No More Learning

Stretching out their hands with
fearful effect over a third of the human race, their history is entwined with
our western history much more than his. Big as the heart of the vast
empire was, it was too feeble to send life into its extremities for
very
long, and in viewing the great Khakan at the acme of his power, we feel
that we shall not have long to wait before it will pass away. The
kingdoms that had been conquered so recently in the West were already
growing cold towards him, and were more in form than in substance his
This was no doubt inevitable, the whole was too unwieldy, its
races too heterogeneous, its interests too various. Yet we cannot avoid
thinking that the process was hastened by that migration from the desert
to the luxurious south, from Karakorum to Tatu and Shangtung which
Khubilai effected, and which speedily converted a royal race of warriors
into a race of decrepit sensualists. "
own.


## p. 649 (#691) ############################################

Fall of the Mongols in China
649
Kublai died in 1294, at the age of eighty, having reigned thirty-
five years. After his death the history of the Mongols ceases to call for
much detailed comment. The reigns of his successors are of little interest
to the general historian, for the Empire begins to pass from the zenith of its
power and it remains but to trace the course of decay. Within fifty
years of the death of Kublai the Empire was smitten by a series of floods
and earthquakes. The Mongol power weakened and rebellion spread.
In 1355 a Buddhist priest raised an army in China to drive out the
Mongols. Korea joined in the revolt and Pekin was captured. The Khan
fled and made good his escape, but the Mongol troops were driven out.
In 1368 the revolution was over. A new dynasty, called the Ming or
“Bright,” was set up, and the priest who had led the revolt became Em-
peror (Hung-Wu). The descendants of Jenghiz were driven away for ever.
But worse was in store. Hung-Wu carried the campaign beyond his own
confines. The Eastern Mongols were vigorously attacked and continually
beaten. In the reign of Biliktu (died 1378) the Mongols were expelled
from Liau Tung. He was succeeded in the next year by Ussakhal, who
was slain after the great disaster that overtook the Mongols at Lake
Buyur, when the Chinese completely broke the power of their former
conquerors. Hereafter the supremacy passed from one branch of the
Mongols to another. They became scattered and autonomous, except in
so far as the jurisdiction of the Chinese compelled their obedience. Yet
the tale of disruption is illuminated by occasional flashes of the old
Mongol greatness. The Mongols, who were driven to the North by the
Ming, gradually recovered and measured their strength with the foe.
They raided Tibet and China, and one of the results of these expeditions
was to bring them more into touch with Buddhism. In 1644 the Ming
Dynasty was overthrown by the Manchus, who ruled China until the recent
proclamation of the republic; the Manchus effectually subdued the
Eastern Mongols, who henceforward are merged in the Chinese Empire.
The Mongol Empire can scarcely be said ever to have formed a homo-
geneous unity; for this reason it is impossible to deal with all those tribes
bearing the common designation Mongol or Tartar as a single corporate
body. It is difficult to get a general view and to place isolated incidents
in their proper setting. This difficulty in finding a true perspective involves
a certain amount of individual treatment of the various tribes, and from
the time of Kublai onward the historian is compelled to trace the
course of the scattered bodies one by one. The fate of the successors of
Kublai has been recounted. It now remains to deal with various other
branches of the Mongol Confederacy.
The Khalkhas, or Central Mongols, whose territory was the ancient
Mongol home, where Jenghiz had begun his career, after diplomatic re-
lations with Russia and contact with Christianity, were finally merged
in the Chinese Empire at the conference of Tolonor. To this great
meeting the Emperor Kang-hi summoned the chiefs of the Khalkhas in
CH. XX.


## p. 650 (#692) ############################################

650
The western Mongols: Tīmūr
1691, and with great ceremony they performed the “kowtow” in the
imperial presence; with this act their separate existence as a nation came
to an end.
The Keraits and Torgods for a long period were distracted by internal
feuds. The kingdom of the mysterious Prester John, who has been identi-
fied with Wang Khan, is placed in their land. Later they had diplomatic
and also hostile relations with Russia, Turkey, and the Cossacks. Ayuka
Khan, one of their great leaders, invaded the Russian territory as far as
Kazan, but made peace with Peter the Great at Astrakhan in 1722. After
some time, however, fear of the Russians and discontent at their
oppressions caused them to adopt the expedient of wholesale emigration.
The extraordinary spectacle was witnessed of 70,000 families breaking up
their homes and marching away with all their chattels. The old nomad
spirit seemed to have revived. They travelled to China where they were
most hospitably received, but the price paid for release from Russian tyranny
was the surrender of their nationality. China completely assimilated them.
Thus China, Russia, and the steppes were absorbing or scattering great
divisions of the former Mongol Empire.
Of the western Mongols, importance centres round the descendants
of Jagatai, who passed through many vicissitudes until the rise of Tīmūr
Leng (Tīmūr the lame), or Timurlane (Tamerlane, Tamburlaine), of
Samarqand. In the year 1336, scarcely more than a century after the
death of Jenghiz Khan, Tīmūr was born at Kesh in Transoxiana, to the
south of Samarqand. The Mongol hold of Central Asia was still firm,
but disintegration was spreading rapidly. It was the destiny of Tīmūr
to rouse the Mongols to fresh exploits and distant victories. The direct
result of his invasion of India was the rise of the Mongol Dynasty at Delhi,
better known as the Moguls. Much light is thrown on Tīmūr and his
reign by the narrative of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who came on an
embassy to his court in the years 1403–6.
Besides this, there are several accounts of the great conqueror, but
they are mostly ex parte statements written either by inveterate enemies
or flattering court scribes. Yet it is not difficult to form a fair estimate
of the man. In his youth he had the benefit of a fair education. He
was as versed in literature as he was proficient in military skill. He was
a Muslim by faith, but had no scruples about attacking and slaughtering
his co-religionists. At the outset of his career, from about 1358 onward,
he had to struggle for supremacy among the scattered tribes of the neigh-
bourhood and the hordes to the north of the Jaxartes. In this he may
be compared to Jenghiz. By dint of persistence he succeeded in becoming
supreme among the Jagatai tribes, and in 1369, having overcome
and slain Husain, his brother-in-law and former ally, he was proclaimed
sovereign at Balkh and ruled in Samarqand. He was now at the age of
thirty-three, and he waged incessant warfare for the next thirty years.
The chief of his exploits was the celebrated invasion of India. Tīmūr


