Eugenius, was most active in support of this combination. His legate,
Cardinal Julian Cesarini, led an armed force in support of it. Money
was raised for the purpose of the war by a great sale of indulgences
to the faithful in every part of Europe. A large contingent of French
and German knights joined the allied army. It was, in fact, another
crusade, prompted by religious zeal on behalf of Christianity against
Islam. The allied army was under the nominal command of Ladislaus, but
Hunyadi was its real leader.

The Republics of Venice and Genoa gave their support, and as, at this
time, the Ottomans had no naval force, it was hoped that these Powers,
by means of their numerous and powerful galleys, would prevent the
transfer to Europe of Murad’s main army, which was again engaged in
conflict with the Karamanians in Asia Minor.

The allied army, under these favourable circumstances, crossed the
Danube in 1443. It defeated an Ottoman army on the banks of the Masova
and again at Nisch. It then crossed the Balkan range in winter—an
operation of extreme difficulty, which has since only twice been
effected, by General Diebitsch and General Gourko—and again defeated
the Turks in a battle at the foot of these mountains. Strange to say,
instead of marching onwards to Adrianople, as Diebitsch did in 1829,
Hunyadi was content with the laurels already achieved, and returned
with his army to Buda, where he displayed his trophies and received a
triumph.

Murad, on hearing of the retreat of the Hungarians across the Balkans,
determined to come to terms with them, and not to pursue them again
across the Danube. With some difficulty, and in spite of the sullen
opposition of Cardinal Julian and the French contingent, a treaty was
agreed to, at Szegeddin, with Ladislaus, by which Serbia was to be
freed from dependence on the Ottoman Empire and Wallachia was to be
ceded to Hungary. The treaty was to be in force for ten years. It was
solemnly sworn to on the Gospel and the Koran by Ladislaus and Murad.

While this treaty was being negotiated Murad, weary of war, and
desirous of spending the remainder of his life in sensual enjoyments
which had so long been denied to him, decided to abdicate his throne.
He was still in the full vigour of life at the age of forty-one,
though he was said to be growing rather fat. He did not propose, like
the Emperor Charles V, to retire to a monastery, but rather, like
Diocletian the Roman Emperor, to a luxurious palace, surrounded by
beautiful gardens, which he had prepared for his retreat at Magnesia.
On the ratification of the treaty of Szegeddin, in 1444, he carried
out this purpose, and his son Mahomet, at the age of fourteen, was
proclaimed Sultan in his place.

When this became known to the Hungarians a revulsion of opinion took
place against the recent treaty with the Turks. The Hungarian Diet
determined, at the instance of Cardinal Julian, backed up by the Pope,
to break the treaty. News had arrived of a fresh outbreak of the
Karamanians. The fleets of Genoa, Venice, and Burgundy were masters of
the Hellespont and would, it was believed, prevent the Ottoman army in
Asia Minor from crossing into Europe. The opportunity for crushing the
Turks and driving them out of Europe seemed to be most favourable.

  Is it now [said Cardinal Julian to the Hungarian Diet] that you will
  desert expectations and your own fortunes? Is it to your God and
  your fellow-Christians that you have pledged your faith? That prior
  obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies
  of Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman Pontiff, without whose
  sanction you can neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve
  your perjury and sanctify your arms. Follow my footsteps in the path
  of glory and salvation; and, if you still have scruples, devolve on
  my head the punishment and the sin.

“This mischievous casuistry,” says the historian Gibbon, “was seconded
by his respectable character and the levity of popular assemblies.” The
Hungarian Diet resolved on war, and King Ladislaus, in spite of his
recent oath, determined to break the treaty. Hunyadi was, in the first
instance, strongly opposed to this, but his assent was obtained by the
promise of the throne of Bulgaria, in the event of the defeat of the
Ottomans and the conquest of that province. The Prince of Serbia, who
had regained his independence by the treaty, was persuaded to join with
the allies by the promise of an addition to his kingdom.

It was decided to send an army at once against the Ottomans. But it
was a much reduced one in comparison with that which had so recently
crossed the Balkans. Most of the French and German knights and their
attendants had already gone home. Not more than ten thousand remained
under Hunyadi. They were joined by five thousand Wallachians. They
invaded Bulgaria, and then, instead of crossing the Balkans, descended
the Danube to the coast and thence marched to Varna. Meanwhile the
Ottomans, in great alarm and fearing the incompetence of the young
Mahomet to conduct a great war, induced Murad to emerge again from his
retreat. He hastily gathered together an army in Asia Minor. He bribed
the Genoese, at the rate of a ducat for each man, to convey it across
the Hellespont. He arrived in front of Varna unexpectedly, before the
Christian army knew of his intentions. His army greatly outnumbered
that of King Ladislaus. In spite of this, the two wings of it were
driven back with great slaughter. Murad, in command of the centre of
his army, for the moment and for the only time in his life, lost his
presence of mind and was disposed to fly. But the Beglerbey of Anatolia
laid hold of the bridle of his horse and urged him to fight it out.
The battle was renewed. The Janissaries stood firm and successfully
repulsed the main body of the Christians. Ladislaus was unhorsed and
asked for quarter. But he was put to death on the field. His head was
stuck upon a lance and was held up by the side of another lance which
bore on high a copy of the violated treaty. The Christians, when they
saw the head of their dead king in its soldier’s helmet thus held
aloft, were struck with panic and fled precipitately. Hunyadi escaped
with difficulty. Cardinal Julian expiated by death on the field his
sin in advising the breach of the treaty. Two other bishops shared his
fate. Never was defeat and disaster more richly deserved. Two-thirds of
the Christian army were slain in the battle, and even greater numbers,
though a less proportion, of the Ottomans shared their fate.

Murad, having won this great victory, again, a second time, abdicated
his throne and returned to his retreat at Magnesia, and again the young
Mahomet was invested as Sultan. Though history supplies cases of great
kings seeking retirement from the cares of office, and of some of them
being induced to resume their thrones, it records no other case of a
second abdication and a second resumption. Murad was very soon recalled
from his abode of pleasure. A serious outbreak of the Janissaries
occurred at Adrianople. They ravaged the city and committed great
atrocities. The ministers of the young Sultan were greatly alarmed.
They felt that only a strong hand could keep a check on the unruly
Janissaries. Murad was again summoned from his retreat. The young
Mahomet was induced to go on a hunting expedition. In his absence Murad
again made his appearance at Adrianople and resumed power. Mahomet, on
his return from hunting, found that his father was again in the saddle.
Murad was received by his troops with a great ovation, and even the
unruly Janissaries gave in their submission to him. He did not again
seek retirement at Magnesia. He reigned for seven more years—another
period of almost incessant war. He first made an invasion of the
Morea, which the Greek Emperor’s brothers had divided between them and
governed as petty princes, or despots, as they were called. Murad had
no difficulty in storming and capturing the fortification by which
the isthmus of Corinth was defended. He compelled the two despots to
accept the position of vassals under the Empire.

Murad then again turned his attention to Serbia and Hungary. He
defeated the combined forces of Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia, under
Hunyadi, on the field of Kossova, where in 1389 Murad I had first
subdued the Serbians. As a result of this great battle Serbia lost its
independence and was finally incorporated as an integral part of the
Ottoman Empire. Bosnia became a tributary State.

Murad was less fortunate in his efforts to subdue the Albanians. These
people were under the leadership of George Castriota—commonly called
Scanderbeg—who had been brought up at Murad’s Court as a Mussulman, and
had learned the art of war from him, but who had abjured Islam, with
a view to leadership of the Albanians. He carried on a guerrilla war
against the Ottoman invaders with great success, and Murad was unable
to complete the conquest of the State. This was practically the only
failure of Murad’s adventurous life. His generals met with many defeats
at the hand of Hunyadi, but Murad retrieved them in the two battles in
which he came in conflict with the great Hungarian hero. He died of
apoplexy in 1451.

Looking back at his career, it does not appear that he made war with
ambitious objects to aggrandize his Empire. War was, in almost every
case, forced upon him. Three times the Prince of Karamania declared war
against him, and three times Murad defeated him, and was content with
insisting on the vassalage of the province and not on its extinction
and incorporation with the Empire. It has been shown how perfidious
was the conduct of the Greek Emperor, and how fully justified Murad
was in reducing his territory to the narrowest limits. Murad’s attack
on Salonika when in the hands of the Venetian Republic was equally
justified, for the Greek Emperor had no right to sell it, and thus
invite a foreign Power to make a lodgment there. The wars on the
northern frontier were forced upon him by the Hungarians and the
Christian Powers in alliance with them. They appealed to arms, and
victory decided against them. It will be seen that as a net result of
Murad’s reign the Ottoman Empire was extended during these thirty years
by the acquisition of many petty principalities in Asia Minor, by the
complete subjection of Serbia and Bosnia, the conquest of Salonika
and its district, and by the conversion of the Morea into a tributary
State. It was, however, reduced by the loss of Wallachia as a vassal
State.

Gibbon, quoting from a Turkish historian, says:—

  Murad was a just and valiant prince, of a great soul; patient of
  labour, learned, merciful, religious, charitable; a lover and
  encourager of the studious and of all who excelled in any art
  or science. No man obtained more or greater victories. Belgrade
  alone withstood his attacks. Under his reign the soldier was ever
  victorious, the citizen rich and secure. If he subdued any country,
  his first care was to build mosques and caravansaries, hospitals, and
  colleges.

Though, _more suo_, Gibbon suggests doubts whether such praise could be
justified in the case of a Sultan “whose virtues are often the vices
most useful to himself or most agreeable to his subjects,” he admits
that

  the justice and moderation of Murad are attested by his conduct and
  acknowledged by Christians themselves, who consider a prosperous
  reign and a peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In
  the vigour of his age and military power he seldom engaged in war
  till he was justified by a previous and adequate provocation. In the
  observance of treaties his word was inviolate and sacred.[13]

VII

MAHOMET II, ‘THE CONQUEROR’

1451-81

IF Mahomet, the eldest son of Murad, at the age of fourteen, had been
reckoned too feeble to cope with the emergencies of the State, it is
very certain that he soon made wonderfully rapid progress. At the age
of twenty-one, when he again mounted the throne on the death of his
father, he was amply, and almost precociously, endowed with many of the
best, and many also of the worst, qualities of an autocrat, and was
quite able alone to take command of the State. He was undoubtedly the
ablest man that the house of Othman had as yet produced, not only as a
general, but as a statesman. He had also great intellectual capacity
and literary attainments. He spoke five languages fluently. He was
the most proud and ambitious of his race and the most persistent in
pursuing his aims. He combined with these high qualities, however,
extreme cruelty and perfidy and sensuality of the grossest and vilest
kind. He differed from his predecessors in his craving for absolute
power, free from control by his ministers, and in his reckless
disregard of human life. Hitherto, from Othman to Murad II, the Sultans
had been in intimate association with their viziers and generals,
and had shared their meals with them. They were accessible to their
subjects, high and low. Mahomet was very different. He was the true
despot after the Oriental fashion. He held himself aloof. He took his
meals alone. He made no confidants. He treated his viziers and pashas
as though they were his slaves. He had no regard for their lives. There
were men in his personal service who were adepts at striking off heads
by single blows of their scimitars. Two at least of Mahomet’s Grand
Viziers were put to death in this way in his presence without warning
or compunction. This levelling process was not apparently objected to
by his subjects.

On hearing at Magnesia of the death of his father, Mahomet, who was
eager to resume power, mounted at once an Arab horse, and exclaiming,
“Let all who love me follow!” he rode to the Hellespont, and thence
crossed to Gallipoli and made his way to Adrianople. He was there again
acclaimed as Sultan, not, however, without having to submit to onerous
presents to the Janissaries, a bad precedent which was later always
followed on the accession of a Sultan. The first act of his reign was
to direct that his brother, an infant son of Murad, by his latest wife,
a Serbian princess, should be put to death. He feared that the child,
when grown up, might dispute the throne with him, on the ground that
its mother was a legitimate wife of royal descent, while he himself
(Mahomet) was only the son of a slave. A high officer of the Court was
directed to drown the child in a bath. This was effected at the very
moment when the mother was engaged in offering her congratulations
to the new Sultan on his accession. The foul deed created a very bad
impression, and Mahomet found it expedient to disown the act. He did
so by directing the execution of the officer who had carried out his
order. He compelled the mother, in spite of her royal rank, to marry a
slave, an outrageous insult to the Serbian prince and to the memory of
his father.

