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 outmanoeuvring 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.

The contrast between the action of the defeated Turks and that of the victors was most striking. Ouloudj, picking up forty stray galleys in the Ægean Sea, returned to Constantinople with eighty vessels. Piale joined him there with a few more. Sokolli and his colleagues in the Turkish Government made the most determined efforts to restore their fleet. Even Selim showed some spirit on this occasion. He contributed largely from his privy purse. He gave up part of the garden of his palace at Seraglio Point as a site for the construction of new vessels. One hundred and sixty galleys were at once commenced, together with eight galleasses of the largest size. By the spring of the next year they were completed. The losses at Lepanto were made good and the Ottoman fleet was as powerful as before the disaster. In the summer of 1572 the allied Christian fleet was again assembled on the eastern Mediterranean. It was still inferior in numbers of vessels to that of the Ottomans. The two fleets came in sight of one another twice in that season in the neighbourhood of the island of Cerigo and, later, off Cape Matapan, but no engagement took place. It may be concluded that Ouloudj, who was now Capitan Pasha of the Turkish navy with the honorary name of Killidj Ali, thought it the better policy not to risk his new fleet before the crews were thoroughly trained. He withdrew, and the sequel showed the wisdom of his action. The allied fleet was unable to do anything.

Later, in 1573, the Venetians found it expedient to negotiate terms for a separate peace with the Porte. Their envoy, who appears to have remained at Constantinople during the late war, interviewed Sokolli for this purpose. When he alluded to the losses which the two Powers had recently incurred, the one of the island of Cyprus, the other of its fleet, Sokolli proudly replied:—

You have doubtless observed our courage after the accident which happened to our fleet. There is this great difference between our loss and yours. In capturing a kingdom we have cut off one of your arms, while you, in destroying our fleet, have merely shorn our beard. A limb cut off cannot be replaced, but a beard when shorn will grow again in greater vigour than ever.

Terms of peace were concluded. Not only was the capture of Cyprus confirmed by a formal cession of the island, but the Republic agreed to pay to the Porte the cost incurred by its capture, estimated at 300,000 ducats. The tribute paid by Venice for the island of Zante of 500 ducats was increased to 1,500 ducats. The Republic was relieved of the annual tribute of 8,000 ducats in respect of Cyprus. The limits of the possessions of the two Powers in Dalmatia and Albania were restored to what they had been before the war. The terms were humiliating to Venice; they could not have been worse if the battle of Lepanto had never been fought.

The rapid restoration of its fleet by the Porte gave fresh evidence of its vital power and its unsurpassed resources. For a long time to come the Ottoman navy, supported by the piratical contingents from its Barbary dependents, held a virtual supremacy in the Mediterranean.

After the conclusion of peace between Venice and the Porte, Don John, in October 1573, commanded a Spanish fleet in an expedition against Tunis, which, as above stated, had been captured by Ouloudj on behalf of the Turks. The task of Don John was the more easy as the Turks had not succeeded in capturing the citadel, which was still in the possession of its Spanish garrison. He had no difficulty in defeating the few Turks who were in possession of the city of Tunis. He showed no disposition to restore to his throne the Sultan Hamid. This miserable creature appeared at Tunis and claimed to be reinstated there. But the Spaniards would have nothing to do with him. He was deported to Naples.

Don John, having effected his object, departed to Spain, leaving at Tunis a mixed garrison of eight thousand Italians and Spaniards. When news of this capture reached Constantinople, Sokolli and Ouloudj were greatly incensed. In 1574 a fleet of two hundred and sixty galleys and galleasses with forty thousand men was sent out, under command of Ouloudj, who made short work of the Spanish and Italian garrison at Tunis, and recaptured the province, and finally annexed it to the Turkish Empire. This probably could not have been effected if Venice had remained in alliance with Spain, but alone the latter was not able to meet the Ottoman fleet in the Mediterranean.

