Ottoman Empire in EUIII

[Kurdistani]

Don't I get any credit for not including Magyars, Finns and Yakut Turks in Siberia?

ok... a liberal pan-Turanist.....

I know your game... you just want to be able to play and ottoman empire in EU III that, instead of invading Europe, can recreate a great pan Turkic Empire.....

 

[Tunch Khan]

ok... a liberal pan-Turanist.....

I know you game... you just want to be able to play and ottoman empire in EU III that, instead of invading Europe, can recreate a great pan Turkic Empire.....

No I would like to be able to conduct a two and a half war.

 

[Mad King James]

That is one amazing piece of archeological discovery for us humble forum modders!!! Thank you very much for bringing that up. This information sheds light to the most obscure topic in this forum regarding the Ottoman flag. For long we have been lead to assume that the Ottomans did not use the star along with the crescent until 18th or 19th century and it is even reflected in EU III as well as later mods, such as EU II MyMap-AGCEEP.

These flags, which date back to 1571, ALL have stars on the flag placed inside stylized crescents.

Truth is, fifteen out of fifteen flags displayed in this church have stars and crescents, while there is one painting from the brush of a European artist which displays a crescent without a star on Ottoman flag. This gave me the impression that most western sources copy from eachothers art, and if one artist has never seen an Ottoman flag, can read about it or see it from other European artists work and the wrong knowledge passes on, all the way to our good old Wikipedia.

Unless proven otherwise by other hard evidence which outnumbers and outdates the above given samples, I will be supporting an Ottoman flag with a star and crescent, and hope that Paradox artists will read about this.

NOTE: Note the blue and gold stylized tulips embedded on some of the flags; they are the symbol of the house of Osman, the Ottoman Royal Family, which I for the first time see them placed in the flag, but it makes a lot of sense.

Those aren't stars, look at how many rays there are. Looks like a sun or an explosion or something.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Those aren't stars, look at how many rays there are. Looks like a sun or an explosion or something.

They are stylized stars. I don't see how Ottomans would have wanted to place the sun 'inside' the moon or place an explosion.

 

[curtis]

The sun is a star, thus rendering MKJ's point moot.

And as for the explosion, it could be a supernova, yet another star phenomena. I got answers for everything, people

 

[Mad King James]

They are stylized stars. I don't see how Ottomans would have wanted to place the sun 'inside' the moon or place an explosion.

It's certainly possible that by the 1570's the Ottomans had begun experimenting with stars on their naval flags. I know for a fact that on naval warships the moon and star first appeared. It is obvious from the source materials that no standard had yet emerged in regards to the shape of the star, while the crescent was definitely becoming more standardized.

This is a good example however of early Ottoman crescents, which are FAR more decorative and stylized, as well as much "fatter", than later designs.

As far as I have been able to determine however, the Ottoman flag system went something like this:
Crescent and star: navy
Crescent and zulkafir: army
Crescent alone: state

One of those flags has a Seal of Suleyman on it, but I think this was going out of fashion by 1570.

 

[Tunch Khan]

It's certainly possible that by the 1570's the Ottomans had begun experimenting with stars on their naval flags. I know for a fact that on naval warships the moon and star first appeared. It is obvious from the source materials that no standard had yet emerged in regards to the shape of the star, while the crescent was definitely becoming more standardized.

This is a good example however of early Ottoman crescents, which are FAR more decorative and stylized, as well as much "fatter", than later designs.

As far as I have been able to determine however, the Ottoman flag system went something like this:
Crescent and star: navy
Crescent and zulkafir: army
Crescent alone: state

One of those flags has a Seal of Suleyman on it, but I think this was going out of fashion by 1570.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Please forgive the double posting, but while compiling this post for the Iranian in EU III thread, I realized there's also much useful information about the Ottomans, Turks and Anatolia to be ignored here.

KIZILBASH:

Kizilbash (Turkish: Kızılbaş) - "Red Heads" - name given to a wide variety of extremist Shi'ite militant groups (ghulāt) who helped found the Safavid Dynasty of Iran. The name "Red Heads" is derived from their distinct headwear with twelve points indicating their adherence to the twelve Imams.

The origin of the "Kizilbash movement" - as they were called by their Sunni Ottoman foes and later adopted the name as a mark of pride - can be dated from middle of the 15th century, when their spiritual grandmaster (shaykh) Haydar, the head of the Safawiyya Sufi order, organized his followers into a body of militant troops.

