CHAPTER XVIII
CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE A SURPRISE TO EUROPE; CONQUEST OF TREBIZOND; SUMMARY OF ITS HISTORY. CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF MAHOMET: AS CONQUEROR; HE INCREASES TURKISH FLEET; AS ADMINISTRATOR; AS LEGISLATOR; HIS RECKLESSNESS OF HUMAN LIFE; AS STUDENT; WAS HE A RELIGIOUS FANATIC? SUMMARY.
The capture of Constantinople sent an electric shock throughout Europe. The great achievement of the young sultan came as an almost incredible surprise. During the whole subsequent course of his reign the greatest question of interest in the West was, What progress is Mahomet making? Menaces of what he intended to do, reports of what he had done, occupied the attention of all. As with the capture of the Queen City the Greek empire came to an end, it is not my purpose to endeavour to tell the story of his subsequent life and conquests. But as he figured so largely on the European stage, and as his exploits and administration firmly established the Turks in Europe, it is desirable to indicate some of the principal events of his reign and to sketch the leading features of his character.
Conquest of Trebizond.
His successes as a soldier were many and important. One of the first of his conquests was to put an end to the empire of Trebizond. As its history and decay played an unimportant part in the destruction of the Greek empire, it has been unnecessary to give an account of this pretentiously named State. It had occupied a narrow strip of land along the southern shore of the Black Sea, of varying length, from a point near Batoum towards the west, on one occasion stretching to within sight of the Bosporus, but never including either Amassus or Sinope. Its population, though Greek-speaking, was mostly composed of Lazes.
Summary of its history.
When the Latin invaders were on the point of capturing Constantinople, two young Greek princes had escaped to Trebizond, defeated the Byzantine governor, and one of them, named Alexis, was acclaimed emperor. He took the title of Grand Comnenus and Emperor of the Faithful Romans. It seemed for a short while as if he, instead of Theodore Lascaris at Nicaea, might take the lead of the Greek peoples, and indeed Theodore had to arrange with the sultan of Konia—or, as he called himself, of Roum, that is, of the Romans—to prevent Alexis from attempting to extend his territory to Nicaea. But the power of the Trebizond empire did not increase, although the city from which it took its name became large, wealthy, and populous. Even before 1228 it had become tributary to the Seljuk sultan and so continued till 1280. A series of more or less uninteresting and incompetent emperors and empresses continued to hold a semi-independent position, amid alternate intrigues and struggles with Turkoman and Turkish tribes, and fierce fights with the Genoese, until the advent of Timour. The emperor of Trebizond, as in later years he called himself, consented to become the vassal of this great leader, and agreed to send twenty ships to join a like number which the Greek emperor was to prepare at Constantinople to attack Bajazed. The defeat of the Ilderim at Angora rendered such joint action unnecessary. When Timour retired, Trebizond languished until its territory was little more than a small district around the capital. It was first attacked by the Ottoman Turks in 1442, and made a successful defence. After the capture of Constantinople, the emperor John consented to become a tributary prince of Mahomet, but shortly afterwards attempted to unite the emirs of Sinope and Caramania and the Christian kings of Georgia and Lesser Armenia in a league to attack his suzerain. Before anything could be done, John died, and when Mahomet, in 1461, having subjugated the Greeks in Morea, turned his attention to Trebizond, no allies were ready to aid David, the new emperor. A great expedition of sixty thousand cavalry and eighty thousand infantry was led by Mahomet himself to David’s capital, while a large fleet co-operated with the army. The alternative was given of massacre or submission. The emperor surrendered and Trebizond became part of the Ottoman empire. A large party of the population was subsequently sent to repeople Constantinople.[522]
Mahomet as conqueror.
Mahomet’s biographers claim that he conquered two empires and seven kingdoms: those of Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Moldavia, Morea, Caramania, and Kastemouni. The two empires may be admitted; the seven kingdoms can only be said—even where they are entitled to take rank as kingdoms—to have been conquered by Mahomet, with the reserve that he reaped where his ancestors had sown. But with this proviso the statement is sufficiently near the truth to be accepted.
