I have always had an interest in world history, although I have had to rely on the somewhat limited experience that my US public school education provided to me. That being said, there's a lot I have either forgotten or was never taught in the first place about the Ottoman Empire. What I do know is that it was the primary force responsible for the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The other thing I know is that the Ottoman Turks were allied with the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians during World War I, and it sounds like a TL;DR takeaway of that event was that the Ottoman Empire was divided up between the British and the French (Sykes-Picot treaty?) along lines that have essentially led to the Middle East crisis as we know it.
That's quite a long time span for an empire to be relevant without my knowing a great deal about it. I have a number of questions to try and gain some sort of understanding of it:
I'm getting more interested in the history of the Middle East, since most of the history I know is biased towards Europe, with some small knowledge of East Asia. Ideally, I'll eventually walk away knowing what happened in the region dating as far back as the Roman Empire. I have a copy of Steven Runciman's three-volume history of the Crusades, so I'm looking forward to reading those once I can wrap my head around the basics of the region's history.
As to when, depends on what you define as Empire. The Ottomens themselves existed from 1299, or so it's claimed. But when did it become an Empire? I'll go with 1453 when they conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and made it the seat of their own growing Empire.
Life in the Ottoman Empire was pretty normal for everyone, besides the fact that non-muslims paid extra taxes. So although it was a Muslim Empire, it was a tolerant one as the majority of its subjects were Christians, not Muslims.
The Eastern Roman Empire(Byzantine) was going strong until the Fourth Crusade where the city of Constantinople was ravaged by Crusaders. The Roman city was a centre of the empire was now in ruins and it was for the most part a down hill struggle from there. It also faced struggles on all sides, the Arabs&Turks in the South and the Slavs in the North.
So although the Ottomans were the ones who finished the job it was a number of factors, including the supposed allies, the crusaders who sacked the centre of the Empire.
It took massive cannons to demolish the Theodosian walls but in the end it fell.
Hope you found this helpful
Edit: Sorry I should have added to point 2. Christian boys were sometimes called as tributes to work as Janissars, forcefully/willingly converted from Christianity to Islam and became some of the most important factor of the Ottoman Empire
Some highlights of the period after the fall of Constantinople and before WWI, are:
/1. The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent.
*Suleiman the Law Giver (Kanuni) was born in 1494. He is often considered one of the greatest or even the greatest of the Ottoman rulers. While he was Sultan, he expanded the the empire all the way through Eastern Europe to Vienna, and through the Middle East to Iraq and N. Africa. For Europe, this was a very big deal. Muslim armies had never made it farther than one or two hundred miles into Europe, and now there was a very powerful Muslim army with fairly modern (for the time) and experienced soldiers, right on their doorstep.
/2. The long decline of the Ottoman Empire and the 'Sick Man of Europe'.
One of the many reasons why the Ottoman Empire began to decline was the steady growth of European empires and their wealth and power. The Ottomans, and the Byzantines/Romans before them, controlled a very valuable spot. This spot was the Bosporus, the strait between Asia and Europe. Items such as Silk, various spices, etc., were valuable, highly demanded items in the Middle East and Europe, and most of these items came from Asia. One of the largest trade routes between Asia and Europe was right in the Bosporus, so the Ottomans profited greatly.
Now that European colonial empires had direct access to these goods from their colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as access to new goods such as Maize, the value of Silk and Spices and other goods dropped and the wealth that the Ottomans once received began to waver.
Yet another reason was that most of the Sultans after Suleiman Kanuni were very inexperienced, and incapable of ruling. Often, these Sultans were heavily influenced by their mothers, Harems that the previous Sultan had slept with.
Due to the Ottoman empire's change from a powerful and influential empire to a smaller, weaker empire, the empire became known in Europe as the 'Sick Man of Europe'.
I am not able to explain how all of this happened and if the decline was really a decline unless compared to Europe, and all of that stuff, as well as the author of my sources, sorry. I highly recommend you read those short articles, and then look in the book reccomendations section for books on the Ottoman empire.
If you would like me to write a quick summary of the period between the end of WWI and the creation of Turkey, or even just the early days of Islam, just ask and I would be happy to. I won't be able to give an in-depth explanation, as I am not a historian or as knowledgeable on this topic as I would like.
The Ottoman Empire and other Islamic empires are some of my favorite subjects in history, I hope you end up liking this topic as much as I do!
Thanks for reading!
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