Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (29 page)

The hatred between the Turks and the Persians was both national and religious, and stretched back for centuries. The former were supposed to be descendants of the second son of the legendary King Faridun, who was named Tur, and who had murdered his younger brother Iraj; and the latter was believed to be the ancestor of the Persians. This tradition of hostility was passed on from generation to generation, until it developed on both sides into an article of national faith; the Turks, moreover, were orthodox Sunnites, and the Persians heretical Shiites. Nevertheless there had been almost no recent clashes between the two powers until Selim the Terrible's great expedition against Shah Ismail, which ended with his victory at Chaldiran. For the next few years Ismail made no attempt to avenge himself. The revolt of Ghazali in Syria (1521) seemed to offer him a chance, and he gathered his troops at the frontier in order to profit by It in the

2 R.B.IVL, IE, 302-303.

3 Cf. also K. G. Jayne, Vetsco da Gama and His Successors (London, 1910), pp. 108-110, for some account of early diplomatic relations between Portugal and Persia.

event of success. But Ghazali was defeated, and in the following year the Turks captured Rhodes; and the Shah decided that discretion was the better part of valor. In the early months of 1523 he deemed it prudent to send an ambassador with an escort of five hundred cavalry to express, though somewhat tardily, his regret at the death of Selim, and to offer his congratulations to his successor. The size of the escort was greater than Suleiman liked. He ordered that only twenty of its members should be allowed to accompany the envoy on his entry into Constantinople; and the ambassador and his suite were later put to death by Ibrahim, at the Sultan's command, when he learned of the decease of Shah Ismail and the succession of his ten-year old son Tahmasp.* Suleiman also sent to the new Shah a letter, not of congratulations, but of abusive menace, in which he announced his intention of attacking him at once. 5 He appears only to have considered whether the extensive military preparations which were then under way should be directed against Persia or against Hungary. Whatever the reasons which caused him to choose the latter alternative, the threatened expedition against Persia was postponed till 1534. But meantime the hatred between the two Eastern sovereigns and their peoples increased apace. Fresh provocation was continually given by the semi-independent chiefs and governors along the frontiers, who transferred their allegiance from one master to another whenever it seemed to be their interest to do so. They could always count on a favorable reception from the one whose cause they had espoused, and the relations between the Shah and the Sultan went consequently from bad to worse.

While absent on the Austrian campaign of 1532, the

4 It is apparently impossible accurately to determine the date of Ismail's death, but it seems probable that it was in 1524. Cf. Encyclopedia of Islam, s. v. Ismail; also Encyclopedia Britanmca, eleventh edition, p. 230, n. 5.

5 Hammer, V t 63-65.

Sultan received word that his forces had been repulsed in an attempt to retake the town of Bitlis south of Lake Van, whose Khan had deserted to the service of Tahmasp. More bad news arrived a little later from Baghdad. Its governor had recently promised Suleiman his allegiance and sent him the keys of the city, but now word came that the governor had been murdered and the place restored to the control of the Shah. Ibrahim had been advising a campaign against Persia for years past, and the news of these two reverses determined the Sultan to undertake it at once. He made peace with Ferdinand in the early summer of 1533. I* 1 the autumn of that year he sent on the Grand Vizir in advance into Asia Minor. It was to be his first duty to recapture Bitlis; but that task was accomplished for him by the Turkish forces on the spot, before his own army had proceeded far. Ibrahim accordingly turned southwest to Aleppo, where he spent the winter in preparations for the ensuing campaign. Among the most effective of these were his negotiations with several of the commanders of the Persian frontier fortresses, who were induced to surrender without resistance. The Shah himself, warned by the experience of his father, did not venture to risk a pitched battle, and evacuated his capital Tabriz, which Ibrahim entered in triumph on the first day of the nine hundred and forty-first year of the Hegira (July 13, 1534). In spite of the fact that the ulema had advised that its heretical inhabitants be plundered and slaughtered, the Grand Vizir protected them from injury of any kind. One of Ibrahim's most attractive characteristics was his tolerance. 6 Meantime on June 10 the Sultan himself had left Constantinople. 7 His march across the mountains of Asia Minor was long and very difficult. Even in August snow fell. 8

