Book & Author
Lord Eversley: The Turkish Empire — Its Growth And Decay
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Chicago, IL
“In order to see the boundaries of the probabilities, need to try impossible.”
— Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481)
Indeed, the Ottoman Sultans tried and achieved the impossible. They made the Ottoman Empire one of the greatest empires in history; they reigned for more than 600 years over an Empire that at its peak of expansion (1453-1566) spanned over three continents, reaching as far north as Vienna, Austria, as far east as the Persian Gulf, as far west as Algeria, and as far south as Yemen. The mightiest and longest-lasting Ottoman Superpower, that emerged on the battlefields of Anatolia (1288), eventually fell apart disastrously in the battlefields of World War I.
In The Turkish Empire: Its Growth And Decay (available online) Lord Eversley narrates the story of the rise and fall of the Turkish empire from 1288 to 1917 in the midst of WWI. The book was abridged by Sir Valentine Chirol (1852 – 1929), a British journalist and historian, and Professor Sheikh Abdur Rashid, Chairman (1948-1958), Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, for the use of students of Ottoman History. The abridged version (published by Sh. Muhammed Ashraf, Lahore, 3E, 1958) contains twenty-eight chapters, four appendices about the Turkish Republic, and two maps.
Lord Eversley aka George John Shaw Lefevre (12 June 1831 – 19 April 1928) was a British politician during the heyday of the British Empire. During his thirty-year ministerial career, he served in various capacities — Postmaster General, President of the local government board, and first commissioner of works. He authored many books which include popular titles like English and Irish Land Questions: Collected Essays (1881), Peel and O'Connell (1887), Gladstone and Ireland (1912), The Partitions of Poland (1915), and The Turkish Empire (1917).
The book consists of two parts. In Part I, the author narrates history of the formation and growth of the Ottoman Empire in eleven chapters highlighting the reigns of all Sultans Othman (1288-1326), Orchan (1326-59), Murad I (1359-89), Bayezid I (1389-1403), Mahomet I (1413-21), Murad II (1421-51), Mahomet II, ‘The Conqueror’ (1451-81), Bayezid II (1481-1512), Selim I (1512-20), Solyman The Magnificent (1520-66), and Grand Vizier Sokolli (1566-78).
In Part II, the author examines various factors that led to the decay of the Ottoman Empire in seventeen chapters: The Rule of Sultans (1578-1656), The Kiupruli Viziers (1658-1702), To the Treaty of Passarowitz (1702-1718), To the Treaty of Belgrade (1718-1739), To the Treaty of Kainardji (1739-1774), To the Treaty of Jassy (1774-1792), To the Treaty of Bucharest (1792-1812), Mahmud II (1809-1839), The Rule of Elchis (1839-1876), The Young Turks (1909-1914), Genesis of the Turkish-German Alliance, The Great War, From the Armistice to the Treaty of Sevres, The Turkish Recovery, The Mudania Convention, The End of the Turkish Sultanate and Khalifate (1922-1924), and a Retrospect and Conclusion. The book also contains two maps of the Ottoman Empire and four appendices: the Turkish Republic, the Constitution, Foreign Policy, and Organization of Government under the Ottomans.
In the preface (1917 Ed.) Lord Eversley states the objectives and background for writing the book: “The favor with which, two years ago, my book on The Partitions of Poland was received by the public has induced me to devote the interval to a study of the history of another State which, in modern times, has almost disappeared from the map of Europe—namely Turkey. The subject is one in which I have for many years past taken great interest. In the course of a long life, I have witnessed the greater part of the events which have resulted in the loss to that State of all its Christian provinces in Europe and all its Moslem provinces in Africa, leaving to it only its capital and a small part of Thrace in Europe, and it’s still wide possessions in Asia. So long ago, also, as in 1855 and 1857, I spent some time at Constantinople and travelled in Bulgaria and Greece, and was able to appreciate the effects of Turkish rule…In 1887 and 1890 I again visited the East and travelled over the same ground as thirty years earlier…In view of these experiences and of the further great changes portended in Turkey after the conclusion of the present great war, I have thought it may be of use to tell, in a compact and popular form, the story of the growth and decay of the Turkish Empire.”
