HE Ottoman Turks have their name from Osman or Othman, an emir, who, after the Seldjukian power had been destroyed in Asia Minor by the Mongols, became celebrated for valor, and laid the foundation for the resurrection of Turkish grandeur. The ruins of the Seldjukian empire, which had sustained a terrible contest for two centuries with the Byzantine emperors and the Western Crusaders, but which had succumbed to the Mongolian storm, needed only a fresh animation in order to be formidable again. The revivification was received from the horde of Othman.

This horde leaped, as it were, from the mountains of the ancient Trojan country, about 1300, into the plains of Bithynia, and seized from the declining Byzantine empire a large portion of this important province. Othman chose Prusa for his capital, and the Moslems poured in from near and far to the standard of Mahometan faith. Orchan, the son of Othman, in 1326, pushed on the conquests of his father. He made himself master of Nice and Nicomedeia, and united under his sceptre many countries of Asia Minor. The Greek empire, distracted by civil war, was unable to resist him. Orchan, to whom the emperor John VI. Cantacuzene had married his own daughter, Theodora, demanded for her a suitable hereditary portion; Suleimann, his son, crossed the Hellespont, took Gallipoli, which was destroyed by an earthquake, rendered it stronger than before, and thus obtained the first firm foothold in Europe, 1357.

Orchan was succeeded, in 1360, by his son Amurath I. Gasi. This conqueror marched irre

sistibly into the Greek empire, took Adrianople, also Philippopolis, the greater portions of Thrace and Macedonia, and marched through or terrified all the country from the Danube to the Adriatic coast. His army was now improved by forming the strongest and handsomest youths, selected from the Christian captives, into an effective infantry, "Janizaries," by means of a military education. For two whole centuries the Janizaries were almost always victorious, and they remained, in their subsequent decline, the flower of the Turkish armies. The ter ror which they inspired was one of the causes that contributed to consolidate in the kingdoms of Europe the system of standing armies. Amurath embellished Adrianople with splendid mosques, and ruled in that magnificent city in every way becoming a powerful monarch. His last victory was in 1389, at Kossova, when he decisively defeated the ServiTo him succeeded Bajazet (The Lightning), his son, a vigorous but cruel king, whose very name inspired terror. He conquered Macedonia and Thessaly, and penetrated through Thermopyla into the desolated Greece and Peloponnesus, took Argos by storm, and allowed his swift horsemen to wander to the southernmost point of ancient Laconia. At length, the West armed itself against this terrible enemy. The western armies assembled under the banner of Sigismund, king of Hungary. One hundred thousand well-armed warriors marched from Ofen (Buda Pesth). John of Burgundy, and the flower of the French chivalry, and many German and Bohemian nobles accompanied the army. They encountered, near Nicopolis, 1396, Bajazet's army, which, equally courageous, but more than double in number, threatened to surround them. The im

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petuosity of the French by its unseasonable onset lost the day. Many thousands of Christians were left on the field of battle, their noblest generals, among them the Prince of Burgundy, the counts of Artois, Coucy, and Boucicault were taken prisoners; Sigismund fled with difficulty to the Danube, and returned by Constantinople in long round-aboutways to his kingdom. Many counts and knights fell into the hands of the Turks, and only obtained their liberty by a heavy ransom. Ten thousand prisoners of inferior rank were put to death by the order of Bajazet.

Bajazet then continued his conquests; he extorted a large amount of money from the Greek empire for an uncertain truce. He feared nothing. Then the power of Timourlenk, Timour the Lame, the ruler over the Mongols of Dschagatai, stormed against him. This formidable conqueror had been called by the Greek emperor, by the princes of Europe and Asia Minor, to save them from the sword of Bajazet. The armies of the two potentates met, 1402, near Ancyra, in Galatia; 400,000 Turks and 800,000 Mongols. After a murderous contest, the defection of the Crimean Tartars, who went over from Bajazet to Timour, decided the victory of the last. Bajazet was taken and shut up in an iron cage, against the bars of which he dashed his head to pieces in despair.

Wild anarchy prevailed now in the Turkish countries. Musa, whom Timour had appointed sultan, killed his elder brother, Suleiman, and was overthrown by the younger, Mahomet, who overpowered two other brothers, and favored by the decline. of the Mongolian power, restored, after Timour's death, the glory of the Ottomans.

