all the neighbouring lands were governed by Moslems or Roman Catholics; and at home the peasants were permitted to retain their creed and communal organization. Judged by its influence on Bosnian politics, the Orthodox community was relatively unimportant at the Turkish conquest; and its subsequent growth is perhaps due to the official recognition of the Greek Church, as the representative of Christianity in Turkey. The Christian aristocracy lost its privileges, but its ancient titles of duke (vojvod) and count (knez) did not disappear. The first was retained by the leaders who still carried on the struggle for liberty in Montenegro; the second was transferred to the headmen of the communes. Many of the Franciscans refused to abandon their work, and in 1463 they received a charter from the sultan Mahomet II., which is still preserved in the monastery of Fojnica, near Travnik. This toleration of religious orders, though it did not prevent occasional outrages, remained to the last characteristic of Turkish policy in Bosnia; and even in 1868 a colony of Trappist monks was permitted to settle in Banjaluka.
The Turkish triumph was the opportunity of the Bogomils, who thenceforth, assuming a new character, controlled the destinies of their country for more than three centuries. Bosnia was regarded by successive sultans as the gateway into Hungary; hatred of the Hungarians Bosnia under Turkish rule. and their religion was hereditary among the Bogomils. Thus the desire for vengeance and the prospect of a brilliant military career impelled the Bogomil magnates to adopt the creed of Islam, which, in its austerity, presented some points of resemblance to their own doctrines. The nominal governor of the country was the Turkish vali, who resided at Banjaluka or Travnik, and rarely interfered in local affairs, if the taxes were duly paid. Below him ranked the newly converted Moslem aristocracy, who adopted the dress, titles and etiquette of the Turkish court, without relinquishing their language or many of their old customs. They dwelt in fortified towns or castles, where the vali was only admitted on sufferance for a few days; and, at the outset, they formed a separate military caste, headed by 48 kapetans—landholders exercising unfettered authority over their retainers and Christian serfs, but bound, in return, to provide a company of mounted troops for the service of their sovereign. Their favourite pursuits were fighting, either against a common enemy or among themselves, hunting, hawking and listening to the minstrels who celebrated their exploits. Their yearly visits to Serajevo assumed in time the character of an informal parliament, for the discussion of national questions; and their rights tended always to increase, and to become hereditary, in fact, though not in law. In every important campaign of the Turkish armies, these descendants of the Bogomils were represented; they amassed considerable wealth from the spoils of war, and frequently rose to high military and administrative positions. Thus, in 1570, Ali Pasha, a native of Herzegovina, became grand vizier; and he was succeeded by the distinguished soldier and statesman, Mahomet Beg Sokolović, a Bosnian. Below the feudal nobility and their Moslem soldiers came the Christian serfs, tillers of the soil and taxpayers, whose lives and property were at the mercy of their lords. The hardships of their lot, and, above all, the system by which the strongest of their sons were carried off as recruits for the corps of janissaries (q.v.), frequently drove them to brigandage, and occasionally to open revolt.
These conditions lasted until the 19th century, and meanwhile the country was involved in the series of wars waged by the Turks against Austria, Hungary and Venice. In the Krajina and all along the Montenegrin frontier, Moslems and Christians carried on a ceaseless feud, External history 1528–1821. irrespective of any treaties concluded by their rulers; while the Turkish campaigns in Hungary provided constant occupation for the nobles during a large part of the 16th and 17th centuries. But after the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683, the situation changed. Instead of extending the foreign conquests of their sultan, the Bosnians were hard pressed to defend their own borders. Zvornik fell before the Austro-Hungarian army in 1688, and the Turkish vali, who was still officially styled the “vali of Hungary,” removed his headquarters from Banjaluka to Travnik, a more southerly, and therefore a safer capital. Two years later, the imperial troops reached Dolnja Tuzla, and retired with 3000 Roman Catholic emigrants. Serajevo was burned in 1697 by Eugene of Savoy, who similarly deported 40,000 Christians. The treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718) deprived the Turks of all the Primorje, or littoral of Herzegovina, except the narrow enclaves of Klek and Suttorina, left to sunder the Ragusan dominions from those of Venice. At the same time a strip of territory in northern Bosnia was ceded to Austria, which was thus able to control both banks of the Save. This territory was restored to Turkey in 1739, at the peace of Belgrade;[1] but in 1790 it was reoccupied by Austrian troops. Finally, in 1791, the treaty of Sistova again fixed the line of the Save and Una as the Bosnian frontier.
The reform of the Ottoman government contemplated by the sultan Mahmud II. (1808–1839) was bitterly resented in Bosnia, where Turkish prestige had already been weakened by the establishment of Servian autonomy under Karageorge. Many of the janissaries had married Moslem rebellions. and settled on the land, forming a strongly conservative and fanatical caste, friendly to the Moslem nobles, who now dreaded the curtailment of their own privileges. Their opportunity came in 1820, when the Porte was striving to repress the insurrections in Moldavia, Albania and Greece. A first Bosnian revolt was crushed in 1821; a second, due principally to the massacre of the janissaries, was quelled with much bloodshed in 1827. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, a further attempt at reform was initiated by the sultan and his grand vizier, Reshid Pasha. Two years later came a most formidable outbreak; the sultan was denounced as false to Islam, and the Bosnian nobles gathered at Banjaluka, determined to march on Constantinople, and reconquer the Ottoman empire for the true faith. A holy war was preached by their leader, Hussein Aga Berberli, a brilliant soldier and orator, who called himself Zmaj Bosanski, the “Dragon of Bosnia,” and was regarded by his followers as a saint. The Moslems of Herzegovina, under Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović, remained loyal to the Porte, but in Bosnia Hussein Aga encountered little resistance. At Kossovo he was reinforced by 20,000 Albanians, led by the rebel Mustapha Pasha; and within a few weeks the united armies occupied the whole of Bulgaria, and a large part of Macedonia. Their career was checked by Reshid Pasha, who persuaded the two victorious commanders to intrigue against one another, secured the division of their forces, and then fell upon each in turn. The rout of the Albanians at Prilipe and the capture of Mustapha at Scutari were followed by an invasion of Bosnia. After a desperate defence, Hussein Aga fled to Esseg in Croatia-Slavonia; his appeal for pardon was rejected, and in 1832 he was banished for life to Tribizond. The power of the Bosnian nobles, though shaken by their defeat, remained unbroken; and they resisted vigorously when their kapetanates were abolished in 1837; and again when a measure of equality before the law was conceded to the Christians in 1839. In Herzegovina, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic reaped the reward of his fidelity. He was left free to tyrannize over his Christian subjects, a king in all but name. In 1840 he descended from his mountain stronghold of Stolac to wage war upon the vladika Peter II. of Montenegro, and simultaneously to suppress a Christian rising. Peace was arranged at Ragusa in 1842, and it was rumoured that Ali had concluded a secret alliance with Montenegro, hoping to shake off the suzerainty of the sultan, and to found an entirely independent kingdom. It is impossible to verify this charge, but during the troubled years that ensued, Ali pursued an elaborate policy of intrigue. He sent large bribes to influential persons at Constantinople; he aided the Turkish vali to repress the Christians, who had again revolted; and he supported the Bosnian nobles against reforms imposed by the vali. At last, in 1850, a Turkish army was despatched to restore quiet. Ali
- ↑ For details of these events see Umar Effendi, History of the War in Bosnia (1737–1739). Translated by C. Fraser (London, 1830).
