Murad

“ For thirty years Murad had guided the destinies of the Osmanlis with a political sagacity surpassed by no statesman of his age. It is only because we know so much more of Mohammed the Conqueror and of Soleiman the Magnificent that Murad has never received his proper place as the most remarkable and most successful statesman and warrior of the house of Osman. When we measure the difficulties which confronted him, the problems which he solved,{179} and the results of his reign, against the deeds of his more dazzling successors, we see how easily he stands with them, if not above them. ”

“ Murad In Murad IV., who succeeded to the supreme power in 1623 (1032) , when a child of eleven years, Turkey had once more a sultan of the old Osmanli type. Since the death of Suleyman the empire had been cursed with a suc cession of rois faineants, under whom it had rapidly fallen to decay. The vigour and courage of the new sultan stayed it for a while upon its downward course, and re stored to it something of its bygone glory. While still quite young, Murad had been compelled by the mutinous janissaries to deliver into their cruel hands his favourite vizier, Hafiz Pasha. ”

“ Murad sent part of his army, under Ali Pasha, against Sisman, who was again shut up in Nicopolis. This fortress was captured. Murad was again generous in sparing Sisman’s life, but this time he deprived the southern part of Bulgaria of its autonomy, and insisted on its being completely incorporated in the Turkish Empire.
Lazar, the King of Serbia, continued the war. Murad, in spite of his seventy years, led his army, supported, as in Asia Minor, by his two sons. The decisive battle took place on the plain of Kossova, at the point of junction between Serbia and Bulgaria. ”

“ There was, however, just cause for apprehension of the intervention of Hungary in conjunction with the Serbians, or of Venice in conjunction with the Byzantines. Murad’s success depended upon his ability to gain an immediate and vital foothold in the Balkan peninsula.
This foothold was obtained in the epoch-making campaign of 1360-1. Astounding success attended the initial efforts of Murad. If he were not himself a trained and seasoned warrior, he had a precious legacy of generals in whom he could put implicit trust. ”

“ Can you wonder, gentlemen, that I bewail my evil destiny? Am I not justly called Murad the Unlucky? Here end all my hopes in this world! Better would it have been if I had died long ago! Better that I had never been born! Nothing I ever have done or attempted has prospered. Murad the Unlucky is my name, and ill fate has marked me for her own."
III.
The lamentations of Murad were interrupted by the entrance of Saladin. Having waited in vain for some hours, he now came to see if any disaster had happened to his brother Murad. ”

“ I acknowledge, vizier, I have been in the wrong in our argument,” continued the sultan, turning to his vizier. “I acknowledge that the histories of Saladin the Lucky and Murad the Unlucky favour your opinion, that prudence has more influence than chance in human affairs. The success and happiness of Saladin seem to me to have arisen from his prudence: by that prudence Constantinople has been saved from flames and from the plague. ”

“ He much resembled his father in vigour and capacity as a general and in his desire to act justly.
At the very commencement of Murad’s reign the Greek Emperor Manuel, by an almost incredible act of folly, hoping to take advantage of Murad’s youth and inexperience, let loose from confinement a man who claimed, whether rightly or not was never clearly established, to be Mustapha, the son of Sultan Bayezid, who had disappeared after the battle of Angora. ”

“ It had three times in the last hundred years been captured by the Ottomans, and had as often been recaptured by the Greeks. Murad led an army, in 1430, to attack it, and, after a vigorous resistance by the Venetians, captured it by assault, and finally annexed the city and its district to the Turkish Empire. It was thought that Murad showed great clemency in not allowing his soldiers to indulge in a wholesale massacre. The Greek inhabitants, however, were sold into slavery, and their numbers were so great that a good-looking girl was sold for the price of a pair of boots. ”

“ Murad I. (Amurath) subdued, without resistance, the whole of Thrace from the Hellespont to Mount Hæmus, and made Adrianople the seat of vice-royalty. Murad was succeeded by his son Bajazet (Byazid) , whose reign forms one of the most splendid epochs in the Turkish annals. His armies were victorious in every country that he undertook to conquer, until at last he encountered the famous Mogul chief, Tamerlane, who defeated the Turkish army and took Bajazet captive. ”

