Part 2

"Togrul Beg, under pretence of a pilgrimage to Mekka had entered Irak at the head of a strong army, and sought to obtain admission into Baghdad. The khalif, in opposition to the advice of his vizier and the officers of the Turkish militia, consented; on the 22nd Ramadan, 447 (December, 1050), the name of Togrul was inserted in the public prayer; and three days after he made his entry into the city. He had taken an oath, before entering, to be the faithful and obedient servant of the khalif; but it is needless to add that he broke this immediately afterwards, and occupied the city in force. A dispute broke out between the Seljuk soldiers and some shop-keepers. The Baghdad Turks took the side of the citizens, the foreigners were driven out, and several of them killed and wounded. This riot was followed by a general attack upon the ill-fated city by the army of Togrul Beg. It was useless for the khalif and his vizier to protest their innocence. The Turkish chief denounced them as the murderers of his soldiers, and summoned the vizier to his camp to explain his conduct. {3132} On his arrival there he was arrested and flung into prison. With this occurrence the rule of the Bouides in Baghdad may be said to have terminated, and that of the Seljuks commenced. Togrul Beg remained for a year inactive in Baghdad, neither visiting the khalif nor heeding his entreaties to put an end to the ravages and outrages perpetrated by his fierce and lawless soldiery on the wretched townspeople." The khalif was forced, nevertheless, to crown Sultan Togrul with two crowns, one to represent the sovereignty of Persia and the other the sovereignty of Arabia, and to confer on him the title of "The Sultan of the Court, the Right Hand of the Chief of Believers, the King of the East and of the West." The Seljuk sultan was now master of the Asiatic Mahometan empire. But civil war was still protracted for a period, by struggles of the partisans of the Bouides, assisted by the Fatimite Kalif of Egypt, and the unfortunate city of Baghdad suffered terribly at the hands of each party in turn. Togrul Beg, in the end, destroyed the opposition to his rule, and was at the point of marrying one of the kalif's daughters, when a sudden illness ended his life, A. D. 1063. He was succeeded by his nephew, Alp Arslan, who extended the empire of the Seljukides in Asia Minor and Armenia.

_R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad, part 3, chapter 2._

TURKS: A. D. 1063-1073. Conquests of Alp Arslan.

"Alp Arslan, the nephew and successor of Togrul Beg, carried on the havoc and devastation which had marked the career through life of his uncle. Togrul Beg had on two or three occasions invaded the Asiatic territories of the Byzantine Emperor; Alp Arslan carried these partial conquests to completion. He invaded in person the northern parts of Armenia and Iberia. He laid waste the country in the cruellest manner, for it was the notion of these barbarians that a country was not really conquered unless it was also depopulated. Iberia had been long celebrated for the industry of its inhabitants, the wealth of its numerous towns, and the valour of its people. There is no doubt they could have flung back the invaders had the Byzantine Empire come to their aid. But avarice was the dominant passion of the Emperor, Constantine X., and rather than disburse his loved hoards, he preferred to look idly on, while his fairest provinces were laid waste and overrun. The country was, in consequence, compelled to submit to the Seljuk Turks, and the invaders settling upon it, like a swarm of locusts, swiftly converted the happiest and most flourishing portion of Asia into a scene of poverty and desolation. From Iberia, Alp Arslan passed into Armenia. Ani, the capital, was stormed and taken, after a gallant defence, on the 6th June, 1064. … So great was the carnage that the streets were literally choked up with dead bodies; and the waters of the river were reddened from the quantity of bloody corpses."

_R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad, part 3, chapter 2._

"So far as one can judge from the evidence of modern and mediæval travellers and of Byzantine historians, Asia Minor, at the time of the Seljuk invasion of Alparslan, was thickly occupied by races who were industrious, intelligent, and civilised—races with a certain mixture of Greek blood and mostly Greek as to language. The numerous provincial cities were the centres of civilisation. Their walls and amphitheatres, their works of art, aqueducts, and other public buildings, give evidence of a long-continued sense of security, of peaceful and progressive peoples, and of a healthy municipal life. Wealth was widely diffused. … It was against this prosperous portion of the Empire, which had contributed largely to the wealth of the capital, that Alparslan turned his attention when the border states were no longer able to resist his progress. … The Strong Lion of the Seljuks devoured many cities and devastated the fairest provinces. Cappadocia was laid waste; the inhabitants of its capital, Cæsarea, were massacred. … Mesopotamia, Mitylene, Syria, and Cilicia were plundered."

