The Ottomans (and Turks by extension) are absolutely fascinating.

Consider that from the time of the Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantines considered themselves Roman. The Turks considered themselves successors of that (Kayser-i Rum) and at various points had a territory that looked a lot like the old Empire. Of course the societies were very different, but if you try hard enough you can imagine the last vestiges of Rome finally falling after WW1.

But the Turks, they were Central Asian tribes (closer to the Mongols than to Arabs or Europeans) who ended up conquering the Eastern Roman Empire (over centuries) and eventually ended up at the gates of Vienna.

The amount of mixing of cultures, religions (consider the Janisseries) and races is crazy. Check out depictions of the first Ottoman Emperors compared to the last. Another example of how people are a lot more connected than we think.

This was a great read:

https://www.amazon.com/1453-Holy-Constantinople-Clash-Islam/...

The Arabs, Avars, and others were besieging Constantinople in the 700s. It took another 700 years and Mehmet's use of cannon to bring the walls down and really change history.

Also Manizkert and other events are interesting. Really an underrated part of history. Fun to geek out over it.

> But the Turks, they were Central Asian tribes (closer to the Mongols than to Arabs or Europeans) who ended up conquering the Eastern Roman Empire (over centuries) and eventually ended up at the gates of Vienna.

This is Turkey's official rhetoric, but hardly the general truth. In today's Turkey, and in the Ottoman Empire, the only thing that was really Central Asian was the Turkish language. The reality is that most possibly the Turkification of Asia Minor was a case of "elite dominance", as allowed by the gap of historical knowledge in the region for many centuries during the Middle Ages and as backed by contemporaneous genetical studies (which relate the local population to Mediterraneans rather than Central Asians).

The fact is lots of pseudo science was involved in building a Turkish identity decoupled from Islam during the process of the establisment of the modern Turkish Republic. That's not unlike the similar and similarly funny stories some Hungarians entertain these days, and based mostly on linguistic relations. The Central Asian Turks migrated, thoroughout decades and centuries, westwards, and firstly became Persianised and Islamised, and then became the Muslim warrior elite, and then they built multiple states during some centuries around and in Asia minor, and they begat ultimately the Ottoman Empire, and the peoples were Turkified; but the only concrete thing that change were the lords. At least, this is what genetical data suggests (Arnaiz-Villena et al. 2001, Hodoğlugil, and Yardumian are some examples).

I take an issue with this narrative as a Turk because that's a fundamental lie the current national identity that we sport is based on, which renders it unsound.

> It took another 700 years and Mehmet's use of cannon to bring the walls down and really change history.

That's debated too. But cannons or not, what remained for him to conquer was the crumbs of the empire, fitted into a city which you can walk across in both axes with slow tempo in a bit more than an hour. The west left them alone, and the 4th crusade had already rendered them terminally moribund. It's indeed fascinating that he declared himself the new Emperor of Rome, but it's still so w/o the mythology.

I'm curious as to what part of the assertion that cannon superiority was one of the biggest factors in the Fall of the City is being debated, can you provide some resources?

The bombards (muzzle loaded cannons) were widely known and used in Europe, e.g. the famous Mons Meg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_Meg); what distinguishes the cannons that Mehmet had Orban built (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban) were their sheer size and the technological knowledge in casting such massive bronze bombards, that Western Europe lacked at that time. For an informal description of Orban's work see http://www.camrea.org/2017/09/11/orban-the-man-who-brought-d...

Note that just having this massive cannon did not make it a done deal: due to overheating, the bombard had to be cooled for a long period after each shot in which time the Byzantine defenders quickly mended the walls with rubble and any other materials they could find. In the end they just got overwhelmed.

The Ottomans had the men and materiel to besiege Constantinople for an extended period of time, and the Byzantines didn't have much means to bear the siege or relieve it (although the Venetians were en route). Note that Mehmet also pulled off the trick of moving his navy into the Goldern Horn, thus completing the encirclement on sea and on land.

Constantinople would likely have fallen anyways, it was just a matter of how long it would have taken and how many lives would have been lost.

Thanks for the detailed response. I did not mean to oversimplify things, but your post is good stuff.

You're welcome! Nothing personal, this is kind of my pet peeve (and possible future research topic), so I just feel the need to write somethings when I see it mentioned.

What do you think of the theory that Erdogan is Dönmeh?

Everybody is, at some point. There is no eternal religion.

The Ottoman History Podcast is consistently interesting: https://soundcloud.com/ottoman-history-podcast/tracks

Although there aren't a lot of them you can search Bellini's drawings to have a sense on how people looked like around 1453. https://www.fortticonderoga.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013...

Agree, its very interesting part of history.

Since you seem interested I think this is a great video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9evHIafx4

You are correct. I'm also fascinated by my history even though I'm a Turk.

"Osman II had not endeared himself to the military by closing the coffee houses owned by many of their members, as they were suspected to be places where seditious groups met to plot rebellion."

This reminded me of England's Charles II[0], who decreed that coffeehouses were "..."nurseries of sedition and rebellion."

[0] http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publication...

>This reminded me of England's Charles II[0], who decreed that coffeehouses were "..."nurseries of sedition and rebellion."

