thousand, made up in part by sailors of his sunken fleet, and in part
by recruits from the Mamelukes. He crossed the Isthmus of Suez, and
reached Gaza on February 25th and Jaffa on March 7th. This last city
was held by five thousand Turks. After a brave defence they capitulated
on terms that they should be treated as prisoners of war. In disregard
of this they were marched down to the beach and, by order of Bonaparte,
were slaughtered in cold blood because it was inconvenient to encumber
his army with prisoners. No worse deed of Turkish atrocity has been
recorded in these pages. Leaving Jaffa, his army arrived before Acre
in a few days. “When I have captured Acre,” he said to his generals,
“I shall arm the tribes. I shall be in a position to threaten
Constantinople. I shall turn the British Empire upside down.”
But he reached at Acre the end of his tether in the East. He had sent
his heavy guns by sea to meet him there. They were captured on the way
by the British fleet, and were now mounted on the mud ramparts of the
fortress and used against him. A British fleet, under command of Sir
Sidney Smith, was lying in the roadstead and kept the communications
open with Constantinople. The admiral and his sailors assisted in the
defence of the city, the garrison of which consisted of only three
thousand men. Its weak fortifications had been strengthened by Colonel
Philippeaux, a distinguished French royalist. Against these defences
Bonaparte hurled his army in vain. In the sixty days of siege there
were forty assaults and twenty sorties of the garrison. “In that
miserable fort,” said Bonaparte, “lay the fate of the East.”
On May 7th large reinforcements arrived from the Turkish army at
Rhodes. A last and desperate assault, led by General Kléber, was
unsuccessful. Bonaparte was compelled to admit his failure. His dream
of an Eastern Empire was dissipated for ever. On May 20th he commenced
a retreat, after a loss by death of four thousand men and eight
generals. The army suffered most severely in passing through the desert.
Shortly after the return of the French troops to Egypt on July 14th,
an army of fifteen thousand Turks, convoyed by the British fleet, was
landed at Aboukir. Bonaparte attacked on the 25th and utterly defeated
it. Thousands of the Turks were driven into the sea and drowned. This
victory of the veterans of the French army over the ill-trained Turkish
levies, without guns or cavalry, was a godsend to Bonaparte. It shed a
gleam of glory over the terrible failure of the whole expedition. His
dispatches made the most of it. At this stage news from France showed
the necessity for his return there. He decided to abandon the army
to its fate. With the utmost secrecy arrangements were made for the
embarkation of the general and his staff on board two frigates. They
rode down to the shore and got into boats, leaving their horses behind
them. The return of the riderless horses was the first intimation to
those left behind that they were abandoned by their general. The two
frigates left Egypt on August 22nd and, by hugging the African coast,
they escaped the British cruisers, and after a most hazardous voyage
of six weeks they landed their passengers in France, where Bonaparte
posed as a conqueror. Nor did his failure in Egypt interfere with his
subsequent triumphant career.
Early in March 1801 a British army of fifteen thousand men, under Sir
Ralph Abercromby, landed in Egypt, and later another contingent, under
General Baird, coming from India, also arrived there. The French army
of occupation was badly handled. It was divided between Cairo and
Alexandria. It was defeated in detail and ultimately surrendered. It
was then said to number twenty-four thousand men and three hundred and
twelve guns. On hearing of this disaster Bonaparte is said to have felt
great anguish. “We have lost Egypt,” he said. “My projects have been
destroyed by the British.” Egypt was restored to the Sultan, freed
not only from the French but also from the Mamelukes, and for a time
Turkish pashas, appointed by the Porte, ruled the country. There can
be no doubt that the Sultan owed this wholly and solely to the British
Government. It will be seen that he showed little gratitude, for in a
very few years’ time he took the part of the French in the great war.
Meanwhile, in 1802, a peace was patched up for a time between England
and France at Amiens. Concurrently with this terms of peace were agreed
upon between France and the Porte, under which the sovereignty of the
Sultan over Egypt was recognized. When, two years later, war again
broke out between France and England and other Powers, Bonaparte, then
First Consul, reversed his action as regards the Ottoman Empire, and
made an alliance with it a cardinal point of his new policy.
