William Tyler
The Ottoman Empire
William Tyler - The Ottoman Empire
- I’m talking about the Ottoman Empire today. This is part one. Part two and part three come at a later date in May and in June. What I want to say now is this is the first talk on the Ottoman Empire, which is complete in itself. I’m then missing for two weeks as lockdown is doing a special two weeks about South Africa. I return on the 20th of May, but on the 20th of May, I am not looking at the Ottoman Empire specifically. I’m looking at the enlightenment of the 18th century and comparing the Christian and Muslim enlightenment. Many people think there was not a Muslim enlightenment, and we shall talk about that. Today, I will talk about a Muslim renaissance parallel to the European Renaissance at a later point in the talk. So forget all that. You don’t need to know that. So imagine for a moment that I’ve invited you, just the two of us, and we’re going to a cinema, a rather plush cinema. We’ve taken our seats. It’s very comfortable. I’ve got an ice cream because I always eat ice creams in cinemas. And we’re looking at the curtain of the cinema. We’re waiting for the curtain to draw back and the film to begin. And the film we’re going to see is a film about the Ottoman Empire and the curtains open, and there’s a voiceover, one of those dramatic Hollywood voiceovers. And it says something from the plains of Asia a people migrated westwards, escaping powerful enemies, population pressures and hoping for a better life. This migration took place over centuries of time. They settled far to the west in Anatolia, modern day Turkey.
They were indeed Turkish tribes that moved. One such group called the Ottomans, settled south of the city of Byzantium or Constantinople, traditionally around the year 1299. From that small beginning, a empire, one of the largest the world has ever seen, was to emerge and was to last 700 years. Thunder and lightning and music of a heavy nature. And then, suddenly, an arrow shoots across the screen aimed at a city wall. And the story of the Ottomans, in my imagination, as an epic Hollywood film begins. I have to say, incidentally, if there happens to be an American Hollywood producer here this evening, you might like to take up the idea. My financial advisor will be in touch. I did it in that silly way to emphasise that this is a huge moment in world history, a major moment that the Ottoman Empire, which is to last until the end of the first World War, comes into being from small beginnings, from migration. Now, migration is a big issue today. Islamic migration is a particularly big issue today. And these Turks were very early converted to Islam. So not only are they a tribal people that become an imperial people, but they are also Muslim, and as Muslims, they’re Sunni Muslims, by the way, they have a commitment, a commitment to turn the world Islamic. And, as such, the furthest west they got, twice at least, was Vienna in 1529 and as late as 1683, just over 300 years ago. My goodness, they came a long way. Had they taken Vienna, we might all in Western Europe be in one large Muslim empire.
There is a relatively new book, I think this is the latest book on the Ottomans, which is on my blog by Mark David Baer. I think that’s how you pronounce his name, B-A-E-R. And in this book at the very beginning, he describes their empire in these terms. It’s an extremely good book for those who want a one-volume introduction. “Like its language, the Ottoman Empire "from roughly speaking 1300 to 1922 "was not simply Turkish, "nor was it made up only of Muslims. "It was not a Turkish empire like the Roman Empire. "It was multi-ethnic, multilingual, multiracial, "multi-religious empire that stretched "across Europe, Africa and Asia. "It incorporated part of the territory that the Romans had ruled. "As early as the middle of the 14th century "and as late as the beginning of the first World War, "the Ottoman dynasty controlled parts of southeastern Europe "and, at its height, governed almost a quarter "of Europe’s land area.” In other words, all of the south and east of Europe was dominated by the Ottomans. Only western Europe to the west of Vienna and to the north in Scandinavia, and if you like, Russia as well, was outside of the control of the Ottoman Empire. “From 1402 to 1453 the Byzantine city, Adrianople, "today, Edirne in Turkey, "located on the southeastern European territory of Thrace.” Constantinople on one side of the Bosporus, Thrace on the other. And Thrace today is still Ottoman. Hence, as I said last week, why Turkey can be in the, it can apply to be a member of the European Union and it’s able to enter the European song contest because it has a European base. And Thrace remains Turkish today. And Adrianople, as the Turkish city of Edirne, still exists.
If anyone has been there, and I haven’t, I would be very grateful afterwards if you would say what sort of archaeological evidence there is at Adrianople. “Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.” Capital Byzantium, which we saw and talked about last time. “Remembered, of course, as the Byzantine Empire "served as the Ottoman capital once they had captured it "in 1453 for nearly five centuries. "It was not given the name Istanbul until 1930.” That is after the Ottoman Empire had finally collapsed in 1922. And modern day Turkey, that is to say, secular Turkey, gave the name of Istanbul to Constantinople, but it had been Constantinople through the years of the Greek Byzantine Empire and through the years of the Ottoman Empire. “For nearly 500 years, more than that, "the Ottoman Empire had straddled East "and West Asia and Europe.” Yes, but it did more than that. It also covered the Middle East and it covered the whole of North Africa, with the exception of what is today the modern country of Morocco. And although the Arabs had earlier conquered Morocco and crossed into Europe by Gibraltar, which we had talked about, I think, in our first or second talk, here, the Ottomans were stopped short of Morocco at the Atlas Mountains, if you wish. This is an extraordinary moment in history, is this long lived empire, this long lived empire of the Ottomans. It began as a small emirate, E-M-I-R-A-T-E, just south of Constantinople. And from there, the march towards empire started, and by the beginning of the 14th century, they had incorporated much of Anatolia within their rule. By the middle of the 14th century, they bypassed Constantinople.
