General Dispositions
By the " protocol of the 7th Sefer 1284 A.H. " foreigners may enjoy the rights of proprietorship on the same conditions as Ottoman subjects throughout the empire, save in the Hejaz. The transmission of property from a foreigner to his heirs is therefore governed by the Ottoman laws, and not those of the country to which he belongs. The real property of a Mussulman does not pass by inheritance to non-Mussulman heirs, but may pass to his Mussulman heirs of a foreign nationality, and vice versa. Property of an individual who has abandoned Ottoman nationality without legal authority so to do does not pass to heirs, whether Ottoman or foreign, but devolves to the state if legal authority has been granted the government under which the foreign heirs live must have accepted the protocol above cited. An heir who has voluntarily caused the death of the person from whom he should inherit loses all rights of succession. It is not proposed to trace the formalities of transfer and transmission of real property here; they will be found in vol. iii. of the Dustur (Ottoman Code). Minerals are worked according to the law of the 14th Sefer 1324 (March 26, 1906). Mines can only be exploited in virtue of an imperial irade. The concessions are to be for 99 years with the exception of chrome, emery, boracite and other minerals found only in the form of deposits, which may be granted for not less than 40 years or more than 99 years. They may be disposed of under certain conditions to third parties, and they may be inherited. Immovable. property, working plant, tools and fixtures, cannot he seized for payment of debts. For the discovery of mines, special permits of research, on which there is a fee of £T5 to £T 15, are necessary; full details of the requisite formalities are given in the law. No researches are permitted in boroughs and villages or in forests, pasturages, &c., if it be considered that they would interfere with public convenience. Two permits are not granted for the same mineral within the same area, until the first has lapsed. Specimens may be sent to Europe for expert examination up to an aggregate weight of 2000 tons, on paying the requisite duties. Explosives are under the control of the local authorities. In order to obtain permits foreigners must first have adhered to the law of 1293 (A.H.). The original discoverer of a mine is entitled to a certain indemnity for " right of discovery " to be paid by the concessionaire of that mine, should the discoverer be unable to work it. To obtain a concession, formalities detailed in the law must be complied with, under a penalty of £T10o to £Tl000. Should a different mineral from that specified in the imperial firman for a mining concession be discovered in a free state, a fresh firman is necessary to exploit it. Discovered mines not registered by the government, or not worked for a period of 99 years before the promulgation of the law of the 26th of March 1906, are considered as nondiscovered. On the promulgation of the firman for the exploitation of a mine, a fee of £T50 to fTioo becomes payable. Two categories of rent, fixed and proportional, are payable to the state by mineowners. The fixed rent is pp piastres per jerib (about 10,000 square metres), to he paid whether the mine is worked or not. The proportional rent is from I % to 5:/. on the gross products of mines of vein formation, and from Io % to 20% on those of mines of deposit formation; the percentages are calculated on the value of the mineral after deduction of freight, &c. to Europe and of treatment. The proportional rents are fixed by the Mines Administration according to the wealth, area and facility of working of the mine, and are inserted in the imperial firman governing the mine, and must be paid before the minerals are exported. Yearly returns, under a penalty of £T5 to £T25, of the results of working have to be rendered to the Mines Administration. If payments due to the government are not made within two months of due date, the mines may be seized by the authorities and sold to the highest bidder. The working of the mine must begin within two years of the date of the delivery of the mine to the concessionaire. Certain specified plans must be delivered annually, under penalty of £T5 to £T25, to the Mines Administration, and, under similar penalties, all information and facilities for visiting the mines in detail must be afforded to government inspectors. Should a mine-owner, in the course of developing his mine, damage the mine of a neighbouring owner, he must pay him an agreed indemnity. With the exception of the engineer and foreman, the employes must be Ottoman subjects. No part of the subterranean working of a mine may be abandoned without official permission obtained according to formalities specified in the law. Owners of the land in which a mine is located have a prior right to work such mine under imperial firman, on the obtention of which a duty of £T4 is payable; if they do not work it the concession may be granted to others, on payment of a certain compensation to the landowner. The research of a mine in no way impairs the rights of ownership of the land in which the mine is located. If a mining concession is granted within lands which are private property or which are " real vakuf lands " (arazii-mevkufe-i-sahiha) only one-fifth of the proportional rent is payable to the state, the other four-fifths reverting to the land-owner or the vakufs, as the case may be. As to ancient coins, and all kinds of treasure of which the proprietor is unknown, reference must be made to the Dustur, No. 4, p. 89.
Bibliography.-I. Topography, Travels, &c.: The works of J. B. Tavernier, of Richard Knolles and Sir P. Rycaut, of O. G. de Busbecq (Busbequius), Sir T. Hanway, the Chevalier Jean Chardin, D. Sestine and W. Eton (Survey of the Turkish Empire, 3rd ed., 1801) are storehouses of information on Turkey from the 16th century to the end of the 18th. More recent works of value are those of J. H. A. Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie (1853-1854, Eng. trans., 2 vols., 1856); D. Urquhart, The Spirit of the East (2 vols., 1838); A. W. Kinglake (especially his Eothen, 1844); A. H. Layard, H. F. Tozer, E. Spencer, Ami Boue, A. Vambery, W. M. Ramsay and J. G. von Hahn (in " Denkschriften " of the K. Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Wien for 1867-1869). Sir C. Elliot's Turkey in Europe (London, 1907) is comprehensive and accurate. See also P. de Laveleye, La Peninsule des Balkans (Brussels, 1886); V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie (5 vols., Paris, 1891-1894, and index 1900); id. Syrie Liban et Palestine (Paris, 1896-1898); W. Miller, Travels and Politics in the Near East (London, 1898); M. Bernard, Turquie d'Europe et Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 189); M. von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum persischen Golfe, &c. (2 vols., Berlin, 18 991900); Lord Warkworth, Notes from a Diary in Asiatic Turkey (London, 1898); Mark Sykes, Dar-el-Islam (London, 1903); D. Fraser, The Short Cut to India (London, 1909); with the books cited under Turks and in articles on the separate divisions of the empire and on Mahommedan law, institutions and religion.
2. Law, Commerce and Finance: F. Belin, Essais sur l'histoire economique de la Turquie (Paris, 1865); Aristarchi Bey, Legislation ottomane (8 vols., Constantinople, 1868-1876); R. Bourke, Report to the British and Dutch Bondholders (London, 1882); O. Haupt, L'Histoire monetaire de notre temps (Paris, 1886); F. Ongley and H. A. Miller, Ottoman Land Code (London, 1892); Medjelle (Ottoman Civil Code) (Nicosia, 1895); Kendall, Turkish Bonds (London, 1898); V. Caillard, Babington-Smith and Block, Reports on the Ottoman Public Debt (London, 1884-1898, 1899-1902, 1903 -1910); Annuaire oriental du commerce (Constantinople); Journal de la chambre de commerce (Constantinople, weekly); Annual Report of the Regie Co-interessee des Tabacs (Constantinople); Annual Report of the Council of Foreign Bondholders (London); C. Morawitz, Les Finances de la Turquie (Paris, 1902); G. Young, Corps de droit ottoman (7 vols., Oxford, 1905-1906);1906); Pech, Manuel des societes anonymes fonctionnant en Turquie (Paris, 1906); Alexis Bey, Statistique des principaux resultats des chemins de fer de l'empire ottoman (Constantinople, 1909).
3. Defence: Djevad Bey, Etat militaire ottoman (Paris, 1885); H. A., Die tiirkische Wehrmacht (Vienna, 1892); L. Lamouche, L'Organisation militaire de l'empire ottoman (Paris, 1895); LebrunRenaud, La Turquie: puissance militaire (Paris, 1895); Hauptman Rasky, Die Wehrmacht der Tiirkei (Vienna, 1905). (See also Army.) (V. C. *) History Legend assigns to Oghuz, son of Kara Khan, the honour of being the father of the Ottoman Turks. Their first appearance in history dates from A.D. 1227. In that year a horde, variously estimated at from two to four thousand souls, with their flocks and their slaves, driven originally from their Central Asian homes by the pressure of Mongol invasion, and who had sought in vain a refuge with the Seljukian sultan Ala-ud-din Kaikobad of Konia, were returning under their chief Suleiman Shah to their native land. They were crossing the Euphrates, not far from the castle of Jaber, when the drowning of their leader by accident threw confusion into their ranks. Those who had not yet crossed the river refused, in face of this omen, to follow their brethren; the little band, numbering 400 warriors (according to others, consisting of 2000 horsemen) decided to remain under Ertoghrul, son of the drowned leader. Ertoghrul first camped at Jessin, east of Erzerum; a second appeal to Ala-ud-din was more successful - the numbers of the immigrants had become too insignificant for their presence to be a source of danger. The lands of Karaja Dagh, near Angora, were assigned to the new settlers, who found there good pasturage and winter quarters. The help afforded by Ertoghrul to the Seljukian monarch on a critical occasion led to the addition of Sugut to his fief, with which he was now formally invested. Here Ertoghrul died in 1288 at the age of ninety, being succeeded in the leadership of the tribe by his son Osman. When, ex ruler of Tabriz, and one of Jenghiz Khan's lieutenants, the Seljukian Empire was at the point of dissolution, most of its feudatory vassals helped rather than hindered its downfall in the hope of retaining their fiefs as independent sovereigns. But Osman remained firm in his allegiance, and by repeated victories over the Greeks revived the drooping glories of his suzerain. His earliest conquest was Karaja Hissar (1295),(1295), where first the name of Osman was substituted for that of the sultan in the weekly prayer. In that year Ala-ud-din Kaikobad II. conferred on him the proprietorship of the lands he had thus conquered by the sword, and presented him at the same time with the horse-tail, drum and banner which constituted the insignia of independent command. Osman continued his victorious career against the Greeks, and by his valour and also through allying himself with Keusse Mikhal, lord of Harman Kaya, became master of Ainegeul, Bilejik and Yar Hissar. His marriage with Mal Khatun, the daughter of the learned sheikh Edbali, has been surrounded by poetical legend; he married his son Orkhan to the beautiful Greek Nilofer, daughter of the lord of Yar Hissar, whom he carried off from her destined bridegroom on her marriage-day; the fruits of this union were Suleiman Pasha and Murad. In 1300 the Seljukian Empire crumbled away, and many small states arose on its ruins. It was only after the death of his protector and benefactor Sultan Ala-ud-din II. that Osman declared his independence, and accordingly the Turkish historian dates the foundation of the Ottoman Empire from this event. Osman reigned as independent monarch until 1326. He pursued his conquests against the Greeks, and established good government throughout his dominions, which at the time of his death included the valleys of the Sakaria and Adranos, extending southwards to Kutaiah and northwards to the Sea of Marmora. Infirmity had compelled him towards the end of his life to depute the chief command to his younger son Orkhan, by whom in 1326 the conquest of Brusa was at last effected after a long siege.
Orkhan's military prowess secured for him the succession, to the exclusion of his elder brother Ala-ud-din, who became his grand vizier. At that time a number of principalities had replaced the Seljukian state. Though Yahsha Bey, grandson of Mahommed Karaman Oghlu, had declared himself the successor of the Seljukian sultans, the princes of Aidin, Sarukhan, Menteshe, Kermian, Hamid, Tekke and Karassi declined to recognize his authority, and considered themselves independent, each in his own dominions. Their example was followed by the Kizil Ahmedii Emir Shems-ed-din, whose family was afterwards known as the house of Isfendiar in Kastamuni. The rest of the country was split up among Turcoman tribes, such as the Zulfikar in Marash and the Al-i-Ramazan in Adana. At his accession Orkhan was practically on the same footing with these, and avoided weakening himself in the struggle for the Seljukian inheritance, preferring at first to consolidate his forces at Brusa. There he continued to wrest from the Greeks the lands which their feeble arms were no longer able to defend. He took Aidos, Nicomedia, Hereke, and, after a siege, Nicaea; Tarakli and Gemlik fell to his arms, and soon the whole of the shore of the Marmora up to Kartal was conquered, and the Byzantines retained on the continent of Asia Minor only Ala Shehr and Biga. These acquisitions were made between 1328 and 1338; in the latter year Orkhan achieved his first conquest from Mussulman hands by the capture of Karassi, the pretext being the quarrel for the succession on the death of the prince, Ajlan Bey.
At this period the state of the Byzantine Empire was such as to render its powers of resistance insignificant; indeed the length of time during which it held out against the Turks is to be attributed rather to the lack of efficacious means at the disposal of its assailants than to any qualities possessed by its defenders. In Constantinople itself sedition and profligacy were rampant, the emperors were the tools of faction and cared but little for the interests of their subjects, whose lot was one of hopeless misery and depravity. On the death of the emperor Andronicus III. in 1341 he was succeeded by John Palaeologus, a minor; and Cantacuzenus, the mayor of the palace, appealed to Orkhan for assistance to supplant him, giving in marriage to the Ottoman prince his daughter Theodora. Orkhan lent the desired aid; his son Suleiman Pasha, governor of Karassi, crossed into Europe, crushed Cantacuzenus's enemies, and penetrated as far as the Balkans, returning laden with spoil. Thus the Turks learnt the country of the Greeks and their weakness. In 1355 Suleiman crossed over from Aidinjik and captured the fortress of Gallipoli, which was at once converted into a Turkish stronghold; from this base Bulair, Malgara, Ipsala and Rodosto were added to the Turkish possessions. Suleiman Pasha was killed by a fall from his horse near Bulair in 1358; the news so affected his father Orkhan as to cause his death two months later. The institution of the Janissaries holds a prominent place among the most remarkable events of Orkhan's reign, which was notable for the encouragement of learning and the foundation of schools, the building of roads and other works of public utility.
Orkhan was succeeded by his son Murad. After capturing Angora from a horde of Turkomans encamped there who were attacking his dominions, at first with some success, Mur ad 1, in 1361 Murad prepared for a campaign in Europe. 1359-1389. At that time the Greek emperor's rule was con fined to the shores of the Marmora, the Archipelago and Thrace. Salonica, Thessaly, Athens and the Morea were under independent Greek princes. The Bulgarians, Bosnians and Servians had at different periods invaded and conquered the territories inhabited by them; the Albanians, original natives of their land, were governed by princes of their own. When, on the death of Cantacuzenus, John Palaeologus remained sole occupant of the imperial throne, Murad declared war against him and conquered the country right up to Adrianople; the capture of this city, the second capital of the emperors, was announced in official letters to the various Mussulman rulers by Murad. Three years later, in 1364, Philippopolis fell to Lala Shahin, the Turkish commander in. Europe. The states beyond the Balkan now began to dread the advance of the Turks; at the instigation of the pope an allied army of 60,000 Serbs, Hungarians, Walachians and Moldavians attacked Lala Shahin. Murad, who had returned to Brusa, crossed over to Biga, and sent on Haji Ilbeyi with io,000 men; these fell by night on the Servians and utterly routed them at a place still known as the " Servians' coffer." In 1367 Murad made Adrianople his capital and enriched it with various new buildings. He continued to extend his territories in the north and west; the king of Servia and the rulers of Kiustendil, Nicopolis and Silistria agreed to pay tribute to the conquering Turk. Lala Shahin Pasha was appointed feudal lord of the district of Philippopolis, and Timur Tash Pasha became beylerbey of Rumelia; Monastir, Perlepe, and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina were next taken, a.nd the king of Servia consented to furnish to Murad a fixed contingent of auxiliary troops, besides paying a money tribute. In 1381 Murad's son Yilderim Bayezid married Devlet Shah Khatun, hausted by the onslaughts of Ghazan Mahmud Khan, 1288-1326. daughter of the prince of Kermian, who brought him in dowry Kutaiah and its six dependent provinces. In the same year Bey Shehr and other portions of the Hamid principality were acquired by purchase from their ruler Hussein Bey, as the Karamanian princes were beginning to cast covetous eyes on them; but the Karamanians were unwilling to resign their claims to be heirs of the Seljukian sultans, and not until the reign of Mahommed II. were they finally suppressed. Ali Bey, the prince at this time, took advantage of Murad's absence in Europe to declare war against him; but the Ottoman ruler returning crushed him at the battle of Konia. Meanwhile the king of Bosnia, acting in collusion with the Karamanian prince, attacked and utterly defeated Timur Tash Pasha, who lost 15,000 out of an army of 20,000 men. The princes and kings who had consented to pay tribute were by this success encouraged to rebel, and the Servian troops who had taken part in the battle of Konia became insubordinate. Indignant at the severity with which they were punished, Lazarus, king of Servia, joined the rebel princes. Murad thereupon returned to Europe with a large force, and sent Chendereli Zade Ali Pasha northwards; the fortresses of Shumla, Pravadi, Trnovo, Nicopolis and Silistria were taken by him; Sisman III., rebel king of Bulgaria, was punished and Bulgaria once more subjugated. Ali Pasha then joined his master at Kossovo. Here Lazarus, king of Servia, had collected an army of roo,000 Serbs, Hungarians, Moldavians, Walachians and others. On the 2 7th of August 1389 the greatest of the battles of Kossovo was fought. A lightning charge of Yilderim Bayezid's dispelled the confidence of the enemy, scattering death and dismay in their ranks. The king of Servia was killed and his army cut to pieces, though the Turks numbered but 40,000 and had all the disadvantage of the position. After the battle, while Murad was reviewing his victorious troops on the field, he was assassinated by Milosh Kabilovich, a Servian who was allowed to approach him on the plea of submission.
Murad maintained a show of friendly relations with the emperor John Palaeologus, while capturing his cities. A review held by him in 1387 at Yeni Shehr was attended by the emperor, who, moreover, gave one of his daughters in marriage to Murad and the other two to his sons Bayezid and Yakub Chelebi. These princes were viceroys of Kermian and Karassi respectively; the youngest son, Sauji Bey, governed at Brusa during his father's absence. Led away by evil counsellors, Sauji Bey plotted with Andronicus, son of the emperor, to dethrone their respective fathers. The attempt was foiled; Andronicus was blinded by his father's orders and Sauji was put to death (1387).
After being proclaimed on the field of Kossovo, Bayezid's first care was to order the execution of his brother Yakub Chelebi, and so to preclude any repetition of Bayezkl 1389-4403.3., Sauji's plot. The young prince Andronicus, who 3fd9-/-t0 had not been completely blinded, sent secretly to Bayezid and offered him 30,000 ducats to dethrone his father John Palaeologus and make him emperor. Bayezid consented; later on John Palaeologus offered an equivalent sum and, since he engaged to furnish an auxiliary force of 12,000 men into the bargain, Bayezid replaced him on the throne. By the aid of these auxiliaries the fort of Ala Shehr was captured (1392), Manuel Palaeologus, son of the emperor, being allowed, in common with many other princes, the privilege of serving in the Turkish army, then the best organized and disciplined force extant. The principalities of Aidin, Menteshe, Sarukhan and Kermian were annexed to Bayezid's dominions to punish their rulers for having joined with the 'Karamanian prince in rebellion. The exiled princes took refuge with the Kizil Ahmedli, ruler of Kastamuni, who persuaded the Walachians to rebel against the Turks. By a brilliant march to the Danube Bayezid subjugated them; then returning to Asia he crushed the prince of Karamania, who had made head again and had defeated Timur Tash Pasha. Bayezid now consolidated his Asiatic dominions by the capture of Kaisarieh, Sivas and Tokat from Tatar invaders, the relics of Jenghiz Khan's hordes. Sinope, Kastamuni and Samsun were surrendered by the prince of Isfendiar, and the conquest of Asia Minor seemed assured.
