OXFORD:
T. and G. SHRIMPTON.
M DCCC LIX.

THE CAUSES OF THE SUCCESSES OF THE OTTOMAN TURKS.
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By the fall of the Seljukian dynasty in Asia Minor, a vast number of Turks, scattered over the fertile tracts of Western Asia, were left without any organized government. The Emirs of the Seljouks in their different districts tried to set up separate kingdoms for themselves, but their power was successfully exercised only in making depredations upon each other. For some time they were under the sway of the Khans of Persia, but the decline of the Mogul Empire after the death of Cazan, freed them from this control1. During this time of general anarchy, a clan of Oghouz Turks, under Ertogruhl, settled in the dominions of Alaeddin, the chief of Iconium. These Turks were of the same family as the Huns and Avars, and the other Barbarian hordes, whose invasions had continually devastated Europe for nearly ten centuries2; nor had the energy and restless activity of their race yet begun to fail. They were all united by the affinity of race, as well as by their language, and by the common bond of the Sunnite creed. In return for Ertogruhl’s services in war Alaeddin gave him a grant of territory in the highlands of Phrygia. The warlike spirit of Ertogruhl’s son Othman, raised him to the rank of an independent chieftain, and he soon made himself master of strong positions on the borders of the Greek Empire. With ill-judged parsimony, the Emperor Michael had disbanded the militia, who guarded the passes of Mount Olympus, and had thus left Bithynia open to attack. Orchan, the son of Othman, took advantage of these favourable occurrences, enlarged his territory at the expense of the Greeks, and by uniting several of the scattered Turkish tribes under one head, laid the foundation of the Ottoman Empire.

Thus the circumstances of the times were throughout eminently favourable to the Ottomans. The fall of the Seljouk monarchy, and the consequent diffusion of the Turkish population, had given free scope to their enterprising spirit. Through the civil wars of the Byzantine Emperors and the disputes of the Venetians and Genoese, they were enabled to gain their first footing in Europe. Had Amurath’s attempt to extend his kingdom over the Christian nations of Thrace and Roumelia been made in the 11th century, he would have roused all Europe in common resistance to his rising power. But in 1388, the Servian confederacy could obtain no aid from Western Christendom. As long as Richard II. was king of England, and Charles VI. of France—while Germany was ruled by the dissolute Winceslaus—Amurath had little to fear from the powers of the West3. Spain was too much occupied by her wars with the Moslems at home to think of the sufferings of her Christian brethren in the East. Nor was there any danger that the rival popes of Avignon and Rome would forget their private animosities to assist in arresting the fall of a distant and schismatical church.

At the crowning point of their success, the siege of Constantinople by Mahomet II., the advantages of time were again on the side of the Ottomans. The Roman pontiff, furious at their obstinacy in refusing to join the communion of the Latin church, had conceived an aversion for the Greeks which could hardly be exceeded by any abhorrence of the Mnssulman’s creed. It might have been expected that he would rouse himself to prevent the destruction of the Eastern defences of Christendom, but he chose rather a selfish and inglorious part, content to foresee and even to foretell the coming overthrow of the Greek Empire4. Thus did the Patriarch of the West, the natural head of any confederacy for the succour of Constantinople, look on at its fall with seeming unconcern. Meanwhile the English and the French were engaged in a quarrel too deadly to be reconciled. The Germans would not join with the Hungarians, nor would the Spanish have any concert with the Genoese. In short no coalition of the powers of Europe was possible. Even the Greeks themselves were too much divided by religious dissensions to offer united resistance to their Moslem foe, and their want of union could only be equalled by their cowardice. The valour of the last Constantine did indeed shed glory over his own particular fate, but the issue of the struggle could not be doubtful when the disciplined troops and the famed artillery of the Turk were opposed to the feeble and disunited force of the enervated Byzantines.

These external circumstances are important, as having been auxiliary to the rise of the Ottomans. But the main causes of their success must be sought in the wisdom of their rulers and in the institutions which they established.

Their government was most singularly constituted, and of a character totally dissimilar to any of the governments of Christendom. The institutions too from which they derived their solid and lasting power were for the most part peculiar to themselves. On these institutions the stability of the Ottoman greatness mainly rested. With their first appearance it arose; with their gradual development it had grown; as they were neglected and fell into disuse, the ancient glory of the Crescent was dimmed, obscured, and finally extinguished.