After the accession of this sultan, Mahomet I., 1413, the Christians were exposed anew to the Turkish power. He kept peace, it is true, with the emperor Manuel (he reigned from 1391-1495), who had been so much harassed by Bajazet. But he marched through the countries of the Danube with victorious arms. He subjected Wallachia, pressed vigorously the Venetians, and spread terror into Germany as far as the confines of Bavaria.

Amurath II., his son and successor, signalized his reign of thirty years by his wisdom and generosity as much as by his valor. Constantinople defended itself from his arms with great difficulty. But almost all that still belonged to the empire beyond

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its walls, fell into the power of the Turks. rath, however, for the promise of a yearly tribute, concluded peace with Manuel's son and successor, John VII., 1425.

The emperor endeavored in vain to obtain the assistance of the West for his tottering throne. According to the example of his father and grandfather, he went himself to the West, in order to give weight to his negotiations. He sacrificed even the interests of his church to the demands of policy. The reunion of the Greek with the Latin Church was the bait with which the Greek emperors had for centuries allured the western powers, when in need of their assistance.

Amurath continued his conquests over the Christians. The Hungarians felt the weight of his iron hand. No king dared to resist the powerful sultan. But to two princes of inferior rank was reserved the mighty honor of saving Christendom. George Castriota, whom the Turks call Iskander Beg (Prince Alexander), lord (despot) of Epirus, and John Hunnyades, waywode of Transylvania, were these heroes. The exploits of these two men, who defied the Ottoman power, border on the marvellous.

Pope Eugene IV., faithful to his alliance with the Greek emperor, endeavored to raise a general crusade against the Turks. But only some Italian states that were threatened most by the sword of the Turks, then the knights of Rhodes, and finally the young king of Hungary and Poland, Vladislaus III., undertook the war. Some victories gained by Hunnyades induced Amurath II. to make reasonable proposals for peace, in conformity to which, 1440, a truce of ten years was concluded and solemnly confirmed by oath at Szegedin. The formidable Amurath, sure of peace, and disgusted with worldly affairs, now resigned the government to his son, Mahomet, and retired to Magnesia into the society of pious fakirs and dervises.

In consideration of such relations, the papal legate, Cardinal Julian Cesarini, encouraged Vladislaus to break the treaty. The young prince, fanatical, and thirsting for military fame, advanced with his army boldly, as far as the plains of Varna, on the shores of the Black Sea. Here he met with the Turkish army, which Amurath-induced by public danger to resume the reins-had led precipitately from Asia; and the decisive battle was fought, Nov. 10, 1444, in which the Christian army

suffered the most deplorable defeat, and in which the king was killed. Cardinal Julian was murdered in his flight by the enraged peasants; the ruins of the army, conducted by Hunnyades, returned home.

They were not pursued by the sultan. He descended again from the throne, in order to apply himself to penitence; when a sedition of the Janizaries, who despised the young Mahomet, called him to the throne for the third time, 1446. The Christians felt once more the weight of his power, near Kossova, 1449, where, after a three days' battle, he nearly annihilated the forces of the hero Hunnyades, but he did not advance further. He died in 1451, and left the empire to his son Mahomet II., who equalled him in valor and prudence, but not in moderation and generosity.

This monarch, with a view to consolidating his throne, caused his two brothers to be assassinated, and resolved upon making Constantinople the seat of his government. Constantine XI. had ascended the Byzantine throne on the death of his brother John V. in the year 1448. Constantinople and a “pitiful handful of land" near its gates constituted the new empire. The younger brothers of the emperor, Thomas and Demetrius, fought for the Peloponnesus, which still belonged to the Palæologi. Mahomet advanced on the city and built the threatening fortress Rumili Hasari. Constantine, who still possessed some feeling for the old Roman greatness, resolved to enter upon a hopeless contest, and prepared to defend the beautiful city. The siege commenced on the 6th of April, 1453, the army of Mahomet being numerically superior to that of the number of the entire citizens. Constantine had but ten thousand fighting men, onehalf of whom were foreigners, among them two thousand Genoese.

