Ottoman Empire in EUIII
- Thread starter Tunch Khan
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Maybe the Ottomans could have events like "Turkish Immigration into Europe for Province xxx" where say 10000-25000 people are subtracted from various Anatolian provinces and then that number is added to Kosovo, Thrace, Bulgaria, etc. and the province culture and religion change?
Bismarck1 said:
Ottomans and Overseas Expansion:
Unlike other contemporary states in Europe, Ottoman Empire did not pursue a policy of colonization for various reasons.
This is a curious topic, as Ottomans did posses all the means: maps; manpower; settlers; able captains; knowledge of the seas; ocean faring vessels; and the ability to supply from North or East African ports. The only thing they lacked was the reason and a policy.
Ottoman policy in Suleyman's own words:
"I am God's slave and sultan of this world. By the grace of God I am head of Muhammad's community. God's might and Muhammad's miracles are my companions. I am Suleyman, in whose name the hube is read in Mecca and Medina. In Baghdad I am the shah, in Byzantine realms the Caesar, and in Egypt the sultan; who sends his fleets to the seas of Europe, the Maghrib and India. I am the sultan who took the crown and throne of Hungary and granted them to a humble slave. The voivoda Petru raised his head in revolt, but my horse's hoofs ground him into the dust, and I conquered the land of Moldavia."
The Wealthiest Empire:
Although Ottoman Sultans took interest in the Voyages of Discovery and followed European developments, as an Empire there was no concerted attempt to colonize or develop trade with the Americas as was being done by the Europeans. At that time, the Ottomans were the wealthiest empire in the world, and an average Ottoman had little reason to leave family, friends, and prosperity to struggle in the Americas. Additionally, Ottoman trading and military activity focused mostly on Northern Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.
Placed as it was across the main trade routes of the medieval world, the Ottoman Empire was naturally enough much involved with trade. The sultans accepted as a duty the creation of a good environment for trade because it benefited their subjects. This was in keeping with Islamic tradition that went back to the Prophet Mohammed.... The two most prominent commodities that passed from Asia to Europe through the Middle East were silk and spices.... The silk trade was extremely valuable because silk was so desirable to the rich of Europe. Although the spice trade provided similar profits (the goods were once again produced in the east, Iran, but provided profits from transport and excise taxes), silk proved to be the most durable source of income when Europeans began to develop other ways to obtain spices without passing through the Middle East -- in short, the legacy of the Portuguese voyages.
The Most Corrupt Empire:
After Suleyman's reign, the court around the sultan became increasingly corrupt, and the sultans themselves became more and more reclusive, leaving power in the hands of distant governors, or pashas, who became more interested in their own enrichment than in effective rule.
The system was also open to corruption. Extensive bribes were one way to guarantee the success of ones 'political party'. The temptation to recoup the cost of bribes from the government treasury was overwhelming, as was the temptation to reward political cronies with government jobs.
The celebrated historian Haji Khalifa claimed that the state was sick and diagnosed the reasons for the illness as high taxation, oppression of the masses and the sale of offices to the highest bidder...[In the early seventeenth century...] public order broke down all over the Empire, even in Istanbul. It appeared the Empire might dissolve from internal decay. ...
Ottoman North Africa:
Around 1505 a Turkish corsair Aruj managed to seize three ships and made the island of Djerba his base. His fame increased when between 1504 and 1510 he transported Muslim Mudejars from Christian Spain to North Africa. In 1516, Aruj captured Algiers, then Tlemcen, causing Abu Hamo Musa III to flee. Abu Zayan conspired against him, so he had him killed, and declared himself ruler over Algiers. He became known for attaching sails to cannons for transport through the deserts of North Africa. The best protection against Spain for Algiers and North Africa was joining The Ottoman Empire, Spain's main rival. For this he had to relinquish his title of Sultan of Algiers to the Ottomans. In response, the Ottomans appointed him governor of Algiers, Chief Sea Governor of the Western Mediterranean, and promised to support him. In 1518 Aruj was killed in a battle with the Spaniards, attempting to retake Tlemcen. He died at the age of 45, and Khair ad Din took his place, his name (Barbarossa) and his mission.
1509: The naval Battle of Diu:
The naval Battle of Diu was a critical sea battle that took place on 3 February 1509 near Diu, India, between Portugal and a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat, with technical maritime assistance from the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).
This battle is critical from a strategic perspective since it marks the beginning of the dominance of the Europeans in the Asian naval theatre, and a defeat for the then dominant power - the Ottoman Empire. It also marks the spillover of the Christian-Islamic power struggle in Europe and the Middle East, into the Indian Ocean which was a dominant arena of international trade at that time.
The Egyptian fleet, manned mostly by Turks, was sent by the Mamlûk Burji Sultan of Cairo, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghauri, in 1507 to support, at his invitation, the then Muslim Sultan of Gujarat, Mahmud Begada who had his capital at Champaner, a town about 48km from the major city of Vadodara.
The Sultan, sensing a political vacumn in Western India, had persuaded the Turks and the Egyptians that the opportunity was right for a Muslim-dominated dominion in that part of India. Mir Hussein Pasha,was the Turkish Commander of the Egyptian-Gujarat squadron. The fort garrison commander of Diu changed sides and so the Turks lost. Had the Portuguese lost, they would have almost certainly lost their basaes in India and possibly Africa and the Turks would have likely supplied the Indonesian sultanates with better cannons.