Reflecting on the earlier efforts of historians to narrate history of the Ottoman Empire, the author mentions works of German professor Von Hammer (in eighteen volumes), the British historian Knolles (1610: two volumes), Dr Johnson, Lord Byron, Herbert Gibbons (1916), Creasy, Lane Poole, La Jonquière, and Halil Ganem; and states: “I have followed their example in basing my narrative mainly on Von Hammer’s work, correcting it in some important respects from the other sources I have named, compressing it into much smaller compass than they have done, treating it from a somewhat different point of view, and bringing it down to the commencement of the present great war in 1914.”
Negating the popular European “crusade mindset” that Turkish conquests in Europe were impelled by the religious zeal, the author states: “I will only add that I commenced my recent studies under the impressions derived in part from some of the histories to which I have referred and with which I was familiar, and in part from the common tradition in Western Europe—dating probably from the time of the Crusaders—that the Turkish invasions and conquests in Europe were impelled by religious zeal and fervor and by the desire to spread Islam. I have ended them with the conviction that there was no missionary zeal whatever for Islam in the Turkish armies and their leaders who invaded Europe…I have also concluded that the decay of the military spirit and the shrinkage of Empire was largely due to the absence of these motives and rewards when the Turks were on the defensive. If I have expressed my views freely on this subject, and on the misrule of the Turks in modern times, I have endeavored to state the facts on which they are based with perfect fairness as between the Crescent and the Cross.”
Referring to the focus and methodology of the book, the author writes: “My book does not aim at a full history of the long period dealt with. I have proposed only to explain the process by which the Turkish Empire was aggregated by its first ten great Sultans, and has since been, in great part, dismembered under their twenty-five degenerate successors, and to assign causes for these two great historic movements.”
Discussing the practice of check and balance in the Sultans’ decision making process, the author observes: “It should here be noted that although the Sultans were autocrats in the full sense of the term, there existed in practice some ultimate check on their misdeeds. The Mufti, as the chief interpreter of the sacred law of Islam, had the right and power to declare whether any act of the Sultan, or any proposed act by any other person, was in accord with or opposed to such law.”
Describing the growth of Ottoman Empire, the author states: “…two great historic movements of the growth and decay of the Turkish Empire extended over periods not differing much in length. Reckoning its birth from the accession, in 1288, of Othman, as chief of a small tribe of Turks in Asia Minor, nearly three hundred years elapsed before the Empire reached its zenith. During these years ten eminent Sultans and one Grand Vizier (Sokolli) of a degenerate Sultan were concerned in its extension. It was a period of almost continuous victory and conquest. The Ottoman armies, during these years, met with only a single serious disaster, that at Angora in 1402 at the hands of Timur and a host of Mongolian invaders, which seemed at first to have struck a fatal blow to the Empire. But it soon rallied, and the process of aggrandizement was renewed. With this exception the Ottomans were almost uniformly successful. The number, however, of pitched battles in the field, which decided the fate of States successively invaded, was not great. Thrace was won by the defeat of the Byzantines by Murad I at Eski Baba in 1361. The Bulgarians were conquered at Samakof in 1371, and the Serbians at Kossova in 1389, by the same Sultan. The Hungarians were overthrown at Mohacz in 1529. The Persians were defeated at Calderan, 1514, near Tabriz, and the Egyptians at Aleppo, 1516, and Ridania, near Cairo, under Selim, 1516. The crusaders from Europe were defeated in three great battles—at the Maritza, 1363; Nicopolis, 1396; and Varna, 1444. At most of these battles the Ottomans had great superiority of numbers, and as against the Persians and Egyptians they were provided with a powerful artillery, of which their opponents were wholly deficient. The other very numerous campaigns consisted mainly of successions of sieges by invading armies of Ottomans, where the invaded, with inferior forces, protracted the defense, often over long terms of years.”
Pointing out the composition of the Ottoman Empire during its maturation, the author writes: “At the close of this period of growth the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith and extended over the vast countries…the whole of its immense area, however, was not in full ownership of the Ottomans. Parts of it, such as North Hungary, were autonomous States with native rulers paying tribute to the Porte. Other parts, such as the Crimea, Wallachia, and Moldavia, were vassal States, whose princes were appointed by the Sultan, and which were bound to send contingents in support of the Ottoman armies when at war. The really integral parts of the Empire in Europe were Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania; in Asia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and a great part of Arabia; and in Africa, Tripoli. Egypt, Tunis, and Algiers very early acquired a practical autonomy under the suzerainty of the Porte, though they were still nominally integral parts of the Empire. The Empire thus constituted was one of the greatest in the then world.”
