Chapter Eighteen
East and West Collide
第十八章 东西方的碰撞

Peter wasn't the only Eastern king国王/kɪŋ/ to look toward the West. To the south of Russia, Peter's enemies敌人/ˈenəmiz/ the Ottoman Turks were also ruled by a king who hoped to make his empire帝国/ˈempaɪər/ more Western.

But even before that king came to the throne王座/θroʊn/, the Turks tried to become more Western—by conquering征服/ˈkɑŋkərɪŋ/ the West.

When Peter became czar沙皇/zɑr/ of Russia, the Ottoman Empire stretched from the modern-day country国家/ˈkʌntri/ of Iraq all the way over to the borders边界/ˈbɔrdərz/ of Austria, the German state where the Holy Roman Emperor lived. The Ottoman Turks were a proud Eastern people民族/ˈpipəl/, followers of Islam. Their king, or sultan苏丹/ˈsʌltən/, ruled over the empire without question—and also guarded the holy cities城市/ˈsɪtiz/ of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.

The sultan kept private royal guards卫兵/ɡɑrdz/ called the Janissaries who would carry out any deed their sultan ordered!

In 1683, the year after Peter became czar, the Turks decided to make the West part of their Eastern empire—and began to march行军/mɑrtʃ/ toward Europe! A quarter of a million Turkish soldiers士兵/ˈsoʊldʒərz/ were headed toward Vienna, the capital首都/ˈkæpɪtəl/ of the German state of Austria. The Holy Roman Emperor lived in Vienna! If the Turks could capture攻占/ˈkæptʃər/ Vienna, they would own the heart of the West.

The Viennese people panicked恐慌/ˈpænɪkt/! All of the noblemen fled with their treasure财宝/ˈtreʒər/. Houses in front of the walls城墙/wɔlz/ were knocked down so that there would be room to fight战斗/faɪt/. The Holy Roman Emperor sneaked out of the city along with his family家人/ˈfæməli/. The Viennese stood on the walls, waiting for the worst.

And then they saw the long, frightening line of Turks rise slowly over the horizon地平线/həˈraɪzən/. The footsteps of this enormous army军队/ˈɑrmi/ shook the earth. "They broke against the earth like waves of the sea," one Viennese man wrote.

The Ottoman army set up a siege围攻/sidʒ/ camp all around Vienna. The army's leader, the vizier (prime minister) Kara Mustafa, put up a whole network of tents帐篷/tents/ with fancy silk covers, rich rugs, and gardens花园/ˈɡɑrdənz/ planted around them. Kara Mustafa did not intend to leave his camp any time soon!

The Turks started digging挖掘/ˈdɪɡɪŋ/ trenches toward the walls of Vienna, sheltering themselves by pulling timbers and earth over their heads. The Viennese were told to listen聆听/ˈlɪsən/ carefully for any sound of tunneling from underneath the city's pavements. As soon as they heard the sound of digging, German soldiers would try to break through the stones into the tunnels, fighting the Turks hand to hand in the dark cramped underground before they could break through into the city!

One morning, long before dawn, two bakers面包师/ˈbeɪkərz/ were preparing the day's bread面包/bred/. One baker kneaded the dough, while the other stoked the oven. Vienna still slept; the city was quiet安静/ˈkwaɪət/.

Suddenly, the kneader paused. He could hear听到/hɪr/ an odd sound. Click. Scoop. Click. Scoop. Turkish soldiers were tunneling beneath the bakery!

"Help!" he yelled. "Invaders! Help! Stop them!" German soldiers came running. They pried up the bakery's stones and leapt down into the tunnels below, shouting and firing. The Turkish tunnelers were driven back. Vienna was safe安全/seɪf/ for one more day! According to legend, the bakers invented a new kind of bread in honor of the occasion: rolls shaped like the crescent emblem on the Turkish flag, which they called croissants羊角面包/ˈkrwɑsɑn/.

