civilization by which the isolation of Germanic tribal life was swept
aside, and the Germans learned that there were other governmental
principles than custom, and began to see that might was not the only
right. The institutions of the Church did more than preserve the ideal
element for the individual and for society. They stood for continuity
in securing the best achievements of classic culture in government and
in learning, and prevented just that kind of social cataclysm which
marked the progress of Islam, when it attempted to handle mankind in
the mass. Reverence for the Holy Scriptures, however imperfect may
have been the acquaintance with them, had a powerful influence in
maintaining the connection of Church and State, and acted constantly
against the divisive tendencies of racial rule.
The Celts of Western France, the remnant of the people who had once
dominated the whole of Occidental Europe, were brought into the sphere
of general European life, and the same opportunities were given to
the Germanic peoples. Allied with the population of Latin origin,
they extended their sway over a territory which before had never felt
the influence of centralization. The union of the two elements was of
momentous importance, and this achievement stands out as the abiding
result of the Emperor’s conquest. France and Germany made up a whole,
in which the Teutonic element had a superior position, but without
tyrannizing over the peoples of the Romance stock. In Burgundy and
Neustria the elements of Latin blood were strongest, and the contrast
gave a peculiar character to Austrasia.
The most significant factor of the Emperor’s rule was that it offered
a center of unity to the Teutonic tribes, consolidating them, where
the Merovingian kingdoms, which also stood for the old Germanic tribal
traditions, had shown complete incapacity. But under the Carolingian
rule, neither the Alemanni, nor the Bavarians, nor the Saxons, could
claim predominance, for the sovereign’s authority was exercised
apart from all these tribal influences, and yet at the same time the
characteristics of the tribe, local sentiment, and customary law, were
not broken up by the central government. The Teutonic local division,
the “Gau,” was no more interfered with than the Gallic “Civitas.” The
power at the top of all, formed by the armed hosts of the component
parts of the Empire and by the clergy, was expressed in institutions
that kept the body politic together. In the assemblies, all the
different nationalities took part, and acted under the guidance of the
single will of a single ruler, who was kept from the capricious action
of a tyrant by his firm hold on the ideal of a Christian commonwealth.
The principles of the whole imperial system harmonized with popular
governmental traditions, and both in their social and in their
religious aspects answered to the popular conceptions of membership in
a world-wide church.
Charles, in his plans for the succession, looked forward to a ruling
family controlling by descent a singularly heterogeneous collection
of races. It is unthinkable, as an historical principle, that the
traditions and customs of race and tribe could be long suppressed.
Since the time of Germanic invasions they had been the most potent
factor in the evolution of Western Europe; and, though they were kept
in the background by the energy and character of the Emperor, it only
needed a few crises to call them forth into activity. Out of the
interplay of these tribal interests and racial divergencies has grown
modern Europe.
A further weakness in the Carolingian structure was due to the
relation of the secular and the ecclesiastical authority. The grounds
of conflict, even in Charles’ own time, were never far distant. The
Emperor’s diplomacy and personality smoothed the acerbities away, and
his attitude of compromise found ready imitators in such Popes as
Hadrian I and Leo III. There would have been a different outcome if,
on his visits to Rome, he had been faced by a Pope of the temperament
of Nicholas I. The possible independence of the spiritual power the
Emperor did little to prevent by legislation. There was no way of
avoiding such disputes, and the struggles for supremacy between Empire
and Papacy attained their full development in the thirteenth century.
Charles, too, showed no willingness to deal radically with the
customary laws of succession of the Frankish people, and in this sphere
he was far more conservative than the Lombards or the Ostrogoths. The
principle of division among the heirs rather than unity of territory,
meant in itself a great danger. It would have caused trouble to Charles
himself had not his brother been removed by death early in the reign.
Yet the Emperor set a strong precedent for its recognition in his own
disposition of the Empire among his three sons. The position of Louis
was due to an accident, and the old question was bound to emerge again
when the rights of his various children, as his heirs, came to be
considered. Nothing was done to prescribe how the exercise of sole rule
as Emperor was to be carried out when the subordinate rulers of his own
house proved reluctant to obey their head.