It was thought too and was indeed too difficult a target to lay siege to and take. It had three walls, not one wall. It was guarded on one side by water. And well, actually, the wider Constantinople was guarded by two sides of water. But one important part of water, which prevented anyone getting into it because they put a big chain across the stock boats getting into the Constantinople’s harbour. It was thought to be impregnable, but rather like Singapore in World War II and the British, it proved in the end not to be impregnable. And that year was 1453. And some of you may remember the date from last week, 29th of May, 1453, when the world changed. So they bypassed Constantinople by the middle of the 14th century and they went into Europe. They took, first of all, the Gallipoli Peninsula, which we all know from World War I. And then they secondly took Thrace, which we’ve already talked about, and they moved their capital, as already said, only to Constantinople, obviously, once they captured it in 1453. By the mid 14th century, the Ottoman lands already spread from Asia into Europe. It was a Euro-Asian empire. The world had seen nothing like that since the Romans. The latter part of the 14th century saw the expansion of the Ottoman Empire within Eastern Europe.
They took Albania, and which many of you know, if not all of you know, remains Islamic to this day. They took Bulgaria. They took Kosovo, which also remains Islamic to this day. And they took Serbia. Their military successes seemed unstoppable and climaxed in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople, and thus the end of the Byzantine Empire. They were masters of east and west of the Bosporus. They were powerful, very powerful. In an older book on the Ottomans, a classic by Andrew Wheatcroft, simply called “Ottomans”, again on my blog on my book list, Wheatcroft writes in this way. “In 1453, Constantinople was perceived "by a man more determined than any of his ancestors "to accomplish the long-awaited conquest. "Mehmed II was in his 22nd year, "of middle height, but strongly built. "His face was dominated by a pair "of piercing eyes under arched eyebrows "and a thin aquiline nose that curved "over a mouth with full lips. "In later life, his features reminded men.” I love this. Reminded, and this is a quote from the time. “Reminded men of a parrot about to eat ripe cherries.” This man was desperate to take Constantinople. He’s a young man. Young man seek glory, and he wanted military glory and military glory could not come higher than the taking of Constantinople. But he also wanted political glory. He wanted to be emperor of emperors.
By the end of the summer, 1452, the Muslim army had closed the straits to ship. They thus cut off Constantinople from its ability to trade, and from the possibility of any further military support from Western Europe. And again, I pick up Wheatcraft who adds this. “A few inspired commanders ran the risk "of the Muslim blockade, "but finally a Venetian ship was sunk by cannon fire "and her crew were captured. "The seamen suffered the same harsh fate "as Byzantine envoys who had tried to deal "with Mehmed earlier. "They simply were murdered and their bodies sent back, "but worse was reserved for the captain "of the Venetian ship who was impaled. "This terrible death was intended as a message to the city. "And to the Doge of Venice far away to the West, "Mehmed had signalled that it will be a war without mercy.” And thus is born this picture of this horrendous Turk, the stereotype of the Turk as merciless as Mehmed was with the fall of Constantinople. The Ottomans had two advantages in terms of military progress. What is interesting is, focus in on this for a moment, they had military advantages over the West. We think of as, somebody who asked me a question earlier before we started, as the Ottoman Empire as the sick man of Europe, which indeed it was by the 19th century. It had fallen behind Europe, but, at this point, it was in advance of Europe. This is the position I would argue faced by NATO. In the face of Chinese and Russian military developments, you cannot allow yourself to be left behind by modern technology.
What did they have? Well, first of all, they had infantry units called the janissaries. And the janissaries were elite troops. These were like the British SS and so on, or like American Navy Seals or whatever you like to compare them with. These were really elitist troops. They were formed from young Christian boys who were taken from European cities and towns and villages. When the Turks conquered their areas, they were taken in the hope that by taking them into Constantinople, it will keep their parents back in Europe towing the line. When these boys arrived, they were trained to be absolutist, elitist soldiers, but they were also converted to Islam. Now, not today, but at a later date, I will talk about what happened to non-Muslims within the Ottoman Empire, in particular Jews and Christians. There are various phases of how the Ottomans dealt, sometimes with open arms because they needed what Jews and Christians brought to the empire, not least in terms of trade and banking, but at other times they pursued a very strict Islamic policy against those who were not Muslim. It’s like everything else that we know about religions, not just Islam, but Christianity as well. But, sometimes, it’s tolerant and, at other times, it’s intolerant. You merely have to think about the antisemitism in Christian Europe. At times, it’s tolerant and, at other times, intolerant.
The sadness of the 21st century is that Islam is decidedly intolerant and their intolerance towards Jews has spread to Western Europe and to America. And that, of course, is something that many of us never thought to see in our lifetimes and is a reminder, I think I mentioned before, the dark forces that are at work in the world. However much changes, human beings are flawed and you don’t need to have a religious belief, Jewish or Christian to realise that people are flawed and we don’t always seek the good for ourselves or others. Let’s leave that aside. So, finally, the final assault on Constantinople begins on the 5th of April, 1453. Now, there are these advantages that they have in the janissaries, but they have one big further advantage, and that is artillery. Gunpowder and its use had come from China. And in terms of Western Europe, it’s at a, well, at a very, very low level by 1450s, a very low level. It isn’t when we come to the Ottoman Empire, and I wanted to just read you this, which makes this quite clear. “Cannon were a relative novelty feature in Europe, "but Mehmed II the second was quick "to appreciate their potential. "With artillery, the balance of advantage would swing "from the defenders of a ward city to the attackers. "He had employed a Hungarian called Urban, "who had found no employment in Christendom, "to cast cannon in a factory at Adrianople. "He created a prodigious weapon bigger than anything "to be seen in the West. "With a barrel over 25-foot long, "it fired a quarter-ton stone cannonball "for over a mile to impact with terrifying force "on the walls of a city.”
