Part 13
3. The venality and corruption first practised by Roostem Pasha, who was Grand Vizier for fifteen years, and who was married to Solyman’s daughter. The principal merit of Roostem in the eyes of his master was his skill in replenishing the treasury. Among the means he adopted of raising money was the exaction of large payments from persons on their appointment to civil offices in the State. These payments in Solyman’s time were fixed in a definite proportion to the salaries. They were not adopted in the military and naval services. Under later Sultans they became arbitrary and exorbitant, and were extended to the army and navy. Practically appointments of all kinds were put up to auction and given to the highest bidder. In order to meet these payments on appointment, governors of provinces and all officials, down to the lowest, were induced to adopt corrupt practices of all kinds and the sense of public duty was destroyed.
4. The evil practice introduced by Solyman of heaping favours on his favourite viziers, or of allowing them to amass wealth by selling their favours to those below them in the official hierarchy. Ibrahim, who was Grand Vizier for thirteen years, and Roostem for fifteen years, amassed enormous fortunes. They set up a standard of extravagant life, which was followed by other viziers and high officials. Roostem on his death was possessed of 815 farms in Anatolia and Roumelia, 476 watermills, 1,700 slaves, 2,900 coats of mail, 8,000 turbans, 760 sabres, 600 copies of the Koran, 5,000 books, and two millions of ducats. His example in gaining wealth was followed by others in a minor degree according to their opportunities. High office came to be regarded as a means and opportunity of acquiring great wealth, and this evil rapidly spread throughout the Empire and led to corruption and extortion.
There was a corrective, or perhaps it should be called a nemesis to this, in the fact that when an official was put to death, by order of the Sultan, his property was confiscated to the State. Ibrahim’s immense wealth was thus dealt with, and even in Solyman’s time, and much more so in those of his successors, the confiscated fortunes of viziers, governors, and other officials sentenced to death formed an important item in the annual income of the State. There can be little doubt that not a few pashas were put to death by the successors of Solyman in order that the State might benefit from the confiscation of their fortunes. It was perhaps thought that the mere fact of accumulation of wealth by an official was sufficient proof that it had been improperly acquired, and that the holder deserved to lose his life and fortune.
There may be added to these causes of ultimate decadence pointed out by the Turkish historian another which must occur to those who closely study the reign of Solyman—namely the growing influence in State affairs of the Sultan’s harem. The fall and death of Ibrahim, the murder of Prince Mustapha, and the rebellion and consequent death of Prince Bayezid were mainly due to intrigues of the harem. Great as Solyman was, he fell under the evil influence of his favourite Sultana, the Russian Ghowrem, better known in history as Roxelana. Ghowrem was not only a most seductive concubine; she was a very clever and witty woman, with a great gift of conversation. She retained her influence over Solyman when age had reduced her personal charms. By the entreaties of the Sultan’s mother, who perceived the malign influence of this woman over her son, she was for a time got rid of from the Seraglio. But Solyman could not forget her, and insisted on her recall. Ghowrem celebrated her triumph by getting the consent of the Sultan to many executions. Thenceforth till her death her influence was unbounded. “I live with the Sultan,” she said, “and make him do what I wish.” Appointments to the highest offices were made at her instance and abuses of all kinds arose. But worst of all was the precedent that was set for the interference of the harem in matters of State.
With Solyman’s successors the influence of the harem was continually a growing one, and was generally, though not always, as will be seen, a danger to the State. It became increasingly necessary for a minister who hoped to retain his post to secure personal support in the Sultan’s harem. The harem itself became the centre of intrigue and corruption, with fatal effect on the interests of the State. But worst of all dangers to the Empire was the possibility—nay, the probability—that the succession of the great man at the helm of State able to restrain the lawlessness of the Janissaries, the fanaticism of the mullahs, and the corruption of pashas might not be maintained. Solyman never did a worse deed for the future of the Empire than when he put to death his eldest son, who had proved himself to be in every way fit to succeed him as Sultan, and when later, at the instance of Ghowrem, he secured the succession of his son Selim. He knew that Selim was a worthless and dissolute drunkard. He is said to have remonstrated with his son and endeavoured to induce him to reform his conduct. It will be seen that it was in vain. The succession of Selim was a nemesis for the murder of Mustapha. He was the first of a long line of degenerates, who ruined the great work of Solyman and his predecessors.
