Orhan I

Orhan or Orkhan (Söğüt, 1281-Bursa, 1362), bey (prince) of the newborn Ottoman Empire, then known as the tribe of the Osmanlis, between 1326 and 1359. He was the son of the bey Osman I Gazi, At his death, the Empire had an extension of 95,000 km².

His early years

Born in Söğüt around 1281, Orhan was the second son of Osman, son and heir to bey Ertuğrul. Orhan's grandfather, Ertuğrul Gazi, named his grandchild after she was born Orhan Alp. That same year, Ertuğrul dies and Osman, Orhan's father, assumes the leadership of his tribe. Orhan's early childhood and adulthood are unknown, but he grew up very close to his father. Some historical articles state that when Orhan was 20 years old, his father sent him to the small Ottoman province of Nakihir, but Orhan returned to the Ottoman capital Sogut in 1309.

In 1317, he received command of the fledgling Ottoman army from his father, thus ensuring the succession of the Ottoman tribal chieftaincy. His younger siblings, unlike his successors, showed great loyalty.

Government

Map of the conquests of Orhan I.

Sultan Osman Gazi died on August 9, 1326, and Orhan succeeded him. According to Ottoman tradition, when Orhan succeeded his father, once on the throne Coban bey Savci Bey went on to command his army with him, Parzalu bey who had died in battle at the age of 17 before Orhan came to the throne once organized his army, Orhan bey, already recognized as Orhan gazhi, proposed to his older brother, Alaaddin, that he will work with him in the administration of the emerging Ottoman state, to which his brother accepted, alleging that his father had designated Orhan as the only successor since he had seen things qualifying him for office by accepting, as his share, the income of a single village near Bursa. Then Orhan said to him: Because, my brother, you will not take the flocks that I offer you, be you the shepherd of my people, be my Vizier". The word Vizier, vezir in the Ottoman language, from the Arabic وزير wazīr, meant the bearer of a burden. Alaaddin, by accepting the position, accepted the burden of power from his brother, according to Eastern historians. Alaaddin, like many of his successors in that position, did not usually lead the armies in person, but he took care of the foundation and administration of the civil and military institutions of the state, and although he died in his 40s, he worked helping his brother in the administrative organization of the state by then his father Osman had already declared the Ottoman State and they were no longer part of the sultanate of the Rum so Orhan's military campaigns are considered, the struggles for the expansion of the Ottoman state some historians attribute to Alaaddin and on his advice to finance a small standing army of regular troops as Orhan's personal and private guard it was on his advice that the sultans' personal guard was created which would later train the janissary corps during the sultanate of Sultan Murad I, son and successor of Orhan.

In internal politics, Orhan I improved the organization and created a new currency. Around 1345 he divided the territory into four parts: an exclusive domain of the bey and the so-called sanjak (provinces), each of which was governed by an administrator ( sanjakbey) that used to provide information about the territory and news about it, as well as the levies of men that Orhán I needed for his war. The four provinces were:

• Original Ottoman territory of Söğüt and Eskişehir;
• Hüdavendigar (domain of Sultan) of Bursa and Iznik;
• Koca Eli, peninsular area around Izmit;
• Ancient Karesi Principality around Balikesir and Bergama.

Conquests and expansion of the Ottoman state

Orhan, with the help of gazi Turkmen chieftains, at the head of his tribal light cavalry forces, undertook a series of conquests of Byzantine territories in northwestern Anatolia. First, in 1321, he seized Mudanya, on the Sea of Marmara, which was the port of Bursa. Orhan then sent a gazi column, under the command of Konur Alp, towards the west coast of the Black Sea; another gazi column, commanded by Aqueda, took Kocaeli, and finally another was sent to subdue the southeastern coast of the Marmara Sea.

In 1326, shortly before he succeeded his father, he negotiated for Bursa, which was the Ottoman capital for twenty years. The Byzantine warden of the Bursa Fortress, named Evrenos Bey after converting to Islam, took command of a contingent of Ottoman light cavalry. His sons and grandsons served the Ottoman emirate at the head of the cavalry and conquered large areas of the Balkans.

Bursa was not only his first true capital: the administrative machinery established by the Byzantines provided Orhan with the tools necessary to create the rudiments of Ottoman administration. Its role as a trading center allowed the Ottomans to amass enough treasury to finance the new state and also create a disciplined and organized army.