The Empire plainly was only secure if its various rulers could consent
to work harmoniously together; a division among them, a break between
the Church and the State, the exaltation of the idea of nationality and
race, were all possibilities which would surely destroy the integrity
of Charles’ imperial construction. The history of the century after his
death shows the weak sides of the Emperor’s benevolent optimism. He
contemplated a great Christian republic directed by a family united in
its members and guided by patriarchal instinct. In working out this
program, Charles was an opportunist as well as an optimist; he took the
component political factors as he found them, and introduced them as
the stones of a mosaic, thinking more of the whole than of the parts,
seemingly oblivious of the disparity of the elements he was introducing
into the fabric. The distinctions of race were certain to become
accentuated the moment the central power showed weakness and proved
itself unable to be an effectual protection against anarchy within or
attacks from the outside.
In its political creativeness the Emperor’s work was framed on a
smaller scale than he contemplated. He proposed an Empire, but he
really founded kingdoms--the historic kingdoms of Western Europe. The
inheritors of his system were the territorial monarchs, who took from
him the conception of a supreme secular power closely united with the
Church. The actual central authority established by Charles soon passed
away, but the peoples included within it, endowed with the energy
proceeding from him, as a source, survived and developed. The ground
prepared by him was the foundation for the national kingdoms with
whose vicissitudes and progress the course of civilization has been
unalterably connected. He has been well named, therefore, the Patriarch
of Europe, the Abraham in whose seed the political world has been
blessed.
The ablest monarchs of Europe, both in the Middle Ages and in modern
times, from Otto III to Napoleon, including Frederic Barbarossa and
Louis XIV, all have felt the power of his personality. Napoleon speaks
of him as his illustrious predecessor. Yet, as a politician, Charles
was inferior to his father, Pippin, whose shrewdness in arranging
momentous political combinations he did not inherit, and on the field
of battle he was not the equal of his grandfather, Charles Martel. He
never won a battle such as Poictiers, and with one or two exceptions
the narrative of his campaigns shows nothing of the skilful and
spectacular generalship of Belisarius.
In his wars no unusual gifts of strategy were required; no great
mastery of tactics was necessary. But he was what one of his
contemporaries declared, “the powerful fighter who smote the Saxons
and humbled the hearts of the Franks and Barbarians, who had been able
to resist the might of the Romans.” His campaigns attest energy and
obstinacy, a clear-sighted ability to see when and where a decisive
blow must be delivered. He never lost his head in a dangerous position,
and so he was able to take in a military problem in its various
aspects, and while resting at one stage of a conflict, he could quietly
prepare to overcome his adversaries in a second move.
His mind was well balanced, it worked logically and with a large
vision, and he aimed at acting in such a way that the innumerable
details of his work as ruler would be explicable and could harmonize
as parts of a well-considered whole. He was general-in-chief, and he
also realized as we have seen, Constantine’s description of himself in
relation to the Church, as “chief bishop for its external affairs.”
As a judge, Charles was the supreme court of appeal, and was in
this capacity remarkable for his severity and unsparing attitude
to the guilty. Though he was not a genius as an administrator, he
showed industry and judgment in using and in improving such organs
of government as were known in his day in Western Europe. As we have
pointed out, his capitularies show him to us as a great landlord,
familiar with agricultural methods, able to measure the economic needs
of a large estate, and to act accordingly, possessing an extraordinary
amount of practical energy and versatility.
