Empire
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28 It can also more practically be used as a placeholder, indicating that there are no numbers in a particular column. For example, in our decimal system the placeholder o in the number 702 shows that there are no numbers in the ‘tens’ column.
29 Even the latest scientific evidence is conflicting on this point.
30 In the limited understanding of this species, i.e. excluding great apes, gorillas, etc.
7
The Ottoman Empire
We now return to the region where the world’s earliest empires had begun – and thrived – for almost three millennia, namely the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire, which originated in 1299, would eventually achieve sovereignty over territory in Asia, Europe and Africa, and would last for over 600 years. On four remarkable occasions it would even threaten to destroy the more advanced civilisation of Europe. Just 150 years after the founding declaration of the Ottoman Empire, during its early expansionist phase, Sultan Mehmed II (usually known as ‘the Conqueror’) achieved the unthinkable feat of conquering Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (still officially designated the ‘Roman and Byzantine Empire’).
At its height in the eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire had ruled over every country bordering on the Mediterranean, from Spain and Italy to Egypt and North Africa, as well as controlling the shores of the Black Sea and the upper half of the Red Sea. By 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror had all but destroyed this empire, taking Anatolia, Greece and moving up into the Balkans, in the process encircling Constantinople. After Mehmed the Conqueror entered the holy city, Constantine XI, the last man to claim the title of Roman Emperor, was killed.
The Ottoman sultan then declared that the 900-year-old Hagia Sofia (‘Holy Wisdom’ in Greek), Christendom’s holiest cathedral and the largest building in the world, would from now on become a mosque. He also pronounced himself ‘Kaysari-i-Rûm’ (Turkish for ‘Caesar of Rome’). From his vantage point on the Bosphorus, Mehmed the Conqueror’s capital straddled Europe and Asia, making it the potential capital of the world. (Just over three centuries later, when Napoleon took Egypt, harbouring similar illusions, he regarded Cairo as the most strategic city on earth, the hub of Europe, Asia and Africa; America was dismissed as a primitive outpost.)
Back in Rome, a succession of popes had desperately been attempting to rally the divided nations of European Christendom to restart the Crusades, and drive back the Ottomans. One by one these attempts foundered, owing to ineffectual leadership, internal jealousies, suspicions and so forth. Meanwhile the Ottoman advance continued inexorably north through the Balkans towards Venice, and in 1480 even established a foothold on the Italian peninsula at the southern port of Otranto. Here the local bishop was publicly sawed in half before the terrified population, 12.000 of whom were then put to the sword, with another 50.000 being shipped off into slavery.
Within weeks, the Ottoman forces had advanced 200 miles up the east coast. Less than 200 miles east across the Apennines, the ailing, ageing Pope Sixtus IV was at his wits’ end. It looked as if Rome was now to suffer the fate of Constantinople. Then, as if by a miracle, the Ottomans suddenly withdrew and sailed back across the Adriatic. In an echo of the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe three centuries previously, the Ottomans had learned of the death of Mehmed the Conqueror, and were anxious to return to Constantinople where the future sultan would be chosen. Europe was saved.
But the threat of the Ottomans overrunning Europe was not over. Within fifty years, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was laying siege to the city of Vienna. But the autumn of 1529 was long and wet, and the Turkish troops soon became demoralised, their supply lines were overstretched, and a collapse of morale led to a Turkish retreat. Yet 150 years later, Sultan Mehmed IV ordered a second attempt to take Vienna, this time with a fully equipped and supplied army of 200,000 men, led by the Grand Vizier (chief minister) Kara Mustafa Pasha.
In July 1683, before the Turks were even within sight of Vienna, the ruling Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, and 60,000 of its citizens had fled. In fact, Leopold I’s act was less cowardly than it appeared – his intention was to solicit support from Poland, Cossacks and German allies. The massive Ottoman Army duly laid siege to Vienna, digging trenches and setting up tents in preparation for a long winter. By now the Ottoman Empire had considerably expanded its territory, stretching along the North African coast, through Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Iraq as far as the Caspian Sea. In Europe it had overrun the Balkans, Romania and Hungary. Once Vienna fell, the whole of central and western Europe would lie at its mercy.