In spite of this crime and of the base murder of his most intimate friend and servant, Ibrahim, in spite of the inception of the grave abuses we have referred to, it must be admitted, on an impartial review of Solyman’s reign, that Solyman was the greatest of the Othman race who created the Empire, and that in a generation of famous rulers in Europe, including Charles V, Francis I, Leo X, our own Henry VIII, Sigismund of Poland, and others, he excelled them all in the deeds and qualities which constitute the greatness and fame of a ruler. There is a Turkish proverb to the effect that “Happy is the man whose faults can be numbered, for then his merits cannot be counted.”
XI
GRAND VIZIER SOKOLLI
1566-78
SOLYMAN was the last and greatest of the first ten Ottoman Sultans who, succeeding one another from father to son, in rather less than three hundred years, raised their Empire from nothing to one of the most extended in the world. They must have been a very virile race, for their reign averaged about twenty-eight years, far above the ordinary expectations of life. With one exception they were all able generals and habitually led their armies in the field. They were all statesmen, persistent in pursuing their ambitious aims. Many of them were addicted to literary pursuits, were students of history, and even had reputation as poets. In spite of these softening influences, there was in nearly all of them a fund of cruelty. It may be doubted whether, in the world’s history, any other dynasty has produced so long a succession of men with such eminent and persistent qualities.
Solyman was succeeded by his third son, Selim, commonly called ‘the Sot,’ a sobriquet which sufficiently describes him. He was the only son spared from the bow-string. Selim was followed by twenty-four other Sultans of the Othman dynasty down to the present time. With the rarest exception, they were men wholly wanting in capacity to rule a great Empire. Only one of them was capable of leading his army in the field. The others had neither the will nor the capacity, nor even the personal courage to do so. They fell under the influence either of their viziers, or of the women or even of the eunuchs of their harems.
If the persistency of type and of the high qualities of the first ten Sultans was remarkable, no less so was the break which occurred after Solyman, and the almost total absence of these qualities in their successors down to the present time. One is tempted to question whether the true blood of the Othman race flowed in the veins of these twenty-five degenerates. Von Hammer refers to a common rumour at Constantinople, though he does not affirm his own belief in it, that Selim was not really the son of Solyman but of a Jew, and that this accounted for his infatuation for a favourite Jew adventurer, who obtained a potent influence over his weak mind. Such a break in true descent might well have been possible in the vicious atmosphere of the harem, in spite of the precaution that no men but those deprived of virility were to be allowed to enter it.
Whatever may be the explanation, there can be no doubt that the degeneracy of the Othman dynasty dates from the accession of Selim the Sot. But this did not necessarily involve the immediate decadence of the Empire. The Ottoman Empire could not have been built up by the energy and ability of a single autocrat in each generation. There must have been many capable men, statesmen, generals, and administrators, of all ranks, who contributed in each generation to the achievements of their rulers. Many such men survived for some years the death of Solyman, and preserved the Empire from the ruin which threatened it. The Empire, in fact, did not begin to shrink in extent till some years later, and for about twelve years, as if from the momentum given to it by the powerful Sultans of the past, it actually continued to expand. Selim was the first of the new type of Sultans. He took no interest or
## part in the affairs of State. He was a debauchee and a drunkard. He
gave an evil example to all others, high and low. Judges, cadis, and ulemas took to drink. Poets wrote in raptures about wine. Hafiz, the most in esteem of them, wrote that wine was sweeter than the kisses of young girls. The attention of the Mufti was called to this, and he was asked to censor the poem as contrary to the injunctions of the Koran. But the Mufti replied that “when a Sultan took to drink it was permissible for all to do the same and for poets to celebrate it.”
Selim fell completely under the influence of his Grand Vizier, who had held the post for two years under Solyman. Sokolli, who was a most capable man, was the virtual ruler of the Empire. He was a man of large views. He had two important and interesting schemes in his mind. The one to cut a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, so that the Turkish fleet might find its way into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, the other to make a junction by a canal between the rivers Don and Volga. These two great rivers, which have their sources in Russia, run a parallel course for a long distance, and at one point approach one another within thirty miles. They then diverge again, the one flowing into the Sea of Azoff, the other into the Caspian Sea. By joining these two rivers by a canal at the point where the distance between them is the least, it would be possible for a Turkish flotilla to ascend the Don, and then, after passing through the canal, descend the Volga into the Caspian Sea, whence it would be able to attack the Persian province of Tabriz with great advantage. The commercial possibilities of this junction of the two great water highways were also obvious. The scheme, however, necessitated taking Astrakan and other territory from Russia—a country which had of late years largely extended its possessions and power.
