The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ibrahim Pasha, by Hester Donaldson Jenkins

2
IBRAHIM PASHA

STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW

EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Whole Number 115

IBRAHIM PASHA

Grand Vizir of Suleiman the Magnificent

BY
HESTER DONALDSON JENKINS, Ph.D.,

Former Professor of History in the American
College for Girls, Constantinople

New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS,
London: P. S. King & Son
1911

Copyright, 1911

BY

HESTER DONALDSON JENKINS

PREFACE

The teaching of history in Constantinople naturally leads to an interest in the history of Turkey, and also to the recognition that little has been written on that subject except on the side of political relations with Europe. One who desires to present to western readers a brief study of Turkish civilization might reasonably turn to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, as being typical of the course of Turkish history, and also as exhibiting Turkey at the height of her powers. For the purpose of this dissertation, the study has been confined to the career of Ibrahim Pasha, grand vizir between 1522 and 1536.

The writer’s acknowledgments are due to Professors Sloane and Gottheil for valuable criticism, and for their aid in the obtaining of rare books, and to Professor and Mrs. Robinson for the careful reading of proof.

Hester Donaldson Jenkins.

November 23, 1911.4

ERRATA

CONTENTS

10-11

INTRODUCTION

The life of Ibrahim Pasha, as full of strange events as the most highly‐colored romance, paradoxical, and to western students of society almost incomprehensible in its rapid changes, is very difficult to place soberly before Occidental readers; yet its very strangeness is typical of the Orient, and if we could understand this romantic life we might find we held a key to much in Turkish life and thought. But our only chance of understanding it is to banish from our minds western conceptions and accept as facts what seem like wild imaginings. Ibrahim Pasha was not of the Turkish race, a fact which accounts for some of the paradoxes of his career, but his life was passed in a Turkish environment, one of whose notable characteristics is that it has always at once included and modified so many alien elements. In any consideration of the Turkish people, the most important thing to hold in mind is that the Turks are neither Aryan nor Semitic, being unrelated to Persians, Arabs, Greeks, or Hebrews. When ethnologists dare not speak definitely of race distinctions, the layman cannot venture to place the Turk in the “Touranian” or other group, but he can accept the fact that the Turks came into Europe from Central Asia and are in some way related to the Tatars and Mongols in the East, and probably to the Magyars and Finns in the West. The Turks of Central Asia during the period from the eighth to the eleventh centuries seem to have possessed qualities which characterize Turks of the period we are studying, and even mark the Turk of the present day.

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Monsieur Léon Cahun, in his monograph on the Turks and the Mongols,1 has made a careful study of these early Turks, a portion of which I will briefly summarize here.

The dominating quality of the Turks of Central Asia was their love of war. According to a Persian verse: “They came and pillaged and burned and killed and charged and vanished.” The one virtue required of them was obedience, the only crime was treason. Activity to them meant war: one word expressed the idea contained in our two words to run and to kill with the sword. The ideal death was in war; as their proverb ran, “Man is born in the house but dies in the field.” In their earliest cults the worship of steel and the sword are prominent.

Their second marked characteristic was their hierarchical spirit, and their strong feeling for discipline. Insubordination and conspiracy they always punished by death. Their ideal government is illustrated by the inscription on a funeral stone recently found in Mongolia. It was erected in 733 A. D. by a Turkish prince to his brother Kul Khan, the substance being as follows: “I and my brother Kul Khan Tikine together have agreed that the name and renown acquired by the Turkish people through our father and uncle shall not be blotted out. For the sake of the Turkish people I have not slept by night nor rested by day.... I have given garments to the naked, I have enriched the poor, I have made the few numerous, I have honored the virtuous.... By the aid of Heaven, as I have gained much, the Turkish people also have gained much.”

Another bit of evidence as to their early political ideals is taken from The Art of Government, a didactic poem describing Turkish society in the eleventh century.2 It says 13“Speak to the people with kindness, but do not let them become familiar. Give them to eat and drink;” and it urges the ruler to strive for the blessing of the poor by such actions.

The Art of Government brings out a third side of the medieval Turk, his love of learning. The civil mandarins are placed in rank above the beys.3 “Honor always keeps company with knowledge.” “Mark well, there are two kinds of noble persons; the one is the bey, the other the scholar, in this world below ... the former with his glove or his fist commands the people, the latter with his knowledge shows the path.”

Despite the development of the Turkish people from barbarous tribes into a civilized state, the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century was built on the lines indicated, and Sultan Suleiman showed similar qualities and ideals to those possessed by Kul Khan and his brother.

Towards the end of the tenth century, a branch of the Turks, henceforth known as the Turcomans, accepted Islam at the hands of the conquering Arabs, and in course of time all of the Turkish peoples became Moslem. Naturally through their religion the Arabs came to exert a strong influence on the rude Turks, so strong that Turkish thought has never since been wholly free from Arabic dominance. The Turks are an exceedingly loyal people, accepting the religion imposed upon them with whole‐heartedness. They are not by nature fanatical; on the contrary they are temperamentally tolerant, fanaticism where it has existed being an outgrowth of political conditions, or a foreign trait taken over with Islam.4 Rather oddly, and perhaps unfor14tunately, when the Turks became literate they fell under Persian rather than Arabic influence, and for centuries, indeed up to our own century, Turkish literature has been little more than an imitation of the Persian, very formal and rhetorical. Thus the two great forces engaged in moulding the Turkish mind were Arabic theology and Persian poetry, the large Arabic and Persian element in the Turkish language being a good illustration of this.

In the twelfth century the Asiatic hordes pressing into Asia Minor came into contact with the Greeks. But there was no intellectual reaction between Greek and Turk.

The Seljouk kingdom rose and fell in Asia Minor; then the chieftain Othman5 stepped on its ruins and climbed to power. He and his descendants gradually conquered the Greeks until Byzantium was theirs. Ottoman conquests still continued, until a century, after the fall of Constantinople Suleiman pushed his armies to the gates of Vienna and marked the farthest point of the Turkish invasion of Europe. During Suleiman’s reign Turkey not only dominated the Balkan Peninsula from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and north to the Danube, but it also greatly influenced the rest of Europe. There was not a court in Europe that was not forced to reckon with Sultan Suleiman. So the career of Ibrahim, his distinguished grand vizir, is not a mere romance; it is a career which intimately affected the hopes and fears of Ferdinand of Austria, Charles V of Spain, Francis I of France, and even Henry VIII of England, as well as the Pope and the Venetian Signory.

At the height of their power the Turks were nevertheless still a simple people. While western society has moved from complexity to greater complexity, their society has preserved an unembarrassed simplicity. They are loyal to 15 state, religion, race, family, habit. Their religion is rigidly monotheistic; their government (up to July 24, 1908) has been the simplest possible monarchy, a personal despotism; they are probably the most unaffectedly democratic people in the world; a man is what his merit or his fortune has made him, with no regard to his ancestry; they are unitarian in religion, government and society. In morals the same simplicity prevails, with no torturing doubts and few sophistries. Much that seems like a fairy tale to us is simple unquestioning reality to them.

In this simplicity, this single‐mindedness, they are totally different from the Arabs of the Khalifate, with whom they have been so much associated in Western minds, but with whom they have no relationship beyond that of a common religion. The Turks, I repeat, are a much simpler as well as a more warlike people than any other Oriental nation.

The sources for the life of Ibrahim are classified naturally in three groups: (1st) The Turkish histories and biographies, first and second hand; (2nd) the accounts of European travelers and residents in Constantinople, such as Mouradjia D’Ohsson, Busbequius, and the Venetian baillies; and (3rd) the diplomatic correspondence and documents of the time as found in such collections as Charrière’s Négociations, Gévay’s Urkunden und Actenstücke, and Noradunghian’s and de Testa’s Recueils. A student would also wish to consult the histories written by foreigners, such as von Hammer, Zinkheisen and Jorga, whose sources are found in the three classes of evidence cited above.

It is impossible to confine ourselves to the Turkish sources, because of the notable omission of accounts of institutions, and the total absence of description. Abdurrahman Sheref, the present historiographer of Turkey, is the first Turkish writer of whom I know, who devotes some16 chapters to general subjects such as “The Provinces”, “Literature”, etc., in imitation of European histories. The historians of Suleiman’s time were rather chroniclers, the Comines and Froissarts of their day though with much less of petty and personal detail. Therefore we must turn to Occidental observers for accounts of the Turkish manner of life, their warfare and their government, except where we can learn from Turkish law or poetry. But practically all that the Ottomans have told us of themselves and of their rulers, we may trust in a way we cannot trust Western evidence. Every one who knows the East is aware how a report will pass through the bazaars and into the interior of the country, or up the Nile for hundreds of miles, with marvelous rapidity and more marvelous accuracy. Just as the story‐teller repeats a tale as his remote ancestor first told it, so do men hand down a tradition unembellished and unchanged. Turkish tradition is an expression of the sincerity and simplemindedness of the Turkish character. The Turks are neither sceptics, nor desirous of deceiving, therefore they transmit an account as they have received it.

There are of course exceptions to this: Suleiman’s Letters of Victory are overdrawn at times, and a legendary history of him has been found,6 written a century after his reign, in which the events of his life are hard to discover amidst a mass of legend. But this last case seems to have been a direct attempt to write an epic piece, and is quite different from the clear, straight narrative of the ordinary chronicler. The court chronicler’s embellishments consist mainly in flowery phrases, such as “Sultan Suleiman Khan, whose glory reaches the heavens, and who is the Sun of Valor and Heroism, and the Shadow of God on Earth, may Allah keep his soul.” In other words, the 17style is embellished but not the facts, the latter being related as uncritically and directly as a child relates an event.

Sometimes the perspective seems to us very odd, since the emphasis seems to be placed on the unimportant part of the narrative, but in such cases we must seek in the Turkish mind for an explanation of why that phase, unimportant to us, is to the Turkish writer and reader, of importance. As an illustration of this, take the Turkish accounts of Ibrahim’s Egyptian expedition. The Sulimannameh and later histories all give more space to the hardships of Ibrahim’s voyage to Egypt, and to the honor paid him by the Sultan than to the organization of Egypt, which occupied seven months. This seems, and doubtless is naïve, but we can see from it what a great effort a sea expedition was to this inland people, and also how above everything else in importance loomed the favor of the monarch, by whom all subjects rose to power or fell into disgrace. It further shows the stress laid on the lives of courtiers and officials rather than on the ordering of a province, in which, of course, it resembles all early histories.

For details in regard to the sources used for this study, the reader is referred to the Bibliography.

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CHAPTER I

Ibrahim’s Rise

Ibrahim was a Christian of base extraction, the son of a Greek sailor of Parga.7 He was born in 1494.8 In his childhood he was captured by Turkish corsairs.9 It would seem that he was first sold to a widow of Magnesia, who clothed him well and had him well educated, and especially trained to perform upon a musical instrument resembling the violin, which he learned to play beautifully.10

Whether it was on one of his expeditions to Asia Minor that Suleiman, son of the reigning monarch Selim I, met Ibrahim and was won by his charm and his musical ability, or whether Ibrahim was taken to Constantinople and there sold to the prince, cannot be determined from conflicting re19ports, but the fact that Ibrahim became Suleiman’s property is incontestable.11

Ibrahim never forgot his origin or his family. In 1527 his father came to Constantinople to visit him, and later he had his mother and his two brothers at the Palace.12 He was able to help his father substantially, giving him a sandjak or governorship.13 Of course Ibrahim adopted Islam, else there were no story to tell, for a Christian could have had no career in Turkey in that day.

Baudier says that the boy Ibrahim was carried to Constantinople by “them which exact the tribute of Christian Children.” This tribute of Christian children had been levied since the reign of Orkhan (1326–1361) and was the material of which the redoubtable army of janissaries was formed. These children, separated from their own countries and their families, and practically always converted to Islam, were for the most part trained in military camps and forbidden to marry. Therefore they had no interest except in war, and no loyalty except to the sultan. Thus they developed into the finest military machine the world had known, the most perfect instrument for a conqueror’s use, but a dangerous force in time of peace.

Sometimes the tribute children were bred for civil careers and not placed in the corps of the janissaries. Prince Cantimir of Moldavia14 states that Ibrahim was a simple 20janissary of the 9th company. I have been unable to find a source for this statement, but Ibrahim’s later career as general of the Imperial forces would seem to imply a military training. Von Hammer,15 however, ascribes Cantimir’s statement to an error, and gives Ibrahim a civil training.

Ibrahim’s first office was page to the heir apparent Suleiman. When the latter came to the throne in 1520, he made Ibrahim Head Falconer, and then raised him in rapid succession to the respective posts of Khass‐oda‐Bashi, or Master of the Household, of Beylerbey of Roumelie, Vizir, Grand Vizir, and finally Serasker, or general‐in‐chief of the Imperial forces—a dazzlingly rapid promotion. Baudier tells a story in this connection which might easily be true, being quite in character, although it can not be verified. The story runs thus: “Ibrahim’s rapid rise began to alarm him. The inconstancy of fortune, as exampled by the fate of many of the great men of the Ottoman court, created in him an apprehension of the great peril which attached to those favorites who enjoyed the high dignities of the court, and served as a bridle to restrain his desires. He besought Suleiman not to advance him so high that his fall would be his ruin. He showed him that a modest prosperity was safer than the greatness wherewith he would honor him; that his services would be rewarded sufficiently if he received enough to enable him to pass his days in rest and comfort. Suleiman commended his modesty, but meaning to advance him to the chief dignities of the empire, he swore that Ibrahim should not be put to death as long as he reigned, no matter what other changes might be made in the court.” “But” moralizes Baudier, “the condition of kings, which is human and subject to change, and that of favorites, who are proud and unthankful, shall cause Sulei21man to fail of his promise and Ibrahim to lose his faith and loyalty as we shall see”.16

A knowledge of the duties of these offices held by Ibrahim is essential to an understanding of the Turkish court at which his life was spent.17 The personal servants of the sultan were divided into six classes or “chambers”; the Body guard, the Guard of the treasury, the Guard of the office, the Guard of the campaign, the Black eunuchs and the White eunuchs. The Body guard, or personal attendants, included the Master of the stirrup, the Master of the keys, the Chief water‐pourer, the Chief coffee‐server, etcetera, to the number of thirty‐nine. The first of these chambers was well furnished with attendants, mutes, dwarfs, musicians, and pages; some of these pages were attached to the personal service of high officials, whose pipes, coffee, or perfumes they tended; they might also be attached to the service of the sultan. Ibrahim seems to have been a page in the service of the shahzadeh or heir, Suleiman.

The heir to the throne after his thirteenth or fourteenth year had his own palace separate from his father’s harem, in which he had thus far been brought up. As soon as he showed sufficient promise he was sent to some province, that he might have experience in governing. Thus Suleiman, during the reign of his father Selim, was made governor of Magnesia in Asia Minor, north of Smyrna, where he probably met Ibrahim, a youth of his own age. The court of the shahzadeh had the same officials, with the same titles, as the Imperial court.

It was then in Suleiman’s court in Magnesia that Ibrahim held his position as page. The pages in the sultan’s palace at Constantinople attended schools especially de22signed to train them, and Ibrahim, when he became grand vizir, founded one of the best of these schools in Stamboul. Probably there were no such schools in the provinces, but either in the palace, or earlier in the household of the widow of Magnesia, Ibrahim obtained an excellent education.

He could read Persian as well as Turkish, also Greek (his native tongue) and Italian. He was a wide reader, delighting in geography and history, especially the lives of Alexander the Great and Hannibal. Of his musical training we have already spoken.18 When their schooling was completed, the pages were taken into the Serai,19 passing through two lower chambers before completing their education in the first chamber. The pages usually lodged near the sultan’s apartments in handsome dormitories having their own mosque and baths. But Ibrahim, as the favorite of Suleiman, used to sleep in the apartments of his lord and master, and generally took his meals with him.20 Bragadino says that when they were not together in the morning they wrote notes to each other, which they sent by mutes. Pietro Zen records seeing them together often in a little boat with but one oarsman, and says they would land at Seraglio Point and wander through the gardens together.21 Zen declares that the Grand Signor loved Ibrahim greatly, and that the two were inseparable from childhood up, continuing so after Suleiman became sultan. This intimacy, so often noted by the Venetian Baillies, is never commented on by the Turkish writers. It scandalized the Ottomans, and seemed to them utterly unsuitable that the Lord of 23the Age should show such favor to his slave. The partiality of Suleiman for Ibrahim is important, for it is the explanation of Ibrahim’s phenomenal rise.

From a page, Ibrahim became Head Falconer, a post which requires no explanation. The last two chambers of the sultan’s personal attendants were the black and white eunuchs. The black eunuchs, several hundred in number, guarded the imperial harem, and were thence called aghas of the harem. Their chief was called Kizlar agha, or agha of the maidens, and his office included some further duties beside those connected with the “maidens.” There were also in the palace a number of white eunuchs, whose chief was called Capon agha, or captain of the gate. Next to him the chief officer was the Khass‐oda‐bashi. The Turkish historians22 call Ibrahim, at the time of his being called to the vizirate, “khass‐oda‐bashi.” Cantimir calls him “Captain of the Inner Palace” which is a very good translation of the Turkish term. This official, as we have seen, was second in rank among the white eunuchs. To him was confided one of the three imperial seals set in rings, used for the precious objects which were kept in the apartment of the sultan.23

He also garbed in caftans24 in the Imperial presence those whom the sultan would thus honor. Another curious duty was the following: whenever the sultan had his head shaved, and the personal attendants stood in order before him; their hands crossed respectfully over their girdles, the khass‐oda‐bashi placed himself several steps from the sofa, on which the sultan sat, his right hand resting on a baton chased with 24gold and silver. The white eunuchs lodged behind the third gate of the palace, the Bab‐el‐saadet, or Gate of Felicity. D’Ohsson states:25 “The seraglio is their prison and their tomb; they are never permitted to absent themselves. The white eunuchs have no other prospect than the post of Commandant of the school of pages at Galata.”

