On the 29th of October 2023

the Republic
Of Turkey will have
celebrated 100 years
Since its founding in the wake
of the
Dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire
1923 marked the end of over
600 years of
Ottoman Imperial rule which
had the
Pinnacle of its power in the
mid-16th
Century dominated lands
across much of
The Middle East North Africa
and Eastern
 Europe
Rising from relative obscurity
as a
Minor Regional power in
Northwestern
Anatolia the ottoman Dynasty
would Usher
In a period of remarkable
territorial
Expansion coupled with rapid
Advancements in
governmental social and
Economic systems that
allowed for one of
The most diverse and
prosperous empires
In the world to flourish but
what became
 Of this once Mighty and
Powerful State
And how that it shaped the
modern
Turkish nation of today
This is the history of the
Ottoman
Empire
How the Ottoman Empire
came to be
Established could not be fully
Understood without first
providing some
Context on the migration of
the turkic
Peoples out of Eastern Asia
since
Ancient times the Turks who
 were
Themselves originally and
Asiatic people
Had gradually migrated from
Northeastern
Asia and headed westwards
across the
Vast Eurasian step by the 7th
Century
They were in the region
around the altai
Mountains near the borders of
what is
Now Russia Kazakhstan and
Mongolia
From there they continued to
move
Further south and westward
 in the
Centuries that followed
before a number
Of them settled into a semi-
nomadic way
Of life in an area around the
Caspian
And arrow Seas
One of the main turkic tribes
that came
To inhabit this area were the
ogres
However some time in the
late 10th
Century one leader of the
multiple Clans
That made up this tribe A
Man by the
Name of seljuk decided to
break off from
The main tribal group and
established
His own Dynasty over the
subsequent
Decades of the New
Millennium seljuk and
His descendants laid the
foundations of
The seljuk Empire by
expanding into
Persia they were greatly
influenced by
The Persian language and
culture which
They soon adopted for
themselves as well
 As converting to Islam
By the 1060s they'd
Advanced all the way
Up to the borders of the
Byzantine
Empire in Western Anatolia
Sporadic clashes between the
two Powers
Eventually culminated in the
outbreak of
The Byzantine seljuk War
At the Battle of manzacars in
1071 the
Cell drugs inflicted a crushing
defeat
On the Byzantine Army
which effectively
Allowed them to gain control
 of the near
East and push deeper into
what is now
Turkey
Over the next two centuries
the seljuk
Empire gradually declined
and fragmented
Into a patchwork of smaller
turkic
States the Turks themselves
however
Continue to hold a major
presence in
Anatolia notably in the shape
of the
Sultanate of rum
Although this too would
 eventually
Decline and fragment by the
turn of the
14th century resulting in a
number of
Even smaller principalities
known as the
Anatolian balix scattered
across the
Region it was here amongst
the tribes of
Northwestern turkey that a
warlord
Emerged as the founder of
what would
Become the Ottoman Empire
although the
Sources for his life and Reign
 remain
Unreliable and undetailed he
is credited
As the founder of the dynasty
the boy
His namesake Osman
The century or so after
Osmond's Reign
Would be characterized by
the Ottomans
Trying to conquer the last
vestiges of
The Byzantine Empire which
had once
Ruled over most of the
Eastern
Mediterranean
By the 14th century however
 this was now
Reduced to the southern
portion of the
Balkans Mainland Greece the
Greek
Islands as well as a small
amount of
Territory in Turkey their
empire was
Ruled from Constantinople
the most
Formidable ruled City in the
medieval
World and one which had
withstood many
Sieges over the centuries
If the Ottomans were to
expand Beyond
 Northwestern turkey they
would have to
Do so at the expense of the
byzantines
And take their capital city for
Themselves
A major step forward
occurred in 1331
When the city of nicaea fell to
the
Turks
Some years later in 1369
Adrian opal a
City just 200 kilometers from
Constantinople near the
borders of
Greece Bulgaria and turkey
today also
 Fell to the Turks and was
turned into
Their capital for a short time
while
Further conquests in Serbia
and Bulgaria
Followed
A brief period of internal
turmoil
Occurred within the Ottoman
Empire in
The first Decades of the 15th
century
But in 1451 mehmed II was
restored to
The Ottoman sultanate and
determined to
Conquer Constantinople once
 and for all
In early April 1453 he laid
Siege to the
Great city which lasted for
seven weeks
Before the walls were
breached and the
Ottoman Army flooded in
Fittingly the last emperor of
the
Byzantines was Constantine
XI who shared
His name with Constantine
the first the
Original founder of the city
over a
Thousand years earlier and
whose eponym
 He had bestowed upon it
Constantine the
11th fell in the fighting of the
29th of
May 1453 and the city itself
fell to the
Ottomans later that same day
Constantinople then became
the capital
Of the burgeoning Ottoman
Empire
As a statement of the
ottoman's conquest
Of the city the Cathedral of