On the fifty-third day of the siege the city was stormed. On the night before the storming Constantine and his friends pledged themselves to die in harness. Constantine with equal piety and valor received the Holy Communion in the church of St. Sophia, and rushed forth to the combat. These last defenders of the time-honored empire fought with a heroism worthy of the empire's brightest annals-worthy the eulogy of all time. The assailants fell by thousands, but the superior forces of the Ottomans prevailed. It was indeed a hopeless struggle. Constantine died the death of a

hero, and on the 19th of May, 1453, the imperial city fell, and with it the empire. The ancient seat of Byzantine magnificence became the residence of the sultan. The church of St. Sophia was turned into a mosque, and the half moon of Islam was planted on the ruins of Christian civilization. Many learned men fled in terror to the West, and were instrumental in diffusing the Greek language and literature.

Unsatiated by conquest, Mahomet extended his hand, which was now still more formidable, after new plunder. Among the potentates of Europe, there was no one-according to relations or sentiments-able or disposed to become the liberator of this part of the world. Hunnyades and Scanderbeg alone sustained their ancient glory. The first, three years after the fall of Constantinople, 1456, repulsed the Ottomans, who were besieging Belgrade, gloriously, and saved this important fortress. The second, to the astonishment of the world, maintained his Albanian mountains for many years against the most formidable superiority, but he was finally overpowered, and died as a fugitive in the Venetian territory, 1405.

The progress of Mahomet became now so much the more rapid: he conquered Bosnia, took many islands and territories upon the coasts of the Adriatic from the Venetians, drove the Genoese from Crimea, terrified Italy and all the West. Otranto had already fallen. Christendom trembled, but Mahomet's death granted a respite. He had died upon a campaign against Usum Hassan, the Turcoman conqueror of Persia, with the hungry eye of his soul directed to the West.

After the death of the posthumous Ladislaus, 1458, Matthias Corvinus, the son of John Hunnyades, was called from prison, by the choice of the Hungarian grandees, to the throne of Hungary. This prince reigned thirty-two years. Upon the Turks he made war without splendid vigor, or secured his kingdom by treaties obligatory for himself alone; but against the German king, Frederick, he was almost continually in arms, and, urged by his desire for dominion, he took up arms against his own father-in-law, George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia. He had, however, but little success in this war during the lifetime of Podiebrad. After his death he made himself master of Moravia, Silesia, and Lausitz (Lusatia), 1471-1474. Vladislaus II.,

the Polish prince, maintained Bohemia; he was even elected by the Hungarian states for the successor of Matthias.

With little exception Matthias governed well, energetically, and wisely. His country is indebted to him for many improvements in laws and tribunals, in general, in civil, and military institutions, in the last, especially for the establishment of a regular, well-organized militia. He died in Vienna, 1490, and had for his successor his enemy, the Bohemian king, Vladislaus VII., under whom the kingdom suffered much misfortune in the interior, as well as from abroad.

At this time, Bajazet II., Mahomet's son, sat upon the throne of the Ottomans, from 1481 to 1512. Schem (or Zizim) his younger brother, who was beloved by the people, coveted the throne, but he was overpowered, and fled to Rhodes. The sultan induced the Knights of Rhodes to hold him prisoner for a considerable stipend. In order to keep him more secure, the unfortunate Zizim was carried to France, from whence he came to Italy, and into the power of the pope, Alexander VI. He died mysteriously in Rome.

Bajazet II. reigned ingloriously, and lost the empire by the rebellion of his son, Selim I. Javus, 1512. The new sultan conquered Egypt and its subject countries, 1517, against the Circassian sultan, Cansur al Guri, and his successor, Tumanbey. The dominion of the Circassian slave-guard had been established by Barkok over the ruins of the Baharitian throne: it was similar in its origin and character to the last. Under the Circassian, as under the Baharitian Mamelukes, the Caliphate had continued to exist in the house of the Abbassides. But Selim carried the Caliph Motawakkel as a prisoner to Constantinople, and assumed this dignity himself. From this date the Ottoman sultans pass for caliphs among the Sunnites.

From the period of the taking of Constantinople, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Turks were a great and conquering people. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Selim I., after subduing Syria and Mesopotamia, undertook the conquest of Egypt, then governed by the Mamelukes, a race of Circassians, who had seized the country in 1250, and put an end to the government of the Arabian princes, the posterity of Saladin. The conquest of Egypt by Selim made little change

in the form of its government. It professed to own the sovereignty of the Turks, but was in reality governed still by the Mameluke beys.

