Bayezid I

Bāyazīd I (Ottoman Turkish: بايزيد; Modern Turkish: Yıldırım Bayezid), called Yıldırım («the Lightning»), known in the West as Bayezid (Bursa, 1354-Aksehir, March 9, 1403) was an Ottoman sultan from 1389 to 1402. He is considered one of the first great sultans of the ottoman empire. He built one of the largest armies in the known world at the time and besieged Constantinople without success. He took the title Sultan-i Rûm, Rûm being an ancient Islamic name for the Byzantine Empire. He decisively defeated the Crusaders at Nicopolis (in modern Bulgaria) in 1396, and was defeated and captured by Tamerlane at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity in March 1403, sparking the Ottoman Interregnum.

He ruled over a vast empire, which in Europe included Thrace (without Constantinople), Macedonia (without Thessaloniki), Bulgaria, and the Serbian protectorate. In Anatolia, his domains extended from the Tauros Mountains (which separated his territory from Cilicia in the hands of the Mamluks), to the Armenian massif (which constituted his border with Temür's domains), and the Pontic mountain range (border with the Trebizond Empire). His army (which defeated the famous Franco-Burgundian cavalry) was rightly considered the best in the Near East.

Biography

Early Years

Bayezid was born in the palace of the Bey of Bursa in 1354, during the reign of his grandfather Orhan I. He was the son of Sultan Murad I and his wife of Greek origin Gülçiçek Hatun. He had the same capacity and organizational power as his father However, Bayezid distinguished himself by following the whims of his will, with which he could be both magnanimous and cruel without limits in the same day.

Bayezid's first important role was as sandjak-bey of Kütahya, a city ceded to his father by bey Süleyman Şah of Germiyan, who became Bayezid's father-in-law. He was a hot-headed soldier, earning the nickname Yıldırım ("the Thunderbolt") in a battle against Karaman.

Battle of Kosovo and accession to the throne

Entronization of the Sultan Beyazit I in the battlefield of Kosovo.

He was proclaimed sultan after the death of his father in the Battle of Kosovo, in which the Serbian army had been nearly destroyed. In the middle of the battlefield, after taking full control of the army, he ordered his brother Yakub Bey (also present at the battle) to be called to the general command tent, who, as soon as he arrived, was strangled. He completed the conquest of Serbia, concluded a treaty with Serbian leader Vuk Brankovic and Princess Milica Nemanjić Hrebeljanovic, which gave that country considerable autonomy. In 1390, Bayezid took as his wife Princess Olivera Lazarević, daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, who led the Serb forces and also lost her life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, Lazar's son, as the new Serbian leader (later despot), with considerable autonomy.

Upper Serbia held out against the Ottomans until the Pasha general Yiğit Bey captured the city of Skopje in 1391, making the city a major Ottoman base of operations.

First campaign in Anatolia

Meanwhile, the sultan began to unify Anatolia under his rule. Forced expansion into Muslim territories could jeopardize the Ottoman relationship with the gazis, who were an important source of warriors for this ruling house on the European border. So Bayezid began the practice of first securing fatwas, or legal decisions from Islamic scholars, justifying his wars against these Muslim states. However, he was suspicious of the Muslim Turkmen followers' loyalty to him, as Bayezid relied heavily on his Serb and Byzantine vassal troops to make these conquests. He usually chose the campaigns according to the needs of the moment, other times pressured by his environment. His wife and his advisers tried to make him abandon the gazi tradition permanently and force him to attack towards the east (Turkish and Muslim), turning him into a defender of the remains of Eastern Christian culture. This opinion was shared by the Christian vassals of the Ottomans, who preferred to see their sovereign's forces displaced far from their territories and who, if they had to serve him, preferred to do so by advancing on the Muslim east. At the other extreme, the Turkish aristocracy preferred to follow the ghazi tradition of advancing into the heart of Christian Europe, since their power and income depended on the timars. Supporting the Turkish aristocracy were the Akıncıs, remnants of the old Turkmen gazis, who always found themselves in need of booty that only Christian lands could grant them; furthermore, they saw the Ottoman attacks on the Turkmen beyliks in the east as a betrayal of their race and religion.