Even in the legendary history of the founder of their nation is shadowed forth the faint outline of their peculiar, policy. By patient waiting till he attained his purpose, Othman won his wife from an alien tribe. His expeditions were sanctioned by the blessing of the Holy Scheik Edebali. From the fruit of these expeditions, from the Christian captives who were condemned to slavery, was selected the wife of his son Orchan. A Christian apostate, ‘Michael of the Pointed Beard’ was the chief of Othman’s captains.

It was from the example of their founder, they would have us believe, that they adopted customs of receiving renegades, of foreign intermarriage, a warlike zeal sanctioned by religion, a system of slavery-institutions which in later times were the distinguishing characteristics of their race5. It matters not if these accounts of Othman’s early history be the invention of later times; this rather shows (since fiction is more philosophical than truth), that the Ottomans themselves were convinced that it was mainly on the preservation of these usages that their greatness rested. It was, however, reserved for the sons of Othman to set the system on a permanent basis, and to the legislative genius of Alaeddin in the succeeding reign, was chiefly due the stability of the Ottoman race.

In general the Asiatic dynasties culminate to their height of power with a marvellous rapidity, and then, dependent solely on the merits of their rulers, with no institutions calculated to ensure any lasting greatness, fall by a decline no less rapid and less marvellous than their rise. The career of Ottoman conquest lacked the dazzling grandeur which invests the exploits of Genghis Khan, or Timour, but it was not destined to be as ephemeral as they. In its slow and cautious advance, in the gradual organization of conquered provinces, in the unswerving patience which waited always for the fittest opportunity, it bore no faint resemblance to the stately march of Roman sovereignty.

The close of Othman’s life of seventy years saw him but just made possessor of a single city of importance. It was not till the reign of Orchan that the Ottomans ceased to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Iconian Sultans, and first adopted a coinage of their own. The wise policy of Orchan’s coadjutor, Alaeddin, gave them a respite from war for twenty years, in which time he consolidated the small kingdom they had already won, and perfected a system which was to be the instrument of future conquest.

It was during this period of tranquillity that the organization of the army was effected—an organization which, possessing in itself the various merits of the most invincible forces that have ever been collected—the asceticism and brotherhood of the Spartan companies, the mixture of races in the army of Hannibal, the religious zeal of the English Puritans, and the devotion of Caesar’s 10th legion—added to all these, two peculiarities of their creed, the absolute subjection of every individual to the sacred authority of the Sultan, and the warlike inspirations of a religion that taught them that ‘in the conflict of the crossing scymetars Paradise was to be won.’

It is a remarkable and significant fact, that this abstinence from war for the long period of twenty years was never repeated by the Ottomans during the time of their success. That soldiers long unemployed must become either citizens or rebels is an axiom which must have special force in a government like that of the Ottomans. War was the normal condition of their race. It was to this object that not only their iconoclastic creed, but the whole tenor of their institutions pointed, and in this aspect they must chiefly be contemplated.

The feudal system of the Ottomans was essentially military. It was the device of an aggressive power and was made to answer a double purpose; to secure the permanency of its conquests, and to supply soldiers for war. Ottoman feudalism was wholly different from that which prevailed in Western Europe. The great distinction lay in the fact, that among the Ottomans all the feudal vassals held their fiefs directly of the Sultan, or his officers; whereas in Western Europe, between the sovereigns and the lower tenants was interposed a powerful class, which always more or less counterbalanced the supreme power. The one was the division of a kingdom into petty fiefs, the other the fusion of conquered territories under the sway of one victorious monarch. It was through the feudal system of the Ottomans, in combination with their institution of slavery, that war was made to feed war; that every conquest supplied the means for future conquest.

The use of the Ottoman system for the supply of soldiers in time of war may be estimated from the fact, that an armed horseman was required for every fief of the value of twelve pounds a year, and another for every additional twenty pounds. In the time of Solyman these fiefs were able to furnish 150,000 cavalry6. The feudal troops were always kept in readiness, nor was anything required to summon them to the field but an order of the Sultan to the two Beglerbegs of the Empire from whom it was communicated to a regular gradation of officers entrusted with the task of mustering these Spahi, or Cavaliers, in their separate divisions7. This force served without pay. If they fell in battle, they were honoured as martyrs: if they distinguished themselves, or if the expedition was successful, they were rewarded with larger gifts of property. All their hopes of advancement depended upon the Sultan, and his success in war. They were ready to do his bidding in any part of the world, for the greater part of every country which they subdued was divided among the members of their own body.

