of lead, five or ten together, each as big as a walnut." This is one of the earliest descriptions of gunpowder to be found in any history.

The victory of Hunníyades at Belgrade saved Hungary's independ- Ottoman The renewal of these efforts at conquest by Sultan Mohammed Conquest

ence.

II. met with no better success, and the Ottoman arms made no further progress in that quarter for many years. The voiwodes of Moldavia defended themselves with such valor that the Sultan was content with their nominal submission.

Checked.

of Greece

and

Mohammed II. turned his arms against the remaining Greek states. Conquest He conquered Greece proper and annexed it to the Ottoman Empire in 1460; and the next year Trebizond, at the east end of the Black Sea, surrendered to his arms, and the Greek dynasty of the Comneni, which had reigned there for two and a-half centuries, came to an end.

In the mountainous region of Albania, the ancient Epirus, the valiant prince, Alexander Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, which in Turkish signifies Alexander the Great, defended himself. In 1467 the Turks invaded his territory; but Scanderbeg, at the head of a small but faithful band of followers, resisted the mighty Ottoman hosts with success and forced them to raise the siege of his capital. Thenceforth until his death Scanderbeg maintained the independence of his little principality.

In 1481 Sultan Mohammed II. sent an army across the Adriatic, and this Turkish force stormed and sacked the town of Otranto, on the eastern coast of Lower Italy. After securing this important footing in Italy, the Turkish Sultan prepared to follow it up by the conquest of that entire peninsula; but, in the midst of the general alarm which his movements occasioned throughout Europe, Mohammed II. died the same year, A. D. 1481.

Trebizond

by Mohammed II.

Scanderbeg's Successful Resist

ance in Albania.

Turkish

Invasion of Italy and

of

Otranto.

Sultan Bajazet

1481

1512.

A dispute for the succession to the Turkish throne arose between the two sons of Mohammed II., Bajazet and Zizim, each of whom had par- II., A. D. tisans among the Janizaries. BAJAZET II. prevailed in Constantinople, and seized the throne. Zizim raised an army in Bithynia, and took possession of Brusa. Bajazet II. sent his Grand Vizier, Ahmed, against his brother with a strong force; and Zizim was forced to seek refuge with his mother and his two children in Syria, and afterward in Egypt, both of which countries were then under the dominion of the Mameluke Sultans.

The Sultan of Egypt and Syria received Zizim with great hospitality, and endeavored to persuade him to relinquish his ambitious schemes, but without success; and Zizim next resorted to the Emir of Caramania, in Asia Minor, the petty province which had so long been hostile to the Ottoman Sultans. Zizim and the Emir of Caramania took the field against Bajazet II., but were defeated; and Zizim fled to the island of

Zizim's

Revolt.

His

Defeat

and

Flight.

His Refuge at Rhodes and

Imprisonment at

Rome.

His Release and

Suspicious Death.

Forced Abdica

tion and

SuspiDeath of

cious

Bajazet

II.

Sultan

A. D.

1512

1520.

Rhodes, where he sought an asylum with the Knights of St. John, who were then at war with Bajazet II.

Zizim was favorably received at Rhodes by the Knights of St. John Sultan Bajazet II. made advantageous offers of peace to the Knights of St. John, on condition that they should deliver his brother into his power. They refused this condition; but, as they were anxious to conclude a treaty with the Sultan, they persuaded Zizim to retire to Italy. The Pope kept him a prisoner at Rome for several years, assigned him elegant apartments at the Vatican, and treated him with all the respect due to his rank, but refused him his liberty.

Several Christian kings desired to have the custody of the captive Turkish prince, as a check upon the Sultan. At length King Charles VIII. of France, while passing through Rome, on his expedition against Naples in 1494, caused Zizim to be released; but the exiled Turkish prince died several days afterward, believed to have been poisoned through the instrumentality of the wicked Pope Alexander VI. at the instigation of Sultan Bajazet II. Being thus relieved of a dangerous competitor, Bajazet II. devoted himself to the cultivation of literature. During his reign the Turkish power declined. Bajazet II. conquered Bessarabia and some provinces in Asia.

The last days of Sultan Bajazet II. were embittered by the unfilial treatment which he received from his son Selim, who was fierce and warlike, and a great favorite with the Janizaries, by whose aid he forced his father to abdicate the Turkish crown in his favor, in preference to his elder brother, Achmet. Bowed down with age and infirmities, Bajazet II. retired from Constantinople with about five hundred domestics, but died on his way to Adrianople, supposed to have been poisoned by his physician at the command of his son and successor, SELIM I., A. D. 1512.

Selim I., surnamed Gavúz, or "the Savage," who had usurped the Selim I., Turkish throne in 1512 by dethroning his father, whom he put to death along with his two brothers and his five nephews, was obliged to maintain his throne by a series of bloody civil wars with other members of his family and was victorious. He was the first of the Ottoman Suland tans to assume the sacred title of Khalif, which has ever since been borne Triumph. by his successors.

His

Crimes

His Wars with Persia.

His Conquest

Selim I. waged frequent wars with the modern Persian kingdom under the Suffeean dynasty, defeated Ismail Suffee at Tabriz in 1514, and annexed Kurdistan and Mesopotamia, along with Diarbekr and several other provinces east of the Tigris, to the Ottoman Empire.