In a single campaign in Anatolia during the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beylates of Aydin, Saruhan, and Menteşe. His main rival, his brother-in-law Alâeddin Ali Bey of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the Sivas, Tokat and Kayseri ruler of Cappadocia, Kadi Burhan al-Din, and the remaining Turkmen beylates. However, Bayezid continued his advance and in the autumn and winter of 1390 he overwhelmed the remaining beyllics, Hamid, Teke and Germiyan, and took the cities of Akşehir and Niğde, as well as Karaman's capital Konya. At this point, Bayezid accepted Karaman's peace proposals (1391), concerned that future advances would antagonize his Turkmen followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. At that time, and in the middle of the Ottoman campaign in Anatolia, the last Byzantine city in Asia was conquered: Philadelphia. As early as 1378, John V Palaiologos promised to hand over this city to Murad I in exchange for help from the Ottomans in the Byzantine civil war. However, the citizens of Philadelphia refused to surrender and the city, already isolated from the rest of the Byzantine territory, was actually fully autonomous. It was not until 1390 when it was taken by the Ottomans; his sultan Bayezid I summoned the contending leaders of the civil war, his vassals Manuel II Palaiologos and Juan VII Palaiologos, ordering a Byzantine contingent to join the besieging forces. The fall of Philadelphia was the fall of the last independent Greek Christian settlement in western Asia Minor. The city changed the name to Alaşehir. Once peace with Karaman had been made, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu, which had given refuge to many fleeing his forces, and conquered both that city and Sinope. However, his subsequent campaign was halted by Burhan. al-Din at the Battle of Kırkdilim (1392). Bayezid attempted to assemble a powerful new army to crush the Kadi Burhan al-Din and complete his conquest of Anatolia, however the arrival of threatening news from Europe forced him to abandon that plan and hastily head west.

Campaign in the Balkans and Wallachia. Ottoman annexation of Bulgaria

Battle of Rovine.

The troubles in Anatolia emboldened the Balkan vassals of the Ottomans, who tried to regain their lost independence. The Byzantines under Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (who had succeeded his father John V in 1391, escaping from Ottoman captivity) recaptured Thessalonica and much of Macedonia. The Wallachian principality entered into a new alliance with Hungary and with the help of Tsar Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria the allies had not only established their control on the southern bank of the Danube, but even over the Despotate of Dobruja. Bayezid, returning to Europe, reconquered all these lands quickly and without problems. He took Tarnovo, the Bulgarian capital, on July 17, 1393 after a brief siege. Ivan Shishman escaped to Nicopolis, on the banks of the Danube. It was then that he marched against the Byzantines, recapturing Thessalonica on April 21, 1394 and sending destructive expeditions to the Morea. In 1394, Bayezid crossed the Danube River to attack southern Hungary and Wallachia, ruled at the time by Mircea the Elder. The Ottomans were superior in numbers, but on October 10, 1394, at the Battle of Rovine, in forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented the Ottoman army from advancing beyond the Danube. When it returned from Wallachia After the Battle of Rovine, Bayezid attacked and captured Nicopolis, the new Bulgarian capital, and had Tsar Ivan Shishman beheaded on June 3, 1395. In this way, Bayezid imposed Ottoman administration in Bulgaria, inaugurating a more modern system of government. direct that would later be extended to the rest of the other Balkan provinces.

