History of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was 'founded c. 1299' by Turkoman chieftain Osman I as a small beylik in northwestern Anatolia just south of the Byzantine capital Constantinople. In 1326, the Ottoman Turks captured nearby Bursa, cutting off Asia Minor from Byzantine control and making Bursa their capital. The Ottoman Turks first crossed into Europe in 1352, establishing a permanent settlement at Çimpe Castle on the Dardanelles in 1354 and moving their capital to Edirne (Adrianople) in 1369. At the same time, the numerous small Turkic states in Asia Minor were assimilated into the budding Ottoman Sultanate through conquest or declarations of allegiance.

As Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople (today named Istanbul) in 1453, transforming it into the new Ottoman capital, the state grew into a substantial empire, expanding deep into Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. With most of the Balkans under Ottoman rule by the mid-16th century, Ottoman territory increased significantly under Sultan Selim I, who assumed the Caliphate in 1517 as the Ottomans turned east and conquered western Arabia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant, among other territories. Within the next few decades, much of the North African coast (except Morocco) became part of the Ottoman realm.

The empire reached its apex under Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century, when it stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to Algeria in the west, and from Yemen in the south to Hungary and parts of Ukraine in the north. According to the Ottoman decline thesis, Suleiman's reign was the zenith of the Ottoman classical period, during which Ottoman culture, arts, and political influence flourished. The empire reached its maximum territorial extent in 1683, on the eve of the Battle of Vienna.

From 1699 onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to lose territory over the course of the next two centuries due to internal stagnation, costly defensive wars, European colonialism, and nationalist revolts among its multiethnic subjects. In any case, the need to modernise was evident to the empire's leaders by the early 19th century, and numerous administrative reforms were implemented in an attempt to forestall the decline of the empire, with varying degrees of success. The gradual weakening of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to the Eastern Question in the mid-19th century.

The empire came to an end in the aftermath of its defeat in World War I, when its remaining territory was partitioned by the Allies. The sultanate was officially abolished by the Government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 1 November 1922 following the Turkish War of Independence. Throughout its more than 600 years of existence, the Ottoman Empire has left a profound legacy in the Middle East and Southeast Europe, as can be seen in the customs, culture, and cuisine of the various countries that were once included part of its realm.

With the end of the First World War and the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, questions arose in a geopolitical and historical context about the reasons for the emergence and decline of the Ottomans, the reasons for the emergence and decline of their empire and how both events were defined. On the eve of World War II, the geographical position and the geopolitical weight of Turkey, the major historical heir to the Ottoman Empire, gave weight to the issues as propaganda. The first item on the agenda of the Tehran conference was the issue of Turkey's participation in World War II by the end of 1943.

Ottoman Empire

With the demise of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum during 12th to 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent states, the so-called Anatolian Beyliks. For the next few decades, these Beyliks were under the sovereignty of Mongolians and their Iranian Kingdom Ilkhanids. By 1300, a weakened Byzantine Empire had lost most of its Anatolian provinces to these Turkish principalities. One of the beyliks was led by Osman I (d. 1323/4), from which the name Ottoman is derived, son of Ertuğrul, around Eskişehir in western Anatolia. In the foundation myth expressed in the story known as "Osman's Dream", the young Osman was inspired to conquest by a prescient vision of empire (according to his dream, the empire is a big tree whose roots spread through three continents and whose branches cover the sky). According to his dream the tree, which was Osman's Empire, issued four rivers from its roots, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile and the Danube. Additionally, the tree shaded four mountain ranges, the Caucasus, the Taurus, the Atlas and the Balkan ranges. During his reign as Sultan, Osman I extended the frontiers of Turkish settlement toward the edge of the Byzantine Empire.