The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

The history of the Eastern Empire, and that of the Ottomans in connexion with it, was largely affected by the movements of the Mongols in the further East. Mongolian pressure weakened the Seljuk Turks, and so allowed the growth of the Nicene Empire. Mongolian invasions also led indirectly to the growth of the Ottoman power, and at a later time they gave it its greatest check. ♦Origin of the Ottomans.♦ The Ottomans grew out of a Turkish band who served the Seljuk Sultan against the Mongols. As his vassals, they began to be a power in Asia and to harry the coasts of Europe. They passed into Europe, and won a great European dominion far more quickly than they had won their Asiatic dominion. This is the special characteristic of the Ottoman power. Asiatic in everything else, it is geographically European; most of its Asiatic and all its African dominion was won from an European centre. ♦Break-up and reunion of the Ottoman power.♦ Already a power in Europe, but not yet in possession of the Imperial city, the new Ottoman power was for a moment utterly broken in pieces by the second flood of Mongol invasion. That the shattered dominion came together again is an event without a parallel in Eastern history. The restored Ottoman power then won Constantinople, and from Constantinople, as representing the fallen Empire, it won back the lost dominion of the Empire. ♦Its permanence.♦ The permanence of the Ottoman power, when Constantinople was once won, is in no way wonderful. Even the unreclaimed Asiatic, when he was once seated on the throne of the New Rome, inherited his share of Rome’s eternity.

♦First settlements of the Ottomans.♦

The first settlements of the Ottoman Turks were on the banks of the Sangarios, which gave them from the beginning a threatening position towards Europe. ♦1299.♦ By the end of the thirteenth century they were firmly established in that region. In the first half of the fourteenth they became the leading power in Western Asia. ♦Conquest of Brusa. 1326-1330.♦ Brusa, the Asiatic capital, won in the last days of the Emir Othman, has a manifest eye towards Europe. ♦Of Nikaia and Nikomêdeia. 1330-1338.♦ Nikaia and Nikomêdeia followed, and the Ottoman stepped geographically into the same position towards the revived Greek Empire which the Nicene princes had held towards the Latin Empire. ♦Entry into Europe. 1354.
Conquest of Hadrianople. 1361.♦ In the last days of the Emir Othman came their passage into Europe, and a few more years saw Amurath in his European capital of Hadrianople, completely hemming Constantinople in. ♦Ottoman advance.♦ The second half of the fourteenth century was a time of the most speedy Ottoman advance, and the amount of real advance is by no means represented by the change on the map. We have seen in the case of Servia, of Greece, and of Hungary, that the course of Turkish invasion commonly went through three stages. There was first the time of mere plunder. Then came the tributary stage, and lastly, the day of complete bondage. ♦Bajazet first Sultan, 1389-1402.♦ Under Bajazet, the first Ottoman prince who bore the title of Sultan, the immediate Ottoman dominion in Europe stretched from the Ægæan to the Danube. It took in all Bulgaria, all Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace, save only Chalkidikê and the district just round Constantinople. Servia and Wallachia were dependent states, as indeed was the Empire itself. Central and southern Greece, Bosnia, Hungary, even Styria, were lands open to plunder.