There was no limit to his interests, and he brought in a high
conception of duty. Up to the close of his life nothing was too small
to escape his personal supervision; he kept count of the chickens
on his personal estates, dictated his capitularies, and learned the
art of writing, a rare accomplishment, and deemed among the Teutonic
races the special work of a cleric. He presided over assemblies and
councils, ordered the system of chanting in his private chapel, and
hardly a year passed by that he did not visit one of the frontiers of
the Empire. His mental capacity was characterized by something of the
mobility which belonged to the Renaissance period, a trait not seen
among medieval rulers, and perhaps paralleled only in the case of
Frederick II. His talents were not employed towards futile ends; he
economized them, and while he was open to impressions, he kept with
scrupulousness his store of energy under control. He was free from
Napoleon’s defect of fitting all things as parts of a rigid system, and
he knew when to keep his hands from disarranging a firmly established
social order.
It may be that a larger measure of interference from him would have
prevented the growth of feudal privileges which the land system of
Western Europe was already producing. This evolution he did not
oppose; in some cases his own acts furthered it. The court and “missi”
under his direction became, as it were, observers and directors of a
naturally developing type of local administration which the general
ordinances of the Empire did nothing to repress. Feudal customs, still,
of course, in their germ, were pressed into the service of the state,
as for example when the lord was required to appear accompanied by his
dependents at the general military assembly of the King. The Emperor
was quick in reconciling local divergencies, and in discerning some
easily practicable method of making seemingly irreconcilable factors
contribute mutually to his ends. When a governmental order failed,
he was fertile in discerning an immediate remedy, careless whether
the innovation of a reform could be theoretically accommodated to the
administration as it before existed. Wherever the structure he planned
turned out faulty, he went to work with the spirit of an artist who
thinks more of the safety of the whole building than of the harmony of
its parts. His ideal of rule was always before him, yet there was none
of the stage effect of which Napoleon was so fond. He did not try to
impress upon others principles that did not attract his own sympathies.
He believed in what he did and believed the way he was doing it was
consistent with his own ideals of right, personal and social. The
empire was to be a community guided by Christian standards, a visible
embodiment of the City of God, as understood in his day.
The dream was a mighty one, and proved inspiring largely because it was
impersonal. The Emperor stood as the champion, unselfish and devoted,
of progress, so far as his age appreciated that much abused term. It
was, at least, a reality in respect to the conscious effort on his
part to moralize government, and by doing so to contribute to an ideal
solidarity of men and races. Yet the task he had assigned himself was
too great; and his work remained but an unfinished sketch, soon to be
demolished in the troublous and hopeless reigns of his descendants.
* * * * *
THE OTTOMANS
I OSMAN
The empire of the Seldjoukian Turks by which the crusading conquests
were destroyed, showed no greater powers of endurance than the
other creations of Moslem rule; it did not escape the tendency to
dismemberment due to the transfer of personal and autocratic control
into the hands of rulers of mediocre ability. By the beginning of the
fourteenth century the effect of disintegration showed itself plainly
and definitely in Western Asia throughout the territory which had
been won from the Emperors of Eastern Rome. One of the results of the
expansion of the Mongol conquests towards the West was to hasten not
only the division among the Seldjouks, but their speedy downfall. Their
Sultans found no safety against the pressure of the Mongols on their
territories, even though they combined with their Christian neighbors,
with whom they had kept up for so long incessant warfare, against a
danger which threatened annihilation to all races and peoples in the
path of the Mongol hordes from the East. The Turks made peace with
the Greeks at Nicæa, and even engaged the help of Frankish mercenary
troops, but these counsels of despair did not save them from becoming
tributaries to the Mongol rulers of Asia.
As early as 1243 the fatal course of the decadence was marked by
constant defeat, and from this time on they were not able to defend
their position. The Sultanate came practically to an end with the death
of Masud II of Iconium, who was murdered by one of his emirs, though
the Mongols continued the office, ruling under the name of Alaed-Din
II, 1297-1307. Of the ten fragments which represented the former
empire of the Seldjouks, one was controlled by Osman, from whose name
the latest and most enduring effort to establish a Moslem world power
takes its origin. Within the restricted bounds of a small emirate,
whose most important point was the ancient city of Dorlæum, now called
Sultan-Oeni, was trained and developed the people who were destined to
make great European conquests lasting down to our own day, to threaten
for many centuries Christian powers at their most vulnerable centers,
and, finally, when their own ability to conquer and devastate had come
to an end, to stir up such constant jealousies among the states which
claimed the succession to their dominions in Europe, that some of the
most disastrous and hardly contested wars in the nineteenth century
have been due to their presence on European soil.