Ottomans wanted to mount a second attack and take it all back. But their own adventures in Egypt, Hungary and Persia put that on hold. By the time they finally got around to it, the Portuguese were well-ensconced.
A second fleet of 27 vessels was in fact launched in 1515 under Ottoman Admiral Selman Reis. It had been in preparation since before the battle at Diu with an original planned strength of 30 light galleys and 20 galleons, but various internal issues kept the Mamluks from launching. Indeed the concentration of artillery and arquebusiers on the fleet, as well as manning the static defences of Alexandria and Jidda, significantly weakened the resources of the Mamluks on their northern front when Selim I invaded.
In any event the 1515 expedition was a failure - an unnecessary punitive side expedition to Aden, where the local potentate was thumbing his nose at the Mamluk sultan, ended in a bloody repulse and they retreated. If it hadn't they would have faced a Portuguese fleet of 37 that had been sent to intercept. But the troops sent to the region were instrumental in foiling a Portuguese assault on Jidda in 1517. When the fleet returned to Egypt, upon the news of the Ottoman conquest, Selman Reis threw the Mamluk co-commander of the fleet to Red Sea and raised the Ottoman flags.
Unsuccessful Campaigns in the Indian Ocean:
It seems that the Ottomans did have an initial trade-related interest in conquering Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Hejaz, so as to share a part of the Indian Ocean trade. However, they were not directly involved as a maritime power, at least not on a large scale. Rather, by controlling the 3 strategic bottlenecks of the 16th century Eurasian trade system: the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea, they got a share of all the commercial traffic passing through those areas. They did not incurr the expense and risk of a large commercial fleet, when others could do it, and they could take part of the spoils.
Once the Portuguese circumvented Africa and disrupted the millenia-old Indian Ocean commercial system; and once cheap silver started to flow in from the Americas, creating high inflation in an empire where silver was the basis of commercial exchange, then the economy of the Ottoman Empire entered a crisis. Had the Ottomans had a strong commercial and military fleet, they could have taken matters in their own hands, challenged the Portuguese and later the Dutch, and maintain the traditional trade routes from India, China and the Spice Islands through the Indian Ocean and on to Europe. Instead, they found themselves mired in an economic crisis that prevented them from building that fleet and creating companies which could compete with the Europeans in the global trade. It was this failure more than anything that led to the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
Ottomans soon realized that the new trades routes had been found and used by the European naval powers, and Silk/Spice Roads were beginning to lose their former traffic and profitability. Then, they decided to open themselves to the New World... For that reason, a new naval base was established at Basra and hundreds of ships were built there, in order to open up to the Indian Ocean, move on to India, and compete with the Portuguese out there. But the problem with the Ottoman ships were, they weren't fit to the vast oceans. They were fit for calm seas like Mediterranean, but they were too feeble for the ocean, and to compete with the huge Portuguese galleons.
Attempts of Grand Admiral Piri Reis:
By 1513, the Ottoman Grand Admiral Piri Reis had presented the Sultan a complete map of the world never seen before in Europe. He indicated with a note inscripted on the map that he used Columbus Map for the Carribean Sea and Arabic and ancient Egyptian and Greek maps which he had studied in the Library of Alexandria to chart the rest of the world. The map shows North and South American coast with a great amount of detail which even surprises the cartographers of today. It is obvious from the map that Ottomans had a clear understanding of the New Continent.
As a reward for his services as a naval officer and cartographer, the Ottoman sultan appointed Piri Reis grand admiral of Egypt, with responsibility for the security of the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean - all areas threatened by the Portuguese. His first expedition, in 1547, was a success. He recovered Aden from the Portuguese, storming the fortress and leaving behind a strong garrison to guard this strategic harbor, which controlled access to the Red Sea.
His second expedition, four years later, was a disaster, and cost him his head.
Piri Reis set out with a fleet of 30 ships - galleys, galliots and galleons, as well as the huge fighting barges used by both the Ottomans and the Portuguese. Caught in a storm off the south coast of Arabia, he lost several barges, but with the remainder of his fleet attacked and seized Muscat. He then besieged Hormuz, but for some reason -some say he was bribed -lifted the siege and sailed up the Arabian Gulf to Basra, probably to refit.
He had already heard from a Portuguese captain he had captured at Muscat that the Portuguese fleet was expected in the Arabian Gulf at any moment. In Basra, he learned that it was approaching, and he decided to abandon most of his ships and escape from the Arabian Gulf before he was bottled up in it by the Portuguese. He set sail hurriedly, taking along three galleys which were his personal property. He lost one of these off Bahrain, but with the remaining two - and the treasure from the conquest of Muscat - he made his way back to Suez.
Meanwhile, the governor of Basra had reported the failure of the expedition to the sultan, who rather precipitously sent an order for Piri Reis's execution. Thus, when the admiral arrived in Cairo, he was beheaded. He was then over 80 years old; in the Ottoman service, the price of failure was high.
The Adventures of Seydi Ali Reis:
Piri Reis was temporarily replaced by the Sanjaq Bey of al-Qatif, who engaged the Portuguese in a bitter sea battle near Hormuz. The Ottomans were outgunned by the Portuguese, and the surviving Ottoman ships were forced to return to Basra. The sultan then appointed a brilliant officer named Seydi Ali Reis to retrieve the situation.
