Ottoman Empire

Muslim empire of the Turks from 1300 to 1920, the successor of the Seljuk Empire. It was founded by Osman I and reached its height with Suleiman in the 16th century. From 1453 its capital city was Istamboul (Istanbul; formerly Constantinople).

At its greatest extent the Ottoman Empire's boundaries were: in Europe as far north as Hungary and part of southern Russia; Iran; the Palestinian coastline; Egypt; and North Africa. From the 1600s the empire was in decline. There was an attempted revival and reform under the Young Turk party in 1908, but the regime crumbled when Turkey sided with Germany in World War I. The sultanate was abolished by Kemal Atatürk in 1922; the last sultan was Muhammad VI.

Origins of the Ottoman Turks
The Turkic peoples originated in central Asia, where their descendants still live in the former Soviet republics of that region, especially Turkmenistan. They were converted to Islam in the AD 600s. In 1055 Togrul Beg, leader of a group known as the Seljuk Turks, captured Baghdad and established a Turkish imperial power in Asia. His successors took Cairo, Jerusalem, Asia Minor (Anatolia, modern Turkey), and the greater part of Syria.

In the late 1200s the Seljuk Turks were ousted by a rival group, led by Osman I, who died in 1326. This group became known as the Ottoman Turks, named after Osman. They settled in the northwestern corner of Anatolia, and began to conquer neighbouring territories. Their power base was the city of Bursa, which they captured from the Greek rulers of the Byzantine Empire in 1326. In 1345 they moved into Europe when the Byzantine emperor John Cantacuzenus recruited the help of their fierce warriors, the Janissaries, in his civil war against rival John V.

Ottoman conquests in the Balkans
From Thrace in Greece the Ottoman Turks spread rapidly northwards into the Balkans. By 1371 they controlled the region now occupied by Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, and claimed overlordship over the Byzantine Empire itself (this empire had shrunk to an area around Constantinople and peninsular Greece). Adrianople (now Edirne in European Turkey) submitted to Sultan Murad I (reigning 1359–89) in 1361. Murad's son, Bajazet (Bayazid) I (reigning 1389–1403), gained a great victory in 1396 at Nicopolis (in Bulgaria) over the allied armies of Germany, Hungary, and France. The victory alarmed Western Europe and Constantinople seemed doomed.

A series of victories by the Mongol ruler Tamerlane in Anatolia forced Bayazid to hurry south to save his Asiatic dominions. In 1402 he was defeated and captured at the Battle of Angora (modern Ankara). Civil war raged among his three sons, but when it ended the Ottomans gradually recaptured Anatolia. In 1421 they made another, unsuccessful attempt to take Constantinople. Sultan Muhammad II finally stormed Constantinople in 1453. Soon the Ottoman Turks had conquered the rest of Greece.

Ottoman power in the 16th century
By 1481 the Ottomans ruled almost all of Anatolia, most of Serbia, and the whole of Bosnia and Macedonia. Muhammad II even sent armies into Italy. Selim I (ruling 1512–1520) took control of the islands around Greece, and conquered the whole of Syria in 1515. He forced the Abbasid Caliph of Cairo to surrender, and finally took Egypt into the empire after defeating the Mamelukes in 1516.

From 1501 the Ottomans faced a direct challenge to their Islamic and imperial power from the Safavids in Persia (Iran). The Safavids were Shiite Muslims while the Ottomans were Sunni Muslims. However, Selim I launched a war against the Safavids in 1514, and gained a major victory at Caldiran on the eastern border of the Ottoman Empire. By 1534 the Ottomans had entered the Safavid capital city of Tabriz. They conquered further Safavid lands, expanding their territory to take control of Palestine and Egypt. These victories also gave the Ottomans control of the two most sacred Islamic cities, Mecca and Medina.

The Ottoman Empire achieved its greatest power and wealth during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (ruling 1520–66). This warrior‐king captured Belgrade in 1521 and in the following year expelled the Knights of St John from Rhodes. In 1526 he inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Hungarians. In 1529 he laid siege to the capital of the Habsburg Empire, Vienna, for almost a month, inflicting humiliation on Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. Forced to break the siege because of strong resistance, Suleiman marched with a huge army against Germany, but retired when the imperial army advanced to meet him. The capture of Tunis by the German emperor Charles V in 1535 was a serious check to Ottoman influence in North Africa.

After the death of Suleiman in 1566, the Ottomons took only two important new territories: Cyprus in 1571 and Crete in 1669. The gradual but steady decline of Ottoman power and control began with their unsuccessful siege of Malta in 1565. Although the Knights of St John, who had moved there when the Turks drove them out of Rhodes, were heavily outnumbered, they beat off the Ottoman forces with heavy losses. A more serious disaster was the complete destruction of the Turkish fleet in 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto by a European Christian fleet of allied nations commanded by Don John of Austria; the Ottomans lost 210 of their 230 war galleys. Although the Ottoman fleet was quickly rebuilt, this victory ended Ottoman encroachments in the Mediterranean Sea.

Ottoman decline in the 17th century
Although the empire remained large and wealthy, the 17th century saw fewer military successes and a general decline in the empire's power. A period of strength between 1623 and 1640, during the reign of Murad IV, saw the Ottomans extend the empire further eastwards by taking Baghdad from the Safavids. However, in the 16 years following Murad's death, a succession of weak young sultans threw the empire into constant crisis. The situation was only resolved when Koprulu Mohammed Pasha was appointed as grand vizier (first minister) in 1656. He and his successor, Koprulu Fazi Ahmed Pasha (his son), reformed the Ottoman government and removed corrupt and incompetent officials from office. By the time of Koprulu Fazil Ahmed's death in 1676 the Ottoman Empire was restored to something of its old strength. Further lands were conquered, this time Crete and Ukraine. Most of the Turkish wars continued to be waged with Hungary and Venice, and in 1683 the Turks were once more at the gates of Vienna. This time the city was rescued by John III (John Sobieski), king of Poland, and Duke Charles of Lorraine, a French soldier and politician.

The resurgence of Ottoman power under the two Koprulus proved short‐lived, as by 1699 the Ottomans had been defeated by the Poles and the Austrians. Heavily defeated in Ukraine and at the Battle of Senta in 1697, the Ottomans fell into rapid retreat from their extended borders. The Peace of Karlowitz in 1699, confirmed the Venetian conquest of the Peloponnesus and secured Hungary for the Austrians. The Emperor Leopold I ceded Herzegovina to Turkey.

18th‐century wars
A second struggle between Austria and the Ottoman Empire was ended by the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718. Turkey had won back the Peloponnesus by 1716, and Belgrade was recovered in 1739.

A long series of Russo‐Turkish wars began in the late 17th century. By the Peace of Kuchuk‐Kaynarji in 1774, Turkey relinquished its control over the Tatars who lived in the Crimea, and Russia secured ports on the Black Sea. By the Treaty of Jassy in 1792, the northern boundary of the Ottoman Empire was pushed back to the River Dniester.

The ‘Sick Man of Europe’
In 1812 the northern boundary of the Ottoman Empire was pushed southwards as far as the River Prut. In 1821–30 the Greeks fought a successful war of independence from the Ottoman Empire. By the 1840s the Ottoman Empire, although it still held substantial territory in Europe, had become so feeble that it was nicknamed the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. In the Crimean War of 1853–56, Britain and France supported Turkey against the Russians.

The end of the empire
In 1912 and 1913 the Ottoman Empire was involved in two conflicts known as the Balkan Wars; it lost territory in the first, but regained some of it in the second. However, when World War I broke out in 1914, the Turks sided with the Germans, losing all their European territory except the small area around Istanbul which they still have.