_E. Pears, The Fall of Constantinople, chapter 2._

The career of Alp Arslan in Asia Minor was opposed by a courageous and vigorous emperor, Romanus Diogenes, or Romanus IV.; but Romanus exposed himself and his army rashly to the chances of a battle at Manzikert, A. D. 1071, on which all was staked. He lost; his army was routed, and he, himself, was taken prisoner. He was released on signing a treaty of peace and agreeing to pay a heavy ransom; but a revolution at Constantinople meantime had robbed him of the throne, deprived him of the means of fulfilling his engagements, and brought upon him, soon afterwards, a cruel end. Alp Arslan, provoked by the repudiation of the treaty, revenged himself on the ill-fated country which lay at his mercy. "Every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance when compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race, by the ravages of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor."

_G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, book 3, chapter 1, section 2._

TURKS: A. D. 1073-1092. The empire of Malek Shah and its subordinate Sultans.

Alp Arslan, assassinated in 1073, "was succeeded by his son, Malek Shah, in whose reign the power of the Seljukian Turks attained its greatest height. … Turkestan, the home of his race, including Bokhara and Samarcand, was annexed by Malek, and the rule of the shepherd Sultan was admitted at Cashgar. In addition to Persia and the countries just mentioned, his territory included at one time nearly the whole of what is now Turkey in Asia. … The Seljukian empire, however, broke up on the death of Malek, which took place in 1092, and, after a period of civil war, was divided into four parts. … The only one of the divisions … with which I am concerned is that which was carved out of the dominions of the Roman empire, and of which the capital was, for the most part, at Iconium, a city which to-day, under the name of Konieh, retains somewhat of a sacred character among the Turks, because of its connection with the first Sultans who obtained the right to be Caliphs. Sultan Malek, eighteen years before his death, had prevented a quarrel with Suliman, his cousin, by consenting to allow him to be Sultan of the Seljuks in the lands of the Christian empire. With Suliman there begins the famous line of robber chiefs who are known as Seljukian Sultans of Rome or Roum, or as Sultans of Iconium."

_E. Pears, The Fall of Constantinople, chapter 2._

{3133}

"The dominion of Suleiman over the greater part of Asia Minor was recognised by a treaty with the Byzantine empire in 1074, when Michael VII. purchased the assistance of a Turkish auxiliary force against the rebellion of Oursel and his own uncle John Dukas. Nicephorus III. ratified the treaty concluded with Michael VII., augmented the power of the Turks, and abandoned additional numbers of Christians to their domination, to gain their aid in dethroning his lawful prince; and Nicephorus Melissenos, when he rebelled against Nicephorus III., repeated a similar treason against the traitor, and, in hopes of gaining possession of Constantinople, yielded up the possession of Nicæa to Suleiman, which that chief immediately made the capital of his dominions. … When Alexius ascended the throne [Alexius I. A. D. 1081], the Seljouk conquests in Asia Minor were still considered as a portion of the dominions of the Grand Sultan Malekshah, the son of Alp Arslan, and Suleiman, the sultan of Nicæa, was only his lieutenant, though as a member of the house of Seljouk, and as cousin of Malekshah, he was honoured with the title of Sultan. The prominent position which his posterity occupied in the wars of the Crusaders, their long relations with the Byzantine empire, and the independent position they held as sultans of Iconium, have secured to them a far more lasting place in history than has been obtained by the superior but less durable dynasty of the grand sultans. … Toutoush, the brother of Malekshah, who acted as his governor at Damascus at the same time, became the founder of the Syrian dynasty of Seljouk sultans."

_G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, from 716 to 1453, book 3, chapter 2, section 1._

The empire of Malek Shah "was as vast as that of the Sassanian kings in the height of their glory. He encouraged the cultivation of science and literature, and his reign is famous for the reformation of the Calendar [in which work Omar el-Khayyam, the poet, was one of the astronomers employed]. An assembly of an the astronomers of Persia adopted a system of computing time which Gibbon says 'surpasses the Julian and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian æra.' It was called the Jalalæan æra, from Jalalu-'d-Din, 'Glory of the Faith,' one of the titles of Malik-Shah, and commenced on March 15, 1079."

