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CHAPTER 4

THE EMERGENCE OF THE OTTOMANS

In the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century, as the Seljuk state fell apart, a number of principalities (beyliks) of a new kind came into being in the western marches of Anatolia. They were in territory con- quered as a result of holy wars (sing., gha%a) waged against Byzantium, and hence are known as gha\i states. The Ottoman principality was one of these. It was destined within a century to unite Anatolia and the Balkans under its sovereignty, and to develop into an Islamic empire. Let us now examine as a whole the formation of these gbifcy principalities. The emergence of the Ottoman state can be understood only in the context of the general history of the marches.

THE EMERGENCE OF TURCOMAN BORDER PRINCIPALITIES IN WESTERN ANATOLIA

When the state of the Anatolian Seljuks developed into a fully formed Islamic sultanate, three areas came to be designated as marches par excellence, and attracted settlements of Muslim ghauts. In the south, facing Cilicia (Chukurova) the ' realm of the Lord of the Coasts' was centred round'Ala'iyya and Antalya and directed against Lesser Armenia and the kingdom of Cyprus. In the north, on the borders of the Byzantine empire of Trebizond and along the shores of the Black Sea, the Muslim marches consisted of two parts, the eastern, centred round Simere, Samsun and Bafra, and the western centred round Kastamonu and Sinop. Finally, the western marches, whose principal cities were Kasta- monu, Karahisar-i Devle (Afyonkarahisar), Kiitahya and Denizli lay along the Byzantine frontier from the area of Kastamonu to the gulf of Makri in the south.

It appears that in each of these three areas of the marches the Seljuk state was represented by a governor-general known as commander {emir) of the marches. These powerful emirs who represented the central authority, generally kept their positions in their families as a hereditary dignity. The post of commander of the western marches on the Byzan- tine frontier came to be the most important of all. This position was given in 659/1261 to Nusrat al-Din Hasan and Taj al-DIn Husayn, the sons of the powerful Seljuk veyir Fakhr al-DIn 'Ali. We know that this

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emirate took in the whole area between Kiitahya, Beyshehir and Akshehir. Its capital was the impregnable fortress of Karahisar. The area of the marches formed the basis of the power of Fakhr al-Din 'All. The main strength of the marches lay in the Turcoman tribes, governed by their own hereditary leaders, or beys. It should be noted, however, that these tribes were loose social units which could dissolve and reform around leading ghauts in the marches. They were then usually named after their new leaders, e.g. Aydmli, Sarukhanh and 'Osmanli, i.e. Ottoman. These beys of the marches were linked to the emir of the marches largely by bonds of personal loyalty. They exercised inde- pendent authority over their own groups. The marches were a frontier area where nomads driven there forcibly by the Seljuk state, as well as refugees from Mongol conquests and oppression, came together in search of a new life. This mountain region which lay between the plateau of central Anatolia and the coastal plains provided abundant summer pastures, and a large proportion of its population was made up of semi-nomadic Turcomans. At the same time highly developed urban forms of Seljuk civili2ation had also taken root in such border towns as Denizli, Kiitahya, Karahisar, Eskishehir and Kastamonu. These urban centres were destined to influence profoundly the future development of the border principalities. Seljuk chroniclers, who stood for the interests of the Mongol-Seljuk central authority, tended to describe the popu- lation of the marches as robber rebels ready to mutiny at a moment's notice.

The Turcomans of the western marches were seen to play an important part in determining the political development of Anatolia at the time of the struggle between Kilij Arslan IV, who was supported by the Mon- gols, and Kay-Kavus II (643-59/1246-61) who tried to base himself on the western provinces and marches. Kay-Kavus was finally forced to seek refuge in Byzantium in 659/1261. The Mongol and Seljuk troops led by Mu'in al-Din Pervane came to the frontier and pacified the Turcomans. Nevertheless, we know that a fairly numerous group of semi-nomadic Turcomans joined Kay-Kavus in Byzantine territory, and were later settled in the Dobruja. At roughly the same time one Menteshe Bey, a coastal bey who was probably a vassal of Kay-Kavus, left the southern coastal marches and led a gha^a raid against Byzantine posses- sions in Caria. As the result of these sea raids, Menteshe Bey succeeded in establishing himself first of all in the Carian seaports (659/1261 to 667/1269). It appears that he then co-operated with a numerous group

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of Turcoman nomads, migrating between summer pastures in the mountains of Denizli and winter pastures on the coast. After organizing these Turcomans, Menteshe Bey extended his authority over the whole of Caria. Then in 677/1278 he advanced in the direction of the valley of the Biiyiik Menderes, and captured the cities of Priene, Miletus and Magedon. In 681/1282 he advanced further to capture Tralles (Aydin) and Nyssa. Menteshe Bey's conquests were continued by his son-in-law Sasa Bey. Turkish conquests in western Anatolia had by that time assumed the nature of a general advance.

We have already referred to the importance of the area of Denizli and Kiitahya in the western marches. Here the most advanced position was occupied by the semi-nomadic Germiyan Turks, who were subject to the 'Alishir family in the region of Kiitahya-Sandikh. Karlm al-Dln 'Alishir, who belonged to an old-established family of emirs, had been a supporter of Kay-Kavus II, and when the latter fled to Byzantium he was executed by the Mongols. The descendants of 'Alishir and the Germiyan Turks were then under the sway of the dynasty of Fakhr al-DIn 'All. In 676/1277 when great disorders broke out throughout Anatolia, they fought bravely on the side of Fakhr al-DIn 'AH and of the Seljuk Sultan Kay-Khusraw III and captured the rebel Jimri. Fakhr al-DIn then suppressed the rebellion of the chief emir of the marches in the area of Denizli. He also pacified the Turcomans who had mutinied round Karahisar and Sandikh. Fakhr al-Din's two sons were killed in the battle against the rebel Jimri. The 'Alishir dynasty which supported Fakhr al-DIn then became a force to be reckoned with in the marches.

When, however, the Mongols appointed Sultan Mas'ud II to the Seljuk throne, the successors of 'Alishir turned against Fakhr al-DIn and the central government. It appears that important adherents of the old regime who had sought refuge in the marches incited the Turcomans to rebel. Not only those who had been threatened by the change of sultan but also people dissatisfied with the taxation and land policies of the Mongols fled to the marches. In the summer of 685/i 286 the Germiyan Turks raided the province of Gargorum lying between the marches and Konya. Mongol and Seljuk forces had to wage an intense struggle against them until 688/1289. The house of 'Alishir joined forces with two other border dynasties, the Karamanlis and the Eshrefoghlus. The struggle ended with the house of 'Alishir winning the position in the marches formerly held by the house of Fakhr al-DIn. An inscription in Ankara by Ya'qub Bey I, the son of'Alishir, shows that he held sway over

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the city while also recognizing the authority of the Seljuk sultan. Under Ya'qub Bey (d. after 720/13 20), who can be considered as the real founder of the Germiyan principality, the descendants of 'Alishir turned their forces and their energy against Byzantine territory where they could act independently. They captured Kula and closed in on Alashehir (Phila- delphia). The commanders (sing., su-bashi) whom Ya'qub Bey sent to the valleys of the Menderes and of the Gediz founded their own princi- pality : Mehmed Bey, the son of Aydm, the principality of the house of Aydin, Sarukhan Bey, the principality of the house of Sarukhan, and in the north, in Mysia, Qalam Bey and his son Karasi Bey, the principality of Karasi. Thus new conquests were made in Byzantine territory outside the province of the marches, and principalities of a new type were founded. The Ottoman principality was one of these. True, these principalities were, legally speaking, considered to be part of the marches and to come under the emirs of the marches, the Seljuk sultans and the Mongol Il-Khans in Tabriz. In reality, however, the gba^i beys felt them- selves independent in the Byzantine territories which they had con- quered. The formation of independent states by forces in the marches and, later, the emergence of one such state, which turned back from its area of new conquest to win dominion over the old Seljuk part of Anatolia were among the most important developments of the history of the Near East in the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE OTTOMAN FRONTIER

PRINCIPALITY

The marches from the Byzantine frontier along the River Sakarya to Kastamonu were subject to the emir of Kastamonu. About 690/1291 Kastamonu was ruled by Muzaffar al-DIn Yavlak Arslan, a descendant of the famous Seljuk Emir Husam al-DIn Choban. Yavlak Arslan held the title of captain-general of the marches. A contemporary source, Pachymeres, attributes the emergence of 'Osman Ghazi to a struggle with the dynasty of 'Amurios', emirs of Kastamonu. When the sons of Kay-Kavus II returned to Anatolia from the Crimea, one of them, Mas'ud, obtained the Seljuk throne from the Mongol, Arghun Khan. At his orders his brother Rukn al-DIn Kihj Arslan settled in the marches, probably near Akshehir. When after the death of Arghun Khan and the election of Gaykhatu to the khanate (23 Rajab 690/22 July 1291) a struggle for the throne broke out among the Mongols of Persia, a state of anarchy developed in Anatolia. The frontier Turcomans rebelled.

