Mehmed II

"Fatih Sultan Mehmet" redirects here. For the bridge that spans the Bosphorus strait, see Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.

Mehmed II or Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481) (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى,

Meḥmed-i s̠ānī; Turkish: II. Mehmet; also known as

el-Fātiḥ, الفاتح, "the Conqueror" in Ottoman Turkish; in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet; also called Mahomet II in early modern Europe) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire twice, first for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire, transforming the Ottoman state into an empire. Mehmed continued his conquests in Asia, with the Anatolian reunification, and in Europe, as far as Bosnia and Croatia. Mehmed II is regarded as a national hero in Turkey, and Istanbul's Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge is named after him.

Early reign

Mehmed has left a scrap-book of pen and ink drawings which include these profile and three-quarter face portrait busts.

Mehmed II was born on 30 March 1432, in Edirne, then the capital city of the Ottoman state. His father was Sultan Murad II (1404–51) and his mother Valide Sultan Hüma Hatun, born in the town of Devrekani, Kastamonu.

When Mehmed II was eleven years old he was sent to Amasya to govern and thus gain experience, as per the custom of Ottoman rulers before his time. After Murad II made peace with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia in August 1444, he abdicated the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed II. Sultan Murad II had sent him a number of teachers for him to study under.

This Islamic education had a great impact in molding the mindset of Mehmed and reinforcing his Muslim beliefs. He began to praise and promote the application of Sharia law. He was influenced in his practice of Islamic epistemology by contemporaneous practitioners of science - particularly by his mentor, Molla Gürani - and he followed their approach. The influence of Ak Şemseddin in Mehmed's life became predominant from a young age, especially in the imperative of fulfilling his Islamic duty to overthrow the Byzantine empire by conquering Constantinople.

In his first reign, he defeated the crusade led by János Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, the representative of the pope, had convinced the king of Hungary that breaking the truce with Muslims was not a betrayal. At this time Mehmed II asked his father Murad II to reclaim the throne, but Murad II refused. Angry at his father, who had long since retired to a contemplative life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed II wrote,

"If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies."

It was only after receiving this letter that Murad II led the Ottoman army and won the Battle of Varna in 1444.

Murad II's return to the throne was forced by Çandarlı Halil Paşa, the grand vizier at the time, who was not fond of Mehmed II's rule, because Mehmed II's influential lala (royal teacher), Akşemseddin, had a rivalry with Çandarlı. Çandarlı was later executed by Mehmed II during the siege of Constantinople on the grounds that he had been bribed by or had somehow helped the defenders.

Conquest of Constantinople

Main article: Fall of Constantinople

Accession of Mehmed II in Edirne 1451.

When Mehmed II ascended the throne in 1451 he devoted himself to strengthening the Ottoman Navy, and in the same year made preparations for the taking of Constantinople. In the narrow Bosporus Straits, the fortress Anadoluhisarı had been built by his great-grandfather Bayezid I on the Asiatic side; Mehmed erected an even stronger fortress called Rumelihisarı on the European side, and thus having complete control of the strait. Having completed his fortresses, Mehmet proceeded to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel refusing signals to stop was sunk with a single shot and all the surviving sailors beheaded.

Rumeli Hisarı built shortly before the siege of Constantinople.

In 1453 Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 to 200,000 troops and a navy of 320 vessels, though the bulk of them were transports and storeships. The city was now surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the entrance of the Bosphorus was stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or repel any assistance from the sea for the besieged.

In early April, the Siege of Constantinople began. After several failed assaults, the city's walls held off the Turks with great difficulty, even with the use of the new Orban's bombard, a cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun. The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by twenty-eight warships.

On 22 April, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the Genoese colony of Galata and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; eighty galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a little over one-mile route with wood. Thus the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. A little over a month later, Constantinople fell on May 29 following a fifty-seven day siege. After this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople.

Map of Constantinople and its land walls and harbor.

Reference is made to the prospective conquest of Constantinople in a hadith (a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad):

:"Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will he be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!"

Ten years after the conquest of Constantinople Mehmed II visited the site of Troy and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by having conquered the Greeks (Byzantines).

When Mehmed stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, known to the Ottomans and Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by Theodosius II, he uttered the famous lines of Saadi:

The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars

the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar" of Rome (Kayser-i Rûm). However this claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire, after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 AD and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos. He was not the only ruler to claim such a title, as there was the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, whose emperor, Frederick III, traced his titular lineage from Charlemagne who obtained the title of Roman Emperor when he was crowned by Pope Leo III in 800 - although never recognized as such by the Byzantine Empire.

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the Despotate of Morea in the Peloponnese in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last two vestiges of Byzantine rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country.

