The Empire inherited by Selim--Roxalana's influence--The capture of
Cyprus--Amurath III and his brothers--Queen Elizabeth's embassy to
the Porte--Corruption in the army--The death of Amurath
III--Mohammed III--Losses of the Empire--The battle of
Cerestes--The Peace of Sitvatorok--The state of Europe--The
Janissaries and Othman II--Amurath IV suppresses the military
revolt and re-establishes order--Capture of Bagdad--Mustapha the
Drunkard--Ibrahim succeeds Amurath--Kara Mustapha executed--Sultana
Validé--Mohammed Kiüprilü--Achmet Kiüprilü succeeds his
father--Turks defeated at St. Gothardt--The reconquest of
Candia--The war in Poland--The Turks before Vienna again--The Turks
defeated by Sobieski--The Janissaries--Solyman II--Prince Eugene of
Savoy--The state of Western Europe.
The Empire which Selim II inherited from his father extended from the
Atlas to the Caucasus, from the Carpathians to the Nile, and among his
subjects were counted Greeks and Armenians, Bulgars, Serbs, Bosniaks,
Montenegrins, Herzegovinians, Vlachs and Albanians, Romanies and the
wandering Tsigani, Arabs, Kurds and Chaldeans, Turkomans and Magyars in
the conquered provinces of Hungary, Germans in Transylvania, Copts of
Egypt, and Jews of Palestine, or exiled from the Iberian peninsula. The
corps of Janissaries had been raised to 20,000, the paid standing army
numbered 48,000, with 200,000 irregular auxiliaries, and the fleet
mustered 300 warships. The Ottoman Army was first in the world, and
Christian monarchs of the West acknowledged the supremacy of the Caliph
who sat in the seat of Constantine. The reign of Solyman marked the
highest rise of Ottoman power; the decline began with Selim, his and
Roxalana's son.
Whereas the reign of every Sultan preceding Selim had been impressed
with the ruler's personality, the only quality to which a Turk is
capable of responding, the rule of Selim showed no such strengthening
influence. His mother, Roxalana, was all-powerful, but her bloody
intrigues led to many dissensions in the harem, and these reacted on the
life of the nation. In order to pursue a course of conquest in Asia,
Selim called an armistice with Emperor Maximilian, and turned his
attention towards Astrachan. Here he came into conflict with the Tsars
of Muscovy, who, having freed themselves from Tartar domination, gave
wing to their ambition, and even in those early days pretended to the
throne of Constantine, for Ivan III had married Sophia, last Princess of
the Greek imperial family, and had taken the two-headed eagle of Byzant
as his cognizance. The Porte was powerless against Ivan the Terrible,
who annexed Astrachan, and induced the Don Cossacks to join him, under
their Hetman, Yermak, the man who added Siberia to the possessions of
the Tsar.
The Sultan did not take the field in person, did not even concern
himself with the government of his reign, so Sokoli, his Grand Vizier,
guided the ship of state, and led campaigns which were by no means
successful, for the Arabs prevented the execution of a plan to pierce a
canal joining Mediterranean and Red Sea at Suez. The Turks were more
fortunate at sea, where Sala Mustapha roved at large, reducing Cyprus
with unheard-of cruelties. A similar spirit informed Russian conquest at
this period. About this time Ivan the Cruel took Wittenstein, and had
the captive Finns hewn in pieces, their leader roasted alive on a spear.
The horrors of the capture of Cyprus roused all the Christian rulers by
the Mediterranean Sea to fury; a large fleet was collected by Don Juan
of Austria, son of Charles V, and Margarete Blumberg, the frail, fair
lady of Ratisbon. Marco Colonna brought a fleet found by the Pope;
Spain, Malta, and Savoy sent their galleons, the Venetians joined with
one hundred and eight galleys and six galliases, under Admiral Veniero,
a naval crusade, as it were. There were great names among these
crusaders, the Prince of Parma, Caraccioli, the Marquis of Santa Croce,
Andrea Doria, and Cervantes, author of _Don Quixote_. The hostile fleets
met off Lepanto and engaged in a furious battle, which resulted in a
complete victory for the Christian Allies; thirty thousand Turks were
slain, fifteen thousand of their Christian slaves rescued from the
galleys, and of the stately Ottoman fleet only forty vessels, under
Ouloudjé, made good their escape. But the victory of Lepanto was wasted,
was not followed up, for though the Western nations might win battles,
yet were they not equal to the Turks in the long run.
