Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (31 page)

33 Hajji Halifa, pp. 71-72.

34 Haj]i Halifa, pp. 72-73; Hammer, VI, 186-187. See his autobiographic Travels and Adventures, translated from the Turkish, with notes, by Armin Vambery (London, 1899). This work is otherwise known as The Mirror of Countries.

ss Vamberyv Travels and Adventures^ p» 14.

Sidi All broke through with the nine that remained to him into the Indian Ocean, where he encountered a hurricane "compared" to which "a storm in the Mediterranean is as insignificant as a grain of sand; day could not be distinguished from night, and the waves rose like huge mountains." 36 Here he was tossed about for a long time, and finally stranded off Gujarat, where, as he was in no condition to proceed further or to defend himself against the Portuguese, he surrendered his fleet to the ruler of the place, after receiving his promise "that the value of the arms and other effects which were left with him should be sent to the Sublime Porte." 37 Most of his followers had already enlisted in "the service of King of Gujarat," 38 but Sidi Ali himself, with fifty of his companions, wandered about through India and Persia for many months, and finally got back to Constantinople in May, 1556. "Shortly afterwards he was admitted to the royal presence at Adrian-ople, and had an addition of eighty aspers made to his salary; whilst all his companions were promoted in Egypt; and the royal order was issued that they should be paid their four years' salary which was in arrear. The capudan then wrote an account of his voyages and travels, which he called The Adventures of Sidi AH.' " 39

Such was the rather sorry ending of Suleiman's attempts to wrest the control of the Indian Ocean from the Portuguese. We need not wonder that he was not more successful. The parallel to Charles V's failure to hold the western basin of the Mediterranean is very close. In both cases the cause was the same; each sovereign had too many other irons in the fire. Suleiman had been forced to give up all hope of dominating the Malabar coast. On the Persian Gulf he had been unable to take Ormuz, and his enemies

36 Hajji Halifa, p. 75.

37 Hajji Halifa, p. 77.

38 Hajji Halifa, p. 77.

39 Hajji Halifa, p. 77.

kept him bottled up at Basra. On the other hand, the presence of his sailors and soldiers on the Tigris and Euphrates compelled the Portuguese to maintain a powerful garrison at the narrows. Moreover the Sultan had succeeded in retaining his hold on Aden, and therewith the control of the Red Sea. Neither Albuquerque nor any of his successors were able to take it away from him; one is reminded of the way in which the Spaniards in North Africa held on to Oran. And finally the fact that the Sultan had striven to oust his Christian rivals from the Indian Ocean is an interesting evidence of the grandeur of his conception of the task which he believed that God had called on him to perform. As Commander of the Faithful he felt it his duty to extend his protection over all the Moslem peoples in the world, and support the Crescent wherever it clashed with the Cross. Like others of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors who have held similar creeds, he was destined to fail, but so far as we can judge, the motives that inspired him were less selfish than those of the great majority of them.

One curious episode of the struggle between the Turks and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean remains to be noticed. "Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion," the Christian inhabitants of the kingdom of Abyssinia had "slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten." * But the advance of the Ottoman power since the capture of Constantinople was a far more serious threat to their independence than any that they had ever encountered before. When the Turks conquered Egypt under Selim the Terrible their peril was more manifest than ever, and their sovereign, or Negus, was consequently delighted when the Portuguese began to show an interest in him and in his

*> Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xlvii (V, 165, in J. B. Bury's edition).

country. The westerners apparently believed that he was none other than the famous Prester John, the mythical Christian monarch who was popularly believed, ever since the twelfth century, to have made extensive conquests from the Moslems, and whose domains had been alternately located in Asia and in Africa. Embassies and messages began to be exchanged during the first two decades of the sixteenth century, and in 1522 the Turkish danger became so imminent that the Negus sent a monk named Saga za Ab to Lisbon to ask for a definite alliance with the Portuguese in order to expel the Turks from the Red Sea. Apparently the ambassador also carried a letter to the Pope, in which the Abyssinian ruler professed himself willing to abandon the Coptic and accept the Latin form of worship, and recognize the Bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ. 41