_C. R. Markham, History of Persia, chapter 6._

TURKS: A. D. 1092-1160. Dissolution of the empire of Malek Shah.

"Melikshah's reign was certainly the culminating point of the glory of the Seldjukides. … Mindful of the oriental adage, 'Perfection and decay go hand in hand,' he determined as far as possible to provide, during his own lifetime, against discord breaking out amongst those who should come after him, by dividing the empire between his different relations. Anatolia was given to Suleiman Shah, whose family had hitherto governed Gazan; Syria fell to his brother Tutush, the adversary of the Crusaders; Nushtekin Gartcha, who had raised himself from slavery to the rank of generalissimo, and who became later the founder of the dynasty of the Khahrezmides, was invested with Khahrezm; Aksonghar got Aleppo; Tchekermish Mosul, Kobulmish Damascus, Khomartekin Fars, and his son Sandjar was entrusted with the administration of Khorasan and Transoxania. These precautions proved, however, ineffectual to preserve the dynasty of the Seljukides from the common fate of oriental sovereign races, for after the death of Melikshah, which took place in 485 (1092), his son Berkyaruk (the Very Brilliant One) had scarcely ascended the throne before the flames of discord were kindled amongst the numerous members of the family, and they speedily fell a prey to the generals and the other relations of the deceased prince." Sandjar, who died in 1160, "was almost the only one of all his race who took to heart the decay of their power in their old hereditary dominions, or made any earnest endeavour to arrest it."

_A. Vámbéry, History of Bokhara, chapter 6._

TURKS: A. D. 1097-1099. First encounters with the Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.

TURKS: A. D. 1101-1102. Destruction of three hosts of Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.

TURKS: A. D. 1193. Overthrow by the Khuarezmians.

See KHUAREZM

TURKS: (Ottoman): A. D. 1240-1326. Origin and rise of the modern Turkish power.

On the final defeat and death, in Kurdistan, of the last Khuarezmian or Carizmian prince, who was pursued relentlessly by the Mongols of Jingis Khan and his successors, there was dissolved an army which included various Turkish hordes. The fragments of this Khuarezmian force were scattered and played several important parts in the history of the troubled time. "The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem; the more humble engaged in the service of Aladin, Sultan of Iconium, and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly pitched their tents near the southern bank of the Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable that the same spot should have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head or in rear of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates. His son Orthogrul became the soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the appellation of the Caliph Othman; and if we describe that pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from those characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a soldier, and the circumstances of time and place were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no more, and the distance and decline of the Mogul Khans soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on the verge of the Greek empire. The Koran sanctified his 'gazi,' or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of Bithynia. … It was on the 27th of July, in the year 1299 of the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The annals of the twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary troops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and volunteers. {3134} Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most useful and defensible posts, fortified the towns and castles which he had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths and palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities that he received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. … From the conquest of Prusa we may date the true era of the Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; and the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan capital."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 64._

"Osman is the real Turkish name, which has been corrupted into Othman. The descendants of his subjects style themselves Osmanlis, which has in like manner been corrupted into Ottoman."

_Dr. W. Smith, Note to E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 64._

TURKS: A. D. 1326-1359. Progress of conquests in Asia Minor.

The Janissaries.

"Orchan [the son and successor of Othman] had captured the city of Nicomedia in the first year of his reign (1326); and with the new resources for warfare which the administrative genius of his brother [Alaeddin] placed at his command, he speedily signalised his reign by conquests still more important. The great city of Nice [Nicæa] (second to Constantinople only in the Greek Empire) surrendered to him in 1330. … Numerous other advantages were gained over the Greeks: and the Turkish prince of Karasi (the ancient Mysia), who had taken up arms against the Ottomans, was defeated; and his capital city, Berghama (the ancient Pergamus), and his territory, annexed to Orchan's dominions. On the conquest of Karasi, in the year 1336 of our era, nearly the whole of the north-west of Asia Minor was included in the Ottoman Empire; and the four great cities of Brusa, Nicomedia, Nice, and Pergamus had become strongholds of its power. A period of twenty years, without further conquests, and without war, followed the acquisition of Karasi. During this time the Ottoman sovereign was actively occupied in perfecting the civil and military institutions which his brother had introduced; in securing internal order, in founding and endowing mosques and schools, and in the construction of vast public edifices. … Orchan died in the year 1359 of our era, at the age of seventy-five, after a reign of thirty-three years, during which the most important civil and military institutions of his nation were founded, and the Crescent was not only advanced over many of the fairest provinces of Asia, but was also planted on the European continent."