## p. 651 (#693) ############################################

Conquest of India : defeat of the Ottomans
651
was prompted by the double motive of zeal to spread the faith and the
prospect of rich plunder. He crossed the Indus in 1398, after having
passed the mountains of Afghanistan. Multān was conquered and the
Musulman leader Shihāb-ad-Dīn defeated. After other victories, notably
the capture of Bhatnir, the road to Delhi lay open. Before the gates
the army of Sultan Muḥammad of Delhi was drawn up under the
famous general Mallu Khān; against Mongol ferocity the bravery of the
Indians was useless, and after a bloody battle Tīmūr entered Delhi on
17 December 1398. The sack of Delhi and the massacre of the inhabitants
followed, and utter ruin spread far and wide. It is said that for the next
fifty years the country was so impoverished that the mints ceased to issue
gold and silver coins; copper currency sufficed for the needs of the miser-
able survivors.
Tīmūr did not stay long. Passing along the flank of the Himalayas
he captured Meerut and returned to Samarqand through Kashmir. In
the Khutbah, or prayer for the reigning monarch that is recited every
Friday in the mosques, the names of Tīmūr and his descendants were
inserted, thus legitimising the subsequent claims of Bābur.
From Samarqand Tīmūr soon marched to the west. In 1401 Baghdad
was taken and sacked, the horrors almost equalling the scenes enacted
under Hūlāgū. The captives were beheaded and towers constructed of
the heads as a warning, but mosques, colleges, and hospitals were spared.
Karbalā and Aleppo were taken and Damascus destroyed, Persia and
Kurdistān were reconquered. He reduced the Mongols round the shores
of the Caspian and penetrated to the banks of the Ural and the Volga.
Advancing through Asia Minor, he met the Ottoman Sultan Bāyazīd I,
then at the height of his power, at Angora in 1402.
The Turks were
beaten and the Sultan captured. Tīmūr dragged the fallen monarch after
him to grace his triumph; according to the story utilised by Marlowe, he
was imprisoned in a cage. Tīmūr, now in his seventieth year, next planned
a great expedition to China. He actually set out on the march, but died in
1405 at Otrar near Kashgar. His atrocities were enormous but not com-
parable to those of other Mongol Khans. He made no attempt to con-
solidate his conquests, and after his death the decay was quick. Samar-
qand and Transoxiana were ruled by his son and grandson, but the
various petty dynasties that soon arose weakened each other by warfare.
Finally Muhammad Shaibānī or Shāhī Beg, the head of the Uzbeg
Mongols, captured Samarqand and Bukhārā and between 1494 and 1500
displaced all the dynasties of the Tīmūrids.
Parallel to the advance of Buddhism in the East, was the growth of
Islān in the West. Nowhere did the faith of Mahomet find more
fruitful soil than among the Il-khāns of Persia, who traced their descent
to Hūlāgū, the conqueror of Baghdad. Between Egypt and the Il-khāns
there was often warfare. In 1303 Nāşir, Sultan of Egypt, overthrew a
Mongol army at Marj-as-Suffar. But the relations between the two
CH. XX.


## p. 652 (#694) ############################################

652
The Golden Horde
powers were sometimes friendly. The same Nāșir made an extradition
treaty with Abū-Saʻīd, the nephew of Ghāzān, whose army had been
defeated at Marj-as-Suffar. The smaller states which succeeded the
Il-khāns were finally swept away by Tīmūr before 1400.
The descendants of the victorious general Bātu were the famous
Golden Horde or Western Kipchaks. Bātu ruled from Lake Balkash to
Hungary. He was succeeded in 1255 by his brother Bereke, in whose
reign a crusade against the Mongols was preached by the Pope. But the
Mongols carried the war into the enemy's country and invaded Poland
and Silesia. Cracow and Beuthen were captured and vast masses of slaves
were led away. The result of these operations was that the Mongols main-
tained a suzerainty over the Russians. Several European princes and
princesses intermarried with them; they were on friendly terms with the
Sultans of Egypt, perhaps owing to the hostility between the Mamlūks and
the Il-khāns. In 1382 Tuqtāmish sacked Moscow and several important
Russian towns, but the campaign of slaughter was resented by Tīmūr
his overlord, who utterly crushed him. Gradually all these Mongol tribes
were absorbed by Russia or the Ottoman Turks, but from the Uzbegs on
the Caspian Bābur set forth on his journey to India and founded the
Indian Empire of the Moguls, to which Sir Thomas Roe was sent on an
embassy in 1615–1619. The lingering Khanates were crushed by the
expansion of Russia, and either as subjects or protectorates have lost all
independence.


