Mehmed II
Mehmed II (Ottoman Turkish: Meḥemmed b. Murād Ḫān; Modern Turkish: Fatih Sultan Mehmed) also known as the -Fātiḥ, الفاتح, "the Conqueror" in Ottoman Turkish (March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481), son of Murad II, Ottoman sultan from 1451 to 1481, he was the seventh sultan of the house of Osman (Osmanli dynasty). In 1453 he took Constantinople and thus caused the final fall of the thousand-year-old Roman Empire, although Mehmed used the title of Caesar (Qayser-i Rûm), he considered himself the successor of the Roman emperors and installed his capital in Constantinople, seat of the Eastern Roman Empire. The title of Caesar was only recognized by the Orthodox Church of Constantinople.
Childhood
The future Mehmed the Conqueror was the third son of Murat II. He was born in Edirne Sarayi on March 30, 1432, to a slave girl named Hüma Hatun. Little is known about Hüma's origins, as she was not one of Murat's four wives, but a concubine, probably a Greek of humble birth although it is also thought that she may have been a slave of Serb origin. Murat seems to have cared little for her or Mehmed, preferring her second son, Alaeddin Ali, whose mother, the Turkmen princess Hatice Halime Hatun, was his favorite wife.
The first years of Mehmed's life were spent in the Edirne harem, with his mother. When Mehmed turned 3 years old, he was sent to Amasya, in Anatolia, where his half-brother Ahmet served as provincial governor. Ahmed died suddenly in May 1437, so Mehmed was appointed to succeed him as governor, even though he was only 5 years old. At the same time, his half-brother Alaeddin Ali, who was 7 years old, was appointed Governor of Manisa. In early June 1443, Alaeddin Ali was assassinated by his adviser Kara Hizir Pasha. That made Mehmed the direct heir to the throne, so he was immediately summoned to Edirne by his father. At this time, Pope Eugenius IV together with Hunyadi had proclaimed a new crusade against the Turks, which shows that Murat wanted his son to be by his side to face the new threat. Mehmed as a child was impetuous and stubborn, not inclined to obey his elders or accept any criticism or advice, and since he spent the first eleven years of his life separated from his father, there was no one to control or discipline him.. Murat appointed several guardians for Mehmed, but he refused to listen to them, until Mullah Ahmed Gurani, a famous Kurdish cleric, appeared. Murat gave Gurani a whip and authorized him to use it if his ward did not obey him. He became a model student and ended up studying philosophy and science, as well as Islamic, Greek and Latin history and literature.
Rise to power
The rebellion of the Karamanid emir Ibrahim, one of his Turkish vassals in Anatolia, forced Murad to leave Edirne with much of his army on June 12, 1444. He appointed Mehmed as regent during his absence, with the grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha as adviser to the prince. That same June an insurrection broke out among the elite troops called Janissaries, who demanded that Mehmed increase their pay. Murad II had used them to great effect during his previous campaigns, but now that he was away they grew impatient, believing they could take advantage of Mehmed's youth. In the insurrection, the Janissaries mutinied and burned the Edirne market. Mehmed relented and increased their pay, setting a precedent that would be a constant source of trouble until the end of the Ottoman dynasty. The threat of the crusade materialized, and a large Christian army, under the command of the Hungarian nobleman John Hunyadi, began to advance south into the Balkans. Murad II's troops nearly annihilated the Crusaders at the Battle of Varna on November 10, 1444. Count John Hunyadi was one of the few Christians to escape with his life.
Murad returned to Edirne after the battle, where he soon after shocked the court by announcing that he was abdicating in favor of his son. On December 1, 1444, he succeeded to the throne under the name of Mehmed II. Murad, then only 40 years old, went to the place where he wanted to retire, in Manisa, leaving his son, who was not yet 13, the reins of the empire, with Halil Pasha as grand vizier.
