Alpha Book

In the conquered regions, the
native Christian peoples were reduced to serfdom, and the Turkish
conquerors became great landholders and the official class. To extend,
even to maintain, such an artificial order of things, the Turks would
be obliged to keep their military organization always at the highest
pitch of excellence and to preserve their government from weakness and
corruption. In neither of these respects did the Turks ultimately
succeed.
[Sidenote: Corruption In the Turkish Government]
The sultans of the eighteenth century were not of the stuff of which a
Suleiman the Magnificent had been made. To the grim risks of battle
they preferred the cushioned ease of the palace, and all their powers
of administration and government were quite consumed in the management
of the household and the harem. Actual authority was gradually
transferred to the Divan, or board of ministers, whose appointments or
dismissals were the results of palace intrigues, sometimes petty but
more often bloody.


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