Chapter IV · THE RULING INSTITUTION: AS AN ARMY

The Military Aspect

The Ottoman government had been an army before it was anything else. Like the Turkish nations of the steppe lands, the Ottoman nation was “born of war and organized for conquest.”[282] Fighting was originally the first business of the state and governing the second. As time went on, and particularly after the capture of Constantinople, the necessity of administering immense territories transferred the preponderance to the governmental aspect; but even in Suleiman’s time the two great functions of the Ruling Institution were very closely united. War carried practically the whole government into the field.[283] Of course substitute officials had to be left behind to attend to what public business was absolutely necessary, but these were paralleled by, and indeed were usually identical with, the officers and soldiers who had to be left behind to preserve public order. So completely was the government an army, that the more important judges, who did not belong directly to the Ruling Institution, were taken into the field. Suleiman on his last campaign had 48,316 men under pay.[284] Acceptance of the sultan’s pay by ordinary usage signified that the recipient was a kul.[285] Evidently, then, almost the entire personnel of the Ruling Institution, except the younger pages and the Ajem-oghlans who were as yet unfit, accompanied the master to war.[286] In fact, army and government were one. War was the external purpose, government the internal purpose, of one institution, composed of one body of men. On the military side, this institution carried on war abroad, repressed revolt at home, kept itself in power, and preserved sufficient order in the empire to allow a busy and varied economic and social activity. On the governmental side, it supplied itself with funds, regulated its own workings,—which was no small task,—kept the operations of the other institutions of the empire in order, and enforced the law. The high officials of government held high command in war. The generals of the army had extensive administrative duties in regard to the affairs of the troops under them, the management of departments of state, or the government of provinces.

The scope of the present treatise confines the discussion of the Ruling Institution as an army to those features which lie nearest the governmental aspect. The great majority of its members constituted the standing army of the empire, in the two great sections of Janissaries, or infantry, and Spahis of the Porte, or cavalry. Subordinate sections cared for the artillery and transport services, and for other necessary adjuncts to campaigning. Although the feudal Spahis did not receive pay from the sultan, and hence were not properly kullar, their officers were his slaves, even though many of them were supported during their term of service from fiefs. Besides these regular troops there were also attached to the Ottoman army certain irregular bodies of a lower order,—the Akinji, the Azabs, the Kurds, and so on.

The Janissaries[287]

The body of regular infantry known as Yenicheri, or “new troops,” a name which the West has changed to Janissaries, comes near to standing in the Western imagination for the sultan’s entire slave-family.[288] In the sixteenth century, however, it formed not more than a fourth of the whole number; nor does its importance seem to have been beyond its numerical proportion, except in one or two respects. Since its members were physically trained beyond comparison with their intellectual education, since they were kept in poverty and hence were comparatively irresponsible, and since a large portion of them were in comparative idleness in time of peace, they were liable to act as an organized and very dangerous mob. They might start a riot on short notice, or burn a section of the city in order to pillage the neighboring houses, or rifle the shops of the Jews, or plunder the grand vizier’s establishment.[289] They could not easily be restrained from plundering cities which had capitulated or from violating terms of surrender.[290] They felt that the death of a sultan gave them an interregnum of license before the accession of a new sovereign.[291] They demanded donatives at the succession of a new ruler with such increasing rapacity as to embarrass the treasury;[292] and they needed to be braced at critical moments by liberal presents.[293] In time of battle, however, they drew up an invincible line behind which the person of their sovereign was as safe as in an impregnable fortress. Their devotion to his person was the greater because they were in a special sense his kullar, and because he was one of them, being inscribed in one of their odas and receiving his pay regularly.[294] In small groups on garrison duty their severe training seems to have made of them an efficient police.[295] Yet their esprit de corps, resting on consciousness of power, made them feared at all times. They took an active part in determining the destinies of the empire in two ways,—by limiting conquests, and by influencing the succession to the throne.[296] They compelled the mighty Selim to turn back from both Persia and Egypt.[297] They murmured before Vienna, and without doubt hastened the raising of the siege.[298]

