A SECOND CHAPTER OF TURKISH HISTORY. Ar the conclusion of our narrative of the career of Cicala, we noticed the execution by his orders of the Koordish leader Jan-poulad, whom he had, a short time previous, made Pasha of Aleppo, and the consequent revolts in Northern Syria of the brothers and partisans of the slaughtered chief-a revolt of which the remote effects extended far beyond the actual period of civil warfare, and contributed permanently to weaken the control exercised by the Porte over her Syrian dominions. When the Mamluke empire was overthrown in 1517 by the arms of the Ottomans, Sultan Selim had found the family of Jan-poulad (a name implying soul of steel) in possession of the mountain-castle of Klis, and the hereditary chieftainship of their tribe; and, on their voluntarily tendering their allegiance to the Porte, had not only left them undisturbed, but conferred the Turkish rank of sandjak* on the head of the house; which, thus powerfully protected, continued to flourish, and had become so widely connected by alliances, either of friendship or consanguinity, that the example of rebellion was followed by all the Koordish and Arab tribes of the surrounding region. Encouraged by the numbers and warlike character of his adherents, Ali Jan-poulad, the elder of the two brothers, whose views had at first been limited to taking vengeance for the death of his relative, conceived the design of erecting in Syria a kingdom independent of the Porte, and reviving the ascendency in Western Asia; to which, in bygone times, Salah-ed-deen, or Saladin, himself by birth a Koord of the tribe of Revandooz, had raised his family and nation. With this object, he not only coined money, and caused prayers to be read in his own name, (the two especial privileges which are considered in the East to be attached exclusively to independent sovereignty,) but sent envoys, in concert with the celebrated prince of the Druses, Fakhr-ed-deen† Maan-Oghlu, to se ABAZA. veral of the maritime powers of Europe, soliciting their assistance in shaking off the yoke of the Sultan. The grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de Medici, actually concluded a treaty with the two leaders of the Syrian insurrection, in October 1607; and the Divan, alarmed by the prospect of communication between their enemies in Europe and in Asia, lost no time in employing against Janpoulad the troops which had been withdrawn from Hungary on the conclusion of peace with Austria in the preceding year. The grand vizir Mourad, who, at the age of nearly ninety, retained all the energy and ferocity of his youth, was appointed to the command; and having temporarily dispersed, partly by address and partly by arms, the rebels who infested Anatolia under KalenderOghlu, the successor of Kara-Yazidji, marched straight to encounter the most formidable of his opponents. Jan-poulad and Fakhr-ed-deen had intrenched themselves at the head of 20,000 infantry, and an equal number of cavalry, in the defiles of the mountains which separate Anatolia and Syria, near the spot where the Turks had sustained a signal defeat from the Mamlukes in the time of Bayezid II. ; but this position was turned by the military skill of the vizir, and the battle was fought in the plains, where full scope was afforded for the evolutions of the janissaries, and the overwhelming artillery of the imperial army. The confederates were completely defeated: Fakhr-ed-deen took refuge in the inaccessible fastnesses of Mount Libanus, where he defied present pursuit; and Jan-poulad Ali, after in vain attempting to maintain himself in Aleppo, where the lawless exactions of the Koords, during their brief ascendency, had made them detested by the inhabitants, took the desperate resolution of flying direct to Constantinople, and imploring in person the clemency of the Sultan. He succeeded in reaching the Bosphorus with The dignity of sandjak-bey (literally flag-officer) is immediately below that of pasha, and entitles the bearer to use a standard with one horse-tail. The Facardino of Italian writers. NO. CCXCVIII. VOL. XI VIII. M only four followers, and was admitted to the presence of Ahmed, who, struck by the frank and dauntless bearing of the Koordish leader, not only granted his life, but took pleasure in listening, at repeated interviews, to his recital of the vicissitudes which had marked his adventurous career. He was eventually appointed to the distant government of Temeswar in Hungary, where he perished, some years later, in a revolt of the inhabitants.* ing with fury, "That the other insurgents had not come into the world mounted and armed, and that the evil could only be crushed by nipping it in the bud!"-and his name, under the appropriate title conferred on him for his services, of Seif-ed-dowla, or "sword of the state," was long remembered with terror in the theatre of his exploits. In the mean time, the extermination of the vanquished insurgents went on in Syria with ruthless severity. The troops who had been concerned in the revolt, exclusive of the Arabs and Koords, consisted almost wholly of spahis, and seghbans or seimens, (a description of infantry holding land like the spahis by military tenure ;) and the ancient jealousy which had subsisted between these proud feudatories and the janissaries, whom they were in the habit of reviling as" slaves who received their daily food from the bounty of the Porte," gave a character of inveteracy to the vengeance of the latter, which was destined erelong to be retaliated on themselves. After the decisive victory above related, a number of executioners were constantly employed in decapitating indiscriminately the prisoners brought in; and 20,000 heads were piled before the tent of the Grand Vizir Mourad, who, long popularly