chapter 4 “Mirrors for Princes”: the Decline Theorists

According to the view prevailing up to the early 1990s, it was during the Süleymanic era that signs of Ottoman decline started to appear.1 Military victories were by no means absent, but no spectacular conquest like Selim’s expansion in the Middle East or Süleyman’s in Hungary was made after the 1540s; the new front against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean was never very successful, although it continued to bring occasional victories until the 1580s. Moreover, Süleyman allegedly became a much more secluded and pious person after the execution of his vizier Ibrahim (this also seems to have been reflected in his patronage of poetry, with disillusionment of the literati being a secondary outcome).2 The execution of the popular prince Mustafa in 1553 soon led to the rebellion of Süleyman’s second son, Bayezid, who was trying to secure his place against his brother Selim. Bayezid raised an army consisting of peasants who had abandoned their lands; he was defeated near Konya in 1559 and fled to Iran, where he was held as a hostage before being executed by an Ottoman envoy. When Süleyman died during the siege of Szigetvár in Hungary, the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha kept his death secret until Selim was informed and successfully enthroned. Selim II (r. 1566–74) is generally considered an incompetent sultan who was lucky to have his father’s major two statesmen, namely Ebussu’ud Efendi and Sokollu. The latter successfully suppressed a major revolt in Yemen and con- cluded a treaty with the Habsburgs. On both fronts he envisaged ambitious projects of building canals (in Suez and in the Volga—to fight in Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea), but none was effectively built. Finally, although at the beginning he was reluctant, it was under Sokollu’s vizierate that Cyprus was conquered from the Venetians (1570–71), and it was through Sokollu’s efforts that the major naval defeat of Lepanto (1571) had no lasting consequences for the Ottoman presence in the eastern Mediterranean. Sokollu remained in post after Selim’s death as well, under Murad III (1574–95); however, the grand vizier’s assassination in 1579 led to a change of policy. Sokollu’s succes- sors favored war rather than peace. Consequently, a long war against Safavid Iran started in 1578; after initial difficulties, successes, such as the occupation

1 For the chronology, again the most recent account is Imber 2009, 52ff.; see also Mantran 1989, 155–158; Emecen 2001b, 39–47. 2 Cf. Necipoğlu 1992; Andrews – Kalpaklı 2005.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004385245_006 “Mirrors for Princes”: The Decline Theorists 145 of Tabriz in 1585 and the subjugation of Georgia two years later, led to further expansion of the Ottoman state eastwards with the treaty of 1590, which con- firmed the conquest of the Caucasus, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan. However, this expansion was only achieved at great cost, as both the state finances and the peasants were overburdened by the requirements of constant warfare. In addition, almost as soon as peace with Iran had been concluded, another long war began, in 1593, this time on the Habsburg front. Serious defeats in Hungary and Wallachia proved that the era of uncontested Ottoman superiority had passed. After Murad’s death, his son Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) famously expelled his father’s buffoons and dwarves from the palace, since they allegedly influenced the sultan’s decisions,3 and in 1596 he led the army in person against the Austrians. Mehmed did indeed (almost by mistake) win a major battle in Mező-Keresztes (Hacova), although his cavalry had fled the field (with far-reaching consequences, as will be seen). The Ottomans, how­ ever, could not take advantage of this victory and the war continued, with mixed results, until 1606. Meanwhile, a counter-attack by Shah Abbas I, begin- ning in 1603, cost the Ottomans Tabriz, Erevan, and Shirvan, making up for all the losses the Safavids had suffered during the previous war. The usual emphasis on all things military notwithstanding, what mainly appeared to both contemporary and modern observers as a sign of decline was the internal situation of the empire. Janissary and sipahi rebellions, which were to form a recurrent feature of the following century, were first seen in 1589 with the “Beylerbey incident”, when Istanbul janissaries revolted in pro- test over being paid with debased coins; monetary problems were especial- ly acute in this period and played a major role in its perception as an age of disorder.4 What seemed more important at the time, however, was the famous Celali rebellions.5 Although they may be said to have been preceded by the “student (softa, suhte) revolts” of the 1570s and 1580s (when armed bands of provincial students roamed the countryside), Ottoman chroniclers consid- ered the battle of Mező-Keresztes as their beginning: when, after the victory, the Ottoman commander ordered an inspection of the cavalry left in the field, he discovered that a large number of sipahis were missing, and accord- ingly deprived them of their timars. The now-dispossessed soldiers returned

3 On these categories of courtiers, cf. Dikici 2006 and Dikici 2013; see, in particular, Dikici 2006, 76ff. on the representation of dwarfs and mutes as the source of all evil by late sixteenth- century historians and political writers. The discussions on the advisors and favorites of the sultan partly reflect the struggle for control of information in decision-making; see Peksevgen 2004. 4 See Kafadar 1986 (esp. 76–80 on the Beylerbey incident); Kafadar 1991. 5 Barkey 1994; Özel 2012.