On the death of John Palaeologus in 1391 his son Manuel, who was serving in the Turkish army, fled, without asking leave, to Constantinople, and assumed the imperial dignity. Bayezid determined to punish this insubordination: Constantinople was besieged and an army marched into Macedonia, capturing Salonica and Larissa (r395). The siege of the capital was, however, unsuccessful; the pope and the king of Hungary were able to create a diversion by rousing the Christian rulers to a sense of their danger. An army of crusaders marched upon the Turkish borders; believing Bayezid to be engaged in the siege of Constantinople, they crossed the Danube without precaution and invested Nicopolis. While the fortress held out with difficulty Bayezid fell upon the besiegers like a thunderbolt. The first onslaught of the Knights of the Cross did indeed rout the weak irregulars placed in the van of the Turkish army, but their mad pursuit was checked by the steady ranks of the Janissaries, by whom they were completely defeated (1396). King Sigismund of Hungary barely escaped in a fishing boat; his army was cut to pieces to a man; among the prisoners taken was Jean Sans Peur, brother of the king of France. To the usual letter announcing the victory the caliph in Egypt replied saluting Bayezid with the title of " Sultan of the lands of Rum." After the victory of Nicopolis the siege of Constantinople was resumed, and the tower of Anatoli Hissar, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, was now built. However, by sending heavy bribes to Bayezid and his vizier, and by offering to build a mosque and. a Mussulman quarter, add to allow Bayezid to be named in the weekly prayer, Manuel succeeded in inducing Bayezid to raise the siege. The mosque was destroyed later on and the Mussulman settlers driven out. Between 1397 and 1399 Bayezid overran Thessaly, while in Asia his lieutenant Timur Tash was extending his conquests. Meanwhile Timur (Tamerlane) had started from Samarkand on his victorious career. With incredible rapidity his hosts spread and plundered from Bagdad to Moscow. After devastating Georgia in 1401 he marched against the Turks. Some of the dispossessed princes of Asia Minor had repaired to Timur and begged him to reinstate them; accordingly Timur sent to Bayezid to request that this might be done. The tone of the demand offended Bayezid, who rejected it in terms equally sharp. As a result Timur's countless hordes attacked and took Sivas, plundering the town and massacring its inhabitants. Then, to avenge an insult sustained from the ruler of Egypt, Timur marched southwards and devastated Syria, thence turning to Bagdad, which shared the same fate. He then retraced his steps to the northwest. Bayezid had taken advantage of his absence to defeat the ruler of Erzingan, a protege of Timur. All attempts to arrange a truce between the two intractable conquerors were in vain. They met in the neighbourhood of Angora. Timur's army is said to have numbered 200,000, Bayezid's force to have amounted to about half that figure, mostly seasoned veterans. The sultan's five sons were with the army, as well as all his generals; 7000 Servian auxiliaries under Stephen, son of Lazarus, took part in the battle (1402). Prodigies of valour on the part of Bayezid's troops could not make up for the defection of the newly-absorbed levies from Aidin, Sarukhan and Menteshe who went over to their former princes in Timur's camp. The rout of the Turkish army was complete. Bayezid, with many of his generals, was taken prisoner. Though treated with some deference by his captor, who even promised to reinstate him. Bayezid's proud spirit could not endure his fall, and he died eight months later at. Ak Shehr.
After the disaster of Angora, from which it seemed impossible that the Ottoman fortunes could ever recover, the princes fled each with as many troops as he could induce to Inter- follow him, being hotly pursued by Timur's armies. regnum, Only Mussa was captured. Timur reached. Brusa, d4034113. and there laid hands on the treasure of Bayezid; one after another the cities of the Turks were seized and plundered by the 'Tatars. Meanwhile Timur sent letters after the fugitive sons of Bayezid promising to confer on them their father's dominions, and protesting that his attack had been due merely to the insulting tone adopted towards him by Bayezid and to the entreaties of the dispossessed princes of Asia Minor. Most of the latter were reinstated, with the object of reducing the Turkish power. Timur did not cross into Europe, and contented himself with accepting some trifling presents from the Greek emperor. After capturing Smyrna he returned to Samarkand (1405). Some years of strife followed between the sons of Bayezid, in which three of them fell; Mussa, seizing Adrianople, laid siege to Constantinople, and Manuel Palaeologus, the emperor, appealed for aid to Mahommed, the other son, who had established himself at Brusa.
In 1413 Mahommed defeated Mussa, and thus remained sole heir to Bayezid's throne; in seven or eight years he succeeded Mahom- in regaining all the territories over which his father med 1., had ruled, whereas Timur's empire fell to pieces 1413-1421. at the death of its founder. Two years after his accession Mahommed overcame a rebellion of the prince of Karamania and recaptured his stronghold Konia (1416), and then, turning northwards, forced Mircea, voivode of Walachia, who in the dispute as to the succession had supported Prince Mussa, to pay tribute. The Turkish dominions in Asia Minor were extended, Amasia, Samsun and Janik being captured, and an insurrection of dervishes was quelled. In 1421 the sultan died. His services in the regeneration of the Turkish power can hardly be over-estimated; all agree in recognizing his great qualities and the charm of his character; even Timur is said to have admired him so much as to offer him his daughter in marriage. The honour was declined, and Mahommed took a bride from the house of Zulfikar. Amid the cares of state he found time for works of public utility and for the support of literature and art; he is credited with having sent the first embassy to a Christian power, after the Venetian expedition to Gallipoli in 1416, and the Ottoman navy is first heard of in his reign.
At the time of Mahommed's death his eldest son Murad was at Amasia; and, as the troops had lately shown signs of insubordination, it was deemed advisable to conceal the news of the sultan's death and to send a part of the army across to Asia. The men, however, refused to march without seeing their sultan, and the singular expedient was resorted to of propping up the dead monarch's body in a dark room and concealing behind it an attendant who raised the hands and moved the head of the corpse as the troops marched past. Shortly after Murad's accession the emperor Manuel, having applied in vain for the renewal of the annual subsidy paid him by the late sultan for retaining in safe custody Mustafa, an alleged son of Bayezid, released the pretender. Adherents flocked to him, and for a whole year Murad was engaged in suppressing his attempts to usurp the throne.
At last the armies of sultan and pretender met at Ulubad (Lopadion) on the Rhyndacus in Asia Minor; Mustafa's troops fled at the first onset; Lampsacus, where the pretender took refuge, was captured with the aid of the Genoese galleys under Adorno. Mustafa, who had crossed the strait and fled northwards, was taken, brought to Adrianople, and hanged from a tower of the serai (1422). Murad now laid siege to Constantinople to avenge himself on the emperor, and on the 24th of August the desperate valour of the defenders succeeded in driving back an assault led by a band of fanatical dervishes. The siege was raised, however, not owing to the bravery of the defence, but because the appearance of another pretender, in the person of Murad's thirteen-year-old brother Mustafa, under the protection of the revolted princes of Karamania and Kermian, called the sultan to Asia. Mustafa, delivered up by treachery, was hanged (1424); but Murad remained in Asia, restoring order in the provinces, while his lieutenants continued the war against the Greeks, Albanians and Walachians. By the treaty signed on the 22nd of February 1424, shortly before his death, the emperor Manuel II., in order to save the remnant of his empire, agreed to the payment of a heavy annual tribute and to surrender all the towns on the Black Sea, except Selymbria and Derkos, and those on the river Strymon. Peace was also made at the same time with the despot of Servia and the voivode of Walachia, on the basis of the payment of tribute. By 1426 the princes of Kermian and Karamania had submitted on honourable terms; and Murad was soon free to continue his conquests in Europe. Of these the most conspicuous was that of Salonica. Garrisoned only by 1500 Venetians, the city was carried by storm (March I, 1428); the merciful precedent set by Mahommed I. was not followed, the greater part of the inhabitants being massacred or sold into slavery, and the principal churches converted into mosques.
The capture of Salonica had been preceded by renewed troubles with Servia and Hungary, peace being concluded with both in 1428. But these treaties, each of which marked a fresh Turkish advance, were short-lived. The story of the next few years is but a dismal record of aggression and of reprisals leading to fresh aggression. In 1432 the Turkish troops plundered in Hungary as far as Temesvar and Hermannstadt, while in Servia Semendria was captured and Belgrade invested. In Transylvania, however, the common peril evoked by the Turkish incursion and a simultaneous rising of the Vlach peasantry had knit together the jarring interests of Magyars, Saxons and Szeklers, a union which, under the national hero, the voivode Janos Hunyadi, was destined for a while to turn the tide of war. In 1442 Hunyadi drove the Turks from Hermannstadt and, at the head of an army of Hungarians, Poles, Servians, Walachians and German crusaders, succeeded in the ensuing year in expelling them from Semendria, penetrating as far as the Balkans, where he inflicted heavy losses on the Turkish general. Meanwhile, again confronted by a rebellion of the prince of Karamania, Murad had crossed into Asia and reduced him to submission, granting him honourable terms, in view of the urgency of the peril in Europe. On the 12th of July 1444 a ten years' peace was signed with Hungary, whereby Walachia was placed under the suzerainty of that country; and, wearied by constant warfare and afflicted by the death of his eldest son, Prince Ala-ud-din, Murad abdicated in favour of his son Mahommed, then only fourteen years of age, and retired to Magnesia (1444). The pope urged the king of Hungary to take advantage of this favourable opportunity by breaking the truce solemnly agreed upon, and nineteen days after it had been concluded a coalition was formed against the Turks; a large army headed by Ladislaus I., king of Hungary, Hunyadi, voivode of Walachia, and Cardinal Cesarini crossed the Danube and reached Varna, where they hoped to be joined by the Greek emperor. In this emergency Murad was implored to return to the throne; to a second appeal he gave way, and crossing over with his Asiatic army from Anatoli Hissar he hastened to Varna. The battle was hotly contested; but, in spite of the prowess of Hunyadi, the rout of the Christians was complete; the king of Hungary and Cardinal Cesarini were among the killed. Murad is said to have abdicated a second time, and to have been again recalled to power owing to a revolt of the Janissaries. In 1446 Corinth, Patras and the north of the Morea were added to the Turkish dominions. The latter years of Murad's reign were troubled by the successful resistance offered to his arms in Albania by Scanderbeg. In 1448 Hunyadi, now governor of Hungary, collected the largest army yet mustered by the Hungarians against the Turks, but he was defeated on the famous field of Kossovo and with difficulty escaped, while most of the chivalry of Hungary fell. Little more than two years later Murad died at Adrianople, being succeeded by his son Mahommed.
After suppressing a fresh revolt of the prince of Karamania, the new sultan gave himself up entirely to the realization of the long-cherished project of the conquest of Con- Mahom- stantinople. He began by building on the European med II. the side of the .Bosporus the fort known as Rumeli Conqueror, Hissar, opposite that built by his grandfather Bay- 1451 1481. ezid. Tradition avers that but forty days were needed for the completion of the work, six thousand men being employed night and day; guns and troops were hurriedly put in, and all navigation of the Bosporus was stopped. After completing his preparations, which included the casting of a monster cannon and the manufacture of enormous engines of assault, Mahom med Murad 1!., 1421-1451. began the siege in 1453. Constantine Palaeologus, the last occupant of the imperial throne, took every measure that the courage of despair could devise for the defence of the doomed city; but his appeal to the pope for the aid of Western Christendom was frustrated through the bigoted, anti-Catholic spirit of the Greeks. The defenders were dispirited and torn by sedition and dissensions, and the emperor could rely on little more than 8000 fighting men, while the assailants, 200,000 strong, were animated by the wildest fanatical zeal. The siege had lasted fifty-three days when, on the 29th of May 1453, a tremendous assault was successful; the desperate efforts of the Greeks were unavailing, Constantine himself falling among the foremost defenders of the breach. The sultan triumphantly entered the palace of the emperors, and the next Friday's prayer was celebrated in the church of St Sofia (see Later Roman Empire).
After some days' stay in Constantinople, during which he granted wide privileges to the Greeks and to their patriarch, the sultan proceeded northwards and entirely subdued the southern parts of Servia. A siege of Belgrade was unsuccessful, owing to the timely succour afforded by Hunyadi (1456). Two years later internal dissensions in Servia brought about the conquest of the whole country by the Turks, only Belgrade remaining in the hands of the Hungarians. The independent princes of Asia Minor were now completely subjugated and their territories finally absorbed into the Turkish dominions; Walachia was next reduced to the state of a tributary province. Venice having adopted a hostile attitude since Turkey's conquests in the Morea, greater attention was devoted to the fleet; Mytilene was captured and the entrance to the straits fortified. The conquest of Bosnia, rendered necessary by the war with Venice, was next completed, in spite of the reverses inflicted on the Turks by the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, the son of Janos Hunyadi. The Turks continued to press the Venetians by land and sea; Albania, which under Scanderberg had for twenty-five years resisted the Ottoman arms, was overrun; and Venice was forced to agree to a treaty by which she ceded to Turkey Scutari and KroIa, and consented to pay an indemnity of ioo,000 ducats (Jan. 25, 1478). The Crimea was next conquered and bestowed as a tributary province on the Tatar khan Mengli Girai. Mahommed now endeavoured to strike a blow at Rhodes, the stronghold of the Knights of St John, preparatory to carrying out his long-cherished plan of conquering Italy. A powerful naval expedition was fitted out, but failed, an armistice and treaty of commerce being signed with the grand master, Pierre d'Aubusson (1479). But a land attack on southern Italy at the same time was successful, Otranto being captured and held for a time by the Turks. In 1481 the sultan was believed to be projecting a campaign against the Circassian rulers of Syria and Egypt, when he died at Gebze. He is said to have been of a merry and even jocular disposition, to have afforded a generous patronage to learning, and, strange to say for a sultan, to have been master of six languages.
Mahommed II. was the organizer of the fabric of Ottoman administration in the form which it retained practically unchanged until the reforms of Mahmud II. and Abd-ul-Mejid. He raised the regular forces of the country to a total exceeding 100,000; the pay of the Janissaries was by him increased, and their ranks were brought up to an effective of upwards of 12,000. He established the system whereby the lands conquered by the arms of his troops were divided into the different classes of fiefs, or else assigned to the maintenance of mosques, colleges, schools and charitable institutions, or converted into common and pasturage lands. Many educational and benevolent foundations were endowed by him, and it is to Mahommed II. that the organization of the ulema, or legist and ecclesiastical class, is due.
Upon Bayezid II. succeeding to his father a serious revolt of the troops took place, which led to the institution of the regular payment of an accession donative to the Bayezid 11., 1481-151 Janissaries. At the outset of the reign Bayezid's brother, Prince Jem, made a serious attempt to claim the throne; he was defeated, and eventually took refuge with the knights of Rhodes, whom Bayezid bribed to keep him in safe custody. The unfortunate prince was led from one European stronghold to another, and, after thirteen years' wandering, died at Naples in 1494 (see Bayezid Ii.). Freed from the danger of his brother's attacks, the sultan gave himself up to devotion, leaving to his ministers the conduct of affairs in peace and war. But, though of an unambitious and peace-loving temper, the very conditions of his empire made war inevitable. Even when peace was nominally in existence, war in its most horrible forms was actually being waged. On the northern frontier border raids on a large scale were frequent. Thus, in 1492 the Turks made incursions into Carinthia as far as Laibach, and into Styria as far as Cilli, committing unspeakable atrocities; in 1493 they overran both Styria and Croatia. The Hungarians retaliated in kind, burning and harrying as far as Semendria, torturing and murdering, and carrying off the saleable inhabitants as slaves. In 1494 a crushing victory of the emperor Maximilian drove the Turks out of Styria, which they did not venture again to invade during his reign. In 1496 the temporary armistice between the Poles and Turks, renewed in 1493, came to an end, and John Albert, king of Poland, seized the occasion to invade Moldavia. The efforts of Ladislaus of Hungary to mediate were vain, and the years 1497 and 1498 were marked by a terrible devastation of Poland by the Ottomans; only the bitter winter, which is said to have killed 40,000 Turks, prevented the devastation from being more complete. By the peace concluded in 1500 the sultan's dominions were again extended. Meanwhile, in June 1499, war had again broken out with Venice, mainly owing to the intervention of the pope and emperor, who, with Milan, Florence and Naples, urged the sultan to crush the republic. On the 28th of July the Turks gained over the Venetians at Sapienza their first great victory at sea; and this was followed by the capture of Lepanto, at which Bayezid was present, and by the conquest of the Morea and most of the islands of the archipelago. By the peace signed on the 24th of December 1502, however, the status quo was practically restored, the sultan contenting himself with receiving Santa Maura in exchange for Cephalonia.
Meanwhile in Asia also the Ottoman Empire had been consolidated and extended; but from 1501 onwards the ambitious designs of the youthful Shah Ismail in Persia grew more and more threatening to its security; and though Bayezid, intent on peace, winked at his violations of Ottoman territory and exchanged friendly embassies with him, a breach was sooner or later inevitable. This danger, together with the growing insubordination of the aged sultan's sons, caused his ministers to urge him to abdicate in favour of Selim, the younger but more valiant. This prince pushed his audacity so far as to attack his father's troops, but the action merely increased his popularity with the Janissaries, and Bayezid, after a reign of thirtyone years, was obliged to abdicate in favour of his forceful younger son; a few days later he died. This reign saw the end of the Mussulman rule in Spain, Turkey's naval power not being yet sufficient to afford aid to her co-religionists. It also saw the first intercourse between a Russian tsar and an Ottoman sultan, Ivan III. exchanging in 1492 friendly messages with Bayezid through the Tatar khan Mengli Girai; the first Russian ambassador appeared at Constantinople three years later.
When he had ruthlessly quelled the resistance offered to his accession by his brothers, who both fell in the struggle for the throne, Selim undertook his campaign in Persia, having first extirpated the Shia heresy, prevalent 5 e 12 m, g P Y, P 1512152.0. sect of Persia, in his dominions, where it threatened to extend. After an arduous march and in spite of the mutinous behaviour of his troops, Selim, crushed the Persians at Chaldiran (1515) and became master of the whole of Kurdistan. He next turned against the Mameluke rulers of Egypt, crushed them, and entering Cairo as conqueror (1517), obtained from the last of the Abbasid caliphs,' Motawakkil, the title of caliph (q.v.) ' After the fall of the caliphs of Bagdad (1258), descendants of the Abbasids took refuge in Cairo and enjoyed a purely titular authority under the protection of the Egyptian rulers.
for himself and his successors (see Egypt: History; Mahommedan Period). The sultan also acquired from him the sacred banner and other relics of the founder of Islam, which have since been preserved in the Seraglio at Constantinople. Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz, the former empire of the Mamelukes, were added to the Ottoman dominions. Towards the end of Selim's reign the religious revolt of a certain Jellal, who collected 200,000 adherents, was the cause of much trouble; but he was eventually routed and his force dispersed near Tokat. While preparing an expedition against Rhodes to avenge the repulse sustained forty years before by Mahommed II., the sultan died at Orashkeui, near Adrianople, at the spot where he had attacked his father's troops. His reign of eight years had almost doubled the extent of the Turkish dominions.
He was succeeded by his son Suleiman " the Magnificent," in whose long and eventful reign Turkey attained the highest point of her glory. Selim's Asiatic conquests had 1520-1 66. left his successor free to enter upon a campaign in 1520-1566. P Europe, after the suppression of a revolt of the governor of Damascus, who had thought to take advantage of the new sultan's accession to restore the independent rule of the Circassian chiefs. In 1521 war was declared against the king of Hungary on the pretext that he had sent no congratulations on Suleiman's accession. Belgrade was besieged and captured, a conquest which Mahommed II. had failed to effect. In the next year an expedition was undertaken against Rhodes, the capture of which had become doubly important since the acquisition of Egypt. The siege, which was finally conducted by the sultan in person, was successful after six months' duration; the forts of Cos and Budrum were also taken. The European war was now renewed; in 1526 the sultan, marching from Belgrade, crossed the Danube and took Peterwardein and Esseg; on the field of Mohacs he encountered and defeated the Hungarians under king Louis II., who was killed with the flower of the Hungarian chivalry (see Hungary: History). Budapest hereupon fell to the Turks, who appointed John. Zapolya king of Hungary (1528). But the crown of Hungary was claimed by the archduke Ferdinand, brother of the emperor Charles V., as being king Louis's brother-in-law. This brought Turkey into collision with the great emperor. Moreover, Francis I. of France, who had just been defeated by Charles, sent to the sultan ambassadors and messages dwelling on the danger of allowing Charles's power to become too great, and imploring the assistance of Suleiman as the only means of preserving the balance of power in Europe. Meanwhile Ferdinand's troops captured Budapest, driving out Zapolya, who at once appealed to Suleiman for aid. Suleiman decided against Charles, and marched north (1529). Zapolya joined the Turks at Mohacs, and a joint attack was made on Budapest. After five days' siege the Austrians were driven out, and Zapolya was reinstated on the throne of Hungary. The Turks then marched on Vienna, which was bombarded and closely invested, but so valiant was the resistance offered that after three weeks the siege was abandoned (Oct. 14, 1529). Suleiman now prepared for a campaign in Germany and sought to measure himself against Charles, who, however, withdrew from his approach, and little was done save to ravage Styria and Slavonia. In 1533 a truce was arranged, Hungary being divided between Zapolya and Ferdinand.
