Hello, and welcome to Western Siev episode three hundred and eight. The sedentary
Sultan Maraud the Third was twenty years older than any rival to the claimant at
the death of Selim the Second. Hence, there was really no question as
to who would succeed the deceased Selim. Maraud, assumed to be Maraud the
Third moved quickly to remove even the perception of any threat. Upon receiving news
of his father's death, Maroud ordered the execution of his younger brothers, who
were buried together alongside their father Selim. This wasn't easy for Maraud, consider
the following first hand account of the murders quote. But the Sultan Maraut,
who was so compassionate as to be unable to see bloodshed, waited eighteen hours
in which he refused to sit on the imperial throne or to make public his
arrival in the city, seeking and discussing a way first to free his nine
brothers of the blood who were in the sigurilio, in order that he should
not break the law of the Ottoman state. Weeping, he sent the mutes
to strangle them, giving nine handkerchiefs with his own hands to the chief of
the mutes end quote. Unfortunately, the death of all the heirs spares was
Ottoman state policy and law. Maraud's successor, Mehmed the Third, would do
the same in fifteen ninety five. The Prince's death was the price of a
smooth succession. Met Medpopsa continued as Grand Vizier until fifteen seventy nine, when
he was assassinated by a disgruntled petitioner. He was truly the last great grand
Vizier after Pasha. Seven men held the position for the remaining twenty one years
of Maraud's reign. It's interesting because from this point on, the Grand Vizier
becomes a puppet who could be and frequently was replaced at the Sultan's whim.
The Grand Vizier still made a lot of bureaucratic decisions on a day to day
basis, but his authority over larger matters was decisively curtailed. Daily conversations between
the Vizier and the Sultan were replaced with correspondence in which the Sultan more or
less dictated his decisions to the vizier. More than even Selim the Second.
Maraud preferred to pass his days in his private chambers rather than his council chamber.
He was, as a result, much more susceptible to the influence of
favorites. While he lived, met Pasha was able to keep the fractions around
the Sultan at Bay, but once he died the boiler truly burst. One
of these factions was led by Marod's mother, Nirbannu. Starting with the reign
of Suleiman, the women of the royal house had played an increasingly important role
in public life, and this was definitely true during Marad's reign and definitely true
of Nirbanu. She dominated her son until her death, roughly ten years into
his reign. Foreign envoys knew how important it was to gain her favor.
A visitor from Istanbul in fifteen eighty two remarked, quote, the wife with
the queen mother governed everything. One had to depend on them, or at
least not have them against you the end quote. It was long believed that
Nirbanu was actually Venetian in fact, but in reality she was Greek from the
island of Corfu. With Maraud, the royal household became still more of a
royal family. On his ascension, he moved his household to Istanbul from Manissa,
where as Prince governor he had lived with his consort and their children.
In Istanbul, Norbanu made her place again beside her son, moving into the
Harem at Tukpai Palace from the old Palace, where she had retired on Selim's
death. As queen mother, she sought the smooth functioning of the Harem and
stood at the peak of its hierarchy. Her daily stipend was the highest in
the empire, three times that of the sultan himself. Nirbanu's sultan transfer of
residency from the old to the new palace was celebrated, in fact, with
a public procession throughout Istanbul. Within ten years of Morad's ascension, the number
of women in the Harem had doubled to more than one hundred. The harem
requarters were rebuilt to provide more splendid apartments for the Sultan's mother, extra space
for the growing number of women. House there For himself, Maraud built a
two story domed bedroom pavilion, inner walls clad with the finest tiles, and
to this he added baths and a doomed room next to his bedchamber. All
of this was essentially showing that this would be a sultan not to leave the
capital. Unlike Selim the Second, Marad essentially lived with his Harim. He
did not maintain his own totally separate residency as had been customary before. While
Marad was largely monogamous for the purpose of succession throughout much of his reign,
later on he took a series of concubines and died, leaving forty nine children.
While this might seem unimportant at first, blush all these details, this
is a real change in how sultan's behaved. Previously, sultan's had been moving
targets. They had always gone on campaigns with their armies. The goal was
military expansion. After the death of Suleiman, and certainly after the death of
Selim the Second, this is no longer the case. The sultan remained sedentary
and the armies increasingly stayed at home. Parallel to the rise of the Harim
as a critical government institution under Marad was the rise of his male favorites.
