The Ottoman Empire: Six Centuries of Rule Across Europe, Asia and Africa

From a Frontier Principality to an Imperial Capital

The empire began around 1299, when Osman I, an Anatolian chieftain, built a small frontier state that grew at the expense of a weakening Byzantine Empire. His successors expanded steadily but suffered a severe setback in 1402, when the Central Asian conqueror Timur defeated the Ottomans at Ankara, triggering an internal power struggle known as the Interregnum (1402-1413). Sultan Mehmed I, remembered as the empire's 'second founder,' restored unity before his death.

The decisive moment came in 1453, when Mehmed II led the conquest of Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire and giving the Ottomans a capital that was renamed Istanbul. The city's position on the Bosphorus, linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, became the administrative and commercial heart of an empire that would eventually touch three continents.

The Golden Age Under Suleiman the Magnificent

Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520, defeated the Safavid dynasty of Iran and conquered the Mamluk Sultanate, gaining control of Mecca and Medina and laying claim to the Islamic caliphate. His son, Suleiman I, reigned from 1520 to 1566 and is regarded as the empire's most successful ruler. Suleiman's forces took Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1523, then won a major victory over Hungary at Mohács in 1526. Ottoman naval power also peaked during this reign, before the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 ended it, according to World History Encyclopedia.

Governing Three Continents: Sultan, Council and the Millet System

Ottoman government centered on the sultan, assisted by a council of viziers, but day-to-day rule over a vast and diverse territory relied on decentralization: local elites in the Balkans, the Arab provinces and North Africa often kept their own customs in exchange for loyalty and tax revenue. Non-Muslim religious communities - including Orthodox Christians, Armenians and Jews - were organized into self-governing millets that managed their own courts, schools and internal affairs. In the 19th century, the Tanzimat reforms of 1839-1876 promised equality and religious tolerance across the empire, followed by a short-lived constitutional monarchy in 1876-1878 and a second constitutional period from 1908 to 1920, according to World History Encyclopedia.

Decline, War and the End of the Sultanate

Ottoman military dominance eroded after a failed siege of Vienna in 1683, which was followed by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, forcing significant territorial concessions in Europe, according to World History Encyclopedia. Further losses mounted over the following two centuries: Crimea was effectively lost to Russia in 1783, Algeria fell to France in 1830, Libya was lost to Italy in 1911, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 stripped away most remaining European territory, according to World History Encyclopedia and History.com. Sources disagree on when Greece won independence: World History Encyclopedia dates the Greek Revolution to 1821-1829, while History.com states Greece won independence in 1830.

Defeat alongside Germany in the First World War brought the empire to its end. Mustafa Kemal led the Turkish War of Independence from 1919 to 1923, and on 1 November 1922 the Grand National Assembly voted to abolish the sultanate, deposing the last sultan, Mehmed VI, according to Wikipedia's biographical entry on him. Mehmed VI left the country aboard the British battleship HMS Malaya. World History Encyclopedia separately dates the formal end of the caliphate - the religious title tied to the Ottoman throne - to 1924, since a successor held that title alone for roughly two more years. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on 29 October 1923.

Architecture and Everyday Life: What Remains

Imperial architect Mimar Sinan, appointed chief imperial architect in 1538, later designed the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, commissioned by Sultan Selim II and built between 1568 and 1575. Sinan considered the Selimiye his greatest work, and the complex was later recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, according to TRT World.

Everyday Ottoman habits also traveled far beyond the empire's borders. Coffee reached Istanbul from Yemen around the 1550s and became part of court life under Suleiman the Magnificent; after the failed 1683 siege of Vienna, abandoned Ottoman coffee stocks reportedly helped spark a European craze, and by 1700 London had roughly 500 coffeehouses, according to Middle East Eye. The same report notes that absorbent loop-woven towels from Turkish baths, called havlu, were industrialized by the British firm Christy & Sons in the 1850s after the design was found in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and that loose Turkish salvar trousers later influenced Western 'bloomers.'

Key Phases at a Glance