During the Hungarian campaign the Shia sectaries had been encouraged to revolt, and the Persians had overrun Azerbaijan and recaptured Tabriz. Suleiman, therefore, turned his arms against them, reaching Bagdad in 1534, and capturing the whole of Armenia. The naval exploits of Khair-ed-din Pasha (see Barbarossa) are among the glories of the reign, and led to hostilities with Venice. After capturing Algiers, an attack by this famous admiral on Tunis was repulsed with the aid of Spain, but in the Mediterranean he maintained a hotlycontested struggle with Charles's admiral, Andrea Doria. Venice was in alliance with Charles, and her possessions were consequently attacked by Turkey by land and by sea, many islands, including Syra and Tinos, falling before Barbarossa's assaults. Corfu was besieged, but unsuccessfully. At Preveza Barbarossa defeated the papal and Venetian fleets under Doria. In 1540 the fort of Castelnuovo, the strongest point on the Dalmatian coast, was taken by the Venetians and recaptured by Barbarossa. Peace was then made on the terms that Turkey should retain her conquests and Venice should pay an indemnity of 300,000 ducats. Friendly relations had subsisted between Suleiman and Ferdinand during the expedition to Persia; but on the death of Zapolya in 1539 Ferdinand claimed Hungary and besieged Budapest with a large force. Suleiman determined to support the claims of Zapolya's infant son, John Sigismund, and in 15 4 set out in person. At the end of August he appeared before Budapest, the siege of which had already been raised by the defeat of the Austrians; the infant John Sigismund was carried into the sultan's camp, and the queen-mother, Isabella, was peremptorily ordered to evacuate the royal palace, though the sultan gave her a diploma in which he swore only to retain Budapest during the minority of her son. On the 2nd of September Suleiman entered the city, and to the ambassadors of Ferdinand, who came to offer a yearly sum if the sultan would recognize his claim to Hungary, he replied that he had taken possession of it by the sword and would negotiate only after the surrender of Gran, Tata, Visegrad and Szekesfehervar. The war now continued vigorously by sea and land. The great expedition of the emperor Charles V. against Algiers ended in failure, his fleet being destroyed by a sudden storm (Oct. 31, 1541); and his diplomatic efforts to wean Barbarossa from his allegiance to the sultan fared no better. In 1542 a formal alliance was concluded between Suleiman and Francis I.; the Ottoman fleet was placed at the disposal of the king of France, and in August 1543, the Turks under Barbarossa, and the French under the duke of Enghien, laid siege to Nice. The town surrendered; but the citadel held out until, on the 8th of September, it was relieved by Andrea Doria. Meanwhile on land Suleiman had taken full advantage of the European situation to tighten his grip on Hungary. The attempt of the imperialists, under Joachim of Brandenburg, to retake Budapest (September 15 4 2), failed ignominiously; and in the following year Suleiman in person conducted a campaign which led to the conquest of Siklos, Gran, Szekesf ehervar and Visegrad (1544)Everywhere the churches were turned into mosques; and the greater part of Hungary, divided into twelve sanjaks, became definitively a Turkish province. A truce, on the basis of uti possidetis, signed at Adrianople on the 19th of June 1547 for five years, between the sultan, the emperor and Ferdinand I. king of Hungary, recognized the Turkish conquests in Hungary; while, for the portion left to him, Ferdinand consented to pay an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. John Sigismund was recognized as independent prince of Transylvania and of sixteen adjacent Hungarian counties, Queen Isabella to act as regent during his minority.
Suleiman was now free to resume operations against Persia. In the spring of 1548 he set out on his eleventh campaign, which ended in the capture of Erzerum (August 16) and the conquest of Armenia and Georgia. But the Persian War dragged on, with varying fortune, for years, till after Suleiman had ravaged Persia it was concluded by the treaty - the first between shah and sultan - signed at Amasia on the 29th of May 1555.
Meanwhile the war in. Hungary had been resumed. Neither side had been careful to observe the terms of the treaty of 1547; the Turkish pashas in Hungary had raided Ferdinand's dominions, while Ferdinand had been negotiating with Frater GeOrgy (see Martinuzzi) with a view to freeing Transylvania from the Ottoman suzerainty. When the sultan discovered that Martinuzzi, who was all-powerful in Transylvania, had actually arranged to hand over the country to Ferdinand, he threw the Austrian ambassador into prison, and in September 1551 sent an army, 80,000 strong, under Mahommed Sokolli over the Danube. Several forts, and the important town of Lippa on the Marosch, fell at once, and siege was laid to Temesvar. This was raised of ter two months, and Martinuzzi took advantage of the retirement of the Turks to raise an army and recapture Lippa. Before the surrender of the city, however, he was murdered by Ferdinand's orders on strong suspicion of treachery. The campaign of 1552 was disastrous for the Austrians; the Turks, under the command of Ahmed Pasha, defeated them at Szegedin and captured in turn Veszprem, Temesvar, Szolnok and other places. Their victorious career was only checked, in October, by the raising of the siege of Erlau. In the spring of 1553 the victories of the Persians called for the sultan's presence in the East; a truce for six months was now concluded between the envoys of Ferdinand and the pasha of Budapest, and Austrian ambassadors were sent to Constantinople to arrange a peace. But the negotiations dragged on without result; the war continued with hideous barbarities on both sides; and it was not until the 1st of June 1562 that it was concluded by the treaty signed at Prague by Ferdinand, now emperor. Suleiman kept the possessions he had won by the sword, Temesvar, Szolnok, Tata and other places in Hungary; Transylvania was assigned to John Sigismund, the Habsburg claim to interference being categorically denied; Ferdinand bound himself to pay, not only the annual tribute of 30,000 ducats, but all the arrears that had meanwhile accumulated. Even this treaty, however, was but an apparent settlement. A year passed before the Latin and Turkish texts of the treaty were harmonized; and meanwhile irregular fighting continued on all the borders. In 1564 Ferdinand died, and was succeeded by Maximilian II. The new emperor attacked Tokaj, which was in Turkish possession; the tribute had been allowed again to fall into arrears; and to all this was added that Mahommed Sokolli, the new grand vizier (1565), pressed for new war to wipe out the disgrace of the failure of the Ottoman attack on Malta (May-September 1565). In May 1566 the war broke out, Suleiman, now seventy-two years old, again leading his army in person. In August he laid siege to Szigetvar with ioo,000 men; but on the 5th of September, while preparations were being made for a final assault, the sultan died. His death was, however, kept secret, and on the 8th the fortress fell.
The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent marked the zenith of the Ottoman power. At the time of his death the Turkish Empire extended from near the frontiers of Germany to the frontiers of Persia. The Black Sea was practically a Turkish lake, only the Circassians on the east coast retaining their independence; and as a result of the wars with Persia the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the sultan's power, now established on the Persian Gulf. The Venetians had been driven from the Morea and the islands of the Archipelago; and, except a strip of the Dalmatian coast and the little mountain state of Montenegro, the whole of the Balkan peninsula was in Turkish hands. In the Mediterranean, Crete and Malta yet survived as outposts of Christendom; but the northern coasts of Africa from Egypt to Morocco acknowledged the supremacy of the sultan, whose sea power in the Mediterranean had become a factor to be reckoned with in European politics, threatening not only the islands, but the very heart of Christendom, Italy itself, and capable - as the alliance with France against Charles V. had shown - of being thrown with decisive weight into the balance of European rivalries.
The power of the Ottomans at sea was maintained during this period by a series of notable captains, such as Khair-ed-din and his son Hassan, Piale, Torgud, Sali Reis and Pin Reis. Of these the two first are separately noticed (see Barbarossa). Piale, a Croatian who had been brought up in the imperial harem and succeeded Sinan as capudan-pasha, crowned a series of victories over the galleys of Andrea Doria by the capture of the island of Jerba, off Tripoli (July 31, 1560). For this he was rewarded with the hand of one of the sultan's grand-daughters. He later became the second vizier of the empire, and, as a supporter of Sokolli, was in power till his death in 1575. Torgud, also the son of Christian parents, was a native of the sanjak of Mentesha in Asia Minor, and began his career as a soldier in the Ottoman sea service. After spending some time as a Genoese galley-slave, he turned corsair and became the terror of the Mediterranean coasts. He seized Mandia, a strong post on a tongue of land about 43 m. south of Susa in Tunisia, and made this the centre of his piracies till, during his absence raiding the Spanish coasts, it was bombarded and destroyed by an expedition sent by Charles V. (September io, 1550). Torgud was now summoned to Constantinople to answer for piracies committed on the friendly galleys of Venice; but he sailed instead to Morocco, and there for two years defied the sultan's authority. But Suleiman, who needed the aid of the corsairs against Malta, pardoned him, and he was given the command of the expedition against Tripoli, which he captured. He now turned against Corsica, captured Bastia (August 1553) and on his return to Constantinople, laden with booty and slaves, chastised the insurgent Albanians. He was rewarded by Suleiman with the governorship of Tripoli, which he held till his death. He was killed during the unsuccessful attack on Malta, which he commanded (1565). Sali Reis, also by birth a Christian of Asia Minor, was likewise successful as a corsair; he distinguished himself especially at the capture of Tunis, and succeeded Hassan Barbarossa as beylerbey of Algiers.
Other captains carried the Turkish arms down the Arabian and Persian gulfs far out into the Indian Ocean. Of these the most remarkable was Piri Reis, nephew of Kamil Reis, the famous corsair who, under Bayezid II., had swept the Aegean and Mediterranean. Pin sailed into the Persian Gulf, took Muscat, and laid siege to Ormuz. But the approach of the Portuguese fleet put him to flight; some of his vessels were wrecked; and on his return by way of Egypt he was arrested at Cairo and executed. He had compiled a sea-atlas (the Bahrije) of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, every nook and cranny of which he had explored, with an account of the currents, soundings, landing-places, inlets and harbours.
Another literary seaman of this period was Sidi Ali, celebrated under his poetic pseudonym of Katibi (or Katibi Rumi, to distinguish him from the Persian poet of the same name). He was no more successful than Piri or his successor Murad in fighting the elements and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf; but he was happier in his fate. Driven, with the remnant of his ships, into the Indian Ocean, he landed with fifty companions on the coast of India and travelled back to Turkey by way of Sind, Baluchistan, Khorassan and Persia. He wrote an account of this three years' journey, for which he was rewarded by Suleiman with an office and a pension. He was the author also of a mathematical work on the use of the astrolabe and of a book (Muhit, " the ocean ") on the navigation of the Indian seas.
At the close of Suleiman's reign the Turkish army numbered nearly 200,000 men, including the Janissaries, whose total he almost doubled, raising them to 20,000. He imroved the laws and institutions established by p i his predecessors and adapted them to the require ments of the age; to him are due important modifications in the feudal system, aimed. at maintaining the fiefs in a really effective condition. The codes of law were by him revised and improved, and he was the first sultan to enter into relations with foreign states. In 1534 Jean de La Foret, a knight of St John of Jerusalem, came to Constantinople as first permanent French ambassador to the Porte, and in February 1 535 were signed the first Capitulations (q.v.) with France.
A short sketch of the administration and state of the country at this time may find place here. Successively transferred from Brusa to Adrianople and thence to Constantinople, the seat of government was at first little more than the camp of a conqueror. After the conquest of the imperial city the sultans began to adopt the pomp and splendour of eastern sovereigns, and largely copied the system, ready to hand, of the Byzantine emperors. Affairs of state were at first discussed at the imperial divan, where the great dignitaries were convened at appointed hours. Until the reign of Mahommed the Conqueror the sultan presided in person; but a rough Anatolian peasant penetrating one day to the council and exclaiming, " Which of you might be the sultan? I've come to make a complaint ! " it Polity was thought that in future it would be more consonant with the imperial dignity for the sovereign to remain concealed behind a grating where, unseen, he could hear all that was said. Towards the middle of Suleiman's reign even this practice was abandoned, and the sultans henceforth attended the divans only on the distribution of pay to the troops or the reception of a foreign ambassador, which occasions were usually made to coincide. The divan accompanied the sultan on military expeditions.
As established by Mahommed II., the officials of the state were divided into four classes: (I) administrative; (2) ecclesiastical; (3) secretarial and (4) military. The administration of kazas, or cantons, was usually entrusted to the cadis and the holders of the more important fiefs; the sanjaks, or departments, were ruled by alai beys or mir-i-livas (colonels or brigadiers), pashas with one horsetail; the vilayets, or provinces, by beylerbeys or mir-i-mirans (lord of lords), pashas with two horse-tails; these were all originally military officers, who, in addition to their administrative functions, were charged with the duty of mustering and commanding the feudal levies in war time. Above them were the beylerbeys of Anatolia and Rumelia, who served under the orders of the commander-in-chief. The title of vizier was borne by six or seven persons simultaneously; the grand vizier was the chief of these and exercised supreme authority, being invested with the sultan's signet. He often commanded an army in person, and was then given the title of serdari-ekrem (generalissimo); one of the subordinate viziers remained behind as kaimmakam, or locum tenens. The duties of the other viziers were limited to attending the divan; they were called kubbe or cupola viziers from the fact that the council met under a cupola; they were pashas with three horse-tails, and were attended by large retinues, having generally achieved distinction as beylerbeys. These officers were usually chosen from among the more promising of the youths selected by the devshurme, or system of forced levy for manning the ranks of the Janissaries: hence so many of the statesmen of Turkey were of non-Mussulman origin. Besides these members of the secretarial class, such as nishanjis and defterdars, as well as regular army officers, and occasionally members of the ecclesiastical class, or ulema, rose to the rank of vizier.
The highest dignitaries of the ecclesiastical class were at first the kazaskers, or military judges, of Europe and Asia; later the office of Sheikh-ul-Islam was created as the supreme authority in matters relating to the Church and the sacred law. Promotion was regular, but was obtainable only by entering at an early age one of the medresses or colleges; the student, after passing through the successive degrees of danishmend, mulazim and muderris, became first a molla, then a judge, rising to the higher ranks as fortune and opportunity offered. In the time of Bayezid II. the post of nakibul-eshraf, or registrar of the sherifs, or descendants of the Prophet, was created.
The secretarial class consisted of six categories: the nishanjis, the defterdars, the reis, the defter emini, the shakk-i-sani (or second class) defterdars and the shakk-i-salis (or third class) defterdars. The first named were charged with the duty of revising and duly executing the decisions of the divan respecting the assignment of lands to warriors and the apportioning of conquered territories. They were men of great culture, and many historians, poets and writers belong to this class. The defterdar was practically the minister of finance. The reis was the secretary-general of the divan, and in more modern times became minister for foreign affairs. The defter emini kept the registers for the nishanji, whose place he took on emergency, the others acted as secretaries and clerks.
The military class was divided into two categories: (I) the regular paid troops who were quartered in barracks and were known as " slaves of the palace "; (2) the feudal levies who received no pay and were called upon to serve only in war-time. The Janissaries (q.v.) belonged to the first category. The rigid regulations for admission to their ranks were soon relaxed: at the close of the Persian war in 1590 their total amounted to 50,000. The regular troops comprised also armourers (jebeji), from 6000 to 8000 men, and six squadrons of cavalry; these were recruited in the same way as the Janissaries, and their numbers were raised by Murad III. to 20,000. There were also bostanjis, or forest-guards, numbering about 5000, besides local troops in distant and frontier provinces, and about 20,000 akinjis, or light troops, in Europe, who carried out forays in the enemies' country.
The fiefs were not hereditary, and were held directly from the sultan. On the conquest of a country the lands were apportioned by the nishanjis, who first computed the tithe revenueof each village, its population, woods, pasturage, &c.; and divided it into the three classes of fiefs (khas, ziamet and timar), or into vakilf (pious endowments) or pasturage. Any estate with a revenue exceeding 100,000 aspres was a khas, and was conferred on a prince or on a high dignitary as long as he held his post; for each 5000 aspres of revenue one armed warrior had to be furnished in war. Fiefs with a revenue of from 20,000 to 100,000 aspres were called ziamets and were conferred on similar terms on inferior officers, usually for life or during good behaviour. Fiefs with a revenue of from 3000 to 20,000 aspres were timars, furnishing one armed warrior for every 3000 aspres' revenue; the grant of a fief was conditional on obligatory residence. The peasants owning the land remained undisturbed in their XXVII. 15 proprietorship, paying to their feudal lord the tithe, as well as the fixed duties on transfer, &c. Abuses in the system first began in the time of Khosrev Pasha, Suleiman's grand vizier.
The governors of the more distant provinces enjoyed a considerable amount of independence, which in the case of the Barbary states was more or less complete; these entered into treaties with foreign powers, and by their piratical outrages frequently caused the Porte considerable embarrassment. The sherif of the Hejaz, Abu-'l-berekat, made submission to Sultan Selim I. After the subjugation of the Yemen, the absorption of the holy places was also attempted, and in Suleiman's reign judges were appointed thither from Constantinople. But it was found politic to continue the office of the grand sherif of Mecca in the sherifian family.
The princes of the Crimea were invested with many of the prerogatives of independence, e.g. that of coining money; the ruler of Transylvania was allowed to retain the royal title, nor were Turkish troops quartered in the country. The Danubian principalities were also ruled by native princes until the Phanariote period (see Phanariotes).
On the 17th of February 1568, two years after the accession of Suleiman's son Selim, peace was concluded with Austria on the basis of the former terms, the emperor Maximilian having sent ambassadors to congratulate the new sultan on his accession. A disastrous attack on Astrakhan, with the object of carrying out Sokolli's plan for uniting the' Don and the Volga, first brought the Turks into collision with the Russians. Expeditions against the Yemen and Cyprus were successful, but the loss of Cyprus, accompanied as it was by the barbarous murder of the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadino, by the seraskier pasha Mustafa's orders, in violation of the terms of the capitulation of Famagusta (August 1571), roused the bitter resentment of the Venetians, previously incensed by Turkish raids on Crete. Already, on the 25th of May, had been concluded the holy league between the pope, Venice and Spain for a new crusade against the infidel, in spite of the efforts of France to prevent the adhesion of the republic. Preparations were hurried on and at the end of September the great allied fleet, under Don John of Austria, sailed into the archipelago. On the 7th of October was fought the naval battle of Lepanto, which broke for ever the tradition of the invincibility of the Turks at sea. The immediate results of the battle were not, however, as decisive as might have been expected. In June 1572 a fresh Ottoman fleet of 250 sail took the sea; and the jealousy of the allies and the incompetence of their commanders made any repetition of their former victory impossible. After a series of indecisive engagements Venice broke from the league and, under the mediation of France, concluded a treaty with the Porte practically on the basis of uti possidetis (March 7, 1 573). With Spain the war continued, and on the 24th of August 1574 Tunis - which had been taken by Don John of Austria in 1572 - was recaptured by the Turks, who from this new base proceeded, under Sinan Pasha and Kilij Ali, to ravage Sicily.' In the same year Selim II. died. Known in history as the " Sot," he had allowed his able grand vizier Mahommed Sokolli to rule the country.
The character of Murad III., who succeeded his father Selim II. at the age of twenty-eight, was not calculated to arrest the progress of decay within the Ottoman Empire.
He was a weakling, swayed by his favourites in the Murad III., harem, especially by his Venetian wife Safie; and, 1574-1595. though he kept Sokolli in office, he was suspicious of, the too powerful vizier, whose wise influence he allowed his minions to undermine. Thus eminent servants of the state such as Mustafa Pasha, Sokolli's nephew - who for twelve years had ruled the sanjak of Budapest with conspicuous enlightenment and success - were deposed or executed to make way for the nominees of the harem. In even weightier matters the opinion of the grand vizier was slighted. Thus it was against his advice that, at the beginning of 1578, advantage was taken of the disorders arising on the death of Shah Tahmasp of Persia to attack 1 It was ten years before a formal truce was signed with Spain (1584); two hundred years passed before the signature of a definitive treaty of peace and commerce (Sept. 14, 1782).
Selim 1566-1574. that country. The war lasted for twelve years, during which Tiflis, Shirvan and Daghestan were taken; finally Shah Abbas established himself on the Persian throne and in 1590 made peace with Turkey, who retained her conquests in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Shirvan. But this shortsighted policy is criticized by Turkish historians, who censure Murad III. for thus weakening the neighbouring Mussulman states such as Persia and Daghestan, thereby facilitating Russia's future expansion at their cost. Sokolli's assassination, on the rrth of October 1578, had meanwhile thrown the country into disorder. There was now no authority left to hold in check the corrupt influences of the harem. The avenues to power were through bribery and yet more unspeakable paths; the fiefs which formed the basis of the feudal array were bestowed on favourites' favourites, or sold to the highest bidder, and the sultan himself shared in the corrupt plunder. At last that final expedient of weak governments, the debasing of the coinage, led to a crisis. In 1589 mutinies of troops took place all over the empire, and in the two following years there were several risings of the Janissaries at Constantinople, the pretext being everywhere that the soldiers were being robbed of their pay. At this juncture a fresh crisis in the relations with Austria arose. The peace concluded in 1568 arfd thrice renewed (in 1 573, 1 57 6 and 1584) had not prevented the continuance of raids and forays, from either side of the frontier, that at times assumed the dimensions of regular campaigns. The climax came in 1593. All through the preceding year Hassan " Tilli," beylerbey of Bosnia, had raided in Croatia, taking border fortresses and driving off the inhabitants into slavery. In June 1593, with an army of 30,000 men, he laid siege to Sissek; the Austrian and Hungarian levies hurried to its relief; and on the 22nd the Turks were routed with immense slaughter on the banks of the Kulpa, Hassan himself, with many other beys and two of the imperial princes, being among the slain. Though not yet formally declared, the " long war " was now in full progress. In August, Sinan Pasha, the grand vizier - now eighty years of age - took command of the troops for the Hungarian War and left Constantinople, dragging with him the Austrian ambassador in chains. The capture of Veszprem and of Raab (1594) and the failure of the archduke Matthias to take Gran seemed to promise another rapid victory of the Ottoman arms; but Sinan was ill-supported from Constantinople, the situation was complicated by the revolt of Walachia and Moldavia, and the war was destined to last, with varying fortunes, for fourteen years. On the 16th of January 1 595 Murad III. died.
