Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor

Achmet II. was more distinguished by the talents of his grand vizir, Kiuprili, than by any act of his own. The father of this man was an instance of the singular and unexpected fortune for which some are remarkable in Turkey. He was a Frenchman, born in a village called Kuperly, in Champaigne, from whence he took his name. He committed a murder, and was obliged to fly, but the boat in which he escaped was taken by Algerine pirates. Under this circumstance, whoever assumes the turban is no longer a slave. He did not hesitate to abjure his faith, and enrolled himself among the Janissaries at Constantinople, where he obtained paramount influence in that turbulent corps. His son was raised to the rank of grand vizir−governed the great Turkish empire−and set up and deposed sovereigns at his pleasure. His destruction was resolved on by the Kislar Aga, who feigned a plot in which he was concerned against the sultan,−while in the act of revealing it, a mute raised the curtain of the tent. Accustomed to listen rather by sight than sound, he at once learned the subject of the conversation by the motion of the lips, and revealed it to Kiuprili. The Kislar Aga was strangled, his secretary hanged in his robes of office with his silver pen-case suspended from his girdle, and Kiuprili remained in the ascendant. As if to mark his hatred of the religion for which his father had apostatized, he caused two patriarchs of the Greek church to be strangled in prison. He was killed in battle in Servia−the Turks were everywhere defeated−and his master soon after died of grief in 1695.

The reign of Mustapha II. was marked by calamities which have never since ceased to afflict the Turkish empire. Besides the ordinary inflictions of war, every other seems to have been laid, by the hand of Providence, on this ruthless nation: Constantinople and Pera were utterly destroyed by fire−a bolt of thunder fell on the imperial mosque, and left it in ruins−the caravan of pilgrims proceeding to Mecca was attacked by Arabs, and 25,000 of them put to the sword−the turbulent Janissaries, availing themselves of every pretext for discontent, were again in a state of insurrection, and compelled the sultan to fly for his life to Adrianople, along with the mufti. Here he was obliged to surrender the unfortunate head of the church, who was treated with every indignity, and then thrown into the river, where he perished. The new mufti, with his son, were seized, tortured, and executed; and the sultan himself was soon after deposed in 1703, and his brother Achmet set on his throne. This military revolt was the most serious that had afflicted the empire since its foundation, and was a prominent feature of that principle of total disorganization, which seemed inherent in the political and moral state of this people.

Achmet III. was called to succeed his brother, and his first act was to avenge himself on the conspirators, who had placed him on the throne in a truly Turkish manner. He disarmed their suspicions by rewards and promises, and, having separated them into various situations of trust and profit, caused every man of them to be strangled in detail.

Notwithstanding the state of insecurity of every thing in Turkey, it nevertheless became in his reign the asylum of the Christian monarchs of Europe. Charles XII. of Sweden, and Stanislaus the king of Poland, whom he had set up, both fled thither for protection: yet, violent and outrageous as was the conduct of “Macedonia’s madman,” whom the Turks for folly and obstinacy called “Ironhead,” both kings were treated with kindness and hospitality. They were followed by their great enemy, the czar Peter, whose usual sagacity seemed to have deserted him. He was shut up behind the Pruth by the Turks, and they had now the opportunity of holding three Christian monarchs in their hands, and dictating what terms they pleased: but avarice, that ruling passion of the Osmanli, saved Peter and his army−Catherine, his wife, who had accompanied him, brought in the night all her personal jewels, and as much money as she could collect, to the czar, who immediately sent them to the grand vizir: he was not able to resist the offer, and the Russian monarch and his army were allowed to depart in peace.

