The Rise of the Ottomans

[jeriko one]

The Ottomans were not beyond employing foreigners and non-Muslims, to further their own interests. E.g. the guy who casted the giant cannons which aided the final conquest of Constantinople was a Scot I believed (at any rate, a 'Frank').

Ottoman Empire relied heavily in Jewish merchants in trade. Also Armenians had some high commands in the state before 1877. BTW, I remember the guy who offered the cannons to the Ottoman was Hungarian and his name was Urban. But I amy be wrong about that since it is an old info for me.

 

[fing0lfin]

Jeriko is right. The guy was Hungarian.

The cannon was 8 meters long, and had a diameter of 2.40 meters in its widest part. The cannons-balls for this cannon were 300kg weight.

 

[useless]

the byzantien empire only collapsed when they're emperor died in the fighting i think i dont know what emperor though

 

[Greek Stud]

The Paleologus family was the last Byzantine Empirial family, so I believe it was a younger boy maybe named Constantine or Mihalis.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

What's that city of "Mohacs" below hungary? I'm from the region but i've never heard of it.

You are Hungarian, and you don't know about Mohacs?

 

[sydhe]

useless
the byzantien empire only collapsed when they're emperor died in the fighting i think i dont know what emperor though

Constantine XI

 

[Japanrocks12]

Jeriko is right. The guy was Hungarian.

The cannon was 8 meters long, and had a diameter of 2.40 meters in its widest part. The cannons-balls for this cannon were 300kg weight.

I thought that the designer was Italian?

 

[Rambuchan]

Very good article there K-D. Thanks!

Europe was alarmed by the rapid Ottoman successes. Crusades were launched. One, launched in 1396 and organized by the papacy and Venice, was crushed at the battle of Nicopolis. In 1444, another, of the papacy and including the kings of Poland, Hungary, Naples and the rulers of Transylvania, Serbia, Venice and Genoa, was crushed at the battle of Varna. The Ottomans were unstoppable.

Here is why they were so unstoppable *reaches for Mughal scenario pedia entry*, so please excuse the formatting:


The Ottomans began using guns sometime between 1444 and 1448. Following that, other troop types began to appear, such as the regular rifle infantry (Payade Topci, literally "foot artillery"), regular cavalry armed with rifles (Svari Topci Neferi, literally "mounted artillery soldier") and bombardiers (Khimbaraci), consisting of grenadiers that threw explosives called khimbara
and the soldiers that served the artillery with maintenance and powder supplies.

The Ottomans sought both to benefit from technological innovations in the West, as well as their own native ingenuity and Byzantine precedents. The besiegers under Murad II in Constantinople in 1453 were perhaps the first to use mortars with parabolic trajectories. And an apparent adaptation of the famous ‘Greek fire’ that bedeviled Byzantine enemies so was employed in the form of flying projectiles in the battle of Rhodes in 1480.

Interestingly enough, the Ottomans even appear to have used a sort of cluster bomb in the 1521 siege of Belgrade; an observer described it as a weapon liable to “…explode into seventy or more or fewer pieces… each of these shards breaks and cuts and smashes what it hits”.

The story of Berham, the 'saltpeter producer' of Erzurum, in 1576 shows, officials were constantly thinking of how to get more from their resources – in
part because local officials were awarded bonuses for doing so. In this case,
Berham suggested moving the production site from Erzurum to the newly-acquired Oltu, “…where water was sufficient and peter could be produced for nine months of the year as opposed to three months in Erzurum”. This kind of thinking showed “…how quick the Ottomans were in drawing immediate economic benefit from newly conquered territories”.

 

[jeriko one]

Very good article there K-D. Thanks!
Here is why they were so unstoppable *reaches for Mughal scenario pedia entry*, so please excuse the formatting:


The Ottomans began using guns sometime between 1444 and 1448. Following that, other troop types began to appear, such as the regular rifle infantry (Payade Topci, literally "foot artillery"), regular cavalry armed with rifles (Svari Topci Neferi, literally "mounted artillery soldier") and bombardiers (Khimbaraci), consisting of grenadiers that threw explosives called khimbara
and the soldiers that served the artillery with maintenance and powder supplies.

