Suleiman I

I

Introduction

Suleiman I (c. 1494-1566), tenth Ottoman sultan, who was known in Europe as “the Magnificent” and in the Ottoman lands as “the Lawgiver (al-Kanuni)”, and whose reign (1520-1566) is commonly described as the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire. (Confusingly, some writers, who admit as a sultan an earlier Ottoman pretender, refer to him as Suleiman II.) Under Suleiman the bounds of the Empire were extended to include most of Hungary, eastern Anatolia, Iraq, and all but a small part of the North African coast; and under his rule Ottomans experienced an efflorescence of arts and crafts, and, especially, of architecture. He was in no way outshone by his Western contemporary and rival, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Suleiman is generally thought to have been born on November 6, 1494 (although some writers have suggested dates in 1495 or 1496) in Trabzon (Trebizond), the son of the future sultan, Selim I, and a slave girl, Hafsa. Before ascending the throne on September 20, 1520, he gained experience as a local governor in the Crimea and at Manisa (Magnesia), an Ottoman sanjak (district) north-east of İzmir. He inherited a favourable situation: his father had suppressed internal discontent, inflicted a resounding defeat on the Safavids of Iran, annexed Syria and Egypt, and bequeathed his unchallenged successor a powerful army (albeit a restless one which demanded frequent employment), and an efficient administration. Moreover, the Christian powers of Europe were divided by the conflict of Habsburg and Valois, and would shortly be preoccupied by the upheaval of the Reformation.

II

Campaigns in Europe

For many years the determined resistance of Hungary had barred the way to Ottoman expansion into south-eastern Europe. But at the time of Suleiman’s accession Hungary was weak: factions of nobles dominated the young king, Louis (Lajos) II. In 1521 Suleiman moved against the Hungarian fortress of Belgrade, strategically placed at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava, and blocking any Ottoman advance into the Hungarian plain. Belgrade had resisted Ottoman attacks in 1440 and 1456, but Suleiman took it on August 29, 1521, after a month’s siege. For the next five years Suleiman was distracted by problems elsewhere, but in 1526 he advanced again into the Hungarian domains, capturing the great fortresses of Peterwardein on the south bank of the Danube and Osijek on the south bank of the Drava, the latter without a fight. Suleiman crossed the river by a bridge of boats, which he burned behind him, and met the Hungarian army some 50 km (30 mi) north at Mohàcs on August 29. His victory was complete and devastating: the Hungarian cavalry was destroyed and King Louis was drowned in a ditch while attempting to flee the field. The Ottoman army then advanced to Buda and its light horsemen raided into regions beyond before Suleiman returned to Constantinople (now İstanbul). The Ottomans remained in occupation of Osijek and of the strip of Hungary between the Drava and the Sava, which afforded a passage into the kingdom but otherwise left Hungary to its own devices.

Two claimants to the vacant Hungarian throne emerged: one was Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and the other John Zápolya, governor of Transylvania. In 1527 Ferdinand defeated Zápolya, who appealed to Suleiman for help. In 1529 Suleiman launched a new Hungarian campaign in support of Zápolya. He took Buda, reinstated Zápolya as king, and continued his advance to Vienna, where he arrived on September 27, opening his siege on the following day. The fortifications of Vienna were not strong, but Suleiman had been unable to bring up his heavy siege artillery. He was reduced to attempting to breach the walls by mining (sapping). On October 12, an Ottoman assault on the city was only narrowly repulsed, but on October 15 the Ottomans lifted the siege and retired. That Vienna survived owed something to stout defence, but more to the heavy rain, which had slowed the Ottoman advance through Hungary, sapped the enthusiasm of the troops, and delayed their attempt to capture the Austrian capital.

Ferdinand did not abandon his claim to Hungary. He still held northern and western Hungary and he sought to rule the rest by agreement with Suleiman, to whom he offered a disguised tribute. But Suleiman continued to support Zápolya, and in 1532 launched another campaign. Expecting a second attack on Vienna, Ferdinand’s brother, Charles V, assembled there a large force of German, Spanish, and Italian troops. The anticipated clash of the two great emperors did not take place. Suleiman was delayed for a month by determined resistance at Güns (on the Rába River), the rain poured down again and he abandoned any idea of assaulting Vienna in favour of a vast raid through Slavonia and Styria. In 1533 he agreed to a truce to enable him to campaign in the east against Iran. There was no peace on the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier, however: raiding continued, in particular from Ottoman territory on the Drava into Croatia. In an attempt to end this nuisance, Ferdinand ordered an attack on the Ottoman fortress of Osijek in 1537, but suffered a heavy defeat.

