The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (52 page)

iltizam
: tax farm

imam: prayer leader in mosque

irade
: imperial order (successor of firman)

Janissaries:
Yeni Çeri;
Sultan’s standing army, an élite corps until 1826

jihad: a Holy War against the Infidel

jurnalcis
: police informers

kafe
: ‘cage’; guarded palace apartments where Ottoman princes lived as virtual prisoners

kaimakan
: deputy Grand Vizier

kaime
: paper money

kapetanate
: powerful Muslim ruling military caste in Bosnia

Kapudan Pasha
: Grand Admiral

Khedive: Ottoman vassal ruler in Egypt, 1867–1914

kiliç ku
ş
anmaci
: sword-girding ceremony, equivalent to a sultan’s coronation

klephts: Greek bandits

Lale Devri
: ‘Tulip Era’ (1718–30)

madresse
: Muslim college of higher education

Mamelukes: originally slaves, became ruling caste in Egypt

Mecelle
: Ottoman code of civil law, issued 1869–78

Meclis-i Ayan
: Chamber of Notables; Senate (upper house of Ottoman parliament)

Meclis-i Mebusan
: Chamber of Deputies (lower house of Ottoman parliament)

‘Mehmedchik’
: nickname given to Ottoman private soldiery (cf. ‘Tommy Atkins’, ‘poilu’ etc.)

millet
: legal status given to a recognized religious sect (Orthodox Christians; Jews, etc.); later signifies a nation

mufti
: an expounder of Muslim Holy Law

Mulkiye
: Ottoman civil service school (
Mekteb-i Mulkiye
)

mullah: high ranking Muslim judge and member of the
ulema

namaz
: the offering of prayers

Nizam-i Cedid
: ‘New Order’ of Sultan Selim III, especially his reformed army

orta
: battalion of Janissaries

Pasha: courtesy title for a senior official

Philike Hetairia
: Society of Friends, a Greek nationalist movement

Porte: short for ‘Sublime Porte; see
Bab-i Âli

redif
: military reservists

rusdiye
: secondary schools

sancaci
ş
erif
: Holy banner of Islam

sanjak
: local administrative unit, a county

sarayi (sarai)
: palace

segban-i cedit
: military bodyguard; ‘keepers of the hounds’

ş
elamlik
: the gathering of men at the ceremony of midday Friday prayers

serdengeçi
: crack Janissary infantry assault force

ş
eriat
: Islamic Holy Law, regulating the Muslim code of behaviour

ş
eyhülislâm
: Grand Mufti; head of Muslim hierarchy in Ottoman Empire

Shi’ites: fundamentalist Islamic believers; practitioners of Shi’a

silahtar
: Imperial bodyguard of Janissary dragoons

sipahi
: cavalryman, originally the holder of a
timar
or a horseman in the Sultan’s lifeguards

Sublime Porte: see
Bab-i Âli

Sunni (Sunnites): orthodox Muslim worshippers

Tanzimat
: re-structuring of government: XIXth century reform era

timar
: grant of revenue received from a particular area of land (but not the freehold of the land)

turbe
: mausoleum

ulema
: Muslim hierarchy

Valide Sultana
: reigning Sultan’s mother

vladika
: Montenegrin Prince-Bishop

vilayet: province

yamak
: young Janissary mercenaries

N
OTES

ABREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

Ahmad: Feroz Ahmad,
The Young Turks

Alderson: A.D. Alderson,
The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty

Anderson: M.S. Anderson,
The Eastern Question

Barker: T.M. Barker,
Double Eagle and Crescent

BDD
: G.P. Gooch and H. Temperley,
British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914

Cemal: Djemal Pasha,
Memoirs of a Turkish Statesman

Corr. Nap.
:
Correspondence de Napoléon I

Davison,
Essays
: R. Davison,
Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History
.