Conquest of Serbia (1454-1459)

Further information: List of campaigns of Mehmed the Conqueror

Siege of Belgrade (in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) 1456. Hünername 1584

Mehmed II first campaigns after Constantinople were in the direction of Serbia who was an Ottoman vassal since the Battle of Kosovo. The Ottomans had a royal marriage with the Serbian Despotate, one of Murad II wives was Mara Branković, and used this to claim some Serbian lands. That Đurađ Branković recently had made an alliance with the Hungarians and paid the tribute irregularly was probably the most important. When the Serbians refused these demands the Ottoman army left Edirne towards Serbia in 1454. Smederevo was besieged and later captured and there were Ottoman and Hungarian counterattacks during the years till 1456. In that year the Ottoman army advanced toward Eastern Europe as far as Belgrade, and attempted to conquer the city from John Hunyadi at the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. Following Hunyadi's victory over the Mehmet II at the Siege of Belgrade on 14 July 1456, a period of relative peace began in the region. The sultan retreated to Adrianople, and Đurađ Branković regained possession of Serbia. Before the end of the year, however, the 79-year old Branković died. Serbian independence survived him for only another year, when the Ottoman empire formally annexed his lands following dissension among his widow and three remaining sons. Lazar, the youngest, poisoned his mother and exiled his brothers, and the land returned to the sultan's subjugation.

Conquests on the Black Sea coast (1460-1461)

Further information: List of campaigns of Mehmed the Conqueror

Previous emperors of Trebizond made alliances by having royal marriages with various Muslim rulers. So did emperor John IV by forging alliances. He gave his daughter to the son of his brother-in-law, Uzun Hasan, khan of the Ak Koyunlu, in return for his promise to defend Trebizond. He also secured promises of help from the Turkish emirs of Sinope and Karamania, and from the king and princes of Georgia. The Ottomans were motivated to capture Trebizond or to get an annual tribute. In the time of Murad II they first attempted to take the capital by sea in 1442, but high surf made the landings difficult and the attempt was repulsed. While Mehmed II was away laying siege to Belgrade in 1456, the Ottoman governor of Amasya attacked Trebizond, and although defeated, took many prisoners and extracted a heavy tribute.

After John's death in 1459, his brother David came to power and misused these alliances. David intrigued with various European powers for help against the Ottomans, speaking of wild schemes that included the conquest of Jerusalem. Mehmed II eventually heard of these intrigues, and was further provoked to action by David's demand that Mehmed remit the tribute imposed on his brother.

Mehmed's response came in the summer of 1461. He led a sizeable army from Bursa from land and the Ottoman navy from the sea, first to Sinope, joining forces with Ismail's brother Ahmed (the Red), he captured Sinop and ended the official reign of the Jandarid dynasty, although he appointed Ahmed as the governor of Kastamonu and Sinop, only to revoke Ahmed's appointment the same year. Various other members of the Jandarid dynasty were offered important functions throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire. During the march to Trebizond Uzun Hasan send his mother Sara Khatun as an ambassador, while they were climbing the steep heights of Zigana on foot she asked sultan Mehmed why he was undergoing such hardship for the sake of Trebizond. Mehmed replied:

Mother, in my hand is the sword of Islam, without this hardship I should not deserve the name of ghazi and today and tomorrow I should have to cover my face in shame before Allah

Having isolated Trebizond, Mehmed quickly swept down upon it before the inhabitants knew he was coming, and placed it under siege. The city held out for a month before the emperor David surrendered on August 15, 1461.

Conquest of Morea (1458-1460)

The Despotate of the Morea was bordering the southern Ottoman Balkan. The Ottomans had already invaded these areas under Murad II, destroying the Byzantine defences—the Hexamilion wall at the Isthmus of Corinth in 1446. Before the final siege of Constantinople Mehmed ordered Ottoman troops to attack the Morea, the despots, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos, brothers of the last emperor, failed to send any aid. Their own incompetence resulted in an Albanian-Greek revolt against them, during which they invited in Ottoman troops to help them put down the revolt. At this time, a number of influential Moreote Greeks and Albanians made private peace with Mehmed. After more years of incompetent rule by the despots, their failure to pay their annual tribute to the Sultan, and finally their own revolt against Ottoman rule, Mehmed came into the Morea in May 1460. Demetrios ended up a prisoner of the Ottomans and his younger brother Thomas fled. By the end of the summer the Ottomans had achieved the submission of virtually all cities possessed by the Greeks.

A few holdouts remained for a time. The island of Monemvasia refused to surrender and it was first ruled for a brief time by a Catalan corsair. When the population drove him out they obtained the consent of Thomas to submit to the Pope's protection before the end of 1460. The Mani Peninsula, on the Morea's south end, resisted under a loose coalition of the local clans and then that area came under Venice's rule. The very last holdout was Salmeniko, in the Morea's northwest. Graitzas Palaiologos was the military commander there, stationed at Salmeniko Castle (also known as Castle Orgia). While the town eventually surrendered, Graitzas and his garrison and some town residents held out in the castle until July 1461, when they escaped and reached Venetian territory.

Conquest of Wallachia (1459-1462)

The Ottomans were since the early 15th century trying to bring Wallachia under their control by trying to put their own candidate on the throne. The Ottomans regarded Wallachia as a buffer zone between them and the Kingdom of Hungary and for a yearly tribute did not meddle in their internal affairs. Between the two primary Balkan powers, Hungary and the Ottoman there was a enduring struggle to make Wallachia their own vassal. So in one of these struggles, in December 1447, boyars in league with the Hungarian regent John Hunyadi rebelled against Vlad II Dracul and killed him in the marshes near Bălteni. Mircea, Dracul's eldest son and heir, was blinded and buried alive at Târgoviște. To prevent Wallachia from falling into the Hungarian fold, the Ottomans invaded Wallachia and put young Vlad III, who had spent part of his childhood alongside Mehmed. on the throne. However, this rule was short-lived as Hunyadi himself now invaded Wallachia and restored his ally Vladislav II, of the Dănești clan, to the throne.

