Osman I

“ She gave a cry of wonder, and as she gazed at me, her large black eyes dilated and flashed with anger.
"Basilia," said I, "do you not remember me?"
"No," replied she, while trembling; "who are you?"
"Osman, the son of Mostapha, your own Osman, who saved you at Anapa."
"It is false," she answered, with eyes full of anger and sorrow; "Osman was a brave Circassian warrior, and I loved him; oh! how dearly and how well; but he fell in battle at Mikhailov. Thou art either a base Muscovite, or some fiend in the shape of Osman; a ghoul it may be, a son of Ifrit; begone, and leave me." ”

“ Your sword is more eloquent than your tongue; keep silence and listen, for Bokhara breeds more gossip than a dunghill vermin. Take these matters to heart, chiefly:
Osman is only lip-loyal to the Shah. The treasurer is the companion of Muhammad's mother, Turkhan khatun, who holds the allegiance of the Kankalis, who in turn are the backbone of the Kharesmian host. Osman secretly poisoned the ameer who commanded the garrison of Bokhara, and would do away with the council of the imams, who are the Moslem elders. The Shah fears him, the imams hate him. ”

“ Osman had a humanity so broad and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the Koran, as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in his brain, but fled at once to him, — that great heart lay there so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country, — that it seemed as if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. ”

“ The Prince got up upon the breast of his enemy, and wresting his sword from his hand and holding his own over his throat, said,
"How now? Has your craving for fight been satisfied."
"Not while I live," returned Osman.
"Your life I can end this moment," said the Prince.
"Do so;—or else your mortal enemy will live," said Osman.
"Let him," replied the Prince; "the Rajput scorns to fear it. I would have killed you; but you spared my life, and so do I."
He then bound together the hands and feet of Osman, and one by one deprived him of all his weapons. ”

“ Yes, Osman. You have allowed yourselves to be deceived by the flattering words of those who call themselves your friends, but can never be other than your enemies. Do you suppose that the sultan will ever give you, his hated enemies—you, the haughty Mameluke beys-your rights and your freedom? I, who gazed in my dying Mourad's eyes and read his last thoughts, I say to you, that the sultan will not rest until death has closed your lips forever, or until you have closed his! I tell you they are planning your destruction. ”

“ Had he started to persecute Christians, the Greek Church would have taken a new lease of life, and Osman could not have gained the converts who made possible the Ottoman race.
Attila, Djenghiz Khan, Timur, the greatest conquerors of the stock from which Osman came, utilized a race already made. They were leaders of a united people. In spite of their dazzling exploits, they were mere raiders, and their empires were the territories of an unassimilated path of conquest. ”

“ The paradise of the Mohammedans, its shady groves, marble fountains, walled gardens, and cool retreats, its kara ghuz kiz and wealth of material pleasures, no doubt seem to poor Osman, with his one tattered garment and unhappy servility, far beyond the aspirations of such as he. Like the gutter-snipe of London or New York who gazes into the brilliant shop windows, he feels privileged to feast his imagination, perchance, but that is all. ”

“ Osman the First (Ottoman) Turkish Sultan. On the death of the Seljouk ruler of Iconium, who left no son to succeed him, the Emirs, the chiefs of the clans, divided his dominion into petty states among themselves. Osman, the son of Ertogrul, being one of these local chiefs, became practically an independent prince, 1289 A. D. His dominion as a Sultan began, however, in 1299, by the invasion of Nicomedia, the first conquest of the Ottoman Turks. ”

“ Sokolica, too, comes to Constantinople, and379 Osman chooses her as first Sultana, and marries two Greek maidens as well. He then prepares for an expedition to Asia against the rebels, but the Janissaries revolt, and demand the heads of Dilaver Pasha the Grand Vizir, of the Hodja, and of the chief eunuch. The rebellion spreads, the Grand Vizir is murdered, and Osman’s uncle Mustafa freed and proclaimed Sultan. While Osman is deploring his misfortunes and recalling the glories of his ancestors, he, too, is assassinated by Mustafa’s orders. ”

“ That Osman began his career as a vassal of Alaeddin III, Sultan of Iconium, upon whose death, in or about 1300, Osman and nine other Turkish princes divided the inheritance of the Seljucides; that Osman proved more powerful than the other princes, and founded an empire upon the ruins of the Seljucide Empire. ”

“ Osman was a man of compelling personality, whom men loved to serve, even when their own ability matched or was superior to his. The families of the Michaelogli and Marcozogli were founded by Christian companions of Osman, who became Moslem only after long association with him. Michael, Marco, and other leaders, including Osman’s own son, made for themselves more distinguished military careers than Osman. But they always worked for their leader. Their harmony and loyalty is in striking contrast to that of the Byzantine and Catalan captains. Osman was great enough to use masterful men. ”

“ But Osman had eyes only for the Nazarene maid, and Hassan, perceiving the mood of his master, sang of love and the beauties of women in a voice that was softer than a silver flute. A brazier, burning in the prow, cast a scent of aloes and musk incense into the air, and at command of the leader of the revels, different powders were put into the wine-cups by slaves—hashish, opium and bhang. Robert, feigning exhausted sleep, heard other references to the Manslayer, to Otrar and the treasure of Muhammad Shah, as the tongues of the drinkers were loosened. ”

“ Osman was founder of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, of a people unique in history through the blending of wild Asiatic blood with the oldest as well as the newest European stock, of a royal family which claims the distinction of six hundred years of uninterrupted male succession. ”

“ The record of village warfare, with its names of localities which even the most celebrated Ottoman geographer could not, three centuries later, identify, [38] is of no importance whatever. The extent of Osman’s principality, when he and his people first appear in history, was very insignificant. In 1300 he had succeeded in submitting to his authority a part of ancient Phrygia Epictetus and Bithynia, whose four corners were: south-east, Eski Sheïr; south-west, the eastern end of Mount Olympus; north-east, the junction of the Kara Su and the Sangarius ”

