66 mained exposed to worse perils than any-the varying phases of religious zeal-the which had yet beset her. In the great peace conflict of traditional duties and practical of Europe there was no peace for Constanti- policy-and the rise and growth of such an nople. Thirty years since, the historian of the element as the power of the Czars-should Middle Ages expected, with an assurance command their share of interest and attenthat none can deem extravagant, the approach- tion. ing subversion of the Ottoman power;" and It may reasonably be thought remarkable the progressive current of events has certainly that the establishment of an infidel Power at in no degree changed, since this conviction the gates of Europe should not, in those was avowed. Yet, though the only symp- ages of faith, have provoked a prompt and tom of imminent dissolution that then seemed effective combination of the whole Christian wanting has now appeared, and though ter- world for the expulsion of the intruder. In ritorial dismemberment has partially super- explanation, however, of this apathy or imvened upon internal disorganization, the im- potence, there are several considerations to perial fabric still stands the Turkish Cres- be mentioned. In the first place, the phenocent still glitters on the Bosphorus-and menon coincided singularly, in point of time, still "the tottering arch of conquest spans with the definite abandonment of the system the ample regions from Bagdad to Belgrade." of Eastern crusades. The seventh and last Without repeating, therefore, the ominous of these enterprises had resulted in scandal note of prophecy, we shall direct our re- and defeat; and had disclosed the growing marks to the historical elucidation of the reluctance of States and people to contribute questions involved in it. Our wish is to il- toward expeditions which neither promoted lustrate the origin and establishment of the the objects nor conduced to the credit of Ottoman Empire, as one of the substantive those engaged in them. The final and total Powers of Europe; to exhibit the causes loss of the Holy Land in 1291, preceded which conduced to its political recognition; but by eight years the enthronement of the to trace the subsequent action of so anoma- first Othman; so that the origin of the Turklous a State upon the affairs of Christendom; ish State was almost exactly contemporato mark the fluctuations of fortune by which neous with the withdrawal of Christian arms its external relations were determined; and from the scene of its growth. That the exto distinguish the stages of estimation and tinction, too, of the crusading principle was influence through which it successively pass- then complete, may be inferred from the ed, until the dreaded Empire of the Otto- violent suppression, only ten years later, of mans dwindled virtually, though with domi- that military order which had been mainly nions not materially diminished, into the po- instrumental in checking the march of the sition of a Protected State,-subsisting, ap- misbelievers. The commencement of the parently, by the interested patronage of those Ottoman dynasty is placed in the year 1299; very Powers which had been so scared and and, in the year 1309, the Knights Templars, scandalized at its growth. If our inquiry except as captives or pensioners, had ceased should include fewer exemplifications than to exist. Nor was the rise of the Turkish might be expected of the civil institutions of power an event calculated, at its first anthis extraordinary nation, the omission must nouncement, to create any extraordinary conbe attributed to the extent of the more im- sternation. As regards Asia Minor, the enmediate subject, and the imperative restric- tire peninsula, with the exception of its westtions of space. A sagacious moralist once ern sea-board, had long been in the possessaid of an historian of the Turks, that hesion of kindred tribes; and the mere substiwas unhappy only in the choice of his mat-tution of Ottomans for Seljukians could ter. If the course of our proposed exposition were but a little less narrow, we should not distrust our ability to cancel this invidious qualification; for there are, in reality, no known annals more striking in their details, and often more purely romantic than those of the House of Othman. Even as it is, we hope for some success; for, though of all kinds of history political history possesses the fewest superficial attractions, yet such topics as the naturalization of a Mahometan sovereignty among the States of Christendom hardly be thought to menace the interests of Europe. Even the actual passage of the Straits, which was the first critical point of Turkish progress, presented no unparalleled phenomenon; for a Moorish kingdom still flourished on the Guadalquiver; and a Tartar horde had just established its sovereignty over the dismembered duchies of Russia. It is certainly true that the exigencies of Mogul invasions, and the remnants of crusading zeal, did originally suggest the