Mahmoud in destroying the Janissaries took for his model Peter the Great. Never were two sovereigns more unlike each other. Peter, generous and humane, leaving his throne and travelling in disguise to educate himself, stands in bold contrast with the parsimonious and cruel sultan. Moreover, Mahmoud's was a more difficult undertaking. The Strelitzes whom the czar annihilated were unsupported, were famous by no illustrious victory, and had not an enthusiastic religious feeling. The Janissaries, on the other hand, had strong family interests; they, too, had decided the fate of the empire at the battle of Varna, where their bravery established the Ottoman power, whose brightest triumphs were clustered around their names; they had fought many a bloody battle, and had never turned their backs to the foe; their leader was chosen from their own ranks, and no nobility controlled their ambition or prevented them from receiving the honor due to enterprise and valor; they held the sultan in check; the ulemas gave sanction to their laws, and they in turn sustained the authority of the ulemas with their swords. As long as they experienced no change in their discipline and customs they were invincible. But they too had participated in the universal degeneracy. Like the Prætorian bands of Rome, they had become the absolute masters of the empire. They pulled down and set up sultans at their will; their valor had departed, but their unconquerable pride remained as part of their heritage. Their ranks were filled with crowds of Greeks, Jews, and Moslems, without discipline and without order. Many who had purchased the privilege of being numbered in this formidable body, lived outside of the barracks, and assembled only on pay day or in times of tumult and rebellion. They despised all laws, civil and religious, and were a constant source of annoyance to the people, whose lives and property were at their mercy. Such were the subjects upon whom Mahmoud was to operate. In the destruction of the Strelitzes and the Janissaries, Peter and Mahmoud may be compared to two physicians: one practises on a healthy savage, while the other attempts to cut out a malignant cancer reaching the vitals, from the pampered sensualist. In annihilating these troops, as in his other reforms, Mahmoud began where he should have ended his labors; he mistook the end for the means.