Turkey

G

Defense in Turkey

In 2004 Turkey’s armed forces included 514,850 people. In 2002 about 36,000 troops were deployed in the Turkish-controlled section of Cyprus, a Mediterranean island also occupied by Greece. All male citizens from the ages of 20 to 32 are required to serve from 1 to 16 months in the armed forces.

H

International Organizations

Turkey is a member of the United Nations (UN) and its various affiliated organizations. It is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Economic Cooperation Organization, and the European Parliament. Turkey entered a customs union with the EU in 1995 and is in the process of meeting specific economic and political criteria set by the EU so that it may become a full member of that body.

VII

History of Turkey

The first major civilization in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, was that of the Hittites, about 1900 to 1200 bc, which originated in the central plateau. It was conquered by invaders known as the Sea Peoples, who swept over Asia Minor and Syria shortly after 1200 bc. The destruction of the western Anatolian city of Troy, an event celebrated in ancient Greek legends, probably occurred during these invasions.

One group of the Sea Peoples, the Phrygians, established a kingdom that became the dominant Anatolian power in the 9th and 8th centuries bc (see Phrygia). During this period the Greeks founded Miletus, Ephesus, and Priene and a number of other cities in Ionia, an area along the Aegean coast. About 700 bc the Phrygian kingdom was overrun and destroyed by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who thereafter lived in western Asia Minor. In the 7th century bc the Lydians also appeared near the Aegean coast, where they founded a kingdom, the capital of which was Sardis. It was overthrown by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 546 bc.

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From the mid-6th century to 333 bc most of Asia Minor, including Anatolia, belonged to the Persian Empire, although the Greek cities frequently enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. In the 4th century bc Persian power declined, and after 333 bc it was supplanted by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. In the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Asia Minor was gradually conquered by the Romans.

After the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad, Asia Minor became part of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, the capital of which was Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), or Byzantium, located on the European side of the Bosporus, just across from the west coast of Anatolia. During the 11th century Asia Minor was invaded by nomadic Seljuk Turks. In 1071 they routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert; during the 12th century they ravaged much of eastern and central Anatolia. Although at this time the primary objective of the Seljuks was not to attack the Byzantines but to eliminate the threat of heterodox Shia Islam posed by the Fatimids of Egypt, some members of the Seljuk dynasty saw an opportunity to win a realm of their own. They established the sultanate of Rūm (with its capital at Konya), which ruled central Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Most of the nomads who had made the initial Seljuk victories possible were soon pushed to the west of Anatolia, where frontier colonies were maintained against the last Byzantine defenses. Although the sultanate of Rūm imitated the Seljuk Empire of Baghdād, the presence within its boundaries of large numbers of Christians and its superimposition of Islam on top of a living Christian tradition produced a milieu considerably different from that of other Islamic states. It provided the basis for the unique Ottoman systems of government and society that began to emerge in the 14th century.

In the mid-13th century the Seljuks of Baghdād and Konya were overwhelmed by the Mongol invasion led by Hulagu, a descendant of Genghis Khan, that culminated in the capture and sack of Baghdād in 1258. In Anatolia, the Turkish nomads used the resulting anarchy to form a series of principalities, nominally under the suzerainty of Rūm, which in turn was dominated by the Mongols. These principalities maintained themselves through their raids against one another and against the last Byzantine nobles, who held out in western Anatolia.

A

Rise of the Ottomans

The Ottomans emerged in history as leaders of those Turks who fought the Byzantines in northwestern Anatolia. The location enabled Osman, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, to take the fullest advantage of Byzantine weakness and secure booty by raids into Christian territory. This situation lured into his service thousands of Turkish nomads and also many Arabs and Iranians fleeing from the Mongols. Osman’s conquests in Anatolia were crowned with the capture in 1326 of the provincial capital Bursa by his son Orhan, which gave the Ottomans control over the Byzantine administrative, financial, and military systems in the area. Thus began the Ottoman tradition to expand by force only at the expense of the declining Christian states to the west, but not against the Turkmen principalities to the east. The peaceful acquisition of Turkmen lands by purchase, marriage, and the sowing of dissension within the ruling dynasties was, however, acceptable, and the Ottomans thus took over large territories in western Anatolia.

A

1

European Raids

Ottoman expansion into Europe began late in Orhan’s reign. Ottoman soldiers were hired as mercenaries by leading Byzantines, including John VI Cantacuzene, who was thus able to secure himself the Byzantine throne in 1347. In return, Ottoman soldiers were allowed to raid Byzantine territories in Thrace and Macedonia, and the emperor’s daughter was given to Orhan in marriage. The Ottoman raiders soon began to camp in the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula and to mount continuous raids on the remaining Byzantine possessions in Europe.

The transformation of the Ottoman principality into a vast empire, covering southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arab world, was accomplished in three major campaigns between the 14th and 16th centuries. The early Ottoman Empire, stretching from the Danube to the Euphrates, was created by Murad I and Bayazid I. Murad concentrated mainly on Europe in a series of campaigns that extended as far as the Danube, culminating in the Battle of Kosovo (1389), in which an allied Serbian, Bosnian, and Bulgarian army was routed. Murad himself was killed, but his son Bayazid completed the victory. During the next decade Bayazid broke with tradition and conquered most of the Anatolian Turkmen principalities, thus bringing the early empire to its peak.