The principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, situated between 43° 40′ and 48° 50′ north latitude, 23° and 29° 30′ east longitude, occupying a space of 350 miles in length, and 160 in breadth, are separated from the Austrian provinces of Temesvar, Transylvania, and Boukovina, by the Carpathian mountains; from Russia, by the river Pruth; and from Bulgaria (the ancient Mœsia), by the Danube.
It is sufficiently ascertained that these two provinces, joined to those of Transylvania and Temesvar, composed the kingdom of Dacia, finally conquered by the Romans.
The Dacians were originally a Scythian or Sarmatian tribe, resembling, in language and manners, the Thracians; the Greeks, indeed, considered them as a part of the Thracian nation.
They were a sober and vigorous people, capable of enduring any hardships and privations in war: they did not fear exposing themselves to the greatest dangers, because they looked upon death as the beginning of a much happier life; and this doctrine, according to Strabo, they held from a philosopher named Zamolxis, who was held in high repute by them.
The progress of the Roman arms, which, under the reign of Augustus, were carried to the banks of the Danube, brought them into contact with the Dacians, who were at that time governed by a warlike prince named Bærebestes, who boldly set the Roman conquerors at defiance. After his death, they were divided into four or five different principalities, and their strength was a good deal broken by the Romans; but their last king Decebalus, one of the ablest and most enterprising warriors of his time, re-united them into one body towards the 87th year of the Christian æra.
The first irruption of the Dacians into the territory of the empire, took place during the latter part of Augustus’s reign; and, at times repulsed, at other times successful, they continued to annoy the Romans without any decisive advantage taking place on either side. At last the Emperor Domitian, determined to put a stop to their depredations, marched in person against them.
The particulars of the war which ensued are sufficiently detailed in the Roman history. The result of it having been such as to compel Domitian to sue for peace; he consented to pay to Decebalus an annual sum in the shape of a pension, but which, in fact, was nothing less than a tribute. It was regularly paid by the Romans until the year 102, when the Emperor Trajan declared his resolution to discontinue it; and the Dacians thereby considering themselves no longer bound to observe the treaty of peace, crossed the Danube, and laid waste the Roman territory. Upon these acts of hostility, Trajan put himself at the head of a numerous army, and marching against them, forced them to retire, passed the Danube in pursuit, engaged and defeated their successive forces, and finally compelled Decebalus to acknowledge himself his vassal. Trajan then returned to Rome, where he received the honour of a triumph, and the title of Dacicus.
But not long after, Decebalus, eager to shake off the Roman yoke, invaded and plundered the territory of his neighbours the Iazygæ, who were also tributary to the empire, on their refusal to join him against the Romans. Trajan again took the field at the head of a vast army, determined to chastise and subdue the Dacians. He reached the banks of the Danube in Autumn, and he thought it prudent to wait there the return of the fine season, that he might carry on military operations with more facility and success. It was during this interval, that he caused his famous bridge to be built over the Danube, under the direction of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus; and its present remains are sufficiently visible to verify the ancient accounts of this stupendous work. When the water is very low, some of the piles stand two or three feet above it, and render that part of the river difficult of navigation; they are looked upon as rocks by the natives of each side.
At the return of the Spring, when the bridge was completed, the Roman army marched over it, and commenced hostilities. The war was long and difficult, but it terminated in the complete subjugation of the Dacians, and in the death of their king, Decebalus, who, finding it impossible to avoid being made prisoner, killed himself that he might not fall alive into the conquerors’ hands.
Dacia was thus converted into a Roman province, and Trajan shortly after sent colonies to increase its population. New cities were built, and pavements were constructed on the high roads, for the greater facility of communication.[1] It was governed by a Roman pro-prætor until the year 274.
Under the reign of Gallienus, when the empire was already declining, various parts of Dacia were seized by the Goths, and other barbarous nations.
A few Roman legions yet remained in the country, under the reign of the Emperor Aurelian, who, returning from Gaul, came down to Illyria, and finding a great part of Dacia in the hands of the barbarians, foresaw the impossibility of maintaining any possessions in the midst of them, and he withdrew a good number of the Roman inhabitants to the other side of the Danube, and settled them in Mæsia.
During the space of a hundred years from that period, those of the natives who had remained behind, and their descendants, were incessantly exposed to the rapacities of a variety of barbarous tribes, who came into the country for plunder.
Towards the year 361, the Goths, more powerful than the rest, seemed to have been left in exclusive possession of the province, and were inclined to make a permanent stay in it. They embraced the Christian religion, and established it in Dacia; since when, to the present moment, it has never ceased to be predominant amongst its inhabitants.