Expert in practical seamanship, Ali nevertheless felt the need to deepen his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, and he had been able to begin these studies in Aleppo in 1548. His studies were interrupted when Sultan Süleyman ordered him to go to Basra, rescue the remains of the Ottoman fleet, and convey the surviving ships to Suez.
Ali went to Basra by way of Mosul and Baghdad, and when he arrived, he was informed that the governor, Mustafa Pasha, had sailed to Hormuz in a frigate to discover the movements of the Portuguese. A messenger from Mustafa then arrived with word that the Portuguese were approaching Hormuz with only four ships. Ali set sail and 40 days later, off the coast of Dhofar, he encountered the Portuguese fleet. Instead of four ships, however, it consisted of three large galleons, six guard ships, 12 galliots and four huge barges. Nonetheless, the two fleets immediately engaged. The battle raged fiercely all day and one of the Portuguese galleons was sunk. At nightfall, the Portuguese sounded the retreat and fled towards Hormuz, the Ottomans in pursuit.
Just off Muscat, a reinforced Portuguese fleet commanded by the son of the Portuguese governor of Goa attacked the Ottomans. Hajji Khalifah describes the battle as more ferocious than the famous sea battle between Khair al-Din and Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral who commanded the fleet of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Portuguese hand grenades, thrown from their war-barges, took a heavy toll. Three Turkish barges were driven ashore, but returned to the battle reinforced with local Bedouins anxious to join the fray. During the night a gale blew up and scattered the ships; the sailors were so exhausted from the battle they could not man the oars. They were driven ashore at Makran, in present-day Pakistan, where the governor provisioned them. Setting sail again, they encountered a terrible storm off the southern coast of Arabia that lasted 10 days and drove the surviving ships all the way to India.
Seydi Ali Reis was finally able to land in Gujarat. He and the survivors of the terrible voyage entered the service of the sultan of Ahmedabad and took part in a number of campaigns against the Portuguese-controlled ports on the western coast of India. It was here in Ahmedabad that Ali composed the Muhit, a comprehensive work on oceanography, with special reference to the Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. This work, whose title of course means "The All-Encompassing Sea," preserves precious material from otherwise unknown works by Arab navigators, and its short fourth chapter is devoted to the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries in the New World. Much of the information it contains was probably derived from oral sources, presumably from interviews with Portuguese captives.
Seydi Ali Reis was luckier than Piri Reis: He finally made his way back to Constantinople four years after setting out from Basra and, instead of losing his head, received his back pay and a raise. This may have been partly in recognition of the utility of his Muhit, and partly because of his extraordinary overland journey from Gujarat to Constantinople through Central Asia, which he described in a book called The Adventures of Seydi Ali. It may also have been due to his fame as a poet, for his vivid descriptions of the terrors of the sea were highly thought of not only in his own time, but by later generations as well.
Ottoman "Soft" Empire in the Indian Ocean:
During the grand vizierate of Sokollu Mehmed during the 1560s and 70s, the Ottomans had pursued what we might define today as a policy of “soft empire” in the Indian Ocean, by seeking to expand their influence not through direct military intervention, but rather through the development of ideological, commercial, and diplomatic ties with the various Muslim communities of the region. Although in some instances, most notably in the case of the Muslim principality of Aceh in western Indonesia, the Porte had provided direct military assistance in exchange for a formal recognition of Ottoman suzerainty, for the most part a much more informal relationship was the rule. Even in places like Gujarat and Calicut, where “Ottoman” members of the local naval and military elites were particularly prominent, these were essentially mercenaries who had emigrated from the Empire and entered local service voluntarily, often maintaining friendly relations with the Ottomans but not any direct political ties to the state In the absence of a formal imperial infrastructure, Sokollu Mehmed had taken steps to align the interests of these disparate Muslim communities with those of the Ottoman state in other ways.
Evidence suggests that he established a network of imperial commercial factors throughout the region who bought and sold merchandise for the sultan, and that he also began financing pro-Ottoman religious organizations overseas, especially those in predominantly non-Muslim states with influential Muslim trading elites like Calicut and Ceylon. In exchange for annual shipments of gold currency from the Ottoman treasury, local preachers in such overseas mosques agreed to read the Friday call to prayer in the name of the Ottoman sultan, and in so doing acknowledged him, not as their immediate overlord, but rather as a kind of religiously sanctioned “metasovereign” over the entire Indian Ocean trading sphere.
As “Caliph” and “Protector of the Holy Cities,” the Ottoman sultan thus acted as guarantor of the safety and security of the maritime trade and pilgrimage routes to and from Mecca and Medina, and in exchange could demand a certain measure of allegiance from Muslims throughout the region. As long as it lasted, this strategy of “soft empire” seems to have worked remarkably well. During the middle decades of the sixteenth century trade through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf flourished as never before, such that by the 1570s the Portuguese seem to have abandoned entirely their efforts to maintain a naval blockade between the Indian Ocean and the markets of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, according to contemporary records in the Ottoman archives, the concept of the Ottoman sultan as “universal sovereign” became more and more widely recognized, such that by the mid-1560s his name was being read in the Friday call to prayer of mosques from the Maldives to Ceylan, and from Calicut to Sumatra. Even in the powerful and rapidly expanding Mughal Empire, whose orthodox Sunni dynasty was the only one that could legitimately compete with the Ottomans in terms of imperial grandeur, a certain amount of deference towards Istanbul appears to have been the rule. The Emperor Humayun, for example, at one point sent a letter sent to Suleyman the Magnificent in which he openly addressed him with the lofty titles of “Padishah” and “Caliph of the World.”
