A Brief History of The Ottoman Empire 1299-1923
The origins of the Ottomans (Osmanli in Turkish) go
back to one of the principalities founded in 1299
after the destruction of the Great Seljuk Empire
by the Mongols. The principality has been
established by the Kayi tribe, a member of the Oghuz
confederation of Turkish tribes, in the district
of Sogut and Bilecik in western Anatolia. The
first Sultan Osman (from whom the name Ottoman is
derived) extended his frontiers to the sea of
Marmara in the west and the Black Sea in
the north. Then under Sultan Orhan, the whole
triangle bounded by the Aegean, the sea of
Marmara and the Black Sea fell to the Ottomans.
In the east , the Ottomans made themselves
masters of Ankara, thus taking the first step
towards the re-unification of Anatolia. The
year 1354 was a turning point in Turkish history,
when Turks crossed the Dardanelles, set
foot in Europe and established themselves in
Gelibolu (Gallipoli). Sultan Murat I threw
himself heart and soul into the European
venture, and between 1354 and 1389 the Ottomans
advanced from Gelibolu to Kosova and became
the paramount power in the Balkans.
Between the Battle of Ankara (1402) and the
Conquest of Istanbul (1453), the Ottomans
devoted their energy to re-establishing the
frontiers first achieved by Sultan Yildirim
(Thunderbolt) Bayezit. In 1451, when
Mehmet II (later Fatih, the Conqueror) ascended
the throne, the Ottoman state found itself in
possession of powerful resources. The conquest
of Istanbul ushered in a new advance which
continued for almost a century and a half until
1595. The area of Turkish dominions which
amounted to some 2 million sq. kilometres
at the death of the Conqueror, reached to 20
million sq. kilometres during the reign of Sultan Murat III.
In this new age of conquests, the Crimea was added to the Empire which stretched to the southern approaches of Moscow. After the conquest of Trabzon in 1461, the entire Anatolian peninsula became a Turkish land, and both the Aegean and the Black Sea became Ottoman lakes. Under Sultan Yavuz Selim the area of the Empire trebled. Its frontiers were extended to Ethiopia, central Africa and the Indian Ocean. After his conquest of Egypt, Yavuz was recognised as the strongest Islamic sovereign, the unrivalled representative of Islam. The Empire reached the zenith of its power under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (known in Turkish as Kanuni or the Lawgiver) in the 16th century. The seeds of disintegration were attacking the inner structure of the Empire with results that became evident in the following century. In the sixteen years that followed the failure of the second Ottoman attempt to capture Vienna, the Empire had to face the united might of European states. Under the treaty of Carlowitz it conceded defeat, losing Poland, Hungary and Transylvania. Between 1768 and 1838 under Sultans Abdulhamit I, Selim III and Mahmut II a determined attempt was made to modernise the Ottoman Empire. More extensive reforms were undertaken between 1839 and 1876 by two sons of Mahmut II, the Sultans Abdulmecid and Andulaziz. Great reforming statesmen, such as Resit, Ali and Fuad Pashas were put in charge of the administration. More efforts were made to catch up with Europe, but an impoverished treasury was unable to provide the finance that this required. So the Empire dependent on the European powers which coveted its wide territories. However, efforts at reform continued. Leading intellectuals and statesmen such as Mithat Pasha, Ziya Pasha and the poet Namik Kemal became the standard-bearers of the struggle for freedom. The reformers known in Europe as Young Turks deposed the Sultan Abdulaziz in favour of Murat V. However, three months later he too was deposed to be succeeded by Abdulhamit II who promised to introduce a Constitution. The Constitution was in fact proclaimed on 23 December 1876 and Mithat Pasha was made the Grand Vizier, but the Sultan then used the defeat suffered at the hands of the Russians as a pretext for proroguing Parliament. Between 1876 and 1908 the Empire was ruled arbitrarily by Abdulhamit II as an absolute ruler. Decline continued, and provinces such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tunisia and Cyprus were lost. The Constitution was once again put into operation in 1908, but the Party of Union and Progress which acquired power, helped only to hasten the decline. After the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) the Ottoman frontier fell back from the Adriatic to the Meric (Maritza) river. From the ashes of the Ottoman Empire a new Republic was established on 29 October 1923: the Republic of Turkiye.