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# Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü

Köprülü became grand vizier at one of the lowest points in the history of the Ottoman empire. The rebellious and quarrelsome janissaries and spahis had brought domestic tensions to breaking point. The politicians who tried to exploit these military castes for their own advancement made no pretence at consistency in guiding the fortunes of the Porte. They blamed Sultan Ibrahim for the failure of the military campaign in Kandia, and, in August 1648, they managed to steer the janissaries's fury against the outrageously profligate monarch, who suffered a horrible death. The grand vizier was torn to pieces, and, to take his place, they found an seemingly simple old man who impressed the soldiery not by ostentation but by his dervish-like modesty. He proved to be inadequate to the task, and chaos returned when the debasement of the currency led merchants and other urban dwellers to revolt. In 1651, the most prominent victim — by strangulation — was Kösem, grandmother of the seven-year-old boy who succeeded Ibrahim as sultan; politically influential under several sultans, she had contributed to continuity in policy. Her murder, like the previous ones, failed to resolve the crisis. Lacking steady leadership, the Porte headed towards disaster. In July 1656, it suffered ignominious defeat when the Venetians sank the entire Turkish fleet and seized the Aegean islands of Lemnos, Samothrace, and Tenedos, thus gaining a foothold in what since the Middle Ages had been the Porte's private sea. Never had the Ottoman empire suffered so many reverses at one time.

{2-145.} It was at this unpropitious moment, in 1656, that Mehmed Köprülü became grand vizier, the fifth within a year to be named to that office. Probably even his most fervent admirers doubted that he would be able to halt the slide. As a condition for accepting the post, he had asked for full powers, and that made all the difference. His is a case-study in the impact that a powerful personality can have on history: within a few months, he had created order out of chaos. He ended the soldiers' rebellion and restored discipline in the army, labored mightily to restore financial stability in the empire, and took back the Aegean islands from Venice.

Perceiving the significance of the Polish war, Köprülü promptly decided to intervene. Since two of the belligerents — Transylvania's prince and the Tartar khan — were vassals of the Porte, he chose to exploit this dependency instead of dispatching Turkish troops. In late January 1657, he sent an emissary to Transylvania with orders that György Rákóczi II return home. That spring, the Turkish commanders in Hungary reaffirmed the order, advising Rákóczi that the grand vizier disapproved of his venture. But Rákóczi had got into the habit of ignoring the wishes of the Porte's dignitaries. Whereas his father had merely exploited the conflicts between Turkish officials in Constantinople and in Hungary, he chose to act as if he was no longer a vassal of the Porte. He began his reign around the time that Ibrahim was assassinated, and what he heard subsequently indicated chronic disorder in Constantinople. His envoy Jakab Harsányi reported in April 1656 that 'these people have lost their heads, I have never seen Constantinople in such a disorderly and confused state'.[87]87. Szilágyi, Erdély és az észak-keleti háború II (Budapest, 1891), p. 219. Then he got news of the great military defeats. How could Rákóczi imagine that the fifteenth man to serve as grand vizier since he began to rule nine years earlier would be the one to halt the evident decline of Ottoman power?

That miracle did come to pass, and the Transylvanians were slow to take notice. Yet they must have learned that Köprülü had {2-146.} resorted to paying the wages of the enormous army out of his own pocket; the last grand vizier to do that was Pasha Sinan, at the time of pressing need in the Fifteen Years' War. And Köprülü had prevailed in the Aegean by the time his envoys presented a letter, bearing the sultan's seal, to the diet at Gyulafehérvár in October 1657. The Porte charged that Rákóczi had launched the campaign in Poland against the sultan's will; struck an alliance with the sultan's enemies, the Cossacks; invaded Wallachia two years earlier and made that country his tributary; plunged his own country, Transylvania, into a dangerous situation; and fled from the Tartar khan. In light of all this, instructed the Porte, the diet must dismiss Rákóczi and choose a new prince.