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THE PASSING OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE

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Seraglio Point
The entrance to the Golden Horn with foreign warships: a white-painted Dutch man-of-war, the Gelderland; the French cruiser, Léon Gambetta; H.M.S. Weymouth; and an Austrian battleship. In the distance the Tower of Galata.

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THE PASSING
OF THE
TURKISH EMPIRE
IN EUROPE

BY
CAPTAIN B. GRANVILLE BAKER
LATE OF H.M. 21ST HUSSARS AND THE 9TH ROYAL PRUSSIAN HUSSARS
AUTHOR OF “THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE,” “THE
DANUBE WITH PEN AND PENCIL,” “A WINTER
HOLIDAY IN PORTUGAL,” &c.

WITH 33 ILLUSTRATIONS & A MAP

LONDON
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
38 Great Russell Street
1913

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CONTENTS

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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INTRODUCTION

TOWARDS the end of a dismal summer, when everybody who is anybody in the United Kingdom was departing for their annual holidays, dark clouds began to gather on the political horizon overshadowing that European storm-centre, the Balkan Peninsula. Angry clouds had gathered over the seething races of those lands so frequently that no one heeded when the cry “Wolf!” went up again. “Balkan troubles again,” said those who thought they knew, and they turned with renewed interest to places for the holidays. But the clouds gathered apace, and ere Europe was fully alive to the situation, protests, ultimata, and the usual amenities had been exchanged; the world found itself confronted by a war between the Ottoman Empire and its former subjects, now clearly defined nationalities, united to one purpose, and that the end of Turkish rule in Europe.

While the Great Powers slowly set in motion the cumbrous machinery of diplomacy the storm-clouds discharged their lightnings, setting ablaze all the country from the Danube to the Ægean Sea, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. Over the borders of Turkey in Europe came hosts of armed men, ably led, well trained, and purposeful. They came down the Valley of the Maritza, the Struma, down from the Black Mountains, and out of Greece in the south, nations in arms, and determined to end oppression in Turkey’s European possessions. With desperate valour they beat down fierce resistance until but a small shred was left of the Empire carved by the sword of Othman out of South-Eastern Europe.{10}

History was in the making while diplomacy still talked about the status quo, and to my mind present events, if not an actual repetition of former historic happenings, bear at least some resemblance to them. Again an enemy’s angry gaze is directed towards Constantinople, again, as the early days of the ninth century into modern times, the Ruler in the seat of Constantine prepares to meet invasion. And beneath the surface of the troubled waters is there is the feeling of a heavy ground-swell. The Goths came down the Valley of the Maritza and met the Roman legions at Adrianople; the latter were defeated, Emperor Valens left among the slain. Yet those Goths were only the fringe of that great movement which broke the power of Rome. In those remote days of the “Völkerwanderung” Central Europe seethed with strong young nations bent on expansion forced by their growing numbers. Slav pressed on Teuton, and both races overflowed the boundaries set them by the Cæsars.

Are matters very different now? Perhaps the only difference is that the desire to expand, subconscious in early days of Christianity, is now informed of consciousness, is born of clearly defined necessities, and directed towards definite aims. The main line of advance since the first Aryans crossed the Balkans, swarmed over the Peloponese, peopled the islands of the Ægean Sea, and found their way to India has always been to southward, towards warm water; their movements to the north and west might be considered as purporting to guard their flanks, had they been conscious of strategic necessities.

The main line of advance of those thronged peoples between the Ural and the Vosges Mountains is from the Baltic to the Balkans, and Teuton and Slav are pressing slowly, surely southward, as rivals, for they are keenly conscious of their own and each other’s aims. Even now{11} this movement is scarcely realized by the States of Western Europe, notably Great Britain, though its tendency has been clearly defined for many years, and on the Teuton side, a half-Slav people, Prussia gave it impetus. The movement has been so slow as to pass unobserved for many years, but it has been deliberate, because racial impulses have been curbed by the arts of diplomacy, by the science of strategy, and by a keen realization of economic necessities. Each of these three factors has its victories to record, acts which to most people seemed but loose links in the chain of history rather than the firm steps towards the goal, distant but clearly seen by those who led the movement. The science of strategy brought Schleswig-Holstein into the German Union, welded the German States together, and extended their line of outposts to the Vosges Mountains. Diplomacy, following victory in the field, made of the German States an Empire, reconciled Austria, and forced Italy into the Triple Alliance. Diplomacy again brought Heligoland as an outpost in the sea to Germany, and political economy is endeavouring to bring Holland into the German Zollverein. Thus we find the right flank of the Teuton movement from the Baltic to the Balkans fully secured. Neither has the left flank been neglected; wedged in between the Balkan Kingdoms and Russia is Roumania. A Hohenzollern sits on the throne of that country, and all who know Roumania will realize that Austria is paramount there. In both Servia and Bulgaria la Haute Finance is in Austrian hands, and German commercial enterprise has extended feelers into Asia Minor.

On the Slav side of this great movement Russia looms, apparently slow to move; but the Slav temperament may be roused to dangerous frenzy, and signs are not wanting that the troubles of their southern kinsmen may cause a{12} popular upheaval, forcing the Government into action. Meanwhile Russia is deliberately organizing her vast resources.

Does it not seem as if the struggle between the Balkan Kingdoms and the Porte were but the prelude, but a vanguard action, to clear the Turk out of Europe, and so make room for the titanic conflict impending between the Slav and Teuton peoples? When they meet, what then? Consider the enormous highly organized strength available among the possible combatants—Germany’s millions, Austria’s vast resources! Are those who live on the flanks of the impending movement prepared to hold their own? Outside the ring surrounding Slavs and Teutons, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy are the confines of a vast Empire.

When last the Teuton nations moved so many centuries ago a world-wide Empire fell in ruins, an Empire glutted with wealth yet teeming with a pauper population in its capital, luxurious, unnerved, disdaining any service to their country, unconscious of any obligations in return for the privileges of citizenship. So Rome fell before the Teuton.

Again the Teuton is stirring. Germany is daily perfecting an already formidable navy, for flank defence first, then for further enterprise; Austria has recently greatly added to the budget for naval and military purposes, and the road to Saloniki is no longer closed by Turkey; Italy with her considerable naval power is allied to Germany and Austria.

What is Great Britain, the vast Empire encircling the moving forces from west to east, doing towards her own safety? When the nations of Europe were well aware of the trouble which has now reached its climax in the Balkan Peninsula, and were beginning to take at least{13} diplomatic action, Great Britain was having holidays and could not be disturbed. So our naval force in the Mediterranean has been weakened to guard against the German’s left flank protection and the coast of Egypt is left insufficiently protected.

While the Balkan Kingdoms were mobilizing the armies which have since swept triumphant over Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, armies composed of the whole manhood of each nation, not of hired soldiers, Great Britain was collecting troops for Cambridgeshire manœuvres, with much self-laudation, and the assistance of the Territorial force, got together a number about equal to Montenegro’s first levy for the war with Turkey; and Montenegro is about half the size of Wales and sparsely populated. Servia, a country hitherto denied a voice in the great Committee of European States, at once mobilized troops exceeding in number the expeditionary force with which Great Britain proposes to take part in an armed conflict of the Great Powers, and moreover that small kingdom proved itself capable of even greater effort and produced as many fighting men as Moltke required to vanquish France.

The Allies acted sharply and decisively. Seven weeks after the declaration of war the Sultan’s troops were forced to retire behind the lines of Chatalja, the outer defences of Constantinople. Constantinople was the seat of Cæsar from the middle of the fourth century until Mohammed the Conqueror made it the capital of his Empire in 1453. From here Ottoman armies marched to victory; Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs were conquered, enslaved, their national identity swamped by the rising tide of Moslems as it flowed on over the plains of Hungary even up to the bastions of Vienna, that bulwark of the Western world.{14}

From Stamboul, where I write, successive Sultans directed the policy of Turkey as their power waned. Here plans were devised, intrigues inaugurated to check the forces that threatened Ottoman supremacy. Here the Sultan in his palace heard of fresh troubles in his Empire, of defeats on the field of battle and in the council chamber. Here between the deep calm of the Orient and the restless striving of the West successive wearers of the sword of Othman must have marked the signs of the times and wondered how disaster might be averted.

But disaster came, a swift retribution for years of indolence. As I write this the sound of firing is borne on the westerly wind into the City of Constantine, Tsarigrad, Stamboul.

I was mightily drawn to revisit this ancient city now in these days of darkness, so I hurried out overland, crossing Germany, Poland, Roumania, till I landed on the banks of the Golden Horn. When I had passed I noted a feeling of deep anxiety, to account for which the present troubles of Turkey are insufficient; there seemed to me an undercurrent of unrest such as perchance preceded the “Völkerwanderung” of some fifteen centuries ago. I came here to record as best I can the doings of these days in Constantinople, the capital of a vanishing Empire, and while I went about the city, revisiting places I have seen bathed in summer sunshine, now gloomy under a lowering sky, as I noted the many signs of “Sturm und Drang,” I was filled with grave forebodings; here where a mighty Empire is tottering to its fall under pressure of the vanguard of a “Völkerwanderung” I pondered whether another world-wide Empire were as secure as that of the Ottoman was till recently supposed to be.

B. G. B.

Constantinople

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The Passing of the
Turkish Empire in Europe

CHAPTER I

IT was with strangely mingled feelings that I left London one Saturday evening, left the capital of one great Empire supposed to rest on firm foundations, considered strong in the council of nations, to visit the heart of yet another Empire once considered mighty and of weighty influence in Europe, now tottering to its fall with alarming rapidity, under the staggering blows of four small peoples, young and purposeful, unspoilt by wealth and power.

The lights of Dover gleamed steadily in a black sky, the dark waters gave back broken reflections from a brilliantly lit liner making her stately way down Channel, as the throbbing turbines carried our little ship towards the East. A grey morning rose over the Dutch landscape, shrouded trees reflected heavily in the sullen waters of dykes and canals. A grey sky hung heavily over the teeming life{18} of industrial Westphalia, and broke into heavy drops of rain over the wide plains of Hanover, and poured in torrents into the well-lit streets of Berlin, the “Ville Lumière” of Europe since Paris relinquished the splendour of an Imperial Court.

From Berlin my road turned to south-east, past prosperous cities such as Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Breslau, towards that corner of Europe where three Empires meet on what was once part of the picturesque Kingdom of Poland, long since forced into the realm of things forgotten by those three Powers that meet here. It is a gloomy country, black and ungainly in its tense industrial existence.

As it were, subconsciously, I felt like one hurrying to the death-bed of a friend; strange, for I have no reason to consider the Turk my friend. Indeed, though I like the individual Turks I have met, I cannot summon up a really friendly feeling for a Power which has deliberately mis-governed its varied subjects, has times out of number countenanced, even encouraged, acts the remembrance of which makes the heart sick. Yet in spite of reasoning, that feeling of hurrying to the death-bed of a friend never left me, but it had in it something of the antagonism which, as psychologists declare, is an ingredient of the love of a man for a woman. No doubt pity was mingled with this feeling, pity for a mighty race of conquerors now humbled to the dust, however much those ruling them be to blame; again there was anxiety as to the fate of the beautiful city, the City of Constantine, my destination; fear, a nameless fear, filled me, the son of a great Empire, as I thought over the fate of another Empire found unprepared to uphold a position it insisted upon, and therefore rudely awakened and thrust aside by young, strong nations whose sons know not how to shirk responsibility, neither do the men{19} and women of those peoples shun any sacrifice to gain what they whole-heartedly desire.

This strange feeling that obsessed me became stronger as I left well-ordered Germany behind, and felt the subtle influence of the East on entering Austrian territory. In the first place the traveller’s comfort is affected, for German orderliness makes way to Austrian laisser-aller, resulting in a want of cleanliness in the railway carriages. Apologists say that this state is due to the many Polish Jews who freely use their cheap season tickets; this might account for the dirty condition of third-class carriages when packed with worthies in greasy gaberdines, with ringlets dangling down from either temple; it is no pleasure to pass through a third-class carriage on your way to the dining-car. However well this excuse may serve, I found no attempted cleanliness in any other class while travelling through Austrian territory, and it seemed that the Roumanian railway authorities do not set much store by the God-like virtue either, at least as far as the accommodation of travellers is concerned.

Throughout my travels I have found that romance and picturesqueness are seldom separated from dirt, and, fortunately, the former may often outbalance the latter. The world of romance became gently insistent as the railroad left the teeming coalfields of Prussian Poland behind and passed on to places famous in the history of the Kingdom of Poland—Cracow, still a centre of the refined and gracious intellectuality which characterizes Polish nobility. Then, again, there is Przemysl (hopeless the effort to pronounce it), yet it is the name of a mighty dynasty which reigned over Bohemia from here for at least a century in those days when the Christian world was moving eastward as crusaders, under Frederick Barbarossa, and for a short time ousted the Greek{20} Emperors from the seat of Constantine in favour of the Latin Emperors, Baldwin and his successors. Here, again, Empires have gone under and their lands have been divided among younger races. We hurry on ever to south-east, and shortly enter a land which was formerly a portion of the Empire now on its death-bed—Moldavia, a province of Roumania.

Roumania is a very interesting country, and I must own to a kind of spell which its past history and its present prosperity cast upon me. The former is stirring indeed. Memories of histories I had read came crowding in upon me as I travelled through Moldavia, the country separated from Russia by the Pruth, watered by the Sereth and its tributaries, Moldava, Bistritza, and others that come down from the Carpathian Mountains into the fertile plain. The Carpathians, snow-tipped, densely wooded on their lower slopes, accompanied me in the blue distance, until about the latitude of Galatz they turned away to westward, curving round in their southern range until they meet the Danube at Orsova, and force it to narrow down to a third of its stately width in order to pass through the Iron Gates. I thought of all those hordes of wandering barbarians whose course was deflected by the Carpathians, showing again how nature’s barriers form the destinies of men. Streams of savages poured into this valley from the plains of Western Russia. Who were the first inhabitants is matter of conjecture: Scythians probably occupied the eastern districts, Thracians and Dacians were found by Trajan in the western part. Trajan conquered the Dacians in his campaign of 101-106 A.D., and founded a colony called Dacia Trajana. The column to this Emperor’s honour, in Rome, sets forth the story of his conquest. The Dacians were by no means easy people to deal with, and Rome—Imperial Rome—had much trouble with{21} Decebal, their King, who was finally vanquished, and committed suicide in order to escape from the disgrace of following the conqueror’s triumphal chariot through the Roman Forum.

Among the Roman remains scattered about the western parts of Roumania are the bridge-heads at Turn Severin and the ruined tower of Severus in the public gardens of that thriving township. It is supposed by the Roumanians themselves that they are descended from the Roman colonists of Dacia Trajana, and they point to their language in evidence. Theirs is indeed a Latin tongue, but language is often a false guide in the difficult and intricate paths of ethnology. It seems to me open to doubt that Rome of the second century could have afforded a sufficiently large supply of emigrants to people a large colony; and that the whole Roumanian nation should be descended from the Roman legionaries seems unlikely, for in the first instance it does not follow that the legionaries were all Romans, or even Latins, and again, if they had been, there would have been only a small proportion of them who would be permitted to bring wives and families with them. Moreover, the Roman tenure of the land was short, only about a century and a half, as in 270 the Goths streamed in from the north-east, obliging Emperor Aurelian to withdraw his troops into the province of Moesia, subsequently called Dacia Aureliana. The Goths were not inclined to settle anywhere in those days; they simply plundered and murdered as they went along, and probably left no definite impression on the races they were pleased to visit. We shall meet them again nearer Constantinople.

Huns and Gepidi probably left stronger traces in the population of the former Roman province of Dacia Trajana when they swarmed through it in the middle of the fifth{22} century, and I am inclined to think that in the middle of the next century the invading Avari made a deeper impression. Slavs and Bulgars forced their way here, and of the former many traces have been found, leading to the supposition that they enter largely into the composition of the Roumanian people. The Hungarians may have contributed something towards building up the present people of Roumania, when they marched through in 830, and subsequent Slav races, such as the Petschenegs in 900 and the Kumani, Tartars, in 1050, probably added their quota. At any rate German influence had vanished, and Slavs and Finns (Bulgars), with detachments of other wandering races united, blended into one, and it is thus that the Roumanian nation of to-day may be said to have originated. Dacia of Roman days extended well into Hungary of the present day, Transylvania, and the Banat, with the present divisions of Roumania, being a number of duchies still called Dacia in those days, though Imperial Rome had long abandoned the part of “Weltmacht.” In the tenth and eleventh centuries, no doubt owing to the intervening Carpathians, Transylvania and the Banat became subject to Hungary, while the duchies of Wallachia and Moldavia crystallized into political entities, and were found to be sufficiently powerful to keep out the Kumani and check the Tartars in the fourteenth century.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century yet another race came into Dacia from out of the East, driven from their homes in India by Tamerlane. They are known by various names, and are spread all over Europe. We call them gipsies, the Germans “Zigeuner,” from “Tsigani,” the name by which they are known in Eastern Europe. They call themselves Romanies, probably because they made Roumania their home, and here they are to be found in great numbers. Their language is Roumanian, though{23} they have acquired many others in the course of their wanderings. Wherever they go they bring music with them, grand epics, love-songs, quaint little popular ditties, which they sing to the accompaniment of string instruments. It is these Tsigani who have been instrumental in keeping alive the traditions of a great past among the peoples of the Balkan countries. Together with religion, their songs have helped to preserve the national identity of Roumanians and Serbs, have fostered racial ambitions, and inspired heroes to fight for freedom. They sing in soul-stirring epics of Stephan Dushan, of great Voivods who led men to battle, of Hunyadi Janos and his paladins, of ill-fated Knjes Lazar, whose army of crusaders went under in a sea of blood before the sword of Othman on the Amselfeld at Kossovo, since recaptured by the Serbs. Their songs tell of great men rulers of the independent principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia; of Michael the Brave, who lived when Henri IV was King of France. Michael showed the Osmanli that it is vain to attempt the suppression of a strong race and its religion. No doubt the attempt seemed successful for a while; Cantomir of Moldavia and Brancovan of Wallachia, allied to Peter the Great of Russia, suffered defeat at the hands of the Turks on the banks of the Pruth, and had to submit to the rule of Greek hospodars, placed in power by the Porte, for a period of fifty-eight years.

The duchies, like greater Powers in Eastern Europe, were unable for long to withstand the influence of the latest race to come from out of the East, and became subject to the Osmanli. During troubled centuries of Turkish suzerainty the Roumanian people preserved their faith, their national characteristics, and this enabled them to rise as a young, strong race when the hour of deliverance came. They had absorbed from their conquerors a number of able{24} men, whose descendants have since identified themselves with the ambitions of Roumania, whose names are writ large on the tablets of fame among those who helped to make Roumania free. Of one of these the following story is told. There lived in Stamboul a gentle, business-like Armenian, by trade a cats’-meat man. Among his customers he noticed an elderly, dejected individual who was very particular in his choice of the daily morsel of meat, choosing liver as a rule. Now it struck the Armenian that possibly this daily purchase might be meant for human consumption, instead of for the delectation of a pet cat; careful inquiries led to the following discovery. His customer was an old servant, the only one who had remained true to his master, and that master, once Grand Vizier, had fallen from his high estate on very evil times. The Armenian cats’-meat man thereupon thought fit to be charitable, provided his customer with better wares, and suggested that payment might be deferred until a brighter day. By one of those turns of the wheel not unusual in Oriental countries, the former Grand Vizier rose from poverty and rags to power again, and decided to reward the Armenian. Considering that one candidate for the vacant post of Vali of Moldavia was likely to be as bad as another, he decided to thus endow the cats’-meat man, who possibly developed unsuspected talent in his new line of business. At any rate, he is the putative ancestor of one of Roumania’s greatest princely houses, the Ghika family. There are descendants of yet more ancient families still to be found in Roumania, amongst them some Cantacuzene, of Byzantine fame.

Roumania followed Greece and Servia in wresting its freedom from the Turk, and the Convention of Paris in 1856 assured the autonomous rights of the principalities, their union into one State, and constitutional government. A native magnate, Colonel Alexander Cusa, ruled as Prince{25} Alexander John I for ten years, and although his election to that position was not in exact accordance with the Treaty of Paris, was nevertheless sanctioned by the Powers. This Prince resigned in 1866, and as a Count of Flanders, younger brother of the King of the Belgians, declined the invitation to succeed him, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen accepted it as Carol I. In 1877 Roumania declared herself completely independent of Turkey, much against Russia’s wishes, and ceased to pay tribute to the Porte. This precipitated the war against Turkey, and three divisions of Roumanian troops, some 35,000 men, with 108 guns, led by their Prince, joined the Russian forces. Prince Charles himself fired the first shot at Vidin, and his gallant troops followed him on to victory. They particularly distinguished themselves by spirited bayonet attacks at Plevna, and it was to the Roumanian troops that Osman Pasha surrendered. Roumania was not called to the conference at S. Stefano, and had to trust to Russia’s good offices in order to get her independence fully recognized. For this kindness Russia annexed fruitful Bessarabia, leaving to Roumania the swamps of the Dobrutsha. On the 22nd (10th) of May, 1881, the Hohenzollern Prince was crowned King of Roumania, having been duly proclaimed by both Chambers of the country’s Parliament. He rules still, and wisely, over a prosperous country of 50,702 square miles, with a population of six to seven millions.

The majority of the people of Roumania belong to the Orthodox Greek Church, have so far lived in peace with their neighbours, and are happy and prosperous. But they have not remained unaffected by the desperate events which brought such an upheaval to the other Balkan States. There is among the younger generation considerable discontent at the supposed subservience of{26} Roumania’s foreign policy to the dictates of her mighty friend, Austria. It is argued that if Austria had not vetoed Roumania’s mobilization on the outbreak of the Balkan War, that war might have been stopped. As matters stand at present, many Roumanians think that they have missed an opportunity of getting some useful trifle of territory for themselves, or that they have been deprived of opportunity, and are consequently very sore about it. So here, too, threatening clouds obscure the political horizon.

It would be a ghastly sequel to the indecision of the Great Powers if this plucky little kingdom were called upon to face an invader, if grim-visaged war were to cast its shadow over the fair fields and fertile plains of Roumania. The rich soil produces abundance of wheat, maize, and other cereals, and would produce more but for the summer droughts. I have seen the rich yellow maize being garnered, and have watched the golden wealth of corn shipped into boats and barges on the Danube, to be taken down to Braila, Galatz, and thence onward to feed other countries less bountifully supplied. Then there are vast forests, another source of wealth. It is only a few weeks ago that I was tramping over crisp snow in the shade of close-standing forest trees. A friend had asked me to go out with him after wild boar. It was a glorious day; cool greys and purples in the forest, with here and there a patch of rich brown soil, and through the trees the sun, in a clear blue sky, drew radiance from the snow, and showed up on a background of dark green firs the golden glory of larches, the red and russet leaves of wild cherry, and other trees, on which the foliage still lingered ere the winter storms set in. Winter is very severe in this country, and wolves come down from the mountains to the villages in the plains in search of their prey. There is other game in plenty; bear may be found in the depths of the Carpathian{27} forests, and the wild cat, in thick black and grey striped coat, steals through the undergrowth like his larger kinsmen of the jungle.

Bucharest, the capital of Roumania, is a town for which I have a sincere liking. It is not a large place, only some 300,000, but it is a well-planned town, gay, just a little wicked, and above all, the inhabitants insist on the best of music, and get it at such places as the Continental Hotel, where you can dine well to the strains of an excellent gipsy orchestra.

Roumania occupies a position of some danger in the complex polity of South-East Europe. To eastward, across the Pruth, looms the massive strength of Russia, never yet put to a severe test, so that its power is still an unknown quantity. To southward across the Danube live the Bulgarians, a strong, ambitious people, and, as far as I can ascertain, not on the friendliest terms with Roumania. But behind Roumania is the Empire of Kaiser Franz Josef, and Austrian influence is strong, especially in the industrial life of Roumania. It would be piteous to carry war into this happy country, with its flourishing agriculture, its prosperous oil-fields, at Bustenari, Campiña, etc. But Roumania has taken due precautions; a navy of some seventy-five small but well-appointed vessels guards Roumanian interests on the Black Sea coast; they may be seen occasionally on the lower reaches of the Danube, by the huge bridge that carries the railway over to Constanza, the Brighton of the Black Sea littoral, or perhaps Trouville is a more apt comparison. Here also ends the wall which Trajan built from the Danube across the narrowest part of the Dobrutsha.

Then, again, the Roumanian Army is well able to hold its own. The war establishment of the regular army, well trained and well equipped, numbers 175,000 troops, more{28} by three-quarters than Great Britain’s expeditionary force. To this should be added a territorial force of excellent quality of about equal numbers, altogether a formidable obstacle to any one who wishes to interfere with Roumania’s position in the world. For this adequate defence Roumania pays somewhat less than two and a half millions.

As I wrote this the political horizon of Roumania was dark with heavy storm-clouds, for her eastern neighbour is like to be drawn into the strife which is altering the state of Southern Europe, the onslaught of the southern Slav nations on their old oppressors at Constantinople. The southern frontier of Roumania at least was safe, for the Bulgarians were hammering now at the gates of Constantinople, pouring out their blood like water by the lines of Chatalja.{29}

CHAPTER II

THE Roumanian mail-steamer “Dacia,” a fast, well-appointed ship, carried me out into the Black Sea on a clear, dark night, her nose pointing towards the Bosphorus. My fellow-passengers by the train conveying me to Constanza had tried to fill me with alarm as to the state of Constantinople, they spoke of rumoured massacres, and advised me to don a fez, alluded with head-shakings to cholera, and generally warned me against my enterprise. Nevertheless, the next morning found me within sight of the entrance to the Bosphorus; a pearly grey morning, and the sun drew a flickering path of light from our port bow, broadening into a scintillating expanse of silver on the horizon. Groups of Turks stood in the bows straining their eyes for a sight of land.

It was an intensely peaceful morning which made it difficult to imagine that behind the blue heights rising out{30} of the water fierce war raged with all its attendant horrors; for there to south-west, beyond the coast fort of Kilia, and some fifty miles beyond it, were the lines of Chatalja, where the Bulgarians were trying to wrest the Empire of the East from the palsied hand of the sons of Othman. The coast of Asia Minor emerges from the pearly sea and marks the entrance to the Turkish Empire from the north. History and legend crowd in upon this narrow waterway, with its little wooden houses by the shore, sombre cypresses guarding them, and the graves upon the slopes, where modern forts and ancient strongholds stand side by side. Here to our left on the Asiatic side lies Anatoli Kavak, the Poplar of Asia, for several poplars stand out above the buildings devoted to the sanitary service of the port. There is a fort at the point trying its best to look modern, and above it, rising to the heights, are the remains of an older civilization, those of the Genoese castle. On the opposite bank is Roumeli Kavak, the Poplar of Europe, also fortified in the divers manners of many ages. Legend and history have been busy in this part of the Bosphorus. This narrow passage was formerly known as the Straits of Hieron, and that name derives from the fact that a temple to the twelve gods stood here. Here Jason offered sacrifices on his return from Colchis. There were also temples to Poseidon and Zeus, Serapis and Cybele, but they have vanished with the gods to whom they were dedicated.

The Heruli took refuge here after an unsuccessful sea fight off Scutari, then known as Chrysopolis, and about the same time the Goths crossed over from Roumeli Kavak into Asia, and ravaged Bithynia up to the walls of Nicodemia, but Odenatus, commanding the military forces of the East, checked their progress and drove them away to Heraklea on the Black Sea. In the middle of the ninth century Russians appeared for the first time,{31} passing down the Bosphorus to the City of Constantine, but attempted no further than Hieron. They came again in the middle of the tenth century under a cloud of sail ten thousand vessels in all, and burned Stenia and Hieron, but Theophanes, the soldier of Emperor Romanus II, met and defeated them at Hieron. In later years the Genoese became powerful and held a strong position at Galata; they took Hieron and Serapeori, and the ruined castle on the heights above Anatoli Kavak stands as a monument to that enterprising republic. Another seafaring republic, Venice, which rivalled Greece on this highway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, troubled the waters between Anatoli and Roumeli Kavak with frequent naval engagements. Meanwhile the country was supposed to belong to the Empire of the East, and a church was built and dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, who was considered peculiarly suited to represent and defend Greek interests at Hieron. However, those who had assigned to him this duty neglected their own, and so in time had to make way for the Turk. He in his turn was now threatened from the north, for but fifty miles away the Bulgarians were hammering at the lines of Chatalja.

A little further to the south on the Asiatic side rises the highest point on the banks of the Bosphorus, the Giant’s Mountain. The Turks call it Yousha daghi, the Mountain of Joshua, and no one shares with them the interest in this spot, for here they have thought fit to bury Joshua. His grave is here, so who dare doubt; it stands over five hundred feet above the level, is guarded by true believers, and offers to others an opportunity of becoming immune to “need, sickness, or any other adversity.” All the visitor need do to attain to this happy state is to hang a bit of rag on one of the bushes that grow out of the grave, and rags are plentiful in Turkey. It is also advisable to{32} walk round the grave several times and wish for something you happen to want. The grave is twenty feet long and five feet broad, and carefully enclosed within a framework of stone.

While taking a sketch of this landscape some years ago, I had my first of two experiences as a suspected spy.

In some countries of Europe even the most innocuous traveller is liable to be suspected of espionage as soon as he produces a camera—a bit of paper and a pencil will even suffice to arouse suspicion. Strange to say, it is among the so-called Great Powers that the mania has got the firmest hold of the official world and even of the public.

Of course, the lesser Powers have not quite escaped contagion, and it is from some of these that I have gained my experience as a suspected spy, for, needless to say, such an habitual traveller as I am is not likely to escape from the effects of the prevailing malaise. Fortunately my experiences have been rather amusing than otherwise, and have caused no international crisis, no trembling in the balance of the Peace of Europe, not even a newspaper paragraph.

But think of what might have happened when I took a pencil sketch of the bulwarks of Belgrade! True, those venerable fortifications date from the days of Vauban, and are as much use for defence as are the walls of Semendria, the old Roman castle further down the Danube, and moreover the Danube Powers have long ago agreed not to fortify any place along the river-bank. Yet the fortifications of Belgrade are jealously guarded; but as it was four in the morning when I took my sketch from on board the Danube steamer there was no one about to say me nay, and hence no international complications.

A few days later my peripatetic habits took me to{33} Constantinople, and there one day I seated myself on the banks of the Bosphorus, Asiatic side, and began a sketch of the lovely view before me. There happened to be a more or less modern fort immediately behind me; this, of course, did not concern me. I was deeply engaged in rendering the blue sky reflected in the sea, a stern old Genoese castle in the background, which had served its purpose of defence many centuries ago, when two amiable Turkish artillery officers came down to the beach and sat one on either side of me. They greeted me kindly and inquired whether I could speak German or French. I replied that I could oblige in either, whereupon they conversed with me in both, mixed, and to my mind not a judicious mixture. We talked of many things, when one of them said, “It is forbidden to sketch here!” and the other endorsed the statement. They quite agreed with me, however, that it would be a pity to stop painting now, as I had so nearly finished, and so our conversation went into other channels. There was yet another Turkish officer, who stood some way behind us, shouting in an angry tone and in his own tongue, which, as I understand it not at all, did not trouble me. An occasional pacifying answer from my two neighbours failed of its effect. When I had quite finished my friends helped me to pack up and escorted me past the fort, followed by the sound of the angry voice. My escort explained that the owner of the voice wanted to arrest me and was with difficulty dissuaded; this friendly demonstration moved me to offer hospitality, my escort having casually mentioned that good beer was to be found at a neighbouring café. The escort furtively looked back towards the fort, then sadly shook hands with me and said, “No, he (the angry one, a good Moslem) is looking—come again another day.”

My most recent experience showed me that the mania{34} has spread to Spain, though happily in a mild form. I suffered from it, so I know; and this is what happened.

At the time I was collecting material for a book on Portugal, and to this end the Portuguese Government had kindly given me a free pass over their railway system. This pass, I found, would take me to Badajoz and back, a most excellent reason for visiting the place. The time-table prepared me for a twelve hours’ journey by slow train, but in its being intensely matter-of-fact could not foreshadow the “local colour” which illumined my pilgrimage. The start at 7 p.m. was quite peaceful; I secured a corner seat, and the other corners only were occupied, so we jogged along in no very great discomfort. But only a few stations out of Lisbon the peace was broken. A sound of many voices, high-pitched, grew louder as we drew up at a wayside station, it rolled into our compartment in “dense volume” as the door was flung open, and with it came a shower of parcels of all sizes, impartially distributed among us. The fulcrum of this shower (if a shower runs to one) was a stout lady, impelled through space into our midst by some potent agency without. Grasping a bottle of wine in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, talking loudly all the while, she alighted (not at all like a bird) on my foot, dropped on to my knee, and slid thence into a seat by my side. Followed quickly by her maid, also talking; she settled abruptly on the cap of a cavalry officer opposite to me. But yet more strident tones dominated this Babel, proceeding from a stouter lady, volant, who once settled, fitted a number of talkative males into the interstices between huge hat-boxes and other personal effects. The compartment was thus completely crowded, and conversation raged—raged till morning, was raging on the platform at Badajoz, when I left for the town. Had I been a stranger to the country and its people the{35} intense excitement of my fellow-travellers might have led me to imagine all manner of horrid happenings to unhappy Portugal, grim revolution mixed with devastating earthquakes, foreign invasion on one frontier and a tidal wave on the seaward side—as a matter of fact, the ladies were travelling for their health.

All-unsuspecting I passed in at the gates of Badajoz, past the guard-house, and made my way towards the south-east of the city, where I hoped to get a good view. I did, and having indulged in an appropriate thrill over the storming of that citadel, proceeded with my legitimate business, sketching. Then I wandered round by the river, and began the outline of a mass of crumbling ruins, tumbling down towards the bank. Those walls must have been quite useful for defensive purposes many centuries ago, they are now extremely picturesque, and therefore still useful to the peripatetic artist. Suddenly a well-modulated voice broke in upon my labours. Standing by my side, cap in hand, was a sergeant of the Guarda Civil, who wished to know whether My Excellency, Grace, or Worship (I do not know what the Spanish usted means) had any authorization to take sketches. I admitted that I had none, at the same time appealing to the gentleman as an expert whether my sketches could possibly be considered of any strategical or tactical value. The sergeant modestly declined to judge in such a weighty matter, and requested that I should do him the favour of accompanying him. This I untruthfully expressed myself delighted to do, and so he led me to the guard-house. There was no barred and bolted prison cell for me, in fact I did not penetrate into the interior of the guard-house at all, possibly because a very stout corporal filled up all the doorway. This warrior took a very serious view of the case and said he must fetch an officer; so he majestically passed out of{36} my ken, for I never saw him again. In the meantime I was getting distinctly bored; the sergeant, though most courteous, was no conversationalist, and my knowledge of Spanish is strictly limited. After an hour’s delay two gentlemen in mufti passed our way, evidently people of importance, for my sergeant was at once cap in hand, and to them he entered upon a recital about my serious case. One of them understood French, so I showed him my sketch-book and asked him to try and discover anything of military value or importance in it. He failed, but nevertheless suggested that the sergeant and I should call upon the Military Governor. I hinted that we might have thought of that before, but my sergeant seemed to consider it (thinking) no part of his business.

We waited another hour at the Military Governor’s palatial official residence, watching Spanish soldiers moving in and out in their quick, jaunty manner; smart, well-dressed men they are too. Then His Excellency the Governor came down the steps, and my sergeant, cap in hand, began his story all over again. I burst into it in French and again showed up my sketch-book, His Excellency quite agreeing with me that my sketches were singularly harmless from any point of view. Perhaps I was assuming more responsibility than becomes a wandering painter when I promised that I would never bring out an English army to upset the walls of Badajoz again, though of course I could safely promise never to take part in any such disturbance should it happen again. The Governor was thoroughly satisfied with my earnest assurances, and with a generous wave of his arm invited me to draw and paint all Badajoz. “Would His Excellency give me that gracious permission in writing? Without it I might be calling again in half an hour’s time and with a fresh escort!” “Certainly!” So I became possessed of a{37} document which gave a strange rendering of my name—it described me as one Leandro Vaca, which latter being interpreted means cow. After this formality we were all extremely polite to each other, we bowed a great deal and said to each other things which we could not have meant to be taken seriously. Twice did I meet the Governor and his staff in the streets that afternoon, and each time we did the bowing all over again.

Two hours of precious daylight had been wasted, so I made up for lost time and sketched everywhere, especially near sentries, as I particularly wished to watch the magic effect of the Leandro Vaca document. But alas! not one of those sentries could be roused to the least interest in my proceedings; so I took my way back to the station, destroying the document, as the Governor had requested me to do so. Here ends my “espionage story,” which, not to be behindhand, I have had to put into print myself, no reporter having thought it worth while at the time.

A very different place altogether is Therapia, some three miles further south on the European side; the name means “Place of Healing,” and must have been given to it before the ambassadors of the Great Powers set up their summer residence by its shore. As I passed by Therapia several Turkish men-of-war, a small cruiser, a gunboat, and several destroyers were lying peacefully in the small harbour, completely indifferent to the trials of Turkey’s land forces, who, only a matter of fifty miles away, were endeavouring to ward off the Bulgarians’ blow at the heart of the Ottoman Empire.

The Bosphorus broadens out somewhat at Beikos on the Asiatic side, and it is on this curving bay that according to legend Pollux visited Amycus, King of the Bebryces, to the latter’s undoing.

The banks draw closer together, clustering wooden{38} houses dipping their stone foundations in the water grow more numerous as the Bosphorus winds southward. Two castles rise from among trees and wooden houses, one majestically, the other in rather humbler fashion, the former on the European, the latter on the Asiatic shore. History lingers round these broken towers, but the battered grey walls looked sadder than when I saw them last, under the grey sky they seemed to mourn the departed glory of the race that built them. The castle on the Asiatic side, Anatoli Hissar, encloses rows of quaint little wooden huts, tendrils of vine stretch across the narrow cobbled alleys from the overhanging roofs, and at the foot of the castle flow the Sweet Waters of Asia. It is a pleasant place in spring, this “valley of the heavenly water,” and one of the loveliest spots on the banks of the Bosphorus. To many Asiatic poets it has been what the valley of the Mondego was to Camoens and other sweet singers of Lusitania. Mohammed I built this castle, and Mohammed II sat here in 1451 watching the growth of Roumeli Hissar, the Castle of Europe, on the frontier shore. In three months this castle rose from the rocky slope at this the narrowest part of the Bosphorus; thousands of labourers were forced into the service of construction, and the ground plan was the initial letter of Mohammed’s name.

When it was finished Firaz Agha was appointed commander of the garrison of four hundred men, and levied toll on all passing ships, while the Emperor of the East sent despairing offers of peace from his purple palace in Constantinople. But Mohammed II declined to negotiate, and continued his preparations for the taking of the Castle of Cæsar. Here the forces of Othman gathered strength for their great enterprise, hence they set forth on desperate venture. Constantinople fell before them, the Eastern Empire vanished like a dream, and the Crescent gleamed{39} over the subject races of the Balkan Peninsula and carried terror into the hearts of Christian countries away to the walls of Vienna.

To-day those former subject races, strong and united, have overrun all but the last few miles of the Turkish Empire in Europe; there to westward, at a distance of fifty miles or so, the Bulgarians were hammering at the lines of Chatalja.

When Mohammed the Conqueror first began to besiege Constantinople he endeavoured to force an entrance by the Golden Horn; from Roumeli Hissar to Seraglio Point his fleet extended, but in vain, for a heavy chain barred the entrance, and beyond it the larger vessels of the Genoese and Venetians rode at anchor. So Mohammed conceived a bold plan in keeping with his character and ability.

From Beshiktash—called by the Greeks Diplokion, the Double Columns, Mohammed caused a road of smooth planks to be constructed; this road led over the heights and down to the western end of the Golden Horn. It must have been a difficult task, for Galata, the Genoese fortress, had to be avoided. Galata stands in a position somewhat similar to Constantinople, on a promontory formed by the Hellespont and the Golden Horn, which bends slightly to the north after passing west of the place where the land wall of Theodosius joined the sea-wall, towards the Sweet Waters of Europe. When the road was completed, the planks thoroughly greased, a host of men hauled eighty galleys over it during the night. According to the Byzantine chronicler, Ducas, every galley had a pilot at her prow, another on her poop, with his hand on the tiller; so, with drums beating time to the sailors’ songs the whole fleet passed along as though it were carried by a stream of water, sailing, as it were, over the land. The next morning{40} these ships were riding at anchor in the upper, shallower part of the harbour, beyond reach of the larger Genoese and Venetian vessels.

Thus the fleet of Mohammed the Conqueror in 1453, while the Turkish fleet of to-day was lying idle, though hundreds of thousands of sons of Ottoman were struggling to retain a fragment of Turkey’s European possessions.

There were few signs to show that Turkey was engaged in a struggle for life as I passed down the Bosphorus; here and there were camps, red-brown canvas tents, and over some buildings by the shore the red crescent on a white ground spoke of much-needed comfort for the sick and wounded. It was not till Stamboul and Scutari hove in sight that I saw anything unusual, but what I saw was remarkably so—the massive hulls of foreign warships. Nearer to Scutari lay a large French cruiser, black against the uncertain light of a rainy day. Scutari and Kadi Kevi, the ancient Chalcedon, as Byzas, the founder of Byzantium, called it, because the inhabitants of that place must have been blind, or they would have chosen the tongue of land opposite, on the glorious harbour, on which to build their city. Scutari, where Florence Nightingale’s hospital still stands. English ladies are following in that noble woman’s steps here, in Constantinople, in this day of affliction for the Turkish Empire—and are doing so with the bravery and devotion of women of our race.

Indeed a sign of evil days when foreign warships are anchored in the Golden Horn, but the interests of many nations are affected, and the future, not only for the Balkan countries, but also for all Europe, is big with possibilities.

Grey clouds hung over the Golden Horn as I approached it, the domes of mosques and their attendant minarets stood out darkly against a sullen sky, and the ancient{41} cypress grove that breaks the outlines of the buildings on Seraglio Point seemed like those who mourn over some great catastrophe. Here, on this tongue of land—Seraglio Point—began the history of this troubled city, this Castle of Cæsar, throne of the Osmanli, which has seen more glory and more gloom, known more high delights and abject terrors than perhaps even eternal Rome. While heavy drops of rain fall from a leaden sky on to the steel decks of those grim foreign men-of-war, or splash on the slow-swinging waters of the Golden Horn, it is difficult to conjure up the scenes of former glories witnessed here by the sun on his daily passage from the east.

The Oracle in Poseidon’s sacred grove had whispered to Byzas the seafarer: “Go forth to the Country of the Blind and build you a city opposite their own—you shall prosper.” Silently the ship that carried Byzas and his fortunes stood out to sea as Aurora touched the high peaks of the Peloponese with rosy finger-tips, and called forth colours, carmine and gold, from the unruffled surface of the pearly Ægean Sea. Bearing ever to the north, Byzas and his fellows asked of those they met, “Is this the City of the Blind,” and receiving no answer, held on their way. He may have been tempted to land on one or other of the Prince’s islands, floating on the bosom of the blue Sea of Marmora, but the spirit within urged him further into the unknown.

Perhaps it was twilight when he saw a large city looming on the eastern shore of the narrowing waterway, the city he called Chalcedon, for opposite to it he found that entrance to the spacious harbour which is known the world over as the “Golden Horn.” Here Byzas, fulfilling the Oracle’s prediction, laid the foundations of ancient Byzantium, and the City grew and prospered. Behind the walls a busy populace increased the wealth and importance of the{42} place, and others came here from afar in search of riches. So ancient Byzantium became the mart for those who traded from the west along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus away to Trebizond, on the Black Sea, where the old Greek tongue yet lingers in its purest form; the Crimea opening out cold, inhospitable Russia, even distant Persia exchanged its wares for the products of the city which Byzas had founded.

Byzant also assumed great strategical importance, as many of those who came in search of wealth came armed and minded to acquire what they wanted by the sword. Chroseos, King of the Persians, emerges from the mists of history, and appears for a brief space of time before the walls, with hordes of warriors, trained to ride, to shoot, to speak the truth; Spartans and Athenians tried the strength of this bulwark of Europe, and Alcibiades besieged it. In 370 B.C. the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, helped to defend the city against Philip of Macedonia, and forced him to abandon his intent. It is said that during this siege the Macedonians, under cover of a dark night, were on the point of carrying the town by assault, when a light appeared in the heavens to reveal their danger to the inhabitants. Rome gained possession of the city before the Christian era, and Constantine the Great, the man of genius, made this his capital in A.D. 330, giving to the city its present name, or rather one of its names, for the Turks call it Stamboul, or Istamboul, probably derived from the Greek εἱς τἡν πὁλιν, and to the Slavs it is known as Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.

Here in the heart of the Eastern Empire history, strong, full-blooded, speaks to us from ancient monuments and battered walls. Churches arose to mark the religious life{44}{43} of a strongly imaginative people, ruins of palaces still tell of a line of rulers, emperors, sultans who lived their day, worked for good or evil, and passed into the mist of things but half-remembered. Alien races found their way hither in search of booty, and dashed out their souls against the City’s strong defences. Severus, Maximus, and Constantinus tried its strength; another Persian king, Chroseos II, battled before these walls in 616, and ten years later the Avari came with the Persians on like enterprise. Towards the end of the seventh century a fierce foe, the Arabs, came up from the south, and tried in vain to force an entrance into the Castle of Constantine. They came again, and besieged the city for two years, from 716-18, but were refused a second time.

Anatoli Kavak
Where modern forts and ancient strongholds stand side by side.

About a century and a half later Russians came down from the Black Sea, the prows of their long boats, under a cloud of sail, ploughing up the wintry waters of the Bosphorus. They also failed, but repeated the attempt twice in the tenth century, and yet once more towards the middle of the eleventh, only to return northward, baffled and broken.

The city fell for the first time before a host of Western Christians during the Latin Crusades under the leadership of Dandolo, Doge of Venice, in 1203-4. These Christians pillaged the Imperial City, and set up a line of Counts of Flanders as Emperors of the East. After some fifty years the Latins were driven forth, leaving Constantinople in a state of indescribable misery and desolation; Greek Emperors returned, but failed to restore the power of the Eastern Empire, which was sorely tried by the insistent sons of Othman. The last Greek Emperors reigned but two short centuries after the retreat of the Latins; then came Mohammed the Conqueror, and Constantinople passed into the hands of the Turk. It was during the Feast of{46} Pentecost, on May 29th of 1453, that Constantinople fell before the sword of Othman. At this present season the Turks were keeping the Feast of Bairam, their Pentecost. Again, the superstitious point out another coincidence; both 1453 and 1912 make up the unlucky number thirteen.

Before Constantinople fell in 1453 the Eastern Empire had been shorn of all its possessions by the invading Turk, and from Adrianople, his European capital, he had organized the siege of the City. To-day all that the Turk may call his own of the European territory acquired by the sword is the point of land between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, on the north and south respectively, the Bosphorus on the east, and to westward the lines of Chatalja. Young nations long oppressed have risen against the power of the Porte; Greece, the first country to free itself, has marched to Saloniki, adding victory on victory; Montenegrins, the first to enter on this war, have come down from their mountains, and have taken possession of Turkish territory on the Adriatic Sea; Servia poured her warlike sons over the passes into Macedonia, and wrenched former possessions of Old Servia from the fiercely resisting Turks; finally Bulgaria, that strong, ambitious nation, holds Adrianople in a grip of steel, has hurled its young strength against the stubborn Turkish defences, and is now on guard at the lines of Chatalja, demanding admission by the voice of death-dealing ordnance.

During the Turkish Feast of Pentecost the enemy was at the gates, and the fate of Constantinople, the fate of the Turkish Empire in Europe, trembled in the balance.

It is rather a leap from the days of Mohammed the Conqueror to an evening at the Club de Pera, but Constantinople is a city of strong contrasts. The streets leading from the water-side to the club showed no signs{47} of unusual military activity, there was no appearance of excitement or despondency in the bearing of the inhabitants, and the club, but for a larger gathering of members and the sight of a White Crescent armlet, was much as I am accustomed to find it. Indeed, men came to me, as the latest arrival, for news from the front and the outside world, for they have to wait for the papers from home, generally four or five days old. It seems strange, but is none the less true, that we here on the spot heard hardly anything of events that are disquieting the rest of Europe; we heard but distantly of Servia’s stubbornness in face of Austria’s insistence concerning the Adriatic littoral, we caught but a fleeting rumour of Russia’s supposed designs and Roumania’s possible peril. All we knew was that brave men were dying by thousands out by the lines of Chatalja, some fifty miles distant; the booming of guns carried by the sobbing wind from out of the west brought us tidings of warlike happenings.{48}

CHAPTER III

THE sun was shining brightly as on the morning after my arrival I made my way down from Pera through Galata, towards Stamboul. Everything appeared much as usual; the bridge of Galata was as crowded as ever with all sorts and conditions of men—hamals carrying huge loads, soldiers, kavasses, dervishes, water-carriers, and vendors of cake and other less useful articles. Horses seemed as plentiful as ever, driven by loud-voiced coachmen, drawing obese, elderly Turks. The fish-market was as busy as ever, and the open space behind the Mosque of Valideh showed its customary groups of men of leisure.

Refugees
Nearly all the narrow streets were blocked by rows of waggons, drawn by oxen, conveying fugitives from Thrace and Macedonia.

It was on the way to the station, in the narrow streets of that neighbourhood, that I saw sights unusual to the City. Nearly all these narrow streets were blocked by rows of waggons, drawn by oxen, conveying fugitives from Thrace and Macedonia, chiefly the former province. Men, but few young ones amongst them, women and children, swarmed about these carts, which contained all their{49} portable property. From the dark recesses of these carts, covered either with striped carpet or tilt of basket-work, you might see a solemn-faced baby, brown of visage, black-eyed, crawling over the indescribable medley of sacks and bags stuffed with the family properties, while familiar utensils, strangely out of place, were disposed about the outside supports of the roof. Groups of children played about in the appalling filth of the narrow streets and seemed quite happy and contented. Women unveiled, and young girls went about performing household duties, and the men for the most part sat on their haunches against the wall, wrapt in contemplation.

On the whole there seemed little misery among these particular people, who had left their homes, fleeing before a victorious enemy. They waited patiently, some of them for days, to be transported across to Asia Minor, where, on the “native heath” of their race, they propose to start life afresh. Being Turks, they are no doubt used to Turkish rule, and prefer it to any other.

Sadder scenes I saw when walking up from the station past the lower gate of the Sublime Porte, towards the old Seraglio. Here were hundreds of soldiers, some sick, some slightly wounded, making their way to the hospitals established in the buildings of the Seraglio enclosure. Most of these men looked only weary, others thoroughly unconcerned, but on some faces I noted traces of such despair as I have seldom seen before. Weary and footsore, they trod the uneven pavement up to the gate of the Seraglio, only to be turned back and ordered elsewhere. These men were only the slightly wounded, in fact, no others, it appears, have come into the town. Where are those who were dangerously wounded? It is said that they are rotting, uncared-for, on the plains of Macedonia, on the hill-sides and plains of Thrace.{50}

The Red Crescent now flies over the Museum, Armoury, and other buildings within the Seraglio enclosure, where so much of Constantinople’s stirring history took place. A wall with many square towers shuts off the Seraglio from the rest of Stamboul, and here, within this limited space, was laid the seed of Byzantine greatness. Formerly, stout walls enclosed this point to seaward as well as landward, and Bondelmontius, who travelled here, counted 188 strong towers. There are yet a few traces left of those stout walls, their foundations in the Sea of Marmora or the waters of the Golden Horn. No doubt Byzas built a wall, as becomes the founder of a city, but it was so long ago, and so many great men have built here since, that any expectations of finding traces of the original walls are hardly reasonable. They say that some huge blocks of stone date from the days of Pausanias, but even later work is old compared to most similar historical remains found in Western Europe. Theodosius II and his præfect Constantius have left records of their activity here, and that was in the beginning of the fifth century; then Emperor Theophilus repaired them in the ninth century.

Constantinople, like several other great cities, stands upon seven hills; this is the fashion among really great cities, and the first of these hills is that on which stand the Seraglio buildings. A broad road leads up to these buildings, which contain many interesting things. There is the Museum, containing many treasures, among them two of wondrous beauty—two sarcophagi—one of which claims to have held the remains of Alexander the Great, the other is said to have been the last resting-place of one of Alexander’s generals, and is known as “Les Pleureuses,” from the beautifully sculptured female figures in mourning draperies which adorn it. One set of buildings is devoted to modern art, a school for that purpose having been{51} founded here, under the auspices of Humdi Bey, who is responsible for much of artistic effort and archæological research which characterized the Young Turk ambition to compete with the West in Western graces and accomplishments. I visited the School of Art two years ago, in order to see how far those ambitions were likely to be realized, especially in painting, my own particular pursuit. There were numbers of sketches and studies of undoubted accuracy, evidence of appreciation and of careful observation, but to me these works appeared no more than transcriptions of Nature; the Divine Fire which creates was not. This leads me regretfully to suppose that the Turk is not likely to progress along the line of creative art, albeit their High Priest, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, has decreed that there is no infringement of the laws of the Prophet in the endeavour of his followers to express higher thoughts by means artistic.

It has been my good fortune to visit many of our earth’s most beautiful places; Imperial Rome has cast its spell upon me, Naples I saw and happily did not die of joy at seeing it, I have entered Bombay Harbour when the sun was rising behind the Poona Ghats, and have seen the Shwe Dagon at Rangoon, gleaming over its dark green bowers by the rays of the setting sun. Then, again, I have looked over the broad expanse of the Tagus at Lisbon, when a fierce storm from the vast Atlantic flayed the troubled waters, and vivid lightnings showed distant Palmella against an angry sky; I have walked in the groves by the banks of Mondego, the Lovers’ River, at Coimbra, where whispering reeds tell the story of Inez de Castro, and have sat by the banks of the Lima, which flows through the “Happy Valley,” whither the ancient gods fled before the Cross. Yet have I seldom found a spot so fitted to attune the mind to an appreciation of things beautiful{52} as Constantinople and its Seraglio enclosure. To the south-west, in the blue Sea of Marmora, the Prince’s Islands, or the Daimonnisoi, seem to float on the untroubled waters. There are nine of these islands, and chief among them is Prinkipo, and to each one attaches some interest, some memory of former times. There is Halki, or Khalki, a group of three hills, and each had its convent dedicated respectively to the Virgin, to St. George, and to Holy Trinity. There is also a historic monument which more nearly concerns Englishmen, the tomb of Edward Barton, sometime Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan of the day.

