The Powers of Europe and Fall of Sebastopol

by A British officer

In the former half of the sixth century, Justinian was Emperor of the East. His empire nearly corresponded in geographical extent with the country which we now call Turkey in Europe. During his reign, Constantinople was visited by a company of warlike strangers, whose savage aspect filled all the people with amazement and fear. Their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was gracefully bound with ribbons, but in the rest of their habit they resembled the Huns. These were the first Turks ever seen in Europe. They had come to offer the Emperor their alliance, which was accepted at a given price. They had travelled from the foot of Mount Caucasus, where they first heard of the splendor and weakness of the Roman Empire. Their origin was beyond that celebrated ridge, and in the midst of another no less celebrated, and which is variously known as the Caf, the Imaus, the Golden Mountains, and the Girdle of the Earth. Here lived the people called Geougen, governed by a great Khan. In the hills they inhabited were many minerals. Iron and other mines were worked for them by the most despised portion of their slaves, who were known by the name of Turks. These slaves, under Bertezena, one of their number, rebelled against the great Khan, and succeeded in possessing themselves of their native country. From freedom they proceeded to conquest, and it was in the course of their victories that they found their way to the Caucasus. Nearly a century elapsed, and Heraclius was Emperor. He formed an alliance with the Turks, and so honored their prince as to place the imperial diadem on his head, and salute him with a tender embrace as his son. In the ninth century the Turks were introduced into Arabia. The Caliph Motassem employed them as his own guards in his own capital. He educated them in the exercise of arms, and in the profession of the Mahometan faith. No less a number than 50,000 of these hardy foreigners did he thus foolishly establish in the very heart of his dominions. In due time they became masters of some portions of the country into which they had been admitted as mercenaries. For one of their princes, Mahmood or Mahmud, the title of Sultan was invented, about a thousand years after Christ. Its meaning is autocrat or lord. His conquests were very extensive, and stretched from Transoxiana to Ispahan—from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus.

Toward the close of the twelfth century, Zingis (or Genghis) Khan organized incredible hordes of Moguls and Tartars, and conquered nearly all Asia west of India. After his death, the Tartar Empire was broken up into fragments. Most of these resultant little kingdoms gradually embraced Mahometanism, and amongst them was laid the foundation of what is now called the Ottoman (or Turkish) Empire. Incited by the example and success of the terrible Tartar, Shah Soliman, prince of the town of Nera, on the Caspian Sea, spread the terror of his arms all through Asia Minor, as far as the Euphrates. He was drowned in the passage of that river. His son, Orthogrul, succeeded him. This chief was the father of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the appellation of the Caliph Othman. He was an aspiring and clever man, and soon freed himself from the control of a superior, as the power of the Mogul Khans had become well nigh extinct. He resolved to propagate the religion of the Koran by every means in his power; and began his holy war against the infidels by making a descent into Nicomedia. This he did in July, 1299. He was entirely victorious; and for twenty-seven years he repeated similar inroads, and achieved similar conquests in other directions. Towards the close of his reign, Prusa (Boursa), the capital of Bithynia, surrendered to his son Orchan, who, after his father’s death, made it the seat of his government. This was in the year 1326, and from that time we may date the true era of the Ottoman Empire,—the name of which is plainly derived from that of the Caliph Othman. His power rapidly increased. Many cities and districts fell into his hands,—amongst others, Ephesus, and the other six places, in which were the seven churches of Asia. Christianity in all these localities, except Philadelphia, was speedily extinguished, and supplanted by Islamism. Orchan had two sons, Soliman and Amurath. The former subdued Thrace, and possessed himself of Gallipoli, and was at last killed by a fall from his horse. The aged Emir (for no higher title had Orchan assumed) wept, and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. Amurath stept into his place, and wielded the scimitar with all his father’s energy. By the advice of his vizier, he selected for his own use the fifth part of the Christian youth in the provinces which he subjugated. His choice fell on the stoutest and most beautiful. These were named “yengi cheri,” or new soldiers. In more recent times the haughty troops, originated in this way, have gone by the name of Janissaries. At first they were courageous and zealous in the cause of their new master and new religion. For a long while they were the élite of the Turkish forces, and in critical outbreaks have often been a source of great anxiety to the sultans themselves.

Bajazet, his son and successor, surnamed “Ilderim,” or Lightning, was a man of fiery and energetic temperament. His territory was rapidly extended over the whole country, from Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates. He turned his arms against Hungary; and at Nicopolis defeated 100,000 Christians, who had proudly boasted that if the sky should fall they could uphold it on their lances. Bajazet boasted that he would advance to Germany and Italy, and feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s at Rome. A fit of the gout prevented his fulfilment of this threat. Meanwhile there rose up another great Mogul conqueror, Timour, or Tamerlane, who avenged the defeat of his ancestors upon the Turks. Bajazet (who had assumed the title of sultan) was conquered and taken captive. From the Irtysh and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hands of Timour; his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might have aspired to conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. But he was not master of a single galley, with which to cross the Bosphorus or Dardanelles. This insuperable obstacle checked his career. At length he died, and the Ottoman power, like a strong tree recovering itself after a storm, began again to stand erect and flourish.

