Rise Of The Ottoman Empire

The rise of the Ottoman Empire is a period of history that started with the emergence of the Ottoman principality (Osmanlı Beyliği) in , and ended circa 1453. This period witnessed the foundation of a political entity ruled by the Ottoman Dynasty in the northwestern Anatolian region of Bithynia, and its transformation from a small principality on the Byzantine frontier into an empire spanning the Balkans, Anatolia, Middle East and North Africa. For this reason, this period in the empire's history has been described as the ''"Proto-Imperial Era"''. Throughout most of this period, the Ottomans were merely one of many competing states in the region, and relied upon the support of local warlords Ghazis and vassals (Beys) to maintain control over their realm. By the middle of the fifteenth century the Ottoman sultans were able to accumulate enough personal power and authority to establish a centralized imperial state, a process which was brought to fruition by Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481). The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 is seen as the symbolic moment when the emerging Ottoman state shifted from a mere principality into an empire therefore marking a major turning point in its history.

The cause of Ottoman success cannot be attributed to any single factor, and they varied throughout the period as the Ottomans continually adapted to changing circumstances.

The earlier part of this period, the fourteenth century, is particularly difficult for historians to study due to the scarcity of sources. Not a single written document survives from the reign of Osman I, and very little survives from the rest of the century. The Ottomans, furthermore, did not begin to record their own history until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after many of the events they describe. It is thus a great challenge for historians to differentiate between fact and myth in analyzing the stories contained in these later chronicles, so much so that one historian has even declared it impossible, describing the earliest period of Ottoman history as a "black hole".

Anatolia before the Ottomans

At the beginning of the thirteenth century Anatolia was divided between two relatively powerful states: the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Anatolian Seljuks in the central plateau. Equilibrium between them was disrupted by the Mongol invasion and conquest of the Seljuks following the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, and the reconquest of Constantinople by the Byzantine Palaiologos dynasty in 1261, which shifted Byzantine attention away from the Anatolian frontier. Mongol pressure pushed nomadic Turkish tribes to migrate westward, into the now poorly-defended Byzantine territory.
For the next two centuries, Anatolian Beyliks were under the suzerainty of the Mongols, especially the Ilkhanate. All coins minted during this period in Anatolia show Ilkhanate rulers.
From the 1260s onward Anatolia increasingly began to slip from Byzantine control, as Turkish Anatolian beyliks were established both in formerly Byzantine lands and in the territory of the fragmenting Seljuk Sultanate.

Political authority in western Anatolia was thus extremely fragmented by the end of the thirteenth century, split between locally established rulers, tribal groups, holy figures, and warlords, with Byzantine and Seljuk authority ever present but rapidly weakening. The fragmentation of authority has led several historians to describe the political entities of thirteenth and fourteenth-century Anatolia as Taifas, or "petty kings", a comparison with the history of late-medieval Muslim Spain. The power of these groups was largely dependent upon their ability to attract military manpower. Western Anatolia was then a hotbed of raiding activity, with warriors switching allegiance at will to whichever chief seemed most able to provide them with opportunities for plunder and glory.

Origin of the Ottoman state

The Ottoman dynasty is named after the first ruler of the Ottoman polity, Osman I. According to later Ottoman tradition, he was descended from a Turkic tribe which migrated out of Central Asia in the wake of the Mongol Conquests. As evidenced by coins minted during his reign, Osman's father was named Ertuğrul, but beyond this the details "are too mythological to be taken for granted."

The origin of the Ottoman dynasty isn't known for sure but it is known that it was established by Turks from Central Asia, who migrated to Anatolia and were under Mongol suzerainty.

Likewise, nothing is known about how Osman first established his principality (''beylik'') as the sources, none of them contemporary, provide many different and conflicting origin stories. What is certain is that at some point in the late thirteenth century Osman emerged as the leader of a small principality centered on the town of Söğüt in the north-western Anatolian region of Bithynia. The emergence of Osman as a leader is marked by him issuing coins in his name, unlike his predecessors in the last two centuries who issued coins in the name of the Illkhanates. Osman's principality was initially supported by the tribal manpower of nomadic Turkish groups, whom he led in raids against the Byzantine territories of the region. This Ottoman tribe was based not on blood-ties, but on political expedience. Thus it was inclusive of all who wished to join, including people of Byzantine origin. The Ottoman enterprise came to be led by several great warrior families, including the family of Köse Mihal, which had a Greek Christian origin
and the family of Hranislav, which was Bulgarian. Islam and Persian culture were part of Ottoman self-identity from the start, as evidenced by a land grant issued by Osman's son Orhan in 1324, describing him as "Champion of the Faith".

