Kitabı oku: «The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay», sayfa 16

XV
TO THE TREATY OF BELGRADE
1718-39

The remainder of Sultan Achmet’s reign, till his deposition in 1730, was a period of uninterrupted peace, so far as Europe was concerned. Damad Ibrahim retained his post as Grand Vizier for twelve years, during which he had the absolute confidence of the Sultan and practically ruled the Empire. His policy was distinctly favourable to peace. The only disturbance to it was on the frontier of Persia. That kingdom was in a state of commotion. Its feeble and incompetent ruler, Shah Hussein, was subverted by an Afghan adventurer, Mahmoud. Hussein’s son, Tahmasp, appealed to the Czar of Russia and to the Sultan of Turkey for aid to recover his kingdom. Peter the Great offered his support in return for the cession of provinces in the Caspian and Black Sea, and sent an army to take possession of them. This greatly alarmed the Porte, and it threatened war with Russia. Eventually, however, war was avoided. An agreement was arrived at, in 1723, between the two Powers for the partition between them of the greater part of North Persia. The Porte was to have as its share the provinces of Georgia, Erivan, Tabriz, and Baku. Russia was to have Schirvan and the other provinces already promised to it by Tahmasp. Russia was practically already in possession of its share. The Porte had to send an army to conquer the provinces which were to be its portion. It met with some opposition, but the cities of Erivan and Tabriz were captured. This brought the Porte into conflict with Tahmasp, but eventually an agreement was arrived at. Tahmasp was thrown over, and Mahmoud recognized the sovereignty of the Porte over the provinces referred to. It is not worth while entering further into details of these transactions, for it will be seen that in a few years Persia, under Nadir Khan, acting on behalf of Tahmasp, recovered these provinces.

After a reign of twenty-seven years a mutiny broke out against Achmet among the turbulent Janissaries, headed by Patrona, an Albanian soldier in their ranks. It speedily spread among the whole body of soldiers, and was supported by the dregs of the population of the city and by a band of criminals whom they had released from prison. It was probably promoted by enemies of the Grand Vizier. There was much want of vigour in dealing with the outbreak at its early stage. Subsequent events under Achmet’s successor showed that it was not really of a formidable character and that it might easily have been put down at its inception by strong measures against its ringleaders. It was allowed, however, to gather head and to spread. It was said that the mutiny was due to the unpopularity of the Sultan, his profuse expenditure, and the great pomp he maintained. This scarcely seems to afford a sufficient explanation. It has also been suggested that among other causes was the discontent of the soldiers on account of the long peace and the lack of opportunity for loot, and perhaps also the expectation of the customary large presents on the accession of a new Sultan. When the rebels got the upper hand they made no substantial proposals for a new policy.

The Sultan, at an early stage, consulted his sister, the Sultana Khadidjé, who advised him to keep his ministers close at hand, so that he might save his own life at their expense, if the rebels would be satisfied by a concession of this kind. He appears to have followed this advice. He lost his head in the crisis, and quailed before the mutineers. He entered into parleys with them. They demanded the surrender to them of three of the principal ministers. Achmet asked whether they wished these ministers to be handed to them alive or dead. They unanimously agreed that they wished to have the dead bodies. The Sultan thereupon had the base and incredible meanness to order that his Grand Vizier – his lifelong friend, married to his daughter – the Capitan Pasha, and the Kiaya were to be strangled and their bodies given up to the mutineers. This did not content the Janissaries. They demanded the deposition of the Sultan. Achmet then offered to abdicate the throne on condition that his life and those of his children should be spared. They agreed to this. Achmet thereupon summoned before him his nephew, Mahmoud, whom he acclaimed as Padishah in place of himself and made obeisance. He then retired to the Cage from which Mahmoud had emerged, and there spent the remainder of his life in seclusion.

