Download PDF | David Nicolle, Angus McBride - Armies Of The Ottoman Turks 1300 - 1774-Osprey Publishing (1983).
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The Gazi State
The birth of the Ottoman state is shrouded in legend, but this reflects some interesting facts about the origins of an Empire which almost brought Christian Europe to its knees. It is said that a young warrior named Osman fell in love with Malkhatun, daughter of the saintly Sheikh Edebali. Being poor, his only hope lay in winning military fame. In so doing Osman cap- tured the Greek lord of Khirmencik castle, Köse Mikhal, and the two men became friends. It was only when Osman told Edebali about a strange dream that he won his beloved's hand.
In this dream Osman saw a moon (symbolising Malk- hatun) rise from the Sheikh's chest and set in Osman's own. Immediately a great tree (an ancient Turkish sacred symbol) sprang from Osman's chest and spread across the sky while from its roots flowed four mighty rivers (Tigris, Euphrates, Nile and Danube). Suddenly a wind made its sword-shaped leaves all point to the city of Istanbul (Con- stantinople). Sheikh Edebali interpreted this as a prophecy of world domination, and promptly married his daughter to the up-and-coming con- queror. Other legends say that Osman's tribe, the Kayi, fled west before the Mongols early in the 13th century; that Süleyman its chief drowned in the Euphrates, and that his son Ertuğrul led part of the Kayi on into Seljuk Anatolia, where they were given the border village of Söğüt. It now seems more likely that this small band of nomads arrived in the 11th century. Osman was probably not Ertuğrul's son, but took control of a free-booting gazi (religious volunteer) army of Turcoman nomads and Muslim peasants which dominated a rugged stretch of no-man's-land on the Byzantine frontier.
This force had close links with Muslim ahi groups (part guilds, part religious brotherhoods) in the local towns, one of which may have been led by Sheikh Edebali. Such an alliance enabled Osman to create a tiny state around the castle of Karacabisar. The area was full of Turkish warriors and religious leaders fleeing from the pagan Mongols in the cast. Help also came from Christian akritoi frontier warriors like Köse Mikhal, who felt betrayed by a Byzantine Empire which no longer gave them military support. Meanwhile the Christian peasantry felt oppressed by an Empire that now relied solely on the support of the land-owning aristocracy. During the last decades of the 13th century, Osman Bey's tiny mountain state took eight frontier castles plus the Turkish town of Eskişehir (Old City), famed in Crusader history as the site of the battle of Dorylacum. In 1299 Osman seized Yenişehir (New City) after working up the Kara Su valley. With this as its first real capital, the Ottoman (Osmanli) state emerged into history poised above the fertile shores of the Sea of Marmara. Osman and his immediate successors ruled from the saddle, as Ottoman territory remained a frontier 'march'. Many towns were still under Byzantine control, while rural villages were dom- inated by Turcoman nomads who migrated to and from the hills according to season. Osman's first successes were self-perpetuating.
Victory over a Byzantine army at Koyunhisar in 1301 spread his fame, and gazis and settlers flocked to Ottoman territory. This became a true gazi state the instrument of God's religion, God's sure sword' - which existed for war, and in which the ruler relied on booty to pay his followers. Ottoman success went beyond this, however, while the other gazi emirates of western Turkey withered away. Perhaps the strength of Byzantine and other resistance toughened the Ottoman army - and administration, while also giving its population time to settle down. Once the other Turkish emirates had reached the coast, the Ottomans faced the only remaining Byzantine land-frontier, except for that around Trabzon, and so attracted most of - those who wanted to be gazis. Yet the Ottomans were also allied to Byzantium on occasion, protect- ing it from other Turkish or Mongol foes.
The culture of this frontier march was as complicated as its politics. Its laws were those of Turkish tribal custom, the yasa, not of the Muslim Koran. Even its religion was often a strange mixture of orthodox Islam, ancient Turkish shamanist belief, and peasant Christianity. Heretical dervishes accompanied carly Ottoman armies on their cam- paigns. Some of these mystics, claiming that Christianity and Islam were the same religion, even had Christian followers. Official Ottoman attitudes to Christians and Jews were similarly sympathetic. Previously per- secuted minorities like the Bogomils of Bosnia turned Muslim in large numbers, while elsewhere in the Balkans, Orthodox Christians often welcomed the Ottomans as liberators from Catholic dom- ination. Certainly the Turks demanded fewer dues than had previous rulers. Their insistence on rigidly dividing people into military and civilian classes also enabled the Christian warrior aristocracy to preserve its status without conversion, though such families usually became Muslim after several gen- erations.
In Anatolia, Greeks like Köse Mikhal and Gazi Evrenos founded powerful Ottoman clans which remained proud of their Byzantine origins. In Rumelia (the Balkans) many of the old feudal pronoia liefs were simply changed into Ottoman timar liefs. Some went to Turkish warriors, others to Christians who now fought for a new master. During their period of expansion the Ottomans retained their gazi outlook, seeing Europe much as the Americans would later see their Western frontier as a land of destiny. The conquest of Istanbul in 1453 set the seal on this process by uniting Muslim Anatolia and Christian Rumelia under the Sultan's protection. But attitudes changed as the Ottomans went on to the defensive in the 17th century, and local Christians were no longer always loyal. The danger became clear in the 18th century when Ottoman defeats were often followed by the mass slaughter of Muslim minorities, firstly in Moldavia (1769-70) and then in Greece (1771).
The massacres which characterised war between Christian and Turk in the 19th century are, of course, well known. Ottoman tactics were at first those of tribal Turcomans: harassing the foe with horse-archery, but only closing when he was completely disorga-nised. Their earliest successes were against isolated Byzantine garrisons, rarely against a field army. Land was acquired either by defeating local Byzantine noblemen, by buying both Muslim and Christian castles, by absorbing existing landholders into Ottoman society, or by marriage alliances. Even in the second half of the 14th century an Ottoman army consisted largely of Turcoman cavalry supported by a few infantry; but by the mid-15th century foes already recognised the Ottomans' superior discipline, their skill at am- bushes in wooded terrain, and the strength of their camps while in enemy territory. To take a fortified town the Ottomans would ravage the countryside and impose a blockade, where necessary by buikk ing small forts. Once in possession, they revived the town's trade and increased its population. Ottomans who served Byzantium as allies soon saw the Empire's weakness in Europe. Other coastal gazis had long raided by sea, so Osman's son Orhan seized an opportunity to occupy the emirate of Karesi and its Dardanelles fleet (1345). The Ottomans could now hold the Geliboli peninsula (1353) with their new standing army. Expansion into Europe was carefully planned and de- monstrated a Morough knowledge of geography. 1 Expeditions were no longer spontaneous.
The western frontier was divided into three uç or -marches under gazi comanders, as it had been in Anatolia. After the capture of Edirne (1361) the eastern march, under the ruler himself, aimed across Thrace towards the Black Sea to isolate Istanbul. The western march advanced along the Aegean, threatening Macedonia, Thessaly and Albania, while the central march faced the Marica, Vardar and Nicava valleys through Bulgaria to menace Serbia and Bosnia. Meanwhile, Ottoman thrusts into Turkish Ana- tolia provided a firmer power-base. Many were undertaken by Christian vassal troops and were very restrained, being little more than political demonstrations. Far more drastic were the pop- ulation moves that the Ottomans copied from Byzantium. Balkan Christians were sent to de- populated Thrace and Anatolia, while Turcoman nomads were settled along strategically sensitive routes. Many new villages were formed around zaviyes (hospices) set up by dervishes who accom- panied the Ottoman army.
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