Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. by Various

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The serdar, Delhi-Hussein, who had for eleven years gallantly upheld the
renown of the Ottoman arms in Crete, withstanding with equal firmness
the efforts of the enemy, and the mutinous spirit of his own soldiers,
had been recalled early in 1656 to assume the vizirat; a fleeting
glimpse of honour, which, though cancelled even before he reached
Constantinople in favour of the Kaimakam Mustapha, subsequently (as
already related) cost him his life from the jealousy of Mohammed
Kiuprili. His successors possessed neither his energy nor his military
skill; and the Venetians, taking courage from the change of commanders,
sallied from Candia, and even ventured, though without success, to
attempt the recovery of Canea. Negotiations for peace, meanwhile, had
been kept on foot almost from the first; but as the Ottoman pride
absolutely refused to listen to any propositions which did not include
the total and unconditional surrender of Candia, no pacification could
be effected; and the war continued to linger till Ahmed-Kiuprili,
secured on the side of Hungary by the peace with Austria, collected all
the forces of the empire, to crush this last fragment of Venetian
dominion in the Levant.

The advanced season of the year when the vizir disembarked in Candia,
and the disorganized state of the forces which he found there, prevented
the immediate commencement of offensive operations; but in the course of
the winter, the arrival of the contingents of Egypt and Africa, as well
as of a squadron with fresh troops from Constantinople, raised his army
to between 40,000 and 50,000 effective men; and on the 20th of May 1667,
the trenches were once more opened in form on the western side of the
city, while 300 pieces of cannon, thundering from the Ottoman lines,
covered the approaches of the pioneers.[16] Of the seven[17] great
bastions which formed the principal defences on the land side, those of
Panigra, Bethlehem, and Martinengo, were the chief points of attack; the
vizir himself taking post opposite the first, while the Beglerbeg of
Anatolia and the Pasha of Egypt were stationed against the Bethlehem and
the Martinengo. The assault, as on former occasions, was conducted
chiefly by the slow process of sap and mine; but the superior skill of
the Christian engineers, enabled them frequently to explore and
countermine the works of the enemy; and the mining parties were thus
surprised and blown into the air, while murderous combats took place
under ground, from the accidental rencounters of the soldiers employed
in these subterranean galleries. The garrison, which had at first
numbered about 12,000, under the command of the Marchese di Villa, a
Piedmontese officer of approved skill and courage, received, at the end
of June, a reinforcement of 1000 veteran troops, brought by the Venetian
Captain-General Morosini, who arrived with the fleet at the Isle of
Standia, off the entrance of the port; and a concourse of volunteers,
from all parts of Europe, hastened to share in the defence of this last
bulwark of Christendom in the Grecian seas; while the Maltese, Papal,
and Neapolitan galleys cruised in the offing, to intercept the supplies
brought by sea to the Ottoman camp. The Turks, meanwhile, with their
usual stubborn perseverance, continued to push their sap under the
ravelin of Mocenigo, and the Panigra bastion which it covered; and
though their progress was retarded, and their works often ruined, by the
sallies of the defenders, the foundations were at length shaken, and the
ramparts rent and shattered, by the explosion of innumerable mines; and
the janissaries, fired with fanatic zeal, and stimulated by promises of
reward, rushed again and again to the attack under the eye of the vizir.
"Many and various," says Rycaut, in his quaint narrative, "were the
valiant assaults and sallies, the traverses extraordinary, the
rencounters bloody, the resistance vigorous, not known or recorded in
any siege before;" and the struggle continued with unabated fury on both
sides, till the approach of winter; while, after each unsuccessful
assault, the Venetians, emulating the ferocity of their enemies,
displayed the heads of the slain and prisoners (for no quarter was given
or taken) in barbarous triumph from the wall. At length, after a
desperate conflict on November 16, the janissaries effected a lodgement
in the Mocenigo bastion and the Panigra; and the Ottoman banners, for
the first time, were displayed from the summit of the works. But this
valiant forlorn hope, in the moment of triumph, was hurled into the air
by the explosion of a previously-prepared mine; and Kiuprili, dismayed
at this last failure, drew off his troops into their lines, where they
lay inactive, till the inundation of the camp by the winter rains
compelled them to withdraw to a greater distance.