known by the sobriquet of Kouyoudji, or of the pit," from his having fallen into a pit with his horse in a battle against the Persians, now derived a new and more enduring claim to that surname, from the immense pits which were dug by his orders to receive the headless bodies of his victims; of whom, in this and the campaign which ensued against Kalender-Oghlu, not less than 100,000 are said to have fallen in this manner. He is even reported by the Turkish historians to have strangled with his own hands the youthful son of one of the rebels, whose tender age and entreaties had moved the compassion of the men of death themselves; exclaim 66 Among the prisoners who were brought before Mourad after the battle, was a Circassian Mamluke, named Mohammed-Abaza,t who had held in the service of Jan-poulad the office of khaznadar, or treasurer of the household. He was on the point of sharing the fate of the others, when Khalil, the aga of the janissaries, whose admi. ration was attracted by his noble features and martial carriage, interceded with the grand vizir for his life, and carried him with him on his return to Constantinople. On the removal, not long after (1608,) of Hafez-pasha from the command of the fleet, Khalil, who had taken a distinguished part in the glories of the Syrian campaign, was raised to the vacant post of capitanpasha-an apparently singular ap. pointment for an officer who had commenced his career as one of the Sultan's falconers, and whose subsequent services had been wholly on land:but similar transitions were in that age common among ourselves and the other nations of Europe, as well as the Turks; and the capitan-pashalik of Khalil, who was accompanied by Abaza as patrona-bey or flag-captain, was signalized by an important advantage gained near the coast of Cyprus over the Maltese squadron, in which six galleys, together with a famous galleon mounting ninety guns, and noticed by the Turkish writers under the strange name of Kara-Jehannen or "Black Hell," fell into the hands of the victors, and were triumphantly carried into the harbour of Constanti nople. How long the maritime career of Abaza continued does not appear; but when Khalil some years later held the command in Asia against the * His younger brother Mustapha, who was enrolled among the pages of the seraglio, became at a later period a distinguished favourite of Mourad IV., and at one time held the rank of capitan-pasha; but he at length incurred the anger of that sanguinary tyrant, and was decapitated in 1636. With him ended the family of Jan-poulad. Abaza is the name by which he is almost universally mentioned; but it merely implies that he was of the Circassian tribe of the Abazces. Persians, he was again attended by his protége, whom he appointed to the government of Marash and to this province, on the accession of Sultan Osman II. in 1618, was added that of Erzroom, with the rank of pasha of three tails. Such was the rapid rise to eminence of a man who was destined to act an important part in the stormy epoch of Turkish history under consideration, as the first who, by openly avowing himself the "Enemy of the Janissaries," (an epithet often appended to his name by Oriental writers,) dared to brave the resentment of a force, of which the power and audacity had been suffered to rise to an almost uncontrollable height. The depression, by the event of the late civil war, of the feudatory troops, and particularly of the seghbans, (who esteemed themselves, in opposition to the more recently instituted janissaries, as the ancient and legitimate national sol diery,) had removed all adequate check on a turbulent spirit, which even before this was rapidly breaking through the rigid bonds of discipline maintained by Soliman and his predecessors; and the youthful and impetuous Os. man, whose projects of Polish conquest had been frustrated by their mutinous insubordination, formed the daring design of annihilating these arrogant prætorians, and forming a new standing army from the Segh bans and Odjaklus," or provincial troops of Egypt. The prospect of thus delivering himself from the thral dom in which he was held by his insolent slaves, took full possession of the mind of the Sultan, who opened a private correspondence on the subject with several of the Asiatic pashas, and particularly with Abaza, whose residence at Erzroom, from the facilities which it afforded him for communicating with his former comrades in Koordistan and Northern Syria, gave him an extensive influence over the surrounding districts; while his reckless gallantry and unscrupulous resolution, with the bitter hostility which he was well known to retain against the destroyers of his old master Jan-poulad, pointed him out as a fit instrument in the hazardous enterprise contemplated. But before we proceed to narrate the events, which ultimately terminated in the ruin and death of nearly all the parties concerned in the scheme, we must endeavour to recount the causes owing to which, in the lapse of scarce half a century from the death of Soliman, the order and discipline, which had hitherto rendered the janissaries invincible, had given place to the scenes of sedition and lawless excess which are henceforward inseparably connected with their appearance in history. It may appear superfluous to give any account of the origin and constitution of a corps so popularly known, and concerning which so much has been written, as the janissaries; but so inaccurate, in point of fact, are many of the details which pass current relative to this famous soldiery, that even the era of their institution is incorrectly stated by European writers, who unanimously ascribe it to Mourad I., the third prince of the line of Oth man. This error, into which Gibbon himself has fallen, originated