But Prinkipo, as chiefest of the Prince’s Islands, stands out above them in romantic interest. Irene, the great Empress of the East, great among renowned contemporaries of the ninth century, Charlemagne, Haroun-al-Raschid, had built and endowed a convent on this island. Charlemagne spent much of his time fighting infidels; his warpath led him over the Pyrenees to assist the Gothic kingdoms against the Moor; on one such occasion, when retreating into France, Roland the Paladin fell. Again, Wittekind, Duke of the Saxons, was subject to the Frankish Emperor’s attention, and caused him a vast amount of trouble before he became a Christian and settled down. Then Charlemagne took the field against the Avari, who infested the banks of the Danube from above Vienna down towards the Black Sea, and who probably proved troublesome neighbours to the Eastern Empire. No doubt Irene was much impressed with Charlemagne’s prowess, and being a lone, lorn widow had the happy idea of uniting the Empires of the East and the West by matrimony. Charlemagne sent an ambassador to arrange the matter, but one Nicephorus, Chancellor of the Empire, spoilt the plan by banishing Irene to Prinkipo. The Empress{53} was not allowed to rest here, but was conveyed to Lemnos, where she died a year later. Her remains were buried in the convent she had founded at Prinkipo. Nicephorus, as first Emperor of that name, reigned for nine years, and suffered the indignity of paying tribute to the Arabs. He fell in the war against the Bulgarians, who now, as I write, are threatening Constantinople at the lines of Chatalja.

Where now are tumbling ruins through which the railroad makes its way, down by the Sea of Marmora where it washes Seraglio Point, there was in ancient days a broad esplanade called the Atrium of Justinian the Great, for it was his creation. It was a fair place too, built of white marble, and here the citizens of Constantinople would meet to breathe the soft air and discuss the happenings of the times, probably as full of rumours as they are to-day. Here they walked, and talked of all things under the sun—religion, politics, and the latest news from the “front.” Before them lay the Sea of Marmora joining on to the Bosphorus, and swift-sailing vessels would hurry in with news from some distant province of the Empire. To-day the warships of the European Powers watch over the interests of their nationals in the death-struggle of an ancient Empire, many of them infants, some unthought of when Constantinople was guarding Europe from Asiatic agression, thus enabling those nations whose warships lie here to develop. Yet among the cypress groves of Seraglio Point, with the waves of the glittering Sea of Marmora lazily lapping against the tottering sea-walls, it was impossible not to let the mind wander among the misty labyrinths of ancient history, though Bulgarian guns were making history some fifty miles away. Historic pageants pass before the mind’s eye: an emperor moving amid pomp and splendour to meet his bride-elect at the sea-gate of{54} Eugenius, down by the Golden Horn. Here Cæsar with elaborate ceremony would invest the lady with the Imperial buskins, and other insignia of her exalted rank. They pass like a dream, and dark clouds settle down on Constantinople, obscuring the brightness of the sun of Cæsar; rumours of defeat whisper among the marble columns of the Atrium, oversounding the officially heralded tidings of victory. So it is to-day, so it was when the old enemy of the Greeks, the Turk, demanded alliance between the house of Othman and the Eastern Empire through the marriage of an Imperial Princess with Amurath I. And that did not appease the enemy, for he came again, and finally made the Imperial City his own, and hence governed Christian peoples. Mohammed the Conqueror centred the life of his nation in the City of Constantine, and chose this promontory for his own residence. He separated a space of eight furlongs by a wall across the promontory, and in this triangle he built his seraglio. Strange scenes were witnessed here; one of the strangest happened shortly after the conquest of the City. The remnant of Greeks gathered together again and returned to the City in crowds, on being assured of their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion. To solemnize this pact the Sultan held an investiture on old Byzantine lines, with all accustomed pomp and ceremony, and thus re-instated the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy. With his own hands the Conqueror placed in the hands of Gennodius the crozier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his priestly office. His Holiness was then conducted to the gate of the Seraglio, presented with a richly caparisoned horse, and led by viziers and pashas to the palace appointed as his residence.

This happened within the Seraglio walls! The successor to the throne of many Cæsars, the Conqueror whose hands were red with the blood of massacred Christians, the{55} victorious leader of that fanatic race whose life is more influenced by their creed than perhaps that of any other people, raised the Patriarch, the chosen head of a conquered Christian community, to high office in the state. Thus the Greek Orthodox variant of the Christian Faith lived on in the City of Constantine the Convert, though the Cross had fallen from the church he had built, St. Sophia, and minarets arose around it from which the muezzin calls pious Moslems to prayer.

Mohammed died suddenly in the midst of his soldiers, leaving two sons to contest his vacant throne. The younger, Zizimes, suggested a partition of the Empire, by which he would rule over Anatolia, the Hellespont separating his dominion from that of his brother Bajazet in Europe. But Bajazet would none of it. “The Empire is a bride whose favours cannot be shared,” said Bajazet, and Zizimes thought it safer to seek refuge at the Courts of other rulers, mostly Christians, who, however, appeared little disposed to advocate his claims. For the sum of three hundred thousand ducats paid by Bajazet, a servant of Pope Alexander Borgia administered poison to Zizimes; thus was a problem solved in truly Oriental manner.

Murder was one of the leading factors in the Imperial policy pursued by the sons of Othman, and has always been resorted to as the best solution of a difficult problem, from earliest days until quite recently. Selim I, son of Bajazet, who abdicated in consequence of his son’s constant intrigues against him, had to face a problem, and settled it in the usual manner. Schism has arisen among the followers of the Prophet, and the Shiites repudiated the claim to the Caliphate of Mohammed’s immediate successors, Abu-Dekr, Omar, and Othman. For reasons as much political as religious, Selim proclaimed{56} himself champion of Orthodoxy, and celebrated the event by the St. Bartholomew’s night of Ottoman history. There were in all some seventy thousand of his subjects who held to the Shiite doctrine in Europe and Asia, forty thousand of these were massacred and the remainder sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Thus Selim I became Caliph of Islam.

The old Seraglio walls and the solemn cypresses seem to tell yet another romantic story attaching to this place. It dates from the days when history was full of the names of great men. Charles V, that sombre Habsburger, ruled an Empire on which the sun never set (according to the opinion of those days), Francis I was the chivalrous King of France, his rival Henry VIII of England, and the influence of Pope Leo X was mighty in the Councils of nations. In those brave days Suleiman I was Sultan, and reigned in great splendour from the seat of Constantine. Suleiman loved a woman, a lovely Russian girl, Khourrem (the “Joyous One”), better known by the name the Christians gave her, Roxalana. Khourrem was a slave, but she obtained her freedom from her imperial lover and induced him to marry her. Thereupon her mind was set on furthering the fortunes of her own children, and Mustapha, the son of Suleiman’s former favourite Sultana, a Circassian, stood in the way of her ambition. Mustapha was Governor of Carmania, and Roxalana managed skilfully to insinuate that he was plotting to usurp the throne. Mustapha was recalled, and ordered to enter the Sultan’s presence alone; Suleiman, looking on from an inner chamber, saw seven mute executioners carry out his command to strangle his son with a bowstring.

Roxalana was buried in all due state near the place where rests her sovereign lord, under the shadow of the mosque he built to his own memory. You will notice a{57} difference in the two mausoleums. To enter that of Suleiman you must take the shoes from off your feet, for this is holy ground; a warrior, almost a saint, lies here. No such reverence is expected by the grave of Roxalana, the “Joyous One”; she was a woman, and therefore had no soul; that makes all the difference.

But Roxalana’s son, Selim II, broke the laws of the Prophet, and died drunk.

The Red Crescent floats over the buildings within the Seraglio enclosure to-day. Thousands of sick and wounded stagger in at the gates, and pass by the Armoury, once the Church of St. Irene, in search of the comforts which Christian nations have in all haste collected to meet the awful consequences of this disastrous war. They gathered in thousands outside the old buildings, leaning up against the walls and the railings of St. Irene, behind which, half-hidden by shrubs, are tombs of long-forgotten Byzantine magnates. There is some doubt in my mind as to who built St. Irene: some attribute it to Leo the Isaurian, who reigned from 718-740; others, and I prefer their version, maintain that Constantine the Great built it at the same time that St. Sophia arose, during the Council of Nicæa, in 325, thus giving his subjects two excellent virtues to emulate—Faith and Wisdom—without committing himself to any narrowing dogma. As this version is the more picturesque, historians will probably declare it wrong, and insist on the authorship of Leo the Isaurian.

In the meantime the buildings of the Seraglio enclosure are full of suffering mortality. Thousands have come in from the stricken field, and all the hospitals are crowded. I have visited some of these sick men and wounded, men whom I have seen wandering dejectedly in little groups, or larger bodies, through the ill-paved streets, some falling{58} by the way, and avoided by all, for cholera, the scourge of Asia, was raging in the ranks of the Turkish Army. They are patient, quiet men, these suffering Turkish soldiers, some still wondering why they were torn from their Anatolian homes and sent to fight with unaccustomed arms men whom they did not know of, for a cause they did not understand, and under conditions such as invite disaster. Untrained they went to war, unfed they fought as long as men could hold out, longer probably than would any European troops, starving, sick, in rags, forsaken by their officers, they staggered back into the City, where those responsible for their sufferings still live in lies. Poor souls, with their tired looks, their patient eyes—it was Bairam, their Feast of Pentecost, and many of them were grieving that they could not pass on to their homes and bring little presents to those they hold dear, away there in the scattered villages of Anatolia.

And these that had come in were only the slightly wounded, only those who were still able to move. What of those who have been stricken down by cholera on the road? What of those mangled and maimed by shrapnel and splinters of shell, mortally wounded by bullet and bayonet?

With no adequate preparations for the sick and wounded here at the base of operations, is it likely that the field hospitals were adequately supplied? Foreigners, Christians, are doing the work now which should have been done before by the Army authorities. It seems as if they, childlike, were only too pleased to shift that burden of responsibility on to other shoulders while they yet prated of victory.

Victory? With Thrace conquered by Bulgaria, Macedonia occupied by Serbs, the Montenegrins before Scutari, and Greeks holding Saloniki and Monastir!

Victory? With the remnant of the Ottoman Army{59} hard-pressed behind the lines of Chatalja, and thousands dying by the road!

As in those May days of 1453, at the Feast of Pentecost, Constantinople awoke from sloth and inefficiency to find an enemy hammering at the gates, so that day, at Bairam, the Turkish Feast of Pentecost, the enemy was hammering at the outer gate, the lines of Chatalja, and this would not have happened but for sloth and inefficiency. In the meantime the hospitals were crowded, here in Constantinople thousands were dying on the road, or lying dead on the fields of Thrace and Macedonia, and the enemy’s guns were pounding on the last defences of a “Passing Empire.”{60}

CHAPTER IV

By the Seraglio Walls
Showing the gate by which the Sultans used to enter St. Sophia, and the dome of St. Irene.

JUST without the walls of the Seraglio stands a building which above all others is connected with Constantinople in the popular mind, the former Church, now Mosque, of St. Sophia. This is one of those particular monuments of history which every one of any pretension to culture wishes to see. A mighty, imposing building, measuring 255 feet from north to south by 250 from east to west. This was the cathedral church of old Byzantium built in the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine the Great, A.D. 325, and dedicated to Divine Wisdom. Constantine’s son Constantius enlarged the building, which was destroyed by fire in the reign of Arcadius, 395-408, in whose time the Goths came down over the hills by Adrianople and devastated the land as far as the Peloponese. It is said that the faction of St. John Chrysostom set fire to this building during one of those religious disturbances which, more than elsewhere in the world, unsettled the minds of men and caused them to overlook the greater truths. Theodosius II, he who built the stout walls that guarded the City of Constantine on the landward side for many{62}{61} centuries, re-erected the cathedral in 415, but little more than a century later, in the reign of Justinian, it fell a victim to the flames again. Twice did this happen in the reign of Justinian, the second time during a revolt of different factions in the Hippodrome, but St. Sophia was rebuilt again in greater splendour and on a larger scale in A.D. 538.

This Church of St. Sophia became the scene of many solemn state functions and religious ceremonies, the fumes of incense curled round its many pillars of porphyry from Phrygia—white marble striped rose-red, as with the blood of Atys slain at Synada; of green marble from Laconia, and blue from Lybia. Celtic marble quarries sent their tribute, black with white veins, and from the Bosphorus came white black-veined marble. Among the most beautiful of all these pillars were those eight which Aurelius had taken from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. Then there were monuments of gold, cunningly wrought, enriched with the most precious stones, and about all these glories floated hymns of praise or supplication to the God about Whose Triune Person the citizens wrangled and fought in the Hippodrome and in the narrow streets.

Legend has it that this work of man’s hand was made yet more glorious by angelic influences. An angel appeared to order the work of the ten thousand men engaged in the reconstruction under Justinian; he appeared again, robed in brilliant white, to a boy guarding the masons’ tools by night and ordered an immediate continuance of the pious work, and yet a third time to lead the mules of the Treasury into the vaults to be laden with eighty hundredweight of gold wherewith to decorate the sacred fane. One more angel appeared, this time to the Emperor himself, clad in Imperial purple, wearing red shoes, to ordain that the light should fall through three windows{64} upon the High Altar, this in memory of Holy Trinity. On Christmas Day of 548 Emperor Justinian and Eutychius the Patriarch moved to the newly reconstructed sanctuary with all the pomp and ceremony of the Church. No sooner were the doors opened than the Emperor ran in with outstretched arms crying, “God be praised, Who hath esteemed me worthy to complete such a work. Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”

Not quite ten centuries later, in May of 1453 at Pentecost, the Patriarch was celebrating High Mass within the walls of St. Sophia, the fumes of incense floated heavenward with the supplications of the people, while the Turk was battering down the stout defences of the city and the Emperor and his followers were falling under the sword of Othman about the ruined ramparts. The Mass was interrupted and has never since been resumed, for from that day to this the Crescent has gleamed on the dome, the High Altar has faced towards Mecca, and from the attendant minarets the imam has called the followers of the Prophet to prayer. To the ancient Christian legends of angels the Turks have added traditions of their own. Near the Mihrab is a window facing north; here Sheik ak Shemseddin, the companion of Mohammed the Conqueror, first expounded the Koran.

Roumeli Hissar
The first fortress built by the Turks on European soil. Built by Mohammed the Conqueror, the ground plan being that monarch’s cypher.

In this Feast of Bairam, the Turkish Pentecost, the courts of St. Sophia were crowded with Turkish soldiery, some wounded, others stricken with cholera, and in and out of the upper gate of the Seraglio, through which the Sultan was wont to issue for worship in the Mosque of Sophia, convoys of sick were wending their weary way, soldiers and stores were passing, for the enemy was before the gates—not the old enceinte of the City, but the lines of Chatalja stretching from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea—and he was demanding admission in order to complete the{65} High Mass interrupted on that day in May four and a half centuries ago.

After sketching a corner of the enclosure of St. Sophia and a bit of the Seraglio wall, over which the graceful cupola of St. Irene appears, a policeman stopped me for the first time in my experience of this city, but he was satisfied with a sight of my passport, which probably conveyed no definite idea to his mind. I went down towards the Sea of Marmora to renew my acquaintance with several historic places and to muse over the strange vicissitudes of this City of Constantine. It was a fine, clear day, unusually warm for November, and the Sea of Marmora shone in myriads of sparkling facets under the midday sun. Strange stories of ancient days came crowding in upon me. I seemed to see the face of the waters veiled by a cloud of swift-sailing vessels. This strange pageant came up out of the south, Genoese, experienced travellers and redoubtable warriors, then Venetians, the only seafarers who ever tried the strength of old Byzantium’s sea-walls. In double line they came bearing down upon the walls under Dandolo, the venerable Doge. Sailors leapt from the swifter craft and scaled the walls, while from the heavier ships with turrets and high of poop, and from platforms for the engines of war then in use, drawbridges were lowered to the summit of the walls. Already the standard of St. Mark waved from twenty-five towers and fire drove the Greeks from the adjacent defences. But Dandolo decided to forgo the advantage he had gained and to hasten to assist the exhausted band of Latins who were suffering under the superior numbers of the Greeks before the land-walls. The aspect of affairs was so serious that Alexius, the Emperor, fled with a treasure of some ten thousand pounds to an obscure Thracian harbour, basely deserting{66} his wife and people. Next came Khairreddin, called Barbarossa, High Admiral of Suleiman I. Khairreddin was one of four brothers whose trade was piracy, then a most gentlemanly profession. He and his brother Urudsh first sailed under the flag of the Tunisian Sultan, but paid tribute to Suleiman. They conquered Tunis, Algiers, and all the Barbary coast, and held these provinces in fief. How many of those overseas possessions now owe allegiance to the Porte? Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, “Deutscher Nation,” sent Genoa’s greatest admiral, Doria, with a mighty fleet against Khairreddin, but they were dispersed by the eighty-four fast ships of Barbarossa, who scoured the Mediterranean Sea, ravaged the coasts of Italy, Minorca, even distant Spain, beating the combined naval forces of Emperor, Pope, and Venetian Republic, off Prevesa. Khairreddin Barbarossa lies buried on the banks of the Bosphorus. Not long after Barbarossa’s day a new sea-power began to make its influence felt; it stretched out feelers towards Constantinople, and when Amurath II was Sultan the Red Cross of St. George was seen for the first time from the sea-walls of Constantinople. English ships came sailing up from the south bearing messages to the Porte from Elizabeth, Queen of England.

When Ibrahim ruled over Turkey from 1640-1648 all manner of excesses went unpunished owing to the maladministration of a bad Sultan. Some English ships lying in harbour were plundered. In those days it was the custom for any one who had received an injury from minister or official to place fire on his head and hurry to the palace. Redress for the injury to British ships having been refused by the Porte, Sir Thomas Bentinck brought the ships up from Galata, anchored them below the palace windows, and lighted fires on every yard-arm. This{67} manœuvre sent the Grand Vizier hurrying to the Ambassador with offers of settlement in full.

There was one place I revisited down by the Sea of Marmora which tells of evil deeds done one dark night in the days of old Byzant. It is the Palace of Justinian, by some called after Hormisdas or Hormouz, a Persian prince who sought refuge here with Constantine the Great.

A woman of low origin, Theophane, had married Romanus II, the Emperor, a man whose short reign added no lustre to the pages of the Empire’s history, for he spent his time in idleness. Theophane tired of her spouse and killed him by poison, and was minded to reign in the name of her two sons Basil and Constantine, one five, the other three years old. But the weight of responsibility was too great for her to bear, and she looked about for a strong man to support her. She found one in Nicephorus Phocas, then accounted the bravest soldier in the land; he was therefore popular with the people. But soon after Theophane had disposed of her first husband, and her second, Nicephorus, had ascended the throne, the fickle population turned from him and gave evidence of their discontent by stoning him. Nicephorus was forced to seek refuge in this Palace of Justinian, which he had strengthened considerably for his own defence against the people of the City. But Fate overtook him, coming from the Sea of Marmora. One winter’s night in 963, when the gates of the palace were locked and bolted, the windows barred, and as additional precaution the Emperor had moved from the room he generally occupied into a smaller chamber, a boat was made fast at the foot of the palace steps. Headed by John Zimisces, Theophane’s lover, a band of assassins entered the palace, they were joined by others hiding in the Empress’s chamber; with much cruelty and insult they put Nicephorus Phocas to death.{68}

To-day as the visitor to Constantinople looks out to the Sea of Marmora over the seaward walls he may see the smoke of foreign warships curling upward—by the Asiatic coast a French warship, the sunlight glinting on her many round turrets, some way towards south-west the long hull of a British cruiser against the sky, and further towards the west yet another foreign vessel, Austrian, moving slowly, watching events by the lake at the southern ends of the lines of Chatalja; for history is in the making here, the enemy is before the gates, Turks and Bulgarians, with them Serbs, are fighting for a settlement of long outstanding accounts.

A Deserted Street
Weary soldiers, sick and slightly wounded, trudged past up to the mosque erected by Suleiman to commemorate his many victories.

Leaving the ruined Palace of Justinian I made my way up towards the hill on which stands the Mosque of Achmed, which rises so proudly with its six minarets above the little houses that cluster on the slope. I passed through more ruins on my way, not remains of ancient Byzant, but the results of one of the numerous fires to which Stamboul is well accustomed, and which it is so ill fitted to control. It was a peaceful spot, and quite deserted but for a very small boy who entertained me with an imitation of a railway engine engaged in shunting, a manœuvre of which whistling was the chief feature. We were not alone for long ere another body of weary soldiers, sick and slightly wounded, trudged past us up to the mosque erected by Suleiman to commemorate his many victories. He it was who carried the Crescent triumphant through Hungary to the gates of Vienna, leaving behind him Serbs and Bulgars in slavery. Those very nations have been trying the power of the Porte beyond the walls and are longing to enter; it is they who have reduced those Turkish soldiers to their present state of misery. The possessions on the southern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, which Khairreddin Barbarossa added to Suleiman’s dominions,{70}{69} have been wrenched from the feeble grasp of his successor, and the courtyard of the great Sultan’s mosque is crowded with refugees from Thrace and Macedonia, provinces won by the sword, lost by the sword, and the soldiers sent to defend them are now resting, sick and wounded, in the shadow of the Suleimanyeh.

Through the gratings of the enclosing wall of the Suleimanyeh refugees and soldiers look out at the passersby on to a large space, the theatre of many scenes in the history of ancient Byzant. Little they know, little they care, for such matters, for their troubles are very present. The refugees have had to leave their homesteads in Thrace and Macedonia, taking with them their most treasured belongings, leaving the fruits of harvest to the invaders. It is said that fear of their own soldiery rather than of the enemy compelled them to flee. Fathers, husbands, and sons of these refugees are among the sick and wounded. One case I know of where a wounded soldier just discharged from hospital set out to find his family, which he heard had migrated to Asia Minor. Whither they have gone he knows not at all, but he has set out on his search, and in his pocket only a dollar, but his heart full of trust in Allah.

Suleiman built his mosque and its enclosure on part of the former Hippodrome, and its erection covered a space of five years, from 1550-1555. St. Sophia was taken as model, and relics of the Greek Empire went to its construction. It looks down on an open space, all that remains of the ancient Hippodrome, At-meïdan, as it is now called. Several ancient monuments stand here dating from the time of the Greek Emperors—the obelisk of Egyptian granite, a four-cornered shaft some fifty feet high, brought from Heliopolis and set up by the Emperor Theodosius; the remains more curious still of the column of the Three Serpents, of bronze and about fifteen feet in height.{72} The serpents seem to grow out of the ground, but the illusion is rather spoilt by the fact that they have lost their heads; one of them at least is said to have been struck off by Mohammed the Conqueror. This column has had an eventful history; it is said to have been taken by the Greeks from the Persians at the battle of Platæa, 479 B.C., and kept at Delphi, dedicated to the Oracle, until the time of Pausanias. Constantine the Great then had it removed to his City, and set it up where it now stands.

Among the memories that haunt At-meïdan, the Hippodrome of old Byzant, are strongest those of the days of Justinian and Theodora his wife. Justinian, nephew of Justin, a simple Dacian who rose step by step to the Imperial Purple, he and his contemporary Theodoric, King of Italy, were illiterate, a strange thing in those days when learning was no uncommon thing among all classes. Justin sent to Dacia for his nephew to train him for high Imperial office, and trained him well during the nine years of his reign. So on the death of Justin, Justinian inherited the throne, and with his many advantages should have proved successful. He was comely of face and of great bodily strength, full of the best intentions and restless in pursuit of knowledge; the wars he undertook he brought to a happy issue, and the laws he framed should have won the gratitude of his people. Yet they loved not Justinian, and by some this is ascribed to Theodora his wife: Theodora, the actress, the dancer, Justinian’s Empress!

Two factions, Blue and Green, influenced the fortunes of Constantinople in those days. The Green faction employed one Acacius as keeper of the wild beasts for their games; he was Theodora’s father. On his death the mother brought Theodora and her sisters to the theatre, where they appeared in the garb of supplicants. The{73} Green faction received them with contempt, by the Blue faction they were kindly entreated, so Theodora favoured that colour ever after. The details of Theodora’s life as actress, dancer, need not concern us; a son was born to her during this period of her existence. Many years later the father of the child, when dying, told him: “Your mother is an Empress.” The son of Theodora hastened to Constantinople, hurried to the palace to present himself, and was never seen again. For a while Theodora lived in seclusion in Alexandria, then she had a vision which told her that she was destined to wear the Imperial Purple; she returned to Constantinople, won Justinian’s love, and verified the vision’s prophecy.

Another Justinian, second of that name, played his short part in the history of Byzant, in scenes enacted in the Hippodrome. In all things different from his great predecessor, for he was feeble of intellect and unable to control his passions, neither was he faithful to his wife, another Theodora, whose love saved his life when her brother, the Khan of the Chazars, bribed by Byzantine gold, sought to take it. This Justinian ruled with great cruelty, through the hands of his favourite ministers, and succeeded by their aid in braving the growing hatred of his subjects. A sudden impulse, rather than any sense of the justice he habitually outraged, led him to liberate one Leontius, a general of great renown, who had suffered unjust imprisonment for several years. Leontius, raised to honour and appointed Governor of Greece, headed a conspiracy which resulted in the populace breaking open the prisons and releasing many innocent sufferers from the Emperor’s injustice. Then in their thousands an excited populace swarmed to the Church of St. Sophia, where the Patriarch, taking as text for his sermon, “This is the day of the Lord,” still further inflamed the passions of the{74} mob. They crowded into the Hippodrome, dragged Justinian before the insurgent judges, who clamoured for his immediate death. But Leontius, already clothed in the Purple, was merciful to the son of his former master and friend; so Justinian, the scion of so many Emperors, was deposed and, slightly mutilated about the face, banished to the Crimea.

Here Justinian waited for revenge while Constantinople’s fickle population revolted from Leontius and placed Apsimar, as Emperor Tiberius, on the throne. But he failed to satisfy the mob, and so when Justinian appeared before the City walls and besieged his own capital with a Bulgarian army the citizens opened the gates and re-instated him. So the Hippodrome witnessed Justinian’s return to power. He sat on his throne watching the chariot race, one foot on the neck of each captive usurper Leontius and Apsimar in chains, while the fickle people shouted in the words of the Psalmist: “Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and the dragon shalt thou set thy foot.” On the conclusion of the games Leontius and Apsimar were led away to execution.

The Mosque of St. Sophia
Refugees from Thrace, seeking shelter in the courtyard of the Mosque of Achmet. In the background the Mosque of St. Sophia.

These are some of the strange scenes which the Hippodrome has witnessed ere the Turk crowned his conquests by the taking of Constantinople. Here overlooking one end of At-meïdan, where the Janissaries used to exercise their horses, is the building which contains many relics of that famous corps; the Janissaries are no more, for, like the Prætorian guard, they became a danger to their sovereign. Here on At-meïdan the Ottoman Exhibition was held in 1863. How many changes have taken place in Europe since those days when Abdul Aziz was Sultan! The uncalled-for Crimean War was scarcely at an end and Turkey’s European possessions showed a tendency towards disruption, but things went very well for all that, and no{76}{75} one among the general public noticed the rise of a great Power in the north. The year following saw Prussia master of Schleswig-Holstein, two years from then Austria had been beaten and the southern German States forced into union by the same Power. Then by the time another four or five years had passed, the French Empire fell, and the German Empire became an accomplished fact. Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria have become kingdoms independent of the Sublime Porte; Bosnia and Herzegovina are no longer Turkish provinces, neither does Tripolitana form part of the Ottoman Empire any longer. Over Macedonia and Thrace the Slav enemies of Turkey, formerly that country’s vassals, fly their victorious colours. Montenegro has occupied part of the Adriatic coast, the Hellenes have seized Saloniki, and foreign warships have landed their contingents in Constantinople. Beyond the walls of the City which Mohammed conquered Bulgarians and Slavs are clamouring for admittance; within the walls the beaten Osmanli troops fill the hospitals, crowd the enclosures of mosques erected by conquering Sultans, and die daily by hundreds from neglected wounds, from sickness, above all from that dread Asiatic scourge, cholera.{78}

CHAPTER V

AT the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkan Peninsula we had it from the lips of a king that this is a crusade, a holy war, a war against the Pagan intruder into Europe, which must end in his subjection and eviction from our Christian continent.

Such sentiments from a monarch who, brought up in one Christian dogma, has chosen another variant of our Faith for his children, can have no other effect than to raise the present war to a much higher level than the wars of former days, which were waged unblushingly to gain some national advantage, to acquire territory, or even merely to flatter national vanity. No, this is a very different war, and informed of the same spirit, so we are told, which moved the Crusaders in their thousands down the Danube to the Holy Land. Those pious warriors passed through Constantinople, honoured the place with a lengthy stay, and, I regret to say, were not sufficiently appreciated by the Eastern Emperors and their people. The same spirit, called forth by Johann Capistran, led noble Hungarians, the chivalry of Servia, and hosts of Bulgarians to meet the Crescent on the Amselfeld at Kossovo, and{79} Eastern Europe went under in a sea of blood. Now this latest crusade is drawing to a close, and the rejuvenated nations of the Balkans have in their turn humbled the Crescent and brought the Cross back to before the walls of Constantinople. What matter that there are numbers of Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army? The war is a crusade—we have it on the best authority.

Those Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army have also suffered for their faith, for invidious Moslems have been inclined to attribute the disaster which overtook the Sultan’s Army to the fact that he had been induced to make soldiers of them, whereas, as every true follower of the Prophet knows, Islam is the only creed for a warrior. Again and again those Christian soldiers of the Sultan have been accused of cowardice, of deserting to the enemy in great numbers; no ingenious calumny has been spared to prove that they gave the reason for the debacle, and that but for their presence the Crescent would be gleaming over Sofia again, and again facing Austria-Hungary across Danube and Save. As a matter of fact, reliable informants have told me, the Christian soldiers of the Sultan did uncommonly well, and were even from time to time deserted by their Moslem comrades. If religious matters had to do with the defeats sustained by the Turkish Army, it is more probably the case that pious Moslems felt the authority of the Sultan, the head of their faith, undermined by recent changes, by the admission of non-believers into offices of state, and this led to a despondency which from time to time broke out in panic. One night, it was told me, a Turkish soldier awoke from a nightmare and fled, crying, “The Bulgars are on us!” though there were none in the immediate neighbourhood. The men of his section took alarm and followed him; the company followed—the battalion—brigade, till the whole division{80} was running away in nameless terror before a purely imaginary enemy.

Religion has ever played a leading part in the history of Constantinople, may even be said to have been responsible for its existence, for Byzas, in carrying out the Oracle’s dark instructions, merely followed his religious instincts. Of Constantine the Great it is not necessary to say much; the beautiful story of his conversion to Christianity is one of the earliest of such apocryphal addenda to the story of the Church of Christ as taught us in our infancy.

The Aqueduct of Valens
Valens the Emperor was killed in battle by the Goths at Adrianople. His aqueduct stands out strangely among wooden houses, connecting the seven hills on which stands Stamboul.

Constantine was the first Augustus to be baptized, and he was followed by Valens, who, as far as is known, worshipped the fast-fading deities of ancient Rome. We shall meet Valens again at Adrianople—there are few traces left of him here in Constantinople, only the aqueduct he built. It stands out strangely among wooden houses, connecting the seven hills on which stands Stamboul. Valens was followed by another great Emperor, Theodosius I. Theodosius, though born of Christian parents, did not embrace Christianity until towards the end of the first year of his reign, when a severe illness carried conviction to the Imperial mind. Before he took the field against the Goths, Acholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, baptized him, and so Theodosius became a Christian—a stout, full-blooded one at that. Once convinced of the beauty of the faith, and sure of the unfailing aid the Church afforded, Theodosius acted as a soldier and a convert would. He had found the sure haven of his soul, and all his people must also be led into the right way. There was no room for “saucy doubts and fears” in the breast of Emperor Theodosius. On ascending from the font he issued an edict to his people which is worth giving word for word: “It is our pleasure that all the nations which are governed{82}{81} by our clemency and moderation should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the Pontiff of Damascus, and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the Apostles and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the sole Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal Majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics, and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of Divine Justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.” So we find little encouragement in Constantinople of those days of any kind of nonconformity, or any doxy save that of the Emperor himself.

Nevertheless, in matters of religion, Constantinople may be said to have done more than any other centre of national life. For forty years, from 340-380, this was the centre of Arianism, and was also open to all manner of strange doctrines, coming from every province of the Empire, and this worried Theodosius very much. The polemics that raged round the name and nature of Holy Trinity exasperated the soldier Theodosius, so he determined to settle the matter once and for all. He convened a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops to complete the theological system established in the Council of Nicæa. The council managed, wisely, to arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to the Emperor, so at least his mind was set at rest on a vexed question.{84}

Peace was not, for with a people like the Greeks and others who lived in Constantinople, fond of all manner of disputations, any idea of uniformity was hopeless; nevertheless there were endless councils, conferences, synods, which probably only served to aggravate the many controversies. Out of the chaos of ideas and ideals one form or another would rise and stand out above his fellows; of these, perhaps, no one is better known than John, called by the people “Golden Mouth,” Chrysostom. He came from Antioch with a great reputation as a preacher, and that under somewhat unusual circumstances. Eutropius, Prime Minister of Arcadius, the young Emperor, had heard and admired the sermons of John Chrysostom when on a journey in the East. Fearful lest the flock at Antioch might be unwilling to resign their favourite preacher, the minister sent a private order to the Governor of Syria, and the divine was transported with great speed and secrecy to Constantinople.

The new Archbishop made his influence felt at once, and his teachings gave rise to several factions, some in his favour, others against him, all delighted at new food for controversy. Chrysostom was hot-tempered, which led him to express disapproval of wrong-doing in unmeasured terms, unsociable, in consequence of which he lost touch with his surroundings. So it came about that he was surprised by an ecclesiastical conspiracy. Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, had arrived by invitation of the Empress Eudoxia, and had brought with him a number of independent bishops sufficient to secure him a majority in the synod. Theophilus had taken the further precaution of bringing with him a strong escort of Egyptian sailors to keep the refractory populace in order. The synod brought various charges against Chrysostom, who declined to attend the meeting, and was therefore condemned{85} in default for contumacious disobedience and sentenced to be deposed by this august body. Chrysostom was hurriedly conveyed into exile at the entrance of the Black Sea, but was recalled before many days had passed, for his faithful flock had risen, slain without mercy the crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners in the streets of the City, roared and rioted round the palace gates in waves of sedition, that Chrysostom had to be recalled to restore order. He returned in triumph; but he was no courtier, and his zeal outran discretion, so the Empress had him banished again, this time to Mount Taurus, and then further away to the desert of Pityas, but he died on his way thither in his sixtieth year. Thirty years later, in 438, Theodosius II went over to Chalcedon to meet the remains of John Chrysostom, which were being brought from the first obscure burial-place to Constantinople. Falling prostrate on the coffin, the Emperor implored forgiveness for his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia.

Of the many sects thrown up by religious controversy few have survived to this day, but of these one is remarkable in many ways—the Armenian Church. The Armenians are an Indo-European people, living in Great and Little Armenia, an elevated plateau, from which the principal mountains, rivers, and valleys of Western Asia diverge, a plateau some 7000 feet above the sea in places, and rising to its greatest height of 17,260 feet in Mount Ararat, now in Russian territory.

No doubt it is a great satisfaction to the Armenians to have that holy mountain in their native land, though I do not think that undue pride over this interesting feature has kept them apart from others of the Christian faith. They took to it very readily during the reign of Constantius, and during the years when the Eastern Empire was still mighty in Asia maintained their connection with the See{86} at Constantinople. But their country was peculiarly liable to be swamped by alien races, and constant disorders during the many centuries when the Eastern Empire was falling to pieces alienated them from the original fold. Again, their clergy were generally ignorant of the Greek tongue, so they ceased attending synods, and thus widened the rift, so that, as they did not attend the Council of Chalcedon, they came to be considered as schismatics, and have long had a Patriarch in Constantinople, who watches over the interests of his flock. His is a very difficult position, for ever since there has been an Armenian problem no other means of solving it has ever suggested itself to the Porte than that of wholesale massacre—there is an Armenian problem, therefore kill the Armenians; simple, thoroughly Oriental, and not to the taste of Europe, whose protests, however, have never been as loud over Armenian outrages as when some national trade interest is affected. Nevertheless Armenians have stayed on as useful citizens and subjects of Sultans who showed to them less consideration than to any others of the numerous races which live under the Porte’s peculiar jurisdiction; they are advancing in wealth, education, and political importance, and are likely to play an important part in the future of Asia Minor. It is said that the Armenians might have made common cause with the Greeks, and thus assisted towards the deliverance from Turkish yoke which seems to have been brought at last by the arms of the twentieth-century crusaders, who swarmed over the passes of the Balkans and down the Valley of the Maritza only a month or so ago. The Armenians, instead of accomplishing unity by means of their synod, seem to have frittered away their strength in small committees, probably discussing side issues with great earnestness and leaving great questions unsolved, as{88}{87} is frequently the case in the deliberations of such bodies.

On the way to the Phanar
A picturesque street thronged with the usual crowd of leisurely wayfarers.

Ever since the earliest days of Christianity Constantinople has been the seat of a Father of the Church. His importance increased as the Empire flourished, and he soon was styled Patriarch, a title which has never been relinquished, an office which has never been in abeyance but for those few days between the triumphal entry of Mohammed the Conqueror and the Patriarch’s reinstatement by that monarch.

The buildings which serve as head-quarters for the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople stand overlooking the upper reaches of the Golden Horn at the Phanar, and have no great beauty to distinguish them from their surroundings. The cathedral church is small, and the only thing which impressed me in it is the cathedra itself. Not long ago I had the honour of being presented to His Holiness the late Patriarch. A friend and I made our way to the Phanar, through picturesque streets, thronged with the usual crowd of leisurely wayfarers; vines festooned from one side to the other, and in places affording shade from the searching rays of the sun, but at the same time condensing the mingled, varied odours inseparable from life in the East, and which, no doubt, contribute to its indefinable charm. The Phanar is a quarter formerly occupied by those Greeks whose duties brought them in closer contact with the Imperial Court of Byzant; they lived in stone houses that clustered round the Phanar, the lighthouse, at the foot of the heights, where stood palaces of princes, churches, and barracks of the Imperial Guards, and whence the walls defending the City from attack by land draw their rugged lines down to the Golden Horn. We were shown into a long room, hung round with indifferent portraits of former Patriarchs,{90} and introduced by one of the most prominent lay members of the Holy Synod, a gentleman to whom, I fancy, the Greeks of Turkey in Europe owe a debt of gratitude. His Holiness received us most graciously, conversed amiably on many questions, and all went very well till he had a look at the sketch I had taken of him. “As it has not succeeded I will give you a photograph of myself,” said His Holiness, and I am the proud possessor of a signed photograph of this the latest successor of a long line of ecclesiastical potentates. Nevertheless, I consider my sketch a good likeness, and my opinion is not based on conceit alone, but is endorsed by others qualified to judge.

His Holiness Joachim III
Patriarch of the Orthodox Church at Constantinople.

It is sad to reflect that Christianity, even from the earliest days, has strayed so far from the leading precept of its Founder. The Church in all ages, among all nations, proclaimed Him “Prince of Peace,” then incited her followers to take up arms in defence of dogma, ritual, never dreamt of by the Christ. The different peoples which were enabled to divide into groups in accord with racial ambition were used as tools by prelates of the East and West to add to their own importance, to enhance their own prestige. The West drew to it strong Germanic races who, sword in hand, helped to gather the broken remnants of the Latin races into the fold of the Western See; these subtler Latin races, never quite freed from the worship of their forebears, never entirely abandoning the worship of the gods of old, of Isis and Osiris, gained for a space ascendancy over the simpler, purer Teutons, and made the power of the Roman Pontiff possible. Revolts there were many, when the strong, persistent Germanic intellect developed, and tried to free itself from spiritual thraldom. Until the days of Luther, such stirrings were countered by a short shrift and a blazing pyre for the offender.{91} Luther’s theses, nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, marked the straining of the cords that bound northern races to the Southern See, and led nations to give rein to their ambitions, striving to attain them throughout a war of thirty years. Even then the fight was indecisive, and the “Kultur Kampf,” against which Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, battled with but qualified success, occupies the mind and tends to check the spiritual development of modern Germany.

The people of the Eastern Empire centred in Constantinople in those days, far beyond the intellectual limitations of the West, could not be expected to submit to the spiritual authority of a Roman Pontiff, especially as the Roman Empire of the West had gone under before its barbarian foes, whereas the Roman Empire of the East yet held sway over many distant provinces conquered by Roman arms. The Eastern and the Western world were seldom in complete accord; the bonds that united them in earliest days were frail, and could only be made to hold when in the hands of a strong man like Constantine the Great. The Western Empire’s fall enhanced the greatness of the Eastern Empire, and thus was paved the way to separation in matters of religion. The intellectual pride of the Greeks would not submit to any dictation on the subject of Christian doctrine from the West, and Roman ambition would not allow outlying communities to formulate new doctrines nor to revise old ones. It needed a small pretext to bring about schism, and that pretext was not long wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman, Captain of the Guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. In ecclesiastical knowledge and purity of morals he was equally well qualified for this high office. But Ignatius, his predecessor, who had abdicated, still had{92} many supporters, and these appealed to Pope Nicholas I, one of the proudest, most ambitious of the Roman Pontiffs, who welcomed an opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. But the Greeks resented the interference, and after many intrigues Photius emerged triumphant, and reconciliation between the two Churches was made more difficult than ever. After about two centuries of unseemly wrangling and bitter recriminations, Papal legates came to Constantinople in 1054 and laid a bull of excommunication against the Patriarch upon the altar of St. Sophia.

It will be readily understood that the Crusades, organized under the auspices of the Church of Rome, were not looked upon with favour by the Eastern Emperors and Patriarchs who, however much they bickered between themselves, showed a united front to outsiders. It is therefore not surprising that the Eastern Empire lent but half-hearted support to the crusading Western nations, and that, when that Empire was in turn threatened from the East, its appeals to Western Christianity fell on deaf ears. This made the path of Osmanli conquerors all the smoother. To-day we are faced with a new crusade, Eastern Christians, members of the Orthodox Church, carrying the Cross against the Crescent. They have met with hardly any but that somewhat overrated “moral” support from Western Christians. Montenegrins came down from their Black Mountains, all available fighting men of a population of some 250,000, and fiercely fought for an ideal. Servia, out of a population of about 3,000,000, sent an army as strong and as well-found as the much-vaunted expeditionary force of Great Britain over the mountain-passes into Macedonia. Meeting with stubborn resistance, suffering checks, they pressed on, and now hold lands which once formed part of Servia when, for a{93} short time, it was a great Empire, and had its capital at Üsküb, which King Peter’s army entered in triumph some short time ago. Then the Hellenes, under the Crown Prince Constantinos, name borne by several Greek Emperors, came up from the south, and smarting under the memory of former reverses, fought their way over the mountains into Macedonia, and have occupied Saloniki. Here, again, is a small nation of barely 3,000,000 sending an army of near 100,000 into the field. Then from the north, in irresistible force, came the hosts of Ferdinand, Tsar of all the Bulgarians. His forces were reckoned at 300,000 when they crossed over the border, and this number was taken from an industrious, thriving population of little more than 4,000,000 souls. Numbers as yet untold have fallen in battle, others have succumbed to disease and the hardships of war, but what remains are loudly clamouring for admission to Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar, where all these sons of the Greek Orthodoxy, though of different nations, hope to reunite in worship at Santa Sophia.

And while these deeds have been doing, Eastern and Western Christianity have been gazing unfriendly at each other. A great Power which adheres to the Church of Rome is looking with disfavour upon the successes gained by these young nations, and diplomacy, which has hitherto failed woefully in its endeavours to maintain peace, is now put to it to prevent another appeal to the arbitrament of arms, and this time of a nature that will make the present war seem but an advanced-guard action. In the meanwhile, with this danger threatening, the part played by Turkey in Europe seems almost incidental only, albeit this great Power is passing from Europe to its native Asia, shorn by a sudden, violent storm of all its old possessions but that narrow corner, fenced off from the onslaught by the lines of Chatalja.{94}

CHAPTER VI

AS was only natural in a community so devoted to all manner of religious observances, such as the Greeks of Byzantium, monasticism made great headway and filled Constantinople with religious institutions of that order. Probably the idea first came to Europe from Africa, via the city of many churches, not long after the days of Anthony of Thebais, in the fourth century. Anthony was an illiterate youth who, suddenly seized with a desire to do penance for some wickedness (let us hope real rather than fancied), distributed his patrimony, left his kith and kin, and retired to a ruined tower among the tombs on the banks of the Nile. Perhaps he found this spot too sociable, for he wandered away into the desert east of the Nile, some three days’ march, and commenced his seclusion in a lonely spot which offered him shade and water. But Anthony’s repose was soon disturbed by numbers of others to whom had spread the fame of his sanctity, and they joined him as disciples in the wilderness, and no doubt in the beauty of holiness. Anthony lived long enough, one hundred and five years it is said, to start a considerable body of anchorites.{95} The notion soon spread to Europe, and Constantinople took it up with enthusiasm; monasteries and convents sprang up in all directions, and soon became either popular resorts of penitent princes, statesmen, or others who wished to obtain some reputation for holiness to enable them to restart their old life with a clean sheet, or else the enforced retreat of emperors and empresses, patriarchs, and courtiers who had fallen from favour and were removed with more or less ceremony from the scene of their former activities. There was a monastery of St. George of Mangane near Seraglio Point, where John Cantacuzene took up his abode after abdication. I have told you of Empress Irene who went into the seclusion of a convent she had built on Prince’s Island.

Holy men went from their monastic institutions into the countries of the Empire’s heathen neighbours and made many converts. Cyril and Methodius were called to Bulgaria and converted Boris, the King, who sent his son Simeon to be educated at Constantinople. Many more Bulgarian youths followed, and it became customary to go to Constantinople in search of learning and the refinements of life. This practice continues to-day, and Robert College, an American foundation, standing high on the European bank of the Bosphorus above Roumeli Hissar, has trained many young Bulgars to a useful life. Among these was M. Gueshof, the present Prime Minister of Bulgaria, whose skill assists Tsar Ferdinand in piloting the fortunes of his kingdom through the troubled political waters of these days.

While the religious life of Constantinople was working out its destiny, while members of various monastic orders forgot the first precepts of their Master and plunged into all manner of political intrigue, a new and powerful creed had arisen in Asia and was drawing thousands out of{96} darkness to the red glare of a militant faith. Islam was spreading ever nearer the coasts of Europe in a solid, devoted body, while Christians of the East were frittering away their strength in political discussions, thus paving the way for the conquest of a large part of Europe by the hosts of Othman inspired by a simple faith, and Constantinople fell. In vain the crusade organized by Pope Urban, the Eastern bulwark of Christianity was doomed. To-day the sons of Othman are in like case as were the Christians of the Greek Empire before 1453. They have assumed, but not assimilated, Western ideas, and in so doing have departed from the faith wherein lay their strength, have undermined the religious pre-eminence of their Lord the Sultan, and have brought a misunderstood version of advanced Western philosophy to a people inherently incapable of understanding anything but the fundamental facts that Allah is great, that Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah, and that his word is a law from which no man dare depart if he would enter into happiness after death.

The first to bring the Crescent up to the walls of Constantinople were swarms of fiery Saracens, who came up under clouds of lateen sails over the blue waters of the Sea of Marmora and laid fierce siege to the City. They came first in the seventh century and forty-six years after the flight of the Prophet from Mecca. Urged by their warlike faith, the Arabs had found conquest rapid and easy of achievement since they issued from the desert; they carried their triumphant ensigns to the banks of the Indus and the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees and thought themselves invincible. By the middle of the seventh century they had conquered Phœnicia, the countries watered by the Euphrates, Judæa, Syria, and all Egypt, Cyprus, and Rhodes, and had overrun the Iberian Peninsula from Africa. The richest prize they coveted was Constantinople,{97} but they tried its strength in vain, and had to retire baffled. The Arabs transmitted their creed to a young race which had come out of Tartary, and laid thereby the foundation of the Ottoman Empire when Arab dominion was declining. The fortunes of the young race, the Turks, were very varied, but they were at last able to assist Caliph Motassem, who was no longer able to find among his own people those martial qualities which had led to Arab conquests. Fifty thousand Turks entered the military service of the Caliph, and they in time came to assume power and a decisive voice in the Government, like the Prætorian Guard before them, and the Janissaries of Constantinople and Mamelukes of Egypt since.

The Arab Caliphate dwindled into decay, making way for a Turkish dynasty, and so when Alexius Comnenus was Emperor of the East he was forced to acknowledge Suleiman as master of Asia Minor.

Othman, Osman, son of Erthogrul, succeeded in 1288, and to him is due the rise of the Ottoman Power. He roused the enthusiasm of his followers by proclaiming that a Divine Mission inspired him to carry the Crescent out to westward, and so he moved victorious over the last Asiatic possessions of the Eastern Empire. Where he came he conquered, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century nearly all Asia Minor was held by the Osmanli, and the Christians of Constantinople were becoming aware of the danger that threatened their religious and political existence. The sword of Othman and his victorious banner passed to Orchan, his son, and with them these words of advice: “Be just, love goodness, and show mercy. Give the same protection to all thy subjects, and extend the faith of thy fathers.” This advice was followed by Orchan, and he too carried the Crescent victorious nearer and nearer to the Eastern bulwark of Christianity, Constantinople. Here at Eyub, in the mosque{98} by the Sweet Waters of Europe, the sword of Othman and his banner are kept in reverent state and serve religious purpose, for every succeeding Sultan is girt with this sword, an act corresponding to the crowning of a Christian king, amid the prayers of his people: “May he be as good as Othman.”

The Mosque of Suleiman
Built by this Sultan to commemorate his many victories. Flights of white pigeons hover round this shrine, and pious Moslems seldom pass by without buying some food for them from hawkers who have pitched their business here.

To-day grey threatening clouds are passing over the Mosque of Eyub, where these sacred relics of a warrior race are kept; the brightness that sparkles on the Sweet Waters of Europe which flow into the Golden Horn at this place has vanished under the dull pall of a saddened sky, against which the dark cypresses stand like mourners among the graves of the faithful who are buried round this sacred spot. The gilt crescent on dome and minaret no longer sends answering flashes to the sun that has shone for centuries over the shrine that holds these relics of a fighting race of sovereigns. To many here in this City the sky is overcast, the prospect dark and cloudy, for the Crescent has been waning where it was once supreme, in the countries of Eastern Europe, and the crusade called by the kings of former subject people has reached the outer defences of Stamboul, but fifty miles from the Mosque of Eyub the favourite disciple of the Prophet. The fate of the City is yet undecided, for the arms of Othman have met with reverse after reverse, and no one can say whether recent attempts at implanting Western philosophy on an Eastern creed has left enough of Islam’s virility to defend the last foothold of the Turks on Europe. Here in Stamboul, where stand so many mosques of conquerors, where the Christian churches of the Eastern Empire have been converted into mosques, there is among some a dread uncertainty as to the future. In the bazaars and the narrow streets Turks and Greeks, Armenians and Kurds, Arabs, Georgians, full-blooded negroes, go about their business with the utmost unconcern, as if Europe were not face{100}{99} to face with epoch-making changes which affect the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and especially this City, its heart. Yet here in Constantinople, so full of memories of the great Christian Empire which shielded Europe’s development against the Pagan armies of the East for so many centuries, there is a feeling, subconscious but ever present, that the Turk is only in temporary possession. In all his ways, in all his views, he differs from those with whom he comes in contact in his Empire’s European possessions. He has few belongings and seldom desires more, and these can easily be stowed and transported elsewhere, whereas the races he has conquered and which have wrenched themselves free again are ambitious and greedy of gain. They have been carefully collecting for this final blow; while the Turk has been squandering his goods, they have constructed; whereas the Turk, if he has not destroyed what he found, has at last let it fall in ruins. Those other nations give of their best, put all their strength into the pursuit of one ideal, a great and prosperous Fatherland; the Turk knows only that “Allah is” and orders all things wherever the believer may be, and the ideal of Fatherland is quite beyond his comprehension. The very word, “vatan,” had to be explained to the Turkish people by the enthusiasts who broke the power of Abdul Hamid; but all explanation was useless, the Turk has not found his “vatan” in Europe, and those who broke the power of the Sultan were unable to replace it by anything which the Turk could understand. Devoid of art or science, incapable of political life, the Turk’s energies have been directed solely to works of destruction. Only in one direction has he shown constructive capacity and a desire to leave a lasting record, and that is in the mosques and turbehs, and almost all of these are monuments to men before whom nations went under in seas of blood, who trampled down all signs of prosperity, strangled growing{102} civilization, and levelled homesteads and palaces, churches and strongholds with the ground, on their ruthless march to victory.

Towering over the wooden houses of Stamboul, overshadowing the broken walls of Byzantine defence, which proved vain against the might of Othman, these mosques make Constantinople what it is. Massive masonry, with clinging turrets, crowned by a mighty dome surrounded by the Crescent, and round about the building the bulbous roofs of the medresseh,[1] tetinune,[2] darul ziafet,[3] and darul shifa,[4] emblems of the sycophantic East living on the bounty of the great; thus rises the Mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror, out of the eternal squalor, filth, misery, and unconcern of an Oriental city. And other mosques are much the same, and stand as the only evidence of the Turk’s capacity for construction, and the finest, most imposing of these buildings are due to the most ruthless destroyers among the sons of Othman. Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror built his mosque on the spot where once stood the Church of the Holy Apostles; not a trace remains of that former sacred fane, where in the “Heröon” the rulers of ancient Byzant were laid to rest in coffins of porphyry, granite, serpentine, green, red, or white marble, from Thessaly, Paros, and the Proconessus. Indeed, these tombs were not destroyed by the Osmanli. Latin Christians, during their short tenor of the Imperial City, from 1204-1260, desecrated the shrine and plundered the tombs of the Emperors, but they left at least the building standing, and all traces of that are buried under the massive pile of the Mosque of Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror.