If his successes had been equal to his ambition or to his designs he might fairly be classed with the world’s great military leaders. He fought, however, with far less success than Alexander, who was his great exemplar, and almost always with the advantage of overwhelming numbers. His progress was checked by the courage of John Hunyadi and the Hungarians. Scanderbeg continued for twenty years, with comparatively few followers and small resources, to wage guerilla warfare against him, and the knights of St. John triumphantly repelled his attacks upon Rhodes. Nor was he able to defeat the power of Persia.
MAHOMET THE CONQUEROR.
From a painting formerly in the Sultan’s palace at Top Capou at Constantinople, and attributed to Gentile Bellini. I am unaware by whom the photograph was taken or where the original picture now is.
MAHOMET II.
From a medallion in the British Museum, which, according to Sir A. H. Layard, was probably executed by Gentile Bellini from the portrait painted in 1480 by Bellini himself. The portrait is in the possession of Lady Layard, and an engraving of it is given in Sir A. H. Layard’s edition of Kugler’s ‘Italian Schools of Painting’ (vol. i. p. 304).
Though the two portraits are surrounded with very similar and beautiful arabesque arches and evidently are of the same person, that of Sir Henry Layard differs from the one reproduced on the opposite page in showing a more receding chin and a thinner beard than even the medallion. The name of Gentile Bellini appears on both paintings.
Mahomet’s wars were essentially those of conquest. He required no pretext for making war. It was sufficient that he wished to extend his own territory. His warlike nation during the first years after the conquest of the city was always ready to aid in the execution of his designs against other states. His energy and ambition allowed him little time for rest and as the years went by wore out the strength and even the patience of his followers. He kept his army—which included almost every available man of the Turkish race under his sway—occupied almost continually for nearly twelve years after 1453, until at length, worn out with long marches, weakened by constant labour, and having sacrificed their goods, their horses, and their health for their master, his soldiers, including the very Janissaries themselves, became discontented and clamoured for rest. Critobulus, who makes this statement, records that an expedition into Illyria was reluctantly postponed because Mahomet was compelled to recognise at last that rest was absolutely necessary for troops who had not known it for years.
He improves Turkish fleet.
From the moment of his conquest of the city he saw the importance of keeping up a strong fleet. He maintained and enlarged that which he had prepared for the blockade of the city, and was at all times able, upon any sign of revolt, to send a sufficient force by sea to maintain his rule. Indeed, it may be said that once he had imposed his peace upon all the districts round the Marmora and the Aegean, his fleet enabled him to preserve it. With its aid, too, he succeeded in exacting tribute from Egypt and Syria. Critobulus notes that his master, having observed that the Venetians and Genoese had gained their success in the Mediterranean by means of large ships, constructed a number of new vessels which were able to cope with them, and raised a sufficient number of oarsmen to resist their attacks on the Turkish coasts.
Mahomet as reformer of the administration.
Nor was Mahomet less active in improving the civil organisation of his government. We have already seen that before his conquest of the city, he commenced reforms in the collection of the taxes. He dismissed incompetent pashas and replaced them by others distinguished by their intelligence, their honesty, and their military capacity, for it must always be remembered that militarism was and is the vital part of Turkish administration. Critobulus claims that the aim he had most completely at heart was to secure the best and the most just administration possible. The finances of the country he found in the utmost disorder. One third of the revenue was wasted, and this in a short time he made available for his own purposes. He continued his reform in the system of tax-collecting and, while thus increasing the revenue, took care to strike terror into the farmers of the taxes and all those whose duty it was to see that money entered the public treasury and that it was not plundered when it got there. Both in the government of the army and in the civil administration Mahomet bestowed the utmost care upon details, and trusted nothing to his subordinates until he had seen every preparation made for a satisfactory control.
Mahomet as law-giver.
The Turks speak of Mahomet as the Canouni or Lawgiver, and the epithet is deserved. But while his edicts in aid of better organisation and less corrupt administration are deservedly praised by them, it is as the lawgiver that we come upon one of the darkest sides of his character. Von Hammer points out that the Turkish histories of many centuries furnish examples of political fratricides, but that it was reserved to the law of Mahomet the Second to legitimise the slaughter of younger brothers by the Ottoman sultans.[523] His predecessors had practised the crime. Mahomet not only followed their example but made the practice legal.
