Constantine: or, the Last Days of an Empire

Front matter

The Sikuk of Constantinople _=._.______* i_._l.OC The Combat 1 _ _! si U jl , .1. CONSTANTINE ; or., THE LAST DAYS OF AN EMPIRE. I'.V CAPTAIN SPENCER, AUTHOR OP " TRAVELS IN CsUCARSsA," M TRAVELS IS EUROPEAN' TUKK.ET, "THE CRIMEA," HO. ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. Vol. I. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW AND SON, 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1855. [The I'ublMers reierre the right of Tiatislation.] LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES ADD SONS, STAM1-ORU STREET. TO GENERAL KALE KG I, &c. &c. &c. My dear General, It cannot be necessary to apologize for dedi cating this work to you, as it is impossible to recal any part of the history of Greece, without remem bering one of her noblest sons and truest patriots. It is equally impossible for me to retrace the Fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, without re calling the many delightful hours we passed together discussing the past, present, and future of Greece.

Permit me then to offer this attempt to reproduce A one of the most stirring and eventful periods in the history of the Greek people to a man who has de servedly won the eternal gratitude of his country, and the admiration of every true friend of civil and religious liberty. I have the honour to be, My dear General, Your very sincere and attached Friend, The Author. Richmond, June 15, 1855.

Introduction

. At a crisis like the present, when Turkey, by one of those extraordinary and unexpected events that constitute an era in the history of the human race, has liecoine the battle-field of civilization and barbarism, and which must pave the way for the introduction of European enlightenment to the remotest parts of benighted Asia, whatever new light can be thrown on the history of those countries, now the theatre of war — whatever tends to make us better acquainted with the causes which led to their subjugation to the Moslem, must be valuable as the means of preventing suture mistakes, by showing us the difficulties that present themselves in forming, out of the discordant elements of which the Ottoman empire is composed, an effective barrier against Russian ambition. With this view, we have chosen for the subject of our present work that stormy period in the world's history.

INTRODUCTION.

. VI when the Moslem hosts of Mahomet the Second planted their sanguinary standards on the crumbling walls of Constantinople. And though we have adopted the popu lar form of a romance, and occasionally blended fiction with reality, we have not deviated from historical truth in matters of importance, since every individual that figures in our tale is made to act the part assigned to him by contemporary writers. We therefore feel assured, that when attempting to record the events of the time, the most learned historian will recognize the general accuracy of our details, our object being as much to in struct as to amuse, in order that the rising generation may become more intimately acquainted with the history of countries, destined, at no distant period, to assume a high political and social position among the great nations of the civilized woridto anoill/i.r sfWlft qrst rri We have given the preference to this style of writing rather than to dry historical statements, as best calculated to interest the majority of our readers, permitting, as it does to an author, a greater development of the various characters in his work, and also to show more forcibly and distinctly the secret springs by which the great masses of mankind are roused to action. It is likewise particularly well adapted for describing the scenes of

INTRODUCTION.

. eastern life — of countries where tradition is the substitute for history — where the song of the bard, and the tale of tho story-teller, too often form the only materials from which he can construct his narrative ; and even then he is obliged, with a careful hand, to separate the tares from the wheat, to distinguish the mere creations of fancy from those legendary sayings which, being corroborated by cir cumstances, may be received as history. With respect to the Ottoman empire as it is, the events of each succeeding day tell us, in language not to be mis taken, that the hour is rapidly approaching when the crumbling edifice of Moslem power, isolated by its creed and exclusive administration, must give way to the civilization of the west. With this startling fact before o us, we might always to bear in mind what a potent lever we possess in the fifteen millions of Christian subjects of the sultan, should we feel inclined to make those changes which the advanced civilization of the age demands, and our own security dictates.

Since we must be aware it that portion of the Turkish empire, in Eastern Europe, to which these volumes refer, should, by any unexpected revolution of fortune, fall into the hands of an energetic government like that of Russia, the united armies of the whole of Europe would not be sufficient to wrest them

INTRODUCTION.