“ The state of Europe facilitated Murad’s projects: civil war and anarchy prevailed in most of the countries of Central Europe, where the feudal system was at its last gasp, and the small Balkan states were divided by mutual jealousies. The capture of Adrianople, followed by other conquests, brought about a coalition under the king of Hungary against Murad, but his able lieutenant Lalashahin, the first beylerbey of Rumélia, defeated the allies at the battle of the Maritsa in 1363. ”

“ They demanded the seventeen—the "vizier, the aga of the Janissaries, the deftarder, and even a boy, because he was liked by the Sultan." "Give us the heads," they cried. "Give the men up to us, or it shall be the worse for thee."
Murad summoned Hafiz to return to die. The Vizier came back, made the ablution of the Moslem law before death, went forth calmly to the mob, and was hewn in pieces outside the gate of the Seraglio. "Infamous assassins," cried Murad, "who fear neither Allah nor his prophet, some day if God wills you shall find your victims terribly avenged." ”

“ Murad felt for the moment secure in Macedonia and Thrace. The inhabitants of the conquered countries could do nothing. There were no prospects of a crusade. Through the rapid increase of the Ottoman race during the first fifteen years in Europe, and through the vassalage of the Christian princes, which compelled them to furnish contingents for war, Murad now had money and soldiers to confront his nearer Anatolian rivals. ”

“ He made overtures to his younger brother Murad, governor of Guzerat, representing that neither of their elder brothers was worthy of the kingdom, that he himself had no temporal ambition, and desired only to place a fit monarch on the throne, and then to devote himself to religious exercises and make the pilgrimage to Mecca. He therefore proposed to unite his forces to those of Murad, who would thus have no difficulty in making himself master of the empire while the two elder brothers were divided by their own strife. ”

“ Ahmed remained silent for a few seconds, and the girl gazed upon him with dilated, fascinated eyes. She noted in a dazed way how the dark blue robe parted on his breast and showed beneath a vest of gold silk, fastened a little to the side by a single emerald; how the column of throat towered above these, supporting the oval face and beautifully-modelled chin, and above these again, and the commanding brows, shone another solitary emerald between the folds of his turban on his forehead.
Murad began to seem like a robber depriving her of all these things. There is no fidelity in the body. ”

“ While the struggle between the Palaeologi and the Venetian war with Genoa and Hungary were strengthening Murad’s position in Europe, he began to turn his attention, for the first time since the expedition against Angora at the beginning of his reign, to the expansion of Ottoman authority in Asia Minor. ”

“ Murad recovered his spirits upon this. "Brother," said he, "I comfort myself for being Murad the Unlucky, when I reflect that you are Saladin the Lucky. See, gentlemen," continued he, turning to the pretended merchants, "scarcely has this most fortunate of men been five minutes in company before he gives a happy turn to affairs. ”

“ But the insidious charm of Ahmed's personality worked on all the pulses of her body; pulses that know not fidelity, though her brain kept telling her that Murad would be waiting for her in the garden. But that night Murad did not come. The garden stood cool and fragrant, full of perfume and rosy light, full of the music of birds and the tints of a thousand flowers—all the invitations to love, but love itself was absent. Dilama searched the garden from end to end, and walked in and out among the roses by the buttressed wall, but the garden was empty and silent. ”

“ But a siege pressed firmly to an end must at last have triumphed over the mere inert resistance of stone and mortar, unsupported by an adequate garrison within. However, Murad preferred to press on against worthier adversaries than the weak Paleologus, and spent his life in incessant and successful wars with the Servians, the Bulgarians, and the Seljouk Emirs of Southern Asia Minor. In a reign of thirty years he extended his borders to the Balkans on the north, and annexed large tracts of Seljouk territory from his brother Emirs in Asia Minor. ”