In spite of the internal corruption which, under Murad III., heralded the decay of the empire, the prestige of the Ottomans in Europe was maintained during his reign. Even the emperor had to be content to be treated by the sultan as an inferior and tributary prince; while France had to suffer, with no more than an idle protest, the insult of the conversion of Catholic churches at Constantinople into mosques. In spite of frequent causes of friction, good relations were maintained with Venice, through the influence of the sultana Safie, and the capitulations with the republic of St Mark were renewed in 1589. Those with France were also renewed (July 6, 1581); and capitulations were signed for the first time with the grand duke of Tuscany (1578) and with England (1580). 1 In the following year permanent diplomatic relations were established by England with the Porte by the despatch of William Harebone as ambassador, Queen Elizabeth urging as her special claim to the sultan's friendship their common mission to fight " idolators." The new sultan, Mahommed III., Murad's son, succeeded to the throne at a moment when the Turkish arms were suffering reverses in Hungary and in the revolted Danubian provinces; Mahom- the Janissaries, too, were ill-content and mutinous, med IJI., and to put an end to their murmurings Mahommed 1595-4603. was persuaded by Sinan Pasha to lead them to the war in person. The immediate effect was good; Erlau was 1 They were renewed with England in 1593, 1603, 1606, 1622, 1624, 1641, 1662 and 1675.
captured in October 1596, and a three days' battle in the plain of Keresztes (Oct. 23 to 26) ended in the disastrous rout of the allied troops under the archduke Maximilian and Sigismund, prince of Transylvania. But the Turks did not profit much by their victory. The new grand vizier, Cicala, by his severity to the soldiers, mainly Asiatics, who had shown cowardice in the battle, drove thousands to desert; and the sultan, who had himself little stomach for the perils of campaigning, returned to Constantinople, leaving the conduct of the war to his generals. The campaign of 1598 began with the loss of Raab, and continued unfavourable to the Turks, who lost Totis, Veszprem and Papa, and were hard pressed in Budapest. In October want of supplies and a mutiny of the Janissaries compelled the commander-in-chief to retreat into winter quarters at Belgrade. In 1599 the first peace overtures were made, but came to nothing; and the confused fighting of this and the following year culminated in the capture of Kanizsa by the Turks (September 1600). The attempt of the archduke Ferdinand, at the head of 30,000 men, to retake it a year later was defeated. In August 1602 Szekesfehervar again fell into the hands of the Turks; in November the siege of Buda by the archduke Matthias, who had taken Pest by storm, was raised by the grand vizier Hassan.
Trouble had, however, meanwhile broken out in other parts of the Ottoman dominions. The deserters from Cicala's army, distributed in armed bands throughout Asia Minor, had become centres round which all the elements of discontent gathered, and formed the mainstay of the Jellali sectaries who, at this time, rose in insurrection and ravaged Anatolia. In Constantinople, early in 1603, there was, moreover, a serious rising of the spahis; and, finally, in September Shah Abbas of Persia took advantage of what is known in Turkish history as " the year of insurrections " to declare war and reconquer Tabriz. In the midst of this crisis, on the 22nd of December 1603, Sultan Mahommed III. died, and was succeeded by his elder son, Ahmed I., a boy of fourteen.
Though negotiations for peace were at once begun, it was not till three years after Ahmed's accession that the peace of Sitvatorok, concluded on the 11th of November 1606, at last put an end to the war in Europe. By this treaty the annual tribute payable by Austria was abolished, but an indemnity of 200,000 florins was paid "once for all " by the emperor, who was henceforth to be given his proper imperial title (padishah) in Turkish official documents. The peace of Sitvatorok (or Zeideva, as it is also called) marks the close of Turkey's period of conquest. No longer haughtily imposed on the vanquished, as was the case with former treaties, it was submitted to the examination and discussion of both parties before being signed. It freed Austria from the humiliating tribute to which the treaty of 1547 had subjected her, and established relations between the two monarchs on a footing of equality. It was thus the first manifest sign, of Turkey's decadence from the glory of Suleiman I.'s reign, when King Ferdinand stooped to call the sultan's vizier his brother. For the remainder of the reign the Persian War was continued fitfully, a treaty of peace, signed in 1611, not being observed.
In 1617 the sultan died, and was succeeded by his brother Mustafa; but the latter being declared incompetent to reign, his brother Osman took his place on the throne. Mustafa 1., The war in Persia was terminated by the renewal 1617-1618 in 1618 of the treaty of 1611, whereby all the con- and quests effected by Murad III. and Mahommed III. Osman IL, were given up. Peace, however, left the rebellious 1618-1622. Janissaries leisure to engage in plots against the sultan, and in order to occupy them and to remove them from the capital advantage was taken of the king of Poland having intervened in the affairs of Transylvania and the principalities to declare war against him. Osman marched against Khotin, but failed to capture it, and his unpopularity with the army was increased by rumours that he designed to collect such troops as were loyal to him, under pretence of going on Ahmed I., 1603-1617. pilgrimage to Mecca, in order to destroy the Janissaries and reform the country. They therefore rose and dethroned him, soon afterwards putting him to death. For a few months Mustafa was replaced on the throne; when he abdicated in L, favour of his nephew Murad IV. Turkey seemed to Mustafa 1622-1623, be at the point of dissolution. Profiting by the and mutiny of the army, the Persians invaded Turkey, Murad IV., capturing Bagdad; at Constantinople and in the 1623-1640. provinces alike anarchy was everywhere prevalent. This continued until the new sultan had acquired age and experience; but, nine years after his accession, he successfully crushed the military rebels, and thereafter ruled with a severity amounting to bloodthirsty cruelty. In 1638 he marched in person against the Persians and succeeded in recapturing Bagdad. Peace was made in 1639,- leaving the Turco-Persian frontier practically as it now stands. In the next year the sultan died at the age of thirty-one, being succeeded by his brother Ibrahim. In his reign the Cossacks were driven from Azov and the expedition against Crete was begun, the immediate cause being the plunder of a Turkish vessel by Maltese corsairs who took their capture to Crete. War was therefore declared against Venice, to whom Crete belonged (1644), and continued in the island for. twenty-five years.
The anarchy and misgovernment of Turkey now reached such a pitch that Ibrahim was dethroned and murdered, and Mahom- his son Mahommed IV. was proclaimed in his med IV., stead. For the first eight years of his reign suc- 1648-1687. cessive grand viziers were unable to restore order to the country. In 1656 Mahommed Kuprili became grand vizier, and by dint of firmness and resolution repaired the falling fortunes of the country. The fleet was restored, and recaptured Lemnos and other islands which had passed into the hands of the Venetians; the revolts caused by Kuprili's severity were put down, and tranquillity was reestablished in Transylvania. After five years' tenure of office the grand vizier died and was succeeded by his son, Ahmed Kuprili. In 1663 the disturbances which had broken out again in Transylvania led to war with Austria. Ahmed Kuprili attacked the Austrians, at first with success, but was routed by Montecuculi at the battle of St Gotthard Abbey and eventually consented to the treaty of Vasvar (Aug. 10, 1664), by which a twenty years' truce " was agreed upon; Transylvania was evacuated by both parties, but remained tributary to Turkey. The Kuprilis, both father and son, had by their haughty and uncompromising demeanour done much to alienate the old-standing friendship with France, and at the battle of St Gotthard 6000 French, under Coligny, fought on the Austrian side. The result was that the Turks in retaliation deprived the Catholics, always under the protection of France, of some of their privileges in connexion with the holy places, which were now granted to the Orthodox Church. Meanwhile the Cretan campaign continued, and here also France lent her aid to the Venetians; this assistance could not, however, prevent the capture of Candia in 1669; on the 5th of September of that year Morosini, the Venetian commander, signed a treaty of peace with the Turks by which, after twenty-five years' warfare, they were placed in possession of the fortress of Candia, and with it of the effective rule over the whole island, Venice retaining only the fortresses of Suda, Grabusa and Spinalonga, and the islets along the coast.
Dissensions among the Cossacks led to the recognition by Turkey of Doroshenko, the hetman of the Sari Kamish, as ruler of the Ukraine; the Zaporog Cossacks, his antagonists, applied for aid to Russia. However, Michael Wiesnowiecki, king of Poland, considering the Ukraine as under his protection, sought to intervene, with the result that Turkey declared war against him (1672). The Turks captured Kamenets, Lemberg and Lublin. Hereupon the Poles sued for peace, and a treaty was signed at Buczacs (Oct. 18, 1672) whereby Podolia was ceded to Turkey, the Ukraine was left to the Cossacks, and Poland agreed to pay to Turkey an annual tribute of 22,000 sequins. But John Sobieski, who succeeded shortly afterwards to the throne of Poland, refused to abide by the terms of this treaty; the war was renewed and continued for four years, when the treaty of Buczacs was reaffirmed at Zuravno by both parties, the tribute clause alone being abrogated (Oct. 16, 1676). A few days later Ahmed Kuprili died.
Doroshenko now deserted the Turkish alliance for the Russian; in consequence an expedition was sent into the Ukraine which was both costly and useless. In 1678 the Turks succeeded in taking Cehrin, but their losses were very heavy, and on the 8th of January 1681 a treaty was signed at Radzyn whereby the territory in dispute was ceded to Russia. A revolt of the Hungarian Protestants, in consequence of the persecuting policy of the house of Habsburg, now led to a renewal of the war between Turkey and Austria, due in part to the overweening ambition of Kuprili's successor, Kara Mustafa, who desired to immortalize his tenure of office by some great exploit, and who cherished dreams of founding for himself a western Moslem Empire. The war is blamed by Turkish historians as unjustifiable and untimely, the country needing reform. A vast Turkish army marched to the walls of Vienna and closely beleaguered the imperial city, from which the emperor and his court fled. All hope seemed lost, when by a brilliant feat of arms John Sobieski, king of Poland, drove away the besiegers in hopeless confusion and saved the cause of Christianity, 1683. This was the signal for a general coalition against Turkey; Venice, Poland and the pope allied themselves with the Austrians; Russia, Tuscany and Malta joined in the attack. Turkey now sought for a rapprochement with France, and endeavoured to bring about her intervention in return for concessions as regards the holy places. But the French had just before bombarded Algiers and Tripoli, even menacing Chios (Scio), where some pirates had put in with French captives; and the mediation of France was not very actively exercised. One after another the Hungarian forts were captured by the Austrians; the Venetians were equally successful in Greece and the Morea; the Russians pressed on the Crimea, and Sobieski besieged Kamenets. The troops now mutinied and deposed the sultan, placing his brother Suleiman on the throne. But the disorder in the army and the administration continued, and the advance of the Austrians and the Venetians met with little opposition. In this emergency Mustafa Suleiman II., Kuprili (q.v.) was appointed grand vizier (1689). 1687-1691. His prudent measures at once re-established some degree of order in the army and the fleet, while he sought by a wise tolerance to improve the position and conciliate the sympathies of the non-Moslem subject races. At first eminently successful, he drove the Austrians across the Danube, recapturing Nish, Vidin, Semendria and Belgrade; repulses were also inflicted on the Venetians and the Russians. In the course of the campaign the sultan died, being succeeded by his brother Ahmed. The successes of the Turks were not maintained, the Austrians inflicting on them a crushing defeat at Slankamen, where Mustafa Kuprili was killed, and driving them from Hungary. After four years of disaster Ahmed died; he was succeeded by his nephew Mustafa. The tide of success now turned again in favour of the Turks, who recaptured Karansebes and Lippa, and at Lugos exterminated by the weight of overwhelming numbers an Austrian force under Field-marshal Count Friedrich von Veterani (1630-1695), the hero of many victories over the Turks, who was killed in the battle. Elsewhere, too, the Ottoman arms were victorious; in February the Venetians suffered a double defeat in the roadstead of Chios, and the island fell into the hands of the Turks. But Prince Eugene's genius restored the Austrian fortunes, and the Turks were utterly routed at Zenta on Mustafa I>:, the Theiss, losing more than 15,000 men (1697). Russia, driven from Azov in 1695, succeeded in capturing it in the following year; Venice continued to press the Turks; in this condition of affairs Hussein Kuprili (q.v.) was called to office; England and Holland urged Turkey to Ibrahim, Ahmed II., 1691-1695. make peace, and after long negotiations a series of treaties were concluded in January 1699 at Karlowitz, that with Poland being signed on the 16th and those with Austria and Venice on the 26th. The main provisions of these were, that Turkey retained the Banat, while Austria kept Transylvania; Poland restored the places captured in Moldavia, but retained Kamenets, Podolia and the Ukraine; Venice restored her conquests north of Corinth, but kept those in the Morea and Dalmatia. On the 4th, Russia concluded a two years' armistice, but remained in possession of Azov, which was formally ceded to her by the definitive treaty of peace signed at Constantinople on the 13th of June 1700. The peace of Karlowitz marks the definitive termination of Turkey's power of offence in Europe. Apart from the heavy losses which it imposed on her, it constitutes a fresh departure in her history, as putting an end to her splendid isolation and rendering her dependent on the changes of European politics. It is noteworthy also as being the first occasion on which representatives of the mediating powers took part in the peace negotiations. The grand vizier's efforts to take advantage of the peace to introduce order in the country were unavailing; he was driven from office, and disorders ensued which led to the sultan's abdication.
The troubles were not ended, by the accession of Ahmed III., and many high dignitaries of state were sacrificed to the lawlessness and insubordination of the Janissaries.
III., Meanwhile Turkey found herself again involved 1703-1730. with Russia. After the defeat of Charles XII.
of Sweden at Poltava, this monarch took refuge in Turkey, and was allowed to reside at Bender. The Russians pursued him into Turkish territory; which led to a Turkish declaration of war (1710). The Turks succeeded in surrounding Peter the Great near the Pruth, and his army was menaced with total destruction, when the Turkish commander, the grand vizier Baltaji Mahommed Pasha, was induced by the presents and entreaties of the empress Catherine to sign the preliminary treaty of the Pruth (July 21, 1711), granting terms of peace far more favourable than were justified by the situation of the Russians. These were: the cession to Turkey of Azov with all its guns and munitions, the razing of all the forts recently built on the frontier by Russia, the renunciation by the tsar of all claim to interfere with the Tatars under the dominion of the Crimea or Poland, or to maintain a representative at Constantinople, and Russia's consent to Charles's return to Sweden.' It was long, however, before the latter relieved Turkey of his presence. During the campaign Peter had entered into alliance with the hospodars of Moldavia and Walachia, respectively Demetrius Cantemir and Constantine Brancovano, from whom he had received material assistance. These were naturally dismissed after the defeat of the Russians; the former made good his escape to Russia, the latter was executed. The sultan determined henceforth to appoint Greeks to the principalities as more likely to be subservient to his will than the natives hitherto appointed. This system was continued until the Greek insurrection of 1821.
Russia having thus lost all the advantage gained by the peace of Karlowitz, Venice was next taken in hand, she having invaded the Bosnian frontier and incited the Montenegrins to revolt, besides capturing Turkish ships in the Mediterranean. These acts were held to be infractions of the treaty, and war was declared (1715). The result was the stamping out of the insurrection in Montenegro and the capture of the whole of the Morea. The fleet also took Tinos and Cerigo, as well as the three forts still remaining to the Venetians in Crete. Turkey's action, and the preparations being made for the siege of Corfu, now brought about the intervention of Austria. Charles VI., weary of the war for the Spanish succession, had shortly before concluded the peace of Rastadt (1715) and was anxious that Venice should not be too hardly pressed. He therefore urged Turkey to give up to Venice certain places in Dalmatia as a 1 The definitive treaty was signed at Constantinople on the 16th of April 1712 (renewed June 5, 1713).
compensation for the loss of the Morea. The Porte was at first disposed to comply, but the party of resistance finally prevailed. War was declared against Austria (1716); the fleet sailed for Corfu and the army crossed the Save from Belgrade to Semlin. Near Peterwardein a great battle was fought, in which the Austrians completely routed the Turks; pursuing their advantage they took Temesvar and overran the Banat; in 1717 they captured Belgrade, the Turks retreating to Adrianople. England and Holland now urged their mediation, and after negotiations the treaty of Passarowitz (Pozharevats in Servia) was signed (July 21, 1718); Venice ceded the Morea to Turkey but kept the strongholds she had occupied in Albania and Dalmatia; Belgrade, Temesvar and Walachia as far as the Olt were retained by Austria.
Meanwhile relations with Russia continued strained. The peace of 1712 had been concluded only for a term of years, and the neglect of the tsar to carry out its provisions had all but led to a fresh outbreak of hostilities when the intervention of the other powers led in 1713 to the renewal of the treaty; and in November 1720 it was superseded by a treaty of " perpetual peace," signed at Constantinople. But, though the questions at issue between Russia and Turkey in Poland and the northern littoral of the Black Sea were thus for the time settled, the aggressive designs of Russia in the Caucasus and in Persia soon caused a renewal of anxiety at Constantinople. Again war all but broke out; but, through the intervention of France, a treaty of partition was signed at Constantinople on the 23rd of June 1724, whereby the shores of the Caspian from the junction of the Kur and the Arras (Araxes) northwards should belong to Russia, while the western provinces of Persia should fall to the share of Turkey. These provinces had not yet been conquered by Turkey; and, when a part of them had been taken, a treaty was concluded with the Afghan Ashraf Shah, who had risen to supreme power in Persia, by" which Turkey should retain them on condition of recognizing him as shah (Oct. 23, 1727). But Nadir Kuli Khan came forward as the champion of Shah Tahmasp II., the rightful ruler, and drove the Turks from these provinces, capturing Tabriz. This news caused consternation at Constantinople; the inevitable revolt of the Janissaries followed, headed this time by one Patrona Khalil, and the sultan was forced to abdicate in favour of his nephew Mahmud. With difficulty the rebellion was suppressed; in 1733 the war with Persia was resumed, and after three years of fighting Nadir succeeded in 1736 in inducing Turkey to recognize him as shah of Persia and to restore the territory captured since the reign of Murad IV.
Russia's designs on Poland now brought about war. On the death of Augustus II., king of Poland (1733), France had put forward as candidate Stanislaus Leszczynski, War of Louis XV.'s father-in-law. Austria and Russia supported Augustus III., elector of Saxony, and the empress Anne marched an army into Poland and compelled the election of her candidate, though Russia had bound herself by the treaty of 1711 and again by that of 1720 to abstain from all interference with Poland. France thereupon declared war against Russia and her ally Austria, and her envoy, the marquis de Villeneuve, urged Turkey to join by representing the danger of allowing Russian influence to extend. Turkey had cause of complaint against Russia for refusing to allow the Crimean troops to march through Daghestan during the Persian campaign, and on the 28th of May 1736, war was declared, in spite of the efforts of England and Holland. The Russians had not waited for the formal declaration of war; and on the very day that this was notified by the hanging out of the horse-tails before the Seraglio at Constantinople a Russian army under Marshal Munnich stormed the ancient wall that guarded the isthmus of the Crimea. While Miinnich conducted a systematic devastation of the peninsula, forces were detached under his lieutenants Leontiev and Lascy to attack Kinburn (Kilburun) and Azov. Both these places fell; and in July of the following year Munnich captured Ochakov.
Meanwhile the western sea-powers had made earnest efforts to restore peace, and in August 1737 the plenipotentiaries of the combatant powers met at Niemirov to arrange terms under their mediation. But Austria, which had made a great show of seconding their efforts, now began to unmask her real aims, which were to take advantage of Turkey's embarrassments to push her own claims in the principalities and the Balkan Peninsula. To the refusal of the sultan's representatives to concede any of her demands, Austria replied by revealing the existence of an alliance with Russia, which she threatened to make actively offensive if her terms were refused. In November the conferences broke up; in the spring of the following year Austrian divisions advanced simultaneously into Bosnia, Servia and Walachia; and in July the main army, under the prince of Lorraine, crossed the frontier and captured Nish. In spite of this initial success, however, the campaign proved disastrous to the Austrians; and France, which had meanwhile come to terms with the emperor, endeavoured to mediate a peace in conjunction with Sweden and Holland. But the Ottomans, though the negotiations continued throughout 1738, were in no hurry to come to terms; for the tide of war had turned against both Austrians and Russians; Ochakov and Kinburn were recaptured; and the victorious Turks crossed the Danube and penetrated far into the Banat. Not till the middle of 1739 would they consent to negotiate seriously for peace. The conferences were opened at the close of July in the camp of the grand vizier, who was pressing Belgrade hard and demanded the surrender of the city as a sine qua non. This was conceded; on the 1st of September, under the mediation of the French ambassador Villeneuve, the preliminaries were signed; on the 4th the grand vizier made his formal entrance into the city, where on the 18th the definitive treaties with Austria and Russia were signed. By the former Austria gave up Belgrade and the places on the right bank of the Save and the Danube which she had gained by the treaty of Passarowitz, together with the Austrian portions of Walachia. The treaty with Russia provided that Azov should be razed and its territory devastated to form a barrier, Russia having the right to erect a new fortress at Cherkask, an island in the Don, near Azov, and Turkey to build one on the border of Kuban near Azov. But Taganrog was not to be refortified, and Russia was to have no war-ships on the sea of Azov or the Black Sea. The Kabardias, great and little, were to remain independent, to serve as a barrier between the two empires. By the 12th article the Ottoman government agreed " amicably to discuss " the question of recognizing the tsar's claim to the imperial title, and by the 13th admitted his right to send to Constantinople representatives of whatever rank he might judge fitting (Noradounghian, Recueil, i. 258).
