Meanwhile the success of Ibrahim’s army, armed and disciplined on the model of European armies, as compared with the failure in previous campaigns in Greece of the ill-disciplined and badly armed troops of Turkey, produced a great impression at Constantinople. Mahmoud now found that his long-cherished project for the reform of the army was supported almost unanimously by the Divan and by the whole of the ulemas. He determined, therefore, to carry it into effect, and to suppress his mortal foes, the Janissaries. He had been long engaged in making preparations for a decisive issue with these turbulent troops. He had formed a body of fourteen thousand artillerymen, drilled and armed on the new model, and on whom he could thoroughly rely for support. His predecessor, Selim, had enlisted a small body of infantry on the same model. The Agha of the Janissaries, Hussein Pasha, was devoted to him, as was also the Mufti. The Sultan thereupon, in May 1826, gave orders to the Janissaries that one-fourth of them were to be incorporated in the new corps of infantry. The Janissaries refused. They marched in a body, on June 14th, to the palace, intent on overawing the Sultan, as they had so often done in the past. They met their master on this occasion. The Sultan summoned the artillery to his support. He unfolded the sacred banner and directed their action. They pounded the Janissaries with cannon shot in the streets leading to the palace and drove them back to their barracks with heavy loss. The guns were then concentrated on the barracks and set fire to them. No quarter was given. The Janissaries perished either by gun fire or in the burning barracks. Four thousand of them were disposed of in this holocaust. The Sultan ruthlessly followed up his victory. Many more thousands of the Janissaries were put to death in Constantinople and in other cities of the Empire. The force was entirely destroyed. Its very name was erased from official records. Mahmoud had obtained an overwhelming victory. His new army was at once increased to forty-five thousand men, exclusive of his artillery, with the intention of gradually raising it to two hundred thousand. It was recruited, however, wholly from the Moslem population. The Christians were excluded from its ranks as rigidly as under the old régime. There can be no doubt that if time had been allowed to Mahmoud to complete the number and efficiency of this new army, the Ottoman Empire would again have become a most formidable military Power. The Sultan did much more to centralize power in himself. He abolished the military feudal system, which had become a gross abuse. The beys were everywhere suppressed, or were allowed to draw their incomes only for the term of their lives. The rents hitherto paid to these persons were in the future to be paid directly to the State.