Assasination of Sokullu and the end of the "Soft" Empire:
In the final months before his assassination, Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha seems to have emerged as the leader of this group, and made no secret of his opinion that the Ottomans’ relationship with the Indian Ocean was on the verge of a major transformation. This is clear from the dispatches of the Hapsburg negotiator Giovanni Margliani, who met with the Grand Vizier personally on several occasions in 1579, during the final phase of talks aimed at an Ottoman-Hapsburg armistice. As these negotiations unfolded, and once most other issues seemed to have been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties, Sokollu pointedly refused to include Portugal and its overseas possessions in the provisions of the treaty, even after it became clear that they might be annexed by Hapsburg Spain before peace was concluded. This was not, he insisted, because the Ottomans had any intention of sending a fleet through the straits of Gibraltar or of otherwise threatening Portugal directly. But as for the Indian Ocean, the Pasha declared: “God alone knows what will happen there.” Revealingly, this barely veiled threat came alongside simultaneous Portuguese reports that Sokollu was in the process of contacting indigenous communities in East Africa, in order to secure supplies of lumber for the construction of a new Indian Ocean fleet.
After Sokollu Mehmed’s death, leadership of this “Indian Ocean faction” seems to have passed to Koja Sinan Pasha, a former governor of Egypt and the Yemen, who between 1580 and 1582 also served his own brief term (the first of five) as the Empire’s grand vizier. It was during these two years of Koja Sinan’s first grand vizierate that the Ottomans began to take their first tangible steps towards a more aggressive and expansionist Indian Ocean agenda. Among other things, these included the corsairing debut of Mir Ali Beg, who in 1581 led a successful raid against Portuguese-held Muscat, putting the city to sack for six merciless days before returning home with three captured galleys and a king’s ransom in hard currency and stolen merchandise. Meanwhile, Koja Sinan Pasha ordered the construction of seven new fortresses in the principal ports of the Red Sea, and even more importantly, dispatched a secret embassy to India headed by a delegation of renegade Portuguese Jews.
The purpose of these renegades’ delicate mission was manifold, but its primary goal was to open a dialogue with certain Portuguese in the Estado da India rumored to be disillusioned with their country’s annexation by Spain, who Sinan Pasha hoped might be convinced to favour the Ottomans against the Hapsburgs. According to a dispatch by Germigny, the French ambassador in Istanbul, dated September 30, 1581, the renegades carried an open invitation to the Portuguese of India “to come from the East Indies, from the Kingdom of Hormuz, from the islands and ports of the Orient belonging to the Kingdom of Portugal, and trade in the ports and weigh stations of His Majesty [the Sultan] in Egypt and Syria,” where they were promised “guarantees of good treatment and every comfort and convenience.” Then, the same delegation apparently also visited the Mughal court, where they urged Akbar to renounce his hostility towards Istanbul and join the Sultan in a holy war against the Hapsburgs.
Both of these proposals came to nothing. The Portuguese remained loyal to Dom Francisco Mascarenhas, the new Hapsburg-appointed viceroy, and Mascarenhas in turn reached an accommodation with Akbar, in which he reconfirmed the Mughal’s right to two cartazes to send pilgrimage ships annually to the Red Sea. On the other hand, Koja Sinan’s embassy was successful in encouraging several less prominent would-be allies to make common cause with the Ottomans. Muhammad Kilij Khan, for one, Captain of Surat and an attendee at Akbar’s court when the Emperor’s cartazes arrived from Goa, brazenly declared an intention to send a ship of his own to the Red Sea, but insisted that unlike Akbar his cartaz would be “the handle of the dagger in his belt.” Shortly thereafter, in late 1581, he ordered the construction of a mighty ship in Surat, forcing the Portuguese to blockade the port for most of the winter in order to prevent its departure.
News of this challenge to Portuguese authority quickly spread across the sea lanes, and by the following summer an Acehnese fleet 160 sails strong (including a sizeable contingent of Ottoman mercenaries) even threatened the Portuguese fortress in distant Malacca. By the fall of 1582, encouraged by such developments and anticipating more concrete success in the future, Koja Sinan began negotiations with the Duke of Brabant in France, hoping to establish at Anvers a great entrepôt for merchandise from India once the power of Lisbon and the Habsburgs had been eclipsed. In exchange, Sinan offered Ottoman logistical support for a planned French raid against the Hapsburgs in the Azores.