Another circumstance distinguished the reign of Achmet III., even still more important than his being the arbiter of the fate of three Christian kings. The art of printing had now been invented for more than two hundred and fifty years, and every other state in Europe had adopted the important discovery. The Turks alone rejected it, and assigned, as a reason, that it was an impious innovation. They allowed no book but the Koran; they affirmed that it contained every thing necessary for man to know, and any other knowledge was worse than useless. Such was their veneration for this book, that it was strictly forbidden to sit, or lay any weight, upon a copy of it; and if a Frank was detected in the act of doing so, even unwittingly and by accident, he was immediately put to death. This veneration they extend to paper of any kind, because it is the material of which the sacred book is composed, and that on which the name of Allah is written; and hence they strictly prohibit its being desecrated by any common use, and carefully lay up any fragment of it which they accidentally find. The process of printing they consider as compressing and defiling a sacred book, and the mufti denounced it. It was not, then, till the year 1727, that this innovation was tolerated, and a press established at Constantinople. Even then it was done in such a way as was attended with no advantage to an ignorant people. It was still prohibited to print the Koran, and, as that was almost the only book read in the empire, little was added to Turkish knowledge. Achmet was soon after deposed, and the patron of printing deemed unfit to reign.

He was succeeded in 1730 by his nephew Mahomet, the fifth of the name who had ascended the throne of Turkey, but usually called Mahmoud I. It was in his reign the celebrated usurper, Thamas Kouli Khan, seized on the crown of Persia, and war was kindled with the Turks. These nations comprise the two great sects into which the followers of the Prophet are divided. The Persians hold in abhorrence Abubekir and Omar, whom the Turks revere; and they adhere to the doctrines of Ali, whom the Turks abhor. The latter call themselves Sunni, or “the orthodox,” and have no fellowship or communion with the Rafazir or Shiites, “infidels” or “heretics.” They affirm, that Allah may have mercy on Jews and Christians, but he will have none on the Persians, whom he hates sixty and ten times as much as the most inveterate infidels. The enmity, therefore, between the discordant sects of the faithful is even greater than between the faithful and the infidel. It was the enlightened policy of Thamas Kouli Khan to put an end to this bloody dissention, and reconcile the different shades of opinion among the professors of the same religion. It was stipulated as an article in the peace which followed, that their respective priests should labour assiduously to this end; but, like all such attempts, it was unavailing, and the enmity is at this day more inveterate than ever. Mahmoud died in 1754, and was regretted as the least sanguinary of the Ottoman race.

But the time was now approaching when the dynasty of the Mohammedans in Europe seemed hastening to its close. The Russians, ever since the capture of Asoph, on the Mœotis, by Peter the Great, had never ceased advancing on Constantinople. The Turkish territories on the north of the Euxine were intersected by vast rivers which fell into that sea; and the policy of the Russians was, to advance from river to river, and, at the end of every war, to make the last the boundary of their territory, and secure for themselves all that lay behind it. In this way Catherine pushed her frontier to the Dnieper, and built a naval arsenal at Cherson, thereby establishing a naval supremacy on the Black Sea; and, that her object might not be ambiguous, she caused to be inscribed on the western gate, “This is the road to Constantinople.” Meantime, the Turkish government seemed to contain within itself the elements of rapid decay. While all Europe was advancing in the arts and sciences which improve life and strengthen kingdoms, the Turks alone stood still and refused to move−their ignorance inveterate, their obstinacy intractable, their cities falling to ruins, their population daily decreasing, their internal dissensions growing more sanguinary, and, above all, the insolence of the Janissaries without control−interdicting every improvement, paralyzing every effort, utterly inefficient as soldiers, and formidable only to their own government. The first step, therefore, was to establish some force to restrain these men, that the people might be at liberty to follow other states in the march of amelioration: and this was now undertaken by the reigning sovereign.

Selim III. was the most amiable and enlightened man that had yet filled the throne of the Osmanli. He succeeded his uncle, Abdal Hamed Khan, whose sons were infants at the time of their father’s death in 1789. His anxious wish was to correct the prejudices, and enlighten the ignorance of his subjects, by gradually introducing European usages among them. His first improvements were military: a corps was formed, adopting the European discipline, and called the nizam dgeddit, or “new regulation.” Against this innovation the Janissaries revolted: they spurned with indignation all customs but their own; they thought their institutions the perfection of human nature, and that any change must be a degradation. They therefore deposed Selim in 1807, and called to the throne his cousin, Mustapha IV., the son of Abdul Hamed Khan, who had now arrived at adult years. Selim, however, by his many good and amiable qualities, had secured the affections of a large body of his subjects, who, though they did not accede to his military plans, were strongly attached to his person: and among these was Mustapha Bairactar.

