Episode 325 - The Rise of the Ottomans, Part 1

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Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium episode 325 The Rise of the Ottomans Part 1

Last time we watched on as the Roman Emperor was reduced to the role of travelling ambassador.

John Palaeologos journeyed to Hungary and then to Rome to beg for Western assistance.

A crusade must be formed to stop the Turks, he said.

Muslim forces had conquered Thrace in just fifteen years, and after crushing a Serb army who'd tried to stop them, the rest of the Balkans now lay open.

There seemed no doubt that the Christians of south east Europe were going to go the way of their Anatolian cousins unless someone intervened.

But how had this come to pass?

How had a Turkish Beylik gone from being a small tribal confederation on the borders of the Roman world to being a force capable of conquering it entirely?

And not just the Romans.

Ottoman forces were destined to destroy all the principalities of the Balkans.

The Serbs, Albanians, and Bulgarians will all go the way of Byzantium, finding themselves vassals and then subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

So who are are the Ottomans, and why were they so incredibly successful?

In today's episode I will give you a narrative of the past century from an Ottoman point of view, and then in Part II will get into some deeper analysis of how this fascinating empire was born.

Before we begin, though, a word on our sources.

The first histories of the Ottomans were commissioned in the fifteenth century, by which time the Ottoman state was already a very successful empire, and they bear the unmistakable stamp of attempts to justify and legitimise the dominance of the reigning dynasty.

They also include many folk tales and legendary stories.

One modern historian is blunt in likening them to the stories of Romulus and Remus.

We therefore have to be sceptical and corroborate what we can against the Roman and Latin sources.

In terms of the Ottoman origin story, what we're told is that the Kayu tribe, who lived in Mahan in Iran, moved to Anatolia as part of the Mongol invasions of the twelve forties.

The tribal chief, Erturul, then performed service for the Seljuk Sultan, who awarded him lands north of Ankara, then later further pastures to the west at Soyet in Bithynia, not far from Dorilayum, the old imperial mustering grounds where the First Crusade collided with Kilijaslan.

It seems entirely plausible that the Proto-Ottomans were recent arrivals in Anatolia, in part because so many tribes did arrive in the wake of the Mongol advance, and in part because over time nomadic tribes tend to become sedentary, and so tribes who were militarily active were likely to be fresh off the steppe.

The other details we're told are questionable, as they provide provide the Ottomans with a noble Turkish ancestry, along with authorization from the Seljuk authorities to dominate Anatolia.

For our purposes, though, we know that Erturul's son, Osman, was the leading chief amongst the tribes who operated on the Bithynian border around 1280, and so that's where we begin.

That period between the Mongol breakthrough in 1243 and the 1280s was a chaotic one, with the Anatolian plateau in great flux.

The alliance between the Seljuk authorities and the various tribes who lived there was broken.

Nomadic groups were left to smash into one another, newly arrived tribes in the Mongol train mixing with those already present.

The Seljuk state remained in place but was now a Mongol vassal.

Slowly it lost control of the western half of the plateau.

The tribes there began to operate independently and form confederations which would later become recognizable as Beyliks.

Even these independent Beyliks seemed to have owed some kind of obedience to the distant Mongol Khans in Iran.

Some kind of order had come down from on high that peace should be maintained.

The Khans used the tribes of Anatolia as manpower for their armies, and did not want a super-confederation to form to challenge their authority.

So, when various Seljuk civil wars and other conflicts became too hot, the Mongols would march in to restore order.

It was in this bubbling petri dish that the Proto-Ottomans began to form their own confederation.

Only much later would the Emir of this Confederation refer to himself as Sultan, and his realm as the Devlette Alie

Osmanie,

or the Sublime Ottoman State,

Ottoman being the anglicization of Osmani, which comes from Osman's name.

For simplicity, though, I will refer to the Ottoman Empire and the Sultan throughout the next two episodes.

The various Beyliks which lapped at the shores of Roman Anatolia seem to have had an informal understanding not to make war on one another.

As I just said, this had the potential to upset their Mongol overlords, but they also intermarried and shared various lands and resources as nomadic societies are often forced to do.

It was natural then that all the Beyligs would see Roman Anatolia as the obvious place to begin raiding in order to generate the slaves and booty which brought prestige and wealth to tribal chiefs.

The pressure becomes noticeable in Byzantine sources around 1260.

Michael VIII VIII was busy, as you may recall, trying to keep Charles of Anjou away from the Pope, and though he did his best, by the time he died in 1282, it was clear that Roman defences needed reorganising.