Plans for the Suez Canal:
In addition, Koja Sinan saw to it that his careful diplomacy overseas was complemented by an equally aggressive propaganda offensive on the home front, by which he hoped to convince wavering members of the Ottoman establishment that further investment in the Indian Ocean was justified. The most obvious efforts in this regard focused on a plan, dating back to earlier decades of the sixteenth century, to build a canal across the Egyptian desert to Suez, in order to facilitate the transfer of ships and men from the Empire’s main Mediterranean centers of supply to the Red Sea, the Yemen, and beyond. Such a proposal was openly advocated in the famous Tārīh-i hind-i ġarbī, a history of the Spanish exploration and conquest of the New World composed sometime between 1580 and 1581. In it, the text’s anonomous author, who was likely a personal client of Koja Sinan, acknowledged that building such a canal had been attempted before with little success. But he went on to argue that the present global situation demanded a greater sense of urgency, and continued: “Thanks to God, the [Ottoman] Sultan of fortune, of majestic power and force and pomp and majesty, is stronger than the kings of the past, and he has in his retinue many wise leaders...who follow his orders in every respect. And the Emirs of the Maghrib and the Kings of the Yemen and possibly all the kings of the time express great pleasure in serving him and find happiness in conforming to the sublime order. So even if only a drop was to be expended from the sea of power of the Sultan, in the shortest time it would be possible to join the two seas [the Mediterranean and the Red Sea]...thenceforth, from Well-Protected Constantinople, the place of prosperity and the abode of the throne of the Sultans, ships and their crews would be organized and sent to the Red Sea and would have the power to protect the shores of the holy places. And in a short time, by an excellent plan, they would seize and subjugate most of the seaports of Sind and Hind and would drive away and expel from that region the evil unbelievers, and it would be possible for the exquisite things of Sind and Hind and the rarities of Ethiopia and the Sudan, and the usual items of the Hijaz and the Yemen and the pearls of Bahrain and Aden to reach the capital with a trifling effort.”
This, in so many words, was the political manifesto of Koja Sinan Pasha and his supporters, who hoped to use the construction of a Suez canal as the focal point for a new and unprecedented phase of Ottoman expansion in the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, the turbulent political climate of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1580s made any such scheme perilously difficult to implement. In fact, Koja Sinan’s own political staying power proved inadequate for the task. At the end of 1582, personal rivalries and intrigues at court pushed him out of office and into temporary exile, leaving the remaining members of his “Indian Ocean faction” without a leader, and forcing them to seriously reevaluate their strategy.
Unsuccesful Campaigns to East Africa:
In the late fall of 1588, Commodore Mir Ali Beg set sail from his home base of Mocha in the Ottoman province of Yemen and headed for East Africa’s Swahili Coast. His ultimate goal was an ambitious one: “to expel the Portuguese from the entire coast, even as far as Mozambique and the mines of Cuamá,” and extend the protection of the Ottoman sultan to all of the region’s numerous Muslims.
To accomplish this, however, the commodore had under his command only a small squadron of five lightly armed galleots, or downsized versions of Ottoman war galleys, and a contingent of no more than three hundred fighting men. This left him vastly outnumbered by a huge Portuguese armada that was already on its way from India, having received advanced warning of Mir Ali’s plans from a network of Portuguese spies in the Horn of Africa.
In compensation for this numerical disadvantage at sea, Mir Ali Beg also had at his disposal a large number of artillery pieces suitable for operation on land. With these, he hoped to establish a defensive position on the island port city of Mombasa, where on a previous visit he had been promised generous support from the local population in any confrontation with the Portuguese. True to their word, the Mombasans welcomed Mir Ali and his men upon their arrival, and with their help he managed in just a few weeks to complete an impressive series of maritime fortifications. These included a stone tower with artillery mounts commanding the entrance to the city’s harbour, as well as a defensive line in front of the city itself composed of his own ships, placed half-beached with their bows and deck guns facing seaward to guard against an amphibious assault.
As Ottoman commanders knew from long years of experience in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, the combination of a well-defended harbour, powerful artillery, and a few heavily armed galleys could give even a greatly outnumbered defensive force a deadly advantage over its adversaries. As early as 1517, the Ottoman admiral Selman Reis had used similar tactics to repel an attack against the naval base of Jiddah, handing the Portuguese such a resounding defeat that they did not even attempt another direct strike against an Ottoman position for nearly twenty-five years. In fact, according to the findings of John Guilmartin, whose groundbreaking technical analysis of sixteenth-century galley warfare included a study of this earlier encounter, the combination of good local logistical support and a strong coastal fortress defended by war galleys and heavy artillery - precisely the combination Mir Ali had at his disposal - could provide “a virtually unbeatable” defensive position, vulnerable only to an attack of truly overwhelming force. Thus, in a sense, both Mir Ali and his Portuguese adversaries had good reason to approach the coming battle with confidence, one side taking comfort in a secure position and the power of its artillery, the other finding strength in numbers and the superiority of its fleet.
But in the end, and seemingly to the surprise of both parties in equal measure, neither Ottoman artillery nor Portuguese seapower was destined to carry the day. Instead, at least if we are to believe contemporary Portuguese accounts, the “overwhelming force” that Mir Ali feared was to emerge from an entirely different, indeed unimaginable direction: a ravenous horde of some 20,000 Zimba cannibals who amassed on the mainland just across from Mombasa only days before the arrival of the Portuguese fleet. As if their terrifying appearance was not by itself enough to disrupt Mir Ali’s plans, it soon became apparent that the narrow estuary dividing Mombasa from the mainland could be waded across at low tide. This left the Ottoman with no choice but to move his best artillery, two of his war galleys, and the greater part of his fighting men to the other side of the island, while only a skeleton crew in the fortified tower and in his three remaining ships remained to guard Mombasa’s harbour.
This was the situation when, on March 5, 1589, the Portuguese Commander Tomé de Sousa Coutinho reached Mombasa at the head of his powerful Portuguese fleet. As he charged into the harbour, Mir Ali and his men set off a barrage of artillery fire, still hopeful of sinking at least some of the enemy vessels as they passed. But in the event all of the Portuguese ships avoided a direct hit, and a lucky shot from their own guns silenced the Ottomans’ main cannon in the fortress tower. With no more to fear from Ottoman defensive fire, the Portuguese were able to charge the three beached galleys and easily overwhelm them, putting their crews to flight and seizing their precious cargo.