Shortly after taking the throne, Mehmed II decided impetuously to attack Constantinople, but was dissuaded by Halil Pasha, who reported the incident to Murat, as an example of his son's inability to rule. Halil Pasha sent numerous messages to Murat asking him to return, insisting that Mehmet was too young and immature to rule. Murat decided to end his retirement and return to Edirne in September 1446. Halil Pasha managed to persuade Mehmet to abdicate in favor of his father, and Murat was reinstated as sultan, while his daughter retired. to Manisa province.
Mehmed became a father for the first time in January 1448, when his concubine of Albanian origin Gülbahar Hatun gave birth to a son. This would be the future sultan Bayezid II.
John Hunyadi organized another crusade against the Turks, and in September 1448 he crossed the Danube with his army. Mehmed was called by his father to go to Edirne, join his troops and face the Crusaders. Mehmed had his first baptism of fire at the Second Battle of Kosovo on October 23, 1448, where he took command of the Anatolian troops on the right flank of his father's army. This battle had the same result as the first, as the Turks overwhelmed the Christians in a battle that lasted three days. Juan Hunyadi escaped again, but desisted from attacking the Turks for the next eight years.
Murad arranged a marriage between the young Mehmed II and Princess Sittişah Hatun, daughter of Dulkadiroğlu Süleyman Bey, ruler of the Dulkadir beylicate of Eastern Anatolia, in September 1449. Celebrations lasted for two months in Edirne. No child was born from this marriage. The young Mehmed would leave Princess Sittişah Hatun in Edirne when she conquered Constantinople. In the same year Mehmed's mother Hüma Hatun died (September 1449), and she was buried in the Muradiye Complex in Bursa. In 1450 one of Mehmed's concubines, named Gülşah Hatun, gave birth to her second son, Mustafa, who would always be her favourite. That same year Murad II would also have another son named Küçük Ahmed with the Turkmen princess Hatice Halime Hatun of the Çandaroglu. These marriages with princesses of emirs from powerful tribes were a strategy by Murad II to cement alliances with his enemies in Anatolia. Murad died on February 3, 1451, he was 47 years old and had ruled for three decades, most of which had been spent waging war. His death was kept secret until his son Mehmed II could be recalled from Manisa province. He would arrive fifteen days later and was immediately acclaimed as sultan by the army, girdling the sword of Osman I Gazi in the presence of Turkish nobles, the Ottoman equivalent of being crowned.
Mehmed the Conqueror
Halil Pasha would remain as adviser to the new sultan, but Mehmed felt Grand Vizier Halil was responsible for his resignation in his first term as sultan and suspected the vizier was taking bribes from Christians, including the byzantines. To avoid any succession claim that would cause a civil war within the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed decides to eliminate his younger brother Küçük Ahmed. The murder was justified as a measure taken in accordance with the Ottoman code of fratricide, which had been practiced on various occasions to prevent wars of succession. Mehmet now focused all his attention on the capture of Constantinople.
Siege and capture of Constantinople
In 1452 Mehmed put into action his old plan to besiege and take Constantinople. He built a fortress in the summer of 1452 on the banks of the Bosphorus, called Rumeli Hisarı. With this new fortress he would completely isolate and prevent the entry of supplies to the city of Constantinople.
The siege began on April 6, 1453, with artillery fire and infantry attacks, supported by elite Ottoman troops, the Janissaries. Mehmed would direct the siege from his tent near the gates of San Romano. The attacks led by the sultan lasted for six weeks, until Turkish troops entered early on the morning of Tuesday, May 29, 1453, conquering the city and wiping out Byzantium. Osman's house would take the place of the Palaeologus dynasty. On the afternoon of May 29, Mehmed made his triumphal entry through the gate of Andrinópolis, being hailed by his troops as the Fatih or the Conqueror. He made his way to the Hagia Sophia, dismounted in front of the great church, and knelt down, picking up some dirt that he put over the turban as a gesture of humility before God. After inspecting the Hagia Sophia, he ordered that it be turned into a mosque as soon as possible. After inspecting several of the Byzantium palaces, he preferred to stay in his tent on the outskirts of the San Romano gate, since none of these buildings presented the conditions to accommodate the sultan. The Sultan, in order to restore the city, now renamed Istanbul (Turkish: Istanbul), as the political, economic and social center of the territories it had dominated, he ordered the prompt reconstruction of the walls, the erection of a fortress inside the city, as well as repopulating it, bringing subjects from all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed devoted great attention to restoring the economic life of the city, beginning in 1461 with the construction of the Grand Bazaar (Turkish: Kapalıçarşı), a large covered market, which soon became the center of commercial and industrial life. Sultan Mehmed II built his first palace, later called the Old Palace (in Turkish, Eski Saray), on the heights of Bayezid Square, where the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Istanbul, and when it was proven that it was too small and that it was too far from the urban center, a new palace was built between 1459 and 1465 in Sarayburnu (the highest part of the city), which is known today with the name of Topkapi Palace (in Turkish, Topkapı Sarayı).