See, in the Middle Ages, you seldom took a castle or a city by siege unless somebody betrayed the people inside it or you starved them into surrender. But this is a new weapon. You could sit a mile away and bombard the walls and they crumble. And even Constantinople with three, with three walls round and round the city, those of you’ve been to Constantinople, Istanbul, will have seen that, I’m sure, there’s a further problem that the defenders had, no real help came from Europe. There was a small Genoese contingent, but, in truth, it was up to the Byzantines themselves to defend their city. And there were only 7,000 armed men to do that. 7,000, and they had to defend walls which were 14 miles long, towers and walls. They tried to make up for this lack of troops by having it’s sort of Boy Scouts, Baden Powell stuff. They had them march round to different places. They had trumpets sounded where there weren’t people. They had flags moved where there weren’t anybody there to give the impression that there were far more people defending Constantinople than there were. But, in truth, Constantinople was not able to face the ferocity of the janissaries, the effectiveness of the cannon and to man the walls. And once the cannon had breached the walls and they have to maintain them with pieces of wood and so on, in a sort of do-it-yourself way in the middle of a battle, it’s really over.
And, of course, we know what happened. Inevitably, on the 29th of May, 1453, Constantinople falls. And Wheatcroft writes this about the final moments of Constantinople. He says, “The Turks are in slashing away at people. "Some of the people, vainly sought a final refuge "in the church of St. Sophia, "shutting the heavy bronze doors behind them "and celebrating one last liturgy to implore God’s grace. "The Turks battered down the doors "and enslaved those at prayer. "The very young and the very old were killed on the spot. "They had no value in slave markets. "Men were roped together and many of the younger women "were knotted in groups of two or three by their long hair "or by their girdles. "Byzantine eyewitnesses told how young girls "and boys were raped on the altar tables "and the great church echoed with their screams. "Only those few who managed to slip away "to the ships in the Golden Hall "escaped the universal catastrophe.” But those who slipped away brought the message to Western Europe, a message that was of enormous importance. Please don’t take this wrong if you’re American, but it was worse than 9/11. It was worse than Pearl Harbour, the effect that it had. “When it reached Greece, "a priest said nothing worse than this has happened, "nor will it ever happen. "In Georgia, a monk said, "On the last day when the Turks took Constantinople, "the sun was darkened.” And eventually the message came bit by bit across Western Europe, reaching even Scotland and Scandinavia. And how did people know about it? Because priests began the services by referring to it.
I don’t know how much ordinary people sat in a parish church in England would’ve understood when the priest said Constantinople had fallen. Would they have understood what that implied? That we in the West might one day fall to Islam? This is the issue, of course, today with Israel in the West. Why don’t people understand that if Israel is not supported 110% by the West, we will be next. Because Islam has never deviated from the view held by Mehmed, indeed, by Muhammad, that the world must be turned Islamic. Yes, they were stopped at the gates of Vienna at the end of the 17th century. But if you were to ask Hamas or other terrorist Islamist groups today, they would say, well, that’s a setback only. We have to realise how catastrophic the fall of Constantinople was in 1453. And God forbid if Israel were to fall, it’s not a problem far away. It’s a problem on our doorsteps. And the priests in 1453 realised that, or at least the politicians realised it and got the priests to pass the message on. So then it’s over by the beginning of June, 1453. The Roman Empire in the East has finally fallen. The Byzantine Empire is gone and is replaced by the Ottoman Empire. The world shook on its axis and the Pope appealed to the western nations to form a crusade to recover Constantinople. And people said, yeah, it’s a long way away. It’s too expensive. We got problems of our own. We can’t get involved, all the arguments that we hear today in the West in regards to Ukraine and, in particular, in this respect in regards to Israel.
There is a comment to underline what I’ve been saying, it’s not a comment by Wheatcroft, it is him quoting. And I wanted to read this to you. “The reality was that Mehmed "intended to conquer the world for Islam. "For Mehmed, the capture of Constantinople "was the beginning, not the end. "He is said to have said to an Italian, "he will go from the east to the west "as the Westerners had gone to the east.” Does that not resound today? We will go west because the Westerners have come east. It is not about European colonisation in the Middle East? “The empire, the world, said Mehmed, must be one, "one faith, one kingdom. "To make this unity, there is no place "more worthy than Constantinople.” He’s going to begin to build a world of Islam with its capital at Constantinople. Now, you see why Putin and the Russians feel so uptight by the fact that since 1453 Constantinople has been Islamic, whereas it is the centre and cradle of Orthodox Christianity, which, of course, Putin espouses and which Russia holds dear. So these old divisions in the world are divisions still. Well, help didn’t come, nobody supported the Pope. And Constantinople is lost. I want to mention two of the leaders. We’ve mentioned one, Mehmed II, and I portrayed him correctly as a soldier, a military man, and ferocious. But there was another side to this man as well, a cultural side. And Mark Bauer talks about this in this way. He says this, “Mehmed gathered Greek "and Italian scholars at his court. "Ordered the Greek patriarch to write "a treatise explaining Christianity.
