Négociations de la France dans le Levant; ou Correspondance, Mémoires, et Actes Diplomatiques des Ambassadeurs de France à Constantinople, et des Ambassadeurs, Envoyés, ou Résidents à divers titres à Venise, Raguse, Rome, Malte, et Jerusalem; en Turquie, Perse, Georgie, Crimée, Syrie, Egypte, etc., et dans les états de Tunis, d'Alger, et de Maroc. Publiés pour la première fois. Par S. CHARRIERE. Tome I. (1515-1547). Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1848.

mained exposed to worse perils than any-the varying phases of religious zeal-the
which had yet beset her. In the great peace conflict of traditional duties and practical
of Europe there was no peace for Constanti- policy-and the rise and growth of such an
nople. Thirty years since, the historian of the element as the power of the Czars-should
Middle Ages expected, "with an assurance command their share of interest and atten-
that none can deem extravagant, the approach- tion.
ing subversion of the Ottoman power;" and
the progressive current of events has certainly
in no degree changed, since this conviction
was avowed. Yet, though the only symp-
tom of imminent dissolution that then seemed
wanting has now appeared, and though ter-
ritorial dismemberment has partially super-
vened upon internal disorganization, the im-
perial fabric still stands the Turkish Cres-
cent still glitters on the Bosphorus-and
still "the tottering arch of conquest spans
the ample regions from Bagdad to Belgrade."
Without repeating, therefore, the ominous
note of prophecy, we shall direct our re-
marks to the historical elucidation of the
questions involved in it. Our wish is to il-
lustrate the origin and establishment of the
Ottoman Empire, as one of the substantive
Powers of Europe; to exhibit the causes
which conduced to its political recognition;
to trace the subsequent action of so anoma-
lous a State upon the affairs of Christendom;
to mark the fluctuations of fortune by which
its external relations were determined; and
to distinguish the stages of estimation and
influence through which it successively pass-
ed, until the dreaded Empire of the Otto-
mans dwindled virtually, though with domi-
nions not materially diminished, into the po-
sition of a Protected State,-subsisting, ap-
parently, by the interested patronage of those
very Powers which had been so scared and
scandalized at its growth. If our inquiry
should include fewer exemplifications than
might be expected of the civil institutions of
this extraordinary nation, the omission must
be attributed to the extent of the more im-
mediate subject, and the imperative restric-
tions of space. A sagacious moralist once
said of an historian of the Turks, that he
was unhappy only in the choice of his mat-
ter. If the course of our proposed exposi-
tion were but a little less narrow, we should
not distrust our ability to cancel this invidious
qualification; for there are, in reality, no
known annals more striking in their details,
and often more purely romantic than those of
the House of Othman. Even as it is, we
hope for some success; for, though of all
kinds of history political history possesses
the fewest superficial attractions, yet such
topics as the naturalization of a Mahometan
sovereignty among the States of Christendom

It may reasonably be thought remarkable that the establishment of an infidel Power at the gates of Europe should not, in those ages of faith, have provoked a prompt and effective combination of the whole Christian world for the expulsion of the intruder. In explanation, however, of this apathy or impotence, there are several considerations to be mentioned. In the first place, the phenomencń coincided singularly, in point of time, with the definite abandonment of the system of Eastern crusades. The seventh and last of these enterprises had resulted in scandal and defeat; and had disclosed the growing reluctance of States and people to contribute toward expeditions which neither promoted the objects nor conduced to the credit of those engaged in them. The final and total loss of the Holy Land in 1291, preceded but by eight years the enthronement of the first Othman; so that the origin of the Turkish State was almost exactly contemporaneous with the withdrawal of Christian arms from the scene of its growth. That the extinction, too, of the crusading principle was then complete, may be inferred from the violent suppression, only ten years later, of that military order which had been mainly instrumental in checking the march of the misbelievers. The commencement of the Ottoman dynasty is placed in the year 1299; and, in the year 1309, the Knights Templars, except as captives or pensioners, had ceased to exist. Nor was the rise of the Turkish power an event calculated, at its first announcement, to create any extraordinary consternation. As regards Asia Minor, the entire peninsula, with the exception of its western sea-board, had long been in the possession of kindred tribes; and the mere substitution of Ottomans for Seljukians could hardly be thought to menace the interests of Europe. Even the actual passage of the Straits, which was the first critical point of Turkish progress, presented no unparalleled phenomenon; for a Moorish kingdom still flourished on the Guadalquiver; and a Tartar horde had just established its sovereignty over the dismembered duchies of Russia. It is certainly true that the exigencies of Mogul invasions, and the remnants of crusading zeal, did originally suggest the concert of nations, which became afterward systema

