35. “The Empire Wept”
Sultan Mehmed II’s successors heeded his advice to maintain the stability of the realm by preemptively executing their brothers upon ascending the throne. It was cruel, but it worked: for two centuries, the Ottoman Empire was remarkably stable and free of infighting and civil wars when compared to its contemporaries.
However, although the system worked, the consciences of many were troubled by the murder of innocent royal siblings at the start of each reign. Those misgivings reached a peak when Sultan Mehmed III (reigned 1595 – 1603) inaugurated his reign by ordering his nineteen brothers, some of them mere infants, strangled to death. It was said that “the Empire wept” as a long line of child-sized coffins exited the palace in a grand procession the next day.