History of
Anatolia Turkey: Timeline - Chronology of Anatolia-Turkey-Türkiye
Anatolia (Turkey) is that region lying to the south of the
Black Sea, to the east of the Aegean Sea, north of the eastern Mediterranean Sea
and, inland, the Fertile Crescent, and west of the Caucasus-Azerbaijani
districts. A very roughly hewn upland region for the most part, it has been both
a home and a highway for a bewildering variety of peoples for as long as there
have been humans.
The history of Anatolia (often referred to in historical sources as
Asia Minor) can be roughly subdivided into: Prehistory of
Anatolia (up to the end of the 3rd millennium BCE), Ancient
Anatolia (including Hattian, Hittite and post-Hittite periods),
Classical Anatolia (including Achaemenid, Hellenistic and
Roman periods), Byzantine Anatolia (later overlapping, since
the 11th century, with the gradual Seljuk and Ottoman conquest),
Seljuk Turks Anatolia, Ottoman Turks Anatolia (14th–20th
centuries) and the Contemprary Modern Turks Anatolia, since
the creation of the Republic of Turkey.
Prehistory of Anatolia encompasses the entire prehistoric period,
from the earliest archeological records of human presence in
Anatolia, to the advent of historical era, marked by the appearance
of literacy and historical sources related to the territory of
Anatolia (c. 2000 BCE). In 2014, a stone tool was found in the Gediz
River that was dated with certainty to 1.2 million years ago. The
27,000 years old homo sapiens footprints of Kula and Karain Cave are
samples for human existence in Anatolia, in this period. Because of
its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe,
Anatolia has been the center of several civilizations since
prehistoric times. Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük, Çayönü,
Nevalı Çori, Hacılar, Göbekli Tepe, and Mersin.
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Bronze metallurgy spread to Anatolia from the Transcaucasian
Kura-Araxes culture in the late 4th millennium BCE, marking the
beginning of the Bronze Age in the region. Anatolia remained in the
prehistoric period until it entered the sphere of influence of the
Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BCE under Sargon I. The oldest
recorded name for any region within Anatolia is related to its
central areas, known as the "Land of Hatti". That designation that
was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians, but later
became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule
of ancient Hittites. The interest of Akkad in the region as far as
it is known was for exporting various materials for manufacturing.
While Anatolia was well endowed with copper ores, there is no trace
as yet of substantial workings of the tin required to make bronze in
Bronze-Age Anatolia. Akkad suffered problematic climate changes in
Mesopotamia, as well as a reduction in available manpower that
affected trade. This led to the fall of the Akkadians around 2150
BCE at the hands of the Gutian.
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The Old Assyrian Empire claimed the resources for themselves after
the Gutians were vanquished, notably silver. One of the numerous
Assyrian cuneiform records found in Anatolia at Kanesh uses an
advanced system of trading computations and credit lines.
The Hittite Empire was at its height in the 14th century BCE,
encompassing central Anatolia, north-western Syria as far as Ugarit,
and upper Mesopotamia. Kizzuwatna in southern Anatolia controlled
the region separating Hatti from Syria, thereby greatly affecting
trade routes. The peace was kept in accordance with both empires
through treaties that established boundaries of control. It was not
until the reign of the Hittite king Suppiluliumas that Kizzuwatna
was taken over fully, although the Hittites still preserved their
cultural accomplishments in Kummanni (now Şar, Turkey) and
Lazawantiya, north of Cilicia.
After the 1180s BCE, amid general turmoil in the Levant associated
with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples, the empire disintegrated
into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which
survived until as late as the 8th century BCE. The history of the
Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in
the area of their empire, and from diplomatic and commercial
correspondence found in various archives in Egypt and the Middle
East.
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Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd
millennium BC, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian
Greeks, usurping the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks. Over
several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were
established on the coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western
philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia (Pre-Socratic
philosophy).
The Phrygian Kingdom essentially came into being after the
fragmentation of the Hittite Empire during the 12th century BCE, and
existed independently until the 7th century BCE. Possibly from the
region of Thrace, the Phrygians eventually established their capital
of Gordium (now Yazılıkaya). Known as Mushki by the Assyrians, the
Phrygian people lacked central control in their style of government,
and yet established an extensive network of roads. They also held
tightly onto a lot of the Hittite facets of culture and adapted them
over time.
Shrouded in myth and legend promulgated by ancient Greek and Roman
writers is King Midas, the last king of the Phrygian Kingdom. The
mythology of Midas revolves around his ability to turn objects to
gold by mere touch, as granted by Dionysos, and his unfortunate
encounter with Apollo from which his ears are turned into the ears
of a donkey. The historical record of Midas shows that he lived
approximately between 740 and 696 BCE, and represented Phrygia as a
great king. Most historians now consider him to be King Mita of the
Mushkis as noted in Assyrian accounts. The Assyrians thought of Mita
as a dangerous foe, for Sargon II, their ruler at the time, was
quite happy to negotiate a peace treaty in 709 BCE. This treaty had
no effect on the advancing Cimmerians, who streamed into Phrygia and
led to the downfall and suicide of King Midas in 696 BCE.
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The twelfth to ninth centuries B.C. were a time of turmoil
throughout Anatolia and the Aegean world. The destruction of Troy,
Hattusas, and numerous other cities in the region was a collective
disaster that coincided with the rise of the aggressive Assyrian
Empire in Mesopotamia, the Dorian invasion of Greece, and the
appearance of the "sea peoples" who ravaged the Aegean and eastern
Mediterranean.
The first light to penetrate the dark age in Anatolia was lit by the
very Phrygians who had destroyed Hattusas. Architects, builders, and
skilled workers of iron, they had assimilated the Hittites'
syncretic culture and adopted many of their political institutions.
Phrygian kings apparently ruled most of western and central Anatolia
in the ninth century B.C. from their capital at Gordium (a site
sixty kilometers southwest of modern Ankara). Phrygian strength soon
waned, however, and the kingdom was overthrown in the seventh
century B.C. by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who had been
pursued over the Caucasus into Anatolia by the Scythians.
Order was restored in Anatolia by the Lydians, a Thracian warrior
caste who dominated the indigenous peasantry and derived their great
wealth from alluvial gold found in the tributaries of the Hermus
River (Gediz Nehri). From their court at Sardis, such Lydian kings
as Croesus controlled western Anatolia until their kingdom fell to
the Persians in 546 B.C.
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The Aegean coast of Anatolia was an integral part of a Minoan-Mycenean
civilization (ca. 2600-1200 B.C.) that drew its cultural impulses
from Crete. During the Aegean region's so-called Dark Age (ca.
1050-800 B.C.), Ionian Greek refugees fled across the sea to
Anatolia, then under Lydian rule, to escape the onslaught of the
Dorians. Many more cities were founded along the Anatolian coast
during the great period of Greek expansion after the eighth century
B.C. One among them was Byzantium, a distant colony established on
the Bosporus by the city-state of Megara. Despite endemic political
unrest, the cities founded by the Ionians and subsequent Greek
settlers prospered from commerce with Phrygia and Lydia, grew in
size and number, and generated a renaissance that put Ionia in the
cultural vanguard of the Hellenic world.
At first the Greeks welcomed the Persians, grateful to be freed from
Lydian control. But when the Persians began to impose unpopular
tyrants on the city-states, the Greeks rebelled and called on their
kinsmen in Greece for aid. In 334 B.C., Alexander the Great crossed
the Hellespont, defeated the Persians at the Granicus River (Biga
Çayi), and during four years of campaigning liberated the Ionian
city-states, incorporating them into an empire that at his death in
323 B.C. stretched from the Nile to the Indus.
After Alexander died, control of Anatolia was contested by several
of the Macedonian generals among whom his empire was divided. By 280
B.C. one of them, Seleucus Nicator, had made good his claim to an
extensive kingdom that included southern and western Anatolia and
Thrace as well as Syria, Mesopotamia, and, for a time, Persia. Under
the Seleucid Dynasty, which survived until 64 B.C., colonists were
brought from Greece, and the process of hellenization was extended
among the non-Greek elites.
The Seleucids were plagued by rebellions, and their domains in
Anatolia were steadily eaten away by secession and attacks by rival
Hellenistic regimes. Pergamum became independent in 262 B.C., during
the Attalid Dynasty, and won fame as the paragon of Hellenistic
states. Noted for the cleanliness of its streets and the splendor of
its art, Pergamum, in west-central Anatolia, derived its
extraordinary wealth from trade in pitch, parchment, and perfume,
while slave labor produced a food surplus on scientifically managed
state farms. It was also a center of learning that boasted a medical
school and a library second in renown only to that of Alexandria.
But Pergamum was both despised and envied by the other Greek states
because of its alliance with Rome.
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Lydia, or Maeonia as it was called before 687 BCE, was a major part
of the history of western Anatolia, beginning with the Atyad
dynasty, who first appeared around 1300 BCE. The succeeding dynasty,
the Heraclids, managed to rule successively from 1185–687 BCE
despite a growing presence of Greek influences along the
Mediterranean coast. As Greek cities such as Smyrna, Colophon, and
Ephesus rose, the Heraclids became weaker and weaker. The last king,
Candaules, was murdered by his friend and lance-bearer named Gyges,
and he took over as ruler. Gyges waged war against the intruding
Greeks, and soon faced by a grave problem as the Cimmerians began to
pillage outlying cities within the kingdom. It was this wave of
attacks that led to the incorporation of the formerly independent
Phrygia and its capital Gordium into the Lydian domain. It was until
the successive rules of Sadyattes and Alyattes, ending in 560 BCE,
that the attacks of the Cimmerians ended for good. Under the reign
of the last Lydian king Croesus, Persia was invaded first at the
Battle of Pteria ending without a victor. Progressing deeper into
Persia, Croesus was thoroughly defeated in the Battle of Thymbra at
the hands of the Persian Cyrus II in 546 BCE.
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By 550 BCE, the Median Empire, which had existed for barely a
hundred years, was suddenly torn apart by a Persian rebellion. As
Lydia's king, Croesus had a large amount of wealth which to draw
from, and he used it to go on the offensive against the Persian king
Cyrus the Great. In the end, Croesus was thrust back west and Cyrus
burned the Lydian capital Sardis, taking control of Lydia in 546
BCE.
The remaining kingdom of Ionia and several cities of Lydia still
refused to fall under Persian domination, and prepared defenses to
fight them and sending for aid from Sparta. Since no aid was
promised except for a warning to Cyrus from their emissary,
eventually their stance was abandoned and they submitted, or they
fled as in citizens from Phocaea to Corsica or citizens from Teos to
Abdera in Thrace.