Unfortunately, his son Andronicus II was not as diligent as he could have been.

In fairness to the Vasy Lefts, though, to be assaulted by half a dozen Beyliks simultaneously was no easy matter to contend with.

It's no no surprise, really, that between 1280 and 1300 Roman defences crumbled.

At this stage the Turks were still advancing relatively cautiously.

They had no siege weapons or logistical support, and so could only capture Byzantine fortresses through starvation or defection.

The Ottomans advanced from the area of Dorilaum into Bithynia and spent the next couple of decades slowly gaining a foothold there.

In theory, the Ottomans should have been at a great disadvantage compared to the other Beyliks, since they faced the regional capital Nicaea.

When reinforcements came from Constantinople, they would be the first to get swatted, though in the long run, this would turn out to be an advantage.

Things gained speed around 1300, when the final Seljuk Civil War brought an end to the dynasty.

This gave license to many of the Beyliks to move further into Byzantine territory and led eventually to the Battle of Baphius in 1302, where the Ottomans defeated a Roman army near Nicomedia.

This allowed the Turks to move permanently into Bithynia itself, essentially forcing the Roman peasantry to pay their taxes directly to Osman rather than to the imperial authorities, who now found themselves restricted to the cities of Nicaea, Nicomedia, and Prussa.

The Mongols actually sent in an army to restore order in 1307, which delayed the Ottoman advance for over a decade.

When Osman died in the 1320s, little had changed since Baphias.

The Turks dominated the countryside, but still hadn't taken the Roman cities.

Things changed rapidly under the leadership of Osman's son Orhan.

His rule over the Beylik coincided with a collapse in both Roman and Mongol authority.

The Iran-based Ilkhanid fell into civil war and conflict with the Golden Horde.

It was clear that the Mongols would not be returning to Anatolia any time soon, which left the Beyliks free to expand and eventually to attack one another.

Meanwhile, the Romans began their damaging cycle of civil wars as Andronicus II fell out with his grandson of the same name.

Orhan took the opportunity to surround and starve out the city of Prusa, which surrendered in 1326.

The Turks assaulted the suburbs of the town, driving the peasants inside, then destroyed their crops before opening negotiations with the Roman authorities.

The Turks promised kind treatment for those inside if they surrendered.

So the gates were opened, and Ohan kept his word.

Not only did the Ottomans now have a proper capital city of their own, but their deal-making set a precedent which would bear fruit.

Two years later, Andronicus III and John Cantacusinos marched into Bithynia to force a confrontation, but Orhan remained in the hills and outmanoeuvred them.

The Romans were forced into a damaging retreat.

No aid would be coming from Constantinople any more,

and this defeat prompted Nicaea and then Nicomedia to surrender during the next decade.

This transformed the Ottoman state.

By treating their Roman subjects well, at least from this point on, they were able to preserve aspects of the legal, tax, and military systems of the province.

From nomad raiders, the Ottomans had become rulers of a reasonably wealthy regional state.

This is where the disadvantages of facing Nicaea were suddenly turned into advantages.

The Ottomans were now in control of a prosperous landscape which faced only the crumbling Roman Empire to its west.

Other Beyliks further south initially seemed better placed to expand, like Aydin, whose fleet launched piratical raids from the port at Smyrna.

But those Beyliks soon received pushback from the Latin states who now dominated the Aegean.

not just those who controlled the islands facing Anatolia, but the Knights of St.

John on Rhodes and, of course, the Venetians and Genoese.

As you know, John Cantacusinos had initially lent heavily on his ally Amur of Aidin to provide him with mercenary forces, but once Amur was tied down by the Latins, the Ottomans were in prime position to profit.

It turns out that becoming the military arm of Cantacuzinos' wars was crucial to the future of the Ottoman state.

Why?

It was not clear at this point what the future held for the Beyliks.

They had all begun this journey as steppe tribes, living off their herds and shooting arrows from horseback, but since arriving in Anatolia, they had all had to adapt to the opportunities which conditions presented.

Chiefs who captured Roman cities became settled governors.

Chiefs who took over ports became sailors.

The raiding and rewarding lifestyle seems to have reached a natural conclusion, from Mongol henchmen to powerful rulers of wealthy western Anatolia.

It sounded like a happy ending to some.

But for the ambitious and driven, the way forward was tricky.

Tackling the Latins had proven to be hard work, and for those who stayed on land, the future looked likely to involve Baelic on Balic violence, something which had been avoided for several generations.