Selim II died drunk, and was succeeded by Amurath III, who reigned from
1574-1595. A weak, dissolute ruler, he inaugurated his rule with
customary fratricide; he had five brothers, whom he thought fit to
remove out of the way of temptation to usurp the throne. The weakness of
this Sultan affected the spirit of his armies, which fought with only
partial success in Persia, while Amurath led a life of pleasure. He was
swayed chiefly by his favourite Sultana, Safiyé, a Venetian lady of the
noble House of Baffo, who had been captured by the Corsairs when young
and presented to the Sultan. Yet, though the power of the Ottoman Empire
was declining, it was still considered the most formidable in Europe,
and Western monarchs did not hesitate to ask assistance of the Sultan.
Even from distant England came ambassadors on such missions, urging
Amurath to aid Queen Elizabeth against Spain; but help was not
forthcoming. The Porte gained further feeling with the West by entering
into commercial relations with other countries, and, moreover, treated
them in no illiberal spirit. But corruption had set in among the armed
forces of the Empire; commands and places were sold, and even the Sultan
took his share of the profits. Corruption led to all manner of abuses,
and these caused discontent; the Janissaries mutinied, and brought about
the fall of a Grand Vizier; garrisons whose pay was far in arrears
revolted at Pesth and Tabriz, the Druses of Lebanon began a series of
insurrections which continued into recent times, and trouble arose among
the peoples of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.
In the midst of all these happenings weak Amurath sickened and died,
having done nothing for his country but to leave behind him twenty sons
and twenty-seven daughters of the hundred and three children he begat.
This gave his eldest son and successor, Mohammed III, a great deal to do
before he could gird on securely the sword of Othman; he killed all his
brothers, and seven female slaves in the condition called "Guter
Hoffnung" by the Germans were sewn into sacks and thrown into the
Bosphorus. Mohammed was also the last of the Imperial Princes to be
trusted with the governorship of a province; from his time on all scions
of the House of Othman were kept in rigorous seclusion, leaving it for
the grave or the throne as fate might decide. This Sultan also preferred
a life of ease to the hardships of campaigning, and amidst the pleasures
of the Seraglio, where his mother, Safiyé Sultana Validé, reigned
supreme, let the misfortunes that befell the Ottoman armies pass
unheeded. Archduke Maximilian and Count Palffy, assisted by revolted
Danube Princes, retook one strong place after another. Gran fell, and
Visegrad, Ibrail (Braila), Rustchuk, and other cities on the Danube,
till Grand Vizier Sead-ed-din insisted on the appearance of his imperial
master in the field.
The Sultan was with difficulty persuaded, but at last he displayed the
sacred standard of the Prophet before his troops, and rekindled their
martial ardour. His first battle was fought at Cerestes, and lasted
three days, which the Sultan considered too long, for when on the third
day the Christian forces seemed victorious, Mohammed, who was watching
the fray from the back of a camel, thought it time to retire, and
prepared to lead a rapid retreat. However, at the critical moment Cicala
Pasha brought up some fresh irregular cavalry, and their impetuous
charge broke the thinned ranks of the Christians. Probably for the first
time in the history of Ottoman arms a number of troops, some thirty
thousand Asiatics, broke and fled during this battle. They were pursued,
and those who were captured suffered severe punishment at the hands of
Cicala. Others escaped to Asia Minor, where they raised the banner of
revolt, which distressed the remaining years of Mohammed's reign. In the
meantime the war dragged on with varying success in Hungary, till both
sides grew tired, and agreed to the Peace of Sitvatorok, by which
Transylvania was practically lost to Turkey.