The Ottomans sought both to benefit from technological innovations in the West, as well as their own native ingenuity and Byzantine precedents. The besiegers under Murad II in Constantinople in 1453 were perhaps the first to use mortars with parabolic trajectories. And an apparent adaptation of the famous ‘Greek fire’ that bedeviled Byzantine enemies so was employed in the form of flying projectiles in the battle of Rhodes in 1480.

Interestingly enough, the Ottomans even appear to have used a sort of cluster bomb in the 1521 siege of Belgrade; an observer described it as a weapon liable to “…explode into seventy or more or fewer pieces… each of these shards breaks and cuts and smashes what it hits”.

The story of Berham, the 'saltpeter producer' of Erzurum, in 1576 shows, officials were constantly thinking of how to get more from their resources – in
part because local officials were awarded bonuses for doing so. In this case,
Berham suggested moving the production site from Erzurum to the newly-acquired Oltu, “…where water was sufficient and peter could be produced for nine months of the year as opposed to three months in Erzurum”. This kind of thinking showed “…how quick the Ottomans were in drawing immediate economic benefit from newly conquered territories”.

Nice info Rambuchan. Thanks.

BTW, there is a kebab called Oltu Kebabi made in Erzurum. Am I eating saltpeter???

 

[FriendlyFire]

Wait a minute wasnt Europe saved bu the mongols ?

EDIT: wrong time period

 

[Rambuchan]

Nice info Rambuchan. Thanks.

BTW, there is a kebab called Oltu Kebabi made in Erzurum. Am I eating saltpeter???

I'm sure Erzurum has more going for it than just saltpeter but you never quite know what goes into that garlic sauce mate!

Another point on the startling Ottoman success story:

It's worth noting that the religious moderation and tolerance that the Ottomans fostered was also a big player in their success. At the time, across Europe and other parts of the Middle East, there was a great deal of religious fervour and intolerance. One needs only think of "Inquisition" to realise quite how bad things got. I believe the Spanish Inquisition was cranking up shortly after the period I describe above. The Portuguese were conducting such atrocities as well around this time, albeit a little later. This all coincided with Ottoman ascendancy and it's not hard to imagine why Jews, peripheral Christian denominations, various Muslims including Sufis and all sorts of other religious groups were quite happy to exist under Ottoman rule. The Mughals under Akbar practised an equal rights policy wrt employment, taxation and faith practise in north India round this time and enjoyed similar benefits. ie. assimilating conquered peoples into their 'state' became a much easier task.

 

[silver 2039]

Constantine XI

Yes. He was a good Emperor. Skilled in war he had fought the Ottomans in Greece and he we an able leader and commander. The Ottomans brought 80,000 men to attack Constantinople which had 10,000 men and the city held for 7 weeks before falling. The story of the battle and seige is truly remarkable and amazing.

 

[Tunch Khan]

yeah thats true, but a lot of Muslims dont like him because he ended the klaipha, and changed the Arabic writing to Latin. And said Muslims in Turkey should pray in Turkish.

And what part of praying in ones own language -which is understandable- do you believe to be a problem?

For your information, the Caliph had issued a death warrant for Mustafa Kemal and other nationalist Turkish officers fighting for their country's honor and lives of their brethren. Caliph, the title which Selim I had usurped for his family on 1517, happened to be the same person as the Sultan himself. In this case it was Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin who was a puppet in his palace prison "guarded" by Johnnies under the shadow of Allied Navy's artillery, while his country was being plundered, innocents muslims killed and raped.

Britophile Vahideddin and the Sublime Port Cabinet of his son in law Ferid Pasha have committed the worst atrocities against their own countrymen. If a lot of muslims don't like the founder of Turkish Republic because they were pissed off at the abolition of the Caliphate, one will immediately ask: where were they when their belowed Caliph declared Jihad against the Allies in WWI? The champions of Islam were counting British gold in the deserts of Arabia over the piles of slain muslim Turkish soldiers. The reward Arabs received from British Crown for betraying their fellow muslim Turkish brothers was the state of Israel.

So technically speaking the Caliphate was long dead when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished it in 1926. Mongols had already abolished the Abbasid Caliphate when they razed Bagdad and killed thousands of muslims in 1256 along with the Caliph himself and all his blood line. So it was obviously a political institution preserved to fool the masses. It looks as if the rest of the muslim world you are describing is still a fool looking to be saved by a Caliph.