## p. 653 (#695) ############################################

653
CHAPTER XXI.
THE OTTOMAN TURKS TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
It was in 1299 that Osmān (Othmān, 'Uthmān) declared himself
Emir of the Turks, that is, of the tribe over which he ruled. The
Seljūq Turks have been treated in a previous chapter ; but there
were many other Turkish tribes present in the middle and at the end
of the thirteenth century in Asia Minor and Syria, and, in order to
understand the conditions under which the Ottoman Turks advanced and
became a nation, a short notice of the condition of Anatolia at that
time is necessary. The country appeared indeed to be everywhere overrun
with Turks. A constant stream of Turkish immigrants had commenced
to flow from the south-west of Central Asia during the eleventh century,
and continued during the twelfth and indeed long after the capture
of Constantinople. Some of these went westward to the north of the
Black Sea, while those with whom we are concerned entered Asia
Minor through the lands between the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea.
They were nomads, some travelling as horsemen, others on foot or with
primitive ox-waggons. Though they seem to have left Persia in large
bodies, yet, when they reached Anatolia, they separated into small isolated
bands under chieftains. Once they had obtained passage through Georgia
or Armenia or Persia into Asia Minor, they usually turned southwards,
attracted by the fertile and populous plains of Mesopotamia, though they
avoided Baghdad so long as that city was under a Caliph. Thence they
spread through Syria into Cilicia, which was then largely occupied by
Armenians under their own princes, and into Egypt itself. Several of
these tribes crossed the Taurus, usually through the pass known as the
Cilician Gates, and thereupon entered the great tableland, three thousand
feet above sea-level, which had been largely occupied by the Seljūms. By
1150, the Turks had spread over all Asia Minor and Syria. These early
Turks were disturbed by the huge and well-organised hordes of mounted
warriors and foot-soldiers under Jenghiz Khan, a Mongol belonging to
the smallest of the four great divisions of the Tartar race, but whose
followers were mainly Turks. The ruin of the Seljūqs of Rūm may be said
to date from the great Mongol invasion in 1242, in which Armenia
was conquered and Erzerūm occupied. The invading chief exercised
the privilege of the conqueror, and gave the Seljūq throne of Rūm to the
CH. XXI.


## p. 654 (#696) ############################################

654 Infiltration of Turkish nomads into Asia Minor
younger brother of the Sultan instead of to the elder. The Emperor in Con-
stantinople supported the latter, and fierce war was waged between the two
brothers. A resident, somewhat after the Indian analogy, was appointed
by the Khan of the Mongols to the court of the younger brother.
The war contributed to the weakening of the Seljūqs, and facilitated
the encroachment of the nomad Turkish bands, who owned no master,
upon their territory. The Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–
1261) had the same effect, for the Latin freebooters shewed absolutely
no power of dealing with the Turks, their energies being engaged
simply in making themselves secure in the capital and a portion of its
European territory. Hūlāgū, the grandson of Jenghiz Khan, captured
Baghdad in 1258 and destroyed the Empire of the Caliphs. He
extended his rule over Mesopotamia and North Syria to the Medi-
terranean. The dispersion of the new Turkish hordes not only greatly
increased the number of nomads in Asia Minor, but led to the establish-
ment of additional independent Turkish tribes under their own rulers,
or emirs, and to an amount of confusion and disorder in Asia Minor
such as had not previously been seen under the Greek Empire. The
chieftain and his tribe usually seized a strong position, an old forti-
fied town for example, held it as their headquarters, refused to own alle-
giance to the Emperor or any other than their immediate chieftain, and
from it as their centre plundered the inhabitants of the towns and the
neighbouring country. The tribes shewed little tendency to coalesce.
Each emir fought on his own account, plundered on all the roads where
travellers passed, or demanded toll or ransom for passage or release. In
this want of cohesion is to be found one explanation of the fact that
though the Turks were defeated one day, yet they emerge with apparently
equal strength a short time after in another place. They had to be
fought in detail in their respective centres or as wandering tribes.
During the thirteenth century many such groups of Turks occupied
what a Greek writer calls “the eyes of the country. ” Even as far south
as Aleppo there was such an occupation by a tribe with a regular Turkish
dynasty. Some such chiefs, established on the western shores of the
Aegean, not only occupied tracts of country, but built fleets and ravaged
the islands of the Archipelago. During the half century preceding the
accession of Osmān, Tenedos, Chios, Samos, and Rhodes fell at various
times to these Turkish tribes. Some of them, who had occupied during the
same period the southern and western portions of the central highland of
Asia Minor, met with great success. Qaramān established his rule around
the city of Qaramān, whose strongly fortified and interesting castle still
stands, a noble ruin, on the plain about sixty-four miles south-east of Qonya.
But the same Qaramān ruled over a district extending for a time to the
north-west as far as, and including, Philadelphia. Indeed, he and his
successors were for perhaps half a century the most powerful Turks in
Asia Minor. Other chiefs or emirs ruled in Germiyān, at Attalia (called