No more than in the case of Mohammed could such far-reaching
consequences have been detected in the obscure beginnings of the
people over whom Osman began to rule as an independent prince. Nearly
a century before, his ancestor Souliman had led a migration from
Khorassan; with tribal adherents numbering 150,000, he took possession
of lands near Erzendjan and Akhlath; then came the invasion of the
Mongols, which brought ruin to these plans of settlement. Souliman,
in his flight from the invaders, was drowned as he was crossing the
Euphrates at a place called to-day Turk-Mesari, the tomb of the Turk.
On his death the nomads who followed his leadership were dispersed;
even his four sons failed to keep together. Two returned to the place
from which they had come, while the other two, Dundar and Ertoghroul,
keeping four hundred families with them, occupied territories near
Erzeroum. But as the proximity of the Mongols held out no prospect of
peaceful possession, the two brothers continued their march westward,
and finally put themselves under the protection of Ala-ed-Din I, Sultan
of the Seldjouks. (1219-1234.)
According to the legendary account, while Ertoghroul was making his
way West, he found himself on the top of a mountain ridge, where,
looking down on the plain, he saw two armies about to engage each
other. He decided to help those who were weaker, and adding his
warriors to those who were giving way, he put the enemy to flight.
At the close of the battle he found that he had brought victory over
a horde of Mongols to the armies of Ala-ed-Din I, who, as a reward
for this unexpected aid, gave the newcomers the mountain regions of
Toumanidj and Ermeni as a dwelling place in summer, and the plain of
Soegud for their winter quarters. Ertoghroul showed his loyalty to his
new sovereign by undertaking successful raids against the outposts of
the Greek Empire of Nicæa in parts adjacent to his own lands. Although
under a Moslem overlord, Ertoghroul and his people still continued
faithful to their ancestral polytheism, but he showed such great
respect for the sacred volume of Mohammed, that it was not surprising
when his son and successor, Osman or Othman (1288-1326), became
converted to the religion of Islam.
This important event was connected with his marriage with the daughter
of a cheikh belonging to the Seldjouks, Edebali, who, according to the
legends of the Ottoman race, mysteriously foretold the future greatness
of his son-in-law, and worked actively for the conversion of all his
people. Up to this time the followers of Osman were nothing more than a
band of nomads of mixed race composed of Turcomans, probably containing
two Mongol elements. This change of religion not only gave them unity,
but enabled them in the critical period of the Mongol conquests to act
as a center around which were gathered all those of the Turkish race
who held to Mohammedan orthodoxy. The first step was the absorption of
the Seldjouks, a process natural enough because of racial affinity, but
as time went on religious professions, not racial relationship, became
so predominant a characteristic in Ottoman rule, that converts of all
nationalities, Greeks, Slavs, Albanians, Roumanians, and Magyars, were
absorbed without prejudice as to racial origin, and from the mere
fact of profession of Mohammedanism were recognized just as fully as
Ottoman Turks as if they had descended from the parent stock.
The social phenomenon of Western Europe, where the cohesive force of
Christianity brought together people of Germanic, Celtic, and Roman
origin, found its counterpart in this new national development of
Mohammedan orthodoxy. It took place, too, just at a time when the old
supporters of Islam, the Arabs, the Persians, and the Berbers had
entered upon a stage of decadence. As a political power Islam was going
to pieces, when new vigor was infused into it by a fresh and warlike
race of barbarians, who, as convinced converts with all the fanaticism
of a recently acquired faith, restored the simpler traditions of
the Koran that had been lost or weakened, wherever the disciples
of Mohammed were brought in contact with civilizing influences or
wherever, in their mutual divisions, they had made terms of alliance
with Christian rulers.