6 Hammer, V, 202-210.

7 Suleiman's Journal, quoted in Hammer, V, 495.

8 Suleiman's Journal, quoted in Hammer, V, 495-497.

Most of the news received from Ibrahim was good, but on September 20 there came word that a large body of Ottoman troops had been waylaid by their enemies and cut to pieces. It was a really serious disaster, for even the Turkish historians admit the loss of 10,000 men. 9 The Grand Vizir now begged his master to hurry forward and unite with him, and a week later Suleiman rejoined him outside Tabriz. 10 Thence their combined forces toiled painfully southward towards Baghdad. They met with no serious annoyance from their foes, but the hardships of their march were very great. The country they had to traverse was exceedingly difficult, the roads were often impassable, and the weather was unusually bad. Provisions ran short, pack animals died, and wagons and cannon had to be abandoned, but finally on November 30 the Sultan made his entry into the ancient capital of the Abbasside caliphs and the scene of the Arabian Nights^

Baghdad had by this time lost much of the splendor for which it had been famous in the days of Harun-al-Rashid. It had been sacked by the Mongols in 1258 and by Tamerlane in 13 93; yet it still remained one of the most renowned of the cities of Asia. To Suleiman, who regarded himself as the successor of the Abbassides, the conquest of the place that had so long been the Rome of the Mohammedan world must have meant much, the more so because he had rescued it from the heretic. Yet he took pains to see to it, as Ibrahim had done at Tabriz, that the inhabitants were not molested in any way. He spent the next four months in the city, busying himself with affairs of state and the administration of his newly conquered territory. But his religious duties and responsibilities as Commander of the Faithful and Lieutenant of the Envoy of God

® Hammer, V, 210 and note 2.

10 Hammer, V, 499.

11 Hammer, V, 499-504.

were never absent from his mind. It was essential that his capture of this stronghold of heresy be signalized by some pious wonder which would impress his orthodox followers, and Suleiman seems to have arranged that they be provided with one by the discovery of the bones of Abu-Hanifa (700-770), the first of the four great imams of Sunnite Islam, and the founder of the sect that bears his name. When the heretic Persians had captured Baghdad in the time of Shah Ismail, they were believed to have destroyed the remains of this holy man together with his tomb; but now its former guardian came forward to announce that he had been warned in a dream of the intended sacrilege by the imam himself, and at his command had removed the body and put that of an unbeliever in its place. Investigation revealed the real remains in the spot where they had been concealed; it would appear that they made their presence known by emitting an odor of musk. On the news of this infallible sign, the Grand Vizir hurried to the place and removed with his own hands the stone that covered the entrance to it. The Sultan then proceeded thither and descended into the grave. He afterwards gave orders for the erection of a new tomb for Abu-Hanifa, which has remained a favorite resort of orthodox pilgrims ever since. 12 This fortunate affair could not fail to remind all good Moslems of the similarly wonderful discovery, on the eve of the taking of Constantinople, of the remains of Ayub, the standard-bearer of the Prophet. 13 The capture of the traditional strongholds both of the infidel and of the heretic had thus been marked by outward and visible signs of the pleasure and approval of God.

On April i, 1535, Suleiman left Baghdad. 14 An un-

12 Hammer, V, 220-223. 18 Hammer, II, 393-394. "Hammer, V, 505.

eventful journey of ninety-two days brought him back to Tabriz, where a Persian envoy was permitted to kiss his hand. The Sultan remained in the vicinity till August 27, and did everything in his power to impress the inhabitants with the irresistible might of the Ottoman arms. Knowing that he would be unable to retain control of a region so remote, he sacked the town and burned the palace before his departure. His return to Constantinople was constantly harassed by the attacks of his Persian foes. The rearguard, becoming too widely separated from the main body, was badly mauled by the enemy, on October 13, in the mountains west of Bitlis. 15 On November 24 the Sultan reached Aleppo, on December 5 Antioch, and on January 8, 1536, Constantinople. 16