The Ottoman forces had soon overrun the outer fortifications of Vienna, and were beginning to dig tunnels beneath its walls. Then, on 12 September, the Ottomans were surprised by the appearance of a combined German-Polish force, which emerged from the Vienna Woods at Mount Kahlenberg to the north of the city. The ensuing battle lasted fifteen hours, before the tent of the Grand Vizier was detonated, and as his troops fled from their trenches they were put to the slaughter. Kara Mustafa managed to make it to the safety of Belgrade, but the sultan was so outraged that he ordered his Grand Vizier to be executed, and his head brought to Constantinople on a silver dish. The battle of Kahlenberg is generally seen as marking the turning point of the Ottoman Empire, and from now on it would begin its long decline.
Ironically, it was this long decline that would have the most profound effect of all: presaging both the ultimate disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the political destruction of the old European order. By the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was an impotent force. Egypt was virtually independent under the Mamlukes, Persia and the Kurds threatened its eastern borders, Greece would declare itself independent in 1853; and Czar Nicholas I of Russia described Turkey as ‘the sick old man of Europe’. Here was a vast empire ready for the taking, and all the European powers were covertly making plans to seize strategic territories for themselves.
As early as 1799, Napoleon had already taken Egypt, but within a couple of years the British navy forced the French to return home. The British then came to an arrangement with the Porte (Ottoman government in Istanbul), whereby they would act as Egypt’s ‘protector’. However, this did not deter Napoleon. Having declared himself ‘Emperor’, he began covertly drawing up plans for an overland invasion of Turkey, in an attempt to forestall the Russians, who had by now extended their empire into the Caucasus borderland and looked poised to launch their own invasion.
Things came to a head with the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, between Russia and an alliance of the Ottomans, Britain, France and Sardinia. The ostensible cause of this war was a dispute between Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox monks over the keys to the door of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (Christ’s birthplace). The underlying cause was to prevent Russia from expanding into the Ottoman Empire, an aim in which the western European allies eventually succeeded after a chaotic campaign involving great loss of life.
Determined not to be left out, in the early 1900s the recently formed German nation persuaded the sultan to allow their engineers to construct a Hejaz railway from Damascus to Medina, ostensibly for the transport of pilgrims making the Hadj to Mecca. But in fact, as all could see, this railway would become an integral part of an interlinked Berlin to Baghdad railway, a key piece of German strategy.
The Hejaz railway could be extended to Aqaba on the Red Sea, while the Baghdad branch could be extended to the head of the Persian Gulf. This would enable the Germans direct access to the Indian Ocean, thus circumventing the British-French owned Suez Canal, and enabling the Germans to extend their own empire beyond the bounds of German East Africa (basically mainland modern Tanzania). By the turn of the twentieth century, the strategic European rivalries were falling into place, indicating many of the locations that in 1914 would become the flashpoints of the First World War.
Such thumbnail sketches of the rise and fall of one of history’s greatest empires give little indication of the transformation of the world that took place around i
t. During the years between 1299 and the Ottoman collapse in 1922 the world changed as never before, shifting beyond recognition in a way that may well never be repeated. Such a claim might appear controversial in our present age of constant, miraculous human and technological selfreinvention, but is nonetheless worthy of argument. A brief outline of what happened during these six hundred years will give an indication.
In Europe the Renaissance would blossom, followed by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which in turn ushered in the age of steam, electricity and mechanical engines of all kinds. Spain, having discovered the New World, would reap untold riches in gold and silver from South America, an unearned fortune that would ironically bring about its economic ruin.31 Meanwhile Portugal, Great Britain, France and Holland would each carve out global empires. The wilderness of North America would see the British establish various coastal colonies; owing to inept administration, these colonies would soon cast out their masters. After becoming ‘united states’, their need for manpower would attract downtrodden emigrants from Europe, until America was on the verge of becoming the world’s greatest economy.
