In the 5th century, the Turks lived between the Tien Shan and Altai mountains at the end of their primitive society, and in the middle of the 6th century, they became a great power in northern Asia. In 1055, a group of Seljuk Turks who were nomads in Central Asia formed the Seljuk state, centered on ancient Persia, which flourished for a time. In 1299, a group of Turkic tribes, the Osmanli, formed an independent state, the Osmanli State. During the reign of Orhan from 1324 to 1360, a truly unified Ottoman state began to form. From its foundation, the Ottoman state continued to expand externally until the 16th century, when it became a huge empire and reached the height of the Ottoman Empire.
The Turkish wars of conquest, which lasted for more than 200 years, can be divided into three stages. The first stage was from 1360 to 1402, when the Ottoman Empire expanded several times in size through the conquests of two emperors. The second stage was from 1451 to 1512, when the Ottomans were in decline due to Timur's invasion. After the civil war and the war against the western Christians, the Ottoman Empire regained its strength. During this period, the Ottoman Empire destroyed Byzantium, occupied the Balkans, and completed the unification of Anatolia. The third stage was from 1512 to 1571, when the Ottoman Empire was at its peak and became a huge empire spanning Asia, Europe, and Africa. However, the empire began to decline from its peak and suffered setbacks in foreign conquests.
In 1360, Murad I took over the throne and immediately started to organize a campaign against the Balkans because the situation in the Balkans at that time was very favorable to him. The Byzantine Empire was waning and ruled no more than Constantinople and a small part of its territory; Serbia, an important Balkan state, was facing a split; Bulgaria had not recovered from its defeat by Serbia in 1330; and Venice and Genoa, which had great economic and political interests in the eastern Mediterranean and the Straits, were constantly in the midst of open and secret struggles.
In 1363, Murad I captured Edirne, followed by Plovdiv in Bulgaria. Terrified, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Wallachia organized a coalition army to fight back, but in 1364 they were defeated by the outnumbered Ottoman army at the Battle of the Macha River. In June 1389, 60,000 Ottoman troops fought a duel with 100,000 allied troops consisting of Serbs, Bosnians, Hungarians, Wallachians, Albanians, Poles, and Czechs in the Kosovo field (near the city of Prishtinë/Priština in southeastern Serbia). At the beginning of the battle, Serbian Duke Lazar led his troops to close in on the Turkish army. During the battle, the Serbian feudal lord Miloš Obilić infiltrated the enemy camp and killed Murad I. His son Bayeset took over the command. The battle was fierce and ended in a crushing defeat for the allies, with many generals captured and killed. The Battle of Kosovo ended the resistance to Turkey south of the Danube and Serbia became an Ottoman vassal.
Murad's reign lasted more than 30 years and increased the size of his country fivefold. He was a brilliant military man who built up a disciplined and vigorous army that was almost invincible in its expansion to the west. At the same time, he was also a statesman who expanded his territories in Asia by marriage and other means. He laid the foundation for further Turkish expansion. After his son, Bayeset I, came to the throne, he turned his expansion efforts to the East and within a few years, he had reached the upper Euphrates. In 1396, the feudal lords and churches of the Western countries became aware of the threat of the "infidels" in the East and began to make a call for unity against the enemy, and in 1396, they formed a huge crusade with 60,000-100,000 horsemen from England, France, Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, in addition to the Hungarian army led by King Sigismund of Hungary, the Wallachian and Bosnian armies. The Crusaders attacked the Ottoman lands in two directions and met at Nikopol in early September to capture the city.
On the 24th, the Turks took up a position 4-5 km south of here and placed their infantry on high ground, covered by wooden fences, with the light cavalry in front of the infantry and the heavy cavalry behind the high ground. The Crusaders were undisciplined and arrogant. The French cavalry attacked the Turkish archers before the whole army was ready for battle. The Turkish archers deliberately retreated and brought the French cavalry into the infantry position, causing them to suffer heavy losses. Later, the Turkish heavy cavalry pinned down the French cavalry on both flanks and crushed them, and then defeated the rest of the army individually, defeating the Crusaders. Nearly 10,000 captured Christians were killed, except for 24 who were redeemed for large sums of money. In 1393, the Ottomans began a continuous siege of Constantinople and forced the Byzantine Empire to agree to build Muslim quarters and mosques in the city, appoint Islamic judges, increase the annual tribute to the Ottomans to 10,000 gold coins, and give the Ottomans garrison rights in the suburbs of Constantinople. At this time the expanding Timurids collided with the Osmanlians in Asia Minor and in 1402 at the Battle of the Wilderness the Osmanli army was defeated and King Bayeset and a son were captured. From then on, the Osmanli power in Asia was dealt a heavy blow and civil war broke out for the throne.
After the accession of Muhammad II (1451), the Ottomans revived. After two years of preparation, he began to besiege Constantinople in 1453. Constantinople was surrounded by the sea on three sides and had a strong wall on one side, which made it difficult to defend, and the wall, the "Greek fire" and the great iron chain at the mouth of the Golden Horn were its three major assets. 54 days of siege failed because the Golden Horn side could not close the siege. On the night of April 21, the Ottomans bribed the Genoese (part of the defending forces) and laid a 15-kilometer-long plank slide along the border of the Galata district under their control, dragging 70 small boats into the Golden Horn by land, finally completing the siege of Constantinople by sea and land. After a fierce battle, the Ottoman army finally captured Constantinople on May 29, and the last Byzantine emperor was killed. Countless treasures were looted, classical culture was destroyed, 60,000 inhabitants were sold into slavery, and the famous Church of St. Sophia was converted into a mosque. This is what became known as Istanbul.