Gaza and gazis in early Ottoman history

In 1938 the Austrian historian Paul Wittek published an influential work entitled ''The Rise of the Ottoman Empire'', in which he put forth the argument that the early Ottoman state was constructed upon an ideology of Islamic holy war against non-Muslims. Such a war was known as ''gaza'', and a warrior fighting in it was called a ''gazi''. Wittek's formulation, subsequently known as the "Gaza Thesis," was influential for much of the twentieth century, and led historians to portray the early Ottomans as zealous religious warriors dedicated to the spread of Islam. Beginning in the 1980s, historians increasingly criticized Wittek's thesis. Scholars now recognize that the terms ''gaza'' and ''gazi'' did not have strictly religious connotations for the early Ottomans, and were often used in a secular sense to simply refer to raids. Additionally, the early Ottomans were neither strict orthodox Muslims nor were they unwilling to cooperate with non-Muslims, and several of the companions of the first Ottoman rulers were either non-Muslims or recent converts. The idea of holy war existed during the fourteenth century, but it was only one of many factors influencing Ottoman behavior. It was only later, in the fifteenth century, that Ottoman writers retroactively began to portray the early Ottomans as zealous Islamic warriors, in order to provide a noble origin for their dynasty which, by then, had constructed an intercontinental Islamic empire.

Demography

Anatolia and the Balkans were greatly impacted by the arrival of the Black Death after 1347. Urban centers and settled regions were devastated, while nomadic groups suffered less of an impact. The first Ottoman incursions into the Balkans began shortly thereafter. Depopulation resulting from the plague was thus almost certainly a major factor in the success of early Ottoman expansion into the Balkans, and contributed to the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and the depopulation of Constantinople.

Government

During this early period, before the Ottomans were able to establish a centralized system of government in the middle of the fifteenth century, the rulers' powers were "far more circumscribed, and depended heavily upon coalitions of support and alliances reached" among various power-holders within the empire, including Turkic tribal leaders and Balkan allies and vassals.

When the Ottoman polity first emerged at the end of the thirteenth century under the leadership of Osman I, it had a tribal organization without a complex administrative apparatus. As Ottoman territory expanded, its rulers were faced with the challenge of administering an ever-larger population. Early on, the Ottomans adopted the Seljuks of Rum as models for administration and the Illkhanates as models for military warfare, and by 1324 were able to produce Persian-language bureaucratic documents in the Seljuk style.

The early Ottoman state's expansion was fueled by the military activity of frontier warriors ( tr, gazi), of whom the Ottoman ruler was initially merely ''primus inter pares''. Much of the state's centralization was carried out in opposition to these frontier warriors, who resented Ottoman efforts to control them. Ultimately, the Ottomans managed to harness ''gazi'' military power while increasingly subordinating them.

The early Ottomans were noteworthy for the low tax rates which they imposed on their subjects. This reflected both an ideological concern for the well-being of their subjects, and also a pragmatic need to earn the loyalty of newly conquered populations. In the fifteenth century, the Ottoman state became more centralized and the tax burden increased, prompting criticism from writers.

An important factor in Ottoman success was their ability to preserve the empire across generations. Other Turkic groups frequently divided their realms between the sons of a deceased ruler. The Ottomans consistently kept the empire united under a single heir.

State centralization

The process of centralization is closely connected with an influx of Muslim scholars from Central Anatolia, where a more urban and bureaucratic Turkish civilization had developed under the Seljuks of Rum. Particularly influential was the Çandarlı family, which supplied several Grand Viziers to the early Ottomans and influenced their institutional development. Some time after 1376, Kara Halil, the head of the Çandarlı family, encouraged Murad I to institute a tax of one-fifth on slaves taken in war, known as the ''pençik''. This gave the Ottoman rulers a source of manpower from which they could construct a new personal army, known as the Janissaries (''yeniçeri''). Such measures frustrated the ''gazi'', who sustained Ottoman military conquests, and created lasting tensions within the state. It was also during the reign of Murad I that the office of military judge (''Kazasker'') was created, indicating an increasing level of social stratification between the emerging military-administrative class (''askeri'') and the rest of society. Murad I also instituted the practice of appointing specific frontier warriors as "Lords of the Frontier" (''uc begleri''). Such power of appointment indicates that the Ottoman rulers were no longer merely ''primus inter pares''. As a way of openly declaring this new status, Murad became the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of sultan.

