Читать книгу The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks - Edwin Pears - Страница 10

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THE TURKS: THEIR ENTRY INTO ASIA MINOR: NOT AT FIRST EXCLUSIVELY MAHOMETAN: THEIR CHARACTERISTICS: OTHMAN FOUNDS A DYNASTY: PROGRESS OF MOSLEMS IN EUROPE AND ASIA MINOR: CAPTURE OF BROUSA IN 1326.

The great central plains of Asia, stretching almost without an interruption from the Caspian Sea to China, have during all historical time produced hardy races of nomad warriors. On the three occasions in their history when they have found skilful leaders, their progress as conquerors has been epoch-marking. Twice their progress has been westward. Mounted warriors and hordes of foot soldiers made their way towards the Euxine, some going to the north and others to the south of that sea. The first of these waves of Genghis Khan moves westward.population thus moving westward was that led by Genghis Khan, a Mongol belonging to the smallest of the four great divisions of the Tartar34 race. His followers were, however, mainly Turks, the most widely spread of these divisions.35 He had established his rule before 1227, the year in which he died, from the Sea of Japan to the Dnieper. He and his immediate successors ravaged a greater extent of territory than any other conqueror. Like Alexander the Great, he and they advanced with regularly organised armies, with apparently no other object than conquest and plunder. Their victories facilitated the migration of his own subjects into the newly conquered territories and hastened the departure of large bodies of men, who fled before the terrible massacres which marked the progress of their ever victorious armies.

A branch of the same great horde, under the leadership of Subutai, destroyed Moscow and Kiev in a campaign conducted with striking ability and ending in 1239, and settled in Russia. Poland, aided by French Knights Templars and the Grand Master of the Teutonic order, had put forward all her strength to resist the same division of the all-devouring army, while another wing attacked the Hungarians with half a million of men.

Their entry into Europe was in such numbers and the excesses of cruelty committed by them were so alarming that their advance everywhere created terror. The Tartars—coming from Tartarus, as some of the Crusaders believed—were so little known, says Pachymer, that many declared they had the heads of dogs and fed upon human flesh.36 Seen nearer, they were less formidable as individuals, though infernal, terrible, and invincible as an army.

In 1258, the year before the recapture of Constantinople and the destruction of the Latin empire by the Greeks, Houlagou, the grandson of Genghis Khan, captured Bagdad, and deposed the last of the Bagdad caliphs. He extended his conquests over Mesopotamia and Syria to the Mediterranean. Damascus and Aleppo were sacked. Houlagou sought to ally himself with the Crusaders in order to overthrow the Saracens and the sultan of Egypt.

The Seljukian Turks.

When Houlagou turned his attention to Asia Minor, he found among the Christian populations a division of the Turkish race known as Seljuks, whose sultan resided at Konia, and called himself sultan of Roum.37 He attacked and inflicted injuries upon them from which they never recovered. It is difficult to state precisely what were the boundaries of the Seljuks and of other Moslem or partly Moslem peoples in Asia Minor and Syria, during the thirteenth century, and this difficulty arises from the fact that their boundaries were continually changing. The Saracens held certain places in Syria, but there was a Christian prince in Antioch; there were cities occupied by the western Knights Templars, a Christian prince in Caramania and a king of Lesser Armenia. There were Turcomans at Marash and in the hill country behind Trebizond, and Kurds invaded Cilicia in 1278. A large tract of country around Konia was ruled over by the Seljuks. No natural boundary marked the extent of territory occupied by any of these peoples or in Asia Minor by the Roman emperor.

It is certain, however, that the entry of the armies of the followers of Genghis Khan, continually renewed by the arrival of new hordes from Central Asia, changed the distribution of the peoples and spread terror everywhere at their approach. Even at Nicaea, within sixty miles of Constantinople, the rumour in 1267 of the arrival of a Tartar army caused a terrible panic.38 Two years later the Tartars attacked the Saracens in Syria, whither they had been invited for such purpose by the Christians, defeated them, and carried off a rich booty. For a while they were a terror alike to Moslems and Christians. As from the followers of Genghis Khan there ultimately came the race of Ottoman Turks who conquered New Rome and its empire, it is desirable to consider them somewhat carefully.

