, 442, 470; their disputes in Palestine, 445 ; massacred in Syria, 466; revolt of, 474; their condition in Armenia, 497 Cicala Pasha : account of, 206, 207, 208 Circassians (Tchercassians) : right of dominion over, 292 Colonna, Marc : commands papal squad- ron, 196 Commerce : opened with western Eu- rope, 202 ; protected by Peace of Pruth, 281 Constantine XI (Constantine XITI), Byzantine emperor : account of, 72 Constantine, Grand Duke : account of, 345, 358, 361, 362 Constantinople : defended from Arabs, 4 ; captured by crusaders, 5 ; men- aced by Bayezid, 45; Turkish sieges of (1422). 58; (1453), 75, 82; cliurches of, converted to mosques by Selim, 139; adorned by Sulei- man the Great, 187; visited by plague (1637), 220; ravaged by fire (1693), 261 ; Russia's designs on, 345, 357, 362 Constantinople, Aqueduct of, 188 Cordovo, Gonsalvo Hernandez de: serves as military model for Europe, 144 Corinth: siege of (1715), 286 Cossacks : marauding expeditions of, 215 ; rival claims for dominion over, 244 Courcy, Sire de : at battle of Nicopolis, 41 Couza, Alexander : account of, 464 Crescent, Device of the, 11 Crete (Candia) : account of, 466; re- volts from Turkey, 502. See also Candia Crimea: invaded by Miinnich (1736), 302 ; annexed to Russia, 345 Crimean War : diplomatic preliminaries, 443; outbreak of hostilities, 451 Croia : seized by Scanderbeg, 69 Crusades, The, 4 Cyprus : conquered, 195 Czernowitz : Swedish loss at, 275 Czerny, George (Kara George), origi- nally George Petrovich : leads rising against the Turks, 389; completes Servia's independence, 395; fails in Bosnia, 403; deserts Servia, 410; assassinated, 411 D Damascus : taken by Selim I of Turkey, 130 ; adorned by Suleiman the Great, 188 Damid AH (AH Kumurgi), Grand Vizier of Turkey : account of, 285 Dardanelles : control of, 437 De Lesseps. Ferdinand : sketch of, 468 Denmark: alHed with Russia, 322; with- draws support from Russia, 360 De Romanov: minister for Russia, 404 Dervishes, Revolt of the, 57 Devlet Ghirai, Khan of Crimea : urges war upon Russia, 276 Devlet Ghirai. successor of Krim Ghirai, account of, 323, 345 INDEX 523 Diebitsch Sabalkansgi: crosses the Balkan, 62; in Russo-Turkish war, 428 Disraeli, Benjamin: effect of Bulgarian massacres on policy of, 447 ; his view of the Treaty of San Stefano, 487 Divan, The, 369 Djem, Prince: account of, 107; buried at Brusa, 113 Djezzar Pasha: rebellion of, 366; com- mands Syrian forces against France, 381 ; returns to insubordination, 386 Djouneid, Ottoman governor: revolt of, 55 Djunis: battle of (1876), 478 Domokos: Greeks defeated at (1897), 505 Doria, Andrea: Genoese admiral, 162; encounters Turkish admirals, 165 Dragut or Torghud : Turkish admiral, 165 ; in expedition against Malta, 171 Drakul, Prince of Wallachia: joins against the Turks, 65 Duckworth, Admiral : destroys Turkish fleet, 397 Eastern Question, The : account of, 3 Ebu Bekir: sent to control Janissaries, 387 Education: zeal of Mohammed IT re- specting, 98; encouraged by Selim III of Turkey, 377 Egypt : reduced by Arabs, 4 ; Timur's attack on empire of, 48; Prince Djem aided by, 108, 112; wars with, 114; subdued by the Turks, 133; disorders in, 292, 326; JNIamelukes rebel in, 344; wrested from France, 384; English expedition against, 398; Turko-h'gyptian war, 437 El Arisch : taken b}' Napoleon, 382 Elhadj Mohammed Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 314 F.lizaboth, Quceu of England, seeks aid of Turkey, 202 Ellis, Edward: English merchant sent to Constantinople, 202 Elwas Mohammed, Grand Vizier of Turkey: unpopularity of, 262 Emin Mohammed, Grand Vizier of Turkey : recalled, 324 Ems: battle of (1832), 434 England : her relations with Turkey, 7, 160, 202; intervention of, 267, 284, 290, 299, 347, 423; attitude toward Russia, 358, 360, 361 ; allied with Russia, 322; joins triple alliance (1788), 360; allies against France, 3S0; refuses aid to the Sultan, 435; in agreement of the Dardanelles, 437; hostile to Russia, 487 Erlan: taken by imperialists (1687), Erizzo, Paul: Venetian commander, 84 Ertoghrul, founder of Ottoman Empire : leads band of Oghuz Turks into Asia Minor, 9; compared to Sulei- man the Great, 180 Ertoghrul, son of Bayezid : account of, 45 Ethnike Hetairia: adopts cause of Crete, 503, 504 Eubcca, Island of: captured by Turks, 84 Eugene, Prince: leads Austrians against the Turks, 286, 287 Eugenius, Pope : aids crusades, 62, 65 Eupatoria: battle of (1855), 45^ Europe : civilization of, extended east- ward, 3 Eviiya, Turkish historian: quoted, 215 Fanariote Period, The, 294 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman emperor : claims crown of Hungary, 152; seeks peace with Turkey, 159 Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. Prince of Bulgaria : account of, 495 Feth Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea: v.ins victories over Russians, 307 Feudalism : its relation to Turkish in- stitutions, 96, 184, 203, 368, yj-/ Feuilladc, Due de la: at battle of St. Gnthard, 240; at siege of Candia, 243 Finances: stability of, under Abdul Hamid, 491 524 INDEX France : in relation to the Eastern Ques- tion, 7; foreign conquests of, 143; intervention of, 307, 347. 