"He made great effort to learn the wisdom "of the ancient Romans. "He had Ptolemy’s Geographia translated. "He filled his library with Greek and Latin works "and established the Ottoman tradition "of Sultanic portraiture when he brought "Bellini from Venice.” That’s exactly what renaissance princes like Henry VIII and young Henry VIII in England was doing. This is not an uncultured man, and it’s wrong to think of him as such. But many at the time in the West, said, oh no, no, look, he’s only interested in us because he wants to find out about us, so that he can more easily conquer us. And, of course, that is also true. Human beings are complex animals and Mehmed is complex. This is not Hitler. This is not Stalin. This is a man driven by his religious faith, but also cultured and prepared to learn from other cultures. He also brought expertise from the further east. And I read this, “Mehmed II’s attraction to the celebrated "eastern astronomer, Ali al-Qushji from Samarkand "became professor of astronomy "and keeper of the observatory in Constantinople. "The star tables had been compiled in Central Asia "and transformed Ottoman astronomy and made their way "to the Polish scholar, Nicholas Copernicus, "and the Danish scholar, an imperial court astronomer, "to the Habsburg emperor, Tycho Brahe. "These tables were later formulated by Kepler, "who died in 1630 at the court of the Holy Roman emperor "into the laws of planetary motion "revolutionising European astronomy "and contributing to the European scientific revolution.”
So this is ideas which come not from the fall of Constantinople and Greek and Latin texts, which I mentioned last time, but from the East via the Ottoman Empire to the west. It is seeing things in a different way. Seeing things as a whole rather than in bits. The Turk, the cruel Turk, as they were called. Yeah, but there was a different Turk, a cultured Turk. And the point that Baer wants to make in the end is that Mehmed II was as much a renaissance prince as Henry VIII of England. And it’s an interesting and challenging thought. And I wanted to read this because I think it’s extraordinarily good. Contrary to the inherited view, the Renaissance was not strictly a Christian European affair for it was undergirded by economic, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural interaction with Muslim majority societies. Even in those days, there is a connection between East and West. When we add the Ottomans, the Renaissance as is traditionally understood, we see it as the global phenomenon that it was and not Eurocentric as we were taught at school, or at least speaking for myself, as I was taught at school. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, "the Ottomans did not play "a negative role in the Renaissance "blocking cultural, diplomatic and economic exchange "across the Mediterranean. "Instead, the sultans were renaissance princes "employing the same artists to paint their portraits, "sharing the same history and heritage "and engaging in cross-confessional "military and political alliances. "Admired and envied, the Ottomans stimulated classic "European political thought, "including promulgation of an imagined division "between East and West that continues to this day.”
Fantastic. It’s challenging. Let us see our, quote, “enemies” in new lights. Let us see ourselves through their eyes. What was it that Mehmed said, “We will invade the west "as the Westerners invaded the east.” Now, it’s no good dealing with what we might call truth in big capital letters because one person’s truth is not another person’s truth. You have to deal with the reality of where other people are. And only at that point can we, as human beings in my view, move forward. It’s a challenge to us not to just believe in stereotypes, not to believe in stereotypes, to dig beneath the stereotype. But as America and Britain go to elections this year, we are divided between two political views in both countries. And we stereotype the party that we aren’t going to vote for. Whilst supporters of that party, stereotype the party we’re supporting. And stereotyping and division is not good. If you ask in Britain at any sort of servant who the greatest prime minister was, the answer is Churchill. But the wartime Churchill, who was not prime minister of a party government, but was prime minister of a genuine united government with all the parties participating. Now, the second sultan I want to mention is called in the West, Suleiman the Magnificent. Interesting how we called him that, but in the Ottoman Empire, he was called Suleiman the Lawgiver. He ruled from 1520 to 1566, so He ruled for 46 years. He was called the law giver because he codified and centralised the Ottoman legal system.
Now, maybe because I’m a lawyer, but there’ll be other lawyers listening, so to us, the importance of the codification of laws is an indication of the strength of a state, particularly if those laws are, well, in terms of the time in which they were created of relatively liberal laws. And that’s true of the Ottomans. This is not a lawless society. This is a society which has laws which stretches all the way from Algeria and Tunisia through the Middle East to what is now Turkey through Thrace and Greece and into the Balkans. One law, one country, but not what Mehmed said, one faith. Multi-faith. Multi-faith, and I will come back to the toleration of non-Muslims at a later date. Suleiman is no eastern barbarian. How dare we suggest that? He spoke eight languages. He wrote poetry in Persian because Persian poetry was thought to be the acme of poetry in the East. His hobbies were lute playing, well, actually composing music for the lute and he enjoyed philosophical debate. Wow. And just to give one example of how open a society the Ottomans were, in childhood, he became friends with a man called Ibrahim Pasha, who was a slave of the sultan. And when he became sultan himself, he made Ibrahim his most important advisor and the grand vizier. You could rise even from being a slave to the highest rank in Ottoman society. This is not a closed society.