It is to this institution of feudalism that we must look for an explanation of the fact, that the Turkish conquests, unlike those of other great conquerors, seldom returned to their original possessors. Immediately an additional piece of territory was gained, it became an integral part of the Empire. Thus it was that the Sultans were able to consolidate and unite their dominions, step by step, with every fresh acquisition of land. In most cases, the conquest of distant territories has been any thing rather than lucrative to the victorious nation. But the Turkish conquests reimbursed the Sultan, and enriched the nation; some portions of land were regularly assigned to the sovereign, and others became public property.

Thus the community of the Timarli, or fief-holders, carried out, on a large scale, the intention of the Roman system of colonise, both as guarding the dangerous frontiers and ensuring the preservation of conquered lands.

But there is one aspect of the Ottoman feudalism which we have not yet regarded, and which redounds more than any other to their honor. Toleration of creed, with one remarkable exception, was given to the conquered Christians, and even in the days of Othman, equal protection was dealt out alike to Greek and Turk, Christian and Mahometan. This tolerant and enlightened system induced numbers of the Christians who dwelt on the borders of the Ottoman Empire to exchange their hard position, as Hungarian serfs, for that of Rayas under the Turks.

We have said that there was one most signal exception to the general toleration of their rule, and this was the institution of the corps of Janissaries, the Yengi Cheri, or “New Soldiers” of Alaeddin. The importance of a well-disciplined standing army struck the far-seeing mind of Orchan’s coadjutor, and to the organization of the army he gave his chief attention during the twenty years of peace of which we have spoken. He first formed, of the native Osmanli, a corps of paid infantry. But it soon appeared that these Turks were too proud and turbulent to endure the necessary discipline. In this perplexity we are told that Alaeddin sought the advice of his relative Black Khalil Tschendereli. Black Khalil’s counsel dictated a device of the most subtle and effective kind—that the Ottoman army must be formed out of the children of the conquered Christians, who should be forced to become Mahometans. By this means, he argued, you will gain troops which can be schooled to any discipline. To the Mussulman religion you will gain many converts, while you will prevent any rebellion of your Christian subjects by the incorporation of the whole strength of their race with your own forces. The plan was adopted by Alaeddin and carried out in the next reign by the First Amurath. Amurath’s warlike spirit, and the lust of conquest that was predominant in his race, led him to make repeated expeditions against the Sclavonic tribes of Servia and Bosnia. Among this hardy race he found no treasures of gold and silver—no spoil for his conquering army—but he found an inexhaustible supply of brave soldiers8. The children who were taken captive in his wars were immediately disciplined in the schools of the Janissaries, and in due time drafted into their ranks. Those who were not available for this purpose, or for the service of the Sultan, were sold as slaves, and thus brought in a considerable revenue to the Turkish Emperor.

As long as the flower of the Christian youth were converted not merely into Mahometans, but into devoted supporters of the Ottoman power, any revolt of the Rayas was impossible. In their strict discipline and continued occupation the proselytes lost all remembrance of their kindred and their country. With the highest positions in the Empire open to their ambition, they might well glory in a station that raised them over the heads of the native Osmanli. The rigorous pride with which they kept their own body aloof from any foreign admixture may offer a parallel to that remarkable system by which the proudest chivalry of Egypt was formed out of Circassian slaves.

Thus at the court of the Sultan were gathered an abundance of men, from various nations, devoted only to the common weal of the race into which they were adopted. Not only were there the prisoners taken in war, as well as the tithe, so to speak, of Christian children taken every five years, but from every pacha of the Empire came presents of slaves to the Sultan9. These slaves were divided into different classes, according to their abilities. Those who were destined for Janissaries were trained to every exercise that could increase their physical strength, and inure them to toil and hardship. Others were educated for the more immediate service of the Sultan, either as his state-officers or his body-guard. Thus the Turkish armies, though they were those of an Asiatic nation, were composed of the hardiest of Europeans. Nor were these Europeans ever suffered to fall into the enervating habits of Asiatics. They had no homes in which they could be pampered with Oriental luxury. Their barracks were like monasteries; their dress the dark robes of monks; their meals the frugal fare of mountaineers. They were not allowed to take wives; they might ply no trades; engage in no commerce; nor were any admitted into their body who had not gone through the regular course of this discipline. At home they lived as if they were in the camp; in the camp they preserved the same order, the same discipline as at home. War was the occupation of their life. They had given no “hostages to fortune;” they had no domestic ties that could bind them to a peaceful life. Their hopes of advancement rested on their valour in battle. They were justly proud of the achievements of their corps, and were stimulated by every motive of ambition, self-interest, and the love of glory, above all, emulation to surpass the successes of their predecessors. They knew that the watchful eyes of the Sultan were on them in the fight, and that every deed of heroism would meet with its appropriate reward. If he fell, what recked a Janissary of death, save as the glorious consummation of his prowess, as the opening of Paradise to the martyr who had won it10?