During this period (1299–1922), France would become Europe’s leading power for four hundred years, undergo an unprecedented Revolution, and then, under Napoleon, set about actually conquering those countries over which it had once merely held sway. All this, and so much more, took place during the long centuries when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, to a great extent unaffected by what it saw as these external irrelevancies of political and technological transformation.
This is not to imply that the Ottoman Empire remained isolationist. When Mehmed the Conqueror first set eyes on the walls and fortifications of Constantinople, he realised that they were impregnable, even to his army of over 160,000 soldiers. And a siege appeared to be out of the question. The city was built on an isthmus, surrounded by sea on three sides, its coastline protected by high walls. The land side was protected by a three-mile-long double ring of walls, protected by a moat. In all, the walls contained over fifty castles, many with twin towers straddling the few arched gates – the inner ring of walls being 40 feet high and 15 feet thick. Even starvation appeared out of the question, as the inner city contained freshwater wells, as well as gardens for growing produce. It appeared as if a stalemate was inevitable.
But Mehmed the Conqueror had been informed of a Hungarian cannon-founder named Orban, who had boasted that he could make a cannon ‘that could blast the walls of Babylon itself’. Mehmed commanded his men to bring Orban to the city of Adrianople, 150 miles to the west, where there was a large iron foundry. Here Orban was ordered to prove that he was as good as his word and build the largest cannon of which he was capable. It took Orban over three months, and the result was a wheeled cannon with a 27-foot muzzle, capable of firing cannonballs weighing 1,200 pounds over a distance of half a mile.
This monstrous weapon was named ‘the basilic’ (the king), and it would require sixty oxen to drag it to the walls of Constantinople, where it arrived on 11 April 1453. It was also accompanied by a number of smaller cannons. Mehmed II ordered that the ‘basilic’ and the other cannons be set up immediately opposite what he calculated was the weakest gate in the walls. He then ordered the cannons to be fired non-stop day in day out.
Orban objected that this would overheat the muzzles of the cannons, which were then liable to disintegrate under the power of their own recoil. Mehmed II was adamant, and a barrage was launched that would last continuously for six weeks. Fortunately, the ‘basilic’ took three hours to reload, but the smaller cannons proved less resilient, and Orban was killed when one of them exploded. By the end of May, the ‘basilic’ had opened only a small breach in the outer wall.
By now Mehmed II had lost patience. He ordered his men to charge through the breach in what appeared to be a suicidal assault. At the sight of the Ottoman soldiers, the Byzantines panicked, and tried to flee through a gate in the inner wall. In the midst of the mêlée, the Byzantines omitted to lock the gate behind them. The first Ottomans swarmed into the city itself, followed by wave after wave of their compatriots. The fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453 is still seen as one of the most significant dates in European history: the ultimate end of any real Roman Empire. The word ‘real’ is necessary here, for as Voltaire pointed out the so-called Holy Roman Empire, which grew out of Charlemagne’s empire, was ‘neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire’.32
Initially, Venice was the state most affected by this event, as it had previously carried out most of its foreign trade with Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean, maintaining several strategic ports throughout the Aegean and the Peloponnese. Whilst the rest of Europe remained divided over what action to take, Venice had even sent its own fleet to relieve the siege of Constantinople; though this had barely entered the Aegean before news arrived of the fall of the city. Whereupon, in accordance with the ‘pragmatic’ policy adopted by Venice during this period, it decided to change sides.
Bartolomeo Marcello, the Venetian ambassador aboard the fleet, was ordered to sail on to Constantinople and negotiate a trade treaty with Mehmed II, choosing to overlook the fact that several hundred Venetians occupying the Venetian trading colony within Constantinople had been put to the sword by the Muslim invaders. Venice justified its change of policy to the rest of Italy by announcing: Siamo Veneziani, poi Cristiani – ‘We are Venetians, then Christians.’
Mehmed II received the new Venetian ambassador Marcello with the contempt he deserved, yet the sultan was also sufficiently versed in statecraft to realise the benefit of maintaining diplomatic relations with Italy’s major sea-trading nation. A treaty was signed, and to cement this new accord Venice chose to ‘loan’ to Mehmed II its greatest artist, Gentile Bellini, who was renowned for the realism and psychological penetration of his portraits. Mehmed II had no truck with the Muslim edict against creating images, and was glad to welcome Bellini to Constantinople. Indeed, despite Bellini’s understandable hesitancy, he and Mehmed II soon struck up a firm friendship: ‘unique in its intimacy’, according to a contemporary observer.
