Selim was succeeded by his only son, Sulyman, at the age of 26. He reined for 46 years, a period of unexampled splendor in the history of Ottoman Empire — its culminating era. This was mainly due to personal qualities of the new Sultan. He surpassed all his predecessors, and still more his degenerate successors, in dignity and graciousness.
Sultan Sulyman I, termed by Europeans `Sulyman the Great`, and `Sulyman the Magnificent`, bears in Turkish histories the titles of `Sulyman the Qanouni` (Sulyman the Lawgiver), and `Sulyman Sahib` (Sulyman the Lord of his Age). He was born in 1494, and his mother Ayesha Sultan belonged to Crimea.
At the commencement of his era, 1520, nearly 40 years had passed away since the Ottomans had been engaged in earnest conflict with the chief powers of central and western Europe. The European wars of the feeble Bayazid II had been coldly waged, and were directed against the minor states of Christendom; and the fierce energies of his son Selim had been devoted to the conquest of Muslim states.
During these two reigns, the great kingdoms of modern Europe had started from childhood into manhood. They had been producing most able and strong rulers. But nevertheless, not one of these great historical characters is clothed with superior luster to that of the Ottoman Sultan.
Sulyman had, while very young, in the time of Bayazid II, been entrusted with the command of provinces; and in his father`s reign he had, at the age of 20, been left at Constantinople as viceroy of the Empire, when Selim marched to attack Persia.
He governed at Adrianople during the Egyptian war; and during the last two years of Selim`s rein he administered the province of Saroukhan. Thus, when at the age of 26 he became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, he had already gained experience as a ruler; and he had displayed not only high abilities, but also a noble generosity of disposition, which won for him both affection and respect. The people, weary of the ferocity of Selim, rapturously welcomed the accession of a new ruler.
The first act of Sultan Sulyman was to announce that an earnest love of justice and generous magnanimity would be the leading principles of his rein. Six hundred Egyptians whom Selim had forcibly transplanted to Constantinople received permission to return to their homes. A large sum of money was distributed to merchants who had suffered by Selim`s arbitrary confiscation of their property for trafficking with Persia.
Several officers, high in rank, including the admiral of the fleet, who were accused of cruelty, were brought to trial, convicted and executed. The report of these and similar deeds of the new sultan spread rapidly throughout the Empire, and Sulyman`s commands to his viceroys to repress every kind of disorder among rich and poor, among Muslims and non-Muslims, and to make the impartial dispensation of justice the great object of their lives, received universal applause and general obedience.
The people felt that they were under a strong as well as merciful government. It was only in Syria that any troubles followed the death of Selim. There the double traitor Ghazali, the Mumluk Bey, who had betrayed the Mamluk cause to the Turks, and had received the Syrian government as his reward, attempted to make himself independent; but Sulyman sent an army against him without delay. The defeat and death of the rebel not only restored tranquility in Syria, but checked the hostile designs of Shah Ismail, who had assembled his forces on the frontier, and stood in readiness to avail himself of Ottoman weakness as Persia`s opportunity.
During his 46 years of reign, Sulyman added enormously to the empire. Belgrade, Rhodes, nearly the whole of Hungary, Crimea, the great provinces of Mossil, Baghdad, and Basra, and a part of Armenia taken from Persia, Yemen and Aden in Arabia, Algiers, Oran and Tripoli, and an undefined extent of hinterland inhabited by Arabs in North Africa, and a wide extension of Egypt in the direction of Nubia, were the contributions he transferred to his successors.
It was over the Hungarians that his first conquests were achieved. There had been disturbances and collisions on the frontiers of Hungary and Turkey in the last part of Selim`s reign. The young Sultan instantly placed himself at the head of a powerful army, which was provided with a large train of heavy artillery; and arrangements were made for the transport and regular delivery of stores and supplies, which showed that Sulyman possessed the forethought and skill, as well as the courage of his father.
The first campaign of Sultan Sulyman against the Giaours was eminently successful. Sabaez and other places of minor importance in Hungary were besieged and taken by his generals; but Sulyman led his main force in person against Belgrade, which long had been a bulwark of Christendom against the Turks, and before which Mohammad II, had so signally failed. After seven days of bombardment Belgrade was finally captured on August 29, 1521.
