Ottoman History

Ottoman History

Selim I (ca. 1470-1520), the ninth Ottoman sultan, was the instigator of large-scale conquest and administrative consolidation in Asia that left the Ottomans dominant in the Middle East.
The son of Bayezid II (Bajazet), Selim gained administrative experience as governor of Trebizond and Semendra. In contention for the succession with his older brothers, Selim won with the support of the Janissaries, who forced Bayezid to abdicate on April 25, 1512.

For a year the new sultan was preoccupied with eliminating his brothers and nephews. Then he turned to consolidating Ottoman power in Anatolia, which was threatened by religious attractions from Persia. In the fall of 1513 lists were prepared of Shiite heretics. Some 40,000 died, and others were imprisoned or deported in the persecution that followed.

Selim II (Ottoman Turkish: سليم ثانى Selīm-i sānī, Turkish:II.Selim) (May 28, 1524 – December 12, 1574) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66) and his favorite wife Roxelana (also known as Hürrem). While Suleiman was renowned for his commitment to justice, and called the "Lawgiver," Selim was renowned for his love of wine, earning the title "The Sod." In this instance, the son could not have been more different from the father. Under the father, the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith. Under his indolent son, the Empire began a long, slow decline. Selim entered but also broke treaties, gained the island of Cyprus but lost his fleet
Many Muslims regard Suleiman as an example of the ideal or model ruler.

Until 1923, Kayaköy – also known as Levissi - was a thriving village with a population of several thousand people: Today it is a ghost town with deserted houses, shops, schools and churches.

Dating back to antiquity the area was first inhabited in approximately 3,000 BC and was the location of the ancient city of Carmylessus, which at its height had a population of about 20,000 people: It was to remain an important trading city until 1100 AD.

Kayaköy was built on the site of Carmylessus in the 18th century; with the existing buildings being constructed in the second part of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th. Kayaköy or Karmylassos, as it was called in Greek, had been continually inhabited since at least the 13th century. In fact the Turks and Greeks had lived together in the region dating back to at least the 1st century BC with the Turks maintaining the fields and the Greeks provided the trades and craftsmen.

The relations between Turks and Arabs go back centuries. Muslim Arabs began to conquer Turkic regions starting in 705 and Turks fought on the side of Arabs against the Chinese in the Battle of Talas in 751. This alliance developed a connection between Turks and Arabs. Turkic princes in Turkistan adopted Islam, and later, the people adopted Islam en masse.

Abbasids formed military units comprised of Turks and established cities like Samarra, where these units settled. Due to their advanced war skills, Turks moved to high positions in the army. They were also assigned to state positions. Indeed, this practice helped them warm up to Islam and all Turks adopted Islam in the 10th century.

Bayezid II (Dec 3, 1447 – May 26, 1512) (Ottoman Turkish: بايزيد ثانى Bāyezīd-i sānī, Turkish:II.Bayezid or II.Beyazıt) was the oldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Bayezid II consolidated the Ottoman Empire and thwarted a Safavid rebellion soon before abdicating his throne to his son, Selim I.

Early life
Bayezid II was born in Dimetoka Palace (now Didymoteicho) in Thrace as the son of Mehmed II (1451–81) and Valide Sultan Amina Gul-Bahar or Gulbahar Khatun, a Greek Orthodox [1] of Noble birth from the village of Douvera, Trabzon,[1] who died in 1492. Bayezid II married Ayşe Hatun, a convert of Greek ethnicity, who was the mother of Selim I.

Fight for the throne

After having signed a treaty of peace and friendship with the Kingdom of Prussia in 1790, the Ottoman Empire intensified its military ties with Germany, especially during the reign of Abdülhamid II. The relationship between Germany and the Ottoman Empire was not restricted to being allies in World War I, the two countries also cooperated on several large scale investment projects, such as the construction of the Baghdad Railway.

In the decade up to 1914 the Ottoman government invested heavily in the modernisation of its army's weapons and equipment. This programme concentrated on buying material directly from foreign companies rather than building domestic industrial capacity. As part of this modernisation process the Ottoman government invited a German military mission to advise the army on its choice of modern weapons and how best to use them. Under the influence of these advisers most of the pre-war military contracts went to large German arms manufacturers, including Krupp, Mauser and Rheinmetall.

Late during the summer of 1914, train stations all over Europe echoed with the sound of leather boots and the clattering of weapons as millions of enthusiastic young soldiers mobilized for the most glorious conflict since the Napoleonic Wars. In the eyes of many men, pride and honor glowed in competition with the excitement of a wonderful adventure and the knowledge of righting some perceived infringement on the interests of their respective nation. Within weeks however, the excitement and glory gave way to horror and anonymous death, brought on by dangerous new machines of war which took control of the old fields of honor and turned them into desolate moonscapes littered with corpses and wreckage. This new great war, called World War One, began as a local disturbance in Southern Europe but eventually spread into a worldwide struggle which produced two of the greatest bloodlettings in history; the battles of the Somme and Verdun.

Turkish War of Independence
The Turkish revolutionaries rejected the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which had left the Ottoman government in control of substantially less of Anatolia than modern Turkey controls. Following the victory of Atatürk's forces in the War of Independence, the Treaty of Sèvres was substituted with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which granted international recognition to the government of Ankara, rather than the Ottoman government in Istanbul.

World War II[edit]

Murat I (or Murad I) is one of the sultans who ruled the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. He was also known as sultan Murad Hudavendigar Han. He was born in 1326, ascended to throne in 1360, and died in 1389. His father was Orhan Gazi and his mother Nilufer Hatun.
When Murad I ascended the throne in 1360, his sons, Ibrahim and Halil, rebelled against him while he was on an expedition. He returned home and stopped this uprising immediately, killing his sons. After this incident, he passed a law forbidding crown princes to be appointed as viziers or grand viziers. In 1373, this time his 14 years old son, Savci Bey, rebelled against the sultan but he also shared the same faith with his brothers.

The United Kingdom (UK) was one of the first countries with which the Ottoman Empire established regular diplomatic relations. The first Ambassador appointed by the UK to the Ottoman Empire, William Harborne, assumed his duties in Istanbul in 1583 and Yusuf Agah Efendi appointed as the Ottoman Ambassador to London in 1793.

The two countries had a history, marked with periods of friendly relations as well as periods of confrontation and war in various alliances, prior to the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

At the time of its foundation in the early fourteenth century, the Osmanli or Ottoman state was one among many small principalities that emerged as a result of the disintegration of the Seljuq sultanate in Anatolia and subsequent instability caused by Mongol rule

. This embryonic Ottoman state, located on the frontiers of the Islamic world, gradually absorbed former
Byzantine
territories in Anatolia and the Balkans. In 1453, this expansion culminated in the Ottoman capture of
Constantinople
, the great capital of Eastern Christendom. With the conquest of the
Mamluk empire
in 1517, the Ottomans ruled over the most powerful state in the Islamic world. By the middle of the sixteenth century, continued military success in an area extending from Central Europe to the Indian Ocean gave the Ottomans the status of a world power.