Sword of Mehmed II

Vlad fled to Moldavia, where he lived under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II. In October 1451, Bogdan was assassinated and Vlad fled to Hungary. Impressed by Vlad's vast knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of the Ottoman Empire as well as his hatred of the new sultan Mehmed II, Hunyadi reconciled with his former rival and made him his advisor. In 1456, three years after the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople, they threatened Hungary by besieging Belgrade. Hunyadi began a concerted counter-attack in Serbia: while he himself moved into Serbia and relieved the siege (before dying of the plague), Vlad led his own contingent into Wallachia, reconquered his native land and killed Vladislav II.

Later that year, in 1459, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed tribute of 10,000 ducats and 500 recruits into the Ottoman forces. Vlad refused and had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their "hats" to him, by nailing their turbans to their heads.

Meanwhile, the Sultan sent the Bey of Nicopolis, Hamza Pasha, to make peace and, if necessary, eliminate Vlad III. Vlad Țepeș planned to set an ambush the Wallachians had the Ottomans were surrounded and almost all of them caught and impaled, with Hamza Pasha impaled on the highest stake to show his rank.

In the winter of 1462, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire Bulgarian land in the area between Serbia and the Black Sea. Disguising himself as a Turkish Sipahi, he infiltrated and destroyed Ottoman camps. Vlad had ambushed, massacred or captured several Ottoman forces, then announced his impalement of over 23,000 captive Turks. In a letter to Corvinus dated 2 February, he wrote:

I have killed peasants men and women, old and young, who lived at Oblucitza and Novoselo, where the Danube flows into the sea, up to Rahova, which is located near Chilia, from the lower Danube up to such places as Samovit and Ghighen. We killed 23,884 Turks without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers...Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace with him (Sultan Mehmed II).

Mehmed II abandoned his siege of Corinth to launch a punitive attack against Vlad in Wallachia but suffered many casualties in a surprise night attack led by Vlad, who was apparently bent on personally killing the Sultan. Confronted by Vlad's scorched earth policies and demoralizing brutality and after Vlad fled to the mountains. The Ottomans captured the Wallachian capital Târgoviște and Mehmed II withdrew. Wallachia was left to his ally Radu cel Frumos who became the new prince and Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey behind who served with distinction and wiped out a force of 6,000 Wallachians and deposited 2,000 of their heads at the feet of Mehmed II. As a reward, he was reinstated in his old gubernatorial post in Thessaly. Vlad eventually escaped to Hungary, where he was imprisoned on a false accusation of treason against his overlord.

Conquest of Bosnia (1463)

15th century miniature of Mehmed II

The despotate of Serbia Lazar Branković died in 1458 after which a civil war broke out among his heirs that resulted in the in the Ottoman conquest of Serbia in 1459. Stephen Tomašević son of the king of Bosnia, tried to bring Serbia under his control but Ottoman expeditions forced him to give up his plan Bosnia fled to Bosnia, seeking refuge at the court of his father. After some battles Bosnia became tributary to the Ottomans.

On 10 July 1461, Stephen Thomas died. Stephen Tomašević succeeded him as King of Bosnia. In 1461, Stephen Tomašević made an alliance with the Hungarians and asked Pope Pius II for help in the face of an impending Ottoman invasion. In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute paid annually by the Bosnian kingdom to the Ottomans, he sent for help from the Venetians. However, none ever reached Bosnia. In 1463, Sultan Mehmed II led an army into the country. The royal city of Bobovac soon fell, leaving Stephen Tomašević to retreat to Jajce and later to Ključ. Mehmed invaded Bosnia and conquered it very quickly, executing the last Bosnian king Stephen Tomašević and his uncle Radivoj Bosnia officially fell in 1463 and became the westernmost province of the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman Venetian War (1463-1479)

According to the Byzantine historian Michael Critobulus, hostilities broke out because of the flight of an Albanian slave of the Ottoman commander of Athens to the Venetian fortress of Coron (Koroni) with 100,000 silver aspers from his master's treasure. The fugitive then converted to Christianity, and demands for his rendition by the Ottomans were therefore refused by the Venetian authorities. Using this as a pretext, in November 1462, Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, the Ottoman commander in central Greece, attacked and nearly succeeded in taking the strategically important Venetian fortress of Lepanto (Nafpaktos). On 3 April 1463 however, the governor of the Morea, Isa Beg, took the Venetian-held town of Argos by treason.

The new alliance launched a two-pronged offensive against the Ottomans: a Venetian army, under the Captain General of the Sea Alvise Loredan, landed in the Morea, while Matthias Corvinus invaded Bosnia. At the same time, Pius II began assembling an army at Ancona, hoping to lead it in person. Negotiations were also began with other rivals of the Ottomans, such as Karamanids, Uzun Hassan and the Crimean Khanate.