In 376, the Hunns, having over-run the countries possessed by the Goths, forced Athanaric, King of the Vizigoths, to retire with all his forces to that part of Dacia, situated between the rivers Dniester and Danube, now called Moldavia. He raised a wall between the latter river and the Pruth, by which he thought himself sufficiently protected against the attacks of his enemies. The Hunns, however, were not stopped by it; and their approach spread such consternation among the Goths of the interior, that those who had the means of escaping, to the number of some hundred thousand, fled for refuge into the Roman territory, and were permitted by the Emperor Valens, to settle in Thrace, upon condition that they should live peaceably there, and serve, when required, in the Roman armies.
The Hunns having penetrated into Dacia, were left masters of it until the year 453, when Ardaric, King of the Gepidæ, a people previously conquered by Attila and the Hunns, revolted against them, in consequence of Attila’s death. His son and successor, Ellach, marched against them, but being defeated and slain, the Hunns were driven back into Scythia, and the Gepidæ remained masters of all Dacia. They entered into a sort of alliance with the Romans, who agreed to pay them a pension. In 550, their first quarrels with their neighbours, the Lombards, took place; and being sometimes assisted by the Emperor Justinian, they carried on frequent hostilities against them, for the space of eight years, at the end of which both nations resolved to decide the fate of the war by one great battle. The Lombards, under their King Alboin, had previously formed an alliance with the Avars, a people of Scythian extraction; and, assisted by them, they marched to action. Both sides fought with equal valor; but at last victory declared in favour of the Lombards, who, pursuing the Gepidæ, made a great slaughter among them. The Gepidæ, either destroyed, dispersed, or subdued, never after had a king of their own, and ceased to be a nation.
Alboin’s achievements in Dacia attracted the notice of Narses, sent by Justinian to conquer Italy: he made offers to him, and finally engaged him to join the expedition with all his forces. The Lombards thus abandoned their possessions in Dacia and Pannonia to their friends and neighbours the Avars. These, also known by the name of White-Hunns, remained in them until their own destruction by the Franks and Bulgarians. In the 7th century, being joined by other barbarous tribes, they pushed their incursions as far as the gates of Constantinople, where they were so completely defeated by the Emperor Heraclius, that they could not recover the blow: it was the original cause of their rapid decline.
Towards the close of the same century, a nation, known under the names of Slaves and Bulgarians, came from the interior of Russia to that part of Mæsia, which has since been called Bulgaria. Soon after a great number of Slaves, headed by their chief Krumo, crossed the Danube, and settled in Dacia, where they have since been known under the name of Wallachs. Opinion varies with respect to the origin of this name. Some historians pretend that the Slaves distinguished by it the Romans of Mæsia; whilst others maintain that they meant by it a people who led a pastoral life, and had given it to the inhabitants of Mæsia, most of whom were shepherds; and that a great number of these, having joined the Slaves in Dacia, the name by degrees became a general one amongst its inhabitants. The modern Wallachians, however, exclude it altogether from their language, and call themselves “Rumunn” or Romans, giving to their country the name of Roman-land, “Tsara-Rumaneska.”
Some former inhabitants of Dacia, joined by a number of Slaves and Bulgarians, separated from the new settlers, and went to the lower part of Dacia lying between the rivers Olt and Danube, where they fixed their habitations. They formed themselves into a nation, and chose for their chief one Bessarabba, to whom they gave the Slavonic title of Bann or regent. The country within his jurisdiction was called Bannat; and it retains to this day the name of Bannat of Crayova, the latter being that of its present capital. Several other petty independent states arose at the same time in various parts of Dacia; but they were frequently annexed to the same sceptre, at other periods dismembered, according to the warlike ardour or indolence and incapacity of their various chiefs. Their general system, however, consisted in making war against the Romans of the lower empire, in which they were seconded by the Slaves and Bulgarians of Mæsia, whom they looked upon as their natural allies. This state of things continued to the close of the 9th century, at which period the Slaves having fallen into decline, various hordes, originally Scythians, successively undertook the conquest of Dacia, driving each other out of it, according to the momentary superiority of the one over the other. The most remarkable of these were the Hazars, the Patzinaces, the Moangoures, the Ouzes, the Koumans, and other Tartars.
The natives were treated as slaves by all these hordes of barbarian intruders, and great numbers of them were continually retiring to the other side of the Carpathians; where they settled under their own chiefs, sometimes independent, at others tributary to the kings of Hungary. The most conspicuous and thriving of these colonies were those of Fagarash and Maramosh.