Marad by and large promoted the interests of those who had been close to him
in his formative years. Probably the most interesting of these was Shaikh Suka,
an uneducated religious mystic, to whom Murad had been close to for years before
his ascension. The Sultan relied on Suka to interpret his dreams and forecast his
destiny. This wasn't totally unusual, Sunni Islam had long had a mystical aspect
to it at this point. What was unusual was the extent to which the
mystic was able to wield political power within the council. Again, what we're
seeing here is less of an emphasis on what we might call military matters and
more on domestic policy, which is a major change for the Ottoman state.
But of course, the Ottomans still had a first class military, perhaps the
best in all of Europe, and they intended to use it. Maraud continued
sell them the seconds aggressive policies in North Africa and to an extent, in
the Western Mediterranean. Morocco quickly became an Ottoman satellite. In fifteen seventy eight,
Portugal and Spain, kind of Philip's support was half hearted at best,
attacked Morocco, but the Ottomans were ultimately able to keep their puppet royal family
in control of the region. In fifteen eighty, Maraud and Philip of Spain
signed a peace treaty, bringing to an end what had been a half century
long conflict in the Western Mediterranean. Critically, this freed up both sides to
focus on issues closer to home and which were both prioritized by most states.
Meanwhile, the Ottomans made two last efforts to break Portuguese power in the Indian
Ocean, one in fifteen eighty five and another in fifteen eighty nine, but
it was clear by this point that Portuguese naval superiority was going to win out
and so and yet another region. Ottoman power was clearly on the decline,
But the biggest military conflict of Maraud's reign was in the East. We tend
to think of the Ottomans only when they impacted as in Western Europe, but
it's worth remembering that to a large extent, the Ottoman Empire faced the other
direction. In fifteen seventy eight, war broke out again between the Ottomans and
the Iranians. The dispute this time was over the Caucus Mountains and the regions
which surrounded them. This was a long war that lasted until sixteen thirty nine.
It was in many ways a legacy of Mehmet Pasha. He believed a
firm Ottoman presence in the Caucauses was needed to check the growth of Muscovite power.
South Iran was relatively incidental, but needed to be pushed out so that
the Ottoman state could create a buffer. The war would be left, though,
to another senior official, La la Mustafa, as the Caucus was the
theater of war. The eastern Anatolian frontier city of Erzerum was the forward base
for the Ottoman campaign against Iran. Having sailed to Tresbon and then marched south
over the mountains, La la Mustafa and his army mobilized at Eziram during the
summer of fifteen seventy eight. The Sapovids and their client states in the Caucuses
were in so much disarray and confusion that the Ottomans were able to advance through
Georgia and occupying Tiflis, which is actually the capital of modern Georgia, as
they went to reach the principalities all the way to the north. By the
summer, several of the princes of the regions had already submitted to the Ottomans,
who now occupied parts of the Chivrin area on the western shore of the
Caspian. Unfortunately, Lala Mustafa was recalled due to a series of palace intrigues
which are simply too confusing to go through here, and he was ultimately appointed
the second vizier after Mehmed Pasha was assassinated in fifteen seventy nine. Mustafa did
not reap many rewards from this posting, however, he died in fifteen eighty.
Over the next several years, a series of Ottoman officials did their best
to consolidate Ottoman control over generally speaking, what is today Georgia. However,
the task there was difficult for much the same reasons that it had been in
Yemen. Local power was volatile and the terrain difficult. By the end of
the sixteenth century, the character of warfare was changing in both the East and
the West. Previously, particularly in Iran, the ability of the enemy to
avoid a pitched battle by simply disappearing into the countryside had often prevented Ottoman efforts
to attain a decisive victory, But the recent campaigns on that demonstrated that a
more what we would call static style of warfare was becoming the norm, involving
fortresses that had to be reduced by lengthy sieges if territory was to be won
and held on the Habsburg Ottoman border. After the Truce of fifteen sixty eight,
the Habsburgs and their allies took refuge behind essentially a forward line of strongholds
intended to protect the interior from enemy incursions, and these had their counterparts on
the Ottoman side of the frontier. In fifteen ninety three, war broke out
between the Holy Roman Empire really Austria at this point Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
And this is another one of those lengthy wars that would last until sixteen
o six. The gains and losses enjoyed and suffered by the Ottomans, Habsburg's
and Hungarians alike over the thirteen years of this war illustrated just how wearying this
sort of war or affair was, and generally speaking, how inconclusive it has
become. The first two years achieved absolutely nothing on either side. Early in
fifteen ninety five, the Sultan died and was smoothly succeeded by his twenty nine
year old son, Met the third. Fortunately, he inherited a state that
was generally speaking in disarray, and it was clear that a new strategy was
needed to raise the prestige of both the sultan and the empire. At a
meeting convened by the new Grand Vizier, it was agreed that, in what
was a radical departure from recent practice, the new Sultan, even though it
was totally inexperienced, would lead the army in battle, something that no sultan
had done since Souleman's final campaign in fifteen sixty six. In June of fifteen
ninety six, the Ottoman Imperial Army set out to join the forces which had
been holding the line on the frontier. Aim was to capture a fortress called
Aguer, which lay on the route between Austria and Transylvania, and which,
together with the client states of Moldovia and Wallachia, had sought Habsburg protection.
