The First Seven Sultans of the Ottoman Dynasty [pp. 42-64]

THE FIRST SEVEN SULTANS
the fifth Sultan of the dynasty. He at once and with great
ability began to conciliate the Christian powers, whom he had
good cause to fear, and who might then have easily driven him
across the Bosphor3us had there been any virtue left.
The panting Empire needed rest, but the Asiatic provinces
began to revolt, and for eight years more Western Asia drank
the bitter cups of war, pestilence and famine. He succeeded,
however, in reuniting all these fragmrnents. He suppressed the
revolt of the- Dervishes, a fanatical and formidable religious
movement. He completecd the great MIosque of Ooloo Djami
in Broosa, commencd by MuIIra(d and Bajazid, and one nearly
as large at Adrianople, commenced by Suleiman. He also con structed Yeshil Diami and Yeshil Imaret in Broosa, the finest
monuments of the age of the first Sultl'ans.
He died of apoplexy in 1421, and his death, by bold and even
ridiculous expedients, was kept secret by the palace officers, un til his son Murad II. could be brought from Amrasia to Adrian ople, whee it was annuounced, forty-one days after the event, that
Illohammed had died and his son Murrad II. reigned in his stead.
He was a youth of eighteen, and he had a prosperous reign of
thirty years.
Turkish literature dates from his reign. About 110 years had
passed since the death of Osman, the founder of the dynasty.
It had been a century of perpetual wars. MIany colleges and
schools connected with the principal mosques had been founded,
and the timne ha-d now come, under the more peaceful reign of
Mutrad I., to reap thle fruit. Osmanlee writers upon law, theology, history, and poetry, were numerous and were encouraged
by the honors eand attentions bestowed upon them by the Sultan.
Previous to his reign, artilery had been used by the Yenetians
and Germaans, principally at sea. Mlurad introduced it to the
army, and field batteries formed thenceforth a most destructive
power in every army. The Turkish army retained its preeminence in artillery for a lone period, and the skill and coolness of
the Turks in the use o- that arm is acknowledged to this day.
Murad had long and bloody wars with Hungary. Hunyade
often dcimated his armies, and gained some splendid victories,
but in the battle of V-Yrna, and still more in that of Kossova, the
Sultan more than regained all that he hadl lost. Murad laid
siege to Constantinople. He despised the Byzantine Empire,
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[January,.