. VIII from her grasp. There are difficulties, no doubt, to be surmounted, mixed up as Turkey now is in a greater or less degree with the relative position of every country in Europe, and the adjustment of what diplomatists are pleased to term the balance of power ; whereas if it were not for this chimera, and so many rival interests to satisfy, the question of " What is to be done with Turkey ?" * now so embarrassing, would have been decided long since by the Christian inhabitants themselves. For however humiliating it may be to realize the fact of our having brought the present war upon ourselves, nay of our having created those very causes, fostered and favoured those very anomalies and conflicting elements, out of which it has arisen, thus favouring the opportunity of Russia in carrying out her ambitious policy, it is never theless true.

This will be more clearly understood when we say that the whole of those vast provinces, known as European Turkey — the home of the Greek, and his brcthers in creed, the Servian, the Bulgarian, the Albanian, and the Roumani — are merely nominally subject to the Ottoman Porte ; we say nominally, because there is no vigorous nationality in the Turkish people to compensate for their * See pamphlet of that name, Colburn and Co., 1850.

INTRODUCTION.

. IX want of numbers, and a defective civil and military ad ministration without the support of the great Powers. Now as all rule and power, from the commencement of time, have centered in that portion of mankind which is advancing in civilization and enlightenment, and as there can be no doubt the Moslem is receding, the lands over which he now holds sway must of necessity pass to the followers of a more progressive creed. This is, in fact, the philosophy of the question as viewed in relation to the overruling decrees of Providence ; and all past history indicates it as the only means by which this perplexing question can be settled. Up to the present time, whatever change or reform promised to renew the spirit of vitality in the decaying embers of Turkish power has been tried and failed.

The fate of every state, too feeble to maintain its independence without foreign succour- — of every ruler, whose principles of governing are antagonistic to the wants and wishes ,,l the people over whom he is called to reign — to which we mav add, like every Moslem people whose destiny is to be ruled by the Koraan, there was wanting the elements of a higher development, a progressive influence, which is only found in the Christian religion, however checked in its growth by sectarian prejudice aud intolerance. A X

INTRODUCTION.

. In short, the empire of the Ottomans, at least in Europe, is rapidly approaching its end; and the real question now is, what banner shall finally be planted on the walls of Constantinople ? — what people shall reign in their stead ? The old, fierce, religious fanaticism of the Turks has long since died out, and with it has been destroyed the spirit that so long animated their political existence. Indeed, the event has been long anticipated, and the general fear that it must take place are so many proofs it is inevitable. Even the numerous prophecies cun-ent in the East relating to the Greek and Ottoman races predict a con vulsion about this time which shall engulf the empire of Othman, and be felt throughout the whole world. To gratify the curiosity of our readers, we have introduced some of these prophecies into our present work, said to have been written centuries ago, and generally credited by the inhabitants of Russia and Turkey ; and however much men in a high state of civilization may despise such prophecies, they have a powerful influence on an ignorant people, and by serving as a motive of action, often prove the means of their own fulfilment.

Unhappily for the progress of civilization and the pros perity of so large a portion of mankind, the memorials of the race of Othman are written too legibly on the lands

INTRODUCTION.

. XI over which they have held sway ; enthroned for the last four centuries in the finest position of our hemisphere. with seas and navigable rivers, ports and harbours, sufficiently capacious to receive the entire fleets of the world — territories fertile to exuberance — they have remained strangers among the nations, for, intrenched behind a harrier of ignorance and superstition, the animosities of race and religious prejudice, they would neither amalgamate with the people they had conquered, nor enter into social and political relations with their neighbours. The consequence has been that, while the inhabitants of other countries, with fewer resources, have been rapidly advancing in civilization, prosperity, and great political power, they have sunk, year after year, still lower in the slough of indolence and apathy : and now, after having ruined and desolated all the fair countries that fell beneath their demoralizing sway, in their dying hour they bequeath as a legacy to posterity all the horrors of a war of whicli no man can foresee the termination.

