My apologies, I thought it was 24 hours.
Reclaiming the Ottomans.
List of monarchs III
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Reclaiming the Ottomans.
Originally it was 24 hours but we had a discussion a while ago and shortened it because 24 hours meant momentum was lost and a lot of lists died.
POD: Süleyman Pasha (son of Orhan) does not die in a hunting accident and becomes the Third Ottoman Sultan
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800-1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
View attachment 706182
An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
View attachment 706865
A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19]
Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by____
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800-1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
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An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19]
Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
Alparslan II
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by____
Why don’t you look at your last post and literally any other list addition? I’m sure you can figure out how the formatting differs.
POD: Süleyman Pasha (son of Orhan) does not die in a hunting accident and becomes the Third Ottoman Sultan
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
View attachment 706182
An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19]
Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by _________.
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
View attachment 706182
An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19]
Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
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Alparslan II
Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by _________.
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POD: Süleyman Pasha (son of Orhan) does not die in a hunting accident and becomes the Third Ottoman Sultan
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
1943 - 1999: Latif I (House of Osman) [22]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
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An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19] Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
View attachment 709561
Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by his grandson, Latif.
{22] Born in 1912 as the third son, of the Sultan's heir Alparslan, Latif was not expected to become Sultan. His father would die in World War I. His oldest brother, Iskender would die of the Spanish flu in 1920. His second brother, Orhan would be groomed for the throne, only he would die in 1931 in a car crash, leaving only an infant daughter behind. The current Emperor fearing leaving the empire in the hands of a minor girl so he chose his uncle to suceed him instead.
Thankfully, he had twelve years to learn how to succeed his grandfather. He married Gamila, daughter of the Egyptian governor in 1940. When war broke out, Latif would leave his pregnant wife to fight alongside the troops. However, he would only fight for two years for when his grandfather died, he had to return home to be crowned. He was greeted by cheering crowds, a loving wife and a toddler.
World War Two would end in 1944 with the Ottoman Empire crushing their long time rival Russia. With the war over, Laftif worked for social and economical reform. Having been raised mostly by his mother and his older sisters, he passed laws to give more rights to women, even going as far as to cite the three Jihans as proof that women could rule just as well as men. In 1960, the act of succession was changed to allow women to inherit. He did however, make it clear that it was still ultimately up to the Emperor and his council who would be chosen as heir.
As the years went on, Latif was a great speaker on human rights, pushing for harsher punishments against those who committed crimes out of bigortry.
In 1999, just shortly before the new millennium began, Latif passed away at age eighty-seven, leaving the throne in the hands of____
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
1943 - 1999: Latif I (House of Osman) [22]
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
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An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19] Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
View attachment 709561
Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by his grandson, Latif.
{22] Born in 1912 as the third son, of the Sultan's heir Alparslan, Latif was not expected to become Sultan. His father would die in World War I. His oldest brother, Iskender would die of the Spanish flu in 1920. His second brother, Orhan would be groomed for the throne, only he would die in 1931 in a car crash, leaving only an infant daughter behind. The current Emperor fearing leaving the empire in the hands of a minor girl so he chose his uncle to suceed him instead.
Thankfully, he had twelve years to learn how to succeed his grandfather. He married Gamila, daughter of the Egyptian governor in 1940. When war broke out, Latif would leave his pregnant wife to fight alongside the troops. However, he would only fight for two years for when his grandfather died, he had to return home to be crowned. He was greeted by cheering crowds, a loving wife and a toddler.
World War Two would end in 1944 with the Ottoman Empire crushing their long time rival Russia. With the war over, Laftif worked for social and economical reform. Having been raised mostly by his mother and his older sisters, he passed laws to give more rights to women, even going as far as to cite the three Jihans as proof that women could rule just as well as men. In 1960, the act of succession was changed to allow women to inherit. He did however, make it clear that it was still ultimately up to the Emperor and his council who would be chosen as heir.
As the years went on, Latif was a great speaker on human rights, pushing for harsher punishments against those who committed crimes out of bigortry.
In 1999, just shortly before the new millennium began, Latif passed away at age eighty-seven, leaving the throne in the hands of____
POD: Jean I of France and Navarre the Posthumous survives.
Kings of France and Navarre
1289-1316: Louis X "The Quarrelsome" (House of Capet)
1316-1356: Jean I "The Posthumous" (House of Capet) [1]
1356-1395: Henri II "The Thunderbolt" (House of Capet) [2]
1395-1407: Philippe V "The Unremarkable" (House of Capet) [3]
1407-1431: Jean II "The Strong" (House of Capet) [4]
1431-1468: Henri III "The Wise" (House of Capet) [5]
1468-1500: Jean III (House of Capet) [6]
1500-1515: François I (House of Capet) [7]
1515-1560: Jeanne I (House of Capet) [8]
1560-1587: Louis XI (House of Capet) [9]
1587-1592: Louis XII "the Brief" (House of Capet) [10]
[10] Louis, the twelfth of his name was already a man in his sixties, sick with goat so it was almost certain he would not last long. Sometimes, he would be called the placeholder king, although none would dare say it to his face, as he had a ferocious temper. In the defense of Louis, he had spent must of his time as his father's heir, running his various lands with great skill. However, in just two years of his reign, he was already bedridden, thrusting his heir in the position of regent.
In 1592, he would finally pass on, allowing____to succeed him.
Kings of France and Navarre
1289-1316: Louis X "The Quarrelsome" (House of Capet)
1316-1356: Jean I "The Posthumous" (House of Capet) [1]
1356-1395: Henri II "The Thunderbolt" (House of Capet) [2]
1395-1407: Philippe V "The Unremarkable" (House of Capet) [3]
1407-1431: Jean II "The Strong" (House of Capet) [4]
1431-1468: Henri III "The Wise" (House of Capet) [5]
1468-1500: Jean III (House of Capet) [6]
1500-1515: François I (House of Capet) [7]
1515-1560: Jeanne I (House of Capet) [8]
1560-1587: Louis XI (House of Capet) [9]
1587-1592: Louis XII "the Brief" (House of Capet) [10]
[1] Louis X "The Quarrelsome" died in 1316, leaving a four-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife behind. Jean was born in November 1316. The king would sleep soundly in his cradle as his relatives fought for power over him. His mother, Clementina and his great-uncle Charles of Valois had to contend with Jean's regent,his uncle Philippe the Tall, Count of Poitiers.
Unfortunately for them, Philip was well liked and a shrewd statesman, reforming the laws of France and even discontinuing some of the unpopular policies of his brother, Louis. To consolidate his control over the young king, he arranged a marriage between Jean and his eldest daughter, Joan (1308). Because they were first cousins, Philip would get a papal deposition. When he fell ill in 1322, he pushed for the wedding to happen straight away despite the groom only being six. He would die before it could happen.
With Philip's death, Jean needed a new regent. His remaining uncle, Charles de Le Marche took over. During this time, tensions with England were at an all time high despite Jean's aunt Isabella being married to the King of England. In 1325, Jean's great-uncle, Charles of Valois managed to take back the duchy of Aquitaine and regent Charles, declared that King Edward II's French titles were forfeit. It would be in 1327 when King Edward II was disposed would Aquitaine be returned to England in the hands, of Jean's cousin, Edward III, albeit a much reduced territory.
In 1328, Charles also died, leaving Jean as the only male left in the main branch of the House of Capets. Charles of Valois's son Philip would take over as regent. In 1330, at fourteen-years-old Jean would marry his cousin, Joan. She would birth a son in 1331, dying due to childbed fever, leaving Jean a teenage widower with a babe. It was imperative that he married as quickly as he could.
He would marry Bonne of Luxembourg (1315) in 1332. They had eleven children before her death in 1349 of bubonic plague. Despite having several sons, Jean would marry for a third and final time in 1350 to Eleanor of Sicily I1325), they would have three child before he died.
Shortly, after his second marriage, Jean was declared of age and allowed to rule, although he would forever rely on the advice and counsel of Philip of Valois.
However, Jean's relations with England and his cousin Edward would begin to deteriorate with Jean feeling that Aquitaine and the rest of the French lands that were under English control belonged to France. In 1337, Robert III of Artois, who had committed forgery to illegally obtain an intermittence, sought refuge in England. When Edward refused to hand him over, the twenty-one-year old king declared Aquitaine forfeit. In retaliation, Edward III accused Jean of being an imposter, saying that real Jean of France died after five days and a cockoo was placed in his stead. (This rumor has been debunked by modern DNA tests). Edward proclaimed himself the rightful King of France as the sole living grandson of King Philip IV.
King Jean fought alongside his friend and cousin, Philip of Valois who was give the Duchy of Aquitaine. The Battle of Crécy in 1546 would be a disaster for the French army with Philip injured and Jean barely escaping with his life. It was a catastrophe for the French and would feature the loss of Calais.
Three years later, Queen Bonne would die of the plague which would destroy one third of the population. It was an tragedy. Jean's third wedding was a somber event with the continued hostilities with England, the recovery from the plague and the death of Jean's friend Philip.
In 1555, the war with England would restart and Jean would lead his troops in Battle of Poitiers where in a miraculous moment, he manged to subdue and capture Edward, the Black Prince. Unfortunately, Jean would not have long to gloat for a year later, he would die of dysentery. His son, Henri, would take care of the negotiations with England.
[2] The second son of Jean the I, Henri was made Duke of Orleans at birth, for his father intended for him to be the strong right hand of his elder brother, Phillipe, when he came of age. Thus, Henri was given a thorough martial education, although the boy soon proved himself far too intelligent and talented to be limited to the sword and lance. Being given many tutors from places as close as Normandy and Languedoc, and as far as Bohemia and the Eastern Roman Empire, both Henri and his brothers, Phillipe, Charles and Hercules were brought in a growing cosmopolitan Paris, under the strict but benevolent watch of their father.
Thankfully for King Jean, his second son was growing to pay dividends - at the bare age of twelve, the young Henri was already defeating boys four and five years older in the tiltyard, and stayed at the side of his tutor, the Constable of France, during various military meetings of importance. As as young Knight and Duke, Henri would gain his spurs during the battles of Crecy and would fight in more battles, featuring in the defense of Calais where he led a small army that proved a great thorn for the English. He would make several friends at this stage, such as the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Alençon and many others.
He would retire to Orleans then, where the Young Duke took upon himself the duty of ruling. His close watch, support for the artisans of the Duchy and his heavy involvement in the local economy made him a very beloved ruler, as Henri attracted Jewish, German and Italian glass-makers and Greek and Sicilian silk-weavers. Thus, Orleans became a famous commercial center, closely linked to both the Aquitaine and Champagne trade routes, the city becoming famous for it's glass and becoming the first and major center of what would come to be known as "Capetian Silk".
When the second war of King Jean's reign with England started, Henri faced a early loss which blackened his heart - his brother, leading a charge of French infantry-men during a battle against the Prince of Wales, was shot down by English Longbowmen. The fall of the Dauphin's standard almost broke the French army, but Henri, raging, took up the Orleans and Dauphine standards - and charged straight into the English lines, The sight of the Duke of Orleans, surrounded by no more than twenty retainers, charging alone at the thousand Englishmen raised the spirits of his army, who followed the new Crown Prince into the battle. The Battle of Puymartin is the first, and perhaps most famous victory of Henri.
The heavy defeat handed to the Black Prince forced him to retreat North, where the English fell into the clutches of the army led by King Jean and Phillipe of Valois. His army tired and restless, Henri took upon himself to siege every single English occupied castle in Aquitaine, withdrawing the English poison root and stem. Just as he had finished the pacification of Aquitaine, and with his army reinforced by the locals, the news of the death of his father reached him. After a hasty trip to Reims, Henri was crowned, promising on God and France to forever expel the English from the continent. It was a promise Henri would make due on.
With Edward of Wales in his hands, the English were fighting with one hand behind their backs - Edward the III did not wish to risk his eldest and most favoured son, who was a captive in Paris, even if he was treated well and the French seemed to mostly ignore him, Henri was far too focused on his goal. Despite Edward calling for truces several times, Henri led his armies and a myriad of Free Companies northwards, intent on ending the Plantagenet stain on Capetian France. The battle of Hainaut (1358) and the Siege of Calais (1359) were both French victories, with Henri changing many of the tactics used by the French armies in the face of English innovations, such as the Longbow. The support of the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret, Countess of Flanders, proved to be the tipping point that would see the English Crown finally expelled from France. The following Treaty of Chartres saw Edward the III renounce all of his rights to French territorry, including Calais and Aquitaine, in return for his son, who would be sent on a ship to England with the returning English diplomats.
Victory cemented Henri upon his throne - the young royal was, perhaps, the most powerful King of France since Louis IX, and his influence was felt everywhere. In some places, Henri was almost revered as a warrior Saint. But Henri proved to not only be a warrior. With the Black Plague still making making periodic returns, taking with it another one of Henri's brothers, Charles Duke of Berry, Henri turned to the sickness with the same ferocity he had faced the English. He and his advisors reinforced French hospitals, founding many in the many major municipalities of France, and they also correctly identified rats and such other vermin as the bringers of the plague, and the French people followed Henri's adoption of cats as pets - the Kingdom of France become henceforth known as the "Kingdom of Cats", for cats were found in every street of Paris during Henri's reign.
The death of so many serfs, peasants and nobles left a lot of land in the hands of the crown - and Henri was anything if not a greedy land grabber. Aquitaine was re-bought from the Valois, who were in deep crisis due to some shady investments, alongside the County of Anjou but a few years later. The Angevin Kings of Naples, who faced revolts in Provence, also sold the full rights to Provence to Henri in 1374, with the new French professional army, modeled and using as a base the many Free Companies that had sprouted in Gascony, Normandy and Burgundy during the English wars, was one of the most ferocious and effective armies in Europe at the time. His brother Hercules would receive the County of Nice as appanage after the seizure, alongside his other title of Count of Montpensier.
The death of the last Burgundian Duke, Phillipe the I, a great friend of Henri, would also see the Duchy of Burgundy, the Counties of Boulogne and Auvergne, reunited with the French Crown. Deep in grief for the death of his friend, the wifeless King was soon approached by Phillipe's widow, Margaret of Flanders. She too, needed a new husband, for she was heirless, and the marriage would be advantageous for them both. Both young and fertile, the young couple would grow to love each other. Margaret of Flanders brought along many rich lordships, such as Flanders, Rethel, Nevers, Artois and the County of Burgundy, in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the perfect marriage, and the couple soon grew to love each other deeply. As said before, Margaret would prove a dutiful wife and an excellent queen. She birthed the King no more than 11 healthy children at birth.
With so many lands in the hands of the monarchy, Henri's power was almost absolute. He cemented French laws, creating new taxes, reforming and modernizing old legal systems, reformed the army, as mentioned before, encourage commerce and would further increase the royal domain by seizing the lands of the House of Hainault, taking Hainaut for himself and delivering the County of Zeeland to his wife. He would make his brother Hercules, whom he trusted deeply, alongside his titles of Montpensier and Nice, Duke of Holland as well. With the royal coffers full, Henri would become famous for the love he and his wife shared of palace-building, with Henri building almost twenty palaces during his reign, many of which are tourist attractions today.
Deeply beloved, and surrounded by allies, due to the fact his army of sisters was married off to many European Princes and French nobles, a loyal and stateswoman of a wife and a large brood of children, Henri took to feasting and drinking heavily in his later years. He and his wife, would, literally, grow fat and old together, but the aged King would quickly become an alcoholic. While wintering in Navarre, Henri would catch a cold after walking in the Pyrenean snows while riding to his rural residence where his wife was staying. The simple cold, however, would be enough to topple a great King. Henri died in 1395, being succeeded by his son Philippe.
[3] Named for both his late uncle and his father's friend, Philippe was born in 1371. It was hard for Philippe growing up as he stood in the shadows of his grandfather and father. His grandfather had been born a king and against all odd lived and ruled for forty years and single-handedly saved the depleted main branch the Capet dynasty. Meanwhile his father had manged to successfully expel the English and the plague from his lands.
Both were figures of legends, leaving Philippe rather small in comparison. Because of this he had a massive inferiority complex with traces of paranoia.
In 1385, he would marry Isabeau of Bavaria. The marriage was suggested to make an alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor. The marriage at first seemed to blossoming into a love match. However, the early death of their son, Louis drove a wedge between the two. It would slowly get worse when Isabeau's next two children would die in the cradle.
They seemed to have reconciled in 1382, when their next son, also called Louis, was born. The couple became even closer when in 1495, when Henri died and Philippe would become king in a join coronation with his wife.
However, Isabeau proved herself an unpopular queen unlike her much beloved predecessor (who had retired to her native Flanders). She was haughty, quarrelsome and a spendthrift. There were also rumors circulating that she was unfaithful.
Although his wife had given him four more children, Philippe would distant himself from his wife, becoming distrustful of her. Things would come to a head when in 1401, their son, Louis died before his ninth birthday. This would be the tipping point. In June 1401, Isabeau would miscarry her baby (speculated to be because the stress she was under,although others wonder if there was a darker reason such as her husband beating her). In August, she would be arrested on the charges of adultery. If a queen being arrested wasn't scandalous enough, the king's distant cousin, Jean of Valois was accused of being her lover. Both were held in prison until their trial.
It was largely a farce of trial with half the witnesses being enemies of either the Duke of Valois or the queen and the other half spoke only hearsay. Unfortunately, the judges declared the Duke and the Queen guilty above the protests of their family.
Philippe would commute their punishment to life imprisonment despite being well in his rights to execute them both. Unfortunately, Jean would die just two years later of bad treatment at the hands of his jailers.
In 1407, Philipee would be found stabbed in his bed, with the words JUSTICE crudely carved in his forehead. His brother, Jean, would succeed him.
[4] Jean the II was the younger brother of Phillipe the V, having been given the title of Duke of Anjou and Count of Maine when he reached his majority, becoming an extremely influential figure in the reigns of his late father and brother. Known for his violent character and his enormous size (Jean was often compared to the Titans of Hellenic Myths), the young Duke of Anjou was promised at birth to Phillipa Plantagenet, daughter of Edward the IV (Edward the Black Prince)
Jean's first years as ruler of his duchy were ... special, in a way. Anjou had been for decades now one of the centers of the Anglo-French conflicts, but with the English exiled from the continent, it was prime time, at least in Jean's eyes, to renew Anjou and Maine as centers of French Chivalry and commerce, and this he did so. Tourneys, fairs and meeles became the glamour of Anjou during these times, and the immigration of Jews and various other french ethnicities to the land proved useful in making Anjou grow. It was during these times that Jean travelled to England to fetch his bride - despite English attempts at breaking the marriage, due to the fact that both of her brothers, Edward and Richard, were still childless, his arrival in London broke the reverie. Not much is known of whatever negotiations happened during Jean's two-month stay in England, but he did return to France with with the "Fair Maid of Kent".
King Jean has always been described as a zealous christian, due to his support for the crusader movements in the Balkans and Anatolia, and his attacks on the many Kingdoms and Emirates of North Africa, but he should also be remembered as a patron and protector of the Jewish people. Many jews worked in the growing bureaucracy and administration of France during this period, and Jean's head of health both as Duke and as King was a jew, whom he hired after Phillipa miscarried their first child. Of the six next children the couple would have, all would be taken to term.
Jean rose to the throne over his two nieces - whom he would raise and adopt at his own. Extremely furious at the way his brother died, Jean would hunt down the partisans of Isabeau of Bavaria, conducting a purge of much of the nobility. The House of Valois would survive through the mercy of Constance Capet, the young Countess of Angouleme and Valois, who protected her husband and children from the fury of her brother.
Afterwards, Jean's reign was mostly quiet, other than some interventions and support for Crusader missions in the Balkans and North Africa. Jean's Meditteranean navy would conquer the cities of Algiers and Bone, whom the young French army would defend. For this, Jean and all future King's of France would gain the title of his Most Christian majesty. He died in 1431, being succeeded by his eldest son, Henri.
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[5] Born in 1404, Henri was the first child born after the miscarriage, to Jean and Phillipa Plantagenet and although the parents were over the moon to have their first child in their arms, they were distressed at the birth defect which affected Henri, his left leg was missing from above the knee, apart from this his health was perfect.
Jean's Jewish head of health, stated that this was not a curse but a test from God and as Henri grew, his parents and tutors were able to see that, he was able to compensate his missing limb, by strengthening his upper body, as well as studying hard.
One of his Jewish tutors was also able to create a saddle that balanced him on the horse, so he was still able to train as much as his brother(s), uncles and cousins.
By the age of 16, in 1420, Henri was serving his father in the treasury as well as attending diplomatic meetings, during one such meeting his father and Henri would arrange the marriage of Henri to his cousin, Marie of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy (1381–1433) and Mary of France (1380-1436), herself daughter of Henri II and Margaret of Flanders, sister of Philippe and Jean.
The marriage would take place in 1426 and was a well attended event, with royalty from around Europe, followed by a tense bedding ceremony, which went without a problem.
The marriage would be a happy one and lead to the birth of many healthy children.
Like his father and grandfather, Henri, would arrange marriages to European Monarchs, forming stronger alliances, better trading deals and saw a long period of peace.
Internally, following years of working in the treasury, Henri, was able keep the royal purse ever growing, allowing him to finance projects, such as new cathedrals, one of which would be dedicated to his father, Jean the Most Christian Majesty, with Pope Eugene IV, beginning the process of awarding Jean a sainthood.
Not only were his policies beneficial to the nobility but they also brought great economic prosperity to his subjects, greatly increasing the population.
During the conclave of 1447, there were talks of new policies being brought in to support Christian monarchs to expel all Jews from their country, French cardinals were ordered by Henri to not vote for these policies, this would lead to French Cardinal, Guillaume d'Estouteville being voted in at the election, becoming Pope John XXIII, in honour of Henri’s father, Jean.
One of the most major acts of his rule was to bring about a constitution as at this point in French history, they lacked a formal constitution; the regime essentially relied on custom. The constitution was discussed by Henri, the high ranking nobles and the senior members from the Parliament of Paris.
The constitution, cemented the law of male succession only and the absolute monarchy role as God’s chosen voice in France, second only to the Pope.
Catholicism would be the state religion and Catholic Churches would be separate from taxes. Other religions would be tolerated in France as long as they are peaceful.
His death in 1468 aged 64 years old, would be felt heavily in his home nation and across Europe as his many letters of advice to monarchs had helped them deal with internal financial and constitutional crises.
He was succeeded by his son Jean.
[6] Born in 1431, he was the firstborn son of Henri II and Marie. He was born with all his limbs, but without his voice. Despite this, he was a very intelligent boy who was passionate about literature and the theater. He was trained from his childhood to one day be king, and he took to the job with aplomb. Soon he was attending state meetings alongside his father, and even was the one behind the idea of making peace with the house of Valois. His disinterest in marrying or siring children exasperated his advisors, but since he had many legitimate nephews, Jean ignored them the same way he ignored all potential betrothal contracts. He founded a dozen schools and wrote many books under his own name, and was a big fan of attending plays, being for his whole life a patron of the arts. He also promoted religious tolerance, but this was an unpopular policy with his Christian nobility. His court festivals, building projects and tapestries were all known for their rich colors, and he spent almost ruinous sums on them. But this accomplished his aim of bolstering royal prestige through lavish cultural display, and his reign is known today for the artistic flourishing simulated by his patronage as well as the frequent hosting of Europe's leading artists and writers. He also rewrote the constitution by his father, abolishing the law of only male succession in favor of male-preference primogeniture, and forced the church to pay taxes. He died after drinking some poisoned wine, having died single and childless.
[7] François of Anjou was born in 1469, the first born son of Louis, Duke of Anjou and Beatrice of Savoy. His father died when he was four years old and he raised by his mother and his older sister. He married Ippolita Viscounti, daughter of the Duke of Milian, in 1485. It was not a grand match, but one that brought coin and a link to a dynastic house of Italy. They would have nine children.
After the death of King Henri in 1500, François and his wife would be crowned in a grand ceremony. The new king would restlessly search for the man who had poisoned his uncle, determined to gain justice to his uncle. To his anger, he found out that the culprit was the Count of Bar, an old friend of his. Angered at such a personal betrayal, he had the man and his hired assassin boiled alive in oil as was the customary punishment in those days for poisoners.