Haya Sophia
Which had been built by the
emperor
Justinian over 900 years
 earlier was
Re-consecrated as a mosque
with The Four
Minaret Towers at Each
corner of the
Complex being added shortly
afterwards
The conquest of the
Byzantine Empire and
The fall of Constantinople
were just the
Beginning of the rise of the
Ottoman
Empire in a century that
followed the
Turks set out on a course of
expansion
And Conquest across the
 Eastern
Mediterranean Middle East
North Africa
And into the Balkans and
black sea in
The early 1460s mehmed II
quickly
Overran Maria in Greece the
Empire of
Trebizond in Northern turkey
and then
Bosnia in the Balkans
By the time he died in 1481
he had
Expanded into Southern and
Eastern
Turkey conquered Albania
and also sent
An expedition to the Crimean
Peninsula
Which established an ottoman
presence on
The Northern Shores of the
Black Sea in
The mid-1470s
His successor bayazid II was
just as
Formidable a warlord and
during his
30-year Reign he added new
territories
To the Empire in Syria and
the Levant
After defeating the mamluks
of Egypt in
A war for dominance of that
 region
Additionally he also
Consolidated
Ottoman control over the
Aegean Sea
After battling against the
Republic of
Venice who controlled many
of the
Islands and the passing trade
routes
Between 1499 and 1503. His
successor
Selim the first is also
noteworthy
Despite only ruling for eight
years
Between 1512 and 1520 but
 nevertheless
Conquered virtually all of
North Africa
In 1517 his armies defeated
the monroes
At the Battle of rodania and
brought
Egypt and much of Libya
under ottoman
Control while hayrid in
Barbarossa the
Ruler of much of Algeria and
Tunisia
Agreed to become an ottoman
vassal in
1519
Perhaps the most famous
Sultan of the
Ottoman Empire and one who
above all
others undertook its greatest
expansion
to the height of its power was
Suleiman
the Magnificent ruling for
half a
century between 1520 and
1566 his Sultan
ship witnessed the Ottomans
emerge as
one of the foremost Global
Powers as he
completed the conquest of
much of the
Balkans and took his armies
all the way
to the gates of Vienna which
he
unsuccessfully besieged in
1529 he also
secured the island of Rhodes
from the
Christian Knights of Saint
John in 1522
captured the city of Tripoli in
North
Africa in 1551 and expanded
into the
Arabian Peninsula and Iraq
by the time his Reign ended
ottoman rule extended from
Hungary and
the Northern Shores of the
Black Sea
 South towards Egypt and
Oman and from
Algeria in the west to the
shores of the
Caspian Sea in the east
much of the success of the
Ottomans
expansion was owed to the
proficiency of
its military which
Incorporated a
cohesive balance of well-
trained
infantry Cavalry and artillery
that was
unmatched during its heyday
amongst the elite troops were
soldiers
 known as janissaries these
were men who
were captured as child slaves
from
Christian lands in
Southwestern Europe
and forced to convert to Islam
they were
then incorporated into the
ottoman Army
under strict codes of
discipline and
professionalism which made
them an
extremely effective fighting
force
from this position of power in
the early
 16th century the Ottomans
would
consolidate their efforts and
spend the
next two centuries Waging
War against
Christendom in Western and
Central
Europe
this became a multi-pronged
conflict
with much of the initial effort
spent
fighting for dominance of the
Mediterranean against the
preeminent
power in the region Spain
at that time the Spanish
 controlled much
of southern Italy and the
Italian
islands and took it upon
themselves to
check the advance of the
Muslim Ottomans
by Leading coalitions of
Christian
forces against them for
decades armadas
were sent back and forth
between the
Turks and the Spanish
culminating in two
major clashes in 1565 and
1571.
the first of these was the great
 Siege
of Malta during which the
Ottomans tried
to capture the island from the
Knights
of Saint John who had been
granted it by
the Spanish Crown as
compensation for
the loss of the island of rose
to the
Turks decades earlier
The Siege ended in failure for
the
Ottomans and six years later
their
advancement of the
Mediterranean would
 be halted further by another
spanish-led
Christian Alliance which sent
a huge
Armada against them in 1571.
the Battle
of Lepanto which took place
off the
coast of Northwestern Greece
involved
over 400 ships and 130 000
men and ended
with another defeat for the
Ottomans
although this proved to the
christian
powers that the threat from
the Turks
could be contained to some
extent this
setback from the ottoman
perspective
merely shifted their focus to
other
areas of Europe where they
wished to
expand into
ever since their victory over
the
hungarians at the Battle of
mahax in
1526 complete control over
Central
Europe lay tantalizingly
within the
Ottomans grasp were it not
 for the
Austrian capital of Vienna
barring the
way across the river Danube
although they had failed in
their
previous attempts to take the
city in
1529 under the leadership of
grand
vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha a
new Siege
was launched against Vienna
in 1683.