This man was a rough soldier, of large stature, and immense bodily strength, fierce in disposition, and coarse in manners, but susceptible of the most affectionate attachment. He was called Bairactar because he had been originally a standard-bearer, and, though now raised to the command of a large army, with the usual pride of a Turk, still retained the original name of the humble rank from which he had raised himself. When he heard that the master he loved was deposed and a prisoner, he hastened with his army to the seraglio, and demanded admission at the great gate of the Babu Humayun.

Mustapha, who was of a light and frivolous, though cruel character, was in the habit of amusing himself daily on the Bosphorus; and when he heard of this insurrection in favour of his deposed cousin, he hastened to land at the sea-gate of the seraglio. He here motioned to his attendant eunuch, who ran to obey his orders. Selim was found in his private apartment, engaged in the performance of the namaz, at the hour of prayer, which he never omitted. In this position he was seized by the eunuch, who attempted to strangle him. He started up, however, and made a vigorous resistance; but his murderer, twining round his legs, seized him in such a way as gave him exquisite pain: he fainted, and in this senseless state was strangled. Meantime, the Bairactar thundered at the great gate, and threatened to batter it down, if the deposed sultan was not produced. He was answered, that his wish should be immediately complied with. The gate was thrown open, and the lifeless Selim cast before him: the rough soldier threw himself upon the body of his gentle master, and wept bitterly.

Another revolution immediately ensued−the cruel and frivolous Mustapha was deposed, and the soldiers searched for his brother Mahmoud, who was known to be in the seraglio, but was no where to be found. It was at length discovered, that a slave attached to his person had immediately seized him when the disturbance began, and hurried him to an oven, where she shut him in, and kept him concealed. From thence he was taken, and placed on the throne. His first act of Turkish policy, immutable in ferocity and disregard of human life, was to cause his brother Mustapha to be strangled; and his next, to cast into the sea all the females of his brother’s harem, lest any of their children, even then unborn, should cause a disputed succession.

The present sultan, Mahmoud II., was born in the year 1788; he was the second son of Abdul Hamed Khan, and is now the only survivor of fifteen male children. He was placed on the throne on the 28th of July, 1808, and from the moment of his elevation showed symptoms of that energetic and resolute character which has since distinguished him. The Russians had advanced from the Pruth to the Danube, and, in the disorganized state of the Turkish army, there was no force to oppose them. The young sultan erected the standard of the Prophet at Daud Pasha, just within the walls of Constantinople; he raised a large army, and the Russians were compelled to retire without crossing the Balkan mountains, as all Europe expected; but they left behind them, in the bosom of the Turkish empire, a more formidable force than their own arms−and this was, the discontented Greeks.

The Greeks, retaining that excitability and impatience of control which ever distinguished that nation, and which centuries of slavery and oppression could not subdue, were ever ready instruments in the hands of the Russians, to embarrass and annoy their enemies. The identity of their religion, the Russians having early become members of the Greek church, gave them a powerful influence, and in 1790 a deputation of Greeks waited upon the Empress Catherine, to request her interference. One of her sons was baptized Constantine, the favourite name of the Greek emperors, brought up by a Greek nurse, and intended for the throne of Constantinople. Several attempts at revolt were unsuccessful. Their allies always sacrificed the unfortunate Greeks to their own plans of ambition: every insurrection was followed by confiscation and massacre, and at length it was proposed, in the divan, to cut off the whole race, and extirpate the name of Greek. From this they were preserved by the avarice of the Turks, for, were this measure executed, there would be no one to pay the capitation tax; and this appeal to their cupidity alone saved a whole nation.