After the conclusion of peace with France in 1802, Sultan Selim had
a respite for a very few years before he was again involved in war.
He directed his attention to serious internal reforms of his Empire.
He fully recognized that the first and foremost of these must be the
reorganization, if not the suppression, of the corps of Janissaries.
Not only had the experience of late wars shown that they had become a
most incompetent military force, quite unable to meet on equal terms
the well-trained soldiers of Russia and France, but in every part of
his Empire they were a danger to the State, endeavouring to monopolize
power and to oust that of the pashas appointed by himself. They were
also the main oppressors of the rayas. The task of suppressing them and
of creating an army on the model of those of European Powers was a most
difficult and dangerous one, for the Janissaries were, or pretended to
be, the most devout of Moslems, and were supported by the fanatical
part of the population. They had strong supporters in the Divan. The
ulemas were almost unanimously in their favour. The Divan was divided
into two parties, those who favoured reform and who gave support to the
Sultan, and the reactionary party, who were opposed to all reform and
championed the Janissaries. There was another serious division of the
Divan—namely those who espoused the cause of Russia, not infrequently
in the pay of that Power, and those who favoured France. After the
conclusion of peace, France was represented at the Court of the Sultan
by very able ministers, who soon regained the influence for that
country which it had formerly enjoyed.
Nowhere throughout the Empire were the Janissaries more turbulent and
dangerous or more oppressive to the rayas than in Serbia. They aimed at
governing the province in the same way as the Mamelukes in Egypt and
the military Begs in Algiers and Tunis, and if they had been allowed
to have their way, Serbia would have achieved a virtual independence
of the Porte, under a military and fanatical Moslem despotism. The
Janissaries there were almost as hostile to the Spahis inhabiting
the provinces as to the rayas. They aimed at ousting the Spahis from
their feudal rights in the country districts and at an assumption of
ownership of land, more oppressive to the peasant Christian cultivators
of the soil than that of the Spahis. Both Spahis and rayas appealed to
the Porte for protection against these ruffians. The rayas in their
petition to the Sultan said that—
not only were they reduced to abject poverty by the Dahis (the
leaders of the Janissaries), but they were attacked in their
religion, their morality, and their honour. 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
violated. Art thou still our Czar? then come and free us from these
evildoers, and if thou wilt not save us, at least tell us that we may
decide whether to flee to the mountains and forests, or to seek in
the rivers a termination of our miserable existence.[31]
The Sultan was willing to listen to these grave complaints, and to
put down the turbulent Dahis and their attendant Janissaries, not so
much out of sympathy for the rayas as in order to restore his own
authority in the province and as a first step towards the reformation
or suppression of the Janissaries elsewhere throughout his Empire. He
began by threatening the Dahis. If they did not mend their ways, he
would send an army against them. These ruffians, knowing that the
Sultan could not venture to employ a Moslem force against them, came
to the conclusion that he meant to arm the rayas of the province. They
determined to anticipate this by a general massacre. If no resistance
had been offered to this, the whole Christian population of Serbia
would have been exterminated. The rayas, however, were no longer the
submissive and patient people they had been reduced to by servitude for
two hundred and fifty years under the Turks, during which no one of
them had been allowed to carry about him a weapon of defence. As has
been already stated, they had been invited to rebel by the Austrians
in their last war with the Turks, had been armed by them, and had
given valuable assistance. Great numbers of them had been trained as
soldiers, and retained their arms when the Austrians retired from
the country, after the peace of Sistova, which provided no adequate
security for these unfortunate people.
They now, in 1807, rose in arms against their oppressors, who were bent
on exterminating them. They elected as their leader George Petrowitsch
(Kara George, as he is known in history), a peasant like themselves,
a most brave man, who had served in the Austrian army, and who soon
showed great qualities as a general. Under his leadership the rayas
succeeded in driving the Dahis and Janissaries out of the country
districts.