I have already mentioned the Mosque of Achmet. It is the most pronounced feature of Stamboul, rising in wonderful symmetry above the clustering houses that seem{103} to tumble down to the sea-walls and are only arrested in their fall by the Kütshük (little) Agia Sofia, formerly the Church of St. Sergius and Bacchus. This little building stands stoutly by the sea, resting on the walls that for many centuries kept the foes of Christianity at bay, its flat cupola framed on one side by sturdy minaret, on the other by a weather-beaten poplar. Neither of the saints to whom the Greeks dedicated this church are familiar to me; of St. Sergius I know nothing, and the name of St. Bacchus came as a surprise to me when first I heard it, for Bacchus I had known for many years as an obsolete Pagan deity who made no pretence at sanctity, and was only a god because mortals chose to worship him. It is therefore strange to find him associated with St. Sergius, whose name has a somewhat severe sound to it, on this particular post, for, mind you, the men of the Middle Ages allowed their saints very little leisure, but assigned to each his duty. So, I take it, St. Sergius was entrusted with the defence of this section of the sea-wall, and he requisitioned the other gentleman to take over the social duties of the post and to make things merry and bright. However, as I say, I know very little about saints, so cannot give the real reason why these two gentlemen clubbed together to have a church to themselves, and therefore give the above explanation under reservation.

High above this little church towers the massive Mosque of Ahmedyeh, Achmet, considered chief of all the mosques in Stamboul, its six minarets pointing like warning fingers to the sky where Allah reigns inscrutable. The founder, Achmet, was a pious soul, and at the same time a good sportsman; he gave evidence of the former quality by building this mosque, in the latter capacity he was great at falconry and in hunting with those strong hounds whose degenerate descendants until recently roamed the streets of Constantinople and acted as rather unsatisfactory scavengers.{104}

Achmet was rather worried about the dogs, which, in those days of the early seventeenth century, were already rather a nuisance in the crowded City, and thought it wise to consult the Mufti about the matter, for the lives of dogs, unclean animals though they be, were deemed a matter of some importance. The mufti consulted with others learned in the law of the Prophet, and this enlightened committee came to the conclusion that it was unlawful to kill the dogs, seeing each one had a soul. Christians you may kill, they are the enemies of Allah, whereas dogs are not, or at least do not worry about the matter either way. Women you may kill too, they have no soul at all. It is all beautifully simple, and appeals to the meanest intellect. Anyway, the dogs continued to be a nuisance, so, as they might not be killed, they were banished first to Scutari, where they seemed quite happy, and then to an island some sixteen miles out in the Sea of Marmora, where they might die of starvation. However, if the story be true, the dogs knew a trick worth two of that, and simply swam back to their old haunts, and, incidentally, to their ladies, who had not been exiled. I can quite imagine the all-night howlings of welcome with which the ladies greeted the wanderers on their return, and the flight of slippers, smaller articles of furniture, etc., accompanied by clouds of curses, hurtling through the night, to check the exuberance of this frohes Wiedersehen.

A couple of years ago the authorities, inspired by the enlightened members of the new regime, decided to get rid of the dogs, and they were banished again. This time they were rounded up in all parts of the city, and even from the villages on either bank of the Bosphorus. I remember well a friendly little white lady who lived in a corner on the steps leading up from the sea towards the higher part of the Candilli; here on a heap of melon skins, which served both as food and as bedding, she was wont to bring{105} up one litter of promising little pariah pups after another, and she loved variety, for her children were a most variegated assortment. They were as happy as those bright, sunny days were long, and would tumble in bunches down the uneven steps, or struggle up towards the high road which leads along the Asiatic bank and connects Candilli by land with the great world. Here the pups, after strenuous mountaineering, would get their outlook on life, with all its excitements and possible dangers; here Turkish cavalry from Scutari would come dashing past, galloping furiously when there were people to watch this feat and stones to lame their clever little horses, subsiding to a walk when beyond the sight of admirers and when the roads were soft with dust some inches deep, or grass by the wayside. Other sights presented themselves to the round, wondering eyes of these offspring of the little white lady: of a morning lithe young Englishmen would tear down those steps several at a time, to the great wonderment of the lodgers in the corner on the bed of melon skins. These Englishmen would be hurrying to the “Scala” to catch a boat—never punctual unless you were late—a boat that took them to their work in Pera and Galata. On their return they would ascend with startling rapidity those stony precipices which to the puppies seemed to take a lifetime to negotiate; and in the gardens between the high road and the sea you might hear the gentle voices of fair, fragrant Englishwomen, and the puppies would wag sympathetic tails. Yes, they were pleasant, very pleasant, those summer days at Candilli. The solemn cypresses, in their attitude of constant warning, stood unheeded, for the sun was shining on the waters, and made them gleam in gold and blue and many colours, and the sun drew fragrance from flowering shrubs, and ripened the swelling figs that nestled among the broad leaves which, in their turn, mirrored the life-giver in their bright, smooth surface.{106} But one day the little white lady and her family vanished, for men had been busy during the night, and had carried them and all their friends into exile, had carried them away over the waters where the moon drew a sparkling silvery path, to a barren island. Here they were left to perish, for long ago the wise men, learned in the laws of the Prophet, had decided that every dog, even the smallest pup, has a soul, and that it is evil to kill them, but not to let them starve to death. And these same wise men would not have allowed the possession of a soul to those fair Englishwomen whose blue eyes smiled kindly on the little white lady and her offspring’s wondering interest in the doings of the great world.

Many of the dogs had a presentiment of danger, and evaded capture by fleeing to the “hinterland,” whence came alarming rumours of packs of wild dogs rendering insecure the country-side. Of these, one or the other found his way back to his old sociable haunts, and Constantinople and environments have not quite got rid of the dogs which, according to the accounts of all travellers in this country, form one of its most remarkable features.

There are other mosques, many of them, rising up from among squalor, or groups of picturesque wooden houses, and these mosques seem to be the only indication of any permanence of Turkish rule. The little wooden houses vanish from time to time, whole districts in one fell swoop, by fire, which has spread with alarming rapidity long before the watchman, tapping the irregular pavement with the iron-shod staff, has given the alarm. Then firemen, with much noise but little expedition, arrive on the scene, and find little left to do but to gather up the fragments, the property of the sufferers. But the mosques remain towering above charred ruins, and the call to prayer sounds from the graceful minaret over deserted homesteads.

A Disused Monastery
Near the Golf-links on the heights overlooking the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. Here also refugees cluster around the dilapidated walls waiting patiently for transport to Asia Minor.

Thus the life of this strange people, the Turks, goes on{108}{107} from day to day, leisurely business transacted with all dignity of inherent idleness, endless gossip under the vines and awnings of small cafés, talk which begins nowhere and arrives nowhere. Squalor, dirt, picturesque decay, and over all the sense that a migratory race has settled here for a while, is not disposed to move until turned out, and has just put up a leader or two with sufficient enterprise to make others build him a place of worship to glorify himself above his fellows.

But strong young nations have closed in upon Constantinople and threaten it from the West. They came strong in their faith, armed and equipped and prepared to carry all before them, to make vast sacrifices, and their strongest weapon is an ideal. They have not forgotten the history of past centuries; the memory of nameless indignities, of crushing shame, has fed the spirit that informs them, that bids them hurl their young strength against the vis inertiæ of the Turks and march over heaps of slain, over a country peopled by their kinsmen, fellow Christians, now devastated by the foe they have driven back. Now they are hammering at the gates, at the defences of Constantinople, and all the remaining strength of the dying Ottoman Empire in Europe is massed on the narrow strip of ground between the Bosphorus and the lines of Chatalja.

Uncertainty still reigns there as I write these lines; vain hopes are raised by rumours, some so improbable that they suggest the incoherent rambling of one but half-awakened out of a long drugged sleep. But certain it is that efficiency, concentration, and high purpose have met sloth and corruption, and have conquered. Though the lines of Chatalja may prove equal to the task of defending this last strip of Turkish territory, yet the fact remains that those young nations have brought about an epoch-making catastrophe—the passing of Ottoman rule in Europe.{110}

CHAPTER VII

IN these days of effective long-range fire the defences of a capital city lie well away from and command the approaches to it. Whereas formerly hostile forces surged up against stout towers and strong walls, the enemy of to-day lets loud-voiced cannon speak from afar, hurling destruction at what look like mounds, green hills, from a distance, but when approached bristle with ordnance and small-arms. Far afield lie fortresses, each encircled with smaller forts, and these are meant to stay the tide of invasion. This was the mission of Adrianople and its enceinte of forts, Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, famous in history, for epoch-making events have taken place around it; the Goths here vanquished Valens, and their impetuous onslaught broke the ranks of Roman legions and filled the minds of those warriors with such dread of the Teuton invader that years passed before they could be induced to face the Goths again. It was Theodosius the Great who brought back their courage to them. His skilful system of block-houses kept him informed of the enemy’s vagrant movements, and by so contriving{111} that the Roman legionaries met only numerically inferior bodies of barbarians, he helped to revive the great traditions of Roman arms at least for a short space of time.

Then again when Bulgarians came pouring down the Valley of the Maritza towards Constantinople, the defenders of the Imperial City met them at Adrianople; the armies of Byzant were beaten, the Emperor slain, and his skull, encased in gold, served as a drinking-vessel to his vanquisher. The hosts of Othman, having overrun the northern European provinces of the Byzantine Empire, made for Adrianople, and the city became the European capital of the Osmanli until Constantinople fell.

To-day the City of Hadrian, the “Sperr-fort” of Constantinople, is surrounded by the enemies of the Porte, Bulgarians and Servians, and thus one of the outlying defences of the capital no longer serves its purpose, and the defence has been drawn in nearer to the lines of Chatalja. Those lines now take the place as last defence of the walls built on the landward side by Theodosius II, and improved and repaired by his successors to the Imperial Purple. They stand to-day grey and deserted, lichen-grown, clad in dark green folds of ivy, that sympathetic friend of fallen fortresses, and listen to the sounds of danger to the capital, while recalling days when they themselves held out against all foes, though earthquakes shook their stout foundations, and discord in the city seemed like to nullify their usefulness. A strange and stirring history this of those landward walls of Constantinople, and worthy of a moment’s consideration in these days, when the fate of yet another Empire, with its seat of government within those walls, is trembling in the balance.

They stretch from the Sea of Marmora northward to the Golden Horn, do those walls of Theodosius, their southern angle marked by a strong tower, a marble tower,{112} dipping its foundations deep into the pellucid waters. I saw it first on a glorious summer day, the gleaming blocks of marble of which it is built were reflected in the waters of the Sea of Marmora, beyond blue sea, or above blue sky, and between the two, floating like the Isles of the Blest on a magic sea, the Prince’s Islands, and behind them the blue hills of Asia Minor, their rugged outlines softened by the heat-haze of a summer’s day. Little white sails gleamed on the flashing waters, sails filled by some idle zephyr which carried small ships away, lazily, out into the southern seas. But, mind you, this tower has not always lived in idleness, bathing its feet in summer seas. Times were when the watchman up in this tower would see the south alive with movement and the silver path on the sea overshadowed by clouds of sail. Swiftly they came, those strange craft from out of the south, bearing bronzed sons of Arabia to storm the City of Cæsar. Twice they came, in 668 and again from 716-718, but their efforts were unavailing, and the groves of cypress trees mark their last resting-place.

The Marble Tower served its purpose well in those ancient days, over which distance has cast its glamour. To-day the Marble Tower stands silent, lifeless, by the side of a leaden sea; passing squalls hide the view to southward and over the Islands towards the mountains of Asia Minor, and a grey sky, heavy with rain, hangs like a pall over the City and this corner of its ancient defences. The Marble Tower’s part in history is long since played out, and now it listens silently, helpless, to the distant booming of cannon before which it would fall like those castles of dreamland at cock-crow; ruined it stands mourning the ruin which overtakes the kingdoms of this world.

A little further northward stands yet another memorable monument to former greatness, Yedi Koulé and the{113} “Golden Gate.” Several ruined towers raise their heads above the broken walls from among groups of little wooden houses. They and the curtains which connect them once formed a stronghold built by Mohammed II on the ruins of a former castle. This was for a time the chief garrison of the Janissaries, and a state prison wherein the Sultans were wont to incarcerate the ambassadors of those foreign Powers with which they chanced to be at war, a playful habit which has been discontinued since Turkey asserted her claim to be considered a civilized nation. The Janissaries also kept their own prisoners here, generally dethroned Sultans, whom they killed here at their leisure and free from outside interference.

A strong fortress stood here, raised by a strong man, Theodosius, in the young days of ancient Byzantium. It was built on to by successive Emperors, and became one of the most important centres of the City on memorable occasions, for this stronghold became known as the “Golden Gate,” the Porta Aurea, and its towering walls looked down upon great historic happenings. Without on the plain dense hosts would form into ordered procession and follow their Emperor in his triumphal entry through the gates. Under a heavy sky, festooned with sombre ivy, crumbling in its last stage of decay, the Golden Gate with difficulty recalls the glories that have passed beneath it. The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was wider and loftier than the others, like those to be seen in the Roman Forum. These were dedicated to Severus and Constantine, and were closed by gilded gates taken from Mompseueste and placed here by Nicephorus Phocas after his victories in Cilicia. The gate is said to owe its origin to Theodosius the Great, who built it to commemorate his victory over Maximus. Though I thoroughly appreciate Theodosius and subscribe to all{114} his claims to greatness, I have ever been sorry for Maximus. After all, it seems, he did not really wish to rebel against Gratian and assume the Imperial Purple. Rather was he urged to it by popular opinion, the politicians of Britain having decided that he should, and the youth of Britain flocked to his standards, so Maximus was bound to move. It was a big move, too, and successful at first, for his rapid progress alarmed Gratian, who fled from Paris, his army of Gaul having gone over to Maximus. The campaign was like the migration of a nation, 30,000 fighting men and 100,000 others, and of these numbers settled in Brittany, where their descendants live to this day. To make things pleasanter, a great number of ladies set out from Britain with the intention of joining the men when the fighting was over. St. Ursula took charge of this column, 11,000 noble, 60,000 plebeian maidens, destined as brides for the settlers, but they lost their way, and when at last they got to Cologne they met the Huns and were all slaughtered. For this St. Ursula was canonized, as is only right and proper, and a beautiful window in Cologne Cathedral sets forth the whole story, giving portraits of the ladies, so that in face of evidence as conclusive as that of our half-penny illustrated dailies there is no more room for doubt. Maximus came up against Theodosius in the end, and that was the end of him.

Nearly three centuries later Heraclius, the Emperor, entered the Golden Gate in triumph after his victory over the Persians, and again a century later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden arches after defeating the Bulgarians. They came in one long stream of conquerors in those earlier centuries of the Byzantine Emperors, names now forgotten or but dimly remembered; then awoke the “Daughter of the Arches,” as Echo was poetically called, as one hero after another was acclaimed{115} by a vainglorious mob: Theophilus, in the middle of the ninth century, he routed the Arabs. Basil I, the Macedonian—a strange story his. It was in the middle of the ninth century that a young, strong, and active, but weary and travel-stained man came over the heights beyond the Golden Gate. He entered by a side entrance close to, or part of, the Golden Gate at sunset, and being a stranger in the City with no friends to go to, he lay down to sleep on the steps of the Monastery of St. Diomed, which stood near the Golden Gate. A kindly monk extended the hospitality of the monastery to him, and the brothers helped him to find suitable employment. His good fortune led him to a cousin, in whose train Basil went to the Peloponese. Here he became acquainted with a wealthy widow, Danielis, who adopted him as her son, and helped by her wealth and by his own merits, Basil rose to high honour, and finally stepped from the body of the Emperor, killed by himself, to the steps of the throne. Years after his first entrance into Constantinople Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, moved in under the arches of the Golden Gate in triumph.

Another Basil, second of that name, rode in at the Golden Gate after his victory over the Bulgarians. The slaughter he inflicted on them gained him the appellation “Bulgaroktonos”; the memory of the cruelty he practised on his Bulgarian captives lives still in the minds of their descendants, those men whose big guns were battering at the outer defences of Constantinople, those men who would that their sovereign should enter the City as conqueror.

The Bulgarians found the road to Constantinople soon after their appearance in Eastern Europe. Clouds of dust heralded the coming of Crum, their King, with a large host amid flocks of sheep and goats. They pitched their leather tents on the slopes outside the Golden Gate and{116} laid siege to that stronghold, but all their efforts were unavailing, even the human sacrifices offered by their King to his strange gods failed of effect, and a receding cloud of dust told the watchman on the Golden Gate that his savage enemy had withdrawn.

Another figure in the glittering pageant that passed through the Golden Gate in triumph was John Zimisces, the Armenian, of whose rise to power over the corpse of his imperial master, aided by his mistress the Empress, the walls of the Palace of Hormisdas were silent witnesses.

The last of all the Emperors to enter triumphantly by the Golden Gate was Michael Palæologus, in August, 1261. The Latin Emperors had held Constantinople for some time when Michael came with an army to claim his rightful inheritance, and Baldwin, last of the Latins, fled at his approach. The Golden Gate was thrown open, the Emperor dismounted, and on foot meekly followed the miraculous image of Mary the Conductress into the City as far as the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Michael re-established the dynasty of the Palæologi on the throne of Constantine, and they held it for two short centuries. The next conqueror to enter the City of Constantine was Mohammed II, and he rode over the heaped corpses of Janissaries and of Byzantine princes and their mercenaries, in over the breech made by his engines of war, and with him came the spirit of another age and race which yet holds possession, while those distant guns thundered at the lines of Chatalja, threatening to close yet another epoch in the long, tense history of Constantinople, Stamboul, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.

The Walls of Theodosius
Outside these walls refugees from Thrace and Macedonia settled on their way back to Asia Minor. They camped among the graves of fallen warriors of their faith, and cut down for firewood the centuries-old cypress trees.

The walls built by Theodosius begin after Yedi Koulé Kapousi, the Gate of the Seven Towers, and extend northwards until they reach the high ground overlooking the Valley of the Lycus, when they turn off slightly to the{118}{117} north-east. Constantine the Great had built walls around his City, but it outgrew them, and so to Theodosius II, who reigned from 408-450, fell the task of extending the limits of the Castle of Cæsar. Historians of the time draw a pleasant picture of the scene when these walls were erected. All citizens were called upon to assist, political factions dropped their differences, and so there arose the defences of the City. Misfortune visited them shortly after their completion, when an earthquake overthrew a great portion of the work, including fifty-seven towers. It came at an inopportune moment too, for Attila, the “Scourge of God,” as he was pleased to call himself, was at large, had already inflicted three defeats on the armies of the Eastern Empire, had ravaged Macedonia and Thrace with fire and sword, and was moving down upon Constantinople. Even to-day, after the passing of eleven centuries, these walls of Theodosius present an imposing front, in some places almost untouched by the hand of time; how much more formidable must they have appeared to those assailants whose bones are guarded by the tapering cypress trees a stone’s throw away from the fosse. There were in all one hundred and ninety-two towers. Visitors to Constantinople should view these walls of Theodosius from near Top Kapousi. A long line of walls extends away to the south, first the inner wall, standing on a broad terrace raised somewhat above the outer wall. This terrace is about fifty feet broad, and here was the main defence of the City—for in former days these walls were of enormous strength compared to any engines of offence that could be brought against them—a chain of towers linked together by stout walls known as curtains to the expert. These towers, most of which are square, stand about one hundred and seventy feet apart, and rose, when in their completed state, to a height of sixty{120} feet, standing out some twenty feet from the curtain. Each tower contained, as a rule, two chambers, and was built of carefully cut stone and vaulted with brick inside. The outer wall contained a number of vaulted chambers which offered shelter to the troops engaged in the defence, and there are loopholes through which their fire was directed. This wall had numbers of little towers, alternately round and square, and was about ten feet high, sufficient to afford protection to bodies of troops moving from one place to another along the terrace. There was also a deep moat which could be flooded; it is now serving the peaceful purpose of market-garden.

The Sea-walls of Constantinople
Above them rises the dome of Little St. Sophia, behind which again looms the mighty Mosque of Achmet.

On a fine day the view over the walls away to the Sea of Marmora is wonderfully beautiful—but this is winter, and grey clouds keep out the sunshine needed to draw out the many beauties of the scene. The road, at no time really entitled to be called so, is now a quagmire with rocks in it, yet traffic of a kind is passing—lumbering carts drawn by water-buffaloes pitch and roll in the sea of mud, and clinging to them are refugees from Thrace and Macedonia who have fled from their homes before the invader. They camp about in the neighbourhood outside the walls of Theodosius, not knowing what to do nor whither to guide their weary steps, these refugees from the storm that tore down the Valley of the Maritza, when Tsar Ferdinand led his armies over the border, and Serbs crossed the mountain-passes to meet their old enemy, ay, and to triumph over him. Flotsam and jetsam, thrown up by the tide of war on the strip of land still held by Turkey in Europe, these refugees would be without hope of any better fate were it not for the efforts of Christian men and women in Constantinople, to whom Christian men and women have sent from distant countries large sums to help the awful distress caused by this last crusade.{121} Up to the present £28,000 has come from Great Britain alone. I do not know how much other countries have contributed. And this has been done for a people who have been ever ready to obey their rulers in carrying out the Oriental methods of solving racial problems by massacre, who are only prevented from applying the same principle to their benefactors by the inexpediency of doing so with the Golden Horn full of European warships. Islam justifies the murder of unbelievers—the followers of that creed are not so much to blame, least of all the ignorant peasant taken from his home to fight for he knows not what, driven from his possessions by a foreign invader. Christianity is again triumphant—where this Moslem country has proved itself unequal to any emergency, incapable of elementary organization, leaving its sick and the wounded of the battlefields to die and rot in the courtyards of mosques, yes, even in the open streets, Christian men and women have organized relief, and theirs is the only work which in any way can claim to have helped the sufferers in those awful last weeks of the “Passing of Ottoman Power in Europe.” One lady is now in hospital there in Constantinople—she was brought in sick from the strain of overwork and the horrors she had witnessed in a little town near by. Outside her door, on the pavements, in the road lay men, Turkey’s famous fighting men, starved, wounded, dying of neglect and disease. So for over a fortnight that Christian woman toiled among them; the nights she spent in making soup for them, the day was taken up in distributing it. It was no nice clean hospital work, dead and dying were piled upon each other in unmitigated misery, in incredible filth—those who have been there and seen say that they have been down, deep down, into Hell. Yet even there the light penetrated, brought by a Christian woman following the precepts of her Master.{122}

Since then the Christian medical organizations, under the Red Crescent, forsooth, lest Islam should feel itself slighted in its character of a creed of mercy and loving-kindness, have taken matters in hand, and order and cleanliness are conquering over ignorance and bringing light to Gehenna. There is yet a vast amount to be done, but it is being done, not only by those professionally qualified to undertake such duties, but by every lady in Galata and Pera, at least I think I may safely say so, as I know not one among my many acquaintances here who is not in some way engaged in the work of mercy. Not only ladies, but men, busy men, are helping—officers from the warships in harbour, sent to prevent a general massacre of Christians, business men, hard-worked officials, all find time to spare in visiting the hospitals and helping wherever opportunity offers. They do not expect gratitude, nor do they find much, I fancy, for East is East and West is West, and to me the Oriental mind is inscrutable still, though I have lived in the East and travelled in it.

There are strange times these days in Constantinople, with the fate of an Empire in the balance. At first sight the traveller might notice little change or little difference from the sights and sounds of normal times. People went about their business much as usual—the Stock Exchange had much the same “allure” as ever, and the smells it harboured have not changed, only intensified perhaps, under the pressure of the lowering heavens. The narrow streets were thronged by the same crowds composed of many races; “hamals” carried astounding weights and packages of strange, outlandish shape, regardless of any other foot-passengers; men of leisure sat under the soaked awnings of the little cafés in Stamboul by the shore of the Golden Horn, or looked dull-eyed out of the plate-glass windows of Tokatlians’, according to their taste, their nationality, their{123} social standing; and a general air of indifference seemed to mark the people of the town, the Turks in particular. But there were military patrols in the street, and when you looked closer into matters you found many evidences of change. The Red Cross and Red Crescent flew over many buildings in Stamboul, Galata, and Pera, Christian civilization was working for the good of Christianity’s bitterest opponents, and in the mosques of Islam, where in the dim religious light you used to see a pious follower of the Prophet performing his solemn devotions, or a “hodja” studying reverently the Prophet’s Book of the Law, where no sound was heard, you now heard the groans of wounded soldiers; for these temples, raised by conquerors of a warrior caste and creed, now harboured all the misery caused by a war ill-planned, ill-managed, and inglorious.{124}

CHAPTER VIII

The Burnt Column
One of the most peculiar relics of old Byzantium; standing alone, apart from the everyday life of the city, a silent witness to many strange events; a monument so old that its history is lost in oblivion.

IT was not in the City, in Stamboul itself, where signs of any unusual state of affairs struck the casual stranger; it was outside the gates, beyond the walls, that signs of stress and trouble crowded in upon the observer—soldiers, stragglers, refugees, filled the gateways through the walls of Theodosius. On the rising ground outside Top Kapoo dense groves of cypress trees, guarding the graves of men who had fallen in the repeated attempts to force an entry into Constantinople, threw their long shadows over the road beyond the old defences, as they stood out deep-toned against the golden sunset. Now these cypresses were rapidly falling before the axe of the Macedonian refugees, who had formed their camp of waggons outside Top Kapoo. They were camping on the spot where Mohammed the Conqueror pitched his tent in 1453, looking down into the Valley of the Lycus, where the assaults were made which brought down the enfeebled Empire of Byzant. This was a pleasant place, according to all accounts, when the world was young, and{126}{125} St. Chrysostom baptized his three thousand white-robed catechumens in the waters of the Lycus. A few years later Theodosius II rode down from the heights outside to view the walls that he had built. He fell from his horse and died a few days later, from the injury caused to his spine. No doubt the Valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place in those far-off golden days of a golden Empire, which, here in this valley, received the death-wound from the forebears of the people who are now swarming in the groves of cypresses, refugees, destitute, landless and homeless, instinctively turning towards Asia, whence their race sprang. It came with giant strides, that race of the sons of Othman; they first became acquainted with the glories of Byzant through a mission sent from their chief to Emperor Justinian in the sixth century; they were not Moslems then, for it was not till the eighth century that the Arabs overran their country and forcibly converted them. They served the Arab Caliphs for a while, and in time rose above them and founded dynasties of their own folk. The young nation passed through many tribulations, but by the time that Othman, son of Erthogrul, came to the throne, the Greeks had already felt the keenness of the sword that carved possessions out of the Empire of the East, until nothing was left to Cæsar but his Imperial City. This Valley of the Lycus seethed with fighting men in those early days of 1453. Both sides had been making preparations for a year or so. Mohammed had collected his strong, well-disciplined army at Adrianople, his European capital, and here, under his supervision, were made preparations for the siege of Constantinople. He increased the number of guns, and in this was helped by a Hungarian, Urban, who had left the Greek service on account of some ill-usage by his factious masters. The prize achievement of Urban’s foundry at Adrianople was a monster cannon, of which{128} wonderful things were said: its bore was of twelve palms breadth; it could contain a charge that drove a stone ball of six hundred pounds weight a distance of a mile, to bury it in the ground to the depth of a furlong. In spite of its wonderful performance, it is doubtful whether the big gun cast by Urban did very much damage, although, to make sure, it was placed only a couple of hundred yards from the walls it was to bring down. At any rate, Mohammed made all necessary arrangements for the siege, and finally turned on the priests of Islam to rouse his warriors to the proper state of religious frenzy.

The preparations in the City were probably much less thoroughly undertaken. Emperor Constantine was a good man, and efficient, but it seems he was not strong enough to bring his people to the pitch of self-sacrifice necessary to those who have to sustain a siege. The citizens of Constantinople were as keen about religious controversy as ever, and the times provided food for violent discussions, for the ruler of the Empire realized the dangers that beset him and tried to make diplomacy a substitute for efficient military preparations. There was only one way by which help could come to Constantinople, and that was by union of the Orthodox Greek Church with the Church of Rome. The citizens of Constantinople were wildly agitated by the publication of the news of this agreement, and many swore to admit the Moslem rather than the Roman priest. But the latter came, nevertheless, Cardinal Isidore of Russia, as Legate of Pope Nicholas V, and with him came help, a body of trained soldiers, and the union of the Churches was solemnized at St. Sophia, amidst disorder and riots in the streets. The Greeks, though always ready to fight among themselves over some matter of dogma, had for many years ceased to bear arms in defence of their country. They had by degrees become too soft for the hard life of{129} a soldier, dropped one by one the heavier arms and accoutrements, which had to be carried about after them; it was hopeless to try and make any further use of them for military purposes. For this reason they were forbidden to take up the profession of arms, or even to form trained bands or bodies of volunteers; possibly another cause was the danger of an armed mob, violent, decadent, always dissatisfied. Yet they should have been content; their rulers relieved them from the responsibility of defending their country, which, by the way, is considered an honour by the citizens of those European nations which have universal military service; they were fed by the State, which also provided amusement for them—games, fights of wild beasts, drama, and music; in fact, they had even less responsibility and were offered more entertainment than the people of another great Empire of to-day. For defence the City of Constantinople relied solely upon foreign mercenaries.

Mohammed’s line of attack extended all along the walls, from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, where it joined with the fleet he had brought across country; the main assault was directed against the Gate of St. Romanus, down in the valley. The siege continued from April till May. The Greek army was venturesome at first, and made sorties to destroy the earthworks, behind which the Turks were planning mines. But the serious losses caused by such enterprise, as also the dwindling store of gunpowder, put an end to these operations, and the courage of the defenders began to sink. Hope rose again for a while when a premature attack was beaten off, the assailants not yet having effected a negotiable breach, or again when a squadron of four Genoese and one Greek ship from Chios fought its way through the Turkish Fleet and came to anchor in the Golden Horn under the {130}sea-walls of the Seraglio. A very gallant episode this, which happened in the middle of April. The stately ships sailed up from the Dardanelles, and bore down upon the numerous Turkish Fleet, while Greeks crowded on the walls, and the Turks, among them their Sultan, rushed down to the shore to watch. From their tall decks the Christian seamen hurled large stones and poured Greek fire upon the low-lying Turkish barques around them, and so they fought their way to the harbour’s mouth; the chain was lowered to receive them, and welcome reinforcement had come to Constantinople. Mohammed felt the humiliation so keenly that his wrath against Baltaoghli could only be appeased by that Admiral’s death—the order went that he was to be impaled on the spot. But the Janissaries demurred, and entreated the Sultan to spare the Admiral’s life, so the angry sovereign punished the offender, stretched on the ground, held by four slaves, by dealing him one hundred blows with his battle-mace; no doubt a dignified proceeding, though most painful to the Admiral.

The succour brought by the five ships was all that ever came to the distressed City; the siege was carried on relentlessly, and one by one the strong walls and towers went down before Mohammed’s artillery. On May 24th he sent in to demand surrender, but was refused, so orders were given for a general assault on the 29th. The hostile leaders spent the eve of battle in characteristic manner. Mohammed assembled his chiefs and issued final orders; he despatched crowds of dervishes to visit the tents of his troops to inflame their fanaticism and promise them great rewards—double pay, captives and spoil, gold and beauty, while to the first man who should ascend the walls the Sultan promised the government of the fairest province of his dominions.

A Byzantine Palace
The ancient Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, where those “born in the Purple” were shown to the populace and proclaimed “Cæsar urbi, Cæsar orbis.”

Emperor Constantine likewise assembled his nobles, and{131} the leaders of his allies, chief of whom was Giustiniani; he adjured them to make yet greater efforts in the defence, and to infuse new courage into the siege-worn troops by their example. Rewards he had none to offer them. Then each leader went his way to the post assigned to him, the Emperor himself to a solemn Mass in St. Sophia, the last time in the history of that sacred shrine the mysteries of the Christian faith were adored by any Christian worshipper. Constantine then returned to the palace and asked forgiveness of any of his servants whom he might have wronged; then he passed from his palace to his station at the great breach.

In the Ottoman camp all was ready for the great attempt, and at sunrise masses of assailants stood in their appointed places, waiting to hurl themselves against the tottering defences of the Eastern Empire. To the sound of drums and trumpets wave after wave of fierce fighting men surged across the filled-in fosse, over the broken walls, to be repulsed by the defenders. Time after time they were repulsed and followed by fresh swarms, trampling down the barrier of corpses in their eagerness for blood and booty. But the courage and numbers of the defenders were ebbing fast; Giustiniani, who, side by side with the Emperor, was conducting the defence of the great breach, fell severely wounded, and was borne away to die in his galley in the harbour. This took the heart out of the defence; the chief of the assailing Janissaries noticed it, and urged his men to yet greater endeavour. The Turks now numbered fifty to one as Hassan, the Giant of Ulubad, led thirty men as vanguard of the last attack into the breach. Hassan fell, and most of those who came with him, but the main body followed rapidly, and under the weight of this tremendous onslaught the Christian garrison was over-powered. The victorious Turks rushed in; others had{132} forced the gate of the Phanar on the Golden Horn, and Constantine’s fair City was given over to the sword.

Constantine XII (Palæologus) fell in the breach, defending the City of his great namesake against the Moslem; his body was found under a heap of slain, and with him fell the greater number of his Latin auxiliaries.

Refugees from Thrace and Macedonia are camping among the cypresses on the site from which Mohammed the Conqueror watched the fall of Constantinople’s last defences, while out at Chatalja another foe was dealing heavy blows at the last defences in Europe of that Empire founded here that day in May, 1453.

The Lycus, a dirty, insignificant stream, now swelled by constant rain and draining the quagmire which is called a road, outside the walls, flows through an arch underneath one of the towers into Stamboul. Just within, and leaning up against the walls, are huts built of wood, disused oil-tins, and other makeshifts. These harbour a colony of gipsies, who seemed as happy in the mud as they were when last I saw them, basking in the sunshine. This colony finds the expert horse-dealers (and stealers) of the neighbourhood. At present business is slack, for the war has demanded all there was in the way of horseflesh in the City, for in this respect, too, no adequate preparations had been made; the tramway companies had to give up their jades to carry the Sultan’s cavalry to victory and Sofia, as was fondly imagined by the hosts that streamed out through the gates of the City. I have seen some of the few survivors of those horses, led back by men who were in much the same condition as their mounts; it seemed as if their sinews alone kept their bones from falling apart.

Groves of cypress trees used to cast long shadows over the many graves that mark the landscape to westward of the track that leads northward along the walls of Constantinople;{133} to-day they are fast disappearing under the axe of the refugees, and what was once a scene of solemn beauty is now squalor and desecration, for right away to the Gate of Adrianople, Edirné, as the Turks call it, there were clusters of carts with their distressful burdens. Looking down on all this misery stands the Mosque of Mihrama, on the highest point of the old defences of Constantinople. A church dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of warriors and horsemen, stood here, until St. George’s mission of protecting Christian soldiers ended in the debacle down in the ruin-heaped valley below. To me, the crescent on the dome of Mihrama, the unfinished minaret amidst its scaffolding seemed to wear an air of detachment from the ghastly scenes below; around it dirt and disease, and abject misery within the courtyard of the mosque; but its growing minaret stands quite aloof, and points to the lowering sky, beyond which Allah decides the fate of mortals. So his worshippers, the followers of the Prophet, lie down in huddled heaps of wretchedness about his courts below—Kismet!

The Walls of Theodosius turn away from the road after the Gate of Adrianople, and end at an imposing ruin, once the home of Emperors—the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus. It stands high, overlooking the City and the open country; on its walls are the remains of two balconies, from one of which the new-born Prince was shown the wide extent of rolling plain and proclaimed “Cæsar Orbi,” from the other, looking out upon the city, “Cæsar Urbis.” Owls and bats now haunt the scene of former greatness, and the voice of Echo, the “Daughter of the Arches,” no longer gives back the sounds of revelry, the chorus of applause, or murmurs of discontent, which made up the history of that ancient Empire which fell before the sword of Othman in the Valley of the Lycus. Close by is a little postern gate in the curtain{134} connecting the last two towers of the Walls of Theodosius; it was called the Kerko Porta, and legend lingered round it. During the last day of the siege, in May of 1453, a rumour ran along the lines of the defence that the Turks had gained admission by this gate. They did so, but were driven out again by the last Emperor’s bravery, which, however, only delayed the inevitable result of Mohammed’s fierce assault. Ever since then the Greeks believed that when the City should be recaptured by Christians, they would enter by this gate. The Turks heard of this tradition, and when the Slavs were pouring down the Valley of the Maritza, and approaching Stamboul, they pulled down the curtain so that the Russians might not enter by the Kerko Porta, and replaced it by a smaller wall.

Beyond the ruined palace the moat ends abruptly, but the walls continue higher and of greater strength. History clings round them; they recall names of famous men who lived their day, Manuel Comnenus, who was to old Byzant what Manoel O Fortunate was to mediæval Portugal. Anna Comnena, daughter of the first Alexius, who wrote the history of her father’s reign, a record of insincerity. Anne and her mother Irene conspired to poison John, her brother, who proved one of the worthiest of the latter Emperors of the East.

The last dynasty of Byzant, the Palæologi, is responsible for the high walls and towers that follow the walls of the Comneni towards the Golden Horn. John VII (Palæologus) had them repaired in 1441, for the last time probably, until Johannes Grant, a German engineer in the service of the Greeks, under cover of darkness, directed his workers to secure the portions of the wall that had suffered most heavily under the fire of Turkish ordnance.

In the plain below is yet another sombre mass of ancient masonry, peculiar in design, for it has the appearance of{135} two towers joined together. They differ in structure, one built of carefully cut stone, with courses of brickwork, the other roughly put together, and from it marble pillars project like cannon. These are the towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, the former descendant of a Saracen Emir who was converted to Christianity when young and in captivity, and distinguished himself in several campaigns under John Zimisces; he was killed in a personal encounter with Swiatoslav, the Russian King.

The other tower is said to have been the quarters of the imperial bodyguard, the Varangians, whose conduct in the field shines out brightly against the records of cowardice and the treachery which inspired the policy of the later Greek Empire. The name Varangian is probably derived from the Teuton “Fortganger,” forthgoer, signifying men who had left their country in search of adventure. The first of these Varangians were probably Norsemen, who suddenly emerged from the darkness of their northern shores to prey as pirates upon the settled communities, and found their way through the Mediterranean Sea to Byzant. The fame of this warriors’ Eldorado reached other northern nations, so from England came big-limbed Saxons, impatient of the Norman Conqueror’s discipline. Danes, too, were to be found amongst the ranks of the Eastern Emperor’s bodyguard, their weighty battle-axes and stout hearts performing those deeds of valour which Anna Comnena was wont to ascribe to that vainglorious hypocrite, her father, Emperor Alexius I. Here, by these towers, the old defences of Constantinople end in heavy masses of ruined masonry.

One Sunday morning the sound of heavy firing coming from the west, from the present-day defences of Constantinople, the lines of Chatalja, drew me out into the open country. I left the City by the Egri Kapoo, the{136} Crooked Gate, formerly the Gate of the Kaligari, the shoemakers, when the Court of Byzant lived here by the Palaces of Cæsar. Little wooden houses stand on the low ground beyond the gate, on the road down to a plain by the Golden Horn. In one of those houses lives Ali, the master-weaver. He was pursuing his vocation leisurely in his little workshop below the level of the road. “The war!” said Master Ali, “the war affects me not at all.” So I went on towards the sound of the guns, past the open space by the water where Simeon, Tsar of all the Bulgarians, after defeating the Greeks in battle, met the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus, and dictated harsh terms. Simeon knew the Greeks well; he and many of his followers had been educated at Byzant, and the culture he thus gained helped him to defeat his teachers. Bulgarians still come to Constantinople for education, at Robert College; among them was M. Gueshof, Tsar Ferdinand’s Prime Minister—and the Bulgarians were again outside Constantinople, hammering at its defences, the lines of Chatalja.

I walked out far into the country that Sunday, over the rolling plains, up hill and down dale, drawn by the sound of gun-fire, which has a mighty attraction for me; it is a strong, invigorating sound. There were few indications of war, though fighting was in progress not many miles away; villagers sat on little stools outside the cafés, over the uneven roads the carts of refugees rolled, creaking towards Constantinople. Here and there I met a party of stragglers, weary soldiers, unarmed, their faces set towards the east where, over the domes of the mosques, the hills of Asia showed faintly, their outlines broken by tall minarets. When evening fell upon the desolate landscape I retraced my steps towards the City, where lights were twinkling and casting broken reflections upon the waters of the Golden Horn. Through the narrow streets of the Phanar, where{137} silent figures flitted across my path, to vanish into some little wooden house or other, with its latticed windows, an air of unconcern prevailed, though men were dying out there, some fifty miles away. Through the crowded purlieus of Galata, up the steep, ill-paved streets to Pera, with its hotels, clubs, cafés, and vicious imitations of Parisian entertainments.

On the following day I went out towards the lines of Chatalja again, this time by sea. We were a party of five—a British consular official; a British naval officer, instructor to the Sultan’s war fleet; two Turks, one a naval officer, the other a captain of artillery; and I, a peripatetic author and artist. We sailed out from the Golden Horn as the sun was struggling to break through heavy banks of cloud; huge warships of different nations loomed large in the pale grey light of early morning, and here and there a twinkling light drew flickering response from the moving waters. As the daylight increased the ancient sea defences of Constantinople took definite form, above them the mosques and minarets of conquering Sultans. We sped past the Marble Tower, looking chill under a heavy grey sky; above it rose the broken towers of Yedi Koulé, past Makri Keui, and round the blunt promontory where San Stefano stands in all its misery of disease, to where the land rises west of Küjük Chekmedje. Here we anchored about half a mile from the shore, hauled in a duck-punt which had soared behind us all the way, and, rowed by an alleged sailor of the Sultan’s navy, made for the shore. There was some water rolling greasily in the duck-punt as we started, it increased in volume, and by the time we drew near the beach we had our feet well under water. The Turkish naval officer and the gunner sat in the bows, the other passengers astern; and the naval expert lent by our Admiralty directed the oarsman to pull us sideways on the{138} beach, as a quite noticeable sea was coming in on our starboard quarter, and our demands (if any) in that line were already fully satisfied. However, the Turkish A.B. (perhaps I flatter him, but flattery is an important item in Oriental colouring) thought fit to attempt a landing which would give us the full benefit of what sea there was. The British expert, when our crank craft first felt the shingle, ordered our Turkish friends to jump ashore. The sailor did so at once, the soldier required time, for he was wrapped in a long grey overcoat, carried a sword, and, moreover, wore boots ill-suited to such enterprise. The duck-punt thereupon began to behave with unseemly levity, and in rolling shipped a deal of water, so that we who sat astern indulged in the unasked-for luxury of a hipbath, alfresco, and, moreover, attired for quite another purpose. Alas! all my dear mother’s good precepts anent avoiding wet feet went by the board. However, we got ashore, so did the duck-punt too, in time; I hear she lies there still, her leaky bottom upwards, a silent witness to our undaunted bravery.

The Lines of Chatalja
The south extremity of the lines by the Sea of Marmora. The road leads down to the village of Küjük Chekmedje, with its bridge across which the Bulgarians attempted an attack, but were checked by the fire of a Turkish warship in the bay.

We made inland over the rising uplands till we could look down upon the Lake of Buyük Chekmedje, from the extreme left of the Turkish defence—the lines of Chatalja. A road leads over the several outflows of the lake by a bridge of many arches. Here the Bulgarians had attempted an assault some days before, and had been baffled by those that held the trenches searing the hill-side to the eastward, and by the guns of a Turkish warship lying off the coast. At our feet lay the lake, beyond it ridges of rising ground, melting away into a broken line to northward. It was a most peaceful scene, for the warship was hidden by a shoulder of land, and there were no Turkish troops in sight, nor any of their enemies. We had met only a few people on our way; a Turkish patrol, who seemed mildly{139} concerned about us, and some shepherds with their flocks, all equally indifferent to the great doings that are filling the world’s daily papers with exciting copy, a credit to the inventive genius of the modern journalist. The shepherds stood out like statues on the skyline, and of rather quaint shape, which I discovered to be due to the strange fashion of their cloaks, the sleeves of which stick out in an acute angle, and are not used for their original purpose at all. We wandered still further inland, not in a compact body, for the Turkish gunner-man was a very deliberate walker and, like most of his race, not prone to undue haste. Nevertheless, we arrived in time at a Turkish camp of some fifteen hundred men, a camp which could be traced by scent as well as view. It stood below the skyline on some rising ground, which sloped steeply towards the enemy’s position, and gave evidence of a complete absence of any kind of sanitation. The Caimakam (Lieutenant-Colonel) commanding welcomed us politely, and after having ascertained that nothing whatever had happened that day, and that no one expected anything to happen, because rumours of a truce were afloat, we thought of making our way home. This meant walking back to Küjük Chekmedje, where we hoped to find some boat to take us out to our launch. The walking party tailed off on the way, the British element forging ahead, the Turkish lagging behind, to allow the former to cool down in the north wind while waiting for the rear-guard, until at last we found a boat and were rowed out to the launch. I heard a shot or two from the land, coming in our direction perhaps; possibly the Turkish patrols, finding no Bulgars to shoot at, thought fit to practise on us; however, like so much of the shooting done in modern warfare, even the best-conducted, it was perfectly harmless.

So again I returned to Constantinople, and passed through{140} Sunday crowds quite indifferent to the events in progress some fifty miles away, at those lines of Chatalja, planned by Valentine Baker Pasha, and since his time neglected till they became the only barrier between the Sublime Porte and ruin. It is strange, though enlightening, to reflect that while the Turkish Army was being driven back from the frontiers, while ill-equipped bodies of Turkish troops, leaderless, were being driven before a highly trained enemy, the lines of Chatalja, the last defence of Constantinople, were left unarmed, unguarded, but for a couple of elderly men whose duty it was to see that doors, shutters, and other bits of woodwork were not removed by the genial neighbours for firewood.

But this is Turkey, an Empire that has traded on its position as apple of discord for centuries, and has never been able to take thought for the morrow—nomads, here to-day and gone to-morrow.{141}

CHAPTER IX

THE history of the Turks has formed the subject of much scientific research, hampered considerably by a want of material, by a lack of information on the subject, handed down from earlier days. The Turks themselves have no liking for literature, have no bent in that direction, and all they have ever produced in that line are a series of stories relating the doings and sayings of Nasreddin Hodja, whose rôle is much like that of Till Eulenspiegel in Germany. These stories of Nasreddin Effendi are humorous in their way, but are to a great extent too indecent for the fastidious Western mind. The humour, too, is of the obvious order, from which the West is gradually, painfully emerging. I will give only one sample of Nasreddin’s wit. This worthy was awakened one night by a noise in his garden. He went to the open window, looked out, and saw something large and white moving about below. Nasreddin took down his bow, his quiver full of arrows, and sent one in the direction of the white object, then returned to bed and to sleep. The next morning he went out into his garden to ascertain the cause of the nocturnal disturbance, and discovered his shirt, hung out to dry, transfixed by the arrow. “How fortunate{142} it is that I was not inside that shirt last night,” quoth Nasreddin.

Proverbs give some idea of the working of a people’s soul, but in this respect too the Turk is not very prolific, certainly not original. Herewith a few samples:

The sentiment has nothing to recommend it, and is certainly better expressed by La Fontaine:

Or again:

Also to be found in other languages:

Or the simpler German:

There are no epics in the Turkish language, yet their wanderings should have called forth some such ebullition had they ever had some slight tendency to rise out of their primordial inarticulateness. They have little songs which the Anatolian peasants sing when the day’s work is done, which sound through the latticed windows of the women’s secluded chambers. But these songs are generally of love or homely matter, and do not tend to inspire the listener with ambition to emulate the deeds of his fathers for the honour and glory of his race and country. Other races emerging from barbarism to this day sing of their national heroes. What traveller along the lower reaches of the Danube has not listened to those bands of wandering Tsigani?

Then again, the Highlands of Scotland ring still with the recital of some great clan leader’s doughty deeds. True, they are mostly tales of strife and bloodshed, but they hold the germs of history and record it in the manner{143} most likely to lead others to higher aims. Of all this the Turk knows nothing. No epic tells of those days when his wild forebears left the congeries of nomad tribes which haunted the hunting-grounds north of the Hwang-Ho, of Tibet, and the rolling plains beyond the Hindu-Kush. Mongol and Manchu, Tartar and Magyar, forming groups of nomad tribes, akin and possibly speaking the same primitive language, which, when history became articulate, only differed in vocabulary, hardly at all in structure, as it does so widely from Aryan and Chinese. Of these races Manchu and Tartar have risen to greatness; Manchu till recently reigned over China from Peking, while one Osmanli, descendant of a wandering Tartar tribe, sits in the seat of former Roman Emperors of the East. The Finns, belonging to the same race, have in the course of centuries developed a literature of a high order, and are among the most enlightened of the children of the Tsar of all the Russias; Hungary’s history lives in glowing epics and passionate song; and both these scions of the same stock are valuable factors in the æsthetic life of Europe. But the Manchus have fled from Peking after centuries of dark incompetence, and the Sultan, whose palace stands on the European banks of the Bosphorus, has during his short reign seen the provinces won by the sword of Othman torn from him by younger nations, whose soul has been nourished by stirring recital of their former greatness, whose heroes live in song and epic, which by these puts heart into the warrior and leads him on to victory.

Now those young nations are without the gates of Constantinople; they have reduced the Turkish Empire in Europe to a narrow strip of land between the Bosphorus and a line of defences, stretching from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea, the lines of Chatalja.

The Turks themselves claim descent from Japheth, the{144} son of Noah, as do the Armenians, by the way, and there is no reason to dispute with them about their traditional ancestor, who, by all accounts, was a most respectable person, and will serve as well as any other for genealogical mystification. Undoubtedly the Turks and their origin began to attract attention comparatively early in the history of Europe, and an English historian (Knolles) of the seventeenth century writes of them as follows: “The glorious empire of the Turks, the present terrour of the world, hath amongst other things nothing in it more wonderful or strange than the poor beginning of itself, so small and obscure as that it is not well knowne unto themselves, or agreed upon even among the best writers of their histories; from whence this barbarous nation that now so triumpheth over the best part of the world, first crept out and took their beginning. Some (after the manner of most nations) derive them from the Trojans, led thereunto by the affinity of the word Turci and Teucri; supposing (but with what probability I know not) the word Turci, or Turks, to have been made of the corruption of the word Teucri, the common name of the Trojans.”

Others have ingeniously endeavoured to identify the Turks with the lost “Ten Tribes”; these mysterious people have frequently been called upon to act as ancestors to modern nations. I remember well an English matron, mother of a promising family, who tried to foist this ancestry upon the people of Great Britain. However, she was advised to look at her domestic treasures, and the sight of her snub-nosed offspring seriously shook her strange belief.

Perhaps, though it seems no adequate reason, the constant infusion of fresh blood, the mixing by marriage with the women of conquered or conquerors, has prevented a national expression of sentiment based on historic facts, and the Turks, even before they emerged from distant{145} Asia, had absorbed several other races not akin to them, or had been absorbed by some temporarily more powerful nation. There is sufficient reason to suppose that the Iranians, the original inhabitants of Bokhara, were the foundation and predominant note in the tribes which after a while became defined as Turks. The Chinese seem to have been the first to become acquainted with the Turks, and that so long ago as 1300 B.C. Chinese records of 300 B.C. mention a warlike race called Hiung-nu. Vigorous, active, restless, always on horseback, these savages hovered round the frontiers of the Celestial Empire. They were, it seems, divided into tribes, which when not acting in concert on some greater raid, probably behaved much as Scottish clans did not so long ago, and quarrelled and fought amongst each other. So it appears that a clan called the Asena sought the protection of a stronger one, which Gibbon called the Giougen, or Jwen-jwen. The Asena settled for a while in the district where now stands Shan-tan, in which district a hill called Dürkö (helmet), from its shape, is said to have originated the name “Turk.”

In course of time, about a century, the Asena began to feel their strength and tried it on their hosts, the result a massacre of Giougen and their disappearance from the pages of history. Again no epic tells us the stirring story of those days, and what is known is due to the researches of men like Chavannes and E. H. Parker. But the Turks from this time came into the field of history and into the purview of the West; they had gained in strength and importance with astounding rapidity, and were making their presence felt on the nations to westward of their former haunts. They still clung to their habits of nomadic hunters, but, it seems, engaged in trade as well, carrying goods for others in their caravans, connecting East and West with links of doubtful trustiness.{146}

It was through this trading that they first came into contact with the Western world. Persia stood in the way of this young Turkey’s commercial development, and would insist on Turkish silks finding their outlet to the Persian Gulf rather than by the roads of the old Roman Empire of the East. Thus it came that Turkish envoys sought out Emperor Justin at Constantinople. The Emperor was somewhat chary of dealing with these strangers, but little more than half a century later Turkish warriors were assisting Heraclius against the Persians. As the Turks increased in number they felt the need of further expansion, so a section of them made its way north towards Lake Baikal and menaced China, but were subdued in 630. China then set about creating ill-feeling between the two sections of the Turkish people, the northern and the western tribes, and brought about a division which seems to have been final. In the meantime another force had arisen in Asia Minor which was destined to overrun that district, surge into Syria, conquer Egypt and the African countries washed by the Mediterranean Sea, and send its tide up against the barriers of the Pyrenees.

The Arabs had come from out of the desert and, fired by the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, had carried their green banner victorious over the ruins of former Empires. The Caliphate, the Arab Empire, grew as rapidly under the immediate successors of the Prophet as the Turkish State, if it could be so called, had done a century before. Persia went under before the furious onslaught of the Arabs in 639, and the conquerors overflowing into Transoxania had subjected the peoples living there by 714. The Arabs spread westward as well, and only forty-six years after the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, in the seventh century the Sea of Marmora was alive with the lateen sails of the swarthy marauders.{147} They dashed out their souls against the strong defences of Constantinople, the Walls of Theodosius, in successive attempts to capture the City of fabulous wealth, but were forced to retire defeated. However, the Turks, who nearly ten centuries later broke down those stout defences, became subject to the Caliphate.