with Cantemir: but the concurrent testimony of every Turkish historian fixes the epoch of their formation and consecration by the Dervish Hadji-Bektash,t to the reign of Orkhan the father of Mourad, who in 1328 enrolled a body of Christian youths as soldiers under this name,‡ by the advice of his This name, literally implying "householders," or "men of the hearth," was given to a particular local force established in Egypt by Selim I., after the subversion of the Sovereignty of the Mamlukes, whom they were intended to keep in check. But in the middle of the last century, the Mamlukes under Ibrahim and Rodoan, the predecessors of the famous Ali Bey, took advantage of the degeneracy and corruption of the Odjaklus to re-establish the ascendency of their own corps, which continued till their destruction by the present pasha. The long piece of cloth which the janissaries wore hanging from the back of their dress-caps in memorial of the sleeve extended over them by their patron, was copied by the Hungarians, and thus remotely was the original of the bug formerly appended to the caps of our hussars, and now on the point of revival. The Turkish term Yeni- Tcheri, which we call janissary, corresponds exactly with the Arabic appellation Nizam-Jedeed, conferred by Mahmoud II, on the troops destined to replace them both phrases mean "the new regulars." cousin Tchenderli, to whose counsels the wise and simple regulations of the infant empire are chiefly attributed. Their number was at first only a thousand; but it was greatly augmented when Mourad, in 1361, appropriated to this service by an edict the imperial fifth of the European captives taken in war -a measure which has been generally confounded with the first enrolment of the corps. At the accession of Soliman the Magnificent, their effective strength had reached 20,000; and under Mahommed IV., in the middle of the 17th century, that number was doubled. But though the original composition of the janissaries is related by every writer who has treated of them, it has not been so generally noticed, that for more than two centuries and a half not a single native Turk was admitted into their ranks, which were recruited, like those of the Mamlukes, solely by the continual supply of Christian slaves, at first captives of tender age taken in war, and afterwards, when this source proved inadequate to the increased demand, by an annual levy among the children of the lower orders of Christians throughout the empire-a dreadful tax, frequently alluded to by Busbequius, and which did not finally cease till the reign of Mahommed IV. At a later period, when the Krim Tartars became vassals of the Porte, the yearly inroads of the fierce cavalry of that nation into the southern provinces of Russia, were principally in strumental in replenishing this nursery of soldiers; and Fletcher, who was ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, describes, in his quaint language, the method pursued in these depredations:-"The chief bootie the Tartars seeke for in all their warres, is to get store of captives, specially young boyes and girles, whom they sell to the Turkes, or other, their neighbours. To this purpose they take with them great baskets made like bakers' panniers, to carrie them tenderly, and if any of them happens to tyre, or bee sicke on the way, they dash him against the ground, or some * tree, and so leave him dead." (Purchas's Pilgrims, iii. 441.) The boys, thus procured from various quarters, were assembled at Constantinople, where, after a general inspection, those whose personal advantages or indications of superior talent distinguished them from the crowd, were set aside as pages of the seraglio (ich-oghlauns,) or Mamlukes in the households of the pashas and other officers, whence in due time they were promoted to military commands or other appointments: but the remaining multitude were given severally in charge to peasants or artisans of Turkish race, principally in Anatolia, by whom they were trained up, till they approached the age of manhood, in the tenets of the Moslem faith, and inured to all the privations and toils of a hardy and laborious life. After this severe probation, they were again transferred to the capital, and enrolled in the different odas or regiments; and here their military education commenced. Each takhum or squad consisted of ten men, who were messed and lodged together; and at first the recruit acted as the servant of the veterans in the takhum to which he was attached, receiving only a nominal rate of pay, and subjected to assiduous drill; till by increased proficiency he was released from the performance of menial duties, and placed on an equality with his comrades in regard to pay and allowances. From this time his advancement through the various ranks was proportioned to his merit ; but it was rare that any janissary quitted the oda in which he had been at first registered, and the peculiar emblem of which was customarily branded or stamped on his arm as a token of confraternity. The abundant rations with which these favoured troops were exclusively provided by the Sultan, gave rise to a variety of singular appellations and customs, which, probably originating in jest, were at length adopted by themselves as familiar titles: thus the colonel, or commandant of an oda, bore in common parlance the name of tchorbadji, * Mittit quotannis Turcorum princeps certos homines in diversas provincias, qui de pueris e Christianis hominibus natis tertium aut quartum quemque legant. At the proscription of the corps, many of the affiliated janissaries, who had procured enrolment merely for the sake of the privileges thus acquired, cut out the piece of flesh which bore the fatal symbol, in the hope of escaping the general doom. |