tized by the standing requirements of a political equilibrium; and, perhaps, the dread of Ottoman aggression produced the first faint foreshadowings of those State-combinations which characterize the modern history of Europe. But it was not so at the outset. Adrianople had been made a Mahometan capital, and the metropolis of the Eastern Cæsars had become a mere enclave in Turkish territory, before the aid of European princes was solicited against the new invaders and solicited in vain! and when at length the Christian allies and the infidel forces joined battle in the field of Nicopolis, the Ottoman power had been impregnably strengthened by the impunity and successes of a century.

|

Al

accidental advantages of long reigns and worthy representatives; while its opportunities of aggrandizement were so peculiar that far weaker hands might have turned them to account. On one side of them lay the Roman empire, shrunk to the dimensions of Constantinople and its environs; on the other the fragmentary or effete principalities of the Seljukian Turks, who had been quartered for two centuries on these spoils of the Eastern Cæsars, and whose power had been recently shattered by the shock of the Mogul invasion. The House of Othman struck right and left. Before the sixty years of its two first chiefs had terminated, the northwestern portions of Asia Minor had been effectually subdued, and a capital had been found at Prusa for the new dominion. de-ready the passage of the Hellespont had become an ordinary incident of their expeditions, and by the middle of the fourteenth century, the European shore of the Straits was studded with Turkish garrisons. Starting from the ground thus gained, Amurath, first of his name, and third of his race, added the whole province of Thrace to his territories, erected a second metropolis at Adrianople, and advanced the Ottoman frontiers to the Balkan. Our sketch runs rapidly to a close. A few years more, and we find these Turks of the third generation, at the very limits of their present empire; and on the very scenes of their present fortunes. By 1390, they had occupied Widdin, and before five years more had elapsed, the Moslem and Christian hosts were delivering, as we have said, the first of their countless battles on the banks of the Danube.

As any particular narrative of these events would carry us beyond our limits and our sign, we can only venture on a few brief remarks in elucidation of the subject directly before us, and in aid of the general interest of our disquisition. Toward the close of the thirteenth century,-that is to say, at the very moment when the election of a Swiss knight to the Germanic throne was laying the foundations of the imperial House of Austria, events of equal singularity were preparing the seat of the rival Cæsars for the progeny of a Turkish freebooter. The Asiatic continent, from its central highlands to the shores of the Mediterranean, had been utterly convulsed by the tremendous irruptions of Zingis Khan; and, in the course of the subsequent commotions, a Turcoman chief named Ortogrul, from the banks of the Oxus, found himself wandering in the hills of Anatolia at the head of four hundred families. A service, which he accidentally rendered to a native prince, was acknowledged by a grant of land; and the estate was soon expanded into a respectable territory, by the talents which had originally acquired it. The inheritance of Ortogrul devolved, in 1289, upon his son Osman or Othman, who, at the death, ten years later, of his patron, the Sultan of Iconium, no longer hesitated to proclaim his independent sovereignty. Such was the origin of the House of Othman. The name itself, which is a vernacular epithet of the royal vulture, and signifies a "bone-breaker," has been recognized by the Turks as not disagreeably symbolical of the national character and mission; and so completely do they identify their State with the race of its founder, that they have foregone all other denominations for the dignity, style, and title of the Ottoman Porte.