Predatory warfare was the training which gave the Ottoman Turks their
irresistible power as conquerors; they were organized as an army
disciplined and ever ready to strike. No better field for such training
could have been found than the territory of Anatolia when the empire of
the Seldjouks disappeared, and a condition of affairs arose, of which
Northern Spain, at a somewhat earlier period, is a parallel instance of
prevailing anarchy and local turmoil.
Some of the semi-independent fortresses under Greek commanders,
who presided over narrow territories in the same way as the feudal
seigneurs of Western Europe, were reduced by Osman. With these
additions to his domains he had no hesitation in proclaiming himself
an independent prince on the death of Ala-ed-Din. Soon afterward he
conquered all the region near the river Songora, which gave approach
to the sea coast and so offered an opportunity for equipping piratical
expeditions that terrorized the islands and shores of the Greek Empire
and the Latin states of the East. At this time the emirate under Osman
covered the greater part of the ancient provinces of Galatia and
Bithynia.
To this position of mastery must be ascribed the rapid acquisition of
leadership by Osman. The territory he now governed was close to the
important centers of Greek rule. Broussa, Nicæa, and Nicomedia were the
specially selected points of attack in this effort to extend Moslem
power over Northwestern Asia, which still remained in Christian hands.
The prizes were great and the religious merit considerable; there was
enough, then, to attract the most valiant warriors who joined the army
of Osman from other emirates. Even mercenary troops of Greek, Slavic,
and Latin origin served under the Turkish banner.
The plan of conquest showed skilful and cautious strategy. Osman
adopted the policy of overshadowing the great fortresses of the Greek
Empire by placing near them strongholds of his own garrisoned with men
ready to surprise their opponents at the first favorable opportunity.
Broussa soon found itself within the grasp of the Turk. There were
two forts dominating its very gates, one on the east, the other on
the west. An important town near it, Edrenos, was taken when Osman’s
son, Ourkhan, forced the city to capitulate, the inhabitants being
given, in return for 30,000 pieces of gold, the right to retire with
their property. The governor became a convert to Islam--a detail which
is typical of the Turkish conquests. These new supporters found it
to their advantage to change their allegiance. Such cases are often
mentioned in these early years of the expansion of the Ottoman emirate,
and they are indicative of a well-devised policy to sap the foundations
of resistance.
Another even more striking example of the results of a change of
allegiance from Christianity to Mohammedanism is found in the case of
Mikhal-Koeze (Michael with the pointed beard), the Greek governor of
the castle, who, after becoming a prisoner of war, was most kindly
treated by Osman. The bonds of friendship between the two grew so
strong that Mikhal embraced Islamism and signalized himself by his
fidelity as an ally and subordinate officer. He is the ancestor of
the family of Mikhal Oghli (sons of Michael), who in a long line of
descent held the command of the irregular troops in the Turkish army.
The close of Osman’s career had nothing to record in the way of an
exploit equal to the capture of Broussa. In 1326 the conqueror died
and was buried in the city, the possession of which marked the chief
success of his remarkable reign. Here in after generations were
shown the chaplet of rough-ground wood, the enormous drum given him
by Ali-ed-Din, and the great carved double-edged sword wielded by
the founder and champion of the Ottoman Empire. But the rapidity and
importance of Osman’s conquests had not changed the tastes of the
tribal chieftain; all that he left to his heirs were horses, oxen, some
sheep, a spoon, a salt cellar, an embroidered kaftan, and a turban.
Ourkhan, who followed Osman, proved that he had inherited his father’s
capacity for war and statesmanship. His brother was made vizier, with
special charge of the organization of the army, which, in its various
arms, preserved for centuries the marks of a military intelligence
far superior to that shown in the organization of the armies of
medieval Europe. The regular troops were divided into janitschars (foot
soldiers), and spahis (horsemen), while the irregular forces had the
same two divisions under the names of akindji and azabs.