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Kihj Arslan rebelled against his brother Mas'ud. When Gaykhatu arrived in Anatolia in Dhu'l-Qa'da 690/November 1291, Kilij Arslan went to the march of Kastamonu and gathered the Turcomans round him. He killed the emir of the marches, Muzaffar al-DIn Yavlak Arslan, who had been a supporter of Mas'ud. Sultan Mas'ud who was sent to the area by Gaykhatu, was at first defeated but was later victorious thanks to the Mongol forces at his disposal (Dhu'l-Hijja 690/December 1291). Kilij Arslan escaped, but was later killed when caught in a raid by Yavlak Arslan's son, 'AIL 'All, who after the events of 690/1291 renounced his allegiance to the Seljuks and their Mongol overlords, attacked Byzantine territory, and conquered the land stretching as far as the River Sakarya. He even raided the far bank of the river. Later, however, he established peaceful relations with the Byzantines. 'Osman Ghazi's area lay to the south of him, on the far bank of the middle stretch of the River Sakarya around Sogiid. Pachymeres states clearly that when 'All broke off the struggle 'Osman took over the leadership of the raids and started waging violent gha%a warfare on Byzantine territory. The ghauts started gathering under his banner. Pachymeres says that they came from Paphlagonia, in other words from the territory subject to the emir of Kastamonu.

By 700/1301 'Osman had advanced far enough to press in close on the old Byzantine capital of Nicaea (Iznik). Old Ottoman traditions on his origin and on his activities before that date, show that he had come under the pressure of the Germiyan dynasty and was thus forced to work in the most forward part of the marches. It was this circumstance which made for his future success and for that of the principality which he founded. According to the same traditions, 'Osman's early activity did not amount to a general and ceaseless struggle against the Byzantines. At first he tried to get on with the more powerful of the Byzantine lords {tekfurs) in his area. He appeared in the light of a bey of a semi-nomadic group of Turcomans in conflict with the tekfurs who controlled their summer and winter pastures.1 Old sources, which are legendary in character, attribute 'Osman's decision to come forward as a gha%i to the influence of Shaykh Ede Bali. In fact, however, the factors which

1 On 'Osman's tribal origin and his membership of the Kayi tribe of the Oghuz Turks, see M. P. Kopriilii, 'Osmanli imparatorlugunun etnik mensei meseleleri', in Belliten, it, 219-303, who defends against P. Wittek the view that 'Osman was the leader of a small clan of the Kayi. According to Kopriilii, this tribal nucleus played a negligible part in the formation of a state which did not have a tribal character even at its inception; on this point Koprulii is in agreement with Wittek and Giese.

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impelled 'Osman to become a leader of gbd^ts were the same factors as motivated the whole activity in the marches of western Anatolia, in other words the pressure of population and the need for expansion resulting from the movement of immigration from central Anatolia, the decay of the Byzantine frontier-defence system, and religious and social discontent in the Byzantine frontier areas, as well as the desire of Anatolian Turks to escape from Mongol oppression and to start a new life in new territory.

'Osman had become master of an area stretching from Eskishehir to the plains of Iznik and Brusa (Bursa), and had organized a fairly powerful principality. When he started threatening Iznik, anxiety was for the first time felt in the Byzantine capital on his score. It was then that the Byzantine empire began counting him among the most important beys of the marches alongside the houses of 'Allshir, Aydin and Menteshe. In 701/1301 the Byzantine emperor despatched against 'Osman a force of 2,000 men under the command of the Hetaereiarch Muzalon charged with the task of relieving Iznik. When 'Osman ambushed this force and destroyed it at Baphaeon, the local population was panic-stricken and started to leave, seeking shelter in the castle of Nicomedia (Izmit). In another direction 'Osman's forward raiders advanced as far as the approaches of Bursa. In Ottoman tradition this victory is known as the victory won near Yalakova over the forces of the emperor during the siege of Iznik. It was at this time that 'Osman is said to have been recognized by the Seljuk sultan as a bey, in other words as a person wielding political authority. After 701 /i 301 'Osman's fame is reported to have spread to distant Muslim countries, and his territory was filled with wave upon wave of immigrant Turkish house- holds.

The importance attached by the Byzantine empire to the Ottoman threat is shown by the fact that, in order to stop 'Osman, the emperor tried to conclude an alliance with Ghazan Khan, and, after the latter's death, with Oljeitii Khan and to bring the Mongol army into play. Nevertheless, around the end of the century the conquests in western Anatolia of the house of Germiyan and its commanders, and of Sasa, the son-in-law of Menteshe, seemed to pose the greater threat. In 677/1278 and 695/1296 the empire tried to reconquer lost territory here by sending two armies, but both attempts proved unsuccessful. The expedition of mercenary Alan and Catalan troops were also fruitless (701/1302 and 703/1304). Ephesus (Seljuk) fell immediately after the withdrawal of the

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Catalans. Mehmed Bey, son of Ay din, captured Birgi (Pyrgion) in 708/1308, made it his capital and, by extending his power as far as Smyrna (Izmir), became the most powerful prince in western Anatolia. Sarukhan Bey captured Manisa (Magnesia) in 713/1313, made it the centre of his principality and became an independent ruler. Further to the north, in Mysia, Karasi Bey captured Bahkesir (Palaeocastron) and, having resettled it, made it his capital. This principality expanded, probably after 728/1328, to the shores of the sea of Marmora, of the Hellespont and of the gulf of Adrammytion (Edremid). To the east lay 'Osman's territory. He too made extensive new conquests after 1301, occupied the environs of Iznik and Bursa, and blockaded these powerful fortresses by means of towers which were built nearby. He thus tried to starve them out.

When the Mongol governor Timurtash Noyon, who had forcibly tried to exact obedience from the princes of the marches, had to seek refuge with the Mamluks in 728/1328, after having been proclaimed a rebel, the authority of the Il-Khans in the Anatolian marches became weaker than ever before. The tax-register for the year 1349 still shows Karaman, the principality of Hamid, Denizli, Aydin, Germiyan, the Ottoman principality, Gerdebolu, Kastamonu, Eghridir and Sinop as lying within the borders of the Mongol state, grouped under the general name of marches, but these princes of the marches had long ago become independent rulers, paying only nominal tribute, and minting coins in their own names.

THE CULTURE OF THE MARCHES

The principalities of the marches had a distinct way of life, which could be described as a frontier culture, and this distinguished them clearly from the hinterland. This culture was dominated by the Islamic con- ception of Holy War otgba^a. By God's command the gba^d had to be fought against the infidels' dominions, ddr al-barb (the abode of war), ceaselessly and relentlessly until they submitted. According to the SharVa the property of the infidels, captured in these raids, could be legally kept as booty, their country could be destroyed, and the popu- lation taken into captivity or killed. The actions of the ghauts were regulated by the SbarVa to which they paid heed. Ceaseless warfare led to the formation of groups commanded by gha%i leaders specially blessed by shaykhs. The ghdsj groups were often named after their leaders.