The testimony of contemporary writers to the wonderful efficacy of this remarkable institution is unanimous. Schwendi, a general of their opponents, owns that the Janissaries had never turned their backs in battle. Busbequius, the German ambassador, struck with admiration at their discipline and endurance, warns his countrymen of the nature of the foe whom they must be prepared to encounter, if they enter a war with the Turks. Barbaro, an ambassador of the Venetian government, comments with wonder on the fact that the power of the Ottomans mainly rested on a corps of compulsory converts from Christianity. The Venetian Relationi, quoted by Von Ranke, are full of the remarks of ambassadors expressing their admiration of the whole system of the Ottoman arms11.

One of the most conspicuous features of their discipline was the order, temperance, and cleanliness of an Ottoman camp, as constrasted with the drunken, dissolute, and filthy habits of the armies of Christendom12. Frequently encamped as they were in the pestilential districts which proved disastrous to the French and English armies at the commencement of the late Russian war, we can easily understand how great an advantage over their opponents these wise regulations secured them in their campaigns.

The fiery valour of the Christian knights might surpass the more patient courage of the Ottoman troops, but their pride of birth, and spirit of independence would not brook the discipline, nor render the obedience, for which the Janissaries were remarkable; and to this may be attributed the fatal results of the battle of Nicopolis. At Kossova the Asiatic wing of the Turkish army had recoiled from the repeated onsets of the Bosnian king and his warriors, but the Janissaries ‘fighting with the zeal of proselytes’ against their Sclavonic brethren recovered the fortunes of the day for Amurath13. At Varna the panic which had spread through the Turkish troops from the furious attacks of Ladislaus and Hunyades was only checked by the firm resistance, the unflinching endurance of the Janissaries14. When the desperate and heroic resistance of the last Greek Emperor, and his few brave adherents, had driven back the Anatolian soldiery, and the fate of Constantinople was still hanging in the balance, it was their surpassing valour that turned the scales of victory, bore down all resistance, and won Eastern Rome for the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

At the great crises of their history we have seen how it was the power of the Janissaries that saved the Ottomans; but in every battle, in every campaign, the possession of a formidable corps of well-disciplined infantry at a time when their opponents had no regular infantry at all, gave them a continual advantage. It has been remarked that the Ottomans never encountered the forces of the only two European nations who had at this time any organized foot-soldiers15. We all know how the chivalry of France fell before the English bowmen at Cressy and Poictiers, and how the troops of Austria fled before the halberdiers of Switzerland, and we may doubt whether the Janissaries would have been equally invincible had they met the English or the Swiss on the battle-fields of Servia.

The institution of the Janissary force must not be considered as a system of mere cruelty and intolerance. The records of the age tell us that it was an usual occurrence for Christian parents voluntarily to bring their sons to the press-gang of the Janissaries, in order that in due time they might be enrolled in their ranks, while the high offices which were thrown open to these proselytes of Mahometanism brought renegades in numbers to the Sultan’s court, where no distinction of birth or country interfered to mar their fortunes. This system of the reception of refugees from all countries gained for the Ottomans many of the greatest names which adorn their history. Of the ten grand-viziers of Solyman, eight were renegades from Christianity. It was indeed noted as an unusual circumstance that one of his viziers was a native Turk16. Piale, who defeated the united Christian fleets in 1560 off the isle of Djerbe, was himself the son of Christian parents. Cicala Pasha, the great commander under the successors of Solyman, was an Italian by birth, but as aga of the Janissaries became one of the fiercest enemies of the Christians. And in the earliest times we find that Evrenos, who under Bajazet and Amurath I. added the greater part of Greece to the Ottoman dominions, was originally a Christian chieftain and a guardian of the passes of Mount Olympus. During the flourishing period of the Empire nearly all the high civil and military offices were filled by Christian slaves, who had risen either from the ranks of the Janissaries, or who had been brought up by the Mufti in the profession of the law17. Thus, to use the words of Gibbon, “a servile class, an artificial people, were raised by the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command18.”

