334 chapter 8
One can see signs of this trend in many different texts, and not only po-
litical treatises. The courtier and historian Fındıklılı Silahdar Mehmed Ağa
(1658–1726/27), for instance, described the reasons for the crushing defeat of
the Ottoman campaign against Vienna, to which he was an eyewitness.20 The
first reason he gives is the presence of “numerous people of the manav kind,
who had followed the army only for gain”; concerned about losing the wealth
they had gained, they fled first and thus panicked the rest of the army. Silahdar
suggests that the general should have inspected the army and put these idle
and destitute people (dirliksiz, bi-kâr herifleri) away from the appointed army
artisans (defterlü orducu).21 Moreover (and here one may perhaps discern a
Kadızadeli influence), the army did not keep the Islamic precepts and indulged
in drinking and amusements, including adultery. Other reasons concern the
use of trenches and provisioning the cavalry. In these remarks, Silahdar’s effort
to explain the defeat in military terms uses none of the well-known topoi about
the intrusion of strangers into the janissary ranks or the need to inspect the
sipahi lists; instead, he prefers to blame the non-military rabble that accompa-
nied the army and various decisions mainly made by the campaign’s hierarchy.
Silahdar’s work is interesting in other ways, too: the nonchalant way in
which he records successive discussions of the merits of each potential suc-
cessor for the dying Sultan Süleyman II by high officials and ulema illustrates
very well the declining political importance of the sultan as a person (although
Silahdar was very close to Mustafa II, who seems to have tried to assume the
role again).22 He can also be credited with being perhaps the first Ottoman
historian who openly justifies an army rebellion: speaking of the “plane-tree
event” of 1656 and the execution of the harem aghas (see above, chapter 7),
he remarks:23
Sure, this incident, being an arbitrary intervention of the army against
sultanly power (tahakküm-i ale’s-sultan yüzünden asker ikdam itdüği),
was an insolent act and thus contrary to correct manners (tavr-ı edebden
hâric olup), and one cannot deny that one or two innocent men were lost
without any reason. If we are going to see it with a just eye, however, this
assembly (tecemmü’) certainly brought some profit to the Exalted State;
indeed, the aghas of the imperial harem had obtained excessive power
over the course of Mehmed IV’s reign and thought that they could share
the power with the sultan of the seven regions of the earth.20 Silahdar – Refik 1928, 2:89–90; Silahdar – Türkal 2012, 882–884.
21 On the term manav cf. Sariyannis 2005, 4; on the orducu see Veinstein 1988.
22 Silahdar – Refik 1928, 2:567–69; Silahdar – Türkal 2012, 1355–1358.
23 Silahdar – Refik 1928, 1:33–34; Silahdar – Türkal 2012, 41.