Forces Engaged
Byzantine: Unknown. Commander: Unknown.
Turkish: Unknown. Commander: Osman I and then Orkhan.
Importance
The capture of Bursa established Osman I (Othman) and his
successors as the major power in Asia Minor, beginning the Ottoman Empire.
Historical Setting
The peoples known as Turks originated not in the Turkey of
today but in Turkestan in central Asia. In the middle of the sixth century
a.d., they formed themselves into a large tribal confederation and then shortly
thereafter split into eastern and western factions. The eastern Turkic tribes
interacted strongly with the Chinese, most notably the T’ ang dynasty, and
alternately aided or were defeated by the Chinese. The western Turkic tribes,
however, were better known as conquerors for their occupation of territory
stretching from the Oxus River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Their first major entry into western history came with their
contact with Arabs spreading Islam past Persia and toward central Asia. The
pastoral Turks became exposed to the civilizations of Persia and the Byzantine
Empire and began a gradual conversion to western religions, mainly but not
exclusively Islam. Soon Turkic soldiers served in Moslem armies, either as
volunteers or as slave soldiers, forerunners of the Mamluks or the Janissaries
of the Ottoman Empire. They soon became ghazi, or border warriors, hired by
Moslem governments to protect the northeastern frontier. At this point, the
western Turks also split, the eastern faction becoming the Ghaznavids and the
western becoming the Seljuks.
Most of the Turks embraced the more orthodox Sunni branch of
Islam, and they spread the faith as well as practiced it. Based out of the city
of Ghazna (some 90 miles southwest of modern Kabul, Afghanistan), the
Ghaznavids in the tenth and eleventh centuries spread their power and religion
eastward into India. Their most notable achievement was the introduction of
Islam into India, though their use of forced conversions often made them more
feared than welcomed. They were defeated not by Indian resistance but by the
Seljuks.
Named for its first major leader, Seljuk or Selchuk, the
western Turkic tribes also served Moslem governments. Their position on the
Asian frontier attracted growing numbers of Islamicized Turkic tribes, and soon
the land grants ceded by the Moslems proved inadequate for the needs of so many
pastoral people. Their growth in numbers gave them an increased military
strength as well as a growing need for grazing lands. As the Moslem Buyid
dynasty grew weak and the Ghaznavids looked toward India, the Seljuks found
conquest of the lands west of Persia relatively simple. They defeated the
Ghaznavids in 1040 and then occupied Baghdad in 1055. They did not take the
city to pillage it but to return it to Sunni control from the less orthodox
Shi’ites. The marriage of the Seljuk chief to the sister of the caliph, and his
resulting promotion to the position of sultan, established the Seljuks as the
premiere military and political force in the Middle East.
Filled with religious zeal, the Seljuks conquered Armenia,
the Levant, and into Asia Minor; Malik Shah, the most successful Seljuk
military leader, scored a major victory over Byzantine forces at Manzikert in
1071. In spite of their desire to reestablish the Sunni sect of Islam, the
Seljuks did not undertake the practice of forced conversions, which the
Ghaznavids did in India. Though they made subjects of Christians and Jews, they
did not persecute them; the Seljuks followed Mohammed’s teachings of religious
tolerance. Once established in Asia Minor, they chose as their capital city
Konia, a site occupied since the Hittites at the dawn of recorded history. It
became a center for culture and learning. The orthodoxy of the Sunni Seljuks
frightened Europeans, who rejected peaceful interaction in favor of militant
Christianity and mounted the Crusades. Although the Crusades brought about no
lasting European presence in the Middle East, and the Seljuks remained in
power, they finally were doomed to destruction in the same manner that brought
them to power: invasion from central Asia, the Mongols of the thirteenth
century. Their occupation of Asia Minor ultimately weakened the Byzantine
Empire to the point that it fell to the successors of the Seljuks, the Ottoman
Empire.
The Campaign
The formation of the Ottoman Empire was very much a matter
of timing and location. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries,
the power of the Mongols had waned, as had that of the Byzantine Empire. In the
region in and around Asia Minor, a power vacuum formed. The people living in
Asia Minor were basically still a steppe society, uncomfortable with a settled
lifestyle and militarily aggressive. Such a combination had served to keep the
Seljuks from ever establishing an extended dominion; attempts by political
leaders to convince the people to settle down and pay taxes resulted in
rebellion. The Turks followed strong leaders, no matter their birth, and, for a
strong leader to maintain his following, he needed conquests to keep his people
occupied and provide operating capital.
