[3] Mr. Gibbons refuses credence to this interesting story on the ground mainly of its inherent improbability. His argument does not convince me. The succession of the younger brother to the Emirate without a fight for it, on the part of the elder one, was an event so remarkable, and so contrary to all experience in Ottoman history, as to make the explanation given a reasonable one. The probabilities seem to me to be all in its favour. Alaeddin died in 1337. It is admitted that for seven years he acted as the first Grand Vizier of the Ottoman State. It may well be, therefore, that he commenced, if he did not complete, the important organization of the army with which he has been credited by Turkish historians.
[4] This was not the corps of Janissaries, which, as Mr. Gibbons has shown, was created not by Orchan but by his son Murad.
[5] Mr. Gibbons in his account of the origin of this corps disputes the figures as reported above from previous writers, and also the alleged motives for its constitution. After careful consideration of the question, I have preferred to adhere to the version given by Sir Edwin Pears, who has investigated the subject with great care in the early Greek and Turkish histories. I have, however, followed Mr. Gibbons in one point, namely, in attributing the constitution of the force to Murad I rather than to Orchan. Mr. Gibbons’s account of the corps of Janissaries is to be found on pp. 118-20 of the Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, and that of Sir Edwin Pears in his work on the Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 223-30.
[10] Boucicaut in 1399, with four ships and two armed galleys and twelve hundred knights and foot soldiers, after defeating an Ottoman fleet in the Dardanelles, arrived at Constantinople and gave assistance to the Emperor in defence of the city.
[12] This story of the cage, which forms the subject of a scene in Marlowe’s play of Tamerlane, has been discredited by some historians of late years. But Mr. Gibbons, after a full and careful examination of all the records of the time, has re-established its veracity.
[15] Sir Edwin Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, p. 217.
[16] The four pages which Gibbon devotes to a description of this attempted union of the two Churches are masterpieces of irony and scorn (Gibbon, viii. pp. 287-91).
[17] The writer, in 1890, had the advantage of viewing what remained of these walls in the company of Sir Edwin Pears, who has fully described them in his admirable account of the great siege.
[18] Stone balls of considerable size were used by the Turks to defend the Dardanelles up to a late date. When in 1855 the writer visited the forts there, he observed that they were still provided for some of the guns.
[19] Speech of Mahomet recorded by the historian Christobulus, quoted by Sir Edwin Pears, pp. 323-4.
[41] It may be well to add, what has not been mentioned by his able biographer, doubtless because Lord Stratford’s daughters were alive when the book was published in 1888, that the Great Elchi gave testimony of his belief in the permanence of the Turkish Empire by investing the greater part of his personal property and savings in Turkish Bonds. In 1874, when the Porte became bankrupt and repudiated payment of interest on the debt, some friend at Constantinople wrote to Lord Stratford giving timely information of what was coming and advising him to sell his bonds while there was yet time. Lord Stratford, however, thought it was inconsistent with his sense of honour to act on this advice. His means were greatly reduced by the bankruptcy of the Porte. After his death and the cessation of his pension, his daughters would have been in very reduced circumstances if it had not been for the generosity of a personal friend of their father, the late Lady Ossington, who made up to these ladies, for their lives, the amount of the pension from the State which had lapsed by the death of Lord Stratford.
[42]The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question in the East, 1876.
[44] Bismarck induced Lord Beaconsfield to propose this to the Congress.
[45] Parliamentary Report, House of Commons, July 30, 1878.
[46]Nineteenth Century Review, December 1890. This article, which contained other severe criticisms on the rule of Abdul Hamid, was translated into the Turkish language, for his perusal, by the late Professor Arminius VambÉri, who was the guest of the Sultan at the time of my visit to Constantinople in 1890, and who had suggested to him that he should favour me with an audience. The Professor backed up my statements by remonstrances on his own behalf, with the result that the Sultan took grave offence. He withdrew the pension which he had annually paid to the Professor and put an end to their long friendship.
