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The Ottoman Empire Part 6
Historians who are Ottoman specialists like to argue about which was
the most important single variable explaining the rise of this extraordinary
empire. The question is a fair one since the founder of the dynasty after
whom it was named, Osman, was just one of many leaders and not the
most powerful, among the various and sundry Turcoman groups on the
frontier. Looking down on this world in the year 1300, it would have
been impossible to predict that his would be among the most successful
states in history.
At the time, Osman was in charge of some 40,000 tents
of Turcoman nomads. Some of his Turkish-speaking rivals in other parts
of the frontier were vastly more successful and commanded 70,000 and
100,000 tents (with two to five persons per tent). There were scores
of other Turcoman principalities. All were part of a larger process in
which Turcoman nomads of the Anatolian highlands pressed upon and
finally occupied the valleys and the coastal plains.
Alone among these, the dynasty of Osman triumphed while the others soon disappeared.
18 The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 Osman and his followers, along with the other Turcoman leaders and
groups, surely benefited from the confusion throughout Anatolia, especially in the borderland (as later Ottoman rulers would profit from political disintegration in the Balkans). Turkish nomadic incursions, commonly spontaneous and undirected, toppled local administrations and
threw the prevailing political and economic order of Anatolia into confusion.
The Mongol thrusts accelerated these movements which, altogether, seem to have built up considerable population pressures in the
frontier zones. Warrior bands like Osman’s flourished both because they
could prey on settled populations and because their strength offered adherents a safety that governments seemed unable to provide. Such warrior encampments became an important form of political organization in
thirteenth-century Anatolia.
Ottoman success in forming a state certainly was due to an exceptional
flexibility, a readiness and ability to pragmatically adapt to changing conditions. The emerging Ottoman dynasty, that traced descent through the
male line, was Turkish in origins, emerging in a highly heterogeneous
zone populated by Christians and Muslims, Turkish and Greek speakers.
Muslims and Christians alike from Anatolia and beyond flocked to the
Ottoman standard for the economic benefits to be won.
The Ottoman rulers also attracted some followers because of their self-appointed role as
gazis, warriors for the faith fighting against the Christians. But the power
of this appeal to religion must be questioned since, at the very same moment, the Ottomans were recruiting large numbers of Greek Christian
military commanders and rank-and-file soldiery into their growing military force. Thus, many Christians as well as Muslims followed the
Ottomans not for God but for gold and glory – for the riches to be gained,
the positions and power to be won.
Another argument against identifying the Ottoman state primarily as a
religious one rests in the reality that Ottoman energies focused not only on
fighting neighboring Byzantine feudal lords but also, from earliest times,
other Turcoman leaders. Indeed, the Ottomans regularly warred against
Turcoman principalities in Anatolia during the fourteenth through the
sixteenth centuries.
Despite their severity and frequency, the Ottoman
wars with Turcomans often have been overlooked because historians’ attention has been on the Ottoman attacks on Europe and on inappropriately casting the Ottomans’ role primarily as warriors for the faith (gazi)
rather than as state builders. Rival Turcoman dynasties – such as the
Karaman and the Germiyan in Anatolia or the Timurids in central Asia –
were formidable enemies and grave threats to the Ottoman state.
From the beginning, Ottoman expansion was multi-directional – aimed not
only west and northwest against Christian Byzantine and Balkan lands
From its origins to 1683 19
and rulers but always east and south as well, against rival Muslim
Turcoman political systems.
Thus, what seems crucial about the
Ottomans was not their gazi or religious nature, although they sometimes
had this appeal. Rather, what seems most striking about the Ottoman
enterprise was its character as a state in the process of formation, of becoming, and of doing what was necessary to attract and retain followers.
To put it more explicitly, this Ottoman enterprise was not a religious state
in the making but rather a pragmatic, dynastic one. In this respect, it was
no different from other contemporary states, such as those in England,
Hungary, France, or China.
Geography played an important role in the rise of the Ottomans. Other
leaders on the frontiers perhaps were similar to the Ottomans in their
adaptiveness to conditions, in their willingness to utilize talent, to accept
allegiance from many sources, and to make multi-sided appeals for support. At this distance in time it is difficult to judge how exceptional the
Ottomans may have been in this regard. But when considering the reasons for Ottoman success we can point with more certainty to an event that occurred in 1354 – the Ottoman occupation of a town (Tzympe),
on the European side of the Dardanelles, one of the three waterways
that divide Europe and Asia (the others being the Bosphorus and the
Sea of Marmara). Possession of the town gave the Ottomans a secure
bridgehead in the Balkans, a territorial launching pad that instantly propelled the Ottomans ahead of their frontier rivals in Anatolia.
With this possession, the Ottomans offered potential supporters vast new fields of
enrichment – the Balkan lands – that simply were unavailable to the followers of other dynasts or chieftains on the other, Asiatic, side of the narrow waters. These lands were rich and at that time were empty of
Turcomans. Appeals to action also could be made in the name of ideology – of war for the faith.