423; Turkey seeks alliance with, 332 ; revolution in. 361 ; at war with Tur- key, 380; friendly policy toward Turkey revived, 385; rivalry with Russia, 392, 444. 445; in Peace of Tilsit, 404; in agreement of the Dardanelles, 437 Francis I, King of I'rance : contemporary of Suleiman the Great, 145, 159; urges the Sultan against Hungary, Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria: dominated by Nicholas I of Rus- sia, 444 Franco-Prussian War, 473 Frederick II, King of Prussia: effects treaty with Turkey, 319; concludes treaty with Russia, 320; ridicules Russian generalship, 324; offers mediation, 332 Frederick William III, King of Prussia: makes war against France, 396 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia : his relation to Nicholas I of Russia, 444 Froissart's Chronicles, 43 Fuad, Grand Vizier of Abdul Med j id: services of, 439, 442 Fuad Pasha : resigns as foreign minis- ter, 449; sent to Damascus, 446; policy toward Crete, 467; accom- panies Abdul Aziz to Paris Exposi- tion, 472 G Galatz: massacre in, 416 Galitzin, Prince Alexander Michailo- vitch : commands Russian forces, 324 Gallipoli: captured by the Turks (1356), 27 Gaza: taken by Napoleon (1799), 382 Gazi Hassan, Capudan Paslia: plans re- organization of Turkish forces, 342; policy of, 350; commands Turk- ish army, 356; death of, 357; his tmsuccessful efforts to improve the navy, 372 Genghis Khan : ancestor of Timur the Great, 46 Genoa, Republic of: at war with Venice, 25 ; aids the Turks, 64 ; at war with Turkey, 84 George Brankovic: succeeds Stephen Laserovic, 60 George Castriot : See Scanderbeg George Pctrovich : See Czerny, George Germany : relation to the Eastern Ques- tion, 7; neutrality in Berlin Con- gress, 487; becomes ally of Turkey, 505, 508 Ghazali, Governor of Syria: crushed by Suleiman the Great, 146 Giurgevo: battle of (1790), 357 Giustiniani, John : Genoese commander, 74. 76 Gonsalvo Hernandez de Cordova : See Cordova, Gonsalvo Hernandes de Gorchakov, Prince : proclaims abroga- tion of Treaty of Paris, 473 ; at Ber- lin Congress, 487 Government: political institutions of Turkey, 88; municipal government, 97; condition in the Danubian prin- cipalities, 293 ; condition under Selim III of Turkey, 364 Greco-Turkish War : account of, 504 " Greek Fire," The, 76 Greece : Bayezid leads attack on, 45 ; in Treaty of Adrianople, 432; supports Cretan revolt from Turkey, 503. See also Greek War of Independ- ence Greek War of Independence : account of, 411 Greig, Admiral : in Russo-Turkish war, 429 Guillemot, General : negotiates truce of Slobosia, 403 Guizot, Frangois Pierre Guillaume: ministry of, 437 H Hadji Bcytarch : Ottoman dervish, 21 Hadji Mustapha : becomes Pasha of Belgrade, 387 INDEX 525 Hafiz Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 216 Hague, The, Congress of (1790), 360 Haleppa, Pact of ( 1867) : account of, 467, 502 Harebone, William : English merchant sent to Constantinople, 202 Hatti Humaiun, The, 471 Heliopolis: battle of (1800), 384 Henry VHT, King of England: contem- porary of Suleiman the Great, 145 Heraclius of Georgia (Czar of Tiflis) : account of, 362 Hermanstadt: siege of (1442), 61 Herodotus : his recognition of the East- ern Question, 3 Hetsria Philike : account of, 413 Hobhouse, John Cam, Lord Broughton: his description of Albania, 368 Holland: joins in European interven- tion, 267, 284, 290, 299; joins triple alliance (1788), 360 Holy Alliance, War of the : account of, 255 Hungary: invaded by Tartars, 4; men- aced by Murad, 30; attacked by Bayezid, 2,7; devastated, 45; at war with Turkey, 147, 151; acquired by Suleiman the Great, 159; recovered from Turkey, 291 Huns : menace western civilization, 4 Hunyady the Great: origin of, 38; ac- count of, 60; death of, 84 Hussein Avni: account of, 475 Ibrahim, Sultan of Turkey: preserved from death, 224; accession of, 225; deposed, 227; put to death, 228 Ibrahim, Grand Vizier of Turkey (1523- 1535)' sent to Egypt, 150; account of, 166; wealth of, confiscated. 