Discussing the decay of the empire, the author states: “After the death in 1578 of Grand Vizier Sokolli, who carried on the traditions of the first ten Sultans for a few years under the worthless Selim II, the pendulum of Empire swung in the opposite direction. Thenceforth, down to the present time, there were successions of defeats and disasters to the Turkish Empire, with but few intermissions. Provinces were torn from it periodically, like leaves from an artichoke, till all but a small fraction of it in Europe, the whole of its possessions in Africa, and a large part in Asia have been lost to the Empire. What remains to it is the core of Turkish and Arabic provinces in Asia, and in Europe only its capital, Constantinople, and a small portion of Thrace to the north of it. During the last three hundred years, when these vast changes were being affected, the Ottoman army lost all the prestige it had acquired during the previous three hundred years.”
Expounding on the three main causes of the decay of the Ottoman Empire, the author observes: “To what causes, then, are we to attribute the decay and dismemberment of the vast Empire, and the complete failure of its armies to maintain prestige for victory and valor? It is more easy perhaps to suggest causes for downfall than for the birth and growth of the Empire. First and foremost of the causes has unquestionably been the degeneracy of the Othman dynasty. The deterioration of the race, which began with Selim ‘the Sot,’ was confirmed and accentuated by what occurred after three more Sultans had succeeded father to son—all of them equally unfit to fill the throne…… that the supreme power of the State fell into other hands, either of viziers who were able to dominate the reigning Sultans and to secure themselves against intrigues of all kinds, or more often of the harem. It would be difficult to exaggerate the evils which resulted from the intervention of the Sultan’s harem in affairs of State. The harem consisted of a vast concourse of women and slaves, of concubines and eunuchs, maintained at a huge expense—a nest of extravagance and corruption. A second main cause of the decadence of the Empire was undoubtedly the deterioration of its armies…The other explanation is to be found in the absence of incentive to military ardor in the later period…Yet another partial explanation is to be found in the fact that the general corruption had infected the army, as well as the civil administration of the State. Promotions through all the ranks went not to merit, but to the highest bidders. The civil branches of the army also, such as the commissariat and those for the supply of munitions, which in the earlier period were well provided for, fell into disorder and confusion owing to the universal spread of corruption. A third cause, however, for the failure of the Ottomans to maintain their Empire in Europe is undoubtedly to be found in the continually worsening conditions of the Christian populations subject to it.”
Discussing the demise of the Ottoman Empire before WWI, the author writes: “ Foreign powers, prompted sometimes by territorial ambition but often by popular sympathy for the oppressed, resorted to intervention in Turkish affairs for the purpose of redressing grievous wrongs and for preserving the peace of Europe. As a result of these causes, extending over nearly three hundred and fifty years, the Ottoman Empire, so far as Europe was concerned, and in the sense of a dominant power over subject races, almost ceased to exist before the Great War.”
Since the book was written in 1917, it did not cover the details of the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne and their outcomes. The Treaty of Sevres was signed on August 10, 1920, at Sevres, France, between the Allies of WWI and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty forced the Ottoman Empire to cede large parts of its territory to Britain, France, Greece and Italy. The treaty initiated the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and gave the British the mandate for Palestine, and the French got mandate for Syria and Lebanon. The Treaty caused hostility and led to Turkish nationalism. Eventually, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk led Turkish nationalists to defeat the combined armies of the European powers, signatories of the Treaty of Sevres. On July 24, 1923, the treaty of Lausanne (became effective on August 24, 1924), singed at Lausanne, Switzerland, superseded the Treaty of Sevres, and as a result led to the demise of the longest-lasting (600 years) and the mightiest Ottoman Empire, and the birth of the Republic of Turkey.
The Turkish Empire — Its Growth And Decay by Lord Eversley, is an important historical account on the growth of the Ottoman Empire and its dismemberment by the European colonial powers. It is an interesting and revealing book for general readers and students of history, politics and international relations.
[(Dr Ahmed S. Khan (dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org) is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar (2017-2022)]