In this view, Sokolli, in 1568, sent an army of twenty-five thousand Janissaries and Spahis by sea to Azoff. They were there joined by thirty thousand Tartars from the Crimea, and the combined force marched thence to Astrakan, at the mouth of the Volga. For the first time, therefore, the Ottomans came into direct conflict with the Russians. The expedition was a total failure. The Turks were unable to capture Astrakan, and a Russian army completely destroyed that of the Tartars. The main Turkish army was compelled to retreat to Azoff. Later, the greater part of it was lost in a great tempest in the Black Sea, and only seven thousand of its men returned to Constantinople. The project of a Don and Volga canal was consequently abandoned. That for a canal across the Isthmus of Suez was also indefinitely adjourned, owing to an outbreak of the Arabs in the province of Yemen, which necessitated sending an army there under Sinan Pasha. This was thoroughly successful, and Yemen and other parts of Arabia were completely and finally brought under the subjection of the Ottoman Empire.
After the reconquest of Yemen, Sokolli determined to attack Tunis, which since its capture by the Emperor Charles V had been in the occupation of the Spaniards. The fleet employed for this purpose was under the command of Ouloudj Pasha, a renegade Italian, who after a successful career as corsair and pirate was induced to take service under the Sultan. In 1568 he was appointed governor of Algiers, and in that capacity led the expedition against Tunis in the following year. He defeated the Spaniards and occupied the town. But the garrison retreated into the citadel, which they held till 1574.
In 1570 another expedition was decided on, this time for the purpose of capturing the island of Cyprus, which was then in possession of the Republic of Venice, with which the Porte was at peace. Sokolli, on this account, was at first opposed to the scheme. But on this occasion, for the first and, apparently, the only time, Sultan Selim overruled his minister. He loved the wine of Cyprus and wished to secure a certain supply of it. He had also, in a drunken orgy, promised to elevate his boon companion, the Jew, to the position of King of Cyprus. The Mufti, who had always hitherto given a full support to Sokolli, was consulted as to whether the treaty with Venice was binding on the Sultan so as to make an attack on Cyprus unlawful. He issued a _fetva_ to the effect that, as Cyprus at some distant time had been under Moslem rule, as a dependency of Egypt, it was the duty of a Mussulman prince to avail himself of any favourable opportunity to restore to Islam territory which had been taken possession of by an infidel Power, and that, consequently, the treaty with Venice was not binding on the Sultan.
In accordance with this ruling of the Mufti, an expedition was fitted out in 1570 by the Ottoman government, consisting of a hundred thousand men, including irregulars, under command of Kara Mustapha, who was the rival of Sokolli, and a fleet under Piale. This force laid siege to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, a flourishing Christian city, where there were said to be as many churches as there are days in the year. After a siege of seven weeks the city was captured by assault, and was given up to sack by the Turkish soldiers. Thirty thousand of the inhabitants were massacred. Many women killed themselves and their children rather than give themselves up to the maddened soldiers. Two thousand of the better-looking children of both sexes were sold as slaves.
Mustapha Pasha then proceeded to invest Famagosta, the principal fortress in the island. It was heroically defended by a mixed force of Italians and Greeks, under command of Bragadino, a brave Venetian general. It successfully resisted attack throughout the winter of 1570. It was not till August in the following year (1571) that the garrison, reduced to less than four thousand men, was compelled by failure of food and munitions of war to surrender. Very favourable terms were promised to them by Mustapha. The lives of the garrison were to be respected, and the property and religion of the citizens were to be secured to them. The garrison were to be conveyed in Turkish galleys to Crete and there released. In pursuance of these terms the captives were embarked on board galleys ready to sail to Crete. At this stage an interview took place between Kara Mustapha and Bragadino and his suite of twenty officers, at which very hot words passed between them. The Turkish general complained that some of his men, taken prisoners during the siege, had been put to death. Bragadino denied this. His language was considered to be insolent by Kara Mustapha, who at once gave orders that all Bragadino’s suite were to be strangled in his presence. Their leader was reserved for a more cruel fate. The men embarked on the galleys were landed again and were massacred. A week later, Bragadino, who had been treated in the interval with the greatest cruelty and the most barbarous indignities, was flayed alive. His skin, stuffed with hay, was exhibited to the scorn of the Turkish soldiers. The capture of Famagosta completed the conquest of Cyprus. It remained in the possession of the Ottomans till, as will be seen, it was handed over to the British Government, in 1878, in pursuance of a policy devised by Lord Beaconsfield. The Turks are said to have lost fifty thousand men in its capture. It was in revenge for this that Kara Mustapha resorted to the terrible deeds above described.
