Osmanlı padişahlarından 1. Bayezid (Yıldırım Bayezid)’ın ingilizce hayat hikayesi, biyografisi, Yıldırım Bayezid döneminin ingilizce tanıtımı.
Yıldırım Bayezid İngilizce Hayatı
1. Bayezid (Yıldırım Bayezid)(1360-1403)
Murad’s eldest son, Bayezid, known as Yıldırım (“the Thunderbolt”), was proclaimed leader on the field of battie, where his first command was that his brother Yakub be executed. All resistance to Ottoman might seem to have vanished: while his generals were raiding into Bosnia and aeross the Danube into Hungary and Walachia, he himself fixed a tributary status on Serbia and acted as kingmaker in settling the contention among the Palaeologi for the occupancy of the throne of Byzantium.
In 1390, when he erossed to Anatolia in response to rumors of rebellion in his Asiatic possessions, both Serbian and Greek contingents were among his troops. The reported alliance among the aispossessed emirs of the former beyliks, if it had ever existed, dissipated before his advance, and aside from incorporating stili more independent Turkish territories and seizing the Mediterranean port of Antalya from the Tekkeoğlu, he forced the Karamanoğlu into recognizing all lands west of Konya as Ottoman domain.
Tamerlane
In the northeast of Anatolia, however, a more redoubtable opponent had arisen in the region of Sivas in the person of Kadi Bürhaneddin, whose activities were to keep Bayezid embattled here until the invasion of northeastern Syria and eastern Anatolia by Timur (Tamerlane) in 1394 brought them together in a defensive alliance with Mamluk (Mameluke) Egypt. Fortunately for Bayezid, the threatened invasion of Ottoman territory by the hordes of Çağatay (Chaghatay; the Turkicized Mongols of Central Asia) did not materialize at this moment, for events in Europe were now assuming a very perilous posture.
Constantinople had been under almost constant siege by the Turks since Manuel II assumed the Byzantine throne in 1391, and as relief could only be looked for from the West the emperor, though not his people or his priests, was prepared to capitulate to Latin Christianity as the price of Western aid. Sigismund, king of Hungary, alarmed by the inereasing Ottoman incursions into his territory, was also canvassing the support of the princes of Christendom, and to this Pope Boniface IX responded by proelaiming a new crusade in 1394.
Although the way in which the young chivalry of Western Europe rallied to the cause promised hopeful results, their lack of seriousness and their inability to ünite under a single leadership resulted in a disastrous defeat at Nicopolis (modern Niğbolu) on Sept. 25 1396. The ransoms paid for the noblemen who had been taken prisoner brought an unimaginable wealth into the Ottoman treasury, and further conquests in Albania and the Greek mainland created an atmosphere of buoyaney and complacency symbolized by lavish building and extravagant luxuries. In 1397 a successful campaign was led against the Karamanoğlu, by which the great city of Konya, the former Seljuk capital, was acquired, and in the following year Bayezid extended his holdings along the Black Sea by taking Samsun.
Facts
The fact that Bayezid devoted so much attention to strengthening his position in war-impoverished Anatolia at a time when Europe was so vulnerable to conquest and exploitation implies an awareness that the most serious challenge to his century-old empire could only come from the East, where the megalomaniac Timur was looking upon the growing prestige of the Ottomans as impudent and defiant. The trial of strength came in 1402 on the plain of Ankara; Timur routed the Ottomans, took Bayezid prisoner, and made a triumphal progress across Anatolia, restoring the dispossessed emirs to their former beyliks and leaving it on his return as divided as it had been after the fail of the Seljuks. Bayezid died in captivity shortly afterward, but two of his sons, ‘İsa and Mehmed, on offering their submission to Timur, were appointed governors of Karası and Amasya respectively. A third son, Süleyman, fled to Rumili, where from his capital in Edirne he struggled to maintain what remained of Ottoman influence among the Turks who had emigrated there.
There can be little doubt that the reason for Bayezid’s defeat is chiefly to be found in the disaffection of the Turkish tribal elements, who were resentful of Ottoman pretensions to royal prerogatives and saw their frequent intermarriages with the daughters of Greek and Slav princes as a Balkanization of the dynasty. Apart rrom the rewards that cooperation could bring in despoiling Europe, there was no basic cohesive principle in the state. It is difficult to say what conceptions of islam were held, but it was certainly not a developed creed among them and probably did not amount to more than a loosely held loyalty that permitted a certain degree of unity when they were face to face with the Christians.
Neither was there a general system of organization into which the conquered lands could be fitted, nor a body of law and precedent by which they could be administered. Under Ottoman rule life went on unchanged, except that the regional communities were allowed to develop their individuality to an extent that had been impossible under the Byzantines. The very fact that there existed no finely balanced system that would fail apart if interfered with explains to some extent why Bayezid’s defeat did not, as it otherwise might, mark the passing of an era; the confusion was only but a little more confounded.
The Empire at Its Apogee.
The years 1402-1413 are regarded as an interregnum in Ottoman history, with the sons of Bayezid warring among themselves to restore the integrity of the realm that had been created by their forefathers. Mehmed appears to have escaped from the debacle at Ankara with most of his troops intact, and when Timur acknowledged him as governor of Amasya he was merely avoiding the fatigue of marching against him. Timur’s army was his state and he dared not parcel it out into garrisons for the countless regions he had connuered in his restless career. In Anatolia he hoped to maintain his authority by the familiar stratagem of dividing the lana into mutually hostile beyliks, all too small and weak to be politically effective or militarily dangerous.
But Mehmed was not weak, and by 1404 he had driven ‘İsa out of Bursa and the following year found him in possession of most of western Anatolia and his brother slain in battle. Süleyman, who had been supporting ‘İsa, crossed from Rumili with an army, and throughout the four years he remained in Anatolia a state of stalemate existed between him and Mehmed. Another brother, Musa, crossed to Europe in 1409 where he collected an army and began to bring the region under submission to himself. Süleyman died in battle against him in 1410. In 1413 Musa was to meet the same end at the hands of Mehmed, and it is from this year that the reign of the latter as the fifth sultan of the Ottoman dynasty is reckoned to commence.
