Ottoman Empire: From Frontier Principality to Empire

The Ottomans: From Frontier Principality to Empire 13-18th Centuries The Ottomans, named after the founder of the Ottoman imperial Dynasty, OSMAN, emerged in Western Asia Minor in the last decades of the 13. century as one of many Turcoman Principalities af...

The Ottomans: From Frontier Principality to Empire 13-18th Centuries The Ottomans, named after the founder of the Ottoman imperial Dynasty, OSMAN, emerged in Western Asia Minor in the last decades of the 13. century as one of many Turcoman Principalities after the destruction of the Anatolian Seljukid State by the Mongolians in 1243. Osman’s successors built one of the greatest and longest-lived multi-ethnic, cultural and multi-religious empire in history. In 13.century while there were many Turkish-Islamic principalities ruling in Anatolia, the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) ruling from Constantinople was in the process of decline. In Balkans on the other hand the southern slavic people such as the Serbians and Bulgarians were the dominant political powers. Thus the Otomans had to fight all these to establish themselves both in Europe and Near East. In 1352 the Ottomans established their first bridgehead in the Balkans, on the European shores of Dardanelles. Within fifty years, through military conguests and diplomacy Murad I (who ruled bettween 1362 and 1389, more than tripled the territories in Anatolia and Balkans. Murad I conguered the city of Adrianople (todays Edirne) in 1369 and made it the new capital. This indicates that Ottomans considered themselves both an asian and European power. Sultan Bayezid I(1389- 1402) continued the Ottoman expansion on both continents, extending his rule up to the banks of the river DANUBE (Tuna) in the Balkans and river EUPHRATES (Fırat) in Mesopotamia. In 1389 the Ottomans defeated the serbians in the First battle of Kosovo. The victory of the Mongol conguerer Timurlenk(Tamarlane) over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I in the BATTLE of ANKARA in 1402 checked the Ottoman expansion for a decade. From a rivalry among the Bayezid I’s sons Çelebi Mehmed became victorious and re-established the authority. During the Murad II’s reign the Ottomans beside the small principalities in Western Anatolia, subjugated the Candarlids and Karamanlis in Anatolia. In 1430 the Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians. The european attempts to stop the Ottoman expansion failed repeatedly in 1396, 1443-44, 1448. The Ottoman victories in the battle of VARNA in 1444 and in the second Battle of KOSOVO were the turning points predestinating both the Balkans and the Byzantium. In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II (1444-6, 1451-81)conguered CONSTANTINOPLE , the capital of the thousand-year old Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire). Declaring himself ceaser, the heir to Byzantine emperors, and lord of “two lands, that are the BALKANS and ANATOLIA and two seas, the BLACK SEA and the AEGEAN, Mehmed the Conguerer, anounced to the world that a new empire had been born, firmly rooted in both Europe and Asia. In 1516-17, this time Sultan Selim I defeated the MAMLUK sultanate of Egypt and Syria, incorporating their realms into his empire. Now the Ottoman sultans became the protectors of the holy lands in Hijaz, Mecca and Medina, and the most prestigious caliphs in the Islamic world. Suleyman I also known as Suleyman the magnifecent (1520-66) added IRAQ and Central Hungary to his empire, and in 1529 unsuccesfully besieged VIENNA, the capital of Austrian Habsburg empire. On eastern front the most powerful state that the Ottomans had to deal with was the Iranian SAWEFIDs. On western front the main concern for the Ottomans was to maintain their dominance in Hungary against the Habsburgs. The Ottomans did not hesitate to benefit from the Habsburg-French rivalry over continental europe. During the reign of Suleyman I, the Ottomans developed good relations with the French, and formed an alliance with the French king against the Austrians. During the reign of Selim II the Ottomans ccaptured the Island of CYPRUS from the Venetians. This was very important in making the Ottomans supreme power in Mediterranean. An other important conguest was the capture of TUNISIA in 1574. Following further conguests in the mid-seventeenth century in Hungary (1660-1664), Crete (1669) and the Polish province of Podolia in Modern day UKRAINE (1672), the Ottoman Empire reached its largest territorial extent. The Ottomans ruled over vast territory from Hungary in the north to Yemen in the south, and from Algeria in the West to Iraq in the East, approroximately 3.8 million square kilometres. The Second Ottoman siege of Wienna in 1683 under Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha Pasha provoked a major rescue operation on the part of European Christian states, and by 1699 an international coalition of the Habsburg empire, Poland, Lithuania, Venice, Papacy, and the Russia managed to re- capture most of historic hungary(Treaty of KARLOWITZ, 1699). However , the Ottomans continued to rule over most of the Balkans until late 19th century, and the Near Eastern lands. In the late eighteenth century, just before the upheavals caused by the French revolution , the Ottoman Empire roughly consisted of: the Balkans (former YUGOSLAVIA, ALBANIA, GREECE, BULGARIA, and large parts of ROMANIA); All islands in Mediteraanean and Aegean Sea, ANATOLIA (modern-day TURKEY) and most of the Arab world (SYRIA, LEBANON, JORDAN, ISRAEL, IRAQ, KUWAIT, parts of SAUDI ARABIA, EGYPT, LIBYA, TUNISIA and ALGERIA. In the Asiatic provinces of the empire the large majority of the population was Muslim (mainly Turks, Arabs and Kurds, with significant Christian and Jewish minorities. In the Balkans, the majority was the Christian (Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Vlahs) with significant Muslim minorities (Bosnians, most Albanians, Turks and Pomaks, that is Muslim Bulgarians).