374 



OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 



i, 



ivc up the Morea lo the Venetians, to restore Podo- 

 a and the Ukraine to Poland, ami to leave Azoph to 

 tin- Itussians. Tims began the fall of the Ottoman 

 power. A revolt of the janizaries, who, abandoning 

 their ancient rigid discipline, wished to carry on com- 

 merce, and live in houses, obliged the sultan to 

 abdicate. His successor, the imbecile and volup- 

 tuous Achmet III., saw with indiilerence the troubles 

 in Hungary, the war of the Spanish succession, and 

 the great Northern war. Charles XII., whom he 

 protected after his defeat at Pultawa, finally suc- 

 ceeded in involving him in a war with Peter; but 

 the czar, although surrounded with his whole army, 

 easily obtained the peace of the Pruth, by the sur- 

 render of Azoph in 1711. In 1715, the grand-vizier 

 attacked Venice, and took the Morea; but Austria 

 assisted the republic, and Eugene's victories at 

 Peterwardein and Belgrade (1717) obliged the 

 Porte to give up, by the treaty of Passarowitz, in 

 1718, Temeswar, Belgrade, with a part of Servia 

 and Walachia : it still retained the Morea. Equally 

 unsuccessful were Achmet's arms in Persia : in con- 

 srquence of which an insurrection broke out, and he 

 was thrown into prison in 1730. In 1736, the Rus- 

 sian general Munich humbled the pride of the Otto- 

 mans; but Austria, the ally of Russia, was not 

 successful, and the French ambassador in Constanti- 

 nople effected the treaty of Belgrade (in 1739), by 

 which the Porte regained Belgrade, with Servia and 

 \V~alachia. 



After a peace of thirty years, Mustapha III. 

 became conscious of the rising greatness of Russia, 

 and required Catharine II. to withdraw her troops 

 from Poland ; but the victories of Romanzoff, in the 

 war between 1768 and 1774, determined the political 

 superiority of Russia. At the same time, a Russian 

 fleet was victorious on the Grecian seas, and Alexis 

 Orloff called the Greeks to freedom an unsuccess- 

 ful attempt, indeed; yet Abdul-Hamid, at the peace ' 

 of Kutschuk-Kainargi, in 1774, was obliged to re- ; 

 nounce his sovereignty over the Crimea, to yield to i 

 Russia the country between the Bog and the Dnieper, | 

 with Kinburn and Azoph, and to open his seas to the 

 Russian merchant ships. But the pride of the hum- 

 bled Porte was aroused by the rapacious spirit of 

 Russia, and the divan, in 1787, declared war against 

 Catharine II. The war, however, was carried on 

 during the reign of Selim III. with so little success, 

 that Russia, by the peace of Jassy (1792) retained 

 Taurida and the country between the Bog and the 

 Dniester, together with Otchakoff, and gained some 

 accessions on the Caucasus. Austria, also, to which 

 the Porte, in 1777, had ceded the Bukowina, apart 

 ot Moldavia, had declared war in favour ot Russia, 

 but was induced by the threats of Prussia, to restore 

 Belgrade at the peace ot Sistora in 1791. 