It would seem that Ibrahim must have been a eunuch. Daniele Barbarigo states it flatly26 and the office of khass‐oda‐bashi, according to D’Ohsson, was held only by eunuchs. Furthermore Solakzadeh speaks of Ibrahim’s being called from the Imperial harem to the grand vizirate, and all the officials of the harem were necessarily eunuchs. But to Ibrahim the seraglio was neither a prison nor a tomb. He went freely about the city, and his rise was not at all impeded by what generally proved a fatal limitation. Other eunuchs have also overcome their limitations, for D’Ohsson mentions four eunuchs, kizlar aghas, who became grand vizirs. Another very distinguished eunuch, Ghazanber Agha, a Hungarian prisoner‐of‐war, in childhood was educated as a page in the serai, became a Mahommedan and, because Selim II, the son and successor of Suleiman the Magnificent, wanted him about his person, he voluntarily submitted to castration, in order to enter the corps of white eunuchs. His office was capou agha (captain of the gate) which he held for thirty years, and raised to a very great importance.

That Ibrahim married need not astonish us, for marriages arranged with eunuchs by fathers of many daughters were not uncommon. Sometimes a sultana was married to a eunuch for his fortune, in which case he generally died soon after his marriage; sometimes no other suit25able husband being found for her, she was given to a eunuch of high rank. In stories we occasionally read of a father who marries his daughter to a eunuch as a punishment. Ibrahim probably married a sultana, which curiously enough would be a more natural marriage than with a woman of lower rank, for it has never been deemed advisable that the daughters of sultans should have male children, and if such were born, they were condemned to immediate death by the omission to knot the umbilical cord. This measure became a law in the reign of Ahmed I,27 with the idea of saving the country from the civil war of rival princes of the blood, but was probably a custom long before it was legalized. Therefore Suleiman may have thought that the marriage of his relative to a man of Ibrahim’s position, fortune, and charm, was a happy fate for a princess who might not hope to be a mother.

We have seen that the fact that Ibrahim was a Greek, and a Christian by birth, was no barrier to his rise, so long as he adopted Islam. Many of the great officials of Turkey were of Christian extraction; as for instance, the two men who succeeded Ibrahim Pasha as Grand Vizirs, Rustem Pasha and Mehmet Sokolli, considered the greatest of Turkish vizirs and both Croats by birth. Furthermore his humble family was no obstacle, for in Turkey it has always been possible for a bootblack or a grocer to rise to the highest position, if good fortune or marked ability led him thither.

Ibrahim suffered from still another disability, as we in the Occident would consider it: he was a slave. How did that affect his advancement? To understand the position of a slave in Turkey in the fifteenth century we must recognize at the outset the fact that Turkish slavery was quite 26different from that of the Occident, and so approach the subject free from our natural prejudice.

The only slavery sanctioned by Islam is that imposed on infidels as a result of supposed inferiority of race and religion,28 and has never in fact included the rayahs (Christian subjects) but only prisoners of war. The rayah might not be enslaved but neither might he hold slaves, except in very rare instances before 1759, and not at all after that date.29

There were two kinds of legal slaves, those made by capture in war, and those by birth. Slaves by purchase, taken from Africa and the Caucasus, were not recognized by law, but nevertheless such slavery existed.30 Brigands also seized foreigners from time to time and sold them as slaves. Prisoners of war lost their civil liberty according to Islamic law. The Prophet repeatedly enjoins their destruction.31 27 According to the Turkish code, the sovereign might perpetuate their captivity, or free them to pay tribute, or cause them to be slaughtered, if more expedient. The exceptions to this law were the cases of any orthodox Moslems who might fall into Turkish power, and the case of the Tatars of the Crimea, who were Shiites, or heretic Moslems, and who were enslaved.32

Prisoners of war formed two classes of slaves, prisoners of the state, and private slaves. To the first class belonged all soldiers and officers, and a fifth of the rest of the slaves, or their value. Of these some were exchanged or resold after the peace, others were employed in the Serai or given away. Some were handed over to public works, especially to the admiralty, where they were confounded with criminals and condemned to hard labor. To the second class belonged all the prisoners not given to the sultan, including those captured by the soldiers. These were generally sold. Merchants would purchase them in the camps, and sell them all over the Empire. These slaves taken in war were far the greater number of slaves in the Empire; many were enfranchised before they had children, and children of one free and one slave parent were themselves born free. The adoption of Islam after captivity did not free the slave.

The power of the master was absolute over the person, children and property of his slaves. He might sell, give, or bequeath them, but he might not kill them without some reason. As a corollary of this power, the master had full 28responsibility for his slave; he must support him, pay his debts, stand behind him in any civil affair, and give consent to his holding of property. A slave might not act as a witness nor as a guardian. He was entirely dependent on his master.

Thus far the theory is not unlike that of the West, but there were two facts which changed the entire situation. The first was the brevity of time of enslavement in most cases; the second was the absence of odium attached to the position of a slave. In regard to the first fact, it was not considered humane to keep persons long in slavery, and it was a general rule to enfranchise them either before their marriage or on their coming of age, or when they had served sufficiently long. Enfranchisement is a voluntary and private act by which the patron frees his slave from the bonds of servitude and puts him into the free class.33 It is also considered by the Turk to be a noble action, one especially befitting a dying man, who often frees his slaves in his testament. The enfranchisement of slaves was regarded by the Moslem as the highest act of virtue.34 A less disinterested form of enfranchisement has a pecuniary inducement, the slave buying his freedom from his master.35

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Thus the slave never thought of himself as by nature servile, nor always to be a slave, but could look forward to his freedom in a few years more or less. This fact induced self‐respect and hope. The slave’s dress did not in any way distinguish him from the free man; he was in no way branded.

Sir Henry Bulwer said of white slavery in Turkey in 1850, “It greatly resembles adoption, and the children often become the first dignitaries of the Empire.”36 This statement is confirmed by Fatma Alieh Hannum, a living Turkish lady, who gives a most attractive picture of the home care and affection given to slaves,37 and my own observation of slavery in Constantinople would bear her out. The condition described by Bulwer would seem also to have obtained in the sixteenth century. George Young in his Corps de Droit Ottoman38 speaks of two systems of slavery in Turkey, the Turkish system and the Circassian system, which have been fused in our day, but of which only the former existed in Ibrahim’s day, and in contrasting them he says: “The Turkish system by its moderation scarcely went beyond the limits of apprenticeship, and could be classed with the voluntary servitude that for a determined time was permitted in some of the European colonies. While the Circassian system fixed the slave forever in the servile class, the Turkish system has always permitted and in some 30cases prescribed his enfranchisement. Furthermore the social situation of a slave under the Old Regime of the Empire favored his advancement even to the highest office.... The Turkish system made a career of slavery.... Many slaves by birth have played leading roles in the history of the Empire.” The last statement admits of no argument, but the question how far the Turkish system made a career of slavery, and how far slavery was beneficent, demands further consideration.

Let us return to the classes of slaves spoken of above. Some, we saw, were put into public works; these could have found no career in their forced labor, although they might have bought or otherwise earned their freedom, and then have made a career for themselves. Some were owned by private individuals where they were given no opportunity to rise, although life in a private house, as in the case of the widow of Magnesia, might prepare a slave for a career. But the only slaves who would naturally have an opportunity for a career were those who served in the royal palace or in the house of some important officer. To them slavery truly opened a career. We cannot perhaps agree with Mr. Young that the Turkish system “made a career of slavery”, but it certainly was no barrier to a career, and it even opened up such opportunities as could not come otherwise to a Christian youth, nor indeed to most Moslem youths.

The mild and even beneficent quality of Oriental slavery has been maintained by many writers. Busbequius, writing from Constantinople in Suleiman’s reign, commends Turkish slavery on economic grounds, and then, moved by the contemplation of this fatherly system, bursts into a defence of slavery in general.39

31

Robert Roberts in his monograph says that the condition of slaves in modern Moslem lands is “not so bad”, and that the slavery he himself saw in Morocco “is only formally to be distinguished from Christian service”.40 The Baron de Tott speaks of seeing Moslem slaves in 1785 “well fed, well clothed, and well treated,” and adds, “I am inclined to doubt if those even who are homesick have in general much reason to be satisfied with their ransom. It is possible in truth that the slaves sold into the interior parts of the country, or to individuals who purchase them on speculation, are not as happy as those who fall to the lot of the sovereign or the grandee. We may presume, however, that even the avarice of the master militates in their favor, for it must be confessed that the Europeans are the only people who ill‐treat their slaves, which arises no doubt from this cause,—that they constitute the wealth of the Orientals, and that with us they are means of amassing wealth. In the East they are the delight of the miser; with us they are only the 32instrument of avarice.”41 In interesting support of de Tott’s idea that Oriental slaves might not care to be ransomed is the fact that after the treaty of Carlowitz, when the Porte engaged to set European prisoners at liberty for a ransom, and did attempt to do so, there were a large number of captives who rejected their liberty and their fatherland.42

Perhaps the chief explanation of the lack of distinction between freeman and slave lay in the fact that the Turks had very little conception of freedom, and the man legally free was practically almost as bound as the slave. As we have seen in the introduction to this study, loyalty and obedience were the two great virtues in the eyes of the Turks, so that in the idea of service there was no degradation. All who served the Crown were called Kol, or slaves of the Sultan, even the grand vizir receiving this title, which was much more honorable than that of subject, the kol being able to insult the subject with impunity, while the latter could not injure a royal slave in the slightest degree without subjecting himself to punishment.43 Turkey was a land of slaves with but one master, the sultan, even the brothers and sons of the monarch being kept in durance for the greater part of their lives. In the case of women, no practical distinction that we should recognize existed between slave and free. The mother of the sultan was always a slave, one of the sultan’s titles being “Son of a Slave”. Most of the pashas were born of slave mothers, as the Turks had more children by their slaves than by their wives.44 Such conditions rendered obviously impossible the sharp line which is drawn in the 33West between the freeman and the despised slave, and placed the slave potentially with the highest of the land. Slavery was certainly the Greek Ibrahim’s opportunity. Slavery brought him into the court, placed him before the sultan, educated him, gave him ambition, and finally gratified it. When Ibrahim was freed, no one thinks it worth while to record; certainly before his marriage, perhaps much before. But evidently the moment when Suleiman said to him: “Thou art enfranchised, thou art free”45 was a moment not worth recording, so natural and inevitable was his enfranchisement the moment that slavery ceased to be the ladder of his advancement.

It is evident, then, that Ibrahim’s lowly birth, his Christian origin, his experience as a slave, and his being a eunuch were none of them barriers to a great career. What was there, on the other hand, to give him such a career? His extraordinary ambition, his marked ability, and above all his immense good‐fortune in falling into the hands of the sultan and winning his affection, so that Suleiman was dominated by his love for Ibrahim, and unable to resist any of his caprices;46 these were the prime factors in his extraordinary rise.

While still master of the household (khass‐oda‐bashi) he was often spoken of as “Ibrahim the Magnificent” by the Venetian baillies. Barbarigo relates that the serai was never so splendid as in the days when the magnificent Ibrahim was oda‐bashi of the Grand Seigneur, and also when he was grand chamberlain. As the title of “the Magnificent” is that which Europe has accorded to Sultan Suleiman, a love of pomp and display must have been one of the interests that he and his ennobled slave had in common. 34But such showy qualities are hardly suitable to a mere master of the household. Ibrahim had to be raised to the rank of pasha.

A pasha was a sort of military governor, although the title might be given as a mere title of nobility, and in any case was indefinite, being determined by the particular office the pasha held. The pashas were generally very proud and stately persons, with grave, leisurely manners, and were always surrounded by a large number of pages and other richly‐garbed domestics when they went abroad mounted on superb steeds, banners and horse‐tails waving before them, and the people paying homage. But their power was often very small, and their income frequently quite inadequate to the state they were obliged to maintain.47

The famous horse‐tail banner which distinguished a high official originated in the following way: the banner of one of the old Turkish princes having been lost in battle and with it the courage of his soldiers, he severed with one blow a horse’s tail from its body and fastening it to his lance cried, “Behold my banner! who loves me will follow me!” The Turks rallied and saved the day.48 The banner was called the Tugh. Each sandjak bey was entitled to one horse‐tail, being, as Europeans say “a pasha of one tail”; a beylerbey (literally prince of princes or colonel of colonels) was entitled to two or three tails; the grand vizir sported five horse‐tails, and before the Sultan seven of these banners were carried.

In 1522 Ibrahim became Ibrahim Pasha, Grand Vizir, and Beylerbey of Roumelie. Turkey has always been divided into Turkey in Europe, or Roumelie or Roum,49 and 35Turkey in Asia, or Anatolia. These two divisions of the empire during Suleiman’s reign were each ruled by a governor, or beylerbey, who had general charge of the sandjakbeys over each sandjak50 or province. The beylerbeys of Roumelie generally resided at Monastir or Sofia, but here again Ibrahim seems to have been an exception to the general rule and to have resided at Constantinople.

The office of vizir was a venerable one, its institution being ascribed by some to the Prophet, who appointed as first vizir Ali, his son‐in‐law and successor, and by others to the first Abasside, who bestowed the title on his first minister. The duties of vizir in the sixteenth century have been defined as follows:51 “The vizir commands all the armies, is the only one except the Grand Seigneur who has the power of life and death throughout the whole extent of the Empire over criminals, and can nominate, degrade, and execute all ministers and agents of the sovereign authority. He promulgates all the new laws, and causes them to be put in effect. He is the supreme head of the justice that he administers, although with the aid and according to the opinion of the Ulema, the legal body. In short, he represents his master to the full extent of his dignity and temporal power, not only in the Empire, but also with the Foreign States. But to the same degree that this power is splendid and extensive, it is dangerous and precarious.”

Mourad I (1359–1389) was the first sultan of Turkey to name a vizir. Mohammed the Conqueror thought the office concentrated too much power in one person, and planned to abolish it, but instead left it vacant for eight months.52 36Selim I, as strong a monarch as the Conqueror, left vacant for nine months this office which almost rendered a sultan unnecessary. But his son Suleiman soon after his accession put his favorite Ibrahim into the highest office in a sultan’s gift, and kept him there thirteen years. Probably with the idea of dividing the immense power of this office, he increased the number of vizirs to three and later to four. Of these one was known as the grand vizir (Vizir Azam) and to him alone applies the description given above. Ibrahim Pasha was at first the third vizir, the other two being Piri Mustafa Pasha and Ahmed Pasha. There was always great jealousy among the vizirs. Ahmed Pasha, anxious to rise to the first rank, accused Piri Pasha of sedition and procured the latter’s downfall; but to his inexpressible chagrin was himself passed over in favor of Ibrahim, who was “told the good news of his appointment as grand vizir and brought gladness and brilliance into the divan.”53 Ahmed’s feeling was so great and the consequent dissensions in the divan were so considerable, that Suleiman sent Ahmed to Egypt as governor, leaving the field clear for Ibrahim, who in his palace received at the hands of a noble of the sultan’s service the imperial ring as a symbol of his new power.

The grand vizir lived in a palace modeled after the Sultan’s, having under him the same class of officials and servants even to ministers of state, and his household was conducted with great ceremony. Ibrahim’s salary was increased over that of the preceding grand vizir from 16,000 to 25,000 piastres54 but he obtained much more from the disposal of public offices, and he also received enormous presents from those under him, although this was balanced by the large gifts he had to make to others. The property of a grand 37vizir was always confiscated at his death, which was doubtless one reason why a sultan could afford to lavish so much on a favorite minister, knowing that eventually it would all return to the imperial coffers. Dress and style were very carefully regulated in Turkey in the XVI century. The turban of the grand vizir, his barge with twelve pairs of oars and a green awning, the five horse‐tails that might be carried before him, all distinguished him from lower officials. He had eight guards of honor, and twelve led horses. When he appeared in public his hussars would cry aloud, “Peace unto you and divine clemence”, while the other soldiers responded in chorus, “May your fortunes be propitious; may Allah be your aid; may the Almighty protect the days of our sovereign and the pasha, our master; may they live long and happily.”55 All of the public officials except the sheik‐ul‐Islam received their offices from the grand vizir, and were garbed in his presence with a caftan, or robe of state. The grand vizir and the sheik‐ul‐Islam were the only officials invested by the sultan himself and appointed for life.

The divan was the imperial council, consisting of the vizirs, the defterdar, or secretary of finance, the nishanji who made out royal firmans and berats, and the sheik‐ul‐Islam or head of Islam. It was a council for discussion and wholly without power.

On the 22d day of May, 1524, the Sultan celebrated with great pomp the marriage of Ibrahim Pasha. Who the bride was we cannot be certain, but this is in accord with Turkish etiquette which strictly forbids all mention of the harem,56 and considers any public knowledge of woman as an insult to her, thus depriving historians of desirable information concerning such important political figures as Roxelana, who 38greatly influenced Suleiman the Magnificent, Baffa the Venetian sultana, and others. Von Hammer says that Ibrahim married a sister of Suleiman, but I can find no proof of it.57 A wedding in Turkey always includes two distinct feasts, the one for the bride and her women friends, the other for the groom and his men friends. Now‐a‐days the woman’s part is ordinarily more important, but in Ibrahim’s time a wedding or a circumcision was the occasion of a great public feast for the men. Ibrahim Pasha, as we have seen, was always spoken of by the Venetians as “Il Magnifico Ibrahim.” Perhaps since so much stress has been laid by historians on the splendor of the court and the grand vizir, a description of this great public marriage will not be out of order.58

The feast or series of feasts was held in the Hippodrome, a great piazza being erected near Agia Sophia from which the sultan might view all the proceedings. Here was set up the Blessed Throne of Felicity, adorned with precious gold embroidery and rich velvets, while in the Hippodrome below, artistic, vari‐colored tents were set up, and carpets of gold thread were spread over the ground. Terraces and canopies and pavilions for the nobles were 39raised above the ground, but below the sultan’s terrace. Hangings of velvet and satin covered the grey walls of the buildings surrounding the Hippodrome.59 The second vizir, Ayas Pasha, and the agha of the janissaries went to the palace to invite the sultan to honor the feast by his presence. Suleiman received them graciously, delivered a pompous eulogy upon Ibrahim, and made them rich presents.

To the first banquet “all the world” was invited;60 the seven that followed were given to various branches of the army, there being very splendid feasts to the janissaries, vizirs, beylerbeys and sandjakbeys. To the first feast came Ayas Pasha and the agha of the janissaries, escorted by a troop of slaves. When they reached Bab‐el‐Saadet, that gate of the city leading from the Seraglio grounds to the space before the Agia Sophia, they met the glorious sultan “whose throne is in the heavens.” His escort bore scarlet banners and carried robes of honor with which they garbed those who had come to meet them, and they led also richly caparisoned steeds to present to Ayas Pasha and his two followers, for which, says Solakzadeh, “there was limitless thanks.”

