Part 15

It has already been stated that there was a break in the disastrous rule of the harem when Murad IV came of age and was able to take the reins of government from the hands of his mother. The Sultana Validé was a very clever woman, with excellent intentions, and practically ruled the State during his minority. But she was not equal to the task of coping with the grave difficulties of the time. The Empire was going to the bad in all directions. The Persians, taking advantage of the confusion in Turkey, declared war and successfully invaded the provinces of Erivan and Bagdad. The two Barbary provinces of Algiers and Tunis were asserting independence. They engaged in piratical attacks on the commerce of the allies of the Porte, and were negotiating separate treaties with them. The internal condition of the Empire became worse than ever. There were frequent outbreaks of Janissaries, who imposed their will on the Sultana.

In 1632, Murad, on reaching the age of twenty-one, took command of the State, and soon showed that he was of very different fibre from his six incapable predecessors. His first experience was an outbreak of the Janissaries, who demanded that the Grand Vizier and sixteen other prominent officials should be executed. Murad was compelled to yield. But he felt deeply the humiliation of his surrender and was determined to avenge it. He gathered round him a faithful band of Spahis, and suddenly, when it was least expected, dealt with the leaders of the Janissaries by putting them to death. This had the effect of cowing that mutinous body. He then devoted himself to the task of purging the State of corrupt and unjust officials of all ranks. He pursued this task with most ruthless energy. On the slightest suspicion officials in the highest positions were secretly put to death by his orders, and their bodies were flung into the Bosphorus. He became a terror to evildoers of all ranks. But he also became bloodthirsty and callous of life in the process. Brutal as were his deeds, they had the effect of restoring order in the State and discipline in the army. Throughout the length and breadth of the Empire his dominant will made itself felt, and his authority as Sultan was soon completely re-established.

Murad showed himself equally vigorous and competent as a general. His effective reign, after taking over the government from his mother, did not extend over more than eight years. During this time he personally led two expeditions against the Shah of Persia, each of them occupying two years. In the first of them he conquered Erivan. In the second he recaptured the city of Bagdad, after a most desperate resistance by the Persians. Of the garrison of twenty thousand men only six hundred survived. The Ottoman army was then allowed to sack the city, and thirty thousand of the inhabitants were massacred. The whole province was restored to the Ottoman rule. More than eighty years passed before another war took place with Persia.

In these campaigns Murad showed immense vigour. He marched at the head of his army and shared with the soldiers their hardships. His saddle was his pillow at night. There was no pitched battle with the Persians. The campaigns consisted of sieges and captures of fortresses. On his return to the capital after the second campaign, in 1639, Murad received a great popular ovation. He died soon after, in 1640, from fever, aggravated by intemperance, to which he was addicted. When he was on the point of death he gave orders for the execution of his brother, Ibrahim, the only surviving male of the descendants of Othman. Ibrahim had been immured in ‘the Cage’ during the lifetime of his brother. He was quite unfit to rule the Empire, and Murad must have well known this. It was surmised that Murad preferred to go down in history as the last Sultan of the Othman race rather than hand over the throne to such an incapable successor. Others thought that he intended his last and favourite Grand Vizier to be his successor. His mother, the Sultana Validé, with the object of saving the life of her second son, Ibrahim, feigned to carry out Murad’s order. She sent a message to the dying Sultan that Ibrahim had been put to death in accordance with his instructions. Murad, it is said, when he heard of this “grinned a horrible and ghastly smile and then expired.”

It may well have been that those who wished for the destruction of the Ottoman Empire regarded with complaisance the failure of Murad’s intention of putting an end to the Othman dynasty. It was obviously impossible that Sultans of the type of those who had succeeded the great Solyman could for long hold the Empire intact. A new dynasty, founded by an ambitious vizier, or some other bold adventurer, might have invigorated the Empire and have long delayed its dismemberment. But _Dîs aliter visum est_.

If Murad’s intention to put his brother to death was prompted by the conviction that Ibrahim was unfit to rule the Empire, he was fully justified by subsequent events. In his short reign of eight years Ibrahim succeeded in undoing all the good which Murad had effected by his ruthless vigour. He proved to be a degenerate, whose original evil nature had been worsened by many years of immurement and constant dread of death at the hands of his brother. He was as bloodthirsty as Murad, without the same motive of restoring discipline in the army and order and justice throughout the Empire. He was also cowardly and mean. He wasted the resources of the State, which had been wisely accumulated by Murad, in self-indulgence and in gratifying the caprices of his harem. He was the most confirmed debauchee of the long line of the Ottoman Sultans. The Sultana Validé pandered to his passions by presenting to him every Friday a new female slave. By this means she obtained full influence over him and used it in every case to the great detriment of the State. Every abuse and evil which Murad had checked grew apace, and the Turkish Empire, so far as internal affairs were concerned, entered on a new course of decadence. The rule of the harem again prevailed, without any motive but that of gratifying the caprices of its inmates. Disaffection and rebellion spread among the Janissaries and Spahis, and also among the ulemas and all classes of people at Constantinople. A conspiracy was formed to get rid of Ibrahim. It was supported by the main body of ulemas. At a meeting of the conspirators the charge against Ibrahim was formulated as follows:—

The Padishah has ruined the Ottoman world by pillage and tyranny. Women wield the sovereignty. The treasury cannot satiate their expense. The subjects are ruined. The armies of the infidels are besieging towns on the frontiers. Their fleets blockade the Dardanelles.

