When I call this statement, in its entirety, a misconception, I realize that I am attacking the idea of the founding of the Ottoman Empire which has been voiced by the most eminent historians and has an accepted and unquestioned place in textbooks and encyclopaedias, and in general histories.
In a French translation of Chalcocondylas, published in 1662, under the woodcut of Osman, we find these four lines:
‘De simple Capitaine en des Pays déserts,
Près du grand Saladin la Fortune m’attire;
Et là de ses débris je fonde cet Empire,
Qui menace aujourd’huy d’engloutir l’Univers.’
I quote this verse because it seems to me to express concisely the commonly accepted idea of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire, as I find it written everywhere. Hammer, whose eighteen volumes contain a wealth of material upon the Ottoman Empire not elsewhere to be found, and who shows remarkable erudition as well as care and critical powers, perpetuates the tales about Ertogrul and Osman and the court of Konia. He makes the categorical statement, ‘The empire of the Seljuks broke up, and on its ruins arose that of Osman’.[682] Creasy has popularized the opinion of Hammer in the English-speaking world.[683] Lane-Poole, who has written the only general history of the Ottoman Empire in English in our generation, has tacitly accepted the common tradition.[684] Zinkeisen and Jorga, the only later historians whose names can be coupled for scholarly work with that of Hammer, are most unsatisfactory in their failure to take up critically the Ottoman traditions of the early days of the Empire.[685] Leunclavius, the sole writer in Western Europe before Hammer, whose work might be called ‘scientific’, discusses exhaustively and compares critically all authorities existing at his time (1590) on most minute points of early Ottoman history, but is almost silent on the grave inconsistencies and contradictions arising from the question of the relation between the Osmanlis and the Seljuks of Konia.[686] There is the same silence in Cantemir and his translators.[687] The latest Ottoman historian says: ‘Osman’s military and political career naturally divides itself into two parts, that in which he was vassal of Alaeddin, and that in which he became sultan.’[688] An Oriental whose work has enjoyed great vogue in France declares: ‘Osman pursued through every obstacle the realization of his plan, which consisted in founding upon the ruins of the Seljuk Empire a great, free, and independent state.’[689]
I find one German scholar who, briefly touching upon the foundation of Osman’s power, rejects or ignores the connexion with the Seljuks of Konia; but he goes further afield, and makes the astonishing statement that Osman conquered Bagdad, allowed the Khalifs only spiritual power, called himself Sultan, and became master of the Moslem world, thereby connecting the Mongol conquest of Mesopotamia with the Mameluke conquest of Egypt, and attributing it all to Osman![690]
If we had good ground for rejecting the princely origin of Osman, our justification for impugning and discarding the connexion of Osman with the Seljuks of Konia is stronger still.
Kaï Kobad Alaeddin, the only Sultan to whom the name of Alaeddin is given by common consent,[691] died in 1236.[692] He was succeeded by Kaï Khosrew II, Giazzeddin, or Ghizatheddin, who was Sultan at the time of the great Mongol invasion of Asia Minor. In the spring of 1243, Erzerum was sacked without having received any help from Konia. Some months only after this event did Kaï Khosrew move. He was defeated at Mughan, near Erzindjian, in a decisive battle,[693] and fled to Angora, abandoning his baggage. Erzindjian fell next. Then Kaï Khosrew withdrew to Sivas, and from that city sent an embassy to the Mongols, making his submission and promising an annual tribute of four hundred thousand pieces of silver. The Mongol armies penetrated as far as Smyrna. Everywhere submission was complete, although no effort was made to provide a new government for the conquered regions in the western part of the peninsula. The Emperor of Trebizond became a vassal of the Mongols.[694]
The battle of Mughan cost the Seljuk Empire its independence.[695] After 1246, when Kaï Khosrew died, the situation of the Seljuks of Konia is depicted by Shehabeddin in these words: ‘The princes of the family of Seljuk kept only the title of sovereign, without having any authority or any power. There was left to them only that which concerned their own person and their houses, the insignia of royalty, and sufficient money for expenses of an indispensable necessity. The power belonged to Tartar governors, who managed everything without opposition. It was in the name of the princes of the family of Djenghiz Khan that the public prayer was made, and that gold and silver money was struck.[696] When the dynasty of the Seljucides had arrived at the last degree of weakness ... races of Turks seized a large part of these countries.... The Turks recognized the pre-eminence of the prince of Kermian.’[697] There is not a word of any possible Ottoman supremacy even in his own day, fifty years later. Every source on the latter half of the thirteenth century which I have consulted corroborates the testimony of Shehabeddin.[698] I have space to give only a few of the facts which I have gathered concerning the fortunes of the Sultans of Konia during the period 1246-1300, when Ertogrul and Osman are pictured by the Ottoman historians, and by the European historians who have followed them, as basking in the sunshine of Seljuk imperial favour.
After the death of Kaï Khosrew, the empire was divided between his three sons, who, however, seemed to rule in common as vassals of the Mongols, for their names were asserted to appear together on coins in 1249.[699] During the decade after the conquest, the Mongols overran western Asia Minor. We read that Sultan Rokneddin went with the Mongol general, Baïchu, into winter quarters in Bithynia,[700] and that Baïchu received orders from Khulagu Khan in 1257 to pillage the entire Seljuk dominions. In 1264, Abulfeda gives Rum, with its capital as Konia, among the provinces ruled by Khulagu.[701] Bibars, Sultan of Egypt, succeeded in occupying Konia for a brief time in 1276.[702] In 1278, Abaka Khan opened negotiations with Haython, king of Little Armenia, with the view of making him Sultan of Rum. In 1282, Bibars, writing to Ahmed Khan, says: ‘At this moment Konghurataï’ (a Mongol general) ‘is in the land of Rum, which is subject to you and pays you taxes.’[703] In 1283, Ghizatheddin, who was ruling with the merest semblance of royalty in Konia, was deposed by Ahmed Khan, exiled to Erzindjian, and replaced by Masud. There was anarchy everywhere in Asia Minor at this time.[704] The distinguished French Orientalist, M. Huart, who studied in Konia itself the inscriptions of the Seljuk Sultans, could find nothing after this period to indicate that the two final sultans who followed Ghizatheddin were more than playthings of the Mongols.[705]
The testimony of Marco Polo is most precious to us here. When he passed through this country in 1271 he says that Konia, Sivas, Caesarea and many other cities of ‘Turquemanie’ were subject to the Tartars, who imposed their rule there.[706] It was his impression that the Turcomans were subject to local rulers, and responded to no central authority.