The devastations continued in the plains finally drove out all the natives, and in the 11th century the Tartars retired, leaving the country a complete desert. It remained in this state until the year 1241, when the inhabitants of Fagarash, conducted by their chief Raddo Negro (Rodolphus the Black), crossed the mountains, and took possession of that tract of country, which is now called Upper Wallachia. Nearly at the same time, the inhabitants of Maramosh under their chief Bogdan, came and settled in that part which is by some called Moldavia, from the name of the river Moldau, which crosses it to fall into the Danube, and by the natives and Turks, Bogdania. Raddo Negro and his followers halted at the foot of the mountains, where they laid the foundation of a city, to which they gave the name of Kimpolung. At present it is reduced to an indifferent village; but its original extent is marked by old walls in ruin; and some inscriptions in its cathedral church attest it to have been Raddo’s capital. His successors transferred their residence to Tirgovist, more pleasantly situated in the plains.
Some Wallachian, Transylvanian, and Hungarian authors differ in opinion with respect to the exact period of Raddo’s and Bogdan’s establishment in Wallachia and in Moldavia, and fix it at a different year of the early part of the 13th century; but as they give no satisfactory explanation on the subject, I am disposed to differ from them all, in placing that event in the year 1241, on the strength of the following considerations:—1st. It does not appear probable that the kings of Hungary, who, at the commencement of the 13th century were very powerful, and who looked upon Fagarash and Maramosh as dependencies of their crown, would have suffered their inhabitants to desert them, in order to settle in foreign countries: 2dly, It would seem strange that Raddo, Bogdan, and their followers should have quitted their homes in a prosperous country, and come to inhabit a desert, without some extraordinary event had necessitated so remarkable an emigration: and 3dly, the best Hungarian historians place in the year 1240 the invasion of Battou-Han in the northern countries; and add, that having crossed Russia and Poland at the head of 500,000 men, he entered Hungary in the year 1241, where he staid three years, during which he put every thing to fire and sword, and finally retired because nothing more was left to satisfy his thirst of blood.[2] It appears, then, extremely probable that the ravages of Battou-Han, and the terror he spread in the adjacent provinces, were the only causes of this emigration, which no historian has yet otherwise accounted for.
Bogdan and Raddo assumed the Slavonic title of Voïvode, equivalent to that of commanding prince. When tranquillity was restored in Hungary, they acknowledged the supremacy of the Hungarian king; but it does not appear that the formalities of the recognition had been such as to bind their successors; for, at the early part of the principalities, some Voïvodes disputed it with success; and from the commencement of the 14th century, their independency was acknowledged by Hungary.
The Bannat of Crayova had been little molested during the great incursions of the barbarians: in the 9th century it had become tributary to the kings of Hungary, who afterwards held it as a sort of refuge for the knights going to, and coming from, the Holy Land; but soon after Raddo’s arrival, the Bann submitted to him the supreme sovereignty of the Bannat, and it has since then been annexed to the principality of Wallachia.
During the latter part of his life, Raddo raised another city, distant about thirty miles south-west of Kimpolung, on the borders of the river Argis: he gave it the name of Courté d’Argis, and resided in it occasionally. He also built a church here, which, two hundred years after, one of the Voïvodes beautified in a very conspicuous manner. The whole of the exterior work is entirely of carved marble, something in the style of the steeple of St. Stephen’s church at Vienna, but far more elegant. The whole produces a very striking effect; and, as it has perfectly preserved its original beauty, it is certainly a monument that the Wallachians may boast of in any part of Europe.
The Voïvodate was not made hereditary; and although it devolved sometimes from father to son, the successor was obliged to go through the formality of being elected by the chiefs of the nation.