The Kizilbash were a coalition of many different peoples of predominantly, but not exclusively Turkic-speaking background, united in their belief in the Safavid doctrine of Shiism.

Kizilbash Belief System:

Kizilbash tribes adhered to heterodox Shi'a doctrines encouraged by early Safawiyyah sheikhs, specifically sheikh Haydar and his son, Ismail. They regarded their rulers as divine figures, and would thus be classified as ghulat extremist by orthodox Twelver Shia. It is clear that Ismail I. was presenting himself to his Kizilbash followers not as a representative of the Hidden Imam, but as the Hidden Imam himself, beyond that even claiming divinity for himself. The Kizilbash would go into battle without armour, confident that no harm would befall them.

This stemmed from the fact that among the Kizilbash there appeared to be a substantial lack of knowledge of Twelver Shia doctrines. When Tabriz was taken for example, there was not a single book on Twelver Shiism among Kizilbash leaders, and the book of the well known Allama Al-Hilli was procured in the town library to provide guidance on new religion of the state. Nor did any Shia ulema participate in the formation of Safavid religious policies during the early stages of the state. However later, the ghulat doctrines were forsaken and Arab Twelver Shia ulema resident in Iraq and Bahrain were brought in increasing numbers. Initially the Shia ulema kept quiet about inconsistencies in the religious stance of the monarch, but during the following century they were able to enforce a stricter version of Shia Islam on the population and the state.


Turks and Tadjik (Iranians):

Among the Kizilbash, Turkish tribes from Eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan who had helped Shah Ismail I defeat the Akkoyunlu tribe were by far the most important - in number and influence. Some of these greater Turkish tribes (oymaq) were subdivided into as many as eight or nine clans and included the:

Ustādjlu
Rumlu (from Sivas region)
Shāmlu (from Damascus region)(the most powerful clan during the reign of Shah Ismail I.)
Dulkadir (from Malatya region)
Afshār (from Khorasan region)
Qājār (from Tebriz region)
Tekeli (from Teke region)
Other tribes, such as Turkman, Bahārlu (from Fars and Kerman regions), Warsāk, or Bayāt were occasionally listed among these "seven great oymaqs".

[Some of these names consist of a place-name with addition of the Turkish suffix -lu, such as Shāmlu or Bahārlu. Other names are those of old Oghuz tribes such as Afshār, Dulkadir, or Bayāt ; as mentioned by the medival Uyghur historian Mahmoud Al-Kāshgharī.]


The non-Turkic or non-Turkish-speaking Iranian tribes among the Kizilbash were called Tājiks (meaning "Non-Turks" or "Iranians") by the Turks and included[6][7]:

Tālish
Siāh-Kuh (Karādja-Dagh)
Lur tribes (for example the Zand)
certain Kurdish tribes
certain Persian families and clans

The rivalry between the Turkic clans and Persian nobles was a major problem in the Safavid kingdom and caused much trouble. As V. Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Turks "were no party to the national Persian tradition". Shah Ismail tried to solve the problem by appointing Persian wakils as commanders of Kizilbash tribes. However, the Turks considered this an insult and brought about the death of 3 of the 5 Persians appointed to this office - an act, that later lead to the deprivation of the Turks by Shah Abbas I.

The Beginnings:

In the 15th century, Ardabil was the center of an organization designed to keep the Safavid leadership in close touch with its murids in Azerbaijan, Iraq, eastern Anatolia, and elsewhere. The organization was controlled through the office of khalīfāt al-khulafā'ī who appointed representatives (khalīfa) in regions where Safavid propaganda was active. The khalīfa, in turn, had subordinates termed pira. Their presence in eastern Anatolia posed a serious threat to the Ottomans, because they encouraged the Shi'ite population of Asia Minor to revolt against the sultan.

In 1499, Ismail, the young leader of the Safavid order, left Lanjan for Ardabil to make his bid for power. By the summer of 1500, ca. 7,000 supporters from the local Turkish tribes of Anatolia, Syria, and Iraq - collectively called "Kizilbash" - rallied to his support. Leading his troops on a punitive campaign against the Shīrvanshāh (ruler of Shirvan), he sought revenge for the death of his father and his grand-father in Shīrvan. After defeating the Shīrvanshāh Farrukh Yassar, he moved south into Azarbaijan where his 7,000 Kizilbash warriors defeated a force of 30,000 Ak Koyunlu under Alwand Mirzā, and conquered Tabriz. This was the beginning of the Safavid state.