The Succession to the Throne

The Janissaries had no small influence in determining the succession to the throne.[299] There was no law fixing the succession, since neither the Sheri nor the Kanuns provided for such things;[300] but it was a matter of fundamental custom that a prince of the house of Osman should rule, and it was almost as fundamental that a son of a sultan should succeed him. Not until 1617 was the present rule established, by which the oldest male of the royal house is heir apparent.[301] Before that, when a sultan had several sons, the eldest had no inherent right to succeed, as is the practice in Western Europe. The Turkish father naturally desired to choose which of his sons should follow him; and to this end, when he gave them provincial governments, he often placed the favorite nearest the capital. After Mohammed II had issued his famous Kanun, by which the son who reached the throne was legally authorized to execute his brothers,[302] a situation of unstable equilibrium arose as soon as the sons of a sultan began to grow up. Each knew that he must either obtain the throne or die soon after his father; hence revolt was almost forced upon a son who found himself placed farther from the capital than a favored brother. When Bayezid II grew old and feeble, his active and warlike son Selim opposed his wish to leave the empire to Achmet;[303] in the end Selim triumphed, and Bayezid, forced to abdicate, met a death that was believed by many not to have been natural.[304] The Janissaries turned the scale in this struggle, and henceforth they were felt to be a dangerous element whenever a sultan came to have more than one grown son. They had a great part in the death of both Mustapha and Bayezid, the ablest sons of Suleiman; indeed, their sympathy for the former was undoubtedly a chief reason in determining Suleiman to execute him, since only thus could his own safety be assured.[305] In the case of Bayezid, the fact that the Janissaries did not support him spelled his doom, even though his father, beyond all precedent, pardoned his first revolt, and though the influence of his mother Roxelana was strong in his favor.[306] Speculation is dangerous; but the Janissaries may have done Western Europe a great service on these occasions. Had either Mustapha or Bayezid come to the throne instead of the drunken and dissolute Selim II, the issue of Lepanto might have been different, a new expedition against Vienna led by a vigorous and idolized young monarch might have succeeded, the Ottoman power might have ruled more widely and permanently than it did, and the decay of the Ruling Institution might have been long postponed.[307]

The Janissaries in Suleiman’s time numbered between twelve and fourteen thousand;[308] and this number probably did not include the garrison which supported the power of the empire in Egypt,[309] still less that which upheld the corsair rule in North Africa. Except in time of war many of the Janissaries were distributed in garrisons, so that probably not more than half resided in the capital.[310] Such of these as were married lived at home, and the others were lodged in two great barracks.[311] They were organized in messes of ten; ten messes constituted an orta or oda, of which there were one hundred and sixty-five in Suleiman’s time.[312] Each orta had its officers, who had been promoted from its ranks; and above all the ortas was a graded set of officers, under the Agha, or general, of the Janissaries.[313] This official had never been a Janissary, but had come through the colleges of pages.[314] He not merely commanded the Janissaries, but was a sort of minister of war for them. Aided by his Kiaya, or lieutenant,[315] his chief Yaziji, or scribe, and a bureau of clerks, he directed their enrolment, the distribution of their pay, their promotions, their location, the purchase of their supplies and clothing, and all the other business of the corps. He was well paid and was of great authority, outranking all other generals, though on some occasions he was obliged to yield precedence to two of the generals of cavalry, whose corps were older than those of the Janissaries.[316]

