Chapter III: Ibrahim the Diplomat

We must now turn from Turkey’s internal affairs to her foreign relations. Turkish political history during the sixteenth century was so interwoven with that of the European states, the influence of Ottoman interference upon the wars and negotiations of Christian princes was so marked, that a study of Suleiman’s foreign relations becomes almost a study of contemporary Europe.[87] The two sultans who succeeded Mohammed the Conqueror had not extended Turkish power in Europe, Bayazid having failed in his attempts at conquest, and Selim having turned his attention from Europe to the East. This caused a period of transition and preparation for the great events of Suleiman’s reign.

When Suleiman came to the throne, he found certain relations established with Ragusa and Venice, the two commercial cities of the Adriatic, whose large carrying trade made an _entente cordiale_ with the Porte very desirable.[88] Ragusa was the first foreign state to reach the new sultan with her congratulations on his accession,[89] and the sultan renewed with the Ragusan republic the commercial privileges it had enjoyed in Egypt.

After Venice had been defeated by Turkey in the battle of Sapienza in 1499 and had been obliged to sue for peace, she had received the following answer from the then grand vizir: “You can tell the doge that he has done wedding the sea, it is our turn now.”[90] This boast became steadily more completely realized as Turkish conquest in the Mediterranean continued, and Venice soon saw that her chance of freedom on the seas lay in keeping on good terms with the Turk, whom she could not conquer. In vain she sought for help against the Moslems; in vain she carried on a single‐handed struggle against their encroachments, earning the title of “Bulwark of Christianity”. Had she not “learned to kiss the hand that she could not cut off,”[91] she could not have continued to exist as even the second‐rate power in the Levant to which she had been reduced. Frequent missions were sent from Venice to the Porte, and a Venetian baillie was kept at the Porte. These baillies were very good statesmen, and they not only kept Venice on good terms with Turkey for thirty‐three years, but they made an invaluable contribution to recorded history by sending frequent and detailed reports to the signories.

Russia also sent an embassy to the Porte, after the conquests of Belgrad and Rhodes had demonstrated the power of Turkey; and the Tsar, recognizing the value of an alliance with the Porte, made two attempts to form one, but without success. Suleiman saw no advantage in such an alliance, but he never assumed an unfriendly attitude towards Russia, at that time still an unimportant power. In a letter written later in his reign he recalls the amicable relations that had existed between the Porte and Russia, and recommends his Ottoman merchants to buy furs and merchandise in Moscow.[92]

As Suleiman’s conquests naturally threw him into antagonism with the House of Hapsburg, it is desirable to review briefly the political conditions in the Holy Roman Empire at this time.

The accession of Charles of Spain to the Imperial throne took place in October of the same year as Suleiman’s accession, 1520. Handicapped in every possible way by the German princes, for whose safety and prosperity the emperor assumed the entire responsibility without receiving in return any equivalent whatever,[93] Charles V presented a great contrast to Suleiman, whose slightest word was law throughout his extensive dominions. With the empire, Charles acquired the enmity of Francis I of France, his unsuccessful rival, and hereafter his constant foe. Another rival not outwardly so dangerous, but destined to be a great source of anxiety and weakness to the empire was Ferdinand, the emperor’s brother. Concerning him, Charles’ counsellor, de Chièvres, is reported to have said to Charles,[94] “Do not fear the king of France nor any other prince except your brother”. Ferdinand’s ambition had been early recognized. His grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, had attempted to construct an Italian kingdom for him, but failed. Charles, after his election to the Empire, tried to satisfy Ferdinand’s craving for power by conferring on him the old Austrian provinces, and further by marrying him to Anna, heiress of the kingdom of Hungary and Bohemia, whose child‐king, Lewis, was weak physically and not destined for a long reign. This opened to Ferdinand a large sphere of activity in the southeast, and brought him into direct contact with the steadily encroaching Suleiman; a sphere that effectually absorbed his energies and made him but a source of weakness to the Empire.

Thus Charles V, in name the imperial ruler of Central Europe, was confronted with four rivals who desired to divide with him the supremacy; Francis I, a relentless foe; his brother Ferdinand, an ambitious claimant: the conquering Suleiman; and the Protestant Revolt. The weakness and disunion of Christendom was the strength of Suleiman, and he was far too shrewd not to trade on it.

It had in fact been long since Europe had been sufficiently united to oppose with any vigor the oncoming Turks. The Popes of Rome had been the most persistent foes of Turkish advance in Europe; notably Calixtus III, who in 1453 tried in vain to save Europe from Mohammed’s conquering armies; Pius II, who having for his master—thought the freeing of Europe from Islam, preached a general crusade, and even attempted to convert Mohammed by letter; Paul II, who gave lavish aid to Scanderbeg and the armies in Hungary and Albania in their struggle against Turkish invasion; Alexander VI, who held Prince Jem, the mutinous brother of Sultan Bayazid, as hostage for the friendliness of the sultan whom he attacked after Jem’s death; and Julius II, who planned a crusade early in the sixteenth century, but failed to execute it.[95] All this time Turkish conquest continued practically unhindered. By the close of the fifteenth century the Turks were accepted as a permanent political factor in Europe. Nevertheless, when Charles became a candidate for election to the headship of the Holy Roman Empire, he emphasized his fitness for the high office by alleging that his vast possessions, united to the Imperial dignity, would enable him to oppose the Turks successfully.[96] But the sudden rise of revolt within the Church tended to force the dread of Islam into the background, even in the face of the loss of Belgrad and Rhodes. At least such was the case with Charles V and the German princes; it was of necessity otherwise with little King Lewis, who saw with terror the preparations of the Turkish conquerors for war to the death with Hungary.