For the next fifteen years, François was determined to bring the culture of France to new heights, using his wife's Italian connection to invite all sorts of artists. Upon hearing of Enrique of Castile's patronizing exploration of the new world, the king sponsored several explorers.
The king was a lover of fine food, fine wine and fine women. Unfortunetly, this would soon wear his body out. King François would die of gout in 1515, leaving the kingdom in the hands of Jeanne.
[8] Jeanne, born in 1486 was the oldest of eight daughters of François and Ippolita, her sole brother having died in his adolescence. Thanks to her grand-uncle, Jean III, whom she was named after, she was able to succeed to the throne. She was considered to be a graceful beauty, with a vivacious and lively personality and an affable nature. She regularly hosted masques and tournaments that thoroughly dazzled her contemporaries at her lavish court, and her patronage of the arts made a significant contribution to French culture. She was determined to show that she, as a woman ruling France, could maintain the prestige and magnificence established by her predecessors. However, she never married. She knew that marriage meant she had to lose power to her husband, and whichever man she selected could provoke political instability or even insurrection. Instead, she had a series of short-term favorites at court. Though her single status led to accusations of irresponsibility, her silence with regards to such matters, however, strengthened her own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be vulnerable to a coup. She performed her ceremonial role as queen in strict accordance with formal court etiquette, and regularly and punctually fulfilled all representational duties that the court life demanded of her. She was also an example of Catholic piety and was famed for her generosity to the poor and needy through her philanthropy, which made her very popular among the public her entire life as queen. Though she followed a largely defensive foreign policy, her reign raised France's status abroad. Under Jeanne, the nation gained a new self-confidence and sense of sovereignty. She knew that a monarch ruled by popular consent, and therefore always worked with parliament and advisers she could trust to tell her the truth. She passed away due to illness, single and childless, but surrounded by dozens of her sisters' children and grandchildren.
[9} Born Monsieur le Prince, Louis was from birth the eldest of the Blood Princes and the highest of France's peers, holding titles such as the Duchy of Touraine, the Counties of Angouleme, Vexin, Forez, Perche and Boulougne. Being raised to a senior most position within French society and the class elites, Louis was given an extensive education of matters of war and statescraft. He was born after the death of his father, the previous Duke, to Princess Contansce Zephyrine of France, second eldest of King François' brood of girls. Thus, he was also raised in the belief that he might be heir to the French throne one day, a destination, that did come to prove itself true in the future.
Louis' adulthood was marked by a series of family compacts that the political war he would wage with his royal aunt when securing his majority unfold - in essence, Jeanne's refusal to name him successor, and her efforts to tamper with his efforts to succeed to the Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside Jeanne's refusal to grant him his desired titles of Governorship over French Flanders. Louis' would still manage to win over the widowed Agnes of Luxembourg as his wife - bringing the Duchy of Luxembourg, the County of Namur and the Duchy of Limburg into his possessions. This vast increase of land and Louis' exploits in the Netherlands made him an enemy of various of his aunt's favourites, and of his aunt herself, but Louis' purse alongside his savy knowledge of french politics saved his skin.
Jeanne eventually gave away, and Louis and Agnes became King and Queen of France. The first decrees of Louis' reign where changing the rules of succession in France to Salic law, something that greatly pleased the Princes of the Blood. Had Louis' elder aunt, Margarite, had children, the throne of France would have passed outside the House of Capet for the first time in centuries, right onto the hands of the von Luxembourgs who ruled in Spain, or if Louis himself had never been born into the House that had taken the Luxembourgian lands in Central Europe, the von Habsburgs. It was a tense situation, none so because Louis derived legitimacy from his mother over his aunts, but Louis' rank as first prince of the blood made the situation clearer.
Luxembourgian (Technically, the House of Luxembourg-Avis) had ruled the whole of the Iberian Peninsula for two generations now, with the Kingdoms having been unified during the reigns of Manuel the I of all Spanish realms, but Spain, despite growing into the first colonial Empire, with vast conquests in America and many outspots in Africa, Arabia and India, had kept itself outside of continental affairs for some while now, too busy with it's overseas exploits and it's drive into Morocco. France and Spain had mostly kept the peace, other than a few disagreements here and there. But Louis would decidedly draw France into Spain's sights - he, seeing monarchs such as the English and Spanish Kings enriching themselves, sent vast fleets of exploration to the new world, setting up colonies firstly in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where Breton (The Bretons were rather autonomous vassals of the French Kings, but still French nonetheless) and Norman fishermen were making a fortune, establishing contancts with the natives and forming settlements in Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) but further south, other even more successful colonies were formed, eventually forming two sister colonies in the southern tip of Africa and South America. Taking inspirations from the Franks, the two forming colonies would be called Neustrie-Neuve (New Neustria, OTL La Plata) and Nouvelle Austrasie (New Austrasia, OTL Cape-colony).
Fascinated by the so called Columbian exchange, France was one of the first country to massively import American crops, which first became a delicacy but then a highly sought product that could easily supplement the volatile french diet. The sudden growth in population caused by this ammelioration of France's health standards during Louis' reign would create massive movements towards France's colonies but allow France the manpower to conquer more Algerian coastal cities and make war in Germany and Spain at the same time. France would annex the Duchy of Brabant and tribute from the Prince-Bisphoric of Liege during this time, alongside recognition of Lorraine as a French Peerage and thus, vassal. In Spain, the new King was not so successful, as he lost a few border towns with Spain and almost lost Navarre twice, but France's highly experienced army pulled through for the Kingdom. Louis dreamnt of forming a universalist monarchy that would cover the whole of Europe eventually.
He, clearly, did not succeed in all his goals. He died aged and old, surrounded by his various children. He was succeeded by his son Louis.
Unfortunately for them, Philip was well liked and a shrewd statesman, reforming the laws of France and even discontinuing some of the unpopular policies of his brother, Louis. To consolidate his control over the young king, he arranged a marriage between Jean and his eldest daughter, Joan (1308). Because they were first cousins, Philip would get a papal deposition. When he fell ill in 1322, he pushed for the wedding to happen straight away despite the groom only being six. He would die before it could happen.
With Philip's death, Jean needed a new regent. His remaining uncle, Charles de Le Marche took over. During this time, tensions with England were at an all time high despite Jean's aunt Isabella being married to the King of England. In 1325, Jean's great-uncle, Charles of Valois managed to take back the duchy of Aquitaine and regent Charles, declared that King Edward II's French titles were forfeit. It would be in 1327 when King Edward II was disposed would Aquitaine be returned to England in the hands, of Jean's cousin, Edward III, albeit a much reduced territory.
In 1328, Charles also died, leaving Jean as the only male left in the main branch of the House of Capets. Charles of Valois's son Philip would take over as regent. In 1330, at fourteen-years-old Jean would marry his cousin, Joan. She would birth a son in 1331, dying due to childbed fever, leaving Jean a teenage widower with a babe. It was imperative that he married as quickly as he could.
He would marry Bonne of Luxembourg (1315) in 1332. They had eleven children before her death in 1349 of bubonic plague. Despite having several sons, Jean would marry for a third and final time in 1350 to Eleanor of Sicily I1325), they would have three child before he died.
Shortly, after his second marriage, Jean was declared of age and allowed to rule, although he would forever rely on the advice and counsel of Philip of Valois.
However, Jean's relations with England and his cousin Edward would begin to deteriorate with Jean feeling that Aquitaine and the rest of the French lands that were under English control belonged to France. In 1337, Robert III of Artois, who had committed forgery to illegally obtain an intermittence, sought refuge in England. When Edward refused to hand him over, the twenty-one-year old king declared Aquitaine forfeit. In retaliation, Edward III accused Jean of being an imposter, saying that real Jean of France died after five days and a cockoo was placed in his stead. (This rumor has been debunked by modern DNA tests). Edward proclaimed himself the rightful King of France as the sole living grandson of King Philip IV.
King Jean fought alongside his friend and cousin, Philip of Valois who was give the Duchy of Aquitaine. The Battle of Crécy in 1546 would be a disaster for the French army with Philip injured and Jean barely escaping with his life. It was a catastrophe for the French and would feature the loss of Calais.
Three years later, Queen Bonne would die of the plague which would destroy one third of the population. It was an tragedy. Jean's third wedding was a somber event with the continued hostilities with England, the recovery from the plague and the death of Jean's friend Philip.
In 1555, the war with England would restart and Jean would lead his troops in Battle of Poitiers where in a miraculous moment, he manged to subdue and capture Edward, the Black Prince. Unfortunately, Jean would not have long to gloat for a year later, he would die of dysentery. His son, Henri, would take care of the negotiations with England.
[2] The second son of Jean the I, Henri was made Duke of Orleans at birth, for his father intended for him to be the strong right hand of his elder brother, Phillipe, when he came of age. Thus, Henri was given a thorough martial education, although the boy soon proved himself far too intelligent and talented to be limited to the sword and lance. Being given many tutors from places as close as Normandy and Languedoc, and as far as Bohemia and the Eastern Roman Empire, both Henri and his brothers, Phillipe, Charles and Hercules were brought in a growing cosmopolitan Paris, under the strict but benevolent watch of their father.
Thankfully for King Jean, his second son was growing to pay dividends - at the bare age of twelve, the young Henri was already defeating boys four and five years older in the tiltyard, and stayed at the side of his tutor, the Constable of France, during various military meetings of importance. As as young Knight and Duke, Henri would gain his spurs during the battles of Crecy and would fight in more battles, featuring in the defense of Calais where he led a small army that proved a great thorn for the English. He would make several friends at this stage, such as the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Alençon and many others.
He would retire to Orleans then, where the Young Duke took upon himself the duty of ruling. His close watch, support for the artisans of the Duchy and his heavy involvement in the local economy made him a very beloved ruler, as Henri attracted Jewish, German and Italian glass-makers and Greek and Sicilian silk-weavers. Thus, Orleans became a famous commercial center, closely linked to both the Aquitaine and Champagne trade routes, the city becoming famous for it's glass and becoming the first and major center of what would come to be known as "Capetian Silk".
When the second war of King Jean's reign with England started, Henri faced a early loss which blackened his heart - his brother, leading a charge of French infantry-men during a battle against the Prince of Wales, was shot down by English Longbowmen. The fall of the Dauphin's standard almost broke the French army, but Henri, raging, took up the Orleans and Dauphine standards - and charged straight into the English lines, The sight of the Duke of Orleans, surrounded by no more than twenty retainers, charging alone at the thousand Englishmen raised the spirits of his army, who followed the new Crown Prince into the battle. The Battle of Puymartin is the first, and perhaps most famous victory of Henri.
The heavy defeat handed to the Black Prince forced him to retreat North, where the English fell into the clutches of the army led by King Jean and Phillipe of Valois. His army tired and restless, Henri took upon himself to siege every single English occupied castle in Aquitaine, withdrawing the English poison root and stem. Just as he had finished the pacification of Aquitaine, and with his army reinforced by the locals, the news of the death of his father reached him. After a hasty trip to Reims, Henri was crowned, promising on God and France to forever expel the English from the continent. It was a promise Henri would make due on.
With Edward of Wales in his hands, the English were fighting with one hand behind their backs - Edward the III did not wish to risk his eldest and most favoured son, who was a captive in Paris, even if he was treated well and the French seemed to mostly ignore him, Henri was far too focused on his goal. Despite Edward calling for truces several times, Henri led his armies and a myriad of Free Companies northwards, intent on ending the Plantagenet stain on Capetian France. The battle of Hainaut (1358) and the Siege of Calais (1359) were both French victories, with Henri changing many of the tactics used by the French armies in the face of English innovations, such as the Longbow. The support of the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret, Countess of Flanders, proved to be the tipping point that would see the English Crown finally expelled from France. The following Treaty of Chartres saw Edward the III renounce all of his rights to French territorry, including Calais and Aquitaine, in return for his son, who would be sent on a ship to England with the returning English diplomats.
Victory cemented Henri upon his throne - the young royal was, perhaps, the most powerful King of France since Louis IX, and his influence was felt everywhere. In some places, Henri was almost revered as a warrior Saint. But Henri proved to not only be a warrior. With the Black Plague still making making periodic returns, taking with it another one of Henri's brothers, Charles Duke of Berry, Henri turned to the sickness with the same ferocity he had faced the English. He and his advisors reinforced French hospitals, founding many in the many major municipalities of France, and they also correctly identified rats and such other vermin as the bringers of the plague, and the French people followed Henri's adoption of cats as pets - the Kingdom of France become henceforth known as the "Kingdom of Cats", for cats were found in every street of Paris during Henri's reign.
The death of so many serfs, peasants and nobles left a lot of land in the hands of the crown - and Henri was anything if not a greedy land grabber. Aquitaine was re-bought from the Valois, who were in deep crisis due to some shady investments, alongside the County of Anjou but a few years later. The Angevin Kings of Naples, who faced revolts in Provence, also sold the full rights to Provence to Henri in 1374, with the new French professional army, modeled and using as a base the many Free Companies that had sprouted in Gascony, Normandy and Burgundy during the English wars, was one of the most ferocious and effective armies in Europe at the time. His brother Hercules would receive the County of Nice as appanage after the seizure, alongside his other title of Count of Montpensier.
The death of the last Burgundian Duke, Phillipe the I, a great friend of Henri, would also see the Duchy of Burgundy, the Counties of Boulogne and Auvergne, reunited with the French Crown. Deep in grief for the death of his friend, the wifeless King was soon approached by Phillipe's widow, Margaret of Flanders. She too, needed a new husband, for she was heirless, and the marriage would be advantageous for them both. Both young and fertile, the young couple would grow to love each other. Margaret of Flanders brought along many rich lordships, such as Flanders, Rethel, Nevers, Artois and the County of Burgundy, in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the perfect marriage, and the couple soon grew to love each other deeply. As said before, Margaret would prove a dutiful wife and an excellent queen. She birthed the King no more than 11 healthy children at birth.
With so many lands in the hands of the monarchy, Henri's power was almost absolute. He cemented French laws, creating new taxes, reforming and modernizing old legal systems, reformed the army, as mentioned before, encourage commerce and would further increase the royal domain by seizing the lands of the House of Hainault, taking Hainaut for himself and delivering the County of Zeeland to his wife. He would make his brother Hercules, whom he trusted deeply, alongside his titles of Montpensier and Nice, Duke of Holland as well. With the royal coffers full, Henri would become famous for the love he and his wife shared of palace-building, with Henri building almost twenty palaces during his reign, many of which are tourist attractions today.
Deeply beloved, and surrounded by allies, due to the fact his army of sisters was married off to many European Princes and French nobles, a loyal and stateswoman of a wife and a large brood of children, Henri took to feasting and drinking heavily in his later years. He and his wife, would, literally, grow fat and old together, but the aged King would quickly become an alcoholic. While wintering in Navarre, Henri would catch a cold after walking in the Pyrenean snows while riding to his rural residence where his wife was staying. The simple cold, however, would be enough to topple a great King. Henri died in 1395, being succeeded by his son Philippe.
[3] Named for both his late uncle and his father's friend, Philippe was born in 1371. It was hard for Philippe growing up as he stood in the shadows of his grandfather and father. His grandfather had been born a king and against all odd lived and ruled for forty years and single-handedly saved the depleted main branch the Capet dynasty. Meanwhile his father had manged to successfully expel the English and the plague from his lands.
Both were figures of legends, leaving Philippe rather small in comparison. Because of this he had a massive inferiority complex with traces of paranoia.
In 1385, he would marry Isabeau of Bavaria. The marriage was suggested to make an alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor. The marriage at first seemed to blossoming into a love match. However, the early death of their son, Louis drove a wedge between the two. It would slowly get worse when Isabeau's next two children would die in the cradle.
They seemed to have reconciled in 1382, when their next son, also called Louis, was born. The couple became even closer when in 1495, when Henri died and Philippe would become king in a join coronation with his wife.
However, Isabeau proved herself an unpopular queen unlike her much beloved predecessor (who had retired to her native Flanders). She was haughty, quarrelsome and a spendthrift. There were also rumors circulating that she was unfaithful.
Although his wife had given him four more children, Philippe would distant himself from his wife, becoming distrustful of her. Things would come to a head when in 1401, their son, Louis died before his ninth birthday. This would be the tipping point. In June 1401, Isabeau would miscarry her baby (speculated to be because the stress she was under,although others wonder if there was a darker reason such as her husband beating her). In August, she would be arrested on the charges of adultery. If a queen being arrested wasn't scandalous enough, the king's distant cousin, Jean of Valois was accused of being her lover. Both were held in prison until their trial.
It was largely a farce of trial with half the witnesses being enemies of either the Duke of Valois or the queen and the other half spoke only hearsay. Unfortunately, the judges declared the Duke and the Queen guilty above the protests of their family.
Philippe would commute their punishment to life imprisonment despite being well in his rights to execute them both. Unfortunately, Jean would die just two years later of bad treatment at the hands of his jailers.
In 1407, Philipee would be found stabbed in his bed, with the words JUSTICE crudely carved in his forehead. His brother, Jean, would succeed him.
[4] Jean the II was the younger brother of Phillipe the V, having been given the title of Duke of Anjou and Count of Maine when he reached his majority, becoming an extremely influential figure in the reigns of his late father and brother. Known for his violent character and his enormous size (Jean was often compared to the Titans of Hellenic Myths), the young Duke of Anjou was promised at birth to Phillipa Plantagenet, daughter of Edward the IV (Edward the Black Prince)
Jean's first years as ruler of his duchy were ... special, in a way. Anjou had been for decades now one of the centers of the Anglo-French conflicts, but with the English exiled from the continent, it was prime time, at least in Jean's eyes, to renew Anjou and Maine as centers of French Chivalry and commerce, and this he did so. Tourneys, fairs and meeles became the glamour of Anjou during these times, and the immigration of Jews and various other french ethnicities to the land proved useful in making Anjou grow. It was during these times that Jean travelled to England to fetch his bride - despite English attempts at breaking the marriage, due to the fact that both of her brothers, Edward and Richard, were still childless, his arrival in London broke the reverie. Not much is known of whatever negotiations happened during Jean's two-month stay in England, but he did return to France with with the "Fair Maid of Kent".
King Jean has always been described as a zealous christian, due to his support for the crusader movements in the Balkans and Anatolia, and his attacks on the many Kingdoms and Emirates of North Africa, but he should also be remembered as a patron and protector of the Jewish people. Many jews worked in the growing bureaucracy and administration of France during this period, and Jean's head of health both as Duke and as King was a jew, whom he hired after Phillipa miscarried their first child. Of the six next children the couple would have, all would be taken to term.
Jean rose to the throne over his two nieces - whom he would raise and adopt at his own. Extremely furious at the way his brother died, Jean would hunt down the partisans of Isabeau of Bavaria, conducting a purge of much of the nobility. The House of Valois would survive through the mercy of Constance Capet, the young Countess of Angouleme and Valois, who protected her husband and children from the fury of her brother.
Afterwards, Jean's reign was mostly quiet, other than some interventions and support for Crusader missions in the Balkans and North Africa. Jean's Meditteranean navy would conquer the cities of Algiers and Bone, whom the young French army would defend. For this, Jean and all future King's of France would gain the title of his Most Christian majesty. He died in 1431, being succeeded by his eldest son, Henri.
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[5] Born in 1404, Henri was the first child born after the miscarriage, to Jean and Phillipa Plantagenet and although the parents were over the moon to have their first child in their arms, they were distressed at the birth defect which affected Henri, his left leg was missing from above the knee, apart from this his health was perfect.
Jean's Jewish head of health, stated that this was not a curse but a test from God and as Henri grew, his parents and tutors were able to see that, he was able to compensate his missing limb, by strengthening his upper body, as well as studying hard.
One of his Jewish tutors was also able to create a saddle that balanced him on the horse, so he was still able to train as much as his brother(s), uncles and cousins.
By the age of 16, in 1420, Henri was serving his father in the treasury as well as attending diplomatic meetings, during one such meeting his father and Henri would arrange the marriage of Henri to his cousin, Marie of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy (1381–1433) and Mary of France (1380-1436), herself daughter of Henri II and Margaret of Flanders, sister of Philippe and Jean.
The marriage would take place in 1426 and was a well attended event, with royalty from around Europe, followed by a tense bedding ceremony, which went without a problem.
The marriage would be a happy one and lead to the birth of many healthy children.
Like his father and grandfather, Henri, would arrange marriages to European Monarchs, forming stronger alliances, better trading deals and saw a long period of peace.
Internally, following years of working in the treasury, Henri, was able keep the royal purse ever growing, allowing him to finance projects, such as new cathedrals, one of which would be dedicated to his father, Jean the Most Christian Majesty, with Pope Eugene IV, beginning the process of awarding Jean a sainthood.
Not only were his policies beneficial to the nobility but they also brought great economic prosperity to his subjects, greatly increasing the population.
During the conclave of 1447, there were talks of new policies being brought in to support Christian monarchs to expel all Jews from their country, French cardinals were ordered by Henri to not vote for these policies, this would lead to French Cardinal, Guillaume d'Estouteville being voted in at the election, becoming Pope John XXIII, in honour of Henri’s father, Jean.
One of the most major acts of his rule was to bring about a constitution as at this point in French history, they lacked a formal constitution; the regime essentially relied on custom. The constitution was discussed by Henri, the high ranking nobles and the senior members from the Parliament of Paris.
The constitution, cemented the law of male succession only and the absolute monarchy role as God’s chosen voice in France, second only to the Pope.
Catholicism would be the state religion and Catholic Churches would be separate from taxes. Other religions would be tolerated in France as long as they are peaceful.
His death in 1468 aged 64 years old, would be felt heavily in his home nation and across Europe as his many letters of advice to monarchs had helped them deal with internal financial and constitutional crises.
He was succeeded by his son Jean.
[6] Born in 1431, he was the firstborn son of Henri II and Marie. He was born with all his limbs, but without his voice. Despite this, he was a very intelligent boy who was passionate about literature and the theater. He was trained from his childhood to one day be king, and he took to the job with aplomb. Soon he was attending state meetings alongside his father, and even was the one behind the idea of making peace with the house of Valois. His disinterest in marrying or siring children exasperated his advisors, but since he had many legitimate nephews, Jean ignored them the same way he ignored all potential betrothal contracts. He founded a dozen schools and wrote many books under his own name, and was a big fan of attending plays, being for his whole life a patron of the arts. He also promoted religious tolerance, but this was an unpopular policy with his Christian nobility. His court festivals, building projects and tapestries were all known for their rich colors, and he spent almost ruinous sums on them. But this accomplished his aim of bolstering royal prestige through lavish cultural display, and his reign is known today for the artistic flourishing simulated by his patronage as well as the frequent hosting of Europe's leading artists and writers. He also rewrote the constitution by his father, abolishing the law of only male succession in favor of male-preference primogeniture, and forced the church to pay taxes. He died after drinking some poisoned wine, having died single and childless.
[7] François of Anjou was born in 1469, the first born son of Louis, Duke of Anjou and Beatrice of Savoy. His father died when he was four years old and he raised by his mother and his older sister. He married Ippolita Viscounti, daughter of the Duke of Milian, in 1485. It was not a grand match, but one that brought coin and a link to a dynastic house of Italy. They would have nine children.
After the death of King Henri in 1500, François and his wife would be crowned in a grand ceremony. The new king would restlessly search for the man who had poisoned his uncle, determined to gain justice to his uncle. To his anger, he found out that the culprit was the Count of Bar, an old friend of his. Angered at such a personal betrayal, he had the man and his hired assassin boiled alive in oil as was the customary punishment in those days for poisoners.
For the next fifteen years, François was determined to bring the culture of France to new heights, using his wife's Italian connection to invite all sorts of artists. Upon hearing of Enrique of Castile's patronizing exploration of the new world, the king sponsored several explorers.
The king was a lover of fine food, fine wine and fine women. Unfortunetly, this would soon wear his body out. King François would die of gout in 1515, leaving the kingdom in the hands of Jeanne.