Nicopolis Crusade

The border between Islam and Christianity was gradually approaching Hungary, in which King Sigismund of Luxembourg (future King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, son of Emperor Charles IV) reigned at the time., of German-Czech origin. In 1390 Turkish incursions into southern Hungarian territories began, and although Sigismund led a victorious campaign in 1392 against the Turks (in passing supporting Mircea I's Wallachians) repelling them into southern Serbian regions, they continued to advance., for which the Hungarian monarch decided to call a crusader war. In 1394, Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a new crusade against the Turks, although by this time the Western Schism had split the Papacy in two, Avignon and Rome being rivals. The Pope had to wait a long time to proclaim the crusade. After various appeals, England and France, immersed in what would be called the Hundred Years' War, agreed to a truce and the kings Ricardo II and Carlos VI financed the company. The French negotiated with the Hungarians, something they had been doing since 1393. The original plan had been carried out by the dukes John of Gaunt (Richard II's uncle), Louis of Orleans and Philip II of Burgundy (Charles VI's brother and uncle, respectively), starting in 1395, with the kings Carlos VI and Ricardo II who would follow them the following year. However, at the beginning of 1396 the plans had already been abandoned. Rather than planned, the Burgundian heir John the Fearless (son of Duke Philip II) took the initiative with approximately 1,600 Burgundians, mostly cavalry, along with an English contingent of around 200 men. These were also joined by about 1,200 soldiers from the Palatinate, Bavaria, and Nuremberg. Small military units from Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Navarra, Bohemia and Poland. Mircea I of Wallachia, although orthodox, participated in the crusade contributing a contingent of soldiers. On the other side of the Danube, the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shracimir of Vidin (Ivan Shishman's brother) joined the crusade. Meanwhile, Sigismund had assembled an army of 10,000 Hungarians. The Crusader forces finally managed to assemble on Hungarian territory around the beginning of July 1396. Duke John of Burgundy took the lead of the Crusader army and charged towards the Danube. The republics of Venice and Genoa provided boats and logistic support for the Crusaders crossing this river. When the Crusader army finally crossed the Danube and reached Vidin, Tsar Ivan Sracimir opened its gates and handed over the Turkish garrison. The Turks from the Oryahovo garrison tried to resist, but the Bulgarians managed to capture the fortress. In their advance the crusaders (about 16,000 men) sacked Rahova, whose inhabitants were put to the sword for the most part, and reached Nicopolis, which they laid siege to. The city was well defended and supplied, and the Crusaders were not equipped with siege engines. However, they stayed and waited for the Ottomans. Bayezid, already preparing the siege of Constantinople, marched with his army towards Nicopolis. His ally, Prince Stefan Lazarević of Serbia, met with Bayezid on September 24, obtaining the sultan, in this way a contingent very similar to that of the Crusaders (about 15,000 men). On September 25, 1396, at the Battle of Nicopolis, the Crusaders were annihilated. Beating the Turks at first, the Crusaders thought they had won the battle, however a successful counter-attack led by Bayezid himself turned the tide. The Crusaders suffered a crushing defeat; they fell en masse into the hands of the Ottomans (including Juan Fearless), and those who escaped from being taken prisoner (as in the case of King Sigismund), fled towards the Danube, threw themselves into the water and tried to save themselves by swimming or boarding the boats Venetian or Genoese. Bayezid's forces also suffered heavy losses. Bayezid, enraged by those executed at Rahova and the casualties of his forces in the battle, had 3,000 Crusader prisoners executed. He forced them to parade before him and then handed them over to the executioners. The few prisoners who survived were nobles and only with immense sums and gifts could they be rescued.

Siege of Constantinople

Manuel II's escape from Bursa to be crowned emperor and his refusal to attend a meeting with Beyazid I motivated him to fulfill the greatest wish of his life: the conquest of Constantinople.

Between 1394 and 1396, a blockade was established around Constantinople. The Ottomans were content to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the city. At the beginning of 1394, Manuel II came into contact with the Venetians, who feared for their interests in case the city was taken by the Turks. Venice even makes the effort to come to terms with its traditional enemy, Genoa. Manuel II favors the understanding of both. Meanwhile, Venice offered to Manuel to request the pope's help and contributed to the supply of Constantinople by sending transport ships. In fact, the weakness of the Ottoman navy made the sea route the only access route to Constantinople.

During the crusade, which led to the Christian disaster at Nicopolis, a Venetian flotilla led by Tommaso Mocenigo managed to reach Constantinople. This fleet was destined for the defense of the straits and served as a link between Byzantium and the Crusaders. However, the catastrophic Crusader defeat thwarted Byzantine plans. The consequences of this defeat were dramatic for Constantinople whose leaders were counting on the success of the Crusaders to break the Ottoman blockade. In this way, Bayezid very quickly resumed his projects against the Byzantine Empire and seized Selimbria, an outpost for the defense of his capital. Most of the Ottoman troops were before Constantinople, except for 30,000 men who were ravaging the Byzantine Morea. Venice and Genoa mobilized to provide ships in defense of the Byzantine capital, while Manuel II refused to give up the city without a fight. Bayezid, to strengthen his siege, built the fortress of Anadoluhisarı on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus and planned to use John VII Palaiologos to replace his uncle Manuel II at the head of what was left of the Byzantine Empire.