Mahmoud, the son of Mustapha II, succeeded at the age of thirty-four. Achmet had not treated him with the same generosity that he had himself experienced from Mustapha II, but had insisted on his seclusion in the Cage. After spending so many of his best years in this way, Mahmoud was unfitted for active duties as head of the State. He had a turn for literature, and was a generous patron of public libraries and schools; but as regards the direction of affairs of the Empire he was wholly incompetent. He fell completely under the influence of the Kislaraga, the chief eunuch of his harem, Bashir by name, who acted as his secretary. Bashir had been an Abyssinian slave, and was bought for the Sultan’s harem for 30 piastres. Little is known of the personality of this man, save that, from behind the curtain of the harem, he practically exercised supreme power for nearly thirty years, and died at a very advanced age, leaving a fortune of more than thirty millions of piastres and immense quantities of valuables. These included more than eight hundred watches, set with precious stones, which, it must be presumed, were the gifts of applicants for appointments. Bashir made and unmade Grand Viziers at his will, and if any one of them complained of Bashir’s interference with his duties, that was the more reason for his instant dismissal. In Mahmoud’s reign of twenty-four years there were sixteen Grand Viziers. In any case, it must be admitted that the success of Mahmoud’s reign, such as it was, and the continuity of policy, were mainly due to this aged eunuch.

In the first few weeks of the new Sultan’s reign the supreme power of the State was practically in the hands of the rebel Janissaries, under the leadership of Patrona and Massuli, who were soldiers in their ranks. These men soon made themselves intolerable by their insolence and bravado. Patrona installed his concubine in one of the Sultan’s palaces, and when she gave birth to a child there, insisted on the Sultana Validé treating her with all the courtesies due to royalty. He insisted also on the appointment as Hospodar of Moldavia of his personal friend, a Greek butcher named Yanaki, who had lent him money. The bolder men about the Sultan determined to get rid of these men. The Janissaries and other soldiers who had joined in the deposition of Achmet were brought to a better frame of mind by large distributions of money. They promised to obey their officers, on condition that no punishment should be awarded to them for their part in the rebellion. Patrona and Massuli and twenty-one of their leading adherents were then summoned to a meeting of ministers at the palace, and were massacred there in presence of the Sultan himself. Within three days seven thousand of the rebellious Janissaries were put to death.

Pacification having thus been effected at the capital, attention was turned to Persia, where, as has been pointed out, a partition treaty with Russia had assigned a large part of that kingdom to the Porte, but the possession of which had not yet been obtained. In the meantime a brigand chief, Nadir, later to become world-famous as the invader of India, had taken service under Tahmasp, the son of the dethroned Hussein. Nadir succeeded in driving the Afghans out of Persia and reinstating Tahmasp as Shah. He proceeded, however, to usurp the power of that feeble monarch, and eventually got himself accepted as Shah in place of Tahmasp. He declared war against the Turks in 1733-5 and, after defeating them in several engagements, compelled them to sue for terms of peace. The Porte was the more ready to accede to terms as war with Russia was imminent. A treaty of peace was therefore agreed to with Nadir in 1735, under which all the provinces which were the subject of the partition treaty with Russia were restored to Persia. Russia also, in prospect of war with Turkey, came to terms with Nadir, and surrendered nearly all the territory which had been acquired under the partition treaty with Turkey.

Peter the Great had died in 1727, and in 1730 was succeeded by the Empress Anne, a clever and ambitious woman. She was incited to war with Turkey by Marshal Munnich, the ablest general whom Russia so far had produced. He promised to drive the Turks out of Europe. At Constantinople the eunuch Bashir was in favour of a policy of peace. He was over seventy years of age and wished to end his days in repose. He resisted as far as he could every attempt to draw the Sultan into war. The French Ambassador, under instructions from his Government, was most anxious to embroil Turkey with Austria. The two maritime Powers, however – Great Britain and Holland – pulled in the opposite direction, and peace was maintained as long as possible. But when, in 1735, the Russians, though nominally at peace with Turkey, captured two fortresses in the neighbourhood of Azoff and threatened that most important outpost of the Empire, the Porte declared war. A Russian army of fifty-four thousand men, under command of Marshal Munnich, then invaded the Crimea. They stormed and broke through the fortified lines of Perekop at the isthmus of that name, joining the Crimea to the mainland, hitherto thought to be impregnable. They captured the city of Perekop, and then overran the whole of the Crimea, devastating it and massacring its inhabitants by thousands. The Russian army, however, suffered greatly from exhaustion and disease in the campaign, and it eventually withdrew from the Crimea before the winter. Another Russian force, under General Leontiew, captured Kilburn, and a third, under General Lascy, an Irishman by birth, attacked and captured the city of Azoff.