In 1574 Selim died under the influence of drink, and was succeeded by his son, Murad III, as much a nullity as regards public affairs as his father. Sokolli remained as Grand Vizier till his death, four years later, by the hands of an assassin, but with diminishing power, owing to the intrigues of the Sultan’s harem, which eventually contrived his end.

In 1578, the last year of Sokolli’s vizierate, war again broke out with Persia, and a great army was sent to Asia, under command of Mustapha, the conqueror of Cyprus. It began by invading Georgia, then under a native Christian prince in close alliance with, if not under the subjection of, Persia. Mustapha had no difficulty in conquering Georgia, and in occupying the adjacent Persian provinces of Azerbijan, Loristan, and Scherhezol. He penetrated to Dhagestan, on the Caspian. The war was continued under Sokolli’s successors for some years with varying fortune. It was not till 1590 that a treaty of peace was concluded with Persia, under which these provinces were ceded to the Ottoman Empire.

It will be seen from this brief narrative that the acquisitions of the Ottoman Empire during the twelve years when the Grand Vizier Sokolli was virtually its ruler were very great and important. They included the island of Cyprus, the province of Tunis, the kingdom of Georgia, the provinces taken from Persia, and the Yemen, in Arabia. These, with one exception, were the last acquisitions of the Ottoman Empire. The exception was that of the island of Crete, which was not attacked by the Turks till sixty-seven years later, in 1645, and was not finally conquered till 1668. But by this time the Ottoman Empire had begun to shrink at the hands of its enemies in other directions. It may be concluded, therefore, that the last year of the vizierate of Sokolli, 1578, and not the last year of Solyman’s reign, was the zenith of the Ottoman Empire.

The Empire was by this time extended from the centre of Hungary in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Soudan in the south, from the Caspian Sea and the borders of Persia in the east to the province of Oran in Africa in the west. It included nearly the whole of the southern shores of the Mediterranean, except that of Morocco, and all the shores of the Black Sea and the Red Sea. All the islands of the Ægean Sea except Crete belonged to it. These territories were inhabited by twenty different races. Their population has been variously estimated at thirty millions and upwards. Many of the Greek cities at that time existing in Asia Minor were still very populous, in spite of the massacres which had taken place when they were captured by the Turks. It is probable that the population of Asia Minor, of Syria, and of Mesopotamia was much larger than it is at the present time. That of Bulgaria, Greece, and Macedonia was also greater than it was in modern times before their emancipation from Turkish rule. After the death of Sokolli there ensued an era when misgovernment and corruption played havoc with the Empire, and a process of shrinkage began which extended over three centuries, the exact opposite to its growth in the previous three centuries.

It should here be noted that although the Sultans were autocrats in the full sense of the term, there existed in practice some ultimate check on their misdeeds. The Mufti, as the chief interpreter of the sacred law of Islam, had the right and power to declare whether any act of the Sultan, or any proposed act by any other person, was in accord with or opposed to such law. As the Mufti could be deposed by the Sultan and then be put to death, this power could be very rarely used by him. But when outbreaks occurred on the part of the Janissaries and reached a point when the deposition of the Sultan was demanded, the Mufti, as a rule, was asked for his opinion. It will be seen that of the twenty-five Sultans after Solyman eleven were deposed, and in almost every case the Mufti gave his legal sanction. The Janissaries may have been very lawless, but they were not the less a salutary check on the Sultans. With one possible exception the depositions were well deserved. It should be noted that there was also a check on the Sultans in the Divan, which was composed of the four viziers and many other functionaries, military, civil, legal, and religious. It met once or twice a week and discussed matters of State. Till the time of Solyman the Sultan presided, but he gave up this practice. In the absence of the Sultan the Grand Vizier presided. In the reign of the degenerate Sultans the Divan often played an important part.

London: T. Fisher Unwin. Ltd.Stanford’s Geog.^l Estab.^t London.
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
AT THE TIME OF
ITS GREATEST EXTENT.
Tributary and Vassal States are outlined with colour.