At this time, the internal confusions of the 

 Turkish empire were continually increasing. Selim 

 III. was not deficient in understanding or in know- 

 ledge, but he had not energy to eflect a thorough 

 reform. How could he, with his divan, change the 

 anti-European spirit of the Turks, restrain the pre- 

 torian pride of the janizaries, change the form of 

 government, and the system of laws consecrated by 

 the Islam, and protected by the ulema, reform the 

 Oriental manners of the court and the whole consti- 

 tution of the state ? There was no other connexion 

 between his wide extended realms than faith in the 

 caliphate of the padishah, and fear of the power of 

 the grand seignior. The former was shaken by the 

 sect of the Wahabees (Wechabites not reduced till 

 1818), and the latter thrown oft' by several bold 

 governors of the provinces. Among these petty 

 sultans were Passwan Oglou in Widdin (Viddin), 

 Jussuff (until 1810) in Bagdad, several pachas in 

 Anatolia, &c., Ali, pacha of Janina, and Ali Bey. in 



Egypt. (See Mohammed Ali.) The Servians wished 

 for a native hospodar ; thence arose continual insur- 

 rections, and continual acts of tyranny. The people 

 continued plunged in ignorance, and sometimes com- 

 mitted acts of Asiatic barbarity. On the other hand, 

 a spirit of freedom manifested itself in Greece, by 

 impotent efforts, but in Servia by a vigorous resis- 

 tance between 1801 and 1814. Finally, in March, 

 1821, the Greek nation arose to shake off the Turk- 

 ish yoke. 



Turkey was equally perplexed in her foreign 

 relations. She had been mistrustful of France ever 

 since the alliance of that country with Maria Theresa 

 in 1756. She remained a quiet spectator of the out- 

 break of the revolution, and the grand-vizier had 

 hoped that the republic would not unite with Aus- 

 tria. The divan, however, observed conscientiously 

 the existing treaties, and neither in Asia nor in 

 Europe took advantage of the favourable oppor- 

 tunities for restoring the ancient power of the Otto- 

 mans by a war against Persia or against Austria. 

 At the same time, Russia stood ready upon the 

 heights of Caucasus and at the mouths of the 

 Danube. Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt finally 

 raised the indignation of the Porte, which, September 

 1, 1798, declared war for the first time against 

 France. By its alliance with Russia, in December, 



1798, and with England and Naples, in January, 



1799, it now fell under the direction of the cabinets 

 of Petersburg and St James. A Russian fleet sailed 

 through the Dardanelles, and a Turkish squadron, 

 in co-operation with it, conquered the Ionian islands. 

 Paul I. and Selim III., by a treaty at Constantinople 

 (March, 21, 1800), formed the republic of the Seven 

 Islands, which as well as Ragusa, was to be under 

 the protection of the Porte. In the following year, 

 England restored Egypt to the Porte ; but the Mame- 

 luke beys and the Arnaouts filled the land with 

 tumult and bloodshed, until, on the 1st of March, 

 1811, the new governor, Mehemed Ali Pacha, 

 entirely exterminated the Mamelukes by treachery. 

 Since then, he has ruled Egypt almost independently. 

 The union with the European powers had, however, 

 made Selim and some of the chiefs of the empire 

 sensible that, if the Porte would maintain its power, 

 it must introduce into its armies the modern tactics, 

 and give to the divan a form more suited to the 

 times. The Nizan Dshedid laboured, therefore, to 

 form a Turkish army on the European model, which 

 should supersede the janizaries. But, after the peace 

 with France, in 1801, there were in the divan two 

 parties, a Russian and British, and a French. The 

 superiority of Russia pressed upon the Porte in the 

 Ionian islands and in Servia ; it was therefore 

 inclined to favour France. When, therefore, Rus- 

 sia, in 1806, occupied Moldavia and Walachia, the 

 old hostility broke out anew, and, December 30, 



1806, the Porte, at the instigation of France, declared 

 war against Russia, which was already engaged with 

 Persia and France. The weakness of the Ottoman 

 empire was now evident. A British fleet forced 

 the passage of the Dardanelles, and February 20 



1807, appeared before Constantinople ; but the 

 French general Sebastian! directed, with success, 

 the resistance of the divan and of the enraged 

 people. On the other hand, the Russians made 

 rapid advances. The people murmured. Selim Ml., 

 May 29, 1807, was deposed by the mufti, and Mus- 

 tapha IV. was obliged to put a stop to the hated 

 innovations. But, after the Turkish fleet had been 

 entirely beaten by the Russians at Lemnos, July 1, 

 1807, Selim's friend, Mustapha Bairaktar, the brave 

 pacha of Ruschuk, took advantage of the terror of 

 the capital to seize it. The unhappy Selim lost his life 

 July 28, 1808 ; and Bairaktar, in the place of the de- 

 posed Mustapha IV., raised to the throne the present 