[16] The use of parallels is usually said to have been
introduced at this time by Kiuprili; but they were certainly
employed before Neuhausel, four years earlier.

[17] These were, the Sabionera, covered by the detached fort of
St Demetrius, the Vetturi, Jesus, Martinengo, Bethlehem,
Panigra, and St Andrew.

Great was the rejoicing throughout Europe at the tidings that the pride
of the Ottoman battle had once more been driven back discomfited, for
the best and bravest of nearly every nation in Christendom were now to
be found in the ranks of the defenders:[18] and great, on the other
hand, was the perplexity of the divan, and the chagrin of the Turkish
population, at the apparently endless duration of an enterprise, a
speedy and glorious termination of which had been expected from the
presence of the vizir. The sultan even dispatched a confidential agent
to the seat of war, to examine personally into the state of affairs; and
finding from his report that the army was reduced, by the sword and the
ravages of disease, to half its original effective strength, he issued
peremptory firmans to the pashas of the empire to hasten the equipment
of their contingents; and even announced his intention of repairing in
person to Crete, to share the perils and glories of the _holy war_.
Kiuprili, meanwhile, was indefatigable in his exertions to reorganize
his army, and restore his artillery to efficiency, even casting new guns
to fit the Venetian bullets, 30,000 of which are said to have been
picked up in the Turkish lines during the preceding campaign! A strict
blockade was kept up on the city, while the Venetian cruisers, and the
Papal galleys under Rospigliosi, the nephew of Pope Clement IX., were
equally vigilant in preventing supplies from reaching the besiegers by
sea; and various maritime encounters took place, generally to the
advantage of the flag of St Mark. The unworthy jealousy[19] entertained
by Morosini of Di Villa, led, however, early in the spring of 1668, to
the withdrawal of that gallant soldier from his command, in which he was
succeeded by the Marquis Montbrun St Andre, a French volunteer, inferior
neither in valour nor diligence to his predecessor.

[18] The majority of these volunteers were supplied by the fiery
noblesse of France, among whom the crusading spirit of their
ancestors seems to have been revived at this period. At the
battle of St Gothard, a considerable body of French auxiliaries
was present, under the Duc de la Feuillade, (whose name was
travestied by the Turks into, _Fouladi, man of steel_;) and his
subsequent expedition to Candia, as well as the more formidable
armament under Noailles, seem to have received the direct
sanction of Louis XIV. Yet the old treaties between France and
the Porte were still in force; so that it was not without some
reason that Kiuprili replied, a few years later, to the Marquis
de Nointel's professions of amity on the part of France, "I know
that the French are our friends, but I always happen to find
them in the ranks of our enemies!"

[19] Villa is said to have produced before the senate of Venice
a letter from Morosini to the vizir, offering to betray him into
the hands of the Turks.

It was not till the beginning of June that the vizir recommenced active
operations against Candia; but the plan of attack was now changed. In
order to command the narrow entrance of the harbour,[20] and so cut off
the constant reinforcements which reached the besieged by sea, the
principal batteries were directed against the bastion of Sabionera,
(called by the Turks the _Kizil-Tabiyah,_ or Red Fort,) at the seaward
extremity of the works on one side, and against that of St Andrew on the
other; but the events of the siege during this year present nothing to
distinguish them from the endless succession of mines, sorties,
assaults, and countermines, which had marked the campaign of last year.
The Venetian commanders at length, seeing the Turks preparing to pass
the winter in their trenches, and sensible that (concentrated as the
forces of the two contending powers were now for the attack and defence
of a single fortress) they must eventually be overwhelmed by the
ponderous strength of the Ottoman empire, once more made overtures for
peace, offering an annual tribute for Candia, and the cession of the
rest of the island to the Porte; but the vizir sternly rejected the
proffered compromise; and his reply to the envoy, Molino--"The Sultan is
not a merchant, nor does he need money--he has but one word, and that
is--Candia,"--showed that the long dispute could only be decided by the
sword. Elated by the hope of speedy triumph, the Turks now ran their
approaches so close to the bastion of St Andrew, which was held by the
Maltese knights and militia, that the muzzles of the muskets almost
touched each other; and the vizir wrote to the Sultan, that they had
only three yards more of ground to win, when, at this critical moment,
the spirits of the besieged were revived by the arrival, early in
December, of the Duc de la Feuillade and the Count de St Pol, with a
gallant band of 600 volunteers, many of them of the best families of
France. But the boiling valour of these fiery youths was equally
difficult to restrain or direct; and, after losing two-thirds of their
number in desperate, but irregular, sallies against the Turkish lines,
the survivors of this piece of knight-errantry re-embarked for
Christendom in January, leaving the heads of their fallen comrades
ranged on pikes before the tent of Kiuprili. A stancher reinforcement
was received in the spring of 1669, by the arrival of 3000
Lunenburghers, whose commander, Count Waldeck, fell a few days after, in
repulsing an assault on the breach of St Andrew, as did also the former
governor, Di Villa, whose thirst for glory had brought him back, as
general of the Papal auxiliaries, to the scene of peril.

