The Army.
Types of Turkish Soldiers.
Although I was fully aware before going to Constantinople that no traces of the magnificent army of former days were still to be seen, nevertheless, as soldiers are always a source of lively interest to me, I had no sooner arrived than I began to look about for them with eager curiosity. What I found, however, fell short of even what I had been led to expect. In place of the ancient costume, flowing, picturesque, and eminently warlike, they have adopted an ugly, forlorn uniform, consisting of red trousers, little scant jackets, stripes like a lackey’s livery, belts like those of college students, and on every head, from the Sultan’s down to the lowest man in the ranks, that miserable fez, which, besides being undignified and puerile, especially when perched on the head of a big, stout Mussulman, is the direct cause of any amount of ophthalmia and headache. The brilliancy of the Turkish army is lost, without any of that which belongs to the European military having been gained. The soldiers looked to me a mournful, half-hearted, dirty set of men. They may be brave, but they are certainly not impressive; and as to the nature of their training, one may form some idea of that from seeing officers and men employing their fingers in the street in place of handkerchiefs. One day I saw the soldier on guard at the bridge, where smoking is not allowed, bring this fact to the knowledge of a vice-consul by snatching the cigar out of his mouth; and on another occasion, in the mosque of the Dancing Dervishes, on the Rue de Pera, a soldier informed three Europeans that they were expected to uncover by knocking their hats off before my eyes: I knew very well that to raise a protesting voice on such occasions would mean nothing less than being seized and carried off bodily, like a bundle of old rags, to the guard-house. Hence throughout my entire stay at Constantinople my attitude toward the military was one of profound deference. On the other hand, one ceases to wonder at the uncouthness of the soldiers after seeing what sort of people they are before donning the uniform. One day in Skutari a hundred or so recruits, probably brought from the interior of Asia Minor, passed close by me, and it was a sight which aroused both my compassion and my disgust. They looked like those terrible bandits of Hassin the Mad who passed through Constantinople toward the close of the sixteenth century on their way to die by the Austrian cannon on the plain of Pesth. I can see before me now their wild, sinister faces, rough shocks of hair, half-naked, tattooed bodies, and barbarous ornaments, and I seem to smell again the close, sickening odor, like that of wild animals’ dens, which they left behind them in the street. When the first news was brought of the massacres in Bulgaria, at once my thoughts turned to them. “My Skutari friends, beyond a doubt,” I said to myself. It is a fact, however, that they form the one solitary picturesque feature which I am able to recall of the Mussulman army.
O glorious pageant of Bayezid, of Suleiman, of Muhammad! could one but behold you just once from the walls of Stambul, drawn up in glittering array upon the plain of Daûd Pasha! Every time I passed the triumphal gate of Adrianapolis I would be haunted by this brilliant vision, and pause to gaze fixedly at the opening, as though expecting each moment to see the pasha quartermaster come forth, heralding the approach of the imperial troops.
It was, in fact, the pasha quartermaster who marched at the head of the army, with two horse-tails, his insignia of rank, while behind him for a great distance flashed and glistened in the sunlight certain objects which were nothing less than the eight thousand brazen spoons fastened in the folds of the Janissaries’ turbans; in their midst could be seen the waving herons’ plumes and glittering armor of the colonels, followed by a crowd of servants laden with arms and provisions. Behind the Janissaries came a small troop of volunteers and pages dressed in silk, with iron mail, and shining head-pieces, accompanied by a band of music; after them, the cannoneers, with the cannon fastened together by means of metal chains; and then another small band of aghas, pages, chamberlains, and feudal soldiers, mounted on steeds with plumes and breast-plates. All of these were only the advance-guard, above whose closely-packed ranks floated thousands of brilliantly colored standards, waving horse-tails, and such a sea of lances, swords, bows, quivers, and arquebuses that it was not easy to distinguish the lines of swarthy faces burned by exposure in the Candian and Persian wars; accompanying them was the discordant sound of drum and flute, of trombone and kettledrum, mingling with the voices of the singers who escorted the Janissaries, and, with the rattle of arms, clanking of chains, and hoarse cries of Allah, forming a mighty roar, at once inspiriting and terrible, which could be heard from the Daûd Pasha camp to the other bank of the Golden Horn. O poets and painters, you who have dwelt with loving touch upon every picturesque detail of that vanished life of the Orient! come to my aid now, that together we may recall to life the Third Muhammad’s famous army and send it forth, brilliant and complete, from the ancient walls of Stambul.
Passed the advance-guard, we see another glittering body of troops. Is it the Sultan? No, as yet the deity has barely quitted his temple. This is only the favorite vizier’s retinue, consisting of forty aghas clad in sable, and mounted upon horses caparisoned with velvet and with silver bits in their mouths; behind them are a crowd of pages and gorgeous grooms, leading other forty horses by the bridle, with gilded harness, and laden with shields, maces, and cimeters.
Another troop advances. This is not the Sultan, either, but a body of state officials—the chief treasurer, members of the council, and the high dignitaries of the Seraglio—and with them a band of players and a throng of volunteers wearing purple caps decorated with birds’ wings and dressed in furs, scarlet silk, leopard skins, and Hungarian kolpaks, armed with long lances entwined with silk and garlands of flowers.
