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Page 2 of 2
500 years ago
The Ottomans finally close off all Christian trade routes east via the Red Sea.
Up to this time the Ottomans had no naval strength, their army and particularly their cavalry were more than sufficient. Fortuitously in 1529 a man called Barbarossa (Red Beard), a Mediterranean pirate based in North Africa approached the Ottomans and offered to join forces and act as the Ottoman navy. At much the same time, 1517, the Ottoman armies expanded east and south and occupied the east Mediterranean coast from Syria through to Egypt. This finally put the stop to any Christian European country using the Mediterranean and the short land crossing at Suez to trade in India and the spice islands. Hence the need by England together with Portugal, Spain, Holland and France, to find a new route to the east and the fortuitous discovery of the Americas. These Christian countries all had Atlantic coasts and their ships were designed for Atlantic winds. "Red Beard's" ships were still galleys (propelled largely by oars) and although much smaller and with less firepower than Christian ships, could easily out-manoeuvre them in the light Mediterranean winds.
Worse was to come. Also in 1529 the Ottomans attacked the centre of Europe, Vienna. Although unsuccessful it sent shock waves around the whole of continental Europe and French, Spanish and later Prussian army detachments were sent to Vienna to drive off the Ottomans. England was not involved which of course enabled the English buckaneering explorers to concentrate on developing the New World and India while their larger and more powerful neighbours the French and the Spanish (who were also ruling Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands) were otherwise engaged.
The Ottomans continued to mop up strategic islands in the Mediterranean, especially if they were in the hands of the Christians, now also very much another Ottoman Lake. In 1565 they attacked and lay siege to Malta, the last stronghold of the Knights of St John. The Christian Knights were prepared to defend against the Islamic Ottomans to the last man and indeed this was the case finally, and with only a few Knights remaining, they were rescued by a Spanish fleet from the then Spanish territory Sicily. A similar fate befell Christian Cyprus(1571) then a Venetian Island but this time nobody came to the aid of the Christians and the Island became part of the Ottoman Empire.
So the Ottoman Empire some 500 years ago was at its zenith ruling the whole of Turkey, the Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, modern day Lebanon, Syria, modern day Iraq, the religious towns of Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina, Egypt and most of the fertile Mediterranean coast of North Africa. The Ottomans also had naval control of the Mediterranean and the Black sea. They were therefore custodians of both the Islamic and Eastern Christian faiths. The latter caused much grief outside the Ottoman empire particularly in Eastern Orthodox Russia as they grew more powerful under Tsar Peter the Great and afterwards. By contrast, the Muslim Ottomans did not murder Christians who would not convert, rather they just had to pay more in taxes. Indeed under the ruling dynasty many of the leading officials both in civil life and the army were recruited from the Christian sectors.
One of the few Christian leaders who sent diplomats to Istanbul to open up trade was Protestant English Queen, Elisabeth 1st (1558-1603). She did this at the same time as she was supporting the likes of Sir Francis Drake in his trade voyages to America and elsewhere.
250 years ago
The English retake the Mediterranean sea
It was not until 1650 after the civil war in England that the English, then with a formidable navy, re-entered the Mediterranean and turned it from an Ottoman lake to an English lake. The English attacked, conquered and set up strategic bases in Tangiers (1662 under Charles 2nd ), Gibraltar(1704 under Queen Anne and at the time of the Duke of Marlborough conquests in France), together with Sardinia(1708) and Minorca (1708). Notwithstanding these fortresses, Napoleon invaded Egypt to open up the old trade routes to the east via the Red Sea. Indeed it was Napoleon who was the first from Christian Europe to enter and occupy any of the Islamic Ottoman territories for 500 years. When the English heard about this audacious invasion of what they thought was their private route to their eastern Empire, they were quick to react and sailed into the eastern Mediterranean, found the French fleet attacked and destroyed it. Napoleon was well inland away from his fleet at the time.
