ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOLUME I.

Page

MAP, SHOWING THE FORMER AND PRESENT EXTENT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

• Frontispiece

HISTORY

OF

THE OTTOMAN TURKS.

CHAPTER I.

FIRST APPEARANCE AND EXPLOITS OF THE OTTOMAN TURKS UNDER ERTOGHRUL IN ASIA MINOR-THEIR SETTLEMENT AT SULTAN-CENI-REIGN OF OTHMAN I.-HIS DREAM-HIS CONQUESTS-DEATH AND CHARACTER.*

ABOUT Six centuries ago, a pastoral band of four hundred Turkish families was journeying westward from the upper streams of the river Euphrates. Their armed force consisted of four hundred and forty-four horsemen ; and their leader's name was Ertoghrul, which means "The Right-Hearted Man." As they travelled through Asia Minor, they came in sight of a field of battle, on which two armies of unequal numbers were striving for the mastery. Without knowing who the combatants were, The Right-Hearted Man took instantly the chivalrous resolution to aid the weaker party and charging desperately and victoriously with his warriors

VOL. I.

* See Von Hammer, books 1 and 2.

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upon the larger host, he decided the fortune of the day. Such, according to the Oriental historian Neschri, is the first recorded exploit of that branch of the Turkish race, which from Ertoghrul's son, Othman,† has been called the nation of the Ottoman Turks. And in this, their earliest feat of arms, which led to the foundation of their empire, we may trace the same spirit of haughty generosity, that has been their characteristic down to our own times.

The little band of Ertoghrul was a fragment of a tribe of Oghouz Turks, which, under Ertoghrul's father, Soleyman Shah, had left their settlements in Khorassan, and sojourned for a time in Armenia. After a few years, they left this country also; and were following the course of the Euphrates towards Syria, when their leader was accidentally drowned in that river. The greater part of the tribe then dispersed ; but a little remnant of it followed two of Solyman's sons, Ertoghrul and Dundar, who determined to seek a dwelling-place in Asia Minor, under the Seljukian Turk, Alaeddin, the Sultan of Iconium. It so happened, that it was Alaeddin himself who commanded the army to which Ertoghrul and his warriors brought such opportune succour on the battle-field, whither their march in

* Neschri states this on the authority of Mewlana Ayas, who had heard the battle narrated by the stirrup-holder of Ertoghrul's grandson Orchan, who had heard it from Ertoghrul himself, and had told it to his followers. See Von Hammer's note to p. 62 of his first volume.

"Osman" is the real Oriental name of the Eponymus hero, and the descendants of his subjects style themselves "Osmanlis." But the corrupted forms "Othman" and "Ottoman" have become so fixed in our language and literature, that it would be pedantry to resume the correct originals. I follow the same principle in retaining "Amurath" for " Murad," "Bajazet" for "Bayezid," "Spahi" for "Sipahi," &c. &c.

THEIR FIRST SETTLEMENT IN ASIA MINOR.

A.D. 1250.

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The adver

quest of Alaeddin had casually led them. saries, from whose superior force they delivered him, were a host of Mongols, the deadliest enemies of the Turkish race. Alaeddin, in gratitude for this eminent service, bestowed on Ertoghrul a principality in Asia Minor, near the frontiers of the Bithynian province of the Byzantine Emperors.

The rich plains of Saguta along the left bank of the river Sakaria, and the higher districts on the slopes of the Ermeni mountains, became now the pasture-grounds of the father of Othman. The town of Saguta, or Sægud, was his also. Here he, and the shepherdwarriors who had marched with him from Khorassan and Armenia, dwelt as denizens of the land. Ertoghrul's force of fighting men was largely recruited by the best and bravest of the old inhabitants, who became his subjects; and, still more advantageously, by numerous volunteers of kindred origin to his own. The Turkish race * had been extensively spread through Lower Asia long before the time of Ertoghrul. Quitting their primitive abodes on the upper steppes of the Asiatic continent, tribe after tribe of that martial family of nations had poured down upon the rich lands and tempting wealth of the southern and western regions, when the power of the early Khalifs had decayed like that of the Greek Emperors. One branch of the Turks, called the Seljukian, from their traditionary patriarch Seljuk Khan, had acquired and consolidated a mighty empire,

See, for the Ethnology of the Turks, Dr. Latham's work on Russia. According to that high authority, all the early great Asiatic conquerors from the parts north of the Oxus have been of Turkish race, except Zenghis Khan and his descendants, and except the Mantchoo conquerors of China.

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more than two centuries before the name of the Ottomans was heard. The Seljukian Turks were once masters of nearly all Asia Minor, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, Armenia, part of Persia, and Western Turkestan and their great Sultans, Toghrul Beg, Alp Arslan, and Melek Shah, are among the most renowned conquerors that stand forth in Oriental and in Byzantine history. But, by the middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era, when Ertoghrul appeared on the battle-field in Asia Minor, the great fabric of Seljukian dominion had been broken up by the assaults of the conquering Mongols, aided by internal corruption and civil strife. The Seljukian Sultan Alaeddin reigned in ancient pomp at Koniah, the old Iconium; but his effective supremacy extended over a narrow compass, compared with the ample sphere throughout which his predecessors had exacted obedience. The Mongols had rent away the southern and eastern acquisitions of his race. In the centre and south of Asia Minor other Seljukian chiefs ruled various territories as independent princes; and the Greek Emperors of Constantinople had recovered a considerable portion of the old Roman provinces in the north and east of that peninsula. Amid the general tumult of border warfare, and of ever recurring peril from roving armies of Mongols, which pressed upon Alaeddin, the settlement in his dominions of a loyal chieftain and hardy clan, such as Ertoghrul and his followers, was a welcome accession of strength; especially as the new comers were, like the Seljukian Turks, zealous adherents of the Mahometan faith. The Crescent was the device that Alaeddin bore on his