As Suleiman’s conquests naturally threw him into antagonism with Austria, equally naturally he had common interests with Francis I. Friendly relations between the Porte and France were not unprecedented, although strongly disapproved by the more religious among the French. Commercial agreements had existed for some time between the two states.[97] The accession of Francis I, January 1, 1515, marked an epoch in the Eastern Question. Francis’ Oriental policy began on the conventional lines; he made an agreement with Leo X to drive the Turks from Europe but refused to subsidize Hungary in the interests of this purpose. The pope called for a truce in Europe and a crusade against the common enemy, but the death of Maximilian and the outbreak of the Protestant Revolt put a complete stop to this plan. The only result was the extension of the circle of European politics to include Eastern affairs and the Ottoman Empire, and to bring the Eastern Question home to all the European powers. Those who had been furthest away were now drawn in; France, Spain, and even England began to step within the circle of Eastern influence.

The battle of Pavia marked a crisis in European affairs. The captivity of the French king, his falling into the hands of his bitterest foe, Charles of Hapsburg, destroyed any scruples that the French court had felt against seeking Turkish aid. The first French mission to Suleiman I did not reach the Porte, the ambassador being assassinated en route.[98] This first attempt was quickly followed by another. The Croat Frangipani brought two letters to the Sultan, one written by Francis from his Madrid prison, the other from his distracted mother, the queen‐regent. Francis also sent a letter to Ibrahim Pasha, who later gave an account of this embassy to Cornelius Scepper and Hieronymus von Zara, envoys of Ferdinand.[99]

“Post hec tempora, inquit Ibrahim, accedit quod rex Francie captus fuit. Tunc mater ipsius regis ad ipsum Caesarem Thurcarum scripsit hoc modo. ‘Filius meus Rex Francie captus est à Carolo, Rege Hispanie. Speravi quod ipse liberaliter ipsum demitteret. Id quo non fecit, sed iniuste cum eo agit. Confugimus ad te magnum Caesarem ut tu liberalitatem tuam ostendas et filium meum redimas’.”[100]

Frangipani demanded that Suleiman should undertake an expedition by land and sea to deliver the king of France, who otherwise would make terms which would leave Charles master of the world. This exactly fitted into the plans of Suleiman, whose European expeditions were naturally directed against the possessions of the house of Hapsburg; so he graciously acceded to all the demands of the French mission. Ibrahim later stated[101] that this embassy decided the Sultan to prepare his army immediately for an expedition into Hungary. The knowledge of this successful embassy was one of the reasons that led Charles to sign the Treaty of Madrid in January, 1526. By the time of this treaty Francis promised to send five thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry against his recent allies, the Turks,—but of course he had no intention of keeping his word.

Since the capture of Belgrad by the Turks in 1521, hostilities on the Hungarian frontier had never ceased, and the Turkish danger had been constantly before the Reichstag and in the mind of the Pope. In April, 1526, Suleiman started with a large army for his first regular Hungarian campaign. The Hungarian nobles, continually at feud with one another, were utterly unprepared to resist him, and the treasury was exhausted. The first city to be taken was Peterwardein, which was stormed by Ibrahim Pasha. Then fell Illok and Esek. But the decisive victory of the campaign was the battle of Mohacz, August 29, 1526. In this brief but bloody conflict little King Lewis fell, and the country was laid open to the sultan. The keys of Buda, the capital of Hungary, were handed over to him and he entered the city on September 1st. In spite of the express prohibition of the sultan, his soldiers accustomed to regard war as an opportunity for rapine, burned two quarters of the city, including the great church, while the akinji (scouts) burned neighboring villages and slaughtered the peasants. Other victories followed until at last the sultan, promising the Hungarians that John Zapolya should be their king, withdrew his army to Constantinople, carrying with him an immense amount of booty.

The death at Mohacz of King Lewis without direct heirs left the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia vacant. The Archduke Ferdinand, as the husband of Lewis’ sister, and recognized as Lewis’ successor by official acts of his brother, the Emperor Charles, passed at the Diets of Worms and Brussels on April 28, 1521, and March 18, 1522, was the legal heir to the throne. But the sovereignty was claimed also by John Zapolya, voivode of Transylvania, a vigorous fighter and an unscrupulous politician. Both of these claimants had themselves been recognized in Hungary and crowned with the Iron Crown,[102] and both of them turned for substantial aid in support of their claims to Suleiman, regardless of possible loss of independence. Suleiman, as conqueror of the strongholds of Hungary, and as a court of appeal for the rivals, considered himself to have in his hand the disposition of the crown. He did not want it himself. He had expressly declared that he invaded Hungary to avenge insults, not to take the kingdom from Lewis; but the death of the latter forced him to choose between the two rival claimants. His word had been pledged for the support of Zapolya, and his dislike of the Hapsburgs and his friendship for the French king inclined him to keep it.

Ferdinand and Zapolya both hastened to send embassies to the Turks, Ferdinand taking the first step. He sent envoys to Upper Bosnia and to Belgrad to ask the governors to refuse aid to Zapolya, offering three to six thousand ducats for their alliance.[103] One of the governors died before the embassy reached him, and from neither of them were there any results from this mission.[104] At the same time Ferdinand attacked Zapolya, driving him from Ofen and back towards Transylvania. Zapolya in distress despatched his first mission to the Porte. His envoy, Hieronymus Laszky, was empowered to effect a defensive and offensive alliance with the sultan. The mission was successful, Suleiman accepting Zapolya’s offer of devotion, and promising him the crown of Hungary and the protection of the Porte against his enemies.

Although the mission from Zapolya was kept as secret as possible, it soon became known to Ferdinand, who dispatched the embassy he had long planned, in the hope of counteracting Zapolya’s move. One embassy failed to reach Constantinople,[105] and the first ambassadors from the archduke of Austria to reach the Porte were John Hobordonacz and Sigmund Weixelberger, in May, 1528. They demanded the Kingship of Hungary for their master Ferdinand, and the restoration to Hungary of all the places taken by Suleiman. The sultan refused both of these demands and in his turn offered to make peace on the payment of tribute. The embassy accomplished nothing, its sequel being the campaign in Hungary in 1529. Three days before the final answer to Ferdinand, Suleiman had in full divan delivered to Ibrahim a commission making him serasker or general‐in‐chief of the expedition against the Hapsburgs. The Peace of Cambrai in 1529 left the Austrians free to fight the Turks.