This is a very open society, far more open than much of Western Europe. He tried to expand his empire. He tried to take Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 1529 and failed. But he did solidify the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He also looked at spreading the empire into Asia and into the Mediterranean, along the Mediterranean, southern Europe as well as North Africa. My wife and I, a few years ago, went on holiday to Hungary, not in this case to Budapest. We went to a very beautiful, small city, north of the Hungarian plain at a place called Eger, E-G-E-R. And there is a lovely castle in Eger. And if you go into the castle, you see an exhibition of how this city had been built and created by Muslims, the Ottomans of Eger. I was on one of these European jaunts for education in Slovakia, and I was sat on a terrace having coffee with my Slovakian friend, and he knew I was interested in, so he said, “William, you see that large hill over there?” “Yes”, I say. He said, “That’s as far as the Turks got.” In Western Europe, we have no real understanding of how serious the threat of Islam was to us. But you go to Hungary, you go to Slovakia, and it’s not just history. It’s something they will tell you about. It’s something that they, a place in museums. It’s something that they tell tourists. It’s a living thing for them. And they are under no illusions as we in Western Europe are. But Islam, well, that’s something in the Middle East. I mean, bother about that. Well, the Poles and the Slovaks and others, and Hungarians will tell you different stories.
The Ottoman Empire doubled in size during Suleiman’s reign. The Navy became the most successful navy in the Mediterranean. And by that, he captured virtually the whole of North Africa except Morocco. In the Mediterranean Sea itself, he captured Rhodes, the island of Rhodes in 1522. Was he a nice man? Well, I said before people are made up of many different things. He lived in a different age under different cultural norms. He had a number of his sons killed whilst he was alive for fear that they would try and take his throne. He was succeeded by a son called Selim, S-E-L-I-M, known as Selim the Sot, or Selim the Alcoholic. Don’t ask about Muslims and drink. He was known as Selim the Sot. If you’re a sultan, you can do what you like. And it is Simon Sebag Montefiore in his own wonderful way who tells a story. And he first says why Selim didn’t die and succeeded his father. “Selim”, he says, “was lean, slim and laconic "cultivating his own mystique, but he was capable of love. "His favourite slave girl was a Russian Polish blonde "named Roxelana who became his dominant wife. "He renamed her Blossom of the Sultan. "When he was away at war, "she wrote him passionate love letters "and he wrote her love poems, "but she was a wily politician who managed to win "their eldest son, Selim the Drunken, the crown.” She was manoeuvring for her son the whole time. And what of the son? Well, again, we have an interesting reference to the son, who turned from the West to the East. Remember, his father, Suleiman, had been turned back at Vienna. And again, this is Simon Sebag Montefiore and he says this.
“Selim set about adding to his dominions. "Hitherto, the focus for Ottoman expansion "had been Westward into Europe, particularly the Balkans.” Yeah. “Selim adopted a different policy. "Signing a peace treaty with the European powers, "he turned his attention East towards Persia, "where the Shi'ite empire posed direct ideological challenge "to the Sunni Ottoman sultan.” We’re back to the Sunni-Shia divide. “Upholders of the Sunni tradition of the sultans, "in addition, the Persians have been stirring up unrest "among Turkmen tribes in Eastern Anatolia. "In 1514, Selim moved decisively "against his Persian neighbours and defeated them. "Selim then prepared to take on the empire "of the Mamluks to the South "whose rule extended from Egypt through Palestine to Syria. "Selim destroyed successive Mamluk armies in 1516 and 1517. "In so doing, he brought Syria, "Palestine and Egypt under Ottoman sway. "Selim now proclaimed himself caliph, "and was declared guardian of the Islamic Holy cities "of Mecca and Medina.” Now, interestingly, technically, to be a caliph, that is the leader of all Islam, you had to be of the family of Muhammad. Now, Selim clearly wasn’t the family of Muhammad. He wasn’t even an Arab. But right the way through to the 20th century, the sultans also came to be caliphs. And it is the victory, if you like, of how the Turks dominated Islam at this time, all the way through to the early 20th century by the Ottoman Empire. So we leave the Ottoman Empire at Selim’s reign following his father Suleiman.
And we’ve seen how this empire has grown and grown, but between 1566 and 1683, a long century, if you like, 1566 to 1683 saw a gradual decline in Ottoman fortunes concluding with their defeat. Second time at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. Suleiman died in 1566, but the year before he died, that is to say 1565, the Turks had also come to a halt. If you’re allowed to talk about what the places at which Turkish power or Ottoman power stopped, then you can point to 1529 at the Gates of Vienna. You can point to 1683 at the Gates of Vienna. But you can also point to 1565 when they failed to take Malta from the Knights of St. John. That is a wonderful classic story, how the Knights of St. John managed to defend Malta. Interestingly, England wasn’t involved in that fight to save Malta because we were by then Protestant. But in a wonderfully English way, Queen Elizabeth I first sent a letter, which not in these words, but in effect said, jolly good, chaps, we wish you well, but you’re having no money or men from us, but good luck anyway. It’s a sort of wonderful moment in history. Britain, of course, is to take Malta as a colony during the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century, because of the importance of Malta in the British naval strategy and the great port of the letter for the Royal Navy. In 1570, in a war with Venice, the Ottomans invaded Venetian Cyprus.