In the first decade of the 16th century, the Kizilbash expanded Safavid rule over the rest of Persia, as well as Baghdad and Iraq, formerly under Ak Koyunlu control.

In 1510 Shah Ismail sent a large force of the Kizilbash to Transoxania to support the Timurid ruler Babur in his war against the Uzbeks. The Kizilbash defeated the Uzbeks and secured Samarqand for Babur. However, in 1512, an entire Kizilbash army was annihilated by the Uzbeks after Turkish Kizilbash had mutinied against their Persian wakil and commander, Amir Nadjm. This heavy defeat put an end to Safavid expansion and influence in Transoxania and the northeastern frontiers of the kingdom remained vulnerable to nomad invasions.

The Battle of Chaldiran:

Meanwhile, the Safavid da'wa (propaganda) continued in Ottoman areas - with great success. Even more alarming for the Ottomans was the successful conversion of Turkish tribes in eastern Anatolia and Iraq, and the recruitment of these well experienced and feared fighters into the growing Safavid army. In order to stop the Safavid propaganda, Sultan Bayezid II deported large numbers of the Shi'ite population of Asia Minor to Morea. However, in 1507, Shah Ismail and the Kizilbash overran large areas of Kurdistan, defeating regional Ottoman forces. Only two years later in Central Asia, the Kizilbash defeated the Uzbeks at Merv, killing their leader Muhammad Shaybani and destroying his dynasty. His head was sent to the Ottoman sultan as a warning.

In 1511, a Shi'ite revolt broke out in Teke (southwest Anatolia) and was brutally suppressed by the Ottomans: 40,000 were massacred on the order of the sultan. Shah Ismail sought to turn the chaos within the Ottoman Empire to his advantage and invaded Anatolia. The Kizilbash defeated a large Ottoman army under Sinan Pasha. Shocked by this heavy defeat, Sultan Selim I (the new ruler of the Empire) decided to invade Persia with a force of 200,000 Ottomans and face the Kizilbash on their own soil. In addition, he ordered the persecution of Shiism and the massacre of all its adherents in the Ottoman Empire.

On the 20th August of 1514, the two armies met at Chaldiran in Azarbaijan. The Ottomans outnumbered the Kizilbash two to one and had artillery and handguns. The Kizilbash were heavily defeated, and many high-ranking Kizilbash amirs as well as three influential figures of the ulamā were killed.

The defeat destroyed Shah Ismail's belief in his invincibility and his divine status.

The outcome at Chaldiran had many consequences. Perhaps most significantly, it established the border between the two empires, which remains the border between Turkey and Iran today. With the establishment of that border, Tabriz became a frontier city, uncomfortably close to the Ottoman enemy. That consideration would be a major factor in the decision to move the Safavid capital to Qazvin, in the mid-16th century, and finally to Isfahan, in central Persia, in 1598.

The Safavids made drastic domestic changes after the defeat at Chaldiran. The Safavids spoke Turkish language but, following the loss of their Anatolian territories which formed the heartland of their Turkish support switched to Persian. The Safavid royal family also moved away from extreme, eschatological, Alevi sect and adopted Shia sect as the official religion of the empire - the position of the Shah as Mahdi being incompatible with the recent defeat . The Sunni majority of Iran was also forcibly converted to Shia while those, mostly kizilbash, who refused to abandon the previous worship of the Shah were executed.

The deprivation of the Turks and "Persianization" of the Kizilbash movement:

Inter-tribal rivalry of the Turks, the attempt of Persian nobles to the end the Turkish dominance, and constant succession conflicts went on for another 10 years after Tahmasp's death. This heavily weakened the Safavid state and made the kingdom vulnerable to external enemies: the Ottomans attacked and conquered Azerbaijan, the Uzbeks conquered Khorasan, including Balkh and Herat.

In 1588, Shah Abbas I came to power. Events of the past, including the role of the Turks in the succession struggles after the death of his father, made him determined to end the dominance of the untrustworthy Turkish chiefs in Persia. In order to weaken the Turks - the important militant elite of the Safavid kingdom - Shah Abbas raised a standing army from the ranks of the ghulams who were usually ethnic Armenians and Georgians. The new army would be loyal to the king personally and not to clan-chiefs anymore.

The reorganisation of the army also ended the independent rule of Turkish chiefs in the Safavid provinces, and instead centralized the administration of those provinces.