This applies to the Western Turks only; they vanished as a political entity and gradually became converted to a creed well suited to bring out the qualities of a high-spirited, martial race of nomads. It sanctified their lust of blood and conquest, and gave fuller force to this people’s fighting spirit by imposing the strict discipline of Islam, “obedience,” but made no mention of that broad tolerance breathed by the Founder of Christianity to which the West owes so much of its civilization. It is doubtful though whether those early Turkish tribes, if they had come under the influence of Christianity instead of Islam, would have advanced any further on the path of culture than they have arrived to-day. Though they have been in contact with the West since the seventh century, though they conquered the Empire of the East and made its Christian peoples their subjects, and from the City of Constantine overflowed Eastern Europe up to the gates of Vienna, yet the Turk has learnt nothing. This people, still nomad, has taken nothing from the West but a misunderstood, misapplied idea of representative Government which failed at its inception and has hastened the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. It has absorbed nothing but a dim idea of a military organization which when applied to a civilized, cultured nation makes for military perfection, when attempted on nomads leads to such debacles as the plains of Thessaly, the mountainous districts of Macedonia, and the stricken fields of Thrace have recently witnessed.{148}

British naval officers have for years been acting as instructors to the Turkish Navy, which from a collection of obsolete iron tanks has to outward appearance assumed the semblance of a war fleet; left to themselves, what has that fleet done to help Turkey in her present straits? The Greek Navy is afloat and preventing transhipment of Turkish troops from Asia Minor—but the Sultan’s fleet did not move out to help! Only some mines were laid and allowed to float about the southern entrance to the Dardanelles, endangering foreign commerce from which Turkish officials indirectly draw their means of livelihood. The “Hamidieh,” her officers warned time and again to take precautions against torpedo attack, was laid up in dock with a gaping rent in her bows caused by a Bulgarian torpedo, and only the “Khairreddin Barbarossa,” named after Turkey’s greatest sailor, lying at the southern end of the lines of Chatalja, has taken any part in a war in which naval power, properly applied, could have turned the fortunes of the day.[5]

The sea-coast of Bulgaria lay exposed; a strong naval force to escort transport would have made practicable a landing of Turkish troops behind the enemy’s lines and threatened his communications, thus checking his advance on Adrianople. But the Turkish Navy was content to throw a few shells into a harmless convent, or monastery, at Varna. Possibly there were no transports, probably there was no definite scheme, but certainly there was no navy commensurate with the power assumed by the Osmanli in the comity of European nations.

Money was spent on the Sultan’s navy, and it failed. Money, much money, was given for the Sultan’s army. The highly trained officers, carefully selected from Europe{149}’s most efficient military organization, were acquired as instructors, and worked hard at what must have seemed the labours of Sisyphus. The Sultan’s army took the field, and all the work of years seemed as if thrown away. Instead of military organization there was chaos. Nominal army corps with staff and commanders figured on paper. In reality commanders of army corps, divisions, brigades waited for the troop trains at wayside stations, and as each tactical unit detrained and fell in on the platforms, these commanders without commands gathered together such units as they thus found and extemporized commands. Transport failed completely, and at Rodosto men landing from Asia Minor cried for bread, hundreds strayed starving in search of food for five and six days on end, and then were driven back by cavalry into the firing line—to fight!

Of all the costly engines of war ordered and paid for, field telegraphs, field telephones, not one was in evidence. Thousands of Anatolian peasants, greybeards and youths, swelled the ranks, untrained many of them, some only used to muzzle-loading rifles. Some two hundred thousand of these men, Turkish soldiers, clung on to the lines of Chatalja; others, in thousands, stragglers from the battlefield, collected from day to day in the purlieus of Stamboul and returned unwilling to the front. Among these were even officers—an official announcement ordered the imams, the priests, to render to the military police authorities lists of all officers living in the streets of their respective districts—officers here in the capital of an Empire, the existence of which in Europe is threatened as gravely as was ever any Empire of the world, and out in the West, but fifty miles away, is the front, the line of Chatalja’s defences, result of Valentine Baker Pasha’s military skill. Impregnable, they say, are those lines, and that they would be, and will remain, if all available sons of Othman put their backs{150} into the work. Yet there were officers and men of the Sultan’s army frittering away their time and wasting opportunities of at last doing something for the country they profess to love, here in the capital with the enemy hammering at the outer defences. And would it be believed, those lines of Chatalja, just before the debacle of Lüle Burgas, were left in charge of two men, whose function was to see that no thief removed doors, shutters, or any other portable trifles from the many Government buildings on the lines!

It is no wonder that the example set by many officers of the Sultan’s army had discouraged the troops, who, seeing everything going against them, starving, diseased, turned their weary eyes homeward to the East, to Asia, the Turk’s real home, and dragged their tired, wounded limbs over the incredibly bad roads till the soaring minarets and their rivals the cypresses, the domes of mosques built to commemorate the conquests of former warrior Osmanli, gladdened their sight. Beyond those imposing temples lay the sea, and across it, only a little way, Anatolia—Home.

The Mosque of Mohammed
Built to commemorate the Conqueror of Constantinople. He lies buried under the shadow of this Mosque.

Of the thousands of broken-spirited, ignorant peasant-soldiers who left their country’s colours, a term the inner meaning of which was incomprehensible to the majority of them, many fell by the way. Thousands clambered into railway trucks, on to the roofs, of any train starting for the base, and of these many died and their comrades threw them out by the way; corpses strewed the railway embankments. Many reached St. Stefano, where preliminary peace was signed after another Northern foe, Russia, had defeated the Osmanli in the field. Of these one-third, it is said, died of cholera, exposure, starvation, their festering bodies covering the pavements. Considerable numbers reached Stamboul and took refuge in the mosques, perhaps hoping that Allah might help them out of their affliction. St. Sophia was crowded with sick and despondent{151} humanity, the flotsam and jetsam of a war of East and West: one side all unprepared, purposeless, corrupt; the other in well-ordered array, conscious of power and of purpose, and using intelligently all the dread weapons of modern warfare.

With the fugitive soldiery came columns of refugees, peasants of Thrace and Macedonia, Pomaks—Bulgarian converts to Islam; they came across the rolling plains with all their portable belongings, their trail marked by an occasional grave, by a dead horse or bullock by the roadside. These, too, sought shelter in the courtyards of the mosques; they streamed in at the City gates, chiefly Edirné Kapoo, as the Turks renamed the ancient Gate of Adrianople. I have seen them here herded without the gate awaiting admission, crowded in the courtyard of the Mosque of Mihrama, which occupies the site of a church once dedicated to St. George in the days of old Byzant.

St. George, the patron saint of warriors, was entrusted with the defence of Constantine’s City here where the Walls of Theodosius reach this highest point. A glorious view spreads at your feet from their height; past groves of solemn cypress trees, which cast their long shadows over the graves of faithful followers of the Prophet, thousands of whom in distant ages assailed the strong defences of the City, your eye travels along the hoary walls, over a ruined palace to where Galata arises beyond the Golden Horn. Forests of masts, smoke rising from the funnels of ocean-going steamers or busy ferry-boats speak of commercial activity contrasting with the Oriental repose of Stamboul at your feet. Little wooden houses, some of warm purply greys, others are painted with some bright colour; fig trees and cypresses on the rising ground towards the east, where many mosques, the only lasting monument a Turk builds, stand out above the clustering houses, their blue-grey domes crowned with gleaming crescent,{152} light against the deep blue of the Anatolian mountains, attendant minarets a dazzling white against the southern sky. And then to southward another mosque or so with minaret and sentinel cypress, and over them the sparkling waters of the Sea of Marmora, where the Prince’s Islands seem floating in the fairy haze of a southern summer day. This was when I saw it a few short years ago; to-day the sky is grey and cloudy, the smoke hangs heavy over the leaden waters of the Golden Horn, mosques and minarets loom dark against the faint, watery outlines of the distant hills, the fig trees have shed their leaves and throw out writhing arms against winter’s inclemency, and sullen cypresses bend ungraciously before the north wind. Grey despondency is the keynote of the picture, for from the south-west and the west, and from the north-east, the foes have gathered in strength and hold Constantinople in bonds, and beyond those dark heights to westward an enemy, strong and purposeful, is demanding admission to Turkey’s last foothold in Europe.

The untidy street from Edirné Kapoo to the heart of Stamboul is punctuated here and there by mosques—there is the Mosque of Mihrama, already mentioned, where once stood a Christian church; there is the Mosque of Mohammed II the Conqueror, built on the site of a church dedicated to the Holy Apostles, for long the resting-place of those far-off Byzantine Emperors, the last of whom perished when the City fell before the sword of Othman. Around it stand the academies where are trained those destined to expound the teaching of the Prophet. Under a wintry sky, amidst the squalor of a people incapable of elementary hygiene, the glory of the Conqueror’s deeds is dimmed, and the vanquished, despondent sons of his fierce warriors huddle in groups about this monument to an epoch-making victory. The road leads for a while along an aqueduct attributed to Valens, the Emperor who was{153} killed in battle at Adrianople by the Goths. Bulgarians are this day holding the city of Emperor Hadrian in an iron vice. Along here are other ruins, more recent, the result of a fire probably; no rebuilding has been attempted, everywhere is dirt, squalor, and decay.

The street opens out on to a large square, one side of which is occupied by the Seraskierat, the War Office. From here came the order to the Sultan’s officers that they should pack up their full-dress uniforms for the triumphal entry of the Othman army into Sofia. To-day weary stragglers from the battlefields of Thrace lean against the walls of the Seraskierat, heavy-eyed, hungry, diseased, despondent. Surely there were some whose business is between these walls cognisant of the real state of affairs! It is said that of some eighteen German instructors sixteen declared the Turkish Army to be quite unfit to take the field; yet those holding office at the Seraskierat heeded not and sent hundreds of thousands in smaller tactical units, under-officered, to take what place they could in the fighting line; no scheme was ready, or if there was no one adhered to it, no adequate provision for commands and staff, for communications, for commissariat preceded the flood of miscellaneous soldiery which flowed out to meet the enemy’s advance and then ebbed back, carrying with it all the human wreckage thrown up on to the ill-kept pavements of the mosques of conquerors.

And while this mass of suffering Eastern humanity was but fitfully and quite inadequately cared for by the Turkish authorities, Western humanity was putting forth its finest efforts to alleviate this awful distress by all the means of Western civilization, against which the Turk is making his last stand. In the old Seraglio, at Galata and Pera hospitals have been opened to receive the sick and wounded soldiers of the Sultan, and they now readily make their way to where the Red Crescent flies by the side of the{154} ensigns of Great European Powers. I know fair English women, all unused to the sights and sounds, the aftermath and echo of glorious war, who are giving all their strength to works of mercy, Germans and Austrians, French and Italians, all moved by the spirit which informs Christianity. Do they expect gratitude in return, I wonder! I hope not, for they are likely to be disappointed. One gentle lady I know of, who has worked hard amongst all this misery, asked some of her patients whether in case of a massacre of Christians they would at least protect those who had nursed them back to life. After some deliberation the answer came: “No, not that. But we would kill you first, so that you may escape torture, and worse, from others.” Again, at a meeting where many ladies were busy preparing hospital necessaries, the talk turned to the question of a massacre of Christians. A Turkish lady, a lady of high degree, turned on her fellow-workers and declared that should her people be driven to the last extremity they would certainly wreak vengeance on the Christian population, and she herself would be the first to incite them, to goad them on to murder and rapine, until the streets should run with the blood of Christians, and Christian habitations became a howling wilderness, to show a horror-stricken world in what manner a race of warriors goes out of history.

Personally I do not think any such catastrophe will happen; the Turkish soldiers I saw daily straggling into hospital are too broken in spirit, too sick in mind and body, to carry out such atrocities as those with which they have from time to time sullied the pages of their history. Nevertheless, those two accounts I have given above, of the truth of which I am convinced, prove to me that when the Turk finally leaves Europe he will take with him nothing which the West has tried to teach him, least of all any conception of the divine quality of mercy.{155}

CHAPTER X

ALTHOUGH I cannot write with approval of Turkish rule and its effect on the European provinces conquered by the now blunted sword of Othman, yet I feel a certain sympathy for the Turk, as individual, in this day of his trial. Sympathy is due to a variety of influences, and I feel that in the present instance my lingering liking for the Turk is based on several grounds. First of all, perhaps, comes the fondness you cannot but feel for a wayward child and its picturesque moods, more especially as I myself was quite the “wandering sheep,” as the hymn says, when young, and am not disinclined towards an excursion off the narrow way even now. Hence a fellow feeling with the nomad Turk, who, though generally placid, is capable of being roused to fury by unseen, unknown influences; in that state, like the wayward child, he is an unmitigated nuisance. In his everyday mood the Turk is gentle and extremely courteous, the courtesy of a strong man, scion of a race of conquerors. This dignified politeness is to be met in certain parts of Spain, where conquering{156} Moors made their impress on native Iberians and valiant Goths. Again, the nomad virtue, hospitality, is strong among the sons of Othman. I have also met fine intellects among the Turks, for instance, in one of the Princes of the Blood, a man of a refined mind, deeply read in Nietzsche, and of no mean skill with the brush. But he was only a painter; his studies from life were excellent, and some have gained admission to the Paris Salon, but creative artist he certainly was not, and the subject pictures evolved out of his inner consciousness treated of matters considered peculiarly French in tone, subconsciously erotic, and generally unhappy in treatment. But then the Turk has little, if any, constructive power, and even the finer intellects among them are apt to waste their treasures on abstract speculations, leading to no practical result; their course may be likened to that of a slender stream of water poured forth on some endless desert waste.

Another bond of sympathy is the history of the Turkish race, which should appeal strongly to every Briton, for in a manner there is much similarity between the rise of Turkish power and that of the British Empire. Wild men from the northern seas, Angles and Saxons, Danes, Vikings, Berserks, seethed into the British Isles, and, mixing with the Romanized native population, rose to greatness through much tribulation. The narrow confines of Britain forced this amalgam to conquests overseas, and thus arose the British Empire. Is there not some analogy between our rule in India and that of the Osmanli in Europe? We, in India, form a separate ruling caste, placed in power by the sword; we do not mix with the many native tribes and nations under the British Raj, many whose duty takes them to India cannot give an accurate account of these various tribes and nations; they know not their languages, their customs are strange to them, and{157} when their work is done they return to enjoy the fruits of their labour with but an imperfect knowledge of the land that gave them what they hold and of the people who lived their mysterious life outside the compound and the courthouse. So it is with the Turk in Europe. His people overflowed from Asia on successive waves of conquest, and made subject many nations with which they have nothing, absolutely nothing, in common, and with whom, unlike the Briton, the Turk does not desire any closer acquaintanceship.

To me, as Briton, the present situation, the happenings of the last few weeks, “give furiously to think.” Here is a powerful Empire, carved out of Europe by the sword, and held by conquerors who despised their alien subjects, and failed to understand their feelings or realize their ambitions, closed their eyes in smug contentment to the portents of the time. Then came the avalanche, and young nations, hitherto disregarded as serious opponents, rose in their strength, tore themselves free, rent province after province from the weak hands of an unprepared overlord, and are now threatening the capital of the Turkish Empire. From the courtyard of the Sublime Porte, where Turkey’s devious policy has been fashioned for so long, from the square in front of the War Office, which suddenly awakened, hurried untrained troops under untrained leaders, without a definite plan, to death by shot and shell, by starvation and disease; you could hear the sound of guns carried on the westerly wind from the lines of Chatalja, the last defences of the capital, where the remnants of the Sultan’s army are standing at bay against the organized forces of young Western nations.

It is a stirring history, full of ups and downs, that of the Turkish people. As we have seen, they emerged from a seething mass of nomadic humanity which infested Central{158} Asia, and threatened those Empires which had settled and acquired civilization, such as China, whence, by the way, come some of the earliest records of the Turks. These nomads had no other use for civilization than to acquire unearned riches; whatever seemed to them undesirable was destroyed, and to this day the Turk has not advanced much further; he frequently changes his abode, and the change is easily effected, as he has few belongings—some rugs, a text or two from the Koran, his cooking utensils. Even in his home he seems to have only dropped in for a week or so, and the curtains instead of doors to separate one apartment from another still further recall his old nomadic habits. So his ancestors roamed about in hordes over the plains of Asia. Where they met with little resistance they abode awhile, moving on when the locality had nothing more to offer, retiring elsewhere when met with determined opposition. As the tribes increased in numbers they went separate ways, some to extinction, others to form ephemeral empires such as that of the Ghaznevids in Eastern Afghanistan, in the latter days of the tenth century.

The influence of the Turks on Western Europe did not make itself felt until after the Crusades, because they had much ado to make and keep their position in Asia Minor. A short time after the Prophet’s death, his general, Khaled, “The Sword of God,” subdued the Persian Army, and gained it for his master, Caliph Abu Bekr, in whose reign Syria was conquered from the Eastern Emperor Heraclius, and Ecbatana and Damascus became Moslem towns like Mecca and Medina. Then followed a noble line of Caliphs, under whose sway Islam extended its frontiers and rolled in threatening waves towards the West. Omar’s general, Amron, added Egypt to the Empire of the Caliphs, who made Damascus their capital. Legend and history tell of{159} those days of the Caliphs, when Arab art, literature, and science flourished under such sovereigns as Haroun-al-Raschid, the contemporary of Charlemagne, Al Mamun, in whose days Western Christianity gave birth to the Order of Benedictines when Gregory IV was Pope in the beginning and middle of the ninth century.

We have seen how the Turks came into contact with the Arabs, and were subdued by them and converted to Islam in the eighth century, and how by degrees they recovered their strength and were able to assist the Caliphate in the troubles that crowded in upon it, how fifty thousand Turkish mercenaries were taken into the service of the Caliph, and occupied much the same position as that held by the Prætorian Guard of Rome, the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamelukes in Egypt. Turkish influence thus increased steadily, and was first marked more definitely by a dynasty called the Samanids, who seem to have considered themselves vassals of the Abbasid Caliphs. In the interests of the Caliphate the roaming Samanids pushed forward into India, conquering Delhi, Multan, and Lahore towards the end of the tenth century. Their victorious course was not checked till they reached the Ganges, and Mahmud, their chief, styled himself Sultan. It appears that he still acknowledged allegiance to the Caliphs, but his successors assumed greater independence as the power of the Caliphate waned. In the meantime another Turkish dynasty rose to notice—the Seljuks, who appeared under their leaders Thogrul and Chakir.

This bearer of a name famous in history and romance, Thogrul, son of Suleiman, accidentally drowned in the Euphrates, was, it seems, wandering about like a true nomad, accompanied by his tribesmen. He was on his way to Iconium, Konia, probably with the idea of interfering{160} in any fight that might be in progress, when he found the troops of Kaim the Caliph flying before the hosts of Masud, the son of Mahmud of Ghazin. Thogrul espoused the losing cause, and his timely assistance turned defeat into victory, for which the Caliph was so grateful that his new ally was rewarded with the Principality of Sultan Oeni, or the Sultan’s Front, and appointed, as it were, Warden of the Marches. This happened towards the middle of the eleventh century, when the Christian world was very busy with religious differences. The Greek Church decided to break with Rome after the Council of Sutri in 1042, and was too much occupied with vexed questions of dogma to pay attention to the rise of a young race of nomads in a former province of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, these wanderers had given their first proof of prowess, and endorsement followed when the Caliph, with solemn ceremony, handed over the temporal power to Thogrul, at Bagdad, in 1055.

Thogrul did not live long after this honour was conferred upon him, but his son Arslan followed in his footsteps, and served his spiritual master, the Caliph, with all his might. To good purpose, for he fought and subdued the Fammiti Caliphs of Egypt, schismatics who had broken from the only Caliph’s spiritual sway over a century before; he further annexed Georgia and Armenia, and defeated the Emperor of the East, Romanus IV, towards the end of the eleventh century.

The Western world was very young when these things happened; Henry IV, a Frank, ruled over Germany, William of Normandy had not long conquered England, while Malcolm III was King of Scotland; Spain was still divided into small kingdoms and Moorish provinces under the Almoravids, and the Magyars, distant relations of the Turks, were settling down in Hungary under Bela I.{161}

Western Christianity was becoming dimly conscious of a growing power in the East, which Byzantium had felt distinctly since practically all the Asiatic provinces had been lost to the Turk, and so Western chivalry buckled on its armour, stitched a Cross on to its coat, and moved Eastward in swarms, composed of enterprising knights, mostly unacquainted with discipline, and their more or less reluctant followers; the Crusades had begun, and were chiefly directed towards the Holy Land and against the Arabs who had conquered there under the waning ægis of the Caliphs.

Contemporary accounts, legends, and songs of troubadours tell of the Saracens and their deeds, but little mention is made of the Turks, destined to be Christianity’s most formidable foe, who, under the Seljuks, were growing to great importance, and under Melik Shah, the son of Arslan, ruled from Transoxania to Egypt and eastward as far as Khiva. Melik Shah’s kingdom fell to pieces after his death, and the power of the Turks was obscured for a time, while the former provinces of the Caliphs broke off into separate states.

Crusaders came from the West and added glamour to the pages of history without effecting any lasting results; great names shine out for a moment from the haze, names like Frederick Barbarossa, Saladin, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, but nothing definite need be mentioned about the Turks till the crusading spirit had subsided and the nations of Europe began to settle down into much the same political entities as we find to-day.

Another race of kinsmen to the Turks came like a whirlwind out of Asia, under a famous leader, Jenghiz Khan, or rather a mixture of several Mongol races. Their passage did not affect Asia Minor immediately, for they swept from China over Southern Russia towards Moravia,{162} penetrating as far as the Adriatic; they went as swiftly as they came, but stopped short of their old hunting-grounds, and squatted by the banks of the Volga, where, known as the Golden Horde, they stayed some one and a half centuries. Sections of this horde made inroads into neighbouring countries, and one of these invaded Persia and Syria, massacred the inhabitants of Bagdad, killed the Caliph, the last of the dynasty founded by Abul Abbas in 750 A.D. The Seljuks, who held the temporal power in the Caliphate, were likewise badly defeated, and might have gone under completely had not another force appeared most opportunely, one of those wandering Turkish tribes which had a habit of turning up where fighting was going on. Their leader was another Erthogrul, and he traced his descent back to Suleiman. Legend has been busy where history is silent, and assigns to this Erthogrul the same rôle, a Deus ex machina, as to the former bearer of that name. Authorities differ on the subject, and I fancy that the whole story is still somewhat obscure. However, Erthogrul had a son Osman, or Othman, from whom are descended the Osmanli of to-day; Othman’s long and prosperous reign laid the foundations of the Turkish Empire. His campaigns were crowned with victory, the territory of neighbouring Turkish states were incorporated in his dominions, and the Empire of the East was forced to contribute to the aggrandizement of his realm.

It appears that Othman did not declare himself independent until after the death of the last Seljuk Sultan; in the meantime, during an interval of peace—from 1291-1298—he devoted his energies to the internal government of his dominions, and became famous for the toleration which he exercised towards his Christian subjects. It will be remembered that Georgia and Armenia, both Christian countries, had been absorbed by the Caliphate, but at{163} least under the first of the House of Othman these Christians were free from persecution.

After several years of peace, during which he consolidated the resources of his country, Othman went to war. In order to give his followers greater zest, and to inflame the fighting spirit of Islam, Othman declared himself the chosen defender of the Faith, and proclaimed that he had a direct mission from heaven. This roused in his warrior subjects a fanaticism as fierce and effective as that which had inspired Mohammed’s fiery followers on their career of conquest. His private life was not without an occasional exhibition of those barbarous instincts which have never left the Turk during all the centuries of his contact with the West and its ideas and methods. Thus one day Othman discovered that his venerable uncle, Dundar, was in agreement with several other officers attempting to dissuade him from an attempt on the Greek fortress of Koepri Hissar. Dundar had been one of those four hundred and forty-four horsemen of legend who rode under the banner of Erthogrul. Othman, annoyed at Dundar’s interference, drew his bow and shot his uncle dead. So murder of a kinsman marked the first days of the Othman dynasty.

The attempt on Koepri Hissar proved successful, and Othman went on from victory to victory. In the beginning of the fourteenth century he fought his way to the Black Sea, leaving Broussa and several other towns to be taken at leisure. But failing health was against him, and he had to leave the conquest of Broussa to Orkhan, his son, who had returned from an expedition against a Mongolian army which the Greek Emperor, unable to stem the tide of Turkish conquest, had bribed to attack the southern frontier of the Ottoman Empire. Othman was dying when the news of the capture of Broussa was brought to him. Bestowing blessings on his son, he said: “My son,{164} I am dying, and I die without regret, because I leave such a good successor as thou. Be just, love goodness, and show mercy. Give the same protection to all thy subjects, and extend the Faith of the Prophet.” Orkhan, it seems, followed his father’s advice and carried out his instructions; subsequent Osmanli have failed to do so, and are now paying the penalty.

A splendid mausoleum built by Orkhan holds the remains of Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, at Broussa, which became the capital of Turkey until the conquest of Constantinople. The standard and scimitar of Othman are preserved as objects of veneration in the Mosque of Eyub on the Golden Horn. Here each succeeding Sultan is girt with the sword of Othman, the coronation rite, amidst the prayers of his people: “May he be as good as Othman.”

The Mosque of Eyub
Here each succeeding Sultan is girded with the sword of Othman, a rite equivalent to a Christian monarch’s coronation.

Orkhan succeeded his father and continued the work of conquest, gathering in the outlying fragments of the broken Seljuk Empire. He was ably assisted by his brother, Ala-ed-din, whom he had urged to share his throne. Ala-ed-din declined, asking only the revenues of a single village for his maintenance. Then Orkhan said: “Since, brother, you will not accept the flocks and herds I offer you, be the shepherd of my people—be my Vizier.” So this high office was instituted. Ala-ed-din devoted himself to the internal politics of the nation, and using the military foundation already existent, fostered by a fighting creed, he built up the military organization which acted so well during centuries when fighting was the only business to which the Osmanli had to bend their minds. The Turks who had followed Othman to victory were the same men who had fed their flocks on the banks of the Euphrates. They formed loose squadrons of irregular cavalry, and after the war returned to their peaceful avocations. Ala-eddin,{165} while still holding that the mass of the nation should be the source whence Ottoman troops should be drawn in time of war, saw the need of a standing army which should make war their sole business and profession, so he raised, first of all, a body of infantry called Jaza, or Piade. These were followed by a corps famous in history—the Janissaries. This corps was entirely composed of Christian children taken in battle or in sieges, and compelled to embrace the Moslem faith. A thousand recruits were added yearly to their numbers, and they were called Jeni Iskeri, or new troops, from which name derives the European corruption, Janissaries. These troops were trained in all martial exercises from their earliest youth, and were subject to the strictest discipline. They were not allowed to form any territorial connection with the land that had adopted them, their prospects of advancement depended entirely on their skill in the profession of arms, and the highest posts in that profession only were open to them. Their isolated position, and the complete community of interests which united them, prevented the degeneracy and enervation which so speedily settled upon every Eastern Empire when once the fire of conquest had died down.

Other bodies of the military organization founded by Ala-ed-din were the Spahis (Sipahi, Sepoy), a “corps-d’élite” of specially chosen horsemen, Silihdars, or vassal cavalry, name revived in Silihdar horse of Mysore, a body of cavalry three squadrons strong, the men of which find their own horses and equipment; those raised by Ala-ed-din were drawn from vassal states, those of the Maharajah of Mysore from among the landed proprietors, farmers, and smaller landowners of his principality.

Then the Oulou Fedji, or paid horsemen, Ghoureha, or foreign horse, Azab’s Light Infantry, and the Akindji, irregular light horse. The Akindji gathered together in{166} irregular companies, acted much as the Hussars of the eighteenth century did when first raised; they foraged for the regular troops, and swarmed round them to cover a retreat or harassed a retiring enemy. They received no pay like the Janissaries, nor lands like the Piade, and were entirely dependent on plunder. This, doubtless, accounted for their unpopularity in countries through which marched the hosts of Othman. Hussars were paid soldiers, but none the less prone to plunder, in those days of the wars between Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great. This tendency was discouraged by the Prussian King, and I remember finding in some of the records an account of three Hussars—one officer and two troopers—being hanged for looting at Frankfurt a. O. Nowadays there are few people more respectable than a Hussar, I know, because I have been one myself, and thus speak from personal experience.

The story of a clever ruse is told of one of Orkhan’s campaigns against the Greeks. Othman had left Nicæa and Nicomedia untaken. Orkhan took the latter town and invested Nicæa. Andronicus, the Greek Emperor, crossed the Hellespont with a hastily raised levy to raise the siege of Nicæa, but Orkhan met and defeated him with a portion of his army. Now the garrison of Nicæa had been advised of the Emperor’s intention, and daily expected his arrival. So Orkhan disguised eight hundred of his men as Greek soldiers, and directed them against the fortress. These pseudo-Greeks, to give the ruse a yet greater semblance of reality, were harassed by mock encounters with Turkish regular horse. The disguised Turks appeared to have routed the enemy and headed for the City gate. The garrison had been watching the proceedings, were thoroughly deceived, and threw open the gate. An assault by the besieging army, assisted by the force that had thus gained ingress, brought the city into Orkhan’s possession.{167}

By 1336 all north-western Asia Minor was included in the Ottoman Empire, and Orkhan devoted the next twenty years of peace to the work of perfecting his military organization and consolidating the resources of his newly acquired territories, supported by his brother, Ala-ed-din. So the power that was to crush the life out of the failing Empire of the East stood armed and waiting for a favourable moment on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus. Turkish rule was predominant over all Asia Minor, and a young nation, strong and armed, watched for the moment to interfere with an old, effete Empire.

Beyond the lines of Chatalja, some fifty miles from this City, the capital of Turkey, young nations, Bulgars and Serbs, are waiting, watching, intent on hurling the Turk from Europe, as the Turk drove forth the Greeks in their day.{168}

CHAPTER XI

THAT Turkish rule has lasted as long as it has, has not died down like the power of other Asiatic races who swept over Europe, held parts of it for a while, and were then forced out again, is probably due to the fact that earlier Ottoman Sultans took no step in advance before consolidating their power behind them. They allowed time for each conquered province, each subject race to blend into the general nationality of their Empire by the assimilation of military and civil institutions. Asia Minor became a solid Empire under Turkish rule, and allowed the Sultan to look further afield for fresh conquests. He was naturally drawn towards the West, where lay the heart of the Empire out of which successive sons of Othman had carved their possessions. Again, the troubled state of the Greek Empire, frequently rent by civil war, offered the strong young Turk rulers an opportunity for interfering much in the same way that Great Powers of to-day concern themselves with the doings of less well-ordered states. The Eastern Empire was indeed in a parlous state by the{169} time Orkhan had brought his country from a chaos of conquered provinces to a heterogeneous Empire, and invited interference. The Emperor John V (Cantacuzene) realized the power of the Turks, and sought to strengthen his position by an alliance with the Sultan, so a marriage was arranged and celebrated with great pomp and splendour between Orkhan, a widower of some sixty years, and the Emperor’s young daughter Theodora. This should have led to a good understanding between the monarchs, but it did not, as the East was pressing relentlessly on the enfeebled West, and temporary expedients could not avert the coming catastrophe. All about Constantinople were foreign settlements; Venetians and Genoese fought for mastery in the narrow waters of the Bosphorus, and both united to wring concessions out of the Eastern Empire. The rivalry of these two Republics gave Orkhan a reason for interfering, and he decided to ally himself with the Genoese, for he hated the Venetians, who had insulted him by declining to receive his envoys to the Doges. But the Venetians were allied to Emperor John Cantacuzene, in his struggles against another son-in-law, John Palæologus.

Solyman, son of Orkhan, crossed the Hellespont by night with a handful of followers and took Koiridocastron, or “Hog’s Castle.” No attempt was made to regain this castle from the Turk, as the Emperor was fully occupied with the armies of his rebel son-in-law, Palæologus, and with the Genoese fleet. The Greek Emperor, finding himself in such sore straits, without making any attempt to dislodge Solyman from the castle, without even a remonstrance, implored Orkhan to send him assistance. This Orkhan readily granted; he reinforced Solyman’s small party with an army of ten thousand men. This force defeated Palæologus and his Slavonic{170} army, but did not return to Asia; the Turk had landed in Europe, and showed a determination to stay. Cantacuzene offered Solyman ten thousand ducats to evacuate the “Hog’s Castle,” and the Sultan’s son agreed, but before the sum had been paid an earthquake visited Thrace and threw down the walls of its strongholds. The Greeks saw in this a sign of Heaven’s ill-will, the Turks believed it to be a manifestation of the will of Allah in their favour and a plain command to proceed with the conquests in Europe. So while the Greeks were still trembling two of Solyman’s captains, Adjé Bey and Ghasi Fasil, occupied Gallipoli, marched in over its defences shattered by the earthquake. Soon after these events Solyman, when engaged in his favourite sport of falconry, was thrown from his horse and killed. He was buried on the spot where he had landed with his followers, and near him are buried his two captains, to whose efforts the Turks owe their first firm foothold in Europe, when Gallipoli, the key of the Dardanelles, the southern passage to Constantinople, fell into their hands.

From the reign of Orkhan dates the first decisive influence of Turkey over Eastern Europe. Orkhan and his brother, Ala-ed-din, forged the weapons which were to bring the Eastern Empire to its fall and set up another Empire in its place, an Empire which spread far afield over Europe, and trod Western civilization under foot from the Black Sea to the walls of Vienna. To-day that Empire’s European possessions have dwindled down to a small strip of land beyond the City’s old walls and the lines of Chatalja.

Another strong ruler followed Orkhan, Amurath I, his youngest son, in 1359. There were troubles in Asia to keep the new Sultan engaged, the Prince of Carmania stirred up several Turkish Emirs to rise against the House of Othman. This matter settled, Amurath bent his mind{171} to further conquests in Europe, and by 1361 he had captured the great city Adrianople and made it his capital. Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, scene of many historic events. Here Emperor Valens met the Goths as they were streaming down the Valley of the Maritza, and tried to stem the tide of barbarian invasion; but the Goths broke the trained legions of Rome, who for years after could not be brought to face that foe again, and Valens, the Emperor, was numbered among the slain. A few centuries later Bulgarians and Greeks met here, and again an Emperor fell; whereas the Goths contented themselves with slaying Valens in battle, the conquering Bulgarians made a drinking-vessel of the skull of Nicephorus I, vanquished at Adrianople.

To-day Bulgarians are investing a Turkish force in Adrianople, the first European capital of the Sultans, where Amurath I lies buried. From here Amurath prepared the way for the conquest of Constantinople; from here he set out on those expeditions which brought one Christian nation after another under the Turkish yoke. Here, too, the Turks first met their present enemy, the Slav. Hitherto their opponents had been only the enfeebled Greeks, and these had few, if any, friends in Europe. As schismatics, the Pope was not concerned with their fate, but when Amurath’s campaigns extended westward, and threatened Catholic countries, Pope Urban V became alarmed, and called upon Western Europe for a new crusade. The King of Hungary, the Princes of Servia, Bosnia, Wallachia, formed a league intended to drive the Osmanli out of Europe; they collected their armed forces and marched towards the East, crossing the Maritza about two days’ march from Constantinople. There was no force of equal strength available to Lalashahin, then in command of the Ottoman forces in Europe, for the allied Princes{172} disposed of some twenty thousand men, and the Turkish army was scattered about in various garrisons. The Christians, assured of victory, neglected all military precautions, were caught unprepared during a night of revelry, “as wild beasts in their lair. They were driven before us as flames before the wind, till, plunging into the Maritza they perished in its waters,” says Seadeddin, the Oriental historian. This was the first encounter between Turks and Slavs; there were many others, mostly with the same result, and resulting in centuries of suffering for the vanquished. But the times have changed; the Slav, no longer careless, undisciplined, ill-prepared, has met the Turk again by the banks of the Maritza, and before the West—prepared, purposeful, and strong—the East has failed as it always has done, as it ever will do.

It was Amurath I who thus began to place the yoke on the Slav nations of Eastern Europe; his troops captured Nissa (Nish), the strong city of the Servians, and forced their Prince to sue for peace; it was granted on the condition that he supplied a tribute of a thousand pounds of silver and a thousand horse-soldiers every year. Sisvan, King of the Bulgarians, had also taken part in the crusade of Western Christianity against Amurath, and he was compelled to beg for mercy, which was shown him at the price of his daughter’s marriage to the conqueror.

But the Slavs, Servians, Bulgarians, and Bosniaks were not disposed to give in calmly to the methods of colonization adopted by Turkey. Most of Thrace was added to the European possessions, and all Roumelia, and there seemed to be no limit to the Osmanli’s greed of territory. The natives of conquered districts were removed to other parts of Turkey, and Turks and Arabs sent to colonize in their stead. All this urged the princes of the neighbouring Slav races to another mighty effort against{173} the Asiatic invader. Servia, remembering her past greatness, was chief of the movement, which was joined by an Albanian people, the Skipetars, Wallachians and Magyars from Hungary, Poles from the northern Slav kingdom, all combined with the southern Slavs in this enterprise. But the old crusading enthusiasm was dead, and Western Europe, which had sent heroes such as Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard Cœur de Lion, Frederick Barbarossa, looked on with apathy at the encroachments of the Turk and the spread of Islam. Richard II, weak and worthless, was King of England, the imbecile Charles VI reigned over France, and the Germanic Empire was torn by civil wars, raging between robber knights and the free towns of the Hansa, under the dissolute Emperor Wenzel. The chivalry of Spain was still fully occupied with its own crusade against the Moors, and finally there were divisions in the Papacy itself between Clement VII and Urban VI. So no help could come to the Slav Crusaders from the West. Still the league against Amurath was powerful, and he realized that its subjection would tax all his energy and resources. He made all necessary arrangements for the good government of Asia during his absence in the field, then crossed the Hellespont to meet the enemy.

In the meantime the Bulgarians and Serbs had become over-confident, owing to a successful battle in Bosnia; an Ottoman army moving through that country was attacked by the Allies with great vigour, and fifteen out of twenty thousand Turks killed. Inactivity on the part of the Christians marked the next few months, while Amurath was pouring troops into Bulgaria, and completing the conquest of that important member of the league. Ali Pasha, Amurath’s general, marched with an army of thirty thousand men against Sisvan, over the passes of the Nadir Derbend, and forced Shumla to surrender; Tirnova{174} and Pravadi fell, and the Bulgarian King fled to Nicopolis. Here Ali Pasha besieged him, and Sisvan begged for peace. The terms of peace eventually agreed to by the conquering Turk put an end to Bulgaria’s existence as a political entity; it became a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Lazar, King of the Servians, the head of the Powers leagued against Amurath, was alarmed at the rapid strides made by the Osmanli forces, and prepared for a resolute struggle. Amurath accepted the formal challenge sent him by the Servian King, and marched westward towards the frontiers of Servia and Bosnia; on the plain of Kossova he met the Allies. After a night spent in a council of war in both camps, the antagonists met on the plain of Kossova, the “Amselfeld,” as the Germans call it. To northward of the small stream Shinitza, which traverses the plain, the chivalry of Servia, Bosnia, and Albania, their auxiliaries from Poland, Hungary, and Wallachia, were drawn up in battle array on 27th August, 1389.

But the crusaders were unable to stand before the fierce onslaught of the Osmanli, despite their reckless bravery. Slav chivalry went under in a sea of blood, though Milosh Kabilovitch had inflicted a fatal wound on the conqueror. The battle of the “Amselfeld” settled the fate of the southern Slavs for many centuries.

Amurath II had died from the wound inflicted by Milosh Kabilovitch, and his son Bajazet reigned in his stead. He pursued the war against Servia energetically, and made that country a vassal state of the Ottomans. King Stephen Lazarevitch, successor to King Lazar, gave the Sultan his sister to wife, and agreed to pay as tribute a certain portion of the produce of the silver mines in his dominions. Thus Bajazet broke down Servia’s resistance, and then turned against the other states which had taken part in the latest crusade. Myrtché, Prince of Wallachia, submitted, and his{175} country became a vassal state of Turkey; Sigismund, King of Hungary, invaded Bulgaria, but after some slight successes, was defeated by a superior Turkish army in 1372, and forced to retreat. While returning to his country from this campaign King Sigismund saw fair Elizabeth Morsiney, and loved her. Their son, the great Hunyadi Janos, avenged King Sigismund in his victorious campaigns against the Turks.

Once again Western chivalry attempted to check the rising tide of Islam. Sigismund, King of Hungary, felt the danger of that power pressing on his frontiers, and succeeded in moving the sympathies of other members of the Catholic Church. So when Pope Boniface IX, in 1394, proclaimed a crusade against the Osmanli, many of the martial youth of France and Burgundy, set free by the end of the one hundred years’ war with England, joined in this new crusade. Count de la Manche, three cousins of the King of France, James of Bourbon, Henri and Philippe de Bar, acted as commanders under Count de Nevers; besides these were other Frankish nobles, Philippe of Artois, Comte d’Eu, and Constable of France, Lord de Courcy, Guy de la Tremouille, Jean de Vienne, Admiral of France, St. Pol. Montmorel, and Reginald de Roze, marched from France, and on their way through Germany were joined by Frederic, Count of Hohenzollern, Grand Commander of the Teutonic Order, and Grand Master Philibert de Naillac, who came from Rhodes with a strong body of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. There came also Bavarian knights, under the Elector Palatine, and the Count of Mumpelsgarde; Styria sent its contingent under Count de Cilly. In all, some ten to twelve thousand of the flower of Western chivalry came down the Danube, full of high pride, and boasting that “if the sky should fall, they would uphold it on the point of their spears.” Myrtché, Prince of{176} Wallachia, though vassal and tributary to the Sultan, had been induced to tempt the fortunes of war once more, and joined the hosts of the Crusaders.

Bajazet was away in Asia, but his general, Yoglan Bey, defended Nicopolis stoutly against the Crusaders, who closely invested it, and so gained time for his master. Swiftly and silently came Bajazet, with his well-trained, well-disciplined army, and the Christian knights at table on the 24th September, 1396, were suddenly informed that a large Turkish army was bearing down upon them. The Franks flew to arms and charged recklessly into battle; their impetuosity and want of discipline proved their undoing, and by evening Bajazet had vanquished this last crusade against the rising fortunes of Islam. King Sigismund escaped; most of the prisoners taken by the Turks were massacred, and those who were spared lived weary months in captivity at Broussa until ransomed in 1397.

Thus was the West defeated in its attempt at rescuing Eastern Christians, and Bajazet’s victorious armies moved on to new conquests; they overran and devastated Styria and southern Hungary, marched through the pass of Thermopylæ, where there was no Leonidas and his devoted band to bid them halt, and under their conquering Sultan, Locris, Phocis, and Bœotia fell to the sword of Othman, till finally the whole Peloponese was a Turkish province.

Constantinople, the only remaining portion of the Greek Emperor, had escaped so far, but now its fate seemed about to be sealed when another man, as great, perhaps, as Bajazet himself, came out of Asia—Tamerlane and his Mongolian hordes.

Timour the Tartar, Timourlenk, Tamerlane, as he is variously called, was born near Samarkand in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, and spent the first half of his life in struggling for ascendancy over the petty chiefs{177} of rival tribes until, at the age of thirty-five, he had fought his way to undisputed pre-eminence, and was proclaimed Khan of Zagatai by the warriors of his race.

He made Samarkand his capital, and as he proposed to conquer the whole habitable earth from there, this ambition was sure to bring him into conflict with the Osmanli on the western confines of his territory.

Tamerlane had been insulted by the Sultan of Egypt, so he marched from Sivas, which he had taken from the Turks in Bajazet’s absence, towards Syria, which experienced for two years the terror and cruelty of his arms. An interchange of letters and embassies between Bajazet and Tamerlane, on the subject of the latter’s occasional incursions into Turkish territory, served only to aggravate the tension between the two monarchs, till hostilities became the only way out of an impossible situation. Tamerlane’s forces outnumbered the hundred and twenty thousand men with which Bajazet marched against the Tartar at Sivas, but Bajazet was impatient of the warnings of his best general, who had observed a bad spirit in the army amongst the soldiers of Tartar race whom Tamerlane had corrupted, and decided to bring matters to a definite conclusion. He did, but to his own undoing, for Tamerlane out-manœuvred him at Angora, where the opposing forces met on July 20th, 1402. The Mongol army is said to have numbered eight hundred thousand, and Bajazet could not have had more than one hundred thousand to put into the field, for many had died by the way. Moreover, Tamerlane’s army was in high spirits, and well found in every way, whereas Bajazet’s troops were discontented, and large numbers of Tartars deserted from him to swell the ranks of the Mongol army, and only the Ottoman centre, where stood the Janissaries and the Servians, made any effective resistance to the fierce charges of the Tartar cavalry. At{178} nightfall, when all was lost, Bajazet attempted to escape from the field, but his horse stumbled and fell with him, and so delivered him into the hands of his enemy. After an ineffectual attempt to escape, Bajazet, who had hitherto been kindly treated, was placed in fetters every night, and he died of a broken heart only eight months after the battle of Angora. Prince Musa was allowed to take the body of his father, Bajazet, to Broussa for burial, by Tamerlane who did not survive his fallen rival long. Tamerlane died two years later, at Otrar, while on the march to China, at the age of seventy-one, thirty-six years of which he had reigned and conquered, and shed more blood, caused more misery, than any other human before or since.

Bajazet’s misguided efforts against Tamerlane brought the Ottoman Empire, which had been gaining strength so steadily, to the verge of ruin, and calamity after calamity fell upon the House of Othman after the disaster of Angora. Civil war broke out as each son of Bajazet strove for the throne; Solyman fought against his brother Musa, and though at first successful, spoilt the results by debauchery and the cruelty with which he treated his troops, so they deserted to Musa, and Solyman was killed while endeavouring to escape to Constantinople. Musa followed in his father’s footsteps, and seems to have inherited his energy and ferocity. He thought fit to consider that the Servian Prince, vassal of the Ottoman Empire, had assisted Solyman against him, so he carried war in Servia, war with all the barbarity a Turkish Sultan and Turkish troops were capable of, and then turned towards Constantinople, for the Emperor Manuel Palæologus had been the ally of Solyman. Musa laid siege to the City, and Manuel called to Mohammed, the youngest and ablest son of Bajazet, for assistance, and so we find Ottoman{179} troops defending the Castle of Cæsar against their own brothers.

The war between the two brothers raged with varying success till the troops of Musa, whose conduct towards them was little better than that of Solyman, ranged themselves against him at the decisive moment when the two brothers confronted each other on the field of battle. Musa was wounded in a fray with Hassan, the Aga of his Janissaries, and seeing things going against him, fled, and was found dead in a swamp near the field of battle. The only other son of Bajazet, Issa, had disappeared during the war between Solyman and Mohammed in Asia, so the latter succeeded to the throne of Turkey, and was girt with the sword of Othman.

In Mohammed I, who reigned from 1413-1421, the House of Othman put forth one of the best sovereigns of that race. He did not win such distinction in the field as did some of his predecessors and successors; his conquests were over the affections of men, for he was just and merciful. His people called him Pehlevan, Champion, for he was brave, and of great personal strength and activity; others called him Tshelebi, which suggests that he had all those attributes that make a gentleman; true to his friends, a terror to his enemies the rebellious Turcomans, his country’s historian calls him, “The Noah who preserved the Ark of the Empire, when menaced by the deluge of Tartar invasion.”

Those were troubled times, but they seem peaceful compared to the days of Mohammed I’s predecessors, and by the time death overtook Mohammed I in the eighth year of his reign, rebellions had been suppressed, order restored, and honourable peace settled for a while in Ottoman dominions. But it was broken soon after Amurath II, son of Mohammed I, had been girt with the{180} sword of Othman at Broussa; a claimant to the throne, alleged son of Bajazet, had long been held captive by the Emperor of Byzant, who now thought fit to set up this pretender Mustapha against young Amurath. But the new Sultan, though only eighteen years of age, showed promise of the military and political abilities of the great sons of Othman from whom he was descended, and when he and Mustapha met in battle the latter was out-manœuvred and forced to flee to Gallipoli, where he sought refuge in the strong fortress. Aided by Genoese, Amurath II broke down the defences of Gallipoli, captured Mustapha, and had him put to death. Then Amurath II turned towards Constantinople to punish the Emperor for his unprovoked hostility to him. Constantinople was invested, and Amurath’s troops surged in successive waves against the Walls of Theodosius. The fight was fiercest near the Gate of St. Romanus, where a number of dervishes, headed by a renowned saint, Seid Bakhari, formed the vanguard of a forlorn hope in a desperate attack on 25th August, 1422. Among the inducements which urged these five hundred dervishes to dash out their souls against the City walls was one calculated to appeal to a Mohammedan saint, marking the ethical difference between him and the Christian variant; the many nuns in the convents of Constantinople were assigned to these pious souls as their share of the spoil. No doubt it was hoped that the company of those ladies would brighten up the monastic seclusion of the dervishes in times of peace if ever they came as intervals in the popular diversion—war. The garrison of Constantinople was making a stout defence, and might conceivably have held out by itself, but supernatural intervention was evidently called for, if only for the sake of the ladies, and the bright apparition of a virgin, robed in violet of dazzling lustre, further encouraged the besieged, while{181} the besiegers, hearing of this interference with their business, decided to raise the siege, and try again some other day. Historians, who are always ready to discount the value of supernatural apparitions which sparkle in the sky just in the nick of time, maintain that Amurath II was drawn from the siege of Constantinople by trouble in Asia. He had a brother, another Mustapha, whom the Greek Emperor had bribed to raise rebellion in Asia Minor. The extraordinary rapidity of Amurath’s movements frustrated all young Mustapha’s plans; he fled, was caught by some of the Sultan’s officers, and hanged on the nearest tree, which act, no doubt, saved the Sultan a good deal of trouble.

Amurath returned to Europe and resumed hostilities with the Greek Emperor, not by besieging Constantinople again, but by annexing other towns here and there. He took several towns on the Black Sea coast which had held to Byzant till then, captured Thessalonica from the Venetians, and made matters easier for the campaign he was obliged to undertake against turbulent neighbours and insubordinate vassals on the Western marches of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Hungary, still smarting under the defeat of their King at Nicopolis, was roused to action by the great Hunyadi; Bosniaks and Albanians feared for their independence, and Wallachia longed to be free; Servia, too, was troublesome, under a fiery leader Vuk Brankoviç, and after much vacillation, these enemies of the Osmanli contrived to drop their jealousies for a while, and to combine against the Eastern invader. The fortunes of war went against Amurath, and his renowned opponent, Hunyadi Janos, beat his armies at Belgrade and Hermanstadt, and again at Vasag. The Allies pushed on triumphantly through Servia and Bulgaria of to-day, up to the Balkan range, where they wrested two mountain-passes,{182} strongly defended, from the fiercely resisting Turks. Strange to say, Hunyadi did not advance on Adrianople, but returned to Pesth after a final victory at the foot of Mount Kunobitza. During most of this time Amurath had been away in Asia; he now hurried back to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his Empire in Europe, but finding that impossible, decided to consolidate what was left to him, and entered into peace negotiations with his adversaries, which ended in the Treaty of Szeggedin, in 1444; hereby George Brankoviç, son of Vuk, became independent ruler of Servia, and Wallachia was lost to Hungary.

Misfortune dogged Amurath; his eldest son Ala-ed-din died, he who had assisted in command of the Ottoman forces in Asia, his father’s right hand, and left the Sultan inconsolable, borne down by the weight of accumulating affliction. There was a second son, Mohammed, still young, and to him Amurath entrusted the throne and its heavy burdens, while he retired into dignified seclusion at Magnesia. But Mohammed was too young for the enormous responsibilities of his post, and Amurath had to revisit the scenes of his former activity from time to time. The successes of the Christians, and the retirement to Asia of Amurath, roused the Greek Emperor to fresh intrigues against his Asiatic adversary; he and the Pope induced the King of Hungary to break the oath made at the Peace of Szeggedin, Cardinal Julian salved that monarch’s conscience, and so King Ladislaus started off on another crusade against the Turk. Amurath hurried back from Asia, crossed the Hellespont with the aid of the Genoese, and met his adversaries near Varna in November, 1444. The battle raged with varying success all day, until King Ladislaus, whose horse fell with him, was captured and slain on the spot. His head impaled on a spear threw his troops into a panic; many of{183} them perished by the sword, among them Cardinal Julian, Stephan Bathory, and many other nobles. This victory of the sword of Othman at Varna settled the fate of those vassal Slavs who had risen against the Sultan; Servia was thoroughly reconquered, Bosnia’s royal family was exterminated, and their country added to the Ottoman dominions.

Once again Amurath retired to the pleasant seclusion he had sought at Magnesia; some describe it as monastic in character, but that description sounds unlikely; at least the monasticism of the Sultan and that of Christian monks can have had little in common, the former probably allowing pleasures which a Christian monk would be bound to regard with pious horror. Alas, and I am sorry for Amurath, because he had worked hard and deserved a good time, his son Mohammed proved unfit to hold the victorious Turkish soldiery, so he was given a change at Magnesia, while his father re-established order in the army. Amurath reigned for another six years after these happenings—years which he spent usefully, in gathering in odd outlying bits of territory into the Ottoman fold. The Peleponese peninsula was made a vassal state, and Hunyadi Janos severely beaten at Kossova.

The only trouble which Amurath was unable to settle was caused by the Albanian, Scanderbeg, who defied the Sultan from his mountain fastnesses, and reigned over his wild country and fierce subjects for many years after Amurath, who had himself instructed Scanderbeg in the art of war, had been laid to rest at Broussa.

His son Mohammed lost no time in ascending the throne, removing a slight obstacle, or what might have become one, in the person of Amurath’s infant son by a Servian Princess. The babe was drowned in a bath at the moment when his mother was offering her congratulations to the new Sultan.{184} Mohammed’s subjects failed to see the humorous side of this act of statecraft, and made trouble, so the Sultan put all the blame on the officer who had carried out the order, and had him put to death for treason. Mohammed had to confess to his own share in the deed when, many years later, he included fratricide among the permissible expedients of statesmanship.