It was determined to dethrone Ibrahim and to replace him by his son Mahomet, a lad of seven years of age. The Sultana Validé did her best to shield her son from the threatened blow, but she was ultimately induced to give her consent to his deposition. A large body of Janissaries then invaded the palace and insisted on Ibrahim appearing before them. They announced to him the decision to depose him. He was compelled to submit and was conducted to prison. The question was then submitted to the Mufti, “Is it lawful to dethrone and put to death a Padishah who confers all the posts of dignity in the Empire, not on those who are worthy of them, but on those who have bought them for money?” The Mufti replied by a _fetva_ in the laconic word “Yes.” There was a threat of an _émeute_ among the Spahis in favour of Ibrahim. He was promptly put to death and his son Mahomet IV was installed as Sultan.

The eight years of Ibrahim’s reign, however, were not without some importance as regards the external affairs of the Empire. They showed that there were still some capable men in the service of the Sultan. In 1641 an expedition was fitted out for the recapture of the important city of Azoff, which of late years had fallen into the hands of the Cossacks. It was a failure and met with a reverse. In the next year a much larger force was sent out, and was supported by a hundred thousand Tartars from the Crimea. It succeeded in its object. The Cossacks, before surrendering the city, destroyed all its fortifications and burnt the town. The Turks rebuilt it and left a garrison of twenty-six thousand in this important frontier fortress.

In 1644 another expedition was fitted out against the island of Crete, which then belonged to the Republic of Venice. It had been bought many years previously from the Marquis of Montserrat, to whom it had been allotted as his share in the spoil of the Greek Empire, after the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204.

It appears that a fleet of merchant vessels, on their way from Constantinople to Egypt, was captured by corsairs from Malta, who sought shelter for a time for themselves and their prizes in one of the ports of Crete. The Sultan was greatly incensed at this, the more so as some of the captured vessels belonged to one of the eunuchs of his harem. His first design was to send a fleet to attack Malta, but he was dissuaded from this course. He decided, as an alternative, to attack Crete, although the Porte was at peace with Venice, and the Republic was willing to make amends for the violation of its neutrality by the Maltese corsairs.

A fleet was thereupon fitted out, in 1645, ostensibly to attack Malta, but with sealed orders to divert its course when at sea to Crete. It consisted of a hundred and four vessels carrying upwards of fifty thousand men. The fleet, under the above orders, steered for Crete, and made a sudden attack on Canea, one of the chief ports of the island. Having captured this city and also Retino, the army was landed. It overran the whole island and invested Candia, its chief fortress and capital. A memorable siege then commenced. It lasted for nearly twenty-five years. The Republic of Venice made desperate efforts to save the city. It was not supported by the native Greek population of the island, who hated their Venetian rulers, and were not unwilling to exchange them for Ottomans.