concert of nations, which became afterward systema tized by the standing requirements of a political equilibrium; and, perhaps, the dread of Ottoman aggression produced the first faint foreshadowings of those State-combinations which characterize the modern history of Europe. But it was not so at the outset. Adrianople had been made a Mahometan capital, and the metropolis of the Eastern Cæsars had become a mere enclave in Turkish territory, before the aid of European princes was solicited against the new invaders and solicited in vain! and when at length the Christian allies and the infidel forces joined battle in the field of Nicopolis, the Ottoman power had been impregnably strengthened by the impunity and successes of a century. As any particular narrative of these events would carry us beyond our limits and our design, we can only venture on a few brief remarks in elucidation of the subject directly before us, and in aid of the general interest of our disquisition. Toward the close of the thirteenth century,-that is to say, at the very moment when the election of a Swiss knight to the Germanic throne was laying the foundations of the imperial House of Austria, events of equal singularity were preparing the seat of the rival Cæsars for the progeny of a Turkish freebooter. The Asiatic continent, from its central highlands to the shores of the Mediterranean, had been utterly convulsed by the tremendous irruptions of Zingis Khan; and, in the course of the subsequent commotions, a Turcoman chief named Ortogrul, from the banks of the Oxus, found himself wandering in the hills of Anatolia at the head of four hundred families. A service, which he accidentally rendered to a native prince, was acknowledged by a grant of land; and the estate was soon expanded into a respectable territory, by the talents which had originally acquired it. The inheritance of Ortogrul devolved, in 1289, upon his son Osman or Othman, who, at the death, ten years later, of his patron, the Sultan of Iconium, no longer hesitated to proclaim his independent sovereignty. Such was the origin of the House of Othman. The name itself, which is a vernacular epithet of the royal vulture, and signifies a "bone-breaker," has been recognized by the Turks as not disagreeably symbolical of the national character and mission; and so completely do they identify their State with the race of its founder, that they have foregone all other denominations for the dignity, style, and title of the Ottoman Porte. The new dynasty enjoyed the signal though accidental advantages of long reigns and worthy representatives; while its opportunities of aggrandizement were so peculiar that far weaker hands might have turned them to account. On one side of them lay the Roman empire, shrunk to the dimensions of Constantinople and its environs; on the other the fragmentary or effete principalities of the Seljukian Turks, who had been quartered for two centuries on these spoils of the Eastern Cæsars, and whose power had been recently shattered by the shock of the Mogul invasion. The House of Othman struck right and left. Before the sixty years of its two first chiefs bad terminated, the northwestern portions of Asia Minor had been effectually subdued, and a capital had been found at Prusa for the new dominion. Already the passage of the Hellespont had become an ordinary incident of their expeditions, and by the middle of the fourteenth century, the European shore of the Straits was studded with Turkish garrisons. Starting from the ground thus gained, Amurath, first of his name, and third of his race, added the whole province of Thrace to his territories, erected a second metropolis at Adrianople, and advanced the Ottoman frontiers to the Balkan. Our sketch runs rapidly to a close. A few years more, and we find these Turks of the third generation, at the very limits of their present empire; and on the very scenes of their present fortunes. By 1390, they had occupied Widdin, and before five years more had elapsed, the Moslem and Christian hosts were delivering, as we have said, the first of their countless battles on the banks of the Danube. During these transactions, although the relative positions of Turkey and Christendom were wholly and alarmingly changed, and though the attitude of the new invaders on the borders of Germany did really portend more serious results than the transient devastations of Tartar inroads, yet the deportment of the European Powers appears to have undergone no corresponding alteration. The battle of Nicopolis had indeed been fought; but the crusade which this encounter commenced and terminated, originated rather in the influence of family connections than in any impulse of political foresight or religious zeal. The King of Hungary, whose realm was menaced by the arms of Bajazet I., was son of one German emperor, brother to another, and destined to be Emperor himself; and he possessed therefore the obvious means of attracting to his standard the capricious chivalry of the