184 Ibrahim, Grand Vizier of Turkey (1718- 1730), account of, 292 Ibrahim of Aleppo, Ottoman jurist: compiles Ottoman code, 187 Ibrahim Pasha: son of IMohammed Ali, 409; his campaign against the Greeks, 417; aids Mohammed Ali in rebellion, 433 Ibrahim the Devil (Kara Djehennin) : commands artillery against the Janissaries, 419 Iconium : battle of (1387), 31 Idris. Turkish historian : favored by Selim I, 119 Ignatiev, Count: influence of, 474 India : Turkish conquests in, 164 Innocent VIII, Pope: receives Prince Djem, III Ionian Islands : guardianship of, 384 Ipsilanti, Alexander: incites Greeks to arms, 416 Ipsilanti, Constantine : deposed as hos- podar, 396 Iskanderbeg: See Scanderbeg Islam Ghirai, Khan of Crimea : account of, 230 Ismail: siege of (1790), 359 Ismail, Shah of Persia : aids Korkud and Ahmed, 115, 120; founder of Safawi dynasty, 122 ; at war with Turkey, 123, 147; restorer and legis- lator of Persia, 145 Ismail Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt : opens Suez canal, 469 ; extravagance of, 496; deposed, 496 Italinski, Russian ambassador : his de- mands on Turkey, 393, 395 Italy : relation to the Eastern Question, 7; jMohammed projects subjugation of, 85; Turks driven from, 113 Ivan (III) the Great, Grand Prince of Russia: opens relations with Tur- key, 117; frees Moscow from the Tartars, 192 Ivan (IV) the Terrible, Czar of Russia: reign of, 192 Jaffa: taken by Napoleon, 382 Janissaries (Yerri Tscheri) : instituted by Alaeddin, 19; recruited from con- q'jered Christians, 32; condition under Mohammed II, 93; tyranny and turbulence of, 120, 150, 203, 212, 293. 3S6, 394; at siege of Vienna, 156; under Suleiman the Great, 183; Mohammed IV reorganizes, 251; destruction of, 417 526 INDEX J.Tssy: massacre in, 416 Jassy, Treaty of (1792) : account of, 362, 374 Jerusalem: capitulation granted by Omar (637 a. d.), 100; taken by Selim I (1516), 130 John of Austria, Don : heads maritime league, 196; captures Tunis, 200 John Castriot: See Castriot, John John (III) Sobieski, King of Poland: account of, 6, 248; campaign against the Cossacks, 244 Joseph II, Holy Roman emperor: offers mediation, 332; allied with Russia, 348; declares war on Turkey, 352; death of, 357 Julian, Cardinal : in crusade against the Turks, 62, 65, 66; death of, 68 K Kaffa: taken by Turks (1456), 84 Kainardji, Peace of (1774), account of, 339, 342, 374 Kaminiets: siege of (1672), 245 Kanounname, The, 8g Kansu Ghawri, Sultan of Egypt: at war with Turkey, 129 Kaplan Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea: deposed, 307; collects Tartar host, 329 _ Kara Djehennin: See Ibrahim the Devil Kara George : See Czerny George Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier of Ibra- him: account of, 226 Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier of Mo- hammed IV: account of, 247 Kara Theodori Beg: at Berlin Con- gress, 487 Karasi : conquest of, 23 Kars: storming of (1877), 484 Kastcmouni : annexed by Bayezid, 38 Kaundjik: Turkish defeat at (1444), 65 Kavarna : taken from Turkey (1444), 65 Kayounhissar (Baphoeum) : battle of (1301), 17 Kemal Reis : first great Turkish admiral, 113 Kernel Pasha Zade, Turkish jurist: favored by Selim I, 119 Kermian : reinstated by Timur, 52 Khaireddin Pasha: See Barbarossa, Khaireddin Khaireddin, Turkish commander: suc- ceeds Ahmed Kediik, 113 Khalil Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 329 Khurrem ("La Rossa"): her influence over Suleiman I, 167 Kinsky, Count: Austrian minister, 268 Kiuprili Ahmed, Grand Vizier of Tur- key : appointed, 235 ; estimate of, 246 Kiuprili, Husein (Amud Shah Zade), Grand Vizier of Turkey : account of, 264 ; retirement and death, 273 Kiuprili Mohammed, Grand Vizier of Turkey : account of, 232 Kiuprili Zade Mustapha, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 257; death of, 261 Kleber, Jean Baptiste : commands French forces in Egypt, 383 Knights of St. John: See St. John, Knights of Kceprihissar : fall of (1300), 17 Konieh: battle of (1832), 434 Koran: Murad's vizier seeks guide from, 35 ; as primary source of Turkish law, 89; teachings of, 99, 104, 139 Korkud, son of Bayezid II : intrigues for sovereignty, 115; slain by Selim I of Turkey, 121 Kosciusko, Tadensz: his reforms in Po- land, 362 Koslov: sacked by the Russians (1736), 305 Kosovo: battle of (1389), 29, 34 Kossuth, Louis : takes refuge in Turkey, 443 Kotchi, Beg, Turkish writer : quoted, 189 Kozlidje: battle of (1774), 338 Krim Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea : dev- astates southern Russia, 323 Krotzka: battle of (17.39), 314 Kulevtcha: battle of (1829), 428 Kumans : invasion of, 4 INDEX 527 Kurt Beg, Mameluke hero: at battle of Ridania, 130; his audience with Selim I of Turkey, 131 Kutchuk Kainardji, Treaty of (1774) : status of Orthodox Christians un- der, 446 Lacy, Peter, Russiarl general: campaigns in the Crimea, 308, 312 Ladislaus, King of Poland : account of, 61, 62; resists breaking of treaty, 65; slain at Varna, 67 Lalashahin : commands Ottoman forces at Maritza, 30 Lambro Canzani, Greek patriot: account of, 358 La Marmora, General : in the Crimean War, 458 