Mehmed II and Gentile both shared a deep interest in the knowledge and history of the Levant, as well as a love of the new sciences that were now beginning to emerge under the inspiration of the Renaissance. Bellini was given full rein to make sketches of life in the newly transformed Constantinople, as well as being commissioned to paint a portrait of Mehmed II himself. This conveys Mehmed seated in half-profile, wearing his large, white sultan’s turban, red kaftan and exotic fur shawl. There is no flattery in the depiction of Mehmed’s stern features, with their long nose and full brown beard. This is the face of a determined warrior, yet also a man of considerable culture and knowledge.
It was in these last two aspects that the cultural differences between Bellini and Mehmed II would become manifest. Mehmed II asked Bellini to create a painting of St John the Baptist (who was also renowned as a prophet in the Islamic faith). Mehmed II wished Bellini’s painting to depict the head of John the Baptist on a platter, when it was presented to the dancer Salome after she had engineered his beheading.
When Bellini duly presented his meticulously finished work to Mehmed II, the sultan examined it closely, and then drew Bellini’s attention to a detail in St John’s severed neck. What Bellini had painted was not anatomically correct. Bellini politely begged to differ; he had, after all, studied anatomy alongside the young Leonardo da Vinci. Mehmed II beckoned for his attendants to bring forth a slave, whom he ordered to be summarily beheaded. Mehmed then leaned forward, pointing out to the aghast Bellini the precise error in his painting. Within two years, Gentile had managed to persuade his friend Mehmed II to allow him to return to his native Italy.
The Ottomans appear to have originated in the Turkic heartlands of central Asia, moving west under the banner of the Mongols. As we have seen, following the split of the Mongol Empire into four main khanates in the mid-1200s, Il-Khanate had ruled the south-eastern regio
n of the empire, occupying Persia and much of Anatolia (modern Turkey). When Mongol power had waned, this too had disintegrated into various semi-independent provinces. One of these was a small tribal territory to the east of the Sea of Marmara, stretching just over fifty miles long and fifteen miles wide. This was ruled by Osman I, who had been born in 1254.
Little is known of Osman I’s early life, except that he became ruler of his small territory in 1299, which is usually taken as the founding date of the Ottoman Empire. Osman is also known to have had a dream in which ‘he saw that a moon arose from the holy man’s breast and came to sink in his own breast’. When he asked his palace holy man what this meant, he was told that God had bequeathed the House of Osman with a great destiny: that it would one day rule over a vast empire with mountains and streams and running waters and gardens. This tale would become a driving myth for Osman and his people, who became known as Ottomans after their ruler. From this time on, Osman I gradually began extending his domain into neighbouring territory ruled by the Byzantine Empire.
Osman I’s dream was not only the founding myth of Ottoman national identity, but also played a leading role in the psychology of his descendant Mehmed II, who in 1444 ascended to the sultanate at the tender age of twelve, having scarcely finished his traditional Islamic education at the ancient city of Amasya.33 Despite being deposed by the Janissaries, the powerful crack troops who formed the sultan’s household guard, Mehmed II returned to rule in 1451. It says much of his determination and military skills that within two years he had taken Constantinople, as well as extending his empire’s territory well into the Balkans, Anatolia and the northern shores of the Black Sea.
Six years later, Mehmed II would begin building Topkapi Palace, his imperial residence in Constantinople.34 As imperial palaces go, this speaks volumes for the taste of its creator. Here there is none of the dwarfing grandeur of Roman imperial glory, or the overwhelming scale of Versailles. This is an almost homely palace. It is neither imposing from its exterior, nor belittling in its interior. Yet its situation is utterly impregnable. The grounds of the palace and its buildings occupy the narrow foreland that overlooks the Sea of Marmara to the right, the Bosphorus below, and the entrance to the Golden Horn to the left.