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Successful leaders naturally attracted the greatest number oighasjs. In the Seljuk marches which were dominated by Turcoman nomads, these leaders were also often chiefs of tribal clans. But, as we have seen, many of them had been commanders under the Seljuk sultans. Usually these gbtrfi beys paid no taxes to the central government, or they sent only nominal taxes as a token of loyalty.

Life in the marches was dangerous, and required great personal initiative. At the other side of the border there was a similar Christian frontier organization, moved by the same spirit, the Byzantine akritai. Ethnically, frontier society was very mixed. It included highly mobile nomads, refugees from central authority, heterodox elements and adventurers. In contrast with the highly developed conservative civi- lization of the hinterland, with its theology, palace literature, and the Shari'a, the marches had a mystical and eclectic popular culture, which had not yet frozen into a final form. They sheltered heterodox sects, bred a mystical and an epic literature and obeyed customary or tribal law. Their ethos was chivalrous and romantic.

References to the life of 'Osman Ghazi in old Ottoman traditions strongly reflect this way of life. It should not be forgotten, however, that there are considerable distortions of reality in these legends. According to Oruj, the Ottomans were

Gba\is and champions striving in the way of truth and the path of Allah, gathering the fruits olgba^a and expending them in the way of Allah, choosing truth, striving for religion, lacking pride in the world, following the way of the Shari'a, taking revenge on polytheists, friends of strangers, blazing forth the way of Islam from the East to the West.1

In 1354 they told Gregory Palamas that the constant expansion west- wards of Muslim power was a predestined event reflecting the will of God.2 They considered themselves as the sword of God, and this view was widespread not only among themselves but also among the Byzantines. Later on, Luther was to view the Ottomans in the same light. In old Ottoman traditions people described as alplar (heroes), alp-erenkr, and akhiler were among the closest companions of 'Osman. 'Osman became zghd^i, it was said, as a result of the preaching of Shaykh Ede Bali, who was probably a member of the akbi confraternity and who, in accordance with the akbi custom tied a sword to 'Osman's waist. As

1 Oruj, Tavarikb-i Al-i'Osman, cd. F. Babinger (Hanover, 1925), 3. • G. Arnakis, 'Gregory Palamas among the Turks', in Speculum, XXVI, n o .

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for the alplar, they followed the heroic tradition of Central Asian Turks. In the marches, the alplar cloaked themselves in the Islamic gba^a tradition and became known as alp-erenler. According to a contemporary source there were seven conditions for becoming an alp-eren: courage, strength of arm, endeavour, a good horse, a special dress, a bow and arrows, a good sword, a lance and an appropriate companion. Kopriilii believes that the traditions and customs of Central Asian Turks survived strongly among the semi-nomadic Turcomans of the Anatolian marches. Wittek, on the other hand, thinks that it was rather the Islamic traditions relating to the Byzantine frontier districts, developed under the caliphate, that were dominant.1 It is really a question of degree to determine the strength of each of the two traditions in forming the common way of life in the marches.

Between 730/13 30 and 746/1345 the most brilliantgha^a exploits in the marches were achieved by Umur Bey of the house of Aydin. Umur Bey extended the gha%a to naval engagements. To counter his raids in the Aegean, Christian states agreed on a crusade against him and signed a preliminary agreement on 14 Dhu'l-Hijja 732/6 September 1332. They formed a fleet of twenty galleys. In 734/1334 many Turkish ships were sunk in the Aegean, the fleet of Yakhshi Bey, lord of Karasi, being destroyed in the gulf of Edremid. On 19 Jumada II745/28 October 1344, the castle in the port of Izmir was raided and captured by the Christian forces. Umur was killed in an attempt to recapture it (Safar 749/May 1348). The new bey of Aydin, Khidr, seeing the fate of his brother, gave up the policy oigha^a, preferring the advantages deriving from trade. Acting through the papacy he made peace with the Christian states con- cerned and granted them full privileges, allowing them to trade freely in his dominions (20 Jumada I 749/17 August 1348). He stated in this document that he had put an end to his war with the Christians, that he would protect them in the future, would not alter customs-dues and would allow consuls of the Knights of Rhodes, of Venice, and of Cyprus to establish themselves on his land, and would permit their ships to make use of his ports.

Writing c. 730/1330 al-'Umari describes the beys of Karasi, Sarukhan, Menteshe and Aydin as maritime ghauts, but he distinguishes Umur Bey as one waging ceaseless Holy War (//M/).2 When these principalities were

1 P. Wittek, Tbi rist of tbt Ottoman Empire (London, 1938), 17-19. 1 Al-'Umari, Masilik al-abfSr, ed. Fr. Taeschncr (Leipzig, 1929), 30-47.

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fought to a standstill by the Christian League in the Aegean, they lost their function as bases for the gha^a, and, like the Knights of Rhodes, they came to prefer the advantages of trade. Once this choice was made, the classical way of life and the institutions of Islamic society of the hinterland began to predominate. The leadership of the gha^a then passed to the Ottomans, who occupied the front line of the marches and crossed into the Balkans, where they established them- selves.

The ghasj beys of the marches demonstrated the original spirit of unity of the marches through common action in some of their raids and by helping each other. Cantacuzenus says that a bey embarking on a gha^a expedition would willingly accept in his troop gha^ls coming from neighbouring principalities.1 Nevertheless, there were also frequent dynastic wars in these principalities. In accordance with old Turkish tradition, a bey divided his country among his sons. He then ruled from the centre over his semi-dependent sons. There were frequent internal struggles between brothers. In the Ottoman dominions, which were faced with greater dangers and greater efforts to destroy them, unity was better preserved.

In western Anatolia after the ghiby beys had settled in the rich plains, and conquered international commercial ports, their countries developed commercially and culturally, and assumed the character of little sultanates which had adopted the higher forms of Islamic civilization. This is demonstrated by the accounts of al-'Umari and Ibn Battuta in 730/1330 and 733/1333. Ibn Battuta admires the beautiful markets, palaces and mosques in these cities. He says that Denizli with its seven mosques and beautiful markets is 'one of the most attractive and immense cities'. Bahkesir, the chief city of Karasi, is 'a fine and populous city with pleasant bazaars' and, finally, Bursa is ' a great important city with fine bazaars and wide streets'.2 In western Anatolia, Ayasolug (Altoluogo, Ephesus) and Balat (Miletus) were two important centres of the Levant trade. In the middle of the eighth/fourteenth century there were Venetian consuls inboth cities, and wealthy Christian merchants had settled there. In Ayasolug, the city built on the hill by the Turks was the main commercial centre. Merchants from all over the world came there. Italians bought the products of Anatolia: cotton, rice, wheat, saffron, wax, wool, hemp,

1 P. Lemerle, Ulmirat d'Aydm, hy^pnct et VOccident. Kecbenhes sur la geste d'Umur Vacha (Paris, 1957), 212-13.

1 H . A. R. Gibb (tr.), The travels of Ibn haffufa, n (Cambridge, 1961), 425, 449-50.

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raisins, alum, and valonia as well as slaves. Valuable cotton textiles woven in Denizli and precious silks woven in Bahkesir could also be bought by Western merchants, who sold in exchange valuable woollen cloth, which was used in the il-khan's palace under the name saqirlat. Other imports were tin and lead. In order to facilitate this expanding trade the Turcoman beys minted in Balat, Ayasolug and Manisa silver coins known zsgig/iati, with Latin inscriptions, modelled on Neapolitan coins.

Ibn Battuta mentions the pages dressed in silks whom he saw at Birgi in the palace of the Aydin prince. He stresses the importance and prestige of the Muslim jurists in the courts of the beys. The first ve^trs were undoubtedly chosen from among the jurists invited from the great urban centres of the interior. This was also the case with the first Otto- man veytrs and with the jurists who organi2ed the Ottoman state. Orkhan Bey opened a medrese in Iznik in 731/13 31, and converted to a medrese the monastery inside the castle of Bursa. The complex of buildings, including a mosque, an alms-house, bath and a caravanserai, which Orkhan Bey built in Bursa remains to this day at the centre of the city's life.

