A Short History of the Ottoman Empire by Charles Horne

Author:Charles Horne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

INTERNAL DECAY AND ITS TEMPORARY ARREST UNDER MURAD IV

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[AUTHORITIES: AS BEFORE. ALSO STIRLING-MAXWELL, “Lon John of Austria”; Dyer, “History of Europe”; Menzies, “ Turkey Old and New."]

The death of Solyman was concealed from his troops by his devoted Vizier, Sokolli. The Vizier was well aware that the news would cause the soldiers to abandon the siege of Szigeth in discouragement; and he was determined that the fortress before which his master had perished should not remain untaken to boast of its resistance. For seven weeks the body of the dead “Lord of the Age” was borne about in a closed litter, as though the empty shell still held its former tenant. Officers approached and bowed low to it and heard Sokolli, stooping within the curtains, repeat feeble words of command.

The fortress succumbed at last, and its heroic defendants rushed forth to death in a final charge. The Countess Zrinyi, remaining behind, blew up the powder magazine at the entrance of the victors, hurling the entire fortress into air and carrying with it skyward three thousand Janizaries. Sokolli announced that the object of the campaign was accomplished, and withdrew the army in good order. Only when the homeward march was well advanced, was the demise of the great Sultan proclaimed and his outworn body permitted to have rest. His authority passed to his only surviving son, the drunken, imbecile Selim, called even by his own reverent historians, Selim the Sot.

Of no land has it been more true than of Turkey, that the fortune of the people followed that of their rulers. For three centuries the descendants of Ertoghrul had handed their kingship steadily from father to soli. Ten generations of leaders, all efficient and only one or two falling below real greatness of mind or body, had established for the Osmanli an almost superhuman reverence in the hearts of their people. But with the death of Solyman, the genius of his race suddenly disappears. His successors sink to a general level of feebleness as impressive as was the grandeur of the earlier generations. One or two of the later Sultans rise, perhaps, to the ordinary stature of mankind, but as a race they grovel beneath contempt.

For this evil change we must hold Solyman responsible, Solyman and Khurrem, “the laughing one,” the Sultana whose machinations destroyed all the capable sons of her royal lover and left him only Selim, the worthless child whom, with a mother’s instinct of his need of her, Khurrem had made her favorite.

The character of Selim II (1566-1574) had come to be well understood by his father and all his people, but such was the absolute devotion of the nation to the house of Osman, that no one thought for a moment of disputing his succession. The lives, the fortunes, and the consciences of the whole Turkish race were placed unreservedly in the hands of an acknowledged drunkard and half-imbecile. Through him this power descended to the children of his vile amours.

The weakness of one man could not of course cause the immediate downfall of so vast and firmly founded an empire.

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