In 1397, despite the weakening of the Ottoman siege, Manuel II appealed to the Christian world for help in vain. However, thanks to the management of his maternal uncle Teodoro Cantacuzeno, he receives French help. Some 1,200 men disembarked in Constantinople, amid the applause of the hungry people, under the command of Marshal Juan Le Maingre "Boucicault". Appointed Imperial Grand Constable, Marshal Boucicault, together with Manuel II, led several expeditions against the Turks to Asia Minor. Thus, the Turkish positions on the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus became highly vulnerable. however French aid was insufficient. Boucicault, leading the work of consolidating the defenses of Constantinople, also manages to reconcile Manuel II with John VII. Marshal Boucicaut then persuades Manuel to travel to Europe in order to create a crusade between the Catholic princes who could only save Constantinople. Manuel II accepts the proposal and delegates the imperial command to Juan VII during his trip. Similarly, Chateaumorand, is made captain of the King of France by Marshal Boucicaut in the city of Constantinople, he stays with a hundred men there. On December 10, 1399, Manuel II and his family left Constantinople to the west.

In Constantinople, during the absence of Manuel II, the few French troops carried out various offensive actions against the Turks, in particular to search for food. As for Bayezid, he did not undertake any large-scale offensive action to take Constantinople.

It was in 1400 the providential appearance of the Turco-Mongol emir Timur on the eastern Ottoman borders. In the Byzantine capital, it was expected for many years to use Timur as an ally, the Byzantine overtures being always vehemently rejected by the Asian leader. In 1401, John VII promised him, if he defeated the Ottomans, to pay him the tribute he already paid to Bayezid. Finally the surprise defeat of the latter against Timur lifted the siege of Constantinople.

Second campaign in Anatolia. Defeat and death of Bayezid

Battle order of the Bayezid I army during the battle of Ankara (1402).

He seemed to be about to crown his triumphs by conquering Constantinople, when he came into conflict with Temür, which would prove fatal. After his victory at Nicopolis, Bayezid returned to Anatolia to put an end to his conquests that had been interrupted by his campaigns in the Balkans and Wallachia. He quickly crushed Karaman, the last independent Ottoman principality, taking its capital, Konya, and reaching the Euphrates in 1397. The following year, Bayezid eliminated the eastern Anatolian state of Kadi Burhan al-Din and pushed into the valley. Upper Euphrates occupying Mamluk territories in the area of Malatya and Elbistan. The Mamluk sultanate of Egypt at that time began its decline and Sultan Barquq (founder of the Buryid dynasty) found himself unable to take offensive action against the Ottoman invader, whose bulk withdrew again in the direction of Constantinople, to continue the siege. of that city.

However, the Ottoman advance to the east brought Sultan Bayezid I into contact with a much more powerful rival, the Emir Temür of Transoxiana, a Turco-Mongol warlord who represented politically and militarily the obscured khans of the Ulus Chagatai. Temür, through effective and bloody conquests, had created a great empire that included central and southern Central Asia, the entire Iranian plateau, eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iraq and northwestern Hindustan, up to the city of Delhi. (which he looted in 1398). Despite the fact that he began to pay attention to the threat of increasing Ottoman power on his western flank, Temür did not want armed conflict with Bayezid and sent him a message in order to solve the causes of the confrontation. Bayezid I made the mistake, in 1400, of trying to impose his suzerainty on the emir Taherten, a subject of Temür. This emir ruled in Erzincan and Erzurum. To fulfill his mission, Bayezid used the bey Qara Yusuf, head of the Kara Koyunlu Turkmen tribal confederation and an enemy of Temür. In support of his vassal, Temür headed in August 1400 for Anatolia. But while Temür was at war with the Mamluks (nominal allies of the Ottomans) in Syria, Bayezid took Erzincan, capturing Taherten's family.