Beginning in the 1430s, but most likely earlier, the Ottomans conducted regular cadastral surveys of the territory under their rule, producing record-books known as ''tahrir defter''s. These surveys enabled the Ottoman state to organize the distribution of agricultural taxation rights to the military class of timariots, cavalrymen who collected revenue from the land in exchange for serving in the Ottoman army. Timariots came from diverse backgrounds. Some achieved their position as a reward for military service, while others were descended from the Byzantine aristocracy and simply continued to collect revenue from their old lands, now serving in the Ottoman army as well. Of the latter, many were converts to Islam, while others remained Christian.

Of great symbolic importance for Ottoman centralization was the practice of Ottoman rulers to stand upon hearing martial music, indicating their willingness to participate in ''gaza''. Shortly after the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II discontinued this practice, indicating that the Ottoman ruler was no longer a simple frontier warrior, but the sovereign of an empire. The empire's capital shifted from Edirne, the city symbolically connected with the frontier warrior ethos of ''gaza'', to Constantinople, a city with deeply imperial connotations due to its long history as the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This was seen, both symbolically and practically, as the moment of the empire's definitive shift from a frontier principality into an empire.

Military

Osman's army at the beginning of the fourteenth century consisted largely of mounted warriors. These he used in raids, ambushes, and hit-and-run attacks, allowing him to control the countryside of Bithynia. However, he initially lacked the means to conduct sieges. Bursa, the first major town conquered by the Ottomans, surrendered under threat of starvation following a long blockade rather than from an assault. It was under Orhan (r. 1323/4-1362) and Murad I (r. 1362-1389) that the Ottomans mastered the techniques of siege warfare.

The warriors in Osman's service came from diverse backgrounds. Known variously as ''gazi''s and (raiders), they were attracted to his success and joined out of a desire to win plunder and glory. Most of Osman's early followers were Muslim Turks of tribal origin, while others were of Byzantine origin, either Christians or recent converts to Islam.

The Ottomans began employing gunpowder weapons in the 1380s at the latest. By the 1420s they were regularly using cannons in siege warfare. Cannons were also used for fortress defense, and shore batteries allowed the Ottomans to bypass a Crusader blockade of the Dardanelles in 1444. By that time, handheld firearms had also come into use, and were adopted by some of the janissaries.

Cultural and intellectual life

By the early fifteenth century, the Ottoman court was actively fostering literary output, much of it borrowing from the longstanding literary tradition of other Islamic courts further east. The first extant account of Ottoman history ever written was produced by the poet Ahmedi, originally meant to be presented to Sultan Bayezid I but, following the latter's death in 1402, written for his son Süleyman Çelebi instead. This work, entitled the ''İskendernāme,'' ("The Book of Alexander") was part of a genre known as "mirror for princes" ( ''naṣīḥatnāme''), meant to provide advice and guidance to the ruler with regard to statecraft. Thus rather than providing a factual account of the dynasty's history, Ahmedi's goal was to indirectly criticize the sultan by depicting his ancestors as model rulers, in contrast to the perceived deviance of Bayezid. Specifically, Ahmedi took issue with Bayezid's military campaigns against fellow Muslims in Anatolia, and thus depicted his ancestors as totally devoted to holy war against the Christian states of the Balkans.

Political history

Osman I (c. 1299–1323/4)

300px, An estimation of the territory under the control of Osman.

Osman's origins are extremely obscure, and almost nothing is known about his career before the beginning of the fourteenth century. The date of 1299 is frequently given as the beginning of his reign, however this date does not correspond with any historical event, and is purely symbolic. By 1300 he had become the leader of a group of Turkish pastoral tribes, through which he ruled over a small territory around the town of Söğüt in the north-western Anatolian region of Bithynia. He led frequent raids against the neighboring Byzantine Empire. Success attracted warriors to his following, particularly after his victory over a Byzantine army in the Battle of Bapheus in 1301 or 1302. Osman's military activity was largely limited to raiding because, by the time of his death, in 1323-4, the Ottomans had not yet developed effective techniques for siege warfare. Although he is famous for his raids against the Byzantines, Osman also had many military confrontations with Tatar groups and with the neighboring principality of Germiyan.

