Ottoman Empire

I

Introduction

Ottoman Empire, Turkish empire which endured from c. 1300 to 1922. Centred on the region of modern Turkey, at its greatest extent it spanned three continents, covering the area from Hungary in the north to Aden in the south and from Algeria in the west to the Iranian frontier in the east. Through its vassal state of the Khanate of the Crimea, Ottoman power also extended into the Ukraine and southern Russia. Its name derives from its founder, the Turkish Muslim warrior, Osman, who established the dynasty which ruled over the empire throughout its history.

II

Ottoman Expansion

The early Ottoman state was a small principality in north-west Anatolia around Sogud on the middle part of the Sakarya river. There were several such petty states which grew out of the wreckage of the former Seljuk state of Rum. Historians differ in opinion as to the relative importance of the young Ottoman state’s two main characteristics: the tribal traditions of the Turko-Mongol warriors who dominated the state, and the influence of Islam. The scholar Paul Wittek, who emphasized the role of Islam, claimed that the rise of the Ottoman state was due to its attraction to ghazis, or fighters of the holy war (jihad), who joined the Ottomans in preference to other similar ghazi states because they were well positioned to play the leading role in the struggle against the Christian Byzantine Empire to the west. An inscription at Bursa dated 1337-1338, which commemorates the second Ottoman sultan, Orkhan, describes him as “the mujahid, sultan of the ghazis, ghazi, son of a ghazi”. Yet in the early years of the 14th century, the Ottoman state was not the most successful of the ghazi states and more than one factor contributed to its eventual triumph. The character of the state was formed especially by the peculiar conditions of continuous border conflict.

Incessant warfare and judicious alliances brought the Ottomans success. In 1325 or 1326 they captured Bursa, which became their first capital city, and by 1338 the Byzantines had been expelled from Anatolia. At the same time the Ottomans extended their territories southwards and eastwards at the expense of other Turkish princedoms, and in 1354 took Ankara in central Anatolia. In the same year the Ottomans occupied Gallipoli (Gelibolu) on the European side of the strait of the Dardanelles, which became the base for their subsequent drive into south-eastern Europe. In 1361 the Ottomans took Adrianople (Edirne) which became their second capital city, and, by 1389, when Sultan Murad I defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo, the Ottomans held Thrace, Macedonia, and much of Bulgaria and Serbia.

During most of the first century of the expansion of their power, the Ottomans relied as much upon diplomacy as upon war and they sought especially to establish diplomatic relations with states, which the Ottomans regarded as vassals (although the so-called vassals did not necessarily recognize the degree of subordination implied). Such relations were formed with the princes of Bulgaria in 1371, Serbia in 1372, Byzantium in 1373, with the Albanian chiefs from 1385 onwards and at various times with the Turkish principalities in Anatolia. A significant change in Ottoman policy was ushered in by Sultan Bayazid I who sought to substitute for this loose structure a much more centralized polity and removed many of the “vassal” princes, especially those in Bulgaria and Anatolia. It was less easy to justify war against Muslims than war against the infidel, and this changed provoked internal opposition to Bayazid, and although he defeated a challenge from Christian Europe (the crusade of Nicopolis, 1396) he was defeated in 1402 by the Central Asian conqueror, Tamerlane (Timur Lang), who restored the deposed Anatolian chiefs and effectively postponed the further application of the policy of centralization for 50 years. There followed first a period of dispute over the sultanate and then one of conservative rule and consolidation. Centralization was resumed under Sultan Mehmed II (Muhammad II).