In the meanwhile French diplomacy continued actively. Francis I was disturbed by the result of the invasion of Hungary which he had himself urged, for the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia seemed now to be falling into the hands of his enemies of Austria. More than ever he had need of the Ottoman alliance, and he determined on an alliance with Zapolya. He sent Rincon to the latter to form an offensive and defensive alliance, claiming as his reward the reversion of the kingdom of Hungary for his second son, Henry, should Zapolya die without heirs.[106] On the 20th of September, 1528, Sultan Suleiman renewed a former act called by old French historians “la trêve marchande,”[107] giving commercial privileges to the Catalonian and French merchants in the Mediterranean, and placing all French factories, consuls, and pilgrims, under the protection of the Sublime Porte. The French were thus able to reappear with confidence in the Levant, and were welcomed by the Christians in the East. The pilgrimages to Jerusalem recommenced. Even Francis expressed a desire to go to the Holy Land and to visit en route “his dear patron and friend, Suleiman.”[108] A question concerning the Holy Places in Palestine was also brought up by Francis at this time, which is of very great significance, as it marks the beginning of the train of developments that resulted in the conception of the protection of Turkey’s Christian subjects by the European Powers. Francis and Venice united in asking that a certain church in Jerusalem, long before converted into a mosque, be restored to the Christians.[109] Ibrahim replied that had the King of France demanded a province, the Turks would not have refused him, but in a matter of religion they could not gratify his desire. Nevertheless the Sultan made the following general promise which was later used as a basis for further demand by the Catholics. He wrote to Francis:[110] “The Christians shall live peaceably under the wing of our protection; they shall be allowed to repair their doors and windows; they shall preserve in all safety their oratories and establishments which they actually occupy, without any one being allowed to oppose or torment them.”[111]

On the 10th day of May, 1529, Suleiman set out to settle matters by force with Charles V. Before the end of August the Turks were again encamped with a vast army on the fatal plain of Mohacz. Here John Zapolya met his overlord and did him homage. Three days later the Turks advanced to Buda, and took it from Ferdinand, crowning Zapolya a second time within the walls of the capital. By September 27, Suleiman was encamped before Vienna.

On the 19th day of October, 1529, Ferdinand, in great distress, wrote to his brother the Emperor; after referring to the horrors that followed the siege of Vienna, he says: “I do not know what he (Suleiman) intends to do, whether to betake himself to his own country or to stay in Hungary and fortify it and the fortresses, with the intention of returning next spring to invade Christendom, which I firmly believe he will do. I therefore beg you Sire, to consider my great need and poverty, and that it may please you not to abandon me but to assist me with money.”[112]

The invasion of Austria had convinced Charles that he must support Ferdinand against Turkey, and the royal brothers agreed on their Oriental policy, namely, peace at almost any price. To this end another embassy was fitted out and despatched to treat with Suleiman. On the 17th day of October, 1530, Nicholas Juritschitz and Joseph von Lamberg arrived in Constantinople. Their instructions were practically the same as those given Juritschitz the previous year.[113] The mission was hopeless from the start, for the ambassadors could accept peace only on the condition of the evacuation of Hungary by the Turks, and to this the Sultan would not listen.

Ferdinand however, who had just failed in a military attack on Zapolya and had accepted a truce, saw no hope but in another embassy to the Porte. Therefore he sent Graf Leonhard von Nogarola and Joseph von Lamberg, who were to attempt to buy peace by the payment of annual pensions to Suleiman and Ibrahim. The sultan, who had already left Constantinople at the head of a great army for his fifth Hungarian campaign, was intercepted at his camp near Belgrad by the Austrian envoys. The only result of this embassy was a letter to Ferdinand from Suleiman saying that the latter was starting for Ofen, where he would treat with Ferdinand in person, a threat which he followed up immediately.

By April, 1531, Suleiman was ready to avenge his failure before Vienna. At Belgrad he was met by the French ambassador Rincon. France was now anxious to prevent the Sultan’s expedition against Austria, not in the interests of the Hapsburgs but against them, for he was afraid that the Turkish danger would unite Catholic and Protestant Germany against the common foe of Christianity. Suleiman received Rincon hospitably but assured him he had come too late, for while on account of his friendship with the King of France he would like to oblige the latter, he could not give up the expedition without giving the world occasion to think that he was afraid of the “King of Spain”, as he always called Charles V.[114]

The Ottoman army entered Hungary. Fourteen fortresses sent the Sultan their keys as he approached.[115] But the forces did not advance to Vienna as their enemies expected, but turned into Styria and besieged the little town of Güns. For three weeks seven hundred brave defenders held the little fort against the might of Turkish arms, and finally made a highly honorable capitulation. After a general devastation of the country and much looting, the great army of Suleiman returned to Constantinople. Suleiman was incited to this course by the active preparations which were being made by Charles and Ferdinand to receive him at Vienna, and by the naval successes in the Mediterranean of Andrea Doria, admiral of the Italian fleet. Thus what promised to be a great duel between the two “Masters of the World” was allowed by both of them to degenerate into a plundering expedition.

Affairs in Persia were in great need of Suleiman’s presence, and the capture of Koron and Patras by Doria made the Sultan more ready to listen to overtures of peace. Charles and Ferdinand took advantage of this fact to send Hieronymus von Zara and Cornelius Duplicius Schepper to the Porte in 1533. The ambassadors, after weeks of patience and adroitness succeeded in winning from the Sultan a treaty of peace, to last as long as Ferdinand should remain peaceful. Ferdinand was to retain the forts he had taken in Hungary and Zapolya to keep the others; the Emperor Charles might make peace by sending his own embassy to the Porte. As soon as Ferdinand received the news of this humiliating success, he sent word all over the kingdom, to Carniola, Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia that any violation of the truce would be severely punished; “denn daran ... mug der Turghisch Kaeser erkhennen dass wir den Frieden angenommen derselben zu halten gaentzlich entschlossen und so dawider gehandelt wurf, dass mit ernst zu shafen willen haben.”[116] Such were the humiliating terms of the first peace concluded by the House of Austria with the Porte (1533).