Mohammed II lives in history as “The Conqueror,” and he seems to have had all the qualities as well as the good fortune which help mortals to that high title; he had some other qualities which were, if not necessary to success, at least picturesque, and in keeping with the morals and ideals of the time he lived in, and of the peoples with whom he had to deal. He was strong of purpose and far-sighted, ingenious and of tireless energy, and these qualities brought him victory over his enemies in the field and success in the guidance of his people’s life through the dark passages of diplomacy. These qualities shone out into the foreground; in the background were cruelty, perfidy, and a sensuality which revolted even the loose-living warriors of his day.

The West called to Mohammed II; there was yet one more city awaiting conquest by a son of Othman ere the Eastern Empire should pass out of history and the Turk should rule large European provinces from the seat of Constantine. Another, Constantine XI, and last of that long line of Byzantine Emperors, had come to the throne some three years before Mohammed was girt with the sword of Othman. This Constantine was wise, just, and merciful, and has gone down to history among the heroes of the world. But all the noblest qualities united in the person of its Emperor were unable to stem the tide rising up to the walls of Constantinople, were inadequate when opposed to relentless force from without, and supineness, sloth, cowardice, within the City walls. The fate of Constantinople{185} drew nearer, till in May, 1453, the hour had struck, and Mohammed II rode as conqueror over heaps of slain, among whom was the lost Emperor, through the breach in the wall made by his huge cannon and the fiery assaults of the Janissaries, to the deserted palaces of Imperial Byzant.

Thus fell Constantinople, the City of many sieges, into the hands of an Asiatic nation which from here ruled wide tracts of Europe, raiding right up to the gates of Vienna, the Kaiserstadt of the Holy Roman Empire, “Deutscher Nation.” For nearly five centuries an unbroken line of sons of Othman have sat in the seat of Cæsar, have conquered from here, and from here have watched the decay of their power in Europe. One by one young races, reborn after years of slavery, rose and asserted their rights, gained first autonomy, then independence, from a master who seemed but a stranger and a sojourner in the lands of Roum. Now, as I write, those young nations have closed in on every side, and Ottoman possessions in Europe are hardly greater in extent than were those of decadent Byzant when Mohammed II’s artillery thundered outside the walls, brought down those stout defences, and with them an old civilization, in a mass of crumbling ruins.{186}

CHAPTER XII

RELIGION affects the private life of the Turk as also the life of the body politic more than is the case among the followers of other creeds, and Islam is singularly adapted to the sons of Othman, or rather has made them what they are. Mohammed assumed both spiritual and temporal power in the name of a god, who thrones high above the humble faithful, who is so far concerned in each believer that he arranges every detail of his life long before the poor mortal enters upon it. There is no mercy, no departure from the course marked out, no hope of propitiating a stern deity, aloof and vengeful, by prayer and intercession; Islam—obedience, submission. Allah is not often moved by loving-kindness, but anger may rouse him to punish by the hand of his “shadow on earth,” the Caliph-Sultan. He is particularly easily incensed against non-believers, and through his Prophet has promised all happiness after death to those to combat unbelief, and by war and rapine, murder and outrage, proclaim the fact that “La ilaha illa ’Uah!”

{187}

The Gate of Adrianople
Through this gate, Edirné Kapoo, as the Turks call it, the Sultan’s army marched out to war; through it his soldiery, defeated, sick, wounded, returned in small parties from the battlefields.

{188}

It is not surprising to find that, whatever its theory, in practice Islam discouraged any serious regard for human life, whether a man’s own or the life of his neighbour. It also strengthened the ruler’s hands, for he was the voice of Allah on earth, and therefore privileged to take life without trial, inquiry, or any formality. Of this privilege Sultans have availed themselves freely, though it was not bien vue to kill more than a thousand in a day. For political reasons Mohammedan subjects were less exposed to violence, whereas Christians became more and more subject to ill-treatment as Christianity gained strength and helped to build up Empires strong enough to check the flowing tide of Islam.

Islam acted as an intellectual stimulus on its first adherents, the poetic-minded Arabs, though possibly it did not assume its present rigidity when they were a ruling power in Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe. I think it likely that the Arabs did not allow the strict letter of the law to cramp their intellectual development, but their converts, the Turks, a race devoid of the power of imagination, proved incapable of interpreting the “Book” in a liberal spirit even if it were possible, for the Koran, with all its contradictions, contains hard-and-fast dogma, definite rules to regulate conduct, and threatens those who depart from its teachings by but a hand’s-breadth with all the pains of Eternal Damnation. Gautama, the Prince, retired into seclusion, and by the beauty of a soul trained to deep meditation became Buddha; Christ came to earth and suffered all indignities and pains at the hands of men, rather than assert the power of His Godhead by offering political opposition to those who spurned His teachings: “His kingdom is not of this world.” After the awful day on Calvary none of the temporal powers of the day attached any further importance to His sayings,{190} nor to the small band of disciples who went out into the outer darkness of the world carrying with them the first flickerings of a light which should illumine the earth and draw from mortals the best that is in them. Buddha lived alone in deep seclusion, renouncing all earthly vanities, and his few disciples went abroad poor and homeless searching for the souls of men. Mohammed drew men to him by promises of glory and honour on this earth, ease and luxury in the Beyond. Christianity bids you forgive your enemies; Mohammed led his followers to battle against the unbelievers, conquered their cities, and called those places holy when he had fixed the strongholds of his militant faith. Mohammed died in the possession of great power, spiritual and temporal, enjoining his descendants to maintain and increase it by the sword. The realm thus founded was inherited by the Caliphs, but they in time became enfeebled and hard pressed by their enemies, till first the temporal then spiritual power went to a race of rulers incapable and disinclined to widen the intellectual horizon of their subjects, the House of Othman. So the sovereign’s power was absolute, in his hands were life and death, all property but that applied to pious purposes came from him and by him could be retaken. The strict adherence to religious observances had its beneficial effects, for the laws that regulate the conduct, that prescribe for each hour of the day, allowed of no expansion and could not openly be disregarded, therefore the life of the people, at least to outward appearance, was clean and decorous. Mollahs and imams never gained the ascendancy over the minds of men which Christian priests and holy men of Buddhism have from time to time acquired; they played an unimportant part, acting rather as precentors at the worship of Allah in the mosques, though as preachers they could incite the fierce passions{191} of a people untrained to independent thought. From time to time the Sultan would think fit to consult the mufti, the head priest, as to the advisability of some political measure, and that official generally found it convenient to agree, as his appointment was in the sovereign’s gift and could be recalled by him.

Under the law, administered by the Sultan, the Turks increased in numbers, extended their possession, carved a large Empire out of the ruins of former civilizations, and left unsought those Elysian fields wherein the intellect of a nation gains those victories that make for stability, the fields of progress, scientific, literary, artistic. Under the law they built up their body politic, each member sincerely, blindly devoted to the dynasty of Othman, however many corpses of its scions might pave a Sultan’s upward path to power. They swept over Asia Minor carrying their few belongings with them, nomads ever, expressing even in their poor attempt at imagery no other spirit than that of the houseless wanderer: The edifice of state is but a tent, its supporting poles the viziers, judges, treasurers, and secretaries of state. Its entrance, the Sublime Porte, is likened to curtained opening, and curtains rather than doors still screen the latticed chambers of many a present-day Turkish harem. The provinces they conquered were distributed among the fighting men as military fiefs and called Sanjaks, banners, remaining purely military organizations until more stable conditions led to the raising of a standing army; and civil officials always looked to their sovereign for guidance in the smallest matters as they had looked to him for leadership in the field.

Thus equipped the sons of Othman set out for conquest, and in one respect at least the records of those early days show signs of great capacity, though always the output{192} of one active mind, not resulting from the reasoned growth of a collective national intelligence.

Mohammed the Conqueror had established the Ottoman Empire in Europe by means of a well-trained, Koran-disciplined army, his successor Bajazet II increased and strengthened it. Great attention was paid to all matters of artillery and military engineering, in which the Turks of those days outshone all other nations, and which made the hastily levied undisciplined armies of the West, the bands of hired condottieri, or enthusiastic swarms of Christian knights, go under before the sword of Othman. The conquered provinces provided recruits for the corps of Janissaries. In those days, too, the Turkish armies were more mobile and better found than even that which Charles VII of France raised in 1445, the first standing army of the West; supplies were well organized and transport effected by beasts of burden, not by carts which depend upon good roads. So Bajazet inherited a great Empire, won by the sword of a people in arms and governed by warriors devoted to his House, and over whom the Sultan had complete control; they could not rise above their fellows, for according to the law all Moslems are equal under the Caliph, and no ruling caste rose to defy the power of the sovereign or force him to grant concessions. Fresh blood was added to this homogeneous body politic by the voluntary desertion of Christians from the conquered provinces to Islam: Croats, Albanians, Bosniaks, Russians, even Scotsmen, adventurers mostly, and among the fiercest followers of the Prophet. Many of these rose to high office.

The reign of Bajazet II began with civil war, a not unusual occurrence, for Prince Djem, his brother, laid claim to the throne. But Bajazet vanquished his brother’s army, and Djem consoled himself by a visit to Mecca and{193} Medina, which makes for holiness and raises a Moslem in the estimation of his fellows. Building on this Djem made further attempts to displace Bajazet, and went to the Knights of Rhodes to enlist their sympathies. These nobles kept the Prince a prisoner and made him a source of income from the Sultan by threatening to set him at large again. Djem finally escaped from Rhodes and sought help elsewhere, in Western Europe, but met with little encouragement, and was finally treacherously murdered by a servant of the Pope, bribed by Bajazet.

In the meantime Bajazet felt the need for expansion—there were still worlds to conquer and he was minded to acquire a few. His efforts on land were not particularly successful, he had at least one strong man against him, Matthias Corvinus, who had restored order in Hungary and was thus enabled to check the encroachments of Islam. There were other Powers of some importance in Europe at the time: the Medici, under whom the glories of Italian art, inspired by ancient Byzant, were preparing the way for enfranchised thought; and in Germany Meister Gutenberg had set up his printing-press. All glory to that great man whose gentle craft made the Reformation possible. “Buchstaben,” beech staves, for the selfish beech tree, which allows no growth under its spreading branches, found the wood out of which were cut those first strong Gothic letters. Laboriously pieced together those staves grew into sentences, and in time the first Bible, printed and bound in solid calf-skin, was given to the world. Luther perused it, studied it, absorbed it, and with it filled his soul till his voice arose above the jealousies of Papal Medicis and rang out over all the earth, is ringing still wherever the free-born praise their Creator and glorify His works. Even here it resounds, and strongly, since Christian men and women are aiding the sick and{194} wounded of an alien race, a hostile creed, and are bringing them back from those dark depths where they were cast by their own kin, by those whose lives are overshadowed by rigid Islam. Ferdinand the Catholic had married Isabella of Castile, and thus brought the Kingdoms of Spain under one sceptre. They expelled the Jews from Spain to the “greater glory of God”; the descendants of those Jews now inhabit Saloniki and still speak Spanish, though they write it in Hebrew characters. John II of Portugal impoverished his country by the same method at the same time, though he derived some temporary advantage by taxing the exiled children of Israel heavily while they passed through his country on their way to more congenial surroundings. Macchiavelli was born in that era, and was composing his work on the ideal Prince when Bajazet was compassing the death of his brother Djem. Columbus arose to widen the world’s horizon, and Vasco da Gama’s ships felt their way cautiously round the Cape of Storms to India. But greatest of all these was Leonardo da Vinci, who rescued fragments of the art of old Byzant and breathed into it the life that created all the glories of the Renaissance. Those were brave days, my masters, when the world was young and strong, when art and literature revived, free from the trammels of warped classicism and showed mankind what beauty is and where and how it may be found and duly reverenced.

But Bajazet had no ideas beyond conquest. His campaign on land being unattended by the great success his predecessors had prepared him for, he turned to seaward and did his best to cripple rising Western Europe. A slave presented to his father was the instrument to hand, Kemal-Reis, the former name meaning “Perfection,” given him by the Sultan because of his great beauty. In constant sea war against Venice and the other states by{195} the Mediterranean Sea, Kemal-Reis laid the foundations of Turkish sea power.

Bajazet sought to extend his power to Egypt, but was baffled by the Mamelukes, a body of militant nobility superior in training and “morale” to anything the Othmans could muster. This and other matters cast clouds over the last days of Sultan Bajazet. Dissensions arose among his sons, Korkoud, Achmet, and Selim, Governor of Trebizond, who even threatened his father with war and marched against him to Adrianople. Thereupon Selim was appointed Governor of Semendria, an old Roman settlement in modern Servia, now called Smederovo. But Korkoud and Achmet had revolted in Asia Minor, and by weakening Ottoman rule there invited the Shias, a heretic sect of Islam according to the Sunnis to which the Turks belong, under the Persian Prince, Shah Ismail, to ravage the eastern marches of the Empire. Selim was not content for long, and rose against his father a second time, but was beaten at Adrianople, that fateful city, and was carried from the field to safety by his swift horse Karaboulot, the Black Cloud. He turned to the Khan of the Crimea for assistance, and returning to the attack with a Tartar army forced his way into Constantinople and made Bajazet abdicate in his favour. Turbulent citizens, unruly Janissaries and Spahis gave weight to Selim’s demands. So Bajazet retired to Demotika for his remaining days. Violence brought him to the throne, by violence his son displaced him, and Selim reigned in his stead as Sultan, Caliph of the Faithful, the Shadow of God on Earth.

Selim I’s reign was short, from 1512-1520, but it showed him a man of high ability in politics and war, and even well disposed towards the gentler side of life, for he encouraged literature. He found himself under the painful{196} necessity of having his brother Korkoud strangled, but redeemed this unbrotherliness by weeping over the corpse and by ordering court mourning for three whole days. After that he proceeded to the business of securing his hold on the Empire by marching against his other brother Achmet. Achmet was defeated, taken, and slain, but privileged to burial by the side of Korkoud. Then Selim, a pious Moslem, turned to the matter of his people’s spiritual welfare and discovered to his horror that large numbers of them held the heretic tenets of the Shias. This had to be stopped, so a general massacre of these misguided ones, ferreted out by Selim’s excellent secret police, was arranged. The Osmanli celebrated their St. Bartholomew’s Night by the slaughter of some forty thousand men, women, and children; thirty thousand others were spared, but spent the remainder of their days in perpetual imprisonment.

This annoyed Shah Ismail of Persia, and he made ready for war; the Turks were yet readier, and an army of some hundred and forty thousand men marched through Kurdistan upon Tabriz, then capital of Persia. They met with great hardships, which led to discontent among the Janissaries, whom Selim sought to comfort with quotations from the Persian poets. However, the two armies soon came to business, and met in battle in the Valley of Calderan, where the army of Selim beat that of Shah Ismail, some hundred and twenty thousand, of whom eighty thousand were horsemen, though suffering serious losses. Selim had all the captives killed excepting the women and children, among whom was the Shah’s favourite wife, who had come out to encourage her husband to the last. Selim levied tribute on Tabriz and pursued his march to Karabagh, but the severity of winter, causing discontent among his troops, obliged him to retrace his steps. This{197} campaign added Diarbekr and Kurdistan to the Ottoman Empire. Trouble then arose in the south, the army of observation in Syria reporting that Egypt was inclined to be dangerous. Selim held a council of war to discuss the matter, and was so pleased with the advice of one Mohammed, a Secretary of State, that he appointed him Grand Vizier on the spot. Mohammed modestly declined, whereupon the Sultan bastinadoed him into submission with his own heavy hand. Ambassadors were sent to Kanson-Ghauri, Sultan of Egypt, but were treated with insults and violence, so Selim marched south and fought a battle at Aleppo, in which the Turks gained their first victory over the Mamelukes, and Sultan Kanson-Ghauri died on his flight to Egypt. Selim then added Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem to his possessions, again defeated the Mamelukes and occupied Cairo. Of the remaining Mamelukes eight hundred submitted on Selim’s promise of pardon, and were all beheaded; incidentally the population of Cairo was massacred.

Peace ensured by these simple methods, Selim proceeded to the chief mosque of Cairo, offered up praise and thanksgiving to Allah for giving him the victory, and set about the annexation of Egypt, styling himself “Protector of the Holy Cities of Arabia,” the title of the Mameluke Sultans. This greatly enhanced Selim’s dignity among his people, for up to now the Caliphate had been held by the descendants of the House of Abbas in Egypt. Thus Selim acquired the sacred standard, sword, and mantle of the Prophet.

On Selim’s return to Constantinople he set about rebuilding his navy, for the presence of the Knights of Rhodes on the seaway to Egypt displeased him, but before he could accomplish the task of subduing them death overtook him at the place near Adrianople where he had{198} formerly met his father in battle. Selim’s constant companion, Hasandshan, was just reading to the dying Sultan the verse from the Koran: “The word of the Almighty is salvation,” when Selim’s fierce career came to its close.

Upon this picturesque ruffian, this embodiment of all Turkish virtues and defects, followed one who may rank among the greatest of all the sons of Othman, a man of very different mind, stately Solyman, called the Great.

This monarch’s reign, from 1520-1566, fell into a great age for Europe, for among his contemporaries were some of those whose names shed lustre on the pages of history. Charles V, that gloomy monarch, ruled over half the known world, his Empire extending over the continent discovered by Columbus, where Cortez added Mexico to fill the imperial coffers, and Pizarro’s daring march across the Andes brought untold wealth to the Holy Roman Empire, “Deutscher Nation,” though Peru and its mild-mannered people suffered worse horrors than attended even the triumphal progress of the Turkish armies. Discord there was in Western Europe, too, for Luther had nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517, and thirteen years later the Protestants had made public confession of their faith at Augsburg, to be followed in 1540 by Paul III’s sanction of the Jesuits and their order, thus sowing the seeds of that great war which laid Western Europe at the mercy of the encroaching Turks, and made smooth their way to power. In England Henry VIII was King, and bickering with his chivalrous neighbour, Francis I of France.

Solyman had early learnt the art of government as Viceroy of Constantinople during his father’s campaigns in Persia; then, during the war in Egypt, he governed Adrianople, and succeeded at the age of twenty-six.{199}

Solyman inherited his father’s forethought and military skill, and, following the traditions of his House, led a fine army westward into Christendom. By the end of 1521 he had captured Belgrade, and made it a strong outpost of advancing Islam. Unlike his father, he was merciful; after long, fierce fighting in the second year of his reign, he forced the Knights of Rhodes to surrender, but promised their gallant commander, de Lisle Adam, that no churches would be desecrated, no children driven into slavery. These promises he kept, and the Knights left the island with all the honours of war, conveying their wives and families away unmolested, while the inhabitants became subjects of the Sultan; moreover, Solyman exacted no tribute for five years.

After a few short years of peace, which Solyman used for reforms in the administration, the disturbed state of Europe drew Turkey into her troubles. The Janissaries had already been grumbling about the Sultan’s inaction, and had been sharply brought to order. Their heart’s desire, war and booty, was not long in coming to them, for Solyman decided to invade Hungary, urged by King Francis of France, who knew that such an event would annoy Charles V and distract that Emperor’s attention from the French King’s designs on Italy. With one hundred thousand men and three hundred cannon, Solyman set out at the head of his well-found army to meet the forces which Louis, King of Hungary, had gathered together to protect his country from invasion. The result was as might have been expected. Despite great bravery and devotion, because of their faulty organization and discipline, the Hungarian army was defeated at Mohacz in August, 1526; King Louis fell, eight bishops, and a great number of Magyar nobles, and with them some twenty-four thousand men. Buda-Pesth submitted to the{200} Turks, the road to Vienna lay open, and Solyman’s victorious army carried fire and sword into the Crown lands of the House of Habsburg. Vienna trembled, but the Turks did not attempt a siege of that city and were content to return the way they came, heavy laden with plunder, carrying away one hundred thousand Christians—men, women, and children—into slavery. After a short absence in Asia Minor, Solyman felt called to Hungary again; civil war had broken out over the succession to the throne, and Solyman thought fit to hear the appeal of Zapolya, a native noble, claimant to the throne, for help against the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, brother of the Emperor.

The Mosque of Suleiman and the Tower of the War Office
Seen from the height where stands the wireless telegraphy station.

A yet greater army gathered together at Constantinople, two hundred and fifty thousand men with three hundred cannon, and, led by Solyman, appeared before Buda-Pesth in September, 1529; the town again surrendered, after a siege of six days, and Zapolya was solemnly installed as king over the people which Arpad had led out of the East, which Stephen the Saint had brought over to Christianity, and whose iron crown now pressed upon the brow of a vassal to the Sultan. Zapolya marched with his followers in the train of Solyman, his master, to Vienna. Like the storms of autumn equinox, the Akindji tore over the fair fields of Lower Austria and surged up against the defences of Vienna, led by Michael Oglou, descendant of Michael of the Peaked Beard, who had fought by the side of the first Othman. The main army followed the swarms of Akindji, and drew a circle of camps around Vienna, which was defended by low walls and contained a garrison of only sixteen thousand men. The capital of the Holy Roman Empire was in danger, and King Ferdinand, in his distress, appealed to his brother, the Emperor, for assistance; but none came, for the German princes were quarrelling{201} about religious matters, while Vienna suffered. The city held out under its brave defender, Count Salm, through days and nights of storm and stress, till Solyman gave up the attempt and withdrew on the day on which Count Salm died of his wounds. Before leaving the outskirts of Vienna the Turks burnt what they could not remove, slaughtered their Christian prisoners or threw them living into the flames, and went away into the East, leaving desolation in their wake.

Solyman’s pride was deeply wounded by the rebuff before Vienna, and even the conquest of a large part of Armenia, of Mesopotamia, and Bagdad failed to comfort him, so he readily took the excuse of interfering with the West again when Zapolya died, and the question of Hungarian succession rearose. Throughout the war the Turkish arms, though worsted now and then, prevailed over the Western armies, and Austria was forced to enter into a treaty with the Porte and to pay tribute, while nearly all Hungary and Transylvania came under Turkish domination. To all these successes came the victories won by Solyman’s admiral, Khairreddin-Barbarossa, in the Mediterranean Sea. He defeated the Spaniards and drove the Arab pirates (himself a former pirate) of the north of Africa back to their hiding-places, sought them out there and made them subjects of the Sultan. He pillaged the coast of the Adriatic and sacked Italian towns, and with inferior numbers defeated the naval forces of the Pope, Venice, and the Emperor off Prevesa in 1538.

Solyman went out to meet Khairreddin’s successor, Pialé, a Croat by birth, when the latter made his triumphal entry into the Golden Horn, but the Sultan’s brow was clouded, for trouble had sought him out. Within the Seraglio walls, in the halls of Solyman the Magnificent,{202} stalked Tragedy, called in by Jealousy. A fair Russian girl had captured the Sultan’s heart, Sultana Roxalana, or Khourrem (the Joyous One), as the Turks called her, and her ambitions for Selim, her son, led her to fill her husband’s mind with suspicion. Mustapha, his elder son by a Circassian, a handsome youth and highly gifted, Governor of Carmania, was accused of plotting against his father. Mustapha was ordered to enter the Sultan’s presence alone, and Solyman, looking on from an inner chamber, saw seven mute executioners carry out his command to strangle his son with the bowstring. Thus the sword of Othman, the mantle of the Prophet, came to the son of Roxalana, to Selim the Sot.

Solyman died while conducting the siege of Szigath, on the night before the gallant defender of that place, Zriny, fell in a desperate last sortie. The news of his death was kept from his army till it had returned to the neighbourhood of Belgrade. Here, on the outskirts of a dense forest, when the setting sun threw long shadows out towards the east, the imams announced the Sultan’s death, and great wailings of lamentation re-echoed among the giant trees and set the leaves trembling in sympathy with an Empire’s grief. Solyman was buried near the mosque he built, round which to-day refugees, sick and wounded soldiers from the battlefields, are gathered together, patient sons of Islam awaiting their fate.{203}

CHAPTER XIII

THE Empire which Selim II inherited from his father extended from the Atlas to the Caucasus, from the Carpathians to the Nile, and among his subjects were counted Greeks and Armenians, Bulgars, Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Herzegovinians, Vlachs and Albanians, Romanies and the wandering Tsigani, Arabs, Kurds and Chaldeans, Turkomans and Magyars in the conquered provinces of Hungary, Germans in Transylvania, Copts of Egypt, and Jews of Palestine, or exiled from the Iberian peninsula. The corps of Janissaries had been raised to 20,000, the paid standing army numbered 48,000, with 200,000 irregular auxiliaries, and the fleet mustered 300 warships. The Ottoman Army was first in the world, and Christian monarchs of the West acknowledged the supremacy of the Caliph who sat in the seat of Constantine. The reign of Solyman marked the highest rise of Ottoman power; the decline began with Selim, his and Roxalana’s son.

Whereas the reign of every Sultan preceding Selim{204} had been impressed with the ruler’s personality, the only quality to which a Turk is capable of responding, the rule of Selim showed no such strengthening influence. His mother, Roxalana, was all-powerful, but her bloody intrigues led to many dissensions in the harem, and these reacted on the life of the nation. In order to pursue a course of conquest in Asia, Selim called an armistice with Emperor Maximilian, and turned his attention towards Astrachan. Here he came into conflict with the Tsars of Muscovy, who, having freed themselves from Tartar domination, gave wing to their ambition, and even in those early days pretended to the throne of Constantine, for Ivan III had married Sophia, last Princess of the Greek imperial family, and had taken the two-headed eagle of Byzant as his cognizance. The Porte was powerless against Ivan the Terrible, who annexed Astrachan, and induced the Don Cossacks to join him, under their Hetman, Yermak, the man who added Siberia to the possessions of the Tsar.

The Sultan did not take the field in person, did not even concern himself with the government of his reign, so Sokoli, his Grand Vizier, guided the ship of state, and led campaigns which were by no means successful, for the Arabs prevented the execution of a plan to pierce a canal joining Mediterranean and Red Sea at Suez. The Turks were more fortunate at sea, where Sala Mustapha roved at large, reducing Cyprus with unheard-of cruelties. A similar spirit informed Russian conquest at this period. About this time Ivan the Cruel took Wittenstein, and had the captive Finns hewn in pieces, their leader roasted alive on a spear.

The horrors of the capture of Cyprus roused all the Christian rulers by the Mediterranean Sea to fury; a large fleet was collected by Don Juan of Austria, son of Charles V, and Margarete Blumberg, the frail, fair lady of Ratisbon. Marco Colonna brought a fleet found by the Pope; Spain,{205} Malta, and Savoy sent their galleons, the Venetians joined with one hundred and eight galleys and six galliases, under Admiral Veniero, a naval crusade, as it were. There were great names among these crusaders, the Prince of Parma, Caraccioli, the Marquis of Santa Croce, Andrea Doria, and Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. The hostile fleets met off Lepanto and engaged in a furious battle, which resulted in a complete victory for the Christian Allies; thirty thousand Turks were slain, fifteen thousand of their Christian slaves rescued from the galleys, and of the stately Ottoman fleet only forty vessels, under Ouloudjé, made good their escape. But the victory of Lepanto was wasted, was not followed up, for though the Western nations might win battles, yet were they not equal to the Turks in the long run.

Selim II died drunk, and was succeeded by Amurath III, who reigned from 1574-1595. A weak, dissolute ruler, he inaugurated his rule with customary fratricide; he had five brothers, whom he thought fit to remove out of the way of temptation to usurp the throne. The weakness of this Sultan affected the spirit of his armies, which fought with only partial success in Persia, while Amurath led a life of pleasure. He was swayed chiefly by his favourite Sultana, Safiyé, a Venetian lady of the noble House of Baffo, who had been captured by the Corsairs when young and presented to the Sultan. Yet, though the power of the Ottoman Empire was declining, it was still considered the most formidable in Europe, and Western monarchs did not hesitate to ask assistance of the Sultan.

Even from distant England came ambassadors on such missions, urging Amurath to aid Queen Elizabeth against Spain; but help was not forthcoming. The Porte gained further feeling with the West by entering into commercial relations with other countries, and, moreover, treated them{206} in no illiberal spirit. But corruption had set in among the armed forces of the Empire; commands and places were sold, and even the Sultan took his share of the profits. Corruption led to all manner of abuses, and these caused discontent; the Janissaries mutinied, and brought about the fall of a Grand Vizier; garrisons whose pay was far in arrears revolted at Pesth and Tabriz, the Druses of Lebanon began a series of insurrections which continued into recent times, and trouble arose among the peoples of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.

In the midst of all these happenings weak Amurath sickened and died, having done nothing for his country but to leave behind him twenty sons and twenty-seven daughters of the hundred and three children he begat. This gave his eldest son and successor, Mohammed III, a great deal to do before he could gird on securely the sword of Othman; he killed all his brothers, and seven female slaves in the condition called “Guter Hoffnung” by the Germans were sewn into sacks and thrown into the Bosphorus. Mohammed was also the last of the Imperial Princes to be trusted with the governorship of a province; from his time on all scions of the House of Othman were kept in rigorous seclusion, leaving it for the grave or the throne as fate might decide. This Sultan also preferred a life of ease to the hardships of campaigning, and amidst the pleasures of the Seraglio, where his mother, Safiyé Sultana Validé, reigned supreme, let the misfortunes that befell the Ottoman armies pass unheeded. Archduke Maximilian and Count Palffy, assisted by revolted Danube Princes, retook one strong place after another. Gran fell, and Visegrad, Ibrail (Braila), Rustchuk, and other cities on the Danube, till Grand Vizier Sead-ed-din insisted on the appearance of his imperial master in the field.

The Sultan was with difficulty persuaded, but at last{207} he displayed the sacred standard of the Prophet before his troops, and rekindled their martial ardour. His first battle was fought at Cerestes, and lasted three days, which the Sultan considered too long, for when on the third day the Christian forces seemed victorious, Mohammed, who was watching the fray from the back of a camel, thought it time to retire, and prepared to lead a rapid retreat. However, at the critical moment Cicala Pasha brought up some fresh irregular cavalry, and their impetuous charge broke the thinned ranks of the Christians. Probably for the first time in the history of Ottoman arms a number of troops, some thirty thousand Asiatics, broke and fled during this battle. They were pursued, and those who were captured suffered severe punishment at the hands of Cicala. Others escaped to Asia Minor, where they raised the banner of revolt, which distressed the remaining years of Mohammed’s reign. In the meantime the war dragged on with varying success in Hungary, till both sides grew tired, and agreed to the Peace of Sitvatorok, by which Transylvania was practically lost to Turkey.

The prestige of Ottoman power had been steadily sinking under Mohammed III, and its decline would have been more marked but for the dissensions and disturbances all over Europe. The German States were taking up arms against each other in the name of religion, Spain was declining rapidly since Philip II died, and Russia was rent by revolts. So the ill-success of Turkish arms during the reign of Achmet I, an imbecile, the revolts in Asia Minor, and the constant military mutinies, passed unnoticed by those sovereigns who might have been advantaged by the weakness of the Porte. The only really important event in the reign of Achmet I was the introduction of tobacco, the natural concomitant to coffee, with which the Turks became acquainted under Solyman the Great.{208}

On Mustapha’s short reign of three months followed the unhappy time of the second Othman, who lacked all the good qualities of his great namesake. His chief pastime was archery, using prisoners of war, even his own pages, as targets, but for actual warfare he cared nothing, and entered into a very disadvantageous peace with Persia. His Janissaries grumbled at their sovereign’s inertia, so to please them, and probably to bleed them a little, he engaged in war with Poland, which, proving disastrous, made the Sultan very unpopular. His disgusted soldiery therefore took him to Yedi Koulé, kept him there for some time a prisoner, and finally strangled him.

The Dardanelles
Turkish warships, cleared for action, lying in wait for the Greek fleet.

Semendria
A Roman stronghold in Servia on the Danube, for long a Turkish fortress.

Palace and harem intrigues brought about such an impossible state of affairs in the country that even the army, generally ready to profit by confusion, became alarmed for the welfare of the Empire. The steps they took proved disastrous to themselves in the end. They placed Amurath, brother of Othman II, a child of eleven, on the throne, and then proceeded to govern the country under their own leaders and in their own interests. Western Europe was becoming more and more aware of the decline of Ottoman power in Europe, and there were not wanting prophets who foretold the speedy dissolution of the Turkish Empire, among these Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from James I, who bemoaned the misery, anarchy, and general decay, as evident in 1622. A wise woman, his mother, Sultana Mahpeiker, guided Amurath IV through the troubled days of his childhood, and brought up a Sultan endowed with vigour of body and mind to man’s estate. The first acts of his reign, the swift and secret killing of the rebel leaders, cowed the soldiery into submission. Amurath punished with death right and left, and even the Chief Mufti’s head went to the executioner for the bad state of the roads over which his sovereign{209} chose to travel. Amurath led his armies to war as former Sultans had been wont to do, and brought them back victorious, for Persia had been badly beaten and Bagdad retaken. The story is told of how at the siege of that city a Persian giant threw down the gauntlet to the Turkish army, how Amurath took it up, and in single combat clove the giant’s skull to the chin with his sabre. The Persian garrison of thirty thousand was slaughtered, three hundred only making their escape. So Amurath returned to Constantinople, to enter the City in triumph at the head of his troops, and no Sultan has done so since that time.

But Amurath broke the laws of the Prophet and drank wine. A story tells how the Sultan took the first step on the forbidden road. He was walking in the streets of his capital one night, when Mustapha, the drunkard, rolled up against him, and expressed no particular regret at bumping into his sovereign, in fact, was much too happy to dream of offering apologies to any monarch. He was summoned to the Court next day, and arrived there with his bottle: “Here is the liquid gold which outweighs all the treasures of the universe, which makes a beggar more glorious than a king, and turns the mendicant fakir into a horned Alexander.” So spake Mustapha, offering his flask to Amurath, who drained it on the spot, and thus became a total non-abstainer.

Mustapha remained about the palace as Amurath’s boon companion, and their convivial evenings may have hastened the Sultan’s end; he was only thirty-eight when sickness overtook him so suddenly that he had hardly time to order the execution of his brother Ibrahim, by way of settling up the affairs of state, and receive a message that the sentence had been carried out, before he died.

Nevertheless Ibrahim came to the throne, and reigned from 1640-1648, for the Sultana’s message to Amurath IV,{210} bringing news of his brother’s execution, was strictly untrue, and by this conventional lie, as one might describe it considering the etiquette of the time, a Sultan, rapacious, mean, bloodthirsty, and a coward, rose to the dignity of the Caliphate, became God’s Shadow on Earth, and was girded with the sword of Othman. The harem was subject to Ibrahim’s most serious consideration, and therefore insisted too much on its power; so when Kara Mustapha, the Grand Vizier, forgot to order firewood on the requisition of the dear little ladies who made the Sultan’s life so bright and happy, he was arraigned on a capital charge. No matter that foreign politics engrossed the attention of the Grand Vizier, no matter that provinces won by the sword of Othman were drifting into other hands, no matter that the Treasury was empty—the ladies of the Seraglio had complained, and the Grand Vizier must suffer; so the executioner removed the only man who realized the needs of Turkey and strove to mend matters. To turn a dishonest penny for himself and his household expenses the Sultan sold high offices in the State, the Army, and the Navy, but when disaster attended Ottoman arms in their war against Venice, the Army became exasperated, deposed the Sultan, killed him, and set his infant son, Mohammed IV, a child of seven, upon the seat of the Cæsars and Sultans.

Fortunately the new Sultan’s mother had the great gift of finding the right man for the right place, the gift which enabled King William of Prussia, first German Emperor, to discover Bismarck, Moltke, and other great men who brought ruin to one Empire to give birth to another. The Sultana Validé called Mohammed Kiüprilü, then Governor of Jerusalem and Vizier of State, to be Grand Vizier, and thus started a dynasty of Grand Viziers which devoted great talents and energy to the saving of Ottoman power in the world. Mohammed, the new Grand Vizier,{211} was grandson of an Albanian who had migrated to Asia Minor and settled at Kiüpri. He was probably a convert to Islam for purposes of advancement, a usual occurrence in those days. Mohammed Kiüprilü entered the service of the Grand Vizier Khosren as kitchen-boy, rose to be cook, then Steward of the Household, was promoted Master of the Horse, then became Governor of Damascus, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, when the Sultana discovered him to the saving of Turkey.

Mohammed Kiüprilü set about his new duties with vigour and impartiality. There was much clearing-up at home; the Greek Patriarch had written to the Voivode of Wallachia prophesying that Christianity would soon replace falling Islam in the Ottoman possessions in Europe. His Holiness was hanged over his own gateway. The Grand Vizier spared no creed, no race, and thirty-six thousand persons suffered death in various forms during the first five years of the new order; Soulfikar, Chief Executioner of Constantinople, accounted for at least four thousand, strangled by his own hand and thrown into the Bosphorus. By these measures order was restored, then the navy was rebuilt, the army refitted, and Ottoman prestige rose again with the reconquest of several lost provinces.

Another thoroughly efficient Kiüprilü, Achmet, followed his father in the Grand Vizierate, and led an army of 120,000 men, 120 field-guns, 12 heavy siege-guns, 6000 camels, and 10,000 mules, to Hungary, while Sultan Mohammed stayed behind at Adrianople indulging in his only pastime, the chase. The Ottoman army overran all Hungary and Transylvania, spreading devastation, until it finally halted on the banks of the Raab. Here, near the Monastery of St. Gothardt, East and West met in battle again. Many years had passed since their last encounter; in the meantime the West had progressed{212} slowly, surely. German pikemen and musketeers offered solid, organized resistance, and kept the fiery irregular Akindji at bay; the cuirassiers of the West, heavy, steel-clad cavalry, riding in serried ranks, knee to knee, ploughed through the masses of Turkish foot-folk, and then, unlike their knightly predecessors, were by discipline enabled to rally and move to further deeds of valour. Against this, the Turkish army of that day had lost some of its old enthusiasm and had learnt nothing new. So at St. Gothardt, as at Kirk Kilisse, we find the West, high-purposed, highly trained and disciplined, opposed to the East, trading on a military tradition, unprepared, corrupt, inefficient, ill-disciplined—and with the same results. The battle of St. Gothardt-on-Raab was the first great defeat inflicted on the East by the West; 10,000 Turks were slain, 15 guns, 40 standards captured. A discomfited army returned to Constantinople after a twenty years’ truce had been arranged with Austria, and sought relief, and possibly found it, in expeditions elsewhere; Candia was taken after a vain blockade and siege of twenty years.

The Sultan was induced to accompany his army on the campaign against Poland in 1672, and gained some victories: Kaminec and Lemberg were taken, Podolia and Ukraine added to Turkey, and a tribute of two hundred and twenty thousand ducats was imposed on the conquered territory. But Sobieski and his Polish nobles combined against the Turks, routing them with great slaughter at Lemberg in 1675, though leaving matters much as they had been.

On the death of Achmet Kiüprilü matters went from bad to worse, the Turks being defeated in the Ukraine by Russia; nevertheless a great effort was made to carry war into Austria, and an army of two hundred and seventy-five thousand men set out under Kara Mustapha,{213} the new Grand Vizier, to besiege Vienna once more. Count Stahremberg and his garrison of eleven thousand men stoutly resisted the assaults delivered by the Turkish troops, who devoted all their energies to the attack, neglecting the defence of their own scattered encampments. This made Sobieski’s task the easier when his army swooped down from the heights around Vienna. The Turks were totally routed, and driven in headlong flight before the armies of the West. Kara Mustapha was executed at Belgrade to expiate the general inefficiency of the army, which was thereupon beaten again in a renewed attempt on Hungary, at Mohacz; this battle freed the Magyars from the domination of the Sublime Porte. Turkey’s misfortunes emboldened Venice to make reprisals on outlying posts of the Empire, and as Turkish naval power had declined in keeping with the efficiency of the land army, disaster after disaster exasperated the unruly soldiery, and they took to their favourite expedient of dethroning the Sultan.

During the reign of Mohammed IV the status of the Janissaries was altered; no more Christian children were added to the corps, only the offspring of former Janissaries, and an ever-increasing number of Turks and other Moslems, in quest of the many civil as well as military posts, often given to this body.

Another Solyman, second of the name, followed Mohammed IV, and he was followed by Achmet II (1691-1695). Both sovereigns enjoyed the services of a Kiüprilü as Grand Vizier, for Kiüprilü Zadé Mustapha held that high office during both reigns; but the Ottoman power had been much enfeebled by disastrous wars and inner dissensions; moreover, it had to contend against one of the world’s greatest soldiers, “Prinz Eugen, der Edle Ritter.” He scattered the Ottoman armies like chaff before the wind{214} at Peterwardein and Belgrade, and again at Slankamen, in Achmet’s reign, at which place, where the Theiss and Danube meet in a broad expanse of water, the Turkish river fleet won a partial success, which was negatived by a sore defeat on land. Kiüprilü was killed, and the Turks were driven from Hungary. Transylvania, too, was lost when Tekeli was beaten by the Imperialists; but yet subtler, more insidious enemies preyed upon the nation, famine and pestilence, and to all these troubles Nature contributed a devastating earthquake. These things came upon Sultan Achmet during the four years of his reign, and sent him broken-hearted to the grave.

The Western nations had emerged out of their sea of troubles when Achmet II died in 1695. The German Empire had entered on a lengthy period of peace after distracting wars, and the gentler arts of peace revived. But the wars had consolidated the military power of the Empire, the impetuous chivalry of knights took the ordered form of discipline without losing its martial spirit, and Western brains advanced rapidly along the path of progress in all directions.

In the meantime, Turkey had learnt nothing new, and was falling behind. The art of war was neglected, other arts there were none; and while in England immortal Milton’s pen added to the world’s literary treasures, while France was listening to Corneille’s sonorous verses, and Algernon Sidney was discoursing concerning government, the power of the Osmanli was sinking into the ruin of corruption, the Empire built up by warlike Sultans was passing out of the hands of those who could not add to the conquests of war by the arts of peace, into the hands of those who were inspired with the spirit of a new era.{215}

CHAPTER XIV

THE power of the Ottoman Empire had been brought very low by the time Mustapha II, son of Mohammed IV, came to the throne in 1695. This Sultan was a man of greater capacity than any of his predecessors, and saw that only a return to the old ideals could bring the people back to the ways that lead to success in the field and prestige in the council of nations. He therefore issued a Hatti-Sherif, a manifesto of state, declaring that he would restore ancient usages, and in person lead his armies in the field. This he did with some initial success, marching from Belgrade to Temesvar, retaking several strong places, and defeating the Austrian general, Veterani, whose hiding-places were the caves which the traveller may see in the precipitous rocks that close in the Danube to northward on its way through the pass of Kazan to the Iron Gate. The campaign against Austria in 1696 also brought to the Sultan the victory over the Duke of Saxony and an{216} imperial army at Temesvar. But in the following year Mustapha had to meet Prince Eugène at Zenta, and being completely out-manœuvred, suffered defeat, aggravated by the conduct of the mutinous Janissaries, who thought fit to massacre their officers during the battle. By evening of September 11th, 1697, Prince Eugène saw his enemy in full flight, and was able to send the following message to his imperial master at Vienna: “The sun seemed to linger on the horizon to gild with his last rays the victorious standards of Austria.”

Sultan Mustapha fled from the field, where his Grand Vizier lay slain among thousands of his army, and never led his troops again in person. A treaty of peace for twenty-five years was signed at Carlowitz, on the Danube, after a vast amount of unnecessary trouble. The ambassadors of all the Powers, and there were many, represented at the conference, were each so jealous of their sovereign’s dignity that the order of precedence could not be agreed upon. So a special chapel was built, and provided with so many doors that all the ambassadors could enter at the same moment. The chapel still stands on a hill-side near Carlowitz, a witness to this scene of exquisite trifling.

Turkey was still strong at sea, and able to check Venetian aggressions, but on land Ottoman power had sunk below the level of the great nations of Western Europe, and so began that rôle of political rather than military importance, which has characterized the status of the Sublime Porte ever since.

Another Kiüprilü Grand Vizier, Hussein, assisted Mustapha with the family aptitude for affairs, and certainly managed to improve Turkey’s financial position. But the enemies of the Porte were all too powerful, not only Austria, but also Russia, for Peter the Great had been waging war with energy, and had added Turkish territory by the Sea{217} of Azof to his Empire. Sick at heart, Mustapha II died in 1703, shortly after his Grand Vizier, Hussein Kiüprilü.

It was perhaps owing to Russian designs that the Porte looked with a friendly mien towards Great Britain, and we find Sir Robert Sutton establishing pleasant relations between his sovereign and Achmet III, brother of and successor to Mustapha III. In this monarch’s reign a romantic person roamed at large in Europe, fought battles, lost and won, and generally conducted himself more after the manner of the condottieri of other times than of a reigning sovereign of eighteenth-century Europe: Charles XII of Sweden was abroad, and though doing very much, effecting nothing. He drifted through Russia at variance with that country’s ruler, and being defeated by Peter the Great at Pultowa in 1709, sought refuge in the Sultan’s dominions. Another name well known to legend comes into history for a moment here—Hetman Mazeppa, who joined forces with Charles XII and, being considered a traitor by the Russians, met with the treatment his case required, according to their standard.

The Swedish King’s stay in Turkish territory did not improve the relations between the Porte and Russia; war was declared by the former in 1710, the method adopted being to incarcerate the Tsar’s ambassador in the stronghold of Yedi Koulé. It is true that Turkey gained some successes, defeating Peter the Great by the banks of the Pruth, and Ottoman arms won some small victories over in Austria; but the decline of Turkey was not arrested. Prince Eugène marched on Belgrade, Servia rose, and more and more possessions passed from the Ottoman Empire in Europe, till by the Peace of Passarowitz, in Servia, all Hungary became free of Turkey, who had also lost Belgrade, Semendria, several other cities, and the province of Wallachia.

Achmet abdicated in favour of his nephew, Mahmoud I,{218} whose reign, from 1730-1754, showed a yet greater decline of Turkish power and prestige. Topal Osman, Mahmoud’s general, scored some successes over the raiding Persian armies, but was defeated and killed at Kerkoud, while Nadir, Shah of Persia, was beating other Turkish armies. Desultory wars with Austria led to no other result than that Turkey was passing out of the ranks of great Powers, through its inability to adapt itself to the spirit of the age, to adopt new methods in place of those which had proved useless, even harmful, in the day of trouble.

Attempts were made from time to time at a new order of things. Amongst the reformers was Gazi Hassan, the hero of the battle of Shio, in 1770. A fierce sea-fight was raging, in which the Turks were being worsted, when Hassan brought his ship alongside the Russian Admiral’s and fought yard-arm to yard-arm until both vessels caught fire and went up. Hassan was the last to leave his ship, and then swam ashore, badly wounded. He rose to high office in the State, and endeavoured to introduce modern improvements, to equip the army with up-to-date weapons, and to restore some sort of discipline; but the army would have none of it, and even stout-hearted Hassan could not push his way through the inert mass of Turkish officialdom which crowded in to stifle all efforts at reform. Only the navy experienced any improvement, and that because Hassan insisted on the high-pooped, heavy Turkish ships being replaced by lighter, faster vessels, built on English lines. But fresh difficulties arose over the manning of these ships, as the Turks declined to do anything but act as gunners, so Greeks had to fill the ratings of the sailors. Gazi Hassan worked hard at this reform, and was surely entitled to the gratitude of his country; but such feelings existed not in those days, neither will any reformer find it in Turkey of to-day. Gazi Hassan was unsuccessful in war, during the latter years of{219} his life, owing to the opposition offered to all his reforms, but this was not taken into consideration; it probably increased his unpopularity, till Selim III, on his accession in 1789, had to execute the old hero to appease a tumult among the populace of Constantinople.

Selim III did not gain anything by his complaisance to the unruly soldiery, for by the beginning of his reign the Janissaries had become quite unmanageable, at least to a weak man. Their numbers had increased considerably, and stood at one hundred and fifty thousand, at least on paper, but there was sufficient reason to suppose that many figured on paper only, and that high-placed officials pocketed the pay of the non-existent members of the corps. Another change which had crept into the corps was that members were not necessarily available for, or liable to, military service, so many being engaged in civil employment. They were, however, ever ready to take up arms in revolt, and proved their political power by deposing and murdering Sultan Achmet III. The Janissaries had lost their raison d’être, and were no more than a public nuisance at a time when all Europe was seething with discontent, when old thrones were falling to the ground and new popular political institutions were teaching monarchs how a people prefers to be governed. Possibly the Janissaries were influenced by the spirit of revolt which informed so many peoples at this period, but I think it more likely that they acted out of selfishness only, and had no other desire than to hold the power of the State in their own hands, to their own advantage, allowing the Sultan to reign as long as he did not interfere with their rule. They were far too bigoted and jealous of their privileges to have taken to the idealistic notions which possessed so many patriots of the French Revolution. They deposed Selim III, and his successor reigned only a few months.{220}

Then came Mahmoud II, and he was more like the Sultans of the days of conquests than any of his immediate predecessors had been. The Janissaries annoyed him, so he determined to get rid of them, and happily had heard of the method used by Murat for soothing the turbulent Madrileños. It was time for drastic measures, because the external situation was becoming very dangerous; the Greeks were in revolt, Kara George had risen in Servia, Christians were being massacred in the Ottoman dominions, and the fact was beginning to attract the notice of Europe, in spite of so many other preoccupations. So Mahmoud II saw to his artillery, and instructed his Master of the Ordnance, Ibrahim, commonly called Kara Gehennin, Black Hell, in the use he wished it put to. The Janissaries were ordered out to military exercises one day, and as this did not please them, they gave the usual signal of revolt, by upsetting their camp-kettles.

Mahmoud was ready for them; he unfurled the Sacred Standard of the Prophet, called on all true believers to rally round their Padishah and Caliph, and left Ibrahim to do the rest with his artillery. Those Janissaries who survived this treatment broke back to barracks, where they barricaded themselves, some six thousand. Ibrahim came up with his guns and knocked the buildings down about their ears; those who did not perish here were slain by irate citizens wherever they were caught, and so a great corps, whose earliest records were those of honourable battle, perished in a day. A new army of forty thousand was then raised, clothed, armed, and disciplined, according to European models.

The old order was changing, had changed, with startling quickness all over Europe, and all the known world was affected by the events that filled the times when Mahmoud II sat on the throne of Constantine. When this Sultan succeeded, France had already passed through the fire of{221} Republican Government to the glory of a military Empire, had again accepted the principle of hereditary nobility while French arms were victorious over nearly all the continent of Europe. A new Republic had arisen out of muddle and misrule in Great Britain’s American colonies, and as compensation, perhaps, that country was laying the foundations of the Indian Empire, and paving the way to the possession of Egypt, on the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula.

Mahmoud lived long enough to witness all these many changes. Before he died, in 1839, he saw the fleets of Great Britain, France, and Russia threatening him with punishment unless the bloodshed caused by the Hellenic effort after freedom ceased at once, saw his own fleet, despite its bravery and that of his Egyptian allies, destroyed at Navarino, and as consequence a Christian King appointed by the Powers to rule over his former subjects in Greece.

Even Turkey endeavoured to show some appreciation of the “Zeit Geist” by instituting reforms, and wisely began with the Army, calling in for the first time German instructors. One of these, a tall young officer with fair curly hair, some forty years later planned the campaign which laid the second French Empire in the dust, Field-Marshal Count von Moltke. Of the Turks, after the war with Russia, which followed shortly on Navarino, Moltke said: “The splendid appearance, the beautiful arms, the reckless bravery of the old Moslem horde had disappeared, yet this new army had one quality which placed it above the numerous host that in former times the Porte could summon to the field—it obeyed.”

Does the spirit of obedience still form one of the many good qualities of the Turkish soldier? It is hard to say, for this war has given instances of the old bravery and devotion, steadiness under fire, which means discipline, obedience; but against that you have evidence of the{222} contrary, of swarms of men straying away unarmed from their posts at the front, and hiding in the purlieus of Stamboul, while from Asia Minor come reports of whole divisions which had declined to take part in the Balkan War.

In the meantime the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire continued. By 1811 Milosh Obrenoviç had forced the Porte to relinquish all claims on Servia, and in 1832 a Bavarian Prince became King of an independent Greece. Some thirty years later the Russo-Turkish War gave autonomy to Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina were occupied by Austria, these events being followed by the independence of Roumania and Servia as kingdoms entirely free from any Turkish control. The last of Turkey’s conquered provinces became free when Tsar Ferdinand proclaimed himself ruler of all the Bulgarians. This last event synchronized with an expression of popular feeling engineered by a political association generally known as Young Turks.

It is a common saying that nothing changes in the East; it is also inaccurate, like most generalizations. Changes came, even to Turkey, through her contact with the West. Change comes very slowly to such a people as are the Turks, and when it does come it leaves behind more bewilderment among the bulk of the nation than is usually the case in Western races. Again, to the outside world the changes which have passed over the Ottoman Empire in recent years have seemed to come suddenly, because the effects had the appearance of precipitancy. Revolt, revolutionary changes, are nothing new in the Ottoman Empire, but till lately have passed more or less unnoticed, probably because their effects were not particularly striking.

Constantinople
Seen from above Scutari; beyond it the Sea of Marmora and the distant coast where the lines of Chatalja end to southward.

Such changes as have taken place occurred almost entirely in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and may be said to have begun during the last century.{223} The European provinces of Turkey always contained factors making for the disruption of the Empire: subject races, alien in everything to their masters, centrifugal forces for a time controlled by military governors whose methods did not as a rule tend to bring about conciliation. The bonds that bound the provinces to the Central Government were none of the strongest before the days when an official’s every step was dictated to him by telegraph from the Porte, and local governors acted with great independence. Military pashas even made war on and concluded peace with each other, after the manner of mediæval dynasts. Some went even further, as did the Pasha of Janina. He started life as a brigand, and made himself pasha by the simple expedient of forging his commission. This trifling misdemeanour was overlooked by the Porte, as he was a strong man, and might be useful to the interests of the Empire, and, moreover, if it came to the worst, could always be disowned. As it happened, Ali Pasha was too strong, or the Central Government too weak, and so he went to lengths to which no other pasha had gone before him.