If it be true according to the account we have given of the constitution of the Empire, that the highest offices of the state were conferred by the ruling prince on men raised by his own hand from slavery—that the feudal tenants were subject to a single superior, and the army directed by a single will,—it is evident that nothing but the largest capacity for legislation and military command could have successfully wielded such enormous authority.

Of the extraordinary genius of the early Sultans there is abundant proof19. The character of Othman was precisely suited for one who was to be the founder of a dynasty. He was conspicuous among a warlike tribe for his boldness and independence, and he possessed that marvellous influence over the minds of those around him, which is one of the peculiar characteristics of the greatest men. In Orchan we see the enduring watchfulness, the indomitable resolution which never fails to attain its object, while in the person of Alaeddin his coadjutor we may admire the far-sighted legislator, the brightness of whose original genius shone forth undimmed by the prejudices of an unenlightened age. By the organization of a standing army he marked out future conquests for his race, while by the tolerant spirit of his legislation he ordained that a due protection should be given to the conquered. Amurath by a series of successful campaigns gained the city of Adrianople for his capital. Then with admirable prudence he paused for a while to consolidate his conquests and mature his resources, and thus paved the way for his final victory at Kossova. The name of Yilderim or the Thunderbolt testifies to the energy of the First Bajazet, but it was a just punishment for his overbearing pride in later years that the Tartar Conqueror Timour was provoked to crush his power on the field of Angora, and to doom him to an ignominious captivity. The work of the destroyer was for the time complete, and it seemed as if the Ottoman power was irrecoverably ruined. But the mould into which their national life had been cast was not so easily destroyed. The force of their institutions still remained, and the people were still attached to the tolerance of their ancient government, and so, after many years of civil war, the unity of the Ottoman power was easily restored by the vigorous hand of Mahomet the First. The bold measures of Amurath II. caused the signal overthrow of his Hungarian opponents at Varna, and the annexation of Servia and Bosnia in the succeeding reign are due in great measure to his toleration and prudence. The abdication of his father gave Mahomet the Second experience in the command of an Empire at the early age of eighteen, and a double failure as viceroy secured him wisdom for his sole reign. Setting aside any consideration of his character, it is impossible to deny his legislative ability and military genius, in building up the greatness of his nation. The domestic dissensions of the Empire, under the feebler hand of Bajazet II., showed how requisite a warlike and energetic Sultan was to its preservation under its peculiar constitution. Tabriz, and the subjection of the Mamelukes, were monuments of the ferocious spirit of the warrior Selim. By ceaseless carnage he made himself master of the whole of Egypt, took great part of Syria, and added the Caliphate to the titles of the Ottoman sovereign. At the moment when his cruelty had nearly driven his people to rebellion, the rise of Solyman furnished a pillar of strength to the house of Othman. At the time of his reign the thrones of Europe, as well as those of Persia and India, were occupied by some of the most powerful sovereigns of modern times. But in “a century rich with mighty spirits” there are few names which can compare with that of Solyman the Magnificent, the great lawgiver and commander of his nation. Under his sway, the dynasty of the Ottoman Turks reached its zenith. Though the institutions of his predecessors, and the military organization they had bequeathed, supplied a foundation, yet it was in great measure to his own genius, vigour, and capacity, that the mighty fabric of the Ottoman power owed its stupendous greatness, and that an Empire founded but three centuries before by a few families of wandering Turkomans, then numbered among its subjects twenty different races, and nearly fifty millions of inhabitants, and still survives with wonderful tenacity, after three centuries of decline, unbroken by a single vicissitude of success.

Thus for ten successive reigns, with perhaps a single exception, the throne of the Ottoman Turks was held by men of extraordinary talents. Nor was this vigour of the early Sultans merely accidental. The strict discipline to which they were subjected in early years, the attention that was paid to their education, and their subsequent training in the council and the field, must all have tended to this result.

The real weakness of the Ottoman government, its absolute dependence on a single man, was marvellously compensated and overcome by a continued succession of vigorous sovereigns. The superiority of a well regulated constitution over a despotism generally lies in a comparative equality of ability through all its different members. As long as absolute power is held by the strong hand of a great man all is prosperous. But a continued succession of great men rarely occurs, and when it falls to an irresolute hand to wield the sceptre of despotism the real weakness of the system appears. In France, the Revolution was the ultimate result of the exercise of unlimited power, by Louis the fourteenth; in England, the great Rebellion was the final issue of the attempt to subject the English people to a despotism. The reason that the same result did not occur in the case of the Ottomans is to be found in the historic facts: first, that the later Sultans were, in the eyes of Mahometans, the successors of the Prophet, as well as the descendants of Othman; and, secondly, that the Janissaries, like the Praetorian guards at Rome, jealously prevented their rulers from being made subject to any power but their own.