♦Battle of Angora. 1402.♦

This great dominion was broken in pieces by the victory of Timour at Angora. It seemed that the empire of the Ottoman had passed away like the empire of the Servian. ♦Break up of the Ottoman power.♦ The dominion of Bajazet was divided among his sons and the princes of the dispossessed Turkish dynasties. The Christian states had a breathing-time, and the sons of Bajazet were glad to give back to the Empire some important parts of its lost territories. ♦Reunited under Mahomet. 1413.♦ The Ottoman power came together again under Mahomet the First; but for nearly half a century its advance was slower than in the half-century before. The conquests of Mahomet and of Amurath the Second lay mainly in the Greek and Albanian lands. ♦Conquest of Thessalonikê. 1430.♦ The Turk now reached the Hadriatic, and the conquest of Thessalonikê gave him a firmer hold on the Ægæan. Towards Servia and Hungary he lost and he won again; he hardly conquered. ♦Mahomet the Conqueror. 1451-1481.♦ It was the thirty years of Mahomet the Conqueror which finally gave the Ottoman dominion its European position. ♦Conquest of Constantinople. 1453.♦ From his first and greatest conquest of the New Rome, he gathered in what remained, Greek, Frank, and Slave. The conquest of the Greek mainland, of Albania and Bosnia, the final conquest of Servia, made him master of the whole south-eastern peninsula, save only the points held by Venice and the unconquered height of the Black Mountain. He began to gather in the Western islands, and he struck the first great blow to the Venetian power by the conquest of Euboia. Around the Euxine he won the Empire of Trebizond and the points held by Genoa. The great mass of the islands and the few Venetian points on the coast still escaped. ♦Extent of his dominion.♦ Otherwise Mahomet the Conqueror held the whole European dominions of Basil the Second, with a greater dominion in Asia than that of Manuel Komnênos. From the Danube to the Tanais and beyond it, he held a vast overlordship, over lands which had obeyed no Emperor since Aurelian, over lands which had never obeyed any Emperor at all. At last the Mussulman lord of Constantinople seemed about to win back the Italian dominion of its Christian lords. ♦Taking of Otranto, 1480.♦ In his last days, by the possession of Otranto, Mahomet ruled west of the Hadriatic.

It might have been deemed that the little cloud which now lighted on Otranto would grow as fast as the little cloud which a hundred and thirty years before had lighted on Kallipolis. But Bajazet the Second made no conquests save the points which were won from Venice. ♦Conquest of Syria and Egypt. 1516-17.♦ Selim the First, the greatest conqueror of his line against fellow Mahometans, had no leisure, while winning Syria and Egypt, to make any advance on Christian ground. ♦Conquests of Suleiman. 1520-1566.♦ But under Suleiman the Lawgiver, not only the overlordship but the immediate rule of Constantinople under its Turkish Sultans was spread over wide European lands which had never obeyed its Christian Emperors. ♦His African overlordship.♦ Then too its Mussulman lords won back at least the nominal overlordship of that African seaboard which the first Mussulmans had rent away from the allegiance of Constantinople. The greatest conquest of Suleiman was made in Hungary; but he also made the Ægæan an Ottoman sea. The early years of his reign saw the driving of the Knights from Rhodes, and the winning of their fortress of Halikarnassos, the last European possession on Asiatic ground. His last days saw the annexation of the Naxian duchy; at an intermediate stage Venice lost her Peloponnesian strongholds. ♦Algiers. 1519.♦ In Africa the Turk received the commendation of Algiers and of Tunis. ♦Tunis conquered by Charles the Fifth. 1531.
1535.♦ But Tunis, won for Christendom by the Imperial King of the Two Sicilies, was lost and won again, till it was finally won for Islam by the second Selim. Tripolis, granted to the Knights, also passed to Suleiman. ♦1574.♦ Under Selim Cyprus was added; the fight of Lepanto could neither save nor recover it; but the advance of the Turk was stopped. ♦Decline of the Ottoman power.♦ The conquests of the seventeenth century were small compared with those of earlier days, and, before that century was out, the Ottoman Terminus had begun to go back.

♦Greatest extent of the Ottoman power.♦

Yet it was in the last half of the seventeenth century that the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent. ♦Conquest of Crete. 1641-1669.
of Podolia. 1672-1676.♦ Crete was now won; a few years later Kamienetz and all Podolia were ceded to the Turk by Poland. This was not absolutely his last European acquisition, but it was his last acquisition of a great province. The Ottoman dominion now covered a wider space on the map than it had done at any earlier moment. Suleiman in all his glory had not reigned over Cyprus, Crete, and Podolia. The tide now turned for ever. ♦The Ottoman frontier falls back.♦ From that time the Ottoman has, like his Byzantine predecessor, had his periods of revival and recovery, but on the whole his frontier has steadily gone back.

♦Ottoman loss of Hungary. 1683-1699.♦