APPENDIX.

I. ARTILLERY, ETC.

"WHEN last summer General Wrangel took leave of his Majesty the Emperor Nicholas, the latter presented him with a letter, and said, 'When you get to Constantinople look a little more closely at the Turkish artillery; it is one of the best in Europe. We owe this to you Prussians. It will require hard teeth to crack that nut.' General Wrangel has looked at the Turkish artillery and pronounced its efficiency excellent.

"In the arsenal of Tophana, in Constantinople, there are 1500 tubes for field-artillery quite newly cast. The manufacture of Tophana, managed by an Englishman, and furnished with a steam-engine, works away continually. A great number of new field-carriages now mounting form a pretty considerable reserve.

But General Wrangel could not have seen much artillery of this high order. From what I learned by my own observation and from information of others I do not believe that even at this moment the Turks could turn out more than six field-batteries of such artillery.

But what signify fine guns in the hands of a people so habitually negligent and careless? At the time of the quarrel about Kossuth, Bem, and Co., when the Porte was raising such an obstreperous and ridiculous war-cry, and when we were sending our fleet to the Dardanelles to beard

*Zuftand der Türkeii im Jahre der Prophezeihung 1853. Von Hubert von Boehn, Berlin, 1853.

the Tzar, an English officer passed some artillery on march: the carriages were good, the guns excellent and cleanly kept, and all the appliances were in tolerable order; but when he came to look at the ammunition he found that there was not a ball would fit the pieces or enter the mouth of one of them. The guns being of one calibre, they had carried ball of another! Fancy such artillery in the face of an enemy.

The artillery has long been the favourite and honoured arm with the government. It was with his artillery that Sultan Mahmoud destroyed the Janissaries.

So early as the year 1796 General Aubert Dubayet, ambassador from the French republic to the Porte, introduced a reform in the personnel and matériel of the Turkish artillery. The famous Baron de Tott had laboured on the same object a good many years before this French general. Dubayet also organised a squadron of cavalry in the French manner (which was certainly no improvement), and taught the French drill to a few hundreds of infantry soldiers. The Janissaries obstinately refused to be instructed. Some of the disciplined troops, acting under Sir Sidney Smith, behaved very well at the defence of Acre, and this so delighted Sultan Selim that on their return he created them a special and independent corps, increased their pay, built them a spacious barrack, and denominated them Nizam Djeditts or New Regulars. attended their exercise and appeared to be delighted with their manœuvres. They were instructed by Europeans, who, however, were never admitted as officers in the corps unless they previously renounced their faith.

He

The Mufti, Oulemas, Sheiks, and Imams, regarded these military establishments with jealousy and alarm. They secretly denounced the new order of things, which they represented as contrary to the laws and religion of the empire, and soon succeeded in exciting the Janissaries to rebel. The regulars were attacked, their barracks set on fire, and those who escaped death fled into the provinces and were dispersed. The deposition of Sultan Selim followed. His imbecile cousin Mustapha became sultan, but only for a few months.

Mustapha Bairactar, Pasha of Rudshuk, who remained faithful to his deposed sovereign, a rare instance in Turkey, effected another revolution, and with a chosen troop forced the serraglio, and demanded the person of Selim. Sultan Mustapha, suddenly advised of what was in progress, got privately into the palace and sent a black eunuch to tell the Bairactar that his old master should immediately be delivered up to him, at the same time ordering another of those black wretches to strangle Selim forthwith. The Bairactar found only the corpse of his master. Mustapha, however, was seized and condemned to the same prison in which he had kept Selim, and his own brother Mahmoud, whom also he would have put to death if time had been allowed him, and if Mahmoud had not concealed himself beneath a heap of carpets and mats, where he was found by the Bairactar. At this time Mahmoud, father of the present sultan, was the only living male of his race. He was at once proclaimed, and the Bairactar became grand vizir. In this capacity the Pasha of Rudshuk, on the day of his installation, caused thirty-three heads to fall by the sword of the executioner: the assassins of Selim, and the favourites of Sultan Mustapha, with a great many officers, were strangled and thrown into the Bosphorus: all the women of the serraglio attached to Mustapha were sewn in sacks and cast into the sea.