“ Murad felt an irresistible curiosity to learn the subject of this evening conference, and he did not anticipate much difficulty in doing so, as he was well known to the keeper of the coffee-shop, a bluff old Arnàout, who had often allowed the friendless and mutilated child to earn or beg a few coppers at his door before the kindness of Hassan and Amina had placed him beyond the reach of absolute want. ”

“ Mtirad Murad III., who now succeeded to the Ottoman throne, was no improvement upon his father ; he ruled in name only, all real power being in the hands of worthless favour ites. As a natural consequence the empire began rapidly to decay ; corruption infected all ranks of official society, the sultan himself selling his favours for bribes; while the other great curse of old Turkey, military insubordina tion, showed itself in a more threatening aspect than ever. The janissaries mutinied on several occasions, and each time compelled the weak Murad to accede to their demand. ”

“ Monastir, Perlepē, and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina were next taken, and the king of Servia consented to furnish to Murad a fixed contingent of auxiliary troops, besides paying a money tribute. In 1381 Murad’s son Yilderim Bayezid married Devlet Shah Khatun, daughter of the prince of Kermian, who brought him in dowry Kutaiah and its six dependent provinces. In the same year Bey Shehr and other portions of the Hamid principality were acquired by purchase from their ruler Hussein Bey, as the Karamanian princes were beginning to cast covetous eyes on them ”

“ The crisis was fully appreciated by Murad. He summoned new troops from Asia, and all the greatest generals took part in the campaign, in addition to his two sons, Bajesid and Jakab. The decisive battle was fought on ground that was part of Lazar’s own domains near Prischtina, on the wide plains called Kossowopolje. Murad was surrounded by his band of Janitschars; to hold back the enemy the camels of the Asiatic troops were drawn up in front. The Christians were confident in their superior number, for they had 200,000 men under arms ready to begin the attack. ”

“ Two years afterwards, in 1366, an army of fifty thousand Serbians endeavoured in vain to drive Murad out of Adrianople. The lowest degradation which the empire had yet reached was when the miserable John consented to become the tributary of Murad in order that he might enjoy his remaining possessions in Europe. In 1373 he formally recognised the sultan as his suzerain, bound himself to render him military service and to give his son Manuel as a hostage.91
The only palliative which can be offered for John’s conduct is that he felt resistance to be useless. The empire wanted peace. ”

“ Although hurt and surprised by the unwonted tone of his protectors language, Murad looked up in his face with a calm, untroubled countenance, and using his little fingers with slowness and precision, he said, “Kill me now if you doubt me! I am not noble nor honourable in birth, but I have a heart. Has Hassan forgotten our proverb, ‘The good man’s breast is the secret’s tomb’?” [77]
“Enough,” replied Hassan, in the usual tone of kindness in which he addressed his young protégé. ”

“ Hastening home, Murad took out of his box an old and ragged dress, which he had not worn 407for a twelvemonth, and having put it on, hung round his neck a tablet with which he had formerly solicited the assistance of the charitable, and on which was written in Turkish and Arabic, “Give a few paras to the deaf and dumb for the love of Allah!”
He sallied forth about an hour after sunset, and made his way to the café. Old Arnàout, on noticing him, said, “Murad, poor little fellow, it is long since I have seen you; where have you been?” ”

“ Next morning, as soon as it was day, Murad Shah mounted and rode forth, with the two hundred Marids on his right hand and the kings of men on his left, whilst the drums beat a point of war. When Gherib heard this, he also took horse and calling his people to battle, rode out, with the Jinn on his right hand and the men on his left. Then came forth Murad Shah, armed cap-a-pie, and spurred his charger right and left, saying, ‘O folk, let none come forth to me but your King. ”

“ The use of tobacco, coffee, opium and wine were forbidden on pain of death; eighteen persons are said to have been put to death in a single day for infringing this rule. During his whole reign, indeed, supposed offenders against the sultan’s authority were done to death, singly or in thousands. The tale of his victims is said to have exceeded 100,000.
But if he was the most cruel, Murad was also one of the most manly, of the later sultans. He was of gigantic strength, which he maintained by constant physical exercises. ”