The suspicions against the vizier Halil Pasha, that he accepted bribes from the Byzantines, were confirmed, for which he had him arrested and he was beheaded. Before long he would begin to receive delegations from various nations, who intended to establish friendly relations with the new conqueror of Constantinople. He did not appoint another grand vizier as his adviser in the years after Halil Pasha's execution, until the summer of 1454 when he would have a new grand vizier, Zağanos Pasha, a Byzantine of noble lineage converted to Islam who would serve at court. for two decades.
After the fall of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed adopted the title Kaisar-i-Rum which means emperor in Turkish, as Byzantium belonged to the successor to the Roman Empire after it fell. transferred the capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330. Mehmed also had blood in the Byzantine imperial family lineage, as several of his predecessors had married Byzantine princesses, including Sultan Orhan I, who had married Theodora, daughter of John VI Kantakouzeno.
Siege of Belgrade
Mehmed's first objective was to consolidate and increase his own power, developing the devşirme, the political class on which the sultan's power had rested. To this end, he proposed to eliminate the last dynasties that could dispute his right to be successor to the Byzantines and the Seljuks and replace the vassal principalities of the Balkans and Anatolia with a much more direct and centralized form of government, in addition to extending the territory beyond the borders inherited from his father.
From 1453 to 1463 he dealt with the Balkans. The Serbian autonomous principalities that had been re-established in 1444 provided a gateway through which Hungarian influence penetrated into the heart of the Ottoman Balkans. In two great expeditions in the years 1454 and 1455, respectively, Mehmed annexed them to his domain.
In 1456 he organized a campaign against the Kingdom of Hungary for control of the despotate of Serbia. This had as its main objective the capture of Belgrade, thus having a free way to Buda. In this way, Mehmed, in command of an army of 60,000 men and 200 ships, laid siege to the city of Belgrade on July 4.
The formidable engineering of Belgrade Castle proved to be impregnable to the Ottoman armies. On July 14, 1456, the regent and commander of all the Hungarian armies, Count John Hunyadi, arrived in the completely surrounded city with his flotilla on the Danube, while the Turkish navy was on the river. He broke the naval blockade on July 14, sinking three large Ottoman galleys and capturing four large ships and about 20 smaller ones. After destroying the sultan's fleet, Hunyadi was able to transport his troops and supplies to the city. With this he reinforced the defense of the fortress.
On July 21, Mehmed II ordered a total assault on all flanks, which began at sunset and continued throughout the night, being repelled by the Hungarians. Faced with an unexpected counterattack by the Christian armies on the Turkish positions, which caught them by surprise, the Ottoman armies retreated. Before the gates of Belgrade, the young Sultan Mehmed received his first defeat, who retreated, leaving 20,000 of his soldiers on the battlefields and returned with a thigh wound from an enemy arrow.
Mehmed's defeat caused great jubilation in the Christian world. As a result of the news, Pope Calixto III ordered that the noon chime be instituted in honor of the Hungarian victory, and sounded like this throughout the world from 1456. Likewise, the pope decided to organize another crusade, but the defender of Belgrade, Juan Hunyadi, died a month later from the plague that had spread through the city, putting an end to plans for a new crusade.