Several successors of Raddo strengthened the government, the population increased, and a great number of small towns and villages were built in the country. Frequent hostilities against the Hungarians, arising from the claims of sovereignty of the latter, accustomed the Wallachians to war; and in 1391 the Voïvoide Mirtza collected a numerous force, and attacked the neighbouring possessions of the Turks with the view of rescuing them from their hands. The Sultan Bajazet being at that moment employed in Asia in a troublesome war with the Prince of Castomona, had left his conquests near the Danube without the means of defence. But when the news of their invasion reached him, he suspended his operations in Asia, and returned to Adrianople, from whence he sent a numerous army to Wallachia. The Voïvode marched to meet the Turks; and, after a bloody battle, he was defeated, and compelled to become tributary to the Sultan. The annual amount of the tribute was fixed at three thousand piasters.[3]
Wallachia continued to pay it until the year 1444; when Ladislas King of Hungary, preparing to make war against the Turks, engaged the Voïvode Dracula to form an alliance with him. The Hungarian troops marched through the principality and were joined by four thousand Wallachians under the command of Dracula’s son.[4]
The Hungarians being defeated at the celebrated battle of Varna, Hunniades their general, and regent of the kingdom during Ladislas’s minority, returned in haste to make new preparations for carrying on the war. But the Voïvode, fearful of the Sultan’s vengeance, arrested and kept him prisoner during a year, pretending thereby to show to the Turks that he treated him as an enemy. The moment Hunniades reached Hungary, he assembled an army and placed himself at the head of it, returned to Wallachia, attacked and defeated the Voïvode, and caused him to be beheaded in his presence; after which he raised to the Voïvodate one of the primates of the country, of the name of Dan.
The Wallachians under this Voïvode joined again the Hungarians in 1448, and made war on Turkey; but being totally defeated at the battle of Cossova, in Bulgaria, and finding it no longer possible to make any stand against the Turks, they submitted again to the annual tribute, which they paid until the year 1460, when the Sultan Mahomet II. being occupied in completing the conquest of the islands in the Archipelago, afforded them a new opportunity of shaking off the yoke. Their Voïvode, also named Dracula[5], did not remain satisfied with mere prudent measures of defence: with an army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few Turkish troops that were stationed in his neighbourhood; but this attempt, like those of his predecessors, was only attended with momentary success. Mahomet having turned his arms against him, drove him back to Wallachia, whither he pursued and defeated him. The Voïvode escaped into Hungary, and the Sultan caused his brother Bladus to be named in his place. He made a treaty with Bladus, by which he bound the Wallachians to perpetual tribute; and laid the foundations of that slavery, from which no efforts have yet had the power of extricating them with any lasting efficacy. The following is the substance of the treaty:—
1. “The Sultan consents and engages for himself and his successors, to give protection to Wallachia, and to defend it against all enemies, assuming nothing more than a supremacy over the sovereignty of that principality, the Voïvodes of which shall be bound to pay to the Sublime Porte an annual tribute of ten thousand piasters.”
2. “The Sublime Porte shall never interfere in the local administration of the said principality, nor shall any Turk be ever permitted to come into Wallachia without an ostensible reason.”
3. “Every year an officer of the Porte shall come to Wallachia to receive the tribute, and on his return shall be accompanied by an officer of the Voïvode as far as Giurgevo on the Danube, where the money shall be counted over again, a second receipt given for it, and when it has been carried in safety to the other side of that river, Wallachia shall no longer be responsible for any accident that may befall it.”[6]
4. “The Voïvodes shall continue to be elected by the archbishop, metropolitan, bishops, and boyars[7], and the election shall be acknowledged by the Porte.”
5. “The Wallachian nation shall continue to enjoy the free exercise of their own laws; and the Voïvodes shall have the right of life and death over their own subjects, as well as that of making war and peace, without having to account for any such proceedings to the Sublime Porte.”
6. “All Christians who, having once embraced the Mahometan faith, should come into Wallachia and resume the Christian religion, shall not be claimed by any Ottoman authorities.”
7. “Wallachian subjects who may have occasion to go into any part of the Ottoman dominions, shall not be there called upon for the haratsh or capitation tax paid by other Rayahs.”[8]
8. “If any Turk have a lawsuit in Wallachia with a subject of the country, his cause shall be heard and decided by the Wallachian divan, conformably to the local laws.”
9. “All Turkish merchants coming to buy and sell goods in the principality, shall, on their arrival, have to give notice to the local authorities of the time necessary for their stay, and shall depart when that time is expired.”
10. “No Turk is authorised to take away one or more servants of either sex, natives of Wallachia; and no Turkish mosque shall ever exist on any part of the Wallachian territory.”
11. “The Sublime Porte promises never to grant a Ferman[9] at the request of a Wallachian subject for his affairs in Wallachia, of whatever nature they may be; and never to assume the right of calling to Constantinople, or to any other part of the Turkish dominions, a Wallachian subject on any pretence whatever.”
This treaty in many respects advantageous to Wallachia, still forms the basis of its constitution. The first, third, fourth, and latter part of the fifth articles only, have since undergone alterations, which have proved in no small degree detrimental to the liberties of that country. The remainder have been, and are to this day, punctually observed.