Meanwhile the Russian diplomatists discovered that the Emperor of Austria, Charles VI, was quite as anxious as the Czarina Anne to possess himself of Turkish provinces, and was ready to enter into a coalition for the purpose. In the winter of 1736-7 a secret treaty for this purpose was entered into between the two potentates. But as it was not thought expedient by the Austrians to commence their attack until all their preparations for it were completed, a pretence was made of negotiations with the Porte, who had made overtures of peace to the Russians. For this purpose a Congress was held at Nimirof early in 1737. Later it became known that the negotiations on the part of the two allied Empires were illusory, and that there never was any intention to come to terms. The Porte, on its part, was extremely anxious for peace, and was ready to make large concessions, but the terms suggested on behalf of Russia were so extortionate that it was quite impossible for the Sultan and his ministers to entertain them. The Russians demanded the cession of the Crimea, the independence of Wallachia and Moldavia under a native prince, subject to the supremacy of Russia, the opening of the Black Sea and access to it through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles to Russian vessels of war, and the payment of fourteen millions of roubles. Austria, on its part, demanded the cession of the whole of Bosnia and Serbia. Such terms could only be assented to by the Porte after complete and disastrous defeat. They were indignantly rejected, and, much against the wish of the Porte, the Congress came to an end, and the Sultan was forced to take up arms in defence of his Empire.

A Russian army of seventy thousand men, under Marshal Munnich, opened the campaign of 1737 by an attack on Oczakoff, the most important of the Ottoman fortresses on the northern shores of the Black Sea, and General Lascy, with forty thousand men, again invaded the Crimea. Oczakoff was vigorously defended by twenty thousand Turks. After some days of siege the principal powder magazine in the fortress blew up, causing enormous destruction and loss of life. The Turkish general, dismayed by this, capitulated on favourable terms. But this did not prevent the massacre of the greater part of the garrison, and only three thousand of them survived. The losses of the Russians, chiefly by disease, were also very great, and nothing more was done by Munnich in this year’s campaign. Meanwhile Lascy in the Crimea had repeated the operation of Munnich of the previous year, and eventually retreated from it.

The Austrians, on their part, invaded Bosnia and Serbia with two armies. The principal one, under General Seckendorf, attacked and captured Nisch and, later, Widdin. But this exhausted their efforts for the year, and most of their army perished from disease in the marshes of the Danube.

The campaign of 1738 was little more decisive. The Ottomans, with revived courage, took the offensive, and, advancing into Hungary, under Grand Vizier Yegen Mahomet, captured Semendria and Orsova. The Austrians fell back on Belgrade. General Lascy again, for a third time, invaded the Crimea, but the country had been so devastated by the two previous invasions that he could find no means there of feeding his army, and he was soon compelled to withdraw. In the winter great efforts were made by the Porte to arrive at terms of peace, and it was willing to make great sacrifices. But Marshal Munnich vehemently opposed all peace proposals at the Russian Court. He was still inflamed with the desire to invade Turkey and to capture Constantinople. At his instance emissaries were sent into the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire to incite the Christian rayas to rise in arms against their masters and oppressors – the first instance of the kind.

On the opening of the campaign of 1739 Munnich led his army through Podolia, a province then belonging to Poland, whose neutrality he violated. He spread desolation along his march, as though he were passing through an enemy’s country. He crossed the frontier of Moldavia and defeated a Turkish army at Khoczim, and then advanced to Jassy, the capital of the province, and captured it.

Meanwhile the Austrians renewed their attack on Serbia and Bosnia under two new generals, Wallis and Niepperg. An army of fifty-six thousand Austrians issued from Peterwardein and marched southwards, apparently in total ignorance of the strength of the Turkish army which was advancing to meet them. By great efforts the Porte had raised and equipped an army of two hundred thousand men, under the Grand Vizier Elhadji Mahomet. It met the Austrian army at Krotzka, half-way between Semendria and Peterwardein. The Austrians were defeated, as was to be expected, in view of the enormous disparity of the two armies. They fell back again on Belgrade. The Ottomans followed up their victory and commenced a bombardment of Belgrade.