In early August, the Venetians retook Argos and refortified the Isthmus of Corinth, restoring the Hexamilion wall and equipping it with many cannons. They then proceeded to besiege the fortress of the Acrocorinth, which controlled the northwestern Peloponnese. The Venetians engaged in repeated clashes with the defenders and with Ömer Bey's forces, until they suffered a major defeat on 20 October and were then forced to lift the siege and retreat to the Hexamilion and to Nauplia (Nafplion). In Bosnia, Matthias Corvinus seized over sixty fortified places and succeeded in taking its capital, Jajce after a 3-month siege, on 16 December.

Ottoman reaction was swift and decisive: Sultan Mehmed II dispatched his Grand Vizier, Mahmud Pasha Angelović, with an army against the Venetians. To confront the Venetian fleet, which had taken station outside the entrance of the Dardanelles Straits, the Sultan further ordered the creation of the new shipyard of Kadirga Limani in the Golden Horn (named after the "kadirga" type of galley), and of two forts to guard the Straits, Kilidulbahr and Sultaniye. The Morean campaign was swiftly victorious for the Ottomans they razed the Hexamilion, and advanced into the Morea. Argos fell, and several forts and localities that had recognized Venetian authority reverted to their Ottoman allegiance.

Sultan Mehmed II, who was following Mahmud Pasha with another army to reinforce him, had reached Zeitounion (Lamia) before being apprised of his Vizier's success. Immediately, he turned his men north, towards Bosnia. However, the Sultan's attempt to retake Jajce in July and August 1464 failed, with the Ottomans retreating hastily in the face of Corvinus' approaching army. A new Ottoman army under Mahmud Pasha then forced Corvinus to withdraw, but Jajce was not retaken for many years after. However, the death of Pope Pius II on 15 August in Ancona spelled the end of the Crusade.

Map of the Morea in the Middle Ages

In the meantime, for the upcoming campaign of 1464, the Republic had appointed Sigismondo Malatesta, he launched attacks against Ottoman forts, and engaged in a failed siege of Mistra in August–October. Small-scale warfare continued on both sides, with raids and counter-raids, but a shortage of manpower and money meant that the Venetians remained largely confined to their fortified bases, while Ömer Bey's army roamed the countryside.

In the Aegean, the new Venetians, tried to take Lesbos in the spring of 1464, and besieged the capital Mytilene for six weeks, until the arrival of an Ottoman fleet under Mahmud Pasha on 18 May forced them to withdraw. Another attempt to capture the island shortly after also failed. The Venetian navy spent the remainder of the year in ultimately fruitless demonstrations of force before the Dardanelles. In early 1465, Mehmed II sent peace feelers to the Venetian Senate in 1465. Distrusting the Sultan's motives, these were rejected.

In April 1466, Vettore Cappello the Venetian war effort was reinvigorated: the fleet took the northern Aegean islands of Imbros, Thasos and Samothrace, and then sailed into the Saronic Gulf. On 12 July, Cappello landed at Piraeus, and marched against Athens, the Ottomans' major regional base. He failed to take the Acropolis and was forced to retreat to Patras. Patras, being the capital of Peloponnese and the seat of the Ottoman Bey, was being besieged by the joint forces of Venetians and Greeks. Before Cappello could arrive there, and as the city seemed on the verge of falling, Ömer Bey suddenly appeared with 12,000 cavalry, and drove the outnumbered besiegers off. Six hundred Venetians and a hundred were taken prisoner out of a force of 2,000, while Barbarigo himself was killed. Cappello, who arrived some days later, attacked the Ottomans, but was heavily defeated. Demoralized, he returned to Negroponte with the remains of his army. There Cappello fell ill and died on 13 March 1467. In 1470 Mehmed personally led an Ottoman army to besiege Negropont, the Venetian navy was defeated and Negropont captured.

In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against the Albanians. Under their leader, Skenderbeg, they had long resisted the Ottomans, and had repeatedly sought assistance from Italy. Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania but was unsuccesfull. The winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur annually and sap the strength of the local resistance. Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the Venetian stronghold of Lissus (Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for its own advantage. After Skanderbeg died, some Venetian-controlled northern Albanian garrisons continued to hold territories coveted by the Ottomans, such as Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, Lezha, and Shkodra—the most significant. Mehmed II sent his armies to take Shkodra in 1474 but failed. Then he went personally to lead the siege of Shkodra of 1478-79. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the assaults and continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Constantinople as a condition of ending the war.

The agreement was established as a result of the Ottomans having reached the outskirts of Venice. Based on the terms of the treaty, the Venetians were allowed to keep Ulcinj, Antivan, and Durrës. However, they ceded Shkodra (which had been under Ottoman siege for many months), as well as other territories on the Dalmatian coastline, as well as relinquished control of the Greek islands of Negroponte (Euboea) and Lemnos. Moreover, the Venetians were forced to pay 100,000 ducat indemnity and agreed to a tribute of around 10,000 ducats per year in order to acquire trading privileges in the Black Sea. As a result of this treaty, Venice acquired a weakened position in the Levant.

Conquest of Karaman and conflict with the Akkoyunlu (1464-1473)

During the post-Seljuks era in the second half of the middle ages, numerous Turkmen principalities which are collectively known as Anatolian beyliks emerged in Anatolia. Initially Karamanids centered around the modern provinces of Karaman and Konya, was the most important power in Anatolia. But towards the end of the 14th century Ottomans began to dominate on most of Anatolia, reducing the Karaman influence and prestige.