His recklessness of human life.
Connected with all his achievements there is the stain of blood. Many contemporary writers speak of him as a monster of cruelty. We may discredit the statement that he caused Christians to be put to death while he feasted, as insufficiently proved. But even Critobulus, who is usually an apologist, has, as a faithful historian, to speak of his cruel deeds. When Castrion surrendered, he killed every man in the garrison and sent the women and children into slavery. When Gardikion submitted, its defenders were treated in a similar manner.[524] Von Hammer dismisses as unfounded the story of Mahomet having the bodies of fourteen pages ripped open to find who had eaten a poor woman’s cucumbers, and the singularly dramatic story of the slaughter of Irene in order to demonstrate to his troops that though he loved the most beautiful woman in the world he was yet master of himself, justly remarking that the massacre of garrisons faithful to their trust, the execution of the members of the imperial family of Trebizond and of the king of Bosnia, cry sufficiently aloud without need of exaggeration. Resistance to his lusts or even to his lawful desires was punished relentlessly by death.[525] He executed his grand vizier Mahmoud because of his independence. He tortured and then put to death his old tutor and vizier Halil Pasha. He sawed five hundred prisoners in halves whom he had captured in Achaia. ‘He was more cruel than Nero, and delighted in bloodshed,’ says Tetaldi. Probably it would be impossible to find a contemporary writer who does not employ similar language. Many of his acts are without the shadow of excuse. They are the result of wild impulse which had never been under control, and deserve to be classed as wanton cruelties inflicted by a man who was reckless of human suffering. There are others which may be put down to what he probably regarded as the exigencies of his position. If in his opinion the assassination of a brother, the slaughter of a great number of his enemies in war, and the murder of those of his subjects who opposed him were necessary to the accomplishment of his objects, he never hesitated. Like other great military rulers, Caesar yesterday, Napoleon to-day, Mahomet regarded men as so many counters, to be kept so long as they were useful in his game, to be cast aside when no longer wanted. Belonging to a family accustomed to absolute rule of the Eastern type, to a race which has never valued life as against military success, and having been reared amid dangers where his struggle for power and even for life was almost daily, he swept away every man who opposed him. His enemies would have dealt hardly with him, and he never appeared to doubt that he was justified in dealing hardly with or getting rid of them. It was part of the game of war. Vae victis! And yet this man seems occasionally to have sympathised with the suffering he had caused, and even to have exercised rigorous justice. Critobulus, after recounting many cruel deeds, adds that Mahomet showed special kindness towards prisoners of war, and whenever in his rides through the city he encountered them would stop his horse and give generously to all. According to Cantemir and other Turkish historians, this monster of cruelty and legaliser of fratricide bowstrung his eldest son for having violated the wife of another.
Mahomet as student.
It is a welcome change to turn from Mahomet the blood-drinker, the lawgiver who first made the horrible practice legal which was to shock Europe during nearly four centuries, to Mahomet the student, the patron and companion of scholars and artists, and the man who was interested in questions of religion. He was a linguist and knew, says Phrantzes,[526] five languages besides his own—Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chaldean, and Persian. His favourite study was history. The achievements of Alexander the Great had filled the world from India westward with his fame, had been the subject of romance, and had caused his name to be regarded throughout the East as that of an almost supernatural hero. Alexander figures constantly in the lives of the Turkish sultans as a fascinating historical figure. As late as 1621 a French writer notes that the then reigning sultan while at dinner had the history of his predecessors read over to him or the Life of Alexander the Great.[527] But upon none had the memory of the Macedonian made so great an impression as upon Mahomet. Alexander was the leader whose career was to be imitated and whose conquests were to be rivalled. His contemporaries frequently compare the two men. ‘It was,’ says Critobulus, ‘the Alexanders and the Pompeys, Caesar and the like rulers, whom Mahomet proposed to himself as models.’ ‘This young Alexander,’ says Ducas, referring to the transport of part of Mahomet’s fleet over land, ‘has surpassed the former one, and has led his ships over the hills as over the waves.’ ‘He wished,’ says Tetaldi, ‘to conquer the whole world, to see more than Alexander and Caesar or any other valiant man who has ever lived.’ Phrantzes describes him as a careful reader of the Lives of Alexander, of Octavius Caesar, of the Great Constantine, and of Theodosius.