Temür did not immediately retaliate, spending the winter of 1401-02 in Karabakh, and the following spring he was on the borders of Georgia, finally invading the Ottoman Empire in June 1402. He passed through Erzurum and Erzincan with the aim of retaking the disputed fortress of Kemah, where the upper Euphrates was controlled and which had been wrested from Taharten, by Bayezid: the fortress fell in a matter of ten days and returned to its former lord. From here he proceeded to the Sivas plain where he met Ottoman messengers. Temür demanded the surrender of Ahmad Jalair, the fugitive sultan of Baghdad, and Qara Yusuf of the Kara Koyunlu. Both were refugees with the Ottomans. However, the sultan's messengers inform him that Bayezid did not intend to accept his demands, but rather that Temür himself pay tribute to him. Faced with this failure of diplomacy, Temür decided to continue his march towards Anatolia. Temür reviewed his troops at Sivas, and advanced rapidly towards Ankara, following the Kizilirmak River, reaching and placing it under siege.

Upon learning of the arrival of the Timurid army, Sultan Bayezid finally lifted the siege of Constantinople and, after reconcentrating his army in Bursa, marched east to confront Temür. In Bayezid's forces, the sons of the Ottoman sultan were subordinate commanders: princes Süleyman Çelebi, Mehmed Çelebi, Musa Çelebi and Mustafa Çelebi. In addition, as a vassal force, there was a Serbian contingent, under the command of Prince Esteban Lazarević. Coincidentally, the Ottoman army had already passed through Ankara and headed east in search of Temür's army.

However, Bayezid's scouts soon reported that the Timurids were essentially laying siege to Ankara behind him. In fact, the Timurids were using the same camp that the Turks had recently used in their march east. The Ottoman army immediately turned around, and with forced marches headed against the invader. Temür lifted the siege when scouts brought news of the approaching Ottoman army, relocating several kilometers northeast of Ankara near the town of Bar. Bayezid's army was exhausted due to the long forced march from Bursa to Sivas. and to Tokat, and back again to Ankara, in pursuit of the enemy.

In addition to being outnumbered and exhausted, another factor that considerably weakened the Ottoman army was the lack of water, a major inconvenience considering the high summer temperatures in Anatolia. Temür destroyed the wells around Ankara. In addition, he diverted the Cubuk River, which runs through the plain of the same name, by building a dam and a reservoir south of the city of Cubuk. Thus, the Ottoman fighting forces and their horses had no water to drink. As the Ottoman army approached the battlefield, thirsty, and nearly exhausted from several days of hot forced marches, they found Timurid forces arrayed in battle array along the banks of the Cubuk River, south of the city..

The biggest surprise for the exhausted Ottomans was when they saw that their main source of water had been reduced to a minimum, and that it was about to disappear completely. Frantically searching for an alternative source, the Ottomans found a single well, which had of course been contaminated by the Timurids. With no other source of water available, the morale of the Ottoman army plummeted. The next morning both chiefs decided to put their armies in order of battle, it was Friday, July 20, 1402.

In the battle of Ankara (July 20, 1402) Bayezid I watched in horror as the Turkmen of Aydin, Mentese, Saruhan and Kermian, seeing their princes among Temür's forces, switched sides in the middle of the battlefield. battle. Beyazid fought all day, at the head of 10,000 Janissaries and Serb troops. Finally, at sunset he decided to withdraw after seeing his guard wiped out. But his horse fell dead and he was taken prisoner along with one of his sons, Mustafa Çelebi.

When the Ottoman sultan finally accepted the advice of his wife and those close to him to push east a second time, he lost the support of the Turkish aristocracy at a time when the new army of Kapıkulları (slaves) was not yet prepared to wage major warfare, particularly against an army as fierce and powerful as Temür's. In practice, he only relied on Serb vassals to form his army, and these proved insufficient for his mission. Thus Bayezid's expansion to the east ended in disaster.

Although, according to most chroniclers and historians, Bayezid was relatively well treated by Temür, broken by disaster and humiliation, he died a few months later (March 9, 1403) in Aksehir.