The Achaemenid Persian Empire, thus founded by Cyrus the Great,
continued its expansion under the Persia king Darius the Great, in
which the satrap system of local governors continued to be used and
upgraded and other governmental upgrades were carried out. A revolt
by Naxos in 502 BCE prompted Aristagoras of Miletus to devise a
grandiose plan by which he would give a share of Naxos's wealth to
Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, in return for his aid in quashing the
revolt. The failure of Aristagoras in fulfilling his promise of
rewards and his conduct disturbed the Persians, so much so that he
resorted to convincing his fellow Ionians to revolt against the
Persians. This revolt, known as the Ionian Revolt, spread across
Anatolia, and with Athenian aid, Aristagoras held firm for a time,
despite the loss in the Battle of Ephesus. The burning of Sardis in
498 BCE enraged Darius so much that he swore revenge upon Athens.
This event brought down the hammer upon Aristagoras as the Persian
army swept through Ionia, re-taking city by city. It was the
eventual Battle of Lade outside Miletus in 494 BCE that put an end
to the Ionian Revolt once and for all.
Although the Persian Empire had official control of the Carians as a
satrap, the appointed local ruler Hecatomnus took advantage of his
position. He gained for his family an autonomous hand in control of
the province by providing the Persians with regular tribute,
avoiding the look of deception. His son Mausolus continued in this
manner, and expanded upon the groundwork laid by his father. He
first removed the official capital of the satrap from Mylasa to
Halicarnassus, gaining a strategic naval advantage as the new
capital was on the ocean. On this land he built a strong fortress
and a works by which he could build up a strong navy. He shrewdly
used this power to guarantee protection for the citizens of Chios,
Kos, and Rhodes as they proclaimed independence from Athenian
Greece. Mausolus did not live to see his plans realized fully, and
his position went to his widow Artemisia. The local control over
Caria remained in Hecatomnus's family for another 20 years before
the arrival of Alexander the Great.
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In 336 BCE, King Philip of Macedon was unexpectedly killed, making
his son Alexander the new ruler of Macedon as he was very popular.
He immediately went to work, raising a force large enough to go up
against the Persians, gathering a navy large enough to counter any
threats by their powerful navy. Landing on the shores of Anatolia
near Sestos on the Gallipoli in 334 BCE, Alexander first faced the
Persian army in the Battle of the Granicus, in which the Persians
were effectively routed. Using the victory as a springboard for
success, Alexander turned his attention to the rest of the western
coast, liberating Lydia and Ionia in quick succession. The eventual
fall of Miletus led to the brilliant strategy by Alexander to defeat
the Persian navy by taking every city along the Mediterranean
instead of initiating a very high-risk battle on the sea. By
reducing this threat, Alexander turned inland, rolling through
Phyrgia, Cappadocia, and finally Cilicia, before reaching Mount
Amanus. Scouts for Alexander found the Persian army, under its king
Darius III, advancing through the plains of Issus in search of
Alexander. At this moment, Alexander realized that the terrain
favored his smaller army, and the Battle of Issus began. Darius's
army was effectively squeezed by the Macedonians, leading to not
only an embarrassing defeat for Darius, but that he fled back across
the Euphrates river, leaving the rest of his family in Alexander's
hands. Thus, Anatolia was freed from the Persian yoke for good.
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In June 323 BCE, Alexander died suddenly, leaving a power vacuum in
Macedon, putting all he had worked for at risk. Being that his
half-brother Arrhidaeus was unable to rule effectively due to a
serious disability, a succession of wars over the rights to his
conquests were fought known as the Wars of the Diadochi. Perdiccas,
a high-ranking officer of the cavalry, and later Antigonus, the
Phrygian satrap, prevailed over the other contenders of Alexander's
empire in Asia for a time.
Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, strong
leaders of Alexander's, consolidated their positions after the
Battle of Ipsus, in which their common rival Antigonus was defeated.
The former empire of Alexander was divided as such: Ptolemy gained
territory in southern Anatolia, much of Egypt and the Levant, which
combined to form the Ptolemaic Empire; Lysimachus controlled western
Anatolia and Thrace, while Seleucus claimed the rest of Anatolia as
the Seleucid Empire. Only the kingdom of Pontus under Mithridates I
managed to gain their independence in Anatolia due to the fact that
Antigonus had been a common enemy.
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Seleucus I Nicator first created a capital city over the span of 12
years (299–287 BCE) worthy of his personage, Antioch, named after
his father Antiochus. He concentrated also on creating a large
standing army, and also divided his empire into 72 satrapies for
easier administration. After a peaceful beginning, a rift occurred
between Lysimachus and Seleucus that led to open warfare in 281 BCE.
Even though Seleucus had managed to defeat his former friend and
gain his territory at the Battle of Corupedium, it cost him his life
as he was assassinated by Ptolemy Keraunos, future king of Macedon,
in Lysimachia.
After the death of Seleucus, the empire he left faced many trials,
both from internal and external forces. Antiochus I fought off an
attack from the Gauls successfully, but could not defeat the King of
Pergamon Eumenes I in 262 BCE, guaranteeing Pergamon's independence.
Antiochus II named Theos, or "divine", was poisoned by his first
wife, who in turn poisoned Berenice Phernophorus, second wife of
Antiochus and the daughter of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Antiochus II's
son from his first wife, Seleucus II Callinicus, ended up as ruler
of the Seleucids after this tragedy. These turn of events made
Ptolemy III very angry, and led to the invasion of the empire (the
Third Syrian War) in 246 BCE. This invasion leads to victory for
Ptolemy III at Antioch and Seleucia, and he grants the lands of
Phrygia to Pontus's Mithridates II in 245 BCE as a wedding gift.
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Events in the east showed the fragile nature of the Seleucids as a
Bactrian-inspired revolt in Parthia begun by its satrap Andragoras
in 245 BCE led to the loss of territory bordering Persia. This was
coupled with an unexpected invasion of northern Parthia by the
nomadic Parni in 238 BCE and a subsequent occupation of the whole of
Parthia by one of their leaders, Tiridates. Antiochus II Theos of
the Seleucids failed to end the rebellion, and therefore a new
kingdom was created, the Parthian Empire, under Tiridates's brother
Arsaces I. Parthia extended to the Euphrates river at the height of
its power.
The kingdom of Pergamon under the Attalid dynasty was an independent
kingdom established after the rule of Philetaerus by his nephew
Eumenes I. Eumenes enlarged Pergamon to include parts of Mysia and
Aeolis, and held tightly onto the ports of Elaia and Pitane. Attalus
I, successor of Eumenes I, remained active outside of the boundaries
of Pergamon. He refused protection payment to the Galatians and won
a fight against them in 230 BCE, and then defeated Antiochus Hierax
three years later in order to secure nominal control over Anatolia
under the Seleucids. The victory was not to last as Seleucus III
reestablished control of his empire, but Attalus was allowed to
retain control of former territories of Pergamon.
The dealings with Attalus proved to be the last time the Seleucids
had any meaningful success in Anatolia as the Roman Empire lay on
the horizon. After that victory, Seleucus's heirs would never again
expand their empire.
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The last of the Attalid kings bequeathed Pergamum to his Roman
allies upon his death in 138 B.C. Rome organized this extensive
territory under a proconsul as the province of Asia. All of Anatolia
except Armenia, which was a Roman client-state, was integrated into
the imperial system by A.D. 43. After the accession of the Roman
emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14), and for generations
thereafter, the Anatolian provinces enjoyed prosperity and security.
The cities were administered by local councils and sent delegates to
provincial assemblies that advised the Roman governors. Their
inhabitants were citizens of a cosmopolitan world state, subject to
a common legal system and sharing a common Roman identity. Roman in
allegiance and Greek in culture, the region nonetheless retained its
ethnic complexity.
In A.D. 285, the emperor Diocletian undertook the reorganization of
the Roman Empire, dividing jurisdiction between its Latin-speaking
and Greek-speaking halves. In 330 Diocletian's successor,
Constantine, established his capital at the Greek city of Byzantium,
a "New Rome" strategically situated on the European side of the
Bosporus at its entrance to the Sea of Marmara. For nearly twelve
centuries the city, embellished and renamed Constantinople, remained
the capital of the Roman Empire--better known in its continuous
development in the East as the Byzantine Empire.
Christianity was introduced to Anatolia through the missionary
activity of Saint Paul, a Greek-speaking Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia,
and his companions. Christians possibly even constituted a majority
of the population in most of Anatolia by the time Christianity was
granted official toleration under the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313.
Before the end of the fourth century, a patriarchate was established
in Constantinople with ecclesiastical jurisdiction over much of the
Greek East. The basilica of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), whose
construction in Constantinople was ordered by Emperor Justinian in
532, became the spiritual focus of Greek Christendom.
Although Greek in language and culture, the Byzantine Empire was
thoroughly Roman in its laws and administration. The emperor's
Greek-speaking subjects, conscious of their imperial vocation,
called themselves romaioi --Romans. Almost until the end of its long
history, the Byzantine Empire was seen as ecumenical--intended to
encompass all Christian peoples--rather than as a specifically Greek
state.
In the early seventh century, the emperor in Constantinople presided
over a realm that included not only Greece and Anatolia but Syria,
Egypt, Sicily, most of Italy, and the Balkans, with outposts across
North Africa as far as Morocco. Anatolia was the most productive
part of this extensive empire and was also the principal reservoir
of manpower for its defense. With the loss of Syria to Muslim
conquest in the seventh century, Anatolia became the frontier as
well as the heartland of the empire. The military demands imposed on
the Byzantine state to police its provinces and defend its frontiers
were enormous, but despite the gradual contraction of the empire and
frequent political unrest, Byzantine forces generally remained
strong until the eleventh century. i
In the Second Punic War, Rome had suffered in Spain, Africa, and
Italy because of the impressive strategies of Hannibal, the famous
Carthaginian general. When Hannibal entered into an alliance with
Philip V of Macedon in 215 BCE, Rome used a small naval force with
the Aetolian League to help ward off Hannibal in the east and to
prevent Macedonian expansion in western Anatolia. Attalus I of
Pergamon, along with Rhodes, traveled to Rome and helped convince
the Romans that war against Macedon was supremely necessary. The
Roman general Titus Quinctius Flamininus not only soundly defeated
Philip's army in the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BCE, but also
brought further hope to the Greeks when he said that an autonomous
Greece and Greek cities in Anatolia was what Rome desired.
During the period just after Rome's victory, the Aetolian League
desired some of the spoils left in the wake of Philip's defeat, and
requested a shared expedition with Antiochus III of the Seleucids to
obtain it. Despite warnings by Rome, Antiochus left Thrace and
ventured into Greece, deciding to ally himself with the League. This
was intolerable for Rome, and they soundly defeated him in Thessaly
at Thermopylae before Antiochus retreated to Anatolia near Sardis.
Combining forces with the Romans, Eumenes II of Pergamon met
Antiochus in the Battle of Magnesia in 189 BCE. There Antiochus was
thrashed by an intensive cavalry charge by the Romans and an
outflanking maneuver by Eumenes.