Mahomet had continued from his boyhood to show his interest in studies, not only by his own reading but by welcoming other students, ‘for he was constantly striving to acquire those arts by which he should excel his predecessors and extend the bounds of his kingdom as far as possible.’ ‘He gathered to himself virtuous and learned men,’ says Phrantzes. He was, says Lonicerus,[528] an admirer of intellect and of the arts. He caused learned men and skilled artists to be brought to him at great expense. He employed Bellini,[529] a Venetian, and other artists, and loaded them with gifts. Virtue strove with vice within him. He had read all the history, says Critobulus, that was accessible to him in Arabic and Persian, and such Greek literature as had been translated into either of these languages, including Aristotle and the writings of the Stoics, and was skilled in astrology and in mathematics. A few years after he became sultan a certain George Ameroukes is found attached to his suite, a man described by Critobulus[530] as learned in philosophy, natural science, and mathematics. Mahomet made much of him, and called him often to discuss philosophical questions. Not a day passed without interviews with him or with other learned men attached to the court. In matters relating to foreign countries he was especially curious. Having met with the geographical writings of Ptolemy, he not only had them translated into Arabic, but charged George to make a map of the world with all the indications that he could give of the various countries, rivers, lakes, mountains, cities, and distances; for, says Critobulus, ‘the science of geography appeared to him necessary and most useful.’[531] In the course of his expedition to reduce Mitylene and Lemnos he visited the ruins of Troy and the traditional tombs of Achilles and Ajax and admired the good fortune of the heroes who had a poet like Homer to commemorate their deeds. ‘It is said,’ cautiously remarks his biographer, ‘that he believed that God had charged him to be the avenger of the ancient city.’[532] He frequently called the patriarch, the learned Gennadius, and discussed with him questions of theology.
Was Mahomet a religious fanatic?
Mahomet cannot justly be represented as a religious fanatic. He of course conformed to the practices of Islam, built many mosques, and did nothing to show irreverence for the teaching of the Prophet. He was possibly in his youth a devout believer in the tenets of Islam. But it is difficult to believe that a man who conversed freely with Gennadius on the difference between Christianity and his own religion, and who had paid as much attention as he had paid to Greek and Arabian philosophy, should be a fanatic. Mahomet’s most recent Turkish biographer claims that he was tolerant and alleges as a reason for this statement that he did not follow the example of the Arab conquerors and put all to the sword who did not accept Islam. The more fanatical Mahometans probably urged him to take this course.[533] The hope of plunder and the value of captives as slaves probably furnished a more effective argument against general extermination.
Moreover, Mahomet had need of an industrious population, not only for the repeopling of the capital but to furnish a revenue.
His subjects, even of both religions, regarded him as a Gallio, or as a man of no religion.[534] The statements that in private he branded the Prophet as a robber and impostor, or that he was half converted to Christianity by Gennadius and that shortly before his death he became a great worshipper of relics and burned candles before them, may be dismissed as not supported by trustworthy evidence.[535] The sovereign’s readiness even to discuss Christianity and speak with unbelievers upon questions of philosophy and religion would be certain to obtain for him the reputation of atheist from the ignorant among his own people; for to the faithful Mahometan no other religions need be discussed: they exist only for condemnation; to study them is to express a doubt upon the all-sufficiency of the teaching of the Koran, and a doubt on such a subject is treason to the faith. But at least such accusations do not point towards fanaticism. The man who by one party is claimed as almost persuaded to be a Christian and is regarded by the other as an atheist or at least a disloyal believer in Islam can hardly have been a religious persecutor. It may be true that after conversing with the patriarch or with any other unbeliever he went through the prescribed forms of washing, but if he wished to preserve the loyalty of his subjects it was necessary for him to observe such formalities of purification. He was at the head of the Turkish nation, that is, of an armed camp, a nation in the field whose chief if not sole bond of unity was, as it still remains, the belief in the prophet-hood of the founder of Islam. Nearly all his soldiers held the one great creed and went into battle with shouts of ‘Allah!’ and ‘Mahomet!’ They believed, as the followers of the Prophet have always fervently believed, that death on the battle-field fighting for Islam is the shortest road to Paradise and the Houris. The Turks were ready to obey and endure unto death for the sake of the sovereign whom Allah had placed at their head. Some of them were as full of religious enthusiasm as crusaders, as confident that they were working for God as Cromwell’s Ironsides, and as fanatic as a grossly ignorant army can be which believes itself to be immeasurably superior to the enemy because, on the one hand, it possesses the true faith, while, on the other, the enemy, more learned in the world’s despicable science and philosophy falsely so called, is in the abysmal darkness of unbelief. The support of such men was not to be risked by any nonconformity with the rites which are the outward signs of Islam. Mahomet would have been of all rulers the most blind to his own interest if he had derided their beliefs.
