The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

At the close of this period of growth the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith and extended over the vast countries described in the chapter on the Grand Vizier Sokolli. The whole of its immense area, however, was not in full ownership of the Ottomans. Parts of it, such as North Hungary, were autonomous States with native rulers paying tribute to the Porte. Other parts, such as the Crimea, Wallachia, and Moldavia, were vassal States, whose princes were appointed by the Sultan, and which were bound to send contingents in support of the Ottoman armies when at war. The really integral parts of the Empire in Europe were Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania; in Asia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and a great part of Arabia; and in Africa, Tripoli. Egypt, Tunis, and Algiers very early acquired a practical autonomy under the suzerainty of the Porte, though they were still nominally integral parts of the Empire. The Empire thus constituted was one of the greatest in the then world. It may be worth while briefly to review the causes which led to its aggregation.

It was the common belief in Europe, confirmed by many historians, up to recent times, that the Ottoman armies which invaded Europe from Asia Minor were composed of pure Turks, and that the motive which impelled them in their conquest was the fanatical desire to extend Islam. But these views have been modified of late years. It has been shown that the armies which Sultans Orchan and Murad led across the Straits into Europe were not pure Turks, but were very largely composed of subjects of the East Roman Empire from the northern parts of Asia Minor, who, after the defeat there of the Byzantine armies, had embraced Islam. They were welded with the Turks by religion into something approaching to a nation. They called themselves Osmanlis, or Ottomans, from the founder of the Othman dynasty. It may be doubted whether the Turks alone were capable of effecting the conquests in Europe. It is certain that they could not have maintained the Empire when formed.

The Turks of Anatolia had many valuable qualities as soldiers. They were, and are to this day, brave, hardy, sober, frugal, and cleanly in their habits, as inculcated by their religion, a strong point in their favour in days when sanitary arrangements were completely ignored by armies. They bore the hardships of long campaigns without complaint. But they were deficient in intelligence and education, which count for much in war as in civil life. In this respect they were very inferior to subjects of the East Roman Empire and to many of the Christians with whom they came in conflict. But the Ottomans who first invaded Europe were not simply Turks. Later, the most effective corps in the Ottoman army was formed exclusively of the sons of Christian parents in the Balkans, conscripted at an early age and forcibly converted to Islam. It was with forces thus constituted that the Ottomans extended their Empire up to and beyond the Danube. The conquests of the larger part of Asia Minor, of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, were also effected, by composite forces, to which Serbia and Wallachia sent contingents by virtue of treaties with the Porte. The greater number of Ottoman generals who distinguished themselves in these early days of conquest were not of Turkish race, but were Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, and Italians, who had embraced Islam or whose forbears had done so. It was the same with almost all the naval commanders. They were of foreign origin, who had gained experience as pirates and had embraced Islam. The crews who manned the Ottoman navy were mainly Greeks from the islands in the Ægean Sea.

With respect to the objects and motives of the Ottoman conquests, a careful review of the history of the early Sultans has shown that there was very little, if any, of missionary enterprise on behalf of Islam. It will be admitted that there is no pretence for concluding that the vast conquests in Asia and Africa had any such motive. The populations there were already Moslems. The motives for conquest were the ambition to extend the Empire at the expense of neighbouring States and the hope of plunder on the part of the soldiers. Religious zeal had nothing to do with it. What reason is there to suppose that conquests in Europe had any different object than those in Asia? As a matter of fact, there was no very large extension of Islam in Europe as a result of Ottoman conquest. When cities were captured and their inhabitants were massacred, or when districts were conquered and the people were carried away as captives to be sold as slaves, they do not appear to have had the alternative offered to them of embracing Islam.

In some few districts, as in Bosnia and parts of Albania and the Morea, the landowners, or some of them, were allowed to avoid the confiscation of their property by becoming Mussulmans. But these were exceptions. The general rule was that the land of the conquered districts was confiscated without the option to the owners of changing their religion and saving their property. As regards the labouring people, the rayas, there does not appear to have been any desire that they should adopt the religion of their conquerors. They were wanted for the cultivation of the land as serfs or slaves. It seems to have been a matter of indifference what their religion was.

