The Turkish character—The rise of Turkish power—Earliest days of Turkish history—Conquest of Persia and Egypt—Turkish soldiers of the Caliphate—Samanids’ conquests in India—The rise of the Seljuks—Arslan and his victories—Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—The Crusades—Jenghiz Khan and his people—The first appearance of the Osmanli—Erthogrul—The rule of Othman—Othman and Dundar—The capture of Broussa—Death of Othman—The reign of Orkhan—The army of Ala-ed-din—Orkhan’s capture of Nic?a.

ALTHOUGH I cannot write with approval of Turkish rule and its effect on the European provinces conquered by the now blunted sword of Othman, yet I feel a certain sympathy for the Turk, as individual, in this day of his trial. Sympathy is due to a variety of influences, and I feel that in the present instance my lingering liking for the Turk is based on several grounds. First of all, perhaps, comes the fondness you cannot but feel for a wayward child and its picturesque moods, more especially as I myself was quite the “wandering sheep,” as the hymn says, when young, and am not disinclined towards an excursion off the narrow way even now. Hence a fellow feeling with the nomad Turk, who, though generally placid, is capable of being roused to fury by unseen, unknown influences; in that state, like the wayward child, he is an unmitigated nuisance. In his everyday mood the Turk is gentle and extremely courteous, the courtesy of a strong man, scion of a race of conquerors. This dignified politeness is to be met in certain parts of Spain, where conquering{156} Moors made their impress on native Iberians and valiant Goths. Again, the nomad virtue, hospitality, is strong among the sons of Othman. I have also met fine intellects among the Turks, for instance, in one of the Princes of the Blood, a man of a refined mind, deeply read in Nietzsche, and of no mean skill with the brush. But he was only a painter; his studies from life were excellent, and some have gained admission to the Paris Salon, but creative artist he certainly was not, and the subject pictures evolved out of his inner consciousness treated of matters considered peculiarly French in tone, subconsciously erotic, and generally unhappy in treatment. But then the Turk has little, if any, constructive power, and even the finer intellects among them are apt to waste their treasures on abstract speculations, leading to no practical result; their course may be likened to that of a slender stream of water poured forth on some endless desert waste.

Another bond of sympathy is the history of the Turkish race, which should appeal strongly to every Briton, for in a manner there is much similarity between the rise of Turkish power and that of the British Empire. Wild men from the northern seas, Angles and Saxons, Danes, Vikings, Berserks, seethed into the British Isles, and, mixing with the Romanized native population, rose to greatness through much tribulation. The narrow confines of Britain forced this amalgam to conquests overseas, and thus arose the British Empire. Is there not some analogy between our rule in India and that of the Osmanli in Europe? We, in India, form a separate ruling caste, placed in power by the sword; we do not mix with the many native tribes and nations under the British Raj, many whose duty takes them to India cannot give an accurate account of these various tribes and nations; they know not their languages, their customs are strange to them, and{157} when their work is done they return to enjoy the fruits of their labour with but an imperfect knowledge of the land that gave them what they hold and of the people who lived their mysterious life outside the compound and the courthouse. So it is with the Turk in Europe. His people overflowed from Asia on successive waves of conquest, and made subject many nations with which they have nothing, absolutely nothing, in common, and with whom, unlike the Briton, the Turk does not desire any closer acquaintanceship.

To me, as Briton, the present situation, the happenings of the last few weeks, “give furiously to think.” Here is a powerful Empire, carved out of Europe by the sword, and held by conquerors who despised their alien subjects, and failed to understand their feelings or realize their ambitions, closed their eyes in smug contentment to the portents of the time. Then came the avalanche, and young nations, hitherto disregarded as serious opponents, rose in their strength, tore themselves free, rent province after province from the weak hands of an unprepared overlord, and are now threatening the capital of the Turkish Empire. From the courtyard of the Sublime Porte, where Turkey’s devious policy has been fashioned for so long, from the square in front of the War Office, which suddenly awakened, hurried untrained troops under untrained leaders, without a definite plan, to death by shot and shell, by starvation and disease; you could hear the sound of guns carried on the westerly wind from the lines of Chatalja, the last defences of the capital, where the remnants of the Sultan’s army are standing at bay against the organized forces of young Western nations.

It is a stirring history, full of ups and downs, that of the Turkish people. As we have seen, they emerged from a seething mass of nomadic humanity which infested Central{158} Asia, and threatened those Empires which had settled and acquired civilization, such as China, whence, by the way, come some of the earliest records of the Turks. These nomads had no other use for civilization than to acquire unearned riches; whatever seemed to them undesirable was destroyed, and to this day the Turk has not advanced much further; he frequently changes his abode, and the change is easily effected, as he has few belongings—some rugs, a text or two from the Koran, his cooking utensils. Even in his home he seems to have only dropped in for a week or so, and the curtains instead of doors to separate one apartment from another still further recall his old nomadic habits. So his ancestors roamed about in hordes over the plains of Asia. Where they met with little resistance they abode awhile, moving on when the locality had nothing more to offer, retiring elsewhere when met with determined opposition. As the tribes increased in numbers they went separate ways, some to extinction, others to form ephemeral empires such as that of the Ghaznevids in Eastern Afghanistan, in the latter days of the tenth century.