West. But there was no effective combination of forces, nor any permanent sense of the danger which required it. The progress of the Ottoman arms exercised little perceptible influence on the councils of Europe, nor did the impending fate of an imperial and Christian city provoke any serviceable sympathy. After the Thracian and Bulgarian conquests, to which we have alluded, Constantinople, for the first time in its existence, was completely environed by enemies; and it became clear to the Greek emperors, that the invaders with whom they had now to deal, were of a very different mould from the swarming hordes which had so often swept past them and retired. Yet, though four emperors in succession visited Western Europe in search of aid, and though one of them brought his petition even to the king of this island, and Kentish yeomen saw a Greek Cæsar entertained in St. Austin's monastery, and received on Blackheath by a Lancastrian sovereign, there was no substantial aid forthcoming. This failure was doubtless principally ascribable to the disrepute into which crusading expeditions had fallen, and to the occupation with which both the French and English monarchs were then provided in their own kingdoms. There are, however, other circumstances which, for the full comprehension of the state of opinion at this period, it will be necessary to recollect. nent of European opinion was no other than the Roman Pontiff,-without whose co-operation it would have been scarcely possible to organize an effectual crusade. The application, therefore, of the Eastern emperors to the Powers of Europe, took the form of conciliatory overtures to the Romish See; and, excepting in the case of the Emperor Manuel, the negotiations of the imperial visitors were confined to the limits of the Papal Court. Neither could the Greek State be exactly represented to European sympathies as a Christian city brought finally to bay, and desperately battling against the overwhelming forces of the infidel. The terms on which Turks and Greeks had for some time been living, precluded any such description of their mutual relationship. The presumptive antagonism of the two States had been long openly compromised by concessions, by tributes, and, what was worse, by the ordinary passages of amity and good-will. Ottoman princes were educated at the Christian court, and Christian princes honorably lodged in the camp of the Ottomans; a mosque was tolerated in Constantinople; and a daughter of John Cantacuzene was given in marriage to the second of the Turkish sovereigns. That these arrangements were not wholly voluntary on the side of the weaker party we may safely believe; but it will still be evident how materially such a combination of circumstances must have operated to the disadvantage of the Emperors, in their appeal to the sympathy of Christian Europe. Though the Greek emperors were not only Christian sovereigns, but even coheirs of the political supremacy of Christendom, yet this very rivalry had combined with their geographical isolation and foreign tongue to Meantime the Turkish power had been estrange them from the Powers of Europe. growing with a certainty and steadiness unAs early as the reign of Heraclius, the in- exampled in the history of an Oriental peotercourse between the East and West began ple. Two or three of the causes which prinvisibly to slacken, and the great religious cipally conduced to this remarkable result, it schism of the eleventh century completed may be right here to specify. The passage the disruption. After this time, Constanti- of the Ottomans into Europe might have nople was scarcely regarded, either spirit- been long retarded by the simple expedient ually or politically, as entering into the com- of guarding the Straits. While the power munity of European States. Even the con- of the Greek Empire consisted almost solely tact induced by the Crusades rather increased in the relics of its fleet, still respectably apthan diminished the alienation. On more pointed, and furnished with the most formithan one occasion, Greek emperors were dable appliances of naval warfare known to leagued with the Saracens against the soldiers the age, the Turks were totally destitute both of the Cross; and the imperial city itself, of ships and of the science which concerned after triumphantly sustaining so many sieges, them. A few galleys might have sufficiently was captured and sacked for the first time by protected the channel against all the forces Christians and Franks. It may be imagined, of Orchan an Amurath; and yet not only perhaps, that the differences between the were the Ottomans permitted to pass undisGreek and Latin churches could not much turbed, with such means as they could affect the dispositions of Norman barons; extemporize, but even the intelligence of but it must be remembered, that in these ro- their having secured a lodgment, and fortimantic expeditions the moderator and expo-fied themselves on the European side, pro nor. had he invested Constantinople, when