Characteristics of Asiatic invaders.

It is important to note that the first hordes who came in with the great conqueror and those who followed for at least a century were not Mahometan fanatics. Some of their leading generals were indeed Christians. Genghis himself had married a Christian wife. Mango Khan (1251–1259), one of his successors, is described by Maundeville, who visited Palestine in 1322, as ‘a good Christian man, who was baptized and gave letters of perpetual peace to all Christian men,’ and sent to win the Holy Land to put it into the hands of the Christians and destroy the law of Mahomet.39 His great successor, Houlagou, was the husband of the granddaughter of the famous Prester (or Presbyter) John, the king of a Christian state in Central Asia, visited by Marco Polo.40 The army led by Houlagou contained Mahometans, but it contained also Christians, Buddhists, and professors of other creeds. Central Asiatics had up to the time which concerns us not developed any violent religious animosity. Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists dwelt together in harmony.

Not fanatical.

It is probably correct to say that the races of the great plains of Asia have never been religiously disposed. Mr. Schuyler, who was a keen observer, remarked, less than a generation ago, that the people which had been recently conquered by Russia in Central Asia were classified as to their religion with extreme difficulty. A few declared themselves Christians. The remainder were indiscriminately inscribed as Moslems, but very few among them really knew anything about the religion of Islam and did not even consider themselves as Moslems.41 The fierce fanaticism which the early followers of Mahomet displayed and which led them within a century after his death to make the most wonderful and enduring series of conquests which have ever been accomplished by a people whose sole bond of union was religion was not shown by the followers of Genghis. They preferred to fight the Saracens and to aid the Christians rather than to do the reverse. We shall see that when, a century and a half later, another great invasion from Central Asia took place, its leader Timour the Lame’s greatest activity was directed against the Mahometans, and that he demanded from them the restoration to the Christian emperor of the cities which they had captured.

It is true that in the interval between the two invasions under Genghis Khan and Timour, the Turkish invaders, who had remained in Asia Minor, caught much of the fanatical spirit. But there are many indications which show that this spirit was of slow growth.42 As their struggles with neighbouring and Christian peoples compacted them into a warlike nation, they all came to accept the religion of Mahomet, and as they became better acquainted with the tenets of the most war-inspiring religion in the world, they held to them tenaciously, and developed the hostility towards Christians which the spiritual pride of believers who consider themselves the elect of heaven, and their religion outside the range of discussion, always engenders. But during the development of their power in Asia Minor, many years passed before they isolated themselves, and were isolated from the Christians, on account of their religion. Their princes sought marriage with the princesses of the imperial and other noble Christian families. We obtain light only incidentally upon the relations between the professors of the two creeds at the period shortly after the recapture of Constantinople by the Greeks. But such as we do obtain confirms the statement that the Asiatic settlers took their religion very easily. In 1267 certain charges were brought, as we have seen,43 by the Emperor Michael against the patriarch, which give us a glimpse of interest. The relation is made by Pachymer, who was himself one of the clerks of the court. The patriarch was accused, not only of having conversed familiarly with a Turkish sultan, of having allowed him and his companions to use the bath attached to the church, around which were the Christian symbols, but of having ordered a monk to administer the Sacrament to the children of the sultan without having been assured that they were baptized. He was charged, further, with having said the Litanies with the sultan and his followers. The patriarch replied to the two first with contempt; if the Turks had used the church bath, no harm had been done. As to giving Communion, he declared that he had been duly certified that the children had been baptized.44 Witnesses asserted that it was true that the accused had said the Litanies with the sultan, and that he had allowed him to sit by his side during celebration, but added that they did not know whether the sultan was a Christian or not! Other persons were found who declared that he was not a Christian. The sultan, hearing of the proceedings, sent to ask, either in jest or seriously, that the emperor would give him the sacred relics which he wore round his neck, and offered to eat ham as a proof that he was not a Moslem. Pachymer adds that in thus professing his readiness to worship the relics and to eat the forbidden flesh, the sultan caused the proceedings against the patriarch to fail. As it appeared that there were eminent ecclesiastics in the court who really believed that the sultan of the Turks was a Christian, those who desired the condemnation of the patriarch tried to turn the question by suggesting that, whether he was Christian or not, it was certain that members of his suite, who had been present when Communion was administered, were unbelievers.45 That the sultan should have been present at a Christian service at all, that his children should have been allowed by him or his Moslem followers to communicate, and that his children were baptized, or believed to be baptized, show that, whether they were Christians or not, the fanatical spirit which animated the Moslems of an earlier period, or the Turks a century later, was not present among these representatives of the Asiatics who had entered the country as followers of Genghis or his immediate successors.

