the Turkish Lake: from Constantinople to Lepanto

Bayezid II

MEHMED THE CONQUEROR WAS SUCCEEDED IN 1481 by his son Bayezid II, who reigned as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire until 1512. Bayezid would become known as ‘The Just’ because he ran the empire with smooth and efficient justice in domestic affairs, and that justice began the moment he ascended the throne. His brother Cem thought the throne should be his, and he curried support with the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. When Cem’s Mamluk supporters were defeated, he sought help from the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. The Knights weren’t exactly swooning over Cem, so it didn’t take much finagling for Bayezid to convince them—with a monetary payment, of course—to keep his brother prisoner. The Knights shipped Cem off to the Pope, who wanted to use him as a tool to drive the Turks out of Europe; but as the crusade failed to materialize, the Pope instead used Cem to extort money from Bayezid. So long as Bayezid paid, the Pope would keep Cem from driving a wedge into Bayezid’s empire. Cem was thus left to rot away and die imprisoned. 

Much of Bayezid’s reign was spent warding off attacks from Shah Ismail of the Persian Empire; Ismail, a shi’ite, sought to undermine the Sunni Ottomans both by militaristic raids and shi’ite missionaries. While contending with Persia in the east, Bayezid followed in his father’s footsteps by extending Ottoman control deeper into the Mediterranean. He focused on the Venetian possessions in Morea (the name given to the Peloponnese peninsula during the Middle Ages and early modern period). He believed, correctly, that by acquiring the Peloponnese, the Ottoman navy would have a foothold with which to begin its dominance of the eastern Mediterranean. Bit by bit his armies chewed off pieces of southern Greece until the whole peninsula became an Ottoman possession in 1501. Though the conquest of Greece is a laurel in Bayezid’s crown, his renown has skyrocketed due to his benevolent acceptance of Jews and Muslims expelled from the newly-created Spain in 1492. When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain as part of the Spanish Inquisition, Bayezid sent an Ottoman navy to the Iberian peninsula to evacuate the refugees safely to Ottoman lands. In preparation for their arrival, he issued proclamations throughout all Ottoman lands demanding that the refugees be welcomed and threatening death to any who persecuted the refugees. He granted the refugees permission to settle in Ottoman lands and to become Ottoman citizens, and he mocked Ferdinand and Isabella, saying, “You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler, he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!” His acceptance of the refugees led to a boom in Ottoman culture: the refugees introduced new ideas, methodology, and craftsmanship to the empire (e.g., the first printing press in Istanbul was established by Jewish refugees in 1493). 

Selim the Grim

Just as civil strife had marked the beginning of Bayezid’s reign, so it marked its end. When Bayezid named his son Ahmet heir apparent to the Ottoman throne, his other son Selim rebelled. He staged a revolt in Thrace but was defeated by Bayezid and forced to flee to the Crimean Peninsula. Meanwhile, Ahmet captured Karaman, an Ottoman city, and began marching to Istanbul to exploit his triumph; perhaps he didn’t care to wait for his father to die, given his fear of what the rebellious Selim might accomplish. Bayezid, fearful that Ahmet might depose him and seize the throne rather than waiting for his father to die of natural causes, refused him entry into the city. Selim soon returned from the Crimea, and with the support of the elite Janissaries forced his father to abdicate the throne in April 1512. Thus Selim became the Ottoman Sultan, and Bayezid was exiled to an Ottoman backwater. His exile didn’t last long, as he died (some say he was assassinated) just a month after relinquishing the throne to his turncoat son. Selim still had to deal with his brother Ahmet, so he dealt with him and his ilk in the most efficient way possible: he had them murdered. Ahmet, his other brothers, and all his nephews were put to death to quell any possible civil wars geared towards the throne. 

Selim would become known as ‘the Grim’ because he ruled the empire with an iron fist; it was nothing for him to execute citizens and soldiers en masse for the slightest offenses. Nevertheless, in his short reign of just eight years, he expanded the empire by leaps and bounds. He cowed Shah Ismail of Persia, that ever-present thorn in his late father’s side; he conquered the Mamluk Sultunate of Egypt; and he brought all the Islamic Holy Lands into his possession (though rumor has it that he was named the Muslim Caliph, most historians believe this to be a legend that developed after his death). By the time of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire covered nearly 600,000 square miles, a growth of seventy percent in his short, albeit remarkable, reign.

