conquest of Constantinople in 1453 until the second half of the sixteenth century, roughly the end of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566). During this period a system of patrimonial rule based on the absolute authority of the sultan reached its apex, and the empire developed the institutional foundations which it would maintain, in modified form, for several centuries.[1] The territory of the Ottoman Empire greatly expanded, and led to what some historians have called the Pax Ottomana. The process of centralization undergone by the empire prior to 1453 was brought to completion in the reign of Mehmed II
.
Territory
The Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the second reign of Mehmed II.The Ottoman Empire upon the death of Suleiman the Magnificent.
The Ottoman Empire of the Classical Age experienced dramatic territorial growth. The period opened with the
Crimean Peninsula, establishing the Crimean Khanate as a vassal state. In 1480 an invasion of Otranto in Italy was launched, but the death of Mehmed II the following year led to an Ottoman withdrawal.[2]
Mamluk Sultanate, conquering first Syria and then Egypt the following year. This marked a dramatic shift in the orientation of the Ottoman Empire, as it now came to rule over the Muslim heartlands of the Middle East, as well as establishing its protection over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This increased the influence of Islamic practices on the government of the empire, and facilitated much greater interaction between the Arabic-speaking world and the Ottoman heartlands in Anatolia and the Balkans. Under Selim's reign the empire's territory expanded from roughly 341,100 sq mi (883,000 km2) to 576,900 sq mi (1,494,000 km2).[4]
Expansion continued during the first half of the reign of Suleiman I (r. 1520–1566), who conquered first Belgrade (1521) and Rhodes, before invading Hungary in 1526, defeating and killing King Louis II in the Battle of Mohács and briefly occupying Buda. Lacking a king, Hungary descended into civil war over the succession, and the Ottomans gave support to John Zápolya as a vassal prince. When their rivals the Habsburgs began to achieve the upper hand, Suleiman directly intervened by again conquering Buda and annexing it to the empire in 1541. Elsewhere, Suleiman led major campaigns against Safavid Iran, conquering Baghdad in 1534 and annexing Iraq. Ottoman rule was further extended with the incorporation of much of North Africa, the conquest of coastal Yemen in 1538, and the subsequent annexation of the interior.
After the annexation of
Temeşvar in 1552. Control over North Africa was increased with the conquest of Tripoli in 1551, while the Ottomans shored up their position in the Red Sea with the annexation of Massawa (1557) and the extension of Ottoman rule over much of coastal Eritrea and Djibouti. By the end of Suleiman's reign the empire's territory had expanded to approximately 5,000,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi).[5]
Political history
1451–1481: Mehmed II
The
Anatolian Beyliks was first accomplished by Sultan Bayezid I, more than fifty years earlier than Mehmed II, but after the destructive Battle of Ankara back in 1402, the newly formed Anatolian unification was gone. Mehmed II recovered the Ottoman power on other Turkish states. These conquests allowed him to push further into Europe
.
Another important political entity which shaped the Eastern policy of Mehmed II was the
White Sheep Turcomans. With the leadership of Uzun Hasan, this Turcoman kingdom gained power in the East but because of their strong relations with the Christian powers like Empire of Trebizond and the Republic of Venice and the alliance between Turcomans and Karamanid tribe, Mehmed saw them as a threat to his own power. He led a successful campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 which resulted with the decisive victory of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Otlukbeli
.
After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the
Despotate of Morea in the Peloponnese in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last two vestiges of Byzantine
rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country.
Miniature of Mehmed IISword of Mehmed IISiege of Belgrade (in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) 1456. Hünername 1584
Mehmed II advanced toward
occupied nearly all of Serbia
.
In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute paid annually by the
boyars who had been persecuted by Vlad III. Radu eventually managed to take control of Wallachia, which he administered as Bey, on behalf of Mehmet II. Vlad eventually escaped to Hungary, where he was imprisoned on a false accusation of treason against his overlord
Albanian Principalities in a military and diplomatic alliance, the League of Lezhë, in 1444. Mehmed II was never successful in his efforts to subjugate Albania while Skanderbeg was alive, even though he twice (1466 and 1467) led the Ottoman armies himself against Krujë. During this period Albanians achieved many victories against the Ottomans like the Battle of Torvioll, Battle of Otonetë, Battle of Oranik, Siege of Krujë 1450, Battle of Polog, Battle of Ohrid, Battle of Mokra 1445, and many others, culminating at the Battle of Albulena where the Albanian army destroyed the Ottoman army, inflicting nearly 30,000 casualties on the Ottomans. After Skanderbeg died in 1468, the Albanians couldn't find a leader to replace him, and Mehmed II eventually conquered Krujë and Albania in 1478. The final act of Mehmed II's Albanian campaigns was the troublesome Siege of Shkodra
in 1478–79, a siege he led personally against the combined Venetian and Albanian force.