Davison,
Reform
: R. Davison,
Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876

DBF
:
Documents of British Foreign Policy, Series I

DDF
:
Documents Diplomatiques Françaises
, série 2 or 3

DDI
:
I Documenti Diplomatici italiani

EI
i:
The Encyclopaedia of Islam
, first ed., 1913–1938

EI
ii:
The Encyclopedia of Islam
, second ed., 1954–

FO: Foreign Office Papers in the Public Record Office.

Gibb and Bowen: Sir Hamilton Gibb and H. Bowen,
Islamic Society and the West

GP
: J. Lepsius, A. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, F. Thimme,
Die Grosse Politik der europäischen Kabinette

HJ
:
Historical Journal
(Cambridge)

Hinsley: F.H. Hinsley (ed.),
British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey

Hurewitz: J.C. Hurewitz,
Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, A Documentary Record

IJMES
:
International Journal of Middle East Studies

JMH
:
Journal of Modern History

Kedourie: E. Kedourie,
England and the Middle East

Kemal
Sp
.: M.K. Atatürk,
Speech delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927

Kent: Marian Kent (ed.),
The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire

Langer: W.L. Langer,
The Diplomacy of Imperialism
(rev. single volume edition)

Lewis: Bernard Lewis,
The Emergence of Modern Turkey

L-P: Stanley Lane-Poole,
Life . . . of Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe

PRO: Public Record Office, Kew

SEER
: Slavic and East European Review

Shaw
Between
: S.J. Shaw,
Between Old and New
:
The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III

Shaw,
Gazis
: S.J. Shaw,
History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
, vol. 1,
Empire of the Gazis

Shaws: S.J. Shaw and E. K. Shaw,
History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
, vol. 2,
The Rise of Modern Turkey

Sumner: B.H. Sumner,
Russia and the Balkans

Temp.: H.W.V. Temperley,
Britain and the Near East; The Crimea

Trump.: Ulrich Trumpener,
Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1918

Prologue: Ottomans Triumphant

1
. ‘Dreadful happening’, cited from Agarathos monastery codex by Steven Runciman in
The Fall of Constantinople 1453
, p.
160. Runciman’s account remains the finest study of the event and makes an interesting contrast to chapter 68 of Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
. See also Halil
Inalcik, ‘The Policy of Mehmed II towards the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City’,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers
, no. 23, pp. 213–49; and, in
general, his
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1600
.

2
. Lewis, pp. 317–18; Shaw,
Gazis
, p. 78.

3
. N. Machiavelli,
The Prince
, fourth paragraph of Chapter IV.

4
. Lewis, pp. 89–92; Shaw,
Gazis
, pp. 159–63; see also the entries in EI i on
timar
and
wakf
(Arabic spelling
of
vakif
).

5
. Shaw,
Gazis
, pp. 132–49.

6
. Alderson, pp. 74–6.

7
. Davison,
Essays
, pp. 16–17. Halil Inalcik, ‘The Heyday and Decline of the Ottoman Empire’ in
Cambridge History
of Islam
, I, pp. 324–53. M.A. Cooke (ed.),
A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730
is a useful selection of relevant chapters from the Cambridge histories. Andrina Stiles,
The
Ottoman Empire 1450–1700
, is an excellent and stimulating introduction, a model of compression.

Chapter 1: Floodtide of Islam

1
. Barker, pp. 244–5. Thomas M. Barker’s book is less well-known than John Stoye’s dramatic narrative
The Siege of
Vienna
, but with great clarity he puts the whole campaign and its aftermath in a general historical perspective.

2
. Ibid., pp. 68–71. The eminent German scholar Franz Babinger contributed a detailed biographical entry on Kara Mustafa to
EI
i.

3
. Count Frosaco’s letters, originally printed in
Revue de Hongrie
, III, are cited by Barker, with this extract on p. 257.

4
. Stoye, op. cit., and cf. E. Crankshaw,
Maria Theresa
, pp. 121–3.

5
. The finest modern account of the battle of the Kahlenberg is in Barker, pp. 321–34.

6
. For the diplomat (Benetti) and his report, see N. Barber,
Lords of the Golden Horn
, p. 105.

