As we have seen in my previous two blogs, you simply can’t fully enjoy sailing around the Eastern Mediterranean without an understanding of the effects of several hundreds of years of Ottoman influence and rule. As Missy Bear will be there from Season 2, we will try and discover who they were.
From the 9th century, nomadic, pony-riding ‘Turkmen’ from the Eurasian steppes started drifting westwards in waves. These Turks formed the Seljuk empire. They came into conflict with the settled farmers of the middle east and Anatolia, filling the power vacuum left by the retreat of the Byzantine Empire. They adopted the religion of Sunni Islam en-route, and they formed the Sultanate of ‘Rum’ (‘Rum’ was the Seljuk Turks’ name for Byzantine Rome).
In the 13th century, the Seljuk empire declined and fragmented, partly due to the Christian crusades from the west, and partly due to raids from the east by the Mongols. One particular clan of the fragmented Turks was led by a man named Othman (Osman). This clan rose to the ascendency. Details are sketchy, but Osman I was a successful military leader and expanded his territory at the expense of other Turks and the Byzantines. His name is the stem of ‘Ottoman’.
For context, the Fourth Crusade - culminating in the sack of Constantinople - had occurred 80 years earlier, and the Byzantine Empire was now carved into rump states with assets controlled by Greeks, Venetians and Franks. And the Crown of Aragon was now expanding eastwards, having just taken Sicily from the French Angevins.
As I did for the Normans (in last season’s blog, ‘Norman Conquest’), I thought it would be useful to list some of the ‘qualities‘ that I think made the early Ottoman Sultans so focussed and successful. I have based these on my reading of Goodwin’s book:
i) Expansionist war: Inside their territory was the ‘Abode of Peace’; outside was the ‘Abode of War’. It was an expansionist society, and taking new land at the fringes of empire paid the bills, through booty and then tax;
ii) Meritocracy: In society in general, birth rights didn’t exist. When a new Sultan came to power, for example, he could sack the entire staff of his predecessor and appoint new. Only the title of Sultan itself was hereditary;
iii) Fratricide: This was used to remove hereditary disputes: when one Sultan died, the most able of his sons was chosen to succeed him. This successor immediately had all his siblings executed, often by strangulation;
iv) Slavery: War resulted in many slaves (Kul) being taken, and specific slaving raids were common. Slaves were made to work like social bees for the good of the Sultan and society, but could also progress to high positions;
v) The ‘boy levy’: as part of a vassal’s tax, each family was required to give up one male offspring (of the Ottoman’s choice) as a slave. The boy was removed to the Ottoman capital for education and development to become an asset to the empire;
vi) Religious tolerance: Inside the ‘Abode of Peace’, vassals were not required to convert to Islam. In fact, when Spain expelled its Jews following 1492, they were welcomed into the empire by Sultan Bayezit II. (As Sunni’s they did, of course, loathe the Shias); and last but no least…
vii) A standing army: The Ottomans had a very centralised system with a large army of professional soldiers who could be mobilised at short notice. In contrast, their enemies generally had to rally and coerce amateur troops from their vassals’ lands.
The Ottomans surged quickly up the Balkans as far as the River Danube, conquering Serbs and Bulgars as they went.
Only the impregnable citadel of Constantinople (where I proposed to Alix in 1991. Do you get the metaphor?) [Alix: hmmm…] remained unconquered and surrounded. It was being used as a ‘godown’ – or warehouse - by the Venetians and Genoese as part of their Black Sea trade route.
It was not until 1453 that the Ottomans (under Sultan Mehmed II) besieged and captured Constantinople, making it their new capital. Much of that Ottoman army comprised enslaved irregulars, such as the Serbian detachments. And it was a Romanian who showed the Turks how to make the massive cannons, that eventually breached the city walls.
The trading Venetians, Genoese and Ragusans (from Dubrovnik) - and anyone else who valued their continued Black Sea markets - were keen to offer their congratulations, and an increased financial tribute. Mehmed II rebuilt the city. He reconsecrated churches as mosques (e.g., Hagia Sofia), but left many Christian churches untouched. He even relocated the Chief Rabbi there from Jerusalem.