He returned to Edirne, where he organized a great festival for the circumcision of his two sons Beyazit and Mustafa. Throughout the festivities Mehmed was in high spirits, showing no sign that he had suffered the worst defeat of his life. In 1459 Pope Pius II tried to organize a new crusade against the Ottoman threat, but no one would listen to his request.
In 1458, Mehmed married Çiçek Hatun, sister of Ali Bey. On December 22, 1459, Prince Cem Sultan would be born of this marriage.
Later campaigns in the Balkans
In 1456, an Ottoman army under the command of General Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey arrived in Athens, the capital of the Duchy of Athens. Duke Francesco II Acciaioli and his inhabitants hid on the Acropolis and held out against the Turks until June 1458, when they were forced to surrender. Mehmed II entered Athens in August 1458, and allowed Francesco II Acciaioli to retain the lordship of Thebes as his vassal. Concluded the campaign, the sultan observed with curiosity and satisfaction the ruined monuments of the ancient city that he knew from his studies of classical Greek culture.
Between 1458 and 1460, an army under General Zağanos Pasha occupied the Peloponnese; Mehmed had taken advantage of the conflict between the Byzantine princes Demetrius Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos (both younger brothers of the late Emperor Constantine XI) over the Despotate of the Morea (over which they jointly reigned). Mehmed in this way eliminated the two main candidates for the Byzantine throne: Demetrius submitted to the sultan and Thomas escaped with his family to Italy, where he was recognized in Rome as the legitimate heir to the Byzantine Empire. In 1460 Thebes, the last redoubt of the Duchy of Athens, fell. Mehmed, had been informed of a plot to place Francesco II Acciaioli once more in Athens, for which he sent the general Zağanos Pasha to Thebes, who after taking the city executed the last duke of Athens.
Meanwhile, in 1459 in the northern Balkans, the despotate of Serbia fell and in 1462 Wallachia was subjugated despite the strong resistance of its prince Vlad III, who, subsequently dethroned, would end up dead in 1476/77 in a futile effort to reverse the situation. Finally the kingdom of Bosnia and the region of Herzegovina would fall between 1463 and 1466. The last Bosnian king Stephen Tomašević (who had also been the last Serb despot), after escaping from the royal city of Bobovac, was captured in Ključ, and despite On the promise of grand vizier Mahmud Pasha Angelović (a devşirme of Serb origin) that his life would be spared, he was brought to Jajce and personally beheaded by Mehmed II near the field known as Carevo Polje. Even Montenegro had to agree to pay tribute to the Turks in 1479.
Anatolian Campaigns
Mehmed also had the ambition to unify Anatolia under his empire, just like his predecessors, and he was successful in doing so. In 1461, he conquered the Trebizond Empire, located on the Black Sea coast, thus destroying the last remaining Byzantine stronghold. He also finished off just earlier in the same year along the way and peacefully with the Candaroglu beyllic, his coastal neighbor. In this way, Mehmed managed to bring the entire Black Sea coastal area of Anatolia under his control.
Then he fought from 1468 against the Karamanids and with it also against the Ak Koyunlu, whom he defeated in the battle of Otlukbeli in 1473, thus managing to further solidify and expand the Ottoman presence over the other Turkish states in Anatolia, making it which later also gave him a free hand to continue his campaigns in Europe.
Black Sea Campaigns
Mehmed II also wanted to control the Black Sea. At the request of the Crimean Khanate, which wanted to take the coastal cities of the Black Sea under the control of the Genoese and taking advantage of the fact that they could not defend themselves properly after the fall of Constantinople which cut off communications with Genoa, the Ottomans took the Genoese colonies in the south coast for them in 1475. Once taken, however, Mehmed II took the khan hostage and only released him on an oath to recognize the Ottoman Empire as his sovereign, although he was able to maintain a high degree of autonomy, while the Ottomans controlled the southern coast.
Also, as part of that policy, Mehmed II attempted to conquer Moldavia between 1475 and 1476. And although Moldavia, with great difficulty and with heavy losses, was finally able to repulse them in 1476, their path to vassalage in 1512 turned thanks to it inevitable.
