Zulfécar Effendi

The Effendi Zulfécar was born with Constantinople and obtained at the Othoman court a great reputation of skill and to know. One does not know what was worth with this statesman the name of Zulfécar or Dzoulfeïcar, which is that of the sword with two edges of famous the Ali, unless it was not an allusion to its easy way and its address.

Zulfécar-effendi was charged to hold the registers of the Janissaire S, one of the most lucrative loads of the empire, when Suleiman II, frightened successes of the Austria and fearing the fate of Mehmed IV, which it had succeeded, sent it near the emperor Léopold Ier of the Holy roman Empire, in 1688, to make peace overtures. But the court of Vienna, swollen its successes, and especially of the conquest of Belgrade, asked the Bosnia, the Esclavonie, the Croatia, the Bulgaria and for the Transylvania for it; and for its allies, the Poles and the Venetian ones, it required the Valachie, the Moldavie, the the Crimea, the Morée and the Dalmatie. Zulfécar-effendi, who was accompanied by the Greek Alexander Mavrocordatos, answered that a similar spoliation exceeded its capacities, and Léopold almost retained it as prisoner in the castle of Puffendorf.

However Soliman was advanced with the head of the Othoman army; but, having been shamefully beaten, he hastened to return to Andrinople. From there he answered his ambassadors, who for a long time awaited his answer, that they were to stick to the first instructions and to insist on the Reddition of Belgrade. Mavrocordatos, which felt impossibility of treating with these conditions, was of opinion to pass in addition to. Zulfécar was opposed to it, representative with his colleague to which danger they would be exposed if they neglected to follow the instructions given by their Master. Having asked with the emperor, it goes down for hearing frankly says to him what the sultan had ordered to him; and it urged Léopold to send itself to Constantinople, ensuring it that there it would be easy to get along.

During this time, weak Soliman, income in Constantinople (1689), deposited the top dog and covered this high dignity Fazıl Mustafa Köprülü, and at once the things changed face. Koproli having gathered the couch and put forward vigorous measures, the muphti was opposed, the ambassadors having, said to it, shown the sign of a nearest and advantageous peace. Koproli required to see the instructions which had been given to them and their correspondence. After having traversed it, he exclaimed of a terrible voice:

It has there only cowards who could compromise the honor of the empire thus. The ambassadors and those which sent them are Giaur S which will receive early or late their punishment.

However, without announcing that he wanted to break the started negotiations, he wrote in Vienna that Zulfécar and Maurocordato surprised or had forged the letters on which they were authorized. After a glorious campaign for the Ottoman Empire, and whose successes were due to the activity, with the genius and with the good administration of Koproli, Soliman having died, and Koproli having fallen on the battle field (1691), Zulfécar and Maurocordato were recalled; entering the sights of the new vizier, they represented to him that the Germany was exhausted, tired to make the war, and that it would be easy to tear off in Léopold an advantageous peace for the Door.

It was their report/ratio which decided, under Ahmet II, the continuation of the war; and, to be delayed, peace was only more glorious and more advantageous with the Ottoman Empire. Zulfécar did not complete the peace of which it had made the first openings: he died before the signature of the treated of Carlowitz, leaving a son named Osman-Aga, which inherited its immense richnesses, and which the credit of Maurocordato, the friend of its father, carried in the place of Kiaya, or lieutenant of the top dog.

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