In 1533 Suleiman had left Ferdinand and Zápolya to arrange matters between themselves. In 1538 they agreed secretly that each would hold what he had until the death of the childless Zápolya, when all Hungary should pass to Ferdinand. As it happened, when Zápolya died on July 21, 1540, his widow gave birth to a son, and the Hungarian party opposed to Ferdinand proclaimed the infant to be king. Ferdinand promptly invaded Hungary in defence of his claims, and in 1541 Suleiman, to whom Ferdinand was unacceptable, marched into Hungary again, installed an Ottoman administration and a garrison in Buda, and sent the infant John Sigismund (also known as King Stephen) to govern Transylvania under the auspices of his mother and her chief adviser, George Martinuzzi. Ferdinand’s attempts to assert his claims were rebuffed, and in 1543 a new Ottoman campaign under Suleiman, when the fortresses Esztergom and Stuhlweissenberg were captured, further circumscribed his possessions in Hungary. In 1547 a truce was made and, although campaigning in Hungary continued, the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier became stabilized: on each side great fortresses, specialist garrison troops, and military colonies made it difficult for either power to gain any marked advantage. The Ottoman superiority in the field was nullified. However, both sides raided into enemy territory, and a large part of Hungary and its surrounding territories were laid waste.

III

Domination of the Mediterranean

Under Suleiman the Ottomans became the leading power in the Mediterranean. On December 21, 1522, after a long siege, the Ottomans captured the island of Rhodes from the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, ending their attacks on Ottoman shipping and on the coasts of Asia Minor. Still, Suleiman needed a powerful fleet and an admiral, and he found them in the form of the Algerian corsairs, led by Khayr ad-Din Barbarossa, who was made chief admiral of the Ottoman fleet in 1534. In the following years Barbarossa ravaged the coasts of Italy and Spain, and defeated the combined fleets of Venice and the Holy Roman Empire at Preveza, near Corfu, in 1538. Several Venetian possessions in the eastern Mediterranean were annexed. Although Charles V took Tunis in 1535 (it was recovered by the Ottomans in 1574), elsewhere in North Africa the corsairs were dominant. The power of the corsairs in the western Mediterranean was facilitated by an alliance between Suleiman and Francis I of France, formed after the latter’s defeat by Charles V at Pavia in 1525. The union of Christian and Muslim was the cause of much criticism in Europe, but the existence of a common Habsburg enemy brought the two powers together in an enduring alliance. From a base provided by France in Toulon, Barbarossa conducted devastating raids in the western Mediterranean in 1543-1544. Barbarossa died in 1546, but the struggle continued under other corsairs, notably Dragut, who captured Tripoli in 1551. The island of Jarbah was taken in 1560. The only major checks experienced by the Ottomans were in the failure to take Oran (1563), and in their repulse at the famous siege of Malta, held since 1530 by the Knights of St John, in 1565.

IV

Campaigns Against Iran

The Safavid state of Iran was a major rival of the Ottomans. The Safavids were Shiites and therefore the ideological rivals of the Sunni Ottomans. Moreover, the appeal of Shiism to the Turkoman peoples of eastern Asia Minor represented a threat to the internal stability of the Ottoman state. The two powers were already in dispute over territory and over the allegiance of Kurdish tribes living on their borders. Suleiman led three campaigns against the Safavids. In the first (1534-1536), the Ottomans sacked Tabrīz, established a new eastern province at Erzurum, and took possession of Baghdad (Basra was added in 1546). In the second (1548-1549), conducted nominally in support of a claimant to the Safavid throne, the Ottomans annexed Van. And in the third (1554), the Ottomans consolidated their gains in eastern Asia Minor, laid waste to eastern Armenia, and forced the Safavids to agree to peace at Amasya (1555). Despite these extensive territorial gains, Suleiman was never able to achieve a decisive victory over the Safavid forces. The short campaigning season among the mountains of eastern Asia Minor handicapped the Ottoman forces, and Shah Tahmasp, of Iran, avoided a field battle, preferring to harass the Ottoman forces as they withdrew through the mountains. Suleiman sought an alliance with the Sunni Uzbeks, the eastern neighbours of the Safavids, but this initiative was never as effective as the similar alliance with France in the west.