before,
also, had the provinces been so utterly out of hand. This was the era of
Jezzar the Butcher at Acre, of the rise of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, of Ali
Pasha in Epirus, and of Pasvanoghlu at Vidin. When Mahmud II was thrust on
to the throne in 1809, he certainly began his reign with no more personal
authority and no more imperial prestige or jurisdiction than the last
Greek emperor had enjoyed on his accession in 1448.

The great European war, however, which had been raging intermittently for
nearly twenty years, had saved Mahmud an empire to which he could succeed
in name and try to give substance. Whatever the Osmanlis suffered during
that war, it undoubtedly kept them in Constantinople. Temporary loss of
Egypt and the small damage done by the British attack on Constantinople in
1807 were a small price to pay for the diversion of Russia's main energies
to other than Byzantine fields, and for the assurance, made doubly sure
when the great enemy did again attack, that she would not be allowed to
settle the account alone. Whatever Napoleon may have planned and signed at
Tilsit, the aegis of France was consistently opposed to the enemies of the
Osmanlis down to the close of the Napoleonic age.

Thus it came about that those thirty perilous years passed without the
expected catastrophe. There was still a successor of Osman reigning in
Constantinople when the great Christian powers, met in conclave at Vienna,
half unconsciously guaranteed the continued existence of the Osmanli
Empire simply by leaving it out of account in striking a Balance of Power
in Europe. Its European territory, with the capital within it, was of
quite enough importance to disturb seriously the nice adjustment agreed at
Vienna; and, therefore, while any one's henceforth to take or leave, it
would become always some one's to guard. A few years had yet to pass
before the phrase, the Maintenance of the Integrity of the Ottoman Empire,
would be a watchword of European diplomacy: but, whether formulated thus
or not, that principle became a sure rock of defence for the Osmanli
Empire on the birthday of the doctrine of the Balance of Power.

Secure from destruction by any foes but those of his own household, as
none knew better than he, the reigning Osmanli was scheming to regain the
independence and dignity of his forefathers. Himself a creature of the
Janissaries, Mahmud had plotted the abolition of his creators from the
first year of his reign, but maki