Ottoman Empire - history.

Ottoman Empire - history. I INTRODUCTION Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. - history. Ottoman Empire, dynastic state centered in what is now Turkey, founded in the late 13th century and dismantled in the early 20th century. At its height in the mid-1500s, at the end of the reign of Süleyman I, the Ottoman Empire controlled a vast area extending from the Balkan Peninsula to the Middle East and North Africa. The empire went into slow decline after Süleyman, and by the early 1900s it controlled only Asia Minor (the Anatolia region of present-day Turkey) and parts of the Balkans and the Middle East. The Ottomans lost even more territory during World War I (1914-1918). Allied troops occupied the empire from the end of the war until 1922, when nationalist forces under Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk) drove them out; Kemal abolished the empire later that year and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Before the rise of the Ottomans, the Byzantine Empire controlled western Anatolia, while most of the rest of the region was controlled by the Seljuk Turks (see Seljuks). In the 13th century Seljuk power began to fade and a number of small Turkish states began to emerge in the frontier lands between the Byzantine Empire and the shrinking Seljuk state. In 1299 a Turkish Muslim warrior known as Osman began to lead raids on Christian Byzantine settlements in western Anatolia. The followers of Osman became known as Osmanl?lar (Turkish for "those associated with Osman"), or, the Ottomans. Beginning with Osman, members of the House of Osman ruled the Ottoman state in unbroken succession until 1922; these rulers were known as sultans. II OTTOMAN EXPANSION Osman The Turkish leader Osman is considered the founder of the Ottoman Empire. Beginning in the late 1200s, he consolidated a small kingdom from settlements on the fringe of the Byzantine Empire. After his death in 1324, his descendants continued to expand the kingdom until it became one of history's most powerful empires. Culver Pictures Osman was able to bring other Turks under his banner for two main reasons. First, the Ottomans had the most advantageous position of all the Turkish states near the Byzantine frontier. They were centered at Sö?üt (near Eski?ehir), which was close to the Nicaea (now ?znik) area, which had been the Greek Byzantine capital between 1204 and 1261. The Byzantines had settled around Nicaea after being driven from their capital of Constantinople (now ?stanbul) by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. After recapturing Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantines sought to reassert their control over the Balkan Peninsula and neglected the defenses of Nicaea and their other territories in Anatolia. Their proximity to Nicaea offered the Ottomans the best opportunities for plunder. Second, more than any other Turkish frontier state, they took the concept of being a ghazi--that is, a warrior who carried out raids upon and warfare with the Christians in the interests of Islam--and made it their guiding principle. Under Osman, the Ottomans besieged the main Byzantine strongholds between Sö?üt and Nicaea. After Osman died in 1326, his son and successor Orhan (reigned 13261362) took the city of Bursa. From Bursa, which became the Ottoman capital, the Ottomans extended their grip over the surrounding territory. Absorption of the Turkish frontier state of Karas? , extended Ottoman sway to the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea. Constantinople, the Byzantine capital and the goal of Islamic conquest since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, was just across the Sea of Marmara. The Ottomans, however, were not yet strong enough to launch a direct attack on the Byzantine Empire. Instead, they had themselves hired as mercenaries to assist the Byzantine emperor against a rival claimant to the throne. Attracted by the potential of plunder in Europe, they transformed themselves from mercenaries into conquerors, capturing Gallipoli, on the European side of the Dardanelles Strait, in 1354. The capture of Gallipoli marked the beginning of Turkish presence in Europe. Edirne, in Thrace, fell in 1361. After Orhan died in 1362, he was succeeded by Murad I (reigned 1362-1389), who directed the Ottoman advance into the Balkan Peninsula. Needing a center closer to the expanding frontier, Murad established Edirne as a second capital, a position it would hold even after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Meanwhile, the Ottomans continued their expansion in Anatolia at the expense of rival Turkish emirates (small states ruled by a hereditary chief called an emir). The emirates bitterly criticized the Ottomans for waging war on fellow Muslims rather than on Christians, but the Ottomans continued to expand to the east. Advancing into the Balkans, the Ottomans defeated the Bulgarians and then marched into Serbia where, in June 1389, they defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo. At the end of the battle, a Serb killed Murad, and in retaliation the Ottomans executed Lazar, the Serbian prince. Murad was succeeded by his son Bayazid I (reigned 1389-1402), who continued the Ottoman advance in both Europe and Anatolia. Bayazid's wheeling back and forth between the western and eastern fronts earned him the nickname Yildirim (Turkish for "lightning" or "the thunderbolt"). In the east, the Muslim Turkic conqueror Tamerlane emerged as a new threat. Supported by the emirs dispossessed earlier by the Ottomans, Tamerlane defeated Bayazid outside of Ankara in 1402. Perhaps to teach the Ottomans that true ghazis do not war with other Muslims, Tamerlane restored former emirates and even gave Bayazid's sons their own territories. Süleyman I Süleyman I, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire during its zenith, became known in the western world as Süleyman the Magnificent. He was known among his own people as the Lawgiver because he revised the legal system of the empire. Süleyman had several sons, two of whom he executed after quarreling with them. Culver Pictures Bayazid died in captivity, a suicide according to some accounts, and a struggle for succession to the sultanate broke out among his sons. Muhammad I (reigned 1413-1421) eventually won the title, having succeeded in capturing the territories Tamerlane had given his brothers, and thereby reunifying the Ottoman domains. After starting to recapture the emirates in western Anatolia that had helped Tamerlane, Muhammad died in 1421 and was succeeded by his son Murad II (reigned 1421-1444; 1446-1451). By 1423 Murad II had repossessed western Anatolia. Turning his attention to Europe, he annexed Serbia in 1439 and besieged Hungarian-held Belgrade in 1440. Murad then grew weary of constant campaigning. After arranging peace with Hungary and Serbia in 1444 and with his most powerful enemy, the east central Anatolian emir of Karaman, he abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son Muhammad II (reigned 1444-1446, 1451-1481). Reading this as a sign of Ottoman weakness, Europe unleashed a new crusade to oust the Ottomans. Murad came out of his retirement and roundly defeated the European army at Varna, Bulgaria, in late 1444. Murad retired again in favor of Muhammad, but returned in 1446 to put down a rebellion in Edirne. It was not until Murad's death in 1451 that Muhammad II, later called Muhammad the Conqueror, returned to the throne. Each early Ottoman sultan launched his sultanate with a great ghazi victory. For Muhammad, it was the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. After bombarding the city walls with cannon fire for months, Muhammad and his troops succeeded in taking the city in less than a day and destroying the last of the Byzantine Empire. Muhammad made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital and created the imperial palace complex of Topkap?. He continued to expand the Ottoman Empire into Europe, securing most of the Balkan Peninsula, including Greece, Albania, Serbia, and Bosnia. Muhammad died in 1481 just as the Ottoman armies were preparing a full-scale invasion of Italy, which was then aborted. The reign of Muhammad's son and successor Bayazid II (reigned 1481-1512) was weak in comparison. Two events occurred during his reign that would challenge the Ottoman Empire for the next several centuries. The first was the circumnavigation of Africa by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama between 1497 and 1498. This voyage inaugurated a lucrative spice trade between Europe and South Asia, and Portuguese fleets began to shut down Arab shipping routes between India, southern Arabia, and Egypt that supplied the Ottoman spice trade. The second was the rise of the Safavid dyna...