## p. 655 (#697) ############################################

Ertughril
655
Satalia by the crusaders), at Tralles, now called after its emir Aidīn,
and at Magnesia. The shores of the Aegean opposite Lesbos and
large strips of country on the south of the Black Sea were during
the same period under various Turkish emirs. The boundaries of the
territories over which they ruled often changed, as the tribes were
constantly at war with each other or in search of new pasture. Needless
to say, the effect of the establishment of so many wandering hordes of
fighting men unused to agriculture was disastrous to the peaceful
population of the country they had invaded. The rule of the Empire in
such districts was feeble, the roads were unsafe, agriculture diminished,
and the towns decayed. The nomad character of these isolated tribes
makes it impossible to give a satisfactory estimate of their numbers on
the accession of Osmān. The statements of Greek and Turkish writers
on the subject are always either vague or untrustworthy.
Three years before Osmān assumed the title of emir, namely in 1296,
Pachymer reports that the Turks had devastated the whole of the country
between the Black Sea and the territory opposite Rhodes. Even two
centuries earlier similar statements had been made. For example, William
of Tyre after describing Godfrey of Bouillon's siege of Nicaea in 1097
says the Turks lost 200,000 men. Anna Comnena tells of the slaughter
of 24,000 around Philadelphia in 1108; four years later a great band of
them were utterly destroyed. Matthew of Edessa in 1118 describes an
“innumerable army of Turks” as marching towards that city. It would
be easy to multiply these illustrations. The explanation is to be found
in the nomadic habits of the invaders, and in the fact already noted
that there was a constant stream of immigration from Asia.
The tribe over which Osmān ruled was one which had entered Asia
Minor previous to Jenghiz Khan's invasion. His ancestors had been
pushed by the invaders southward to Mesopotamia, but like so many
others of the same race continued to be nomads. They were adventurers,
desirous of finding pasturage for their sheep and cattle, and ready to sell
their services to any other tribe. The father of Osmān, named Ertughril,
had probably employed his tribe in the service of the Sultan ‘Alā-ad-Dīn
of Rūm, who had met with much opposition from other Turkish tribes.
According to Turkish historians, he had surprised Maurocastrum, now
known as Afyon-Qara-Hisār, a veritable Gibraltar rising out of the
central Phrygian plain about one hundred miles from Eski-Shehr (Dory-
laeum)? Ertughril's deeds, however, as related in the Turkish annais,
are to be read with caution. He became the first national hero of the
Turks, was a Ghāzī, and the victories gained by others are accredited
to him. They relate that he captured Bilijik, Āq-Gyul (Philomelium),
Yeni-Shehr, Lefke (Leucae), Aq-Hisār (Asprocastrum), and Givē
(Gaiucome).
1 Jorga, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, 1. p. 51.
CH. XXI.


## p. 656 (#698) ############################################

656
Accession of Osmān
A romantic story which is probably largely mythical is told of the
early development of the tribe of the Ottoman Turks. It relates how
Ertughril found himself by accident in the neighbourhood of a struggle
going on to the west of Angora (Ancyra) between the Sultan of the
Seljūqs, Kai-Qubād, and a band of other Turks who had come in with
the horde of Jenghiz Khan, neither of whom were known to him.
Ertughril and his men at once accepted the offer of the Seljūqs, who were
on the point of losing the battle. Their arrival turned the scale and
after a three days' struggle the Seljūqs won. The victors were generous,
and the newly arrived tribe received a grant from them of a tract of
country around Eski-Shehr, a hundred and ninety miles distant from
Constantinople, with the right to pasture their flocks in the valley of the
Sangarius eastward towards Angora and westward towards Brūsa.
Whatever be the truth in this story, it is certain that the followers
of Ertughril obtained a position of great importance which greatly
facilitated their further development. Three ranges of mountains which
branch off from the great tableland of western Asia Minor converge
Eski-Shehr. The passes from Bithynia to this tableland meet there. It
had witnessed a great struggle against the Turks during the First Crusade
in 1097, in which the crusaders won, and again in 1175 in the Second
Crusade. Its possession gave the Turks the key to an advance north-
wards. It commanded the fertile valley of the Sangarius, a rich pasture
ground for nomads. Ertughril made Sugyut, about ten miles south-east
of Bilijik, now on the line of the Baghdad railway, and about the same
distance from Eski-Shehr, the headquarters of his camp.
near
Ertughril died at Sugyut in 1281, and there too his famous son
Osmān was born. The number of his subjects had been largely increased
during the reign of his father by accessions from other bands of Turks,
and especially from one which was in Paphlagonia. Osmān from the
first set himself to work to enlarge his territory. He had to struggle for
this purpose both with the Empire and with neighbouring tribes. The
Greek historians mention two notable victories in 1301 gained by the
Greeks over the Turks, in the first of which the Trapezuntines captured
the Turkish chief Kyuchuk Aghā at Cerasus and killed many of his
followers, and in the second the Byzantines defeated another division at
Chena with the aid of mercenary Alans from the Danube. Neither of these
Turkish bands were Ottomans; the second belonged to a ruler whose head-
quarters were at Aidīn (Tralles) and who had already given trouble to the
Empire. One of the last acts of the Emperor Michael Palaeologus (1259
-1282) had been to send his son Andronicus, then a youth of eighteen,
in 1282 to attack the Turks before Aidin, but the young man was unable
to save the city for the Greek Empire. Andronicus II in his turn despatched
his son and co-regent Michael IX (1295-1320) with a force of Alans to
Magnesia in 1302 to attack other Turks, but they were in such numbers


