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How to explain this remarkable record
of Ottoman success?
Describing victories is much easier than explaining why they happened. The Ottomans certainly profited from the weaknesses and confusion of their enemies. For example, their ability to expand against the Byzantines in part must be credited to the enduring harm done to Byzantium by the terrible events in 1204.
At that time, Venetians and other Crusaders occupied Constantinople and plundered it so ruthlessly that
Byzantium never regained its former strength. Also, consider the bitter rivalries among and warring between the most powerful states in the eastern Mediterranean – Venice, Byzantium, and Genoa. In addition, the
decline of the feudal order, c.
1350–1450, left many states in shambles both militarily and politically. Thus, the collapse of the once-powerful
Serbian and Bulgarian kingdoms at the very moment of Ottoman expansion into the Balkans left the road open to the invaders. Then there is the matter of the eruption of the Black Death in 1348.
Here, historians like to argue that the plague most heavily affected urban populations,
relatively sparing the Ottomans and softening their mainly urban enemies. To counter this point, it must be said that we have no evidence on how horribly the plague struck the populous Ottoman encampments
or the towns and cities (such as Bursa, Iznik, and Izmit) already under
their control.
Moreover, such arguments ignore the repeated and terrible
plague outbreaks that later wracked Ottoman cities and, notably, undermined Mehmet the Conqueror’s efforts to repopulate Ottoman Constantinople. Such emphases on the divisions and weaknesses of enemies
and the impact of the plague underscore good fortune and downplay
Ottoman achievements by attributing success to factors outside of their
control.
It seems more useful to examine Ottoman policies and achievements –
emphasizing what they achieved by their own efforts – rather than the
mere luck they enjoyed because of their enemies’ problems. In this analysis, stress is upon the character of the Ottoman enterprise as a dynastic state, not dissimilar from European or Asian contemporaries such as the
Ming in China or England and France during the time of the Wars of
the Roses.
Like most other dynasties in recorded history, the Ottomans
relied exclusively on male heirs to perpetuate their rule (see chapter 6).
In the formal political structure of the emerging state, women nonetheless sometimes are visible. For example, Nilufer, wife of the second Ottoman ruler, Sultan Orhan (1324–1362), served as governor of a newly
conquered city. Such formal roles for women, however, seem uncommon. More usually, later Ottoman history makes it clear that the wives, mothers, and daughters of the dynasty and other leading families wielded
power, influencing and making policy through informal channels.