Aga air fell, and the Ottoman Army, with its tartar reinforcements, then
encountered the Transylvanians and the main Habsburg army on a nearby plane on the twenty
fifth of October. From closely contested field battle, which ensued the only actual
field battle of the entire war, the Ottomans emerged victorious. At first,
it seemed that they had lost, and only the fierce attack on the Habsburg
forces as they plundered the Ottoman camp turned the day. The Sultan, though
not relishing his role as commander in chief, had suggested to his new Grand
Vizier that he should return to Istanbul. The following years saw fortresses and towns
change hands as vassal states, which as Wallachia and Transylvania repeatedly switched sides,
ultimately exhausted the two main powers. The Habsburgs and the Ottomans finally agreed to
a peace treaty in sixteen oh five, which was signed in sixteen oh six.
The Ottomans got some meager and I do mean really meager territorial gains,
and the Holy Roman Emperor got recognition as an equal. Basically, this meant
that the Emperor could finally stop paying yearly tribute to the Sultan, which was
crucial to the balance of power in the region, as the Ottomans could no
longer use their enemies' money to fight them domestically, The last quarter of the
sixteenth century was a difficult time for the Ottoman state, as it was for
many war and European states up to this point. The various Ottoman conquests essentially
driven economic growth, but after roughly fifteen seventy those days were over. As
a result, to pay for the war with Iran and everybody else, the
Sultan began a policy of debasing the silver coinage. The problem is that those
on fixed salaries bureaucrats and military officials in particular, now effectively had their salaries
cut in half. The debased coins could no longer buy as much. This
was a European wide problem. Really, that was just worse in the Automan
Empire. It wasn't bad or great everywhere else. It was just terrible for
the Ottomans in Western Europe. Even if no one debased the coinage, the
influx of silver from the Americas still brought down the value of existing coins.
Hence, this was a period in general of widespread inflation. It was just
worse than the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, by debasing the coinage, that meant
the tax income to Istanbul went down. To make up the difference, the
Sultan issued new taxes and borrowed money from wealthy individuals within the empire. Note
the Ottoman state did not raise foreign loans until actually the nineteenth century, and
of course debasement of the coinage led to yet another janissary revolt, forcing Maraud
to sacrifice the local officials that these elite soldiers blamed for their financial losses.
This was also a new development in the Ottoman state, the consistent scapegoating of
financial troubles on other people within the government, making matters worse. The two
most important elite corps, the janissaries and the Palace cavalry, often supported different
palace factions, so whoever was an ascendant kept their favorites safe, those in
decline watched as their palace contacts lost their heads. Oftentimes, this factional violence
played itself out in the streets of Istanbul as well. The financial and social
distress that accompanied the debasement of the coinage came at a time when the costs
of warfare had reached unprecedented levels. As fighting methods had now changed, the
provincial cavalry forces, supported by agricultural taxes paid in lieu of an obligation to
appear on campaign, were just not as effective anymore in an age of defensive
siege based warfare, and as the borders of Empire expanded, provincial cavalrymen lost
their enthusiasm for campaigning. They had scarcely recovered from the exhausting Iranian War that
lasted from fifteen seventy eight to fifteen ninety, when their services were once again
required on the Habsburg frontier and then back again on the Iranian one. As
one Palace official would write in fifteen ninety seven, these cavalrymen had not seen
peace for twenty years. Infantry, which when we're talking about the Ottoman Army,
really just means the musket bearing janissaries, were more useful than cavalry and
modern warfare, and their numbers grew as a result, from around eight thousand
and fifteen twenty seven to thirteen thousand, five hundred by the time of the
Salt and Sellem the second's death in fifteen seventy four, and to almost forty
thousand by sixteen oh nine. Like other salaried state employees whose numbers also grew,
they had to be paid in cash and on time. By the way,
if you wanted to avert a rebellion or trouble. The government was now
in a dilemma. The rapid increase in the numbers of salaried troops couldn't continue
indefinitely. And so it reached out for other sources of manpower. A solution
which appealed because it was cheap, was to just enlist men from the peasantry,
the prime requirement now being Muslims who could wield a musket, and these
men would serve for the term of a campaign, after which time they would
be demobilized. This innovation openly flouted the fiction the peasants were disbarred from serving
in the combat army, being only employed to perform various auxiliary tasks alongside the
elite fighting troops and the provincial cavalry. It soon became clear, though,
that even if they had not been troublemakers prior to enlistment, men already disaffected
by over taxation and their inability to make ends meet became a major disruptive element.