Ali Pasha’s lifetime fell into those days when Europe was big with revolution against ancient dynasties, and was tiring of time-honoured institutions. No doubt personal vanity, that strong incentive of revolutionaries, reformers, and others in search of notoriety, swayed Ali Pasha. He conducted a foreign policy quite independent of that pursued by the Porte, entered into negotiations with Napoleon or Pitt, as he deemed expedient, and generally acted with complete independence. Incidentally, Ali Pasha helped towards the dismemberment of his sovereign’s Empire by favouring the Greeks in their strivings after freedom; it was probably not his original intention. Ali Pasha very fittingly fell a victim to a conspiracy of those whom he had injured in one way or another.{224}

Another pasha to raise the banner of revolt was Passvan Oglou of Vidin, who, when the Porte sought to depose him, prepared to march on Constantinople, and the Central Government was obliged to make peace with him.

Then, again, the Pasha of Scutari revolted, but the Porte contrived to settle him and the chief of his conspiracy by a breach of Turkish hospitality, by a massacre at a banquet.

The separation of Egypt from the complex of military governorships which constituted the Ottoman Empire, was another indication that the old order was not in keeping with the spirit of the age. The destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino, and the massacre of the Janissaries, by which the flower of the Turkish Army was lost, were further signs of the times, and prepared for changes even in Turkish administration, and finally, by the emancipation of Greece, that administration was deprived of some of its best brains, for since that event not even the meanest Greek would accept office under the Porte.

The telegraph wrought further changes; it brought the Central Government, restored to order by Reshid Pasha, into closer touch with the provinces, made greater control of officials possible, and finally robbed these of all initiative. Moreover, higher officials were no longer chosen from among the local magnates, but drawn from a lower class, less likely to act independently; by this a new bureaucracy was called into being and its ineptitude caused further trouble.

In the reign of Abdul Hamid all the vilayets of European Turkey were absolutely controlled from Yildiz Kiosk, and as that ruler was far above concerning himself with such trifling matters as racial distinctions among his subjects, unless they proved of value in sowing discord between the various nationalities under his sway, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and others met with little consideration at the{225} hands of the Sultan’s deputies. Force majeure applied by the Great Powers was the only argument to which Sultan Abdul Hamid answered, and the Russo-Turkish war brought about changes which we have already considered.

The great body of the Turkish nation lived quite contentedly under Abdul Hamid. He was Sultan, Caliph, God’s Shadow upon Earth, and ordered mundane matters from heights almost as remote as the high heavens. He was the head of a theocratic power, based on militarism, and his Turkish subjects were content that he should remain so. To them a ruler who declined to differentiate between dynamo and dynamite was well suited. Every village provided for its own security by appointing watchmen, and education was the concern of the churches. The Gendarmerie was not concerned with preventing crime or tracing criminals unless the State, not private property, were endangered.

That a State so raised, so maintained, should act as an organization for protecting and furthering the interests of its subjects, of whatever race or creed, is not to be expected, neither did the great body of the Turkish nation ever wish it to assume such functions. For the Turks were the dominant race, the conquerors, and to them any idea of their non-Islamic, non-Turk fellow-subjects as equals was inconceivable; their religion made such a state of affairs impossible. Thus for the ordinary Turk, as for the more enlightened ones, those in power had every interest in supporting the old order of things, for most of them must have known that once the non-Turk elements were placed on a level with the sons of Othman, the latter’s locus standi would have gone, seeing his ineptitude for any modern thought, his incapacity for progress. The raison d’être of the State was to perpetuate Osmanli ascendancy, and to this end Abdul Hamid worked, and he worked well for his own people.{226} This ascendancy was jealously guarded; no Christian was ever allowed executive command over Moslems, and to this is due in great measure the failure of all attempted reforms in the naval and military services of the Ottoman Empire.

Added to this is a certain distrust which the Turk has of all Christians, believing that a man who does not follow the law of the Koran cannot be absolutely loyal to the Sultan. In many instances the Turk’s suspicions were justified, but it was not religious sentiment alone which separated Moslem and non-Moslem in the Ottoman Empire, for those Jews who are the Sultan’s subjects are well content to remain so. Unlike other non-Moslem subjects of the Sultan, those Jews, mostly refugees from Spain’s and Portugal’s most Catholic Majesties, have no outside Powers to espouse their cause, nor have they any grievance, for, being isolated, the Porte has no reason to fear them. It is most unlikely that the Jews of Saloniki, for instance, would welcome the Slavs as masters, nor have the Greeks, since their occupation of that town, ingratiated themselves with the children of Israel.

Like the Jews, the Turks form a religious community rather than a State in its modern conception, and these two resemble each other inasmuch as neither understands the word “Fatherland” as applying to a country exclusively occupied by their co-nationals. The word “Vatan,” meaning Motherland, conveys no definite meaning to the Turks; it had to be interpreted to them by the self-appointed leaders of thought who formed the Young Turk Party. To those who have lived in India the word “Vatan” will be familiar in the sense that it defines a man’s place of origin rather than a sentimental idea, such as the words “Home,” “Patria,” “Heimat,” or “Vaterland.”

To this inarticulate mass of Moslems living contentedly under the Sultan’s sway, a body of Young Turks brought the Western conception of a State. The “Spirit of the{227} East,” so strong among the Turks, was disquieted by a movement which seemed to work outside the limits of the “Law,” as written by the Prophet. The work done by the new political power in Turkey appealed strongly to the great mass of the people in Western Europe, to those who had no experience of the East and its mysterious ways. The reformers, after years of strenuous effort, years spent in exile, broke in upon Abdul Hamid’s plans for maintaining Turkish ascendancy when Niazi Bey raised the standard of revolt in 1908, and threatened to march on Constantinople with the Second and Third Army Corps. Abdul Hamid yielded to pressure, and ordered the election of a Chamber of Deputies, at the same time encouraging a counter-revolution in his capital. This movement was led by Kiamil Pasha, the Grand Vizier then (as he is again at present), against the Committee of Union and Progress. The reformers proved too strong, and Kiamil Pasha was forced to resign; he was succeeded by Hilmi Pasha, formerly Commissioner of Macedonia. The acts of the Committee of Union and Progress began to bear fruit at once, and of a nature unexpected by those enthusiasts who had only the idea of a great Liberal Empire under a constitutional Sultan before their eyes, otherwise blind to side issues. But these side issues grew and crystallized into a segregation of the non-Islamic sections of the population, who felt more than ever justified in insisting on their own respective nationality. An early disagreement arose between the Committee of Union and Progress and the Liberal Union, a body called into being to represent the Christian electorate. The murder of Hussein Fehmi, an Albanian editor of the Union’s official organ, provoked his compatriots among the troops in Constantinople to action against the Committee of Union and Progress; mutinous soldiers seized the Parliament House and telegraph offices, while delegates from the Liberal Union suggested{228} entering into negotiations with the other party. In the meantime Abdul Hamid had pardoned the mutineers, and this gave the Committee sufficient excuse for considering the revolt as reactionary; the Committee were well aware that their new regime could not succeed while the Sultan seemed to favour reaction. An army under Mahmoud Shevket marched on Constantinople, invested the capital, occupied it after some fighting, and ordered the National Assembly to depose Abdul Hamid, electing his younger brother to succeed as Mohammed V.

In itself, the deposition of a Sultan by a revolted section of the Army was nothing new in the annals of Ottoman history; it had occurred frequently, but was generally understood to have been an expression of the “Will of Allah.” “The Will of the People” was made responsible for the effects of the last revolution, and none were more bewildered than the bulk of the Turkish people themselves when this reasoning was explained to them. The Effendi class, the gentry, as it were, many of them men of intelligence, were as a whole by no means enamoured of the Committee of Union and Progress and its ways, knowing well how little the Turkish people were prepared for violent reforms. The people themselves seem to have quite failed to enter into the spirit of the new era; they missed the religious note; no mention was made of Allah, in fact, the professed agnosticism of some less cautious reformers led them to suggest that Allah had nothing to do with the business.

Then again, Christians, even Armenians, were to be looked upon as equals, treated as such, whereas every one knew that they had to submit, as becomes the vanquished, thus duly acknowledging the Turk as their superiors. Then a new word, besides the unintelligible “Vatan,” was being used to describe the governing power, “Constitution,” “Meshrutiet,” which many took to be a new, strange name for the succeeding Sultan. The election{229} of delegates did not meet with thorough approval; some considered that it raised individuals above the mass of Moslems, who are all equal in the sight of the Prophet, others could not understand why an assembly was necessary to voice the Sultan’s “Irade” (in its original meaning, intention), and, again, there were those who thought of Parliament as a plaything of the Sultan’s, and justified for that reason only.

In the meantime enthusiastic Western nations, especially those who consider representative government the panacea for all social ills, because their own genius had evolved the system, loudly acclaimed the Young Turks as saviours of their country, as apostles of freedom, as heroes, and most members of the reform party gladly accepted this interpretation of their somewhat confused mentality. If you are called a hero you are very likely to believe it, even if it robs you of your proper sense of proportion. This happened to the Young Turks collectively. The promised reforms had never been demanded by the bulk of the Turkish people, who therefore had no standpoint from which to gauge the results of reforms; they supposed that everything was to be free, amongst others, railway travelling, and I have heard of Turks invading a first-class compartment, and not only declining to pay their fare, but objecting to Christians riding in the same coach.

The Committee of Union and Progress showed the inherited genius of destruction, but failed when it came to construction. Western people said, “Give them time,” but time brought no betterment. The old order had been ruthlessly destroyed, the fear of authority had been dispelled, and nothing was created to fill the vacant places in the mind of the people. Public administration suffered, neglected because the reformers had no thought but for the maintenance of their own dignity, and this was entrusted to an esoteric militarism, to a political body whose{230} members were not publicly known, and who were therefore removed from public responsibility. The worst effects of this clandestine body politic were felt in the army, and those whose business it was to maintain the efficiency of the Sultan’s forces were too much concerned with political machinations to attend to their primary duties. The disorder which resulted in all departments of public life led to an increase in the ever-present inertia of the Turk when not engaged in warfare, and acted as a further hindrance to reform.

In the Army the spirit of change brought from the West worked the greatest havoc. The Anatolian peasant, a simple-minded, strong, enduring child, when called for service with the colours, found no more of the old officers, who were content to lead without domineering, in a single-hearted effort for the Faith. In their stead he found men who assumed airs of superiority, who lived apart, and were not interested in the simple working of the soldier’s mind. These officers took as their models the men who train the German Army on German lines, suitable only to the German people, and appear to have disregarded the national peculiarities of their own kin. Some were even lax in matters of religious observance, and how could a war prove victorious when all due glory was not given to the God of battles? Again, there were Christians fighting, in the ranks only, side by side with Moslems—how could this be? Is not war a religious commandment, a sacred matter in which infidels can have no part? The Koran says: “Who dies for God’s sake receives the highest reward”; but how can a Christian be so blest, as he does not follow the law of the Prophet? Thus bewildered the Anatolian peasant marched to war, inspired by Islam, obedience, resignation, against the armed manhood of nations who breathed freedom.

The Porte, or the inexpert executive of the Ottoman Empire, had failed to realize that the Balkan States had{231} been strengthened by the weakening of Islam’s simple ideals, that hopes of liberty had risen high among the Christian subjects of the Sultan in Europe, and that a formidable alliance was in being, conceived with the sole idea of ending Turkish rule over European Christians.

With a thoroughness of which the Oriental mind is incapable, the great coup had been prepared by the Balkan States. A hard-and-fast Alliance which for the time overrode all political and religious differences confronted the Porte, and roused it suddenly to face a desperate emergency. The Kochana massacres brought matters to a head, while Turkey was still engaged in apathetic war with Italy. Bulgaria insisted in peremptory tones on reform in Macedonia, Servia raised its voice over the detention of munitions of war in transit from Saloniki, via Üsküb, to Nish; Montenegro found a casus belli, and was first to pour its armed sons down from the mountains into Turkey. They captured Detchich on October 9th, the day after the formal declaration of war; they seized Tuzi and Berane, and proceeded to invest Scutari. While thus engaged the Porte was forced to declare war on Bulgaria and Servia on October 17th, and on the same day Greece took a like step towards Turkey. An army under the Crown Prince at once invaded the southern provinces of the Empire.

The floods were out, and Western armies, highly trained, purposeful, each individual fighter inspired by love of liberty, full of zeal for the cause he had at heart, overflowed into Thrace, Thessaly, and Macedonia. The Ottoman Army had but recently been engaged in manœuvres, and these had shown many glaring defects of organization. When the Allied Armies marched, the Turks were more unready than ever; they had even sent their reservists home. Then began a scene of frantic disorder. Units were hurried to the front where the commanders of brigades, divisions, army corps, impatiently awaited them. The{232} carefully arranged commands and sub-commands were entirely disregarded, and each brigadier or divisional commander seized on troops as they arrived, indiscriminately, and added them to his command. Thus the war, begun in confusion, invited defeat. And defeat came swiftly, mercilessly, while the unorganized masses of Ottoman troops, however bravely individuals might comport themselves, were swept away before the rising tide. Everybody failed, except perhaps the long-suffering Turkish soldier; ammunition reserves were not, food supplies gave out at once, and by the end of October all Thessaly, all Macedonia, the greater part of Thrace, were no longer Turkish possessions, and the Sultan’s armies, broken, starved, diseased, were driven behind the lines of Chatalja, the outer defences of the capital. On these lines the remnant of Ottoman military power guarded the last trace of Turkish dominion in Europe; shivering on the wind-swept heights, ill-equipped, underfed, regardless of elementary hygiene, they awaited Kismet, these ill-used, long-suffering sons of Islam, while in the Empire’s capital the mosques filled with sick and wounded, mingling with refugees from the former European vilayets. There were others yet in the City, or why should the War Office have issued an order to the imams, the priests, to render account of officers and men of the army who are hiding in the narrow streets of their respective parishes? The police were also instructed to demand of officers they saw in the streets some document to show that they were authorized to be in the town instead of at the front.

Seven short weeks and the Empire carved out of Europe by the sword of Othman has shrivelled up before the fierce blast of war like grass before a prairie fire. And in their need and sickness the soldiers of Islam turned to Allah, the god of battles, and sought refuge in the mosques built to commemorate the triumphs of departed Caliphs.{233}

CHAPTER XV

WHEN Mohammed II completed the conquest of the Eastern Empire by the capture of Constantinople he made himself master of a large population, both in the City and the former Empire of old Byzantium, which had for some time been considered Greek, and which was subsequently called Greek. This classification was religious from the Turkish point of view, from that of the Greeks themselves it became racial as time went on. To the conquering Moslem all those were Greeks who belonged to the Orthodox Church; the Greeks, however, insisted on their descent from the historic people who had made their country famous before the days of the Romans even, the Hellenes, whose literature they adopted, whose art they basely imitated, and with whose high attributes they consider themselves endowed.

This people, the classic Greeks, the Hellenes, had inhabited the Peloponese Peninsula from those dark ages{234} before recorded history, and even in prehistoric times had occupied the islands between Greece and Asia Minor. No doubt the Hellenes moved down from the plains of Central Europe, the cradle of the Aryan race, in successive waves, being urged forward by seething masses of young nations behind them. We have some indications as to what manner of men they were in the early works of art of the sixth century B.C., which tend to show that these ancient immigrants were large, blue-eyed, fair-haired men. Anthropologists maintain after studying the skulls of ancient Greeks that these were dolichocephalic, long-headed, which tends further to the conclusion that the first invaders of this peninsula were akin to the races of Northern Europe. The first immigrants were probably the Arcadians, who spread from the coasts to the islands and populated Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus. They were followed by the Doric tribe, kinsmen who came from Thrace, who probably brought the first immigrants to submission and gradually absorbed them, and such of the aboriginals, the Ionians, who did not migrate to Asia Minor. Within the range of history another people came down from the north to influence the Peloponese, the Macedonians. Their origin is uncertain, but what traces are left of their old language, a name here and there, suggests that they were akin to the Illyrians, had adopted Greek culture, and were ruled by princes who wished to be considered pure Greeks. It would seem, therefore, that the ancient Hellenes were a mixture of various northern Aryan races and aboriginal inhabitants, Illyrians, Ionians, whose origin forms a yet unsolved historical problem. The Peloponese was, as it were, a pier, standing out into the Mediterranean Sea, and from which northern ideas extended and spread southward to Africa, eastward over the Archipelago to Asia. The subtle attraction of an outlet must have acted{235} on the subconsciousness of other northern races, in that the Hellenes, far from feeling secure in their peninsula, were constantly exposed to the visits of strange barbaric visitors whenever “Wanderlust” moved the tribes of Central Europe. Of course, Romans left their impress, and so did wandering Goths, but strongest of all was the influence of the Slavs, and they so seriously affected the Peloponese that at one time it was known as Slavinia.

To all this came an Albanian invasion in the thirteenth century, so that the Greeks of to-day cannot lay claim to anything more than spiritual descent from the ancient Hellenes. The type has changed completely from that of the traditional Greek: he was tall, fair-haired, and long-headed; the Greek of to-day is of medium height, they have not ten per cent of fair-haired people amongst them, and they are brachycephalic, like the Slavs. Other Slav influences may be traced in the language, in the names of places and rivers. The Hellenes of to-day may be spiritual children of Hellas, physically they are certainly the result of a mixing of races—Illyrian, Ionian, Hellenes, Latins, Goths, Slavs of various tribes, Vlachs, Albanians, and a dash contributed by the pious Crusaders of Western Europe. These Greeks are widely distributed over the Balkan Peninsula, throughout the Turkish Empire, and over the Archipelago, and are considered a nation on the basis of an assertion made by M. Kapodistrias, the first President of the new Hellenic State. When asked, Who are the Greeks? he answered: “The Greek nation consists of the people who, since the conquest of Constantinople, have never ceased to profess adherence to the Orthodox Church, to speak the language of their fathers, and who have remained under the jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, of their Church, wherever they{236} might live in the Turkish Empire.” This is, of course, a very inaccurate description, but at least serves to illustrate Greek pretensions.

The Greeks reckon the total of their nationals in the Balkan Peninsula at roughly eight millions, but I doubt whether they number more than five millions, for the Helenophils who have been making propaganda for years among the Slavs in Macedonia are much inclined to count in those converts, many of whose sons, by the way, have been won back by the Slavs and now call themselves Serbs or Bulgars, according to the nationality of their teachers. About two millions of these five make up the population of the Kingdom of Greece, the remainder are scattered about in the other Balkan States. The majority are to be found in Turkey and along the coasts from Saloniki to Varna, between two and three hundred thousand live in Constantinople and by the shores of the Bosphorus, in fact, they are to be found in all the important towns, not only of Turkey in Europe and Asia Minor, but also in Bulgaria and Russia. No doubt the preference for town life dates from the days of barbarian invasions. The Greeks are chiefly engaged in trade and business, though many are fishermen employed in the coasting trade.

Mohammed II, on his triumphal entry into Constantinople, found a smaller population than might have been expected from a large and important city. Many of the Greeks had fled, not a few had been massacred, and it took some skill and statecraft to induce the fugitives to return. This Mohammed succeeded in doing by reinstating the Greek Patriarch with great and solemn ceremony, and by promising perfect religious freedom to the Greek community. The Greeks had always devoted more attention to the affairs of their Church than to outside matters of state (which fact helped to ruin the Eastern Empire), and{237} the Sultan encouraged this spirit. He increased the importance of the Greek community in the capital by numerous concessions, such as ranking the Patriarch among the Viziers of State, giving him temporal control over his flock in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance, management of schools, in which he was assisted by officials of the Church with such high-sounding names as Logothete, Grand Treasurer, Chatophylax. Mohammed could afford to strengthen the Greek element in Constantinople as it was always under his eyes; in the country he endeavoured to break what remained by importing fifteen thousand Greeks from the land to the capital as settlers. The Turks were not much interested in trade, a pursuit that does not appeal to warriors, so business was left to the Greeks, and both parties were sufficiently satisfied to get on very well together at first.

There was some discontent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Selim I had an idea that a massacre might do good; however, he was dissuaded by the Mufti. About this time it was decided to take no more Greek children for the ranks of the Janissaries; the method formerly used kept the provincial Greeks in order by means of their own progeny converted to Islam and unrelenting foes to Christianity, and no more Greeks joined the Army of Turkey because none others than Moslems were allowed to serve in it. Christians might, however, become Armatoles, a kind of mounted gendarmes which the communities raised and kept at their own expense, as the Turk has never seen the necessity of securing any one’s life or fortune, and used what police force there was to nose out conspiracies and such matters of interest. Brigandage, if committed by Moslems upon Christians, was not looked upon as a serious crime, and went unpunished until Western nations began to interfere in Turkish affairs.{238} The Greeks in the country therefore kept their own gendarmerie, who, after the example of the Turkish zaptiehs, looked with no unfriendly eye on the reprisals committed by the Klephts, outlaws and brigands of their own race.

On the whole the Greeks had quite a bearable time under Turkish rule, especially in the capital, where their importance increased considerably. In the course of time a colony of patricians grew up around the Phanar, much in the same neighbourhood inhabited by those connected with the Byzantine Court before the conquest. These patricians were not descended from nobles of the former Empire, but came from families of merchants who had settled in Constantinople around the residency of the Patriarch.

When the military power of the Osmanli declined and they were obliged to use treaties where formerly threats had served their purpose, the Sublime Porte felt a need for trained intellects to carry on intricate negotiations, especially as the Turks were much too indolent to learn a foreign language. So Jews and renegades were called in as interpreters, and in course of time Greeks discovered a suitable field for their abilities in the welter of Turkish foreign affairs. The Turks were equally sensible to the uses of intellectual, though generally servile, Phanariots, and employed them in ever-increasing numbers and extended their responsibilities. A Greek, Panayoti, was made dragoman to the Porte by Achmet Kiüprilü; another Greek, Mavrocordato, signed the Treaty of Carlowitz as Turkish plenipotentiary; and so by degrees Greeks came into the public service of the Ottoman Empire. Phanariots rose to yet higher honours when at the beginning of the eighteenth century Turkey had reason to distrust the nationalist parties in Wallachia and Moldavia. Hospodars{239} were sent from Constantinople to those provinces, and many of these were of Greek Phanariot families, introducing into Roumania names well known there to-day: Mavrocordato, Soutza, Ypsilanti, Ghika.

The Orthodox Church was very active, especially in Macedonia, and it is thanks to her that the members of the Slav race in that province have not lost every trace of their nationality, every vestige of their faith during those long centuries when Servia groaned under the iron heel of Sultans passing through triumphant, and Bulgaria had ceased to be. That Christianity was kept alive in Servia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and that any culture remained in those countries after their conquest by the Turks, is due to the insistence with which the Patriarchate at Constantinople pursued its work of maintaining schools, distributing literature, etc., in those districts. True, their tendency and probably their aim was to Hellenize Serbs and Bulgarians. Moreover, they would have succeeded had not those nationalities, which the Orthodox Church had kept alive, felt their own strength and in their turn insisted on a line of their own. Certainly for many generations, and until within the memory of man, Bulgars and Serbs in Macedonia have described themselves as Greeks.

This propaganda continued unchecked so long as the Phanariots did not lay themselves open to the suspicion of Hellenism. Turkish rule was strict, often unjust, but the Turk had not come to realize that the subject races could make their way out of the mire into which Islam’s conquests had thrust them.

The literary spirit of the Greeks had been all but killed by the Moslem conquest of their capital, and when it revived at last spent its energies in theological controversy for several centuries. But by degrees colleges were started, theatres opened, and the world beyond the confines of the{240} Turkish Empire was called in to witness the Greek revival by assiduous Pan-Hellenic agencies, clubs, and societies in Vienna, Bucharest, Corfu. This revival was strongest, at least in its literary efforts, in the middle of the eighteenth century, towards the end of that, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century. As no revival can hold its head up without a poet or two, the Pan-Hellenes raised two, Rhigas and Coreas, poets and patriots who found it convenient to sing their inspired song some distance from home, for exile is always the most suitable setting for genius of that order, and is, moreover, so much safer. Unhappily this did not apply to Rhigas, who had settled somewhere in Austria; the Government of that country handed him over to the Turkish authorities, who executed him at Belgrade. His death inspired other poets to further efforts of the patriotic order, so all was not yet lost.

The commercial genius of the Greeks ever stood them in good stead; they defied the competition of others, and left even Jews and Armenians far behind. This quality led to their being preferred for the consular service of the Ottoman Empire. They managed to make considerable profits out of the treaty between Russia and Turkey in 1774, and soon the carrying trade of the Levant was in their hands. This attracted numbers of the seafaring Greeks into the mercantile marine, and left the Turkish Navy in recruiting difficulties, for it had depended on the Greeks for seamen. The prosperity of the Greek merchants carried them further afield, and they started large business houses in Odessa, Trieste, Venice, and London, and it was largely owing to these merchants that the patriotic songs of Rhigas were revived, and by them the nationalist ambitions of the Pan-Hellenes. The French Revolution fanned the spirit of revolt into living flame, and by 1815 a strong political union called the Hetaireia was called{241} into being, with the object of freeing Greece from Turkish rule by organized revolt. Four Greek merchants of Moscow started this union, and it was decorated with the usual accessories of conspiracy, symbols, ceremonies, a mysterious language, in fact, the whole outfit suitable to the occasion. Moreover, it flourished, and numbered two hundred thousand members by 1820. The Turks had taken the alarm meanwhile, and were preparing in characteristic fashion to meet all contingencies. Special officials, mostly Albanians, were appointed to keep a strict control over the mountain-passes from Macedonia and Epirus into Thessaly and Acarnania, and these officials managed their oppressive measures so well that by the middle of the eighteenth century they had removed all the little jealousies among the different Greek communities and led them all to coalesce; even the Klephts and Armatoles, official opponents as they were, became reconciled and united with the others against the Turks.

Another cause of unrest in Greece was the constant changing of the ruling power in Morea. Mohammed II took this province, all but a number of towns which Venice retained till 1540 and then handed over to the Turks. But the Venetians wanted them back, and re-annexed them about a century later, during the reign of a weak Sultan, and held them until they were again accorded to the Turks by the Peace of Passarowitz, in 1718.

As may be supposed, Russia and Greece entered into some kind of private understanding, and Peter the Great was by no means disinclined to assist in any revolt which would tend to weaken Ottoman power and make it easier for him to acquire those outlying bits of the Sultan’s Empire upon which he had set his heart. But no advantage came to Greece through Peter the Great’s policy, nor through the influence of Russia during the first rising of{242} the Hellenes, in 1770. Greece built firmly on Russian support, for Orloff, the favourite, had drawn Catherine’s attention to the state of affairs in that country, described to him by one Papadopoulo. However, something went wrong; the Greeks accused the Russians of treachery, the Russians the Greeks of cowardice, and in the end Greece got nothing and Russia the Crimea, which was probably the sole object of the manœuvre as far as the Northern Empire was concerned. The Turks, by way of admonition, let loose Albanian troops, with permission to plunder and ravage; fifty thousand Greeks were massacred and the country given over to desolation. The Albanians went out of hand so completely that they were beyond the control of the Porte for nine years after this unsuccessful Greek rising, and were not reduced to a semblance of submission until defeated by a Turkish army at Tripolitza. Nevertheless, when next Russia declared war on Turkey the latter at once let loose the Albanians over Greece again. In the meantime Klephts and Armatoles, united as wild men of the mountains, had become a formidable asset for purposes of revolt.

A number of islands were the first to throw off the Turkish yoke: Corfu, Paso, Zante, Ithaka, Kephalonia, and two others. These islands had belonged to Venice from the fifteenth century till the end of the eighteenth, when they were ceded to France, and after several changes became the United Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands, under Great Britain’s protection, until incorporated, without their consent, in the Kingdom of Greece, in 1863.

Assistance came to Greece in her struggle for freedom from a very unlikely quarter, from Ali Pasha of Janina, who, to further his ambition of becoming an independent ruler, used the Greeks for his purposes by inducing them to unite with him against the Sultan. Ali Pasha died{243} before his plans could mature, but, what he probably did not intend, Greece remained united, and were urged on by patriotism to go to further lengths.

The first serious revolt of the Hellenes against the Turks was engineered by Alexander Ypsilanti, son of a Hospodar, in Moldavia and Wallachia, but met with little sympathy from the Roumanians; and as Russia disowned Ypsilanti, the movement was crushed by the Turks in a few months. The attempted rising provoked the Moslems to a general massacre of Christians; the sons of Islam were summoned to a jehad, and racial and religious passions were roused to frenzy. Massacres occurred on both sides, savage executions took place; for instance, the Patriarch was hanged at his own gate, and many bishops and nobles were executed the same day, simply because they were suspected of complicity in a fresh revolt in Morea.

While the Morean rebels were being exterminated, the Porte found time for organized massacres in Macedonia and Thrace; but still revolution held its own, even gained some successes, assisted largely by foreign gold. Revolt had been in full swing for three years, without any evidence of calming down, so the Sultan ordered Mehemet Ali of Egypt to despatch an army of invasion to Morea. This was done; the army of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehemet Ali, had fairly easy work with the insurgents, stamping out the revolt in the usual, time-honoured manner, by exterminating the Greek population. Athens fell, Missilonghi was besieged, and Europe, sickening at the sights and sounds of devastation in Morea, determined to interfere. The combined squadrons of Great Britain, France, and Russia met at Navarino, to make what has since become quite a popular method of dealing with Turkey, a naval demonstration. Ibrahim misunderstood the situation, and fired on a British boat, instead of advising{244} the Sultan to make a number of promises he never would keep, and thus rid himself of those who interfered with his methods of government. This, of course, was too much; a battle ensued, after which there was no more Turkish fleet. Greece thereupon became independent.

As was only natural, there were no more high offices in the Ottoman Empire filled by Phanariots after Greece became an independent kingdom, and many of those patricians emigrated. This and other matters had a serious effect on Greek commerce, especially the carrying trade in the Levant, which has since passed into other hands. But the Hellenic culture has not fallen off, and the Greeks are probably among the best educated and most intelligent of the Sultan’s subjects.

There were a number of Greeks admitted into the Army under the regime of the Young Turks, and many of these took part in this Balkan war. I have heard that all work requiring skill and intelligence was left to them, that they formed the best engineers, pioneers, and were trusted as gunners rather than the simple souls who were hurried to the front from their Anatolian farms.

The Greeks are full of music too; you may hear their quaint, pathetic songs of an evening by the shores of the Bosphorus. To my mind they have a strange but attractive cadence. Some say that they are taken from the Italians, others that the Italians came here for them. I do not believe either version, but consider that these songs, like those of any other nation, are the natural expression of the soul of the people.

My readers may judge for themselves, as I include some Greek songs in this work. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a setting of the most interesting song I have ever heard in these parts, a song with a wistful beauty of its own, entirely spoilt by a travesty of it{245} made by the Turks, who took it as their National Anthem or Hymn of Liberty—I forget which. All I know is that here, again, they had destroyed without rebuilding.

{246}

{248}

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{250}

{251}

Some fourteen years ago an ill-advised, excited section of the Hellenes forced their King to declare war on the Porte, and brought no great credit on themselves nor honour to their country’s arms, for Greece was far from ready for such a struggle, and those in office knew it, but were powerless to stop the trouble. However, the war was well managed in this respect, that the leaders of the Army contrived to withdraw from it without any serious disaster; no guns were lost, and out of the 50,000 Greeks pitted against 150,000 Turks, only 400 were killed and 1800 wounded, which is quite good management considering the difficulties of the manœuvring in such very unusual circumstances.

During those days when the Greeks of Constantinople were rejoicing over the defeat of their old enemy, over the victory of the Allies, a great sorrow cast its shadow upon the Phanar and the members of the Orthodox Church. Death took His Holiness Joachim III, Œcumenical Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople, suddenly from amidst his devoted flock. He died at four o’clock in the afternoon of November 26th, and with him passed away one of the greatest of many great men who have held the high office of Patriarch here in the City of Constantine.

When Constantine the Great became a Christian, and made Constantinople his capital and residence, he was guided in his doings by the Patriarch of the time, and as that dignitary’s seat, and to the “greater glory of God,” the Cathedral Church of St. Sophia arose on the narrowing tongue of land between the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn.

Among the great predecessors of His Holiness Joachim III{252} was St. John Chrysostom, “the Golden Mouth,” whose fearless zeal brought him into conflict with Empress Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius. Though St. John Chrysostom died in exile, his body was brought back to the scene of his former activity and met with all the solemn pomp of funeral rites, which Theodosius II attended as chief mourner, and in expiation of his guilty parents’ sin in banishing the saint.

Other strong men followed, and piloted the Church over the deep, troubled waters of Byzantine politics, defending their flock against an Emperor’s whim, or shielding it from the subtle influences of heresy.

When Constantinople fell before the sword of Othman, in 1453, the Cross vanished from the dome of St. Sophia, for Mohammed the Conqueror made that church his mosque; but he was too great not to respect the faith of others. The Greek remnant of the population had gathered together when sufficiently assured of safety to life and liberty, and of the free use of their religion. Then, only a fortnight or so after the conquest of the City, and long before the sights and signs of the desolation there wrought had been removed, a singular scene was witnessed by those who crowded the narrow streets. The Sultan held an investiture on old Byzantine lines. With all the pomp and traditional splendour of the ceremony, he invested Gennodius with the office of Patriarch. With his own hands the Conqueror delivered into the hands of Gennodius the crozier, or pastoral staff, the symbol of his high office. His Holiness was then conducted to the gate of the Seraglio, presented with a richly caparisoned horse, and led by viziers and pashas to the palace allotted to him as residence.

At the Phanar
Mourning Greeks at the Gate of the Patriarchate.

During all the centuries of Turkish rule the office of Patriarch of Constantinople was no easy one, and diffi{254}{253}culties became even greater as the younger nations grew up around Turkey in Europe, clamouring for freedom, insisting on their racial rights; those younger nations which during the last few weeks have overrun the vilayets, and are now hammering at the outer defences of Constantinople.

So His Holiness Joachim III’s term of office was one of everlasting difficulties, his path beset by endless, varied troubles. But happily he was fully endowed to cope with all the troubles that crowded in upon him. A man of striking personality, strong character, and just in all his doings, he was respected by the Power in whose midst he held his “Imperium in Imperio” among the hearts of men; he was beloved by the masses of the people who follow the teachings of Greek Orthodoxy. The late Patriarch’s liberal training, his wide outlook on life, and his deep insight into the vexed political questions of his time have helped him through the rapids of racial, nationalist ambitions here in the City of Constantine the Great.

Joachim III has held the high office of Patriarch on several occasions with now and then a hiatus. He was Patriarch under Abdul Hamid’s reign of Absolutism, and served his flock so well that when the constitution was granted and he was recalled as shepherd of the Orthodox Greek Church, he was acclaimed with intense enthusiasm. Then came the troublous times of strife caused by successive Young Turk cabinets. But Joachim III was master of the situation, and proved it by his skilful handling of the Greek National Assembly at the Phanar, which prevented very serious consequences.

Towards the end of his long, eventful life, some eighty years or more, Joachim III had the satisfaction of seeing the turbulent waters of strife which had raged round his{256} See during all his years of office subside, calm down, and so he died in peace.

No doubt he longed to see the Cross replace the Crescent on St. Sophia, yearned to complete the Mass interrupted by the conquering Osmanli at that Feast of Pentecost in May, 1453. But he has passed away with the knowledge that those young Christian nations have felt and proved their strength. They are without the gates even now, as Joachim III is being carried to his rest. Nevertheless the enemy of his faith, the Turk, preserved order and acted as escort to His Holiness Joachim III on his last journey.

Funeral of an Armenian Archbishop
The face of the corpse is uncovered, some say in order to convince the populace that the dignitary is really dead, not imprisoned; others contend that this custom dates from a Turkish police ordinance, during the Greek risings, when arms were often smuggled into the towns in coffins.

On Sunday, December 1st, a great multitude assembled about the Phanar and crowded the streets leading to it, for the Patriarch was buried that day. The crowd was mostly composed of Greeks, members of the Church of which Joachim III was the spiritual head, and Turkish soldiers and police kept the turbulent crowd in its place without violence, with great courtesy in fact, despite the abuse hurled at them. Guards of honour from the Russian warships lined the aisles of the Cathedral Church, another from the Roumanian warship, the entrance to the Phanar. Preceded by Turkish cavalry His Holiness was borne on his throne to the waterside and there placed on a steamer which carried him down the Golden Horn, round Seraglio Point, and out to Psamatia; there the remains were landed again, and escorted by Turkish soldiery and Armenian priests, the solemn procession moved through the thronged streets towards Yedi Koulé, where stand the ruins of the Golden Gate, through which conquering Byzantine Emperors were wont to make their triumphant entry. Under the shadow of the strong towers whence Yedi Koulé derives its name, the procession moved out beyond the walls which Theodosius II built to safeguard this most eastern stronghold of Western civilization against the{257} Asiatic enemies who surged up against these strong defences in successive waves, till at last they fell before the sword of Othman.

But a short way beyond the old walls of Constantinople stands the Monastery of Balukli, the last resting-place of a long line of Patriarchs. Joachim III had requested that he should be buried on Mount Athos, whither he went for peace in monastic seclusion from time to time, a place he loved. But the Greek ecclesiastical authorities decided to please the populace by disregarding the Patriarch’s wish, and so he will not rest at Balukli, the Lourdes of the Orthodox Church. Pilgrims from afar come to worship here and seek healing in the wonder-working waters of the well at Balukli.

And hither His Holiness Joachim III has been escorted by the enemies of his creed and of his people; while Turkish soldiers showed this last honour to the head of a Church whose members have long been subjects of the Porte, Greek armies have marched victorious over the plains of Thessaly and are occupying Turkish towns and provinces. Yet it was the courteous sons of Othman who solemnly, reverently escorted Joachim III to the grave.

But before he died His Holiness Joachim III had watched the victorious march of the Hellenes towards Constantinople; those few thronged weeks of warfare brightened the last days of the great Patriarch, though his kind heart must have bled for the many sacrifices Bellona demanded of the Allies, and of the enemies of his faith. Very different from the last campaign of 1898 was this victorious progress of the Hellenes. Short and sharp it was; war was declared on Turkey on October 17th, on the following day the Greek fleet had put to sea and the army of the Hellenes, led by the Crown Prince, had invaded Turkey and occupied Elassona. Three days later the Greek fleet seized Lemnos,{258} an island in the Ægean Sea. Fighting their way fiercely against formidable resistance, the Hellenes on land gained ground towards Janina, captured Veria and Thasos, and after a check at Florina, marched towards Saloniki. The Greek left column captured Prevesa as the Servians took Gostivar on November 3rd, the right column entered Saloniki five days later. From here the Greeks proceeded with the conquest of other islands in the Ægean, till all but a few are in their possession, and the Greek fleet blocks the southern exit of the Dardanelles. All this had happened before His Holiness Joachim III was called away; pity that peace had not been restored before Osmanli troops escorted him from the Phanar, down the Golden Horn, to his last resting-place of Balukli.

There is a quaint legend attached to the Monastery of Balukli. It is said that while the troops of Mohammed the Conqueror were making their last assault on the walls of Constantinople, the monks of Balukli were engaged in frying fish. The City fell and the monks fled before the fish were quite fried, so these jumped out of the frying-pan back into the water. The legend goes on to aver that when Christian troops retake Constantinople those fish will leave their native element and return to the frying-pan.

Life must hold endless possibilities for those who can believe such legends as this one.{259}

CHAPTER XVI

IN no other quarter of the globe are you likely to meet such a medley of human races as in the Balkan Peninsula, the south-east corner of Asia perhaps excepted. Certainly nowhere else in Europe has there been such constant shifting of a population, such risings and wanings of divers factors in history, such a coming and going of migrant mortals.

Before the gods of ancient Hellas entered on their genial despotism, before man had become conscious of his own importance, and therefore recorded his doings and sayings, great forces were labouring in the vast swamps and forests of Central Europe and put forth one after another races of human beings who, emerging from darkness, sought the light and wandered towards the midday sun.

This subconscious movement led swarm on swarm of{260} migrants across the great rivers of Europe, over the mountain-passes, into the genial southern plains, and accounted for the settlement of one race after another in the peninsulas of Europe that stand out into the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

More than any other, the Balkan Peninsula was sought by these wanderers. The aboriginal race in this part of Europe were the Illyrians, ’tis said; but little is known of them and they have left few traces—a word or two of their speech in the mixed language of the present-day Albanians. More definite records remain of later races, before whom the Illyrians were forced to make way. These also came from the north and belonged to the dolichocephalic Aryans, who peopled Italy and the Balkan Peninsula, worked out their destiny, and were subject to the same treatment they had meted out to those whom they had found in possession and displaced. Of the peoples who stand recorded in ancient history the Thracians and Scythians were the most prominent. The former are said to have occupied the districts south of the lower Danube, the latter lived on that river’s northern bank. Herodotus suggests that the Thracians were a people of some importance, occupying a large tract of country, and describes them as a tall, strong race, blue-eyed and fair-haired, in appearance like the ancient Teutons. They were sufficiently interesting to cause historians of old to give details of their doings, to mention several of their more important tribes, such as the Triballi, Dardani, Agathyrsen, and those who were found in Asia, Phrygians, Lydians, Moesians, and above all the Trojans. The Dacians were another tribe, and became more prominent as they entered into authenticated history under their King Decebalus, who defeated the Emperor Domitian and forced Imperial Rome to pay tribute to him.{261}

The Coast of Greece
Cloud shadows chasing each other over the rocky promontories of Hellas, whose sons have marched north towards Constantinople.

The Scythians are less known, and some confusion about them existed among ancient historians. Herodotus mentions two peoples of that name; they came into collision with each other in Southern Russia, near the Ural Mountains, the passes of which were the gates of Europe for the invading Mongols and other non-Aryan races. Galenus describes his Scythians as Mongols, Hippocrates gives them all the attributes of Teutons, and recent researches tend to show that Galenus mistook the Scythians he may have seen or heard of, and that Hippocrates was nearer the truth about them. The data given by antiquarians so far suggest that the Scythians were a long-headed race, and had many customs peculiar to the ancient Teutons; they venerated the god of war in the form of a sword, they sought auguries in the interlacing boughs of trees, their legends bore some resemblance to the saga of the Norse-folk, and they indulged in the playful habit of using the skulls of vanquished enemies as drinking-vessels.

It would seem that the Scythians came from the country now known as Silesia and were probably displaced by the Teutons. Those who made this people their special study as did worthy Pomponius Mela, maintain that the Parthians were of the same race, had the same habits, spoke the same speech, and moreover had much the same fashions in dress. The Scythians were clothed à l’Allemande of the period, simply and chastely in shirt and trousers, the latter considered an enormity by earlier Roman historians, who possibly found that the trouser crease of their day was as little in accord with artistic tradition as that of the present day.

One fact emerges from all the profound utterances of authorities on the subject, namely, that the Scythians were not of Mongolian extraction, and should under no circumstances be identified with the Huns.{262}

I have already mentioned the Illyrians, and have got no further in the matter of their descent than have any of the recognized authorities on that important subject. What information does exist about this people is chiefly negative; for instance, that they did not belong to the Indo-German race, but to an older family which after a century or two of genteel poverty went under before the pushing young Aryans.

There appears to be a great deal of doubt as to the date when the Greeks or Hellenes arrived upon the scene in the Balkan Peninsula. Some say that they were the first arrivals, born there, in fact; others that they came wandering down from the north in relays, that the overflowing fount of humans in Northern Europe poured wave after wave of ces gens là over Southern Europe. Be that as it may, it seems nevertheless probable that the Hellenes were akin to the Thracians and had many attributes in common with them. There are the crude paintings still extant, showing Hellenes of the sixth century B.C., and these of men fair-haired and blue-eyed; again, leaving the artistic for the scientific standpoint—the ancients of Hellas were dolichocephalic.

I have followed the fortunes of the Hellenes in another chapter, and must now confine myself to generalities about the Balkan people of all ages.

The people of Hellas were very happy according to all accounts; their clothing was inconspicuous, their wants few, and they enjoyed a peculiarly pleasant entente with the gods and goddesses whom they evoked out of their own imagination, as well as from different phenomena which Nature produces to foster our taste for the supernatural. They must have been a thoroughly lovable, imaginative, unpractical collection of philosophers, richly endowed with all the necessaries of life, such as wives, children, servants,{263} etc.; in fact, everything to make life worth living and philosophizing easy. How the times have changed since then! They changed suddenly, it appears, for ancient Hellas, for their cousins, as they considered themselves, the Macedonians, felt the need for expansion, “Tatendrang” if they had only known it, and therefore broke in upon the daydreams of the dwellers in Arcadia.

Philip of Macedonia led his army against the Hellenes, the allied Thebans and Athenians, defeated them at Cheironeia in 338 B.C., and forced them to acknowledge his dominion over them. His son, Alexander the Great, vanquished the Thracians, defeated the Thebans, who had revolted against his rule, and prepared for his victorious march through Asia Minor.

The Hellenes made many an effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke, but failed, and exchanged it for that of Rome, after the last Macedonian King had been defeated by the Romans at Pydna in 168 B.C. Macedonia was divided up into four provinces, and was incorporated with the Roman Empire in 146 B.C. Greece became the province of Achaia. The northern Balkan countries retained their independence until near the end of the first century B.C., when, by degrees, Rome conquered all the people south of the Danube, the Moesii, Raetii, and Vindelicei, their lands forming the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum.

It is usual to include Roumania among the Balkan States, though that kingdom does not consider itself one of them. Trajan crossed the Danube and entered what is now Roumania, adding it to the Roman Empire as Dacia Trajana in A.D. 106.

Some hundred and fifty years later another people came wandering down from the north, penetrating as far as the Danube, to the great discomfiture of Dacia, the Goths, and they forced Emperor Aurelian to remove his army and{264} colonies to southward and westward, founding a new colony, Dacia Aureliana. The Goths in their turn, hard pressed by the wild hordes of nomad Mongolians, the Huns, abandoned the province of Dacia Trajana, where they had been settled for a century, and crossed the Danube, invaded Thrace, defeated the Emperor Valens at Adrianople, and made themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the peaceful people of the Eastern Empire, while the Huns continued their raid westward. The Goths in the meanwhile plundered right and left in Thrace unchecked, because they had filled the hearts of the Roman legionaries with fear, so that none would meet them in battle again. That wise Emperor, Theodosius I, knew how to manage them, even made them useful as allies, and contrived to make the Balkan countries too uncomfortable for them. So the Goths went elsewhere, and as Gepidi occupied parts of Transylvania, vacated by the Huns on the death of Attila, their King.

About this time the first Slavs made their appearance. It seems that they had settled for a while in Wallachia, whither they had wandered from Southern Russia. Their language proclaimed them akin to the Indo-German race, but there is reason to suppose that they had a strong admixture of the Mongolian in them; they proved to be brachy-instead of dolichocephalic. As the Huns had shown to the Eastern races the gateway into Europe, other Mongolians streamed in after them, so we find the Avari settling in Transylvania, and the Bulgars following them. Of these latter more anon.

About four centuries after the first appearance of the Bulgarians, some distant relatives of theirs forced their way into Europe, the Hungarians. It appears that they confined themselves to the left bank of the Danube, moving westward till they finally settled in Hungary; other Ugric{265} races followed them, the Petshenegs, and the Cumanians, but these too kept to the northern bank of the great river. Their descendants may still be found in parts of Hungary. An entirely different people made its appearance shortly before the arrival of the Petshenegs, the Vlachs, a race of nomads of whom no one knows whence they came; they wander about the Balkan peninsula still, for during all these centuries no one has managed to induce them all to settle down permanently.

From the tenth century till the fourteenth the Balkan peoples, varied as they were, and are still, settled down to a more or less ordered existence, developing into nations, waging war against others, and behaving in much the same manner as they do to-day. I have treated them separately elsewhere. A great change came with the fourteenth century, when yet another race came out of Asia, a people related to the Magyars and the Bulgars, but already mixed with various other elements, occupying a different intellectual plane, and moved by aspirations at variance with the ambitions of the people they visited, the Turks.

I have told how the Turks overran Eastern Europe in another part of this book, how they brought down the Empire of Byzant, crushed the smaller nations, and kept them in submission until they grew, like the seed, out of obscurity into light, insisted on their separate nationalities, and finally went to war with their oppressors, moving like the spirit of revenge, striking swiftly and surely till their guns thundered insistently on the outer defences of Constantinople, at the lines of Chatalja.

Another people which plays an important part in that complex body, the Ottoman Empire, is the Armenian race. Their history is somewhat obscure, as they have never shown any talent for self-government, and, consequently, hold few records which throw any light on their past.{266} They are most respectably connected, claiming descent from Japheth. Mt. Ararat, where the ark eventually landed, is in the northern part of the territory which they consider their country, and Armenians are still to be found among the valleys at the foot of that historic eminence. The Armenian name for their great ancestor is Haik; they call themselves after him, and their land Haiasdan.

In ancient days they lived within fluctuating frontiers, under several dynasties, probably a primitive race of shepherds, until Alexander the Great passed through their country in 328 B.C. and brought them into contact with the great world. After Alexander’s fleeting visit they broke up into several small states, and were hardly conscious of political life; they certainly formed no political entity. Thus they were easily absorbed into the Roman Empire, under Lucullus and Pompey, what time those great men passed through Armenia on their campaigns against the Tigranes. They were only nominally under Roman domination, actually they were a prey to any despot who arose out of the prevailing anarchy to call himself King and establish some semblance of order. One of those monarchs marked the temporary union of those sons of Japheth by a massacre of Romans.

The gradual rise of Persian power affected Haiasdan, which was absorbed by Persian Shahs of the Sassanid dynasty, one of whom defeated the Emperor Valerian. But Diocletian broke Persian rule in Armenia, and set up Tiridales as King over its people. This King looked with disfavour upon Christianity, which had recently come to the people of Armenia, and imprisoned its apostle, St. Gregory the Illuminator, in a dry well for the space of fourteen years, during which protracted period the light dawned upon Tiridales, and he too became converted.

The Persians became sufficiently powerful to take{267} Armenia away from the Eastern Empire in the reign of Theodosius II, and appointed native governors over their new province, Persarmenia. When Islam spread over Asia Minor, Armenia was torn in pieces during the wars between that force and the Emperor of Byzant, then became united under the dynasty of one Ruben, and by alliances with the encroaching Mongols, with the Crusaders, and Imperial Byzant, contrived to maintain some semblance of independence. But fate overtook this unhappy people when Ghevout was King over them, and had to abandon the struggle against the might of Islam, ending his days as exile in Paris towards the end of the fourteenth century. Ever since then clouds of troubles have hung heavily over the Armenians, bursting in furious storms of Moslem fanaticism, drenching the land with the blood of Christians, for those children of Japheth never could unite for purposes of self-preservation, and have therefore been made to suffer whenever the Ottoman arms or policy met with ill-success in other parts of the Turkish Empire.

Like the sons of Shem these descendants of Japheth are most tenacious of their faith, their speech, written in Cyrillic script, and their ancient customs, but they have shown little taste for les belles lettres, and have added little to the world’s store of literature. Again, like the Jews, they have a great gift for commerce and affairs of state; several Armenians rose to high estate in the Byzantine Empire, witness Leo V, one of the great Emperors of the East.

The Armenians were never in complete sympathy with the Greek Orthodox Church, and separated from it early in the history of the Greek Empire; their country was so far removed from the influence of Constantinople, and linguistic difficulties widened the breach caused by the failure of the delegates from the Armenian communities{268} in attending the Councils of the Eastern Church. In many matters of ritual and observance the divergence became more marked, and as the Armenians laid more stress on retaining these than on combined action against their Moslem rulers and the enemies of the Christian faith, subsequent efforts at reconciliation have proved abortive.

The Armenians, through their lack of political solidarity, have always been exposed to aggression from the fierce tribes beyond their elastic frontiers, and of these the Kurds were the most formidable. The Kurds are a race of Iranian extraction, speaking a Persian dialect, and, whether settled on the lands of other races, or wandering at large in them as nomads, have ever proved troublesome as neighbours. The Armenians thought to protect themselves by entering into an understanding with these people, and by putting themselves under the protection of the Kurds, chiefly in the eastern provinces of the district inhabited by the sons of Japheth. The Kurds had their own notions of protection, which they expressed by frequent robbery and pillage, varied by an occasional massacre. The Turkish authorities, who had but a feeble hold over the Kurds, seldom interfered in the interests of Christian subjects; moreover, these latter were seldom at one, as instanced by the constant friction between the Armenians and the Georgians whose ancient Church was influenced by Rome in the time of the Crusaders, and has in recent years been almost entirely absorbed into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church.

When Peter the Great ruled over Russia, and again during the reign of Catherine II, attempts were made, chiefly through external agencies, to arouse nationalist aspirations among the Armenians. A college was opened in Paris, and endeavoured to consolidate Armenian interests and to make the voice of this people heard and{269} considered in Constantinople. But the Turks were not alarmed at this, as they well knew the Armenian incapacity for concerted action, and had no reason to think an understanding between them and the Phanar a likely event. So enthusiasm subsided, and the Armenians, in spite of the peculiar protection afforded them by the Kurds, and the arbitrary methods of Turkish tax-gatherers, lived at peace with the Porte and prospered greatly.

Though the last Russo-Turkish war raised no particular enthusiasm among the Armenians, the Turks thought fit to take precautions against them, and resorted to massacres, so that the treaty-makers of S. Stefano insisted on the insertion of a clause safeguarding Armenian interests against the reprisals of Kurds and Circassians. A number of Armenians had settled in Russia, others belonged to those who lived in that part of their former country long since annexed by Russia, and these people took kindly to nihilism, forming secret societies to foster their ambitions and make propaganda. Secret societies, whatever their object, have always been a terror to the Porte, so Turkish feeling towards the Armenians underwent a change.

