erning
class (its power grew with this devolution), the dominant population of
the state, and the state itself all grew more fanatically Moslem.

In the early years of the seventeenth century, Ahmed I being on the
throne, the Ottoman Empire embraced the widest territorial area which it
was ever to cover at any one moment. In what may be called the proper
Byzantine field, Cyprus had been recovered and Krete alone stood out.
Outside that field, Hungary on the north and Yemen (since Selim's conquest
in 1516) on the south were the frontier provinces, and the Ottoman flag
had been carried not only to the Persian Gulf but also far upon the
Iranian plateau, in the long wars of Murad III, which culminated in 1588
with the occupation of Tabriz and half Azerbaijan.

4

_Shrinkage and Retreat_

The fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surely held, were
already involving it in insoluble difficulties and imminent dangers. On
the one hand, in Asia, it had been found impossible to establish military
fiefs in Arabia, Kurdistan, or anywhere east of it, on the system which
had secured the Osmanli tenure elsewhere. On the other hand, in Europe, as
we have seen, the empire had a very unsatisfactory frontier, beyond which
a strong people not only set limits to further progress but was prepared
to dispute the ground already gained. In a treaty signed at Sitvatorok, in
1606, the Osmanli sultan was forced to acknowledge definitely the absolute
and equal sovereignty of his northern neighbour, Austria; and although,
less than a century later, Vienna would be attacked once more, there was
never again to be serious prospect of an extension of the empire in the
direction of central Europe.

Moreover, however appearances might be maintained on the frontiers, the
heart of the empire had begun patently to fail. The history of the next
two centuries, the seventeenth and eighteenth, is one long record of
praetorian tumults at home; and ever more rarely will these be compensated
by military successes abroad. The first of these centuries had not half
elapsed ere the Janissaries had taken the lives of two sultans, and
brought the Grand Vizierate to such a perilous pass that no ordinary
holder of it, unless backed by some very powerful Albanian or other tribal
influence, could hope to save his credit or even his life. During this
period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocks ever exercised real control
of affairs. It was only among the m