But no one thought Vienna would last much longer. The siege dragged on. The people had run out meat; they were eating donkeys and stray cats. Many had begun to grow ill. And no one seemed to be coming to the rescue救援/ˈreskju/! The Turks went on digging trenches. At any moment, a huge assault could pour over Vienna's crumbling walls and bring the city down.

Meanwhile, an army of French and Polish and German soldiers was slowly assembling. Finally, on September 11th, 1683, the army was in position. The next morning, the European attack攻击/əˈtæk/ began. German and Polish soldiers pressed their way into the Turkish camp. The camp collapsed! Kara Mustafa fled. Despite all that Turkish strength, the army had stayed too long. It was slow, disorganized, and easy to drive away. When Kara Mustafa returned home, the sultan ordered his head brought to court in a velvet bag.

The attack on Vienna was the last great attack of the Ottoman Turks. The empire began to shrink收缩/ʃrɪŋk/. The German armies drove them back east, out of the modern country of Hungary. The western side of the empire disappeared. The distance距离/ˈdɪstəns/ between East and West was widening, once more.

But twenty-five years later, a new sultan and his grand vizier tried once more to narrow that distance.

Like Peter the Great, Ahmet III admired Western culture文化/ˈkʌltʃər/ and Western ideas. He was a particular fan of Dutch tulips郁金香/ˈtulɪps/! Tulips had been a wildflower in central Asia, where the Turks originally came from. As a matter of fact, a wild tulip was the sign of the Ottoman ruling house. Dutch explorers found the tulips and took them back to the Netherlands, where Dutch gardeners grew them, cultured them, and turned them into one of the world's greatest flowers花朵/ˈflaʊərz/.

Now, Ahmet brought tulips back to the Turks. He had thousands and thousands of tulip bulbs brought from the Netherlands and planted at his royal palace宫殿/ˈpæləs/. Hundreds of gardeners园丁/ˈɡɑrdnərz/ tended the bulbs. In April, when the tulips bloomed, Ahmet threw enormous parties聚会/ˈpɑrtiz/ among his tulip beds.

Colored lamps hung in the gardens; beautiful music音乐/ˈmjuzɪk/ was played from the garden's edges. He invited Western diplomats to these parties! The French ambassador described the scene he saw: "Beside every fourth flower is stood a candle….Along the alleys are hung cages filled with all kinds of birds. The trellises are all decorated with an enormous quantity of flowers of every sort, placed in bottles and lit by an infinite number of glass lamps of different colours…." Streams ran between the tulip beds; giant turtles swam in them, bearing candles蜡烛/ˈkændəlz/ on their backs.

For his love of tulips, Ahmet III became known as the "Tulip King" and his reign became known as the Tulip Period. For ten years, the Tulip King and his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, tried to shape the Ottoman court after the courts of the West. The Sultan's new palace, Sa'adabat or "the Palace of Happiness," was modeled after a French palace. Ibrahim Pasha sent ambassadors to French cities and factories工厂/ˈfæktəriz/ to find out more about European art and science科学/ˈsaɪəns/.

The ambassadors brought back a printing press! For the first time, the Turks began to publish books书籍/bʊks/: dictionaries, books about science, and a book about the military strategies of Western armies!

Ahmet's court never became as Western as Peter the Great's. Women女性/ˈwɪmən/ in Ahmet's empire still wore the robes and veils dictated by their Muslim faith. The Ottoman Turks kept their distinctive turbans and beards. They continued to worship in the ways of Islam. But the court became too Western for the Janissaries! In 1730—five years after the death of Peter the Great—the Janissaries had had enough of Ibrahim Pasha, Ahmet III, and the luxury of the royal court.

They rioted, burned down Ahmet's palace, and threw the sultan in jail. They put Ahmet's nephew Mahmud I on the throne instead!

Under Mahmud I, the Ottoman Turks were in no danger of becoming Western—but neither did they prosper. In the years to come, territories that belonged to the Turks—the states that we now call Balkan, such as Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro—broke away, one by one. Today, the country of Turkey is the last remnant of the huge Eastern empire of the Ottoman Turks.