Laudon, Marshal: commands Austrian forces, 356 La Vallette, John de la, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John : defends Malta, 170, 172 Law : See Mohammedan Law Lazarus, King of Servia: account of 34, 36 League of the Three Emperors, 474 Leniberg: sieges of (1672), 245; (1675), 245 Lcmnos: siege of (1770), 328 Leo (III) the Isaurian : defends Con- stantinople, 4 Leo X, Pope : contemporary of Sulei- man the Great, 145 Leopold I, Holy Roman emperor : at war with Turkey, 266 Leopold II, Holy Roman emperor: de- sires peace with Turkey, 357 Lepanto: battle of (1571), 5, 196; ac- quired by Turks, 113 Literature and Art: under Suleiman the Great, 188: encouraged by Moham- med IV of Turkey, 253; by Ahmed HI of Turkey, 293; by Selim HI of Turkey, 412 Livonia : conquered by Peter tlie Great, 278 London, Treaty of (1827) : account of, 423 Louis II, King of Hungary : account of, 147 Louis XIV, King of France: encour- ages hostility of Turkey against Austria, 259 Louis XVI, King of France: urges Eu- ropean intervention against Russia, 347, 349 Lovtcha: battle of (1877), 482 M Macedonian Question, The, 506 Magyars : aid Slavs against Turks, Mahmud T, Sultan of Turkey: accession, 293; reign of, 295; death of, 318 Mahmud II, Sultan of Turkey: in- structed by Selim III, 40a ; reign of, 408; death of, 436; reforms of, 439 Mahmud, Prince, son of Mohammed HI : put to death, 209 Mahmud Tchelebi : ransomed, 63 Mahmud, titular khan of Jagetai : takes Bayezid prisoner, 50 Malkhatoon : wooed by Othman, 12 Malta : expedition against, 170 Mamelukes (Memlooks) : dominion in Egypt, 127 ; rebellion of, 344, 365 ; Napoleon makes war on, 380; resist control of Selim HI of Turkey, 386; destroyed by Mohammed Ali, 408 Maritza: battle of (1363), 30 Mavrocordato, Greek diplomat: at Peace of Carlowitz, 269 Maximilian II, Holy Roman emperor: account of, 175, 191 Maximilian, Archduke: at war with Mohammed III of Turkey, 205, 206 Mecca, holy city: visited by Prince Djem, 108; captured by Wahabitcs, 385 ; recovered, 409 Mecca, Aqueducts of, 188 Medina, holy city: visited by Prince Djem, 108; captured by Wahabites, 3S5 ; recovered, 400 Mehadia: battle of (1788^ 354 Melek Sliah : Seljukian Turks powerful imder, 10 528 INDEX Menschikov, Prince : on protection of Greek Church, 340; his ministry to Turkey, 449 Mesopotamia: conquests of Suleiman I in, 158 Michael Obrenovitch, Prince: account of, 465 Michael of the Peaked Beard: account of, 13 Michael Beg: commands Ahindji, 58 Michael Oglu : leads Turkish marauders, 154 Michelson, Ivan Ivanovich : invades Moldavia and Wallachia, 397 Midhat Pasha: leads Party of Young Turkey, 475, 478; fall of, 490 Milan IV : becomes prince of Servia, 465; declares war on Bulgaria, 494 Milosh Kabilovic: slays Murad at Kosovo, 36 Milosh Obrenovich: Servian patriot, 410; expelled from Servia, 443; re- called, 465 Missolonghi: siege of (1826), 417 Mizirli Zade Ibrahim: made chief naval commander, 258 Moggersdorf: destruction of (1664), 240 Mohacs : the destruction of, 152 Mohammed (I) Pehlevan, Sultan of Turkey: escapes from Timur to Amassia, 50; contests for sovereignty with brothers, 52; reign of, 54; death of, 57 Mohammed (II) the Conqueror, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 71; death of, 87; his law respecting imperial fratricide, 106 Mohammed III, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 204 ; death of, 209 Jklohammed IV, Sultan of Turkey : ac- cession of, 227; deposed, 251 Mohammed, son of Murad : becomes temporary sovereign, 64, 68 Mohammed Ali (Mehemet Ali), Vice- roy of Egypt: account of, 408; his campaign against the Greeks, 417; aims at Turkish sovereignty, 433 Mohammed Ali Pasha (Karl Detroit) : commands in Bulgaria, 481 ; at Ber- lin Congress, 487 Mohammed Baltadji, Grand Vizier of Turkey : deposed, 284 Mohammed Nedim, Grand Vizier of Turkey: reactionary ministry of, 473 ; dismissed, 475 Mohammedan Law : sources of, 89 ; civil equality under, 97; improved by Suleiman the Great, 184. See also Government Mohammedans : rise of, 4 Moldavia: revolts under Murad III of Turkey, 204; seeks peace with Turkey, 208; relation to Turkey, 36s Moltke, Count von : quoted, 421, 427, 480 Money: coined by Othman (1299), 16; change in coinage of, 440 Mongols : wrest territory from Turks, 10; defeated by Ertoghrul in at- tack on Alaeddin, 10; defeated by Orkhan, 17 Montecuculi, Count Raymond de : ac- count of, 237 Montenegro : troubles in, 448 Morea : lost by Venice, 286; in Peace of Passarowitz, 291 ; recovered by Turkey, 344 Morosini, Francesco, Venetian general : conquests in the Morea, 251, 256; death of, 285 Morosini the Peloponnesian : commands in defense of Candia, 243 Morutzi, Prince : deposed as hospodar, 396 Moscow : burned by the Khan of the Cri- mea (1571), 194 