Osman was adept at forging political and commercial relationships with nearby groups, Muslim as well as Christian. Early on, he attracted several notable figures to his side, including Köse Mihal, a Byzantine village headman whose descendants (known as the Mihaloğulları) enjoyed primacy among the frontier warriors in Ottoman service. Köse Mihal was noteworthy for having been a Christian Greek; while he eventually converted to Islam, his prominent historical role indicates Osman's willingness to cooperate with non-Muslims and to incorporate them in his political enterprise.

Osman I strengthened his legitimacy by marrying the daughter of Sheikh Edebali, a prominent local religious leader who was said to have been at the head of a community of dervishes on the frontier. Later Ottoman writers embellished this event by depicting Osman as having experienced a dream while staying with Edebali, in which it was foretold that his descendants would rule over a vast empire.

Orhan (1323/4–1362)

Upon Osman's death his son Orhan succeeded him as leader of the Ottomans. Orhan oversaw the conquest of Bithynia's major towns, as Bursa (Prusa) was conquered in 1326 and the rest of the region's towns fell shortly thereafter. Already by 1324, the Ottomans were making use of Seljuk bureaucratic practices, and had developed the capacity to mint coins and utilize siege tactics. It was under Orhan that the Ottomans began to attract Islamic scholars from the east to act as administrators and judges, and the first medrese (University) was established in Iznik in 1331.

In addition to fighting the Byzantines, Orhan also conquered the Turkish principality of Karesi in 1345-6, thus placing all potential crossing points to Europe in Ottoman hands. The experienced Karesi warriors were incorporated into the Ottoman military, and were a valuable asset in subsequent campaigns into the Balkans.

Orhan married Theodora, the daughter of Byzantine prince John VI Cantacuzenus. In 1346 Orhan openly supported John VI in the overthrowing of the emperor John V Palaeologus. When John VI became co-emperor (1347–1354) he allowed Orhan to raid the peninsula of Gallipoli in 1352, after which the Ottomans gained their first permanent stronghold in Europe at Çimpe Castle in 1354. Orhan decided to pursue war against Europe, Anatolian Turks were settled in and around Gallipoli to secure it as a springboard for military operations in Thrace against the Byzantines and Bulgarians. Most of eastern Thrace was overrun by Ottoman forces within a decade and was permanently brought under Orhan's control by means of heavy colonization. The initial Thracian conquests placed the Ottomans strategically astride all of the major overland communication routes linking Constantinople to the Balkan frontiers, facilitating their expanded military operations. ln addition, control of the highways in Thrace isolated Byzantium from direct overland contact with any of its potential allies in the Balkans and in Western Europe. Byzantine Emperor John V was forced to sign an unfavorable treaty with Orhan in 1356 that recognized his Thracian losses. For the next 50 years, the Ottomans went on to conquer vast territories in the Balkans, reaching as far north as modern-day Serbia.

In taking control over the passageways to Europe, the Ottomans gained a significant advantage over their rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, as they now could gain immense prestige and wealth from conquests carried out on the Balkan frontier.

Murad I (1362–1389)

Soon after Orhan's death in 1362, Murad I became Sultan.

Edirne, 1362

Murad's first major offensive was the conquest of the Byzantine city of Adrianople in 1362. He renamed it to Edirne and made it his new capital in 1363. By transferring his capital from Bursa in Anatolia to that newly won city in Thrace, Murad signaled his intentions to continue Ottoman expansion in Southeast Europe. Before the conquest of Edirne, most Christian Europeans regarded the Ottoman presence in Thrace as merely the latest unpleasant episode in a long string of chaotic events in the Balkans. After Murad I designated Edirne as his capital, they realized that the Ottomans intended to remain in Europe.