Service in the armies of Cantacuzinos was a chance to maintain the lifestyle which had brought the Turks riches and success.

This is why several Beyliks were keen to form alliances with the Romans.

The Christians were, as mad as it might sound, inviting the Turks to turn Europe into a new raiding ground.

The Ottomans offered Cantacusinos aid throughout the 1340s.

They did his bidding, but made it clear that they expected to be paid in slaves and stolen goods.

These campaigns allowed the Ottomans to become the most powerful of the remaining Beyliks, developing a standing army paid for by the tax revenues of Bithynia alongside gaggles of volunteers who gave them the numbers to overwhelm their rivals.

In 1345, in a campaign which we know very little about, the Ottomans eliminated the Beylik to their south, the Beylik of Kheresi.

The Ottomans already controlled all the territory which faced Constantinople across the Bosphorus, but the Karacids held the lands which faced the Hellespont, the shortest crossing to Europe, and also territory which Cantacusinos now controlled.

How the Ottomans squared this violence with the other Beleks we don't know, but they now possessed the strength to take what they wanted.

A decade later one of Ohan's sons occupied the city of Ankara and its great castle on the plateau, giving the Ottomans an eastern bulwark against any jealous Beyliks beylix in their rear.

Meanwhile, in Europe they went from strength to strength to strength, as you already know.

Orhan married Cantakusinos' daughter in 1346, then his son Suleiman seized Gallipoli in 1354.

This allowed the Ottomans to set up independent commanders who could roam free across Thrace.

Recruits flooded in from Anatolia to join these extraordinary expeditions.

As we discussed discussed in our last episode, Didimotichon fell in 1361, Philippopolis in 1363, and Adrianople in 1369.

These were captured by different warbands.

The Ottoman Sultan didn't come to Thrace during this period.

Orhan died in 1362, and his son Murad could rule from Bursa, formerly Prussa, while his commanders made their own decisions on the ground.

This was the key to the rapid advance of Ottoman arms.

They were able to enjoy the benefits of being both a settled state and an expanding Beylik.

The north west corner of Anatolia grew wealthy again through the peace imposed by Ottoman rule, while the riches and opportunities of a frontier society continued to flood in from Europe.

Our last piece of narrative was the attempt of the Serbian princes of Macedonia to put a stop to the Turkish advance in 1371?

They were crushed along the Maritsa River, and though the cause of Serbian independence was far from over, the cause of Roman independence was.

The Serbs were fighting in Thrace to try and crush the rising Ottoman menace.

With their failure, there was nothing to stop the Turks from holding Thrace as a new, secure province and moving their armies on to begin raiding Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria.

Even the capture of Gallipoli by Amadeo Count of Savoy in 1366 made no difference to the situation.

A decade earlier this could have stunted the flow of Turks into Europe, but by then there were too many soldiers present for it to tip the balance.

The Turks were so dominant now that they could open up other ports or safe beaches to communicate with home.

Eventually, Sultan Murad would officially divide his realm into two distinct provinces, that of Anatolia and Rumelia.

There, you have the narrative answer to the question of who the Ottomans were and why they were so successful.

There was a lot of luck involved in terms of the collapse of Seljuk, Mongol, and Roman power, as well as the location of Bithynia across the straits from a Roman world which seemed determined to commit suicide.

John Cantakuzinos turns out to be the midwife at the birth of the Ottoman Empire.

By welcoming Turkish troops into Europe so readily, he allowed the Ottomans to develop a far stronger army than their own resources could have supported.

What took place in Thrace during the next twenty years was the transformation of a Beylik into an imperial state.

The Turkish warlords who made Adrianople and Didymotichon their homes could, under other circumstances, have established independent Beyliks,

but for various reasons which we will explore next week, they remained loyal to the Sultan.

And so Murad could focus on building mosques and reading tax assessments while his armies carved out an entire new province in his name.

All great empires need some kind of cheat code that enables them to bypass the restrictions placed on their expansion by nature.

Rome long ago offered citizenship to those who didn't live at their capital, something most city-states did not do,

providing them with the manpower to overwhelm their rivals.

The Ottomans were able to attract all the best warriors from across Anatolia with the promise of a defenceless Thrace to exploit, and thus their army grew to a size that no state within 500 miles could match.

Next time, we'll get into the details of what the Ottomans did, which other states didn't.

The keys to their success, it turns out, were flexibility, loyalty, and ruthlessness.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

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