OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



373 



to the church, his victorious troops reached Salzburg, 

 and invaded Bavaria. He conquered the Venetians at 

 Thessalonica, in 1420; and his celebrated grand- 

 vizier Ibrahim created a Turkish navy. He was suc- 

 ceeded by his son, the wise and valiant Amurath II. 

 The brave George Castriot in Epirus (Scanderbeg, 

 i. e. prince Alexander), the heroic John Hunniades, 

 prince of Transylvania, and the fortress of Belgrade, 

 the bulwark of the West, alone resisted him. After 

 the conclusion of peace in 1440, he laid down the 

 reins of government ; but, the pope having absolved 

 Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Poland, from his 

 oath, and the Christians having penetrated to the 

 borders of the Black sea, Amurath again girded on 

 the sword of Osman, called down the vengeance of 

 Heaven upon his perjured enemies, and conquered 

 the Christians at Varna, in 1444. Ladislaus and Ju- 

 lian, the legate of the pope, were among the slain. 

 The great Amurath again abdicated the throne, and 

 was again recalled to it by danger. He humbled 

 the pride of the janizaries, and conquered the Chris- 

 tians at Caschau, in 1449. 



The Byzantine empire was already cut off from 

 the West, when Mohammed II., the son of Amurath, 

 and his successor, at the age of twenty-six, completed 

 the work of conquest (1451 1481). The reading of 

 ancient historians had inspired him with the ambition 

 of equalling Alexander. He soon attacked Con- 

 stantinople, which was taken May 29, 1453 ; and the 

 last Paleologus, Constantine XL, buried himself un- 

 der the ruins of his throne. Since that time, Stambul 

 has been the residence of the Sublime Porte. Mo- 

 hammed now built the castle of the Dardanelles, and 

 organized the government of the empire, taking for 

 his model Nushirvan's organization of the Persian 

 empire. In 1456, he subdued the Morea, and, in 

 1461, led the last Comnenus, emperor of Trebizond, 

 prisoner to Constantinople. Pius II. called in vain 

 upon the nations of Christendom to take up arms. 

 Mohammed conquered the remainder of Bosnia in 

 1470, and Epirus in 1465, after the death of Scander- 

 beg. He took Negropont and Lemnos from the 

 Venetians, Caffa from the Genoese, and, in 1473, 

 obliged the khan of the Crim Tartars, of the family 

 of Gengis-Khan, to do him homage. In 1480, he 

 had already conquered Otranto, in the kingdom of 

 Naples, when he died, in the midst of his great pro- 

 jects against Rome and Persia. His grandson Selim 

 I., who had dethroned and murdered his father, 

 drove back the Persian power to the Euphrates and 

 the Tigris. He defeated the Mamelukes, and con- 

 quered, in 1517, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Mecca 

 submitted to him, and Arabia trembled. 



During fifty years, the arms of the Ottomans, by 

 sea and by land, were the terror of Europe and of 

 Asia, especially under Solimaii II. the Magnificent, 

 also called the Lawgiver, who reigned between 1519 

 and 1 566. In 1522, he took Rhodes from the knights 

 of St John, and, by the victory of Mohacz, in 1526, 

 subdued half of Hungary. He exacted a tribute 

 from Moldavia, and was successful against the Per- 

 sians in Asia, so as to make Bagdad, Mesopotamia, 

 and Georgia subject to him. He was already threat- 

 ening to overrun Germany, and to plant the standard 

 of Mohammed in the West, when he was checked 

 before the walls of Vienna (1529). But since Hun- 

 gary, out of hate against Austria, had placed its king 

 John Zapolya under the powerful protection of the 

 padishah, and the successful corsair Barbarossa was 

 master of the Mediterranean, had conquered North- 

 ern Africa (see Barbary), and laid waste Minorca, 

 Sicily, Apulia, and Corfu, the sultan Soliman might 

 have conquered Europe, had he known how to give 

 firmness and consistency to his plans. The projects 

 of the conqueror were rendered abortive by the policy 



of Charles V. He was resisted at sea by the Vene- 

 tians, and the Genoese Andrew Doria, by the grand- 

 master Lavalette in Malta, and by Zriny, under the 

 walls of Zigeth. 



