The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay

As so often happened to the Turks, the loss of their leader caused a panic in their ranks and completed their discomfiture. Their left wing retreated in the direction of Belgrade, and was followed by the débris of the rest of the army. One hundred and forty of their guns were captured. Their camp and an immense booty fell into the hands of the enemy. The battle, however, was not very costly in men to either side. The Austrians lost three thousand men and the Turks about double the number. Eugène followed up his success by the siege of Temesvar, the last great stronghold of the Ottomans in Hungary. He appeared before it twenty days after the battle of Peterwardein. Its garrison of eighteen thousand men capitulated, after a siege of five weeks, on November 25th. This completed the campaign of 1716. The Turks had not been more successful in other directions. They were compelled to raise the siege of Corfu. Their fleet often met that of the Venetians and had rather the worst of it, though there was no decisive battle.

In the year following, 1717, another large army was sent from Constantinople to the Danube, under Grand Vizier Khalil, who had succeeded Damad after the battle of Peterwardein. It consisted of a hundred and fifty thousand men, of whom eighty thousand were Janissaries and Spahis. It was no more fortunate than that under Damad in the previous year. Prince Eugène, still in command of the Austrians, had opened the campaign by marching to Belgrade with a force of not more than seventy thousand men. He besieged the city and fortress, which was garrisoned by thirty thousand Ottomans. When, after three weeks of siege, the Ottoman army came in sight, so vastly superior in numbers, the position of Eugène was most critical. The garrison of Belgrade was in front of him and Khalil’s army, double in number of his own, threatened his rear.

It is highly probable that if the Ottoman general had attacked the Austrians without delay he would have been successful. He hesitated and delayed. He ended by an effort to besiege the besiegers. He entrenched his army in the rear of that of Eugène. The two armies then fired their heavy guns on one another without much result. The Turks were greatly superior in this respect. They were provided with a hundred and forty guns and thirty-five mortars. Failure of food would have compelled the Turks to an issue. But Prince Eugène anticipated this by making an attack himself on the Ottoman lines. Never was a bolder course attempted by a general, and never was there a more brilliant success. With greatly inferior force, the Austrians stormed the Turkish lines on August 16, 1717, little more than a year from the day on which the battle of Peterwardein had been fought. The Ottomans gave way along their whole line. Twenty thousand of them were killed or wounded, while the loss of the Austrians in killed was no more than two thousand. Prince Eugène himself was wounded for the thirteenth time in his great career. The Turks retreated in disorder. They lost a hundred and thirty-one guns and thirty-five mortars and a vast supply of munitions. On the following day Belgrade and its garrison of thirty thousand men surrendered.

After the battle before Belgrade and the capture of that fortress, the Austrians advanced and occupied a great part of Serbia and Western Wallachia. They appealed to the Serbian people to rise against their Ottoman masters, but not more than twelve hundred answered the appeal and joined the Austrian army. There was no desire on the part of the Serbians to exchange Turkish for Austrian rule. The occupation by the Austrians of territory south of the Danube proved to be temporary. Twenty-two years later the Ottomans recaptured Belgrade and drove the Austrians from Serbia.

Meanwhile the Grand Vizier Khalil was dismissed from office by the Sultan for the incapacity which he had shown in the campaign and in the battle of Belgrade. After a time he was succeeded by Damad Ibrahim, a son-in-law and lifelong favourite of the Sultan, who held the post for twelve years, till the deposition of Achmet in 1730. He proved himself in every way worthy of his high office. There was a desire in many quarters to embark on another campaign for the recovery of Hungary. But in the winter of 1717-18 the British Ambassador again proposed mediation, on behalf of England and Holland, on the principle of Uti possidetis. This was accepted by both Austria and the Porte. The Emperor was willing to content himself with what he had already achieved, the more so as there was danger of war in other directions. There was more difficulty on the part of the Ottomans. But the Sultan and the Grand Vizier ultimately gave their decision in favour of peace.

The precedent of the Congress of Carlowitz was closely followed. A congress was held at Passarowitch, a small town in Serbia. England and Holland again acted as mediators. After long discussion, agreement was arrived at, and was embodied in a treaty known as that of Passarowitch, on July 21, 1718. By its terms the whole of what remained of Hungary to the Ottoman Empire after the treaty of Carlowitz, a large part of Wallachia, bounded by the River Aluta, and the greater part of Serbia, and a portion of Bosnia bounded by the Rivers Morava, Drina, and Unna, together with the fortresses of Belgrade and Semendria, were ceded to the Emperor.

The Republic of Venice, on whose behalf Austria had embarked on the war, fared badly by the treaty. It had to give up to Ottoman rule the whole of the Morea which had been reconquered by Damad, but received some concessions in Dalmatia. It was, however, arranged by the Congress that the Porte should have an access to the Adriatic, so as to protect the Republic of Ragusa from Venice. There remained to Venice of its possessions in this quarter only the island of Corfu, the other Ionian islands, and a few ports on the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts. The Porte engaged by the treaty to put a stop to the piracy of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Ragusa, and to prohibit the residence of the Hungarian rebels in the vicinity of the new Austrian frontier.

The treaty of Passarowitch, following on the great defeats of the Ottomans at the battles of Peterwardein and Belgrade, was almost as important as that of Carlowitz. It determined finally the release of the whole of Hungary from the Ottomans. Their rule there had never been more than a military occupation. There was no real incorporation of the country in the Ottoman Empire. There had been no attempt to settle Turks there, or to impose the Moslem religion on its population. After the expulsion of the garrisons from the various fortresses, all vestiges of the Ottomans disappeared, and no trace of them remained as evidence that they had ever been masters there.29 It was a great achievement of the Austrians, for which Prince Eugène was mainly responsible. It should be added, however, that there does not appear to have been any popular rising of the people of Hungary, whether Magyars or Sclavs, either in these last two years of war or in the previous war of 1698-9, against their Ottoman rulers. It has been shown that the earlier war had its commencement in an insurrection against the Austrians in that part of Hungary subject to their rule. The Turks hoped to take advantage of this. They appear to have been in close relation with these insurgents throughout these two wars. The Austrians defeated the Turks and drove them out of the country, but their bigoted tyranny was not more acceptable to the inhabitants than that of the Turks. Many years were to elapse before the Magyars of Hungary secured for themselves the benefits of self-government.

The war with Austria, which resulted in the treaty of Passarowitch, did something more than free Hungary from Ottoman rule. It completed the destruction of the prestige of the Turkish armies which had so long weighed on the mind of Europe. The great battles of Peterwardein and Belgrade, in which the Turks were defeated by Austrian armies of very inferior numbers, following as they did a long succession of similar defeats from the battle of St. Gotthard downwards, showed conclusively that the Ottoman armies were no match for the well-disciplined forces of Austria when led by competent generals. The Ottomans seem to have been completely cowed by the succession of defeats. Thenceforth they were always on the defensive in Europe, and never willingly acted the part of aggressors. It became the settled conviction of Europe not only that there was no longer any reason to fear invasion from the Turks, but that it was only a question of time when they would be driven back into Asia.

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.