The prestige of Ottoman power had been steadily sinking under Mohammed
III, and its decline would have been more marked but for the dissensions
and disturbances all over Europe. The German States were taking up arms
against each other in the name of religion, Spain was declining rapidly
since Philip II died, and Russia was rent by revolts. So the ill-success
of Turkish arms during the reign of Achmet I, an imbecile, the revolts
in Asia Minor, and the constant military mutinies, passed unnoticed by
those sovereigns who might have been advantaged by the weakness of the
Porte. The only really important event in the reign of Achmet I was the
introduction of tobacco, the natural concomitant to coffee, with which
the Turks became acquainted under Solyman the Great.
On Mustapha's short reign of three months followed the unhappy time of
the second Othman, who lacked all the good qualities of his great
namesake. His chief pastime was archery, using prisoners of war, even
his own pages, as targets, but for actual warfare he cared nothing, and
entered into a very disadvantageous peace with Persia. His Janissaries
grumbled at their sovereign's inertia, so to please them, and probably
to bleed them a little, he engaged in war with Poland, which, proving
disastrous, made the Sultan very unpopular. His disgusted soldiery
therefore took him to Yedi Koulé, kept him there for some time a
prisoner, and finally strangled him.
[Illustration: THE DARDANELLES
Turkish warships, cleared for action, lying in wait for the Greek
fleet.]
[Illustration: SEMENDRIA
A Roman stronghold in Servia on the Danube, for long a Turkish
fortress.]
Palace and harem intrigues brought about such an impossible state of
affairs in the country that even the army, generally ready to profit by
confusion, became alarmed for the welfare of the Empire. The steps they
took proved disastrous to themselves in the end. They placed Amurath,
brother of Othman II, a child of eleven, on the throne, and then
proceeded to govern the country under their own leaders and in their own
interests. Western Europe was becoming more and more aware of the
decline of Ottoman power in Europe, and there were not wanting prophets
who foretold the speedy dissolution of the Turkish Empire, among these
Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from James I, who bemoaned the misery,
anarchy, and general decay, as evident in 1622. A wise woman, his
mother, Sultana Mahpeiker, guided Amurath IV through the troubled days
of his childhood, and brought up a Sultan endowed with vigour of body
and mind to man's estate. The first acts of his reign, the swift and
secret killing of the rebel leaders, cowed the soldiery into submission.
Amurath punished with death right and left, and even the Chief Mufti's
head went to the executioner for the bad state of the roads over which
his sovereign chose to travel. Amurath led his armies to war as
former Sultans had been wont to do, and brought them back victorious,
for Persia had been badly beaten and Bagdad retaken. The story is told
of how at the siege of that city a Persian giant threw down the gauntlet
to the Turkish army, how Amurath took it up, and in single combat clove
the giant's skull to the chin with his sabre. The Persian garrison of
thirty thousand was slaughtered, three hundred only making their escape.
So Amurath returned to Constantinople, to enter the City in triumph at
the head of his troops, and no Sultan has done so since that time.
But Amurath broke the laws of the Prophet and drank wine. A story tells
how the Sultan took the first step on the forbidden road. He was walking
in the streets of his capital one night, when Mustapha, the drunkard,
rolled up against him, and expressed no particular regret at bumping
into his sovereign, in fact, was much too happy to dream of offering
apologies to any monarch. He was summoned to the Court next day, and
arrived there with his bottle: "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." So
spake Mustapha, offering his flask to Amurath, who drained it on the
spot, and thus became a total non-abstainer.
Mustapha remained about the palace as Amurath's boon companion, and
their convivial evenings may have hastened the Sultan's end; he was only
thirty-eight when sickness overtook him so suddenly that he had hardly
time to order the execution of his brother Ibrahim, by way of settling
up the affairs of state, and receive a message that the sentence had
been carried out, before he died.