Solyman (the Magnificent), son of Selim, was, like his predecessors, a great conqueror. The island of Rhodes, possessed by the Knights of St. John, was a darling object of his ambition. These knights had expelled the Saracens from the island in 1310. Solyman attacked Rhodes with 140,000 men and four hundred ships. The Rhodian knights, aided by the English, Italians, and Spaniards, made a noble defence; but, after a siege of many months, were forced to capitulate, and evacuate the island, 1522, which has been the property of the Turks ever since.

Solyman subdued the greatest part of Hungary, Moldavia, and Wallachia, and took from the Persians Gengia and Bagdad. He died while besieging a town in Hungary, having extended his authority over a tract of country reaching from Algiers to the Euphrates, and from the further end of the Black Sea to the extremity of Greece and Epirus. His son, Selim II., took Cyprus from the Venetians in 1571. They applied to Pope Pius V. for aid, who, together with Philip II. of Spain, after having tried in vain to rouse other European potentates to engage in the enterprise, entered into a triple alliance against the Ottoman power. An armament of two hundred and fifty ships of war, commanded by Philip's natural brother Don John of Austria, having under him, on the part of the Romans, Mark Anthony Colonna, admiral of the pope's galleys, and on the part of the Venetians, Sebastian Venieso, of a distinguished family, was opposed to two hundred and fifty Turkish galleys in the gulf of Lepanto near Corinth. Never since the battle of Actium had the Grecian seas beheld so numerous a fleet. It was the first time that the standard of the Cross Keys was displayed against the Crescent, and that the Roman galleys dared to encounter those of the Ottoman Porte. After a desperate engagement, 1571, the Turks were defeated, with the loss of one hundred and fifty ships, and fifteen thousand men. The Ottoman power continued extremely formidable, both under Amurath II. and Mahomet III., but it declined from this time, and yielded to that of the Persians under Schah-Abbas the Great, who wrested from the Turks a large part of their late-acquired dominions.

T

HE great empire of Persia, in the end of the fifteenth century, underwent a revolution on account of religion. Haydor, or Sophi, a religious enthusiast, established a new sect of Mahometans, which held Ali to be the successor of Mahomet, instead of Omar, and abolished the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Persians eagerly embraced a doctrine which distinguished them from their enemies, the Turks; and Ismael, the son of Sophi, following the example of Mahomet, enforced his opinions by the sword. He subdued all Persia and Armenia, and left his vast empire to his descendants.

Schah-Abbas, surnamed the Great, was the greatgrandson of Ismael Sophi. He ruled his empire with despotic sway, but with most able policy, for the long space of nearly fifty years. He regained the provinces which had been taken by the Turks, and drove the Portuguese from their settlement of Ormuz. He rebuilt the fallen cities of Persia, and contributed greatly to the introduction of arts and civilization. His son Schah-Sesi reigned weakly and unfortunately. In his time, Schah-Gean, the Great Mogul, deprived Persia of Candahar, and the Turks took Bagdad in 1638. From that period the Persian monarchy gradually declined. Its sovereigns became the most despicable slaves to their own ministers; and a revolution in the beginning of the eighteenth century put an end to the dynasty of the Sophis, and gave the throne to the Afghan princes, a race of Tartars.

The government of Persia was almost as despotic as that of Turkey. The sovereign drew a small yearly tax from every subject, and received likewise

stated gifts on particular occasions. The crown was hereditary with the exclusion of females; but the There sons of a daughter succeeded in their room. was no other rank in Persia than that annexed to office, which was held during the monarch's pleasThe national religion has been the Mahometan, as reformed by Sophi, but other forms of religion and modes of worship have been tolerated. The sect of the Guebres preserved the religion of Zoroaster, as contained in the Zend-Avesta and Sadder, keeping alive the sacred fire.

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The poetry of the Persians displays great fancy and luxuriance of imagery. The epic poet Firdousi is said to rival the various merits of Homer and Ariosto; and the writings of Sadi and Hafez, both in prose and poetry, are admired. by all who are conversant in Oriental literature. The Persians are, in general, much given to astrology. Sir John Chardin, who travelled in Persia in the seventeenth century, states that the government expended upon astrologers immense sums.

TARTARY.

From this vast tract of country sprang those conquerors who produced all the great revolutions in Asia. The Turks, a race of Tartars, overwhelmed the empire of the caliphs. Mahmoud, a Tartar, conquered Persia and a great part of India in the tenth century. The Tartar Genghis-Khan subdued India, China, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Batou-Kkan, one of his sons, ravaged to the frontiers of Ger