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{204} 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,{205} 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{206} 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{207} 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.{208}
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.
The Dardanelles Turkish warships, cleared for action, lying in wait for the Greek fleet.
The Dardanelles
Turkish warships, cleared for action, lying in wait for the Greek fleet.
Semendria A Roman stronghold in Servia on the Danube, for long a Turkish fortress.
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 vigou............