From the earliest moment of his accession it became clear that Mahomet
intended to signalize his reign by the capture of Constantinople. With
this view, he came to terms for a three years’ truce with Hunyadi
and the Hungarians. He chastised and then gave easy terms to the
Karamanians, and accepted as a wife the daughter of their prince. He
sent an army to the Peloponnesus to prevent the two brothers of the
Greek Emperor, who were ruling there, from lending their aid to the
Greeks of Constantinople. He directed the erection of a great fortress
on the European side of the Bosphorus, at its narrowest point opposite
to another, which had been erected by Bayezid, very near to the
capital, so as to command the Straits. When the Greek Emperor sent an
envoy to protest against this, Mahomet replied:—

  I make no threats against your city. By assuring the safety of my
  country I am not infringing any treaty. Have you forgotten the
  extremity to which my father was reduced when your Emperor, in
  league with the Hungarians, endeavoured to prevent his crossing to
  Europe by closing the Straits against him? Murad was compelled to
  ask for the assistance of the Genoese. I was at Adrianople at the
  time and was very young. The Mussulmans were in great alarm and you
  Greeks insulted them. My father took an oath at the battle of Varna
  to erect a fort on the European side. This oath I will fulfil. Have
  you the right or the power to prevent my doing what I wish on my own
  territory? The two sides of the Straits are mine—that of Asia Minor
  because it is peopled by Ottomans, that of Europe because you are
  unable to defend it. Tell your master that the Sultan who now reigns
  in no way resembles his predecessors. My power goes beyond their
  vows. I permit you now to withdraw, but in the future I will have
  flayed alive those who bring me such messages.[14]

No more envoys were sent to him after this by the Greeks. Their
Emperor, Constantine—the last of his line—had succeeded his brother
three years before the accession of Mahomet. He was a brave and
conscientious prince, who gave lustre to the last days of the
Empire. But he was most unwise and provocative in his conduct to
the new Sultan, evidently under the belief that he had to deal with
the inexperienced youth who had been displaced by Murad six years
previously. He threatened to let loose, as a rival claimant to the
Ottoman throne, Orkhan, a grandson of Bayezid, who was under his
charge, if a larger allowance was not given for his maintenance.
Mahomet contemptuously rejected the claim. The Grand Vizier, Khalil,
who was suspected of being in the pay of the Greeks, warned the Emperor
of his extreme folly. “Your madness,” he said to the Greek ambassador,
“will put Constantinople in the hands of the Sultan. Proclaim Orkhan
Sultan in Europe, call in the Hungarians to your aid, retake what
provinces you can, and you will speedily see the end of the Greek
Empire.”

The new fortress was completed in the autumn of 1452. It was then seen
that, in combination with the fortress on the opposite shore, it gave
complete command of the Straits to the Ottomans. Venetian vessels which
attempted to pass were captured and their crews were sawn in halves.
Mahomet then declared his intention to attack Constantinople. In an
address to his principal pashas, after describing the conquests made
by his predecessors in Europe and Asia, he pointed out that the great
barrier to further progress was this city and the army of the Emperor.

  The opposition [he said] must be ended; these barriers must be
  removed. It was for them to complete the work of their fathers. They
  had now against them a single city, one which could not resist their
  attacks; a city whose population was greatly reduced and whose former
  wealth had been diminished by Turkish sieges, and by the continued
  incursions made by his ancestors upon its territories; a city which
  was now only one in name, for in reality its buildings were useless
  and its walls abandoned and for the great part in ruins. Even from
  its weakness, however, they knew that from its favourable position,
  commanding both land and sea, it had greatly hindered their progress
  and could still hinder it, opposing their plans and being always
  ready to attack them. Openly or secretly it had done all it could
  against them. It was the city which had brought about the attack by
  Timerlane and the suffering which followed. It had instigated Hunyadi
  to cross the Danube, and on every occasion and in every possible
  manner had been their great enemy. The time had now come when, in
  his opinion, it should be captured or wiped off the face of the
  earth. One of two things: he would either have it within his Empire
  or he would lose both. With Constantinople in his possession, the
  territories already gained could be safely held and more would be
  obtained; without it, no territory that they possessed was safe.[15]

In the ensuing winter (1452) Mahomet made every preparation at
Adrianople for a campaign in the next year. Having no means of casting
cannons, which at that time were coming into use in European armies,
he tempted a Wallachian, who was experienced in such work, and who
was in the service of the Greeks, to come over to his side for higher
pay, and devised with him a cannon of enormous size, firing stone
balls of 2½ feet in diameter, and many other smaller, but still
large, guns throwing balls of 150 lb. weight, for use against the walls
of Constantinople. He also constructed a large fleet of war vessels
propelled by oars, biremes and triremes, to be used in the siege of the
city. He was most active and eager, working day and night in concerting
plans with his generals for his great purpose. Early in the following
year (1453) he collected in front of the walls of Constantinople
an army, estimated at a hundred and fifty thousand men, including
twelve thousand Janissaries, and a vast number of irregulars and camp
followers eager for the sack of the great city.

Constantine, on his part, was equally engaged in making preparations
for the defence of his capital. He collected supplies of every kind.
He did his best to repair and strengthen the walls of the city, which
had been neglected and badly repaired by fraudulent Greek contractors.
He invited the aid of the Christian princes of Western Europe for the
coming struggle. In this view, and in the hope of getting full support
from the Pope, he agreed to a scheme of union between the Greek and
Latin Churches, in which everything was conceded to the latter. A great
service was held at St. Sophia to ratify this union. Cardinal Isidore,
the legate of the Pope, a Greek by birth, presided. It was attended by
the Emperor and all his Court, clergy, and the officers of State. This
gave great offence to the main body of the Greek clergy, and to the
great majority of the people of Constantinople. There was implacable
hatred between the members of the two Churches, and not even the grave
peril of the State could induce them to compose their differences. St.
Sophia was deserted by its congregation. It was thought to be polluted
by the service.[16] The Grand Duke Notaras, the second person in the
State after the Emperor, in command of all the forces, was specially
offended. He even went the length of saying in public that he would
rather see the turban of the Turks at Constantinople than the hat of a
cardinal. It resulted that the Greeks were divided into two parties.
Priests refused to give the sacrament to dying men not of their
party. The Churches refused to contribute out of their vast wealth to
necessities of the State. Constantine was seriously embarrassed and
weakened by the division among his people. Of a total population of the
city, reduced as it was, as compared with the past, and estimated at a
hundred thousand, not more than six thousand took up arms in support of
Constantine against the Turks.

The appeals to the Western Powers resulted in a certain, but very
insufficient, number of volunteers from Southern Europe giving their
services to support the Greek cause in its final struggle with the
Moslems. Seven hundred Genoese came under the command of Giustiniani,
an able soldier of fortune, who proved to be the main support of
Constantine. Others had come with Cardinal Isidore, at the instance of
the Pope, and with some small amount of money from the same quarter.
There were Catalans and Aragonese from Spain, but the number of these
recruits from Western Europe did not exceed three thousand. The total
force under the command of Constantine for the defence of the city
amounted to no more than eight thousand. It is strange that there were
no volunteers from France and Germany, or from Hungary and Poland,
from whence so many crusaders had volunteered in previous years to
drive the Turks out of Europe. Nor was there any valid assistance in
men and money from the numerous Greeks in the Levant. The unfortunate
Constantine was not only very deficient in men, but his resources in
money were very low. He had, however, in his service twenty powerful
galleys well manned, and three galleys had come from Venice.

It would seem that the cause of Constantine did not much interest
Europe, and did not even meet with an effective support among the
Greeks themselves.

The city of Constantinople, as it then existed, was situate between
the Golden Horn, its great harbour, and the sea of Marmora. Its land
frontage, distant about nine miles from the entrance to the harbour,
was four miles in length. It was protected by a triple line of
walls, the two inner of which were very massive, flanked by towers
at distances of 170 feet. There was a space of 60 feet between these
walls. The third and outer wall was a crenelated breastwork on the
other side of a fosse, of a width of 60 feet. This powerful line of
defence had been devised by the Emperor Theodosius II about a thousand
years ago and had protected the city in twenty sieges. Before the
invention of cannon it was practically impregnable.[17] There were also
fortifications extending for about nine miles on the side of the Golden
Horn. The eight thousand men were too few even for effective defence
of the four miles of walls, which were to be attacked directly by the
Ottoman army, to say nothing of the fortifications along the side of
the Golden Horn. The defence, however, with these limited means, was a
spirited one. It showed that if the Greek Emperor had been adequately
supported by the Western Powers Mahomet might not have been able to
capture the city.

The siege was commenced by Mahomet on April 6, 1453. Much time had been
occupied in conveying the cannon from Adrianople. There were two very
interesting incidents in the siege which are worth recording. The one
was the breaking of the close blockade of the port by four powerful
and well-manned Genoese galleys, bringing provisions and stores to the
beleaguered city from Chios. They sailed across the Marmora and up the
Bosphorus with a strong breeze in their favour. The Sultan sent against
them a hundred and forty of his fleet of smaller vessels propelled
by oars. They found great difficulty in stemming the heavy sea. The
four larger Genoese vessels came down on the smaller craft, crashing
against them and shivering their oars. Their crews hurled big stones
on the Turkish galleys and emitted against others the inextinguishable
fire of which the Greeks had the secret. The Turkish boats could make
no headway against the superior weight of the bigger vessels. A large
number of them were sunk with serious loss of life. When near to the
entrance of the harbour the wind died off and the Genoese vessels were
in imminent peril, surrounded as they were by the numerous Turkish
craft. But at the last moment an evening breeze sprang up. The Genoese
vessels were able to force their way through. The chain which prevented
ingress to the harbour was lowered, and the relieving vessels were
admitted.

The Sultan had watched the naval battle from the shore. He spurred his
horse some distance into the shallow sea in the hope of animating his
sailors to greater efforts. He was bitterly disappointed at this first
engagement of his new fleet. The next morning he sent for the admiral,
Balta Oghlou, a sturdy Bulgarian by birth, and bitterly reproached him
for his failure. He directed the admiral to be laid on the ground
and held there by four strong men, while he was bastinadoed. Some
historians state that the Sultan himself belaboured the unfortunate
admiral with his mace.

The other incident, growing out of the naval defeat, was that Mahomet,
on finding that his small craft, propelled only by oars, were of little
effect against the powerful vessels at the disposal of the Greeks,
determined to transfer a large number of them from the Bosphorus to the
upper part of the harbour, where the bigger vessels could not engage
them, owing to the shallow depth of water, and where they would be of
use against the inner defence of the city. For this purpose Mahomet
directed the construction of a broad plank road from Tophane, on the
Bosphorus, across the hill intervening between it and the head of the
Golden Horn. This road was well greased with tallow, and the vessels
were dragged up it with windlasses and oxen. The descent on the other
side of the hill was easy enough. The scheme was not quite a novelty,
as an operation of the same kind, though on a smaller scale, had been
attempted elsewhere. It was carried out with striking success; and in
one night eighty of the Turkish galleys were transferred in this way
to the upper harbour. Mahomet also constructed a pontoon bridge across
the harbour, on which batteries were erected. The two schemes together
enabled him to attack the Greek defences along the line of the harbour,
and compelled Constantine to withdraw many men from the defence of the
landward walls, where the main attack was made.

The young Sultan took a most active part in the siege work. He traced
the lines of fourteen batteries from which the walls were bombarded.
The first great cannon was a failure. It burst at the first shot and
blew to pieces the Wallachian who had cast it. It was recast, however,
and two others of the same size were also cast. About two hundred
smaller guns were used. They threw stone balls[18] against the walls
and towers of the city, and ultimately succeeded in effecting a breach.
There can be no doubt that the capture of the city was mainly due
to the provision of these great guns, which were far above anything
previously used against fortresses. The Greeks also used cannons in
defence, but the parapets of the walls were not wide enough to allow of
the recoil of the guns, and where it was possible to use them the walls
suffered from the concussion. Gunpowder was also deficient.

After seven weeks of siege the bombardment effected breaches in the
walls at three points such as to give Mahomet every hope of success in
a final assault. The principal breach was at St. Romanus, where the
outer of the two main walls was practically levelled for a length of
four hundred yards, and four of the flanking towers were destroyed. The
broad ditch was filled in part by the débris of the wall and in part by
fascines. The Sultan decided that the assault should take place on May
29th. This became known to the Greeks in the city, and both sides made
every preparation for a supreme effort.

On the 28th, Mahomet ordered a proclamation to be made to his troops,
to the effect that when the city was captured it would be given up
to them to sack at their will for three days. The Sultan, it said,
had sworn by the everlasting God, by the four thousand prophets, by
Mahomet, and by his own soul that the whole population of the city,
men, women, and children, should be given over to them. This was
received by the troops with tumultuous expressions of delight.

On the same day the Sultan reviewed his army in three divisions, each
of fifty thousand men, and afterwards received in his tent all the
leaders, military and naval. He made a speech to them in which he
announced his intention to make a final assault on the city on the next
day, explained to them the method of attack, and gave his final orders.
He enlarged on his promise to give to the troops the plunder of the
city.

  In the city [he said] there was an infinite amount and variety of
  wealth of all kinds—treasure in the palaces and private houses,
  churches abounding in furniture of silver, gold, and precious stones.
  All were to be theirs. There were men of high rank and in great
  numbers who could be captured and sold as slaves; there were great
  numbers of ladies of noble families, young and beautiful, and a host
  of other women who could either be sold or taken into their harems.
  There were boys of good family. There were houses and beautiful
  gardens. “I give you to-day a grand and populous city, the capital
  of the ancient Romans, the very summit of splendour and of glory,
  which has become, so to say, the centre of the world. I give it over
  to you to pillage, to seize its incalculable treasure of men, women,
  and boys, and everything that adorns it. You will henceforward live
  in great happiness and leave great wealth to your children. The
  great gain to all the sons of Othman would be the conquest of a city
  whose fame was great throughout the world. The greater its renown,
  the greater would be the glory of taking it by assault. A great city
  which had always been their enemy, which had always looked upon
  them with a hostile eye, which in every way had sought to destroy
  the Turkish power, would come into their possession. The door would
  be open to them by its capture to conquer the whole of the Greek
  Empire.”[19]

We have quoted this speech of Mahomet as further proof that plunder and
the capture of men, women, and boys for sale or for their harems, and
not religious fanaticism, was the main incentive to Moslem conquest.