Nothing came of these proposals for the time being, but the news of them naturally alarmed the Turks. The Moslem inhabitants of the region of Adal, which intervenes between Abyssinia and the mouth of the Red Sea, were supported by their Turkish neighbors at Zeila to the southeast of them in a vigorous offensive. They had firearms, with which the Abyssinians were apparently totally unfamiliar, and they were ably led by the famous "Achmet the Left-Handed/ 5 the emir of Harrar, further southward. They gained one victory after another in the succeeding years. Every triumph that Achmet won was followed by increasing Turkish reinforcements. He speedily conquered all the eastern part of Abyssinia; the Negus was forced to flee into the interior. The only remaining hope for the latter was to make a final desperate appeal to

41 W. E. Conzelman, tr. and ed., Chronique de Gdd'wde'wos, roi cffithiopie (Paris, 1895), pp. xiv-xv; Francisco Alvarez, Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia, 2520-1 pv, tr. and ed. Henry E. J. Stanley, 3d Baron Stanley of Alderley (London: Hakluyt Society, 1881), p. x. It seems probable that the letter was a pious fraud.

Christian Europe to help him. 42 A certain John Bermudez, who had remained in Abyssinia after the last Portuguese embassy had departed, was accordingly despatched to Rome and to Portugal As a proof of the sincerity of his desire to become a vassal of Rome, the Negus persuaded the aged Abuna of Ethiopia, or head of the Abyssinian church, who was about to die, to designate Bermudez as his successor and the next religious representative of the land. This of course the Abuna had no right to do, for the appointment to his office was in the hands of the Patriarch of Alexandria, but the urgency of Bermudez won the day. On his arrival at Rome he was warmly welcomed and, according to his own statement, probably false, was confirmed by Paul III in his new dignity as "Patriarch of Abyssinia." tf At Lisbon the king of Portugal gave him an order commanding his Indian viceroy to despatch a force of 450 men to his rescue with the firearms which he so desperately needed. But the Negus did not live to see the arrival of the forces that had been promised him. He died on September 2, 1540, and the Portuguese, who were commanded by a son of Vasco da Gama, did not reach Abyssinia till the following year. 44

Galawdewos (Gradeus, or Claudius), who succeeded to the Abyssinian throne, was only eighteen years old at the time; but he was a man of indomitable energy, and had been carefully trained as a soldier. Even before the arrival of the Portuguese reinforcements, he had seized the offensive. He was not invariably successful, but at least he let the Turks know that he was alive/ 5 When da Gama and his followers appeared, he naturally redoubled his

42 Conzeiman, pp. xvi-xvii.

^Miguel de Castanhoso, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543, tr. and ed. R. S. Whiteway (London: Hakluyt Society, 1902), pp. bood-cL

44 De Castanhoso, pp. xxxvui-xl; Conzelman, pp. xvi-xix.

45 Conzelman, pp. xvu-xvili.

efforts; in April, 1542, the Ottoman commander was badly defeated in an attempt to prevent the union of the two detachments of his enemies. From that time onward fortune wavered between the two sides. The Turks got the aid of the pasha of Zebid, on the other side of the Red Sea, who sent them 1000 troops and ten cannon. They caught a small detachment of the Portuguese who had got separated from the main army, slew most of them, and captured their leader, who was brought before Achmet, tortured, and beheaded. 48 But a little later Galawdewos resumed the offensive. For the next fifteen years, he was almost invariably successful. His arch-enemy Achmet was killed in 1543, and the neighboring tribes, who had supported the Turks when victory seemed within their grasp, now reversed their policy, and rallied to the standard of Galawdewos. It is worth noting that the latter, now that the tide had turned in his favor, refused to fulfil his promise to become a Roman Catholic; even an urgent appeal from Pope Julius III failed to move him. His famous Confession of Faith was a splendid justification of the Abyssinian form of Christianity. 47

Until the latter part of the life of Galawdewos, there is little evidence that Suleiman took any active interest in the affairs of Abyssinia. The whole affair doubtless seemed to him too remote. He had many more important responsibilities in other lands, and he trusted the local Turkish officials to see to it that the Abyssinian king was kept in bounds. But the latter's recent victories convinced him that it would not do to delay too long, and a Circassian, Ugdunin Pasha, obtained his consent and support in undertaking the conquest of Nubia, thereby threatening Abyssinia on the north. In 1557 Ugdunin captured Massawa on the western shore of the Red Sea, and thus possessed