“ But, fortunately for those who are able to read the signs of the times, there are well-grounded hopes for a change for the better—for a return to the position among nations which the Ottoman Empire occupied when its schools and scholars were as famed as were its achievements on land and sea—when the followers of Osman shall be as far in the van of civilization as they are now in the rear. ”

“ No other dynasty can boast such a succession of brilliant sovereigns as those who conducted the Ottomans to the height of renown in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. First there was Osman, the originator of a race, next came his son Orkhan, the founder of a state, and then Osman’s grandson, the creator of an empire. These founders of an empire were succeeded by Bayazid who, on account [108] of his rapid movements, was called Ilderim—lightning; Mohammed, who retrieved the losses inflicted by Timur ”

“ For it is not in the large cities of Turkey, where there is always such a heterogeneous population, that the Ottoman is found at his best but in the small towns and villages of the interior of the country and particularly in that portion of the Ottoman Empire which formerly constituted the emirates of Osman and Orkhan.
No people in the world, it is safe to say, have ever been more misunderstood or more misrepresented than the Osmanlis. For generations they have been regarded as a nation guilty of every crime and steeped in every vice. ”

“ Every noble loafer about my person seems anxious to have Osman continually employed in contributing to my comfort; Mohammed Ahzim Khan even deprecates the independence displayed in lacing up my own shoes. "Osman," he says, "let Osman do it."
Osman's chief characteristic is a reckless disregard for the conventionalities of social life and religion; he never seems to bother himself about either washing his person or saying his prayers. Somewhere, not far away, every evening the faithful are summoned to prayer by a muezzin with the most musical and pathetic voice I have heard in all Islam. ”

“ Suddenly we find Osman attacking his neighbours and capturing their castles. During the decade from 1290 to 1300 he extends his boundaries until he comes into contact{29} with the Byzantines. His four hundred warriors grow to four thousand. We begin to hear of a people called, not Turks, but Osmanlis, after a leader whose own name first appears at the same time as that of his people. [34] They are foes of Greeks and Tartars alike. They are definitely allied to Islam. They possess a missionary spirit and a desire to proselytize such as one always finds in new converts. ”

“ These are some of the reasons different countries would like to get control of Turkey and its great city. They all look toward it with longing eyes.
"Besides these things, the Sultan himself is not a good ruler for his people. He has many wives and hundreds of slaves. Many of his people follow his bad example and buy slaves, both black and white."
But little Osman knows nothing of what is said about the Sultan and the people of his land. It has never entered his head that it is wrong to buy and sell human beings. ”

“ Having thoroughly established his authority in his capital of Yeni Shehr, Osman began to wrest from the Greeks many of the neighbouring towns and strongholds, among others Ayina Göl and Ḳoyun Ḥiṣári, routing before the last named a large Byzantine army. He then turned his attention to the administration of his state, and such was the feeling of security he succeeded in establishing that large numbers of people from the surrounding districts flocked into his dominions and became his subjects. ”

“ There the betrothal of the Christian princess to her Moslem cousin was celebrated by splendid fêtes. [244]
John Cantacuzenos introduced the Osmanlis into Europe. John Palaeologos accepted their presence in Thrace without a struggle. There is little choice between these two Johns.
XIV
Orkhan died at the end of this memorable decade. [245] If to Osman is given the honour of being father of a new people, the greater honour of founding the nation must be{109} ascribed to Orkhan. [246] Few men have accomplished a greater work and seen more sweeping changes in two generations. ”

“ In its character of Turkish dynasty, the house of Osman might, out of the different kindred elements with which it is connected by the bond of common language, religion, and history, have founded an empire extending from the shore of the Adriatic far into China, an empire mightier than that which the great Romanoff was obliged to employ not only force but cunning to put together, out of the most discordant and heterogeneous materials. ”

“ The first regiment of professional Ottoman soldiery was recruited by him and embodied later by Orkhan, his son, from Greek and other Christian-born youths, who, forced to apostatize, were educated as Imperial slaves in imitation of the Mamelukes, constituted more than a century earlier in Egypt, and now masters where they had been bondmen. It is not indeed for nothing that Osman’s latest successor, and all who hold by him, distinguish themselves from other peoples by his name. ”

“ But they were not the Turks of Osman. Until the students of the later Byzantine Empire, and of the Italian commercial cities in their relations with the Levant, make a clear distinction between Turk and Osmanli, there will always be confusion upon this point. Ertogrul had about four hundred fighting men. [32] There is no reason to believe that Osman had more. His relations with his neighbours were those of perfect amity. [33] There is no question of believer and unbeliever. ”

“ Like all previous Turkish immigrations, they came not in any overwhelming horde, with sword in one hand and Koran in the other, but as a small compact body with a genius for military organisation, and the gift, which they retain to this day, of stalwart fighting. The policy to which they owed their growth was absorption, and the people whom they first began to absorb were Greeks and other Christians, and it was to a Christian girl, Nilufer, that Osman married his son Orkhan. ”

“ The Osmanlis, or house of Osman, the founders of the present Turkish Empire, appear to have been a clan similar to the early Seljuks or the present Turkomans of Transcaspia, who migrated into Asia Minor from Khorasan and made the neighbourhood of Brusa their headquarters. Their conspicuous position in history is mainly due to the fact that they attained pre-eminence very late and in districts very near Europe. Except for the invasion of Timur they did not suffer from the attacks of other Turks and they were able to concentrate their strength on the conquest of the decrepit Byzantine Empire. ”