After seizing Bursa, Orhan sent cavalry troops across the Bosphorus, seizing various Byzantine coastal cities on the banks of the Marmara. There were even sightings of Ottoman light cavalry along the Bosphorus coast. The Byzantine attempt to reconquer the lost territory ended in the annihilation of his army, under the command of Emperor Andronicus III himself, in a battle that took place at Maltepe (Pelecanon), at the hands of the Orhan Turks, who were advancing towards the sea. of Marmara and the Bosphorus. In 1331 Orhan conquered Nicaea after three years of siege. The last important point that the Byzantines possessed, the city of Nicomedia, fell to the Turks in 1337; Orhan turned it over to his eldest son, Suleiman Pasha, who had directed operations at the site. Most of northwestern Anatolia fell into Ottoman hands in 1338 with the conquest of Üsküdar. The Byzantines still controlled the coastal strip from Şile on the Black Sea to near Üsküdar and the city of Amasra (Amastris) in Paphlagonia, but these places were so scattered and isolated that they were not a threat to the Ottomans.

In 1345, Orhan used infighting in the Turkmen emirate of Karası to annex it; this gave him full control of the region between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapı Dağ (Cyzicus) and an access to the Sea of Marmara from which he could break the monopoly that the emirate of Aydın had hitherto enjoyed on the supply of Turkish troops. mercenaries to the opposing Byzantine factions of Thrace and Constantinople. Until that time, the emirate of Aydın, ruled by Umur Bey, had been supplying mercenaries to John Kantakouzenos, then tutor of Emperor John V Palaiologos, in his struggle to seize the Byzantine throne. However, in October 1344, a league of Western Christian powers, organized by Pope Clement VI, seized Izmir, the capital of Aydın. Kantakouzenos was deprived of the help of his Turkish ally Umur Bey, who would die trying to recapture Smyrna in 1348.

With the conquest of Karesi, almost all of northwestern Anatolia was included in the Ottoman Emirate; the four cities of Bursa, İzmit (Nicomedia), İznik (Nicea) and Bergama (Pergamum) (former capital of the emirate of Karası) were in his possession. On the other hand, the death of Umur Bey and the subsequent collapse of Aydın gave the Ottomans control of western Anatolia, from where they could penetrate Europe taking advantage of Byzantine weakness. The Ottoman position, head of the Muslim gazis in the fight against the European infidel, was assured since then.

He took part in the intrigues of the decadent Byzantine Empire when he married Theodora Kantakouzeno, daughter of John VI Kantakouzeno, in 1346. As the price of this prestigious marriage, Orhan provided his mother-in-law with soldiers to fight in Thrace against John V and his regents. John VI was later proclaimed Emperor of Byzantium during this civil war. Orhan had the valuable help of his son Suleiman Pasha, in charge of military affairs in the Ottoman emirate. Juan VI called him to help him fight his enemies, and in 1346 Suleiman Pasha crossed into Europe in command of a large Turkish army: it was the first time this had happened. Between 1350 and 1353, Orhan supported John VI and his son Mateo Kantakouzeno with the Turkish army of ten thousand men, commanded by Suleiman Pasha. John V, for his part, was supported by the Serbs and Bulgarians of the powerful Emperor Stephen IX Uroš IV Dušan. The Kantakouzene side triumphed thanks to the effectiveness of the Turkish forces. In October 1352, in Demotika, the Ottoman army in the service of John VI, under the command of Orhan and Suleiman Pasha defeated four thousand Serbs under the command of the vaivode (general) Gradislav Borilović, who had been supplied by Dušan to John V. This was the first Ottoman victory in Europe. Byzantine public opinion opposed John VI Kantakouzenos for having called the Turks to his aid; This they were always willing to turn their campaigns into jihad and it was increasingly difficult to make them return to their territories in Asia. The family relationship between Juan VI and Orhan had been a guarantee, but Suleiman Pasha, realizing very soon that he could act on his own initiative, seemed less inclined to respect agreements than his father. In 1352, he undertook the Turkish penetration of Europe, by conquering a fortress at Tzympe, near Gallipoli, in Thrace. It was the first settlement of the Ottoman Turks in Europe. Juan VI negotiated with Orján his withdrawal. But in March 1354, Suleiman Pasha occupied and rebuilt Gallipoli (evacuated by its Greek population after a devastating earthquake), giving the Ottoman state a bridgehead into continental Europe. Suleiman Pasha took three thousand soldiers and any Turkish families he could find in Asia to settle in the city. Not even Orhan thought of leaving this strategic location and very soon Turkish immigrants settled there in large numbers, repopulating this point that would become an important stronghold within a few months. Orhan I and Suleiman Pasha, once the Turkish base at Gallipoli had been consolidated, went on to take over the regions of Macedonia and Thrace; they conquered different principalities of the Dardanelles and several ports of the Aegean Sea. This aggravated the weakening of the Byzantine Empire.