Still another sparkling wave of horsemen pours out of the Adrianapolis gate, but it is not the Sultan yet. This is the train of the grand vizier. First comes a crowd of mounted arquebusiers, furieri, and aghas, all high in favor with the Grand Seigneur; after them forty aghas of the grand vizier, surrounded by a forest of twelve hundred bamboo lances, borne by twelve hundred pages, and then the forty pages of the grand vizier clad in orange color and armed with bows, their quivers richly ornamented with gold. Following them are two hundred more youths, divided into six bands, each band having a distinctive color, and, riding in their midst, the governors and relatives of the chief minister; after these come a throng of grooms, armor-bearers, employés, servants, pages, and aghas, wearing gold-embroidered garments, and a troop of standard-bearers carrying aloft a multitude of silken flags; and last the kiâya, minister of the interior, escorted by twelve sciau, or legal executioners, followed by the grand vizier’s band.
Another host pours out from the city-walls, and still it is not the Sultan, but a throng of sciau, furieri, and underlings, gorgeously attired and forming the retinues of the jurisconsults, the molla and muderri; close behind them are the head-masters of the falcon, vulture, hawk, and kite hunts, followed by a line of horsemen carrying on their saddles leopards trained for the chase, and a crowd of falconers, esquires, grooms with ferrets, standard-bearers, and drummers, and packs of caparisoned and bejewelled dogs.
Another brilliant concourse sweeps out: the crowds of spectators prostrate themselves. At last the Sultan? No, not yet. This is not the head of the army, but its heart, the holy flame of courage and religious enthusiasm, the sacred ark of the Mussulman, around which mountains of decapitated heads have been reared, torrents of human blood have flowed—the green ensign of the Prophet, the flag among flags, taken from its place in the mosque of Sultan Ahmed, and now floating in the midst of a ferocious mob of dervishes clad in lion and bear skins, a circle of rapt-looking preaching sheikhs in camel’s-hair cloaks, and two companies of emirs, descendants of the Prophet, wearing the green turban; all of whom together raise a hoarse clamor of shouts, prayers, shrill cries, and singing.
Another imposing troop of horsemen herald the approach, not of the Sultan yet, but of the judiciary, the judge of Constantinople and chief judge of Asia and Europe, whose enormous turbans may be seen towering above the heads of the sciau, who brandish their silver maces to clear a space for them through the crowd. With them ride the favorite vizier and vizier kaimakâm, their turbans decorated with silver stars and braided with gold; all the viziers of the Divan, before whom are borne horse-tails dyed with henné, attached to the ends of long red and blue poles; and last of all the military judges, followed by a train of attendants dressed in leopard skins and armed with lances—pages, armor-bearers, and sutlers.
The next company pours out, glittering, magnificent. Surely the Sultan? No—the grand vizier, wearing a purple caftan lined with sable and mounted upon a horse fairly covered with steel and gold, he is followed by a throng of attendants clad in red velvet, and a crowd of high dignitaries, and the lieutenant-generals of the Janissaries, among whom the muftis shine out like swans in the midst of a flock of peacocks; after these, between two lines of spearmen carrying gilded spears and two lines of archers with crescent-shaped plumes, come the gorgeous grooms of the Seraglio, leading by the bridle a long file of horses from Arabia, Turkestan, Persia, and Caramania, their saddles of velvet, reins gilded, stirrups chased, and trappings covered with silver spangles, and laden with shields and arms glittering with jewels; finally the two sacred camels are seen, bearing one the Koran, the other a fragment of the Kaaba.
The grand vizier’s retinue has passed, and a deafening clamor of drums and trumpets assails the ear. The spectators fly in every direction, cannon roar, a multitude of running footmen pour through the gate brandishing their cimeters, and here at last, in the midst of a thick forest of spears, plumes, and swords, the central point of those dazzling ranks of gold and silver head-pieces, beneath a cloud of waving satin banners, behold the Sultan of sultans, King of kings, the dispenser of thrones to the princes of the world, the shadow of God upon earth, emperor and sovereign lord of the White Sea and of the Black, of Rumelia and Anatolia, of the province of Salkadr, of Diarbekr, of Kurdistan, Aderbigian, Agiem, Sciam, Haleb, Egypt, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, the coasts of Arabia and Yemen, together with all the other dominions conquered by the arms of his mighty predecessors and august ancestors or subdued by his own flaming and triumphant sword. The solemn and imposing train sweeps slowly by. Now and again, the serried columns swaying a little to right or left, a glimpse is caught of the three jewelled plumes which surmount the turban of the deity, the serious, pallid countenance, the breast blazing with diamonds; then the ranks close in once more, the cavalcade passes on, the threatening cimeters are lowered, the bystanders raise their bowed heads, the vision disappears.
After the imperial retinue a crowd of court officials come, one carrying on his head the Sultan’s stool, another his sabre, another his turban, another his mantle, a fifth the silver coffee-pot, a sixth the golden coffee-pot; then more troops of pages, and after them the white eunuchs; then three hundred mounted chamberlains in white caftans, and the hundred carriages of the harem with silvered wheels, drawn by oxen hung with garlands of flowers or horses with velvet trappings, and escorted by a troop of black eunuchs; then three hundred mules file by laden with baggage and treasures from the court; after them a thousand camels carrying water and a thousand dromedaries laden with provisions; next a crowd of miners, armorers, and workmen of various kinds from Stambul, accompanied by a rabble of buffoons and conjurers; and finally the bulk of the fighting ranks of the army—hordes of Janissaries, yellow silidars, purple azabs, spahis with red ensigns, foreign cavalry with white standards, cannon that belch forth blocks of lead and marble, the feudal soldiery from three continents, barbarian volunteers from the outlying provinces of the empire, seas of flags, forests of plumes, torrents of turbans—an iron avalanche on its way to overrun Europe like a curse sent from God, in whose track will be found nothing but a desert strewn with smoking ruins and heaps of skulls.