Besides the wonderful efficacy of their military organization and the talents of their Sultans, there is one point of their history which is worthy of remark as having tended indirectly towards their success. The whole tenor of their legislation was much in advance of that of the European powers in general. English history has often been said to be a century before that of France, but the history of the early Turkish Emperors was much more strikingly advanced beyond that of the other sovereigns of Europe. At the end of the fifteenth century, when, although the times were not yet ready for the development of popular right, the oppressions of European feudalism had become intolerable, the strong hand of despotic sovereigns supplied the only safe guard against lawless outrage. The aggrandizement of their power at that time saved the states which they governed. In this respect, however, the Ottomans were before their age—for whilst the states of Europe were for the most part impotent through the overbearing spirit of the feudal nobility, the Ottoman government was vigorously swayed by an Absolute Monarch20. Thus, when England was distracted by the wars of the Roses, Mahomet the Conqueror was leading his nation on to victory. In fact, the aggrandizement of the Ottoman Sultans was anterior to that of the European sovereigns.

In other points we may notice the same advancement in their history. Their whole military system was beyond their age. They possessed disciplined infantry, when a standing army was unknown, and cavalry had not yet been supplanted by foot-soldiers in the rest of Europe. They had a regular commissariat department to supply their armies with the necessaries of war, and a special corps to do the work of Sappers and Miners, long before such a division of labour was adopted by Christendom. On the departments of artillery and engineering Mahomet II. bestowed his special attention. The Ottomans first made regular approaches in besieging a fortress, and became masters of the Italians in the art of fortification21.

It is curious also that a nation popularly considered to have consisted of unenlightened barbarians should have been far in advance of us in some of the points which we consider as the distinguishing features of modern European civilization. Every advantage of Free Trade was allowed to the foreign merchant who traded to the Turkish sea-ports22. A system of municipal government was established throughout their dominions. A religious toleration beyond the spirit of the age was carried out towards the Christian population of their kingdom. In this particular the difference in the spirit of the Christian and Turkish governments is well illustrated by a traditionary account of the answers of Amurath and Hunyades, when questioned by the Servians on the subject of the maintenance of their religion. While Hunyades is said to have declared that, if victorious, he would compel them to join the Latin Communion, Amurath’s famous answer was: “I will build a church near every mosque, and the people shall worship in whichever they may prefer23.”

But it was not to a purer moral principle that the system owed its origin. The clear sight of their rulers perceived that some toleration was necessary for the well-being of their composite empire. But the ruling genius of their creed was not tolerant then, any more than it is now. The institution of the Janissaries was in accordance with the tenets of their religion. But the protection of their Christian subjects was the conciliatory measure of a wise legislator, not of a devout Mahometan. Oh the one hand the compulsory conversion of a large portion of their hardier slave-population furnished them with a rich harvest of soldiers, while their toleration in other respects procured for them the contentment of their less warlike subjects.

The truth of the remark of Machiavelli that a man cannot found a state without opportunities, was not impugned by the rise of Othman and his dynasty. The divisions of the Seljukians seemed to invite the exaltation of some new power. A widely diffused Turkish population was left without a ruler. The imbecility of the Persian and Eastern Empires afforded ample scope for purposes of aggression. The distracted state of Christendom prevented any combination against the intrusion of Mussulmans in Europe.

Such were the external circumstances that favoured the rise of the Ottomans. But the great internal Causes of their successes we have traced to the genius of their early Sultans, and to their military organization, under which latter head must be included their peculiar feudal system and the institution of their Janissary corps. There were other incidental causes of their greatness, such as the warlike spirit common to the Tartar race and the Mahometan religion, the absolute position of the supreme head which gave unity to the empire, and its early progress in prudent legislation.

The failure of the two great elements of their power mainly caused their decline. The empire needed vigorous rulers; the Sultans after Solyman have been characterized by a native statesman as “either fools or tyrants.” It required a well-disciplined army; but after Solyman, the discipline of the Janissaries decayed; their very system was corrupted; they admitted native Turks into their body; they began to take wives and to ply trades, becoming turbulent citizens rather than soldiers; and with their decay fell the military organization of the state.