[8] Jeanne, born in 1486 was the oldest of eight daughters of François and Ippolita, her sole brother having died in his adolescence. Thanks to her grand-uncle, Jean III, whom she was named after, she was able to succeed to the throne. She was considered to be a graceful beauty, with a vivacious and lively personality and an affable nature. She regularly hosted masques and tournaments that thoroughly dazzled her contemporaries at her lavish court, and her patronage of the arts made a significant contribution to French culture. She was determined to show that she, as a woman ruling France, could maintain the prestige and magnificence established by her predecessors. However, she never married. She knew that marriage meant she had to lose power to her husband, and whichever man she selected could provoke political instability or even insurrection. Instead, she had a series of short-term favorites at court. Though her single status led to accusations of irresponsibility, her silence with regards to such matters, however, strengthened her own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be vulnerable to a coup. She performed her ceremonial role as queen in strict accordance with formal court etiquette, and regularly and punctually fulfilled all representational duties that the court life demanded of her. She was also an example of Catholic piety and was famed for her generosity to the poor and needy through her philanthropy, which made her very popular among the public her entire life as queen. Though she followed a largely defensive foreign policy, her reign raised France's status abroad. Under Jeanne, the nation gained a new self-confidence and sense of sovereignty. She knew that a monarch ruled by popular consent, and therefore always worked with parliament and advisers she could trust to tell her the truth. She passed away due to illness, single and childless, but surrounded by dozens of her sisters' children and grandchildren.
[9} Born Monsieur le Prince, Louis was from birth the eldest of the Blood Princes and the highest of France's peers, holding titles such as the Duchy of Touraine, the Counties of Angouleme, Vexin, Forez, Perche and Boulougne. Being raised to a senior most position within French society and the class elites, Louis was given an extensive education of matters of war and statescraft. He was born after the death of his father, the previous Duke, to Princess Contansce Zephyrine of France, second eldest of King François' brood of girls. Thus, he was also raised in the belief that he might be heir to the French throne one day, a destination, that did come to prove itself true in the future.
Louis' adulthood was marked by a series of family compacts that the political war he would wage with his royal aunt when securing his majority unfold - in essence, Jeanne's refusal to name him successor, and her efforts to tamper with his efforts to succeed to the Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside Jeanne's refusal to grant him his desired titles of Governorship over French Flanders. Louis' would still manage to win over the widowed Agnes of Luxembourg as his wife - bringing the Duchy of Luxembourg, the County of Namur and the Duchy of Limburg into his possessions. This vast increase of land and Louis' exploits in the Netherlands made him an enemy of various of his aunt's favourites, and of his aunt herself, but Louis' purse alongside his savy knowledge of french politics saved his skin.
Jeanne eventually gave away, and Louis and Agnes became King and Queen of France. The first decrees of Louis' reign where changing the rules of succession in France to Salic law, something that greatly pleased the Princes of the Blood. Had Louis' elder aunt, Margarite, had children, the throne of France would have passed outside the House of Capet for the first time in centuries, right onto the hands of the von Luxembourgs who ruled in Spain, or if Louis himself had never been born into the House that had taken the Luxembourgian lands in Central Europe, the von Habsburgs. It was a tense situation, none so because Louis derived legitimacy from his mother over his aunts, but Louis' rank as first prince of the blood made the situation clearer.
Luxembourgian (Technically, the House of Luxembourg-Avis) had ruled the whole of the Iberian Peninsula for two generations now, with the Kingdoms having been unified during the reigns of Manuel the I of all Spanish realms, but Spain, despite growing into the first colonial Empire, with vast conquests in America and many outspots in Africa, Arabia and India, had kept itself outside of continental affairs for some while now, too busy with it's overseas exploits and it's drive into Morocco. France and Spain had mostly kept the peace, other than a few disagreements here and there. But Louis would decidedly draw France into Spain's sights - he, seeing monarchs such as the English and Spanish Kings enriching themselves, sent vast fleets of exploration to the new world, setting up colonies firstly in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where Breton (The Bretons were rather autonomous vassals of the French Kings, but still French nonetheless) and Norman fishermen were making a fortune, establishing contancts with the natives and forming settlements in Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) but further south, other even more successful colonies were formed, eventually forming two sister colonies in the southern tip of Africa and South America. Taking inspirations from the Franks, the two forming colonies would be called Neustrie-Neuve (New Neustria, OTL La Plata) and Nouvelle Austrasie (New Austrasia, OTL Cape-colony).
Fascinated by the so called Columbian exchange, France was one of the first country to massively import American crops, which first became a delicacy but then a highly sought product that could easily supplement the volatile french diet. The sudden growth in population caused by this ammelioration of France's health standards during Louis' reign would create massive movements towards France's colonies but allow France the manpower to conquer more Algerian coastal cities and make war in Germany and Spain at the same time. France would annex the Duchy of Brabant and tribute from the Prince-Bisphoric of Liege during this time, alongside recognition of Lorraine as a French Peerage and thus, vassal. In Spain, the new King was not so successful, as he lost a few border towns with Spain and almost lost Navarre twice, but France's highly experienced army pulled through for the Kingdom. Louis dreamnt of forming a universalist monarchy that would cover the whole of Europe eventually.
He, clearly, did not succeed in all his goals. He died aged and old, surrounded by his various children. He was succeeded by his son Louis.
[10] Louis, the twelfth of his name was already a man in his sixties, sick with goat so it was almost certain he would not last long. Sometimes, he would be called the placeholder king, although none would dare say it to his face, as he had a ferocious temper. In the defense of Louis, he had spent must of his time as his father's heir, running his various lands with great skill. However, in just two years of his reign, he was already bedridden, thrusting his heir in the position of regent.
In 1592, he would finally pass on, allowing____to succeed him.
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POD: Süleyman Pasha (son of Orhan) does not die in a hunting accident and becomes the Third Ottoman Sultan
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
1943 - 1999: Latif I (House of Osman) [22]
1999 - Present: Osman II (House of Osman) [23)
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
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An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
View attachment 706865
A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19] Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
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Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by his grandson, Latif.
{22] Born in 1912 as the third son, of the Sultan's heir Alparslan, Latif was not expected to become Sultan. His father would die in World War I. His oldest brother, Iskender would die of the Spanish flu in 1920. His second brother, Orhan would be groomed for the throne, only he would die in 1931 in a car crash, leaving only an infant daughter behind. The current Emperor fearing leaving the empire in the hands of a minor girl so he chose his uncle to suceed him instead.
Thankfully, he had twelve years to learn how to succeed his grandfather. He married Gamila, daughter of the Egyptian governor in 1940. When war broke out, Latif would leave his pregnant wife to fight alongside the troops. However, he would only fight for two years for when his grandfather died, he had to return home to be crowned. He was greeted by cheering crowds, a loving wife and a toddler.
World War Two would end in 1944 with the Ottoman Empire crushing their long time rival Russia. With the war over, Laftif worked for social and economical reform. Having been raised mostly by his mother and his older sisters, he passed laws to give more rights to women, even going as far as to cite the three Jihans as proof that women could rule just as well as men. In 1960, the act of succession was changed to allow women to inherit. He did however, make it clear that it was still ultimately up to the Emperor and his council who would be chosen as heir.
As the years went on, Latif was a great speaker on human rights, pushing for harsher punishments against those who committed crimes out of bigortry.
In 1999, just shortly before the new millennium began, Latif passed away at age eighty-seven, leaving the throne in the hands of his grandson, Osman Fuad.
[23] The second oldest grandson of Latif, Osman Fuad's appointment to the succession of the Sublime Porte was a highly unpopular affair, due to the fact that his older brother, Orhan Mustafa, had been for decades now presented as the heir to the Ottoman Throne, a tall, charismatic and popular prince, who had served in the army and had a beautiful (if christian) wife that had given him plenty of children. But Orhan's lack of devotion compared to other members of his family attracted the attention of Imperial and World media on him, and when a papparazi took pictures of Orhan praying in a Christian fashion inside a Orthodox Church, the pictures took like wildfire throughout the world. The Empire's muslims were outraged, the Empire's Christians were happy at what they had originally only took as the Prince accompanying his wife during her worship.
A public statement from Orhan Mustafa shook the core of the Ottoman Monarchy in 1997 - he admitted that had had ceased believing in the tenets of Islam in his youth in the army, when a Bulgarian Priest had convinced him of the virtues of his religion during a mission in which Orhan was wounded. His grandfather, Latif, whom never revealed if he knew of Orhan's Christian inclinations before 1997, removed him from the Ottoman line of succession, and exiled his favourite grandchild and once heir and his family from the Ottoman Empire. It was a highly humiliating affair, that, although increasing the trust the Empire's muslim population had in the monarchy, finally broke the tense, but peaceful accord between the government and the Empire's Christians.
Osman's first year in the throne were, in essence, dictated by government - Osman was a fervorous muslim, but he was made to seem more zealous than ordinary for him, all to "make forget". It would not work, and despite Osman's respectful and jovial personality, and popularity amongst the Muslims of the Empire, the actions of the government during these first years, were an unsure Osman Fuad depended on his elected officials to work the monarchy, with the historically disenfranchised Christians of the Empire taking harsher and steeper political stances, from the peaceful manifestations for a fairer society to the violent seccessionist movements in Albania and Wallachia.
Osman Fuad eventually took the reigns of his own image and crown in his own hands, and he made deep efforts to increase the recognition for Human and Religious rights in the Empire, and to also correct deeply-entrenched economical, religious and social phenomenons that still ran through Ottoman society. This did increase the popularity of Osman and his family himself, but the "Rumelian Independence Party", for short, the RIP, united the various small secessionist parties of the Empire, especially the Christian ones, and took to fighting the government in elections. The economic crash of 2013 saw the RIP essentially take political control of the Ottoman Balkans, such as the Scottish National Party in Albion, and it is currently the third largest party in the Empire. While the overwhelming population majority of the Empire's combined Asian and African provinces, the RIP has not managed to move onwards a Independence Referendum for Rumelia, being beaten repeteadly in the Ottoman Imperial Congress, but the party has solidified it's holdings in the Balkans and is seeping through to Georgia, Armenia, Ionia and other places where Christians hold sway.
Thus, Osman Fuad, despite having solified his shaky position since 1999, the Empire's democratic apparatus is failing in it's attempts to reform the Empire and appease the Christians enough to end the seccessionist RIP without resorting to the repressive methods used before the crisis. As a journalist for the "Paris Lights" put it best, "Osman Fuad's situation is not much different from that of his Majesty Charles X eighty years ago - he has thrown himself at his work, embraced a new fairer, more just identity, while keeping to his traditions and duties as a royal, but the France of eighty years ago never had the same demographic division the Ottoman Empire has sustained for centuries now. While Osman Fuad has brilliant ideas and has developed into a brilliant speaker, the governments who represent him keep making blunder after blunder. While Osman Fuad has long left the shadow of his grandfather and brother and has been embraced by most of the Empire's muslims, the Christian populace of the Empire have never forgotten Orhan Mustafa, who even in his quiet exile in Sweden remains the most popular Ottoman royal amongst it's Christians - despite not having been in official Ottoman propraganda for more than twenty years. And most importantly, despite respected their traditions, speaking Orta, and calling himself a Roman, a Ottoman above a Turk, those descendants of the local native Christians of much of the Ottoman Empire see him in the light his grandfather painted for him - The continuation of their opression, the heir to those who opressed them for generations".
Osman Fuad and his family (He and his wife, Iranian Princess Leila, have had four children, Murad Han, Mehmed, Jihan and Mustafa) have managed to salvage their situation, the future for the Ottoman Empire itself looks shaky.
Ottoman Sultans/Sultanas/Emperors/Empresses
1299 - 1324: Osman I (House of Osman)
1324 - 1362: Orhan I (House of Osman)
1362 - 1387: Süleyman I (House of Osman) [1]
1387 - 1405: Süleyman II (House of Osman) [2]
1405 - 1439: Jihan I 'The Conqueress' (House of Osman) [3]
1439 - 1450: Murad I "The Bloody" (House of Osman) [4]
1450 - 1483: Orhan II 'The Nature-Lover' (House of Osman) [5]
1483 - 1506: Iskender I (House of Osman) [6]
1506 - 1519: Alparslan I (House of Osman) [7]
1519 - 1584: Jihan II 'The Virgin' (House of Osman) [8]
1584 - 1617: Orhan III 'The Great' (House of Osman) [9]
1617 - 1627: Mehmed I (House of Osman) [10]
1627 - 1658: Jihan III 'The Second Arrow of Islam' (House of Osman) [11]
1658 - 1673: Iskender II 'The Re-Organizer' (House of Osman) [12]
1673 - 1676: Orhan IV "The Puppet" (House of Osman) [13]
1676 - 1718: Orhan V 'The Magnificent' (House of Osman) [14]
1718 - 1767: Süleyman III (House of Osman) [15]
1767 - 1768: Mehmed II "The Brief" (House of Osman) [16]
1768 - 1800: Süleyman IV (House of Osman) [17]
1800 - 1828: Succession Crisis/War of the Four Daughters/Decades of Anarchy [18]
1828 - 1855: Iskender III "The Puppeteer" (House of Osman) [19]
1855 - 1912: Alparslan II "The Old" (House of Osman) [20]
1912 - 1943: Iskender IV "The Patriot” (House of Osman) [21]
1943 - 1999: Latif I (House of Osman) [22]
1999 - Present: Osman II (House of Osman) [23)
A portrait of Süleyman I
[1] Süleyman I's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is estimated that the man was born in the mid to late 1310s as the son of Orhan's earliest wives. Süleyman I ascended to the Ottoman Throne after his father's glorious reign, which saw the Ottomans set foot in Europe for the first time. Süleyman himself had been a key military architect to Ottoman expansion under the reign of his father.
As Süleyman I was already quite old when he took the throne (for the time), he took a more measured approach to governmental policy, in comparison to his warlike predecessors. He compiled and created a book of laws for his medium-sized realm, and improved the administration of the realm by purging corrupt governors and increasing efficiency through rewards for good works done. A caring man by nature, he was struck by the fact that his brothers were all illiterates, and he created the first public schools (in reading, writing, Islamic classics, and Islamic theology) for education. It was initially started by him to teach his brothers, but it was soon allowed to admit children of the Ottoman nobility as well. Süleyman I abolished the system of brother on brother fighting for the succession to the throne, deeming it too destabilizing, and it had only been the fact that his brothers respected him enough to stand aside that a civil war hadn't erupted when their father had died. Instead Süleyman I established the Ottoman Succession System in which the previous Sultan would appoint their successors, and in the event that the Sultan died before appointing an heir, then their eldest male descendant would succeed, as long as they remained in the House of Osman. Diplomatically, he secured a key alliance with Trebizond, when he married Eudokia Komnenos, the 22 year old niece of Manuel III of Trebizond in 1363.
Despite his more peaceful leanings, he did expand the Ottoman State. He annexed the small emirates and beyliks on the Aegean Coast, and after the epic Siege of Smyrna in 1367-68, his forces entered the historic city and captured it for their own. Expansion into Europe at the expense of the Byzantine Empire continued and the Ottomans managed to conquer Adrianople, Manastir and Filibe in Europe under the steady gaze and leadership of Süleyman I. Despite his best wishes for peace in Anatolia after the 1370s, when he became older, he was drawn into conflict with the Karamanids which saw the Ottoman annex most of western Karamanid territories in Anatolia.
Despite the fact that he had children from his previous wives, Süleyman I had grown fond of his Trapuzentine wife and his children by them and in 1384, he appointed his eldest son from Eudokia to be his heir. 3 years later, the old and aged Süleyman I died due to a brain tumor (though it was not identified as such at the time).
[2] Süleyman II grew up doted upon by his parents and siblings due to his kind-hearted and helpful nature. Unfortunately this was abused by his nobility who all fought each other for power and control of the sultan. He was even more of a peace-maker than his father and made many alliances through the marriages of his fourteen children, though his mother often tried to placate the insubordinate nobility on his behalf. At the age of sixteen, he married Maria, the daughter of Frederick III/IV of Sicily and his first wife Constance of Aragon. The couple were madly in love with each other and it is known that Süleyman II even allowed his wife to hand-pick the women of his harem. At the helm of an expanding empire, he personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. This harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia), though he personally was not at all devout. He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing what is now seen as the golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his chosen successor: his second-youngest daughter.
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An Italian portrait of Sultana Jihan
Born in 1384, Jihan Sultan, as she was known before her ascension was an unlikely and unpopular choice to become the successor to the prosperous Ottoman Empire. Her mother Maria had been practically disowned in European genealogies due to her marriage to Jihan's Mohammaden father and Sicily had fallen into anarchy due to rivaling claims between Martin I and his dynastic enemies. The rest of Europe looked on aghast on what they deemed to be a pair made in hell. Ironically, this attitude was shared by most Islamic nobles in the Ottoman Empire, as many thought that the great line of Ertugul was being too diluted by Christian blood. Intermarriages between Christians and Muslims were common in Anatolia and the Balkans, but extremely rare outside of it. Pope Urban VI had gone as far as to excommunicate Maria, ending her ties to the Catholic Christian world.
Ascending to the throne in 1405 and knowing very well of her insecure position as Sultana, she married her second cousin, Sehzade Abdullah to placate the Islamic nobility and to maintain the lineage of the House of Osman. Though she had secured her legitimacy from the marriage, many still believed that Sultana Jihan was incapable of ruling as properly as a male, a reflection of the patriarchal society of the times. Jihan proved to be much more different than her otherwise peaceful predecessors. Immediately on taking the throne, she ordered the invasion of the Karamanid Remnants in Anatolia, intending to consolidate Ottoman control over the region. This order brought the Ottomans into direct conflict with the infamous Tamerlane as the old wily conqueror was consolidating his own rule over eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans and the Timurids were on a collision course with one another. Fortunately for the Ottomans, Timur died of camp fever in early 1405 and was replaced by his grandson, Pir Muhammad, who tried to fight the Ottomans as well. Without a capable leader such as Timur, the Ottomans managed to win the infamous Battle of Sivas in mid-1405, which allowed the Ottomans to annex all of central Anatolia and pushed the Ottoman borders into eastern Anatolia.
But whilst the consolidation of Anatolia had been the first step, Jihan I proved to be much more ambitious than her predecessors as her eyes finally turned to the prize that had eluded the Ottomans for over a century - Constantinople and the ailing Roman (Byzantine) Empire. But whilst her predecessors had only been fixated on the city itself, Jihan I was fixated on the entire Roman Empire. Her title was Sultana, a title that was lower than Emperor/Empress, and she intended to change that. Beginning in 1407, preparations began throughout the Ottoman Empire to capture Constantinople. Knowing the city's history of being able to hold out long and arduous sieges, Jihan I spared no expenses, and modern siege engines from throughout the best of the Mediterranean World was purchased by her government. Siege engineers and siege troops were trained regularly and in 1410, the massive Ottoman Army was starting to move. Under the command of her able general, Imamazade Kandarli Pasha, Constantinople was besieged on the 12th of February, 1410 by 110,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, alongside over 100 naval vessels.
The Siege lasted for over four months, and took the lives of Emperor Manuel II and his heir apparent, Prince John, allowing for the 14 year old Theodore II to ascend as the Roman Emperor. On May 28, 1410, the city's defenses crumpled at last as a massive hole was created in the northern walls, allowing the jannissaries to enter the city. Jihan I ordered that the Imperial Family be spared - she was distantly related to them through her grandmother - and as was typical of Islamic armies of the time, a time period of 2 days was given to the soldiers to sack the city. On the 30th, the young and impressionable Theodore II was brought to Jihan I's camp, where he abdicated all Roman titles from himself and his line to Jihan I, who became Empress Regnant of Rome. Most of the Byzantine nobility, seeing the writing on the wall, accepted her new title, in return for them being able to keep their land and estate privileges.
Reorganizing the still mostly nameless state (the name Ottomans did not arise until the late 1400s after Osman I), she dubbed her realm to be the Empire of Rûm or the Rûmanian Empire (يمپيريوف رومي). This was immediately followed up by propaganda efforts to make sure her claim was legitimized to the general populace. Her distant blood lineage from the old Byzantine Emperors (mostly the Komnenos Line of her grandmother, the closest relation) and the abdication of Theodore II's titles were used to solidify her new Imperial title. This created a diplomatic crisis in Europe, as many Europeans refused to acknowledge the Islamic Ottoman Dynasty as the new Emperors of Eastern Rome, and symbolically restarted the Two Emperor's Dispute as the Holy Roman Empire, backed by the Papacy and Hungary, refused to acknowledge the claims of the Ottoman Dynasty led by Jihan I.
Sigismund of Hungary, who also held the title of King of Germany and de-facto Holy Roman Emperor (though de-jure the post had been empty since Charles IV), persuaded Pope Gregory XII to call for a final new crusade to restore Christian Eastern Rome. Gregory XII answered this call, partially to gain political advantage over his Avignon and Pisan rival claimants, and called for the Catholic world for a final crusade against Jihan I's claim to being the Rûmanian Empress. Jihan I quickly moved against such ideas of crusade by pre-empting the Hungarians by asking for support with the Serbs, under their magnanimous leader, Stefan Lazarevic. Lazarevic was more wary of the growing Hungarian and Wallachian raids into his country and less the Ottomans, who had been at peace with the Serbs for over two generations at that point. Lazarevic agreed, and the Serbs sided with Jihan, with Lazarevic acknowledging Jihan I's title as Roman Empress, on the condition she restored the deposed Patriarchate of Constantinople with significant autonomies, which she did. In 1412, a coalition of Hungarians, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards led what has been dubbed to be the Crusade of Sofia.
Lazarevic alone, despite his military prowess, was unable to come out victorious against the combined crusading force led by Sigismund, and retreated into Ottoman territory. Jihan I sent her husband in command of a large force of 40,000 soldiers to meet the crusading army after linking up with the Serbians. The Serbs and Ottomans linked up on the southern outskirts of Sofia, which had been occupied by the Crusaders, and Lazarevic and Sehzade Abdullah attacked the city and its Crusading defenders. The Battle of Sofia would end in decisive, if pyrrhic, Ottoman victory, leading to the Crusaders to retreat back into Hungary broken as a fighting force. Exhausted, the Ottomans allowed them to retreat, unable to stop them due to their own relative large losses as Lazarevic liberated Serbia and annexed Petervard (Novi Sad) from the Hungarians. The Crsuade of Sofia ended the Age of Crusading, and the Ottoman claim of being Eastern Rûm were consolidated.
In the aftermath of the conflict, Jihan I's insatiable lust for conquest was only added by the conquest of the small squabbling Epirot despotates and the annexation of Thessalonika and Euboea. Jihan I also oversaw the repopulation and reconstruction of Constantinople, her new capital, and the city was rebuilt in a weird and fascinating mix of Turkic Islamic architecture and Byzantine Greek architecture, reflecting the Turkic nature of the Ottoman Dynasty and the Byzantine Greek heritage of the title they now claimed. Hagia Sofia was left untouched, but a even greater temple of worship, the Blue Mosque was built right next to it as a testament in favor of Islam, which the Ottomans still followed religiously and zealously. After the crusade and the consolidation of her conquests, Jihan I became involved in restoring the grandeur of Constantinople, the city was renovated, reconstruction, repopulated and regrown from a grassroots level. By the time of her death, Constantinople was once again the largest city in Europe, and probably its grandest, and reflected its old Christian past and Islamic future.
Throughout the rest of her reign, Jihan I oversaw the conquest of Athens and the Peloponesse into the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire, and extended the borders of the realm to include Van as well, which was wrested away from the Iranians. After the Conquest of the Peloponnese in 1421, she ended her life of conquest and settled down to become a more cultural monarch. A Patron of the Rennaissance in the Orthodox World, she became renowned in her later years for opening the Ottoman Rûmanian Empire to foreigners to visit and bring new cultures in. Her Empire during her last years became exceedingly polygot as Persian, Arabian, Berber, Turkic, Georgian, Armenian, Crimean, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Romanian painters, dancers, performers, writers came to meet with the magnanimous Islamic Empress of Eastern Rûm.