The most salient characteristic of the culture which developed in these Turcoman principalities, was the survival of essentially Turkish cultural traditions within the context of Islamic culture. Most significantly, the Turkish language had a predominant position as a language both of the state and of literature. We know that, at the order of these Turcoman princes, classical Persian and Arabic works were translated into Turkish. Creative literary activity began in the second half of the eighth/four- teenth century with writers such as Sheykhoghlu Mustafa and Ahmedi. In these principalities, deeds of endowment (sing., waqfiyya) were drawn up not only in Arabic and Persian but also in Turkish. As for the works of architecture which came into being under the beys in western Anatolia, the two most important ones are the Great Mosque in Birgi built in7i2/i3i2 and the mosque of Orkhan, built in Bursa in 741 /13 40. In the second half of the century there were such other great works of architecture as the Great Mosque in Manisa, the mosque of 'Isa Bey in Ayasolug (777/1375), the medrese of Ahmed Ghazi in Pechin (777/1375) and the Green Mosque in Iznik (781/1379). These demonstrate a refined artistic taste. In decoration these buildings are simpler than the monuments of Seljuk architecture, while their plans also show novel features.

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EXPANSION IN THE BALKANS AND ANATOLIA UNDER

ORKHAN AND MURAD

By capturing in quick succession Byzantine fortresses such as Bursa, Iznik and Izmid, which had long been blockaded, Orkhan Ghazi, the son and successor of 'Osman, became pre-eminent among the beys of the marches. Bursa fell on 2 Jumada 1726/6 April 1326. In 729/1329 the effort made by the Emperor Andronicus III to relieve Iznik was defeated, and the town surrendered on 21 Jumada 17 31 jz March 13 31. Andronicus having failed to relieve Izmid, that city too fell in 738/1337.

By annexing the principality of Karasi by 746/1345, the Ottomans became masters of the area between the gulf of Edremid and Kapi-daghi (Cyzicus), and found themselves facing Europe. The Karasi ghauts entered the service of Orkhan, and encouraged his energetic son, Siileyman, appointed by his father bey of the important march of Karasi, to extend his conquests into the Balkans (Rumeli, whence the English term Rumelia). Umur Bey, who was at that time engaged in the Aegean Sea with the Crusaders, had an ally in John Cantacuzenus, to whom he recommended Orkhan. In 747/1346 Orkhan married Theodora, daughter of Cantacuzenus, became his faithful ally, and won the opportunity of intervening in Byzantine affairs as well as in operations in Thrace. At this time the command of the marches was given, in accordance with the old Turco-Mongol tradition, to Orkhan's eldest son, Siileyman, who then moved to Adrianople (Edirne) in Thrace in order to help Cantacuzenus. On his way he occupied the castle of Tzympe (Jinbi) on the isthmus of Gallipoli (Gelibolu) and refused to evacuate this bridge-head in spite of all the efforts and pressing requests of Cantacuzenus. By concluding an agree- ment with the Genoese in 75 5/1354 Orkhan obtained valuable allies for his operations in the area of the Hellespont. Siileyman strengthened his position by moving a stream oigha^is over the Straits and capturing the castle of Hexamilion (Eksamil) which dominated the isthmus of Gallipoli. The great fortress of Gallipoli was thus isolated from Thrace. The embattled front facing Gallipoli was immediately constituted under the command of Ya'qub Eje and Ghazi Fazil who thus formed a new march. Another was formed on the left flank, under the command of Hajji Ilbegi and Evrenuz (Evrenos) in order to extend the conquests to the north. Siileyman himself operated in the middle sector. In the night of 7 Safar 755/2 March 1354, a violent earthquake brought down the walls of Gallipoli and of other fortresses around it. These were

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immediately occupied and re-fortified by the ghauts. This event, which allowed the Ottomans to establish a permanent foothold in Europe and opened limitless possibilities before the ghauts, caused great concern and excitement among the Byzantines and in the Western Christian world. The Venetian ambassador (bailo) wrote in Sha'ban 7 5 5 /August 1354 that Constantinople was ready to accept the protection of a powerful Christian state. Cantacuzenus, who was deemed responsible for this turn of events, had to renounce the throne. In Europe people began to say that a crusade had to be organized, this time not against the Aydin dynasty in Izmir but against the Ottomans. Gallipoli became a base for the ghauts.

When Siileyman died unexpectedly in an accident in 758/1357 his brother Murad accompanied by his tutor was sent to the command of the marches. In 760/1359 he launched a great offensive against Edirne, which surrendered in 762/1361. Rumours spread in Italy that Con- stantinople was about to fall. Under papal leadership a stimulus was given to exchanges between the king of Hungary, the Byzantine emperor and the Italian states with a view to organizing a crusade. By a bull dated 25 December 1366 the pope proclaimed a crusade to expel the Turks from the Balkans. The only ruler to respond was the duke of Savoy, Amadeus II, who led his fleet to Gallipoli and recaptured it from the Ottomans (767/1366). The following year he handed over the castle to the Byzantines. This, however, did not check the Ottoman advance.

Murad I (763-91/1362-89) had now succeeded Orkhan, and threatened both the Byzantine empire and the Serbian. When the journey of the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus to Italy to meet the pope and mobilize aid failed to produce results, and when the last joint operation of the Serbian princes in Macedonia was defeated on the Maritza (battle of Chirmen 15 Rabi' I 773/26 September 1371), the emperor and the rulers of the Balkans acknowledged Ottoman suzer- ainty, one after the other. As early as 773/1372 or 774/1373 John V realized that no hope was left, and agreed to accept the suzerainty of Murad I, taking part in his Anatolian expeditions as an Ottoman vassal. Later, his son Andronicus IV obtained the protection of the Ottomans, thanks to which he succeeded to the Byzantine throne (778/1376). Then he returned Gallipoli to the Ottomans (781/1379).

In brief, Murad had succeeded by 782/1380 in creating in Anatolia and Rumelia an embryo empire made up of vassal principalities. Relations with these were at first so regulated that in exchange for aid or

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formal alliances the Ottomans subjected local princes to a number of obligations which eventually turned them into Ottoman vassals. When this process was complete, the Ottomans forced these princes and beys to send their sons to the Ottoman court as hostages, to pay tribute, and to participate in Ottoman expeditions with forces commanded by these princes in person or by their sons. At the same time these vassal states remained under the constant pressure of the beys of the marches, lest they should escape from Ottoman dominion. The moment that they renounced their subject status, their territories were considered ddr al-harb, i.e. a field of battle which attracted the terrifying onslaughts of the akinjt raiders (see below, pp. 2830"). Under Murad I, Ottoman occupa- tion of roads and centres of population in the Balkans followed three main directions: in the centre, the valley of the Maritza, which the Ottomans followed, reaching the foothills of the Balkan range as early as 767/1366 and then going on to conquer Sofia c. 787/1385 and Nish in 788/1386; on the right the valley of the Tunja, and on the left, the south- ern march, commanded by Evrenuz, where Serez (Serrae) was occupied on 21 Rajab 785/19 September 1383, an event which was followed by the beginning of the siege of Salonica. This second largest city in the Byzantine dominions surrendered in Ramadan 789/September 1387. Divisions and rivalries in the Balkans and attempts by Balkan states to ally themselves to the Ottomans and win their protection, facilitated these advances. Thus in 766-7/1365-6 the Bulgarian King Shishman, threatened from the north by an invasion of Hungarians and of the prince of Wallachia, and from the Black Sea by the fleet of Amadeus of Savoy's Crusaders, had sought safety in becoming an ally of the Ottomans. It appears that he accepted Turkish help, as Cantacuzenus had earlier done. Between 767/1366 and 771/1370 there are references in chronicles to Bulgarian-Turkish co-operation and to Turkish units fighting alongside the Bulgarians on the Danube. Let us add that Prince Wladislaw of Wallachia also sought Ottoman help in 775/1373 when he turned his back on the Hungarians.