Shortly after the embassy of von Zara and Schepper, Suleiman left Europe to wage war against the Persians. As usual when planning a campaign in one direction, he made careful arrangements to keep matters quiet on other frontiers. He treated in secret with Francis I, agreeing to despatch Barbarosa with a fleet to ravage the coasts of the Empire; this was a great success for French diplomacy, for the advantage was all in favor of France. Then, fearing lest the rivals for the Hungarian throne should come to an agreement in his absence, and thus menace his suzerainty, Suleiman delegated Luigi Gritti to determine the frontiers between the possessions of the two kings. This was a clever move, for it prolonged the intrigues between the royal competitors until the return of the sultan. The successes of Barbarosa, the victories and defeats of Charles V on the Mediterranean, and the continuation of French diplomacy are outside the limits of our subject, which ends with the death of Ibrahim Pasha in 1535. Gévay preserves several letters written by Ferdinand to Ibrahim in 1535–6, in the interest of peace in Hungary, the last being dated March 14, 1536, a year after Ibrahim’s death. The last international act in which Ibrahim Pasha had a part was the celebrated treaty of commerce made with France in February, 1535.

Francis I had received a Turkish mission, not from the haughty Sultan, but from his admiral Barbarosa,[117] and in return the king sent a clever diplomat named La Forest, to thank Barbarosa for his kind offers of aid, and then to seek the sultan in Persia and conclude a definite treaty with him.[118] Suleiman received La Forest in his military camp, keeping him till his own return to Turkey in 1535.

The treaty is dated February, 1535; it formed the basis of the economic, religious, and political protectorate of France in the Levant. The French might carry on commerce in the Levant by paying the same dues as did the subjects of the Sultan, and the Turks could do the same in France. The French were to be judged by their consul at Alexandria or by their ambassador at Constantinople. This treaty ended the commercial predominance of Venice in the Mediterranean. After this, all Christians except the Venetians were forced to put themselves under the protection of the French flag, which alone guaranteed inviolability.[119] This commercial freedom and political influence gained by France involved a sort of economic protection and was supplemented by a religious protectorate over the Catholics in the Levant and the Holy Places.

After this sketch of the beginnings of diplomatic relations between the Porte and the two rival powers of Europe, the House of Hapsburg and the House of Valois, we are ready to consider the significance of these relations and to take up some of the details that will serve to bring out the share of Ibrahim Pasha in Turkish diplomacy, and his characteristics as a diplomat.

Diplomatic relations between the Porte and Europe, relations other than those of conqueror and conquered, relations reciprocal and more or less friendly, began in the reign of Suleiman I, and the first French embassy to the Porte in 1526 already described was the beginning of a complete change in the European attitude towards Turkey. Before this time, the religious differences between Moslem and Christian had effectually absorbed attention, but now political interests began to push aside religious concern. The masses of the people in Europe still feared a Moslem invasion of the North, but this was no longer a real danger. A general rising of Christians, such as a crusade, was no longer necessary to hold back the Turk; the regular means and the ordinary efforts of a few states combined sufficed, as was proved by the successful resistance of Güns and Vienna. It was decreed that the Turk was not to pass Vienna. Francis might therefore seek the friendship of the Ottoman without betraying the cause of Christianity. There were, it is true, plenty of Christians who cried out against the impious alliance of the Crescent and the Lily,[120] but the outcry was largely political and as we have seen soon even the Austrians were seeking terms of peace with the Turks.

When Suleiman came to the throne, he attended closely to the business of government, but by 1526 he was leaving practically the whole responsibility on the shoulders of his grand vizir Ibrahim. Ambassadors to the Porte had their first audience always with Ibrahim, after which they sometimes had audiences with the other vizirs. Generally a very formal ceremony of hand‐kissing was permitted by the Sultan, after which Ibrahim concluded the business. At some audiences with the grand vizir, Suleiman would be present, concealed behind a little window,[121] but oftener he was not present at all.

In his early diplomatic work, Ibrahim, feeling himself unprepared, turned to Luigi Gritti, natural son by a Greek mother of Andreas Gritti, who had been ambassador and at one time doge of Venice. Ibrahim was very well served by Luigi Gritti, who was intelligent as well as experienced, especially in Christian dealings, clever, able, and tactful.[122] Zapolya’s ambassador Laszky, knowing this, persuaded Gritti to take up his affairs, hoping through him to win Ibrahim, and through Ibrahim, Suleiman. The event justified him.[123] Ibrahim frankly acknowledged Gritti’s influence, saying to Laszky: “Without the Doge Gritti and his son we should have destroyed the power of Ferdinand and of thy master (Zapolya), for the conflict of two enemies who ruin each other is always favorable to the third who survives.”

We may get an idea of the manner of conducting embassies at the Porte, as well as the functions and characteristics of Ibrahim as diplomat as such by following the report of Hobordanacz to Ferdinand. Hobordanacz sent an official and detailed report of the embassy to his master, written in Latin, which is preserved in Gévay’s _Urkunden und Actenstuecke_.[124]

The two ambassadors Hobordanacz and Weixelberger were received with splendor on their entrance into Constantinople by a guard of four hundred knights, and were immediately conducted to the grand vizir. This ceremonious reception greatly encouraged the hopes of Hobordanacz.[125] After greetings to Ibrahim, “Supremum Nomine”, the Hungarians offered him presents and then retired to quarters assigned them. On the third day forty horsemen escorted the royal nuncios to the Imperial palace. Hobordanacz was greatly impressed with the splendid array of janissaries and guards in gorgeous costumes. They were received by the three vizirs, Ibrahim, Cassim, and Ayas Pasha, while from his little window his Majesty watched the audience, himself unseen.