Nevertheless Ibrahim came to the throne, and reigned from 1640-1648, for
the Sultana's message to Amurath IV, bringing news of his brother's
execution, was strictly untrue, and by this conventional lie, as one
might describe it considering the etiquette of the time, a Sultan,
rapacious, mean, bloodthirsty, and a coward, rose to the dignity of the
Caliphate, became God's Shadow on Earth, and was girded with the sword
of Othman. The harem was subject to Ibrahim's most serious
consideration, and therefore insisted too much on its power; so when
Kara Mustapha, the Grand Vizier, forgot to order firewood on the
requisition of the dear little ladies who made the Sultan's life so
bright and happy, he was arraigned on a capital charge. No matter that
foreign politics engrossed the attention of the Grand Vizier, no matter
that provinces won by the sword of Othman were drifting into other
hands, no matter that the Treasury was empty--the ladies of the Seraglio
had complained, and the Grand Vizier must suffer; so the executioner
removed the only man who realized the needs of Turkey and strove to mend
matters. To turn a dishonest penny for himself and his household
expenses the Sultan sold high offices in the State, the Army, and the
Navy, but when disaster attended Ottoman arms in their war against
Venice, the Army became exasperated, deposed the Sultan, killed him, and
set his infant son, Mohammed IV, a child of seven, upon the seat of the
Cæsars and Sultans.
Fortunately the new Sultan's mother had the great gift of finding the
right man for the right place, the gift which enabled King William of
Prussia, first German Emperor, to discover Bismarck, Moltke, and other
great men who brought ruin to one Empire to give birth to another. The
Sultana Validé called Mohammed Kiüprilü, then Governor of Jerusalem and
Vizier of State, to be Grand Vizier, and thus started a dynasty of Grand
Viziers which devoted great talents and energy to the saving of Ottoman
power in the world. Mohammed, the new Grand Vizier, was grandson of an
Albanian who had migrated to Asia Minor and settled at Kiüpri. He was
probably a convert to Islam for purposes of advancement, a usual
occurrence in those days. Mohammed Kiüprilü entered the service of the
Grand Vizier Khosren as kitchen-boy, rose to be cook, then Steward of
the Household, was promoted Master of the Horse, then became Governor of
Damascus, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, when the Sultana discovered him to the
saving of Turkey.
Mohammed Kiüprilü set about his new duties with vigour and impartiality.
There was much clearing-up at home; the Greek Patriarch had written to
the Voivode of Wallachia prophesying that Christianity would soon
replace falling Islam in the Ottoman possessions in Europe. His Holiness
was hanged over his own gateway. The Grand Vizier spared no creed, no
race, and thirty-six thousand persons suffered death in various forms
during the first five years of the new order; Soulfikar, Chief
Executioner of Constantinople, accounted for at least four thousand,
strangled by his own hand and thrown into the Bosphorus. By these
measures order was restored, then the navy was rebuilt, the army
refitted, and Ottoman prestige rose again with the reconquest of several
lost provinces.
Another thoroughly efficient Kiüprilü, Achmet, followed his father in
the Grand Vizierate, and led an army of 120,000 men, 120 field-guns, 12
heavy siege-guns, 6000 camels, and 10,000 mules, to Hungary, while
Sultan Mohammed stayed behind at Adrianople indulging in his only
pastime, the chase. The Ottoman army overran all Hungary and
Transylvania, spreading devastation, until it finally halted on the
banks of the Raab. Here, near the Monastery of St. Gothardt, East and
West met in battle again. Many years had passed since their last
encounter; in the meantime the West had progressed slowly, surely.
German pikemen and musketeers offered solid, organized resistance, and
kept the fiery irregular Akindji at bay; the cuirassiers of the West,
heavy, steel-clad cavalry, riding in serried ranks, knee to knee,
ploughed through the masses of Turkish foot-folk, and then, unlike their
knightly predecessors, were by discipline enabled to rally and move to
further deeds of valour. Against this, the Turkish army of that day had
lost some of its old enthusiasm and had learnt nothing new. So at St.
Gothardt, as at Kirk Kilisse, we find the West, high-purposed, highly
trained and disciplined, opposed to the East, trading on a military
tradition, unprepared, corrupt, inefficient, ill-disciplined--and with
the same results. The battle of St. Gothardt-on-Raab was the first great
defeat inflicted on the East by the West; 10,000 Turks were slain, 15
guns, 40 standards captured. A discomfited army returned to
Constantinople after a twenty years' truce had been arranged with
Austria, and sought relief, and possibly found it, in expeditions
elsewhere; Candia was taken after a vain blockade and siege of twenty
years.