While the Porte was thus engaged in the endeavour to add to its domain at the expense of the Republic of Venice, it was incurring a very serious shrinkage of Empire in the Mediterranean, along the northern coast of Africa. Historians agree in assigning to the middle of the seventeenth century the virtual severance from Ottoman rule of the two Barbary States of Algiers and Tunis. It is not possible to fix a precise date in either case, for the process of amputation was slow and was spread over some years, and long after the Sultan had practically ceased to exercise any real power over these dependencies the semblance and form of suzerainty was maintained. The main cause for the loss of these provinces was the practice which had grown up, under the corrupt administration of the Porte, of selling the posts of governors of them to the highest bidders in money. In place of men of energy and of capacity, able to control the unruly elements of mutinous soldiers and disaffected Moors and Arabs, governors were appointed under a system of purchase who were quite incapable of performing the duties of their office, and who merely thought of filling their pockets and recouping themselves for their outlay. The practice then arose for the Janissaries and other Ottoman soldiers forming the garrisons of Algiers and Tunis to elect their own chiefs. The appointments of these men, Deys, as they were called, were for a time submitted to the Sultan for approval or veto, but later this form was discontinued, and the Deys elected by the soldiery became the real dominant authorities in these States, and eventually superseded in form, as well as in substance, the feeble pashas sent nominally as governors from Constantinople. Virtual independence was thus achieved. Both States provided themselves with fleets of powerful war vessels, which roamed over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic as far as the coasts of Ireland and Madeira, preying upon the commerce of all countries, irrespective of whether they were at war with the Porte or not. They were, in fact, pirates. The captured crews were employed as slaves in the bagnios of Algiers and Tunis. The best evidence of the actual, though not yet of the formal, independence of these Barbary States was that other Powers sent their fleets to attack and bombard them, and to destroy, if possible, their pirate craft, without declaring war against the suzerain power, the Porte. Thus, as early as 1617 a French fleet, under Admiral Beaulieu, made an attack on the Algerian fleet of forty vessels of from two hundred to four hundred tons, and destroyed many of them. In 1620 a British fleet, under Sir Richard Mansel, in retaliation for the capture of no less than four hundred British merchant ships in the previous five years, made a similar attack on Algiers, without, however, much result. In 1655, another British fleet, commanded by Admiral Blake, under orders from Protector Cromwell, bombarded Tunis, and destroyed a great part of its fleet, and having effected this proceeded to Algiers. There was much consternation there, and the captives of British birth were given up without a struggle. In both these cases there was no declaration of war against the Porte, and no offence was taken by the Sultan at the action of England.

In 1663 the British Government made a treaty with the Sultan empowering it to attack and punish the Algerines without being charged with a breach of amity with the Porte. It frequently availed itself of this, and many naval attacks were made on these nests of pirates, without, however, very effectual results. In some of its naval operations in the Ægean Sea the Porte received assistance from the fleets of these two Barbary States. But this was entirely at the discretion of their virtual rulers and was not considered obligatory on them. For our present purpose, it is sufficient to point out that the States became virtually independent of the Ottoman Empire about the year 1650. In the case of Algiers this independence continued till the State was conquered and annexed by France in 1830. In Tunis the same process took place, with the difference that an hereditary Beyship was eventually formed under a Greek adventurer whose descendants retained power there till 1881, when the French invaded the province and eventually annexed it to France.

Ibrahim was succeeded by his son, Mahomet IV. He reigned for thirty-nine years. During the first eight of these there was chaos in the Empire. The government remained in the hands of the harem. The position was aggravated by fierce dissension in that institution. There were two rival parties, the one led by the ex-Sultana Validé, the mother of the late Sultan, who was loath to part with the power she had acquired during her son’s reign, the other by the mother of the new Sultan, Torchan by name. Both of them had their supporters among the Janissaries and Spahis, with the result that there were frequent disorders and encounters in the streets of the capital. Grand Viziers were made and deposed with startling rapidity, as one or other of these parties prevailed. Outbreaks occurred in many parts of the Empire and there was no one with sufficient authority to cope with them. The dispute between the two ladies was eventually settled by the murder of the elder one. Meanwhile it was fortunate for the Empire that Austria was so exhausted by thirty years of war in Germany that she was not able to avail herself of the opportunity afforded to invade the Ottoman Empire and recover Hungary and other provinces. But the war with Venice resulting from the unprovoked attack by Ibrahim on Crete was continued without intermission. A Venetian fleet under command of Admiral Macenigo defeated and destroyed an Ottoman fleet off the Dardanelles and took possession of the islands of Lemnos and Tenedos. It blockaded the Dardanelles. Strange to say, this did not put a stop to the siege of Candia by the Ottomans. This was maintained with pertinacity, but for a long time without success. Meanwhile anarchy prevailed in the Empire. Relief most unexpectedly came from the appointment of a Grand Vizier by Sultana Torchan, by which she made some amends for her previous misdeeds.

XIII

THE KIUPRILI VIZIERS

1656-1702

AT this stage, when the ruin of the Empire seemed to be imminent, owing to the failure of vigour and authority of so many Sultans, the general corruption of officials, and the lawlessness and mutinous conduct of the army, there rose to the front a man, or rather a succession of men of the same family, who were able to stem the evil tide and to restore, for a time, the credit and prestige of the Empire. In the following forty-six years four members of the Kiuprili family filled the post of Grand Vizier—not, however, without more than one unfortunate interregnum. They ruled the Empire in the name of the incompetent Mahomet and his successor. This advent of a family was the more notable as in Turkey there never was any trace of hereditary rank. While the throne had been filled without a break by members of the Othman family, who, in the first three hundred years, deservedly acquired prestige so great that it has survived a yet longer succession of degenerates, it has never been supported by an hereditary class of any kind. The structure of the political and social system of the Ottoman Turks has always been democratic. The highest posts in the State, equally with the lowest, were accessible to all, irrespective of merit, often by mere personal favour, or even, it would seem, by chance, without consideration of birth or wealth. The unique exception to this, where members of the same family rose to the highest position of the State under the Sultan, was that of the Kiuprili family.