In 1439, she died of heart disease, leaving behind an ascendant Empire which she had ruled for over three decades and was succeeded by her appointed successor her son, Murad.
[4] When his mother died, Murad was in his late twenties when his mother died, having been born early in his parents' marriage. Murad was a man with a vision. He dreamt of being a great conqueror. It was noted that Murad seemed to care only for the glory of war, leaving statecraft to his advisors while he marched his armies to endless wars though Europe. Unsurprisingly, this would lead to his downfall.
Not long after his mother's death, Murad chose to invade Romania, not satisfied with the princes only paying tribute, feeling that the entire country should be his. The Princes of Romania were supported by the Holy Roman Emperor who happened to be the King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Kings of Poland and Scandinavia were also eager to help.
In 1448, Murad would attack Wallachia. However he was betrayed by his generals who were sick of the constant battles and handed over to Prince Vlad. Popular legend had that either Vlad or his son, who would go on to have the moniker the Impaler, tortured Murad for every day he had been destroying their country. (In the book Dracula, the vampire mentions the first time he feasted on human flesh was of a man who was drenched in the blood of his [Dracula's] countrymen. This is long suspected to have been Emperor Murad).
Two years later, his butchered body would be sent to his successor, his son, Orhan.
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A painting of Orhan II
[5] Only in his late teens when he rose to power as the eldest son of Murad I, Orhan II's reign began with a bang as the cause of his father's death became known. Vowing revenge, Orhan II gathered a massive army and invaded Wallachia and Moldavia, which after a two-year-long war surrendered. Wallachia was annexed completely whilst Moldavia was turned into a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. Prince Vlad was forced into the mountains and hills where he conducted another two-year-long guerilla war of resistance before he was caught by Ottoman sentries and then executed gruesomely as revenge for Murad I. Orhan II was also involved in building up his realm and consolidating its power. He consolidated Ottoman hold over Albania, defeating the local revolts with the help of Iskender Bey (Skanderbeg in Albanian), with whom he struck up a good relationship by appointing Iskender Bey as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Orhan II also completed the final conquests of Anatolia as the entire region of Anatolia was consolidated under his reign. In 1452 he married Khawand Fatima, the daughter of Sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal of the Mamluk Sultanate as his primary wife, and used said marriage to gain key trading contracts with the Mamluks into the Red Sea, enlarging the Ottoman economic sphere.
Orhan II's reign saw no further expansion (other than few border skirmishes and border forts changing hands at times) as Orhan II was more interested in the consolidation of his large realm. The Blood Tax on the Christian minorities were abolished, and instead the Janissaries were created into a true professional standing force (the first in the entire world) under Orhan II's reign by picking the best troops from the normal army. The abolition of the Blood Tax earned him the loyalty of the Christian populace, and Orhan II's devout religiosity earned him the loyalty of the Islamic populace as well. Orhan II's opening of the Ottoman Empire to fleeing Sephardic Jews from Iberia during the Reconquista also earned him the loyalty of the Jewish populace. In the end, Orhan II's reign marked a reign of inter-religious harmony that was not seen throughout the entirety of the world at the time. This inter-religious harmony allowed for economics to flow, and the Ottomans, already controlling the Aegean and Black Sea's entrance, became even more rich and prosperous as a result. Orhan II saw himself as more of a 'money-giver' than a conqueror, as he uplifted the nation economically. By the end of his reign, only the rich city states of Italy and Germany would be more rich than the Ottoman Empire on a per capita basis. Orhan II was also an avid lover of all things nature. During his time, he converted many forests, mountain ranges and hilly valleys into royal areas, protected by the law, and all animals in said royal forests found protection, food and shelter. His palace was also famously called by western europeans to be the 'palace of animals' as exotic animals from the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Caucasus and the Balkans found home in his palace.
In 1483, Orhan II died of severe fever, sparking a year long mourning process throughout the realm, Muslim and non-muslim alike, and he was succeeded by his son, Iskender.
[6] Iskender was born in 1454 as the oldest son of Orhan II, being raised from birth to be the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Kayser-i-Rum with Iskender being known from a young age for his love of Greek/Rhomaic culture with many more traditional-minded members of the court not being fond of being ruled by someone who was more Rhoman than Turk in his ways and attitudes, even if he was a fairly faithful Muslim.
As Sultan, his 23-year long reign would be marked by a "Hellenization" of the Ottoman court as a result of his fondness of Greek/Rhomaic ways. As such, his main powerbase would not be from the old Turkish nobles but from those elements of the Rhoman aristocracy who had adopted Islam over the past few decades after the fall of Constantinople. As a result of this, his reign would be marked by a renewed prominence of Greek culture in the Empire, especially as Greek-speaking Muslims would gain positions of power and prominence within his Empire with the Empire increasingly seeing itself as a "Roman" Empire as Greek increasingly was the "prestige" language of the court, replacing Persian in the role. Outside of the court and the emphasis on Greek culture, Iskender's reign would be marked by a renewed era of economic growth and prosperity along with the consolidation of Ottoman rule over Anatolia and the Balkans with Serbia, the Morea, and Rhodes conquered and the last independent beyliks in Anatolia snuffed out.
Iskender would marry Anastasia Komnene, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond, in 1477 with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1506 from a stroke (even if some suspected he was poisoned by traditionalists within the court) with his son Iskender the new Kayser.
[7] Although he was born with the name Iskender, the new Sultan choose the regent name Alparslan. He was a careful moderate, unwilling to push the envelope to use a modern phrase. However, this did not stop him from making unorthodox and controversial decisions.
When he learned of Christopher Coloumbus voyage to the New World, Alparslan founded a company of explorers who would set off in search of new land. This along with the conquest of the Island of Rhodes would cost the Ottomans a quite a lot amount of money. Enough that Alparsian held off any more conquests for several years, focusing on diplomatic relations instead.
Knowing he would need an ally against the Holy Roman Emperor, Alparsain reached out the King of France, Charles IX. He sent an embassy to France.
Unfortunetly, he would not live to see if King Charles accepted, after an unfortunate fall down the stairs where he broke his neck, leaving_____to succeed him.
[8] As the oldest child of Alparslan, she picked the name of her ancestress due to her admiration of Jihan I's conquests. However she proved to be nothing like her. Jihan the second of her name was a quiet, peace-making bookworm who spent her days in her libraries, writing her own fiction under a pseudonym. Charles IX of France did not accept the embassy. Infuriated, she decided to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor instead. Charles IX declared war, but she was able to crush his armies with her own. Thereafter, she accepted a peace treaty and spent the latter half of her reign mostly building up the Ottoman army and navy. She disavowed Christopher Columbus, ending all ties between the explorer and the Ottoman empire. Like her father she focused on diplomatic relations. She never married or had any lovers, which sparked many rumors about her sexuality, but was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews and also a dedicated mother to her four pet cats. She died in her sleep due to old age, and it was known that she was buried with her cats.
A portrait of Orhan III leading the Ottoman Armies into Egypt.
The great-nephew of Jihan II, Orhan III outlived his father and grandfather, who were Jihan II's initial successors. He rose to the throne in his mid-20s and unlike his predecessors, who were more cut in the diplomatic sense, Orhan III lived and breathed in the military. Marrying the daughter of the Safavid Shah as his primary wife before his ascension, he used Iranian, European and unique Ottoman tactics meshed into one grand tactical prose that earned him military greatness. Upon immediately taking the throne in 1584, he prepared for war. In 1585, he declared war on the Mamluk Sultanate, over trading discrepancies and invaded Syria. Using his tactical genius, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, who were supported by the Venetians, and conquered Syria in less than six months and Jerusalem was captured by late 1585. In early 1586, he crossed the Sinai desert into Egypt and captured Cairo and Alexandria, annexing the Mamluk Sultanate as a result. The last Abbasid Caliph was brought before him, and alongside the Ottoman titles of Sultan and Kaysar, Orhan III also made the Ottoman Monarch the Caliph of Islam.
Orhan III stopped to regain consolidation and internal balance, and in the meantime, domestically Orhan III reversed the policy of favoring Greeks over other groups in the Ottoman Empire, for it was leading to ethnic tensions in the country. Instead, however, the past century of greek favor, yet Turkic ruling had led to the growth of what was a Turko-Greek Creole which the Sultan first termed as the Orta Language, or the 'Middle' Language. The Orta Language became a popular language in the Empire under Orhan III's reign and de-facto the national language by the time of his death. After restructuring Egypt, and dealing with domestic issues, Orhan III also turned his eyes west. He started a massive naval buildup as a result. A fan of the new world, Orhan III commissioned several explorers into the Indian Ocean, and also started reconstruction on the Canal of the Pharaohs, which was completed in 1595. In 1591, after years of consolidation and internal reforms, the massive Ottoman fleet and navy was completed and the Ottomans invaded Sicily and Malta. Sicily's eastern seaboard fell rather quickly, as the fortifications in the region were rather poor, but Malta resisted ferociously. Orhan III himself stepped on Sicilian shores in 1592, and continued its conquest, which ended in 1593 with the fall of Marsala. It was only in 1594 that Malta agreed to surrender conditionally, with Orhan III allowing Malta to become an autonomous Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, with the Order of the Knights managing the island on behalf of the Ottoman Emperor instead.
With the Eastern Mediterannean essentially an Ottoman lake, Christendom reacted with panic, as the small, yet strategically placed Emirate of Granada essentially meant that the Ottomans now had an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom of Castille-Aragon renewed its reconquista efforts, but with Ottoman support flowing in, the Granadans managed to hold on and settle for a negotiated peace that largely kept their kingdom intact. The Hungarians, on behalf of the Pope attacked the Ottomans as well, but the joint Serbo-Ottoman forces managed to halt the Hungarian advance, bringing the sudden anti-Ottoman drive to a halt. In 1599, an Ottoman fleet of 14 ships departed from Palermo under the command of Kapudan Yusuf Sinan Pasha, who explored the Atlantic trade routes on behalf of Constantinople and managed to land in the land called by the French as Florido. The Ottomans named it Thimogonia, after the latin derivation for the local tribe - the Timucuans - that they encountered, and a year later the Ottomans officially opened shop in Thimogonia as a small colony was opened in the region. Thimogonia was essentially going to serve as the Ottoman's own prison colony and phosphate mining area.
Orhan III also did not forget about the Venetian support for the Egyptians and eventually conquered most of Venetian Eastern Mediterannean during the Great Ottoman-Venetian War of 1596 - 1609 which saw Venetian Cyprus, Peloponesse, and Crete fall to the Ottomans. The Venetians only ruled some outposts in Albania after the war, thus ending Venice as a great power in the region after said war. Orhan III spent the rest of his days consolidating the realm, and finally annexing the Trapuzentine Empire after a succession crisis racked the empire. Using his own claim to the Trapuzentine Empire, he annexed the region into the Ottoman Empire, with some autonomy. He reformed the army to use modern tactics and established the first military university of the empire in Constantinople. He also oversaw a massive infrastructural increase in the empire as news road connecting the empire was constructed and the Canal of the Pharaohs was used liberally to increase trade to further the economy. Thimogonia expanded slowly but steadily, and Orhan III made the colony an autonomous region, with a fully functioning autonomous militia and naval force to quickly respond with European attacks on the region.
Orhan III died in 1617 of lung disease (the man had an addiction towards smoking various types of tobaccos and other flammable nicotine objects), having left behind an empire that had grown over twice its initial size when he ascended to the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Mehmed.
[10] The third eldest son of Orhan, born of a Sicilian noblewoman the Sultan had forced into his harem, Prince Mehmed was raised in the rough environment of Orhan’s court. Orhan was a military man, but was a light handed father when it came to actually raising his children. From a young age, Prince Mehmed suffered the abuses of his elder brothers, Iskander and Isa, both of whom enjoyed throwing themselves and fighting their younger brothers, whom, Mehmed, as the oldest of the youngest, naturally defended.
Made Governor of Sicily in 1604, it was Mehmed that was actually the one to pacify the island, or at least, attempt to. The Ottoman conquest had been anything but gentle, and the locals, fiercely christian, resisted the Ottomans at every turn. Ottoman sailors would wake up in the morning to find their ships ablaze, Ottoman bureaucrats would be assassinated during the night. No matter what the Ottomans did, it seems there was nothing the government could do to appease the local population, who still owed loyalty to another man, another King, and that was Ladislaus of Anjou, third of his name to the throne of Sicily and Naples. The young King had never ceased the fight against the Ottomans, and his collection of beautiful sisters made for an easy alliance-building arrangement.
For the Ottomans, however, the worst news came from the west. Just as Orhan the third died, so did Filipe of Luxembourg, the third and last Luxembourgian King of Castille and Aragon. Childless, the King had named his nephew by his elder sister, Manuel the II of Portugal, as his heir, and soon, the three Kingdoms were united under the iron-hand of Manuel the II. Manuel, who was soon crowned King of Spain, the first to unite the whole peninsula since the Visigoths, soon fell upon the Ottomans erstwhile ally and guarantee of passage over to the Americas, the Emirate of Granada, and conquered it just as Mehmed had taken the scepter.
And so it was that Mehmed was forced to war right as he became Sultan - taking many of his janissaries and almost two-hundred thousand men westwards, and the immense Ottoman fleet slowly lumbered in the direction of Spain, landing in Sicily to restock. Mehmed’s army was immense, but the Spaniards had an unknown tenacity that would make the Ottomans finally pay their dues… Just as the Ottomans sailed out of Palermo’s docks, a storm started - and inside of it, came the famed Duke of Braganza, John Iron-Arm, and massive collection of the best Spanish Galleys, Galleys and Galleots, Frigates and other such ships. The Ottomans, unready and unsteady, despite their massive numbers, found themselves sinking beneath the waves, and before Mehmed’s commanders managed to retreat back to land, it was said that Mehmed was already weeping, for just at sea he lost “half of the host of God”.
The remaining 100000 soldiers stuck in Sicily should and could have done something, but the Spaniards fell upon Palermo like lightning, landing some 40000 soldiers on it, and eastwards, Ladislaus of Naples landed almost 35000 on Messina, marching west with his host to crush the Ottomans. The battle of Gela saw the Ottomans lead into a corner and butchered by the Christian armies, who, like the Ottoman ones in Orhan’s time, had thoroughly modernized and advanced.
Mehmed fled back to Constantinople, where the court was in a somber, if not treacherous mood - no Ottoman sultan, hell, no Roman Emperor had ever lost in a failed expedition of 200000 men. The waste of so much manpower, the loss of Thimogonia to the French and the vultures encircling the Ottoman state did no good to ensure the stability of Mehmed’s reign. Despite this, the loyalty of his younger brothers to his person made the remaining Janissaries unable to place someone loyal and useful to them on the throne, so they marched on … with gritted teeth.
The loss of Sicily was not to be a reprieve, and not an end to Spaniard and Sicilian ambitions, not at all. The Sicilians and Napolitans, united once more, took to their ships, making themselves pirates and raiding all along the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, paying in double centuries of Ottoman sponsored piracy and Ottoman tyranny in their shores. The Spaniards, financed by their ever growing Empire in the New World and their immense trading Empire in India and Indonesia, never lacked gold, or men, or ships, and landed in Crete in 1622, taking the city in the name of the Spanish King.
Mehmed could have in theory raised other armies and reacted to the Spanish advances, if not for Holy Roman Emperor Ernst of Austria. As mentioned before, Ladislaus of Sicily had plenty of sisters, beautiful, the lot of them, and they soon found themselves in the beds of the Spanish King, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of Blood and heir to the throne of France until Henri IV had heirs of his own, the Holy Roman Emperor and various other important princes of Christendom. The Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled various such places as the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, the Archduchy of Austria and was also Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders in the West, marshalled his various armies, especially from the newly acquired Habsburg possessions of Hungary and Bohemia, who had been recently in Luxembourgian hands.
The Habsburg armies took Belgrade in 1627, and marched ever southwards, taking Serbia and freeing Wallachia, delivering to Michael the Brave, the now Voivode of both Moldavia and Wallachia. The Spaniards contented themselves with taking Alexandria and the Peloponnese, but their other movements were unknown. Another army of almost sixty-thousand men was sent Northwards by Mehmed, this time led by one of his younger brothers, Osman, but the Hapsburg armies, blood-thirsty, vengeful and battle-tested, did not give in and killed Osman in the field, but the Ottomans managed to retreat with some forty thousand men.
The news of the death of his brother was the final nail in the coffin for Mehmed. Watching his father’s Empire dying around him, the Sultan finally decided to deny himself paradise for his failure and he took his own life, throwing himself from one of the towers of his palace. He was succeeded by ________.
A Portrait of Jihan III, the First Calipha in History
[11] - Ascending to the throne at the age of 24, Jihan III was in a precarious position as the Holy Roman Emperor and Iberia continued to attack the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire built by her predecessors seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Her ascension, as a female successor, only spurred pessimism in many parts of the Empire that the Ottomans were doomed. Like her namesake, Jihan I, she intended to rise to the occasion. After arranging a quiet and somber funeral for her father, she immediately began to prepare for total war.
The Ottomans banned the usage of the Canal of the Pharaohs to any European nation in alliance with the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, thus striking at the very heart of the European economy, and she publically coronated herself as Sultana, Kaysar and Calipha, the first female head of the Islam for its entire history to raise morale. And on the day of her coronation, only a week after her ascension, Jihan III declared something unprecedented. She declared Jihad on the Iberians, French and Holy Roman Empire in her capacity as Calipha, and the news of the Jihad Declaration of 1627 was immediately sent throughout the Islamic world. The nature of European Colonialism meant that many Islamic nations answered the call. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Fezzan, all fearful of European port cities on their coasts joined the Ottoman Empire. The Mughal Empire in India, fearful of growing Iberian monopolization of the Indian Ocean trade also joined on side, with the Empire of Aceh joining soon after. The Jihad declaration also called for all Islamic minorities in Holy Roman, French and Iberian lands to resist. It was a total war. Despite the declaration however, Jihan III also issued a second declaration, wherein she stated that all Christians in occupied Ottoman lands would be rewarded if they resisted. Orthodox Serbians in particular, who were struggling under the heel of Catholic Hungarians responded to the call in a general pro-Ottoman revolt. The Patriarch of Constantinople also supported the declaration and urged Orthodox Christianity to rise up in favor of the Eastern Roman Empress.
Morale growing high, Jihan III ordered the recreation of the powerful Ottoman fleet, whilst a new army was mustered to retake Northern Macedonia and liberate Serbia. Jihan III, much to the awe and surprise of many, took command of the army herself, and led it in person. As she marched from Constantinople, she sent an order to the Sanjak of Malta to declare a side in the Great Ottoman War. Despite their autonomy, they had not declared for any side. The Grand Master surprisingly did not betray Jihan III. An old man, he had once struck a friendship with Orhan III and finally declared for the Ottomans, as Malta became a interdiction hub against the navies of the newly dubbed Holy League. At the fields outside of Belgrade, the Ottomans and Hungarian-German army met in battle. Jihan III stayed true to her Turkic heritage, and the joint army was crushed after a feigned retreat turned deadly against their forces, thus resulting in the liberation of Serbia, with its previous borders and dynastic house restored, who pledged vassalage to the Ottomans in thanks. The Serbo-Ottomans invaded Hungary proper and Wallachia as a followup, inciting the Vojvodina Serbs and Muslim Wallachians to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 8, 1629 the Ottomans reached the gates of Pest and took the city. The Holy Roman Emperor had to sue for peace afterwards, as the Hungarian Nobles and Croatian Vovoides were now threatening to elect one of Jihan III's Christian relatives (the House of Komnenos-Osman) as Monarch due to the devastation the war had brought to their lands. The Treaty of Vienna affirmed the borders of the Ottoman Balkans as the Ottomans reannexed Wallachia, and the Serbians annexed Vojvodina.
In meantime, the Maghreb nations had retaken port cities on their coasts under the control of the Europeans with aid from the slowly rebuilding Ottoman Navy whilst simultaneously the Granadan Muslims revolted in Iberia. At this key juncture in the war, the Ottomans extended a friendly offer to the Kingdom of Albion under King Arthur II and Chief Minister Bolingbroke, asking them to aid them against their Iberian and French enemies. Arthur II agreed, and the Anglo-Ottoman Alliance was signed, with an Albionese declaration of war on France and Iberia following soon after. Finally, the Ottomans launched a renewed invasion of Sicily, which, with North African and Maltese aid, succeeded quickly in 1632. The same year, the Albionese Navy and Ottoman-Moroccan Corsairs retook Aghomania. Jihan III contemplated an invasion of Iberia to free Granada, but being pragmatic she knew that logistically that was an impossibility, so she instead turned to Naples, which was under personal union with Iberia. From Sicily and Albania, the Ottomans prepared, and finally in early 1635, over 80,000 Ottoman troops invaded southern Italy provoking papal intervention. The ottomans advanced north with the help of anti-iberian rebels in Naples and then met a joint Papal-Iberian army at the battle of Naples. Jihan III leading the army personally defeated the Papal-Iberian force in a catastrophic defeat for the Holy League opening the way to Rome completely. Jihan III who held the Holy League responsible for the death of her beloved father occupied Males and then marched into the defense less Rome which had been abandoned. Rome was then razed to the ground with Jihan III ironically saying Roma Delenda Est on the destruction of the city. In the likeness of Carthage, Rome was completely destroyed, salt and all. The remnants of the Holy League were shattered in morale as a result and they came to the negotiating table. France, Iberia, Genoa, Venice gave up all of their coastal enclaves In North Africa to their correspondent north African states, whilst Crete and Venetian Greece and Albania were returned to the Ottomans. Sicily and Aghomania were returned to the Ottomans as well. Iberia granted religious autonomy to Grandson Muslims and the Albuonese annexed severel French and Spanish sugar rich islands in the Caribbean whilst ousting Pro-Spanish states in Ireland. Alexander Komnenos-Osman, a member of the cadet Komnenos-Osman House - also incidentally a Christian - was installed as King of Naples and the Mughals annexed Iberian and French factories in India. Aceh annexed the Iberian holdings in East Indies. In 1637 the Great Ottoman War had ended, in pyrhhic Ottoman victory.
Though the Ottomans had won, the total war In the multi decade conflict had left the nation exhausted and Jihan III recognized this. She married one of her cousins to cement her continuity after the war and led the recovery effect of the nation. The country reverted to normal civilian economy and in the aftermath of the conflict, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers as well as Fezzan submitted to the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Jihan III maintained the Anglo-Ottoman alliance throughout her life and later extended said alliance to Sweden which warred with the Holy Roman Emperor in the North in favour of the Northern European Christian Reformation. Jihan III also blocked the Canal of the Pharaohs to all European powers barring Albionese and Swedish ships, thereby stopping the Europeans from trading directly into the red sea and Indian Ocean as permanent punishment for the war. The last remainder of Jihan III's reign saw her consolidate the gains of the war as the effects of war we're slowly recovered.
Jihan III died in 1658 and was referred throughout the Islamic world as the female Ghazi. The first if her kind. She was succeeded by her son, Iskander.
[12] Iskander was the first son of Jihan, and was raised outside the bustle and cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman court - Jihan, a proud Ghazi, intended for her son to be one, and thus, took him with her on her various campaigns, with Iskander learning at the hip of his mother and his father, Prince Abdullah and first-consort of the Ottoman state. Iskander, however, was of sound mind, and absurdly detested the zealousness of his parents and their jihad, as he saw first hand the abuses brought on enemy and their own christian subjects.
Iskander’s reign as Emperor started with a pull back - while Iskander was very proud of the Empire his mother had built - he recognized that the Ottomans were over-extended, and the Christians, now more united than ever in their zealotry in response to the Ottomans own, would eventually fall with gnashing teeth on the Ottoman Empire. Thus, he gave Sicily back to the House of Anjou, and would depose his Komnenian cousins from the Neapolitan throne, as they, as Orthodox Christians and supporters of the puppet patriarch in Constantinople, were extremely hated by the local populace. The Angevins thus took back possession of Naples and Sicily, but Iskander obtained several concessions from them - an end to Sicilian piracy, annual tribute and neutrality in mediterranean affairs. It was a concession that the Italians were willing to pay, and so the Ottomans made peace in the west.