The qualification of a mere tributary prince did not, however, appear to the Sultan Mahomet as implying sufficient submission; and, in order to place the person of the Voïvode under a more immediate dependence, he gave him the rank and title of a Turkish Pashah; a dignity, which has ever since been inseparable from that of Voïvode or Hospodar.
The principality remained in a peaceable state several years after its war with Mahomet, and the weakness and incapacity of several of its princes afforded to the Ottoman court the means of ruling over it with increasing power. In 1544 portions of territory bordering on the Danube were ceded to the Turks; the fortresses of Ibraïl, Giurgevo, and Tourno, which have much figured in all the subsequent European wars of Turkey, were raised upon them, and were garrisoned by Turkish soldiers. Having gained so strong a footing in the country, the conduct of the Turks became more and more overbearing: its rights and privileges were no longer respected; and the Porte countenanced, or connived at, every sort of depredation committed by the soldiers of the garrisons beyond the boundaries of the fortresses; and soon treated the principality and its inhabitants as on the same footing with all its other Christian conquests.
This state of things continued to the year 1593, when an individual of the name of Michael was elected to the Voïvodate. He no sooner held the reins of government than he determined to deliver his country from the Turkish yoke, and restore it to independency. Circumstances soon afforded him an opportunity of putting this plan into execution. The Prince Sigismund of Transylvania, also tributary to the Turks, revolted against them towards this period, at the instigations of the Pope and of the Emperor Rodolphus. With him and with the Voïvode Aaron of Moldavia, Michael formed a league against the enemies of Christianity. But in order to give a greater appearance of justice to their proceedings, the allies sent a long list of grievances to the Porte, demanded redress, and insisted that some satisfactory guarantee were given of a change of system for the future. These representations not only remained unanswered, but, shortly after they were made, a troop of three thousand Janissaries came into Wallachia, and went about the country, levying contributions on the villagers, and committing all sorts of outrages. A Wallachian force was at last sent against them, and they were all put to the sword; after which, Michael, at the head of an army composed of his own troops and those of his allies, marched against Giurgevo, and compelled its garrison to retire to the other side of the Danube.
The threatening attitude of Michael and his allies induced the Sultan Amurat to desist from further provocation, and to wait for a more favourable moment of imposing again his yoke on the principalities; but he died suddenly in 1595, and his successor, Mahomet III., no sooner ascended the throne than he resolved to carry that plan into execution by the means of an overpowering army. Forty thousand Turks and twenty thousand Tartars, under the orders of the Grand Vezier, invaded the Wallachian and Moldavian provinces nearly at the same time, and a long war ensued. The invaders suffered a series of defeats: for five years they renewed the campaign with no better success; and the Sultan was finally compelled to relinquish his claims.
In 1600, after the abdication of Sigismund of Transylvania, that principality became tributary to the Emperor Rodolphus; and as the Voïvode Michael, whom the emperor had engaged into his interests, had assisted him in defeating the schemes of Cardinal Battori, pretender to the Transylvanian sovereignty, Rodolphus, to reward him, left him the government of Transylvania. The Voïvode fixed his residence in that province, and appointed a lieutenant in Wallachia. But in the following year the Transylvanians, not satisfied with his administration, revolted, and sent invitations to their former Prince, Sigismund, who was living as a private individual at Clausenburg, to come and resume the supreme authority. An Austrian army, under the command of General Baste, was hastily dispatched to stop the progress of the rebellion; and Michael, who had repaired to Wallachia, returned with some troops, and joined the imperial general. They marched together against the rebels, who had formed an army of equal strength, and an obstinate battle took place, which terminated in the entire defeat of the insurgents, and in the subjection of the whole province. When events had determined the fate of Transylvania, the two allied commanders quarrelled in a discussion concerning the ulterior measures of administration; and Baste, resolved by some means or other to get rid of Michael, whose pretensions appeared to him to have become of a dangerous tendency, caused him to be assassinated. The Wallachian troops were sent back to their country, and they carried away with them the head of the Voïvode Michael, which was buried in the monastery of Dialloluy, near the town of Tirgovist, where the monument that was placed over it at the time, with an inscription alluding to the principal events of his life, and to the circumstances of his death, engraved in Slavonian characters, still exists.
