East Mediterranean c. 1263. KEY:Dark green: Ottoman domain by the 1300s, dotted line indicates conquests up to 1326.Purple: Byzantine Empire.Light green: Turkic lands.Blue: Cilicia. Red/pink: Latin states.
🛑 OSMAN BEY
Osman’ın (?1254/5-1323/4) döneminden kalan yazılı hiçbir belge yoktur.
Osman’ın ataları Oğuz Türklerinin Kayı boyundandır.
Osman’ın adı Atman ya da Ataman olmuş olabilir (Roma kaynaklarında Ατουμάν (Atouman) ya da Ατμάν (Atman) olarak geçer).
Anadolu Beyliklerinden biri olan Osmanlı Beyliği Roma İmparatorluğunun Bithynia bölgesine yerleştiler (Βιθυνία, Bithynía eski bir bölge, krallık ve bir Roma ili idi.)
Osman I or Osman Gazi (Ottoman Turkish: عثمان غازى, romanized: ʿOsmān Ġāzī; Turkish: Birinci Osman or Osman Gazi; died 1323/4),sometimes transliterated archaically as Othman, was the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. He and the dynasty bearing his name later established and ruled the nascent Ottoman Empire(then known as the Ottoman Beylik or Emirate). The state, while only a small principality during Osman's lifetime, transformed into a world empire in the centuries after his death. It existed until shortly after the end of World War I. Historians commonly mark the end date at the abolition of the sultanatein 1922, the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, or the abolition of the caliphate in 1924.
Due to the scarcity of historical sources dating from his lifetime, very little factual information is known about him. Not a single written source survives from Osman’s reign. The Ottomans did not record the history of Osman's life until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after his death. Because of this, it is very challenging for historians to differentiate between fact and myth in the many stories told about him. One historian has even gone so far as to declare it impossible, describing the period of Osman's life as a "black hole."
According to later Ottoman tradition, Osman’s ancestors were descendants of the Kayı tribe of Oghuz Turks. The Ottoman principality was just one of many Anatolian beyliks that emerged in the second half of the thirteenth century. Situated in the region of Bithynia, Osman's principality was particularly well-placed to launch attacks on the vulnerable Byzantine Empire, which his descendants would eventually go on to conquer.
Griechen von Konstantinopel (wc auf Papier)
Greeks of Constantinople (wc on paper).
Osman’s Name
Othman (Osman) I (1259-1326), founder of the Ottoman empire, Sultan 1299-1326, from 'A Series of Portraits of the Emperors of Turkey', 1808.
Some scholars have argued that Osman's original name was Turkish, probably Atman or Ataman, and was only later changed to ʿOsmān, of Arabic origin. The earliest Byzantine sources, including Osman's contemporary George Pachymeres, spell his name as Ατουμάν (Atouman) or Ατμάν (Atman), whereas Greek sources regularly render both the Arabic form ʿUthmān and the Turkish version ʿOsmān with θ, τθ, or τσ. An early Arabic source mentioning him also writes ط rather than ث in one instance. Osman may thus have adopted the more prestigious Muslim name later in his life.
Origin of the Ottoman Empire
Area of the Ottoman Beylik during the reign of Osman I.
The exact date of Osman's birth is unknown, and very little is known about his early life and origins due to the scarcity of sources and the many myths and legends which came to be told about him by the Ottomans in later centuries. He was most likely born around the middle of the thirteenth century, possibly in 1254/5, the date given by the sixteenth-century Ottoman historian Kemalpaşazade. According to Ottoman tradition, Osman’s father Ertuğrul led the Turkic Kayı tribe west from Central Asia into Anatolia, fleeing the Mongol onslaught. He then pledged allegiance to the Sultan of the Anatolian Seljuks, who granted him dominion over the town of Söğüt on the Byzantine frontier. This connection between Ertuğrul and the Seljuks, however, was largely invented by court chroniclers a century later, and the true origins of the Ottomans thus remain obscure.
Osman became chief, or bey, upon his father’s death in c. 1280. Nothing is known for certain about Osman's early activities, except that he controlled the region around the town of Söğüt and from there launched raids against the neighboring Byzantine Empire. The first datable event in Osman's life is the Battle of Bapheusin 1301 or 1302, in which he defeated a Byzantine force sent to counter him.