The night before the assault was spent by the Turks in rejoicing. Their
camp was illuminated. Very different was the action of the Greeks
on this last day of their Empire. There was a religious procession
through the city, in which every one whose presence was not required in
defence of the walls took part and joined in prayer, imploring God not
to allow them to fall into the hands of the enemy. Eikons and relics
were paraded. At the close of the procession the Emperor Constantine
addressed a gathering of nobles and military leaders. He called
attention to the impending assault. He said:—

  It had always been held the duty of a citizen to be ready to die
  either for his faith, his country, his sovereign, or his wife and
  children. All these incentives to heroic sacrifice were now combined.
  The city was the refuge for all Christians, the pride and joy of
  every Greek, and of all who lived in Eastern lands. It was the Queen
  of Cities, the city which, in happy times, had subdued nearly all the
  lands under the sun. The enemy coveted it as his chief prize. He had
  provoked the war. He had violated all his engagements in order to
  obtain it. He wished to put the citizens under his yoke, to take them
  as slaves, to convert the holy churches, where the divine Trinity
  was adored and the most holy Godhead worshipped, into shrines for
  his blasphemy, and to put the false prophet in the place of Christ.
  As brothers and fellow-soldiers it was their duty to fight bravely
  in the defence of all that was dear to them, to remember that they
  were the descendants of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome, and
  so conduct themselves that their memory should be as fragrant in the
  future as that of their ancestors.... For himself, he was determined
  to die in its defence.... He and they should put their trust in God,
  and not, as did their enemy, in the multitude of his hordes.

In the evening a solemn service was held at St. Sophia, memorable
as the last Christian service before its conversion into a Turkish
mosque. The Emperor and his followers partook of the Sacrament and bade
farewell to the Greek Patriarch. It was a memorable scene—a requiem
service for the Empire which was about to expire. Later the Emperor
paid a last visit to his palace and bade farewell there to its staff.
It was a most touching occasion. One who was present there wrote of
it: “If a man had been made of wood or stone, he must have wept at the
scene.” It is very certain that the Emperor had no hope of saving the
city from capture by its mortal foes.

Very early in the morning of the next fateful day, the 29th May, 1453,
the final assault was delivered by the Turkish army. The scheme of the
Sultan was to attack the walls of the city at many points, from both
land and sea, but to make the main assault on the part of the wall
which had been so much injured by the cannon in the Lycus Valley, near
the gate of St. Romanus, and then, by successive waves of his vastly
greater army, to overwhelm the defenders, using first his inferior
troops, and reserving his best for the last attack, when the enemy
would be wearied by long fighting. The first assault was made by an
immense horde of irregulars, armed with bows and arrows, and with
slings throwing stones and iron balls. Gunpowder, though already used
for cannon, was not yet applied to muskets. The men advanced with
scaling-ladders for the assault, and a cloud of arrows darkened the
sky. No more than two thousand Greeks could be spared to defend this
part of the long line of fortifications. They were collected in the
_peribolus_ between the two walls. The gates in the inner wall were
closed, so that these men had no opportunity of shirking the defence
and retreating into the city. They had to fight for their very lives
between the two walls.

The Sultan directed the great cannon to be brought to the edge of
the fosse, and a shot from it broke down the stockade which had been
erected in place of the outer wall. Under cover of the dust the Turks
made the assault. They were bravely met by the defenders, and were
driven back with heavy loss. A second assault was then made by the
Anatolian infantry, a very superior force to the irregulars. But they
were no more successful. The Sultan, thinking that the Greeks must be
exhausted by these two assaults, then personally led a third great
body of men to a third assault. It consisted of his Janissaries. He
led them to the edge of the fosse, and thence directed their attack.
The cannon was used again against the stockade, and again under cover
of the dust caused by it the Janissaries made their assault. Some of
them succeeded in getting over the stockade, and a hand-to-hand fight
occurred between them and the Greeks. The defenders seemed to have
the best of it. But at this crisis a grave misfortune occurred to the
Greeks. Giustiniani, who commanded them, was severely wounded. Blood
flowed freely from his wounds. He decided to leave the field of battle
and return to his ship in the harbour, for medical relief. The Emperor
Constantine, who was near by, in vain implored him to remain, pointing
out to him the damaging effect his departure would have on the soldiers
who remained. Others thought that the wounds were not very serious
and that the general was not justified in leaving the field. But he
insisted on doing so, and demanded the key of the gate in the inner
wall. With him departed some of his Genoese soldiers. This defection
caused dismay and depression among the troops. Their resistance to the
Turks slackened.

Some Greek historians accuse Giustiniani of cowardice in deserting the
battle at so critical a moment, and Gibbon lends the weight of his
great authority to this. The reputation, however, of the famous Italian
soldier has been vindicated by later historians, such as Mr. Finlay and
Sir Edwin Pears. They have shown that Giustiniani died of his wounds
within a few days of the capture of Constantinople, the best proof
of their serious and fatal character. All the same, he may not have
sufficiently appreciated the effect of his withdrawal on the soldiers.
It might have been better to have died there rather than on board his
ship. However that might have been, all are agreed that the departure
of the general was the turning-point of the day, and that it had the
worst effect on the soldiers engaged in the defence.

The Emperor did his utmost to retrieve the position. He took upon
himself the charge vacated by Giustiniani, and led the defence.
Mahomet, on his part, had observed from the other side of the fosse
the slackening of the defence. He called out to the Janissaries: “We
have the city! It is ours! The wall is undefended!” He urged them to a
final effort. They rushed the stockade and effected an entry into the
_peribolus_. Soon great swarms of others followed, and overwhelmed the
defenders with their vast numbers. The Emperor, despairing of success,
threw aside his imperial mantle. He called out, “The city is taken and
I am still alive!” Drawing his sword, he threw himself into the mêlée.
He died fighting gloriously for his city and his Empire. His body was
never found, though search was made for it by order of the Sultan.
The Greek and Italian soldiers in the _peribolus_ were now completely
outnumbered. There was no exit through the inner wall by which they
could escape. They were in a trap between the two walls. They were
massacred to a man. The Janissaries, having effected this, found no
difficulty in making their way through the inner wall, which, as we
have explained, was not defended owing to the want of men.

All attacks on other parts of the city were failures. This one alone
succeeded. Victory here was due in part to the good generalship
of Mahomet and to his indomitable persistency, and in part to the
ill-fortune of the Greeks in the withdrawal of Giustiniani at the
critical moment of the defence. The defenders of the city had nobly
performed their duty. Their numbers were quite insufficient. They had
received no adequate support from Western Europe, or even from the
neighbouring Christian States. It is quite certain that a few thousand
more soldiers would have saved the city. Thirty galleys sent by the
Pope with reinforcements were on their way when the city fell. They had
been detained at Scio by adverse wind. “Auxilium deus ipse negavit,”
says the Greek historian.

When the Turks entered the city they began to massacre all the persons
they met in the streets, without distinction of age or sex. But there
was practically no resistance. There were no armed men left in the
city. The population was cowed and panic-stricken, as well they might
be in face of the overwhelming misfortune which now came upon them.
After a short period of massacre the Turks turned their attention to
the more practical business of looting and taking captives for sale.
They effected this in a deliberate and systematic way. One great
band of soldiers devoted themselves to plundering the palaces of the
wealthy, another to the churches, and a third to the shops and smaller
houses. Everything of value was gathered together for subsequent
division among the soldiers. Of the inmates of the palaces and houses
the older people were put to death; the stronger and younger of both
sexes were carried off in bands as prisoners, bound together with
ropes, with a view to ultimate sale as slaves.

The Turkish historian, Seadeddin, in words which seem to smack of
pleasure at the scene, says:—

  Having received permission to loot, the soldiers thronged into the
  city with joyous hearts, and there, seizing the possessors and their
  families, they made the wretched unbelievers weep. They acted in
  accordance with the precept, “Slaughter their aged and capture their
  youth.”[20]

The gravest misfortunes fell upon the wealthier and more cultured
classes in the city. Their daughters and sons were torn from them to be
sold to harems in Asia Minor, or for other vile purposes. The parents,
if still strong, were sold as slaves. Numbers of them fled from their
houses and crowded into St. Sophia and other churches, hoping that
their foes would respect places of worship, or expecting that a miracle
of some kind would save them. But it was in vain. St. Sophia acted as
a kind of drag-net in which all the best in the city were collected,
and were carried off thence in gangs. Virgins consecrated to God were
dragged from this and other churches by their hair and were ruthlessly
stripped of every ornament they possessed. A horde of savage brutes
committed unnameable barbarities.

The city was cleared of everything of value and was all but denuded of
its population. By the lowest estimate, fifty thousand persons, mostly
the strong and the young of both sexes, were made captives, and later
were sold as slaves and deported to Asia Minor. Some few escaped from
the city into the country districts. Others found refuge in the Greek
and Genoese galleys in the harbour, which were able to get away and
escape because the crews of the Turkish vessels blockading the port
had deserted in order to take part in the sack. Some were able to hide
themselves in the city, and emerged later when the scene of horrors
was at an end. Others, we know not how many, were ruthlessly massacred
because they were of no value for sale. The proceeds of the sack
and of the sale of captives brought wealth to every soldier in the
Turkish army. No such dire misfortune to a city had occurred since the
destruction of Carthage.

After three days and nights of these orgies the Sultan intervened
and proclaimed an end of them. Meanwhile, on the day of the last
assault, when his troops were in possession of the city, the Sultan
rode into it. He went direct to St. Sophia, and, dismounting, entered
the great church. He took pains at once to prevent any destruction of
its contents, and himself struck down a soldier engaged in this work,
telling him that buildings were reserved for himself. He instructed a
mollah to call people to prayer from the pulpit. He thus inaugurated
the conversion of the splendid Christian church into a mosque.

After this he sent for Notaras, who had been in command of the Greek
forces under the Emperor, and affected to treat him with generosity. He
obtained a list of all the leading men in the city and offered a large
reward for their heads.

On the next day the Sultan made an inspection of the city and paid a
visit to the Imperial Palace. On entering it he quoted the lines from a
Persian poet:—

  The spider’s web hangs before the portal of Cæsar’s palace,
  The owl is the sentinel on the watch-tower.

Later he presided at a great banquet, where he appears to have imbibed
too freely of wine. When half-drunk he directed the chief eunuch to
go to Notaras and demand of him his youngest son, a handsome lad of
fourteen. Notaras refused, preferring death to dishonour for his son.
The Sultan thereupon ordered Notaras and all his family to be put to
death at once. Their heads were struck off and brought to the banquet
and placed before the Sultan as a decoration of his table.

It was said that the Sultan’s ferocity was stimulated by the last
favourite of his harem, with whom he was much enamoured, and that she,
on her part, was instigated by her father, a Greek renegade. Under this
influence the Sultan ordered the execution of all the persons to whom
on the previous day he had promised liberty. The Papal legate, Cardinal
Isidore, escaped recognition and was sold as a slave by a soldier for
a mean price. He was later ransomed. Orkhan, the grandson of Bayezid,
who had been brought up as a Christian at the Imperial Court, committed
suicide rather than be sold as a slave.

Although many cruel deeds were committed by the Sultan and his
soldiers, and a terrible calamity fell upon the whole community of
Greeks, it cannot be said that the capture of Constantinople was the
scene of such infamous orgies as took place in 1204, when it was
captured by the Crusaders. After the first few hours of entry there was
on this occasion no general massacre. There was not much incendiarism.
The Sultan did his best, successfully, to save the churches and other
buildings.

Although the young Sultan was most brutal in some of his actions,
he showed in others remarkable foresight and statesmanship. One of
his earliest acts, after putting an end to the sack of the city, was
to proclaim himself as protector of the Greek Church. A charter was
granted to the Orthodox members of that Church securing to the use of
it some of the churches in the capital, and authority to celebrate in
them religious rites according to their ancient usage. It also gave to
them a certain amount of autonomy in civil matters. It recognized their
laws of marriage and of succession to property and gave jurisdiction to
the Patriarch and to Ecclesiastical Courts to enforce them.

The most eminent survivor of the Greek clergy, Gennadius, was sought
for. He had been sold as a slave after the sack of the city to a pasha
at Adrianople. He was brought back to Constantinople and was invested
by the Sultan with the office of Patriarch of the Greek Church.
Mahomet, in doing so, said: “I appoint you Patriarch. May Heaven
protect you. In all cases and all occasions count on my friendship
and enjoy in peace all the privileges of your predecessors.” This was
a most wise and opportune act of policy. The Sultan had been advised
by fanatics among the Turks to order a general massacre of Greeks and
others who would not embrace Islam. Mahomet’s record shows that he
would have sanctioned this if he had thought it for the interest of the
State, and he would probably have revelled in it. In pursuance of a
deliberate policy of enlightened statecraft he rejected this advice. It
was necessary to repeople his capital and to attract others than Turks
to it. Mahomet was also ambitious of further conquests in Europe. He
recognized that the attempt to force a wholesale change of religion on
the vanquished would stimulate their resistance, while a wise tolerance
might weaken it. When the Prince of Serbia asked Hunyadi, the Hungarian
patriot, what he would do with the Orthodox Greek Church if he made
himself master of that province, the reply was, “I will establish
everywhere Catholic churches.” The reply of Mahomet to a similar
question was, “By the side of every mosque a church shall be erected in
which your people will be able to pray.”