despite fueleding an army of
over 150
000 men the Ottomans could
not take the
 city and when a Christian
holy League
relief Force led by the Polish
King John
III Sobieski arrived on the
12th of
September they were routed
before the
walls in what was the largest
cavalry
charge in history with 18
000 Horsemen charging into
the Turks
incumbent the defeat at
Vienna marked a
turning point for the ottoman
Advance
into Europe after which they
 would gain
no further ground on the
continent
as the late 17th century
progressed into
the early 18th the Ottoman
Empire began
to slowly stagnate and enter
into a
relative period of decline
much of this was owed to the
complacency
of The Sultans of this period
who had
over time gradually taken a
more
backseat approach to the
governorship of
 their empire
to this the ottoman system of
government
which was headquartered in
the top Cappy
Palace in Constantinople had
generally
seen active and engaged
Sultans take a
direct role in the Affairs of
the Empire
especially early on in the 15th
and 16th
centuries
however with each passing
generation the
day-to-day decision making
increasingly
 fell to the grand vizier who
acted as
prime minister and a small
army of
officials and administrators
all the
while The Sultans passed
much of their
time away in their harems and
Gardens
the governance of the Empire
would
largely decentralized in its
approach
insofar as taxes were
collected from the
provinces to maintain a large
army but
 the regions themselves also
had a fair
degree of autonomy under
local rulers
and governors it was also a
tolerant
Empire whilst conversion to
Islam was
beneficial to those looking to
advance
at the social hierarchy it was
by no
means mandatory Christians
and other
religious adherents were
accepted under
the Ottoman Empire and it
even became a
 primary Haven for Europe's
Jews who
faced persecution and
expulsion from
countries like Spain during
this era
cities such as Thessaloniki
became
centers of religious
cosmopolitanism in
the early modern era with a
majority of
54 percent of its population
being
Jewish by as early as 1519.
the Ottoman Empire was also
initially a
very wealthy one with
 extensive trade
networks that flowed from as
far afield
as India and China along the
Silk Road
through to cities like
Constantinople
Alexandria and Egypt as well
as Antioch
and Damascus in the Levant
Over time however as the
center of world
economic activity shifted
from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic
large
ocean-going vessels carrying
trade out
 of the Americas in the Far
East
effectively bypassed the
Ottomans and
reduced Europe's Reliance on
the
Overland trade routes that
passed
through their territory
effectively
making them obsolete
with this economic stagnation
and
Imperial decline the Ottoman
Empire
began to fall behind its
European Rivals
who are themselves
 experiencing a
scientific revolution with
developments
being made on all fronts due
to Rapid
advancements in technology
as the 18th
century progressed the
ottoman position
came to be seen as less of a
threat and
more of a weakness that could
be
exploited with the lands they
had
conquered in centuries past
now looking
ripe for reclamation
 Russia and Austria in
particular began
to take the fights to the Turks
seizing
ottoman controlled lands
along the
Northern Shores of the Black
Sea the
Caucasus and Balkans
meanwhile in North Africa
the local
Governors began to exert
growing levels
of Independence and by the
end of the
18th century Algeria Tunisia
sirenica
and Egypt were practically
 Sovereign in
all but name
as Paul as the situation was
for the
Turks in the 18th century it
was soon
eclipsed by the events of the
19th as
the Ottoman Empire became
known as the
sick man of Europe
as early as 1804 an uprising
occurred in
Serbia which immediately
called the
Ottomans control over the
Balkans into
question
 the steady fracturing of the
Empire
continued in subsequent
decades with the
Greek war of independence
breaking out
in 1821. this led to the
emergence of an
independent Greek state by
1829 which
was supported economically
and
militarily by Great Britain
France and
Russia who were eager to see
the ottoman
presence in the region decline
for their
 own benefit a year later the
nominal
ottoman hold on Algeria was
ended
entirely when France invaded
and began
establishing its own colony
there
throughout the 19th century
but more
notably during the 1850s
Russia looked
to expedite the decline of the
Ottoman
Empire further by advancing
into their
territories around the Black
Sea
 unlike in previous instances
where the
Western Christian Powers
sought to
capitalize on such an
opportunity
enjoying the fighting against
the Turks
Britain and France did not
want the
Ottoman Empire to collapse
in its
entirety
this was in part to preserve
the balance
of power in Europe with no
one nation
controlling too much territory
 or
exerting influence
they subsequently joined the
conflict in
defense of the Ottoman
Empire with the
Crimean War being fought
somewhat
successfully to bring much
needed
respite to the declining power
of the
Turks
nevertheless in the 1860s
1870s and
1880s numerous new
countries emerged out
of the Ottoman provinces in
 the Balkans
as Romania and Serbia
declared
themselves independent and
Bulgaria
became increasingly
