Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/663

Rh [HISTORY.] TURKEY 641 themselves for 30,000 sequins. Very soon after this Osmdn died, aged seventy, at Sugut, whence his remains were carried for burial to Brusa. Osmdn was distinguished for piety and generosity as well as for equity and courage. He cared nothing for amassing wealth, and on his death his personal effects were found to consist of two or three suits of clothes, a few weapons, some horses, and a flock of sheep. And so high was his reputation for justice that, we are told, many of the Asiatic subjects of the Csesars fled to him for that protection which their own rulers would not or could not give them. Orkhan. Orkhan, who succeeded his father Osman, continued the war against the Greeks, taking from them Nicomedia, Nicaea, and many of the towns which they still retained in Asia. Hitherto the Ottomans had not interfered with the other Turkish states ; but now Orkhan, granting a short respite to the Byzantines, took advantage of a dis pute regarding the succession to the throne of Karasi, entered that principality, and annexed it to his own domin ions. To his son Suleyman the Ottomans owe their first establishment in Europe : one night that prince, accom panied by a few companions, crossed the Hellespont on a raft and surprised the town of Galipoli (Gallipoli). The next day he brought over a number of Turkish troops, with whose assistance he possessed himself of many of the neighbouring towns and villages ; but his career was cut short by a fatal fall from his horse when out hunting. Orkhan did not long survive his son, grief at whose un timely end is said to have hastened his own death, in 1359 (761). This monarch is celebrated for the number of mosques, colleges, and other public institutions that he founded. During his reign the Ottoman army was thoroughly organized, and a body of regular paid soldiers was raised, which formed the nucleus of the military power of the state, though the old irregular militia was still called out whenever a campaign was to be undertaken. The famous corps of the janissaries (Turkish yeni cheri, i.e., &quot; new troop &quot;) was instituted at this time. It consisted of the children of Christian subjects, who were educated as Mussulmans and brought up to a military life. Murad I. Having taken the city of Angora from certain territorial lords who, incited by the prince of Karaman, had attacked the Ottoman dominions, Murad I., the son and successor of Orkhan, found himself free to extend his possessions across the Hellespont. He forthwith passed over into Europe, where he and his generals soon reduced almost all Roumelia, capturing Adrianople, Philippopolis, and many other places of importance. These successes alarmed the Christian princes, who determined to make a vigorous effort to drive the Turks back into Asia. The kings of Bosnia, Hungary, and Servia accordingly marched with a large army upon Adrianople, but were surprised during the night and completely defeated by an inferior Turkish force. Some time after this victory Murad returned to Asia, where he celebrated the wedding of his son Bayezid with the daughter of the prince of Kermiyan, a large portion of whose territory was made over to the Osmanli monarch as the dower of the bride. Next year, when Murad set out to inspect his new possessions, he met the prince of Hamid, whom he constrained to sell all his dominions. The Karaman prince, ever the jealous rival of the Ottoman, now stirred up some of the Turkman tribes to ravage his ! enemy s land; but Murad was beforehand with him, and, entering his country, defeated him and annexed the district of Ak-Shehr to his own kingdom. The Bosnian and Bulgarian princes having allied themselves against the sultan, the Turkish commander in Europe invaded Bulgaria, Battle of which was speedily subdued and added to the Ottoman Kosovo, possessions. Murad next entered Servia and advanced to the plain of Kosovo, where he found awaiting him the levies of Servia, Bosnia, Hungary, Albania, and Walachia. The Turks, though far inferior in number to their adver saries, gained a complete victory, 1389 (791), but it was purchased with their sovereign s life. After the battle Murad was riding over the field with some of his people, when a wounded Servian, who was lying among the slain, sprang up and stabbed him so that he died almost im mediately afterwards. In consequence of this battle Servia became subject to the Turk. Bayezid I.,surnamedYildirim, &quot;Thunderbolt, &quot;on account Bayezid of the fury of his attack and the rapidity of his movements, ! received the oath of fealty on the battlefield of Kosovo. He did much to secure the position of the Ottomans, in Europe, taking many of the towns which still remained to the Christians in Roumelia. In Asia he annexed the remaining Turkish principalities, and pushed his conquests as far as CaBsarea and Sivas. The Christians made another great effort to free themselves from their Eastern foes : whilst Bayezid was absent in Asia, the king of Hungary led a powerful army, in the ranks of which were many knights of France and Germany, into the Ottoman domin ions and laid siege to Nicopolis. Bayezid sped to the rescue, and inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Chris tians. He next turned his attention to Constantinople, the reduction and annexation of which he had long medi tated, when he was summoned to meet Timur, the Tatar conqueror, who had invaded his Asiatic dominions and taken Sivas. The Ottoman and Tatar hosts encountered each other outside Angora, and there the former sustained their first disastrous overthrow, Bayezid being taken prisoner and his army practically annihilated. Next year, 1403 (805), he died in captivity; the story of his having been imprisoned in an iron cage is not confirmed by the Turkish historians, and is most probably fictitious. After this victory Timur overran the Ottoman territories in Asia, taking and sacking Brusa, Nicsea, and many other cities. With a view to the complete annihilation of the Osmanli power, he restored the independence of the Turkish princi palities which Bayezid had annexed, and placed them under the rule of their former emirs. On the withdrawal of Timur from Asia Minor the four surviving sons of Bayezid fought for what was left of their father s kingdom; after ten years of civil war success finally rested with Muhammed, who alone of the four is Muham- reckoned among the Ottoman sovereigns. The attention med I- of the new sultan, whom his people called Chelebi Muham med or Muhammed the Debonair, was turned rather to the restoration of his father s empire than to the conquest of neighbouring countries. In Europe he lived on amicable terms with the Byzantine emperor, and the Christian kings further north did not venture to make any serious attack upon him. But in Asia he had to contend with many enemies, the most formidable of whom was the emir of Karaman, who, having been defeated and made prisoner, was generously pardoned and restored to liberty. Another difficulty with which Muhammed had to deal was a strange religious outbreak : a vast number of fanatic dervishes, headed by an apostate Jew and a Turkish adventurer of low birth, rose in revolt, and were only dispersed after several bloody battles. This sultan, who was much be loved by his subjects and is spoken of with praise by the Byzantine historians, was stricken with apoplexy while riding in Adrianople, and died almost immediately in the thirty-third year of his age, 1421 (824). The first care of his son and successor Murdd II. was Muiid to rid himself of a pretender to the throne who, aided by li the Greek emperor, had made a descent upon the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles. This adventurer was soon de feated and pursued to Adrianople, where he was taken and hanged. In revenge for the assistance rendered to XXIII. 8 1