TURKEY. 
154 
dispersed, recovered that province ; and the Turkish general 
received orders to return to Constantinople, where he was 
stripped of all his employments. 
Amurat strove to stifle in debauchery the thoughts of the 
disasters which befel his arms in Persia. This war, in which 
a third attempt proved as fruitless as the preceding, together 
with the continual change of vizirs, exhausted the public 
exchequer, and rendered it necessary to increase the taxes; 
while the frequent insurrections of the people and the janis¬ 
saries kept the sultan a prisoner in his own palace. To 
recruit his finances, Amurat, by the advice ofFerhad, who 
from a low condition had successively risen to the most 
important posts in the empire, and was then vizir, augmented 
the imposts of the remote provinces, and extorted consider¬ 
able sums from the Christians and Jews, upon the specious 
pretext of favouring their trade. He thought fit also to 
demand presents of Rudolph, emperor of Germany, who 
answered him by sending to the frontiers an army, which 
took Sigeth. This movement induced the sultan to conclude 
peace with Persia, which ceded Tauryz to the Ottomans. 
It was high time to oppose the progress of the Christians. 
The archduke Matthias, general of the Hungarians, had 
taken, almost without resistance, the towns of Silek and 
Novigrade, in the month of March, and laid siege to Grom. 
The pacha who commanded in that place was killed in a 
sally. The garrison still held out, and the Turks arrived in 
time for its relief: they forced the enemy to an engagement 
on an unfavourable ground and with inferior numbers. The 
archduke was vanquished, and forced to flee into Croatia, 
where he rallied the wreck of his army, while the victorious 
Turks laid siege to Raab, or Javarin, one of the strongest 
fortresses of Lower Hungary. A large sum of money in¬ 
duced the perfidious governor to deliver up the place to 
them, on the 17th of September, 1594. The traitor after¬ 
wards had the imprudence to repair to the camp of the arch¬ 
duke, who discovering his guilt, sent him to Vienna, where 
he and his accomplices perished on the scaffold. 
The Turks next invested Comorn; but the emperor 
Rudolph, having formed an alliance with Sigismund Battori, 
waywode of Transylvania, and Moldavia and Wallachia 
threatening to join this confederacy, the Turkish general 
proposed to the sultan to assume the command of his troops 
in person, or to place his eldest son, then twenty years of 
age, at their head. Amurat, who was jealous of him, and 
regarded him rather in the light of his rival than his heir, 
preferred doing violence to his indolent disposition, and 
declared that he would command the army himself in the 
ensuing campaign. All his exploits, however, consisted in 
his taking a journey to Adrianople, and there reviewing 
part of his troops. While they were filing off before him, 
a tremendous storm compelled them to disperse. Alarmed 
at the circumstance, Amurat consulted the soothsayers, who 
unable to devise any favourable interpretation of this per¬ 
fectly natural phenomenon, excited in his mind apprehen¬ 
sions for his life. Nothing more was required to plunge 
Amurat into a state of languor from which he never re¬ 
covered, and which brought on a fever, that carried him off 
on the 17th of January, 1595, at the age of fifty years, and 
after a reign of twenty. 
1595—1603.— Mahomet III., whom the jealousy of 
Amurat, his father, had kept aloof from the command of 
armies, was dreaded by all who had the means of knowing 
him in his retirement. He had manifested a cruel disposition 
and a readiness to punish. No sooner was he girt with the 
sword of Othman, than, upon pretext of securing himself 
upon the throne, he caused nineteen of his brothers to be 
strangled before his face ; and ten oclahlycs, or concubines, 
pregnant by Amurath, to be thrown into the sea. 
The empire was in the greatest disorder. The capital 
threatened by famine, obliged the sultan to open the trea¬ 
sures amassed by Amurat, for the purpose of averting this 
calamity; but that of war succeeded. The waywodes of 
Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia, tributaries of the 
Porte, availed themselves of the protection of the emperor of 
Germany to revolt. The Turks were beaten and lost several 
towns. Ferhad, the vizir, promoted for the third time to 
that office, ineffectually attempted the following year to 
recover Wallachia. He was pursued into Nicopolis, and 
lost a battle before that city, which was taken by the allies. 
