Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/665

Rh 1421-1566.] TURKEY 643 monarchs : his unflinching courage and tireless vigour were not more remarkable than his political sagacity and his literary and poetic talents ; but so merciless was he that he has always been known in Turkish history as Yawuz Selim or Selim the Grim. Happily for Europe he turned his attention to the neighbouring Muhammedan states and left the Christian powers in peace. Having caused both his brothers to be put to death, he marched against Persia, the king of which country had given refuge to the family of one of the hapless Turkish princes. The quarrel between them was further embittered by religious hatred : the shah of Persia was the pillar of the Shi ites, as the Ottoman sultan was of the Sunnites. Selim in his fanatical zeal had ordered a massacre of his Shfite subjects, in which forty-five thousand persons suffered death. The shah was eager to avenge the slaughter of his co-religionists. The janissaries showed signs of insubordination upon the march, but Selim resolutely maintained order and reduced them to submission. At length they came upon the Persian host drawn out on the plain of Chaldiran, where a great battle was fought, which ended in the rout of the Persians and left the way to Tabriz, the residence of the Persian king, open to the sultan. Thither Selim proceeded; but eight days later he set out on his homeward march. The battle of Chaldiran brought no addition of importance to the empire; but the districts of Diyar-Bekr (Diarbekr) and Kurdistan, through which the army had passed on the way to Persia, were completely subdued and annexed to the Ottoman dominions. Selim s next important campaign was against the Memliiks of Egypt. This body of Eastern chivalry offered a most gallant resistance to the Osmanlis ; but, possessing no artillery, which they disdained as un becoming men of valour, they were defeated in a series of engagements, and Selim and his army entered Cairo as conquerors in 1517 (923). The results of this war were momentous and far-reaching : the Ottoman empire was greatly increased by the addition of Egypt, Syria, and the Hejaz, of all of which the Memliiks had been lords ; the caliphate of Islam was won for the house of Osrnan, Selim constraining the representative of the old Abbasid family, who resided, a purely spiritual prince, at Cairo, to make over to him and his heirs the rights and privileges of the successors of the Prophet. The sultan at the same time acquired from him the sacred banner and other relics of the founder of Islam, which had been handed down to the Arabian prince from his fathers, and which are now pre served in the seraglio at Constantinople. On his return Selim set himself to strengthen and improve his fleet, doubtless with a view to the conquest of Rhodes. He died, however, in 1520 (926), before his extensive prepara tions were completed. This sultan reigned only eight years, but in that short time he almost doubled the extent of the Ottoman empire. Suleyman I., who succeeded his father Selim as sultan, had not been long on the throne before he found himself involved in a war with the king of Hungary. He marched northwards with a powerful army and wrested from the enemy several places of importance, including the strongly fortified city of Belgrade. Having left a large garrison in this city, which was regarded as the key to the Chris tian lands north of the Danube, the sultan returned to Constantinople, where he continued his father s work of creating a strong and efficient Ottoman fleet. When all was ready Suleyman set out for Rhodes, determined to wipe away the disgrace of his ancestor s second failure, as he had done that of his first. The conquest of Egypt had, moreover, rendered the possession of Rhodes necessary to the Turks, as the passage between Constantinople and their new acquisition could never be safe so long as that island remained in hostile hands. The Knights of St John met the attack in a manner worthy of their illustri ous order ; but the overwhelming force of the Ottomans and the hopelessness of any relief compelled them to accept the sultan s terms. These were highly honourable to the de fenders, who were permitted to retire unmolested, while Suleyman pledged himself to respect the Christian religion in the island, which now, 1522 (929), became his. Four years after the conquest of Rhodes the sultan again invaded Hungary, where in the renowned battle of Mohacz he annihilated the army of the Magyars and slew their king. Thence he marched along the Danube to Buda- Pesth, which opened its gates to him, and there he rested a little while before starting on his homeward way. The disturbed state of Asia Minor hastened Suleymdn s depart ure ; but in three years (1529) he was back at Buda, osten sibly as the ally of Zapolya, an Hungarian who claimed the throne left vacant by Louis, who fell at Mohacz. Ferdinand of Austria had opposed the claim of Zapolya, who thereon had applied to the sultan for aid, which that monarch was most willing to accord. The troops of Ferdinand being driven from Buda, Suleyman, accom panied by his protege, advanced upon Vienna. On 27th September 1529 the vast Turkish host, under the personal command of one of the greatest of the family of Osman, laid siege to the capital of the German empire, and on the 14th of the following month, after a most desperate assault carried on for four days, the invaders were compelled to retire, leaving the city in the possession of its heroic defenders. The torrent of Turkish military might had now reached its northern limit : once again it vainly swept round the walls of Vienna, but further it never went. Suleyman next directed his arms against Persia, from which country he won a large portion of Armenia and Irak as well as Baghdad, the old capital of the Abbasid caliphs. In 1542 he was again in Hungary, having been appealed to by the widow of Zapolya on behalf of her infant son against the pretensions of Ferdinand. Suleyman promised to place the child upon the throne when he should be of a proper age ; in the meantime he treated Hungary as an Ottoman province, dividing it into sanjaks or military dis tricts, and garrisoning Buda and other important cities with Turkish troops. Six years later a truce for five years was concluded between the sultan and Ferdinand, whereby almost all Hungary and Transylvania were made over to the former, who was also to receive a yearly present, or more correctly tribute, of thirty thousand ducats. The Turks, now at the zenith of their power, were the terror of all around them. The achievements of the Ottoman navy during the reign of Suleyman were hardly, if at all, less Annexa- remarkable than those of the army. Khayr-ud-Din, the tion of Barbarossa of the Europeans, won Algiers for Turkey, and an | ier held the Mediterranean against the fleets of Spain and Tripoli. Italy ; Torghud added Tripoli to the empire ; and Piyala routed the galleys of Genoa, Florence, Naples, and Malta off the isle of Jerba. But fortune did not always smile upon the crescent. In 1565 (973) Suleyman sustained the second great check he was destined to encounter. The Turks once more measured swords with the Knights of St John and drove them from Malta, which had been given to the order by Charles V. on its expulsion from Rhodes. A powerful Turkish army and fleet, commanded by officers of renown, were accordingly despatched to win Malta for the Ottoman crown ; but so valiantly was it defended that the Turks were forced to withdraw with a loss of twenty five thousand men. Suleyman died in harness. In 1566 (974), when seventy-six years of age, he entered Hungary for the last time, summoned thither to aid his vassal, young Sigismund Zapolya. Sziget, a place which had foiled the Turks on previous occasions, was the first object of attack. Count Zrinyi, the governor, determined to resist to the last,