Ottoman Empire

“”The ink of a scholar is worth more than the blood of a martyr.

— Mehmed II

The Ottoman Empire was a giant Turkish Sunni Muslim empire based in modern-day Türkiye. For centuries, he was once the boogeyman of Christian Europe, feared for good reasons. Ottoman was also one of few empires to spread across three continents being Asia, Europe, and Africa.

1299 is often given as the birth date of Ottoman, however this is mostly just symbolic. Before 1918, he had clay in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Balkans, Anatolia, and around the Black Sea. He died in 1922 and was replaced by his less competent successor, Türkiye.

Ottoman also claims to be the rebirth of Rome.

History

Beginnings & Rise

Main article: Ottoman Beylik

The Ottoman Empire originated as a small Turkic beylik (principality) in Anatolia following the fragmentation of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm due to Mongol invasions. The Beylik was founded by Osman I around 1299, from whom Ottoman takes his name from. Ottoman then proceeded to ally and annex several neighbouring beyliks.

Ottoman Beylik began expanding westward. He expanded into the Balkans, fighting the Serbian and Byzantine Empires over territorial disputes. Ottoman took advantage of Byzantine internal conflicts in the 1340s to control areas, which strained relations with the latter. He conquered the Karasids in 1361, and capturing their navy.

After securing his position in Anatolia, Ottoman conquered even more beyliks. The Timurid Empire, feeling threatened, declared war on Ottoman in 1402, beating him to a pulp and capturing his Sultan Bayezid I. This power vacuum sparked a 12-year civil war known as the "Fetret Devri". After the civil war, Ottoman slowly regained strength, re-conquering small independent beyliks in Anatolia and focusing on internal consolidation.

A New Power: Expansion & Peak

Main article: Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire

By the 15th century, Ottoman had rebuilt all his strength lost in the civil war. He besieged Constantinople, the Byzantine's last stronghold, for nearly two months in 1453 before breaching the city's formidable walls using advanced cannons and strategic tactics. The Fall of Constantinople was a turning point in history, the Muslim Ottoman replaced Christian Byzantine as the regional power. The fall also symbolized the transition from the medieval to the modern era. Ottoman Empire replaced the fallen city with Istanbul, which became his new capital, which made Ottoman expansion into Europe easier.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion. The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans. Ottoman flourished economically due to his control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia.

The Ottoman Empire first annexed Serbia in 1459, followed by the conquest of Bosnia in 1463. He then secured the vassalage of Wallachia (formally under Ottoman suzerainty by the late 15th century), Moldavia (accepted suzerainty in 1538), and the Crimean Khanate (became vassal in 1475). After conquering the Mamluk Sultanate in 1516-1517, Ottoman Empire's power in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East became dominant. The Empire also expanded into North Africa during the early 16th century, bringing much of the region under his control, and dealt a devastating blow to the Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, leaving Hungary largely partitioned and weakened. However, Ottoman began stagnating after conquering Hungary in 1541, but he still kept shadowing the entire Europe through his sheer size, science, economy and feared military might.

In the 16th century, Ottoman fought against Spanish Empire in the Mediterranean and used Barbary Corsairs to capture thousands of merchant ships, raiding coastal towns in Europe, enslaving the people they captured. During the 1600s, the world conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both were at similar population, technology and economic levels.

Stagnation

After Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent died in 1566 during his last campaign, Ottoman Empire entered a long era of stagnation and gradual decline. Weak sultans preferred the palace and harem over leading armies, while the Sultanate of Women let mothers, wives, and grand viziers pull the strings. The once-elite Janissaries became corrupt, rebellious, and more interested in politics than fighting, demanding pay raises and starting frequent revolts. Inflation hit hard from New World silver flooding in, wrecking the old economy, yet Ottoman kept holding most of his massive clay. He still clashed with Habsburg in the Long Turkish War (1593-1606) and Safavid over Mesopotamia, rebuilt his fleet after the 1571 Battle of Lepanto disaster, and even grabbed Crete from Venetian in 1669 under the capable Köprülü viziers. But the golden age vibes were gone—everyone sensed the empire was starting to rot from the inside.

The real humiliation came in 1683 with the fail of the Second Siege of Vienna. It was a military disaster to the Ottoman Empire as his supply lines were stretched and in unfamiliar territory with several incompetent commanders in charge. Poland-Lithuania arrived and turned the siege into a rout. What followed was the disasterious and humiliating Great Turkish War, where Polish-Lithuanian king John III Sobieski led an unlikely alliance against the Ottomans and made a great charge against the unprepared siegers, breaking their line and sending them into a disarray. European players realized that the Ottomans was not so invincible, and Christian nations joined together to expel Muslim influence from Europe. A Holy League was banded together in 1684, consisting of Germany, Austria, Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and Venice, smashing Ottomanball across the Balkans.