After getting rid of any potential rivals to the throne, Selim turned his attention upon Shah Ismail of Persia. By 1510 Ismail had conquered Iran and Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Khorasan, Eastern Anatolia, and had made the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals. The Persian people were in awe of him; he was viewed as a god, impervious and invincible. Selim put that to the test: he attacked Persia to halt the spread of Shi’ism into his empire, and he defeated Ismail at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Though Ismail’s men were more mobile and better prepared, Selim’s Ottoman army had been modernized with artillery, black powder, and muskets. Ismail was wounded and nearly captured in the battle, and Selim entered the Iranian capital of Tabriz in early September. Though the Sultan never seized Persia for the empire (he just wanted to teach them a lesson so that he could focus on more ambitious goals), he cowed Shah Islaim into stopping his belligerent activities. While Selim would soar into greatness, Ismail would plummet into pathetic obscurity. The Persian people had lost their confidence and awe in him, and he became a hermit in his palace, never again participating in a military campaign. He left the rule of Persia to his vizier and sloughed away his days as a drunkard. Selim spoke of Ismail after Chaldiran, saying he was “always drunk to the point of losing his mind and totally neglectful of the affairs of the [Persian] state.” 

Selim the Grim at the Battle of Chaldiran, 1514

After cowing Persia, Selim turned his armies on the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, defeating the Mamluk Egyptians in two major battles. The collapse of the Mamluk Sultunate led to the Ottoman annexation of the entire sultanate, everything from Syria and Palestine to the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt itself. The Ottomans now controlled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and Selim took the title ‘The Servant of the Two Holy Cities’ to curry the favor of the Arabian population. He died in 1520, just eight years into his glorious reign. Though the official records say he died of sirpence, a skin infection similar to anthrax that had developed during his long campaigns on horseback, some historians speculate that he died of cancer or was poisoned by a physician. Others point out that Selim’s death coincides with an outbreak of plague in the empire, and numerous primary sources seem to imply that Selim suffered from the disease. Regardless of the cause of his death, death it was, and the throne passed to his son Suleiman. Selim’s triumphs seemed unable to be matched, but Suleiman carried on the family legacy by bringing the Ottoman Empire to its economic, political, cultural, and militaristic apex.

Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman the Magnificent reigned from 1520 to 1566, and he carried the Ottoman Empire to its undeniable apex. He made major legislative reforms relating to society, education, taxation, and criminal law; he harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law (the sultanic and religious); and he was a distinguished poet and goldsmith who favored the arts, bringing about the ‘Golden Age’ of the Ottoman Empire in artistic, literary, and architectural development. His greatness, however, isn’t relegated to the domestic sphere: he annexed much of the Middle East in his conflicts with the Persian Safavid dynasty, brought large swathes of North Africa under Ottoman control, and his fleet dominated the waterways from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf. And it was Suleiman who brought Ottoman armies into Europe’s back door.

The Battle of Mohacs, 1526

Building upon the successes of his predecessors, he personally led the Ottoman military to victory against the Christian stronghold of Belgrade. His seizure of Belgrade sent ripples of fear throughout Europe; the Holy Roman Empire’s ambassador to Istanbul noted, “The capture of Belgrade was at the origin of the dramatic events which engulfed Hungary. It led to the death of King Louis [of Hungary], the capture of Buda, the occupation of Transylvania, the ruin of a flourishing kingdom and the fear of neighboring nations that they would suffer the same fate.” In 1522 Suleiman besieged the island of Rhodes, the home base for the Knights Hospitaller. After a brutal five-month siege in which the Ottomans lost fifty to sixty thousand men from battle and sickness, Rhodes capitulated, and Suleiman allowed the surviving Knights to safely depart. He then turned his attention back to central Europe, defeating King Louis II of Hungary at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. Hungarian resistance collapsed, and the Ottoman Empire became the preeminent power in central Europe. The Habsburg King Ferdinand of neighboring Austria had previously agreed to take the Hungarian throne if Louis II died absent an heir, and numerous Hungarian nobles vouched their support if he came and ousted the Ottomans from their nation. Other Hungarian nobles, however, supported an Ottoman-backed pretender to the throne. King Ferdinand, with the backing of the powerful Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, marched on Ottoman-occupied Hungary and repossessed Buda and snatched Hungary for the Austrians. Suleiman responded in 1529 by marching through the valley of the Danube and reclaiming Buda; the following autumn he sought revenge against the Habsburgs by marching into Austria and laying siege to Vienna. Vienna, however, had been reinforced, and the garrison inflicted upon Suleiman his first defeat. The Sultan scheduled another siege in 1532, but it never materialized—the Ottomans were hampered by bad weather, were unable to bring their siege equipment to bear on the city, and their supply lines were stretched thin and ragged. After a brief hiatus in hostilities, Suleiman tangled with Ferdinand and Charles V yet again in the early 1540s. The Habsburgs laid siege to Ottoman-occupied Buda but were repulsed, and the Ottomans retaliated by seizing a number of Habsburg fortresses. Ferdinand and Charles V concluded a humiliating five-year treaty with Suleiman, in which Ferdinand renounced his claim to the Kingdom of Hungary and was forced to pay a fixed yearly sum to the Sultan for the Hungarian lands he had retained. In a symbolic gesture, the treaty referred to Charles V not as ‘Emperor’ but as the ‘King of Spain,’ so that Suleiman could identify himself as Europe’s true ‘Caesar.’ Hostilities with the Habsburgs resumed after the treaty ran its course, and Suleiman set out from Istanbul in command of a military expedition to Hungary. Though the Ottomans won a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Szigetvar, Suleiman didn’t see it: he died en route. His Grand Vizier kept his death a secret during the Ottomans’ retreat from Hungary (despite winning the battle, they had suffered grievous losses and lacked the manpower to keep up the expedition). 