But though Mahomet was the leader of a nation containing many fanatics, there is nothing to show that he shared their fanaticism. If he appealed to it, it was because it gave force to his army. He was no more inclined to be a fanatic himself than was Napoleon to be a democrat when he called upon his troops to fulfil their mission of carrying democratic principles to England and other countries assumed to be suffering under despotic rule. In a different age and under different circumstances Mahomet might have been a thoughtful student, or an excellent civil administrator, but it is difficult to conceive that he could ever have been a religious persecutor.
He remained all his life a student, desirous of learning, but he was at the same time a man of energy, a successful general, and a good administrator. He was without high ideals of life, but capable of spasmodic kindness, a man not given to sensual pleasures—in his later years at least—sober, intolerant of drunkenness, seeking his pleasure in glory.[536] He appears to me essentially a lonely man; one who took each man’s censure but reserved his judgment; one who, in his own phrase, would pluck out a hair from his beard if he believed that it knew his designs. He was too suspicious and too highly placed to have friends. He was supremely selfish and only considered himself bound to respect his promise when it suited his purpose to do so. Circumstances compelled him to be a soldier, and his great natural abilities made him a successful one, but his ambition, which was spasmodically great—which meditated the conquest of Naples, an expedition against Rome, and other conquests, as stages in his great design of conquering the world[537]—wanted pertinacity and was joined to an emotional, almost a sentimental, nature. He relieved his loneliness and friendlessness by hard work, study, and the companionship of artists and learned men.
Cantemir calls him the most glorious prince who ever occupied the Ottoman throne, but adds that he did not listen to the voice of conscience, and that he broke his word without any hesitation when it seemed politic so to do. Chalcondylas speaks of him as great in intellect, in conquest, and in cruelty. Halil Ganem says, with truth, that by his military exploits Mahomet occupies the first place in the Ottoman annals. He impartially states also that he shed abundance of blood to secure peaceful possession of the throne, and for his pleasure. ‘To shed blood became for this grand monarch a function which he exercised with an incredible maestria.’[538] His long series of victorious conquests and especially his success in the capture of the city have caused him to be known in Ottoman history as the Fetieh or Conqueror.
In forming a judgment upon the character of a ruler whose reign marks an epoch of importance in the world’s history, it is needful to take account of his life and his acts in their entirety: to ask what the man accomplished and with what means; what were his ideals and how far he realised them. We may recognise that Cromwell was a great ruler notwithstanding Drogheda, and that William the Third was a great statesman in spite of Glencoe, even supposing that he fully approved of that massacre. Taking a broad view of the character of Mahomet, we may observe that his conquests were made by means of overwhelming numbers, that his army from its composition was the most mobile in existence, and that its greatest success was but the final act in a series which had been gained by his predecessors. But while giving due importance to these considerations, it yet remains true that his reign marks an epoch, not only of Turkish history, where its influence is the most conspicuous, but in that of Europe generally. To him more than to any other ruler the organisation of the Turks as a governing power is due. To him must also be credited the creation of Turkey as a European State. Subsequent sultans built on the foundations which he had laid. It is also not too much to say that none of his successors have done so much to give orderly government to the Turkish race as Mahomet. But for the fact that the influence of Moslemism strangles the moral and intellectual growth of the Turkish people, the rule of a few more sultans possessed of the like capacity and determination to secure strong, orderly, and even just government might possibly have placed Turkey among the civilised nations.