The Janissaries had a regular ladder of promotion through the offices of their odas and above, as far as the position of Segban-bashi, which was the office next below that of Agha.[317] One hundred and fifty of their best bowmen were honored by being detailed to accompany the sultan on the march, as his Solaks.[318] They might also for distinguished ability or service be taken into the regular cavalry, and have all its opportunities open to them. No less than the rest of the army, they kept marvellous order in camp, and, except at the crises above described, were completely obedient to their officers.[319] They were punishable only by their own officers, not even the grand vizier having direct jurisdiction over them.[320] They had a strong sense of maintaining their privileges and what they considered to be their rights. Busbecq, who gives illumination at so many points, shows how the grand vizier Rustem, and even Suleiman himself, felt toward these men when they were all together and their blood was hot. On one occasion Busbecq’s servants quarreled with some Janissaries, and he was disposed to back his men up; whereupon Rustem sent a trusty messenger to him with a verbal message, asking him “to remove every cause of offence which might occasion a quarrel with those atrocious scoundrels. Was I not aware,” he asked, “that it was war time, when they were masters, so that not even Solyman himself had control over them, and was actually himself afraid of receiving violence at their hands?”[321] Great care had to be taken to keep the Janissaries under control, for they were capable of wrecking the whole government. They were, to be sure, constantly drained of their ablest men by promotion; but this only left the others the more liable, like sheep, to follow a new leader into evil. They could be repressed more or less by punishment: now and then an especially active promoter of trouble was executed;[322] officers who offended were sometimes sent to command distant garrisons, and sometimes they were stricken from the roll.[323] Suleiman succeeded, on the whole, in keeping the Janissaries in hand, and he was able to lead them farther east than could his father Selim. They never revolted against him,[324] and they supported him against Bayezid.

The Spahis of the Porte[325]

The regular cavalry were all included under the general name of Spahis, or horsemen; but the name was also applied to one of the four divisions into which Osman’s corps of daring riders had been organized after the model of the cavalry of the caliph Omar I.[326] Their organization was older than that of the Janissaries; it had come down continuously from the early days.[327] The members were not organized into a single body, they had high pay, and they were in the presence of excellent opportunities to acquire wealth and to rise with rapidity. Accordingly, they appear never to have caused Suleiman any special trouble.[328]

The four corps were the Spahis in the narrower sense, often called Spahi-Oghlans; the Silihdars, or weapon-bearers; the Ulufajis, or paid troops, in two divisions, the left and the right; and the Ghurebas, or Foreign Legion, also in two divisions, the left and the right.[329] The Spahis were most honored and best paid, but each had to bring with him to war five or six armed slaves on horseback. The Silihdars had less pay and furnished four or five horsemen. The Ulufajis furnished two or three horsemen each.[330] These three corps were recruited from the pages and the Janissaries, the Ulufajis receiving also occasional members by special promotions from the irregular troops.[331] The Foreign Legion had least pay of all, and its members came alone; not having begun as the sultan’s kullar, and often not even as Ottomans, they enjoyed small honor.[332] Each of the first two corps, and each division of the last two corps of the Spahis of the Porte, was organized separately after the fashion of the Janissaries, with its own general, who supervised the administration of all its affairs.[333] The number of the Spahis of the Porte is given on two bases. In Suleiman’s time the actual members of the four corps counted from ten to twelve thousand men, or a little less than the number of the Janissaries;[334] but, since most of them had each to bring from two to six additional horsemen, the total force which they assembled was from forty to fifty thousand.[335] Whether the entire number or only the actual members were regularly considered to be the sultan’s kullar, under his pay, does not appear clearly. Probably he did not pay the additional horsemen directly; for strictly speaking, they were kullar of his kullar. In time of battle all the regular troops, Spahis and Janissaries alike, were drawn up to protect the sultan, the Janissaries being aligned in front, the Spahis proper on the right, the Silihdars on the left, and the Ulufajis and Ghurebas in the rear.[336]

The Feudal Spahis[337]