The Sultan was induced to accompany his army on the campaign against
Poland in 1672, and gained some victories: Kaminec and Lemberg were
taken, Podolia and Ukraine added to Turkey, and a tribute of two hundred
and twenty thousand ducats was imposed on the conquered territory. But
Sobieski and his Polish nobles combined against the Turks, routing them
with great slaughter at Lemberg in 1675, though leaving matters much as
they had been.
On the death of Achmet Kiüprilü matters went from bad to worse, the
Turks being defeated in the Ukraine by Russia; nevertheless a great
effort was made to carry war into Austria, and an army of two hundred
and seventy-five thousand men set out under Kara Mustapha, the new
Grand Vizier, to besiege Vienna once more. Count Stahremberg and his
garrison of eleven thousand men stoutly resisted the assaults delivered
by the Turkish troops, who devoted all their energies to the attack,
neglecting the defence of their own scattered encampments. This made
Sobieski's task the easier when his army swooped down from the heights
around Vienna. The Turks were totally routed, and driven in headlong
flight before the armies of the West. Kara Mustapha was executed at
Belgrade to expiate the general inefficiency of the army, which was
thereupon beaten again in a renewed attempt on Hungary, at Mohacz; this
battle freed the Magyars from the domination of the Sublime Porte.
Turkey's misfortunes emboldened Venice to make reprisals on outlying
posts of the Empire, and as Turkish naval power had declined in keeping
with the efficiency of the land army, disaster after disaster
exasperated the unruly soldiery, and they took to their favourite
expedient of dethroning the Sultan.
During the reign of Mohammed IV the status of the Janissaries was
altered; no more Christian children were added to the corps, only the
offspring of former Janissaries, and an ever-increasing number of Turks
and other Moslems, in quest of the many civil as well as military posts,
often given to this body.
Another Solyman, second of the name, followed Mohammed IV, and he was
followed by Achmet II (1691-1695). Both sovereigns enjoyed the services
of a Kiüprilü as Grand Vizier, for Kiüprilü Zadé Mustapha held that high
office during both reigns; but the Ottoman power had been much enfeebled
by disastrous wars and inner dissensions; moreover, it had to contend
against one of the world's greatest soldiers, "Prinz Eugen, der Edle
Ritter." He scattered the Ottoman armies like chaff before the wind at
Peterwardein and Belgrade, and again at Slankamen, in Achmet's reign, at
which place, where the Theiss and Danube meet in a broad expanse of
water, the Turkish river fleet won a partial success, which was
negatived by a sore defeat on land. Kiüprilü was killed, and the Turks
were driven from Hungary. Transylvania, too, was lost when Tekeli was
beaten by the Imperialists; but yet subtler, more insidious enemies
preyed upon the nation, famine and pestilence, and to all these troubles
Nature contributed a devastating earthquake. These things came upon
Sultan Achmet during the four years of his reign, and sent him
broken-hearted to the grave.
The Western nations had emerged out of their sea of troubles when Achmet
II died in 1695. The German Empire had entered on a lengthy period of
peace after distracting wars, and the gentler arts of peace revived. But
the wars had consolidated the military power of the Empire, the
impetuous chivalry of knights took the ordered form of discipline
without losing its martial spirit, and Western brains advanced rapidly
along the path of progress in all directions.
In the meantime, Turkey had learnt nothing new, and was falling behind.
The art of war was neglected, other arts there were none; and while in
England immortal Milton's pen added to the world's literary treasures,
while France was listening to Corneille's sonorous verses, and Algernon
Sidney was discoursing concerning government, the power of the Osmanli
was sinking into the ruin of corruption, the Empire built up by warlike
Sultans was passing out of the hands of those who could not add to the
conquests of war by the arts of peace, into the hands of those who were
inspired with the spirit of a new era.