The Turks, themselves afraid of massacre at the hands of the Armenians, met any such possibility by massacring Armenians, and thus commenced that series of atrocities which induced the Great Powers of Europe to intervene. This made the situation worse: Musa Bey, the notorious bandit chief, was indeed summoned to Constantinople to answer for his share in the lurid transactions, was tried before a Turkish Court, which found him guiltless of all blame, and eventually acquitted, even commended him for his behaviour. Thereupon Armenian Churches were desecrated as suspected of being secret armouries, and a small massacre, only some fifteen killed, attended this exhibition of Turkish policy. The Armenian Patriarch,{270} Ashikian, lodged a protest with the Porte in 1890, and three years later the college of Marsovan was burnt amidst scenes of horror. Four years later a massacre on a large scale was arranged and executed; nine hundred Armenians of the mountainous Sasun district were murdered, because the tax-gatherers had so far been unable to penetrate into that almost inaccessible region. The Armenians pointed out that if they were protected from the Kurds a tax-collector’s visit might be worth the while, as matters stood the Kurds had left nothing taxable.

By this time the Armenian problem had become acute, and Abdul Hamid could think of no other method of solving it than by exterminating the people who had provoked it by their mere existence. So massacres became a recognized feature of the Armenian question, even those who lived in Constantinople were not spared, the capital and other towns, Erzeroum, Diabekr, Bitlis, all contributing, until the number of victims to this system of statecraft amounted to about twenty-five thousand. To these must be added many who escaped the sword to perish from cold, hunger, and exposure in the following winter.

At last the Armenians became exasperated, and decided on retaliation. In the spring of the following year, 1896, Armenians attacked and exterminated several small Turkish garrisons. They were incited to fresh endeavours by the false hopes raised by several European Powers, and arranged a coup de main for the 26th of August. A secret society, calling itself Dashnaktsutian, made a raid on the Ottoman Bank of Constantinople at midday. The conspiracy must have been well known by the Sultan’s secret police, for it failed completely, and all those who took part in this desperate venture were killed. A counter demonstration had been arranged by the Government, for that very afternoon Lazes and Kurds were let loose{271} in the Armenian quarters of Pera and Galata, Haskeui and Kum Kapu; their victims numbered some six thousand killed. The Armenian plot was meant to impress the Western Powers, and they were duly impressed—but nothing else happened.

There seems no likelihood of the Armenians ever realizing their nationalist ambitions; they are scattered so widely over the Ottoman Empire, and for that reason alone cannot forgather for concerted action, as the Bulgarians and others who live in closer community have succeeded in doing. History has shown that even when they did cluster together in their more or less definite geographical limits, they lacked solidarity, so the only hope for them is in individual effort, by which many have risen to importance. With the gradual weakening of Ottoman rule, of late precipitate, the chances are that the Armenians, with their great capacity for business, their talent for affairs, and their tenacity, will play a leading part in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, now that they have risen above their Kurd oppressors and have out-distanced their Moslem masters.

Another distinct nationality plays a prominent part in the political life of the Turkish Empire—the Albanians. The learned have spent much time in discovering their origin, have written many books about them, and have come to no very definite results after all. Some say they are descendants of the Illyrians, the original inhabitants of the Western Peloponese, and try to prove their theory by philology. A most unreliable guide to the discovery of a nation’s antecedents, as proved by the Bulgarians who, though not originally a Slav race, yet speak a Slav language. In the case of the Albanians, philology is even more misleading, and arrives at less definite results, for very few traces are left of that forgotten tongue, Illyrian,{272} in the language spoken by the Albanians, a mixture of Slav, Roumanian, Turkish, and modern Greek, according to G. Meyer, who speaks with authority.

Another hypothesis is that the Albanians are derived from the ancient Thracians, who were dispossessed of their country by successive waves of immigrants, and took to the mountains. This theory must also be taken with reserve, as so many different races—Greeks and Latins, Slavs and Goths—have passed this way and left their impress. The Albanians themselves will tell you that they are Skipetari, eaglets, the sons of the eagle, and as they evidently wish to be considered offspring of that bird of prey, and lay claim to some of its alleged virtues, it is best to humour them, though the Turks may call them Arnouts, and the Slavs describe them as Arbanasi. Popular opinion confines this people to the mountains of Albania, where they lead a life of untrammelled feudalism; the latter suggestion is more or less correct, the former not so. There are probably about three hundred thousand Albanians in the Balkan countries, and of these about one hundred thousand inhabit the Peloponese peninsula. They are to be found in greatest numbers among the mountains of the district named after them, but many live in Greece, in fact, the population of the eastern and central parts of that kingdom is largely Albanian.

The Albanians certainly possess one virtue ascribed to the eagle—they are brave, and have shown their prowess on many occasions, notably during the wars of Greek independence. Those who know them describe them as pleasant company, courteous and hospitable, but easily roused to anger, obstinate and sensitive. This opinion is probably held by the Turks, who have never succeeded in enforcing their peculiar methods of government on these free sons of the mountains.{273}

Though the Albanians are often divided among themselves, they invariably combine against an enemy from outside, be he pasha or tax-collector, and have thus been able to defy all attempts to bring their country under some semblance of modern government, even of the Turkish variety.

When left to themselves they find plenty of occupation in blood feuds, inter-clan fighting, or an occasional raid across the loosely defined border.

The causes which have led Slavs of the same race to separate and occupy hostile camps do not affect Albanian unity on questions concerning their nationality. They are divided into two distinct sections, the Geks and the Tosks, and are again divided by three divergent creeds, Islam, to which the majority of Albanians belong, Greek Orthodoxy, which claims about two-tenths of them, and another tenth adhering to the Church of Rome. Yet they combine, and have done so quite recently, thanks to the troubles attending the passing of Ottoman rule from provinces that adjoin their country. The Albanians have combined to some purpose, have declared themselves autonomous, were ready with a provincial government, and now invite their neighbours to leave them to manage their own affairs in their own way. This, by the by, they have always contrived to do in face of all efforts to bring them into line with modern ideas.

Little is known of Albania’s past history, though individual Albanians have helped to make history for other nations; the descendant of an Albanian soldier of the Ottoman Empire rules over Egypt. But history has been in the making for the last month or so, and possibly, nay, probably, Albania is about to enter the comity of nations, even as Servia, Bulgaria, and other former provinces of the Osmanli have done.{274}

There is no reason to suppose that Albania will fail where others have succeeded. No doubt their habits are not such as to render government, according to modern notions, an easy matter, but the same was possibly said of the Highland clansmen some centuries ago, yet these make excellent law-abiding citizens. Then the Albanians are a highly intelligent race, and would use their gifts to other purpose than clan feuds when once they see an opportunity of taking part in the world’s work on a different footing from that to which Turkish rule restricted them. After all, Servia’s chances seemed poor, no outlet to the sea, cramped by neighbours none too friendly, yet that country has risen out of chaos, out of slavery and obscurity, to hasten the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and to open out fresh fields for its own economic expansion.

Even the ingrained feudalism of the Albanians will vanish under the modernizing influence of roads and railways, and their picturesqueness fade under the glamour of successful commercial enterprise. No doubt those days are yet some distance off when peace and prosperity will reign over the Balkan Peninsula, but even the Albanians, individually very capable of perceiving where advantage lies, will be brought into the ordered state of affairs so dear to those kind neighbours, the Great Powers.

However, as the change is not likely to be rapid, Europe will have to make up its mind to a good deal more turmoil before Albania ceases to cause trouble in the Balkans.

Anatoli Hissar
The Castle of Asia, built by Sultan Mohammed I. Here Mohammed II, the Conqueror, sat and watched the growth of Roumeli Hissar, the Castle of Europe, in 1451.

Yet another people are to be found in the Turkish provinces of Europe, wandering about with their herds among the divers nations who have settled there, but not of them. These are the Vlachs, but they have many other designations, for the Greeks are pleased to call them Kambisi (from kampos), Karaguli or Karaguni (black coats), Vlachopimeni, or Arvanitovlachi; in Albania they are{275} called Cobani, in Macedonia Cobani, and by the Bulgars Vlasi, a name under which they stand recorded on mediæval Servian monuments. The papers generally speak of them as Koutzo-Vlachs. “Koutzo” means halting, lame, though the description seems inaccurate, for they are confirmed nomads, and cover a deal of ground during the year. They are chiefly shepherds, and they wander about Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace in search of pasture for their black-coated sheep, from which derives the nickname Crnovunçi, given them by the Serbs. Others, again, act as carriers in those districts unopened as yet by railways, leading strings of ponies over the defiles that separated Servia and Bulgaria from the Turkish provinces until recent days. They seem to be of Roumanian origin, and speak a language akin to that of Roumania, which claims to protect them, and of their history little is known. They have always been wanderers, and never showed any inclination towards a settled existence. It has been tried on them by King Milutin of Servia in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and records of that time make mention of several Vlack villages by the southern banks of the Danube.

When the Turks conquered Servia these nomads vanished from their settlements, and no one knows whither they went. It is probable that they resumed their migratory habits in Macedonia and Thessaly, not visiting Servia again until comparatively recent times, when the Russo-Serb war broke out in 1876. Up to this date they are said to have sojourned in Bulgaria, whither, it is stated, they wandered from Epirus and Thessaly, to escape from Ali Pasha’s heavy hand. A few, a very few, settled in Macedonia, about Monastir, Krushevo, and at the foot of Olympus. The Vlachs appear to be a pleasant, harmless people, and absolutely indifferent to the troubles which have so long agitated the peoples of the Balkans.{276}

Now that the Balkan provinces of Turkey, where the Vlachs have wandered for centuries, are passing into other hands, the status of this people is becoming a matter of interest. As the Balkan nations, Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks are insisting so fiercely on their respective nationalities, Roumania has thought fit to espouse the cause of the Vlachs. No doubt this intention is born of a sincere desire for the welfare of those whom the Roumanians consider kinsmen, but the idea is of political value in that it gives a reason for the modern tendency of claiming compensation, an innovation so forcibly introduced by the arrival of the S.M.S. “Panther” off Agadir.

It will be interesting to note to what extent the wandering Vlachs will benefit by the protection of Roumania, and what they themselves think of it. Was it to safeguard their interests that Roumania sent its one and only sea-going warship to swell the international fleet in the Golden Horn while the Turkish Empire in Europe was falling to pieces?

I have heard the absence of a Chinese man-of-war commented on during my recent stay in Constantinople.{277}

CHAPTER XVII

IN those dark ages preceding the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Central Europe was seething with migrant nations dimly desirous of settling in some more favoured regions than the vast plains and dense forests whence they came. Among the divers races thus impelled were the Slavs. They came from what is now Southern Russia, from the banks of the Dnyepr, and penetrated far into the German Empire of the present day; traces of them have been found in Hanover, colonies of Slavs still live in that marshy part of Prussia called the “Lausitz,” and the people of East Prussia itself have a strong admixture of that non-Teuton race.

The Slavs are said to be descended from the ancient{278} Scythians, by some mistakenly held to have been Mongolians, but it is unlikely that they kept their racial purity before they set out on their wanderings, and were probably much mixed with Tartars and other Asiatics who had swarmed over their pastures and hunting-grounds.

The Hungarians, breaking into Europe along the left bank of the Danube, then settling in Hungary, drove a wedge in between the Slavs, separating them into two masses, which by environment and by mixing with other races gradually developed into distinctive nationalities. Systematic colonization by the Teutons pressed the northern Slavs back towards the east, the influx of the Bulgarians into Eastern Europe intercepted communication between the Slavs to north-eastward, and so helped to create that branch of the Slav race called the Serbs. They came in groups of families, so-called Zadrugs, out of the east, each group under its chief or Zupan, and settled in the country south of the Danube and westward of the Bulgarians some time in the beginning of the seventh century, and from that time called themselves Serbs.

To the Romans this country was known as Moesia Superior; they built here strong castles to shelter flourishing cities, Semendria, for instance, with its serried ranks of square towers. But the Romans had to make way to successive waves of savage Huns, fierce Osthro-Goths, and Langobardi, who left a wilderness behind them where they had passed. Emperor Justinian reclaimed this land and added it to his Empire in the sixth century, but the good he did was undone by the Avari, who broke in from the east and left desolation in their wake. The Serbs followed the Avari and spread beyond the Save into Bosnia and Montenegro.

The family groups united into clans, and each of these rendered service to an elected head sometimes called the{279} Great Zupan or Kralj (King), or again Tsar (Emperor). The maintenance of discipline was no easy matter, and frequent dissensions among the turbulent tribesmen rendered the Serbs an easy prey to their stronger neighbours. Such was the state of affairs when Christianity was introduced in the eighth century and made the Serbs subject to the Eastern Empire.

From time to time the neighbouring Bulgarians would snatch Servia from Byzant, but when Bulgaria’s power was broken by the Emperor of the East, Servia again became subject to that Empire towards the end of the tenth century.

Nearly a century later Servia produced a strong man, Stephen Dobroslav, called Boistlav by the Greeks; he forced the other Zupans into submission, assumed full power, and regained the independence of his country. His son Michael succeeded and was confirmed in the royal title of Kralj by Pope Gregory, whose aim was to lessen the power of Byzant. But herein he failed, for inner dissensions again broke out among the Serbs, the country was forced into the Eastern Empire again and suffered horribly until in 1165 another Stephen, Zupan of East Servia, reunited the scattered tribes.

This Stephen founded the Nemanya dynasty and welded the broken tribes into a strong Empire. It was called that of Rassia, after its capital Rasha, now in the Sandjak Novibazar. The House of Nemanya flourished, the Empire of Rassia overflowed its frontiers, and under Stephen Dushan, 1331-1355, included Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, Epirus, and Bulgaria. Stephen took the title of Tsar. But with his son Stephen Urosh, a weakling, the House of Nemanya died out.

During the reign of this last Tsar dissensions had broken out again. Vukashin the Voivod rose in rebellion, rendering{280} his country an easy prey to a new foe, more formidable than any the Serbs had yet encountered, the Turk.

Leaving the Emperor of the East trembling in his purple throne-room, Amurath I was moving over Eastern Europe with a vast, well-disciplined army, conquering where he went. On the Amselfeld at Kossovo the Serbs first met in battle this enemy whom they have frequently met since, whom they met again so recently, perhaps for the last time in the history of Europe.

In vain had the Greek Emperor appealed to Catholic Europe for assistance as the horns of the Crescent closed in upon Byzant. But the Serbs responded to the call. Reunited once more under Knjes Lazar, the chivalry of Servia, then of high repute, joined with Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, to stem the full-flowing tide of Moslems. The armies met at Kossovo and battle raged with varying fortunes till evening, but the ranks of the Christian forces were thinning rapidly. Vukashin had fallen, Knjes Lazar was captured, and Amurath’s son Bajazet, called by his men Yilderim (Lightning) struck swift and sure. Milosh Kabilovitch, a Servian knight, dashed out from among the hard-pressed chivalry and galloped forth as if deserting from the Servian ranks. He sought the presence of Amurath, alleging that he had important intelligence concerning the plans of the Allies. Kneeling before Amurath he suddenly leapt up and buried his dagger in the Sultan’s heart. His astounding strength and agility enabled him to reach the place where he had left his horse, but here he fell under the sabres of the Janissaries. Amurath survived but to the close of the battle; his last act was to order the death of Lazar, the Servian King, who, standing in chains, regaled the dying eyes of his conqueror.

Bajazet succeeded to the throne of Othman on the field of battle and divided Servia, forced to pay tribute to the{281} Sultan and render military service, between Stephen, son of Lazar, and Vuk Brankoviç. The latter’s son George, assisted by Hungarians, made a last effort to restore Servia’s independence, and succeeded; the Peace of Szeggedin in 1444 gave Servia a few more years of freedom. But after fifteen years Mohammed the Conqueror marched through Servia and put an end to its existence as an independent kingdom for many centuries. The Osmanli forced the Serbs into subjection by all the cruelties their ingenuity in that direction suggested. Nearly all the best families were extirpated, though a few managed to escape to Hungary and others took refuge among the Black Mountains, whence their descendants came down the other day, only a few weeks ago, to meet their old enemy the Turk.

The old nobility of Servia ceased to exist after Mohammed’s conquest, and those who were allowed to remain in time embraced Islam, without doing which no one under Turkish rule in those days need expect justice or chance of promotion; of the common people two hundred thousand were sold into slavery by the Osmanli soldiery, and Servia became a Turkish province, a sandjak, a purely military terrain d’occupation.

There are still some ancient monuments left standing which tell of the days when Servian chivalry hastened to the rescue of Constantinople and the Cross. Semendria, called Smederovo by the Serbs, once the residence of George Brankoviç, who fought for freedom by the side of Hunyadi Janos. This old Roman castle, strengthened by the Servian champion, Semendria, throws the reflections of its ruined battlements on to the waters of swift-flowing Danube.

Some way further down the river yet another castle rises sheer above the banks where the mountains close in on either side to form the Pass of Kazan. The Danube narrows down to one-third its width on entering here, it{282} swirls round the base of a steep promontory from which the broken towers of Golubaç seem to grow as out of the living rock. Crumbling walls and towers, turrets tottering on the brink of a precipice above the swirling waters, such is Golubaç, the castle built by Vuk Brancoviç to guard the entrance to the Pass of Kazan. An important place, too, in its time, for it controlled the road hewn by Trajan’s orders out of the rock through this pass to the Iron Gates connecting Dacia Trajana with Moesia Superior.

For centuries these monuments to Servia’s former greatness stood awaiting the rise of Servia rejuvenated, Golubaç tumbling into ruins, the road it guarded falling into neglect, Semendria a stronghold of the Osmanli. But during these centuries the Serbs lost neither faith nor language nor hope of freedom. Songs and epics kept fresh the memories of former days, while the Serbs went about their daily business, tilling the soil, watching their herds of swine, living in close family union despite the storms that tore over their land as the hosts of Othman pressed westward and towards the north into Hungary, up to Vienna, or returned flushed with victory or savage because of some defeat.

Help came at last, though slowly, and from the side of Hungary as it had done three centuries before.

The power of Turkey was already on the wane, and the Treaty of Carlowitz had begun to curtail Othman conquests west and north of Belgrade. Later came the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718, which promised well for Servia, but in reality sowed the seeds of discord between that country and the House of Habsburg. A large part of Bosnia, formerly in the Kingdom of Greater Servia, was annexed to Austria. Austrian officials in the newly acquired territory failed to establish good relations between themselves and the Serbs, so the latter sided with the Turks when Emperor Charles VI began his unhappy{283} campaign against the Sultan in 1738. This service was repaid by the cruelty and excesses of the Janissaries, driving the Serbs to assist the Austrians when Emperor Joseph II and Catherine II of Russia went to war with Sultan Mustapha III. Again no advantage accrued to Servia, and it was not till 1804 and by her own exertions that freedom came nearer to this downtrodden country.

In that year, stung into action by increased oppression at the hands of the Turks, the Serbs rose in revolt led by George Petroviç, commonly called Czrini or Czerny George (Kara George by the Turks); Belgrade was stormed on December 12th, and after some successful fights the country was swept clean of the Janissaries. The revolt continued, and as Austria had refused assistance in 1804 Servia called on Russia for help, promising to recognize that Empire’s suzerainty in return. The help offered by Russia was not very liberal and the Serbs gained many successes by their own unaided efforts in the years 1809 and 1810.

In spite of all their successful endeavours, the Serbs were unkindly treated by the Powers at the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812; they were granted a general amnesty and self-government of internal affairs, but continued to pay tribute to the Sultan and were made to surrender all captured fortresses. As a special favour the Porte allowed all those who were discontented with the results to emigrate. Turkish troops entered Servia again and wore down the forces of Kara George till he gave up the struggle and crossed over into Austria.

The struggle was taken up by Milosh Obrenoviç, who defeated Ali Pasha and was eventually proclaimed hereditary Prince when Kara George had been murdered on returning to his country. The Porte acknowledged Milosh Obrenoviç and granted Servia independent jurisdiction,{284} free inner administration by the Treaty of Akkerman, which ended the Russo-Turkish war, and further confirmed the treaty at the Peace of Adrianople in 1829.

By bribery and corruption Milosh managed to obtain letters from the Porte in 1830 restoring six former districts to Servia. Then Milosh, feeling secure with a well-trained bodyguard, chose to rule as despot, inflicting arbitrary punishment with many cruelties on those who displeased him. Already well used to revolts the Servians rose against their chosen ruler under Avram Petronijeviç and Thoma Vuciç, and obliged Milosh to grant a constitution. Milosh resigned in favour of his son Milan. Milan lived only a short time and was succeeded by his brother Michael Obrenoviç, who made himself unpopular by levying a tax on acorns when prepared as food for pigs. Pigs are still fortune-makers for the Serbs as they were in those days, so the people revolted again. Michael fled to Austria and a son of Kara George, Alexander Karageorgeviç, was elected in his stead.

Even Alexander, a peaceful sovereign, did not please the people for long; he had a leaning towards Austria, and for this reason was called upon to abdicate. Instead of going quietly he appealed to the Porte, whereupon the Servian Parliament, the Skuptshina, recalled Milosh Obrenoviç, now seventy-eight years of age, and placed him on the unsteady throne of Servia for a second time.

Followed the son of Milosh, Michael III Obrenoviç; he reorganized the militia forces of Servia and forced the Turks to abandon the remaining fortresses they held in the land, Belgrade, Sabaç, and Semendria, and by 1867 the last Osmanli had left the country. Yet there was dissatisfaction among the Serbs, for Michael III was murdered the following year in Topshida Park at Belgrade, his new capital.{285}

Milan Obrenoviç was then called to the throne and took sovereign rights and title in 1878, after Plevna fell and the Serbs had retrieved defeats suffered during that war against Turkey by taking Nish, Pirot, and Leskovoç from the already badly beaten Osmanli. Milan Obrenoviç became King in 1882 and sought to add to his dignity by invading Bulgaria what time that principality was occupied with a revolt in East Roumelia. The Serbs were very badly beaten at Slivniça and Pirot, by a man who knew his business thoroughly, Alexander von Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria. This ill-success, possibly other motives, led to the resignation of King Milan, who was succeeded by Alexander I, his son. Of that monarch’s personality, his life, and ghastly death, I decline to say anything; the papers in June, 1903, were full of it—too full of it.

It was left to another Karageorgeviç, Peter I, the present King, to march once more against the old oppressor of the Serbs, and to take lands, once part of Greater Servia, from the hands of those who had so long misruled them.

While the rest of Europe was comforting itself with the disproved statement that trouble in the Balkans is always deferred till the snow melts under the rays of a spring sun, the Balkan Kingdoms had entered into an alliance against their old enemy the Turk. Notwithstanding the fact that many of those whose business it is to know such things were well aware of the preparations made by the Allies, European diplomacy lulled itself to sleep by reiterated formulæ, mumbling something about status quo. In the meantime Bulgaria, chief of the Allies, had for years been training its hardy sons to a winter campaign, and had, moreover, a most excellent secret intelligence department with its feelers all over Thrace and those parts of the peninsula likely to be immediately affected by a war. Servia had been carefully preparing for the grand coup{286} by reorganizing its military forces. Few people elsewhere in Europe took them seriously, remembering the ease with which Bulgaria defeated her ally some years ago, and also the ineffective clamour raised when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless it was made possible to extend the army of Servia from a peace footing of some 35,000 men to a field army of 160,000. This was accomplished out of a population of 3,000,000 inhabiting 18,800 square miles, and the total annual cost of that army is only £1,200,000. Compare this with Great Britain’s idea of insisting on her voice being heard among the armed nations of Europe on the Continent with an expeditionary force of 100,000 men out of a population of over 45,000,000! But then the Serbs have not yet had time to wax fat and indifferent to their country’s needs. Every Serb is obliged to serve his country and does so willingly. Thus the cadres of the Servian standing army swelled as townsmen and sturdy countrymen flocked to join the colours, singing as they marched out armed and eager, “Rado ide Srbin u voinike”—“Gaily the Serbs go to war.”

While Britons were enjoying the autumn holidays great things were preparing among the Balkan States, and they passed unnoticed. The tension always existent between the Allied Kingdoms and their former conqueror and master became acute in consequence of several incidents. Turkey, dimly realizing that the state of affairs was becoming more and more difficult, thought fit to seize some war material en route to Servia, via Saloniki and Üsküb. Again, Turkey declined to punish those who had joined in the Kochana massacres; Macedonia was roused to fury and its voice found echo in Sofia. Turkey also insisted on carrying out the manœuvres round Adrianople, planned by Field-Marshal von der Goltz, to show in{287} mimic warfare what shortly after happened in stern reality. Servia protested strongly, so did Bulgaria. Servia mobilized with astounding rapidity, Bulgaria was ready, as every one would suppose who knows that country, its strong ruler, and efficient people. Still Western Europe said, “It is all talk, let us enjoy our holiday,” till suddenly the world was made aware of the Balkan Alliance and heard of Turkey’s declaration of war against Bulgaria and Servia.

In the meantime another of the Allies, the smallest, probably fiercest of them, had begun the dance, the Montenegrins. For centuries these people have been longing to avenge former wrongs done them by the Turks. It was the Turks who drove the remnant of Slav nobility into the inaccessible Black Mountains when the hosts of Islam swarmed over the Danube lands, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, murdering and plundering, destroying an ancient civilization.

Secure among their mountains the Montenegrins remained untouched by those influences which have kept their neighbours the Albanians under the dominion of the Sultan. They held firmly to their religion, the Greek Orthodoxy, this kept them united against their enemy the Turk, and they developed along their own lines. Their princely family the Balshas kept Turks and Venetians at bay, and when that dynasty died out their quite natural quarrels were kept down by a line of priestly princes, Vladikas; the Prince-Bishop being celibate was less likely to be dragged into family feuds. By degrees the sovereignty became hereditary, passing from uncle to nephew, until Danilo II relinquished the ecclesiastical side of his dignity. He was assassinated in 1860 and succeeded by Prince Nicholas, now King of Montenegro.

Montenegro soon found sufficient pretext for declaring{288} war, and did so in all solemnity on October 8th. Immediately after this act the sons of the mountains were pouring down from the heights over the Turkish border. By a series of sharp, well-contrived attacks they gained numerous advantages over their enemies, had joined hands with the Servian Army by October 25th in the Sandjak of Novi Bazar, had captured S. Giovanni di Medua by November 18th, then assisting General Yankovitch’s Servian division in an attack on the fortress of Alessio, which was captured after fierce fighting.

In the meantime Montenegro’s southern army was investing Scutari, assisted by the northern force moving down from Tuzi. Since the Young Turks came into power in 1908 the natural advantages for defence proper to Scutari have been greatly enhanced, for Hilmi Pasha made this the head-quarters of his action against the Albanians. The garrison of Scutari, computed at some ten thousand men, was well armed and well provided for, and has held out against superior odds. It proposes to hold out till the end, whenever that may be, in spite of all the desperate attacks by night and day to which Montenegrin impetuosity subjects it. Scutari is still holding out, and so far the Montenegrins have poured out their blood before its strong defences in vain. The commander of the fortress absolutely declined to recognize the armistice.

On October 17th the Porte issued a formal notification to the Powers that “a state of war exists to-day between the Turkish Empire and the Kingdoms of Bulgaria and Servia.” A revolt of Serbs in the districts of Üsküb, Kumanovo, and others had already broken out during the first days of October, and fighting on the frontier was reported some days before the declaration of war at Vranja and near Ristovaç on the Morava. Servia declared war{289} on Turkey on the same day as the Turkish notification was issued, Bulgaria and Greece did likewise; so four kings at the head of their armies crossed the borders of their realms to concentrate in an attack on their old enemy.

King Peter of Servia made Vranja his first head-quarters, and from here followed the progress of his armies. They marched down from the mountains in three columns, beating down fierce resistance, gaining victory on victory at enormous cost. By October 21st the Serbs had won a victory at Podujevo, and captured Nova Varosh in the Sandjak. At the same time the Second Army Corps, under General Stephanovich, was forcing its way to Egri Palanka, capturing the important position of Carsko Selo and Sultan Tepe, marching towards Üsküb, where the three armies were to meet eventually.

Servian arms were victorious elsewhere. Led by the Crown Prince in person, the Serbs attacked Kumanovo; the fighting lasted with varying fortunes for two days, the Turks offering desperate resistance and making furious counter-attacks. After hard fighting in the Teresh Pass, Prishtina fell to the Serbs, and shortly after the western column captured Mitrovitza, Vuchitra, and Gilan. The Serbs then marched on Üsküb and took it, King Peter entered the town, once a royal residence of the Kraljs of Greater Servia, in solemn triumph, amidst the rejoicings of the populace. There was desperate fighting near Kossovo, on the Amselfeld, where Amurath broke the chivalry of ancient Servia in the fourteenth century, and with his dying eyes watched the death agonies of Knjes Lazar, King of the Serbs. Here on the Amselfeld, the scene of Milosh Kabilovitch’s daring deed, Young Servia vindicated its honour, and proved the metal of a nation united in arms to some great purpose, inspired by a high ideal.{290}

Then the Servian armies marched on towards Monastir, but were able at the same time to detach troops to reinforce their allies the Greeks, and the Bulgarians before Adrianople. Monastir was closely invested, and fell on November 19th. The Crown Prince held his solemn entry into the town, captured in face of many great obstacles. Besides Turkish regulars, the inhabitants of the town offered desperate resistance, the latter attacking with great ferocity. It was largely bayonet fighting, the Servian infantry carrying one position after another at pas de charge, sometimes wading through water breast-high. Finally the Turks attempted a desperate sortie, which ended in a complete rout, during which many who escaped from the sabres of the pursuing Servian cavalry managed to make for Ochrida. This latter city, formerly a royal residence of the Serbo-Bulgarian Tsars, was captured by the Serbs on November 24th.

Tenedos
An island close to the Asiatic side of the entrance to the Dardanelles. It served as a base for Greek torpedo-boat destroyers. Here one of these held up the ship I was sailing in.

Then the Serbs set out on yet another desperate venture, in pursuit of an ideal, a window on the Adriatic. Let us hope that a full account of this march of a Servian column over the mountains, from the Lake of Ochrida to Alessio, may be recorded in detail by some of those who took part in it, for the venture is reminiscent of Pizarro’s march across the Andes. Communications with head-quarters could only be maintained by means of couriers, and naturally became less frequent as the gallant column disappeared among the mountain passes. The way led along the edge of yawning chasms, the track so narrow that pack animals, hardy mountain ponies, could be loaded on one side only; then again, down some winding ravine, toiling ten miles to advance one; again, amid rocks and boulders, over a pass swept by an icy wind, or through a valley two or three feet deep in snow. Guns and ammunition had to be dragged along, for though the heights were{291} generally deserted, yet now and again hostile Albanians would have to be dispersed before an advance was possible. Rations were very short, yet in spite of hunger, fatigue, and the enemy’s attention, the force won through with trifling losses until the waters of the Adriatic gleamed at their feet. And so the Serbs arrived on the sea-coast at Alessio, where they were met by their allies, the Montenegrins, who had taken S. Giovanni di Medua. At yet another point on the Adriatic, at Durazzo, the Serbs emerged from the mountains, to emphasize their claims to an outlet on the sea, while Austrian cruisers looked on jealously.

Thus by the end of November all Macedonia had been lost to the Ottoman Empire. Yet the people of Constantinople seemed, for the most part at least, indifferent to outside matters, and continued the even tenor of their way. Only in cafés, and places where men of leisure congregate, would you hear the war discussed, or chiefly the rumours afloat about it, and from these many pot-valiant Turks deduced that, far from all being lost, the Osmanli armies were about to begin the war in earnest. The beaten remnant of Ottoman power in Europe, huddling behind the lines of Chatalja, was to emerge from hiding, march over the Bulgarians up the Valley of the Maritza, relieve famine-stricken Adrianople, and enter Sofia in triumph. Yet another Ottoman army was to march south through Thessaly, retake Saloniki, cross into Epirus, and dictate the Sultan’s terms to Greece in Athens. This has been told me seriously by several Turks, those who are interested in the war. What is more, they are firmly persuaded that this can and will happen. With such a people, the majority completely apathetic, a minority wildly optimistic, it is difficult to see how anything like a common-sense view of matters is likely to obtain, and{292} without such common sense Turkey’s place in the comity of European nations will probably be filled by people with a better-adjusted sense of proportion.

Of course, reports of Servian excesses, atrocities, are spread about, chiefly disseminated by Continental papers. That soldiers flushed by victory are liable to break away from strict discipline is a lamentable fact. I know of few armies of which the same cannot be said with more or less justice. The Continental Press spread reports of this kind about the British army in South Africa, and lowered the status of journalism by these vicious falsehoods. It must also be borne in mind that many Continental papers are to a certain extent used by the Governments of their respective countries for the purpose of creating a tendency. This was distinctly the case during the South African war, when a strong organization poisoned the minds of European nations against Great Britain by means of the Press, in order to justify interference with our affairs. They were ably seconded by a section of the Press in this country. The movement failed of its result owing to the strength of Great Britain and the solidarity of the nation. It seems to be probable that much the same tendency inspired the recent recitals of Servian atrocities. On the whole the Press has not distinguished itself particularly during the Balkan war, and certainly the restrictions placed on war correspondents added to the difficulties of news-getting. Yet this is no reason for substituting fiction for facts, for there are many who still believe what they see in the papers, and among them were a number who suffered considerable anxiety when reading of the state of Constantinople during the last stage of the war. Some accounts were not even remotely connected with the truth.

Whatever the truth about Servian atrocities may be it is certain that the Servian Army did its work uncommonly{293} well. Thorough preparedness and good leadership enabled it not only to sweep the Turks out of Macedonia, but also to assist the other Allies, for instance, in detaching eighty thousand men to help the Bulgarians in the siege of Adrianople.

How many of those who read their daily paper realize the work done by the Servian Army? In a country where roads are few, and in wet weather only serve to indicate the general direction and not to carry heavy traffic, the Servian troops, especially the infantry, daily covered a surprising amount of ground; what is more, the transport managed to keep up with the marching columns. And it was not all simple marching; there was severe fighting to be done, and heavy ammunition trains had to keep up with the operations in progress.

Great credit is due to those who reorganized the Servian Army and fitted it for the task it took in hand. Their names have not been lauded by the Press, their portraits do not constantly figure in the illustrated papers, but they have served their country well, and helped to bring about lasting changes in the state of Europe, changes which will yet cause great anxiety to the people of those very superior Great Powers who sit in judgment on matters which many of them cannot understand.{294}

CHAPTER XVIII

THE leading spirit of the Balkan Alliance is Bulgaria, its policy directed by an able ruler, Tsar Ferdinand, its strategy devised by a capable Staff, at whose head, as the sovereign’s right hand, stands General Sava Savof. To the Western nations who were indulging in autumn holidays while the Balkan cauldron was seething to overflowing the war came as a surprise, was inaugurated with astounding efficiency, and went its victorious course with bewildering rapidity. That was the impression made by recent events in the Balkans upon the lethargic Western mind. To those who happened to have looked behind the scenes there was no suddenness in the outbreak of hostilities, no surprise at the efficient organization which led to well-deserved successes in the field.

It has been my privilege to visit Bulgaria several times, and on each occasion I have returned with a yet higher opinion of the Bulgarian people, their Tsar, and his advisers.{295}

The first to mention this people was the Armenian historian Moses, of Koren, towards the end of the fifth century. In his time the Bulgars occupied the lower reaches of the Volga, and called their capital Bulâr, Bulghâr; here was the mart where they transacted business with their neighbours. From the banks of the Volga the Bulgars, a Finno-Ugric race, and akin to the Turks, moved along the northern shore of the Black Sea towards the Danube, and had reached Macedonia by the beginning of the seventh century.

When the country which is now Bulgaria formed part of Dacia Trajana, in the days of Emperor Aurelian, Goths swarmed in and drove the Dacians into Moesia, now Servia. They wandered south, much to the discomfiture of ancient Byzantium. On their westward way the Goths, under Theodoric, had trampled down the Finno-Ugric people, the Bulgarians, which had come to the plains of the Lower Danube from the north-east. For a century and a half all traces of this people disappeared from the historian’s ken, and they were not heard of again until the ninth century. Debarred by a stronger race from returning northward to rejoin their kinsmen who had migrated to Finland, their progress westward checked by more powerful nations, they turned towards the south, and thus began a conflict which has never ceased, though it may have lain dormant, for over ten centuries, a conflict which has since broken out afresh and led the Bulgars to the gates of Constantinople. These people, the Bulgars, found vent for their military ardour in opposing the inroads of the Eastern Emperors, and may lay claim to an honour till then appropriated only by the Goths—that of having slain a Roman Emperor in battle.

It came about in this fashion. Nicephorus I, Emperor of the East (802-811) had advanced with boldness and{296} success into the west of Bulgaria and destroyed the Royal Court by fire. But while he lingered on in search of spoil, refusing all offers of a treaty, his enemies collected their forces and barred the lines of retreat. For two days the Emperor waited in despair and inactivity, on the third the Bulgarians surprised the camp and slew the Emperor and great officers of the Empire. Valens had escaped insults from the Goths when defeated and slain at Adrianople, but the skull of Nicephorus, encased with gold, was made to serve as drinking-vessel.

Towards the end of the ninth century King Boris of Bulgaria brought two holy men, Cyril and Methodius, originators of the Cyrillic alphabet adopted by all Slav nations, and Christianity, then introduced, aroused a desire for learning among the Bulgarians.

The power of Bulgaria increased, and under Tsar Simeon, son of Boris, extended over Bulgaria of to-day, Wallachia, part of Hungary and Transylvania, parts of Albania and Epirus, of Macedonia and Thessaly. Simeon assumed the title of Tsar and Autocrat of all Bulgarians. This title was retained by all Bulgarian sovereigns until the conquest of their country by the Turks.

Early in October an extraordinary session of the Sobranje celebrated the anniversary of Bulgaria’s independence and the assumption of the ancient title by Tsar Ferdinand.

Simeon, son of Boris, was intended for a religious life, but he abandoned it to take up arms; he inherited the crown of Bulgaria, and reigned from the end of the ninth to well into the tenth century. His education was completed at Constantinople, where many other youthful nobles of his country gathered for the same purpose, and to this day the custom prevails, for among the students at Robert College, which stands high on the banks of the Bosphorus,{297} are many of Tsar Ferdinand’s young subjects. Among its former pupils was M. Gueshof, now Prime Minister of Bulgaria.

Despite his Byzantine education Simeon did not love the Greeks, and Luitprand, the historian, writes: “Simeon fortis bellator, Bulgariæ prœcrat; Christianus sed vicinis Græcis valde inimicus.” This hostility to the Greeks found frequent expression, and Simeon with his host appeared before the walls of Constantinople. On classic ground, at Achelous, the Greeks were vanquished by the Bulgarians, and Simeon hastened to besiege the Emperor in his own strong City.

Down by the Golden Horn on the plain outside the Gate of Edirné, Tsar Simeon met Romanus Lecapenus, the Emperor of the East, at the place where King Crum of Bulgaria had been asked to confer with Leo V, the Armenian (813-820), and had narrowly escaped the arrows of the archers treacherously concealed in ambush. Vying with the Greeks in the splendour of their display the Bulgars took jealous precautions against a similar surprise, and deep mistrust informed the spirit in which their sovereign dictated terms of peace. “Are you a Christian?” asked the humbled Emperor. “It is your duty to abstain from the blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst for riches seduced you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open your hand, and I will give you the utmost measure of your desire.”

But peace was not for long. Simeon’s successors by their jealousies undermined the strength of the kingdom, and when next the Bulgarians met the Greeks in battle they were easily defeated by Basil II, called Bulgaroktonos. A terrible home-coming theirs; through snow and ice the remnant of Bulgaria’s manhood struggled on in little bands of a hundred at a time, each company following{298} the voice of a single leader, as they groped their way through darkness—they were blinded. They had escaped from the clemency of a Christian Emperor, by whose orders only one man in each hundred retained the sight of one eye.

Then for over a century Bulgaria remained subject to Byzantium, until two Bulgarian chiefs—Peter and Asan—rose in revolt against Isaac Angelus (1185-1195), and spread the fire of rebellion from the Danube to the hills of Macedonia and Thrace. So Isaac and his brother, Alexius III (1195-1203), were forced to recognize Bulgaria’s independence.

Such hopeless rulers as Alexius IV and V and Nicolas Canabas made easy the conquest of Byzant by the Latins in 1204. Calo John, King of Bulgaria, sent friendly greetings to Baldwin I, the new Emperor of the East, but these provoked an unexpected answer. Baldwin demanded that the rebel should deserve his pardon by touching with his forehead the footstool of the imperial throne. So trouble broke out again. Again war was waged, with all its attendant savagery, and Calo John reinforced his army by a body of fourteen thousand horsemen from the Scythian deserts. A fierce battle at Adrianople resulted in the total defeat of the Emperor, who was taken prisoner. His fate was for some years uncertain, and even the demands of the Pope for the restitution of the Emperor failed to elicit any other answer from King John save that Baldwin had died in prison. For years the conflict raged, till Henry, the second Latin Emperor of the East, routed the Bulgarians. Calo John was slain in his tent by night, and the deed was piously ascribed to the lance of St. Demetrius.

Golubaç
The stronghold of Old Servia guarding the Pass of Kasan.

In the fourteenth century another foe threatened Bulgaria and all Eastern Europe. Amurath with his{299} Janissaries was closing in upon Constantinople. He beat the Greek Emperor at Adrianople in 1361, and made this town his base of operations against Bulgaria, which country he harried until Sisvan, the Tsar, obtained peace at the price of offering his daughter in marriage to Amurath. But peace did not ensue, and Sisvan had to flee before Ali, and surrendered at Nicopolis.

{300}

{301}

Nicopolis, where King Sigismund of Hungary was vanquished by Sultan Bajazet, by whose victory the Balkan States became subject to the Porte. Here there was fierce fighting in 1810, and again in 1877, for the road to the Pass of Plevna starts from here. Here at Nicopolis are the ruins, underground, of one of the earliest Christian churches, but its history is quite unknown.

Recent times have witnessed the rise of Bulgaria from the status of an Ottoman province to that of an independent kingdom, strong, prosperous, and determined. And on its southern frontier, and from the banks of the Struma to the Black Sea shore, the armed forces of Bulgaria strained at the leash, their eager gaze towards Constantinople, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.

Among those whose eager eyes turned ever towards the south is one (I hope he still lives) for whom I have the friendliest feelings. His name is Dedo ’Mitri, and I venture to describe a visit I paid to that worthy.

Like Bill Sloggins of song, Dedo ’Mitri is “a party as you don’t meet every day.” The continuation of the verse applies equally:

In itself this condition is a matter for no great wonderment, but you must know that Dedo ’Mitri has reached the age at which it cannot be said of many that they are always hale and hearty. Many do not travel as far along life’s journey as Dedo ’Mitri has done; he was well on in the eighties when I met him a year or two ago. This, of course, accounts for his being called “Dedo ’Mitri,” which, being interpreted, meaneth “Grandfather Dimitri.” The fact of Dimitri being abbreviated to ’Mitri speaks of his popularity. Several circumstances go towards the making of Dedo ’Mitri’s popularity. His age, of course, has something to do with it, his cheerfulness still more, and his position adds to his popularity—he keeps the largest of the two inns in the village, keeps the only inn that really counts for anything. Probably the most important ingredient of the recipe for Dedo ’Mitri’s popularity is his past—he is an ex-comitadji.

To have been a comitadji is indeed a matter of great distinction in those countries south of the Balkans. There it is that Dedo ’Mitri lives and has his being, there, among the Rhodope Mountains, along which runs the frontier between Bulgaria and Turkey. Dedo ’Mitri is a Bulgarian, a splendid specimen of a fine race.

For his country’s sake Dedo ’Mitri endured untold hardships, and committed deeds desperate and daring, deeds that perhaps send their phantoms crowding round his couch o’ nights. Perhaps! though to all appearances Dedo ’Mitri’s looks do not suggest nights spent with the spectre Remorse. He, like other fighters for a country’s liberties, may rather glory in what he has done, though of this again no word escapes him. There are others in the village ready to tell you of his exploits.

Dedo ’Mitri

{303}

Songs and legends of the great, of King Crum, Tsar Simeon, and the Asens, kept alive the intense feeling of Bulgarian nationality during centuries of Turkish domination. Under the heavy oppression of Ottoman rule the Church founded by Cyril and Methodius lived on, deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. So, when Bulgaria{305} awoke in the beginning of the nineteenth century there were found men like Dedo ’Mitri to take up arms, to sacrifice all for their country’s liberty. He was a baby when Russia declared war against Turkey in 1827, but still remembers the depth of feeling that stirred his folk and urged him to take his share in the work as soon as his arm was strong enough for it. He was in the full vigour of manhood when his own efforts, and those of other patriots, had brought about the establishment of a Bulgarian Exarchate at Constantinople. He rejoiced when the Congress of Berlin ratified the treaty of San Stefano, making Bulgaria autonomous, and his militant activity came to an end when Eastern Roumelia was united to his country.

Now Dedo ’Mitri lives at peace with all the world in his quiet little village among the Rhodope Mountains.

To get to Radoïl, where Dedo ’Mitri lives, two roads are open to you. You may train from Sofia to Bellova, then drive along the high road towards Tshamkuria in the mountains. The road is good, because the King has a shooting-box at Tshamkuria, and he is very particular about the roads he travels over. Radoïl is half-way to Tshamkuria, and every one who passes that way stops to bait at Dedo ’Mitri’s.

If you wish to see more of people and country than is possible from the train, another way to Radoïl is preferable. Take a seat in the motor which goes to Tshamkuria every other day. The chauffeur is a young Englishman, who has a good deal to say if you ask him about the state of the road. It is in parts a very bad road indeed. In fact, but for the trees that line it with more or less regularity on either hand, you might mistake the road for a dried-up watercourse. The first part of the road is not so bad, quite good, in fact, but it suddenly becomes incredibly bad, about eight or ten miles from the small town of Samakov,{306} and the streets of that town are quite Oriental in their uselessness as such. You stop at Samakov to let the engine cool down a bit, and find it quite an Oriental town. Here and there an old mosque, a Turkish fountain, and mules, donkeys, heavy-going buffaloes drinking at it. The costumes of the people you meet are Oriental, though the women go unveiled. Samakov has a garrison; it is not far from the Turkish frontier, and the uniforms of the fine-looking Bulgarian soldiers strike a Western note. But on the whole the aspect of the town is Oriental, the smells intensely so.

The road improves as it leaves Samakov, it becomes really quite a good road, and carries you upwards into the mountains. There on a high plateau embowered in a forest of pines lies Tshamkuria. It is a hot-weather resort—everybody who is anybody in Sofia comes here for the summer. But we are not concerned with such fashionable matter, we have set out to visit Dedo ’Mitri at Radoïl, so start at once.

We have arranged for the hire of a conveyance the evening before with a Jew. If the weather be fine we will drive away at seven in the morning, keep the conveyance for the day, and pay the son of Israel seven francs. The morning mist among the mountains made one or two unsuccessful attempts to turn into rain; we thought the weather fine enough, the Jew did not think so, and therefore thought fit to demand double the amount arranged for. This was not to be borne, so we looked about for some other means of conveyance, and in our search met one Vasil. Vasil, a stout Bulgarian peasant wearing a dubious cotton shirt, his thick cloth baggy breeches upheld by a cummerbund of faded crimson, his coat of the same brown cloth, black braided, slung over his shoulders, promised to convey us to Radoïl in great comfort as soon{307} as he should have caught a horse. It appeared there were several horses over which Vasil disposed, but they happened to be out in the forest in search of breakfast. After a delay of an hour or so Vasil returned with what he described as a horse. The likeness was there, though very remote, and the unhappy-looking scraggy pony was tied by assorted strings to a two-wheeled trap—once upon a time something like a dogcart; a head-stall and odd bits of harness were then artistically arranged about this anatomical study, Vasil wiped the damp seat with a wet cloth, handed me his whip, and intimated that all was ready for a start. All was not ready, however, for the horse had gone to sleep, and my attempt to crack the whip flung the lash into the bushes, whence it had to be retrieved, then refastened. In the meantime the horse realized that something unusual was toward; he woke up, shook off some bits of harness, and went to sleep again while they were being readjusted. Then Vasil woke him up again, gave him a gentle lead, and so we really started. There was no difficulty about finding the road, or chance of losing your way. The road leads broad and smooth in zigzags down into the valley where Radoïl lies. On either hand dense forest, where wolves prowl during the winter months and bears are no infrequent visitors. Huge pines send straight shafts up into the morning sky, their dark green striking a sombre note among the rich green of birch and oak. Here and there honeysuckle trails over masses of rock in sweet profusion, and the voice of a tinkling stream lightens our way with music. Now and again at an angle of the road we were granted a glimpse of the distant country below, wide expanses of fertile plains, and beyond them again the purple lines of mountains far away. The sun had broken through the mountain mist and called forth the songs of birds.{308}

Those angles of the road were rather too much for the horse. The trap boasted of no brake, the wheels revolved in a manner suggesting the infirmity of extreme old age, yet they took charge and guided our course, and with senile spite attempted to hurl us into the depths below. But we were saved by the fact that our speed was not excessive. Any attempt at steering the horse by the usual method led to a dead stop, on which occasion the head-gear would fall off. All these matters put much incident into our journey. After a couple of hours the “passage perilous” down the mountain was behind us and we were on a fairly straight and level road. An occasional gentle rise met us; this caused the horse to stop for contemplation of the awful task before him; he would shake his head at our wild proceedings and patiently wait until the whip-lash had been recovered. Our progress, though not marked by any undue haste, roused interest where we passed. Slow-stepping oxen dragging a plough, a primitive implement, little more than an iron-shod staff, would stop to watch us with big wondering eyes. At last—a turn of the road brought us in full view of the village and we rattled down the stone-paved street. Stone-paved—that is, large stones were placed about at irregular intervals, the interstices being pools of muddy water. Across a bridge, over a turbulent mountain stream, and we pulled up in front of Dedo ’Mitri’s hostelry.

Radoïl
Dedo ’Mitri’s Hostelry.

Dedo ’Mitri himself stands outside his front door. The house projects above it, thus forming what might be a verandah were it not on a level with the road. Dedo ’Mitri was in shirt-sleeves, as becomes a busy man. The twinkle in his eyes might be that of a hospitable welcome, though having heard of his antecedents it may be suspected of suggesting old predatory instincts slow to die. We advised our host that we meant to take the midday{310}{309} meal with him, and while he prepared it we had a look at the village, took a sketch or two which meant to give a better idea of the place than word-painting can do.

The accessories to the repast prepared by Dedo ’Mitri were simple in the extreme, it was also necessary to wipe your fork carefully before using it. However, the food was good, wholesome grey bread and a quaint mess of eggs and cream-cheese. Then Dedo ’Mitri was called upon to supply cheese by itself; this he did without demur, but a demand for clean plates puzzled him, though he complied. On being asked for a clean knife he had no cause to vanish again into his dark kitchen, but produced a murderous-looking clasp-knife from out the pocket of his voluminous breeches; we preferred our own knives. An excellent if somewhat rough red wine accompanied the repast.

In the meantime the village had assembled. Stalwart men stood round us watching intently, others sat drinking wine a little way off. The village priest in passing, seeing something unusual in progress, stepped in and found the time suitable for refreshment. A background of children completed the circle. When it became evident that sketching was the next event Dedo ’Mitri’s authority was evidenced. I pointed out a small fair child with dark-lashed eyes—Dimitra—she was called up to stand perfectly still. This she did in solemn wonder. A well-built maiden moved with graceful steps to the village fountain opposite the house. On my noticing her Dedo ’Mitri’s powerful voice rang out, “Helenka,” and she too remained motionless until released. There were urgent demands from the spectators to be taken one after another, but time was short, so only one smart buck, his short jacket slung jauntily across his shoulders, figures in my sketch-book.{312}

Then Vasil was called for. He appeared leading the horse, both stumbling—the horse from the infirmity of old age, Vasil from an undue indulgence in the red wine. He had also regaled himself freely on garlic; the afternoon sun drew an indescribable aroma from him.

Farewell to Dedo ’Mitri and promises to return, farewells and much handshaking to all the assembled village, a discriminate distribution of small copper coins, a courtly salute from the priest, and we turned our horse’s head towards the mountains whence we came.

Slower than ever was our progress, as Vasil in his sleep was constantly falling off the back seat, and the horse, once stopped, was loath to move on again. The whip-lash was lost for ever, yet there was the broad road up into the mountains all before us.

We left Vasil and his conveyance in the road and turned afoot into a track which used to be the only means of communication in earlier days. A very unsafe one too, for it offered splendid opportunities to those who pursue guerilla warfare. Here and there were masses of boulders whence marksmen could command the track and then vanish in the impenetrable forests.

Dedo ’Mitri knows them well, that track, those piles of rock that offer cover to the sniper, those giants of the forest, and the thick undergrowth that covered his retreat. But Dedo ’Mitri no longer goes to see his old acquaintances the rocks and forest trees. His country is free, free as the wind that howls on wintry nights up the valley to join chorus with the wolves. From mountain and valley, from town and village, the Crescent had faded away to the south, and Bulgaria, a strong young kingdom, forced its way out of Turkish oppression. They are old men now, those who are left, who like Dedo ’Mitri spent the best years of their life in the cause of freedom. But the story{313} has never been forgotten, the traditions of Bulgaria’s former greatness live strong in a regenerate Bulgaria. The sons of Bulgaria looked down from the Rhodope Mountains, over the rolling plains, their gaze bent on Constantinople, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar. They have knocked at the gates of that City before.

With consummate skill Tsar Ferdinand kept his plans secret while the Balkan League was forming to overthrow the last of Ottoman power in Europe. For many years all Bulgaria had been preparing for this great stroke, arming, organizing, making sacrifices as a nation must do when in pursuit of a high ideal, so when the moment came it found a strong people, trained to arms, determined to snatch success from before the cannon’s mouth and crown its standards with laurel victory. With a possible war strength of over three hundred thousand men and four hundred and fifty guns Bulgaria stood ready to take the field.

The massacres of Kochana gave impetus to the avalanche which was ready to descend over the hills and vales of Thrace. Bulgaria had been making steady propaganda in Macedonia and had drawn within the folds of its nationality a great number of those nondescripts, Slavs, who form the major portion of the inhabitants of that quondam Turkish province. This propaganda was actively supported by the Bulgarian Church under its enlightened high-priest, His Beatitude Joseph, Exarch of Bulgaria.

