Ottoman Interregnum (1402-1413)

The Ottoman Interregnum (also known as the Ottoman Triumvirate; “Fetret Devri” in Turkish) was a period in the beginning of the 15th century when chaos reigned in the Ottoman Empire following the defeat of Sultan Bayezid I in 1402 by the Mongol/Uzbek warlord Tamerlane.

The Ottoman Empire, which during the fourteenth century had acquired considerable territories in Anatolia and in the Balkans, was at the beginning of the fifteenth century in ruin in Anatolia.

Besides the military disaster at Ankara, when the Ottoman army, veteran of the wars against several Christian armies in the second half of the 14th century, was destroyed, its long-victorious sovereign was taken captive.

The ancient rivals of the Ottoman dynasty in Anatolia, the beys of Karamanids, Aydin, Germiyan, and other territorial domains which the first three Ottoman sovereigns had conquered, were reinstated by Timur in their dominions.

In Rumelia, the Byzantine Empire accomplished another partial revival, and regained some of its lost provinces.

But the heaviest and seemingly the most fatal blow to the Ottoman state was the civil war which broke out among the sons of Bayezid, and thus threatening the young empire with disintegration.

At the time of Bayezid’s death, his oldest son, Suleyman, ruled at Edirne.

The second son, Isa, established himself as an independent ruler at Bursa after Timur’s armies retired from Western Asia Minor.

Mehmed, the youngest and probably the ablest of all princes (şehzade), formed a little principality at Amasya.

War soon broke out between Mehmed and Isa in which Mehmed was successful. Isa fled to Europe where he sought protection and aid from Suleyman, who in return attacked Mehmed, so that Rumelian and Anatolian sides of the shaken state were now confronting each other.

At the beginning Suleyman was successfull. He invaded Anatolia, and captured Bursa and Ankara.

Meanwhile while the other surviving son of Bayezid Prince Musa, had, after his release by Timur, been detained in custody by the Bey of Germiyan, through whose territories he was passing with the remains of Bayezid, which he was to bury at Bursa. The intervention of Mehmed in favour of his brother had put an end to this detention, and Musa fought on Mehmed’s side against Suleyman in Anatolia.

After some reverses which they sustained from Suleyman in the first campaign, Musa persuaded Mehmed to let him cross over to Thrace with a small force, and effect a diversion in Mehmed’s favour by attacking the enemy in his own territories.

This maneuver soon recalled Suleyman to Thrace, where a short but sanguinary contest between him and Musa ensued.

However, the cruelty and arrogance of Suleyman discredited him among his own troops in spite of his commanding qualities. The result was that his army passed over to the side of Musa, and Suleyman was killed while trying to escape to Constantinopolis in 1410.

Musa was now master of the Ottoman dominions in Thrace, and speedily showed that he inherited a full proportion both of the energy and of the strength of his father Bayezid.

The Byzantine Emperor, Manuel Paleologus, had been the ally of Suleyman, Musa therefore attacked him, and besieged his capital.

Emperor Paleologus called over Mehmed to protect him, and the Anatolian Ottomans garrisoned Constantinopolis against the Ottomans of Rumelia. Mehmed made several gallant but unsuccessful sallies against his brother’s troops, and was obliged to re-cross the Bosphorus to deal with a revolt that had broken out in his own territories. Musa now pressed the siege of the Byzantine capital; but Mehmed speedily returned to Thrace and had the assistance of the Serbians.

The armies of the rival Ottoman brethren met at last for a decisive clash on the plain of Çamurlu near the southern Serbian frontier.

However, Musa had alienated the loyalty of his soldiers by a conduct similar to that of Suleyman while Mehmed was well known for his justice and kindness towards those who obeyed him (thus nicknamed as Çelebi).

According to the chronicles of the age, when the two armies were about to close in battle the Aga of the Janissaries on the side of Mehmed, stepped out before the ranks, and exhorted his old comrades, who were on the side of Musa, “to leave the cause of a madman from whom they met with constant outrage and humiliation, and to range themselves among the followers of the most just and virtuous of the princes of the house of Osman”.

Enraged at hearing his troops thus addressed, Musa rushed against his Janissary commander to kill him, but was himself wounded by Janissaries. Musa retreated wounded towards his own soldiers, who were seized with a panic, and broke their ranks, and fled from the battlefield.

Musa tried to escape, but was found later by the pursuers lying dead in a marsh near the field where the armies had met. His death ended the war of succession in the Ottoman Empire, since Prince Isa had disappeared some years before, during the hostilities between Suleyman and Mehmed in Anatolia; and Mehmed was now, after Musa’s death, the sole known surviving son of Bayezid I.

Mehmed I

The fifth monarch and Sultan of the Ottoman dynasty (1413-1421)

After the Ottoman Interregnum, when Mehmed stood as victor in 1413, he crowned himself sultan in Edirne. He restored the empire, moved the capital – again - from Bursa to Edirne, and conquered parts of Albania, the Turkish emirate Candaroglu, and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.

However, as part of the alliance, Mehmed recognized the Byzantine Emperor as his "father and overlord" and remained uncharacteristically loyal—which must count as the last diplomatic triumph of the Byzantine Empire.

Mehmed I died in 1421.

Mehmed I was forty-seven years of age at the time of his death; and his reign, as Sultan of the re-united empire, had lasted only eight years.

However, he had been an independent prince for nearly the whole preceding period of eleven years that passed between his father’s captivity at Ankara and his own final victory over his brother Musa at Çamurlu.

