that country. The war lasted for twelve years, during which Tiflis, Shirvan and Daghestan were taken; finally Shah Abbas established himself on the Persian throne and in 1590 made peace with Turkey, who retained her conquests in Georgia, Azerbāijān and Shirvan. But this short-sighted policy is criticized by Turkish historians, who censure Murad III. for thus weakening the neighbouring Mussulman states such as Persia and Daghestan, thereby facilitating Russia's future expansion at their cost. Sokolli's assassination, on the 11th of October 1578, had meanwhile thrown the ccomtry into disorder. There was now no authority left to hold in check the corrupt influences of the harem. The avenues to power were through bribery and yet more unspeakable paths; the fiefs which formed the basis of the feudal array were bestowed on favourites' favourites, or sold to the highest bidder, and the sultan himself shared in the corrupt plunder. At last that final expedient of weak governments, the debasing of the coinage, led to a crisis. In 1589 mutinies of troops took place all over the empire, and in the two following years there were several risings of the Janissaries at Constantinople, the pretext being everywhere that the soldiers were being robbed of their pay. At this juncture a fresh crisis in the relations with Austria arose. The peace concluded in 1568 and thrice renewed (in 1573, 1576 and 1584) had not prevented the continuance of raids and forays, from either side of the frontier, that at times assumed the dimensions of regular campaigns. The climax came in 1593. All through the preceding year Hassan “Tilli,” beylerbey of Bosnia, had raided in Croatia, taking border fortresses and driving off the inhabitants into slavery. In June 1593, with an army of 30,000 men, he laid siege to Sissek; the Austrian and Hungarian levies hurried to its relief; and on the 22nd the Turks were routed with immense slaughter on the banks of the Kulpa, Hassan himself, with many other beys and two of the imperial princes, being among the slain. Though not yet formally declared, the “long war” was now in full progress. In August, Sinan Pasha, the grand vizier—now eighty years of age—took command of the troops for the Hungarian War and left Constantinople, dragging with him the Austrian ambassador in chains. The capture of Veszprém and of Raab (1594) and the failure of the archduke Matthias to take Gran seemed to promise another rapid victory of the Ottoman arms; but Sinan was ill-supported from Constantinople, the situation was complicated by the revolt of Walachia and Moldavia, and the war was destined to last, with varying fortunes, for fourteen years. On the 16th of January 1595 Murad III. died.
In spite of the internal corruption which, under Murad III., heralded the decay of the empire, the prestige of the Ottomans in Europe was maintained during his reign. Even the emperor had to be content to be treated by the sultan as an inferior and tributary prince; while France had to suffer, with no more than an idle protest, the insult of the conversion of Catholic churches at Constantinople into mosques. In spite of frequent causes of friction, good relations were maintained with Venice, through the influence of the sultana Safié, and the capitulations with the republic of St Mark were renewed in 1589. Those with France were also renewed (July 6, 1581); and capitulations were signed for the first time with the grand duke of Tuscany (1578) and with England (1580).[1] In the following year permanent diplomatic relations were established by England with the Porte by the despatch of William Harebone as ambassador, Queen Elizabeth urging as her special claim to the sultan's friendship their common mission to fight “idolaters.”
The new sultan, Mahommed III., Murad's son, succeeded to the throne at a moment when the Turkish arms were suffering reverses in Hungary and in the revolted Danubian provinces; Mahommed III., 1595–1603. the Janissaries, too, were ill-content and mutinous, and to put an end to their murmurings Mahommed was persuaded by Sinan Pasha to lead them to the war in person. The immediate effect was good; Erlau was captured in October 1596, and a three days' battle in the plain of Keresztes (Oct. 23 to 26) ended in the disastrous rout of the allied troops under the archduke Maximilian and Sigismund, prince of Transylvania. But the Turks did not profit much by their victory. The new grand vizier, Cicala, by his severity to the soldiers, mainly Asiatics, who had shown cowardice in the battle, drove thousands to desert; and the sultan, who had himself little stomach for the perils of campaigning, returned to Constantinople, leaving the conduct of the war to his generals. The campaign of 1598 began with the loss of Raab, and continued unfavourable to the Turks, who lost Totis, Veszprém and Pápa, and were hard pressed in Budapest. In October want of supplies and a mutiny of the Janissaries compelled the commander-in-chief to retreat into winter quarters at Belgrade. In 1599 the first peace overtures were made, but came to nothing; and the confused fighting of this and the following year culminated in the capture of Kanizsa by the Turks (September 1600). The attempt of the archduke Ferdinand, at the head of 30,000 men, to retake it a year later was defeated. In August 1602 Székesfehérvár again fell into the hands of the Turks; in November the siege of Buda by the archduke Matthias, who had taken Pest by storm, was raised by the grand vizier Hassan.
Trouble had, however, meanwhile broken out in other parts of the Ottoman dominions. The deserters from Cicala's army, distributed in armed bands throughout Asia Minor, had become centres round which all the elements of discontent gathered, and formed the mainstay of the Jellali sectaries who, at this time, rose in insurrection and ravaged Anatolia. In Constantinople, early in 1603, there was, moreover, a serious rising of the spahis; and, finally, in September Shah Abbas of Persia took advantage of what is known in Turkish history as “the year of insurrections” to declare war and reconquer Tabriz. In the midst of this crisis, on the 22nd of December 1603, Sultan Mahommed III. died, and was succeeded by his elder son, Ahmed I., a boy of fourteen.
Though negotiations for peace were at once begun, it was not till three years after Ahmed's accession that the peace of Ahmed I., 1603–1617. Sitvatorok, concluded on the 11th of November 1606, at last put an end to the war in Europe. By this treaty the annual tribute payable by Austria was abolished, but an indemnity of 200,000 florins was paid “once for all” by the emperor, who was henceforth to be given his proper imperial title (padishah) in Turkish official documents. The peace of Sitvatorok (or Zeideva, as it is also called) marks the close of Turkey's period of conquest. No longer haughtily imposed on the vanquished, as was the case with former treaties, it was submitted to the examination and discussion of both parties before being signed. It freed Austria from the humiliating tribute to which the treaty of 1547 had subjected her, and established relations between the two monarchs on a footing of equality. It was thus the first manifest sign of Turkey's decadence from the glory of Suleiman I.'s reign, when King Ferdinand stooped to call the sultan's vizier his brother. For the remainder of the reign the Persian War was continued fitfully, a treaty of peace, signed in 1611, not being observed.
In 1617 the sultan died, and was succeeded by his brother Mustafa; but the latter being declared incompetent to reign, Mustafa I., 1617–1618 and Osman II., 1618–1622. his brother Osman took his place on the throne. The war in Persia was terminated by the renewal in 1618 of the treaty of 1611, whereby all the conquests effected by Murad III. and Mahommed III. were given up. Peace, however, left the rebellious Janissaries leisure to engage in plots against the sultan, and in order to occupy them and to remove them from the capital advantage was taken of the king of Poland having intervened in the affairs of Transylvania and the principalities to declare war against him. Osman marched against Khotin, but failed to capture it, and his unpopularity with the army was increased by rumours that he designed to collect such troops as were loyal to him, under pretence of going on
- ↑ They were renewed with England in 1593, 1603, 1606, 1622, 1624, 1641, 1662 and 1675.