events occurred by which the very course of Fate itself appeared to be threatened with a change. We can do no more than specify in a few words the occurrences which abruptly subverted the whole superstructure of Turkish power; which scattered all its acquisitions to the winds, and which renders its ultimate restoration one of the most extraordinary incidents in the records of history. duced nothing but careless scoffs in the Imperial court. The next point requiring notice is, that the conquests of the Turks were mainly effected by the agency of European troops. The Ottomans will be found to have conquered the Byzantine provinces as we conquered India-by enlisting and disciplining the natives of the country. Only 400 families had originally obeyed the voice of Ortogrul; and it is clear, therefore, that the subjects of his successors must have been swelled in numbers In the height of his power and presumpby accessions from other tribes: in fact, the tion, Bajazet was conquered and carried into progress of the Ottomans was merely the captivity by Timour. By this defeat the inonward flow of the population of Asia Mi- heritance of his house became to all appearEven this, however, would have been ance entirely dissolved. Its Asiatic possesdeficient in impulsive force but for the sin- sions, though contemptuously abandoned by gular institution which we are now to mention. the conqueror, were seized upon by the SelThe Janizaries were originally formed and jukian Turks, who regained the positions recruited from the impressed children of from which they had been dislodged; while Christian captives; afterward from those of in Europe the opportunity was turned to simany Christian subjects of the Porte, and at ilar account by the reviving spirit of the length from the sons of the soldiers them- Greeks. To complete the ruin, civil war beselves; so that a pure military caste, with tween the sons of Bajazet presently ensued; habits and interests totally distinct from the and the heirs of the Ottoman House, instead rest of the people, was gradually established of repairing their fortunes by concord and in the very heart of the nation. The num- patience, were fighting desperately among ber of the Janizaries in the middle of the themselves, for a heritage which hardly exfourteenth century was only one thousand; isted save in name. The perfect restoration but this muster-roll was repeatedly multi- of a State, dismembered and dismantled, at plied by successive Emperors, till at length, such a stage of its existence, by so destrucunder the Great Solyman, it reached to tive and shattering a shock, may be described twenty thousand, and in the German wars, as without parallel in history-and yet within under Mahomed IV., to double that strength. ten years it was completely effected. MaIt is not a little singular that a body so con- homet, the most sagacious of the sons of stituted should have been not only the main Bajazet, waited his time; and at length, by instrument of Turkish aggrandizement, but the extinction of other claims, succeeded in should have been so inveterately identified recovering both the Asiatic and European with Ottoman traditions, as at all times to conquests of his family, and in reuniting the have formed the chief obstacle to any social thrones of Adrianople and Prusa. A peaceor constitutional reforms. Nor should it be ful and prudent reign of eight years enabled overlooked, that the creation and mainte-him to consolidate his dominion anew; and nance of this standing army, isolated from when, in 1421, Amurath II. succeeded to the all popular sympathies by descent and cha- crown of his father, the Ottoman Power was racter, contributed most powerfully to con- as vigorous, as sound, and as aggressive as solidate the authority of the new dynasty, if the battle of Angora had never been and to furnish the Turkish sovereigns with fought. those permanent resources, in virtue of which We are now arrived at a period when the they escaped the ordinary vicissitudes of destinies of the Ottoman House were to be Oriental dynasties; and encountered the tu- finally determined. Up to this time the multuous levies of Hungary and Germanygress and renown of the Turkish arms had with all the advantages of despotic power. stimulated Europe to nothing but a few inThe pretensions of the House of Othman sincere leagues and a single precipitate crukept pace with its achievements. Originally sade; nor can we be wrong in presuming its chief had been content with the title of that the recent temporary suspension and apEmir; but Bajazet I., by means to which parent annihilation of the Ottoman Power we shall immediately refer, procured for him- must have operated materially in still further self, toward the end of the century, the indisposing European statesmen to exertion more dignified denomination of Sultan. Alor alarm. But the capture of Constantinoready, in justification of his new assumptions, ple by Mahomet II., in 1453, changed the pro whole aspect of