DISCOVERY 



267 



good fortune of a single man, or even of a single book, 

 to throw such new light on a great event that it is really 

 a discovery. Such a book is Dr. Gibbons of Prince- 

 ton's Foundations of the Ottoman Empire. It was 

 published in 1916, but its lessons have yet to be learnt 

 by those who discuss the Eastern question in the Press. 

 They have no immediate relation to the problems of 

 to-day, but they affect very materially the historical 

 background. 



According to the traditional view, the origin of the 

 Ottoman Empire was an invasion of Turks coming 

 originally from Central Asia. In the eleventh century 

 the Seljuks had settled in Asia Minor and parts of 

 Syria. The Crusaders drove them back from the 

 coasts, but they remained in the interior, and were 

 reinforced by fresh immigrants from Turkestan. One 

 of these migrant tribes established themselves east of 

 Brusa in the thirteenth century. With all the vigour 

 of a young people, they gradually took the place of the 

 Seljuks. In the words of Von Hammer, the father of 

 modem Turkish History, " the Empire of the Seljuks 

 broke up, and on its ruins rose that of Osman." At 

 the head of the Turks of Asia Minor the Osmanli 

 pushed across the Hellespont, and, taking advantage 

 of the mutual antagonism of Greek, Bulgar, and Serb, 

 conquered the Balkan Peninsula and then pushed on 

 towards Central Europe. It was the invasion of 

 Europe by a non-European people, by a collection of 

 nomad tribes effectively organised for war breaking 

 in among settled peoples, and setting over them the 

 rule of an alien religion and an alien race. 



For this, the traditional story. Dr. Gibbons would 

 substitute something very different. According to 

 him, the small Turkish tribe over which Osman began 

 to rule in 1288 consisted of no more than 400 famihes. 

 They had occupied for some fifty years a small district 

 east of the Asiatic Olympus, Uving in friendly relations 

 with their neighbours. Under Osman the tribe became 

 converted from paganism to Islam, and the conversion 

 was followed by a gradual extension westwards. 

 Before Osman's death his people had risen to 4,000 

 famihes, but this tenfold increase was almost entirely 

 in districts which had hitherto been part of the Byzan- 

 tine Empire. The new Osmanli were in great majority 

 " Greeks " who had become Moslems. They preserved 

 many Byzantine customs and used Byzantine law, 

 though the Turkish language prevailed. At first the 

 country districts and then the historic cities of Brusa, 

 Nicjea, and Nicomedia surrendered to the new power. 

 Though Constantinople was so close it gave no help. 

 Distracted by unceasing personal and family feuds, the 

 Palreologi, " the most iniquitous family that ever dis- 

 graced the kingly office," made no serious attempt to 

 save the province or the cities. The military defence 

 of the Empire was left to ill-paid and quite untrust- 



worthy mercenaries, often Turks themselves, or to the 

 fitful help received from Genoa or Venice. The Greek 

 Church had hardly more life than the Empire. Its 

 missionary effort had long been exhausted, and its 

 chief interest, and that was passionate enough, lay 

 in the controversy with the Latins. The choice made 

 by the pagan Osman showed which of the rival religions 

 seemed to have more vitality. The new converts to 

 Islam spared the Greeks even the saving grace of perse- 

 cution. A number of Osman's chief followers became 

 Moslems, but only after they had for years served him 

 faithfully as Christians. The tradition of toleration 

 survived ; even as late as 1384 a body of French pil- 

 grims who had returned from the East praised Murad I 

 for his humanity and for allowing the Christians to 

 live under their own laws. 



Under Osman's successor, Orchan, the new State 

 began to establish itself permanently in Europe, but 

 only after the Osmanli troops had been for years em- 

 ployed by the Emperor in his civil wars or against 

 the Serbs. Once definitely across the Hellespont, its 

 power advanced with astonishing rapidity. Thirty- 

 five years after the capture of Gallipoli, Serbian inde- 

 pendence was destroyed at Kossova. The history of 

 this advance is well known, but Dr. Gibbons emphasises 

 the great part played in it by the Christian Allies and 

 the very numerous converts of Islam. The Sultans 

 never seem to have fought a battle without Christian 

 troops, and they showed a power of turning enemies into 

 allies parallelled perhaps only by the British in India. 

 Just as the Sikhs took our side in the Mutiny within 

 eight years of their annexation, so the Serbians fought 

 for the Turks against the Western Crusaders at Nico- 

 polis, within seven years of Kossova. The friendliness 

 of the Balkan Christians stood the test even of mis- 

 fortune. In 1402 the great host of Sultan Bayezid. 

 with its Christian contingents, was routed and scattered 

 by Timour at Angora, and the Sultan himself taken 

 prisoner. The rehcs of the Osmanli army straggled 

 back to the coast. Greeks, Genoese, and Venetian 

 colonists vied with one another in helping them over to 

 Europe, and no attempt was made by the Balkan 

 peoples to combine against the defeated and disor- 

 ganised OsmanU. 



The conclusion seems to be that the so-called " Turk- 

 ish " invasion was the invasion of a creed and a spirit 

 rather than that of a race, a victory of a young and 

 vigorous faith over one which had unhappily become 

 degenerate. It was only when the Osmanli power had 

 reached the Danube that its armies, which must have 

 largely consisted of Europeans, turned eastward, and 

 reduced the Seljuks of Asia Minor. It was not tiU the 

 days of SeUm, in the early sixteenth century, that Syria 

 and Egypt were overrun and the conquest of Arabia 

 begun. This Eastern expansion and contact with the 



