The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire; a history of the Osmanlis up to the death of Bayezid I (1300-1403)

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

VIII

But while Osman was, in the minds of these and other later historians, supposed to be attacking Rhodes and making himself master of Asia Minor, he stayed within the narrow limits of his little principality, from which he never issued forth, as far as we know, during his circumscribed career. For he had, within a day’s journey of his residence, the imperial cities of Brusa and Nicaea, whose walls were far too strong for the infant Osmanlis. A little more to the north-west, in a position of unrivalled strategic importance, defending the logical[75] waterway to Constantinople from the valley of the Sangarius, lay Nicomedia.

After the battle of Kuyun Hissar (Baphaeon) we hear nothing of Osman until 1308. This year is memorable for several events of great importance. The first of these is the capture of Ak Hissar, the fortress guarding the place where the Sangarius finishes its descent and enters the plain behind Nicomedia. This was the last barrier opposing the progress of the Osmanlis through the narrow peninsula which stretches out between the Gulf of Nicomedia and the Black Sea to form the extreme north-western corner of Asia. Owing to the terrible misfortunes which had fallen upon the Byzantines through the Catalans, no effort seems to have been made to use Nicomedia as a base of operations for defending this peninsula. So before the year was out the Osmanlis appeared for the first time on the Bosphorus. In the years following the fall of Ak Hissar the Osmanlis slowly but thoroughly extended their authority until they were in possession of the harbours and fortresses of the Black Sea littoral between the mouth of the Sangarius and the Bosphorus.

In the same year Kalolimni, an island of the Marmora, which lies near the mouth of the Gulf of Mudania, was occupied by Kara Ali.[76] By this the water-route from Brusa to Constantinople, and one of the two routes from Nicaea to Constantinople, were obstructed.[77] Kalolimni has the honour of being the first Ottoman island and the only one captured during the chieftainship of Osman. The investment of Brusa from the land side now began. So alarmed was the commandant that he sent Osman a ‘gift’ of money to purchase peace,[78] thus inaugurating the humiliating precedent which the mightiest emperors and kings of Christendom came in time to follow.

It was in 1308, also, that Osman captured Tricocca,[79] which cut off the communication by land between Nicaea and Nicomedia. While he was engaged in dealing with Nicaea and Brusa, a danger threatened Osman from the east. A horde of Tartars was hovering along the confines of his state.[80] Some of them sacked Karadja Hissar at the time of the fair, and were prevented from marching on Eski Sheïr only by the timely arrival of Orkhan, who defeated them through the superiority of his cavalry. Instead of massacring his prisoners, Orkhan, as was the invariable custom of his father with the Greeks, offered the raiders Islam and Ottoman nationality.[81] It was in this way that the Osmanlis increased in numbers.

After 1308 the energies of the Osmanlis seem to have been directed against Nicaea and Brusa. The fall of Brusa is the only other event recorded during the lifetime of Osman. Just when and how Brusa fell cannot be stated with precision. We shall find the same difficulty later in connexion with the fall of Nicaea and Nicomedia. The Turkish traditions, as Seadeddin gathered them, state that Osman besieged Brusa with a great army in 1317. He erected a fortress near Kaplidja, and put his nephew, Ak Timur, in charge of it. A second fortress, either erected by Osman or captured by him, was put in care of Balaban, ‘his most faithful follower.’ Kaplidja, now known as Tchekirdje, celebrated for its hot baths,[82] is on a ridge not more than a mile from the citadel of Brusa. It commands the approach from the port of Brusa, not far from where the road must cross the river. Traditional remains of the second fortress are still to be seen on a foothill of Mount Olympus, about two miles south-east of the citadel.

Of the actual fall of Brusa there is no definite statement in Seadeddin except that the city surrendered to Orkhan, who brought the news to his dying father. As Osman died in 1326, there is a gap of nine years to be accounted for between the investment of the city and its capture. To one who has studied the contour of this country and the nearness of the two fortresses to the citadel of Brusa it is clear either that Brusa was surrounded or fell very soon after the Osmanlis settled garrisons at the gates of the city, or that some modus vivendi was arranged between the Osmanlis and the local garrison during those years. A decade has been the conventional period for legendary sieges since Homer sang of Troy.

From the Byzantine contemporary writers one gains the impression, which is probably a correct one, that Brusa was simply abandoned to the Osmanlis. There was no assault, and no bitter struggle outside the walls of the city.[83] The Greek commander, discouraged by the apparent inability or unwillingness[84] of the emperors to come to his relief, surrendered the city. Deeply disgusted, as he had every reason to be, Evrenos became a Moslem, and cast his fortunes with the Osmanlis. Many of the leading Greeks followed his example. For, while the people of Brusa through long years were straining every nerve to preserve their city and to maintain the honour of Byzantium in Asia, the elder Andronicus and his grandson, Andronicus III, were engaged in trying to destroy each other. It was a sordid civil strife with no redeeming feature. Neither emperor had the slightest conception of patriotism or of personal honour or of the sacredness of family ties. From this time onward the Palaeologi put themselves on record as one of the most iniquitous families that have ever disgraced the kingly office. When Constantine, one hundred and twenty-seven years later, fell with the walls of his city, his death was a striking illustration of the wrath of God upon the fourth generation of those who had hated and despised Him.

In the same year that Brusa fell, and with the same fate imminent for Nicaea and Nicomedia, young Andronicus celebrated with great pomp his wedding. The Hippodrome, in sight of Mount Olympus, was the scene of a gay tournament in which young Andronicus distinguished himself by breaking more lances than any of his courtiers. From his imperial throne, the elder Andronicus looked on, and turned over in his head various schemes for making his grandson’s bride a widow. After the wedding festivities, while Andronicus was taking his bride to Demotika, he was set upon by a band of roving Turks, at whose hands he and Cantacuzenos both received wounds. When he reached Demotika, he learned that his grandfather was preparing another war against him.[85] Is it any wonder that the Greeks of Asia Minor were not averse to becoming Moslems and helping in the founding of a new nation to inherit Constantinople? There is one more charge which must be recorded against the elder Andronicus. When a crusade for the stemming of the Moslem invasion was planned by Marino Sanudo, Andronicus not only refused to co-operate, but he would not even consent to interrupt his friendly relations with the Sultan of Egypt.[86]