When you think of the Ottoman Empire today, the first thing that comes to mind is its downfall. One thinks of the "sick man on the Bosphorus" of the 19th century, of the lost First World War and finally of Atatürk's assumption of power and thus the end of the empire. And before? You can find an answer to that fairly quickly. Before that, the Ottoman Empire was an Asian-European superpower and a threat to Christian Europe. That's a fact that certain right-wing parties in Vienna still preach today. But where this empire came from, which threatened the proud city of Vienna twice in the 16th and 17th centuries, is less well known.
The emergence of the Ottoman Empire
When the Ottomans first appeared on the scene of history, they did so in the sources of the state that continued to dominate the Anatolian Peninsula almost continuously throughout the Middle Ages:the Byzantine Empire. This is what happened in the first years of the fourteenth century. And what was the reason that Byzantine scribes found it necessary to mention the Ottomans in their documents? Very easily. This tribe had defeated them in 1302 in a first major battle. Not too good a prospect for the proud Eastern Roman Empire...
However, the Ottomans were not an isolated case at the time. The 14th century was generally characterized by a power vacuum in the region. The traditional great power, namely the Byzantine Empire, had been badly hit since 1204 at the latest. Then their capital, Constantinople, was plundered by the Venetians and an army of crusaders they had transported. Venice was unhappy with the payment for this crusade, which was supposed to go to Egypt. The prosperous city on the Bosphorus was simply the right choice. Only a few decades later, the Mongols also moved across the Anatolian Peninsula. In doing so, they destroyed the other regional power, that of the Rum Seljuks. However, after the Mongols no longer exercised direct control over the peninsula after a short time, the numerous nomadic and semi-nomadic Turkic tribes in the region had some leeway.
So also for the Ottomans. But they were still just one tribe among many. In the 13th century, state structures very similar to those of the Ottomans arose everywhere in Anatolia. These entities were called Beyliks and they were small to medium-sized principalities mostly under the control of Turkic warlords. And as was common in medieval Europe, these principalities were in constant conflict with each other and with everyone else around them. The Ottoman Beylik, named after its first ruler Osman, was really just one of many since its official foundation in 1299. Still, it would soon outperform the other principalities.
From founding to Ottoman Empire
Even their original settlement area almost inevitably put the Ottomans on a collision course with the rulers of Byzantium. They settled (if one can use the word given their at least semi-nomadic way of life at the time) very close to the imperial capital of Constantinople. The Ottomans were not even a day's journey south-east of the city. But they also continued to move purposefully towards the north-west, ever closer to the Byzantines. Why the young Beylik under Osman's rule moved towards Constantinople of all places is a matter of debate in research. Ideological reasons were mentioned again and again (aka they really wanted to hit the bad Christians on the head). It is more likely that they were simply looking for good grazing land.
In 1326, Bursa was the first major city to fall to the nascent Ottoman Empire. Only twenty-five years later, under the Sultans' successors Orhan and Murad, the Ottomans also crossed the Bosporus and thus established themselves on the European continent. By the end of the empire, possessions in the Balkan Peninsula would be considered the Ottoman heartlands, making their slow loss in the 19th century all the more painful. Towards the end of the 14th century, the Christian kingdoms in the northern Balkans were also attacked. First Bulgaria was defeated militarily, then Serbia and Bosnia in the famous Battle of the Field of Blackbirds, although the battle itself can be considered a draw. After all, Sultan Murad died in the process. The draw, however, was almost followed by a complete defeat. Under Murad's successor Bayezid, the entire empire would have been almost completely lost again. The history of the Ottoman Empire could already be over here.
Timur, an extremely unpleasant neighbor
On the other side of the empire, a new danger had been brewing for some time. One of the last great Mongol rulers, a man named Timur, drew a lot of attention to himself. That's why the current podcast episode is about him. In just three decades, this Timur accomplished something truly incredible. Coming from the back nest of Central Asia, a region called Transoxania in present-day Uzbekistan, he soon ruled the entire Middle East to the Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and even as far south as Delhi. Finally, in the early 15th century, he envisioned a certain Ottoman Empire to the west.
In 1402 the decisive battle between the two powers took place near Ankara. Depending on tradition, Timur's troops were five to seven times superior to those of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. Numerically at least. The fact that there were also numerous warriors of Mongolian origin fighting in the Ottoman ranks, who quickly switched sides soon after the fight began, certainly didn't help either. The battle ended somewhat as expected. The Ottomans suffered a brutal defeat and Sultan Bayezid was even arrested by Timur's troops! He died in prison a few months later.
If Timur had aimed at this point, he could probably have finished off the still young Ottoman state. There were even talks with European powers, who would certainly have been happy to help. Instead, however, Timur appointed Bayezid's three sons as administrators and withdrew to the east. He died just three years later, according to legend as a result of a multi-day binge. After his death, the three sons of Bayezid first turned to each other (not in a loving sense) until after ten years a new sultan emerged from the fighting in Mehmed. Another forty years later, the Ottoman Empire had once again become a veritable great power. In 1453 Constantinople fell.
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