İbrahim II of Karaman was the ruler of Karaman, during his last years, his sons began struggling for the throne. His heir apparent was İshak of Karaman, the governor of Silifke. But, Pir Ahmet, a younger son declared himself as the bey of Karaman in Konya. İbrahim escaped to a small city in western territories where he died in 1464.

Statue of Mehmed the Conqueror, Edirne

İshak of Karaman was at the time of his father's death a local governor in Silifke. When he tried to march to his capital Konya, he learned that his younger brother Pir Ahmet had also put a claim on the throne. This resulted in an integregnum in the beylik. Nevertheless with the help of Uzun Hasan, the sultan of Akkoyunlu (White Sheep) Turkmens he was able to ascend to the throne. However his reign was short. Because, Pir Ahmet appealed to Ottoman sultan Mehmet II for help. He offered Mehmet some territory which İshak refused to cede. With Ottoman help, Pir Ahmet defeated İshak in the battle of Dağpazarı. İshak had to content with Silifke up to an unknown date. He kept his promise and ceded a part of the beylik to Ottomans. But he was uneasy about the loss. So during the Ottoman campaign to west, he captured his former territory. However, Mehmet returned back and captured both Karaman (Larende) and Konya two major cities of the beylik in 1466. Pir Ahmet berely escaped to east. A few years later, Ottoman vizier (later grand vizier) Gedik Ahmet Pasha captured the coastal region of the beylik.

Pir Ahmet as well as his brother Kasım escaped to Uzun Hasan's territory. This gave Uzun Hasan a chance to interfere. In 1472, the Akkoyunlu army invaded and raided most of Anatolia. (This was the reason behind the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473)Then Mehmed led a successful campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 which resulted with the decisive victory of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Otlukbeli. Before that Pir Ahmet with Akkoyunlu help, had captured Karaman. However Pir Ahmet couldn't enjoy another term. Because immediately after the capture of Karaman, the Akkoyunlu army was defeated by the Ottomans near Beyşehir and Pir Ahmet had to escape once more. Although he tried to continue his struggle, he learned that his family members were transferred to İstanbul by Gedik Ahmet Pasha and he finally gave up. Demoralized, he escaped to Akkoyunlu territory where he was given a tımar (fief) in Bayburt He died in 1474.

Uniting the Anatolian Beyliks was first accomplished by Sultan Bayezid I, more than fifty years earlier than Mehmed II but after the destructive Battle of Ankara back in 1402, the newly formed Anatolian unification was gone. Mehmed II recovered the Ottoman power on other Turkish states. These conquests allowed him to push further into Europe.

Another important political entity which shaped the Eastern policy of Mehmed II was the White Sheep Turcomans. With the leadership of Uzun Hasan, this Turcoman kingdom gained power in the East but because of their strong relations with the Christian powers like Empire of Trebizond and the Republic of Venice and the alliance between Turcomans and Karamanid tribe, Mehmed saw them as a threat to his own power.

War with Moldavia (1475-1476)

In 1456, Peter III Aaron, agreed to pay the Ottomans a annual tribute of 2,000 gold ducats, in order to ensure his southern borders, thus becoming the first of the Moldavian rulers to accept the Turkish demands. His successor Stephen the Great rejected Ottoman suzerainty and a series of fierce wars ensued. Stephen tried to bring Wallachia under his sphere of influence and so supported his own choice for the Wallachian throne. This resulted in a enduring struggle between different Wallachian rulers backed by Hungarians, Ottomans and Stephebn. An Ottoman army under Hadim Pasha was sent in 1475 to punish Stephen for his meddling in Wallachia however, the Ottomans suffered a great defeat at the Battle of Vaslui. After the disaster of the Battle of Vaslui, the Sultan Mehmed II assembled a large army and entered Moldavia in June 1476. Meanwhile groups of Tartars from the Crimean Khanate (the Ottomans' recent ally) were sent to attack Moldavia. Romanian sources may state that they were repelled,. Other sources state that joint Ottoman and Crimean Tartar forces "occupied Bessarabia and took Akkerman, gaining control of southern mouth of Danube. Stephan tried to avoid open battle with the Ottomans by following a scorched-earth policy."

Finally Stephen faced the Ottomans in battle it began with the Moldavians luring the main Ottoman forces into a forest that was set on fire, causing some casualties to the attacking Ottoman army in the forest. According to another battle description, the defending Moldavian forces repelled several Ottoman attacks with steady fire from hand-guns. The attacking Turkish Janissaries were forced to crouch on their stomachs instead of charging headlong into the defenders positions. Seeing the imminent defeat of his forces, Mehmed charged with his personal guard against the Moldavians, managing to rally the Janissaries, and turning the tide of the battle. Turkish Janissaries penetrated inside the forest and engaged the defenders in man-to-man fighting.

The Moldavian army was utterly defeated (casualties were very high on both sides), and the chronicles say that the entire battlefield was covered with the bones of the dead, a probable source for the toponym (Valea Albă is Romanian and Akdere Turkish for "The White Valley").