200 years ago
The English take over the diplomatic initiative from France
Napoleon was finally beaten by the English at the Battle of Waterloo (in Belgium) in 1815. This was a watershed for the English influence amongst the Ottomans as up to this point the French diplomats in Istanbul had always had their own agenda but after 1815 the English were seen by the Ottomans to be the best ally and the French very often came in to endorse the English ideas. About this time many parts of Europe were subjected to undercurrents for recreating or even creating (new) national boundaries. This applied to the Ottoman Empire as much as it did to the Austro-Hungarian, the Swedish or even the British. The Irish tried to leave the British Empire (not achieved for almost 100 years) and the Jews tried to set up a new state in Ottoman Palestine, (not achieved for almost 100 years). The Norwegians wanted independence from Sweden (achieved 1905). The countries of Italy(1870) and Germany(1871) were created from independent city states ruled or influenced from abroad. The English supported the Greeks who fought for 8 years for independence from the Ottoman Empire, achieved in 1830. At a similar time a naval alliance between England , France and Russia fought together to annihilate the Turkish fleet(1827)
150 years ago
The war in the Crimea. (1853-1856)
The Crimea is a peninsular jutting out into the Black Sea from southern Ukraine/Russia. At the height of their empire the Ottoman Turks occupied much of this area. At this time the land was in Russian hands which did not please the Ottomans. What was worse was the simmering wish by the Russians, who were effectively custodians of the Eastern/Greek Orthodox Christian Church, to "liberate" the Eastern Christian areas of Serbia and Moldova with a final goal of Istanbul/Constantinople itself. The English diplomats in Istanbul drafted many a letter on behalf of the Sultan in an attempt to avoid a war but to no avail. When the Russians sent an army into Serbia, Turkey declared war on Russia. The last thing the English wanted was a Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean which if Istanbul was taken, the Russians would achieve. So the English persuaded the now like minded French, to join forces against the Russians in a combined English /French/ Turkish offensive. The Crimean War. Many events from this war are still talked about in England mainly because of the huge losses (200,000) on both sides.
- The battle at Balaclava
- The charge of the Light Brigade
- The phrase "We are not to reason why, we are only here to die."
- Florence Nightingale. An heroic English nurse who also made a damming report on the appalling conditions in the Army hospitals
Very little territory changed hands and after three years of fighting both sides called a truce largely due to sickness. The Russians were kept out of the Mediterranean and Istanbul remained part of the Ottoman Empire.
This war was the catalyst to the "liberation" of the Balkan states from some 500 years of Ottoman rule. The English regrouped with France and Russia to form a persuasive unified front to peacefully force the Ottomans to give up, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro (1878). Previously in 1881 the Ottomans had been persuaded to give (back) Thessaly to Greece (Thessaly included the town of Thessalonica and the land east almost to Istanbul.) Bulgaria was the last Balkan state to break away from the Ottomans which they achieved with persuasive talk from the Russians.
100 years ago
Their final mistake. 1914-1918
For the last 50 years the Ottomans had being trying to bring their medieval culture up to modern Western European standards. New universities were built, science and engineering were studied, top students were sent to overseas Universities. All information had to be studied within their fundamental Islamic rules. This resulted in two disastrous movements by a dissatisfied educated elite and an admiration of the German military war machine. At the time of the First World War the English tried to persuade the Ottomans to stay neutral but the local military chiefs where convinced the Germans could not loose and joined the German side. The Germans lost, Turkey lost, and all their remaining territories were split between the English(Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Emirates) and the French (Lebanon, Syria, Iran). The final end of the Ottoman Empire.
PS
One of the contributing factors to the English achieving the greatest empire the world has ever seen was the actions of the Ottoman Turks
When Red Beard joined forces with the Ottomans about 500 years ago, any English, French or Spanish ship which tried to enter the Mediterranean Sea as the shortest route to the Spice Islands in the east were likely to be stopped by Red Beard. Hence the incentive for the English, Spanish, French and Dutch to sail west to get to the east in the hope that the world was round. The Americas which at that time were not on any map were discovered.
The Ottomans 500 years ago had a wish to conquer the whole of Europe. The invasion and conquest of Hungary(1526), attacks on Vienna(1529 and 1683/99) made the Europeans know they were serious. The Spanish and French, in support of the Habsburgs, were on the alert for about 200 years for major land actions against the Ottomans which created the opportunity for the English to concentrate on building their navy and developing their Empire.
Janissaries. An elite Christian army but part of the Ottoman military. From 1330 until 1826 the Ottoman sultans created and maintained an elite army corps, the Janissaries who were recruited mainly from Balkan/Greek Christian groups conquered by the Ottomans. Under initial Ottoman military training they became a formidable fighting force in medieval warfare. The main motivation for fighting was glory plus particularly the spoils of war. So in peaceful times their "salaries" would fall and they would try and persuade the Sultan to conquer more lands. When the Ottomans acquired a navy the Janissaries would sail with the fleet and spearhead the land operations as was the case in their attack on Malta against the Knights of St John. In the early 19th century the Sultans, who were looking at western military techniques saw the Janissaries had outdated modes of warfare and were also becoming too powerful. Sultan Mahmud 2nd therefore killed the entire corps in a surprise "dawn raid".(1826).
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