affairs. It has been usual to describe this memorable event as one of those which mark a new epoch; and as serving to introduce that period of history which we now emphatically term Modern. Undoubtedly, the definite and final extinction of the Roman Empire and the diffusion of Greek literature were incidents of no ordinary note; but by far the most important consequences of Mahomet's success were those which affected the Ottomans themselves. As regards Europe, it cannot be said that the destruction of the Lower Empire left any perceptible void in the community of States. As no system of mutual relationship had yet been established among Christian Powers, no special disturbance, such as would in the present day follow on the extinction of a particular member, could then be expected to ensue; and, even in the partial and transient examples of concert which had occasionally occurred, Constantinople had long been without appreciable influence or consideration. Since, therefore, no European functions had been discharged by the Lower Empire, no positive loss could be felt from its destruction; nor was the capture of Constantinople of much greater significance, in this respect, than the capture of Delhi. But, as affecting the rising power of the Ottomans, the event was of most material importance. It created, as it were, a vacancy in the list of recognized monarchies, and delivered over to a State, which already wanted little but a seat of central power, one of the oldest and most famous capitals of Europe. It gave to the House of Othman, in a single day, exactly the status which it needed; and which years of successful invasions and forays would have failed to secure. It precluded all future antagonism between Adrianople and Prusa; and established a permanent cohesion between the European and Asiatic dominions of the Turkish crown. More than this-it conveyed to the Sultans and their successors certain traditional pretensions, of which they soon discovered the value. The empire of the East, according to their assertions, had neither been terminated nor dissolved, but had merely passed, like other kingdoms of the earth, to stronger and more deserving possessors. They claimed to represent the majesty of Constantine, and to inherit his dominion. From such presumptions it was easy to derive warrants, if warrants were needed, for war against the Venetians, whose possessions in the Archipelago and the Levant were but spoils ravished from the declining strength of Constantinople; or against | the Germans, whose rival pretensions to imperial supremacy were easily impugned. To the other titles of the Ottoman sovereigns was now added, accordingly, that of Keesar of Roum; and they were furnished, independently of the standing dictates of their religion, with pretexts of some plausibility for carrying their aggressive arms across the Adriatic. We should probably not be justified in attributing to any accurate perception of these risks, the anxiety and terror which are described as pervading the courts of Christendom at the final intelligence of this catastrophe. There was serious agitation in Rome, considerable alarm on the Danube, and great scandal everywhere. A Christian capital of ancient name and famous memory had been sacked by an unbelieving race, whose name for generations past had been the horror of Europe. Yet, abruptly as the blow was at last felt to descend, it had long been visibly suspended; and, although no human power could have permanently protected the Greek Cæsars in their capital, while the Turks were established in unquestioned sovereignty between the Danube and the Euphrates, the actual circumstances of the siege were, nevertheless, such as to cast heavy imputation and responsibility upon the Powers of Europe. The Imperial city had been allowed to sustain the full shock of the Ottoman forces, with a weak and inadequate garrison of eight thousand men, three-fourths of whom were supplied from the population within the walls; so that the chivalry of Christendom was represented, at this critical period, by two thousand auxiliaries! Yet, that there was both room and opportunity for effectual succor, was evident, not only from the manner in which the defence, even under such circumstances, was protracted, but from the diversion which had been accomplished, during Bajazet's investment, by a force of only six hundred men-at-arms, and twice as many archers, under Marshal Boucicault. But the truth was, that, although the actual catastrophe created a momentary consternation, and even occasioned the revival in certain quarters of crusading vows, there existed, as we have already said, no fellow-feeling with the Greeks sufficiently strong to suggest an effective expedition; nor in fact any facilities for such an enterprise in the social or political condition of Europe. The Turks were no new enemies; nor were they now seen for the first time on the northern shore of the Straits. The resources of Christendom might admit of combination and exer |