Scarcely two years after the signature of the treaty of Belgrade sinister rumours reached Constantinople from Persia, where Nadir Shah, on his return from India, was planning an attack on Mesopotamia. The war, which broke out in 1743, was waged with varying fortunes, and the peace by which it was concluded on the 5th of September 1746, beyond stipulating for a few privileges for Persian pilgrims to the holy places, altered nothing in the settlement arranged ten years before with Murad IV. In the war of the Austrian Succession, which followed the accession of Maria Theresa to the Habsburg throne, Turkey, in spite of the urgency of France, would take no share, and she maintained the same attitude in the disorders in Persia following the death of Nadir Shah.
In 1754 the Sultan Mahmud died. He was succeeded by his brother Osman, whose three years' reign w as marked by no political event of special 1754-1757. Y P P importance. Osman III. was succeeded by his cousin Mustafa. At the outset of his reign negotiations were actively pursued for the conclusion of a 1757-1 treaty with Prussia, to counteract the alliance 1757-1773. y ?
between France and Austria contracted in 1756; and these resulted in the signature of Capitulations, or a treaty of friendship and commerce (March 22, 1761). The attitude of the northern powers, however, and especially of Russia, towards Poland was beginning to excite the sultan's liveliest suspicions; and these the accession, in 1762, of the masterful Catherine II. to the Russian throne was not calculated to allay. In 1763, Catherine took advantage of the death of Augustus III. of Poland to force her favourite, Stanislaus Poniatowski, on to the vacant throne. From the committee of patriots at Warsaw complaints and warnings were carried to Constantinople; and the cession of Podolia was offered as the price of a Turkish attack on Russia. The sultan, though inclined to take up the cause of the Polish dissidents, was slow to move, and contented himself for a while with protests and threats. But the aggressive policy of Russia in the direction of the Caspian and Black Seas became more and more evident; complaints reached the Porte of a violation of the neutrality of Kabardia, of a seditious propaganda in Moldavia by Russian monks, and of Russian aid given to the malcontents in Servia and Montenegro. Added to all this was the news of the continual Russian military aggressions in Poland, against which the Catholic confederation of Bar continued to appeal for aid. At last, on the 6th of October 1768, on the refusal of the Russian minister to give guarantees for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Poland and the abandonment of Russia's claim to interfere with the liberties of the republic, war was declared and the Russian representative was imprisoned in the Seven Towers.
The war that followed marks an epoch in the decay of the Ottoman Empire and in the expansion of Russia. When, in the spring of 1769, the first serious campaign was opened by a simultaneous attack by three Russian armies on the principalities, the Crimea and the buffer state of Kabardia, the Turks, in spite of ample warning, were unprepared. They were hampered, moreover, by an insurrection in the Morea, where a Russian expedition under Orlov had stirred up the' Mainotes, and by risings in Syria and Egypt. It was not, however, till September that the fall of Khotin in Bessarabia marked the first serious Russian success. The following year was more fatal. In May the Ottoman fleet was attacked and destroyed off Cheshme, and the Russian war-ships threatened to pass the Dardanelles. In June Romanzov's victory at Kartal made him master of the principalities, and by November the fortresses of Izmail and Kilia, guarding the passage of the Danube, and those of Akkerman and Bender on the Dniester had fallen into the hands of the Russians. The campaign of 1771, which opened with a gleam of success in the capture of Giurgevo, proved yet more disastrous to the Turks, the Russians passing the Danube and completing the conquest of the Crimea. Prussia and Austria now offered their mediation; and in June conferences were opened at Focshani, which led to no result. In the following year a conference, from which the Austrian and Prussian representatives were excluded, was opened at Bucharest (November 1772). In February 1773 the Russian plenipotentiary delivered his ultimatum, of which the most important demands were the cession of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn, the free navigation of the Black Sea and Archipelago for Russian trading and war vessels, and the recognition of the tsar's right to protect the Orthodox subjects of the sultan. These conditions were submitted to Constantinople, and rejected after a stormy debate in the divan. The conference of Bucharest now broke up, and the war continued. The successful defence of Varna and Silistria seemed to justify the stubbornness of the Porte.
On the 24th of December 1773 Mustafa III. died, and was succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid I., a weakling, from whose character nothing could be expected to retrieve the now desperate fortunes of the war. The exhaustion of the treasury was evidenced by 1773-1789. the absence of the usual donative to the troops; and the demoralization in both army and court made further resistance useless. At the beginning of July the Russians, under Kamenskiy, were before Shumla; and a few days later the grand vizier and his army, their communications with the capital severed, were surrounded in the fortress. Negotiations for peace were now opened and on the 21st of July - chosen by the Russian plenipotentiary as the anniversary of the humiliating convention of the Pruth - the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji was signed. Its terms were the most onerous as yet imposed on the Ottoman sultans. The Tatars Treaty of from the frontier of Poland to the shores of the Kuchuk Caspian, including those of the Crimea and Kuban, were declared independent under their own khan 1774' of the race of Jenghiz, saving only the religious rights of the sultan as caliph of Islam. Russia, however, retained the fortresses of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn, with the desert country between the Bug and the Dnieper, while Ochakov was left to the Turks. Bessarabia, with the fortresses of Akkerman, Izmail and Kilia, was restored to Turkey. Moldavia and Walachia were likewise restored, but under conditions which practically raised the41 to the position of semi-independent principalities under Russian protection (art. xvi.). Azov and its district were annexed to Russia, and the two Kabardias were transferred subject to the consent of the khan of the Crimea. Russia undertook to evacuate Mingrelia and Georgia. The recognition of the imperial title (padishah) was at last conceded to the Russian tsars.
Commerce and navigation in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean were free to both countries. Turkey was to pay a war indemnity of 15,boo purses, the Russian fleet was to withdraw and the islands captured by it to be restored. By article vii. of the treaty the Sublime Porte undertook " to protect the Christian religion and its churches " and conceded to the ministers of Russia the specific right to " make representations in favour of the new Church " which, under article xiv. of the same treaty, the Russian government was empowered to build, in addition to the embassy chapel " in the street named Bey Oglu." This article is of great historical importance as forming the basis of the later claim of Russia to possess by treaty the right to protect the Orthodox subjects of the Porte.' Poland, the original cause of the war, was not even mentioned in the treaty, having been partitioned in 1772.
After yielding to these hard conditions, Turkey took advantage of her respite to strengthen the frontier defences and to put down the rebellions in Syria and Egypt; some effort was also expended on the hopeless task of reforming the Janissaries. It was not long before Russia showed that it was not the independence but the absorption of the Crimea which she desired. In 1779 a rupture on this account was only averted through the mediation of the French ambassador, coupled with the fact that Turkey was in no condition to enter upon hostilities, owing to the outbreak of plague in her army. The Porte, unable to resist, was obliged to consent to the convention of Ainali Ka y ak (March 10, 1779) whereby the Russian partisan, Shahin Girai, was recognized as khan of the Crimea, the admission of Russian vessels to navigate Turkish waters was reaffirmed and Russia's right of intervention in the affairs of the Danubian principalities was formally recognized. Five years later Potemkin induced the chiefs of the Crimea and Kuban to hold a meeting at which the annexation of their country to Russia was declared, Turkey giving her consent by a convention, signed at Constantinople, on the 8th of January 1784, by which the stipulations as to the liberty of the Tatars contained in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji and the convention of Ainali Ka y ak were abrogated. In 1786 Catherine made a triumphal progress through the Crimea in company with her ally, Joseph II., who had succeeded to the imperial throne on the death of his mother. These events and the friction caused by mutual complaints of infringements of the treaty stirred up public opinion in Turkey, and the British ambassador lent his support to the war party. In 1788 war was declared, but Turkey's preparations were inadequate and the moment was ill-chosen, now that Russia and Austria were in alliance, a fact of which Turkey became aware only when the horse ' See G. F. de Martens, Recueil des traites, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 286, also Noradounghian, Recueil, p. 319.
tails were planted for the campaign. The Turks drove back the Austrians from Mehadia and overran the Banat (1789); but in Moldavia Romanzov was successful and captured Jassy and Khotin. After a long siege Ochakov fell to Potemkin, and all its inhabitants were massacred. This news affected the sultan so deeply as to cause his death.
Selim, the late sultan's nephew, who succeeded, made strenuous preparations for continuing the war, but his generals were incompetent and his army mutinous; expeditions for the relief of Bender and Akkerman failed, Belgrade was taken by the Austrians, Izmail was captured by Suvorov, and the fall of Anapa completed the series of Turkey's disasters. Sultan Selim was anxious to restore his country's prestige by a victory before making peace, but the condition of his troops rendered this hope unavailing; while Prussia, though on the 31st of January 1790 she had signed an offensive treaty with Turkey,' gave her no help during the war. Accordingly a treaty was signed. with Russia at Jassy (Jan. 9, 1792) by which the Crimea and Ochakov were left to Russia, the Dniester was made the frontier in Europe, and the Asiatic frontier remained unchanged. Joseph II. had died, and his successor, Leopold II., was averse from the Russian alliance. Through the mediation of England, Holland and Prussia, Turkey and Austria concluded on the 4th of August 1791 the treaty of Sistova, by which Belgrade and the other conquests made by Austria were restored.
The conclusion of peace was welcomed by Selim as the opportunity for carrying out reforms, of which he thoroughly realized the necessity in every branch of the administration, and especially in the army, to whose defects the disasters of the state were due. Accordingly it was decided to form troops known as nizam-i-jedid, affiliated to the Janissaries so as to disarm the jealousy of the latter, properly drilled and wearing a distinctive uniform. The fleet was reorganized, military schools were established, and skilled instructors were obtained from Europe. These reforms excited much opposition, which was at first unheeded. Meanwhile Turkey came into conflict with France. Throughout all the vicissitudes of the Revolution the relations between the two states had wit remained unimpaired, and Turkey had been one with France. of the first countries to recognize the republic. Bonaparte's sudden occupation of Egypt (1798) came therefore as a complete surprise. This expedition was in reality directed against English rule in India. Nelson's destruction of the French fleet at the battle of the Nile disconcerted Bonaparte's plans; he hoped to pursue his designs through Syria, and laid siege to Acre, which, however, successfully held out. Turkey now joined Great Britain and Russia against France.' The Russian and Turkish fleets attacked and took the Ionian Islands, which had become French by the treaty of Campo Formio, and certain towns, hitherto unconquered, on the Albanian coast. An expeditionary force was also sent against Bonaparte, now practically blockaded in Egypt. This was routed and driven into the sea at Abukir (July 15, 1799). For the subsequent operations in Egypt, which ended in its evacuation by the French after the British victory at Alexandria, see Egypt: History. Meanwhile in Turkey disorder prevailed in almost every province of the empire, and the local governors in many places became entirely independent, oppressing the people under their rule and often driving them to revolt. This was notably the case in Servia, where the temporary domination of Austria, to which the treaty of Sistova (1791) put an end, had had the effect of awakening the national spirit of the people. But no armed manifestation of revolt had taken place until the lawless and savage conduct of the Janissaries, who had made themselves masters of the country, assisted by the notorious governor of Vidin, Pasvan Oglu, 2 Text in Martens, Recueil, 2nd series, vol. iv. p. 466.
The treaty of alliance with Russia was signed on the 23rd of December 1798, that with Great Britain on the 5th of January 1799.
and his band of outlaws, drove the peaceful rayas to rebel. The insurgents chose as their captain one George Petrovich, nicknamed Kara Georgi (i.e. Black George), and under his able leadership succeeded in capturing Belgrade and in breaking the power of the Janissaries. The Porte also sent an army against Pasvan Oglu, but after reducing him to submission reinstated him in his government. A serious outbreak took place at Adrianople in 1804, where 20,000 of the new troops had been sent, ostensibly to put down the revolt in Servia, but really to try to bring about the reform of the European provinces. So strong was the opposition that the troops were recalled, and the anti-reform party was greatly strengthened. The Wahhabi movement in Nejd now began to assume serious proportions. These religious sectaries attacked and plundered all Mussulmans not conforming to their peculiar tenets; they overran Kerbela and the Hejaz, sacking the holy cities and closing the pilgrim routes. Only in the reign of Mahmud II. were they put down (see WARHABts).
In 1802, by a treaty of peace signed at Paris on the 25th of June, France resumed her former terms of friendship with Complica- Turkey. Russia, desirous of deriving some return for the support which she had given the sultan during his rupture with the French, induced the Porte to address to her a note in which the right of intervention in the affairs of the principalities, conferred on her by the treaty of Kainarji and reaffirmed in the convention of Ainali Ka y ak, was converted into a specific stipulation that the hospodars should be appointed in future for seven years and should not be dismissed without the concurrence of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople. In pursuance of this agreement Constantine Ypsilanti was appointed to Walachia and Alexander Muruzi to Moldavia - both devoted to Russian interests. Their intrigues in favour of the Greek and other revolutionary movements induced the Porte to dismiss them in 1806, contrary to the arrangement of 1802. Russia and England hereupon used threatening language, and Turkey replaced the hospodars. But war was nevertheless declared on the 27th of December 1806, and Russia occupied the principalities. The British ambassador sought by every means in his power to induce Turkey to give way to Russia, going so far as to guarantee the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Moldo-Walachia if the Porte remained at peace, and threatening that if Turkey persisted in her opposition England would join with Russia against her. But France's influence, backed by the strong personality of her ambassador, General Sebastiani, was sufficient to enable the sultan to withstand these arguments, and the British ambassador broke off relations and withdrew to the fleet at Tenedos (February 1807). Helped by a strong south wind, the British war-ships passed up the straits and anchored off the Seven Towers. An ultimatum was presented ordering Turkey within twenty-four hours to dismiss the French ambassador, hand over the Turkish fleet, and make peace with Russia. With Sebastiani's encouragement the Porte resisted these demands; in one day a thousand guns were ranged along both sides of the Bosporus; and after a stay of ten days the British fleet was ordered to leave, and was considerably damaged by the fire of the forts while passing down. Meanwhile the sultan's whole efforts were directed towards the reform of the country; the newly-instituted militia was in every respect a success; it grew in numbers, and hopes were entertained that it would gain popularity. But the Janissaries and the corrupt officials were fundamentally opposed to the scheme, and the conservatives joined with them against such reforms of European origin. The rulers of the provinces shared these views; the consequence was disquiet and confusion throughout the empire. At this difficult moment the army was obliged to march to the Danube, leaving the government in the hands of men hostile to reform. In 1807 the garrisons of the Black Sea forts at the entrance of the straits rose in rebellion, headed by one Kabakji Mustafa, and killed their officers. The sultan sought to appease them by pacific means, but the movement spread to the Janissaries, who insisted upon the abolition of the new troops. But even this concession did not satisfy them; they dethroned Selim and proclaimed his nephew Mustafa. The new sultan was obliged to abolish all the IV., reforms, and during practically the whole of his fourteen months' reign the Janissaries were in rebellion, even while facing the Russians. All officers who were partisans of the reforms were obliged to take refuge in flight; and Turkey's position would have been desperate but for the conclusion of the peace of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) between Russia and France, to which Turkey also became a party. The army hereupon retired to Adrianople, and the powerful pasha of Rustchuk, Mustafa Bairakdar, who had distinguished himself by his resistance to the Russians, and who thoroughly shared Selim's desire for reform, was now induced by the many officers who held similar views to march on Constantinople to restore Selim to the throne. But he arrived too late; Selim had already been killed; the unworthy Mustafa was put to death, and Mahmud, the sole survivor of the house of Osman, became sultan. Mustafa Bairakdar, who MahmuarL, ' '1808-1839. was now raised to the dignity of grand vizier, suc ceeded in inspiring the Janissaries with a wholesome respect, due to their dread of the ro,000 irregulars known as kirjalis by whom he was accompanied. The remnants of the abolished new troops were collected and formed into regiments affiliated to the Janissaries under the name of seymen-i-jedid; the dignitaries of state were called upon to take an oath of fidelity and loyalty. The feast of Ramazan hereupon occurring, the grand vizier unwisely allowed his own troops to disperse. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Janissaries rose by night and besieged the house of the grand vizier, who eventually blew himself up in the arsenal. Fighting became general and extended to the fleet, which bombarded the capital. The Janissaries slaughtered all the `' new troops " whom they met, and finally extorted an amnesty from the terrified government.
After the peace of Tilsit an armistice had been agreed upon with Russia (Aug. 24, 1807). Turkey was at this time the only neutral state in Europe; it was of vital im- Treaty of portance that she should not be absorbed into the Napoleonic system, as in that case Russia would have been exposed to a simultaneous attack from France, Austria, Turkey and Persia. Accordingly, though France made every attempt to induce Turkey to adopt her side, the young Stratford Canning succeeded in causing the resumption of the peace negotiations at Bucharest, broken off through Russia's terms being considered too onerous, and followed by the capture of Izmail and Bender. The British diplomatist secured his first triumph in the signature of the treaty of Bucharest (May 28, 1812) whereby Khotin, Bender, Kilia and Akkerman were left to Russia; the frontier was fixed at the Pruth; the Asiatic boundary was slightly modified. The treaties as to the principalities were renewed; and though Servia was restored to the direct rule of Turkey it was stipulated that clemency was to be observed in the Porte's dealings with the country, which was given the power of regulating its own affairs.
The vagueness of these latter provisions at once gave rise to disputes, and in 1813 the Turkish troops occupied the country. The new pasha of Belgrade appointed one Milosh Obrenovich headman of his own district, but a few years later Milosh raised a successful revolt, drove out the Turks, and re-established Servian semi-independence. Karageorge, who had fled to Austria in 1812, was induced to return, but Milosh caused him to be murdered, and in 1817 was by a popular vote named hereditary prince of Servia.
The affairs of Servia, however, were not the only question left unsettled by the treaty of Bucharest. In the course of the war with Persia Russia had received permission from the Ottoman government to use, for a limited time, the easy road from the Black Sea to Tiflis by way of the valley of the Rion (Phasis) for the transport of troops and supplies, and this permission had been several times renewed. Wishing to make this important privilege permanent, Russia by secret articles of the Treaty of Bucharest had secured the cession of this district, in return for an undertaking to destroy the forts of Kilia and Izmail on the Danube. But the sultan refused to ratify these articles, and the relations between Russia and Turkey were therefore determined by the patent treaty only, which positively stipulated for the evacuation by the Russians of every spot occupied by them on Turkish soil in Asia. When the Russians showed no signs of withdrawing from the valley of the Rion, the sultan threatened to renew the war, the sole result of which was to reveal the determination of the tsar not to be bullied into concessions. The dispute, at first of little importance, developed in seriousness during the next year or two, owing to the avowed intention of Russia, which by conquest or treaties with independent chiefs had acquired all the high land between the Caspian and the Black Sea, to take possession of the low lands along the coast, between Anapa and Poti, of which the sultan claimed the sovereignty.
Such was the situation when the question of a European guarantee of Turkey was raised at the Congress of Vienna.