Ten years passed and produced little change in the situation in Western Asia. In 1547 the Turks were once more at peace in Europe, this time not only with Ferdinand but also with Charles V. As in 1533, the conclusion of these treaties with his Christian foes was in large measure due to the fact that the Sultan had already begun to meditate another Persian campaign, and before they were signed he had commenced his preparations. The immediate occasion for this new expedition was the arrival of a certain Prince Elkass Mirza, a brother of Shah Tahmasp, in Constantinople, where he was received with a distinction which produced murmurs among the people, who protested against the welcome accorded to an accursed heretic who, after all, might be only a traitor in disguise. When news of these complaints reached his ears, Suleiman answered, "We have done what the honor and dignity of the empire demanded; should there be treachery in the affair, we leave its punishment in the hands of God, our Lord!" 1T Nevertheless the

15 Oman, Art of War, p. 683.

16 Hammer, V, 505-512. 1T Hammer, VI, 9.

Sultan's conduct was not solely dictated by motives of generosity. The aid of Elkass Mirza might prove to be of immense service in obtaining for him a lasting triumph over an enemy with whom he found it so hard to come to close quarters.

On April 28, 1548, the Sultan left Constantinople on his second Persian expedition. In the summer he recaptured Tabriz and then took Van and other fortresses; on November 26 he was back at Aleppo, where he spent the winter and spring. 18 In June, 1549, he took the field again, and led his army across the Euphrates. Once more he captured a number of fortified places, and his generals fought with varying success against the armies of the enemy; but it was as impossible as ever to induce the Shah to join in a decisive battle. In the meantime Elkass Mirza fell into tliQ hands of the foe and was delivered over to his brother, who kept him a prisoner for the rest of his life; and therewith ended all Suleiman's hopes of supplanting the Shah. On December 21 the Sultan was again in his capital. His second Persian campaign had been a grievous disappointment. 19

Fresh troubles in Europe occupied his attention for the next three years, till in 1552 Tahmasp, profiting by the concentration of Ottoman energy in Hungary, took the offensive once more. He won a number of battles, the most important of which was the victory of his son Abbas Mirza over the pasha of Erzerum. Suleiman sent a comforting letter to the pasha, who had deserved well of him on many previous occasions; but there was no doubt of the necessity for another campaign. At first the Sultan was not inclined to lead it in person. He was now nearly sixty years old, and the hardships of another long arduous expedition, where there was so little prospect of gaining permanent advantage, determined him at first to intrust it to one of

18 Suleiman's "Diary, quoted in Hammer, VI, 462-465.

19 Hammer, VI, 14-15.

his vizirs. We have already seen the reasons that led him to alter his decision. In August, 1553, he left Constantinople; on October 6 came the tragic execution of Mustafa, which terrified the troops and the people. The winter was spent in Aleppo. In the summer the army passed through Erzerum, crossed the upper Euphrates, and kid waste the territory far beyond it with a savagery not permitted on the earlier campaigns. The Shah, however, as usual kept out of the way, and as his forces won numerous successes over isolated Turkish divisions, there was nothing for the main army to do but to retreat. Before turning his face homewards Suleiman wrote a violent and abusive letter to his adversary, and Tahrnasp replied in the same tone. 20 The correspondence was continued by the ministers on both sides; but, curiously enough, it served as a prelude to an end of hostilities. The last victories in the field were won by the Turks, and on September 26, 1554, a Persian ambassador appeared at Erzerum to ask the Sultan for a truce, which was granted. Both sides were heartily tired of a war which had lasted for so many years with such meagre results. The Persians dared not meet the Turks in the open field, and the latter found the task of retaining distant conquests against a foe who was always able to attack, and yet could never be brought to bay, as difficult as it was unprofitable. By a treaty of peace signed at Amasia on May 29, 1555, the one hundred and second anniversary of the capture of Constantinople, Suleiman ended his Asiatic campaigns: they had resulted in a considerable extension and consolidation of his empire. He abandoned all claim to the region of Tabriz, but he kept Lower Mesopotamia with Baghdad, the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, and a footing on the Persian Gulf. 21 These territories, in spite

20 Hammer, VI, 60-65. This type of literature seems akin to the "flytings" of the Scottish poets of the sixteenth century, as The Fly ting of Dunbar and Kennedie y The Flyting betwixt Montgomery and Poltvart, etc.

21 Hammer, VI, 65-70, 478; lorga, m, 125.

of many rebellions and occasional temporary loss, were still in the hands of his successors until the first World War.