Osman appears to have followed the strategy of increasing his territories at the expense of the Byzantines while avoiding conflict with his more powerful Turkish neighbors. His first advances were through the passes which lead from the barren areas of northern Phrygia near modern Eskişehir into the more fertile plains of Bithynia; according to Stanford Shaw, these conquests were achieved against the local Byzantine nobles, "some of whom were defeated in battle, others being absorbed peacefully by purchase contracts, marriage contracts, and the like."
These early victories and exploits are favorite subjects of Ottoman writers, especially in love stories of his wooing and winning the fair Mal Hatun. These legends have been romanticized by the poetical pens which recorded them in later years. The Ottoman writers attached great importance to this legendary, dreamlike conception of the founder of their empire.
Osman’s Dream
Osman I (1259-1326), founder of the Ottoman Empire in the year 1300 (from an original picture in the seraglio ). (L)
Osman I had a close relationship with a local religious leader of dervishes named Sheikh Edebali, whose daughter he married. A story emerged among later Ottoman writers to explain the relationship between the two men, in which Osman had a dream while staying in the Sheikh's house. The story appears in the late fifteenth-century chronicle of Aşıkpaşazade as follows:
“He saw that a moon arose from the holy man's breast and came to sink in his own breast. A tree then sprouted from his navel and its shade compassed the world. Beneath this shade there were mountains, and streams flowed forth from the foot of each mountain. Some people drank from these running waters, others watered gardens, while yet others caused fountains to flow. When Osman awoke he told the story to the holy man, who said 'Osman, my son, congratulations, for God has given the imperial office to you and your descendants and my daughter Malhun shall be your wife.”
The dream became an important foundational myth for the empire, imbuing the House of Osman with God-given authority over the earth and providing its fifteenth-century audience with an explanation for Ottoman success. The dream story may also have served as a form of compact: just as God promised to provide Osman and his descendants with sovereignty, it was also implicit that it was the duty of Osman to provide his subjects with prosperity.
Military victories
Illustration of Osman rallying Gazi warriors into battle (Source: Culver Pictures)
According to Shaw, Osman's first real conquests followed the collapse of Seljuk authority when he was able to occupy the fortresses of Eskişehir and Karacahisar. Then he captured the first significant city in his territories, Yenişehir, which became the Ottoman capital.
In 1302, after soundly defeating a Byzantine force near Nicaea, Osman began settling his forces closer to Byzantine controlled areas.
Alarmed by Osman’s growing influence, the Byzantines gradually fled the Anatolian countryside. Byzantine leadership attempted to contain Ottoman expansion, but their efforts were poorly organized and ineffectual. Meanwhile, Osman spent the remainder of his reign expanding his control in two directions, north along the course of the Sakarya River and southwest towards the Sea of Marmora, achieving his objectives by 1308. That same year his followers participated in conquest of the Byzantine city of Ephesus near the Aegean Sea, thus capturing the last Byzantine city on the coast, although the city became part of the domain of the Emir of Aydin.
Osman's last campaign was against the city of Bursa. Although Osman did not physically participate in the battle, the victory at Bursa proved to be extremely vital for the Ottomans as the city served as a staging ground against the Byzantines in Constantinople, and as a newly adorned capital for Osman's son, Orhan.
The Sword of Osman
The Sword of Osman (Turkish: Taklid-i Seyf) was an important sword of stateused during the coronation ceremony of the Ottoman Sultans.The practice started when Osman was girt with the sword of Islam by his father-in-law Sheik Edebali.The girding of the sword of Osman was a vital ceremony which took place within two weeks of a sultan's accession to the throne. It was held at the tomb complex at Eyüp, on the Golden Horn waterway in the capital Constantinople. The fact that the emblem by which a sultan was enthroned consisted of a sword was highly symbolic: it showed that the office with which he was invested was first and foremost that of a warrior. The Sword of Osman was girded on to the new sultan by the Sharif of Konya, a Mevlevi dervish, who was summoned to Constantinople for that purpose.