Temür will continue his campaign in Anatolia, laying waste to the Ottoman capital Bursa, the city of Alaşehir (formerly Philadelphia), where he built a wall with the corpses of his prisoners, and the Christian enclave of the Knights of Rhodes in Izmir (last Crusader enclave in Asia), whose siege was followed by a massacre. Ottoman territory experienced a severe shakeup, being reduced to little more than northern Phrygia, Bithynia and Mysia, the Balkans, and what remained of the Byzantine Empire.

Married couples and children

Wives and concubines

• Angelina Hâtûn (-) first wife of Bayezid (house in 1372) and mother of Şehzade Musa;
• ...... Hâtûn (-) Second wife of Bayezid (housed in 1372) and one of the daughters of Constantine;
• Devlet Şah Hâtûn (1365-1414), third wife of Bayezid (housed in 1378), daughter of Emir Süleyman Şah de Germiyan and mother of Isa Çelebi, Mustafa Çelebi (Düzmece Mustafa) and Musa Çelebi (Büyük Musa Çelebi);
• Maria Hâtûn (-) fourth wife of Bayezid and daughter of the Hungarian Count Juan Hunyadi;
• ...... Hâtûn (-) fifth wife of Bayezid (housed in 1386 in Yenişehir) and one of the daughters of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologist;
• ...... Hâtûn (-) sixth wife of Bayezid (housed in 1389) and one of the daughters of the Byzantine Emperor John V Paleologist and Empress Helena Cantacucena;
• Hafsa Hatun (-) Seventh wife of Bayezid (housed in 1389) and daughter of Emir Isa Bey of Aydın;
• Karamanoğlu... (-) eighth wife of Bayezid;
• Sultan Hatun (-) ninth wife of Bayezid and daughter of the Emir Süleyman Şah of Dulkadir;
• Mileva Olivera Despina Hatun (1372-1444), tenth wife of Bayezid and daughter of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović of Serbia;
• ...... (-) the first wife of Bayezid;
• Devlet Hatun (-1414), sixteenth wife of Bayezid and daughter of the emir Yakup II Bey of Germiyan and mother of Mehmed Çelebi (future sultan Mehmed I).

Children

• 12 men:
  • Şehzade Ertuğrul Çelebi (1376-1392);
  • Şehzade Süleyman Çelebi (1377-1411), co-sultan in Rumelia (1403-1411), killed by supporters of his brother Musa;
  • Şehzade Isa Çelebi (1380-1406), governor of Anatolia, killed by supporters of his brother Mehmed;
  • Şehzade Büyük Musa Çelebi (-?
  • Şehzade Ibrahim Çelebi (-?
  • Şehzade Kasim Çelebi (-) sent as a hostage to Constantinople along with his sister, Fatma Hatun;
  • Şehzade Yusuf Çelebi (-) converted to Christianity, changed its name to Demetrius;
  • Şehzade Mehmed Çelebi (1389-1421), governor of Anatolia and future sultan Mehmed I;
  • Şehzade Küçük Musa Çelebi (1390-1413), Sultan of Rumelia (1411-1413), executed by order of his brother Mehmed;
  • Şehzade Mustafa Çelebi (1393-1422), called Düzmece Mustafa (in Turkish): Mustafa the Impostor), executed by order of his nephew Murad II;
  • Şehzade Hasan Çelebi (-?
  • Şehzade Çelebi (-?).

• 7 women:
  • Irhondu Hanım (-) married Yakub Bey, the son of Pars Bey;
  • ...... Hanım (-) daughter of Mileva Olivera Despina Hatun and married to Abu Bakr Mirza, son of Mirza Jalal-ud-Din Miran Shah Beg;
  • Paşa Melek Hatun (-) daughter of Mileva Olivera Despina Hatun and married to Amir Jalal-ud-Din Islam, son of Shams-ud-Din Muhammad, one of the generals of Tëmur;
  • Sultan Fatma Hanım (-?
  • Oruz Hanım (-) daughter of Mileva Olivera Despina Hatun;
  • Hundi Fatma Hatun (-) married to Seyyid Emir Sultan;
  • Fatıma Hanım (-?).