Osman I (or Othman) became the main prince of Asia Minor who
attracted warriors. His land, awarded to him in 1290 for service to the
Seljuks, was based on the town of Sorgut, supposedly established as a regional
stronghold by Hannibal. Sorgut was located southeast of Constantinople, fairly
near the Sea of Marmora. This meant that Osman’s lands abutted the frontiers of
the Byzantine Empire. That location was the primary reason that warriors
flocked to his banner; fighting Christians was more honorable and lucrative
than fighting fellow Turks. Osman’s campaigns against the Byzantines were at
times mere raids for loot and at other times intentional territorial
acquisitions, and they both attracted the attention of Constantinople. Of all
the Asia Minor princes, Osman was deemed the greatest threat.
Osman focused his attentions on three primary targets:
Nicaea (modern Iznik), Nicomedia (modern Izmit), and Bursa (modern Bursa). He
first laid siege to Nicaea in 1301. This action attracted the attention of the
Byzantine emperor Andronicus II to him. The Byzantine government dispatched a
force of 2,000 men to relieve the siege, but Osman ambushed and destroyed them at
Baphaeon. The local population evacuated the country-side and fled to
Nicomedia. The emperor hired some Alan mercenaries to deal with Osman, but they
too were defeated (1302 and 1304). Osman was unable, however, to overcome
either Nicaea or Nicomedia, so he returned to raiding.
Bursa had once been a town as important as Nicaea and
Nicomedia, but after the invasion of the Goths in the third century only the
latter two were restored under Byzantine rule. Just before Constantine
established the empire and Nicaea was still the regional capital, Bursa had its
walls restored. It was such a good job of reconstruction that, when Osman began
his siege in 1317, the town held out for more than 9 years. As to the details
of the siege of Bursa, almost nothing exists. It was a long siege, and that is
about all that can be said, other than some sources say it may have been
intermittent rather than continuous. When it fell on 6 April 1326, Osman lay
dying, so he never saw the inside of the city. His son, Orkhan, became the
second leader of the dynasty that became known as the Ottomans. Upon his
occupation of the city, he named it the capital of the emerging Ottoman Empire.
Whatever damage that had been inflicted during the siege was quickly repaired
and the town’s former elegance was restored. It became “a great city with fine
bazaars and broad streets, worthy of the greatest of the Turkmen kings”
(Muller, The Loom of History, p. 301).
Results
Although Osman was the father of the ruling line, it was
Orkhan who really established the power of the Ottomans. He succeeded in
capturing Nicaea in 1331 after beating back a Byzantine relief force and then
he took Nicomedia in 1337. All of this served to attract even more warriors to
the Ottoman cause. Although there were occasional periods of peace (Orkhan
married a Byzantine princess), for the most part the Moslem Ottomans and the
Christian Byzantines were at odds. Orkhan’s son Suleiman led troops across the
Dardanelles to conquer Thrace, and the empire’s capital was transferred from Bursa
to Adrianople. In 1453, another of Osman’s descendants, Mehmet, captured
Constantinople. He renamed the city Istanbul and it remained the capital of the
Ottoman Empire until its demise in 1919.
The Ottomans succeeded where the Seljuks failed because they
were able to overcome their nomadic heritage. “The astonishing achievement of
the Ottomans was breaking the cycle of birth, short life, then dissolution that
characterized the earlier nomadic empires” (McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks, p.
36). This was the result primarily of the uncanny abilities of the first nine
Ottoman sultans, who put together a 200-year chain of able rulers. By
maintaining war against the Byzantines, then the Christians of southeastern
Europe, and then the Shi’ites of Persia, the Ottomans were able to harness the
warlike nature of their people. However, by adopting Christian/European
advisors, military advancements, and technology, they gradually introduced a
more settled lifestyle. The sultan ruled from the capital, and the provinces
pretty much ruled themselves, but a common culture, religion, and economic life
held the population together. Osman’s life of warfare against the Byzantines
and his legacy of wisdom and strength in leadership turned the city of Bursa
into an imperial capital and then, when it was left behind for bigger and
better power centers, a beautiful city: “The successors of Orkhan beautified
and sanctified the city by building mosques and tombs, the earliest Ottoman
shrines” (Muller, The Loom of History, p. 301).
References:
Koprulu, Mehmet. The Seljuks of Anatolia. Translated by Gary
Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992; McCarthy, Justin. The
Ottoman Turks. New York: Longman, 1997; Muller, Herbert. The Loom of History.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958; Parry, V. J. A History of the Ottoman
Empire to 1730. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976