This great act of tolerance of Mahomet was far ahead of the political
ethics of the Christian Powers of Europe at that time. His example was
not followed by the Spaniards, when they drove from their country the
Moslem Moors, who had refused to adopt the religion of their victors.
The action of Mahomet is another proof that the Turkish invasion of
Europe was not actuated by religious fanaticism or the desire to spread
Islam. There seems to have been no attempt to induce or compel the
Greeks and others of the conquered city to embrace Islam.

Mahomet also set to work, at an early date, to repeople Constantinople.
For a long time previous to the conquest its population had been
dwindling. In proportion as the Greek Empire was reduced by the loss
of its territories, so the importance of the capital was diminished.
Mahomet invited all who had fled after the capture to return, promising
protection to their property and religion. He directed the transfer of
families of Greeks, Jews, and Turks from many parts of his Empire. When
he took possession of Trebizond and the Morea, many thousands of Greeks
were forcibly removed to Constantinople. The same was the case with
many islands in the Ægean Sea. At the end of his reign Constantinople
was far more populous and flourishing than it had been under the last
Greek Emperor.

Although the capture of Constantinople was the principal feat in
Mahomet’s long reign, and that on which his fame in history chiefly
rests, it was, in fact, only the first of a long list of conquests
which earned for him from his countrymen the title _par éminence_ of
‘the Conqueror.’ During the thirty years of his reign he was almost
always at war in personal command of his armies, and there were very
few in which he did not add fresh territory to his Empire, either in
Europe or Asia.

Bosnia and the Morea, which had become tributary States under previous
Sultans, were now again invaded and were compelled to become integral
parts of the Empire. Their princes were dethroned and put to death.
Wallachia and the Crimea were forced to become vassal States. In Asia,
Karamania, so long the rival and foe of the Ottomans, and which, after
many wars, had agreed to pay tribute, was now forcibly annexed, and
its Seljukian line of kings was put an end to by death. The great city
of Trebizond and its adjoining province of Cappadocia, which had been
cut off from the parent Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by
the Crusaders, and formed into a miniature Empire, under the Comneni
dynasty, was invaded and annexed by Mahomet, and at his instance its
reigning family was put to death. The possessions of the Genoese on the
coasts of the Black Sea were seized and appropriated.

Many islands in the Greek Archipelago, including Lesbos, Lemnos, and
Cephalonia, were also attacked and annexed. The same fate befell Eubœa.
It belonged to the Republic of Venice, which was also deprived of
others of its possessions on the coast of the Morea. Besides all these
enterprises, Mahomet in several successive years sent armies to ravage
parts of Styria and Transylvania. He even sent an army across the
frontier of Italy to ravage the region of Friuli, and other districts
almost within sight of Venice, whose Republic was compelled to enter
into an ignominious treaty, binding it to assist the Ottomans in
other wars with a naval force. The last achievement of the ambitious
Sultan was to send a force to the South of Italy, where it captured
Otranto. The only captures which Mahomet attempted without success
were those of Belgrade, in 1456, and the island of Rhodes in 1480. The
case of Belgrade was of the greatest importance, for it long barred
the way to the invasion of Hungary and Germany. The Sultan himself
took command of the army of attack with a hundred and fifty thousand
men and three hundred guns. He thought the capture of it would be an
easy task after that of Constantinople. But Western Europe, which had
rendered so little assistance to the Greek Empire in its extremities,
was alarmed at the prospect of the invasion of Germany through the loss
of Belgrade. The Pope preached another crusade, and a large body of
knights volunteered for the defence of this frontier city.

Hunyadi led the Hungarians in this his last campaign. The lower town
was taken by the Turks after great loss of life; but the upper town
made a protracted resistance. The Christian knights in a notable
sortie attacked the batteries of the enemy, captured all the guns, and
wounded the Sultan himself. Mahomet was compelled to raise the siege
after losing fifty thousand men. It was the last feat of the Hungarian
patriot. He died twenty days after this signal success. It was fifty
years before Belgrade was again attacked and captured and the road was
opened for the invasion of Hungary and Vienna.

In all these campaigns Mahomet personally led his armies in the field,
with the exception of those for the invasion of the Crimea, the attack
on Rhodes, and the capture of Otranto, where he delegated the task to
able generals, of whom he appears to have had an abundant supply. But
there never was a great commander who more completely dominated the
generals under him and maintained his supremacy in the State. He made
no confidences as to his intended military operations, or what were his
immediate objects of attack. There were no councils of war. His armies
were collected, year after year, on one side or other of the Bosphorus,
without any one knowing their destination. When, on one occasion, one
of his generals asked him what was his next object, he replied that if
a single hair of his beard knew what his intentions were he would pluck
it out and cast it into the fire. He held secrecy and rapidity to be
the first elements of success in war, and he acted on this principle.
With the exception of the single case of the invasion of Wallachia,
the provocation for war was in every case on the part of the Sultan.
Invasion and attack were preceded by laconic messages calling upon the
State or city aimed at to surrender, and the actual attack was made
with the shortest possible delay.

Having determined on war and invasion, his object was pursued with the
utmost vigour, and wholly regardless of the loss of life. As a rule,
his campaigns were short; but the war with Venice was an exception. It
lasted for many years. It consisted mainly of attacks on strongholds
of the Republic in the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of
Greece and Albania, where the fleets of the two Powers played a large
part. The conquest of Albania also was only effected after a struggle
spread over many years, in which the patriot hero, Scanderbeg, defeated
successive attacks by Ottoman armies enormously exceeding his native
levies. It was not till after the death of this great chief, in 1467,
that Mahomet was able to wear down opposition in Albania by sheer force
of numbers.

Early in his reign Mahomet recognized the strategic value of
Constantinople. It became the keystone of his Empire. He transferred
the seat of his government to it from Adrianople. He fortified the
Dardanelles by the erection of two castles on either side of it near to
Sestos and Abydos, each with thirty guns, which commanded the Straits.
This secured his capital from attack. It prevented the entrance of
a hostile fleet into the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea. He added
greatly to his navy, and made it superior to that of any other single
Power in the Mediterranean. It gave him absolute supremacy in the Black
Sea and the Sea of Marmora. The possessions of the Genoese in the Black
Sea were at his mercy. He sent a flotilla of small vessels up the
Danube to assist in the siege of Belgrade.

Throughout all his campaigns Mahomet exhibited perfidy and cruelty on
a scale almost without precedent. Princes, generals, and armies, who
capitulated on the promises of safety of life and respect of property,
were put to death without compunction, in gross breach of faith. The
inhabitants of cities were sold into slavery or transferred forcibly to
Turkish dominions, in total disregard of solemn pledges.

A notable case of this kind was that of Bosnia, where the final victory
was achieved by the Ottoman Grand Vizier, in command of one of the
armies engaged, under the supreme command of the Sultan. The Prince of
Bosnia and his army capitulated on the distinct engagement in writing
that their lives would be spared. Mahomet was full of wrath at this
concession. It was his deliberate policy to extinguish by death the
family of any reigning prince whom he vanquished in war. He consulted
on the point the Mufti, with doubtless a strong hint as to what the
answer should be. The Mufti issued a _fetva_ which declared that no
treaty of this kind with an infidel was binding on the Sultan. The
holy man went so far as to offer himself to act as executioner. When
the Bosnian king was summoned to the presence of the Sultan, and came
before him trembling, with the treaty of capitulation in his hand,
the Mufti himself struck off his head in the presence of the Sultan,
exclaiming that it was a good deed to put an end to an infidel. The
_fetva_ in this case formed a precedent for numerous similar cases. The
whole of the royal family of Comnenus, the Emperor of Trebizond, who,
without a fight, surrendered his kingdom to Mahomet, upon the promise
of life and private property to himself and his family, were put to
death a few weeks later in Constantinople on the most flimsy pretence.

In a similar way, when the island of Eubœa was captured from the
Venetians in 1470 by the Sultan, the Venetian garrison, supported
by the Greek population, made a most gallant defence and inflicted
enormous losses on the Turks. Paul Evizzo, the Venetian general in
command of the island, eventually surrendered on the promise of safety
of life to himself and his army. Mahomet broke his word. He put to
death the whole of the Venetian garrison by the cruel method of
impaling. The gallant Evizzo was, by the Sultan’s order, sawn in two.
His daughter was summoned to Mahomet’s tent, and when she refused to
submit to his lust, was put to death by his order. The island was added
to the Ottoman Empire in 1471.

It must be admitted that in all these conquests the Ottoman armies were
very greatly superior in number and in armaments. In many cases they
were also assisted by the disunion of their opponents. The subjection
of Karamania was due to the death of its last king, Ibrahim, who
left seven sons behind him. Six of them were sons of a wife of royal
descent, the seventh the son of a slave. The father favoured the
youngest, whom he declared his heir. The other six fought for their
patrimony against the youngest and besieged him in Konia, the capital.
Mahomet thought that this was a good opportunity to intervene and to
annex the whole country. Without any cause of quarrel he marched an
army of a hundred thousand men into the country and waged war against
all the sons. The Grand Vizier, Mahmoud Pasha, was sent on in advance,
and defeated Ishak, the youngest son of Ibrahim, in front of Konia.
The terms of capitulation were thought by Mahomet to be too humane. He
determined to punish Mahmoud for his leniency. The cords of his tent
were cut while the Vizier was asleep. The tent fell on the luckless
sleeper. This was a sign of disgrace. Mahmoud, who was a most able
and successful general and statesman, was removed from his post and
was put to death. The Karamanian dynasty, which for so long had been
the rival of that of Othman, was now completely subdued. The country
became a province of the Turkish Empire. Its two principal cities were
depopulated and lost their splendour. It never again gave trouble to
the Ottoman government.

The country which suffered most from the cruelties of Mahomet was
Greece. Here, again, disunion was the main cause of its ruin. Two
brothers of Constantine, the last Greek Emperor at Constantinople,
Demetrius and Thomas, held sway as tributaries of the Sultan, the
one at Argos, the other at Patras. Unmindful of the danger which
threatened them, they fought one another for supremacy, after the death
of Constantine, and were assisted in their internecine war by large
numbers of turbulent Albanians, who transferred their services, now to
one and now to another of these petty despots, and are said to have
changed sides three times in the course of a single Sunday. Mahomet,
in 1458, thinking that the disputes between the two brothers afforded
a good occasion for getting full possession of the Morea, invaded it
with a large force. The two brothers, instead of uniting to defend the
country, continued to fight against one another, and attempted, at the
same time, singly to fight against the Turks. There followed scenes
of massacre and rapine as Mahomet’s army passed through the country,
besieging and capturing successively its many petty strongholds. In
nearly every case, after vigorous resistance, capitulation was offered
and agreed to on promise of life to the garrisons. In no case was
the promise kept. As a rule, the fighting-men were massacred after
surrender, their leaders were sawn in two, and the other inhabitants
were sold into slavery, or were in some cases transferred _en masse_ to
Constantinople as colonists to fill the empty city. The two brothers
were driven from the country. Demetrius appears to have made some kind
of terms with the Sultan, one of which was that his daughter should
enter Mahomet’s harem. This promise was not kept; she was not thought
worthy of it, and she was insulted by being deprived of the only eunuch
who attended her. It is not stated what became of her. Thomas fled from
the country, carrying with him, instead of treasure, a valuable relic,
the head of St. Andrew, with which he disappeared from history. The
Sultan possessed himself of the whole country, with the exception of
two or three seaports in the hands of the Venetians. The memory of this
cruel invasion of the Turks was deeply impressed on the minds of the
people of Greece. But for 471 years, with a short interlude when it was
held by the Venetians, it remained a Turkish province.

On his way back to Constantinople the Sultan passed by Athens, where
one Franco reigned as Duke, but tributary to the Turks. He gave orders
that Franco was to be strangled. As a special favour this operation
was effected, not in the tent of the Turkish general, but in his own
domicile, and thus the last spark of Greek independence passed away.

It is not perhaps fair to judge of Mahomet as regards his cruelties
and perfidies by a high standard. His opponents, the chiefs of the
countries he invaded and conquered, were, in many cases, not inferior
to him in these respects. Scanderbeg, whose patriotic defence of
Albania won for him the reputation of a saint in his own country, and
a high place in history, was most cruel and vindictive whenever he
had the opportunity. He habitually massacred the prisoners taken in
his battles. The two despots of the Morea were not behindhand in this
respect. The Prince, or Voivode as he was called, of Wallachia, Wlad by
name, was one of the most cruel and bloodthirsty ruffians recorded in
history. He was known by the name of “the Impaler.” He revelled in the
dying agonies of the prisoners and other victims whom he subjected to
this cruel death. They were reserved for this purpose to enliven his
banquets. When some guest expressed surprise that he could bear the
odour emanating from the victims of this death, the prince directed the
immediate execution of his guest, on a higher pale than the others, so
that he might not be incommoded by the odour he complained of.

