V

Nor were the Osmanlis, until the reign of Bayezid, one hundred years later, the strongest military and political factor in Asia Minor. The Turkish emirates of Sarukhan, of Kermian, and especially of Karaman, could match the Osmanlis in extent of territory and ability to defend it.[36] We shall see later how the Osmanlis conquered their Anatolian neighbours by a prestige won in Europe and by soldiers gathered in Europe. One of the principal tasks of this book is to correct the fundamental misconception of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire, which has persisted to this day.[37] It seems to be a pretty generally accepted idea that the Osmanlis were a Turkish Moslem race, who invaded Asia Minor, and, having established themselves there, pushed on into Europe and overthrew the Byzantine Empire. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Osmanlis were masters of the whole Balkan peninsula before they had subjugated Asia Minor as far as Konia!

Osman and his people have no history until they come in contact with the Byzantines. The Ottoman chroniclers, and the Byzantine and European historians who have followed them, give at some length the early conquests of Osman. But the accounts are fantastical, obscure, and frequently contradictory. It is the story of a village chieftain, who succeeded in imposing his authority upon his neighbours over an increasingly wider area, until a small state was formed. But it is not the same story as that of the other emirs who built up independent states in the old Seljuk provinces. For Osman founded his principality in territory contiguous to Constantinople, and by attacking

EMIRATE OF OSMAN

[[Largest view.]]

and conquering the last fragments of the Byzantine possessions along and in the hinterland of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora. Osman’s opponents were all Christians. Had he attacked his Turkish neighbours first, had he gone south and east instead of north and west, in building up his state, there would never have been a new race born to change the history of the world.

It is impossible to state with any degree of certitude the conquests of Osman before 1300. The record of village warfare, with its names of localities which even the most celebrated Ottoman geographer could not, three centuries later, identify,[38] is of no importance whatever. The extent of Osman’s principality, when he and his people first appear in history, was very insignificant. In 1300 he had succeeded in submitting to his authority a part of ancient Phrygia Epictetus and Bithynia, whose four corners were: south-east, Eski Sheïr; south-west, the eastern end of Mount Olympus; north-east, the junction of the Kara Su and the Sangarius; north-west, Yeni Sheïr. In 1299 Osman took up his residence in Yeni Sheïr. This was the outpost of his principality, in a position of extreme importance, about half-way between Brusa and Nicaea.[39] In sixty years the tribe of Osman had advanced sixty miles from Eski Sheïr, the old city, to Yeni Sheïr, the new city.[40] They held undisputed sway only in the valley of the Kara Su,[41] and their important villages and castles, Biledjik,[42] Itburnu, Inoenu, Sugut, AÏnegoel,[43] Karadja Hissar,[44] Yundhissar, and Yar Hissar,[45] were all within a day’s journey of each other.

In 1301, twelve years after Osman began to form his state, he fought his first battle, and came into direct contact with the Byzantine Empire. At Baphaeon,[46] near Nicomedia, the heterarch Muzalon, with 2,000 men, attempted to check a raid the Osmanlis were making into the fertile valley whose products contributed so greatly to the well-being of Nicomedia. It was midsummer, just before the gathering of the harvests.[47] In a pitched battle, the unarmoured horsemen of Osman charged so speedily and so impetuously that they broke through the heavy line of their opponents, and the Greek commander’s retreat was covered only by the opportune arrival of Slavic mercenaries.[48] The Osmanlis were too few in number to follow up this victory. It is hardly probable that they made any attack on Nicomedia.[49] But they laid waste all the districts into which they dared to venture.