And that is why today Cyprus is divided into two, Christian Greek Cyprus, a member of the European Union, and northern Turkish Cyprus with a green UN line through the middle of the island, an extraordinary thing to see. So the Ottomans took it and the Greeks were thrown out. Well, they weren’t thrown out. Their powers thrown out. The Greeks remained after the Turks had taken it in 1570, but that only lasted, I say only, 300 years. In 1878, at the Treaty of Berlin, Britain obtained Cyprus. Now, the Treaty of Berlin was meant to settle world politics with the war between Russia and Turkey. And the great powers came together. And the two great politicians were Bismarck of Germany and Disraeli of Britain. And Disraeli totally outflanked Bismarck at this treaty. Disraeli is something else, and he got Cyprus on lease from the Ottoman Empire. It’s a wonderful piece of euphemism. On lease, it was in all intents and purposes, a British colony. In 1914, when Turkey went to war with Germany against the allies, Britain simply declared that Cyprus was now a British colony, in 1914. But those are sort of side stories, although for us in Britain, Cyprus remains an interesting place because it is today divided between Greek and Turk. And it’s difficult to know how that one day will be reconciled. I’ve said they met an end at Vienna twice. They met an end, the Ottomans, with failing to take Malta, but they were also had their fleet destroyed at a naval battle off the coast of Greece near Corinth, the so-called Battle of Lepanto on the 7th of October, 1571.
Again, this is a battle in which the British, the English I should say, did not take part. The Christian fleet was led by Don John of Austria. And if you go in places within the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, you will see references to Lepanto. I went to a quite small museum in Croatia, and I went into this museum, just interested in general, and there was a huge flag, a Turkish flag, and underneath it said, captured at Lepanto. I also visited a place that was further north than Croatia and in Slovenia on the coast and there, there was in a square, was a large monument commemorating the victory at Lepanto. So as I was saying before, how Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians are aware of the Islamic advance, and we are not in the West. So amongst these coastal towns in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, they’re aware of the Islamic threat which was defeated, the Ottoman fleet is defeated and it’s out of the question now, until we reach World War I. It’s out of the question, after their defeat at the Battle of Lepanto. It’s one of the great battles. Sir Edward Creasy, in his book, “The 15 Decisive Battles of the World”, talks about Lepanto. And that’s why I first met it at about the age of 11 in Creasy’s book. It’s a really important battle, but I guess you all know that. And in the Osprey series, that wonderful series, wonderful pictures, Angus Konstam writes this in his book on the Battle of the Lepanto. He ends by saying this. “The Ottoman Turks lost the initiative "in the Mediterranean and would never recover it. "From that point on, "Ottoman history will be a tale of socioeconomic decline "and military and political stagnation.” And so, it is, but the final bit of what, I’m looking at the clock, and I think I’m all right, but the final bit of the story today is their final attempt of the Ottomans to seize Vienna in 1683.
In the summer of the previous year, 1682, Mehmed IV decided to attack Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. The objective was, oh, you know what the objective was, to turn Christian Europe into Muslim Europe. That objective had never and has never changed. Vienna was defended by the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor, a man called Leopold. But the real defenders were crack troops from the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth led by a very famous man, John Sobieski, who was king of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. He’s often called King of Poland, John Sobieski. The siege began in September of 1683. Mehmed IV’s army was defeated largely by Sobieski and his own Polish Lithuanian army. And this was not entirely welcomed by the Hapsburg Emperor. And as Simon Miller in his book on “Vienna 1683” writes in this way, “After the victory, followed a mass "in St. Stephens in Vienna, where the Viennese crowds "thronged around this hero, Sobieski. "However, by entering Vienna before the Emperor Leopold, "Sobieski had severely put the latter’s nose out of joint. "Leopold and his followers believed that the honour "should have been his before any other prince. "Sobieski, however, had many enemies in Poland "and with a flare for self-publicity, "he was not going to let a moment like this pass him by. "Besides had not his gallant Poles carried the brunt "of the Ottoman final attack "and arrived in their encampment first?
"As he wrote home to his queen "on the 13th of September, 1683, "he wrote the Grand Vizier’s ostrich is dead.” Wonderful letter to receive. You know, she’s, I hope my husband’s okay. I hope he hasn’t been wounded. And what does she read? “The Grand Vizier’s ostrich is dead. "His parakeet has flown away. "Here are treasures galore, "rich furnishings and captured standards.” And to the Pope in Rome, he wrote in a famous phrase, “We came, we saw, and God conquered.” A Christian God had defeated Islam. One little thing that did happen in the aftermath of victory, when they sacked the camp the Ottomans had put outside of Vienna, they brought coffee. They brought coffee into Vienna and so begins, so they say, the strong story of coffee in Europe. It’s not entirely true, of course, because we were already having coffee in Western Europe. But the story is a good one. And, indeed, Vienna and Austria as a whole has developed coffee and putting cream in coffee and all the rest of what we do. Coffee originated in the Yemen. We’ve got a Yemen, well, we’ve got a cafe near here where I live, which is a Yemeni cafe and they import their coffee direct from the Yemen.