The Sultan at the commencement of this servile war lent his assistance
to the rayas. The Pasha of Bosnia was instructed to support them with
an armed force. The local Spahis also, who were still in the country
and had not been driven away by the Dahis, lent assistance. On the
other hand, the Dahis received assistance from the fanatical part
of the Moslems in the towns. They had also the sympathy and aid of
Passhwan Oghlou, the mutinous Pasha of Widdin. It was, however, almost
wholly due to the efforts of the Serbian rayas that the Dahis were
completely defeated. Most of them were slaughtered, and the world was
well rid of them. When this was achieved, the whole of Serbia was
practically in the hands of the Christian rayas, with the exception of
Belgrade and a few fortresses, which were garrisoned by the Sultan’s
troops.
At this stage the Sultan, when all that he really aimed at was
achieved—namely the suppression of the local Janissaries—summoned the
insurgent rayas to lay down their arms and to resume their position
as subjects of the Porte and as rayas under the yoke of the local
Spahis as of yore. The war, however, had evoked a national spirit among
the Christian population, which would not be content with the old
condition of servitude. They sent a petition to the Russian Government
claiming assistance on the ground that they were members of the Greek
Church. The Czar, in reply, advised them to present their claims at
Constantinople, and promised to give his support to them at the Porte.
They then sent a deputation to the Sultan, and boldly claimed that
Belgrade and the other fortresses should be given up to them, and
asked that arrears of taxes and tribute should be remitted. The first
of these was the most important, for it virtually meant a claim for
autonomy under the suzerainty only of the Sultan.
These demands caused the greatest indignation among the Moslems of
the capital, and the Sultan forthwith rejected them. He ordered the
members of the deputation to be imprisoned. He directed the Pasha of
Nisch to invade Serbia and reduce the contumacious rayas to their
former condition. He threatened them with death or slavery. Kara George
met this force on the frontier of Serbia and defeated it. He also
defeated two other armies which the Sultan sent against him, and he
was able, unaided by any external force, to capture Belgrade and the
other fortresses and expel the Turkish garrisons. Thus it happened that
the native Christians of Serbia, by their own heroic efforts, without
any foreign assistance, achieved a virtual independence of Ottoman
rule, an event of supreme importance in its effect on other Christian
communities under servitude to the Turks.
Meanwhile important events were developing at Constantinople. It was
the scene of a violent diplomatic struggle between Russia and England
on the one hand, and France on the other, for the support of the
Porte in the war then raging in Europe. The Emperor Napoleon sent as
ambassador there General Sebastiani, formerly a priest, now a soldier
and able diplomat. His demands were supported by the great victory
of the French over the Austrians at Ulm. The recent acquisition by
France of Dalmatia and a part of Croatia brought that Power into close
relation with Turkey. Sebastiani pressed for the support of Turkey with
great insistence.
On the other hand, Russia was equally cogent in its demands, and even
more threatening. It insisted on an alliance, offensive and defensive.
It demanded that the Sultan should recognize the Czar as the protector
of all the Christians in Turkey professing the Greek religion, and that
the Russian Ambassador should have the right of intervention on their
behalf. The Sultan, conscious of the inferiority of his military force,
could only temporize.
Moslem pride and fanaticism was greatly excited by the demands of
Russia. Sebastiani, working on this, persuaded the Sultan, by way of
retort to Russia, to depose the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, on
the ground that they were suspected of being pensioners of Russia. The
Czar treated this as a gross breach of the engagement entered into by
the Porte, in 1802, under which the Hospodars of the two principalities
were only to be removed from their posts with the consent of Russia. He
thereupon ordered an army of thirty-five thousand men, under General
Michelsen, to invade Moldavia. The army entered Jassy and, a little
later, Bucharest before the Porte was able to make any resistance.
The British Government at the same time gave full support to Russia.
Its Ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, insisted on the Porte joining the
alliance of England and Russia against France. The Sultan refused to
do so. Mr. Arbuthnot thereupon sailed away in a frigate and joined
the British fleet lying off the island of Tenedos, under the command
of Admiral Duckworth, which consisted of seven battleships and two
frigates. This fleet, favoured by a fair wind, then forced the
Dardanelles against the Turkish batteries on February 19, 1807, with
little damage, and made its appearance in the Sea of Marmora. It there
destroyed a Turkish battleship and four corvettes.