The death of Michael, which took place in 1602, spread great consternation and confusion in Wallachia. The Primates[10] lost time in deliberations on the measures that were to be pursued; and the Turkish Pashahs of the neighbourhood sent a strong body of troops, which, crossing the Danube at different places, occupied the greatest part of the principality, and put it out of the power of the Wallachians to make any effectual resistance. The sultan’s orders for the election of a Voïvode of his own choice were soon obeyed, and the principality resumed its tributary character; the treaty of Mahomet II. was renewed, but the amount of the tribute was fixed at a much higher sum. From this period forward, Wallachia remained under the power of the Ottoman Sultans; and although its inhabitants, in the course of the 17th century, made frequent efforts to throw off the yoke, the success of such attempts always proved momentary, and consequently more injurious than beneficial to them in the sequel.
With regard to Moldavia, the first act of its submission to the Turks was not the effect of conquest, but a voluntary measure of precaution and security.[11] It was only in 1536 that this principality consented to become tributary to the Sultan, and the event is thus explained by all the Moldavian historians.
In 1529 the Voïvode Stephen, being on his death-bed, called to him his son Bogdan, who was likely to succeed him, and his principal nobles: he addressed them at length on the political situation of the country, representing the probability of its being soon attacked by the Turks, and the insufficiency of its means to make any effectual resistance against their power. He dwelt on the ferocious character of the reigning Sultan Suleÿman I., and recommended to them in the strongest manner, rather to seek his clemency by the voluntary offer of a tribute, than expose themselves to his vengeance in resisting his attempts to obtain it.
After Stephen’s death, Bogdan neglected some years his father’s advice, till at last he saw the necessity of following it; and he sent, in 1536, ambassadors to Constantinople to offer the tribute. The Sultan then entered into written engagements with him, by which the same privileges as those of Wallachia were granted to Moldavia; but in which the tribute was merely called a Peshkicsh, or present.
Moldavia was governed on the same plan as the sister province, and frequently shared the same fate in war; sometimes ravaged by the Turks, at other times successful in resisting them. Towards the close of the 16th century, after its successful co-operation with Wallachia, Sigismund of Transylvania seized it, deposed the Voïvode Aaron, his friend and ally, and appointed a man of his own choice, whom he bound to pay him tribute. But in 1597, a Polish army invaded the province, and rescued it from the hands of Sigismund. In 1602 the Poles restored it to the Turks, against whose power the Moldavians never after struggled with any permanent success. Their frequent and fruitless efforts to regain independency, exhausted their means and patriotic ardour; and by degrees they became accustomed to the Turkish yoke. The appointment of the Voïvodes was left to the pleasure of the Sultans, although the formality of the election continued to take place a long time after; but the tribute was no longer called a present, and its amount was increased at almost every new appointment.
As far, however, as the end of the 17th century, intervening political motives still induced the Porte to show some deference to the privileges of the two principalities; but at the early part of the 18th century, the Ottoman Court became less constrained in its policy, and in assuming the right of punishing by death the Wallachian princes, laid the foundations of that system by which both have been governed to the present moment. The event which proved so fatal to the respective constitutions of those states, will show at the same time how far their public spirit must have been subdued, and how rapid appears to have been its decline.
During the reign of Sultan Ahmet, the Porte had, in 1695, declared war against the Emperor; and the Voïvode Constantine Brancovano Bessarabba of Wallachia was directed to form an army, and to march into the Austrian states, in order to second the operations of the Grand Vizier who was to commence hostilities from the frontiers of Servia. The Voïvode partly obeyed; but, either from a secret hatred to the Turks, or from being bribed into the Emperor’s cause, probably from both these motives, he abstained from taking any active part in the campaign, and by that circumstance alone, favoured the operations of the Austrians. At the conclusion of the peace of Carlowitz, the Emperor Leopold rewarded the Voïvode’s services by conferring on him the title of Prince of the Roman Empire, together with the gift of some landed estates in Transylvania. These circumstances could not remain hidden from the knowledge of the Ottoman court, who, however, found it necessary to use dissimulation; and some years elapsed without any notice being taken of them.
In 1710, Bessarabba was drawn into a secret correspondence with the Czar Peter the great, the object of which was to obtain his co-operation in that sovereign’s projected war against the Turks. The Voïvode promised a contingent of thirty thousand men, and an ample supply of provisions and other necessaries for the Russian army.