The Ottoman Empire: from Beginning to Apex

Suleiman’s son Selim II (known as ‘Selim the Blond’) succeeded his father. Suleiman had broken with Turkish tradition by marrying Hurrem Sultan, a woman from his harem. Hurrem had been a Christian before converting to Islam, and she was known in the West as Roxelana due to her Russian lineage. Selim hadn’t been the only son capable of taking the throne, but his brother Mehmed had died of smallpox, and another brother Mustafa had been strangled on Suleiman’s order, along with his four sons (Suleiman’s grandsons) after they rebelled against his rule. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire would begin to experience major political, institutional, and economic changes that have, in the past, been interpreted as Ottoman decline; modern historians, however, interpret them simply as transformations within the Ottoman fabric. The Ottoman Empire wasn’t in decline, though it would begin to see setbacks with Suleiman’s son.

Selim II

Selim the Blond reigned from 1566 to 1574. Two years after ascending the throne, the Ottomans concluded a treaty with the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, now Maximilian II. The Emperor agreed to pay an ‘annual’ present of thirty thousand ducats (gold or silver coins) and granted the Ottomans authority in Moldavia and Walachia. While Suleiman had focused his attentions on westward expansion, Selim first looked to the north to curb Russian expansion towards the empire’s northern frontier. Selim planned on uniting the Volga and Don rivers by a canal, and to this end he dispatched a large force of Janissaries and cavalry to lay siege to Astrakhan in southern Russia along with a fleet to besiege the Russians on the Don River. A sortie of Russians from the besieged Astrakhan repulsed the besiegers, and a Russian relief force of fifteen thousand scattered the canal’s workmen and their protectors. As if on cue, the Ottoman fleet was destroyed in a storm. The Russians had pretext enough to begin nibbling away at Selim’s northern frontier, but in early 1570, ambassadors of Ivan IV of Russia concluded a treaty restoring friendly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar. 

With peace concluded between Russia and the Ottomans, Selim turned his eye on further conquest in the Mediterranean. The island of Cyprus became his next target. Cyprus had belonged to the Republic of Venice since 1489, and the Turks had raided Cyprus time and again, to the point that the Venetians reengineered the island’s cities and coastal defenses to better thwart Ottoman raids. In the summer of 1570 the Turks returned, but this time they weren’t raiding: this was a full-scale invasion. Nearly sixty thousand Ottoman troops, including cavalry and artillery under the command of a general named Mustafa, landed unopposed in early July and besieged the city of Nicosia. The city fell two months later, and twenty thousand Nicosian citizens were put to death; those not killed, mainly women and young boys, were enslaved to be sold in the eastern slave markets. Every church, public building, and palace was looted. News of the massacre spread, and five days later Mustafa took Kyrenia without firing a shot. The Ottomans laid siege to the city of Famagusta in September; by this time Venetian losses, including civilians, numbered around fifty-six thousand killed or enslaved, most of whom were casualties from five major engagements. The Venetian defenders at Famagusta numbered only 8500 men with ninety artillery pieces, but they managed to hold out for eleven months against the Ottoman besieging army numbering around 200,000 with 145 guns. Their resilience in the face of the Ottomans gave Pope Pius V time to throw together an anti-Ottoman league from reluctant Christian European states. In July 1571 the Ottomans managed to breach Famagusta’s walls but were repulsed in a pyrrhic Venetian victory. The Venetian defenders were reduced to about seven hundred with no relief in sight; given their situation, the Venetian commander requested terms from Mustafa. Mustafa agreed to let the Venetian survivors sail safely to Crete, and the Venetian commander surrendered. Mustafa, however, didn’t keep his word: he had lost fifty thousand men in the relentless attacks on the city walls, and among the dead was his beloved son whom must be avenged. He massacred the city’s Christian inhabitants, flayed the Venetian commander alive, and hung his corpse on his galley along with the heads of three of the commander’s top men.  

Ottoman assaults against the walled city of Famagusta

News of Famagusta’s fall, and the subsequent treatment of its commander and garrison, aroused both horror and rage among the European states. They thirsted for vengeance, and it would come two months later when the naval forces of the Holy League—raised to combat Mustafa in Cyprus and comprised mainly of Venetian, Spanish, and Papal ships under the command of Don John of Austria—met the Ottomans at the legendary Battle of Lepanto. This naval battle would be the last major engagement in the western world to be fought almost entirely between rowing vessels that were the descendents of the classical trireme warships. It would also be the largest naval battle in the west since ancient times, and in its wake would arise the Age of Sail.