Mehmed II invaded
Ottoman invasion of Otranto in 1480, but Otranto was retaken by Papal forces in 1481 after the death of Mehmed. After his death, he was succeeded by his son, Bayezid II
Later that year, Bayezid's son Ahmet forced his father into making him regent. His brother Selim was forced to flee to Crimea. When Ahmet was about to be crowned, the Janissaries intervened, killed the prince and forced Bayezid into calling Selim back and making him the sultan. Bayezid abdicated, and he died immediately after leaving the throne.
Royal Hungary" (present-day Slovakia, North-Western Hungary and western Croatia
), a territory which temporarily fixed the border between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans.
The
Persia and modern-day Iraq. Suleiman waged three campaigns against the Safavids. In the first, the historically important city of Baghdad fell to Suleiman's forces in 1534. The second campaign, 1548–1549, resulted in temporary Ottoman gains in Tabriz and Azerbaijan, a lasting presence in Van Province, and some forts in Georgia. The third campaign (1554–55) was a response to costly Safavid raids into the provinces of Van and Erzurum in eastern Anatolia in 1550–52. Ottoman forces captured Yerevan, Karabakh and Nakhjuwan and destroyed palaces, villas and gardens. Although Sulieman threatened Ardabil, the military situation was essentially a stalemate by the end of the 1554 campaign season.[12] Tahmasp sent an ambassador to Suleiman's winter quarters in Erzurum in September 1554 to sue for peace.[13] Influenced at least in part by the Ottoman Empire's military position with respect to Hungary, Sulieman agreed to temporary terms.[14] The formal Peace of Amasya signed the following June was the first formal diplomatic recognition of the Safavid Empire by the Ottomans.[15] Under the Peace, the Ottomans agreed to restore Yerevan, Karabakh and Nakhjuwan to the Safavids and in turn would retain Iraq and eastern Anatolia. Suleiman agreed to permit Safavid Shi’a pilgrims to make pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina as well as tombs of imams in Iraq and Arabia on condition that the shah abolished the taburru, the cursing of the first three Rashidun caliphs.[16]
The Peace ended hostilities between the two empires for 20 years.
Huge territories of North Africa up to west of Algeria were annexed. The
of North Africa remained part of the wars against Spain, and the Ottoman expansion was associated with naval dominance for a short period in the Mediterranean.
First Siege of Vienna in 1529
Ottoman navies also controlled the
Spanish navy
.
In 1535 the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (Charles I of Spain) won an important victory against the Ottomans at Tunis, but in 1536 King Francis I of France allied himself with Suleiman against Charles. In 1538, the fleet of Charles V was defeated at the Battle of Preveza by Khair ad Din, securing the eastern Mediterranean for the Turks for 33 years. Francis I asked for help from Suleiman, then sent a fleet headed by Khair ad Din who was victorious over the Spaniards, and managed to retake Naples from them. Suleiman bestowed on him the title of beylerbey. One result of the alliance was the fierce sea duel between Dragut and Andrea Doria, which left the northern Mediterranean and the southern Mediterranean in Ottoman's hands.
^Alan Mikhail, God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World (2020) excerpt
^Max Scherberger, “The Confrontation between Sunni and Shi’i Empires: Ottoman-Safavid Relations between the Fourteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries” in The Sunna and Shi'a in History: Division and Ecumenism in the Muslim Middle East ed. by Ofra Bengio & Meir Litvak (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) (“Scherberger”), pp. 59-60.
^Mikheil Svanidze, “The Amasya Peace Treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Iran (June 1, 1555) and Georgia,” Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 191-97 (2009) (“Svanidze”), p. 192.
.svg)
Mehmed II
Bayezid II
Selim I
Suleiman I