On the ninth day, the eve of that on which the bride would be brought from the palace, Ayas Pasha and the other vizirs, and the defterdar, and the agha of the janissaries sought the bridegroom and led him through the streets of Stamboul in gorgeous procession. From the Bab‐i‐Huma40youn (The Sublime Porte) to the Hippodrome the streets “were full of pleasure from end to end,” all hung with silks of Broussa and velvets of Damascus, through which passed the ranks of the janissaries and the vizir who thus honored Ibrahim Pasha.

Ibrahim was a lean, dark man, slight in stature and bearing himself gracefully in his cloth‐of‐gold robes.61 He was escorted by brilliant officers on prancing steeds. There is no finer setting for a procession than the grey streets of Stamboul under the vivid Southern sky. When the procession approached the sultan’s throne, the dignitaries of the state and the nobles of the Empire, approaching on foot over the richly carpeted street, fell on their faces before his Majesty.

“This day they enjoyed riches and booty and sumptuousness without end”. “Especially were the people charmed with the sounds of rejoicing flutes and trumpets, whose music rose from earth to the first heaven”. The wise ulema and sheiks were present on this occasion, the sultan seating on his right the venerated Mufti Ali Djemali and on his left the great hodja (teacher) of the princes, while other learned doctors were arranged confronting the Imperial Majesty. The sultan presided over a learned discussion of the verse from the Koran, “O David, I will make thee Caliph in the world”, a sufficiently courtly text. The meaning was discussed and questions were propounded and answered. After this literary episode, knights‐at‐arms, wrestlers and other athletes displayed their skill. Then a rich feast was served and Mehmet Chelebi had the honor of presenting to the sultan sherbet in a priceless cup cut from a single turquoise, a souvenir of Persian victories, and the pride of the nation. Others drank their sherbet from goblets of china, then a 41rare and valuable ware. Food was served to the sultan and the ulema on silver trays,62 and each of the guests took away with him a tray of sweetmeats. From evening to morning fireworks and illuminations lit up the city, and were reflected in the Bosphorus and Marmora. On his return to the palace Suleiman was informed of the birth of a son, who afterwards became Selim II.

The wedding was followed by several days of dancing, races, contests of wrestlers and archers, as well as poetic contests in honor of the newly‐wedded couple. Such was a public festival in the city of the sultan in the days of the magnificent Suleiman. It reminds us of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, whose splendor delighted the French and the English in this same quarter century, the most striking difference being the literary side which the Turkish festival possessed and the European lacked.

Solakzadeh tells an interesting anecdote in connection with another great feast, that of the circumcision of Suleiman’s three sons.63 This was also a very splendid function and Suleiman is said to have asked Ibrahim in pride, whose feast had been the finer, Ibrahim’s or that of his sons. Ibrahim replied: “There has never been a feast equal to my wedding.” Suleiman, somewhat disconcerted, enquired how that was, to which Ibrahim gave the following courtly answer: “O my Padisha, my wedding was honored by the presence of Suleiman, Lord of the Age, firm Rampart of Islam, Possessor of Mecca and Medina, Lord of Damascus and Egypt, Caliph of the Lofty Threshold, and Lord of the Residence of the Pleiades: but to your festival, who was 42there of equally exalted rank who might come?” The padisha, greatly delighted, said, “A thousand bravas to thee, Ibrahim, who hast explained it so satisfactorily.”

Of Ibrahim’s relations to the sultan a good deal has been said. He was brought up in close contact with his master, eating and sleeping with him. They often changed garments and Ibrahim told an Austrian ambassador that the sultan never ordered garments for himself without ordering the same for his favorite. The Venetians spoke of seeing the two friends taking pleasure rides together in a cäique, and visiting what shores they pleased.

Ibrahim was said to exert such an influence on the sultan that the latter could deny him nothing, and from the time that he became grand vizir, he almost took over the sovereignty of the land: as von Hammer says, “from this time he divided the absolute power with Suleiman”. In becoming grand vizir and presiding over the divan, Ibrahim occupied the highest position open to any except a member of the imperial Ottoman family. Here the romantic story of his rise merges into the account of his public career, and this in its turn is a part of Turkish and South European history.

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CHAPTER II

Ibrahim the Administrator

After 1522 Ibrahim Pasha combined in his person the highest administrative, diplomatic and military functions. Although these naturally interact, it is our plan to consider them separately, first taking up Ibrahim’s administrative work.

We have seen that Ahmed Pasha, second vizir, was sent to Egypt when Ibrahim climbed over him to the grand vizerate. Ahmed’s indignation at the treatment accorded him by Suleiman led him into treachery; he attempted to usurp the sovereignty of Egypt. Intrigues failing of success he openly threw off his allegiance to the sultan, and attacked Cairo, capturing the fortress. This threw Alexandria and the coast into his power, and he proclaimed himself sultan.64

This revolt of Ahmed Pasha has all the features of the typical revolt against Turkish authority: the sudden disgrace of an official high in power, his banishment under the name of change of office, a tampering with the loyalty of the troops of the province (in this case the Mamelukes), a conflict with the loyal janissaries, sudden success, betrayal, a rapid fall and a sudden punishment, ending in the triumph of absolutism. The same story with change of names is told a hundred times in Turkish chronicles. The only way in which Suleiman differed from most of the sultans under such circumstances was that he recognized the need of a reorganization of the revolted province and sent the grand vizir to effect it.

44

Four months after his marriage Ibrahim Pasha was sent to Egypt with a fleet and an army to settle the new governor in Cairo and to reëstablish the former legislation of the country.65 The Turkish historians66 give much space to the splendid state in which Ibrahim left the Porte and the unparalleled honor paid him by the company of Sultan Suleiman as far as the Princes Isles, and also to the difficulties of the voyage, interrupted several times by storms. The last part of the journey was made overland, Ibrahim visiting Aleppo and Damascus, where he put the terror of the sultan into the beylerbeys, who had been forgetting all but their own interests. Throughout the journey, the grand vizir received complaints and rendered justice, earning the blessings of the people whom he visited.67

The arrival of the imperial mission in Cairo was marked by great ceremony, the Mamelukes showing themselves as splendid in all their appointments as were the Ottomans. “All the people of Egypt came to meet Ibrahim Pasha,” declares Solakzadeh, “each one according to his rank being garbed in a robe of honor, and from the forts guns sounded, and fêtes and rejoicings were held.”

Ibrahim Pasha spent three months in Egypt, actively en45gaged in improving the condition of that province, which he found “ailing, but amenable to the skill and zeal of a clever doctor.”68 The first move was to punish those who had assisted Ahmed Pasha in his treachery, several Arab chiefs being publicly hanged, so that the Arab people “began to weep for fear.”69 Ibrahim next relieved many individuals who suffered under injustice, receiving in person crowds of petitioners, and relieving as many as possible. Among these acts of mercy were the release of 300 debtors from prison and the satisfaction of their creditors.70 He improved the appearance of Cairo by restoring several buildings that had fallen into disrepair, particularly mosques and schools, and also built some new ones at his own expense. To erect such buildings has always been considered an act of piety, so that sultans, vizirs, and even the favorites of sultans have acquired merit in this fashion, as the numerous mosques and religious foundations of Turkey testify. Ibrahim was thus following the usual custom. He further drew up some rules for education, and for the care of orphans.71 But the two main accomplishments of Ibrahim’s sojourn in Egypt were the reëstablishment of the law and the placing of the treasury on a better basis. Ahmed Pasha, and probably several of his predecessors, had ignored and weakened the law of the land, which Ibrahim undertook to restore. He enforced the local laws and also some of the general Koranic laws which had been neglected; but he seems to have moderated and lightened them to suit the needs and desires of the people, “for” says Solakzadeh, uttering a sentiment so un‐Turkish that one is inclined to at46tribute it to the Greek vizir rather than to the Ottoman chronicler, “the best things are the golden mean.” He further states that the ideal striven for was uniform rule for all the inhabitants of Egypt.72

The province was a rich one even before the days of great dams, and one of the most important of the grand vizir’s duties was to see that the taxes were properly gathered and placed in the treasury at Cairo, and that a suitable tribute was sent annually to the Porte. Ibrahim built two great towers to contain the treasure. With Ibrahim Pasha on this expedition was the Imperial defterdar or treasurer, Iskender Chelebi, who calculated that Egypt could pay annually 80,000 ducats to the Porte, after deducting the cost of administration.73 Ibrahim’s final act in Egypt was to appoint Suleiman Pasha, the Beylerbey of Damascus to the office of governor of Egypt. He seems to have chosen this man for his economical disposition, for Solakzadeh says “he watched, and shut his eyes to those who desired to spend money, and then appointed Suleiman Pasha.”

Called back to the Porte by a Hatt‐i‐humayoún, he left Egypt with her revolt quieted, her mutineers punished, her oppressed temporarily relieved, her city improved, her law reëstablished, and her finances arranged quite satisfactorily to the Porte, if not to herself. Ibrahim showed himself clear, forceful, just and merciful, if not a great constructive statesman. He took back to Stamboul a large sum in gold for the Imperial treasury, and was received by Suleiman with great honor.74

47

The recall of Ibrahim Pasha was induced by an insurrection of the janissaries who were tired of inactivity, and showed their restlessness by pillaging the houses of the absent grand vizir and defterdar, and several rich institutions. Suleiman promptly executed several of the most audacious leaders, then sent for Ibrahim Pasha to come and deal with the situation. Clothing himself in mourning garments, Ibrahim hastened back to the capital. On the way he executed a number of Persian prisoners in Gallipoli, for the Sultan had determined to quiet the janissaries by the only effective means, namely to offer them a chance for fighting and loot by making war against the most convenient enemy, which in this case was Persia.

Of the war we speak elsewhere. Suffice it to say that from this time on, Ibrahim was so occupied in war and diplomacy that his administrative functions must have been delegated largely to lower officials. His power, notwithstanding, was very great, as will be seen from the berat of investiture bestowed on him by the Sultan before the campaign of Vienna, which is substantially as follows:

“I command Ibrahim Pasha to be from today and forever my grand vizir and the serasker (chief of the army) named by my Majesty in all my estates. My vizirs, beylerbeys, judges of the army, legists, judges, seids, sheiks, my dignitaries of the court and pillars of the empire, sandjakbeys, generals of cavalry or infantry, ... all my victorious army, all my slaves, high or low, my functionaries and employees, the people of my kingdom, my provinces, the citizens and the peasants, the rich and the poor, in short all shall recognize the above‐mentioned grand vizir as serasker, and shall esteem and venerate him in this capacity, regarding all that he says or believes as an order proceeding from my mouth which rains pearls. Everyone shall listen to his word with all possible attention, shall receive48 each of his recommendations with respect, and shall not neglect any of them. The right of nomination and degradation for the posts of beylerbeys and all other dignitaries and functionaries, from highest to lowest, either at my Blessed Porte or in the provinces, is confined to his sane judgment, his penetrating intellect. Thus he must fulfil the duties which the offices of grand vizir and serasker impose on him, assigning to each man his suitable rank. When my sublime person enters on a campaign, or when circumstances demand the sending of an army, the serasker remains sole master and judge of his actions, no one dare refuse him obedience, and the dispositions which he judges best to make relative to the collections in the sandjaks, the fiefs and the employments, to the increase of wages or salaries, to the distribution of presents, except such as are made to the army in general, are in advance sanctioned and approved by my Majesty. If against my sublime order and the fundamental law a member of my army (which Allah forbid!) rebel against the order of my grand vizir and serasker; if one of my slaves oppress the people, let my Sublime Porte be immediately informed, and the guilty, whatever be their number, shall receive the punishment which they shall merit.”75

This amazing gift of power brings out some characteristics of the Ottoman state. There is no state, as such, apart from the army. All the civil offices have military names, and generally include military duties. It has often been said that the Turkish empire is an army encamped in Europe, an epigram that conveys much truth. The church, the state, and the army are one and the sultan is the head of the trinity.76 To Ibrahim were delegated full powers as 49general and administrator, but he had no sacerdotal power except such as was involved in the general power of appointment and supervision. It follows that he did not appoint the sheik‐ul‐Islam, and had no special dealings with ulema.77 But curiously enough one of the few events of his administration of which we have an account is connected with religious interests. It is the Cabyz affair.

Cabyz was a member of the body of ulema, or interpreters of the sacred law, who became convinced of the superiority of Jesus to Mohammad, hence was a traitor both to Allah and to the sultan. “He fell in to the valley of error and took the route of destruction and danger, deviating from the glorious path of truth.”78 Haled before the judges of the army, Cabyz was summarily condemned to death, with no attempt to convince him of his error. The grand vizir reproved them for this unsuitable treatment of a heretic, saying that the only arms against heresy should be law and doctrine. The affair being therefore laid before the divan, the sultan who was present behind his little window was dissatisfied with the clemency of Ibrahim, perhaps because the latter was Christian born, although now a zealous Moslem.

“How is this” he demanded, “an irreligious infidel dares to ascribe deficiency to the Blessed Prophet, and he goes without being convinced of his error or punished?” Ibrahim claimed that the judges lacked the knowledge of the sacred law necessary to deal with the case. So the judge of Stamboul and the Mufti were called in and after a long discussion Cabyz’ “tongue was stopped and he lowered his head.” Cabyz was condemned by the sacred law and executed.

50

This case in which a heretic was first brought before the judges of the army and then before the council of state before he was finally condemned by the religious law, shows the awkward working of a state whose functions were so slightly differentiated. Perhaps the easiest way to think of the grand vizir is as the alter ego of the sultan, as he has been called.79

For details of Ibrahim’s official work we have a bit here and a bit there, but no general account. He seems to have been zealous in the cause of commerce, out of which he made a considerable profit. He established a monopoly of Syrian commerce afterwards taken over by the sultan,80 and caused all the trade of that country to pass through Constantinople.81 He encouraged trade with Venice, freeing that country from payment of duty on merchandize brought from Syria.82 He was always a friend to Venice, helping her trade and keeping the Porte from war with her as long as he lived.83

From the Venetian reports we see how general Ibrahim’s interests were;84 now he is looking after the corn trade, now receiving cargoes of biscuits, now concerning himself in the building of a canal, now opening new trade routes, now watching the coming of new vessels to the Porte. The trade of the Dalmatian coast he encouraged. As beylerbey of 51Roumelie he would be most interested in the European trade and other relations. The export and import trade of Turkey was scarcely born in his day, although the Muscovy and other trading companies were beginning to ask for concessions in the Ottoman dominions. Ibrahim’s ideas on this subject were not great nor especially in advance of his time.

In his quality as judge, he settled disputes and arranged wills to the apparent satisfaction of the interested parties. Every envoy to the Porte, whether on state, commercial, or personal business, was first presented to the grand vizir, who might take complete charge of his affair, or he might refer him to the sultan. The grand vizir received in great state and the Venetian letters are full of advice as to how to conciliate the great minister. There seems to be little disagreement among his critics as to Ibrahim’s ability. He is pronounced by all to be a wise and able man; but he had at least one severe critic among the Venetians, who felt that his power was too arbitrary. Daniello di Ludovisi in 1534 wrote thus:85

Suleiman gave his administration of the empire into the hands of another. The sultan, with all the pashas and all the court, would conduct no important deliberation without Ibrahim Pasha, while Ibrahim would do everything without Suleiman or any other advisor. So the state lacked good council, and the army good heads. Suleiman’s affection for Ibrahim should not be praised, but blamed.

And again:

Another evil existed in the Turkish army, and was caused, first, by the negligence of the sultan (who, to tell the truth, is not of such ability as the greatness of the empire demands), 52 and secondly, by the actions of Ibrahim Pasha, who by the same means as those used to raise and maintain himself—namely, to degrade, and even to kill, all whose ability aroused his suspicion—deprived the state of men of good council and the army of good captains.

For instance, he decapitated Ferad Pasha, a valiant captain, and was the cause of the rebellion of Ahmed Pasha, who was beheaded at Cairo, and he caused Piri Pasha to leave office, an old man and an old councillor, and some even accused him of causing his death by poison. And it followed, also, that Rustem, a young fellow, master of the stables of the Grand Seigneur, became familiar with the latter, and Ibrahim, warned of this, and being then in Aleppo, sent him to be governor in Asia Minor, a long distance away. Rustem, feeling very badly, asked the Grand Seigneur not to let him go, who replied, “When I see Ibrahim, I will see that he causes you to return near me.” For this reason the army was without council except Ibrahim alone, and men of learning and force, from fear and suspicion, hid their knowledge and ability. So the army was demoralized and enervated. I feel certain that Ibrahim Pasha realized this (for he was a man of good parts, but not of such merit as to find a remedy for such evils), but he loved himself much more than he did his lord, and wished to be alone in the dominion of the world in which he was much respected.

This criticism of Ibrahim Pasha was later repeated in a more general form by one Kogabey, who presented to Sultan Mourad IV a memorial on the decadence of the Ottoman state. The two first reasons that he assigned for the deterioration were the sultan’s ceasing to preside over the divan in person, and the placing of favorites in the office of grand vizir, the latter custom having been started by Suleiman I, who raised his favorite Ibrahim from the palace to the divan. Such vizirs, Kogabey explained, had no insight into the circumstances of the whole nation. They generally were blinded by the splendor of their position and refused to53 consult intelligent men on affairs of government, and so the order of the state was destroyed through their carelessness.86

The custom of appointing favorites to the most important office in the empire was certainly a bad one, but Ibrahim was a more efficient administrator than could have been expected from his training, and ranks among the great vizirs of the Ottoman Empire.

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CHAPTER III

Ibrahim the Diplomat

We must now turn from Turkey’s internal affairs to her foreign relations. Turkish political history during the sixteenth century was so interwoven with that of the European states, the influence of Ottoman interference upon the wars and negotiations of Christian princes was so marked, that a study of Suleiman’s foreign relations becomes almost a study of contemporary Europe.87 The two sultans who succeeded Mohammed the Conqueror had not extended Turkish power in Europe, Bayazid having failed in his attempts at conquest, and Selim having turned his attention from Europe to the East. This caused a period of transition and preparation for the great events of Suleiman’s reign.