## p. 657 (#699) ############################################

The Catalan Grand Company
657
that no attack was made, and Michael indeed took refuge in that
city while the nomads plundered the neighbouring country.
To add
to the Emperor's difficulties, the Venetians had declared war against him.
His mercenaries, the Alans, revolted at Gallipoli, and the Turkish
pirates or freebooters, fighting for themselves, attacked and for a time
held possession of Rhodes, Carpathos, Samos, Chios, Tenedos, and even
penetrated the Marmora as far as the Princes Islands. The Emperor
Andronicus found himself under the necessity of paying a ransom for
the release of captives. Taking advantage of the preoccupation of the
Empire in fighting these other Turks, Osmān had made a notable advance
into Bithynia. In 1301 he defeated the Greek General Muzalon near
Baphaeum, now Qoyun-Hisār (the Sheep Castle), between Izmid and
Nicaea, though 2000 Alans aided Muzalon. After this victory Osmān
established himself in a position to threaten Brūsa, Nicaea, and Izmid,
and then came to an important arrangement for the division of the
imperial territories with other Turkish chieftains. He was now “lord of
the lands near Nicaea. "
It was at this time that Roger de Flor or Roger Blum, a German
soldier of fortune of the worst sort, took service with the Emperor (after
August 1302). The latter, was, indeed, hard pressed. Michael had made
his way to Pergamus, but Osmān and his allies pressed both that city and
Ephesus, and overran the country all round. At the other extremity of
what may be called the sphere of Osmān's operations, in the valley of
the Sangarius, he ruled either directly or by a chieftain who owed alle-
giance to him. One of his allies was at Germiyān and claimed to rule
all Phrygia; another at Calamus ruled over the coast of the Aegean
from Lydia to Mysia. It was with difficulty that Michael IX succeeded
in making good his retreat from Pergamus to Cyzicus on the south side of
the Marmora. That once populous city, with Brūsa, Nicaea, and Izmid,
were now the only strong places in Asia Minor which had not fallen into
the possession of the Turks. It was at this apparently opportune moment,
when the Emperor was beset by difficulties in Anatolia, that Roger de Flor
arrived (autumn 1303) with a fleet, 8000 Catalans, and other Spaniards.
Other western mercenaries, Germans and Sicilians, had come to the aid
of the Empire both before and during the crusades. But great hopes
were built on the advent of the well-known but unscrupulous Roger.
His army bore the name of the Catalan Grand Company. Roger at once
got into difficulties with the Genoese, from whom he had borrowed
20,000 bezants for transport and the hire of other mercenaries.
One of Roger's first encounters in Anatolia was with Osmān. The
Turks were raiding on the old Roman road which is now followed by the
railway from Eski-Shehr to Izmid, and kept up a running fight with the
imperial troops, and Roger, defeating them near Lefke, in 1305 took
possession of that city.
The Catalan Grand Company soon shewed that they were dangerous
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. XXI.
42


## p. 658 (#700) ############################################

658
First entry of Turks into Europe, 1308
auxiliaries. Roger at various times defeated detached bands of Turks,
and made rapid marches with his band into several districts, but his men
preyed upon Christians and Muslims with equal willingness.
The first thirty years of the fourteenth century were a period of chaotic
disorder in the Empire, due partly to quarrels in the imperial family
and partly to struggles with the Turks and other external foes. But of
all the evils which fell upon the state the worst were those which were
caused by the Catalan mercenaries. The imperial chest was empty. The
Catalans and other mercenaries were without pay, and the result was that,
when they had crossed the Dardanelles at the request of the Emperor
and had driven back the enemy, they paid themselves by plundering the
Greek villagers, a plunder which the Emperor was powerless to prevent.
Feebleness on the throne and in the councils of the Empire and the
general break-up of the government opened the country to attack on
every side. The so-called Empire of Nicaea, which had made during half
a century a not inglorious struggle on behalf of the Greek race, had
ceased to exist. The city itself, cut off from the resources of the
neighbouring country and situated in an almost isolated valley ill-
adapted for the purpose of commerce, became of comparatively little
importance, though its ancient reputation and its well-built walls still
entitled it to respect. The progress of the Ottoman Turks met with no
organised resistance.
In 1308 a band of Turks and of Turcopuli, or Turks who were in the
regular employ of the Empire, was induced to cross into Europe and
join with the Catalan Grand Company to attack the Emperor Andronicus.
This entry of the Turks into Europe, though not of the Ottoman Turks,
is itself an epoch-making event. But the leaders of the Catalans were
soon quarrelling among themselves. Roger had killed the brother of the
Alan leader at Cyzicus. He was himself assassinated by the surviving
brother at Hadrianople in 1306. The expedition captured Rodosto on
the north shore of the Marmora, pillaged it, and killed a great number
of the inhabitants, the Emperor himself being powerless to render any
assistance. One of the Catalan leaders, Roccafort, however, shortly
afterwards delivered it to the Emperor. In the same year Ganos, on
the same shore, was besieged by the Turks, and though it was not
captured the neighbouring country was pillaged, and again the Emperor
was powerless to defend his subjects. In the year 1308 another band of
Turks, this time allied with Osmān, captured Ephesus. Brūsa was com-
pelled to pay tribute to the Ottoman Emir. The Turks who had joined
the Catalans in Europe withdrew into Asia, while their allies continued
to ravage Thrace.
Osmān took possession of a small town, spoken of as Tricocca, in the
neighbourhood of Nicaea. In 1310 the first attempt was made by him
to capture Rhodes, an attempt which Clement V states to have been due
to the instigation of the Genoese. The Knights had only been in posses-


