Siege of Nicomedia
Siege of Nicomedia | |||||||
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Part of the Byzantine-Ottoman wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Byzantine Empire | Ottoman Turks | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Unknown | Orhan I | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Very few | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown, assumed light |
Introduction
From 1299, the newly founded Turkic state of the Ottomans had been slowly but surely capturing territory from the Byzantine Greeks. The loss of Nicaea was the beginning of a series of Ottoman expansion that lead to final dissolution of the Byzantine empire and its scattered Greek successor states.
Siege
Following the Byzantine defeat at Nicaea in 1331, the loss of Nicomedia was only a matter of time for the Byzantines. The Byzantine emperor attempted to bribe the Ottoman leader Orkhan, but in 1337, Nicomedia was attacked and fell to the Ottomans. The Byzantine empire did not recover from this defeat; the last Anatolian stronghold of Byzantium had fallen, except Philadelphia, was surrounded by the Germiyanids till 1396.
Aftermath
Following the loss of Nicomedia, the situation of the Byzantine empire remained untenable. Unlike the Byzantine empire at 1096, the Byzantine empire now possessed very little land, save a few cities in the peloponese. With its Serbian and Bolgarian neighbours pressing against its frontiers from the west and the Ottomans dismantling their hold on the east, the empire was at danger.
See also
References
- R.G. Grant, Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat, Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd, 2005. ISBN 0-7566-1360-4
- Conflicts in 1333
- Conflicts in 1334
- Conflicts in 1335
- Conflicts in 1336
- Conflicts in 1337
- Byzantine–Ottoman wars
- Sieges involving the Byzantine Empire
- Sieges involving the Ottoman Empire
- 1330s in the Byzantine Empire
- History of Izmit
- 1330s in the Ottoman Empire
- 1333 in the Ottoman Empire
- 1333 in the Byzantine Empire
- 1337 in the Ottoman Empire
- 1337 in the Byzantine Empire
- Ottoman Empire stubs
- Byzantine Empire stubs