[20] The harbour of Candia (now almost choked up) was at all
times so small, and with so little depth of water, as to afford
shelter only to galleys, the station of the larger vessels being
at the isle of Standia, at some leagues' distance.

These repeated reinforcements, joined to the knowledge that the Pope was
exerting himself to unite all the princes of Christendom in a league for
the relief of their hardly-beset brethren, still encouraged the heroic
defenders of Candia, though the Turks had by this time carried their
mines at several points within the bastions and exterior defences, and
compelled the garrison to shelter themselves behind an inner rampart,
constructed during the winter in anticipation of this extremity:--"So
that, in effect," says Rycaut, "this most impregnable fort of the world
was forced and taken by the spade and shovel, and by a crew of unarmed
labourers, who understood nothing more than the plough and harrow." The
promised succours, however, were now at hand. On the 22d of June, a
French fleet appeared off the port, having on board 7000 of the flower
of the French troops and nobility, who were commanded by the Dukes de
Noailles and Beaufort, and comprised in their ranks several princes of
the sovereign houses of Lorrain and Bouillon, the Marshals Colbert and
De la Motte-Fenelon, the Count of St Pol, and many other names of the
noblest and bravest in France, who had crowded to embark as volunteers
in this new and glorious crusade. These gallant auxiliaries landed
amidst the acclamations of the Venetians; and, on the night of the 27th,
a general sortie was made, in order to raise the siege by driving the
Turks from their trenches. The janissaries were driven from their works
by the impetuous onset of the assailants; but, in the tumult of the
fight, a large powder-magazine, between the Sabionera and Fort St
Demetrius, which had been occupied by the French, was accidentally blown
up. The Duke de Beaufort, and many others, perished in the explosion, or
were buried under the ruins; and the survivors, panic-stricken at the
catastrophe, were driven within the walls with terrible slaughter by the
Turks, who rallied and returned to the charge. The usual hideous
trophies of Ottoman triumph--the heads of the slain, were laid at the
feet of the vizir; but the body of the Duc de Beaufort, though anxiously
sought for at the prayer of his comrades, who offered, through a flag of
truce, to redeem it at its weight in gold, could never be discovered.

