Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/669

Rh 1687-1791.] TURKEY 647 the possession of Turkey, as well as extensive territories in Servia and Walachia. The grand vizier Ibrahim, another son-in-law of the sultan, who was at the head of affairs from 1718 to 1730, contrived to secure for the empire an un usually long respite from internal disorders ; but the sultan s love of costly pomp and splendour and the luxurious magni ficence of his court rendered him so unpopular that, in consequence of a riot in the autumn of 1730 (1143), he voluntarily abdicated the throne, and his nephew Mahmiid I. became padishah in his stead. (E. J. w. G.) History from 1718. Mahimul With the treaty of Passarowitz the Venetian republic I- disappears from the scene of Turkish warfare. Russia gradually becomes a more formidable enemy than Austria ; and the subject Christian races imperceptibly enter on the first stages of national consolidation and revival. After the long and resultless war with Persia hostilities again Wars broke out with Russia in 1736. Marshal Munnich stormed &quot;th. the lines of Perekop and devastated the Crimea ; but he Russia. wag una bi e t o maintain his army there and retreated with greatly diminished forces. Azoff was taken by General Lascy ; and in the following year Otchakoff fell into the hands of Munnich, while the Crimea was again invaded and ravaged. Austria now joined Russia, and the Porte had to sustain a war in Servia and Bosnia as well as on the coasts of the Black Sea. The double combat was carried on with very different results. While the Russians won victory after victory, and finally penetrated into the heart of Moldavia, the Austrians were defeated and driven across the Danube. On their advancing from Belgrade in the summer of 1739 they were defeated with great loss at Krotzka, and compelled to sue for peace. The treaty of Belgrade, which was signed on 1st September 1739, restored to the Porte Belgrade and Orsova, with the portions of Servia, Bosnia, and Walachia which it had ceded to Austria at the peace of Passarowitz. Russia, unable to continue the war with a victorious Turkish army ready to fall upon its flank, had to conclude peace on very moderate terms. It received Azoff, but under a stipulation that the fortifications should be razed, and that no Russian vessels of war should be kept either on the Black Sea or on the Sea of Azoff. The peace was the last advantageous one made by the Porte without allies ; and the succeeding thirty years were on the whole a period of respite from misfortune. Mustafa After this followed the wars with the empress Catherine, m - before whose genius and resources it seemed as if Turkey must inevitably sink into nothingness. The first contest was provoked by the armed intervention of the empress in Polish affairs and her well-known intrigues with rebellious subjects of the Porte. War was rashly declared by Mustafa III. in October 1768. In 1769 the Russians entered Moldavia and captured the fortress of Choczin (Chotim) ; in the following year their armies made good the conquest of Moldavia and Walachia, while a fleet from the Baltic entered the Greek Archipelago and landed troops in the Morea. The Greeks of the Morea rose in insurrection ; they were, however, overpowered, and the small Russian force withdrew, leaving the Greeks to the vengeance of their conquerors. At sea the Turks suffered a severe defeat near Chios, and their fleet was subsequently blockaded and set on fire in the Bay of Tchesme, the principal officers in the Russian navy being Englishmen. Assistance was, moreover, given by the Russians to Ali Bey, a Mameluke chieftain who was in rebellion against the Porte in Egypt, and to Tahir, a sheikh who had made himself independent ofCriniea a ^ -^- cre - I n 1771 the Russians invaded and conquered by the Crimea. Austria now took alarm, and signed a con- Russia, vention with the Porte preparatory to armed intervention. But the partition of Poland reunited the three neighbour ing Christian powers and prevented a general war. An armistice was agreed upon between Russia and the Porte, and negotiations followed. These were broken off in 1773. The Russians crossed the Danube, and, though unsuccess ful in their attempts upon Silistria and Varna, so com pletely defeated the Turkish forces in the field that on 21st July 1774 the Porte concluded peace at Kutchuk- Kainardji under conditions more unfavourable than those which it had rejected in the previous year. The Tartar territory of the Crimea, with Kuban and the adjoining districts, was made into an independent state, Russia retaining Azoff, Kertch, and Kinburn. Moldavia and Walachia were restored, but on the condition that, as occasion might require, the Russian minister at Constan tinople might remonstrate in their favour. Russia, in fact, was given a species of protectorate over these provinces. Permission was given to Russia to erect a church in Con stantinople, and the following engagement was made : &quot; The Porte promises to protect the Christian religion and its churches; and it also allows the court of Russia to make upon all occasions representations as well in favour of the new church at Constantinople as on behalf of its ministers, promising to take such representations into con sideration.&quot; Out of this clause arose the claim of Russia to the right of protection over all the Christian subjects of the Porte, though the specific right of intervention was clearly attached only to a single church and its ministers. By other clauses in the treaty the obligations restraining Russia from making fortifications and placing ships of war on the Black Sea were annulled. It received the right of free navigation for its merchant ships on all Turkish waters, and the right of placing consuls at all Turkish ports. These last two conditions were of great historical importance through their effect upon Greece. The consuls appointed were usually Greek traders, and permission to carry the Russian flag was indiscriminately given to Greek vessels. Hence there followed that great development of Greek commerce, and of the Greek merchant navy, which in half a century made the insurgent Greeks more than a match for the Turks at sea. The stipulation that the Crimea and adjoining districts should be made into an independent state was of course not intended by Russia to be anything more than a veil for annexation ; and in 1783 Catherine united this territory to her dominions. She had now definitely formed the plan of extinguishing Turkish sovereignty in Europe and placing her younger grandson on the throne of a restored Greek kingdom. The boy was named Constantine; his whole education was Greek and such as to fit him for the throne of Constantinople. Joseph II. of Austria threw himself War with eagerly into the plan for a partition of the Ottoman empire, Rus and in 1788 followed Russia into war. While the Russians a 1 n _ d i besieged Otchakoff, Joseph invaded Bosnia ; but he was unsuccessful and retired ingloriously into Hungary. Otcha koff was stormed by Suwaroff on 16th December 1788. In the following year the Turkish armies were overthrown by Suwaroff in Moldavia and by the Austrian Laudon on the south of the Danube. The fate of the Ottoman empire seemed to tremble in the balance ; it was, how ever, saved by the convulsions into which Joseph s reckless autocracy had thrown his own dominions, and by the triple alliance of England, Prussia, and Holland, now formed by Pitt for the preservation of the balance of power in Europe. Joseph died in 1790 ; his successor Leopold II. entered into negotiations, and concluded peace at Sistova in August 1791, relinquishing all his conquests except a small district in Croatia. Catherine continued the war alone. Ismail was captured by Suwaroff with fearful slaughter, and the Russian armies pushed on south of the Danube. Pitt, with Austria.