Kitabı oku: «The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay», sayfa 8

VIII
BAYEZID II
1481-1512

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IX
SELIM I
1512-20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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