Outside the towns the greater part of the European dominions of the sultan, and a large part of Asia Minor, were granted in fief to Moslems who were for the most part not kullar of the sultan.[338] They deserve to be considered in a discussion of the government, however, not only because they collected the revenues and exercised seigniorial jurisdiction in their estates,[339] but also because they were officered by the sultan’s kullar. The estates were of different sizes and were reckoned in three classes: timars, when the yearly revenue was under twenty thousand aspers; ziamets, when it was twenty thousand to one hundred thousand aspers; khasses, when it was over one hundred thousand aspers.[340] Timars might be united into a ziamet, but ziamets could not be divided.[341] Every fief-holder must appear in person when summoned to war. If the annual income of a Timarji, or Timariote, reached six thousand aspers, he must bring with him an armed horseman; and he must bring another for each additional three thousand aspers of his revenue. The holder of a larger fief must bring with him an armed horseman if his income amounted to ten thousand aspers, and another horseman for each additional five thousand aspers of income.[342] In the sixteenth century this service was strictly exacted, and the fief-holders were held to residence on their estates. The principle of heredity entered into the distribution of these estates, but under limitations. One son of the holder of a small fief had a right to the fief;[343] not more than three sons of the holder of a large fief were entitled to small fiefs.[344] The sons of kullar in high position might receive fiefs large in proportion to the rank of their father;[345] by this means they were honorably conveyed from the ruling Institution into the Moslem population. The Zaims and Timariotes, as the holders of the corresponding fiefs were named, were a class of country gentlemen, honest, sober, true to the Moslem faith and to the sultan, better in morals than the kullar if not so able of intellect, the substantial middle class of the empire, ancestors of those who today give hope that Turkey may become a modern nation. It was these who gave the first training to the Ajem-oghlans, starting them well on the road from Christianity to Islam, and preparing them to become members of the Ottoman nation.

In the time of Suleiman the system of fiefs had become greatly disarranged.[346] The distribution of them had been left to the local governors, and corruption had crept in; the frequent wars also had led to rapid changes and consequent confusion. Moreover, the army always contained a large number of Gonnullu, or volunteers, who came at their own expense, and fought with the hope, often realized, of receiving the fiefs of slain men as the reward of signally brave conduct.[347] It is said that during the course of a single bloody day one fief changed owners seven times. If fiefs might thus be granted in the midst of battle, it is not easy to see how a condition of reasonable order could have been preserved in the feudal system. Suleiman, therefore, by a Kanun of the year 1530, attached the granting of all fiefs above a certain size once more to the central government.[348] Each holder of such a fief must obtain a teskereh, or document, from Constantinople, in order to have good title.[349] The central treasury administered such estates during vacancies. Only those fief-holders who held by teskereh were entitled to be called Spahis;[350] the others were known as Timarjis, or Timariotes. The feudal Spahis of Anatolia were more under the authority of the governor than were those of Europe; they were not so well paid, did not have so much practice in fighting, and were not so highly esteemed as soldiers.[351]

Thus the country gentry were kept under good control; the accumulation of estates was prevented, any tendency toward independence could easily be thwarted, and the sultan obtained regularly the service for which the lands were granted. In addition, most of the subject Christian population was governed locally without any trouble to the sultan, and was held down well and uniformly by resident seigneurs. A great advantage of the system was that, by the granting of new fiefs in newly-conquered lands, the territorial army was automatically increased in proportion to the increase of the empire.[352]

Officers of the Feudal Spahis

Local government and the command of the feudal Spahis was cared for by officials who belonged to the sultan’s great slave-family, and who brought with them to their posts a number, proportioned to their rank, of Spahis of the Porte, pages, Ajem-oghlans, and slaves of their own. The lowest of these officers were the Subashis, or captains, who were in time of peace governors of towns, with enough Janissaries and Azabs, or irregular infantry, to police the locality.[353] Next above these were the Alai Beys, or colonels, who in time of peace were ready with a company of from two hundred to five hundred troops to pass from place to place as there might be need.[354] Above these again were the Sanjak Beys, who governed important cities and held superior rule over a number of towns and the district in which they lay.[355] Finally, in the Balkan Peninsula and in Western Asia Minor there was from of old a Beylerbey, who had authority over all the Beys of his region. Incomes were provided by the assignment of fiefs proportioned in size to each officer’s importance.[356] All of these officers of local government had a sufficient staff of lieutenants, treasurers, book-keepers and clerks.[357] The Beylerbey of Rumelia resided in time of peace at Constantinople. The Beylerbey of Anatolia seems to have spent much time in his dominions,[358] though undoubtedly he was often at the capital, since he had his regular place in the Divan.