Even in their best days the followerof Othman were nothing better than a tribe of valiant shepherds, whose chiefs hud the sagacity to make the fanaticism of the age their stepping-stone to power, because, having usurped the title of Caliph of the Faithful and Vicegerent of the

INTRODUCTION.

. XII Prophet, they alone possessed the right of calling to arms the whole Moslem world, when they deemed it necessary to propagate their doctrines and subdue their Christian neighbours. This was the secret of their power in the infancy of their reign. It was owing to this fatal influence they possessed over an ignorant fanatic multitude they were enabled to draw together such vast armies, and subdue nation after nation, till they became the terror of the world. Precisely the same policy is pursued by the Czar of Russia in our day, who, in constituting himself primate, chief, and protector of the Eastern Church, would also convert the superstition of his co-religionists into a means of extending his power, and acquiring universal dominion. The reader will be more forcibly struck by this simi larity of making the fanaticism of the people subservient to political purposes in the leaders both of the Turks and the Russians when he has perused the contents of this work : he will also see that Constantinople, " that gem of the seas," was then the magnet of attraction to the horde of Othman, as it is now to their successors in ambition the horde of Muscovy, and to obtain possession of which every law, human and divine, was set at nought— thus affording a remarkable historical parallel, and at the same time a

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII terrible warning to the nations, of the danger to civilization in the event of a barbarous power once more gaining the ascendancy over the destinies of mankind. In short, what Russia now is, a dark cloud hanging over the shat tered fabric of the Ottoman empire, so was Turkey at an earlier period — the gloomy shadow that obscured the ex piring glories of the Eastern empire. Happily for the progress of civilization and the intellec tual advancement of mankind, the blind fanaticism of those zealots of the dark ages, who left their fellow Christians of the Eastern Church to their fate during the progress to power of the Moslem hordes of Asia, exists no more. The rights of nations is now the rallying cry of the chivalry of Western Europe, as it sternly proclaims to the Northern Mahomet, There is a barrier beyond which thou shalt not pass.

Had it not been for the unnatural animosity then existing between the members of the rival churches, Greek and Latin, which left the Emperor Constantine and his little band of heroes to contend single-handed against the force of the whole Moslem world in arms, the Greeks, who at this time occupied a high position above that of any other people in learning the arts and sciences, might have continued in the full enjoyment of all those blessings m-unmvnoN. which civilizatiori'lconfei's'. •' Dtft how changed was 'thtfir condition when they fell under Turkish rule! evushino them beneath its influence, and withering the sources of their prosperity and progress— proving to I hem, as it has to every country and every people^oVcr whom the sceptre of this ill-omened race extends, a moral 'Sirtlobrn'.

The reader will see this more clearly1 iti U joUrnc^s witrTus through the countries in which the scenes of our narrative are laid, and becomes acl/uainted' 'with1 the condition in which they were pi-cvirJ^'1«,'/tWe''nn1'i!)'rlthe Eastern empire ' 9slvt "l ovi!'ti a ""^ r Various arc the agctiafes'.'^Wbiis-'art!; the ways and means by which a people attain to a higher destiny; and however uncivilized they may appear, and dark the clouds that envelope their political existence, so long as they retain and cherish their nationality (and the Creeks I,m, had a glorious history1 if/1^1^ tij stimulate them), they are certain to a^aKe^Hn^ap^Binlcl time ; and however long they i.iayh^ri-rnfVi'neaHiie'slavcvs of a foreign power, that circumstanc6lflcW'n64'uffeb,t: their right at the bar of public opinion to assert their complete independence. It has been often said that' great wrongs work out their own retribution, and that the oppression of the weak in

INTRODUCTION.

. XV the end. falls like burning coals on the head of the oppressor. 'We have an illustration of this in the tyrannical treatment which, for centuries, the Moslem inflicted upon his victim, the Christian. A giaour being considered till a few years ago, by the stern despot that ruled him, as less than the beast of the field ; the penalty of which lie is now, in his hour of tribulation, not unlikely to pay : for so intense is the long-cherished wrath of the Christian against his old tyrant the Moslem, especially in the vivacious Greek, who never forgives an injury, nor forget? how long he has been a slave in the land of his ancestors, that it will require every precautionary measure on the part of the allies of Turkey to prevent them from joining Russia, or any other power that might afford them an opportunity of wreaking their long-hoarded vengeance — the wrongs and insults of centuries — on the heads of their oppressors.

