Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/670

Rh 648 TURKEY [HISTORY. the triple alliance, attempted to impose his mediation on the empress Catherine, and to induce her to restore all her conquests. She refused, and both Prussia and Eng land armed for war ; but public opinion declared so strongly against the minister in England that it was impossible for him to pursue his plan. Catherine nevertheless found it in her interest to terminate the war with the Porte. Poland claimed her immediate attention; and, adjourning to a more convenient season her designs upon Constantinople, she concluded the treaty of Jassy in January 1792, by which she added to her empire Otchakoff, with the sea board as far as the Dniester. The protectorate of Kussia over Tiflis and Kartalinia was recognized. Catherine s successor Paul (1796-1801) made it his business to reverse his mother s policy by abandoning the Affairs attack on Turkey. Bonaparte s invasion of Egypt and in Egypt the destruction of the French fleet by Nelson at the battle and. of the Nile led the Porte to join the second coalition Syna against France. Bonaparte, invading Syria, was checked and turned back at Acre, where Jezzar Pasha was assisted in his strenuous defence by an English squadron under Sir Sidney Smith. A Turkish army was meanwhile trans ported from Rhodes to the Egyptian coast. This army was destroyed by Bonaparte on his return to Egypt at the battle of Aboukir on 25th July 1799, after which Bona parte set sail for France, leaving the Egyptian command to Kleber. K16ber, cut off from all communication with France and threatened by superior Turkish forces, entered into a convention at El Arish for the evacuation of Egypt. This convention, however, was annulled by Lord Keith, the English admiral, and K16ber replied by giving battle to the Turks and defeating them at Heliopolis on 20th March 1 800. Egypt was finally wrested from the French by the English expedition under Abercromby, and restored to the sultan. The Ionian Islands, which France had taken from Venice at the time of the treaty of Campo Formio, were conquered by a combined Russian and Turkish force, and were established as a republic, at first under the joint protectorate of Russia and the Porte, afterwards under the sole protectorate of Russia. The former Venetian ports on the mainland of Epirus and Albania were given up to Turkey. Somewhat later, under pressure from St Peters burg, the sultan undertook not to remove the hospodars, or governors, of Walachia and Moldavia without consult ing Russia, and to allow no Turks except merchants and traders to enter those territories. Internal On the restoration of peace France reassumed its ancient condi- position as the friend and ally of the Porte. The sultan now on the throne was Sellm III. (1789-1807). Though the results of the war of the second coalition had been favourable to Turkey, the Ottoman empire was in a most perilous condition. Everywhere the provincial governors were making themselves independent of the sultan s author ity ; a new fanatical sect, the Wahhabees, had arisen in Arabia and seized upon the holy places ; the janissaries were rebellious and more formidable to their sovereign than to a foreign enemy; and the Christian races were beginning to aspire to independence. It had seemed for a while as if the first to rise against the Porte would be the Greeks, among whom the revolutionary influences of 1789 and the songs of the poet Rhegas, put to death by the Turks in 1798, stirred deep feelings of hatred against their oppressors. .Circumstances, however, postponed the Greek revolt and accelerated that of the Servians. In the country immediately south of the Danube the sultan s authority was defied by the janissaries settled about Belgrade and by Passwan Oglu, ruler of Widdin in Bulgaria. The pasha of Servia, hard pressed by these rebels, called upon the rayas to take up arms in defence of the sultan. They did so, and in 1804 the janissaries tion of empire answered by a series of massacres in the Servian villages. The Servians now rose as a nation against the janissaries. Servian Kara George became their chief, and in combination with rev o!t- the pasha of Bosnia, acting under the sultan s orders, ex terminated the janissaries or drove them out of the country. Victorious over one oppressor, the Servians re fused to submit to another. They carried on the war against the sultan himself, and at the suggestion of Russia sent envoys to Constantinople demanding that for the future the fortresses of Servia should be garrisoned only by Servian troops. When the third European coalition against France was Difficul- in course of formation Russian and French influences were ties, of in rivalry at Constantinople. The victories of Napoleon jjj 1 in 1805 gave him the ascendency, and his envoy prevailed rei g n s _ upon the sultan to dismiss, without consulting Russia, the hospodars of Walachia and Moldavia, who were considered to be agents of the court of St Petersburg. This was a breach of the engagement made by the sultan in 1802, and it was followed by the entry of Russian troops into the principalities. England, as the ally of Russia, sent a fleet under Admiral Duckworth through the Dardanelles to threaten Constantinople. While the admiral wasted time in negotiations, the French ambassador, General Sebastiani, taught the Turks how to fortify their capital. The English admiral found that he could do nothing, and repassed the Dardanelles, suffering some loss on the passage. The war on the Danube was not carried on with much vigour on either side. Alexander was occupied with the struggle against Napoleon on the Vistula-; Sellm III. was face to face with mutiny in Constantinople, having brought upon himself the bitter hatred of the janissaries by attempt ing to form them into a body of troops drilled and discip lined after the methods of modern armies While the military art in Europe had been progressing for centuries, Turkey had made no other changes in its military system than those which belonged to general decay. Its troops were a mere horde, capable indeed of a vigorous assault and of a stubborn defence, but utterly untrained in exer cises and manoeuvres, and almost ignorant of the meaning of discipline. Sellm was a reformer in government and administration as well as in military affairs. He broke from the traditions of his palace, and began a new epoch in Turkish history; but the influences opposed to him were too strong, and a mutiny of the janissaries in Con stantinople deprived him of his crown. He was allowed to live, but as a prisoner, while the puppet of the janis saries, Mustafa IV., was placed on the throne (May 1807). A few weeks after this event the treaty of Tilsit ended the war between France and Russia, and provided for the nominal mediation of Napoleon between Russia and the Porte. A truce followed between the armies on the Danube. Among the Turkish generals who had understood the neces sity of Selim s reforms, and who were prepared to support him against the janissaries, was Bairaktar, commander at Bairak- Rustchuk. As soon as the truce gave him freedom of tar. action, Bairaktar marched upon Constantinople. Leading his troops against the palace, he demanded the restoration of Selfm. As the palace gates were closed, Bairaktar ordered an assault ; but at the moment when his troops were entering Sellm was put to death. Besides Mustafa there was only one member of the house of Osman remain ing, his brother Mahmud, who concealed himself in the furnace of a bath until the palace was in the hands of Bairaktar s soldiers. He was then placed on the throne Mahmud (July 1808). For a while Bairaktar governed as grand II. vizier. He was rash enough, however, to dismiss part of his own soldiers from Constantinople. The janissaries attacked him in his palace. A tower in which he defended himself was blown up, and after a battle in the streets of