## p. 659 (#701) ############################################

Progress of Osmān
659
sion of the island for two years. It was the first time that the famous
defenders of Christendom, who were destined to make so gallant a
struggle against Islām, met the Ottoman Turks.
An incident in 1311 shews the weakness of the Empire. Khalil, one
of the allies of Osmān, with 1800 Turks under him, had agreed with the
Emperor that they should pass into Asia by way of Gallipoli. They
were carrying off much booty which they had taken from the Christian
towns in Thrace. The owners, wishing to recover their goods, opposed
the passage until their property was restored. Khalil took possession of
a castle near the Dardanelles, possibly at Sestos, and called other Turks
to his aid from the Asiatic coast. The imperial army which had come
to assist the Greeks was defeated, and Khalīl in derision decked himself
with the insignia of the Emperor.
The struggle went on between the Greeks and the Turks with varying
success during the next three or four years, the Turks maintaining their
position in Thrace and holding the Chersonese and Gallipoli. In 1315
the Catalan Grand Company, after having done great injury to the
Empire, finally quitted the country.
The struggle between the young and the old Emperor Andronicus
increased in violence and incidentally strengthened the position of Osmān.
Both Emperors, as well as Michael IX who had died in 1320, employed
Turkish troops in their dynastic struggles. The young Andronicus, when
he was associated in 1321 with his grandfather, had the population on
his side, the old Emperor having been compelled to levy new and
heavy taxes in order to oppose the inroads of the Turks who had joined
his grandson's party. Shortly afterwards the partisans of the young
Emperor attacked near Silivri a band of Turkish mercenaries and
Greeks who were on his grandfather's side. They disbanded on his
approach and this caused terror in the capital. The mercenaries refused to
defend it, and demanded to be sent into Asia. Chalcondyles states
that Osman slew 8000 Turks who had crossed into the Chersonese.
Thereupon the old Emperor sued for peace.
In addition to the dynastic struggles and those with the Turks, the
Empire had now to meet the Serbs, Bulgarians, and Tartars. The Tartars
made their appearance in Thrace, having worked their way from South
Russia round by the Dobrudzha. Young Andronicus III in 1324 is reported
to have defeated 120,000 of them.
While in the last years of the reign of Osmān the Empire was un-
able to offer a formidable resistance, Osmān himself was making steady
progress. He never lost sight of his main object, the conquest and
occupation of all important places between his capital at Yeni-Shehr
(which he had chosen instead of Eski-Shehr) and the Marmora with the
straits that lead to it from north and south. Two points are noteworthy
in his campaign of conquest: first, that he trusted largely to the isolation
of the towns which he desired to capture; secondly, that he made great
CH. XXI.
42-2


## p. 660 (#702) ############################################

660
Capture of Brūsa
use of cavalry. Every Turk under him was a fighter. They continued
their nomad habits and many of them almost lived on horseback. The
result was that they moved much more quickly than their enemies, and
this mobility, combined with the simple habits of others who travelled
readily on their simple ox-carts, which served them as dwellings, greatly
favoured Osmān's method of isolating a town. By pitching their tents
or unyoking their oxen in a neighbourhood from which cavalry had
driven away the inhabitants, they reduced the town by starvation.
Osmān had now during nine or ten years applied this method to the
capture of Brūsa. His son Orkhān (born 1288) was in command of his
father's army, and in 1326 the position of Brūsa was so desperate that,
when the Emperor was unable to send an army to break the blockade,
the inhabitants surrendered the city.
The surrender of Brūsa to Osmān's army in November 1326 marked
an epoch in the advance of the Ottoman Turks. He had gained a most
advantageous position for attacking the Empire from the Anatolian side.
Once in the hands of the Turks, who already held the country between
it and the passes concentrating near Eski-Shehr, its situation rendered it
secure from the south. The Bithynian Olympus immediately in its rear
made it inaccessible from that side, while its commanding natural
position on the mountain slope rendered it strong against an army
attacking it in front. While itself occupying an exceptionally strong
natural position, no other place was so good a centre for operations
against an enemy on the Marmora. It dominated Cyzicus, and was not
too distant to serve as a defensive base against an enemy attempting
to cross from Gallipoli to Lampsacus. On the other side it threatened
Nicaea and facilitated the capture of Izmid. Henceforth it became the
centre of operations for the Ottoman Turks, and when immediately
afterwards in November 1326 Osmān died, his historian could truthfully
note that while he had taken many strongly fortified places in Anatolia,
and in particular nearly every seaport in the region on the Black Sea
between Ineboli and the Bosphorus, his greatest success, the most impor-
tant to the race which history was to call after him Osmanlis or Ottomans,
was the surrender of Brūsa.
Osmān was at Sugyut, the capital chosen by his father, when the news
was brought to him of the success of his son at Brūsa. He was then
near his end and died in November 1326 at the age of sixty-eight. The
expression of his desire to be buried in Brūsa marks the value which he
attached to its possession. His wish was complied with; and the series
of tombs of the early sultans of his race, which are still shewn to
visitors to the city, mark its importance during the following century
and a half.
Osmān rather than Ertughril is regarded as the founder of the Otto-
man nation. His successors on the throne are still girt with his sword.
The Turkish instinct in taking him as at once their founder and greatest