Because of the Treaty of Apamea the very next year, Pergamon was
granted all of the Seleucid lands north of the Taurus mountains and
Rhodes was given all that remained. This seemingly great reward
would be the downfall of Eumenes as an effective ruler, for after
Pergamon defeated Prusias I of Bithynia and Pharnaces I of Pontus,
he delved too deeply into Roman affairs and the Roman senate became
alarmed. When Eumenes put down an invasion by the Galatians in 184
BCE, Rome countered his victory by freeing them, providing a heavy
indicator that the scope of Pergamon's rule was now stunted.
The interior of Anatolia had been relatively stable despite
occasional incursions by the Galatians until the rise of the
kingdoms of Pontus and Cappadocia in the 2nd century BCE. Cappadocia
under Ariarathes IV initially was allied with the Seleucids in their
war against Rome, but he soon changed his mind and repaired
relations with them by marriage and his conduct. His son, Ariarathes
V Philopator, continued his father's policy of allying with Rome and
even joined with them in battle against Prusias I of Bithynia when
he died in 131 BCE. Pontus had been an independent kingdom since the
rule of Mithridates when the threat of Macedon had been removed.
Despite several attempts by the Seleucid Empire to defeat Pontus,
independence was maintained. When Rome became involved in Anatolian
affairs under Pharnaces I, an alliance was formed that guaranteed
protection for the kingdom. The other major kingdom in Anatolia,
Bithynia, established by Nicomedes I at Nicomedia, always maintained
good relations with Rome. Even under the hated Prusias II of
Bithynia when that relationship was strained it did not cause much
trouble.
The rule of Rome in Anatolia was unlike any other part of their
empire because of their light hand with regards to government and
organization. Controlling unstable elements within the region was
made simpler by the bequeathal of Pergamon to the Romans by its last
king, Attalus III in 133 BCE. The new territory was named the
province of Asia by Roman consul Manius Aquillius the Elder.
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The Mithridatic Wars were preceded by infighting that drew Rome into
a war against Italian rebels known as the Social War in 90 BCE.
Mithridates VI of Pontus decided that it was time to strike in
Anatolia while Rome was occupied, overrunning Bithynia. Though he
withdrew when this was demanded of him by Rome he did not agree to
all Romes demands. As a result, Rome encouraged Bithynia to attack
Pontus but Bithynia was defeated. Mithridates then marched into the
Roman province of Asia, where he persuaded Greeks to slaughter as
many Italians as possible (the Asiatic Vespers). Despite a power
struggle within Rome itself, consul Cornelius Sulla went to Anatolia
to defeat the Pontian king. Sulla defeated him thoroughly in and
left Mithridates with only Pontus in the Treaty of Dardanos.
In 74 BCE, another Anatolian kingdom passed under Roman control as
Nicomedes IV of Bithynia instructed it to be done after his death.
Making Bithynia a Roman province soon after roused Mithridates VI to
once again go after more territory, and he invaded it in the same
year. Rome this time sent consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus to take
back control of the province. The expedition proved to be very
positive as Mithridates was driven back into the mountains.
The failure of Lucius Licinius Lucullus to rid Rome once and for all
of Mithridates brought a lot of opposition back at home, some fueled
by the great Roman consul Pompey. A threat by pirates on the Roman
food supply in the Aegean Sea brought Pompey once again to the
forefront of Roman politics, and he drove them back to Cilicia. The
powers granted Pompey after this success allowed him to not only
throw back Mithridates all the way to the Bosphorus, but made
neighboring Armenia a client kingdom. In the end, Mithridates
committed suicide in 63 BCE, and therefore allowed Rome to add
Pontus as a protectorate along with Cilicia as a Roman province.
This left only Galatia, Pisidia and Cappadocia, all ruled by Amyntas
in whole, as the last remaining kingdom not under a protectorate or
provincial status. However, in 25 BCE, Amyntas died while pursuing
enemies in the Taurus mountains, and Rome claimed his lands as a
province, leaving Anatolia completely in Roman hands.
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Jewish influences in Anatolia were changing the religious makeup of
the region as Rome consolidated its power. In about 210 BCE,
Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire relocated 2,000 families of
Jews from Babylonia to Lydia and Phrygia, and this kind of migration
continued throughout the remainder of the Empire's existence.
Additional clues to the size of the Jewish influence in the area
were provided by Cicero, who noted that a fellow Roman governor had
halted the tribute sent to Jerusalem by Jews in 66 BCE, and the
record of Ephesus, where the people urged Agrippina to expel Jews
because they were not active in their religious activities.
The blossoming religious following of Christianity was evident in
Anatolia during the beginning of the 1st century. The letters of St.
Paul in the New Testament reflect this growth, particularly in his
home province of Asia. From his home in Ephesus from 54 AD to 56 AD
he noted that "all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word" and
verified the existence of a church in Colossae as well as Troas.
Later he received letters from Magnesia and Tralleis, both of which
already had churches, bishops, and official representatives who
supported Ignatius of Antioch. After the references to these
institutions by St. Paul, the Book of Revelation mentions
the Seven Churches of Asia: Ephesus, Magnesia, Thyatira, Smyrna,
Philadelphia, Pergamon, and Laodicea. Even other non-Christians
started to take notice of the new religion. In 112 the Roman
governor in Bithynia writes to the Roman emperor Trajan that so many
different people are flocking to Christianity, leaving the temples
vacated.
i
From the rule of Augustus onwards until that of Constantine I,
Anatolia enjoyed relative peace that allowed itself to grow as a
region. The emperor Augustus removed all debts owed to the Roman
Empire by the provinces and protectorates there, making advanced
progress possible. Roads were built to connect the larger cities in
order to improve trade and transportation, and the abundance of high
outputs in agricultural pursuits made more money for everyone
involved. Settlement was encouraged, and local governors did not
place a heavy burden upon the people with regards to taxation. The
wealth gained from the peace and prosperity prevented great tragedy
as powerful earthquakes tore through the region, and help was given
from the Roman government and other parties. Through it all was
produced some of the most respected scientific men of that period-
the philosopher Dio of Bithynia, the medical mind of Galen from
Pergamon, and the historians Memnon of Heraclea and Cassius Dio of
Nicaea.
By the middle of the 3rd century, everything that had been built by
peace was being threatened by a new enemy, the Goths. As the inroads
to central Europe through Macedonia, Italy, and Germania were all
defended successfully by the Romans, the Goths found Anatolia to be
irresistible due to its wealth and deteriorating defenses. Using a
captured fleet of ships from the Bosphorus and flat-bottomed boats
to cross the Black Sea, they sailed in 256 around the eastern
shores, landing in the coastal city of Trebizond. What ensued was a
huge embarrassment for Pontus — the wealth of the city was
absconded, a larger number of ships were confiscated, and they
entered the interior without much to turn them back. A second
invasion of Anatolia through Bithynia brought even more terror
inland and wanton destruction. The Goths entered Chalcedon and used
it as a base by which to expand their operations, sacking Nicomedia,
Prusa, Apamea, Cius, and Nice in turn. Only the turn of the weather
during a fall season kept them from doing any more harm to those
outside the realm of the province. The Goths managed a third attack
upon not only the coastline of western Anatolia, but in Greece and
Italy as well. Despite the Romans under their emperor Valerian
finally turning them away, it did not stop the Goths from first
destroying the Temple of Diana in Ephesus and the city itself in
263.
i
The constant instability of the Roman Empire as a whole gradually
made it more and more difficult to control. Upon the ascension of
the emperor Constantine in 330, he made a bold decision by removing
himself from Rome and into a new capital. Located in the old city of
Byzantium, now known as Constantinople after the emperor, it was
strengthened and improved in order to assure more than adequate
defense of the whole region. What added to the prestige of the city
was Constantine's favor of Christianity. He allowed bishops and
other religious figures to aid in the government of the empire, and
he personally intervened in the First Council of Nicaea to prove his
sincerity.
The next forty years after the death of Constantine in 337 saw a
power struggle amongst his descendants for control of the empire.
His three sons, Constantine, Constans, and Constantius were unable
to coexist peacefully under a joint rule, and they eventually
resorted to violent means to end the arrangement. A short time after
taking power, a purge of a majority of their relations began and the
blood of Constantine's progeny flowed. Eventually Constans came
after and killed Constantine II near Aquileia, but was soon removed
and himself murdered by his own army. This left Constantius II as
the sole emperor of the Byzantines, but even this would not last.
Despite supporting his cousin Julian as commander of the armies in
Gaul, events soon forced Julian to ignore Constantine's orders to
move eastward with his armies and to head straight for
Constantinople to claim the imperial purple. The death of
Constantius II in Tarsus resulted in a bloodless transfer of power
in 361. Julian did not survive but a scant year and a half thanks to
a Persian spear, but during that time he tried to revert what
progress Christianity had made after the founding of the empire.
Even on his deathbed he was supposed to have said "Thou hast
conquered, Galilean.", a reference to Christianity besting him.
The threat of barbarian invasion and its effects upon the Roman
Empire in the west carried over into the east. After a short rule by
the emperor Jovian and a joint rule of both empires by Valentinian
II in the west and Valens in the east, the young emperor Gratian
made what was to be a very fortunate decision. He chose the favored
general Theodosius I to rule with his as a co-emperor, granting him
authority over all of the domains of the Byzantine empire in 379.
This proved to be a wise decision with regards to the survival of
his newly obtained dominion, for he immediately set about healing
the religious rifts that had emerged during the insecurity of past
years. The practice of Arianism and pagan rites were abolished, and
the standards set by Constantine in Nicaea were restored by law. By
395, the year in which the Roman Empire was officially divided in
half and the aptly named Theodosius the Great died, the east was so
strong that it could now be considered an equal.
The Byzantine Empire was the predominantly Greek-speaking
continuation of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages. Its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day
Istanbul), originally known as Byzantium. Initially the eastern half
of the Roman Empire (often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this
context), it survived the 5th century fragmentation and fall of the
Western Roman Empire and continued to exist for an additional
thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
i
The Sassanid Persians, after having fought centuries of wars against
the Byzantines and at their peak sieged Constantinople together with
the Avars (Avar Turks), paved the way for a new threat to enter onto
the scene; the Arabs.
i
The newly forming states of the Turks gradually squeezed the empire
so much that it was only a matter of time before Constantinople was
taken in 1453.
i
The first historical references to the Turks appear in Chinese
records dating around 700 B.C. These records refer to tribes called
the Hsiung-nu (an early form of the Western term Hun ), who lived in
an area bounded by the Altai Mountains, Lake Baykal, and the
northern edge of the Gobi Desert, and who are believed to have been
the ancestors of the Turks (see fig. 3). Specific references in
Chinese sources in the sixth century A.D. identify the tribal
kingdom called Tu-Küe located on the Orkhon River south of Lake
Baykal. The khans (chiefs) of this tribe accepted the nominal
suzerainty of the Tang Dynasty. The earliest known example of
writing in a Turkic language was found in that area and has been
dated around A.D. 730.