I first met the Exarch some years ago while on a visit to Bulgaria. His Beatitude had left Constantinople, where the interests of his flock in Macedonia require that he should reside, and was taking a holiday in a remote village near Sofia, a village nestling among the mountain range of Vitosa, by the banks of a mountain torrent along which a broad military road leads to the Turkish frontier.{314} We discussed the state of Macedonia, and though I may not divulge all that was said to me, I gained an even higher opinion of Bulgarian thoroughness and efficiency. We also discussed the schism between the Greek and Bulgarian sections of the Orthodox Church; this is a purely political matter, and was freely used by the Porte to foster racial animosity in Macedonia. When the Greeks gained their independence the Bulgarians of Macedonia were encouraged to build schools and were allowed to endow several new bishoprics; when the Greeks were temporarily disabled by the war of 1898 the Porte thought fit to persecute the Bulgarians of Macedonia, assisted in this by Pomaks, Bulgarians converted to Islam some centuries ago. The Turks overdid this policy, and their measures only served to crystalize the different non-Turk racial and religious elements of Macedonia. Bands of comitadjis were formed, they assisted nationalist propaganda by primitive methods, and finally, the Porte being weakened by revolution and the vacillations of a farcical Parliament terrorized by esoteric militarism, strengthened the arms of those who sought freedom from Turkish rule.

The occasion arose over the massacres of Kotchana, which sent a wave of fierce indignation over Bulgaria. Reforms in Macedonia and the punishment of those concerned in the outrages were demanded by Tsar Ferdinand and refused by the Porte, which, feeling itself strong enough and ignoring the strength and stability of the Balkan Alliance, declared war on Bulgaria. Forthwith the armies of Bulgaria, already assembled in battle array on the frontier, poured into Thrace and overran that province, driving the Ottoman forces before it.

War was declared by Turkey against Bulgaria and Servia on October 17th, on the same day Greece sent a similar declaration to the Porte. Then the highly organized forces{315} of the Allies marched. While the Greek navy put to sea to capture islands in the Ægean and invaded Turkey from the south, the Bulgarians entered Thrace in three columns under the Tsar and General Savof, General Hanof capturing Kurt Kalé and Mustapha Pasha on October 18th. On the following day Turkish cruisers made a futile attempt on the Bulgarian coast, bombarding Varna and destroying an inoffensive monastery. By this day all the four Allies had invaded Turkish territory. The mountain passes were in the hands of the Bulgarians by October 20th, and the army marching on Adrianople; Adrianople, where the Bulgars had vanquished Emperor Nicephorus and his troops by the banks of the Maritza in 811.

While in the west the Servian army was continuing its victorious march on Üsküb, while the Montenegrin northern army under Prince Danilo moved from Berane to the capture of Plava and Gusinje, and their southern army commenced the siege of Scutari by attacking Tarabosh, the Bulgarian armies drove the Turks from the Arda River west of Adrianople, and General Dimitrief completed the easterly turning movement by attacking the Ottoman forces at Kirk Kilisse. Here the battle raged to and fro with varying success until the Turks, under Abdullah Pasha, were finally routed on October 24th. At the same time Bulgarian troops occupied Vasiliko on the Black Sea; the Servians, under General Yankovitch, had already captured Prishtina on the 20th, and others commanded by General Ziskovitch had entered Kralovo and Novi Bazar. On the day which witnessed the defeat of Abdullah Pasha at the hands of General Dimitrief at Kirk Kilisse, the Servians, led by their Crown Prince in person, won the decisive battle of Kumanovo.

The tale of disaster continued; on October 25th the Turks evacuated Küprölü in the west; in the eastern{316} theatre of war the Bulgarians opened the bombardment of Adrianople. On the following day King Peter entered Üsküb, the former residence of Servian Kings, in solemn state, and Küprölü, Drama, and Koziani were captured by the forces of the Allies.

Further Ottoman losses occurred on October 27th, when Istip fell and the Bulgarians captured Baba Eski, occupied Bunar Hissar, and took the Kresna Pass in the Struma Valley. All this time the Greeks were gaining ground towards Janina, and by October 30th had captured Veria and Thasos, preparatory to marching on Saloniki. By October 31st fighting was general all along the line in Thrace, the Allies were marching on Saloniki, and the northern and southern armies of Montenegro had closed in upon Scutari.

By the beginning of November the Western Powers had awakened from the dreams of the soporific status quo and began to realize that that formula no longer applied to the Near East. On November 9th Mr. Asquith solemnly announced that the Allies must have secured to them the fruits of victory. I wonder what Power, or group of Powers, however prominent the capital P, would dare to rob these gallant young nations of what they have won by bravery and devotion such as no older nation has exhibited in recent history. The Allies had continued along the path of conquest; Serbs had occupied Prilep and begun their advance on the Albanian coast, and Saloniki had surrendered before Mr. Asquith’s sententious statement. Fighting continued, and step by step the Allies pressed their old enemy towards the sea, the Greeks occupying more islands in the Ægean, the Bulgars pressing on towards Chatalja, hammering insistently on those outer defences of Constantinople till the Porte saw no help for it but to arrange an armistice.{317}

So while the great men of the Great Powers were beginning to realize what was happening next door, and were working the cumbrous machinery of diplomacy too late for any practical purpose, the Allies, four young nations, unspoilt by luxury and great possessions, inspired by a high ideal, crossed their borders, drove the Ottoman forces before them from many a sternly contested field, and forced them to offer terms within a day’s march of the Turkish capital.

There is great glory in this crusade of the Allies against the heavy obstacle to progress which centres in Constantinople. Great glory for Western civilization by which these young kingdoms were informed when they set their house in order and united their forces to bold endeavour. Great glory to the faith they profess, which makes union possible and thus leads to victory. Greater glory still to those of all the other European nations who, seeing the plight of Christianity’s old enemy, hastened to assist him. Here in Constantinople they are at work, these bearers of Western culture, under Red Cross or Red Crescent, helping where the Turkish authorities have proved helpless, saving thousands from death by wound or disease while their own stand by and let the mosques, built to commemorate the victories of Islam, overflow with untended sufferers.

Yes, it is a great and glorious victory this last crusade begun by the young kingdoms of the Balkans, informed with high purpose, trained by Western thought and action, completed by those soldiers of the Cross who risked their lives in fighting dread diseases, seeking no reward, moved by that mainspring of their faith, Charity.{318}

CHAPTER XIX

AFTER November 17th a period of inactivity set in outside, by the lines of Chatalja, the heavy sound of guns ceased to accompany the daily round of work or pleasure which makes the life of Constantinople, Pera, and Galata. Refugees still moved with their creaking waggons and sought the shelter of the mosques, or camped on open spaces. Some pitched their wandering tents round a dilapidated monastery on the heights whereon stands the wireless telegraphy station. The golf-links are on this open space—here you may see intent Englishmen, who have snatched an hour or so between work and their voluntary duties at the hospitals, stalking after the elusive golf-ball, in their wake a listless caddie, preceding them a ragged urchin with a flag to mark the next green.

In the meantime rumours floated about the City, tales of atrocities committed by the Greek soldiery at Saloniki, accounts of the solemn reconsecration of the Agia Sophia in that town by its Metropolitans and the one of Athens. Reports came of the sufferings of those Jews who had lived contentedly under Turkish rule at Saloniki since the days when Ferdinand and Isabella expelled their forebears from Spain, still retaining the Spanish language written in Hebrew characters. Then was borne another rumour, which grew, assumed the air of certainty, and then emerged as an accomplished fact—it concerned the negotiations for{319} an armistice to be concluded between the Porte and the Allies.

An historic event that meeting between representatives of the Sultan’s army and the enemy who had been clamouring for admittance without the lines of Chatalja, so near the capital of the Sultan’s Empire. They met at four o’clock on December 4th, at a place between the outposts of the armies. The delegates came by rail as far as a point where the line was broken at Batchekeui. Where the broken line resumes its road to Constantinople the train bearing Nazim Pasha and his suite awaited the delegates. Nazim Pasha descended from his saloon car and went on foot to meet the delegates, Bulgarians, to represent Servian and Montenegrin interests as well as their own, Greeks to speak for themselves. They all entered the saloon car, which the Greek representatives left again after a little while. The sitting of the Bulgarians and Turks, conducted with great secrecy, lasted till 8.15 p.m. Turkish officers were sitting round a huge camp-fire which lit up the tents of their army’s head-quarters at Hademkeui, the smoke curling up into the sky of a cold, damp winter’s evening; these officers discussed the probable results of the conference, and hoped for a continuance of the war. A shrill whistle heralded the return of Nazim Pasha’s train. He alighted, gave an order to one of the officers attending him, and soon the news spread that an armistice had been arranged. By the lines of Chatalja, the last defences of Constantinople, the Ottoman army agreed to a cessation of hostilities with the former subjects of so many victorious Sultans.

The armistice soon broadened out into a desire for peace proposals, and London was chosen as the place where they should be discussed.

When the Ottoman delegates left Constantinople for England my work was done, and I turned homewards.{320} It was a cold, cloudy morning when my ship swung slowly out from her moorings at Galata, and the smoke of the city hung over it as a heavy canopy into which the cypresses pointed warning fingers. Slowly we moved past the mighty warships of foreign nations, round Seraglio Point out into the Sea of Marmora. A slight breeze arose and disturbed the canopy of smoke, broke the heavy banks of clouds, and admitted rays of hopeful sunlight through the rifts. Here and there light broke upon the moving waters, called forth glittering reflections from the portholes of some sombre man-of-war, or tipped the muzzle of a gun with flashing silver. Under the uncertain sunshine Seraglio Point stood out white against the dark cypresses, whose outlines were blurred by the heavy mass of crowded Galata and Pera, crowned by the tower. The sun shone out stronger as we ploughed through the steel-blue waters, throwing up the gleaming brasswork on the dome of St. Sophia like a bright star in a murky night. The yellow buildings of the Palace of Justice stood out bravely from their commanding position, and the distant towers of Yedi Koulé showed up against the heavy background of shadowed, undulating country. As the sun rose higher in the heavens the snow-clad mountains of Asia gloriously reflected its victorious rays.

We arrived early in the morning at the Dardanelles, and there we had one more experience of Turkish procrastination. Without any apparent reason, the tug appointed to pilot us through the mine-fields failed to answer to our signals, and kept us waiting several hours. Then she came bustling up, went about, and bade us follow her. Ours was the first of a string of ships; we were followed by a fretful-looking Roumanian mail-steamer, and behind her came several patient tramps, thumping leisurely along. Everywhere along the European side of the{321} Dardanelles, to which we kept quite close, were evidences of military preparations against attack; machine-guns were artlessly concealed by dry brushwood among the green undergrowth of the cliffs, old field-guns stood out lonely behind insufficient earthworks, here and there were groups of soldiers, sentries—one I noticed with his back to the sea—and patrols of cavalry scurried along the road. The daylight brightened as we sailed on past ruined castles and obsolescent earthworks into the blue Ægean Sea, losing sight of the Turkish fleet—grey and heavy, and listlessly at anchor by the old towers of the Dardanelles. No sooner had our ship put her nose out into the open than we saw black clouds of smoke hurrying along the skyline: Greek destroyers on the look-out for any ships coming out of the Dardanelles.

There was one more evidence of war as we drew near to Tenedos, with its mediæval fortress. Greek destroyers were lying under the ancient walls, and one of them dashed out to hold us up in the approved style. First a blank shot across our bows and then a boarding-party of Greek sailors, who wandered about our ship in what seemed to me a very aimless manner. Then we sailed on again southward, past many islands, till we turned into the Mediterranean Sea. A strong breeze came off the land, where cloud shadows were chasing each other over rocky promontories, foam-tipped waves were playing at the foot of steep cliffs, and little white-winged sailing vessels came dancing over the sea.

There was “Festa” at Reggio and Messina, for it was Sunday, and myriads of lights cast fitful reflections on the waters of the straits as we sailed through them. Then came a day of tumbling seas, roused by the wind that sweeps across from the Gulf of Lions, and then sunshine on the southern coast of France, lighting up the stern walls{322} of Château d’If, and shining on Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, over the busy port of Marseilles. Then a furious rush through fair Provence, to Paris, thence through Normandy, and then again the sea, green under a grey sky, boisterous as the free winds that whistled in the rigging, as the smart little turbine packet thrust her saucy nose into the waves and tossed them over her back, pitching, rolling, until fitful gleams of sunlight lit up the chalk cliffs of England.

In the meantime the fate of a broken Empire was being decided in London. Not at first with the dignity which such an event demands, so deeply important in the world’s history; rather was it characterized by the methods of the Oriental bazaar, and its small, haggling spirit. While Adrianople was starving, while the Sultan’s troops shivered on the bleak, wind-swept outposts that guard Constantinople at the lines of Chatalja, unseemly procrastination marked the course of events at the meetings of the delegates, who met for an hour or so now and again, then returned to their luxurious quarters.

Meanwhile the tone and temper of the Turks, as expressed in Constantinople, caused much anxiety to those who longed for peace. I had seen some signs of this before leaving the East. The minds of some Turks with whom I discussed the situation were still full of imagined victories for the future; they declined to consider themselves defeated, and expressed their confidence that victorious Ottoman armies would yet hold triumphant entry into Sofia—and Athens. Their opinion may be set aside as worthless. Those who know, and there are many, though they keep their convictions secret, are aware that inefficiency has brought the East down before the organized, purposeful West, and that the days of Turkish rule in Europe are numbered, that the Ottoman Empire this side of the Bosphorus is as much doomed as was that of{323} ancient Byzant when Amurath made Adrianople his capital.

The great majority of Turks appear to be of the same mind as Ali, the master-weaver; they know little of what is happening, they seem to care less. Those soldiers that I have seen returned from the front looked too listless and miserable to form an opinion, and they probably know as little of what went on during the war as the private soldier generally does in these days of warfare over a large extent of country. I have generally found the task of drawing out old soldiers on their war experiences to result in recitals too romantic for use in anything but a work of fiction, or else quite fruitless. There was one, a German barber, who had been through the campaign of 1870-1871; when asked to relate his experiences, all he could say, after deep reflection, was: “Every day I shave de captain.”

It may be taken for granted that the Ottoman Empire as a European Power is a thing of the past, that all those provinces carved out of Europe by the sword of Othman have been lost by the sword, and that of Turkey in Europe nothing remains but the strips of land which the Allies are pleased to leave to their old enemy. Constantinople will remain Turkish for some time yet—ten years, perhaps fifteen—but methinks the Turk is tired of his stay in Europe, that he will soon pack up his small possessions and return to Asia Minor, whence he came.

One tiny patch of European territory may yet remain Turkish, perhaps by an oversight similar to that which kept it so since the Berlin Treaty overlooked it, Ada Kalé. This is a small island in the middle of the Danube, opposite the broad, poplar-lined avenue which leads to the Koronzi Kapella, where the crown of St. Stephan, the saintly King of Hungary, was buried when Kossuth fled in 1848. Ada Kalé is a typical Turkish settlement, with little wooden{324} houses growing out of masses of old fortifications, around a mosque with its slender minaret standing out against the dark forests and rocks that rise up to form the Iron Gate. The small population is typically Turkish, very partial to the smuggling of tobacco, and not untouched by modern ideas. They share a deputy in the Turkish Parliament with some other place, and have, at least some of them, a well-developed thirst for Pilsener beer. I have seen two Turks from the island making exceeding merry over large beakers of that beverage in a garden restaurant at Orsova one fine summer’s day.

When Turkey has finally jettisoned those encumbrances, the European vilayets, and withdrawn to Asia Minor, the Ottoman Empire will probably gain considerably in strength by consolidation, and by carrying out many social and economical reforms which have been kept in abeyance during the constant trouble caused by the war-clouds that hung over Eastern Europe. A strong Turkish Empire in Asia Minor, real control over the tribes in Syria, strict surveillance of the eastern and north-eastern frontiers, will mean some prospect of peace in those very unsettled regions. Great Britain, of all European Powers, should aid in this enterprise, and that at once, for there are other Powers interested in Asia Minor.

The Fountain at Radoïl
In the foreground Helenka, a Bulgarian maiden

It is high time that the people of Great Britain should realize the change which recent warlike happenings have brought about, and that they should bend their great minds to a consideration of the future. Four small Balkan kingdoms united to formidable strength have brought down the military power of an Empire which, in spite of its many weaknesses, was considered strong enough to be an important factor in the affairs of Europe. This feat was accomplished in seven weeks, and by armies composed of the whole manhood of each militant state,{326}{325} just as the manhood of the barbarian races vanquished the paid soldiery of Rome and shattered the World-empire of the first “Völkerwanderung.” Then as now fresh young nations put all their strength into the struggle, their opponents did not, for Imperial Rome sent out hired armies to defend their possessions while the Roman citizens lived a life of idleness and pleasure at the expense of the State; and the Sublime Porte, excluding the population of the capital from military service even as Byzant had done, and for the same reason, namely, that it was not considered expedient to have a populace trained to arms round the palace walls, sent thousands of ignorant Anatolian peasants to a war the cause of which they could not understand. Enthusiasm, efficiency, and the spirit of self-sacrifice led the young nations on the road to victory; moreover, they found an ally in the selfishness of their antagonists, sycophants and pleasure-seekers, trusting to the paid legionaries of Rome or the foreign-trained political intriguers of the Sultan’s army. Imperial Rome perished of corruption and had to make way for something cleaner, wholesomer. The Turkish Empire in Europe has gone the same way, and the same causes brought about its fall. Would it not be as well for us Britons to look at home? It would indeed be advisable, for the end is not yet.

That Turkey retains some small portions of her former European possessions is of little moment, what really matters is that the forces which have for so long been controlled by diplomacy have now been set in motion, and to my mind the recent Balkan war is little more than an advanced-guard action. The theatre of war had to be cleared of an encumbrance, so the Allied States of the Balkans drove the Turks out in order that no side issue should interfere with the solution of the great problem.

The problem is much the same as that which presented{328} itself during the first migration of nations. The German races felt drawn to the south and the east, the Slavs were impelled towards the west, and then, as now, have blocked the way of the former’s progress.

The movements of nations during the first “Völkerwanderung” had probably no very definite aim; the barbarians beat down resistance when they could, but when too strongly opposed they went elsewhere. The present movement is caused by the same desire for expansion, but it is also inspired by very definite aims and ambitions. The probable resistance to be met with has been calculated to a nicety, plans have been made to overcome obstacles, and all this is due to efficiency.

The Turk was in the way, he proved inefficient and went under. Now that he is down it will be noticed how few friends he has.

It has been asserted that we Britons are in the way. Are we efficient? If not, who are our friends and what their worth should heavy troubles come upon us by our own fault?

THE END

{329}

INDEX

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z

Abbasid Caliphs, 159
Abdul Hamid, 225
Abu-dekr, 55, 158
Abul Abbas, 162
Acacius, 72
Academies, 152
Achmet, Grand Vizier, 211
Achmet, son of Bajazet, 195
Achmet II, 213
Achmet III, 217
Acholius, Bp., 80
Ada Kalé, 324
Adjé Bey, 170
Adrianople, 44, 110, 171
Ahmedyeh Achmet, Mosque of, 68, 102, 103
Akindji, Irregular Light Horse, 165
Al Mamun, 159
Ala-ed-din, 164
Albanians, The, 242, 271
Alcibiades, 42
Aleppo, Battle at, 197
Alexander the Great, Sarcophagus of, 50
Alexander John I, 25
Alexander I of Servia, 285
Alexander von Battenberg, 285
Alexius, 65, 135
Ali Pasha of Janina, 173, 223, 243
Almoraivids of Spain, The, 160
Amron, Omar’s General, 158
“Amselfeld,” The, 174, 289
Amurath I, 54, 170
Amurath II, 66, 179
Amurath III, 105
Amurath IV, 208
Amycus, King of the Bebryces, 37
Anatoli Hissar, 38
Anatoli Kavak, 30
Anatolian peasants, 149
Andronicus, Emperor, 166
Anemas, Tower of, 135
Angelus, Tower of Isaac, 135
Angora, Defeat of Bajazet at, 177
Anthony of Thebais, 94
Apsimar, 74
Arab power, Rise of the, 146
Arabs, The, 96
Arcadius, 60
Armatoles, 237
Armenian Church, The, 85
Armenians, The, 85, 266
Armistice, An, 319
Armoury, The, 57
Army, Bad organization of the Turkish, 153
Army of Mohammed IV, 211
Army, Roumania’s, 27
Army, Selim’s, 203
Arslan, son of Thogrul, 160
Art in Constantinople, 51, 156
Arsena Clan, The, 145
Ashikian, Patriarch, 270
Athenians, The, 42
At-meïdan, 71
Atrium of Justinian, The, 53
Attila, 119
Augsburg, 198
Austria and Roumania, 26
Austrian railway carriages, 19
Avari, The, 22, 42, 52
Azab’s Light Infantry, 165

Badajoz, Espionage at, 34
Baikal, The Turks at Lake, 146
Bairam, Feast of, 44
Bajazet, 55, 174
Baker Pasha, Valentine, 140
Baldwin, 20, 116, 298
Balkan Peninsula, Peoples of the, 260
Baltaoghli, Admiral, 130
Balukli, Legend of the Monastery of, 258
Barbarossa, 19, 66, 161
Banat, The, 22
Basil “Bulgaroktonos,” 115
Bathory, Stephan, 183
Bears in Roumania, 26
Beikos, 37
Bela I of Hungary, 160
Belgrade, 32, 181, 213
{330}
Benedictines, Order of, 159
Bentinck, Sir Thomas, 66
Beshiktash, 39
Bessarabia, Russia and, 25
Block-houses, System of, 110
Blue and Green Factions, 72
Bondelmontius, 50
Boniface IX, Pope, 175
Boris, King, 95
Bosnia, 222
Bosphorus, The, 29;
temples, 30;
Anatoli Kavak, 30;
Roumeli Kavak, 30;
the Kruli, 30;
Scutari, 30;
Goths, 30;
Russians, 30;
Genoese, 31;
Venetians, 31;
Giant’s Mtn., 31;
grave of Joshua, 31;
Therapia, 37;
Beikos, 37;
Castles, 38;
the Golden Horn, 39;
Stamboul, 40;
hospital at Scutari, 40
Brancovan of Wallachia, 23
Brancoviç, George, 182
Brigandage, 237
British and Turkish Empires, 156
Broussa, 163
Bucharest, 27;
Treaty of, 283
Buda-Pesth, Capture of, 199
Bulgaria, 22;
and Roumania, 27, 44;
conquest by, 111;
defeated by Basil, 115;
defeat the Greeks, 136, 173, 236, 294
Büyük Chekmedje, Lake, 138
Byzantium, Foundation of, 41
Byzas, Founder of Byzantium, 40, 41

Caliphate, The, 97, 146
Calderon, Valley of, 196
Calo, John, 298
Camoens, 38
Candia, Capture of, 212
Candilli, The, 104
Cannon, Urban’s, 127
Cantacuzene, 24
Cantomir of Moldavia, 23
Capistran, Johann, 78
Caraccioli, 205
Carlowitz, Treaty of, 216
Carmania, Prince of, 170
Carpathians, 20
Castles on the Bosphorus, 38
Cerestes, Battle at, 207
Cervantes, 205
Characteristics, National, 109
Charlemagne, 52
Chakir, 159
Chalcedon, 40;
Council of, 86
Charles V, 56, 66, 198
Charles XII of Sweden, 217
Charles of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, 25
Chatalja, 111, 136
Chavannes, 145
Chazars, Khan of the, 73
Cheironeia, Battle of, 263
Chinese and Turks, The, 145
Christians, Freedom of, 163
Chroseos, King of the Persians, 42
Chrysopolis, 30
Chrysostom, 60, 84
Cicala Pasha, 207
Clement VII, 173
Cracow, 19
Crimea, The, 42
Crum, King, 115
Crusades, The, 78, 161
Cœur-de-Lion, Richard, 161
Cologne Cathedral, 114
Comnena, Anna, 134
Comnenus, Manuel, 134
Colonies, Roman, 21
Columbus, 194
Constanza, 27
Constantine Copronymus, 114
Constantine, The Castle of, 42
Constantine XI, 184
Constantine the Great, 42, 80
Constantine, Prince, 93
Constantinople, a city of contrasts, 44;
its buildings, 51;
Seraglio, 51;
seven hills, 51;
beauties of, 51-2;
streets, 121;
capture of, 128, 178;
siege of, 180;
capture of, 185
Constantius, 50, 60
Convents, 95
Corvinus, Matthias, 193
Count of Flanders, The, 25
Courtesy of the Turk, 155
Cypresses, The, 124
Cyprus, Capture of, 204
Cyril, 95

Dacia Trajana, 20
Dacians, 20, 260
Damascus, 158
Dandolo, Doge, 43, 65
Danielis and Basil, 115
Danilo II, 288
Dashnaktsutian Secret Society, 270
Decebal, 21
Decebalus, King, 260
Dedo ’Mitri, 301
De Lisle, Adam, 199
Demosthenes, 42
{331}
Diarbekr, 197
Djem, Prince, Bajazet’s brother, 192
Dobrutsha, Roumania and the, 25
Dogs, 103
Don Juan of Austria, 204
Doria, Andrea, 205
Doria, Admiral, 66
Druses of Lebanon, The, 206
Ducas, the Byzantine chronicler, 39
Dundas, Murder of, 163
Dürkö or Turk, 145

Ecbatana, 158
Edirné Kapou, 133, 152
Egri Kapou, The, 135
Elizabeth, Queen, 66, 205
Eudoxia, Empress, 84
Eugène, Prince, 216
Eutychius, 64
Eyub, Mosque of, 97

Famimit Caliphs, 160
Fauna of Roumania, 26
Ferdinand, Archduke, 200
Ferdinand the Catholic, 194
Ferdinand, King, 93, 120
Finns, 22;
treatment of, by Ivan the Cruel, 204
Firaz Agha, 38
Fires, 106
Flanders, Counts of, as Emperors, 43
Forests of Roumania, 26
Francis I, 56, 199

Galata, 31, 39, 46
Galatz, 20
Gallipoli, Capture of, 170, 180
Gazi Hassan, 218
Gennodius, 54, 252
Genoese, The, 31;
fleet of, in the Golden Horn, 39, 129, 169
Gepidi, The, 21, 264
Ghasi Fasil, 170
Ghaznevids of Afghanistan, 158
Ghevout, King, 267
Ghika, the cats’-meat man, 24
Ghoureha, or Foreign Horse, 165
Giant’s Mtn., 31
Giougen, or Jwen-jwen, The, 145
Gipsies, The, 22, 132
Giustiniani, 131
Golden Gate, The, 113
Golden Horde, The, 162
Golden Horn, The, 39
Golubaç, 282
Goths, The, 21, 30, 110, 263
Grand Viziers, 210
Grant, Johannes, 134
Gratian, 114
Gratitude of the Turk, 154
Great Britain and Turkey, 121, 217
Greek Music, 244
Greek Orthodoxy, 54
Greek Patriarch, The, 236
Greeks, The, 43, 44;
defeated by the Bulgarians, 13, 235, 238, 244
Gregory IV, 159
Gueshof, M., 95
Gutenberg, Meister, 193

Hadrian, 110
Haiasdan, 266
Halki or Khalki Hills, 52
“Hamidieh,” The, 148
Hamals, 122
Haroun-al-Raschid, 159
Hasandshan, 198
Hassam Fehoni, Murder of, 227
Hassan, the Giant of Ulubad, 131
Hellenes, The, 233
Henry IV of Germany, 160
Henry VIII, 56
Heraclius, 114, 146
Heraklea, 30
Hermanstadt, 181
“Heroön,” The, 102
Heruli, The, 30
Herzegovina, 222
Hieron, Straits of, 30
Hilmi Pasha, 227
Hippodrome, The, 63
Hiung-nu, The, 145
Hormisdas, Palace of, 116
Hospitality of the Turk, 156
Hospitals, 153
Humdi Bey, 51
Hungarians, 22, 264
Hungary, Invasion of, 176, 199
Huns, The, 21, 264
Hunyadi Janos, 23, 175, 181
Hussars, The, 166
Hussein, Grand Vizier, 216

Ibrahim, 209
Ibrahim or Kara Gehennin, 220
Ibrahim Pasha, 243
Ignatius, 91
Illyrians, The ancient, 260
Intellect of the Turk, 156
Invasion of Turkey, The, 231
Iranians, The, 145
Irene, Empress, 52
{332}
Iron Gates, The, 20
Isabella of Castile, 194
Isidore, Cardinal, 128
Islam, Advance of, 96, 147, 186
Ismail, Shah, 195
Issa, son of Bajazet, 179
Ivan the Terrible, 204

Janissaries, The, 74, 113, 203, 213, 216, 219
Japheth, Descent from, 143
Jenghiz Khan, 161
Jesuits, The, 198
Jews and Turks, 226
Joachim III, His Holiness, 251
John II of Portugal, 194
John V, Emperor, 169
John VII, 134
Joseph, Exarch of Bulgaria, 313
Joshua, The Mtn. of, 31
Julian, Cardinal, 182
Justin, 72;
and the Turkish envoys, 146
Justinian and Theodora, 72

Kaim, Caliph, 160
Kanson-Ghauri, 197
Kapodistrias, M., First President of the Hellenes, 235
Kara George, 220
Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier, 210, 212
Kemal-Reis, 194
Kerko Porta, The, 134
Kerkoud, Battle at, 218
Khairreddin Barbarossa, 66, 148, 201
Khaled, Arab general, 158
Khourrem, 56
Kiamil Pasha, 227
Kilia, Fort of, 30
Kirk Kilisse, Battle of, 315
Klephts, 238
Knjes Lazar, 23
Kochana Massacres, The, 231
Koepri Hissar, Attack on, 163
Koiridocastron, 169
Koran, The, 189
Korkoud, son of Bajazet, 195
Kossova, 23, 78;
Battle of, 174
Kumani, The, 22
Kumanovo, Battle of, 315
Kunobitza, Mt., Victory at, 182
Kurdistan, 197
Kurds, The, 268
Kütshük Agia Sofia, 103

Ladislaus, King, 182
Lalashahin, General, 171
Lazar, King, 174
Lazarevitch, King Stephen, 174
Lemnos, 53
Leo X, Pope, 56
Leo the Isaurian, 57
Leonardo da Vinci, 194
Leontius, General, 73
Lepanto, 205
London, Conference in, 322
Louis of Hungary, King, 199
Lüle Burgas, Debacle of, 150
Luther, 90, 193
Lycus, Valley of the, 116, 127

Macchiavelli, 194
Magyars, 160, 213
Mahmoud I, 217
Mahmoud II, 220
Mahmud, Sultan, 159
Mahmud of Ghazin, 160
Mahpeiker, Sultana, 208
Malcolm III, 160
Mamelukes, The, 195
Manuel Palæologus, 178
Marble Tower, The, 112, 137
Marco Colonna, 204
Maritza, Valley of the, 120, 172
Marmora, Sea of, 53;
Arabs on the, 146
Marsovan, The College of, 270
Massacre of Shiites, 56
Massacres of Armenians, 270
Massacres of Kotchana, 313
Masud, 160
Maximilian, Emperor, 204
Maximus, 113
Mazeppa, Hetman, 217
Medical organizations, 122
Medici, The, 193
Mediterranean, Solyman’s successes in the, 201
Melik Shah, 161
Methodius, 95
Michael the Brave, 23
Michael Palæologus, 116
Mihrama, Mosque of, 133
Milan Obrenoviç, 285
Milosh Kabilovitch, 174
Milosh Obrenoviç, 222
Mohacz, Battle at, 199, 213
Mahommed the Conqueror, 43, 102
Mahommed the Conqueror, Sons of, 55
Mohammed I, 38
{333}
Mohammed II, 38, 113, 116, 184
Mohammed III, 206
Mohammed IV, 210
Mohammed V, 224
Mohammed, son of Amurath, 182
Mohammed, son of Bajazet, 179
Mohammed Kiüprilü, 210
Mohammed’s plank road, 39
Moldavia, 20, 22
Mollahs and Imams, Influence of, 190
Mompseueste, Gates of, 113
Monasticism, 94
Monastir, Capture of, 290
Montenegrins, The, 44, 288
Morean Rebellion, 243
Morsiney, Elizabeth, 175
Moses of Koren, historian, 295
Moslems and Christians, 226
Mosques of Constantinople, 102
Mufti, The, 191
Murder a factor of Oriental policy, 55
Murder of unbelievers, The, 121
Musa, Prince, son of Bajazet, 178
Museum, The, 50
Mustapha II, 215
Mustapha the drunkard, 209
Mustapha the Pretender, 180
Mustapha, son of Suleiman, 56
Myrtché, Prince of Wallachia, 174
Mysore, The Maharajah of, 165

Nadir Derbena, Passes of, 173
Nadir, Shah, 218
Nasreddin Effendi, Stories of, 141
Navarino, 221, 243
Navy, Roumania’s, 27;
Turkish, 37, 148, 218
Nemanya, The House of, 279
Niazi Bey, 227
Nicæa, 83;
Council of, 57;
capture of, 166
Nicephorus Phocas, 52, 67, 113
Nicholas I, Pope, 92
Nicholas of Montenegro, 287
Nicopolis, Siege of, 176
Nightingale, Florence, her hospital, 40
Nissa, Capture of, 172
Nomad Turks, 158

Odenatus, 30
Officers, Turkish, 149
Oglou, Michael, 200
Oil-fields in Roumania, 27
Omar, 55, 158
Orchan, son of Othman, 97, 163, 166
Orsova, 20
Orthodox Greek Church, The, 25, 238
Osman Pasha, 25
Othman, 55, 97, 162
Othman’s Scimitar, 164
Othman II, 208
Oulou Jedji, The, 165
Ouloudjé, Admiral, 205

Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, 133
Palæologi, The, 116
Paris, Convention of, 24
Parker, E. H., 145
Parthians, The, 261
Passarowitz, Peace of, 217
Passvan Oglou of Vidin, 224
Patriarch, Armenian, 86
Patriarch, Greek, 54
Pausanias, 50
Pehlevan (Mohammed I), 179
Peloponese, The, 234
Pentecost, Feast of, 44
Persia and the Arabs, 146
Persians, The, 42
Peter, Bishop, 83
Peter the Great of Russia, 23, 217
Peterwardein, Battle at, 213
Petroviç, George, 283
Petschenegs, The, 22
Phanar, The, 89
Philip of Macedon, 42
Photius, 91
Pialé the Croat, 201
“Pleureuses, Les,” 50
Plevna, 25
Poland, War with, 208
Polish Jews and Austrian railway carriages, 19
Pope Alexander Borgia, 55
Pravadi, Capture of, 174
Prince’s Islands, The, 41
Prinkipo Island, 52
Printing press, The, 193
Proverbs, 142
Pruth, 23;
Battle on the, 217
Przemysl, 19
Pultowa, 217
Pydna, Battle of, 263

Raab, Battle on the, 211
Radoïl, 305
Railway carriages, Austrian, 19
{334}
Rassia, 279
Red Crescent, The, 50, 122
Refugees, Turkish, 71, 120
Rhodes, The Knights of, 193
Riches of Roumania, 26
Robert College, 95, 297
Rodosto, 149
Roe, Sir Thomas, 208
Roland the Paladin, 52
Roman Legionaries, The, 21
Roman Pontiff, Influence of the, 91
Romanies, 22
Romanus II, 31, 67
Romanus IV, Defeat of, 160
Roumania and Austria, 25;
richness of, 26;
fauna, 26;
Bucharest, 27;
its position of danger, 27;
oilfields, 27;
navy, 27;
Constanza army, 27
Roumanian railways, 19
Roumanians, Descent of the, 21
Roumeli Hissar, 38
Roumeli Kavak, 30
Roxalana, 56
Russian influence, 241
Russians, The, 30, 43

Safiyé, Sultana, 205
St. Bacchus, 103
St. Diomed, Monastery of, 115
St. George, Church of, 133
St. George of Mangane, 95
St. Gothardt, Monastery of, 211
St. Gregory the Illuminator, 266
St. Irene, Church of, 57
St. Michael the Archangel, Church of, 31
St. Romanus, Gate of, 129
St. Sergius, 103
St. Sophia, Mosque of, 55, 60, 131
San Stefano, 137, 150;
Conference at, 25
St. Ursula, 114
Saladin, 161
Sala Mustapha, 204
Salm, Count, 201
Samakov, 305
Samanid Dynasty, The, 159
Samarkand, 177
Sanjaks, 191
Saracens, The, 96
Sarcophagi, Beautiful, 50
Sava Savof, General, 294
Saxons in Turkey, 135
Scanderbeg the Albanian, 183
School of Art, The, 51
Scutari, 30, 288;
Hospital at, 40;
The Pasha of, 224
Scythians, 20, 261
Seadeddin, historian, 172
Segrud, 63
Selim, son of Bajazet, 195
Selim I, 55
Selim II, 57, 203
Selim III, 219
Seljuk Dynasty, The, 159
Semendria, 32, 282
Seraglio, The, 51
Seraglio Point, 39, 41
Seraskierat, The, 153
Serbs, The, 23, 236
Serpents, Bronze, 71
Servia, 44, 174, 183
Servian Army, The, 286, 289, 292
Seven Hills of Constantinople, The, 51
Seven Ionian Islands, The, 242
Severus, 113
Sheikh-ul-Islam, The, 51
Shias, The, 195
Shiites, The, 55
Shinitza, The, 174
Shio, Battle of, 218
Shumla, Surrender of, 173
Sigismund, King of Hungary, 175
Silihdar, Horse of Mysore, The, 165
Simeon, son of Boris, 95
Simeon, Tsar, 136, 297
Sisvan, King, 172
Sitvatorok, Peace of, 207
Slankamen, Battle at, 214
Slavs, 22, 235, 264, 277
Smederovo, 195
Sobieski, 213
Sokoli, Grand Vizier, 204
Soldiers, Wounded, 49
Solyman, 169, 198
Solyman, son of Bajazet, 178
Solyman II, 213
Songs, 142
Spahis, The, 165
Spartans, The, 42
Spy, A suspected, 32, 34
Stahremberg, Count, 213
Stamboul, 40
Stenia, 31
Stephan Dushan, 23
Stephen, Zupan of East Servia, 279
Styria, Invasion of, 176
Sublime Porte, The, 49, 157
Suleiman, 56
{335}
Sultan Oeni, 160
Sunnis, The, 195
Sutri, Council of, 160
Sutton, Sir Robert, 217
Sword of Othman, The, 98
Szeggedin, Treaty of, 182
Szigath, Siege of, 202

Tabriz, 196
Tamerlane, 22, 176
Tartars, 22
Telegraph, Effect of the, 224
Temesvar, Battle at, 216
Temples on the Bosphorus, 30
Theodora, 169
Theodoric, 72
Theodosius, Fortress of, 113
Theodosius, Wall of, 39, 111
Theodosius I, 80
Theodosius II, 50, 60, 85, 127
Theophane, 67
Theophanes, 31
Theophilus, 50, 84, 115
Therapia, 37
Thracians, 20, 260
Thogrul, 159
Tiridales, 266
Tirnova, Capture of, 173
Tobacco, Introduction of, 207
Topal Osman, General, 217
Top Kapousi, 119
Towers on the city walls, 113, 119
Trajan, 20
Trajan’s Wall, 27
Transylvania, 22
Trebizond, 42
Tsarigrad, 93
Tsars of Muscovy, The, 204
Tshelebi (Mohammed I), 179
Tsigani, The, 22
Turkish soldiers, 58
Turks, The rise of the, 97
Turn Severin, 21

Ukraine, Turks defeated in the, 212
Urban, The Hungarian, 127
Urban, Pope, 96
Urban V, Pope, 171
Urban VI, Pope, 173
Üsküb, 93
Urudsh, 66

Valens, 80
Validé, Sultana, 210
Valideh, Mosque of, 46
Varangians, The, 135
Varna, 148;
Battle near, 182
Vasag, 181
Vasco da Gama, 194
“Vatan,” 226
Venetians in the Bosphorus, 31
Venice, 31;
fleet of, in the Golden Horn, 32;
Doge Dandolo, 43, 169
Veniero, Admiral, 205
Veterani, Austrian General, 215
Vidin, 25
Vienna, Siege of, 212
Vilayets, The, 224
Vlachs, The, 265, 274
Vladikas, The, 287
Voivods, 23
Von der Gotz, Field-Marshal, 286
Von Moltke, Count, 221
Vuk Brancoviç, 181

Wallachia, 22
Walls, The city, 111
Walls of Theodosius, 116
Warships on the Bosphorus, Foreign, 40
Western women as nurses, 154
Wild cat in Roumania, The, 27
William of Normandy, 160
Wittekind, Duke of the Saxons, 52

Yedi Koulé, 112
Yermak the Cossack, 204
Yoglan Bey, 176
Young Turks, The, 227
Ypsilanti, Alexander, 343

Zapolya, 200
Zimisces, John, 67, 116
Zizimes, 55

{336}

PRINTED BY
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PLYMOUTH

{337}

A Catalogue of Books on Art, History, and General Literature Published by Seeley & Co Ltd 38 Great Russell Street, London

Some of the Contents

The Publishers will be pleased to post their complete Catalogue or their Illustrated Miniature Catalogue on receipt of a post-card{338}

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

Arranged alphabetically under the names of Authors and Series

ABBOTT, Rev. E. A., D.D.

Hints on Home Teaching. Crown 8vo, 3s.

How to Parse. An English Grammar. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

How to Tell the Parts of Speech. An Introduction to English Grammar. Fcap. 8vo, 2s.

How to Write Clearly. Rules and Exercises on English Composition. 1s. 6d.

Latin Gate, The. A First Latin Translation Book. Crown 8vo, 3s, 6d.

Via Latina. A First Latin Grammar. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

ABBOTT, Rev. E. A., and Sir J. R. SEELEY.

English Lessons for English People. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.

ADY, Mrs. See Cartwright, Julia.

À KEMPIS, THOMAS.

Of the Imitation of Christ. With Illuminated Frontispiece and Title Page, and Illuminated Sub-Titles to each book. In white or blue cloth, with inset miniatures. Gilt top; crown 8vo, 6s. nett; also in vellum, 10s. 6d. nett.

“It may well be questioned whether the great work of Thomas à Kempis has ever been presented to better advantage.”—The Guardian.

ALLDRIDGE, T. J., I.S.O., F.R.G.S.

A Transformed Colony. Sierra Leone as it was and as it is. With Sixty-six Illustrations and a Map. Demy 8vo, 16s. nett.

ANDERSON, Prof. W.

Japanese Wood Engravings. Coloured Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett; also small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; lambskin, 3s. nett.

ARMSTRONG, Sir WALTER.

The Art of Velazquez. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, 3s. 6d. nett.

The Life of Velazquez. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, 3s. 6d. nett.

Velazquez. A Study of his Life and Art. With Eight Copper Plates and many minor Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, cloth, 9s. nett.

Thomas Gainsborough. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett. Also new edition, small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett and 5s. nett.

The Peel Collection and the Dutch School of Painting. With many Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, 7s. nett.

W. Q. Orchardson. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d.; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett.

AUGUSTINE, S.

Confessions of S. Augustine. With Illuminated pages. In white or blue cloth, gilt top, crown 8vo, 6s. nett; also in vellum, 10s. 6d. nett.

BARING-GOULD, Rev. S.

Family Names and their Story. Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d. nett.

Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe. With 54 Illustrations and Diagrams. Demy 8vo, 12s. 6d. nett.

BEDFORD, Rev. W. K. R.

Malta and the Knights Hospitallers. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett.

BENHAM, Rev. Canon D. D., F.S.A.

The Tower of London. With Four Plates in Colours and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, 7s. nett.

Mediæval London. With a Frontispiece in Photogravure, Four Plates in Colour, and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, gilt top, 7s. nett. Also extra crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. nett.

Old St. Paul’s Cathedral. With a Frontispiece in Photogravure, Four Plates printed in Colour, and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett. or cloth, gilt top, 7s. nett.{339}

BICKERSTETH, Rev. E.

Family Prayers for Six Weeks. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

A Companion to the Holy Communion. 32mo, cloth, 1s.

BINYON, LAURENCE.

Thomas Girtin: His Life and Works. An Essay. With Twenty-one Reproductions in Autotype. Imperial 4to, £2, 2s. nett.

Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d.; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett.

John Crome and John Sell Cotman. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 3s. 6d. nett.

BIRCH, G. H.

London on Thames in Bygone Days. With Four Plates printed in Colour and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, 7s. nett.

BRIDGES, Rev. C.

An Exposition of Psalm CXIX. Crown 8vo, 5s.

BUTCHER, E. L.

Things Seen in Egypt. With Fifty Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; lambskin, 3s. nett; velvet leather, in box, 5s. nett.

CAMERON, D. Y.

Six Etchings by D. Y. Cameron and William Strang. Imperial 4to, 6s. nett.

CARTWRIGHT, JULIA.

Jules Bastien-Lepage. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d.; cloth, 3s. 6d. nett.

Sacharissa. Some Account of Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland, her Family and Friends. With Five Portraits. Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d.

Raphael in Rome. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d.; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett; also in small 4to. cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett and 5s. nett.

The Early Work of Raphael. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed 2s. 6d.; half-linen, 3s. 6d. Also new edition, revised, in small 4to, in cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett.

Raphael: A Study of his Life and Work. With Eight Copper Plates and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, 7s. 6d. nett.

CESARESCO, The Countess MARTINENGO.

The Liberation of Italy. With Portraits on Copper. Crown 8vo, 5s.

CHITTY, J. R.

Things Seen in China. With Fifty Illustrations. Small 4to; cloth, 2s.; leather, 3s.; velvet leather in a box, 5s. nett.

CHORAL SERVICE-BOOK FOR PARISH CHURCHES, THE.

Compiled and Edited by J. W. Elliott, Organist and Choirmaster of St. Mark’s, Hamilton Terrace, London. With some Practical Counsels taken by permission from “Notes on the Church Service,” by Bishop Walsham How.

A. Royal 8vo, sewed, 1s.; cloth, 1s. 6d.
B. 16mo, sewed, 6d.; cloth, 8d.

The following portions may be had separately:—

The Ferial and Festal Responses and the Litany. Arranged by J. W. Elliott. Sewed, 4d.

The Communion Service, Kyrie, Credo, Sanctus, and Gloria in Excelsis. Set to Music by Dr. J. Naylor, Organist of York Minster. Sewed, 4d.{340}

CHURCH, Sir ARTHUR H., F.R.S.

Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter. With many Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, 7s. nett; also small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. and 5s. nett.

The Chemistry of Paints and Painting. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.

CHURCH, Rev. A. J.

Nicias, and the Sicilian Expedition. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.

For other books by Professor Church see Complete Catalogue.

CLARK, J. W., M.A.

Cambridge. With a coloured Frontispiece and many other Illustrations by A. Brunet-Debaines and H. Toussaint, &c. Extra crown 8vo, 6s.; also crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s.; special leather, in box, 5s. nett.

CODY, Rev. H. A.

An Apostle of the North. The Biography of the late Bishop Bompas, First Bishop of Athabasca, and with an Introduction by the Archbishop of Rupertsland. With 42 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d. nett.

COLVIN, Sir AUCKLAND, K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G.

The Making of Modern Egypt. Fourth Edition. With Portraits and a Map. Demy 8vo, 18s. nett.

CORBIN, T. W.

Engineering of To-day. With Seventy-three Illustrations and Diagrams. Extra crown 8vo, 5s.

CORNISH, C. J.

Animals at Work and Play: Their Activities and Emotions. With Twelve Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.

Animals of To-day: Their Life and Conversation. With Illustrations from Photographs by C. Reid of Wishaw. Crown 8vo, 6s.

The Isle of Wight. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett; also a new edition, small 4to, cloth, 2s.; leather, 3s.

Life at the Zoo. Notes and Traditions of the Regent’s Park Gardens. Illustrated from Photographs by Gambier Bolton. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.

The Naturalist on the Thames. With many Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d.

The New Forest. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett; also new edition, small 4to, cloth, 2s.; leather, 3s. nett; and special velvet leather, each copy in a box, 5s.

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SCIENCE OF TO-DAY SERIES

The volumes of this series give an attractive, lucid, yet at the same time scientifically accurate account of various subjects in non-technical language. Large crown 8vo, 5s. nett.

Aerial Navigation of To-day. By Charles C. Turner.
Astronomy of To-Day. BY C. G. Dolmage, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.A.S.
Botany of To-day. By Prof. G. F. Scott-Elliot, M.A., B.Sc.
Electricity of To-Day. By Charles R. Gibson, F.R.S.E.
Scientific Ideas of To-Day. By Charles R. Gibson, F.R.S.E.
Engineering of To-day. By Thomas W. Corbin.

SEELEY’S ILLUSTRATED POCKET LIBRARY

Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edge, 2s. nett; also in leather, 3s. nett; and yapp leather in box at 5s.

ADDISON and STEELE.

The Spectator in London. With Fifty-six Illustrations by Ralph Cleaver, and Headpieces by W. A. Atkin Berry, Clough Bromley, &c.{351}

CLARK, J. W., Registrary of the University of Cambridge.

Cambridge. With many Illustrations.

GODLEY, A. D.

Aspects of Modern Oxford. With many Illustrations.

HAMERTON, P. G.

Paris. With many Illustrations.

LEE, SIDNEY.

Stratford-on-Avon. From the Earliest Times to the Death of Shakespeare. With 52 Illustrations by Herbert Railton and E. Hull.

MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL.

Country Stories. With 68 Illustrations by George Morrow.

HERBERT, GEORGE.

The Temple. Sacred Poems and Ejaculations. The Text reprinted from the first edition. With 76 Illustrations after Dürer, Holbein, and other Masters.

LANG, ANDREW.

Oxford. With 40 Illustrations by various artists.

LEFROY, W. CHAMBERS.

The Ruined Abbeys of Yorkshire. With many Illustrations.

LEYLAND, JOHN.

The Peak of Derbyshire: its Scenery and Antiquities.

LOFTIE, W. J.

The Inns of Court. With 60 Illustrations.

RUSSELL, W. CLARK.

British Seas. With 50 Illustrations by J. C. Hook, R.A., Hamilton MacCallum, Colin Hunter, &c.

STEVENSON, R. L. Edinburgh. With many Illustrations by T. Hamilton Crawford, R.S.A. (This volume is only to be had in this series in leather, 5s. nett. For other editions of this book, see next page.)

THE STANDARD LIBRARY

Extra Crown 8vo, With many Illustrations. Price 2s. 6d. nett.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. By A. R. Ropes.
Mrs. Thrale. By L. B. Seeley.
Round My House. By P. G. Hamerton.
Fanny Burney & Her Friends. By L. B. Seeley.

SEELEY, Sir J. R.

Goethe Reviewed after Sixty Years. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

A Short History of Napoleon the First. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 5s.

SEELEY, Sir J. R., and Dr. ABBOTT.

English Lessons for English People. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.

SEELEY, L. B.

Mrs. Thrale, afterwards Mrs. Piozzi. With Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d nett.

Fanny Burney and her Friends. With Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d nett.

SHAND, A. INNES.

General John Jacob. Commander of the Sind Irregular Horse, and Founder of Jacobabad. With many Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 6s.

The War in the Peninsula. With Portraits and Plans. 5s.

SHARP, WILLIAM.

Fair Women. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett. Also new edition, small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett.

SHIPLEY, M. E.

Daily Help for Daily Need. A Selection of Scripture Verses and Poetry for Every Day in the Year. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d.{352}

SOLOMON, SOLOMON J., R.A.

The Practice of Oil Painting and Drawing. Illustrated with many Drawings by the Author, and by Paintings.

STEPHENS, F. G.

Rossetti, D. G. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; also small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett; velvet leather, in a box, 5s. nett.

STEVENSON, R. L.

Edinburgh. Fcap. 8vo, with Frontispiece, gilt top, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett. Crown 8vo, Illustrated, cloth, 35. 6d. Roxburgh, gilt top, 5s. Library Edition. Crown 8vo, buckram, dark blue, gilt top, Sixteen Full-page Illustrations, 6s. Presentation Edition. Extra crown 8vo, with Sixty-four Illustrations, 6s. nett; also People’s Edition, demy 8vo, 6d. nett.

STEVENSON, R. A. M.

Rubens, Peter Paul. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, 3s. 6d. nett, sewed. also small 4to, cloth, 2s. nett; leather, 3s. nett and 5s. nett.

STIGAND, Captain C, H., F. R. G. S., F. Z. S.

To Abyssinia Through an Unknown Land. With Thirty-six Illustrations and Two Maps. Demy 8vo, 16s. nett.

SWANN ALFRED J.

Fighting the Slave Hunters in Central Africa. With Forty-five Illustrations and a Map. Demy 8vo, 16s. nett.

“THINGS SEEN” SERIES

Each volume with 50 Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth, 2s.; leather, 3s.; and velvet leather, in a box, 5s. nett.

Things Seen in Japan. By Clive Holland.
Things Seen in China. By J. R. Chitty.
Things Seen in Egypt. By E. L. Butcher.
Things Seen in Holland. By C. E. Roche.
Things Seen in Spain. By C. Gasquoine Hartley.

TOFT, ALBERT, Hon., A. R. C. A., M. S. B. S.

Modelling and Sculpture. Profusely Illustrated with 119 Photographs and Drawings. Square extra crown 8vo, 6s. nett.

TOWNSHEND, Captain A. T.

A Military Consul in Turkey. With many Illustrations. Demy 8vo, 16s. nett.

TURNER, CHARLES C.

Aerial Navigation of To-day. With Seventy Illustrations and Diagrams. Extra crown 8vo, 5s. nett.

WACE, Very Rev. H., Dean of Canterbury.

The Sacrifice of Christ. Its Vital Reality and Efficacy. Cloth, 1s.

WAERN, C.

John La Farge. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 3s. 6d. nett.

WEALE, W. H. JAMES.

Gerard David, Painter and Illuminator. Illustrated. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 2s. 6d. nett; half-linen, 3s. 6d. nett.

WELCH, C., and Canon BENHAM.

Mediæval London. With a Frontispiece in Photogravure, Four Plates in Colour, and many other Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, sewed, 5s. nett; cloth, gilt top, 7s. nett. Also extra crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. nett.

WICKS, MARK.

To Mars via the Moon. An Astronomical Story. With Sixteen Illustrations and Diagrams. Extra crown 8vo, 5s.{353}