## p. 661 (#703) ############################################

Orkhān: capture of Nicaea
661
national hero is right. While rejecting most of the stories regarding him,
we may fairly conclude that he was a ruler who recognised that to obtain
the reputation of a lover of justice was good policy. His merits as
a warrior-statesman rest on a surer foundation. There is reason to believe
that the advance of his people from the time he ascended the throne
until the capture of Brūsa was in accordance with a general plan. While
occasionally finding it necessary to carry on war to the south of the
mountain ranges which on his accession formed the southern boundary
of his territory, he never lost hope of an advance to the straits and the
Marmora. In making an advance in that direction he increased the
number of his own immediate subjects by allying himself with other
Turks; and, by gaining the reputation of a ruler who might be safely
followed, and under whose protection Christians might find security
both from other Turks and from the exactions of their own Emperor, he
drew even Christians to accept his rule.
ORKHĂN (1326-1359).
לל
Osmān had been a successful conqueror. It remained for his son to
extend his father's conquests on the lines which he had laid down, and to
organise the administration of his government. Orkhān offered to share
the government with his brother ‘Alā-ad-Dīn, who refused, but consented
to be his Vizier or “burden-bearer. ” To him quite as much as to Orkhān
is due the organisation of the army which is one of the main features of
the reign. As the Turkish writers report the matter, while Orkhān
occupied himself with the conquest of new territories, 'Alā-ad-Dīn gave a
civilised form to the government.
The line of advance of the victorious tribe from Brūsa was clearly
indicated. Izniq, the name by which the Turks know Nicaea,“the city of
the creed,” is not more than a day's journey for an army from Brúsa.
Izmid, or Nicomedia, is only a few hours farther off. It was to these
strongholds that the new Emir directed his attention. Nicaea, which had
been occupied at least twice by bands of Turks, though not by Ottomans,
was attacked by Orkhān. Although surrounded by good walls, its resources
would not allow of a long defence, and the inhabitants were about to
surrender when they learned that the Emperor, young Andronicus, with
Cantacuzene, who afterwards in 1341 was associated as joint-Emperor,
were coming to its relief. In the late spring of 1329 they arrived with a
hastily-gathered army, met the Turks, and defeated them. But a band
of too impetuous Greeks endeavoured to follow up the victory, and the
Turks, employing the ruse which continued for centuries to give them
success, simulated flight. When the band had thus well separated them-
selves from the main body of the army, the Turks turned and attacked.
The Emperor and Cantacuzene then intervened. In the battle which
ensued the Emperor was himself wounded, and the result of the struggle
CH. XXI.


## p. 662 (#704) ############################################

662
Capture of Nicomedia
was indecisive. Shortly afterwards, however, a panic followed, and the
Turkish troops took advantage of it to capture the city and pillage
the imperial camp.
The capture of Nicaea was effected in 1329. Its wealth was probably
still great. After the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, its importance
had at once lessened, but it was still the store-house of Greek wealth in
Asia Minor. Orkhān decreed that tribute should be exacted from
every
place in Bithynia, and this cause, combined with the knowledge of its
wealth, probably led to the pillage of the city by the Turks in 1331.
The next stronghold of the Empire which Orkhān attacked was Izmid,
formerly Nicomedia. Situated at the head of the gulf of the same name
which stretches forty miles into Asia Minor from Constantinople, its
position was always an important one. Diocletian had selected it as the
capital of the Empire in the East. Instead of being landlocked as is
Nicaea, which at the time of the First Council (325) was for a while its
rival, it is on the sea at the head of a noble valley through which the
great highway leads into the interior of Asia Minor. In 1329 Orkhān
sat down before its great walls. But the Emperor Andronicus III, now the
sole occupant of the throne, had command of the sea, and hastened to its
relief with so strong a force that Orkhān was compelled to abandon the
siege and make terms. A few months passed and Orkhān once more
appeared before its walls. Once more the Emperor hastened to its relief
and the siege was raised. But Orkhān pursued the plan already mentioned
of starving the inhabitants into surrender by devastating the surrounding
country. The Emperor was unable to furnish an army sufficiently strong
to inflict a defeat upon the elusive hordes who were accustomed to live
upon the country, and in 1337 Nicomedia surrendered.
In 1329, and during the next ten years, attacks by the Turks suggest
unceasing movement on their part. In that year the Emirs of Aidin and
Caria, jealous of the conquests of the Ottomans, arranged with the
Emperor for his support. An army sent by Orkhān against them by sea
was destroyed near Trajanopolis. In the following year the Greeks were
still more successful: 15,000 Turks were defeated and destroyed in
Thrace.
In 1333 Omar Beg, the Emir of Aidin, sent an expedition to Porus in
Thrace, which was defeated and compelled to retire. Another band of
Turks was destroyed at Rodosto, and again another at Salonica, both
in the same year
In 1335 we hear of the Turks as pirates in various
parts of the Mediterranean, and of the Emperor's vain attempts to com-
bine his forces with those of the West to destroy them. His territory
on the eastern shore of the Aegean was in constant danger from the
Turkish emirs established there. In 1336 Andronicus was compelled
to ally himself with the Emir of Magnesia and other local Turkish chief-
tains in order to save Phocaea. A struggle with the Turks continued
in the same neighbourhood for two years. In the spring of 1338 a great


