The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire; a history of the Osmanlis up to the death of Bayezid I (1300-1403)Gibbons, Herbert Adams
History
The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire; a history of the Osmanlis up to the death of Bayezid I (1300-1403)
Gibbons, Herbert Adams
Turkey -- History -- 1288-1453
Karamania lay open before the invaders. The Osmanlis occupied Ak Seraï,
Konia, and Laranda. There was no organized resistance. But it is a
curious disregard of facts to record, as most historians have done,[454]
that the result of this campaign was the permanent incorporation of
Karamania in the Ottoman Empire.[455] The battle of Ak Tchaï had been
decisive only to the extent that thereafter the Osmanlis, and not the
Karamanlis, were to be the dominant race in Asia Minor. Konia and other
eastern Karamanian cities were occupied by the Osmanlis after the battle
because their ruler had been killed and his sons taken into captivity.
Had Alaeddin escaped from the field, he might have organized a
successful resistance to the Ottoman invaders. Bayezid conquered
Karamania by the battle of Ak Tchaï no more than Napoleon conquered
Prussia by Jena or von Moltke France by Sedan. To enter and occupy for
a while the capital of a country does not mean that the country is
‘incorporated’ in the domains of the successful invader. The immediate
restoration of the Karamanian dynasty after the advent of Timur proves
how superficial had been the Ottoman occupation. While they were no
longer able to be a political factor in western Asia Minor, the
Karamanlis continued until after the fall of Constantinople--for seventy
years after the battle of Ak Tchaï--to defy successfully the efforts of
the Osmanlis to destroy their independence and amalgamate them.[456]
Burhaneddin, who had set up for himself a principality north-east of
Karamania along the Halys River, which included Caesarea and Sivas, was
the next rival on the east to be attacked. Burhaneddin is reported to
have had twenty to thirty thousand followers.[457] This seems to be an
exaggeration, for we read that he did not resist the Ottoman invasion.
At the approach of Bayezid, he retired into the mountains of Armenia
near Kharput. Here he was either killed by Kara Yuluk, founder of the
famous White Sheep dynasty, or put to death by order of Bayezid.[458]
His emirate was shared by Bayezid and Kara Yuluk, the Ottoman emir
taking Tokat, Caesarea, and Sivas. There is no certainty as to the date
of this expedition. From the events which followed, it most probably
took place in 1395, the year before Nicopolis.[459]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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