After demobilization, they retained their guns and did not return to their previous
occupations. The allegiance of these men could often be bought by whoever could pay
them, be he a bandit or maybe a fractious servant of the state.
In an era of poor communications, local ties were usually stronger than loyalty to
some far off government. In Istanbul, and the population's experience of the demands
of central government for taxes and manpower was hardly more favorable than at the hands
of so called rebels with whom they lived. It was primarily in Anatolia that
troops were raised from the peasantry, and it was Anatolia then that suffered the
most violent effects of the ensuing brigandridge and outright rebellion. And honestly, things
weren't even any better for the cavalry, because as soon as cavalry realized they
weren't going to be paid any longer because they weren't needed for modern styles of
warfare, they too became outlaws and only added to the problems that were already
exacerbated throughout Anatolia. And it wasn't just financial issues that plagued the Ottomans.
At the start of the seventeenth century, huge chunks of the empire whented a
complete rebellion. The Kourgs declared their independence in northern Syria just as the Ottomans
were engaged with the Saphovitz andss. In sixteen oh six, the governor of
Aleppo rose in rebellion, as did parts of Anatolia. Aleppo and Anatolia were
quickly brought to heal and the rebellious governor put to death in sixteen ten,
but modern Lebanon then rebelled in sixteen ten, though again this rebellion was quickly
crushed and there were lesser revolts as well. Egypt was constantly a problem for
the Ottomans throughout the seventeenth century. Tripoli and Tunis both revolted several times in
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. To a large extent, Increasingly,
the Ottomans dealt with these incessant rebellions by co opting their leaders into the regime.
Rebel leaders either now found themselves defeated and executed, or increasingly just made
a new local official in their home region. This was an effective and cheap
way of ending a rebellion, but it did diffuse the Sultan's power. The
Cossacks along the Black Sea coast and a group we're going to talk about more
in coming out episodes, were yet another of the Ottoman's steadily growing problems.
With the appearance of the Ottomans on the northern Black Sea coast in the later
fifteenth century, and the ensuing connection between this and the Crimean Turks the politics
of the step were effectively transformed, forcing Polish and Ukrainian nobles of the borderlands
with the Empire to recruit Cossack warriors to defend their new territories against Tartar raids.
Soon after fifteen thirty eight, when Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent led a successful
campaign against Moldovia, he designated the northern Black Sea coast from the Nista River
to the boh a new province. But there were subsequent Cossic attacks on strongholds
and on herdsmen and travelers, which caused the Ottomans mounting concern as thousands of
captives as well as livestock, arms, and all sorts of other goods were
seized in the region where the Sultan had tried to bring some sort of secure
already really without effect. In sixteen oh three, the Ottomans began yet another
war, and this time again with the Shah of Iran. It wasn't a
smart move. The Ottoman state was already stretched to the limit, and yet
the Sultan met the second by then made the decision to go to war regardless.