Mehmed II can be regarded as the real founder of the Ottoman empire as an imperial power and campaigned throughout his reign. He fought against Hungary, where he was defeated; in Greece, where he conquered the Morea; in eastern Asia Minor, where he defeated the Turkoman chief Uzun Hasan; and he established control over the Black Sea by conquering the southern shore in 1461 including the old Greek state of Trabzon, and the northern coast in 1475 by taking Kaffa from the Genoese and establishing suzerainty over the Khan of the Crimea. At home he introduced the first Ottoman law codes which were later to be greatly developed by Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent. But his greatest achievement was the 1453 conquest of Constantinople (İstanbul), which he made the third and last Ottoman capital city. The Ottoman state had always been influenced by Byzantium but with the annexation of Constantinople, Byzantine imperial ideas (embracing Greek and Roman traditions) came to stand with the Turkish and Islamic factors as elements of the ideology of the Ottoman state. Mehmed was Caesar and Padishah, “Sovereign of the Two Lands and the Two Seas”, that is of Rumelia and Anatolia, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. The Ottomans claimed to be the true heirs of the Seljuks and the Turkish element was also soon given a new polish with the claim that the Ottomans were descended from the Oghuz Turks, regarded as the founders of the Turkish race in Central Asia.

The tide of Ottoman conquest continued to flow throughout the 16th century. From the successful challenge to Venice in 1499-1503, Ottoman sea power became a force to reckon with in the Mediterranean. Under Sultan Selim I (the Grim), the Safavids of Iran were defeated at Chaldiran in 1514, eastern Anatolia was added to the empire, and, in 1516-1517, the Mamelukes of Syria and Egypt were beaten and their territories annexed. Consequently, the Ottomans also inherited Mameluke interests in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and acquired possession of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Arabia. The Ottomans now controlled nearly all the great old Muslim cities and capitals, including Jerusalem, Damascus, and Cairo. The Ottoman sultan could add to his titles that of “Servant of the Two Noble Sanctuaries”, and he assumed the major responsibility for the safety of the annual pilgrim caravans to the Ḩijāz (Al Ḩijāz). He was the greatest living Muslim ruler. Selim also acquired from the Mamelukes possession of the person of the last Abbasid caliph. Although this circumstance was given no importance at the time, in the 19th century it was to become part of the claim of the Ottoman sultans to lead, as caliphs, the Panislamic movement.

Suleiman I (the Magnificent), the son and successor of Selim I, is commonly acclaimed as the greatest of Ottoman rulers. During his reign, Iraq (including the other great Muslim capital Baghdad) was added to the empire in 1534, and Ottoman control was established in the eastern Mediterranean. Via the annexation of Algiers and the activities of the Barbary Coast corsairs, Ottoman power was thrust into the western Mediterranean. Also, Suleiman carried Ottoman arms far into Europe: Belgrade was captured in 1521 and the Hungarians defeated at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. In 1529, Suleiman unsuccessfully laid siege to Vienna.

III

Ottoman Institutions

A

The Sultanate

Thirty six sultans from the house of Osman ruled the Ottoman empire during its history, and loyalty to the Ottoman dynasty was a powerful factor in the endurance of the empire. From 1300 to 1595 the sultanate passed in an unbroken line from father to son: disputed successions and consequential civil wars were minimized by the practice of imperial fratricide, according to which each new sultan ordered the murder of his brothers. The practice was inaugurated in 1389 by Bayazid I. Traditionally, the royal victims were strangled with a bowstring. Disputed succession was not entirely avoided: for example, Cem, the brother of Bayazid II, escaped death and fled to Europe where for 14 years until his death in 1495 his presence acted as a constraint on the Ottoman government, which feared he could make a bid for power supported by a European coalition. Also, the brothers manoeuvred for position before the death of their father, the sultan, in an effort to be the first to reach İstanbul, win acclamation and send out the executioners. So the three sons of Bayazid II made their separate attempts to gain an advantage before the contest was won by the youngest son, Selim the Grim. The last employment of mass imperial fratricide took place in 1595, when, at the accession of Mehmed III (Muhammad III), all nineteen of his brothers were put to death. The practice was abandoned in 1603; Mehmed III had left only two sons and there was a danger the house of Osman might die out—in 1640 there was only one male survivor of the Osman house and Ibrahim I was perforce chosen sultan despite doubts about his mental capacity.

