Ottoman Empire

Examples of Ottoman Empire in the following topics:

• Decline of the Ottoman Empire

• The Fall of Constantinople

  • The restored Byzantine Empire converted to Catholicism to get aid from the West against the Ottoman Turks, but the Turks defeated them by conquering Constantinople, thereby causing the final collapse of the Byzantines.
  • The restored Byzantine Empire was surrounded by enemies.
  • However, one ruler, Osman I, built up a powerful kingdom that soon absorbed all the others and formed the Ottoman Empire.
  • After the conquest, Sultan Mehmed II transferred the capital of the Ottoman Empire from Edirne to Constantinople.
  • The borders of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean just before the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE.

• Catherine's Foreign Policy Goals

  • During Catherine the Great's reign, Russia significantly extended its borders by absorbing new territories, most notably from the Ottoman Empires and the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania,  as well as attempted to serve as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war.
  • During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire southward and westward to absorb New Russia (a region north of the Black Sea; presently part of Ukraine), Crimea, Northern Caucasus, Right-bank Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers – the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  • Catherine made Russia the dominant power in south-eastern Europe after her first Russo-Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire (1768–74), which saw some of the heaviest defeats in Ottoman history, including the 1770 Battles of Chesma and Kagul.
  • The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval or commercial traffic in the Azov Sea, granted to Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and made the Crimea a protectorate of Russia.
  • Catherine annexed the Crimea in 1783, nine years after the Crimean Khanate had gained nominal independence—which had been guaranteed by Russia—from the Ottoman Empire as a result of her first war against the Turks.

• Italian Trade Cities

  • The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Roman Empire as a commercial rival to the Venetians and Genoese.
  • The main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice.
  • John Green discusses the strange and mutually beneficial relationship between a republic, the city-state of Venice, and an Empire, the Ottomans--and how studying history can help you to be a better boyfriend and/or girlfriend.
  • Together, the Ottoman Empire and Venice grew wealthy by facilitating trade: The Venetians had ships and nautical expertise; the Ottomans had access to many of the most valuable goods in the world, especially pepper and grain.
  • Working together across cultural and religious divides, they both become very rich, and the Ottomans became one of the most powerful political entities in the world.

• Peter's Foreign Policy

  • The Baltic Sea was controlled by Sweden in the north, while the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea were controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Empire respectively in the south.
  • Peter's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks.
  • The Russo–Turkish War of 1686–1700 followed as part of the joint European effort to confront the Ottoman Empire (the larger European conflict was known as the Great Turkish War).
  • The Russo-Ottoman War of 1710–11, also known as the Pruth River Campaign, erupted as a consequence of the defeat of Sweden by the Russian Empire in the Battle of Poltava (1709) during the ongoing Great Northern War.
  • The Russo-Ottoman War of 1710–11 ended by the 1711 Treaty of the Pruth, which stipulated to return Azov to the Ottomans.

• Byzantium's Legacy

  • The Byzantine Empire has had a lasting legacy in religion, architecture, art, literature, and law.
  • Following the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II took the title "Kaysar-i Rûm" (the Ottoman Turkish equivalent of Caesar of Rome), since he was determined to make the Ottoman Empire the heir of the Eastern Roman Empire.
  • The Byzantine Empire had kept Greek and Roman culture alive for nearly a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west.
  • Following the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE, the Ottomans regarded themselves as the "heirs" of Byzantium and preserved important aspects of its tradition, which in turn facilitated an "Orthodox revival" during the post-communist period of the Eastern European states.
  • Give examples of how the Byzantine Empire continued to have an impact even after its collapse

• The Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars

  • The Byzantine Empire had a long and tumultuous relationship with the Bulgar Empire to its north.
  • The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed in southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD.
  • Fighting continued until 1396 when Bulgaria fell to the Ottoman Turks, and 1453 when Constantinople was captured.
  • Since both became part of the Ottoman Empire, this was the end of the long series of Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars.
  • A map of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 10th century

• Fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire

  • The Holy Roman Empire was not a highly centralized state like most countries today.
  • At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire.
  • At the Battle of Vienna (1683), the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by the Polish King John III Sobieski, decisively defeated a large Turkish army, ending the western colonial Ottoman advance and leading to the eventual dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.
  • The Empire's army was half Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth forces, mostly cavalry, and half Holy Roman Empire forces (German/Austrian), mostly infantry.
  • The Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648.

• Naming of the Byzantine Empire

  • While the Western Roman Empire fell, the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, thrived.
  • It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
  • Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire and thought of themselves as Romans.
  • Just as the Byzantine Empire represented the political continuation of the Roman Empire, Byzantine art and culture developed directly out of the art of the Roman Empire, which was itself profoundly influenced by ancient Greek art.
  • The name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire, that is, the Orthodox Christian community within Ottoman realms.

• European Influence on the Ottomans