Copyrighted material – 9781352004137
Chronology
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on the Venetians. With the advantage of surprise, the campaign opened successfully. In August, Chania fell and, in 1646, despite the mutual recrimination between the admiral, Yusuf Pasha, and the grand vizier, Sultanzade Mehmed Pasha, leading to Sultanzade’s dismissal and Yusuf Pasha’s execution, troops on Crete under the command of Mad Hüseyn Pasha captured Apokoroni and Rethymnon. At the same time, Mad Hüseyn thwarted Venetian attempts to block the Dardanelles and establish themselves on Tenedos. In the summer of 1647, Herakleion came under siege. Mad Hüseyn’s successes contrasted with the problems in the capital. The execution of Kemankesh Mustafa inaugurated a period of competition for office, which coincided with a deterioration in the sultan’s mental state. At the time of his succession, Ibrahim’s advisors knew his intelligence to be limited: a treatise on government which the advice writer Kochi Bey composed for him is written in appropriately uncomplicated language. The trigger for his insanity, however, was the dynastic crisis. Murad IV had died with no male heir at a time when Ibrahim had no children of his own. If Ibrahim were to die childless, the dynasty would be extinct. His first duty, therefore, was to produce male heirs, and this he did with increasing appetite. Duty turned to obsession and, as he withdrew into the private world of the harem, his whims began to endanger the Empire. In 1647, he executed the grand vizier, Salih Pasha, accusing him of not enforcing his ban on carriages in the capital. In Salih’s place, Ibrahim appointed Musa Pasha, the husband of a favourite companion. However, before Musa could reach Istanbul, the deputy grand vizier Hezarpare (‘Thousand Pieces’) Ahmed Pasha persuaded Ibrahim to appoint him in his place and, to safeguard his own position, pandered to the sultan’s whims, imposing, among other things, taxes to support his obsession with sable and ambergris. The sultan’s madness coincided with a period of military and political crisis. In 1647, the Venetians blockaded the Dardanelles, preventing supplies from reaching the army. Once the Ottomans had lost the element of surprise, it had become clear that the Venetians, despite inferior resources, were superior at sea.72 On land, too, the Venetians made advances. In Dalmatia, the governorgeneral of Bosnia failed to capture Zadar and Šebenik, while the Venetians overran a number of fortresses on the Bosnian frontier. In 1647, at a time when the blockade of the Straits was causing food shortages in Istanbul, the grand vizier, Ahmed Pasha, refused admission to the palace of the governorgeneral of Rumelia, who was bringing news of the Venetian conquest of Klis. The sultan’s recklessness at a time of crisis led to revolt. In 1648, on receiving a command to pay ‘festival tax’, and aggrieved at the practice of dismissing governors before the completion of their three-year term, the
Copyrighted material – 9781352004137