The purport of this correspondence became known to the Porte, and the death of Bessarabba was immediately determined upon; but at the same time it was deemed adviseable to use stratagem instead of open force, and it was resolved that he should be drawn into a snare by the Prince of Moldavia. Nicholas Marrocordato then governed that province, but he was thought unfit for the execution of the plan; the Porte therefore recalled him, and appointed to the principality Demetrius Cantimir, whose fidelity had been frequently tried both in peace and war. Cantimir set out from Constantinople for Moldavia, having instructions and positive orders to seize Bessarabba under the colour of friendship, alliance, or any pretence which he might think proper, and send him alive or dead to Constantinople.[12]
But Cantimir, who, it seems, had neither the ambition nor the desire of being made Voïvode of Moldavia, having twice before procured that principality to his younger brother Antiochus, accepted it with the express condition that he should not be called upon to pay any tribute, or to make any of the presents customary at the new nominations. But when he reached Moldavia the Grand Vezier wrote to him by the Sultan’s order, not only to send immediately the usual tribute and presents, but also to prepare provisions for a numerous Turkish army, to throw a bridge over the Danube for their passage, and to join the Turks in person with Moldavian troops, besides other intolerable burthens.[13] Cantimir says, that perceiving now how little faith was to be expected from the infidels, and esteeming it far better to suffer for the Christian cause, he resolved to detach himself from the Turkish interest, and sent a faithful messenger to the Czar, with an offer of his services and principality.
With these favourable prospects in Wallachia and in Moldavia, the Czar advanced towards the Ottoman frontiers. In 1711, he arrived with all his forces at Yassi, where he remained some days in expectation of the contingent and provisions promised by the Voïvode of Wallachia. But it seems that Bessarabba, as the rupture between the Sultan and the Czar drew near, alarmed at the great preparations of the Turks, and the approach of their army, composed of two hundred and twenty thousand men, thought it prudent to take no part in the war, and the subsequent disasters of the Russians are in a great measure attributed to the failure of his former promises to the Czar, who had placed too great a reliance in them. The events of this war are too well known to need any further explanation here. When peace was restored, and the Voïvodate of Moldavia had remained vacant by Cantimir’s defection, Nicholas Marrocordato was again appointed to it. Bessarabba remained unmolested, but not without the fear of early vengeance. Eager to regain the favour of the Ottoman government, and to obtain the assurance of oblivion on the past, he sent large supplies of money, and considerable presents to the Turkish ministers, and to the public treasures; he repeated them so often, as to convince the court that he possessed immense wealth, and the Grand Vezier, Ally-Pashah, who was his personal enemy, obtained from the Sultan a formal order for his recall, and for the seizure of his treasures. The Vezier then formed the plan of enforcing this order, and it was carried into execution in the following manner:—
In 1714, at the beginning of April, being the week of the Passion, when the attention of the Wallachians and their occupations were entirely devoted to the long ceremonies of the Greek church, a Capigee-Bashi[14], of the Sultan, arrived at Bukorest with a suite of a hundred men; he sent word to the Voïvode that he was on his way to Hotim upon very pressing business of the state, and that he should only have time to pay him a visit on the next morning, after which he intended to take his departure. Accordingly, he went the next day to the palace, and, on entering the closet of the Voïvode, who stood up to receive him, he placed a black handkerchief on his shoulder, conformably to the then usual method of announcing depositions to persons high in office in Turkey. The Voïvode was confounded by the unexpected compliment, but the moment he recovered from his first emotions, he burst into a long strain of invectives against the Sultan and the Turks, for treating him with so much ingratitude after the many services he had rendered to the Porte. The Capigee, however, placed a guard about his person, and proceeded to the divan chamber, where he read a Ferman, which contained the decree of Bessarabba’s deposition, declared him a traitor, and ordered him to Constantinople with all his family. After the Ferman had been published, the Capigee secured the public treasure, and all the Voïvode’s private property. The frightened inhabitants of Bukorest remained tranquil spectators of all these acts of violence, and made no effort to release the Voïvode from his imprisonment. With a nation more awakened to its own dignity, and to the value of independence, an event of this nature would not, perhaps, have taken place without the support of an army, and the shedding of blood; and, indeed, the circumstances of this very occurrence would hardly appear credible, if they were not almost fresh in the memory of the present generation.
Two days after Bessarabba’s deposition, one Stephen Cantacuzene, of Greek origin, and calling himself a descendant of the imperial family of that name[15], was, by the Sultan’s order, raised to the Voïvodate.
