The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire by Alan Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

eighteenth century, the Sava and Danube rivers continued to
mark the boundary of the Habsburg Monarchy until the empires were swept away at the end of the First World War.
    Karlowitz was not, as some writers maintain, a disaster for the Ottoman Empire. 10 The Peace enabled Turkey to parry the challenge from the West,
ready to meet the great threat from the North and new dangers in Asia, too. For three years after Karlowitz the last Grand Vizier of the Köprülü family, Amcazade Hüseyin,
undertook vigorous reforms, in the system of levying taxes, in the organization and training of the army, and in developing a sail-powered fleet to replace thetraditional
oar-powered galleys. Hüseyin’s reforming zeal intruded into many cherished preserves. Inevitably it offended the conservative ulema , still led by the Sultan’s nominee as ş eyhülislâm , Feyzullah Effendi. Had not a fatal illness forced him to resign in September 1702, Hüseyin would almost certainly have fallen a victim to his political
enemies.
    Over the next eleven months events followed a familiar pattern. Feyzullah Effendi, though vigilant and alert at the start of the reign, soon succumbed to the seductive venality of office. By the
turn of the century he was amassing a considerable fortune and exercising nepotism on a grand scale. Rumour said that Sultan Mustafa and Feyzullah were planning to move court and capital back to
Edirne, a decision which would have destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of traders in Stamboul and along the shores of the Golden Horn. In July 1703 four companies of Janissaries, their pay
heavily in arrears, led a mutiny in Stamboul, winning support from other soldiers and religious students. The rebels marched on Edirne, where the Sultan and the ş eyhülislâm were
in residence. Although Mustafa II hurriedly exiled Feyzullah and his kinsfolk, he could not avoid his father’s fate. The Viziers deposed him on 22 August; and dropsy carried off yet another
victim in the kafe at the end of December.
    Once again an Ottoman prince, fetched from the Fourth Courtyard of the Topkapi Sarayi, was girded with the sword at Edirne rather that at Eyüp. Here, however, a slight change crept into an
otherwise familiar scenario. Unusually, the twenty-nine-year-old Ahmed III was a brother, rather than a half-brother, of his predecessor; their Cretan mother, Rabia Gulnus, was in her early sixties
at Ahmed’s accession and she enjoyed some influence as Valide Sultana until her death twelve years later. Yet for a few months it seemed as if the Ottoman dynasty itself was under
notice to quit. Ahmed was forced to pay out a larger amount of Accession Money than any predecessor, satisfying the mutinous Janissaries with funds confiscated from the discredited Feyzullah
Effendi and his circle of intimates. Even so, the Sultan could not distribute an equal sum to every unit of rebellious troops, and there was widespread discontent in Rumelia and south-western
Anatolia.
    A hostile army gathered at Silivri, where the road to Edirne turned inland from the Sea of Marmara. If at that moment the commanderscould have agreed on a nominee for the
Sultanate from one of the other leading families, the Ottoman Empire might well have fallen apart, dissolving into a loose confederation of khanates. But Ahmed, and the Empire, survived. He was
prepared to use the Janissaries as protectors of the dynasty. At their approach the rebels fled from Silivri, many becoming brigands in eastern Thrace and the Rodopi Mountains. The threat of civil
war receded. 11
    For the first half of his twenty-seven-year reign, Ahmed III showed a political guile which occasionally rose to shrewd statesmanship. In retrospect, the years 1703 to 1718 form a period of weak
government; thirteen Grand Viziers followed one another with disconcerting rapidity; and control of the outlying provinces was so poor that in 1711 there were seventy days of bloodshed in Cairo, as
six military corps