Munich Beer Hall Putsch comes to mind too.

Also reminded an opening scene of a movie that i don't remember the title of - year 195x, Australia, mandatory pub closing time is 18:00, chaotic scene of people in a bar rushing to finish their beers in the last minutes right before closing, a woman at one table (a company of Marxists) exclaims "How can one make a Revolution when pubs are closing at 6pm!"

> in that the House of Osman managed to maintain an unbroken line of succession from its founding in the 13th century through to the family members who are still alive today.

If Crusader Kings 2 has taught me anything, it's that if this claim is true it would be quite an achievement to not have any cuckolds in your dynasty.

The converse lesson from CKII: the wiser sultans would look the other way at being cuckolded, if the children had good stats (how they could determine these is another matter)...

Totally. Good stats > preserving some blood line.

Just marry his oldest daughter to your second son and you can keep both.

Anything for that Genius badge.

> appropriate citations from the Quran, such as: ‘The execution of a prince is preferable to the loss of a province.’

Citation with Surah and ayah, please. I don't remember this one.

There is no such verse in the Quran. I am astounded by such a huge error.

The Ottoman child "collecting" (Turkish: devşirme, devisirme) was an Ottoman practice of kidnapping young boys, especially Christians in the Balkans, for the purpose of raising them as soldiers or staffing sultan services( mainly sexual services)

I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that last part. There were a lot of slaves taken as devşirme from various parts of Europe and Anatolia. Most of them became soldiers but the ones who did the best on the exams they were given became bureaucrats instead. And so the Ottomans became the second state, after China, to choose its bureaucrats by exam and gained all the advantages that implied. The system decayed, though, and the whole thing was over by around 1700.

There was certainly sexual slavery in the Ottoman empire too. But it was more common after 1700, the people taken were mostly from the Caucasus instead of Eastern Europe, and it involved far fewer individuals.

Paderasty was indeed common in the imperial palace. How much of that was forced, slavery-like relations are beyond me though.

Isn't there slavery (sexual and otherwise) everywhere islam went ? I mean, the prophet kept slaves (and had extramarital sex with some of them, and this is not doubted or controversial). He also forced some of his other slaves to work, and he confirmed the right for an owner to do whatever he wanted with his/her slaves, including controversially kill them without the need for an explanation.

Why would it be any different in the Ottoman empire ?

First of all, I did not say slavery did not exist in the Empire. It did. But the Janissary/Devsirme is not it. IDK much facts with their proofs about slavery in the Ottoman Empire or Islam, but I doubt the truth of your statements. I'm not here to defend the religion or the empire, but I have never heard of those things (except the liberated Zayd), and I'd be reluctant to take religious myths and gossip as literal facts, especially if there are doubts the people we're talking about ever lived. Then, even if we accept your affirmations, there's no reason to believe that it inevitably causes the Empire to behave in a certain way. Moreover, slavery existed in almost all parts of the world and for the most of our common past, and even made its way into the 20th century in some. So tieing it to a religion is not really logical. I think of religion as a consolidation of a people's tradition, and looking at Ancient Greek and Ancient Mesopotamian literature, it's not hard to find where slavery comes from in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Returning to the original topic, the devsirme is nominally slavery, but the substance of the phaenomenon is not really. And some sultans practiced paderasty, but again reducing the devsirme to a periodical collection of homosexual male sex slaves is just not correct. We're talking about the most powerful men in the Ottoman society for the entire existence of the Janissary/Devsirme system. On many occasions they decided and/or dethroned sultans. Many devsirme dynasties obtained immense power and wealth. The Sokollu family ruled the empire for decades and decades. Mehmed Sokollu created the Bulgarian Church and made his brother the patriarch. Until Mahmud II, not bribing the Janissaries enough meant death for the sultans. Now don't tell me these men were succumbed into a system of involuntary rape by that one guy which they get rid of when they want anyways.

This happened from about 1350 to ~1700, and "staffing sultanate services" mainly meant military and civil service. Repugnant by our modern standard, but somewhat progressive compared to their contemporary empires.

Yeah what else did Sokollu/Sokolovic did other than blowing the sultan? /s

Almost all of the brilliant men of the empire were devsirme. Janissaries were too. You might have some funny anger at dead rulers from centuries ago for whatever reason, but reducing the most powerful individuals of the eastern mediterranean during most of the past millennium to sexual slavery is a bit too much.

Slave soldier systems have a long history in the Middle East; Ottoman Janissaries was by no means the first.

The Ottoman Janissaries were generally the best troops fielded in the late Middle Ages and a large component of what allowed the Ottomans to dominate the Near and Middle East. Like many military castes, however, the Janissaries ended this means of recruitment (as it diluted the power they accumulated) and became a powerful ossified force that retarded needed modernization, happily killing off any sultan that dared resist them, only stopping (temporarily) when the Ottoman royal line was in real danger of running out of successors.

The Ottomans also liked to take Circassian slaves (whom were known for their beauty) and would end up in the harem.

It's why the last emperors looked as they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_V

My root is coming from Circassian. Circassian girls are famous for their beauty. This is not only true for Ottomans but nearby states at that time and Harem is completely different story.