But Ala-ed-din saw the need of a standing army who should make war their sole business and profession, and first raised a body of infantry called Jaza or Piade. The next corps raised were the famous Janissaries. They were entirely composed of Christian children taken in battle or in sieges and compelled to embrace the Mahomedan faith. A thousand recruits were added yearly to their numbers, and they were called Jeni Iskeri, or new troops, from which is derived the European corruption Janissaries. These Janissaries were trained to warlike exercises from their youth, and subjected to the strictest discipline. They were not allowed to form any territorial connection with the land that had adopted them, their prospects of advancement depended entirely on their skill in the profession of arms, and the highest posts in that profession only were open to them. Their isolated position and the complete community of interest which united them prevented the degeneracy and enervation which so speedily settled upon every Eastern Empire when once the fire of conquest had died down.
Ala-ed-din further extended the military organization of the Othman crown, and in a manner that rendered the fighting forces readily adaptable to every exigency. A corps-d’élite was formed of specially chosen horsemen. These were called Spahis. Then further corps were organized, the Silihdars, or vassal cavalry; Ouloufedji, or paid horsemen; Ghoureha, or foreign horse; Azabs, or light infantry; and the Akindji, or irregular light horse. We have met these latter before, when describing battles in which Turks and Franks were opposed to each other. The Akindji gathered together in irregular hordes to accompany every military enterprise, they foraged for the regular troops and swarmed round them to cover a retreat or harass a retiring enemy, they received no pay like the Janissaries nor lands like the Piade, and were entirely dependent on plunder.
The story of a clever ruse is told of one of Orchan’s campaigns against the Greeks. Othman had left Nice and Nicomedia untaken. Orchan took the latter town and invested Nice. Andronicus, the Greek Emperor, crossed the Hellespont with a hastily-raised levy to raise the siege of Nice, but Orchan met and defeated him with a portion of his army. Now the garrison of Nice had been advised of the Emperor’s intention and daily expected his arrival. So Orchan disguised 800 of his followers as Greek soldiers and directed them against the fortress. These pseudo-Greeks, to give the ruse a yet greater semblance of reality, were harassed by mock encounters with Turkish regular horse. The disguised Turks appeared to have routed the enemy, and headed for the city gate. The garrison had been watching the proceedings, were thoroughly deceived and threw open the gate. An assault by the besieging army, assisted by the force that had gained ingress, brought the city into Orchan’s possession.
By 1336 Orchan had included all North-Western Asia Minor in the Ottoman Empire, and the next twenty years of peace he devoted to the work of perfecting the military organization and consolidating the resources of his newly-acquired territories; in this his brother Ala-ed-din loyally supported him. Thus in the middle of the fourteenth century we find two empires face to face, separated only by the narrow channel of the Bosphorus. On the Asiatic side the Ottoman Empire, homogeneous, for all its subjects were of the same race, strong and united; on the other side the Greek Empire, distracted by constant feud and domestic disturbance.
It is not to be wondered at that under such conditions occasion should have arisen for Turkish interference in the affairs of the Eastern Empire, and a feud between the Genoese and the Venetians offered a suitable excuse.
The Genoese were in possession of Galata; their commercial rivals, the Venetians, sought them out and attacked them on the Bosphorus. Now Orchan hated the Venetians, for they had arrogantly refused to receive an ambassador whom he sent to Venice. The Venetians were the allies of the Empire, and Orchan had only a few years before married the daughter of Cantacuzene, the Greek Emperor. Desire to be avenged prompted Orchan to ally himself with the Genoese, against the Empire and the Venetians. His son Solyman crossed the Hellespont by night with a handful of faithful followers and took Koiridocastron, or “Hog’s Castle.” No attempt was made to regain the castle, as the Emperor was fully occupied not only with the armies of his rebel son-in-law Palæologus, but with the Genoese fleet.
The Greek Emperor found himself in sore straits and implored the aid of Orchan. This Orchan readily granted and sent ten thousand troops over to Europe, who, after beating the Slavonic army of Palæologus, did not return to Asia, but took a firm footing under Solyman, upon the European mainland. Before long the Turkish Empire had acquired a number of strong places, and it was evident that they had come to stay.
Soon after these events Solyman, when engaged in his favourite sport of falconry, was thrown from his horse and killed. He was buried on the spot at which he had led his soldiers into Europe. His father Orchan died the same year, after a reign of thirty-five years. We may date the actual foundation of Turkish greatness in Asia and its effect on the history of Europe, and more especially of Constantinople, from the reign of this able and enlightened monarch and his loyal brother Ala-ed-din. The endless possibilities contained in that strong and single-minded race of Turks were concentrated on the banks of the Bosphorus, their advanced guard had crossed into Europe and had there secured a firm foothold. The Turks were knocking at the gates of Constantinople.
Our travellers have heard already how Amurath I, the youngest son of Orchan, inherited his father’s throne. We have followed Amurath’s romantic career, how he restored the Empire his father left him, after subduing the Prince of Carmania, who with some other Turkish Emirs rose against the house of Othman. Amurath’s rule was extended yet further in Europe at the cost of the Greek Empire, and in the middle of the fourteenth century he made Adrianople his European capital. Under Amurath the Ottomans first encountered those Slavonic races with whom they were for centuries after so frequently engaged in hostilities. Following the fortunes of Amurath, we heard the din of battle when the Western chivalry was opposed to the dashing valour of the Turk, and saw the Crescent victorious when the turmoil subsided on the banks of the Maritza. The warlike host of the Slavonic confederacy passed in pageant before us, to meet its fate at Kossova, where Amurath, the conqueror, perished in the fight.
The victorious son of Amurath, Bajazet, who first of the house of Othman assumed the title of Sultan, has been presented to our travellers. With those who took their walks on the Atrium down by the Sea of Marmora, we watched the events that marked the reign of Bajazet and felt the increasing pressure to which the failing Greek Empire was submitted. If we wish to gain some idea of the terror that was felt, let us imagine London slowly isolated by an irresistible host of the Chinese and trying hard to secure the spiritual sanction and material protection of her old enemy, the Pope of Rome. We heard the ringing blows dealt by the Turks as they hammered at the walls of Constantine’s city, and breathed again when Tamerlane and his savage hordes threatened the eastern provinces of Bajazet’s Asiatic Empire. When Bajazet was slain at Angora we saw how the Imperial City revived, and how hope lingered during the years that Mahomed I employed in putting his Asiatic house in order. But shortly after, yet another Amurath appeared in Europe and laid siege to Constantinople; but the time was not yet come, and he was compelled to withdraw to his Carmanian frontier. Nevertheless, the Turks were even then virtual masters of the situation; Thessalonica had fallen, sacked by Amurath II, and nothing but the Imperial City and a small tract of country round it was left to the Eastern Empire.