Permanent characteristics of Turkish race.

The characteristics of the Turk have remained singularly like those possessed by his ancestors. The Turkish soldiers who had come in with Genghis, and the hordes of those who followed during a century, had been for the most part wandering shepherds, and the nomadic instinct still continued, and still continues, in the race, notwithstanding that there has been a considerable admixture of other races. The tent of their leader was larger than that of his followers, and its entrance came, in the course of time, to be known as The Lofty Gate, or The Sublime Porte. The shepherd warriors, who were destined to destroy the empire of the New Rome, had few of the desires, habits, or aspirations of civilisation. Commerce, except in its simplest form of barter, was and has always been almost unknown to them. Among the Turks of a later period the disinclination to change the traditional habits of the race is to some extent due to the indifference or contempt felt for trading communities by a race of conquerors; though, perhaps, incapacity to hold their own as traders against the peoples they subdued has had a larger share in producing their aversion to commerce. The furniture of their huts is even yet only such as would have been found in their felt tents. They have no desire to possess the ordinary utensils which Europeans of every race consider either as the necessaries of life or as adding largely to its comfort. They have never taken kindly to agriculture. Surrounded by fertile land, the Turk will till only enough to supply him with the barest necessaries of life, and the traveller in the interior of Asia Minor is to-day, as he has been for centuries, astonished to see that Turkish peasants who, as the owners of large tracts of fertile land, capable of producing almost any fruits or vegetables, and of supporting even a large number of cattle, may be accounted wealthy, are yet content to live upon fare and amid surroundings at which the ordinary European peasant, and even the Turks’ own neighbours of different races, would express their dissatisfaction.46

We get few glimpses of the domestic life and manners of the Turks during the first two centuries of their emigration into Asia Minor. But such as we gain show them, in peace and war, to possess the same characteristics as distinguish their descendants at the present day. When not under the influence of their religion they are peaceful, kindly disposed, and truthful. In the hospitality of the tent or hut they are irreproachable. They possess little, but that little is at the disposal of the traveller. Judged by Western ideas, they are lazy, and lacking in intelligence. In the ordinary business of life they are singularly destitute of energy. They have learned, like their fathers, to be content with the poverty amid which they were born. They have not sufficient capacity to desire knowledge nor aspiration to make them discontented. If, as I believe the evidence to indicate, the ancestors of the present Moslems in Asia Minor were during the thirteenth and half of the fourteenth century but little under the influence of religious fanaticism, their easy-going, dolce far niente character may well be taken as sufficient explanation of the passing over into Turkish territories of many Christians who desired to escape from the heavy taxation under the rule of the Christian emperors.

Constant stream of immigrants from Central Asia.

