Importance of the Ottoman Empire

Before being known as "the sick of Europe”, in the Ottoman Empire came to control, directly or indirectly, a good part of the North African coast, the holy places of both the Christianity as from Islam, the Middle East to the Persian Gulf, southeastern Europe to the Dalmatian coast and present-day Austria and Ukraine, and all of Anatolia.

His story is exciting, and although summarizing it is always a risky exercise, I'm going to try.

The Turkic peoples were born in the steppes of Central Asia, and gradually migrated towards the Anatolian peninsula.

Today there are languages ​​related to Turkish in the area of ​​Central Asia and in Caucas, in addition to Turkey itself. The migration It was, like all migrations of large population masses, partly peaceful and partly warlike.

In the 10th century, these Turkic peoples arrived in the Anatolic Peninsula, carving out a gap between the Abbasid Caliphate (they would be one of the causes of its fall) and the

Byzantine Empire, of which they would be bitter rivals and which they would gradually weaken.

Around the year 1000, the Turks already occupied the interior area of ​​the Peninsula, with the coast still dominated by the Byzantine Empire. The Mongol expansion to the east of these territories will make the Turks definitely set their sights on the West to grow and expand.

It will be with the enthronement as sultan of Osman I, whose Turkish name was Uthman or Othman, in 1290, that the Turkish community will expand to become the Ottoman Empire.

Obviously, the name of the Empire derives from what is considered its first ruler.

The Turkish political-social structure at that time was still very much based on clans or small semi-independent kingdoms that owed allegiance to the Sultan, from whom they also had autonomy.

Osmán I obtained a semi-independence from the Seljuk Empire, which was consolidated and expanded by his successors.

The fledgling Ottoman Empire “elbowed” its neighbors, taking advantage (as Machiavelli would explain a century and a half later) of each other's weaknesses at the opportune moment.

The warrior spirit of the Turks (let's not forget, coming from the Asian steppes, a territory historically given to forging warlike towns) was transcendental in this expansion, having left us jewels like the bodies of the Janissaries.

Parallel to its expansion in Anatolia and later in the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was also expanding on European soil, at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. The latter happened from 1361.

It was also from the decade of 1360-1370 when the Empire began to put pressure on Constantinople, while they spread around the Byzantine capital, mainly in ancient Thrace and the area balkan.

In 1389 the Battle of Kosovo took place, in which the Ottomans defeated the Serbs and absorbed what had been until then the Serbian Empire, reaching the gates of Hungary.

From that moment on, and for more than a century, there were continuous border scuffles between the Ottomans and the Hungarians.

As an anecdote, explain that one of the leaders who offered resistance to the Turks, getting momentarily contain the expansion of the Empire was the Wallachian Vlad Tepes (Vlad III), known as the impaler, and that centuries later would inspire the character of Dracula (his birth name was Vlad Drăculea).

In 1453, and after decades losing territories in favor of the Ottoman troops, the Byzantine Empire fell: the Turks took Constantinople

This event marks a turning point in European and world history. The beginning of the Modern Age has been set in it (which other authors set in the discovery of America in 1492).

With the fall of the Byzantine capital, the only political entity that could claim itself as heir to the Roman empire and, therefore, of the classical tradition. The Ottomans soon made the city their new capital.

In addition, the loss of this stronghold freed Ottoman troops that could act on other fronts, since it gave continuity to the land possessions of the Empire.

The Ottomans soon resumed their European expansion with greater vigour, and in 1526 they defeated the Hungarians at Mohács, going on to take over the country. In 1529 they would lay siege to Vienna, although without being able to take it.

This fact marks the maximum Ottoman expansion in Europe. From that moment on, it would expand throughout Asia (present-day Syria, Iraq and Iran), and along the southern coast of the Mediterranean (especially Egypt).

Turkish corsairs and pirates also unleashed terror on the Christian kingdoms in the Mediterranean, even raiding the north of the Iberian Peninsula.

That is why the different powers united on several occasions against the Empire, winning the decisive Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

At the end of the 17th century, a reborn Kingdom of Hungary went on the attack against the Ottoman Empire, gradually recovering territories.

The Empire was beginning to show signs of weakness, normal in any empire when its expansion slows down. Together with the Hungarians, Austrians, Poles and the Holy Roman Empire they also took advantage of Turkish weakness to push the Ottomans towards the Balkans.

From here there was only one way: if until then, the Ottoman Empire had risen, now it was going down. In 1683 the second siege of Vienna failed miserably.

Starting in the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire plunged into a spiral in which ethnic problems and the corruption of the elites were combined.

Very representative of the latter will be the fall of the body of Janízaros, once a powerful military machine, later plunged into corruption due to the political power they accumulated.

The decline in the Balkans would culminate in 1823 with the independence of Greece, to which the loss of Egypt would be added in 1882. But the worst was yet to come.

As the Ottoman Empire languished, it faced an attempt to rebuild itself and survive. From this time, from its territorial losses, the nickname of "the sick man of Europe" comes to the Empire.

In 1914 World War I broke out, and the Ottoman Empire aligned itself with the Central Powers.

Despite having modernized its army, the Empire suffered severe defeats (as in the Caucasus against the Russians) and ended up being the victim of a gnawed structure due to the corruption of their high positions and personal and political interests, in addition to poor equipment to withstand a long-standing conflict duration.

Not even German support could stop what was seen to be sentenced, and in 1918, the Empire was dismembered and reduced to Anatolia and Istanbul by its enemies.

The official end of the Ottoman Empire occurs in 1922 with the abolition of the sultanate by Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatürk. (father of the Turkish homeland), and the proclamation of the Republic, as well as the renunciation of any possibility of recovery of the Empire.

Originally healthy to the envy of other powers, the Ottoman Empire had spent almost two centuries decadence until disappearing into the mists of history, which will never forget what one day was its great splendor.

Fotolia images. Past, Koraysa