The Mameluke Sultans of Egypt and Syria had aided the Persians, of Syria. and their army under Sultan Gauri was defeated in a sanguinary engagement near Aleppo, their leader slain and their power completely

broken in Syria. Aleppo and Damascus both submitted to the Turks, and Syria became a province of the Ottoman Empire, A. D. 1517.

Selim I. then invaded Egypt. Túman Bey, who had been elected as the chief Mameluke Sultan to succeed Gauri, assembled the remnants of the Mamelukes under the walls of Cairo, was reinforced by Arab auxiliaries, and prepared to resist Selim I., who advanced steadily and attacked the Mameluke camp. After a bloody and desperate battle, in which the Turkish artillery fire was served mainly by Christian cannoniers, Selim II. won the victory; and, after having done all that was possible for his cause, Túman Bey was driven into Cairo. Selim I. took the city by storm, and Túman Bey fled across the Nile, and by incredible exertions raised another army. The Turks pursued him closely and forced him to battle, utterly routed the Mamelukes and captured Túman Bey himself.

His Invasion of Egypt and Victories

at Cairo.

of the

Mame

luke

Sultan.

The conquering Selim I. at first was disposed to spare his captive's Excution life, but his officers, who feared and envied Túman Bey, persuaded the Turkish Sultan that such clemency might inspire the Mamelukes with the hope of recovering their dominions, and the unfortunate Mameluke Sultan was hanged at the chief gate of Cairo. This completed the Turkish conquest of Egypt, which thus became a province of the Ottoman Empire, A. D. 1517.

The Turkish conquerors did not attempt to impose their religion on the people whom they conquered. They even left the conquered race in the enjoyment of their own political institutions. They contented themselves with levying a tribute on every Greek town and village, according to its population. So long as the inhabitants paid their tribute regularly they were left at liberty to worship in their own churches, to elect their own magistrates, and to be governed by their own municipal laws. Although the conquered people were subject to a heavy contribution for the benefit of the Sultan's treasury, this tribute was collected in the least oppressive manner by their own magistrates, whose duty was to tax all persons, without distinction, according to their means. Not many people who have been subjected to foreign dominion have been left in possession of so many political privileges as were the Greeks by their Ottoman conquerors.

Sultan Selim I. died in 1520, and was succeeded on the Turkish throne by his renowned son, SOLYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT, the greatest of all the Ottoman Sultans, who reigned forty-six years (1520–1566), and under whom the Ottoman Empire reached the zenith of its power and glory. The remainder of the Turkish history will be given in subsequent portions of this work, where the various great wars of the Ottoman Empire with the great Christian powers of Europe will be fully dealt with in their proper places.

Turkish

Conquest of Egypt.

Turkish Exaction

of

Tribute from the Con

quered

Nations.

Sultan

Solyman the Magnificent,

A. D. 1520

1566.

Turkish
Glory.

Rise of
Modern
Persia

under the

Suffeean Dynasty.

Ismail Suffee,

A. D.

15011523.

His Wars with Turkey.

Tamasp, A. D. 15231576,

Abbas the Great, A. D. 15821628.

His

Great

Reign.

His

from the

SECTION II.-THE MODERN PERSIAN EMPIRE (A. D. 1501
TO THE PRESENT TIME).

FOR more than a century under Tamerlane's successors Persia was distracted by civil wars, until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when that famous land again came under the sway of a native Persian dynasty. In 1501 ISMAIL SUFFEE, a descendant of the holy sheikh Suffee, established the independence of Persia, and became the founder of the Suffavean, or Suffeean dynasty. From small beginnings Ismail saw his power increase during a period of four years until the whole of Persia submitted to his authority, thus giving rise to the Modern Persian Empire.

Sultan Selim I. of Turkey, alarmed at the rise of this new Mohammedan power in the East, marched from Constantinople to crush his rising rival. The Shah Ismail was defeated in the great battle of Tabriz, in 1514; but Sultan Selim's death, in 1520, enabled him to retrieve his losses, and to subject even Georgia to his sway.

Ismail is

still vencrated by the Persians as the restorer of their national independence.

Ismail died in 1523, and was succeeded as Shah of Persia by his son TAMASP, whose reign of fifty-three years was a period of great prosperity for Persia. Anthony Jenkinson, one of the earliest English adventurers to Persia, visited Tamasp's court as an envoy from Queen Elizabeth; but the Mohammedan sovereign's intolerance soon drove this Christian ambassador from his presence.

After the death of Tamasp, in 1576, his three sons disputed the Persian crown among themselves; but their short reigns deserve no notice. In 1582 ABBAS THE GREAT, grandson of Tamasp, was proclaimed Shah of Persia by some of the discontented nobles, and was compelled to appear in arms against his father Mohammed Mirza, who was deserted by his army, and and is not mentioned again in history. But Abbas the Great did not long remain a mere instrument in the hands of others; but, seizing the reins of power, he soon rose to distinction, and became a great and powerful monarch; and his reign is the most brilliant in the history of modern Persia.

Shah Abbas the Great successfully defended his kingdom against the Conquests efforts of the Turks to conquer it, defeating the Ottoman forces in Turks. many battles. In the battle of Erivan one hundred thousand Turks were defeated by a little more than sixty thousand Persians. The re sult of this Persian victory was that all the Turkish territories on the Caspian Sea, in Azerbijan, Georgia, Kurdistan, Bagdad, Mosul and Diarbekr were annexed to the Persian Empire.