It has also been contended by some historians that it was unwise policy to impose such a humiliation on the Czar as that embodied in the treaty; that it was certain to lead to a renewal of the war for the purpose of avenging it. But the Czar himself did not apparently take this view of the case. After the escape of his army from disaster he showed no inclination to renew the war. He was willing, two years later, to re-enact the treaty, in spite of its humiliating terms. He did not break peace with the Turks in the remaining ten years of his reign. He did not bear a grudge against them and after a few years he entered into an arrangement with the Sultan for the partition of a large part of Persia.
On a review of the whole transaction, we must conclude that the Grand Vizier Baltadji was fully justified in effecting the treaty of the Pruth, and that it was no small achievement, by the skilful manœuvring of his army and without the loss of a single life, to impose terms on the Czar, under which the Ottoman Empire recovered Azoff and its district, the key to the Crimea, and obtained the other valuable concessions embodied in the treaty.
In 1715 the Porte embarked on another war, this time against the Republic of Venice, with the object of recovering the Morea, which sixteen years previously had been conquered by the Republic, when in alliance with Austria, and the possession of which had been confirmed to the Republic by the treaty of Carlowitz. Morosini, the Venetian general by whom this conquest had been achieved, was now dead. It was thought that Austria would not intervene. A pretext for the war was found in the assistance which the Republic rendered to the Montenegrins in an insurrection against the Porte. The army, which had been equipped for war with Russia, was now available for other purposes. The Grand Vizier Damad, who was also otherwise known as Coumourgi, son-in-law of the Sultan, took command of an army of a hundred thousand men. A fleet of one hundred sail co-operated by sea. The Sultan himself accompanied the army as far as Larissa, in Thessaly, but no farther. He left the direction of it wholly in the hands of Damad, who showed great ability in the conduct of the war. It commenced with the siege of Corinth, which, after a brave defence of three weeks, capitulated on July 7, 1715, on favourable terms. But a powder magazine blew up during the evacuation of the fortress, killing six or seven hundred of the Turkish soldiers. This afforded an excuse for breaking the agreement, and for a general massacre of Venetians and Greeks, whether of the garrison or inhabitants—much to the disapproval of Damad. This siege of Corinth formed the subject of Lord Byron’s well-known poem, in which Damad is referred to under the name of Coumourgi:—
Coumourgi—can his glory cease,
That latest conqueror of Greece,
Till Christian hands to Greece restore
The freedom Venice gave of yore?
A hundred years have rolled away
Since he refixed the Moslem sway.
With poetic licence Byron attributes to the Venetian governor of Corinth the setting fire to the powder magazine and the fearful destruction of life which it caused:—