Other Turkish nomads from the Altai region founded the Görtürk
Empire, a confederation of tribes under a dynasty of khans whose
influence extended during the sixth through eighth centuries from
the Aral Sea to the Hindu Kush in the land bridge known as
Transoxania (i.e., across the Oxus River). The Görtürks are known to
have been enlisted by a Byzantine emperor in the seventh century as
allies against the Sassanians. In the eighth century, separate
Turkish tribes, among them the Oguz, moved south of the Oxus River,
while others migrated west to the northern shore of the Black Sea.
i
The population of Anatolia and Balkans including Greece was
estimated at 10.7 million in 600 CE, whereas Asia Minor was probably
around 8 million during the early part of Middle Ages (950 to 1348
CE). The estimated population for Asia Minor around 1204 CE was 6
million, including 3 million in Seljuk territory. The migration of
Turks to the country of modern Turkey occurred during the main
Turkic migration across most of Central Asia and into Europe and the
Middle East which was between the 6th and 11th centuries. Mainly
Turkic people living in the Seljuk Empire arrived in Turkey during
the eleventh century. The Seljuks proceeded to gradually conquer the
Anatolian part of the Byzantine Empire.
The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kınık Oğuz Turks who resided
on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral
Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy in the 10th
century. In the 11th century, the Turkic people living in the Seljuk
Empire started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards east
of Anatolia, which eventually became a new homeland of Oğuz Turkic
tribes following the Battle of Manzikert on August 26, 1071.
The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum,
a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire and to some Turkish
principalities (beyliks), mostly situated towards the east which
were vassals of or at war with Seljuk Sultanate of Rum.
i
The Turkish migrations after the sixth century were part of a
general movement of peoples out of central Asia during the first
millennium A.D. that was influenced by a number of interrelated
factors--climatic changes, the strain of growing populations on a
fragile pastoral economy, and pressure from stronger neighbors also
on the move. Among those who migrated were the Oguz Turks, who had
embraced Islam in the tenth century. They established themselves
around Bukhara in Transoxania under their khan, Seljuk. Split by
dissension among the tribes, one branch of the Oguz, led by
descendants of Seljuk, moved west and entered service with the
Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad.
The Turkish horsemen, known as gazis , were organized into tribal
bands to defend the frontiers of the caliphate, often against their
own kinsmen. However, in 1055 a Seljuk khan, Tugrul Bey, occupied
Baghdad at the head of an army composed of gazis and mamluks
(slave-soldiers, a number of whom became military leaders and
rulers). Tugrul forced the caliph (the spiritual leader of Islam) to
recognize him as sultan, or temporal leader, in Persia and
Mesopotamia. While they engaged in state building, the Seljuks also
emerged as the champions of Sunni (see Glossary) Islam against the
religion's Shia (see Glossary) sect. Tugrul's successor, Mehmet ibn
Daud (r. 1063-72)--better known as Alp Arslan, the "Lion
Hero"--prepared for a campaign against the Shia Fatimid caliphate in
Egypt but was forced to divert his attention to Anatolia by the
gazis , on whose endurance and mobility the Seljuks depended. The
Seljuk elite could not persuade these gazis to live within the
framework of a bureaucratic Persian state, content with collecting
taxes and patrolling trade routes. Each year the gazis cut deeper
into Byzantine territory, raiding and taking booty according to
their tradition. Some served as mercenaries in the private wars of
Byzantine nobles and occasionally settled on land they had taken.
The Seljuks followed the gazis into Anatolia in order to retain
control over them. In 1071 Alp Arslan routed the Byzantine army at
Manzikert near Lake Van, opening all of Anatolia to conquest by the
Turks.
Armenia had been annexed by the Byzantine Empire in 1045, but
religious animosity between the Armenians and the Greeks prevented
these two Christian peoples from cooperating against the Turks on
the frontier. Although Christianity had been adopted as the official
religion of the state by King Titidates III around A.D. 300, nearly
100 years before similar action was taken in the Roman Empire,
Armenians were converted to a form of Christianity at variance with
the Orthodox tradition of the Greek church, and they had their own
patriarchate independent of Constantinople. After their conquest by
the Sassanians around 400, their religion bound them together as a
nation and provided the inspiration for a flowering of Armenian
culture in the fifth century. When their homeland fell to the
Seljuks in the late eleventh century, large numbers of Armenians
were dispersed throughout the Byzantine Empire, many of them
settling in Constantinople, where in its centuries of decline they
became generals and statesmen as well as craftsmen, builders, and
traders.
The original Seljuks, who swarmed out of Central Asia in the first
half of the 11th century.
Within ten years of the Battle of Manzikert, the Seljuks had won
control of most of Anatolia. Although successful in the west, the
Seljuk sultanate in Baghdad reeled under attacks from the Mongols in
the east and was unable--indeed unwilling--to exert its authority
directly in Anatolia. The gazis carved out a number of states there,
under the nominal suzerainty of Baghdad, states that were
continually reinforced by further Turkish immigration. The strongest
of these states to emerge was the Seljuk sultanate of Rum ("Rome,"
i.e., Byzantine Empire), which had its capital at Konya (Iconium).
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Rum became dominant
over the other Turkish states.
The society and economy of the Anatolian countryside were unchanged
by the Seljuks, who had simply replaced Byzantine officials with a
new elite that was Turkish and Muslim. Conversion to Islam and the
imposition of the language, mores, and customs of the Turks
progressed steadily in the countryside, facilitated by
intermarriage. The cleavage widened, however, between the unruly
gazi warriors and the state-building bureaucracy in Konya.
A large state taking up most of the interior of modern Turkey. The
name stems from the Turkish attempt to pronounce the word "Roman",
meaning the old Byzantine territories. From 1243 the Rum Seljuqs
were Persian Mongol vassals.
Complete fragmentation of authority, cotemporous with similar
failure of Ilkhanate control, complete by 1336. Thereafter, Anatolia
as a whole is enveloped by growing Ottoman hegemony.
i
The success of the Seljuk Turks stimulated a response from Latin
Europe in the form of the First Crusade. A counter-offensive
launched in 1097 by the Byzantine emperor with the aid of the
crusaders dealt the Seljuks a decisive defeat. Konya fell to the
crusaders, and after a few years of campaigning Byzantine rule was
restored in the western third of Anatolia.
Although a Turkish revival in the 1140s nullified many of the
Christian gains, greater damage was done to Byzantine security by
dynastic strife in Constantinople in which the largely French
contingents of the Fourth Crusade and their Venetian allies
intervened. In 1204 these crusaders installed Count Baldwin of
Flanders in the Byzantine capital as emperor of the so-called Latin
Empire of Constantinople, dismembering the old realm into tributary
states where West European feudal institutions were transplanted
intact. Independent Greek kingdoms were established at Nicaea and
Trebizond (present-day Trabzon) and in Epirus from remnant Byzantine
provinces. Turks allied with Greeks in Anatolia against the Latins,
and Greeks with Turks against the Mongols. In 1261 Michael
Palaeologus of Nicaea drove the Latins from Constantinople and
restored the Byzantine Empire, but as an essentially Balkan state
reduced in size to Thrace and northwestern Anatolia.
Seljuk Rum survived in the late thirteenth century as a vassal state
of the Mongols, who had already subjugated the Great Seljuk
sultanate at Baghdad. Mongol influence in the region had disappeared
by the 1330s, leaving behind gazi amirates competing for supremacy.
From the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the Middle
East, however, a new power emerged in Anatolia--the Ottoman Turks.
i
On June 26, 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols in
the Battle of Kosedag, and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm became a
vassal of the Mongols. This caused the Seljuks to lose their power.
Hulegu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan founded the Ilkhanate in the
southwestern part of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanate ruled Anatolia
through Mongol military governors. The last Seljuk sultan Mesud II,
died in 1308. The Mongol invasion of Transoxiana, Iran, Azerbaijan
and Anatolia caused Turkomens to move to Western Anatolia. The
Turkomens founded some Anatolian principalities (beyliks) under the
Mongol dominion in Turkey. The most powerful beyliks were the
Karamanids and the Germiyanids in the central area. Along the Aegean
coast, from north to south, stretched Karasids, Sarukhanids,
Aydinids, Menteşe and Teke principalities. The Jandarids (later
called Isfendiyarids) controlled the Black Sea region round
Kastamonu and Sinop. The Beylik of the Ottoman Dynasty was situated
in the northwest of Anatolia, around Söğüt, and it was a small and
insignificant state at that time. The Ottoman beylik would, however,
evolve into the Ottoman Empire over the next 200 years, expanding
throughout the Balkans, Anatolia.
i
Documentation of the early history of the Ottomans is scarce.
According to semilegendary accounts, Ertugrul, khan of the Kayi
tribe of the Oguz Turks, took service with the sultan of Rum at the
head of a gazi force numbering "400 tents." He was granted
territory--if he could seize and hold it--in Bithynia, facing the
Byzantine strongholds at Bursa, Nicomedia (Izmit), and Nicaea.
Leadership subsequently passed to Ertugrul's son, Osman I (r. ca.
1284-1324), founder of the Osmanli Dynasty--better known in the West
as the Ottomans. This dynasty was to endure for six centuries
through the reigns of thirty-six sultans (see Sultans and Viziers).
Osman I's small amirate attracted gazis from other amirates, who
required plunder from new conquests to maintain their way of life.
Such growth gave the Ottoman state a military stature that was out
of proportion to its size. Acquiring the title of sultan, Osman I
organized a politically centralized administration that subordinated
the activities of the gazis to its needs and facilitated rapid
territorial expansion. Bursa fell in the final year of his reign.
His successor, Orhan (r. 1324-60), crossed the Dardanelles in force
and established a permanent European base at Gallipoli in 1354.
Murad I (r. 1360-89) annexed most of Thrace (called Rumelia, or
"Roman land," by the Turks), encircling Constantinople, and moved
the seat of Ottoman government to Adrianople (Edirne) in Europe. In
1389 the Ottoman gazis defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo,
although at the cost of Murad's life. The steady stream of Ottoman
victories in the Balkans continued under Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402).
Bulgaria was subdued in 1393, and in 1396 a French-led force of
crusaders that had crossed the Danube from Hungary was annihilated
at Nicopolis.