Family
Due to the scarcity of sources about his life, very little is known about Osman's family relations. According to certain fifteenth-century Ottoman writers, Osman was descended from the Kayı branch of the Oghuz Turks, a claim which later became part of the official Ottoman genealogy and was eventually enshrined in the Turkish Nationalist historical tradition with the writings of M. F. Köprülü. However, the claim to Kayı lineage does not appear in the earliest extant Ottoman genealogies. Thus many scholars of the early Ottomans regard it as a later fabrication meant to shore up dynastic legitimacy with regard to the empire's Turkish rivals in Anatolia.
It is very difficult for historians to determine what is factual and what is legendary about the many stories the Ottomans told about Osman and his exploits, and the Ottoman sources do not always agree with each other. According to one story, Osman had an uncle named Dündar with whom he had a quarrel early in his career. Osman wished to attack the local Christian lord of Bilecik, while Dündar opposed it, arguing that they already had enough enemies. Interpreting this as a challenge to his leadership position, Osman shot and killed his uncle with an arrow.This story does not appear in many later Ottoman historical works. If it were true, it means that it was likely covered up in order to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the Ottoman dynasty's founder with the murder of a family member. It may also indicate an important change in the relationship of the Ottomans with their neighbors, shifting from relatively peaceful accommodation to a more aggressive policy of conquest.
Osman I, also called Osman Gazi, (born c. 1258—died 1324 or 1326), ruler of a Turkmen principality in northwestern Anatolia who is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman Turkish state. Both the name of the dynasty and the empire that the dynasty established are derived from the Arabic form (ʿUthmān) of his name.
Osman was descended from the Kayı branch of the Oğuz Turkmen. His father, Ertugrul, had established a principality centred at Sögüt. With Sögüt as their base, Osman and the Muslim frontier warriors (Ghazis) under his command waged a slow and stubborn conflict against the Byzantines, who sought to defend their territories in the hinterland of the Asiatic shore opposite Constantinople (now Istanbul). Osman gradually extended his control over several former Byzantine fortresses, including Yenişehir, which provided the Ottomans with a strong base to lay siege to Bursa and Nicaea (now İznik), in northwestern Anatolia. Osman was succeded by his son Orhan, who captured Bursa on April 6, 1326. Ottoman tradition holds that Osman died just after the capture of Bursa, but some scholars have argued that his death should be placed in 1324, the year of Orhan’s accession.
Following the final Mongol defeat of the Seljuqs in 1293, Osman emerged as prince (bey) of the border principality that took over ByzantineBithynia in northwestern Anatolia around Bursa, commanding the ghazis against the Byzantines in that area. Hemmed in on the east by the more powerful Turkmen principality of Germiyan, Osman and his immediate successors concentrated their attacks on Byzantine territories bordering the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara to the west. The Ottomans, left as the major Muslim rivals of Byzantium, attracted masses of nomads and urban unemployed who were roaming through the Middle East searching for means to gain their livelihoods and seeking to fulfill their religious desire to expand the territory of Islam. The Ottomans were able to take advantage of the decay of the Byzantine frontier defense system and the rise of economic, religious, and social discontent in the Byzantine Empire and, beginning under Osman and continuing under his successors Orhan (Orkhan, ruled 1324–60) and Murad I (1360–89), took over Byzantine territories, first in western Anatolia and then in southeastern Europe. It was only under Bayezid I (1389–1402) that the wealth and power gained by that initial expansion were used to assimilate the Anatolian Turkish principalities to the east.
By 1300 Osman ruled an area in Anatolia stretching from Eskişehir (Dorylaeum) to the plains of İznik (Nicaea), having defeated several organized Byzantine efforts to curb his expansion. Byzantine attempts to secure Il-Khanid support against the Ottomans from the east were unsuccessful, and the Byzantine emperor’s use of mercenary troops from western Europe caused more damage to his own territory than to that of the Turks. The Ottomans lacked effective siege equipment, however, and were unable to take the major cities of Bithynia. Nor could they move against their increasingly powerful Turkmen neighbours, the Aydın and Karasıdynasties, which had taken over Byzantine territory in southwestern Anatolia. Orhan’s capture of Bursa in 1324 (some sources date the event to 1326) provided the first means for developing the administrative, economic, and military power necessary to make the principality into a real state and to create an army. Orhan began the military policy, expanded by his successors, of employing Christian mercenary troops, thus lessening his dependence on the nomads.
