VI. THE INFLUENCE OF THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN TURKSUPON THE ROUTES OF ORIENTAL TRADE.
By ALBERT H. LYBYER,
Professor in the University of Illinois.
[Reprinted from The English Historical Review, October 1915]
The English
Historical Review
NO. CXX.—OCTOBER 1915*
WITHIN a period of a little more than two hundred years, from the closeof the thirteenth century to the second decade of the sixteenth, therising power of the Ottoman Turks extended the area of its politicalcontrol until its holdings stretched north and south across the Levantfrom the Russian steppes to the Sudanese desert. The Turkish lands thuscame to intercept all the great routes which in ancient and medievaltimes had borne the trade between East and West. Near the time whenthe Turkish control became complete, a new way was discovered, passingaround Africa; and within a few years the larger part of the throughtrade between Europe and Asia had deserted the Levantine routes andbegun to follow that round the Cape of Good Hope. The causes of thisdiversion of trade have not been fully agreed upon. No specificinvestigation of the subject appears to have been made. A glancethrough works which, being mainly concerned with other subjects, havealluded to the shifting of the routes of oriental trade about theyear 1500, shows that two incompatible views are prevalent. One ofthese holds in general that the advance of the Ottoman power graduallyblocked the ancient trade-routes and forced a series of attempts todiscover new routes; after these attempts had succeeded, the Turkscontinued to obstruct the old routes and compelled the use of the new.The other view finds little or no connexion between the growth ofthe Turkish power and the causes of the great discoveries: a set ofmotives quite independent of the rise of the Turks led men like Henryof Portugal and Christopher Columbus to explore the unknown world;and when the new route to India had been established578 it was found topossess an essential superiority for trade, which gave it pre-eminenceuntil in the nineteenth century the balance was again turned by theintroduction of steam navigation and the opening of the Suez Canal. Theevidence appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of the second of theseviews. In the present article, however, without arguing the questiondirectly, it is proposed to survey the course of oriental trade fromthe close of the great Crusades until the eighteenth century, so as toshow the influence of the Ottoman Turks as it emerged historically.
The medieval trade-routes between western Europe and eastern andsouthern Asia fall into two groups: the northern, which passed mainlyby land, and the southern, which passed mainly by sea. The formercommunicated with central Asia, China, and India through the Black Seaand Asia Minor, the latter through Syria and Egypt. Each group hadbranches which entered Asia near Aleppo and diverged in the directionof Tabriz and Bagdad. On all routes there were what in America arecompendiously termed ‘long hauls’ and ‘short hauls’; that is to say,wares which travelled most of the way, as Western silver and coral andEastern silk and spice, and wares which travelled only part of theway, as sugar, cotton, and Arabian gums. It was possible, also, forme