Ghulams were appointed to high positions within the royal household, and by the end of Shah Abbas' reign, "one-fifth of the high-ranking amirs were ghulams". By 1598 an ethnic Armenian from Georgia had risen to the position of commander-in-chief of all Safawid armed forces. The offices of wakil and amir al-umarā fell in disuse and were replaced by the office of a Sipahsālār (master of the army), commander-in-chief of all armed forces - Turkish and Non-Turkish - and usually held by a Persian noble.

This was a heavy victory of the Tādjik fraction over the Turks and meant the end of decades of Turkish domination in Persia.

__________________________________________________
gathered from Wikipedia and other sources

 

[unmerged(59662)]

Personally I enjoyed playing Trebizond just because it was the rigtheous underdog. But what about an event where the Ottomans could claim the Byzantine throne by marriage or blood? Say, have a personal union between the ruling families? Didn't Osman I or one of the early Ottoman sultans have a Byzantine wife after all?

 

[Tunch Khan]

Personally I enjoyed playing Trebizond just because it was the rigtheous underdog. But what about an event where the Ottomans could claim the Byzantine throne by marriage or blood? Say, have a personal union between the ruling families? Didn't Osman I or one of the early Ottoman sultans have a Byzantine wife after all?

Ottomans already claim the Byzantine throne. The only confusion is, there is no one calling them Byzantine back then; it was the Roman Empire. Mehmed II the Conqueror, adds the title Kayzer-i Rum (Ceasar or Rome) to his many other titles after 1453 and sets off for a campaign to invade Italy. While leading the massive Army, he dies on his way, rumored as poisoned by his own Italian Jewish doctor. There could of course be an event to add Ottoman cores in Italy, that Ottomans could loose if Prince Cem becomes captive to Knights and then to Pope. That was the only thing that saved Italians.

But if Mehmed II manages to capture Rome before his death, we can think of some Ottoman fantasy events. What would have happened to Europe with Ottomans sitting in Rome with the Pope and the Patriarch at his side? Ottoman Sultan, who is the Caliph of Islam and the protector of Orthodox and Catholic Christians, fighting aginst the heretic Protestants and Shiites?

 

[brauchitsch]

Ottomans already claim the Byzantine throne. The only confusion is, there is no one calling them Byzantine back then; it was the Roman Empire. Mehmed II the Conqueror, adds the title Kayzer-i Rum (Ceasar or Rome) to his many other titles after 1453 and sets off for a campaign to invade Italy. While leading the massive Army, he dies on his way, rumored as poisoned by his own Italian Jewish doctor. There could of course be an event to add Ottoman cores in Italy, that Ottomans could loose if Prince Cem becomes captive to Knights and then to Pope. That was the only thing that saved Italians.

But if Mehmed II manages to capture Rome before his death, we can think of some Ottoman fantasy events. What would have happened to Europe with Ottomans sitting in Rome with the Pope and the Patriarch at his side? Ottoman Sultan, who is the Caliph of Islam and the protector of Orthodox and Catholic Christians, fighting aginst the heretic Protestants and Shiites?

As far as I know, Taranto was occupied by Ottomans in 1480 but was lost a year later before the death of Mehmet II.

On a further note, Tunch Khan have you ever been to the tomb of Murat I who was the grandson of Osman and was killed by a serb in 1389 right after the battle. In his tomb there is a flag which is rumored to have been used during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. It is very similar to the flag shown at the Italian museum and having seen the same with my own eyes I am pretty sure that it is not a star but the sun in fact. So, it is very interesting given that the sun is one of the few common symbols which I can not relate to post-Islam turkish history in any way whatsoever.

 

[unmerged(59662)]

An Ottoman Rome would send shockwaves throughout Europe, it would tempt northern Italy to unite and probably see the papcy moved to Avingon, Madrid, or perhaps Munich (maybe even Worms, Germany?). I could see a really split Italy with the southern/poorer provinces becoming cores along with Sicily, giving the Ottomans a serious naval presence from which to raid the western Med including the Spanish shipments of gold/silver from the New World. Heck, the Habsburgs might focus their military spending on anti-Ottoman crusades instead of trying to Catholicize Europe and create a dual bloc of European power that everyone else either joins or forcibly submits to.

Then again it might do nothing except stagnate Southern Italy even more than it was in OTL.

