TIERS ETAT (third estate), name given to the Commons section in the States-General of France.

TIFLIS (105), capital of a mountainous, forest-clad government (875) of the same name and of Russian Caucasia, on the Kar, 165 m.  SE. of the Black Sea; is a city of considerable antiquity and note, and owes much to-day to the energy of the Russians, who annexed it in 1802; noted for its silver and other metal work.

TIGRIS, an important river of Turkey in Asia; rises in the mountains of Kurdistan, flows SE. to Diarbekir, E. to Til (where it receives the Bitlis), and hence SE. through a flat and arid country, till, after a course of 1100 m., it unites with the Euphrates to form the Shat-el-Arab, which debouches into the Persian Gulf 90 m. lower; is navigable for 500 m. to Bagdad; on its banks are the ruins of Nineveh, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon.

TILBURY FORT, on the Essex bank of the Thames, opposite Gravesend; the main defence of the river above Sheerness; in 1886 extensive docks, quays, a tidal basin, &c., were opened.

TILLOTSON, JOHN ROBERT, archbishop of Canterbury, born in Sowerby, Yorkshire, of a Puritan family, and trained on Puritan lines; studied at Clare Hall, Cambridge, came under the influence of CUDWORTH (q. v.), conformed to the Established Church at the Restoration and became king’s chaplain and a prebend of Canterbury, till at length he rose to be dean and primate; was an eloquent preacher, a man of moderate views, and respected by all parties; his “Sermons” were models for a time, but are so no longer (1630-1694).

TILLY, JOHANN TSERKLAES, COUNT OF, one of the great generals of the THIRTY YEARS’ WAR (q. v.), born in Brabant; was designed for the priesthood and educated by Jesuits, but abandoned the Church for the army; was trained in the art of war by Parma and Alva, and proved himself a born soldier; reorganised the Bavarian army, and, devoted to the Catholic cause, was given command of the Catholic army at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, during the course of which he won many notable battles, acting later on in conjunction with Wallenstein, whom in 1630 he succeeded as commander-in-chief of the imperial forces, and in the following year sacked with merciless cruelty the town of Magdeburg, a deed which Gustavus Adolphus was swift to avenge by crushing the Catholic forces in two successive battles—­at Breitenfeld and at Rain—­in the latter of which Tilly was mortally wounded (1559-1632).

TILSIT (25), a manufacturing town of East Prussia, on the Memel or Niemen, 65 m.  NE. of Koenigsberg; here was signed in 1807 a memorable treaty between Alexander I. of Russia and Napoleon, as the result of which Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia was deprived of the greater part of his dominions.

TIMBUCTOO (20), an important city of the Western Soudan, situated at the edge of the Sahara, 8 m.  N. of the Upper Niger, at the centre of five caravan routes which lead to all parts of North Africa; carries on a large transit trade, exchanging European goods for native produce; was occupied by the French in 1894.