In the North, however, Iskander would not be so lucky. The Northern german states had recovered, but the growing siege mentality of Europe only kept growing - The Ottomans had sacked Rome - even the protestants mourned the holy city. It was an occasion that should have weakened the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors - but only fortified them. The Frankfurt treaty of 1666 reformed the Holy Roman Empire into the German Empire, a hereditary monarchy headed by the Habsburgs with various re-organized German states. Despite Iskander’s threats of war if the plan went further, he was tricked by the Habsburgs in being seen as the agressor - and now the Ottomans would face an own Christian Jihad. The Ottomans massed their armies, but the re-organized German armies were much less exhausted than the Ottomans, who had lost manpower almost in the millions in the last decades. Vovojdina was returned to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, alongside Bosnia, whom was made the possession of the House of Orleans-Habsburg, as a way the German Emperor devised to strengthen his ties to France and cement his control over Hungary.
The Rise of Russia in the East also opened another front against the Ottoman Empire. The Russians would invade Crimea in 1671, and the Ottomans would lose another war due to a simple lack of manpower. The Crimean Khanate would be conquered by Russia, although the Girays and many Tatars would migrate to the Ottoman Empire, where they would serve a great deal in the future.
All these failed wars led to Iskander recognizing that the Ottoman state could not bear the weight of losing so many soldiers, due to an obsolete military system and the ambitions of previous rulers, such as his mother. He instead recognized the need for re-organization.
Thus, Iskander would cement his reign by cooling off the relationship with the European powers - even when the English, Germans, French and Iberians once more broke into the East Indies and India, attacking and beating many of the Ottoman co-jihadists there, and the Spanish attacked Morocco and the French skirmished with Algeria. The Ottoman Empire needed trade, peace and an understanding with the powers to the North - and it got it, slowly over the years.
Christians in the Ottoman Empire, however, grew to hate the Sublime Porte more and more. While the Christians had followed the Ottoman lead for various generations, Jihan’s Jihad had been mostly fought on Rumelian soil, and ferocious muslim soldiers often took revenge upon the local christian populations of Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians and Greeks. Many Christians were forced into banditry, and in majority Christian Rumelia, where almost 90% of the population was Christian, this caused a large problem for the Ottoman taxation system and muslim land-owners. Thus, both secular and religious laws were reformed to enhance the situation of Christians in the Empire, although this did not solve the core problem, that the Ecumenical Patriarch had lost his legitimacy due to him following the lead of Islamic leaders, and that the Russian Patriarch in Kiev grew more and more important.
On other levels, he reformed the military, supply system, monetary system and fiscal policy. He disbanded the Janissaries, intent on reforming the Ottoman army in the way of Spanish, French and German ones. He was assassinated for this in 1673, but most of his objectives had been completed. To succeed him, the Jannissaries put his nephew, Orhan on the throne.
[13] A boy of only five, it could not bee more clear that the only reason he was put on the throne was to be the puppet of the Janissaries. Unfortunately for poor Orhan, he would last only three years before he mysteriously disappeared. There were rumors that he was murdered or kidnapped or less cynically, taken by someone who couldn't bear to see the boy being used.
Because they never found the body, pretenders would pop up to challenge his eventual successors. However, immeditally after his ddissaperence, a civil war would break out with five contenders vying for the imperial throne.
Orhan V
[14] Born as the elder cousin to Orhan IV, Orhan V was made the prefect of the Sipahis (the normal army force) at the age of only 16. He was close with his baby cousin brother and when he heard of the disappearance of Orhan IV, Orhan V marched into the palace, only to find the frightened viziers naming him Sultan instead, as the other claimants to the throne started to fight contending for the throne. Orhan V very quickly defeated his cousin brother, Sehzade Mehmed, the preferred candidate of the Jannisaries, using the loyal and secured Sipahi corps, which tore through the bloated Janissaries. He quickly turned his attention to his other cousins, who were summarily either defeated and executed, or they took up Orhan V's offer of joining him. In 7 months, the short Ottoman Intergennum had ended. Using the fact that the Janissaries had aided his rival claimant, Orhan V dissolved the Janissaries, and instead raised a formal standing force, modeled on Swedish Allotment and Albionese Professional standards.
Orhan V, unlike what contemporaries believed, did not pursue war at first. Only 20 when he cemented his throne, he knew that it would be foolhardy. Instead, he restored relations with the domestic Christian populace by restoring their privileges and abolishing the religiously discriminatory tax system, which was replaced by a fair and secular one which taxed all religions in the empire on a fair and equal basis. A progressive bracket tax system allowed the Ottomans to create a tax system that was efficient for the state whilst also allowing their citizens to maintain their granaries, which decreased banditry to extremely low levels. He married Princess Jelena of Serbia as his primary wife, another move to placate the Christian citizens of the empire, which mostly worked. Though Orhan V did not engage in aggressive military affairs in the early part of his reign, he did support his North African vassals against any European encroachment and aided the Regency of Algiers in their campaigns to oust France, which succeeded. Morocco had independently taken care of the Iberians for any intervention to be necessary. Orhan V, born to a Christian mother himself (from the House of Palaialogos), he was learned in Orthodox Christianity's theological affairs, alongside the normal Islamic theology that was necessary for every ottoman prince to learn. He called for an Orthodox council, inviting the Patriarchs of Rus and the Balkans in Constantinople for theological discussions. This was reluctantly accepted, and led by Patriarch Genadios II, the 1678 Orthodox Reforms were conducted, which changed the orthodox spelling of Jesus, the direction of procession and the number of prosphora. But this was a cunning move from Orhan V's part, for it cemented the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the leader of the Orthodox Christianity, and the Kievan Patriachate was sidelined as a result of the reforms, much to the displeasure of Russia.
From 1678 - 1681, Orhan V was mostly involved in reforming the economy, and the military when Sultan Muhammad IV of Aceh pleaded with Orhan V, in the name of the Caliphate to do something about the resurgent Iberians in the Indian Ocean, who were preying on Islamic trade. Orhan V in response, deployed the Ottoman Navy through the Canal of the Pharoahs and blockaded the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Africa, forcing the Iberians within the Indian Ocean to become isolated, and easy pickings as a result. When King Manuel III threatened war as a result, Orhan V threatened Jihad in retaliation. Manuel III, who ruled over a Muslim majority Granada, and the fact that despite Iskender II's coup, was still wary of Ottoman power, which had razed Rome just a few decades prior. Other European powers were not sympathetic either, considering the fact that Iberia was not gaining factories through traditional means of diplomacy but rather through rather underhanded ways. Manuel III instead signed the Treaty of Malta (1682) with Orhan V, which allowed Iberian trading ships free access into the Indian Ocean, but banned Iberian warships - with the Ottomans reserving the right to sink any Iberian warship in the Indian Ocean after 1684. The allied navies of the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Empire and Aceh were too great for the Iberians to take on as one united force after all, and the best they could get were trade concessions.
From 1684 - 1692, the Ottomans enjoyed peace, with Orhan V's economic policies leading to great prosperity and his military reforms giving rise to a powerful and loyal professional army and navy. Aghomania as a colony exploded in population as well after the 1686 Charter which lifted the last immigration restrictions. The Orta language, which was now commonly spoken in Greece and Anatolia was made the courtly language after centuries of slow progress in favor of the language. In 1695, however Orhan V made his first real military move when Crimean Muslims revolted, chafing under Russian rule, which was remarkably discriminatory to anyone not a Muscovite. Sweden and Russia were at war in the Great Northern War, and Sweden activated the Swedo-Ottoman Alliance as well. The Ottomans entered the war, and invaded the Russian satellite of Georgia, defeating it and occupying all of it by 1697. The Ottomans landed in Crimea in 1698 and another army marched from Wallachia into the Dnieper basin as well. With Sweden capturing Novogorod and the situation looking dire as Poland-Lithuania eyed up weakened Russia, Russia sued for peace in 1699, which saw the Ottomans gain Odessa from the Russians and Georgia. Georgia was annexed into the autonomous Trapuzentine Empire within the Ottoman Empire. Crimea was restored within the peninsula as an independent state. The Russians paid several hundred thousands as reparation as well.
In 1704, the French War of Succession broke out as the Iberian and German claimants tried to seize the now vacant French throne, prompting a general European war. The Ottomans stayed neutral at first, but when Albion activated the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty in 1705 against the Iberian claimants, the Ottomans entered the conflict as well. The Ottomans mainly fought the war from a naval point of view. Ottoman corsairs from Malta wreaked havoc on Ibero-French shipping, and Ottoman privateers raided all throughout the Iberian coastline in the Med whilst the Albionese did the same in the Atlantic. The most crucial aspect of the war had been the Capture of Gibraltar, which was captured by a joint Ottoman-German raid under the command of Ottoman Admiral Georgios Papadopoulos. The Ottomans, from their colony in Aghomania, managed to capture the island of Puerto Rico as well whilst the Albionese captured Havana. In 1709 the War of French Succession ended and resulted in the secession of Gibraltar and Puerto Rico to the Ottomans - whilst the brother of the German Emperor became King of France after swearing his line out of the German Succession.
A pragmatic Sultan-Kaysar, he saw that the unlimited checks on the Sultan's power had led to incompetent Sultans nearly destroying the Ottoman Empire in the past. In 1712, he promulgated the Charter of Constantinople, which recreated the Byzantine Senate as the Ottoman Senate, and gave it the right to solely the right to tax and grant finances to the state. The Senate was to be partially appointed (by religious and governmental offices) and partially elected by the eligible male populace (~5% of the male populace in 1715). This essentially created a proper check on foolhardy moves by any future Sultan, whilst also greatly expanding the bureaucracy and efficiency of the administration. In 1718, Orhan V died at the age of 62, and was mourned for his pragmatic expansion and reforms. He was succeeded by Süleyman.
[15] While his father excelled as a commander, Süleyman was a warrior of the mind so to speak. He was eager for technological advancement, even founding Istanbul Technical University as well as personally funding many inventors. He also wrote a book that chronicled his family's history, starting it when he was fifteen. It would be published in 1720, a few years after his father's death.
He was already thirty when his father died. And would spend the majority of his rule focusing the technological and educational reforms.
His scholery nature had the downside of some men assuming he was weak. Once again the Holy League, headed by the German Emperor rose to take back some of the lands under the Ottoman's control.
In 1735, Süleyman, a man in his fifties, lead his troops to Hungary to beat back the Holy League. The war was short and bloody. While the Ottomans were the winners, the death toll was so high, it was considered a pyrrhic victory. However, Süleyman did note in his memoirs that while the cost was high, it would teach his enemies not to underestimate him just because he preferred the quill to the sword.
Besides a few skirmishes on the boarder, Süleyman's reign would continue to be rather peaceful. He would continue investing in ventures that would improve his empire.
He died a peaceful death in his eighties, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
[16] Mehmad was born in 1709 as the eldest son of Süleyman III, and grew up to become a intelligent and capable man. Ascending the throne of the Ottoman Empire in October of 1767 at the age of 58, Mehmad would die just a couple of months later in late January of 1768. He became known as the "Brief" for his short reign and was succeeded by his son, Süleyman.
[17] He was the second son of Mehmad II, but chosen as his successor due to his older brother, also named Mehmad's mental illness. This caused a life-long enmity between the brothers who often fought for power, and the bane of his reign was Mehmad's partisans. Like his namesake ancestor, Süleyman was an accomplished poet and a patron of the arts, frequently inviting some of the best artists into court. However, his utter disinterest in marrying or siring any children grated on the nerves of his court who strongly feared a succession crisis. He was standoffish and cold to the women in his harem, to whom he had no interest, who had therefore remained unchanged since his grandfather's reign, though he did order them to seduce his older brother and keep him under his thumb. Eager for technological advancement like his grandfather, Süleyman III, he continued the tradition of funding inventors and artists. He made peace with the German emperor, and there were no wars in his rule, though he did brutally crush a rebellion raised in his brother, Mehmad's name. He died peacefully in his sleep.
[18] With Süleyman's death, the main line of Osman only contained the four daughters of Mehmad with his oldest son committing suicide just a few months before his second son died childless. Worse Süleyman had neglected to choose a successor, fearing another rebellion would rise up if he did so. This left with no clear succession.
What happened next is often called the War of the Four Daughters (in reality, only three of them were already fighting with the third daughter supporting the first).
Saultana Jihan had already started to make her way from Egypt to the captile when she learned of her brother's death. However before she and her husband, Sadiki, the Bey of Egypt, could arrive they were intercepted by by her sister, Fatma and her husband the Grand Vizier who had grave news. Gevherhan was married a distant Osman cousion and had declacared herself Saltana as her sons could carry on the Osman name. Worse came news from the east. The younger daughter, Safiye, wife of the governor of the Baltic lands had become the champion of the poor poor Christians who saw their chance to put a recently (like an hour before she decided to become Sultana) converted Christian on the throne.
The war that followed was messy and bloody. For the minute the war started, rebellions broke out with many countries tried to get freedom from the Ottomen rule. The violance would last for years after the four women were dead with their sons continuing fighting for the empire.
Finally on 1828, a clear winner would emerge victorious. All hail Iskender, third of his name!
[19] Born in 1800, he was the oldest son of Gevherhan and her husband, considered to be greatly attractive and a promiscuous womanizer, and had many illegitimate children. Once in power, he had his rival claimants brought to him and had them work in his court. Unfortunately these decisions worked against him. Because not only did his cousins resent being forced to serve him, and he had many women fight for his attention, he was also determined not to settle down as he felt a man of his stature should not be with one woman only. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity, along with his extensive communications network earned him the nickname of The Puppeteer. He restricted the power of his nobility, and instituted reforms to make the tax system more efficient. He eliminated offices within the government bureaucracy and spent a large part of his reign on the road, promoting trade regulations and investigating local governments. He reduced the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption, with debatable success. He also was interested in medicine, often seen working with his doctors on a new cure or pill, and once pardoned a criminal in order to have a test subject for his newest medicine that was supposed to cure ear infections. Despite his political acumen, he was disliked due to his arrogant and vengeful personality, and was thus only perfunctorily mourned.
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Alparslan II
[20] Born in 1830, Alparslan II was born into the House of Osman, as a young and inquisitive boy. In 1848, he would enter into service in the Ottoman Navy to become a ranking member of the Ottoman Military. In the Navy, he showed great promise, and even ignoring his royal birth, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ranks within the Navy. In 1854, much to the surprise of most, including himself, he was named heir, despite being the third son. The next year, he would rise to the throne at the age of 25. At the same time, sensing the power passage, and the struggles that would come hand in hand with it, Russia declared War on the Ottomans at the same time as Alparslan II’s ascension to the throne in Constantinople.
Alparslan II led by example, in the form of the old Sultans of ages past. He commanded the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet in person, and led it to victory at the great Battle of Cape Kerch, which destroyed Russian ability to reinforce their armies in near the coasts. The Ottomans won a great defensive victory in the war and in 1857 peace was restored with the Russians paying humiliating amounts of economic reparations. Alparslan II returned to Constantinople a hero to both the people and the government through his personal actions at the front.
He invited controversy in 1859 however, when he married a local Bulgarian peasant Christian woman by the name of Sarah Drumov. Drumov had been a ship cook during the Russo-Ottoman War, where she became acquainted with the Sultan. With a story out of the old fairy books, the Sultan and the cook became enamored with one another. Alparslan II made the compromise that all children would be Muslim, and married her in 1859, having many children with her, and never looking at another woman thereafter.
In 1869, he promulgated the first Constitution of the Ottoman Realm, which made the Ottoman Senate a duly elected body and transformed the Ottoman Empire into a semi-constitutional monarchy. Alparslan II thereafter took the role as the ‘father of the nation’ and only interfered politically when elections showed a lack of majority. The remainder of his rule saw the Ottomans ascend into an era of peace, stability and prosperity unseen ever before, and the nation prospered. In 1897, a brief war broke out between the Ottomans and Persia which ended in minor Ottoman victory, but other than this brief conflict, Alparslan II’s reign was peaceful and provided much needed stability for the realm.
He died in 1912, mourned by his muslim and Christian subjects alike. He was succeeded by Iskender.
[21] Born in 1861 as the second child but first son of Alparslan II and Sarah Drumov, Iskender grew up hearing stories of famous Ottoman military leaders, and they would inspire him to enter the army. He would rise though the ranks becoming one of the most skilled and famous generals of the Ottoman Empire, which went that his ascension as Sultan in 1912 was celebrated all over the country.
Iskender would soon after lead the Ottoman Empire into battle when World War One started in 1913 and appeared often in propaganda supporting the war. However Russia launched an attack on Constantinople in late 1916 (near the war's end) and would have taken it if not for the Sultan leading the army himself, taking the Russians by surprise and causing them to lose the battle.
The Ottoman Empire came out of WW1 victorious when it ended in 1917 and it Iskender's popularity grew, becoming known as "The Patriot". During the interwar period (1917-1941) Iskender focused on reforms, including giving Christians and Jews full rights. He also controversially allow any member of the Ottoman imperial family to marry a Christian, but would be excluded from the line of succession of they became one.
When World War Two started in 1941 with the Russian invasion of Poland, Iskender once again started to appear in propaganda, which now included film and radio besides print. Sadly, the Sultan passed away in early 1943 at the age of 81, with many mourning one of the greatest leaders of both World Wars. Iskender was succeeded by his grandson, Latif.
{22] Born in 1912 as the third son, of the Sultan's heir Alparslan, Latif was not expected to become Sultan. His father would die in World War I. His oldest brother, Iskender would die of the Spanish flu in 1920. His second brother, Orhan would be groomed for the throne, only he would die in 1931 in a car crash, leaving only an infant daughter behind. The current Emperor fearing leaving the empire in the hands of a minor girl so he chose his uncle to suceed him instead.
Thankfully, he had twelve years to learn how to succeed his grandfather. He married Gamila, daughter of the Egyptian governor in 1940. When war broke out, Latif would leave his pregnant wife to fight alongside the troops. However, he would only fight for two years for when his grandfather died, he had to return home to be crowned. He was greeted by cheering crowds, a loving wife and a toddler.
World War Two would end in 1944 with the Ottoman Empire crushing their long time rival Russia. With the war over, Laftif worked for social and economical reform. Having been raised mostly by his mother and his older sisters, he passed laws to give more rights to women, even going as far as to cite the three Jihans as proof that women could rule just as well as men. In 1960, the act of succession was changed to allow women to inherit. He did however, make it clear that it was still ultimately up to the Emperor and his council who would be chosen as heir.
As the years went on, Latif was a great speaker on human rights, pushing for harsher punishments against those who committed crimes out of bigortry.
In 1999, just shortly before the new millennium began, Latif passed away at age eighty-seven, leaving the throne in the hands of his grandson, Osman Fuad.
[23] The second oldest grandson of Latif, Osman Fuad's appointment to the succession of the Sublime Porte was a highly unpopular affair, due to the fact that his older brother, Orhan Mustafa, had been for decades now presented as the heir to the Ottoman Throne, a tall, charismatic and popular prince, who had served in the army and had a beautiful (if christian) wife that had given him plenty of children. But Orhan's lack of devotion compared to other members of his family attracted the attention of Imperial and World media on him, and when a papparazi took pictures of Orhan praying in a Christian fashion inside a Orthodox Church, the pictures took like wildfire throughout the world. The Empire's muslims were outraged, the Empire's Christians were happy at what they had originally only took as the Prince accompanying his wife during her worship.
A public statement from Orhan Mustafa shook the core of the Ottoman Monarchy in 1997 - he admitted that had had ceased believing in the tenets of Islam in his youth in the army, when a Bulgarian Priest had convinced him of the virtues of his religion during a mission in which Orhan was wounded. His grandfather, Latif, whom never revealed if he knew of Orhan's Christian inclinations before 1997, removed him from the Ottoman line of succession, and exiled his favourite grandchild and once heir and his family from the Ottoman Empire. It was a highly humiliating affair, that, although increasing the trust the Empire's muslim population had in the monarchy, finally broke the tense, but peaceful accord between the government and the Empire's Christians.
Osman's first year in the throne were, in essence, dictated by government - Osman was a fervorous muslim, but he was made to seem more zealous than ordinary for him, all to "make forget". It would not work, and despite Osman's respectful and jovial personality, and popularity amongst the Muslims of the Empire, the actions of the government during these first years, were an unsure Osman Fuad depended on his elected officials to work the monarchy, with the historically disenfranchised Christians of the Empire taking harsher and steeper political stances, from the peaceful manifestations for a fairer society to the violent seccessionist movements in Albania and Wallachia.
Osman Fuad eventually took the reigns of his own image and crown in his own hands, and he made deep efforts to increase the recognition for Human and Religious rights in the Empire, and to also correct deeply-entrenched economical, religious and social phenomenons that still ran through Ottoman society. This did increase the popularity of Osman and his family himself, but the "Rumelian Independence Party", for short, the RIP, united the various small secessionist parties of the Empire, especially the Christian ones, and took to fighting the government in elections. The economic crash of 2013 saw the RIP essentially take political control of the Ottoman Balkans, such as the Scottish National Party in Albion, and it is currently the third largest party in the Empire. While the overwhelming population majority of the Empire's combined Asian and African provinces, the RIP has not managed to move onwards a Independence Referendum for Rumelia, being beaten repeteadly in the Ottoman Imperial Congress, but the party has solidified it's holdings in the Balkans and is seeping through to Georgia, Armenia, Ionia and other places where Christians hold sway.
Thus, Osman Fuad, despite having solified his shaky position since 1999, the Empire's democratic apparatus is failing in it's attempts to reform the Empire and appease the Christians enough to end the seccessionist RIP without resorting to the repressive methods used before the crisis. As a journalist for the "Paris Lights" put it best, "Osman Fuad's situation is not much different from that of his Majesty Charles X eighty years ago - he has thrown himself at his work, embraced a new fairer, more just identity, while keeping to his traditions and duties as a royal, but the France of eighty years ago never had the same demographic division the Ottoman Empire has sustained for centuries now. While Osman Fuad has brilliant ideas and has developed into a brilliant speaker, the governments who represent him keep making blunder after blunder. While Osman Fuad has long left the shadow of his grandfather and brother and has been embraced by most of the Empire's muslims, the Christian populace of the Empire have never forgotten Orhan Mustafa, who even in his quiet exile in Sweden remains the most popular Ottoman royal amongst it's Christians - despite not having been in official Ottoman propraganda for more than twenty years. And most importantly, despite respected their traditions, speaking Orta, and calling himself a Roman, a Ottoman above a Turk, those descendants of the local native Christians of much of the Ottoman Empire see him in the light his grandfather painted for him - The continuation of their opression, the heir to those who opressed them for generations".
Osman Fuad and his family (He and his wife, Iranian Princess Leila, have had four children, Murad Han, Mehmed, Jihan and Mustafa) have managed to salvage their situation, the future for the Ottoman Empire itself looks shaky.
@Reyne get's first dibs since they finished the Ottoman list. If after 24 hours they haven't gone, you can claim.
Can you please work on your formatting? Just quoting the entire previous entry makes it hard for the person after you.