7
. Richard Kreutel,
Kara Mustafa vor Wien
, pp. 121–4 and 184, an annotated translation of a diary kept by an anonymous Ottoman
official. Kreutel’s work is critically examined by Barker, p. 403 (and cf. p. 364).

Chapter 2: Challenge from the West

1
. Barker, pp. 369–70; Lord Kinross,
The Ottoman Centuries
, p. 349.

2
. M.A. Cooke (ed.),
Ottoman Empire to 1730
, p. 190; N. Cheetham,
Mediaeval Greece
, pp.300–1.

3
. Shaw,
Gazis
, p. 219; Alderson, pp. 65–6.

4
. Ibid., pp. 32–6.

5
. Selim II biography in
EI
i; Barber, p. 108.

6
. Gibb and Bowen I, pp. 314–28; Nahsom Weissmann,
Les Janissaries
, pp. 30–48.

7
. Gibb and Bowen II, pp. 191–2.

8
. Shaw,
Gazis
, p. 223; Kinross, op. cit., p. 353; Cooke, op. cit., p. 193.

9
. Lord Acton,
Lectures on Modern History
, p. 259.

10
. Rifat Abou El-Haj, ‘Ottoman Diplomacy at Karlowitz’,
Journal of American Oriental Society
, vol. 87 (1967), pp.
498–512; Barker, pp. 373–4; Davison,
Essays
, p. 20; Shaw,
Gazis
, pp. 223–5; Kinross, op. cit., pp. 356–7, 373–6.

11
. Alderson, p. 66; Shaw,
Gazis
, p. 228. See also the biographical entry by Bowen on Ahmed III in
EI
ii.

12
. Gibb and Bowen II, p. 216 and pp. 233–4; C.A. Frazee,
Christians and Sultans
, pp. 6–7; G.G. Arnakis, ‘The Greek
church of Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire’,
JMH
, vol. 24, September 1952, especially pp. 242–50.

13
.
A. de la Moutraye,
Travels
, vol. 1, p. 333.

14
. Davison,
Essays
, p. 20; Kinross, op. cit., pp. 376 and 383. The saying about the turban seems to have originated with the
Byzantine historian Michael Ducas.

Chapter 3: Tulip Time and After

1
. Lewis, p. 437; for Koçi Bey, see C.H. Imber’s entry on him in
EI
ii, vol. 5.

2
. M.L. Shay,
Ottoman Empire from 1720 to 1734
, pp. 17–27; Kinross,
Ottoman Centuries
, p. 378, pp. 380–2.

3
. Lewis, pp. 45–6; Shaw,
Gazis
, p. 235.

4
. Shay, op. cit., p. 19.

5
. Letter to Lady Bristol, 10 April 1718, E. Halsband,
Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
, vol. 1, p. 397.

6
. L. Cassels,
The Struggle for the Ottoman Empire
, p. 52; L.A. Vandal,
Une ambassade française en Orient sous Louis XV
,
p. 88.

7
. Ibid., p. 85.

8
. Shay, op. cit., p. 22.

9
. Kinross,
Ottoman Centuries
, p. 380; Shaw,
Gazis
, pp. 234, 293–4.

10
. Ibid., pp. 236–7; N. Berkes,
The Development of Secularization in Turkey
, pp. 42–5; M. Daley,
The Turkish
Legacy
, pp. 17–24; Lewis, pp. 50–1.

11
. Jean-Claude Flachat,
Observations sur le Commerce et sur les arts . . . même des Indes Orientales
, p. 111.

12
. Shay, op. cit. (14 January 1724), p. 22.

13
. Ibid., p. 23.

14
. Ibid., pp. 27–8; Vandal, op. cit., pp. 27–8.

15
. Lewis, p. 47.

16
. Vandal, op. cit., pp. 116–46. The following paragraphs are based on H. Benedikt,
Der Pascha-Graf Alexander von Bonneval
,
especially pp. 82–160.