Last years

Suleiman Pasha died on a hunting party before he could succeed his father. In 1359, Orhan, due to his advanced age, associated his second son, Murat, to the Ottoman throne, who continued his father's conquests in Europe.

Retired permanently from politics, Orhan died in the palace of the King of Bursa in 1362.

First reorganization of the Ottoman Army

The vizier Alaadin, by his military legislation, can be said to have actually orchestrated the victory of the Ottoman Dynasty, inaugurating a military policy that was continued by his brother's successors for the remainder of the 14th century. He organized for the Ottoman Emirate a standing army of regularly paid and disciplined foot and horse a century before Charles VII of France established his fifteen standing companies of men-at-arms, generally considered the first modern standing army.

This military reform with the recruitment of Christian mercenaries to reduce the Ottoman dependence on the Turkmen nomads and get combat forces capable of facing the needs of an organized campaign. These mercenaries were organized into yaya, infantry units paid with wages and booty, while those nomads who remained in Ottoman service were placed, under more formal discipline, in a cavalry system under the name of musellems. They were divided into tens, hundreds, and thousandths with their commanders. His pay was high, and his pride soon caused the bey some anxiety. Orhan wanted to give them a check, and he sought advice for this purpose from his brother Alaeddin and Çandarlı Kara Halil Hayreddin Pasha, who was connected to the royal house by marriage. Çandarlı put before his master and the vizier a project. From there arose the renowned janissary corps, which was long considered the scourge of the Balkans and Central Europe, until it was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826.

Handcuffs

Orhan had six wives:

• In 1299 he married the noble Byzantine Holophira (called, after his conversion to Islam, Nilüfer Hatun) (1283-1383), of Greek origin, supposed daughter of the prince porfirogéneta of Yahisar, Byzantine governor of Bilecik, and mother of Süleyman, of Murad and Kasim;
• Casó con Bayalun Hatun (?-?-?), Sultan bey and hatice hatun;
• In 1316 he espoused the Byzantine princess Asporsha Paleóloga (called, after conversion to Islam, Asporça Hatun, 1300-1362), of Greek origin, daughter of the Andronic Emperor II Paleologist and Irene de Montferrato and mother of Ibrahim, Fatma Hatun and Selcuk Hatun;
• In 1346 he married the Byzantine Princess Theodora Cantacuzeno (1332-1381), of Greek origin, daughter of the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuceno and Irene Asanina and mother of Jalil;
• He fell with Mary Hatun (?-??), without offspring
• He fell with his cousin Eftandise Hatun (?-?), daughter of Akbaşlu Mahmud Gündüz Alp (orhan's father) and mother of Eyüp.

Offspring

Orhan had six sons and three daughters.

Children

• Solián Bajá (1316-1356);
• Şehzade Murad I) (1319/26-1389), bey and subsequently sultan with the name of Murad I;
• Şehzade Kasim (1328)-(1346).
• Şehzade Ibrahim (1316-1362), governor of Eskişehir and pretender to the Ottoman throne, was executed by his brother Murad;
• Sultan Bey (1324-1362), a pretender to the Ottoman throne was executed by his brother Murad;
• Şehzade Halil (1347-1362), married to her cousin the Byzantine princess Irene Paleóloga (son of the Emperor John V Paleologist and of her motherly aunt Helena Cantacucena), who was a pretender to the Ottoman throne, was executed by her brother Murad;
• Şehzade Eyüp (?-?) Son of Eftandice Hatun

Daughters

• Fatma Hatun (?-??);
• Selcuk Hatun (?-??);
• Hatice Hatun (?-??), Daughter of Bayalun hatun,

married to his cousin Süleyman Bey. Her husband was the son of Savci Bey and, through him, the grandson of Osman I.