Amidst profound silence, Ibrahim Pasha addressed the first nuncio, asking him politely whether they were treated well in their quarters, to which Hobordanacz answered that they had everything in abundance, as was fitting in the palace of so great an emperor. Ibrahim then began to interrogate them concerning the journey and their king, explaining that he was not asking about the king of Hungary, for Lewis of Hungary had been killed in battle, but was inquiring about the king of Bohemia and Germany. The Hungarian nuncios took the opportunity to boast of the greatness of Ferdinand, provoking a smile from Ibrahim. Hobordanacz said they had come to admire and to congratulate the emperor of the Turks that God had made him a nearer neighbor to Ferdinand than previously. He said that the Emperor Maximilian had given Hungary to Ferdinand, whereupon Ibrahim broke in: “By what right, when Sultan Suleiman has subjugated Hungary?” He asked them if they did not know that the Sultan had been to Buda. The Hungarians responded rudely that there were signs enough by which they could know of Suleiman’s visit, as the country lay waste. Ibrahim went on: “The fortress of Buda, how does it stand?” “Whole and undamaged,” they replied. When he asked why, they suggested that it was because it was the king’s castle. Ibrahim denied this and said it was because the sultan had saved the citadel for himself, and intended to keep it with divine aid. Ibrahim here explained that Suleiman and he had not wished so much harm done in Hungary, and had ordered the soldiers not to burn Buda and Pesth, but could not hold them back from devastating. This was naturally a sore subject with the Hungarians who after expressions of admiration for the great obedience they saw in Turkey, even when the sultan was not present, asked pertinently why then he could not have saved Buda and Pesth. This seems to have been too much for Ibrahim who remarked “Let us omit these things.” Turning therefore to a more congenial subject, he uttered a Turkish dictum, “Wherever the hoof of the sultan’s horse has trod, there the land belongs to him.” Hobordanacz replied somewhat sarcastically that they knew such was the sultan’s idea, but that even Alexander the Great had not been able to carry out all his ideas. Cutting through all these generalities, Ibrahim said sharply, “Then you say that Buda does not belong to Suleiman!” Hobordanacz replied stoutly, “I can say no more than that my king holds Buda.” Said Ibrahim, “Why has he then sent you to ask for peace and friendship if he holds Buda, which the sultan has conquered?” The nuncio told a long story of Zapolyta’s usurpation of the throne, and of Ferdinand’s merits to which Ibrahim sarcastically remarked, “You have talked of the many virtues of your lord! Very noble if they be true!” He then asked Hobordanacz if he were a relative of Ferdinand’s and how long he had served the Archduke. The nuncio replied that he had served him since the latter became king of Hungary. “Then,” said the pasha triumphantly, “if you have served him so short a time, how do you know he is so wise and virtuous and powerful?” A curious contest of wits followed with no practical object.

Ibrahim: “Tell us what wisdom you see in Ferdinand and
how you know that he is wise.”

Hobor.: “Because when he has won great victories, he
ascribes the glory to God.”

I.: “What does wisdom seem to you to be like?”

H.: “In our books and in yours, the beginning of wisdom
is said to be the fear of God.”

I.: “True, but what other wisdom do you find in
Ferdinand?”

H.: “He works deliberately and with foresight and taking
of counsel; also he undertakes no affairs that he cannot
finish.”

I.: “If he does this, he is praiseworthy. Now what
boldness and courage do you find in him?”

Ibrahim’s next question as to the victories of Ferdinand received a long and clever answer. Ibrahim further inquired as to Ferdinand’s wealth. Hobordanacz claimed endless treasure for his master. Ibrahim then asked, “What have you to say about the power of your master?” Hobordanacz claimed many powerful friends and neighbors, the greatest being his brother Charles. Ibrahim inflicted one of his battle‐axe strokes; “We know that these so‐called friends and neighbors are his enemies.” The Hungarian replied sententiously, “Unhappy is the king without rivals, whom all favor.” Ibrahim at length stopped the discussion of Ferdinand’s merits by saying, “If this be so, it is well.” Then he asked whether they came in peace or in war, to which Hobordanacz replied that Ferdinand wished friendship from all his neighbors and enmity from none.

After this sprightly introduction, Ibrahim led the nuncios in a brilliant procession to the presence of the sultan. Here the janissaries received gifts for the sultan from the servants of the ambassadors, and showed them to all in turn; in the next room seven eunuchs took the gifts and spread them out on tables. The three pashas first went to salute Suleiman, leaving the nuncios before the door. Ibrahim Pasha and Cassim Pasha then, holding them by their two arms, led each of the nuncios in turn to salute the sultan, who sat with his hands on his knees and looked them over. When they had saluted him, they returned to their place by the door where stood the interpreter. Hobordanacz was greatly annoyed because the interpreter, familiar with the flowery and courtly Oriental speech, embellished the somewhat curt address of the Hungarian, but Ibrahim told the interpreter to repeat exactly what the envoy said. After this he asked Hobordanacz to state his business. After this statement of Ferdinand’s wishes, Suleiman called Ibrahim to him and whispered in his ear. Ibrahim then resumed negotiations while Suleiman looked on.