Mount Thabor: battle of (1/99), 382 Muhinzadi Mohammed Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey : account of, 334 Miinnich, Count Burkhard Christoph : his military genius, 300; campaigns in the Crimea, 301, 312 Murad (Amurath) I, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 29; death of, 36; crosses the Balkan, 62 Murad (Amurath) II, Sultan of Tur- key : reign of, 58 ; abdicates, 64 ; re- sumes sovereignty, 66; again ab- dicates and again resumes power, 68; death of, 70 INDEX 529 Murad (Amurath) III, Sultan of Tur- key: reign of, 201; death of, 204 Murad (Amurath) IV, SuUan of Tur- key: accession, 214; reign of, 215; death of, 223 Murad (Amurath) V, Sultan of Tur- key: reign of, 475; deposed, 478 Murat, Joachim : forces surrender at Aboukir, 383 Musa, son of Bayezid : aids Moham- med in contest for sovereignty, 52; death of, 54 Musa Pasha, Kaimahan of Selim III: account of, 399; executed, 401 Mustapha I, Sultan of Turkey: spared by Ahmed I, 209; brief reign of, 212; second accession of, 213; again deposed, 214 Mustapha II, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 261 ; abdicates throne, 273 Mustapha III, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 318; death of, 337 Mustapha IV, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 400 ; deposed, 401 ; death of, 402 Mustapha, son of Bayezid : claims sov- ereignty, 57; put to death, 58 Mustapha, son of Suleiman the Great: account of, 168 Mustapha Bairactar : revolts against the Janissaries, 400 Mustapha Pasha, Turkish admiral : commands expedition against Malta, 170, 171 Mustapha Pasha: his campaign against Napoleon, 381 ; surrenders at Abou- kir, 383 Muzinzade Ali, Capudan Pasha : com- mands Turkish forces at Lepanto, 196; death of, 198 Myrtche, Prince of Wallachia : submits to Bayezid, ZT\ joins in crusade against Turks, 39 and Russians, 395 ; in Peace of Til- sit, 403 Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte), Emperor of tlie French : account of, 444; induces com- promise for Suez Canal construc- tion, 469 Napier, Sir Charles: in Turko-Egyptian war, 437 Navarino: battle of (1827), 425 Nesselrode, Count: in Crimean war, 450, 451, 453 Neuhausel: taken by Turks (1663), 236 ; retained by treaty, 242 Nevers, Count de : commands French chivalry in crusade, 39; at battle of Nicopolis, 40; taken captive by Turks, 43 ; ransomed, 44 Nezib: battle of (1839), 436 Nice (Nicsea) : desired by the Turks, 15, 17 ; surrenders to Orkhan, 23 ; sacked by Timur, 51 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia : his at- titude toward Turkey, 422; policy of, 444 ; death of, 458 Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia: acces- sion of, 495 Nicholas, Grand Duke : in Russo-Turk- ish war (1870), 479 Nicomedia: desired by Ottomans, 17; captured by Orkhan, 23 Nicopolis: battle of (1392), ^j Nifisay, daughter of Murad: marriage of. 31 Nightingale, Florence : directs hospitals of Scutari, 458 Nile, Battle of the (1798), 380 Nish: sieges of (1690), 259; (1737), 310 Nissa: captured by the Turks (1376), 30; Turks defeated near (1443), 62 Nuouman Kiuprili, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 276 N Nadir Khan : exploits of, 293, 295 Nakkimov, Admiral : destroys Turkish ileet, 451 Napoleon I (Bonaparte) : his attack on Egypt, 380; victories over Austrians o Obresskov, Russian minister : account of, 322 Ochakov: sieges of (1737), 308; (1788), 354 Ochial : See Uludj Ali Ofen : taken by Suleiman the Great, 15;. 530 INDEX Omar Pasha: services of, 439; opens hostilities of the Crimean war, 451; wins battle of Eupatoria, 458 Oran: capture of, 165 Orkhan, Emir of the Ottomans: reign of, 17, ig; death of, 28 Orkhan, son of Bayezid: account of, 72 Orlov, Count Alexis : commands Rus- sian expedition, 326 Orsovo: sieges of (1396), 40; (i739), 314; captured by Austrians (1790), 357 Osman Pasha: commands at Widdin, 481 Othman (Osman) I, Emir of the Otto- mans : founder of Ottoman Empire, 9, 12; dream of, interpreted, 14; despotic character of, 16 Othman (Osman) II, Sultan of Tur- key: reign of, 212 Othman (Osman) III, Sultan of Tur- key: reign of, 318 Otranto: fall of (1480), 86 Ottoman Turks : coming of, 5 P, Q Paget, Lord : English ambassador, 266 Palfeologus, John : aided by Orkhan, 25 ; at war with Cantacuzene, 26; his fear of the Ottomans, 31 Palseologus, Manuel, Greek emperor: account of, 53, 54 Papal Schism, The, 33 Paris, Treaty of (1856) : account of 460, 470; abrogated by Russia, 473 Parthenon, Destruction of the, 256 note Paskievitch, Count: in Russo-Turkish war, 426, 428, 453 Passarowitz, Peace of (1718) : account of, 6, 290, 374 Pasvan Oglu : rebellion of, 386; joined by Janissaries, 387; joins Moham- medan brigand league, 388 Patron Khalil : leader of Janissary re- bellion, 295 