In view of the multiple dangers to which the Ottoman Empire was exposed, both from without and °e from within, and of the serious consequences to the world's peace which would result from its break-up, there was a strong feeling among the powers in favour of such a guarantee, and even the emperor Alexander was willing to agree to it in principle. But nothing could be done until the Porte should have come to terms with Russia as to the Treaty of Bucharest; for, as the British ambassador, Sir Robert Liston, was instructed to point out to the Ottoman government, " it is impossible to guarantee the possession of a territory of which the limits are not determined." With the consent of the tsar, it was proposed to submit the questions at issue to the decision of Great Britain, France and Austria; and the Porte was informed that, in the event of its accepting this arrangement, the powers would at once proceed to guarantee the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But the sultan could not bend his pride to suffer foreign intervention in a matter that touched his honour, and the return of Napoleon from Elba threw the Eastern Question into the background. The Ottoman Empire thus remained outside the European concert; Russia maintained her claim to a special right of isolated intervention in its affairs; and the renewal of war between Russia and Turkey was only postponed by the preoccupation of Alexander with his dream of the " Confederation of Europe." Meanwhile, within the Ottoman Empire there was every sign of a rapidly approaching disintegration. In Egypt Mehemet Ali had succeeded in establishing himself as quasi independent ruler of the country. By his action during Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion, and later when the British fleet after leaving Constantinople in 1807 proceeded to Egypt, he had to some extent acquired the goodwill of the Turkish government. In 1811 he was called upon by the Porte to put down the Wahhabi insurgents (see Arabia, vol. ii. p. 268), his success in this matter, and especially in the recovery of the holy cities, adding greatly to his prestige.
Sultan Mahmud now devoted himself to breaking the overgrown power of the local governors, which had for many years practically annihilated that of the central authority. Their extortions impoverished the whole country, yet the abolition of the system might perhaps have been carried out more gradually and with greater precaution, and Turkey more than once felt the want of their aid, questionable as its value often was. Thus Ali (q.v.), Pasha of Iannina, the most famous of these, though insubordinate and inclined to intrigue with foreign powers in the hope of making himself independent, had used his influence to keep the Greeks quiet; and it was only after his power had been broken in 1821 that the agitation of the Hetairia issued in widespread dangerous revolt. The first hope of emancipation from the Turkish yoke had been founded by the Greeks on Peter the Great, who had planned the expulsion of the Turks from Europe and had caused the inscription " Petrus I., Russo-Graecorum Monarcha " to be placed beneath his portrait engraved at Amsterdam. Catherine II. following in his footsteps, aspired to found a Greek empire, the throne of which was to be occupied by her nephew, Constantine, specially so baptized, and brought up by Greek nurses (see Constantine Pavlovich). During the war of 1770 the Greeks had risen in an abortive rebellion, promptly crushed by the Turks. But the idea of liberation continued to grow, and about 1780 the Society of Friends (`ETaepia Twv 4 c uK'v) was founded at Bucharest by the fervent patriot and poet, Constantinos Rhigas (q.v.). The secret organization, temporarily checked by Rhigas's arrest and execution in 1798, was revived at Odessa in 1814; it extended throughout Turkey, and in 1820 the insurrection took shape, a favourable opportunity being afforded by the outbreak of hostilities between Ali Pasha and the Porte. (See Greek Independence, War Of.) On the 6th of March 1821 Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, son of the hospodar Constantine, and a general in the Russian service, crossed the Pruth, proclaiming the revolt of the Greeks against the sultan and the intention to restore the Greek Empire of the East. But in the principalities, where the Vlach peasants regarded the Phanariots as worse oppressors than the Turks, the movement had little chance of success; it was doomed from the moment that the emperor Alexander disavowed Ypsilanti's claim to his support (See Alexander I.). After some initial successes the Greeks were finally routed at the battle of Dragashani (June 19, 1821). It was far otherwise with the insurrection which broke out at the beginning of April in the Morea. The Mussulman population of the Morea, taken unawares, was practically exterminated during the fury of the first few days; and, most fatal of all, the defection of the Greeks of the islands crippled the Ottoman navy by depriving it of its only effective sailors. The barbarous reprisals into which Sultan Mahmud allowed himself to be carried away only accentuated the difficulty of the situation. The execution of the patriarch Gregorios, as technically responsible for the revolt, was an outrage to all Christendom; and it led at once to a breach of diplomatic relations with Russia.
To prevent this breach developing into war was now the chief study of the chanceries. Public opinion throughout Europe was violently excited in favour of the Greeks; and this Philhellenic sentiment was shared even by some of the statesmen who most strenuously deprecated any interference in their favour. For at the outset Metternich was not alone in maintaining that the war should be allowed to burn itself out " beyond the pale of civilization." The mutual slaughter of barbarians in the Levant seemed, even to George Canning, a lesser evil than a renewed Armageddon in Europe; and all the resources of diplomacy were set in motion to heal the rupture between Turkey and Russia. In spite of the emperor Alexander's engagements to the Grand Alliance and the ideal of European peace, this was no easy matter; for the murder of the patriarch was but the culmination of a whole series of grievances accumulated since the Treaty of Bucharest. Moreover, the Porte was thrown into a suspicious mood by the contrast between the friendly language of the western powers and the active sympathy of the western peoples for the Greeks, who were supported by volunteers and money drawn from all Europe. But, though the sultan remained stubborn, the emperor Alexander, who since the Congress of Laibach had been wholly under Metternich's influence, resisted the clamour of his people for war, and dismissed his Greek minister Capo d'Istria. The Congress of Verona (1822) passed without any serious developments in the Eastern Question.
The stubborn persistence of the Greeks, however, dashed Metternich's hope that the question would soon settle itself, and produced a state of affairs in the Levant which necessitated some action. In the instructions drawn up, shortly before his death, for his guidance at Verona, Castlereagh had stated the possibility of the necessity for recognizing the Greeks as belligerents if the war continued. The atrophy of the Ottoman sea-power had left the archipelago at the mercy of the Greek war-brigs; piracy flourished; and it became essential in the interests of the commerce of all nations to make some power responsible for the policing of the narrow seas. On the 25th of March 1823 accordingly, Canning announced the recognition by Great Britain of the belligerent character of the Greeks.
This roused the emperor Alexander to action, since it seemed as though Great Britain was aiming at ousting Russian influence in the Levant. He suggested a joint intervention of the powers; but the conference, which met at St Petersburg in April 1824, came to nothing, since Turkey and the Greeks alike refused to be bound by its decisions, and Canning would not hear of coercion being applied to either. The sole outcome of the conference was the offer in March 1825 of the joint mediation of Austria and Russia, which the Porte rejected.
Meanwhile Mahmud, realizing the impossibility of crushing the Greek revolt unaided, had bent his pride to ask the help of Mehemet Ali, who was to receive as his reward Crete, the Morea and the pashaliks of Syria and Damascus. The Egyptian fleet and disciplined army were now thrown into the scale; and from the moment when Ibrahim Pasha landed at Modon (Feb. 24, 1825), the fate of the Greeks seemed sealed. The Morea was quickly overrun; in April 1826 Missolonghi fell, after a heroic defence; in June 1827 Athens was once more in the hands of the Turks. Crowds of Greek captives were being sent as slaves to Cairo; and, should the powers not intervene, there was every prospect of Greece being depopulated and colonized with Mussulman negroes and fellahin.
At the close of 1825 an isolated intervention of Russia had seemed probable. A great army was assembled in the south of Russia, and the emperor Alexander had gone to place himself at its head when he died (Dec. 22, 1825). It was to prevent such an intervention that Canning seized the opportunity of the accession of Nicholas I. to send the duke of Wellington to St Petersburg in order to concert joint measures. The result was the protocol of St Petersburg of the 4th of April 1826, by which Great Britain was empowered to offer to the Ottoman government a settlement of the Greek question based on the establishment of Greece as a vassal and tributary state. Should the Porte refuse, the two powers were to take the earliest opportunity, either separately or in common, of establishing a reconciliation on the basis of the protocol.
Russia, meanwhile, had seized the occasion to send to Constantinople an ultimatum demanding satisfaction for her own particular grievances; the Porte resented the intrusion of new demands before the others had been dealt with, and hurried on preparations for war. The reform of the army, however, involved the destruction of the Janissaries (q.v.), and though their massacre on the 15th of June left the sultan free to carry out his views with regard to the army, it left him too weak to resist the Russian demands. On the 7th of October, accordingly, these were conceded by the Convention of Akkerman. Its terms were: the confirmation of the Treaty of Bucharest and the opening of the navigation of the Black Sea to the Russian flag; a stipulation that the hospodars of Walachia and Moldavia should be elected by the boyars for seven years, their election being confirmed by the Porte which, however, had no power to dismiss them without the concurrence of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople; finally, Servia's autonomy was recognized, and, save in the fortresses, no Mussulman might reside there.
The Greek question was however, not yet settled. Months passed without any action being taken under the protocol of the 4th of April; and Russia suspected Great Britain of merely using the protocol to prevent her Powers as own isolated intervention. The situation was however materially altered by the end of August 1826; for the Greeks, driven to desperation, had formally invited the mediation of England, thereby removing Canning's objection to an unasked intervention. He now invited the co-operation of Russia in representations to the Porte on xxvii. 15 a the basis of the protocol, and, in the event of its refusal to come to terms, suggested certain measures of coercion. The tsar consented, and proposed that the coercion should take the form of a pacific blockade of the Morea, so as to force Ibrahim, by cutting off his supplies, to evacuate the country. To this Great Britain agreed in principle; for Canning clearly saw the need for yielding on the question of a joint intervention, if the isolated intervention of Russia were to be prevented. In the conference of the five powers of the Grand Alliance opened at London in the early summer of 1827, however, a divergence of views at once became apparent. Austria and Prussia protested against any coercion of the Porte " to serve revolutionary ends " and, failing to carry their views, withdrew from the conference. France thereupon proposed to convert the protocol of the 4th of April into a treaty; Russia and Great Britain agreed; and on the 6th of July the Treaty of London was signed by the three powers.
By the patent articles of the treaty the powers agreed to secure the autonomy of Greece under the suzerainty of the sultan, but without any breach of friendly relations with Turkey. By additional secret articles it was agreed that, in the event of the Porte not accepting the offered mediation, consuls should be established in Greece, and an armistice proposed to both belligerents and enforced by all the means that should " suggest themselves to the prudence " of the high contracting powers. In general it was allowed that these means should be the " pacific blockade " proposed by the tsar. Instructions to this effect were sent to the admirals commanding in the Levant.
The armistice, accepted by the Greeks, was refused by Ibrahim, pending instructions from Constantinople, though he consented to keep his ships in the harbour of Navarino. The Greeks, having put themselves in the right with the powers, were free to continue the war; and the destruction of a Turkish flotilla off Salona on the 23rd of September followed. Ibrahim, taking this as a breach of the convention, set sail from Navarino northwards, but was turned back by Sir Edward Codrington, the British admiral. Then, the Russian and French squadrons having joined, it was determined to put further pressure on the Egyptian commander, and the allied fleets, on the morning of the 10th of October, stood into the bay of Navarino. A chance scuffle led to a battle, and by the evening the Turkish and Egyptian fleets had ceased to exist (see Navarino, Battle Of).
The effect on the passionate sultan of this " unparalleled outrage on a friendly power in time of peace " is easy to imagine. In spite of the weak efforts of the British government to palliate the significance of this " untoward incident," Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with the three powers concerned, and on the 10th of December Mahmud, giving full vent to his rage, issued a hatt-i-sherif denouncing the cruelty and perfidy of the Christian powers, declaring the convention of Akkerman null and void, and summoning the faithful to a holy war. The struggle that followed was, however, destined once more to be a duel between Russia and Turkey. Great Britain, when Canning was no longer at the helm of state, had reverted to the traditional policy of preserving Ottoman integrity at all costs; the invitation of the tsar to accept the logical consequences of Navarino was refused; and Russia was left to settle her account with Turkey.
The war that followed proved once more the wonderful resisting power of the Turks. In spite of the confusion due to the destruction of the Janissaries and army reforms as yet hardly begun, it cost the tzar two hardly fought campaigns before the audacious strategy of General Diebitsch enabled him to dictate the terms of the treaty of Adrianople (Sep. 14, 1829). Meanwhile the other powers had taken advantage of the reverses of the Russian arms to discount the effect of their ultimate victory by attempting to settle the Greek question. In July 1828 France had been commissioned to oust Ibrahim from the Morea; and though by a convention, concluded on the 9th of August by Codrington with Mehemet Ali, the principle of evacuation by the Egyptian troops had already been settled before the arrival of the French expedition, the Morea remained for the time in French occupation. On the 16th of November a protocol of the London conference placed the Morea, with the neighbouring islands and the Cyclades, under the guarantee of the powers; and on the 22nd of March 1829 another protocol extended the frontier thus guaranteed to the line Arta-Volo and included the island of Euboea. According to this instrument Greece was to be erected into a tributary state, but autonomous, and governed by an hereditary prince chosen by the powers.
The Treaty of Adrianople, by which the Danubian principalities were erected into practically independent states, the treaty rights of Russia in the navigation of the Bosporus Anapa and Poti in Asia ceded to the tsar, included also a settlement of the Greek question on the terms of the protocol of the 22nd of March. This fact, which threatened to give to Russia the whole prestige of the emancipation of Greece, spurred the other powers to further concessions. The acceptance of the principle of complete independence, once more warmly advocated by Metternich, seemed now essential if Greece was not to become, like the principalities, a mere dependency of Russia. On the 3rd of February 1830 was signed a protocol embodying the principle of an independent Greece under Leopold of Coburg as " sovereign prince." This was ultimately expanded, after the fall of the Wellington ministry, into the Treaty of London of the 7th of May 1832, by which Greece was made an independent kingdom under the Bavarian prince Otto. (See Greece: History.) Before the final settlement of the Greek question a fresh crisis had arisen in the affairs of Turkey. Her lessened prestige had already received a severe blow from the bom bardment and capture of Algiers by the French in 1830, and her position was further embarrassed by revolts in Bosnia and Albania, when news reached Constantinople that Mehemet Ali had invaded Syria (Nov. 1, 1831), nominally in order to punish his enemy Abdullah, pasha of Acre, really in order to take by force of arms the pashaliks of Syria and Damascus promised as a reward for his services in Greece. An account of the collapse of the Turkish power before Mehemet Ali, and of the complicated diplomatic developments that followed, is given in the article Mehemet Ali. Here it must suffice to say that the recognition of Mehemet Ali's claims, forced on the sultan by France and Great Britain, was followed in 1833 by the signature of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, which seemed to place Turkey wholly in the power of Russia, after which Sultan Mahmud concentrated his energies on creating a force strong enough to crush his rebellious vassal.
At last, in 1839, his eagerness would no longer be restrained, and without consulting his ministers, and in spite of the warnings of all the powers, he determined to renew the war. On the 21st of April the Ottoman army, which had been massed under Hafiz Pasha at. Bir on the Euphrates, crossed the stream, by the sultan's orders, and advanced on Damascus. On the 23rd of June it was attacked by Ibrahim at Nezib and annihilated. As for Mahmud, the news of the disaster reached Constantinople when he was unconscious and dying. Early on the 1st of July he was dead, and his son Abd-ul-Mejid, a lad of eighteen, reigned in his stead (see Mahmud Ii.).
The Eastern Question had now suddenly once more entered an acute phase. The news of Nezib was immediately followed by that of the treason of Ahmed Pasha, the Ottoman Mejid, admiral, who, on the plea that the sultan's coun- 1839-1861. sellors were sold to Russia, had sailed to Alexandria and handed over the fleet to Mehemet Ali. With an inexperienced boy on the throne, divided and untrustworthycounsels in :the divan, and the defences of the empire shattered, the house of Osman seemed doomed and the Turkish Empire about to dissolve into its elements. If Russia was to be prevented from using the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi for her own purposes, it was essential that the powers should concert measures to deal with the situation. The story of the diplomatic negotiations that followed is told elsewhere (see Mehemet ALl). Here it may suffice to say that the desire of the emperor Nicholas to break the entente between Great Britain and France led him to waive his special claims under the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, and that in the ultimate concert by which the question was settled France, which throughout supported Mehemet Ali, had no part. The intervention of the powers, based on the convention of London of the i 5th of July 1840, led to the withdrawal of Ibrahim from Syria, and the establishment by the firman of the 13th of February 1841 of Mehemet Ali as hereditary pasha of Egypt under conditions intended to safeguard the sovereign rights of the Ottoman sultan. On the 10th of July the four signatory powers of the convention of London signed a protocol recording the closure of the incident (protocole de cloture), and on the 13th France united with them in signing another protocol (protocole des detroits) by which the powers engaged to respect the principle proclaimed by the sultan as to the closing of the Dardanelles to foreign warships.
The severe crisis through which the Ottoman Empire had passed accentuated the need for strengthening it by a drastic reform of its system. For such an experiment, though hampered by continual insurrections within Policy in and troubles without, Mahmud had done some- Turkey. thing to pave the way. The destruction of the Tanzimat. Janissaries and the suppression of the quasi-indepen dent power of the derebeys had removed the worst disturbing elements; the government had been centralized; a series of enactments had endeavoured to secure economy in the administration, to curb the abuses of official power, and ensure the impartiality of justice; and the sultan had even expressed his personal belief in the principle of the equality of all, Mussulman and non-Mussulman, before the law. It was therefore no sudden revolution when, on the 15th of November 1839 Abd-ul-Mejid signalized his accession by promulgating the Tanzimat, or Hatti-Sherif of Gulhane, a decree abolishing the arbitrary and unlimited power hitherto exercised by the state and its officials, laying down the doctrine of the perfect equality of all Ottoman subjects of whatever race or creed, and providing for the regular, orderly and legal government of the country and the security of life, property and honour for all its inhabitants. Yet the feelings of dismay and even ridicule with which this proclamation was received by the Mussulmans in many parts of the country show how great a change it instituted, and how strong was the opposition which it encountered among the ruling race. The non-Mussulman subjects of the sultan had indeed early been reduced to such a condition of servitude that the idea of their being placed on a footing of equality with their Mussulman rulers seemed unthinkable. Preserved merely as taxpayers necessary to supply the funds for the maintenance of the dominant and military class, according to a foreign observer in 1571, they had been so degraded and oppressed that they dared not look a Turk in the face. Their only value was from a fiscal point of view, and in times of fanaticism or when antiforeign sentiment ran high even this was held of little account, so that more than once they very nearly became the victims of a general and state-ordered massacre. Thus Sultan Ibrahim was dissuaded from such a step in 1644 only by the refusal of the Sheikh-ul-Islam to sanction the proceeding. The humane and tolerant measures provided for in the " nizam-i-jedid," or new regulations for the better treatment of the Christians enacted by Mustafa Kuprili during his grand vizierate (1689-1691), did for a time improve the position of the rayas. But the wars with Russia and other Christian powers, and the different risings of the Greeks and Servians, helped to stimulate the feelings of animosity and contempt entertained towards them by the ruling race; and the promulgation of the Tanzimat undoubtedly heralded for the subject nationalities the dawn of a new era.
Greekce and Dardanelles confirmed, and the districts of first sultan who entered into regular relations with foreign powers, and employed permanent ambassadors; the practice was discontinued at the time of the Greek revolution and the consequent rupture with the powers. Later, during the Egyptian negotiations, ambassadors were accredited to London, Paris and Vienna. Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz's journey to Europe and the return visits paid by foreign princes strengthened Turkey's relations with foreign states.
The ministry of the Evkaf or pious foundations was established in 1827 and extended ten years later. Such foundations had been created from the earliest times, and the execution of the testator's wishes was generally left to his descendants, under the supervision of some high official designated in the act of endowment. In case of failure in the line of succession an administrator was appointed by the state. But many such foundations fell into disorder, and the ministry was created to exercise the requisite supervision.
Though the provisions of the Tanzimat were not fully observed, they afforded convincing proof that reform was entirely practicable in Turkey. Reforms were effected in The reforms introduced by Sultan Mahmud and by the Tanzimat necessitated the remodelling of nearly all the departments of state. Towards the end of Mahmud II.'s reign ministries had been instituted, and a council of ministers had been established, presided over by the grand vizier. In 1837 the " council of the Sublime Porte " and the " supreme council of legal affairs " were established: the latter was the tribunal to which were referred all complaints against officials or claims pending between the state and private individuals; the council of the Sublime Porte was in 1839 transferred to the ministry of commerce; the supreme council of legal affairs after undergoing various modifications was in 1868 absorbed in the council of state. In 1837 a " council of public works " was instituted, converted ten years later into a separate ministry. In 1835 the " ministry of administration " was formed; two years later its title was changed to ministry of the interior. Regulations prescribing the duties of the local governors and officials of all ranks were drawn up only in 1865 and 1870, but since Mahmud's time their functions were exclusively civil and administrative. A regular hierarchical order was elaborated for the official classes, both civil and military, whereby the rank of each person was clearly defined.
The military reorganization dates from the destruction of the Janissaries (June 15, 1826). On that day Aga Hussein Pasha was appointed " Seraskier (commandant) of the victorious Mahommedan troops "; at first only two divisions were established, quartered respectidely at Constantinople and Scutari. In 1833 the reserves were instituted, and three years later reserve commandants were appointed in six principal provinces. In 1843 the corps d'armee of Constantinople, Rumelia, Anatolia and Arabia were formed, and a military council was appointed. In 1847 a recruiting law was promulgated, reducing the period of service (until then unlimited in point of time), to five years. Military schools were founded. For the reorganization carried out from 1908 to 1910 see section Army, above.