When Suleiman came to the throne, he found certain relations established with Ragusa and Venice, the two commercial cities of the Adriatic, whose large carrying trade made an entente cordiale with the Porte very desirable.88 55Ragusa was the first foreign state to reach the new sultan with her congratulations on his accession,89 and the sultan renewed with the Ragusan republic the commercial privileges it had enjoyed in Egypt.

After Venice had been defeated by Turkey in the battle of Sapienza in 1499 and had been obliged to sue for peace, she had received the following answer from the then grand vizir: “You can tell the doge that he has done wedding the sea, it is our turn now.”90 This boast became steadily more completely realized as Turkish conquest in the Mediterranean continued, and Venice soon saw that her chance of freedom on the seas lay in keeping on good terms with the Turk, whom she could not conquer. In vain she sought for help against the Moslems; in vain she carried on a single‐handed struggle against their encroachments, earning the title of “Bulwark of Christianity”. Had she not “learned to kiss the hand that she could not cut off,”91 she could not have continued to exist as even the second‐rate power in the Levant to which she had been reduced. Frequent missions were sent from Venice to the Porte, and a Venetian baillie was kept at the Porte. These baillies were very good statesmen, and they not only kept Venice on good terms with Turkey for thirty‐three years, but they made an invaluable contribution to recorded history by sending frequent and detailed reports to the signories.

Russia also sent an embassy to the Porte, after the conquests of Belgrad and Rhodes had demonstrated the power of Turkey; and the Tsar, recognizing the value of an alliance with the Porte, made two attempts to form one, but 56without success. Suleiman saw no advantage in such an alliance, but he never assumed an unfriendly attitude towards Russia, at that time still an unimportant power. In a letter written later in his reign he recalls the amicable relations that had existed between the Porte and Russia, and recommends his Ottoman merchants to buy furs and merchandise in Moscow.92

As Suleiman’s conquests naturally threw him into antagonism with the House of Hapsburg, it is desirable to review briefly the political conditions in the Holy Roman Empire at this time.

The accession of Charles of Spain to the Imperial throne took place in October of the same year as Suleiman’s accession, 1520. Handicapped in every possible way by the German princes, for whose safety and prosperity the emperor assumed the entire responsibility without receiving in return any equivalent whatever,93 Charles V presented a great contrast to Suleiman, whose slightest word was law throughout his extensive dominions. With the empire, Charles acquired the enmity of Francis I of France, his unsuccessful rival, and hereafter his constant foe. Another rival not outwardly so dangerous, but destined to be a great source of anxiety and weakness to the empire was Ferdinand, the emperor’s brother. Concerning him, Charles’ counsellor, de Chièvres, is reported to have said to Charles,94 “Do not fear the king of France nor any other prince except your brother”. Ferdinand’s ambition had been early recognized. His grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, had attempted to construct an Italian kingdom for him, but 57failed. Charles, after his election to the Empire, tried to satisfy Ferdinand’s craving for power by conferring on him the old Austrian provinces, and further by marrying him to Anna, heiress of the kingdom of Hungary and Bohemia, whose child‐king, Lewis, was weak physically and not destined for a long reign. This opened to Ferdinand a large sphere of activity in the southeast, and brought him into direct contact with the steadily encroaching Suleiman; a sphere that effectually absorbed his energies and made him but a source of weakness to the Empire.

Thus Charles V, in name the imperial ruler of Central Europe, was confronted with four rivals who desired to divide with him the supremacy; Francis I, a relentless foe; his brother Ferdinand, an ambitious claimant: the conquering Suleiman; and the Protestant Revolt. The weakness and disunion of Christendom was the strength of Suleiman, and he was far too shrewd not to trade on it.

It had in fact been long since Europe had been sufficiently united to oppose with any vigor the oncoming Turks. The Popes of Rome had been the most persistent foes of Turkish advance in Europe; notably Calixtus III, who in 1453 tried in vain to save Europe from Mohammed’s conquering armies; Pius II, who having for his master—thought the freeing of Europe from Islam, preached a general crusade, and even attempted to convert Mohammed by letter; Paul II, who gave lavish aid to Scanderbeg and the armies in Hungary and Albania in their struggle against Turkish invasion; Alexander VI, who held Prince Jem, the mutinous brother of Sultan Bayazid, as hostage for the friendliness of the sultan whom he attacked after Jem’s death; and Julius II, who planned a crusade early in the sixteenth century, but failed to execute it.95 All this time Turkish con58quest continued practically unhindered. By the close of the fifteenth century the Turks were accepted as a permanent political factor in Europe. Nevertheless, when Charles became a candidate for election to the headship of the Holy Roman Empire, he emphasized his fitness for the high office by alleging that his vast possessions, united to the Imperial dignity, would enable him to oppose the Turks successfully.96 But the sudden rise of revolt within the Church tended to force the dread of Islam into the background, even in the face of the loss of Belgrad and Rhodes. At least such was the case with Charles V and the German princes; it was of necessity otherwise with little King Lewis, who saw with terror the preparations of the Turkish conquerors for war to the death with Hungary.

As Suleiman’s conquests naturally threw him into antagonism with Austria, equally naturally he had common interests with Francis I. Friendly relations between the Porte and France were not unprecedented, although strongly disapproved by the more religious among the French. Commercial agreements had existed for some time between the two states.97 The accession of Francis I, January 1, 1515, marked an epoch in the Eastern Question. Francis’ Oriental policy began on the conventional lines; he made an agreement with Leo X to drive the Turks from Europe but refused to subsidize Hungary in the interests of this purpose. The pope called for a truce in Europe and a crusade against the common enemy, but the death of Maximilian and the outbreak of the Protestant Revolt put a complete stop to this plan. The only result was the extension of the circle 59of European politics to include Eastern affairs and the Ottoman Empire, and to bring the Eastern Question home to all the European powers. Those who had been furthest away were now drawn in; France, Spain, and even England began to step within the circle of Eastern influence.

The battle of Pavia marked a crisis in European affairs. The captivity of the French king, his falling into the hands of his bitterest foe, Charles of Hapsburg, destroyed any scruples that the French court had felt against seeking Turkish aid. The first French mission to Suleiman I did not reach the Porte, the ambassador being assassinated en route.98 This first attempt was quickly followed by another. The Croat Frangipani brought two letters to the Sultan, one written by Francis from his Madrid prison, the other from his distracted mother, the queen‐regent. Francis also sent a letter to Ibrahim Pasha, who later gave an account of this embassy to Cornelius Scepper and Hieronymus von Zara, envoys of Ferdinand.99

“Post hec tempora, inquit Ibrahim, accedit quod rex Francie captus fuit. Tunc mater ipsius regis ad ipsum Caesarem Thurcarum scripsit hoc modo. ‘Filius meus Rex Francie captus est à Carolo, Rege Hispanie. Speravi quod ipse liberaliter ipsum demitteret. Id quo non fecit, sed iniuste cum eo agit. Confugimus ad te magnum Caesarem ut tu liberalitatem tuam ostendas et filium meum redimas’.”100

Frangipani demanded that Suleiman should undertake an expedition by land and sea to deliver the king of France, who 60otherwise would make terms which would leave Charles master of the world. This exactly fitted into the plans of Suleiman, whose European expeditions were naturally directed against the possessions of the house of Hapsburg; so he graciously acceded to all the demands of the French mission. Ibrahim later stated101 that this embassy decided the Sultan to prepare his army immediately for an expedition into Hungary. The knowledge of this successful embassy was one of the reasons that led Charles to sign the Treaty of Madrid in January, 1526. By the time of this treaty Francis promised to send five thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry against his recent allies, the Turks,—but of course he had no intention of keeping his word.

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Since the capture of Belgrad by the Turks in 1521, hostilities on the Hungarian frontier had never ceased, and the Turkish danger had been constantly before the Reichstag and in the mind of the Pope. In April, 1526, Suleiman started with a large army for his first regular Hungarian campaign. The Hungarian nobles, continually at feud with one another, were utterly unprepared to resist him, and the treasury was exhausted. The first city to be taken was Peterwardein, which was stormed by Ibrahim Pasha. Then fell Illok and Esek. But the decisive victory of the campaign was the battle of Mohacz, August 29, 1526. In this brief but bloody conflict little King Lewis fell, and the country was laid open to the sultan. The keys of Buda, the capital of Hungary, were handed over to him and he entered the city on September 1st. In spite of the express prohibition of the sultan, his soldiers accustomed to regard war as an opportunity for rapine, burned two quarters of the city, including the great church, while the akinji (scouts) burned neighboring villages and slaughtered the peasants. Other victories followed until at last the sultan, promising the Hungarians that John Zapolya should be their king, withdrew his army to Constantinople, carrying with him an immense amount of booty.

The death at Mohacz of King Lewis without direct heirs left the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia vacant. The Archduke Ferdinand, as the husband of Lewis’ sister, and recognized as Lewis’ successor by official acts of his brother, the Emperor Charles, passed at the Diets of Worms and Brussels on April 28, 1521, and March 18, 1522, was the legal heir to the throne. But the sovereignty was claimed also by John Zapolya, voivode of Transylvania, a vigorous fighter and an unscrupulous politician. Both of these claimants had themselves been recognized in Hun62gary and crowned with the Iron Crown,102 and both of them turned for substantial aid in support of their claims to Suleiman, regardless of possible loss of independence. Suleiman, as conqueror of the strongholds of Hungary, and as a court of appeal for the rivals, considered himself to have in his hand the disposition of the crown. He did not want it himself. He had expressly declared that he invaded Hungary to avenge insults, not to take the kingdom from Lewis; but the death of the latter forced him to choose between the two rival claimants. His word had been pledged for the support of Zapolya, and his dislike of the Hapsburgs and his friendship for the French king inclined him to keep it.

Ferdinand and Zapolya both hastened to send embassies to the Turks, Ferdinand taking the first step. He sent envoys to Upper Bosnia and to Belgrad to ask the governors to refuse aid to Zapolya, offering three to six thousand ducats for their alliance.103 One of the governors died before the embassy reached him, and from neither of them were there any results from this mission.104 At the same time Ferdinand attacked Zapolya, driving him from Ofen and back towards Transylvania. Zapolya in distress despatched his first mission to the Porte. His envoy, Hieronymus Laszky, was empowered to effect a defensive and offensive alliance with the sultan. The mission was successful, Suleiman accepting Zapolya’s offer of devotion, and promising him 63the crown of Hungary and the protection of the Porte against his enemies.

Although the mission from Zapolya was kept as secret as possible, it soon became known to Ferdinand, who dispatched the embassy he had long planned, in the hope of counteracting Zapolya’s move. One embassy failed to reach Constantinople,105 and the first ambassadors from the archduke of Austria to reach the Porte were John Hobordonacz and Sigmund Weixelberger, in May, 1528. They demanded the Kingship of Hungary for their master Ferdinand, and the restoration to Hungary of all the places taken by Suleiman. The sultan refused both of these demands and in his turn offered to make peace on the payment of tribute. The embassy accomplished nothing, its sequel being the campaign in Hungary in 1529. Three days before the final answer to Ferdinand, Suleiman had in full divan delivered to Ibrahim a commission making him serasker or general‐in‐chief of the expedition against the Hapsburgs. The Peace of Cambrai in 1529 left the Austrians free to fight the Turks.

In the meanwhile French diplomacy continued actively. Francis I was disturbed by the result of the invasion of Hungary which he had himself urged, for the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia seemed now to be falling into the hands of his enemies of Austria. More than ever he had need of the Ottoman alliance, and he determined on an alliance with Zapolya. He sent Rincon to the latter to form an offensive and defensive alliance, claiming as his reward the reversion of the kingdom of Hungary for his second son, Henry, should Zapolya die without heirs.106 On the 20th of September, 1528, Sultan Suleiman renewed a former act 64called by old French historians “la trêve marchande,”107 giving commercial privileges to the Catalonian and French merchants in the Mediterranean, and placing all French factories, consuls, and pilgrims, under the protection of the Sublime Porte. The French were thus able to reappear with confidence in the Levant, and were welcomed by the Christians in the East. The pilgrimages to Jerusalem recommenced. Even Francis expressed a desire to go to the Holy Land and to visit en route “his dear patron and friend, Suleiman.”108 A question concerning the Holy Places in Palestine was also brought up by Francis at this time, which is of very great significance, as it marks the beginning of the train of developments that resulted in the conception of the protection of Turkey’s Christian subjects by the European Powers. Francis and Venice united in asking that a certain church in Jerusalem, long before converted into a mosque, be restored to the Christians.109 Ibrahim replied that had the King of France demanded a province, the Turks would not have refused him, but in a matter of religion they could not gratify his desire. Nevertheless the Sultan made the following general promise which was later used as a basis for further demand by the Catholics. He wrote to Francis:110 “The Christians shall live peaceably under the wing of our protection; they shall be allowed to 65repair their doors and windows; they shall preserve in all safety their oratories and establishments which they actually occupy, without any one being allowed to oppose or torment them.”111

On the 10th day of May, 1529, Suleiman set out to settle matters by force with Charles V. Before the end of August the Turks were again encamped with a vast army on the fatal plain of Mohacz. Here John Zapolya met his overlord and did him homage. Three days later the Turks advanced to Buda, and took it from Ferdinand, crowning Zapolya a second time within the walls of the capital. By September 27, Suleiman was encamped before Vienna.

On the 19th day of October, 1529, Ferdinand, in great distress, wrote to his brother the Emperor; after referring to the horrors that followed the siege of Vienna, he says: “I do not know what he (Suleiman) intends to do, whether to betake himself to his own country or to stay in Hungary and fortify it and the fortresses, with the intention of returning next spring to invade Christendom, which I firmly believe he will do. I therefore beg you Sire, to consider my great need and poverty, and that it may please you not to abandon me but to assist me with money.”112

The invasion of Austria had convinced Charles that he must support Ferdinand against Turkey, and the royal brothers agreed on their Oriental policy, namely, peace at almost any price. To this end another embassy was fitted 66out and despatched to treat with Suleiman. On the 17th day of October, 1530, Nicholas Juritschitz and Joseph von Lamberg arrived in Constantinople. Their instructions were practically the same as those given Juritschitz the previous year.113 The mission was hopeless from the start, for the ambassadors could accept peace only on the condition of the evacuation of Hungary by the Turks, and to this the Sultan would not listen.

Ferdinand however, who had just failed in a military attack on Zapolya and had accepted a truce, saw no hope but in another embassy to the Porte. Therefore he sent Graf Leonhard von Nogarola and Joseph von Lamberg, who were to attempt to buy peace by the payment of annual pensions to Suleiman and Ibrahim. The sultan, who had already left Constantinople at the head of a great army for his fifth Hungarian campaign, was intercepted at his camp near Belgrad by the Austrian envoys. The only result of this embassy was a letter to Ferdinand from Suleiman saying that the latter was starting for Ofen, where he would treat with Ferdinand in person, a threat which he followed up immediately.

By April, 1531, Suleiman was ready to avenge his failure before Vienna. At Belgrad he was met by the French ambassador Rincon. France was now anxious to prevent the Sultan’s expedition against Austria, not in the interests of the Hapsburgs but against them, for he was afraid that the Turkish danger would unite Catholic and Protestant Germany against the common foe of Christianity. Suleiman received Rincon hospitably but assured him he had come too late, for while on account of his friendship with the King of France he would like to oblige the latter, he could not give 67up the expedition without giving the world occasion to think that he was afraid of the “King of Spain”, as he always called Charles V.114

The Ottoman army entered Hungary. Fourteen fortresses sent the Sultan their keys as he approached.115 But the forces did not advance to Vienna as their enemies expected, but turned into Styria and besieged the little town of Güns. For three weeks seven hundred brave defenders held the little fort against the might of Turkish arms, and finally made a highly honorable capitulation. After a general devastation of the country and much looting, the great army of Suleiman returned to Constantinople. Suleiman was incited to this course by the active preparations which were being made by Charles and Ferdinand to receive him at Vienna, and by the naval successes in the Mediterranean of Andrea Doria, admiral of the Italian fleet. Thus what promised to be a great duel between the two “Masters of the World” was allowed by both of them to degenerate into a plundering expedition.

Affairs in Persia were in great need of Suleiman’s presence, and the capture of Koron and Patras by Doria made the Sultan more ready to listen to overtures of peace. Charles and Ferdinand took advantage of this fact to send Hieronymus von Zara and Cornelius Duplicius Schepper to the Porte in 1533. The ambassadors, after weeks of patience and adroitness succeeded in winning from the Sultan a treaty of peace, to last as long as Ferdinand should remain peaceful. Ferdinand was to retain the forts he had taken in Hungary and Zapolya to keep the others; the Emperor Charles might make peace by sending his own embassy to the Porte. As soon as Ferdinand received the 68news of this humiliating success, he sent word all over the kingdom, to Carniola, Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia that any violation of the truce would be severely punished; “denn daran ... mug der Turghisch Kaeser erkhennen dass wir den Frieden angenommen derselben zu halten gaentzlich entschlossen und so dawider gehandelt wurf, dass mit ernst zu shafen willen haben.”116 Such were the humiliating terms of the first peace concluded by the House of Austria with the Porte (1533).

Shortly after the embassy of von Zara and Schepper, Suleiman left Europe to wage war against the Persians. As usual when planning a campaign in one direction, he made careful arrangements to keep matters quiet on other frontiers. He treated in secret with Francis I, agreeing to despatch Barbarosa with a fleet to ravage the coasts of the Empire; this was a great success for French diplomacy, for the advantage was all in favor of France. Then, fearing lest the rivals for the Hungarian throne should come to an agreement in his absence, and thus menace his suzerainty, Suleiman delegated Luigi Gritti to determine the frontiers between the possessions of the two kings. This was a clever move, for it prolonged the intrigues between the royal competitors until the return of the sultan. The successes of Barbarosa, the victories and defeats of Charles V on the Mediterranean, and the continuation of French diplomacy are outside the limits of our subject, which ends with the death of Ibrahim Pasha in 1535. Gévay preserves several letters written by Ferdinand to Ibrahim in 1535–6, in the interest of peace in Hungary, the last being dated March 14, 1536, a year after Ibrahim’s death. The last international act in which Ibrahim Pasha had a part was the celebrated treaty of commerce made with France in February, 1535.