The Balkan states of Byzantium, Bulgaria, and Serbia were frightened by Ottoman conquests in Thrace, and were ill-prepared to deal with the threat. Byzantine territory was reduced and fragmented. It consisted mostly of the capital, Constantinople and its Thracian environs, the city of Thessaloniki and its immediate surroundings, and the Despotate of the Morea in the Peloponnese. Contact between Constantinople and the two other regions was only feasible via a tenuous sea route through the Dardanelles, kept open by the Italian maritime powers of Venice and Genoa. The weakened Byzantine Empire no longer possessed the resources to defeat Murad on its own. Concerted action on the part of the Byzantines, often divided by civil war, was impossible. The survival of Constantinople itself depended on its legendary defensive walls, the lack of an Ottoman navy, and the willingness of Murad to honor provisions in the 1356 treaty, which permitted the city to be provisioned.

Bulgaria under Tsar Ivan Aleksandar was expanding and prosperous. However, at the end of his rule, the Bulgarian Tsar made the fatal mistake to divide the Second Bulgarian Empire into three appanages held by his sons. Bulgaria's cohesion was shattered further in the 1350s by a rivalry between the holder of Vidin, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Aleksandar's sole surviving son by his first wife, and Ivan Shishman, the product of Aleksandar's second marriage and the ''tsar's'' designated successor. In addition to internal problems, Bulgaria was further crippled by a Hungarian attack. In 1365 Hungarian King Louis I invaded and seized Vidin province, whose ruler Ivan Sratsimir was taken captive. Despite the concurrent loss of most Bulgarian Thracian holdings to Murad, Ivan Aleksandar became fixated on the Hungarians in Vidin. He formed a coalition against them with the Bulgarian ruler of Dobrudja Dobrotitsa and Voievod Vladislav I Vlaicu of Wallachia. Although the Hungarians were repulsed and Ivan Sratsimir restored to his throne, Bulgaria emerged more intensely divided. Ivan Sratsimir proclaimed himself tsar of an "Empire" of Vidin in 1370, and Dobrotitsa received de facto recognition as independent despot in Dobrudzha. Bulgaria's efforts were squandered to little domestic purpose and against the wrong enemy.

Given Serbia's preeminence in the Balkans under Tsar Stefan Dušan, its rapid dissolution following his death in 1355 was dramatic. The powerful regional Serb nobles demonstrated little respect for his successor, Stefan Uroš V. Young, weak Uroš was incapable of ruling as his father had. The separatist-minded ''bojars'' were quick to take advantage of the situation, and Serbia fragmented.

First to throw off Serbian control were the Greek provinces of Thessaly and Epiros as well as Dušan's former Albanian holdings. A series of small independent principalities arose in western and southern Macedonia, while the Hungarians encroached deeper into Serb lands in the north. Uros held only the core Serbian lands, whose nobles, although more powerful than their prince, generally remained loyal. These core lands consisted of: The western lands, including Montenegro (Zeta); the southern lands, held by Jovan Uglješa in Serres, encompassing all of eastern Macedonia; and the central Serbian lands, stretching from the Danube south into central Macedonia, co-ruled by Uroš and the powerful noble Vukasin Mrnjavcevic, who held Prilep in Macedonia. Far from preserving Serb unity, Uroš's loosely amalgamated domains were wracked by constant civil war among the regional nobles, leaving Serbia vulnerable to the rising Ottoman threat.
Murad I did rise to the power of the Ottoman Empire in 1362.

Gallipoli, 1366

By 1370 Murad controlled most of Thrace, bringing him into direct contact with Bulgaria and the southeastern Serbian lands ruled by Uglješa. Uglješa, the most powerful Serb regional ruler, unsuccessfully attempted to forge an anti-Ottoman alliance of Balkan states in 1371. Byzantium, vulnerable to the Turks because of its food supply situation, refused to cooperate. Bulgaria, following Ivan Aleksandar's death early that year, lay officially divided into the "Empire" of Vidin, ruled by Stratsimir (1370–96), and Aleksandar's direct successor Tsar Ivan Shishman (1371–95), who ruled central Bulgaria from Turnovo. Young, his hold on the throne unsteady, threatened by Stratsimir, and probably pressured by the Turks, Shishman could not afford to participate in Uglješa's scheme. Of the regional Serb ''bojars'', only Vukašin, protector of Uroš and Uglješa's brother, joined in the effort. The others either failed to recognize the Ottoman danger or refused to participate lest competitors attacked while they were in the field.

Maritsa, 1371

The Battle of Maritsa took place at the Maritsa River

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