From Constantinople, the Sultan completed his conquest of the old Greek-speaking world, including the Peloponnese in 1460. Its Venetian-controlled ports were taken in later years: Koroni and Methoni (1503); and Nafplio (1540). Cyprus was captured in 1570. Mehmed II’s share of captured slaves – one fifth - was sent to repopulate the capital.
Mehmed II’s great grandson was Suleiman the Magnificent; he who employed Barbarossa (see blog of that name.) After Barbarossa died in 1546, Ottoman naval supremacy waned. And in 1571, the Ottoman navy was routed at the Battle of Lepanto (in the Gulf of Patras, north of the Peloponnese) by the Holy League (who the Ottomans had previously beaten at the Battle of Preveza.)
Decline and…
The small Turkish galleys were now no match for the giant English and Dutch ships fitted up for the Atlantic. In fact, naval architecture is only one example of the technological stagnation that led to the slow Ottoman decline. (The Turks were very late to adopt the solar calendar and to use clocks.) Portuguese ships had found a passage around the Cape of Good Hope and were now causing mayhem to the Turk’s trade links in the Persian Gulf.
Spanish ships had also discovered huge amounts of silver plundered from South America. The import of this bullion into Europe, by the Genoese, caused huge inflation in the Ottoman economy, which still used silver as the base of its currency. And without continued expansion, the bloated bureaucracy was slowly running out of money.
Another factor was the quality of their leaders: the law of fratricide had been abolished, but instead all the potential successors were locked up, often in silence, in the Topkapi Palace. Being restrained in ‘the Cage’ kept them from causing trouble, but in no way prepared a new Sultan for office. Some were actually backward or insane when they came to power. The bureaucracy ballooned, and vassals in the farther reaches of the empire started to act independently. Serious reform was needed.
…Apparitions
When Missy Bear sails around the Peloponnese and across the Aegean to Turkey, what remnants will we see of the Ottomans?
Jason Goodwin writes that they “did not burden the world with monuments to their own magnificence”, unlike their western Christian counterparts, “and it this is, perhaps, that makes them sees so distant, as though their empire had flourished many centuries ago, on other continents”.
Last season, we saw only one or two standing minarets, as far as I can remember. And they were at Ioannina, far inland to the north of Preveza.
The Ottomans tended to build simple, single-story buildings, which maybe was a result of their nomadic, tent-dwelling heritage. Buildings were often built of timber on bare earth, and in urban areas subject to the ravages of fire. So, I suspect we will have to visit the sites and simply use our mind’s eye to picture the Ottomans, rather than searching for imaginary forts, obelisks or fountains.
That is not to say the Turks did not value the heritage they had acquired. There was a law forbidding making lime from chiselled marble, for example. An Ottoman governor was dismissed in 1759 for blowing up a column in the temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens for his mosque.
Notwithstanding, in the 17th century - during one of its protracted wars with the Venetians - the Turks had turned the Parthenon in Athens into a munitions store. They had also put a minaret on top and converted it to a mosque. In 1687, a Venetian general from Lombardy (Captain-General Francesco Morosini) fired a ‘lucky’ round that hit the Turk’s powder magazine. The resulting explosion blew out the temple’s inner walls and brought down much of the friezes.
Later, the Turks recaptured the site, and began burning the sculptures to make lime. They then erected a much smaller mosque within the ruins of the temple.
It was in this context that Lord Elgin – British Ambassador to the Ottomans - sought permission, firstly to draw and make casts of the remaining sculptures. The British government refused to finance his work, and he paid for it himself.
He did then purchase and remove the infamous marbles, but I fear these may have been lost forever had he not done so. You decide. It’s a good topical discussion point for your next dinner party!
A brief, tangential note on the Venetians
The Venetians had fought long and hard against the Ottomans in Greece. The Republic was already a trading state and relied on its powerful navy to protect its sea trading routes with North Africa, the Levant and the Black Sea.