The influence of the Turks on Western Europe did not make itself felt until after the Crusades, because they had much ado to make and keep their position in Asia Minor. A short time after the Prophet’s death, his general, Khaled, “The Sword of God,” subdued the Persian Army, and gained it for his master, Caliph Abu Bekr, in whose reign Syria was conquered from the Eastern Emperor Heraclius, and Ecbatana and Damascus became Moslem towns like Mecca and Medina. Then followed a noble line of Caliphs, under whose sway Islam extended its frontiers and rolled in threatening waves towards the West. Omar’s general, Amron, added Egypt to the Empire of the Caliphs, who made Damascus their capital. Legend and history tell of{159} those days of the Caliphs, when Arab art, literature, and science flourished under such sovereigns as Haroun-al-Raschid, the contemporary of Charlemagne, Al Mamun, in whose days Western Christianity gave birth to the Order of Benedictines when Gregory IV was Pope in the beginning and middle of the ninth century.

We have seen how the Turks came into contact with the Arabs, and were subdued by them and converted to Islam in the eighth century, and how by degrees they recovered their strength and were able to assist the Caliphate in the troubles that crowded in upon it, how fifty thousand Turkish mercenaries were taken into the service of the Caliph, and occupied much the same position as that held by the Pr?torian Guard of Rome, the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamelukes in Egypt. Turkish influence thus increased steadily, and was first marked more definitely by a dynasty called the Samanids, who seem to have considered themselves vassals of the Abbasid Caliphs. In the interests of the Caliphate the roaming Samanids pushed forward into India, conquering Delhi, Multan, and Lahore towards the end of the tenth century. Their victorious course was not checked till they reached the Ganges, and Mahmud, their chief, styled himself Sultan. It appears that he still acknowledged allegiance to the Caliphs, but his successors assumed greater independence as the power of the Caliphate waned. In the meantime another Turkish dynasty rose to notice—the Seljuks, who appeared under their leaders Thogrul and Chakir.

This bearer of a name famous in history and romance, Thogrul, son of Suleiman, accidentally drowned in the Euphrates, was, it seems, wandering about like a true nomad, accompanied by his tribesmen. He was on his way to Iconium, Konia, probably with the idea of interfering{160} in any fight that might be in progress, when he found the troops of Kaim the Caliph flying before the hosts of Masud, the son of Mahmud of Ghazin. Thogrul espoused the losing cause, and his timely assistance turned defeat into victory, for which the Caliph was so grateful that his new ally was rewarded with the Principality of Sultan Oeni, or the Sultan’s Front, and appointed, as it were, Warden of the Marches. This happened towards the middle of the eleventh century, when the Christian world was very busy with religious differences. The Greek Church decided to break with Rome after the Council of Sutri in 1042, and was too much occupied with vexed questions of dogma to pay attention to the rise of a young race of nomads in a former province of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, these wanderers had given their first proof of prowess, and endorsement followed when the Caliph, with solemn ceremony, handed over the temporal power to Thogrul, at Bagdad, in 1055.

Thogrul did not live long after this honour was conferred upon him, but his son Arslan followed in his footsteps, and served his spiritual master, the Caliph, with all his might. To good purpose, for he fought and subdued the Fammiti Caliphs of Egypt, schismatics who had broken from the only Caliph’s spiritual sway over a century before; he further annexed Georgia and Armenia, and defeated the Emperor of the East, Romanus IV, towards the end of the eleventh century.

The Western world was very young when these things happened; Henry IV, a Frank, ruled over Germany, William of Normandy had not long conquered England, while Malcolm III was King of Scotland; Spain was still divided into small kingdoms and Moorish provinces under the Almoravids, and the Magyars, distant relations of the Turks, were settling down in Hungary under Bela I.{161}

Western Christianity was becoming dimly conscious of a growing power in the East, which Byzantium had felt distinctly since practically all the Asiatic provinces had been lost to the Turk, and so Western chivalry buckled on its armour, stitched a Cross on to its coat, and moved Eastward in swarms, composed of enterprising knights, mostly unacquainted with discipline, and their more or less reluctant followers; the Crusades had begun, and were chiefly directed towards the Holy Land and against the Arabs who had conquered there under the waning ?gis of the Caliphs.

Contemporary accounts, legends, and songs of troubadours tell of the Saracens and their deeds, but little mention is made of the Turks, destined to be Christianity’s most formidabl............