The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay. Eversley George Shaw-Lefevre
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Название: The Turkish Empire, its Growth and Decay
Автор: Eversley George Shaw-Lefevre
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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Mr. Gibbons refuses credence to this interesting story on the ground mainly of its inherent improbability. His argument does not convince me. The succession of the younger brother to the Emirate without a fight for it, on the part of the elder one, was an event so remarkable, and so contrary to all experience in Ottoman history, as to make the explanation given a reasonable one. The probabilities seem to me to be all in its favour. Alaeddin died in 1337. It is admitted that for seven years he acted as the first Gran
1
Von Hammer, i. p. 28 (French translation).
2
Cantemir, p. 20.
3
Mr. Gibbons refuses credence to this interesting story on the ground mainly of its inherent improbability. His argument does not convince me. The succession of the younger brother to the Emirate without a fight for it, on the part of the elder one, was an event so remarkable, and so contrary to all experience in Ottoman history, as to make the explanation given a reasonable one. The probabilities seem to me to be all in its favour. Alaeddin died in 1337. It is admitted that for seven years he acted as the first Grand Vizier of the Ottoman State. It may well be, therefore, that he commenced, if he did not complete, the important organization of the army with which he has been credited by Turkish historians.
4
This was not the corps of Janissaries, which, as Mr. Gibbons has shown, was created not by Orchan but by his son Murad.
5
Mr. Gibbons in his account of the origin of this corps disputes the figures as reported above from previous writers, and also the alleged motives for its constitution. After careful consideration of the question, I have preferred to adhere to the version given by Sir Edwin Pears, who has investigated the subject with great care in the early Greek and Turkish histories. I have, however, followed Mr. Gibbons in one point, namely, in attributing the constitution of the force to Murad I rather than to Orchan. Mr. Gibbons’s account of the corps of Janissaries is to be found on pp. 118-20 of the
6
Pears, p. 228.
7
Knolles, i. p. 139.
8
Gibbons, p. 221.
9
Froissart, xvi. 47.
10
Boucicaut in 1399, with four ships and two armed galleys and twelve hundred knights and foot soldiers, after defeating an Ottoman fleet in the Dardanelles, arrived at Constantinople and gave assistance to the Emperor in defence of the city.
11
Gibbon, viii. p. 114.
12
This story of the cage, which forms the subject of a scene in Marlowe’s play of
13
Gibbon, viii. p. 242.
14
Von Hammer, ii. p. 379.
15
Sir Edwin Pears,
16
The four pages which Gibbon devotes to a description of this attempted union of the two Churches are masterpieces of irony and scorn (Gibbon, viii. pp. 287-91).
17
The writer, in 1890, had the advantage of viewing what remained of these walls in the company of Sir Edwin Pears, who has fully described them in his admirable account of the great siege.
18
Stone balls of considerable size were used by the Turks to defend the Dardanelles up to a late date. When in 1855 the writer visited the forts there, he observed that they were still provided for some of the guns.
19
Speech of Mahomet recorded by the historian Christobulus, quoted by Sir Edwin Pears, pp. 323-4.
20
Quoted by Pears, p. 303.