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Francis I had received a Turkish mission, not from the haughty Sultan, but from his admiral Barbarosa,117 and in return the king sent a clever diplomat named La Forest, to thank Barbarosa for his kind offers of aid, and then to seek the sultan in Persia and conclude a definite treaty with him.118 Suleiman received La Forest in his military camp, keeping him till his own return to Turkey in 1535.

The treaty is dated February, 1535; it formed the basis of the economic, religious, and political protectorate of France in the Levant. The French might carry on commerce in the Levant by paying the same dues as did the subjects of the Sultan, and the Turks could do the same in France. The French were to be judged by their consul at Alexandria or by their ambassador at Constantinople. This treaty ended the commercial predominance of Venice in the Mediterranean. After this, all Christians except the Venetians were forced to put themselves under the protection of the French flag, which alone guaranteed inviolability.119 This commercial freedom and political influence gained by France involved a sort of economic protection and was supplemented by a religious protectorate over the Catholics in the Levant and the Holy Places.

After this sketch of the beginnings of diplomatic relations between the Porte and the two rival powers of Europe, the House of Hapsburg and the House of Valois, we are ready to consider the significance of these relations and to take up some of the details that will serve to bring out the 70share of Ibrahim Pasha in Turkish diplomacy, and his characteristics as a diplomat.

Diplomatic relations between the Porte and Europe, relations other than those of conqueror and conquered, relations reciprocal and more or less friendly, began in the reign of Suleiman I, and the first French embassy to the Porte in 1526 already described was the beginning of a complete change in the European attitude towards Turkey. Before this time, the religious differences between Moslem and Christian had effectually absorbed attention, but now political interests began to push aside religious concern. The masses of the people in Europe still feared a Moslem invasion of the North, but this was no longer a real danger. A general rising of Christians, such as a crusade, was no longer necessary to hold back the Turk; the regular means and the ordinary efforts of a few states combined sufficed, as was proved by the successful resistance of Güns and Vienna. It was decreed that the Turk was not to pass Vienna. Francis might therefore seek the friendship of the Ottoman without betraying the cause of Christianity. There were, it is true, plenty of Christians who cried out against the impious alliance of the Crescent and the Lily,120 but the outcry was largely political and as we have seen soon even the Austrians were seeking terms of peace with the Turks.

When Suleiman came to the throne, he attended closely to the business of government, but by 1526 he was leaving 71practically the whole responsibility on the shoulders of his grand vizir Ibrahim. Ambassadors to the Porte had their first audience always with Ibrahim, after which they sometimes had audiences with the other vizirs. Generally a very formal ceremony of hand‐kissing was permitted by the Sultan, after which Ibrahim concluded the business. At some audiences with the grand vizir, Suleiman would be present, concealed behind a little window,121 but oftener he was not present at all.

In his early diplomatic work, Ibrahim, feeling himself unprepared, turned to Luigi Gritti, natural son by a Greek mother of Andreas Gritti, who had been ambassador and at one time doge of Venice. Ibrahim was very well served by Luigi Gritti, who was intelligent as well as experienced, especially in Christian dealings, clever, able, and tactful.122 Zapolya’s ambassador Laszky, knowing this, persuaded Gritti to take up his affairs, hoping through him to win Ibrahim, and through Ibrahim, Suleiman. The event justified him.123 Ibrahim frankly acknowledged Gritti’s influence, saying to Laszky: “Without the Doge Gritti and his son we should have destroyed the power of Ferdinand and of thy master (Zapolya), for the conflict of two enemies who ruin each other is always favorable to the third who survives.”

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We may get an idea of the manner of conducting embassies at the Porte, as well as the functions and characteristics of Ibrahim as diplomat as such by following the report of Hobordanacz to Ferdinand. Hobordanacz sent an official and detailed report of the embassy to his master, written in Latin, which is preserved in Gévay’s Urkunden und Actenstuecke.124

The two ambassadors Hobordanacz and Weixelberger were received with splendor on their entrance into Constantinople by a guard of four hundred knights, and were immediately conducted to the grand vizir. This ceremonious reception greatly encouraged the hopes of Hobordanacz.125 After greetings to Ibrahim, “Supremum Nomine”, the Hungarians offered him presents and then retired to quarters assigned them. On the third day forty horsemen escorted the royal nuncios to the Imperial palace. Hobordanacz was greatly impressed with the splendid array of janissaries and guards in gorgeous costumes. They were received by the three vizirs, Ibrahim, Cassim, and Ayas Pasha, while from his little window his Majesty watched the audience, himself unseen.

Amidst profound silence, Ibrahim Pasha addressed the first nuncio, asking him politely whether they were treated well in their quarters, to which Hobordanacz answered that they had everything in abundance, as was fitting in the palace of so great an emperor. Ibrahim then began to interrogate them concerning the journey and their king, ex73plaining that he was not asking about the king of Hungary, for Lewis of Hungary had been killed in battle, but was inquiring about the king of Bohemia and Germany. The Hungarian nuncios took the opportunity to boast of the greatness of Ferdinand, provoking a smile from Ibrahim. Hobordanacz said they had come to admire and to congratulate the emperor of the Turks that God had made him a nearer neighbor to Ferdinand than previously. He said that the Emperor Maximilian had given Hungary to Ferdinand, whereupon Ibrahim broke in: “By what right, when Sultan Suleiman has subjugated Hungary?” He asked them if they did not know that the Sultan had been to Buda. The Hungarians responded rudely that there were signs enough by which they could know of Suleiman’s visit, as the country lay waste. Ibrahim went on: “The fortress of Buda, how does it stand?” “Whole and undamaged,” they replied. When he asked why, they suggested that it was because it was the king’s castle. Ibrahim denied this and said it was because the sultan had saved the citadel for himself, and intended to keep it with divine aid. Ibrahim here explained that Suleiman and he had not wished so much harm done in Hungary, and had ordered the soldiers not to burn Buda and Pesth, but could not hold them back from devastating. This was naturally a sore subject with the Hungarians who after expressions of admiration for the great obedience they saw in Turkey, even when the sultan was not present, asked pertinently why then he could not have saved Buda and Pesth. This seems to have been too much for Ibrahim who remarked “Let us omit these things.” Turning therefore to a more congenial subject, he uttered a Turkish dictum, “Wherever the hoof of the sultan’s horse has trod, there the land belongs to him.” Hobordanacz replied somewhat sarcastically that they knew such was the sultan’s idea, but that even Alexander the Great had not74 been able to carry out all his ideas. Cutting through all these generalities, Ibrahim said sharply, “Then you say that Buda does not belong to Suleiman!” Hobordanacz replied stoutly, “I can say no more than that my king holds Buda.” Said Ibrahim, “Why has he then sent you to ask for peace and friendship if he holds Buda, which the sultan has conquered?” The nuncio told a long story of Zapolyta’s usurpation of the throne, and of Ferdinand’s merits to which Ibrahim sarcastically remarked, “You have talked of the many virtues of your lord! Very noble if they be true!” He then asked Hobordanacz if he were a relative of Ferdinand’s and how long he had served the Archduke. The nuncio replied that he had served him since the latter became king of Hungary. “Then,” said the pasha triumphantly, “if you have served him so short a time, how do you know he is so wise and virtuous and powerful?” A curious contest of wits followed with no practical object.

Ibrahim: “Tell us what wisdom you see in Ferdinand and how you know that he is wise.”

Hobor.: “Because when he has won great victories, he ascribes the glory to God.”

I.: “What does wisdom seem to you to be like?”

H.: “In our books and in yours, the beginning of wisdom is said to be the fear of God.”

I.: “True, but what other wisdom do you find in Ferdinand?”

H.: “He works deliberately and with foresight and taking of counsel; also he undertakes no affairs that he cannot finish.”

I.: “If he does this, he is praiseworthy. Now what boldness and courage do you find in him?”

Ibrahim’s next question as to the victories of Ferdinand received a long and clever answer. Ibrahim further in75quired as to Ferdinand’s wealth. Hobordanacz claimed endless treasure for his master. Ibrahim then asked, “What have you to say about the power of your master?” Hobordanacz claimed many powerful friends and neighbors, the greatest being his brother Charles. Ibrahim inflicted one of his battle‐axe strokes; “We know that these so‐called friends and neighbors are his enemies.” The Hungarian replied sententiously, “Unhappy is the king without rivals, whom all favor.” Ibrahim at length stopped the discussion of Ferdinand’s merits by saying, “If this be so, it is well.” Then he asked whether they came in peace or in war, to which Hobordanacz replied that Ferdinand wished friendship from all his neighbors and enmity from none.

After this sprightly introduction, Ibrahim led the nuncios in a brilliant procession to the presence of the sultan. Here the janissaries received gifts for the sultan from the servants of the ambassadors, and showed them to all in turn; in the next room seven eunuchs took the gifts and spread them out on tables. The three pashas first went to salute Suleiman, leaving the nuncios before the door. Ibrahim Pasha and Cassim Pasha then, holding them by their two arms, led each of the nuncios in turn to salute the sultan, who sat with his hands on his knees and looked them over. When they had saluted him, they returned to their place by the door where stood the interpreter. Hobordanacz was greatly annoyed because the interpreter, familiar with the flowery and courtly Oriental speech, embellished the somewhat curt address of the Hungarian, but Ibrahim told the interpreter to repeat exactly what the envoy said. After this he asked Hobordanacz to state his business. After this statement of Ferdinand’s wishes, Suleiman called Ibrahim to him and whispered in his ear. Ibrahim then resumed negotiations while Suleiman looked on.

Taking up his grievance against Ferdinand once again,76 Ibrahim inquired how the latter, in addressing the Sultan, dared declare himself so powerful when other princes were content to commend themselves to Suleiman’s protection and to offer him their services. To Hobordanacz’ question who these princes were, Ibrahim named the rulers of France, Poland, and Transylvania, the Pope and the Doge of Venice, and added that these princes (except the voivode of Transylvania) were the greatest in Europe. The Austrian nuncios seemed to be impressed and indeed the statement was a sufficiently startling one and was moreover borne out by the facts. After that Hobordanacz spoke with greater meekness, expressing his master’s desire for the friendship of the sultan, if the latter were willing to grant it. “If he is not willing,” said Ibrahim sharply, “what then?” Hobordanacz, recovering his boldness, said haughtily, “Our master forces no man’s friendship.” Ibrahim then dismissed them with the parting fling that the sultan was occupied with much more important business. They never saw the sultan again. Ibrahim informed them that his master was concerned with personal affairs, and that he himself would conduct the whole business. This illustrates the respective shares of Suleiman and Ibrahim in the business of the state. Doubtless the sultan had a definite policy of friendship to Zapolya and antagonism to Ferdinand, but it appears certain that he allowed Ibrahim Pasha to control entirely the details of diplomacy.

In later audiences with the grand vizir, Hobordanacz expressed the hope that Ferdinand and Charles V and Sultan Suleiman might become good friends and neighbors. Ibrahim inquired scornfully how such a friendship could come about! Hobordanacz declared that it was his mission to offer friendship, and it seemed to him that Ibrahim’s influence should be able to bring about advantages for both sides. Ibrahim again urged him to indicate the method of77 procedure, saying, “Your king has seized upon our kingdom, and yet he asks for friendship; how can that be?” The nuncio said he knew all things at the Porte were done by Ibrahim’s will and authority; he believed that he could serve their cause. Ibrahim then proposed peace on condition that Ferdinand should abandon Hungary. Hobordanacz on the other hand asked for a definite truce for a term of years and requested the restitution to Ferdinand of those portions of Hungary taken by Suleiman, giving a list of twenty‐seven fortresses. This aroused Ibrahim’s bitter wrath. “It is strange” said he “that your master does not ask for Constantinople.” He tried to make the ambassadors acknowledge that Ferdinand would attempt to take these forts by force if they were not conceded to him. “With what hope does he ask for these forts,” he further inquired, “when he knows that the sultan took them with great labor and much bloodshed?”

The question of compensation for these forts being opened, Ibrahim exclaimed indignantly that the sultan was not so poor that he would sell what his arms had won. Dramatically opening a window he said “Do you see those Seven Towers! they are filled with gold and treasure.”126 He then turned to the question of skill in war, and after praising the prowess of the Germans, he said, “You know the arms of the Turks, how sharp they are, and how far they 78have penetrated, for you have fled before them many times.” Hobordanacz gave a qualified assent, but praised his master’s warlike skill. Ibrahim finally broke in, “Then your master wishes to keep those forts?” Hobordanacz suggested a middle course, but the grand vizir said decisively: “There is no other way but for your king to abandon Buda and Hungary and then we will treat with him about Germany.” Upon Hobordanacz’ refusal to consider such terms Ibrahim stated, “I conquered Lewis and Hungary, and now I will build the bridges of the Sultan, and prepare a way for his Majesty into Germany.” He closed the interview by accusing Ferdinand and Charles of not keeping faith and said he would give the nuncios a final reply in three or four days.

The third audience was held in the palace, with Ibrahim presiding, and Suleiman at his window, and was conducted on similar lines to the other audiences. Ibrahim informed the Hungarians that their master had just been defeated by Zapolya with an army of thirty‐six thousand men, which statement Hobordanacz took the liberty of doubting, saying that if Zapolya added all the cocks and hens in Transylvania to his army, he could not make up the number to thirty‐six thousand. The nuncios and the grand vizir could not agree on terms of alliance; to the Austrian demands, Ibrahim impatiently exclaimed: “The Emperor Charles and your master, what do they want more? to rule the whole earth? Do they count themselves no less than the gods?” Naturally nothing was accomplished by such recrimination, and finally Suleiman ended the audience, dismissing the ambassadors with the threat: “Your master has not yet felt our friendship and neighborliness, but he shall soon feel it. You can tell your master frankly that I myself with all my forces will come to him to give Hungary in our person the fortresses he demands. Inform him that he must be ready to treat me well.”

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So ended the mission of Ferdinand for peace. There had been no possibility of success from the beginning. Suleiman and Ibrahim were not to be won to friendship for Ferdinand, and had they been, the rude, independent Hobordanacz was not the man to gain Oriental favor. One feels that Ibrahim enjoyed the opportunity to sharpen his claws on an enemy, and to show Europeans his own power and that of his master. The envoys must have been very uncomfortable, and their discomforts were not yet at an end, for a Venetian enemy of Ferdinand’s told Ibrahim that they were not ambassadors but spies, and urged their detention at the Porte. For five months they were kept in close confinement, after which a long journey lay between them and the anxious Archduke who had hoped so much from the embassy.

This treatment of royal ambassadors as though they were spies was not uncommon at the Porte. The King of Poland had been forced to complain of the rough handling of his envoys by Sultan Bayazid (Suleiman’s grandfather), saying they were not only detained for months before they were given audience, but were thrown into prison, and instead of being lodged like the envoys of a king, who would naturally feel that it accorded with his honor to send only the sons of the noblest families to represent him, were treated as criminals, and that promises made to such envoys were often broken.127 Busbequius, himself an ambassador, who was detained for months and sharply watched, recounted another instance, that of Malvezzi, whom the Sultan held responsible for the broken faith of his master Ferdinand, and threw into prison when Ferdinand took Transylvania in 1551.128 It was a Turkish maxim that ambassadors were responsible for 80the word given by their masters, and that in their capacity as hostages they must expiate its violation; moreover power was often conceived to reside in an ambassador, who therefore was kept in durance in the hope that he could be brought to terms. Such treatment, however naïve and unjust, is nevertheless an improvement on the reception by Hungary of the ambassador sent to announce the accession of Suleiman, whose nose and ears were slit. Further illustrations of the way ambassadors were liable to be treated in Europe were the assassination of Rincon, envoy of France, connived at by Charles V, and the murder of Martinez, a Spanish ambassador to the Porte, instigated by Ferdinand.

Ibrahim’s usual way of opening an audience was to brow‐beat the ambassador, and he indulged in frequent sarcasm and scornful laughter. To the envoys of Ferdinand in 1532 he railed at Ferdinand and “his tricks” and gibed at his faithlessness. “How is a man a king” he said “unless he keeps his word?”129 To Lamberg and Juritschitz (1530)130 he spoke of the quarrels among Christian rulers, twitting his auditors with Charles’s treatment of the Pope and of Francis I, declaring that the Turks would never do “so inhuman a thing,” and following this by a long talk “full of scorn and irony.”131

Ibrahim was enormously inquisitive, seeming to look upon a foreign embassy as an opportunity for gaining all sorts of general information. Sometimes he asked about such practical matters as the fortification of certain forts; at other times he asked such trivial questions as how old the 81rulers were, and how they pronounced their names. He once remarked that a man who did not try to learn all things is an incompetent man. Several times he boasted that in Turkey they knew all that was taking place in Europe.

His manner, as we have seen, was usually sharp and rude, but he could be elaborately courteous when he wished to please, as when he received an embassy from “our good friend” Francis I, and the Hungarian embassy of 1534. He was invariably boastful; during the earlier years he bragged of the sultan, his power and treasure; in the later embassies he boasted of himself.

One of the most important documents about Ibrahim that we possess is the account of the peace embassy sent by Ferdinand in 1533, the report being written by Hieronymus von Zara in Latin in September, 1533. This shows Ibrahim in a sharper light than we have had elsewhere, and brings out some traits in his character that have been growing steadily since his rise to such great power: his ambition and his towering pride.132

Ibrahim, splendidly clad, received the ambassadors for their first audience, without rising. He accepted the rich jewels they offered him, and appointed a later day for the business of the treaty. On the appointed day the envoys were permitted to kiss the garments of the grand vizir, and they saluted him as brother of their sovereigns, Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Hungary. Ibrahim had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Ferdinand, and had always spoken of him without any kingly title, to the amaze of the ambassadors.133 In this interview and throughout the whole 82conference Ibrahim spoke of Ferdinand as his brother, and as son to Suleiman. This was not mere personal vanity; under the pretext of the community of good which should exist between father and son he cloaked the Sultan’s usurpation of Hungary, and the fraternity of Ferdinand and Ibrahim served to disguise the humiliation of the former, who was placed in the same rank as a vizir.134 But in the long speech that Ibrahim Pasha made to the ambassadors, he revealed his personal pride. We quote from the speech: “It is I who govern this vast empire. What I do is done; I have all the power, all offices, all the rule. What I wish to give is given and cannot be taken away; what I do not give is not confirmed by any one. If ever the great Sultan wishes to give, or has given anything, if I do not please it is not carried out. All is in my hands, peace, war, treasure. I do not say these things for no reason, but to give you courage to speak freely.”135

When the letters of Emperor Charles were shown him, he examined the seals, remarking as he did so: “My master has two seals, of which one remains in his hands and the other is confided to me, for he wishes no difference between him and me; and if he has garments made for himself, he 83orders the same for me; he refuses to let me expend anything in building; this hall was built by him.”