Nothing could exceed the imbecility and infatuation of the Austrian generals, Wallis and Niepperg. They were now as anxious to make peace as they had been boastful and bellicose at the commencement of the campaign. The French Ambassador, Villeneuve, was with the Turkish army. His mediation was accepted by the Austrians, and terms of peace were agreed to, without consultation with the Russian generals. Belgrade and all the parts of Serbia and Bosnia which had been ceded to Austria by the treaty of Passarowitch and a great part of Wallachia were restored to the Ottoman Empire. The victory of the Ottomans at Krotzka and, still more, the treaty of Belgrade which followed, caused dismay and indignation to the victorious Russians in Moldavia. It was obviously impossible for their army at Jassy to make any further advance into Turkey, or even to hold its own in Moldavia, when an Ottoman army of two hundred thousand, fresh from victory over the Austrians, was on their flank on the Danube. Munnich’s grandiose scheme for the capture of Constantinople was extinguished. It became necessary for the Czarina to follow the example of the Austrians and to make peace with the Turks. Terms were ultimately agreed to, under which the Russian conquests in Moldavia and the Crimea and the city of Oczakoff were given up. Russia retained only a narrow strip of land on the shores of the Black Sea. The city of Azoff was to be demolished and its territory was to form a belt of borderland, uncultivated and desert, between the two Empires. The Russians were prohibited from maintaining a fleet either in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azoff.

The two treaties, as a result of the campaign of 1739, were a triumph for Turkey. They were more due to the imbecility and incapacity of the Austrian generals than to the valour of the Ottomans, for it was no great feat of arms for two hundred thousand Turks to defeat fifty-seven thousand Austrians at the battle of Krotzka. But the strategy of the Porte in concentrating their main force against the Austrians on the Danube, while making little resistance to the Russians in Moldavia, was fully justified.

XVI
TO THE TREATY OF KAINARDJI
1739-74

The campaign, and the resulting treaty of Belgrade, saved the Ottoman Empire from further shrinkage for many years. There followed a long period of peace. This was due not merely to the fact that the Porte pursued a policy of peace, but because the two great Powers in Europe, Russia and Austria, who were bent on the dismemberment of Turkey, were not in a condition to prosecute their aims, and were not able to enter into any combination for the purpose. In 1740 the Emperor Charles VI died. This event led to a scramble among the neighbouring Powers for his inheritance, and to the war known as that of the Austrian Succession, which was brought to an end by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. This was followed later again by another war, known as the Seven Years War, which was concluded in 1763. In neither of these great wars did the Porte take any part, and it is to its credit that it did not take advantage of them to attempt the recovery from Austria of any of its lost dominions in Hungary. Till war broke out with Russia in 1768 there was profound peace.

Sultan Mahmoud died in 1754 and was succeeded by his brother, Othman II, who reigned for three years only. He was deformed – a hunchback. He does not appear to have made any change in the foreign policy of his government. In his three years of reign there were six Grand Viziers, and it seems probable that the real power of the State was exercised by the successor to the Kislaraga Bashir, from behind the curtain of the harem.

Mustapha III succeeded his brother at the age of fifty. He had spent his life up to this time in seclusion, in the Cage of the Seraglio, cut off from all contact with, or even knowledge of, public affairs. For the first six years of his reign he left matters very much in the hands of his Grand Vizier, Raghab Pasha, the last of the many who had filled this post under Mahmoud. Raghab proved to be a most wise and competent statesman, not far behind Sokolli and the Kiuprilis, and, like them, devoted to a policy of peace.

After the death of Raghab in 1763 Mustapha gradually took into his own hands the reins of government. Though well-intentioned and with a sense of public duty, he was feeble, hasty, and impatient, and was wanting in the most essential faculty of a ruler, that of selecting competent men as generals and administrators. He abandoned the policy of peace and allowed himself to be drawn into war, with the most unfortunate results to his Empire. It was his misfortune that his reign coincided with those of two such able and unscrupulous neighbouring potentates as Catherine II of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia.