Mahomet invaded Wallachia, in 1462, with an army of two hundred
thousand. In his pursuit of Wlad he came across a field where twenty
thousand Turks and Bulgarians had been put to death, one-half of them
by impalement and the other half by crucifixion. Mahomet defeated and
drove into exile this ruffian, and installed in his place a favourite
named Radul, who had been brought up at his Court as a page. On the
death of this man Wlad turned up again, but was killed by a slave.
Wallachia, which previously had been compelled to pay tribute by
Mahomet, was now made a vassal State. The Sultan appointed its prince.
It was not otherwise treated as a Turkish province.

The failure of the Turkish general to capture the island of Rhodes
was said to be due to the fact that, just before the final assault,
after long resistance by the Knights who held this island, the Turkish
general issued an order to the army that there was to be no pillage
of the city, wishing to reserve for the Sultan and himself the wealth
which might be captured. This dispirited the Turkish soldiers, and they
made no effort for success in the assault. The Knights again repulsed
the attack and the siege was raised. It was not till 1520 that Rhodes
was finally captured.

Great as Mahomet was as a warrior and general, he was not less
conspicuous as an administrator and statesman. The organization and
provisioning of his armies in his numerous campaigns were specially
worthy of notice. His soldiers were always well fed and were amply
equipped with guns and armaments. He was also the sole source of
legislation for his Empire. He had supreme power over life and property
of all his subjects. More than any of his predecessors and successors,
he founded mosques, hospitals, colleges, and schools in Constantinople
and other cities of his Empire. He fully recognized the importance of
science in education. He cultivated the society of learned men and
loved to converse with them. He had some reputation as a poet. With all
this, he was notorious for evil and sensual life in a direction which
is held to be infamous and degrading by all peoples. He was not only
himself guilty of fratricide, but he prescribed it as a family law for
his successors. He died at the age of fifty-one, after thirty years
of reign. He had collected a great army for another campaign, but no
one knew what his aims and intentions were, whether for another attack
on Rhodes, or for the invasion of Candia, or to follow up his success
in Calabria. His secret died with him. He was the first Sultan to be
buried at Constantinople, in the famous mosque which he built there. In
spite of his cruelties and perfidies and of his evil life, he has been
held in honour by successive generations of his countrymen, and has
been rightly designated as ‘the Conqueror.’

VIII

BAYEZID II

1481-1512

MAHOMET left two sons, of whom the eldest, Bayezid, succeeded him as
Sultan at the age of thirty-five. Von Hammer and other historians,
who have founded their narratives on his great work, write of Bayezid
in terms of disparagement because, unlike other early Sultans of the
Othman race, he did not signalize his reign by any great additions to
his Empire. If success as a ruler is only to be measured by territorial
expansion, Bayezid must take rank in history below the other nine
Sultans who created the Ottoman Empire and raised it to its zenith.
A great Empire, however, such as that which the Ottomans had already
achieved, may be better served by peace than by war for further
conquests. It would certainly have been well for the Ottomans if no
attempt had ever been made to extend their Empire northwards beyond
the Danube. Bayezid, so far as we can gather his policy from his
actual deeds, was not favourable to expansion of his Empire. If he was
engaged for some years in war with Hungary, Venice, and Egypt, he was
not the aggressor. He came to terms of peace with these Powers when it
was possible to do so. He did not support the army which, under his
predecessor, had invaded Italy and captured Otranto. He recalled the
very able general, Ahmed Keduk, who commanded it. Khaireddin Pasha,
who succeeded in command, after a most gallant defence, was compelled
to capitulate; and never again was Italy invaded by a Turkish army. It
would seem to have been a wise decision on the part of Bayezid not to
pursue further the Italian adventure.

As it is not our intention to write a complete history of the Ottoman
Sultans, but rather to describe the early expansion of their Empire
and its later dismemberment, it will not be necessary to devote more
than a very few pages to the comparatively uneventful reign of Bayezid.
It may be well, however, briefly to note that he was of philosophic
temperament, very austere in religion, and without his father’s vices.
Like many of his race he was devoted to literary studies, and he had
a reputation as a poet. He was not wanting in energy and valour when
occasion required. He was, however, the first of his race who did not
habitually lead his armies into the field.

His younger brother Djem, who at the death of Mahomet was only
twenty-two years of age, was a much more fiery, valorous, and ambitious
soldier, and of more attractive personality. He was of a romantic
disposition, and had a much greater reputation than Bayezid as a poet.
His poems rank high in Turkish literature. His strange adventures and
sad fate form one of the romances of Turkish history, which might
well fill many chapters. It must suffice to record of him that, like
other brothers of Sultans who were not at once put to death at the
commencement of a new reign, he took up arms and claimed the throne
against Bayezid. The latter fortunately was the first to arrive at
Constantinople after the death of Mahomet. He there obtained the
support of the Janissaries, not without large presents to them. With
the aid of Ahmed Keduk, Bayezid, after vain efforts to come to terms
with his brother, was successful in putting down two rebellions of
a formidable character on behalf of Djem. After the second defeat
Djem fled to Egypt, and thence, after many adventures, found his way
to the island of Rhodes, where he claimed the hospitality of the
Knights of Jerusalem. Their Grand Master, D’Aubusson, who had made
such a gallant defence of the island against Mahomet, and who was
a most brave warrior, was also a crafty and perfidious intriguer.
On the one hand, he induced Prince Djem to enter into a treaty, by
which very important concessions were promised to the knights in the
event of Djem being able to gain the Ottoman throne. On the other
hand, D’Aubusson negotiated a treaty with Bayezid under which he was
to receive an allowance of 45,000 ducats a year, nominally for the
maintenance of Djem, but really as an inducement to prevent the escape
of that prince from Rhodes. On the strength of this, the unfortunate
prince was detained as a virtual prisoner in Rhodes, and later in a
castle at Sasesnage, in France, belonging to the order of the Knights,
for not less than seven years. At the end of this time the King of
France, Charles VIII, intervened in favour of the prince, and got him
transferred into the keeping of the Pope at Rome. The Pope Callixtus
was also not above making a good profit out of Djem. He came to terms
with Sultan Bayezid under which he was to pocket the 45,000 ducats a
year so long as Djem was kept out of mischief. On the death, some years
later, of this Pope, his successor, Pope Alexander Borgia, of infamous
memory, renewed the treaty with Sultan Bayezid, with the addition
of a clause that he was to receive a lump sum of 300,000 ducats if
Prince Djem, instead of being detained as prisoner, was put to death.
After a short interval the Pope, fearing the intervention of the King
of France, on behalf of Djem, and wishing to pocket the lump sum,
contrived the death by poison of the prince. The menace to the Sultan
was thus at last removed, and his Empire was spared another civil war,
at a cost which by the ethics of the day was no doubt fully justified.

Of other incidents in Bayezid’s reign it is only necessary to
state that the most important of his achievements was the complete
subjection, in the second year of his reign, of Herzegovina, which
had been a tributary State under his predecessors, but was now again
invaded. It was finally incorporated as a province of the Empire. There
were also many years of desultory war with Hungary, in which frequent
raids were made by the two Powers upon one another’s territories, and
where each vied with the other in atrocious cruelties. Everywhere
children were impaled, young women were violated in presence of their
parents, wives in presence of their husbands, and thousands of captives
were carried off and sold into slavery. But there were no other
results, and peace was eventually established between the two Powers.

In Asia there was war for five years with the Mameluke government
of Egypt and Syria. The Mamelukes had sent an army in support of
an insurrection in Karamania. The outbreak was put down, and the
Karamanians were finally subjected, but the Mamelukes defeated the
Turkish armies in three great battles. Peace was eventually made, but
only on concession by the Turks of three important fortresses in Asia
Minor.

There was also war with the Republic of Venice, in the course of
which the Turks succeeded in capturing the three remaining Venetian
fortresses in the Morea—Navarino, Modon, and Coron—an important success
which extinguished the influence of Venice on the coasts of Greece.
The success was largely due to a great increase of the Turkish navy,
which in Mahomet’s reign had achieved a supremacy in the Mediterranean
over any other single naval Power. It now defeated the Venetian fleet
in a desperate battle off Lepanto in 1499, and met on equal terms the
combined fleets of Venice, Austria, and the Pope in 1500. It also went
farther afield, and at the entreaty of the Moors of Grenada, who were
severely pressed by the Christian army in Spain, ravaged the coasts of
that country.

The last two years of Bayezid’s fairly prosperous reign were obscured
by another civil war, this time at the instance of his son and
successor, Selim. Selim was the youngest of three surviving sons of
Bayezid. All three had been invested with important posts as governors
of provinces in Asia. Ahmed, the second of them, was the favourite
of his father, who designated him for succession to the throne. But
Selim was by far the ablest and most daring of them. He determined
to anticipate the death of his father, who was ageing and in feeble
health, by securing the throne for himself. Leaving his seat of
government with a large suite, almost amounting to an army, he paid a
visit, uninvited, to his father at Constantinople, and there fomented
intrigues. He was the idol of the Janissaries, who were dissatisfied
with the long inaction of Sultan Bayezid, and hoped for new conquests
and loot under Selim. Bayezid, however, was supported for the time by
a section of his army, and succeeded in defeating his son. Selim then
fled to the Crimea, where he raised a new army and, later, again made
his way to Constantinople by a forced march round the north of the
Black Sea. On arriving there he was supported by the full force of the
Turkish army.

The Janissaries, at the instance of Selim, stormed at the gates of the
imperial palace and insisted on the Sultan receiving them in person.
Bayezid gave way and admitted a deputation of them to an audience.
Seated on his throne, he asked them what they wanted. “Our Padishah,”
they said, “is old and sickly; we will that Selim shall be Sultan.”
Bayezid, finding that he could not rely on any section of his army,
submitted. “I abdicate,” he said, “in favour of my son, Selim. May
God grant him a prosperous reign.” He only asked as a favour that he
might be allowed to retire to the city of Asia Minor where he was
born. His son thereupon conducted his father, the ex-Sultan, to the
outskirts of the city with every mark of respect, and Bayezid departed
on his journey. He died, however, three days later, not without grave
suspicion of foul play. The deposition of Bayezid is interesting and
important as showing the increasing power of the Janissaries. Only the
strongest Sultan could thenceforth cope with them, and they became
eventually one of the main causes of the decay of the Empire which they
had done so much to call into existence.

Bayezid, like others of his race, in spite of his philosophic
temperament and his love of ease, had a vein of cruelty. It has been
shown that he caused his brother Djem to be poisoned. This was in
accord with the family law. A more serious instance was that he put to
death his great general, Ahmed Keduk, to whom he was deeply indebted
for success in putting down the insurrection of Djem. Ahmed had deeply
offended the Sultan by brusquely opposing his peaceful policy, and
Bayezid forcibly removed the incautious critic.

The net result to the Turkish Empire of the thirty-one years of
Bayezid’s reign was, on the one hand, the incorporation of Herzegovina,
and the expulsion of the Venetians from the Morea; on the other, the
loss of three fortresses in Asia Minor to the Mamelukes of Egypt and
the withdrawal from the South of Italy.

An incident worth recording was the first appearance of Russia in the
field of Turkish diplomacy. An ambassador was sent to Bayezid by Czar
Ivan III. He was instructed to refuse to bow his knee to the Sultan or
to concede precedence to any other ambassadors. Bayezid meekly gave
way on these points of etiquette. This was a presage of the attitude
of Russia which two centuries later threatened the existence of the
Turkish Empire.

IX

SELIM I

1512-20

ON the forced abdication of Bayezid, Selim was proclaimed Sultan at
Constantinople, with the full support of the Janissaries. He reigned
for only eight years, but he succeeded in this short time in more
than doubling the extent of the Ottoman Empire. He made no additions
to it in Europe, but he conquered and annexed the great provinces of
Diarbekir and Khurdistan from Persia, and Egypt, Syria, and a great
part of Arabia, including the holy cities, from the Mameluke government
of Egypt. He commenced this career of war and conquest at the ripe age
of forty-seven. He proved to be a ruler and general of indomitable
will and vigour, the exact opposite to his father in his greed for
expansion of his Empire. He was a most able administrator. He cared
little for his harem or other pleasures of life. Sleeping but little,
he spent his nights in literary studies. He delighted in theological
discussions and in the society of learned men, and he appointed them to
high offices in the State. They had no effect, however, in softening
his evil nature. He had no regard for human life, whether in war or
in peace. He was attended by men called mutes, who were ready at any
moment to strangle or decapitate on the spot any person designated by
him. His most trusted counsellors, his oldest friends and associates,
were in constant danger of life. He met argument or protest against
his schemes, or criticism of his past actions, by instant death, not
unfrequently by his own hand. During his short reign seven of his
Grand Viziers were decapitated by his orders. Numerous other officials
and generals shared the same fate. They seldom enjoyed the sweets of
office for more than a few months. One of them, in playful reminder
of this to Selim, asked to be given a short notice of his doom, so
that he might put his private affairs in order. The Sultan replied
to him: “I have been thinking for some time of having thee killed,
but I have at present no one to fill thy place, otherwise I would
willingly oblige thee.” Judges convicted of corruption were dealt with
in the same way. By a malicious irony they were compelled to pass
sentence on themselves, before being handed over to the executioner.
Janissaries who dared to ask for an increase of pay were also condemned
to death. The first recorded act of Selim’s reign was to strike dead
with his own sword a Janissary who was deputed by the corps to ask
for the accustomed presents on his accession. It does not appear that
these events cast gloom on Selim’s Court. They soon lost the sense of
novelty. There were plenty of applicants for the vacant posts, willing
and eager to run the risks of office. Selim was agreeable in his
conversation and life was gay. He did not indulge in refinements of
cruelty like his grandfather Mahomet. He acted from a sense of public
duty. If he spilled much blood, he restored and maintained discipline
in the army and stemmed the course of corruption. He was distinctly
popular with his subjects, with whom, as in most Eastern countries,
affection was in part inspired by terror.