Meanwhile the Christian Powers had been greatly alarmed by the loss of Cyprus and the atrocities above described. At the instance mainly of the Pope, an alliance was formed in 1570 with Spain and Venice, with the object of opposing the growing strength of the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. A great fleet was fitted out by these Powers, and was placed under the command of Don John of Austria, the natural son of the late Emperor, Charles V, a young man of only twenty-four years, who had shown his capacity in the measures for the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and was already reckoned one of the best generals of the time. The fleet consisted of two hundred galleys and six powerful galleasses with heavy armaments. It was manned by eighty thousand soldiers and rowers, one-half of whom were provided by Spain and one-third by Venice, the remainder, one-sixth, by the Pope. Don John was in supreme command. The Spanish division was commanded by the Prince of Parma, soon to become notorious in the Netherlands under Philip II, and who was later in command of the Armada fitted out in Spain for the invasion of England.
The fleet assembled at Messina on September 21, 1571, too late for the relief of Cyprus. The Turks collected in the Gulf of Lepanto a much greater fleet of two hundred and ninety galleys manned by a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers and rowers. But they had no large galleasses with powerful armaments to compare with those of the Spaniards. The fleet was commanded by the Capitan Pasha Ali, a young man without experience in naval war. The second in command was Ouloudj. Perted Pasha was in command of the troops. He and Ouloudj were opposed to an immediate battle with the allied fleet on the ground that their men were not as yet sufficiently trained. At a council of war heated discussion took place. The Capitan Pasha insisted on immediate attack. Ouloudj broke off the discussion, saying, “Silence. I am ready, because it is written that the youth of a Capitan Pasha has more weight than my forty-three years of fighting. But the Berbers have made sport of you, Pasha! Remember this when the peril draws near.”
The rowers of both fleets were galley slaves chained to the oars. On the Turkish fleet they were Christians who had been made captives in war. On the Christian fleet they were the sweepings of the jails. In both cases the admirals promised liberty to them if they performed their duty in the coming battle.
The two fleets met near the entrance to the Gulf of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The Christian fleet was ranged in a crescent with the Venetians on the left flank. The six powerful galleasses were posted like redoubts at intervals in front of the lines of galleys. Don John was at the centre of the crescent. The two fleets approached one another. The engagement soon became general. The Turkish galleys as their enemy neared them, were somewhat broken in line by the Spanish galleasses, which raked the Turkish galleys with their more powerful armaments. The Turkish admiral, in the _Sultana_, made a direct attack on Don John’s ship, the _Real_, which was later supported by a second galley. The three were locked together, and the Spanish soldiers boarded the Turkish vessel. A desperate hand-to-hand combat took place, in which the Turkish admiral was killed. His head was cut off and, against the will of Don John, was stuck on the masthead of the Spanish vessel. This caused general discouragement in the Turkish fleet. All along the line the Turkish vessels were worsted in the combats with their opponents. There resulted a complete defeat of their centre and left wing. Ouloudj, in command of the Turkish right wing, was more fortunate. He succeeded in outmanœuvring the Venetian vessels opposed to him. He made a violent attack on fifteen galleys which were detached from the main fleet of the allies and succeeded in sinking them. When he became aware that the main Ottoman fleet was completely defeated by the Spaniards, he made a dash with forty of his own galleys through the enemy’s line and succeeded in escaping. With this exception, the whole of the Turkish vessels, two hundred and sixty-six in number, were captured or sunk. Fifty thousand Turks lost their lives in this great battle, and fifteen thousand Christian slaves were liberated.
It was an overwhelming defeat for the Ottomans. No such naval victory had occurred in the Mediterranean since that of Actium, very near to the same spot, where (B.C. 31) Marc Antony’s fleet was destroyed by that of Octavius. Nor was there another such decisive naval encounter in those seas till that known as the Battle of the Nile, when Nelson captured or sank nearly the whole of the French fleet off the coast of Egypt.
It was to be expected that the allied Christian fleet would follow up its great victory by attack on some Turkish territory. No such project was entertained by its admirals and generals. The fleet dispersed after its victory. Each detachment of it returned to its own ports, there to receive ovations of triumph. Sculptors and painters celebrated the event by works of art in churches at Rome, Venice, Messina, and other cities. Never was so decisive a victory productive of so little further result.