Taking up his grievance against Ferdinand once again, Ibrahim inquired how the latter, in addressing the Sultan, dared declare himself so powerful when other princes were content to commend themselves to Suleiman’s protection and to offer him their services. To Hobordanacz’ question who these princes were, Ibrahim named the rulers of France, Poland, and Transylvania, the Pope and the Doge of Venice, and added that these princes (except the voivode of Transylvania) were the greatest in Europe. The Austrian nuncios seemed to be impressed and indeed the statement was a sufficiently startling one and was moreover borne out by the facts. After that Hobordanacz spoke with greater meekness, expressing his master’s desire for the friendship of the sultan, if the latter were willing to grant it. “If he is not willing,” said Ibrahim sharply, “what then?” Hobordanacz, recovering his boldness, said haughtily, “Our master forces no man’s friendship.” Ibrahim then dismissed them with the parting fling that the sultan was occupied with much more important business. They never saw the sultan again. Ibrahim informed them that his master was concerned with personal affairs, and that he himself would conduct the whole business. This illustrates the respective shares of Suleiman and Ibrahim in the business of the state. Doubtless the sultan had a definite policy of friendship to Zapolya and antagonism to Ferdinand, but it appears certain that he allowed Ibrahim Pasha to control entirely the details of diplomacy.

In later audiences with the grand vizir, Hobordanacz expressed the hope that Ferdinand and Charles V and Sultan Suleiman might become good friends and neighbors. Ibrahim inquired scornfully how such a friendship could come about! Hobordanacz declared that it was his mission to offer friendship, and it seemed to him that Ibrahim’s influence should be able to bring about advantages for both sides. Ibrahim again urged him to indicate the method of procedure, saying, “Your king has seized upon our kingdom, and yet he asks for friendship; how can that be?” The nuncio said he knew all things at the Porte were done by Ibrahim’s will and authority; he believed that he could serve their cause. Ibrahim then proposed peace on condition that Ferdinand should abandon Hungary. Hobordanacz on the other hand asked for a definite truce for a term of years and requested the restitution to Ferdinand of those portions of Hungary taken by Suleiman, giving a list of twenty‐seven fortresses. This aroused Ibrahim’s bitter wrath. “It is strange” said he “that your master does not ask for Constantinople.” He tried to make the ambassadors acknowledge that Ferdinand would attempt to take these forts by force if they were not conceded to him. “With what hope does he ask for these forts,” he further inquired, “when he knows that the sultan took them with great labor and much bloodshed?”

The question of compensation for these forts being opened, Ibrahim exclaimed indignantly that the sultan was not so poor that he would sell what his arms had won. Dramatically opening a window he said “Do you see those Seven Towers! they are filled with gold and treasure.”[126] He then turned to the question of skill in war, and after praising the prowess of the Germans, he said, “You know the arms of the Turks, how sharp they are, and how far they have penetrated, for you have fled before them many times.” Hobordanacz gave a qualified assent, but praised his master’s warlike skill. Ibrahim finally broke in, “Then your master wishes to keep those forts?” Hobordanacz suggested a middle course, but the grand vizir said decisively: “There is no other way but for your king to abandon Buda and Hungary and then we will treat with him about Germany.” Upon Hobordanacz’ refusal to consider such terms Ibrahim stated, “I conquered Lewis and Hungary, and now I will build the bridges of the Sultan, and prepare a way for his Majesty into Germany.” He closed the interview by accusing Ferdinand and Charles of not keeping faith and said he would give the nuncios a final reply in three or four days.

The third audience was held in the palace, with Ibrahim presiding, and Suleiman at his window, and was conducted on similar lines to the other audiences. Ibrahim informed the Hungarians that their master had just been defeated by Zapolya with an army of thirty‐six thousand men, which statement Hobordanacz took the liberty of doubting, saying that if Zapolya added all the cocks and hens in Transylvania to his army, he could not make up the number to thirty‐six thousand. The nuncios and the grand vizir could not agree on terms of alliance; to the Austrian demands, Ibrahim impatiently exclaimed: “The Emperor Charles and your master, what do they want more? to rule the whole earth? Do they count themselves no less than the gods?” Naturally nothing was accomplished by such recrimination, and finally Suleiman ended the audience, dismissing the ambassadors with the threat: “Your master has not yet felt our friendship and neighborliness, but he shall soon feel it. You can tell your master frankly that I myself with all my forces will come to him to give Hungary in our person the fortresses he demands. Inform him that he must be ready to treat me well.”

So ended the mission of Ferdinand for peace. There had been no possibility of success from the beginning. Suleiman and Ibrahim were not to be won to friendship for Ferdinand, and had they been, the rude, independent Hobordanacz was not the man to gain Oriental favor. One feels that Ibrahim enjoyed the opportunity to sharpen his claws on an enemy, and to show Europeans his own power and that of his master. The envoys must have been very uncomfortable, and their discomforts were not yet at an end, for a Venetian enemy of Ferdinand’s told Ibrahim that they were not ambassadors but spies, and urged their detention at the Porte. For five months they were kept in close confinement, after which a long journey lay between them and the anxious Archduke who had hoped so much from the embassy.

This treatment of royal ambassadors as though they were spies was not uncommon at the Porte. The King of Poland had been forced to complain of the rough handling of his envoys by Sultan Bayazid (Suleiman’s grandfather), saying they were not only detained for months before they were given audience, but were thrown into prison, and instead of being lodged like the envoys of a king, who would naturally feel that it accorded with his honor to send only the sons of the noblest families to represent him, were treated as criminals, and that promises made to such envoys were often broken.[127] Busbequius, himself an ambassador, who was detained for months and sharply watched, recounted another instance, that of Malvezzi, whom the Sultan held responsible for the broken faith of his master Ferdinand, and threw into prison when Ferdinand took Transylvania in 1551.[128] It was a Turkish maxim that ambassadors were responsible for the word given by their masters, and that in their capacity as hostages they must expiate its violation; moreover power was often conceived to reside in an ambassador, who therefore was kept in durance in the hope that he could be brought to terms. Such treatment, however naïve and unjust, is nevertheless an improvement on the reception by Hungary of the ambassador sent to announce the accession of Suleiman, whose nose and ears were slit. Further illustrations of the way ambassadors were liable to be treated in Europe were the assassination of Rincon, envoy of France, connived at by Charles V, and the murder of Martinez, a Spanish ambassador to the Porte, instigated by Ferdinand.