The 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz forced Ottoman to give up huge chunks of Hungary to Habsburg, plus Morea and other bits to his enemies—the first time Ottoman Empire ever had to sign a treaty as the clear loser. Europe stopped fearing the "Turkish menace", as they started realizing that the Ottoman Empire had been stagnating for some time while they themselves grew stronger thanks to the colonization of the New World, including the perks of Industrial Revolution. Ottoman began losing his territories one by one, and so started the long decline of Ottoman Empire. The Europeans began to call him the "Sick Man of Europe", supported rebels, sowing ideas of independence and unjust treatment from Ottoman government. This led to many armed riots and insurrections, weakening the Ottoman Empire further. Ottoman was still giant on the map, but the unstoppable expansion era was dead.

The 18th and early 19th centuries were basically nonstop losings for Ottoman. Russia became the biggest nightmare, winning multiple Russo-Turkish Wars and forcing the disastrous Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 after the 1768-1774 war, giving major concessions to Russia and let Russia meddle in Ottoman Christian affairs and eventually take Crimea in 1783.

From 1718 there was a short party phase called the Tulip Period with fancy gardens, European vibes, and a tulip craze among the Ottoman court, but ended in rebellion and forced abdication of the sultan in 1730. By the 1800s, nationalism exploded: Serbia rebelled in 1804 and got autonomy, then the Greek launched a big independence war in 1821. Ottoman called in Egypt for help, who crushed Greek forces on land.

Ottoman's sultan Mahmud II was pissed and decided it was time for big changes. In 1826, he'd already wiped out the corrupt Janissaries in the "Auspicious Incident," replacing them with a modern army in reforms known as "Nizam-i Cedid".

Despite the initial success on land, in 1827 the combined fleets of UK, France, and Russia annihilated the Ottoman-Egyptian navy at the Battle of Navarino. Greek was pretty much guaranteed freedom, the Balkans were cracking apart, and Ottoman Empire's painful slide into the "sick man" stereotype was locked in for the rest of the century.

Decline

Things got worse with the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, where Russia steamrolled Ottoman's armies, forcing the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829. This gave Russia even more clay in the Caucasus, navigation rights through straits, and basically rubber-stamped Greek autonomy. In 1830, Greece got his independence. In 1876, there was a famine in Bosnia which worsened the situation there. As a result and as a sign of defiance, Bosnia stopped paying his taxes and Ottoman grew more broke. Because of this and seeing the others successfully defy the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan regions started to break away from Ottoman's control with the support of other European players.

Ottoman pushed for more reforms, but his biggest headache was his own vassal, Egypt, who wanted more power and invaded Syria in 1831. Ottoman begged Russia for help, leading to the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi in 1833, which made Russia his "protector" (more like a big brother with ulterior motives). But Europe freaked out, and in 1840, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Ottoman ganged up in the Convention of London to put Egypt back in his place, giving him hereditary rule there but clipping his wings. Ottoman survived, but it showed how weak he was—now relying on Europeans to sort his internal messes.

The Ottoman began a reformist era in what's known as the Tanzimat period (1839-1876); he replaced religous law with secular law and decriminalized homosexuality.

The Crimean War (1853-1856) was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire; France, United Kingdom, and Sardinia allying themselves with Ottoman to fight against Russia. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to 5 million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. The war caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars, about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernize Ottoman education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and a sense of Turkish nationalism.

In this period, Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860-1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education. As Ottoman attempted to modernize his infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, he opened himself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. The single greatest threat to the independence of the Middle East in the 19th century was not the armies of the Europeans but their banks. The Ottoman state, who had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. By 1881, Ottoman Empire agreed to have his debt controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of the Ottoman economy, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests.

The Balkans held a strong grudge against the Ottoman Empire because him started imposing discriminatory laws. Ottoman became increasingly oppressive, favoring Muslims even more over minorities, which led to the suppression of minority beliefs and cultural practices. This oppression also hindered scientific progress, making the Ottoman Empire fall behind the Europeans in the Industrial Revolution. These dark times when the elite Muslim Turks started oppressing the others: it is something many modern Turks do not know much about due to their purposeful ignorance or lack of awareness. Some prefer to see themselves as the victims, some are even in denial. After long times of oppression and some nudges from European players, these regions continued to break away.

The Ottoman bashi-bazouks (disorderly soldiers) suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. The Russo-Turkish War from 1877-1878 ended with a decisive victory for Russia, and as a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: Bulgaria was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence; and Serbia finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar.

From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as the Hamidian massacres.

