The Passing of the Turkish Empire in Europe. B. Granville Baker
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.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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, 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