A desire to satisfy tliis deep-rooted animosity was the cause of the late insurrectionary irruptions of the decks in European Turkey, rather than any wish to place themselves under the rule of a Slavonian prince so powerful as the Emperor of Russia, which they are far-seeing and sagacious enough to know would be the deathblow to their \erv existence as a nation. Independent of the fanaticism of the Turks in matters

INTRODUCTION.

. XVI of Religion, which prompted them, during their long career, to reject everything in the shape of enlightenment, or a more civilized system of legislation emanating from a Christian state, this errant race of the great Tatar family, like their predecessors, have put forth no roots among the people they had conquered ; like them they appeared on the world's stage as a mighty host of horsemen ravaging and pillaging wherever they came ; and like them, no matter whatever their friends and admirers may advance to the contrary, they are destined to disappear from the arena of Christian Europe. Even now they rather submit to than welcome whatever reforms the current of events has imposed upon them ; for all their institutions being moulded in the spirit of the Koraan, they can never be sufficiently modified so as to meet the requirements of man in an advanced state of civilization, more especially when professing the Christian faith. t We give the Turk every credit for the possession of many social virtues, and we infinitely prefer the mild rule of the Sultan, barbarous as it is, to the enlightened despotism of the Russian Czar ; but in this great age of social, intellectual, and, we trust, moral progress - in this age of genial and ever-advancing industry, prosperity, and enlightenment, when every barrier raised by the jealousies

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII and prejudices of race and creed, by antiquated and obsolete social and political institutions, to the progress of mankind, must be swept away, must yield to what may be termed the imperative exigencies of civilization — the Osmanli mu9t discard the Koraan for the Bible, the Crescent for the Cross, or they will either be driven back to their ancient home in the wilds of Asia, or swallowed up in the tide of immigration which is certain to follow the termination of the present conflict. Indeed we feel assured, the day is not far distant when the stream of immigration from the active, enterprising, but over-peopled West, will be turned from its present course towards the long-neglected and well-nigh forgotten East. There will be a reflux in the mighty flood that now annually pours its thousands over the distant prairies and swamps of the New World, and men will no longer cross the distant ocean in search of those blessings of clime and soil— that wider field for the exercise of their com mercial and industrial activity and talent — when they are to be met with in countries which may in this age of rail roads and steam-boats be said to be at our very doors : countries which may in the present day, as in ages long past, be regarded as the most favoured portion of our hemisphere— countries producing all that can minister to

INTRODUCTION.

. the wants and even the luxuries of mankind, where the orange and the lemon, the vine and the fig, the olive and the maize, flourish equally with every species of grain and plant familiar to the most favoured clime — countries abounding in navigable rivers and seas with their noble harbours and roadsteads, and whose position, midway between the great natural divisions of the Old World, point them out as the great commercial mart and emporium of both continents. What a source of wealth and prosperity will then be opened to the industry of Western Europe ! and what a recompense for the sacrifices and privations of the present war! We shall then behold rich and powerful states springing up in the now deserted and neglected countries of Asia, connected among themselves, as well as linked to us, by their network of railroads, steam navigation, and electric telegraphs.

Then, and then only, when every man is engaged in the peacefiil and humanizing occupation of some industrial calling, when the general interests of the whole community would be imperilled, war, with all its train of attendant evils and miseries, will become impossible. Then, if ever, may we hope to behold the realization of that social well-being — that general diffusion of the blessings of civilization — that equality of INTRODUCTION*. XIX rights and privileges which no visionary theorist has ever been able to accomplish; and if the boon of universal peace is ever to be enjoyed by the human race, may we not regard the alliance, now so happily estabh'shed be tween France and England, as the auspicious inaugura tion of the advent of that era, so long and so devoutly wished fbr. We may be assured that all this is not the effect of chance.

