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Chapter XIX - The retreat of the Turks, 1683–1730
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- By A. N. Kurat, University of Ankara, J. S. Bromley
- Edited by J. S. Bromley
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge Modern History
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 02 July 1970, pp 608-647
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Summary
The Ottoman empire attained its largest dimensions in Europe with the conquest in 1672 of the fortress of Kamenets in Podolia (Kamieniec Podolski), which extended the Domain of Islam as far as the middle course of the Dniester. To the south-west, between this river and the Danube, lay the two tributary principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, rich lowlands under palatine rulers chosen by the sultan. Divided from these by the Carpathian mountains, the prince of Transylvania stood in a similar relation to the Porte. The greater part of Hungary, only about a fifth of which lay under Habsburg rule, was divided into directly governed vilayets: Temesvár in the east; Nové Zamky (Neuhäusel), Kaniza, and Varasdin in the far west; Eger (Erlau) and above all Buda in the north. In the empire as a whole there were nearly forty vilayets, subdivided into departments (sanjaks), more or less on a uniform administrative plan but very variable in size, in which the sultan was normally represented by a resident pasha, the vali and sanjak-bey respectively. South of the Danube and the Drava, the grand vilayet (beyler-beylik) of Rumelia included all of what is now European Turkey, Bulgaria, Thessaly, most of Yugoslavia, and Albania; but Bosnia and the Morea had been formed into separate governments, while most of Croatia was ruled by Vienna and portions of the Dalmatian coast by Venice; the republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), like Salonica an important gateway to Balkan trade, merely paid tribute to the sultan. The Greek Archipelago, together with certain coastal districts of the Aegean (such as Gallipoli) and the sanjak of the Morea and Lepanto, was directly administered by the Kaptan Pasha of the imperial navy; Crete had been annexed to this vilayet, from Venice, as recently as 1670.
CHAPTER XXI - THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE UNDER MEHMED IV
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- By A. N. Kurat, University of Ankara
- Edited by F. L. Carsten
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- Book:
- The New Cambridge Modern History
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 01 January 1961, pp 500-518
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Summary
Sultan Mehmed IV who ascended the throne in 1648 inherited a vast empire which had been conquered by the sword of his ancestors and stretched over three continents. In Europe the frontier of the Ottoman Empire was a mere eighty miles from Vienna; in North Africa only Morocco did not belong to it; it included Upper Egypt and extended to Aden; the Black Sea and the Red Sea were Turkish lakes; in the east it stretched to the shores of the Caspian and of the Persian Gulf. It is impossible to give the exact figure of its population, but in the seventeenth century it amounted to approximately 25 or 30 millions. The Turks, although the dominant race, were only a minority. Probably the Muslims —Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Bosnians, Albanians, Circassians, Crimean Tatars and Turkic peoples of the Caucasus—were stronger than the Christians—Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians, Bulgars, Wallachians and Moldavians. Outstanding among the Turks of this period were the famous historian, geographer and bibliographer Kâtib Tchelebi (1609– 57) and the renowned traveller Evliya Tchelebi (1611–78), who described the cities, customs and peoples of the Ottoman Empire in his huge ten volumes. Its heart was the city of Constantinople (Istanbul), the seat of the military and administrative institutions of the empire, the centre of commerce and culture as well as amusement and pleasures. It was inhabited by more than half a million people, Muslims, Christians and Jews, all living side by side for centuries, observing their own customs. The city contained the palace of the sultans, the Serail, the splendid mosques of Sultan Ahmed, Suleymaniye, Bayezid, Selimiye and Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, many Medresse's (colleges), libraries, public baths, hospitals, inns and food distribution centres, maintained by pious endowments.