Bayazid is confronted by a major threat in Anatolia - the arrival of Timur. After destroying Baghdad in , Timur turns his attention to Anatolia. He finds that several emirs are willing to side with him against the Ottoman Turks. Bayazid's armies have been extending the Ottoman empire to the east as well as the west. But his victims to the east have been fellow Muslims, not Christians. There is resentment to be tapped, not that Timur needs much in the way of assistance.
Bayazid meets the threat near Ankara, where his army is heavily defeated. Captured in the battle, he dies as Timur 's prisoner in legend later provides the indignity of an iron cage.
Retrenchment and recovery: - The Ottoman domain shrinks drastically after Bayazid's defeat and capture by Timur in The many small emirs of Turkey reassert their independence, as do the Balkan states. The three sons of Bayazid are left with only the family's central territories round the southern and western sides of the sea of Marmara. They fight each other in a civil war which is won by the youngest, Mehmed I, in From this unpromising position, the son and grandson of Mehmed Murad II and Mehmed II, whose combined reigns span nearly seventy years achieve an astonishing recovery for the Ottoman state - posing an ever greater threat to the Byzantine empire.
Murad patiently reasserts control over much of western Anatolia, and makes equivalent headway in the Balkans. Serbia is brought back into the Ottoman fold Murad marries a Serbian princess in Much of Bulgaria also is recovered. A strong counter-attack down the Danube in by an army of Hungarians and Poles is at first successful, until the Ottoman Turks win a decisive victory at Varna in This steady process is continued by Murad's son, Mehmed II. Mehmed II conquers Athens and almost the whole of the Greek peninsula in He then engages in a prolonged war with Venice, winning many valuable ports along the Adriatic coast.
In he captures Bosnia where a large number of nobles convert to Islam, unlike neighbouring Serbia which remains largely Greek Orthodox - a distinction with resonance in more recent history. By the time of Mehmed's death, in , Anatolia has also been recovered.
Even regions north of the Black Sea are vassal states. But the achievement which gives Mehmed his title of Fatih Conqueror , and his secure place in history, has been his capture in of Constantinople. A month after his twenty-first birthday, in April , Mehmed II applies to Constantinople the stranglehold which has been a tacit threat for nearly a century, ever since the Ottoman capture of Adrianople Edirne in its Turkish name in He initiates a tight blockade of the city by both sea and land.
The inhabitants, as often before, place their faith in their immensely strong city walls. Only on the harbour side are these walls vulnerable, and the harbour the long creek known as the Golden Horn is protected by a great chain preventing enemy ships from entering. But the young sultan has an answer to that. At dawn, one Sunday morning in May, the defenders on the walls are surprised to see Muslim ships in the harbour. During the night they have been dragged on wheeled carriages, on a temporary wooden roadway, over a foot hill.
Over the next few days cannon are moved into place, including one ton bombard. At sunset on May 28 the attack begins. Every bell in the city rings the alarm. Word of the Day. Meanings Meanings. Previous "Cost" vs.
What is a turkey? How are the Turks connected to a North American bird? Join the Dictionary. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Word of the day. Redefine your inbox with Dictionary. It lies across the Aegean Sea to the east of Greece and is usually known by its ancient name Anatolia. Asia Minor juts westward from Asia to within meters half a mile of Europe at the city of Istanbul , where three suspension bridges over the strait of Bosphorus link the two continents.
Asia Minor is also bordered by the Sea of Marmara on the northwest. The area of the peninsula is about , square kilometers , square miles. The interior is a high arid plateau, about meters 3, feet in elevation, flanked to the north and south by rugged mountain ranges. Within the plateau a number of ranges enclose broad, flat valleys, where several lakes have formed. A Mediterranean-type climate of hot, dry summers and mild, moist winters prevails in the coastal areas. The dry central plateau has hot summers and cold winters.
During all seasons high winds are common; moist Mediterranean winds bring rain to the coastal regions in the winter.
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