The Portuguese then sent a contingent around to the estuary dividing the island from the mainland, where they found the rest of the Ottoman troops fully engaged with the Zimba and still trying to prevent them from crossing over to Mombasa. Once again, they easily overran the Ottoman positions, after some intense hand-to-hand combat that forced several desperate Ottoman crewmen to jump ship and attempt to swim to safety on the mainland. These the Zimba hacked down to the last man and greedily carted off before their companions’ eyes, prompting the rest of the Ottoman force to surrender to the Portuguese commander. In all, nearly a hundred of their number had been killed in the fray or fallen to the Zimba, and another 70 were taken prisoner, along with both vessels, twenty-three fine bronze artillery pieces, and six more iron guns, one of them exceptionally large.
Mir Ali and the remainder of his men then took refuge along with the Mombasans in the interior of the island. Since the Portuguese were still reluctant to leave their ships and face the Turks on land, a few days of inconclusive negotiations followed. But interestingly, these continued only until Tomé de Sousa Coutinho was approached by an envoy from the Zimba chief, who declared common cause with the Portuguese and requested permission to cross over to the island himself and confront the Ottomans and Mombasans directly. The unscrupulous Portuguese commander, recognizing an opportunity to flush out Mir Ali without putting his own men at risk, acquiesced to this request. Meanwhile, he ordered the launches from his own ships to be sent to shore, so they could pick up the Ottomans and their Mombasan allies as the approaching Zimba forced them out.
The Portuguese oarsmen dutifully assumed positions along the shore and waited in their launches, and were soon met with an almost indescribable spectacle as throngs of terrorized islanders came running from the interior, calling desperately for help and making for the shore with the Zimba close at their heels. Panic ensued as the small boats were quickly filled to beyond their capacity, and began pulling away from the coast to avoid being capsized and overwhelmed. Just as the very last of these launches was about to depart, Mir Ali appeared, mounted on horseback, galloping at full speed, with the Zimba in close pursuit and a rain of poison darts cascading around him. He charged headlong directly into the sea, flung himself towards the Portuguese boat, and was pulled to safety. Thirty of his companions were similarly saved by the boats, along with around two hundred Mombasans. A great many more, however, were left behind, and the Portuguese rowers watched as dozens of women and children hurled themselves into the waves in despair, preferring to drown than to face death at the hands of the Zimba.
Others, less fortunate, were dragged back into the brush and butchered. Having very nearly suffered the same fate himself, Mir Ali showed visible relief at his narrow escape. Once he was safely aboard the Portuguese flagship, he congratulated de Sousa Coutinho on his victory, declaring: “I do not lament my adverse fortune, for such is the nature of war, and I would much rather be a captive of the Christians, as I was once before in Spain, than food for the barbarous and inhuman Zimba.”
Pleased, the Captain in turn did his best to reassure Mir Ali and to lift his spirits, telling him he had made the right choice in deciding to surrender and promising that he would no longer have anything to worry about.
Unfortunately, Mir Ali’s subordinates and his local Swahili collaborators were not nearly as lucky. The thirty Ottoman prisoners, with the exception of Mir Ali himself, were condemned to serve as slaves in the galleys of the Estado da India, while the ringleaders from among their local supporters, including the King of Lamo and some notables from Pate who had traveled as envoys to the Yemen, were rounded up and publicly executed. The city of Mandra was sacked in punishment for siding with the Ottomans, and Mombasa, once the Zimba had retreated to the mainland, was handed over to the control of the king of its arch-rival Malindi, the only Swahili city-state that had remained staunchly loyal to the Portuguese throughout the encounter.
Although ultimately unsuccessful, Mir Ali’s expeditions were conceived as only the first step of en extended effort to create a centralized Ottoman imperial infrastructure throughout the Indian Ocean, an undertaking with potentially serious consequences not only for the Portuguese of the time, but indeed for the entire course of world history in the early modern period.
Most obviously, Mir Ali’s East African campaign provoked a marked expansion in the dimensions and complexity of the political landscape of the Swahili Coast citystates. While internecine rivalry between small coastal polities like Mombasa and Malindi had been a characteristic of the region for centuries – and in earlier decades had allowed the Portuguese to dominate the region with relatively little investment in manpower and weapons – the coming of the Ottomans enabled these city-states to reformulate their age-old local rivalries within the context of a struggle between two imperial powers of truly global proportions. In this respect, the Swahili coast was by no means unique, for the same dynamic is apparent in locales throughout the region: In Southeast Asia, where states like Aceh and Java allied with the Ottomans against local tributaries of the Portuguese in Malacca; In the Malabar coast of India, where the Mappilla pirates of Calicut similarly sided with the Ottomans against the Portuguese and their local allies; Even in the highlands of Abyssinia, where the Emperor of Ethiopia repeatedly appealed to the Portuguese crown for help against the Ottoman-supported Muslim tribes of the lowlands. Across an enormous region of the globe that stretched from East Africa to Indonesia and from Mozambique to Mocha, political rotagonists in even the most localized of conflicts now began to understand their actions as potentially significant on a much larger scale. Such local political actors began to “think globally” in a very real sense, by revising their ambitions and devising new strategies for achieving them that accounted not only for local conditions, but likewise for the political leanings of imperial capitals halfway around the globe.
