Among the many Turanian tribes which,beginning in the tenth century, had been moving westward into Asia Minor from their original homeland in the part of Central Asia known as Turkestan, was a clan which had settled in northeastern Anatolia bordering on the Asiatic territories of the Byzantine Empire. According to Turkish legends, the leader of band of Turks, named Ertoghrul, aided Seljuk Sultan Ala ed-Dinin defeating a Tatar army in 1251, and as a reward for his services Ertoghrul and his followers were granted lands in northwestern Asia Minor.
CONQUEST AND EXPANSION
Osman (Othman), a Turkish tribal leader in northwestern Anatolia, by legend of the son of Ertoghrul, won of series of victories during the first quarter of the fourteenth century over the Byzantines in the region of Nicaea and extended his possessions to the Marmora and Bosporus. Osman became the founder of a dynasty after which the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Turks were named.
Orkhan ( 1326- 59 ), Osman’s son, established the first capital of the Ottoman,s at Brusa in Asia Minor after its capture from the Byzantine rules in 1326. Under his leadership the Turks crossed the Dardanelles in 1345 and began their conquests in Eastern Europe. Later, Sultan Murad I (1360-69) and Sultan Bayazid (1389-1402) extended and consolidated the control of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans, where in 1366 Andrianople became the new capital of the Turkish Empire. The Turks thus were established in Europe as a power which the West would hace to contend with for nearly six hundred years.
Employing the material and human resources of the Balkans now at their disposal, the Ottoman rules shortly gained control over the Turkish principalities in Asia Minor; doing the despite the incursions of the Tatars under Tamerlane, who defeated the Ottoman forces at Ankara in 1402, taking the Sultan Bayazid prisoner. One Great prize still remained to be seized.
February 7, 2012
Greg Lorson
Greg Lorson 