Ottoman Turks: history, culture, and political development

Ottoman-Turks

Istanbul was Constantinople, as the song says, but it is the people that captured the city, changed its name, and dramatically altered the course of history that are really interesting. Establishing a vast empire that persisted for many centuries during a time when Europe as a whole and many of its individual nations were undergoing substantial political upheavals, the Ottoman Turks controlled all land routes between Europe and Asia by conquering and bringing together many disparate peoples and populations. The following paragraphs will detail the strategies that enabled the Ottoman Turks to build such a large empire as well as their practices for dealing with their new non-Turkish subjects.

The information contained below was obtained from two source. The New World Encyclopedia contains a length and detailed entry detailing the emergence and expansion of the Ottoman Empire and its resultant history from a very objective perspective. The volume Turkey: A Country Study, edited by Paul M. Pitman III, contains more detailed descriptions of Ottoman military strategy and also provides an analysis of Ottoman-Turk culture, values, and politics. From these sources, a picture emerges of the Ottoman Empire as possessing fairly quiet yet extraordinary power.

The military strategies that the Ottoman-Turks employed in building one of the largest empires the world had seen at the time -- and the largest empire in existence for much of its history -- were more indicative of the might of this force than of the quiet it would sometimes wield. The same basic strategy was employed on both large and small scales -- surround and overwhelm the enemy until they are destroyed or give in (New World Encyclopedia 2011; Pitman 1987). Over the several centuries of the Ottoman Empire's expansion, this strategy was utilized in single battles to capture units or entire armies of enemy troops, to lay siege to cities, and to create regions of domination that surrounded other important countries and cities in such a way that, though ostensibly independent form the Ottoman Empire, the populations in these areas were significantly limited by the Empire (NEW 2011; Pitman 1987). It was this strategy that led to the slow eradication and encompassing of the Byzantine Empire, and finally the siege and capture of Constantinople (Pitman 19987).