autonomous the
Empire of Austria-Hungary
and Russia
once again continued in their
Relentless
attacks at the expense of the
Ottomans
in the Vulcans and the
Caucasus by the
early 1910s when Italy had
seized Libya
from their control and
 Albania had
established itself as an
independent
nation they were growing
talks amongst
the European powers of
dissecting what
remained the Ottoman Empire
and dividing
it up between themselves
this seemingly never-ending
period of
decline led to Growing
concerns amongst
the ottoman Empire's younger
Generations
many of whom identified as
Turkish
 nationalists and called for
political
reforms to mitigate the
Empire's
downturn and hopefully
rejuvenate its
prospects after 200 years of
stagnation
at the Forefront of this
movement were
The Young Turks a group
which wanted to
replace the Century's old
governmental
system of Sultan and
ministers with a
modern constitutional
monarchy alongside
a western style Parliament
and civil
service
in 1908 they launched a
revolution which
successfully managed to
usher in a
period of constitutional
government
however The Young Turks
were a Loosely
formed Alliance of various
political
groups including liberals
academics and
also more conservative
elements
including the military
as a result they were unable to
rule by
consensus or agreement After
the
revolution of 1908 and for
years into
the 1910s the ottoman State
continued to
have tumultuous internal
politics which
only exacerbated the Empire's
collapse
ultimately the end for the
Ottoman
Empire would come from
both within and
without being inextricably
linked to the
 outbreak of the first world
war up until
this point the Turks had
avoided
becoming involved the two
main military
alliances that had developed
amongst the
European great powers in the
late 19th
and early 20th centuries
these are the triple on taunt
powers of
France Russia and Britain and
the Triple
Alliance powers of Germany
Austria-Hungary and Italy
when conflict
 finally broke out in the
summer of 1914
the Turks saw an opportunity
to push
back against the Russian
advancements
made over the past Century
and so
decided to join Germany
alongside
Austria-Hungary and Italy as
part of the
Central Powers
the Ottomans had mixed
fortunes during
the war on the one hand they
scored a
major victory against the
 British and
Anzac forces during the ill-
judged
Gallipoli campaign but in the
Middle
East in the Levant they lost
much of
their territory to the Arab
Revolt of
1916-1918 which was
instigated by the
British Adventurer T.E
Lawrence better
known as Lawrence of Arabia
there was also a much darker
and brutal
aspect to ottoman activities
during the
war as from 1915 onwards the
government
engaged in Acts of genocide
against its
Armenian subjects resulting
in the
deaths of an estimated one
and a half
million people
overall the war was a disaster
for the
Turks as like with Germany
and
Austria-Hungary it simply
could not
maintain the war effort and by
1918 the
Turkish military was in
 collapse across
numerous fronts
with the end of the first world
war in
late 1918 the Victorious allies
in the
shape of Britain France
Greece and Italy
who had changed sides in
1916 occupied
much of turkey and began to
contemplate
its post-war future
the Ottomans last remaining
territorial
possessions in the Levant in
the Middle
East were divided up by
 Britain and
France who occupied them as
Imperial
mandates of their own
Empires
the ottoman state was thus
restricted
largely to what is now turkey
itself but
even the territorial Integrity
of this
was soon threatened by the
claims of
Greece and Italy with the
former looking
to Annex the lands its people
once
occupied as far back as
 Byzantine and
ancient Greek times and the
latter
seeking control of some
islands such as
roads as a form of
compensation for its
role in the war
all of this resulted in a revolt
against
the Allied occupation of
turkey in May
1919. the Turkish war of
independence as
it became known would last
for four
years and would result in the
emergence
 of the modern Turkish State
and the
subsequent Terminus of the
Ottoman
Empire
in the early stages of the war
the
remnants of the Ottoman
government in
Constantinople sided with the
Allies in
an effort to preserve what
little of
their empire remained their
opponents
the Turkish nationalists who
were now
led by the former ottoman
 General
Mustafa came out Ataturk
occupied much
at the center of the country
and
experienced extensive
military losses
with Greek and other Allied
Forces
campaigning far inland
however in the course of 1921
and 1922
the Turkish nationalists
ardently fought
back gradually pushing the
Greeks and
others out of Mainland turkey
and
 effectively secured a
favorable
Armistice in October 1922.
the following year under
attack's
leadership the Grand National
Assembly
in Ankara was recognized as
the
legitimate Turkish
government with the
signing of the Treaty of
lausanne which
ratified the independence of
the modern
Republic of Turkey
the war was officially ended
and the
 capital city was transferred
from
Constantinople to Ankara
with that the
Ottoman Empire which had
dominated much
the Middle East North Africa
and parts
of Eastern Europe for well
over 600
years was formally abolished
and ceased to exist.

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