Murad II and the second foundation period of the

Ottoman EmpireThe sixth monarch and Sultan of the Ottoman dynasty (1421-1444, 1446-1451)

Murad II was the sultan from 1421 to 1451 (except for a short period of time from 1444 to 1446). Murad's reign was marked by the long war he fought against the Christian kingdoms of the Balkans and the Turcoman principalities in Anatolia, a conflict lasting for 25 years. He was brought up in Amasya, and ascended the throne on the death of his father.

Murad II, when called from his vice-royalty in Asia Minor to become the sovereign of the Ottoman Empire, was only eighteen years of age. He was solemnly recognized as Sultan at Bursa; and the troops and officers of the state paid willing homage to him as their sovereign. But his reign was soon troubled by insurrection.

The Byzantine Emperor, despising the youth of Murad, released the pretender Mustafa Çelebi (known as Düzmece Mustafa) from confinement in Constantinopolis, and acknowledged him as the legitimate heir to the throne of Bayezid; having first stipulated with him that he should if successful, repay the Byzantine Emperor for his liberation by cessation of a large number of important cities.

The pretender was landed by the Byzantine galleys in the European domination of the Ottoman Empire, and for a time made rapid progress. Large contingents of Ottoman troops joined him, and he defeated and killed the veteran general Bayezid Pasha, whom Murad sent against him.

Mustafa defeated Murad's army and declared himself Sultan in Edirne. He then crossed the Dardanelles to Asia with a large army; but the young Sultan showed in this emergency that he possessed military and political abilities of his ancestors.

Mustafa was defeated on the battlefield and his troops passed over large numbers to Murad. Mustafa took refuge in the city of Gallipoli but the Sultan, who was greatly aided by Genoese commander named Adorno, besieged him there, and stormed the city.

Mustafa was captured and executed. Murad II then turned his arms against the

Byzantine Empire in order to punish the enmity of the house of Paleologus by the capture of Constantinopolis.

Murad II then formed a new army in 1421, and marching through the remaining Byzantine territories, laid siege to Constantinopolis.

Whilst besieging that city, the Byzantine Empier formed a coalition with some of the still independent Anatolian Turcoman emirates. Murad IIhad to abandon the siege of Constantinopolis in order to deal with the rising menace in Anatolia.

The Anatolian Turcoman emirates of Aydın, Germiyan, Mentese and Teke were annexed and henceforth became part of the Ottoman Empire.

Murad II then went to war against Venice, the Karamanid emirate, Serbia and Hungary. The Karamanids were defeated in 1428 and Venice withdrew in 1432 following the defeat at the second Siege of Salonica in 1430. In the 1430s Murad captured huge territories in the Balkans and succeeded in annexing Serbia in 1439. In 1441 the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and Albania joined forces with Hungary. Murad IIwon the Battle of Varna in 1444 against János Hunyadi but lost the Battle of Jalowaz and signed the Edirne-Szegedin Truce for 10 years with the kingdom of Hungary before abdicating in favour of his son Mehmed.

In 1446 he regained command at the interference of the Janissaries and crushed the Christian coalition at the Second Battle of Kosovo (the first one had taken place in 1389).

Mehmed II

The seventh monarch and Sultan of the Ottoman dynasty (1444-1446, 1451-1481)

Mehmed II “The Conqueror (Fatih)” was first the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to 1446, and later from 1451 to 1481. He was also the first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Caesar of the Roman Empire (supreme ruler of all Christians), besides such usual titles as sultan (ruler of a Muslim state), Khan (Emperor of Turks).

During his first reign, seeing the upcoming Battle of Varna, Mehmed sent for his father, Murad II, asking him to claim the throne again to fight the enemy, only to be refused. Enraged at his father, who had long since retired to a peaceful life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed wrote: "If you are the sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies." However, it is highly probable that the letter was drafted by the Grand Vizier.

It was upon this letter that Murad II led the Ottoman army in the Battle of Varna in 1444. It is also said that Murad's return was forced by Çandarlı Halil Pasha, the prime minister (Sadrazam or grand vizier) of the time, who was not very happy about Mehmed's rule, since Mehmed's teacher (lala) was influential on him and did not like Çandarlı. Çandarlı was later executed by Mehmed during the siege of Constantinopolis on the grounds that he had been bribed by the defenders.

Two years after reclaiming the throne in 1451, Mehmed brought an end to the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinopolis in 1453 (during the well-known Siege of Constantinopolis), and other Byzantine cities left in the Balkans.

His reign, mostly known for his capture of Constantinopolis, is also well known for the unusual tolerance for his age with which he treated his subjects, especially among the conquered Byzantines. Within the conquered city he established a millet or an autonomous religious community, and he appointed the former Patriarch as essentially governor of the Greek Orthodox community.

Mehmed II began after his conquest the Ottoman remodeling of the city, eventually turning it into the Ottoman Turkish capital, which it remained until the 1920s.

Europe and the Near East in 1470

Mehmed II thought of himself as the heir to the throne of the Roman Empire - which, technically, he was after capturing Constantinopolis - and, as a result, adopted the title "Kayser-i-Rum" (Roman Caesar) and invaded the south-eastern tip of the Italian peninsula in 1480.

His success to capture Rome would mean a political re-unification of the Roman Empire for the first time since 751 albeit not a religious one, and, at first, the Ottoman forces made a good start for it with the easy capture of Otranto in 1480.

However, a rebellion in Albania later in 1480 cut into his military links, allowing a massive force led by the Pope to defeat and destroy his isolated army in Puglia in 1481.

Administratively, Mehmed II preferred to continue many of the old Byzantine ways, as he gathered Italian humanists and Greek scholars at his court, kept the Byzantine Church functioning and called Gentile Bellini from Venice to paint his portrait.