Ibrahim seems to have lost his head during this, his last embassy, and to have uttered things that were not safe for any subject of an Oriental despot, however doting, to utter. Whether he spoke out of the sheer madness that the gods send upon those whom they would destroy, or whether he seriously aspired to assume literally and explicitly the power he held actually is impossible to say. Even as grand vizir of Turkey he seems never to have forgotten that he was a Greek. For years he ignored it, and behaved like a Turk and a loyal Moslem, but as he came to feel more secure in his high position, he became more careless, and spoke to these Christian ambassadors of the pride and generosity with which the Greeks are filled. It is a question whether any Greek, from the fall of Byzantium to our time, has not in his inmost heart felt his race superior to his Moslem conquerors, and the fitting ruler of the Eastern Empire. To that feeling are due some of the knottiest complexities in the Young Turk situation of 1911. Naturally this attitude has always been profoundly resented by the Turks; therefore Ibrahim was seriously jeopardizing his standing with the Ottoman Sultan when he remembered that he was both Greek and Christian by birth.

There were plenty at the court to take immediate advantage of any such slip. The courtiers had already been scandalized at the freedom the Pasha took with the Sultan, and thought that he had bewitched Suleiman.136 In the same interview he further expresses his relations to his imperial master in a parable:

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The fiercest of animals, the lion, must be conquered not by force, but by cleverness; by the food which his master gives it and by the influence of habit. Its guardian should carry a stick to intimidate it, and should be the only one to feed it. The lion is the prince. The Emperor Charles is a lion. I, Ibrahim Pasha, control my master, the Sultan of the Turks, with the stick of truth and justice. Charles’ ambassador should also control him in the same way.

From this he went on to expatiate on his own power:

The mighty Sultan of the Turks has given to me, Ibrahim, all power and authority. It is I alone who do everything. I am above all the pashas. I can elevate a groom to a pasha. I give kingdoms and provinces to whom I will, without inquiry even from my master. If he orders a thing and I disapprove, it is not executed; but if I order a thing and he disapproves, it is done nevertheless. To make war or conclude peace is in my hands, and I can distribute all treasure. My master’s kingdoms, lands, treasure, are confided to me.

He also boasted of his past accomplishments, speaking of himself as having conquered Hungary, received ambassadors, and made peace. If Suleiman knew of these vauntings, he made no sign of resentment, but continued to repose the same confidence in Ibrahim as hitherto, but the courtiers held them in their hearts to use when the time should come.

Ibrahim’s importance and influence are taken for granted by foreign rulers and envoys. In all his instructions to his ambassadors Ferdinand tells them to see Ibrahim first, and the queen regent of France wrote to him, when she wrote to the sultan. The collections of Gévay and Charrière contain a number of letters from Ferdinand and Francis to Ibrahim. The Venetian baillies transacted all their business with Ibrahim and sent many reports to the Signoria of his power85 in the state and his influence over the sultan. The envoys brought him valuable presents which he did not hesitate to accept.137 He loved to receive jewels and there was a famous ruby once on the finger of Francis I which was sent by the first French envoy to the Porte, (the envoy who was killed in Bosnia) and which somehow came into Ibrahim’s possession when the Pasha of Bosnia was called to Constantinople to account for the murder.138

But although Ibrahim took presents, and even resented it if they were not offered him, he refused bribes again and again. Ferdinand empowered his envoys in three missions to offer an annual pension to Suleiman (a tribute under a name less offensive to Ferdinand) and at the same time an annual pension to the grand vizir. When Juritschitz and Lamberg offered Ibrahim five to six thousand Hungarian ducats139 annually for his aid in bringing about peace, he rejected it so indignantly that they apologized and withdrew their offer. He said that the previous ambassadors Hobordanacz and Weixelberger had offered him one hundred 86thousand florins to buy his protection, but that he said then and would now repeat that no sort of present could make him desert the interests of his master, and that he would prefer to aid in the conquest of the whole world than advise the Sultan to restore conquered territory.140

The passage just quoted would seem sufficient to disprove the assertion made by contemporary European historians that Ibrahim Pasha had lifted the siege of Vienna because he had been bought by the gold of the ambassadors. Suleiman gave him everything that he could have asked and much more than lay in the power of any European monarch to bestow. Ibrahim acquired vast wealth, but there is no evidence that his loyalty to Suleiman could be purchased, and while the Turkish historians speak often of the avarice of his successor Rustem Pasha, they never ascribe that quality to Ibrahim. If he had a price, it was too high for Ferdinand to pay.

It is apparent from what has been said that Ibrahim’s diplomatic methods were not subtle; they had no need to be. As the diplomacy of the Porte was usually either the introduction to, or the conclusion of a military campaign, small wonder that it usually attained its object. As the favor of the Porte was eagerly sought by France, Venice, Poland, Russia, Hungary and Austria, it required no finesse of diplomatic handling to deal with their ambassa87dors. Ibrahim, holding all the trumps, needed no great skill to play his cards well. He might be as rude and boastful as he would, and still the ambassadors would beg for his influence in making peace. Both Suleiman and Ibrahim treated Charles V and Ferdinand with great haughtiness, nevertheless pursuing an entirely successful policy; France, on the other hand, playing a subtle game, won considerable from the Porte. It would seem that the test of Turkish diplomacy was not its method but its general plan and large lines. The question then before us is, what were the objects and accomplishments of Turkish diplomacy between 1525 and 1540.

Suleiman had two objects, first to extend his conquering power further into Europe, and second to assist Francis I against the House of Hapsburg. In these two objects he was successful. His empire was greatly extended during his reign, both in territory and in influence, while the power of the rival House of Hapsburg was steadily diminished and limited. But that which makes of this period an epoch in European political history is not the territorial aggrandizement of Turkey, nor the recognition of its power by Europe, but the first entrance of Turkey into the European concert, if we may anticipate a later term, and the change from the consideration of the Turks as merely unbelievers and foes of Christianity to regarding them as political allies or foes, and as possible factors in the European question. At the close of the reign of Selim the Grim, Turkey, although it was a conquering nation, was still an excrescence in Europe. But the time had come when it must enter into the affairs of the Northern nations, and for that time Suleiman, unusually tolerant towards the West, with a great idea of the destiny of Turkey, and aided by his Christian grand vizir, was ready, and by the end of his reign he had made himself felt in every court on the continent, and had88 to be reckoned with in every European cabinet. But as a natural corollary to this fact, Turkey was never, after this time, wholly free from European influence. The fine wedge of French intervention was introduced by La Forest in the treaty of 1535, and conservative Turks of today look on Suleiman’s “capitulations” as the beginning of endless troubles for Turkey, while the French still rejoice over the triumphs of astute and far‐sighted Francis I. “Suleiman en sortant de son farouche isolement,” says Zeller, “François I^er en bravant les préventions de ses contemporains, accomplirent une véritable revolution dans la politique de l’Europe.”141 For four centuries France remained the most weighty foreign influence at the Porte. A fuller significance lay in what Lord Stratford de Redcliffe called the “extra‐koranic” character of the concessions made in this reign, the introduction of extra‐koranic legislation in both foreign and internal affairs, by the side of the maxims and rules of the Sheri or Holy Law. Turkey began to discover the inadequacy of Koran legislation for a modern state.142

How much did Ibrahim Pasha influence Suleiman in this policy? He undoubtedly had the details in his own hands, but did he inspire the plan? Probably not. Suleiman knew pretty clearly what he wanted, and he pursued the same policy with the same success after the death of Ibrahim. His contemporaries ascribed to Ibrahim the brain and the force of Turkish diplomacy, and later historians have given to him the exclusive credit of this political evolution. But Zeller’s view143 that too much importance may be given to the rôle of Ibrahim Pasha seems better substantiated. Zeller, nevertheless, in his introduction to La Diplomatie 89Française, accords to Ibrahim just that credit that peculiarly belongs to him, if we have rightly understood the work of the grand vizir, when he says: “Suleiman was not less enlightened than Francis; he had, as well as the latter, the knowledge of his own interests, and like him he was partially enfranchised from the prejudices of his nation.... At the same time we cannot doubt but that the grand vizir, whose ability and enlightenment are attested by all the ambassadors, contributed to open the mind of his master to the ideas outside his realm, to initiate him into a European Policy, to make him see the menace of the increasing power of Charles V, and the interest which he had to support France”. In the unusual liberality of thought and freedom from prejudice that Suleiman showed in his relation to Europe, we may see the influence of his intelligent favorite.

Thus the two together, Suleiman and Ibrahim, or Ibrahim and Suleiman, as Ferdinand often spoke of them, started the Ottoman Empire from the lonely path of independence and semibarbarism to the labyrinthine and noisy streets of European politics.

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CHAPTER IV

Ibrahim the General

Suleiman’s reign was one of continuous war, and for the most part, conquest. His two most redoubtable enemies were the infidel Hungarians and the heretic Persians. His first great campaign was directed against Belgrad, which important city he took in 1521. This conquest he followed quickly by the victorious siege of Rhodes in 1522. In these two campaigns, Ibrahim seems to have taken no part, although he accompanied Suleiman to Rhodes in his capacity of favorite.144 But in the first Hungarian campaign the grand vizir Ibrahim was placed second in command, the sultan himself leading the expedition.

D’Ohsson gives an account of the ceremonial that used to precede war in Turkey.145 He says that the Porte never failed to legitimize a war by a fetva from the Sheik‐ul‐Islam given in grand council, after which the sheiks of the imperial mosques met in the Hall of the Divan and listened to the intoning of a chapter from the Koran, consecrated to military expeditions. The first war measure was the arrest of the ambassador of the country to be attacked, who was taken to the Seven Towers. The next day a manifesto was published and sent to each foreign legation; then followed a Hat‐i‐Shereef conferring command on the 91grand vizir. With the order he received a richly caparisoned steed and a jeweled sabre, at a most brilliant ceremonial. Generally war was declared in the autumn, the winter was occupied in preparation, and the campaign was undertaken in the spring. At the day and hour appointed by the court astrologer, the imperial standard was planted in the court of the grand vizir or the Sultan, while imams146 filled the air with blessings and chants. Forty days later the first encampment was set up with further ceremonies.

The splendor of the Turkish tents, arms and dress were admired by all observers. A Turkish camp was a lively place, crowded by priests, dervishes, adventurers and volunteers, irregular soldiers, servants, tents, and baggage; and, on the homeward way, laden with slaves and booty.

The Turkish army was at that time the finest in Europe, both in extent and discipline. The Turks were a fighting people, whose arms had steadily won them place and power from the time when their colonel Othman interfered in a Seljuk quarrel to the time when Suleiman’s armies were the terror of Europe, and the few hundred tents of Othman had become the extensive and powerful Ottoman Empire. The army grew and developed with the demands of the state, for as we have seen above, the army was the state. As Mr. Urquhart puts it:147 “The military branch includes the whole state. The army was the estates of the kingdom. The Army had its Courts of Law, and its operations on the field have never been abandoned to the caprice of a court or a cabinet.”

Mr. Urquhart classifies the Turkish army under three main heads:148

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I. Permanent troops: janissaries, hired cavalry and regimental spahis of the grand artillery, etc.

II. Feudal troops.

III. Provincial troops (Ayalet Askeri).

He reckoned the number of troops at the close of the sixteenth century as follows:

Permanent.

Guards besides those drafted from Janissaries and Spahis—war levies:

Some explanation of these names will be desirable. The feudal and provincial troops were those whose military service was demanded by the feudal tenure of the timars or fiefs. Of the permanent troops, the celebrated body of the Spahis was recruited from the fiefs, sons of the Spahis being preferred, and were required to follow the banner of the Sultan himself. The Akinji were the light horse, the terror of the Germans and the Hungarians. The Ayab were infantry, a sort of Cossack on foot, as the Akinjis were Cossacks on horseback—without either the pay of the janissaries or the fiefs of the spahis. The famous corps of the janissaries was the heart of the army,—the most privileged, the most terrible, the most efficient of the soldiery. They were recruited from the children, taken in tribute from the conquered Christian states, a thousand a year, and generally became Moslems. The janissaries, the artillery and the guards were the only soldiery paid from the treasury. The Turkish conquerors made war pay for itself, living on the conquered country and carrying home93 immense loot. At the close of his careful pamphlet, Mr. Urquhart makes an interesting distinction between Janissary and Turkish principles. He claims that the former are “violence, corruption, and prostration of military strength, exhaustion of the treasury, resistance to all, and therefore to beneficial, change.” The Turkish principles, he claims, are altogether different and finer.149

The Turkish artillery was very formidable. It was by means of this and the setting of mines that Belgrad and Rhodes had been taken. There was no navy. There were a number of pirates, freebooters who put themselves at the service of the Sultan and won some considerable naval victories, but they were not a part of the regular Turkish force.

One constant order of battle was observed. The provincial troops of Asia formed the right wing, and those of Europe the left, the center being composed of regular bodies of cavalry and infantry, the janissaries forming the front line. In Europe the home contingents occupied the right wing. Thus were combined permanent and disciplined infantry and cavalry with irregular foot and horse; a feudal establishment with provincial armaments, and forces raised by conscription, by enlistment, and by tribute. By this arrangement the sultan could bring three enormous armies into the field simultaneously in the heart of Europe and Asia.150

A quaint description of the discipline of the Turkish army in 1585 was given by one William Watreman in his book entitled “The Fardle of Facions”, who thought that the speed, the courage and the obedience of the Turkish soldiers accounted easily for their great success in war for two hundred years,151 and said that they were little given to mutinies and “stirs”.

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Watreman was evidently not speaking of the privileged janissaries here, for they were greatly given to mutinies and “stirs.” They realized the immense power that the army possessed, and how definitely the sultan was in their hands. That part of the army stationed at Constantinople as guard to His Imperial Majesty had it in their power to demand the degradation and the head of any hated official, and usually these demands were granted. Authorized by the laws of their predecessors and their own as well, they might furthermore imprison the sultan himself, put him to death, and place on the throne one of his relatives as his successor. When all the corps of this militia of Constantinople unite under the orders of the Ulema, who give the weight of law to the undertaking, the despotic sultan passes from the throne to a prison cell, where a mysterious and illegal death soon removes him.152 The long list of deposed sultans witnesses to this power. Little wonder then that Suleiman, after punishing the rebellious janissaries in 1525, planned to employ them immediately in a campaign.

On Monday, April 23rd, Suleiman left Constantinople with 100,000 men and 300 cannon.153 His grand vizir had 95started a week in advance, commanding the vanguard of the army, largely cavalry. At Sophia both armies encamped, and the grand vizir is said to have “dressed his tent like a tulip in purple veilings.”154 From this point the two armies separated. Ibrahim Pasha threw a bridge across the Save, and advanced to Peterwardein, a natural fort on the foot‐hills of the Fruska‐Gora mountains, which was manned by a thousand poorly equipped soldiers. Suleiman ordered Ibrahim Pasha to take Peterwardein, assuring him it would be but a bite to last him till breakfast in Vienna.155 The sultan then proceeded to Belgrad. The grand vizir began preparations for the siege, storming ladders were laid, and on July 15th the first attack was made and repulsed with loss. The next night Ibrahim sent a division of the army to the other side of the Danube, and the fight continued all the following day until late evening, both by river and land, a flotilla of small boats being on the Danube. In a second assault the Turks pressed into the lower city, but they were again repulsed. Ibrahim, convinced that storming was less easy then he had thought, now prepared for a regular siege. After several day’s fighting a great building in the fort fell, and the walls were broached in several places. Nevertheless the besieged withstood two more assaults, and made a sally by which the Turks sustained great loss. At length Ibrahim laid mines under the walls of the fort, and on the 23rd day of July, twelve days from the first attack, an explosion, followed by a great assault and hard fighting, resulted in the taking of the place. Only ninety men were left to lay down their arms. The Turkish loss also had been heavy.156

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The successful siege, and doubtless also the rich reward of his padisha, decided Ibrahim Pasha to besiege Illok on the Danube, which he took in seven days. The sultan now announced that the objective point of the expedition was Buda. The Turkish army advanced along the Danube, devastating as it went, to the marshy plain of Mohacz. Here there was a battle of the first importance in its political results, as we have seen above, for it routed the Hungarian army, killed King Lewis, and gave Hungary into Suleiman’s hands. It was a brief and bloody battle, lasting but two hours. Petchevi gives picturesque scenes before the battle, and tells of the vast enthusiasm that seized “the holy army”, while Kemalpashazadeh gloats particularly on “the bloody festival.” The plan of the battle was made by the sultan in conjunction with his grand vizir, who visited the former several times during the evening preceding the battle. At dawn on August 29th, 1526, the Turkish army emerged from a wood and appeared before the Hungarians. First came the army of Roumelie, a part of the janissaries, and the artillery under Ibrahim Pasha. Then came 10,000 janissaries and the artillery of Anatolia under Behram Pasha; behind him was the Sultan and his body guards, janissaries and cavalry.

