Episode 325 - The Rise of the Ottomans, Part 1

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 the role of traveling ambassador. John Palliologos 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 Thracin

just 15 years and after crushing a Serb army who 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 belic, 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 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 two we'll 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 15th century, by which time the Ottoman state was already a very successful empire. And they bear the unmistakable stamp of attempts to justify and legitimize 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 skeptical 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 Kia tribe, who lived in Mahan in Iran, moved to Anatolia as part of the Mongol invasions of the 1240s.

The tribal chief, Ertour rule, then performed service for the Seljuk Sultan, who awarded him lands north of Ankara. Then later further pastures to the west had saw it in Bithinia, not far from Dorilayam, the old imperial mustering grounds where the first crusade collided with Kilijazlan.

It seems entirely plausible that the proto-automans 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 step.

The other details were told are questionable, as they provide the Ottomans with a noble Turkish ancestry, along with authorization from the Saldor authorities to dominate Anatolia. For our purposes, though, we know that Ertugrul's son, Osman, was the leading chief amongst the tribes who operated on the Bethanyan 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. Nule arrived tribes in the Mongol train, mixing with those already present. The Seljuk state remained in place but was now a Mongol vessel. Slowly it lost control of the western half of the plateau.

So, the tribes there began to operate independently and form confederations which would later become recognizable as baylix. Even these independent baylix seemed to have owed some kind of obedience to the distant Mongol cons in Iran.

Some kind of order had come down from on high that peace should be maintained, the cons 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 into restore order. It was in this bubbling Petri

dish that the proto-automans began to form their own confederation. Only much later would theemia of this confederation referred to himself as Sultan, and his realm as the devleta, aliae, osmaniae, or the sublime Ottoman state, Ottoman being the anglicization of osmaniae, 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 baylicks which lapped at the shores of Roman Anatolia seemed 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 baylix 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 the 8th was busy as you may recall trying to keep Charles of Arzu away from the Pope, and though he did his best by the time he died in 1282 it was clear that Roman defenses needed reorganizing. Unfortunately, his son and Ronicus II was not as diligent as he could

have been. In fairness to the Vasi-Left, though, to be assaulted by half a dozen bail simultaneously, was no easy matter to contend with. It's no surprise, really, the between 1280 and 1300 Roman defenses 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 defaction. The Ottomans advanced from the area of Dorileum into Bethanyia 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

the baylix, since they faced the regional capital, NICA. When reinforcements came from