The great-grandson of Bajazet was Mahomet II. He emulated the Grecian Alexander. He laid siege to Constantinople, investing it with an army of 258,000 Turks. His navy comprised about 320 vessels, of which 18 were galleys of war. He had engaged the services of a Danish, or Hungarian, founder of cannon, who made him a field-piece capable of throwing a ball, which weighed 600 pounds, more than a mile. This could be fired only seven times in one day. Never before had the recent invention of gunpowder been employed with such terrible effect as at this siege of Constantinople. The inhabitants of that city were more than 100,000, but of those not more than 4,970, together with a body of 2,000 strangers, were capable of bearing arms. How small a garrison to defend a city of thirteen, or perhaps sixteen, miles in extent! Yet, under these doleful circumstances, the city was distracted with religious discord, just as Jerusalem was before and during its siege by Titus. An immense chain closed the mouth of the harbor, whilst the mouth of the Bosphorus was defended by a fleet which was superior to that of the Turks. The city seemed incapable of being reduced. The Turks despaired: the Christians triumphed. In this perplexity it occurred to Mahomet to transport his fleet across the land. By amazing ingenuity and toil, he accomplished this feat. The distance was ten miles, yet in a single night he thus launched eighty of his light vessels into the harbor. The success of this scheme was perfect. He found his way into the city, which was taken May 29th, 1453. The last Palæologus, Constantine XI., fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. The siege had lasted fifty-three days. Besides the multitudes that fell in fight, about 60,000 of the unhappy Greeks were reduced to the condition of slaves. Most of those were soon dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. The church of St. Sophia was speedily stripped of all its pictures and images, and before the lapse of many hours, the muezzin, or crier, ascended the most lofty turret and proclaimed the ezan, or public invitation, in the name of God and his prophet; the Imam preached; and Mahomet the Second performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated before the last of the Cæsars. From St. Sophia he proceeded to the august but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of the great Constantine; but which, in a very short time, had been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind, and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry—“The spider has wove his web in the imperial palace; and the owl has sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.”

ABDUL MEDJID, SULTAN OF TURKEY.

Mahomet removed the seat of his government to Constantinople; a city so obviously marked out by nature for the metropolis of a vast empire. The population was speedily renewed. Before the end of September, five thousand families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under pain of death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital. The Sultan’s throne was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Moslem subjects; but he strove by a rational policy to collect the scattered remnant of the Greeks. These returned in crowds as soon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion. The churches were shared between the two religions; their limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandson of Mahomet, the Greeks enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of this equal partition. After effecting many other triumphs of his arms, Mahomet died in 1480, in the midst of great projects he was devising against Rome and Persia. His grandson soon dethroned and murdered his own father, and commenced a vigorous reign under the title of Selim I. He defeated the Mamelukes, and in 1517 conquered Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. During fifty years the arms of the Ottomans, both by sea and land, were the terror of Europe and Asia. Especially was this the case during the government of Selim’s son, Soliman I., surnamed the Magnificent. His term of power extended from 1519 to 1566. This energetic tyrant took Belgrade, the island of Rhodes (from the knights of St. John), and Buda. He also subdued half of Hungary. He exacted a tribute from Moldavia, and so far mastered the Persians as to make Bagdad, Mesopotamia, and Georgia subject to him. Under this monarch the Ottoman empire reached its climax of renown and power. Before his death, symptoms of decline began to manifest themselves. Though extending his authority over an immense tract of country, he had failed to develop the internal strength, and consolidate the internal union, of his kingdom. The conquered nations were not properly incorporated, so as to constitute an integral part of Turkey. Hence, the frequency of the revolts, which, with varying success, for a long time after the death of Soliman, alike disturbed the peace and exhausted the strength of the Byzantine government. Ever since 1566, the Ottoman sovereigns have, in most instances, ascended the throne from a prison, and then surrendered themselves to the effeminate luxuries of the seraglio, until their despicable reign terminated either by assassination, or by deposition and another imprisonment. Several grand viziers, or prime ministers, have at different periods supplied their masters’ deficiencies and screened their vices. Through the zeal and talents of these active servants of the State, it has been retarded in its declension and preserved from utter disintegration. The people continued for many years to sink deeper and deeper into ignorance, poverty, and helplessness, whilst in the provinces rapacious Pashas exceeded the cupidity and emulated the voluptuousness of the Sultan in the capital. The Sublime Porte, as the Ottoman government is often called, became an object of contempt and ridicule to all European nations. It remained inactive and unprogressive, whilst each of these was rapidly striving on towards the goal of intelligence and freedom, which still waits to be fully attained. Blindly attached to their fatalistic doctrines, and elated by their past military glory, the Turks looked upon foreigners with proud scorn, and despised them as dogs and infidels. Without any settled place, but incited by hatred of the Christians and a thirst for conquest, they carried on wars with Persia, Venice, Hungary, and Poland. The mutinies of the janissaries and the rebellions of subordinate governors often became dangerous in the extreme: but the ruling despot contrived from time to time to exterminate the enemies he feared, by the dagger or the bowstring; and the ablest men were not unfrequently sacrificed to the hatred of the soldiery or of the sacred college. The successor to the throne commonly put all his brothers to death, whilst the people regarded with apathy either the murder of a cruel Sultan whom they hated, or of a weak one, whom they could not fear.