On the 14th April, the Capigee-Bashi left Bukorest with Bessarabba, his wife, four sons, three daughters, and grandson, and escorted by the Turkish guard. They soon reached Constantinople, and the Voïvode, with all his family, was immediately confined in the state prison of the Seven Towers. His treasures not being found so considerable as had been expected, his sons were put to the torture for three successive days, that they might confess where their father had hidden the rest; or that the latter, being a witness to his children’s torments, might come forward and make that confession himself. But as these cruelties did not produce the intended effect, the Sultan, exasperated at the apparent obstinacy of the sufferers, ordered them to be executed in his presence. The prisoners were conducted to a square, under the windows of the seraglio, and a long list of accusations was read to them; it alluded particularly to the treachery of Bessarabba in the Austrian war, and to the indignant expressions he had made use of against the person of the Sultan, when his recall had been signified to him. The four sons were first beheaded, one after the other, and the execution of the father closed this scene of butchery. When the Sultan withdrew, the five heads were put upon pikes, and carried about the streets of Constantinople. The bodies were thrown into the sea, but they were picked up by some Christian boatmen, and conveyed to a Greek monastery in the little island of Halcky, in the Propontis, where they received burial.
As to the unfortunate princess and the remainder of her family, they were shortly after exiled to Cuttaya, in Asia Minor, but three years after they were permitted to return to Wallachia.[16]
The Voïvode Cantacuzene only remained in office two years, and he was the last Wallachian prince, whose nomination was effected through the formality of election. This important prerogative of the inhabitants had been abolished some years before in Moldavia. The Porte found it unnecessary to suffer it any longer in Wallachia, and indeed it had, since more than a century, become merely nominal.
Nicholas Marrocordato was transferred from the government of Moldavia to that of Wallachia, and proclaimed by a Turkish Capigee-Bashi in 1716. At this time the Porte was preparing to carry on a defensive war against Austria; and had the primates of Wallachia felt the courage to protest against so manifest a violation of their privileges, they would, most probably, have succeeded in securing a better observance of them.
Since the commencement of the decline of the Turkish power, the Ottoman court has made it an invariable policy to infringe little by little on the privileges allowed to foreign nations by treaty; and to conduct, by systematic stratagem, an administration which has been constantly falling in vigour and energy. If any infraction is left unnoticed by the party it concerns, and the article of a treaty, in its modified state, is once applied with success to any case to which it may relate, it becomes a precedent which the Porte will obstinately refer to at any other time that the strict interpretation of the article is insisted upon.
Thus, without assigning any satisfactory reason, and without repealing, in a plausible manner, the Wallachian law of election, the Sultan took to himself the exclusive right of appointing to the two Voïvodates. The measure was not opposed, and its repetition became habitual; and if, at the present moment, the inhabitants of the two Principalities were to recall their right to memory, and claim the enforcement of it, the Porte would consider and treat the proceeding as open rebellion on their part.
No prince of Wallachian or Moldavian birth or origin, was ever appointed after the recall of Bessarabba, and the Porte would have been willing to govern the principalities through the means of Turkish Pashahs; but the intrigues of the state-interpreter, Alexander Marrocordato, who was then endeavouring to secure either of the Voïvodates to his son Nicholas, induced at the time the Ottoman government to introduce another system, which subsequent motives have contributed to support to the present day. The Porte selected the new princes from the Greeks of Constantinople, whose long habit of obedience and servile degradation, appeared to render them suitable tools for the new policy adopted, relative to the government of the principalities. From that moment the princes have been appointed by Beratt, an imperial diploma, in which the Sultan, in proclaiming the nominations, commands the Wallachian and Moldavian nations to acknowledge and obey the bearers of it, as sole depositories of the sovereign authority.[17]
They were instructed to pursue the plan, of administration of the Voïvodes, and thus they were suffered to hold a court, to confer dignities and titles of nobility, and to keep up a show of sovereign splendour, circumstances which were most flattering to the vanity of the Greeks, and proved useful to the interested views of the Porte. But they were most strictly forbidden to maintain troops, or to collect any, under any pretence whatever. This precaution was indispensable, as it prevented the princes from acquiring military power, and the natives from aspiring to independency.
In the course of the last century, a variety of Greek princes succeeded to each other in the government of the principalities. One alone, Constantine Marrocordato, appointed in 1735 to Wallachia, devoted himself with zeal to the welfare of the country. Some wise institutions, to which we shall have occasion to advert in the sequel, attest the liberality of his views, and a generosity of character which is not to be traced in any of his successors. But he was twice recalled, because he refused to comply with demands of the Ottoman government, which appeared to him incompatible with duties he owed to the Wallachians. The other princes, less scrupulous, and more careful of their own interests, marked their administration by the most violent acts of extortion, and an invariable system of spoliation. Few of them died of natural death, and the Turkish scymetar was, perhaps, frequently employed with justice among them. In a political point of view, the short reigns of most of these princes offer nothing of sufficient importance or interest to deserve a place in history.