Unfortunately for Senyavin, the tide of history turned and he found himself formally at war with Collingwood’s fleet. How he diplomatically avoided a clash and sailed his Baltic fleet back after two years’ travail is an epic tale in itself, but once home he fell foul of the Tsar and St Petersburg politics and was retired.
Selim met a grim fate, but so did Mustafa, who replaced him, killed on the orders of his younger brother Mahmud, who went on to reinstate the reform agenda.
For Sebastiani, an ironic fate awaited. Biding his time, he returned to Constantinople, then worked tirelessly to restore French influence and Bonaparte’s dream of a road to India. But the wily emperor lost interest in the project entirely when he beguiled Tsar Alexander of Russia into an alliance instead, fatally antagonising the Ottomans.
Incidentally, in a quirk of history, at the time Sebastiani was being considered for his post in Constantinople the French Directory thought him too valuable to lose and the choice fell on a lesser, also an artillery, officer. This last, however, in the weeks before he was due to depart made himself indispensable in the affair of “the whiff of grapeshot,” which put down a rebellion in Paris with cannon on the streets. Sebastiani went on to Constantinople; one N. Bonaparte remained in Paris.
The monster guns that wreaked havoc on Duckworth’s fleet were real enough, and did indeed originate from the time of the fall of Constantinople and the last Roman Caesar. As far as I’m able to trace, this was their only taste of action since that time. However, as a postscript, the reforming Sultan Abdulaziz after the Crimean War gave one to Queen Victoria who, no doubt bemused, thanked him and tried to think what to do with it.
Today you can see the Great Turkish Bombard for yourself-I’ve stood next to and marvelled at the giant near twenty-ton bronze beast where it’s stored, in Fort Nelson, above Portsmouth.
I’ve a lot of sympathy for Selim, a cultured and sensitive man, whose compositions are played to this day in Istanbul but whose delicacy and love of learning were no match for the titanic struggles around him.
There’s something of a similarity between him and Admiral Duckworth. They both dithered in the face of a need for resolution and firm decision. General Sebastiani himself admitted in later years that if Duckworth had followed Collingwood’s orders to stand by his half-hour ultimatum he would have been delivered up to the English instantly. For Selim, if the uprising had been met with immediate orders to his Nizam-i Cedid it would have been another story I’d be telling, but his temporising ways were part of the man and led directly to his death.
The salutary lesson of the Dardanelles expedition was the fatal consequence of divided command. What possessed Whitehall to go over the heads of the sage and competent Collingwood to order the bombardment of Constantinople, to subject the military decisions of the operational commander to the civil power and to second-guess events thousands of miles and months away passes my understanding.
This forcing of the Dardanelles stands alone, never having been done before or since, the last attempt being in the First World War when it stalled at Gallipoli where the Anzacs went on to win immortality. Since then Turkey has been our ally and during the Cold War firmly kept the door locked on the Russians, whose only warm-water port could therefore be denied the Mediterranean and the outer world.
To all who assisted me in the research for this book I am deeply grateful. I would like to express my special thanks to Ziya Yerlikaya, Jason Goodwin and Tacdin Aker, for generously sharing their knowledge of Turkish history and culture.
And a large huzzah to Team Stockwin-my splendid editors at Hodder amp; Stoughton, Oliver Johnson and Anne Perry, and their creative art/design team; and copy editor Hazel Orme, who has brought her meticulous blue pencil to bear on the Kydd series right from the debut title. And, as always, heartfelt appreciation to my wife and literary partner Kathy-and my agent Carole Blake.
GLOSSARY
amain
with intent of force and vigour
apoplexy
a stroke
arabesque
in the ornamental Arab style of Baghdad, Samarkand, etc.
baldric
leather sling over the shoulder to suspend the scabbard
Balkans
southeast Europe; the general geographic area lying between Italy and Turkey
barge
boat of slight and spacious construction for use of the captain or admiral
becket
small piece of rope with a knot in one end and an eye in the other to keep an item confined
belfry
ornamental shelter for the ship’s bell forward
blashy
dirty weather, miserable and wet, not strong enough to be called a storm
broadside
the entire side of a ship; in gunnery, all the guns on that side
bulwark
the raised edge of the upper deck
capstan
rotating device operated with long bars to lift heavy weights
coach
a frigate captain’s quarters consist of a great cabin, with a bedplace and coach where ship’s administration was performed
convoy
ships sailing in company provided with an escort
corvette
flush-decked, three-masted armed vessel smaller than a frigate
cuirass
soldier’s breastplate
cutter
a ship’s boat, broader and deeper than a pinnace
devoir
an act of civility and respect due another
Divan
highest council of state under the sultan; courtly poetry
Dons
the Spanish
dragoman
an interpreter and adviser of Levantine languages
earnest, an
money in advance as a goodwill gesture
encomium
formal expression of warm praise for services completed
escritoire
writing desk with compartments for accessories, often highly ornamental
escutcheon
a shield or other containing armorial bearings
fo’c’sle
forecastle: upper deck above the bow section; in the merchant service the enclosed space below where seamen mess
gregale
northeasterly gale in the Mediterranean; St Paul was wrecked by one on his way to Rome
guardo
an unfair move on a landman; as in a guardship for receiving press-gang victims
gun-room
in a large ship, the gunner’s abode; in a frigate, the officers’ dining and mess room
hospodar
vassal Slavic ruler in the Ottoman Empire
instanter
that very moment; schoolboy Latin
Janissaries
sultan’s elite household troops
kedge
an anchor light enough to be taken to a distance by a boat to allow the ship to haul itself up to it
knittles
the small clew-lines from the edge of the canvas converging in an eye for slinging the hammock
landau
graceful open carriage with facing seats
loom
the shaft of an oar
luff
the edge of the sail closer to the wind; also, slang for lieutenant
magazines
storeplace for gunpowder
Nizam-i Cedid
new army established following reforms of Sultan Selim III
ostler
one employed at a hostelry or stable to look after horses
Pasha, Bey, Efendi
Ottoman honorifics in descending order
Peace of Amiens
peace that separated the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic war that followed