The occupation of Constantinople marked not only the end of the thousand-year rule of the Byzantine Empire but also the rise of a new world empire, the Ottoman Empire. Its prestige among the Muslim states of the East rose sharply, its ability to control internally and expand aggressively abroad multiplied, and it had an increasing say in the development of the international situation in Europe and Asia. In the next 20-30 years, the Ottoman Empire expanded rapidly, with Serbia, Moria, Wallachia, Bosnia, and Albania becoming part of the Empire. In Asia, Sultan also annexed many places, basically completing the unification of Anatolia and bringing the Crimean Khanate into subjection.
In 1512 Selim I came to the throne and began the expansion of the empire at its height. Selim's main rivals were the Safavid dynasty of Iran and the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt, who tried to intervene in Anatolian affairs. The Safavid dynasty was Shia and had tens of thousands of followers in Anatolia, inciting rebellion against the Sunni Osmanli rule. On August 23, the Osmanli army fought a duel with 80,000 Persian cavalries at Chaldiran and defeated the Persian army, taking Tabriz and the region of Kurdistan the following year. The victory of the Battle of Chaldiran enabled the Ottoman Empire to consolidate its eastern border and control the road from Tabriz to Aleppo and Bursa.
In June 1516, Selim attacked Aleppo and ordered his fleet to attack the Syrian coast, and on August 24, the two sides fought a decisive battle in the Dabiq Steppe near Aleppo, defeating the Egyptian army and killing the aged Mamluk Sultan. The Austrian army followed up the victory and occupied Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Gaza one after another. At the end of January 1517, they entered Cairo and the Mameluke Dynasty was extinguished. Syria, Palestine, Hansi, and Egypt up to the southern Nubia area were all incorporated into the Ottoman territory, making it a great empire spanning Europe, Asia, and Africa. The result of the conquest of Egypt greatly strengthened the political and economic position of the Ottoman Empire. As the protector of the two holy places, the Ottoman sultan had supreme prestige among the Muslims, and as the triumvirate of Egypt and the Red Sea, the Ottomans controlled the Red Sea trade route from India to the Mediterranean.
The 8,000 gold coins that Cypress paid to Egypt each year were transferred to the Osmanli. Selim was so concerned about the hegemony in the Mediterranean that he ordered the construction of a new shipyard in the Golden Horn and 150 warships to lay the foundation for his maritime expansion.
Under Suleiman I (1520-1566), the Ottoman Empire reached the height of its foreign expansion. During his 46-year reign, he made 13 personal conquests, all of which were victorious except for the failed siege of Vienna (1529) and Corfu (1526). In Europe, Süleyman's invasion was directed against Hungary, mainly against the Austrian Habsburgs. 1521 saw the capture of Belgrade under Hungarian control, and 1526 saw the destruction of the Hungarian army in Mohachi, the capture of Budapest, and the installation of puppets. In 1529, he conquered Hungary again and was forced to leave in October because of strong resistance.
In 1540, Süleyman conquered Hungary again, sent a governor to administer it directly, and divided it into three. In Asia, Sulayman conquered the Caucasus and Iraq. After many wars, the Ottoman Empire controlled Basra-Baghdad-Aleppo, the second trade route from India to the Mediterranean Sea. The Peace of Amasia signed with the Safavid Dynasty in 1555 confirmed the western parts of Iraq and Georgia and Armenia to the Ottoman Empire.
While Sulayman's expansion on land was successful, he also made great efforts to seize hegemony at sea. In 1522, Suleiman sent 100,000 troops across the sea to conquer Rhodes, and after a nine-month siege, he finally took the island from the cavalry and secured the maritime connection between Istanbul and Egypt. In 1538, a naval duel took place between the Osmanli fleet and the combined fleet of Spain, the Pope, Venice, and Portugal in the sea near Prefosa. In 1551, the Ottoman fleet besieged Malta, captured Tripoli, and attacked Italy, the Spanish coast, and the Spanish-controlled Oran region in North Africa. However, in 1571, the Osmanli fleet was defeated by the United Fleet in the Battle of Le Grandeau. In 1529, he considered digging a canal to communicate directly between the Mediterranean and India. He built a Red Sea fleet in Suez and set out on an expedition to India in 1538, which ended in defeat despite his victories along the way.
One of the main reasons for the rapid rise of the Ottomans from a little-known northern Asia to a great Eurasian-African empire was its powerful army built on a feudal land system. This army consisted of the Cipashi cavalry and the Janicelli regiment, which was well disciplined, well treated, unified, and highly effective in battle. The kings were all outstanding commanders, with great wisdom, good at analyzing strategic situations and seizing opportunities, combining bravery and correct strategic tactics, supplemented by diplomacy and strategic planning, which ensured that the Ottoman Empire's army was invincible and victorious.
One of the consequences of the Ottoman conquest and domination was the accelerated Islamization of many regions, which had a profound impact on the future world pattern.
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