Twelve sultans, all of them brave and warlike, and 

 most of them continually victorious, had now, during a 

 period of two centuries and a half, raised the power 

 of the Crescent ; but the internal strength of the 

 state was yet undeveloped. Soliman, indeed, by his 

 laws, completed the organization begun by Moham- 

 med II., and, in 1538, united the priestly dignity of 

 the caliphate to the Ottoman Porte ; but he could not 

 incorporate into a whole the conquered nations. He 

 also imprisoned his successor in the seraglio an 

 education as little adapted to produce heroes as 

 statesmen. From this time, the race of Osman de- 

 generated, and the power of the Porte declined. 

 From Soliman's death, in 1566, to our time, eighteen 

 sultans have reigned, and among them all, there have 

 not been two brave warriors, nor a single victorious 

 prince. These sovereigns ascended the throne from 

 a prison, and lived in the seraglio until, as not (in- 

 frequently happened, they again exchanged the throne 

 for a prison. Several grand-viziers, such as Kiuprili, 

 Ibrahim, and the unfortunate Mustapha Bairactar, 

 alone upheld the falling state, while the nation con- 

 tinued to sink deeper into the grossest ignorance and 

 slavery. Pachas, more rapacious and more arbitrary 

 than the sultan and his divan, ruled in the provinces. 

 In its foreign relations, the Porte was the sport of 

 European politicians, and more than once was em- 

 broiled by the cabinet of Versailles in a war with 

 Austria and Russia. While all Europe was making 

 rapid progress in the arts of peace and of war, the 

 Ottoman nation and government remained inactive 

 and stationary. Blindly attached to their doctrines of 

 absolute fate, and elated by their former military glory, 

 the Turks looked upon foreigners with contempt, as 

 infidels (giaours). Without any settled plan, but in- 

 cited by a savage hatred and a thirst for conquest, 

 they carried on the war with Persia, Venice, Hun- 

 gary, and Poland. The revolts of the janizaries and 

 of the governors became dangerous. The suspicions 

 of the despot were quieted with the dagger and the 

 bowstring, and the ablest men of the divan were 

 sacrificed to the hatred of the soldiery and of the 

 ulema. The successor to the throne commonly put 

 to death all his brothers; and the people looked with 

 indifference upon the murder of a hated' sultan, or the 

 deposition of a weak one. 



Mustapha I. was twice dethroned (1618 and 1623); 

 Osman II. and Ibrahim were strangled, the former 

 in 1622, the latter in 1648. Selim II., indeed, con- 

 quered Cyprus in 1571, but, in the same year, don 

 John of Austria defeated the Turkish fleet at Le- 

 panto. A century after, under Mohammed IV., in 

 1669, Candia was taken, after a resistance of thir- 

 teen years ; and the vizier Kara Mustapha gave to 

 the Hungarians, who had been oppressed by Austria, 

 their general, count Tekeli, for a king, in 1682 ; but, 

 the very next year, he was driven back from Vienna, 

 which he had besieged, and, after the defeat at Mo- 

 hacz, in 1687, the Ottomans lost most of the strong 

 places in Hungary. The exasperated people threw 

 their sultan into prison. In a short time, the grand- 

 vizier, Kiuprili Mustapha,restored order and courage 

 and recalled victory to the Turkish banners ; but he 

 was slain in the battle against the Germans near 

 Salankemen in 1691. At last, the sultan Mustapha, 

 1 1. himseli took the field ; but he was opposed by the 

 hero Eugene, the conqueror at Zentha in 1697, and, 

 on the Don, Peter the Great conquered Azoph. He 

 was obliged, therefore, by the treaty of Carlowitz, in 

 1 699, to renounce his claims upon Transylvania and 

 the country between the Danube and the Theis, to 