The reign of Murad I also saw the expansion and consolidation of Ottoman power in Anatolia. In 755/1354 the Ottomans had captured Ankara, which was at that time an important economic and political centre. This marked the start of Ottoman expansion into the former Seljuk-Mongol area—the old Islamic hinterland, it embroiled the Ottomans with the emir of Sivas, and with his neighbours and powerful allies, the house of Karaman. The princes of Karaman were the most

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powerful of the Turcoman frontier-beys in the south. After a long struggle, they had established themselves firmly in the old Seljuk capital of Konya, whence they considered themselves as heirs to the Seljuks— sovereigns of the sultanate of Rum and suzerains of the other beys of the marches. The Ottomans, greatly strengthened by the success of their gha^a in the Balkans, came up against the house of Karaman with precisely the same claim. Resistance to Ottoman overlordship was crushed in 789/1387, when Murad I marched on Konya and won a pitched battle there.

But while Murad was in Anatolia, there was a revolt in the Balkans by the Serbians, whom the ruler of Bosnia joined. The Bulgarians sided with them. Thereupon an expedition was undertaken against Shishman the Bulgarian king in the first place. In 790/13 87 he was eliminated from the fray, and Bulgaria was occupied. The following spring Murad marched down to the plain of Kosova against the Serbs. The victory which the Ottomans won (19 Jumada II 791/15 June 13 89) showed that they were destined to stay in the Balkans as the ruling power. Murad was mortally wounded on the battlefield and was immediately succeeded by his son Bayezid, called Yildirtm, 'the Thunderbolt'. To avoid a civil war Bayezid's brother was executed.

BAYEZID I AND THE CLASH WITH TIMUR

As soon as news was received of the death of Murad, the beys of Anatolia revolted once again. Thereupon Baye2id immediately crossed into Anatolia with prestige of the great victory won at Kosova. Within a year he occupied and annexed to the empire what remained of the gha%i principalities of western Anatolia, i.e. the principalities of Aydin, Sarukhan and Menteshe and the remnants of those of Hamid and Germiyan. He then marched on the prince of Karaman, and forced him to sue for peace (793/1391)- He crushed the bey of Kastamonu, and added his territories to the empire. However, in the area of Amasya, further to the east, he was faced with a dangerous rival in the person of the sultan of Sivas, Qadi Burhan al-Din. In the meantime the Wallachians, acting under Hungarian protection, established themselves on the south bank of the Danube in Silistre (Silistria) and in the Dobruja, while the Byzantines reoccupied Salonica. Once again Bayezid crossed over to the Balkans(795/i393) and annexed the Dobruja; Tirnova, Shishman's cap- ital, was occupied on 7 Ramadan 795/17 July 1393. He summoned all the vassal princes of Rumelia to attend on him. His object was to underline

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his rights as suzerain and to punish the Palaeologi who were gravitating towards Venice. However, the princes succeeded in evading the summons. Bayezid then reoccupied Salonica (19 Jumada II796/21 April 1394) and sent his aktnjt raiders into the Morea. Having done this, he appeared before the walls of Constantinople and blockaded the city in the hope of forcing it to surrender through the exercise of unrelenting pressure. He then made an expedition into Hungary in order to intimi- date the Hungarians and subdue the Wallachians. The army, which he commanded in person, devastated southern Hungary and then entered Wallachia, where he had a fierce battle with a Wallachian army at Argeshe. On his way back, Bayezid crossed the Danube at Nicopolis, and had Shishman arrested and executed. This marked the extinction of the Bulgarian kingdom. These operations led to the formation of a crusading army made up of groups of knights from all over western Europe under the command of King Sigismund of Hungary. The Crusaders came as far as Nicopolis, while the Venetian navy stood guard over the Hellespont. Bayezid was at that time near Constantinople. He immediately marched off, and encountered the Crusaders outside Nicopolis, which they were besieging. The Crusaders were completely routed (21 Dhu'l-Hijja 798/25 September 1396). This victory won the sultan great fame as &gha%t throughout the Muslim world. Returning to Anatolia, with this victory behind him, Bayezid occupied Konya the following year and destroyed the state of Karaman (beginning of 800/autumn of 1397). The following year he also put an end to the state of Qadi Burhan al-DIn around Sivas, and, entering the territory of the Mamluks in the upper valley of the Euphrates, occupied several cities including Malatya and Elbistan. Thus Bayezid was at one and the same time waging war on the most powerful Muslim sultan, the Mamluk ruler, and encroaching on Timur's sphere of influence in eastern Anatolia as far as Erzinjan. His pressure on Constantinople was such that the Emperor Manuel II went himself to Europe (802/1399) m o r der to plead for a crusade. The sultan of the ghauts in this way eliminated the petty states of Anatolia and Rumelia and, having founded an empire within a brief spell of time, put it in the forefront of a world-wide struggle for power. Envoys were exchanged between Timur and the king of France. Timur went into action, crushed Bayezld's imperial army, which was not yet well integrated, and captured the sultan himself in a battle of Ankara on 27 Dhu'l-Hijja 804/28 July 1402.

Bayezid, encouraged by his victories and by the forces at his disposal,

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had tried to transform the empire made up of vassal principalities, which existed under Murad I, into a true empire coming under a centralized administration. He acted with force and determination. He tried to eliminate Hungarian influence from the Balkans. By establishing a fortified naval base at Gallipoli he won control over the Hellespont and challenged Venice at sea. He sought to conquer Constantinople and make it the capital of his empire, joining Anatolia and Rumelia. While challenging the entire Christian world, he sought from the caliph in Egypt the official title of sultan al-Riim, as the legitimate heir to the Seljuk possessions in Anatolia. Meanwhile, however, Tlmur had raised his banner in the East, espousing the cause of the descendants of Chingiz Khan, and seeking recognition of his right to rule over Anatolia and with it over Bayezid, whom he considered as simply a bey of the marches. After crushing Bayezid at Ankara, Tlmur revived the Anatolian principalities and placed them under his protection against any further Ottoman encroachments.

The nucleus of the Ottoman dominions was divided among three brothers, Siileyman in Edirne, Mehmed in Amasya, and 'Isa in Bursa. These recognized Tlmur as their suzerain. Ottoman possessions in Anatolia having now been reduced to the area which they had occupied under Murad I, the centre of gravity of the state moved to Rumelia, Edirne becoming from this date the main Ottoman capital. Even before Timur died in 807/1405, a civil war started among the brothers for possession of the two Ottoman capitals, Edirne and Bursa, and for undivided rule over the empire. This period is known as the interreg- num. Finally Mehmed I triumphed over his rivals and re-established the unity of the Ottoman state U1816/1413. With this end in view Mehmed adopted a policy of conciliating the beys, princes and local lords, who had reappeared in Anatolia and Rumelia and, above all, of getting on peacefully with the Byzantines. This policy forced him into important concessions. The states in question regained some of their former possessions and won a greater freedom of action in the face of the Otto- man sultan. After the experience of Timur's onslaught, the Ottomans made a point of advancing their policy of conquest and oigha^a with greater care, avoiding as far as possible giving rise to crusades in the west and to a fresh intervention in Anatolia, this time by Timur's son, Shah- Rukh. It was only in the reign of Mehmed II the Conqueror that the Ottomans launched an offensive policy both in the east and in the west in order to revive the empire of Bayezid.

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To understand why the Ottomans succeeded in re-establishing the unity of their state, one must remember above all that Bayezid had abandoned the traditions of the marches and had introduced the highly developed classical Turkish-Islamic system of central government into the administration of the state. Provincial land and population surveys, fiscal methods developed in the Il-Khan state in Persia, a central treasury and a bureaucracy which sought from the capital to regulate affairs of the state throughout the provinces, were introduced or strengthened in his reign. The system of control through the sultan's own slaves (sing., ghuldm, kapi-kulu), which was above all instrumental in establishing the absolute authority of the sultan in the provinces, came to dominate the administration in the time of Bayezid I.1 Military and administrative commanders were chosen largely from among the ich-oghlans (slaves educated at the sultan's court), and even the majority of timar fiefs in the provinces were granted to the sultan's slaves brought up within the ghuldm system. The military units made up of the sultan's slaves came to number 7,000 men. These elements helped in the re- establishment of a centrally administered empire, for, as long as there were rival sultans, neither the holders of timar fiefs nor members of the kapi-kulu slave class could be certain of their positions. The rights and influence which they had acquired could only be guaranteed by a stable centralized administration. It is they who supported first Mehmed I and then Murad II against his rival, Du\me Mustafa. They defended the absolute central authority of a single sultan against the divisive tendencies of the marches.