40 De Castanhoso, pp. 150-167; Conzelman, pp. xviii-xx. 47 Conzelman, pp. xxvii-xxx.

himself of what had been the sole base of the operations of the Portuguese in the interior. 48 The latter had by this time departed and Galawdewos was left alone. The valiant ruler defeated his assailants in several encounters in the course of the next two years, but was himself killed in battle in March, I55949 With his death hostilities soon dwindled away. Abyssinia was no longer a threat to the power of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks were too busy in other directions to try to extend their victories at its expense. Since then the country has often been exposed to the peril of Moslem conquest, but down to its annexation by the Italians in 1936 it was never in such danger of losing its independence as it was in Suleiman's day. It is poetic justice that the period of its captivity has lasted less than five years.

48 Conzelman, pp. xxviii, 164—167.

49 Conzelman, p. xxx.

C*9 XI «*»

Hungary Again: 1533-1564

1 he tale of Suleiman's doings in the Danube valley during the thirty years which followed the peace of 1533 is one of the most difficult and complicated in the history of Europe, and can be dealt with but briefly here. It contains plenty of fighting, but the Sultan's failure to take Vienna in 1529, and his voluntary retirement, three years later, after the capture of Guns, had convinced him that there was a point beyond which land campaigns in Central Europe could not profitably be pursued. His attention, moreover, was continually distracted, and at the most critical moments, by the necessity of waging war on Persia. The main interest of the story is really diplomatic, and there is much treachery and deceit in it—most of which was on the Christian side. Suleiman constantly strove to play off the Hapsburg Ferdinand on the northwest against John Zapolya and his son on the northeast, and thereby to insure his own hold on the much richer south-central portion of the realm. The measure of his success in this effort is attested by the fact that the tripartite division of Hungary which had been established at the close of his reign remained practically unaltered down to the Peace of Carlowitz in 1699.

The central figure of the early years of the story is that of the Venetian Ludovico Gritti. 1 Even before the peace

1 See Heinrich Kretschmayr, "Ludovico Gritti," in Archiv filr oster-reichische GesMchte, vol. LXXXIII, r (1896), pp. 1-106, an article to which I have already referred.

of 1533 was actually signed, he was in Buda, the trusted representative of the Sultan, empowered to arrange all differences between Ferdinand and Zapolya and to superintend the drawing of their respective boundaries. But the instructions which Gritti had received from the Sultan, and the verbal orders that he had been given by Ibrahim, varied widely. The former spoke of the whole of Hungary as belonging to his protege Zapolya, whereas the latter had assured the representatives of Ferdinand that settlement would be made on the basis of utl possidetis, and had ordered Gritti to proceed on that principle. It was but another instance of the Grand Vizir's arrogance, and the ultimate results of it were to be fatal for Gritti. He listened to Ibrahim and not to Suleiman, and when ambassadors from Ferdinand arrived in Constantinople to present their side of the case as Gritti had pictured it to them, the Sultan was furious, 2 "Hungary," he declared, "is mine, and in it I have put my slave Janus Krai (Zapolya) who can do nothing without me. I have given that kingdom to him, and I can take it away when I wish. . . . Therefore do not let Ferdinand meddle in these things, because I will not give that kingdom to him. ... If Ferdinand does nothing against it, so much the better for him. . . . What Janus Krai does, he does from me, for he does not dare to do anything unless I order him to." 3

How far the Sultan suspected that Gritti had disobeyed him, we can only guess; in any case the Venetian was not removed from his post. His position, however, was exceedingly precarious. Ibrahim, his chief friend and patron, had already gone off to Asia Minor to prepare for the Persian campaign, 4 and Gritti had many enemies in Constantinople. In his extremity, he confided in Cornelius

2 Kretschmayr, pp. 47-53. s Gevay, vol. II, pt* 2, pp. 57-58. 4 Gevay, vol. II, pt, 2, p. 104.