Ștefan cel Mare retreated into the north-western part of Moldavia or even into the Polish Kingdom and began forming another army. The Ottomans were unable to conquer any of the major Moldavian strongholds (Suceava, Neamț, Hotin) and were constantly harassed by small scale Moldavians attacks. Soon they were also confronted with starvation, a situation made worse by an outbreak of the plague and the Ottoman army returned to Ottoman lands. However the threat of Stephen to Wallachia ceased.

Conquest of Albania (1466-1478)

Sultan Mehmed II's entry into Constantinople, painting by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902)

The Albanian resistance in Albania between 1443 and 1468 led by George Kastrioti Skanderbeg (İskender Bey), an Albanian noble and a former member of the Ottoman ruling elite, prevented the Ottoman expansion into the Italian peninsula. Skanderbeg had united the Albanian Principalities in a fight against the Empire in the League of Lezhë in 1444. Mehmed II couldn't subjugate Albania and Skanderbeg while the latter was alive, even though twice (1466 and 1467) he led the Ottoman armies himself against Krujë. After death of Skanderbeg in 1468, Albanians couldn't find a leader to replace him and Mehmed II eventually conquered Krujë and Albania in 1478.

In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against the Albanians. Under their leader, Skenderbeg, they had long resisted the Ottomans, and had repeatedly sought assistance from Italy. For the Albanians, the outbreak of the Ottoman–Venetian War offered a golden opportunity to reassert their independence; for the Venetians, they provided a useful cover to the Venetian coastal holdings of Durazzo and Scutari. The major result of this campaign was the construction of the fortress of Elbasan, allegedly within just 25 days. This strategically sited fortress, at the lowlands near the end of the old Via Egnatia, cut Albania effectively in half, isolating Skenderbeg's base in the northern highlands from the Venetian holdings in the south. However, following the Sultan's withdrawal Skanderbeg himself spent the winter in Italy, seeking aid. On his return in early 1467, his forces sallied from the highlands, defeated Ballaban Pasha and lifted the siege of the fortress of Croia (Krujë) attacked Elbasan but failed to capture it. Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania. He energetically pursued the attacks against the Albanian strongholds, while sending detachments to raid the Venetian possessions to keep them isolated. The Ottomans failing again to take Croia, and they failed to subjugate the country. However, the winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur annually and sap the strength of the local resistance. Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the Venetian stronghold of Lissus (Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for its own advantage. The Albanians were left to their own devices, and were gradually subdued over the next decade.

After Skanderbeg died, the final act of his Albanian campaigns was the troublesome siege of Shkodra in 1478-9, the final siege that Mehmed II led personally and of which early Ottoman chronicler Aşıkpaşazade (1400–81) wrote, "All the conquests of Sultan Mehmed were fulfilled with the seizure of Shkodra." Some Venetian-controlled northern Albanian garrisons continued to hold territories coveted by the Ottomans, such as Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, Lezha, and Shkodra—the most significant. Mehmed II sent his armies to take Shkodra in 1474 but failed. Then he went personally to lead the siege of Shkodra of 1478-79. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the assaults and continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Constantinople as a condition of ending the war.

Conquest of Genoese Crimea and alliance with Crimean Khanate (1475)

Main article: Crimean Khanate

A number of Turkic peoples, now collectively known as the Crimean Tatars, have been inhabiting the peninsula since the early Middle Ages. After the destruction of the Golden Horde by Timur in 1441, the Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean Khanate under Hacı I Giray, a descendant of Genghis Khan.

The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the Kuban and to the Dniester River, however, they were unable to take control over the commercial Genoese towns called Gazaria (Genoese colonies). Who were under Genoese control since 1357. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Genoese communications were disrupted and when the Crimean Tatars asked for help from the Ottomans, an Ottoman invasion of the Genoese towns led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1475 brought Kaffa and the other trading towns under their control. After the capture of Genoese towns, the Ottoman Sultan held Meñli I Giray captive, later releasing him in return for accepting Ottoman suzerainty over the Crimean Khans and allowing them rule as tributary princes of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Crimean Khans still had a large amount of autonomy from the Ottoman Empire while the Ottomans directly controlled the southern coast.

Expedition to Italy (1480)

An Ottoman army under Gedik Ahmed Pasha invaded Italy in 1480. The Ottoman army captured Otranto in 1480 but after the death of Mehmed most of the troops returned and Otranto was retaken by Papal forces in 1481. Because of lack of food Gedik Ahmed Pasha returned with most of his troops to Albania, leaving a garrison of 800 infantry and 500 cavalry behind to defend Otranto. It was assumed he would return after the winter. Since it was only 28 years after the fall of Constantinople, there was some fear that Rome would suffer the same fate. Plans were made for the Pope and citizens of Rome to evacuate the city. Pope Sixtus IV repeated his 1471 call for a crusade. Several Italian city-states, Hungary and France responded positively to this. The Republic of Venice did not, as it had signed an expensive peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1479.

In 1481 an army was raised by king Ferdinand I of Naples to be led by his son Alphonso II of Naples. A contingent of troops was provided by king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The city was besieged starting May 1, 1481. On May 3 the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed II, died, with ensuing quarrels about his succession. This possibly prevented the sending of Ottoman reinforcements to Otranto. So in the end the Turkish occupation of Otranto ended by negotiation with the Christian forces, permitting the Turks to withdraw to Albania.