Furthermore, although weakened in Anatolia after Tlmiir's incursion, the Ottomans maintained their former strength in Rumelia. They were then able to come back to Anatolia from the Balkans and re-establish their supremacy.

THE OTTOMAN RECOVERY

The reign of Murad II (824-5 5/1421—51) was a time of preparation for the extension of the empire under Mehmed II the Conqueror. When Murad ascended the throne in Bursa, Edirne and the whole of Rumelia gave alle- giance to his uncle Mustafa, known as Du\me, 'the Impostor'. Mustafa was also supported by the Byzantines, who hoped to regain Gallipoli. In Anatolia the princes of the Germiyan and Karaman dynasties

1 Thus kapt-kulus were recruited originally from the Sultan's share of prisoners-of-war, and subsequently from a periodical levy (devshirme) of Christian boys. Most of the youths entered the Janissary corps.

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supported Murad's younger brother, also called Mustafa, who was a governor in Hamld. Like his father, Murad spent the first two years of his reign in dangerous struggles to establish himself on his throne and ensure the unity of his state. The beys of Anatolia did not recogni2e him. The prince of Karaman occupied Hamld, while the bey of Kasta- monu made himself master of the area round Tosya and Qal'ejik. Things had returned once again to the state of affairs which had prevailed in 804/1402. However, Murad II succeeded finally in crushing Dti^me Mustafa. He besieged the By2antines in Constantinople as a punishment for the support which they had given to Mustafa (Rajab 825/June 1422). But the beys of Anatolia attacked him and established his younger brother Mustafa as sultan in Iznik. Thereupon Murad, who had been besieging Constantinople for fifty days with guns, crossed into Anatolia. He had Mustafa arrested and executed. He forced the princes of Karaman and Kastamonu into submission, obliging them to return their newly won lands. He annexed the gba^t principalities of western Anatolia, those of Izmir-Aydin, of Menteshe and the Teke branch of the Hamld dynasty. Nevertheless, he followed a policy of conciliation towards the principalities of Jandar and Karaman in so far as they were part of the old Seljuk area of Anatolia which came under the protection of Shah- Rukh. When the Byzantines who had regained Salonica in 805/1402, ceded the town to Venice in 826/1423 the Ottomans started a war against Venice. This war dragged on for a long time, from 8 26/142 3 10833/1430, because of the weakness of the Ottoman navy, and passed through some dangerous phases. In the meantime Hungary attempted to establish its supremacy over Wallachia and Serbia. This led to clashes which were ended by the truce signed for three years in 831/1428. The princes of Wallachia, Serbia and Bosnia reaffirmed their allegiance to the sultan. Finally Salonica was occupied in 833/1430.

Although Murad was described as a peace-loving sultan, his court was nevertheless under the influence of people who wished to return to the forceful policy of conquest pursued by Bayezid. Their counsels were particularly strong between 837/1434 and 846/1442. In 837/1434 struggle was renewed with Hungary for supremacy in Serbia and Wallachia. Benefiting from the death of King Sigismund in 841/143 7 the sultan himself led an army into Hungary (1438). In 843/143 9 he occupied and annexed Serbia. The following year the Ottomans made the first attempt to gain from the Hungarians the fortress of Belgrade, which was the gate leading to central Europe. Murad's withdrawal from

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Belgrade was a turning point. In 845/1441 and 846/1442 there were large-scale Ottoman raids in Transylvania (Erdel). These were, however, totally crushed by the attacks led by John Hunyadi. These Ottoman defeats raised the hopes of Crusaders in the Christian world. The Hungarians launched a counter-offensive. In another surprise attack Hunyadi captured Nish and Sofia, and pressing on the last Balkan passes, threatened Edirne. Murad II succeeded with difficulty in halting the invading army at the battle of Izladi (Zlatica), on 1 Sha'ban 847/24 November 1443, a n d thereupon returned suddenly to a pacific and conciliatory policy. He signed a peace with the Hungarians and with the despot of Serbia, George Brankovic, promising to return Serbia to him and to refrain from crossing the Danube (24 Safar 848/12 June 1444). He then made peace with the prince of Karaman, who had once again gone over to the attack (summer 848/1444). By this agreement Hamld was ceded to Karaman. Thinking that he had thus made peace on all sides, he voluntarily renounced the throne in favour of his son, Mehmed II (summer 848/1444). The king of Hungary, the Byzantine emperor and the pope saw in this a golden opportunity, and pushed on with their preparations for a crusade. A Hungarian-Wallachian army crossed the Danube. At the same time the Venetian navy held the Hellespont. However, the despot of Serbia, who had been reinstated by the Ottomans, did not join the allies. The army of the crusaders reached the neighbourhood of Varna. Panic broke out in Edirne. In answer to pressing requests and petitions, Murad II came back to command the Ottoman army. Its victory at the pitched battle of Varna (28 Rajab 848/10 November 1444) is one of the vital battles in the history not only of the Balkans and of Byzantium, but also of Europe as a whole. Although Hunyadi later entered the Balkans for a third time, planning to co-operate with the Albanian, Iskender Bey (Scanderbeg); he was again defeated at Kosova (18-21 Sha'ban 852/17-20 October 1448). This proved to be the last effort to free the Balkans and relieve Constantinople.

Among factors which paved the way to the conquest of Constanti- nople, certain internal developments in the Ottoman state hold an im- portant place. In the first phase of the reign of Mehmed II, who in 848/1444 was only twelve years old, the sultan was surrounded by a circle of commanders thirsting for war and conquest. This group tried to break the absolute power of the grand ve^ir Chandarh Khalil, who came from the 'ulemd', and to supplant him. Chandarh succeeded, how-

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ever, in retaining the support of the Janissaries, and engineered the return to the throne of Murad II (Safar 850/May 1446). Chandarh refrained from threatening subject-states, fearing lest this should lead the Ottomans into adventures similar to those of 848/1444. When Murad II died on 1 Muharram 855/3 February 1451, Mehmed II, who was then nineteen years of age, ascended the Ottoman throne for a second time. Power then passed to his governors Shihab al-Din Shahin Pasha and Zaganuz Pasha, both of them advocates of further conquests, who had already tried to persuade Mehmed II to attempt the conquest of Constantinople in 848/1444. The young sultan and his entourage needed a great victory in order to reaffirm their power and their influence against the grand ve^tr. Preparations were immediately put in hand for the siege of Constantinople.

FACTORS IN THE OTTOMAN CONQUESTS

The Ghazis and the Akinjis

The Holy War or gba^a was the foundation stone of the Ottoman state. The tradition of the ghauts of the marches, which lay at its origin, dominated all its history, and constituted the fundamental principle of its policies and its organization. The concept of thegba^a stimulated great initiatives and endeavours, and, later, attempts at renewal; it inspired both individuals and society. The Ottomans took in all seriousness the duty of protecting and extending Islam, and even tried to justify their claim to sovereignty over the whole Islamic world, by the argument that they alone were carrying out that duty.

For ghauts in the marches, it was a religious duty to ravage the countries of the infidels who resisted Islam, and to force them into subjection. The only way of avoiding the onslaughts of the ghazis was to become subjects of the Islamic state. Non-Muslims could then enjoy the status of dhimmis, living under its protection. Most Christian sources confuse these two stages in the Ottoman conquests. The Ottomans, however, were careful to abide by these rules, and this helped in the expansion of their empire. Faced with the terrifying onslaught of the ghauts, the population living outside the confines of the empire, in the ' abode of war', often renounced the ineffective protection of Christian states, and sought refuge in subjection to the Ottoman empire. Peasants in open country in particular lost nothing by this change. The institutions and traditions of the marches which existed at the time of 'Osman Ghazi lived on in Ottoman history, moving, however, to new frontiers. Later

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ghauts became known as ahnjis (raiders) and the old term uj (march) gave place to serhadd (frontier), but the concepts remained unchanged. An investigation into them can give us a clearer picture of the old marches.