Pechenegs : invasion of, 4 Pcrekop: taken by Russia (1736), 304; siege of (1770), 330 Pcrgamus: See Bcrghama I'ersia : reduced by Arabs, 4 ; Shiite tenets in, 122; at war with Turkey, 123, 164, 204, 209, 221, 316; hostility to Turkey, 211; peace with Turkey, 212, 223 Peter (I) the Great, Emperor of Russia: account of, 265 ; his relations with Turkey, 273; establishes efficient standing army, 378 Peterwaradin : taken from the Turks (1688), 25s; threatened by the Turks, 263, 287 Philippopolis : taken by Murad (1361), 29; battle of (1877), 486 Piali, Turkish admiral : account of, 165, 170, 199 Piri Reis : Turkish admiral, 164 Pitt, William, first Earl of Chatham : projects alliance against the Bour- bons, 322 ; policy toward Russia, 360, 361 Pius V, Pope : forms maritime league, 196 Plcstcheev, Michael : first Russian am- bassador to Turkey, 118 Plevna: siege of (1877), 482 Poland : invaded by Tartars, 4 ; hostility to Turkey, 32, 211; Othman's cam- paign in, 212 ; trouble over the Cos- sacks, 244; treaty with Turkey, 269; in Peace of the Pruth, 281 ; plans to dismember, 332, 3^3 1 hrst partition of (1773)- 338 Porte, The : meaning of term, 91 Portuguese : discoveries and conquests of, 144 Potemkin, Prince : account of, 346, 353, 358; deceptions of, 350 note; death of, 360 Pravadi : surrender of (1389), 34 Presburg, Treaty of (1805), 395 Prevesa: battle of (1538), 163 Printing Press : set up at Constantino- ple, 293 Prussia: growth of, 318;' joins with Rus- sia, 320, 322; joins triple alliance (1788), 360; in Holy Alliance, 411; in agreement of the Dardanelles, 437 Pruth, Peace of the (1711), 280 Pugatchcv's Rebellion : account of, 338, 344 PuUava: battle of (1709), 275 Pyramids, Battle of the (1798), 380 INDEX 531 Raco: taken by Sigismund, 40 Raghib Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 318 Raglan, Lord : in Crimean war, 452 ; death of, 459 Rayas : massacre of, 389 Reichenbach, Congress of (1790), 360 Reis Effendi, The : powers of, 369 Renaissance, The, 144 Reshid Pasha, Grand Vizier of Turkey ; in Russo-Turkish war, 429; quells insurrections, 433 ; services of, 439, 442 Rhigas : national poet of Greece, 413 Rhodes, Island of: siege of (1480), 85; campaign of Suleiman against, 136, 148 Richard II, King of England, contempo- rary of Murad I of Turkey, 33 Ridania: battle of (1517), 130 Rimnik River: battle of (1789), 356 Riza : ministry of, 442 Roe, Sir Thomas : quoted, 213, 214 Roussin, Admiral : sent by France to aid Mahmud II of Turkey, 434 Rumelia : occupied by Turks, 32 Rumiantsov, General Count Peter Alex- andrevitch : commands Russian forces, 324, 325 ; crosses the Danube, 334 Rustchuk : assault on (1810), 406 Russia : reduced by Tartars, 4 ; assumes importance in the Eastern Question, 7; under ^Mongol subjection, 32, 46; appears in Turkish history, 117; rise of, 192; decline of, 211; de- velopment of hostility to Turkey, 244, 247 ; armistice with Turkey, 269; effects thirty years' peace with Turkey, 274; army of, disciplined by Miinnich, 308; Servia appeals to, 392; rivalry with France, 392; in Peace of Tilsit, 404; aids France against Austria, 406; in Holy Alli- ance, 411; her attitude toward Tur- key, 421; joins intervention of Eu- ropean powers for Greece, 423 ; aids Mahmud II against Mohammed Ali, 434 ; in agreement of the Dar- danelles, 437; allies against l-'rance, 380; cooperates with Turkey against France, 384. See also Peter the Great Safiye, Venetian favorite of Murad III of Turkey: influence of, 201, 204, 205, 208 Sagrse: taken by Murad, 29 Saguta (Saegud) : possessed by Erto- ghrul, 10 Salankeman : battle of (1691), 260 Salisbury, Lord : his view of the Treaty of San Stefano, 487; on the Ar- menian massacres, 500 Salm, Count : at siege of Vienna, 155 ; death of, 156 Samarkand : chosen capital by Timur, 46 Samsoun : annexed by Bayezid, 38 Saudi, Don Alvaro de : captured by Turks, 166 San Stefano, Treatv of (1878) : account of, 486 Scanderbeg (Tskanderbeg. Lord Alex- ander or George Castriot) : his suc- cesses against Turks, 60, 69, 82; death of, 85 Schuyler, American consul general : in- vestigates Bulgarian troubles, 477 Seadeddin : Oriental historian, 30, 35 note; quoted, 37; influence on Mo- hammed III of Turkey, 205, 206, 207 Sebastiani, General : ambassador to Turkey, 396, 398 Sebastopol : Russian port founded by Catherine, 350; siege of (1854), . 