 

[Tunch Khan]

 

[Tunch Khan]

SULTAN MEHMED II:

Upon his accession (Feb. 18, 1451) Mehmed inherited a revived empire that he proceeded to expand and reorganize with extraordinary vigor. He is best known for his extensive conquests in Europe and Anatolia, for which he became known as the Conqueror (Fatih). His drive to build a centralized state with himself as absolute ruler prompted him to reduce the power of the leading Turkish families (partly by confiscation of their landed property) and to promote members of his slave (devshirme) elite to positions of power, including the office of grand vizier. Mehmed was the first Ottoman ruler known to codify state legislation, which he had compiled in two major codes (kanunnames) that dealt with the rules governing state organization, penal law, and the relations of the state with the subjects. Despite his impressive feats domestically and abroad, however, his period of rule was accompanied by economic problems and discontent, due to the periodic debasement of the currency, the increases in taxes, the confiscations of property, and other unpopular measures used to raise revenue.

 

[Tunch Khan]

CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE:

The heavily fortified Byzantine capital, long coveted by the Ottomans, fell to Mehmed's troops after a siege lasting 54 days. Constantine, the last Byzantine emperor, died in the fighting, and his seat of power became the new Ottoman capital, now called Istanbul. The city was in a neglected state, with its population reduced to some 50,000 people, and the Ottomans launched a major official drive to repopulate and rebuild it. Thousands of new residents were encouraged or forced to resettle in the capital, and the infrastructure—roads, bridges, walls, markets, and water supply—was restored and expanded. By order of the sultan, high government officials founded hundreds of schools, mosques, water fountains, and other public facilities endowed with substantial private property to pay for their long-term upkeep. The city soon emerged as the largest and most glamorous urban center in the Middle East. Its population reached some 400,000 before the 19th century, about 45 percent of it Christians and Jews.

PROTECTOR OF ORTHODOX CHURCH

In Mehmed's view, he was the successor to the Roman Emperor. He named himself "Kayzer-i Rum", the Roman Caesar, but he was nicknamed "the Conqueror". Constantinople became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, although the Greek Orthodox Church remained intact, and Gennadius Scholarius was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmed reinstalled the Greek Orthodox Church with all its traditional privileges, while banning all Latin Catholic organizations from his domain.

Those Greeks who stayed behind in Constantinople were mostly confined to the Phanar and Galata districts. The Phanariots, as they were called, provided many capable advisors to the Ottoman sultans, but were seen as traitors by many Greeks.

Scholars consider the Fall of Constantinople as a key event ending the Middle Ages and starting the Renaissance because of the end of the old religious order in Europe and the use of cannon and gunpowder. The fall of Constantinople also severed the main overland trade link between Europe and Asia. As a result, more Europeans began to seriously consider the possibility of reaching Asia by sea — this would eventually lead to the European discovery of the New World.

 

[Yakman]

CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE:

The heavily fortified Byzantine capital, long coveted by the Ottomans, fell to Mehmed's troops after a siege lasting 54 days. Constantine, the last Byzantine emperor, died in the fighting, and his seat of power became the new Ottoman capital, now called Istanbul.

it wasn't renamed istanbul until the 1920s, iirc.

 

[Tunch Khan]

it wasn't renamed istanbul until the 1920s, iirc.

That is a funny myth people enjoy voicing in this forum every now and then.

The myth originates from the confusion in which the modern Republic of Turkey converts its alphabet from Arabic to Latin in the 1920's. Frankly those few Turks who could read and write Latin in the past, did not care what foreigners wrote among themselves in their own language and alphabet, but now, every Turk was forced to read and write in Latin, and it became an issue. Soon more and more Turks began to realize it says Constantinople over their multi language stamps and such, while they have been using Istanbul with official documents scripted in Arabic. So they decide it's a good idea to make this change official, since now both Turks and the foreginers use the same alphabet.

 

[Tunch Khan]

After reading some comments here and elsewhere in this forum, I just feel compelled to mention some "forgotten" historical and contemporary figures here because obviously you won't bee watching about them in History Channel. I apologize for the relative length, but please give it a five minute reading and then we see if we are on the same page. Remember, that the Turks I will mention here are only the remnants of wars, famines, ethnic cleansings, population exchanges, pogroms and discriminations. I beg anyone who reads these don't try to come up with "evil" Turk's doings to other nations, as this is not the topic nor the place. I am just trying to back up some of my original claims here that some provinces in the Balkans have been heavily Turkified by the Ottoman State in early 15th Century and after. Hopefully this will help remind some of us of the fast pace the demographics of the Balkans were shaping in those turmoiled days of mid 15th Century.