Repopulation of Constantinople (1453-1478)

Main article: History of Istanbul

The Fatih Mosque built by order of Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople, was the first imperial Ottoman mosque built in the city after the Ottoman conquest

Finally, Christian Constantinople, the old thorn in the side of generations of Muslim caliphs, was under Muslim Ottoman control. When Mehmed II finally entered Constantinople through what is now known as the Topkapi Gate, he immediately rode his horse to the Hagia Sophia, which he ordered to be protected. He ordered that an imam meet him there in order to chant the Muslim Creed: “I testify that there is no god but God. I testify that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah.” This act transformed the Orthodox cathedral into a Muslim mosque, solidifying Islamic rule in Constantinople.

Mehmed’s main concern with Constantinople had to do with rebuilding the city’s defenses and repopulation. Building projects were commenced immediately after the conquest, which included the repair of the walls, construction of the citadel, and building a new palace. To encourage the return of the Greeks and the Genoese of Galata (the trading quarter of the city), who had fled, he returned their houses and provided them with guarantees of safety. Mehmed issued orders across his empire that Muslims, Christians, and Jews should resettle the city; he demanded that five thousand households needed to be transferred to Constantinople by September. From all over the Islamic empire, prisoners of war and deported people were sent to the city: these people were called "Sürgün" in Turkish (Greek: σουργουνιδες).

He restored the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (Jan. 6, 1454) and established a Jewish grand rabbi and an Armenian patriarch in the city. In addition, he founded, and encouraged his viziers to found, a number of Muslim institutions and commercial installations in the main districts of Constantinople. Such as the Rum Mehmed Pasha Mosque built by the Grand Vizier Rum Mehmed Pasha. From these nuclei, the metropolis developed rapidly. According to a survey carried out in 1478, there were then in Constantinople and neighbouring Galata 16,324 households and 3,927 shops, an estimated population of 80,000. About 60% Muslim, 20% Christian and 10 Jewish. Fifty years later, Constantinople had become the largest city in Europe.

Two centuries later, Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi gave a list of groups introduced into the city with their respective origins. Even today, many quarters of Istanbul, such as Aksaray, Çarşamba, bear the names of the places of origin of their inhabitants. However, many people escaped again from the city, and there were several outbreaks of plague, so that in 1459 Mehmet allowed the deported Greeks to come back to the city. This measure apparently had no great success, since French voyager Pierre Gilles writes in the middle of 16th century that the Greek population of Constantinople was unable to mention any name of the ancient Byzantine churches transformed in mosques or abandoned. This shows that the population substitution had been total.

Administration and culture

Main article: Millet (Ottoman Empire)

A Janissary painted by Gentile Bellini.

Sultan Mehmed II in 1479. Portrait by Italian painter Gentile Bellini

Mehmed II amalgamated the old Byzantine administration into the Ottoman state. He first introduced the word Politics into Arabic "Siyasah" from a book he published and claimed to be the collection of Politics doctrines of the Byzantine Caesars before him. He gathered Italian artists, humanists and Greek scholars at his court, allowed the Byzantine Church to continue functioning, ordered the patriarch Gennadius to translate Christian doctrine into Turkish, and called Gentile Bellini from Venice to paint his portrait. He collected in his palace a library which included works in Greek and Latin. Mehmed invited Muslim scientists such as Ali Qushji and artists to his court in Constantinople, started a University, built mosques (for example, the Fatih Mosque),waterways, and Istanbul's Topkapı Palace and the Tiled Kiosk. Around the grand mosque that he constructed, he erected eight madrasas, which, for nearly a century, kept their rank as the highest teaching institutions of the Islamic sciences in the empire.

Mehmed II allowed his subjects a considerable degree of religious freedom, provided they were obedient to his rule. After his conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1463 he issued a firman to the Bosnian Franciscans, granting them freedom to move freely within the Empire, offer worship in their churches and monasteries, and to practice their religion free from official and unofficial persecution, insult or disturbance. His standing army was recruited from the Devshirme, a group that took first-born Christian subjects at a young age that were destined for the sultans court. The less able, but physically strong were put into the army or the sultan's personal guard, the Janissaries.

Within Constantinople, Mehmed established a millet or an autonomous religious community, and appointed the former Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius as religious leader for the Orthodox Christians of the city. His authority extended to all Ottoman Orthodox Christians, and this excluded the Genoese and Venetian settlements in the suburbs, and excluded Muslim and Jewish settlers entirely. This method allowed for an indirect rule of the Christian Byzantines and allowed the occupants to feel relatively autonomous even as Mehmed II began the Turkish remodeling of the city, turning it into the Turkish capital, which it remained until the 1920s.

Family Life

Mehmed II had several wives: Emine Gülbahar Hatun, of slave background, who died in 1492, Gevher Khātûn; Gülşah Hatun; Mûkrîmā (Sitt-î Mükrime) Hatun; Çiçek Khātûn; Helenā Khātûn, who died in 1481, daughter of Demetrios Palaiologos and the Despot of Morea; briefly Anna Khātûn, the daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond; and Alexias Khātûn, a Byzantine princess.He had 4 sons; Bayezid II, Sultan Cem, Korkud and Mustafa, and one daughter; Gevherhan.