The abandonment of the practice of fratricide was accompanied by another consequential change. Formerly, sons of the sultan had been sent into the provinces to learn their trades of war and government. Now it was thought necessary to keep them in the harem under the close supervision of the sultan and his servants—Mehmed III was the last sultan to govern a province in his youth. It has been claimed that this new practice reduced the fitness of the Ottoman princes to govern. A further change was thought to have had a similar result, namely the decision to replace the system of succession of son to father by choosing instead the oldest living member of the house of Osman, usually a brother of the dead sultan or one of his predecessors. In 1617, Ahmed I was the first sultan to be succeeded by his brother. The effect of the new system, it was argued, was to place the destiny of the empire in the hands of an older, less vigorous man. The sultans, who had formerly led their troops into battle, now gave command to the grand viziers. Mehmed IV (Muhammad IV) was known as “the Hunter” because he spent all his time amusing himself with this pastime, while his grand vizier led the empire to disaster.

The power of factions was nothing new in the struggles over the sultanate. The mothers of princes (by origin, all slave concubines—only Suleiman I married his favourite slave) had often sought to assist their sons’ causes. Kösem, mother of Murad IV, was, before her murder in 1651, the most powerful personality in the empire. The black eunuchs who guarded the harem and controlled the income that supported the royal mosques used their considerable influence, and the Janissaries had long demanded and received special donations in return for supporting the accession of a new sultan. But these factions became more powerful during the 17th and 18th centuries and deposition and sometimes murder became the fate of several sultans. In 1622 rebels murdered Osman II, and three of the five sultans who ruled between 1648 and 1730 were deposed. Nevertheless, one should not make too much of the argument that the weakness of the sultans or the rise of factions was a major cause of the empire’s decline. The so-called “sultanate of women” was not necessarily harmful and the system could still produce able, ruthless sultans like Murad IV or Mahmud II. Throughout Ottoman history it produced men of high intelligence, wide knowledge, and deep culture. For example, Mehmed II spoke six languages, Selim I and Suleiman I were both notable poets in Persian, Murad IV and Selim III were well-informed about European affairs, and Ahmad III was a man of perhaps too exquisite sensibility, a patron of all the arts, and a devotee of the tulip.

B

The Army

The main business of the Ottoman state was war. Its governing class was known as soldiers (askeris), and the army was a dominant institution. The early Ottoman forces had consisted of Turkish cavalry (sipahis) paid by grants of government revenues (usually land revenues) known as timars. The more land that was conquered the more income for the Turkish Muslim ghazis to supplement what they won in booty. Holders of timars (timariots) were not only Muslims; until the 16th century, Christian auxiliary forces drawn from the pre-Ottoman military classes were employed and paid in grants of revenues. The original ghazi light horsemen were not adequate for the conduct of regular warfare, and from the mid-14th century the Ottomans began to recruit separate salaried troops from various sources including mercenaries, slaves, prisoners of war, and (from the mid-15th century) through a levy of Balkan Christian youths (the devshirme). From these new forces (the kapikulli) emerged the celebrated, highly disciplined Ottoman infantry known as the Janissaries, who had begun as the bodyguard of Sultan Orkhan and were regularized by Sultan Murad I. They were the main factor in the Ottoman military successes from the later 15th century until the latter part of the 17th century. The Ottomans also recruited a force of kapikulli cavalry known as the Sipahis of the Porte and created specialist corps of artillery and engineers. For light cavalry the Ottomans used the dreaded akinji, recruited from nomads, Greek auxiliaries (the armataloi), and often from the Tatar horsemen of the Crimea, who were used for reconnaissance and for raiding ahead of the main force. From the later 16th century, the Ottomans increasingly employed specialist garrison troops to man the fortresses that became the main feature of the static frontier warfare. These garrison troops were often paid from timars assigned for the purpose and, as the sipahis and the Janissaries declined in efficiency, the fortress troops, commonly recruited from Albanians and Bosnian Muslims, together with special forces raised for particular campaigns by provincial governors, became the mainstay of the Ottoman military system, although they were not able to repeat the performance of the disciplined Ottoman infantry and artillery of the classical period, which had dominated the battlefields of western Asia and south-eastern Europe.