The Bairactar recommenced the military reform, and constituted a special regular corps in the army under the name of Seymens. In a short time the Janissaries rose in arms. One night the whole neighbourhood of the Bairactar's house burst out in flames, and he saw himself surrounded by fire and his deadly enemies. The conflagration reached his house, and the Janissaries put to death all who issued from it. But no Bairactar made his appearance. It was afterwards found that the unhappy old man, having got together his valuable jewels and several bags of gold, shut himself up with one of his favourite women and a black eunuch in a stone tower, in the hope of escaping both the fire and the sword of his

enemies. On digging out the ruins the three bodies were discovered with the treasure lying by them. They had been suffocated.

The Janissaries were now determined to reinstate Mustapha. To put this beyond their power his own brother Mahmoud immediately caused him to be strangled. To disperse the Janissaries, Cadi Pasha, who had got together the best of the artillery, was sent out against them, and Cadi with his guns swept the streets of Constantinople, and massacred all who attempted to oppose him. The barracks of the Janissaries were burnt down. But even after this victory Mahmoud was under the necessity of disbanding his regular infantry and returning to the old order of things. An ana thema was denounced against any man who should even speak of the military system of the Franks which had been the cause of so many evils.

It took Sultan Mahmoud seventeen long years to prepare the way for making another attempt at military reform. The system of open front attack was changed for a slow, insidious system of operation. Some of the Janissary chiefs were won over, some were exiled, some privately murdered. At last a majority of the Janissary officers signed a written obligation to furnish from each of the ortas a hundred and fifty men ready to submit to the new discipline; and they attached to the obligation, in the names of themselves and their respective corps, an unqualified approval of the Sultan's measure. Officers who had survived the sanguinary reactions under Selim and the Bairactar, and other tacticians furnished by the Pasha of Egypt, were appointed to drill and form the men, whose prejudices were flattered with the change of a word; Nizam-attic (old regulation) being substituted for the odious appellation of Nizam-djeditte (new ordinance).

Unusual attention was paid to the artillery, for it was expected, and indeed desired, that there should be more street fighting; that the stupid Janissaries would rise, and so give an opportunity for their total destruction.

This happened in June, 1825. It was an affair of artillery and grape-shot. The hero of the day was an artillery officer known by the significant name of Kara-djéhennem (or Black Hell). When his people hesitated to discharge a cannon loaded with grape against a dense mass of their countrymen, fellow-citizens, and former comrades, this officer rushed to the piece and fired it by discharging his pistol over the priming. This gun, and another with the same officer, may be said to have pealed the knell of the Janissaries. Of course the artillery rose still higher in estimation.

II.-PORTRAITS OF SULTAN MAHMOUD.

Bishop Southgate says, "The scene of the departing pilgrims seemed to me, at the moment at least, a small proof of the remaining vigour of Islamism; but it was followed in a few days by another which looked more like decay. On the 4th of August (1836) it was announced that a portrait of the Sultan was to be presented to the cavalry barracks near Pera, and I thought the occasion worthy of attention. A similar honour had already been conferred on several public buildings, and it was intended that others still should share it. Before my final departure from Constantinople in the summer of 1838, a woful misrepresentation of the royal features was to be seen in most, if not all, the barracks, in several of the public offices, and in the cabins of some of the ships of war. Upon the day of which I spoke the Sultan himself was expected to be present, and the crowd collected to witness the ceremony was immense. There were pointed out to me representatives of twelve different nations, among whom were Turks, Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Circassians, distinguished by their different garbs and features. Then came the races of Europe, homogeneous at least in their outward man; and here and there