From the point of view of organization the sanjaks (provinces) of the marches differed considerably from those of the interior. This was particularly true in the eighth/fourteenth and ninth/fifteenth centuries. In Uskiip, for example, the free sipahi cavalry was loyal to the person of the bey of the march. These beys of the marches were often descendants of the original frontier leaders and they formed dynasties such as the houses of Evrenuz, Mikhal, Turakhan and Malkoch, which inherited their sanjaks and ruled them more or less independently. We have already mentioned that they could at times receive tribute from foreign states. They disposed of vast properties in freehold or in waqj. Each of these main leaders, who enjoyed great power and renown in the marches, became a subject of legends, and epic poems were written about their exploits. The troops of these great beys of the marches in the Balkans were known by the names of their leaders as late as the tenth/sixteenth century. The aktnjts of the right flank were known as Mikbalhs, those of the left flank as Turakhanhs. Seven thousand of the latter were active in the Morea in 966/15 59. Under Murad II (824-5 5/1421-51) the Ottoman sultan began to appoint his personal slaves to commands in the marches, a custom which had existed under the Seljuks.

As for the ghauts themselves, known now under their new name of aktnji, these in the eighth/fourteenth century consisted largely of volunteers (sing., goniUlu") who had come from Anatolia, drawn by the prospect of warfare and of booty or by the hope of gaining a fief for themselves. These aktnjts were, unlike the o\Aghauts, a kind of auxiliary militia. We know also that nomad yuriiks, and Christian voynuks and martolos (Greek: armatolos, armed irregulars) were enrolled as aktnjts for service in the frontier areas, and that they were used for intelligence and other purposes in enemy territory. The aktnjts normally set off on an expedition with two horses. The weapons of the aktnjts, who constituted a kind of light cavalry, were a sword, a shield, a scimitar, a lance and a mace. The akinjts were formed in units of tens, hundreds and thousands. Their officers were known as tovija and were rewarded with fiefs (sing., timar). They were commanded by a sanjak beyi known as the bey of the akinjts. In the tenth/sixteenth century the duties of the aktnjis on an expedition were to penetrate into enemy territory ahead of the main army and destroy the enemy's preparations, to carry out raids, to destroy the

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enemy's sources and routes of supply, to open roads for the Ottoman army, to check bridges and roads which the army had to cross, and to capture prisoners for intelligence purposes. From the end of this century raids became more difficult and, therefore, less frequent in central Europe. From then on Crimean auxiliaries came only when an expedition was in progress and carried out the duties of ahnjis. The organization of the akinjis was thus considerably weakened. In 1034/1625 there were only two or three thousand left.

During the early stage of Ottoman history when the Ottoman state could still be considered a frontier principality, the marches played an important part in home politics. Ottoman beys of the marches or members of the ruling house might well have established independent principalities in the Balkans, following the example of the other frontier principalities. However, faced as they were with particularly strong enemies in the Balkans, the Ottoman beys of the marches needed the help which only the central government could provide. What is more, the Ottoman sultans were always personally active on the field of the gha^a. Thanks to the bejlerbeyi organization and the force of the sultan's own retainers or slaves {kapi-kulus) the Ottoman sovereigns had the practical means of exerting their authority. Bayezid both as a gtesLtgba^i himself and thanks to his kapi-kulu forces, was fully master of the marches. After his death, when his sons and grandsons struggled for power, the marches once again came to the fore. Contenders who could gain the support of the hereditary beys of the ahnjis in the marches could become masters of all Ottoman possessions in the Balkans. They could then ascend the throne in Edirne which had become the main royal residence since 80 5 /1402. Musa Chelebi, who had been closely associated with the ahnjis in his father's lifetime, utilized their help to defeat his brother Siileyman in the Balkans, and this allowed him to gain the throne (22 Shawwal 813/17 February 1411). His first action was to appoint to the dignity of beylerbeyi the famous bey of the ahnjis Mikhal- oghlu. Since the time of Orkhan the function of beylerbeyi had been given to the sultan's slaves and this allowed the central government to maintain its authority over the sipahi cavalry and the marches in the Balkans. There was always jealousy, open or hidden, between the beylerbeyis, who stood for the interests of the central authority, and the beys of the marches. The appointment of Mikhaloghlu meant that the bey of the ahnjis was in control of all the military forces in the Balkans. From their side the ahnjis, and their officers, the tovijas, viewed

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with jealousy the sipahis who had rich timars in the interior. Mikhaloghlu and the chief judge (qddi 'asker) Shaykh Badr al-Din, who was known for his extreme views, granted fiefs in the interior to many aksnjis from the Dobruja. Nonetheless, Musa continued the tradition of appointing his own slaves to key positions to counteract the influence of the beys of the marches. At the death of Mehmed I (824/1421), his brother, Dii^me Mustafa became master of the Balkans and of Edirne, largely through the support of the house of Evrenuz. To outweigh this, Murad released Mikhaloghlu, who had been imprisoned in Tokat after the fall of Musa, and with his help succeeded in winning over the beys of the marches and eliminating his rival. Under Murad II the refusal of Turakhan, a powerful bey of the marches, to obey the beylerbeyi of Rumeli was one of the factors which led to Murad's abdication. In 1444 a pretender to the throne named Orkhan went from Istanbul to the Dobruja, where he tried to organize a rebellion of the forces in the marches. Mehmed the Conqueror, as a great gha\i himself, was able to dominate the marches, and attach them to the central government.

Expansion in Byzantine and Balkan territories

When the Ottomans appeared as a dynamic unifying force amidst the anarchy of the Balkans, Byzantine territories and the Balkans were prey not only to political but also to deep social and religious divisions. Qvil wars and the absence of a central authority had allowed local lords in the provinces to strengthen their hold over the land and to subject the peasantry to a more or less arbitrary regime. The Byzantine adminis- tration struggled hopelessly to free from the grasp of these lords the estates which it wished to see returned to central control. This struggle over land between the central government and local lords was undoubt- edly one of the main problems of Balkan history. Serfs tied to the land had to pay the lord a tax on produce as well as render free service in com- pulsory corvees. These services included the provision of firewood and hay, and free labour with oxen two or three days a week. When Ottoman administration was established, there was almost a social revolution through the application of the following principles: first, all agricultural land passed to the overriding ownership of the state, in other words the state established close control over the land. Land which thus passed to the state became known as miri land. Secondly, all local feudal rights which limited the state's control over the land and the peasants were abolished. Local manorial rights were eliminated. The

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rights of local lords and, in some cases, of monasteries to exact forced labour from the peasants, and all similar privileges were suppressed. The Ottoman administration was always and everywhere opposed to the corvit system. The obligation to transport firewood and hay, and to work manorial estates, was replaced by a tax, known as plough dues (chift resmi) amounting to 22 aspers. The commutation of feudal service, which could easily be abused, into an easily payable fixed monetary tax was a major social reform. In addition, it was in principle forbidden to compel the peasants to any service. In brief, the Ottoman regime represented a strong and impartial central administration which extended to the peasants effective protection against feudal lords.

It is true that at the same time the Ottoman invasion deprived the Balkan peoples of their national cultural institutions and of the ruling class which embodied them. The Ottomans incorporated in the timar fief-system the local Balkan aristocracy which adhered to them. They left it part of its old lands, which these local nobles continued to hold in the changed capacity of holders oitimars. In this way they entered the ruling group and came under the close control of the new empire, becoming in time ottomanized. Some of the more important noblemen tried, however, to preserve their position during the Ottoman conquest by relying for help on the Western Catholic world, and eventually fled to the West. Even before the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomans appeared as protectors of the Church, and considered the Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical organization as part of their administrative system. Greek Orthodox archbishops were granted timars. The struggle between Greek Orthodox and Catholics in the Balkans was founded on deep-rooted social causes. It is an historical commonplace that the popular masses, fanatically attached to Greek Orthodoxy in Byzantine territories, preferred the Ottomans to Latin Catholics, and disowned their own ruling class and aristocracy which tried to unite with the Catholics. The ruler of Bosnia complained in 1463 to the pope that the peasants seemed to favour the Ottomans, who treated them well and promised them freedom. In any case, we know that the Balkan peasantry did not support the local feudal lords against the Ottomans, with whom, on the contrary, they sometimes co-operated.

