Ottoman Empire
Byzantine weakness left a power vacuum which was filled by bands of Turks fleeing from the Mongols. Guerilla units, each led by a warlord, took over parts of the Aegean and Marmara coasts. The Turks who moved into Bithynia, around Bursa, were followers of a man named Ertugrul. His son, Osman, founded (in about 1288) a principality which was to grow into the Osmanli (Ottoman) empire.
The Ottomans took Bursa in 1326. It served them well as their first capital city. But they were vigorous and ambitious, and by 1402 they moved the capital to Adrianople (Edirne) because it was easier to rule their Balkan conquests from there. Constantinople was still in Byzantine hands. The Turkish advance spread rapidly to both east and west, despite some setbacks. By 1452, under Mehmet the Conqueror (Fatih Sultan Mehmet), they were strong enough to think of taking Constantinople, capital of eastern Christendom. They took it in 1453. Mehmet’s reign (1451-1481) began the great era of Ottoman power.
The height of Ottoman glory was under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1520- 1566). Called ‘The Lawgiver’ by the Turks, he beautified Istanbul, rebuilt Jerusalem and expanded Ottoman power to the gates of Vienna (1529). The Ottoman fleet under Barbaros Hayrettin Pasha seemed invincible. But by 1585 the empire had begun its long and celebrated decline. Most of the sultans after Suleyman were incapable of great rule. Luckily for the empire, there were very competent and talented men to serve as Grand Vezirs, ruling the empire in the sultans’ instead.
By 1699, Europeans no longer feared an invasion by the ‘terrible Turk’. The empire was still vast and powerful, but it had lost its momentum and was rapidly dropping behind the west in terms of social, military, scientific and material progress. In the 19th century, several sultans undertook important reforms. Selim III, for instance, revised taxation, commerce, and the military. But the .Janissaries and other conservative elements resisted the new measures strongly and sometimes violently. It was tough to teach an old culture new tricks.
Affected by the new currents of ethnic nationalism, the subject peoples of the empire revolted. They had lived side-by- side with Turks for centuries, ruled over by their heads of communities (Chief Rabbi, Patriarch, etc) who were responsible to the sultan. But decline and misrule made nationalism very appealing. The Greeks gained independence in 1830; the Serbs, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Albanians and Arabs would all seek their independence soon after.
As the empire broke up, the European powers (England, France, Italy, Germany, Russia) hovered in readiness to colonize or annex the pieces. They used religion as a reason for pressure or control, saying that it was their duty to protect the Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox subjects from misrule and anarchy. The Holy Places in Palestine were a favourite target, and each power tried to obtain a foothold here for colonization later.
The Russian Empire took control of Ottoman Rumania in 1853 and then put pressure on the Turks to grant them powers over all Ottoman Orthodox subjects. The Russian Emperor would ‘protect’ all the sultan’s orthodox subjects. The result of this pressure was the Crimean War (1853-56), with Britain and France fighting on the side of the Ottomans against the Russians.