In Anatolia, where Ottoman policy had been directed toward
consolidating the sultan's hold over the gazi amirates by means of
conquest, usurpation, and purchase, the Ottomans were confronted by
the forces of the Mongol leader Timur (Tamerlane), to whom many of
the Turkish gazis had defected. Timur crushed Ottoman forces near
Ankara in 1402 and captured Bayezid I. The unfortunate sultan died
in captivity the next year, leaving four heirs, who for a decade
competed for control of what remained of Ottoman Anatolia. By the
1420s, however, Ottoman power had revived to the extent that fresh
campaigns were undertaken in Greece.
Aside from scattered outposts in Greece, all that remained of the
Byzantine Empire was its capital, Constantinople. Cut off by land
since 1365, the city, despite long periods of truce with the Turks,
was supplied and reinforced by Venetian traders who controlled its
commerce by sea. On becoming sultan in 1444, Mehmet II (r. 1444-46,
1451-81) immediately set out to conquer the city. The military
campaigning season of 1453 commenced with the fifty-day siege of
Constantinople, during which Mehmet II brought warships overland on
greased runners into the Bosporus inlet known as the Golden Horn to
bypass the chain barrage and fortresses that had blocked the
entrance to Constantinople's harbor. On May 29, the Turks fought
their way through the gates of the city and brought the siege to a
successful conclusion.
As an isolated military action, the taking of Constantinople did not
have a critical effect on European security, but to the Ottoman
Dynasty the capture of the imperial capital was of supreme symbolic
importance. Mehmet II regarded himself as the direct successor to
the Byzantine emperors. He made Constantinople the imperial capital,
as it had been under the Byzantine emperors, and set about
rebuilding the city. The cathedral of Hagia Sophia was converted to
a mosque, and Constantinople--which the Turks called Istanbul (from
the Greek phrase eis tin polin , "to the city")--replaced Baghdad as
the center of Sunni Islam. The city also remained the ecclesiastical
center of the Greek Orthodox Church, of which Mehmet II proclaimed
himself the protector and for which he appointed a new patriarch
after the custom of the Byzantine emperors.
The ancestors of the Ottomans (Osmanli, Uthmanli) were Oghuz Turks
who followed the victorious Seljuqs into Anatolia in the 11th
century. The Ottoman state began as a Ghazi Kingdom based in old
Bithynia, on the fringes of the Mongol dominated regions of central
Anatolia. As Ilkhanate authority waned, Ottoman power grew and,
successfully vanquishing other Ghazi domains, they became the new
Power of the region.
Osman I.....................................1293-1324
At the apex of the hierarchical Ottoman system was the sultan, who
acted in political, military, judicial, social, and religious
capacities, under a variety of titles. He was theoretically
responsible only to God and God's law--the Islamic seriat (in
Arabic, sharia ), of which he was the chief executor. All offices
were filled by his authority, and every law was issued by him in the
form of a firman (decree). He was supreme military commander and had
official title to all land. During the early sixteenth-century
Ottoman expansion in Arabia, Selim I also adopted the title of
caliph, thus indicating that he was the universal Muslim ruler.
Although theocratic and absolute in theory and in principle, the
sultan's powers were in practice limited. The attitudes of important
members of the dynasty, the bureaucratic and military
establishments, and religious leaders had to be considered.
Three characteristics were necessary for acceptance into the ruling
class: Islamic faith, loyalty to the sultan, and compliance with the
standards of behavior of the Ottoman court. The last qualification
effectively excluded the majority of common Turks, whose language
and manners were very different from those of the Ottomans. The
language of the court and government was Ottoman Turkish, a highly
formalized hybrid language that included Persian and Arabic
loanwords. In time Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were also employed in
state service, usually in diplomatic, technical, or commercial
capacities.
The day-to-day conduct of government and the formulation of policy
were in the hands of the divan, a relatively small council of
ministers directed by the chief minister, the grand vizier. The
entranceway to the public buildings in which the divan met--and
which in the seventeenth century became the residence of the grand
vizier--was called the Bab-i Ali (High Gate, or Sublime Porte). In
diplomatic correspondence, the term Porte was synonymous with the
Ottoman government, a usage that acknowledged the power wielded by
the grand vizier.
The Ottoman Empire had Turkish origins and Islamic foundations, but
from the start it was a heterogeneous mixture of ethnic groups and
religious creeds. Ethnicity was determined solely by religious
affiliation. Non-Muslim peoples, including Greeks, Armenians, and
Jews, were recognized as millets (see Glossary) and were granted
communal autonomy. Such groups were allowed to operate schools,
religious establishments, and courts based on their own customary
law.
i
Selim I (r. 1512-20) extended Ottoman sovereignty southward,
conquering Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He also gained recognition
as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Selim I's son, Süleyman I (r. 1520-66), was called the "lawgiver"
(kanuni ) by his Muslim subjects because of a new codification of
seriat undertaken during his reign. In Europe, however, he was known
as Süleyman the Magnificent, a recognition of his prowess by those
who had most to fear from it. Belgrade fell to Süleyman in 1521, and
in 1522 he compelled the Knights of Saint John to abandon Rhodes. In
1526 the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Mohács led to the taking
of Buda on the Danube. Vienna was besieged unsuccessfully during the
campaign season of 1529. North Africa up to the Moroccan frontier
was brought under Ottoman suzerainty in the 1520s and 1530s, and
governors named by the sultan were installed in Algiers, Tunis, and
Tripoli. In 1534 Kurdistan and Mesopotamia were taken from Persia.
The latter conquest gave the Ottomans an outlet to the Persian Gulf,
where they were soon engaged in a naval war with the Portuguese.
When Süleyman died in 1566, the Ottoman Empire was a world power.
Most of the great cities of Islam--Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem,
Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad--were under the sultan's
crescent flag. The Porte exercised direct control over Anatolia, the
sub-Danubian Balkan provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces were governed under
special regulations, as were satellite domains in Arabia and the
Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars. In addition, the native
rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik)
were vassals of the sultan.
The Ottomans had always dealt with the European states from a
position of strength. Treaties with them took the form of truces
approved by the sultan as a favor to lesser princes, provided that
payment of tribute accompanied the settlement. The Ottomans were
slow to recognize the shift in the military balance to Europe and
the reasons for it. They also increasingly permitted European
commerce to penetrate the barriers built to protect imperial
autarky. Some native craft industries were destroyed by the influx
of European goods, and, in general, the balance of trade shifted to
the disadvantage of the empire, making it in time an indebted client
of European producers.
European political intervention followed economic penetration. In
1536 the Ottoman Empire, then at the height of its power, had
voluntarily granted concessions to France, but the system of
capitulations introduced at that time was later used to impose
important limitations on Ottoman sovereignty. Commercial privileges
were greatly extended, and residents who came under the protection
of a treaty country were thereby made subject to the jurisdiction of
that country's law rather than Ottoman law, an arrangement that led
to flagrant abuses of justice. The last thirty years of the
sixteenth century saw the rapid onset of a decline in Ottoman power
symbolized by the defeat of the Turkish fleet by the Spanish and
Portuguese at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and by the unbridled
bloody succession struggles within the imperial palace, the Seraglio
of Constantinople.
i
Ottoman imperial decadence was finally halted by a notable family of
imperial bureaucrats, the Köprülü family, which for more than forty
years (1656-1703) provided the empire with grand viziers, combining
ambition and ruthlessness with genuine talent. Mehmet, followed by
his son Ahmet, overhauled the bureaucracy and instituted military
reforms. Crete and Lemnos were taken from Venice, and large
provinces in Ukraine were wrested temporarily from Poland and
Russia. The Köprülü family also resumed the offensive against
Austria, pushing the Ottoman frontier to within 120 kilometers of
Vienna. An attempt in 1664 to capture the Habsburg capital was
beaten back, but Ahmet Köprülü extorted a huge tribute as the price
of a nineteen-year truce. When it expired in 1683, the Ottoman army
again invaded Austria, laying siege to Vienna for two months, only
to be routed ultimately by a relief force led by the king of Poland,
Jan Sobieski.
The siege of Vienna was the high-water mark of Ottoman expansion in
Europe, and its failure opened Hungary to reconquest by the European
powers. In a ruinous sixteen-year war, Russia and the Holy
League--composed of Austria, Poland, and Venice, and organized under
the aegis of the pope--finally drove the Ottomans south of the
Danube and east of the Carpathians. Under the terms of the Treaty of
Karlowitz in 1699, the first in which the Ottomans acknowledged
defeat, Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia were formally
relinquished to Austria. Poland recovered Podolia, and Dalmatia and
the Morea were ceded to Venice. In a separate peace the next year,
Russia received the Azov region.
The last of the Köprülü rulers fell from power when Mustafa II (r.
1695-1703) was forced by rebellious janissaries to abdicate. Under
Ahmet III (r. 1703-30), effective control of the government passed
to the military leaders. Ahmet III's reign is referred to as the
"tulip period" because of the popularity of tulip cultivation in
Istanbul during those years. At this time, Peter the Great of Russia
moved to eliminate the Ottoman presence on the north shore of the
Black Sea. Russia's main objective in the region subsequently was to
win access to warm-water ports on the Black Sea and then to obtain
an opening to the Mediterranean through the Ottoman-controlled
Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Despite territorial gains at
Ottoman expense, however, Russia was unable to achieve these goals,
and the Black Sea remained for the time an "Ottoman lake" on which
Russian warships were prohibited.
i
During the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was almost
continuously at war with one or more of its enemies--Persia, Poland,
Austria, and Russia. Under the humiliating terms of the Treaty of
Kuchuk-Kaynarja that ended the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-74, the
Porte abandoned the Tartar khanate in the Crimea, granted autonomy
to the Trans-Danubian provinces, allowed Russian ships free access
to Ottoman waters, and agreed to pay a large war indemnity.
The implications of the decline of Ottoman power, the vulnerability
and attractiveness of the empire's vast holdings, the stirrings of
nationalism among its subject peoples, and the periodic crises
resulting from these and other factors became collectively known to
European diplomats in the nineteenth century as "the Eastern
Question." In 1853 Tsar Nicholas I of Russia described the Ottoman
Empire as "the sick man of Europe." The problem from the viewpoint
of European diplomacy was how to dispose of the empire in such a
manner that no one power would gain an advantage at the expense of
the others and upset the political balance of Europe.
The first nineteenth-century crisis to bring about European
intervention was the Greek War of Independence (1821-32). In 1827 an
Anglo-French fleet destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian fleets at the
Battle of Navarino, while the Russian army advanced as far as Edirne
before a cease-fire was called in 1829. The European powers forced
the Porte to recognize Greek independence under the London
Convention of 1832.
Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer who had been designated pasha of
Egypt by the sultan in 1805, had given substantial aid to the
Ottoman cause in the Greek war. When he was not rewarded as promised
for his assistance, he invaded Syria in 1831 and pursued the
retreating Ottoman army deep into Anatolia. In desperation, the
Porte appealed to Russia for support. Britain then intervened,
constraining Muhammad Ali to withdraw from Anatolia to Syria. The
price the sultan paid Russia for its assistance was the Treaty of
Hünkar Iskelesi of 1833. Under this treaty, the Bosporus and
Dardanelles straits were to be closed on Russian demand to naval
vessels of other powers.