This dreadful blow not only threw a fatal gloom over the ardour of the
French, but gave rise to an altercation between Morosini and De
Noailles, each of whom threw on the other the blame of the failure;
till, after a month thus unprofitably spent, the French commander
re-embarked his troops, and sailed for Toulon, August 31, leaving the
town to its fate. The Maltese and Papal galleys departed in his
company;--"for thus did these accursed swine of Nazarenes" (says the
Turkish historiographer, Rashid) "withdraw from the doom of hell, which
awaited them at the hands of the Faithful." The condition of the
remaining defenders, thus deserted by their allies, and separated from
the Turks only by breastworks hastily thrown up in the interior of the
town, was now utterly hopeless, as not more than 3600 men remained fit
for duty, while the loss in slain and disabled averaged more than a
hundred a-day. In these desperate circumstances, a council of war was
summoned by Morosini, to consider whether it might not even yet be
practicable to avoid the ignominy of a surrender, by evacuating the
town, and escaping, with the inhabitants, by sea. Their deliberations
were hastened by a furious assault from the Turks, who were impatient to
seize their prey; and, though the enemy were repulsed for the time by
the remains of the Lunenburghers, two officers were eventually
dispatched to the vizir's headquarters, to announce the submission of
the garrison, and arrange the terms of capitulation. They were
courteously received by Kiuprili, who appointed an officer of his own
household, with Panayoti,[21] the dragoman of the Porte, to confer with
them; and the articles were settled without much difficulty. Peace was
concluded between the Porte and the Republic. Candia and the whole of
Crete was ceded to the Sultan, with the exception of the harbours of
Grabusa, Suda, and Spinalonga, which the Venetians were allowed to
retain for purposes of commerce; the garrison and inhabitants of Candia
were to embark with their arms, baggage, and a certain proportion of
artillery, and the Ottomans were not to enter the town till the
embarkation was completed. These conditions were scrupulously observed
by the victors; till the 27th of September, the evacuation being
effected, the standard of the cross was at length lowered from the
walls; and the vizir, standing on the breach of the St Andrew's bastion,
(thence called by the Turks the _Fort of Surrender_,) in the midst of a
crowd of pashas and generals, received the keys of the city in a silver
basin. A body of Turkish troops immediately entered by the breaches, and
mounted guard on the principal posts; but it was not till the 4th of
October that the vizir made his triumphant entry at the head of his
army, (now reduced to about 15,000 regular troops, and 11,000 pioneers
and irregulars,) and proceeded, bearing in his hand the sacred standard
of the Prophet, to the cathedral, which was purified from the dead
bodies interred within its walls, and re-consecrated as a mosque. All
the other churches underwent the same transformation, with the exception
of two which Panayoti purchased for the use of the Greeks; for so
completely was the town deserted, that there remained only, in the words
of an anonymous eyewitness, "two Greeks, three Jews, and eight other
strangers, whom the vizir would also have suffered to depart; but they
chose rather to change their religion than their quarters."

[21] The appointment of the _Greek_ Panayoti marks an important
change in the system of Ottoman diplomacy; as previously the
Porte had disdained to employ the _rayahs_ in places of trust,
depending wholly, in their intercourse with foreign ambassadors,
on the interpreters attached to the suite of the latter.

Thus ended this famous siege, the longest, and one of the most
memorable, recorded in history. During its continuance, the Venetians
and their allies lost 30,000 men, and the Turks more than 100,000;
fifty-six assaults were made on the town above ground, and the same
number through the mines; and nearly an equal number of sorties was made
by the garrison. 460 mines were sprung by the Turks, and no less than
1172 by the Venetians; and the quantity of missiles hurled into the town
exceeded all calculation. The fortifications were, however, speedily
repaired by the care of Kiuprili, who remained in the island nine months
after the surrender, employed in the final organization of this new
province, which was divided into the three pashaliks of Canea, Retimo,
and Candia--the last being the residence of the beglerbeg, or supreme
pasha. The arrangements being at length completed, he quitted Candia for
Constantinople, whither the capitan-pasha had preceded him with the
fleet; and, on the 3d of July 1670, he replaced in the hands of the
Sultan, in his hunting-camp near Rodosto, the _sandjak-sheeref_, which
had been committed to his charge for the war against the infidels. "In
this manner," says Rycaut, writing not in a spirit of prophecy, three
years only before the battle of Vienna, "expired the action of the year,
fortunate in its success to the Turks; for though they gained but thirty
acres of land, with expense inestimable of blood and treasure, yet the
glory and fame which attended it, being the consummation of twenty-five
years' war, and the theatre where the whole world were spectators, was
of greater value to the Turks than any other consideration, and may with
time prove a place of advantage to the further increase of their western
empire, unless God Almighty, by his mercy and providence, give a stop to
the progress of this grand oppressor."

* * * * *

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF A MAITRE-D'ARMES

The excitement produced in St Petersburg on the occasion of a rash
conspiracy which had broken out on the inauguration of the Emperor
Nicholas, had ample time to die away before the sentence pronounced upon
the conspirators became known. Six months elapsed, months of terrible
suspense and anxiety to the friends of the unfortunate prisoners. At
length, on the 14th of July, the decision of the high court of justice
appeared in the _St Petersburg Gazette_. Six-and-thirty of the accused
were condemned to death, the others to the mines and to exile. My friend
and patron, Count Alexis W----, was included in the former list; but an
act of clemency on the part of the Emperor tempered the severity of
justice, and only five of the condemned were left for execution, while
the remaining thirty-one had their sentence commuted to banishment. My
friend's name was, God be thanked! among the latter.

