THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: FROM EXPANDING POWER TO THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE by Oksana Drozdova Lecture I 2
KEY ASPECTS Popular stereotypes about the Ottoman Empire do not reflect the true complexity of the subject in question. Change of the alphabet in 1928 made many Ottoman texts inaccessible to the general public. Unstable political situation made history a tool in the hands of politicians who seldom granted people access to their own past. Ottoman historiography lacks comprehensive studies written for a general public. 3
Beginning of the empire Osman I Ghazi (1299-1326) founder of the Ottoman Empire 4
The Roman Empire during the reigns of Majorian & Leo I in 460 AD. 1054 5
Anatolia before the Ottomans Sultanate of Rûm (1077-1307) 6
Decline of the Sultanate of Rûm 7
8 Orhan (1326-1362)
Conquests of Orhan 9
10 Murad I (1362-1389)
11
Forces behind the expansion The expansion of the frontier was shared with quasi-independent fighters who had thrown in their lot with the Ottomans. the Evrenosoğulları (Gazi Evrenos) the Mihaloğulları the Turahanoğulları the Malkoçoğulları (Malkoç or Malković) 12
Battle of Kosovo Polje 15 June 1389 Lazar, king of Moravian Serbia, led the combined Serbian-Kosovan- Bosnian army, a united force to resist the Muslims. Sultan Murad I s death on the battlefield incited his son Bayezid to kill his brother Yakub, thus establishing a tradition of fratricide as the means to obtain the power. Serbia became an Ottoman vassal, obliged to pay tribute and supply troops. Bosnia and Kosovo were not conquered, but lost their independence in 1392. Kosovo Polje became a symbol of Christian resistance and still figures vividly in the Serbian national consciousness as a defining historical moment. 13
14 Bayezid I (1389-1402)
Germiyan Saruhan Mentese Hamid 15
Conquests of Bayezid In 1395 Bayezid's conquered Macedonia. This victory inevitably put Hungary on a collision course with the Ottoman Empire. Battle of Nichopal (1396). By winning it, Bayezid gained control over the Balkans south of the Danube. Led another campaign, but this time into the mainland of Anatolia, turning the rebellious emirate of Karamanid into just another territory in the growing empire of the Ottomans. 16
Janissaries yeniçeri ( new force ) Christian territories were subject to a youth-levy (devşirme). Albanian, Bosnian, Greek, Bulgar, Serbian and Croatian boys were preferred. Jews and boys of Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, Ruthenian, Muscovite or Georgian stock were exempted. Armenians were taken only for service in the palace, not in the armed forces. 17
18 A 15th century Janissary drawing by Gentili Bellini
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk wearing the traditional janissary uniform. 19
Collision of the empires Battle of Ankara (1402) The Timuride Empire 20
Bayezid I, held captive by Tamerlane. 21
Aftermath of the Battle of Ankara The eight-year blockade of Constantinople came to an end. Tamerlane restored their lands to emirs of Karaman, Germiyan, Aydin, Saruhan and Menteşe. He enforced his claim to the rest of Bayezid's domains in Anatolia in a year-long irruption of raiding and pillage. 22
The Ottoman Interregnum (the Ottoman Civil War) - (1402-1413) Bayezid I İsa Süleyman Musa Mustafa Mehmed (1413-1421) 23
Aftermath of the Interregnum After the end of the independent Serbian kingdom in 1389, few of the Balkan states questioned Ottoman regional dominance. Ottomans tended to impose rather flexible conditions on the local population freeing them from the oppression of local lords. In Anatolia, however, Tamerlane's protection allowed the emirates to assert their separate identity. But the geographical disunity of the emirates and their lack of any common interest beyond antipathy to the Ottomans prevented the emergence of any sustainable challenge to Ottoman expansion. 24
Murad II (1421-1444) (1446-1451) 25
Mehmet II Fatih (1444-1446) (1451-1481) 27
28 Mehmet II Fatih (1451-1481)
PREPARING FOR CONSTANTINOPLE Renewed his father's treaty with George Branković of Serbia. Concluded a three-year treaty with John Hunyadi, regent of Hungary. Pre-empted a possible attack from Venice by confirming the treaty of 1446. He managed to sustain his influence in Anatolia by suppressing the former emirs. Mehmed had murdered his sole surviving brother on their father's death.
Rumeli Hisarı (Boğazkesen Hisarı)
The Winning Strategy The huge cannon made for him by a renegade Hungarian cannonfounder in Edirne. The building of a siege-tower higher than the walls of the city. The dragging of his galleys uphill from the Bosporus shore near the present-day palace Dalmabahçe, and down into the Golden Horn to avoid the boom laid across its mouth. The construction of a pontoon bridge across the harbour from Galata to Constantinople which enabled the Ottoman forces to attack the walls on that side of the city and surround it completely.