For these imperial powers, meanwhile, the events of 1589 were to have their own long-term consequences. For the Ottomans, Mir Ali’s defeat represented their very last attempt to intervene militarily in the affairs of the Indian Ocean. In the following decades, the Empire’s influence gradually receded, until in 1633 it even lost control of the Yemen and disappeared as a political force in the region.
nice info, what do you think would have to of happen for the ottomans to go to the new world?
Incidentally, Tunch Khan, I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed reading all of the various history posts you've been making over the past few weeks. Very educational.
From Recueil d'estampes de Costume du XVIIe Siecle, Paris, ca. 1680
Henri Bonnart was part of a family of engravers in Paris known for publishing portraits of the French nobility wearing the latest fashions. This print of Juif de la Terre Sainte adheres to the style of costume illustration popularized in the last quarter of the seventeenth century by Bonnart and other contemporary engravers. The Jewish doctor that Bonnart portrays has acquired riches from selling doses of rhubarb. While known today as a plant for making pies, rhubarb roots have medicinal properties and rhubarb sellers appear in prints of the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries.
The image of the Jewish doctor from the Ottoman Empire wearing the distinguishing clothing of his profession first appears in the sixteenth century. Nicolas de Nicolay, in Les quatre premiers livres des Navigation et peregrinations orientales (1567) includes a portrait of Moses Hamon, a renowned Jewish doctor at the court of Suleiman the Magnificent. Nicolay states that Hamon wore a tall red cap. Various travelers to the East noted that other Jews often mimicked the style of dress worn by Jewish doctors. Eugene Roger, a seventeenth-century French missionary, recorded his travel observations in La terre sainte (1646) and included an etching of Juif de la Terre Sainte on which Bonnart based his print. The figures in both prints have the same facial features and stand in related poses; each wears a tall cap and robes trimmed and lined with ermine.
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I Bet you Did Not Know that Salamon ben Nathan Eskenazi, an Ottoman palace doctor was the first Ottoman Sephardim to serve as a foreign service officer in 1574 as Ambassador to Venice and he also arranged the first diplomatic ties with the British Empire. Gabriel Benaventura another court physician followed as ambassador to negotiate armistice and peace with Spain serving sometime between 1574-1578.
I Bet you Did Not Know that Sultan Murat I married a Jewish Princess from Bulgaria.
One of the most interesting events in the Mediaeval history of Bulgarian Jews is the accession of the Jewess Sara. Sara was of Judahite-Byzantine descent. Converting to Christianity, she married tsar Ivan Alexander and reigned 20 years (1335-1355) under the adopted name of Teodora. The Jewish community prospered during most of that period, although at the end of her reign the "zhidove" (plural of zhid, a pejorative term for Jew in Bulgarian) were subjected to persecution .
Tsar Ivan Alexander may have led a golden age in the arts, but his governing of the world of politics was far less sure. For decades the security of Bulgaria and the other Balkan states was threatened by the territorial ambitions of the Ottoman Turks. The political marriages the Tsar made for himself and his children failed to deliver the unity with neighbouring countries needed to mount any effective military resistance. The tsar’s second marriage to Theodora succeeded only in making matters worse: the legacy of his death on 17 February 1371 was a disputed succession that weakened the country still further.
Ivan Shishman was the eldest son of Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife Theodora. The reign of Ivan Shishman is inextricably connected with the fall of Bulgaria under Ottoman domination. Shortly after Ivan Shishman came to the throne, the united forces of the Serbian nobles led by King Vukašin Mrnjavčević were defeated by the Ottoman Turks in the battle of Černomen on September 26, 1371. The Ottomans advanced on Bulgaria, and Ivan Shishman was forced to recognize Ottoman overlordship and to send his sister Thamar (Kera Tamara) as a spouse for Sultan Murat I by 1373. In a few months in 1396, Bulgaria would ultimately fall under Ottoman domination.
Tzar Ivan Alexander and his Jewish wife Sarah. In between - their son Ivan Shishman, the last Bulgarian ruler. Thamar must be the girl standing next to the Tzar.
Medieval miniature, 14th century
One of the most interesting events in the Mediaeval history of Bulgarian Jews is the accession of the Jewess Sara. Sara was of Judahite-Byzantine descent. Converting to Christianity, she married tsar Ivan Alexander and reigned 20 years (1335-1355) under the adopted name of Teodora. The Jewish community prospered during most of that period, although at the end of her reign the "zhidove" (plural of zhid, a pejorative term for Jew in Bulgarian) were subjected to persecution .
Tsar Ivan Alexander may have led a golden age in the arts, but his governing of the world of politics was far less sure. For decades the security of Bulgaria and the other Balkan states was threatened by the territorial ambitions of the Ottoman Turks. The political marriages the Tsar made for himself and his children failed to deliver the unity with neighbouring countries needed to mount any effective military resistance. The tsar’s second marriage to Theodora succeeded only in making matters worse: the legacy of his death on 17 February 1371 was a disputed succession that weakened the country still further.
Ivan Shishman was the eldest son of Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife Theodora. The reign of Ivan Shishman is inextricably connected with the fall of Bulgaria under Ottoman domination. Shortly after Ivan Shishman came to the throne, the united forces of the Serbian nobles led by King Vukašin Mrnjavčević were defeated by the Ottoman Turks in the battle of Černomen on September 26, 1371. The Ottomans advanced on Bulgaria, and Ivan Shishman was forced to recognize Ottoman overlordship and to send his sister Thamar (Kera Tamara) as a spouse for Sultan Murat I by 1373. In a few months in 1396, Bulgaria would ultimately fall under Ottoman domination.