In May of sixteen oh five, the two armies met near to Briz,
in present day Iran. The result was a disaster for the Ottomans,
whose army quit the field, leaving behind their equipment and provisions. Steadily,
the Iranians pushed the Ottomans out of their caucuses and then the strongholds that they
held. In sixteen eleven, the two sides reached a deal whereby the border
between the two kingdoms would revert back to that of fifteen fifty five, which
was a massive win for Iran. These years and the ones that followed them,
were honestly truly a time of troubles for the Ottoman Empire. The work
of contemporary men who were writing li utters back and forth reflected the anxiety of
the empire and the crisis that everyone observed. One author, who was writing
at the turn of the millennium named four main Islamic states that in existence the
regional empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals in India and Osbeks, all
of which had been forged since the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century and had
Turkish and step nomadic roots. He noted that unlike the Mughals, who claimed
descent from the Timurids and the Uzbeks, who claimed direct descent from Jenghis Khan.
The Ottomans lacked a claimed legitimacy based on descent, nor did they have
a religious ideology that could be traced back to the prophet, as of course,
the Sapovids in Iran did. He observed their earlier claims legitimacy based on
the ideologies of their descent from the Uzgud claim of Central Asia, or perhaps
as the inheritors of the former empire of the Seljuk Turks, or frankly,
as the only true warriors for Islam. All of these, all of these
basis of legitimacy, he wrote, were irrelevant. What had given the Ottomans
their unquestioned legitimacy was first and foremost, a tangible dynastic order committed to universal
justice, dispensed by a strong central authority. This, however, the author
claimed, and dissipated since the time of Selim the Second, or perhaps even
earlier, when Suleman allowed his favorites a hand in the affairs of state.
As well as producing pessimistic analysis, the Islamic millennium engendered a yearning for a
well ordered world, which the Ottoman intellectuals imagined had existed in the past was
gone in the present. Territorial victories were now just less easy to win,
and the Sultan had retired from active involvement in the business of the government.
The vicious struggle for a share in the spoils accruing to those in power was
profoundly shocking to men who had been raised under the old order, the order
when the sultan was an ultimate command. The Ottoman Empire, of course,
was not alone in this. Government by favorites had become kind of the order
of the day, particularly in Spain and France after the turn of the millennium.
In fact, one author in Europe wrote criticizing Philip the third Philip the
second Son that he quote should not be content with simply having supreme power and
then merely sleeping and relaxing, but should be the first in government, in
council and in the offices of the state end quote. So the Ottoman state
wasn't alone in this. But the biggest issue that remained was the changing nature
of the sultanate, because this was the biggest change. European kings really had
stopped being conquerors for some time now, but the changing nature of the Ottoman
Sultanate was something that was definitely new. Sultans were no longer warriors now to
an extent. The reasons for this change were practical. Wars were now fought
hundreds of miles from Istanbul, and because warfare was now almost exclusively siege driven,
these wars lasted longer. Hence, if the Sultan went on campaign,
he might be gone for years, which just wasn't feasible to keep the government
in Istanbul functioning. Another change was the increasing connections between religious and political authority.
Under Suleyman and those before him, religious authorities had by and large state
above and away from the political fray. Now they were increasingly engaging with political
authorities and sometimes replacing them, issuing state policy themselves. This change is going
to lead the Ottoman state to turn away from some of the advances of Western
science, much as we will see to its detriment. As the New Millennium
in New Century unfolded, there were hints that the state religion of the Ottomans
was becoming puritanical, even dogmatic. There were new laws, laws restricting the
apparel of Christians and Jews. The drinking of alcohol banned completely briefly, albeit
Yet, although it became increasingly intolerant of latitudes within the practice of Islam and
was prepared to pursue those who went beyond the bounds of acceptab in the expression
of Muslim faith, the Ottoman Empire still remained remarkably tolerant of non Muslim minorities
who separate and unequal. Of course, status was guaranteed by law in exchange
for the payment of the poll tax, as it had been for centuries.
Jews remained prominent in commerce, and many were successful tax farmers. During much
of the sixteenth century. They were as close to the Ottoman dynasty, employed
as physicians to the sultans and as diplomats. However, as the sixteenth century
and seventeenth century, especially war on, Jews began to lose a lot of
their legal protections and as a result saw their status decline throughout the empire.
Likewise, between fifteen eighty and sixteen ten, Orthodox Christians lost many of the
legal protections they had previously enjoyed. Many Greek Orthodox churches, by example,
were converted to mosques during this period. Now, while this episode might make
it seem like all was lost for the Ottomans, remember you would have said
the same for the Romans during the Crisis of the third century. The Romans
recovered, as we know, and to an extent, so would the Ottomans,
as we will see in a future episode. But for the moment,
we're going to wheel back west and return to England and it's Virgin Queen