In time of war this official scheme, detached from its function of local government, drew together the feudal Spahis, section by section, into a perfectly organized territorial army for each of the two regions. Notice of time and place was sent round, and within a month every man called had joined his proper standard.[359] After uniting with the sultan’s regular army, the army of Rumelia under its Beylerbey had the right of the battle-line when fighting in Europe, and the army of Anatolia under its Beylerbey had the right of the line when fighting in Asia.[360] The enrolled feudal troops of Europe numbered about fifty thousand, and those of Asia, including Anatolia, Karamania, Amasia, and Avandole, thirty thousand.[361] In each case the number should be doubled or tripled to allow for the additional horsemen which all the Spahis were required to bring.[362] On the other hand, a considerable proportion of the feudal troops, sometimes estimated at one-half,[363] remained on duty at home in time of war to protect the provinces and prevent uprisings. The feudal troops, while brave, eager, and regardless of their lives, had not the physical strength nor the practice of fighting in squadrons which the regular troops had, and hence were not their equals.

The Beylerbeys of Rumelia and Anatolia were called out with their troops for every campaign. The eight other Beylerbeys of Suleiman’s time,—those of Karamania, Amasia, Avandole, Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hungary,[364] and Temesvar,[365]—who had fewer feudal troops at command and more need of them at home, were summoned only when the war was in their region.

Other Bodies of Troops

There were three principal bodies of irregular troops, the Akinji or cavalry, the Azabs or infantry, and the Kurds; besides various smaller groups, such as the descendants of the ancient corps of Yayas and Mosellems, who held fiefs of a sort in the oldest sanjaks of the empire, and the Deli or “crazy” company of scouts.[366] The Akinji numbered perhaps thirty thousand in time of peace and were mainly near the European frontier, where they made a living by raiding. They received no pay either in peace or in war, but gathered booty and slaves and hoped for promotion.[367] The Azabs numbered perhaps ten thousand in peace and forty thousand in war.[368] Some of them served in the garrisons and some with the fleet.[369] The number of the Akinjis and Azabs was greatly augmented in time of war by the addition of volunteers, many of whom were criminals and ruffians.[370] The irregular troops were the terror of the invaded lands in war time; for the regular army was held under iron discipline, but these irresponsible creatures carried fire, rapine, and sword over wide areas of country. In time of siege and battle the Azabs were sent forward to break the charge of the enemy, or to aid in filling the moats by their own bodies.[371] Such as lived were rewarded generously; the rest were believed to pass at once by a martyr’s death to heavenly reward.[372] The Kurds lay near the Persian frontier to the number of about thirty thousand. Individuals among the Akinji, Azabs, and Kurds might hope to become gentlemen through distinguished bravery, by being made Ulufajis among the Spahis of the Porte.[373]

Attached to the regular army there were also various auxiliary corps of armorers, cannoneers, men of transport service, musicians, commissaries, and the like, to the number of three or four thousand in all.[374] The Tartars of the Crimea, and the Moldavians and Wallachians, were also obliged to furnish contingents.[375] All told, the enrolled strength of the entire army was something more or less than two hundred thousand men. But, since the Spahis were required to bring other fighting men with them in proportion to their revenues, since numerous slaves and private servants accompanied the soldiers, and since the feudal and irregular troops were joined by great numbers of volunteers, both horse and foot, high and low, the complete army for the greatest expeditions probably numbered about three hundred thousand men.[376] At the close of Suleiman’s reign the paid nucleus was about fifty thousand strong; the feudal Spahis for a European campaign numbered about sixty thousand, with perhaps a like number of helpers. The remaining troops were of no great value in battle, unless to break the first shock of the enemy’s charge. They served chiefly to lay waste the hostile country and to gather booty and slaves.