And it’s the genuine stuff. And I have to say it is quite delicious. Well, I mustn’t do that, no, no, I must stop talking about food and drink, but if you get a chance of trying real Yemen coffee, do. It’s magnificent. And so, the Christian army followed that of the Ottomans as they retreated eastwards defeating them time and again and securing the Danube for Christians, well, Christendom, if you like. And again, I read from Simon Miller’s book from the Siege of Vienna. And he writes this, “The captain of the janissaries "and the Sultan’s messengers presented themselves "to the Army’s leader, the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, "who was requested to hand over his seals of office.” He then received what the Ottomans called the Executioner’s Chord, which was a piece of red cotton. And that meant he had the option or, indeed, the command to commit suicide. Isn’t that marvellous? I say I’ve got a letter, as sultan here, and I dropped a red piece of cotton. In this case, the messengers arrived with the cotton. And finally, Miller writes this, “The success of the Vienna campaign "focused Emperor Leopold’s attention on his eastern front "and what became known as the great Turkish war with success "and with setbacks too, until the Treaty of Karlowitz "was signed in 1699. "However, the struggle against the Ottomans "will continue into the 18th century, "but they would never threaten the Austrian capital again.” They are on now the retreat. You think about it as a tide, the tide is swept across and now the tide is going back and there is no return of that tide. It’s just weighted. As somebody said before we started, as Turkey or the Ottoman Empire becomes a sick man of Europe for it finally to collapse. But that is a story for another day. And I’m going to finish with looking at Wheatcroft, and just a couple of things to finish this.
“From 1683, the Ottoman’s failure was blamed "on their inability to accommodate Western technology. "Each defeat at the hands of Austrian or Russians "was held to be fresh evidence of their backwardness. "Foreign experts despaired at Ottoman complacency. "A French mission sent to Turkey to improve fortifications "reported Lefit Kavier had proposed to plant the rampart "with storm poles and palisades in European style. "But the Turkish engineer who replaced him "and who was merely the head gardener of the "had no idea at all of fortifications. "He found immense quantities of Palisade stakes in store "and he could think of nothing better to do with them "than set them up in the middle of the "instead of planting them point downwards "on the exterior face, "which would’ve made escalade almost impossible.” The West becomes contemptuous of the Ottomans and Wheatcross says, “Hang on, hang on just a minute.” “The contemptuous reference to the head gardener "reflects European misunderstanding "as to the distribution of power in the Ottoman lands. "He did care for the sultan’s gardens, "but he also commanded troops "and the police of Constantinople "and carried out capital sentences. "But the instant reveals the lack of curiosity "or interest among the Ottomans "in the affairs of foreigners as well.” There becomes a gap of understanding between the West and the East, between Christendom and Islam.
And I come back to a point that I’ve made time and again, it is important to understand one’s enemy, one’s opposites, and not just to stereotype them. The lazy Turk, the cruel Turk. Well, Britain is to find this denigration of the Turks to be completely wrong in the Gallipoli campaign of World War I. That we will also return to in due course before this course ends. But I’m afraid I’ve got to stop today and I will see you all in a fortnight when I shall be talking about, let me make sure I’ve got the title right, Christian and Muslim Enlightenment. So it isn’t about war, it’s about enlightenment. Did they have an enlightenment? We’ve seen it in the Renaissance. And I will return to some of that and I will return to the enlightenment of the 18th century as well. So thank you for listening today. I hope you have enjoyed it half as much as I’ve enjoyed preparing it. I find it a fascinating story. I hope you have. Thanks for listening and I bet I’ve got some questions and comments. Let me see if I can find them.
Q&A and Comments:
The Turks, well before that, they were pagan. They worshipped stones, idols, whatever.
No, the Turks come out of the Far East. Probably, we think, we don’t know for sure, probably Turkmenistan.
Yes, absolutely right, Tim. Constantinople was changed to Istanbul by Turkey in 1930. Although in the modern day, we tend to be confused by these terms, Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul. So as long as you know that they’re all the same, it’s okay, I think.
No, no, no, they didn’t have a relationship with India.
Q: I’m asked, what was that about turning the world to Islam?
A: Well, Tim, I said that throughout the course, one of the purposes of Islam, as stated by Muhammad, was to turn the whole world Islamic. Mehmed II did it as sultan. Suleiman had intended to do it. And I’m saying that that is exactly what groups like Hamas want to do today. It’s the Muslim brotherhood. Yehuda says the soft analogue of the Ottoman’s huge cannon followed by hard versions of former Pakistani and Iranian nuclear weapons. I’m not sure I understand the question.
Julian says, a Muslim brotherhood extremist, yes. Hamas is one of their branches. Yeah, the brotherhood tried to overthrow the Egyptian. Yes, true. I didn’t understand the earlier question. They all want the world turned Islamic. The interesting thing is that Iran remains Shia. During the reign of Louis the 14th, the ambassador, I think you mean of the port, that would be of Constantinople, came to Versailles to live and bring his papers. I’m not sure I understood what you were typing.
Lorraine, there is a very good series on the Ottoman Empire on YouTube called Magnificent Century.
Jean, your point is well taken. The organisation Students for Justice Palestine, which is driving campus protests in USA described North America’s occupied turtle land. Their website, Israel and the Jews are just the first step for them. They intend to turn North Africa into a Caliphate. Shi Devedi did an excellent interview on the podcast, Call Me Back, worth watching. Yeah, I mean, that’s the point I’m making. And we, in western Europe and in the States, are less aware than our friends and colleagues and compatriots in Eastern Europe. That was the point I’m making, let alone in Israel.
