Ottomans

The most enduring of the Muslim ruling houses, with an unbroken history that ran from the 14th Cent until its fall at the end of the First World War.

The origin of the Ottomans are shrouded in legends. The earliest Ottomans came from the region of Bursa, on the edge of the Byzantine Empire. The first Ottoman to style himself Sultan was Orkhan (c.1324-60), whose army reached outwards and, by 1354/5, had occupied the Dardanelles. Later sultans continued their jihad northwards into Europe, advancing all the way to the Danube. A combined Europe army marched out to meet them but, in 1389) met with a resounding defeat at the Battle of Kosova. With the victory in Kosovo the Ottomans were able to establish themselves firmly in Bulgaria and Serbia. They decided next to turn their attention on Constantinople. Their thrust was, however, broken when the Mongol warrior Tamerlane decided to check the Ottoman expansion in the east. The attack on Constantinople was renewed and, with the help of renegade Christians, took the city in 1453. By 1460 the last outpost of the Byzantine Empire in Peloponnese had fallen. In 1517, the year Martin Luther sparked the Reformation with his 95-theses, Cairo was taken. The rest of North Africa followed.

When Suleiman the Magnificent was sultan from 1520-66, he ruled an empire as large and rich as Charles V in Europe. The conquest, however, had not ended. Belgrade was taken in 1521, Rhodes in 1522, Hungary was destroyed at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. They were, however, stopped at Vienna in 1529.

Though the empire continued to expand for a while more, the empire had already reached its zenith of power. They did poorly in renewed fighting in the Balkans. Another attempt to take Vienna failed in 1683 but also provoked the Europeans to launch the War of the Holy League (1684-97) which led to the loss of Buda and Belgrade. They were forced to cede Hungary and Transylvania to Austria in 1699, which Venice and Poland secured other lands from them.

From then onwards, there was only decline. in the early 1800's Russian managed to a large chunk from the Empire. France occupied Algeria in 1830, and much of north Africa soon became independent of her. Egypt, under Muhammad Ali, in fact dared threaten the Ottoman heartland and had to be deterred only with the help of Russian and British forces. By the late 19th Cent the Ottoman Empire had earned the nickname "The Sick Man" of Europe. The Treaty of Paris signed in 1856, which ended the Crimean War (in which she was an active participant), appeared to assign her parity with the European powers, but it also exposed her to their oppressive interference. Borrowings from European banks at exorbitant interest rates would eventually bankrupt her. Desperate attempts at reforms (the Tanzimat) could not save her in time. Her end came when she entered into World War I on the side of Axis. In the wake of defeat, the European powers, and especially between France and Britain, tore her apart along lines that favour their imperialist ambitions, and the boundaries that divide the Middle East today, and the chaos it has created, is the result.

Bibliography:

Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Basic Books, 2005).