After the Greek revolution the system of manning the navy from the Christian natives of the archipelago and the Mediterranean littoral was abandoned, and recruits for the navy are now selected under the ordinary law. A naval school and a modern factory and arsenal were established. The direction of the police, formerly left to the Janissaries, was formed into a ministry, and a body of gendarmerie was instituted. For the financial reforms see the section Finance, above.
The ministry of public instruction was established in 1857; until the reign of Selim III. (when a few military schools were established). the only schools had been the colleges of the Ulema and such preparatory schools as had been founded by private munificence. In 1838 the council of education had been created and several secondary state schools were founded. In 1860 the regulations for public education were promulgated; schools were everywhere opened, and in 1882 a portion of the receipts from certain vakufs were appropriated to their maintenance. As all the preparatory schools founded by the state were for Mussulman children only (the various Christian communities maintaining their own schools), idadi or secondary schools were established in 1884 for the instruction of children of all confessions. In 1868 the Imperial Lycee of Galata Serai was founded; most of the later generation of officials received their education there. Special state schools of medicine, arts, science, crafts, &c., have been created successively, and in 1901 a university was founded. Educational affairs in the provinces are now superintended by special officials.
After the promulgation of the reforms, the judicial duties of the Imperial Divan, which with other functions also exercised those of a kind of supreme court of appeal, were transferred to the Sheikh-ul-Islam. The codification of the civil law, which soon became necessary, was effected by the promulgation in 1859 of the Mejelle, or civil code. Commercial and criminal codes, as well as codes of procedure, were drawn up, largely on the basis of the Code Napoleon. The rules regulating the Ulema were amended, a school for judges was founded, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam was charged with the duty of revising all judgments. In 1865 the court of cassation was founded.
In 1835 the Reis-ul-Kuttab, to whom the superintendence of foreign affairs was entrusted, received the designation of minister for foreign affairs. Turkey had originally maintained, no representatives abroad, and appointed such only for special occasions as e.g. the signature of a treaty or the announcement of a new sultan's accession. Selim III. was the every direction; the finances and the army were reorganized, military instructors being procured from Europe; the administration was gradually centralized, and good relations were cultivated with the powers, the only serious international controversy arising in1848-1849over the refusal. by Turkey, with the support of England, to surrender the Hungarian and Polish insurgents who had taken refuge within her borders. It cannot indeed be said that complete tranquillity prevailed throughout the country meanwhile; disturbances in the principalities and in the Lebanon gave serious trouble, while in 1842 the unsettled state of the Turco-Persian frontier nearly led to war. By the mediation of England and Russia the Treaty of Erzerum was signed (1847) and a frontier commission was appointed. But as the frontier was not definitely demarcated the door was left open for controversies which have occurred frequently up to the present day.
Turkey's progress in the path of reform was viewed with some uneasiness in Russia, the cardinal principle of whose policy since 1829 had been to maintain her own influence at Constantinople by keeping the Otto- Policy man government weak. In favour of this view the traditional policy of Peter the Great and Catherine II. had been deliberately given up, and by the secret convention. signed at Miinchengratz on the 18th of September 1833 the emperor Nicholas had agreed with his brother sovereigns of the revived " Holy Alliance " to maintain the integrity of Turkey, where Russian influence seemed to have been rendered supreme and permanent by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. The crisis which ended in 1841, however, materially altered the situation from the Russian point of view. By his concert with the other powers in the affair of Mehemet Ali, the tsar had abdicated his claim to a unique influence at Constantinople, and he began to revive the idea of ending the Ottoman rule in Europe, an idea which he had only unwillingly abandoned in 1829 in response to the unanimous opinion of his advisers. In 1844 he took advantage of his visit to England to propose to British ministers a plan of partition, under which Great Britain was to receive Egypt and Crete, Constantinople was to be erected into a free city, and the Balkan states were to become autonomous under Russian protection. This proposal, as might have been expected, only served to rouse suspicions as to Russia's plans; it was politely rejected, and the whole Eastern Question slumbered, until, early in 1850, it was awakened by an incident trivial enough in itself, but pregnant with future trouble: a quarrel of Catholic and Orthodox monks about the holy places in Palestine.
By the Capitulations signed on the 28th of May 1740 on behalf of Sultan Mahmud I. and Louis XV. " emperor of France, " not only French pilgrims to Jerusalem, but all members of " Christian and hostile nations " visiting Holy g the Ottoman Empire, had been placed under the protection of the French flag, and by a special article the Frank, i.e. Roman Catholic, ecclesiastics had been guaranteed certain rights in the holy places. These stipulations of the treaty, which were in effect a confirmation of the firman granted in 1620 by Murad IV. to Louis XIII., had fallen into oblivion during the age of Voltaire and the turmoil of the Revolution; and meanwhile, every advance of Russia had been marked by further encroachments of the Orthodox clergy in Palestine on the ancient rights of their Latin rivals. The quarrels of these monks might have been left to the contempt they deserved, had not Napoleon III. seen in the situation an opportunity at once for conciliating the clericals in France and for humiliating Russia, which had given to his title but an equivocal recognition. His ambassador, accordingly, handed in at Constantinople a formal demand for the restitution of the Catholics in all their property and rights. The Ottoman government, seeking to gain time, proposed a " mixed commission " of inquiry; and to this France agreed, on condition that no documents later than 1740 should be admitted as evidence. To this suggestion, which would have excluded the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, the emperor Nicholas replied by a haughty demand that nothing should be altered in the status quo. It was now clear that no less an issue was involved than a contest between France and Russia for paramount influence in the East, a contest into which Great Britain would inevitably be dragged. The British government did its best to help the Porte to evolve a compromise on the questions immediately at issue, and in March 1852 a firman was issued, which to Protestants and Mahommedans might well seem to have embodied a reasonable settlement. Concessions were made to one side and the other; and the question of the right of " protection " was solved by the Turkish government itself undertaking the duty. But neither Napoleon nor Nicholas desired a settlement. The French emperor wanted a war for dynastic reasons, the tsar because he conceived his honour to be involved, and because he judged the moment opportune for expelling the infidel from Europe. France, he believed, would never come single-handed to the assistance of Turkey; Austria would be bound at least to benevolent neutrality by " gratitude " for the aid given in 1849; the king of Prussia would sympathize with a Christian crusade; Great Britain, where under the influence of John Bright and Richard Cobden the " peace at any price " spirit seemed to be in the ascendant, would never intervene. Nicholas even hoped for the active sympathy of Britain. Lord Aberdeen made no secret of his dislike for the Turks, and openly expressed his disbelief in the reality of their reforms; and in January 1853 the tsar, in conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador at St Petersburg, spoke of the Ottoman Empire as " the Sick Man," and renewed the proposals for a partition made in 1844.
Early in 1853 the Russian army was mobilized, and Prince Menshikov, a bluff soldier devoted to the interests of Orthodoxy and tsardom, was sent to present the emperor's ultimatum at Constantinople. He demanded the recognition of the status quo in the holy places, and of the tsar's right, under the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, to the protectorate of all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman dominions. The Porte, in alarm, turned to Great Britain for advice and assistance. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who reached his post at Constantinople shortly after the arrival of Menshikov, at once grasped the essential facts of the situation. The question of the holy places was insignificant in itself - it might be settled if France were granted political compensation elsewhere; that of the protectorate claimed by Russia over the Christians involved the integrity of the sultan's sovereignty. With great address he succeeded in persuading Menshikov to present the two demands separately. On the 22nd of April the French, Russian and British ministers came to an agreement on the question of the holy places; with the result that, when the question of protectorate was raised, Menshikov found himself opposed by the ambassadors of all the other powers. On the 5th of May, nevertheless, in obedience to his peremptory instructions, he presented his ultimatum to the Ottoman government, which, backed now by all the other powers, rejected it. On the 22nd Menshikov and the whole of the Russian diplomatic staff left Constantinople; and it was announced that, at the end of the month, the tsar's troops would enter the Danubian principalities. On the 22nd of June the Russian army, under Prince Gorchakov, crossed the Pruth, not - as was explained in a circular to the powers - for the purpose of attacking Turkey, but solely to obtain the material guarantees for the enjoyment of the privileges conferred upon her by the existing treaties. The news of this aggression roused intense excitement in England; but the British government still exerted itself to maintain peace. In August a conference of the four powers assembled at Vienna, but the settlement they proposed, which practically conceded everything demanded by Russia except the claim to the protectorate, though accepted by the tsar, was rejected by the Porte, now fallen into a mood of stubborn resentment at the Russian invasion. At the beginning of October Turkey formally declared war; on the 22nd the French and British fleets passed the Dardanelles. Lord Aberdeen still hoped to secure peace, and the Russian government was informed that no casus belli would arise so long as Russia abstained from passing the Danube or attacking a Black Sea port. To the emperor Nicholas this was tantamount to a declaration of war; and in effect it was so. On the 30th of November the Russian fleet attacked and destroyed a Turkish squadron in the harbour of Sinope; on the 3rd of January the combined French and British fleets entered the Black Sea, commissioned to " invite " the Russians to return to their harbours.
The emperor Nicholas had been singularly misled as to the state of public opinion in Europe. The news of the affair of Sinope, rather wanton slaughter than a battle, Crimean raised excitement in England to fever heat; while War. the excellent bearing and consistent successes of the Turkish troops during the first months of the campaign on land excited the admiration of all Europe. The belief in the rejuvenation of Turkey seemed to be justified; and when, on the 27th of March 1854, Great Britain and France declared war on Russia, the action of the governments was supported by an overwhelming public opinion. As regards Austria, too, the emperor Nicholas was no less mistaken. If she maintained neutrality, it was due to no impulse of gratitude, and it was far from " benevolent." As the Russians withdrew from the Danubian principalities, Austrian troops occupied them, and by a convention with the Porte the Austrian government undertook to resist by arms any attempt of the Russians to return. So far as the extreme claims of the tsar were concerned, neither Austria nor Prussia was willing to concede them, and both had joined with France and Great Britain in presenting, on the 12th of December 1853, an identical note at St Petersburg, drawn up at the Conference of Vienna, reaffirming the principles of the treaty of 1841. Save for the benevolent neutrality of Prussia, therefore, which enabled her to obtain supplies from the north, Russia was pitted singlehanded against a coalition of Turkey, Great Britain and France, to which Sardinia was added later.
The events of the war that followed are told elsewhere (see Crimean War). The main operations were confined to the Crimea, where the allied troops landed on the 14th of September 1854, and they were not concluded, in spite of the terrible exhaustion of Russia, till in December 1855 the threatened active intervention of Austria forced the emperor Alexander II. to come to terms. These terms were ultimately embodied in the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of March 1856. Its provisions, held by some to be so unduly favourable to Russia as to justify the question whether she had not been victorious in the war, were as follows: Russia abandoned all pretensions to exercise a protectorate over the Christians in Turkey, or to an exclusive right of interference in the Danubian principalities, to which Bessarabia was restored; the navigation of the Danube was made free and placed under the supervision of an international commission; the Black Sea was closed to warships, while open to the commercial flags of all countries; the Asiatic frontier between the two empires remained unchanged; Turkey was admitted to the concert of Europe, and all the contracting parties agreed to respect her independence and the integrity of her territory; moreover, the provisions of the Tanzimat were reaffirmed in a fresh decree of the sultan, which was incorporated in the treaty, and further provided for a large measure of local autonomy for the Christian communities. It was stipulated that Turkey's promises of reform gave no power the right of interference on behalf of the Christians.
The Treaty of Paris was regarded as opening a new era in the progress of Turkey. Admitted on equal terms to the European family of nations, the Ottoman government had given a solemn guarantee of its intention to make the long-promised reforms a reality. But it soon became apparent that the time was scarcely come for liberal measures; and fanatical outbreaks at Jidda (1858) and in Syria (r860) gave proof that the various sections of the population were not yet prepared to act together in harmony. The Syrian disturbances brought about a French occupation, which Fuad Pasha, ably seconded by Ahmed Vefyk Effendi, the Turkish ambassador in Paris, contrived to restrict, and to terminate as soon as possible. The immediate local result was the institution, by a reglement,' signed at Constantinople on the 6th of September 1864, of autonomy for the Lebanon under a Christian governor appointed by the powers with the concurrence of the Porte, an arrangement which has worked satisfactorily until the present day. In 1859 the Danubian principalities, deliberately left separate by the Congress of Paris, carried out their long-cherished design of union by electing Prince Cuza both in Moldavia and in Walachia, a contingency which the powers had not taken into account, and to which in the end they gave a grudging assent (see Rumania).
On the 25th of June 1861 Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid died, being succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Aziz. The new sultan's reign marked, if not the beginning, at least the high tide Aba-ui-Aziz, o f that course of improvident and unrestrained 1861-1876. p expenditure, facilitated by the enthusiasm created in Europe by Turkey's admission to the ranks of the powers which loosened for her the purse-strings of the foreign investor. The viceroy of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, followed his suzerain's example in this respect, and was lavish in his bribes to his imperial overlord to obtain the extension of his own privileges and the establishment in Egypt of succession from father to son; these concessions were granted to him by the firmans of the 27th of May 1866 and the 8th of June 1867, in the latter of which the viceroy is addressed for the first time as " khedive." Abd-ul-Aziz is said to have yielded the more readily as being desirous of bringing about a similar alteration in the succession in Turkey, in favour of his own eldest son, Prince Yussuf Izz-ed-din; public opinion was, however, opposed to so sweeping a change, and the succession to the throne in Turkey still goes to the eldest surviving member of the house of Osman. Though the foreign relations of Turkey remained untroubled, disturbances in Servia, Montenegro and Crete continued throughout the " sixties." Servia had long resented the occupation of her fortresses by Turkish troops; frequent collisions arising from this source resulted in June 1862 in the bombardment of Belgrade; some slight concessions were then made to Servia, but it was not until 1867 that, through the mediation of England and other powers, she succeeded in obtaining the withdrawal of the Turkish garrisons. The Cretan insurrection rose to a formidable height in 1868-69, and the active support given to the movement by Greece brought about a rupture of relations between that country and Turkey. The revolt was suppressed, the Turko-Greek conflict was settled by a conference of the powers in Paris, and Crete received a charter of local self-government which for a time pacified the island.' Abd-ul-Aziz had visited the Paris Exhibition of 1867 and had paid his respects to Queen Victoria, who conferred on him the order of the Garter. In 1869 the visit was returned by many sovereigns and princes on their way to the opening of the Suez Canal, among these being the empress Eugenie. An important event not to be passed over without mention is the grant on the 10th of March 1870 of the firman instituting the Bulgarian exarchate, thus severing the Bulgarian Church from Text in Holland, p. 212.
' " Correspondence. .. respecting the rupture of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Greece, &c.," in State Papers, lix. 584, &c., Protocols of Conferences, p. 813, &c.
the jurisdiction of the Greek patriarch of Constantinople. This concession, given under strong pressure from Russia, aroused the deepest resentment of the Greeks, and was the principal factor in the awakening of the Bulgarian national spirit which subsequent events have done so much to develop. Russian influence at Constantinople had been gradually increasing, and towards the end of 1870 the tsar took advantage of the temporary disabling of France to declare himself no longer bound by those clauses of the Treaty of Paris which restricted Russia's liberty of possessing warships on the Black Sea. An international conference convoked in London early in 1871 laid down the principle that treaty. engagements were binding, and then proceeded to abrogate this particular engagement. Russia and Turkey thus regained full liberty as regards their naval forces and armaments in the Euxine; the passage of the straits remained interdicted to ships of war.
A reform not unworthy of notice was effected by the law promulgated on the 18th of June 1867 whereby foreigners were for the first time allowed to hold landed property throughout the Ottoman Empire (save in the Hejaz) on condition of their being assimilated to Ottoman subjects, i.e. divested of their right to the protection of their own authorities in every respect concerning such property.
Meanwhile in Turkey national bankruptcy was brought within measurable distance by the sultan's extravagance and the incompetence of his ministers; it was staved off only by loans contracted almost annually to pay the interest on their predecessors. External influences and latent fanaticism were active; a serious insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1875, and the efforts to quell it almost exhausted Turkey's resources; the example spread to Bulgaria, where abortive outbreaks in September 1875 and May 1876 led to those cruel measures of repression which were known as " the Bulgarian atrocities," 3 Mussulman public feeling was inflamed, and an attempt at Salonica to induce a Christian girl who had embraced Islam to return to her faith caused the murder of two foreign consuls by a fanatical mob. The finances of Turkey now collapsed, and the inevitable bankruptcy was declared, whereby more than through any other cause she lost such Deposition sympathies as she possessed in western Europe. of Abd-ui= Turkey's distress was Russia's opportunity; the Aziz. sultan fell entirely under the influence of General Ignatiev, the tsar's ambassador, and it became evident that the country was hastening to its dissolution. A conspiracy to bring about a change was hereupon formed by certain prominent statesmen, whose leaders were Midhat Pasha, Mehemed Rushdi Pasha and Mahmud Damad Pasha, the husband of a princess of the blood, sister to Prince Murad. These succeeded in gaining over the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and in obtaining from him a fetva for the deposition of Abd-ul-Aziz.
In virtue of this judgment of the supreme legal authority, and with the aid of the fleet, Abd-ul-Aziz was deposed, being shortly afterwards found dead, apparently by his own hand. Murad V. reigned in his stead. But the change of sultans brought no relief to the troubled state: Servia and Montenegro declared war, and in less than three months it had become evident that Murad was incapable of governing.
Murad's brother Abd-ul-Hamid was accordingly proclaimed sultan on the 31st of August 1876. The diplomacy of Europe had been searching in vain since the autumn Accession of 1875 for the means of inducing Turkey to institute of Abd-u1- effective administrative reforms and to grant to Hamid 11., its European provinces that autonomy which now 1876. appeared essential. But the new sultan was as averse from accepting any of the formulae proposed as were his predecessors: Servia and Montenegro were with great difficulty pacified, but it was plain that Russia, whose Slavonic and Orthodox sympathies had been strongly aroused, would soon begin hostilities herself. Turkey now made a show of going even beyond the demands formulated by Europe, and the international conference which met at Constantinople during See Mr Baring's reports in Pall. Papers (1878), lxxxi.
The New Era. the last days of 1876 was startled by the salvo of artillery which heralded the promulgation of a liberal constitution, not for the European provinces only, but for the whole empire, and the institution of a Turkish parliament. The decisions of the conference, moderate though they were, in the end requiring merely the nomination of an international commission to investigate the state of the European provinces of Turkey, and the appointment by the sultan, with the approval of the powers, of governors-general for five years, were rejected by the Porte. The statesmen of Europe still continued their efforts to avert a conflict, but to no purpose. On the 24th of April 1877 Russia declared war and her troops crossed the Turkish frontiers. Hostilities were conducted both in Europe and Asia for nearly a year. Rumania joined the Russians, and in Europe no effective opposition was encountered by the invaders until the assaults on Plevna and the Shipka Pass, where the valiant resistance of the Turks won for them the admiration of Europe. By November the defence of the Turks in Asia Minor had entirely collapsed. Plevna surrendered on the 9th of December 1877 after a heroic struggle under Osman Pasha. Thereafter the Russians advanced practically unchecked (see RussoTURKISH Wars). An armistice and preliminaries of peace were signed on the 31st of January 1878 at Adrianople, and a definitive treaty was concluded at San Stefano on the 3rd of March 1878. Its terms were: the creation of an autonomous tributary 3' principality of Bulgaria extending from the Black Sea to the Aegean; the recognition by Turkey of the independence of Rumania, Servia and Montenegro, with increased territories; the payment of a war indemnity; the introduction of reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the cession to Russia of Bessarabia and the Dobruja; the opening of the passage of the straits at all times to the merchant vessels of neutral states; and the razing of the fortresses on the Danube.