War with Muhammad Ali resumed in 1839, and Ottoman forces were again
defeated. Russia waived its rights under the 1833 treaty and aligned
itself with British efforts to support the Ottoman Empire militarily
and diplomatically. Under the London Convention of 1840, Muhammad
Ali was forced to abandon his claim to Syria, but he was recognized
as hereditary ruler of Egypt under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Under
an additional protocol, in 1841 the Porte undertook to close the
straits to warships of all powers.
The Ottoman Empire fought two more wars with Russia in the
nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1854-56) pitted France,
Britain, and the Ottoman Empire against Russia. Under the Treaty of
Paris, which ended the war, Russia abandoned its claim to protect
Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and renounced the right to
intervene in the Balkans. War resumed between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire in 1877. Russia opened hostilities in response to Ottoman
suppression of uprisings in Bulgaria and to the threat posed to
Serbia by Ottoman forces. The Russian army had driven through
Bulgaria and reached as far as Edirne when the Porte acceded to the
terms imposed by a new agreement, the Treaty of San Stefano. The
treaty reduced Ottoman holdings in Europe to eastern Thrace and
created a large, independent Bulgarian state under Russian
protection.
Refusing to accept the dominant position of Russia in the Balkans,
the other European powers called the Congress of Berlin in 1878. At
this conclave, the Europeans agreed to a much smaller autonomous
Bulgarian state under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Serbia and Romania
were recognized as fully independent states, and the Ottoman
provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under Austrian
administration. Cyprus, although remaining technically part of the
Ottoman Empire, became a British protectorate. For all its wartime
exertions, Russia received only minor territorial concessions in
Bessarabia and the Caucasus. In the course of the nineteenth
century, France seized Algeria and Tunisia, while Britain began its
occupation of Egypt in 1882. In all these cases, the occupied
territories formerly had belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire had a dual economy in the nineteenth century
consisting of a large subsistence sector and a small colonial-style
commercial sector linked to European markets and controlled by
foreign interests. The empire's first railroads, for example, were
built by foreign investors to bring the cash crops of Anatolia's
coastal valleys--tobacco, grapes, and other fruit--to Smyrna (Izmir)
for processing and export. The cost of maintaining a modern army
without a thorough reform of economic institutions caused
expenditures to be made in excess of tax revenues. Heavy borrowing
from foreign banks in the 1870s to reinforce the treasury and the
undertaking of new loans to pay the interest on older ones created a
financial crisis that in 1881 obliged the Porte to surrender
administration of the Ottoman debt to a commission representing
foreign investors. The debt commission collected public revenues and
transferred the receipts directly to creditors in Europe.
The 1860s and early 1870s saw the emergence of the Young Ottoman
movement among Western-oriented intellectuals who wanted to see the
empire accepted as an equal by the European powers. They sought to
adopt Western political institutions, including an efficient
centralized government, an elected parliament, and a written
constitution. The "Ottomanism" they advocated also called for an
integrated dynastic state that would subordinate Islam to secular
interests and allow non-Muslim subjects to participate in
representative parliamentary institutions.
In 1876 the hapless sultan was deposed by a fetva (legal opinion)
obtained by Midhat Pasha, a reformist minister sympathetic to the
aims of the Young Ottomans. His successor, Abdül Hamid II (r.
1876-1909), came to the throne with the approval of Midhat and other
reformers. In December of that year, on the eve of the war with
Russia, the new sultan promulgated a constitution, based on European
models, that had been drafted by senior political, military, and
religious officials under Midhat's direction. Embodying the
substance of the Young Ottoman program, this document created a
representative parliament, guaranteed religious liberty, and
provided for enlarged freedom of expression. Abdül Hamid II's
acceptance of constitutionalism was a temporary tactical expedient
to gain the throne, however. Midhat was dismissed in February 1877
and was later murdered. The sultan called the empire's first
parliament but dissolved it within a year.
Unrest in Eastern Rumelia led the European powers to insist on the
union of that province with Bulgaria in 1885. Meanwhile, Greek and
Bulgarian partisans were carrying on a running battle with Ottoman
forces in Macedonia. In addition, the repression of revolutionary
activities in Armenia during 1894-96 cost about 300,000 lives and
aroused European public opinion against the Ottoman regime. Outside
support for a rebellion on Crete also caused the Porte to declare
war on Greece in 1897. Although the Ottoman army defeated the Greeks
decisively in Thrace, the European powers forced a compromise peace
that kept Crete under Ottoman suzerainty while installing the son of
the Greek king as its governor.
More isolated from Europe than it had been for half a century, the
Ottoman regime could count on support only from Germany, whose
friendship offered Abdül Hamid II a congenial alternative to British
and French intervention. In 1902 Germany was granted a
ninety-nine-year concession to build and operate a Berlin-to-Baghdad
rail connection. Germany continued to invest in the Ottoman economy,
and German officers held training and command posts in the Ottoman
army.
Opposition to the sultan's regime continued to assert itself among
Westernized intellectuals and liberal members of the ruling class.
Some continued to advocate "Ottomanism," whereas others argued for
pan-Turanism, the union of Turkic-speaking peoples inside and
outside the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish nationalist ideologist of
the period was the writer Ziya Gökalp, who defined Turkish
nationalism within the context of the Ottoman Empire. Gökalp went
much farther than his contemporaries, however, by calling for the
adoption of the vernacular in place of Ottoman Turkish. Gökalp's
advocacy of a national Turkish state in which folk culture and
Western values would play equally important revitalizing roles
foreshadowed events a quarter-century in the future.
i
The repressive policies of Abdül Hamid II fostered disaffection,
especially among those educated in Europe or in Westernized schools.
Young officers and students who conspired against the sultan's
regime coalesced into small groups, largely outside Istanbul. One
young officer, Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk), organized a
secret society among fellow officers in Damascus and, later, in
Thessaloniki (Salonika) in present-day Greece. Atatürk's group
merged with other nationalist reform organizations in 1907 to form
the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Also known as the Young
Turks, this group sought to restore the 1876 constitution and unify
the diverse elements of the empire into a homogeneous nation through
greater government centralization under a parliamentary regime.
In July 1908, army units in Macedonia revolted and demanded a return
to constitutional government. Appearing to yield, Abdül Hamid II
approved parliamentary elections in November in which the CUP won
all but one of the Turkish seats under a system that allowed
proportional representation of all millets . The Young Turk
government was weakened by splits between nationalist and liberal
reformers, however, and was threatened by traditionalist Muslims and
by demands from non-Turkish communities for greater autonomy. Abdül
Hamid II was forced to abdicate and was succeeded by his brother,
Mehmet V, in 1909. Foreign powers took advantage of the political
instability in Istanbul to seize portions of the empire. Austria
annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately after the 1908
revolution, and Bulgaria proclaimed its complete independence. Italy
declared war in 1911 and seized Libya. Having earlier formed a
secret alliance, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria invaded
Ottoman-held Macedonia and Thrace in October 1912. Ottoman forces
were defeated, and the empire lost all of its European holdings
except part of eastern Thrace.
The disasters befalling the empire led to internal political change.
The liberal government in power since July 1912 was overthrown in
January 1913 in a coup engineered by Enver Pasha, and the most
authoritarian elements of the Young Turk movement gained full
control. A second Balkan war broke out in June 1913, when the Balkan
allies began fighting among themselves over the division of the
spoils from the first war. Taking advantage of the situation,
Ottoman forces turned on Bulgaria, regaining Edirne and establishing
the western boundary of the empire at the Maritsa River.
After a brief period of constitutional rule, the leadership of the
CUP emerged as a military dictatorship with power concentrated in
the hands of a triumvirate consisting of Mehmet Talat Pasha, Ahmet
Cemal Pasha, and Enver, who, as minister of war, was its
acknowledged leader in the war.
i
As the two European alliance systems drew closer to war in 1914,
Enver's pronounced pro-German sympathies, shared by many in the
military and bureaucracy, prevailed over the pragmatic neutrality
proposed by Talat and Cemal. Germany had been pro-Ottoman during the
Balkan wars, but the Porte had no outstanding differences with
either Britain or France in the summer of 1914. In guiding his
government toward alignment with Germany, Enver was able to play on
fear of the traditional Ottoman enemy, Russia, the ally of Britain
and France in the war.
On August 2, 1914, Enver concluded a secret treaty of alliance with
Germany. General mobilization was ordered the next day, and in the
following weeks concessions granted to foreign powers under the
capitulations were canceled. It remained for Germany, however, to
provide the casus belli. Two German military vessels--the battleship
Göben and the heavy cruiser Breslau --that had been caught in a
neutral Ottoman port when war broke out in Europe were turned over
to the Ottoman navy. In October they put to sea with German officers
and crews and shelled Odessa and other Russian ports while flying
the Ottoman flag. Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on
November 5, followed the next day by Britain and France. Within six
months, the Ottoman army of about 800,000 men was engaged in a
four-front war that became part of the greater conflict of World War
I.
Enver launched an ill-prepared offensive in the winter of 1914-15
against the Russians in the Caucasus, vainly hoping that an
impressive demonstration of Ottoman strength there would incite an
insurrection among the tsar's Turkish-speaking subjects. Instead, a
Russian counteroffensive inflicted staggering losses on Ottoman
forces, driving them back to Lake Van. During the campaign in
eastern Anatolia, assistance was given to the Russians by Armenians,
who saw them as liberators rather than invaders. Armenian units were
also part of the Russian army. Enver claimed that an Armenian
conspiracy existed and that a generalized revolt by the Armenians
was imminent. During the winter months of 1915, as the shattered
Ottoman army retreated toward Lake Van, a massive deportation of
many Armenians was undertaken in the war zone to other Ottoman
Provinces such as Lebanon, Syria, etc. It shortly degenerated into a
mutual massacre among the local peoples. The most conservative
estimates put the number of dead at 350,000, but other sources cite
other figures.The situation of those Armenians who survived the
march out of Anatolia was scarcely improved under the military
government in Syria. Others managed to escape behind Russian lines.
The episode occasioned a revulsion in Western Europe that had its
effect in the harsh terms meted out by the Allies in the postwar
settlement.
In the spring of 1915, the Allies undertook naval and land
operations in the Dardanelles that were intended to knock the
Ottoman Empire out of the war with one blow and to open the straits
for the passage of supplies to Russia. Amphibious landings were
carried out at Gallipoli, but British forces, vigorously opposed by
forces commanded by Atatürk, were unable to expand their beachheads.
The last units of the expeditionary force were evacuated by February
1916.