455 Seid Bokhari : leads Turkish assault, 59 Sclim I, Sultan of Turkey: intrigues for sovereignty, 115; accession of, 117; reign of, 119; death of, 137; com- pared to Suleiman I of Turkey, 146 Selim II, Sultan of Turkey: intrigue to secure succession of, 168; accession of, 178; reign of, 191; death of, 200 Selim III, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 355 ; forced abdication of, 400 ; death of, 401 ; his encouragement of education, 412 533 INDEX Selim Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea (XVII Century) : flight before _So- bieski, 250; aids Kiuprili against Austrians, 258, 259 Selim Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea (XVIII Century) : account of, 330 Seljuks: overrun Asia Minor, 4; estab- lish empire, 10 Servia: leads Slav revolt, 32; indepen- dent from 7\irkey, 63; reconquered by Turks, 68; made Turkish prov- ince, 82; troubles in, 386; recon- quered by Turks, 410; in Treaty of Adrianople, 432 Seven Years' War, The, 318 Seymour, Sir Hamilton : his interview with Nicholas I of Russia, 447 Shahin Ghirai, Khan of the Crimea : ac- count of, 331, 345 Shehaddedin Pasha : account of, 61 Sheremetiev, Count: at battle of the Pruth, 279; becomes hostage to Turkey, 282 Shiahs or Shiites : aid Korkud and Ah- med, 115; their schism with the Sunnitcs, 122 Shipka Pass: battle of (1877), 481 Shumla : surrenders to the Turks (1389)) 34; Russians repulsed at, 427; surrenders to the Russians (1829), 430 Sliuvalov, Count: at Berlin Congress, . .487. Sidi Ali : Turkish admiral, 164 Sigismund, King of Hungary : makes war on the Turks, 37, 38 Silistria: Russian defeat at (1773), 334; taken by Russians (1810), 406; siege _of_ (1854), 453 Siniavin, Admiral : gains victory over Turkish fleet, 398 Sinope: taken by Cossacks, 211; de- struction of (1853), 451 Sistova, Treaty of (1791) : account of, 357, 386 Sisvan, King of Bulgaria : account of, 30, 34 Sitvatorok, Treaty of (1606) : account of 208, 210, 374 Sivas (ancient Sebaste) : annexed by Bayezid, 38; assailed by Tinmr, 47 Skobelev, iNIikhail : in Russo-Turkish war, 482 Slavery among the Turks, 100 Slivinitza: battle of (1885), 494 Slobosia, Truce of (1807) : account of, 398, 400, 403 Smith, Sir Sidney: in Franco-Turkish war, 382, 383, 384 Smyrna: sacked by Timur (1402), 51; taken by Mohammed I of Turkey, 55 , Sobieski, John : see John (III) Sobieski Sokolli, Grand Vizier of Turkey: ac- count of, 176; death of, 201 Spain : reduced by the Arabs, 4 ; strug- gle of Christians and Moors in, 32; union of kingdoms of, 143; discov- eries and conquests of, 144 St. Armand, Marshal : in Crimean war, 452 St. Elmo: fall of (1565), 173 St. Gothard: battle of (1664), 238, 241 St. Jean d' Acre: siege of (1799), 381 St. John, Knights of: in crusade against Turks, 39; receive Prince Djem, 109; defend Malta, 170 St. Sophia, Church of: Constantine re- ceives sacrament in, 78; converted to mosque by the Turks, 80 Stafford, Admiral : in Turko-Egyptian war, 437 Stahremberg, Count: in second siege of Vienna, 248 Stambulov, Stephen : ministry of, 495 Stanislaus II, Augustus (Poniatowski), King of Poland: accession of, 321 Stap 1, Richard : English merchant sent to Constantinople, 202 Stephen (I) Dusan, Czar of Servia: ac- count of, 32 Stephen Laserovic, King of Servia : yields as vassal to Turkey, 27 ; in liattle of Nicopolis, 42; at battle of Angora, 50; death of, 60 Stratford dc Redcliffe: See Canning, Stratford Suez. Isthmus of: Sokolli projects canal through, 19s; canal constructed, 467, 496 Suleiman (I) the Great, Sultan of Tur- key: power of, s, loi ; his sov- ereignty contested, 120; reign of, 143; death of, 176; extent of em- pire of, 179; estimate of, 189 INDEX 533 Suleiman II, Sultan of Turkey: reign of, 255; death of, 260 Suleiman Pasha, son of Orkhan: ac- count of, 25, 27 Suleiman Pasha, Turkish general : ac- count of, 481 Suleimaniye, The : account of, 167, 179 Sultan, Power of the, 88 Sultan-CEni : origin of name, 11; de- scription of, 12 Sunna, The. 89 Sunnites : their schism with the Shiites, 122 Suvarov, Count Alexander : commands Russian force, 324 ; defeats Turk- ish forces, 338; quells Tartar ris- ing) 345; defends Kilburn, 351; at siege of Ochakov, 354; sent into Moldavia, 356; captures Ismail, 359 Sweden : intervention of, 307 ; allied with Russia, 322; at war with Tur- key, 352; treaty with Catherine II of Russia, 357 Syria : reduced by the Arabs, 4 ; wasted by Timur, 48; conquered by Selim I of Turkey, 136; massacres in, 465 Szegedin, Treaty of : account of, 63, 65 Sziget: siege of (1566), 175 Tagliamento : crossed by Omar Pasha, 85 Tamerlane the Great: See Timur the Tartar Tartar Invasion, The, 4 Taxation: under Suleiman the Great, 184, 186, 187; under Ibrahim, 227; increased by Mustapha, 262; im- posed by Husein Kiuprili, 265 ; under Ahmed III of Turkey, 293; military exemption tax of Chistians, 440 ; reforms in, 442 ; under Abdul llamid, 491 Tcliekmedji, Bridge of, 188 Tchesme: Turkish fleet destroyed at, 327 Tekeli, Count: rebellion of, 269 Tel-el-Kebir: battle of (1882), 497 Tenu'svar : siege of (1716), 289 Tewfik, Viceroy of Egypt : succeeds Ismail Pasha, 496 Theodora, daughter of Cantacuzene : married to