Some of the Venetian trade was in slaves, taking Christian slaves to the Muslim nations of the Middle East. At first Christian slaves from the Holy Roman Empire were taken, until that was banned by the Pope (I think). So the Venetians then sold Christian Slavs from regions outside - east of - the empire. (Entrepreneurial people will always adapt to new rules in ways you don’t initially expect.) Eventually the selling of any Christian slave to a Muslim state was banned.
[As a brief aside, one of the reasons that the Ottomans needed slaves in the Levant was to work on the Labour-intensive sugar cane plantations. The desire in Europe for this new commodity and the tightening of European slavery laws, eventually helped lead to the establishment of the Atlantic sugar plantations and African slave trade! (more unintended consequences?)]
Historically, the Venetian Navy had become the de-facto navy of the Byzantine Empire, but they developed into competitors. The navy was also the mercenary navy for the Crusades. One could argue that it was the Venetians’ excessively high charge for transporting the ‘Christians’ on the fourth crusade, that led indirectly to the Crusaders sacking Constantinople. In any event, the Venetians did very well out of the subsequent partition of the empire. They acquired many islands in the central Aegean (named the ‘Arcipelago’) plus Crete, Evia and Cyprus.
From the head of the Adriatic Sea, Venice also acquired strategic assets along the Dalmatian and Albanian coast, plus Corfu and the Ionian Islands. As there was no Corinth Canal, it also acquired strategic ports around the southern Peloponnese. Many of these places have an Italianate feel, except where subsequent earthquakes have destroyed the architectural evidence.
Ottoman expansion put them in direct conflict the Venetian navy who were desperate to protect the trading routes that had made their Republic so prosperous!
And, as we have seen, the Sultans slowly dispossessed the Venetians of much of their thalassocracy. Except for the islands in the Ionian Sea, where Missy Bear is headed next.
The Ottomans lose Greece – Romance in the Ionian Islands
In 1797 Napoleon conquered and dissolved the Republic of Venice, taking its assets including Preveza and the Ionian Islands. But the Royal Navy then defeated the French at Zakynthos, and eventually threw them out of the Ionian in 1815, establishing the "United States of the Ionian Islands". Apparently, they still play cricket in Corfu.
The Ionian Islands had become a refuge for displaced Greeks, and it was from here that the romantic movement for an independent Greece began. Lord Byron was one such romantic and died in the cause. The post-revolutionary French also romanticised about a Greece free from Ottoman oppression.
The Greek War of Independence started in 1821. The Ottomans were in a bit of a pickle at the time, as Sultan Mahmud II had instigated some big and overdue reforms. One was to disband his elite infantry – the Janissaries. They were not happy and in open revolt again. Without this cornerstone of his army – who he was now decapitating one by one – Mahmud used the army of his Egyptian vassal to help quell Greek insurgencies. It was this disarray - and seeing Egyptians marching into the Peloponnese - that led the 'Great Powers' of Europe (Britain, Russia and France) to intervene and help the Greeks eject the Ottomans.
Each Great Power sent naval squadrons to the Peloponnese in 1827, the British being the largest force. Led by Admiral Edward Codrington, they intercepted the Ottoman-Egyptian navy at Navarino (also known as Pylos, where King Nestor lived in Homer’s ‘Iliad’). The ensuing Battle of Navarino led to the destruction of the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet, and was a pivotal moment in the war. The Greeks don’t celebrate it, of course, because they weren’t involved! This was also the last naval battle between wooden sailing ships with canon.
The French then threw the Egyptians out of the Peloponnese, and the Ottoman garrisons stationed there surrendered. Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire from the north, and Greek revolutionaries – when they were not fighting each other as usual – took control of the mainland.
And so, Greece became an independent state in 1830, as defined by the London Protocol. In 1862, British PM Gladstone agreed to gift the Ionian Islands to Greece [Ed, you‘re welcome] as a gesture of support for their new King, and to counterbalance the newly united Italy.
So, Season 2 of Missy Bear’s adventure starts with a cruise south through the southern Ionian Islands. And this should be all the more interesting now that we know a bit more about their history?!
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