In Mesopotamia the Ottoman army defeated a British expeditionary
force that had marched on Baghdad from a base established at Basra
in 1915. The British mounted a new offensive in 1917, taking Baghdad
and driving Ottoman forces out of Mesopotamia. In eastern Anatolia,
Russian armies won a series of battles that carried their control
west to Erzincan by July 1916, although Atatürk, who was then given
command of the eastern front, led a counteroffensive that checked
the Russian advance. Russia left the war after the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917. The new Russian government concluded the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers in March 1918, under which
the Ottoman Empire regained its eastern provinces.
Sharif Husayn ibn Ali, the sultan's regent in Mecca and the Hijaz
region of western Arabia, launched the Arab Revolt in 1916. The
British provided advisers, of whom T.E. Lawrence was to become the
best known, as well as supplies. In October 1917, British forces in
Egypt opened an offensive into Palestine; they took Jerusalem by
December. After hard fighting, British and Arab forces entered
Damascus in October 1918. Late in the campaign, Atatürk succeeded to
command of Turkish forces in Syria and withdrew many units intact
into Anatolia.
Ottoman resistance was exhausted. Early in October, the war
government resigned, and the Young Turk triumvirate--Enver, Talat,
and Cemal--fled to exile in Germany. Mehmet VI (r. 1918-22), who had
succeeded to the rule upon his brother's death in July, sued for
peace through a government headed by liberal ministers that signed
an armistice at Mudros on October 30, 1918, that had been dictated
by the Allies. Allied warships steamed through the Dardanelles and
anchored off Istanbul on November 12, the day after the end of the
war in Europe. In four years of war, the Ottoman Empire had
mobilized about 2.8 million men, of whom about 325,000 were killed
in battle. In addition, many civilians, including both Turks and
Armenians, are believed to have died of war-related causes. Talat
and Cemal, who were held responsible for the deportation of
Armenians and the mistreatment of refugees, were assassinated by
Armenian nationalists in 1921. The following year, Enver was killed
while fighting the Bolsheviks in Central Asia. i
Atatürk returned to Istanbul at the end of the war, his military
reputation untarnished by the defeat of the empire that he had
served. Revered by his troops as well as the Turkish masses, Atatürk
soon emerged as the standard-bearer of the Turkish nationalist
movement.
Born in Thessaloniki in 1881, Atatürk was the son of a minor
government official in a city where Turks outnumbered Greeks. His
ardent Turkish nationalism dated from his early days as a cadet in
the military school at Monastir (in the present-day Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia) during a time of constant conflict between
Ottoman troops and Macedonian guerrillas, who attacked the Turkish
population in the region. Following graduation from the military
academy in Istanbul, Atatürk held various staff positions and served
in garrisons at Damascus and Thessaloniki, where he became involved
in nationalist activities. He took part in the coup that forced
Abdül Hamid II's abdication in 1909. Atatürk organized irregular
forces in Libya during the war with Italy in 1911 and subsequently
held field commands in the two Balkan wars (1912-13). Assigned to a
post in the Ministry of War after the armistice, Atatürk quickly
recognized the extent of Allied intentions toward the Ottoman
Empire. i
Allied troops--British, French, and Italian, as well as a contingent
of Greeks--occupied Istanbul and were permitted under the conditions
of the armistice to intervene in areas where they considered their
interests to be imperiled. During the war, the Allies had negotiated
a series of agreements that outlined not only the definitive
dismantling of the Ottoman Empire but also the partitioning among
them of what Turkish nationalists had come to regard as the Turkish
homeland. According to these agreements, Russia was at last to be
rewarded with possession of Istanbul and the straits, as well as
eastern Anatolia as far south as Bitlis below Lake Van. France and
Italy were conceded portions of Anatolia, and Britain had promised
Izmir to Greece--although it had also been promised to Italy--to
encourage Greek entry into the war in 1917.
The Bolshevik government had renounced tsarist claims when it made
its separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, but Britain, France, Italy, and
Greece all pressed their respective claims at the Paris peace talks
in 1919. All agreed with the provisions of President Woodrow
Wilson's Fourteen Points calling for an independent Armenia and an
autonomous Kurdistan. How the Allies would implement the clause
providing that the Turkish-speaking nation "should be assured of a
secure sovereignty" was not clear.
The terms of a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire were presented
by the Allies in April 1920 at San Remo, Italy, and were embodied in
the Treaty of Sèvres, which was concluded the following August. The
treaty was shaped by the wartime agreements made by the Allies. In
addition, France received a mandate over Lebanon and Syria
(including what is now Hatay Province in Turkey), and Britain's
mandate covered Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. Eastern Thrace up to a
line from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara as well as Izmir and
its hinterland were to be occupied by Greece, with the final
disposition of the territory to be decided in a plebiscite. The
Treaty of Sèvres was never enforced as such, as events in Turkey
soon rendered it irrelevant.
i
The sultan was kept in the custody of the Allies to ensure the
cooperation of an Ottoman administration, which had effective
jurisdiction only in Istanbul and part of northern Anatolia, while
they disposed of the rest of his empire. At the same time, a Turkish
nationalist movement was organized under Atatürk's leadership to
resist the dismemberment of Turkish-speaking areas. Atatürk had been
sent to eastern Anatolia as inspector general, ostensibly to
supervise the demobilization of Ottoman forces and the disposition
of supplies, but more particularly to remove him from the capital
after he had expressed opposition to the Allied occupation there.
Upon his arrival at Samsun in May 1919, Atatürk proceeded to rally
support for the nationalist cause and to recruit a nationalist army.
Guerrilla warfare against the government gradually grew to
full-fledged campaigns against the Greek army that threatened to
involve the other Allied occupation forces.
In July 1919, a nationalist congress met at Erzurum with Atatürk
presiding to endorse a protocol calling for an independent Turkish
state. In September the congress reconvened at Sivas. Although the
delegates voiced their loyalty to the sultan-caliph, they also
pledged to maintain the integrity of the Turkish nation. The
congress adopted the National Pact, which defined objectives of the
nationalist movement that were not open to compromise. Among its
provisions were the renunciation of claims to the Arab provinces,
the principle of the absolute integrity of all remaining Ottoman
territory inhabited by a Turkish Muslim majority, a guarantee of
minority rights, the retention of Istanbul and the straits, and
rejection of any restriction on the political, judicial, and
financial rights of the nation.
Negotiations continued between the nationalist congress and the
Ottoman government, but to no avail. Atatürk resigned from the army
when relieved of his duties. The naming of a chief minister in
Istanbul considered sympathetic to the nationalist cause brought a
brief improvement in relations, however, and the Ottoman parliament,
which met in January 1920, approved the National Pact. In reaction
to these developments, Allied occupation forces seized public
buildings and reinforced their positions in the capital, arrested
and deported numerous nationalist leaders, and had parliament
dismissed.
Allied actions brought a quick response from the nationalists. In
April they convened the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, in
defiance of the Ottoman regime, and elected Atatürk its president.
The Law of Fundamental Organization (also known as the Organic Law)
was adopted in January 1921. With this legislation, the nationalists
proclaimed that sovereignty belonged to the nation and was exercised
on its behalf by the Grand National Assembly.
i
During the summer and fall of 1919, with authorization from the
Supreme Allied War Council, the Greeks and English occupied Edirne,
Bursa, and Izmir. A landing was effected at the latter port under
the protection of an Allied flotilla that included United States
warships. The Greeks soon moved as far as Usak, 175 kilometers
inland from Izmir. Military action between Turks and Greeks in
Anatolia in 1920 was inconclusive, but the nationalist cause was
strengthened the next year by a series of important victories. In
January and again in April, Ismet Pasha defeated the Greek army at
Inönü, blocking its advance into the interior of Anatolia. In July,
in the face of a third offensive, the Turkish forces fell back in
good order to the Sakarya River, eighty kilometers from Ankara,
where Atatürk took personal command and decisively defeated the
Greeks in a twenty-day battle.
An improvement in Turkey's diplomatic situation accompanied its
military success. Impressed by the viability of the nationalist
forces, both France and Italy withdrew from Anatolia by October
1921. Treaties were signed that year with Soviet Russia, the first
European power to recognize the nationalists, establishing the
boundary between the two countries. As early as 1919, the Turkish
nationalists had cooperated with the Bolshevik government in
attacking the newly proclaimed Armenian republic. Armenian
resistance was broken by the summer of 1921, and the Kars region was
occupied by the Turks. In 1922 the nationalists recognized the
Soviet absorption of what remained of the Armenian state.
The final drive against the Greeks began in August 1922. In
September the Turks moved into Izmir, where thousands were killed
during the ensuing fighting and in the disorder that followed the
city's capture. Greek soldiers and refugees, who had crowded into
Izmir, were rescued by Allied ships.
The nationalist army then concentrated on driving remaining Greek
forces out of eastern Thrace, but the new campaign threatened to put
the Turks in direct confrontation with Allied contingents defending
access to the straits and holding Istanbul, where they were
protecting the Ottoman government. A crisis was averted when Atatürk
accepted a British-proposed truce that brought an end to the
fighting and also signaled that the Allies were unwilling to
intervene on behalf of the Greeks. In compliance with the Armistice
of Mundanya, concluded in October, Greek troops withdrew beyond the
Maritsa River, allowing the Turkish nationalists to occupy territory
up to that boundary. The agreement entailed acceptance of a
continued Allied presence in the straits and in Istanbul until a
comprehensive settlement could be reached.
At the end of October 1922, the Allies invited the nationalist and
Ottoman governments to a conference at Lausanne, Switzerland, but
Atatürk was determined that the nationalist government should be
Turkey's sole representative. In November 1922, the Grand National
Assembly separated the offices of sultan and caliph and abolished
the former. The assembly further stated that the Ottoman regime had
ceased to be the government of Turkey when the Allies seized the
capital in 1920, in effect abolishing the Ottoman Empire. Mehmet VI
went into exile on Malta, and his cousin, Abdülmecid, was named
caliph.
Turkey was the only power defeated in World War I to negotiate with
the Allies as an equal and to influence the provisions of the
resultant treaty. Ismet Pasha was the chief Turkish negotiator at
the Lausanne Conference, which opened in November 1922. The National
Pact of 1919 was the basis of the Turkish negotiating position, and
its provisions were incorporated in the Treaty of Lausanne,
concluded in July 1923. With this treaty, the Allies recognized the
present-day territory of Turkey and denied Turkey's claim to the
Mosul area in the east (in present-day Iraq) and Hatay, which
included the Mediterranean port of Alexandretta (Iskenderun). The
boundary with the newly created state of Iraq was settled by a
League of Nations initiative in 1926, and Iskenderun was ceded in
1939 by France during its rule as mandatory power for Syria.
Detailed provisions of the treaty regulated use of the straits.