Tzar Ivan Alexander and his Jewish wife Sarah. In between - their son Ivan Shishman, the last Bulgarian ruler. Thamar must be the girl standing next to the Tzar.
Medieval miniature, 14th century
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hmm by reading part about suez canal it just crossed my mind that it would be very nice if such option was included in the game.
if somehow via event (or even better as province improvment?!) you could actually build the canal and open passage for ships between mediteranian and red sea. it should be offcourse outrageously expensive and last for 20-30 years?...
if somehow via event (or even better as province improvment?!) you could actually build the canal and open passage for ships between mediteranian and red sea. it should be offcourse outrageously expensive and last for 20-30 years?...
That was an option for both Panama and Suez Canals in Victoria, but seeing the map of Egypt already, I don't think they're planning for that. On the other hand, there are reports claiming that the map should be extremely moddable and that hope keeps our hearts warm.grabah said:
The Ottoman navy sailing down the Red Sea to colonize and vassalize East Africa and India all the way to China. 
A Suetz channel would be pretty "what if" to be in game IMHO.
The idea itself was as old as the Pharohs (as the discussion whether such channel would sink Egypt under the sea ). Nobody build it though, and I'm not sure if it was actually posible to be done at that time.
The idea itself was as old as the Pharohs (as the discussion whether such channel would sink Egypt under the sea
). Nobody build it though, and I'm not sure if it was actually posible to be done at that time.That'd be interesting. If I recall, Napoléon wanted to build a bridge over the English channel, as well as designed the original concept of a channel tunnel
Why not? The pharaohs had the Pyramids of Gizah built, and the temples of Luxor and Karnak too. I'm sure with enough manpower, money and resources a channel could have been built.Enravota said:A Suetz channel would be pretty "what if" to be in game IMHO.
The idea itself was as old as the Pharohs (as the discussion whether such channel would sink Egypt under the sea
Fact is that, up on false reports of Portugese plans to capture the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the Ottoman Sultan was convinced for the necessity of such a colossal project and he sent gold, supplies and Janissaries to dig a canal in 1580's. A few weeks after the arrival of the shipments to Egypt, the local governors and the Mamluk elites had absorbed them all in an Ottoman fashioned corruption and with the leftover materials there was a small fleet of a few barges and galleons constructed in the Red Sea.
Had the Ottomans have the benefit of an honest and able governor of Egypt, the canal could have been constructed.
Tunch Khan said:
Eeek!!
That would have meant an Ottoman India (eventually, but they'd have certainly colonised the west coast quite early on); they'd have been richer than the Spanish Empire and prolly' attacked China & Russia
Tunch Khan said:
The ancient Egyptian pharaohs maybe, though I'm not a construction engineer and I don't know. But I don't think a channel of that magnitude was build anywhere in EU era to believe that the Mamelukes or the Ottomans had the resources or know-how to build something like that. Sending a bunch of dudes with shovels to dig is one thing, building a channel other.
Err... what kind of a know how would that be that the pharaohs had and the sultans didn't?Enravota said:
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha had a vision to expand the empire onto the south Russian steppe. He wanted to build forts there and dig a canal between the Volga and Don rivers. This scheme had a threefold purpose: (1.) it would stop Russia, which under Ivan the Terrible had overrun the Mongol states on the Volga River; (2.) it would give the Ottoman fleet access to the Caspian Sea, opening a northern front against the Persians; and (3.) it would aid the empire's allies, the Khanate of the Crimea and the Uzbeks of Central Asia.Calipah said:
A plan had been elaborated at Constantinople for uniting the Volga and Don by a canal, and in the summer of 1569 a large force of Janissaries and cavalry were sent to lay siege to Astrakhan and begin the canal works, while an Ottoman fleet besieged Azov. But a sortie of the garrison of Astrakhan drove back the besiegers; 15,000 Russians, under Knes Serebianov, attacked and scattered the workmen and the Tatar force sent for their protection; and, finally, the Ottoman fleet was destroyed by a storm. Sokullu was forced to abandon his plan, but Ivan was effectively checked, and the resulting peace lasted for more than half a century.
Pharaohs biuld the pyramids but decided not to build a channel between Red and Mediterranean seas. Ottoman sultans, on the other hand, never build a single pyramidTunch Khan said:
. That kind of know-how. Lots of antient discoveries were lost in the Middle Ages (i.e. concrete), others were kept secretand used by few. OE never build something of the proportion of the Suetz channel, most probably it was because they could not. Considering the obvious financial, military etc. benefits of such channel, it's pretty hard to believe that they had the (obvious) abilitty to build it but decieded not to. Planning one thing, even knowing how it should be done is not the same as doing it, examples are all around us (the idea for the Eurotunnel is from 18th century, many computerscience fundamentals were discovered by Babbage but he was unable to biuld one himself). After the "atempt" you mentioned failed misserably Ottomans did not try again.
Knowing something is one thing, and then speculating on the unknown based on one's personal belief is another.Enravota said:Pharaohs biuld the pyramids but decided not to build a channel between Red and Mediterranean seas. Ottoman sultans, on the other hand, never build a single pyramid
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