Personality

Italian commemorative medal of Sultan Mehmed as Byzantine Emperor, dated 1481

On his accession as conqueror of Constantinople, aged 21, Mehmed was reputed fluent in several languages, including Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Greek and Latin.

At times, he assembled the Ulama, or learned Muslim teachers, and caused them to discuss theological problems in his presence. In his reign, mathematics, astronomy, and Muslim theology reached their highest level among the Ottomans. Mehmed himself was a poet writing under the name "Avni" (the helper, the helpful one) and he left a divan (a collection of poems in the traditional style of classical Ottoman literature).

Franz Babinger in his book Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, asserted that he was attracted to both women and men, by basing this upon various Byzantine historians such as Doukas, Chalcocondylas. However these assertions met fierce criticism from modern Turkish historians, including Halil Inalcik pointing out that contemporary Ottoman sources do not mention this.

Death

In 1481 Mehmed marched with the Ottoman army to a new campaign but when reaching Maltepe, Istanbul, the place was later called Hünkar Çayırı ( Field of the Sultan) he became sick and after some days he died on May 3, 1481, at the age of forty-nine, and was buried in his Türbe in the cemetery within the Fatih Mosque Complex The cause of his death is believed to be poisoning but on whose behalf itwas is disputed. Mehmed's primary doctor, Yakub Pasha, a Jewish convert to Islam was suspected of administering poison to Mehmed over a period of time. Yakub Pasha was a short time later killed in the revolt of the Janissaries. Another source states that: "The likeliest possibility is that Mehmed was also poisoned by his Persian doctor. Despite numerous Venetian assassination attempts over the years, the finger of suspicion points most strongly at his son, Bayezit." The news of Mehmed's death caused great rejoicing in Europe, church bells were rung and celebrations held, the news was proclaimed in Venice as:

'La Grande Aquila e mortal ("The Great Eagle is dead!")'.

Legacy

Main article: Bosnian Franciscans

Reverse of the 1000 Turkish lira banknote (1986-1992)

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the 20th century.

After the fall of Constantinople, he founded many mosques and religious schools in the city, such as the Külliye of the Fatih Mosque. Mehmed II is also recognized as the first Sultan to codify criminal and constitutional law long before Suleiman the Magnificent and he thus established the classical image of the autocratic Ottoman sultan.

His thirty-one year rule and several wars expanded the Ottoman Empire to include Constantinople, and the Turkish kingdoms and territories of Asia Minor, Bosnia, Kingdom of Serbia, and Albania. His many internal administrative and legal reforms put his country on the path to prosperity and paved the way for subsequent sultans to focus on expansion into new territories. According to Franz Babinger, Mehmed was regarded as a bloodthirsty tyrant by the Christian world and by a part of his subjects.

Mehmed left behind an imposing reputation in both the Islamic and Christian worlds. The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the 20th century. His name and picture appeared on the Turkish 1000 lira note between 1986 to 1992. He is the eponymous subject of Rossini's 1820 opera Maometto II.

Portrayals

• Sultan Mehmed II Fetih was portrayed by Sami Ayanoğlu in Turkish film İstanbul'un Fethi (1951).
• Devrim Evin plays Mehmed II in Turkish film Fetih 1453 (2012). His childhood is portrayed by Ege Uslu.

See also

General

Sultan, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire

Events

Expansion of the Ottoman Empire, Decline of the Byzantine Empire, Fall of Constantinople, Battle of Varna

Locations

Turkey, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge

Other

Cem (His younger son)

Further reading

• Babinger, Franz, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-691-01078-1
• İnalcık; Halil, Review of Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time
• Dwight, Harrison Griswold, Constantinople, Old and New. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1915
• Hamlin, Cyrus, Among the Turks. New York: R. Carter & Bros, 1878
• Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8
• Imber, Colin, The Ottoman Empire. London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-333-61387-2
• Philippides, Marios, Emperors, Patriarchs, and Sultans of Constantinople, 1373-1513: An Anonymous Greek Chronicle of the Sixteenth Century. Brookline MA: Hellenic College Press, 1990. ISBN 0-917653-16-5
• Nehme, Lina Murr, "1453, Mahomet II impose le Schisme Orthodoxe". Lebanon, Aleph & Taw, 2003. ISBN 2-86839-816-2.

References

General information

• Lord Kinross (1977). The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise And Fall Of The Turkish Empire. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-688-08093-6.
• Murr Nehme, Lina (2003). 1453: The Fall of Constantinople. Aleph Et Taw. ISBN 2-86839-816-2.
• Silburn, P. A. B. (1912). The evolution of sea-power. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Dyer, T. H., & Hassall, A. (1901). A history of modern Europe From the fall of Constantinople. London: G. Bell and Sons.
• Fredet, Peter (1888). Modern History; From the Coming of Christ and Change of the Roman Republic into an Empire, to the Year of Our Lord 1888. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. Page 383+

Footnotes

External links

• Biography page at OttomanOnline
• Contemporary portraits
• Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire by Edward Gibbon