General supervisory powers were given to a straits commission under
the League of Nations, and the straits area was to be demilitarized
after completion of the Allied withdrawal. Turkey was to hold the
presidency of the commission, which included the Soviet Union among
its members. The capitulations and foreign administration of the
Ottoman public debt, which infringed on the sovereignty of Turkey,
were abolished. Turkey, however, assumed 40 percent of the Ottoman
debt, the remainder being apportioned among other former Ottoman
territories. Turkey was also required to maintain low tariffs on
imports from signatory powers until 1929. The Treaty of Lausanne
reaffirmed the equality of Muslim and non-Muslim Turkish nationals.
Turkey and Greece arranged a mandatory exchange of their respective
ethnic Greek and Turkish minorities, with the exception of some
Greeks in Istanbul and Turks in western Thrace and the Dodecanese
Islands.
On October 29, 1923, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the
Republic of Turkey. Atatürk was named its president and Ankara its
capital, and the modern state of Turkey was born.
i
On assuming office, Atatürk initiated a series of radical reforms of
the country's political, social, and economic life that were aimed
at rapidly transforming Turkey into a modern state (see table A). A
secular legal code, modeled along European lines, was introduced
that completely altered laws affecting women, marriage, and family
relations.
Atatürk also urged his fellow citizens to look and act like
Europeans. Turks were encouraged to wear European-style clothing.
Surnames were adopted: Mustafa Kemal, for example, became Kemal
Atatürk, and Ismet Pasha took Inönü as his surname to commemorate
his victories there. Likewise, Atatürk insisted on cutting links
with the past that he considered anachronistic. Titles of honor were
abolished. The wearing of the fez, which had been introduced a
century earlier as a modernizing reform to replace the turban, was
outlawed because it had become for the nationalists a symbol of the
reactionary Ottoman regime.
The ideological foundation of Atatürk's reform program became known
as Kemalism. Its main points were enumerated in the "Six Arrows" of
Kemalism: republicanism, nationalism, populism, reformism, etatism
(statism), and secularism. These were regarded as "fundamental and
unchanging principles" guiding the republic, and were written into
its constitution. The principle of republicanism was contained in
the constitutional declaration that "sovereignty is vested in the
nation" and not in a single ruler. Displaying considerable
ingenuity, Atatürk set about reinventing the Turkish language and
recasting Turkish history in a nationalist mold. The president
himself went out into the park in Ankara on Sunday, the newly
established day of rest, to teach the Latin alphabet adapted to
Turkish as part of the language reform. Populism encompassed not
only the notion that all Turkish citizens were equal but that all of
them were Turks. What remained of the millet system that had
provided communal autonomy to other ethnic groups was abolished.
Reformism legitimized the radical means by which changes in Turkish
political and social life were implemented. Etatism emphasized the
central role reserved to the state in directing the nation's
economic activities. This concept was cited particularly to justify
state planning of Turkey's mixed economy and large-scale investment
in state-owned enterprises. An important aim of Atatürk's economic
policies was to prevent foreign interests from exercising undue
influence on the Turkish economy.
Of all the Kemalist reforms, the exclusion of Islam from an official
role in the life of the nation shocked Atatürk's contemporaries most
profoundly. The abolition of the caliphate ended any connection
between the state and religion. The Islamic religious orders were
suppressed, religious schools were closed, public education was
secularized, and the seriat was revoked. These changes required
readjustment of the entire social framework of the Turkish people.
Despite subsequent protests, Atatürk conceded nothing to the
traditionalists.
In 1924 the Grand National Assembly adopted a new constitution to
replace the 1876 document that had continued to serve as the legal
framework of the republican government. The 1924 constitution vested
sovereign power in the Grand National Assembly as representative of
the people, to whom it also guaranteed basic civil rights. Under the
new document, the assembly would be a unicameral body elected to a
four-year term by universal suffrage. Its legislative authority
would include responsibility for approving the budget, ratifying
treaties, and declaring war. The president of the republic would be
elected to a four-year term by the assembly, and he in turn would
appoint the prime minister, who was expected to enjoy the confidence
of the assembly (see table 3, Appendix A).
Throughout his presidency, repeatedly extended by the assembly,
Atatürk governed Turkey essentially by personal rule in a one-party
state. He founded the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk
Partisi--CHP) in 1923 to represent the nationalist movement in
elections and to serve as a vanguard party in support of the
Kemalist reform program. Atatürk's Six Arrows were an integral part
of the CHP's political platform. By controlling the CHP, Atatürk
also controlled the assembly and assured support there for the
government he had appointed. Atatürk regarded a stage of personal
authoritarian rule as necessary to secure his reforms before he
entrusted the government of the country to the democratic process.
i
Treaty of
Lausanne secured (July 24).
Republic of Turkey with capital at Ankara proclaimed
(October 29).
1924
Caliphate
abolished (March 3).
Traditional religious schools closed, seriat
abolished. Constitution adopted (April 20).
1925
Dervish
brotherhoods abolished.
Fez outlawed by the Hat Law (November 25). Veiling of women
discouraged; Western clothing for men and women encouraged.
Western (Gregorian) calendar adopted.
1926
New civil,
commercial, and penal codes based on European models
adopted. New civil code ended Islamic polygamy and divorce
by renunciation and introduced civil marriage. Millet
system ended.
1927
First
systematic census.
1928
New Turkish
alphabet (modified Latin form) adopted. State declared
secular (April 10); constitutional provision establishing
Islam as official religion deleted.
1933
Islamic call
to worship and public readings of the Kuran (Quran) required
to be in Turkish rather than Arabic.
1934
Women given
the vote and the right to hold office.
Law of Surnames adopted--Mustafa Kemal given the name Kemal
Atatürk (Father Turk) by the Grand National Assembly; Ismet
Pasha took surname of Inönü.
1935
Sunday
adopted as legal weekly holiday.
State role in managing economy written into the
constitution.
Atatürk's foreign policy, which had as its main object the
preservation of the independence and integrity of the new republic,
was careful, conservative, and successful. The president enunciated
the principle of "peace at home and peace abroad." This guideline,
whose observance was necessary to the task of internal nation
building, became the cornerstone of Turkey's foreign relations.
By the end of 1925, friendship treaties had been negotiated with
fifteen states. These included a twenty-year treaty of friendship
and neutrality signed that year with the Soviet Union that remained
in effect until unilaterally abrogated by the Soviet Union in 1945.
Turkey subsequently joined Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia in the
Balkan Pact to counter the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of
fascist Italy and the effect of a potential Bulgarian alignment with
Nazi Germany. Turkey also entered into a nonaggression treaty with
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran in 1937.
Atatürk attained his greatest diplomatic success in 1936, when
Turkey persuaded the signatory powers of the Treaty of Lausanne to
allow Turkish control and remilitarization of the straits as part of
the Montreux Convention. Under its terms, merchant vessels were to
continue to have freedom of navigation of the straits, but Turkey
took over the functions of the international commission for
registry, sanitary inspection, and the levying of tolls. Turkey was
permitted to refortify the straits area and, if at war or under
imminent threat of war, to close them to warships.
i
There is abundant archaeological evidence of a thriving neolithic
culture in Anatolia at least as early as the seventh millennium B.C.
What may have been the world's first urban settlement (dated ca.
6500 B.C.) has been uncovered at Çatalhüyük in the Konya Ovasi
(Konya Basin). Introduced early in the third millennium B.C.,
metallurgy made possible a flourishing "copper age" (ca. 2500-2000
B.C.) during which cultural patterns throughout the region were
remarkably uniform. The use of bronze weapons and implements was
widespread by 2000 B.C. Colonies of Assyrian merchants, who settled
in Anatolia during the copper age, provided metal for the military
empires of Mesopotamia, and their accounts and business
correspondence are the earliest written records found in Anatolia.
From about 1500 B.C., southern Anatolia, which had plentiful sources
of ore and numerous furnace sites, developed as a center of iron
production. Two of the area's most celebrated archaeological
excavations are the sites at Troy and Hattusas (Bogazköy)
The cape projecting into the Aegean between the Dardanelles and
the Gulf of Edremit was known in antiquity as Troas. There, a
thirty-meter-high mound called Hisarlik was identified as the site
of ancient Troy in diggings begun by German archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann in the 1870s. The first five levels of the nine
discovered at Hisarlik contained remains of cities from the third
millennium B.C. that controlled access to the shortest crossing of
the Dardanelles and that probably derived their prosperity from
tolls. Artifacts give evidence of 1,000 years of cultural continuity
in the cities built on these levels. A sharp break with the past
occurred on the sixth level, settled about 1900 B.C. by newcomers
believed to have been related to the early Greeks. Built after an
earthquake devastated the previous city about 1300 B.C., the seventh
level was clearly the victim of sacking and burning about 1150 B.C.,
and it is recognized as having been the Troy of Homer's Iliad .
Hisarlik subsequently was the site of a Greek city, Ilion, and a
Roman one, Ilium.
1900-1300 BC Hittite Empire with Hattusas as capital, contemporary
with ancient Egypt and Babylon
1250 BC The Trojan war and the fall of Troy
1200-700 BC Migration of Greeks to Aegean coastal regions.
Establishment of the Phrygian, Ionian, Lycian, Lydian, Carian and
Pamphylian Kingdoms. The East of Turkey is the home of the Urartians
700 BC Homer is born in Izmir (Smyrna). Aegean Hellenism begins
546 BC Cyrus the Great leads the Persians into Anatolia
334 BC Alexander the Great drives out the Persians
130 BC The Romans incorporate Anatolia as the province of Asia,
controlled from Ephesus (Efes)
40 BC Antioch sees the marriage of Antony and Cleopatra
47-57 AD St. Paul spreads Christianity and a community at Antioch is
established
313 Roman Empire adopts Christianity
330 Constantine lays out the boundaries of his new capital,
Constantinople
527-65 Glory of Byzantium under Justinian
638-718 Muslim Arabs besiege Constantinople
1054 Greek and Roman Churches split over theology
1071-1243 Rise and rule of the Selcuk Turks in Anatolia, Konya is
their capital
1096-1204 The Crusades, marking the beginning of the end for
Byzantium, a fascinating period in Byzantine history
1288 Ottoman Empire appears in Bursa
1453 The fall of Constantinople - the birth of Istanbul
1520-66 Suleyman the Magnificent sits on the Ottoman throne
controlling a huge and powerful empire
1682-1725 Peter the Great initiates Russo-Turkish rivalry
1854 Crimean war
1909 Abdul Hamid, the last of an unbroken line of Ottoman sultans is
deposed
1914 Turkey allies with Germany in the first world war
1915 Gallipoli
1919 Ataturk leads resistance to the allied plan to carve up Turkey
1923 Foundation of the modern Republic of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk. Many things happen all at once
1938 Ataturk dies in Istanbul's Dolmabahce palace
1939-45 Turkey manages to remain neutral during the second world war
