A firman of the Porte abolished forever the name and institution of the janissaries; and thus was successfully achieved this great military revolution; and those turbulent troops, who, for upwards of four centuries, had exercised a control in the government alike incompatible with the dignity of the sovereign and the safety of the state, who had deposed and put to death so many sultans, and who had so often filled the empire with troubles and commotions, were swept from the capital, and crushed under the vigorous hand of the inexorable Mahmoud.
It was not to be expected that these severities would be passed over by a fanatical and prejudiced populace without animadversion and complaint; but the sultan was resolute in stifling every mur mur. Four of the most distinguished of the ulema were accused of speaking irreverently of the sul tan's projects, and exiled to Asia; and a Jew banker, who had been contractor for the janissaries, was put to death, and his property, amounting to nearly 69,000,000 piastres, was confiscated.
While Mahmoud was prosecutiag his measures of reform, and securing tranquillity to his empire, one of those dreadful conflagrations, to which the capital of Turkey has been often subject, and was supposed to be the work of the disaffected, broke out on the 31st of August, and owing to a previous long drought and a high wind which prevailed at the time, destroyed about 6000 houses in the most wealthy and magnificent part of the city. Thou sands of the unfortunate sufferers upon this occa sion were received into the seraglio; and liberally supplied with provisions and shelter. The total loss was estimated at 300,000,000 piastres; and the sultan generously directed that a considerable por tion of the expense of rebuilding the burnt part of the city should be defrayed out of his own trea sury.
The threatening attitude of Russia compelled Mahmoud to persevere with unabated activity in the new organization and discipline of his army; but as delay was, at this crisis, of the greatest con sequence to Turkey, which Russia was anxious to prevent, Mahmoud submitted to the treaty of Aker man, which was concluded on the 7th of October. The principal article of this treaty respected the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, by which it was "determined that their boyars were to have the right of electing from their number their own hospodars, who were each to continue in office seven years; but that the sultan should have a veto in the election of a hospodar, on showing reasons satisfactory to Russia; and that the territories which had been detached from the two provinces should be restored to them." This treaty, however, though
ratified by both governments, was in all its parts so favourable to Russia, that it was evident the Porte could have been reconciled to it only by the anni hilation of the veteran force of his empire. In the Haiti Sherif of 20th Dec. 1827, addressed to all the pachas and governors of the empire, and to the ayans assembled at Constantinople, and which was intended to be kept secret, Mahmoud unreservedly declared that, in his negotiations with the allied powers, he adopted a tone of moderation, merely with the view of gaining time to carry on his pre parations for war.
Russia could not well overlook this hostile decla ration, and in her manifesto of 26th April, 1828, she conjoined with it other acts of oppression and breaches of faith, namely, the violation of her flag and the closing of the Bosphorus, as compelling her to have recourse to arms in defence of her ho nour and her just rights.
Mahmoud, seeing that a rupture could no longer be avoided but by a submission incompatible with the dignity and safety of his crown, prepared for the struggle. With his best troops occupied in Greece and Servia; his navy destroyed, and the janissaries annihilated, his principal dependence rested upon the raw levies of Asia, who could not be expected to cope in the field with the veteran forces of Russia, he therefore resolved upon strictly defensive operations—to strengthen his fortresses on the Danube, to concentrate his army at Schumla, and to defend the barriers of the Balkan.
The Russian army under Count Wittgenstein passed the Pruth in the beginning of May, and occupied the principalities without opposition. On their approach to the Danube, the Turks evacuated Galatz, after having converted it into a heap of ruins, and retired to Brailow. This place was de fended with great obstinacy. One of its suburbs was taken by storm on the 15th of May; but so little impression had been made upon the fortress, that the Grand Duke Michael was left to prosecute the siege, while the emperor Nicholas with the army proceeded to the south and crossed the Dan ube on the 7th of June. The passage of the river was warmly contested; but the Turks, who had taken up a position of considerable strength with the fortress of lsakza on their left, were driven from their batteries and subsequently abandoned Isakza. The emperor proceeded without interrup tion, and without a gun almost being fired to molest his march. His advance was rapid and secure.