Mehmed II: The Ottoman Caesar

ASeljuk Turk by the name of Osman (born in 1258) is the man regarded as the founder of the Ottoman Empire. His name is sometimes spelt Ottman or Othman, hence the term ‘Ottoman’. The Seljuks came from the Asiatic steppes and had been in Anatolia for generations by the late 1290s. Had Osman tried to establish his powerbase 50 years earlier or later, the political landscape would likely have been quite stable, so any attempt at building his own independent realm would have been quickly extinguished. More than anything else, Osman was the right guy in the right place at the right time.

It took Osman until 1280 to receive the recognition of more powerful Seljuk chieftains to officially head his family and become a bey (chieftain). From that time until he died in 1323/24, he greatly expanded the lands under his control, almost exclusively to the detriment of the ever-weakening Byzantine Empire. Osman must have calculated that he wasn’t yet powerful enough to challenge the larger powers to the east, so he nibbled away at the Byzantine hinterland – and there wasn’t much the Byzantine rulers could do about it. But they did try. In 1302, the Byzantines sent a small army in an attempt to curb Osman’s advances. The two sides met at the Battle of Bapheus, near the