Attempts to describe the conquests made by Anatolian Turks in western Anatolia and the Balkans as a large-scale movement of popu- lation have been borne out by recent research in the Ottoman archives. This movement of population not only modified the ethnic composition

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of the territories in which it occurred, but almost inevitably stimulated further conquests.

Population registers for the provinces (sanjaks) of Aydin and of Thrace in the middle of the ninth/fifteenth century show that the overwhelming majority (eighty to ninety per cent) of the population of these areas was already by that time made up of Muslim Turks. It appears therefore that Byzantine sources do not exaggerate when they say that the Turks came to settle in masses. After moving into the Balkans, the Ottomans encouraged immigration into the newly conquered territories where they transferred nomads en masse. This old system of transfer of population, known as siirgiin or 'exile', had already been used on a large scale by the Seljuks. Nomad Turks who were known in the Balkans by the name of

yiirtik (yoriik), were especially numerous in the districts which lay in the path of the conquering armies and in the marches, Waqf deeds and reg- isters of the ninth/fifteenth century show also that there was a wide move- ment of colonization of western Anatolian peasantry settling in Thrace and the eastern Balkans and founding hundreds of new villages. The newly arrived Muslim Turks did not usually mix with Christian peasants, but settled in their own villages. Villages which kept their old names and where the population was mixed were usually old Byzantine villages converted to Islam. Muslims were also settled in cities which had put up resistance to the Ottomans. These soon became Muslim cities. For example the frontier town of Oskiip (Skopje) which was captured in 793/1391 had by 859/1455 twenty-two Muslim quarters as against only eight Christian ones. But the cities which surrendered remained in most cases Christian. This widespread wave of Turkish emigration to western Anatolia and the Balkans coincided with the conquests of the eighth/fourteenth century. A fresh wave was set off by the conquests of Timur. It appears that emigration slowed down in the second half of the fifteenth century, since we do not see similar concentrations of new settlers in Serbia, Albania and the Morea.

As new conquests were added, the area of the marches moved forward. During the reign of Bayezld I (791-806/13 89-1403) the march of the Dobruja and Deliorman, centred on Silistria, faced Wallachia (Eflak) and Moldavia (Boghdan); the march of Vidin faced Serbia and Hungary; the march of Oskiip faced Bosnia, Serbia and Albania; and, finally the march of Tirkhala (Trikkala) faced Epirus and the Morea. After the conquest of Serbia and Bosnia, Semendere and Saray-Bosna (Sarajevo) became the centres of the marches facing Hungary. After the conquest

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of Hungary the marches moved again, this time to the sanjaks bordering on Habsburg territory. In Albania, Avlonya (Valona) was the centre of the march facing Italy. The islands of the Aegean, the Morea and the old maritime #&<££/" principalities of western Anatolia were the marches of the sailor ghauts of the Mediterranean. These pushed their operations as far as the western Mediterranean, and turned Algeria and Tunisia into a fresh march as a base for expeditions against the Spanish monarchy, which had driven the Muslims from Spain, and against Spanish posses- sions in Italy. Such is the brief history of the role of the marches in the expansion of the Ottoman empire.

Expansion in Muslim Anatolia

The concepts of the gha^a and the marches were applied by the Ottomans not only to conquests of infidel territory, but also to expansion within the confines of the Islamic world. When they annexed the Turco- man principalities of Anatolia, by peaceful means, by threats, or, when necessary, by war, they granted to the former beys, as a general rule, rich timars in the Balkans. This often enabled the Ottomans to annex the beys' territories without a struggle. In any case, religion forbade a Muslim, and particularly zghd^f, to use arms on another Muslim (Qur'an, 4. 90). The reputation of the Ottomans as ghauts was vulnerable to criticism in the case of wars waged against other Muslims. The Ottomans therefore tried to pass off as licit acts annexations achieved through pressure and threats. The Ottomans argued, for example, that they had acquired through canonically licit ways the lands of the houses of Hamid and Germiyan which were a bone of contention between them and the house of Karaman. The latter refused of course to countenance the acquisition by the Ottomans of centres like Ankara and the land of Hamid, formerly a part of the sultanate of Konya. The struggle between the houses of Karaman and of'Osman revolved, in the main, round this territory.

As a general rule, whenever they wanted to wage war on Karaman or any other Muslim state, the Ottomans did not neglect to provide them- selves with a legal ruling (fetvd; Arabic,/atow) from the 'ulemd' demon- strating that their actions were in accordance with the Sbari'a and therefore licit. It was thus argued that it was canonically mandatory to wage war against those who attacked them in the rear while they were engaged in a gha^a against the infidels. The house of Karaman and others were thus proclaimed rebels against religion. This view recurs

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constantly in Ottoman sources. In 848/1444 Murad II obtained from the independent 'ulama' of Egypt a fatwd proclaiming to the Muslim world and particularly to Timur's successor, Shah-Rukh, the legality of the expedition against Karaman which he was about to launch. The Ottomans insisted in particular that the house of Karaman collaborated with the Christians, a fact which is confirmed by Western sources.

The second direction of Ottoman expansion in Anatolia followed the Persian silk road. Not content with the capture of Ankara they used that city as well as the city of Bolu as a base for operations aimed ostensibly at protecting the weak emirs of the region of Tokat and Amasya, lying to the east of them, against the pressure of Qadi Burhan al-Din in Sivas. When Murad I crossed over to the Balkans for an expedition against Serbia in 790/1388, Burhan al-Din's commanders argued that a golden opportunity had presented itself for an offensive against the Ottomans. However, the Qadi rejected their advice saying that it was tantamount to weakening Islam and strengthening the infidels. Never- theless, when Murad I was killed on the battlefield of Kosova, as soon as news of it reached Anatolia, Qadi Burhan al-Din had Muruvvet Bey capture Kirshehir, while Karaman regained Beyshehir, and the house of Germiyan the territory which it had lost to the Ottomans.

For political reasons the Ottoman sultans attached the greatest importance to safeguarding and strengthening the reputation which they enjoyed as ghauts in the Muslim world. When they won victories in the gba%a in the Balkans they used to send accounts of them (sing., feth-name) as well as slaves and booty to eastern Muslim potentates. Knights captured by Ytldtrtm Bayezid I at his victory over the Crusaders at Nicopolis in 798/1396, and sent to Cairo, Baghdad and Tabriz were paraded through the streets, and occasioned great demonstrations in favour of the Ottomans. This widespread fame as ghauts was the source of extensive political advantages to the Ottomans. For example, Timur's entourage long resisted launching an attack on the sultan of the ghauts. When TImur defeated the Ottoman sultan in 804/1402, he himself felt the need of waging a token gba^a by capturing Izmir from the Crusaders. In a letter written some time before 1420 Mehmed I emphasizes his title as gha^i in order to parry the threats of Shah-Rukh, and says that he is about to set off on a gha^a against the infidels. In a letter sent to Shah-Rukh justifying his expedition against Karaman, Murad II argues that the latter had impeded the gha^a by attacking him from the rear.

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In the feth-name which he sent to the sultan of Egypt after his great victory in Constantinople, Mehmed the Conqueror concedes to him the duty of' reviving the obligation of the Pilgrimage', reserving for himself that of being the only king to ' fit out the people waging the holy wars of gha^a zndjihad'-1 Thegha^a became so important as a source of political influence and power in the Muslim world that other Muslim kings also tried to gain the title of gha%i, e.g. Timiir and Uzun Hasan. But none of them could compare in stature with the Ottoman sultans who fought for Islam in ceaseless wars in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. This is why as the Christian threat grew for the Muslim countries of Asia, the influence and the power of the Ottomans increased proportionately in the Muslim world. The Ottomans did not fail to make the most of this. In Asia as in Europe, the gha%a was the main factor in Ottoman expansion.

1 Feridun, Munsha at al-saldfin (Istanbul, 1274), I, 256.

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