War against Venice
Main article: Turco-Venetian War (1463-1479)
Meanwhile Venice had declared war against the Ottomans because of their growing power in 1463. Their offensive in the Peloponnese, however, failed and Mehmed II went on the offensive. In 1470 the Ottomans, temporarily having a free hand in Anatolia, managed to occupy Negroponte (Euboea) and Venice, which suffered even more from the offensive since the defeat of Ak Koyunlu in 1473, then had to buy peace in 1479 by paying an indemnity of 100 000 ducats and an annual tribute of another 10,000 to preserve the freedom of trade.
Mehmed had thus definitively conquered Bosnia, Serbia and Greece. Only Albania continued to resist with Venetian support to the Ottoman drive thanks to the strategies of Gjergj Kastriot, called Skanderbeg, but after his death in 1468 they too were gradually defeated and finally largely conquered by Mehmed II in the same year. in which there was peace with Venice.
Internal Policy
Mehmed II reorganized the Ottoman government. He centralized the government and introduced an effective administration. He also codified, for the first time, criminal law and laws relating to his subjects in one code, while he drew up the constitution in another, the two codes being the core of all subsequent Ottoman Empire legislation. He punished with the greatest severity those who resisted his decrees and laws, for which even his Ottoman contemporaries considered him excessively harsh, and on the other hand, the classic image of a padishah was born in his absolutely autocratic personality (emperor) Ottoman.
However, Mehmed can still be considered the most open-minded, tolerant and free-thinking of the Ottoman sultans. He gathered Italian humanists and Greek scholars at his court, had the brilliant theologian Gennadius II Scholarios made patriarch, and wrote a creed of the Christian faith for translation into Turkish as well. He assembled a library of works in Greek and Latin in his palace and also promoted Renaissance art, calling from 1460 various Italian experts to his empire to the point of even calling, in 1479, after having made peace with Venice, to the famous Gentile Bellini, from Venice, to decorate the walls of his palace with frescoes and to paint his portrait, something frowned upon in the Muslim world.
During his reign, mathematics, astronomy and Muslim theology also reached their highest level among the Ottomans, he was very active in construction and personally left behind a divan (a collection of poems in the traditional style of Ottoman literature classical).
Last campaigns and death
From Albania, the Turks then came to dominate Otranto in southern Italy for a few months in 1480 as part of Mehmed II's ambition to conquer Rome as he had done before Constantinople, but failed against Rhodes that same year, which stopped their advance in the Mediterranean. It was then that, on May 3, 1481, Mehmed died at the age of 49, presumably poisoned by his family doctor. He was later buried in a mosque built specifically for him, between 1463 and 1470, and located in Istanbul.
Family
Handcuffs
- Emine Gülbahar Sultan (1432-1492), of Albanian origin, married to Mehmed II in 1446 and sister of Mustafa Pasha, was the mother of Bayezid II and Gevherhan Sultan;
- Sittişah Hatun (?-1486), married to Mehmed II in 1449 and daughter of Dulkadiroğlu Süleyman Bey, sixth beylicate ruler of Dulkadir, without offspring;
- Gülşah Hatun(?-1487), married to Mehmed II in 1449, was the mother of Mustafa;
- Hatice Hatun (?-??), married to Mehmed II in 1451, divorce in 1453 and daughter of Zaganos Pashá, without offspring;
- Çiçek Hatun (1443-1498), married to Mehmed II in 1458 and sister of Ali Bey, she was the mother of Cem Sultan.
Children
- Şehzade Bayezid (1448-1512), future Sultan with the name of Bayezid II;
- Şehzade Mustafa (1450 - 1474);
- Şehzade Cem Sultan (1459-1495).
Daughter
- Gevherhan Hatun (?-??), married to Prince Ughurlu Muhammad, son of Bey Uzun Hasan, leader of the Turkmen tribal confederation Ak Koyunlu; they were parents of Bey Ahmed Gövde of Ak Koyunlu.
Succession
| Predecessor: Murad II | .svg) 7°Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1444-1445 | Successor: Murad II |
| Predecessor: Murad II | 7th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Second Period) 1451-1481 | Successor: Beyazid II |