On reading this announcement, I rushed into the street, and ran, without
once stopping, until I reached the house of his beloved Louise. Of her,
for the present, it will be sufficient to say, that she was a young,
lovely, and intelligent Frenchwoman, whose sister I had known in Paris,
and to whose patronage, from her position as a first-rate _modiste_ in
St Petersburg, I was much indebted. Between this truly amiable woman and
the Count had for some years existed an attachment, not hallowed,
indeed, by the church, but so long and deeply-rooted in the hearts of
both, and so dignified by their mutual constancy and worth, as to have
won the sympathies even of the Count's mother and sisters. To return,
however, to Louise, whom I found with a copy of the _Gazette_ in her
hand, and bathed in tears, but they were tears of joy--

"He is saved!" cried she, on seeing me enter; "thank God and the
Emperor!"

The first moment of joy over, Louise's thoughts turned to the mother and
sisters of her lover. She calculated that the _Gazette_ would only leave
St Petersburg by the post of that night, and that by sending off an
express immediately the news might reach Moscow twelve hours sooner. She
asked me if I knew a trusty messenger, who could start without delay to
bear the glad tidings to the Count's family. I had a Russian servant, an
intelligent active fellow, and I offered his services, which she
accepted with delight. The only difficulty was the passport, and through
the kindness of the ex-chief of police, Monsieur de Gorgoli, it was
procured in half an hour. At the expiration of that time the courier set
off, with a thousand rubles in his pocket for travelling expenses.

He arrived at Moscow fourteen hours before the post; fourteen hours of
mortal anxiety saved to the Count's mother and sisters.

The letter he brought back, was one of those that seem written with a
feather plucked from an angel's wing. The old Countess called Louise her
daughter, and the young girls named her their sister. They entreated
that, when the day was known on which the prisoners were to set off for
their banishment, a courier might be despatched to Moscow with the news.
I accordingly told my servant to hold himself in readiness to start, to
his no small satisfaction; for the Count's mother had given him a
thousand rubles for his first trip, and he trusted the second might be
equally well rewarded.

There had not been an execution in St Petersburg for sixty years, and
the curiosity and excitement caused by the anticipation of this one,
were proportionably great. The day was not fixed beforehand, and the
inhabitants of the capital got up each morning, expecting to hear that
the bloody tragedy had been enacted. I had requested a young Frenchman
attached to Marshal Marmont's special mission, and who was on that
account likely to have early information, to let me know when it was to
take place; and on the evening of the 23d of July, he sent me word that
the marshal and his suite had been invited to repair by four o'clock the
following morning to the hotel of the French embassy, the windows of
which commanded the place of execution.

I hastened to communicate this intelligence to Louise. All her fears
returned. Was it certain that Alexis was pardoned? Might not the
commutation of punishment announced in the _Gazette_ be a ruse to
conceal the truth from the people? These, and a thousand other doubts,
arose in her mind; but I at last succeeded in tranquillizing her, and
returned home to take some repose till the hour of the execution. Before
doing so, however, my servant was sent off to Moscow, to inform the
Countess W---- that the following day her son would leave St Petersburg
for his place of exile.

At half-past three, I left my house and hastened in the direction of the
citadel. A grey tinge in the east announced the approach of day, and a
thin white fog hung like a veil over the Neva. As I passed the corner of
the French embassy, Marmont and his suite entered the house, and a
minute afterwards they appeared upon the balcony.

A few persons were standing upon the quay, not in expectation, or
because they were informed of what was going to take place, but because
the bridge of the Trinity was occupied by troops, and they were thereby
prevented from proceeding whither their affairs called them. They seemed
uneasy, and uncertain whether it might not be dangerous to remain there.

Some minutes before four, a large fire was lighted on the platform of
the fortress. My attention being drawn to that point, I perceived, by
the now increasing daylight, a wooden scaffolding, on which were erected
five black and ominous looking gibbets.

Four o'clock struck, and the prisoners whose punishment had been
commuted to banishment appeared upon the platform, and ranged themselves
round the scaffold. They were all in full uniform, wearing their
epaulettes, and the stars and ribands of their different orders. Their
swords were carried by soldiers. I tried to distinguish the Count, but
the distance, and still imperfect light, rendered the attempt fruitless.

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