Orhan soon was able to capture the remaining Byzantine towns in northwestern Anatolia: İznik (1331), İzmit (1337), and Üsküdar (1338). He then moved against his major Turkmen neighbours to the south. Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Orhan annexed Karası in 1345 and gained control of the area between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapıdağı (Cyzicus), reaching the Sea of Marmara. He thus put himself in a position to end the lucrative monopoly enjoyed by the city of Aydın, that of providing mercenary troops to competing Byzantine factions in Thrace and at the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). The expansion also enabled the Ottomans to replace Aydın as the principal ally of the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. The consequent entry of Ottoman troops into Europe gave them a direct opportunity to see the possibilities for conquest offered by Byzantine decadence. The collapse of Aydın following the death of its ruler, Umur Bey, left the Ottomans alone as the leaders of the ghazis against the Byzantines. Orhan helped Cantacuzenus take the throne of Byzantium from John V Palaeologus and as a reward secured the right to ravage Thrace and to marry the emperor’s daughter Theodora.
Ottoman raiding parties began to move regularly through Gallipoli into Thrace. Huge quantities of captured booty strengthened Ottoman power and attracted thousands from the uprooted Turkmen masses of Anatolia into Ottoman service. Starting in 1354, Orhan’s son Süleyman transformed Gallipoli, a peninsula on the European side of the Dardanelles, into a permanent base for expansion into Europe and refused to leave, despite the protests of Cantacuzenus and others. From Gallipoli Süleyman’s bands moved up the Maritsa River into southeastern Europe, raiding as far as Adrianople. Cantacuzenus soon fell from power, at least partially because of his cooperation with the Turks, and Europe began to be aware of the extent of the Turkish danger.
Ertugrul (Ottoman Turkish: ارطغرل, Turkish: Ertuğrul Gazi, Erṭoġrıl; often with the title Gazi) (died c. 1280) was the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. While his historicity is proven by coins minted by Osman I which identify Ertuğrul as the name of his father, nothing else is known for certain about his life or activities.According to Ottoman tradition, he was the son of Suleyman Shah, leader of the Kayı tribe of Oghuz Turks, who fled from eastern Iran to Anatolia to escape the Mongol conquests. According to this legend, after the death of his father, Ertuğrul and his followers entered the service of the Seljuks of Rum, for which he was rewarded with dominion over the town of Söğüt on the frontier with the Byzantine Empire.This set off the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the founding of the Ottoman Empire. Like his son, Osman, and their descendants, Ertuğrul is often referred to as a Ghazi,a heroic champion fighter for the cause of Islam.
Nothing is known with certainty about Ertuğrul’s life, other than that he was the father of Osman; historians are thus forced to rely upon stories written about him by the Ottomans, which are claimed to be of questionable accuracy by modern Western scholars. ccording to these later traditions, Ertuğrul was chief of the Kayı tribe of Oghuz Turks. As a result of his assistance to the Seljuks against the Byzantines, Ertuğrul was granted lands in Karaca Dağ, a mountainous area near Angora (now Ankara), by Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh I, the Seljuk Sultan of Rûm. One account indicates that the Seljuk leader's rationale for granting Ertuğrul land was for Ertuğrul to repel any hostile incursion from the Byzantines or other adversary. Later, he received the village of Söğüt which he conquered together with the surrounding lands. That village, where he later died, became the Ottoman capital under his son Osman I. Ottoman historians have differing opinions on whether Ertuğrul had two or possibly three other sons in addition to Osman: Gündüz Bey, and Saru Batu Savcı Bey or Saru Batu and Savcı Bey.
Legacy
A tomb and mosque dedicated to Ertuğrul is said to have been built by Osman I at Söğüt, but due to several rebuildings nothing certain can be said about the origin of these structures. The current mausoleum was built by sultan Abdul Hamid II in the late nineteenth century. The town of Söğüt celebrates an annual festival to the memory of the early Osmans.
Immediate Family: Daughter of Ömer Abdulaziz Bey, Wife of Osman I, 1st, Ottoman Sultan, Mother of Orhan Gazi, 2nd Ottoman Sultan
Malhun Hatun (died November 1323, other names Mal Hatun, Mala Hatun, Kameriye Sultana) was the first wife of Osman I, the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire. She was the mother of the next and second ruler of the Ottoman State, Orhan.