The Greeks, however, were now become an opulent and intelligent people; availing themselves of all the lights and advantages which the Turks neglected, they had accompanied the rest of Europe in the march of improvement, and determined to rely no longer on Russian faith−but to attempt their own emancipation. A mysterious society, called Hetairia, was ramified wherever a Greek community was established, who prepared for another insurrection. In the year 1815 a secret meeting was held at Constantinople, and it was resolved on. Six years after, the standard of revolution was raised by Ypselantes, in Moldavia. It was responded to by a general rising in other places, and, after a sanguinary conflict against the whole power of the vast Turkish empire, their independence was finally established, a new nation was recognized in Europe, and modern Greece for ever severed from their barbarian masters.

The utter impotence of the Turkish power was so clearly established by this event, that it was obvious nothing but a change of its institutions could save it from total dissolution. Mahmoud therefore was determined to effect this change, or perish in the attempt. His preliminary step was the extirpation of the Janissaries. This desperate militia now turned up their kettles in the Atmeidan and 40,000 men rushed round them. The sultan caused the standard of the Prophet to be displayed in the Mosque of Achmet, and all the well-affected flocked to it. He required a fetva from the Sheik Islam, to authorise him to kill the Janissaries if they resisted: it was granted by the chief of the Faith, and he sent his adherent, Kara Gehenna, or “the black infernal,” to execute it. The Janissaries were surrounded with artillery, and he at once opened a discharge with grape-shot on the dense crowd. He battered down their kislas, or barracks, over their heads, and never ceased till this fierce and formidable body of men were left a monument in the midst of Constantinople, a mound of mangled flesh and smoking ashes slaked in blood. To perpetuate the utter destruction of this corps, and ensure its extinction, a firman was issued, obliterating its very name, and declaring it penal for any man ever to pronounce it.

Just before the destruction of the Janissaries at Constantinople, that of the Mamelukes had been effected in Egypt. These descendants of Christian slaves, equally formidable to the Porte, had been doomed to like destruction by the predecessor of Mahmoud. They were invited to a feast on board the Capitan Pasha’s ship, when the most formidable of their chiefs were seized and strangled. The remnant were induced, by solemn promises of protection to enter the fortress of Cairo, when every man of them was sacrificed in cold blood, without pity or remorse. Thus these two corps, originally formed and recruited from a Christian population, became, in the hands of the Osmanli, for many centuries, the most powerful and unrelenting opponents of the people professing the faith of their ancestors, and at length became so formidable to their employers as to render their own destruction necessary. Not a remnant of these extraordinary renegades, now exists in the world, and the very names of Mameluke and Janissary are condemned to everlasting oblivion.

The energetic and terrible sultan, having thus silenced opposition, and created unanimity to his plans, by putting to death every man that presumed to differ from him in opinion, proceeded rapidly with his reforms. A new order of things was every where established. The soldiers, who were a mere uncontrollable rabble, every one dressed according to his own fancy, and doing whatever seemed good in his eyes, were now clad in regular uniform, subject to discipline, and exercised in European tactics. Civil usages which stamped the Turks with barbarism, were abolished. Ambassadors, who represented infidel kings, were no longer dragged by the neck into the presence of the sovereign of the faithful like criminals, or sent to his prison like malefactors; but, above all, knowledge was no longer proscribed as an impious acquisition, and ignorance cherished as a venerable quality. Lancasterian schools were opened; literary works on various subjects were written by Turks, and published at the press at Constantinople, now revived for that purpose; and, finally, an innovation was introduced, supposed to be altogether hopeless and extraordinary, among a people so stubborn and prejudiced: to spread the lights of European knowledge with more rapidity, and present them daily to the eyes of every man, four newspapers were established in the capital, in Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and French, for the different people that compose the population; and thus 700,000 persons, the calculated number of inhabitants on both peninsulas, instead of being kept in utter darkness of every thing around them, are now constantly apprised of all that passes, not only in their own, but in every other country. The arts, the sciences, the improvements in social life, the incidents and events which happen in the world, are subjects to which the attention of the Turk is now turned, and the fictions of his “story-tellers” are superseded by the realities of life. Every day the distinctions which marked this great capital, as an Asiatic city on an European soil, are beginning to disappear, and it is probable that, in a few years, such an amalgamation of its inhabitants with those of other European cities will take place, that the strong characteristics which lately distinguished it will only be found in our pictorial representations.