Kings of France and Navarre
1289-1316: Louis X "The Quarrelsome" (House of Capet)
1316-1356: Jean I "The Posthumous" (House of Capet) [1]
1356-1395: Henri II "The Thunderbolt" (House of Capet) [2]
1395-1407: Philippe V "The Unremarkable" (House of Capet) [3]
1407-1431: Jean II "The Strong" (House of Capet) [4]
1431-1468: Henri III "The Wise" (House of Capet) [5]
1468-1500: Jean III (House of Capet) [6]
1500-1515: François I (House of Capet) [7]
1515-1560: Jeanne I (House of Capet) [8]
1560-1587: Louis XI (House of Capet) [9]
1587-1592: Louis XII "the Brief" (House of Capet) [10]
1592-1639: Marie I (House of Capet) [11]
[11] Marie was the only living child of Louis XII, her siblings all having died in infancy. She was trained to be queen from a young age and accepted as heir, since there had been a successful predecessor. Like Jeanne I, she also never married, being content with the possibility of being succeeded by her cousins or their children. However, unlike her ancestress she was not considered to be charming or feminine, and was physically unattractive, having suffered smallpox as a child. She was unyielding and authoritarian in her rule, unable to forgive or forget any slight made against her, with a worse temper than her father ever had. She maintained most of the ministers of her father, and exiled her mother from court after discovering that she was having an affair with one of Marie's servants. She was careful never to favor anybody over anyone else, knowing what happened if people thought the monarch was being monopolized. She ruled by council, and her mother was a key figure, although Marie only occasionally took her advice. She continued the tradition of importing American crops, and considered a colonial venture into Africa, but ultimately was talked out of that. She won a war against Germany and Spain, who wished to reclaim Brabant and Lorraine, and negotiated the purchase of French slaves afterwards. There is no evidence that she had expressed any romantic or sexual interest in anybody, despite contemporary speculations of the queen perhaps being a lesbian. She shared her father's love of the virginals, which had been one of her first instruments, and in her free time she often composed music. In the sphere of women's fashion, Marie introduced the wearing of thin black veils that fell in waves across the face. France emerged as the leading European power during her reign, and warfare had defined her foreign policy. She passed away of what is now known to be diabetes, but then was thought to be poison.
1289-1316: Louis X "The Quarrelsome" (House of Capet)
1316-1356: Jean I "The Posthumous" (House of Capet) [1]
1356-1395: Henri II "The Thunderbolt" (House of Capet) [2]
1395-1407: Philippe V "The Unremarkable" (House of Capet) [3]
1407-1431: Jean II "The Strong" (House of Capet) [4]
1431-1468: Henri III "The Wise" (House of Capet) [5]
1468-1500: Jean III (House of Capet) [6]
1500-1515: François I (House of Capet) [7]
1515-1560: Jeanne I (House of Capet) [8]
1560-1587: Louis XI (House of Capet) [9]
1587-1592: Louis XII "the Brief" (House of Capet) [10]
1592-1639: Marie I (House of Capet) [11]
[1] Louis X "The Quarrelsome" died in 1316, leaving a four-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife behind. Jean was born in November 1316. The king would sleep soundly in his cradle as his relatives fought for power over him. His mother, Clementina and his great-uncle Charles of Valois had to contend with Jean's regent,his uncle Philippe the Tall, Count of Poitiers.
Unfortunately for them, Philip was well liked and a shrewd statesman, reforming the laws of France and even discontinuing some of the unpopular policies of his brother, Louis. To consolidate his control over the young king, he arranged a marriage between Jean and his eldest daughter, Joan (1308). Because they were first cousins, Philip would get a papal deposition. When he fell ill in 1322, he pushed for the wedding to happen straight away despite the groom only being six. He would die before it could happen.
With Philip's death, Jean needed a new regent. His remaining uncle, Charles de Le Marche took over. During this time, tensions with England were at an all time high despite Jean's aunt Isabella being married to the King of England. In 1325, Jean's great-uncle, Charles of Valois managed to take back the duchy of Aquitaine and regent Charles, declared that King Edward II's French titles were forfeit. It would be in 1327 when King Edward II was disposed would Aquitaine be returned to England in the hands, of Jean's cousin, Edward III, albeit a much reduced territory.
In 1328, Charles also died, leaving Jean as the only male left in the main branch of the House of Capets. Charles of Valois's son Philip would take over as regent. In 1330, at fourteen-years-old Jean would marry his cousin, Joan. She would birth a son in 1331, dying due to childbed fever, leaving Jean a teenage widower with a babe. It was imperative that he married as quickly as he could.
He would marry Bonne of Luxembourg (1315) in 1332. They had eleven children before her death in 1349 of bubonic plague. Despite having several sons, Jean would marry for a third and final time in 1350 to Eleanor of Sicily I1325), they would have three child before he died.
Shortly, after his second marriage, Jean was declared of age and allowed to rule, although he would forever rely on the advice and counsel of Philip of Valois.
However, Jean's relations with England and his cousin Edward would begin to deteriorate with Jean feeling that Aquitaine and the rest of the French lands that were under English control belonged to France. In 1337, Robert III of Artois, who had committed forgery to illegally obtain an intermittence, sought refuge in England. When Edward refused to hand him over, the twenty-one-year old king declared Aquitaine forfeit. In retaliation, Edward III accused Jean of being an imposter, saying that real Jean of France died after five days and a cockoo was placed in his stead. (This rumor has been debunked by modern DNA tests). Edward proclaimed himself the rightful King of France as the sole living grandson of King Philip IV.
King Jean fought alongside his friend and cousin, Philip of Valois who was give the Duchy of Aquitaine. The Battle of Crécy in 1546 would be a disaster for the French army with Philip injured and Jean barely escaping with his life. It was a catastrophe for the French and would feature the loss of Calais.
Three years later, Queen Bonne would die of the plague which would destroy one third of the population. It was an tragedy. Jean's third wedding was a somber event with the continued hostilities with England, the recovery from the plague and the death of Jean's friend Philip.
In 1555, the war with England would restart and Jean would lead his troops in Battle of Poitiers where in a miraculous moment, he manged to subdue and capture Edward, the Black Prince. Unfortunately, Jean would not have long to gloat for a year later, he would die of dysentery. His son, Henri, would take care of the negotiations with England.
[2] The second son of Jean the I, Henri was made Duke of Orleans at birth, for his father intended for him to be the strong right hand of his elder brother, Phillipe, when he came of age. Thus, Henri was given a thorough martial education, although the boy soon proved himself far too intelligent and talented to be limited to the sword and lance. Being given many tutors from places as close as Normandy and Languedoc, and as far as Bohemia and the Eastern Roman Empire, both Henri and his brothers, Phillipe, Charles and Hercules were brought in a growing cosmopolitan Paris, under the strict but benevolent watch of their father.
Thankfully for King Jean, his second son was growing to pay dividends - at the bare age of twelve, the young Henri was already defeating boys four and five years older in the tiltyard, and stayed at the side of his tutor, the Constable of France, during various military meetings of importance. As as young Knight and Duke, Henri would gain his spurs during the battles of Crecy and would fight in more battles, featuring in the defense of Calais where he led a small army that proved a great thorn for the English. He would make several friends at this stage, such as the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Alençon and many others.
He would retire to Orleans then, where the Young Duke took upon himself the duty of ruling. His close watch, support for the artisans of the Duchy and his heavy involvement in the local economy made him a very beloved ruler, as Henri attracted Jewish, German and Italian glass-makers and Greek and Sicilian silk-weavers. Thus, Orleans became a famous commercial center, closely linked to both the Aquitaine and Champagne trade routes, the city becoming famous for it's glass and becoming the first and major center of what would come to be known as "Capetian Silk".
When the second war of King Jean's reign with England started, Henri faced a early loss which blackened his heart - his brother, leading a charge of French infantry-men during a battle against the Prince of Wales, was shot down by English Longbowmen. The fall of the Dauphin's standard almost broke the French army, but Henri, raging, took up the Orleans and Dauphine standards - and charged straight into the English lines, The sight of the Duke of Orleans, surrounded by no more than twenty retainers, charging alone at the thousand Englishmen raised the spirits of his army, who followed the new Crown Prince into the battle. The Battle of Puymartin is the first, and perhaps most famous victory of Henri.
The heavy defeat handed to the Black Prince forced him to retreat North, where the English fell into the clutches of the army led by King Jean and Phillipe of Valois. His army tired and restless, Henri took upon himself to siege every single English occupied castle in Aquitaine, withdrawing the English poison root and stem. Just as he had finished the pacification of Aquitaine, and with his army reinforced by the locals, the news of the death of his father reached him. After a hasty trip to Reims, Henri was crowned, promising on God and France to forever expel the English from the continent. It was a promise Henri would make due on.
With Edward of Wales in his hands, the English were fighting with one hand behind their backs - Edward the III did not wish to risk his eldest and most favoured son, who was a captive in Paris, even if he was treated well and the French seemed to mostly ignore him, Henri was far too focused on his goal. Despite Edward calling for truces several times, Henri led his armies and a myriad of Free Companies northwards, intent on ending the Plantagenet stain on Capetian France. The battle of Hainaut (1358) and the Siege of Calais (1359) were both French victories, with Henri changing many of the tactics used by the French armies in the face of English innovations, such as the Longbow. The support of the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret, Countess of Flanders, proved to be the tipping point that would see the English Crown finally expelled from France. The following Treaty of Chartres saw Edward the III renounce all of his rights to French territorry, including Calais and Aquitaine, in return for his son, who would be sent on a ship to England with the returning English diplomats.
Victory cemented Henri upon his throne - the young royal was, perhaps, the most powerful King of France since Louis IX, and his influence was felt everywhere. In some places, Henri was almost revered as a warrior Saint. But Henri proved to not only be a warrior. With the Black Plague still making making periodic returns, taking with it another one of Henri's brothers, Charles Duke of Berry, Henri turned to the sickness with the same ferocity he had faced the English. He and his advisors reinforced French hospitals, founding many in the many major municipalities of France, and they also correctly identified rats and such other vermin as the bringers of the plague, and the French people followed Henri's adoption of cats as pets - the Kingdom of France become henceforth known as the "Kingdom of Cats", for cats were found in every street of Paris during Henri's reign.
The death of so many serfs, peasants and nobles left a lot of land in the hands of the crown - and Henri was anything if not a greedy land grabber. Aquitaine was re-bought from the Valois, who were in deep crisis due to some shady investments, alongside the County of Anjou but a few years later. The Angevin Kings of Naples, who faced revolts in Provence, also sold the full rights to Provence to Henri in 1374, with the new French professional army, modeled and using as a base the many Free Companies that had sprouted in Gascony, Normandy and Burgundy during the English wars, was one of the most ferocious and effective armies in Europe at the time. His brother Hercules would receive the County of Nice as appanage after the seizure, alongside his other title of Count of Montpensier.
The death of the last Burgundian Duke, Phillipe the I, a great friend of Henri, would also see the Duchy of Burgundy, the Counties of Boulogne and Auvergne, reunited with the French Crown. Deep in grief for the death of his friend, the wifeless King was soon approached by Phillipe's widow, Margaret of Flanders. She too, needed a new husband, for she was heirless, and the marriage would be advantageous for them both. Both young and fertile, the young couple would grow to love each other. Margaret of Flanders brought along many rich lordships, such as Flanders, Rethel, Nevers, Artois and the County of Burgundy, in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the perfect marriage, and the couple soon grew to love each other deeply. As said before, Margaret would prove a dutiful wife and an excellent queen. She birthed the King no more than 11 healthy children at birth.
With so many lands in the hands of the monarchy, Henri's power was almost absolute. He cemented French laws, creating new taxes, reforming and modernizing old legal systems, reformed the army, as mentioned before, encourage commerce and would further increase the royal domain by seizing the lands of the House of Hainault, taking Hainaut for himself and delivering the County of Zeeland to his wife. He would make his brother Hercules, whom he trusted deeply, alongside his titles of Montpensier and Nice, Duke of Holland as well. With the royal coffers full, Henri would become famous for the love he and his wife shared of palace-building, with Henri building almost twenty palaces during his reign, many of which are tourist attractions today.
Deeply beloved, and surrounded by allies, due to the fact his army of sisters was married off to many European Princes and French nobles, a loyal and stateswoman of a wife and a large brood of children, Henri took to feasting and drinking heavily in his later years. He and his wife, would, literally, grow fat and old together, but the aged King would quickly become an alcoholic. While wintering in Navarre, Henri would catch a cold after walking in the Pyrenean snows while riding to his rural residence where his wife was staying. The simple cold, however, would be enough to topple a great King. Henri died in 1395, being succeeded by his son Philippe.
[3] Named for both his late uncle and his father's friend, Philippe was born in 1371. It was hard for Philippe growing up as he stood in the shadows of his grandfather and father. His grandfather had been born a king and against all odd lived and ruled for forty years and single-handedly saved the depleted main branch the Capet dynasty. Meanwhile his father had manged to successfully expel the English and the plague from his lands.
Both were figures of legends, leaving Philippe rather small in comparison. Because of this he had a massive inferiority complex with traces of paranoia.
In 1385, he would marry Isabeau of Bavaria. The marriage was suggested to make an alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor. The marriage at first seemed to blossoming into a love match. However, the early death of their son, Louis drove a wedge between the two. It would slowly get worse when Isabeau's next two children would die in the cradle.
They seemed to have reconciled in 1382, when their next son, also called Louis, was born. The couple became even closer when in 1495, when Henri died and Philippe would become king in a join coronation with his wife.
However, Isabeau proved herself an unpopular queen unlike her much beloved predecessor (who had retired to her native Flanders). She was haughty, quarrelsome and a spendthrift. There were also rumors circulating that she was unfaithful.
Although his wife had given him four more children, Philippe would distant himself from his wife, becoming distrustful of her. Things would come to a head when in 1401, their son, Louis died before his ninth birthday. This would be the tipping point. In June 1401, Isabeau would miscarry her baby (speculated to be because the stress she was under,although others wonder if there was a darker reason such as her husband beating her). In August, she would be arrested on the charges of adultery. If a queen being arrested wasn't scandalous enough, the king's distant cousin, Jean of Valois was accused of being her lover. Both were held in prison until their trial.
It was largely a farce of trial with half the witnesses being enemies of either the Duke of Valois or the queen and the other half spoke only hearsay. Unfortunately, the judges declared the Duke and the Queen guilty above the protests of their family.
Philippe would commute their punishment to life imprisonment despite being well in his rights to execute them both. Unfortunately, Jean would die just two years later of bad treatment at the hands of his jailers.
In 1407, Philipee would be found stabbed in his bed, with the words JUSTICE crudely carved in his forehead. His brother, Jean, would succeed him.
[4] Jean the II was the younger brother of Phillipe the V, having been given the title of Duke of Anjou and Count of Maine when he reached his majority, becoming an extremely influential figure in the reigns of his late father and brother. Known for his violent character and his enormous size (Jean was often compared to the Titans of Hellenic Myths), the young Duke of Anjou was promised at birth to Phillipa Plantagenet, daughter of Edward the IV (Edward the Black Prince)
Jean's first years as ruler of his duchy were ... special, in a way. Anjou had been for decades now one of the centers of the Anglo-French conflicts, but with the English exiled from the continent, it was prime time, at least in Jean's eyes, to renew Anjou and Maine as centers of French Chivalry and commerce, and this he did so. Tourneys, fairs and meeles became the glamour of Anjou during these times, and the immigration of Jews and various other french ethnicities to the land proved useful in making Anjou grow. It was during these times that Jean travelled to England to fetch his bride - despite English attempts at breaking the marriage, due to the fact that both of her brothers, Edward and Richard, were still childless, his arrival in London broke the reverie. Not much is known of whatever negotiations happened during Jean's two-month stay in England, but he did return to France with with the "Fair Maid of Kent".
King Jean has always been described as a zealous christian, due to his support for the crusader movements in the Balkans and Anatolia, and his attacks on the many Kingdoms and Emirates of North Africa, but he should also be remembered as a patron and protector of the Jewish people. Many jews worked in the growing bureaucracy and administration of France during this period, and Jean's head of health both as Duke and as King was a jew, whom he hired after Phillipa miscarried their first child. Of the six next children the couple would have, all would be taken to term.
Jean rose to the throne over his two nieces - whom he would raise and adopt at his own. Extremely furious at the way his brother died, Jean would hunt down the partisans of Isabeau of Bavaria, conducting a purge of much of the nobility. The House of Valois would survive through the mercy of Constance Capet, the young Countess of Angouleme and Valois, who protected her husband and children from the fury of her brother.
Afterwards, Jean's reign was mostly quiet, other than some interventions and support for Crusader missions in the Balkans and North Africa. Jean's Meditteranean navy would conquer the cities of Algiers and Bone, whom the young French army would defend. For this, Jean and all future King's of France would gain the title of his Most Christian majesty. He died in 1431, being succeeded by his eldest son, Henri.
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[5] Born in 1404, Henri was the first child born after the miscarriage, to Jean and Phillipa Plantagenet and although the parents were over the moon to have their first child in their arms, they were distressed at the birth defect which affected Henri, his left leg was missing from above the knee, apart from this his health was perfect.
Jean's Jewish head of health, stated that this was not a curse but a test from God and as Henri grew, his parents and tutors were able to see that, he was able to compensate his missing limb, by strengthening his upper body, as well as studying hard.
One of his Jewish tutors was also able to create a saddle that balanced him on the horse, so he was still able to train as much as his brother(s), uncles and cousins.
By the age of 16, in 1420, Henri was serving his father in the treasury as well as attending diplomatic meetings, during one such meeting his father and Henri would arrange the marriage of Henri to his cousin, Marie of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy (1381–1433) and Mary of France (1380-1436), herself daughter of Henri II and Margaret of Flanders, sister of Philippe and Jean.
The marriage would take place in 1426 and was a well attended event, with royalty from around Europe, followed by a tense bedding ceremony, which went without a problem.
The marriage would be a happy one and lead to the birth of many healthy children.
Like his father and grandfather, Henri, would arrange marriages to European Monarchs, forming stronger alliances, better trading deals and saw a long period of peace.
Internally, following years of working in the treasury, Henri, was able keep the royal purse ever growing, allowing him to finance projects, such as new cathedrals, one of which would be dedicated to his father, Jean the Most Christian Majesty, with Pope Eugene IV, beginning the process of awarding Jean a sainthood.
Not only were his policies beneficial to the nobility but they also brought great economic prosperity to his subjects, greatly increasing the population.
During the conclave of 1447, there were talks of new policies being brought in to support Christian monarchs to expel all Jews from their country, French cardinals were ordered by Henri to not vote for these policies, this would lead to French Cardinal, Guillaume d'Estouteville being voted in at the election, becoming Pope John XXIII, in honour of Henri’s father, Jean.
One of the most major acts of his rule was to bring about a constitution as at this point in French history, they lacked a formal constitution; the regime essentially relied on custom. The constitution was discussed by Henri, the high ranking nobles and the senior members from the Parliament of Paris.
The constitution, cemented the law of male succession only and the absolute monarchy role as God’s chosen voice in France, second only to the Pope.
Catholicism would be the state religion and Catholic Churches would be separate from taxes. Other religions would be tolerated in France as long as they are peaceful.
His death in 1468 aged 64 years old, would be felt heavily in his home nation and across Europe as his many letters of advice to monarchs had helped them deal with internal financial and constitutional crises.
He was succeeded by his son Jean.
[6] Born in 1431, he was the firstborn son of Henri II and Marie. He was born with all his limbs, but without his voice. Despite this, he was a very intelligent boy who was passionate about literature and the theater. He was trained from his childhood to one day be king, and he took to the job with aplomb. Soon he was attending state meetings alongside his father, and even was the one behind the idea of making peace with the house of Valois. His disinterest in marrying or siring children exasperated his advisors, but since he had many legitimate nephews, Jean ignored them the same way he ignored all potential betrothal contracts. He founded a dozen schools and wrote many books under his own name, and was a big fan of attending plays, being for his whole life a patron of the arts. He also promoted religious tolerance, but this was an unpopular policy with his Christian nobility. His court festivals, building projects and tapestries were all known for their rich colors, and he spent almost ruinous sums on them. But this accomplished his aim of bolstering royal prestige through lavish cultural display, and his reign is known today for the artistic flourishing simulated by his patronage as well as the frequent hosting of Europe's leading artists and writers. He also rewrote the constitution by his father, abolishing the law of only male succession in favor of male-preference primogeniture, and forced the church to pay taxes. He died after drinking some poisoned wine, having died single and childless.
[7] François of Anjou was born in 1469, the first born son of Louis, Duke of Anjou and Beatrice of Savoy. His father died when he was four years old and he raised by his mother and his older sister. He married Ippolita Viscounti, daughter of the Duke of Milian, in 1485. It was not a grand match, but one that brought coin and a link to a dynastic house of Italy. They would have nine children.
After the death of King Henri in 1500, François and his wife would be crowned in a grand ceremony. The new king would restlessly search for the man who had poisoned his uncle, determined to gain justice to his uncle. To his anger, he found out that the culprit was the Count of Bar, an old friend of his. Angered at such a personal betrayal, he had the man and his hired assassin boiled alive in oil as was the customary punishment in those days for poisoners.
For the next fifteen years, François was determined to bring the culture of France to new heights, using his wife's Italian connection to invite all sorts of artists. Upon hearing of Enrique of Castile's patronizing exploration of the new world, the king sponsored several explorers.
The king was a lover of fine food, fine wine and fine women. Unfortunetly, this would soon wear his body out. King François would die of gout in 1515, leaving the kingdom in the hands of Jeanne.
[8] Jeanne, born in 1486 was the oldest of eight daughters of François and Ippolita, her sole brother having died in his adolescence. Thanks to her grand-uncle, Jean III, whom she was named after, she was able to succeed to the throne. She was considered to be a graceful beauty, with a vivacious and lively personality and an affable nature. She regularly hosted masques and tournaments that thoroughly dazzled her contemporaries at her lavish court, and her patronage of the arts made a significant contribution to French culture. She was determined to show that she, as a woman ruling France, could maintain the prestige and magnificence established by her predecessors. However, she never married. She knew that marriage meant she had to lose power to her husband, and whichever man she selected could provoke political instability or even insurrection. Instead, she had a series of short-term favorites at court. Though her single status led to accusations of irresponsibility, her silence with regards to such matters, however, strengthened her own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be vulnerable to a coup. She performed her ceremonial role as queen in strict accordance with formal court etiquette, and regularly and punctually fulfilled all representational duties that the court life demanded of her. She was also an example of Catholic piety and was famed for her generosity to the poor and needy through her philanthropy, which made her very popular among the public her entire life as queen. Though she followed a largely defensive foreign policy, her reign raised France's status abroad. Under Jeanne, the nation gained a new self-confidence and sense of sovereignty. She knew that a monarch ruled by popular consent, and therefore always worked with parliament and advisers she could trust to tell her the truth. She passed away due to illness, single and childless, but surrounded by dozens of her sisters' children and grandchildren.
[9} Born Monsieur le Prince, Louis was from birth the eldest of the Blood Princes and the highest of France's peers, holding titles such as the Duchy of Touraine, the Counties of Angouleme, Vexin, Forez, Perche and Boulougne. Being raised to a senior most position within French society and the class elites, Louis was given an extensive education of matters of war and statescraft. He was born after the death of his father, the previous Duke, to Princess Contansce Zephyrine of France, second eldest of King François' brood of girls. Thus, he was also raised in the belief that he might be heir to the French throne one day, a destination, that did come to prove itself true in the future.
Louis' adulthood was marked by a series of family compacts that the political war he would wage with his royal aunt when securing his majority unfold - in essence, Jeanne's refusal to name him successor, and her efforts to tamper with his efforts to succeed to the Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside Jeanne's refusal to grant him his desired titles of Governorship over French Flanders. Louis' would still manage to win over the widowed Agnes of Luxembourg as his wife - bringing the Duchy of Luxembourg, the County of Namur and the Duchy of Limburg into his possessions. This vast increase of land and Louis' exploits in the Netherlands made him an enemy of various of his aunt's favourites, and of his aunt herself, but Louis' purse alongside his savy knowledge of french politics saved his skin.
Jeanne eventually gave away, and Louis and Agnes became King and Queen of France. The first decrees of Louis' reign where changing the rules of succession in France to Salic law, something that greatly pleased the Princes of the Blood. Had Louis' elder aunt, Margarite, had children, the throne of France would have passed outside the House of Capet for the first time in centuries, right onto the hands of the von Luxembourgs who ruled in Spain, or if Louis himself had never been born into the House that had taken the Luxembourgian lands in Central Europe, the von Habsburgs. It was a tense situation, none so because Louis derived legitimacy from his mother over his aunts, but Louis' rank as first prince of the blood made the situation clearer.