Towards noon the Sultan occupied the height commanding the town and saw his enemies ranged before him. The first attack was made by the Hungarians and was successful in producing confusion in the Turkish ranks. But the Turks rallied, and the Akinjis drew off the attack. Ibrahim was always in the forefront, animating his men and “fighting like a lion.” “By acts of intrepidity he snatched from the hearts of his heroes the arrow of the fear of death. 97He restored their failing spirits. Before the most fearful weapons he never moved an eyelash.”157 King Lewis, with thirty brave followers, pushed towards the Sultan in a desperate attempt to take his life, but it was the young king himself who fell instead in the terrible fight. The artillery, discharging its first volley, caused frightful confusion especially in the left wing. The Hungarian right wing, surrounded on all sides, broke and fled, being cut down by the Turks, or drowned in the marsh. The slaughter was fearful, as no prisoners were taken.158 The battle was so tragic to the Hungarians that to this day, when disaster overtakes one of them, the proverb is quoted: “No matter, more was lost on Mohacz field.”159

The artillery of the grand vizir seems to have turned the day and rendered the victory decisive for the Turks. The following day Suleiman, seated under a scarlet pavillion, on a golden throne brought from Constantinople, received the congratulations of his vizirs and beylerbeys and with his own hand placed an aigrette of diamonds on the head of his grand vizir. In gruesome contrast to this splendor was a pyramid of one thousand heads of noble Hungarians piled before the imperial tent. Mohacz was burned, and the Akinjis harried the country in horrid fashion,160 while the main army marched on to Buda. Here the keys of the city were offered to Suleiman, and the campaign was ended, except for the march back to Constantinople, with its details of massacre and spoliation.161

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The credit for this successful Hungarian campaign is ascribed to the grand vizir by three very good authorities. Ibrahim himself, in a speech to the ambassador von Zara, claims to have conquered Hungary:162 the sultan, in a letter of victory to his provinces, gives honor to Ibrahim; and the sheik‐ul‐Islam Kemalpashazadeh, in his epic history of the battle of Mohacz, lavishes praise on the grand vizir as commander of the armies on that field. “Heaven has never seen,” he rhapsodizes, “and never will see a combat equal to that by the prince of the champions of the faith, of this Asaf of Wisdom, this experienced general, this lion‐hearted Ardeshir, I mean Ibrahim Pasha.163 The enemy of the enemies of the Holy War, in an instant he repulsed the shock of the enemies of the faith.”164

Suleiman in his letter gives Ibrahim credit for the taking of Peterwardein and Illok. As to Mohacz he says:165

“The accursed king (Lewis) accompanied by the soldiers of perdition fell before the army of Roumelie, which was commanded by the Beylerbey of Roumelie, my grand vizir, Ibrahim Pasha (May Allah glorify him eternally!). It was then that the hero displayed all his innate valor.”

The first mention of Ibrahim in this letter is in the following terms:

“The leopard of strength and valor, the tiger of the forest 99 of courage, the hero filled with a holy zeal, the Rustem of the arena of victory, the lion of the restoration of dominion, the precious pearl of the ocean of all power, the champion of the faith, the Grand Vizir, Beylerbey of Roumelie, Ibrahim Pasha.”166

The flowers of the Sultan’s rhetoric may be accepted as a matter of course, but the fact that he mentions Ibrahim as deserving of any share in the glory of the imperial conquests is noteworthy, as in his letters of victory he usually reserves all the honor for Allah and himself.167

The campaign of Vienna was the next military event for Ibrahim. It was on the eve of this expedition that Suleiman invested the grand vizir with the office of Serasker.168

Says Petchevi:

One day, going from the Divan to the Vizir Khaneh, the great Lord and Conqueror calling the slaves before his presence addressed them with eloquent and pearl‐scattering words and with divine proceedings, saying: “Nothing prevents our extending our arms at once to all parts of our land, but in every case we cannot personally conduct affairs. Therefore we formulate a berat‐i‐shereef that Ibrahim Pasha, in the name of Serasker may receive obedience and respect.”

Here Petchevi quotes the berat that was given in Chapter III, and then continues with an account of the splendid presents sent to Ibrahim with the berat, and the congratulations of all the ulema and vizirs.169 According to D’Ohsson, the investiture of Ibrahim was unusually splendid and 100solemn. He tells of processions in the streets and visits to the palace and continued cermonial after the army had started. When the ambassadors had visited him with congratulations and hopes of his success, he always replied:

“Marching under the divine protection, under influence of the sacred banner, under the auspices of the grandest, most powerful of monarchs, I hope to gain brilliant victories over the enemies of the empire, and soon return triumphant.”170

It is not possible to go into all the details of the famous first siege of Vienna, to which entire books have been devoted.171 Our account of it must be brief. On September 28th, 1529, Ibrahim Pasha stood before Vienna with the Roumelian troops, and by the 28th the main body of the army headed by the sultan was encamped before the city. The defenses of Vienna were in bad repair, with only 16,000 men and 72 guns, against a Turkish army of 300,000. The garrison was commanded by Philip of Bavaria, Ferdinand remaining in Linz, in hopes of aid from the German princes. The defenders of the city made desperate efforts to strengthen it, tearing down houses that stood too close to the walls, leveling suburbs that might protect the enemy, and erecting earthen defences and new walls where necessary. To save some of the horrors of the siege, the old men, the women and children, and the priests were forced to leave the city.172 Suleiman thought the taking of this stronghold would be easy, and summoned the garrison to surrender, saying that if they refused he would breakfast in Vienna on the third day, and would spare no 101one. But the third day passed and many others and the Turks were still digging under the towers and walls and laying mines. They had been compelled by heavy rains to leave their siege guns behind them, and had only field pieces and musketry. The besieged replied to mine by countermine and effectually circumvented the Turkish plans. Storming parties of the Turks were met by sallies from the beleaguered, and Suleiman’s breakfast, as the Viennese scornfully told him, was getting cold. Breaches made in the walls on October 9th and 11th were repaired and defended by the undaunted Austrians, and after a splendid effort made on October 14th to storm the city, and an equally splendid and more successful resistance, the sultan was obliged to give up the siege. It was Suleiman’s first defeat, and he found it hard to accept it, but winter was coming on, provisions were inadequate for so long a campaign, the army was discouraged, and furthermore, outside help was known to be on the way to the beleaguered city from all quarters. On October 14th the signal for retreat was given. The loss to the Turkish army was great, and that of the Viennese slight.173

Ibrahim Pasha had charge of the operations during the siege, and went often to reconnoiter the fortifications, disguised in a colored turban instead of the usual one of white and gold.174 Count Christopher von Zedlitz, a prisoner in the Turkish camp, said: “In this expedition there was Ibrahim Pasha, who in this war counselled and directed 102everything.”175 There were at this siege, as in all campaigns, frequent largesses to keep up the courage of the soldiers. The grand vizir was surrounded by sacks of gold, of which he gave by the handful when an enemy’s head was brought in, or an important capture made. When the lure of gold was insufficient to arouse the ebbing courage of the soldiers in the prolonged siege, the officers with the grand vizir at their head urged them forward with blows of sticks and whips and sabres. On October 12th Ibrahim assembled the beys of Roumelie, spoke frankly of the discontent and hunger of the army, and urged one more assault, promising whether it were successful or not, to sound the retreat thereafter.176 As we have seen, the assault was made and failed, and the siege was raised and the retreat commenced. When Suleiman left Vienna the grand vizir remained for some time with cavalry in the neighborhood of the city, partly to cover the retreat, and partly to rally the akinji scattered on plundering expeditions. He also received proposals for an exchange of prisoners, to which he replied as follows:

Ibrahim Pasha, by the grace of God First Vizir, Secretary and Chief Councillor of the glorious, great and invincible Emperor, Sultan Suleiman, head and minister of his whole dominion, of his slaves and sandjaks, Generalissimo of his armies:

High‐born, magnanimous officers and commanders; having received your writing sent by your messenger, we have digested its contents. Know that we are not come to take your city into our possession, but only to seek out your Archduke Ferdinand, whom however we have not found, and hence have waited here so many days, without his appearing. Yesterday 103moreover we set free three of your prisoners, for which measure you should fain to do likewise of those in your possession, as we have desired your messenger to explain to you by word of mouth. You may therefore send hither one of your own people to seek out your countrymen, and without anxiety for our good faith, for what happened to those of Pesth was not our fault but their own.

In this letter Ibrahim makes the statement which Suleiman sent forth officially, namely,—that the Turks did not wish to take Vienna, but only to meet Ferdinand. A mile away from the camp the sultan halted and received congratulations as for a victory, and dispensed rewards, the grand vizir receiving four costly pellisses and five purses.177

The next fortress to be besieged by Ibrahim Pasha was Güns, in 1532. This was the critical point of Suleiman’s fifth Hungarian campaign. After the sultan alone had reduced some thirteen minor forts, he associated the grand vizir with him in this great siege. The little fortress of Güns was brilliantly defended by Nicholas Juritschitz, who had met Ibrahim in former days when ambassador at the Porte.

On August 9th the grand vizir encamped before Güns, and three days later Suleiman arrived. Many small cannon were used in this siege, the largest sending a ball the size of a goose egg, which was, nevertheless, very effective in destroying the battlements. Besides continual assaults, mines were laid, but it was twelve days before Ibrahim summoned the sturdy Juritschitz to surrender. Even then another assault was necessary, which was at first unsuccessful owing to a very curious event. The old men, women and children within the city, seeing the banners of the janissaries planted on the walls, uttered such piercing cries of fear and 104horror that the assailants were seized with a panic as at something supernatural, and fled from the spot. But their return was so fierce that a breach was made, and the brave Juritschitz, wounded and helpless, was obliged to accept Ibrahim‘s terms.178 Using his knowledge of the grand vizir’s nature obtained during his embassy to the Porte, he played on his vanity and obtained very good conditions.179] Güns was not pillaged, and only formally capitulated, ten janissaries being allowed to remain an hour in the place in order to erect a Turkish standard. So Juritschitz, writing to Ferdinand exclaims: “God Almighty delivered me and this people from the hand of tyranny, which honor all my life has not deserved.”

The delay and practical defeat sustained at Güns, together with the defeat of another Turkish army which was to enter Austria by the Semmering Pass proved the saving of Vienna. Suleiman had announced that he did not intend to attack Vienna on this campaign; nevertheless his vast preparation and the counter‐preparations of Charles V and of Germany suggested a more ambitious campaign than that which he carried out. In any case Suleiman decided to withdraw, and immediately after investing Gratz, which was well defended, he abandoned the enterprise and returned to the Porte.

When the Sultan made peace with Ferdinand in 1533, and temporarily ceased operations on his northern frontier, he turned his attention to conquests in two other directions, 105namely to the extension of his sea power, and to the reduction of Persia. The romantic story of the exploits of his great admiral Khaireddin Barbarosa does not come into our field, but the Persian campaign is the next object of our attention.

Ever since Suleiman’s accession to the throne the relations of the Porte with the Shah of Persia had been strained. The only reason that this had not resulted in open war was because Suleiman was more deeply concerned in Hungarian affairs. There was continual fighting on the frontier. When Shah Tahmasp succeeded his father Ismail, he was little inclined to humble himself before the Turkish monarch, so he resented an overbearing and threatening letter from Suleiman. Now seemed a favorable moment to execute the threat of war. The excuse was the betrayal of the Ottomans by the khan of Bitlis, who had gone over to the shah of Persia, while the Persians were irate because the Persian governor of Aserbaijan and Baghdad had joined the Turks and had taken with him the keys of Baghdad. The governor having been assassinated and Baghdad retaken by the Persians, Suleiman determined on immediate war.

Ibrahim, again invested with the office of serasker, was sent to Persia to retake Bitlis and Baghdad. He and his army marched as far as Konia, where he received the head of Sherefbey, after which he advanced to Aleppo to take up his winter quarters.180 He occupied his leisure during the winter by taking several neighboring fortresses. His next plan was to move on Baghdad, but the defterdar Iskender Chelebi who accompanied the expedition urged an immediate advance to Tebriz, recently 106abandoned by the shah, arguing that the fall of Tebriz would mean the taking of Baghdad. Ibrahim followed Iskender’s suggestion, and arrived before Tebriz the 13th of July, 1534. Receiving the submission of many fortresses en route, he triumphantly entered the Persian capital. To avert the evils generally incident to a Turkish occupation, he set up a judge at Tebriz, and a strong guard. This was unusual self‐restraint in a Turkish conqueror. At this time he suffered the loss of one of his armies in the defile of Kiseljedagh, but otherwise he met only with victory and submission.

On the 27th of September Suleiman joined the grand vizir at Aoudjan and immediately rewarded him and the other beylerbeys for their successes. The united armies continued their march towards Hamadan. The lateness of the season made the crossing of the mountains very difficult. Many pack animals died and the artillery was mired in the bad roads. In that perilous situation the army was attacked by the enemy and suffered considerable loss in men and supplies.

At last the army reached Baghdad. The governor sent a letter of submission, and then to secure his own safety, fled. The grand vizir immediately took possession of the city, shut the gates to prevent pillage, and sent the keys of the city to Suleiman who had not yet come up. Baghdad was the bulwark of the Persian empire and of great military importance. The army remained there four months while the sultan organized his new conquests. April 2nd, 1535, the Turkish army commenced its return to its capital, making a march of three months to Tebriz and thence of six months to Stambul.

In this campaign Ibrahim had little actual fighting, and slight use for the artillery and mines in which he was so well versed. The success of the campaign was due to the107 terror excited by the reputation of the Turkish army, and the endurance with which it made terrible marches, equalling the celebrated marches of the generals of antiquity.181 Ferdinand of Hungary wrote Ibrahim congratulating him on this successful campaign.

This was Ibrahim’s last campaign. His career was cut short at this point. In this Persian expedition the grand vizir had some personal experiences which do not properly belong to an account of his generalship, but rather to the next chapter dealing with his fall.

In these varied campaigns Ibrahim Pasha showed himself an able and generally successful general. In all of his battles and sieges he was defeated only at Vienna, and practically, although not nominally, at Güns. He was brilliant in his attacks, especially with artillery, the battle of Mohacz being the best illustration of this. He was excellent in mines and sieges, regardless of the fact that he did not succeed in reducing Vienna. He was strong in marching, as the great march across Persia witnesses. He generally had good control over his men, although at Vienna he failed to incite them to greater efforts. He was personally brave and fearless, leading his troops and betaking himself to the point of greatest danger. He seems to have been less cruel than was usual among Turkish conquerors, although his army committed some horrid atrocities. He followed the usual custom of looting, which made war so attractive to the Turkish soldier.182 He appreciated valor 108even in his enemies, as the story of his treatment of the prisoner Zedlitz and his freeing of him illustrates.183 The credit for the conquests of this period must be divided between Sultan Suleiman and his grand vizir, who was able to push all plans of Suleiman, whether military or diplomatic, to a fortunate conclusion.

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CHAPTER V

Ibrahim’s Fall

On March 5th, 1536184 Ibrahim Pasha betook himself to the imperial palace in Stamboul to dine with the sultan and spend the night with his Majesty, according to a long established custom. In the morning his body was found with marks on it, showing that he had been strangled after a fierce struggle.185 A horse with black trappings carried the dishonored body home,186 and it was immediately buried in a dervish monastery in Galata, with no monument to mark its resting place.187 His immense property fell to the crown,188 and Ibrahim Pasha, the mighty grand vizir, was dropped out of mind and conversation as though he had not practically ruled the empire for thirteen years.

What caused this abrupt extinction of Suleiman’s love for his former favorite? Ibrahim naturally had many enemies, among them the most influential ones being the defterdar Iskender Chelebi, and Roxelana, the favorite wife of Suleiman. These appear to have worked for years to poison Suleiman’s mind against the grand vizir, but for a long time without success.189 What charges could they bring against him?

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Ibrahim, we recall, was born a Christian, and probably accepted Islam only formally and not from conviction. Now and then in his career his Christian predilections appear and always injure his reputation. One instance of this was the case of the infidel Cabyz, towards whom Ibrahim was accused of being overlenient. Another illustration of lack of consideration for Moslem prejudices was when he brought home from Buda three statues taken from the royal palace and set them up in the Hippodrome. This was in defiance of the Moslem rule, observed literally, to permit the display of “no images of anything in the heaven above, the earth beneath, or the water under the earth.” Although Ibrahim was supported in this act by the tolerant sultan, it brought down on his head a clamor of horror. He was spoken of as an idolator, and the poet Fighani Chelebi composed a satire against him which was never forgotten. It ran:

The audacious poet paid for his wit with his life, but the satire remained popular. Ibrahim became less and less careful in religious matters as his power became more assured. A contemporary wrote:

The opinionated pasha at the beginning of his power was very docile in every respect to the Holy Law, besides which it was his custom to consult wise men in every affair of his desire; and his faith in Islam was so strong that if some one brought a Koran to him, he would gracefully rise to his feet and kiss it and lay it on his forehead and hold it level with his breast, not one inch below. But later when he went to Baghdad as serasker and mixed with infamous or foolish people, his character changed to such a degree that he did not regard the lives of innocent men more highly than fine dust, 111and if some one brought him as a gift a Koran or a beautifully‐written manuscript, as he saw him approaching he would become angry and refuse it, saying, “Why do you bring them to me? There is no end to the good books that I possess,” and sometimes he would revile the men.190

The Venetians seem to have regarded Ibrahim as favorable to them, and needy Christians in the empire turned to him for help and sometimes were freed by him from captivity and death.191 His parents remained Christians. It is doubtful whether these last facts would arouse any feeling against the grand vizir; but the disregard of Moslem sensibilities noted above was very unwise and would give his enemies a point of attack although it was rather unlikely by itself to influence greatly the confidence of the sultan, a monarch noted for his unusual tolerance towards beliefs outside of Islam. But Ibrahim permitted himself another imprudence that was far more dangerous.

As we have studied Ibrahim’s career, we have seen the vast power that he gradually gathered into his hands, and we have noted the amazement with which European legates listened to his own accounts of his standing in the state. He was practically the ruler of the Ottoman empire, but there was one fact that he forgot; he was absolutely at the disposal of the sultan and could be disgraced or executed at the latter’s caprice—he was but the shadow of the “Shadow of God” on earth.192

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On the Persian expedition he made the grave mistake of assuming the title of Serasker‐Sultan. Although as von Hammer points out193 the title of sultan was commonly borne by small Kurdish rulers in the country in which Ibrahim then was, yet at Constantinople there was but one sultan, and to usurp his title was to lay one’s self open to the charge of unlawful ambition.194 Moreover as Ahmed Pasha had assumed the title upon his revolt in Egypt, the association with disloyalty must have been very strong to Suleiman. There were plenty of courtiers ready to interpret his action thus in reporting to the sultan. Here was a charge that Suleiman could hardly ignore even though he might disbelieve it for a while.