TURKS IN ANATOLIA:

Anatolia, the landmass that is now Turkey, had been a cradle to a wide variety of civilizations and kingdoms in antiquity. Major civilizations and peoples that have settled in or invaded Anatolia include the Colchians, Hattians, Luwians, Hittites, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Lydians, Persians, Celts, Tabals, Meshechs, Greeks, Pelasgians, Assyrians, Armenians, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Goths, Kurds, Mongols, Arabs and Turkic tribes.

The Oğuz were the main Turkic people who moved into Anatolia after 1056 CE. Large bands of Turks began their migration following the victory of the Seljuks, led by Alp Arslan, against the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert (1071) and this paved the way for Turkish dominance in Anatolia. This also marked the beginning of the decline of the Byzantine empire. In the centuries after Manzikert, the relatively small number of Turkic immigrants began to assimilate local populations as their numbers grew. Anatolia was an ethnic mosaic, a region with a wide variety of peoples, but dominated by the Byzantine Greeks and other prominent regional groups such as Armenians, Kurds, and others.

Over time, as word spread regarding the victory of the Turks in Anatolia, more Turkic ghazis arrived from the Caucasus, Persia and Central Asia. These groups in turn merged with the local inhabitants as a slow process of conversion to Islam took place, thanks in large measure to the efforts of the sufis, that helped to bolster the Turkish-speaking population.

TURKS OF BALKANS:

Ottomans received their first European lands in Gelibolu (Gallipoli) as a gift from the Byzantine Empire in return for their military assistance against the Bulgarians in 1354.

Gelibolu became a base for further expansion in Europe. Joining the Ottomans there were Turkish migrants from Asia Minor. These were landless peasants and nomads seeking a new life, and the Ottomans continued to view their society as one of immigrants. The Ottomans were becoming rulers of a state with a culture of its own.

The conquest of Gelibolu by the Turks alarmed people in western Europe, but conflict within Europe, including the war between Venice and Genoa, delayed intervention. Then in 1362, Orkhan's son and successor, Murad I (whose mother was a Greek princess) expanded in Thrace and took possession of the city of Edirne (Adrianople) 110 miles west of Constantinople - the first European city to fall to the Turks.

The Balkans were lands that had been a part of the Roman Empire ruled by Constantinople. Christians in the Balkans were of the Eastern Orthodox faith. As in Constantinople, in the Balkans fear of domination by Catholics was prevalent. Local clergy and populations in the Balkans were unenthusiastic about help from the Catholics. On the other hand, some local rulers in the Balkans accepted military help from the West in exchange for a promise to recognize the supremacy of Catholicism.

Among the Serbs, in the Balkans, various noblemen, or princes, were vying for power. There were wars among the Serbs in the 1360s in the Serbian civil war in the 1360s. In 1371 the Ottomans defeated a Serb and Hungarian force on the Maritsa River in Bulgaria, a little northwest of Edirne, a battle known to modern Turks as the "Rout of the Serbs." The Turkish army withdrew. Christians continued fighting Christians, some lords sought protection by allying themselves with the Turks, agreeing to vassalage. In 1372 the Bulgar tsar of Tirnova, John Sisman, also swore homage to the Ottoman sultan and sent to Murad his daughter as a bride.

By 1373, Murad had conquered most of Macedonia. In 1375 Serbia's despotic ruler began paying the Ottomans tribute in money and in young men drafted for service with the Ottomans. The exact nature of this service is not easily ascertained. Murad took the Macedonian city of Monastir (Bitola), the Serbian town of Naisus (Nis) and the Bulgarian town of Sofia. In 1387 in Asia Minor, Murad had defeated a coalition of princes, at the battle of Konia, and had extended Ottoman rule there. And in 1389 he and his army crushed another collection of Balkan nobles at Kosovo. This was 34 years after the great Serbian empire of Tsar Dusan had disintegrated. It was 18 years after the battle on the River Maritsa, which had a greater impact on the Serbs than did the Battle of Kosovo. And following the Battle of Kosovo, a Serbian power survived in the area. The widowed mother of fourteen or fifteen year-old prince, Stefan Lazarevic, Queen Milica, protected herself from the aggressions of Sigismund of Hungary, who saw an opportunity to expand. She bargained with the Turks, gaining their protection in exchange for vassalage.