Orkhan, 25 Thessalonica : captured by Turks, 60 Thessaly ceded to Greece, 492 Thrace : occupied by Turks, 32 Thracian Chersonese: Ottomans settle in, 27 Thugut, Baron Franz Maria von : inter- views the Reis Effendi, 332; in- terprets Treaty of Kainardji, 341 Three Emperors, League of the, 474 Tiflis, Czar of: See Heraclius of Georgia Tilsit, Peace of (1807), 403 Timur the Tartar (Timur-Leng, i. c, Timur the Lame, hence Tamerlane or Tamberlaine) : account of, 5, 46; death of, 51 Tirnova: surrender of (1389), 34 Tobacco: introduced into Turkey, 212 Toghrul Beg: Seljukian Turks powerful under, 10 Topal Osman, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 295 ; death of, 298 Torghud : See Dragut Touroon Shah : last of Eyneb dynasty in Egypt, 128 Tours: battle of (732 A. d.), 4 Transylvania : acquired by Suleiman the Great, 159; revolt of, 203; seeks peace with Turkey, 208 Tripolitza: battle of (1770), 327 Tschendereli, Kara Khalil : his plan for organizing the Janissaries, 20 Tshuli Ali, Grand Vizier of Turkey: account of, 275 Tuman Beg, Sultan of Egypt: succeeds Kansu, 130; his capture and death, 133 Tunis: captured by Barliarossa, 162; taken and plundered by Christians, 163 ; retaken by Turks, 200 Turkey: the Eastern Question, 3; the rise of the Ottomans, 9; the Otto- mans enter Europe, 19; conquests in Europe and Asia, 29; the struggle for the Balkan, 52; Mohammed II and the conquest of Constantinople, 71 ; political institutions and gov- ernment under Mohammed IT, 88; Bayezid II and Prince Djem, 107; Selim I and the conquest of Egypt 684i INDEX and Syria, 119; first years of the epoch of Suleiman the Great, 143; last years of the epoch of Suleiman the Great, 158; Selim II and the beginnings of decline, 191; decay of the empire, 201 ; revival of the em- pire under Murad IV, 215; the age of the great viziers, 225; Kara Mustapha and the siege of Vienna, 247 ; the war of the Holy Alliance, 255 ; Peter the Great and Turkey, 273; Mahmud I and wars with Rus- sia, Austria and Persia, 295 ; Cather- ine II of Russia and loss of the Crimea, 320; renewal of the struggle with Russia, 342; the Ottoman em- pire in the eighteenth century, 364; Turkey in the age of revolution, 377; Mahmud II and the birth of modern Turkey, 408; Abdul Medjid and the Crimean war, 439; Sultan Abdul Aziz and Turkish efforts at reform, 462; Abdul Hamid and the empire to-day, 489 Turkestan: reduced by Arabs, 4 Tzympe, Castle of: taken by Suleiman Pasha, 26 U, V Ulema, The: account of, 98, 369 Ulude AH : at siege of Malta, 172 Unkiar Iskelessi, Treaty of (1833) : signed, 435 ; Russia's attitude to- ward, 443 Urban V, Pope : preaches crusade against the Turks, 30 Vallette, John de la : see La Vallette, John de. Varna: siege of, (1444), 65; Russians repulsed at (1773), 336; siege of (1828), 427 Vasili (III) Ivanovitch : contemporary of Suleiman the Great, 145 ; frees Moscow from Tartars, 192 Vasog. battle of (1442), 61 Venice, Republic of; at war with Genoa, 25 ; makes treaty with Mohammed I of Turkey, 54; at war with the Turks, 56, 60, 84, 113; Selim II breaks treaty with, 195 ; peace of 1573 negotiated, 199; decline of, 211; treaty with Turkey, 269; weak- ness of, 285; cedes the Morea to Turkey, 291 Vienna: sieges of (1276), 6; (1529), 152; (1683), 248 Vienna, Congress of: Turkey excluded from, 410 " Vienna Note, The," 450 Villiers De Lisle Adam, Philippe de : surrenders to Suleiman, 148 Volney, Count: his prediction for Tur- key, 373 W, X, Y, Z Waddington, William Henry: at Berlin Congress, 487 Wahab, Abdul : founds Wahabite sect, 317 Wahabite Sect: rise of, 317; ascen- dency in Arabia, 365, 385 ; conquered by Mohammed Ali, 408 Wallachia: menaced by Murad, 30; submits to Bayezid, 37 ; given to Hungary, 63; revolts under Murad HI of Turkey, 204; seeks peace, 208; relation to Turkey, 365 Wenceslaus, Emperor of Germany; ac- count of, 32 Widdin : surrenders to Sigismund, 40 William II, Emperor of Germany: his policy in the Eastern Question, 508 Yacoub, son of Murad : account of, 36 Yakshibey: lieutenant of Ali Pasha, 34 Yegen Mohammed Pasha, Grand Vizer of Turkey: account of, 311 Yeni Tscheri : see Janissaries Yoglan Beg: defends Nicopolis, 40 Ypsilanti: see Ipsilanti Yusuf, Grand Vizer of Turkey: jealousy of Gazi Hassan, 351 Yussuf Pasha : treachery of, 427 Zapolya, John, King of Hungary: seeks aid from Turkey, 152; death of, 159 Zapolya, Sigismund, King of Hungary: receives Suleiman the Great, 175 Zeitoun (Lysimachia) : surrendered, 60 Zenta: battle of (1697), 263 Zriny, Count, Governor of Szizet : re- sists Suleiman's invasion, 175 Zurawna, Peace of (1676), 246 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hiigard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to ttre library from which it was borrowed. y 02 2001 4^