Ibrahim’s usual way of opening an audience was to brow‐beat the ambassador, and he indulged in frequent sarcasm and scornful laughter. To the envoys of Ferdinand in 1532 he railed at Ferdinand and “his tricks” and gibed at his faithlessness. “How is a man a king” he said “unless he keeps his word?”[129] To Lamberg and Juritschitz (1530)[130] he spoke of the quarrels among Christian rulers, twitting his auditors with Charles’s treatment of the Pope and of Francis I, declaring that the Turks would never do “so inhuman a thing,” and following this by a long talk “full of scorn and irony.”[131]

Ibrahim was enormously inquisitive, seeming to look upon a foreign embassy as an opportunity for gaining all sorts of general information. Sometimes he asked about such practical matters as the fortification of certain forts; at other times he asked such trivial questions as how old the rulers were, and how they pronounced their names. He once remarked that a man who did not try to learn all things is an incompetent man. Several times he boasted that in Turkey they knew all that was taking place in Europe.

His manner, as we have seen, was usually sharp and rude, but he could be elaborately courteous when he wished to please, as when he received an embassy from “our good friend” Francis I, and the Hungarian embassy of 1534. He was invariably boastful; during the earlier years he bragged of the sultan, his power and treasure; in the later embassies he boasted of himself.

One of the most important documents about Ibrahim that we possess is the account of the peace embassy sent by Ferdinand in 1533, the report being written by Hieronymus von Zara in Latin in September, 1533. This shows Ibrahim in a sharper light than we have had elsewhere, and brings out some traits in his character that have been growing steadily since his rise to such great power: his ambition and his towering pride.[132]

Ibrahim, splendidly clad, received the ambassadors for their first audience, without rising. He accepted the rich jewels they offered him, and appointed a later day for the business of the treaty. On the appointed day the envoys were permitted to kiss the garments of the grand vizir, and they saluted him as brother of their sovereigns, Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Hungary. Ibrahim had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Ferdinand, and had always spoken of him without any kingly title, to the amaze of the ambassadors.[133] In this interview and throughout the whole conference Ibrahim spoke of Ferdinand as his brother, and as son to Suleiman. This was not mere personal vanity; under the pretext of the community of good which should exist between father and son he cloaked the Sultan’s usurpation of Hungary, and the fraternity of Ferdinand and Ibrahim served to disguise the humiliation of the former, who was placed in the same rank as a vizir.[134] But in the long speech that Ibrahim Pasha made to the ambassadors, he revealed his personal pride. We quote from the speech: “It is I who govern this vast empire. What I do is done; I have all the power, all offices, all the rule. What I wish to give is given and cannot be taken away; what I do not give is not confirmed by any one. If ever the great Sultan wishes to give, or has given anything, if I do not please it is not carried out. All is in my hands, peace, war, treasure. I do not say these things for no reason, but to give you courage to speak freely.”[135]

When the letters of Emperor Charles were shown him, he examined the seals, remarking as he did so: “My master has two seals, of which one remains in his hands and the other is confided to me, for he wishes no difference between him and me; and if he has garments made for himself, he orders the same for me; he refuses to let me expend anything in building; this hall was built by him.”

Ibrahim seems to have lost his head during this, his last embassy, and to have uttered things that were not safe for any subject of an Oriental despot, however doting, to utter. Whether he spoke out of the sheer madness that the gods send upon those whom they would destroy, or whether he seriously aspired to assume literally and explicitly the power he held actually is impossible to say. Even as grand vizir of Turkey he seems never to have forgotten that he was a Greek. For years he ignored it, and behaved like a Turk and a loyal Moslem, but as he came to feel more secure in his high position, he became more careless, and spoke to these Christian ambassadors of the pride and generosity with which the Greeks are filled. It is a question whether any Greek, from the fall of Byzantium to our time, has not in his inmost heart felt his race superior to his Moslem conquerors, and the fitting ruler of the Eastern Empire. To that feeling are due some of the knottiest complexities in the Young Turk situation of 1911. Naturally this attitude has always been profoundly resented by the Turks; therefore Ibrahim was seriously jeopardizing his standing with the Ottoman Sultan when he remembered that he was both Greek and Christian by birth.

There were plenty at the court to take immediate advantage of any such slip. The courtiers had already been scandalized at the freedom the Pasha took with the Sultan, and thought that he had bewitched Suleiman.[136] In the same interview he further expresses his relations to his imperial master in a parable:

The fiercest of animals, the lion, must be conquered not by
force, but by cleverness; by the food which his master gives
it and by the influence of habit. Its guardian should carry
a stick to intimidate it, and should be the only one to feed
it. The lion is the prince. The Emperor Charles is a lion. I,
Ibrahim Pasha, control my master, the Sultan of the Turks,
with the stick of truth and justice. Charles’ ambassador
should also control him in the same way.

From this he went on to expatiate on his own power:

The mighty Sultan of the Turks has given to me, Ibrahim, all
power and authority. It is I alone who do everything. I am
above all the pashas. I can elevate a groom to a pasha. I give
kingdoms and provinces to whom I will, without inquiry even
from my master. If he orders a thing and I disapprove, it
is not executed; but if I order a thing and he disapproves,
it is done nevertheless. To make war or conclude peace is
in my hands, and I can distribute all treasure. My master’s
kingdoms, lands, treasure, are confided to me.

He also boasted of his past accomplishments, speaking of himself as having conquered Hungary, received ambassadors, and made peace. If Suleiman knew of these vauntings, he made no sign of resentment, but continued to repose the same confidence in Ibrahim as hitherto, but the courtiers held them in their hearts to use when the time should come.