Defeat & Dissolution

By the early 20th century, Ottoman Empire had significantly declined culturally, socially, and technologically. Minorities like Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Serbians, Jews, and Christians were treated as second-class citizens or worse when compared to Turkish Muslim citizens. This social situation had deteriorated over the past 150 years due to an increasingly authoritarian government favouring Islam over others.

The year was 1912 when the First Balkan War broke out, with the support of Great Powers in supplies, intel and weapons. It ended with Ottoman Empire losing almost all lands in the Balkans. A huge amount of Turks numbering in millions was deported by force from the Balkans to Anatolia.

In 1913, Bulgaria wasn't happy with the land he gained in the First Balkan War. So, when the Great Powers drew new borders in the Balkans that Bulgaria didn't like, he started a new fight, the Second Balkan War, against Serbia and Greece. The Ottoman Empire used this opportunity to regain some territory and improve his reputation.

Ottoman Empire was forced into the Great War in 1914 after a part of his navy attacked the Russian harbors under the command of a German officer thus leading to Russia declaring war and thereby his allies as well. It did not help that the British Empire had kept the caught battleships to himself, angering the Ottomans greatly. Ottoman got into the Central Powers and tried to fight Russia in the Caucasus but froze half to death.

After years of decline, in 1915, Ottoman Empire was exhausted by his recent wars in the Balkans and a revolution where the Young Turks took over. The Young Turks, despite being seen as forward-thinking, were guilty of terrible acts. They secretly ordered the deportation and killings of Armenians, leading to a tragic and bloody event known as the Armenian Genocide. Hundreds of thousands were forced from their homes and sent on a harrowing journey to modern-day Syria. Many died from abuse, harsh weather, and starvation along the way, making it a journey of certain death for countless Armenians.

In 1918, the Entente Powers won WWI. Ottoman Empire was now up for partition, leading to a new secular Turkish government to be formed to defend himself the partition, ending the Ottoman Empire in 1922. It was about time, too, the Ottomans had already ruled for over 600 years.

Relationships

Friends

• Golden Horde - A Mongol who helped me against Timurid. He was the first Muslim Mongol.
• Crimean Khanate - Stupid Russia! I miss you since I lost you… AND YOU'LL BE MY CLAY!!!
• Swedish Empire - Another ally that helped me in the Great Northern War.
• Empire of Japan - Another good friend that I took inspiration from. I'm you but in Europe! Why side with them?
• German Empire - Ally during World War I and a good friend. Your kaiser inspired me later on to become militarized and of very powerful. One day we will rule over Europe!

Neutral

• United States of America - …uhhh…who…uh… are you again? I-I can't remember. Well, we were fine until WWI. Then I cut relations. But thanks for not declaring war.
• Kingdom of France - At least we both hate the Habsburgs…

Enemies

• Byzantine Empire - I'm in your walls… 1453 was the best year of my life, roasted you on a stick like a kebab! But since I have obtained your clay, why not… take revenge on the Crusaders together!
• Timurid Empire - The worst Turks, he defeated me in Anatolia and kidnapped my Sultan. But, this won't be the case for long.
• Holy League - These losers thought they could push me out of Europe, 1444 and 1453 worst year of your life, ALSO YOU CANNOT INTO CONSTANTINOPLE ALHAMDULILAH!!!!
• Spanish Empire - European imperialist and crusader, I attack you with pirates!
• Mamluk Sultanate - Hahahahah, loser. 1517 worst year of your life, yuo thought the deserts could save yuo but they didn't.
• Kingdom of Greece - This a*shole keeps taking more and more land from me. He's the one that ruined everything by becoming an independent Balkan first. YOU ARE THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.
• Emirate of Nejd and Hasa - How dare you recapture Mecca and Medina and destroy my architecture in Al-Haram and Nabawi?!!
• Armenia - Yuo is of Ottoman citizen but yuo is of helpings Russia. TRAITOR!!! It was actually me not having winter clothes in the Russian winter and not being capable enough to defeat the Russians. REMOVE! What genocide? Stop lying.
• Australia & New Zealand - YUO GUYS ARE OF SO ANNOYING! GALLIPOLI IS BEAUTIFUL PLACE! 1915 BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE! 489,000 men wasted, wouldn't you think?

How to draw

A flag of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire has a drawing rating of easy.

1. Draw a ball.
2. Fill it with red.
3. Draw a white crescent and eight-pointed star in the middle of the ball.
4. Add eyes and done!

Color Name		HEX
	Red	#E40310
	White	#FFFFFF

Gallery

RegularInformational

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  Napoelon!
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  Ottoman is strongest!
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  Greek got independent
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  tired
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  Will be used for Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
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  By LB HD Mapper
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  Ottoman Empire's Greatest Extent
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  Flag-Map of Ottoman Empire with all Tributary States (1668)

See Also

• Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire
• Ottoman Beylik