The new dynasty enjoyed the signal though

During these transactions, although the relative positions of Turkey and Christendom were wholly and alarmingly changed, and though the attitude of the new invaders on the borders of Germany did really portend more serious results than the transient devastations of Tartar inroads, yet the deportment of the European Powers appears to have undergone no corresponding alteration. The battle of Nicopolis had indeed been fought; but the crusade which this encounter commenced and terminated, originated rather in the influence of family connections than in any impulse of political foresight or religious zeal. The King of Hungary, whose realm was menaced by the arms of Bajazet I., was son of one German emperor, brother to another, and destined to be Emperor himself; and he possessed therefore the obvious means of attracting to his standard the capricious chivalry of the West. But there

૬

was no effective combination of forces, nor any permanent sense of the danger which required it. The progress of the Ottoman arms exercised little perceptible influence on the councils of Europe, nor did the impending fate of an imperial and Christian city provoke any serviceable sympathy. After the Thracian and Bulgarian conquests, to which we have alluded, Constantinople, for the first time in its existence, was completely environed by enemies; and it became clear to the Greek emperors, that the invaders with whom they had now to deal, were of a very different mould from the swarming hordes which had so often swept past them and retired. Yet, though four emperors in succession visited Western Europe in search of aid, and though one of them brought his petition even to the king of this island, and Kentish yeomen saw a Greek Cæsar entertained in St. Austin's monastery, and received on Blackheath by a Lancastrian sovereign, there was no substantial aid forthcoming. This failure was doubtless principally ascribable to the disrepute into which crusading expeditions had fallen, and to the occupation with which both the French and English monarchs were then provided in their own kingdoms. There are, however, other circumstances which, for the full comprehension of the state of opinion at this period, it will be necessary to recollect.

nent of European opinion was no other than
the Roman Pontiff,-without whose co-ope-
ration it would have been scarcely possible
to organize an effectual crusade. The appli-
cation, therefore, of the Eastern emperors to
the Powers of Europe, took the form of
conciliatory overtures to the Romish See;
and, excepting in the case of the Emperor
Manuel, the negotiations of the imperial vi-
sitors were confined to the limits of the Pa-
pal Court. Neither could the Greek State
be exactly represented to European sympa-
thies as a Christian city brought finally to
bay, and desperately battling against the
overwhelming forces of the infidel. The
terms on which Turks and Greeks had for
some time been living, precluded any such
description of their mutual relationship. The
presumptive antagonism of the two States
had been long openly compromised by con-
cessions, by tributes, and, what was worse,
by the ordinary passages of amity and
good-will. Ottoman princes were educated
at the Christian court, and Christian princes
honorably lodged in the camp of the Otto-
mans; a mosque was tolerated in Constan-
tinople; and a daughter of John Cantacu-
zene was given in marriage to the second of
the Turkish sovereigns. That these arrange-
ments were not wholly voluntary on the side
of the weaker party we may safely believe;
but it will still be evident how materially
such a combination of circumstances must
have operated to the disadvantage of the
Emperors, in their appeal to the sympathy
of Christian Europe.

Though the Greek emperors were not only Christian sovereigns, but even coheirs of the political supremacy of Christendom, yet this very rivalry had combined with their geographical isolation and foreign tongue to Meantime the Turkish power had been estrange them from the Powers of Europe. growing with a certainty and steadiness unAs early as the reign of Heraclius, the in- exampled in the history of an Oriental peotercourse between the East and West began ple. Two or three of the causes which prinvisibly to slacken, and the great religious cipally conduced to this remarkable result, it schism of the eleventh century completed may be right here to specify. The passage the disruption. After this time, Constanti- of the Ottomans into Europe might have nople was scarcely regarded, either spirit- been long retarded by the simple expedient ually or politically, as entering into the com- of guarding the Straits. While the power munity of European States. Even the con- of the Greek Empire consisted almost solely tact induced by the Crusades rather increased in the relics of its fleet, still respectably apthan diminished the alienation. On more pointed, and furnished with the most formithan one occasion, Greek emperors were dable appliances of naval warfare known to leagued with the Saracens against the soldiers the age, the Turks were totally destitute both of the Cross; and the imperial city itself, of ships and of the science which concerned after triumphantly sustaining so many sieges, them. A few galleys might have sufficiently was captured and sacked for the first time by protected the channel against all the forces Christians and Franks. It may be imagined, of Orchan an Amurath; and yet not only perhaps, that the differences between the were the Ottomans permitted to pass undisGreek and Latin churches could not much turbed, with such means as they could affect the dispositions of Norman barons; extemporize, but even the intelligence of but it must be remembered, that in these ro- their having secured a lodgment, and fortimantic expeditions the moderator and expo-fied themselves on the European side, pro