There is also nothing to show that the Ottoman soldiers were animated by any religious zeal in their campaigns in Europe. The main cause of their military efficiency was the organization of the army effected by Orchan and perfected by Murad I. It offered immense rewards to the soldiers for victories in battle and for personal valour, in the share of booty and plunder levied in the conquered districts, of captives to be sold as slaves, of women for wives or concubines or to be sold for harems, and of lands to be distributed as fiefs. These rewards appealed to the predatory instincts of the Moslem soldiers, whether Turks or others of alien origin. In the rare intervals of peace the soldiers soon wearied of life in barracks, and yearned for active campaigns. At such times the Janissaries and other soldiers were a danger to the State from their turbulence and disorder. It was necessary to find employment for them at a distance. This acted as a constant incitement to war and to fresh conquests. It was one of the causes of the continuous growth of the Empire.

A second main cause of success to the Ottoman armies in Europe was the want of union for resistance on the part of the people of the Balkan States. There can be little doubt that if the Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbians had combined to resist the invading Moslems their efforts would have been successful. But Greeks and Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbians hated one another more than they feared and hated the Ottomans. In the six centuries dealt with in this volume there was only a single occasion when Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbians formed a combination against the Ottomans. This was not till 1912. The combination was successful and drove the Turks out of Macedonia, Epirus, Albania, and the greater part of Thrace. But we have shown that it broke down on the division of the spoil, with the result that the Turks recovered a small part of their lost territory. The case illustrates our contention that want of union of the Christian States was a main cause of the servitude of all of them for nearly five hundred years under Turkish rule.

Lastly, in appreciating the causes of the wonderful growth of the Ottoman Empire, we must not lose sight of the personal element, of the fact that, for ten generations, the Othman family produced men capable of leading their armies in the field to victory, and almost equally remarkable as administrators and statesmen. This succession of a single family, father and son, for ten generations without a break, culminating in the greatest of them, Solyman the Magnificent, is quite without precedent or example in history. The Othman family were pure Turks in their origin. But the Turkish blood was very soon diluted. The mothers of future Sultans were either captives taken by corsairs or slaves bought on account of their beauty. They were of every race—Greeks, Slavs, Italians, or Russians. But in spite of this mixed blood the type of Sultans remained much the same for ten generations. The prestige acquired by the family in these three hundred years, as founders and maintainers of the Empire and as generals who led their armies to victory, was such that it has impressed itself on the imagination of all Ottomans, and has survived to this day, in spite of the long subsequent degeneration of the family. Unquestionably, the foundation and growth of the Empire were largely due to the personal qualities of the Othman dynasty.

After the death in 1578 of Grand Vizier Sokolli, who carried on the traditions of the first ten Sultans for a few years under the worthless Selim II, the pendulum of Empire swung in the opposite direction. Thenceforth, down to the present time, there were successions of defeats and disasters to the Turkish Empire, with but few intermissions. Provinces were torn from it periodically, like leaves from an artichoke, till all but a small fraction of it in Europe, the whole of its possessions in Africa, and a large part in Asia have been lost to the Empire. What remains to it is the core of Turkish and Arabic provinces in Asia, and in Europe only its capital, Constantinople, and a small portion of Thrace to the north of it.

Five of the Great Powers of Europe have had their share of the spoils, and six independent States have been resuscitated out of the remaining débris of it. It is hard to say which of the Great Powers gained most. Austria recovered by force of arms Hungary, Transylvania, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, and by artful policy Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia obtained by conquest the Crimea, Bessarabia, Podolia, and a part of the Ukraine in Europe, and the Caucasus, and a great part of Armenia, in Asia. France has possessed itself of Algiers and Tunis. England has secured the suzerainty and practical possession of Egypt and complete possession of Cyprus and Aden. Italy has seized Tripoli. Of the six smaller independent States, Bulgaria and Roumania owe their revival solely to Russia, Greece mainly to Great Britain and France, Albania to the concert of the Balkan States in 1912, and Serbia and Montenegro alone owe their freedom mainly to their own valour. It need not be said that gratitude forms no part of the ethics of modern statecraft, and a few only of the above States have recognized that they owe anything to the Powers who rescued them from Turkish rule.