The immediate cause of Ibrahim’s fall was his quarrel with Iskender Chelebi.195 A relationship between the two men had long existed and for years had been unfriendly. When Ibrahim was sent to Egypt Iskender was in his train. Ibrahim’s wealth and power were a source of envy to the defterdar, while the latter’s personality seems to have become disagreeable to the grand vizir. On the expedition to Persia the smouldering hatred between the two men broke into flame. When Ibrahim proposed to take the title of Serasker‐Sultan, the defterdar attempted to dissuade him and thus aroused Ibrahim’s resentment. There was also an ostentatious display of wealth, the defterdar and the grand vizir each attempting to send to the army a larger number of more richly equipped soldiers, and each considering the other’s contribution mean. Insults were exchanged. At length Ibrahim accused the defterdar of taking money 113from the royal treasury, and brought witnesses against him who were probably in Ibrahim’s pay. It became a war to the death between the two enemies. Ibrahim doubtless knew that if Iskender lived he himself would be sacrificed. So he accomplished the disgrace and execution of the treasurer but he did not thereby secure his own safety. Iskender Chelebi, accused of intrigues against his master, as well as mismanagement of the public funds, was hanged at Baghdad. As he went to the gallows he sent a Parthian shot at his murderer. Calling for pen and paper, he made a written statement that not only was he guilty of conspiring with the Persians but that Ibrahim was equally guilty, and that the latter had plotted to attempt Suleiman’s life, lured by Persian gold.196 However we may doubt Iskender’s honesty in making a statement that would draw down on his enemy his own fate, the Turkish sultan would be unlikely to question it, for among the Turks the testimony of a dying man or one led to execution is of very great weight. In law it outweighs that of forty ordinary witnesses.197

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Suleiman’s conviction of his vizir’s guilt was further strengthened, as the Turkish chronicles relate, by a vision in which the murdered defterdar appeared surrounded by a celestial halo. He reproached Suleiman for submitting to the usurpation of his grand vizir, and finally threw himself on the sultan as though to strangle him.198 Suleiman, once convinced of Ibrahim’s guilt or of the menace he was to his power, acted secretly and silently. He did not confront his favorite with accusations nor give him a chance to exculpate himself,199 but disposed of him swiftly. As Lamartine says,200 “Ibrahim’s life ended without reverses and perhaps without other crimes than greatness.” A brilliant career for thirteen years, even though followed by sudden disgrace and death, is a fate that might be envied by many. The abruptness of Ibrahim’s fall is paralleled many times in Turkish history, which is full of sensational rises and falls. In the history of his life alone, we have seen Ahmed Pasha of Egypt and Iskender Chelebi rise to great heights and quickly descend to disgrace and death. It was the almost limitless possibility of rising, and the ever present danger of falling that constituted the fascination of Turkish public life. One could hardly start with a handicap too severe to prevent him from attaining greatness. On the other hand one was never sure of retaining for twenty‐four hours the power, wealth and rank that he had attained, for a mo115mentary caprice of the monarch might end it abruptly. Even the sultan himself might suddenly be overthrown and fill a dungeon cell or a grave, while his successor taken from a harem or a prison ascended the mighty throne. Nowhere have life and its possibilities been more uncertain than on or near the Ottoman throne.

Let us consider in conclusion the question of Ibrahim’s relations to Suleiman. Was he a traitor or not? Baudier says that Suleiman confronted Ibrahim with his own letters to Charles V and Ferdinand and that he had secret intelligence with the Austrians. In the papers collected by Gévay which seem complete as to the correspondence between Ibrahim and the Austrian ruler, there are no such letters, nor are they found in any other collection nor mentioned by the Austrians themselves. On the contrary, we have despatches from Ferdinand to Ibrahim written July 5th, 1535, March 23, 1535, and March 14, 1536, after his death, urging Ibrahim’s continued offices and expressing gratitude for his efforts to keep peace between the two countries.201

The charge of collusion with the Austrians which we have examined and discussed in connection with the siege of Vienna we here dismiss as being supported by very insufficient data. What had Ibrahim to gain by accepting money or position from Charles? Could the latter give him the half of what Suleiman lavished on him? The similar charge made by Iskender Chelebi when at the gallows, that Ibrahim had been induced by Persian gold to plan the assassination of the sultan falls to the ground for the following reasons; lack of any other witness than Isken116der202 and the discredit that attaches to a witness who was the vizir’s fiercest and most desperate enemy, together with the fact that the Persians could offer Ibrahim nothing commensurate with his wealth and power as grand vizir.

I think then we may definitely put aside the charges of his being bought with either Persian or Austrian gold. But the most serious charge remains. Did he aspire to overthrow his master, and himself become sultan? Again our sources are silent or ambiguous. Let us inquire of the Turkish historians. “He fell into the net of the imagination of kingship and power,”203 says Osmanzadeh, which might mean no more than the megalomania of which he gave so many signs. Sadullah Saïd Effendi expresses himself with an equal vagueness: “Perhaps Ibrahim was caught in the net of the thought of partnership of the empire.”204 Petchevi makes no charge. Solakzadeh and Abdurrahman Sheref consider Ibrahim’s death a just punishment for his treatment of Iskender, but prefer no severe charge.205 The Venetians make no accusation beyond the very vague one that “he loved himself better than he did his lord, and wished to be alone in the dominion of the world in which he was much respected.”206

Guillaume Postel takes up some of the accusations against Ibrahim and treats them as follows: The accusations were: 1st. Complicity with the defterdar in looting. This Postel accepts, telling how Ibrahim had looted wherever he had 117 marched. 2nd. His being a Christian, which we need not consider further here. 3rd. An understanding with the Emperor. 4th. An understanding with the Shah of Persia. 5th. A desire to be sultan. 6th. A desire to raise Mustafa, Suleiman’s son, to the throne. Postel says that Ibrahim certainly had no understanding with the emperor, as is proved by the fact that the latter did not use the unexampled opportunity of the Persian war to invade Turkey, an argument which seems to us strong. To this he adds the weak argument that Ibrahim could not bear to hear the emperor spoken of. The charge of an understanding with the shah was based on the early losses in the Persian campaign which Postel disposes of as not being the fault of Ibrahim. The charge of wishing Mustafa on the throne is baseless and unreasonable, as the grand vizir could certainly not gain by a change of masters. As to the charge of wishing to be sultan, Postel dismisses that with the single argument that it was a much too dangerous to attempt.

In the absence of any data inculpating Ibrahim of desiring the throne, we are confined to probabilities. That he loved power and became very ambitious must be recognized. Whether he were mad enough to think he could replace Suleiman on the throne which until this day has never been held by any other than a member of the family of Othman, and that he could hold such a position in the face of an enraged public, Mohammedan to the core as to its army and priesthood; whether he could have so far lost his judgment as to conceive that, Christian slave as he was, he could possibly be in a more advantageous position than the one he already held by the grace of Suleiman, we cannot answer except by the fact that in public affairs his brain was still cool and clear. How far, if at all, he was unfaithful to his master and friend is buried with him in the convent at Galata.

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Ibrahim Pasha’s brilliant career was closed. What were the achievements of his thirteen years of power? He had carried the Turkish arms to the gates of Vienna in the west and to Bagdad and Tebriz in the east, and his almost uniformly successful generalship had added to the great renown in which the Ottoman army was held. Sometimes alone, and sometimes under the sultan, he had shown himself an able strategist, and fearless soldier. He had established diplomatic relations with Europe, one of his last acts being the first treaty with the French, and in diplomacy he had shown himself intelligent, true to Suleiman’s interests, and strong if not subtle. As an administrator, his brief power in Egypt was used wisely, and his governorship of Roumelie was able and strong, if not rising in a marked degree above the standards of his day. He was possessed of dignity, impressiveness of manner, and a magnificence in which he vied with his imperial master. He certainly had cared for his own interests, obtaining enormous wealth and power, but that he had ever neglected his master’s interests is unproved, and many times he showed himself loyal rather than venal.

Ibrahim’s importance in Turkish history lies partly in the great diplomatic changes and the conquests which he achieved together with Suleiman, and partly in the fact that he was the first grand vizir taken from the people who exercised much power, and that with him began the rule of vizirs and favorites which became a very important fact in later Turkish history. While we recognize the danger of such rule, yet we also feel that Turkey had a better chance under such men of ability as Mehmet Sokolli Pasha and the Kiuprelli vizirs than under the chance sultans of the Ottoman family, which has produced few great rulers since Suleiman the Magnificent.

To western students the interest in Ibrahim’s history lies 119 not only in his bringing Turkey into friendly contact with Europe, but perhaps more in the very perfect and highly developed illustration he affords of the curious anomalies, the romantic possibilities, the strangeness of Turkish rule, as well as in the light that his career throws on European rulers and armies of the same century.

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Khalifeh, Haji. History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks. Translated by Mitchell. London, 1831.

Knolles. History of the Ottoman Empire. London, 1603.

Kretchmayr, H. Gritti. Wien, 1896.

Kupelwieser, Leopold von. Die Kämpfe Oesterreichs mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohacz, 1526. Ibid., vom Jahre 1526 bis 1537. Wien and Leipzig, 1899.

Lamartine. Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman. Paris, 1899.

Lane‐Poole, S. The Story of Turkey. New York, 1888.

Lavisse et Rambaud. Histoire Générale du 4me siècle à nos jours. Paris, 1893–1901.

Menzies, Sutherland. Turkey Old and New. London, 1883.

Mignot. Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman. Paris, 1771.

Muir, Sir William. Life of Mohammet. London, 1894.

Osmanzadeh. Hedekatul Vuzara (Garden of Vizirs). Stambul, 1271 A. H.

Pastor, Ludwig. Geschichte der Päpste. Freiburg, 1889.

Petchevi. Tarih (History). Stamboul, 1570.

Rambaud. Histoire de Russie. Paris, 1873.

Ranke, Leopold. The Turkish and Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth Century. Leipzig, 1877.

Ricaut, M. le Chevalier. Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman. Hague, 1709.

Robertson, Wm. Charles the Fifth. New York, 1829.

Sandys. History of the Ottoman Empire. London, 1610.

Solakzadeh. Tarih Misr (History of Egypt). Constantinople, 1729.

Sadullah Säid. 1862. Constantinople.

Soleymannameh, Bulak, 1872. Anon.

Stratford de Redcliffe. The Eastern Question. London, 1881.

Urquhart, David. The Military Strength of Turkey. Turkish Question Pamphlets. London, 1869.

Ursu, J. Politique Orientale de François Premier. Paris, 1908.

Zinkheisen, J. W. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa, Gotha, 1854.

Zeeller, J. La Diplomatie Française vers le milieu du XVI siècle. Paris, 1880.

IV. Special Articles

123

Columbia Law Review, vol. vii, 1907. A Historical Sketch of Mohammedan Jurisprudence. Abdur Rahim.

Edinburg Review, vol. 203. Venetian Diplomacy of the Sublime Porte during the Sixteenth Century. London, 1906.

Extrait du livre d’Abou‐l‐Hosain Ahmed el Kodouri sur le Droit. Sur la Guerre avec les Infidèles. Trans. by Ch. Solvent, Paris, 1829.

Hakluyt’s Voyages. Edition of 1812.

Introduction to Vol. XLIX, Sixteenth Century. Joseph Barbaro.

Travels to Tana and Persia. Joseph Barbaro.

Travels of a merchant in Persia.

Narrative of the most noble Vincente d’Allessander.

Report of Master Anthony Jenkinson from Aleppo.

Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant. A brief relation of the siege and taking of Rhodes, from the French to English by Lord Thomas Dockway, 1624. The Fardle of Facions. William Watreman, 1555, London.

Journal Asiatique. First Series, vol. iv. Paris, 1824 J. von Hammer. Sur l’Histoire Ottoman de Prince Cantimir. Also vol. x, series I. Memoirs sur les Relations de François I avec la Porte.

Journal Asiatique, vol. xvi, 1897. Le Voyage du Levant de Phillippe du Fresne‐Canaye 1573. H. Hansen.

Revue Historique, vol. lxxvi‐lxxvii, 1901. L’Ambassade de la Forest et de Marillac à Constantinople 1535–1538. Bourilly.

Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique, vol. xv, 1901. Le Voyage d’un Ambassadeur de France en Turquie au 16me siècle. Jean de la Forest.

Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xv. Kogabey’s Abhandlung über den Verfall des osmanischen Staatsgebaüdes seit Sultan Suleiman dem Grossen.

Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xii, 1858. Geschichte Suleimans des Ersten. Th. Noldecke.

Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xiv. Das Sklavenwesen in der Türkei. Leipzig, 1860.

Original Narrative of the Adventures of the Count Christopher von Zedlitz in the Turkish camp. Ed. by Ellesmere.

FOOTNOTES:

ERRATA

Page	12,	line 1: for “Leon” read “Léon.”
”	”	note 1, line 1: for “Leon” read “Léon.”
”	”	note 2: for “Vambêry” read “Vambéry.”
”	15,	line 22: for “Busbeq” read “Busbequius.”
”	”	line 24: for “Charrier’s” read “Charrière’s.”
”	”	line 25: for “Négocêations” read “Négociations.”
”	”	line 25: for “Actenstücken” read “Actenstücke.”
”	”	three lines from bottom: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	16,	note 1, line 2: for “Morgenländichen” read “Morgenländischen.”
”	18,	note 2, line 2: for “Actenstücken” read “Actenstücke.”
”	19,	note 4, line 1: for “Moldavi” read “Moldavie.”
”	23,	note 1: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	25,	line 4: for “the sister of Suleiman” read “a sultana.”
”	”	line 14: for “sister” read “relative.”
”	29,	note 2, line 1: for “Muselmanes” read “Musulmanes.”
”	31,	note 1, line 3: for “Muslimisches” read “muslimischen.”
”	34,	note 1: for “dell” read “dell’.”
”	38,	note 1, line 6: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	39,	line 18: omit comma at end of line.
”	54,	note 1, line 2: for “la jouet” read “le jouet.”
”	”	note 1, line 4: for “cette” read “cet.”
”	55,	line 19: for “was” read “had been.”
”	”	line 20: omit the words “after the Peace of Cambrai.”
”	57,	line 8: for “steadily‐encroaching” read without hyphen.
”	”	line 21: for “Europe,” read “Europe;”
”	”	line 22: for “the West” read “Europe.”
”	”	line 20: for “Bayezid” read “Bayazid.”
”	58,	line 2: after “fifteenth century” omit the rest of the sentence up to “the Turks.”
”	”	line 9: omit the words “heresy and.”
”	”	line 14: for “King Louis” read “King Lewis.”
”	”	line 2 from bottom: for “Reformation” read “Protestant Revolt.”
”	”	note 2, line 1: for “gives notice of” read “records.”
”	59,	note 2, line 1: for “Memoire” read “Mémoire.”
”	60,	note 1, line 4: for “(Buntniss)” read “(Bündniss).”
”	62,	line 23: for “Hieronymous” read “Hieronymus.”
”	”	line 5 from bottom: for “Siebenbergen” read “Transylvania.”
”	”	note 3, line 1: for “Hoberdanacz” read “Hobordanacz.”
”	64,	note 1: for “Ottoman” read “Ottomane.”
”	”	note 4: for “Charrières” read “Charrière.”
”	68,	line 2: for “Krain” read “Carniola.”
”	”	line 15: for “Barbarossa” read “Barbarosa.”
”	”	line 24: forBarba”rossa Barba”
”	69	line 2: for “Barbarossa” read “Barbarosa.”
”	”	line 4: forBarba”rossa Barba”
”	”	line 8: for “forms” read “formed.”
”	”	note 1: for “Ambassadors” read “Ambassadeurs.”
”	”	note 1: for “Memoire” read “Mémoire.”
”	”	note 2: for “Charrières” read “Charrière.”
”	72,	line 6: for “Urkunde” read “Urkunden.”
”	85,	note 1, line 2: for “zechinen” read “sequins.”
”	”	note 1, line 9: after “Covas” insert a comma.
”	”	note 1, line 10: for “Hoefflingen” read “Hoeflingen,” and for “Ludwig” read “Ludwigs.”
”	”	note 1, line 13: for “auszuselzen” read “auszusetzen.”
”	”	note 1, line 14: for “Grossvizere” read “Grossviziere.”
”	”	note 1, last line from bottom: for “den” read “dem.”
”	88,	line 9: for “Francois” read “François.”
”	”	line 10: for “preventions” read “préventions,” and for “contemporaries” read “contemporains.”
”	”	line 11: for “veritable” read “véritable.”
”	94,	note 2, line 9: for “Kupelwieser” read “von Kupelwieser.”
”	”	note 2, line 10: for “Oesterreichen” read “Oesterreichs.”
”	98,	line 6: for “shiek” read “sheik.”
”	104,	lines 4 and 10: for “Jurischitz” read “Juritschitz.”
”	”	note 1, line 1: for “Jurischitz” read “Juritschitz.”
”	105,	line 3: for “Barbarossa” read “Barbarosa.”
”	109,	note 6, line 1: omit “Grimeston,” and before “quoted” insert “Djelalzadek.”
”	110,	line 5: for “over‐lenient” read same words without hyphen.
”	111,	note 1: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	”	note 2: for “Republique” read “république.”
”	112,	note 3, line 2: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	116,	line 16: for “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	118,	fifth line from bottom: for “Sokolly” read “Sokolli.”
”	120,	line 3: for “Ambasciatore” read “Ambasciatori.”
”	”	sub verbo “Aristarchi”: for “Legislation” read “Législation.”
”	”	sub verbo “Gévay”: for “Actenstücken” read “Actenstücke.”
”	”	line 8: for “reglements” read “règlements.”
”	”	line 14: for “Correspondence” read “Correspondance,” and for “Memoires” read “Mémoires.”
”	”	line 16: for “Ambasadeurs” read “Ambassadeurs.”
”	”	line 28: for “Venétiens” read “Vénétiens.”
”	121,	sub verbo “Busbecq” read “Busbequius.”
”	”	sub verbo “Hakluyt”: omit the whole line.
”	”	line 17: for “Sclaven” read “Sklaven.”
”	”	sub verbo “Vambery” read “Vambéry.”
”	”	sub verbo “Abdulrahman” read “Abdurrahman.”
”	”	sub verbo “Abdulrahman”: insert a new title as follows: Armstrong, Edward, The Emperor Charles V. London, 1892.
”	”	sub verbo “Cahun”: for “Leon” read “Léon.”
”	”	sub verbo “Cantimir”: insert a new title as follows: Coxe, William, History of the House of Austria. London, 1899.
”	122,	line 17, and line 31: for “Leipsig” read “Leipzig.”
”	123,	sub verbo “Hakluyt’s Voyages”: insert “Edition of 1812.”
”	”	line 21: for “Memoires” read “Mémoires.”