Tensions existed between local rulers and their subjects. The Ottoman Turks were known to give the Orthodox Christian clergy freedom to lead their flock. The Turks were known to declare land that had belonged to feudal lords as publicly owned, to free peasants from the dues they had had to pay to the lords, to free them from forced labor (the Corvée) for the lords and, instead, to give the peasants autonomy and an easily paid tax (called the plow tax). Fear of rule by Catholics, and dislike of feudal oppression in the Balkans was making it easier for the Ottoman Turks to conquer there.

Rather than imposing an alien system upon peoples of the Balkans, the Ottomans preserved and developed Far from imposing an utterly alien system, the ottoman empire maintained many of the features of local culture - much as conquerors had done for more than two thousand years, including life the Persians over the Jews in the 400s BCE. There was not at this time in the Balkans, moreover, the national identity that would develop centuries later.

Meanwhile, Constantinople had been changing. Only around 10,000 had inhabited the city when Mehmed conquered it. Mehmed had endeavored to resettle the city with the followers of Islam and various ethnicities while guaranteeing protection of the lives and property of all the city's inhabitants who recognized his authority and paid him taxes. Between 1453 and 1483 the population of Constantinople increased seven times. It became a city of Turks, Greeks and Armenians. And Jews suffering persecution in Western Europe flocked there and were welcomed, as were peasants from the Balkans. Intellectuals came - accomplished mathematicians, experts in medicine, historians poets and other artists. And soon Constantinople was again crowded with humanity and a center of learning.


Turks in Bulgaria Today:

The Turks in Bulgaria have lived there since the end of the 14th century, after the Ottoman Empire began to establish its existence on the Rumelian lands. Then in the 16th century, social changes in Anatolia led large groups of ethnic Turks to settle in Bulgaria and elsewehere in the Balkans.

According to Ottoman state policy, many people from Anatolia were settled into Bulgaria and the Balkans as well.

In the period between 1985 and 1989, the communist government of Bulgaria led by Todor Zhivkov, attempted to forcefully assimilate the country's Turkish minority. After the introduction of the new laws in 1985, the Bulgarian government banned Turkish education and sought to erase Turkish culture and identity. Turkish names were forcibly changed to Slavic ones and over 300,000 ethnic Turks emigrated to Turkey in light of heavy persecution. These laws were removed after the change to democracy in the early months of 1990. However, not all Turks could revert to their original names because of constraints applied by the Bulgarian government.

According to the 2001 census, there are 746,664 ethnic Turks left in Bulgaria today.

Turks in Greece Today:

The areas referred to by Turks today as Western Thrace and by Greeks as Thrace came under Ottoman control in 1363-1364 with the rout of a combined Serb, Bosnian, and Hungarian army in 1364 on the Maritsa river near the city of Edirne. Murat, the Ottoman Sultan of the period, settled Turkomans from Anatolia in the newly-won region while at the same time granting Christians a protected if inferior status under the traditional Islamic policy of tolerance towards zimmis, people of the book. Later, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Circassians and Tartars fleeing the Tsarist empire moved to the region. Thrace remained under Ottoman control until the First Balkan War of 1912-13, during which time the armies of Montenegro, Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria attacked the Ottoman Empire and ejected it from almost all of its European holdings. In 1913, as a result of the war, the Treaty of Bucharest granted most of Western Thrace to Bulgaria, which administered the territory until the end of the First World War. From 1919-20, a mixed Allied-Greek administration ruled the area. In 1920, Western Thrace was granted to Greece, and the territory remains part of the Republic of Greece.

The discriminatory policies of the Greek state led to a general diminution of the Turkish population. Independent estimates in 1912, on the eve of the Balkan Wars, gave the Turkish-Muslim population in Thrace a slight majority of around 53.5 percent (120,000 out of 224,000). Even after the population dislocations caused by the two Balkan Wars and World War I, a census conducted by the Allied administration in 1920 still granted the Turkish-Muslim population a clear plurality of around 42.4 percent (87,000 out of a total population of around 205,000), a drop of around 27 percent from the 1912 figures. A special commission set up to determine the population of the Greeks of Istanbul and the Turks of Thrace under the 1923 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations determined the Turkish population of Thrace to be 106,000. The 1928 Greek census put the number of Muslim Turkish speakers at 126,017, a figure that grew to 140,090 in the 1940 census. According to the 1951 census, there were 112,665 Turks, though many believe that decrease can be attributed to the fact that many Turks fled Greece, especially Thrace which was under Bulgarian control, during World War II, and did not return at war’s end.

