IV

Orkhan had now accomplished the first part of the great task left unfinished by Osman. But, before he could proceed to the establishment of laws for his new state, it was necessary for him to consolidate and strengthen his position in relation to his formidable neighbours. Dangers threatened from the east and from the south. In 1327 Timurtash, a son of Choban, who was Mongol governor of Rum, pushed his raids as far as the Mediterranean, which the Mongol arms had not hitherto reached. He fought in turn Greeks and Turks.[116] Fortunately for Orkhan, the emir of Kermian, whose capital was Kutayia, had appeared so unpromising to the eyes of Timurtash that the Mongols had not come northward. But they were an ever imminent source of danger to the emirs of Asia Minor, and to Orkhan among them, until 1335, when the death of Bahadur Khan, just the year before the birth of Timur, caused the disintegration of the Mongol power in western Asia.[117]

The Mongol menace had contributed to the undisturbed operations of Orkhan against the Byzantines. Immediately upon its removal he was threatened by the other Turkish emirs. It was a critical moment for Orkhan, whose territories had not yet reached the proportions of a large state, like those of Omar of Aïdin and Mohammed of Sarukhan. Singly they might have crushed Orkhan. United they certainly would have done so. But here again the Byzantines contributed to their own downfall.

In 1329, at Phocaea, Andronicus had conducted his first negotiations with the emirs of Aïdin and Sarukhan.[118] This unsuccessful attempt to embroil the Anatolian emirs with each other was a pitiful confession of weakness on the part of Andronicus. It did no harm to Orkhan. But it called the attention of these emirs to the impotence of Andronicus, and led to a series of petty raids in Macedonia and Thrace. Emboldened by the ease of initial successes, Mohammed of Sarukhan in 1333 led in person an expedition of seventy-five ships against the Macedonian coast. Andronicus was too weak to oppose his landing.[119] In the same year Turkish pirates seized for a short time Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmora, only a few hours’ sail from Constantinople.[120] The following year the emperor was compelled to put an army in the field to save Salonika from the Turks.[121]

These attentions from his proposed allies did not prevent Andronicus from seeking aid in the same quarters in 1336 when he was besieging the Genoese of Phocaea. Mohammed sent twenty-four ships, numerous troops, and all the provisions necessary to sustain the imperial army. The net gain to Andronicus from this expedition was the empty acknowledgement from Cattaneo of Phocaea, who was not afraid of Andronicus but did not want to be bothered by him and his Turkish allies, that he would hold as a ‘fief of the empire’ what Andronicus, even with the help of the Turks, could not take from him![122]

This momentary diversion of the attention and energies of his neighbours was most propitious for Orkhan. Andronicus had rendered him good service. It gave to Orkhan an opportunity of enlarging and rounding out his dominions without incurring opposition that would not only have prevented him from carrying out his schemes but might also have destroyed him. Orkhan had been waiting for this moment. In 1333, the Turcoman emir of Mysia had died. His younger son had taken refuge with Orkhan, and promised in return for aid in dispossessing his brother to surrender to the Osmanlis Balikesri and three other border cities. Orkhan could not act immediately. He contented himself with advising the elder brother to divide his dominions with Tursun. Tursun went to negotiate in person, and was killed by his brother. This was shortly before the expedition to Phocaea. Orkhan was now ready. He put in the field an expedition, ostensibly to punish the assassination of his protégé Tursun, and was so successful that he forced the emir of Karasi to give up Pergamos and go into exile in Brusa.[123] In another expedition, which probably occurred in

THE EMIRATES of OSMAN and ORKHAN

[[Largest view.]]

1337 at the earliest,[124] Orkhan added Mikhalitsch, Ulubad, and Kermasti to his dominions. He was now virtually master of Mysia.

This was the extent of Orkhan’s conquests in Asia Minor. It is necessary to emphasize this point, owing to the erroneous idea which has so long been accepted and which has found its way into many modern writers.[125] No corroboration can be found for the statement of Cantacuzenos that Soleiman captured Angora from the Tartars in 1354.[126] Aside from this, neither Byzantines nor Osmanlis report any further conquests of Orkhan in Asia Minor. From the fact that there is a complete silence as to their fate, it is reasonable to suppose that the Osmanlis during the last decade of Orkhan’s reign destroyed the independence of several little states of which Ibn Batutah and Shehabeddin report the existence between 1334 and 1349.[127] But these were all in a general sense either included in Mysia (Karasi) or in the territory which Orkhan is popularly supposed to have inherited from Osman.[128]

After the Mysian expedition and the fall of Nicomedia, Orkhan may be regarded as the acknowledged sovereign of a definite state. We have good contemporary testimony to his character, his power and his reputation at this period just before he became an active factor in deciding the destinies of the Byzantine Empire.

Ibn Batutah calls him the ‘lord of Brusa, son of Osman the Little, powerful and rich among the Turcoman kings, in treasures, cities and soldiers’. He never ceased making the tour of the hundred castles he possessed. In each of these he would pass several days to repair them and inspect their situation. It was common report that he never spent a whole month in a city, not even in Brusa. He was all the time fighting and besieging the infidels. It was his indomitable energy which seems to have impressed the traveller from Morocco. The absolute lack of slothful, indifferent acquiescence in the will of God of these latter-day Turkish converts was naturally a source of continual surprise to this doctor of Islam, fresh from his observation of races who had been for hundreds of years in the faith of Mohammed.[129]

Shehabeddin is less complimentary. He says: ‘Orkhan has under his domination fifty cities and a still larger number of castles. His army consists of 40,000 horsemen, and an almost innumerable host of foot-soldiers. But these troops are not warlike, and their number is more formidable in appearance than in reality. This prince shows himself very pacific in regard to his neighbours, and always ready to help his allies. However, he is engaged in continual wars and is always at odds with many enemies. If he gains little from these struggles, it is because his soldiers do not serve him well, his subjects are not well disposed towards him, and several of his neighbours live in open hostility to him. I am told that the Osmanlis are treacherous men, whose hearts know only hatred and whose heads are filled with base thoughts.’[130] In another place Shehabeddin records that Orkhan has in the field 25,000 horsemen who are fighting daily the prince of Constantinople. ‘The Greek emperor is eager to buy the goodwill of Orkhan by paying him a monthly tribute.’ Orkhan sends expeditions into Europe, ‘where waves of blood flow’.[131]