As was to be expected, Selim’s two elder brothers, Khorkand and Ahmed,
whose claims to the Sultanate had been set aside, and who were at the
head of important governments in Asia Minor, took up arms against him.
Selim, without loss of a moment, led an army to Brusa against them.
Khorkand, taken unawares, was quickly defeated. He was allowed an
hour’s respite before being bow-strung. During this short interval he
wrote a poem deprecating his brother’s cruelty. Selim wept over the
poem and ordered a State funeral for his brother. At Brusa a horrible
scene of slaughter took place. Five nephews of Selim—possible claimants
to the throne—were collected there. They were of varying ages, from
five to twenty. They were all strangled by order of the Sultan—the
eldest of them resisting with terrible struggles, the youngest with
plaintive cries for mercy, while Selim from an adjoining room was a
witness of the scene, and urged his mutes to hasten their task. Ahmed,
the second and favourite son of Bayezid, made a longer resistance in
the field, but a few months later he was defeated and put to death.

Selim, now safe on his throne, turned his attention to war with Persia.
The principal cause of conflict arose out of a dispute on religion.
From an early time the Mahommedan world had been divided into two
hostile sects—the Sunnites and the Schiis. The point of difference was
whether authority should be attributed to the writings of the four
immediate descendants of the Prophet, as the Schiis contended, or
whether the words of the Prophet alone should be conclusive on matters
of dogma. It would seem that the smaller the difference in dogma
between two sects of a religious body, the worse they hate one another;
and just as the Christians of the Greek and Latin Churches hated one
another more than they hated the followers of Mahomet, so the Sunnites
and the Schiis hated one another to the point that they were each bent
on exterminating the other—though the difference between them might
seem to outsiders to be no greater than that between Tweedledum and
Tweedledee.

Persia was the headquarters of the Schiis. In the Ottoman Empire the
Sunnites greatly prevailed. But of late years the Schiis had gained
ground in Asia Minor. Selim, who was a bigoted follower of Mahomet,
determined to extirpate this heresy throughout his Empire. With
devilish zeal he employed an army of spies to ferret out the heretics,
and on a given day seventy thousand of them were arrested. Forty
thousand of them were put to death, and the remainder were condemned
to terms of imprisonment. This violent action does not seem to have
aroused any popular indignation against Selim. It earned for him in
Turkey the title of ‘the Just,’ and diplomats of the day and historians
wrote of it in laudatory terms. It was a proof of the possibility of
extirpating a heresy if the means adopted were ruthlessly carried out.
The Schii heresy was extinguished, once for all, in the Ottoman Empire.
This exploit, however, added to the animosity already existing between
the Persians and the Ottomans, and made war between them inevitable.
The immediate clash was hastened by the Persians giving asylum to
Murad, a son of Ahmed, who had not been included in the slaughter of
his cousins at Brusa.

Persia, at this time, was under the rule of Shah Ismail, a most
capable and successful ruler, who had renovated the kingdom, and added
largely to it by the conquest and subjection of many minor adjoining
States. The two potentates were well matched in vigour and ability.
When war with Persia was propounded by Selim in his council, there
was ominous silence. There was evidently fear of the undertaking. The
Janissary guarding the entrance to the chamber broke down the suspense
by throwing himself on his knees before Selim and expressing ardent
support to the war. This precipitated a decision by the council, and
the Janissary was at once promoted to high office.

Early in March, 1514, a hundred and forty thousand men and three
hundred guns were collected on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, under
command of the Sultan. Sixty thousand camels were provided to carry its
baggage and munitions. The army commenced its march on April 20th. Its
aim was Tabriz, then the capital of Persia, distant from Scutari, as
the crow flies, by over one thousand miles of a mountainous country, in
which there were no roads. The main difficulty was the supply of the
army with food for men, horses, and camels. This was partly effected
from Trebizond, to which the command of the Black Sea enabled Selim to
send supplies from Constantinople.

Selim preluded his campaign by an insolent letter to Shah Ismail. In
the course of it he said:—

  It is only by the practice of the true religion that a man will
  prosper in this world and deserve eternal life in the world to
  come. As for thee, Emir Ismail, such a reward will never be thy
  lot; for thou hast deserted the path of salvation and of the holy
  commandment; thou hast denied the purity of the doctrine of Islam;
  thou hast dishonoured and cast down the altars of God; thou hast by
  base stratagem alone raised thyself and sprung from the dust—to a
  seat of splendour and glory; thou hast opened to Mussulmans the gate
  of tyranny and oppression; thou hast forced iniquity, perjury, and
  blasphemy to impiety, heresy, and schism; thou hast, under the cloak
  of hypocrisy, sown in all parts the seeds of trouble and sedition;
  thou hast raised the standard of ungodliness; thou hast given way
  to thy shameful passions and abandoned thyself without restraint
  to the most disgraceful excesses.... Therefore, as the first duty
  of a Mussulman, and above all of a pious prince, is to obey the
  commandment, “Oh ye faithful who believe, perform ye the decrees of
  the Lord”—the ulemas and our teachers of the law have pronounced
  death against thee, perjurer and blasphemer as thou art, and have
  laid upon every good Mussulman the sacred duty of taking arms for the
  defence of religion and for the destruction of heresy and impiety, in
  thy person and the persons of those who follow thee.

On the approach of Selim and his army to the frontier of Persia, Shah
Ismail, instead of going out to meet his foe, laid waste the whole
country and retreated towards his capital. This greatly increased
the difficulty Selim had of supplying his army. The soldiers were
exhausted by the long march. The Janissaries began to murmur. One of
the generals, Hemdar Pasha, who had been brought up with Selim from
his earliest childhood, and might be expected to have great influence
with him, was persuaded by his brother officers to remonstrate with the
Sultan against further prosecution of the invasion of Persia, through a
country where every vestige of food was destroyed. The Sultan met the
suggestion by ordering the instant decapitation of the pasha.

Selim endeavoured to provoke Ismail to meet him in battle by another
insolent letter, written mainly in verse, taunting him with cowardice.
“One who, by perjury,” he wrote, “seizes sceptres, ought not to skulk
from danger.... Dominion is a bride to be wooed and won by him only
whose lip blanches not at the biting kiss of the sabre’s edge.” Ismail
replied in a dignified letter denying the existence of any reason
for war, and expressing willingness to resume peaceful relations.
He suggested that Selim’s letter, written in a style so unfitting
the dignity of the Sultan, must have been the hasty production of a
secretary, who had taken an overdose of opium. The taunt was a bitter
one, for it was well known that Selim was addicted to opium. The letter
was accompanied by the present of a box of opium to the supposed
secretary.

Meanwhile Selim and his army marched on with ever-increasing
difficulties of supplies. The soldiers at last broke out in open revolt
and demanded to be led back to their homes. Selim took the bold course
of riding into the midst of them and addressing them personally.

  Is this [he said] your service to your Sultan? Does your loyalty
  consist of mere boast and lip worship? Let those among you who wish
  to go stand out from the ranks and depart. As for me, I have not
  advanced thus far merely to double back on my track. Let the cowards
  instantly stand aloof from the brave who have devoted themselves with
  sword and quiver, soul and hand to our enterprise.

He gave word of command to form columns and march, and not a single man
dared to leave the ranks.

On the approach of the Ottoman army to Tabriz, Ismail was at last drawn
from his reserve. He determined to give battle. The two armies met
at Calderan, not far from the capital, on August 14th, 116 days from
the commencement of the march, which must have covered nearly twelve
hundred miles. This was a great performance on the part of the Turkish
army. It was by this time reduced to one hundred and twenty thousand
men, of whom eighty thousand were cavalry. The Persian army consisted
of eighty thousand cavalry, splendidly mounted and equipped, and well
trained. But there were no infantry and no guns. The Turkish soldiers
were fatigued by their long march. They were ill-fed and the horses
were stale and out of condition. The issue turned upon the success
of the charges of the Persian cavalry. They attacked the Turks with
great impetuosity in two bodies on either flank. That under command
of Ismail himself was successful and broke and dispersed the opposing
wing of the Turks. The other column was unsuccessful. The Ottomans
fell back behind their guns. The Janissaries formed a solid front. The
cannons opened a destructive fire, which was supported by the fire of
the Janissaries, who were now armed with muskets. The Persians were
shattered and destroyed. The defeat of the other wing of the Turkish
army was retrieved. Twenty-five thousand Persian horsemen lay dead on
the field. Ismail himself was badly wounded and escaped with difficulty.

After this victory Selim entered Tabriz, and remained there eight
days. It was his wish to winter in Persia and to renew his campaign in
the following spring, but his soldiers objected and insisted on being
led home. This time Selim found himself unable to refuse. He turned
homeward with his army. No terms of peace were concluded with Ismail,
and the two countries continued nominally at war during the remainder
of Selim’s life. But the great provinces of Diarbekir and Khurdistan
remained in the hands of the Turks. Selim left them in charge of
the well-known Turkish historian, Idris, who spent the next year in
organizing these two departments and in putting down any attempt at
resistance. He was eminently successful in this, and the two provinces
were permanently annexed to the Ottoman Empire. The whole campaign of
Selim must be considered as a most striking success. To have marched
a hundred and forty thousand men, with eighty thousand horses and
three hundred guns, over twelve hundred miles, and to have defeated a
powerful army, backed by all the resources of a great country, was an
achievement which earned for Selim a place in the first rank of great
generals. Selim does not appear to have been anxious to include Persia
in his Empire. His hatred of the Schii heresy was such that he aimed
rather at isolation than annexation. He issued a firman forbidding any
trade with Persia, and when a number of merchants were reported to
him for having broken the law by entering into illicit trade with the
Persians, he ordered them to be executed. He was only with difficulty
induced to revoke the order by the Mufti Djemali.

On his return to Constantinople Selim, inflamed by his success in
putting down the heresy of the Schiis and his victory over heretical
Persia, determined to extirpate Christianity from his dominion. Again
with the greatest difficulty he was dissuaded from this course by
the courageous Mufti. But he insisted on depriving the Christians in
Constantinople of all their churches, which he turned into mosques.

In the spring of 1516 Selim determined to extend his Empire by the
conquest of Syria and Egypt. These countries had been for many years
past under the rule of the Mamelukes, a body of soldiers recruited from
Circassian slaves, and from whose ranks Sultans were elected for their
lives. The existing Sultan, Kansar Ghowri, was eighty years of age,
but was still able to take command in the field of his Mamelukes. The
immediate pretext for war, as in the case of Persia, was a religious
one. A claim was preferred by Selim for the protection of the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina.

On June 26th Selim arrived at Konia, and thence sent an insolent
missive of defiance to Ghowri, who was at Aleppo. In return, a mission
was sent to the Turkish headquarters. It consisted of an envoy and a
suite of ten Mamelukes in splendid military array and glittering with
armour. Selim was indignant at this warlike demonstration. He directed
the immediate execution of the ten members of the suite, and with
difficulty was persuaded not to deal in the same way with the envoy. As
an alternative the envoy was shorn of his beard and hair, his head was
covered by a nightcap, and he was mounted on a broken-down donkey, and
was returned in this ignominious way to Ghowri.

The two armies met in battle not far from Aleppo. The issue was not in
doubt. The Egyptians had no guns. They also suffered from the defection
of the Djellans, a section of Mamelukes of the second and inferior
rank. An hour sufficed to ensure complete victory to the Turks.
Ghowri fled and died, trampled to death, it was said, by the mass of
fugitives. The victory caused the loss not only of Aleppo but of the
whole of Syria. Selim, after a few days at Aleppo, went to Damascus,
and there organized the invasion of Egypt. This involved the provision
of many thousands of camels to carry water for the troops when crossing
the desert. He sent five thousand men to Gaza, under Sinan Pasha, the
brave general who had led the victorious wing of his army against the
Persians. They met there an Egyptian army of about the same number, and
a fierce battle ensued, which resulted in the defeat of the Mamelukes,
mainly owing to the Ottoman artillery.