It has come to pass in obedience to the fiat g£ that all-wise Providence, that governs and controls those mighty changes and momentous crises affecting the destinies of the whole human race — directing those many mysterious agencies at work around us, whose ultimate aim and object are beyond the scope of mortal vision. And we would lain believe that, in the unexpected union of the two most powerful and eidightened nations of the world, we behold a proof of their having been selected a> the instruments of Divine mercy lor carrying out some vast scheme lbr the gradual regeneration and civilization of a vast portion of the human family — a glorious mission, whereby we shall repay with interest the long-standing, but never-to-be-forgotten, debt of the learning and en lightenment that first came to us from those very coun-. tries which are at the present moment the scene of such

INTRODUCTION.

. XX momentous events, having, after centuries of misrule and anarchy, relapsed into a second barbarism. Thus the light of that civilization, that first dawned upon us from the East, is now destined in its turn to be reflected back with increased brilliance on those now benighted lands whence it originally sprung. That the Greeks of the Eastern empire were greatly degenerated, and divided among themselves by religious rivalries, petty jealousies, and party quarrels at the epoch of our tale, there can be no doubt ; to say nothing of their having become enervated by the contaminating influence of Oriental habits and usages, aggravated by the evils of an administration exclusively in the hands of a selfish, corrupt, and at the same time indolent and incapable aristocracy. We should, however, bear in mind the great fact of our being indebted to them for a large measure of the social prosperity we now enjoy.

However disastrous the fall of Constantinople might have been to the cause of civilization in the East, that event was the means of dif fusing the learning and enlightenment that had so long flourished in the Greek seminaries ; and although the goodly tree of civilization, that had so long cast its grateful shade over its native soil, was here uprooted and destroyed, its seeds were, nevertheless, borne to the very confines of

INTRODUCTION.

. XXI our hemisphere, striking deep root, and flourishing in many a distant land of the then benighted West. Italy was the first country in Europe that profited by the superior refinement, science, and learning of those illustrious Greek exiles, the victims of Turkish ambition ; and great as may be our apparent reason to regret the fall of Constantinople — the last stronghold of Christianity in the East — and the establishment on its ruins of the false and sensual creed of the Arab impostor, still we feel assured, under the direction of an allwise Providence, that event has greatly contributed to the diffusion of the true principles of Christianity. In what manner this was effected we will now explain At the period of which we are speaking, the Roman Catholic Church was in the zenith of its power; but its intolerant and despotic rule had become to all classes of society a burden almost too great to be borne.

The mind of man was therefore prepared for what might be termed the promulgation of a new faith, and, although men knew not where to look for assistance or relief, it most unex pectedly presented itself in the more enlightened form of Christianity which became diffused through the instru mentality of the Greek exiles. This people, ever prone to invite religious discussion, having in their possession the

INTRODUCTION.

. only true version of the Bible, which was, at that time, not only strictly withheld from the Roman Catholic laity, but also from the inferior clergy, to show the truth of their views on difficult questions of theology, and prove the errors of their old enemies the Latins, had it translated into all the languages of the various countries in which they resided, and then printed and circulated among their pupils and the people in general. In this manner, through the agency of the printing press, men's minds were gradually prepared for the reception of a higher truth, that paved the way for the advent of the Reformation and those innumerable blessings of civil and religious liberty which we now enjoy. Thus it was reserved for the sons of immortal Greece to be a second time, and in a far higher and nobler sense, the teachers and civilizers of the human race.

I I 8 si 1 _ , , . . , rrnorliib no '<■, What noble city, in her stately prime, Now rises like the vision of a dream ? Aloft, in seeming scorn of fate or time, 'Mid the blue sky her thousand turrets gleam; Her domes and towers, pictured in the stream I That flows beneath her ramparts' frowning pride ; Her busy streets with joyous thousands teem ; Her balconies are gay with beauty bright, As like a queen she sits throned in her peerless night, A fearful change hath fallen o'er that scene, Lo ! nought but ruin meets th' affrighted eye To tell of all the splendour that hath been, Seeming so late destruction to defy. Her stately palaces, her towers high, Shattered and broken, strew th' encumbered ground. Beside their monarch slain a people lie. One wide-spread scene of havoc stretching round— Of all her glory past there lives now but the sound. CONSTANTINE, OK THE LAST DAYS OF AN EMPIRE.