Edmond, oh, sorry, I think you’ve gone on. He found the way the French court was primitive in hygiene and not possible. He left and bought a hotel, particular in Paris, and all of Paris were desperate to be invited. That is the way coffee came to France and the cafe opened. The Ottomans were in great advance over Europe, as you’ve said. Yeah, yeah, hygiene is one of the things that was always better in the East than in the West. Largely, well, I’ll talk about that when we come to look at those issues. That’s absolutely true. And coffee did come to France, it came to Britain, but interestingly, it was Turks who brought it to Britain. And the first coffee house here opened in Oxford during the rule of Oliver Cromwell. It only really took off here really in the reign of Charles II. But we became big tea drinkers, partly because Charles II’s wife, Catherine de Braganza, the Portuguese at that time controlled the tea trade. And she has reported to have said on her arrival in Dover and offered a glass of beer, as the English would, she said, no, I’d prefer a nice cup of tea. But that’s obviously not a true story. But tea took off here. It then took off in a big way because we had access to the tea of Assam in India, and it failed to take off in America, Boston Tea Party aside, because after American independence, the East India Company did not operate, the English East India Company did not operate in America, and, therefore, America was where they could grow coffee and import coffee from South America and turned away largely from tea, which was controlled by Britain. Drink, is, I’m very interested in the history of tea and coffee. One day I’ll talk to you about it.
Q: Julian, I don’t really understand how a peaceful side to it and such a violent side to it. Why not?
A: That’s exactly the same as Christianity. You might say it’s the same of all religions. Of course, it can be two-sided. It would be nice to think that religions was all wonderful, cosy and lovely and all apple pie. But it isn’t, it isn’t. People kill in the name of religion. I believe Muslims older than 20 or 30 in the UK tended to be very peaceful and moderate. My theory is that there’s, unfortunately, additionally in Islam an element of a death cult inherited from ancient Egyptian culture. No, it’s not anything to do with ancient Egyptian culture. It’s Muhammad, it’s in the Koran. Read the Koran, it is absolutely clear that they believe in death for those who are not Muslims. It’s not, look, if you don’t convert to Islam, then the next best thing that they can do for you is to kill you. But that is no different than the attitude of Jesuits, for example, in the 16th century. Religion is not, human beings distort, well, I can say as a Christian, human beings, including Christian human beings, distort the message of Christ. I cannot say that about Islam because Muhammad did preach, read the Koran, did preach the use of force and death. That’s not what Christ preached, even though Christians have done such and not least to Jews throughout history. So I think I’ve made my point. You don’t have to agree.
Ah, Jerry says, hurrah in contrast, some rather anti-Islamic comments made by others here, this shows there is also a peaceful side to Islam. The truth about Islam referred by someone else here is more complex in his claim.
Jerry says, well said, William, about there being good and bad sides to all religion. Well, my talk is not really about religion. What I’m saying is that there has been always a view within Islam that the world should be turned Islamic. Now, you can say the same for Christianity. You can look at the British empire and say that one of the driving forces of the British Empire and the French Empire and so on, all the European empires was to bring civilization to the uncivilised. And to them in western Europe, in the 19th century, civilization meant Christianity. So if you look at it from an Islamic point of view, 19th-century European imperial powers were doing the same thing.
Q: Hilton, in 2017, the UAE warned the West about the risk of terrorism if the domestic extremism wasn’t properly addressed. I saw a video to this effect, however, I cannot find it again, where UAE explains in English its warning. Do you know where I can find it?
A: No, I don’t. I’ve not seen that.
Oh, and Rita, ever, Rita, you must spend your life on the internet. You know everything. She’s given the reference, bless you. My mother was born in Rhodes, and we married one of our daughters there.
Julia, of course, there was also the cabalistic view that Abraham was the embodiment of the quality of living kindness and mercy, but without and, structure it, structness or severity, if discipline, and so Ismail inherited this overabundance of mercy without any boundaries to balance against it. Yes, there’s all sorts of theological arguments around what I’ve been saying. I’ve been talking about a political consequence, not necessarily the theological. All religions, well, except Judaism, have sought, Christianity and Islam, have sought to turn the world towards their religion. And Christianity has to face up to that as well. During the golden age of Spain, Muslims were more tolerant of Jews provided they occupy the second class status. Yes, that’s absolutely true.
Q: Why is Islam today so intent on conquering the world and annihilating other faiths?
A: Because that particular part of Islam has been emphasised rather than the other part. And it’s been emphasised because it’s been created by an anti-colonial view against Western Europe and since ‘48 against Israel. That’s why nobody’s saying it’s right, but that’s why.
Allison, of course, the West supported Israel when Iran attacked, well, not the West as a whole, France, UK and USA, yes. And Jordan, yes, because Jordan has a major problem with Iran, not least the Shia-Sunni problem again.
Yes, you’re right, Edmund. The invention of the crescent is also said to have been an invention by Viennese bakers to celebrate the victory over the Crescent of Islam. This, no, yeah, my second lecture on the Ottomans. My lectures are these, the 20th of May, I’m talking about Christian-Muslim enlightenment. The 27th of May, I’m talking about the decline of the Ottomans up to World War I, and the 3rd of June, I’m talking about the outbreak of war, so all of them. So it’s 27th May, 3rd of June and 3rd of June that I will be talking again about the Ottoman Empire.
[Woman] William, I do apologise for interrupting, but we have to wrap up shortly.
Okay, I’ll stop. Yeah, okay, I’ll stop and just say to everyone, thanks so much for such interesting questions and, more importantly, interesting points that you’ve all made. I wish we were in a room and we could meet for a week and we could argue ourselves hoarse over all of these important issues. Thanks for joining me today. I hope to see many of you again in a fortnight’s time. Thanks very much.