Selim left Damascus with his main army on December 16th. On arrival at
Gaza he ordered the immediate slaughter of all its inhabitants. He also
directed the execution of one of his own generals who ventured to point
out to him the danger of an invasion of Egypt. On January 10th the
arrangements for this expedition were complete. Ten days were occupied
in crossing the desert between Syria and Egypt. The army was harassed
by Arabs, but there was no attempt to resist on the part of the main
Egyptian army. When, at one time, the Grand Vizier, thinking that the
cloud of Arabs meant a more serious resistance, persuaded Selim to
mount his war-horse, the Sultan, on finding it was a false alarm and
that it was only an affair with Arabs, directed the execution of the
Vizier.

On the last day of the year 1516 Selim arrived with his army within
a few miles of Cairo. Meanwhile the Mamelukes had elected Tourman Bey
as Sultan to succeed Ghowri. But there was much opposition to this
on the part of those who favoured the claim of the son of Ghowri. As
a result, there was dissension in the Egyptian army. Two of their
leaders, Ghazali Bey and Khair Bey, entered into treasonable relations
with Selim. Ghazali persuaded Tourman to send the guns, with which
the Egyptian army was now provided, by the ordinary route, and then
secretly sent information of this to Selim, who was able to avoid the
guns by taking another route.

The two armies met near Ridania. The battle resulted in the complete
defeat of the Egyptians, with a loss of twenty-five thousand men, owing
to their want of guns. Selim then advanced on Cairo. There was no
resistance at first, but later the Mamelukes reoccupied it and made a
desperate resistance to the Turkish army. The streets were barricaded
and every house was turned into a fortress. Selim spent three days in
getting possession of the city. Eight hundred Mamelukes who surrendered
on promise of their lives were put to death. A general massacre of the
inhabitants then took place, and fifty thousand of them perished by
the sword, or were thrown into the flames of the burning houses. As a
result of this, and further military operations in the Delta, Egypt was
completely subdued. The brave and generous Tourman was taken prisoner
and, after denouncing the two traitors in the presence of Selim, was
put to death.

Some months were then occupied by Selim in organizing the conquered
country. It was not annexed as an integral part of Turkey. The
Mamelukes, or rather the section of them who had been unfaithful
to their Sultan, and who had survived the general slaughter, were
entrusted with the administration of Egypt, subject to the superior
control of a pasha appointed by the Turkish government. Ghazali and
Khair Bey received the reward of their treason—Ghazali was appointed
Governor of Syria and Khair Bey of Egypt. A garrison of five thousand
Ottoman soldiers was left at Cairo. The Turkish army insisted on an
early return to Constantinople. A war against Moslems, where there was
no opportunity of making captives for sale as slaves or for harems, had
no charm for them. Selim had once more to give way.

It was not till September 17th that he was able to commence his
homeward march. Having safely passed the desert, he said to his Grand
Vizier, Younis Pasha, who was riding beside him, “Well, our backs are
now turned on Egypt and we shall soon be at Gaza.” Younis, who had
originally been opposed to the expedition, could not resist the reply:
“And what has been the result of all our trouble and fatigue, if it is
not that half our army has perished in battle, or in the sands of the
desert, and that Egypt is now governed by a gang of traitors?” This
imprudent speech cost the Grand Vizier his life. His head was struck
off as he rode by his master’s side.

The conquest of Egypt entailed the acquisition of the interests of
that country in a great part of Arabia, including the holy cities of
Mecca and Medina. Selim was also able to induce the titular Caliph, who
through many generations had inherited from the early successors of
Mahomet a certain undefined authority in the religious world, and who
held a shadowy Court at Cairo, to make over to him and his successors,
as Sultans of Turkey, the barren office, together with its symbols,
the standard and cloak of the Prophet. These symbols were removed
to Constantinople, and thenceforth the Sultans assumed the title of
Caliphs and Protectors of the Holy Places—and this may have added to
their prestige in the Moslem world, though it may be doubted whether
it contributed much to the strength of the Turkish Empire. Of more
material advantage was the fact that an annual tribute was paid by the
Egyptian government, which a few years later, under Solyman, was fixed
at 80,000 ducats. It also contributed men and ships to wars undertaken
by the Sultan. In the siege of Rhodes, in 1524, Egypt sent three
thousand Mamelukes and twenty vessels of war.

Selim spent some time at Damascus and Aleppo on his way back in
organizing his new acquisitions. Syria was incorporated in the Turkish
Empire, and has remained so to the present time.

The campaign which ended in the conquest of Egypt and Syria was not
less conspicuous in its result than that against Persia, more on
account of the difficulties of organization, than for success on
the field of battle. Treason and the want of artillery were more
responsible for the defeat of the Mamelukes than the valour of the
Ottoman troops. It is not easy for us to understand why Egypt was not
incorporated in the Empire in the same way as Syria. The Mamelukes were
as much strangers to the country as the Turks themselves. The minority
of them, who survived the war and the bloody executions by Selim, had
no claim to recognition as the ruling class in Egypt, other than their
treachery to their fellow-Mamelukes and their Sultan and the aid which
they had given to the invaders. It will be seen that these surviving
Mamelukes soon regained full power in Egypt, and reduced the pashas
appointed from Constantinople to puppets.

Selim returned to his capital in 1518. In the remaining two years
of his life there were no further military exploits. He made great
preparations for another campaign. He added greatly to the strength of
his navy. He built a hundred and fifty ships of war, many of them of
great size for those days. It was generally believed that he intended
an attack on Rhodes to avenge the defeat of his grandfather, the
acquisition of which, lying as it did across the route to Egypt, was of
great importance. Before, however, any decision was arrived at, Selim
died on his way to Adrianople, very near to the spot where his father
had been poisoned by his orders. He left the reputation of being one of
the ablest organizers of victory, but also the most cruel despot of the
Othman line. It was for long a common expression with the Turks, by way
of a curse, “May’st thou be a vizier to Sultan Selim.”

X.

SOLYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

1520-66

SELIM was succeeded by his only son, Solyman, at the age of twenty-six,
who reigned for forty-six years, a period of unexampled splendour in
the history of the Ottoman Empire—its culminating era. This was mainly
due to the personal qualities of the new Sultan. He surpassed all his
predecessors, and still more his degenerate successors, in dignity
and graciousness. He was not behind the best of them in military
capacity, vigour of action, and personal courage. He combined with
these qualities statesmanship of high order. With rare exceptions
he stood by his engagements and did not follow the precept of the
Koran that faith need not be kept with infidels. He was great as an
administrator and legislator. Before he mounted the throne he had been
employed by his father as governor of three very important provinces,
and had gained a high reputation for his determination to secure
justice to his subjects, whatever their race or creed. His private
life was free from scandal. He was noted for his clemency and kindness
of heart. If massacres took place after victories or after capture of
fortresses when he was in command, it was because he could not restrain
his turbulent and bloodthirsty Janissaries; but the occasions of such
scenes were comparatively rare. He had, however, a blend of cruelty in
his character, as had most of his predecessors. Being an only son, he
had no occasion, on mounting the throne, to carry out the fratricidal
law of Mahomet II. But he was determined that there should be no
possible rival in his family, however remote. After the surrender of
Rhodes, two years later, on the promise of life and property to its
defenders, he singled out, in breach of his promise, a son of Prince
Djem, who was one of those included in the amnesty, and directed
the immediate execution of him and his four sons. Worse also than
fratricide was the murder by Solyman of two of his own sons. The eldest
of them, Mustapha, was a most promising prince. He had already shown
his capacity as governor of a province. He was endowed with all his
father’s best qualities. He was the idol of the army and the hope of
his country.

Solyman was persuaded by his latest favourite concubine, a Russian
lady, Ghowrem by name, who had unbounded influence over him and
retained it till late in life, that Prince Mustapha was intriguing
against him, and aimed at dethroning him, as Selim had done in the case
of Bayezid. She hoped to secure the succession for her own son. Without
a word of warning or any opportunity of defending himself, Mustapha,
in the course of the second Persian campaign in 1553, on entering his
father’s tent, was seized by the mutes and was strangled while Solyman
looked on at the foul deed. There was more excuse for putting to
death another son, Bayezid, who had been goaded by an intrigue in the
Sultan’s harem into taking up arms, in 1561, against his brother Selim.
He was defeated and fled to Persia, where he was at first received
with great honour by Shah Talmasp, the successor to Ismail, with the
distinct promise that he would not be given up. But Solyman obtained
his extradition by threat of war and the promise of 400,000 pieces of
gold. The unfortunate prince was treated with the greatest indignity.
His hair and beard were shorn. He was handed over, together with his
four sons, to an emissary of his brother Selim, who at once put to
death the whole party.

As a result of the murders of these two sons of Solyman, a third one,
the son of Ghowrem, was the only heir to the throne. He succeeded
Solyman and was known as “Selim the Sot.” It will be seen that this
prince had none of the qualities of his race. He was the first of a
long line of degenerates who eventually lost the greater part of the
Empire which had been built up by Solyman and his predecessors.

Though the office of Grand Vizier was not so dangerous to its holders
as under Selim I, it proved to be fatal to two of the nine men who
held it during Solyman’s reign. One of the most remarkable incidents
of Solyman’s life was his infatuation for Ibrahim, the second of his
Grand Viziers. Ibrahim, a renegade Greek by birth, had been captured
as a boy by corsairs and sold as a slave to a widow in Magnesia, who
brought him up as a Mussulman. Recognizing his talents, this lady gave
him an excellent education. Solyman, on a visit to that province, came
across Ibrahim, and, attracted by his musical talent, took him into
service, where he rose to be master of the pages and grand falconer. He
soon acquired immense influence over his master, whose sister was given
to him in marriage. He was rapidly promoted, and in 1523 was appointed
Grand Vizier. The Sultan and his favourite became inseparable. They had
their meals alone together. They concerted between them all the affairs
of State. Ibrahim justified this preference, for he proved to be of
great capacity, not inferior in any respect to his master, and his
superior in education and knowledge of languages and history. He was
appointed Seraskier, or Commander-in-Chief, when the Sultan was unable
personally to command. In the earlier campaigns in Hungary and Persia,
and in the siege of Vienna, he took a most active part, and was the
main adviser to his master.

After thirteen years of implicit confidence in Ibrahim, suspicion arose
in the mind of the Sultan and was fanned by the Sultana Ghowrem, who
coveted the post of Grand Vizier for her son-in-law, Roostem Pasha.
There does not appear to have been any ground for these suspicions,
save that Ibrahim, intoxicated by his elevation, assumed the airs
almost of an equal with the Sultan. A vizier suspected was very near to
his doom. Entering the palace one day in 1536 to dine with the Sultan
as usual, he was never seen alive again. The next morning his body was
found in the palace. His immense wealth was confiscated to the State.
It was said that Solyman in an adjoining room to that where this murder
was perpetrated was smothered with kisses by Ghowrem so as to drown the
cries of the dying Vizier.

In another case, the Grand Vizier Achmet was decapitated in the council
chamber by order of Solyman, solely because he gave advice which
displeased his master. Von Hammer gives a long list of other high
officials who shared the same fate.

During the forty-six years of his reign Solyman added enormously to
the Empire. Belgrade, Rhodes, nearly the whole of Hungary, the Crimea,
the great provinces of Mossul, Bagdad, and Bassorah, and a part of
Armenia taken from Persia, Yemen and Aden in Arabia, Algiers, Oran, and
Tripoli, and an undefined extent of hinterland inhabited by Arabs in
North Africa, and a wide extension of Egypt in the direction of Nubia,
were the contributions which he transmitted to his successors. There
were few years of his long reign in which he was not under arms. War
with Hungary and Austria in the north alternated with war with Persia
in the east and with Spain in the west. Solyman was often in command of
his armies. He conducted personally thirteen campaigns, some of them,
such as those against Persia, extending over two years. For the most
part these wars were embarked on without any just or even plausible
cause. They were stimulated by lust of conquest on the Sultan’s part,
and by craving for active service and for loot on the part of the
Janissaries. Religious fanaticism seems to have had little concern with
the motives or results of them.

Solyman’s first campaign, in 1521, was directed against Belgrade, the
city which had successfully defied Mahomet II. He marched against it at
the head of an army of a hundred thousand men with three hundred guns.
It was bravely defended by the Hungarians. But they had no guns. After
seven days of bombardment the city was assaulted and captured. There
was no massacre of the garrison or the inhabitants. Solyman converted
the principal church into a mosque. The city was thenceforth garrisoned
by a Turkish force. It constituted the principal stronghold of the
Empire on the Danube, and was the gateway for many invasions of Hungary.