The fleet anchored off the Prince’s Islands, within a few miles
of Constantinople, which was exposed to bombardment from the sea.
The admiral presented a demand to the Porte for the surrender of
the Ottoman fleet lying at Constantinople and for compliance with
the demands of Mr. Arbuthnot. He threatened to bombard the city if
his ultimatum was rejected. If any serious effect could have been
given to this menace, immediate action should have been taken. The
Ambassador and the admiral allowed themselves to be drawn into a
negotiation spread over ten days, during which the Sultan and the
whole male population of his capital were engaged, with feverish
haste, in strengthening the defences of the city. A thousand guns
and a hundred mortars were mounted on its batteries. The Turkish
fleet, consisting of twelve battleships, was removed to a point in
the harbour beyond the reach of the guns of a bombarding fleet. The
defences of the Dardanelles were also greatly strengthened. Admiral
Duckworth was compelled at last to the conclusion that a bombardment
would be attended with very serious risk to his own fleet. If it were
damaged, the Turkish fleet, coming out of the Bosphorus, might assail
it with advantage. It might also be impossible for it to repass the
Dardanelles. He decided to withdraw. On March 1st he weighed anchor,
and on the 3rd he repassed the Dardanelles, this time with considerable
damage to his ships and loss of life. Some of the ships were struck
by the enormous stone balls fired from the Turkish batteries. Two
corvettes were sunk and six hundred men were killed. The fleet narrowly
escaped destruction. The whole adventure redounded little to the credit
either of the diplomacy or strategy of the British Government.
Not content with this futile demonstration against Constantinople, the
British Government attempted another expedition, even more futile and
senseless, this time against Egypt, in the hope, it may be supposed,
of bringing pressure to bear on the Sultan. A force of five thousand
soldiers was sent from Sicily, then in British occupation, and was
landed on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria on March 18th. It marched
on that city, which, garrisoned by only four hundred and fifty Turks,
surrendered. This was its first and last success. A few days later
fifteen hundred men were sent to attack Rosetta, at the mouth of the
Nile, and were repulsed. Another expedition was even more unsuccessful.
Of two thousand men sent out, one thousand were killed and wounded.
There seems to have been expectation that the Mamelukes would assist
the British against the Turkish troops. This was not realized. The
remains of the small army under General Fraser were cooped up in
Alexandria until September, when, owing to the serious disaffection of
the inhabitants of the city and the approach of a large body of Turks
from Cairo, it was recognized that its position was untenable. A flag
of truce was sent to the advancing Turks with the offer to evacuate
Egypt if the British prisoners in their hands were given up to them.
This was accepted, and on September 25th the little army embarked again
on its transports and returned to Sicily.
These two senseless expeditions had an effect the very reverse of which
was intended. They exasperated Turkish opinion and drove the Porte
into closer alliance with the French. In the meantime, and since the
failure of the demonstration by Duckworth’s fleet, momentous events
occurred in Constantinople. The Sultan took advantage of the departure
of the main body of Janissaries with the army sent to the Danube to
extend his scheme for raising a military force, clothed and drilled and
paid on the European system. He issued an edict that the youngest and
best of the Janissaries were to be enrolled in this new corps. This
caused the gravest discontent among the Janissaries still in garrison
at Constantinople, to the reactionary party in the Divan, and to the
ulemas. The Janissaries broke out in mutiny at the end of May 1807.
They put this question to the Mufti: “What punishment is deserved by
one who has established the new military force?” The Mufti replied:
“Death, and that according to the Koran, since the Divan had introduced
among Mussulmans the manners of infidels and manifested an intention to
suppress the Janissaries, who were the true defenders of the law and
the prophets.”
