The Janissaries (Saqi Essentials) by Godfrey Goodwin

Author:Godfrey Goodwin [Goodwin, Godfrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780863567810
Publisher: Saqi
Published: 2013-01-02T04:30:00+00:00

The Aftermath of a Century of Conquests

Süleyman’s death caused concern to the Grand Vezir, Sokollu Mehmet Pasha, who concealed it from the janissaries until the heir was brought post-haste from Manisa. In the last days before Selim II11 arrived, the truth that Süleyman lay dead in his litter must have been rumoured; but the new sultan survived, if only just, his first encounter with his army. They had nothing but contempt for the fat and cheerful prince who was about to drink the horrors of kingship into oblivion. That he was fearful of the janissaries was obvious, yet he would have liked to treat them with more severity than his minister would allow. The sagacious Sokollu Mehmet Pasha was also overbearing and the command and government of army and empire were to be left to him.

Thomas Dallam, who was sent to Murat III with the gift of a water-organ combined with a clock from Queen Elizabeth, was received in audience in the Pearl Kiosk. He was so close to the sultan that he brushed his kaftan while playing. Instead of instant death, he was rewarded with Murat’s applause but he preferred to go home to his family in Lancashire rather than remain in the sultan’s service for a princely stipend. Dallam mentions Selim’s 100 mutes with hawks and 100 dwarfs as well: a fashionable European taste which Murat, Selim’s son, was to share while adding a train of freaks of other kinds and the performance of buffoonish comedies fit for the great Villa Valmarana in Vicenza or the court at Mantua.12

Murat was half-Venetian and Italian in his taste for splendour, which his Grand Vezir restrained for economic reasons.13 But Sokollu Mehmet’s position had been weakened by Jewish influence at court, in particular that of Joseph Nasi, the pretentious Duke of Naxos, who had supplied wine to Selim II. Sokollu’s sceptical outlook had permitted the building of the Observatory at Cıhangir above Tophane, to the annoyance of the ulema. He had also turned Ottoman foreign policy eastwards and away from the Christian provinces where he had been born and which he fostered as he did his relatives.14 He sent the ill-fated expedition to dig the Don to Volga canal which might have succeeded had it been possible to placate the khan of the Crimea, who feared the consequences.

It was a gamble which had to be taken for, if dug, the canal would have enabled the Ottomans to gain direct access to Central Asia and control the Silk Road; a fleet to match that of the Danube could have been established and the raids on the pilgrimage route by the new Russian Cossacks of Ivan III could have been frustrated. The khan made no overt objection to the arrival of Ottoman troops and great stocks of munitions and supplies were stored at Azov while Çerkes (‘Circassian’) Kasım Pasha assembled 10,000 men and 6,000 labourers at Caffa. Significantly, the khan, Devlet Giray, sent him only 3,000 Tartar cavalry. In June 1570 the expedition set out on the march while 500 men travelled with the artillery on the Don to camp at Perekop.

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