In the next year, 1523, Solyman followed up this success by an
attack on the island of Rhodes, where Mahomet had also failed, and
the capture of which had become more important since the conquest of
Egypt, lying as it did on the direct route by sea from Constantinople.
For this purpose Solyman sent a fleet of three hundred vessels with
eight thousand Janissaries and a hundred siege guns. He marched at
the head of a hundred thousand men through Asia Minor to the bay of
Marmerice, opposite to Rhodes, whence they were conveyed to the island.
The knights, six hundred in number, with only five thousand trained
soldiers and a _levée_ of peasants on the island, made a heroic defence
under their Grand Master, de Lisle Adam. It was only after a siege of
nine months that they were at last compelled to capitulate. It was the
first occasion on which a great fortress was approached by sap and
spade work, so as to avoid gun fire, and in which bombs were used by
the attacking army. Solyman’s army is said to have lost fifty thousand
men in casualties and as many more by disease. Under the terms of
capitulation, the survivors of the garrison with all their personal
property were to be conveyed to Crete, after twelve days, in their
own galleys. After an interview with the Grand Master the Sultan is
reported to have said, with great generosity, “It is not without regret
that I force this brave man from his home in his old age.” The arms of
the knights are still to be seen carved on the houses they occupied in
Rhodes. The Turks have always respected them in memory of the gallant
defence. The terms of surrender were faithfully observed by Solyman
with the exception already referred to. The knights eventually settled
at Malta, at that time a nearly desert island. They made it the seat of
their order and fortified it. Its central position in the Mediterranean
made it a stronghold of the utmost importance. Solyman, in the last
year but one of his long reign, thought it necessary for the expansion
of his Empire, in the North of Africa, to oust the knights from their
new nest. He sent an army and a fleet under command of Piale Reis to
besiege it. There commenced another celebrated siege in which the
knights, under command of their Grand Master, Lavallette, covered
themselves with glory. The Turks were defeated in many assaults on the
fortress, and were ultimately compelled to withdraw with heavy losses.

The two years after the conquest of Rhodes were spent by Solyman in
organizing his kingdom. His inaction was greatly resented by the
Janissaries, who hated their dull life in barracks and longed for
war and for loot. They broke out in revolt and pillaged the houses
of Ibrahim and other great functionaries. The outbreak was quelled,
Solyman killing with his own hand three of the rebels. Their Agha
and other leaders were put to death. But Solyman found it expedient
to appease the mercenaries by generous presents, and in the next
year—mainly at their instigation—embarked on another war. He was urged
to invade Hungary by Francis I, King of France, who hoped to create a
diversion from the ambitious projects of the Emperor Charles V. This
may be considered as the first entry of the Turks into the maze of
European politics. Hungary and Bohemia were at that time united under
the rule of Louis II, a very young and inexperienced man.

In April, 1526, Solyman and his Grand Vizier, Ibrahim, with a hundred
thousand men and three hundred guns, marched to Belgrade, and thence
invaded Hungary. On August 27th, five months after their departure from
Constantinople, they met the Hungarian army at Mohacz, not far from
the Danube, and about half-way from Belgrade to Buda, then, as now,
the capital of Hungary. The battle was quickly decided. The Ottoman
army had the advantage of an overwhelming superiority both of men
and guns. The Hungarians were defeated. Their King, eight bishops,
a great majority of the Hungarian nobles, and twenty-four thousand
men were killed. This decided the fate of Hungary. Before marching
onwards, Solyman ordered all the prisoners he had taken—four thousand
in number—to be put to death. He reached Buda on September 10th. The
city surrendered. Solyman received there the submission of a number
of Hungarian nobles who had survived the disaster of Mohacz. At his
instance, Count Zapolya, one of the magnates of Hungary and Voivode of
Transylvania, was elected by them as King of Hungary in succession to
Louis II, who had left no heir. Solyman shortly after this—influenced
in part by news of civil disturbance in Asia Minor—left Buda and
retreated to the Danube, and thence returned to his capital. The
temporary occupation of part of Hungary had been attended with fearful
devastation and with great loss of life to its population. It was
estimated that two hundred thousand men were massacred. The retreating
army carried off an immense booty and drove before them about a hundred
thousand captives of both sexes, who were eventually sold as slaves
at Constantinople. Garrisons were left by the Turks in some of the
frontier fortresses of Hungary.

The election of Count Zapolya as King of Hungary under the dictation of
the Turks led to civil war in that country. Archduke Ferdinand, brother
of Charles V, to whom the Emperor had transferred his Archduchy of
Austria, claimed the throne of Hungary, by virtue of a treaty between
the Emperor and the late King Louis. On the other hand, it was claimed
by Zapolya and his adherents that, under an ancient law of Hungary, no
one but a native could be elected as King. In spite of this, the nobles
of Western Hungary met in Diet at Presburg and elected Ferdinand.
Ferdinand appealed to arms, and was supported by the Austrians. He
defeated his rival. Zapolya was driven from the country. He fled to
Poland, and thence he appealed to the Sultan for aid in support of
his claims in Hungary. Ferdinand, hearing of this, sent an envoy to
the Sultan. Most unwisely, he not only claimed assistance in support
of his claims to the throne of Hungary, but he demanded that Belgrade
and other towns in Hungary in possession of the Sultan should be given
up. Ibrahim, the Grand Vizier, who conducted the negotiations with the
two rivals, was most arrogant. He claimed that every place where the
hoofs of the Sultan’s horses had once trod became at once and for ever
part of the Ottoman Empire. “We have slain,” he said, “King Louis of
Hungary. His kingdom is now ours to hold or to give to whom we list. It
is not the crown that makes the King, it is the sword. It is the sword
that brings men into subjection; and what the sword has won the sword
will keep.”

The Sultan decided against Ferdinand and said to Zapolya’s envoy, “I
will be a true friend to thy master. I will march in person to aid
him. I swear it by our Prophet Mahomet, the beloved of God, and by
my sabre.” To the rival’s agent he said that he would speedily visit
Ferdinand and drive him from the kingdom he had stolen. “Tell him that
I will look for him on the field of Mohacz or even in Buda, and if he
fail to meet me there, I will offer him battle beneath the walls of
Vienna.”

In pursuance of these threats, Solyman, in 1529, at the head of two
hundred and fifty thousand men and with three hundred guns, again
invaded Hungary and laid siege to Buda. The city surrendered at
the instance of traitors among its defenders. Under the terms of
capitulation life and property were to be preserved to the garrison and
the citizens. The Janissaries, furious at the loss of loot, refused to
recognize the terms. They massacred all the garrison as they issued
from the fortress, and they carried off for sale most of the young
women of the town. Zapolya was reinstated as a vassal King of that
part of Hungary. Solyman then marched on to Vienna. He arrived there on
September 27, 1529, with over two hundred thousand men. There ensued
the first of the two memorable sieges of Vienna by the Ottomans.

Charles V, Emperor of Germany, was at this time the greatest and most
powerful sovereign in Europe. He had inherited the kingdoms of Spain,
the Netherlands, Naples and Sicily, as well as his possessions in
Germany. Born six years later than Solyman, he was elected Emperor
of Germany a year before the accession of Solyman as Sultan. He
abdicated his throne and retired to a monastery ten years before the
death of Solyman. For thirty-six years, therefore, their reigns were
synchronous. It would be hard to say which of the two sovereigns was
the more valiant in arms, or the more astute statesman. Judged by
the extent of conquests, Solyman far surpassed his rival. Charles
did little more than maintain the integrity of his immense inherited
possessions in Europe. But he acquired by conquest Tunis in Africa, and
Mexico and Peru in America.

When Solyman, instigated by Francis I of France, was invading Austria,
Charles was deeply engaged in war against France in Italy, and could
not send an army to meet the Ottomans in the field. Vienna was left to
stand the brunt of invasion without a protecting army. Its garrison
consisted of only sixteen thousand soldiers under Count de Salms.
Its fortifications were only a continuous wall 5 feet in thickness
and without bastions. Its guns were only seventy-two in number. Such
weak defences seemed to offer little hope against the overwhelming
numbers of the Ottomans. The tents of the Sultan and his army whitened
the whole plain round the city. Irregular cavalry, called Scorchers,
depending on loot for their food and pay, ravaged the country for miles
round the city with incredible cruelty and rapacity. A Turkish flotilla
of four hundred small vessels found its way up the Danube, after
destroying all bridges, and lent assistance to the siege. It was all in
vain. The Austrian and Spanish troops under the Count de Salms defended
the weak lines with the utmost courage and tenacity. The Viennese
citizens constructed lines of earthworks within the walls, against
which the lighter guns of the Turks had little effect. The powerful
siege guns of the Ottomans had been left behind _en route_, owing to
heavy rains and the badness of roads. Numerous assaults were made by
the Turks. The soldiers were at last dispirited by failure. In vain
their officers drove them on by sticks and sabres. The men said they
preferred death from their officers to death from the long arquebuses
of the Spaniards. Twenty ducats a head were given or promised to them.
It was to no purpose. Solyman, after three weeks of fruitless assaults,
found himself compelled to raise the siege and to retreat with his
great army. His irregulars had so ravaged the country that he had the
utmost difficulty in feeding his men.

Before striking the camp all the immense booty taken in the campaign
was burnt. The prisoners, most of them the peasantry of the district
round Vienna, were massacred. Only the fairest of the young women were
carried off captives to be sold as slaves. The Sultan returned to
Constantinople. There was no pursuit of his army. It came back intact.
It was a slur on the fame of Solyman that he endeavoured to conceal
his failure to capture Vienna by lying accounts of success, and by a
popular celebration of triumph, on return to his capital. There was
this much to be said for him, that he had flouted the Austrians, by
invading their country and devastating it up to the walls of Vienna,
without any attempt, on their part, to meet him in the field or to
follow him up on his retreat.

Three years later, in 1532, Solyman, with another immense army,
again invaded Hungary, with the avowed object of marching to Vienna
and attacking the army of the Emperor. Charles V, on this occasion,
took command of the Austrian army. It was expected that a trial of
strength would take place between the two potentates, and would decide
which of them was the stronger. But Solyman’s progress was delayed
by the heroic defence for three weeks of the small fortress of Guns.
After its capture Solyman made no further advance towards Vienna, but
turned aside and devastated Styria, and then led his army homeward.
The Emperor, on his part, made no effort to meet his foe and join
conclusions with him. It was evident that both of them were anxious to
avoid the issue of a great battle.

Though the Sultan had retreated and had returned to Constantinople,
peace was not concluded, and a desultory war was continued for some
years between Ferdinand and Zapolya. Peace was concluded in 1538, under
which Zapolya was to retain the title of King of Eastern Hungary and
Transylvania and Ferdinand was acknowledged ruler of the western half.
In 1566 Solyman again invaded Hungary, on his thirteenth and last
campaign, to which we will revert later.

We have thus described briefly the course of events between the Turks
and the Hungarians, supported by Austria. Though the conquests of
Solyman in this direction had been arrested by his failure to capture
Vienna, he succeeded in securing virtual possession of the greater part
of Hungary.

It is necessary to revert to Solyman’s feats in other directions. In
1534 he entered upon his sixth campaign, this time against Persia. Shah
Ismail was no longer alive, and had been succeeded by Shah Talmasp, a
very weak personage. Solyman, as a prelude to his attack, gave orders
for the execution of all the Persian prisoners at Gallipoli. Ibrahim
was sent on, in advance, by some months, with a large army. Instead of
marching by Aleppo to Bagdad, he took the route direct to Tabriz, which
he occupied without resistance on the part of the Persians. He wintered
there, and the next spring he was joined by Solyman with another
army, and together they marched to Mossul and Bagdad, through a most
difficult country, where the climate entailed great losses on the army.
Bagdad was ultimately reached. It was treacherously surrendered by its
commander. In fact, the Shah made no attempt to repel the invasion of
the Ottoman army, and the two great provinces of Mossul and Bagdad were
added to the Ottoman Empire, without any pitched battle on the part of
Persia.

There were other campaigns in Persia in 1548, 1553, and 1554, in which
the Turks often suffered more from the climate and from the difficulty
of obtaining supplies than from the guerrilla attacks of the Persians.
But there was no pitched battle between the armies of the two Powers.
The Turks maintained their conquests, and have done so to the present
year (1917).

Not less remarkable during the long reign of Solyman than his conquests
by his army were the exploits of his navy. It achieved victory in
many hard-fought battles with Spain and Venice. There was no great
disparity in naval force between the Turks and the Spaniards, but
when the fleets of Venice and the Pope were combined with those of
Spain, there was great superiority on their part in the number and
size of vessels. In spite of this, in the two great battles where this
combination was against them, the Turks were victorious, and generally,
throughout Solyman’s reign, his fleets maintained a supremacy in the
Mediterranean. This enabled him to add to his Empire the provinces of
Algiers, Oran, and Tripoli, and numerous islands in the Ægean Sea,
taken from Venice.

The Mussulman States of North Africa, at the commencement of Solyman’s
reign, were in the hands of degenerate and incompetent Mahommedan
rulers, who exercised little control over the Arabs of the hinterland.
The cities on the coast were the haunts of pirates, who sometimes
sailed under the flags of these States, but more often under no flag
but their own. They preyed on the commerce of the Mediterranean,
bringing their prizes into their ports and selling the captives as
slaves, with the result that in Tunis alone there were twenty thousand
Christian captives. These corsairs formed squadrons of ten or twenty
galleys, under the command of admirals, chosen from the most daring and
adventurous of them. They were called corsairs, but, in fact, they were
mere pirates, knowing no law but their own, and that founded on robbery
and murder. The sea-dogs in command of these pirates gained great
experience in handling their ships and squadrons. They ravaged the
coasts of Spain, Italy, and France, and even occasionally of England
and Ireland, devastating the cities and villages and carrying away
booty and captives.

It has been shown that Selim paid great attention to his navy, and
increased his ships in number and size. Solyman followed the same
course. But his admirals and captains did not compare in skill and
daring with those of the pirate squadrons. When Solyman became aware of
this, he most astutely invited the ablest and most experienced of these
pirates to take service under the Ottoman flag, and to bring with them