Discipline and Ardor

Contemporary observers were strongly impressed with the wonderful discipline and intense zeal for fighting that was seen among the Turks. The silence, order, and cleanliness of the camps, the absolute obedience, enforced if need be by severe punishments and executions, the submissiveness to long marches, hard labor, and scanty food, the eagerness for battle, the joy in conflict, the recklessness of life, presented a perfection of discipline, self-control, and single-hearted purpose that seemed miraculous. A few of the many witnesses may be heard briefly:

“The Turks come together for war as though they had been invited to a wedding.”[377]

“The Great Turk is the best obeyed by his subjects of all the lords that I know.”[378]

“I think there is no prince in all the world who has his armies and camps in better order, both as regards the abundance of victuals and of all other necessities which are usually provided, and as regards the beautiful order and manner they use, in encamping without any confusion or embarrassment.”[379]

“Their military discipline has such justice and severity as easily to surpass the ancient Greeks and Romans; the Turks surpass our soldiers for three reasons: they obey their commanders promptly; they never show the least concern for their lives in battle; they can live a long time without bread and wine, content with barley and water.”[380]

“Peace and silence reign in a Turkish camp.... Such is the result produced by military discipline, and the stern laws bequeathed them by their ancestors.”[381]

“It is marvellous how the force and rigor of justice increase in war.... If the soldiers rob or beat, the head comes off, or they are so beaten that they can never be well again.”[382]

“They keep the divinest order in the world.”[383]

“In truth the discipline could not be better, nor the obedience greater.”[384]

“For such as are acquainted with the Histories of the Turkish affaires, and doe aduisedly looke into the order and course of their proceedinges: doe well perceiue, that the chiefest cause of their sodaine and fearefull puissaunce, hath beene the excellence of their Martial discipline joyned with a singular desire and resolution to aduaunce and enlarge both the bounds of their Empire and the profession of their Religion. The which was alwaies accompanied with such notable Policie and prudence, that the singularitie of their vertue and good gouernment, hath made their Armes alwaies fearefull and fortunate, and consequently, hath caused the greatnesse of their estate.”[385]

The Supreme Command

The sultan was commander-in-chief of the entire army, standing, feudal, and irregular. When the army was summoned for a great campaign, it gathered about him; on the march and in camp every body of troops had its place with reference to him;[386] in formation of battle, he was the central point about which the whole vast display was organized. When the army was assembled, and then only, the sultan stood forth visibly and palpably as the head and center of the Ruling Institution and of the Ottoman nation upon which it rested. His kullar were gathered about him in devotion of body and soul; they were going forth under his leadership against the infidel or the heretic; they were manifesting the results of the long and careful training that he had given them; they marched, encamped, and fought under his eye and command; they formed an honored and privileged nucleus in the midst of a vast, loyal, and ambitious national army; they surrounded and served him as monarch with a splendor seen at no other time;[387] with complete apparatus of council, ministry, treasury, and chancery, they carried on his government from whatever city, valley, mountain, or plain he might be occupying. Here was the Ruling Institution in being, exhibiting in varying degrees all its aspects, revealing its essential unity, enforcing the despotic will of its master, commander-in-chief, and chief executive.

The very greatness and unity of the Ruling Institution as an army was not without serious disadvantages. The power could not wisely be delegated, and the army could not effectively be divided. At the opening of the campaign of 1529 Suleiman issued to Ibrahim a commission as Seraskier, or general of the army, which placed the Ruling Institution, the Moslem Institution, the Ottoman nation and all the subject nations under his command. The Sultan’s order ran as follows: “My Viziers, Beylerbeys, Judges of the Army, Jurists, Judges, Seids, Sheiks, Dignitaries of the Court and Supports of the Empire, Sanjak Beys, Generals of Cavalry or of Infantry, Alai Beys, Subashis, Cheribashis, and all the victorious Soldiery great and small, high and low, the Officials and Appointees, all inhabitants of My kingdoms and lands, the people of city and country, rich and poor, distinguished and ordinary, and all men are to recognize My above-named Grand Vizier as Seraskier ... and to consider all that he says and desires as a command from My own mouth....”[388] This was a delegation of the supreme command of the army and all the human military resources of the empire to Ibrahim. Since Suleiman himself went on this campaign, the supreme command was not then exercised apart from the sultan’s presence. Four years later, however, Ibrahim, clothed with the same authority, was sent ahead to open the Persian campaign. On the return march he added the title of Sultan to that of Seraskier in issuing his daily orders.[389] Perhaps he felt like Pepin the Short, that he who had the power of king should also bear the name. But Suleiman was no roi fainéant; Ibrahim had gone too far, the empire could have but one head, and Ibrahim suffered the bow-string.[390] Suleiman profited by the experience; he appointed no more Seraskiers with such exalted powers, but himself led the army when it was assembled as a whole. The campaign of Szigeth was the thirteenth which he directed in person.[391] The precedent of delegating the supreme command was, however, a fatal one; for Selim the Sot and all his successors were to use this method to avoid the exertion of campaigning, and from this step was to date the beginning of the empire’s downfall.[392] “This so constituted organization had need of two things: it needed for its animation a man filled himself with a vivid spirit and free and mighty impulses, and to give it movement and activity it required continual campaigns and progressive conquests; in a word, war and a warlike chief.”[393] When another than the sultan should become head of the Ruling Institution as visibly assembled, and yet be only an official removable at a cloistered monarch’s caprice, the army would lose the keystone of its organization, and ere long victory would depart from its banners.