The present Sultan Abdul Medjid Khan, born the 6th of May, 1822, thirty-first sovereign of the family of Osman, and twenty-eighth since the taking of Constantinople, succeeded his father, Sultan Mahmoud Khan, on the 1st of July, 1839. He was commencing his seventeenth year when he ascended the throne. He looked a little older than he really was, although his appearance was far from announcing a robust constitution. Some months previously an inflammation of the lungs had endangered his life. He had been saved by the care of an Armenian Roman Catholic, who was renowned for his cures. Slender and tall, he had the same long, pale face as his father; his black eyebrows, less arched than those of Mahmoud, announced a mind of less haughtiness and of less energy. His lips are rather thick, and he is slightly marked with the small-pox. At this epoch of his life, his features did not present a very marked expression, as if no strong passion had yet agitated the young breast. But his eyes, large and very beautiful, sometimes became animated with a most lively expression, and glistened with the fire of intelligence. Although Abdul Medjid had not been subjected to the captivity usually reserved for the heirs to the throne, his education, which had been directed according to the custom of the seraglio, had been very superficial, and had not prepared him for the heavy responsibility which was hanging over him.

Abdul Medjid was much indebted to nature: he afterwards perfected his education, and has become a most accomplished prince, remarkable above all for his passionate love of literature and the arts.

The first time the young Sultan presented himself to the eyes of his subjects he was dressed in an European trousers and coat, over which was thrown the imperial cloak, fastened by a diamond aigrette. On his breast he wore the decoration of the Nicham Iflichar; his head was covered with the fez, surmounted by a diamond aigrette. The new king, while thus continuing the costume of his father, nevertheless presented only a pale resemblance to him. Simple without affectation, he cast around him glances full of softness and benevolence. Everything announced in him the debonnaire successor of an inflexible ruler; nothing hitherto had indicated what great and precious qualities were concealed beneath the modest and tranquil exterior. He was received favorably by his people, but without any demonstration of enthusiasm. It was feared that this delicate youth could scarcely be equal to the importance of his duties. People pitied him, and, at the same time, trembled for the future prospects of the country. The women alone, touched by his youth and his appearance of kindness, manifested their sympathy for him openly. When he went through Constantinople to the Mosque of Baiezid, they ran towards him from all parts: “Is not our son handsome?” they cried, adopting him with affection. When he was only seventeen years of age, the official cry was heard in the streets of Constantinople, “His Highness, our most magnificent lord, Abdul Medjid, has risen to the throne! God will that his reign make the happiness of his people!” The new monarch soon began to play the part of a reformer. He assured to all his subjects, without exception, perfect security for their lives and fortunes, a regular mode of taxation, as also of recruiting the army; he abolished the monopoly and venality of the public offices; insured the public administration of justice and the free transmission of property; and founded all the public institutions and administrations upon the systems of Europe, particularly of France, yet with every attention to the peculiar customs and prejudices of his own people. Abdul Medjid speedily became the idol with all classes. Their esteem was increased by his extreme amiability of temper, and heightened almost to infatuation by the taste for literature which he displayed, and for his ardent endeavors to raise the educational character of his subjects. The reign of Abdul has been sullied by no execution, by no act of cruelty. None of his ministers have ever lost their lives along with their office and power. He has been very kind to his brother, Abdul Aziz Effendi, allowing him both life and liberty, and making him a frequent companion. In the troubles which agitated Western Europe in 1848 and 1849, the Sultan acted a noble part in refusing to deliver up, at the dictation of Russia, certain Hungarian and other refugees, who had fled to him for shelter. In this firm course he was supported, both by his own people, and also by France and England.