The Empress Catherine was invested with supreme power in Russia in the year 1762, in place of her worthless husband, after a military revolt. At her instance, Russia embarked on a policy of aggrandizement against both Poland and Turkey. Frederick the Great also, who had very recently favoured an alliance with the Porte with the object of checking the advance of Russia, now reversed his policy. In 1764 he made a treaty with the Russian Empress reciprocally guaranteeing their possessions, and promising assistance to one another, if the territories of either of them were invaded. But if France were to attack Prussia, or Turkey to attack Russia, assistance was to be given in money. Very soon after this an agreement was arrived at between these two Powers for the dismemberment of Poland and the partition between them of part of its territory. The Empress of Austria, Maria Theresa, also, though most unwillingly, became a partner in this scheme. The Porte was much opposed to this Polish policy of the three conspirators. It protested strongly but in vain against the occupation of Poland by Russian and Prussian troops and against all the infamous proceedings which led to the first partition of Poland. The Russian Government made no effort to avert war. On the contrary, it showed by many actions a deliberate intention to drive the Turks into war. It fomented and encouraged rebellion against the Sultan in the Crimea, the Morea, Montenegro, and Georgia. It violated the neutrality of Turkey by pursuing Polish refugees across the frontier of Bessarabia into territory belonging to the Khan of the Crimea, a vassal of the Sultan, and destroying there the town of Balta.

At a Divan held at Constantinople in October 1768 it was decided that Russia, by its proceedings against Poland, had broken the treaty of Belgrade, and that war against her would be just and necessary. The only opposition to this came from the Grand Vizier, Mouhsinzade Pasha. He did not, indeed, object in principle, but he maintained that it was most unwise to declare war until full preparations had been made for it. He pointed out that the frontier fortresses were in a most unprepared state, and that as military operations could only be commenced by the Turks in the next spring, Russia would be placed in an advantageous position by an immediate declaration of war. For this advice, which the sequel fully justified, the Grand Vizier was dismissed from his office. In his place Emen Mahomed was appointed – a most incompetent man, knowing nothing about military matters, by his own admission. As a result of this premature declaration of war, Russia had full notice, and entered on the campaign of 1769 in Moldavia before the Porte was ready to send an army to defend that province. The Empress put into the field three armies. The principal one, under command of Prince Galitzin, invaded Moldavia and laid siege to Khoczim. It was not till May 1769 that the Grand Vizier was in a position to issue from his camp at Babatagli and march to Isakdji, near Ismail. He there summoned his generals to a council of war and opened the proceedings by an astounding admission of incompetence. Asking for their opinion as to what direction his army should be led, he said, “I have no experience of war. It is for you to determine what operation shall be undertaken and what are the most favourable chances for the army and the Sublime Porte. Speak without hesitation and enlighten me by your counsel.”

The generals were struck dumb with astonishment at this confession of ignorance and impotence. Eventually a discussion arose. There was great difference of opinion. As a result, the only decision arrived at was to cross the Danube into Moldavia, and then proceed as circumstances might suggest. In fact, there was no definite plan of campaign. The army, in accordance with this, crossed the Danube. It was then decided to march to the River Pruth. It reached a point about half-way between Khoczim and Jassy. But already it suffered greatly from want of food, for which no preparations had been made. The soldiers also were harassed by swarms of mosquitoes in the marshes of the Danube and the Pruth. It was unable to prevent the capture of Khoczim by the Russians. It was ultimately forced to retreat before coming into serious contact with the enemy, and it found its way back to the Danube; and thus concluded the campaign of 1769.

The Russians did little in the early part of 1770. Prince Galitzin was almost as imbecile and incompetent as the Grand Vizier. The Empress recalled him and appointed in his place General Romanzoff, a most able and determined soldier. The Sultan, on his part, recalled Emen Pasha and gave orders for his execution.