Indivisibility of the Army

The essential oneness of the army, based on the sultan’s ownership of the standing body of cavalry and infantry and its attachment to his person,[394] and on the incapacity of the territorial armies to carry on great campaigns alone, was also a fact injurious to the Ottoman power. At the accession of Selim I, the empire had been nearly identical in territory with the Byzantine Empire under the Macedonian dynasty. No great power had marched with it. The conquests of Selim in the East and of Suleiman in Hungary had pushed the frontiers to the borders of two great powers: Persia on the east and Austria on the west remained henceforth constantly hostile in feeling and often hostile in fact to the Ottoman Empire.[395] They were so far away from the Ottoman capital that the road to either was a journey of months for the army, and relations with both were often disturbed at the same time; but there was only one great army, and there could be only one serious war. If, while war was in progress on one frontier, conditions became intolerable on the other, it was necessary to make peace on what terms could be had, and carry the army to the other extremity of the empire. Thus, Suleiman and Ibrahim concluded the peace of 1533 with Charles and Ferdinand, in order to be free to proceed against Persia at once;[396] and thus Suleiman was obliged to arrange terms with Ferdinand in 1547, in order to march against Persia in 1548.[397] Had a Cardinal Cesarini absolved Charles and Ferdinand from either treaty, and had they been able to act, they could have marched to Constantinople in 1534, 1535, or 1548 against practically no resistance.[398] On the other hand, had the Ottoman standing army been divisible, and separable from the person of the monarch, the Sultan could have kept a steady pressure at both frontiers; and by taking advantage of opportunities he might have conquered far to the west and north, and realized his ambition of adding all the heretical Persian dominions to his empire so as to reach the Chinese frontier, and of sending the horsetail standards to the Atlantic shore of North Africa.[399] Or he might have carried out the intention expressed through Ibrahim in 1533—which was quite in keeping with his character—of aiding the Emperor Charles V to enforce unity of religious belief upon the Protestants and the pope.[400] It is interesting to notice that Austria possessed two great advantages over Persia in the wars with Turkey. The Ottomans did not wish to pass the winter in the cold north, but they did not object seriously to staying in Aleppo or Bagdad. This attitude probably saved Vienna for Austria and lost Bagdad for Persia. Again, since the journey from Vienna to Constantinople was much easier than that from Tabriz to Constantinople, the Austrians could have reached Constantinople while the Ottoman army was in the East, whereas the Persians could not have reached Constantinople while the Ottomans were in Austria. This advantage remained theoretical, however, in Suleiman’s time, since neither Austria nor Persia was ever able to attempt invasion.

Thus the inherent character of the Ottoman Ruling Institution, as a single magnificent army united under the supreme command of the sultan, made the institution incapable of adaptation to an indefinitely expanding empire, and so set bounds, certain as those of fate, to Ottoman conquest. The sultan had but one arm; it was a long arm and a strong one, yet it could reach only a fixed distance, and it could strike but one blow.