Mahomet Kiuprili, the first of this remarkable stock, was of Albanian descent. His grandfather had migrated to Kiupril, a small town in Amasia, in Asia Minor, whence the family took their name. Their position must have been a very humble one, for Mahomet commenced his career as kitchen-boy in the palace of the Sultan. He rose to be chief cook and, later, steward and grand falconer, and thence by favour of the harem was appointed as governor successively of Damascus, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, acquiring in all of them the reputation of a just, firm, and humane ruler. At the full age of seventy, on the advice of the Sultana Validé, he was finally appointed Grand Vizier, in spite of the protests of all the pashas, ulemas, and other officials, who alleged that Kiuprili was in his dotage, that he could neither read nor write, and that he was quite incompetent for the post. Never were experts more mistaken. Kiuprili only consented to take the post upon the conditions, solemnly swore to by the Sultana Validé on behalf of her son, who was then only fifteen years of age, that all his acts as Grand Vizier would be ratified by the Sultan without examination or discussion, and that he would have a free hand in the distribution of other offices and in the award of honours. He further fortified his position by getting from the Mufti a _fetva_ sanctioning by anticipation all his measures.

Armed with this authority, Kiuprili entered upon the work of his high office, and at once proceeded to use his powers with inflexible firmness and with the utmost severity. He emulated Sultan Murad IV in his relentless war against wrongdoers of every class, high and low, throughout the Empire. There was not the same spirit of cruelty or bloodthirstiness as in Murad’s case, but there was the deliberate policy to extirpate abuses by the forcible removal of those concerned in them. Corrupt officials, unjust judges, incompetent officers in the army, and mutinous soldiers were promptly put to death. The same fate befell those who were suspected of intriguing against the new Vizier. It was said that during his five years of office thirty-five thousand persons were executed by his orders. The number included a great many mutinous soldiers. The principal executioner at Constantinople admitted that he had strangled four thousand persons of some position during this period. Terrible as was this retribution on wrongdoers of all kinds, there cannot be a doubt that in the main it was salutary. The effect of Kiuprili’s inflexible will and determination was speedily apparent throughout the Empire. Corruption and injustice were stayed. Disorders of all kinds were repressed. Discipline and subordination were restored in the army.

Kiuprili, by his vigorous action, was able to extinguish the revolts in Asia Minor and elsewhere. He reconstructed the Ottoman navy, with the result that naval supremacy was again asserted in the Ægean Sea and the war with Venice took a favourable turn. The islands of Lemnos and Tenedos were recovered by the Porte. The siege of Candia was again prosecuted with the utmost vigour.

Kiuprili practically ruled the Empire with unquestioned authority for five years, till his death in 1661. In prospect of that event he obtained from the Sultana Validé and the Sultan the reversion of the Grand Vizierate for his son, Ahmed Kiuprili. On his deathbed he is said to have given to the young Sultan the following heads of advice:—

Never to listen to the advice of women. Never to allow a subject to become too rich. To keep the treasury of the State well filled. To be always on horseback and to keep the army on the move.

Ahmed Kiuprili, when he succeeded his father as Grand Vizier in 1661, was only twenty-six years of age. He has rightly been considered by Turkish historians as the most eminent in the long list of statesmen of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception only of Sokolli. He had been given the best of education by his father, and had early experience in public affairs as governor of a province. He had all his father’s inflexible will and firmness, without carrying them to excess by wholesale executions. For a year after his accession to power he continued his father’s régime of severity, but when he felt assured of his position he relaxed it, and thenceforward his administration was humane and just. He had most engaging manners, dignified and modest. He spoke with reserve and without verbiage. He ruled the Empire for fifteen years, until his death in 1676. During this time he enjoyed the full confidence of Sultan Mahomet, who, though he had reached the age of twenty when Ahmed Kiuprili was appointed Grand Vizier, and might in due course have taken part in public affairs, devoted himself wholly to the pleasures of the chase and never interfered with the conduct of affairs by his great minister.

Ahmed was a most strict observer of the religious precepts of Islam. In spite of this, he was noted for his enlightened tolerance of other religions. He abolished the restrictions against the building of churches by the Christian subjects of the Porte. He did his best to improve the condition and lighten the burden of the rayas. His administration was free from abuses. He gave an example to all below him by refusing to take money for appointments to offices or for any administrative acts. He kept the treasury well filled, in spite of the many wars he was engaged in. It was, in fact, in the civil administration of the Empire that his ability and wisdom were chiefly conspicuous. His military career was chequered, for though he succeeded in adding to the Empire not a few important territories, he encountered for the first time in its history a great and historic defeat at the hands of the Austrians and a second serious defeat by the Poles.