Great Britain had throughout the war preserved strict neutrality, but, while making it clear from the outset that she could not assist Turkey, had been prepared for emergencies. Turkey's severity in repressing the Bulgarian insurrection had raised up in England a storm of public opinion against her, of which the Liberal opposition had taken the fullest advantage; moreover the suspension of payments on the Ottoman debt had dealt Turkey's popularity a blow from which it had never recovered. But upon the approach of the Russians to Constantinople the British reserves were called out and the fleet was despatched to the Bosporus. Accordingly, and as her line of retreat might be threatened by Austria, Russia consented to a revision of the Treaty of San Stefano at a congress to be held at Berlin. of Before the meeting of this congress, which assembled on the 13th of June 1878, the powers principally 1878. interested had arrived at an understanding as to the modifications to be introduced in the treaty, and by a convention concluded with Turkey on the 4th of June 1878 England had undertaken to defend the Asiatic dominions of the sultan by force of arms, provided that his majesty carried out all the necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later, and assigned to England the island of Cyprus, which was however to be restored if Turkey fulfilled her engagements as to reforms and if Russia gave back to her Kars, Ardahan and Batum. On the 13th of July 1878 the Treaty of Berlin was signed: the Great Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty was diminished to an autonomous province north of the Balkans, the south-eastern portion, no longer extending to the Aegean, was formed into a self-governing tributary province styled Eastern Rumelia; Turkey abandoned all pretension to suzerainty over Montenegro; Servia and Rumania received their independence (but the last named was made to cede Bessarabia to Russia, receiving instead the Dobruja); the Asiatic frontier was readjusted, Kars, Ardahan and Batum becoming Russian. It was further provided that Bulgaria should pay to Turkey an annual tribute, and should moreover (as well as the other Balkan states receiving accessions of territory at Turkey's expense) bear a portion of the Ottoman debt. The sums payable by the different countries were to be fixed by the powers; but no effect has so far been given to this reasonable stipulation, which may now be looked upon as null and void. Turkey undertook to pay to Russia a war indemnity of 300,000,000 roubles, and the status of the straits remained unchanged. Measures of reform in Armenia were also provided for, as also the convocation of an international commission for drawing up a reform scheme for the European provinces left to Turkey. The organic law for Crete was to be carried out, and special laws enacted for other parts of Turkey. Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to the administration of Austria; Montenegro and Greece received accessions of territory to which only strong pressure coupled with a naval demonstration induced Turkey to consent three years later.
Peace once restored, some attempt was made by Turkey in the direction of complying with her engagements to institute reform. Financial and military advisers were procured from Germany. English officers were engaged to reform the gendarmerie, and judicial inspectors of foreign nationality were to travel through the country to redress abuses. It was not long before the unsubstantial character of all these undertakings. became apparent; the parliament was dissolved, the constitution was suspended and its author exiled. Egyptian affairs next threatened complications. In May 1879 the misgovernment of Ismail Pasha and the resulting financial crisis rendered the deposition of the khedive inevitable; in order to anticipate the action of England and France, who would otherwise have expelled the erring viceroy, the sultan deposed him himself; the succession devolved upon his son Mahommed Tewfik Pasha. (For the subsequent history of the Egyptian question see Egypt: History.) The revolt of Arabi Pasha in 1881 broke up the Anglo-French condominium in Egypt and led to outrages at Alexandria followed by a bombardment on the 11th of July 1882. The occupation of the country by Great Britain gradually took a more permanent form, and though negotiations were more than once entered into with Turkey with a view to its termination, these either proved abortive or were rendered so (as e.g. the Drummond-Wolff convention of 1887) by the action of other powers. The AngloFrench agreement of 1904 left England in undisputed mastery. The financial straits of Turkey after the war became so acute that the sultan was compelled to consent to a measure Public of foreign control over the finances of the country; the administration of the public debt being established in December 1881. (See Finance, above.) In 1885 the practically bloodless revolution of Philippopolis on the 18th of September united Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, severed by the Treaty of Berlin. A conference held at Constantinople sanctioned the union on terms which were rendered acceptable to the sultan; but Said Pasha, who had assisted the sultan in centralizing at Yildiz Kiosk the administration of the country, and who had become grand vizier, was a strong adherent of the policy of armed intervention by Turkey, and the consequence was his fall from office. His successor in the grand vizierate, Kiamil Pasha, was soon called upon to deal with Armenian unrest, consequent on the non-execution of the reforms provided for in the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention, which first found vent about 1890. But Kiamil Pasha was not subservient enough to his imperial master's will, and his place was taken by a military man, Jevad Pasha, from whom no independence of action was to be apprehended.
It is from this period that the German ascendancy in Constantinople is noticeable. Railway concessions were given to Germans over the heads of British applicants already in possession of lines from which they were expro- Activity priated, thus affording the nucleus of the Bagdad Turkey. railway (of which Germany obtained the concession in November 1899). (See Bagdad, vol. iii. p. 197.) From 1890 Crete was frequently the scene of disturbance., the Christian communities in other parts of Turkey began to. chafe under the attempted curtailing of their privileges; about Christmas 1893 the Greek patriarch caused all the Orthodox churches to be closed as a protest; and the Armenian agitation entered upon a serious phase. The Kurds, the constant oppressors of that people, had received official recognition and almost complete immunity from the control o f the civil law by being formed into a Y g eo Y manry frontier-guard known as the Hamidian cavalry. The troubles arising from this cause and from greater energy in the collection of taxes led the Armenians in outlying and mountainous districts to rise against the authorities. The repression of these revolts in the Sassun district in the autumn of 1894 was effected under circumstances of great severity by Turkish troops and Kurdish irregulars. A commission composed of British, French and Russian officials held an inquiry into the events which had occurred, and early in 1895 England, France and Russia entered actively into negotiations with a view to the institution of reforms. The scheme propounded by the three powers encountered great objections from the Porte, but under pressure was accepted in October 1895. Its acceptance was however the signal for a series of massacres in almost every town of importance throughout Asia Minor, which there is but too strong evidence for suspecting were committed with the connivance of the authorities, and in which upwards of 200,000 persons are computed to have perished. In 1896 Lord Salisbury induced the other powers to unite in urging the execution of the reforms, but no agreement could be come to for the use of coercion, and Europe could but look on and protest. Changes of ministry at Constantinople were powerless to bring about an improvement, and early in 1896 Cretan affairs became so serious as to call for the intervention of the powers. In September yet another Cretan charter of self-government was promulgated. Shortly before, a revolutionary attack by an Armenian band on the Ottoman bank r at Constantinople brought about a general massacre of Armenians in the capital (where a widespread revolutionary organization undoubtedly existed), in which at least 3000 victims fell, and the persecution of Armenians became the order of the day.
The neglect of the Porte to carry out all the stipulations of the Cretan arrangement of 1896 led to a renewal of the disturbances, and Greece began to take steps for the invasion of t he island; in February 1897 Colonel Vassos sailed of 1897. island; Y 97 from the Piraeus with an armed force, intending to proclaim the annexation of Crete to Greece, and Greek troops were massed on the Thessalian frontier. Diplomacy busied itself with fruitless attempts to avert hostilities; on the 17th of April 1897 war was declared by Turkey. The resistance offered by Greece was feeble in the extreme: Europe was obliged to intervene, and Turkey gained a rectification of frontier and a war indemnity of £4,000,000, besides the curtailment by the treaty eventually signed of many privileges hitherto enjoyed by Hellenic subjects in Turkey. But Europe was determined that the Cretan question should be definitely settled, at least for a period of some years, and, after an outbreak at Candia, in which the lives of British troops were sacrificed, the four powers (Germany and Austria having withdrawn from the concert) who had taken over the island en depot handed it over in October 1898 to Prince George of Greece as high commissioner (see Crete: History). Crete being thus removed from the scope of her action, Turkey found ample occupation in the almost constant turbulence of the Yemen, of Albania and of Macedonia. After 1 8 2 the revolts, frequently renewed, of the so-called 9 ? q Y imam of Sana, necessitated the despatch of large and costly expeditions to Arabia, in which thousands of Turkish .troops have fallen in guerrilla warfare or through the inhospitable climate; in Albania disturbance became almost endemic, owing to the resistance offered by the intractable population to successive attempts of the central authorities to subject the country to regular taxation and the operation of the laws.
Unsettled claims by French citizens led to a breaking off of relations and the occupation of Mitylene by France in November 1901; the rupture was of short duration and Turkey soon gave way, according complete satisfaction both in this matter and on certain other French demands. In 1901 and 1902 Turkish.
encroachments on the hinterland of Aden brought about a dangerous state of tension between Great Britain and Turkey, which had its parallel in 1906 in similar trespasses by the Ottoman authorities on the Egyptian land frontier near Akaba. In both cases Turkey eventually yielded; a similar question arose in 1906 with France over the boundaries of the African possessions of the two countries.
But Macedonia was Turkey's chief source of anxiety. That country, left by the Treaty of Berlin with its status unaltered, was in a continued condition of disturbance. The Christian population, who in common with their Mussul- Macedo ' 'Questio man fellow subjects suffered from the defective methods of government of their rulers, had at least before them the example of their brethren - Greeks, Bulgarians or Servians - dwelling in independent kingdoms under Christian governments on the other side of the frontier. The hope of eventual emancipation was stimulated by sedulous propagandists from each of these countries; from time to time armed bands of insurgents were manned and equipped in the small neighbouring states, with or without the co-operation of the governments. So long as Stambolov, the energetic Bulgarian statesman, was alive he succeeded in keeping the Bulgarian element quiet, and the peace of the country was less liable to disturbance. But for some years the three rivals in Macedonia, to which a fourth, the Rumanian element, must be added, were in constant strife (see Macedonia). A serious Bulgarian insurrection in Macedonia in the autumn of 1903 induced Austria and Russia to combine in formulating the Miirzsteg reform programme, tardily consented to by Turkey, by which Austrian and Russian civil agents were appointed to exercise a certain degree of control and supervision over the three vilayets of Salonica, Monastir and Kossovo. It was also arranged that foreign officers should be named to reorganize the gendarmerie. An Italian officer, General De Giorgis, was appointed to the chief command in the reorganization, and the three vilayets were apportioned among the great powers into districts, in each of which was appointed a staff officer with a number of subordinate officers of his nationality under his orders. The work of reorganization was efficiently carried out, and the gendarmerie school at Salonica, under British supervision, showed excellent results. But the achievements of the two civil agents were less noteworthy; and in 1905 it was agreed that, in view of the financial necessities of the provinces, the other great powers should each appoint delegates to a financial commission with extensive powers of control in fiscal matters. The Porte opposed the project, and an international naval demonstration and the occupation of Mytilene by the powers became necessary before Turkey gave way in December 1905. Even so it proved impossible to fulfil the Miirzsteg programme, though the attempt was prolonged until 1908. The Austro-Russian entente had then come to an end; and after a meeting between. King Edward VII. and the tsar Nicholas II. at Reval, a new scheme of reforms was announced, under the name of the " Reval programme." The enforcement of these reforms, however, was postponed sine die owing to the revolution which transformed the Ottoman Empire into a constitutional state; and the powers, anticipating an improvement in the administration of Macedonia by the new government, withdrew their military officers in the summer of 1908.
The Young Turkish party had long been preparing for the overthrow of the old regime. Their central organization was in Paris and their objects were known throughout Europe, but except at Yildiz Kiosk their power was P P p almost everywhere underrated. The Porte strove by every means at its disposal to thwart their activity; but elsewhere they were regarded as a body of academic enthusiasts, more noisy than dangerous, who devoted their scanty funds to the publication of seditious matter in Paris or Geneva, and sought to achieve the impossible by importing western institutions into a country fit only to be ruled by the sheriat and the sword. Such was the opinion held even by experienced diplomatists and by historians. It was strengthened by the fact that the Young Turks had deliberately abstained from violent action. They had, in fact, learned from events in Russia and Poland that sporadic outbreaks on a small scale would inevitably discredit their cause, and that a successful revolution would require the support of the army. To gain this, an extensive propaganda was carried on by secret agents, many of whom were officers. At the beginning of 1908 a favourable opportunity for action arrived. The Ottoman troops in Arabia were mutinous and unpaid; the Albanians, long the mainstay of Turkish military power in the west, had been irritated by unpopular taxes and by the repressive edicts which deprived them of schools and a printing-press; foreign interference in Crete and Macedonia was resented by patriotic Moslems throughout the empire. In these circumstances the headquarters of the Young Turks were transferred from Paris to Salonica, where a central body, known as the committee of union and progress, was established (1908) to organize the revolution. Most of its members were military officers, prominent among them being Majors Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, who directed the propaganda in Albania and Macedonia. By midsummer the Albanian leaders and the greater part of the Turkish army in Europe had sworn fidelity to the constitution.
On the 25th of May an insurrection broke out in Samos, owing to a dispute between the Samian Assembly and Kopassis Effendi, " prince," or governor of the island. After the port of Vathy had been bombarded by Ottoman war-ships the revolt was easily crushed.
This affair however was of little more than local importance, and the Young Turks were not directly concerned in it. They The struck their first blow on the 22nd of July 1908, when Niazi Bey and his troops raised the standard of 1908. of revolt at Resna, a town on the road from Monastir to Ochrida. On the 23rd the committee of union and progress, under the presidency of Enver Bey, proclaimed the constitution in Salonica, while the second and third army corps threatened to march on Constantinople if the sultan refused to obey the proclamation. On the 24th the sultan yielded, and issued an irade, restoring the constitution of 1876, and ordering the election of a chamber of deputies. Various other reforms, notably the abolition of the spy system and the censorship, were announced soon afterwards. Some of the more unpopular officials associated with the old regime were assassinated, among them Fehim Pasha, the former head of the espionage department, who had been exiled to Brusa in 1907 at the request of the British and German ambassadors. Otherwise the revolution was effected almost without bloodshed; for a time the insurgent bands disappeared in Macedonia, and the rival " nationalities " - Greek, Albanian, Turk, Armenian, Servian, Bulgarian and Jew - worked harmoniously together for the furtherance of common constitutional aims. On the 6th of August Kiamil Pasha, an advanced Liberal, became grand vizier, and a new cabinet was formed, including a Greek, Prince Mavrocordato, an Armenian, Noradounghian, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam.
The success of the Young Turks created a serious situation for the statesmen of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. A regenerated Ottoman Empire might in time be strong enough to demand the evacuation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, g and to maintain or extend the nominal suzerainty over Bulgaria which the sultan had exercised since 1878. Accordingly, at the beginning of October 1908, the emperor Francis Joseph informed the powers signatory to the treaty of Berlin that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Dual Monarchy had become necessary, and this decision was formally announced in an imperial rescript dated the 7th of October. The independence of Bulgaria was proclaimed on the 5th. The Ottoman government protested to the powers, but it wisely limited its demands to a claim for compensation. AustriaHungary had from the first undertaken to withdraw its garrisons from the sanjak of Novibazar - an important concession; after prolonged negotiations and a boycott of all Austrian goods exported to Turkey, it also agreed to pay £ 2,200,000 as compensation for the Turkish crown lands seized in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This arrangement was sanctioned by the Ottoman parliament, which assented to the annexation on the 6th of April 1909 and recognized the independence of Bulgaria on the 19th of April, the Russian government having enabled Bulgaria to pay the indemnity claimed by Turkey on account of the Eastern Rumelian tribute and railways (see Bulgaria: History). On the 3rd of February 1910 the Porte accepted a Bulgarian proposal for a mixed commission to delimit disputed sections of the Turco-Bulgarian frontier, and in March King Ferdinand visited Constantinople.
Meanwhile the Young Turks were confronted with many difficulties within the empire. After the first fervour of enthusiasm had subsided the Christian nationalities in Macedonia resumed their old attitude of mutual jealousy, the insurgent bands began to reappear, and the government was in1909-1910forced to undertake the disarmament of the whole civil population of the three vilayets. In Albania serious discontent, resulting in an insurrection (May-September 1909), was caused by the political rivalry between Greeks and Albanians and the unwillingness of the Moslem tribesmen to pay taxes or to keep the peace with their neighbours, the Macedonian Serbs. In Asia Minor the Kurdish troops under Ibrahim Pasha revolted, and, although they were defeated with the loss of their commander, the Kurds continued to attack indiscriminately the Turks, Nestorians and Armenians; disturbances also broke out among the other reactionary Moslems of this region, culminating in a massacre of the Armenians at Adana. In Arabia Ratib Pasha, the Turkish commander-in-chief, joined the enemies of the new regime; he was defeated and captured in the autumn of 1908, but in the following year frequent raids upon the Hejaz railway were made by Bedouin tribesmen, while a Mandist rebellion broke out and was crushed in Yemen.
More serious than any of these local disturbances was the counter-revolution in Constantinople itself, which began with the revolt of Kiamil Pasha, the grand vizier, against - the authority of the committee of union and progress. Kiamil Pasha was forced to resign (Feb. 14, - 1909) and was succeeded by Hilmi Pasha, ex-high re commissioner of Macedonia. Strife then arose between the committee and the Liberal Union, a body which mainly represented the Christian electorate, and on the 5th of April Hassan Fehmi Effendi, who edited the Serbesti, the official organ of the union, was assassinated. He was an Albanian, and his fellow countrymen in the Constantinople garrison at once made common cause with the opponents of the committee. Mutinous troops seized the parliament house and the telegraph offices; the grand vizier resigned and was succeeded by Tewfik Pasha (April 14); and delegates were sent by the Liberal Union, the association of Ulema and other bodies to discuss terms with the committee. But Abd-ul-Hamid had issued a free pardon to the mutineers, and the committee had now decided that the new regime would never be secure while the sovereign favoured reaction. They refused to treat with the delegates, and despatched 25,000 men under Mahmud Shevket to Constantinople.
The senate and chamber met at San Stefano, and, sitting jointly as a National Assembly, issued a proclamation in favour of the committee and its army (April 22, 1909), by which Constantinople was now invested. Part of the garrison remained loyal to the sultan, but after five hours of severe fighting Shevket Pasha was able to occupy the capital (April 25). The National Assembly met in secret session two days later, voted unanimously for the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid II., and chose his younger brother Mahommed Reshad Effendi (b. Nov. 3, 1844) as his successor, with the style of Mahommed V. Abd-ul-Hamid II. was removed to Salonica on the 28th, and on the 10th of May the new sultan was formally invested with the sword of Osman. Hilmi Pasha again became grand vizier, but resigned on the 28th of December 1909, when he was succeeded by Hakki Bey. On the 5th of August 1909 the new constitution described above was be obtained from parliamentary papers. These are too numerous for detailed mention, but the following periods may be cited as the most interesting:1833-1841(Egyptian question);1849-1859(Crimean War and the events by which it was preceded and followed);1868-1869(Cretan insurrection);1875-1881(Bosnian and Herzegovinian insurrection, Russo-Turkish War, Berlin treaty and subsequent events);1885-1887(union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria);1889-1890(Cretan disturbances);1892-1899(Armenian and Cretan affairs);1902-1907(Macedonia);1908-1910(revolution and reform). Some analysis of the unpublished documents in the record office, for the period 1815-1841, by W. Alison Phillips, will be found in the bibliographies to chs. vi. and xvii. of vol. x. of the Cambridge Modern History. (X.) Literature. In all literary matters the Ottoman Turks have shown themselves a singularly uninventive people, the two great schools, the old and the new, into which we may divide their literature, being closely modelled, the one after the classics of Persia, the other after those of modern Europe, and more especially of France. The old or Persian school flourished from the foundation of the empire down to about 1830, and still continues to drag on a feeble existence, though it is now out of fashion and cultivated by none of the leading men of letters. These belong to the new or European school, which, in spite of the bitter opposition of the partisans of the old Oriental system, has succeeded, partly through its own inherent superiority and partly through the talents and courage of its supporters, in expelling its rival from the position of undisputed authority which it had occupied for upwards of five hundred years. For the present purpose it will be convenient to divide the old school promulgated by imperial iade; parliament was prorogued for three months on the 27th, and during the recess the committee of union and progress met at Salonica and modified its own rules (Oct. 23), ceasing thenceforward to be a secret association. This was regarded as an expression of confidence in the reformed parliament, which had laid the foundation of the important financial and administrative reforms already described. On the 13th of September 1909 the Macedonian international commission of finance met for the last time; its members were reappointed to a higher finance board for the whole empire, under the presidency of Djavid Bey. Ch. Laurent had already been nominated financial adviser to the empire (Sept. 16, 1908), while Sir William Willcocks became head of the irrigation department; the reorganization of the army was entrusted to the German General von der Goltz, that of the navy to Admiral Sir Douglas Gamble (resigned Feb. 1, 1910).
The evacuation of Crete by the four protecting powers was followed in 1909 by renewed agitation. Turkey was willing to concede the fullest local autonomy, but not to abandon its sovereign rights over the island. In J u d y 1909, however, the Greek flag was hoisted in Canea and Candia, and it was only lowered again after the war-ships of the protecting powefs had been reinforced and had landed an international force. The Cretan administrative committee swore allegiance to the king of the Hellenes in August, and again, after a change of government, at the end of December 1909. This situation had already given rise to prolonged negotiations between Greece and Turkey. It also contributed towards the conclusion of an entente between Turkey and Rumania in the summer of 1910. Both of these powers were interested in preventing any possible accession of territory to the Bulgarian kingdom; and Rumania (q.v.) had for many years been a formidable opponent of Hellenism among the Macedonian Vlachs. Greece and Crete were thus confronted with what was in effect a defensive alliance between Turkey and Rumania. The Cretans had insisted upon their demand for union with Greece and had elected three representatives to sit in the Greek national assembly. Had this act been ratified by the government at Athens, a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire could hardly have been avoided; but a royal rescript was issued by the king of the Hellenes on the 30th of September 1910, declaring vacant the three seats to which the Cretan representatives had been elected; the immediate danger was thus averted.
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