There was no massacre of the garrison or the inhabitants. Sulyman converted the principal church into a mosque. The city was thenceforth garrisoned by a Turkish force. It constituted the principal strong hold of the Empire on the Danube, and was the gateway for many invasions of Hungary.
He now resolved to efface the shame of the other reverse, which Mohammad II had sustained, and to make himself master of the Isles of Rhodes, where the Christian knights of St John of Jerusalem had so long maintained themselves near the heart of the Turkish power.
Indeed, the possession of Rhodes by the Ottomans was indispensable for free communication between Constantinople. and its new conquests along the Syrian coasts and in Egypt, and for the establishment of that supremacy of the Ottoman navy in the East of the Mediterranean, which Sulyman was determined to affect. On June 18, 1522, the Ottoman fleet of 300 sail quitted Constantinople for Rhodes.
The garrison of Rhodes consisted of 5000 regular troops, 600 of whom were knights. Besides these, the seafaring men of the port were formed into an effective corps; the citizens were enrolled and armed. The defences of the city had been much increased and improved, since the siege by Mohammad II; and even if the outer walls were breached and carried, there were now inner lines of strong walls prepared to check the assailants; and several quarters of the city had their own distinct fortifications.
Sulyman landed in the island of Rhodes on July 28, 1522, and the siege began on August 1. It was prolonged for nearly five months by the valor of the Grand Master of Rhodes and his engineer.
The war was waged almost incessantly underground by mines and countermines, as well as above the ground by cannonade and bombardment, desperate sallies, and still more furious assaults. A breach was affected, and some of the bastions of the city were shattered early in September; and four murderous attempts at storming were made and repulsed during that month.
Three more assaults during the next two months were fiercely given and heroically withstood, though the effect of the cannonade on the fortifications was more and more visible. The Turkish commanders at length resolved to lavish no more lives in attempts to storm the city, but to trust to their mines and `artillery for its gradual destruction`.
Advancing along trenches according to the plan of gradual approach which since had been habitually applied, but which was previously unknown, or, at least, never used so systematically, the Turks brought their batteries to bear closer and closer upon the city; and at length established themselves within the first defenses.
Sulyman now offered terms of capitulation, and the besieged reluctantly treated for surrender, as there were no hopes of succor, and the ultimate fall of the city was certain. By the terms of capitulation, on December 25, 1522, which Sulyman granted to the Knights, he did honour to unsuccessful valour, and such honuor is reflected with double luster on the generous victor.
The Knights were to be at liberty to quit the island with their arms and property within 12 days in their own galleys, and they were to be supplied with transports by the Turks if they wanted the citizens of Rhodes, on becoming the Sultan`s subjects, were to be allowed the free exercise of their religion, their churches were not to be profaned, no children were to be taken from their parents, and no tribute was to be required from the island for five years.
The insubordinate violence of the Janissaries caused some infraction of these terms, but the main provisions of the treaty were fairly carried into effect.
Sulyman had experienced the turbulence of the Janissaries at Rhodes; and he spent three years afterwards on a more serious proof of the necessity of keeping that formidable body constantly engaged in warfare, and under strict, but judicious discipline. The years 1523 and 1524 had not been signalised by any foreign war.
The necessity of quelling a revolt by Ahmed Pasha, who had succeeded Khair Bey in the government of Egypt, had occupied part of the Ottoman forces; and after the traitor had been defeated and killed, Sulyman sent his favourite grand vizier, Ibrahim, into that important province to resettle its administration, and assure its future tranquility.
In the autumn of 1525 he relaxed in his devotion to the toils of state, and, quitting his capital, went to Adrianople and followed there with ardour the amusement of chase. The Janissaries began to murmur at their Sultan`s forgetfulness of war, and at last they broke out into an open revolt and pilled the houses of the principal ministers.
Sulyman returned to Constantinople and strove to quell the storm. He boldly confronted the mutinous troops and cut down two of their ringleaders with his own hand; but he was obliged to pacify them by a donative.
In 1526, the Sultan invaded Hungary with an army more than 100,000 strong and 300 pieces of artillery. King Louis of Hungary rashly gave battle with a far inferior force to the invaders.