Ibrahim’s importance and influence are taken for granted by foreign rulers and envoys. In all his instructions to his ambassadors Ferdinand tells them to see Ibrahim first, and the queen regent of France wrote to him, when she wrote to the sultan. The collections of Gévay and Charrière contain a number of letters from Ferdinand and Francis to Ibrahim. The Venetian baillies transacted all their business with Ibrahim and sent many reports to the Signoria of his power in the state and his influence over the sultan. The envoys brought him valuable presents which he did not hesitate to accept.[137] He loved to receive jewels and there was a famous ruby once on the finger of Francis I which was sent by the first French envoy to the Porte, (the envoy who was killed in Bosnia) and which somehow came into Ibrahim’s possession when the Pasha of Bosnia was called to Constantinople to account for the murder.[138]

But although Ibrahim took presents, and even resented it if they were not offered him, he refused bribes again and again. Ferdinand empowered his envoys in three missions to offer an annual pension to Suleiman (a tribute under a name less offensive to Ferdinand) and at the same time an annual pension to the grand vizir. When Juritschitz and Lamberg offered Ibrahim five to six thousand Hungarian ducats[139] annually for his aid in bringing about peace, he rejected it so indignantly that they apologized and withdrew their offer. He said that the previous ambassadors Hobordanacz and Weixelberger had offered him one hundred thousand florins to buy his protection, but that he said then and would now repeat that no sort of present could make him desert the interests of his master, and that he would prefer to aid in the conquest of the whole world than advise the Sultan to restore conquered territory.[140]

The passage just quoted would seem sufficient to disprove the assertion made by contemporary European historians that Ibrahim Pasha had lifted the siege of Vienna because he had been bought by the gold of the ambassadors. Suleiman gave him everything that he could have asked and much more than lay in the power of any European monarch to bestow. Ibrahim acquired vast wealth, but there is no evidence that his loyalty to Suleiman could be purchased, and while the Turkish historians speak often of the avarice of his successor Rustem Pasha, they never ascribe that quality to Ibrahim. If he had a price, it was too high for Ferdinand to pay.

It is apparent from what has been said that Ibrahim’s diplomatic methods were not subtle; they had no need to be. As the diplomacy of the Porte was usually either the introduction to, or the conclusion of a military campaign, small wonder that it usually attained its object. As the favor of the Porte was eagerly sought by France, Venice, Poland, Russia, Hungary and Austria, it required no finesse of diplomatic handling to deal with their ambassadors. Ibrahim, holding all the trumps, needed no great skill to play his cards well. He might be as rude and boastful as he would, and still the ambassadors would beg for his influence in making peace. Both Suleiman and Ibrahim treated Charles V and Ferdinand with great haughtiness, nevertheless pursuing an entirely successful policy; France, on the other hand, playing a subtle game, won considerable from the Porte. It would seem that the test of Turkish diplomacy was not its method but its general plan and large lines. The question then before us is, what were the objects and accomplishments of Turkish diplomacy between 1525 and 1540.

Suleiman had two objects, first to extend his conquering power further into Europe, and second to assist Francis I against the House of Hapsburg. In these two objects he was successful. His empire was greatly extended during his reign, both in territory and in influence, while the power of the rival House of Hapsburg was steadily diminished and limited. But that which makes of this period an epoch in European political history is not the territorial aggrandizement of Turkey, nor the recognition of its power by Europe, but the first entrance of Turkey into the European concert, if we may anticipate a later term, and the change from the consideration of the Turks as merely unbelievers and foes of Christianity to regarding them as political allies or foes, and as possible factors in the European question. At the close of the reign of Selim the Grim, Turkey, although it was a conquering nation, was still an excrescence in Europe. But the time had come when it must enter into the affairs of the Northern nations, and for that time Suleiman, unusually tolerant towards the West, with a great idea of the destiny of Turkey, and aided by his Christian grand vizir, was ready, and by the end of his reign he had made himself felt in every court on the continent, and had to be reckoned with in every European cabinet. But as a natural corollary to this fact, Turkey was never, after this time, wholly free from European influence. The fine wedge of French intervention was introduced by La Forest in the treaty of 1535, and conservative Turks of today look on Suleiman’s “capitulations” as the beginning of endless troubles for Turkey, while the French still rejoice over the triumphs of astute and far‐sighted Francis I. “Suleiman en sortant de son farouche isolement,” says Zeller, “François I^{_er_} en bravant les préventions de ses contemporains, accomplirent une véritable revolution dans la politique de l’Europe.”[141] For four centuries France remained the most weighty foreign influence at the Porte. A fuller significance lay in what Lord Stratford de Redcliffe called the “extra‐koranic” character of the concessions made in this reign, the introduction of extra‐koranic legislation in both foreign and internal affairs, by the side of the maxims and rules of the Sheri or Holy Law. Turkey began to discover the inadequacy of Koran legislation for a modern state.[142]

How much did Ibrahim Pasha influence Suleiman in this policy? He undoubtedly had the details in his own hands, but did he inspire the plan? Probably not. Suleiman knew pretty clearly what he wanted, and he pursued the same policy with the same success after the death of Ibrahim. His contemporaries ascribed to Ibrahim the brain and the force of Turkish diplomacy, and later historians have given to him the exclusive credit of this political evolution. But Zeller’s view[143] that too much importance may be given to the rôle of Ibrahim Pasha seems better substantiated. Zeller, nevertheless, in his introduction to _La Diplomatie Française_, accords to Ibrahim just that credit that peculiarly belongs to him, if we have rightly understood the work of the grand vizir, when he says: “Suleiman was not less enlightened than Francis; he had, as well as the latter, the knowledge of his own interests, and like him he was partially enfranchised from the prejudices of his nation.... At the same time we cannot doubt but that the grand vizir, whose ability and enlightenment are attested by all the ambassadors, contributed to open the mind of his master to the ideas outside his realm, to initiate him into a European Policy, to make him see the menace of the increasing power of Charles V, and the interest which he had to support France”. In the unusual liberality of thought and freedom from prejudice that Suleiman showed in his relation to Europe, we may see the influence of his intelligent favorite.

Thus the two together, Suleiman and Ibrahim, or Ibrahim and Suleiman, as Ferdinand often spoke of them, started the Ottoman Empire from the lonely path of independence and semibarbarism to the labyrinthine and noisy streets of European politics.