Chapter I

The day's first dawn must ever cheer ; It tells that light and life are near. How we admire spring's first-born flower Ere it has felt the chilling shower ! Fair childhood's beauty, playful smile, Are lovely as its want of guile. In all 'tis hope, life's radiant sun, Gives promise of the joy to come. So, Constantine, the Grecians deem Thy infant reign with good shall teem. Say, shall the blossom yield such fruit I Alas ! futurity is mute. Ouit history of " an empire lost and won " commences at that eventful period when the sudden and unexpected death of John Paleologus left the Eastern Empire without a ruler, exposed to all the calamities consequent upon a disputed succession. The high dignity of ascending the throne of tho Cæsars was a temptation too alluring to be withstood by his surviving brothers, Thomas and De metrius, who, reckless of the ills they were about to inflict VOL. I. B CONSTANTINE, 2 upon their country, placed themselves at the head of their respective partizans, determined to try the result by force of arms.

After some skirmishing, Thomas, finding himself unable to cope with his more warlike brother, publicly resigned his claim to the vacant throne in favour of Constantine, the reigning prince of the Morea, who, by birth and according to the order of succession, was in reality the lawful heir. Such an unexpected manœuvre on the part of Thomas completely changed the aspect of affairs : the empress, the senate, and several of the most influential among the Greek nobility who had hitherto remained spectators of the struggle, now openly declared in favour of the absent prince. A sanguinary battle ensued. Demetrius was beaten and expelled from the capital ; the clash and din of weapons was succeeded by a " Te Deum " in Sancta Sophia, while the clamour of a thousand bells, and a host of town-criers proclaiming Constantine emperor of the East, relieved the anxious inhabitants from the dreary prospect of a civil war.

Subsequent events, how ever, proved how delusive was the hope, since the pretender Demetrius, finding he could not accomplish his purpose by the aid of his Greek adherents, lost no time in winning to his interests Prince Mahomet, who at this time, owing to the great age and infirmities of his father, Sultan Amurath, was virtually the sovereign of the Ottoman people. Happily for Constantinople, while the pretender and his allies, the Turks, were preparing their plans of invasion, one of the most distinguished noblemen in the empire, Prince Cantacuzene, seized the helm of the state, and with an intrepidity and a patriotism worthy of his valiant ancestors, determined at every risk to hazard a contest which now assumed an ominous aspect. Without a moment's delay, he despatched a fleet of armed galleys from the isle of Tenedos to the Morea, for the purpose of conveying the newly-elected emperor to the capital of his fathers, together with such supplies of money as might enable him to enlist in his service a sufficient force to relieve the city in the event of a siege.

In the mean time, the same indefatigable nobleman caused a formidable iron chain, strengthened by a line of aimed boats, to be drawn across the entrance to the Golden Horn, and resorted to every precaution that skill and resolution could suggest for the defence of the capital. The impetus once given, the Greeks, true to their volatile nature, all at once became a nation of warriors. From henceforth there was nothing to be heard in Con stantinople but the cry of " To arms, and death to the traitor Demetrius 1" who, by contracting an alliance with their hereditary foemen the infidel Moslems, had made himself particularly obnoxious to all classes. Indeed, it seemed as if this most unpatriotic and dangerous proceed ing, on tho part of a Grecian prince, had aroused in the people all that remained of the ancient pride and fiery valour of their heroic ancestors ; for while all ranks of b2 CONSTANTINE, society were arming in their mutual defence, abundant supplies in money poured into the national exchequer from every corporation, trade, and guild of the city, in order to enable the government to carry its measures into effect with the energy so important a crisis demanded.