Luxembourgian (Technically, the House of Luxembourg-Avis) had ruled the whole of the Iberian Peninsula for two generations now, with the Kingdoms having been unified during the reigns of Manuel the I of all Spanish realms, but Spain, despite growing into the first colonial Empire, with vast conquests in America and many outspots in Africa, Arabia and India, had kept itself outside of continental affairs for some while now, too busy with it's overseas exploits and it's drive into Morocco. France and Spain had mostly kept the peace, other than a few disagreements here and there. But Louis would decidedly draw France into Spain's sights - he, seeing monarchs such as the English and Spanish Kings enriching themselves, sent vast fleets of exploration to the new world, setting up colonies firstly in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where Breton (The Bretons were rather autonomous vassals of the French Kings, but still French nonetheless) and Norman fishermen were making a fortune, establishing contancts with the natives and forming settlements in Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) but further south, other even more successful colonies were formed, eventually forming two sister colonies in the southern tip of Africa and South America. Taking inspirations from the Franks, the two forming colonies would be called Neustrie-Neuve (New Neustria, OTL La Plata) and Nouvelle Austrasie (New Austrasia, OTL Cape-colony).
Fascinated by the so called Columbian exchange, France was one of the first country to massively import American crops, which first became a delicacy but then a highly sought product that could easily supplement the volatile french diet. The sudden growth in population caused by this ammelioration of France's health standards during Louis' reign would create massive movements towards France's colonies but allow France the manpower to conquer more Algerian coastal cities and make war in Germany and Spain at the same time. France would annex the Duchy of Brabant and tribute from the Prince-Bisphoric of Liege during this time, alongside recognition of Lorraine as a French Peerage and thus, vassal. In Spain, the new King was not so successful, as he lost a few border towns with Spain and almost lost Navarre twice, but France's highly experienced army pulled through for the Kingdom. Louis dreamnt of forming a universalist monarchy that would cover the whole of Europe eventually.
He, clearly, did not succeed in all his goals. He died aged and old, surrounded by his various children. He was succeeded by his son Louis.
[10] Louis, the twelfth of his name was already a man in his sixties, sick with goat so it was almost certain he would not last long. Sometimes, he would be called the placeholder king, although none would dare say it to his face, as he had a ferocious temper. In the defense of Louis, he had spent must of his time as his father's heir, running his various lands with great skill. However, in just two years of his reign, he was already bedridden, thrusting his heir in the position of regent.
In 1592, he would finally pass on, allowing his daughter, Marie to succeed him.
Unfortunately for them, Philip was well liked and a shrewd statesman, reforming the laws of France and even discontinuing some of the unpopular policies of his brother, Louis. To consolidate his control over the young king, he arranged a marriage between Jean and his eldest daughter, Joan (1308). Because they were first cousins, Philip would get a papal deposition. When he fell ill in 1322, he pushed for the wedding to happen straight away despite the groom only being six. He would die before it could happen.
With Philip's death, Jean needed a new regent. His remaining uncle, Charles de Le Marche took over. During this time, tensions with England were at an all time high despite Jean's aunt Isabella being married to the King of England. In 1325, Jean's great-uncle, Charles of Valois managed to take back the duchy of Aquitaine and regent Charles, declared that King Edward II's French titles were forfeit. It would be in 1327 when King Edward II was disposed would Aquitaine be returned to England in the hands, of Jean's cousin, Edward III, albeit a much reduced territory.
In 1328, Charles also died, leaving Jean as the only male left in the main branch of the House of Capets. Charles of Valois's son Philip would take over as regent. In 1330, at fourteen-years-old Jean would marry his cousin, Joan. She would birth a son in 1331, dying due to childbed fever, leaving Jean a teenage widower with a babe. It was imperative that he married as quickly as he could.
He would marry Bonne of Luxembourg (1315) in 1332. They had eleven children before her death in 1349 of bubonic plague. Despite having several sons, Jean would marry for a third and final time in 1350 to Eleanor of Sicily I1325), they would have three child before he died.
Shortly, after his second marriage, Jean was declared of age and allowed to rule, although he would forever rely on the advice and counsel of Philip of Valois.
However, Jean's relations with England and his cousin Edward would begin to deteriorate with Jean feeling that Aquitaine and the rest of the French lands that were under English control belonged to France. In 1337, Robert III of Artois, who had committed forgery to illegally obtain an intermittence, sought refuge in England. When Edward refused to hand him over, the twenty-one-year old king declared Aquitaine forfeit. In retaliation, Edward III accused Jean of being an imposter, saying that real Jean of France died after five days and a cockoo was placed in his stead. (This rumor has been debunked by modern DNA tests). Edward proclaimed himself the rightful King of France as the sole living grandson of King Philip IV.
King Jean fought alongside his friend and cousin, Philip of Valois who was give the Duchy of Aquitaine. The Battle of Crécy in 1546 would be a disaster for the French army with Philip injured and Jean barely escaping with his life. It was a catastrophe for the French and would feature the loss of Calais.
Three years later, Queen Bonne would die of the plague which would destroy one third of the population. It was an tragedy. Jean's third wedding was a somber event with the continued hostilities with England, the recovery from the plague and the death of Jean's friend Philip.
In 1555, the war with England would restart and Jean would lead his troops in Battle of Poitiers where in a miraculous moment, he manged to subdue and capture Edward, the Black Prince. Unfortunately, Jean would not have long to gloat for a year later, he would die of dysentery. His son, Henri, would take care of the negotiations with England.
[2] The second son of Jean the I, Henri was made Duke of Orleans at birth, for his father intended for him to be the strong right hand of his elder brother, Phillipe, when he came of age. Thus, Henri was given a thorough martial education, although the boy soon proved himself far too intelligent and talented to be limited to the sword and lance. Being given many tutors from places as close as Normandy and Languedoc, and as far as Bohemia and the Eastern Roman Empire, both Henri and his brothers, Phillipe, Charles and Hercules were brought in a growing cosmopolitan Paris, under the strict but benevolent watch of their father.
Thankfully for King Jean, his second son was growing to pay dividends - at the bare age of twelve, the young Henri was already defeating boys four and five years older in the tiltyard, and stayed at the side of his tutor, the Constable of France, during various military meetings of importance. As as young Knight and Duke, Henri would gain his spurs during the battles of Crecy and would fight in more battles, featuring in the defense of Calais where he led a small army that proved a great thorn for the English. He would make several friends at this stage, such as the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Alençon and many others.
He would retire to Orleans then, where the Young Duke took upon himself the duty of ruling. His close watch, support for the artisans of the Duchy and his heavy involvement in the local economy made him a very beloved ruler, as Henri attracted Jewish, German and Italian glass-makers and Greek and Sicilian silk-weavers. Thus, Orleans became a famous commercial center, closely linked to both the Aquitaine and Champagne trade routes, the city becoming famous for it's glass and becoming the first and major center of what would come to be known as "Capetian Silk".
When the second war of King Jean's reign with England started, Henri faced a early loss which blackened his heart - his brother, leading a charge of French infantry-men during a battle against the Prince of Wales, was shot down by English Longbowmen. The fall of the Dauphin's standard almost broke the French army, but Henri, raging, took up the Orleans and Dauphine standards - and charged straight into the English lines, The sight of the Duke of Orleans, surrounded by no more than twenty retainers, charging alone at the thousand Englishmen raised the spirits of his army, who followed the new Crown Prince into the battle. The Battle of Puymartin is the first, and perhaps most famous victory of Henri.
The heavy defeat handed to the Black Prince forced him to retreat North, where the English fell into the clutches of the army led by King Jean and Phillipe of Valois. His army tired and restless, Henri took upon himself to siege every single English occupied castle in Aquitaine, withdrawing the English poison root and stem. Just as he had finished the pacification of Aquitaine, and with his army reinforced by the locals, the news of the death of his father reached him. After a hasty trip to Reims, Henri was crowned, promising on God and France to forever expel the English from the continent. It was a promise Henri would make due on.
With Edward of Wales in his hands, the English were fighting with one hand behind their backs - Edward the III did not wish to risk his eldest and most favoured son, who was a captive in Paris, even if he was treated well and the French seemed to mostly ignore him, Henri was far too focused on his goal. Despite Edward calling for truces several times, Henri led his armies and a myriad of Free Companies northwards, intent on ending the Plantagenet stain on Capetian France. The battle of Hainaut (1358) and the Siege of Calais (1359) were both French victories, with Henri changing many of the tactics used by the French armies in the face of English innovations, such as the Longbow. The support of the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret, Countess of Flanders, proved to be the tipping point that would see the English Crown finally expelled from France. The following Treaty of Chartres saw Edward the III renounce all of his rights to French territorry, including Calais and Aquitaine, in return for his son, who would be sent on a ship to England with the returning English diplomats.
Victory cemented Henri upon his throne - the young royal was, perhaps, the most powerful King of France since Louis IX, and his influence was felt everywhere. In some places, Henri was almost revered as a warrior Saint. But Henri proved to not only be a warrior. With the Black Plague still making making periodic returns, taking with it another one of Henri's brothers, Charles Duke of Berry, Henri turned to the sickness with the same ferocity he had faced the English. He and his advisors reinforced French hospitals, founding many in the many major municipalities of France, and they also correctly identified rats and such other vermin as the bringers of the plague, and the French people followed Henri's adoption of cats as pets - the Kingdom of France become henceforth known as the "Kingdom of Cats", for cats were found in every street of Paris during Henri's reign.
The death of so many serfs, peasants and nobles left a lot of land in the hands of the crown - and Henri was anything if not a greedy land grabber. Aquitaine was re-bought from the Valois, who were in deep crisis due to some shady investments, alongside the County of Anjou but a few years later. The Angevin Kings of Naples, who faced revolts in Provence, also sold the full rights to Provence to Henri in 1374, with the new French professional army, modeled and using as a base the many Free Companies that had sprouted in Gascony, Normandy and Burgundy during the English wars, was one of the most ferocious and effective armies in Europe at the time. His brother Hercules would receive the County of Nice as appanage after the seizure, alongside his other title of Count of Montpensier.
The death of the last Burgundian Duke, Phillipe the I, a great friend of Henri, would also see the Duchy of Burgundy, the Counties of Boulogne and Auvergne, reunited with the French Crown. Deep in grief for the death of his friend, the wifeless King was soon approached by Phillipe's widow, Margaret of Flanders. She too, needed a new husband, for she was heirless, and the marriage would be advantageous for them both. Both young and fertile, the young couple would grow to love each other. Margaret of Flanders brought along many rich lordships, such as Flanders, Rethel, Nevers, Artois and the County of Burgundy, in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the perfect marriage, and the couple soon grew to love each other deeply. As said before, Margaret would prove a dutiful wife and an excellent queen. She birthed the King no more than 11 healthy children at birth.
With so many lands in the hands of the monarchy, Henri's power was almost absolute. He cemented French laws, creating new taxes, reforming and modernizing old legal systems, reformed the army, as mentioned before, encourage commerce and would further increase the royal domain by seizing the lands of the House of Hainault, taking Hainaut for himself and delivering the County of Zeeland to his wife. He would make his brother Hercules, whom he trusted deeply, alongside his titles of Montpensier and Nice, Duke of Holland as well. With the royal coffers full, Henri would become famous for the love he and his wife shared of palace-building, with Henri building almost twenty palaces during his reign, many of which are tourist attractions today.
Deeply beloved, and surrounded by allies, due to the fact his army of sisters was married off to many European Princes and French nobles, a loyal and stateswoman of a wife and a large brood of children, Henri took to feasting and drinking heavily in his later years. He and his wife, would, literally, grow fat and old together, but the aged King would quickly become an alcoholic. While wintering in Navarre, Henri would catch a cold after walking in the Pyrenean snows while riding to his rural residence where his wife was staying. The simple cold, however, would be enough to topple a great King. Henri died in 1395, being succeeded by his son Philippe.
[3] Named for both his late uncle and his father's friend, Philippe was born in 1371. It was hard for Philippe growing up as he stood in the shadows of his grandfather and father. His grandfather had been born a king and against all odd lived and ruled for forty years and single-handedly saved the depleted main branch the Capet dynasty. Meanwhile his father had manged to successfully expel the English and the plague from his lands.
Both were figures of legends, leaving Philippe rather small in comparison. Because of this he had a massive inferiority complex with traces of paranoia.
In 1385, he would marry Isabeau of Bavaria. The marriage was suggested to make an alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor. The marriage at first seemed to blossoming into a love match. However, the early death of their son, Louis drove a wedge between the two. It would slowly get worse when Isabeau's next two children would die in the cradle.
They seemed to have reconciled in 1382, when their next son, also called Louis, was born. The couple became even closer when in 1495, when Henri died and Philippe would become king in a join coronation with his wife.
However, Isabeau proved herself an unpopular queen unlike her much beloved predecessor (who had retired to her native Flanders). She was haughty, quarrelsome and a spendthrift. There were also rumors circulating that she was unfaithful.
Although his wife had given him four more children, Philippe would distant himself from his wife, becoming distrustful of her. Things would come to a head when in 1401, their son, Louis died before his ninth birthday. This would be the tipping point. In June 1401, Isabeau would miscarry her baby (speculated to be because the stress she was under,although others wonder if there was a darker reason such as her husband beating her). In August, she would be arrested on the charges of adultery. If a queen being arrested wasn't scandalous enough, the king's distant cousin, Jean of Valois was accused of being her lover. Both were held in prison until their trial.
It was largely a farce of trial with half the witnesses being enemies of either the Duke of Valois or the queen and the other half spoke only hearsay. Unfortunately, the judges declared the Duke and the Queen guilty above the protests of their family.
Philippe would commute their punishment to life imprisonment despite being well in his rights to execute them both. Unfortunately, Jean would die just two years later of bad treatment at the hands of his jailers.
In 1407, Philipee would be found stabbed in his bed, with the words JUSTICE crudely carved in his forehead. His brother, Jean, would succeed him.
[4] Jean the II was the younger brother of Phillipe the V, having been given the title of Duke of Anjou and Count of Maine when he reached his majority, becoming an extremely influential figure in the reigns of his late father and brother. Known for his violent character and his enormous size (Jean was often compared to the Titans of Hellenic Myths), the young Duke of Anjou was promised at birth to Phillipa Plantagenet, daughter of Edward the IV (Edward the Black Prince)
Jean's first years as ruler of his duchy were ... special, in a way. Anjou had been for decades now one of the centers of the Anglo-French conflicts, but with the English exiled from the continent, it was prime time, at least in Jean's eyes, to renew Anjou and Maine as centers of French Chivalry and commerce, and this he did so. Tourneys, fairs and meeles became the glamour of Anjou during these times, and the immigration of Jews and various other french ethnicities to the land proved useful in making Anjou grow. It was during these times that Jean travelled to England to fetch his bride - despite English attempts at breaking the marriage, due to the fact that both of her brothers, Edward and Richard, were still childless, his arrival in London broke the reverie. Not much is known of whatever negotiations happened during Jean's two-month stay in England, but he did return to France with with the "Fair Maid of Kent".
King Jean has always been described as a zealous christian, due to his support for the crusader movements in the Balkans and Anatolia, and his attacks on the many Kingdoms and Emirates of North Africa, but he should also be remembered as a patron and protector of the Jewish people. Many jews worked in the growing bureaucracy and administration of France during this period, and Jean's head of health both as Duke and as King was a jew, whom he hired after Phillipa miscarried their first child. Of the six next children the couple would have, all would be taken to term.
Jean rose to the throne over his two nieces - whom he would raise and adopt at his own. Extremely furious at the way his brother died, Jean would hunt down the partisans of Isabeau of Bavaria, conducting a purge of much of the nobility. The House of Valois would survive through the mercy of Constance Capet, the young Countess of Angouleme and Valois, who protected her husband and children from the fury of her brother.
Afterwards, Jean's reign was mostly quiet, other than some interventions and support for Crusader missions in the Balkans and North Africa. Jean's Meditteranean navy would conquer the cities of Algiers and Bone, whom the young French army would defend. For this, Jean and all future King's of France would gain the title of his Most Christian majesty. He died in 1431, being succeeded by his eldest son, Henri.
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[5] Born in 1404, Henri was the first child born after the miscarriage, to Jean and Phillipa Plantagenet and although the parents were over the moon to have their first child in their arms, they were distressed at the birth defect which affected Henri, his left leg was missing from above the knee, apart from this his health was perfect.
Jean's Jewish head of health, stated that this was not a curse but a test from God and as Henri grew, his parents and tutors were able to see that, he was able to compensate his missing limb, by strengthening his upper body, as well as studying hard.
One of his Jewish tutors was also able to create a saddle that balanced him on the horse, so he was still able to train as much as his brother(s), uncles and cousins.
By the age of 16, in 1420, Henri was serving his father in the treasury as well as attending diplomatic meetings, during one such meeting his father and Henri would arrange the marriage of Henri to his cousin, Marie of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy (1381–1433) and Mary of France (1380-1436), herself daughter of Henri II and Margaret of Flanders, sister of Philippe and Jean.
The marriage would take place in 1426 and was a well attended event, with royalty from around Europe, followed by a tense bedding ceremony, which went without a problem.
The marriage would be a happy one and lead to the birth of many healthy children.
Like his father and grandfather, Henri, would arrange marriages to European Monarchs, forming stronger alliances, better trading deals and saw a long period of peace.
Internally, following years of working in the treasury, Henri, was able keep the royal purse ever growing, allowing him to finance projects, such as new cathedrals, one of which would be dedicated to his father, Jean the Most Christian Majesty, with Pope Eugene IV, beginning the process of awarding Jean a sainthood.
Not only were his policies beneficial to the nobility but they also brought great economic prosperity to his subjects, greatly increasing the population.
During the conclave of 1447, there were talks of new policies being brought in to support Christian monarchs to expel all Jews from their country, French cardinals were ordered by Henri to not vote for these policies, this would lead to French Cardinal, Guillaume d'Estouteville being voted in at the election, becoming Pope John XXIII, in honour of Henri’s father, Jean.
One of the most major acts of his rule was to bring about a constitution as at this point in French history, they lacked a formal constitution; the regime essentially relied on custom. The constitution was discussed by Henri, the high ranking nobles and the senior members from the Parliament of Paris.
The constitution, cemented the law of male succession only and the absolute monarchy role as God’s chosen voice in France, second only to the Pope.
Catholicism would be the state religion and Catholic Churches would be separate from taxes. Other religions would be tolerated in France as long as they are peaceful.
His death in 1468 aged 64 years old, would be felt heavily in his home nation and across Europe as his many letters of advice to monarchs had helped them deal with internal financial and constitutional crises.
He was succeeded by his son Jean.
[6] Born in 1431, he was the firstborn son of Henri II and Marie. He was born with all his limbs, but without his voice. Despite this, he was a very intelligent boy who was passionate about literature and the theater. He was trained from his childhood to one day be king, and he took to the job with aplomb. Soon he was attending state meetings alongside his father, and even was the one behind the idea of making peace with the house of Valois. His disinterest in marrying or siring children exasperated his advisors, but since he had many legitimate nephews, Jean ignored them the same way he ignored all potential betrothal contracts. He founded a dozen schools and wrote many books under his own name, and was a big fan of attending plays, being for his whole life a patron of the arts. He also promoted religious tolerance, but this was an unpopular policy with his Christian nobility. His court festivals, building projects and tapestries were all known for their rich colors, and he spent almost ruinous sums on them. But this accomplished his aim of bolstering royal prestige through lavish cultural display, and his reign is known today for the artistic flourishing simulated by his patronage as well as the frequent hosting of Europe's leading artists and writers. He also rewrote the constitution by his father, abolishing the law of only male succession in favor of male-preference primogeniture, and forced the church to pay taxes. He died after drinking some poisoned wine, having died single and childless.
[7] François of Anjou was born in 1469, the first born son of Louis, Duke of Anjou and Beatrice of Savoy. His father died when he was four years old and he raised by his mother and his older sister. He married Ippolita Viscounti, daughter of the Duke of Milian, in 1485. It was not a grand match, but one that brought coin and a link to a dynastic house of Italy. They would have nine children.
After the death of King Henri in 1500, François and his wife would be crowned in a grand ceremony. The new king would restlessly search for the man who had poisoned his uncle, determined to gain justice to his uncle. To his anger, he found out that the culprit was the Count of Bar, an old friend of his. Angered at such a personal betrayal, he had the man and his hired assassin boiled alive in oil as was the customary punishment in those days for poisoners.
For the next fifteen years, François was determined to bring the culture of France to new heights, using his wife's Italian connection to invite all sorts of artists. Upon hearing of Enrique of Castile's patronizing exploration of the new world, the king sponsored several explorers.
The king was a lover of fine food, fine wine and fine women. Unfortunetly, this would soon wear his body out. King François would die of gout in 1515, leaving the kingdom in the hands of Jeanne.
[8] Jeanne, born in 1486 was the oldest of eight daughters of François and Ippolita, her sole brother having died in his adolescence. Thanks to her grand-uncle, Jean III, whom she was named after, she was able to succeed to the throne. She was considered to be a graceful beauty, with a vivacious and lively personality and an affable nature. She regularly hosted masques and tournaments that thoroughly dazzled her contemporaries at her lavish court, and her patronage of the arts made a significant contribution to French culture. She was determined to show that she, as a woman ruling France, could maintain the prestige and magnificence established by her predecessors. However, she never married. She knew that marriage meant she had to lose power to her husband, and whichever man she selected could provoke political instability or even insurrection. Instead, she had a series of short-term favorites at court. Though her single status led to accusations of irresponsibility, her silence with regards to such matters, however, strengthened her own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be vulnerable to a coup. She performed her ceremonial role as queen in strict accordance with formal court etiquette, and regularly and punctually fulfilled all representational duties that the court life demanded of her. She was also an example of Catholic piety and was famed for her generosity to the poor and needy through her philanthropy, which made her very popular among the public her entire life as queen. Though she followed a largely defensive foreign policy, her reign raised France's status abroad. Under Jeanne, the nation gained a new self-confidence and sense of sovereignty. She knew that a monarch ruled by popular consent, and therefore always worked with parliament and advisers she could trust to tell her the truth. She passed away due to illness, single and childless, but surrounded by dozens of her sisters' children and grandchildren.
[9} Born Monsieur le Prince, Louis was from birth the eldest of the Blood Princes and the highest of France's peers, holding titles such as the Duchy of Touraine, the Counties of Angouleme, Vexin, Forez, Perche and Boulougne. Being raised to a senior most position within French society and the class elites, Louis was given an extensive education of matters of war and statescraft. He was born after the death of his father, the previous Duke, to Princess Contansce Zephyrine of France, second eldest of King François' brood of girls. Thus, he was also raised in the belief that he might be heir to the French throne one day, a destination, that did come to prove itself true in the future.
Louis' adulthood was marked by a series of family compacts that the political war he would wage with his royal aunt when securing his majority unfold - in essence, Jeanne's refusal to name him successor, and her efforts to tamper with his efforts to succeed to the Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside Jeanne's refusal to grant him his desired titles of Governorship over French Flanders. Louis' would still manage to win over the widowed Agnes of Luxembourg as his wife - bringing the Duchy of Luxembourg, the County of Namur and the Duchy of Limburg into his possessions. This vast increase of land and Louis' exploits in the Netherlands made him an enemy of various of his aunt's favourites, and of his aunt herself, but Louis' purse alongside his savy knowledge of french politics saved his skin.
Jeanne eventually gave away, and Louis and Agnes became King and Queen of France. The first decrees of Louis' reign where changing the rules of succession in France to Salic law, something that greatly pleased the Princes of the Blood. Had Louis' elder aunt, Margarite, had children, the throne of France would have passed outside the House of Capet for the first time in centuries, right onto the hands of the von Luxembourgs who ruled in Spain, or if Louis himself had never been born into the House that had taken the Luxembourgian lands in Central Europe, the von Habsburgs. It was a tense situation, none so because Louis derived legitimacy from his mother over his aunts, but Louis' rank as first prince of the blood made the situation clearer.