Today the Turkish minority of Thrace, depending on estimates, numbers between 80-120,000, roughly the same as the number in the 1951 census. Given a 2 percent growth rate—and some estimates have put the growth rate of the Turkish minority as high as 2.8 percent—the Turkish population today would be expected to number 291,472 using the 1951 census data as a base figure or 444,945 using the 1940 census data.

Turks in Macedonia Today:

Though a little minority, the presence of the Turks in Macedonia goes back as far as the 14th century when the region was conquered by the Ottomans. As a political strategy, the Ottomans were used to settle many Turks from Anatolia to the newly conquered Balkan regions. As in other Balkan regions, the status of the Turks deteriorated after the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913. In 1919, Macedonia was divided up between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. In the communist Yugoslavia after 1945, the ethnically diverse populations were ranked with a three-tier system: “peoples”, “nationalities” and “ethnic groups”. While the Macedonians belonged to the first rank, the Turks along with Albanians belonged to the second rank. Between 1950s and 1990s, the reliability of every census depended on the international political conjuncture. The relations between Belgrade, Moscow and Tirana, in a way, determined the figure of the Albanians and Turks in Macedonia. In periods of close contacts between Belgrade and Moscow, the Turks, who became “suspect” for having sympathy for the Western world, preferred describing themselves as Albanians or else.

Therefore, while in 1953 the census showed 203.938 Turks in Macedonia, that figure suddenly dropped to 131.481 in 1960.
According to the 2004 census, there are 82.000 Turks in Macedonia (3.9 percent of the population). However, like Albanians, the Turks claim that the true figure is higher, even close to 5 percent. They live scattered throughout 40 towns, including Skopje, Tetovo, Gostivar, Debar, Resen, Ohrid, Bitola, Negotino, Radovis, Valadovo.

Turks in Kosovo Today:

Turkish existence in Yugoslavian territories goes back as early as to the 5th century with immigrations of Avar, Pecenek, Oghuz and Kuman tribes. Systematic settlement began however after the Ottoman conquest during the 14th century.
In 1389, Ottomans defeated Serbians and conquered Kosovo. Turks started to settle down in the region according to the Ottoman traditions. After the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-78, the domination of Ottomans in the region was attenuated, and gradually Turks became a minority. In 1913, Kosovo was integrated into Serbia. Since then and still legally Kosovo is a part of Serbia-Montenegro.

Although the Ottoman heritage is still alive in the region, the official number of Turks is lower than one would expect: 15 to 20 thousand people. However in Kosovo, individual declarations of national identity depend on the political conditions of the period of time when official censuses are made.
When the census of 1948 is compared to that of 1953, it is seen that in the first census, the figure of Kosovo Turks is as low as 1300, whereas in the second one, this figure suddenly reaches 35.000. By 1948 the beginning of the Cold War, Turks of Kosovo were “suspects” for the Yugoslavian communist administration. Therefore Turks preferred to be registered as Albanians. In 1953 however as relations between Yugoslavia and Turkey were softened, relations between Yugoslavia and Albania were tense more than ever. This time Albanians were suspect. So Turks made themselves registered as Turks in order to obtain the permission of immigration to Turkey. In 1991, Turks suffered from Albanian assimilation pressures. During the census, 12 Turkish census officials had to resign under Albanian pressure. The result of that census showed the figure of Turks diminished to 12.000. In 2000, the census organised by the OSCE (Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe) was boycotted by Turks, who demanded the recognition of their mother language as one of the official languages of Kosovo - a privilege that was granted to them once with the Yugoslavian Constitution of 1974, though suppressed by Milosevic in 1989. Finally, the OSCE statistics estimated the figure of Turks between 15 and 20 thousand.

Although it is not possible to give any figure with solid evidences, many sources estimate the figure of Turks living in Kosovo between 50 and 80 thousand people. In any case, the figure of Kosovo Turks must be much higher than it appears in official censuses.
Turkish minority of Kosovo live mainly in Prizren, Sandzak, Mamusha, Gnjilane, Pristina, Mitrovica and Djakovica.

 

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Nice info, Tunch Khan. What were the ottomans goals of getting involoving colonies?

 

[Tunch Khan]

Nice info, Tunch Khan. What were the ottomans goals of getting involoving colonies?

You mean the New World?