Fortified by this _fetva_, the Janissaries then passed a resolution
that Selim must be deposed. They sent a deputation to the Sultan to
insist on his abdication. Selim, however, had already heard of their
intention. He had no force at hand sufficient to overcome the mutinous
Janissaries. He anticipated their demands by himself going to the Cage,
where his cousin Mustapha, the next heir to the throne, was immured,
making obeisance to him as Sultan, advising him not to listen to those
who desired great changes, and wishing him a happier reign than his
own. He then attempted to commit suicide by taking poison, but Mustapha
dashed the cup containing it from his hands and swore that his life
should be saved. On the arrival of the deputation of Janissaries at the
palace they found that a new Sultan was already installed there. Selim
retired with dignity to the apartments in the Cage vacated by Mustapha.
The new Sultan, Mustapha III, was a very weak and incompetent man.
He was aged thirty, of imperfect education and poor intellect. He
filled the throne for a few months only, during which there was
practically no government. Though Selim himself was reconciled to the
loss of his throne, he had powerful friends who resented his fall.
Bairactar, the Pasha of Rustchuck, who owed his post to Selim, marched
upon Constantinople with forty thousand Bosnians and Albanians. They
overawed the Janissaries and invaded the palace. They knocked at its
gates and demanded that Selim should be brought out to them. Mustapha,
however, on their approach, had already given orders that Selim and
Mahmoud, the only survivors of the Othman race besides himself, were
to be put to death, in the hope that this might save his own life. The
mutes were able to strangle Selim, not without a desperate struggle,
which, if prolonged for a few minutes, would have saved him, for
Bairactar was already storming at the gate of the palace. Mahmoud could
not be found. Selim’s body was then cast out to Bairactar and his
men. “Here is he you seek!” it was called out. On entering the palace
Bairactar found Mustapha seated on his throne. He was dragged from it
and was sent to prison. Mahmoud, who had been hidden in the furnace of
a bath, was found and was installed as Sultan.
Bairactar, having succeeded in deposing Mustapha and installing
Mahmoud, most unwisely allowed the Bosnian and Albanian troops to
return to their homes. There remained only four thousand men as a
bodyguard on whom the new Sultan could rely. They were not sufficient
to withstand the Janissaries. These turbulent men broke out in another
rebellion. They attacked Bairactar in his palace. He took refuge in
a tower used as a powder magazine. He was there blown up, whether
by accident or wilfully is not known. There ensued a few days of
civil war. The artillery on whom the Sultan relied went over to the
Janissaries. A counter-revolution was effected. Mustapha would have
been restored to the throne if he had not been put to death in the
interval. Mahmoud owed his life to the fact that he was the last
surviving male of the Othman race. He was compelled to yield to the
menaces of the Janissaries, who were now masters of the city. An edict
was issued in his name which repealed all the reforms effected by
Selim. The old system was restored, with all its abuses. In the next
three or four years the Janissaries were virtually the rulers of the
Empire. Grand Viziers were appointed and dismissed at their dictation.
Mahmoud was greatly humiliated. But he bided his time, and it will
be seen that before long he inflicted a most bloody revenge on the
Janissaries and extinguished their corps for ever.
Meanwhile affairs on the Danube fared badly with the Turks, as might
be expected. The Russians gained complete possession of Moldavia and
Wallachia. Their armies crossed the Danube and laid siege to fortresses
on the right bank. In 1807 Russia and France came to terms. The treaty
of Tilsit provided that hostilities were to cease between Russia and
Turkey, and that the Russian troops were to be withdrawn from Moldavia
and Wallachia, till a definitive agreement had been come to between
these two Powers. But a secret article, which was not made public till
some time later, provided that all the European provinces of Turkey,
except Roumelia and Constantinople, were to be taken from the Sultan.
We now know that there were long discussions between Napoleon and the
Czar, on the River Niemen, as to the future disposal of these and
other provinces. Napoleon was ready to concede to Russia the Danubian
principalities and Bulgaria. He claimed for France Egypt, Syria,
Greece, all the islands of the Archipelago, and Crete. Austria was
to be propitiated by the cession of Bosnia and Serbia. The question
remained what was to be done with Constantinople. Napoleon would not
concede it to Russia. The Czar insisted upon this. The agreement
broke down on this point. But it is certain that Napoleon was willing
enough to throw over his recent allies, the Turks, and to join with
their hereditary foe in dismembering their Empire. A more perfidious
transaction is not to be found in history.