Biography of Malhun Hatun
It has been recognized by many historians that she was the daughter of the Anatolian Turkish Bey, Ömer Bey, although there had been some speculations that she was the daughter of Sheikh Edebali.Other sources say that she was the daughter of Ömer Abdülaziz Bey, Seljuk vizier of Anatolia.
The 1324 endowment deed for a dervish monastery built by Sultan Orhan suggest that his mother was not, as popular historical tradition maintains Edebali's daughter but rather Mal Hatun, the daughter of one "Umar Bey or Ömer Bey".The title "bey", used by the princely dynasties of Anatolia, suggests that Mal Hatun's father was a person of some status and authority.One possibility is that he was the eponymous ruler of an “Amouri” (Umeri) principality, which was located northeast of the emerging Ottoman state and disappeared in the late 13th or the early 14th century.The Amouri are described by the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres, who says that a son of Umar fought with Osman in one of his first raids against local Byzantine lords (the victory of Baphaion).The Ottomans, according to Pachymeres, went on to assume the role played by Amouri until their demise as the principal aggressor against the Byzantines in the northwest Anatolia.If Pachymeres's report is correct, the timing and the political context are appropriate for a marriage between Osman and 'Umar Bey's daughter.
Mal Hatun has a central role in the legendary Osman’s Dream, depicting Osman’s great love for her and the long struggle he had to undergo before being able to gain her hand.The account is, however, considered to have been composed centuries later, reflecting later generations' perception of her rather than the historical reality.She died in 1323.
Sheikh Edebali (1246—1326), also referred as Balışeyh, was a highly influential TurkishSufiSheikh, who helped shape and develop the policies of the growing Ottoman State. A descendant of Balkh-ar family he commanded great respect in the religious circles.
Interaction with Ottoman leaders
Edebali often conversed with his close friend Ertugrul Ghazi, the father of Osman Ghazi, about Islam and the state of affairs of Muslims in Anatolia. Osman had been Edebali's guest several times. Edebali became Osman’s mentor and eventually girt him with a ghazi sword. In an often mentioned account, Osman, while at Edebali's dergah, dreamed of the crescent moon coming out of Edebali’s chest and entering his own.This dream was to lead to the establishment of the Ottoman State. Edebali's daughter Rabia Bala was married to Osman I in 1289. Sheikh Edebali died in his 80 year.
Edebali's advice to his son in law, Osman Ghazi, shaped and developed Ottoman administration and rule for six centuries.
In one famous declaration, Edebali told Osman:
O my son! Now you are king!
From now on, wrath is for us; for you, calmness!
For us to be offended; for you to please!
For us to accuse; for you to endure!
For us, helplessness and error; for you, tolerance!
For us, quarrel; for you, justice!
For us, envy, rumor, slander; for you, forgiveness!
O my son!
From now on, it is for us to divide; for you to unite!
For us, sloth; for you, warning and encouragement!
O my son!
Be patient, a flower does not bloom before its time. Never forget: Let man flourish, and the state will also flourish!
O my son!
Your burden is heavy, your task hard, your power hangs on a hair! May God be your helper!
Bithynia
Bithynia and Pontus as a province of the Roman Empire.
Bithynia and Pontus (a province of the Roman Empire)
Bithynia and Pontus (a province of the Roman Empire) (74 BC/64 BC-7th Century) (W)
A map of Asia Minor in 89 BC at the start of the First Mithridatic War. Bithynia, light red, is shown as a client kingdom of Rome, dark red. Pontus is shown in dark green.
Bithynia and Pontus (Latin: Provincia Bithynia et Pontus) was the name of a province of the Roman Empire on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia (Turkey). It was formed during the late Roman Republic by the amalgamation of the former kingdoms of Bithynia (made a province by Rome 74 BC) and Pontus (annexed to Bithynia 63 BC). The amalgamation was part of a wider conquest of Anatolia and its reduction to Roman provinces.
