Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. Robert Walsh
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