With the extension of
Turkish dominion into the
Balkans, the strategic conquest of
Constantinople became a crucial objective. The empire controlled nearly all former
Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turkish-Mongolian leader
Timur invaded
Anatolia from the east
. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated the Ottoman forces and took
Sultan Bayezid I as a prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when
Mehmet I emerged as the sultan and restored Ottoman power, bringing an end to the
Interregnum, also known as the
Fetret Devri.
Part of the Ottoman territories in the Balkans (such as
Thessaloniki,
Macedonia and
Kosovo) were temporarily lost after 1402 but were later recovered by
Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On
10 November 1444, Murad II defeated the
Hungarian,
Polish, and Wallachian armies under
Władysław III of Poland (also
King of Hungary) and
János Hunyadi at the
Battle of Varna, the final battle of the
Crusade of Varna, although
Albanians under
Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, János Hunyadi prepared another army (of Hungarian and Wallachian forces) to attack the
Turks but was again defeated by Murad II at the
Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448
Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566) captured
Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the
Kingdom of Hungary as part of the
Ottoman–Hungarian Wars, and, after his historical victory in the
Battle of Mohács in 1526, he established Turkish rule in the territory of present-day
Hungary (except the western part) and other
Central European territories. He then laid siege to
Vienna in
1529, but failed to take the city. In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the
Siege of Güns.
Transylvania,
Wallachia and, intermittently,
Moldavia, became tributary principalities of the
Ottoman Empire. In the east, the
Ottoman Turks took
Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of
Mesopotamia and naval access to the
Persian Gulf.
France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to
Habsburg rule, became strong allies.
The French conquests of
Nice (1543) and
Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between the forces of the
French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by the Ottoman admirals
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and
Turgut Reis. A month prior to the siege of
Nice, France supported the
Ottomans with an artillery unit during the Ottoman conquest of
Esztergom in 1543. After further advances by the Turks in 1543, the Habsburg ruler
Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547.
In 1559, after the first Ajuran-Portuguese war the Ottoman Empire would later absorb the weakened
Adal Sultanate into its domain. This expansion furthered
Ottoman rule in
Somalia and the
Horn of Africa. This also increased its influence in the
Indian Ocean to compete with the
Portuguese with its close ally the
Ajuran Empire.
By the end of Suleiman's reign, the
Empire's population totaled about 15,
000,000 people extending over three continents. In addition, the Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the
Mediterranean Sea. By this time, the Ottoman Empire was a major part of the
European political sphere. The success of its political and military establishment has been compared to the
Roman Empire, by the likes of
Italian scholar
Francesco Sansovino and the
French political philosopher
Jean Bodin
The Arab Revolt which began in
1916 turned the tide against the Ottomans at the
Middle Eastern front, where they initially seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war. The
Armistice of Mudros, signed on
30 October 1918, ended the hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre, and was followed with occupation of Constantinople and subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Under the terms of the
Treaty of Sèvres, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire was solidified. The last quarter of the 19th and the early part of the
20th century saw some
7–9 million Turkish-Muslim refugees from the lost territories of the
Caucasus,
Crimea, Balkans, and the
Mediterranean islands migrate to Anatolia and
Eastern Thrace.[105]
The occupation of Constantinople and
İzmir led to the establishment of a
Turkish national movement, which won the
Turkish War of Independence (
1919–22) under the leadership of
Mustafa Kemal (later given the surname "
Atatürk"). The sultanate was abolished on
1 November 1922, and the last sultan,
Mehmed VI (reigned 1918–22), left the country on
17 November 1922.
The Grand National Assembly of
Turkey declared the
Republic of Turkey on
29 October 1923. The caliphate was abolished on 3
March 1924.
- published: 20 Mar 2015
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