This general, less fortunate than bis predecessor, who had 
obtained pardon for his defeat, by sharing his immense 
wealth with the sultana-valydeh, was punished with the fatal 
cord. His successor, fearful of risking his fortune and his 
life in a war already so disastrous, prevailed upon his master 
to take the command of the troops. The sultan accordingly 
set out with great pomp from Constantinople, in the month 
of September, 1596, and put himself at the head of an army 
of 200,000 men, of which he formed several divisions. He 
first took Agria, in spite of the archduke Matthias, who did 
not hesitate to offer him battle, though his army was far 
inferior in strength; but superiority in tactics gained the ad¬ 
vantage over numbers, and the guards of the Ottoman em¬ 
peror being cut in pieces, be was himself exposed to imminent 
danger. The Turks abandoned their camp to the enemy. 
The cavalry, attracted by the richness of the booty, having 
dismounted, notwithstanding the repeated prohibitions of 
the archduke, was suddenly charged by the Turks. The 
victory was thus wrested from the confederates, who were 
obliged to retreat into Hungary. 
Immediately after this engagement, the waywode of Wal¬ 
lachia, bribed by the sultan’s gold, concluded a secret nego- 
ciation, by which he acknowledged himself a vassal of the 
Porte. On the other hand, Sigismund Battoria resigned to 
the emperor Rudolph all his claims upon Transylvania. 
On the sultan’s return, the plague broke out at Constan¬ 
tinople. Never had it yet made such ravages. Seventeen 
princesses, sisters of the emperor, died in one day, and a 
great number of sultanas and ohdahlycs, or concubines, were 
carried off. Mahomet himself had a slight attack of the 
disease. On escaping this danger, he relinquished the reins 
of government to his mother, the sultana-valydeh, and 
thought of nothing but his personal pleasures. The sultana 
soon abused her power, and bestowed her confidence on 
eunuchs, who employed their influence only in tyrannising 
over the provinces of the empire. Amid this anarchy, the 
French ambassador, M. Savary de Breves, found means to 
be serviceable to his countrymen, and to obtain for them 
that justice which was denied to Mahometans themselves. 
At the peril of his life, he caused the Christian religion and 
its ministers to be protected, and enforced respect for the 
French flag, and he persuaded Mahomet to send an embassy 
to Henry IV. 
In this state of things the spahys, indignant at being 
governed by a woman, threatened to burn the seraglio, unless 
its gates were opened to them. This tumult roused the em¬ 
peror from his lethargy. He received the chiefs of the muti¬ 
neers, who with vehemence represented their grievances, 
pointed out the .abuses which enfeebled the empire, and 
demanded the heads of the eunuchs. Mahomet, trembling 
for his own safety, durst not refuse. The proscribed persons 
were brought forth and strangled on the spot. The troops, 
being now satisfied, dispersed, and the sedition was ap¬ 
peased ; but the sultan called out the janissaries, who had 
taken no part in this disturbance, and ordered them to chas¬ 
tise the insurgents. The mufty, charged with favouring the 
spahys, was deposed; and his successor issued a fetva, or 
proclamation, declaring the spahys traitors to the emperor, 
if they did not instantly lay down their arms. This pro¬ 
clamation being published in the city, the gates of which 
were shut, most of the spahys dismounted from their horses, 
signified their obedience to the fetva, and delivered up their 
leaders who were put to death, and other officers appointed 
in their stead. This cavalry, thus humbled, retained a 
feeling of animosity against the janissaries, and continual 
fights ensued between them whenever they met in any num¬ 
ber. To put an end to these disorders, the sultan removed 
all the spahys from Constantinople, and sent them against 
the Persians, who had retaken the province of Chyrvan. 
While 