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 2._

It is with Othman's son Orkhan that the Ottoman Empire really begins. He threw off his nominal allegiance to the Sultan [of Iconium], though he still bore only the title of Emir. And in his time the Ottomans first made good their footing in Europe. But while his dominion was still only Asiatic, Orkhan began one institution which did more than anything else firmly to establish the Ottoman power. This was the institution of the tribute children. By the law of Mahomet … the unbeliever is allowed to purchase life, property, and the exercise of his religion, by the payment of tribute. Earlier Mahometan rulers had been satisfied with tribute in the ordinary sense. Orkhan first demanded a tribute of children. The deepest of wrongs, that which other tyrants did as an occasional outrage, thus became under the Ottomans a settled law. A fixed proportion of the strongest and most promising boys among the conquered Christian nations were carried off for the service of the Ottoman princes. They were brought up in the Mahometan faith, and were employed in civil or military functions, according to their capacity. Out of them was formed the famous force of the Janissaries, the new soldiers who, for three centuries, as long as they were levied in this way, formed the strength of the Ottoman armies. These children, torn from their homes and cut off from every domestic and national tie, knew only the religion and the service into which they were forced, and formed a body of troops such as no other power, Christian or Mahometan, could command. … While the force founded by Orkhan lasted in its first shape, the Ottoman armies were irresistible. But all this shews how far the Ottomans were from being a national power. Their victories were won by soldiers who were really of the blood of the Greeks, Slaves, and other conquered nations. In the same way, while the Ottoman power was strongest, the chief posts of the Empire, civil and military, were constantly held, not by native Turks, but by Christian renegades of all nations. The Ottoman power in short was the power, not of a nation, but simply of an army."

E. A. Freeman, The Ottoman Power in Europe, chapter 4.

The name of Yeni Tscheri, which means 'new troops,' and which European writers have turned into Janissaries, was given to Orchan's young corps by the Dervish Hadji Beytarch."

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 2._

TURKS: A. D. 1360-1389. The conquests in Europe of Amurath I.

"The dissensions of the elder and younger Andronicus [Emperors at Constantinople, the younger—a grandson—in revolt and the elder finally deposed, A. D. 1320-1328], and the mistaken policy of Cantacuzene [Great Domestic of the empire, regent, after the death of Andronicus the younger, A. D. 1341, and then usurper of the throne from 1341 until 1355], first led to the introduction of the Turks into Europe; and the subsequent marriage of Orchan with a Grecian princess was acceded to by the Byzantine court as a faint bond of peace between a dreaded conqueror and a crouching state. The expectation of tranquillity was, however, fatally blasted; and, in the last quarrel of Cantacuzene with his pupil [John Palæologus, the youthful son of Andronicus the younger, who was deprived of his crown for fourteen years by Cantacuzene], the disastrous ambition of the former opened the path of Solyman, the son of Orchan, across the Hellespont [A. D. 1356], and laid the northern provinces of the kingdom open to the temporary ravages of the barbarians, thus inflicting a lasting and irremediable injury on the liberties of Christendom. The exploits of Solyman, however, led to no other permanent results than the example which they left to the ambition of Amurath I., who, amongst his earliest achievements, led his victorious army across the Hellespont [A. D. 1360], ravaged the extended district from Mount Hæmus to the Straits, and, taking possession of Adrianople [A. D. 1361], made it the first seat of his royalty, and the first shrine of Mahomedanism in Europe. {3135} His conquests had now drawn a circle round the enfeebled dominions of the Emperor; and the submission of John Palæologus, together with his political views in more distant quarters, alone prevented Amurath from contracting the circumference to the centre, and annihilating the empire of the East, by seating himself on the throne of Byzantium. For the present, he turned his back upon the city, and pursued his course towards the wilds of Bulgaria and Servia."

_Sir J. E. Tennent, History of Modern Greece, volume 1, chapter 4._