In 74 BC Bithynia was willed to Rome by Nicomedes IV of Bithynia in the hope that Rome would defend it against its old enemy, Pontus. Due to the influence of a guest-friend of Nicomedes, Julius Caesar, then a young man, and an impassioned speech by the deceased king's sister, Nysa before the Senate, the gift was accepted. Rome was divided into two parties, the populares, party of the "people," and the optimates, party of the "best." The guest-friendship had been offered to Caesar, a popular, to save his life by keeping him from Rome during a proscription (a kind of witch-hunt) by Sulla, an optimate in power. Forever after Caesar had to endure scurrilous optimate slander about his relationship to Nicomedes, but Bithynia became a favored project of the populares.
The populares held both consulships at Rome. Marcus Aurelius Cotta was sent to secure the province as governor. He was a maternal uncle of Julius Caesar. Mithridates VI of Pontus, a skilled warrior, seeing a prospective addition to his kingdom about to escape, attacked Bithynia even before the consul arrived. Cotta sent for his co-consul, Lucius Licinius Lucullus. The Third Mithridatic War ensued and dragged on. At the end of their consulships the two commanders stayed on as proconsuls. Mithridates was able to mobilize almost all the rest of Anatolia against them. The two populares were insufficiently skilled to take on Mithridates. Cotta was removed finally by the Senate on a charge of corruption. Lucullus' men mutinied. In the confusion he lost nearly all Anatolia and was out of it. Their patience at an end, the Senate chose the best commander they had. In 66 BC Rome passed the Lex Manilia appointingPompey, a popular, as Summus Imperator, a term that would find more use after the Civil War. He had the full support of Caesar, then coming into his own. He was to have a totally free hand in Asia. By 64 BC all of Mithridates’ allies had been defeated or forced to change sides. Driven from Pontus, hunted through Anatolia, he was assassinated at last by former friends hoping to win Roman favor.
The wealth of Anatolia was now at Rome’s command. It was Pompey's task to divide it into provinces. He kept the larger regions and combined the smaller city states. Pontus never became a province of its own. It was simply added to its former competitor, Bithynia, while its name was tacked on at the end of Bithynia. This was not a marriage of different cultures. The coast of the Black Sea had long been Hellenized, despite differences of ancestral populations. The new province began in 63 BC. It was of storied wealth and importance to the Republic. Pompey went on to be in the First Triumvirate with his fellow Populares. It was the peak of his career. They had a falling out and fought the Roman Civil War. The last popular standing, Octavian Caesar, assumed the title imperator on a permanent basis and was granted another by the Senate, Augustus. Bithynia and Pontus went on from that date, 27 BC, as an imperial province, a name which it kept.
The Battle of Bapheus occurred on 27 July 1302, between an Ottoman army under Osman I and a Byzantine army under George Mouzalon. The battle ended in a crucial Ottoman victory, cementing the Ottoman state and heralding the final capture of Byzantine Bithynia by the Turks.
Osman I had succeeded in the leadership of his clan in c. 1282, and over the next two decades launched a series of ever-deeper raids into the Byzantine borderlands of Bithynia. By 1301, the Ottomans were besieging Nicaea, the former imperial capital, and harassing Prussa. The Turkish raids also threatened the port city of Nicomedia with famine, as they roamed the countryside and prohibited the collection of the harvest.
Michael IX Palaiologos (1283-1320) in a miniature portrait from John Zonaras.
In the spring of 1302, Emperor Michael IX (r. 1294-1320) launched a campaign which reached south to Magnesia. The Turks, awed by his large army, avoided battle. Michael sought to confront them, but was dissuaded by his generals. The Turks, encouraged, resumed their raids, virtually isolating him at Magnesia. His army dissolved without battle, as the local troops left to defend their homes, and the Alans, too, left to rejoin their families in Thrace. Michael was forced to withdraw by the sea, followed by another wave of refugees.
Battle
To counter the threat to Nicomedia, Michael's father, Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282-1328), sent a Byzantine force of some 2,000 men (half of whom were recently hired Alan mercenaries), under the megas hetaireiarches, George Mouzalon, to cross over the Bosporus and relieve the city.
At the plain of Bapheus (Greek: Βαφεύς; an unidentified site, perhaps to the east of Nicomedia but within sight of the city) on 27 July 1302, the Byzantines met a Turkish army of some 5,000 light cavalry under Osman himself, composed of his own troops as well as allies from the Turkish tribes of Paphlagonia and the Maeander River area. The Turkish cavalry charged the Byzantines, whose Alan contingent did not participate in the battle. The Turks broke the Byzantine line, forcing Mouzalon to withdraw into Nicomedia under the cover of the Alan force.