Meanwhile, the Empress Catherine was engaged in carrying out another part of her ‘Oriental project,’ as it was called. She had sent numerous emissaries disguised as priests to various parts of Greece with the object of stirring up rebellion against the Sultan. Under the belief that a general rising would take place, she sent a great fleet from the Baltic to the Mediterranean for the purpose of giving support to the insurgents. It consisted of twelve ships of the line, twelve frigates, and numerous transports conveying a military force. The expedition was under the supreme command of Alexis Orloff, the brother of her then lover, who had led the military revolt which placed her on the throne. He had expectations that a throne would be found for himself at the expense of the Turks. The fleet was under virtual, though not nominal, command of an Englishman, Admiral Elphinstone, who was supported by numerous other British officers. It was said that every vessel in the fleet had one of these officers on board. This must have been with the cognizance and approval of the British Government, which at that time favoured the aggrandizement of Russia. This fleet left Cronstadt at the end of 1769, and arrived off the coast of the Morea in February 1770. It was welcomed by a large body of insurgent Greeks (Mairotes) and a Russian force was landed. The insurgents perpetrated the most atrocious acts of cruelty on the comparatively few Turks resident in the district.

The ex-Grand Vizier, Mouhsinzade Pasha, now Governor of the Morea, showed great vigour. Collecting a force of Albanians, he succeeded in defeating the insurgent Greeks, fifteen thousand in number, and their Russian allies. The Russians were compelled to re-embark in their fleet. The Greeks who remained on shore were subjected to ruthless slaughter, as were also the inhabitants of the district. The whole countryside was devastated by the Albanians. The Russian fleet, after ineffectual attempts to capture Modon and Coron, sailed away. It came in contact, off the island of Scios, with the Ottoman fleet, not very unequal in number and size of vessels. A naval battle took place on July 7, 1770, in which the Turks were worsted. The defeat would have been the more serious if it had not been for the extraordinary bravery of one of their captains, Hassan of Algiers, who had gained experience as a corsair. Laying his vessel alongside of that of the Russian admiral, he fought with the utmost desperation till both vessels were blown up.

The defeated fleet sought refuge in the small harbour of Tchesmé, where it was blockaded by Admiral Elphinstone. The British officers devised a scheme for destroying the Turkish fleet. Lieutenant Dugdale volunteered to pilot a fire-ship against them. Before coming to close quarters the Russian sailors deserted the vessel, and Dugdale alone remained on board. He steered the vessel against a Turkish ship and set fire to it. The fire spread to the other vessels, closely packed in the harbour, and the whole of the Ottoman fleet was burnt and destroyed with the exception of a single frigate. A more gallant and successful attack has never been recorded in the annals of naval warfare.

Elphinstone, who had fortunately escaped death – as did also Hassan the Algerian, when their warships were blown up in the recent naval battle – then advised that the Russian fleet should sail without delay to the Dardanelles and force its way through the Straits to the Sea of Marmora and Constantinople. But Orloff hesitated and delayed, with the result that the Turks, getting wind of the intention, hastily erected four batteries at the Dardanelles, two on either side of it, crossing their fire. These were sufficient to make it impossible for the Russian fleet to force its way through the Straits.

Orloff and the Russian fleet then proceeded to the island of Lemnos, where it landed troops and besieged the chief fortress. It was evidently hoped to secure a base for the fleet in the Ægean Sea. After sixty days of siege the garrison gave in, and terms of capitulation were agreed upon with Orloff. In the meantime, however, Hassan had persuaded the Porte to allow him to make a desperate effort to save Lemnos. He enlisted four thousand ruffians at Constantinople for this purpose. When it was pointed out what a hazardous enterprise it was, the reply was that it mattered little whether it was successful or not. If successful, Lemnos would be saved; if unsuccessful, Constantinople would be rid for ever of four thousand of its greatest blackguards. Hassan landed unexpectedly in Lemnos, and, declining to recognize the capitulation, attacked the Russians and defeated them, and compelled them to take to their ships again.

Hassan, after this successful exploit, was made Capitan Pasha of the Ottoman navy. He managed to collect together another fleet, and engaged the Russian fleet again off Mondreso. Both fleets claimed victory, but it would seem that the Russians had the worst of it, for they sheered off and left these waters. When next heard of, the Russian fleet was engaged in giving support to Ali Bey, the head of the Mamelukes of Egypt, who had risen in rebellion against the Turkish pasha there, and who was now invading Syria. Orloff landed four hundred soldiers in Syria in support of this rebel. But Ali Bey soon found himself in difficulties. An outbreak took place in his own army against him, fomented by his brother-in-law. Ali Bey was defeated and put to death, and the four hundred Russians were slain in battle. The Porte for a time recovered its hold on Egypt.