In describing the movement of the Asiatic races into Asia Minor and Europe, but especially of the advance of the Turkish hordes who came after the death of Genghis, two facts ought never to be lost sight of. The first and most important is that from a period even preceding the recapture of the city in 1259 down to one within the memory of living men there was a constant stream of immigrants from Central Asia westward. The numbers of the immigrant settlers were thus steadily being increased. Probably at no time has the Turkish race been as prolific as the Christian races of Asia Minor, and the latter would long ago have outnumbered the conquering race had the stream of immigration been dammed. The second fact to be noted is that a constant settlement of the conquered lands was being All conquests followed by settlement.made, a settlement which, although possibly as nomadic and uncertain as that of the Kurds and Yuruks of to-day, was yet a real occupation of the country at the expense of Christian populations, who were either massacred or dispersed. It is in the nomadic character of the newcomers, in the wasteful character of their occupation of the country, in the substitution of sheep and cattle industry for agriculture, in their want of intelligence, and in their expulsion and persecution of the Christian population, that the explanation is to be found of the destruction and, in some cases, complete abandonment of cities still populous and flourishing when they were captured: cities like Ephesus, Nicaea, and a hundred others, whose ruins meet the traveller everywhere throughout Asia Minor. The Turk has at all times been a nomad and a destroyer. He has never been a capable trader or even agriculturist.

When the armies led by Genghis Khan and his successors retired, armies which were well disciplined and well led, many of his soldiers or their followers remained and took service with the Seljukian Turks. Others formed separate communities. One of the chiefs who thus settled in Asia Minor was Ertogrul or Orthogrul, the father of Osman or Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty.

During Ertogrul’s life, the Seljuks had been greatly harassed by the newer invaders. Pachymer states that on the arrival of the Tartars the sultan of Konia (the ancient Iconium) was surrounded by enemies, and that he had sought the protection of the emperor. He had invited also the aid of the sultan of Egypt, known to the Crusaders as the sultan of Babylon, against the Tartars, by whom he was hard pressed. Three or four years after this sultan’s death in 1277, Ertogrul died. His son Osman or Othman by his courage and ability gave his followers the leading place among the Turks in Asia Minor and firmly established the dynasty named after him. He began his career by coming to an agreement with some of the other Moslem chiefs to divide the territory occupied by the Seljuks and themselves in Asia Minor into eight portions. Thereupon the combined forces of the old and new Turks commenced a series of attacks upon neighbouring territory. During the next twenty years, their success was almost unchecked. In 1282, they laid siege to Tralles (the present Aidin), and, though opposed by the son of Michael the Eighth, were able to capture and destroy the city.47 A short time afterwards they obtained a fleet and took into their service a large number of sailors who had been discharged by the emperor from motives of economy. Twelve years later, Othman and Ali, chief of another Turkish band, pushed their raids northward and even crossed the river Sangarius and spread desolation throughout the Asiatic provinces of the Empire, before they could be driven back. Two years later, they laid waste the country between the Black Sea and Rhodes.

Othman, first Ottoman Sultan, 1299–1327.

In 1299, Othman took the title of Sultan. In 1302, he and other Turkish leaders inflicted a serious defeat upon the imperial troops and a band of Alans on the river Sangarius near Sabanja. The defeat was shortly afterwards turned into a rout and the subjects of the empire with the Alans were driven to seek shelter in Ismidt, the ancient Nicomedia. The confines of the empire were narrowed, and Othman established himself near Brousa and the neighbouring city of Nicaea, and came to an arrangement for division of the newly acquired territory with the other Turkish chiefs.

Alarmed for a while at the news that the emperor was to receive help from the West, the Turks soon renewed their attacks upon imperial territory, and the Greek population almost everywhere fled before them. They attacked the wealthy cities on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor and occupied several of the islands of the Archipelago. Pachymer states48 that they had inundated the country north of Pergamus so completely that no Roman dared entertain the hope of keeping his property, and all fled before the flood of invaders: some to the city of Pergamus, others to Adramyttium or Lampsacus, while others again crossed the Dardanelles into Europe.

The reign of Othman is contemporaneous with one of the great periods of immigration from Central Asia. The numbers of the Turks were yearly augmented by such hordes that the Greek writers continually use metaphors derived from the torrent, from floods and inundations, to describe their overwhelming force.

Entry of Turks into Europe, 1306–7.