duced nothing but careless scoffs in the Im- | had he invested Constantinople, when events perial court. The next point requiring notice occurred by which the very course of Fate is, that the conquests of the Turks were itself appeared to be threatened with a mainly effected by the agency of European change. We can do no more than specify troops. The Ottomans will be found to have in a few words the occurrences which abconquered the Byzantine provinces as we con- ruptly subverted the whole superstructure of quered India-by enlisting and disciplining Turkish power; which scattered all its acquithe natives of the country. Only 400 families sitions to the winds, and which renders its ulhad originally obeyed the voice of Ortogrul; timate restoration one of the most extraordiand it is clear, therefore, that the subjects of his nary incidents in the records of history. successors must have been swelled in numbers In the height of his power and presumpby accessions from other tribes: in fact, the tion, Bajazet was conquered and carried into progress of the Ottomans was merely the captivity by Timour. By this defeat the inonward flow of the population of Asia Mi- heritance of his house became to all appearnor. Even this, however, would have been ance entirely dissolved. Its Asiatic possesdeficient in impulsive force but for the sin- sions, though contemptuously abandoned by gular institution which we are now to mention. the conqueror, were seized upon by the SelThe Janizaries were originally formed and jukian Turks, who regained the positions recruited from the impressed children of from which they had been dislodged; while Christian captives; afterward from those of in Europe the opportunity was turned to simany Christian subjects of the Porte, and at ilar account by the reviving spirit of the length from the sons of the soldiers them- Greeks. To complete the ruin, civil war beselves; so that a pure military caste, with tween the sons of Bajazet presently ensued ; habits and interests totally distinct from the and the heirs of the Ottoman House, instead rest of the people, was gradually established of repairing their fortunes by concord and in the very heart of the nation. The num- patience, were fighting desperately among ber of the Janizaries in the middle of the themselves, for a heritage which hardly exfourteenth century was only one thousand; isted save in name. The perfect restoration but this muster-roll was repeatedly multi-of a State, dismembered and dismantled, at plied by successive Emperors, till at length, under the Great Solyman, it reached to twenty thousand, and in the German wars, under Mahomed IV., to double that strength. It is not a little singular that a body so constituted should have been not only the main instrument of Turkish aggrandizement, but should have been so inveterately identified with Ottoman traditions, as at all times to have formed the chief obstacle to any social or constitutional reforms. Nor should it be overlooked, that the creation and maintenance of this standing army, isolated from all popular sympathies by descent and character, contributed most powerfully to consolidate the authority of the new dynasty, and to furnish the Turkish sovereigns with those permanent resources, in virtue of which they escaped the ordinary vicissitudes of Oriental dynasties; and encountered the tumultuous levies of Hungary and Germany with all the advantages of despotic power. The pretensions of the House of Othman kept pace with its achievements. Originally its chief had been content with the title of Emir; but Bajazet I., by means to which we shall immediately refer, procured for himself, toward the end of the century, the more dignified denomination of Sultan. Already, in justification of his new assumptions,

such a stage of its existence, by so destructive and shattering a shock, may be described as without parallel in history-and yet within ten years it was completely effected. Mahomet, the most sagacious of the sons of Bajazet, waited his time; and at length, by the extinction of other claims, succeeded in recovering both the Asiatic and European conquests of his family, and in reuniting the thrones of Adrianople and Prusa. A peaceful and prudent reign of eight years enabled him to consolidate his dominion anew; and when, in 1421, Amurath II. succeeded to the crown of his father, the Ottoman Power was as vigorous, as sound, and as aggressive as if the battle of Angora had never been fought.

We are now arrived at a period when the destinies of the Ottoman House were to be | finally determined. Up to this time the progress and renown of the Turkish arms had stimulated Europe to nothing but a few insincere leagues and a single precipitate crusade; nor can we be wrong in presuming that the recent temporary suspension and apparent annihilation of the Ottoman Power must have operated materially in still further indisposing European statesmen to exertion or alarm. But the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, changed the