Aftermath
Bapheus was the first major victory for the nascent Ottoman Beylik, and of major significance for its future expansion: the Byzantines effectively lost control of the countryside of Bithynia, withdrawing to their forts, which, isolated, fell one by one. The Byzantine defeat also sparked a mass exodus of the Christian population from the area into the European parts of the empire, further altering the region's demographic balance.
Coupled with the defeat at Magnesia, which allowed the Turks to reach and establish themselves on the coasts of the Aegean Sea, Bapheus thus heralded the final loss of Asia Minor for Byzantium.According to Halil İnalcık, the battle allowed the Ottomans to achieve the characteristics and qualities of a state.The Ottoman conquest of Bithynia was nonetheless gradual, and the last Byzantine outpost there, Nicomedia, fell only in 1337.
Roger de Flor (1267 – 30 April 1305), also known as Ruggero/Ruggiero da Fiore or Rutger von Blum or Ruggero Flores, was an Italian military adventurer and condottiere active in Aragonese Sicily, Italy, and the Byzantine Empire. He was the commander of the Great Catalan Company and held the title Count of Malta.
At eight years old Roger de Flor was sent to sea in a galley belonging to the Knights Templars. He entered the order and became captain of a galley called "El falcó." After rescuing wealthy survivors during the siege of Acre by the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil in 1291, he went to Cyprus. Following some intrigues and personal disputes he was accused of robbery and denounced to the pope as a thief and an apostate. This resulted in his relegation from the order. Roger fled to Genoa, where he borrowed a considerable sum from Ticino Doria, purchased a new vessel and began a career in piracy.
The struggle between the Aragonese kings of Aragon and the French kings of Naples for the possession of Sicily was at this time going on and Roger, by then one of the most experienced military commanders of his time, was called to the service of Frederick, king of Sicily, who gave him the rank of vice-admiral. When the Peace of Caltabellotta brought the war to an end in 1302, Frederick was unwilling and unable to keep a mercenary army and was anxious to free the island from troops (called “Almogavars”), whom he had no longer the means of paying. Given the political and military situation, Roger found an opportunity to make his services useful in the east in fighting against the Ottoman Turks, who were ravaging the Byzantine Empire.
Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus of the Byzantine Empire was facing siege by the Ottoman Turks, an Islamic tribe approaching the capital of his empire after defeating his armies and ransacking most of his domains. Looking for assistance from the European kingdoms he made Roger an offer of service along with the Almogavar army under his command. In September 1302 Roger with his fleet and army, now known as the Catalan Company, 6,500 strong, arrived at Constantinople. He was adopted into the imperial family, was married to the emperor's niece Maria Asenina (daughter of Ivan Asen III of Bulgaria), and was made grand duke (megas doux) and commander-in-chief of the army and the fleet.
Facing strong opposition from the powerful Genoese, some weeks passed lost in dissipation, intrigues, and bloody quarrels against the Genoese who were intent on keeping him out of the circles of power, Roger and his men were sent into Asia, and reportedly beat the Turks back as far as Armenia and Iran. After these successful encounters with the Turks they went into winter quarters at Cyzicus. In May 1304 they again took the field, defeated the Turks at Germe along with Byzantine forces under Hranislav and rendered the important service of relieving Philadelphia, then invested and reduced to extremities by the Turks.Given his position of unchallenged military power, he was accused of serving his own interest instead of those of the emperor because he was determined to found in the East a principality for himself. He sent his treasures to Magnesia, but the people slew his Catalans and Aragon, seized the treasures. He then laid siege to the town, but his attacks were repulsed, and he was compelled to retire.
Being recalled to Europe, he settled his troops in Gallipoli and other towns, and visited Constantinople to demand pay for the Almogavars. Roger was created Caesar, perhaps in December 1304.
In April 1305, he was assassinated in Adrianople (modern Edirne in East Thrace) by Andronikos' son Michael.
The Company avenged itself, plundering from Macedonia to Thrace in what has been called the "Catalan Vengeance."
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