Luxembourgian (Technically, the House of Luxembourg-Avis) had ruled the whole of the Iberian Peninsula for two generations now, with the Kingdoms having been unified during the reigns of Manuel the I of all Spanish realms, but Spain, despite growing into the first colonial Empire, with vast conquests in America and many outspots in Africa, Arabia and India, had kept itself outside of continental affairs for some while now, too busy with it's overseas exploits and it's drive into Morocco. France and Spain had mostly kept the peace, other than a few disagreements here and there. But Louis would decidedly draw France into Spain's sights - he, seeing monarchs such as the English and Spanish Kings enriching themselves, sent vast fleets of exploration to the new world, setting up colonies firstly in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where Breton (The Bretons were rather autonomous vassals of the French Kings, but still French nonetheless) and Norman fishermen were making a fortune, establishing contancts with the natives and forming settlements in Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) but further south, other even more successful colonies were formed, eventually forming two sister colonies in the southern tip of Africa and South America. Taking inspirations from the Franks, the two forming colonies would be called Neustrie-Neuve (New Neustria, OTL La Plata) and Nouvelle Austrasie (New Austrasia, OTL Cape-colony).
Fascinated by the so called Columbian exchange, France was one of the first country to massively import American crops, which first became a delicacy but then a highly sought product that could easily supplement the volatile french diet. The sudden growth in population caused by this ammelioration of France's health standards during Louis' reign would create massive movements towards France's colonies but allow France the manpower to conquer more Algerian coastal cities and make war in Germany and Spain at the same time. France would annex the Duchy of Brabant and tribute from the Prince-Bisphoric of Liege during this time, alongside recognition of Lorraine as a French Peerage and thus, vassal. In Spain, the new King was not so successful, as he lost a few border towns with Spain and almost lost Navarre twice, but France's highly experienced army pulled through for the Kingdom. Louis dreamnt of forming a universalist monarchy that would cover the whole of Europe eventually.
He, clearly, did not succeed in all his goals. He died aged and old, surrounded by his various children. He was succeeded by his son Louis.
[10] Louis, the twelfth of his name was already a man in his sixties, sick with goat so it was almost certain he would not last long. Sometimes, he would be called the placeholder king, although none would dare say it to his face, as he had a ferocious temper. In the defense of Louis, he had spent must of his time as his father's heir, running his various lands with great skill. However, in just two years of his reign, he was already bedridden, thrusting his heir in the position of regent.
In 1592, he would finally pass on, allowing his daughter, Marie to succeed him.
[11] Marie was the only living child of Louis XII, her siblings all having died in infancy. She was trained to be queen from a young age and accepted as heir, since there had been a successful predecessor. Like Jeanne I, she also never married, being content with the possibility of being succeeded by her cousins or their children. However, unlike her ancestress she was not considered to be charming or feminine, and was physically unattractive, having suffered smallpox as a child. She was unyielding and authoritarian in her rule, unable to forgive or forget any slight made against her, with a worse temper than her father ever had. She maintained most of the ministers of her father, and exiled her mother from court after discovering that she was having an affair with one of Marie's servants. She was careful never to favor anybody over anyone else, knowing what happened if people thought the monarch was being monopolized. She ruled by council, and her mother was a key figure, although Marie only occasionally took her advice. She continued the tradition of importing American crops, and considered a colonial venture into Africa, but ultimately was talked out of that. She won a war against Germany and Spain, who wished to reclaim Brabant and Lorraine, and negotiated the purchase of French slaves afterwards. There is no evidence that she had expressed any romantic or sexual interest in anybody, despite contemporary speculations of the queen perhaps being a lesbian. She shared her father's love of the virginals, which had been one of her first instruments, and in her free time she often composed music. In the sphere of women's fashion, Marie introduced the wearing of thin black veils that fell in waves across the face. France emerged as the leading European power during her reign, and warfare had defined her foreign policy. She passed away of what is now known to be diabetes, but then was thought to be poison.
Sure...when I put the succession bit in, it was considered near ASB anyway. Though I might have written a female successor before I saw that bit about Salic Law
POD: Sebastian, the "desired" King of Portugal, is victorious in the Battle in the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir.
Kings of Portugal and Algarves
1557-1613: Sebastian I "The Desired" (House of Aviz) [1]
[1] Born to D. John Manuel, heir of Portugal and his wife Joanna of Austria in 1554, Sebastian was called the "the Desired" at his birth, for him being born remedied the dire situation the dinasty of Aviz had found itself in recent years, with the extinction of many of it's cadet branches and the lack of fertility apparent in the main line, including the death of his father just two weeks before his birth. Heir apparent at the moment he was born, Sebastian's birth would indeed prove a blessing when his grandfather died just three years later, and Sebastian became King Sebastian the I.
Tall, slim and blond, Sebastian was raised under the iron rule of his grandmother, Catherine of Austria, who shared the regency of her grandson with his uncle, Cardinal Henry of Evora. Due to this, the church, especially the Jesuits, played a strong hand in his upbringing and the King was raised as a true crusader, whose jesuits teachers inspired in him a desire to expand christianity around Portugal's colonies but especially to the enemies of the Portuguese in Africa, the morrocan infidels. The fact that the young King started excreting seminal fluids at the age of 9 did not bypass the sight of his grandmother, the regent, and soon the head jesuit in the care of Sebastian's education was shooed off the court. It was around this time that some rumours would sprout that the young King had suffered from pedophilia, although the Portuguese court, essentially killed the rumours.
"Sebastianus Rex, a painting of the King during his early twenties, shortly before the invasion of Morocco."
During his regency, the influence of the Church in Portugal increased dramatically, as churchmen entered various positions of import in the court of the realm, and expanded the activities of the inquisition to many of the lands Portugal under it's sway. Portugal adquired some cities in India and Indonesia around this time, but most importantly, a deal was crafted with the Chinese that saw Macau become part of the growing Portuguese Empire.
Eventually, Sebastian came of age, although his regents continued holding influential posts in his government. Plans were crafted for Sebastian to marry Margot of France or an Austrian Princess, but Sebastian and the patrons of the respective women never came to an agreement, either due to the tense political and religious situation of France at the time or due to the overtures of the pope. Sebastian had also hinted to his uncle and neighbour, Philip of Spain, that he would be interested in marrying Isabella Clara Eugenia, his eldest daughter, or one of the younger daughters of the Spanish monarch, but no agreement was ever settled upon. Historians debate whether this was because of some kind of homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality from Sebastian, or a simple disinterest in such matters of state. Other historians refer to some misgivings about his illnesses, or psycological scars caused by his rape as a young child. Eventually, Sebastian would indeed find a wife, but not one would think of...
But Sebastian's one main obcession remained - to crusade against the muslim infidels, and win victory in a crusade. Sebastian's youthful idealism that turned into fanaticism in his adulthood, for Morocco was in his view the one main thorn on Portuguese honour. While constructing their Empire, the Portuguese had waged many smaller wars against the Moroccans, conquering many port cities but they had never been succesful in wider endeavours - but that was about to change. The Portuguese nobility and bourgeouise had good reasons to support their King's endeavours in the country to their south - mainly for prestige, security, trade and food for Portugal's population. Thus, Sebastian eventually forged a plan when an opportunity raised itself - Sultan Abdullah Mohammed of Morocco requested Portuguese assistance from his uncles, who had amassed an army in Ottoman Algiers and were now invading the country. Thus, Sebastian and the flower of Portugal's nobility embarked on a fleet that numbered in the hundreds, and soon, almost 18000 men landed in Portuguese cities in the Moroccan coast.
In a rather dissapointing turn of events (for Sebastian), he fell ill almost as soon as he landed, and the Duke of Aveiro was thus forced to take command of the expedition. While not very experienced militarily, the young Duke was discovered to a fine logistician and a able listener, and soon, the Portuguese and their Moorish allies dragged Abd Al-Malik and his armies to the coast, where a recovered Sebastian re-invigorated the morale of his armies that handily defeated the Ottoman supported armies of Abd Al-Malik, killing both the pretender and his brother in the process. Sebastian himself was almost killed twice in the battle, but escaped the fighting wounded. It was a resounding Portuguese victory nonetheless, and one that made Sebastian's name rung through every hall in Christendom. A grateful Sultan Abdullah signed a treaty of alliance with Portugal and handed them many ports cities, but most importantly, gave the Portuguese suzerainty over the Gharb and Rif regions of the Portuguese coast, allowing Portugal to expand agricultural production to this new region with many southern portuguese immigrants setting up farms of wheat and many American crops that would serve handily in feeding Portugal - and in the Rif, the security of cities such as Tangiers and Ceuta was finally secured, and with trade with Saadi Morocco blooming, they became the very centers of the Luso-Moroccan trade and the Trans-Saharan trade.
To the surprise of many, Sebastian stayed in his new Moroccan possessions for three years, establishing a temporary capital in Tangiers. There, a mature and changed man finally escaped the shadow of his youth. Sebastian took to Kingship with a new, larger than life confidence, but a sense of wisdom not present before the conquest. Many of the German, Flemish and Italian mercenaries brought to Africa by Sebastian were given land and convinced to stay in Morocco, as were many portuguese soldiers. This policy soon gave results, and the rebellious Rifian tribes soon found a worthy enemy in these crusaders.. Many locals were also encouraged to convert to Christianity, and many did, as there seemed there was no going back to the muslim order supported by the Ottoman Empire. Anyway, the new provinces of the Portuguese Empire had needs of all kinds of people in it's bureaucracies, militaries and government, and many of the locals were given a ticket in as long as they embraced the church.
Perhaps most importantly for Sebastian, was one particular woman who embraced the Church (eventually). A rather unknown sister of Sultan Abdullah by one of his father's other wives, the young muslim Princess and the Christian King became quick companions - something that worried his uncle Henry, who held court in Lisbon during Sebastian's absence. And Cardinal Henry's worries would prove to be right. In the woman whom history records initially as Princess Fatima of Morocco, who would eventually become Maria de Fatima, Queen of Portugal, Sebastian had found a kindred spirit upon whom he could lay down his woes. To Sebastian's close band of friends, Sebastian's closeness with the muslim woman should have been a case of worry, but as in all, the friendship they shared proved stronger than their duty to their faith, and they kept the King's secret, well, a secret.
When Sebastian landed in Lisbon in 1581, he brought many riches from Africa and many of Sultan Abdullah's courtiers and diplomats, and the news of the marriage contract between the King and the Sultan's sister spread through the Kingdom like wildfire. Surely, the King had been bewitched. It was only Queen Maria's public conversion to Christianity and her rather sizeable dowry that allowed for many gifts to be showered on the Portuguese nobility that allowed the Cortes to ratify the marriage, that was consumated shortly afterwards. But there remained a great deal of dissent and anger, both internally and internationally.
Sebastian's uncle, Philip of Spain was amongst the most outraged. Sebastian marrying a infidel princess was a source of great affront on it's own, but Philip had wished for Sebastian to marry his eldest daughter, in the hopes of forcing Portugal to join and finance his holy league. Philip led a diplomatic effort to have the pope nullify the marriage, and the pope would have agreed on it if not for the portuguese royal families visit to Rome later that year - with a heavily pregnant Queen Maria giving birth to a set of twins in the pope's own palace. Forced by Sebastian to become godfather to his first children, for he and his wife would indeed have many more in the future, the pope could not well deligitimize his own god-children, and the fact that Queen Maria's conversion seemed genuine and the increasing amounts of conversions amongst the moslems of Portugal's moroccans domains made it clear that the marriage was having some kind of positive result.
Sebastian and Philip would remain estranged for a long time, but would eventually rebuild their alliance, due to political reasons at the time. Sebastian had curtailed the inquisition, indeed, for it was amongst the inquisition itself that the doubters and "traitors" who had attempted to ruin the King's marriage had found support in, but he would continue a wide array of christianisation efforts in Portugal's colonies overseas, guided by new, better trained and equipped religious orders under the patronage of the Portuguese crown who worked to know and comprehend the populations they were trying to convert, to very succesful degrees. Soon, Christianity was making new breaks in India, Africa and Indonesia, and Macau became a center for the difusion of christianity to other places in China and Empires such as Japan and Korea. Portuguese Bandeirantes moved beyond the line of Tordesillas during his reign, starting the colonization of the Brazilian interior. When the Dutch attempted to usurp and conquer Portuguese colonies in an attempt to increase the Republic's revenues, it backfired immediatelly, as Sebastian moved to support Philip the II and the growing and very powerful Portuguese navy threw themselves like rabid dogs on Dutch shipping and trading.
In Sebastian's reign, the lesser Sunda Islands were conquered by the portuguese, ruled from Flores, Timor and Malacca, this increased base of power allowed the Portuguese to conquer more trading outposts in the Greater Sunda Islands, especially in Sumatra and Java. Portugal established many vassals in the islands, fighting off the Ottoman supported local sultanates with support from the locals. This saw many Indonesian princes convert to Christianity, thus introducing the religion to many places in the region, and increased Portuguese influence immenselly.
Other than that, Sebastian followed a rather neutral and internal policy for the rest of his reign. He was mostly interested in the produces of his Empire, and strongly invested in Portugal itself - becoming the patron of many cities and settlements in the metropolis and overseas, building ports, hospitals, churches and monasteries, roads, forts, universities and trading depots. He was an avid lover of coffee, which quickly became the national beverage during his reign, alongside having a deep taste for the cuisine of the natives of Brazil, which he had been introduced too by the native servants of a courtier. Seing an opportunity to diversefy portuguese agriculture, Sebastian had many Columbian crops introduced to Europe and to a lesser degree Africa and Asia, especially potatoes, who became a peculiar favourite of the Sebastianist royal family.
Many Catholics from the Germanies, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the British isles found refuge and welcome in Portugal during his reign, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these men and women brought with them new ways of thinking and technology, and they integrated quickly into the portuguese population, greatly boosting the manpower of the Portuguese crown. Sebastian is famous for becoming the first of Portugal's absolute monarchs, starting a period known as the "Sebastianist Autocracy". He would eventually die, surrounded by his wife, many children and grandchildren. He was suceeded by ____________.
Kings of Portugal and Algarves
1557-1613: Sebastian I "The Desired" (House of Aviz) [1]
[1] Born to D. John Manuel, heir of Portugal and his wife Joanna of Austria in 1554, Sebastian was called the "the Desired" at his birth, for him being born remedied the dire situation the dinasty of Aviz had found itself in recent years, with the extinction of many of it's cadet branches and the lack of fertility apparent in the main line, including the death of his father just two weeks before his birth. Heir apparent at the moment he was born, Sebastian's birth would indeed prove a blessing when his grandfather died just three years later, and Sebastian became King Sebastian the I.
Tall, slim and blond, Sebastian was raised under the iron rule of his grandmother, Catherine of Austria, who shared the regency of her grandson with his uncle, Cardinal Henry of Evora. Due to this, the church, especially the Jesuits, played a strong hand in his upbringing and the King was raised as a true crusader, whose jesuits teachers inspired in him a desire to expand christianity around Portugal's colonies but especially to the enemies of the Portuguese in Africa, the morrocan infidels. The fact that the young King started excreting seminal fluids at the age of 9 did not bypass the sight of his grandmother, the regent, and soon the head jesuit in the care of Sebastian's education was shooed off the court. It was around this time that some rumours would sprout that the young King had suffered from pedophilia, although the Portuguese court, essentially killed the rumours.
"Sebastianus Rex, a painting of the King during his early twenties, shortly before the invasion of Morocco."
During his regency, the influence of the Church in Portugal increased dramatically, as churchmen entered various positions of import in the court of the realm, and expanded the activities of the inquisition to many of the lands Portugal under it's sway. Portugal adquired some cities in India and Indonesia around this time, but most importantly, a deal was crafted with the Chinese that saw Macau become part of the growing Portuguese Empire.
Eventually, Sebastian came of age, although his regents continued holding influential posts in his government. Plans were crafted for Sebastian to marry Margot of France or an Austrian Princess, but Sebastian and the patrons of the respective women never came to an agreement, either due to the tense political and religious situation of France at the time or due to the overtures of the pope. Sebastian had also hinted to his uncle and neighbour, Philip of Spain, that he would be interested in marrying Isabella Clara Eugenia, his eldest daughter, or one of the younger daughters of the Spanish monarch, but no agreement was ever settled upon. Historians debate whether this was because of some kind of homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality from Sebastian, or a simple disinterest in such matters of state. Other historians refer to some misgivings about his illnesses, or psycological scars caused by his rape as a young child. Eventually, Sebastian would indeed find a wife, but not one would think of...
But Sebastian's one main obcession remained - to crusade against the muslim infidels, and win victory in a crusade. Sebastian's youthful idealism that turned into fanaticism in his adulthood, for Morocco was in his view the one main thorn on Portuguese honour. While constructing their Empire, the Portuguese had waged many smaller wars against the Moroccans, conquering many port cities but they had never been succesful in wider endeavours - but that was about to change. The Portuguese nobility and bourgeouise had good reasons to support their King's endeavours in the country to their south - mainly for prestige, security, trade and food for Portugal's population. Thus, Sebastian eventually forged a plan when an opportunity raised itself - Sultan Abdullah Mohammed of Morocco requested Portuguese assistance from his uncles, who had amassed an army in Ottoman Algiers and were now invading the country. Thus, Sebastian and the flower of Portugal's nobility embarked on a fleet that numbered in the hundreds, and soon, almost 18000 men landed in Portuguese cities in the Moroccan coast.
In a rather dissapointing turn of events (for Sebastian), he fell ill almost as soon as he landed, and the Duke of Aveiro was thus forced to take command of the expedition. While not very experienced militarily, the young Duke was discovered to a fine logistician and a able listener, and soon, the Portuguese and their Moorish allies dragged Abd Al-Malik and his armies to the coast, where a recovered Sebastian re-invigorated the morale of his armies that handily defeated the Ottoman supported armies of Abd Al-Malik, killing both the pretender and his brother in the process. Sebastian himself was almost killed twice in the battle, but escaped the fighting wounded. It was a resounding Portuguese victory nonetheless, and one that made Sebastian's name rung through every hall in Christendom. A grateful Sultan Abdullah signed a treaty of alliance with Portugal and handed them many ports cities, but most importantly, gave the Portuguese suzerainty over the Gharb and Rif regions of the Portuguese coast, allowing Portugal to expand agricultural production to this new region with many southern portuguese immigrants setting up farms of wheat and many American crops that would serve handily in feeding Portugal - and in the Rif, the security of cities such as Tangiers and Ceuta was finally secured, and with trade with Saadi Morocco blooming, they became the very centers of the Luso-Moroccan trade and the Trans-Saharan trade.
To the surprise of many, Sebastian stayed in his new Moroccan possessions for three years, establishing a temporary capital in Tangiers. There, a mature and changed man finally escaped the shadow of his youth. Sebastian took to Kingship with a new, larger than life confidence, but a sense of wisdom not present before the conquest. Many of the German, Flemish and Italian mercenaries brought to Africa by Sebastian were given land and convinced to stay in Morocco, as were many portuguese soldiers. This policy soon gave results, and the rebellious Rifian tribes soon found a worthy enemy in these crusaders.. Many locals were also encouraged to convert to Christianity, and many did, as there seemed there was no going back to the muslim order supported by the Ottoman Empire. Anyway, the new provinces of the Portuguese Empire had needs of all kinds of people in it's bureaucracies, militaries and government, and many of the locals were given a ticket in as long as they embraced the church.
Perhaps most importantly for Sebastian, was one particular woman who embraced the Church (eventually). A rather unknown sister of Sultan Abdullah by one of his father's other wives, the young muslim Princess and the Christian King became quick companions - something that worried his uncle Henry, who held court in Lisbon during Sebastian's absence. And Cardinal Henry's worries would prove to be right. In the woman whom history records initially as Princess Fatima of Morocco, who would eventually become Maria de Fatima, Queen of Portugal, Sebastian had found a kindred spirit upon whom he could lay down his woes. To Sebastian's close band of friends, Sebastian's closeness with the muslim woman should have been a case of worry, but as in all, the friendship they shared proved stronger than their duty to their faith, and they kept the King's secret, well, a secret.
When Sebastian landed in Lisbon in 1581, he brought many riches from Africa and many of Sultan Abdullah's courtiers and diplomats, and the news of the marriage contract between the King and the Sultan's sister spread through the Kingdom like wildfire. Surely, the King had been bewitched. It was only Queen Maria's public conversion to Christianity and her rather sizeable dowry that allowed for many gifts to be showered on the Portuguese nobility that allowed the Cortes to ratify the marriage, that was consumated shortly afterwards. But there remained a great deal of dissent and anger, both internally and internationally.
Sebastian's uncle, Philip of Spain was amongst the most outraged. Sebastian marrying a infidel princess was a source of great affront on it's own, but Philip had wished for Sebastian to marry his eldest daughter, in the hopes of forcing Portugal to join and finance his holy league. Philip led a diplomatic effort to have the pope nullify the marriage, and the pope would have agreed on it if not for the portuguese royal families visit to Rome later that year - with a heavily pregnant Queen Maria giving birth to a set of twins in the pope's own palace. Forced by Sebastian to become godfather to his first children, for he and his wife would indeed have many more in the future, the pope could not well deligitimize his own god-children, and the fact that Queen Maria's conversion seemed genuine and the increasing amounts of conversions amongst the moslems of Portugal's moroccans domains made it clear that the marriage was having some kind of positive result.
Sebastian and Philip would remain estranged for a long time, but would eventually rebuild their alliance, due to political reasons at the time. Sebastian had curtailed the inquisition, indeed, for it was amongst the inquisition itself that the doubters and "traitors" who had attempted to ruin the King's marriage had found support in, but he would continue a wide array of christianisation efforts in Portugal's colonies overseas, guided by new, better trained and equipped religious orders under the patronage of the Portuguese crown who worked to know and comprehend the populations they were trying to convert, to very succesful degrees. Soon, Christianity was making new breaks in India, Africa and Indonesia, and Macau became a center for the difusion of christianity to other places in China and Empires such as Japan and Korea. Portuguese Bandeirantes moved beyond the line of Tordesillas during his reign, starting the colonization of the Brazilian interior. When the Dutch attempted to usurp and conquer Portuguese colonies in an attempt to increase the Republic's revenues, it backfired immediatelly, as Sebastian moved to support Philip the II and the growing and very powerful Portuguese navy threw themselves like rabid dogs on Dutch shipping and trading.
In Sebastian's reign, the lesser Sunda Islands were conquered by the portuguese, ruled from Flores, Timor and Malacca, this increased base of power allowed the Portuguese to conquer more trading outposts in the Greater Sunda Islands, especially in Sumatra and Java. Portugal established many vassals in the islands, fighting off the Ottoman supported local sultanates with support from the locals. This saw many Indonesian princes convert to Christianity, thus introducing the religion to many places in the region, and increased Portuguese influence immenselly.
Other than that, Sebastian followed a rather neutral and internal policy for the rest of his reign. He was mostly interested in the produces of his Empire, and strongly invested in Portugal itself - becoming the patron of many cities and settlements in the metropolis and overseas, building ports, hospitals, churches and monasteries, roads, forts, universities and trading depots. He was an avid lover of coffee, which quickly became the national beverage during his reign, alongside having a deep taste for the cuisine of the natives of Brazil, which he had been introduced too by the native servants of a courtier. Seing an opportunity to diversefy portuguese agriculture, Sebastian had many Columbian crops introduced to Europe and to a lesser degree Africa and Asia, especially potatoes, who became a peculiar favourite of the Sebastianist royal family.
Many Catholics from the Germanies, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the British isles found refuge and welcome in Portugal during his reign, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these men and women brought with them new ways of thinking and technology, and they integrated quickly into the portuguese population, greatly boosting the manpower of the Portuguese crown. Sebastian is famous for becoming the first of Portugal's absolute monarchs, starting a period known as the "Sebastianist Autocracy". He would eventually die, surrounded by his wife, many children and grandchildren. He was suceeded by ____________.
Wait, were potatoes just...not a thing...in Portugal back then? Wild. Potatoes are life. Anyway, did Portugal accept a queen regnant back then? @Reyne