Constantinople: The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire

by William Holden Hutton

HOUSES IN THE PHANAR

Within a few hours Gregorios was hung from the gate of the patriarchate, with a document pinned to his breast, declaring him a traitor in that he knew of the Hetairist conspiracy, and did not reveal it. Of the charge there is no known proof; and the Greeks have always regarded him as a martyr. If he knew the details of the conspiracy at all it is more than probable that he knew them only in confession; nor is it at all probable that he knew anything but that the Greeks intended to strike for their freedom.

Three bishops were executed on the same day. It was not a day to be forgotten. When the body of the martyred Gregorios was taken down it was given to the Jews to be dragged through the streets and cast into the sea. It was recovered by night and taken by ship to Odessa, where it was interred with solemn ceremonial as the remains of a saint and martyr.

This horrible deed was followed by the outbreak of anarchy in Constantinople. The Janissaries called for a massacre of the Christians in the city to avenge the Moslems who had been killed in Greece. The Christian quarters were attacked, the Christian villages on the Bosphorus were robbed, and the patriarchate was sacked. Greek clergy and nobles were executed daily, and four bishops were among the slain. No Christians were allowed to leave the city without a passport or vengeance was exacted upon the family. The massacres that occurred in Constantinople were tolerated if they were not organised by the authorities; several subjects of Western nations were murdered. All that was done by Christian Europe was to protest. The Russian ambassador left Constantinople, having demanded that the massacres should cease and the churches be rebuilt that had been destroyed. Mahmûd replied that only traitors were ill-treated. But the massacres ended, at least for a time.

While all danger of a Christian rising in Constantinople was thus prevented, Mahmûd was maturing the plans which in 1825 made him at last an absolute ruler, at least in his own city.

For seventeen years Mahmûd prepared for this great stroke. First by gifts and offices he detached many of the supporters of the Janissaries and the Ulemas from the party which supported them. Some less important members of the body were arrested for infraction of the laws and were publicly executed. Others were secretly made away with. The Sultan was surrounding himself with an elaborate spy system and with agents who were capable of dealing in detail with those whom he wished to be put out of the way. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in his "Memoirs," says: "I remember that in crossing the Golden Horn from time to time I had observed loose mats floating here and there upon the water, and that in answer to my enquiries I had been told in a mysterious manner that they had served for covering the bodies thrown after private executions into the harbour." All this was done slowly; the power of the Janissaries was gradually undermined; "almost unparalleled craft and cruelty," some observers called the process, but to Mahmûd it seemed absolutely necessary.

In 1826 the Sultan perceived that the time limit had come. A meeting of all the chief functionaries of the Empire and chief officers of the Janissaries was held. They agreed to submit to the new military discipline and organisation which the Sultan designed. All signed their names. On June 12 the first exercises of the new order were begun. On the 16th the inferior officers and the soldiers declared that they would not submit. The revolt was proclaimed in the ancient manner. The kettles were overturned, and the whole force was called to arms. Mahmûd crossed from Bekistasch to the Seraglio; the standard of the Prophet was displayed; the city was filled with the troops upon whom the Sultan could rely; the Moslem population rallied round the green flag. The people assembled in the Atmeidan (the Hippodrome); Mahmûd went to the mosque of Ahmed. The Janissaries were summoned to submit to the new order. They in return demanded the destruction of the "subverters of the ancient usages of the Empire." Then their fate was sealed. They had advanced to the mosque of Bayezid; they were rapidly driven back and hemmed in in their quarters in the Etmeidan. Then from every side artillery was directed upon them. From his house in Pera Stratford Canning, at dinner, saw "two slender columns of smoke rising above the opposite horizon." What did they mean? The Sultan, he was answered, had fired the barracks of the Janissaries. The rest of the tragedy may best be told in Canning's own words:[45]

"The Sultan was determined to make the most of his victory. From the time of his cousin Selim's death he had lived in dread of the Janissaries. A strong impression must have been made upon his mind by the personal danger which he had encountered. It was said that he had escaped with his life by getting into an oven when the search for him was hottest. His duty as sovereign gave strength as well as dignity to his private resentment. That celebrated militia, which in earlier times had extended the bounds of the empire, and given the title of conqueror to so many of the Sultans, which had opened the walls of Constantinople itself to their triumphant leader, the second Mohammed, were now to be swept away with an unsparing hand and to make room for a new order of things, for a disciplined army and a charter of reform. From their high claims to honour and confidence they had sadly declined. They had become the masters of the government, the butchers of their sovereigns, and a source of terror to all but the enemies of their country. Whatever compassion might be felt for individual sufferers, including as they did the innocent with the guilty, it could hardly be said that their punishment as a body was untimely or undeserved.

The complaints of those who were doomed to destruction found no echo in the bosoms of their conquerors. They were mostly citizens having their wives, their children, or their parents, to witness the calamity which they had brought in thunder on their necks. Many had fallen under the Sultan's artillery; many were fugitives and outlaws. The mere name of Janissary, compromised or not by an overt act, operated like a sentence of death. A special commission sat for the trial, or rather for the condemnation of crowds. Every victim passed at once from the tribunal into the hands of the executioner. The bowstring and the scimitar were constantly in play. People could not stir from their houses without the risk of falling in with some terrible sight. The Sea of Marmora was mottled with dead bodies. Nor was the tragedy confined to Constantinople and its neighbourhood. Messengers were sent in haste to every provincial city where any considerable number of Janissaries existed, and the slightest tendency to insurrection was so promptly and effectually repressed, that no disquieting reports were conveyed to us from any quarter of the Empire. Not a day passed without my receiving a requisition from the Porte, calling upon me to send thither immediately the officer and soldiers comprising my official guard. I had no reason to suppose that any of them had been concerned in the revolt, and I was pretty sure that they could not repair to the Porte without imminent danger of being sacrificed. I ventured, therefore, to detain them day after day, first on one pretext, then on another, until, at the end of a week, the fever at headquarters had so far subsided as to open a door for reflection and mercy. Relying on this abatement of wrath, I complied, and the interpreter whom I directed to accompany them, gave every assurance on their behalf which I was entitled to offer. The men were banished from the capital, but their lives were spared, and many years later I was much pleased by a visit from their officer, who displayed his gratitude by coming from a distance on foot to regale me with a bunch of dried grapes and a pitcher of choice water. Let me add that this instance of good feeling on the part of a Turk towards a Christian is only one of many which have come to my knowledge."