It was partly in order to resist this flood of invasion that the Catalan Grand Company had been invited to aid the emperor, but after having won several victories over the Turks, the lawlessness of the Spaniards forced the emperor to recognise that his Western auxiliaries were of no value for checking the progress of the enemy. The Christians of Asia Minor flocked to the capital to avoid the Company almost as much as to escape from the soldiers of Othman. Worse than all, to these Christians of Spain must be ascribed the introduction of the Turks into Europe. At the invitation of the Company, a band of them, as we have seen, crossed the Dardanelles to aid in attacking the empire which Roger and his Catalans had come to defend. About the same time, another band of Turks landed in Greece for the purpose of pillage. These invasions are epoch-marking, since from this time (1306–7), Europe was never entirely free from the presence of Turks.

Their progress in Asia Minor.

Their great progress was, however, more marked in Asia Minor. In 1308, one of the divisions of Turks not under Othman captured Ephesus, which surrendered to avoid massacre. The city still retained something of its ancient glory. Its famous church of St. John, from the ruins of which the traveller may still gain an idea of its former magnificence, was plundered, and its immense wealth in precious vessels and deposits became the prey of the victors. Many of the inhabitants were cruelly massacred, notwithstanding their submission, and the remainder were driven away as fugitives to find the means of living where they could or to starve. Other places under the rule of Constantinople were attacked, and though many victories were gained—for the imperial troops fought well—the Turks were constantly gaining cities and territory from the Christians. It was in vain that the emperor entered into league with bands of Tartars or with other Turks to attack the armies of Othman, for the forces of this skilful leader were too numerous to be subdued. Brousa had to purchase peace from him. Othman failed, however, to capture Rhodes, which was bravely defended by the military knights from the West, and a monk named Hilarion at the head of the imperial troops gained some successes. The imperial troops succeeded also in 1310 in defeating a certain Mahomet whose dominions were in Caramania. But even with the aid of a band of Tartars who had allied themselves with the emperor, who was in command of twenty thousand of the imperial troops, little could be done to check Othman’s steady progress.

Meantime in Europe, on the north shore of the Marmora, the band of Turks who had been associated with the Grand Company, but who did not acknowledge the rule of Othman, besieged Ganos and laid waste the surrounding country. The troubles which arose a few years later between the Emperor Andronicus the Second and young Andronicus, enabled the Turks steadily to encroach on the empire in Asia Minor, and their introduction as partisans in the civil war which went on in 1322 familiarised them and probably Othman himself with inroads into the country between Constantinople and Gallipoli.49

So far we have been concerned almost exclusively with those portions of the Asiatic army and the hordes which followed it which came westward to the south of the Black Sea. But it must be noted that the body of invaders of the same race who had come westward to the north of that sea, and who had attacked Russia, Poland, and Hungary, had constantly received additions to their numbers. This northern division was possibly more numerous than the Turks in Asia Minor. As early as 1265, a certain Timour, the ruler of Tartars who were in occupation of territory on the Volga, had sent twenty thousand men to aid the Bulgarians against the Empire. Bulgarians and Tartars together had occupied all the passes into Thrace, and the emperor had saved himself with difficulty. In 1284, ten thousand Tartars came southward into Thrace from the great host which were in Hungary. In 1300, the Turks who had entered the Crimea were driven out by another horde of Tartars who had occupied South Russia. The number and strength of these invaders continued constantly to increase. Their power indeed remained firmly established in South Russia until long after the conquest of Constantinople. They had no special sympathy with the Ottoman Turks, and were ready, as were the Alans, to fight either for the emperor or against him. Cantacuzenus mentions that in 1324 one hundred and twenty thousand of them entered Thrace and were beaten in detail by his friend the young Andronicus.

Capture of Brousa, 1326.

Weakened by having to meet this huge northern army, for huge it must have been, although the number of the invaders is probably exaggerated,50 the young emperor was forbidden or was unable to go to the relief of Brousa when, two years afterwards, Othman laid siege to that city. Its surrender in 1326 is a convenient mark of the progress made by the Ottoman Turks.

Their great leader, Othman, died in the following year.