## p. 663 (#705) ############################################

Orkhan styled Sultan: the Janissaries
663
invasion of Thrace by the Tartars compelled the Emperor's attention.
They attacked the Turks who were still in that province and exter-
minated them, but as the Emperor was unable to pay for their services
they captured 300,000 Christians? . Other Turks, however, came the
following year, and devastated even the neighbourhood of the capital.
Being now in possession of the chief port in Bithynia, the head of all
the great roads from Anatolia to Constantinople, and of Brūsa, well fitted
by its natural strength to be the capital of a race of warriors, Orkhān
turned his attention to the organisation of his government. He had
from his accession been conscious that he had succeeded to the rule
of a greatly increased number of subjects and of a larger extent of
territory than his father, and judged that he was entitled to abandon the
title of Emir and to assume the more ambitious one of “Sultan of the
Ottomans. " Hitherto the coinage current was either that of Constanti-
nople or that of the Seljūqs; Orkhān with his new sense of sovereignty
coined
money
in his own name.
Besides having greatly increased the number of his Muslim subjects,
he had to rule over a large number of Christians. Most of them were
the inhabitants of conquered territory. Many of the peasants, however,
from neighbouring territories sought his protection; for, as the Greek
writers record, his Christian subjects were less taxed than those of the
Empire. He saw that it was wise to protect these rayahs. He left them
the use of their churches, and in various ways endeavoured to reconcile
them to his rule. This policy of reconciliation, commenced on his
accession, was continued during his reign and did much to set his army
free for service in the field. He took a step, however, with regard to his
Christian subjects, of which he could not have foreseen the far-reaching
‘results. In this he was at least greatly aided by his brother 'Alā-ad-Dīn
and by Khalil, a connexion of his family. He formed a regiment of
Christians who were kept distinct from the remainder of his army. The
men were at first volunteers. The inducements of regular pay, of
opportunities of loot and adventure, and of a career which was one for
life, appealed to many amid a population which had been greatly harassed
and impoverished by his army. The experiment was a new one, and
when Hājji Bektāsh, a celebrated dervish, was asked to give a name
to the new corps, the traditional story is that he laid the loose white
sleeve of his coat over the head of one of them, declaring that this
should be their distinctive head-dress, and called them New Troops or
Janissaries. Under this name they were to become famous in history.
The special feature which has attracted the attention of Europeans,
namely that they were tribute children, probably did not apply to
them in the time of Orkhān. Von Hammer follows the Turkish
1 In this and other cases I give the numbers captured or slain as they are
stated by the writers quoted. Needless to say that they are often greatly ex-
aggerated and incapable of being checked.
CH. XXI.


## p. 664 (#706) ############################################

664
Organisation of the army
authors who claim that Khalil, called Qara or Black Khalil, suggested
that Christian children taken into military service should be forcibly
brought up as Muslims. But the first mention of compulsory service by
Christians made in the Greek authors is attributed to the first year
of the reign of Orkhān's successor Murād in 1360. They relate that one-
fifth of all Christian children whose fathers were captured in battle
were regarded as ipso facto the property of the Sultan, and that
Murād caused his share of the boys to be taken from their parents and
brought up as Muslims to become Janissaries. It may be noted, how-
ever, that not all Janissaries were soldiers. A large proportion, perhaps
even' one-half, were educated for the civil service of the State. The
seizure and apportionment of the children and other property of Chris-
tians in resistance to the Sultan was in accordance with Islāmic law.
Orkhān and his brother ‘Alā-ad-Dīn organised the army. In the early
stages of their history the Ottomans had possessed only a tribal organi-
sation. Every Turk continued to be a fighter and was always liable to
serve,
but now classification had become necessary. We have various ac-
counts of how this was accomplished, all agreeing that the army under
Orkhān was organised on the basis of a militia associated with land
tenure, but that there were, in addition, paid troops who constituted
a standing army, of which the Janissaries soon formed the most notable
division. The general lines of the organisation of the Ottoman army as
laid down in this reign provided that the first and most important portion
should consist of men who held their lands from the Sultan and were
liable to well-defined military service. The second portion was formed
of men who were paid for their services. The first, military tenants,
were the “nerves and sinews of the Empire. ” These tenants received
various names in accordance with the rent they paid for the crown lands
and the services required of them. The Timariots held lands by title-
deeds or teskeres, either from the Sultan's land-courts for which they paid
any rent up to 20,000 aspers annually, or from a beglerbey on paying
annual rent up to 6000 aspers. Each Timariot had to furnish himself
with a small tent when on campaign, and was required to carry three or
four baskets for making earth works and trenches. Those who paid rent
higher than 20,000 aspers were known as Zaʻīms. If the rent were above
100,000 aspers the Za'īm became a pasha or sanjakbey, and if above
200,000 he was a beglerbey. The Zaśīms had not only to render personal
service, to find their own tents, needful utensils for campaigning, stabling
etc. , but for every 5000 aspers at which the Zafim was rated he had to
bring one horseman into the field. The Za'im might be called upon
to supply up to nineteen men. The organisation recalls the feudal
service in Western Europe with its tenants of the crown and their re-
tainers.
The second portion of the army consisted of men who were paid for
their services. It consisted first of the Janissaries who served for life, and


## p.